Welcome to the TF86 HQ
LadyBlue
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Admiralty
This section is the Headquarters for TF86, and is an open playground for fiction that is:
Set in and around the Triangle
Written by or in consultation with TF staff to advance the Task Force plotline
Written by members who are junior officers (those holding the ranks of Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, or Lieutenant) about their primary characters’ adventures
Or some combination of the above!
Any member of the Task Force is welcome to start a thread if it falls into one of the above categories. This can be for their personal and exclusive use, or the open or invited participation of other members - if it’s the latter, please make that clear!
The main purpose of this section is to house and support the writing of junior officers about their primary character. This usually takes two broad forms:
Stories about the history of your primary character, before they have become a ship commander
Stories about these primary characters assigned to the Task Force HQ in 2399, as officers expected to soon become starship commanders and in the meantime given missions in the region
Once you reach the rank of Lieutenant Commander, you can request your own ship and write those stories in your ship’s thread.
Please make sure your thread follows the forum rules, and bear in mind the following for writing in this section:
The Triangle has no plot you are required to adhere to. You are encouraged to come up with your own missions and storylines.
These stories should be fairly self-contained, episodic adventures that do not massively change the canon of the region.
You are free to write on your own, or collaborate with others. Reach out to members of your TF on Discord if you want a writing buddy!
Junior officers’ stories can be set on [the station], or about a lone officer deployed somewhere in the region, or with a team dispatched on a specific mission from [the station] by runabout
You don’t need to worry about length; posts and stories can be as long or short as you want. We encourage good spelling and grammar so your writing can be easily enjoyed, but nobody will be enforcing this!
If possible, keep your own writing in one thread. But if a story is completely separate, don’t be afraid to start another.
Make sure to keep a tally of your wordcount and record it in BFMS!
If you have any questions, including how to get started, please ask your Task Force senior staff and they will be happy to help out.
Starbase 86
Starbase 86 is the headquarters for Task Force 86. It is located at the Federation border to the Triangle region, an unclaimed sector that also falls between the territory of the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Republic. A small Aurora-class starbase, it is the main launching point for Starfleet operations into the Triangle and for defending Federation worlds along this tempestuous border.
Starships of Task Force 86 berth here by default for refit and resupply, or training and administrative duties within the Task Force. The starbase also dispatches numerous operations throughout the region to be conducted by its runabout fleet.
If you’re a junior officer wanting to write in the Task Force 86 Headquarters, this is the place to start. Your primary character is likely assigned to Starbase 86 as an officer trusted to lead whole missions and operations away from the station as befits their status and skill set. They will easily be granted a team, a runabout, an assignment, and be sent forth into the Triangle or along the Federation border to maintain TF86’s remit of border defence and counter-insurgency.
These missions might be:
Answering a distress call from a drifting freighter, attacked and stranded by pirates from the Triangle, or the Hunters of D’Ghor
Pursuing Klingons who recently sabotaged a Starfleet asset, suspected to be a House of Mo’Kai operation
Helping a border world shore up its defences and infrastructure, protecting them from raids and building up local trust in Starfleet
Investigating an anomaly in the mysterious, poorly-charted Azure Nebula at the periphery of the Triangle
Maintaining a survey probe or defence platform that forms part of Starfleet’s border protection infrastructure
Or anything else you might imagine that fits in with the wild region of the Triangle!