Shenaanigans

I'll split this up into two chunks to answer! Other people have said it before and likely could give a more comprehensive summary of the holes, but in general I agree that, as much as I love Dominia as a concept, the lore behind its founding tends to stretch suspension of belief to its limits. For one, the way the timeline lines up puts the Lightning War a whole year before Unathi even had a rocket launch, and while I understand that the pirate band was supposedly made up of Unathi previously shuttled off world for trafficking it seems to toe the line of implausibility that they amassed enough power to form a pirate fleet (ships and weapons included) in only four years and then take over what was a very successful colony in such a clean sweep. Shifting the timeline around a bit to put Dominia's founding later into the Unathi's foray into space travel would come across as much more plausible in my eyes, but then that brings us to the next point of how the Empire managed to become a galactic power within only 25 years of existing in its present state. Sure the colony was chugging along well before the arrival of the Unathi, but the wiki seems to lack allusion to the fact that Empire is still very young in its current state. It should still be dealing with the struggle of forming a cohesive identity, chafing under its new rule and cast system, battling tensions between humans and the Unathi who now by default occupy the upper echelons of society. It needs... more flaws, is the way I would put it. But! As I mentioned a post earlier I would not want to step on any toes in the human lore team to try and make these big changes to what is primarily a human faction, so these are just my thoughts on how Dominia could be steered in a positive direction. As far as Dominian Unathi go, I'm a big fan of the Unathi dominated Houses that are already established in Dominian lore and think that characters from the setting are an interesting sidestep from Moghes born Unathi. The Tribunal is aligned with the Sk'akh faith in the same way that Catholics are to Protestants, similar at the core but with enough difference to create friction, and I know I personally like playing my Dominian Unathi's loathing for synthetics. Which is something a Moghes born might nod along to, but not share so vehemently. The two origins have similar enough beliefs that you won't stick out in the same way as an Aut'akh, but Dominia offers enough of a shift from the classical Unathi to give a bit more variety in character concepts as well as outlooks on life aboard the Aurora, and that variety is something I consider extremely helpful for encouraging interesting characters to be made. Hm. One thing that comes to my mind for Aut'akh is the possibility of seeing them interact with other species. Obviously they've had an extremely rough time trying to be recognized as legitimate within Unathi culture, but I think there's some potential for interesting dynamics with the other, more augment friendly species if the Aut'akh tried to reach out and spread their faith. Maybe they'd become a mixed species faction, or perhaps a friendly reception from one of the other races would earn Unathi ire and prompt some spicy inter-species conflict there. I would just personally love to see them get out of their rut, stuck in exile on New Gibson for the most part, and have some movement within the galactic stage. Right now they serve as an extremist splinter of the Unathi race, subverting much of the species' core values for those who want to play something really different while exploring that transhumanist sci-fi feel, and I feel like they have little chance of really exerting change on Unathi as a whole-- thus prompting my thought about them reaching out to find a foothold with other species. It's really just an idle thought that I had, though, since I'm not privy to what the direction of the Aut'akh is planned to be.

Hi I was the person whose organs all gave up on me after a face-full of plant'b'gone. Not super fun. Don't think anything short of teleporting to an operating table and having failing my liver and kidneys yanked out of my body would have save me. I'd be fine with having the straight up toxins removed from the list of scrubber possibilities, but from past experience dealing with people who got slammed with space drugs or alcohol made for some silly yet entertaining RP. As much as the announcement of a scrubber backsurge while playing medical is an "oh god" moment it does give the department some more to do, in the case of slight toxins, and won't generally derail a person's round for more than 10 minutes. Really just tweaking the toxicity of the reagents would be the best case scenario in my mind.

