Haydizzle

You have a solid background in roleplay as shown through your characters and a solid history on the server. You have a great grasp of Dominian lore; however, a unathi whitelist encompasses more than just Dominia. Going over your responses and the backstory itself, I feel that the themes of the lore overall are not fully understood in this application. Unfortunately, I will have to deny this application. Good resources to utilize if you have any questions are the lore discord, my deputies, or myself! If you want to look over a Dominian unathi, I recommend this one for an example: I strongly encourage you to reapply after a week has passed if you are still interested. Otherwise, I am closing this application.

Hello! I have a couple of questions regarding your application. 1) You mention Shannaz being a scientist in some portions of the app, yet also mention him being a doctor at the end. I'm assuming he's a scientist? 2) Where does Shannaz fail to connect with other species? 3) It is said that Shannaz adapts to the hand he's given while trying to stick to his beliefs, yet he ends up caving to Dominian customs and this struggle is not gone over as much. How has Shannaz struggled with the change in his life? As a last note: the "'akh" ending on words is used to note a religion and is ill-suited for use in a name.

Your application is solid and the answers to the questions are great! Application accepted.

Thank you for your replies! Application accepted. Do not hesitate if you have any questions for my deputies and I.

I don't really know still. To reiterate some of my earlier ideas, I do not see much overlap between the duties of developer versus this new position. There will be fleeting moments where these positions have an overlap in responsibility, such as heavy involvement in corporations, but I can always defer to Mofo in these matters and ask that my opinion in them only be treated as a developer rather than a lore master— or simply ignored entirely. It would be the responsible thing to do, even if it means taking an outcome I don't agree with. Despite me seeing no concerns of bias, I do still think there is a very real possibility that I cannot perform both duties well should they both be overwhelming in tandem. I know Dead and Shen have given me their input on this matter, but should I feel that I need to relinquish the role as a result of not being able to keep up with it, I would. That is why I am still rather unsure as to if I'm keeping the position. Otherwise, ability to do so given, if bias was a concern when hiring on a deputy lore master, I do not think it would be allowed by the rules either. It is important to have a variety! In this sense, the server has a lot in common with a tabletop. As event runners (DMs), it is important to consider a healthy mix of different events (challenges) for players to interact with or fight against. In D&D 5e for example, you balance combat, exploration, and social encounters and perhaps give more or less of some depending on the party composition and what players like. I think to a degree that this holds true here too: every event being a high-octane TDM is not realistic for satisfying everyone's palettes. Conversely, it is also important for the event runner (DM) to have fun too. If Alb wanted to run another tajara arc with an ending that was rather violent because it is something he enjoys and is passionate about, then in my eyes that is fine as well. We have a variety of lore writers capable of delivering on events, and because of this, someone's events could easily be fixated on one of these components of storytelling without "lack of variety" being an issue. In the end though, my personal opinion? If I ran an event, I enjoy striking a balance. It is why the holiday arc had a chance for socializing/exploration (exploration in D&D is less like wandering around, and more considered to be world building) as well as combat with dueling the kataphracts or other station characters. Different strokes are for different folks, and I think having a variety helps the server in the long run. Having either pure action or calm narrating does not cater to the entire server's tastes, basically.

I really like your answers to Shen's questions. Of course, I have a smaller one myself: How is Kaliahsurzi coping with the Razortail Enclave? They are rather rough, comparable to a gang, and even frowned upon by some other Aut'akh: what are his thoughts on them and how does he fit into their group?

Hey! Thanks for taking an interest in the species. I do have a couple of clarifying questions: 1) Could you go over La'ur's beliefs and thoughts on some of the other religions? 2) How does La'ur feel about the Izweski Nation and the (former) Traditionalists? 3) What excites La'ur about working in Tau Ceti? What is he afraid of in that same regard?

