sperky7933

BYOND Key: sperky7933 Total Ban Length: forever Banning staff member's Key: shenaanigans Reason of Ban: Reason for Appeal: I switched from Windows to Linux because I want to try gaming on it for a year as an experiment. I was using virtualbox previously to run windows 10 to run this game because it doesn't work well with emulators on Linux. Worked well and played a round. I then tried to use virt-manager (a different emulator) and I got this ban message when trying to play on aurora yesterday evening on it. I maybe have an idea as to why this happened, but still I'm like totally flabbergasted. I thought it would solve itself and I would try the game again today on virtualbox on a separate machine and got this again. If you're curious as to my hypothesis as to how this happened, virt-manager uses KVM, a type of emulator. The networking on KVM uses an IP that connects to the host machine that starts with 10.x.x.x, or something like that. I'm guessing this guy was using a VM to grief on the game and BYOND IP ban also bans these bridge IP's. I'm not sure how or why, but this is probably the craziest shit I've seen in all my years of playing this game. The game works perfectly fine on virtualbox but I'd never do KVM again if this is what happens.

+1 I played with Dakota Shepherd a couple of times and I can confidently say they are a good player.

+1 they know what they're doing and play command well

That's a good point. I just used the C'thur queens SCC as sort of an inspiration. I'd then consider around 8.1 or 8.0 for Qum'Qim. Maybe even lower honestly, I am not good at gauging this sorta stuff. Qum'Qim saw the writing on the wall after witnessing the expansion, growth and influence that humans have been gathering ever since first contact. Knowing this, they began to work for Zheng-Hu to get a foot in the door in what they deemed to be the future. At the time, they planned on having a family with their Qu'Poxii, but Qum'Qim's infertility and their partners death has led to this dream being crushed. They wanted their children to grow up in human space in what they deemed to be the best place for them to find success. They now continue to work for human companies because of their hope that they might still harbor a family, the reputation they have built in the company, and most of all, they love their job. They began with working in skrell space as an administrator on some of Zheng-Hu's smaller research stations and slowly began to integrate themself into human corporations from there, becoming a captain of a couple of Nanotrasen phoron research vessels. Most of the time they spent was with the Sol Republic.

1. Qum'Qim like molluscs of all sorts, especially the Aqoliz that remind them of their home world. During their time as a revolutionary and during the rebuild, they generally came to despise cheaper foods due to them overeating them all the time. Like, they would rather starve to death than eat vending machine garbage. Their recent time in human space has allowed them to become fascinated with their culture and splurge out on their new types of cuisine like hotdogs and such. They generally prefer to eat human food now as they try to explore different things in life. 2. Their view on human synthetics has been this: They will try their best to educate humans on the issues with synthetics and how dangerous they are, but will not outright tell them what or what not to do. They simply do not want to see their kind ever relying on synthetics again. They do not care if the sparks use AI or not, as long as they understand the consequences of their actions. They are extremely cautious around this technology and especially do not trust or rely on stationbounds, especially AI. They will respect and work with an IPC but will never treat them with the same trust and respect as another organic. They are completely unsympathetic to synthetics and really do not care about their suffering as they see it as being fake and emulated. 3. Qum'QIm will work with a synthetic, as per their job, but will be extremely skeptical of them and educate humans as to why they are dangerous to work with. It is, after all, human space and they are a guest amongst foreigners. They would prefer to interact with organics, but won't outright refuse to interact with an synthetic if it is unavoidable. 4. Since first contact and learning about and understanding humans, they have been deeply disappointed that humans have allowed megacorporations such autonomy and control over their lives. They do not really see them as parasitical or evil, they just see them as just being unregulated and thus do not act in their best interests. This is an opinion that they have always kept of the humans since the start - They should keep a tighter leash on companies. 5. Qum'Qim sees the federation as a part of *their* own creation - That they were single-handedly responsible in the design of the government. Obviously this is a bit overkill, but to them they feel that way. They are very loyal to the government, their programs, the meritocracy, etc... Their social credit score has maintained Iqi status since the Glorsh-Omega incident, and, up until recent years, they have kept it as high as possible. Nowadays they have become more relaxed and lenient (for their standards) and have kept a score of around 9.3, though it has been higher in the past.