Lizard consular yessss. Consular in general is a very underplayed role and I love the idea of a Hegemony lad being brought in in light of the exciting new developments on Moghes. Lezakh as a character is always lots of fun to interact, with a unique personality that can be expected to react realistically to a variety of different situations, and in general his player seems like someone who would do a RP heavy role like consular more than justice so. +1! 2ish months is a very ambitious timeframe to go for a command whitelist, but given that you're currently only expressing interest in consular I think that one can gain enough experience to play it well in that time frame if their RP is up to snuff. My only question is if you see yourself trying out any other command roles in the near/far future. If so, which ones?

Having to be the one to point out errors or possibly deny a hopeful member wanting to play their character is never fun, but I feel that I have a good ability to give constructive feedback to those who need it and would be happy to assist people with questions about lore or character details both before and after they've posted an application. I've disagreed with others on creative aspects of a RP before and, from my experience, the best way to handle it is to be honest and open to hearing the other person's side of things. The end goal would be to settle on something we're both happy with that's brought a net gain to the lore. It mostly seems to be continuity/plausibility problems issues with Dominia's origins and their current stance as a powerful entity. Which I'm definitely not the first person to mention. Those more central points are already being worked on by people over on the human lore team though, as I've been hearing, so I wouldn't want to step on any toes and try to implement changes that are out of the scope of Unathi lore. I'm most interested in drawing more of a distinction between Moghes-native versus Dominian Unathi, so that Dominia can become a faction as detailed and unique as the Aut'akh or Grim Compact. It'd be disappointing, but I would still be interested! So long as I knew that the work was being done by someone else I'd be fine with keeping out of it to focus on the other things I mentioned in my application. Unathi lore has plenty of other nooks and crannies to work on. It's happened to me before. Really the way I've handled it is to take a step back and question how much of what they're saying is valid (are they giving specific reasons? has anyone else complained about this? what's the swear to suggestion ratio in that block of text?) and go from there. Maybe they're just angry, but bringing up valid points. Or maybe they're just trolling. I try to take any criticism in stride and see what I can do with it to improve, while keeping in mind that you can't please everyone. I really like aut'akh. Their concept, their place as a marginalized, fleeing faction, the interesting spin they put on classical Unathi religion-- it's all very cool and something I'm glad has been getting further detail. The only thing I would want to see is just... more news on them. I wasn't around for their initial unveiling and the formation of the Exile Fleet, but in the few months I've been here they haven't really had notable events or IC changes affecting the characters. Maybe when Moghes is done throwing another fit.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Shenaanigans. Why are you interested in applying for a Unathi Deputy position?: There was a reason why an Unathi whitelist was the first one I went for during my stay on the Aurora and it was simply because I just really enjoy Unathi as a species, with their lore playing a huge part in that. And when I get very interested in something, particularly relating to RP, my natural urge is to want to get involved with the development and maintaining of it. A position on the lore team is just about perfect for that, since it would allow me to help with keeping the lore vibrant and fresh as well as attract new people to the species in the same way that I was-- by presenting something that offers both a wealth of potential for fun character concepts and a dynamic world for current characters to interact with. What will you want to focus on if we take you on? Why?: As far as larger projects go, I've been feeling the call toward Dominian lore and would like to attempt tackling the discontent that a lot of members have with how it's structured. Particularly through exploring the differences between Empire-native versus Moghes-native Unathi. I feel that the Empire has some really great concepts to work with and serves as one of many interesting Unathi factions, so it saddens me that so many users seem to just... want it tossed. Naturally this would take some legwork to sort out what issues people have with it as well as coordination with the human lore team, so this is something I would want to take slowly and with plenty of care. Something more long-term. Otherwise, I quite enjoy filling out the cultural, day-to-day life type aspects of lore so adding usable details to things like food, entertainment, and courting (to name a few) would definitely interest me. I like coordinating events as well, to make sure that all parts of the lore feel like they're actively changing and responding to what's going on in the larger world. What is Unathi lore to you? What niche does it fill for our setting?: To me, Unathi fill a specific role that blends your stereotypical warrior culture with rigid codes of honor and faith that take them from just being a group of battle hungry lizards with sticks to an actual, unique culture. Their traditional way of life clashes heavily with the new, space-faring age and they are arguably the most splintered race, culturally, which contrasts with how multi-species sci-fi tends to be handled as Species Monolith #1 vs Species Monolith #2. They're a complex, tumultuous species that's still findings its place on the galactic stage and playing an Unathi gives massive amounts of room for varied character creation as well as faction conflict. Do you have examples of past commitments for creative works? (Hosting or playing in a DnD setting or otherwise proving you can devote time to the position): Roleplay has been a well loved hobby of mine for about 10 years now and through that time I've committed myself to practicing it through a wide variety of platforms. DnD is in fact one of them and I'm currently in multiple games, one of which that's been running consistently for a year and a half, so I do feel like my ability to commit to my chosen hobbies is very high. I've also been staff on a LOT of RPs, both moderating the OOC side of things as well as contributing to the planning of concepts, plotlines, and IC events, though I won't go much into detail with my contributions to those here. Sometimes our community can be very aggressive in response to lore developments; can you feel easily defeated by hostility towards your work?: It of course stings when something you pour your creativity and effort into gets shot down, so I won't say that I can brush that off no problem, but I've dealt with this sort of thing before in writing for RPs so it would not be anything new to me. I feel that I've built up a thicker skin to it over the years, and hey, criticism is how you improve. Additional Comments: I could dig up some of my past writing upon request, but the subject matter is pretty different from SS13.

