Duty Roster

[Bry_Sinclair]

I'm just curious, have any fanfic writers tried staffing their entire ship?

It's something I'm doing on the side with Silverfin, coming up with names and positions for all 126 officers and crew, so that I have a ready pool of characters to add to an away team, or to find wandering the narrow halls, or working out in the gym. In Silverfin I'm trying to make it feel like a very "lived in" environment, with a close-knit crew so that the main characters have relationships with other members of the crew. They won't all be developed into anything more than just a name, though there are a few that will become my equivilant of Barclay, Ogawa and Carey.

-Bry

 

[Kaziarl]

Not from the start. Although I try to keep track of names I've used for a couple reasons. The first being in case I do want to do something with that character, which happens. And second, so I don't use the same name twice and end up with Ryan Mitchell the security officer and Ryan Mitchell the helm officer.

 

[Gibraltar]

Not aboard Gibraltar. Too many transfers and casualties to keep track of.

 

[CeJay]

With a crew of nearly 800 I hadn't really considered doing this. However at some point I did start making a list and short bio notes on lower ranked crew members who would make recurring appearances. Never quite got around finishing that.

Also I've come to realize that when working on a novel I'm much more focused on the many characters actively serving the story instead of spending too much time on worrying about the background characters. They are long enough as it is.

Having said that I do love stories about those background characters being in the spotlight. That's what my Lower Deck Tales series is all about.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Lower Decks was a fantastic episode!

Loved seing things from the ensigns perspective.

 

[Sgt Joe]

I'm just getting into writing Trek fiction (having spent most of my life writing Marvel Comics fics and RPG's), but the way I'm combating having a massive anonymous crew is starting small. My ship is small. Very small. Like 9 crew total...

But yes, in the event that I move on to bigger and better things (read: ships) I'll totally have to plot out each department's staff.

 

[TheLoneRedshirt]

It would be an interesting project. I might one day decide to flesh out Bluefin's entire crew, but for now I'm satisfied with filling in all the senior officers and senior NCOs and providing history for each.