Kintsugi

Sneaky more or less hit the nail on the head here with his post, but I wanted to ask you something: Have you contributed any map assets or similar development contributions to the server, if you're so certain that the community is a wellspring of such and that it being "a lot of work" is not a problem? Especially if you're denigrating the work of the dev and admin teams.

Going back to the Aurora would be one of the worst mistakes imaginable for the server. Aurora's event arcs were constantly hamstrung by the setting itself and the stationary location meant 90% of the factions in the lore could not even be interacted with, at least not in a way that was impactful or made sense. One can claim that the Horizon is "too ambitious" for canon events, but I fail to see how this is the case at all - it takes as much work to develop a Horizon arc as it does to develop an Aurora arc - and your proposed solution is to completely undermine a development that has allowed us to actually interact with the lore at large. To be frank, the sentiment doesn't make any sense to me, and it'd actively be making the server worse to act upon it.

The idea of a vocal minority complaining about an event that hasn't even occurred yet while the playerbase doesn't even know what that event will involve except in the broadest of strokes being reason to cancel an event is outlandish. There are no sunk costs here. This paragraph consists mostly of veiled insults levelled against the lore team, oftentimes baseless ones. Summaries are written. The setting is actively being developed and explored. Just because you don't personally like the direction the server has taken doesn't mean it's going to die, and saying that it will die won't kill it - and it's extremely unfair to say that the lore team is actively working to destroy the server out of negligence or obstinate refusal to do anything productive. The community has had eight months to work on assets that could be used. The ones that have been have been used: but as it were, "asking the community" only gets you so far. Even with rudimentary guides published on the matter, very few people have taken mapping away sites and ships into their own hands. In fact, all of our ships and away sites can probably be traced to around the same half dozen people. A large portion of the ship is also dedicated to an infirmary and a security wing. Are we a hospital ship or a police vessel as a result? Proportionally engineering is the largest department. Are we a construction vessel? My ten cents? I've enjoyed the arcs and I'm looking forward to the finale. I am hoping it's a lot of fun. It would be nice to mix more away sites in here or there - the last event's away site was pretty interesting, and it'd be good to have more expedition-focused events mixed in during future arcs.

I would change the "most" in to "many" instead. I don't think it's entirely likely that the majority of the CoC member-states are lax with their citizenship granting. Otherwise, sounds good.

I'm of the opinion that technological advancement has slowed to an absolute due to the economic monopoly megacorporations hold throughout the spur.

I've always been a big fan of the concept of a ship-to-ship weapon system and haven't kept that a secret. All in all, I think it's in a very solid place. It works as it is and it is fun - the only real changes I'd make would be more types of weapon systems and for more subsystems to make it more interesting for people not playing BC. Mainly countermeasures that engineering and research would be responsible for - like I suggested to Matt, I think chaff/jamming systems that engineering would be responsible for and electronic warfare/hacking systems that science could use to disable the enemy's sensors or target lock would really spice things up. Otherwise, the only changes I think we should make are mapping ones. The exposed Horizon bridge just isn't going to work for protracted ship-to-ship combat, and I think making the current bridge into an observation area and moving the bridge itself to a centrally-located CIC would be best. That, or an auxiliary CIC in the bunker as a stopgap measure. All in all, I think we should nonetheless be careful with using the ship to ship combat system for events, and we should be sparing with ship to ship non-canon events. Hostile ships should be well-mapped - the death box approach really didn't work at all, and admins had to intervene constantly to keep it from falling apart.

I have never encountered a convincing argument for the idea that cyborgs are a necessary and beneficial component of either the gameplay loop or the roleplay setting. Cyborgs are non-characters hamstrung from meaningfully contributing to roleplay by their very nature and mechanically they just rob gameplay from extant jobs and characters by virtue of being so single-minded and tailor-made for their role. They are a grandfathered-in remnant of /tg/ and Goonstation's idea of a good mechanical concept - and we stand to lose nothing by removing them. I would be happy to see them go, and give this proposal my whole-hearted support.

I volunteered for every event instead of playing them as my ship character, so my feedback might be in a different category - but I rather liked this arc. It may not have been the most "out there" of arcs, but I think it told the story it wished to tell well and it did so in a way that had a dynamic narrative constantly being changed and influenced by the crew's actions. My only real complaints are that it felt maybe a little short, as far as arcs go, and that there was perhaps a bit too much time between individual events (I also think in retrospect using the Caravaggio's weapons to threaten the Horizon instead of individual event characters was a misstep, but a forgiveable one.). The content itself was great, however. All-in-all - a solid, well-rounded arc, that I think will be remembered fondly.

I am making one last-ditch effort to salvage the manifest. Join this discord: https://discord.gg/ZKdx7Ht27w to gain access to it.