Rhod Tomar is an epic character to play engineering with and really knows what they're doing. I trust them to do a great job playing as an OM. +1 from me

BYOND Key: sperky7933 Character Names: Michael Greenberg, Bartholomew, Zim C'thur, Kern Zo'ra, Flick Bernagen, to name a couple Species you are applying to play: Skrell, Xiialt What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Light green Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: SIR YERS SIR OORAH 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: Apart from my goal to collect every single xeno species, I have played with Skrell on board the ship and have enjoyed it a plenty. I have always had a desire to play as a non-discriminated xeno, as most of them I play as are extremely discriminated and oppressed - That's not to say the Skrell aren't, but definitely not literally barred from certain jobs and restricted. They are one of the only xenos to have psionic abilities, have complex familial systems, and due to their age have a *very* distinct outtake on life. Their history is incredibly interesting and I would like to create a character that truly expresses the tenants of their recent history, as well as express their long age and interesting government. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Skrell obviously look different and are seen as being emotionless to humans - Conveying emotions requires the use of headtails and passive psionic stuff. So, when another alien speaks to a skrell, they're seen as an emotionless frog waving headtails around. But, to another skrell, it is entirely understandable. Their psionic abilities extend to both a Nlom effect that happens when a bunch of Skrell receivers are together and collectively share similar ideals. They also perform Srom when they sleep, which is an important part of skrell culture where they can commune in their dreams - Some tenacious skrell even use this to their advantage to train or work in their dreams! Now the biggest key difference is their age. They mature incredibly slowly and, with proper medical treatment, can live up to almost half a millennium! This longevity is expressed in everything skrell - Their slow, cautious and methodical nature (compared to humans), their extreme obsession with future-planning (as they're gonna live long so why not), and culture. This doesn't necessarily mean that a skrell is going to be more wise than a human - They mature at different ages. A fourty year old human is going to definitely be more mature, educated and wise than a forty year old skrell. I usually encounter this a lot when I'm playing my older human characters. There are skrell thirty years older that respect me as a human. Character Name: Quw'Qim Sit'Tap'Xri-Salla Please provide a short backstory for this character: tl;dr They fought against the Glorsh-Omega and are now looking to explore the Spur in their final years of their life as a captain on board various ships. What do you like about this character? I wanted to play as a skrell captain on the ship and express everything interesting about the skrell in this character. This includes the Glorsh-Omega era incident, their old age, loyalty to the federation and their psionic abilities (they are a reciever, naturally). Someone traditional, old, experienced and deadpan serious. How would you rate your role-playing ability? I'm good, but like, there are some guys who play this game who have *crazy* good characters and skills (hint: grumpy old janitor) and I will just never match that level of amazingness... Though I try to. EDIT 1: Fixed the name of my skrell because the naming convention went against tradition

+1 I've played with Arielle Auriel-Qerk for I believe three rounds. They are a well thought out character that I enjoyed playing with a lot. I cannot say how they will be as a CMO, but I can certainly attest to the fact they are amazing to play with and generally a memorable character. Definitely a competent player and worth +1'ing

I only played with them for a short moment for one round and I thoroughly enjoyed the way they played HoS. Definitely a well-thought out and epic character to play with. +1

