Dammit, I'm a simile not a pun!
CIVILIAN LIFE:
Q1. Name: Becca
Q2. How did you find out about Elite of the Fleet?
I saw the ad on kirk_mccoy.
Q3. When did you first become interested in Star Trek?
I’ve always been aware of Star Trek since my parents are into Trek, but I started to get really into it on my own around 3 years ago when SpikeTV air either DS9 or Voyager every day. After that I was still on the 'down low' about the depths of my love for Trek until the JJ Abrams movie came out and I felt like I could express my geek love to the fullest.
Q4. Why have you decided to join Elite of the Fleet?
I’m a newbie to LJ and really being active in a fandom and I think that I can really start to branch out through Elite of the Fleet. I want to meet people from around the world that share my passion and interest in Trek and make new friends.
Q5. Who is your favourite Star Trek character?
My favorite character is the original doctor, Doctor McCoy (both Prime and nu!) I just love how the character doesn't take any crap from anyone, period. He's gruff and more than a little mean, but you can see the sheer bounty of love he has for his crew, even if they do seem to enjoy getting injured more than he would like.
Q6. And the least?
Kes just really bothered me throughout her time on Voyager, she just struck me as this pointless, self-insert character that serves no real role in the story whatsoever. She's prefectly nice and isn't horribly written, but I just have this thing about characters that seem to lack purpose in the overall story and just seem to be along for the ride. I want my characters to advance the story, not just act as moving, talking scenery. I just got frustrated with her lack of involvement with the overall story and her character's general uselessness
Q7. Which television (or film) series is your favorite?
While DS9 will always hold a special place in my heart as the show that really brought me into the fandom. My favorite show is Voyager. It's not the most popular show in Star Trek, but the way that the crew formed such a tight knit family and seemed to persevere under such dire circumstances has endeared them greatly to me. They are completely alone, but they don't give up and wait to die, or settle on some habitable planet they find along the way. They work and fight their way across the Delta quadrant back home. Also the sheer number of smart females characters present in this show totally trumps those found in the other Star Treks and are among my favorite scifi females ever.
________________________________
STARFLEET LIFE:
Q8. What do you hope to gain from your service in Starfleet? Part of being in Starfleet is excersizing you limits and and learning about new ways of life. Being able to explore beyond the limits of current knowledge is something that has always fascinated me and is the main reason I love to travel and learn so much. I want to see new world and gain not only a new insight to the universe, but to myself and my place in the expanse of the universe.
Q9. Is there any occupation in Starfleet you feel you would be particularly unsuited for? Being a doctor, mostly from the other people bleeding part of being a doctor. I tend to get extremely queasy around anyone else's blood, but I can be bleeding out of a gash on my arm and not even be bothered in the slightest. I just get this weird sympathetic reaction to seeing others in physical pain, it freaks me out.
Q10. The four current Academic Tracks at the Academy are Tactics, Operations, Exploratory Sciences and Medical Sciences. Describe how you could be an asset to each of these departments.
Tactical: I am the navigator in my family in that I seem to be the only one with a sense of direction. Many a road trip I have been responsible for not getting the family lost and following the course set out by either the trailmap or roadmap.
Operations: In my high school theater department I was the house manager for the theater department which was almost entirely a job of organization and public relation. I knew I was doing my best when my work at keeping the concessions and tickets line running smoothly went unnoticed by the audience. If I wasn't keeping myself and my group organized, everything went to hell in a hand basket faster that you can say 'warp speed'. This attention to detail and keeping people and events organized is a talent that lends itself greatly to the operations field and how those within the field essentially keep the Admiralty off the captain's back and the ship from randomly blowing up. Like me, they're doing their job best when you don't notice their work or nothing is going wrong.
Exploratory Sciences: I love science because of how it explains the universe. Numbers and measurements are universal, they describe the universe in a way the extends beyond the barriers of language and culture. Science and math are these universal things that are definite and certain. My passion for science drives my to do my best and excel in the scientific process.
