Lt Cdr. Bull (Starfleet Pilot AMA)

Licensing rules.

The nice thing about being friends with Geordi is you get told the EXACT moment they unlock Cadburys Easter Eggs on the replicators each year.

Intro deal was great, but it's a pain trying to cancel the contract now.

For years I couldn't work out why whenever I ticked the "remember my details" box on things it never worked.

Turns out it was Q. Absolute arsehole.

From what I've seen the plan is to remove even more of the people interfacing and manual control in favour of computerisation.

I accept Command believes this is the appropriate design path.

I have also served on two Enterprises so far that would have been lost if they were built to that principle.

Your average Federation citizen will never use a transporter once in their life, even if they frequently travel off world.

Majority of non-essential crew movements happen by shuttle.

Transporters are solid tech, but you have to do a risk assessment if you want to use them outside of certain clearly defined priority uses or where shuttle operations are deemed risky.

I briefly commanded the museum ahip USS Kongo, an original Constitution Class, during an anniversary tour.

She had a FRICKIN BOWLING ALLEY.

It was incredible. Those old ship configurations were insane.

Been trying to persuade the Captain we need one on the E, ever since.

Lego kits are rubbish because it's all just stuff from kids holos.

Cobi do an excellent range of historic starships though.

Because Starships are an insane amount of raw power forcibly confined in a very small metal box. It's a marvel of engineering that they don't explode more often.

Picard invites the senior staff to take part in a holodeck murder mystery every year, often drawn from his library of old earth dramas.

The year Gowron found out about this and invited himself for the first time was... interesting.

So without going full Shuttle nerd, there is a reason we mostly only run Type-6s and Type-7s on the E. They have an auxiliary manual yoke which has, literally, saved mine (and by extension Riker's) life at least once.

They're meant to be bringing it back in the Type-X, thank God, but we'll see.

Yeah. The Galaxy Class is generally seen as a bit of a misstep now. But it was a period where political and military thinking was that the era of major ship-to-ship combat had passed.

These days Starfleet tends to offer housing in sector operational centres for families of those on deployment.

Very occasionally you get quirks due to emitter misalignment or software issues, but they're normally very obvious and unpalatable, so get fixed.

Used to take ages to get fixed, as Engineering saw it as a low priority. But that was changed after the Chocolate Button Incident a few years back.

Contrary to popular portrayal on holovids, the risk of serious injury or death is actually greater in engineering roles than security ones.

To bust a myth:

If you are selected for command fast track at the academy, you do a sim session once a month in your final two years.

ONE of those sessions will be the No-Win test. You have no idea which one it will be. The exact scenario varies. Maru is just the most famous due to Admiral Kirk.

The Prime Directive is actually a lot more complex and subtle than a lot of people think.

It's why ships working sectors where there is a risk of first contact tend to be carefully chosen. There's an entire specialism path for captains (or captain candidates) around it.

Anyway. Time for my annual (Starfleet approved) AMA.

I am Lieutenant Commander Bull. I'm half-Caitian, and am Chief Shuttle Officer on board the USS Enterprise (NCC 1701-E).

Ask me whatever you like about serving in Starfleet. If it won't break regs I'll answer.

Guess who's coming to (Christmas) Dinner...

If you've ever wondered why there's a three system exclusion zone around Ison, this is apparently why.

At a lecture on how the Age of Galactic Exploration changed earth culture.

Deeply fascinating how some stuff changed slowly, and other stuff suddenly.

Also the accounts of what happened after humanity made contact with the Isonu, who look EXACTLY like "anime" girls, are creepy af.

Hundreds of years of technological advancement. And they still can't make a replicator that can do decent toast.

Every time we get a new head of HR on the Enterprise, Geordi convinces them this is a good idea.

It never is.

They opened up the ability for people to run custom, self-created programs on the Holodeck again on Friday.

Wanna guess how long that lasted?

Riker demanding I take him to a Guardian portal so he can go back in time and age verify.

This is why I told him to get a credit card last time we were on DS9. Post-money society is great until it suddenly isn't.

Half tempted just to run this through the infosec scrubber and forward the whole email chain to Gowron.

Doubt these two would be saying this stuff about the Aeldari to his face.

Now Riker and Geordi are arguing about worst army lists.

This is all only happening because Picard is off on some 'Archeological dig'* for a week. Suspect whatever planet he's on must be a different timezone as normally he still watches his emails.

*Dirty weekend.

Fun fact: Games Workshop are banned from operating on Ferenginar.

bsky.app/profile/xray...

Before some rando pops up in my replies and says something about how this argument proves Star Fleet has gone 'woke'.

Be aware that i know for a FACT Gowron plays Aeldari.

I once saw him help Garak run a painting tutorial session for kids in the Warhammer shop on DS9.

Riker uses a grey undercoat spray. Geordi insists on undercoating in black by brush.

I don't need to know any of this.