[MidnightLich]

And we're just about halfway done making our mission, Excalbia. The next step is deciding which affiliations appear on the mission, and this is where we're going to mix things up slightly. There won't be a nominations process, because there are only so many affiliations to choose from. Instead, we're going to try a combination of weighted voting and standard voting to pick the two piece of information we need. Let me explain exactly how this will work:

In the poll on this thread, there is a vote to determine how many affiliations can attempt the mission. The standard mission template can support up to five (5) different affiliation boxes in the attempting area, so that's the upper limit. Aside from the numerical choices (1-5), there is an option for "Any Away Team may attempt mission;" this option roughly translates to "all affiliations." This means there are six choices in this poll; each of you can vote for 1 option. If there isn't a clear winner (50.1% of votes), we'll go to a runoff.

The second vote is a weighted vote, and you participate in this by replying to this thread. In this type of vote, you rank your five (5) choices for affiliations in order; then, the first choice is worth 5 points, the second worth 4, etc. down to the 5th choice for 1 point. At the end, the value of each affiliation is tallied up and the choices are ranked in total score. This is what will determine which affiliations go on the mission. Let me give you a simplified example:

Charlie votes for 3 affiliations on the mission. His ranked affiliation choices are , , , , and .

Maggie votes for 4 affiliations on the mission, and her ranked affiliation choices are , , , , and .

Kris votes for 3 affiliations on the mission, and his choices in order are , , , , and .

The winner of the standard poll is 3 affiliations, with 66.7% of the vote. This means the mission will have three (3) icons on it; to determine which ones, we total the scores of each choice:

5 + 0 + 5 = 10
4 + 5 + 4 = 13
= 3 + 0 + 0 = 3
= 2 + 0 + 0 = 2
= 1 + 4 + 3 = 8
= 0 + 3 + 0 = 3
= 0 + 2 + 0 = 2
= 0 + 1 + 0 = 1
= 0 + 0 + 2 = 2
= 0 + 0 + 1 = 1

Ranking those in order, it means the mission will have , , and icons on it. (Those icons will then be sorted into the standard order for missions.)

To recap, this voting step comes in two parts. The first part is a standard, poll-based vote (like all the previous steps) where you can vote for one (1) choice that represents the number of affiliations on the mission. Options will be "Any Away Team may attempt this mission" (all affiliations), then the options for one (1) through five (5).

The second step is a weighted vote by post. Each of you - no matter if or how you vote in the poll - can list five affiliations you want to see on the mission in the order you value them. The first vote gets 5 points, the second gets 4, and so on down to the 5th choice which gets 1 point. After voting closes, the totals will be combined to generate a weighted list of affiliations. The winning number of affiliations will be picked from that list in order.

To make it easier, please reply to this thread and put your votes in this format:

1. OR Federation
2. OR Vidiian
3. OR Ferengi
4. OR Klingon
5. OR Romulan

Please use either the icon or the word, you don't need to do both. You don't need to pick five affiliations, you can submit less. All of the affiliations - except Borg ( ) and Neutral ( ) - are available for the mission. In case you aren't familiar with all of the affiliations, here they are in the order they appear on missions (topmost equates to the leftmost):

Federation -
Romulan -
Klingon -
Non-Aligned -
Cardassian -
Bajoran -
Dominion -
Ferengi -
Kazon -
Vidiian -
Hirogen -
Starfleet -
Vulcan -

Fun fact: this order is determined by the order in which the affiliations were introduced.

You can edit your original post to change your votes up until the poll closes on Sunday. You can also change your vote in the poll in the same time frame. Good luck and have fun. Let me know if there are any questions.

-crp

[GooeyChewie]

1. Federation
2. Klingon
3. Vulcan
4. Non-aligned

[BCSWowbagger]

Remember: if there are affiliation icons on this mission, those affiliations will be allowed to place Outposts here.

I dont think Excalbia should have any Outposts, so I am voting any away team. (Nice bonus: it fits the story.)

[AllenGould]

Remember: if there are affiliation icons on this mission, those affiliations will be allowed to place Outposts here.

I dont think Excalbia should have any Outposts, so I am voting any away team. (Nice bonus: it fits the story.)

