The7thLain

Hello, I'm the current Human Lore Developer/Maintainer. I'd both like to reply to this statement and additionally list my thoughts on this applicant. I will be using my own experiences and outlook on lore and the requirements for a candidate. I aim to make a very comprehensive response which articulately expresses my thoughts in great detail. It will be split into two parts. The first will be in response to various points made in the application proper, and the second will be on my thoughts on the spirit of the application in general. This is correct. All lore, especially more species-specific lore, is canon until otherwise retconned or determined by the species lore team. Anything and everything can be retconned or changed after the fact if there is enough support to do so from the lore team, therefore, everything is canon "for now," until it isn't, whether that is done OOCly or ICly. Sol, which at the moment is a place of immense turmoil and change at the moment with warlord factions and in-fighting and with elections even being a future possibility, a lot of things are subject to change for the future of Sol and the foundation that future is built upon. While I will admit that the status of ATLAS was nebulous at best, it was something that was overlooked in the course of the King of the World Arc. Admiral Frost was killed, and provisions were not made to adequately determine the fate of his party during this discussion. Solarian politics as a whole are something we intend on fleshing out and developing greatly beginning next year. Currently, the human lore team has no plans to add new planets or factions barring a few additions with the soon-to-be-released Elyra overhaul. After this, we plan on developing some of our existing locations in the CoC and Sol Alliance. The progression of human lore is already taking this direction which you are encouraging and the player base will see its impact most beginning next year. This is something I am quite opposed to. Players are not privy to information about potential changes that may impact the factions or locations they may wish to write about. Oversight, may indeed fix this problem, but we either would run the risk of disappointing players and making them feel betrayed because their additions to a player-made newspaper may contradict the vision/in-development work of the lore team proper and will therefore be denied. It is inevitable that the player base will not see completely eye-to-eye with the lore team in how they perceive the setting of the lore, simply ask around about the various head-canons that players hold that are not accepted by the lore team, yet in some cases are pushed by members of the community as canon lore with how they play their characters. This is discouraged. There is a problem I feel, with making promises to have a newspaper that players are guaranteed to make contributions to, only to then have their submissions denied for reasons they will not know until the aforementioned vision/in-development content is released. I think we would be doing the player base a disservice, however it would be something we would need to do regardless, as we do for the same reasons with submissions in canonization apps or those presented to us on discord already. If a player wants something added that the lore team is not currently working on, it is on them to add it. As a lore team, we are not obligated to integrate or approve of ideas submitted to us by anyone, we approve based on our judgement and consensus as a team. If a lore submission either given to us in DM's or on the forum's canonization requests is not liked by those on the team or conflicts with currently established lore, it will not be implemented regardless of player interest or passion. Additionally, some ideas may take a while to be approved, either because lore staff positions change between members or because an idea is liked, but cannot be slotted into the lore with how it exists currently and requires revision or change. Take Visegrad, a community created planet added by the Human lore team this year by accepting its longstanding canonization application, as an example. There's nothing stopping a player from DM'ing me or anyone else on the lore team with an idea or to check their thoughts on the lore. Nor is there anything stopping them from contributing to discussion on the forums or on the discord. The opportunities for them to voice their thoughts themselves are there, we have newer players to the server who are in quite interested in lore. If a player is "unvoiced," it is by negligence or choice. We have multiple discord servers with various channels devoted to lore discussion where those in the community can openly voice their thoughts on their lore whether they've been on the server for five years or five minutes. Anyone can voice their thoughts. Again, the lore team is not obliged to implement a person's ideas to the lore simply because they play on the server and they want to add them. Additionally, all members of the lore team can be contacted directly and often are. I have received DM's from no less than four players asking about concerns with the lore, checking their characters with it, or asking about new ideas for it this past week alone. This is not something that is lost on us as a team or myself personally. One of the reasons that Dominia receives such constant updates relative to other areas of Human lore is along with it being a favourite or at least an interest among many who play human characters is that it is a faction that many new players gravitate towards and find intriguing due to its unique government, society, and religion. New additions are made here not only because there is a desire within the human lore team to see it added onto, but also because it is a faction that many new players take an interest in. I feel like you contradict this idea of uplifting popular lore wanted for by the community with some of your actions in the past. The decision to enforce a variety of cultures onto the setting in regards to humanity, is one that I agree with and have done myself on various planets in the human setting, namely Gadpathur and Pluto. However, going by this logic of specialising lore to player trends and wants, if the majority of the player base wants to play a character from a western setting, why would we not write lore catering to that interest of playing characters who are descended from Western societies or otherwise played as if from one? It is popular among new and veteran players alike to play characters like this, so why would we not make lore that better suits the interests of the majority of our human player base, something they express by the characters they play? Where would this additude of appealing to the new, or to the majority of our players stop? I am aware that some of the lore that has most intrigued the community has been lore that nobody was asking for or even knew was coming, but how would this balance be struck? While I agree with your sentiments on slowing the spread of new human additions in the form of factions and locations which I have detailed already, I do not think this comparison between humanity and Unathi/Tajara is a good one to make, as the species themselves are vastly different. Humanity is the species in our galaxy with the largest population, territory, and even without the addition of warlord factions, faction numbers. It is inevitable that there will be more locations than those of Tajara or Unathi who were written from the beginning as being confined to a very small number of areas. Given this confinement, writing for these species can only focus on either those locations or their species' interactions with other factions, meanwhile Humanity has an exceptionally large geographic scale in which it inhabits. It is unreasonable to expect the same detail on the miniscule level that the Unathi and Tajara devs have painstakingly created over the span of multiple years for mostly 4 planets for Humanity, a species which has various factions that in themselves include multiple hugely different locations, most being entire planets or moons. This would have been the case even before the addition of warlord factions and locations that have been added as recently as nearly a year and a half ago. This is not an excuse for the underdevelopment of human-related lore in some areas of our setting, as I have said earlier, just something that I would like to straighten out. I support this wholeheartedly. As a staff member and lore developer, I aim to make all people I interact with feel respected and equal and I expect this of my fellow writers as well. While nobody is perfect, people should aspire to be civil, polite, and well-mannered towards others. Overall, a sense of dignity should permeate all interactions in our community. There should not be belittling in the community from lore writers or players over people not knowing certain elements of lore, as this can discourage people from actually learning about it. Onto my thoughts on the general ideas and goals stated in the application here. This idea of a bottom-up cultural shift is something I am fundamentally opposed to in a variety of different ways. To be clear, I am not saying that I do not want the community to be interested in our lore and contributing to it, there is no but to that statement. I question the necessity for this proposed change though, as I've mentioned before, we already have multiple ways that a player can contribute to the lore of our setting should they choose to do so. My concerns with the player-operated newspaper only echo here however, because if we are giving the community the impression that their ideas will be accepted and that everyone should volunteer for lore creation, this will not only lead to disputes between staff and players, but disputes between staff and the players themselves. You were on the lore team before, so I am sure that you are aware of how many ideas can die in discussion or how disputes over them can become very impassioned. Bringing the community more broadly into the development of the lore wholesale would only expand these sorts of problems, if say two or more community members had different written ideas on the same subject. Of course it is possible that there may be cooperation between players in the creation of lore through this shift and may be able to compromise on their ideas, but also also, they may not be. Moreover, there is nothing stopping them from cooperating on ideas as things are now. Arguments already break out between people in our player base not just over what lore is canon, as you mentioned in your original post, but over who's assumptions about a faction or location are more "valid," say if someone has a different idea on how stationbounds or AI should work and are then applying this to the setting as a whole, or if someone has an idea that even though a Dreg is no longer living in the Eridani undercity, are employed by a megacorp, and live in Biesel, that they should still be grossly impoverished as if they were in Eridani and then propagates this view to apply to all dreg characters. There are an exceptionally few areas of lore that the community as a whole wants and even then, there is disagreement on the details. Moreover there are topics which are very hotly contested by some in the community such as LGBT rights of Tajara, particuarly those on Adhomai, and the large, spur-wide oppression and enslavement or even outright hatred of IPCs by organic races, though primarily humans to name two, either of which when brought up usually spark an argument and ruin any discussion that was previously occurring. By and large, due to conflicting viewpoints, creative visions, and OOCly ideals held by our players, the community does not know what lore it wants to see. It is not as if the lore team creates things that nobody in our player base wants to see, as nearly *every* release that I have seen since I became the Human Lore Developer last year, either from my own team or the other species teams, has been received positively more so than not. I believe the current system is adequate and no changes need to be made, the players have all the tools at their disposal to create and submit ideas to the lore team already. A communalistic approach to lore writing will grind progress and additions to a halt and will bankrupt the drive of staff members in the lore team to continue creating and maintaining lore. If the lore teams have to spend the majority of their time as writers working with anyone who decides to write something down whether they've been working on the idea for five minutes or five months as equal to one another because we are discouraged from telling a player to "do it themselves," and are expected to hold everyone's hand through the writing process rather than tell them to create something on their own until its developed enough for us to take it seriously as a potential addition, there will be a huge slowdown to output from the writers and lore team, the people who are in the positions they hold first and foremost to write and maintain the lore. There is a limited amount of time that the lore team has for this hobby, which is what it is, a hobby, and feelings of burnout and dips in activity are inevitable among people in these positions; I speak from experience having seen many of my fellow lore-writers leave simply because they cannot bring themselves to give the energy to the maintenance and creation of the lore any longer. We are not paid to do this and take time to do it and be figures in the community out of our free time because we enjoy working with the community and are passionate about the things we create. A solid portion of the people on the lore team are also moderators, admins, developers, CCIA, or spriters doing other things in the community along with writing and lore maintenance and of course with still maintaining their real lives, jobs, educations, relationships, etc. If all of our time in the community is going to be spent mediating and critiquing everyone who thinks their idea is the best idea for our setting simply by the virtue that they have it, there is little point to having the title of "writer," because the people on the lore team will be little more than editors for content from the community, content which by the very strict standards that the lore teams adhere to currently for what they allow into the setting, will most likely be rejected or vastly altered anyway. This is not to say that the lore team does not do its best to work with community members to see their ideas added. Examples from my own experience are an entire planet, Visegrad, something that took nearly four months of back and forth development and tweaks between lore masters, the lore team as a whole, the human lore team, and its creator, @DanseMacabre. Other additions include new beverage descriptions and origins, new in-game text sprites for corporate logos, additions to the Solarian warlord states, a bevy of in-game cosmetics, along with many others. This is just what I personally have overseen in my interactions with the community, with the human lore team and other teams also adding in community submissions often. We already work with the community a lot, and we are also keen to listen to feedback on our lore from the player base. While the process of submission, having it either be initially accepted for consideration or denied outright, then waiting while the lore team deliberates to how/if the idea needs to be changed or should be rejected, and then receiving a verdict and having your idea morphed and altered by the writers can indeed be slow and somewhat disappointing one at times and of course could be more efficient, its framework and dynamic it places between the lore team and the community is the best way to parse and assign value to the different ideas posed to the lore team by the community. A person seeking to change this I do not think is suitable to hold the deputy loremaster position, and as much of your application centres around this ideal, I cannot support you as an applicant. -1

