I. Intro/Announcements
II. RSXO
III. Promotions/Awards
IV. Closing Thoughts

I. Intro/Announcements

Welcome back to another State of the Rebel Squadrons address. I'm going to try to get through this without making too many typos. I'm using my roommate's laptop and due to the amount of beer/wine/god knows what else she's spilled on it, random keys seem like they're not working and I have to go back and redo the words I'm writing. It's sort of a pain in my ass.

Anyway. There's not a whole lot to announce for the month of July that isn't already on the RS site in some sort of news function or twitter post -- but I'd like to make a few highlights.

First, I'm back from ...well, just kind of being submerged in RL work and other issues. Looking for a new job now, but that's infinitely better than continuing to work where I was and just hating it and everything else.

Second, Licah and Cyrel made something really cool for the ABG. If you haven't checked it out yet, the link is here: http://abg.rebelsquadrons.org/adventure/adventure There are instructions to get you started, and if for some reason you're really confused, pop into #allegience on IRC and someone'll be glad to help you.

II. RSXO --

This is sort of the third of the "few" highlights I mentioned above -- MGN Kirghy Lommax has stepped down as Rebel Squadrons Executive Officer. In the meantime, ADM Michael Raven is serving as acting/interim RSXO until I've made a decision on the candidates who have already applied. This position was opened up to members of High Command/Honorary High Command shortly after Kirghy's resignation, and now will be open to the entire club. Applicants without fleet command staff/HC/executive office experience probably should not apply. Applications will be open until August 8th, can be made here: http://rebelsquadrons.org/jobs/apply.php?type=exec&pos=2

III. Promotions/Awards:

This is going to be quite a long section so feel free to scan through it, or just use the find command to see if you're mentioned. :-P In addition, there's quite a few awards given out to members of the ABG given the outstanding activity that's been happening there and the fact that Raven gave me a list of people as I was writing this up.

Congratulations to CMDR Hyde of the VSG for his 3-year service member award!

For Licah and Cyrel, I'd like to award a very special medal that hasn't ever been awarded in the RS to date (or at least since we redid our medals...): The Defender of Baphomet award is awarded for outstanding service to the ABG; and though Licah isn't technically a member, the command staff of the ABG is willing to bend the rules in this situation. The work these two did (and have been continuing to do) on the ABG's Interactive Online Adventure project is certainly outstanding, especially when I just gave them the vaguest idea for what I was thinking and they took it an ran with it. Congrats and thanks, guys!

For his outstanding activity as a new member of the ABG; I'd like to promote CDT Domeno directly to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, and in addition, award the Master Cadet w/Honors award for the ABG! Congrats, Lieutenant!

Among the several people promoted for activity this go around; 2LT Koah has been promoted to 1LT. Though to be fair, if you know Koah's character, he may have just stolen the rank insignia and hacked the RSDB to give himself the promotion...

Another promotion for activity goes to 2LT Corvus Dalen, AKA Callista. As a relatively new member herself, Callista dives right into sims, has assisted with GMing and is often a participant in charsims. Congrats, First Lieutenant!

An ABG member distinguishing himself not only with activity, but also providing suggestions to the ABG Command Staff regarding rules is CPT Darth Gumbo, AKA Rex, AKA Q'Zayn the Wonder Bug. Also, he plays a Gand character, which...is amusing to me. Anyway, for both his work with the rules and activity in the sims, he's been promoted to Major. Congrats!

Another Captain being promoted to Major at this time is CPT Anubis Annedu, whose participation and activity over the past few months has been excellent. Congrats, n00b!

In the past month, this ABG member has gone quite frankly, above and beyond the call, inspiring massive amounts of activity by running lengthy sims and GMing around 4 times a week. His Undiscovered campaign has receieved almost universal positive feedback and has been thoroughly enjoyed by all. Congratulations to LCM Rhuryc on his promotion to Commander!

Another ABG member who's been doing some GMing after a bit of a hiatus, as well as participating in sims and charsims on a regular basis is CMDR Nicolai Ginofev, who's been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel! Congrats!

Commander Davin Ingram Kabak has also been GMing on a regular basis as well as participating in the many sims that aren't his his that have been happening -- it's my pleasure to promote him to Lieutenant Colonel as well!

Finally, last and certainly not least -- for her activity as well as occasional assistance with rules modification and design and running training sims -- congratulations to LCL Sarriah for her promotion to full Colonel!

IV. Closing Thoughts

In the May SotRS, I mentioned things about restructuring and switching up things in how the RS works. I'm still fairly intent on that path, and don't want to get too much into it until I've had a chance to talk to HC about the ideas I've been having. It's become fairly obvious that the club as a whole no longer has the infrastructure to support the things like executive offices and what not. In addition, we're experiencing tech issues with some of our games, and the games that this club was founded on don't seem to be forecoming from LucasArts any longer. While I personally have high hopes for The Old Republic, I'm not going to count that as the golden goose that will somehow bring this club to incredible levels of activity or bring in a whole bunch of new members. That's not really my focus at this point either, however -- in the next weeks, I'll be reorganizing the executive staff and working with the internet office in order to make the resources of these executive offices more available to all RS members to do with what they'd like, as well as establishing a portal/information center for RS members. Finally, although our focus has been primarily on Star Wars gaming and roleplaying; it's the love of the Star Wars universe that brought us to the games and each other in the first place; and I'd like to get back to that a little bit by trying to incorporate more activities as "fans" of the genre. I've compiled a list of contact information for Star Wars authors and others involved with movies, video games, et cetera, and will be contacting them for possible IRC chats and or e-mail interviews. So, to that end, if anyone has anybody they'd like to hear from in particular, feel free to shoot me an e-mail.

With that, I'm going to close this and go make a sandwich.

-RA Sienn "Morningstar" Sconn,
Rebel Squadrons Fleet Commander