Medical: I like to be the sounding board for my friends and give them advice on their problems or just let them vent, because sometimes you just want to complain about your life to complain. I just really like to work with and help people overall, and to me one of the driving motivations within the medical community would be that need to help people.
Q11. What are your top five strengths?
01.Stubbornness. Some would cite this as a short coming and at times it is, but on a hold being stubborn is standing by your beliefs and not giving up just because it got difficult. I stand up for my ideas until someone can present me with a valid argument. Stubbornness to me isn't being difficult, but being strong and having faith in yourself.
02. Attention to Detail. I'm a very detail oriented person, and as they say "the devil's in the details". If you focus to much on the big picture, you get caught up and can miss something that seems insignificant but ends up being extremely pivotal.
03. Sense of Humor. Being able to laugh at yourself or at the absurdity of a situation can be the only thing that keeps you sane during rough times. Also having a good sense of humor makes bonding with my friends and workmates easier.
04. Open-Mindedness. While this seems to conflict with no. 1, I think it complements it. How can I defend my opinions if I don't let other express theirs. Just because they disagree with me doesn't make me automatically right and the other person automatically wrong. Being open to new ideas makes you a more well rounded person and allows you to better define how you see the world by evaluating your world view with the views of others.
05. Clever.There's being smart and then there's knowing how to apply that knowledge to the situation. I'd like to think that I have that ability to take what I know and apply that to a situation that may be totally different from the original source of the information. I use my cleverness to work my best and create the best examples of my knowledge through my work.
Q12. What are your top five weaknesses?
01. My Temper. When I get tired, stress or overwhelmed, I tend to get more than a little bit snippy at people who really don't deserve any of my anger. I'm really working to keep myself from lashing out when I'm aware of my being stressed or tired or overwhelmed because people you're being snippy to generally don't like to help you out.
02. Procrastination. I tend to leave off what is due next week for what is due tomorrow, which just creates stress for myself when the project I've had for a week and haven't started is due the next day and I have to finish a week's-worth of work in a day.
03. Perfectionist. This is a weakness mainly because of the previous weakness. Because I'm such procrastinator, I don't start until the last minute and then it HAS to be perfect which just continues to complicate my project and increase my stress level.
04. Unfit. I'm really out of shape (the only reason i can climb stairs at the speed I due is because my school has four stories and my classes are spread out between floors). This is really dangerous for someone who would be out in the feild since I cannot move as quickly as the group and could put others in danger from my own physical weakness.
05. Easily Frustrated. When things don't really work for me the first or second time I attempt them, I begin to get frustrated with either the task or myself. I've found that the more frustrated I get over time, the lower the quality of the resulting work.
Q13. What is your biggest fear? Falling, not heights overall but falling. I’m fine inside tall buildings or on an airplane, but I don’t like going in glass elevators, buildings with ceiling to floor windows or anything that involves harnesses and ropes. It’s extremely frustrating because it’s a completely irrational fear and has prevented me from having some really incredible experiences in my life because I freeze up and start crying and overall not pretty-pretty fun-fun things.
Q14. Do you consider yourself to be a leader, or a follower? In small groups I’d rather lead than follow, especially if the group seems to lack direction, however public speaking to large groups of people tend to make my stomach attempt gymnastics, so in larger groups I’d rather be a follower.
Q15. What do you admire the most in your peers? Their loyalty and support of one another. It’s easier to take credit for yourself and work alone than to work with others who are at different levels of proficiency or that have different talents than you might. But to be able to function so well as individuals and as a group, to always be available to friends for help or support is something that I find extremely gratifying to do and remarkable to see in action.
Q16. You are stranded on a Class M planet that has not been mapped by The Federation. You are only allowed to choose two of the following items to keep with you: a phaser, a tricorder or a communicator. Which two would you choose to have? The tricorder and communicator. A phaser has pretty much one purpose, destruction, and can’t really be used to help a person survive. A tricorder has multiple purposes and can be used to find food, detect oncoming weather and other information that could be vital to survival on an alien planet. The communicator can be used or altered to reestablish contact with my ship and either allows for transport or give directions to my location for rescue. In the wilds you need to be concerned with survival and rescue not attacking other things.
