Zelmana

PROPMT A: Make a story in the following setting: The year is 2464 CE (Common Era). Humanity has long since began its trek into space, and explored territory reaches out dozens of lightyears in every direction. After a century beyond the 2000's, flourishing cities had been established in nearby systems such as Tau Ceti and Eridani Federation, and in the centuries that would follow, hundreds of systems would fall under the control of Humanity. Outposts on garden worlds became metropolises in the span of decades. Entire asteroids and moons were mined out, hostile worlds were terraformed and subdued by growing corporations that began to become the dominant economic powers of Human space. Some humans have decided to roam the Orion Spur for the rest of their lives, living on their vessels and developing their own culture. The endeavors into the final frontier were founded beneath the unified banner of the Sol Alliance - a fading galactic government which exercises official control over the majority of the Human population. At the end of the 22nd century, the power and influence of the Sol Alliance was at its height, but this soon came to an end as an unexpected economic collapse found trans-stellar corporations picking away at Sol Alliance authority piece by piece. In the middle of the prosperity and strife, transtellars have for centuries embarked to make massive profits. The major corporate players had managed to establish a stable, if shaky peace between themselves, with no single corporation able to completely dominate the others. The foremost megacorporations would ultimately end up becoming the following: NanoTrasen Corporation, Einstein Engines, Hephaestus Industries,Idris Incorporated, Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals, and Zavodskoi Interstellar. Together, they exercised total economic control over the known galaxy. Any semblance of equilibrium between the mega-corps was shattered with NanoTrasen's discovery of the element Phoron in 2417. Phoron is a powerful element which is highly sought after for its untold capabilities and use in the average starship drive. After discovering Phoron, NanoTrasen quickly established a monopoly on it, with themselves sitting on the largest deposits in the known galaxy. The times that followed sent NanoTrasen skyrocketing to unofficially become the foremost power over Humanity. Through determination and overwhelming wealth, it and the other megacorporations have become the dominant governing force over the expanse of the Orion Spur. Humanity is far from alone in the Spur, with multiple other sentient species taking to interstellar travel and contesting Humanity’s claim to the stars. In 2332, the Skrell were discovered, and since, a plethora of others were encountered, including the crafty Tajara, the proud Unathi, the enigmatic Vaurcae, and the elegant Dionae. Many more exist, and while most are simply apathetic to humanity, others are openly hostile. If one thing can be said to unite the various species, it is the drive to control the powerful element Phoron. After late 2462 and the beginning of the massive phoron scarcity, the Solarian Alliance has begun its final collapse. Thus far, its jurisdiction has retreated to the Core Worlds and the area around Earth, while other major factions rushed to fill the power vacuum. Chaos has stricken the former Alliance territories for the most part - now labelled the Human Wildlands. Now, the corporations - outside of the Alliance at least, have banded together under the ultimate authority of the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate. This new force promises to safeguard the financial livelihood of every living being in the known galaxy. With the “big five” corporations taking the stage, anything could happen. Only Einstein Engines remains to contest their power financially, supporting a crippled Alliance whose forces have largely revolted amidst the Wildlands. The SCCV Horizon is under the joint control of the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate, a holdings corporation that has significant influence over the direction of the setting. You, among others, have been assigned to work aboard the SCCV Horizon, a state-of-the-art general-purpose vessel that travels across the Orion Spur with the primary objective to uncover Phoron, however, secondary objectives exist at the whim of the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate.

I decided to have a little fun! I took the liberty of grabbing some lore basics from the wiki, and I dropped them into Chat-GPT to see what can happen. Some results are semi-agreeable with Lore, but I'd like to have this topic/thread to discuss this, as well as showcase any Aurora-related AI text generation. Perhaps a cool topic would be character creation!

Simply put Mars has a few things going for it- Poor, Gutter Culture, Reds vs Blues Rootin Tootin Pepper Violet Dawn Don't neuter a cornerstone of Mars.

Good paragraph, thanks lore team. If you gut gutter from Mars you will be effectively removing a major cornerstone of their rebellious and independent mentality, which has been its primary theme. Now that it is majority destroyed, the only thing Mars really has left is some of its remaining culture. Not many "new" stuff coming out of Mars. To take away the language would kick Mars-characters while they're down.

I know it can be used currently- my only concern is danse's long explanation, though I may have read it wrong. We need to be careful not to remove Martian culture.

Anecdotally, a majority of people who speak Gutter/Freespeak are Martian. And is so with our lore- before our the CoC was developed especially. To remove a Gutteral backalley/pirate/rebelious language from Mars is disappointing.

