Star Trek: Theurgy

 
Timeline Skips – AKA “The Natalie Stark Problem”
(TL,DR: Planned time skips in between episodes or chapters within an episode should be considered in order to permit characters to progress on story arcs that would naturally take longer.  There is precedence for this in Trek canon, and by not permitting any form of time skip, some of these longer arks are being made to feel a bit awkward.  Planned and plotted time jumps could be very beneficial)
 
First and foremost, please know that I have spoken to Brutus about using Natalie as an example and he is fully on board. 
I would be lying if I said I fully understand the ins and outs of the timeline conversation, and I do agree that trying to align game time to IRL time is a failing formula.  But at the same time, we can not ignore the fact that this sim has been running 12 years and barely 6 months of game time has been covered.  So, in that regard, I do agree that accelerating the timeline a little is a worthy discussion to have.  I have a suggestion for that.
Lets look at Natalie Stark as an example.  According to Brutus, Natalie was made Acting First officer somewhere around the “end of the Aldea Arc” and was in place in that role when Season 2 Episode 1 began.  She was then promoted sometime during the interregnum between Episode 1 and 2 of Season 2.

Auctor’s thread that launched “Advent of War” started on June 17, 2020, almost 25 months ago to the day. 
 
As writers, we have been working in the mindset of “Natalie Stark is our Executive officer” for over two years.   But… According to the in-game calendars, she has only been executive officer for 25 days.  Advent of war spanned 4 days.   Qu’Nos shore leave has spanned 21 days.    But therin lays the problem.   In game, Natalie has only a “time in grade” of less than a month.   Which, under most circumstances is far too short a period for her to serving as an executive officer (with no prior experience) and be considered qualified as a commanding officer.  There are certainly exceptions both in practicality and in canon, but for the purposes of this, let’s put that aside.
 
I believe the cause of this issue was, in part, due to AL’s hesitation to skip time between episodes, or between chapters within episodes.  Since I joined in November of 2019, every single day that has passed on Theurgy, has been accounted for.   I do not believe this is necessarily necessary.
 
I believe that we can (and should) plan for skips in time between the end of one episode and the start of another.  I believe we can (and should) not be afraid to skip time within an episode.  This would allow us as writers to help build out some of our character arcs that are stagnating because “not enough time has passed in game for X to happen” despite the fact we’ve been writing for months.  Over the course of three game days, my own character has come to believe her spouse is dead, mourned her, moved on, and started up a new relationship.   That doesn’t seem very practical as an outsider looking in (even for a Vulcan), but it’s accepted because it took months to write those three days.  If we permit planned time skips between chapters and entire episodes, it would be easier to allow our characters to grow “behind the scenes” so we can propel story lines that work better on a longer-term scale.
 
There is plenty of precedence for large gaps of time being not accounted for in Trek canon.   I’m looking at “Year of Hell”.  I’m looking at “Thirty Days”, as well as the 3 month jump from the end of Season 5 of DS9 to the start of Season 6 as well as the multiple month jump between Season 6 and 7.  I’m looking at “Lessons”.  I’m looking at “The Inner Light” and “The Visitor”; episodes that used time jumps in the narrative to span an entire lifetime.   I’m looking at the entire third season of Star Trek: Enterprise, as well as the time intervals between Star Trek’s II, III, and IV. 
 
The passage of time can be a very effective narrative tool when used properly.  It is one that we have shied away from here on Theurgy, but I strongly encourage it to be considered going forward.  I do not believe it should be done willy-nilly, nor do I believe it should be up to each individual writer to just magically pass a week of time for their character(s) whenever they feel like it, because I do agree it will lead to eventual chaos.  But if utilized between episodes or between chapters of an episode, I believe it could be a very useful, and welcome tool for the sim as a whole.

I'd suggest surveymonkey or something similar for voting, PM/DM the link to keep randoms from contaminating the counts. Just for consideration.

