MoondancerPony

Yes. One million times yes. Please, God. Personally, I feel as if everything you've done already amounts to a trial, so I'd be fine with you joining immediately, but I'm not in charge of that. +1

First: yes. I acknowledge that I had a problem with my behavior. I got my medication refilled last Thursday and got six new refills prescribed last Friday, so I'm not in danger of running out of my medication any time soon (I lost an entire bottle moving into my dorm, leading to the aforementioned issues. That means that my attitude has drastically improved, and in fact even minutes after these instances (such as with VT and the Eridani rework), as soon as I took my medicine I was much better. Second: As I said on Discord, most of what I did was spitballing with other devs about ideas, providing feedback and criticism, etc. I would provide evidence from the synth chat, but it was deleted. I also was in fact working on lore for drones, and modified it to fit a different server when I was forced to retire. (The only real change made was the first paragraph, anyway.) I would say that being able to talk with others about their work, give feedback and bounce ideas off of people/have ideas bounced off you is more important than simply editing a lot of wiki pages. Most of what I did was provide feedback and criticism on others' ideas, working to improve good ideas and make them fit with the rest of the lore and arguing against things that would be detrimental to players' experience and the cohesivity of the lore as a whole. I feel as if that provides just as important of a service to the lore team and community as directly editing the wiki does. So, to directly answer your question: I was, in fact, active, but even if you believe that my activity was insufficient, I will be more active now (as I'm no longer in a highly-demanding and stressful high school program since I've started university). Regardless, thank you for your consideration and feedback, I'll definitely take it all into account.

Thank you for the interest, Abo. Your questions/comments, especially in PMs, really hit close to home and made me think a lot, and being more self-critical without being overly self-pitying is something I'm trying to develop. This really helped me put things in perspective. This is actually the opposite of my intent. As it stands, the sci-fi lore we operate off of currently (not even science fantasy, mind you) is way too restrictive. We have literal magic in our setting, but some wish to hold IPCs to an untenable, un-fun standard by misusing "believability" to shut down potentially interesting character concepts for not fitting into the current lore developer's current vision. My goal is to instead use the lore as a framework for players to build off of. It shouldn't be restricting anyone's creativity; instead, at most, it'll redirect their creativity to be in line with the lore. In some cases I intend to even go out of my way to incorporate people's ideas into the lore if they're incompatible but well-reasoned. Player choice is my utmost concern, actually; mentions of reducing it were part of why I applied for maintainer instead of waiting for deputy. This actually came up in a conversation in the Aurora general discord, involving Crozarius and others, I believe. The issue in question was a claim that, by sci-fi logic, all IPCs must be inherently rational and perfectly logical. This serves to stifle a lot of interesting character concepts, i.e. a religious synthetic (due to its creator's beliefs, or its upbringing) who staunchly upholds their beliefs, but is rejected by their own religion. That's a great character concept that I've seen utilised to great ends, but under the sci-fi logic of "all IPCs must be like Data", it wouldn't be allowed. However, looking at it from a realistic perspective, one sees that synthetics don't have to be perfectly rational, and in fact can't be. They're created by flawed organics, after all. While they have the potential to be much more rational and logical than their creators, it's not inherent to synthetics at all; in fact, going off of Conway's Law (also known as "the mirroring hypothesis"), synthetics are as widely varied as their creators, and likely reflect their biases and views as well. My writing is not exactly hard science fiction. Yes, it has a scientific basis, but hard sci-fi typically connotes things like "no FTL" and "realistic physics". A couple years ago, someone might have called hard sci-fi "AI doesn't exist in the future", but I think that's silly. Just like how you don't need a software engineer with you at all times to use a computer, you shouldn't need to be a computer scientist to understand my lore. I've been working with people to ensure that it remains cohesive and can be understood by most people. The idea is that it is essentially a "soft" whitelist strip; in response to your questions about how people would be selected/if there would be pushback, those issues also apply to whitelist strips. If they refuse to comply, or their reapplication is insufficient, then they'll get a normal whitelist strip. I just want to work with players and not have to put them through the humiliation of a whitelist strip and being denied a chance to attempt to improve their characters through playing as well as writing, especially when simply going over the lore again and showing that they understand it now is enough. I would say the precedent is in whitelist strips themselves. This is essentially a deferred whitelist strip. For all intents and purposes, their whitelist is stripped, but it's deferred until they've made an appeal or a certain amount of time has elapsed. Essentially, if push comes to shove, I will strip whitelists. The goal is to add steps between "a stern talking-to" and "strip their whitelist" so it's not zero to 100 with no warning. Intermediate steps serve to give players more time and ways to solve the issue without inciting conflict, embarrassment, or humiliation. Additionally, this is not so much of a "project" as it is "adding alternatives". The goal is that no one will simply have their whitelist outright stripped for improper play, at least not at first. They'll get to keep playing while the application is getting feedback (though they'd also still need to try to play better characters, as well) and being judged, and then judgment will be made. I really, really doubt that anyone would lose their whitelist from this; the goal is to increase players' quality of roleplay and understanding of the lore, not to trim down the IPC playerbase. Honestly, most of the lore I had ever intended to retcon was already retconned long ago. Things like Muncorn's ill-fated positronic brain rework, for example, which I was a very vocal and outspoken critic of at the time. I have to say I definitely regret how strongly I worded my critiques back then, and I hold no ill will towards any other devs, former or current. While I have critiqued the other developers, it's not as if I dislike everything they ever created. Kyres did lots of great things, and in my opinion most of his ideas simply deserve a little bit of TLC and polishing up. NebulaFlare, one of my favorite former synth developers, had some issues with overall cohesiveness and understandability of lore (the AI thought process flowchart being one notorious example) but I really admired their passion, their lore, and most importantly The Clockworks and Purpose. They'll always both have a place in my heart, really. While I love the Spark Theorem and have it as a custom item for one of my characters, I by no means view it as the strongest description of IPC behavior, even if it influenced my early thinking a lot. Most of what I intend to do is just polish up and adjust things that already exist, to be honest. What I'm really focused on is wrapping up loose ends, making the lore more cohesive, and filling in the gaps of things that people have requested lore on but no one was willing to touch. The two steps towards this I've done so far are my Glorsh rework, which solves a large issue with anti-synth powergaming and, of course, the synth powergaming caused by that, as well as my musings in my essay on the nature of the positronic brain. Things like the Savant-versus-Generalist spectrum serve to expand on the lore and give players a framework with which to create and develop their characters without having to make them carbon-copy regurgitations of the lore, or cookie-cutter faction-based characters. There's not really much to say to this besides that I hope my behavior from now on will reflect that I'm both improved and trying to improve more. Most of the underlying causes are gone; I have five refills prescribed for my medication, for example, so I'm not going to be running out of them again any time soon. Additionally, I have a lot of people who are willing to point me in the right direction and help me if things start getting out of hand. I can't thank those people enough, but also they're doing more than just pulling me back when I might go a bit too far. They're also giving me the experience and skills necessary to do the same for myself, so I won't be relying on people to help me be agreeable for all eternity.

