Mad March Hares Review Hunt: The review hunt returns, this time in the hands of Miranda Fave. The hunt lasts all month long and information on the scoring can be found on our amazingly awesome forums!
Borrowed Toys Challenge Vote: Voting for our latest challenge is now open! Drop by the forums and cast your ballot for your favorite fic.
In General Trek News: Today is Jimmy Doohan's birthday. Given that another one of the admins is a massive Scotty fan, it would be a shame not to mention it. ;)
--Teddog on 03/02/2010 10:59 pm 0 Comments | See All News
Likewise, I'm currently seeking people who might be interested in coordinating our challenges/featured stories and that sort of thing. So, if you are, hit me up on the forums and let me know.
Have a great week!
--SLWatson on 02/09/2010 11:51 pm 0 Comments | See All News
That being said, there is currently a vote going on for Nerys's challenge (Ordinary Times) that will end Wednesday next. And Gibraltar shall have to give me the next challenge in our series to kick off.
Ad Astra, in case you missed it, is now taking donations for hosting costs only. And Mike, our technical guru, is also kicking around the idea of hosting your very own Ad Astra blog! So, go have a look around the forums.
For all new members or potential members, please remember that you do have to register separately for the forums. The forums aren't bridged to the archive for both security and upgrade reasons.
And have a brilliant week!
--SLWatson on 01/14/2010 12:22 pm 2 Comments | See All News
Our forums have undergone a facelift, thanks to the expert work of SLWatson and Teddog. They look awesome! Please drop in and take a look and don't forget to chime in on the theme thread. Additionally, our Archive header graphic has been changed to match the forums.
Thank you for your patience!
--mdgarcia on 01/06/2010 07:24 pm 2 Comments | See All News
Our forums are down briefly for a major upgrade. This shouldn't take more than an hour to complete. ETR is 1100 PST (1400 EST). Thank you for your patience.
UPDATE: Forums are now back online as of 1025 PST. The interface will be a bit bizarre, but Steff will make things right later in the day. Bear with us.
--mdgarcia on 01/05/2010 10:06 am 0 Comments | See All News
As for the rest of the news; no takers on the last challenge, therefore no vote or trophy. Currently, the possibility of a donate button is being discussed on Ad Astra's forums for the sake of maintaining the server, and stocking for any possible catastrophes. Feel free to go weigh in!
And have an awesome New Year's Day!
--SLWatson on 12/30/2009 08:41 pm 2 Comments | See All News
As for our past challenge, there were no entries, therefore no winners. Who can blame anyone, with this Christmas season in full swing? So, maybe next time we shall have a trophy for everyone to vote on!
In the meantime, try to stay sane, my darlings! Congrats again, Sam!
ETA: New challenge up; Gojirob got it!
--SLWatson on 12/17/2009 02:06 pm 5 Comments | See All News
Or, in less amazing terms, congratulations PSGarak! While the other two were close, you took the cake in the end. So, please to be sending me a challenge for our beloved Ad Astra, and feel free to send me your choice for featured story, too!
In the meantime, there is a vote going on right now for the Children's stories challenge, which somehow became Once Upon a Time. Hey, either way, go have a look at the three entries and give them some feedback, and give us some votes!
And have a fabulous, sane, early December Wednesday!
--SLWatson on 12/01/2009 10:51 pm 6 Comments | See All News
The challenge is currently open to new stories only. After a week, we might be open to older fics. So, get writing!
--Teddog on 11/19/2009 08:32 am 2 Comments | See All News
A big round of congrats are in order for Nerys Ghemor, who kicked everyone's butts at the weekly review hunt! When you have a moment, Nerys, could you forward the story you want featured and the new challenge?
The last challenge didn't have any entries, sadly. No entries, no vote. A fresh challenge will be going up as soon as we get one in.
Enjoy your Wednesday and don't let real life get to you! Brighter skies ahead!
--Teddog on 11/18/2009 12:32 pm 5 Comments | See All News
It should not come as any surprise that our Gibraltar took the review hunt this time. Mostly because he is a reviewing machine. Congratulations, Sam! Let me know the featured story and challenge as soon as possible.
There was no submissions for Kes7's challenge, so therefore, no vote! But worry not, doubtless Gibraltar will come up with a winner.
Have a great Wednesday!
--SLWatson on 11/04/2009 09:57 am 3 Comments | See All News
The next review hunt is still themeless, as your admin here is still working on getting back into the swing of things. So, word count plus word count bonus only, no extra bonus. Go wild, show some love to our newest authors, or go revisit some of your own favorites.
And as always, good luck and have a great Wednesday!
