Omicega

BYOND Key: Omicega Game ID: cgl-cxgX and the official Relay discord Player Byond Key/Character name: ImmortalRedshirt Staff involved: Alberyk -- I contacted him about the Relay issue Yonnimer -- contacted me on Discord about one issue PersephoneQ -- provided some logs for the complaint at my request Reason for complaint: I'm going to lead off this complaint with clarification that I myself am not LGBTQ+ or anything of the sort, really. I'm spearheading the complaint not due to any personal offence of that nature, but out of outrage that Aurora lore which I had even a tangential impact on is being weaponised like this to introduce sensitive IRL issues into the roleplay environment. ImmortalRedshirt's Plutonian character made offhanded comments about an IRL Ukrainian genocide, the Holodomor, which was brought up by another player/character in the Relay Discord. I took strong offense to the IC justification of such a recent historical event and brought it to Alberyk immediately, and to my knowledge he handled it with a strike. This already had my blood up regarding this character and how their player handles them, but the most recent round had their exploitables crop up as something for the antagonists to base their gimmick around. The exploitables make reference to the historical Article 121, an anti-homosexuality law in the Soviet Union beginning in the Stalin era. To the best of my knowledge, the intent of the exploitables seems to be to perpetuate IC transphobia on behalf of the fictional Plutonian government, including deadnaming and misgendering (disclaimer: I really am not totally up to speed with the exact terminology here, but I think that's what it's called) the character in question and referring to their gender identity as 'bourgeoise decadence'. At least one player cryoed out of the round due to this narrative being the focus, from what I hear. I don't know why the burglars went with this as the focus for their round, but I am pointing the finger squarely at these exploitables for essentially opening the door for it. To cut a long story short, I am thoroughly uncomfortable and downright offended that Aurora lore is being taken forwards as headcanon to push transphobic and hateful narratives through into the server gameplay and roleplay environment. I know exploitables in particular are not meant to be entirely canon, hence why they can be quite wacky, but I think this is a bridge too far and I want to appeal for further action to be taken. I'm trying not to turn this into a novel, but I think this is a reasonable summary of what happened, and I'd appeal for anyone else involved either in the Relay conversation or in the round I'm referencing to make their thoughts known as well. I want to also make it clear that this isn't a character complaint, this is a player complaint. I am not offended specifically at the character Emiliya Novikova and how they're portrayed in game -- I am upset at the player themselves for pushing this to begin with, using the 'character' as a vehicle to insert these topics into the Aurora environment. I believe this is a case of strong OOC political views being injected wholesale into the IC environment, and done in such a way that it's making people violently uncomfortable. Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? I contacted staff about the Relay incident right when it first happened. The in-round incident was something I didn't even know was a problem until Yonnimer contacted me about it. I don't know specifically what action was taken against the player beyond seeing a Relay strike issued by Alberyk or MattAtlas. I imagine they might have also been told to change their exploitables by now, too, but as I said I'm not satisfied with that being the only resolution here. Approximate Date/Time: 17:00 GMT on 05 Feb 2022 Evidence/logs/etc:

I imagine this can easily be tweaked by just upping the amount of nutrition per unit light mode that a Diona can absorb, or something. I haven't looked at the code, but it sounds as if it's just a numerical change waiting to happen. Worries about Diona aside, I can't support this enough. I think it looks much better, and lays the groundwork for an atmosphere that isn't just "Source engine game on fullbright".

I've played on and off with Granodd for a while now, both before my hiatus through the tail end of 2021 and before it. It was obvious from the start that they were a strong roleplayer when they first walked Nira into medical, and they've only gotten better since then. I'll leave the specific questioning to people better than I am at picking Tajara backstories apart for lore accuracy, but there's no doubt in my mind that they'll be an asset to the whitelist when they get it. +1

This. I don't know if I'd support this at all were this not the case, but even in my time here on Aurora I've seen at least one instance where a captain joined out of nowhere for an event round, had only a vague idea what was going on, was controversial in their decision-making (or, again, was just totally out of the mindset and lore context for the canon event), and then disappeared back into thin air after sniping the slot. The period to be eligible for removal is a full year, too. I don't see how anyone can seriously suggest that that's too short a timeframe to have it removed. It takes a week at most to get it back, and you can play command just the same as before during the trial period itself too.

I realise re-reading this that it looks a bit like I was complaining about the autopsy thing. I actually really liked that, just as a note -- it wasn't an issue at all. It made me hopeful to see how you'd continue from there, rather than pessimistic!