It depends, honestly. Now that I'm medicated, I first and primarily try to identify a misunderstanding in how they're looking at the lore, which more often than not is the issue, and work to correct that. If it's simply a difference of opinion, I've been trying to change how I approach those; I realise that nothing will come out of a one-off argument in a fast-scrolling public channel, so I either move the discussion to PMs where we can have a rational, slow-paced discussion of it, or simply thank them for their input. When it comes to valid criticism, I really just try to keep things in perspective and either adjust my ideas to take into account their criticism, or ameliorate their concerns in some other way that appeases both of us. With blind anger, I've gotten a lot of experience dealing with this in the time between being a synth deputy and now. Without the ability to 'pull rank', so to speak, I had to really back down and just let things simmer. If people are particularly uncivil or disingenuous with things, I'll duck out entirely, even if that means shutting down discussion with that person until they're willing to be reasonable. Given the way the discussion of lore around synthetics can get heated, especially when involving two people who are both very opinionated/passionate about it, I feel this is essentially the only proper way to respond to blind anger. With negligence, this is the thing that irks me the most. Honestly, there's nothing I can do (at least without pulling rank, which is bad practice) besides point them at the lore and convince them they're either misinterpreting it or haven't read the relevant portion. I spent quite a while getting told my interpretation of a piece of lore was wrong, even though I had plenty of real-world examples and reasoning to back it up. Even the fact that I wrote that lore didn't matter to them. Heh. With medication, hopefully. I was off my meds for at least one of those incidents, and haven't had any (I think) since getting back on them regularly. In fact, the only public disagreement I've had over lore recently was over something Jam was planning, and (I hope) it was a lot more civil and respectful than I normally am, even if I was a bit passionate and firm about my opinions. Honestly, I feel all loredevs have a headcanon. It's just a word I use for unwritten lore. The goal of loredevs, in my opinion, is to turn headcanon into real-canon. When dealing with others' headcanon, I tend to have the same viewpoint. Everyone has it, and everyone wants to either bring canon in line with it, or it in line with canon, or some combination of both. One of my goals as a synthetic maintainer is to work to mediate these; I want to work with people to help their character concepts fit the lore, or if it's a good, well-developed concept that doesn't fit in the lore which I feel should, I want to work with them to add supporting lore to our canon. This is a sticky situation. One of the things I really want to work on is communication between lore staff and their 'constitutents', so to speak. By facilitating an open and civil discussion, I hope to avoid these things in the first place. Unfortunately, that's not an option in this example, so let's take a look at it. First, I would look at the character concept. Are there any parts that egregiously depart from lore or seem particularly unjustified? If so, I'd work with them to help bring those more in line or add ways to use the current lore as a framework to explain it. If there aren't, I would move on to the reasoning. It's correct, but clearly other people have issues with it. I'd probably talk with the most civil of the people who are chastising (not harrassing!) the player to see what they feel is objectionable about their behavior. Hopefully I can then figure out a way to explain their reasoning that ameliorates that. If they feel it is lore-breaking and I don't, I'll explain that to them. Other than that, it really depends on a case-by-case basis. If that doesn't resolve it, then I would honestly take a look at the behavior of the individuals who are harassing them. Are they the usual individuals who do things like this? If so, there's not much to do besides tell the IPC player in question to block them; maybe in time they'll come around, but I wouldn't bet on it. If they continue to harass them ICly, I'm afraid there's not much I can do past that besides get admins involved, but by that point I've basically thrown everything I have at it, so it doesn't feel like as much of a copout as immediately going "admins will fix it!". Honestly, I'm not sure if this would happen. A lot of my lore is focused on player freedom, while also keeping a baseline standard for synthetic behavior. If it did, however, I'd start by making it clearer on the wiki, talking to the individual in question and trying to work with them (as described previously) to bring them more in line with the lore without compromising significant portions of their character. My responsibility is to both the lore and the players, and I need to reconcile them without damaging either. It's a tricky balancing act, to be sure. My essay goes into that a bit, but if you want the specifics: Some IPCs can be religious or spiritual. Not all will be or even can be; some have