Office of the Strategic Operations Officer
Vice Admiral Astin reporting in on August 8th, 2009

Introduction
This week certainly flew right by! I'm happy to say that we have seen a fair amount of activity throughout the fleet, and things will hopefully only get better as the TCCOM continues to reveal more details about the upcoming competition. My report this week will be admin info only, however you can expect to see competition related RP'ing in here in the upcoming weeks..

The biggest non-TIE Corps (but TIE Corps related) news this past week is LucasArts hinting at a possible revival of the X-Wing series. This is incredible news for us, whether it is a simple re-release of an old game on Steam, or an entirely new one. Currently, things are looking towards a possible re-release of either X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter or X-Wing Alliance. LucasArts has recently been heard saying that they will have an announcement on the X-Wing series soon, and a LA rep has been twittering hinting that a back-catalog announcement will be made on Monday and that it is not TIE Fighter or X-Wing. So, this either means that the twitter announcements have nothing to do with the X-Wing series, or we will be seeing XvT or XWA back up for sale. If it is indeed true, providing we do our recruiting right we could see our numbers swell very quickly!
Moving on, it's time for monthly evaluations to be submitted. Currently, Tempest Squadron pilots are the only people in the fleet to have received their July awards. So for all you other pilots out there--get on your CMDRs and WCs to get their evaluations in so that you can get your awards too! Wing XXI and Wing X CMDRS, submit your evaluations directly to me for processing. Which brings me to my next point, merit awards in MSEs. In an effort to bring some value back to medals like the Palpatine Crescent in Bronze Star, which I've seen being thrown around like candy the past couple years, I will be enforcing (lightly, not -too- strictly just yet) some basic guidelines for awarding medals. My idea is as follows:

Merit awards in MSEs: I don't believe a Bronze Star should be awarded for a single month of activity, unless that activity is so astounding that anything lower would be a severe insult. Instead, I believe we should start moving into Bronze Star territory if a pilot is maintaining impressive amounts of activity in a longer period than a month. For example, LT Bob flew 80 missions and took some IWATS courses in January, which some CMDRs would be happy to recommend a BS for. I would downgrade this medal to a PC. In February, he flew another 70 missions and took a couple more courses, another BS caliber month that normally I would downgrade to a PC. However, because this is the second month in a row he's showing such activity, I would allow a Bronze Star to be awarded. Now, the month after that, he would need to not only maintain his activity but increase it considerably for another BS. Otherwise, simply maintaining the same amount of activity would go back to a PC. You can use this same way of thinking for the ISM, ie upgrade it to a PC if he's awarded an ISM one month and continues said activity the next month.
I would like all CMDRs and WCs to consider this when doing their evaluations. If I end up denying a medal because of this guideline, but you strongly believe I was wrong to do so, just tell me that you feel that the person should receive the medal and I will probably reverse my denial. I want to try out some guidelines to try and bring value back to medals, not be a "medal nazi".

In closing, I'd like to thank General Domi for his years of service to the fleet and I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say I hope I see you back on active duty again soon! As of right now, no applications are being accepted for Wing X WC, or any other open command positions. With the upcoming restructure it has been decided that it would be premature to appoint anyone to a position that we cannot guarantee will be there in a couple weeks. Those of you who do not have a CMDR or WC, please report to me directly. I will process your BSFs as needed and record any activity that you report to me.

Promotions
none this week

Medals
GN Domi, Wing X (ret.) -> Silver Star of the Empire
COL Daniel Bonini, Tempest Squadron -> Bronze Star of the Empire (backlogged award from May)
CM Dunta Polo, Tempest Squadron -> Bronze Star of the Empire (backlogged award from May)
LCM Sergeyli, Tempest Squadron -> Palpatine Crescent
COL Zosite Konstyte Styles, Tempest Squadron -> Palpatine Crescent (backlogged award from May), Imperial Security Medal
LT Chris Pape, Tempest Squadron -> Imperial Security Medal
LT Dav Aosiz, Kappa Squadron -> Commendation of Bravery

Until next week,
SOO/VA Astin/SSSD Sovereign
GSx3/SSx2/BS/PCx8/ISMx7/IS-1SW-1GR-1SR-1BR
MoI-BC/MoT-4rh/MoC-1poc-3soc-10boc/CoLx2/CoB/LoA/OV-10E [LGNR]
{IWATS-CBX-GFX-IIC/1/2/3-LIN-M/1/2-MCBS-SM/2/3-WM-XMD}