Scathing debate commentary

We didn't go into the debate with any expectations that it would be a knock-your-socks-off rhetoric rollercoaster. Good thing, too; otherwise, we would have demanded our money back and would certainly not have enjoyed the rest of our day here at Cedar Point. With the advent of direct questioning in the election ship, everyone already knows what the candidates' stances are on certain issues, so it sounds very repetitive. The good thing about the debates, however, is that if a question is asked of a candidate that is very difficult, he doesn't have a day or two to think of a good response: he's on the spot right there to come up with an answer. There were a few good ones, like "How independent should a Department or Fleet be of the President?" All of the candidates answered in much the same way, which brings us back to our Theory of the STF Presidency, which says that the nature of the STF Presidency means that each president cannot be radically different from the previous one. There is a certain amount of work that must be done by a certain technique (call it the y-intercept in the equation for a line; no matter what, that technique must be utilized to make the government function). The president cannot deviate far from that technique, which includes his set of duties and how he must handle them. The most an STF president can do is to rearrange the paper clips on his desk in a way that is different from his predecesor; this makes it difficult to differentiate candidates because there isn't much to differentiate: if a candidate claims to do something that is radically different from the way the president usually does things, that candidate will probably not be successful, since the Presidency requires a standard way of doing things.

But anyway, back to reality. The nature of the debates means that everything has to be condensed into sound bites (our favorite question: "In ten words or less, why are you a good candidate for the Presidency?" Ten words? Holy cow! ¡Vaca santa!). It is better off, if this is the case, to eliminate the debates altogether in favor of the member-questioning in the Election Ship. At least there, a candidate can explain himself instead of being restricted to three or four lines in IRC. So, the overall impression was the debates were stinky (in the scholarly sense of "stinky"), but it is the nature of the debates to lend themselves to stinkiness. Let's try again next year.

Wyers lays proverbial smackdown (it would have been proverbial, anyway)

In a post that was as unexpected as it was scandalous, Colin "Copper" Wyers scalded nominees Robison and Vogtman in an Election Ship post on Saturday. Earlier that day, Election Coordinator Larry "James R." Garfield had announced that the team of Wyers/Field had lost the primary election. Wyers wasn't willing to accept defeat without a final, biting comment. For one, he shunned Vogtman for taking STF too seriously (as well as making one or two lewd comments about him) and, in the end, begrudgingly supported Robison.. Garfield responded by making what, in our opinion, was a rather petty maneuver (or manoeuvre for Anglophiles) on his part. He reprimanded Wyers for posting an endorsement in the "General" topic of the Election Ship and barred him from making any further comments in that ship for the rest of the election, as well as assuring that Wyers's vote would not be counted. In an explanation, Garfield said that it was not only because of the place where the note was posted, but also because of the lewd comments made about Vogtman. Wyers, in turn, then directed several angry words in Garifield's direction. An STF tribunal will meet next week and if found guilty, Wyers faces death by pie for posting in an endorsement in the "General" topic of the command ship.

The candidates, please

Every election requires candidates, and every candidate requires an election. That's why these elections are the perfect place to find candidates, and guess what: we found some! Perusing the STF Election ship as we are apt to do, SNN Headline News found no fewer (but no more) than three candidates running for the office of STF President. Since this counts as part of our community service for that nasty incident last year, we'll take our time in describing the candidates to you. Just so no one gets upset for no reason whatsoever (as though we even need to worry about it in STF), the candidates will be presented in alphabetical order according to the presidential candidate's last name. Begin complaining ... wait for it ... now!

"Ravenous" Robison/"Bodacious" Bukowski The first in our lineup of election folk, the team of Robison & Bukowski seems to be the most obscure. Robison is known far and away as a former IDir for STF. Bukowski has more command experience, seeing as how he is the CO of the USS Draco and FComm-5. Our political experts noted that Bukowski is quick to throw a condescending remark into the end of an argument, re-igniting a burned out fire; this may be a hindrance in trying to get people to work together. (Remember Bob Spurlin? The Owen Townes scandal shows how important tact is.) Headline News says that this team probably has the poorest chance of winning the election, seeing as how they're up against some pretty heavy-hitters in the experience and command department.