That's fair. Though there's a learning curve to basically every department so I don't necessarily think that needing a question or two answered about something is necessarily a bad thing. I just enjoy that reading the sensor display takes a little bit of critical thinking, rather than straight out telling you what's wrong with a person, and think monitoring sensors is one of the simplest things in medical to learn how to do. More color is still fine! I would only point out that the UI already does use a green/orange/red system on pulse and oxygenation to tell you what's within the acceptable range.

I like the idea of adding some more color to the scan results to make identifying problem areas easier, as well as trimming down the empty space on the advanced scanner (because god you're right that scrolling through all of that is eye numbing sometimes), but I feel like the current UI for vitals is actually very simple if you have it explained to you. It already highlights pulse/BP/oxygenation in varying warning colors if they get outside a set range so you don't actually have to be versed in what's a healthy value. Though if you play medical for more than a round or two you'll very quickly memorize those healthy numbers from staring at the UI for so long.

It's possible that bags can spawn randomly, I think. But in the three rounds I played as a raider there was not a single bag to be found and, while I do like the "scrounge from what you've got and be creative" vibe raider has, not having something as simple as a bag to stuff your miscellaneous junk in is really more irritating than anything else. I really like the idea of outfits, too! Kind of sucks having to stick to the edgy space pirate costume you spawn in, especially if you're going for a gimmick that's counter to that.

Similarly to a lot of other people here, I agree with some of these proposed changes and disagree with others. Lock ordering weapons behind command authorization. Yes, do that. It'd go a long way in reducing the militia-like response you sometimes get from cargo, but still allow some fun if a command character comes by for authorization to get help in rounds where shit really hits the fan. Really security seems to depend on it sometimes to get access to lethals/ammo when there's no HoS or warden. Remove/whitelist Quartermaster. I'm not super into this one. I'm personally using the QM position right now to get my feet wet in a "command like" position so it'd suck to have that taken away or locked behind the same whitelist I'm not comfortable going for yet. HoP is also an often filled role, but they have much more in the way of people to oversee than other command roles, except captain of course, so having someone around whose focus is to make sure orders are being gotten out, bounties are being sorted, and materials are being sent out from mining is very useful in my opinion. Big agree that "unga bunga buy guns" is not a mindset to teach to players new to the HRP scene, but I feel that the prevalence of shitter QMs is being overstated a bit here. I have more time on mining than cargo though that's still let me run across a wide variety of QMs, most of which were just fine and reasonable while the capital S shitters more often than not got ahelped or given a stern talking to from the HoP when they tried some nonsense. The prevalence of LRP behavior in cargo seems, to me, no worse than what you see in many other departments and Doxx encapsulates pretty much all my thoughts on that in her first post. Remove KAs. Please no. Nerf them to be basically useless in atmosphere if necessary, but the thrill of getting a suped up KA from science (which happens rarely since you need both a staffed science department, materials, and time to wait for your order to be made) to make mining not so tedious would be a really terrible thing to lose. Ahelp ahelp ahelp. Yes, agree, we should absolutely encourage a shift in culture (over the whole server, in my opinion) where powergaming, LRP behavior is met with reporting it to staff and refusing to participate in doing the same. It's easy to get swept up in it when the whole department is spear toting and raring to go, but if it's nipped at the very start when someone starts slapping together enough plasteel swords for the whole department you can avoid things getting to that point. I'd be all for staff becoming stricter on this sort of thing and if that starts in cargo for right now that's alright.

