Please read before posting-- A plague of clich�s

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Alternative Suggestions

Hyoomins(hyoomins)	In nearly every Sci-Fi series the protagonists are with only a few exceptions, hyoomins. While this saves on casting and make-up, hyoomins just aren't as interesting and colorful as Furries. Inexperienced roleplayers often pick hyoomins because it may feel more safe, and they think they can just get away with playing themselves.	There are no Hyoomins in the Star Trek Furry Universe, but you can still be from Earth. Earthers or Terrans as most prefer can be just about any Terran non-extinct animal. Oh, and if you think you want to try the "I'm from the canon universe' and I'm unique because I'm the token hyoomin in a Furry universe... Don't. Or if you do, please submit a detailed psychological profile and personal background, so you can match the depth the other players get with a animal species
Top of my class at Star Fleet Academy	Not everyone can be top of their class and in fact not everyone can go to Starfleet Academy in San Fransisco, the school is only so big	Chose one or two specialties to excel in and show weakness in other areas. Or maybe be merely good at a wide range of fields. A versitile Jack of all Trades character tend to be immensely useful in an RP.
Natural-Born Navigators or Tacticians or ...	Creating a character who was top of their class in Navigation just because your character is taking the role of Navigator for the starship in the story gives you no room to grow the character, is over used and is plain boring	Sulu was a physicist and botanist before becoming a navigator. Pick a different focus for background, or at least explain why the character has devoted their lives to their chosen field.
Ack, the captain died! I'm taking over!	The captain is no more vulnerable than other crew members on the bridge, in fact less because he has much smaller panels on his chair! When a Starfleet captain dies the ranking officer on duty takes command, does her best to complete the immediate mission and remove the ship from danger. After that she must report to the nearest starbase where the incident will be reviewed. Often a new captain will be assigned unless the First Officer in fact is the best candidate	A more typically occurring, yet seldom written is for the First Officer of a Cruiser to promote to captain a smaller vessel a scout or frigate and later be assigned to a Cruiser after a tour of duty or two. Now if you are serving on a Klingon or Romulan vessel that's another story...
Captain Inigo Montoya of the Starship YouKilledMyFather PerpareToDie	Revenge as a motivation is overdone, predictable and thus boring. It hijacks the story and derails it, when it's done it leaves little if any direction for your character and the overall story.	Minimize this motivation... Maybe the Cardassians, Klingons or Romulans did attack your colony, but you know Startfleet psych screens candidates before admitting them to the Academy and before assigning them to a ship.
I'm the only XXXX in the universe!	Whatever it was that killed all the others of your kind some how missed you, or you weren't affected. Or some bizarre phenomenon has formed you to something no one has seen before... Riiiiight.	Oooh, then I guess we ought to put you in a zoo where you can be safely studied and preserved from any threat... This should only be attempted by experienced creative writers who know how to make it interesting.
... And I have special (magic) powers	Star Trek sometimes talks about the "hyoomin Adventure", but still has plenty of aliens involved in the adventure. But fundamentally it is a story about people and not about magic powers.	Any special powers must be balanced with at least as many down sides. Spock soul was the "most ...hymooin", James Kirk encountered despite the mind meld and nerve pinch, because there was also emotional suppression, Pon Farr and his struggle between his Vulcan and Terran aspects.
I'm Joe Fox and... I'm a fox!	Having your species as part of your name often works fine in Furry fandom, but even the fandom is growing fast enough that this sometimes causes problems. However the whole universe is a huge place. There are at least billions (if not tens or even hundreds of billions) of people on most important worlds. With so many people of a species on a world, having a last name that is semantically equivallent to your species just doesn't provide enough namespace for a large population, much less serve to mark unique bloodlines. And people you talk to can see (and smell if they are suffieiently intune with thier animal sides) what species you are. So we discourage last names that contain your species.	If you want to emphasize your species in your name, here is one way to generate a last name. Pick an aspect of your critter like an anatomical feature or marking and add an adjective. Names like Fred Quickpaws and Charlie Darkhoof aren't the most creative names ever devised, but they are in improvement over Fred Fox and Charlie Horse

More to comestyle[/i].

