We can, each and every one of us, hold our head high – the last Star Trek game that fitted our style to have any success is now over 12 years old. Our survival is nothing short of absolutely extraordinary – we are not role players; we are gamers who have reinvented their group and their games for over a decade.
Most of us are now closer to 30 years old than we are to the 20’s. Our teenage days are long gone and it is somehow fitting that we should move on to something new. We should strive to refine our community but also expand it to keep it young. We will find new games to enjoy - returning to the basics of what made this community a leader: competitive gaming. We have never been a group for role playing or whatever STO is about nowdays. There is a better way forward for our group. Jesse understood this well when he advocated that we become a club, and on this point we agreed. I think we all know that our friendship is what makes us special, but we can and must bring new blood to this family and it can only be done the old fashion way. Being the best in the games we play and going out there, we can't stay isolated anymore.
The mission of this fleet has been fulfilled, and our group will continue to prosper under the leadership of Fleet Admiral Costello, he will write the beginning of a new chapter, the most important chapter since our creation.
We must now say good bye to this Star Trek community, It has occupied a big part of my life for many years. So for those interested I will post part of my little story below.
I invite you to do the same, post your own story, let this forum stand as a monument to our friendships and all we have gone through on a personal level as humans. Let it be a tribute to our Star Trek aliases to which we have dedicated so many years of our lives. This is not make believe, they are part of us and their actions defined our personalities both on and off the web.
I will now explain a small part of my years in the ST community, someday I might come to these forums and read this and recall what great fun we've had. In some ways, it is also the story of FC.
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Despite the realization that my teenager years are long, long gone and that the Star Trek Gaming Community is very unlikely to return to anything like its former glory, we must now find a new, more fertile ground for our family. I truly hope that we’ll be able to find the path to the simple pleasure of having a whisky while enjoying gaming online, blowing things up, teaching a thing or two to those ‘noobs’.My Personal Experience with the Star Trek Community
My experience with Star Trek began in 2000. I was then downloading every demo version of Star Trek games I could find. My first love was undoubtedly Armada 1, an outstanding success back then in 2000 – trying all these games, even as demos were a great experience as Star Trek games were as good as any games could be back then. It was not before January 2001, when I had asked and received for Christmas my second favorite ST game of the time: Starfleet Command 2 that I joined the community. After installing the game, it was not long before I proceeded to the Game Spy Arcade lobby and began noticing tags and one particularly caught my attention, [SF] Starfleet.
Having no idea which level of organization existed in such entities I proceeded to enter their room after modifying my name to [SF]Adm_Kirk and posing as an Admiral. As you might have guessed it didn't fly especially since I barely wrote or spoke any English back then. A certain [SF]Commander Greed took charge and had the patience to direct me through the enlistment process. I enlisted as [SF]Picard since the name Kirk was already taken in the fleet. Had I known this name was going to stick with me for so long – I might have given it more thought. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say that Greed was a mentor to myself, Jesse and TParis in [SF], we all remained close to him until the passing of his wife from cancer about a year later, after which he began a downward spiral of self-destruction that landed him god knows where. For me at least, he was a very important figure and a dear friend.
A few months went by after my enlistment and a rising Star in the fleet transferred to the SFC2 division, his name was Jesse. There was lots of “division” picking back then as you would try to be in the division you believed gave you the best chances of advancement, divisions CO’s were in charge of promotions. Jesse was quickly given the command of Epsilon Squadron and I was to serve as his XO. It was also in SF where I began serving in the web team, I had absolutely no prior knowledge of HTML.
But it wasn't enough for me, being 13 years old at the time; it didn't take long before my ambition pushed me to leave [SF] to create my first fleet. [FR]Federation Republic, I had just seen Star Wars Episode 1 and decided to use the name Republic, it was there I would learn to command a fleet, the hard way – I was confronted with coups, treason, spying, wars, the community was very active back then, it’s safe to say that you’d see more action and would be confronted with more challenges in 6 months that UFP and the second FC was confronted in their entire existence. The community was truly something magnificent back then – I wish you could have seen it.
Interestingly enough, FR survived until 2006 but by then a lot had already changed for me.
It’s all of a blur for me but I decided to return to Star Fleet a few times between 2001 and 2003. One time I closed FR to rejoin and one other time just decided to double clan – joining as Sisko and claiming that he was my brother. You can see how original my thinking is when it comes to finding names. Of course, I had no brother. I was just bored. That is when I started to interact with TParis who was in security back then -he was onto me. Of course, we had contacts before, back then every key person in most fleets were talking to other people from other fleets to exchange services and sometimes intel on key people and hostile fleets. TParis will recall someone named Predator (later David) who had also left SF to create consecutive clans [MRA]Maquis Rebel Alliance (which I was part of), and which never took off. David then created [UF] around 2004-2005 which lasted longer and had some mild success, this pushed him to try to influence and bully other fleets. By then TP and I began cooperating and we decided to have fun with him, TP was in [RS] by then and I was FA of [FC] so it wasn't long before we made David our bitch - he was a major douchebag and deserved it. There’s nothing like a common enemy to forge bonds.
Going back to 2003, I created Federation Command, by then Jesse had taken over [SF], but left quickly afterwards. I think he had a run in [RS]Red Squadrons, which was the ultimate nemesis of the time, led by another former [SF] officer, Dan Jones – a big name of the community if there ever was one. Between 2000 and 2003 – [RS] and [SF] went to war a few times and [SF] was most times victorious (if not all?).
In 2004 I recall I hired Jesse to design a new web site for FC. He did a very good job with some help from TParis -that was before any of them joined FC. But not long after Jesse deceided to join [FC], at the time FC was becoming quite big especially in SFC3. We were successful and it didn't take long before he was FC’s XO. Having a thirst for something greater, Jesse decided to create [FEDS]Federation an uncluttered simple and efficient war and propaganda machine. I could not resist leaving FC in the capable hands of Sean (Dark_Sean) and join FEDS to have some fun. Of course FC and FEDS remained very close allies. But in FEDS I could put my skills to use, I was a very skilled EF and SFC3 player so I had a field day racking up the victories for FEDS during our campaigns.
A few months later, Jesse and I decided to create something unique, a super-clan. [UFP]United Federation of Planets, it became a huge success. You are all aware that there was another {UFP} at the time, a fleet that was barely worthy of the name "clan". We had surveyed their forums and found that for weeks, even months sometimes there would not be a single new post on their public forums. They were highly inactive, much more than FC is today. It even took them months before they realized we existed, and it wasn't because we didn't make waves, [UFP] became a huge deal and fast.
The rest is history to you all and I’ll let you speak of your experiences in UFP and FC. If I have one regret it is that I have not been closer to all of you, the fact that I’ve been Fleet Admiral for most of your time in UFP or FC made it so we were unable to bond like we would have had we the community provided us with more opportunities or if we had gone up the ranks together.
I regret nothing and I am immensely grateful for all that the Star Trek Community has given to me. It has thought me the language of Shakespeare, web coding, how to create graphics and so many other things that made me a truly better man.
From the bottom of my heart, Thank you SF, FR, FC, UFP and more importantly, my warmest thanks to you all my friends. I'll see you all in VC and look forward to the announcement of our leader, Fleet Admiral Costello.
I joined the ST community as a 12 years old kid and I now leave it as a 27 year old man, not without some nostalgia but most of all very grateful for the memories.