How do you propose this in relation to command staff and the balance of sec roles? Command roles are by nature only supposed to have one selection. I feel as if much of the concern over the hubub around restrictions is in relation to these roles along with the two other very popular ones of Security Officer and Investigator, given security's huge popularity when compared to other departments. This also means that it is a balancing consideration rather than just a player consideration. Adding more security officers, wardens, or investigators may let more people play yes, but antags as they exist now are not optimised to fight against a team of anything more than 4 sec officers, 1 warden, 2 investigators, a HoS, and 2 cadets. Its for this reason that cadet slots weren't expanded when the learner roles saw their expansion earlier this year with a slot addition to Lab Assistants, Engineering Apprentices, and Medical Interns. We almost never see fully staffed engineering, science, service, supply, or medical departments, even in high pop, which leads me to think that the proposed changes (the PR in discussion) in the conceit of this thread will mostly effect security and command roles exclusively, unless in relation to rounds preceding event rounds where we have half or more of the community playing all at once. These changes while indeed applying to the whole station, will most be seen to effect those who play command and sec, and should be looked at and discussed through this lens as other departments rarely, if ever, see enough competition over slots to have this change meaningfully effect them outside of the most fringe of cases. While the changes indeed may perhaps negatively effect players who only play one character on the server, especially a character that happens to be in those high-demand roles, the decision/choice to only play one character round after round should not preclude accessibility of a high-demand role to another player. I am in support of the proposed changes as in my view it establishes a fairer system through which playtime for roles, especially command and security, can be distributed among players looking to play certain roles that are in high demand.

Heya. This is a descriptive breakdown as to my feelings on SleepyWolf as a roleplayer and their character Captain Kobi Goldman. I do not think it can be understated how good of a roleplayer that Seepy can be, they have a brilliant skill in working one-on-one interactions and bringing characters with otherwise strange or quirky personalities to a level where anyone can interact with them and they feel genuine, rather than a character that exists simply for the sake of being weird. Aez Goldhorn, Chief Engineer, is a lovely example of this, he is a command character that is both compelling as a character with a very fun personality and he fills the role of being a command member well, due to his propensity to connect and involve his department in many ways with his command actions in a positive way that is conducive to good RP. I believe that SleepyWolf is perfectly capable of playing a good and compelling command character, but this is not always the reality when they play their Captain, Kobi Goldman. I like Kobi as a personality in individual interactions, it exudes that very insincere, luxurious, and selfish character that hides behind corporate mindset, though I am unsure if the extent to which this is played up is within the realm of plausibility for a Captain. What I am concerned about both as a fellow command player, I played the Head of Personnel in the vampire round (Round ID: ceX-ajxF), that many seem to be bringing up in this thread, and as a player of roles outside of exclusively command though, is how this character translates to not just a character in a round, but the role of Captain presiding over the crew. I understand the intent to make things perhaps a bit difficult for one's crewmates so as to produce RP, but there I think is a very difficult line between creating tension and borderline self-antagging as a captain by creating exceptionally rigid and inflexible framework through which command and crew are expected by all convention and sense of the rules due to the Captain's near-absolute authority on station, to abide by. I was present for this exchange, again, as the HoP for that round, and I will use it and the events immediately following it to illustrate my concern and dissatisfaction with Kobi's command. After Read's character declined this mandate to be scanned, my HoP tried to explain the process to them and why medical release forms were being handed to them to sign, something that I did upon the request of the Captain to do interpreted from the captain telling my character to ensure that all the paperwork was in order for the goings-on. The tension around this in specific, I think was good and organized in a way that created some tension among the crew but also among the crew and command, and even within the Security department itself. This was good rp and a build-up of interesting tension. Where I think this fell apart however, is the reaction from Captain Goldman to dispatch the warden to track down Read's officer and bringing her back kicking and screaming into the medbay under threat of physical harm or arrest as the first response, though this also could have been the fault of the Warden's player for resorting to violence and force as a first measure, and I admit that the blame for this may not entirely lie on Goldman. In my opinion this was a gross over-escalation of the conflict, one that I disagreed with both ICly and OOCly, and one that also detracted from the roleplay experience of those in the medbay as the main plot progression of the round, the "vampire disease," began to really take hold and start to effect some of the crew present in that department of the station. What followed afterwards however was in my view the most frustrating part of the round in relation to Goldman's command, in that there really wasn't any. Kobi took Read's officer back to chat in the CMO's office to discuss the situation and from that time onwards until about ten-fifteen minutes later he was effectively off comms as a crisis unfolded in the very department he was in, with both the CMO and my HoP trying to contact him for updates or orders, or and ordering of a response to the growing crisis in medbay, with the CMO audibly expressing her decaying state of mental and physical health over the command, common, and medical channels. This inability to communicate with command staff is something that is admittedly common among many captains, perhaps a majority, but that does not mean that it is not a flaw that should be overlooked. The captain is the top of the command structure and should use his heads of staff as means to push his agenda or goal on the station, but should also be a resource for those heads of staff in times of crisis instead of sequestering himself and not using radio communication. This kind of behaviour would have been understandable after things truly started to fall apart, such as when he locked himself in the bridge, I think this move was fine and I don't object to it OOCly; I think it showed both the desperate nature of the situation and the cowardly underside of Goldman's personality and character very well. However, in reference to before he locked himself away, a captain should be involved and communicating with his command staff whenever possible, and especially so during a station-wide crisis so that he and his crew can try to stop it. This is not to say that he should not have spoken to Read's officer at all, I think this was also a good play on Sleepy's part and one that did involve him with his crew, but I am saying that activity on comms and communicating with command during his exchange with Read's officer would have been more emblematic of what kind of command play I would expect from a Captain. In conclusion, Sleepy is a very good and skilled roleplayer with years of experience and a person who I get genuine enjoyment from roleplaying with a lot of the time. They have also shown themselves to be capable of playing a command role on their CE, Aez Goldhorn, but, I believe that Captain Kobi Goldman needs some adjustment and revision to the style by which he is involved in rounds to better suit the position of a Captain and the duties expected thereof. For these reasons I cannot give a +1 or -1, and instead will simply let my opinion be used as feedback both for and against the granting of Sleepy's whitelist. I think they are very capable of playing command, but that this needs to be demonstrated more consistently, especially on the character of Kobi Goldman.

