Haydizzle

Hello! Apologies again for the delay. I enjoyed the read, and while Grim Compact is one of the currently weaker options of the lore, the route you're heading down with the backstory feels more appropriate for the faction. I still have a couple of questions and points of note regarding your application, however: I hate to say this, but there was likely a math error. The Contact War started about 23 years ago before the current year (2439 versus 2462), which means either two things for your character: they were nine when it started, or they're ten years older. Another quick point I want to bring up, but the Grim Compact will (very likely) be changing in some shape or form. While I do not think that the changes proposed will necessarily mess with the character premise for how they joined and what they did, it still is nonetheless a potential change I want to make you aware about in case this information makes you want to retract your application. Finally, something of a finer point regarding the name. "'akh' as an ending as you can imagine is used to denote religious importance for unathi religions (Th'akh, Sk'akh, Aut'akh, Si'akh, and then the denominations of the Holy Tribunal: Jakakhism, Kaelakhism, and Nul'akh). Just dropping or replacing a letter is fine for fixing this issue. Anyway! Nitty gritty out of the way, I'm curious about a couple of things regarding your application as it left me intrigued: 1) What is Tez're'akh's views on the Hegemon, Not'zar? 2) How did life with the Grim Compact and the Contact War affect Tez're'akh's religious views? 3) (This is more so for my own personal curiosity!) The Grim Compact does not have an amazing reputation as you can imagine. How do you think Tez're'akh would manage to get in with NanoTrasen? Thank you again for applying! You're free to answer these questions in DMs if you want some of this info to remain private.

Also: some other characters!

I'm a little late on updates whoops! I guess for today I'll just upload the tarot cards I did last month before I dropped Inktober. They're all done in about 2-4 hours for each piece.

