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Following the excellent discussion in the threads, here’s what I’ve come up with as a draft for the bylaw revision. This will be open until the end of the day on Sept 22.

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In Fleet Command and Other Mundane Matters (“FCOMM”), the following sentence is added to the end of the paragraph entitled “Assistant Fleet Commander”:

“A Fleet Commander may appoint additional training roles within the Fleet; however, no official power may be delegated to these roles.”

The following paragraph is added to the end of the section entitled “Commissioning and Maintenance of Standard Ships”:

“A Standard Ship may designate a theme when there is the intent to follow a particular theme over multiple sims. This theme must not significantly detract from the Standard Ship’s ability to remain canon-based and it may not violate any of the requirements for a Standard Ship listed above. A theme must be approved by the relevant Fleet Commander and it must be prominently featured in the ship profile and on the ship MOTD.”

To nitpick (it’s what chimpanzees do best), I think this belongs before this sentence, not after it: “Should a Standard Ship deviate from these criteria, it will be subject to decommissioning per the terms of this Edict.”

The last sentence of the second paragraph under the heading “Restrictions” in the section entitled “Commanding Officers” currently reads:

“Acting DH, Acting XO and Acting CO do not apply to these restrictions.”

This is hereby amended to read:

“Acting DH, Acting XO, Acting CO, and Gamemaster do not apply to these restrictions.”

But aside from that one little comment, I’m very happy with these changes. Thanks!

Adam W.

I have a policy question. Should new members by default be placed on themed standard ships? Should we have similar rules to alt-RPGs for new member placements that allow it in the alt’s charter (new members are only placed if they specifically request that themed ship)?

Logistically, that wouldn’t be too difficult for us to implement if the bylaw had that. We can adapt our language on alt-RPGs for new members, and make it about alt-RPGs and themed ships.

Daniel

Just for my own benefit, if these changes go ahead, can someone please explain to me what will be the difference between an alt-ship and a themed ship?

Thanks

• Sharon

Theme ship: Has theme that doesn’t stray drastically from canon, can be worked into any sim.

Alt-RPG: Has theme that can/will/does cause straying from canon, including races, tech, etc etc. Like on the Connie, I could (theoretically) create a character themed after something in Alice in Wonderland.

Thanks for the clarification. I know we’re probably past objections at this point, but I still have concerns that the dividing line between alts and themed ships is far too subjective. I mean, Katy gives the example above of being able to create an Alice in Wonderland style character on an alt ship. But in reality, that is something I’ve seen a few people do now on standard ships (and I’ve also seen more than one Alice in Wonderland themed sim run on a standard ship).

My real worry is that we’re leaving ‘themed ships’ vulnerable to the subjective interpretations of whoever is in the cabinet for that particular term. And the Viking is a perfect example. When I originally created it, it wasn’t deemed ‘alternative’ enough to need an alt charter. Now, three years and a different cabinet later, suddenly it is. It would definitely make me feel wary of creating a ‘themed ship’ in the future, in case the next cabinet took a different view and decided my theme no longer fit the subjective criteria.

• Sharon

I kind of agree with Sharon here.

I mean, I think all of the examples thus far of a “themed ship” stray from canon, yet are understood and accepted not to be alt-RPGs (e.g space fighters and marines). But that’s really only because we started with a relatively loose idea of what is canonical to begin with.

(To address some of the counter points from before: Yes, Enterprise had armed people on it, but they were never called “Marines” so a purist could argue that that’s not what they are, especially also considering that the MACOs are said to have been disbanded since 2151 with no replacement organization. Yes, modern navies have aircraft carriers, but the primary advantage of naval aviation is that travelling in a different medium grants a mobility and gravity advantage, which does not apply in outer space because there is no different medium, so space fighters make absolutely no sense in any setting any where any of the time. But my point is not to debate these things, but to point out that adding a rule about this invites debates that we seem to be content not to have.)

I don’t see why we need to add this language at all because all it really does is make something that wasn’t really that ambiguous, more ambiguous, rather than less.

Joe

The biggest difference between the Alt-RPG distinction and themed standard ship I have to say goes back an older example I made on my proposal, and I’m a tad bit sad we removed specific language I put in to completely clear this question up: A themed standard ship shouldn’t require a specialized GM.

Take the Connie for example (used only because I’m familiar with her). While a lot of standard ship sims could work, you’d have to rely on side sims and characters interacting with the environment to fit in the theme, or, ideally, a sim written for her.

A ship that has, say, Marines on it, is far easier to fit that specific theme element into a sim. A minor rewrite that instead of a team of security personnel beaming over, the Marines beam over to an allied NPC ship currently being controlled by whoever the enemy faction is. Simple. Or they prevent your ship from being boarded while Security tends to a high-value prisoner you’re transporting.

