{"id":8068,"date":"2021-06-10T07:00:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-10T07:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/termmatrix.com\/?p=8068"},"modified":"2021-06-10T08:37:50","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T08:37:50","slug":"what-is-ships-of-the-northern-fleet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/termmatrix.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/10\/what-is-ships-of-the-northern-fleet\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is “Ships of the Northern Fleet”?"},"content":{"rendered":"
How \u201cShips of the Northern Fleet,\u201d a crowdsourced sci-fi project, navigated from TikTok all the way to the convention circuit.<\/p>\n In early April, the cast and crew of \u201cShips of the Northern Fleet\u201d were reminiscing at a virtual convention.<\/p>\n Catie Osborn, who played the fan favorite Annie<\/a>, recalled the time that one of the show\u2019s guest stars, Dame Judi Dench, was nearly taken out by a laser-beam arrow.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember she was just sitting there, and she was looking over her script, and we just hear that pew pew<\/em>,\u201d Mx. Osborn said. \u201cShe didn\u2019t even look up from her script \u2014 just caught the arrow midair and went back to reading her \u2018King Lear.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Mx. Osborn\u2019s fellow cast members nodded along as she spoke, adding their own memories of that moment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Maybe you remember it, too \u2014 but it\u2019s much more likely that you don\u2019t. That\u2019s because \u201cShips of the Northern Fleet\u201d isn\u2019t real. It\u2019s fabricated. Fake. A nonexistent TV series.<\/p>\n Its fan base, however, very much exists. \u201cFleeters,\u201d as they\u2019re known, congregate on Discord and TikTok to talk about their favorite \u201cmemories\u201d of the adventures of the ship crews of the Four Fleets<\/a>. Popular discussion topics include the Cog Hogs<\/a>, small clockwork hedgehogs that are cuter than the Porgs<\/a> of \u201cStar Wars\u201d fame, and the majestic Sky Whales<\/a>, giant beasts who flew in the sky next to the pirates\u2019 soaring airships.<\/p>\n Fans debate the merits of the ships\u2019 various captains, including Captain Neil Barnabus<\/a> (the leader of the True Winds fleet, named after the fantasy writer Neil Gaiman) and Captain George Hellman<\/a> (who is \u201cplayed\u201d by Nathan Fillion<\/a>, a fixture of the sci-fi genre; he wrote in an email that though he hadn\u2019t heard of the show, he is \u201call for it\u201d).<\/p>\n So, how exactly did \u201cShips of the Northern Fleet\u201d come into semi-existence? It started, like so many other dramatic arcs online, with a throwaway post on social media.<\/p>\n In early February, in a video on TikTok, the video game writer Tyler James Nicol encouraged his viewers to \u201cparticipate in a hallucinatory experience<\/a>\u201d by sharing their favorite memories and moments from a show \u201cthat will and has never existed,\u201d and that, according to the proposed imaginary construct, had been canceled before its time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The fake \u201csteampunk sky pirate show,\u201d would be called \u201cShips of the Northern Fleet\u201d after the name of a novel that Mr. Nicol, 36, had once planned to write.<\/p>\n He never got around to the manuscript, but he did have the title, a TikTok account and an idea to crowdsource its plot and fictional lore.<\/p>\n It took off quickly. Mr. Nicol, Mx. Osborn and four others \u2014 Patrick Loller, Erik Tait, Gary Hampton and Logan South \u2014 connected on TikTok and started streaming together on Twitch<\/a>, where they performed improv in character, riffing on questions fans asked them via chat about \u201cworking\u201d on the show.<\/p>\n Enthusiasts banded together to create a subreddit<\/a>, a Discord<\/a> server and a wiki<\/a> with over 300 entries. They\u2019ve also produced fan art, songs<\/a> and a \u201cShips\u201d tabletop game<\/a>. There\u2019s knockoff merchandise out there, too, though fans can buy \u201creal\u201d merch<\/a> from Mr. Nicol; he donates all his earnings from those sales to the Trevor Project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nA Show Is Born<\/h2>\n