The USS Highlander is in need of a new chief science officer, chief medical officer, and chief operations officer! We're looking to fill up our empty senior staff places in preparation for our next mission, which we're just about to start, so this will be a perfect time for new crew to join us!
We're having a bit of a time-jump, too - this mission will be set 6 months after the end of our last one to allow us to participate in getting the Task Force 11 Story Arc rolling (even if the mission is involved initially in only a small way, due to it already being planned before the story arc concept was finalised), which means that you've got more freedom with how to introduce your character - their could have come onboard during those six months and already be comfortable on the ship by the time of the start of this mission, or they could have just joined us, after their NPC predecessor left the ship at some point in the preceding six months.
Chief Science Officer, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Operations Officer are our primary target for recruitment right now, but we also have a number of less senior positions available, such as:
- Diplomatic Officer - A secondary position sometimes referred to as a contact specialist (same role that Troi held in addition to her counsellor job on the Enterprise). Character should have a suitable primary position in the science or counselling departments, or be a civilian. Though not strictly a senior officer position, the diplomatic officer is automatically entitled to join in on senior staff meetings.
- Media Relations Officer - Responsible for liaising with the various media outlets around the Federation. This position deals with a rather under-developed area of the future which it might be quite interesting to have more depictions of; the media. I imagine this person would be responsible for determining what aspects of the ship's mission get released to the media and how, and handling requests from organisations from information to interviews to onboard visits.
- All other junior officer positions onboard
For info, here's the synopsis of our next mission:
Six months after the mission to Dreyas IV, the USS Highlander is patrolling near the Federation-Klingon border, and as Lieutenant McIntyre begins his command training to make him able to take on the second officer position properly, ship's sensors detect an object near the edge of the Lembatta Nebula, a stellar nursery on the Federation side of the border that has frequently been difficult to scan the depths of from outside due to the interference from the many forming baby stars within. Diverting course to investigate, the crew find an unusual piece of lost property - an NX-class starship, over 200 years old.
The ship turns out to be the DeSalle NX-10, a ship listed as being destroyed at the end of the Earth-Romulan War on the outskirts of the Rigel system - a victim of a cloaked Romulan mine field. With so few NX-class ships being built by the Earth Starfleet of that time, and with even less of them surviving humanity's first conflict with the Romulans, Starfleet is eager for the Highlander crew to restore and preserve the ship, and bring it to Cestus III to be turned into a museum of early human exploration. However, as the engineering teams begin beaming over, they discover an odd cellular residue along all of the aft walls of the ship, and to add to the creepiness, as they begin to power up some of the systems with portable generators, the computers begin doing strange things - almost as if someone else was attempting to use the controls.
While they are still working on the DeSalle, the Gorn and their new alliance begin an attack on Klingon border worlds, quickly defeating the outmatched Klingon forces at M'Char, B'rel and Q'tahl. Most Klingon vessels fight to the death, but a number manage to leave the battles with heavy casualties. The Highlander is ordered to provide assistance, and splits its crew - leaving much of the engineering staff behind on the DeSalle whilst the rest of the crew heads off towards Klingon space.