Hello! Sorry for the wait (Coalf), I'm a little bad about checking the forums, plus you had a lot of good questions I wanted to think on. In line with my philosophy of wanting to be transparent, I will be rather frank with my answers, even if blunt. If I were alone and had less than 24 hours to make decisions? No, I wouldn't trust myself to do this to a satisfactory degree. I'm of the opinion that while the ideas themselves might not be bad, this does not justify their existence, nor does it mean it automatically fits into the lore. Of course, what's lore abiding or not can be somewhat subjective at times, but overall I think a lot of people can at least agree that some ideas are not presented well in the lore, even if they are cool on paper (Grim Compact being one, I think: who doesn't want the opportunity to be a space pirate?). Anyway, I would hate to make decisions entirely by myself. Not only because a single opinion as rule isn't good for community projects, but also because I have a team for a reason! However, I'm extremely lucky because I do not have to do these things in a vacuum. Part of the role of a maintainer, to me personally, is not making decisions unilaterally. If it's just Shen and I and she thinks a new faction, religion, colony, or whatever is a bad idea, then chances are I'll be revising it until she thinks it's good or scrapping it entirely. I like to accredit a lot of my success with my work so far to listening to the community and what they have to say. One of my strong beliefs is that lore is made to serve the community. We should be not only be writing "good lore," but also be writing content that people want to use and like. What's the point of creating something if people aren't engaged or they don't enjoy it? I cannot speak for them, but I feel like Jackboot played into this heavily as he wrote a lot of content that was engaging to be engaging. I look to do something like that too inherently, as I am more impulse prone, but with other people to talk to and collaborate with, I'm confident in my ability to uphold the integrity of unathi themes and lore. Well! For this question, if I had to take a guess, your idea of events and mine are different. When I think of events, I think of player involvement—the Izweski Civil War arc and the current King of the World arc is a good example of events as they involved players. That's how I define it at least. When it comes to those kinds of activities, I want to basically be a Dungeon Master. I want to tell a story that the players—the community—it's a story that they aren't privy to, but one that they can shape in their direction. This is not to say that on station things that players are simply only there to witness is bad; being able to say "I was there when Gus was shot" means something and looks really cool. It's just that those events alone don't necessarily get people, everyone rather, engaged. When it comes to articles: I think I've alluded to a more imperialistic approach that handshakes both of these ideas. Jackboot and Sleepy's ideas are both good, but Not'zar represents something more in the middle, in my opinion. He strikes me as cunning to make up for his physical weakness. Someone that can attain power in easier ways than war. Expanding the Hegemony and consolidating power are things that I would want to set up as a year(s)-long project, if I am lucky enough to see it through. This is all I'm going to say publicly, but I encourage you to ask me more on the staff Discord should you want more of my ideas for this. This is the biggest thing unathi lore capitalizes on. Tajara and unathi admittedly share a lot of similar concepts in that they're traditional-minded and can be seen as "backwards," and while tajara also have a good chunk dedicated to religion, I think unathi has some more potential for it to be a bigger factor for the species. As such, I would really love to add more to the religions! Aut'akh just got a big overhaul with what they do, and I'm almost to the point where I can say that they probably won't need any more stuff on the wiki, unless it's clarifications or news article lore being added. However, I'm not looking to add any exclusively new religions. I want to entertain the idea of Th'akh having sects or denominations of the religion as it's so pervasive and the most popular religion, buuut I don't really see any reason for the existence of an a conceptually new religion to come into existence—and while I do have ideas that could soundly be put onto paper, I want to avoid there being just too much shit to pick from or any information overload regarding religion. The number of religions right now I think is solid. This is quite frankly a very loaded question, so I'm going to dissect a lot of the points going into it in my eyes. However, at a glance, I can say it directly involves three things: retconning as a concept, new concepts contradicting old lore, and maintenance of articles. 1) Retconning as a concept. I personally really, really hate retconning. It's an extremely sloppy business if you're lazy, and excruciating if you're consistent. Not only is it painful for lore developers to manage retcons and get them ready for the community, but the community itself can become extremely divisive over reworks and retcons. Moreover, retconning and changing something too much can cause the community to lose faith in you as a writer, and here's why: let's say I make a Wasteland diona. This diona is my favorite character concept for diona, and I would never ever ever play any other diona. Only that aspect of the lore appeals to theoretical me, and thus I don't care about most of the stuff that gets added if it doesn't affect that faction. Now, let's say Yonnimer decides that there's a problem with Wasteland diona. Let's say in this hypothetical that I agree. The change happens, we're both happy. However, if Yonni decides that there are other issues, and goes to touch those issues each time, the chances of me thinking that all of these things Yonnimer wants to tweak are also problems becomes less and less likely. More importantly, though, why would I trust Yonnimer with diona lore if he decides to change Wasteland diona five different times? (This is just a theoretical example, Yonni don't hate me!) Anyway, my point is that retconning should really be avoided at all costs. Tweaking minor details is fine, it's needed, but major sweeping changes should be done because the community is overwhelmingly in favor of them. The only thing right now that I can safely say can be removed or reworked heavily without a lot of contention is the Grim Compact. Why? Because people don't play Grim Compact characters. That's pretty much it. There's little to no investment, and them as a concept can be thrown out without worry because the amount of people upset by this theoretical action is a tiny, tiny fraction of the community. 2) New concepts contradicting old lore. This, I feel, is an inevitable issue. It's less that people aren't thorough, and more about not being able to know all the lore perfectly. When I started as deputy, most of my knowledge about unathi lore older than about two years was from off-hand conversations, memes, or people complaining. I could not feasibly tell you about all the articles (even just quickly summarized) up until now since there are just so many. Kyres might agree with me when I say news articles are not a great way of storytelling. It's a great occasional tool, but consistent articles can be really.. wonky I guess? It's hard to explain. It's currently the best thing we have right now so I can't complain too much. ANYWAY, in light of this always being an issue, if people bring up contradictions in the lore, I will always look to correct them where I can! I cannot be omnipresent, so people who notice these things are very helpful for tackling this issue. Will this be inevitable? Yes, but if it's important enough to change, I'll change it. 3) Maintenance of articles. The format changes, old concepts that were interesting at the time are memes now (unathi shells anyone?), and overall there is just a lot of what I like to call "lore nuggets". Ideas that are not really important enough to go on the wiki, but still cool enough to mention on an article, are what I call lore nuggets. A bigger problem with article maintenance is the lore from these aren't really put on the wiki? Like, for anyone reading this: how many of you can remember all of the unathi conflicts or "wars" that happened in the past five years? There's like five, and even I don't know them all. This is also a pain. Now, what does my long-winded answer have to do with the question? In general, I'm pretty adverse to changing shit, and articles in general I view as a pain to make sure they're all in order. Regarding unathi sexism and gender norms however, this is an important change, so I believe if I am directed to articles that need changing, I can work out something with Shen. TLDR; I will change and retcon those articles as needed as this is a bigger change, even if on paper it's a simple tweak. This is also a loaded question, but thankfully, I don't hate you (/s). Very briefly, the two things that affect this: the lore itself, and how players use the lore. The lore itself is already supposed to be pretty dark. It's a class of untouchables that should be treated with contempt, hostility, and stigmatization. This is pretty straightforward so I won't ramble about this. The main crux of them being "average Joes" is two-fold because it revolves around how they are played, and how people treat them. Both of these things clearly differ (some Guwan play up pity points while others play them as subservient, keep-your-snout-down passive unathi; a lot of unathi players don't treat Guwan with the contempt they should be for a myriad of reasons, good or bad). The thing that they both have in common is they depend on the playerbase to carry out unfortunately. I cannot blackbag characters that have uncommon opinions, as then I'd have to blackbag every unathi with an uncommon opinion. It's a slipperly slope regarding whitelist issues as some people have valid reasons for playing a character in a way that looks lore breaking. Anyway, regarding actually adding stuff, I do have a couple of plans regarding them ignoring the fact that I've said this pretty much about every part of the lore except like two. I'm pretty sad I can't share about a lot of my plans in-depth; yet, I do this to keep the surprise fresh for when stuff does inevitably happen! I'm so fucking sorry for the wall of text holy shit

