CourierBravo

Ask the community for help instead of forcing 1 or 2 guys to do it. God knows i have several maps i never did anything with i could just give you. It has a research lab. A large one at that. A large portion of the ship is dedicated to the various sciences. You know what i mean, don’t just point “see, we never explicitly said it!” Map design matters when building a narrative. More than that, the same exact massive research set up was on the Aurora.

I feel like it might be worthwhile to throw in my two bits. Folks in this thread are outlining my problems with Aurora in its current direction fantastically. There’s a fundamental disconnect from what the player base wants and what the development/lore team want. I, frankly, do not want to play on a pseudo military vessel. The arcs and events since Horizon seem to be popular with the people who can make it, especially with security and command who are the main people engaging in it. This has been criticized already, and seemingly little consideration was made to it. If this is the path you want to go down, by all means. But it doesn’t encourage interest in me or plenty of others it seems. Good luck with that. In my opinion, the reason so many people had expectations that weren’t delivered on, is because we were given a setting where we could go anywhere and do anything. We could have explored the Valley Hale, then gone towards Assunzione, then gone anywhere from there. Out into the unknown, up towards wild space north, down around the alien parts of space. Anywhere. But we didn’t. Instead, the ship has sat in the Valey hale doing political work and military work. So much for research. If you guys wanted to make Aurora a fighting ship and do this crap where it’s out fending off a naval fleet? You should have started with that. If any expectations were let down, it’s that the team focused so hard on war, political fighting between factions, and military development, you forgot that this is a science and exploration vessel. And didn’t deliver on any exploration, as far as I’m aware. Correct me if I’m wrong, but has there been any main arc exploration events? (That’s a genuine invitation, i stopped keeping up a couple months back.) Finally, i want to bring up KOTH. I don’t think the team realizes why it was successful and everything since hasn’t been. KOTH saw all departments largely working together on a threat we were all unified against. Dreary futures seemed to see us fighting what was seemingly our allies. Though obviously not. I know my whole post is messy, but it’s nearly midnight for me and I’m tired. If any of you on the lore team care about this server, make some change. You’ve done little with the setting. Do something with it. You’ve done little with the crew. Run events that make the crew feel meaningful. Write some damn summaries so everyone actually knows what’s going on for gods sake. You can’t genuinely call yourself a research ship and ignore every explorative avenue. DM me if you want ideas, i care deeply for this setting and it’s beyond frustrating to see it turn into this. Or don’t. Stick your head into the ground and ignore your community. I’d be surprised if you’re peaking 10 players by next New Years Eve. Goodnight, sweet dreams, and please just listen. Yeah?

I think some re-analyzing of how to achieve a multi part narrative setup should be looked into. Because ultimately, this arc didn’t achieve much narrative buildup for anyone but command and event volunteers. The picture really shouldn’t be so blurry at the end of the arc. Ultimately, we’re where we started but with temporarily one less place to explore. If you want my frank recommendation, you need to recruit more human lore people, and preferably people who have different ideas than the past and current 4 have. Human lore has been largely stagnant because 3 people cannot reasonably tackle it. It’s such a monumental undertaking. And i think you, Cael, focusing on developing a new unrelated human planet while in the middle of the arc was a huge detriment to it. Please consider widening your pool of devs and the idea pools to draw in from.

Also, events with the Caraviaggo just felt bad. Like, I wasn't expecting them to turn into the antagonists, I thought they were being set up to be the aid to the ship. It felt like an unneeded plot twist/allegiance flip.

I just don't get it. I feel like the arc really went nowhere. I feel like nothing in game has changed except for parts of deck 3 getting damaged . In terms of crew interactions, I feel like the whole arc only saw Command and Security interaction. Arguably medical as well, because they have to haul off the wounded. The Mutiny felt like the most crew involvement for the whole thing. NanoTrasen finding phoron, and sending off the Horizon didn't even amount to anything game play wise too. We never actually found asteroids or planets with phoron outside of the heph facility, nor was there any events exploring phoron rich areas like we saw with the Clandestine incident. And at the end of this, I just. I don't know. I just don't even have words other than I need a break. This doesn't feel like the Aurora I remember when I joined the server two years ago.

