Department Organization Post

[cityship]

Hey, Saphie, your local plot!mod here. So I was talking in chat, and the Department wiki info is hopelessly out of date, some Departments aren't being used and we might want to find a new use for them or phase them out or merge them with other departments, and also a few departments need new Department Heads. This will all be Department stuff. Command and Council stuff will be handled separately.

There will be two posts on the subject. This will be the Department Re-organization Post. This post will be about department structure and electing new Department Heads, since those would most likely be characters that have been around a while so that the Command Crew knows they can handle it. The second post will be the Department Volunteer Post, after we have the department structure reorganized, nailed down, and finalized, then will will call for volunteers for the departments and I will reorganize them (or grab volunteers to reorganize them) on the wiki pages.

NEWBIES

Now that I have your attention with giant font, this post, and the next would be good for you to pay attention to. Part of the purpose of departments is get people to play Department Heads that sort of organize projects and CR opportunities for everyone to play around with between plots, and to give people excuses to have CR together. Scientific projects, adding infrastructure or architecture to the ship, researching virus specimens encountered on missions to find cures, flight and combat simulations, etc. etc. Different departments are also called on during emergencies to find solutions, like working to build ray guns to take down the bad guy or find cures for crazy diseases. Please participate in these discussions if you have questions about what the departments do, and ideas on structure itself, because the point is to make these department works as vehicles for CR, which obviously concerns you guys.

If you have any ideas for stuff that could improve things or help you get CR, please feel free to contribute. Just hold on volunteering your characters until the next post because we need the departments reorganized before we know who goes where. (However, when we do the volunteer post, please keep in mind that no matter how new you are, your character can serve in a department if they have the required skills or capacity to learn them).

SO YOU'RE INTERESTED IN PLAYING A DEPARTMENT HEAD...

Department Heads, on the other hand, should probably established characters in the department or suited to the department with players familiar with the game. ICly, they are chosen by Leon the captain and approved by the Council but we can usually handle that with a quick handwave.

OOCly, the players must be prepared to sink a little time into this. If your department is called on for something, you have to OOCly organize things, and also have to have a presence in the game of your character organizing things. OOCly, also, people want department-related things to do, and might have project ideas and you have to have your character around to handle that. Department Heads are a good role to have if you have the time, and have interest in organizing activities for others to do, and we need more of that going on.

Of course, if you aren't an old player but have a new character that might be really well suited to a department head and think you could handle it OOCly, please bring it up. While it'd probably be best to have Department Heads played by players that understand how the game mechanics work enough to help create CR opportunities, there are some new characters and players that might be incredibly well-suited to it, so if you have/are one chime up, and hopefully IC arrangements can be made somehow. The older player thing is just a suggestion, not a requirement.

THE NITTY GRITTY

Okay, onto the nitty gritty. In the comments, I'm going to do one for each department, as they currently stand, and what they each do. Under the relevant comment for the department, discuss stuff.

Topics that need to be discussed:

Are you fine with the department the way it is? Should the department functions remain the same, or should stuff be added, taken away or changed? If the department has no department head, do you have a character that might suit the job and the time OOCly to do it? Should the department be merged with another department? What things can the department do that might allow new players to get their characters involved? What activities can we have the department doing to give characters stuff to do? Are you new and do you have questions about the department that you'd like answers to so that when we do the volunteer post, you know what to volunteer them for?

As a note: Final decisions on structure will be not be decided by me. I'm just organizing the discussion as a volunteer. They will be decided by a mix of consensus, asking the main mods, and asking the players who currently play department heads, or ICly handle the department organization and appointments. If I made any mistakes on stuff or left something out, comment and let me know.

[Do not post until I have all the comments up and this note says you can. POST GO GO GO GO POST LIKE THE WIND]

Comments

BLACKSMITHS

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Blacksmiths
Department Head: N/A. Members are: Hiccup (i_saw_myself), Daja (fireforger)
Located at: Hiccup's Forge and Daja's Forge. (They may be consolidating their efforts at Daja's Forge soon, with Hiccup turning his into a personal workshop).

