In last month’s Joint Fleet Command report, I promised an update on the Fleet Hubs.
A History of Hubs and Hubris
As you might recall from many conversations in the past, we’ve been talking about these and, probably unbeknownst to 90% of you reading this, iterating on them for a number of years. We quietly launched Hubs back in 2019 to … zero fanfare. Unless you were a new GM you didn’t spend any time on, or have an option for engaging with, the Hubs. We tweaked them in 2020/21 so that they could be used for cross-posting across Novas.
The problem was this also relied on Nova.
Nova’s great, for a singular game. It gets a bit trickier to manage when you’ve got a few things to try to juggle, like two or three games all wanting to link up and write together. Or, even just two people across two games being able to write together. It just doesn’t scale – inherently it can’t. This became one of the drivers behind IFS3 – to enable players across the fleet to have a single place to create characters, write stories, and do so together regardless of which game you call home.
So Hubs went into a bit of a quiet phase while we designed and built IFS3. When we launched it there another batch of serious questioning about what we wanted Hubs to be, and Hubs became that central point where you can write freely.
Back in January, Minawara introduced Esquimalt Station as the Hub for TF72, and at the time, 13. We’ve now formally tweaked Player Rule 1 to remove hubs from the character limits. Now I get the fun job of talking more about some changes we’re making to support the collaborative writing environment.
Stories for everyone!
Firstly, we’ve made some changes on IFS so that every member can now create a story. If you’ve never seen stories, they’re the higher level collection point like a mission in Nova. The unit underneath is a Chapter. Many chapters can be included in a story, and potentially you could even include the same chapter in multiple stories. The Player Help Guide will be updated soon to include how to create and manage stories, and a front-end story management function will appear in My IFS over the next few months – suffice to say they’re a bit tricky to get arranged into something that doesn’t look awful on the front.
Hubs for 13, 29(ish) and 47
We’re also announcing the first batch of hubs for TF13 and 47. 47’s is open now, 13’s is coming within the next few weeks. 29’s is still a way off as it’s in concept design but as mentioned in Lalor’s update we’ve got a rough idea of the direction we’re heading in with the Library.
TF13 Hub: UFP Government
Based on Earth, and split between the Executive in central Paris and the legislative assembly in San Francisco, is the United Federation of Planets. We’ll be opening up the opportunity for people to write within that environment, be it as a staffer, an embassy member, a member of the legislative … entirely up to you. The only reserved posts will be the senior positions within the assembly and the executive, e.g. president, speaker, chief of staff, cabinet members, etc.
If you like West Wing and other political dramas, this will be up your street. We’ll be launching this within the next few weeks so stay tuned for more news!
TF47 Hub: The Traveller’s Rest
TF47’s hub is centred around the ancient lost city of Lyonesse which sank below the waves in England over 1000 years ago. More specifically, it’s set around a pub in the city called the Traveller’s Rest. That pubs currently ran by a bloke called Mark, who went to change a barrel one day at his pub in Northampton and woke up in a very different place. Lyonesse is the home to a whole host of creatures from very different Earths who’ve all managed to find themselves in The Knot – a pocket universe outside of space and time.
Befitting TF47, this hub is multiversal. Whether you want to be a power ranger, an elf, a dwarf, the choice is yours. The only reserved posts here are Mark the pub landlord (played by du Lac), ones relating to the Aelvari – the “indigenous race” who Mark reckons were up to no good, and his companions Ostig and Gosgun who deliver the beer and try to haggle him into bankruptcy.
How to get involved
Easy!
Step 1: Register at https://www.obsidianfleet.net if you’ve not already
Step 2: Create a character
Step 3: Contact Minawara or Paul (for TF13/72), du Lac (for 47) with your character and we’ll add you to the manifest. An application form is currently under development and will be appearing soon.
Step 4: Once that’s done, we’ll work with you to get you onboarded
Step 5: Start writing!
I have more questions
Contact a member of the Fleet Council and we’ll do our best to help!