Tailson

Ckey/BYOND Username: Tailson Position Being Applied For: Synthetic Deputy Lore developer Past Experiences/Knowledge: I was admin for a while! Perhaps a little more pertinent to the application; I play AI and cyborg extensively. As a result I kinda hang on synthetic lore pretty tight. Examples of Past Work: I've helped run a few synth events while Kyres was loredev; I played the big Hephaestus escapee station-building robot who made friends, I was one of the Bubbles (core 2 is best) during the Bubble launch event, I played a Lance operative during the Ceres Lance/SLF events. Also, a few other smatterings of assistance lent while I was admin - spawning things ahead of events and such. Additional Comments: I wrote a short document going into some detail regarding hivebots. I like the idea of a replicating war machine. Sorry for the brevity of this application, I'm not sure how much you want me to elaborate on certain aspects, so I suppose it's best to wait for questions. Leave any feedback on the short hivebot thing and the drivel I've written in this post, and any questions I would be happy to answer!

Oh absolutely. In the case of a malf hack, the terminals are damaged beyond repair, just straight up overloaded with no way of unfrying them.

I'll address the third point first and work backwards because that's the kind of horrible person I am. The terminals' purpose in lore is to lock down the AI and restrict it. By disabling these terminals you unlock powers for the AI. Really what you're doing is disabling safeguards that are probably there for a very good reason. Yeah private places is fine. Either way it's all good. And the idea is that during malf these terminals can be hacked, it'll just take a very long time. The incentive is there to encourage malf players to coerce other players into disabling them. Borgs interacting would be possible, maybe being able to snip a wire to speed up a hack, rather than straight up disabling them.

Disclaimer: I am not a smart man and I'm basically spitballing. Abstract: Reworking how AI interacts with--or can be interacted with--by crew. At the moment, the AI exists quite separate from crew, with every part of it existing in hidden compartments and a whole vault-lite setup at the back of the hardest-to-breach part of the station (not counting tcomms, of course). As a result, physical interaction or tampering is limited to either getting into the core, or building an AI upload console and slapping a fancy card against it. Whichever way a wayward traitor well-meaning crewmember with lofty ideals decides to do it, there are only two real ways to mess with the AI besides just breaking it. Either way, it’s simple. SO The Changes No more centralised law console. Well, that’s not strictly true. It’s still there, but it’s no longer possible to just slap a card against it and win. Why? Because it’s important and it has failsafes. These failsafes come in the form of several terminals around the station. They can be hidden in maintenance, installed in important locations like the Captain’s office/RD’s office, or can be in surprisingly prominent places such as a main corridor/cargo lobby. What’s important is that these are randomised. The purpose of each one is locking down an aspect of the AI. The AI will know where each of these failsafe consoles are (in notes, perhaps) but won’t know what each console does exactly, only that it limits their control over the station in some way. Let’s say Urist McTraitor would like to change the laws of our AI, BIGLAD. This will require access to a law upload console as usual, and will require them to disable several safeguard terminals. An emagged terminal will short out, rendering it useless. Even if the round is not malf, removing these safeguards can unlock malf-lite abilities. Changing alert levels, restoring and upgrading cameras, overclocking borgs, etc. Once enough safeguards are lowered, it’s possible to change BIGLAD’s laws. It doesn’t even need to be all of them. Urist can give their fancy new AI pal more malf-lite abilities by disabling more safeguard terminals. How Does This Affect Malf? I’m glad you asked, sport! Terminals are still in for malf. Instead of removing terminals granting malf-lite powers, it unlocks malf-maxi powers. Which is… The normal malf abilities. The intricacies are as such: The malf will be able to hack these terminals itself to disable them. It will take a very long time. The malf is therefore encouraged to get someone else to do it for them. Do they lie? Do they trick people? Do they threaten someone with a borg? Do they hack an IPC? The possibilities are endless Otherwise, malf isn’t affected much. It’s still possible to unlock all abilities over time. Could This Be a Force… For Good? Absolutely! Have you ever been at work and you were attacked by, let’s say, mercenaries? Or ALIENS? Poor BIGLAD with its normal lawset and limited control over the station would be almost powerless to assist, watching helplessly as its precious crew are slaughtered by cultists/xenomorphs/admins. Cue Urist McJoker and his plucky AI-guided crawl through maintenance to disable safeguards to save everyone. It’s not unheard of to remove laws or change them to help an AI stop a threat, though it is very rare. During cult, BIGLAD would be entirely unable to inflict harm on a cultist thanks to the pesky fact that they’re still technically crew. A lawchange is normally enough to fix that, but their ability to actually make any meaningful impact even then is limited. So, In Summary: X number of randomly-placed terminals around the station Disabling them reduces lawset-protection and unlocks malf or malf-lite powers for AIs Crew have a bigger hand in dictating an AI’s involvement in a crisis AI must interact with crew and can now present opportunities for trickery and other such nice suggestions to help it out, malf or otherwise Like I said at the beginning, this has just been an idea I've been throwing around with myself for a while in an effort to drive more interaction between crew and AI. As an AI main, it gets very lonely in the core and I want friends. As with any idea you don't bounce off others, there are gaps where it can be improved and places that are blatantly a terrible idea but I can't see it. Hit me with your best shot. Bonus disclaimer: How do I code. I'm just an ideas guy. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