Fwiw we used to have the ability to post a poll thread on the forum...

My thoughts:

--WRT. Natalie Stark as Captain: If you save the Federation and Starfleet Command thinks your leadership was a key part of that, brevet promotion to O-6 being made permanent is IMO certainly plausible.  From a Doylist POV, having the Captain be the main referee works well too. 

--WRT. the infested plotline: This has not really served as the main plot so far.  The infested are a handy narrative tool to drive the plot (e.g. by having one drive the Klingon civil war, or by exiling our crew, etc.), but we've had little progress on their story at least since I showed up mid-pandemic.  Most of our stuff has been stopping infested side-plots rather than going for them outright. 

as such, IMO it's entirely reasonable to say, "ok, we are going to end the infested plotline by revealing them to the galaxy and imprisoning all the infested leaders, then figure out where to go from there", and we can either write out negotiating what to do (are the parasites themselves legally people?  the Federation doesn't do the death penalty for the most part, how do they approach the Klingons probably wanting to kill the parasites and their hosts both just to be sure?  how do we de-infest people long-term?) or make it exposition as we go out on a new mission. 

With respect to new missions: these guys did a lot of damage in a short time.  Romulan space is going to be chaos.  The Klingons might have another civil war just for kicks, you know, since the last one ended pretty fast and not many folks had a chance to win all that glorious honor.  What about the Tholians, Cardassians, Dominion, Tzenkethi?  Internal Federation drama is a thing, too.  Depending on who exactly was infected and when, people might want to re-try a bunch of recent civil rights cases or toss recent laws. Augments still can't do much openly, maybe we want to get involved with a campaign with Dr. Bashir in the name of civil rights? 

this could be a general plot driver going forward.  Need a plot thread?  Well, you poor Theurgy grunts did the hard work of saving the Federation.  Now the galaxy's still on fire and somebody needs to put out those fires.  And what do you know?  Starfleet Command just called with your mission of the week, you lucky sinners. 

passage of time could be solved like this, too.  have a dedicated interlude subforum for "sometime in between Episode X and Episode Y" and put anything like promotions, sin you can't get out of your head but can't fit into the regular story, relationship progression you need but can't fit in, etc. in there. 

Just my 2 cents. 

I quite honestly disagree.

Creating an entirely new storyline takes time and might take

You know, this is a very unfair way of having a discussion. If you're only going to focus on the first fourteen words of my opinion and completely disregard the part where I tried to explain why I feel that particular way (which I added just so there would be additional food for thought and constructive discussion), I guess you're not interested in what I have to say so I'll just not voice my opinion here anymore and simply wait until the poll results are announced.

Just to toss this in: I don't object to polishing off the Infested story. That was Auctor's story, and it wouldn't feel right to try to continue it. However, if we do resolve it, I believe that it should be done properly with a satisfying climax as its own action-packed dramatic episode to close off Season 02. Episode 02 would continue as planned (with tweaks as necessary), then Episode 03 would end the Infested story, then we could start Season 03 with something fresh.

Hear hear. Finish it off, next chapter... or the one after. Don't drag it out and turn it into a shambling corpse of someone else's story.

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Hear hear. Finish it off, next chapter... or the one after. Don't drag it out and turn it into a shambling corpse of someone else's story.

Mate, have a little more respect for the work that WE have all put in over the past years. WE have all worked for this story. Many of us have dedicated multiple YEARS to this story through various episodes.

Referring to it as a zombie is not the way to sway people to your point of view.




I am not against ending the infested storyline. As long as it is done respectfully and realistically.  Season 02 was already about the Theurgy being proactive in their fight against them. Season 01 was 'The Flight'. Season 02 was 'The Fight'. Unfortunately, life and world events slowed everything down.

We have the opportunity to vote now to have a collective view of what the future could look like. Let's all just take a moment and wait and see. We don't need to campaign for what we want to see. We are all adults here and smart enough to be able to decide for ourselves.