Foreward

   I remember it like it was yesterday.
    Jim Brungess, the creator of this whole crazy science fiction universe known as the United Nations Security Force, called me up one Friday and asked me if I wanted to come hang with him for a while. Naturally, being my best friend, I accepted. Jogging up the street and inviting myself in, I found Jim hard at work on the computer, glasses low on his nose, banging key after key in a fierce attempt to finish what he had been working on.
     Like any nosy teenager, I asked him what he was typing. He told me that it was a short story he had been working on. He casually remarked that he had found a place to throw me in the story, as a captain of a starship. That was as far as he’d taken it, though; it was in the computer room of Jim Brungess’s house that the idea of Captain Darryl Mansel, commander of starship unknown, had taken root. He invited me to write my own sci-fi series with my alter ego.
     At first, I was skeptic, I thought I didn’t have the time, nor the patience to be at a computer all the time, typing away at the keys like a geek creating something that no one would ever see or hear about but me and Jim. After looking at a few episodes Star Trek on television, I figured it couldn’t be too terribly hard to mock up a few characters, some stories, and a starship.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
    To make it fun and interesting, I created characters that all had the names of friends—everyone from Commander Vaughn down to Ensign Clint Nohr is a real person. Lieutenant Commander Serena and Lieutenant Talaj, who are aliens, carry the persona of certain individuals I know. Little did I know that these characters would be so attached to me, and that at the end of the series, I’d be so sad to see them go.
    Even more dear to my heart would be the starship itself. The naming of a ship that a writer has to use for a simulated seven-year mission is critical. The name is what sometimes attracts a person. If you have to use a sorry name from seven years, like the U.S.S. Dreamboat, then you’re already pretty much screwed. In laboring and toiling over a good name for a starship, I finally decided to go to the basics. After looking at a few names of NASA shuttles, I decided on the most fitting. The U.S.S. Explorer. Imagine my surprise when Ford came along and decided to make that the name of one of their hottest selling SUVs.
    All in all, I’ve enjoyed my years working with the Explorer and her crew. After a while, they start to take on their own personalities, and you can’t help but do certain little things with the same person time after time. For instance, I had not planned for Lieutenant Commander Fleury to always be leaning on something, but after reviewing a few of my earlier stories, I see that is the case. I found the same for almost every one of my main characters; have fun trying to find out the habits of each individual crewmember. But, without further ado, here is my work, the first of three Explorer series, justly titled UNSF: Era of Explorer.
~Darryl Mansel, co-creator, UNSF