BYOND key: sperky7933 Discord Username: pain#6519 Character names: Marvin-224 - Engineer Silvester - Merchant, "son" of a rich trader NT Bookworm - Librarian and big ass nerd NT Cleansworth - Sociopathic janitor Pilot 737 - Bridge Crew Ka'Akaix'Kezo Zo'ra - Engineer Ka'Viax'Kern Zo'ra - Corn Gardener O.E. Beast - 8 foot tall industrial shell that acts like a child. Miner Michael Greenberg - Family man first, Atmospheric Technician second and Engineer third Ka'Akaix'Zim C'thur - Xenobiologist I also play a lot of technomancer and loner, including most recently the mime loner, the nerd technomancer, samurai technomancer, the space cop from gorgamesh (or whatever it was), Luchicanisimo, etc... I thoroughly enjoy playing antag and I want to include these characters for your reference in judging how I play. How long have you been playing on Aurora?: On and off actively since 2020, started playing 2015 Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?: I got banned in 2015 for being an epic troll and releasing the singularity. You can read my ban appeal if you want I got a warning in 2021 summer for logging out outside of cryo Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: A head of staff is first and foremost the arbiter of disputes, the dispatcher of orders and the regulator of their department, not in any specific order. They are the foremost authority in their respective department and thus must be fully qualified to run it and understand it, to educate newer players on it, and to be a responsible, trustworthy and reliable person. Without a head of staff there is naturally a consensus between department members on what to do, which can lead to disputes, confusion or in general disorganization. My point being, the OOC purpose of a head of staff is to head their department properly and justly in the way they see fit, which should be the best way. They should also acknowledge and work with their subordinates. No one wants an asshole head of staff that micromanages, or conversely one that doesn't give a shit, or one that has no idea what they're doing. No one. It'll just ruin the fun. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: You are being entrusted a very important role in the game, one that can (and will) lead to the round being utterly destroyed if you are irresponsible enough to mismanage it. Your responsibility is to make the round more fun, simple as. To be more fun, I would properly manage my department and ensure that I do my responsibility and be a respected and trusted head of staff that everyone can enjoy interacting with. A command staff that does too much and ruins the round is terrible to play with, and one that does too little and turns the round into bar RP for 2 hours is also terrible. Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau ceti and how it affected your character and their career? My character, Michael Greenberg, is a Solarian from Earth that immigrated to the Republic of Biesel because they began to loathe the bureaucratic nightmare and corruption that they were dealing with back home, and booming business opportunities with Biesel's phoron market. He immigrated during the early days of the republic, where there was much hope for the future in this new, accepting, vibrant and rich country. Now, he sees his new country go against his home nation, bow down to the whim of megacorporations, and, the worst part, Biesel has allowed said megacorporations to "rebuild" Solarian colonies in what he deems Solarian territory. Nevertheless, he is a staunch supporter of his new home country, though his heart lies beyond its borders. He sees the various warlords that splintered due to the collapse of the Solarian Republic as traitors. Greenberg thinks the phoron crisis is a temporary issue that will be solved shortly. The SCCV Horizon he sees as being overkill, yet will never throw down the opportunity for a well-paying job. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? On trial, Chief Engineer. After acceptance, I will probably play literally every single command role besides HoS and CMO. Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? Yeah Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking.: Michael Greenberg - Chief Engineer Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? Sure, I wouldn't mind sacrificing my own whitelist to ensure competence and enjoyability. Have you linked your byond account to the forums? Yes, though you should tell people instead of a pop-up next time they join, they gotta click the "View Linking Requests" verb instead. Extra notes: Next few days I will be preparing for the new semester so I will be less active, but still playing 😄

Jill handled the most chaotic round this week as well as a head should have. They handled the procedure codes, intruders, and traitors, while staying on top of their own department. Very epic gaming from this individual, I give a +1.