I think maybe a part of them still believes that they haven't wasted time and there's something new to learn. By coming to work with NT instead of where they just were, they are moving on, albeit not moving very far. Still having that curious outlook, which is part of the species as you say, but going in with extremely low expectations. The hope that it'll be different is still there, they can't shake that, they just aren't expecting a whole lot before having to move on again. Like a last hurrah, final attempt at these humans sort of thing.

Depressed is the closest term I think, maybe? Maybe not depressed, but just given up. They're not about to start moping and sulking, but they don't expect anything worthwhile to come out of interacting with humans any longer. Yet they still stick around? Maybe out of a sense of duty or a kind of stubbornness that prevents them from going back.

Hi @Neinbox! Thanks for responding. I had a lot of fun writing this character and coming up with the concept, which genuinely did start with a name brainstorming session and the implications of Moulded by low Expectations just spoke to me. I had planned to play Moulded as a defeated specimen. Just 100% done with the humans they are now stuck with. Whatever passion for learning and socialising with these creatures died along with the eighth office plant next to the receptionist's desk she couldn't, or wouldn't, care for. Maybe in the future they find people that they can enjoy being around, maybe they rekindle their desire to actually learn about humanity again. But really, that long in a toxic office environment has ruined them. Let's say that it's unlikely they revert back to that bubbly collection of inquisitive minds ever again.

BYOND Key: Tailson Character Names: Rex Winters, Kere'Selsh Qorina, Geraldine Schofield (Jay), Harmony, Brunton, ASSIST PocketBuddy 2.0, Margaret Stainforth. Species you are applying to play: Dionae What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Nil 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: I have always been a big fan of bizarre, eldritch and unusual races in games, movies and other media. The dionaea, to me, scratch that itch that I get when it comes to the truly bizarre, scary looking things. I've always considered interacting with a twisted, entangled mess of plant fibres to be an interesting concept in Aurora, and would like to be on the other end of that conversation. I've enjoyed my brief forays into playing diona (nymphs are good) so I'd like to take that forward with a full character. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Maybe with one exception, the dionaea are the epitome of Aurora weird chic. Not just the alien appearance, but the alien psyche is interesting. The slow movements and decisions I can easily see being a result of the internal council meeting analogue that dictates a cyclops' decision making process. Character Name: Moulded by Low Expectations Please provide a short backstory for this character The skrell making initial contact with the humans was a huge event, celebrated by all involved. Moulded by Low Expectations, at that point in time taking the moniker Envisioning a Bright Future, was among those excited (as much as they could be) at what this contact could mean. One of the first in line to be transferred to work with these new and curious creatures (as soon as it was possible), Envisioning entered human space as a genuinely enamoured cyclops with dreams of learning about their new neighbours. Similarly, the humans, while wary, were eager to learn more about these new visitors. And, as things usually go, the media circus moved on, the newsreels focused on which celebrity was doing which other celebrity, and everything settled back into the humdrum of daily life. While the speeches and the interviews continued among the ambassadors and the higher ups, life must go on. And so it was, as Envisioning was initially happy to be included in the humdrum of human life. The first year passed, and our cyclops is still working the same job. Happily dealing with the tasks given to it, eager to learn about their companions. But, eventually, the next year went by. And the next. And the next. And so, 22 years after contact, Envisioning a Bright Future and the minds that made it what it was, decided the name no longer fit. Moulded by Low Expectations decided it was time to move on. Just anything to break the monotony of working as a window cleaner in an office building. What do you like about this character? Dionae are meant to be a product of their environment, and I am excited to explore the idea of a dionae who has been around depressed middle managers, downtrodden pen-pushers, and sycophantic yes-men for decades. A sarcastic mass of tendrils that feels older than its years despite having a lifespan that extends into infinity. How would you rate your role-playing ability? 8/10? I want to think I do well. Notes: This idea came to me in a fever dream.

I am going to be very frank with you here, Soultheif. From my experience, you have a history, and not a very distant one, of blatant powergaming and validhunting. My interaction with you this evening has further impressed upon me that your inclusion as a command member on the station will be nothing short of disastrous. I won't go into detail for your benefit as we have already discussed it, but your attitude and your actions have spoken a very loud, clear message. A very hard -1 from me, I'm afraid.