Both of those sim concepts can be tweaked in less than 5 minutes to include the Marines as a major element within the sim itself. And yes, while there have been comedic sims run outside the fleet, and those could easily work for the Connie, the main ones I’m talking about are your standard run of the mill trek-like sim.

I think it makes it less ambiguous. Now when you’re considering the situation of a ship like the Viking you can ask, “Does the theme of this ship significantly detract from following canon or not?” That’s a question everyone can see coming, which isn’t the case when there’s an expectation that isn’t explicitly written for standard ships to follow canon more closely than alt-RPGs.

Yes, it’s subjective. But that’s hard to avoid no matter what language is in there.

Adam W.

Katy, the rules regarding Special Circumstances missions and Alt-RPG assignments are in OGRE/GMD mandates, not in FCOMM. It would be very confusing and inconsistent to suddenly refer to them here, completely separate from where the rest of the information is presented/contained. It’s not under the purview of this bylaw.

I think that themed ships should be allowed to have new members assigned to them since, overall, there should be the standard ship experience with regard to DH support and canon play. It doesn’t affect a new member if the ship has Marines or fighters on it, but it does affect the new member if the entire ship is a horror ship or a comedy ship.

I see two ways forward here, personally. Either this is expressly written in FCOMM as above or we all back-handed agree that Standard Ships doesn’t mean cookie cutter ships anymore and it’ll be up to FComms to provide oversight to ensure the ships are following FCOMM when it comes to canon. I’m genuinely open to either, but I don’t think we can ignore that this is happening.

Sarah

I want this in FCOMM so we don’t get another discussion like what arose from the Viking–what does/not constitute a standard ship. If we leave it open to interpretation by FComms, we could get a huge spectrum of what is/not acceptable themes.

Katy

Personally, I’m still not convinced that the suggested wording DOES clarify what does and doesn’t constitute a standard ship (and it certainly does nothing to make the case for the Viking alt-charter for me, but that’s a different debate that I’ve already conceded defeat on). The suggested wording still says “A theme must be approved by the relevant Fleet Commander”, so how does that in any way avoid “leave(ing) it open to interpretation by FComms” as Katy suggests not implementing this wording will do above?

• Sharon

I agree with Sharon for exactly the reasons Sharon gives.

To prevent this from going in a circle, I would suggest that the lack of agreement on whether or not the wording achieves its intended goal, means that it fails at achieving the intended goal. Sarah said she sees two ways out: this wording exactly as is, or a back-handed agreement that Standard Ships are not cookie cutter ships. The wording as is does not work, so that leaves the “back-handed agreement” as the only option, unless there is another alternative that hasn’t yet been identified.

What would help me to suggest an alternative would be if there was a more clear way to define the thing we want to achieve. This is all steeped in saying “well we don’t want Viking-type situation that is confusing for people, re: placing new members” except that presumes that the Viking-type situation is actually defined in a clear way, when if you actually drill down anyone’s perspective on it, it boils down to “I know it when I see it.”

An alternative that comes to mind is to try to do this the other way around: apply the same standard that was applied to the Viking to everything, consistently, all of the time. Which means, instead of a carve-out for “canon compatible themes” or whatever, everyone who deviates from canon in any way at all needs to be an alt. That way, if ships really are supposed to be “cookie cutter” then they would be. So, Olinski would become an alt-RPG, because it has fighters, and carrier spaceships are not canonical (and don’t make sense in any setting, but that’s a nerd rant).

I don’t actually like that alternative, but it would be clear and consistent if it was applied everywhere. If we don’t find that an option to consider then we should really rethink this whole “cookie cutter” idea, which doesn’t seem to make much sense upon any inspection (why do we have different specs if every ship is supposed to be the same?).

Joe

First off thank you everyone for your comments and thoughts on this. I had to give this thread some serious thought myself on how to better word this. Sadly my little roach brain is coming up blank at the moment. I really feel there could be a third solution but what form that might take is escaping me. Personally I would prefer we avoid a ‘know it when we see it’ approach as that wont serve any purpose but to bring us back to this point in the future if/when it happens. Conversely we dont want to dampen the creativity of ships with marines/fighters even if canonically there isn’t necessarily president for them.

Maybe the third option is a further discussion on what STF considers canon? What I mean is beyond the established list of obvious canon material we then make a ‘reasonable’ exception clause? Things then such as fighters, marines, etc would fall under but are more then ‘one shot’ things that happen in the shows/movies things which reasonably could be considered on going and happening elsewhere in universe? I don’t know if this is a solution or idea worth following its the only thing I could come up with that might contribute.

Thoughts?

Robert Archer