incognitojesus

What I believe could be worked on is pushing back the independence date of the Republic. As it stands now, you cannot have a character on-station that was born in the Republic when it was independent. I think this is a detriment to roleplay potential, and it's a tad unrealistic to have a nation go from the brink of economic insolvency to then exerting their influence on a galactic scale (a la intervention in Mictlan). I'd propose a soft retcon of the early history of the Republic, pushing it back by roughly ten years which would give the nation a greater believability and a reason for characters who grew up in the Republic to want it to succeed while also maintaining the feeling of being a "young Republic". It'd provide a sense of historicity to the lore and flesh out the period between Independence and lore events (~2458) with some history. Like for example, who even was Joseph Dorn before he became president? Were there any challenges to Biesel's sovereignty by the Sol Alliance claiming it to be within its sphere of influence prior to the first invasion? I'm just riffing now, but it's worth a try to flesh out the setting.

I wish you all the best, and thanks for doing the thing for the last seven years. It's meant a lot to a ton of people. See you later, space cowboy.

Alright, allow me to dust off the ole forum account and give my full account, since I started that discord just a little over four years ago, and have actively maintained it since then. Perhaps it'll inform you as to why the discord is in the "hybrid" state that you mention. So, originally, when the Relay was started (January 11, 2017), it didn't really have an official stance whatsoever. I created it, added the admins and mods as server roles with the appropriate permissions, and went from there. But nominally, from day one most of the moderation was done by me. It was wholly chat-based until the first Sol Invasion arc when we started introducing apartment channels, which was a sort of freeform roleplay for people who wanted to engage with their characters outside of the normal server setting. At this point, I'd still been relying on server mods and admins pitching in with moderation of content, since there wasn't much in the way of bans applied except in extreme cases when people from other servers would try and raid the discord. In fact, there are only 17 bans logged over the course of its four year history. When my workload at college picked up, I realized that I wouldn't be able to do the moderating full-time, so around mid-2019 I picked up our first solely-discord mod. This has grown to include a head discord mod as well as two others, whose primary job is to just make sure people aren't going too far in the apartment channels, set up the aforementioned channels, and make sure people don't get too rowdy in OOC. The reason I recruited the discord mods was simple: the bulk of the modstaff and admins at the time didn't have any interest in the server or administering it. In fact, I have been repeatedly told that it's not an official component of the server by both admins and previous loremasters. So what changed? Well, nothing really. We've still been working for the last four years to deliver a great experience for the community that actually cares to engage with it. The only noticeable change is that we've tried to integrate more server-related ongoings with the discord, and these event inclusions (such as the bookstore and Blood Moon saga) were done wholly on the initiative of the person in charge of the event, which is completely fine by me. Now, to address the points made so far in this thread: As I stated above, the NPT discord has never been made official, at least not to my knowledge. We've worked with lore staff to better represent the Aurora canon in the server, and the showrunner of one of the arcs has used it as a medium for hosting their events of their own initiative. At no point was I informed, "Hey, this is something that's solely limited to this discord regarding this arc." It wasn't an issue for me, and since the Aurora server didn't fall down in the interim period, I assume it wasn't an issue for the community-at-large. Also, we were only just provided a unique server icon courtesy of Kyres just last night, as opposed to the server icon (that I found on Google Images, mind you) we were using for the last four years. As for the private discussions, the extent of those discussions was just to switch over the flavor of the server to reflect the new change from NT to the SCC. That's it, really. The entire playerbase does not use the Relay regularly. In fact, I'd say that less than 10% of the playerbase actively uses the Relay let's say, once a week. It's instead accountable to the people that actually use it, rather than having people who don't use it at all try to dictate what goes on. Since the dawn of the Discord, I have always tried to reflect the ever-changing roster of Aurora staff on the Relay, and in fact they've always had the appropriate server permissions. Admins have the ability to do most of everything, server mods have the permissions to kick/ban. The purpose of the parallel staff structure is to have a group of community members who are actually engaged on the Relay and read it, which as I stated above, has predominantly not been the case for the majority of the modstaff. It's simple, have the people who use the Relay moderate the Relay. I'd say it's quite sustainable, considering the Relay has been around for over four years now with little modstaff/admin intervention. The same rules that apply to the General discord were shifted over to this discord, with the addition of some other rules that are necessary to properly facilitate something that is so different from the general discord and server. But I thought it was completely unsustainable?