Let's also remember that protohumans are a fantastic way to train new medical players in surgery and such. Yes, it can be difficult to reconcile this in lore, but I think working on that is many times better than just flat out removing them, because they are useful.

Hey there Mishamoon! I'm glad you appealed. I understand you're new to the server, and that's fine. If ever you get an ahelp, don't panic, we're here to help out. In future, you can click on an admin's name to reply to them. In this case, yeah, Pun Pun is a station pet. Quite often, unfortunately for Pun Pun, he's listed as a viable source of food on other server wikis. Sometimes these are for servers with a lower standard of roleplay, which is fine, a lot of stuff carries over mechanics-wise, but you shouldn't be feeding crew station pets. I'm going to go ahead and unban you. Just keep these things in mind going forward. If at any point you're unsure, use F1 to talk to an admin and we can clarify anything!

Locking and archiving.

Accepted. Closing and archiving.

That's really good news, and I'm glad you were able to have the conversation and get things sorted.

I've been happy to work with Kyres on those little canon mini-events and such in the past (Purpose, Ceres', etc.) and I'm often talking to him about projects and stuff that he has in the works. As far as I can tell, he's already doing all of the work that is expected of a developer, but is only able to get so far due to not having the proper 'authority' to enact large, sweeping changes to lore. I can wholeheartedly recommend Kyres for the synth loredev application for his tenacity, dedication and dogged persistence that he's shown already as deputy. That said, @kyres1, if you get loredev, please don't stress and work yourself to death with it. Take breaks. Gosh.

Alright, hello, I want to preface this by saying I'm really sorry this took so long to reach a conclusion, this is entirely on me. Direct all complaints to my PO box. So I've discussed this with @Pratepresidenten at length and have been able to have conversations with both people involved. I've taken into account the fact that the ahelps, content-wise, were resolved in-round and therefore had little bearing on this decision, but were definitely considered as part of the investigation as you'd expect. I want to start with the perceived OOC grudges. This, throughout the round, appeared to me that @DRagO expected there to be some metagrudging from @SatinsPristOTD. While that wasn't the case as Satin didn't know who played Mira, it had Drago on edge, and in the end resulted in Satin thinking Drago had a grudge, which looked like a terrible loop that the pair of you had gotten into, unwillingly on both sides. This is unfortunate, but neither of you are personally at fault. We're all human and we often fail to understand each other. I honestly believe this can be fully resolved with a serious sit down conversation, but I won't force that of course. In that vein, I'd like @DRagO to be more mindful of ahelping for IC issues, as this did happen as a result of that. Before ahelping, please try to view situations as if you were on the other side of the conflict in order to rationalise their actions. And as for the spam hugging, please don't do that. I understand it wasn't only Drago doing it, and as it was towards the end of the round people tend to relax their RP standards a little, just be mindful of others who may want to play their characters true right to the last moment. I reference the spam hugging specifically, but this extends to other L and MRP behaviour: we are a HRP server, and it's important to make believable characters that perform believable actions, even if they are the villains at the time. This means imposing limits on yourself sometimes. Now I'm happy to wrap this up, I've had a lot of time to mull it over (a lot, my bad), but I'm leaving this open for a few days so anyone can weigh in. Let me know if there's anything I missed, if there's something you want looking at in more detail, and so on.

That's just how I roll. I'll perform the unban as soon as I'm home tonight. Locking and archiving.

Hi Veradox So, I was the guy who did the ban, I was a wee trial at the time so I had to ask Coalf to do it for me, which is why I'm taking this. Let's get to it. So you were originally banned as a result of a player complaint (found here) which, combined with the contents of the complaint itself and a general look into your synthetic play at the time, didn't paint a very good picture. I've no reason to think you haven't improved since, however, since looking at your current character roster and how you play them in game shows a marked improvement from before. Also, it's been a long time. So, before I lift this ban, can you take a look at that last post on the linked thread ( * ) and tell me that won't be a problem going forward?

Hey there, myself and @Pratepresidenten will be handling this. Give us two shakes of a lamb's tail to look through stuff and we'll get started.

My god, you even remember the AI holopads the first time around. This looks absolutely fantastic, and has me itching to pick up my xenoarch again just so I can enjoy that gorgeous multi-level anomaly bay.

I like the first option, in that a malf AI would develop and deploy its own "optimised" designs, exhibiting that these designs aren't available at all except in very unusual circumstances. That said I am also in favour of them being utilised outside of malf rounds, but like you said, adminbus. I also really like option 2. That's a good one.

Interview done and dusted, posted here: https://pastebin.com/R6UUwtMV

ty bu

Neat.