Thank you for your patience: your application is accepted! Good luck with the character on station.

Hello! Thank you for the feedback, for starters. Both of these questions are related a bit I feel. I don't want to spoil too much for an overarching story, but ideally I will be running some events that play off of the typical narrative style for unathi: which is to say, fairly dramatic. I am looking to run rounds that can be engaging for other unathi as well as the crew in general (outside of just "wow something is happening!"), and thus my ideal events would be working with a couple of the other teams to have narrative threads from other factions or groups play into them. The first major events I want to work on would be in relation to Ouerea, as it would be a good way to get skrell and human involvement in the events if their species are involved. My ability to narrate a story are not anything I would question; however, my ability to cater to an audience on a SS13 server is a skill I profoundly lack experience with! As such, I will be starting off small with the events on station. Regarding KotW, I want to run a smaller arc where the unathi is facing shortages of essential supplies like food, medicine, and material, and different groups are suffering, perhaps with the efforts of the station swaying relief towards one specific faction of their choice (like Ouerea, the Izweski, the Wasteland, Aut'akh, etc.).

Also: mood.

Very sorry for the late reply! I'm pretty awful about checking the forums consistently. Normally I have a couple questions, partially fueled out of curiosity and sounding for the lore, but your concomitant application regarding diona scrubs the need to probe for your understanding of the lore. I'll be talking to Shen about this, so expect an official decision sometime later in the day.

This is indeed extraordinarily impressive and has a level of effort lore does not ask of applicants, yet is always inspiring to see people write so much. I'm giving it the stamp of approval regarding unathi lore; this is probably one of the better concepts for a Wasteland diona I've been privy to.

Normally I make a point not to comment on these, but I feel like this is a pretty good suggestion considering we already have the code in place for something similar, plus there are some cases where people would want a bowman (like a unathi without horns, or perhaps skrell in general) due to them not having large(r) ears. +1

Shen was looking to tweak them and make them more relevant than space pirates last I checked, something I will probably leave to her and assist with should she need it. I also have some things in mind plot wise for an overarching story arc for unathi. I don't want to give too much to away as for what I have in mind for them, but I believe they will be coming back into the fold very soon. ?