Q17. Please describe your understanding of the Federation’s Prime Directive. The Prime Directive is in place to protect the Federation from itself and to promote the diversity of the universe. Arthur C. Clark said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.", and in that 'magic' lies the seeds of power, and even the presence of divinity to those who don't understand how the tech works. Power is extremely tempting and unimaginably corrupting. If the Prime Directive didn't hold us back from spreading our technologies then I believe we would become corrupted by that power and terrible things would occur. As to not interfering with the internal affairs of planets within and without the Federation, each culture on each plant developed independent of the others and has unique cultural and societal norms. Out of respect, it is essential to the stability and diversity of the Federation to respect the sovereignty of each planet and culture, as we hope they would as well.
Q18. The United Federation of Planets includes more than 150 member planets, and the galaxy has many more besides. Which planet do you most want to visit? Traveling is always been a passion of mine, so the chance to visit any alien world would be beyond amazing in itself. But if I had to choose just one, I'd want to visit Betazed, it sounds and appears to be so beautiful there and just looks like an amazing place to visit.
________________________________
KOBAYASHI MARU:
The following questions describe situations you may commonly find yourself in as a member of Starfleet. You will be read the scenario, and then given two options to choose from. You may expand upon the reasons for your choice, but you must indicate one of the two that you feel best describes your likely response to the situation provided.
Q19. Service in the Fleet can be draining at the best of times, and on one particular day everything seems to have gone wrong. You’re exhausted, but your shift is finally over and it’s time to unwind. Your roommate is already on their bed when you get back to your quarters. Do you:
a. Settle in for a lengthy chat with them - you’d really like to vent about your day and you’d quite like to hear about theirs too. It’s a bit of a ritual by this point anyway. Maybe you’ll even head out to the Rec Hall together to unwind over a card game with the others.
At first I was going to go with the second option, until I realized that I prefer to vent about my bad day than go off on my own to stew. When I have the chance to vent to a safe person, it lets me get out the anger and frustration and prevents me from getting overly stress about the situation. Also I love to gossip or share frustrations with my friends as a way of bond together at the end of a hard school day. Just being apart of a group of people I enjoy spending time with can make the yuckiest day a good one.
Q20. You’ve intercepted what sounds like a pretty important transmission - you feel like the Captain needs to know. When you report, do you:
a. Give them all the facts: what it said, what the voice sounded like, where the inflection was, the language it was in, and so on. Details and facts are the important part, everything else is subjective.
As a crew member it isn't my job to judge the situation or put my own impressions into my reports. My job is to give the captain the most unbiased, accurate account of the transmission so that the captain can make a well informed decision without any of my opinions or personal beliefs affecting or altering his/her decision.
Q21. There are many decisions to be made in Starfleet, and some are harder than others. Faced with a decision where things could go wrong in any number of ways, do you:
a. Stay impersonal and objective. Weigh up the pros and cons, think out all the possibilities, and focus on the basic truths. A careful analysis of the situation will reveal the best possible choice, even though some may not approve of it.
The best decisions I've made in my life are the one's where I've stood back and considered the problem logically, without relying on emotion and just looking at the facts. Sometimes moral issues really do come down to the numbers, as hard of a fact as that may be, and must be considered in practical, rather than emotional terms.
Q22. The day-to-day life of Starfleet can be quite arduous at times, and quite exciting at others. Everyone has their own way of approaching everyday work, but would others see your approach as:
b. Flexible and spontaneous. Others think you prefer to adapt to the world around you rather than organise it. You seem to be more comfortable staying open to information and experiences rather than making decisions immediately. You appear fairly casual, working in bursts and motivated by deadlines.
I'm not a very organized person in general, sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not. I try to have an idea of what I'd do if certain incident occur, but I find that if I try to stick to a plan, everything tend to go not the way I intend it to go. Being flexible allows for the ability to change you mind or to accommodate an unforeseen problems. I also don't really tend to stick to a schedule beyond my class schedule, working on what ever interests me at the time rather than working through a to-do list.