Right. After thinking on this some more this week, I have come to this decision. ATLAS as an organization is not retconned as of now, however it is defunct. After the assassination of formerly Admiral, then Prime Minister Frost, the party fell to prey to internal struggles. Additionally, the party lost most if not all power it held over the Sol Alliance after the military dissolved the Solarian Parliament in order to form the current system of government that Sol is governed under, a naval junta. Most high-ranking members of the party have either disappeared in the chaos of the Collapse of the Solarian Outer Colonies, been arrested by the current government, or have found themselves integrated into other parties. Lore mentioning ATLAS in the present tense is outdated and will be fixed. This is all subject to change if we in the Human Lore team decide it is pertinent to do so, however this is the current canon regarding ATLAS. It did exist at one time but does no longer in any way, shape, or form.

Hi all. We in human lore are working on a solution to this question, as it has been something that we have also been mulling over for some time and are working towards a consensus on. Please expect a definitive answer in the next few days.

Hi, I'm the head of human lore on AuroraStation. A majority of, if not all of this lore has already been accepted on Baystation in as part of a canonisation submission, showing here, (https://forums.baystation12.net/threads/mohranda-a-non-controversial-lore-submission.8795/) and therefore will be rejected outright. We do not consider repostings of presently-canonised or formerly-canonised, lore from other servers, in-part or as a whole, to be eligible for canonisation. Additionally, much of this faction, down to being styled as an "Imperial," entity possessing a very strict moral code for its citizens, and having various colours of cape to signify different affiliations in society is already filled by a pre-existing faction in our setting, the Empire of Dominia, and aside from the fact this is lore that has already been accepted on another server, the optics of it are too similar to something that already exists in our lore. This application is denied.

Hi, and thank you for your submission for human lore. Myself and my deputies have looked the proposal over and we have come to the decision that this canonization application will be rejected at this time for the following reasons: - A society stringently stratified by geography and class is already something that we have in multiple places not just in the lore in General, but in Human Lore as well, with the Eridani Corporate Federation and the Empire of Dominia being two examples. Classes exist in many places, but simply being rich or poor, or urban or rural, is not enough for us to consider this addition worthwhile, as these dynamics would exist in almost every conventional society and the addition of ecological framing or "green washing," as you say above, doesn't really change that fact. There needs to be more substance aside from simply living conditions and relationship with the environment to characterize the culture of these classes. How do they play into the planet's systems? What is their history? The explanation of their lives, while informative of characterizing their experiences, isn't something that we see as definitively unique in our setting, as environmentally friendly or otherwise sustainable technology would have been the norm for many going forwards after the abandonment of fossil fuels. - The writing about the planet, while large in size, isn't really something that has particularly caught our attention in a way that would make Earth a truly unique and distinctive place in the lore, as say some other places are. Megacities are an interesting concept, however, again, we have these already in our lore in many places such as New Hai Phong, and the newest addition to Human lore, Callisto, a location which is in itself, a very large megacity. - You mention cultures greatly in this application however you provide little to no explanation for how these cultures, interacts with these classes, aside from saying that a person would identify with culture more than class, yet across all cultures there are still these same four classes, and are again classes defined primarily by wealth and location, without any other sort of unifying affiliate property, which isn't something that we agree with in how a class should be organized. - Lastly and perhaps most importantly, we do not see this lore as compatible with the current creative vision that the Human Lore team has in mind for Earth's future. Thank you again for your submission, but this application is denied.

After deliberation with my deputy and the rest of the lore team, we have come to the collective decision to accept this application. Congratulations! You will receive additional details to your new position over Discord.

Thank you for your detailed reply in the addressing of my points. I see nothing here that I take immediate or blatant issue with, but I will read over this more to glean any information from it that I can. If I have further questions or concerns, I will post them here. Thank you again, and good luck.

I will give responses, critiques, and questions in order of the questions you have answered, along with a miscellaneous section at the bottom of my statements. I would like if each critique or question is addressed in its entirety. I am very pleased to see that you like the lore that our station has and am happy that you can also cite mechanical features of the lore, such as the accent system, as ways that help you engage with the game and community at large. I am also interested by your approach to lore writing and am glad to see and the quality of lore outside of just within a vacuum is something that I can agree with you on, and that I think a very good approach to have when coming to the lore writing process. That all being said, I am not satisfied with an answer to my second question listed in Question 1 of the original template. What separates you from the rest of the candidates? All are passionate and have approaches to writing that indeed indicate this, but how do you differ, how would you market yourself to us, assuming passion is something excluded, or at least secondary to our decision making process? Your love and mention of specific elements in the lore is something that I can appreciate, however I do have some critiques and concerns, primarily in relation to your stance on megacorporations. Idris is arguably the most popular megacorporation in our setting, and has to the minds of some, been given unfairly large amounts of attention in the past year or so, resulting in it being power creeped by the various people that write lore for it. It is, in short, a favourite. Ironically, despite being the "main," corporation of our setting, the one that has seen some of the least amount of development in the past is NanoTrasen. How do you think that you can apply your writing to the corporations in our setting aside from Idris, and work to further develop them to the levels of lore that you believe Idris has? Moreover, I am concerned that you may exhibit favouratism to Idris incorporated, as this is already a trend that some in the community have critiqued the lore team on before. Of course you can simply say that you will not do this, and I cannot judge you as a candidate for things that have not happened yet, but it is a concern that I have and wanted to at least bring up in my response to you. Elyra is a very broad topic, and as you may be aware of the Human Lore team is in the middle of reworking the faction in a group-effort of expanding history and culture. You've mentioned wanting to start small with perhaps a planet, and this is something that I think would be a very good place to begin for a person on the team, if we are ready for such development when you are hired, assuming you get the position. I know that you are a person with a lot of linguistic experience and a person who is more or less fluently bilingual in English and French. However, linguistic changes are types of developments that have met great resistance in the past not only from some in the lore team, but also those in the developer team and among the admins. I am not saying that if appointed, these changes will not happen, but I want to give warning that they may not. Making the assumption that they do not, how in your mind, can you make a worthwhile contribution to Elyra? When you speak of a lack of detail, could you give some examples to what you think are problematic areas, and then suggestions on how you might remedy them? Two minimum. Following up on this, the lore as a whole is much larger than just Elyra and you already know this. Discounting Mictlan for its obvious choice and nearly comical status as an area in human lore that needs development, what are some places outside of Elyra that you would like to make additions, retcons, or just more broadly speaking, changes to? I have little to no issue with this suggestion as an area that you would first like to work on if appointed. This is not a confirmation or guarantee that it will be what you will work on if appointed, but it is me expressing my favour with your suggestion. Your expression of the realities of teamwork are something that I am glad to see and welcome as an attitude when working on the team. However, as some have commented already and as some in the lore team have expressed in discussing your application, you have a history of expressing your frustration and anger with both problems in the lore and with disagreements with your ideas in rather inflammatory outbursts. Part of being on the lore team, as passionate as a job like it is, is learning to at times, step back and abandon your passion for certain elements of lore, even if they are very personal to you, and I have some concerns that you may not be able to do this. How do you think that you can address these concerns, as they are not only ones that I hold. Moreover, how do you believe that you can not just only work with the team, but also work as an integral part of the greater lore team, a team that you may, or may not, disagree with quite often. I have no issues with the disciplinary history said here. Miscellaneous: Its no small secret that you are friends with, even close friends with, some lore team members, and that this bond could potentially impact their views on your appointment in your favour. I am not accusing you of collusion with anyone on the lore team for the purposes of ensuring your position, but I am saying that cliques and acting with them are not unheard of in communities like ours, or in communities period. Assuming you get the position, it may seem to some that you only got said position because of your preexisting social connections and not because of your merit as a candidate distanced from your social connections. How do you address these concerns? Additionally, how do you think that you will be able to work in the lore team with the presence of these friendships in the dynamic of your interactions with your co-workers? Cliques impacting policy, as I have said, can happen, and if I am to hire you, I need to know that you will not engage in this kind of behavior. I am not saying that you cannot be friends with your coworkers, in fact I encourage friendship and camaraderie, but I need to know that these social relationships will not be placed over the duties so assigned to you as a lore deputy. Please address this. I look forward to your responses. Thank you.

