Welcome to the Community - We're Now Recruiting for all Open Roles!
Space, the final frontier
... of the starship Ahwatukee, the latest Galaxy-class explorer-type starship constructed at Earth Station McKinley. In the service of the United Federation of Planets (UFoP), ship and crew are charged with advancing Starfleet's mandate of peacefully exploring the unknown boundaries of space and uncovering the wonders of the galaxy through scientific discovery. However, the ship's dynamic capabilities go far beyond scientific expeditions, with its versatile mission profile charging the crew with rendering humanitarian aid, serving in a diplomatic role, and much more.
Newly constructed, last year saw the Ahwatukee undergo its shakedown cruise to test the ship's state-of-the-art systems and advanced technologies successfully. Now returned to Starbase 1 in Earth's orbit, the ship inherits a new command staff to prepare the Ahwatukee for its first five-year mission. New though they are to the ship, the Ahwatukee's senior staff comprises Starfleet's best and brightest. It is an honor to serve on Starfleet's flagship class of starship and even more so to fulfill the Starfleet oath to explore strange, new worlds and seek out new life and civilizations...
To boldly go where no one has gone before!
First, we want to welcome you to our community - we are thrilled you found us! You are undoubtedly curious about who we are and our purpose.
The USS Ahwatukee (pronounced aa·wuh·too·kee), affectionately known as the 'Tukee" (too·kee), is a collaborative writing club in the Star Trek Prime universe of 2371. Our club was founded in September of 2023 and comprises writers, known as players, who compose short stories together. These stories, called scenes, are witnessed through the perspective of the ship's senior staff. The richness of these experiences is achieved through character development, episodic plot progression, and world-building, to which every writer contributes. In short, we are a group of storytellers who share a love of writing and Star Trek!
Does this mean you must have a deep and intimate knowledge of Star Trek, its many television series, movies, books, comics, and other lore? Not in the slightest! Although it does help, if you have a fundamental understanding of collaboration, a desire to learn, and a passion for creating dynamic characters, you will do more than well.
How do we accomplish writing collaboratively with players from around the globe? There are many platforms contemporary role-playing games (RPGs) use, some of which you may be familiar with, such as the traditional play-by-email (PBeM), message boards and forums, live-action, and even specialty software like SMS and Nova. All these channels have merits and challenges, and while no one system is better or worse than others, it all comes down to personal preference.
For our club, we use the Google ecosystem. But why? Google is universally known, easy to use, and free. There are versatility and accessibility factors to consider, too. For example, this website was easy to create/maintain and is accessible across devices. Getting started is as easy as creating a new Google account and joining the community. Do not worry if you are not accustomed to this role-play method - we will help!
The apps we use include, but are not limited to, the following:
We use Gmail to formally communicate important community announcements, events, and initiatives!
The Drive is where all of the storytelling takes place! Docs for writing, Sheets for RPG database management, and more!
Discord is used for out-of-character (OOC) communication between writers - where we go to be social!