Hello! Thank you all for the feedback and support for starters. The short answer: yes! The longer answer is a bit weirder to dissect, but I'll try to explain my thoughts as best as I can. I would love the chance to get to add a completely new faction, religion, planet, or something similar for unathi. It would be a unique opportunity to leave my mark and the lore and say "I did this" compared to pointing at a bunch of expansions and claiming "I helped with this." However, we lack a bit of narrative space for new factions; there's already a lot of directions we went with the lore so I cannot really see a) a new faction that presents something unique being possible right now, and b) enough space for it in the lore as to not step on another group's toes. If the option presents itself down the line, I will likely jump on it, but for now I'll be content expanding on existing ideas or "implied lore." This said, if you count regional lore towards this, I do actually have something in the pipeline regarding the Torn Cities, so stay tuned. ? There are some narrative choices a writer can make regarding any piece of work, whether a book, a D&D campaign, or lore for a roleplaying game. These can often include commentary on problems in real life, or be as fun and whimsical as writer wants. I cannot speak of the intent of adding the sexism (as it did not really reinforce the story too well), but it is there now, so it's more of a making what I can of it. I have definitely been approached by three or four people now that have mentioned that the sexism aspect for unathi made them uncomfortable as it paralleled life too closely for them. Which is completely understandable! I can see why people would be uncomfortable and choose to opt-out of applying for something that isn't fun to them. We are all here to have fun in the end. Anyway tangential aside, if you have not read any of the recent updates regarding unathi, I recommend giving the lore another glance over! Sleepy has started to take the direction of the lore away from "man oppressed woman" and towards a society that has strict roles regarding gender. A man is expected to pick a warrior-like job, and a woman a healer-like one. A unathi can claim the "soul of a healer or warrior" even if their sex doesn't align with that soul at birth. Overall it plays more towards a commentary of gender roles and stereotypes now, which is a lot more tasteful and well-intentioned in my eyes. Sorry if this was long winded! The TLDR is I do not intend on removing the sexism, but rather changing it to not be a direct parallel. I want there to be a compromise between people who want to explore dark themes and maybe just play a more carefree unathi. Everyone has the right to have fun in the end. Of course, I'm open on Discord to talk about either of these points more! I just didn't want a more circumlocutory wall of text… ?

