Eliot Clef

I have generally heard monkeys (and stoks, and neaara) on Aurora described as ultra-docile basically-braindead things that only really have a brainstem. They're not actually real monkeys in any actual meaningful sense, any more than protohumans are real humans.

If I'm not mis-remembering (this is a DISTINCT POSSIBILITY, so don't take me completely at my word), the Captain during this round explicitly allowed non-basic on radio. While they doesn't necessarily extend to the Science comms when the RD comes in and tells you to knock it off, I -think- there are some minor mitigating circumstances going on here.

+1 Central is pretty good people from what I've seen of him, and I think he'd be a pretty good Head.

I am still interested in this, if it's doable/not terrible!

Communication over the internet is imperfect, and this is a failing of disagreements in this medium. I cannot perfectly intuit your intent, and you cannot perfectly intuit my intent. I haven't been as kind as I could have been with my responses, for which I do apologize. All the same, if you want to be respected for your position in a debate, you need to provide an explanation as to why your viewpoint has any grounding. I haven't gone out of my way to write an essay or provide sources on the dynamics of racism in the workplace and how long it takes for a socially maligned class to become fully "respected" after being introduced to society, to be perfectly fair on that point. But I feel like current events speak for themselves. We're STILL not completely there in real life and absolutely have openly racist multimillionaire CEOs, legal disputes over the recognition of homosexuality in marriage in government offices, mistreatment of indigenous peoples, etc. So far, all you've done is repeat yourself and attack anyone who came within arm's reach, subtly or openly. If you have the time and inclination to correct me as you've indicated you would, I want you to do it right here, not in private.

The term "Dicklizard" is around for a reason. Back when I first started playing, we had some issues with security Unathi being really nasty, hyper-aggressive valid hunters who would beat people up at the drop of a hat. Pretty sure most of them from back then have moved on, though. I don't really disagree with any decision that keeps things pretty open, but I don't think it's true that Unathi are innocent of being rampantly shit within the last year or so. Though, even back then, I noticed Tajarans being uppity little shits and clawing people horribly for little to nothing.

I've voted, but I just want to throw my two cents in as more than just a vote. I don't really think Option #1 should be Tajaran-specific. I think all "usually banned from command" player types should be able to, through activity on Aurora, eventually achieve a command post. But, I think we've long established that I am far more permissive towards what people Want to play than most people around here are.

That is a good idea. I don't really think these fears should be indulged, because there are always exceptions to rules like these, but it's been made clear recently that the sort of benevolent dictatorship style of running a role playing setting isn't preferred on Aurora. Personally, I was and am totally okay with meritorious individuals being allowed exceptional positions based on their RP history with relevant characters.