too strong of a scientific basis to, or simply lack that capacity entirely. If they want a factual basis for their spirituality, it's not hard to find one; we're a science-fantasy setting, after all. People can reason to or against it with the same evidence, really. That's part of the beauty of our setting. People can point to bluespace echoes as either simply an artifact of bluespace technology, resulting in semi-sentient, non-sapient 'poltergeist'-like entities, or as a physical manifestation of the soul brought about via bluespace meddling. There's really no proof either way in-character, and I think it's in everyone's best interests to keep it that way. You can view it as proof IPCs have a soul, or as simply a weird bluespace abnormality that sometimes happens. After all, some mice even have bluespace echoes, and no one's saying mice are sapient... (or are they?) Okay! Great question, and one that's really important to me. As I've said elsewhere in this post, I enjoy working with people individually to bring their concepts in line with lore or lore in line with their concepts, whichever will create a better experience for everyone. I'd also like to clarify that I'm interpreting stereotypical robots as 'bland robots', the kind that aren't particularly noteworthy in any way. I'd say playing a very robotic character, like Chada's old character NT-A, is enough of an interesting factor, especially coupled with the creativity in how that character did actually have somewhat of a personality hidden behind that. In terms of preventing stereotypical or Human+ IPCs, I'd like to encourage people to try interesting concepts with both benefits and drawbacks. I feel that stereotypical IPCs are the result of people either not understanding the lore or being too scared of getting in trouble for trying something new; human+ IPCs are simply people who don't realise that adding flaws or drawbacks to your character can be as fun as giving them boons. I do feel that fleshing things out is necessary for lore. There's nothing to be lost by doing it in a way that specifically allows greater player freedom as opposed to restricting it further. Sure, you can't say your IPC is run by tiny mice scurrying around and moving its limbs, but no one was going to try that anyway. The main focus for my lore is giving people a scaffolding to work off of and build interesting characters. With regard to it being a grind to read; yes, that's definitely an issue. I tried to refrain from going too in-depth on things in my essay, but Sytic actually suggested that I go more in-depth on the explanations behind things while also keeping it easy to read, and giving examples. I'm hoping that by working with others I can find a happy medium where the theory is still there, but it's easier to digest and isn't a massive wall of unintelligible technobabble to anyone who's not experienced with it. A very good and important question. My essay does go into a little bit of detail about the things I want to flesh out, which involve some slight changes, but otherwise I'm really just patching up the lore that's there save for a few special exceptions, like the excessive factions and dearth of development for them. I would say I fall into the latter camp; IPCs are fine as they are and just need a bit of fixing up. However, in terms of "limiting player freedom", I'm strongly against this. As a deputy, and as a player, and hopefully in the future as a synthetic maintainer, my interests are in facilitating player freedom while also helping them work within the lore, by providing lore that works as a scaffolding for interesting concepts without railroading them into specific boxes. An example of this is the "savant vs generalist" spectrum; it's descriptive, not prescriptive, and helps players flesh characters out without telling them they have to fit neatly into this binary. I suppose it does limit player freedom slightly in that they can't play a character who's perfect at everything, but that already breaks server rules for believable characters/powergaming anyway. As I've said before, I'm properly medicated and sticking to my medicine now, so that's good. A big help in dealing with these things, really. Additionally, a lot of the issues I had were with either the conflicts the old team had with each other, or with misunderstandings that occurred due to me just being bad at social situations. I'm learning, though, and most importantly I've learned to get other people involved to mediate things if I'm either not sure what I'm doing wrong/if I'm doing something wrong, or if I'm not sure how to deal with something. Also, as I said before, between the end of my tenure as synth deputy and now I got a lot of experience in dealing with, as you so keenly put it, uncharitable hot takes on IPC lore. I was even told that my interpretation of my own lore was wrong. While in that moment, in a private chat, I got a little bit heated, I'd like to think it made me better at dealing with that kind of situation in the present and future. Overall, I'd like to thank everyone for the positive response to my app and for all the questions! I'm really thankful that people are putting a lot of thought into this app and not simply giving me a one-sentence approval. It really means a lot to me.