Q23. You can earn 5 points for your future Track by promoting the community in your Journal. Please link the post here if you wish to do so:
Q1. Name: Becca
Q2. How did you find out about Elite of the Fleet?
I saw the ad on kirk_mccoy.
Q3. When did you first become interested in Star Trek?
I’ve always been aware of Star Trek since my parents are into Trek, but I started to get really into it on my own around 3 years ago when SpikeTV air either DS9 or Voyager every day. After that I was still on the 'down low' about the depths of my love for Trek until the JJ Abrams movie came out and I felt like I could express my geek love to the fullest.
Q4. Why have you decided to join Elite of the Fleet?
I’m a newbie to LJ and really being active in a fandom and I think that I can really start to branch out through Elite of the Fleet. I want to meet people from around the world that share my passion and interest in Trek and make new friends.
Q5. Who is your favourite Star Trek character?
My favorite character is the original doctor, Doctor McCoy (both Prime and nu!) I just love how the character doesn't take any crap from anyone, period. He's gruff and more than a little mean, but you can see the sheer bounty of love he has for his crew, even if they do seem to enjoy getting injured more than he would like.
Q6. And the least?
Kes just really bothered me throughout her time on Voyager, she just struck me as this pointless, self-insert character that serves no real role in the story whatsoever. She's prefectly nice and isn't horribly written, but I just have this thing about characters that seem to lack purpose in the overall story and just seem to be along for the ride. I want my characters to advance the story, not just act as moving, talking scenery. I just got frustrated with her lack of involvement with the overall story and her character's general uselessness
Q7. Which television (or film) series is your favorite?
While DS9 will always hold a special place in my heart as the show that really brought me into the fandom. My favorite show is Voyager. It's not the most popular show in Star Trek, but the way that the crew formed such a tight knit family and seemed to persevere under such dire circumstances has endeared them greatly to me. They are completely alone, but they don't give up and wait to die, or settle on some habitable planet they find along the way. They work and fight their way across the Delta quadrant back home. Also the sheer number of smart females characters present in this show totally trumps those found in the other Star Treks and are among my favorite scifi females ever.
________________________________
STARFLEET LIFE:
Q8. What do you hope to gain from your service in Starfleet? Part of being in Starfleet is excersizing you limits and and learning about new ways of life. Being able to explore beyond the limits of current knowledge is something that has always fascinated me and is the main reason I love to travel and learn so much. I want to see new world and gain not only a new insight to the universe, but to myself and my place in the expanse of the universe.
Q9. Is there any occupation in Starfleet you feel you would be particularly unsuited for? Being a doctor, mostly from the other people bleeding part of being a doctor. I tend to get extremely queasy around anyone else's blood, but I can be bleeding out of a gash on my arm and not even be bothered in the slightest. I just get this weird sympathetic reaction to seeing others in physical pain, it freaks me out.
Q10. The four current Academic Tracks at the Academy are Tactics, Operations, Exploratory Sciences and Medical Sciences. Describe how you could be an asset to each of these departments.
Tactical: I am the navigator in my family in that I seem to be the only one with a sense of direction. Many a road trip I have been responsible for not getting the family lost and following the course set out by either the trailmap or roadmap.
Operations: In my high school theater department I was the house manager for the theater department which was almost entirely a job of organization and public relation. I knew I was doing my best when my work at keeping the concessions and tickets line running smoothly went unnoticed by the audience. If I wasn't keeping myself and my group organized, everything went to hell in a hand basket faster that you can say 'warp speed'. This attention to detail and keeping people and events organized is a talent that lends itself greatly to the operations field and how those within the field essentially keep the Admiralty off the captain's back and the ship from randomly blowing up. Like me, they're doing their job best when you don't notice their work or nothing is going wrong.
Exploratory Sciences: I love science because of how it explains the universe. Numbers and measurements are universal, they describe the universe in a way the extends beyond the barriers of language and culture. Science and math are these universal things that are definite and certain. My passion for science drives my to do my best and excel in the scientific process.
Medical: I like to be the sounding board for my friends and give them advice on their problems or just let them vent, because sometimes you just want to complain about your life to complain. I just really like to work with and help people overall, and to me one of the driving motivations within the medical community would be that need to help people.
