Nice replies folks, it's good to feel welcomed
I don't know how to begin addressing specific points raised, but let's just focus (for now) on the immediate situation facing us.
First of all, we need a charter. I sent one to Adam awhile ago.. a modified version of the 501st Charter, (mofified for a smaller group, and worded to be Halo appropriate) but I sent it through the PM's on the old board, and they didn't survive the changeover. He no longer has it. That MIGHT mean I'm back to square one with the Charter. I had the original one on an old work computer, and if I can figure-out which system was mine, I might be able to hook it up long enough to find the old copy.
If not, I guess I'll probably remember a lot of what I did as I go through it. I'm going to say 3 WORKING days to find the old one, and failing that, I'll start over on a new one. If you haven't looked at the 501st charter, you might as well take a glance at it. I seem to recall I had to do a large hack job to it, but the main core is still the same.
The fact that I'm going to bust-out the basics and stuff on the Charter doesn't imply that the final version won't rely on you guys to be finalized, it just needs to be started, and I'm your man.
Also, we have some good news regarding our younger members. Adam was releived to hear that Rob had an idea for that, and it looks like I'm going to work with the SCA (Society of Creative Anachronism) to investigate their youth programs. I can't promise anything yet, but let it be known that Adam has agonized over that one, and that we now have an idea on how to proceed with it. It seems as though it may be doable under certain conditions. I'm going to ask you to stop from trying to guess (post) what you think those conditions might be, because we don't need rumors flying about mom's holding your hands and stuff.. it's simply not going to be that bad, but I can't get into further details on it right now.
It has to be separate from the main 405th due to the legal issues facing it being significantly different, but on events, it seems likely that it won't be notably separate unless the youths decide they want it that way.
The youth program is going to be tricky, yet based almost entirely on the main 405th charter, so for the moment I'm going to concentrate on the adult one, but still work on the younger one too. At the moment I'm toying with a name, and as a working title I'm going for 405th ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Course), the term "Cadets" has also been suggested, but I think we'll have a series of polls later to come up with a final name.
Ok, here's what you guys can get started on now, while I'm busy getting the charter stuff going. Some decisions need to be made, and it'd be best if they weren't just handed down. Someone start a new thread on this topic, and ya'll can start discussing the crap out of it.
The Backstory. You guys saw my suggestion above, and I wanna' know how people feel about it. If we stick with it, it'll also need some fleshing out. The end reuslt is possibly going to be determined by Bungie, whom might even write one for us, to insure it works with the Halo bible. That'd be cool, but it's nothing but a pipedream until we get the charter ready. A few things I personally feel it needs to cover:
A) where do we come out of the Halo universe? It can be assumed that when we arrived here, we didn't know about the events in Halo 3. MAYBE we knew about the Halo 2 events, or perhaps we only got as far as Halo 1. I don't know though because if someone wants to do a flood costume, I definately want them to be able to do it without screwing with the timeline too much.
we need to stay away from the novels/games as much as possible, yet stay within the known Halo bible. Perhaps to the point of being part of a secret mission to train Spartans in case Reach was ever overrun. For the most part, no one knows we were there, which explains why no one mentioned us in the games/novels/etc.
C) Do we use something other than the UNSC? It doesn't exist in this time period, so perhaps we formed a new military when we discovered that Earth had not yet united under one flag. It could literally be anything we choose to invent, perhaps something with an Anti-Covenant slogan, as that's currently our focus (assuming we left the Halo timeline before the Elites allied with us). Do we even know about the rings and the flood? I advise against using the UNSC for copyright reasons which would possibly restrict us from making shirts for either sale within the 405th, or giveaways outside of it, but I'm being cautious, and that might not be an issue.. but maybe we want to do that anyways? We'll always remain the 405th, for the memories of those that fought and died alongside us, but perhaps our officers decided to ban us from using "UNSC" because it affected Earth's ability to use it when she finally matures to the point where race is no longer a divider of the species. (can't have two UNSC's and we're not set-up to start a global military with ours).
D) I feel we need a ship name other than "Pillar of Autumn", again.. for copyright reasons.. Perhaps the ship initials and/or name are our new UNSC, I don't know, but bring on the imaginations folks, let's see where it takes us.
I'm sure there's more, and I'm hoping you guys will focus in this area because in some ways, it's "next".
Oh, and as a responce to the post regarding separation of armourers/costumers and the 405th, I don't think many halo armorers would want to NOT be a part of the 405th, but I'm sure the forums will always offer a separation of them to some degree. They ARE separate in so far as their own operations are not a part of the 405th, and legally, there can be no favoritism, or attachment, shown, to one or another group, at least not on an official scale.
Finally, any hopes and dreams you all might have about making money off this venture should be crushed immediately. The entire point of copyright laws is to stop folks from taking someone else's property and making money off of it. Sales to folks outside of the club, with club merchandise, simply can't happen, unless that item is a bungie and/or Microsoft licensed product being sold at retail pricing for the profit of the individual/group without any official attachment to the group itself. If it's from the club, it's got to be free, or an internal sale with minimal profit, or someone's breaking the rules and putting the entire club at risk.
It kinda' sucks because there's a lot of potential here as a business, but I don't think we can afford to purchase a license to cover that type of thing, nor the organizational structure to ensure it all follows the book. We're here to show off our work, play make beleive, make friends, meet folks with the same love of the game, and help others when we can.. Making a buck is not something we can do with someone else's product.
ok.. gotta' go see ya'll later!