I was originally going to wait a bit longer before providing my own thoughts and critiques to your application, as I believed it would take a decent while to get a few responses. Lo and behold, I wake up to see that this thread has more activity in 12 hours than most applications have in weeks or months of being up, so I believe the time is right for me to enter. I will pose my responses to your answers in a format that will address my thoughts on each of your responses respectively, and provide a miscellaneous section at the bottom of those 6 critiques. I laud your enthusiasm that you show for the lore of our setting. I don't doubt your passion or love for the stories and backgrounds we have on our server that allow for players to play as they please and make brilliant, loveable, or hateable characters. I have no doubt that you are a very spirited person in regards to your thoughts on the lore as well, and I appreciate how you try and show that in your application. However, you do not directly answer the second part of question one in your response. Passion for the lore is certainly an asset, but its not something that is entirely unique. I would be disappointed in an applicant if they applied and did not have a great passion for the lore of the Aurora. Why do you think that this passion that you have is something that can make you a better pick than the rest of our applicants, or if not this passion, what other element? Please do not make direct comparisons to other applicants in your response, but rather highlight what makes you a unique candidate. In your second response you refer to the diversity of Humanity being one of the things that you enjoy best about the depiction of the species in our lore. I agree, this is something that I too adore about the lore and something that I have only expanded upon since I became the maintainer for Human Lore. A common critique to human lore however, and one that I am not entirely deaf to, is that Human Lore's diversity is as much a hinderance than a I help in some circumstances, as some in the community and lore team proper, have pointed out that many planets/locations inhabited by Humanity are gimmicky, unnecessary/add nothing, or in their essence are in fact, not believable, for whatever reason. I point this out because you also mention believability as something that you enjoy about our depiction of humanity. What is your response to that say that humanity is in fact too diverse, or has too many locations, and needs instead to more thoroughly develop the ones already existing, rather than seek to expand the diversity of Humanity? It is just a fact that Humanity has four factions, and upwards of thirty locations, some of which have entirely distinctive sublocations in them, while the closest species in terms of named separate locations is Skrell, with less than ten, and some species do not even have a territorial presence on the StarMap. Onto your third response. I agree that humanity's timeline needs clarification and is actually something that we in the human team are already trying to rectify. I have no further comments on that aspect of your response, because, yes it is a black and white issue that needs redressing. In the second third of this response however you critique the Coalition by saying its boring, and needs further development and detail for what the Coalition itself is. I think this is one vision or interpretation for what the coalition may be, but as you have mentioned, the focus is typically on the planets themselves, rather than the Coalition proper. The diversity of the planets, something you were keen on in question two, is to some, the key element or aspect of the Coalition and elaborating more on the Government of the planet is tantamount to elaborating more onto the individual planets in the Coalition because it is those planets that make up the government, and in some cases, have precedence over it in interstellar relations. How do you see this interpretation of vision and direction for the CoC and how do you think that your ideas could potentially work with it, if at all? I also agree that the Techno Conglomerate needs love, and much like the timeline, it is a project we are trying to work through already. In saying how to "fix," the Coalition, I am somewhat confused. You make some ideas for how to do so in your third response, however, the answers here are rather vague. In fixing the Coalition, how would you attempt to do so aside from just writing more about its government. Its no small secret in the community that you quite enjoy the lore around the Sol Alliance, to varying degrees of irony, and this leads me to think that you may want to make the Coalition more like Sol, in that it has large sections penned on its government style and military, when the Coalition is both in a literal sense in the lore along with a metaphorical sense in principle, the opposite and enemy of the Alliance. How do you intend on fixing the CoC in ways that do not potentially mirror styles or techniques used in other settings in our lore? I agree that if fixing the Coalition were done, it would be a great task, so I would suggest it be treated with as much originality as possible in order to preserve the unique identity and flavour that the it holds in our lore. I am pleased to see that you believe that you can work in a team. While I think that I could work with you well, I have some doubts that you may be able to fulfil the community functions of a Lore Deputy in a team setting. As evident by the large number of responses questioning your character for various incidents in the past, you are certainly not the most popular of candidates and have some in the community who would disapprove of you holding this position and vocally so. How, in your opinion, do you think that you could both be a proactive member of our lore team in regards to community functions, while also not letting your reputation among some in the community damage your ability to interact with the playerbase to the standards held by the staff and the lore team? Do you think that this unpopularity or disapproval in the community would negatively effect your ability to produce lore at the rate and to the quality expected by the lore team, and if so, how would you attempt to rectify the situation? Similarly, there will be times when I as the Maintainer, a Loremaster, or even an Admin, will disapprove of your ideas and either highly edit them or reject them outright, even if they may have taken good work, or be personally significant to you. Do you believe that you can accept these as they come and proceed in the lore team without grudge towards superiors in higher staff, and if this becomes a problem, how do you think that it would be best for you to handle things in that situation? I have no concerns about prior disciplinary history here. Misc: You have a planet which you have been hoping to canonise for the better part of a year, and you have provided it as your writing sample. Its well known to both the lore team along with the community at large, that you care very deeply about this planet, and have it as a passion project. I can understand the amounts of love and care that go into creating and curating such a place, however, I would be ignorant to my own thoughts if part of me did not wonder if you are seeking this position for purposes of canonising that planet or for furthering other personal projects to a monocular degree. I know that you are passionate about the lore of our server in general, however, I also know that you are a person who is passionate about his own projects as well. Please elaborate on your application as it relates to Visegrad, and furthermore, how Visegrad plays into your vision for a potential tenure as a Human Lore Deputy. That is all. I look forwards to your responses.

Hello to everyone in the community. We are now opening applications for Human Lore Deputy and the format for the application is listed below. Please give honest and concise responses to the application base questions along with the additional questions unique to the application for this position. Please copy and paste the questions into your application and provide your respective answers beneath their respective questions. Applications will be thoroughly scrutinised and applicants should be prepared to answer follow-up questions and interact with criticism to their positions in their application threads from the human lore team, greater lore team, and community members unaffiliated with Aurora staff. Civil conduct is encouraged from both applicants and those questioning the applicant, and applicants will be judged on their ability to interact with community members and criticism as well as to their answers given to the questions proper included in the spoiler below. Applications for the position of Human Lore Deputy must be submitted between the dates of 2021/05/17 and 2021/05/31, after which the Human Lore team and Greater Lore Team will make a final decision. This period is subject to extension at the behest of the Human Lore Maintainer or Lore Master. Tag all applications with the "Lore Writer" and "Human" tags. Applications made in the form of replies to this thread will not be accepted. Good luck to all applicants. ————— AS OF 2021/05/31, APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED

Heya, I played the aforementioned other investigator. I was present for all of the events listed above in the main post and in fact took Razla, Mel's investigator to medical and gave some medical aid and CPR unitl she died. Afterwards, I went around the station collecting bodies of the other officers who had died in the first exchange with the wizard, Takano and Szsk. Both were dead, and Takano was beaten to a point of being unrecognizable, only her ID and uniform identifying them. After bringing the bodies back to the ISD, the wizard followed and was held up by the Vaurca warden, Vol, who told him to leave or be arrested. The wiz first ignored this and made a skeleton from the body of Takano and only then addressed the warden. The Skeleton laid dormant for a short while, and the warden again telling the wizard to surrender and be arrested, having a laser rifle now to protect and coerce the wiz. The wizard then stalled until the skeleton woke up before the warden then couldn't wait longer, moved in to arrest and was then promptly murdered. Being an investigator who was armed by the captain at the time, I couldn't just let them kill the warden like they'd killed everyone else, so I tried to protect the warden and get the wizard under control. At no point before the fighting started was it the intention to kill the wiz, even after he had killed three officers trying to arrest him. As this happened, I was then killed by the wizard after a melee which ended with him oni'soma-ing me along with his skeleton and then beating my unconscious corpse to death over the course of three or four minutes in a similar way to one of the screenshots posted by Sycmos, because the same thing happened to him. There was little counterplay to the situation, it was either ignore the antag's antics or be killed by the antag. There wasn't an area for a middle ground or negotiation. What started the confrontation however was after Chernikovsky burned his eyes out from the orb, security accused the wizard of being grossly negligent of the situation and knowingly allowing Chernikovsky to burn his eyeballs out. After pressuring him verbally on the artifact to hand it over because he couldn't be trusted with it if he was just going to let people burn their eyes out on it, he turned into a shade and fled the holodeck where the demonstration of the orb was and where Chernikovsky burned his eyes out at. (There was no medical or robotics at the time, so Chernikovsky was blinded for the rest of the shift and running at 80% brain activity until he elected to cryo and just leave the round because there was no chance of him seeing again in the round.) Security gave chase because well, a man just turned into a black creature in front of their eyes and ran while security was trying to negotiate him handing over his scrying orb. During this chase and attempt to arrest the wiz and get his orb, he killed two officers and one investigator, the investigator not really even being part of the original chase, being jumped by the wizard in shade form in the library after she pulled her disruptor to prepare for self-defense after seeing it rush into the library.