I would be fine with either the 2-2-2 spread or 2 surgeons/4 other option. Though honestly maybe make that only 3 other (nurse/doctor/other titles) because medical would have a whopping total of 12 slots all told in either of those cases and that's just... a lot of people jostling for room in the GTR. I'm leaning toward the latter because, as far as round to round play goes, you really don't see much distinction in what nurses do versus what MDs do even though "realistically" they're very separate jobs. So splitting them up into clearly defined slots seems unnecessary.

I do think this could contribute to the game by adding a little extra bit of personalization, and to echo what others said it would be a boon for people who like to tab out when things are quiet. Overload when in an area with a lot of people could definitely be a problem but if it's limited to only within a few tiles and can be switched off you get around that problem pretty easily. Honestly I just think it's a cute feature idea, too.

Yeah realistically the average person is going to finish their Bachelor's at ~22 and then take within the range of 5-8 years (just based on the average time it takes to gain a PhD in today's world) to get their doctorate so that puts you at a youngest of 27 before you would be qualified. Assuming you oomy zoomy your PhD. And go right from school to working on a prestigious research station rather than taking a post-doc position somewhere else to get a little more experience.

Echoing a lot of what's been said-- a reduction to how quickly liver necrosis sets in after exposure to toxins and a buff to the lethality of guns/shrapnel would be nice. I do like that there's a specific point at which blood loss starts to harm the brain, so I wouldn't propose totally taking that out just to make donating blood less dangerous, but perhaps making it slight so long as you don't dip far below that threshold? More of an exponential effect as you lose blood oxygenation.

Gotcha! Think I just misunderstood how much of those uber-conservative practices had been continued into modern day, but I can easily tweak that to be her only losing the land.

