See, already, just with that very basic page up, I've learned a couple of new things about the VE timeline (well, new to me).  Very pleased this is being developed. 

Could some people on the navy side start pulling together some of the major story lines since chapter 8?

I think Garryll may have volunteered himself on the army side!

Sure. That I can handle no problem.

Beat ya to it, Tryk. Nah, help if you want.

-Drac

LOL @ Drac.  You can take point on this; just keep me in the loop as the Navy overview comes together, and I'll help as much as I can.

I'm PSYCHED that we're updating things for new recruits, Army and Navy, especially going into a new Chapter.

I've reworded the races part to try and make it plain to everyone that there are very few limitations on characters being proposed. The uncommon characters would just need to recruits to show an appreciation of the issues in their biography. As I discussed with Stormz the banned list only has two on it at the moment and would only include very extreme races and Force based creatures. Do I bother adding ewoks? lol


The lists aren't meant to be exhaustive, just indicative, so it doesn't need to be huge. But if there are any glaring omissions go ahead and put them where you think there should be, with reasoning!

Well, I have gotten a little feedback with folks being concerned about the term "races".

Never mind the squeamishness implied with that, though that is a concern to be acknowledged, but the term we should be using is actually "species". There are many races of humans, including skin color and mutations. The folks on Mustafar are just very, very mutated forms of human as I remember. And there are three different races of Nikto, the dog-faced guards you see working for the Hutts.

Neimodians and Duros are apparently the same race too, but are treated as two separate species given the length of time their common ancestors diverged.

So, to ease some minds, and in the interests of actually being correct in the terminology, can we set aside one form of argument and agree to using species from here on out?

I'm open to any counter-arguments but figured I'd poke my nose in on this as I've been asked.

Truth be told I hadn't even considered those connotations. I imagine south african members in particular would find such nomenclature distasteful. This is better all around.

Any Army Academy bods reading this topic?

Could we work towards having an academy resource similar to what the Navy has?

Slasher's on leave this week, but as his "understudy" for the VENA I'm more than happy to discuss the Academy's entry-level programming as well as a certain special project of my own that Drac alluded to just now... Anybody in the VE is welcome to ping me on irc or shoot me a PM with questions. 

Question if we end up with people on both sides happy that we have created a guide for all members that gives them a run down of the Vast Empire's place in the Galaxy (our location history etc) do we link to it from our respective academies and also have links back from the guide to the academy pages?

Certainly the Army academy pages need remodelling to match the Navy side. Would it make sense for both academy pages to link to the page we're working on in the end as a "Vast Empire Universe Orientation" ?

Took the liberty of adding Hutts to the banned list seeing how 1. they wouldn't fit in either Interceptors or Stormtrooper armor and 2. they wouldn't join other military factions, rather they would stick to their own controlled systems or otherwise would simply be found acting as crime lords - for the most part at any rate.

Jegora: I was actually wondering about height and weight limitations when I made my character. I didn't know where to look if it was listed somewhere. If it isn't listed, I think this would be very helpful for people like me who are new. If it is listed, I would love to have that link for future reference.

We've got a terrible habit about that, don't we. lol. All these unwritten rules new people should know and follow. That might be worth a thread (or two, one for each division) on it's own to isolate those and get them written somewhere in the Academies.

-Drac

Just took a quick look at the wiki page for the new recruits. Its looking very good and I have to agree with the list of the banned, aside from one species, I believe the rest have never been allowed to start with and therefore it isn't hindering anything.

As for questions pertaining to the Naval Academy, you can catch me on IRC almost anytime. PM is also an easy way to get in touch, as I try to respond with 12 hours. I'd be happy to aid in the Army's Academy courses and/or reference material.

Also, I agree on the unwritten rules problem, and I think this project will solve that issue. I know the vast majority of the VENA pages have been reworked to fix the spelling, grammar, and canon hiccups from NTO's before me (this due in large part to Tryk, Slasher, Drac, and myself), so we don't have quite the problems as frequent as we used to. As a matter of fact, I can't even think of one :P

Give me a bit and I'll have some though.

With Tryk's assistance, I've begun work on the Navy's Timeline/History. The basic framework of the page is set up and on the timeline I've done the first ten stories we began in 2011. I'll get the rest of this year (thus far) this week, then move back to 2010. Once the timeline's finished we'll begin work on the narrative that'll cover the main storyline of the Navy's history.

Props to Tryk for creating the Mission Type symbols.

If the Army hasn't begun work on a timeline/history project yet, feel free to use the format we're going with. The more uniformity between the two, the better.

-Drac