kermit

The greatest achievement in Cytherean history since the Holocinema Complex

I don't see harm in a single slot BC trainee role if one was to make it in. I think anymore and the Bridge/command comms could get even more crowded than they sometimes are. 3 BCs already makes it a bit tricky to access certain elements of the role you may have readied up for (only one person can pilot at a time, the others just watch pmuch). BCs making mistakes can genuinely be quite destructive at times (flying into meteors with no shields, as an example) and they aren't protected by the label of 'Intern' or 'Trainee' that actual learner assistant roles are given. This makes handling it ICly difficult/unfair on the player if they are new and OOCly, on the moderation side, can make it tricky to tell whether someone's just new to the role or is just playing recklessly.

Agreed with the proposed changes as an AT player of some time now. ATs have been given a lot of rather engineer-exclusive toys lately, its only fair to give a little back to engineers. I would additionally suggest making the shields equipment access-restricted to engineers only. Shields are a power sink, makes sense an engineer manages that. If anything, this is a gain on an ATs end too, because it means rocky maneuvers with no engineer/shields will result in breaches for an AT to fix. Edit: Maybe lock telecomms equipment too. This one has the capacity to impact rounds a lot more as if comms go down for whatever reason, an AT can't get them up. Telecomms is another ancient series of mechanics, but if modernised it would be a big thing for engineers to have as their own thing.

This is being denied by us loremasters after a discussion with Matt on the maintainer end for a couple of reasons: 1) An entire language for arguably niche uses isn't wanted. 2) The timing of this canonisation app is pretty rough and coincides with the loremasters starting a languages overhaul project. Any language additions are likely to be made redundant or not be in-line with where we want languages to be, so we're not accepting changes to languages rn. It's possible synthlore may draw from this canonisation app if they wish for something similar as part of the language overhaul, if you're okay with that. Otherwise, you can reapply with the same proposal post-language overhaul. Questions can go to me.

gambling

xenobiology abberations

I think the gameplay and mechanics should primarily serve the lore and what's on the wiki, but there's some exceptions where you may want to tweak the lore to fit a new mechanic. Even then, the lore gets changed to accomodate these mechanical changes, so ultimately the gameplay still serves the lore. If lore needs to be changed for a cool new mechanic to be added – usually a large mechanic from a dev-ran project, like something on the scale of the BS Drive that's being worked on – then that can be done as long as the lore consequences aren't sweeping. Likewise, fun mechanics (as we saw with the Leviathan and crew armoury) can be removed if they are tonally dissonant with the setting we're in. I skimmed through the Discord discussion that was had and it seemed to cover things on a smaller scale. When it comes to balancing ingame mechanics, then that's probably where lore doesn't play as large of a factor. The game is still a game and fun is the goal, if a true representation of a mechanic was completely unfun to play with/against, then it should be toned down in-game. There's a lot of stuff in-lore that also just won't be mechanically added, but they make for good ingame conversations – see: most of the Entertainment lore, the majority isn't reflected in-game mechanically, but gets reflected in-game through character conversations. I hope that answers the question, it was a pretty broad one.

Louise's XO has been great in the rounds i've played command characters alongside them. She's great at roleplaying both during the quieter rounds and some of the more hectic rounds for Command. She's not hesitant to make decisions that further the story of a round, which is always good - we're hot off a vampire round that segued into a mutiny, where Louise's XO had a pretty large presence furthering the overall story in a number of directions. she did great under the pressure of that round too, which was pretty tricky for command. +1

