CourierBravo

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.

Thank you for the reply, I think there's a misunderstanding that this is In Universe rules I'm talking about. I'm specifically talking about server rules, that character have to be believable and not insane, which in my only exposure to Claire via the relay, does not pass. I agree, they havent been much of a problem but it hinges on how believable. For your example, I believe that Turnsynbekov, our beloved, was believable and had more to him that I saw both in game and in relay, along with Alberyk doing some very high effort ARG additions. And while racism is something we do roleplay in game, my issue is that its specifically towards dregs, the predominantly black ethnic group in lore. And centering around drugs heavily, which at least in my country, there's a heavy race based association with drugs. Though I dont want to come off as suggesting that this is malicious or even the sentiments of Flpfs, I'm not discussing them or their own beliefs, but rather their character and some unfortunate overlaps between real life issues and in game issues that I feel is over the line. Which again, I'm assuming that it is not intentional, but it is presenting in my interpretation, therefore I feel the need to draw the comparison. Of course, I believe this as well. Any character can and should be retooled if needed. But, I believe that fundamentally this is an OOC rule issue, not an IC issue. I do not find Claire, in her current state, believable, which does not make me want to roleplay with the character. From what I understand, there has been dialogue between players before about this, and my last efforts to get in contact with Flpfs about an unrelated issue were ignored, so I'm defaulting to a complaint.

Thank you for replying, I was under the impression that now that the relay is an official portion of the Aurora community, that actions there are still considered in character. And its not about not allowing wacky characters, its about having a character that is over the line. If this is something that should be settled in an in character format such as an IR, then having this locked and archived is the obvious step, and we'll move from there. But I believe that this is a character breaking server rules, not a character breaking in universe rules, hence the choice to make this a complaint and not an IR. Even disregarding the EMP from last year, I feel like what I have from just this month screenshots is worth raising concerns about.

BYOND Key: CourierBravo Game ID: N/A / Relay behavior Player Byond Key/Character name: Flpfs/Claire Tarson Staff involved: N/A Reason for complaint: Insane/Mentally ill character Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? I have not, I have been keeping it to myself but I think now warrants a complaint. Approximate Date/Time: Multiple instances, 8/30/2021, today in particular 5:00pm UTC-8, 1:00am UTC 0 2/3/2022 I cant help but feel like Claire is breaking the no insane character rule fairly regularly. Her behavior is unhinged, spouting conspiracy theories and speciesist/racist remarks regularly. Additionally, I feel like the character is a poor representation of mentally ill people, being played to some sort of joke/disrespect. While I fully believe that people with mental illnesses deserve to be in the workplace, I believe that this character is a poor representation and potentially harmful. And finally, I dont know if its still canon or retconned, I believe at one point she nearly killed a non player character with her delusions with an EMP and was arrested by the police (8/30/2021). Incidents I can think of: Nearly killing someone by disabling their pace maker 8/30/2021 Insisting that lithium is being put in water to make people docile (5:07 UTC-8 2/3/2022) Racist/Speciest remarks: (dates included in screenshots) General screenshots showing behavior:

I'm hesitating to give a -1, as I believe that people can improve if they choose to. But, My major concern here is that you're a little notorious for going AFK playing Fros'Qerr Vel-Rena. Going to over a year ago I can think of a time you went dormant while the only medical person on station. If you're gonna play command, in my opinion you /gotta/ be there for the whole time unless something IRL comes up and you have to step away, not just because nothings going on last you checked. or at least say "hey going afk" so people know whats going on, y'know? Other than that, while I didn't particularly enjoy the stated above round, I think that if someone learns the tools to be good at command, they can actually be good at command. And apart of that is just playing and problem solving. I dont know if you really play any of the medical roles other than surgeon, but I'd spend a good few hours in each and learn their needs and wants and how that kinda thing goes. Other than that, things like communicating and giving clear and firm orders is really appreciated. Consider this a very neutral feedback. I think you might wanna re-evaluate your skill set and how well you know the rest of the department. Maybe take more interim positions as Fros'Qerr Vel-Rena, so you can practice and get a better feel for command? Other command players would be a great resource to ask about these kind of things, pick their brains for ideas and feedback. Its very easy for me to say what I think you should work on without providing any lead on how you can do that.