Q11. What are your top five strengths?
01.Stubbornness. Some would cite this as a short coming and at times it is, but on a hold being stubborn is standing by your beliefs and not giving up just because it got difficult. I stand up for my ideas until someone can present me with a valid argument. Stubbornness to me isn't being difficult, but being strong and having faith in yourself.
02. Attention to Detail. I'm a very detail oriented person, and as they say "the devil's in the details". If you focus to much on the big picture, you get caught up and can miss something that seems insignificant but ends up being extremely pivotal.
03. Sense of Humor. Being able to laugh at yourself or at the absurdity of a situation can be the only thing that keeps you sane during rough times. Also having a good sense of humor makes bonding with my friends and workmates easier.
04. Open-Mindedness. While this seems to conflict with no. 1, I think it complements it. How can I defend my opinions if I don't let other express theirs. Just because they disagree with me doesn't make me automatically right and the other person automatically wrong. Being open to new ideas makes you a more well rounded person and allows you to better define how you see the world by evaluating your world view with the views of others.
05. Clever.There's being smart and then there's knowing how to apply that knowledge to the situation. I'd like to think that I have that ability to take what I know and apply that to a situation that may be totally different from the original source of the information. I use my cleverness to work my best and create the best examples of my knowledge through my work.
Q12. What are your top five weaknesses?
01. My Temper. When I get tired, stress or overwhelmed, I tend to get more than a little bit snippy at people who really don't deserve any of my anger. I'm really working to keep myself from lashing out when I'm aware of my being stressed or tired or overwhelmed because people you're being snippy to generally don't like to help you out.
02. Procrastination. I tend to leave off what is due next week for what is due tomorrow, which just creates stress for myself when the project I've had for a week and haven't started is due the next day and I have to finish a week's-worth of work in a day.
03. Perfectionist. This is a weakness mainly because of the previous weakness. Because I'm such procrastinator, I don't start until the last minute and then it HAS to be perfect which just continues to complicate my project and increase my stress level.
04. Unfit. I'm really out of shape (the only reason i can climb stairs at the speed I due is because my school has four stories and my classes are spread out between floors). This is really dangerous for someone who would be out in the feild since I cannot move as quickly as the group and could put others in danger from my own physical weakness.
05. Easily Frustrated. When things don't really work for me the first or second time I attempt them, I begin to get frustrated with either the task or myself. I've found that the more frustrated I get over time, the lower the quality of the resulting work.
Q13. What is your biggest fear? Falling, not heights overall but falling. I’m fine inside tall buildings or on an airplane, but I don’t like going in glass elevators, buildings with ceiling to floor windows or anything that involves harnesses and ropes. It’s extremely frustrating because it’s a completely irrational fear and has prevented me from having some really incredible experiences in my life because I freeze up and start crying and overall not pretty-pretty fun-fun things.
Q14. Do you consider yourself to be a leader, or a follower? In small groups I’d rather lead than follow, especially if the group seems to lack direction, however public speaking to large groups of people tend to make my stomach attempt gymnastics, so in larger groups I’d rather be a follower.
Q15. What do you admire the most in your peers? Their loyalty and support of one another. It’s easier to take credit for yourself and work alone than to work with others who are at different levels of proficiency or that have different talents than you might. But to be able to function so well as individuals and as a group, to always be available to friends for help or support is something that I find extremely gratifying to do and remarkable to see in action.
Q16. You are stranded on a Class M planet that has not been mapped by The Federation. You are only allowed to choose two of the following items to keep with you: a phaser, a tricorder or a communicator. Which two would you choose to have? The tricorder and communicator. A phaser has pretty much one purpose, destruction, and can’t really be used to help a person survive. A tricorder has multiple purposes and can be used to find food, detect oncoming weather and other information that could be vital to survival on an alien planet. The communicator can be used or altered to reestablish contact with my ship and either allows for transport or give directions to my location for rescue. In the wilds you need to be concerned with survival and rescue not attacking other things.