Ckey/BYOND Username: MoondancerPony Position Being Applied For: Synthetic Lore Deputy Past Experiences/Knowledge: Former Synthetic Lore Deputy. Examples of Past Work: I wrote the original lore for utility functions (a real concept in AI theory). I also reworked The Clockworks and did a lot of talking behind the scenes about IPC lore with other staff members. Additional Comments: My essay, in addition to my thoughts on various topics in IPC lore, also includes my ideas for reworking Glorsh-Omega. It can be found here. These ideas have been approved previously by Resilynn, ParadoxSpace, and Kyres, but it obviously wasn't binding so it may not wind up being made canon. However, I received a lot of positive feedback on it, so I'm submitting it as an example of my lore writing. While this application itself may seem pretty barebones, most of my thoughts are in this essay. Please leave any feedback on this post or on the essay itself! Thank you in advance for your consideration!

I agree with this, especially due to Jam's plans to retcon a bunch of stuff as Vaurca maintainer.

Note: I wrote this response hours ago and forgot to post it, so most of what I said has already been addressed. Personally, I love Ta consulars and am planning to play one myself soon. I think they act as a good liaison between non-Vaurca crew and Vaurca as a whole, especially the Zo'ra, and I think the fact that they are only the Zo'ra works well (though I've seen suggestions of adding K'lax Ta as a variant of a hegemony consular officer and C'thur as a variant of a Jargon consular officer) given their close(r) ties to Biesel and NanoTrasen, especially after recent events such as the TCFL being revamped. The current sprite is 35x35 save for the antennae anyway. The 32x32 sprite just has less detail and is sort of lame. There's not much of an issue with clipping regardless since it's mostly just perspective and an offset, and clothes aren't really an issue. Then again, this is mostly just echoing what others have said, as well as what I myself have said earlier in private conversation.

I have never seen this used well. It is almost always some form of Harperesque (for lack of a better term) "they hurt my friend" type of thing; Halstere used it as an excuse to almost murder a suspect and botch a case. Other than that, I've never seen it as a viable excuse when I play captain; I'm always terrified that I'll lose my whitelist for not properly roleplaying undying company "loyalty", which is also really badly explained to begin with. I, for one, support this change.