Karl Voigt is an excellent character played by an equally excellent player. Please get the whitelist so you can take him above and beyond on the NBT! From what I've seen of your RD so far, as well, they've been an exemplary head of their department and member of station command +1

Hi, I play IRU-Joyeuse and I've had a few rounds with you now. I wouldn't really class the investigator role as a 'play to win' role, so I'm not gonna touch in your competence when it comes to that aspect of HOS play. What I am going to say, though, is that from the first interaction we had (you stonewalling me to stop me, an IPC, from conducting an autopsy on another Dominian), I was curious to see whether you'd be able to play the anti-positronic angle in a way that didn't feel like getting softcore griefed by my department head. A lot of Dominian HOSes tend to just gloss over it or ignore it entirely, at least from my point of view. I think I've had three or four full or partial rounds under you now and I can confidently say you're a HoS I personally enjoy seeing on the manifest. None of the rounds have been mega chaotic, but I think it's clear you have a grasp on what you're doing. I thought your communication was fine, I didn't feel sidelined or overlooked on an OOC level, and I definitely saw you giving antags a ton of leeway ICly even when OOCly it was obvious who the bad guy was. You definitely missed a few messages here or there, but I don't think it was anything unsalvageable. A lot of your negative feedback seems to be coming from louder roundtypes, though, which I don't think I've been able to play with you on yet. You can improve on your communication and situational awareness for sure, I think, but as far as your roleplay ability and willingness to play in good faith with antags go, I think you're already hitting the mark. I'll give you the +1 based on what I've seen. Good luck!

In all honesty, I've always preferred Bay's system over ours for a variety of reasons. Their language code is very similar at a baseline level, but here Basic is forced to take up one of our three language slots, whereas on Bay you can pick whatever three languages you want, and if you didn't pick ZAC (their version of Basic) as a member of the ship crew it just gets added on later. The average Bay human gets an extra language over their Aurora counterpart on account of that. Furthermore, the partial understanding code is baked into every Bay language, human or not, whereas here it's entirely binary whether you understand something or not, with the exception of a couple of alien languages having some mutual intelligibility. A full overhaul would be welcome, but even plugging partial understanding in and beginning to work it through all our existing languages would allow for more creativity here, IMO.

I think passion is a 'danger word' used by people who get angry easily to excuse flying off the handle at short notice. I've used it in that capacity myself in the past. You go out of your way to highlight your passion/temper in your app, which is a good thing insofar as at least you're not either ignorant of it or trying to hide it. However, I have personal experience of your 'passion' being levelled at me both in the form of passive-aggressive OOC sniping in-game, and then again in the Relay discord to the point where you wound up being struck for it by Matt. I know you're conflict averse, to boot, and while I respect your right to dip out of bad or stressful rounds at a moment's notice when it comes to gameplay, I don't think it reflects well on your capacity to handle the same sorts of scenarios in an administrative capacity. I would personally feel immensely uncomfortable at the idea of you handling any ticket I might be involved in. I don't feel comfortable interacting with you outside of a wholly IC capacity as it is, which I think you know already. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who feels like this and I'm not presuming to speak for anyone else here, but I wouldn't describe you as approachable or amicable when your viewpoints are challenged -- more so quick to lose your temper and slow to move past it, and I would question your ability to look past your temper in the heat of the moment when handling a flurry of tickets. The one part of moderation duties I think you'd do well in is when handling newer players, because I think you're at the very least a capable mentor when it comes to new players. If Aurora had a mentor position, I'd say you were a shoe-in -- but to me, the positives I believe you'd show in that capacity don't outweigh your fiery and at times venomous attitude I see from you.

BYOND Key: Omicega Discord Username: Omi#7267 Character Name: Suraya Al-Zahrani Item Names: velvet dice bag / blue adhomian die / green adhomian die Item Function(s): The velvet dice bag is a reskinned Adhomian dice bag, nothing fancy about it in terms of function. The blue and green Adhomian dice have a weighting to them, which can be toggled on and off. Unweighted, they're all fair dice; when weighted, the blue dice roll 1s a full 30% of the time, and the green dice roll 6s 30% of the time. Weighting or unweighting the dice shows a suspicious little emote in chat. Item Description: velvet dice bag : "A deep purple dice bag fashioned from Adhomian velvet, with two little drawstrings to tighten the neck closed." blue adhomian die: "A blue-and-gold wooden die with six sides, beautifully carved and delicately painted. The single dot on the number one side is, on closer inspection, a miniature image of the god Rredouane." green adhomian die: "A green-and-silver wooden die with six sides, beautifully carved and delicately painted. The single dot on the number one side is, on closer inspection, a miniature image of the god Rredouane." Why is your character bringing this item to work?: Suraya is a bit of a sleazy fast-talker -- she's always quick to haggle, she worked in a casino before coming to the Aurora, and gambling (primarily online, on the extranet) is one of her biggest hobbies. It's not uncommon for the crew to bring recreational items on board as it is, especially when it comes to Tajara and dice bags. How did your character obtain this item?: She brought them with her from Crevus when she came to Tau Ceti. It was gifted to her by a clever friend/associate who worked alongside her in the Minharrzka's Heart casino. What value does this item have to your character, and what story does it tell?: This is sort of re-treading ground here, but the dice and their associated bag are a memento of Suraya's time in Crevus, her home city. The corporate atmosphere of Tau Ceti is at times a world away from the omnipresent vice and decadence of Crevus itself, and having a set of tricky dice like these lets Suraya show off a bit of her background without simply narrating her backstory to anyone stuck listening. Their origin shines a bit of light on her own past association with the J'Shar crime family, and having loaded dice at all is a pretty pointed indicator that Suraya herself is a little bit disreputable and mischievous. Sprites: Additional Comments: Thanks to @MattAtlas for discussing the concept with me in detail and giving me some minor pointers on the code! The bag sprite is something I bashed together by myself; the dice sprites are edited versions of the basic d6 sprite that already exists. All the code for the functionality mentioned above is tested and working, as near as I can tell. suraya_dice.dmi