Reporting Personnel: Iliasz Jajszczyk Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Security Officer Game ID: cjl-dLmd Personnel Involved: Iliasz Jajszczyk, Security Officer: Witness Sophie Hawkins, Captain: Offender Unknown Southern Fleet Administration Naval Lieutenant: Other Mahisa Quraishi, Security Officer: Witness, present in the port hangar bay at the time. Theo Joutsen, Engineer: Witness, present in the port hangar bay at the time. Liliya Radic, Security Officer: Witness, present in the port hangar bay at the time. Secondary Witnesses: Reed Calom, Head of Security: Secondary Witness, on duty at time of incident, would have heard security communications. Not present in hangar bay. Jesse Armstrong, Investigator: Secondary Witness, on duty at time of incident, would have heard security communications. Not present in hangar bay. Nemo Vaillancourt, Security Officer: Secondary Witness, on duty at time of incident, would have heard security communications. Not present in hangar bay. Kasimir Rrudzutaks, Bridge Crewman: Secondary Witness, present within port hangar bay at time of incident. Time of Incident: Roughly 0125 ship time, 9/2/64 Real Time: ~10PM EST, 9/2/22 Location of Incident: SCCV Horizon, deck one, port hangar bay. Nature of Incident: [X] - Workplace Hazard [ ] - Accident/Injury [ ] - Destruction of Property [X] - Neglect of Duty [ ] - Harassment [ ] - Assault [X] - Misconduct [X] - Other (Gross Negligence, Endangerment) Overview of the Incident: At roughly 0115 ship time, the ship's Captain for that shift, Sophie Hawkins, announced that an SFA officer may be coming aboard the Horizon, and that security should be present at the meeting. Another officer (Mahisa, I think? Her or Radic.) asked why they were coming aboard, and Hawkins said that it was for trading purposes. Because the SFA is a group of pirates responsible for numerous atrocities, hostile actions against the Republic of Biesel - which is the country the Horizon is registered in - and also recently killed two members of the Horizon's crew and injured many more, I said that we should arrest them if they came aboard at all. The captain said that she would not allow this and that she had given the SFA her word that they would not be harmed. We in security privately expressed skepticism about this choice, for the reasons I mentioned before. As the security team moved to the port hangar bay on deck one, I once again requested that we do not allow the SFA to board, and if they did board, that we arrest them. I pointed out that the SFA were a band of pirates who recently killed two members of the Horizon's crew as my reasoning for this, and the captain once again refused and said that they felt they made themselves very clear. The SFA officer in question did board the ship and trade with the Horizon. I'm not sure exactly, but I believe that Hawkins gave the SFA officer medical supplies in exchange for credits - 1750 or so, I think. She also inexplicably allowed the SFA officer to remain armed with a Solarian Armed Forces-specification combat energy dagger (and whatever else they could have concealed on their person, they were wearing a voidsuit and so could have had a firearm concealed upon their person very easily, or otherwise aboard their shuttle). When an officer (Radic, I think) questioned this, Hawkins replied with something along the lines of "If they defeat you three with just a dagger, you deserved to lose". Thankfully the trade was made without anybody being attacked, but as the SFA officer went to go, Hawkins said that this meeting was quite amicable or amiable (I don't remember the exact word choice on her part), and that "Iliasz wanted to have you arrested", verbatim. All officers present immediately reacted negatively to this remark, and I personally said that is a detail she should have kept to herself. As the SFA officer left, they said when they returned, they would be coming "for answers", implying a threat because of that remark. In summary: Sophie Hawkins, while acting as the Horizon's captain, allowed an armed pirate in command of a crewed naval ship belonging to a pirate organization that recently attacked the Horizon's crew, killing two Horizon crewmembers in the process (as well as killing the Commanding Officer and Executive Officer of the FSFV Caravaggio, an FSF ship hired to escort the Horizon) and injuring more, to come aboard the Horizon. She traded the Horizon's medical supplies with them in exchange for a tiny sum of credits, which were likely stolen in the first place, and afterwards explicitly told the pirate about an officer who had suggested that the pirate be arrested instead of traded with - therefore allowing the SFA to potentially target this officer. The pirate in question then made a veiled threat of retaliation against the officer (and maybe the Horizon as a whole) as a result of the Captain's remark before leaving with our medical supplies. Hawkins willingly opened up the Horizon and its crew to the risk of a pirate attack, and singled out an officer to potentially be attacked by these pirates. Submitted Evidence: Unfortunately, I have no evidence beyond eyewitness accounts. Would you like to be personally interviewed?: [X] - Yes [ ] - No Did you report it to a Head of Staff or a superior? If so, who? If not, why?: No. Due to the fact a bluespace jump and shift change was imminent, and the offender was the captain, I had no options but an IR. Actions taken: See above. Additional Notes: I think we should really make it clear to anybody working in command that the SFA are never to be interacted with or allowed aboard the Horizon, thanks.

