This month I was given the honor of interviewing Gene Gibbs for the September Newsletter. Gene, aka the Wookie, joined the club in 2006. In his 13 years here, he had held many hats but the ones I think he is best known for are his fascinating characters and amazing stories as a GM. He has played a few engineers in his time but he has stated that “Strangely enough as a person, a tool in my hand is a dangerous thing, but on STF I seem to do best in an engineering role. Go figure!” Whatever the role, Gene is a writer that can pull you into a story with the first sentence and make you check the thread daily as if you are in it.

Some of the first characters he developed on STF were:

Dagen Thor
A Joined Trill engineer. Dagen began as a cadet on the Columbia. He was very much the classic Starfleet TNG officer type – eager and dedicated. He hung on there taking over for the CE on the Columbia and did that for I think three more sims before moving to the Draco as an engineer and then chief engineer there. His promotions rolled into Lt Commander and then I cut him in a necessary ship purge as I got up to some 11 chips at the time and that for me was a bit much. He reappeared later as the first officer on the Atlantis briefly with an interim backstory there that made him more complex. He later leaped to OP42 for a time as an engineering contractor and then another leap to where he presently is on the Genesis. A lot of history with him and I’m enjoying him as a more complex and flawed character.  Dagen is still kicking, albeit older and hopefully wiser and not quite the poster boy for Starfleet. 

Ronald
An Octogenerian scientist named Ronald ... my second character. He was a favorite with a greater background than Dagen. I remember him for having a months-long single thread discussion with another relating to two stars colliding. Awesome thread. Occasionally Ronald appears as a NE but is now retired from the fleet.

Elemirre Serinde
She was an augmented girl who didn’t know she was. She was on the Bonaventure for a time and she was a really fun girl to play and who had a crush on Zephram Cochrane. Totally into grease and diaries and romance novels she was a character with an unfolding secret. The most fun with her was working in things and situations where he augmented nature came out in some way but was in a way invisible to her in realizing her nature.

Current Club Characters

Now it is time to sit back with your favorite beverage and learn what makes our Wookie tick and maybe answer the age-old question…How do you actually pronounce Kashyyyk and why the heck are there so many y’s in it?

20 Questions with Kate O'Neill

1.  What is your favorite place to nap?

I have to preface this by saying that I happen to be the favorite place for my cat to nap. So when I get into a particular chair in the basement that is like an indoor deck chair, I am rapidly held captive by the little overgrown tribble that is far too cute to dare disturb. So when you can’t beat them, nap with them.

2.  What is your favorite character you have ever written?

Whichever current characters I happen to be playing with? Is that a cop-out? In the early days, my characters were relatively 2.5 dimensional. I had them fleshed out but went by the philosophy that I’d flesh them out further as I play them. In a way they turned into more or less similar in nature. My more recent characters have been much more detailed and with a better formed out history. My most complex character, kind of an anti-hero Starfleet style, is my Iotian gangster cum Starfleeter. You can take the Iotian out of Iotia but you can’t take the gangster out of the Iotian. He’s my current favorite.

3.  If you were an ice cream cone flavor what would it be and why?

A while back there was an ice cream flavor called Gold Medal. It was essentially a vanilla type with caramel, nuts and chocolate bits in there. I’d liken myself to that. A lot of time I come across as your standard vanilla conservatively minded Wookiee, but inside I am nuts, er, hang on, inside have some other naughty flavored bits that shake up that status quo.

4.  What is your favorite ethnic food?  Italian, Chinese, or Mexican?

 Um, none of the above? Curiously my upbringing was rather straight meat and potatoes type of munching. Mom was a good cook and I knew little of the other stuff out there. When I moved out to school and beyond I discovered a wider world of foods, and especially spicy things. While I appreciate a good spicy ginger beef or Mexican burrito, I’ve leaned of late toward Indian style foods – a good spicy samosa or butter chicken will tide me over very well.

5.  If you had to pick a team to join based on bad arsery to save the day, whose team would you join why?  Your choices are: Team Fellowship of the Ring,  Team Jack O'Neill of Stargate, Team Luke Skywalker, Team USS Enterprise, or Team Galactica.