See title. According to the current wiki chart, surgeons can't repair or basically in any way interact with a patient's prosthetic organs. It is so immensely stupid to have to headhunt a roboticist to smear nanopaste on these things -- robotics doesn't even have an official surgery theatre for operating on organic patients, either, since their only sterile room is specifically labelled as a cyborgification bay. You cannot tell me with a straight face that qualified surgeons in the twenty-fifth century aren't in any way trained in handling mechanical organs installed into organic personnel; not in an era where this kind of augmentation is commonplace. If anything, it's robotics that has way too wide of a scope compared to any mechanical job, now, since apparently every roboticist can (and should?) have a skillset ranging from constructing full-on exosuits, working with integrated circuitry, and then sticking their hands inside someone's chest cavity to work with mechanical organs. I really don't think it's out of the scope of acceptability to allow surgeons to work with mechanical lungs, hearts etc. in addition to what they currently do.

I'm pretty impressed with Mahara now that I've had more of a chance to interact with her. I'd like to get the chance to see you in a busier round, but in all honesty I don't play much medical, so it's not surprising that I haven't been able to. What I have seen, though, is a cool character who exerts her authority in a realistic and overall positive manner, and I've enjoyed my rounds with her. You already had my support, but bumping into your character more directly only helps solidify it. I'd like to see her as a CMO going into the long term!

Hello, I played security in the round in question and I am visible in the clips above. I'm going to keep my contribution somewhat brief, since I largely agree with the summings-up given above. That said, I disagree fundamentally on a number of issues here: You can see in the clip that Cybs is being lit up by two weapons simultaneously right from the beginning. I don't really buy that this was an aim intent issue, since only one person admitted to an aim intent oopsie here, so at least one other person was full sending it from the moment they sprinted on-screen. The rifle drop thing is so obviously painshock that I cannot believe anyone with any experience in security (which Peppermint has in spades) would believe it was an intentional attempt at surrender, false or otherwise. Personally, I'd expect to see someone go prone or type something more so than just dropping their weapon. On almost the same frame as Cybs picks up the weapon again after being forced to drop it, he's being drilled with bullets and lasers again. It's either some pretty quick target-switching, or they were advancing towards him with intent to keep shooting someone on the ground anyway, once they made sure the rest of us were out of the picture. Executing downed combatants is something I don't think I've ever seen going unpunished outside of extremely niche scenarios on Aurora, and while I didn't see the execution in question I'm pretty confused as to why this case is any different, considering it very much seems to have happened. On top of that, I just have a couple more things to say even in the brief time this complaint has been up. I find Peppermint's defensive and at times passive-aggressive attitude when putting her points forward here pretty uncalled for, even as someone only peripherally involved in this whole thing. I also find a lot of the justification for this to be skirting the main issue at hand of an execution right then and there at the scene. I don't think anyone was asking for a retelling of events here -- if you think it was justified, that's all you had to say, and in a far more neutral tone than you're putting your points across so far. It's like you're trying to provoke people into disagreeing with you, and I personally think the way in which you're defending your POV in this complaint should be taken into account. As far as I'm concerned, I'm amazed this made it past ahelps during the round itself, because to me it seems pretty open and shut when you have antags deleting security and putting them straight into dchat when the other 99% of the time, medical is at least allowed to get a word in edgeways. If these kinds of executions are in fact allowed on security or the antag's part, then I'll certainly be keeping that in mind going forwards with my own gameplay. The rest of this round seemed from my POV to be your typical standard merc round bullshit, complete with aim intent bugging everything out into a firefight way quicker than anticipated, but since the only issue that's really being debated here is whether or not a merc was justified in executing a security officer, then all I can say is that I don't see how it's up for debate at all. I myself have been bwoinked and had to open a staff complaint for a far less egregious issue -- this is even worse than the thing I was initially punished for, but somehow when staff are involved on both sides instead of just one it has to go to the forums for further review.

I meant to check in a couple days earlier about this, but kept having it slip my mind. Following Kaizr's reply here and a brief exchange on Discord I'm satisfied that a large part of my concerns, at least, was just down to miscommunication and misunderstanding rather than anything I'd actually want to stick against them. With those aside I don't see any reason why they shouldn't get their hands on a trial. +1 and good luck!

YD's commitment to a high level of roleplay is instantly recognisable when you bump into his characters in game. Even though I only saw him around towards the tail end of his lifespan on the Aurora, Locke remains one of my favourite IPC characters I've ever run into. I don't think he'll have any issues translating that to command level positions. It's an easy +1 from me, for what it's worth. He's being cynical about it, but it is a stupid question that more often than not gets meaningless answers. Everyone else treats it as a speedbump, and frankly put at least his answer is more interesting than most others. Take a quick glance through old species apps or whitelist apps and tell me how many people actually put any thought into the question and don't essentially dress up saying "about seven or eight out of ten" because they're too timid to self-criticise too harshly but also too afraid of putting a big number on their score and looking arrogant. Let's not pretend like this question is the lynchpin of anyone else's app, and it feels wrong to tear into someone for providing an alternative -- if cynical and harsh -- answer to it, when everyone else just drops a glorified "8/10 I think" and moves on.

I tried rewording bits of the app, cutting bits out, editing the tail end of the questionnaire into the post and nothing worked, so I'm just defaulting to the Pastebin. Sorry for the inconvenience, but the forum literally will not let me post the app without butchering it and I can't even tell which parts it's rejecting.

BYOND Key: Omicega Character Names: Alicia Parker -- Security Guard IRU-Joyeuse -- Investigator Yingmei -- Bartender There are more, but these are probably my three best known (right now, anyway). Species you are applying to play: Tajara What color do you plan on making your first alien character: A silvery-white M'sai. Have you read our lore section's page on this species? I have read most of them. There is a lot of relevant lore, so I'm not gonna say I've read all of them. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. The forums keep giving me the stupid error 500 post filter thing that's all over the Aurora Discord as a complaint people are having. I'm going to just try dropping a Pastebin here containing the rest of the app and see if that works because after wrestling with it and deleting bits of the message for like an hour now I'm sick of this: https://pastebin.com/wDzSwGDf

I'm just going to preface this by saying that I've had good interactions with at least one of Kaizr's characters -- Adriana -- but that I'm concerned how some of their recent gameplay habits might factor into a command position. I have two major complaints to level here, although unfortunately I didn't have the forethought to actually document the more egregious one. Your IPC paramedic backchats and snipes at security in the middle of ongoing tense IC events, which honestly struck me as a little odd. I was informed it didn't actually break any rules, but it still raises a question for me whether that's an accurate depiction of the paramedic character you want to play or whether it's OOC thoughts on the scenario shining through. I'll leave my deeper thoughts on the character to one side and focus mainly on that issue, because it left a negative impression as a whole that only compounds my general view. The second issue is the one I wish I'd documented more. I'm not gonna break it down into excruciating detail, but I know that on a burglar round yesterday where you were effectively cornered by security you dipped into LOOC to explain that you didn't have much time left/had to go soon (I forget the exact wording) in the middle of being told to surrender/disarm et cetera, then used the break in IC interaction to abruptly jaunt through into an adjacent room and start going gamer mode with every bit of weaponry you had. I know for a fact you stuck around until the end of the round, too, because you never dropped off the Who list and you called the crew transfer complete with some OOC chatter as the shuttle docked, so the question that was always in the back of my mind is why exactly we had the LOOC break at all, and whether it was for any purpose other than to momentarily hit a pause button so you could take up the round again on your own terms to collect frags. I hope you can understand why I have some concerns here about how the approach to gameplay you're conveying to me in recent rounds might not translate to command play that's enjoyable for other people one way or another, considering that by and large I view those roles as being responsible for the enjoyment of the station/playerbase as a whole, not just the individual's own experience.

