CourierBravo

Very very strong support, only change I'd like to see is with the egyptian deities. Maybe utilize some sub-Saharan African deities if you want to keep that theme?

Reporting Personnel: Song Hyu-Ju Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Captain Game ID: ciI-bqYW Commended Personnel: ZI Krantz, Engineering Apprentice, ZI Providence, Engineering Apprentice Witnesses: Sejong, XO, Song Hyu-Ju, Captain Time of Commendable Act: N/A Real Time:(probably around 4am PST? or about two hours into round?) Location of Act: SCCV Intrepid Overview: Due to a lack of security, crew were deputized to deal with rogue elements in crew. While preforming a marooning overseen by Sejong, they were attacked by the person to be marooned along with another crewmember. They both fought to subdue them both, saving the lives of all crew present to oversee the marooning. Along with ensuring the safe return of the intrepid, which they then made repairs to. Thanks to their going above and beyond the their duty, our ship is safe and sound, and the criminals handled. They kept their heads cool the entire time, showing why Zavodskoi Interstellar has earned their rightful reputation as professionals in all lines of work. Additional Notes: N/A

God knows that if I could, I would tackle this, but I dont even know where to begin for something as big as a rework like im suggesting.

decanonizing them is also pretty easy to do, but it doesn't fix the problem that it basically kills Xenoarch as a department for roleplay. Its effectively the same thing, because the whole portion of science is based off of a gameplay loop that, as you suggest, would be non canon. You might as well remove it at that point.

Rework over remove would be more reasonable. Golems are interesting, but it would be nice to swap out the magic-y parts of it like "Golem" and the rune with something more tech-like. Changing them to be "constructs" instead of "golems" would do wonders just to how people interact with them. Artifacts are also cool and interesting, the only problem is A. A lot of their phrasing is incongruent with current lore, and B. A lot of their mechanics are busted. Instead of "Machine that makes infinite crabs" for instance, we change how those machines work so they can only make X amount, x being a believable number (somewhere between 5-15?) Things like mundane containers that produce infinite amounts of liquids should be reskinned to be technical looking contraptions. A lot of the cult stuff being removed from artifacts would be good, though. The cult items really don't belong outside of the game mode. Maybe temporally changing the ruling for them would be a middle ground, but with the understanding we're not removing them from discussion permanently, but only until a reasonable rework on them can be done? Also, it would be a massive headache to manage having moderation permit what can and cannot be cannon on a case by case basis. That's a really unreasonable ask for the long term imo, because I absolutely would hate to do that, so I couldn't reasonably expect moderation to.

Reporting Personnel: Sonja Caliban Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Cook Game ID: cib-apkk Personnel Involved: D'Jar Sa'Kuate, Off Duty Personnel (Offender) Rrhajaks Jhrasthinova, Security Cadet (Victim) Sonja Caliban, Cook (witness) Fancisco Obregon, Chef (witness) Time of Incident: N/A Real Time: 9:30~ Pacific -8 Location of Incident: Kitchen Nature of Incident: [ ] - Workplace Hazard [ ] - Accident/Injury [ ] - Destruction of Property [ ] - Neglect of Duty [ ] - Harassment [x ] - Assault [ ] - Misconduct [ ] - Other _____ (Place an x in the box that applies. If other, replace line and specify.) Overview of the Incident: While on my shift, a white tajara I believe was D'jar asked me for some enzyme from the kitchen for a project in the garden. I gave him a bottle. He later returned with several clams I've never seen before, and a jar called "red moonshine." He leaves both on the counter, then goes down the elevator to his quarters. Another tajara, Rrhajaks Jhrasthinova, got excited at the prospect of some moonshine, and drank some. She quickly started screaming and acting irrationally, as if in a rage. She quickly calmed down, and exclaims she was drugged. I asked for security to come investigate, but they were busy handing unruly crew. The cadet went to medical, I believe, then later explained to me that the liquor was full of red nightshade, a kind of drug thats "liquid rage." We didnt have this kind of thing where I grew up, so I took some and put it in a beaker, and placed it in my grinder. The grinder being able to tell what's in it, gave me a readout I took a photo of. Submitted Evidence: Would you like to be personally interviewed?: [ X] - Yes [ ] - No Did you report it to a Head of Staff or a superior? If so, who? If not, why?: Command staff and security were busy, unable to get to me or forgot to. I attempted to get attention over the radio, but I was only acknowledged by medical. Actions taken: None, offender went to their quarters.