One could sanitize wizard to the moon and back and you would still end up with gimmicks like this: And so on ad infinitum - I can only recall ONE good wizard round I had on Aurora, ever. People will point to vampire and cult as being similarly magical gamemode, but the tone of those are entirely different (Although I do think vampire should absolutely get the boot too, but that's a hill I don't want to die on). The simple fact of the matter is that wizard attracts silly, outlandish, and anti-roleplay gimmicks. It does this because of its blatantly dissonant tone with regards to our setting - as a consequence of its origin as a gamemode designed for an LRP server - and because it is an off-station antagonist, which allows people to be wackier than they would be if they were playing their normal characters. Sanitizing wizard to make it less meme-y wouldn't work. I know that because that is what technomancer is - it is wizard refluffed to be less outright Gandalf The Blue. Nonetheless, technomancer gimmicks tend to be the same as wizard ones - less goofy gimmicks occur with greater frequency, but you still have stuff like this happening with techno: The fact of the matter is that these gamemodes are bad for the server, because of what they are: Outlandish solo antagonists coming and gallivanting around with absurd powers and abilities. They are a net detriment to the server, and actively completely derail any roleplay that might occur in a round. I'm sorry that the lowpop crowd might suffer from losing a gamemode - but it is a gamemode we SHOULD lose, because it's bad for us as a server. Technomancer was a half-measure to remove a gamemode that, because of how Aurora gamemode selection and development works, is nearly impossible to remove without petitioning the host of the server directly. I personally advocated for the addition of technomancer, and I stand by that - but I also feel more strongly now than ever that we should've just removed wizard and washed our hands of it.

This is really all there is to it. Wizard is fundamentally incompatible with Aurora - technomancer was a half-measure to replace it, sharing many of the same problems. We need to do away with our hesitation to outright remove atrociously bad gamemodes, because if wizard returns? It is not going to be an improvement. It'll be more of the same nonsense dressed up in blue robes.

The FSF is not: 1. Universally employed by the SCC - most of their business is done in the MRSP, from the look of things. 2. A small fry PMC - they are a Solarian naval battlegroup strong and gradually gaining strength from defections from other warlords - for context, a lone battlegroup with no backup, no reinforcements, and no resupply took on the SCC, Biesel, Elyra, and the Coalition during KotW and nearly won - the SCC had to break out WMDs to stop them, and that still battlegroup limped away instead of being outright destroyed. 3. Betraying the SCC. This is one ship betraying the SCC, not the entire battlegroup. 4. A monolithic entity. It is not homogenous, it is not consistent throughout, it is an amalgamation of fleets and ships only loyal to the pursuit of profit. The variation will be massive throughout the FSF. 5. In control of the actions of this one ship. The Caravaggio('s acting Commanding Officer and crew) is mad as hell and doing what they please. 6. Going to be exterminated to the last man by Idris and Zavodskoi over this. Not that Idris and Zavodskoi have the capability to do that in the first place! The FSF as a whole will be fine, and odds are the Caravaggio will be fine, if potentially in hot water with the FSF's admiralty and blacklisted by the SCC. Personally, my only problem with this event was the use of the threat of ship to ship weapons against the Horizon instead of the threat of the actual FSF characters themselves. I think it worked out fine and really wasn't as railroady as is suggested, but generally thinking I think events work better with concrete entities at play instead of abstract threats. I also think that staff probably should've listed the scale/intensity as a different level each, but the rationale I saw for listing it as what it was listed as was perfectly justifiable as well. All in all, I enjoyed the event, and it was a very nice follow-up for the last one.

Absolutely have to agree here. The current setup doesn't make any sense - and it still confuses me to this day.

