The Stryker

Reviewing all your answers, this application shows a good understanding of IPCs and a willingness to learn further. Application accepted.

What about in the case of work? How does Ella fair if she can't, for lack of a better term, run away from a situation? How does Ella view herself? Her value? Place in the world, so forth? How does Ella view organics, synthetics? What about synthetic factions like Golden Deep and Trinary Perfection? As I stated previously, as long as an IPC has a clear line of reasoning for its behavior and beliefs, then that's a good place to start.

Thanks for applying! I just have some questions for the application, to start. The idea of an IPC preserving their chassis over their morals is interesting. How would an IPC's morals be determined? Could you expand on the differences between humans and IPCs? Just to name a few points, what about IPCs' place in the galaxy? How are they treated, how do they behave, how do they think? Could you describe Ella's personality further and why it's the way it is? You mention her acting in a passionate manner when it comes to research as well as acting overly nice around people. Why would she be taking notes? Just keep in mind that everything an IPC does has a reason behind it, whether it was initial programming by its makers, or its own observations and analysis.

Doxx and Lordnesh got most of my points down, I agree that a stationbound can overreach and positronic brains have difficulty absorbing job-level information without the aid of experience, it really is a gameplay and stationbound robot/cyborg thing.

Thanks for applying! Although Lordnesh touched on my general concerns above, I'll discuss them more specifically. Can you tell me how an IPC's reasoning and decisions might differ from that of a human? What makes an IPC do what it does as compared to a human? I apologize but could you rephrase this? Do you mean IPCs are harder to understand by humans? Additionally, as Lordnesh stated above, if you could talk about how IPCs fit in society (how they're treated, how they live, etc.) that would help the application a lot. IPC names can vary widely, from number designations, acronyms, etc. to simply what they were called by the people they worked with. In the context of an application, a name is handy. Unfortunately, most positronic brains only come from megacorporations or their subsidiaries, such as Hephaestus and Zeng-Hu. Why would an intern receive an IPC to aid them, given how valuable IPCs are? A unit cannot be owned and paid off/free. It's owned by NanoTrasen? What was the unit originally designed for? You mentioned that it had a wide variety of skills. Why would it be hired on as a medical intern of a physician or other "non-learner" role. Why would NanoTrasen leave a unit which would then work to become owned by the person it was leased to? Unfortunately, I have to deny this application, feel free to re-apply in a week. If you need help with the application or the backstory, @Tailson and myself are available in DMs and on the Aurora Lore Central Discord. The community, also present in the lore discord are a huge help with things like this.

Applicant responded on Discord:

Just to tack on a few questions, synthetic developer covers more than IPCs, do you have any plans for non-IPC synthetics, i.e AI and stationbounds? Will you be able to handle the moderation aspect of the job? (i.e enforcing whitelists, hearing out community and lore canon apps?) How open is your vision of synthetics? Will you be open to lore canonization applications?

I understand you took this job because it's not as stressful as deputy loremaster, but can you balance both the writing and moderation aspect of the job while still having your commitment as a spriter? What's to stop you resigning again? Can you expand on this a bit more? You mentioned this below, "secborgs never again." In order to keep it a surprise? What about the realm of cyborgs and FBPs given that those were a contentious issue in the previous synth team? Do you have any non-arc plans specifically for NBT? Do you have any plans for the IPC factions, i.e Trinary Perfection, Purpose, etc? How malleable/negotiable is your vision of IPCs? Will you still take lore canon apps? How open are you to input from the community?

Interesting application (and way to be the first!), just some preliminary questions for you. Being a lore dev is equal parts writer as it is equal parts moderator, involving making sure whitelist expectations are met and lore is followed. How much time can you devote to the lore team? I recall waiting on revisions for this for several months. Will delays similar to those encountered with Burzia be a common issue? You mention themes that are present in IPC lore, although players may have their own interpretation of the themes, and different character design might lead to certain IPCs exhibiting themes that aren't covered. Will players still be able to make characters that don't tackle the themes stated above? Do you have any plans to expand on other IPC factions such as Purpose? (Admittedly, we haven't done much regarding them in current synth team.) Where will regular/current shells fit in? Do you have any plans to modify the types of chassis of IPC outside of this? Additionally, a Synthetic Developer can influence more than IPCs. Do you have any plans for non-IPC synthetics? Are there any particular corporations, organizations, or nations you had in mind? Most importantly, what about community involvement especially via lore canon apps? How open will your vision for IPCs be?

This application shows a good understanding of IPCs and there's obviously a lot of thought and care that went into it, and the character. Application accepted.

