Kintsugi

I think my reply was removed for reasons unknown. I can only assume it was because it was "too short" but other people have given replies that were essentially the exact same. Maybe my message didn't go through - either way, I think someone should probably be notified if their message is deleted, even if it doesn't result in a warning. With that in mind, let me be less brief: I think this is a good idea. I see absolutely no reason to let people who have no present investment with the server and the community come back after years(!) of not being present and then play command roles. Even from when I first started playing Aurora towards the end of 2019, the server has changed massively - the lore is more different than it is the same in regards to content, the server map will be wholly different, mechanics vary wildly... With the potential for a mass return of players who have been gone for a while, I think the NBT necessitates a wipe such as this. It isn't fair for the playerbase of the now to have to deal with people who don't even know what the SCC *is* or other countless changes to what Aurora is as a server coming back to Aurora and taking up very important slots that usually dictate the direction of a round, especially taking those slots from players who *are* invested in the server and active in the community.

While originally this thought was wholly unrelated to this application and was just something that came to mind while people were talking about Coalition politics, you did mention this application in response to me saying it, so I figured I would repeat it here - I feel that generally speaking, the Coalition's internal politics should be based less around amorphous political caucuses and parties and instead be based largely off of planet-lead factions. For example, the Himean faction would be anti-corporate, etc. I feel like this would underscore that the Coalition is not a true nation in the sense of the word, and instead a group of many competing nations with differing interests. Parties that transcend planetary divisions give the false impression that there is a sense of Coalition unity, when really the Coalition should only be unified on one subject: They don't want to be part of Sol.

This is a very nice post, I am glad you like it! Personally, I feel quite strongly that we need at least one more wildlands planet, ideally in the northern wildlands. The planet ban makes this impossible, unfortunately, and I fear we may never see another canon wildlands planet. In a perfect world I would want a planet for every warlord, but that's a tall order - one more would get the job done.

Let's say that by host decree, a substantial chunk of the lore needs to be destroyed. A quarter? A tenth? It does not matter. What do you think is most superfluous in regards to Aurora's lore, and why? Is it underdeveloped? Isolated? Irredeemable? Irrelevant? Unnecessary? You can remove anything, but you nonetheless must remove SOMETHING.

I personally feel like it's questionable to expect the sub-teams to contribute to other species' lore. There's not necessarily any problem with that, but I feel like it's odd to make that an expectation. Someone who signed up to write Vaurca lore should not be expected to write Human lore - why should they? Alb writes Taj lore because he is the Taj loredev, not the Human loredev or the Diona loredev.

Overmap will technically fix this.

It is in my opinion that no other Aurorastation player is better-suited for the position of deputy loremaster than Alb. I think it's no coincidence that under Alb's leadership, Tajara lore has become pound for pound the most cohesive, highest quality, and oftentimes the most fun to engage with. I held out hope he would apply for the position the last time it opened up: I am glad to see that he applied this time around. Alb's work with the lore has produced some of the most entertaining stuff I've had to deal with on Aurora, and he is level-headed and clearly quite dedicated to the server, all while being quite attentive and approachable. Giving this application a +1 is a no-brainer, and I hope to see him in the job when this application period is done. I'm confident he'll do great things with it.

I was involved in this conversation. As I explained prior, I deleted my posts after the fact because having a loremaster call me an identitarian rattled me deeply. While that compromises it to a degree, I am nonetheless sure someone else involved can corroborate the fact your posts were directed at me and I was, in fact, involved.

I certainly hope so. This thread is not about my and Jackboot's relationship, nor am I seeking any re-evaluation of it. As such, I would like to dissuade any discussion regarding this subject matter for the sake of not clogging up the thread, and would like to keep things focused on the subject matter at hand.

Because that's about the content of his character, and it is hardly a personal slight. The fact of the matter is that it's unacceptable conduct for a loremaster and unlike the quality of the lore someone produces, behavior is consistent, as are personalities.

