History of the Starfleet Legacy Alliance

SLA History

The following entry was originally written by Seth Cotis for the SLA website - History of the SLA.

The Starfleet Legacy Alliance (SLA) is a fantastic sim group with a long and rich history. The group is dedicated to keeping the power over the sim in the hands of the hosts and making simming fun for all enjoyed. We have had some tremendous success over the last year with recruiting, diplomacy and expansion. One year after the SLA sprung from another sim group it is already considered a leader in the simming community. This is an opportunity to review some of our past and to explain where we came from. Updated 3/30/03.

1994 : Pre-history of the SLA

The United Space Federation is formed by Andy Clements with the assistance of many others, including a simmer by the name of Eddie Felson who later became Captain Connery (CO of the original USS Stealth). Connery also serves in a diplomatic capacity for the USF, assisting in the bringing in of several sims including the USS Darkhorse. The USF is formed by the splintering of the USS Excelsior from another sim group so that Andy could host in a better environment.

The USF spreads over the first year to bring in several sims and to launch many of its own.
USS Potemkin sim launched at the end of 1994, named by Captain Connery after the battleship in the classic film.
In 1994 Star Trek : The Next Generation went off the air and Voyager was still to come. TNG had been the most watched syndicated show ever, only to be surpassed so far by Baywatch. ~ Deep Space 9 was still struggling with ratings as it came into its second season. Star Trek : Generations is released showing the death of Kirk. The internet is still a young growing community and Star Trek simming had only existed on the internet for a year or two.

1996

Sierra joins the USF on one of its many sims.
In 1996 Star Trek celebrated its 30th anniversary with the Deep Space 9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" (showcasing the Deep Space 9 crew thrown back to a TOS episode) and the Voyager episode "Flashback" (showcasing Sulu in command of the Excelsior). The Simming Community has grown and a few groups stick out as successful. The internet population continues to grow.

1997

Surak joins the USF as Bjorn Vuelvas and is placed on the USS Potemkin.
Sierra steps up to hosthood in the USF as the XO of the USS Potemkin.
Seth joins the USF and USS Potemkin as Ensign Christiaan Back on the same day Sierra steps into the role as the XO of the USS Potemkin. He is placed in the Tac/Sec department under Bjorn Vuelvas. This joining was by the suggestion of Captain Connery.
Sierra begins a new sim, the Outpost Cousteau, based on a planet in the Beta quadrant, and influenced by the New Frontier series by Peter David.
Commander Mason (SLAHarrison) steps into the XO spot under Sierra who is serving as CO of the Potemkin now.
During Sierra's tenure as CO of the Potemkin staffing, attendance and partipation all go through the roof. The Potemkin is now setting records for log writing in the USF. Four years later the rest of the sims in the USF still have not caught up with the output during Sierra's running of this sim.
Jeri Ryan joins the cast of Voyager.
AOL begins to offer unlimited access for a monthly fee which helps vastly increase the Simming Community on AOL.
This year also saw Surak, Sierra and Seth meet which leads to major improvements in the USS Potemkin sim.
This year also saw the launch of the Outpost Cousteau sim.

1998

Sierra continues her tour as CO of the USS Potemkin.
Mason (SLAHarrison) retires from the XO spot on the USS Potemkin due to real life.
Sierra hands the reigns of the OPC over to Surak, who has now started this character for Commanding of the OPC. Shortly thereafter this sim is brought into the USF.
Commander Janar takes over as XO of the USS Potemkin.
Christiaan Back is forced off line due to real life and takes an extended LOA from 2/98 through 10/98.
Gabriel Wulfe (Rixx) joins the USS Potemkin in December 1998.
Star Trek : Insurrection is released under the direction of Jonathan Frakes (Riker, TNG). Terry Ferrell (Jadzia Dax) departs the Deep Space 9 series and is replaced by Nicole deBoer (Ezri Dax). ~ The USS Potemkin sim hits incredible success and has become the most successful sim in the USF in terms of staffing, attendance, writing and simmer enjoyment. OPC is now handed over to its long time CO, Dante Surak.
The Simming Community is still growing but numorous groups are launching so some groups are having trouble recruiting.