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: (RGB 61, 0, 0) Character Name: Ka'Akaix'Kezo Zo'ra Please provide a short backstory for this character: In 2459, another unbound Vaurca was hatched to Xakt's brood, in a hive-cell dedicated to the continuing infrastructure development for her hive in Luthien. Trained in VR for the design and engineering of general infrastructure, housing and the occasional human buildings, Kezo worked with their hive-cell members and the local government on the construction of these buildings for the expanding and recovering hive. For the next two years, Kezo would work with their hive and work with various different people and government workers and lawmakers in the process. In doing so, Kezo made both contacts and references outside of their hive and with that acquired experience in interacting with humans. In early 2461, the busy-body Kezo and their hive-cell was sent as an emergency force dedicated to an emergency in a small human colony at the pole. The queen Xakt, eager for the chance to ease tensions between both factions, sent them. Their complex heating system failing, Kezo both designed and improved on the heating system dedicated for the small colony, and greatly simplifying the system using the techniques from their ancient systems learnt in VR. However, Kezo was smart enough not to expose humans directly to their technology. Kezo then led the unbounded engineers to fix the failing heating system and save the tiny colony from certain evacuation and death. This act impressed an Hephaestus official who was attempting to solve the issue for weeks without any success from their engineers. Hephaestus offered to hire Kezo, who then refused. However, Hephaestus sweetened the deal with a contract on the maintaining and repairing of ships, which was accepted immediately. Xakt's brood was certainly eager to acquire experience, training and the technology knowabouts from them for their hive, which they desperately need. Unfortunately for Kezo, it was demeaning for a once great engineer in charge of a great army of unbounded servants to now be working the same job as them, except for a greedy and foreign corporation. What do you like about this character?: Kezo is an interesting character from an interesting brood. I like the queen of choice, Xakt, and I like that Kezo should be easy to play with humans and other xenos due to their experience with them, while not being completely assimilated coming from a debatably isolated brood. Also, coming from Xakt shall give me a good excuse for funny Vaurca voice. I also enjoy playing as a little-bit of a snobby character.

Sup man, thanks for everything and such. I really didn't expect this level of help and assistance and I'm actually quite happy and extremely grateful for this. While writing the application I definitely was considering the... slight absurdity of a Athvur engineer working on a specialized and rare engine. It is true I wanted a more human-oriented vaurca so I could settle into the play-style more easily, however I'll consider your advise on a K'lax brood because it fits an engineer of this specialization and makes more sense. I wouldn't think that Athvur would specialize into something like that. I'll think of some good character by at most Friday. Either I fix Kezo to do what you advised (infrastructure construction, etc) or make a K'lax dude.

As someone who plays a lot of merchant I think /vg/station has the right idea: instead of random garbage that no one cares or buys, the merchant should be incredibly desirable by offering products that grant good quality of life or interesting items. That, and also giving the merchant more power to do gimmicks easily (drug dealing, merchant vessel casino) you get my point. Merchant is too damn boring and giving it an 100% roll every round would destroy all interest in them spawning. You want 100%, you gotta give players a reason to be interested in interacting with them.