Actually, I wanna come back around to this. I think this is a super important thing for writing staff to do. And if Caelphon is regularly too busy doing either personnal life things to be able to do this, or too busy with Aurora management/work, I would love to have this be apart of my role under him. If people want questions answered that lore staff cant or dont want to answer, I'd be happy to talk to the person for them. Even if that means reinforcing that "no, they dont want to talk about it right now", I can take that and ask the person later or someone on their team later if they're willing to elaborate at a future point (either to me or to the concerned person) . Then I can talk it out with the individual.

My intention with focusing on these areas is that I feel like they're just not receiving much of anything. I feel like the synthetic team, currently with the Trinary arc, is doing a great job of showing that A. This section of lore is now actively and regularly being developed and B. the individuals who want to focus on synthetic lore dont need to be poked or proded at all. Area of focus for what I want to contribute doesn't necessarily mean I cant or wont help in other areas. My job would be primarily whatever both Caelphon and the lore team needs of me, secondarily the lore projects I want to tackle. That's fair, I can see exactly where you're coming from with that. I would hope that being able to work with and workshop my ideas with the team would overall be a boone to my ability to write. Though if that's not what the team is looking for in a deputy loremaster, I'd be fine taking that as a good reason someone else might be picked over me.

Thank you for bringing this up, even though I thought that this was water under the bridge and a year ago, but I digress. Yes, my conduct was improper. I was punished accordingly, which has since been removed from active record. And I apologized for it, and anther time since then to Danse. If you would like verification of punishment, you could ask a moderator of some flavor, I'm sure they could look at my profile and confirm that for you. At the time I was dealing with the trauma of surviving a natural disaster (Wildfire). That doesn't excuse my behavior a year ago, but that's an awfully hard accusation to make that I was being disrespectful. We all handle trauma in different ways, and I was just doing an incredibly shit job and causing problems. That's not okay, but that was also a year and a half ago, I would hope I've done some growing up since then. It wasnt a Gotya. If you read the full thread, we talk it out, come to an understanding, and have it resolved. In my opinion, it was disrespectful at the time I maid the complaint, to keep the arc going and to keep it as it was named. But again, if you read it, that was the secondary concern. My primary concern was the lack of any elaboration about questions and concerns I brought up privately to Caelphon. See my response to Alberyk on why I want to bring those back. Schwann, I feel like you're ignoring the points I'm making in my post. I explicitly say we're too war focused. Yes, war happens, but that's all that ever happens. That's an area of writing I'd like to focus on personally with this position. It is incredibly foolish to dismiss the idea that good things can happen too. Even the edgy-beyond-edgy-grimdark-uber-dystopia-war-is-happening-24/7-because-there-is-only-war-Warhammer 40K has good things happen in it.

I'm completely serious about it, while my tone probably did come off as joking about applying, I sat and thought with it and I feel like even though I have a very low chance of getting the position, I'm missing 100% of shots I just dont take. As I outlined, I think there's several things I could bring to the team that would be beneficial. My personal goal is only to have the position for a short while to make the contributions I'd like to, help Caelphon meet the deadlines he wants to, then step down so someone with a different skill set and desired focus can take up the spot. I'd ballpark that at around 8 months to 1 year.

Personal work I'm really not inclined to share. (I know that's a major cop out, but its mostly writing work I don't want anyone but the intended handful of people to read.) For public work, it would only be the last couple of months. When I first started playing, I found these examples incredibly useful for wrapping my head around the intended "average joe" for a planet's character. I feel like this feature was crucial for the new players experience rather than any old players. Especially concerning planets like Eridani, who have skin tone restrictions based off its original settlers. You're absolutely right to call that into question. I feel like I've done a lot of growing up since then, and I'm really not proud of a lot of that. I just assumed that writers were malicious outright because of something I experienced, rather than actually talking to them in any capacity. Turns out, writing about bad things doesn't make you a bad person, I was just an idiot. Shocking, I know. Specifically in relation to the natural disaster as a big one, at the time I was still processing the trauma of the situation and making a major ass of myself. I know I also took a similar issue with Caelphon and the Mictlan arc, but that was more an instance of bad timing/not understanding why that arc couldn't have been delayed a week or two.

