Hello,

Welcome to the 2022 annual report for The New Universes Project. In this report we will cover the happenings for the 2022 reporting year as well as hopes for the 2023 year. This year was eventful in some aspects of our non-role-playing-based operations but also not so eventful in other operations. Each of our operational divisions will be broken into sections to make this report easier to follow.

SimmingHub
First we will cover our non-SIMM operations which include providing advertising support, technical assistance, website and Teamspeak hosting as well as events and community organizing services to the online play by post community at large.

Advertising
There was moderate use of our advertising channels throughout the year though, all that we do in these rooms is moderate to ensure no problems occur. This part of our activities pretty much manages itself as it does with all other advertising channels in the community so there is not anything to really report here.

Hosting
We began offering Teamspeak hosting in the middle of this year as part of a merger with one of our partner organizations. Since this there have been two interested parties, which have been accepted into our hosting program. We also currently host two websites beyond those that are required to maintain our operations. We are hoping to expand this service in 2023 as people require additional assistance with web hosting opportunities given our rather gracious arrangements with cPanel, Microsoft and AWS which allow us to offer these services completely free of charge to anyone who requires them.

Events
This is our first full calendar year managing the SciWorld and FallFest online conventions. This year both events were hosted by Theta Fleet. Starting in the spring and summer months with SciWorld, we began offering voice panels, which was a resounding success and is something that we will be doing in all future conventions. Moving forward, panelists will have the option to do voice, traditional text panels or a combination of the two, depending upon what their interest falls into. Attendance numbers for both of the cons averaged about the same as last year with about 230 people in attendance and 12 active in voice. During each individual panel there was around 15 people chatting between the panels so most of those in attendance were observers. In recognition of her amazing hosting abilities and service to the community during these conventions Kathryn Burke the chair from Theta Fleet was awarded a seat on the SimmingHub Event Organizing Committee to help plan further conventions for the community.

Simming Operations
ENRB/TFS Lavie
During the 2022 year the crew at the Lavie was tasked with helping to restore Earth to its former glory as colony ships had returned to the planet, in hopes of recolonization, only to find it being a barren wasteland and inhabited by genetically modified radioactive monsters due to the nuclear fallout from Starfleet’s assault on Earth to defend against the bug armada during the war with said bugs.

The crew made quick work of the creatures, and made their way to the artificial intelligence, which was in charge of restoring Earth through terraforming. The AI advised the crew that occupation of the planet by civilians was not advised at this time, and that Federation civilians should leave the planet, given its current hostile state. The AI also noted that it could not be held responsible for any loss of life given the inhospitable nature of the planet’s current state. The crew negotiated with the AI to allow for some civilians to stay on the planet to assist in terraforming work, and this was agreed to provided that, the risk of the planet’s current state was understood. It was also offered to use the AI’s research and development city built under the Earth’s crust to house these civilians for safekeeping. After this mission, the crew was met by a scientist who requested they explore a derelict part of space once inhabited by a race of light beings known as Mogs.

The role-play at its height this year had about 12 active members. Currently there are only six active members as the vast majority of members are on some form of leave of absence. During the year there were 26 posts that occurred over live chat medium which means that a post occurred once every two weeks on average. This is not what we would prefer. However, it is still within tolerance for activity. We do hope that in 2023 we see more activity from the members and input on further stories to improve everyone’s enjoyment of the writing. Currently, the game master team is working on rehashing the combat system and skill statistical elements to allow for easier combat and use of skills both in writing, as well as when dice rolls are required.

DFS Phoenix
Not much is known about the current status of this role-play story wise. However, there are still posts going on in this story. We hope for additional updates from this games game master team in the 2023 year to provide a more fleshed out report to the community.

Production Projects
The VN authorized by the council has resumed its development in unity. Beyond this, there has been little to report in the way of updates. Currently, the game is still in early beta development on its new unity build. We are hoping to have additional information in the next reporting period for this game. As of this moment the project is about 50% completed so the hope is that it will be finished by 2024 or earlier.

