While we were introducing ourselves and getting to know each other, we also began to discuss different projects we'd like to tackle during Voiceteam. MouseK brought up the idea of recording a fic called Mission Log: REDACTED in the Starship Iris fandom. Somehow that evolved into an idea that maybe we could center our Superchallenge around this little fandom that most of us had never heard of, but many of us soon fell in love with. Then we worried we were narrowing our scope too much.

Then we had another idea.

Starship Iris season 1 episodes are all framed with an intro/outro that makes the whole episode into a report/record of something that has already happened, like evidence in a criminal case or a mission log detailing what has happened; similar to Star Trek episodes that start with a Captain’s log. These reports also reference other materials outside of the reports (files, content that had been deleted from the episode like a missing scene, audio logs, videos, other reports, etc).

Our new idea was to use a similar framing device and create new content (graphics, videos, fics, filk, podfics, etc) across multiple fandoms that could be contained and collected into one Archive like the Starship Iris’s IGR Archive. Our team mascot quickly became our archivist, but we were still not quite sure exactly how to go about actually creating our project.

Knowing that we needed to start getting things done and that we would need a central place to group all our creations, we decided that while just an AO3 collection would be easier and probably would suffice, a website would be more fun and allow us to create a more cohesive single fanwork for the challenge. So we started to build this site.

Along the way, the idea of a scripted intro/outro framing device got lost somewhere. I don't think any of us know where it went; we all just kinda stopped talking about it and this website itself became our framing device. All the little bits of information about our space bunnies scattered across the site, showing how and why they "collected" the fanworks found in our AO3 collection, became our unifying principle bringing all our separate works together into one fanwork.

We've had a lot of fun creating this website and all the little snippets of information. We know that it is unlikely to ever get much traffic outside of Voiceteam, but the joy we have taken in making it, in sharing our interests with each other and in collaborating together has made all the time and energy we've invested into it well worth it. We hope you enjoy it too.