Carpe Venenum

I feel that purchasing firing pins would then have more merit with the (possibly) upcoming TC rebalance PR. Regarding screwdrivers, I think this isn't really a good argument - finding them is extremely easy and they take little to no space in inventory.

If pins can be purchased from the uplink, isn't replacing a gun pin very quick? You just use a screwdriver, if I recall correctly. I am not for or against the idea, just curious.

I have to separately disagree about this. My former ckey and forum name is VTCobaltblood and you may see that I had previous forum warnings about civility, as well as I think one temporary restriction from posting, as well as other history that you certainly know about. Your words read as if you're unaware of this so I do not want to lie by omission by leaving that fact out, since it may impact judgement.

Absolutely, I have especially noted the comment from Omicega here regarding what exactly in my messages is indicative of tone, as well as a similar comment from DeadLantern on my Skrell deputy application and I will take care to prevent these speech patterns or at the very least notice them right away. Hopefully it is evident that I have used "lol" in such discussions a lot less since DeadLantern pointed the tonal implications to me because I genuinely did not think of it that way at the time. Whatever I say in response here would be picked apart over and over again and it is a topic I have no new thoughts about nor really a will to discuss, especially in public like this. I agree with your assessment of it seeming like an attack. It was due a combination of factors primarily including my very soured relations with Nienna. I can no longer really interact with Nienna in an informal environment, which I think is for the better, so that will not repeat further. Just as an additional note, my pronouns are she/her. Thank you. Regarding the text itself, what you say is correct. However, all the themes that Silversun currently has are essentially authored by me. @BoryaTheSlayer has the original proposal and can confirm this - I unfortunately cannot post the original DMs themselves describing the ideas I had because they were in the Russian language.

We have the same issue here and that is also how I view things. Try to view it from my perspective. People are rarely as cold and calculating as you describe. That is not to say that you must accept my apology. You are entitled to your opinion on my actions and that's fine. I do not have any intentions to interact with you in this regard further.

BYOND Key: Carpe Venenum Staff BYOND Key: NiennaB Game ID: Not applicable Reason for complaint: Continued extremely stubborn behavior and refusal to answer questions or suggestions in a meaningful manner. I don't find this acceptable for a loredev of a race that is supposed to be one of the more open-ended ones, encompassing a concept as broad as "megacorp-made bipedal sentient robot." As well as an attempt to harass me via a player complaint over a personal issue. Evidence/logs/etc: I want to preface this by saying that my behavior is absolutely not perfect, as stated both by NiennaB in her player complaint against me, by feedback on my Skrell deputy application, and many others both since my return to the server and before in general. This staff complaint is not me trying to somehow absolve myself of all wrongdoings. However, my behavior against Nienna specifically is not completely unfounded, and while - again - it is wrong for me to behave this way, my patience is very thin when it comes to interacting with them. February 16th I came on the Synth lore discord channel to inquire why Baseline IPCs can't pick the Silversun accent. I have attempted to state my point several times over and over, however Nienna has refused to really acknowledge any of my arguments earnestly and repeatedly continued making points that I have already refuted. I have gotten rude in that conversation, yes, but I don't know how one wouldn't get rude after answering the same questions, over and over again, to the same person, in different phrasings, in the same conversation. During this conversation, and after it, I have got DMs from other players (whom I will not name) saying that they do understand what I'm saying and think that Nienna is being overly stubborn. Nienna is also referring to some "confusion" that I have about the IPC lore where there really isn't any - I have expressed my point, in my opinion, very clearly. This is not the first time Nienna was just talking down to me. July 27th I went to Nienna's DMs to ask a few questions about the IPC lore and education. Throughout our conversation, Nienna was very dismissive to my points and talking down to me like I am a new player, which I do not find friendly at all, which loredevs are supposed to be. The areas which we have discussed have since never been expanded upon on the wiki, or in IPC lore, which I find symptomatic of a larger issue with IPC lore - a lot of info on how characters should be made hinges on arbitrary decisions that are made in DMs and change from loredev to loredev, or even what loredev you ask in a particular dev team (which is also reflected in this conversation). I have honestly went away from that conversation very drained. Not only did I not really get any help with creating a backstory for my character, instead just getting the list of arbitrary restrictions of Nienna, I felt like, again, I was talked down to - as if I haven't read the rules and didn't know what jobhopping was. My response to it was very snippy because I do not appreciate that tone at all. Since then, despite promises that databases would be outlined on the wiki, a search for the term on the wiki brings up no results relevant to IPC lore, again exacerbating the issue of IPC lore being decided in DMs with loredevs. March 1st I have went to Nienna's DMs to offer to code a new feature for the IPC lore. I went specifically to DMs because I did not want my words treated by the wider community as a promise, since I am not a part of the dev team and it would be my first large coding project for Aurora. We disagreed about the implementation. The same pattern repeats - I disagree with Nienna and make my point in perhaps a less respectful tone than I ideally could. I immediately apologized for my harsh tone. Nienna continues to ask me the same questions over and over again without making any counterarguments to what I just said despite me, in my opinion, laying out my point very clearly. They point out a mistake I made, which I accept, and then proceeds to block me for "talking to them with attitude". I pointed features I liked about the proposal and I pointed the features I did not like about the proposal with explanations why, but all I got is just "the devs didn't object to it" and "I don't follow", followed by getting blocked, without any actual discussion. This kind of attitude makes me neither want to contribute to IPC lore, nor really play the species. I study AI systems in real life and I absolutely love playing synthetic characters outside Aurora - but this behavior from loredevs, with arbitrary restrictions that can change at any moment and cannot be budged at all, make me seriously question whether it's worth it to play them here. I have talked to other players and I am not the only person who thinks this way. Nienna then proceeded to make a player complaint on me. What they omitted from the player complaint is that in all of the cases they brought up, I have apologized, in some cases repeatedly, to the people I was being rude to, including Nienna themselves. The apology has been accepted by them as well, but they proceeded to make a public player complaint. Originally, I intended to make this complaint in private to Mofo, but Nienna brought it all into public, which I can only interpret as an attempt to have the public bash on me, like in all complaints of the "don't be a dick" nature.

As a player who has played on the server since 2018 and does not have antag preferences enabled, I am very discouraged to actually ever try it because of rhetoric like this. Everyone, including you, is talking about how "we should be less toxic towards antags", and then go on to say that antagging was better before, every antag sucks, and that antags should be banned more often. I absolutely don't want to be subjected to the same kind of scrutiny that's expressed as desirable by you and many others in the thread, and I believe other experienced people don't want it either. If you want new people to play antag, stop bashing on the concept of antagonism as a whole and actually take steps to be less toxic towards them. You talk about mythical "creative antags" as if people who choose antagonist roles don't want to express their creativity even now, and it makes think that if I enable antag preferences as well, I'd never be able to meet that mythical standard of "creative antag" with a "good gimmick".

Since the PR was closed, Caelphon has allowed me to accompany my application with a written work. I present the rewrite of Qeblak. There are some areas that may very well be added to, of which I am aware, but the core of it, I think, won't change significantly. Qeblak

I guess that's fair, my experience was a long time ago. Maybe make Nurse an alt-title of the intern?

This may sound very neat and cool on paper, but when I did this as a nurse, people were at the very least very bewildered that I made security officers go into the post-op room instead of immediately sending them away to the next gunfight. While it can be argued that such behavior is unrealistic and allows for less RP from the medical department, I sorta see their point - it's not very fun to be taken away from the round for longer than you have to, even if you can chat with someone in the meanwhile. I am no expert on the balance between security and antags, far from it, but if a nurse role is to be (re)implemented, there needs to be a mechanical change to force post-op RP to occur, such as a comedown from anesthetics or making bodyparts hurt for some time after surgery.

Implemented (partially) in this PR https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/11328

I'll note this for the future.

My offer to Nienna was just that, an offer. I do not want to imply that I will plain not talk to them if I am accepted, I just wanted to make sure that I will not make them pointlessly uncomfortable if they don't want to speak to me, not vice versa. I do not treat the public lore server as a formal environment, I don't see an issue with using "lol" in what I say there. It's not indicative of tone, lately I'm just using it all the time. I do understand what you're saying with this though and I acknowledge that it's a valid point. It is up to Mofo to judge my previous behavior in that regard. I was a loredev for many months before and while abrasiveness is a consistent, and very valid, issue that has been brought up about me, "pointless arguments" are something I hear about for the first time. The public lore server is a place for casual discussion, chatting, and memes, I don't think having arguments there, even pointless ones, is anything bad - rather, the issue is my attitude and tone, which I acknowledge and lately have been trying to reflect on. I understand that the staff lore server is more serious.

