Happy 9th Bday + Site Updates + Sim Changes!

Posted on Sun Dec 7th, 2025 @ 4:24pm by Captain Nycolas Temple

Greetings Crew!

Happy Birthday!

It's now been 9 years since the USS Pandora first launched as a sim. As always, I am so incredibly thankful to all of the players who have joined our sim and those who continue to write with us here. It's hasn't always been an easy journey, but I think we've created some truly great role-play and told compelling, moving, funny, and exciting stories over the years.

As we move into a new year and a new chapter in the Pandora's history, I welcome you all to write as much as you like, to fully immerse yourself in the RP, and to have fun. That's what has kept us going through these 9 years - the enjoyment of writing our own Star Trek stories and creating our own adventures. Let's make 2026 an even better and bigger year for the Pandora.



Thank you everyone!

Site Updates

Over the past month, I have been a busy little CO making some big improvements to the Pandora's website. My goal is to make the role-playing experience as immersive, fun, and easy for us as possible. The changes I've made have been to bring some new concepts, looks, and life to our ship. I really hope you'll take the time to look around and see what's new as we delve into our next mission.

I think the most important change has been the updates to the Ship Tour pages - as part of the Pandora's interior refurbishment, we have a whole new look and feel inside of the ship. I've generated images that will help show how the reworked ship now appears. These images are meant to help create immersive role-play and give a suggestion of the world we're playing in now. I really wanted us to have a modern look in line with the more recent series of Star Trek, as we move into the next chapter of our sim.



List of Changes:
=/ 1 \= PADD Page: New look with updated imagery, easier navigation to all of the Role-play sections.
=/ 2 \= Ship Tour: All new interior images for every deck, updating our look for the refurbished Pandora. The new ship interior is sleek, futuristic, and a little bit sexy. I've updated everything from the Bridge, Crew Quarters, Sickbay, Engineering, down to the Shuttle Bay. You'll also find new additions to the tour with the Intelligence Department, Diplomatic offices, Research spaces, and new Crescent Cafe on the Recreation Deck.
=/ 3 \= Operations Guide: Everything you need to know about being an officer serving on the USS Pandora. Updated with a new crew count for each department.
=/ 4 \= Sim Rules: Minor grammar and language upgrades, addition of an "AI Rule" for writing
=/ 5 \= Deck Listing: Minor changes to Deck Listing descriptions, updated for refurbishment. No major changes to layout.

These update will hopefully make Roleplaying more immersive for you. If you have any suggestions or encounter any issues, please let me know.

Sim Changes:

In conjunction with updates to the site, I have also been making changes to the sim structure itself. As we embark on the new mission as the Rapid Response vessel, it has been important to streamline and clarify some positions to fit the new sim premise.

List of Changes:
=/ 1 \= Clarifying the Command structure, clarifying and reducing the amount of Senior Departments and Chief Officers.
The Command Team is the Commanding Officer, Executive Officer, and Second Officer. The Second Officer is not a stand-alone role and may also be a Chief Officer of a Senior Department.
The following are now the Senior Departments:
- Bridge/Helm
- Operations
- Security/Tactical
- Engineering
- Science
- Medical
- Diplomacy
- Intelligence

Only Senior Departments will have a Chief Officer role. The amount of Senior Departments (and therefore Chief Officers) may expand in future should we gain enough active members to fulfil those roles.
The Research Department with a Chief Research Officer may be added in as an addition to the team on a mission-by-mission basis.

=/ 2 \= Some departments that were formally a "main" department with a Chief Role, are now sub-departments under the new Senior Departments. For example:
- Communications is now under Engineering
- Counselling is now under Medical
- Tactical is now under the merged Security and Tactical
- Rapid Response Unit has been created and is under Intelligence
- Flight Control is now called "Helm" and is merged under Bridge & Helm.
- Starfighter Wing is now under Helm.
- Recreation Deck moves under Civilian Services, Civilian Services is now a department overseen by the XO, 2nd Officer, or Ops, depending on availability of players.

The Chiefs of the Senior Departments will oversee the sub-departments. It is possible for the Assistant Chief to also oversee a sub-department. For example, the Assistant Chief Medical Officer may oversee Counselling.

=/ 3 \= As per the site changes, we now have clarity on exactly how many crew members are in each Department.
Command: 10
Bridge / Helm: 40
Operations: 40
Medical: 40
Science: 40
Engineering: 40
Security: 40
Intelligence: 40
Diplomacy: 10
Civilian Services: 20
Research (Non-Permanent): 25

=/ 4 \= Rapid Response Unit
As part of the sim’s new mission, there is now a dedicated Rapid Response team which monitors Starfleet’s subspace emergency network. Instead of waiting to be alerted, we use our Sensor Pod to continually monitor the alerts in the Network Pod - an interactive visual display of the network that is constantly manned by an officer. The RR unit works in conjunction with Intelligence to determine which events require our immediate response and which requires further investigation.

=/ 5 \= The Diplomatic Department has been enhanced, with the role now taking a Senior Department position and additional resources added into it - with Diplomatic Staff, Consulate Staff, etc. This is a role that will be more active and interesting in future and will be used as part of our new missions, providing a new avenue for Role-play.

Janet, aka Lt. Kaleri, is taking on the new role as Chief Diplomatic Officer. Her role will be pivotal in the next mission and moving towards.

=/ 6 \= The Valkyrie Starfighter Department will remain in the available positions list, in case we get an active player who wishes to hold the role, however the Starfighters for now will not be used on the Pandora.

=/ 7 \= Recreation Deck: the "Crescent Shopping Promenade" has been removed as it wasn’t used very much. There is a new "Crescent Coffee Cafe" now available. This is more of a daytime eatery, a casual little lounge for crew to enjoy a coffee, lunch, etc. In addition, the space previously occupied by the shopping promenade now includes expanded Holodecks, Training Rooms, and Education Centre for our young passengers.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.

Looking Forward to 2026

Thank you all for your writing and role-play throughout the year. I hope everyone enjoys the changes to the sim and we burst into the new year with new stories and fun.


There may be more updates a changes to come, so stay tuned!
Cheers,
AJ
Aka Temple

 

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