The post I made in your Unathi deputy loremaster thread is exponentially more important here than it was there. - It would be utterly unacceptable to have you as a deputy loremaster. I can think of fewer people I trust less with the position. For the sake of Auroralore as a whole and Aurora's community, I hope that you do not receive this position. You are out of touch with the community (You only recently came back from a many-months long absence and to my knowledge do not play on the game server), have a vision of the lore that is far different from what we currently aim to achieve, and I also strongly feel you have personal biases that would impact the lore you produce. Your writing style and the content you produce is very different from what Auroralore consists of these days. For someone who is talking about engaging with the playerbase regarding the lore, allow me to point out that you once called a new player a neo-nazi for saying that it should be alright to write scarab ships of certain nationalities. I do not believe you have changed. I do not believe you are the right pick for this job. People credit you for what you've written in the past - but that is in the past. The fact of the matter is that now, you have little involvement in the community besides, apparently, these attempts to get back on the lore team. As such, I find it highly ironic (and downright hypocritical) that you claim to want to make a newer generation of players' voices heard - despite yourself being an individual who hasn't participated in the community in a substantial manner since more than a year ago.

Really awesome to hear we're getting to the playtesting phase, name disappoints aside! Can't wait, and I'm eager to see the full uniform reveal in the feedback thread, whenever that's posted.

I don't care for it at all, but it is a keystone element of our setting. Such is life, I suppose!

Absolutely not. We don't need feces on the server, let alone represented mechanically, thank you.

I'm surprised to see only one person mention the new and most substantial source of potential for conflict in the setting as-is: the warlord states. In fact, they are written in such a way that war in both the north and south wildlands is inevitable. I suppose this could be chalked up to the fact they've been kept mostly untouched upon since they were released - ideally I hope this changes with the NBT.

Phoron has more uses than bluespace drives. While the SZ Hammer Drive is very effective for a warp drive, it is nonetheless still considerably slower than bluespace drives. This means it is a viable alternative instead of a cheaper downgrade, which is what warp drives are. You must also consider that a big part of KotW was making EE a more powerful lore entity, and their new drive is a big part of that.

To quote Lain from the lore discord regarding economic strength. This doesn't include Jargon, but I can only assume it to be on the upper end of the spectrum. I feel like he said something regarding military strength, too, but I can't find it. My belief is that militarily, it goes: 1. Sol 2. Coalition (Defensively) 3. Elyra 4. Coalition (Offensively) 5. Dominia 6. Tau Ceti Technologically, it's hard to say. Jargon is considerably more advanced than Humanity, but I see Humanity as generally being neck and neck, with the exception of the Coalition (which varies greatly), and Dominia (which was very isolated). Once again, Jargon would be on the upper end of things. As far as superpowers are concerned, a superpower is defined as: As such, currently the only thing coming close to being a superpower is Jargon. However, Jargon lacks cultural influence in other stellar states, and diplomatically is very isolationist, which compromises its ability to be considered a true superpower, to a degree. Nonetheless, since Sol collapsed, no Human power could be considered a true superpower. It is instead a game of great powers and regional powers. I once saw someone on the lore team (not human lore) say that the SCC was the most powerful Human entity in the setting, which could be true economically - but as an alliance of megacorporations, it has immense soft power, but little hard power. That is why its marriage with Biesel is important: they need the legitimacy of Biesel to project hard power.

Personally I think cloning prior to the changes was essentially defunct lore that stood in contrast with every aspect of our setting. It was out of place and simply did not work - the new changes are good because it put an end to that problem without presenting any new issues. The fact of the matter is that narratively, cloning sucked. Removing it was the best outcome and long overdue, in my opinion.

do you guys like visegrad guys do you like it ?

The first four are good, the last two need more shading. The nearly-flat t-shirt look is just not a good one to go for, imo. It's great to hear that the ship name won't be another Aurora (Unless, disappointingly, everyone votes to keep the name. I hope that's not an option). Can't wait to see the vote.

I, for one, do not care about the color change. I don't see why it's a big deal when NT as it is doesn't really have a color scheme, per se. With every uniform on station being a NanoTrasen uniform, colors have been inconsistent. People associate NT with gold and blue, but that's hardly something you see beyond command and such. NT in general is extremely flavorless and a consistent color scheme that is relatively unique is a step in the right direction. It's the sprites that need work, not necessarily the colors. I suppose they could stand to be less pink and more scarlet, however.