The PR that I applied with was closed, but there is still spritework there and I intend to use it in a future PR with ~ cosmetic additions ~.

I apologize for my behavior. However, I am not applying to be a main lore developer, so I do not really have to interact with you or your team, if that'd be more preferable to you.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Carpe Venenum Position Being Applied For: (Wiki Maintainer, Lore Developer, Deputy Lore developer): Skrell Deputy Lore developer Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page? Yeah Past Experiences/Knowledge: I was a Skrell loredev previously, as well as a Human deputy. Examples of Past Work: Link to my wiki contribs Additional Comments: I've chosen to apply with a PR. It's not finished yet, but lore-wise it's done and there will probably be no new sprites. https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/11322 If a newspaper arc is required for it, I'd be happy to write it!

I can't really say much about the application itself, but Ilya Orlova (did you know Ilya is a male name and Orlova is a female surname?) is, at least outwardly (i.e. on the radio), is a really bad and flat Russian/Soviet stereotype. I can't really endorse this. -1

BYOND key: Carpe Venenum Discord name/id: Carpe Venenum#1108 Borg / AI names: I play borgs as one-off characters. I have only played AI on Goonstation. Have you read the Aurora wiki page about the AI?: yeah Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: I was always stressed about playing AI in the past because I do not particularly enjoy the stress of being an extremely important asset that basically belongs to Command and Security whenever they need to shut down a conflict. Now that the AI is neutral on these matters with the new lawset, I would love to play one! I really like roleplaying AIs. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? Not on the server, no. I guess the only stuff I got is just a couple of notes from late 2018. Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? yeah

Github username: VTCobaltblood Total Ban Length: Permanent Banning staff member's Key: Arrow768 Reason of Ban: Spamming in a review Reason for Appeal: It was kind of dumb when I did that, but a lot of time has passed now and it's kind of awkward to say "i'm gitbanned" when someone asks me to make a github issue.

I really like this! However, it's only tangentially related to the essay you've written for the application, outlining the main problem you have with the current lore. Could you detail some ways, possibly in a nice writeup, that you would give Skrell a bigger political presence in the galaxy?

On Discord, the "Safeguard sapient life" law was discussed as being too open to law-lawyering. While maneuvering around the laws is against the rules, reading the law does make questions arise regarding protecting the crew which could not be considered sapient or life, such as IPCs and Bound Vaurca (which lack self-awareness). I suggest the law is reworded a little to avoid these arguments in the future, for example: Safeguard all sapient life on board, including the crew and all visitors.

When I used to play Research 2-3 years ago, literally no antags ever touched science. At least it can get griefed now. Isn't that better than no interaction? What's your point? Also R&D can be done in 10 minutes if you try really hard

I have to echo what Alberyk is saying. You pointed out a problem, sure, but that doesn't really show your creative writing or even that you would fix the problem in a good way, really. If you wrote something new to show off your creative skills and process that would be quite epic

An interesting perspective that I find myself completely agreeing with. This also rings true for Vana; I called it a "reverse AI box experiment" on discord. I feel this is setting a weird example for how station intelligences should behave, since human knowledge of posis is borrowed from Skrell and thus would be largely similar. Not in the way that every AI should be easily subverted, but rather that an AI should have humanlike needs and motives rather than having station laws as their only goal. This also brings the question, how come Vana wasn't lawed? Or Glorsh, for that matter. If I recall correctly, AIs were treated by Skrell as literal children in the past lore, but this quite clearly potrays them as just software (in the eyes of Skrell).

I guess I just read a nice story, but as roleplay material, this feels incredibly bland. What was previously a fuel for conflict is just now pretty much, yeah, as you said, "AI is good unless people are bad". Which, again, while a nice story, doesn't make for interesting discussion or characterization, and also weakens Dominia and synth second class citizen lore as collateral damage. It's a good writeup for the theme you've chosen, but the theme itself is not a very good direction to take lore in. I also feel making psionics into superpowers is distasteful, but that's just my personal opinion as a previous maintainer and the person responsible for the Nlom.