Honestly it's a nice addition that really separates Skrell from other species. I'm glad it's addressed in lore that peeking into the heads of non-Skrell is frowned upon, though. It creates more of a semblance of community among Skrell players, in my opinion, and adds a more alien feel to a species that once upon a time was a lot closer to "humans, but with headtails". edit: it's also dope seeing lore represented with game mechanics

BYOND Key: incognitojesus Character Names: Senri Ishikawa; Jameson Suhl; Jiahao Li; Harrmalik Mrrazhughran; Thad Parker Species you are applying to play: Skrell What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Pale blue 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'd like to play Skrell because they seem to be one of the races that has been given the most depth lore-wise, at least with the lore for cultures. I also enjoy just how different they are from humans without being too different or unrelatable. The fact that Skrell have been associated with some of the biggest IC technological breakthroughs and their emphasis on purpose and work ethic allows for subversive character elements which are nice. Before I stopped playing, I wanted to apply for a Skrell whitelist, but the lack of other Skrell characters was disparaging. Now that I'm back, I've seen a lot of frogs other Skrell which has definitely gotten me interested in playing one again. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: As mentioned before, Skrell are similar to humans in their emphasis on pop culture, however, this takes on a bit of a sinister twist as the Federation is a looming force that basically permeates every Skrell's life in some way. It's an interesting dynamic borne from a culture of fear after ye olde Glorsh. Speaking of Glorsh, the one thing that unites all Skrell is the Glorsh incident and the genophage which affects all Skrell. This gives everyone something in common, whereas most humans on station are not from the same faction or have that shared history. Also, the role of telepathy in their society is interesting, particularly the dream sharing. Character Name: Qyul'lakk Alimalic Please provide a short backstory for this character Hatched in 2351 on the frozen planet of Aliose, Qyul'lakk grew up as many did in Fedas, with a deep appreciation for the Federation. As he would rest at night, sharing dreams with his classmates of one day being able to serve the Federation as an officer in the Specialist Forces, the young Skrell would join a feeder program for the Jargon Federation Security Forces. Qyul'lakk wanted to traverse the stars, protecting his home just as his heroes had during the chaos of the recovery from the Glorsh Rebellion. This plan would not come to fruition, as the young Skrell would discover he simply wasn't physically able to keep up with his classmates, and was soon dropped from the program. Facing being ostracized by his former friends and fellow students, Qyul'lakk instead looked to another career path: genetic research. Although Qyul'lakk's body was not as strong as his friends', his mind was able to save him from ending up as a common laborer. Qyul'lakk shifted his emphasis to research, garnering an advanced degree in genetics and pursuing one in human biology. If he could not serve the Federation through his might, he would try to serve it with his mind. When the offer to work as a research assistant for Zeng-hu Pharmaceuticals came to him in 2410, Qyul'lakk was overjoyed with the prospect of working towards a potential breakthrough in cloning technology in Tau Ceti. Qyul'lakk would spend the next five years working on helping his Director overcome challenges with whole genome sequencing in humans. During this event, however, the Skrell was accused of falsifying data by the Director of the program at the time, seeking to find a reason for the delays in their research by blaming Qyul'lakk. This accusation led to his academic disgrace, having to resign his position from Zeng-hu and being ostracized by the scientific community. When the breakthrough in clone technology came the next year, Qyul'lakk's small role in the venture was all but forgotten. Seeking some way of employment, Qyul'lakk moved from Phoenixport to Mendell City. Not wanting to re-enter the field of research due to his own shame, Qyul'lakk resigned himself to the life of a common laborer in Tau Ceti, working as a gardener among other odd jobs. During a binge of human film, Qyul'lakk realized that the key to restoring his credibility lay all around him: humanity. Although alone physically, Qyul'lakk found company in the form of human pop culture which served as a replacement for his previous consumption of Skrellian films and culture. Determined to find some aspect of human culture he could study and write about, Qyul'lakk took a position as an assistant aboard the Nanotrasen research station, the NSS Aurora. On this station, he would study a microcosm of the worst human culture had to offer. What do you like about this character? As I was writing his backstory up, I realized that I hadn't heard enough character backgrounds that involved academic failure. Most characters I've encountered don't really acknowledge their education, or the struggles of getting through it. I wanted to put a particular emphasis on the consequences of failure in a society that places a lot of value on what you contribute to it. Did Qyul'lakk actually falsify the data to save his own ass? It's possible, but it's also possible that he was screwed over by an eager opportunist. Rather than breeding resentment, it actually shames him greatly, and the drive to restore his own credibility in academia is what gets him up in the morning. How would you rate your role-playing ability? I don't really know how to write a paragraph about this, but I'd like to think I'm a decent roleplayer. I try to put more of an emphasis on character development, and being able to develop a character over time and events is one of my favorite parts of all this. Notes: wrbl

