Very well written Whittier!

This is all very exciting and interesting! This is a really big case for us and it's really amazing to see how the whole country is really participating in this progress. I'm sure like most of you, I'm nervously awaiting the Supreme Courts decision.

So how has everyone been doing in our region so far? I'm sorry I haven't been playing for a bit, but the bugs were getting on my nerves and more so than just the server issues.

I had really hoped that this game was a serious simulation of a city management, but really its just a slightly more advanced version of SimCity 4. Much of the problems from previous versions are still there.

Sims aren't smart enough to use the high density roads right next to the lower density roads so unless you use avenues through your entire city, you have traffic problems.

The water pumps are just annoying. In my city, I've had to move my pumps 5 different times because I keep running out of water in a particular area. At this point, I've basically run out of water in my city and surviving based on what I can import from neighboring cities. (Thanks Kasper and Spark!)

The population figures are completely off. In a city of 200,000 pop, I have some 20k workers. What does this mean? You're constantly in a worker shortage and getting a perfect balance, instead of being fun, is a pain in the ass.

Import & Export prices are out of whack and make turning a serious profit through specializations very difficult. I found it easier to make millions without touching the specializations. Even with the high-tech specialization, I was constantly having to deal with massive pollution.

Because of the traffic problems, you have to spend loads on a bus system for your city to keep traffic reasonable. To fight crime, fire and sickness seriously, you need the large Police Station, Fire Station and Hospital, but they're seriously expensive and can quickly cause you to go bankrupt.

Resources are distributed completely randomly. In one city, I had my Nuclear Reactor meltdown because it ran out of water. Why did it run out of water? Both buildings where on opposite sides of the map and the water kept being intercepted by other buildings before getting to the power plant. After awhile, the power plant didn't have enough water and started only producing 50% power, causing city wide brown outs. This caused my water pumps to no longer work. *sigh*

Anyhow, I got my free game (Mass Effect 3) and, against my better judgement, installed it and I've now been playing it some.

Vice Admiral T'oi had a lot of things on his mind, he needed this equipment, it was crucial. The timing was Borg-like. Appropriate considering the Captain of this vessel had been assimilated for over a year. T'oi could not help it, lately his emotions had been more intense, the stress of his personal situation now colored everything in his life. He discovered, much to his surprise he did not trust this situation, but orders were orders.

The operation proceeded flawlessly. At the appropriate moment he ordered secure contact with the vessel's Captain.

"Sir, the channel is open and the transmission has been routed to Captain Frost's Ready Room."

"Very good Lieutenant Commander, when this transmission is complete it is to be sealed at Ultraviolet level, you will source record it one time, sequester it from the system and erase it from the permanent records of the Metamorphoses. It will then go by Delta Flyer directly to Admiral Quinn."

T'oi opened the channel, "Captain, I do not have time for pleasantries, your interest in this affair is complete. You orders are as follows, all records of this mission are to be taken out of the permanent records of your ship and erased. All primary source data is to be put in a sealed capsule and beamed over to my ship. Your Communication Officer has five minutes. You will also purge it from your...collective memory. Do not take this personally Captain, I know your life has been trying since your assimilation, but I simply cannot risk the Borg discovering any part of our plan."

T'oi paused...the continued

"Good work, Captain. A commendation will be appended to your file, but the details will be under an Ultraviolet clearance sequester. Needless to say, you did not meet the Metamorphoses today and this never happened." T'oi softened his brusque tone briefly, "Mr. Frost, you are an exemplary officer, I have spent what seems like a lifetime fighting the Borg, it took Picard the better part of his remaining years to restore some normalcy to his life. You should expect no less difficulty, for that I am genuinely sorry...I hate the Borg, Mr. Frost, it is a flaw of mine that I admit to. I have lost too many friends to the Collective to forgive. Go in peace, Captain...I wish you well. T'oi out."

On the Metamorphoses, noting his orders had been followed to the letter, T'oi emerged from his Ready Room and addressed his First Officer. "Tik get us the hell out of here, use the sub-transwarp drive to slipstream us back to the Task Force, we have very little time."