"Voracious" Vogtman/"Slippery" Stockhausen Vogtman's reputation has, of late, been marred by certain incidents (see "'Chocolat', STF-style" in our previous issue), however, Vogtman has a long history of being involved in STF government. His claim to fame is that he was the first-ever chairman of the New Members Council. He is currently CO of Outpost 45. Experts are afraid that "Vogtman's style of in-your-face confrontation might not bode well with voters; he likes to pick fights." More demure is his running-mate, Fleet One Personality Stockhausen. He maintains, at the minimum, forty-seven command characters and one thousand department heads and assistants in the Fleet. One source even told us that he could run the Fleet by himself if he had to. Our expert oddsmakers suspect that Vogtman/Stockhausen has a "moderately good to very good" chance of winning the election. Our control team of elderly grandmothers concurred.

"Wubbulous" Wyers/"Farsighted" Field In the opinion of our expert political analyst, J. Strom Thurmond (who survived for four more centuries and is still the President Pro Tempore), Wyers/Field has a distinct advantage over the competition. Though his jaw didn't function well enough to articulate, his assistant translated, saying that "Wyers has had experience as an STF President before; he was Bob Spurlin's Veep and later the President after Spurlin resigned. He's held a variety of cabinet positions, including EDir, GMDir, and most notably, FComm-6. Field was an EDir from the 'good old days' of STF on Prodigy and is perhaps the best engineer in STF, second only to Owen Townes." Editor's note: this story was written before Wyers/Field was knocked out of the election in the primaries. See next story.

Bob Hope/Milton Berle Once again, this team is trying for the presidency. They've been at it since the Bourdaa election of 1998 and haven't looked back since. Bob Hope (who we still think may not be alive and probably doesn't exist) said, through his publicist (which lends credence to our claim that he's dead, especially if his publicist is a spiritual medium), that he will campaign to the best of his ability. Milton Berle (affectionately known as "Uncle Miltie" among STFians) said that he will try everything in his power to keep STF together during its times of crisis. Their campaign slogan is "That's some wacky and wild stuff." Johnny Carson is suing the pair for copyright infringement.

Primaries knock socks off everyone

Well, that's why J. Strom Thurmond isn't a professional political analyst. Primary numbers released just this past fin de semana show that the team of "Wary" Wyers and "Frappaccino" Field was disqualified, as they had the lowest percentage of the vote. Election Coordinator Larry "The evil scion of Bill Gates" Garfield published the numbers Saturday. "Velveteen" Vogtman received 49 votes (36.57% of the vote), "Ramen" Robison received 45 votes (33.58%), and "Worchestershire" Wyers received 40 votes (29.85%), which was not enough to keep him around for the General Election. Out of 229 STFians, 134 (or 58.52%) voted, showing that apathy isn't just a Western thing. We think we know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice.

While Colin Wyers' outburst in the election ship was certainly uncalled-for, he did bring up a very valid point. There are many members of this club who take STF way too seriously. Colin reminisced about a time where, on Prodigy, STF (and its sister club STC) had a friendly atmosphere, very much like a small town. It was true that everyone knew your name. It was a time when the president could read all the ships to keep tabs on things, a time when there was no "procedure" for anything; everyone knew the right and wrong ways to get things done. Sadly, STF has fallen victim to that which afflicts all large organizations: its size (you were expecting something else, maybe?). Impersonality has taken hold as STF has ballooned to 229 members in thirty-five sim areas in six fleets (or some number like that). The president can no longer read every ship; few FComms can read every ship in their fleet.

In one respect, though, STF is still the same: the desire for bureaucracy. For certain members of STF, there is some sort of need to create bureaucracy. These people want to create new departments and sub-departments and micromanagerial units that they can either operate all by themselves or hold jurisdiction over. For these people, simming is just a secondary thing, a way to stay in the club so they can continue managing things. These people must be involved in every project that's going on at every level of power. There are even people who create work for themselves: some people in STF feel the need -- the insatiable urge -- to create another bureaucratic level in STF that they can fill, ostensibly with themselves.