++dmi cigtin.dmi

BYOND Key: Zelmana Discord Username: Zelm#0001 Character Name: Item Name: (if you are applying for multiple items, it should be made into a list with the description, name and appearance together): martian cigarette case Item Function(s): A small, personal cigarette tin. It holds cigarettes similar to a cigarette packet but has some nice flair. Item Description: Why is your character bringing this item to work?: To hold his Dromedarys How did your character obtain this item?: Bought it at a Gutter market on a trip to Mars 10 years ago. It had little significance to him until the Violet Dawn. What value does this item have to your character, and what story does it tell?: Sean Brianne is a companyman. He keeps his appearance tight, and enjoys some vintage aesthetics when it comes to his office casual look. Like many Martians, and much of the station, he's fond of smoking, and it's one of his favorite vices. A Captain can't be carrying around dispoable packets of low-grade tobacco, however. It should ride in style. In a way, it's a reflection of the character itself- Gutter trash on the inside, neat and tidy on the outside. Sprites: It showcased next to the Olympus Mons drink color pallete, which was the inspo for color. Additional Comments: I had previously a teapot on this character but I believe it was removed around 2020 due to some inactivity. I'd like this character to have some nice flair again since he is kind of an older face on the server. As always with custom items, they can be conversation items. Since he frequents the bar or is often smoking, a cool, suave, carrying tin can add some flavor while piquing nearby characters interest to Mars, something I always try to encourage lore-interest wise. Lastly, thanks to the yearly Sekrit Santer for spritework.

dear santer, want a cool cigarette tin that shows mars on the top. ur good boy, Zelm

Ghostmains see no problem with this

Would it be possible to have our 2:00 round-end vote rule be modified by allowing Code Red situations throw us into "overtime" permitting another 30 minutes? AKA if you're in Code Red and it is after 2:00, you should not have a vote be possible until 2:30. This will give some last-minute push for antags but hopefully not too straining on waiting players.

Recently I've been enjoying exploring some synthetic themes through playing Golden Deep characters. Although their lore is not known by a ton of playerbase, it is well written. On the subject of IPCs, is it worth considering that the Golden Deep is perhaps on the cutting edge of technology? When you bring up IPC tech advancement one might think Idris, but personally I believe the Deep with all their immense wealth and trading, and some aspects of criminal enterprise can act as a Megacorp on its own standing. Which faction or interest group has the best AI or IPCs?

I think it's funny because one often thinks of Vaurca as just ants. Beyond the Hivenet and perhaps some of their niche cryptographic puzzle items, they don't seem to have a whole lot of technological flair in-game. There's the VR aspect but I feel like that is incredibly specialized even though it can be abused for a lot of stuff with time dilation.

Which canon group has the best tech in the spur? Assunzione? Skrell? Golden Deep? Idris? Interested to see ideas from all players and lore staff regarding this. Not just in general, but who beats out who in certain technology. Ships, Weapons, IPCs, Teleportation, Science, General Life.

Borg removal, at it's face value, is incredibly divisive in the playerbase and I believe the poll will reflect that. We are attempting, as we have many times before, to remediate problematic player behavior with code. While there are some instances of this being legitimate i.e. balancing weapons- something like this shouldn't just outright ban the role. To remove cyborg is to neuter a large portion of scifi aspects, no matter how lore spins it. We're on the state of the art crown jewel of the SCC, whose mission is possibly the most critical to all megacorps (finding phoron), and we don't utilize cyborgs, something that is widespread in lore? While retconning this alone may not completely kill our server, there have been enough similar issues in the past years that have always had consequences and my opinion as always is the amount of interest and new players we garner dwindle year after year (despite a 70pop round a few weeks ago. that was normalpop in 2017). When has a recommendation with so much division been beneficial long term to the server's roleplay environment and playerbase? 'Fix not Remove' mentality is sometimes correct, and I think this is one of those times. If there exist legitimate grievances, we should seek a remediation to the core problem, not a mitigation to the means. Lastly, I appreciate Jupiter's stance albeit elaborate and at times sounding brash- but I believe that speaks to the absurdity- or appearance of absurdity, to those opposed to this suggestion.

That was a joke but unironically we should not force everyone to use hotkeymode. Please.

Hold down a key? It's a button you press on the screen? I can't do that and click where I want it to go at the same time.

brb shooting out bar and kitchen windows with artillery

More policy to attempt to control what it simply bad player and roleplay behavior? It can pass a poll, but know that the continued neutering of scope of play will only hurt roleplay and playerbase in the long run. We will continue to strip "potentially abusive" parts of our server in favor of player freedom and responsibility. I think this mentality is detrimental to the server.

I played with Compano a few rounds yesterday. If it were not for the question here I would have guessed their playtime as being around for about a month or less of playtime. Please don't take offense to this, but there were some mechanic things that you seemed unaware of. How to remove a bookcase, how to order antagonist items as merc, to name two specific instances. Although our gimmick utilized some niche Assunzionii lore, I would expect someone prepared for a Command role to be aware of their existence. Perhaps I am picky, but I would prefer something more rounded. This is not an application for Command, but rather one for "Chief Engineer", but that is not how we do things- you should be expected to be able to play with the fidelity and roleplay requirements of roles such as Captain.

I completely agree with Carver. I feel like a lot of comfy RP nights are ruined by someone calling round at 2 hrs. It will often be 11pm EST and pop will be like 35 in crew but then within 15 minutes go to about 10 pop (or less) because people don't want to stay another 2 hours which by then is past midnight. I wish there was some way to unironically extend minimum round time- but also I appreciate 2 hour roundtime when there are hectic rounds and pop is healthy midday. 2hr vote time has its pros and cons but maybe moreso Cons as our population has stagnated.