Duties: More an informal group of blacksmiths than a formal department, the blacksmiths help make/repair metal weapons for those individuals that don't go in for the guns and futuristic stuff. Daja has expertise integrating magic into her blacksmithing, and Hiccup is good at functional things, like metalwork needed for construction.

Where duties crossover with other departments: We could have them cooperating with Engineering, Magic, and the Science Department to augment the swords and more primitive weaponry with technological means and magical augmentation. Laser axes, anyone?

Requirements to Join, if any: Blacksmithing skills, ability to learn blacksmithing skills, smith magic.

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes, both offer their skills on the omnicoms sometimes.

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: ICly: Daja (fireforger) or Hiccup (i_saw_myself). OOCly: Blue or Saphie

BRIDGE CREW

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Bridge Crew
Department Head: Leon Kennedy (probably).
Located at: The Bridge

Duties: This is the group of bridge bunnies. Ability to work consoles/learn to work consoles a necessity. Analyzing sensor data, making tactical suggestions, and otherwise helping the captain sort through information so he can make decisions is basically their job. Think the Enterprise bridge crew, which could consist of people from multiple areas of operation on the ship, but were the ones the captains wanted on hand to help with immediate decision-making.

Where duties crossover with other departments: People here can be from any department OR just work here.

Requirements to Join, if any: Ability to parse infomation quickly, ability to learn to work the consoles, tactical ability, abilities interpreting sensor information a plus, must be able to talk fast and take orders quickly, must be able stay calm in a crisis. All necessary skills can be taught, but people have to have the capacity to do all those things once taught.

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: ICly: Leon Kennedy? OOCly? Will? Need to figure this one out.

ENGINEERING

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Engineering
Department Head: Billy Cranston
Located at: Engineering, Special Weapons Division

Duties: Fixing breakdowns in Stacy's systems (often with cooperation with the Science Department), building machines, building necessary infrastructure on the ship, weapons design for the fight against the Ohm, maintenance of mechanical things (good people to go to if your phase blaster cannon is busted).

Where duties crossover with other departments: Often work in tandem with the Science Department and have a lot of members in both. Science Department often sees a shipwide problem and comes up with theory and designs for things. Engineering will then build the things, and also works more on construction, maintenance, and repair.

Requirements to Join, if any: Mechanical know-how, willingness to learn mechanical know-how or aptitude for it, knowledge of engineering/construction/architecture for the actual construction of infrastructure, knowledge of weapons design

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes.

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: IC: Billy Cranston (bluedorkranger). OOC: Zoki

INTELLIGENCE

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Intelligence
Department Head: Kang
Located at: N/A

Duties: Spying/gathering intel during missions, and on occasion, fellow crewmembers that are suspicious.

Where duties crossover with other departments: There is some talk of possibly working with the Strike Team on some missions.

Requirements to Join, if any: If your character has any skills that you think would make them a good spy, just let us know, and we'll work with you to try and fit them in.

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Highly secret

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: OOC only, since it's highly secret - contact Shae (Kang) or Blue (Marco).

Additional note: All potential members will be spied upon themselves before being approached, unless Kang or Marco personally know them well enough to deem it unnecessary.

MAGIC/MYSTICAL

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Magic/Mystical
Department Head: Nanoha Takamachi
Located at: The Jedi Temple, in the City

Duties: They help deal with magical/mystical threats on board, and to act as consultants in magical/mystical matters and come up with tactics to fight long-term magical/mystical threats. If there's creepy supernatural hoo-ha going on, these guys are the ones tapped to help figure out how to handle it.

Where duties crossover with other departments: Other departments might be tapped for aid if they can provide any in a given situation.

Requirements to Join, if any: Magical/mystical/supernatural ability, occult knowledge, and/or knowledge of magical/mystical affairs

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need to know) Yes.