While I enjoy the concept, I also worry for a precedent in how we may have a large variety of OC capes. I believe the idea posed above by @Omicega would be a fine solution. Moreover, I think that the sprite of the existing cape is very similar to the existing Caladius cape, and may not be easily distinguishable at a glance to some players.

1. In Raan's eyes, he sees S'kresti as the right man for the wrong time, beset by traitors not only to the faith of Si'akh, the true faith, but also traitors to his country. Raan believes that a king should be respected and revered, and not usurped as S'kresti was. Despite Raan's witnessing of the horrors wrought by unchecked traditionalism, it is also that traditionalism that has held his clan together, following the hierarchy of roles and the like. To Raan, the Hegemony can be a place where Si'akh can be welcome, as while he was indeed discriminated against, he also met a growing community of Si'akh, much like himself. Traditionalism brought damnation onto society, but it was not a societal traditionalism that did this in his mind, but a spiritual issue where those in power only considered their power in relation to themselves and their own wants, and not in relation to the wants of the most powerful being of all, Sk'akh, and as such, the Contact War was S'kakh's wrath. 2. Raan's opinion of Th'akh and Sk'akh are somewhat similar. While he believes they are heretical, he does not think that they are irredeemable. Those in Sk'akh after all, are very much like his own religion in a few ways, they worship the same god, and have many similar principles, though they have yet to accept the truth of Sk'akh's punishment. Th'akh, he believes will not stand the test of time, and was fundamentally shattered and put on the backfoot after the Contact War. He believes that Th'akh will inevitably decline, as evidenced by the growing influx of new converts to Si'akh and Sk'akh, as more Sinta understand how ignoring Sk'akh has destoyed the world around them. The Aut'akh however, are beyond help. They violate so many standards and rules of Sk'akh's will that he believes they are unable to be redeemed and must be left to starve to death in the wastes, or if they leave their communes and try to spread their utter heresy, made to rejoin the cycle of death and rebirth in the wastelands of Moghes by force. 3. Nobility to Raan is something that is necessary, albeit not really for him, as he was born into the labouring class of society. He believes that there needs to be structure and hierarchy, otherwise society would fall apart into "lawless," abhorrent, godless communes like those of the Aut'akh. While they may not always treat him the best, given his position in society, Raan was raised to believe that the clan should be placed before just one Sinta, for the clergy in the clan know what S'kakh wants most, and the more Sinta there are together, the more they can care for one another and help each other reach forgiveness. He thinks the lords of his clan did a good thing in moving from their ancestral homelands, as it got his people and himself even, consistent food and water instead of the other reality of starving to death in the wastes. After all, its not like he will never return to the lands he once called home, unless he can earn Sk'akh's forgiveness in this life, that is. I think this is ultimately up to environmental pressures, actually. While Raan is involved with his faith, he is still a pragmatist, and will do what he must to survive as he and his clan did in the wasteland. While Sk'akh has a scornful attitude to the Unathi, Sk'akh also forgives should a Sinta prove themselves worthy of it. Raan knows that he must do what his clan sent him here to do, and he will do his best to do well by his Si'akh faith while in Tau Ceti. That being said, if its between starving himself and staying true to the faith, he would probably, with great regret, feed himself then pray for forgiveness later.

BYOND Key: TheBurninSherman Character Names: Nasrin Bose, Engineer (Hepht) Augustina Negrescu, Surgeon Karolina Bezdnova, Scientist (Zavod) Merjan Enver, Curator Umbra SSU #4.262-C, Bartender Song Sun, Chief Medical Officer IRU-Dauphine, Forensic Technician (Idris) Species you are applying to play: Unathi What color do you plan on making your first alien character?: Sand brown Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes Why do you wish to play this specific race: I want to explore the culture and history of the Unathi through roleplay, as despite being involved with lore rather heavily, I am not too familiar with Unathi and I find them very interesting and unique in not only culture and history which is something I want to explore. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Not only are Unathi very different in terms of mechanics from humans, with different things that can be used for valid hunting, but also in mindset. Everything must be taken into account not how it affects the individual, but how it affects the clan of the character and how it affects the character in relation to Th’akh, Sk’akh, and the spirits around them. Unathi have a very big, spiritual perspective that I think no other races on the Aurora share. Character Name: Raan Zesi’lozso Born to a Si’akh peasant family in the wastelands of Moghes, Raan was always one to make the most out of whatever surprises were thrown his way. For most of his childhood and adolescence, Raan roamed around the blasted wastelands of Moghes, herding Azkrazal and helping run supplies about the region with his small clan around a small camp operated by the Vihnmes Clan. As perhaps expected, life was not easy for him. Working the blasted earth with his clan, moving with the Azkrazal, and seeing firsthand the horrors other Unathi were capable of, all made him grow up fast and learn what his life might be. After turning 15 however, there were grumblings in the clan. The Zesi’lozso clan elders met to address a growing concern among the clansfolk: grazing land was at a premium in the wasteland, and the lands that Clan Zesi’lozso had used for their livelihood had continued to degrade and decay in the fallout-laced environment, and so it was decided that the clan would migrate from their ancestral home to the nearby city of Imas’hi. Soon enough after nearly a year of preparation, they had indeed moved, and while work was hard to come by, Raan found work under the auspices of a local guild lord, an old contact the Zesi’lozso clan made while helping move cargo for the the Vihmnes Clan, who accepted the servitude and labour of the clan in exchange for provisions of continued food and water. What Raan was to do now was help deliver and move packages around to the city, delivering to its massively spiking population. He was to carry things from one place to another, a simple and hard, if honest way of work. It was on this job though where Raan truly learned about the faith he was brought up with. For much of his life, Si’akh was all that he knew. Sure he would perhaps meet those in the Th’akh whenever he went to camp and helped move supplies, but there was never anyone in his clan that wasn’t Si’akh, he never had to live with other sorts of people. But now, living in a place with so many new and different kinds of people, his eyes were opened to the people of Sk’akh and Th’akh, and he learned of their ways. More so though, he felt discrimination at their hands. To these people, Si’akh, his way of life as he was brought up, was little more than some fanatical cult. He couldn’t agree less with these things, but even so, his duty to his clan, his family, came first in all things so he made the decision to simply bear the burden of exclusion and discrimination. After working this job for a few years, a job that mostly consisted of being a porter and hauling around crates or baskets from house to house, the lord that so kindly accepted the Zesi’lozso Clan perhaps but half a decade or so ago, decided that now was his chance to make a fine profit for himself and his clan. He consulted Hephaestus and struck an old, familiar deal with them: peasant labour for money. Raan was one chosen for such a deal, his experience in moving things and keeping track of prices for the things he moved made him an ideal choice for his lord, and so soon, he found himself moving and sorting things not in a tunic, but in a Hephaestus uniform on some far-flung space station. As a contractor, working for another company, NanoTrasen. Because, after all, why would Hephaestus send a Sinta anywhere other than somewhere that needed someone strong, or at least, that is what Raan was told. Even as he works now, Raan’s heart still is on Moghes. He knows that one day he will probably return there, either in this life, or the next, but he does not let this distract him from what he must do now. His duty is to his clan to represent them honourably, to his lord, who provided for his clan, to work diligently, and to himself to break free from this cursed cycle and seek Sk’akh’s forgiveness. Hopefully, through honest work of moving things from one place to another place, he can indeed achieve these things. What do you like about this character? I like that Raan is somewhat simple, at a glance, but has the potential to have much more lying beneath the surface. He follows a very traditional sort of existence, all aside from his faith, Si’akh, which is anything but traditional. Even so though, he works and lives with this ideal in mind, that he will one day find forgiveness in Sk’akh and find his own paradise. He is serious and hardworking, but not cold, and values companionship. He is a man with many stories to tell of his life both in the wasteland and seeing the parts of the great, growing city of Imas’hi. How would you rate your role-playing ability? I’m more than competent but always have room for improvement. Notes: NA