I think I have a tendency to focus on relatively niche subject matters that might not be interesting to everyone. Politics, planetary geography, alien flora and fauna, etc. I'm kind of a harder sci-fi guy in a relatively soft setting, which means I can get wrapped up in details that don't really matter to everyone. In the past my writings could end up dry as a result of this, because I could end up neglecting things that are important for making interesting characters - culture, in particular - but this is something I've worked on a lot during the course of writing Visegrad. You could compare the original draft to the current version to see what I mean - it was noticeably dryer before, largely because my effort was focused on parts that were important to me, but perhaps not as important for writing an interesting, engaging planet. Conversely, I think that attention to detail and empirical focus leads to a strength in building a setting and for making sure everything is well-rounded, flesh-out, and interconnected. Not to hype myself up too much or anything, but I think I do a good job in making things make sense in the first place, and seem developed in a logical, consistent manner. It's hard to have many thoughts on Ouerea at all, to be frank - let alone on a demographic group that receives only minor passing mentions (The Ouerea page mentions humans four times, three of which being to simply state "humans do, in fact, live here.") on the page. Regrettably, Ouerea is acutely underdeveloped, with the bulk of the writing being at least 3+ years old. As such, my thoughts on Ouerean humans are less about what they are like currently, and more about their potential with regards to a rewrite of the planet. Ouerea is unique in regards to humanity in that it is a rare alien-owned, alien-majority location with a substantial human population. Couple that with the noteworthy differences in Unathi and Human society and government, and the conflicts that could stem from that, and you have grounds for a lot of potentially interesting work to be done. What I personally have in mind is a tie-in related to Hephaestus, on account of its persistent and strong partnership with the Hegemony, and potentially downplaying or downsizing the role Sol proper had with establishing Ouerea as a settled colony. Another thing I'd like to work on is the role humanity played in establishing Ouerean democracy and introducing it to the Unathi of the planet - and the role Humans played with respect to the uprising against Hegemony rule that re-established democracy on the planet, which I imagine they'd have been at the forefront of. Another thing potentially worth considering - although perhaps carefully - is the idea of Ouerea as a place for refugees from the southern wildlands who might not have anywhere else to go. If you were to flee the southern wildlands and not go to either Sol or Biesel, the Hegemony could be the closest "welcoming" destination (Elyra isn't particularly fond of the whole "refugee" thing, after all.), especially with Ouerea as home to a considerable human population as-is. With that said, I think in any rewrite, humans should either play a substantial part in Ouerea's story or should play no part at all. I think the current situation of "some of them are here, that's all" is the worst of both worlds. Jargon faces the same problem that Sol used to face - it is a monolithic superpower with seemingly unlimited potential and unlimited capabilities. While it is good that Jargon and Sol are interacting with one another again in light of their status as allies, I'm hesitant to see Jargon be involved with... Well, any geopolitical situation for the time being, for reasons shown by the SFA arc and which I discussed in the feedback thread regarding that arc. Sol and the wildlands' present situation is precarious and relies on a very careful balance of power, which could easily be upended by Jargon - the SFA arc being a perfect example of such a disruption. Personally, I wouldn't want to see this relationship developed further in a meaningful way (read: having a major impact on the geopolitical scene) without Jargon experiencing a "collapse" of its own - in the form of a velvet divorce of the Federation as a whole, or by otherwise changing the power dynamic surrounding the JF so it isn't quite so monolithic anymore. Until then, I am hesitant to see anything but small-scale development of this relationship. Warp versus bluespace travel is like the horse and buggy versus the automobile - or piston-engined propeller planes versus supersonic jet-engined aircraft. Helium-3 and warp drives will certainly get you to from point A to B faster than the speed of light, but it is an absolute downgrade - with the only true advantage is the relative affordability of this method of travel and the availability of fuel. As such, polities reverting to warp travel in lieu of bluespace (The Alliance being the most prominent example of this) are, in essence, regressing technologically and materially with regards to transportation. This regression means slower travel times, complication of supply lines/logistics, the necessity to retool your entire nation to function along the lines of this reversion, and greater inflexibility with regards to mobility. The end result of a swap to warp travel from bluespace travel would be a severe economic crisis, to put it simply. To closest analogy I could describe would be if, tomorrow, the US (or any large, industrialized country, for that matter) reverted all of its transportation-related technology to what existed in the interwar era. So, while countries using warp in lieu of bluespace travel might be insulated from the scarcity's effects with regard to phoron availability, they'll still have to face the potentially catastrophic impact of swapping over to an inferior mode of travel. Even places that never really replaced warp travel with bluespace travel in the first place will still have to deal with the aftershocks second-hand, as supply networks and economies intertwined with their own suffer. Elyra is a different problem entirely - while they apparently have enough phoron for their own purposes, they have suspended sales of phoron to outside nations. Phoron is the lifeblood of Elyra's economy, and the cessation of exports will have had huge repercussions for Elyra - something that the government appears to be acutely aware of, as hinted at by the mention of state-funded infusions into other sectors to diversify the Elyran economy on one of the Elyran wiki pages (The main one, I think?). And if Biesel can run out of phoron, so too can Elyra eventually - which is likely a major cause for concern. It wouldn't be a surprise to me if Elyra's economy was in a recession or stagnation as a result of the phoron crisis and the decision to end phoron exports, at the end of the day. An unlikely - but not entirely unnoteworthy - side effect is that Elyra's security situation will have gotten a lot more precarious, as host to the largest-remaining reserves of phoron. Who knows what might happen if an outside party was desperate enough? I'm going to keep this one relatively brief as I feel it has largely been answered by the above question's response - though if elaboration is requested, I wouldn't mind giving it. To put it simply - a spur-wide economic recession followed by depression, and a political situation that is tenser and more dangerous than it has ever been in history. The spur is now a powder-keg, with the entire status quo being challenged by the shortage of what is one of the spur's most important resources. The balance of power is being shifted dramatically, with regards to both corporations and states, and the relative stability of the pre-collapse spur is gone. To put it simply, the scarcity impacts every single facet of life for people living within the spur, and it could end up going in any direction from here on out. Apologies for the delay in answering these questions - I just haven't been in a great position to do so over the course of these last few days.