After reviewing the answers to the questions and the backstory again, Shen and I find it satisfactory. Feel free to reach out to either of us if you have any further questions! Application accepted.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Haydizzle Position Being Applied For: Species Maintainer/Lore Developer Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page? Yes! Past Experiences/Knowledge: In addition to my past four months as a deputy, I did all honors and collegiate literature and social studies classes in high school, fields of study which I'm still pursuing in college! I've also done a couple of articles for my college's press. Biggest experience though that I feel would be the most prevalent is my knowledge and skills I picked up as a Dungeon Master: creating stories, managing lore on a server, and collaborating with others for four or five years now. Teamwork and coordination are some of my biggest skills in addition to creative writing. Examples of Past Work: The Aut'akh rework—https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Aut'akh, https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Unathi_Religion#The_Aut.27akh_Heathens, https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Unathi#Aut.27akh The Social section revamp on the main page, most notably adding many more behaviors—https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Unathi#Social The Feudalism and Society section revamp on the main page—https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Unathi#Feudalism_and_Society The State of Unathi Unathi currently aren't in a terrible spot. There is still a decent number of players, and interest appears to be continuing as applications trickle in every now and then. The retaining players have enough engagement and interest to keep contributing to and inquiring about the lore, which is fantastic! It is a major confidence booster to see that nothing that the team has done has killed off a lot of activity for the species. Activity nonetheless has still dwindled a bit, and an easy attribution to this is that there isn't really a story line that is ongoing for unathi as a whole. There is no intrigue currently after the Civil War arc wrapping up, and (to my knowledge) not really any loose threads that need tying. Add in the fact that they also haven't had any events in a while to help generate interest, and I can perhaps see why it hasn't improved markedly. Nonetheless, this is a bit of speculation as to things, and to reiterate, I think the species overall is in a decent position. How I View Unathi (Now) and the Problems With Them People have often taken to bringing up the inconsistencies present within unathi lore. Thankfully, the foundation for a lot of the lore isn't inherently bad or uninteresting. Inconsistencies however still exist and to a worrying degree. The most blatant ones are spelling mistakes, but a lot of the lore gives the impression that it was written without a lot of consideration for prior work, adding new ideas on that didn't really mingle properly with the themes as a whole. I feel that there are a lot of amazing qualities unique to unathi lore, or can come from the foundation being built up, that simply have yet to be realized. Religion being a main aspect and bias for almost every unathi is important, and yet the religion page lacks a lot of the finer points of explaining what each religion is like. Tradition is a major theme as well, and yet there is no real elaboration on how some areas stick to this while others struggle. How various factions outside of the Hegemony utilize the themes of the species too are extraordinarily weak, and as a result, places outside of Moghes suffer as being seen as "subpar" options. As I've alluded to before, unathi also lack a lot of current stories being woven. There are a handful of factions and groups that each have their own goals, but their activity has been rather quiet. Additionally too, some of these factions are external to Uueoa-Esa don't have a lot of... drive? They mostly just exist. Aut'akh, the Empire of Dominia, and the Grim Compact are all important pieces. What to Do About These Issues? I would like to outline a quick map of what I intend to do. Like before, everything I intend to do is collaborative and open, so that I do not do anything gravely insular and without feedback from the people that use the lore the most: the community. This form of gathering information and feedback when working on a larger project was hugely successful with the Aut'akh rework as there haven't been a lot of complaints regarding it, and I've received a myriad of people in my DMs asking about the new lore, which is a plus. Alright, getting into the nitty gritty of how I will fix the problems outlined before. I have a four point process of resolve, reorganize, run, and revitalize. - Resolve confusing pages on the wiki, and reorganize the category. Self-explanatory, and I already have some ideas for what to do, and even some drafts, including: splitting the main Unathi page into two pages, which will be one for the Izweski Hegemony and the species itself; fixing up the Unathi Recent Events and Unathi History pages that are severely out of date; finally, being a maintainer would mean I am emboldened to vet out mistakes or old information on the wiki quickly. - Run a long arc to tie the external factions back to Moghes. It is important that each faction gets a chance for improvement without being left behind. Unathi strike me as an imperialistic species, so Not'zar using diplomacy to develop better relationships with the "rogue" factions and expand the Hegemony would be fitting. - Revitalize old information. Culture, Honor, and Religion are the three biggest points I want to tackle as a maintainer regarding new information. A Religion page revamp is something I picked up from Sleepy shortly before her retirement, for starters. Honor will be rather simple, as I'm wanting to just add in how different factions view honor, as the basis of the page redone largely by Jade is in peak condition. Culture will be the largest expansion planned though, and it will encompass unathi lifestyles, how they assemble in enclaves, aspects of language tied to different factions and religions, and other details. Why Me? Working with Shen and Sleepy has been a real treat for lore. It was a good way into the team as it was nice just bouncing off ideas, developing parts of the lore, talking about the [Aut'akh] reworks, and just getting an idea for what we all wanted for the lore. Sleepy's ideas and vision are something I want to continue to carry out and see through for the foreseeable future, at least a couple years. I feel as though I am fairly suited for the role due to my activity, involvement with the community, positive feedback with other lore staff, and capacity to write in line with an existing narrative. I've heard some pretty interesting stories regarding how the lore team was years ago, and I can honestly say this is a climate I feel more comfortable in than I would have previously thought while applying for unathi deputy. Looking to the Future If I made my way into this role, I have plans going into the long term for writing for the species. It is perhaps incredibly ambitious, but seeing how passionate the community can be is truly inspiring and will be great motivation for the days to come. There are a bunch of more minor details I want to iron out here or at least mention as to be completely transparent, and these are things I'll be gunning for regardless of whether I get the species maintainer position or not! I would like to add(/finish) two more specific regions of the Wasteland/Touched Lands. While I do not want to make them or the Queendom excessively long, having a starting point is good to show a little more diversity, in addition to introducing religions tied to these factions. There is one already in development regarding a Fallen Kingdom, and I have another planned that draws heavy influence from the oceans and seas of Moghes. This would be a good chance to touch up the Queendom and add a little more variance for their unique culture as well. An arc regarding the Hegemony and the shortage™️ is something I would like to do after the King of the World story line in the form of some mini-events and a couple news articles. Finally, (and no promises on this one), I've been working on (re)learning Git to sprite some more unathi things, mostly clothes and religious paraphernalia. You may be seeing some updates regarding this soon! Additional Comments: If you stuck through this then holy FUCK. Thanks everyone for reading!