ETA: Just to prove how rusty...
Congratulations to PSGarak for the winning entry on the Temporal Mechanics Challenge, with the story A Day to Rival THE Day. Great work!
--SLWatson on 10/20/2009 06:37 pm 6 Comments | See All News
Announcing our Review Hunt winner: Gibraltar! Announcing our No one wins all the time challenge winner: kes7
Congrats and big thanks for all the reviews and to all who have read and written reviews. All authors greatly appreciate your efforts. Gibraltar gets to feature a story on the front page here as well as cook up a mean new challenge.
To that end, the new challenge is as follows: Their First, Worst-case Scenario: Every person in uniform has to face their first crisis situation, the first time their mettle is tested in the crucible of an emergency or disaster. How did your character(s) handle their initial run-in with the worst-case-scenario?
Our previous challenge winner was kes7 after a run-off against PSGarak. A really tight competition serving lots of excellent stories had to go head-to-head. Thanks for the great stories and the votes [twice].
Time to Vote: Temporal Mechanics Challenge The Temporal Mechanics challenge is now up and going. Get reading and voting.
--Miranda Fave on 10/07/2009 09:53 am 3 Comments | See All News
... on a new challenge, a new winner, and a new vote, and a new review hunt.
The winner of the latest review hunt was kes7 with over a 1000 points earned. As a prize, the fab story Tesseract is our featured story for the fortnight. On top of which kes7 has thrown down a new challenge.
"Temporal Mechanics"
Send your favorite character or characters to another era (or yesterday, or three hours from now) and show us how they handle it. No real restrictions here, just so long as someone is traveling through time.
And on top of that, the last challenge produced some great entries and the voting is now open on that >>>>HERE<<<<
Our new review hunt works as per usual but with bonus points for Captain's Honour. Any stories reviewed featuring the character tag for one of our canon captains get an extra ten points. So once again, our much loved captains will be in the race and saving the universe, Kirk TOS and Kirk AOS, Picard, Sisko and Janeway. Oops Pike too!
--Miranda Fave on 09/23/2009 01:45 pm 3 Comments | See All News
In other words a new review hunt and a big word up to our last review hunt winner ... drum roll please ... [a drum rolls by 
can't get the staff!] Gibraltar wins with over 900 points closely followed by Nerys with others in the hunt too. So well done Gibraltar!
Gibraltar has a cool new challenge to flex your writing muscles on - No one wins all the time!
The new review hunt theme will this time round reward the enterprising crossing over voyagers out there - i.e. the smaller categories with stories - the Voyager and Enterprise and Crossover sections. Review from within these categories you get an extra ten points atop the words count, atop the extra points for the lengthier reviews.
Also the Bad Penny Challenge is now being voted on! So vote for your fave story >>>>HERE<<<<
--Miranda Fave on 09/09/2009 02:13 pm 2 Comments | See All News
Whoo hoo! At last after having to go to a run-off vote between our two resident Cardassians, we have a winner in our Haunted Challenge. Nerys wins with A Stone's Throw. Congrats Nerys and thanks to all who participated. And a little reminder too that the current challenge - The Bad Penny - is still running and open to any and all submissions. That's your lot for now.
--Miranda Fave on 09/06/2009 03:53 pm 2 Comments | See All News
Congratulations!
The winner of our Review Hunt is PSGarak. As a reward he gets to name the story featured on the front page of the Archive, create a challenge and although the art work might not be to the standards of others I'll see what I can rustle up for the winner.
A new Review Hunt is also announced. I'm making an executive decision on this one. In honour of our review winner being a Cardassian and the fact I've seen a number of DS9 feature episodes as of late, any stories from the Deep Space Nine category receive an extra ten points.
Remember the purpose is to reward you fab readers who take the time to drop a comment and give all the authors some deserved loving. Having hunting, happy reading.
Voting Cards.
The vote is now open for the Haunting Challenge. Seven very different entries for you to choose from.
Go here >>> VOTE! <<< to cast your vote in the forums.
The Bad Penny! And what's more, PSGarak has given us a new challenge:
The Bad Penny: Somebody from your character's past that they thought and hoped never to see again is back with a vengeance. Walking away isn't an option. What is your character going to do?
--Miranda Fave on 08/26/2009 03:57 am 5 Comments | See All News
Mistral passed the 300 mark
Gibraltar passed the 200 mark.
On the topic of reviews, do remember to warn myself or Anna that you have reviewed with a PM. So far no one has, thus it's hard to keep track of who has reviewed what and when. So sometime before the review hunt is up next week drop us a line.