Ckey/BYOND Username: CourierBravo Discord Name: courierbravo#0420 Position Being Applied For: Deputy Loremaster Past Experiences/Knowledge: 2 years creative writing experience Examples of Past Work: Applications for changes to Assunzione and Mars Roadmap bullet points: Expand any human planets with small culture sections Create example characters for the wiki for each human planet, including non human examples Help expand Diona lore however I can and foster a Diona lore arc Run several "feel good" events and have multiple arc's that aren't gritty/dramatic and not war based Update any lore arcs that have left places with ambiguous unrest, or otherwise a lack of elaboration on the situation since then (Mars, Sol as a whole, Coalition) Criticism: My only real complaint with the server's lore is that its too war focused. We have so many arc's that are built around war, civil unrest, or violent crime of some kind. While its a great tool for moving the plot forward, I feel like we're forgetting to write anything that elaborates further. We don't see any resolution that isn't immediate. Mars is still written from the perspective of right after the events of Violet Dawn. Sol is still fractured heavily without much elaboration on how any of that is going. We also don't see all that much good. Very little good happens, its just bad thing after bad thing. The most memorable event that happened to me while playing was when that Tajara soda was added, and the care packages that were sent. I'm so much more attached to that memory than most of the arc's that have happened since then. Its hard to be invested in the server's lore when its just war happening. We have too much yin and not enough yang. What can I bring to the table?: Aside from the obvious, a fresh set of eyes and writing ideas, I believe my skill set can be best served in re engaging people who have lost interest for similar reasons I have. I think having someone on the team who wants to push forward with expanding culture is huge. Humanity and Diona are where I want to focus my efforts which are both sections that just dont see a lot of input compared to Skrell or Tajara. There's just a massive amount of work to be done, and I think I'm one of the handful of people who will focus on the area's that I think more work can be put into.

Well, if that's what you think, I'll trust your judgement

I guess that makes more sense when you explain your perspective, but it wasnt clear in the moment at all. From my point of view, I wanted to help and do my job, and I thought that conversation was being completely ignored in favor of making the requests to join the loyalist group. I also thought that removing my access so I could go contribute was what was agreed upon, so its confusing to have that agreed, and also be punished for leaving the bridge. And finally, there just wasnt any roleplay to be had about demoting me. Which I think is pretty significant in the story of what was going on, it was just "your ID is on the ground, go get it." and shutting me down with a "Stop wining about it" when I tried to at least talk about it over radio. So, with the lack of any real communication , going back on the very little discussed, and dismissal of the command member demoted, I felt like it was an OOC Issue and based on refusing the prompt, not an IC one. I thought it wasnt justified, it was just "oh you might be a liability because you wont directly join the loyalists, demoted and shut down in conversation." That's why I felt like it was a choice made on OOC information. I pointed that out because it made it sound like there was active combat about to or actively happening. Both group were still in their gearing up phase, and fighting didnt even break out for another 20-30 minutes I think. I understand that's apart of the gimmick, but the point of a gimmick is to create roleplay.

Yes, that's my complaint. I feel like OOC information of refusing the prompt was the reason the access was taken away, as I dont believe anything outside of not wanting to run into a firefight was expressed. Sorry, I should have made that more clear.

I'd like to point out that I A. Said I was loyal, even though I did not immediately join, and B. At no point in our conversation were rebels trying to take the bridge. As far as I'm aware, during the entire exchange and the popping of the crew armory, only loyalists or non sided were even on the 3rd deck. I feel like theres a higher degree of roleplay expected than "you were ordered to by an announcement." Nor at any point did I refuse an order, outside of the OOC prompt to join. I came to the bridge as ordered, I said I was loyal as I was supposed to by the gimmick, my character being SCC member, and I handed over my ID, only to be demoted immediately. Though I guess you could extrapolate my characters hesitance to arm myself and form up on the loyalist group as disobeying orders, but I suggested alternative course of action instead. Thank you for your quick reply though, its appreciated.

BYOND Key: CourierBravo Game ID: chq-dl2x Character name: Maxamilien D'Ambroise Staff involved: N/A (ReadThisNamePlz only through discord DM, no official capacity) Reason for complaint: Low Roleplay feel to round, using OOC information IC Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? Yes, no response from staff. Approximate Date/Time: 4/13/22 ~5pm GMT-8 I'd love to have screenshots, but I closed my game and walked away before thinking to save my chatlog. To summarize, the round was revolution. About 30 minutes in, the gimmick starts. The captain, Maxamilien D'Ambroise, called staff to the bridge. When on the bridge, the captain used the ooc prompt to ask me to join the loyalists. I refused, trying to roleplay it out instead. He asked again with the OOC fuction, only replying IC that I sounded non committal. I refused again, so he took my ID away, saying he should at least remove my bridge access in case im captured. Then demoted me without even saying anything, just leaving my ID on the ground outside the crew armory. I then just puttered around for another two hours, before closing my client and just being done with the round. I messaged ReadThisNamePlz, who recommended I open a ticket in game or make a character complaint. I opted to log back in and make an ahelp, but after 8 minutes there was no response, and the round was about to end. I decided to self close the ticket as to not drag out the end of the round. I'm just frustrated that there was little to no roleplay (that I personally experienced) with the gimmick, and that I was immediately neutered of any capacity to be involved. Obligatory "I know other people got a lot of good roleplay in, but I'm speaking from my experience of the round, not anyone elses."