Macro-level economic lore wouldn't be something I consider irrelevant, due to the domino effect it probably has on everything else. What I'd consider irrelevant is micro-level fluff that doesn't expand upon themes in it's surrounding lore or absolutely cannot come up as part of an ingame bit. Then there's the occasional irrelevant lore piece in large, prose blocks that can be slimmed down to make them more parseable. I'm not sure how splitting the wiki into Lore and Reference would go tbh, but I may be imagining something different to what you mean. I think some of the faction main pages can definitely be split into a main page with basic coverage, then have the more fleshed out history/culture/etc pages branched off of them. I think enforcing a factual and formal approach to writing lore pages would cut down on out of place fluff and purple prose, as there's less room for speculation or overly fanciful descriptions to creep in. I hope that answers the question? If an argument is becoming cyclical, no one's budging, and it's not a decision where it's appropriate for someone to put their foot down and say 'We're doing this', then yeah, I can agree to disagree and continue to get along. Ideally, even rejected ideas can be heavily reworked into the final draft, unless it really is outlandish. I don't think I've had an agree-to-disagree moment in the diona lore team yet, but there was a close one when we were discussing genetic memory that I ended up budging on. Everyone has applied to the lore team (or made it to a headmin/dev position) because they've brought ideas they genuinely believe are good for the betterment of their team, so there's going to be stubborn clashes and it's important to be respectful/understanding even when disagreeing. Not doing that or repeatedly dragging ideas through the dirt just undermines future team efforts. I don't think I have too many obstacles to figuring out a good, or at least not bad, conclusion to an argument. I may work less passionately on a project where the final draft is largely different to what I had envisioned, but I will still actively contribute and get by. I may be cyclical and overly stubborn in my own arguments sometimes, I mentioned in the main post being a stickler for what realistically makes sense, but I eventually realise when I'm refusing to budge at the detriment of finding a conclusion for the team to work on. The long haul, barring any irl circumstances or me deciding, after giving the position a go, that it isn't the one for me, at which point I'm not going to occupy the position if someone better suited can.

you're fine, don't apologise <3 There's being kind, then there's being kind and a pushover. You can kindly tell someone their work is shit or not in line with a direction; you can kindly tell someone their suggestion isn't going forward regardless of circumstances. Kindness is just the envelope I use to deliver what could be good or bad news and it can be a fooling envelope as – using an example as mod, as that's where we typically interact bc we don't talk much elsewhere – there's been an amusing number of troublemakers mistaking me for a pushover, adminshopping for me, only to get an expedited ban. I come down pretty hard on people when it's warranted, I think. I don't think I have an issue looking like the bad person, and I wouldn't have gone for the position if I didn't think I had the chops. Yeah, this one I understand, I have scarcely used the Discord channels for discussion. I tend to just have discussions in DMs where it's easier to talk nitty-gritties one-on-one; on the forum where it's usually an idea that's already passed round one of discord discussions, where people put all their thoughts into one/two posts, and where I have had many L takes over the years; ingame's deadchat when I catch a discussion while observing, usually in the earlier hours; or in the appropriate staff channel when it's something more easily discussed internally. If I'm pinged on the Discord though, I'll join in. Given I'm a mod and lore deputy for a specific species, my opinion on non-dionae issues (diona issues rarely come up in the maincord, at least i never catch them) is really not that important/impactful lol, so I don't see a reason to butt in and step out of my lane, as there are better suited people to get involved. If I was to get the DLM position, I imagine this would change as then I have a voice on the matter, not to mention a more readily pinged role.

I really like off-worlders and the Scarabs have always been up there in my favourite factions. I dooo think off-worlders are in a really shitty spot though, they have been for a while, and I think part of that comes from them being an entirely distinct sub-species of human with their own sub-species page, then factions to justify the sub-species existence. An option would be reducing the mechanical off-worlder subspecies to a 'Microgravity Adaptation Syndrome' Disability option (this has the upside of allowing any species to have gravity adaptation - off-worlder skrell, off-worlder unathi, yay), then there's less of a boot to fill with off-worlder lore, you just pick low gravity adaptation if they're from a background where they've lived on a ship/station for most of their life, such as a Scarab vessel, or a planet with low gravity, such as Hieroaetherian skrell. I actually hadn't thought of major space stations/trade hubs tbh, there really are none in human space that function as origins lmao, outside of the odd 'there's also an unnamed space habitat here'. I think a large space habitat would be interesting to explore as a proper origin. Touching base with Assunzione in Light's Edge, then exploring part of the Lemurian Sea for whatever reason. Something new, something strange and a lot of creative ways it could go. I think antags (storytellers by then probably), event-running admins and contributors/devs would have a blast with the setting there too. I'd also like to refine an interesting idea I had for returning to Tau Ceti to attend to some business in the Romanovich Cloud. It would be cool for an anniversary arc with the Aurora II being a permanent overmap feature. We totally got cheated of a nostalgic time when we only passed through Tau Ceti for 1 week, before any overmap/away site stuff could be done, on our way back from Konyang :c It would depend on what the factionalism's over ultimately. Ideally, it would be something that's tangible on the Horizon between departments/contracting companies, though for factionalism to take a grip at the lower employee level it would have to be a pretty divisive issue, thus requiring a hypothetical arc to really explore the problem. Lower stakes stuff could easily be done in the background as fluff or for Command characters to have opinions on, but I doubt would lead to/justify full-blown factionalism in the SCC, just the odd internal conflict. guh. I don't think I've been on the diona team long enough or in a position to make a really large mistake yet and I've always ensured my work is reviewed by Cael and Boggle so no crap gets through. I'm sure I'll make a large mistake at some point. very lame answer Not on the wiki, but stuff like this is what I'd be happy seeing in articles or on proposed megacorporate Chirpers for the relay. Toned down though and a bit more serious; I think over the top, comical stuff just dampens the tone of the setting and detracts from these figures being incredibly powerful CEOs of the top megacorporations. That said, looking at our irl equivalent(s) for CEOs sat at their Chirper accounts, comical and insane stuff really is what we see.