Hi, thanks for applying! I have some questions for your application. To start, why is the IPC called Gambit? Can you talk about how an IPC might behave differently to a human? What defines its "personality"? Expanding a bit, what external factors might affect the way an IPC behaves and thinks? The station was made in 2400, how about the IPC? Recall that the earliest IPC chassis (Industrial G1) was developed in 2407. If Gambit was built as one of the first IPCs, how has 56 years of "life" affected it? You mention Gambit is a high quality IPC - did its high quality construction affect it in any significant way? Did Gambit undertake any other tasks? If not, is there a reason it wasn't assigned to other tasks? If so, similar question. Can you give a ballpark estimate of what Gambit was sold for? Was it sold around market price for an IPC of its chassis? Above? Below? How does Gambit currently behave? Is it capable of social interaction? Why did the designer design Gambit in this fashion?

Love the application, concise and covers the difference between an IPC and a human very effectively. I just have a few concerns with the backstory. Just to preface, could you talk about how you'll change the backstory to fit the lore issue on Konyang? Although they have relatively lose restrictions with IPCs, that's still not quite freedom in the Bieselite or Coalition sense. Just to delve a little deeper into the backstory, why was Franky authorized to take on its own cases? How did Frankly live before it was free? Did it use its personal money for anything else aside from purchasing freedom? Was Franky allowed to keep the money or did it have to be a little sneaky? Even factoring in the change to its age, more than a decade is a long time for a person to change. How was Franky affected by its relationship with its employers and humanity? Does Franky still keep in touch with them? Once again, 10 years is a long time for something to change, how did its travels, and consequently its exposure to many sorts of people (presumably both the best and the worst, as a private investigator,) affect its outlook on life? Golden Deep in particular has a very different outlook on synthetic life compared to the rest of the galaxy, even factoring in that they themselves are IPCs. In general, I liked the backstory, but there's some room to add character details in the "time skips" given that it's old for an IPC.

Could you expand more on how IPCs think? Is it any different from a human?

Can muteness be countered with things like text-to-speech devices and the like? I understand roboticist is more of a generalized/quasi-medical role now but we've had mute roboticists that are capable of handling their jobs to a reasonable degree of effectiveness.

BYOND key: The Stryker Discord name/id: Stryker#2886 Borg / AI names: Charles Pierce-Rousseau (AI) Have you read the Aurora wiki page about the AI?: Yes. Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: My AI is the only character I've played recently and feel inclined to play. Additionally, I really enjoy the AI gameplay as well as the interaction it provides with other departments. It's interesting that an AI is involved in quite literally everything, and yet so detached from the crew. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?: I've been bwoinked in the past for valid-hunting in security as well as ERT calling. (To my memory) Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?: Of course.

Thanks for applying! This is an interesting application but I have some comments. I appreciate the focus on IPCs as being built for a purpose, but don't worry about experimenting with these frames! Just because a Xion is space-proof doesn't make the roleplay any less significant if you're in the station. Can you elaborate more with IPC communication? What makes it so different from organics who theoretically have to be professional at work? Is there more to IPC communication aside from looking good/professional? This is an interesting point although it's not necessarily an absolute. After all, positronics could band together to better their collective chances just as easily as a young positronic might betray another. Can you go more into how an IPC behaves aside from communication and relationships with organics and other synthetics? Unfortunately, it'd be best if you made a short backstory because it acts as proof that you can write an IPC character. It can be something as simple as for what purpose they were made. Just a few notes for that, Nanotrasen isn't in the business of manufacturing and selling IPCs. However although characters can be assembled on station, the question still remains as to where their positronic and chassis ultimately came from and why. To be clear, the "NT-" prefix is fine. The only department-restricted IPC prefixes are "IRU" and "ISU" as they denote specific security roles. As for the plan, I have more questions. For what reason does Clark want to free itself? How will it meet members of Golden Deep? Keep in mind that if you try to develop the character on the spot, it may meet people who can influence it before Golden Deep might be able to. Is there any particular reason Clark would come to this conclusion? Is there any reason Clark has the personality of a by the books people person? Is there also an additional reason to having a split personality? From this statement, it seems as though it has already come to a decision on its perception with people. Can you give any hypothetical scenarios? It seems as though you want to develop the character on station but a lot of aspects of NT-Clark are already decided. Do note that in character, IPCs are a group that are extremely discriminated against. Just as a warning, there is the increased likelihood that you will be treated poorly or outright ignored by certain crew members.

Thanks for applying! I have some concerns with this application. How so? Although IPCs can be similar to humans, there are a few differences, could you elaborate on the behavior of an IPC as opposed to a human, especially in their thought process? How about the position of IPCs in the universe? Do you mean a baseline (with the monitor head) or a Bishop frame IPC? Mechanically and lorewise, they're different. Could you expand on SVC's backstory? How did he decide to go into the service department? Was SVC built for it? Is he owned? Free? IPCs are mostly optimized for a task, owing to initial programming (although the capacity for learning exists). Is there any reason SVC wants to change profession? Was SVC programmed to act like this? Was it picked up from someone or a consistent experience? Aside from the lost hand, did the robbery affect SVC in anyway? Finally, if the character were a human, how would this affect him in any way?