I think hostile 3rd parties would be amazing, but I think we'd have to divide it. Independent groups like pirates, warbands, smugglers, etc. would be ghost roles, where things like EE ships, Dominian skirmishers, whoever's angry at biesel in the current moment, would all be event vehicles/done with oversight from a loredev of some flavor. That's just my thoughts though, no matter what I'd love 3rd party hostile non antag ships. Though a thought of mine is "why would either party even engage each other? " So my solution is this: a point of interests for the round. Distress beacons, scanners picking up anomalies, things of that nature. Something for the hostile 3rd party and Horizon to have to fight over rather than one docking to the other in some way. maybe having crew pop minimums like 20 crew (not readied players) for the ghost role to open would also keep things in check? I'm just spitballing at this point.

I'm satisfied with that. If you want me to brainstorm anything, I'd be happy to. Unless anyone else has anything to add, I'm content with how this went and would be fine with closing this.

Thank you for explaining @Caelphon, it is appreciated. Those are all fair points, and I'm satisfied with that, I guess there really isn't ever going to be a good time, this is just an incredibly unfortunate timing. Do you think it would at least be reasonable to change the arc name? At this point, that's the only issue here that's bugging me.

I feel like making a community warning that it might make people uncomfortable because of the mirroring of current events, is acknowledgement that it was a very real possibility. Else why would you make the warning? The point of an announcement like that would be so the community can infer that it's going to be potentially sensitive/touchy. I'd disagree, as far as I'm aware it's his arc, as he's the one posting about it, so if I was to talk to anyone about it and an issue had with it, i feel like it would be a very reasonable expectation to try and talk to him. I feel like that should have been handled better, because to me that felt like stonewalling. Additionally, if we cant talk to the staff about the content their making, then what good does feedback do? Especially with the sensitivity of the situation. I don't want to do a public dog piling, which I fear would happen if I made this grievance public. So I went to Cael directly. And now I'm making a confidential complaint, because again I don't want someone else to come in and make things aggressive or derail. Additionally, the arc doesn't need to be canceled. It can be pushed back, until things are less tense and sensitive. Sure. The arc and situation on Mictlan, as I understand it, is a story of one nation being annexed into another nation, and civil unrest therefrom. As we've seen from the real life Russia-Ukraine conflict, you can easily draw parallels between the two. Additionally, the name of the arc, "Siege of Mictlan" leaves a bad taste in my mouth given the real siege on Ukraine happening as I type. While the two conflicts are a bit different in nature (aside from the obvious one of one is real and one is spaceman game). Ultimately, while I believe that the Mictlan arc will be more a story of insurgency underdogs rather than two nations battling it out, the timing is just poor. I feel like now is a very inappropriate time to be having this arc, in its current state, even though it's been in the works for awhile now. I want to see where it goes, I'm rarely disappointed by how lore arc's go, but I really think we should be pushing it out to a later date. I cannot stress it enough, I dont want this arc canceled, I would like for this arc put on the backburner until things cool down in the real world. At the very least, if we're going to go through with the arc no matter what, a good move is to change the name.

BYOND Key: CourierBravo Staff BYOND Key: caelphon Reason for complaint: Tone-deaf lore arc follow through Evidence/logs/etc: Orion Spur article "Protests across Mictlan", Discord announcement, personal conversation (find 2 and 3 attached below.) To elaborate, given the war going on in Ukraine, I feel like its incredibly tone deaf and not okay to have gone through with this lore arc full well knowing that its going to make people uncomfortable. I dont understand why this couldnt have been pushed back. When I messaged Caelphon to say "hey, this seems inappropriate," he refused to elaborate, simply telling me "I'm sorry if this makes you feel uncomfortable" and "This was greenlit back in December" instead of any kind of dialogue. As seen here: Cael knew ahead of time that this was going to make people uncomfortable, as seen here: Between the lack of willingness to have any dialogue about it, and the nature of the arc and the timing, this feels incredibly inappropriate. I ask that we go back on this, and hold this arc off for another time. Additional remarks: I would like to point out that "Siege of Mictlan" feels particularly egregious. The arc name at least should have been changed.

