While it is preferred that the Republic campaign remain a free-style, author-centered roleplaying environment, it is still necessary to lay down ground rules for all players. While most major problems can be avoided through simple dialog with all parties involved, inevitably, situations will arise where we need to refer to a common set of basic principles for which all players have agreed to follow prior to coming onboard. Below is a list of what we feel to be a set of common sense guidelines that have been developed over the years that this writing campaign has existed. Each rule was developed based on one or more situations that actually occurred, and for which we thought burdened the campaign to such a degree that it required a rule adoption. If you are new to the campaign, or are about to apply for a position, a full understanding of these rules are required for you to participate. Your performance and acceptance into the campaign will be based on how well you adhere to these rules, and it deserves your utmost attention. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact the .

Although our themes and stories are not necessarily graphic or violent, we require the age limit to ensure maturity and maintain responsible roleplaying. Writing in this campaign requires at least a high school understanding of grammar, and sometimes college-level. Life experience can be the greatest tool of the fiction writer, and we have found that only adult writers can produce the quality writing we require of our members. At the other end of this subject, "adult writing" does not equate "adult material", i.e. pornography. In our opinion, tasteless smut does not belong in Star Trek, nor does it belong in the Republic campaign. While we encourage creative themes that can sometimes include intense romantic scenes, blatant and surreal "T&A" is pointless to helping the story move forward.

Because we prefer quality over quantity, we allow members to take their time to write quality posts. Members are expected to write reasonably-sized well-written posts with ample story and atmosphere.  We have little tolerance for poor-quality writers who write only a few sentences with little dialog and lack of detail, as such material is not considered sufficient material for a cooperative writing campaign. However, this doesn't mean that you can take months off between posts. If we find your writing lacking, and it's been too long since we have heard from you, we consider you on borrowed time and reserve the right to remove you from the campaign at a time of our choosing.

In addition to posting regularly, we consider creativeness and self-motivation as "must have" skills. This is a co-operative writing campaign, and player characters are central to the storyline. We consider our members independent writers, and so, it is not the job of the staff to give them something to do all the time. The excuse "I didn't write anything because I didn't know what to do" is unacceptable. Any writer who is worth the weight of their quill can come up with themes, side plots, and personal stories for their character. Put simply, this is your show; the Republic staff only sets the stage. If you expect others to do the work for you and your character, don't expect to be a member of this campaign for very long.

While the occassional spelling or grammatical error is expected, constant misuse of simple composition rules makes for a difficult read. If you can't write, we'd prefer you were not a member. It's that simple.

As a fictional saga, the Republic campaign writing style is in the past-tense, third-person point of view, and we ask all writers to compose their posts accordingly. Compare the following two sentences:

Captain Kirk called out to Spock and said, "what's our status?"

My character calls out to Spock and says "what's our status?"

The top sentence is in the preferred writing style, but the bottom is not. While it's expected that an aspiring writer may, on occassion, accidentially lapse into a style other than past-tense third-person, it should not happen on a regular basis.

Incidentally, if you're still trying to figure out the important differences between the two sentences above, then you probably shouldn't apply to be a writer in this campaign.

Players are expected to keep egos offline.  All players are considered mature adults, and overly emotional, slanderous, or otherwise immature behavior will not be tolerated.

Every character has their flaws and their quirks. It is also expected that characters will inherit some traits of their creators. However, the Republic campaign is not a "munchkin campaign" nor a place to "power game". Every Republic character must have a balance of good traits and bad traits, and their vunerabilities and negative qualities must be written about just as much as their positive ones. In addition, when writers create a scene with their character, it is expected that they will write their character to fit the scene, and NOT write the scene to fit their character. In other words, a writer's focus for each post should be to add to the storyline and not solely to promote their character. To shine the spotlight all the time on your character at the expense of the story and other characters is called "Mary Sue" writing. The following definition explains what a "Mary Sue" character is:

Mary Sue is any original or deeply altered character who represents a slice of his/her creator's own ego; s/he is treasured by his/her creator but only rarely by anyone else. More negatively, a Mary Sue is a primadonna (usually but not always badly-written) who saps life and realism out of every other character around, taking over the plot and bending canon to serve his/her selfish purposes.

- Mary Sue at Kielle's Official Mary Sue Society Avatar Appreciation Site

While it's expected that Mary Sue will creep into the story posts of even the best writer from time to time, excessive focus on positive traits, special powers, or personal storylines that become too egocentric will be viewed as Mary Sue writing. Basically, it comes down to this: your character is not a god. Do not derive your character or write your posts as if you are all-knowing and can do anything.

Use of player knowledge is highly discouraged on the Republic.  If you, the reader, are aware of a situation in another scene in which your character is not involved, then there is no reason your character should have the same knowledge.

Player characters take up the role of a responsible Starfleet officer in charge of a specific department aboard the Starship Republic.  As such, players who develop their characters with unique backgrounds or personality quirks must be able to fulfill this role without suspending belief for the rest of the players.  Reasonable knowledge of the Star Trek universe is assumed.

We do not tolerate spam or off-topic posts in the group.  Anyone doing so will be removed from the campaign after ample warning has been issued. Off topic simply means anything not related to Star Trek. An occassional message about an upcoming Star Trek movie, or comments about an episode are perfectly fine.

Not much more to be said here. We need a referee, and so we have a gamemaster. While there are moderators who assist the gamemaster in administrative task and plot development, they must answer to the gamemaster.

You will note that the gamemaster is NOT the captain of the ship. We do not adhere to Starfleet chain-of-command oustide of our characters. There is no "JAG" or complex administrative procedure to come to a decision about a problem.