Starting from top left, going clockwise: 1. This outfit looks fine. I'm not too huge on the bandana, though. 2. Flat overall, the hat looks kinda goofy. Could use some touchups and additional detail. 3. This outfit looks good. 4. Again, flat (extremely so on the back), and the hat looks goofy. Could use more shading overall. 5. Ditto #4. I like the concept for this outfit, but it's very flat, especially on the back (no shading at all). 6. This outfit's very generic. It is essentially just the loadout suit and tie in a locked color scheme. Bridge looks pretty cool.

The first interaction I had with Jackboot was when I was a new player on Aurora. There was a discussion regarding Scarabs in the lore channel. Jackboot mentioned their policy of banning specific nationalities for additions to Scarab lore, on the grounds that they wished to give more of a focus to nationalities that they felt were underrepresented in the lore. While they were in their right to do this as loremaster, I felt that if someone wanted to add something, it was arbitrary and unnecessary to blacklist specific backgrounds for a scarab ship. In response, Jackboot asked if I was an "identitarian" (a far-right political ideology focused predominantly around ethno-and-white-nationalism), and then said this: Let me be clear: This interaction was of the server's loremaster calling a new player a neo-nazi who believed in "white genocide" for no reason other than that player disagreeing with their lore policy. The fact that he didn't get in trouble for this can be attributed to the fact I didn't make a staff complaint more than anything else. This behavior was and still is utterly unacceptable and if it happened on Aurora today, I would be outraged. If you look up this conversation, you will notice my messages have been deleted. This is because this exchange rattled me so strongly (I had only begun playing Aurora, and he was the server's loremaster) that I deleted everything in a panic afterwards. The conversation is still there, however, and hopefully some of the other people involved can corroborate my claims that I really didn't say anything to warrant such a hostile and outrageous accusation. This is just one example of Jackboot flying off the handle when confronted with the slightest degree of criticism or disagreement. I remember one time when Jackboot asked a player if they had DM'd anyone gay porn recently, in response to a light-hearted comment about Jackboot "coping". This conversation still exists and you can look it up, but I wasn't really involved. Aside from the outright toxicity that Jackboot brings to the table (And I do not think that has changed at all), I think their approach to the lore and the quality of their writing is substandard. Aside from appearing to be very close-minded and backwards-thinking to me, Jackboot's tenure as loremaster brought many questionable things to the table. For example, I believe the low-quality "catified" art present on the wiki was added by Jackboot (If not, my apologies. The wiki makes it difficult to confirm this, as they were long-since deleted and the pages themselves are difficult to navigate when it comes to the page history.) For example, we at one point had a catified depiction of Friedrich Paulus' surrender at Stalingrad on the wiki, and a VDV soldier drawn as a cat wearing cat-paw shaped badges and medals. This stuff severely detracted from the perceived quality of Taj lore, imo. Personally, when I saw it, it turned me off the species and indeed, the lore of the server in general. It is hard to provide many specific examples of their work, because much of it has since been removed due to quality concerns - however, looking back at articles in the bugle and similar IC news sources, you can see what I mean. Again, I apologize for not being able to provide too much personal experience on this front. Jackboot was removed from the lore team not too soon after I began playing Aurora, first as loremaster and then as a dev. At the present, while Jackboot tends to more carefully moderate what they say, I do not think fundamentally they have changed. Instead, I feel like they engage in bad-faith arguments and incredibly stubborn defenses of their viewpoints to try and wear down the people that disagree with them, instead of outright shouting or insulting them down. As Desven points out, they have a tendency to engage in long-winded debates that ultimately go nowhere, and choose very odd hills to die on. As an example, look at their "Is ATLAS canon?" lore question thread, or many other threads they have made since their return to Aurora. I hate to come out guns blazing like this. It feels like a harsh thing for me to do, and while I typically am happy to let bygones be bygones, I do not think I can do this with Jackboot. I don't think they've changed as a person, and I don't think the quality of their writing has improved, and I don't think they would fit on the lore team. In closing, I think it would be a major mistake letting Jackboot back on the team, and I hope, for both the community's sake and the lore's sake, they aren't.

This is completely pointless as antag players simply don't mention the Syndicate at all - as there is no rule saying that all traitors are working for the Syndicate. As it is, the Syndicate is vestigial lore that was carried over from the lore of another server, and has no place in Aurora's lore or setting. It is ignored and outright disdained by much if not most of the playerbase, and almost never comes up ingame or out of game. We are better off removing it (a mere formality, at this point) and embracing the many other more logical and more developed hostile organizations in our lore.