The Bourdaa Papers

I'm posting this to clarify a few of the details of STF's
existance from the beginning of 1992 until the afterpath of
the "Black April" of 1992, which were reported by former
President Midyette in his compilation, No Regrets.

I 'joined' STF early in 1992, it may have even been December
1991, but thats not the point. My sister 'Dee' (who went on
to found the 'Q' club late in 1992) was a huge 90210 fan at
the time, and decided to enlist my Prodigy ID in order to
cause some general chaos within the predessor of STF, "ST".
She made up a ship, the USS Guerre, and started randomly
attacking both friends and foes of ST.

It was quite stupid, when I saw it, but I felt the need to
apologize for the stupidity of her posts.. the person who
seemed to be in charge of the club was an Admiral Platt
(although I later realized he was not technically the top
leader). So I contacted him, explaining what had occured
and why (as best I knew). Admiral Platt replied promptly
one day later, hinting that if I knew anything more, such as
"90210 tactical plans and strategies" or "operations to take
over ST" that he could guarantee me an Admiralty.
It took me a few minutes to pull myself off the floor, after
the biggest laughing attack I've had in quite some time.

I suppose I really should have just let it drop right then
and there, and left ST to its fate. However, it was a place
to discuss Star Trek, and there were other shows on that
same board I was interested in as well (at the time, the top
areas on the board were devoted to 90210, the Mickey Mouse
Club, Star Trek, Terminator 2, and Tiny Toons. I joined the
latter three).

After a while of observation, the T2 club was having an
election, under the pressure from STF. STF backed
candidates were running for President and VP.. the oppisite
coalition, who were more long term members of T2, were far
more neutral, and didn't care about any treaties or nothing,
they just wanted to be left alone. I was nominated for
Secretary, the third-in-command post of the group.. and won
unopposed.Mike Platt won the race for VP, but the local
party won the Presidency.. that made my voice in the council
the tie-breaker. That, more than anything, led to pressure
from the Platt brothers to promote me.. an attempt to buy my
support for "what was good for ST."

At the same time, I had observed the brewing conflict
between Midyette and the Platts from afar.. I was out of the
loop of some of the more critical information, but I knew
that there was definately something going on.. I began to
gain the respect of people who were more anti-Platt, just by
talking to them, starting to voice my opinions (and I'm a
real loudmouth anyway!)

The fact was, I was able to effectively play both sides
against each other. By Feburary, I received a promotion to
"Senior Admiral" — at the time, the 4th highest rank in
STF, a rank that only 2 others held.. of course, there were
5 or 6 Fleet Admirals, and a Senior Fleet Admiral, and a
Flag Admiral.

I had some allies now.. FA Takahashi selected me as his
assistant for.. I think it was the Foreign Affairs
Department, but my memory has faded on this point. But I
took it on myself to infiltrate David Platt's "Internal
Affairs Dept" — which was the biggest joke.. the largest
threat to STF was in charge of investigating internal
threats to STF!!

I also had some lower ranking allies.. Julie and Grace
Larsen (no relation of course!), and Matt Jordan were high
on this list, but most important, I believe, was Genesun
Han. He had the presence to refuse promotions left and
right (long after his ship was gone, he continued to list
his rank as "Ship's Clown").

But the Platt's influence was climbing rapidly, and
oblivious to all around them, they were causing problems
left and right. One incident was their "Invasion" of other
groups.. they posted subjects entitled "Starbase" in the MMC
and TTA and 90210 areas, to "maintain a ST presence."

Now, I don't know about you, but if some Melrose Place club,
for example, posted "Apartment 3C" in the middle of STF,
just "To keep an eye on us", I think we'd all be a little
upset. Well, so were the other clubs.. STF was the largest
group on the board, but not by very much.. and so the other
groups were all angry at us, and they had the manpower to
drive us into yet another useless flame war.

Helping to resolve incidents like this was where I got a
reputation as a diplomat.. in fact, few thought of my role
in the club as anything else. Although FgA Torres insisted
on handling most of the actual high level meetings, I was
often the one (along with Midyette and Takahashi) who
soothed things over and kept everyone else on the boards
away from the brink of another flame war.

The so-called "Black April" struck quickly, and it was
marked with the NUFP problems.. and the formation of the IKE
as noted correctly by Jim Midyette. STF was suffering, and
I made a bold move.. I protested the decisions of the upper
management (never mind that I was, by this time, almost
upper management myself) in mishandling the NUFP and
Starbase incidents.. a large number of STF "lower officers"
joined my protest, a very subtle one, by simply refusing to
sign off with their ranks. It wasn't all-out mutiny, but it
was very close.. but within three days FgA Torres acceded to
my demands (although he made it seem as though it was his idea,
to save face) a representative system of government was
to be established.. a Fleet Admiral council, which consisted
of most of the old-time FA's, and a Senior Admiral council,
which would be made up more by the more junior members of
STF.. both councils would have to approve decisions before
they could be enacted, so this would curtail the power of
the Platts.

I was suprized that I retained my position, and became part
of the SA council.. but in a peace offering, I refused the
position of "Speaker" of the SA council, and nominated
Genesun Han (who had broken his own policy of refusing
promotions to try and help save STF in this way) for the
post.

But the victory was short lived. The FA council, appointed
by Torres, was a 5 member group, headed by Monroy, and
included both Platts, and did not include Midyette,
notably, he was assigned to the SA council (a demotion, in
effect).

The effect was chilling, because this gave the Platts full
control of the higher council, and they had their supporters
in the SA as well.. if we could get two more votes in the
FA, we could block the Platts and that would be the end of
our problems, I figured..