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: ICly: Nanoha Takamachi, OOCly: Funk

MEDICAL

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Medical
Department Head: None. Need to discuss
Located at: Medbay

Duties: Administering to the long-term health of the crew; performing necessary medical procedures and surgeries; aiding in shipwide medical emergencies/quarantine; engaging in missions where medical aid is needed; training medics, healers and medical offers to offer aid during missions; organizing triage

Where duties crossover with other departments: May work with the Science and Engineering apartments if medical remedies must be developed (like cures for diseases) or medical equipment must be designed.

Requirements to Join, if any: Medical knowledge and training, degrees in medicine, healing abilities, and/or the aptitude/capacity to learn medical knowledge if someone wants to be trained as a medic.

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: No one. This department has taken a real hit and needs to be built up again, especially since it's a very necessary one. We need a new department head.

NEUROPATHY

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Neuropathy
Department Head: Lex Luthor (How the hell did that happen?)
Located at: Neuropathy

Duties: Neuropathy's ongoing mission is to hack into Stacy's brain, repair her nerve-systems and thereby regain crew control of the navigational and piloting systems. For this reason, several members consider themselves above the law in regards to basically everything. Largely thanks to sabotage incited by the previous crew to prevent the ship from falling into enemy hands when the space pirates took control of the ship, work in Neuropathy is tedious but very, very necessary.Think of it like AP Engineering, only with more Hackers and everyone's constantly snarking at each other.

Where duties crossover with other departments: Neuropathy involves mechanical systems, and biological systems, and the mechanical and biological expertise of people in other departments may be sometimes needed.

Requirements to Join, if any: Knowledge of biology, mechanics, programming, math, hacking, neurobiology and related scientific disciplines, and/or linguistics (given Stacy doesn't exactly think in any known language).

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know) Yes, but you have to deal with Lex Luthor deciding whether you can or not.

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: ICly: Lex Luthor, OOCly: Will

SCIENCE!!! (with thanks to GG for all the info)

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Science
Department Head: Luis Sera
Located at: Contagion Containment Laboratory (down the hall from Medical Bay)

Duties: Scientific research and development in cooperation with other departments and under commission from crew members. If the crew at large or a specific crew member needs a particular something researched, replicated or created for them, Science is the team to do it.

Where duties crossover with other departments:
Science collaborates quite a bit with Medical when it comes to research (with Science doing the research and Medical doing the actual treatments and applications). Science also does a lot of work with Engineering, planning and developing new technologies for Engineering to use. Many characters on Science are actually half-timers with either of these departments. Luis would highly appreciate some more full-time staff members: often it's just him and Scarlet.

Requirements to Join, if any: Science needs a diverse group in terms of disciplines (physicists, biologists and chemists) so if your character has any practical experience in these fields, Luis will let them onto the staff in a heartbeat. Being on staff means you get free reign of the contagion lab (which, despite its name, is actually a full scale biology/chemistry lab.)

The two rules of the department are 1) Luis must approve all staff projects and 2) No killing everyone with explosions or toxic gas or whatever. Biological weapon research is also strictly forbidden (unless it's to find cures for it.)

This sounds strict, but as a department head Luis fairly laid-back and usually too involved in his own work to worry about anyone else's. He takes one glance at your stuff before approving it. However, he is EXTREMELY strict about ethics and any mad-scientist-type projects will be shut down very quickly. If your Science character sways towards the more neutral/evil side, they had better either try to hide what they're doing or else be prepared to get into a fierce argument with Luis over it.

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: Talk to Luis Sera (played by GG, FullArmoredGG on AIM) or his second-in-command, Scarlet Levy (played by Varis, hardertokill on AIM.)

SECURITY

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Security.
Department Head: None. Needs a new one. Discuss.
Located at: The Precinct in the City. (The brig is there)

Duties: Maintaining the law on the ship, enforcing the rights granted ship crew in the Constitution, defusing conflicts, dealing with on-board intrusions and threats, patrolling the ship, guarding prisoners in the brig, a lot of the usual stuff cops do

Where duties crossover with other departments: Not a lot of crossover, though they work closely with Command and the Council

Requirements to Join, if any: Able-bodied, physically capable of restraining someone non-fatally, follows direction/orders well. Ages 16-18 (or a world's equivalent) can join if deemed responsible enough but must receive training/be partnered with an older partner. 18+ has no restrictions. Powers are useful, but non-powered individuals are also part of security, as responses are decided by threat levels.

