Our first 'real' mission won't start for a bit, but I'm posting this now anyway to keep everyone informed of what will be happening in the not-to-distant future (somewhere in time and space). For the simm to be officially active, we need 6 people, and on a practical level we'll need a couple more people such as the XO and someone to make things go boom. There's also the matter of command academy completion on my part. Allowing for all that, it'll probably be at least a week or two before we move on to your dooms.

Erm. I mean, our grand adventure!

In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves in Mission 0 (all two of you at the moment).

So, we're starting our First Real Grown-Up Mission. I'll be using this thread to post some information about the plot and stuff that people will discover as the mission progresses. There'll be a timeline and some suggestions for what people in different departments might be up to, but in general I'll be letting y'all determine exactly how you go about investigating or solving problems, or indeed if you accomplish anything of use at all. I'm going to be playing the timing a bit by ear and doing my best to keep things moving at a pace that lets people do their things but doesn't drag it out too long. Overall this one will be more science rather than action-oriented. It will be set about a week and a half after the ship has left drydock; in the time since there have been several drills of various types to get people. For those hoping to see those fifteen torpedo launchers in action, well, you'll just have to wait until the next mission.

Timeline

This particular mission will be taking place over a fairly small number of in-character days. Oh, and by shear coincidence, shipboard time just happens to line up with local time. Funny how that always works out, quiaff?

Day 1
- 0745 - Ship goes to alert and alters course toward New Haven. Much to-do and tension about this being the ship's first crisis situation.
- 1130 - Arrival at New Haven. There is a distinct lack of alien battleships or invasion forces. In fact, the colony claims to be perfectly fine. An away team will discover this is actually the case, although there does appear to be an increasingly volatile situation with a group of recently arrived archaeologists. Since we're already here anyways, SF Command 'requests' that we settle matters.

Day 2-3

For the most part, these days will be fairly freeform in terms of what's going on. There are several things that people in different departments can get up to.
- Our illustrious leaders and our counselor will probably be trying to get the colonists and archaeologists to speak to each other and come to some kind of agreement.
- For our technical geeks, there's a big alien pyramid to poke and prod in the name of SCIENCE!!
- Our marines and security folks will be needed to supplement the local five-man sheriff's department, which is a bit stretched dealing with rowdy students and farmboys. Aren't you glad you joined Starfleet instead of a college police force?
- There's also all the usual shipboard stuff going on.

Day 4
- After one of aforementioned rowdy farmboys blasts a chunk out of the mysterious alien pyramid, Bad Things will start to happen.
- There will be need of SCIENCE to stop the Bad Things.
- The nearest town also needs evacuating, which means crowd control, planning, mass transporter use, and shuttle piloting.
- Hopefully our tech gurus will be able to fix things; if not, we'll be playing host to several thousand annoyed refugees.

More information will follow as the story progresses.

Sorry about the delay in moving us along. I was sick through much of last week and it slowed down a JP and some planning I was doing. I'll be getting us along to our climatic battle - well, anti-climatic complete-lack-of-a-battle tomorrow-ish.