Quote by Ozy

Jorreh'honn Karanha - Stonewall Legion (In Romulan)

Jorreh'honn Karansu - Stonewall Legionnaires (In Romulan)

I like the second option for the romulan faction fleet name..

It rolls off the tongue with ease.

All the known Aurin ear variants!

There are def Aurin males!

Well, color me convinced.

I vote for Stonewall Legion.

Having an obvious connection between your fleet names is a good thing. I had seen Stonewallers in the game before I joined the fleet; that level of activity is a selling point for prospective members, and you're reducing it if you're flying under an unconnected name. The implied LGBT connection is also a big plus. I have had people /tell me "oh, hey, is that a gay-friendly fleet?" on my Fed characters; not so on my KDF.

"Stonewall" is memorable because it has existing associations in people's minds. They may know about the riots; they may think of the general; they may just think of a wall. But it does call up some sort of imagery for any English speaker, and that makes it more memorable. Heck, even the name "Romulan Empire" was specifically picked to call up assocations with the Roman one. A fully alien name doesn't have that advantage.

As for HNR...frankly, it's because I find "Nagh'reD" such a pain that I don't think another incomprehensible name is a good choice. I probably still wouldn't know what Nagh'reD actually meant if not for the discussion surrounding the Romulan fleet. I still don't know how I'm supposed to pronounce it -- probably two thirds of our members couldn't spell it on the spot. Because of this, though I've been in the fleet for ages and I love my Orion toon, I feel no sentimental attachment to that word the way I do "Stonewall."

Worse, to a prospective member, all the fleets called "House of [coughing fit]" just sort of blend together. The number of people for whom "Jorreh'honn Karanha" is any more meaningful than "Shmiddlydoo Flobbilitwop" is... well, let's face it: they're all on this thread already. Even our own members who join after the fleet is inaugurated won't know why it's called that.

Call it Stonewall Karanha or Galae Stonewall or the Stonewall Senate or the Raptors of Stonewall, and immediately there's an image to latch on to in addition to that bit of Romulan flavor. Our legacy becomes apparent to anyone who sees us in the game. The new group is bound in with the Knights and Lords and Vanguard and Fleet and Deep Spacers. I don't think that the initial novelty of a fully Romulan name outweighs the long-term value of a more communicative and practical title.

Quote by Twinkleboy

C'mon guys spread the word, I want so badly to bring Stonewall to Nexus.

I'm trying, I'm trying.

Or was, anyway. :p

Not much interest in it a few months ago, when I brought it up. Could swear I'd made another topic about it previous to that, but maybe I'm mistaken.

I'll probably play a Mechari Dominion side and Aurin Exile side (If there are males. It looked like there were male Aurin in one of the videos.)

I am definitely going to be an Esper(Scientist). Whichever faction we all play on is where I will be for sure. Love the mage/healer combo classes.

Ditto, I joined this fleet because you popped up in the google search, until I joined I'd never seen anyone from Stonewall in game.

I guess the way it's been done in the past fit the way the game was done in the past. You joined a Federation fleet when you just started the game at level 1, then you had to wait until you levelled up until you got to 6 or now 20 before you could start a KDF character, in which case you either joined the KDF affiliate for your current fleet, or were savvy enough by that point to know how to pick your KDF fleet on your own. Because of all this, the name of our KDF fleet had less of a need to be a drawing card.

Now, players will be able to play the first level of the first character of STO in one of three factions. It may necessitate our restrategising how we market ourselves.

On the flipside, as SaintPlazma said, if folks want to find us, they will. I saw about joining this fleet even before I had the game installed. (I bought the game just after it went on the market, but it was several months before I was in a situation to install it.) I knew I wanted to join an LGBT fleet, and Google and the game message boards were my friends. Also, the fleet search capacities within the game itself make it pretty easy to find us without having to resort to Google-fu.

Quote by DoctorDisaster

I think it's more consistent and clear to use "Stonewall" in English along with a Romulan-themed word that means "fleet" or "legion" or something like that. This makes it really clear that it's part of our family of fleets. Purely Romulan names don't communicate anything to someone seeing them the first time, and I think they're difficult to identify with. Most of us won't know how to pronounce them, and no one who wasn't present for the decision is going to know what they mean.

