OOC - Blue Dwarf is 10 years old!

OOC - This month, the Blue Dwarf is 10 years old! We've had a lot of weird, strange and absolutely brilliant storylines over the years, all created by fantastic writers.
Back 10 years ago, the 8th series of Red Dwarf had just finished, and there were rumours of a film. We waited for so long and eventually got something, the three parter Back to Earth. I'm glad to have kept this game running for so long because for me it keeps the spirit and comedy of Red Dwarf alive.
I've been investigating other PBEM (or Play-by-post)  games like this lately, and I've found that actually the standard of writing in this one is the highest I've seen. Many other games have very short posts, often badly-spelled and written in a hurry. Taking a look over at a Blue Dwarf post is like looking at a published story in comparison. It's this quality that I really like, it shows that we all care about creating something good. In fact, I think – no, I'm SURE that we've got such great writers in this group that between us we could have written a better Red Dwarf special than we actually got.
Lately I've noticed that our storylines have become more lengthy, and the posting levels have dropped down quite a lot compared to the first few years (take a look at some of the old posts, it was a very hectic time!). We now get a post every couple of days rather than several a day like we used to have.
I'm not worried about this at all, because if you think about it, it's because the quality of story writing is getting much higher, and clearly it's taking a lot of thought before people post. This can also be good because there is rarely the battle to get a post out before someone jumps in and posts theirs just before you get chance. We're all getting older too, the one thing we have in common is that we're a fan of a show which finished in the 1990's, which means we're all round about the same age (ish), so as we get older we're going to inherit more responsibilities, work, family etc.
The longer storylines are nice, it gives us chance to really get into them, and take control, rather than being forced into a new location every fortnight with a dramatic *Action* post. We could actually be far busier than we are, we've got a long list of members who have applied and are waiting to join. I've purposefully not let them in however, just because I think we have a nice amount of people right now and don't want to spoil it by opening the floodgates and letting too many in.
So what about the future? I want to see the same quality of posts remain the same. I don't mind too much if people want to write shorter posts, not every post has to be a work of literary genius that takes an entire evening to write. I want members to take more control over the story. I think over the years we've all started to get worried about stepping on peoples toes and ruining their intentions for their characters. But this is a game, and I want to encourage people to post what they want without worrying – as half of the fun with writing together is not knowing what situation will happen next, and then trying to write our way out of it!
Everyone has the opportunity to run their own storyline. Just email me with your idea and I'll let you run it. If you have a good idea for a subplot which involves just your character and a few others, you don't need permission from any of the mods.
If you're ever stuck for ideas of what to post about, just email me or msn me. I've got loads of great ideas!
I want you each to reply to this message with your favourite Blue Dwarf moments, which could be storylines or just parts of stories. (Don't worry about it messing up the main feed with OOC messages, once every 10 years is allowed!)
Thanks everyone! Your creative talent is what keeps this game going!
Onion, GM

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