A Sitting With DanB17

By: Corin Rilax (Editor in Chief)

I had the opportunity to sit down with DanB17 and discuss a number of topics concerning the UCIP simming environment. I would like to first give you a brief summary of Dan's history with UCIP. He joined in mid February, 2001 serving as an Academy Instructor and course writer. In March of 2001 he joined his first simulation, the USS Anderson, where he served as Chief Helm for fourteen months before being called away by real life for more than four years. Returning to UCIP in January this year, Dan joined the CSS Melbourne then under the command of Third of Five as SubLieutenant Chakotay Cook. Following a massive exodus of the crew the Melbourne was left crippled with no leadership element.

Dan took a promotion as an acting captain and began to rebuild the shattered simulation. Currently he is leading the Melbourne as commanding officer and the simulation is flourishing with more than ten active crewmembers.

We first discussed the planned expansion of UCIP into the gamming arena. Dan had this to say about UCIP's expansion, "Personally, I think it's a good idea that UCIP wants to expand; however, the UCIP must be careful with this expansion... since it may be too much too quick."

As a former Academy instructor, I asked Dan what he thought of the currently diminished state of the Academy and how he would like to see the problem solved. He said, "I have one main solution that I have formulated in a letter that I sent to the C-in-C asking for command of the

Academy." I then asked him how both new and experienced simulationists could benefit from the Academy. His response was, "For new members, the academy can offer an indoctrination into the IC and OOC principles of the UCIP. The Academy also offered training simulations for experienced officers, and as a matter of fact... [we] used their performance as CO of one sim as a grading point for the gold star portion of the Command Course."

Toward the end of the interview I broached the subject of Trek Division. I asked Dan what his thoughts on the impact of Trek Division would be on his ship the Melbourne. As of right now, the Melbourne is assigned to the Alpha Quadrant Fleet. Meanwhile, I do not mind being assigned to this fleet, the one major thing that concerns me about this is the fact that the Melbourne [is] one of two IRC

simulations in that fleet. Of course, the Melbourne does have an edge as she is Multi-platform; however, the other four simulations are strictly E-Mail. This could harm the Melbourne somewhat as she would have to wait on the IC-Interaction between the other four [Email] simulations." Dan stated.

I gave Dan the chance to discuss any topic of importance to him at the end of the interview. Dan chose to discuss the lack of information that exists for new commanding officers, saying, "I've found that as a new CO in the fleet, that there are hardly any "resources" (save the command guide) for CO's and XO's of starships. What I would like in a resource package is a list of advisors, who to contact before using which species in a simulation, and an active list of all CO's and XO's. w