I threw my new-found weight around again.. I proposed a bill
in the SA council condemning the demotion of Midyette to SA,
given his months of service to STF.

I purposefully hid my support of Midyette, the text was very
simple.. such a long time member of STF should not be
demoted for having not done anything wrong.

Obviously, the Platts saw the threat.. they would never
agree to the bill, but Monroy might, since he had worked
with Midyette longer than them.. and the other two FAs
certainly would, but they didn't want to stick their necks
into the conflict. They also still saw me as a potential
ally. It was a shock when the decision from Torres (after
a phone call from the Platts) was handed down, but it was
clear to whom I owed my position. Both myself and Midyette
were promoted to FA, to fill out the council at 7 members.

Now, the business of the day could be had.. I recommended
two replacements for the SA council, both good members who
had long been neglected - Matt Jordan and Sunnie Larsen, to
fill the vacated SA seats.

I wanted to leave my mark on STF, and I had already done so,
but the next move would be the last stroke. In the midst of
the Black April, I could get a law passed by both councils
that would transform STF forever. Effectively, it would
create the essence of what STF has now: An elected
President (although the rank Flag Admiral would remain the
official title), and VP, and an elected council of members
(the future of the SA council) and a small cabinet (the
FAs). I had a lot of support from the lower levels, but it
would take some doing to convince the SA council to pass it
quickly.. I needed to ensure enough votes to get it passed
by both councils quickly, before Torres or the Platts could
stop it.. once the statement was made, Torres would have
little power to stop it.. and the 3 month transition time
would give him time to learn to accept it.

But just as I was about to put this plan into motion, Torres
did something incredulous. He disbanded the FA and SA
council in one fell swoop, and appointed David Platt as the
only Fleet Admiral, and me as the only Senior Admiral.

Now, on one hand, you might say, I was now 3rd in command of
STF, a position I had held at T2 and been happy with there.
But the real message was simple.. Platt got wind of my
plans, and he tried again to buy me off.

Some people never learn. Principles were my goal, not rank.
Platt, on the other hand, cared not for principle,, he
wanted power, in his deluded mind, and didn't care what he
did to get it.

It was intolerable, the way Torres did this, and I resigned
on the spot.. it was the only way I could think of to avoid
being "part of the dictatorship", as it had indeed become.

That day, April 26th, 1992, I indeed took part in an
underground between Takahashi, Midyette, and a few others..
Monroy was NOT there.. although he turned up later. We
discussed what could be done, but decided to take a wait and
see on the events.. now that it was just Platt and Torres
running STF, we wanted to see how the rest of STF would
react..

Torres, in the morning of April 28th, 1992, posted a note
reenstating the councils, and in effect, voiding the last
two days. This was obviously a ploy.. he saw that no one
bought his radicle moves, and was trying to move back into
the center of power before someone (like myself, or
Midyette) took it away.. as we very nearly decided to do..

Well, this is near the end of the story.. STF was in
turmoil, and with the Platts and Torres running the show,
there would never be any sort of peace within the club. STF
was born of war, and nothing short of revolution would heal
that wound of birth.

So I became a revolutionary. I re-resigned (since Torres
had ignored my resignation of two days prior) and founded
"STA", declaring myself "Acting President", and promising to
hold elections within 1 week. Monroy, Takahashi, Jordan,
and several other admirals from STF signed on, and we moved
by that evening to STC, where we stayed long after I left
P*.

Matt Jordan emailed me a message that day suggesting that we
have a constitution for the new club. He and I wrote the
Charter within 2 days, and, with few modifications, it was
written.. it was a product of the times in which it was
written, it was a move of veiled desperation, but pretending
to be bold and powerful.

The elections pitted myself against Jose Monroy for the
Presidency, and Taiga Takahashi vs Matt Jordan for the
position of "Secretary" which was the head cabinet post.
I won handilly.. as did Matt. But within a week, only Matt
had remained (Monroy, by finishing 2nd for President, became
the Vice Prez, and Tagahashi was appointed Personnel
Director). But we were growing, and doing things far
differently from STF at the time.. we started at the top..
no Admirals (to this day, STC has had only 4 Admirals.. all
of them were honorary.)

We had far fewer ships than STF, but rivaled in membership,
because we had actual ships.. this was an accident of
birth.. Captain Randy McCullick of STF (Yes, you read that
right) joined STC, bringing with him STC's 1st actual ship,
and a crew of 4. His only condition for joining was that he
would refuse any rank above Captain.. he wanted to stay with
his ship.

Later, several greats of STC joined, and really, other than
myself and Matt Jordan, STC was not a product of STF, but a
rebellion from it. I prefer to believe that STC became
first a rebellion, then an alternative, then a model for,
STF.. it is interesting to note that as of today (July 22,
1997), STF follows the STC charter more closely than STC
does.

Well, one last bombshell, to make this worth reading. You
know how Jim Midyette mentioned that a Judge Bourdaa, my
older sister, presided over the Platt Treason trial?

There was no such person. It was me, using another id!
Yes, I am not above such deceit, but it was a pleasure to
deliver the crushing blow.. any other STFer might have
overreacted, kicking them out of STF.. my ruling from the
beginning was going to be a demotion to Captain.. and force
them to quit STF on their own (since they would not have any
prospect of returning to power, but not being actually
kicked out, they could do nothing against STF vindictively).

So there you have it. I've confused some points, maybe made
a lot of errors, but whats wrong is, as far as I'm
concerned, wrong for good.

/\/\ike