Aurther Winters Archives - Independence Fleet

USS Chuck Norris Change of Command

Posted on September 1, 2023 | by Charles Star | 2 Comments

As of today, Captain Michael Intermeezo has relieved Captain Aurther Winters as Commanding Officer of the USS Chuck Norris. Captain Winters concludes 36 months in command. However, his history with the Chuck Norris goes back much further. As a Lieutenant, he officially joined the sim on June 26, 2012 as Chief Engineer, and then sent his first post on June 28th. He picked up his first award, an MVP, in November of that year. He later became Executive Officer in 2014, and then Commanding Officer in 2020. Along the way, he snagged 12.5 total awards, including 4 MVPs and 3.5 Genesis awards, good for 8th place all-time. He also chaired the 2021 SciWorld Online Convention, for which he was awarded an Ongoing World Community Honor. If there’s one thing that stands out, it’s been Aurther’s loyalty to both the fleet and his sim! Aurther, best of luck with everything and we hope you don’t wander too far!

Captain Intermeezo, welcome to the command team! We know that you have what it takes to lead this wonderful and historical sim to even greater heights.

At the movies… with Independence Fleet!

Posted on July 4, 2023 | by Charles Star | 7 Comments

And yet another year of IDF is in the books with our 22nd Anniversary today. To remind you of how old we really are, here’s a quote from last year’s anniversary post:

“On our 22nd Anniversary, we will be further removed from the premiere of the 2009 Star Trek film (May 8, 2009) than IDF’s launch was from the premiere of The Next Generation (September 28, 1987): 14 years, 1 month, 26 days vs. 13 years, 9 months, 6 days.”

Well, here we are! For this year’s celebration, each of our 12 sims created a movie poster to capture their unique essence and feel. We are also very fortunate to have Amanda Rose from RPG Writing, NX-1701-G from Zodiac Fleet, and Beth from Sim Central to judge the entries in three categories: overall image quality, how much does it look like an actual movie poster, and general creativity/originality. Before we get to the posters themselves, we first have an announcement from a special guest:

Now, the 12 movie posters:

And your winners are…
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Congratulations to all three winners, and a special thanks to our judges! However, to quote Kirk from Star Trek III, we’re not finished yet! Here are superlative awards for our other nine games:

While we’re on the topic of movies, we are now further removed from our July 4, 2001 founding than it was from the premiere of the first Star Trek film Star Trek: The Motion Picture (December 6, 1979): 22 years vs. 21 years, 6 months, 28 days. Feel old yet?

Continuing last year’s tradition, we again have a second video message:

Happy IDF anniversary, everyone!

The Record Book Has Been Rewritten

Posted on January 12, 2023 | by Charles Star | 3 Comments

With 2022 in the books, it’s high time we checked in with the latest version of the IDF Record Book over on our About page. As it turns out, we have a new all-time leader in monthly awards. Lieutenant Bonnie “Bon-Bon” Durnell of the USS Sunfire now has a grand total of 29.83 awards, passing the previous leader, Jenna Ramthorne (of a prior version of the Sunfire), who has 24.83. What’s even more incredible, is that both characters are played by the same person!

	Best Post	Funniest Post	Genesis	MVP	Most Posts	Most Improved	Recruitment	Total
Durnell	5.05	5.78		4	14	1		29.83
Ramthorne	4		.83	4	15		1	24.83

Prolific across multiple award categories, the two stat lines seem to mirror each other. However, the difference is clearly Durnell’s five plus Funniest Post awards to Ramthorne’s zero. See what adding humor to your game can do! Congratulations to Lieutenant Durnell on this incredible accomplishment!

As it turns out, we have quite a few current or recent members who have moved up leader board since we brought the Awards back for March 2020:

Active Member — received an award within the last year or confirmed to currently be on a sim
Hall of Famer

*All characters with five or more total monthly awards*

In addition to all those who’ve won awards, I also want to thank each of our sim Commanding Officers for submitting nominations month-in and month-out and to Rear Admiral James “Rook” Mirtoh for running the program and selecting winners. Without their tireless efforts, the awards simply wouldn’t be possible.

I’ve long been of the opinion that the monthly awards are one of the absolute best features of this fleet, and they’re a key bonus that really distinguishes us from other groups out there. The numbers speak for themselves: Through the end of 2022, we have 969 total documented awards presented to 506 different individuals through 1,226 different award records. Each one is permanently part of our continuing history, starting all the way back with the five original awards presented for our very first month of July 2001 going up through today and beyond.

Now it’s time to add your legacy to the story…

USS Chuck Norris: 10 Years

Posted on January 2, 2022 | by Charles Star | 1 Comment

Ten years ago today, our very own USS Chuck Norris launched. That makes it the longest continuously running IDF sim in its current form: Despite two URLs and two Novas, it’s still Defiant class and NCC-4005. And as far as I know, no other ship in Star Trek simming has anything like the USS Chuck Norris facts!