BYOND Key: Shenaanigans Character Names: Lusula Kazhkz, Sreznai Guwan, Nasrin Knezevic, Tae Su-Yeongseon, Sloane Goldhirsch Species you are applying to play: Tajara What color do you plan on making your first alien character: Orange Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes! Why do you wish to play this specific race: I honestly wasn't so into the Tajara race when I first joined the server and thought for sure that a Skrell whitelist would be the next one I'd apply for, but recently I've become more interested in the species now that their constant civil war is over. Complicated war politics isn't really my thing, but I can get behind the concept of a race that's been deeply divided by two horrendously bloody civil wars and is now trying to recover and find their footing among the space faring age. The long wars still play a crucial part in the backstory of any living Tajara, though now without consuming their entire being, and I enjoy the prospect of exploring the conflict between different factions as well as how peacetime will now play out in a race that's been locked in constant war for so long. Also, cat race. I cannot deny that that I'm a sucker for cat races. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: The most obvious aspect of what sets Tajara and humans apart is their physical appearance and biology. They are covered in fur, making them much more suited to the cold climate of their home planet, with claws, tails, extended sleep-wake cycles, and the ability to see better in the dark than any other race. The differences go much deeper than just the physical, though, as I consider the Tajara's most unique aspect to be how deeply the concept of ruling by blood is ingrained in their society and how this concept has shaped their culture and values. Tension between the ruling class and the peasantry was what sparked the explosive first civil war and the sense of community the common Tajara find with their fellow working class, which bleeds into their religion and traditional family values, is something no one outside of their species can really understand. Character Name: Valeriya Samsara Please provide a short backstory for this character: (This one isn't short either) Brought into the world in 2424 (otherwise known as 3582 in the more sensible Adhomian calendar), Valeriya was born the youngest of seven children to the Samsara line: a noble house that claimed relation all the way back to the Incarnates of old Adhomai. She was Njarir’Akhran in every sense of the word with a luxurious and happy life in the upper echelons of Tajaran society laid at her feet, until the Revolution came and the betrayal of the Hadii shattered that all to pieces. She was only a child when her family's manor was attacked by Rebel forces and she and her family were forced to flee from their lands, leaving her father and two of her siblings behind to the Rebels as they did their best to disappear. It was a lucky escape, and for a time Valeriya's remaining family were safe in hiding while the chaos of the Revolution continued to rage. Until they were found. The Samsara were discovered, and they were captured. Valeriya, her mother, and four of her siblings went into the Rebel controlled prison-- only she came out. Valeriya would have soon followed her family into Messa's arms, but as luck would have it the Revolution abruptly came to a halt before it came her turn and the newly formed People's Republic declared that the noble prisoners be released. She, still only a child, was passed into the custody of a minor noble family who had once been friends to the Samsara and the years between the first and second Civil Wars blurred by in what was only a step away from outright hiding. It was not safe for her to be out, where her vivid ginger fur marked her heritage as clear as the twin suns, so Valeriya's world was a small, lonely thing throughout the rest of her childhood. Throughout it all she nursed her hate-- hate for the traitorous Hadii who had caused her to lose everything. Once finished with her primary schooling, Valeriya chose to attend the Kaltir Law Academy so she could learn more of how to rule and manage an estate when she one day reclaimed such a thing for her family's name. Her ears were always pricked for any whisper of the nobles moving to reclaim their rightful place on Adhomai, so when the New Kingdom began to take shape she was quick to bid her guardians goodbye, gather together what meager possessions she could call her own, and leave to join this new resistance against the Republic. Valeriya, like many other loyal Njarir’Akhran, was given a small piece of land upon arrival which she threw herself into managing. Available workers were limited, so she took to working the fields and ladening carts bound for the front lines as much as she managed the ruling of her estate, doing what was necessary to support the fight against the Republic. Eventually the end of the second war came and, for her, it quickly stopped becoming a time for rejoicing. Instead of peace to continue tending her new land and rebuilding her family’s legacy, Valeriya was faced with a decree that the land she had poured her efforts into would be handed over to a war hero from the among the Kingdom. She was outraged, furious at being pushed aside so easily, but the decree had been made and, with it, all she had worked for since defecting went up in smoke. She could have petitioned (no, groveled) for some smaller tract of land that had gone unclaimed, or perhaps sought to wed one of the Kingdom's other nobles, but in the end she chose to leave it all behind. Again Valeriya picked up all she could call her own and, this time, left Adhomai entirely with her sights set on the stars. She was not of the lapdog Republic, but NanoTrasen was still all too eager to offer her a job far away in Tau Ceti where she could, again, start over and seek to rebuild the legacy of the Samsara. Gather funds, allies, new influence to one day leverage back upon the Kingdom that had slighted her-- perhaps a worthy husband to carry on the line that ended in her. The odds did not matter, she would force the shape of her future to be as she wished. Or else never return. What do you like about this character?: I like Valeriya’s character concept because she’s designed to be a very motivated and intense sort of person, always moving forward with her eyes set on a concrete end goal. She doesn’t stop, doesn’t hesitate, and has a definite path for herself in her mind which I think will be fun to RP her pursuing. She also has very strong opinions on the conflict on Adhomai (particularly a powerful hate for the PRA) which I know will motivate a lot of interesting interactions with other Tajaran characters, including how she is very much a proud noble who views herself as above the “lesser kinds” of Tajara. It’s definitely going to motivate some conflict and intense feelings both from and toward her. How would you rate your role-playing ability?: On my first whitelist app I went with a 7, so I’ll say 7.5 this time. I care a lot about developing complex characters and playing them faithfully and my knowledge of SS13 game mechanics is improving! Notes: Valeriya will be a cargo technician, later quartermaster once I play a few rounds to make sure I know what I’m doing. She is also an active observer of the S'rand'marr faith.