1999

Sierra's own recruiting efforts for the USS Potemkin are a tremendous success and staffing begins to set new records for the USF.
The USS Potemkin begins the now famous Outpost Sarajevo alt storyline, which let many crew members create new characters to sim as for several months. This is where many characters started out such as Seth Cotis and Gabriel Wulfe.
Garrett joins the USS Potemkin.
Christiaan Back (Seth Cotis) is promoted to Commander and made Executive Officer on the Starbase Everest under Captain Tage in February. Everest is soon raised from a fledgling sim with extremely low staffing/attendance to extremely well staffed with great attendance and participation from the crew.
Surak is promoted to Fleet Captain (overseer role) in the USF
Keldar joins the OPC.
Christiaan Back (Seth) is serving as acting CO of the Everest and Potemkin at the same time as Sierra takes LOA, Janar is facing real life issues, and the CO of the Everest takes several LOA’s. This occurs in the spring and summer of this year.
Janar leaves the XO spot of the Potemkin.
Christiaan Back (Seth) moved from XO spot of the Everest to XO spot on the Potemkin and groomed towards the CO spot as Sierra prepares for retirement from the sim.
IRL Back (Seth) moves into the Web Development field, which will later serve to help in future website developments, designs and applications for USSPotemkin.com and LegacySims.com. This also teaches Back the basics of web marketing and search engine placement.
In November Back (Seth) takes over command of the USS Potemkin.
Star Trek : Deep Space 9 finishes off its seven year run and ends the Dominion War. Many sims had involved themselves in the Dominion War plots. As we approach the year 2000 more and more sim groups begin to pop up and the world lies in fear of the Y2K bug that never happens.

2000 : The birth of Starfleet Legacy Alliance

http://www.usspotemkin.com launched. First domain name launch for a sim within the USF.
Sierra and Commander Rixx (Gabriel Wulfe) launch the Starfleet Academy sim.
Sierra steps down from commanding the Starfleet Academy. Her choice as the next CO is Rixx.
After several months of thinking and discussion the USS Potemkin, OPC and Academy decide to withdraw from the USF in October.
On October 1, 2000, the Starfleet Legacy Alliance is born. Approximately 90% of the original crews move to the new sim group.
Launch of http://www.legacysims.com website.
With the split finally behind them and extremely high crew loyalty the sims begin their adventures within the SLA.
The United Simulations Network approaches the SLA about a merger of their group into the SLA. Due to concerns about the stability of mergers the SLA turns down this approach after a long debate. The SLA group, however, sees the formation of its first diplomatic relationship with another group besides the USF.
The Year 2000 saw the launch of the SLA. Over the first few months the group concentrates on staffing its two sims (USS Potemkin and OPC) and developing tools to help this new group. ~ The split from the USF was not without problems as some members of both groups felt animosity towards the other. It was not until early 2001 that this anomisity was finally resolved.

2001 : First Steps

Seth Cotis meets Admiral Shuni of the Federation Sim Fleet, arguably the most successful sim group out today. The man soon serves as advisor and friend to the SLA on several occasions.
The SLA joins the Simming League, a collection of online sim groups gathered for peaceful communication and assistance.
The SLA is brought into contact with various groups within the Simming League including Trek Online, Space Fleet Elite Forces, Starfleet Command, and Pi Fleet which leads to the creation of several diplomatic relationships.
Over the course of 2001 several sims join the SLA including the USS Cassini, USS Orion, USS Lionheart and USS Zealous. The SLA also launches a few sims such as the USS Mercutio, USS Ramoth and the USS Schindler. The Academy sim is relaunched late in the year.
Pamela Greeley accepts Recruiting Chair. Recruiting literarily takes off as a result. The jump is actually on record as going from 15 recruits a month to 35 + a month in three months time.
SLAGarrett takes on Electorate Chair.
SLA gets AOL boards. Within a short period of time (just over a month) they are granted mini-boards.
Commander Brighton joins the Council as Fleet Status Chair.
USS Zealous and USS Centauris begin joint sim log so that both sims can grow and
SLA and FSF are freely exchanging links and several members from both groups are enjoying membership of both groups.
Elizara takes on responsibilities of Public Relations Chair.
Garrison Powers takes on responsibilities as Expansion Chair.
MacKenzie steps up to Captain the USS Declaration as it is moved onto a new vessel, the USS Archangel.
The SLA is approached by hosts with the Freedom Squad, a fleet within the SFC. A meeting is requested by the FS where negotiations begin requesting the FS to be brought into the SLA. After long discussions both sides decide not to pursue this merger but a friendship is formed between these two groups.
SLA hits record breaking recruiting success in November with over 44 recruits in one month.
The SLA begins diplomatic relationships with several new groups to the Simming Community including Galactic Trek Simulations, Galactic Space Forces, and Omega Simulations.

