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Captain's Log

September 2022

The Brindley has safely completed its mission of delivering the grain shipment to Desra and now its crew of 3; Michael Lewis, Tirza Webb, and Persephone are slowly making their way to a rendezvous with the Axel at Oka. Meanwhile the Axel has received a thorough once over by both its own engineers and specialists from Oka to determine if its still safe to operate.

In the mirror universe Dictator Lakim Saras has assembled a small team to try to get their Axel back after it was switched with the one from our universe. They transported over while much of Axel's crew was asleep or away and stormed the Axel. They breached the cargo bay when Xin went to take an evening walk. She was shot just inside the door and the group of Gatrubbians and the mirror counterpart of Toraith were in.

Quidano woke unexpectedly with thoughts of Xin and their badly resolved relationship. He didn't know why but things felt off. He soon rallied the remaining crew aboard and they went down to the cargo bay at the first sound of weapons fire. The group descended using the lifts on both sides of the bay. Toraith teamed with Malot as she was about to put her new weapons training to the test.

Kivul was returning to the Axel for the first time since they left for Retetna at the same time as the attack and was surprised by the waiting rear guard of the mirror universe strike team. Shoot outs occurred both inside and outside the ship. Kivul had escaped the hangar but only long enough to gather herself and come back again to aid the Axel team. During a second exchange between herself and one of the Gatrubbian fighters, Bresa returned from his day in Oka and encountered a human who was responding to the scene of the attack. The trio (mostly Kivul) took out the enemy then proceeded into the hangar together.

In the Axel's cargo bay, Quidano, Targa, Malot, and Toraith faced the boarding team including Dayla Silva, Mirror Toraith, the Cardassian Radek, and a small 3 others. The sight of a second Toraith surprised everyone. The two Toraiths exchanged words and went after one another. May the best Gorn win!

Behind the Scenes

The Axel group is lucky to have David back to write with us again. The timing couldn't have been better and it has been great for the plot. I had discussions with both Michelle and Richard and they have both expressed that they don't have the time to write with us. We came to the conclusion that we would have to write their characters out...at least for now. I would gladly welcome either player back just as soon as they are able.

July 2022

The crew have returned to Oka with the mirror variant of the Axel. There are still questions regarding exactly where the ship came from and those are set to be answered, or hopefully answered in Oka. Malot has managed a workaround to allow the Axel to be flown, but there may be more to worry about within the ship's computer system. Passwords, trap doors, etc: Can the crew adapt to the new ship or will they even have to?

En route to Oka, Malot has asked for combat training from Toraith and Targa. Toraith's method was to encourage the holographic crewmember to experience pain, presumably to teach her the importance of protecting the organic form. It's actually gone pretty well. Targa, the ship's engineer, has expressed concern over why the hologram would want weapon's training at all. It seems she is concerned with her safety in Oka...but why?

Meanwhile the Brindley has been shadowed by an unknown vessel while making the final leg to Desra. Tirza had feared that it was her former employer's ship and that he'd be after her. Rebar talked her out of that worry. Persephone managed to interface with the Brindley's systems and help the crew play cat and mouse with their pursuers. When the other ship finally revealed itself, the Retetna on board were surprised to find that it was a Desran escort craft sent to make sure that the Rimpali shipment made it safely to their planet. Rebar has suspicions that everything is still not right between the Retetna and the Destrans, but since the Axel-Brindley is a ship for hire it's not really their problem.

Behind the Scenes

We managed to achieve a couple of important points of our plot this month. Doug and Kevin's idea to begin training Malot was a unique concept that played very well and was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to the next phase of the story. Thanks writers for your participation.

March 2022

The Axel crew have continued to discover multiple changes to the Axel, so much so that it now seems that they aren't on their Axel at all but on some alternate version of itself. This makes more sense than the entire vessel morphing all around them without them getting killed in the process! As each group of crewmembers discover something new, they discover that they are locked out of much of the ship's memory and only have basic functional control of the vessel. Moreover, they discover that their ship is no longer compatible with their other component vessel, the Brindley. As the crew attempt to gain control of the Axel, Rebar and Tirza return to the Brindley and head for Desra with the cargo of Rimpali.

