Regional Operations Briefing (March 2021)

Subspace Network Mission Briefs (Events)
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38th Command invites you to participate in a briefing of current issues, events, and missions in the 38th’s area of operations. Tea and biscuits will be served.

Shift Time: Gamma (Gamma +1 for people in the US due to Daylight Savings. If you are confused, the time on the calendar is correct and should automatically update to your locality). See Shift Schedule and Weekly Meetups for details.

Audience: OPEN

Event Type: Structured

Starting Point: TBA, very possibly a conference room, either on the starbase or on the research lab.

This is the first operations briefing scheduled; exact details, including time and date, are subject to change.

The agenda is posted below. If you have are running a plot that you would like to be included in the briefing and it is not on the agenda, please let me know ASAP.

This event will count towards one of the initiate tasks needed to complete the initiation.

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The proposed agenda is below. If those who I have tagged could please send me, either on the forums or on discord, a short summary of their agenda item before the event, we can use that in the briefing and it’ll save having to think and type on the day. This is especially important if you cannot attend the briefing yourself, because I can then paste what you sent instead of having to make it up on the spot.

Agenda:

  • Current status with the Azedi - CAPT Samuel Bishop (@Sam)
  • Update on the Nuzoth Asaid talks - CAPT Rose Hanson (@Eunha)
  • Update on the Voth weapon - CAPT Alistair Nimitz (@Nimitz)
  • Current status of the Mokai - CAPT Alistair Nimitz (@Nimitz)
  • Update on the investigation of the slaver ring - CAPT James MacLeod (@LordKilous)
  • Status of the Vellos relocation - CAPT Alex Holmes (@Moose)
  • Current Status of the Xedi and Parin - CAPT Samuel Bishop (@Sam)
  • Deep Space 13 Update - CAPT Lauren Varley (@Lauren)
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Bump, if the aboved people could get something to me in the next few days that would be great!

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Transcript here this is available for everyone to view ICly.

Let me know what you thought of the event, since we’re looking at running these more frequently.

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This is a commentary of the briefing as requested by Sam.

I can definitely see the future potential of something like this, but in its current state there are two matters worthy of bringing up.

  1. Time constraints. We spent three hours going over basically every active arc. Because of this, most of the briefing was a looping cycle of: Sam gives monologue → Asks for questions → We move on to the next item. There was some discussion and debate on some items, but I felt like it elongated what was already a long meeting. Some of the debate was considered outside the scope just because of the briefing’s dedication to keep things going which is understandable since we did this for three hours. In my opinion, having a less-general and more specific-issue focused meeting would be more useful in this regard. Or, it transitions into my second point.

  2. It could have just been an email. A lot of it was just the comprehension of incoming information, which is probably very useful for people who want to get involved in arcs and the retention of said interest. That, I completely understand. I do think, though, that this time would be better served focusing on player character input rather than the presentation of information. It would be more engaging and would especially help with retention if it was a player’s own idea that was implemented.

Which leads me to my two suggestions. Note, these two are neither mutually inclusive nor exclusive. Personally, in an effort to retain the spirit of these briefings, I’d place more emphasis on my second suggestion.

  1. Single-issue meetings. Instead of clumping all of these different arcs together, lets just focus on the Voth, or just the Xedi, etc. That way, more time can be spent on characters discussing the problem and possible solutions rather than just briefing people on what’s going on.

  2. Focus more on discussion/debate rather than the actual briefing. Which brings me back to the second point I brought up earlier, that it could have been an email. I would recommend prefacing such briefings with an email being sent out to all participants in the form of a memo or bulletin that explains each situation (hell, make the people in charge of the different task forces write their part of the memo if you want). That way, characters can enter the meeting having already been briefed on the summaries of each situation, so more focus can be placed on character interactions, IC solutions, and discussions.

A few different ideas were brought up ICly for problems like the Voth, in which the conversation was moved along because we needed to finish the briefing on time. Maybe I’m considering this to be more of a planning stage than a briefing, but I suspect that they are ubiquitous - otherwise, why involve people in the summaries of the ongoing arcs?

Anyway, just my thoughts. I didn’t particularly find the briefing disagreeable, just long.

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My thoughts after some sleep, are very much the same as Valore’s.

It was just too long. My attempts to speed things up by encouraging pre-typing didn’t work too well either but I doubt that would have made a huge difference anyway.

I also think that my original idea for the ROB was made redundant by my Current Missions of the 38th Fleet post. If people want to know what’s going on, they could just look at that as it details the mission, the IC lead and the GM. If they want more information they can contact them directly.

So how could we adapt this? Well, this was very command led, and as Valore said, it was just a looping cycle of the same thing. So we could do this from the bottom up instead of the top down. Instead of Command saying “you talk about this mission,” it would be “okay, Aries Squad, what have you been up to?”. That would form more of a discussion as it would be “oh we were fighting Mokai forces, we could really do with additional patrols” etc.

The other alternative could be pretty much “Fleet Command’s Questions”, where members of the 38th could ask fleet command about a certain topic, or issue. So CMDR AzediHater could ask “Captain Bishop, what are we doing about the Azedi?” in which case Sam would answer. Next question could be CAPT SCIENCERULZ who asks “why are we doing so much pew pew and not enough sci-sci?” in which case Sam would say “science sucks,” or something along those lines. That would enable more of a debate and discussion instead of a set list of things we have to get through.

As it stands, the current plan is to hold a ROB every month. If it continues as it did yesterday, I definitely could not do it every month. However, it could just be that this one was longer because it was the first one. In four weeks time, there would not be as many new items on the list and we could just focus the ROB on things that have had an update since last time. So if nothing happens with the Mokai, that doesn’t need to be on the agenda for next month.

Finally, there’s also the question of what the ROB is even meant to achieve? Originally, my thoughts were that this was to get people involved in plots that they weren’t in originally and to have a better idea of things that are going on in the fleet that they’re not currently involved in. Like I said, that goal seems redundant given the missions post, so we could just focus on a different aspect of the ROB altogether.

I guess that’s also for people to decide too; what would you like the ROB to be?

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