Award Poll: The Scourge Award 2019

December 16, 2019, 03:13:27 PM

Awarded to a player in recognition of their willingness and ability to put their character through extraordinary personal hardship, be it suffering through sickness or personal crisis, through which the writer contributed superb posts relevant to the situation. The writer who gains this award is a master at torturing their character(s) for the enjoyment of others.

The poll will run for 3 days, in which those who cast their vote should take a few minutes to read the linked scenes first. The nominee(s) who get the most votes will receive the Scourge Award. If you are a Nominee, you may not vote on your own scene.

Here are the nominations, with more information on the nominated writers & threads, which has been complemented by private nominations of additional writers in nominated threads:

NOMINATION 01: NUMEN

Forum Name of Nominee: @Numen
Reason for Nomination: For the writing of Shar
Motivation & Links:
1) Patriotic Dignity
2) To Arms!
3) Dropspace
4) Shelthreth
5) When time stands still (Thus Ends...)
Ever since introducing the Andorian Shar to the sim, this shen has been stuck in a long-running nightmare of her ship being destroyed, captured by unknown aliens, subjected to reproductive experimentation, humiliated in front of her crewmates, subject to the crazed fantasy of a thaan, dealing with Shall's increasingly harried mood, stuck with an offspring she never wanted, and finally deciding to desert and return to her clan.

Through it all Numen has skillfully shown Shar's emotions and her methods of working through the situations, eventually culminating with her desertion, quite possibly one of the most difficult decisions anyone could make. Numen was always willing to put Shar through the wringer to help develop her and the others around her, never shying away from the horrors that her character would face.

NOMINATION 02: FIFE

Forum Name of Nominee(s): @Fife
Primary Reason for Nomination: Because his favorite pastime is torturing characters and he doesn't hide it. If Cross and Ekon were real, they'd kick his ass.
Secondary Reason for Nomination: Because I hate Fif. He makes me fond of his characters and then does those ugly things to them >:( (No, I haven't forgiven him about Ekon yet)
Motivation & Links (by nominator): Let's split this up. First Ekon. This poor NCO had very little time to shine, but he was a charismatic, cheerful character with an interesting background that could have contributed a lot to the story. He went through the Borg and Asurian assault of the Cayuga, had to deal with two members of a species he hated (and without punching them! all self-controlled our good Ekon), was left behind in the Theurgy, was assimilated by the Borg (there is worse fate for someone with El-Aurian blood?????) to end up dying a HORRID death in the hands of someone whom he must hate but in whom he decided to trust. Poor Ekon needs a posthumous medal for himself.

Then there's Cross. If we start with his background, we are already crying: a subject of experimentation without parents, without family or friends for much part of his life, tortured to satiety, without ties to their cultures of origin and with minimal self-control over his impulses. Well, he gets rehabilitated, doesn't he? He becomes a reliable Starfleet officer despite being the grump overlord. Don't worry that Fife has more shitstorms ready for him: the ship where his friends are? destroyed. He is kidnapped by aliens, tortured and turned into the part of himself that he hates the most. By the way, why not lose an arm too? And deal with a loudmouth Klingon? For Fife that's not enough, so... why not make him befriend a crazy engineer and end in the brig? and have the most embarrassing situation of his life with a robot that is going to make him NEVER return to sickbay in his life of his own free will. And well, after that, he'll need therapy, won't he? What better than with the two most traditional Vulcans of the Theurgy, to annoy him a tad more? Fife, give this poor man a break... ah no... you've put him in an ancient ritual with three other vulcans. Fife, leave poor Cross alone! He's already had enough with those caterpillar eyebrows, geez.

NOMINATION 03: STEGRO88

Forum Name of Nominee(s): @Stegro88
Primary Reason for Nomination: Lorad and Mickayla bogaloo
Secondary Reason for Nomination: Has no qualms about putting his characters in the worst possible scenarios. For character development
Motivation & Links (by nominator) What better than to have a Klingon hybrid who hates her Qo'noS blood than to be forced to inhabit a body she hates in a culture she neither understands nor accepts. Of course being bothered by another Klingon and having to deal with a lot more Klingon because now they are her allies. Of course, let us not forget that her Klingon blood led her to kill a former crewmate......... what a joy! On the other hand Lorad. Former slave soldier, who escapes from his captors when his family is killed only to be the cause of his ship being damaged (wounding his half-sister in the process) joins people he does not fully trust only to betray his sister and everything he has believed in. But it' s all right, that's not much. By the way he is also assimilated by the Borg, he loses an eye and a few organs in the process and his sister's trust. Lorad, you need a break.

NOMINATION 04: BZ

Forum Name of Nominee(s): @BZ
Primary Reason for Nomination: For the life, work and sorrow of Emelia Marguerite "Blue" Tiran
Secondary Reason for Nomination: The nominator is totally biased about this character and I'm not gonna hide it. They find her a tremendous writing exercise and a character internalization that lead to reactions based strictly on IC events or the past of the character. She (and the writer behind her) are simple excellent.
Motivation & Links (by nominator): I think I have written in other nominations why I think Blue is an excellent character and that what he has suffered so far in the story provides for a lifetime in therapy (right Hathev?) but let's make a summary: a childhood of neglect and rejection, a destroyed ship, the love of her life given for dead (I will brag of Shar's outstanding bitch mode at the end of this thread) A runaway and alone time in the maintenance tunnels of a hostile ship, witnessing terrible experiments and suffering from hunger, thirst, paranoia and moments of self-mutilation. to make a pact with a declared enemy, to partially lead an insurgency, to fight an unequal fight against a Scion, to be rescued only to discover that (at least) there was still justice in the galaxy and Ducote was alive... and to become shortly the chief engineer of a ship that needs (at least) one month in the dry dock for the amount of damage it has suffered. Did you like working Miss Tiran? Well, you have plenty of work.

There was also a nomination for Echtand qi Versant, but since the award is about the torture of one's characters, this award category does not fit with the nomination of this former antagonist/current antihero. Thanks though!

Thank you in advance for your voting in this award category!

Best Regards,

Auctor Lucan

Re: Award Poll: The Scourge Award 2019

Reply #1 – December 16, 2019, 03:17:21 PM

How do I submit four votes, please.

Re: Award Poll: The Scourge Award 2019

Reply #2 – December 19, 2019, 09:33:37 PM

AND THE RESULTS ARE IN!

Congrats to @Fife on the Scourge Award!!

Cross has been through the ringer for sure, long before he even sets foot on the Theurgy or appeared in the story. I miss Ekon too. His ending moments on both the Allegiant and in Sickbay is a well remembered part of the Battle of the Apertures. Poor bastards, both of them.

Best,

Auctor Lucan

Star Trek: Theurgy