COMPROMISE: Aeson and Strom Come to an Agreement After nearly two weeks of back and forth negotiations upon the jewel world of New Hai Phong, it seems that tensions between Hephaestus Industries and the Solarian Government have subsided. Today, Senator Hendrik Strom and CEO of Hephaestus Industries Titanius Aeson both shook hands on a public broadcast announcement of what is being called the “Common Sense Compromise,” by the men responsible for its realisation and implementation. This agreement comes in a time of great uncertainty and corporate turmoil and is set to change some solarian policies not only with Hephaestus, but with all other Stellar Corporate Conglomerate affiliates as well. Within the compromise however, there were a new series of restrictions and measures both for and against megacorporations and their subsidiaries in the Solarian state. Together, however, Aeson and Strom have stated that they hope this change will be for the better and benefit all parties involved. As for what was decided upon, some of the key points are listed here: Hephaestus Industries will maintain full ownership of their assets and facilities based on and around New Hai Phong and are permitted to expand them at their leisure with Solarian Corporate Authority oversight. Any and all Hephaestus facilities based on New Hai Phong are subject to inspection by the SCA at the Authority’s convenience. Vessels are not subject to inspection. All Stellar Corporate Conglomerate affiliates must release all Tajara from their employ at any and all facilities or vessels based in Solarian space and are indefinitely forbidden to hire Tajara to these locations. The Eridani Corporate Federation is exempt from these restrictions. This also applies to citizens currently working abroad for SCC Affiliates. It is no longer illegal for former NanoTrasen employees to leave the Solarian Alliance. However, any citizen that is a former employee of an SCC affiliate who leaves the Alliance for work must maintain a Solarian Citizenship and residence, and will be subject to all taxes to their property and income typical of a citizen working within the Alliance. The Solarian Alliance will instate a fee to renounce Solarian Citizenship equal to 15% of the income of any citizen wishing to renounce their Solarian citizenship in favour of that of another nation. Any attempt to renounce citizenship without the payment of this fee will not be acknowledged by any SCC affiliates. This measure does not affect existing dual citizenship laws with the Jargon Federation or Eridani Corporate Federation. After this agreement was signed, with Aeson negotiating on behalf of the SCC and Strom on behalf of the Solarian Government, the two spoke at length about the progress they hope to see. “It just makes common sense, you know? This agreement that we’ve come to, not only makes it easier for us at Hephaestus to continue providing the Solarian people with steady employment and industry, but takes a load off of the fine Solarians who used to work for NT, our pals back in Biesel. Let’s hope this tosses them a line.” Strom, commented that the compromise was, “A step in the right direction for Sol-Corporate relations.” Furthermore, he elaborated, “We should welcome the opportunity to work with corporations in strengthening our society and protecting our great nation from savage, violent, xenos within and extremists on our borders without. Mister Aeson has shown today that those in the corporate world can be just as reasonable as the rest of us, and I think we’ve made great progress towards helping the people and being business friendly.” When asked as to why he wished to reverse such a sweeping, wide law like the criminalisation of former NT employees leaving the alliance for work, Strom was quoted as saying, “We’re not the enemy of the common Solarian that finds themselves forced to work for NT - we’re on their side against corporate dominance of their homes and incomes. It’s not right to punish them for the greed of their CEO who hates everything our great alliance stands for.” In opposition, Senator Le Hanh Trang staged a rally today in Cua Song protesting the compromise, decrying Strom’s actions as, “Selling out the people of New Hai Phong to the SCC and spitting in the face of the Solarian national spirit. Its an embarrassment.” Trang has been pushing since the collapse of the Alliance’s frontiers that all industry on New Hai Phong should be removed from Hephaestus ownership and be given to Einstein Engines or the newly established Solarian Corporate Authority. In other news, the Republic of Elyra has formally announced that they will begin further corporate restrictions in the coming months, the details of which are still undecided.

I think this would make playing med a bit more streamlined and would avoid the situations in which someone gives a person the wrong drugs because they don't know their exact condition. It would allow for more precise gameplay at the expense of a little extra time to triage, which is something med does already to a degree.

MEGACORPORATIONS RESPOND TO SOLARIAN CORPORATE REFORMS Following the Provisional Council for Solarian Defense’s decision at the beginning of this year to enact widespread nationalization and corporate restrictions against the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate and its affiliates, there has been an odd silence from the corps until today. All corporations targeted by these recent reforms have come forwards with their decisions in multiple press conferences today. The NanoTrasen corporation made an official statement that served as little more than a confirmation of Solarian intentions, and that they would be relinquishing all assets and facilities based in the Alliance to the Solarian Corporate Authority, as per the demands of the Industrial Reclamation Mandate of 2463. Along with this, they have stated their intentions to begin increasing their investment in the newly gained areas of the Republic of Biesel as well as in the Coalition of Colonies. NanoTrasen’s head of Public Relations was quoted saying, “This isn’t an easy thing for us to do, but looking at things both how they are now and how they will be in the future, Sol is a dead end. Biesel and the C-O-C are where NanoTrasen should be and where we will see ourselves shine the brightest.” This acknowledgement however comes just after the NanoTrasen corporation announced layoffs for all NT personnel working within the Solarian Alliance unless they wished to move to the Republic of Biesel or Coalition of Colonies, something that the Solarian government has said it will not support and will charge any former NT employee fleeing the country with treason. Solarian Citizens who already have positions in other nations would not be effected, as the council has stated that it does not want to unemploy Solarian citizens more than they already have been. The Solarian Corporate Authority has also made pledges to begin finding jobs for those recently unemployed by NanoTrasen. SCA inspectors are reporting that the recently seized facilities formerly owned by NanoTrasen are greatly outdated and appear to have evidence of equipment and phoron stockpiles being removed from them. Widespread anti-Solarian graffiti within the facilities, numerous cases of sabotage to their electrical and ventilation systems, crashed elevators, and piles of ashes, broken information drives, and destroyed computers have also been found. Idris Incorporated released their statement today as well, accepting a provision to avoid regional nationalization by paying the full cost of their assets located on and around Silversun to still maintain their dominance over the system and over the resorts and space stations that are located there. They also have paid for some assets within the Jovian System to remain in their possession. Idris CEO Alex Mason made a speech from Silversun itself to mark this occasion, saying, “We do not wish to hurt the Alliance, only provide respite, escape, and secure banking for its citizenry. Silversun is ours, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future, but we look forwards to working with the Alliance, its government, and the Sol Corporate Authority to make sure that this stays the paradise that it is.” Shortly after this, Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals announced that they would be surrendering 51% of all corporate possessions in Solarian space to the SCA, aside from the facilities and vessels they operate and maintain on Jovian moon Europa and supporting facilities on Luna. A press release from the corporation stated that “We cannot lose the wealth of knowledge that the Europan ecosystem has provided, and continues to provide us in both the fields of medicine and biology. There is no other place known to sentient life that is like Europa, so we will ensure it stays in our very capable hands. There are many more secrets to be discovered in its depths, and we know that we will put them to use better than anyone else can, so we will gladly pay for them.” Zavodksoi Interstellar also stated that they will be accepting the proposal for 51% nationalization of their assets in Solarian space, aside from their research and development facilities on Luna which they stated they would be paying the stated funds for. With this however, they announced that they would be undertaking various measures to, “ensure future stability,” by moving their corporate offices from Earth, where they have been for decades, to Nova Luxembourg in the Empire of Dominia. “The people of Sol need tools to protect them, and we are in the business of providing those tools. We do not hate the Solarian Government, nor its people, but to ensure that things are not taken further to threaten us, the Empire will be our new base of corporate operations for the time being. We look forwards to continuing our healthy business relationship with the Solarian government and armed forces and hope that things will improve in the future,” Lyudmila Zavodskoi was quoted as saying as she announced the closure of Zavodskoi Interstellar Headquarters. Most surprisingly however, Hephaestus Industries has affirmed that they will not be budging to the pressure posed by the new reforms, at least in part. Hephaestus Industries CEO Titanius Aeson stated today in an address to the Provisional Council and Solarian Corporate Authority from aboard the Cruiser HCV Vulcan, “We are too important to make leave. If you take Hephaestus out of Sol, New Hai Phong ceases to exist. You think that you can run our system, and our facilities better than we can; our whole show? Fat chance. The Solarian Navy couldn’t win a fight against the smallest nation in the Galaxy, do you really think they can take on one of its strongest corporations, the corporation that made the ships they’ll try and fight us with? I don’t think so. We’re staying on New Hai Phong, in fact, we’re going to be building more factories there soon. We don’t hate Sol, many of our brightest people are from Sol, I’m Solarian, but we aren’t going nowhere, and we aren’t paying no fee keep what is ours either. You can have the 51% of our things in Sol, but mark my words, every star in the spur will burn out before we leave NHP or pay to keep ahold of the planet we built.” This decree from Hephaestus has been met with a loud outcry from New Hai Phong Senator Le Hanh Trang, who claimed the statement to be, “Nothing but another example of corporate threats and belligerence.” Elsewhere in Solarian Politics, Senator and Governor of the Sol System, Hendrik Strom invited Aeson to parley and negotiate with the Solarian Senate for his claims, saying that, “Aeson is a reasonable man, and like all reasonable people, things can be worked out with him through measured talk and discussion. I too am somewhat wary of Hephaestus leaving, if I am being honest. I’m not about to let some anti-corporate hysteria ruin one of the most important planets in Sol and let 1.28 billion people starve. I’ve already got a planet on fire in my own backyard, I don’t need one in the Middle Ring too. ” Strom has also released a list of talking points that may see Hephaestus keep its NHP possessions, along with no further action being taken against the corporation or any other SCC affiliate in Solarian Space for the time being. One such point was a call for all corporate facilities within Solarian space to fire all Tajaran employees and ban the hiring of new ones. He has also mentioned perhaps decriminalizing former NT employees moving out of Sol as part of these measures. In similar news today as well, the Republic of Elyra announced that it has intentions to enact further corporate restrictions on those operating in its own nation, with the Elyran capital press secretary stating that, “The Alliance certainly isn’t something we aspire to be, but their position on megacorporations holds some water. The assembly and Prime Minster are considering taking similar, if more reasonable measures in our country in the future for our increased security, if such is favorable with the Elyran people.”