gaming in 2466

teehee

I don't think so. It's possible to slim down the options of PMCG corporations, but I'm not sure if I'd do that yet tbh – I think we have a good spread of subcontractors, and a good few of them are species-specific ones. We've yet to have diona and skrell specific PMCG subcontractors added though, so maybe down the line it as the PMCG expands it would be more necessary to slim down the non-species specific options. Nexus is the easy option to get rid of if it did come to it, as it's just NT-but-you-have-PMCG-on-your-ID and offers nothing new to the PMCG besides that lol. The only way ig to prevent bloat when doing the same thing for Zeng-Hu would just be limiting it to one species specific daughter company per species, then no more than a half-dozen that are emblematic of their planet/region of space. No. The PMCG and Zeng-Hu are explicitly coalitions/keiretsus of military contractors/megacorporations, where PMCG and Zeng-Hu is just the name of the umbrella that binds them. NT, Idris, Zavodskoi, Orion, Hephaestus are all firmly their own company under one name though, of course, with subsidiary corporations to fill in niches. By mundanities and technical stuff, I hope not to introduce anything that absolutely doesn't matter to characters or cannot be referred in conversations. If it's not something that is mechanically a thing, is not something that can be referred to in day-to-day conversation, or is not grounded in the themes of its surrounding lore, then yeah, I don't think it should be added. I mentioned mundane article arcs and small, official relay outlets, as those can better introduce day-to-day things without needing to tack on a section to the wiki. Widely relevant lore that has greater stakes in character creation definitely takes precedent, yeah. The less immediately relevant stuff would probs just be reserved for the breathers between larger projects. Idris is the easiest one to pitch a fight against another megacorporation, they're very two-faced and remain buddy-buddy with the Alliance, so that could be a point of contention between Idris and NT/Biesel, especially with Biesel in its election arc and the Alliance on the uptrend. I think the SCC having two/three internally conflicting blocs of companies would be very interesting, especially for the ingame atmosphere, though on that scale I imagine we'd be talking a proper lore arc to justify that degree of factionalism within the SCC. I don't have any strong ideas on my mind yet, it's something I'll be thinking about now though, even if to suggest to another DLM who gets the position. I could be very naive but, from what I have seen while on the team, the species teams are very self-managing and the species lore writers are all great at checking in with their deputies and encouraging work to be done. I would also have the said lore writers to delegate to, really reducing that 20+ people down to 7. I don't think the management load is the biggest strain on being DLM, though I'm sure it can be at some times. And if any harm is done, I can tap out – I won't know until I try. I've been contributing to Aurora in some way or another for a while now: fixing the odd bug, then creating bugs in Medical PRs, then mentoring via ahelps, and this year with the diona refactors. DLM is just another way to do that, though with broader strokes. It was also very difficult when I did want to apply for a species deputy position a while ago, as I was pretty conflicted between Human Lore (very busy application process with stronger candidates than I at the time), Synthlore (think I missed the application period), Skrellore (which I did apply for and didn't get), and Diona (which I got ofc); as DLM, I can nebulously partake in all of the species lore discussions I like without feeling a little intrusive c: What do I get out of it? Just the fun experience I guess. I've really fucking enjoyed helping diona lore lately, I was nervous at first because I hadn't spoken to Cael or Boggle much in my time here, but it was so worth it <3 I hope I get something similar out of DLM and interacting with all of the other teams more closely.