Good day, eh?
So, this weekend was supposed to be the grand shiny that was Region Three Game Day, hosted by R3 with the assistance of their friends, the Royal Dragoon Guards. Well, the RDG totally failed to show up in force, and R3 showed just enough to break even. The folks that were there had fun, to be sure, but I myself had to leave early for a family emergency. One of my wife's cousins sadly committed suicide, and the family found out about it the morning of game day in a less than pleasant manner. This tragedy colored the rest of the weekend, and damaged my calm to the point that I called in sick Monday due to lack of sleep. Out of respect for the family, that's all the detail I'm going to go into on this subject.
I have to say I feel a bit melancholy about this event. It is, in most likelihood, the last hurrah of the USS Ark Angel. For those of you who don't know, the Ark Angel is the name of the chapter of STARFLEET, the International Star Trek Fan Association that I founded along with my close friends back in 1999. My wife, my best friend and myself have all been CO at times. In the early days we were a tight group of good friends dedicated to gaming and living life. Slowly, as time went on, the Ark Angel and our involvement with STARFLEET changed into something a lot less fun. We became, victims of our own shiny, the rescue force and event backbone. Color guards, planning committees, moving details. We even originated Game Day as a mini-convention to spread the gaming hobby amongst our fellow geeks. The problem was, the events became our primary reason for existence, and the gaming tapered off because we were all to busy with the events. Good people got burned the hell out because we were leaned heavily upon half the time, and ignored or forgotten the rest. The populace of the Region certainly respected and appreciated us, but the leadership I think found our energy to be a bit too much. I know at least one muckety-muck who seemed to think we made them look bad by comparison - and by gum, we did. I regret that I wasn't able to take my dream team and run the region as I'd wanted to do. Sadly - that could never occur now because two of the people I wanted in supporting positions never want to have anything to do with Fleet ever again. THAT's how badly burned we all were in the end.
So now, I'm looking at what might be the final days of the chapter I poured a decade of my life into. But her spirit is broken, her original crew gone, all that's left is her name. I realize this in my head, but my heart is still more than a bit sad at her passing. I can't help but feel there was more adventure waiting for the USS Ark Angel with her original crew, and that it was somehow my fault that I let us get so distracted by being the Ark Angel crew we forgot that the adventure tales are what brought us together in the first place.
I'm making myself a promise that should the Royal Dragoon Guards carry on, that I will not let myself or the RDG forget that we are first and foremost a club about gaming. When you stop having fun, you're doing it wrong.
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