SOLARIAN PROVISIONAL COUNCIL ANNOUNCES WIDESPREAD CORPORATE REFORMS Today, the Provisional Council for Solarian Defense released an official statement regarding the presence and operations of various megacorporations affiliated with the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate. This announcement has come amidst the turmoil that the Solarian Alliance has been experiencing since last month after a short war against the Republic of Biesel and its backers in the newly formed Stellar Corporate Conglomerate, Republic of Elyra, Frontier Alliance, and Izweski Hegemony. A subsequent series of mutinies in the Solarian navy has left many territories outside of Solarian control and in the hands of the mutineers many of which have asserted themselves as warlords. During this past month, territories still under control of the recognised Solarian Government, a provisional military council appointed by the Solarian legislative assembly, has seen a rapid increase in anti-corporate and anti-Biesellite sentiment along with increasing displeasure over the presence of alien races within the Solarian Alliance. The council, having stabilized their holdings for now, has taken the first step in what they have deemed, “The First Year of Solarian Reconstruction.” The statement itself, so-called the “Industrial Reclamation Mandate of 2463,” declared widespread nationalization measures that target the holdings of all corporations associated with the SCC and present the following main points as an ultimatum to the NanoTrasen Corporation, Hephaestus Industries, Idris Incorporated, Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals, and Zavodskoi Interstellar: “We, the right and just council appointed by the will of the Solarian people so mandate the following points: Establishment of the Solarian Corporate Authority, a government body whose duty it will be to operate nationalized corporate assets in Solarian space while overseeing and policing the actions of private corporations in Solarian space. A complete and total nationalization of all Sol Alliance based assets and facilities of the NanoTrasen Corporation with a direct transfer of ownership to the Solarian Corporate Authority and ejection of all NanoTrasen operations within Solarian Space. A nationalization of 51% of all other assets and facilities currently in ownership of Stellar Corporate Conglomerate affiliates within Solarian Space with a direct transfer of ownership to the Solarian Corporate Authority. 3a. An excuse from nationalization and ownership transfer at the cost of payment of the worth of 80% of all assets and facilities within Solarian Space and increased taxation. 3b. A partial nationalization of corporate assets and facilities with a payment of 80% of the worth of all Solarian-based assets and facilities in a given region where ownership wishes to be maintained along with increased taxation. An exclusion of nationalization to any and all corporate assets based in or registered to the Eridani Corporate Federation. A reduction in the numbers of all corporate armed vessels operating in Solarian Space to 2,500 armed vessels per corporation and restriction of size to sub-capital ships only. Failure to acquiesce to the listed mandates by the 10th of January, 2463, will result in the seizure of all corporate assets and facilities in Solarian space and an ejection of all business operations from the Solarian Alliance.” This measure has garnered a mostly positive reaction from the Solarian Senate, with many senators making statements of support to the reduction of corporate presences in Solarian Alliance, with private megacorporations being seen as threats to national security. Senator Le Hanh Trang of New Hai Phong was quoted saying, “If Miranda Trasen wants her republic, she can have it. We Solarians will take our livelihoods back from the corporations that have made a mess of our country and our lives. A new age in Sol is dawning, an age of power in the hands of the people instead of in the hands of those evil enough to exploit us!” A reaction from the targeted SCC affiliates is expected in the coming days, and will be reported on by the Sol Alliance News Network.

SITUATION CALMS! SOLARIAN FLEETS DISENGAGE! Solarian forces are withdrawing from the Republic of Biesel after the threats of war from the Coalition and Elyra. Fleets that had been noted as having altered their courses towards Tau Ceti have broken off, and those remaining in the system, such as the Thirty-Fifth Battlefleet, have departed on a return journey to the Core Worlds. As tensions de-escalate, our sources have told the Bugle that the Alliance has cut off most forms of contact with its Outer, and even some Middle Ring, worlds. Insiders in the Solarian navy have informed us that all fleets are being recalled back to defensive positions in the Core Worlds. It is unknown when control will be returned to the civilian government, or when a process to replace the late Michael Frost as Prime Minister will begin; it also appears the ongoing investigation into the Clandestine Incident has been classified and information on it is no longer publcly available, in conjunction with other movements to commit to secrecy documents and evidence surrounding the assassination of Michael Frost. We are no longer able to legally comment further. Republic officials and members of top military brass, most notably president Joseph Dorn, have each individually made note of their absences during the crisis. President Dorn, at a hastily assembled press conference, was quoted as saying, “The reality of the situation was that we came too close to another takeover - this time with no hope of recovery. NanoTrasen was kind enough to offer the folk working alongside me, and myself, safety - but in the haste of all this, we’ve hardly been able to keep the Republic informed of my status. I am well, and in the final days of my term I’ll ensure this good Republic sees those afflicted by the Alliance’ negligence, saved.” There is still no contact with the 58th or 112th fleet which have departed from their respective posts at Konyang and Valley Hale. Solarian representatives have declared a state of emergency within Konyang’s gravity well, making clear a sense of increasing urgency to have its defenses back in place. NTCC Odin AI “Bubble” has publicly reported a lowered alert level on the NTCC Odin. The resting alert level of the NTCC Odin is GREEN.

The Coalition and Elyra Threaten War! BREAKING ― Indicative of heightened tensions that have gripped the galaxy, the Coalition of Colonies has issued a dire warning directed at the Solarian Alliance. Roughly six hours ago, a secure transmission was beamed from the Scarab Fleets and from their flagship the King's Omen, relaying a message from Reilly Sianne and the Free League. The message was as follows, as repeated by Queen Iraiya, "Should the Alliance of Sovereign Solarian Nations continue to disrupt the galactic peace, and interfere with the lifeblood of the new colonial world, let it be known that there will be war the likes of which the Orion Spur has never before seen. Coalition fleets stand at the ready to intercept any Solarian aggression and guarantee the safety of the important trade routes of our lands. Make no mistake - we will not kowtow to Solarian hostilities." Sources within the Republic of Biesel's department of defense tell us that, since the reception of that message, they have established contact with members of the Coalition's high military command to better coordinate any joint exercises or maneuvers in preparation of Solarian reprisals. Reportedly, the amount of vessels that the Coalition Navy has formally mobilized are at a level unseen since the conclusion of the Interstellar War in 2287; most member states of the Coalition have contributed to a massive fleet that is currently being assembled as a response force. In conjunction with the threats of retaliation made by the Coalition, a similarly-worded transmission was sent from Perispolis in Elyra not long after. Prime Minister Rasheed Tatenda sternly condemned the Solarian movements against the Republic of Biesel and warned that the Serene Republic would take the necessary military measures to secure their borders and assist their long-time trading partner. The Bugle has learned that Minister of the Navy Daniyah Amari has ordered fleet movements in Elyran space, preparing them to jump into Tau Ceti if necessary. Solarian fleets presently maintain an encirclement of the Republic with more ships arriving by the hour; the Thirty-Fifth fleet has arrived in the outer ring of the Tau Ceti system and has occupied territory including the Romanovich Cloud, but has since halted their advance after the Elyran announcement. It is unknown if the Coalition threat is being treated seriously.