BYOND Key: sperky7933 Character Names: Marvin-224 Silvester NT Bookworm NT Cleansworth Species you are applying to play: Vaurca What color do you plan on making your first alien character: (131, 41, 11) unbound brood of Ta’Akaix’Athvur’zezkt’azi Zo’ra Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: You're aboutta find out 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 want to play an interesting and fleshed-out race that differs from all others. Honestly I've played this damn game and this server too long and it's starting to get boring so I want a new race to play. I also never or very rarely ever see any other vaurca on the server. It's an interesting race that people gotta appreciate more - and that means playing the race until you burn yourself out. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: A lot. Let's start from birth of a typical engineer human and vaurca unbounded engineer. A human (we'll assume in this game and under normal circumstances) is assigned a mother and family at birth, the rest is up to fate, then they end up becoming an engineer. Totally different for our vaurca. Once laid as an egg, they are put into a hive-cell apart of a greater "brood" (a family unit depending on their queen), under a hive led by a high queen, united as a nation that they are biologically loyal to. Once they are hatched it is up to the hive to further develop their fellow broodling. Depending on job, bounded or unbounded, and caste, they could spend many years in a VR that could be anything depending on the queen they serve. Finally, our engineer is unplugged and sent off into the real world where they will experience the harsh life of reality. This VR experience depends and varies on many things, but for our hypothetical unbound vaurca engineer the VR was exclusively for training. There are many biological differences between vaurca and humans. There are many, but I will just list a few of what I think are the most important, disregarding the obvious (exoskeletons, antennas etc). They breathe phoron gas, and those that do not literally breathe it have built in augmentations that require phoron-laced food to upkeep it. Their sense of smell is significantly exacerbated due to their style of communication and amongst many other reasons. They must also communicate to other species using a built-in augmentation as well, but it depends vastly on both the individuals circumstances and augmentations. Normally it is inferior to their natural way of communicating. Their size and shape differ depending on caste, and their color differ depending on brood, boundedness and caste. Character Name: Ka'Akaix'Kezo Zo'ra Please provide a short backstory for this character: They never wanted to leave the virtual reality heaven. They left their egg in 2458 and spent, in their opinion, too many years of their life outside of VR. Let's start from the top. At first assignment, Kezo was working in the beautiful realm of their queen Athvur in Phoenixport. There they subconsciously learnt of the culture of humans, their way of thinking, culture, government, currency, learning to accept bright light-bulbs that slightly burn your eyes... All things that made humans, humans. Consciously though, Kezo was working as a desk engineer designing experimental containment chambers for supermatter engines in their hive-cell of innovative engineers. The development of an experimental chamber was successfully developed and ready for testing. The virtual reality, though, could not facilitate an experiment that required real-life implementation. Plans were made, and it was set to be experimented in the Hongsun Park Engineering Institute's Supermatter Facility. There they were to work with the university engineering team. As Kezo's hive-cell team was assembling, Kezo begged to be let out. They wanted to see the world, see humans, experience the outside of VR... The team of five engineers were about to leave before a shortcoming on the university side of things required them to take one more of their own engineers. Kezo left the VR with the team of six vaurcae and several bounded menial engineers in 2460. The out of world experience that Kezo experienced was immaculate, almost overwhelming. It is hard to describe what they felt. Running out of voice synthesizers, they augmented Kezo with perhaps the worst, most crappiest one they could find. The rest, as they put it, "Are better off for our Ta's. You are an engineer who works in the VR. Why would you need a better one anyways? You sound fine.". It would be almost an insult to have it while being apart of Athvur's brood, but nevertheless they went with it as nothing else was available. Kezo would be permanently stuck with perhaps the most annoying and hilarious voice a vaurca could possibly have. The job was simple on paper. Go to Hongsun Park Engineering Institute, build the chamber, get the test done, compile results, and get back in the VR. Kezo and their family got straight to work, building the chamber, designing it exactly how it was planned out and designed, while his family ordered around the bounded workers to build it to perfection. They didn't know, though, that on the day of the test, higher-up university officials would be there. As the test was beginning, the shard began emitting heavy amounts of radiation. Kezo immediately knew the idiots at the university gave them a different class of shard that they ordered. There and then, Kezo donned a radiation suit and barged into the chamber, knowing the suit would do little to stop the insanely heavy amount of radiation being dispelled, and ejected the supermatter. They were sent immediately to a hospital. Rumors spread in the hive-cell about the university recommending Kezo to corporate positions in human society. Without much of an option or resistance, Kezo was immediately sent headfirst into human corporate life working as a contracting engineer. Kezo absolutely hates it and wishes to return, but Kezo's loyalty to their family and their decision-making make him stay as he believes it is what they think is best for them. They have a new family now, and it is their co-workers, their fellow exploited workers. What do you like about this character?: I always wanted to play as a vaurca that had the trademark hilarious v and z voice. Also, I enjoy playing as an over-qualified, job-hating engineer who does their job ruthlessly and efficiently yet is soulcrushingly getting through each day. They also have something I can put into an antags secret information thing, that they worked on an experiment that would be worth money to some people. How would you rate your role-playing ability?: Pretty good. I don't do long Me's, but I am very capable at becoming completely in character. Also depends on the people I'm playing with. Notes: There may be some inaccuracies about lore in here. I'll be honest, I'm not even sure if there's a supermatter facility in Hongsun Park. It's not in the wiki, but I'll assume they at least have something somewhere even if they don't.