From a psychological perspective, this is quite interesting: why would people want to create mountains of work for themselves by creating these new bureaucratic levels? Why must these people propose issues every other week simply for the sake of proposing them? I have my own theory about this. I feel that it is the desire for legacy. There are some members who feel that, while STF on Prodigy was one thing, STF on the WeBB is entirely different in the respect that every member of STF-Prodigy was remembered simply because he was there; this is not true of the WeBB. And so, these people, in some sort of psychological conflict (most likely an unresolved "ego integrity vs. despair" issue in Erik Erikson lingo), feel that, in order for them to be remembered in STF the way others were (like your Jim Midyettes, your Mike Bourdaas, your Mike Ballways, or your Jerry Phelpses), they must attach their name to every project of any kind of significance in STF, in the hope that that project might become of historical to STF and that that person might be remembered for something -- anything.

Unfortunately, this is the here-and-now, and these people spread themselves very thin through STF. The wise man knows that a man who is an expert at everything is an expert at nothing. This person, then, ends up doing a little bit of work on a lot of projects (none of them of much historical importance) rather than doing a lot of work on one big project. Why does he do it? He's afraid -- terribly afraid -- of being forgotten after he leaves STF. Most likely, he’s insanely jealous (okay, maybe not insanely, but let’s drum up the drama here) of the other names that are associated with STF history the way people like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln are associated with United States history.

And so he becomes an STFaholic, not caring about simming, but caring instead about the governmental issues, the politics, the picayune things that may just get him that legacy he wants so much. This is how my theory ties in with what Colin is saying: people are so busy involving themselves with politics and the intricacies of STF’s operations that they’ve forgotten why they’re really here. STF was not designed so that people with ill-begotten dreams of ambition could fulfill those desires by creating "legacies"; it was not created so that people could become, essentially, managers in a convoluted corporate chain-of-command. STF was created so that people who like Star Trek could come and have a nice role-playing game (though in truth, it was started to combat Beverly Hills: 90210, which is the point of everything in Western civilization, anyway). The existence of managerial offices is a side-effect, not an end unto itself, and there are some members (these same people who nitpick at issues and take them too seriously) who don’t seem to want to sim: they want to manage. That’s fine and dandy, but the rest of us are here to act out our own fantasies, our fantasies of being on the starship Enterprise, our own fantasies of role-playing in a Star Trek universe, not a water-cooler one.

That’s why I liked Colin’s campaign slogan so much: "Remember when we used to be explorers?" That accurately summed up all the changes that occurred in STF once we went to the WeBB; we were no longer role-players who had managerial positions on the side. We were mangers who did role-playing on the side. We were so concerned with the operation of STF that we lost our sense of purpose. It doesn’t take a formalized mission statement that’s approved by seven levels of bureaucracy to tell us why we’re here: we want to have fun. At least, I do, and I get rather upset when I see people making their primary goal managing departments, managing projects, managing others so that they can realize their own delusions of grandeur. That’s not what I want. I want to role-play. I remember when STF was about role-playing, when it was about friendship and not petty political rivalry and in-fighting for the largest slice of the legacy pie. I remember when we used to be explorers.

Oh, the humanity!

Well, at least it's all over now. At this printing, the elections should be winding down to a close (if they haven't already) and life has returned to its semi-normal status, at least as normal as STF can get. We hope you enjoyed our Super-Humongous Election Edition, where we had to condense all the election stuff into one giant issue due to our own sloth (among other deadly sins of which we are guilty). We'd like your comments about this issue: was it good enough? Satirical enough? Too serious? Let us know by throwing a Molotov cocktail through our window on the 13th floor of SNN Center or just sending us an email. We're always willing to listen.

And speaking of Molotov cocktails, SNN Headline News would like to remind readers that no one can intimidate us away from our Journalistic Motto-elect of "Quick, Informative, Totally Biased Reporting" of STF Events. And if you try to intimidate us, we'll break your knees with a baseball bat.

Next week, come back for all the STF news you missed, including the revamping of the GM Department ("Huh?" you say. "The GM Department doing something?" Yes; it's real!). Also, learn about just who the new president of STF is and how his first speech went. We'll also have a chat with former president Nick "Pruneface" Lackie about his long eight months in office. And maybe, if we're lucky, we'll find Bob Hope and ask him how he's been. In any case, we'll return to normal (such as it is) and we hope that you'll be there to read what could very well be the most important issue of your life.