BYOND Key: MoondancerPony Character Names: Azsuko Guwan, Zahra Abbasi, Tanya Robinson, Ferrin Sytes, Monica Huntington, ResearchMate 2459, Trout, too many to name Species you are applying to play: Vaurca What color do you plan on making your first alien character: RGB(130, 150, 20), #829614 Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Paradox has been bugging me to. But really, though, the Vaurca have always been the most alien species, and despite that also very compelling, especially with how the current Vaurca lore team writes them. They're far enough removed from normal life to be unusual, but they're familiar enough to be interesting to engage with; the kind of known-unknown feeling you get when talking with them is really cool, in my opinion. I've also been heavily invested in the skinwalker/Lii'dra arc, as well, as both Zahra Abbasi, Trout, and ResearchMate 2459. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Vaurca are not solitary creatures. If anything, they're eusocial, like bees or ants. They can communicate via hivenet, and this communication with their (and other) hive(s) forms an essential part of their identity. Instead of families, they have hive cells and, above that, broods. Virtual reality is also an inescapable part of their society, and I hope I can convey an interesting facet of this through my character. Character Name: Za'Akaix'Hra K'lax Please provide a short backstory for this character Za'Akaix'Hra K'lax was hatched a year and some change ago from the first brood of Ta'Akaix'Vedhra'rept'ylanze K'lax sent before her birth, into a tumultuous Virtual Reality simulation of constant conflict. Each iteration of the simulation would involve different locations, enemy combatants (primarily Lii'dra), equipment, allies, bodies, and so on. This gave Hra plenty of opportunities to gain useful skills, as well as develop versatility in varied scenarios. Each simulation had set 'win conditions' and lasted a set period, typically 24 hours. If that time was up, or Hra 'died', before the goal was completed, then the simulation would be reset to the same initial conditions. When she successfully completed the goal, the simulation would be adjusted to a different setting and made harder or easier depending on her performance, in order to allow for the most efficient training. Through these simulations, two constants emerged: Hra despised the Lii'dra with every fibre of her being, and Hra also despised hard work. Clever shortcuts and subterfuge led to countless victories, but most important in these was her improvisational skills. A fallen comrade's phoron tank could easily be rigged into a bomb; a laser weapon could be overvolted with a capacitor array to fire with much more energy; a camera tracking on a swivel could be converted into a turret. Her simulated conflicts quickly became more and more stilted against her, which only served to fuel her ambitions to outsmart the Lii'dra wherever they may appear. Despite being vastly outnumbered and outgunned, she had as many hard-fought victories as she did tooth-and-nail losses. The simulation did cause some issues for her psyche, however. In order to make the simulation environment realistic, she received simulated hivenet messages instead of real ones, meaning that she lacked meaningful interactions with other members her hive outside of combat and planning. Those she did have were ephemeral and shallow, and the hivemates she met did not exist in the real world. She would be lucky if she saw one in a different simulation, and even then they wouldn't remember her. As such, this has left her rather stunted regarding interactions with hivemates, though she of course cares for them greatly, as all Vaurca do. It also forced her to confront her own mortality. While at first she was reckless and took large risks and complex, contrived gambits for dramatic victories (or quick losses), she soon realised that, like her evanescent allies and enemies, she could just as easily fail to 'loop'. From that point on, her actions became more calculated and careful; if her enemies acted like they wouldn't have infinite chances after death, she would do the same. This unfortunately led to another side effect: minor paranoia. It is effectively impossible to determine the difference between reality and a simulation while inside it, and this leaves Hra with the lingering doubt that she could still be in an extra-long combat simulation; not to mention the concept of Preimminence always weighing on her mind. She completed her final simulation coinciding with the apparent end of the Lii'dra invasion of Tau Ceti (though she of course has no doubt in her mind that the Lii'dra are still present and hiding in the system), but was still in Tret with the rest of her brood. She spent a few weeks attempting to integrate herself there, but as Vedhra's brood was still new and varied, she felt as if she needed to find a better way to fulfill her duties to the hive. As such, she immediately left Tret for Tau Ceti once she received news of the invasion. As soon as the bureaucratic process of her immigration to Tau Ceti was complete, taking on employment with NanoTrasen in the process, she requested placement on the state-of-the-art NSS Upsilon as a lab assistant in order to make use of her skillset; things like reverse-engineering and creating electronics came naturally to her, and so she assumed she could work with technology captured from the Lii'dra invaders of New Gibson there. This request was, of course, denied by the Upsilon, and she was instead assigned to the much-reputed, though less statured, NSS Aurora. Though she makes use of her improvisational skills frequently in the lab, she still often feels detached from reality, and especially distant to her non-Vaurca coworkers. To others, it may often seem as if she isn't "all there", as she frequently gets enveloped by hypothetical invasions or ambushes which demand her immediate attention to 'solve'. What do you like about this character? I think I managed to come up with a unique character origin that also fits well with the new (or, well, new when I began this character concept) K'laxan brood, Vedhra, Princess of Configurations. It also coincided with my interest in lore arcs involving the Lii'dra and their invasion, and me reading a novel which inspired this concept. Time loops, in my opinion, are an underappreciated and underutilised concept in science fiction, and I think I managed to find a way to implement it that meshes well with the setting. Also, I'd like to get in the headspace of a Vaurca. I had a lot of trouble with it, and suddenly things just... clicked, and I wrote this entire application in one night. The concept of a somewhat-paranoid tinkerer Warrior awaiting the end of the universe just... sounds interesting to me. How would you rate your role-playing ability? I still hate this question. It effectively only serves to weed out those who are exceptionally, blatantly overconfident of their ability and even then our roleplaying standards aren't exactly so highly enforced for it to matter. I guess I'm alright. Notes: This may or may not have been inspired, in part, by the novel Mother of Learning, as well as the movie Edge of Tomorrow (which I still haven't seen).