I don't see this as an issue. If you do a search for 'stonewall' under the social window under find a fleet it will pull up that word in the fleets description. Since all of our fleets have the word "stonewall" in them no matter the name we can find someone with invite power. There is also the stonewall chat. We are far from hard to find, if someone is looking for us they will find us.

Quote by Ereiid

Quote by DoctorDisaster

I think it's more consistent and clear to use "Stonewall" in English along with a Romulan-themed word that means "fleet" or "legion" or something like that. This makes it really clear that it's part of our family of fleets. Purely Romulan names don't communicate anything to someone seeing them the first time, and I think they're difficult to identify with. Most of us won't know how to pronounce them, and no one who wasn't present for the decision is going to know what they mean.

You make a great point, but has that been so much of an issue for the House of Nagh'Red? Just a point of curiosity.

Excellent question Sej, so I will answer your question by posing two of my own. (and this is to anyone reading this thread or has had this happen to them.)

How many times have you heard of a player joining our Fed fleet(s) because they saw one of us in our Fed toons with the name "Stonewall" clearly displayed over our ship or character?

Now, how many times have you heard of a KDF player doing the same thing because they knew how to read Klingon?

There were other factors yes, but I feel recruitment for Nagh'reD may have suffered because of it. Stonewall (in English) is classy and recognizable and is a big part of who we are as a community without being overt.

Quote by DoctorDisaster

I think it's more consistent and clear to use "Stonewall" in English along with a Romulan-themed word that means "fleet" or "legion" or something like that. This makes it really clear that it's part of our family of fleets. Purely Romulan names don't communicate anything to someone seeing them the first time, and I think they're difficult to identify with. Most of us won't know how to pronounce them, and no one who wasn't present for the decision is going to know what they mean.

You make a great point, but has that been so much of an issue for the House of Nagh'Red? Just a point of curiosity.

Oh, and while I'm not such a fan of the Rihannsu canon of Diane Carey's (eminently reasonable, and a clear fan-favorite), I do see the draw.

I might suggest that perhaps we take one of the Rihan canonical names, and consider abbreviating them? I mean - Romulans must have contractions, amirite?

eg: Jo'honn Karansu, or perhaps Reh'honn Karansu

Thoughts?

Oh, great, there went my Romulan character name which I've been saving since launch: Karasu (which is Japanese, so I suppose it wouldn't have worked anyway).

How many of our Vulcan/Alien characters are allowed to defect, do you suppose? Coming Out Day!

Quote by Keioel

OK so my vote would be for either:

Karanha Jorreh'honn or Karanha I(III) Jorreh'honn

or

Jorreh'honn Karansu

although the first option Jorreh'honn Karanha is also fun ;)

If we're going to keep Stonewall in English then we're going to have to change the Klingon Fleet's name as well.

Quote by Ozy

Jorreh'honn Karanha - Stonewall Legion (In Romulan)

Jorreh'honn Karansu - Stonewall Legionnaires (In Romulan)

Thanks Bud! Its a fairly valid point about "Stonewall" beign in English, but I think Kei, makes a really good point too. Our Klink fleet hasn't had "stonewall" and by extension any link with stonewall either. Maybe that's worth correcting if we go with that.

My personal leaning is Stonewall Karansu, for two reasons; 1 it just rolls off the tongue moreso that "Karanha" and second because "Legionnaires" is cooler. LOL

OK so my vote would be for either:

Karanha Jorreh'honn or Karanha I(III) Jorreh'honn

or

Jorreh'honn Karansu

although the first option Jorreh'honn Karanha is also fun ;)

If we're going to keep Stonewall in English then we're going to have to change the Klingon Fleet's name as well.

Quote by Ozy

Jorreh'honn Karanha - Stonewall Legion (In Romulan)

Jorreh'honn Karansu - Stonewall Legionnaires (In Romulan)

I think it's more consistent and clear to use "Stonewall" in English along with a Romulan-themed word that means "fleet" or "legion" or something like that. This makes it really clear that it's part of our family of fleets. Purely Romulan names don't communicate anything to someone seeing them the first time, and I think they're difficult to identify with. Most of us won't know how to pronounce them, and no one who wasn't present for the decision is going to know what they mean.