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The Alpha Quadrant Alliance is currently "decommissioned".

I know we should have put this up ages ago, but better late than never.

Reasons behind its "decommissioning":

AQA and its later incarnation of Sci-Fi Omniverse (a way for us to get into a more neutral Sci-Fi club arena after Enterprise ended its run) were not really "flops" more like "lack of interest in time" and more than a little "burn out." I'm putting this here for any old timers who may come back here and try to see "What they're up to." All of us have kind of moved on with our lives. We had a lot of great fun in the past. From our days as part of Federation Intelligence or Fed-Intel to our alliances with Python Fleet RPG and then our eventual splits from those orgs, we had a lot of fun and made a lot of new friends. But sometimes life comes in the way of our fun and you have to reprioritize what you spend your time on. I got a new job, my VP Jenny started going to college and the few main members we had just lost interest when there was not much activity, either online or local. We did really try to get an active offline presence going, but that takes time and effort that just was not there sadly. I know we did help give birth to Ohio's Starbase Karma organization which I think is still going strong. But in Milwaukee, WI where I am located fandom is pretty dead here. What really put the nail in the coffin of the offlines was when KAG, an organization we had a sort of "handshake alliance" with did some restructuring and a number of members retired just due to age, health, and other commitments. The group I did a lot with, which was sort of the main Southeastern Wisconsin KAG chapter folded when its leader was finishing up her doctorates and was just spending more time at school and other things. The ones that she could have turned the group to had a number of health problems and it was decided to fold the group. This was a few years ago and sadly was the end of a real presence in Star Trek fandom in southeastern Wisconsin. As for our other chapters, those just fell apart much the same way. With no new Star Trek on TV and until only this past year, no new movies... there was no interest outside of SIM/RPG groups and even those had flagging membership numbers. 

Now... there is still always a possibility of the group coming back in some way shape or form. What that form will be, I don't know. As one of AQA/SFO's founders I always sort of hope that some day some enterprising young folks will want to see a group like ours come back to life. A fairly simple, uncomplicated fan club where they can get together online or in live chapters and meet with other fans. Although a part of me does think the future of the Sci-Fi club is something more franchise agnostic. Where we're fans of all sci-fi and not any one little franchise solely. Most of us Trek fans like Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica (old and "nuBSG"), Stargate, V, and others that crop up from time to time. I never hear of any real active live Stargate groups but I would love to be in one! Talk about easy costuming! And that's another thing, groups like SFI, KAG, 501st and others do make a big deal out of costuming for some events, which is not some people's cup of tea. They think wearing a costume outside of Halloween is silly. BUT there are some groups that REALLY get into it when it comes to costuming and it can be daunting for a new member coming in to really feel a part of the group if they don't "fit in". I have considered trying again at starting a small local sci-fi fans group and just see how that goes and then maybe think about "bringing the band back together" as it were, and relaunching a club. Alpha Quadrant Alliance can work for a number of sci-fi concepts but Sci-Fi Omniverse or even just "The Omniverse Fan Club" would be a good neutral name. So... we'll see! Someday this page may go away and you'll see a brand new site being launched! If I get interest from old timers and they're willing to put in the work, then we'll relaunch!

Why not be just an RPG group?

Because there are already so many little RPG groups out there, one more would really be pointless as a few of the old members I keep in touch with are already involved in those groups and only on a basic level. If they want to drop out because of things happening in their lives, its no biggie. And some of the old FI/AQA/SFO characters that were created still live on in some way in other groups. For instance Nick Ryder, my character, pops up in small RPGs all over the place. Creatively I'm focusing on writing a novel with my old VP, Jenny (Tanya Baker/Mel McCall and others) and just hanging out in small RPGs that Kirby (Lothar and others) drags me into LOL. So in that regard, I'm still doing some stuff but I'm really not in the position to really get into it the way I once was. 

What about another group?

Currently I am a member of a Star Wars Collector's group called THE CHEESEHEAD GARRISON - no we're not affiliated with the 501st, but we do have some members of the 501st in our group. We're basically just a bunch of Star Wars and SciFi fans who collect toys and get together every couple of months to meet a buffet restaurant and eat, talk and raffle off stuff. We keep in touch on the RebelScum.com forums and its all very casual. We're just a bunch of Milwaukeeians and Wisconsinites who met on Rebelscum.com and wanted to have some fun together, share deals, trade toys and generally just have fun. Which is something I always hoped we could do in AQA. Oh and I designed their website ;)

What about the domain?

I am considering using the alphaweb.us domain for other business related endeavors - not really sure what exactly yet, but I may be using it for something non-sci-fi. I do host a number of small sites on this server and will maintain the alphaweb.us domain indefinitely.

Okay so you're out... who's still in?

If you're looking for a very large Star Trek Fan Club I recommend Starfleet International - www.sfi.org

I am good friends with one of their Academy folks and they do a lot of good and have a lot of fun, but they do charge per year and not all areas have chapters - which is also one reason why I got out of the fan club biz... its hard to keep chapters! They are only about $15 a year for an individual membership and they do offer a lot of fun stuff - more than I ever could have offered.

So I hope you find a group you like and if you're an old timer from the FI/AQA/SFO days shoot me a line on Yahoo!

Keep Facing Forward!

Admiral Nick "Ryder" Cheski
Ret. President, Founder -Alpha Quadrant Alliance
yahoo: nickryderaqa