Hello Everyone!

My first ever blog and I couldn't have chosen a better place if I had tried.

In exactly three days it will be my 4th anniversary with Star Trek Freedom. Since my joining I have served on The Nimitz, Mystique, Hades, Boudicca, Champlain and the Rosenante. I have had the fortune to be able to learn a great deal from quite a few very talented writers and Story Tellers.

I have expanded my writing abilities and have learned the finer points of cooperative writing through the skill and mentoring of all the officers under whose command I have flourished. To you all I say thank you.

I have managed to reach the position of CO aboard the Rosenante, after serving as Chief Engineer aboard the Nimitz under Al and then later as First officer under Liz aboard both the Champlain and the Rosenante. I have made friends from all over the world and have learned things about myself and others through this experience.

My geek skills (where Trek is concerned) have matured under the guidance of both Wes and Charles, while my story telling skills have come of age as a result of reading the amazing posts contributed by a great many players; among them Sheila, Russ, Lorna and Lori.

I invite you all to share your experiences with Star Trek Freedom on the Blog. Tell us about your favorite characters, about the people who have mentored you, or the great leaps that you have made during your time with us here.

I know that after four years I don't have any plans to ever leave Freedom, which is amazing when you consider that I had never tried my hand at cooperative writing or PBEM before joining this community.

Now look at me, the Wiki is not safe from me, and I still post like a mad man.

I'd love to hear about your experiences with the site.

Daniel Greene

Captain Ahmed Ibn Salid
CO, USS Rosenante
www.startrekfreedom.com

Help me understand, so you've found a good game you want to play and then you spend time applying, filling out the form, carefully crafting your character, send it in... but... but... you do one of the following:

1) Put a dead email address so we can't get back to you
2) Make a joke application, such as Cadet Chikotay, Weed Man or Zeus (real examples) ...?

Or

3) Fill out a poll on the front page of the site, that says, No I am not a member but want to be and not send in an application form? Why? What was the point of that?

Thank goodness for excellent applications such as Lisa Lubman recently and her excellent character Andrea Jane Kelley, a real diamond from the rough.

I have 2696 applications since 2003 and so many are wasted attempts and a real shame... here's to the next application that comes in and hopefully it makes my days, one way or another!

After more than ten years I'm 'retiring' my long-time PC, Susan Rivers.

Why?

Well, Susan and I have come a long way, from the Academy right through to command. She's served on the USS Nimitz (three times!), USS Spectre, USS Athene, USS Boudicca (3 times!), USS Champlain and USS Rosenante. She's been the FO of four of those ships (USS Spectre, USS Athene, USS Nimitz and USS Boudicca), the CO of four (USS Boudicca, USS Nimitz, USS Champlain and USS Rosenante), and the first CO of two of them (USS Boudicca and USS Rosenante).

Along the way we've had many adventures together, several love affaires, and made many friends. She's clashed with enemies and Admirals with equal spirit and evolved as a character in ways I never envisaged when I first 'met' her as a raw cadet in the Academy.

But for now, I think I have taken her as far as I can. And it's time we had a rest from one another. So I look forward to getting to know my new character, Lydia Stakes. It feels a little strange, and I don't always know how Lydia will react to situations in the way that I know how Susan would react, but it's exciting to have a new challenge in my writing !

So, we've started the award program again for anyone with a site who wants to apply, the idea is that we want sites to apply so we can give them a short review and a rating out of 5, hand them our award for them to place on their sites.

They get an award and some feedback and we get the site in question to link back to us with our award.

There used to be quite a few sites giving our awards, but not so much these days.

Anyone getting an award, will get a link as well from our award winners page (as soon as I make one and we get a few awards done).

I updated the front page with a new quick links menu and removed the videos, I will place them somewhere else, probably on the introduction page.