This is probably going to be lengthy, but I will try to be as concise and helpful as I can here. There is a reoccurring narrative regarding an issue with your comments, and you clarifying that they are in fact not meant to be offensive, but instead jokes. On this note I am not really interested in arguing in bad faith— it is not my place to and would be better left to actual mods and admins instead of peanuting on a dev application should it be needed. Just to clear the water there. At any rate, this is still a consistent thing that is shown to be repeated behavior. Best case scenario is that this is a tone-deaf interpretation of the room, which can be understandable since tone over text can be a difficult thing to master. Nonetheless, if this is a position you are considering, whether a writer here, a storyboard developer for a game, a journalist, what have you— communication is an extremely valuable skill to have in these environments. One of my professors used to comment that being able to sell a joke to an audience with minimal knowledge of what they are like and who they are is a good sign of being able to communicate with others. Anecdote aside, if multiple people are interpreting your jokes as being serious comments, then the approach isn't working. This is not my long-winded way of saying "you are critically an unfunny person," but rather to consider your audience— including people you are not necessarily speaking to or are not present, but may read it later— when making quips about the lore, characters, people, anything really. Even if it is not meant to be hurtful, humor can be a powerful tool for or against someone since being the butt of a joke is not always fun. I usually like to cite personal experience with these: someone mentioned their interest in dionae back when I first started playing on the Aurora, but after a slew of people going "dionae bad" and instantly critiquing the species without considering how they may have sounded— well, I checked the who list after that and saw that the person logged off. It is something to keep in mind going forward. There is nothing wrong with being vocal, but an opinion or start of a joke is just as important as its delivery and presentation. Regardless of this, hopefully the chatter on this thread dies down somewhat and further posts are made with new angles.

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The questions posited here have all been good, and your answers to them all eloquent. I cannot say I have the degree of personal experience here as other people responding to the thread do, so I will refrain from commenting there. I would like to ask if you could pick a couple of pieces you've done to showcase your talent— despite being rough around the edges as you may put it, seeing what you can do, Aurora related or otherwise, would help tremendously. Now, for a couple questions. These are all hypothetical, so I'm not looking for a "gotchya" moment to throw in your face later on. I just want to see your creative process and how you view the lore currently. 1) Human lore (despite King of the World) has been focused on revamping factions and locations instead of news articles and running events. Do you have a particular interest in either of these things? What type of arc (articles, in game, or both) would you want to write and manage if you were given the green light? 2) If the human team was faced with the difficult choice of removing a faction, which one would you propose and why? 3) What is your opinion on retconning lore? A retcon, to be on the same page here for this question, would be a rewrite of a piece of the lore's narrative that is large enough to impact most or all of that lore's relevant characters. A couple of things to keep in mind: the impact on player characters, the capacity to remove poorly written material, the amount of time dedicated to fixing rather than furthering the narrative, the ease of which future lore writers will be able to/could overwrite your work. Thanks again for putting in the time and effort to apply!

My primary "game plan" is what I outlined above. I do not think most people are aware of how much time, effort, and stress goes into planning events, even meager ones. Bad Moon, King of the World, the Tajaran Civil War, they all required a lot of time for coordination, planning, and execution. Even just hosting the unathi holiday stuff absorbed a lot of my attention for the week leading up to it. Outside of this and the typical managerial stuff, I guess anything else I would like to do would be fostering inter-faction/species/corp lore and how they are faring during the scarcity. Getting species relations with corps to evolve so they become more engrossed, involved, and relevant in the setting; going over loose ends regarding King of the World and the ongoing scarcity; talk with different lore teams about how their species could reflect the scarcity as well with narrative developments; all of these would be other side projects.

Oh oof I missed a reply. Sustainability wise, we have TONS of content to work with in the lore for things that can happen on or around the station. Tons. I think when it comes to ideas, the lore team will hardly be lacking as the things my coworkers (co-volunteers? Dunno) come up with are pretty cool. Lore is also the biggest team, so an added bonus for how many people can help with or be willing to run events. Now, players? It is a hard gamble, though historically calling for volunteers is met with a positive and willing reaction. Even less played species like skrell and unathi get something around ten volunteers signing up after a rolecall. Even then though, I would want to shake up the paradigm a bit further. Let's say you, Peppermint, are super passionate about tajara lore (hypothetical, may or may not be true). You are literally BURSTING with passion for tajara and love the PRA faction so much that you want to perhaps write an event for it (hypothetical as well). To this end, the lore canonization forums could be repurposed a bit: you submit your event idea, and a relevant lore writer reaches out to help polish your game plan before giving it approval. The step after that would be finding an admin to run it during a time you're both available. This is entirely a paper plan, of course. But I believe that trying to give everyday players the chance to be passionate about something and get other people to be passionate about it too is worth a shot.

This is honestly hard for me to pin down. A lot of my future ideas for changes depend heavily on the direction of development for the NBT. So, for now, my realist answer and my speculative one. Assuming that the NBT changes nothing to the status quo of jobs— the same roles on station, no drastic overhaul with the SCC leading to joint-ownership of the new setting, no species arcs leading to revoked command— I honestly could not see any changes happening to command and contractor restrictions. And I mean, why would there be? At best, there might be a year-long arc of development that leads to a change in one command job for one species, and even then I do not see it being plausible. Anything else right now would be too forced or heavy handed. Assuming that the NBT rocks the boat— new roles on station, the SCC is in charge and NT does not have sole propriety of the new setting, species development adding to the narrative— it would be interesting to rethink the corporate model and how contractors work. Command restrictions become more heavy depending on your faction, but also more loose for others (for example, Zeng-Hu wouldn't even hire tajara, Idris would keep some on as lower level staff, and NanoTrasen keeps njarir as command or maybe even added as captain, depending on development); in effect, this would be one way of displaying the relationship of each corporation with different species to players who do not frequent the lore. This could also be applied to human factions too if possible; a Dominian might be a Zavodskoi head of staff for the NBT, but NanoTrasen wouldn't tolerate them as command.

Most of my attention has been on clothes, but per some requests and asking around on Discord, I've picked up a couple of other items to resprite and give some love, namely some security items, like cuffs and flashes, and old jumpsuit sprites. Otherwise, some more unathi stuff is shaping up to be a couple instruments, some shrines/totemic style objects of worship, and even some Moghean animals. I will be sure to link some PRs in the coming days when they're up for grabs. Of course, if any devs have any recommendations on things for me to sprite, to showcase some more of my style, I would be happy to oblige there as well!

My first thought leapt immediately to the G2 and diona example and I did not really stop to consider the restrictions on command or the situation with vaurca, apologies. The first responder example came up because those two decisions were made largely by their respective teams if I recall. Barring the exceptions I mentioned above, I believe there are no restrictions on what jobs a species can pick with NanoTrasen. Any change to the status quo is likely with command restrictions and Akaix, and those should be a head staff/lore master decisions on if those should change. If I missed any particular situations for certain species, feel free to bring those up and I can comment on them as well.

One of the biggest struggles I had to overcome at my last job was this, really. Working there meant making friends with some coworkers, but after getting promoted, I would often have to be their boss as well. In any case, I do think that being promoted will change my relationship with people invariably. I am optimistic, yet I am not overly naive either. Similarly, people that value me as a friend will recognize the difference between my professionalism and my interactions with them as a friend and, hopefully, approach me if they feel I am breaching that and vice versa. Even with the experience under my belt, it is always a challenge to climb to. I am just glad I have what knowledge I do have currently to help me avoid mistakes going forward. This actually has three separate chunks to it that I'd like to address individually. This may seem like a red herring to throw out for shock factor, but I do not really believe there is a conflict of interest. But how could I say something like that when I am my own boss in a way? There are two reasons for this: the first being that I see the lore master and lore dev responsibilities as being two separate entities in most cases (I do not need approval from lore masters to write religious lore for unathi, for example), and the second being that there is an entirely different issue this may cause. Being in both roles isn't a conflict of interest in a majority of cases due to their different responsibilities, but these different responsibilities would mean that, as a friend pointed out, I would either be giving my lore master duties too much time, my unathi dev duties too much time, or barely walking the fine line between both. Would I retire from my position as lore developer? It depends. In a completely hypothetical situation, my deputies may either be fine with my additional responsibilities or may want me to step down so a new maintainer could take over. I feel that their opinion on it would matter heavily here as this choice most heavily impacts them. I'm not opposed to retiring, though I would like to wrap up most or all of my existing projects before departing. As for the last question, this is my long-term philosophy regarding lore, perhaps something that is important to flag on an application that affects policy heavily. I do not really believe in overriding a previous developer or lore master on choices they make. Even though I have stated before I disagreed with a lot of Marlon's directions, a lot of the major content in his lore I try to leave unabated. There was a hard line at Aut'akh as the decision to rework the faction was already made, and I merely picked up the reigns on the project. Otherwise, retconning or going against a prior decision is not really something I want to entertain as an option often. Let's say you were the lore developer for humans. You added a new planet to the Serene Republic of Elyra and think it's really good! The lore master approved it and everything. Fast forward a couple years to when there is a new lore master and human developer. Sure there might be some issues, but it is still a well-received planet: is it worth deleting? I believe that we should set a precedent against retconning anything minor and focus for the major stuff for now, as a way to safeguard against overwriting the narrative of previous maintainers. This was a very long winded way of answering that, apologies, but in regards to that specifically? No. If a choice was made, I do not really intend to override something, especially that minor in the scope of things. A shorter answer: this is up to species devs entirely I would say. It is their narrative they are trying to tell. I may disagree with them and voice concerns, but unless I think they are making an irreversibly bad mistake, most cases it defaults to the maintainer of the species, such as diona and G2s regarding first responders. I would like to be as minimally invasive as possible for the teams; they should be nearly autonomous regarding internal matters. After the last discussion in lore, probably not. I still hold a different opinion than most on this front, but I think it would be a shallow move to disregard the voices of the many here. Unless the lore team collectively decides to change how we tell the narrative in game, I am not interested in overhauling contractor restrictions.

Not at all, I think it is an interesting way to look at and interpret it. It also offers me a chance at some much needed clarity. I say this because, in my mind, I feel that I could not replace Kyres. We will likely not see a drive like his in tandem with his skillset for a while on the team. Less present tense and more past tense, if that makes sense. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses: I think that one is mine and makes me stand out. I do not really hold any grudges with any of the other lore writers for disagreeing with me when they have remained cordial, and I hope they view it similarly. Cael has shown that his strong suit is his ability to generate ideas; I cannot attest to Cnaym's as I have not worked with them closely to make an observation.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Haydizzle Position Being Applied For: Deputy Lore Master Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?: Most certainly! Past Experiences/Knowledge: My last year as a deputy-then-developer for unathi; a strong collegiate background in communication and writing; relevant for this position, being a shift leader and running a floor of anywhere up to a dozen people at a time, coordinating meetings with my supervisors, and helping vet new hires, roughly two years doing all that. Examples of Past Work: My last year of work or so is documented on the Aurora lore Discord! Most notably besides that, I have authored the Aut'akh rework and additions, added and contributed to the Izweski Nation page with DeadLantern, added Dominian unathi content, and various other additions and edits. A full history can be found in the lore Discord announcements channel. Writing Supplement/"Game Plan": Aurora lore, right now, is poised to be in one of the best positions it has been in a long time. The framework of the last arc left off on a good note overall— yet nothing feels like it has changed in game. Articles can assuage the problem of the galaxy feeling like it has barely changed even though it is in a recession of a valuable resource, but it does not tackle the core problem of rounds feeling samey and lore-bland. A struggle to retrieve phoron is a familiar constant newer players have never not known: it is no longer an inconvenience when you live to work around it. Basically, the presence of our lore in game, barring character representation, is starting to dwindle. There are a couple of key things that stick out that I want to identify in order to address. 1) Lore has a passive affect on rounds, meaning most of the time it only informs characters and does not affect them directly past their conception; 2) articles can only carry the lore so far when it comes to showcasing it and getting people involved; and 3) conflict presented in game (by antags) is not inherently tied to conflict in lore, and presents an immediate, often non-canon way of creating an issue that needs solving, but these issues do not have lasting, developing effects on characters. How can we alleviate these issues? Ignoring outside influences and development, such as from the dev team, I see one potential route to take: encourage and facilitate more one-off events for players to host or participate in. This is a very ambitious goal, but it can also give players something spicier than just antag gimmicks to stick with. Smaller occurrences such as Ceres' Lance inspections, TCFL drives, xeno holidays, and others are hugely popular because it represents factions people play or are involved with and showcases to new players what our lore is like. Similar events can be ran with more conflict, such as a very aggressive Ceres' Lance raid, more corporate representatives and bodyguards coming to collect phoron, more hostile xenofauna attacking the station, the like. This helps break up the monotony of non-canon action (low stakes: dying doesn't matter when there are antags involved) and extended rounds with little engagement by introducing a refreshing element to the game. Getting CCIA and moderators involved, as well as player volunteers that coordinate with staff, is a recipe that has worked in the past and should work going forward. Species as well that suffer from lower player counts will benefit from the spotlight of having inclusion in events; speaking from historical example, the interest in unathi spiked after I ran the pair of holiday events back in December. Why Haydizzle Should Get the Position: I could lambast you all with a boring tirade of my qualifications, but I want to paint a different picture for a moment. My first few months on Aurora were riddled with doubt about the bizarre 2D atmos simulator and if I was really enjoying it. A couple months into playing and I did not really read or engage with much of the lore. The only reason I had joined, initially, was because a long-running friend of mine invited me to his D&D game that a bunch of Aurora players were in. I ended up becoming friends with them and, long story short, playing Aurora through that. Even still, I didn't really click with the game. The only interest that kept me hanging on through a wave of challenging new mechanics and complex systems was a pair of IPC baselines I kept interacting with most rounds. I ran familiar circles with them, and through some wonderful roleplay on their part, despite my friends' insistence to read the faction pages, I got interested in synthetic and unathi lore by my interactions with them. If they never played when I was around, I do not think I would still be here honestly. The lore Aurora has is part of what makes it so unique: few other servers have such a vast and rich narrative as this server. With an exceptionally talented team working now on their passion projects, my ideal game plan is not to host more events, but more accurately to support them in their writing and give something to the community for them to enjoy. I am honestly just along for the ride at this point. By far, I am not the best candidate to want this position. I do not think I ever will be, frankly. I can manage the team as best as I can, though I will surely make mistakes along the way if I do. The only reason I've been able to put out the lore I have is through working with other people, and I think, besides my experience, that is what sets me apart from other applicants. Additional Comments: Maybe a little corny, but I am just a guy with a passionate hobby. Please do not hesitate to give me criticism, concerns, or feedback on my application here. If you feel it is too personal for a public audience, then contact me on the forums in my DMs.

After a lot of discussion, there are a few things to keep in mind for this character. Firstly, Zarkami is in the unique position of having a very distinct and different relationship with every faith in the lore; it is important to remember that Zarkami will have a stark opinion on Aut'akh and Si'akh due to having a prosthetic (and assumed to be Aut'akh after people see it) and because Si'akh's inherent domain is the Wasteland. Secondly, while the Queendom seeks to get its people to safety, it simply cannot afford to send off anyone. It is a privilege: the Zarkami clan would be one of the lucky ones. Anyway, we felt that despite these reminders, your application is ambitious, and you're a good roleplayer. Application accepted. Do not hesitate to reach out to my deputies and I with any questions or concerns you have.

Hello! Good replies on the questions so far, and the application is interesting. I have one question to assuage my curiosity: what hardship and struggles has Zarkami faced due to her prosthesis?

Ckey/BYOND Username: Haydizzle Discord Name: Petrichor#0098 Position Being Applied For: Spriter Past Experiences/Knowledge: I have a strong artistic background in digital art and graphic design. Most of it came from practice and self-teaching, and in recent years, I've gotten some education in that regards working towards an undergrad in digital art. I don't have much (recent) experience with pixel art as a genre; however, my knowledge on the subject has helped me pick up spriting by not only applying art techniques to designs, but also by prototyping my work with sketches before spriting it. Besides spriting, I had some previous experience learning Python back in high school in addition to using Git for some coding classes— a lot of that knowledge is useless now, though having an understanding of how to think like a coder has helped me work through some PRs, find issues, and problem solve to a degree. Examples of Past Work: Some sprites I've designed for unathi, including a PR that's still up: https://imgur.com/a/pnyGBf4 https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/11840 Changed the hide mantle sprites: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/11764 I made this thing too that Geeves coded in: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/11637 There are a couple bugfixes and simple lore request PRs on there as well, not too relevant here though but just in case: https://github.com/Haydizzle A forum post with some of my (older) art as I picked back up digital drawing: Additional Comments: I understand that there's not a lot of previous experience here for pixel art specifically. Due to how quickly I picked up spriting in addition to the compliments and urging I've gotten from some however, I figured it would be worth a shot to apply since being in the position means I can coordinate better with devs and other spriters. I've worked solely on unathi stuff until now due to feeling empowered to do so as the lore dev for the species, though I am looking to branch out. Less relevant but I've enjoyed being approached about sprites for opinions in the past and helping people figure out their drawing/spriting environment in programs like paint.net, GIMP, FireAlpaca, Aseprite, and others, so maybe this position would make me more visible for helping others I guess. Also Geeves cajoled me into doing this.

Your answers are satisfactory and I have enough experience with your abilities in round where I do not have to worry about how you will act. Accepted. Do not hesitate to contact my deputies and I with any questions or concerns!

Hello! I was stuck on this page for a bit— had to reread it a couple of times. This touches on some locations and factions in the lore, but I'm curious as to your comprehension of the themes: 1) Pick one theme from unathi lore and talk about Turazu's relation to it. Can be a straight up explanation of how they tie together, a unique twist about how your character is going against the grain and how it affects him, or even a small anecdote or experience Turazu had. 2) How does Turazu view the Izweski? This can be in general or something specific like a person or faction. I look forward to your replies!