Q17. Please describe your understanding of the Federation’s Prime Directive. The Prime Directive is in place to protect the Federation from itself and to promote the diversity of the universe. Arthur C. Clark said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.", and in that 'magic' lies the seeds of power, and even the presence of divinity to those who don't understand how the tech works. Power is extremely tempting and unimaginably corrupting. If the Prime Directive didn't hold us back from spreading our technologies then I believe we would become corrupted by that power and terrible things would occur. As to not interfering with the internal affairs of planets within and without the Federation, each culture on each plant developed independent of the others and has unique cultural and societal norms. Out of respect, it is essential to the stability and diversity of the Federation to respect the sovereignty of each planet and culture, as we hope they would as well.
Q18. The United Federation of Planets includes more than 150 member planets, and the galaxy has many more besides. Which planet do you most want to visit? Traveling is always been a passion of mine, so the chance to visit any alien world would be beyond amazing in itself. But if I had to choose just one, I'd want to visit Betazed, it sounds and appears to be so beautiful there and just looks like an amazing place to visit.
________________________________
KOBAYASHI MARU:
The following questions describe situations you may commonly find yourself in as a member of Starfleet. You will be read the scenario, and then given two options to choose from. You may expand upon the reasons for your choice, but you must indicate one of the two that you feel best describes your likely response to the situation provided.
Q19. Service in the Fleet can be draining at the best of times, and on one particular day everything seems to have gone wrong. You’re exhausted, but your shift is finally over and it’s time to unwind. Your roommate is already on their bed when you get back to your quarters. Do you:
a. Settle in for a lengthy chat with them - you’d really like to vent about your day and you’d quite like to hear about theirs too. It’s a bit of a ritual by this point anyway. Maybe you’ll even head out to the Rec Hall together to unwind over a card game with the others.
At first I was going to go with the second option, until I realized that I prefer to vent about my bad day than go off on my own to stew. When I have the chance to vent to a safe person, it lets me get out the anger and frustration and prevents me from getting overly stress about the situation. Also I love to gossip or share frustrations with my friends as a way of bond together at the end of a hard school day. Just being apart of a group of people I enjoy spending time with can make the yuckiest day a good one.
Q20. You’ve intercepted what sounds like a pretty important transmission - you feel like the Captain needs to know. When you report, do you:
a. Give them all the facts: what it said, what the voice sounded like, where the inflection was, the language it was in, and so on. Details and facts are the important part, everything else is subjective.
As a crew member it isn't my job to judge the situation or put my own impressions into my reports. My job is to give the captain the most unbiased, accurate account of the transmission so that the captain can make a well informed decision without any of my opinions or personal beliefs affecting or altering his/her decision.
Q21. There are many decisions to be made in Starfleet, and some are harder than others. Faced with a decision where things could go wrong in any number of ways, do you:
a. Stay impersonal and objective. Weigh up the pros and cons, think out all the possibilities, and focus on the basic truths. A careful analysis of the situation will reveal the best possible choice, even though some may not approve of it.
The best decisions I've made in my life are the one's where I've stood back and considered the problem logically, without relying on emotion and just looking at the facts. Sometimes moral issues really do come down to the numbers, as hard of a fact as that may be, and must be considered in practical, rather than emotional terms.
Q22. The day-to-day life of Starfleet can be quite arduous at times, and quite exciting at others. Everyone has their own way of approaching everyday work, but would others see your approach as:
b. Flexible and spontaneous. Others think you prefer to adapt to the world around you rather than organise it. You seem to be more comfortable staying open to information and experiences rather than making decisions immediately. You appear fairly casual, working in bursts and motivated by deadlines.
I'm not a very organized person in general, sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not. I try to have an idea of what I'd do if certain incident occur, but I find that if I try to stick to a plan, everything tend to go not the way I intend it to go. Being flexible allows for the ability to change you mind or to accommodate an unforeseen problems. I also don't really tend to stick to a schedule beyond my class schedule, working on what ever interests me at the time rather than working through a to-do list.
Q23. You can earn 5 points for your future Track by promoting the community in your Journal. Please link the post here if you wish to do so: