Killerhurtz

Hello hello! In the absence of synth staff, I have been appointed to take care of IPC apps. Sorry for the delays! I absolutely love this concept - a wetware IPC that can't be told apart from a synth IPC because of sheer trauma. Approved! Have fun! (Just try not to be too edgy)

Hello! In the absence of NebulaFlare, I will be handling this application. See, my problem is - while you have the basics down, you seem to lack a solid grasp on synthetics. Your story is rather generic, and comes with a few problems - the aforementioned "was let go" issue, the aforementioned "combat drone software doesn't need to be complex", and in my eyes an additional issue - the issue that your character has, implicitly, a "combat mode". Such a thing tends to be very much frowned upon. The fact that the backstory is so short, as well, does not help. I am afraid I will need to deny this application - feel free to apply again, though! And feel free to contact either me or Jackboot if there's any issue.

Oh my god this is glorious it's like a Claptrap that can cook. AHEM So yes. Until the return of the two official synthetic attendees, I am the one who will be evaluating IPC applications. Your views on AI are rather interesting, and you know my opinion on your character. 10/10 approved.

Hello hello! I have been appointed, until the return of NebulaFlare and/or Rrrrrr/Botanist, to handle IPC whitelists. Your submission makes me want to be able to play more often... Approved, hope I can catch you aboard some time! Your character and mine are going to have a BLAST.

Galaxy Science News Network Source of all science news, everywhere. University Commemorial Project Ends in Disaster Today, a launch organized by several students of the Ceres University went terribly wrong after the craft was torn asunder and the two pilots flung at high velocities with their cockpit. The craft itself was a joint project between the Logistics and Engineering branches of the school - a project commemorating the technological history of mankind, and the struggles of men a few centuries prior. It was a proof of concept for a spacecraft that works, and is propelled, using only technology available before the digital age. The craft was a two-seat, shuttle-sized craft fueled by what the team dubbed 'oilshine' - a runny mixture of finely powdered coal and ethanol. It's function was very simple at it's core, using nothing but mechanical or electromechanical controls for everything, excluding even the simplest digital circuitry from the design. It however required two pilots - one to control the actual direction of the craft while the second one handled the engine burn. It was propulsed, and powered, by a single large pulse rocket furnace - an ancient and simple design which does little more than accelerate the burn of fuel and use the exhaust as useful thrust. The heat from the rocket heated a closed-loop turbine generator that powered all the electrics the craft needed - the lights, life support and fuel pump, most notably. In theory, it was harmless - rated for a maximum acceleration of 0.63m/s^2, it was more of a memorial and proof of concept than anything useful - a metal box spouting smoke around the school to remind people of how it used to be. However, things started going wrong when the two young people in the cockpit decided to attempt "full-burn" - as the turbine, which was mounted across the width of the craft behind the cockpit, was fed by the heat of the rocket, the rotational inertia of the turbine became too much for the pilots to compensate for - combined with throttle issues due to the inherent grime caused by the combustion in the system, the ship quickly gained rotational speed. Help was attempted - but the craft was too unstable, and rotating too fast to be safely attempted, and so despite the pilots losing consciousness after a short while, it was deemed safer to wait for the fuel to burn out. However, as Murphy's law goes, what must happen will happen, and waiting was not enough. The small craft was never designed for such forces - and approximately seventeen minutes after the beginning of the incident, it reached a critical point - the shear bolts holding the rocket's furnace to the ship tore off violently, resulting in a runaway engine. This breakage then damaged the generator component - the heaviest part - which quickly disintegrated in a cloud of debris, causing a failure of the main frame, and catapulting the comparatively light cockpit at extremely high speeds. Fortunately, the pilots were also wearing an emergency suit with twenty-four hours of oxygen, and so they should be safe until help arrives. Security managers at the Ceres University refused to comment on the event itself, but have confirmed that a rescue party will be sent as soon as possible, and that we expect to retrieve the two young students within six standard solar hours. The construction team leader was unavailable for comment - as she was one of the pilots. However, another member of the team - claiming to be the second-in-command, granted us this commentary: "We should have seen it coming. We were on a budget - we knew the bearings weren't the best, we knew things could go wrong. I could have told Emillianna to put a turbine brake, or to put a manual closure to the fuel lines, but I didn't. We could have observed closer the prototype blueprints of people who tried what we did in the times we were trying to commemorate - all of them knew that it would be a problem, and all of them had the brilliant idea of putting the turbine in the same axis as the ship instead of across, because the forces would be easier to deal with. Hell, if we were really smart, we would have put aside the budget for the half-*** life support that we ended up backing up with space suits anyway, and put two smaller turbines in there - two counter-rotating turbines. I don't know what happens next - academically, socially, nothing. Right now, all we can do is hope that those two are safe. This is the kind of reason why engineers need to be serious about their job - because when they don't, people can get hurt." Stay connected for the followup - the interview with the two pilots, once they have been retrieved, and the interview with the dean of Ceres University whom approved of the trial.

I have one question: Are you willing to switch from "phone convos" to "discord voice chats"? I'll start aggregating the documents you'll want to peruse, Dr. Steel.

Tau Ceti Basic: -If Tau Ceti was designed as a speech bridge between species, how the hell do you expect an entire planet to convert to it within the 8 years between it's creation and it's adoption as the official language? Look at Quebec - even after HUNDREDS OF YEARS they still haven't adopted English. (And I have a bullet with the name of whoever starts stating the retarded geopolitics of the place). I don't know of any place that wasn't originally colonized in a language that decided to completely adopt another language. Even less make it an OFFICIAL language. If anything, TCB sounds like Space Esperanto. Notice how despite being designed for international understanding, it is A) not even actually used for that purpose as far as I can tell, as English is favored and B) has not been adopted as an official language anywhere. -The writing part makes it sound like it may be vaguely inspired by Japanese scripts - most specifically Katakana, where each letter represents a distinct sound, though going further as to completely separate sounds (which in my opinion is completely useless and even detrimental - because a combination alphabet allows for much more compact alphabets. I sincerely believe that "language mathematics" is easier to learn than more characters - it's easier to remember that p+s=ps sound rather than remember that some letter (for the sake of convenience I actually used a real character) that ψ is ps. And it gets even more complex if you want to add more complex compound sounds. Ignore this snippet if I'm completely wrong). -Also, while I understand the intent behind it, I personally don't understand how a language can work without context or word linkage (referring to the part where each word doesn't affect the previous or past - which, if I understand, means that any relational thing means nothing - since words do not affect one another, it means that in essence, "blue sky" means very little, as it is only referring to two things. Again, ignore this snippet if I'm completely wrong). It would be easier to use static references - where, just as each letter has a sound, each word has a strict use and definition, and no other word matches that definition/use, and to further avoid mistakes, the language could avoid homophones. So for instance - cup and glass could be combined under a single word defined as "hand-held device used to hold liquid which is small/wieldy enough to drink from". You get the idea. -I'll be honest, I fail to see any wieldy language where words are different enough that the words/sounds can flow together to almost merge without losing information or mistaking meaning. The throat and mouth can only produce so many sounds (and that's not even invoking the common sound bank available to most, if not all species in TC). Instead, to me, a hallmark of an understandable language would be that the sounds and words sound isolated even in rapid speech - either by a small bout of silence, or an universal sound/word/sentence end sound - verbal punctuation, per se. -It's sounds are mainly throat and lip sounds? I don't know if Unathi can use lips proper for language. Tajara is also debatable. Vaurca don't even HAVE lips (but I'll set it aside and say that it's a voice synth because vaurca speech can get really complex AFAIK). Throat and tongue sounds would be a better fit - as far as I know, all four main organic species have throats and tongues. So instead of eliminating L, C, D, G, it would eliminate B, F, M, P, V, W sounds in general. And the whole "they kept S in" thing is shady as all hell, especially if it's supposed to be imposed by the state. Why, exactly, would they keep a sound "just because"? -No seriously, that S thing is bugging the hell out of me -"More variation of the other sounds were used, and several never featured in Latin and Germanic languages were introduced as well" First, using "variations" of sound sounds exactly counterproductive to the intent of having a simple, easy to learn alphabet - either they fall under the same letter and it gets confusing, or it's even more letters to learn (see? this is part of why I say combinative alphabets are useful - actually I think in my notes somewhere for another completely unrelated thing, I had made an alphabet that literally had 5-letter sounds - each "letter" defining how the throat, back of tongue, mid-tongue, front-tongue and lips were being used. Total it was like, 18 letters in these 5 categories). And to be fair, the only sound that I have not seen to be entirely writable in a latin/germanic alphabet is the arabic/asian guttural kh sound. -Very minor point, but the guvment enforcing a language for the sake of a "non-native" population sounds like a great way to introduce racial tensions. -I'm not sure where the "usage in game" part comes in since all languages can easily be used with their prefix. Unless you mean for an eventuality where we fix the language scrambler and allow some random parties to not know TCB? Sol Common: -First, in case you haven't noticed - even today, anyone who needs to do trading or deal with people outside their country speaks english, so you'd THINK most of these Mars people would at least have some basis in it if they needed to contact their non-ethnic cities. Otherwise, aside from these traders, there's very little reason for the rest of the population to learn SC - they could just be city-wide ethnic ghettos of sort. -English and Portuguese? Sure. But I don't entirely know how clean a language incorporating two such different languages as English and Mandarin. I know it's the lore we inherited from Baystation but I strongly disagree with it. Honestly - Sol Common being a modernized successor to Esperanto would make a lot of sense, seeing as there's people speaking it worldwide and some countries like China actually got some schools that teach it. -Very minor detail, but I feel you're way overstating how much influence the French, Arabic and Hebrew languages are going to have in even a hundred years. If you ask me, in a hundred years (which IIRC is about the timeline at which Mars gets colonized, right?) the most important languages would be English (obvs), Mandarin (obvs), Portuguese (mostly thanks to Brazil's rising economy), Spanish (thanks to the graudually increasing importance of all _other_ mid to south american countries - and TBH? Now that Cuba's embargo is lifted, I can foresee it having quite a bit of influence on the world culturally and technologically, after it catches up), Hindi (because India) and German (because, as far as I can tell, they're not ready to let go of their title of the go-to country for engineering). Though I do agree that if you're going for a melting pot of the three biggest languages on Mars, English+Mandarin+Portuguese makes a lot of sense. -Another one of these imposed languages. As I said, I can't see this going well - it would work better as a natural happening that was seen as so useful that it disseminated very quickly as to become the de-facto official language of the SA. I have a lot of trouble seeing it be enforced ESPECIALLY since it's basically a Martian thing, and if I'm not mistaken there was a point in human history where Mars and Earth weren't exactly friendly. -Honestly that whole Elysius Guttural thing was _utterly confusing_ . Don't introduce something you're not going to explain, ESPECIALLY NOT if the name is very similar to another (and well established at that) element of the lore. -Wierd is usually defined as counter-intuitive and difficult. Gyroscopic precession is wierd - any language designed for the masses shouldn't be "wierd". "Very different" would be a better term. -Uh. I'm not sure what you mean by "calligraphic" structure. Every culture that's ever written was calligraphic, seeing as the word comes from the Greek root "Kallos" - beauty, beautiful, and "Graphein" - write. Calligraphy is literally the art of writing nicely or beautifully. I'm assuming you meant logogrammic structure? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logogram -"It uses a calligraphic writing structure very similar to Mandarin, but whilst the written form looks very similar to many Mandarin characters, the meanings and pronunciation of nearly all words were changed" So it's basically either reverse-Engrish, where we write pseudo-Mandarin and say gibberish, or it's... I don't even know. That's just a good way to alienate the Mandarin community who's supposed to learn it. "Is this Mandarin for food, or Sol Common for house?" -" Most forms of similar sounds with different characters, the only difference being the pronunciation, were removed in favour of more latin oriented sounds, as seen in the English and Portugese influences." That's nice and all, but it sounds like you're trying to make it sound like a polar opposite of TCB. Would be easier to explain the whole language as a logographically written language taking inspiration from Mandarin with a verbal style more similar to it's English and Portuguese influences. Because right now you're basically saying "Written, it's basically Mandarin except it's not. Spoken, it's basically English and Portuguese except it's not". -"Most words tend to be more reminiscent of the latin languages, with only the occasional influence of old Mandarin words being present, most of it's history contained in the images themselves." This brings up a point. Did you just try shoehorning in Mandarin because that's what the established lore says? Because right now it sounds like "This is basically a mishmash of English and Portuguese, because that makes sense. Except it's written in Mandarin because I have to". -"When spoken, Sol Common sounds much like you would expect if you mashed English, Portuguese and a bunch of other languages into one thing. It mainly consists of Latin and Germanic roots, with much of the Mandarin influence being in the writing rather than the speech." Me, quoting you basically pointing out the very same point I just made above. -"It follows a generally slow speech flow" Which seems... odd, seeing as neither English nor Portuguese are particularly slow. -"and accents between speakers are very, very noticeable" Because what they needed to understand one-another was totally a language where accents sort of matter. -"many putting ethnic or cultural twists that have been part of the language for centuries." You'd think that sort of thing would be discouraged if it was government-pushed. This sort of thing usually comes up in languages which have evolved naturally. Sort of how, despite how vehement Quebec people are about the French language, "bullshit" and "fuck" are part of the common slang. -"The official language of Sol, it varies massively from place to place, from the entirely new dialect used in Elysius to the more oriental influence in Lowell, to the complete disregard by much of traditional Earth settlements" That sentence sums up EXACTLY why it should be a naturally-disseminated language instead of the Alliance going "hey guys speak this language pls". Plus it severely undercuts the previously established spread of the language - where basically anyone within the Sol Alliance space spoke it, and within the Frontier it was a 33-33-33 between Tradeband, Gutter and SC. -"Every year, a official dictionary is released by the Sol Government, as regulated by the Linguistics division" Again, this irks me. It basically feels like the Sol Alliance trying to _regulate language_ and to me, it's somewhere between being as pointless as Vogon bureaucracy and being as insidious as 1981's Newspeak. (To be fair I'd be down for some Newspeak bullshittery happening in the Sol Alliance. That sort of insidiousness would make for juicy lore that would get people caring.) -"ancient languages such as English, Mandarin and Portugese." Okay let me put this straight. This sentence could assume two things - that "ancient" is defined as old, and by that definition these languages are ancient even today. Or that they're dead languages - and I HIGHLY doubt that Sol Common has had such a deep permeation in the human culture that these languages are dead. -The in-game part again confuses me a bit.

Sorry for the language, but this is the only way I can think to get it across: I'm glad you got THAT stick out of your ass. It's mighty valiant of you to foot the bill, but it's not sustainable. Glad you're finally considering, at least, community funding.

That's fair. I'll give you a shot, enjoy!

Ehh, let's try it. Approved. Just a reminder, though: Dionaea are on a strict 3-strike system. Start being a bad broccoli and we're going to have a problem.

Hello, sorry for tardy - I assumed you wanted a Head whitelist because you forgot to put the species in the title. ANYWAY - it's quite a decent application, though I don't know how I feel about a Dionaea assuming a gender identity - but we'll see how it pans out. NOW. I know it's already been a while since you posted, and I deeply apologize. This is why I'm giving you two options now: either I pass judgement now-ish (as in, after you reply), or I give you until Monday to post, once a day, your application in OOC to get people to vouch for you.

I discussed this with a few people, and it's entirely fair. Now, normally by now I'd pass judgement - but I forgot to mention, I'd like for people to vouch for you a bit. So I give you until... Are you okay with getting a judgement Monday? It'd give you the whole weekend to post, once per round, a link to this app in OOC in-game for people to post opinions on you. If you'd want an earlier judgement that's fine too.

Hello hello! I've seen your post, and, well... While I do personally enjoy the idea of a nymph which grew up with a slime, it brings up a lot of problems involving the interactions with crew - especially with the new/upcoming changes (I know SOME of the changes went through, but I'm not sure if the whole changelist was passed). A dionaea is already a dangerous creature - capable of surviving much. How, exactly, would this learned hunger manifest itself? Because remember - as much as I'd like to have this play out, trouble and all, I can't. My main priority is to protect the OTHER players from the wrath that are Dionaea.

Posted a news article, still working on plantperson lore.

Galaxy Science News Network Source of all science news, everywhere. New breakthrough in ancient tech data restoration; history to be discovered? One week ago, digital archeologists in Vancouver uncovered a long-abandoned subterranean complex used by an organization that predates the Alliance. Inside this complex was a computer in ‘pristine’ condition owing to its location in a pressure-sealed box. Archaeologists assume the computer was meant to be shipped out of the complex but for unknown reasons the container was left behind. As expected - the same problems that plagues all digital archeologists applied here, the drives used for storage had lost a lot of the property that actually allowed them to hold data, and so it would not be the gold mine that informs us of that gap between 1990 and 2088 - a gap known to information scientists and archeologists alike as the “Conversion Tragedy”, where almost all of the public data stored on old systems was lost due to the exorbitant prices of hardware capable of transferring between the two systems, exacerbated by the fact that the old systems were, for one, powered by electrical currents versus our current electrophotonic devices, and for two, using a completely digital binary system instead of our modern analog and septenary-state capable hybrid systems. And so, while the complete conversion took place, many people and companies kept their data on what was called, back then, the Internet - which is actually not too dissimilar in concept to our current Extranet. And that data, unless it was ported over by a party capable of it (such as the old digital invoices of companies, or a part of most interesting network culture (such as found in the most known Museum of Ancient Internet Culture), the data was lost, left to people which tried fighting against the various degradations - charge, magnetism, or even material - which permanently destroyed a lot of said information. However, the relative pristine condition of the unit found gave an insight on the actual data structures used through at least part of this tragedy - which would allow any future discovery to profit from these structures to mayhaps extract more data. As for the server itself - the data extracted was impressively clean. Among them were a few ancient websites, mostly dealing with ancient conspiracy theory (the cleanest and most interesting example was a backup of a site explaining a “Time Cube”) among what seems to be pieces of software used to access a type of network previously unknown to historians - a network not unlike the tales of a shady underlayer to the Extranet. More information will come as discoveries are made.

Someone contacted me to anonymously oppose this whitelist, with the reason "they feel that Lukas Chapman is too memey, dancing in the halls with someone during code red".

It's a fair correction. I'll approve it - just watch yourself.

Hello hello! While your application is quite imaginative, I've been consulting with the Tajara overseer, and it is very much so inaccurate. First, Noble tajara were not scientists. Second, even if they were, the Tajara thought they were the only species in the galaxy when nobles were actually a thing. Three, as far as either me or the Tajara overseer are concerned, the Dionaea have not actually made contact with/anywhere close to Adhomai. Four, if there WAS Dionaea close to Adhomai, it would be a very antsy relationship. Five, Tajara don't have orbital space stations. Six, Dionaea have very little reason to build huts - it would probably have tried to grow instead, unless it had a specific reason not to. So yes, it's really quite inaccurate, and so I can't accept it in good mind. HOWEVER I will be back Wednesday for judgement - you may feel free to correct your application until then.

What Complete Garbage said. Unfortunately, seeing it's been a few days (very sorry about that) and how your application is very VERY barebone, I'm afraid I'm going to deny this application. (You get massive brownie points for realizing and admitting you're not the best at roleplaying though). Feel free to construct a more detailed application at any time, though.

WELL it's a tiny bit past wednesday isn't it. So yes, time to pass judgement. I'll be straight up with you - I have a very very very very very bad feeling about this. But I can't pin it down, so I'm going to say it's some shape or form of personal bias. Plus since I'm already holding ALL dionaea on a two-strike standard, as I hope you know, I can't really tighten down on you. So I'm going to be approving this application, sorry for the delays. Watch yourself out there, and rustle softly.

Youbar, you give me a boner in my heart. BUT YES hello hello. Youbar basically highlighted everything I found wrong with your application, and I have nothing to add. You know the drill, by now. Get reviews from players on the server once per round, fix up your application a little, yadda yadda. I'll be back Wednesday to pass judgement.

Hello hello! It's good to see someone take such care in the Dionaea. Your application is splendid, and I like it very much - and so I encourage you to get as much feedback from other people as possible. You may post a link to this thread once per round in OOC. I will be back Wednesday to pass judgement.

Yeah application approved. Moving.

ALRIGHT SO, I've read over your post. Overall I quite like it, so unless anyone got any major objections until tomorrow (because it's late and I'm headed to sleep), I'm probably going to approve it. But now it's ANSWERS TIIME! Not quite. That is true of plants, but the Dionaea actually follow a more fungi-like reproduction (that I need to work into the wiki, sorry about that). They use spores and a proper substrate (most often nursed by another, more grown gestalt, similar yet sort of the opposite of mycelium) and grow from that. There are no male or female nymphs - there is only genetic data that can be transferred. A single nymph, provided with enough nutrition and space, can effectively clone itself into a gestalt of any size allowed by the resources it has. Both of you are right. This is one of the parts I've left open for interpretation, as both are valid - if all nymphs are equally part of the conscious, they can refer to themselves as "we". If there's a dominant nymph in the gestalt, the "I" can easily emerge.

Continued the religion thing. Also Loow and I have started talking about the relationship between Skrell and Dionaea.