Catching up on Captain's Log

ElizabethB · Post by **ElizabethB** » Sun Feb 22, 2015 6:42 am

I have most of them up to 22, and will be filling those gaps in eventually, but I am wondering which ones to get first past that point.

My understanding is that 49 has Andromedan Invasion stuff and 33 has Juggernaut beta. What else is good to start with? Which one had the Seltorian Battlewagon fighting Juggernaut Primus etc?

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Sun Feb 22, 2015 6:19 pm

I don't recall a fiction story of a Juggernaut fighting Seltorians, but maybe there is an SFB scenario that I've forgotten.

For me it's always about the fiction with Captain's Log, especially when it's the primary "tv" empires.

Stories like "The Magnificent Panzers" in CapLog #37 (two Fed frigates deftly avoid destruction by a Romulan fleet) and "For Duty, All Things" (a lone Vulcan Star Fleet officer tries to sabotage his own ship, which has been captured) in #46 were especially good.

ElizabethB · Post by **ElizabethB** » Sun Feb 22, 2015 8:19 pm

The Seltorian story is called "Fire in the Deep" and is in Captain's Log #41.

There's some question whether the entities the Seltorians fought were actually juggernauts, since the encounters are presented as a simulator scenario.

Thank you for the recommendations.

Nerroth · Post by **Nerroth** » Sun Feb 22, 2015 11:36 pm

If your primary interest is in the story and/or background material, one file I might recommend is Away Team Log. It includes a fairly useful cross-section of what material one might expect to find as you delve further into more recent issues of Captain's Log. A list of the various articles in it is shown in this preview PDF.

Most of the entries should be the same length as their Captain's Log originals. But I have been led to believe that ATL's A Call to Battle piece is a condensed version of the original A Call to Arms lead fiction story from CL44. (Both cover the events in and around Day One, the initial Klingon invasion of the Federation in Y171.)

Also, there has been talk on the BBS and elsewhere of an in-progress SFU history file, which looks like it might be very interesting indeed. However, reports have it at least a year away, not least since most of the post-Unity history in the Alpha Octant won't be published until the release of SFB Module X2.

Plus, it looks like the "golden edition" of Captain's Log should be one to watch - not least with Day of the Dragon, CL50's headline fiction piece, set to take a look at the Gorn entry into the General War.

ElizabethB · Post by **ElizabethB** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 10:20 am

Thanks.

I just found out that CL#28 was Stellar Shadows Journal #2, so that's something to check out too.

And yeah, fiction is an important part of every Captain's Log for me.

CarlZog · Post by **CarlZog** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 12:52 pm

Dale McKee's "Return of the Hood" in CL25 is one of my favorite pieces of fiction. Never played the scenario though.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Mon Feb 23, 2015 8:44 pm

Anything John Sickels writes tends to be gold. He's easily one of the SFU's best writers.

SVC (the boss) writes some pretty darn good fiction too, which is funny because he complains a lot when it falls to him to write something to fill a hole in the production pipeline.

ElizabethB · Post by **ElizabethB** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 3:00 am

Yeah, I've come across several of Steve Cole's comments about having to write the fiction last minute. Can't really say I blame him.

Thanks for the tip on Dale McKee's Return of the Hood and John Sickels' work in general.

Post by **Steve Cole** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 5:02 pm

There are two kinds of my fiction: inspired and directed.

Inspired I just sit down and let the story in my gut appear on the screen.

Directed... yetch, please don't make me do a story when I don't have one. I spend weeks flopping around in a wasteland looking for a hook.

The CL50 story took months to find the path and then a week to write. It wasn't the story anybody including me expected me to write. It's very political, lots of spies and "influence" and politicians seeking national goals that just happen to further their own careers.

djdood · Post by **djdood** » Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:51 pm

I'm looking forward to the CL#50 fiction, as we haven't seen a whole lot of stories from the Gorn point of view.

My favorite SFU fiction piece of all time is John Sickels' "The Razor's Edge", in Captain's Log #20. He did a great job of creating some compelling characters with lots of hints at deeper back-story, and a cool approach to the "threat" (all the fiction in that issue were inspired by the cover art).

ElizabethB · Post by **ElizabethB** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 1:27 am

I've been paging through the discus forum's fiction writing advice archives etc. and writing fiction for SFU does seem a bit daunting - esp. talk about trying to make the stories workable in the game (which is a good thing). It's also very tempting to give it a go.

Steve, I hear you about needing inspiration to get anywhere. I once spent months trying to come up with a thing, and once I did it was a 10,000 word story in under a day.

Will, Thanks for the rec - I am working through the fiction in my available Captain's Logs, but I do have 20 already. Will check it out when I have a moment to read something.

Scoutdad · Post by **Scoutdad** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 5:03 pm

If its the fiction you are interested in, then you really should check out ADB's 'book': For the Glory of the Empire.

For the Glory of the Empire

It's a collection of several pieces of Klingon fiction from the various Captain's Logs.

ElizabethB · Post by **ElizabethB** » Wed Feb 25, 2015 8:21 pm

Excellent.

It's not just fiction but it's a good guidepost for where to start.

CarlZog · Post by **CarlZog** » Thu Feb 26, 2015 1:52 pm

In terms of deciding which CL's to buy next, I highly recommend downloading the most recently updated Index to the Captain's Logs (#18-49), which provides ALL the article titles for all the listed Logs. It's a great way of easily assessing which topics may interest you enough to pick up that issue.

(I can't seem to get the url code to work, but the link to the pdf index is availble on ADB's Captain's Log page of the website.

Nerroth · Post by **Nerroth** » Thu Feb 26, 2015 5:47 pm

Here it is. (The PDF is posted to this page.)