SLA members and the members of many other groups are subjected to spam mail recruiting from the United Galactic Simming Federation who later declares war on several other sim groups.

Star Trek : Voyager ends its 7 year run with the crew returning home to the Alpha Quadrant. Enterprise launches with Scott Bakula playing the new Captain, Jonathan Archer.
Numorous upstart sim groups fold over the course of 2000 and 2001 because so many were started by people who wanted only the authority but were not willing to put in the work. As time goes on some in the Simming Community begin to believe that simming is dying, but many are beginning to believe that we are seeing a thinning of the herd where only the groups willing to put in the work, offer the best sims and cator to their simmers see success. While numorous groups collapse, groups like the SLA, FSF and others see incredible success and membership numbers expand. The SLA allows several sims to join after applying because they offer top quality sims.
The SLA application base is growing and demanding different times and more e-mail sims. As we approach 2002 we see the groups putting in the effort doing exceptional and the groups not falling apart or going under.

2002

The USS Faranth and Starbase 27 (with Captain Christiaan Back as CO and Commander Gabriel Wulfe as first officer) launch to fill out the weekly schedule. Now all nights but Friday offer an SLA sim.
Trinity Station and the Lexington launch, filling out the E-mail selection. The Lexington is the first Enterprise timeline sim offered by the SLA and is one of the first few launched on the internet.
The SLA improves its recruiting, marketing and exposure by rolling out a new Fleet plan which creates four fleets for the sims of the SLA. These include Asimov, Cochrane, Odan and Shakaar Fleet. This new system adds four new websites to the SLA community and puts the new Fleet Captains in a position to help with recruiting, marketing and exposure. It also allows the simmers to be part of both a larger and smaller community while it gives the sims the chance to work together on a smaller scale.
SLA has website problems with legacysims.com and launches SLASims.com to resolve the situation.
Ten Forward Lounge launched to give all of the sims in the group their own message boards off of AOL and to allow the simmers to carry on general discussions about Trek, simming and more.
Mailstrings set up for every sim in the SLA using slasims.com as the carrier. This makes communication easier for the Hosts and the Administration.
The SLA Charter is adapted to help identify the structure of the group, to protect the rights of all members and to set forth the code of conduct for all hosts and government members.
USS Stargazer and USS Dauntless dismissed from the SLA due to low activity.
The third Host Admin Section is developed, giving the Hosts even more control over the SLA website, offering an improved Recruit Tracking System and much more.
Most sim websites are moved to the SLA server in order to provide free hosting without pop-up ads or extensive URL's.
Work begun on version 5 of the SLA website, this time focused on PHP and mySQL technologies with some flash, DHTML and JavaScript.
New templates created for sim websites, bringing the library to four.
Lexington becomes arguably the most successful Enterprise timeline sim on the net.
The SLA hits 44 applications in December of 2002, surpassing the goal of 40.
Star Trek: Enterprise continues its first season with strong ratings and some fans begin to believe this is the best Star Trek show since TNG. Star Trek : Nemesis is released as are all of TNG DVD's.
The SLA saw many great things happen in 2002 despite the website problems. The group continues to succeed and attracts dozens of simmers every month. Diplomacy has continued to be a focus with this group and in 2002 they helped numorous other groups to develop and find their own way.