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes.

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: No one. We need to arrange a new department head.

STARFIGHTER COMMAND

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Starfighter Command
Department Head: General Trudy Chacon
Located at: The Hangar. Mobile base of operations: The Macross Quarter.

Duties: Starfighter Command is Stacy's aerial defense force, her first line of defense against attacking Ohm. They are the ship's primary military force. Their rank structure is much more simplistic than most modern militaries owing to the relatively short chain of command. It is split in several squadrons, that operate different types of vehicles. Read here for more details. They often engage in practice simulations and strict training.

Where duties crossover with other departments: Actually, this needs answering? I imagine Medical lends out some medics, Engineering lends out some mechanics, and Science Division helps develop new technologies for them?

Requirements to Join, if any: Able to fly some sort of space vehicle (with accommodations, if not a humanoid or accommodations are necessary). Capacity to be trained to fly some sort of space vehicle. Vehicles will be provided. (This is where you go if you want your guy to learn to be a pilot).

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: ICly: Trudy Chacon. OOCly: Farasha

STRIKE TEAM

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Strike Team
Department Head: None. Needs a new one.
Located at: Needs a base of operations? Maybe?

Duties: Cover ops. Espionage. Assassinations. Every dirty little thing the crew might need to do to win the war that the rest of the crew would frown on.

Where duties crossover with other departments: May crossover with intelligence and use of spies.

Requirements to Join, if any: Must be able to follow orders to the letter, must be able to keep secrets, capacity to fight, capacity to possibly murder, weapons training, all the stuff you see spies do. This is not a group that can really train people to do stuff, you have to be the best at what you do, and what you do isn't pretty.

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). No. This team is so private that Leon can disavow all knowledge of it if it becomes public. The people on it must be willing to act as if they're working entirely of their own accord. This group is one of the most unknown and exclusive on the ship and very hard to get on since so much is dependent on IC stuff.

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: Needs a new department head and new OOC contact.

TACTICAL OPS

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Tactical Operations
Department Head: Nightwing, technically. IDK if Manda wants him to be.
Located at: Unknown

Duties: Long-term tactical analysis and formation of plans against the Ohm

Where duties crossover with other departments: Likely must work in cooperation with Command and many other departments.

Requirements to Join, if any: Tactical ability/knowledge.

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: ICly: Nightwing, OOC: Manda/Shard. (Possibly? Manda was never formally made Department head and IDK if she wants it).

Additional note: This department hasn't gotten much use. On-the-spot tactical stuff has often been handled by other departments/bridge crew, etc. Long-term stuff has been handled by Command/Department head meetings. Should their role be expanded or should we collapse it into other departments?

WELCOMING COMMITTEE (because you need a jello mold)

[cityship]

Department/Team Name: Welcoming Committee
Department Head: None. Often consists of Council and other individuals.
Located at: N/A

Duties: Welcoming new crew members of the ship and helping explain the situation formally.

Where duties crossover with other departments: N/A

Requirements to Join, if any: Ability to talk to people, ask questions, stay calm, refer individuals to who they need to talk to for certain problems

Is this department/team publicly known? (Some are private and need-to-know). Yes

Who to contact OOCly or ICly to join: N/A. We probably should have someone just to make it easier.

Additional Note: We may want to expand this as a department, and make sure there are people responsible for helping welcome newbs in case they don't get a lot of tags. Possibly, we might want to treat this as an OOC opportunity to help integrate newbies, by perhaps having a standard set of links to IC iformation the welcoming committee gives, so it helps the characters integrate.

NEW DEPARTMENT SUGGESTIONS/MISCELLANY

[cityship]

Anyone have ideas for new departments that it'd make sense to have? General ideas on department structure? Questions? Ideas for more cross-departmental interactions/meetings? General ways to involve the departments more in plots? Concerns?