I am inclined to support this application.

Without a doubt the callous attitude regarding Dionae that I held was a mistake and I shouldn't have acted in that way, both in matters of humor and in serious ones, as was my emotional kneejerk response to vow never to talk about the species again. As a permanent mark against my character as a player and an applicant, though? It has been nearly a year since the incident in question - I regret it all quite profusely - and I have not acted in that way since. I have on occasion spoken about Dionae - not frequently (largely because I'm just never really involved in conversations about them), but still enough to demonstrate I have not sworn an oath of silence like I suggested I would in that complaint, and I have no problems with speaking in a productive manner in regards to them. Again, I am not denying how I acted regarding the species was wrong - it was unproductive and rude, to be sure - but to put it simply - I no longer act that way, and I truly have no desire to act that way. I privately resolved the matter in a more productive manner than my initial kneejerk reaction would have - you could ask the person who lodged the complaint about that, if necessary. To be honest, I think this part of the post and the criticism levelled against me within it is unfair, no offense intended. Again, I am confused by the vagueness of this. What do you feel I need to improve upon? I am capable of conducting myself properly in an argument; that much is demonstrated by the discussions and debates I get into quite often on discord. If a period of good behavior is not evidence of improvement - what is? One would feel that a very strong guarantee is far weaker proof of improvement than an entire year of demonstrably better conduct. I feel like you're asking me to prove something that isn't, well, provable. I get along well enough with the Dionae lore team as individuals, and bear no ill will towards the Dionae playerbase or Dionae lore as a whole. If you want guarantees, I can guarantee this: I have absolutely no intention to act in a way unbecoming of a human lore deputy, in regards to Dionae lore (discussions, debates, or casual conversation), or any lore for that matter, just as I haven't (as a player) since that complaint was resolved.

I don't really think this is fair. While the hallways should have been wider, this map was a one-off made as a set piece for the event. It will never be returning and it's just not a good idea to pour a massive amount of effort into a map that appears once in the course of an event (This leads to burnout!). Mapping is actually quite difficult, and having done a fair amount of it myself at this point I can totally understand why this map was the way it was. This is a common complaint that comes up with events in general, and the only way to really change this is to make it so you don't actually have a job at all (having everyone on the same footing means nobody is in charge or the de facto solver-of-the-problem). If an event is going to be dangerous, obviously departments that deal with conflicts are going to have the most gameplay. If an event is about a fight, and you don't want to fight or be around that fight - tough luck, I guess? Not every event is going to be able to engage everybody, unless it is a truly Earth-shattering event. However, this had plenty of opportunities for people to be involved - you could have joined up with the militia (let me point out the militia was pretty huge), created barricades, helped move wounded, etc. As for science not being able to do an expedition... Good? The point of an event round is that there's an event going on. Doing your normal job is something you can do literally every round - why turn up to an event in the first place if you just want to ignore it and pretend it's a normal round? Let me point out that this was the second event of the arc, and a medium-scale event - it was an exposition event. Not a grand finale. This is completely wrong. This event will have major repercussions for the arc itself - the commanding officer and executive officer of the ship that the Horizon just shelled out, what, 85K credits to hire for protection while en route to explore a potentially economy-saving phoron deposit have just been assassinated, and the SFA is in active conflict with the Horizon. This event was big for the arc and will have consequences. There has been plenty of buzz IC about what's going to happen next, and the SFA prisoner is even being held aboard the Horizon, and has been spawned in the brig in subsequent rounds. Frankly, this is a very premature complaint to be making - as an event volunteer, I can tell you for sure that this has been a big deal for the event-runners, and this last event is not just pointless filler. Remember, this event was just two days ago, and you're complaining nothing has come out of it. These things take time, you know. When KotW was ongoing and the Clandestine exploded, the aftermath wasn't clear to us just two days later. History has demonstrated that events where you travel from the ship to the site of the event are slow-going and even less engaging than the alternative. This is something I hope we really avoid doing - while it may have been a decent idea to map the event map around the Horizon, it isn't exactly strictly necessary. I wouldn't have minded it, though. Generally speaking, to me it seems like the fact you didn't enjoy the event was the summation of your own choices. I don't mean to sound rude - but you did spawn as a character who had no job to do, and then left the event prematurely because you could not find a way to engage yourself. It's odd to me that you feel it is important that people be able to do their normal jobs during an event - an event is a special thing. You're supposed to engage yourself with the event, not play normally as if it's not going on. Your points aren't completely invalid, but I think you're being rather unfair to the team that's running them - like I said, this is the Horizon's first real arc and it's only the second event in the arc. It's not going to be perfect - the positives seem to outweigh the negatives so far, and I think things are getting off to a good, interesting start.