Through four Captains (Dick Sprague, Shane Youngblood, Grover vonMcCormick & Aurther Winters), dozens of crewmembers, and many zany adventures, the Chuck has seen it all. Beyond the story, it’s also been quite the historical sim. It sponsored the 2012 Simulation Cup (aka Tournament of Simulations), the only game ever to do so. It later won its own award at the 2014 competition, the last IDF sim to win until the 2020 tournament.

Let’s also not forget perhaps the Chuck Norris’s biggest contribution: When IDF’s old website went offline in early 2019, the Chuck kept simming over email to keep our legacy alive. Without that effort, there would be no Independence Fleet today. Like so many other fleets, IDF would already belong to the ages.

But we are here today. So let’s all write a post in honor of the USS Chuck Norris!

USS Chuck Norris	NCC-4005
Format: Prose & Script	Era: TNG/DSN/VOY
Type: Open	Class: Defiant
CO: Captain Aurther Winters	Join!

Monthly Awards: September 2021

Posted on October 12, 2021 | by Rook Mirtoh | Leave a Comment

Congratulations to all of our award winners for September:

Best Post (Single Author)

Commander Savar cha’Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen
Executive Officer
USS Sunfire

For “Through The Looking Glass”

Some feel a vision from the prophets is a tired old hat, but this was nicely written an left me wanting more. Great work!

Best Post (Joint Post)

Cmdr. Samantha Howard & Cmdr. Jonathan Grayson & Lt. Aiko Kato & Ens. James Phoenix
CMO / XO / FCO / TO
USS Washington

For “To Go Forth….Again”

Good writing from a team that is used to working together getting it done. Not all Trek posts need action sequences to be good, and this one hits the mark with the threat of violence without actually getting into it. Had me on the edge of my seat!

Funniest Post

Commander Jackson Andrews
Executive Officer
USS Albion

For “Back on the Command Track, Well Sorta Pt.1”

Lol, he was made a Yeoman? So awesome.

Genesis

Lieutenant JG Djon Zyngh & Captain Aurther Winters
CSO / CO
USS Chuck Norris

For “Death’s Triangle”

Nice intro and good tags all around on this one. Well done!

MVP

Lt. Bonnie “Bon-Bon” Durnell
Computer Systems Specialist
USS Sunfire

What a player! From creating well crafted posts to encouraging engaging joint efforts, Durnell also acts as the Captain’s counsel to bounce suggestions and ideas off of.

Most Posts

Lt. Bonnie “Bon-Bon” Durnell
Computer Systems Specialist
USS Sunfire

For writing 15 posts.

Most Improved

Lieutenant Aiko Kato
Flight Control Officer
USS Washington

The Washington’s young pilot really worked to get involved with the crew and to become more integrated, creating some excellent contributions along the way.

Rookie of the Month

Lieutenant Trevor Andrews
Assistant Chief Engineering Officer
USS Eminence

Don’t let the rank fool you, Andrews arrived on the Eminence and hit the ground running. A great addition to the sim!

Recruitment

None this month. Get recruiting!

It’s been a while since we’ve had 5 sims represented within the awards in a single month, well done! Keep all the great posts coming, and maybe we’ll see a few more next month.

Awards… For Monthly Awards!

Posted on July 3, 2021 | by Charles Star | 2 Comments

Wow, what a 20th Anniversary Webcast! It was so awesome that I think we have a new tradition here in this fleet. Our very own Admiral Ken Gillis hosted the event, where he introduced the Hall of Fame class of 2021 and awarded prizes to three people from among our monthly award winners. If you missed it, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see the Hall of Fame inductees. However, I can give a quick recap of the prize drawing.

First, here are the prizes:

Next, the names of the monthly award winners were added to the big wheel. Players received a spot on the wheel for each award they won dating back to March 2020 (award fractions were rounded up):

The three winners were…

Captain Aurther Winters of the USS Chuck Norris

Lieutenant J’goss Yass G’odoss, also of the USS Chuck Norris

and Chief Petty Officer Remal Kajun of the USS Sunfire

Congratulations to all three! And thank you again to Ken for hosting and putting this on. Bravo!

Please stay tuned for more anniversary news tomorrow…

EDIT: Due to our current embargo on shipping goods to Canada, Aurther Winters will instead be getting a Tim Hortons gift card as a consolation. Also, Remal Kajun has offered to donate his prize. As such, we drew two more winners: Lieutenant Dean House of the USS Sunfire & Lt. Cmdr. T’Ponga Shemara of the USS Montana. Enjoy the prizes!

Monthly Awards: May 2021

Posted on June 13, 2021 | by Rook Mirtoh | Leave a Comment

I hope everyone enjoyed SciWorld yesterday. It was an instant classic! Thank you to all who played a part in putting it on, including Aurther Winters, who was just awarded the Ongoing Worlds Community Honor for his efforts as Chair. Congratulations!

And now, on with the May monthly awards: