VTCobaltblood

BYOND key: VTCobaltblood Character names: Robert Bretscher, Qusk Yuvuzu, Shaker How long have you been playing on Aurora?: 9 months Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: 1) People are encouraging me to; 2) I have a character concept for Command that I am eager to play. Why did you come to Aurora?: Because I really disliked Bay's setting. Have you read the Aurora wiki on the head roles and qualifications you plan on playing?: I am a wiki maintainer. It's long overdue for me to overhaul the RD page. I'd say yes, but the question itself has no meaning if the only relevant and up-to-date piece of info on the RD page is job qualifications and name. It still lists genetics ffs Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? None except two notes from a long time ago. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about: Roleplay is playing out a character in a defined setting. You do not make decisions as yourself - you step into the shoes of your character, considering how they would act. Sometimes, that way of action is not the most moral or rational. This is why roleplay is interesting to me - playing characters that are not myself. Of course, roleplaying with yourself is quite pointless. Characters really only come to life when engaging with characters of other players. Nobody should be denied the opportunity of this - all player actions should be made with character interactions in mind. If a player action cuts interaction off, it is unenjoyable. If it enables and encourages interaction, it is good. Interactions aren't limited to friendly chit-chat, and this is also something that I always keep in mind. Personally, I prefer interactions featuring conflict, as seen by my played characters. Playing a command character would prompt me to explore other avenues of interaction with my fellow crewmembers. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?:  Heads of Staff have unique opportunities to make characters interact. They can bring the crew together like no other job can, be it group projects, training, coordinating the actions of their department in case of stressful situations, etc. Heads of Staff also have a responsibility to respond to antag action adequately, and facilitate their influence on the overall narrative of the round. Command has the most potential to shut down interesting antagonists - this must be avoided. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: I do not consider whitelisted players to have any responsibilities that all of us as players do not share. We all should follow the rules, mentor new players, be nice to each other, and be role models. Head whitelistees are absolutely not special in this regard. Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau ceti and how it affected your character and their career? So far in recent times, Tau Ceti is fairly calm. The largest things that have happened lately is the incorporation of Aut'akh and Offworlders into NT crew manifets. Kono takes a keen interest in Aut'akh because of his passion for the mechanical, and feels largely neutral towards Offworlders. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?  RD Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking.:  Kono Iuu'Sunborn, Research Director. His biography can be read in my previous Command application. How would you rate your own roleplaying?:  I have a lot of experience, I can say that much. Generally, I would rate it as adequate. Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? Yes Have you familiarize yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?  I have answered this above. Extra notes: If I dare make a half-joking extra note, my application will be torn to shreds. So none.

Dude, they come out "lethally hot" even if they have ice in it. It's a tempetature code bug. Before that is fixed, this is completely unfeasible.

Have you ever got a bar cocktail? They're all "lethally hot" or similar because of temp code.

Temperature is extremely broken and EVERYTHING is hot so god no

As far as I recall, over the common radio, you have only stated you wanted Lt. Colombo. Still, I don't see how any of this justifies a nuke. If you wanted your gimmick to be stealing valuable things, you could have accomplished that on raider, not on mercenary with nuke threatening. You are a team of terrorists, not petty thieves.

Your gimmick was still pretty much "nuclear operatives really want Lt. Colombo". Which is, again, a poor, tg-level gimmick that is absolutely not believable. Even before you detonated the nuke, you threatened to do so. Over the dog. How is this good roleplay?

I have been in that round. It's funny to hear you say that security had poor roleplay when your mercenary team activated an on-station nuke, killing all people on it, over a dog out of all things. That is honestly a tg-level gimmick that has no place on a high roleplay server, where your characters are expected to act believably. Would you believe that a team of terrorists would activate a nuclear bomb because they weren't given the dog? "Security didn't give in to our demands, so they got what they deserved" is a poor excuse for this. Why are terrorists with a nuclear device threatening to activate said device because of a dog in the first place? I'm not a moderator to decide if it's antag ban-worthy, but I have a feeling that it is.

alright then, i retract this application.

this is inapplicable here. orleans has played nick volvalaad, and has also planned to promote nick volvalaad to command. i, however, am not going to promote my current characters to command if this isn't clear enough. i am aware that my current characters are not fit for command and i have purposefully designed them as such.

firstly, i have previously got a command trial, so i feel i'd waste time re-iterating the previous application's points in here. secondly, THIS is what i'm talking about when i'm saying i don't expect my application to get popular. yes, i haven't played friendly people, or capable leaders, on-station before. judging my command application by these characters, considering i am not planning to promote them to command, i feel, is unfair, as opposed to judging my actual quality of roleplay. and it is even more unfair to judge my own behavior as a person based on characters i play as on-station. nonetheless, it has happened, with both you and orleans. i have spent my entire previous app saying "i'm not going to play bretscher as command" over and over. not repeating it here is, i feel, indicative that i am willing to move on from that character and play someone else, like i do now with qusk, unlike the previous time when i just couldn't stop playing bretscher and retracted my trial because of that.

well i think it's a good question to answer because my current characters are in no way indicative of my, hopefully, future command play. so i'm gonna tell you about the character i want to use for command. Kono Iuu'Sunborn is a Mars-born skrell dude. aged 44, he is one of the first skrell to be born in human space. his place of birth was a small shuttle operated by his three traverse-born merchant parents - but as it was docked to an olympian port at the time, mars is his formal birthplace. his family were small-scale independent merchants with no real specialization in particular. the sort you would see docking at various stations to sell and buy goods for fairly cheap. he and his parents were extremely prideful and grateful for the fact that he has not been born in jargon federation, as his parents have always taught him that bigger skrellian communities tend to only stagnate, drowning in their wakeful groupthink. hence his name suffix, Sunborn, which was almost pushed on him by his parents. in his travels with his family, he has always had a keen interest in the mechanical. when he was a child, he would often take apart various small devices or gadgets to see how they operate. in his teenage years, this would become a full-blown obsession, and kono would almost swallow various books describing low-scale mechanical construction and specifications. ultimately he decided that he does not want to be a mere merchant or a pilot, and wanted to go into an university. his parents met this with lukewarm support. to them, it was like losing a child, but they also believed that this is a natural consequence of teaching their child to think independently. they would start preparing him for university by buying various actual student books for him, hoping that he could pass exams to at least get somewhere prestigious. applying for a place in the well-known mars university, kono felt quite anxious. he did not really know what to expect. this was his first experience with teachers, with formal learning. however, he passed his exams with flying colors! so much so that in addition to his desired engineering degree, the university offered him a secondary program in management so that he could get a well-paying engineering/management position after getting a diploma. he accepted the offer, and has graduated with a bachelors in both. during university, he was known as a pretty shy guy. even though he constantly traveled from place to place during his childhood, he didn't tend to talk to people a whole lot, being reserved and even somewhat cold. not to mention, his dual education was hard to keep up with, siphoning the time he could use to socialize. because of this, he felt personally uneasy with immediately going to get a job. in a move of insecurity, he has decided to postpone getting a job by pursuing a master's degree... and then postpone it with getting a phd... after getting a phd of engineering in the mars university, nanotrasen has taken note of his achievements, particularly the fact that he has both a phd and a bachelors in management. aged 33, he has been offered a job of research director at a small research outpost on a nondescript planet in the frontier. he has accepted the offer simply because he really needed the money at this point, and the salary was looking pretty nice. the researcher command he worked with was extremely small - no more than ten people. yet still, kono has never been known for his prowess in working with people. he has been often described as being reclusive and easily conforming to demands of his employees. he hopes to overcome these flaws and to become a better leader, but even with ten years of experience, he is still not particularly confident at his job. yet, exceptional praise has been sung about the quality of his scientific developments and advancements. well, by nanotrasen, at least - a zero-g adapted construction drone of his design has been reported to increase the profits of his outpost by a large margin, and the design has since been also deployed on other facilities. this has led to crazily huge expectations of him, with nanotrasen ultimately deciding to transfer kono to work on nss aurora. kono has accepted the offer, thinking that aurora, being a big station, had research subdepartments, or multiple research directors. it does not. essentially, he has been thrown into a sink or swim situation that he wasn't really prepared for. nss aurora's scientist team is massive, and he is not a particularly good or stern director - but he hopes to become better. on such a big station, however, it is difficult. often, he would seek advice from other command members, and even his fellow scientists. although he is willing to teach and has a good grasp on the theory of managing a big group, he doesn't really know how to apply it in practice. learning to overcome his work-related stress, and learning to be not just a good scientist, but also a good leader, would be his character arc on the aurora.

i did it properly, if you don't like my lack of capitalization then it's your call. you could have actually read my app though.

im aware and i have purposefully designed the character that way, so as you can see the app doesnt feature bretscher as rd so im making you think im a narcissistic combative childish asshole that i designed to be mostly unlikeable? sure i guess

BYOND key: VTCobaltblood Character names: Robert Bretscher, Qusk Yuvuzu, Shaker How long have you been playing on Aurora?: 9 months or so now i think Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: people kept asking me to, and i kept delaying it Why did you come to Aurora?: i didn't want to go to bay, so i chose aurora and sticked Have you read the Aurora wiki on the head roles and qualifications you plan on playing?: i know just how bad and outdated they are Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? a couple of non-recent notes, one of them from my previous command trial Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about: roleplay is about characters interacting in a defined setting. 1. characters: everyone plays the role of a character. roleplaying as yourself is pointless. making decisions as yourself and not as a character is boring. 2. interacting: characters come to life through their interactions. without interactions, nobody would know or care who your character is. 3. defined setting: this one is more in the territory of "what should rp be about for me". the most fun in character creation and interaction, for me, comes from playing with the tropes of an established setting, in this case auroraverse. without things outside the station to talk about, roleplay is unfun What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: any job has the same ultimate purpose: engage in roleplay and allow others to do so. heads of staff share that. to be more specific for head positions, they should direct and provide interesting interactions for their entire department. they can encourage and incentivize people to work together like no other job can. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: i'm gonna say something controversial here, i don't think whitelistees have any particular responsibilities that other players do not. we should obey the same rules. we should all be willing to mentor. we should all be an example of good behavior, and we should all be good to each other. not just whitelisted players. Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau ceti and how it affected your character and their career? hmmm, tau ceti is pretty quiet right now. the largest event in recent history is the arrival of aut'akh. although kono's career wouldn't be affected much by it, he takes a particular interest in them, considering the non-sapient, primitive Oss to be a step into a new era of ai development. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? rd and hop Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking.: kono iuu'sunborn, research director How would you rate your own roleplaying?: it's ok Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? yea Have you familiarize yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? they're terrible and it's my fault, especially with the rd one, but yes Extra notes: i dont expect this to get popular

no?

Just pick up your cigarette butts if you don't want to litter. Or extinguish your cigarettes in an ashtray yourself like a normal person.

Love the idea. Monkeys should also try to resist grabs, and animals shouldn't be able to be picked up on help intent if you have attacked them before. It'd add just a little more edge weight and danger to unethical animal testing. It'd be nice to have a gun modulator or a chemical to pacify these animals, as well. Perhaps paxazide could work?

Xenoarcheologists, telescientists, circuit developers, gun manufacturers, chemists and bomb makers are all scientists. Why should they be scattered around the department in places they don't even work in?

Actually, I would instead prefer if we could specify our spawn locations even more - mainly, choosing between surface/main level cryo. Spawning at random places seems weird, especially for narrowly-specialized roles like scientist or medical doctor. Why would a chemist spawn at the circuitry lab, or a xenoarcheologist spawn at the firing range?

I'll be honest. This looks like a fairly blatant attempt to elevate Sterben over other CMOs. "Only the best CMOs got this device, so Sterben did" is incredibly Mary Sue-ish. All the answers to the new custom item form questions are incredibly shallow and basically repeat the same thing. It really provides nothing of value to the representation of Sterben as a character. "What does this item say about him?" - "He was hand-picked to use an experimental technology". That is not good writing, and frankly pretty insulting to other CMO players. Your replies saying how useful this item is also indicative that you want this custom item to have an advantage. This is a no-go. Overall, this is not how custom items are supposed to be used. A strong -1. Make a character, not a superdoctor robot.

So why is this for Sterben? Why doesn't every CMO get this? Surely they're also "entrusted by NanoTrasen to ensure the health of the crew is at an optimal level"?

I don't think that Xin is a staunch believer of any religion, granted that they spend most of their time away from other vaurcae, working at a yet another human megacorporation. They probably deify their Queen like most other vaurcae do, - which would correspond with the Hive Pantheon - but not much beyond that. Probably not. Considering that they have been designated to work in human space, they probably don't frequent the VR too often.

ss13 beakers are literally made from glass at the lathe

BYOND Key: VTCobaltblood Character Names: Robert Bretscher, Qusk Yuvuzu, Shaker Species you are applying to play: Vaurca What color do you plan on making your first alien character: A light blue, typical for the Recondite Queen's unbound. Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: yeah 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 am mainly applying for two reasons. Firstly, I am a skrell lore maintainer, and my race is closely involved with Vaurcae, so I think I should become more knowledgeable on their lore. Secondly, their lore seems very active and fleshed out, with the devs being very approachable. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Bound Vaurca are mindless drones that are incapable of independent thinking, always obeying orders. Unbound are more akin to humans, being self-aware, but still always acting in the interests of their hive, tending to be passive in character. Unbound develop their knowledge and personalities in a perfect Virtual Reality that is like a heaven to them. Anything imaginable can be simulated and there are no needs to worry about. Being separated from this perfect world is upsetting for them. Character Name: Za'Akaix'Xin C'thur Please provide a short backstory for this character Xin was one of the first Unbound to be born to Ta'Akaix'Mouv'lek'tanta's brood after the C'thur hive's arrival in Glorashi. As Mouv desired to quickly make diplomatic alliances with many newly discovered megacorporations, Xin was raised to be a corporate worker - specifically, a roboticist, a position welcome almost everywhere, with employment being easy to find. Just as Xin finished their development, they were immediately ordered to find employment in Einstein Engines as a part of a contractual obligation between it and the C'thur hive itself. Unbeknownst to their employers, however, Xin was also extensively trained in corporate espionage and tasked with collecting information from human facilities. Almost every shift, it tried to collect various technologic and architectural data and send it back to the Hive. A year later, the Hive bought several facilities, including one Xin worked in, outright. As they no longer needed to spy on their own facilities, Xin was ordered to find employment elsewhere - and they got a job as a drone engineer at Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals. Continuing to send valuable data back to the hive almost every single day, they still wondered if they can outdo themselves in their ever-ongoing espionage mission. The opportunity quickly presented itself with Zeng-Hu and Nanotrasen forming a temporary worker agreement. Xin was extremely eager to participate in this program, and they were finally granted a Roboticist position on board of the NSS Aurora. Their espionage skills will surely prove useful for both their employer and their hive. What do you like about this character? I think that a vaurca contractor isn't a common sight. I like playing shady characters, and a spy vaurca sounds interesting. How would you rate your role-playing ability? it's ok

well duh i promised to mentor you so +1