I think the (lore) developments since my last application have drastically improved the server. The NBT has been a huge boon to the server’s potential and for the ability of the server as a whole to interact with the lore. Couple that with much-needed or much-liked developments within the wildlands, Mars and CRZ, the rewrites/expansions for Himeo, Elyra, Vysoka, Luna, Venus, Eridani, Konyang, Mictlan, Fisanduh, and even more, and the addition of the origin requirements, info on the spur’s ideologies, etc, etc, etc - there’s honestly so much that has happened in the last year and a half that it’s almost staggering, and almost all of it (if not all) has been for the better. If we keep this up, I can only imagine how amazing the next year and a half’ll be. This isn’t even mentioning all of the great stuff added for the other species - off the top of my head, the ongoing Unathi scarcity arc, the Skrell arcs, and the Orepit arc are all developments that have been great for the lore, and all of them are very recent. As for my perception of the lore, though? How I perceive it hasn’t changed much - except that I feel now it is even more important for the server than ever, due to our change in setting. I feel that the last year and a half has only developed Auroralore’s existing identity and content - not warped or changed it - which is a good thing. Our world is consistent, and instead these developments have grown it instead of being lateral shifts or changes that don’t last.

First off, I want to apologize for missing this post somehow, and thank you for responding/what you have to say about my past work. Moving on to the question itself- When it comes to my personal opinion, I think Dominia is alright. Personally, it’s never been my favorite faction - as a matter of personal taste more than anything else. Though I nonetheless admit now that the writing is of great quality. To me, it has always felt like it goes somewhat against the grain (As a neo-feudal theocratic absolute monarchy, it has little in common with the rest of human lore - which is a result of its original design more than anything else) of human lore in general, for better and for worse - when I came to Aurora it was in a very sorry state altogether, and it is only through constant effort and rewrites over the course of three years that Dominia has become what it is today. From a writer’s standpoint, I think Dominia is in a good position in general in terms of quality and potential - I think generally that Dominia as a power needs to be challenged more, and for the status quo of Dominian society to be challenged as well. In general, I don't think it needs much more “wiki work” - instead, I feel Dominia is better off being at the focus of an arc that would develop it organically, particularly an arc centered around the Badlands and its neighboring states.

No big deal! Fair enough. If this is how it should be, I'll keep it in mind.