Interesting. Can I take a person from each and make my own team? Hmmm. Guess not. Well, the Hobbits would be too hard to pull away from the replicators, and I just have a bad feeling about Team Luke Skywalker. I’d be more comfortable with Team DS9, and Team Galactica just has a droid problem. Is it Team Picard or Team Kirk with the Enterprise team? Notice I don’t mention Archer. *cough* I think I’d run with Team O’Neill. Flexible group. Pretty smart. Networked. And Richard Dean Anderson is just cool. He made it 10 seasons too. <G>

6.  If you could write a title like a movie headline for one of the ships you are on what would it be?  (You don't have to name it if you don't want to :P )

To utilize an existing movie … One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest …

7.  Which CO would you love to be an XO for?   Archer, Picard, Kirk, Sisko, Janeway, or Lorca?

Well, that’s interesting. Picard would drive me batty. I’d not even put Archer or Janeway or Lorca into the equation, leaving Kirk or Sisko. I’m thinking that it would be hard to be an XO for Kirk. He gets all the girls so what would I be left with? Submitting all the reports? Granted the away missions would be fun and frequent. I’d go with Sisko. I like the DS9 setting and Sisko is a kind of modern day Kirk, and I’d not have to compete <G>.

8.  What is your favorite Star Trek episode and why?

Oh sure, a toughie. Couldn’t specify a particular series type but broaden it out to the hundreds of episodes available. Okay, I’ll stop ranting now and think. As much as I appreciate the creativity of a number of the episodes and some which stay in the mind, I have to roll back to the one show I have seen more times than anything – The Trouble with Tribbles. A caveat to that is the DS9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations. Not quite sure I could now separate them but bundle them into one.

9.   Who would win in an archery competition?  Legolas, Beleg Cúthalion, or Bard the Bowman

No contest. Bard got a lucky go in there and is a mere mortal having what? A few decades at most of practice? Legolas we don’t know how old he is exactly and, being in Mirkwood would have ample chance of using his bow. However, all the movies notwithstanding, Beleg was considered the best archer of his time – that being First Age. Given that Tolkien’s world is one of decreasing power over time, Legolas was lesser. I’d go with Beleg.

10. What is to your immediate right as you write your answer to this question?  Describe it in detail.

No picture is worth a thousand words? Overall, boring is what is to my immediate right. A headset for my Skype is carelessly rolled up under the second monitor like a rather thin snake coiled to strike – or at least precariously set on my head during a call. It effectively sits guard for the dark, if dusty, docking station for my laboring work laptop in desperate need of replacing. Atop it is the true gem of the technology set, my iPad, plugged in and charging for the next bout of manic posting on STF.

11.   What is your favorite character you have ever written?

Um, whichever ones I’m playing now? In looking back on some of my records I see that I’ve had some pretty cheesy with characterizations that all mush into a general Trekkish concept. As things evolved I’ve been trying to add dimensions to the characters with individual quirks and a more robust history. I still don’t hold a candle to some bios out there but I’m trying. So who is my favorite? I still play Dagen Thor, a joined Trill that I’ve had on and off since I was a cadet on the Columbia (now long decommissioned). He was pretty much poster boy for Starfleet then evolved with some better history and thought. Second to that would be Nikki Brako, my Iotian gangster anti-hero.

12.  Who is the most famous person you ever met?

Well I was about 10. That was about 300 years ago. We (family and I) were on the ferry over to Prince Edward Island (yep, before the bridge). My dad told me to go to the other side of the ferry and through the door. I did so and lo and behold, large as life and utterly decked out like in every commercial and photo. Colonel Sanders. White suit. Cane. Goatee. The whole shebang. Pretty amazing for a young Wookiee like me.

13.  If you are stranded on a desert planet and your shuttle's replicator and only produce one luxury item until the Federation reaches you six months later.  What would that single item be?

Tricky. Has to be a comb, otherwise this Wookiee would get terrible matts.