Administrative Updates
During the 2022 year myself and Brian Furman were reelected into our positions as president and vice president, respectively, following voting by the council. None of the council members were up for reelection during this period.  Significant budget constraints prevented expansion in certain developmental areas, such as server and IP infrastructure. This also caused a need for downsizing of current infrastructure use. At current operational output we will only be able to continue maintaining our current level of service and providing web hosting to eligible organizations following submission of an approved application. In the 2023 reporting year telephone support services may be completely eliminated in favor of ticket-based services due to lack of use as well as limited funding. No other notable items to report occurred administratively. Annual reports to the Department of State and Department of Justice Charitable Activities Section were current as of November 2022. For additional reporting details or inquiries, please contact me for a copy of these reports or refer to the applicable government agency’s online reporting database for up-to-date details.

 

That’s all for this year’s report. If you have any questions or need assistance, please feel free to reach out.

Josh Hina (Atsumari)
President/Lead Game Master
The New Universes Project

Good morning,

I have some mid-year updates for the community:

- SciWorld was ran on June 11th and was a success; thanks for the host's support and for those who helped SimmingHub make the event possible. Transcripts will be up soon from the event.
- ENRB was placed on a brief hiatus due to player activity concerns. The RP is active once again start this this week. 
- The Ari-chan community bot is currently down due to an issue with its software. We are working on a solution and hope to have the bot back online soon.
- The next SimmingHub event is FallFest and planning for that event will begin in late August and early September once the host is selected.

As always if you have questions, need assistance or want to speak to someone please feel free to contact our staff via the support system or in Discord.

Josh

 

 

Good morning,

 

Our foundation to support the play by post role playing community was founded on the ideals of community cooperation, neutrality, creating the ability for the play by post community to survive for generations to come and; most of all honesty. It is for these reasons that today I reach out to the community on behalf of our board; which we internally call the council.

 

Recently there has been concern community-wide about The Prize for Simming and Online Role Playing in Memory of Seth Cotis (informally called the Simming Prize within the community) and in the interest of community cooperation we were contacted about this. After discussing the matter with both parties we would like to inform the community in an open fashion about what has transpired and our hopes for this dispute. The Trustees of the Prize have informed us that the current situation involves decisions made years back and even a re-vote in the interest of fairness that occurred within the last year. In short, the voting did not go as the other side planed. Now there are claims regarding a failure to comply with internal regulations for the Prize. The dispute has risen to the point that it affects the continued legitimacy and trust in the Prize.

 

Our official response to this is the encouragement of cooperation, professionalism and what is best for the community which would include incidents such as these not being dragged into the public eye. Responses such as what are occurring now; regardless of the side anyone supports damage community trust and sully the history that this as well as other programs supporting simming in a larger sense were founded upon the legacy of. If any involved feel that a third-party arbitrator is required to aide in encouraging the community trust remains, we would encourage such an action. We hear that this has been attempted but would strongly encourage continued attempts at an amicable resolution. Please remember that in the public eye one’s actions echo far beyond what we may intend and that we all serve our players and the community at large. Professionalism, cooperation and transparency are always the best path with which publicly facing programs should be ran.

 

Josh Hina

President

The New Universes Project

Welcome to 2022!
 

As we begin this new year and look forward; hopefully to better prospects I am happy to bring another annual report. During 2021 we were able to continue on with SimmingHub as it launched some of its projects, we resumed work with LastNexus Studios on the first TNU VN, we continued the ENRB role play through its 5th year of operations and saw some new role plays come and go within TNU. Each of these items will be discussed in further details below in this report. 
 

SimmingHub

SimmingHub began oversight of SciWorld and FallFest this year running both events with the assistance of Independence Fleet and Fifth Fleet respectively. Both events had around 200 people in attendance with about 50 people active in total throughout each panel, discussion and panel counting everything together. We are happy that the community has been so accepting of an outside organization taking over operational management of the conventions and are hoping to continue the traditions set forth in previous events. We want to attempt to host voice panels at some point as there has been feedback from the community that people would enjoy this type of content however there are many logistical considerations with this type of panel and privacy concerns that we would need to address; we care about the community and the privacy of its members so we want to ensure we keep all of this in mind as we plan. The 2022 events will be planned by SimmingHub as per the schedule outlined on the conventions page on SimmingHub’s website. Thank you for everyone who attended and for the assistance from the host organizations this last year.
 