I made the ahelp that spawned this complaint. I'm going to keep my contribution here brief, blunt, and to the point. I am aware that the player of the cyborg in question has at least one OOC friend in security who plays investigations. I hadn't really been playing much at all for a solid month prior to coming back to Aurora again maybe two weeks ago, but even so it was pretty clear to me that this relationship was in place, from observations I made both in-game and elsewhere. I understand that FROST had probably become accustomed to helping their security pals out without specifically being asked to do so, as well as extending this behaviour elsewhere across the station. Frankly put, I neither wanted nor asked for any help in investigations in the round in question. When I actually manage to win a hotly-contested job roll (seriously, try it) I'd like to actually be able to perform the job in question without feeling shut out by an established player with a lot of time on their hands rolling the same job constantly round-the-clock, this time accompanied their cyborg friend 'just trying to help' and with both of them looking over my shoulder the whole time, hovering in place while I try to figure out the ins and outs of a job that's new to me. It's a behaviour pattern I noticed before, hence why I mentioned it in the ahelp, but that I never really had grounds to address until it affected me directly. I appreciate that other people in this friend are happy to have help offered to them by this cyborg in particular. Unfortunately, any attempt to help me out specifically came across very much as almost cliquey job monopolisation, and I wasn't really in the mood to gently clarify this given the insistence with which every other party involved approached it. I hope this provides some context to the decision-making behind the ahelp in the first place. If I could have expanded the ahelp to cover the broader issue, I would, but I suspect a large portion of my complaints are just player-based without specifically venturing into areas that infringe rules. Having a research cyborg flit around everywhere I went because it was laser-focused on a security issue, though, pushed my buttons enough that I threw it up to staff for them to figure out.

I'm going to jump on the train while it's still in the station and also add that my thoughts from Boggle's application for synth maintainer apply broadly here as well. He easily has my support.

All the questions I'd have wanted to ask have more than been covered already, but I wanted to echo what people have said already about your answers. I'm a fan of essentially every answer you've given, both regarding where you'd like to take IPCs and especially on your views regarding more Alien-series-esque 'biosynthetics'. I don't think your lack of experience should be held against you either, personally -- you've already mentioned you're more than willing to (correctly, IMO) defer to your more experienced deputies where appropriate, which I think is definitely the right move here. I particularly like how you're focusing not just on the more nebulous lore side of things, but also how you can make mechanical improvements to the in-game IPC experience, as well as how any new or improved-upon lore concepts will translate to the in-game side of things as well.

I meant to get around to replying to this a while ago, but it's taken the 'last chance to give feedback!' post to push me into action. I wasn't really sure how I'd go about putting it all into words, either, and some of it has been said already, but better to speak now than forever keep quiet, right? Interacting with you in any capacity whatsoever has steadily become more and more unpleasant over the past months since I first joined Aurora. I'm not going to speculate as to the hows and whys, but to me it speaks volumes that you can't even keep a lid on the more abrasive aspects of your personality long enough to coast through your application thread cleanly. Your replies to Nienna are more than a little brusque and dismissive, which mirrors my recent experiences regarding your overall attitude both in-game and out of it. Frankly, for me this overrides basically anything else I'd be worried about or interested in regarding your application -- you could have Nobel-prize winning ideas and themes up your sleeve and I still wouldn't be interested if you can't put them across even halfway neutrally. I have no doubt that you're passionate about IPC development, and I have no doubts about your ability to write and develop IPC lore in a coherent manner of sufficient quality from this point onwards if you get the position. I would, however, prefer not to work with you compared to the other two applicants currently outstanding. Like I said regarding myself in my own lore app, 'passionate' gets used as a buzzword for people to cloak almost aggressive behaviour behind at times, so I'm going to take that adjective with a grain of salt.

I'm not a fan of this at all, having seen both the previews and how it looks in the actual game itself on Baystation. Thin characters look especially weird, but even the height variations end up making characters look weirdly stretched or squished.