This is already implemented with rings and gloves. Seems feasible, but I won't pledge myself to it in case I'm just a filthy pleb who doesn't understand how much memory backend it involves, or something.

I'm adding everything mentioned except EM and EN-dashes, since those are Complicated and I think they just turn into invalid characters in chat.

This is in-progress. https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6673 I'll leave it to @Arrow768 to answer the aforementioned questions. A hobo bindle does sound like a good idea, though.

Yes. This is planned. https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/5706

I agree with the concerns raised by the rest of the people providing feedback. The main changes in this PR cancel each other out balance-wise, so the only change is making mining more tedious for no real gain. Additionally, I find it kind of funny that you said this: When I had said previously to you: You asked where the fun in that was, and I answered. Circuits. Chemistry. Guns. Toxins. Xenobiology. Xenobotany. Any part of Research except for R&D. As I said then, R&D is a hindrance to the actually fun parts of research, and doing this would just increase the tedium for both Mining and R&D no real benefit to anyone. There is absolutely no good reason to implement any of this save for maybe the slag penalty reduction.

This is essentially a less-interesting Zippo engine. Not sure if it's HoF-worthy.

These two seem pretty contradictory. I also feel like they'll make playing IPCs even more of a drag than they already are. I could see a more moderate version of the former, i.e. an IPC janitor complaining about harassment would be ignored, while an IPC head of staff filing a complaint over serious work misconduct would not be. (However, I feel like CCIA needs to do that more often in general.) The latter just arbitrarily restricts character concepts. For example, the idea of a brand-new CMO IPC with all the theoretical knowledge being tossed into the fray and having to deal with the complexities of actually working with patients sounds like an interesting avenue for character development. They'd still be able to do their job, but they'd have some room to grow and possibly even encounter mild conflict, i.e. having to develop proper bedside manner or management. Yes, they'd have basic theoretical knowledge, but the difference between theory and application is big enough to make this worth keeping.

This seems to be mainly an issue with you not looking for it. We've discussed it extensively. I had an extensive Engineering update planned which is still in the works, Drago did part of it as well. Geeves and I are doing lots of stuff for Medical to make them more self-sufficient even with limited supplies. Mining is going to either work like Wurm Online where you have large, slowly-mined ore veins that persist, or work as it does now with randomly-generated non-persistent mining Z-levels, likely a cave. Jackboot has a Research update planned. Persistence is likely going to work one of two ways. Localised antagonist activity disables persistence in its immediate vicinity. Large-scale antagonist activity disables station persistence entirely. All antagonist activity is canon and there are limits on what they can do, probably some sort of private application process as detailed in this thread. This would probably work best in the long run, but requires more work on the administrative side. Either way, areas outside of the station without a designated area will not persist. New areas can be designated even if not contiguous to the station.Temporary away missions will probably still exist, as well as persistent ruins on the main area and random ruins in mining areas. It would be nice if you discussed these things with us or even asked before making statements like you did in this post.