NANOTRASEN ATTACKED! 35th SOLARIAN BATTLEFLEET ENTERS TAU CETI! The NSS Aurora and NSS Upsilon have been targeted by two Solarian Interstellar Naval Intelligence shuttles that landed and began looking into the Clandestine Incident. After the death of multiple on the Upsilon, and one on the Aurora, both shuttles were intercepted by the NDV Icarus and destroyed in-flight when returning to the 35th battlefleet. Our sources within the Tau Ceti Foreign Legion have confirmed this action and teams have been dispatched to both the Aurora and Upsilon at this time to further secure the stations and assess the situation present. These actions undertaken by the NDV Icarus have been interpreted by Solarian authorities as an act of war from the Republic of Biesel, and transmissions have been relayed from the Jùfēng, the flagship of the 35th Battlefleet of the Solarian Navy, for all NanoTrasen and Biesellite vessels in the system of Tau Ceti to stand down, disarm, and comply with future Solarian commands as transmitted from the battlefleet and that any that do not comply will be “blasted back to 2451.” In a further response, the 35th Battlefleet has launched multiple vanguard actions into Tau Ceti tracked moving towards shipyards, defensive installations, orbital stations, and military vessels. In a brief statement, a transmission from the battlefleet has announced their actions as a “preventative effort,” made in order to “stabilise,” the region of Tau Ceti and “further protect solarian interests within the Tau Ceti system.” A national state of emergency has been declared throughout the republic, and the TCFL has announced that it will be mobilising its reserves along with all other personnel. President Dorn is expected to make a statement sometime within the next hour in regards to the situation, but as of now has instructed all Biesellite vessels to not comply with Solarian demands and disengage if possible. NanoTrasen’s Naval Command has issued a similar order as well. These jarring events have come in tandem with unconfirmed reports from the state-of-the-art artificial intelligence of the NTCC Odin, Bubble, of more large masses of Solarian-identified ships exiting warp travel on the outskirts of Biesellite territory from all sides. These fleets have yet to broadcast any signals and are refusing to answer transmissions both from NanoTrasen and Biesellite authorities in the region, but, according to our sources they are not advancing and are remaining in place. They have intercepted and escorted Biesellite reconnaissance craft away from their vicinity without firing upon them, only issuing transmissions for non-Solarian vessels to keep their distance. This situation is rapidly changing and we at the Bugle will be sure to keep you updated in this tense time. It is recommended that those living in densely populated areas amass a supply of food and water that will last them approximately two weeks along with a hololink compatible radio. The Biesellite Emergency Management Bureau has commented that they will begin coordinating efforts to supply citizens with essentials in the event that supplies are endangered by this emergency. More to follow.

Operation ‘Violet Dawn’ Unveiled! Mass Unrest in the Solarian Alliance! BREAKING ― Chaos in the Solarian Alliance today reverberates across the galaxy thanks to an anonymous whistleblower, who has leaked the classified documents surrounding the calamity on Mars. A dossier provided to the Bugle by this whistleblower via a secure channel blames a secret research team identified as the 'Violet Task Force' for the source of the fires and phoron influx that has doomed more than 60% of Mars to uninhabitability and for causing the deaths of millions, prompting outcry on a galactic scale and total condemnation of the Solarian Alliance by several major powers. The whistleblower, who was previously the head researcher of the Violet Task Force, participated in a string of experiments that were a part of a classified Alliance operation known as 'Violet Dawn'. Their team of scientists and engineers were working to create a self-replicating version of phoron's crystalline structure in an attempt to solve the growing phoron crisis as the Alliance's economy faltered. Originally, their endeavors were considered a major success, as they were able to induce phoron crystals to properly replicate at an acceptable rate. But, as they attempted to refine their methods, things took a turn for the worse. After modifications to their equipment, they were able to indeed 'grow' more phoron, but the rate at which it did so as well as the stability of the resulting crystals became entirely uncontrollable. The phoron was able to pull atoms in the air to add to its mass at an alarming capacity, breaching containment and causing panic amongst the scientists. As the situation worsened, the horrific conflagration was an inevitable consequence, and the flash point for the fire sweeping across Mars has been confirmed as a laboratory in a Solarian black site hidden within Mars' south pole, which has now resulted in the near-total incineration of the southern hemisphere of the planet. When this dossier was made public, angry Solarian citizens took to the streets to protest among multiple worlds, including every major city on Earth, remaining Martian population centers, Venus, New Hai Phong, Silversun and even in the Eridani Federation. This mass civil unrest shows no signs of stopping as pressure on the Alliance government for answers has increased. A new, impromptu movement dubbed the 'Justice for Mars Coalition' has demanded that those responsible for the calamity be arrested and brought to trial and that Martian citizens be given reparation payments, amongst other things. The phrase "Remember Mars!" has been a consistent catchphrase amongst JMC attendees in several protests. Some protests have even turned violent, the most destructive of which seen in Detroit on Earth, Binyaria on Venus, and Sekhmet on Amon. The death toll for said riots has reached a combined total of 674 as of this report and multiple counties and municipalities are mobilizing even more law enforcement in an attempt to quell the outrage. Struggling cities pushed to their limit have requested military assistance from the Alliance government as police officers and riot cops have had their time off revoked for the foreseeable future. Various EPMC companies have deployed within both the Federation and the Alliance, however no information on the damages and casualties within Eridani have been released at present. The most raucous protest, seen in Detroit, has roiled the city over the last several hours. Businesses have been ransacked and looted, officers have been attacked and killed and the streets are awash with angry citizens. An activist, known as Jintari Volaria, has quickly gained popularity as a leader in the protests and a key figure in the JMC as a whole. At a recent gathering in Cadillac Square, she had this to say: "My fellow Solarians, we've suffered a tragic loss. My heart aches to think of it. Our own government, who we trusted, who we expected to keep us safe - keep our families safe, our lives running as they had promised - condemned millions of innocent people to death in the pursuit of greed. How many of you have family on Mars? How many of you have not heard back from them? And how many of you will have to bury them?! [Mars] has been devastated by this government ineptitude; they didn't tell us, they didn't warn us, and they didn't help us when we needed it the most! They left people to die down there. Who's to say it won't happen again? Who's to say there aren't more of these horrid experiments taking place right on our very doorsteps, in our cities, beneath our feet? How long before another catastrophe wreaks havoc on our lives? I don't intend to find out. We must hold those responsible accountable for their actions! Today, it was Mars, but tomorrow, it could be Earth! Remember Mars!" A request for comment was not returned by the Solarian Embassy in Mendell City.

Disaster on Mars! Witness reports and third-party testimony regarding the situation on Mars has painted an increasingly dim picture; despite attempts made by the Solarian government to quash any reporting on the state of Mars, the Bugle has learned from inside sources that a horrifying discovery has been made: a gargantuan, phoron-based conflagration has been burning for days at a Solarian black site near the southern pole of Mars. The intense fire has spread across and scarred wide swathes of the planet's southernmost areas, and it is currently estimated that multiple habitations, arcologies and cities south of Argyre have been rendered absolutely uninhabitable to any form of life. The southern ice cap has completely sublimated. Localized explosions caused by the overwhelming amount of airborne phoron particles have pockmarked the surface of Mars with deep craters, destroying critical infrastructure and communications equipment. The Martian capital of Olympus has been completely wiped off the face of the planet due to a combination of high-intensity combustion and near-total incineration. All that remains of Olympus are the charred ruins of buildings. A hitherto unforeseen level of contamination of phoron gas has poisoned vast quantities of the Martian atmosphere, reaching as far north so as to affect habitats such as Red Gaia, causing white-hot flash fires. Multiple cities have reported turbocharged fires breaking out near electrical equipment, and entire arcologies have lost power due to the serious damage inflicted on their electrical infrastructure. Contact with several population centers based around Mars' equator has been completely lost, and officials privately believe that the worst should be assumed. In addition, no Solarian government vessels have been assisting in the evacuation, and calls for aid have been ignored. All evacuations from the planet's surface have been carried out by independent third parties or by the Interstellar Aid Corps; various gangs have offered safe passage offworld for exorbitant fees, and thefts are of starships have been reported planetwide as civil law enforcement crumbles in the face of the ongoing calamity. Even ships from Eridani Private Military Contractors have arrived in certain places to escort citizens away - again, for a price. Experts speculate that the dead could reach staggering numbers well into the millions, and an official investigation into what has happened is still ongoing. No official death count has been released. Reports indicate that Jargon Federation starships have exited bluespace near Mars as well, dispatching shuttles to evacuate Federation citizens and broadcasting a warning that any non-citizen attempting to board will be repelled with lethal force. Several shootings have already happened as Skrellian ships are swarmed by displaced Martians and refugees looking for a way off the burning planet. The chaos on the ground is mirrored by chaos in space, as several EPMC shuttles have recently been engaged by larger ships in the Martian orbit, shuttles supposedly stolen by throngs of 'violent refugees'. The thoughts and prayers of the Bugle newsroom staff are with our Martian friends in their hour of need. Reporters are working around the clock to bring you, our viewers, the latest news regarding the investigation into this apocalyptic situation. Below is the overall view that we can discern from the situation.