--Miranda Fave on 08/20/2009 04:06 pm 2 Comments | See All News
Don't forget to read the news below, but in addition we have:
- A new Review Hunt.
- A new challenge courtesy of PSGarak, courtesy of Gibraltar
Go to the challenge here >>> 'A Haunting Challenge'
Ok so the theme for this Review Hunt is entitled: 'I'll Be There For Youuu!' Yup! The song from Friends, meaning that any reviewed stories with the 'friendship' tag get an extra 10 points. There's heaps of stories with it so this could make things very complicated and competitive. Yay!
One tiny, little, further complication for this review hunt is that in order to qualify at the end of the day, the reviews MUST be PM'ed to Miranda Fave and Anna Amuse. Otherwise, we can't track down the reviews, give any bonus points, or scores for word count.
--Miranda Fave on 08/12/2009 02:59 pm 9 Comments | See All News
However, I still owe Gibraltar an image from the LAST time he won. And I'm currently backlogged on many a thing. So, if he'll take a raincheck on the art for some unfortunately indeterminate period of time, I'll be thrilled.
In the meantime, I'm gonna (hopefully temporarily) drop the art portion of the Review Hunt prize, unless someone else wants to make an offer; photo manip, or cover work, or a render, or a cartoon. Taking any and all volunteers! I'm leaving it up to Miranda and Anna Amuse, your intrepid global mods, as to whether or not to run a hunt this time around.
I know I've been quiet here lately, but real life's been... harrowing. It seems to be smoothing out, but it may be a bit before I can seem to get my head together. In the meantime, your mods and other admins have done a very bang-up job keeping this place running smoothly. I'll be around, just perhaps quiet.
So, happy Wednesday all -- congratulations Sam! Lemme know the featured and the challenge up next.
And don't forget that the Clashing Personalities challenge vote is going down on the forums, too.
--SLWatson on 08/11/2009 10:38 pm 7 Comments | See All News
And then...
Your winner with 907 points in this Great Review Hunt was Anna Amuse! Since she's still an admin, this is the last time she gets to take it, but in the meantime she gets to name the next challenge, the featured story and a piece of art! Though, the last one may be slow in coming.
Your next review hunt...
Will award ten extra bonus (on top of the regular scale) for all stories in the Humor genre. So, go and tickle your funny bone, make an author's day and maybe win the hunt! Any which way, it's good for everyone and anyone.
And chances are, I'll be back to update with the story challenge later today. Until then!
ETA: A new challenge is now up!
--SLWatson on 07/28/2009 09:19 pm 12 Comments | See All News
And don't go forgetting...
...that we still have a review hunt running, a current challenge to fill up and plenty of things to have fun with on the site!
--SLWatson on 07/22/2009 03:40 pm 0 Comments | See All News
First week, new tales only. If there aren't enough, we'll open it to old ones in the second.
--SLWatson on 07/15/2009 09:22 pm 13 Comments | See All News
And in other news...
The winner of your Great Review Hunt this round was Gibraltar with 1562 points; following him was Mistral with 804. So, Sam, pick a featured story, a challenge and tell me what you want fanart-wise -- the latter may be quite awhile, though. I still owe Nerys hers.
As always, it's time for a new review hunt to come up. Because I am feeling thoroughly uninventive, this time around, we're gonna go with awarding ten extra bonus points to reviews over fifteen words for all stories that start with the letter A. Gives me a handy way to keep us moving, right?
Don't forget
Maintenance postponed!
Finally...
The Headlines Challenge is now closed and voteable on the forums; so, head on over there and throw your voice into the mix for who you want to win!
Have a great rest of the week!
--SLWatson on 07/14/2009 09:01 pm 9 Comments | See All News
Not surprisingly, the winner of the Underdog challenge is Nerys Ghemor with the ultimate underdog-beats-the-odds story, Let He Who Has Eyes See. Congratulations, Nerys!
But don't get complacent...
Nerys issued a very cool challenge, namely speaking, the Headlines Challenge wherein you get to be the media! It doesn't have to be long. Go write an article, an editorial or something (in character) based on one of your characters or stories or universes. Have fun with it!
Review hunting!
Mistral and Gibraltar are in the running; Gibraltar's ahead of the game, but Mistral is still within striking distance. But with one week left, anyone can still take this one! So, go and get involved!
Recruitment Drive
Another thing people may want to do is pass around work of mouth recruiting for Ad Astra. Nothing huge; just ask around and see if you can get folks who are interested in being part of a warm, participatory community involved.
Have a great day!
--SLWatson on 07/07/2009 10:39 pm 7 Comments | See All News