I made an effort to address this in my reply to the first question as it stands, but I’m happy to expand on this and reiterate some of it to potentially make it clearer. Like I said, I’m interested in writing lore that isn’t just ‘good writing’ in a vacuum but that actively offers something to engage players and actively works towards selling them something worth building a character around. Some of our existing lore already falls into that trap (Himeo is an example I’d point to), I feel, and this is something I feel I put a particular emphasis on avoiding in my own writing. I want to create lore that will appeal to players rather than just being interesting to write in and of itself -- I like to focus more on the cultural and societal angles of location lore, for example, rather than drier and less engaging minutiae like historical, governmental, and geographical lore tends to fall into. That isn’t to say that I think these parts of location lore in particular aren’t important, though -- it’s more that I think it’s very easy to get carried away expanding on these in lieu of genuine attention-grabbing USPs that can inspire unique characters. Given that I’m coming into this application process already aware of this issue (or at least what I see as an issue), I think that’s definitely something I can offer from a purely mechanical writing standpoint -- an intention to write lore that looks to contribute to the in-game roleplay environment first and foremost, ideally by inspiring characters that represent the lore directly. There are reasons I think things like Eridanian dregs overshadowed Venusian Jintarians, for example, and why Dominian nobles have overshadowed Lunarian 'new money' characters despite both of these comparisons containing similar lore themes to one another, and I'm arguing that I have a particular focus on finding these bits of spice that other candidates might not. I think any favouritism I might have towards Idris in particular would quickly become clear if and when I ever wound up writing megacorporate lore. Like you said, you can express these concerns and I’m happy to address them, but short of assuring you that it’s something I will at least try to avoid, I agree with you in that I don’t know how else to address this at this point. NanoTrasen is easily the most boring of our megacorporations right now, yeah. Zeng-Hu was a contender for that spot until it got a little bit of a facelift recently, but even so I’d still say it’s solidly in the second place spot for dry lore -- especially if you take their unique stance on positronics out of the equation. This might be a little contentious, but I don’t think that NanoTrasen being the ‘blank slate’ of corporations as a whole is entirely a bad thing. It’s part of why I think Biesellite lore is fine as it is, despite being (in my opinion) painfully generic as a character origin point for humans in particular. These two pieces of lore have to play host to a lot of newer players, and the sheer volume of Aurora lore is already quite overwhelming to deal with. As a somewhat newer face on Aurora myself (under a year is somewhat new, right?) I remember keenly how much of a struggle it was to try and work my way up through wiki reading to a point where I felt confident I knew what people were talking about ICly a majority of the time. On that front, I think NanoTrasen’s ‘genericness’ helps ease newer players into the setting more so than experienced community members might realise -- there’s not a lot of specific lore you need to know to fit the NanoTrasen corporate ‘theme’ like you might with Idris or Zeng-Hu, for example. To that end, I think that touching NanoTrasen and giving it more ‘flavour’ should be done quite delicately. I don’t know if KOTW foreshadowed a potential lore transition from a ‘NanoTrasen plus contractors’ focus to a ‘SCC as a whole’ focus, but if this is the case I think it’s the perfect opportunity to help NanoTrasen feel a bit more distinctive by specialising it a bit more. The other megacorporations have an inherent advantage in the Aurora’s setting because they come onto the scene already pushed into specific niches; Idris in security and service, Hephaestus in engineering and supply, et cetera. Again, this is pretty speculative since I have no idea what’s on the cards regarding lore’s long-term direction with the SCC and shift to the new map (coming soon???), but I can definitely see it offering a good opportunity to fix some of this to some degree. As far as the other major corporations go -- I think they’re all doing well in terms of their unique flavour, but I agree with you in that they could all do with a lot more fleshing out. During the mini-rework all the megacorporations got recently I agree with you in thinking that Idris got the biggest boost out of it -- not that they were even doing badly beforehand! -- with Zeng-Hu coming up right behind it in terms of exciting new additions. The industrial side of Zavodskoi and its arms manufacturing is something I’d be interested in developing more, rather than just its security angle; as well as that, I think Hephaestus could use some subsidiary corporations to give it more character. The existing approach of Hephaestus simply absorbing new acquisitions into the megacorporation as a whole is something I think stifles room for creativity right off the bat -- contrast how Idris, for example, has its unique subsidiaries based around fashion. These are a couple of hypotheticals on how I’d specifically go about trying to improve megacorporations that aren’t Idris itself, because as I’ve already said I agree with you in that while they’re a personal favourite of mine, they don’t need anywhere near as much attention as their counterparts do at the moment. I know a little about Aurora’s history regarding sweeping changes to the languages system and the roadblocks they’ve often encountered higher up the chain, yes. Everything I proposed was very hypothetical and I’ve spoken at length with other people -- maybe even yourself? I don’t remember -- regarding earlier iterations of those same ideas and how much difficulty I foresaw turning them into anything other than a pipe dream. I want to clarify that first and foremost. With that in mind, even if my hands were tied entirely regarding linguistic changes I think there’s so much room for improvement in Elyra it’s difficult to know where to begin. I don’t want to reiterate too much of my original reply here, but I think individual planetary lore for the nation falls flat on its face, in addition to what I see as vague and ill-defined themes regarding its status as the Spur’s closest thing to a utopia. Comparing the length of the lore pages for Persepolis and Medina to planets like Europa, Venus, and Gadpathur, for example, highlights the lack of overall detail right away. Persepolis has roughly 2,300 words on its page, with Medina clocking in at roughly 1,200; Europa has just under 5,000, and both Gadpathur and Venus are over 6,000. I don’t think sheer length is the be-all and end-all as far as measuring lore quality