SimmingHub has also began to launch its own web hosting operations with support from the Microsoft Azure platform and cPanel. We hope to provide the community and related organizations support when they need it in regards to website hosting and related technical considerations. Should someone have a need please reach out to us via the hosting request form on the SimmingHub website.
 

Last but not least SimmingHub’s resource page is still functional but has had minimal updates; we hope that the community will provide us links to add to it in the coming year so we can make it more of an open resource for the community at large. This also goes for the conventions page; if you run an event for the simming/online play by post role playing community please contact our administrative office so we can get your convention, schedule and a link to your website listed on our resource hub.
 

Role Playing Operations

The ENRB role play (formerly DFS Lavie) has completed its 5th year of operations. It had 20 group posts during the year of 2021 and 10 individual posts. That means that about every 2 weeks one post had occurred within the group; it is hoped that the posting numbers will increase this year. Currently the role play has 14 members with 3 on leaves. During the 2021 calendar year the crew traveled into a new area of space coined simply the New Sector by command and investigated the disappearance of a survey crew as well as rendered aide to a planet that was overtaken by a corrupt corporate controlled government. As the year came to a close the crew returned to Earth for what they thought would be rest; only to find the planet in shambles and in need of much help. 2022 will be the role play’s sixth year of continuous operation.
 

Due to lack of activity the Himawari Academy role play was shut down.
 

DFS Phoenix continues to operate; it is following the crew of a ship working to handle the remnants of the Orteria Cult whom attempted to overthrow Orteria’s government and revive the Phoenix with help from some less than savory elements within the Federation Senate. It does not report its number of currently active players to the front office.
 

Production Projects

The Council authorized TNU Productions and LastNexus Studios to create the first ENRB VN. In the 2021 year this game has been moved to the Unity Engine and more art assets have been finalized. In preparation for other potential written works the council has retained the consultation of a law firm to provide advice and oversight in the development of a participation agreement between our writers and the editing staff to allow us to use individual contributors content within creative works that we authorize in the future. This does not mean that TNU will take ownership of anyone’s contributions without their consent; we are here to help people learn to write better, keep their writing alive and have a place to write… These parts of our mission will not change though copyright law and intellectual property do not exist in a vacuum. If anyone has specific questions about any of these more legal concerns, please reach out to me.
 

Administration/Other

Now to the more administrative and bureaucratic stuff; Brian and I have been confirmed as President and VP for our second year. Scott stepped down as the third game master for ENRB and has been temporarily replaced by Charlie. In other staffing considerations Aya and Kirishima have been made volunteer moderators due to the influx in spam on the forums and Discord. 
 

Due to the closing down of our partner IGA TNU will be assuming the responsibilities of managing its hosting and gaming community operations; those few that did still exist. This change began on January 1, 2022. 
 

The project’s wiki has been moved to an in-house solution due to some recent policy changes within our wiki host (Fandom). Due to the unrestrictive content nature of our written works our editing staff cannot police what our community writes with few exceptions as a result of this and the restrictive nature of that policy change (regarding not safe for work content) it was decided to set up an in-house option. Please keep in mind that this is not saying we support any specific type of content; we just do not restrict people’s ability to write and as such rather than create any problems we have created our own solution.
 

Conclusion

2021 was a busy year for the group and though our posting numbers did fall it is my hope that in the coming year we will be able to bring that up. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to staff.
 

Be well and stay safe,

 

Josh Hina (Atsumari)
President
The New Universes Project
 

Greetings everyone,
 

I come to you today with information about our host for FallFest this year. After deliberations and discussion with those interested, we have asked 5th Fleet (5thfleet.net) to host this years FallFest. They have accepted and appointed Nixon; their Operations Chief as the Chair for this year’s event. It has been scheduled to take place on November 13th 2021. SimmingHub and 5th Fleet have also discussed the potential fo doing voice panels for those who are interested. We are hopeful that this year will continue the success of previous events and welcome your feedback. As always please reach out to the host and chair if you would like to host a panel, help out in any way or if you have any questions. Last but not least mark your calendars for November 13th. We hope to see you at FallFest XI!

Josh