Alternative Suggestions
Hyoomins(hyoomins) In nearly every Sci-Fi series the protagonists are with only a few exceptions, hyoomins. While this saves on casting and make-up, hyoomins just aren't as interesting and colorful as Furries. Inexperienced roleplayers often pick hyoomins because it may feel more safe, and they think they can just get away with playing themselves. There are no Hyoomins in the Star Trek Furry Universe, but you can still be from Earth. Earthers or Terrans as most prefer can be just about any Terran non-extinct animal. Oh, and if you think you want to try the "I'm from the canon universe' and I'm unique because I'm the token hyoomin in a Furry universe... Don't. Or if you do, please submit a detailed psychological profile and personal background, so you can match the depth the other players get with a animal species
Top of my class at Star Fleet Academy Not everyone can be top of their class and in fact not everyone can go to Starfleet Academy in San Fransisco, the school is only so big Chose one or two specialties to excel in and show weakness in other areas. Or maybe be merely good at a wide range of fields. A versitile Jack of all Trades character tend to be immensely useful in an RP.
Natural-Born Navigators or Tacticians or ... Creating a character who was top of their class in Navigation just because your character is taking the role of Navigator for the starship in the story gives you no room to grow the character, is over used and is plain boring Sulu was a physicist and botanist before becoming a navigator. Pick a different focus for background, or at least explain why the character has devoted their lives to their chosen field.
Ack, the captain died! I'm taking over! The captain is no more vulnerable than other crew members on the bridge, in fact less because he has much smaller panels on his chair! When a Starfleet captain dies the ranking officer on duty takes command, does her best to complete the immediate mission and remove the ship from danger. After that she must report to the nearest starbase where the incident will be reviewed. Often a new captain will be assigned unless the First Officer in fact is the best candidate A more typically occurring, yet seldom written is for the First Officer of a Cruiser to promote to captain a smaller vessel a scout or frigate and later be assigned to a Cruiser after a tour of duty or two. Now if you are serving on a Klingon or Romulan vessel that's another story...
Captain Inigo Montoya of the Starship YouKilledMyFather PerpareToDie Revenge as a motivation is overdone, predictable and thus boring. It hijacks the story and derails it, when it's done it leaves little if any direction for your character and the overall story. Minimize this motivation... Maybe the Cardassians, Klingons or Romulans did attack your colony, but you know Startfleet psych screens candidates before admitting them to the Academy and before assigning them to a ship.
I'm the only XXXX in the universe! Whatever it was that killed all the others of your kind some how missed you, or you weren't affected. Or some bizarre phenomenon has formed you to something no one has seen before... Riiiiight. Oooh, then I guess we ought to put you in a zoo where you can be safely studied and preserved from any threat... This should only be attempted by experienced creative writers who know how to make it interesting.
... And I have special (magic) powers Star Trek sometimes talks about the "hyoomin Adventure", but still has plenty of aliens involved in the adventure. But fundamentally it is a story about people and not about magic powers. Any special powers must be balanced with at least as many down sides. Spock soul was the "most ...hymooin", James Kirk encountered despite the mind meld and nerve pinch, because there was also emotional suppression, Pon Farr and his struggle between his Vulcan and Terran aspects.
I'm Joe Fox and... I'm a fox! Having your species as part of your name often works fine in Furry fandom, but even the fandom is growing fast enough that this sometimes causes problems. However the whole universe is a huge place. There are at least billions (if not tens or even hundreds of billions) of people on most important worlds. With so many people of a species on a world, having a last name that is semantically equivallent to your species just doesn't provide enough namespace for a large population, much less serve to mark unique bloodlines. And people you talk to can see (and smell if they are suffieiently intune with thier animal sides) what species you are. So we discourage last names that contain your species. If you want to emphasize your species in your name, here is one way to generate a last name. Pick an aspect of your critter like an anatomical feature or marking and add an adjective. Names like Fred Quickpaws and Charlie Darkhoof aren't the most creative names ever devised, but they are in improvement over Fred Fox and Charlie Horse

More to come.