Type: Planet expansion/tweaks Short Description: This covers a handful of things: the habitability of mars, the political situation on mars twice over, and heavily adding to the culture section of Mars, which only has one paragraph. Specifically, reducing the total pollution affect on the planet since its been a year since the initial fires Outlining four factions, Unified Kunlun, a Crest Olympia sphere of influence, Red Gia somehow surviving, and the Unified Elysium Front Expanding how the average martian has been coping with the complete decimation of half their people, mainly with exercise and music (along with some band names/artist names) Outlining some Political Hot Takes the average martian might have/what wide swath of opinion they fall into about the Violet Dawn explosion Adding cuisine, a description of what its like, and several examples (a handful of which I've also sprited How will this be reflected on-station?: More political fracturing instead of martians being just "Sol good" or "fuck Sol" with actual factions someone can throw support behind. Cuisine representation, tying mars in more with the day to day life a character experiences. And giving more culture as a whole for Martian characters to work with instead of working with their own head-canon Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: This is mostly an effort to humanize Mars lore more, as in give more for the day to day character. Mars has fantastic lore, but its a lot of overarching things and little in the way of what an individual experiences. The culture section is just one paragraph after all. And it gives the martian perspective on post Violet Dawn, which i think is really important. Do you understand that the project may change over time in ways that you may not foresee once it is handed over to the Lore Team? Absolutely, and I encourage them to make changes and ask me questions/ask for elaboration/otherwise just get input. Long Description: I'm gonna post two links to google docs, one that's the original copy, and another that's modifications and additions I've made after posting this. original: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yb52waYogZrB-wIgww1cWeq_-rcJsuX_kZitrfc9m4Q/edit?usp=sharing copy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zE3xV-oQEEz4ya-GbzNB91zCleJ0q-hhEVuM0sufDfw/edit?usp=sharing

as a note, some stuff came up so I will be holding off for tonight. If anyone wishes to reply, ask for clarification, comment, etc., now is not a bad moment to do so

Thank you for your quick reply, it’s appreciated. Addressing this first, I did not know at the time of posting if that was retconned or not, hence it’s inclusion, and I’m happy to disregard it. It was indeed over the top, so i figured that it could have been retconned, so it was the last thing i put. I understand that it might feel like i was intentionally trying to make your character look bad, but as far as i was aware it was still something to look to. The pointed finger wasn’t needed. Now, for the screenshots. My issue is mainly with the comments against dregs, mainly them being drug using gang members with a water supply that makes them underdeveloped. I, personally, feel like that’s incredibly uncomfortable. I don’t know where you’re from, therefore i don’t know if this is applicable to your life experience, but. Those stereotypes have been used against black people in America, casting them as drug abusing gang members. Though, I’m willing to believe that it’s a coincidence due to dreg lore in its current state. A potential solution to prevent such parallels from being drawn, intentional or intentional, might be for dreg lore to be expanded on to be more than just an impoverished underbelly. though i would like to mention about the Tajara discrimination, that the comments about diversity and sarcastic nature that “we definitely shouldn’t make mass arrests because they’re criminals and drug addicts” echos the American War On Drug era policies and sentiments, which again felt incredibly uncomfortable. Though again, that can be coincidental and not intentional based on the current in lore situation. finally, for the lithium theory, though i only did a cursory search online, the only sources i found about it is from Gangstalking blogs that are mostly just deranged rants in form of word vomiting/ stream of consciousness. Which lead me to feel like she’s more parodying the paranoid gangstalking people in that instance. For the full conversation, i didn’t actually take part for more than a couple messages, i mostly observed. From my perspective, it looked like Claire was just refusing to listening to what the supposed expert had to say just to keep injecting her thoughts. I’ll be posting more replies to this later tonight, i did all of this while on my lunch. I still have more to say. Otherwise, i just like to finish by saying that when broken down into the individual aspects, all of these things are somewhere between tame enough but weird to suspicious but explainable. It’s that they’re all together that makes me feel like she doesn’t fit in her current state, and takes me out of my immersion more than not. Please do not take my observations as accusatory, but rather feedback and concern based on my own feelings, knowledge, and experience.