goes, of course, but this already illustrates the lack of general detail I’m arguing is present here. These two specific planets are lore-wise the two biggest and most prominent in all of Elyra, and even when combined there’s less raw written material here than a single Solarian world. Each of these specific pages just need more raw detail added into them -- the existing content is so thin that I think it would be easy to justify full rewrites and partial retcons of what’s already written in order to build something more concrete in its place. Personally, I’d like to double down on Persepolis’s existing lore about Elyran media and cinematic culture and end up writing it as a sharp contrast to Venus’ take on the same angle, while also incorporating a commercial sort of cosmopolitan trade hub vibe to the planet as a whole. I’d have it specifically pinned down as Elyra’s biggest centre of trade, as the sci-fi concept of great dockyards and massive amounts of cargo being moved day-in day-out is something I already quite enjoy. Medina’s existing content incorporates elements of phoron extraction (another of Elyra’s unique lore facets -- having its own phoron sources -- which I’m surprised didn’t come up more in the KOTW arc) and I’d like to again tighten the planet’s scope and focus on this if I were to get to grips with it. This gives it a strong tie-in to the rest of the Spur’s lore as a whole, since phoron is a central commodity to our setting, and this feeds back into something I mentioned earlier about liking to ensure lore is ‘tied into’ other lore rather than existing just as an island in and of itself. The hard point here for me would be thinking of ways to build off this concept in a manner that would encourage people to make and play Medinan characters specifically, and I’ll admit that at this point I don’t have many ideas coming to mind how I might do that. Outside of Elyra, I already mentioned Himeo as an example of a planet whose lore I think missed the mark in terms of USPs, and given how low its in-game representation is in terms of a playerbase I think it’s an area that could use some attention in the form of ‘de-drying’ it a bit. The direct democratic system and anti-corporate themes there are well-written and interesting, sure, but it’s lacking the same difficult-to-quantify spice that locations like Dominia and Eridani evidently have in spades. How exactly I’d go about incorporating this is, again, tricky for me to say right now (I’m writing this reply all in one go), but Himeo is something I think could use some additions and minor rewrites to help sell it more to the playerbase as a whole. I don’t think it needs many (if any) outright retcons, though. This point keeps being brought up, although I understand why. It’s not a secret that I like to speak my mind and be blunt about things -- or, to put it less clinically, that I have a tendency to get loudly and publicly frustrated with things that work their way under my skin. I’ve addressed this to some extent in previous replies already, but I’m more than happy to expand on it. Like I said, I understand and support an idea that there are (and should be) different standards to which staff should be held compared to those applied to the playerbase at large. This isn’t intended to be an excuse for any pre-existing behaviour pattern so much as it is an assurance that I understand that anything I were to say as staff could and would be taken with more weight behind it, and that it would then reflect on the team as a whole rather than just myself. I’d encourage you to speak with other members of staff on this issue if you have deep and grave concerns about it to get their opinions on my conduct, because I can’t offer you a lot here other than assurances and a finger pointing back towards staff teams I’ve worked as part of in the past without an undue amount of controversy. As far as working with the lore team in general goes -- like I said, I’m aware that staff channels such as internal lore team stuff is a more professional environment than the server itself, its associated Discord, and so on. I know how to disagree with someone without flying off the handle -- I'm writing these answers out of sequence and I'm going to disagree with you in the next question, actually -- and as I’ve said in a previous reply, this is something that was highlighted as a potential issue going into this application before I even put pen to paper, but it’s not something I foresee as a problem for me going forwards. I’m not a fan of talking in veiled language like this and I’d rather tackle this issue head-on, so I’ll be direct here. It’s not a secret that I consider Schwann a close friend -- to clarify, he’s about the only person on the lore team I’d call a friend at all, although I’ve definitely gotten along well with and enjoyed speaking to several others from time to time. I’m going to proceed under the assumption that this question is essentially trying to point at the elephant in the room that this has apparently become. Bluntly put, I think the onus falls on the lore team’s end of things to decide how best to work against any whisperings like these. I can’t control the selection process beyond trying to give the best answers I can to any questions put into this application thread, and it’s a waste of effort for me to just say “it won’t affect anything” when I have essentially no way to guarantee that to anyone. I trust the transparency of the process as much as anyone else does -- if I were to get the lore deputy position, then I’m assuming that everything that goes on behind closed doors has been above board, just as anyone else might. If anyone were to criticise me with accusations of nepotism on behalf of the lore team, then that’s on them -- all I can do is write the best application I can and point to that as evidence that I’m not half-assing this under the expectation that I can be carried in based on community connections. Any further concerns about the transparency of the selection process are not something I can affect. As far as friendships within the lore team would impact my work going forwards -- in all honesty, I don’t share your concerns here. You can ask anyone who’s asked me for feedback on essentially anything for testimony if you want -- I don’t shy away from telling people, friends or not, if I think something they’ve written needs improvement, is a bad idea from the very beginning, or anything else along those lines. I don’t support people blindly in things just because I like them; in fact, I consider that kind of mindless ‘yes-man’ mentality frustrating and downright insulting when it’s delivered in lieu of actual helpful feedback. If you want a more specific answer on this, you’ll have to be more specific with a followup question or two, but if you are concerned that I’d support a friend pushing a lore-related agenda, for example, solely on account of them being a friend and without any regard for the content, consequences, or ramifications of what’s being pushed, then all I can tell you is that that isn’t the case.

