It is that time of year again, when I post the crew roster for the USS Excalibur (and other ships) and explain how this blog got its name, why I have stardates in all the titles, and in general what it all means.
In 1989, my college roommate Cheryl Wimer and I were sitting around watching reruns of Star Trek: The Original Series (ST:TOS), and we started talking about what "our" ship would be like, if we existed in that alternate reality (yes, I really said reality). Before long, we were drawing up our crew roster, with friends as our crew. During our tenure at Virginia Tech, we updated the roster each year. My friend James Fitzgerald and I even wrote some "fan fiction" about our ship, which we placed in the time frame of ST:TOS. With my interest in fantasy, we decided to use the name Excalibur, which was actually a starship destroyed in a ST:TOS episode. We decided that we would be the new crew for the rebuilt ship.
Later, we decided to update the time frame to that of The Next Generation (ST:TNG), but we kept the name. Imagine our surprise when the Excalibur appeared in a TNG episode! So we have had to fudge the "official" history a little to make it line up with the "history" as we were currently writing it, but we kept the name and the ship the same.
After graduation I continued to update the crew roster, adding and deleting people as friends and friends' significant others came and went. The core crew has remained on the roster, however. I even attempted to roughly follow the US Navy's time frame on promotions (thanks to Major Denise Donnell, currently of the New York Air National Guard and formerly of the US Navy, for technical assistance). As command staff (line officers) have reached the rank of Captain, they have been given their own command. So where there was originally only one (the Excalibur), now there are several ships on the roster.
So here we are, 19 years after the first crew roster was created, and I am still updating them (some would say I am still wasting my time, but I have to put that creative writing minor to some use). So for those who are interested, here is where you can find the page with this information, the history of the ship, and the latest roster. I think a couple of people got promotions for 2009, I mean 2386.
Enjoy! Happy New Year! Peace and long life!
NYC
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