I think the obvious answer for tying corporations to national sentiment/ideological leanings for corporations without strong ties to existing planets and ideologies or with very divergent beliefs would be to develop their corporate culture in such a way that it is malleable by the corporation itself to fit the bill of the location itself, and then to simply develop ties to those places in a constructive fashion. An example of this malleability would be that Zavodskoi has very strong ties to both Pluto and Dominia, despite these locations having nearly opposite political/economic systems - another thing to consider is that a corporation does not need to develop these ties with every planet they're present on, which eliminates the issue of locations with highly divergent values/beliefs from one another. If a corporation has an ideology associated with it, and a world it is on is compatible/incompatible with that ideology, it can selectively choose to or not choose to attempt to establish that ideology upon it. As for developing an identity beyond making money - this also has a simple answer: as megacorporations are too big to fail, we could see their leadership embark upon personal missions to achieve certain aims that may not be best for the corporation itself, but are in line with the personal desires of the leadership. The logic for this being that as failure isn't a concern, wasting resources isn't necessarily a problem. This way, even if a corporation has no strong ties to a planet, it can possess an agenda (and therefore, the basis of an ideology) beyond just profit. I may have misunderstood/misinterpreted this question and its wording, so if this answer isn't exactly satisfactory just let me know and I'll work on a new one. This question is rather easy because it's one I've spoken about extensively - but ideally I would want to add a planet to the northern wildlands, likely within the MRSP. This decision is based in the observation I've had ever since Visegrad was canonized - having a fully-fledged, accent-bearing planet situated under the control of a warlord is a major, major draw to making characters from the region. Let me put it this way: I know of no characters who have come from the northern wildlands, and at least a dozen who have come from the southern wildlands. The reason for this disparity is simple - one region has a planet for characters to come from, and the other does not. Planets serve as an anchor, and as the very foundation for a character's ties to a region and for that region's astropolitical situation. With the warlords being such an important (yet underutilized) development within Aurora's lore, I think it's absolutely vital we get a planet within the northern wildlands, if we ever want to integrate this region and its warlords to the rest of the lore itself, and especially to get it involved in the creation of new characters. As for what factions would be involved? Beyond the MRSP, the League and SRF would both be in conflict (and therefore involved) with this world, and in turn Sol, Biesel, and the Coalition('s member-planets, especially Himeo and Gadpathur) due to the fact the northern wildlands is being used as a proxy battleground between these powers. With regards to culture, Sub-Saharan Africa (My personal choice would be South Africa) and Oceania come to mind on account of the fact that they are the only regions of the real world that don't really have any strong representation within the context of our lore. While Sub-Saharan Africa does have Eridani, Eridani specifically has little in the way of remnant Earth culture, and Oceania is only really represented as a secondary aspect to one place, Silversun. Sub-Saharan Africa does have the Impukane as well, but again I feel like this isn't very satisfactory either. This new planet having its origin be in one of these two regions wouldn't be a strict requirement for me, but I think it's always good to try and get as much of the real world as possible used as a foundation for the lore itself, and I feel it'd be interesting for either of these two regions to be used. While I'm not too familiar with the synthetic team on a personal level (Mostly interacting with them in regards to questions, either in general or about contributions I'm trying to make), aside from you, I will say that I think the synthetic team does a lot of great work and I'd be very happy to work alongside them. I absolutely agree that human lore and synthetic lore are tied at the hip - in fact, I feel they're essentially under the same umbrella, with either field becoming incomplete (or flawed, at the very least) if you removed the other from the equation outright. As for using synthetic lore in the course of my own projects, one thing I'd like to do is to expand the description of just how much impact IPCs and synthetics have on the lives of humans in general, with regard to specific worlds. Sometimes it can be hard to determine just how familiar characters would be with IPCs before coming to the Horizon, based off of their background, and just how impactful they were to day-to-day life for those people. I'd also like to expand on the evolving role of IPCs within the Alliance and how Sol's warm relations with Einstein change Sol's views in relation to synthetics. One other thing I'd potentially be interested in doing is working alongside the synthetic team to develop a new synthetic faction or two that is closely integrated with Human lore's factions, similar to the Trinary Perfection - though this would obviously be a synthetic lore project as opposed to a human lore project, and wouldn't really be my wheelhouse, I still think it'd be a nice thing to work with the synthetic team on. This answer is somewhat brief, I think, but it's mostly broad strokes - if you'd like greater elaboration, just let me know.

While your other concerns are perfectly valid, I wanted to point out there is proof to the contrary in regards to this one (and the next one, to a degree). I point to Visegrad as the clearest example - While I do not personally like megacorporations, I recognize their value and general importance to their setting, and this is clearly shown by the fact I used megacorporations fairly extensively in the course of writing Visegrad, especially as hooks for characters. The economy section is five paragraphs long and almost wholly devoted to information regarding megacorporations and how they'd impact characters coming from the planet. Usually these are statements I tend to make IC, from a character's perspective. It is entirely possible this is a statement I've made OOC, and using the "corporate ships vs. military ships", as an example, this is actually something I have asked the Human Lore team about and I was given that as an answer. While that's not definitive and not set in stone, I try not to make things up on a whim and if there's something ambivalent, I always go to official channels to try and fill in the blanks for myself. Moving on to the actual questions: The answer to this is fairly straightforward: The same way I tend to currently handle rude/insulting interactions within the community. I will continue on and focus on maintaining an objective tone to address the subject at hand - if a difference in view or opinion is irreconcilable, I will say as much and try to end the interaction by agreeing to disagree. The truth is that not everyone can see eye to eye - you can only debate something up to a point, before it becomes clear that no resolution is possible. If the other person involved escalates to breaking the rules, I'd do what everyone should do - contact moderation staff and disengage. The so-called "corporate culture" of the megacorporations is probably one of their most redeeming aspects, in my mind, and oftentimes responsible for the aspects of the megacorporations that players tend to enjoy most, as demonstrated by portrayal with characters and OOC sentiments on an anecdotal basis. Personally, I would like to even further develop the "culture" of the megacorporations (NanoTrasen springs to mind as being the megacorporation most in need of "cultural" development, though all of them could use some love) and make them a more prominent aspect of what the corporations are and how they would influence people's characters. However, I don't want this to be something that is really moderated OOC - while we should encourage players to factor corporate culture into the characters they play, I personally understand reservations about how this would influence character design freedom - IC moderation is the best route. This is an underwhelmingly straightforward answer, but to put it simply I would like to make them less isolated. The Scarabs are a nomadic, itinerant people - and yet, they seem confined to obscurity within the Coalition of Colonies. It'd be a fairly comprehensive rework, but I'd like to change their history completely, their culture some, and then shift them from being an outcast group of ships that only seem to exist because we're told they are, locked away in the Coalition, and instead have them develop and deepen their ties with various polities and worlds, all while actually taking advantage of their status as an itinerant people - by having them truly move throughout the world, potentially (or even especially) outside the Coalition itself. By having the Scarabs specifically interact and develop relations with existing planets and countries, more hooks are provided for Scarab characters and as a whole they become better integrated with the rest of Human Lore and humanity. Nationalization was a solution that brought problems of its own, in my mind. Nationalization without a doubt lessened the power of the SCC in regards to the Solarian economy, and therefore limited its influence on the Solarian state and nation in general. In turn the power of the Alliance's government will have increased, and the prospects of long-term stability and economic independence strengthened - however, this would have come at the cost of major short-term economic damage and a marked increase in instability, both socially, politically, and economically. With deliberate sabotage employed by NanoTrasen as it withdrew and Hephaestus playing hardball and refusing to comply, it wasn't a clean process and mass nationalization always upsets the economy greatly, especially if one is dealing with something as powerful and pervasive as a megacorporation. There's also the fact that it caused a major upset in relations between Sol's government and the SCC corporations that remained. Some corporations that are key to the Alliance's power, particularly Hephaestus and Zavodskoi (due to their important relationship with one of the main sources of Sol's power, the military.) are now alienated from the Alliance itself - with places aforementioned aspects of the state in jeopardy. The necessity of deepening ties with Einstein is also a side effect of nationalization, which means that Sol may end up having to trade one problem for another - the SCC might be weakened and NanoTrasen eliminated, but another corporation has been empowered as a result. Sol is a hybrid regime - with elements of both authoritarian and democratic rule (though at the moment, the scale is tilted in favor of the former, to be sure.) Hybrid regimes tend to have a significant corruption problem, and when you compound that with Sol's extant issues with political factionalism and Caesarism, and combine that with the sudden mass transfer of corporate assets to a government-owned entity, the Alliance is also probably facing a potentially severe corruption epidemic, as government official and military officers are presently in a position to profit massively by embezzling these new resources. Sure, why not? If another team needs help and I can give it, I wouldn't mind lending a hand, provided it's within the realm of my capabilities to do so in the first place.

