I have been placed in reserves for the time being boys. Holidays are murder on me. In fact I gotta go now or I'll be late. Thank you for the report anyway Jori I appreciate it.

Yay. Get active and post on the story, Pidgeon. We need to get the story back up and running people. I have the last post so I can't post again. So c'mon and get your butts into motion.

You are super warm in welcoming me Jori, its truly touching-_-

meh. well if someone will please just tell me how far we are in the story. At the end, beginning, what?

Okay so Jegora has come out of retirement and we found it in our divine wisdom to place them here. Take care of each other!

Erm, now I feel self-conscious...hope I don't disappoint

On a different not, I understand we're kinda stuck on our current story? Someone wanna fill me in on the situation?

Bonjour madmoiselle

I've never heard the holiday season described as 'butt kicking' before. This will be interesting

Oh boy! I get to look to do something now! Yay!

/me tackles Aeos, "I bet I can take you." :P

Jegora wrote:I've never heard the holiday season described as 'butt kicking' before. This will be interesting

Never heard of Festivus?

Correct.

And the HSC Prelude is up on the Storyboard.  It is limited to only PAs (Platoon Adjutants) and above.  So all of you troopers are currently limited to reading it.  However December 1st is when the actual HSC story will begin.

Be sure to keep your eyes out for the following as well:

• Summaries of the Past HSCs posted on the Army Storyboard by Rizzit.
• HSC '08 Rules and Scoring Categories posted on the Army Main by Riqimo (As soon as this is up, you may start earning points for all the categories except writing which has to wait for the story)
• Background Information posted on NPCs, Planets, Ships, etc posted on one topic the Army Storyboard by misc. command staffers.

Alrighty, I'll be the HSC ASL  *cackles*
Rightio, the HSC starts 1 Dec. Jeg has posted up a sim story last night, feel free to head over there to post. I'll make my post as soon as I finish my spanish studies for today. Things are currently a bit stressing for me in the language department.

Welcome to Jester, squad of the clowns so speak

Also welcome back Giovanni.

Anything less than aboslute victory in the HSC will be a huge underachievement for this squad.

Ok with that in mind, it's time to fully unveil my plan for the future of Jester Squad.

________________________________________________________________


1. Squad Philosophy

The general sate of mind held by the present Stormtrooper Corps is the sacrifice of quality for quantity. Emphasis is placed not on the writing process itself, but how many posts can be churned out in as little time as possible. Personally, I find this a great barrier to writing anything but the typical slash and dash, shoot'em up stories, which have their time and place, but get old quickly for many people. Sure, stories have varying places and objectives, but in the end they all devolve into five or six troopers slaughtering hundreds of nameless goons.

This in turn, (as well as the plethora of promotions ensuing from massive post counts racked up from horribly sub-par posts and post lengths) has lead to disgruntled veterans sick of writing the same stories over and over, opting to retire and leave the army without its all important senior members.

Recently Cosmic has proposed returning to the quality over quantity stature, and I envision Jester being the spearhead of that campaign.

Kami and I attempted to do this with Iron Horse, and I previously had tried it with Raiders. I met with limited success, because I found that those in the lower ranks, mostly, we uncomfortable writing on something that challenged them to reveal things about their character (mostly because they never put much thought into their characters in the first place)

We will be writing intensive, complex stories about espionage, investigations, betrayal, and many other topics that require depth of character and the ability to immerse ones self in an idea. We have to develop characters that are not our own, developing the Vast Empire universe.

Based on this I would like to reform Jester Squad according to the guidelines in the sections below

2. Status / Roster

The squad will remain where it is, the third squad of Storm Platoon. It will not be an "elite" or "select" squad. If there is an opening, anyone is free to join, provided they desire to keep with the philosophy listed above.

The squad will function as a regular squad, with no dual enrollment (such as being in ARC/Phantom as well as Raiders). It will participate in competitions and still be subject to the same rules and regulations about reporting etc. (No additional pay added for being a member, no special privileges.)

3. Squad Specialty

3 : Jester (Veteran) - Reconnaissance / Special Investigations

4. Miscellaneous

I am open to any suggestions for the squad, but want to emphasize that it will not be an "elite" squad, nor do I want it to appear that way. Jester should not be a squad that people aspire to be in. I want it to be a haven for those who wish to write at a higher level.


________________________________________________________________

The roster will stay as it is for the duration of the HSC, after which we will begin to delve into the depths of our writing abilities. Anyone who wishes to transfer to a regular squad is more than welcome to do so, and the converse is true as well (within reason of course).

I'm putting this forth now to gauge the interest in it, and because I have gotten AHC approval for implementation.

Tally-ho!

/me points to his post.

Stories will begin post HSC. Focus on that for now and let's tear it up.

Glad to be on board.