14.  If you were a piece of furniture what would describe you best?

Moby. Back at university, you know, 300 years ago, I moved off residence and picked up a desk at a yard sale. It ended up being an old oak teacher’s desk ... massive thing with drawers that I could practically curl up in the thing was that big. Well, maybe if I was a Hobbit. But the thing has traveled with me everywhere since then through all my moves and I still have it and use it. I’d like to think that that is me .. bit worn, bit stained (with fountain pen ink from before I got it – how cool is that?!) and with a lot of life left, and a retaining a bit of character. And, hopefully after all these years still useful.

15. If you could live in one of these five locations of Middle Earth where would you want to live?  Khazad-dȗm, Gondor, Hobbiton, Rivendale, Mordor

Rivendell. Khazad-dum a bit too stuffy and the neighbors are not that good. Location. Location. Location and all that. Gondor is too stuffy and Mordor would be killer to find any good coffee shops close by. Hobbiton is a good close second but ultimately, I think the neighbors would be too nosy. Rivendell resembles a nice civilized gated community. Besides I think pointed ears are hot.

16.  Who is your favorite sidekick in a series you love to read or watch?

Kato! Er, hang on, that was immediate word association here. I had to think long and hard about this one, believe it or not and consult my lists of series I like. I’ll present two .. one contemporary and one older. I’m quite fond of Holmes as a sidekick in the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock, and, going back farther, Romana in the Tom Baker years of Dr Who back in the 80’s.

17. Who is your favorite author?

Serious? I knew who Beleg was and you had to ask? <G> … Tolkien all the way. Lord of the Rings was the second fantasy series I had ever read back in high school. Previous to that I had essentially read science fiction. The first series was Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant Chronicles. As much as I appreciate other authors I enjoy – Martin, Moorcock, Asimov, Donaldson, Salvadore, Norman, Brooks … I feel that Tolkien has always been the author I go back to. And well, given that I own about 10 editions of his principle series’. But I’m not obsessed. Or a hoarder. Well, okay, I’m not obsessed. Fine, I’m both. I admit it.

18.  You are a self-described pen and paper snob. Please elaborate.

I am like a kid in a candy store in stationery stores. Always have been. Even now when it is getting to be August I get the ‘twitch’ to do ‘back to school shopping’. About 10 or so years ago I started returning to fountain pens, and with it, paper that would handle said ink. Since then I’ve gone from notebook to notebook type in the hunt for ‘the’ paper for ‘that’ pen and ink. It’s a bit of a cult and I have an embarrassment of pens, notebooks, and ink about the house. Somewhere in there I’ve figured that out would pop a Pulitzer, however no such luck yet.

19.  How did you come to find Starfleet?

I was a Trekkie from way back. In the 70’s I got my hair cut like Captain Kirk. Through university and beyond I was an avid gamer of D&D and quite immersed in the Fantasy genre of writing. Sometime around 2001 or so when the Lord of the Rings movies were out a colleague at work found a fan site for LOTR and Tolkien which I dove into and ate up on their forum. Alas it did not entirely survive the ‘bot’ wars and upgrading and the decline of popularity after the movies and perished in a slow death. That was when another different colleague came across STF and, while it wasn’t quite fantasy, the RPG element appealed to me. And well there it is.

20.  You lean towards being a GM on ships. Why?

 Like I had mentioned above my history of role playing started with Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy RPG’s as well as a Sci-fi one called Traveller and the Morrow Project. Yeah, that dates me. I found that being a GM appealed to me. I enjoyed forming adventures and problems. The LOTR site mentioned above had a role play element in there and I started that play by post as it were style of role play. It was much different than tabletop but still had the same elements of interactiveness and play. So when the leap came to STF and having GM’s leading adventures on ships I slipped that shoe on and put together both of those aspects that I’d learned previously. Since then I’ve read a number of books on writing stories and creating plots and the like and have tried to apply those to what I do in creating sims. I find that there is something in me that wants to tell a story and with STF I can do that and bring others along through it. It is quite satisfying to complete a sim – well, certainly a good one. I’ve had some stinkers in my time too that sounded good on paper but in play simply didn’t work.