I am personally a big fan of the Coalition as a tent of many countries in lieu of the Coalition as a federal entity. I, personally, would rather see the politics of the Coalition played out by focusing on the individual planets - with the major three of the Himeo, Xanu Prime, and Gadpathur forming impromptu camps that other planets of the Coalition fall in behind on various issues as they come up. This, I feel, offers the most narrative potential and stays true to the Coalition's origins as a defensive alliance that consists of very many, very different, sometimes opposing, polities. On a more personal level - I feel it is considerably more interesting for the Coalition, as well! As I mention in my application, the Badlands is a highly dynamic region with a lot of potential - with five species present and just as many states to work with, as well as pre-existing tensions and a lot of room to further develop things, I'd consider it one of the foremost potential foundations for arcs and further development, narrative and otherwise, within our lore. I also think that it'll end up being a player favorite for this reason - and visiting the Badlands on the Horizon is going to be a lot of fun, I think. At the very least, the Badlands is something I'd really like to work with, should I be accepted as a deputy. This one is more difficult to work with because I'm missing half of the pieces of the puzzle (other teams' ideas matter quite a bit in regards to developing interspecies lore). However, one option that sticks out to me and I feel is worth pursuing is, predictably, in the Badlands - developing the relationships between the alien states in the Badlands (PRA, DPRA, and Hegemony) along with the human states (The Elyra, Dominia, and Coalition) and expanding the interplay and interconflict between these oftentimes-opposing states. I'd also like to expand upon the relationship between Jargon and Sol, which has oftentimes been neglected and underutilized since (and especially during) KotW. Another entity that interests me and I'd like to see expanded upon is the Tajara Revolutionary Army within the Wildlands - while I don't think it should necessarily be a major player, it is a unique one and definitely should play some role in further development of the Wildlands and the warlords. If you'd like further elaboration, just let me know.

I personally don't think it's accurate to say I have issues with non-human lore in general - moreso that there are a couple of species I'm personally not a fan of, and perhaps I don't exactly see eye to eye with certain writers. I love Tajara lore and have a Taj whitelist, and I do have an Unathi whitelist (And I'm planning to get an IPC whitelist at some point), as just a few brief examples of how I have, in principle, no problem with non-human lore as a whole. I foresee absolutely no problem with interspecies coordination in regards to any species, even the few I'm not so fond of - I think interspecies lore is definitely a boon for the lore as a whole, as long as it is logically sound and doesn't feel contrived or forced. While I acknowledge I haven't always been entirely fair to every species in regards to my views and how I feel about them, I also feel that I can conduct myself in the way that'd be expected of any member of the lore team. Just because I don't see eye to eye with someone or I do not necessarily enjoy certain things does not mean I cannot have a civilized conversation or working relationship with those people.