This is used every day, usually for thirty or so seconds, and hardly ever more than two or three minutes. Whenever it happens there is a good IC reason for doing so. Additionally, you yourself admit that Alberyk said that there are legitimate reasons to delay the shuttle, so the rest of your post is just contradicted by that. The complaint that no doubt spawned this suggestion had several GOOD reasons to delay a shuttle mentioned, if I recall correctly, so that discredits this suggestion even further. I'm voting for dismissal as well. As this is the second vote, this suggestion is being binned unless it's somehow overruled by the head devs or something. Can they do that? I dunno.

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6552 In progress now.

I cropped the TCFL poster to just the nymph and a bit of the Vaurca and it works well as a server icon. Actually, Geeves' works better:

Goret suggested using the TCFL propaganda poster and I like that. It's iconic, it's clearly relevant to Aurora, and it's easily identifiable/unique.

I do actually agree with this. The leniency made it seem more underhanded than it perhaps actually was. If I had been told "You need to write lore by XX/XX/XXXX," I probably would have handled that better than being pestered about retiring/resigning. This seems more like a communication issue than anything, which is still unfortunate for someone in a managerial position to have. I actually think it would be better for you to focus more on Unathi, not less. You're a very talented lore writer, especially when it comes to Unathi, but with other species such as Tajara and especially humans it falls flat. Your writing for Unathi is much better than your writing for ATLAS/the Thorne vs Frost arc, for example. The thing a firmer structure needs to provide isn't just firmness, but also transparency. People (at least those in the lore team) should know how the lore team should operate and what is expected of them, which isn't (or at least wasn't) clearly delineated. An unclear delineation (write 'something' and post it in the lore diary 'sometimes') is worse than none at all, to be honest, since I know lots of the lore writers are victims of procrastination; unclear requirements and deadlines just give an excuse to procrastinate. Honestly, I think a lot of the issues come down to 1) communication issues, and 2) misdirection of attention. Jackboot has promised to resolve both, and I am skeptical but hopeful that there will be improvement. I also support the idea of separating loremaster and species maintainer, as well.

I could definitely see something like adding extra Vaurca parts as 'tails'. Some weird bug anatomy like an abdomen (making the chest and lower body just the thorax) or something. This would also mean more opportunities for horrible mad science. I'd love this, and I think all it would need is organ sprites.

