Celebrating Obsidian Command’s Simmiversary:
A reflection on three years and three successful missions
Reinstated under new management in the fall of the infamous year of twenty-twenty, Obsidian Command was recovered from the simming void, IC and OOC. Guided now by Markus aka Sepandiyar in the character of Captain Corvus DeHavilland, initial homage was paid to the fact that the sim’s previous iteration had narratively closed on a cliffhanger event as the Stardock class station had previously been, quite incredibly, swallowed whole by an anomaly styled after a pitfall introduced in a Voyager episode “The Void” (ST:VOY S7E15). And hence, the sim kicked off it’s first plotline —
Taking this as the establishing event, the station was recovered after being 18 months in the dark spatial anomaly, and the sim launched M1 Emergence on the premise that while the Station had been missing from regular space, the interstellar border region (being situated not far from the Hobus disaster) had been more difficult to patrol and maintain, leading to all manner of scum and villainy cropping up. It also left the Federation protectorate planet of Obsidian (aka Loki III) without defense from said villainy, and without any mitigating shield defense from the brutal rays of the Loki star’s damaging radiation, leading to political upheavals among the Obsidianites, as the populace of the harsh desert world questioned their dependency on the Federation at all.
To develop all of this setting, the leadership of Obsidian Command began with Vulcan’s Forge, a novel which imagined an adventure following Spock and a human compatriot named David Rabin, who first befriended the Obsidianites and foiled a plot to undermine the faith and leadership of the people of Obsidian.
If the name of planet Obsidian sounds awfully familiar, it’s not by coincidence! The Ninth Fleet itself was named after this feature location from the novel when it was founded. Because the book is such a key piece of shared lore as a fleet, Obsidian Command as it stands today makes every effort to maintain a properly adapted homage to the location, while building on it with consistent contributions of the sim’s regular writing membership, organically tending and grafting the lore with its own as a cohesive, detailed, and engaging story.
Beginning with the novel, the writers of Obsidian Command also took into account the fleet’s database entry for planet Obsidian and then further tailored the lore with sim specific wiki entries and direct exploration via setting and events detailed within active posts. Writing on Obsidian Command has become a living connection to all of this rich lore!
Mission One: Emergence went on to win Obsidian Fleet’s 2021 Golden Padd for Overall Mission. With a supersized outlandish scenario to launch from, the writers of the sim treknobabbled their way into suspension of disbelief and ramped up the story to culminate in a battle for Obsidian Command, as enemy factions united to attack OC in an attempt to prevent the station from coming fully online. M1 ran from August 2020 to March 2021. This would be just the beginning.
Mission Two: Sanctuary’s story began with murmurs concerning genocide taking place on the planet below as the tribal factions mounted distrust and age old splits in politics and faith came home to roost. The issue was highlighted by the arrival of interstellar faith leaders, concerned about the conditions of the religious minorities on the newly secured protectorate world. Obsidian Command played host to these guests, while the matter stirred in secret, revealed dramatically in a mountain top scene, where hundreds were forced in search of a prophesied child… forerunner to the supposed end of the world. M2 ran between March 2021 and March 2022, at which time one of the garrison vessels found some curious wreckage, launching the next big plot.
Mission Three: Into the Deep took an already stellar sim to entirely new heights, by plunging it into an oceanic tale. Wanting to gather intel on alien wreckage which suggested a violent empire not averse to using brutal weapons technology banned in the federation, Admiral Sepandiyar selected Captain DeHavilland and some of the crew to take the garrison vessel, USS Pathfinder, for a reconnaissance mission to explore the direction from which the danger may have originated. Along the path, they encountered a cry for help from the people of Korix. In answering the call, everything that could go wrong did, of course, until the crew pulled together as storm winds buffeted the away team and the mission ended with new revelations… and new, unresolved questions.
Mid-way through playing out the events of M3, Obsidian Command as a sim began to level up! The players involved gelled as a team for the away mission, while more threads really took root on the station and on Loki III. Original members of the sim found a new creative verve, and recently joined friends made story niches for themselves while establishing new writing partnerships. The solo posting on the sim likewise caught fire with several writers. Altogether, the quality of writing fortified and Obsidian Command doubled average posting activity! Nothing feeds momentum like the energy of having other wonderful posts to be inspired and motivated by.
And to gild of all of this delightful simming, during the summer of 2023 Obsidian Command received Obsidian Fleet’s Golden Padd for Creativity in an Overall Game. While the writing and shared sim community is very much its own reward, the players were collectively honored to be recognized for coming together with inventive and well crafted storytelling.
Presently, Obsidian Command is taking that same energy into the next plot. Mission Four: Falling Out. The USS Pathfinder has returned to the station, bringing delegates from Korix who are seeking assistance against their oppressors, a mysterious and brutal empire known as the Pyrryx. A conference is quickly organized in order to address the petition. But black ops within the Fleet mean it is keeping secrets from itself at the highest orders and frustrating the officers involved with silencing orders that divide the station’s crew down invisible lines, even while the future of Korix and the security of Federation border space is suspended in the balance between the push and pull of diplomats and ranking officials.
Obsidian Command is now three years young and lucky to have a reliable, well knit writing stable. Players often attest that the game is as fun to read as it is to write on OC and, with some regular effort to contribute to posts and follow the story, OC makes an active and rewarding simming home.
There’s plenty of story ahead to discover! Obsidian Command is always open to new player applications. Guests are welcome to chat on Obsidian Command’s discord server. Anyone interested can apply to join or simply read along with Obsidian Command’s engaging sagas at http://command.obsidianfleet.net
Here’s to another great year of storytelling on OC!