In a message dated 2/22/99 12:18:28 AM Eastern Standard Time, revprez@MIT.EDU
writes:

The commentary that struck my last nerve was Richard
 Pugh's rather lengthy diatribe about how military realists were
 "ruining"  the Star Trek fanfiction selection.  
 
         (1) http://patriot.net/~rjpugh/writer/militarist.html
 
 His narrow classification of militarists stemmed from his 
 perception that those seeking to rationalize the haphazard, 
 barely thought out military backdrops presented in that series 
 invariably degraded the quality of character, thematic and 
 plot development. In short, he viewed working within the 
 constraints of an accurate military perspective as a natural 
 pitfall for writers. The less-than-stellar rationalization 
 that followed centered around a single personal experience as 
 evidence and a whole lot of circular, emotional logic.  In 
 closing, Pugh categorizes the audiences for militarist and 
 slash fics as falling short of his standards for a proper 
 readership.

Ahhh!!! No, please, stop the pain.....

Pugh's departure from the alt.startrek.uss-amagosa group caused a critical
failure of that group, coupled by my own inability to properly take over the
administrative functions he'd previously handled.  I failed to take over well
enough, and the rest of the writers and I sorta lost touch, leaving tons of
half-finished stories behind.  Oh, well....

Anyhow, Pugh published that particular essay of his just prior to leaving.  He
was getting rather annoyed at some members of our group, particularly
Christine Francis and one called Heretic, IIRC.  Heretic tended to write
stories that racked up high body counts, but they were still pretty good
stories.  Christine Francis was an awesome writer, and a former Army person,
and her stories, when they touched on matters military, tended to have this
wonderful, gritty, realistic feel.  As I recall, they and Pugh and several
others got into a big disagreement over part of the fanfic series they were
collaborating with him on, and he just got fed up and left.  This is my
recollection of events, as related to me by various people involved.  I may
have some of the details wrong, but I think that was the gist of it.

Now, onto the substance of the matter.  The arguments Pugh presented in his
essay were in large part inaccurate, from my point of view.  There is an
audience for almost any story.  Prez's points about Jason Smith's fanfiction
are very on-point, too.  

In stories which occur in a military setting, familiarity with the military
helps give the story a proper feel.  Personal experience is very good for
that, perhaps even best, but reading and research can help enormously, as
well.  What you have to get into your writing is enough military realism that
the work doesn't scream out to the person with some casual military knowledge
that the author is screwing up big time.

For instance, you wouldn't expect the recruit to be giving orders to the
admiral of the space fleet, or something totally ridiculous from a military
standpoint.  The military aspects of the story should be able to withstand
casual scrutiny.  Occassionally, this does indeed cause some constraints upon
your work, but it also allows the continued willing suspension of disbelief.
If the reader is unable to suspend disbelief, they aren't liable to take your
work very seriously.