I think removing cloning is something this server has needed ever since the respawn timer was lowered to twenty minutes. People are no longer taken out of the round for half an hour, and it does make death more meaningful. Hopefully this will curb officers charging into the line of fire, and make people think twice about how actions could affect their characters. I support this.

I know I've been out of the game for quite a bit, but I'd say Geeves is one of the most upstanding members of this community and can be entrusted with a position such as CCIA. They've got a good head on their shoulders, and seems to genuinely care for the community and server as a whole. The fax machine will claim another soul.

Long ago, back in the glory days of oldcode, we were able to adjust medical masks to be hung around the neck rather than always walking around looking like you just crawled out of one of Nursie's medical horror fanfictions. Now we can only do that with oxygen masks. We should bring those back. Yes. It would add a nice touch to dealing with patients and the sort, as pulling the mask down makes it easier to communicate with them and would put them more at ease. Also, having the mask up at all times during medical business is pretty ugly. Y/Y?

I would make the stage a little smaller. Also, in my opinion, one or two of those wider tables should be replaced with smaller ones, and the booths should be a little bigger.

The fact that there's a chance for a character to canonically win the lottery multiple times, or that more than one person can win it who works on the same station amongst trillions of people is really, really unlikely. It's also not very immersive that there are numerous characters on the station who win the lottery and just... keep working some shitty job on the station? remov kebab

I'd support this. Gonzalez is a well-formed character for the most part, and is constantly behind the front desk of medbay interacting with others. This would be nice fluff and would be a definite conversation piece on more than one occasion.

Yeah, I'm not set on a revert, but the current design definitely should be reworked. The ultra-wide shuttle isn't very conducive to a nice roleplay environment, in my opinion. Zyy is kind of right in that it should allow people to group up and talk to one another. and change is bad

The new emergency shuttle is far too wide and is pretty unsightly. It's the equivalent of a THICC flying box with little aesthetic to it at all. I'm not necessarily sure why it was remapped in the first place, although I can only assume it was to deal with a larger amount of players? If that's so, the old design should suffice, albeit just elongated. The new design is too wide, and the orientation of the chairs makes it difficult to see who is who and easily distinguish people because they're all facing the front of the shuttle. I understand that's maybe how a shuttle would possibly be set up realistically, but it does nothing for a 2D spaceman game. The position of the brig before was great, and the overall set up of the previous shuttle was very good. 2/10 pls fix dad

Voltage is a good boi. And by that, I mean that he was honestly pretty good at being a mod when he was active. I honestly think that he would be a great candidate and can re-adjust to the new server climate reasonably well. I would like to think that my input here, as someone who can actually recall when Voltage was a mod prior, would carry some weight. As for the way he conducts himself on the discord, etc., I haven't really seen a concrete issue with the way he communicates. He shitposts in places like the trashcan, but otherwise he isn't really distinguishable from how some of the modstaff communicates. Hell, Jackboot starts all of his official announcements with "Hewwo", so unless people can come up with egregious examples of conduct, I'd say that's a somewhat moot point. My only concern would be whether or not you plan on sticking around, as has been mentioned previously. I would like to think that you will, having adjusted to the whole college life and all. You've got my support, biitch.

For this reason, I have to agree. While it's great that you've worked with Zundy to come up with a look for this, there should be a point at which staff simply says no more to the influx of people wearing military uniforms to a corporate research station for no other reason than to just show affiliation with an organization that literally invaded the system a year ago. In my opinion, it's something that shouldn't have started in the first place.