Captain Allura Daniels - Rewriting the Rules
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Karrod Niac
Mar 28, 2023, 1:51:43 AM3/28/23
to USS Arrow – StarBase 118 Star Trek PBEM RPG
((OOC: Since we have two characters with the same last name in this sim I'll be tagging them with their first names - if you haven't already received your NPC assignments for this mission be on the lookout for them in the next day or so!))
((Deck 1, Captain's Ready Room, USS Libris))
To suggest that a Starfleet Officer, especially one with the rank of Captain and the responsibility to a shipload of Cadets, was taking time to luxuriate in her office in a smug cloud of personal victory would be a grave insult. The fact that it was what Captain Allura Daniels was presently doing, safely out of the prying eyes of anyone here in her office, made the situation no more acceptable but she simply couldn't help herself. Besides, she thought, she deserved to enjoy the moment.
It had taken her years to carefully manicure and cultivate the relationships in Starfleet Commands highest echelons and years further still to bring them around to her way of thinking but all her work had, at last, borne delicious fruit. It still struck her as ridiculous to this day how an organization like Starfleet, which prided itself so much on its ability to seek out the new and the unexplored, resisted fundamental change at the institutional level. Ships and the technology which ran them had evolved enormously since the earliest days of human interstellar flight and even further since the wetnavy traditions that had formed the cultural background of Starfleet, yet the way it operated has scarcely changed in the four centuries since the fleet had begun operating in earnest.
Ships, those vast and complex technological powerhouses, were still run by hundreds of officers and crew who spent the bulk of their time performing maintenance or other routine duties that could've been easily automated, but weren't. Earlier projects to do so had suffered ignominious failures going all the way back to Richard Daystroms brilliant but ultimately flawed efforts and each failure allowed Starfleet to rest comfortably on the smug certainty that it had been right all along and the idea of further automation was simply a pipe dream, not to be looked at for another century at least. It was people, men and women, living beings, who were the real core of the fleet. The dashing heros. The clever scientists. The daring explorers. Allura giggled to herself contemptuously. They'd all soon learn they'd been made redundant. Just as soon as these exercises concluded.
She glanced back at the status display for the Libris embedded into the bulkhead across from her desk and marveled at the beautiful simplicity of it all. The normal compliment for a ship this size was nearly eighty people yet at the moment only nine were onboard. Excluding her as the singular senior officer and Academy proctor present, the remainder were a group of hand picked Cadets who were not only talented, but who shared her vision for the future of the fleet. A future where ships with hundreds or thousands of people aboard were a thing of the past. A future that she would help usher in and, in many ways, reap the benefits of. But that was for tomorrow.
She returned her attention to the present and tapped at a key on her desk. A few moments later her two most promising Cadets all but burst into her office, subtly trying to elbow one another out of the way so as to be first to stand rigidly before her immaculate desk. Gerry and Ginny Lacy beamed with unrestrained excitement but tried to school their features into something approaching a professional demeanor but, try as they might, they couldn't entirely hide their smiles. She let them stand at attention for a few moments until her back began to ache and finally laughed when she'd gotten enough amusement out of it.
Daniels: At ease, both of you, before you burst something.
Gerry/Ginny: Response
Gerry all but slouched over in sudden comfort while his sister, still not entirely comfortable with Allura's informality, came to something much more closely resembling parade rest. The contrast between the twins had tickled her since the first time she'd seen them in a third years midshipmans excerise and she'd taken special interest in them ever since. Now they were the key to everything she hoped to accomplish with the Libris and they both knew it.
Daniels: So, how has our new ship managed? Automation systems still behaving as expected?
Gerry/Ginny: Response
Allura's tone dripped with sarcasm.
Daniels: Oh well I'm so sorry we're boring you, Cadet Lacy. Perhaps there's a plasma...whatever for you to go scrub. Or maybe you're just eager to get on with the field trials?
Gerry/Ginny: Response
Tags/TBC!
================================
Captain Allura Daniels
Commanding Officer
USS Libris
V239509GT0
((Deck 1, Captain's Ready Room, USS Libris))
To suggest that a Starfleet Officer, especially one with the rank of Captain and the responsibility to a shipload of Cadets, was taking time to luxuriate in her office in a smug cloud of personal victory would be a grave insult. The fact that it was what Captain Allura Daniels was presently doing, safely out of the prying eyes of anyone here in her office, made the situation no more acceptable but she simply couldn't help herself. Besides, she thought, she deserved to enjoy the moment.
It had taken her years to carefully manicure and cultivate the relationships in Starfleet Commands highest echelons and years further still to bring them around to her way of thinking but all her work had, at last, borne delicious fruit. It still struck her as ridiculous to this day how an organization like Starfleet, which prided itself so much on its ability to seek out the new and the unexplored, resisted fundamental change at the institutional level. Ships and the technology which ran them had evolved enormously since the earliest days of human interstellar flight and even further since the wetnavy traditions that had formed the cultural background of Starfleet, yet the way it operated has scarcely changed in the four centuries since the fleet had begun operating in earnest.
Ships, those vast and complex technological powerhouses, were still run by hundreds of officers and crew who spent the bulk of their time performing maintenance or other routine duties that could've been easily automated, but weren't. Earlier projects to do so had suffered ignominious failures going all the way back to Richard Daystroms brilliant but ultimately flawed efforts and each failure allowed Starfleet to rest comfortably on the smug certainty that it had been right all along and the idea of further automation was simply a pipe dream, not to be looked at for another century at least. It was people, men and women, living beings, who were the real core of the fleet. The dashing heros. The clever scientists. The daring explorers. Allura giggled to herself contemptuously. They'd all soon learn they'd been made redundant. Just as soon as these exercises concluded.
She glanced back at the status display for the Libris embedded into the bulkhead across from her desk and marveled at the beautiful simplicity of it all. The normal compliment for a ship this size was nearly eighty people yet at the moment only nine were onboard. Excluding her as the singular senior officer and Academy proctor present, the remainder were a group of hand picked Cadets who were not only talented, but who shared her vision for the future of the fleet. A future where ships with hundreds or thousands of people aboard were a thing of the past. A future that she would help usher in and, in many ways, reap the benefits of. But that was for tomorrow.
She returned her attention to the present and tapped at a key on her desk. A few moments later her two most promising Cadets all but burst into her office, subtly trying to elbow one another out of the way so as to be first to stand rigidly before her immaculate desk. Gerry and Ginny Lacy beamed with unrestrained excitement but tried to school their features into something approaching a professional demeanor but, try as they might, they couldn't entirely hide their smiles. She let them stand at attention for a few moments until her back began to ache and finally laughed when she'd gotten enough amusement out of it.
Daniels: At ease, both of you, before you burst something.
Gerry/Ginny: Response
Gerry all but slouched over in sudden comfort while his sister, still not entirely comfortable with Allura's informality, came to something much more closely resembling parade rest. The contrast between the twins had tickled her since the first time she'd seen them in a third years midshipmans excerise and she'd taken special interest in them ever since. Now they were the key to everything she hoped to accomplish with the Libris and they both knew it.
Daniels: So, how has our new ship managed? Automation systems still behaving as expected?
Gerry/Ginny: Response
Allura's tone dripped with sarcasm.
Daniels: Oh well I'm so sorry we're boring you, Cadet Lacy. Perhaps there's a plasma...whatever for you to go scrub. Or maybe you're just eager to get on with the field trials?
Gerry/Ginny: Response
Tags/TBC!
================================
Captain Allura Daniels
Commanding Officer
USS Libris
V239509GT0
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