Do you have slots currently open? 0w0

Honestly I feel like if people are going to try and use meta strats to figure out what the round type is they have plenty of ways to do that that aren't as complicated as cross-referencing with the readied list and learning who enabled what antag types. That's super complicated. It's much easier to just look for the obvious clues inherent to each antag and do your valid hunting that way. I also feel that this change does impart a solid benefit. It could encourage more varied manifests if people see that everyone and their mother is playing sec this round and I know I would like to get a feel for what others are planning to play so I can adapt, without having to delay joining until after roundstart. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me why what people are readied up for should be kept a big secret.

I will come out and say that I personally didn't notice the correlation, but I don't play security much and also haven't been here for that long. I just feel that there's no harm in perhaps being a little over careful and making a small change.

I honestly don't see what the big issue would be to just remove the armband or otherwise tweak the uniform in a way that takes it that step away from "nazi adjacent." Like. Whether or not you personally think the uniform screams NAZI COSPLAY or not, the fact of the matter is someone was made uncomfortable by the resemblance and I see more people in here trying to cry "wHy ArE yOu CaLlINg Me A nAzI sUpPorTeR" than being sympathetic and saying "okay, let's make a tiny change to fix this". Seriously. The pushback to this very politely put concern is what's making this thread into an argument, not the concern itself. I think we can all agree that a new player coming in here and seeing a sec uniform as resembling a nazi uniform, and drawing conclusions about our server based on that, would be a bad thing. So just make the tweak.

I just like watching security accidentally shoot a tank with a laser and immediately turn to a pile of organs.

I am not particularly attached to malf as a game mode, and can personally say that I have had more annoyingly poor rounds of this type than anything good, but outright removing the mode still doesn't sit quite right with me. Mostly because of the fact that it has been established in the proposal that other game modes would follow and I really don't think that stripping out a bunch of them because some are considered prone to "bland" or "annoying" rounds is the path to take. Sometimes things are un-salvageable and better off removed, yes, but if multiple rounds are taken out doesn't that trend the server towards being more same-ish? You're removing base possibilities for round type and chucking out entirely coded modes before any attempt at constructive changes are made. I would also agree that this is in fact a "slippery slope". Because it has been stated that removing malf would likely be followed by removing other round types.

Getting rid of cloning would involve either retconning the whole technology out of existence (and most of us agree that retconning is to be avoided) or jumping through a lot of logical hoops to justify why it suddenly becomes unavailable/harder to access for NanoTrasen employees and both options are not great in my opinion. Honestly I don't feel like it's super necessary to get rid of the possibility of cloning at all. On high mortality rate rounds people typically aren't getting cloned anyway, because medical is one of the top departments to quickly become a warzone where nothing gets done on code red if you even had the right staff to do it in the first place, and it just means that your character is now permanently dead if you get unlucky on a canon round. RP on the Aurora isn't typically meant to be high stakes, "your character could permanently die at any time" in my experience here so far, so I don't quite get the reasoning for making death suddenly permanent in a highly futuristic setting. Yes it is harder to die now that brainmed is being implemented but is it necessary to take away the only method of undoing death to compensate?

I reaaaaaally love the concept behind this. I do enjoy cult, but it's hard to break out of the same-y gimmick types with how "murder death" focused the mode itself is and so the concept of a gradual, madness based system like this is something I can definitely get behind. Very lovecraftian, darkest dungeon-esque horror.