Communications Officer

The one position aboard a starship that will always be filled by an NPC is that of communications officer. The Captain (or acting captain) of a vessel receives many system messages, and it would be much more immersive to have these messages delivered by a member of the bridge crew. Not just for the captain, who sees these notifications as a pop-up message, but for the rest of the bridge crew as well, who will experience this information in spatial chat.

This will be an NPC position because, literally, the communications officer does nothing but relate system messages (i.e., no player would want to do it). To keep things fresh and fun, the communications officer's appearance should change every eight hours or so, to give the impression of different crewmembers taking over the position. Ideally, an animation of the new officer entering the bridge and 'relieving' the old one would be great.

Hail
When a neighbouring craft, facility, or allied squad hails the vessel, The Comm Officer says, "Captain, the (XX) is hailing us". The Captain then may choose one option from the pop-up:


 * On screen: The captain auto-speaks "on screen", and the channel is opened on the bridge's main viewer.


 * In my ready room: The captain auto-speaks "in my ready room", and can then open the communication in that location (but must do so within sixty seconds, or the call is dropped).


 * Disregard: The captain auto-speaks "thank you", and the call is terminated. A 'no response' message is sent to the hailing ship, which is read aloud as "Captain, the (YY) is not responding" by that ship's comm officer.

Retreat
While in battle as part of a fleet, the fleet commander may order the fleet (or a select ship) to retreat. When this occurs, the comm officer will say either "Captain, the fleet commander has ordered a full retreat", or "Captain, the fleet commander has authorized our retreat", as the case may be. The captain's pop-up selections in either case are:
 * Retreat: The captain auto-speaks "retreat".
 * Do not retreat: The captain auto-speaks "do not retreat".