Alright. Let's take a look at your posts, starting with the one that immediately preceded my entry into this conversation. Post #1: In this post, you compare Tajarans escalating to assault (or murder, as I've seen at least one incident of this kind killing a person) to racist people calling them cats or other names, lamenting that both are equally unrealistic in a research station. Post #2: In this post, you suggest that a "Redneck Bar and Grill" (an environment that most anyone would reasonably interpret as "rural and low-intellect in nature") is a prerequisite environment for overt racism, and therefore criticize overt racism on the Aurora as unrealistic. Literally your words. Post #3: Mostly a response to spacevoidagent, repeating your opinion that belligerent racism is unrealistic in the leadership of a massive corporation. Post #4: You respond to my post, which suggested that you were conflating a heavily educated environment with a liberal/progressive one. In fairness to you, you did not specify this much detail. You go on to insist that, because we have not banned Tajarans and Unathi from Head positions, obviously this world in which these races are discriminated against cannot reasonably be reflected in the setting that we have now. Post #5: you repeat yourself on the previous subject. Rather smugly, you suggest that either the prejudice described in the lore is invalid and should be disregarded, OR Tajarans/Unathi should be banned from more positions to properly represent the prejudice described in lore, while expressing confidence that this will not occur because too many (important) people play these characters in influential positions. Post #6: You continue pushing the same topic as before, attacking two of the characters you are using as a shield against this lore being true. Post #7: You insist that I don't understand the subject, that what I'm taking away from this is not what you intend, and that I don't have the basic respect to take the time to understand you. Post #8: You continue attacking Sue on the subject of her prior whitelists, and the excision of these events from Aurora. Let's have a little bit of a history lesson. Back when I first started playing on Aurora, but before I actually registered for these forums, one of the big ticket issues was whether or not Tajarans should be able to receive certain Head roles. Because I played Security, mostly the role I saw them desiring was the Head of Security role. At the time, Tajarans were simply not allowed there, and an exception was made for a particularly exceptional Tajaran Head of Security who specifically asked for an exception. I don't think it was Sue, I think it was Ryu'daken Mo'Taki, or at least someone who looked very similar. I might be mis-remembering the specific identity, because my memory is not the most reliable. This was regarded as exceptional circumstances, and not a thing that was universally acceptable. It was something you could get with hard work and effort through roleplay, not something people were universally entitled to. But it happened. A lot of time has passed since then, and a lot of restrictions have been loosened in the name of letting players have their fun, but these loosened restrictions have/had little to nothing to do with the lore changing. There are many possibilities for exceptions to the ordinary rules, and there are plenty of good reasons why lots people might still hate (INSERT_RACE_HERE). Possibly even purely for TAKIN' OUR JERBS, and especially BECAUSE they're starting to achieve command positions instead of more qualified humans or skrell. It doesn't have to be A or B. This false dichotomy you're arguing tooth and nail about is ridiculous nonsense that is gravely unbecoming of you. In conclusion: I understand you completely, I just think your argument is tremendously faulty.

Ok. First of all, half of that post was aimed at spacevoidagent. It wasn't aimed at you, but you seem to have read it that way? I'm not sure. Secondly, you're aggressively defending pet species from the most trivial portrayals of racism in the setting. You're throwing up this huge outcry of unrealistic portrayal based on wildly incorrect assumptions of how people work. I live in a place that is still deeply, deeply racist at every possible level. Take us back to the 80s and random people would get arrested for coming through town for as little reason as having long hair. I've never agreed with banning species from any role, but suggesting that a high-tech research facility is somehow inoculated against people expressing dumb, ignorant opinions in-character because it annoys you that your tajaran gets called names doesn't make it unrealistic. You haven't thought this through. You have a warped, incorrect view of how prejudice works. Based on our timeline the Tajarans have only been known for thirty nine years, and the notion of them being primitive bestial beings takes much, much longer to go away than that long. It's been even less time with the Unathi. For people's enjoyment there are less restrictions on aliens than there used to be, but that doesn't mean the racism is gone or even socially unacceptable, especially the incredibly minor racism of calling calling Unathi lizards or Tajarans cats. My personal recommendation back when we were still debating some of this stuff, with regards to IPCs, is that Aurora Station is deliberately an environment where social experiments are carried out and abnormal staffing decisions occur in abundance. That wasn't adopted, but there are plenty of explanations for why these elements mix together the way they do that don't require your bizarre hardline perspective where either people need to stop calling each other names or your pet whitelist needs to be locked down hard. And I'm not even going to engage this at length. People clearly don't want what you want for the game. We've gotten past officially considering the entire crew to be minimum wage incompetents, much less draconian role restrictions.

Ok. First of all, half of that post was aimed at spacevoidagent. It wasn't aimed at you, but you seem to have read it that way? I'm not sure. Secondly, you're aggressively defending pet species from the most trivial portrayals of racism in the setting. You're throwing up this huge outcry of unrealistic portrayal based on wildly incorrect assumptions of how people work. I live in a place that is still deeply, deeply racist at every possible level. Take us back to the 80s and random people would get arrested for coming through town for as little reason as having long hair. I've never agreed with banning species from any role, but suggesting that a high-tech research facility is somehow inoculated against people expressing dumb, ignorant opinions in-character because it annoys you that your tajaran gets called names doesn't make it unrealistic. You haven't thought this through. You have a warped, incorrect view of how prejudice works. Based on our timeline the Tajarans have only been known for thirty nine years, and the notion of them being primitive bestial beings takes much, much longer to go away than that long. It's been even less time with the Unathi. For people's enjoyment there are less restrictions on aliens than there used to be, but that doesn't mean the racism is gone or even socially unacceptable, especially the incredibly minor racism of calling calling Unathi lizards or Tajarans cats. My personal recommendation back when we were still debating some of this stuff, with regards to IPCs, is that Aurora Station is deliberately an environment where social experiments are carried out and abnormal staffing decisions occur in abundance. That wasn't adopted, but there are plenty of explanations for why these elements mix together the way they do that don't require your bizarre hardline perspective where either people need to stop calling each other names or your pet whitelist needs to be locked down hard. And I'm not even going to engage this at length. People clearly don't want what you want for the game. We've gotten past officially considering the entire crew to be minimum wage incompetents, much less draconian role restrictions.