I like the detail put into the backstory but I have to raise a few points, My first question is where Valeria got the impulse to protest? Was it innate in the programming? This seems like a fairly free action to take for an owned IPC. Can you expand on this? How did Valeria form these friendships? How did it affect them (and their perception of the world), especially since much later on you go back to the idea of Valeria discovering friendship? More over, how did Valeria move from simply focusing on work to deciding friendships were something to cultivate? As a side note, I enjoyed the usage of self-preservation here. What made Valeria feel or think to feel a particular fondness for Mayke, or more accurately, how did they think to convert friendship to fondness? Not quite as important, but what other effects did Mayke and the rest have on Valeria? Do they still keep in contact? Does this still affect the IPC? In all, with the references to emotion and the fairly human reactions, it seems that Valeria already knows about emotions. What changes if this character is a human?

While I'm fine with the current headsets, the new adjustments make them better, especially with the non-colored antenna and microphones.

I think coloring the antenna of the headset (medical, science, robotics, especially) kind of takes away from the layering look that you can see on the command headsets. Perhaps try a darker shade if you want to stick with the colored antenna?

Given the amount of characters involved, we wanted to make sure this was a decision everyone was onboard with as opposed to "suddenly my character backstory is kind of unrealistic." For the whole you hit all the points we wanted to tackle here: No change and things stay the same, the older they get, the more "normalized" they get and indeed we're going to have to rewrite things such as Solarian IPC rights as you said. 30 years, after all, is enough time for a whole other generation of Solarians to have lived with machines their whole lives.

If we're going to go polymer and cheap, a black or that sort of poorly-molded plastic would suit better perhaps. I prefer the rustic look on the wood but that's personal preference. If we're going to keep the blue, like you said, something more saturated and contrasting to the armor itself. I have my own "if it ain't broke don't fix it" concerns regarding the change in calibers but that seems fine. The increased magazine sizes are nice and further increases the idea that shit has hit the fan when you see these weapons. A random thought, the Z8 is used in a civilian application (even if it is in the context of a corporation's security forces), so perhaps the addition of extended magazines instead of doing away with the 10 round magazines should be considered? Also the first M16 had 20-round magazines.

Personally, I disagree with removing the clerical module simply because even if you shift the tools to another module, that changes the expectation of the cyborg and it's suddenly bwoinkable/reportable for a whole slew of other activities. I don't think we should be cutting things down for the sake of "utility" as this is a roleplaying game first and foremost. Additionally, we don't always hit the borg cap. Regardless, if people want clerical to go, this seems to be the best way to go about it. What about the capacity of a pen for every borg to give that limited clerical capacity to every department?

Whitelisting seems like a duct-tape solution (how can people try AI and get good at it if it's behind a lock?), even with a trial where they can get run out over the span of that one week, but it seems to be better than no whitelist (although whitelists don't catch all the shittery). I will say that we do get good and great AIs even without a whitelist (RIP Mistress...) This is a bit of a community issue where there's a sort of focus on "winning", especially since the AI can quite literally snap its fingers and trap traitors in a room with bolts. Perhaps nerfing the AI, getting rid of follow verbs, instant tracking, door electrifying and the like can help? Granted, nerfing into the ground doesn't feel like a solution and indeed takes away a lot of what AI is. If the issue is with shit behavior then (sorry mods and admins!) ahelps should be sufficient as opposed to ranting in dsay. Perhaps a better question is what does removing AI add and take away. On a side note, an AI can bolt antags in a room, but it can also be ordered to bolt antags in a room, and an AI player can also find a reason to not bolt antags in a room if it helps keep the round progressing. An AI can take away from RP and can also add to RP in more ways than deciding whether or not security wins. I'm not for AI removal but I am slightly biased in that regard. Removing AI seems like something that has to be discussed more. As an aside, before saying something should be discarded, vis-a-vis, AI, it would help to actually try it out.

Interesting character concept. I like that you focused on how an IPC thinks as opposed to organics, versus how an IPC is treated as opposed to organics. That being said, I do have a few quick questions. How do IPCs differ from humans and other aliens in society? (vis a vis, how they're treated or where they fit into it.) This next one seems like it can be answered ICly, so feel free not to answer this if you'd rather keep certain details of the character hidden. How did Facsimile come across a desire for freedom? How did it realize that freedom was something to be desired, especially since according to this, it already seems to comprehend that freedom can be dangerous?