2003

2002 was a very successful year for the SLA. After problems with the web server and the loss of the website for several months, the SLA focused on resolving the web problems and saw incredible growth. With the website back up the group attracted numorous simmers and the new message boards slowly began to develop. 2003 would bring even more amazing success. In January the SLA launched version 5 of its website showcasing PHP and mySQL interaction. The new navigation system and improved Host Admin abilities gave the users direct access to even more up to date information about the group and sims.

Seth had set a goal to improve recruiting from an average of 40 recruits a month to 50. This was simply blown out of the water. In January the group saw 57 applicants. In February the group hit 75. March brought 89 applicants to the group. Simply put our recruiting had not only gone through the roof but may very well have been surpassing that of every other group out there. It is believed that this is due to our growing reputation, our focus on quality and our activity in advertising.

By early February the group had launched the USS Lee, our first Friday night sim. This filled the SLA schedule and now the group offers sims every night of the week (live action) and many PBEM sims.
Early on in 2003 the group focused on expanding the PBEM offerings because of the heavy recruit demand. The group launched the USS Avenger (Defiant Class) and accepted the Federation Outpost Regal 1 to help round out the PBEM division. The USS America also launched under the SLA umbrella taking the place of our first TOS era sim. As of late March the America and the Lexington were known as the most successful PBEM sims of their genres.
In March of 2003 the SLA opened its first Message Board sim and its first Stargate SG-1 sim. After just a few days the sim had grown to seven members and was showing extreme activity.
The SLA message boards took off in 2003 and in February showcased over one thousand posts. March surpassed thirteen hundred posts showing incredible activity within the group.
As of March every sim had a live website and most saw tremendous recruiting success through these.
Plans began to develop for a new Enterprise timeline sim and other PBEM games to meet the demands of the numorous recruits.
The SLA expanded the Host Admin Section with several features including Advertising (which showed several key places to go to advertise for new recruits and how to do so) and the Potential Host List (which showcased potential hosts within the groups and the comments of their sim's hosts).
The SLA grows to over two dozen sims.
Enterprise continues its second season. Star Trek: Nemesis, while a critical success, struggled a bit in the box office but hopes are that the DVD/Video release and overseas markets will resolve this. Star Trek: Deep Space 9 is set for DVD release and Paramount is promising all 7 seasons will be released in 2003 (starting in February).
The SLA is continuing to grow and succeed thanks to the great effort of the hosts and crews of the various sims. Recruits are still joining in incredible numbers and the SLA is forced to expand its E-mail offerings because of overstaffing on some sims.

2005

The SLA and the online Star Trek sim community mourn the passing of Seth Cotis, a.k.a. Michael Back, when he passes away July 15, 2005, from complications from diabetes, at the age of 35.

Following Seth's passing, a political upheaval ensues as the SLA Council tries to re-delegate his responsibilities and find leadership. Pamela Kyle is elected to succeed Seth in the position of Moderator Chair, but the position of Council Leader is left unfilled. The SLA's struggles continue through year's end.

2006

The SLA continues to seek direction following the passing of Seth Cotis. A project to rewrite the SLA's charter proposed during mid-2005 is launched in earnest. After significant compromises on the part of two parties with different perspectives on the direction that the new charter should go, the document is completed and the ratification process begins.

Development work begins on a website to replace the group's long-serving fifth website. Version six is designed to be easily maintained and expanded for years to come.

In March, the USS America leaves the SLA amidst the disagreements over the developing charter. A transition period to a new hosting company begins as the SLA's web host disables mailing list support. Minor mail problems occur as services are transferred gradually.

In May, following the approval of a new charter, elections are held to appoint members to the SLA Council's newly-created positions.

In June, several simulations leave the group, including that of the Council Moderator, Pamela Kyle, and the Personnel Chair, Jason Striker.

In August, elections are held to fill the open Council positions. The new Council begins to make progress, and by December the group appears to be on the mend.

2010

In the previous 4 years, the SLA continued to grow and expand. New genres and simulations were added to the roster available.

In January, Warp stepped down as Council Moderator of the organization. In a smooth and peaceful handover, Tavey was elected to the position.