BYOND key: CourierBravo Discord name/id: courierbravo#0420 Borg / AI names: Phobos/Deimos (AI) Have you read the Aurora wiki page about the AI?: yes Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: I want to check out how AI is on the Horizon. And, I’m not happy with my previous AI gameplay a year and a few months ago. I feel like i powergamed, and I’m not happy with that, so i want to prove to myself that I can do way better. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? Yes, one action on the forum for poor conduct that had since expired. Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? Yes, and i welcome the action if my behavior in game shows i need to be stripped of it. Regardless of my own feelings on it.

I meant more like, the blob just dies faster on highpop. Compared to the low pop rounds I’m playing, where it takes what feels like ages. And I’m not doing anything different, we used just one emitter back then too. It’s just what I’ve noticed dealing with blobs in the past few months. That they just seem tougher to kill and are much more aggressive/grow faster and are slower to kill. Not really harder, it’s pretty simple. Just time consuming Y’know?

Though now that i think about it, i remember blobs being way easier to deal with than i find them now when the server is at higher pops. Back when i played highpop

Huh. I’m usually dealing with really aggressive blobs that regrow really fast. Like, maybe 1 in 4 emitter volleys won’t go through at all, because it’ll regrow the shielding mass before an emitter shot can go through

I’m sorry but this isn’t really true. Sure, vines are a lot of clicking, but the only time vines can be a problem is when there’s only 1 person on the server. i think the point you’re missing is that A. You cannot reasonably handle a blob without an engineer. B. Blobs will get out of control really easily. And C. They’re a massive pain in the butt with the amount of destruction they cause. Even caught early, it can take 15 minutes to deal with one. If it vents a section or multiple sections, it takes even longer. I’m a pretty experienced engineer player, and i find blobs incredibly tedious because it takes so long to undo the damage. i think you’re also not really giving credit to the fact that even pointing and firing the emitter at a blob is time consuming. A believe it was about a week and a half ago, i was handling a blob in the starboard wing. And it took about 7 minutes to cut through 6 tiles of vine and the core. And it’s not like you can busy yourself with fixing the breech or doing repairs in the meantime. You have to wait for the emitter to do it’s work. I’m not going to say it’s impossible to deal with vines without an engineer, but I’ll give some insight to what it’s like when security does it. You pull out every single energy gun in the armory. You grab 4 chargers. You wrench those chargers down near the blob. You and another security person repeat the steps of 1. Firing all your ammo in a straight line towards the core 2. Swapping guns and repeating. 3. Putting the guns into chargers and wait half a minute or so for it to recharge. Repeat 15-20 times at least. Pray someone orders more guns or flash bangs while you sit there doing this. Huzzah, it finally dies. But you’re a security guard, you can’t fix the hole the blob poked into the ship. honestly, i don’t see a lot of value in keeping the blob at all. But if we do keep it, it’s gotta be nerfed to be less awful to deal with on lowpop. Or cap it so there’s at least, I’m just throwing random checks out, 15 people with at least 1 engineer or 2 Engineers.

I'm satisfied with that. Regarding the warlord states, it might be interesting to see them negotiate a bit, like a couple teaming up to take down another faction before turning on each other?

Even though Matt and I have our rockyness, I do trust him to make good choices. I dont see why that wouldn't extend to his writing choices. I like that your 3 big concerns line up with some of mine about lore, and you're recognizing the areas neglected. It's a nice surprise to see that you worked on Assunzione, which is one of my favorite planets in terms of concept, even though I dont really play characters from there. Of all the planets, I think its the most unique in terms of "how a society responded to a crisis". A +1 for sure. However, just one question. I've always found human lore arcs to be nothing but war war war, and very little politics. While i imagine you'll have a hand tied behind your back with the warlords, will we see lore arcs where there's little martial conflict, but mostly politics instead?

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