You realize that education and being in a research position doesn't necessarily equal the amount of liberalism required for racism not to be a thing, right? The United States space program has its home and origins in one of the most openly bigoted places in the first world. You're conjuring up a fantasy world where a community/work space being heavily composed of intelligent researchers means they're all against the grain of social norms. You're imposing your INCREDIBLY WRONG worldview on both reality and a setting that don't agree with it. I'm against doing shit like confining Tajarans (or any species) to specific jobs, but yes, people are belligerent bigot douchebags while simultaneously having the intelligence to be rocket scientists, brain surgeons, and plasma researchers. It's only relatively recently that being this way publicly has become socially unacceptable, and in SS13 I don't get the impression that the social interactions between humans and aliens have advanced far enough for bigotry to have become socially unacceptable on a broad scale yet. Almost your entire opinion is objectively and factually incorrect in Aurora's lore. I say almost to give you benefit of the doubt, I don't know that anything you've said is actually right, but I don't know our lore back to front. You seem to have some serious personal hate-on for Tajarans and Unathi.

You realize that education and being in a research position doesn't necessarily equal the amount of liberalism required for racism not to be a thing, right? The United States space program has its home and origins in one of the most openly bigoted places in the first world. You're conjuring up a fantasy world where a community/work space being heavily composed of intelligent researchers means they're all against the grain of social norms. You're imposing your INCREDIBLY WRONG worldview on both reality and a setting that don't agree with it. I'm against doing shit like confining Tajarans (or any species) to specific jobs, but yes, people are belligerent bigot douchebags while simultaneously having the intelligence to be rocket scientists, brain surgeons, and plasma researchers. It's only relatively recently that being this way publicly has become socially unacceptable, and in SS13 I don't get the impression that the social interactions between humans and aliens have advanced far enough for bigotry to have become socially unacceptable on a broad scale yet. Almost your entire opinion is objectively and factually incorrect in Aurora's lore. I say almost to give you benefit of the doubt, I don't know that anything you've said is actually right, but I don't know our lore back to front. You seem to have some serious personal hate-on for Tajarans and Unathi.

You think openly calling people nasty racial epithets is an unrealistic portrayal of racism in a setting where the specified race is, in fact, not all that well-accepted and is officially discriminated against in terms of job possibilities? While I can understand finding it obnoxious, its not unrealistic at all.

You think openly calling people nasty racial epithets is an unrealistic portrayal of racism in a setting where the specified race is, in fact, not all that well-accepted and is officially discriminated against in terms of job possibilities? While I can understand finding it obnoxious, its not unrealistic at all.

I've admitted this. More than once. I think this'll be the third time, in fact. But I think you're exhibiting an emotional overreaction to losing, with a far more destructive end intent. SS13 was fine after IPCs. It's only since they've gotten a little bit more popular on Aurora and expanded the group that uses them into Shells that people started complaining about them.

I've admitted this. More than once. I think this'll be the third time, in fact. But I think you're exhibiting an emotional overreaction to losing, with a far more destructive end intent. SS13 was fine after IPCs. It's only since they've gotten a little bit more popular on Aurora and expanded the group that uses them into Shells that people started complaining about them.