I got the privilege of answering some questions and giving a bit of feedback before the app was posted. This said, after going over the final version, I still have some questions. 1) There is some talk about clinging to the perception of castes. However, what parts of Aut'akh methodology did Korvitis embrace? Which parts does he actively struggle with still? 2) What was the reasons/turning point for Korvitis becoming an Aut'akh? 3) Curveball question, but how does Korvitis feel about non-Moghean factions (Grim Compact and the Empire of Dominia)?

Please try to limit shitposting on a serious suggestion. The name change is fine. It being shorter than EMT when written out is a plus too. Might be misleading for what the role actually does

Thanks again for your time and energy with the application. It paid off: we feel your character and answers were satisfactory in showing us you know your lizard lore. Application accepted.

That's also part of the problem. They're supposed to have modern levels of technology, at least in the cities. Rural places aren't up to par with urban areas, but they definitely aren't medieval still. I'm trying to curb the "medieval peasant" idea in favor something a bit more unique.

These all look pretty good on the PR. I added some feedback for the names and descriptions on them to be changed on said PR, but otherwise most of the garments look great and I would definitely use them on station. The only one I've a problem with is the ghazak. As it stands, the design is literally the flag, and as a result it looks somewhat tacky. I'm opposed to this being added in its current iteration. A better implementation in my eyes would be a striped shoulder pauldron or cape would work well for adding the colors of the Izweski without it being a tackier centerpiece. This could double in function like being the Dominian cape as well, so that it can be draped over the top of any garment you want to put in the shirt slot. The goggles, kilt, and hood are all fantastically done and I eagerly await seeing them in the loadout!

Hello! I gave the application a quick overpass and was approached about this application in private. I had no major concerns before, and the application justifies my faith accordingly. This on top of some interactions with Imran as various characters, like as a scientist, a shaman, and a paramedic, have all given me a good idea of their ability to roleplay in an engaging capacity. Naturally, I still have some questions to sound out your thoughts on the lore, as well as this character. 1) All Ame'kaz has ever known is the Wasteland and the Queendom. How do you think they will react to the foreign and often controversial customs in human space? 2) You mentioned that your character is somewhat non-traditional due to their upbringing in the Queendom, though you've given credence to them being traditional in other ways (such as being heavily religious). How else do you think your character breaks from tradition or perhaps adheres to it? Do you think being exposed to traditional or even warrior-like male unathi would make Ame'kaz want to revert back towards tradition? 3) More of a shorter one that's simply a point of curiosity: do you think this character has the capacity to "rise" in station (like training towards and ultimately getting a different job on the Aurora)? Thanks for applying!

In accordance with some of our previous changes to the lore, the Feudalism and Society section on the main page has been updated. The image depicting the caste system has been made more sleek and represents the "separate but equal" model in a more coherent way, capitalizing on the last image's information while making it simplistic. (You may need to click on the image to view the new one if it hasn't updated yet.) The section itself has gotten some changes and additions, so be sure to check it out as well! https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Unathi#Feudalism_and_Society Additionally, I'm curious about what you have to say about unathi lore and your opinions on it. Some questions are directly related towards some projects I'm working on now, while other questions are aimed to get a general idea of your preferences and thoughts on the lore as a whole. Anyone is welcome to fill this out. Thank you in advance! https://forms.gle/RnQU1Sgapuf2p9EA8

Thank you for your answer. Shen and I both feel you have good remarks on the lore and know it to an acceptable standard for a whitelist. Feel free to approach either of us with any questions! Application accepted.

Hello! This is a good read and sorry about the late reply. I really liked your answers to the above; I simply have one question. What treatment from other unathi did your character receive for their chosen study of experimental physics?

I figured the disabilities tab was for when someone has a mechanical disability from the character setup menu. If that's not the case, I'd be for removing all three, or at least the other two.

I know I encouraged you to come forward with this application, but I do still have a couple questions that I felt were better answered in a public forum :^) 1) What areas of the wiki are you keen on working on? 2) You have told me before you wanted to apply because you wanted to contribute to the community in a meaningful way. What made you want to apply for this over being a moderator or code contributor or developer? 3) Finally, do you feel as though this is a role you can commit to for a long period of time? Good luck with your application dude and thanks for taking the time to apply!