[MidnightLich]

Remember: if there are affiliation icons on this mission, those affiliations will be allowed to place Outposts here.

I dont think Excalbia should have any Outposts, so I am voting any away team. (Nice bonus: it fits the story.)

In the 23rd century, sure. But missions are framed from the 24th century point of view. Who knows what political changes have happened to the planet? There's a tourist resort there - why not a facility?

(PS: Don't interpret this as me doing anything more than arguing with James H., which is one of my favorite things to do.)

-crp

[MattgomeryScott]

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Personally I think this should be an Any Away Team mission (as really any of the affiliations could have ended up in the Excaliban experiment) but if I have to pick affiliations these are my choices.

, , really need no explanation. get my top spot because I'm both a massive Romulan fan, and because I like to think that if a Romulan ship had happened across the planet they'd have put up a good fight. And is because it seems like the Excalibans have been doing this a long time from the episode, so I figure it could have been Archer and crew who came across it.

All the Best,

Mattgomery Scott.

[frakkingoff]

Splitting the vote between total # and specific entries (and conducting such votes simultaneously) seems like it might result in a final choice intended by no one. I think a standard nominations / voting process would have probably been more ideal. It's not like we were going to seriously consider every possible permutation anyhow...

Fun fact: this order is determined by the order in which the affiliations were introduced.

The Ferengi came before Bajorans or Dominion.

[frakkingoff]

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Vulcan and Starfleet don't make sense to me - it seems like first contact was made with the Excalbians in the 23rd-century, not the 22nd-century, so there'd be less reason for 22nd-century personnel to go on a mission there...

Cardassians are the only non-trinity affiliation that have been mentioned as being existent and known in the TOS era without us ever having seen them on-screen, so it might be cool to backdoor them into the era this way...

[BCSWowbagger]

(PS: Don't interpret this as me doing anything more than arguing with James H., which is one of my favorite things to do.)

You got me on the tourist resort. I quite forgot about that. I wonder whether the Excalbians still experiment on the tourists! (Our mission requirements suggest... yes?)

In case "affiliations" does win, here's my weighted votes for affiliation:

1. Non-Aligned (seems like the most reasonable use of a facility, plus Colonel Green, Ghengis Khan, and Zora)
2. Federation (thanks to the tourist resort)
3. Klingons (for Kahless)
4. Vulcans (for Surak)
5. Dominion (the anti-Federation and most canonically, archetypically "evil" affiliation)

[frakkingoff]

5. Dominion (the anti-Federation and most canonically, archetypically "evil" valid affiliation)

Fixed that for you.

[nobthehobbit]

Any Away Team, but...

1. OR Federation
2. OR Non-Aligned
3. OR Klingon
4. OR Vulcan
5. OR Ferengi

[BCSWowbagger]

5. Dominion (the anti-Federation and most canonically, archetypically "evil" valid affiliation)

Fixed that for you.

Huh? I'm sincerely confused.

[frakkingoff]

Huh? I'm sincerely confused.

"It is my opinion that the Borg are as close to pure evil as any race we've ever encountered." -Captain Amasov, USS Endeavour

[BCSWowbagger]

Oh, I see.

I have great respect for Captain Amasov (he was Alcar Dovan's first C.O. out of the Academy), but my views on the Borg (at least as 1E understands them) have always leaned more toward Arturis's:

"The Borg Collective is like a force of nature. You don't feel anger toward a storm on the horizon, you just avoid it."

[MidnightLich]

Splitting the vote between total # and specific entries (and conducting such votes simultaneously) seems like it might result in a final choice intended by no one. I think a standard nominations / voting process would have probably been more ideal. It's not like we were going to seriously consider every possible permutation anyhow...

Perhaps, but we ran into a lot of issues doing traditional voting last year (for Joran) during the similar skills/number of skills step. The idea came up then of doing weighted voting to get a better result, so I figured it was worth a try. If we end up with a result nobody likes, then obviously it will be a failure. But it seemed worth a try, and a better option than asking people to nominate affiliations en masse.

Fun fact: this order is determined by the order in which the affiliations were introduced.

The Ferengi came before Bajorans or Dominion.

Bajorans were technically introduced with The Emissary in the Away Team Pack in 1998. I suspect ended up before because of Impose Order in the OTSD.

-crp