I have a very early draft of a piece of Aurora location lore I started writing for this application just as part of a writing exercise. It's in extremely early stages given I'm juggling replying to the application itself with the rest of my free time, but I'll be editing it into the original post further down the line. It's not intended to be something I would push for canonisation, though -- I'm not applying for this position with the idea trying to push something of my own straight into the Aurora canon. A lot of the writing samples I have are from back-and-forth forum roleplay and don't translate super well to people outside of the setting, unfortunately. One thing I do have as an example of extended writing that should be easy to get around, though, is the character story from mid-2018 (aka back when CM still had a semblance of RP) I used for my synthetic app on CM-SS13, which you can find here. It's not the longest or most recent thing I've ever written, and it definitely isn't really a lore-centric format, but I hope it can show you something at least! 1. I think news articles are good fun and interesting for players in the short-term, but ultimately my problem is that they tend to age poorly and be a more obtuse lore format for newer players. When I first came to Aurora I found a lot of the newspaper threads to be difficult to follow compared to simple wiki stuff, and while I'd enjoy writing things in a newspaper format I definitely don't think it's as important as wiki-side lore. As far as events go -- no. I have no interest in running them on Aurora for the simple reason that Aurora lore staff doesn't get any form of on-server permissions, and I think running an event 'through' an admin would just drive me mad, honestly. This isn't intended to be some kind of backhanded swing at how Aurora runs their lore teams -- it's just my initial gut feeling about something like this. I know members of some lore teams have done little canon micro-event things that have turned out well, but unless the process behind the scenes is smoother than I'm imagining it to be right now I would have next to no interest in this. I would be more than happy to write stuff that contributes to an arc being played out on the server -- in fact, I'd find that exciting, and I think I'd get a lot of personal satisfaction watching players find their way through a narrative that I'd written -- but actually running it in the moment is something I think I'd just find irritating and unwieldy given the lack of on-server permissions. This is all pretty hypothetical, though, and in the right environment and with the right administrative staff helping set things up I think I could be talked around on this. If I were to write an arc and get involved in it, I think one of the big ones I'd like to focus on would be (maybe obviously) kicking some post-KOTW stuff centric to human lore into gear again. For me, things feel like they've kind of stalled out in the wake of the last major arc coming to a close, and while a lot of the sweeping changes I expect to see manifesting soon are more of a general lore thing than specifically human (greater SCC integration, megacorporate lore expansions, specific things like more and more contractor authority on the Aurora etc.), I think the IC reaction of places like the Coalition and Elyra to the new political landscape has been a little muted. I'd like to develop that more actively, maybe. That might be a bit ambitious to start with, though, but it's one idea I'd like to carry forwards in the longer term. 2. I don't know what you mean by a faction. If you mean a whole nation within the lore itself, I'd prune Elyra for reasons similar to those I've already mentioned answering other questions; their lore is extremely barebones compared to the other major human players, and I also feel as if they're something of a 'lore island' compared to things like the Alliance and Coalition. The Spur's setting as a whole doesn't have a lot of dependence on Elyra existing -- if you 'unplugged' it from Aurora's canon overnight there would be upheaval, sure, but nowhere near as much as removing far more well-integrated segments of human lore would cause. Obviously this is an immense 'what if' question that I'd never really see coming to pass, but that's what I'd do if it somehow wound up happening. 3. Retconning lore outright is something I'd like to avoid if at all possible unless there's no other option. You've already listed a lot of reasons I think it's an extremely damaging thing to go through with -- ripping pre-existing pieces of lore out of the setting is dicey when people have already potentially built characters around it. I think rewriting is generally a better idea than out-and-out retconning, although when I say rewrite I don't mean just paraphrasing the original work -- it'd be more of trying to maintain the same broad themes as before but perhaps using them in ways that are less clunky. The line between a retcon and a rewrite is blurred, though, and in instances where there are little to no people really using an existing piece of lore (Mictlan...) I think a rewrite can overlap heavily with the idea of retconning a lot of the source material without trying to make it work in the future where it very clearly hasn't been in the past.