Posted by Rear Admiral Robert Archer (Vice Presidential Candidate) in Question to the candidates - X-Fleet

Posted by Daniel Lerner in Question to the candidates - X-Fleet
Since X-Fleet has now been raised in a prior post…

1) What do you believe the purpose is of X-Fleet?

Hi Daniel, as someone who was heavily invested in XFleet and the president who approved its continuation in review process. I’m going to answer this. Sarah and I both feel XFleet’s purpose is to try new things. Most feel this is just in testing the waters for new alt-rpg ideas. This is further from the truth though! While yes this has been XFleet’s perceived primary purpose. It has much more to it as well. Let me try to explain.

1) Back when I ran both attempts of the Early/Founding Federation ship USS Unity I ran it as a CO/GM experiment in setup. In this way I was not only the storyteller/GM but the CO too. Which saved a TON of time on having to field a CO player and the storyteller role with another. It also allowed me to experiment with different administration styles in this unique role to varying degrees of success. To this end, though the experiment of the Unity failed due to life and lack of interest in time in both cases, it DID allow me to iron out the kinks in applying this same idea to the Ark Angel fully to which has been if I can be blunt a freaking GREAT success in ensuring consistency, story telling, atmosphere, and character development for the Ark Angel and her crew as a whole!

2) Again with permission from Kirt Gartner I’d like to relate his own story with using XFleet. First, he used it aboard the Dauntless during its original run to try his hand at being a CO. This lead him quickly to realize he wasn’t quite ready for the center chair at the time without learning more in depth lessons through mentoring by myself and others. While some may have taken this poorly Kirt didnt, he bounced back after a bit and applied himself strongly to rising up on the Ark Angel to become my XO, which after a strong showing there for over a year and a half he now holds his own CO spot on the Memorial in Foremost Fleet! Secondly he has used XFleet in my view to great success to apply the lessons of the GM Exam as a story teller there on the Cerberus, so well in fact that this ship won best XFleet ship this past awards! Due in part to his story telling ability but the crew as a whole for their hard work together. From talking with Kirt in his duties there I feel truly that without this chance he would not once more be pushing himself to grow as a member of the club who will one day take a GMT sim on a main fleet ship once he is ready with finding a balance of life and club duty.

My point in both cases here is, while I probably would have eventually found success on the Ark Angel with being a CO/GM without a doubt the process would have been more rocky then it turned out to be. Which would only have hurt my ship in its growth and success! Further I feel without the lessons Kirt learned with the Dauntless he would not have matured with the confidence to succeed and grow as my XO and later becoming his own CO on the Memorial. The same I feel can be said for his one day taking his own GMT sim.

XFleet in short can be a useful lesson center for better or worse, and not just a place to run slight variations on alt-rpg themes not in main fleet already.

2) For those candidates who believe one of the purposes of X-Fleet is (or should be) creating more alt-RPGs in the main fleets, why do you believe previous proposals for such a system have failed? Can you point to specifics of those prior proposals and what you would suggest needs to be different?

-Daniel

Past proposals for moving ships to main fleet have always withered out in my experience. Due in part to the rocky state many xships become once they realize their hurdle of forming an alt-rpg charter is needed. Or they loose interest during the process for one reason or another. Or the ship’s in question arent that different then ships we already got. A few examples I know of would be the Albert Einstein, Dauntless, just to name two off the top of my head. In both cases neither ship really was all that different then a main fleet ship so couldn’t truly classify as an alt-rpg in the usual sense.

As it is now we have a process already, I will use one of the existing ships the Early-Mirrorverse ship Cerberus in my example. The setting is unique and has its own setup for handling the differences of the mirrorverse vs primeverse as well as how those players interact with what the setting portrayals. Were the ship to make a petition to move into the main fleet after a few sims of success and activity more fleshing out of these rules probably would be needed but the alt-rpg process in place could support them in doing this.

Hope this answers your questions

Robert Archer

Quick edit here as kirt corrected me. It was the Nikola Tesla not dauntless which was the xship he did his co attempt on. Sorry kurt

Robert Archer