You are correct, given enough time a sufficiently intelligent population of sapient robots would make humans obsolete. This is a major problem we have with the IRL possibility of AI development, and a burgeoning truth in-universe. People are scared about robots replacing jobs that aren't merely menial labor anymore. With regards to this universe not being that high tech, you're simply incorrect. This was made a part of Aurora's lore some small while ago now. We have full-conversion cyborgs like Motoko Kusanagi and Data-esque androids. The Skrell had them first and discontinued production as a result of exactly the problems you're suggesting are kind of the case now. They're just waiting for the situation to blow up with humans like it did with them. I don't disbelieve you when you say, 'I think stripping these out would be better for the game.', but I do think it's significantly self-centered based on your immediate experiences, and ultimately more detrimental to a large number of players than it is helpful. This is normal. I'm not saying you're wrong to feel this way. I am saying that it tints your desires, just as my playing IPCs tints my desires. But my desire doesn't excise a large portion of the playerbase's favored character type to make things easier on a minority of active players (antags). In this regard, further debate is largely pointless. You're pretty much set in your ways, and I'm set in mine.

You are correct, given enough time a sufficiently intelligent population of sapient robots would make humans obsolete. This is a major problem we have with the IRL possibility of AI development, and a burgeoning truth in-universe. People are scared about robots replacing jobs that aren't merely menial labor anymore. With regards to this universe not being that high tech, you're simply incorrect. This was made a part of Aurora's lore some small while ago now. We have full-conversion cyborgs like Motoko Kusanagi and Data-esque androids. The Skrell had them first and discontinued production as a result of exactly the problems you're suggesting are kind of the case now. They're just waiting for the situation to blow up with humans like it did with them. I don't disbelieve you when you say, 'I think stripping these out would be better for the game.', but I do think it's significantly self-centered based on your immediate experiences, and ultimately more detrimental to a large number of players than it is helpful. This is normal. I'm not saying you're wrong to feel this way. I am saying that it tints your desires, just as my playing IPCs tints my desires. But my desire doesn't excise a large portion of the playerbase's favored character type to make things easier on a minority of active players (antags). In this regard, further debate is largely pointless. You're pretty much set in your ways, and I'm set in mine.

This is true and fair, though to be perfectly honest a lot of this is enforced very unevenly. The ones that get cracked down on the hardest are: Security with weapons showing on green, Bartender leaving bar with shotgun, Roboticists ONLY IF THEY HAVE A LETHAL MECH (nobody gives a shit about anything else you mentioned here re: Roboticists that I know of), Xenobio bringing Slimes out (people will kill them even if security does not).

This is true and fair, though to be perfectly honest a lot of this is enforced very unevenly. The ones that get cracked down on the hardest are: Security with weapons showing on green, Bartender leaving bar with shotgun, Roboticists ONLY IF THEY HAVE A LETHAL MECH (nobody gives a shit about anything else you mentioned here re: Roboticists that I know of), Xenobio bringing Slimes out (people will kill them even if security does not).

Because despite what has been said before, it doesn't matter what the community wants or has a general consensus on, it's about what the developers want in the game first. Good luck convincing soundscopes at this point. :/ This isn't a democracy, it's a benevolent dictatorship. Which is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned, because while I don't always agree with the decisions that are made, they don't always go along with the terrible ideas the hive mind here often has. This is the standard form of governance that games of this kind assume. We are the players, they are our GMs, and the server is their table.

Because despite what has been said before, it doesn't matter what the community wants or has a general consensus on, it's about what the developers want in the game first. Good luck convincing soundscopes at this point. :/ This isn't a democracy, it's a benevolent dictatorship. Which is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned, because while I don't always agree with the decisions that are made, they don't always go along with the terrible ideas the hive mind here often has. This is the standard form of governance that games of this kind assume. We are the players, they are our GMs, and the server is their table.

I, and others, have already explained on many, many occasions why removing Genetics entirely is a bad idea. The balance of the game is too built around death being cheap and cloning being available. I'd accept this if Genetics just became a big sprawling cloning bay that Medical Doctors had access to, but I wouldn't really be happy with it.

I, and others, have already explained on many, many occasions why removing Genetics entirely is a bad idea. The balance of the game is too built around death being cheap and cloning being available. I'd accept this if Genetics just became a big sprawling cloning bay that Medical Doctors had access to, but I wouldn't really be happy with it.