Behind the Scenes

Many players came together in pretty amazing ways in March to give the group one of our bigger post counts in recent months. There was a lot of discussion surrounding what the Mirror Universe should look like and what characters we wanted to recreate. Doug's idea to carry the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance from it's many appearances in DS9 canon. Michelle and AM expressed some interest in playing their characters in the Mirror Universe as did Doug, himself. And some backstory was proposed, but not completely settled on.

Interesting? Maybe...

The new Axel Schematics are the complete basis of our current plotline, since we were looking for a way to change the ship instantly in a manner that was more interesting than having the ship redesigned by the crew for no reason! The changes fix some scaling issues in the previous version of the schematics and section the ship off in a much more logical way (My personal opinion). But while the ship itself may be technically better, the plot creates problems that the crew will need to overcome either immediately or in the future. All in all, it's inspiration for further plot development.

February 2022

The SS Axel and its crew overcame the Skullship and its raiders after a surprise attack from the Brindley tore into the Skullship wiping out its engines and a large portion of its tactical assets. The team aboard the Klimpton made it safely back to the Axel with some injuries, but these were easily treated by Bert, the ship's Gorn designed Medbot. The Brindley managed to recover an escape pod that had launched from the Skullship. It's occupant, Aloeva, a Barzan woman, had been a prisoner aboard the enemy vessel. Captain Voci made a deal with the Skullship's captain. He allowed them to go free with the captured Klimpton as long as they turned over the stolen shipment of Rimpali. This was semi-satisfactory to Administrator Efellel, as he still maintained massive concerns regarding the safety of future shipments. Captain Voci assured him that the Gatrubbians would make security passes through the sector and pass on concerns to Starfleet.

With the Rimpali safely stored inside the Brindley's massive containers, the crew sat down to reorganize and plan for the remainder of the trip to Desra. Unfortunately just as they did so, the Axel encountered an unknown Ionic anomaly. It wrapped around the Axel and the ship's crew suddenly found themselves on a very altered version of their ship. Separated and confused the crew made attempts to reconnect and wrap their minds around their new circumstances. Individual consoles, whole rooms, the ship's medbot, and even the holographic AI member were different. Only the flesh and blood PEOPLE seemed unaffected. It was the beginning of a mystery.

Behind the Scenes

Axel's writers overcame their writer's block and closed a long running plot. Or...almost closed it anyway. Let's just say we took a hard left turn and headed in a new direction. This allowed us to achieve 60+ posts this month.

We welcome long-time Borderlands member Mickie Fowler to our group. With this new talented writer and new ideas we are poised to blow our post count out of the water in the month of March!

Additionally, the Axel Website was given a minor facelift with some new background banners, new ship schematics, and a couple new character bios. All in all February 2022 was reenergizing! Thanks Axellers for your efforts this month!

Player Spotlight

Doug has been a member of SS Axel since January 2016. Doug is always imaginative and he frequently brings a levity to our writing and often takes us in unexpected directions. He has come a long way in his writing skill and in his ability to cope with plot changes and imposed limitations. Doug stayed with us when many other people left. When things were quiet and posting had all but stopped, I could always count on Doug to be there when we started moving again. So here's a round of well deserved applause for Doug, who's been here through thick and thin. Thanks, Doug!

January 2022

The SS Axel continues to fight against the Skullship which has locked onto the SS Klimpton. After killing members of the Klimpton’s crew, the raiders from the Skullship have met resistance in the form of Toraith, Judzell, and Xin from the Axel. The Axel’s second component, the Brindley, exited with Retet Administrator Efellel aboard. The Skull Ship was well armed and powerful, easily repelling weapon’s fire from the Axel while trying to escape with the entrapped Klimpton.

Kemak and Tirza got into some kanar down in the Axel’s cargo bay and had…maybe…a little too much! The duo were called into action, while both were barely able to stand. Getting to the Medbay Tirza was able to get something to counteract the kanar, unfortunately Kemak did not.

Behind the Scenes

Axel’s players are now in their third month of slow posting following October’s high. Thankfully, we have all been respectful of each other’s personal lives and the holidays. It’s been a bit difficult to put together a coherent story, but we’re trying and that’s what really counts.

I just want to call out Karen and AM for having a little fun with their characters and getting them goofy on kanar. Thanks for that!