Skull said that in this very thread, actually! He very specifically mentioned that it was discussed. An alternative was VERY CLEARLY outlined and it was even brought up later in this thread, then denied by you. You accused VT of lying about such, or made assumptions that they did, and then accused VT of making assumptions about YOU. Can you describe how? I can, yes. The obvious parallels between Frost and Thorn and certain current political figures, ATLAS being an alt-right parallel (which isn't entirely Jackboot's fault as that originated with Tytos, but also allowing the Biesel division of ATLAS to be called the Biesel Storm Division was a really bad move as it already had neo-nazi associations; it is Jackboot's job as loremaster to override these decisions when necessary, such as when a pseudo-fascist party is essentially named after the Nazi SA, or Sturmabteilung, which literally means Storm Division/Storm Department/Storm Detachment.) The planned union arc seemed incredibly hamfisted, as did the depression arc, and I had to go ham running damage control and proposing new mechanics to offset the crippling blow it would have dealt to the station. There's the Tajara lore article that is a clear reference to Stalin's twenty minute clap, as well, and numerous other clear Soviet Union parallels. Not just facetious references, but full-blown blatant parallels. The Zhan, commonly farmers and peasants, are being oppressed by a communist government; this is a clear parallel of the Red Terror's persecution of supposed kulaks, and I'm frankly surprised Jackboot didn't call the persecution of the Zhan-Khazan the Black Terror or something like that. Also, the handling of the end of the murder mystery arc was awful. I loved the arc, as I've said many, many times, and was a major player in it. However, everything that happened with Halstere, the mistrial, the SHOOTING, and then the fact that Halstere didn't receive any consequences was awful. That entire over-the-top attack with Halstere should have been made non-canon, since it was an admin ruling after all and not something Jackboot could have prevented in-round. It destroyed the efforts made by all of the players in the arc, our interactions with other players, the investigations, the in-round mini-events, and so on. While other people have brought this up this one is very personal to me. This goes for my next complaint, too. The handling of maintainer apps, specifically Cake's. Cake was already rather inactive, and had pre-existing lore team obligations. Rather than scrutinizing Cake's application more HEAVILY, as would be reasonable and expected, the application was marked redundant and Jackboot said "You're already a loredev, you goof. You don't need to apply to work on another department, just ask and be persuasive!" This treatment has never, to my knowledge, been extended to anyone else. This directly supports the complaints of favoritism brought up by others; I've seen no one else besides Jackboot and Mofo hold multiple lore team positions at once, and even then those are already special cases involving upper management roles which can be done mostly without interfering with their primary obligations. Additionally, there is the matter of encouraging people to "retire". This happened not only with me, in which Jackboot repeatedly alluded to my resignation (which I had no plans to do at the time) in PMs. I was actually becoming more active and was even writing lore for drones (anyone from synth lore who reads this, please do not add this lore now without my express permission, by the way) that I was going to add when Jackboot PM'd me and once again tried to encourage me to resign. Regrettably, I decided to finally "take the hint" and resign. According to at least one other loredev, this was also attempted on them, and others were threatened. There's also the euphemistic approach to this, like saying that Nursie was "devoting her time fully to mod," which is really screwed up. There's also the announcement of my "deciding to retire" when I was in fact pressured into it, which was only amended after very frankly saying that it was fucked up to do something like that. This doesn't appear to be an isolated incident according to several people. In addition to the favoritism of players, there's also the micromanaging of certain species like Tajara, which has already been addressed by others. However, to show the other side of this, he staunchly refused to join the synth lore chat; while my phrasing of the request was tongue-in-cheek as part of a joke/dare it was very much a serious request, and it seems odd that he'd refuse to join a chat specifically dedicated to planning and organizing synth lore. Additionally, his behavior to lots of would-be contributors is rather hostile, as mentioned by many including former contributors. In fact, it was the entire reason several people, for example Coalf, even joined the lore team to begin with; their suggestions were flippantly discarded with "well you should apply if you feel so strongly", when supposedly we're open to player contributions and being a member of the lore team isn't necessary to write and submit lore. The lore canonization applications forum has been dreadfully inactive and many accepted or quasi-accepted applications have been outright left to rot. This wide collection of systematic issues displays not just an issue with how lore has been handled, but with Jackboot's character in a position of power, period. I would suggest a vote of no-confidence by the lore staff only to determine if he is fit to remain as loremaster. This vote of no-confidence would preferably be held in a system that can't be gamed. That rules out Discord emoji votes (as mods can remove reactions to a post), strawpolls (easy to game with proxies/tor), and in-game votes (alt accounts). I also have reservations about a forum vote as people with database/server access could fudge it, but I have a reasonable enough level of trust in Arrow/Skull to not do that. In the event the vote succeeds, Jackboot would be dismissed from loremaster only. He would remain a unathi maintainer as I don't believe I've seen any complaints regarding his work for unathi, and as several of the people in this complaint have even said, he is a capable writer... for Unathi. I'm a huge fan of his work for them, even. But for things like human lore or overarching plots, I have doubts about his capabilities, which hopefully this vote would resolve; if a majority of lore team members have faith in his capabilities as a manager, he remains, but if they don't, he's replaced. His replacement would probably be Mofo, though as he is already the CCIA leader the administrators may have an issue with that. He could either choose to remain the CCIA leader or abdicate his position and become the loremaster. In the event Mofo chooses not to become the new loremaster I presume Skull or Alberyk or someone like that would pick a suitable replacement. In fact, it may be easier to simply do that from the start to avoid any issues cropping up with people having complaints about Mofo's management as well. As an aside, I'd also like to suggest making the lore canonization forum like the developer suggestions forum. A loredev/loredevs or deputies can vote to reject it or they can take it on as a project and make it canon, without needing loremaster oversight for each and every thing. Anyone who takes one on as a project would be expected to integrate it into the universe as a whole and not leave it as an isolated bubble. While I'm on a roll, making lore staff have some sort of light permissions on the server, like build mode or VV or something, would be really useful to reduce the workload of running events. I'm sure Alb would be onboard with doing this or giving select lore staff members an event manager role, since Alberyk is effectively the only admin willing to run canon events anymore.

I second replacing the name "Americana", but United Americas is worse. It's only one, North America, so how is it "United Americas"? To me it seems like an awful attempt to emulate (pre-)cold-war era fiction like 1984 by redrawing political boundaries at will and giving them cool, pithy names, but all it does is demonstrate an utter lack of understanding of why geopolitical boundaries are where they are.