CAPTAIN’S BLOG, STARDATE July 12th 2010

Been an interesting week. Spock and I decided that, before
we plunge straight in to investigating and protecting and all that stuff, we
should probably ask the people we are going to serve what they want. Or, as is
the case on some planets, what they need. So it’s been a week of travel,
visiting various communities and asking them what their problems were and what
needs they had that weren’t being met. Turns out that a lot of them did feel
unsafe and anxious, either from outside threats or from not knowing their
planet / moon very well. That was good to know: chimed with what we had thought
already, and good to beam down and have those conversations face-to-face.

A few other more unexpected things came up though: one
survey Spock had sent out via some Vulcan networks revealed that some other
alien groups were offering similar services, but that they weren’t viewed as
doing so of a high quality, nor with the combination of investigation and
protection we were offering. But good to know the competition: space is a big
market, so there’s room for lots of us I reckon. Another organisation said that
it would be interested in partnering up, so we’ll see how that pans out: got a
meeting in the diary for a couple of weeks time.

Uhura had also sorted out the comms equipment, so she and
Bones caught up with the Federation and Starfleet, who are our backers after
all. Investment for repairs and staffing is so hard to come by these days, so
need to keep the relationships strong and good. We were pretty honest about
where we are at, and our future plans, and they were keen to see us make
progress. According to Bones, they said “some bunch of crap about them being
our most important ‘stakeholders’, whatever that means, Jim"; must look that up at some point: maybe when Spock has finished on the laptop.

Ciao.