I feel like I should preface with that the jumpsuits themselves, if just just put them in greyscale, are largely improvements in terms of looks as a sprite over what we currently have. I genuinely see the skill and effort put into these sprites. However, I thing three things are largely missing that the Aurora sprites have. Color, distinguishing shape, and while its incredibly subjective and not really a good metric whatsoever, a feel like they belong in Aurora. Because I really cant empirically define "feeling like they belong", I'm just leaving it as that. As they currently are, they're objectively better than what we have but just dont feel like they belong. Maybe that'll go away once we get used to the new update. For their color and shape, that is definable. My issue is really that many uniforms look too close to each other without distinguishable differences at a glance. Except for Engineering and Operations, those ones fuck and it was hit right on the nail. I have a hard time telling apart bartender and chef, all of medical from eachother, CMO and Bridge Crew look the same, security officer and cadet look identical aside from one having a tie, and science is only really saved by having heavily contrasting colors all over and just looking a bit of a bad mess so you can tell them apart, but not instinctively tell who's who. I think what needs to be focused on is making things brighter and give more distinguishing outfits. However, I want to point out, that again Engineering and Operations both fuck hard, and are exactly what you should look at for changing the rest They manage to look different at a glance by having different clothes on, with different color placements. For the love of god, do not change those two. I'm just gonna pick medical to make suggestions to, as I think its the most... not good, and also easiest to fix. Unless the First Responder gets back their deeply green colors with their gear, a la helmet, backpack, and vest, I feel like theres nothing that makes them stand out to say "thats a first responder." Physician and Surgeon look too close together, unless surgeon comes with scrubs still to make it easy to tell them apart in a situation. I'd recommend just giving surgeon scrubs only and calling that good. And, honestly, medical just needs to look less dingy. They look like their clothes are dirty or stained, or just have been worn for a long time already. I think replacing they grey with white like they are on the Aurora currently would do leagues to make them look better. Bright white.

1. fuck them kids that is true, it is a site that the raiders can land at. But I've put a LOT of time into both mining and raiders, and i've never had issues. thats not a guarantee someone else wont. 2. Unless it got buffed, its only a 1x1 area, so its largely useless since its way faster and more efficient to do a volume approach to mining drills instead of a handful of good placements. Unless you're like, full drill tending the whole time, then i can see it being useful.

Short description: Its been awhile since anyone's done too much lore for the CoC, so I decided to explore it by drawing two inspirations. For the economics, i drew inspiration from the hydroponic farms popping up in warehouses for growing fresh produce in cities. I learned about them some like, 6 years ago and I've always wanted to do something with that, but More. Absolutely massive complexes moving tons of food every 2-3 day per set of racks, with dozens of racks. And of course, tons of light, because what kinda Assunzione building would it be if it wasnt The Sun 2 in there? And the new Lucism sect was mostly me trying to breathe some life into things! I feel like a lot of our lore is very.... needing of something a bit out there. Not terribly out there, but I feel like we're getting too bogged down in the corporate stuff happening in Biesel. Wheres the fun! and specifically, why does venus seem to have all of it? Well, not any longer! with this new sect of Lucism, we get an exciting new take. Basically, we're doing raves. I love the idea of mixing the rave culture of the 90's and early 2000's with Lucian love of light and their light/dark dichotomy. How will this be reflected on-station?: Mainly to do with the Lucian sect, in character behavior will be the main part. Any department can see characters apart of this sect because of its work hard/play hard deals, but I'd expect to see bartenders, chaplains, and engineers/science (for lights/circuitry). the former addition could see more Assunzione gardeners, particularly with prosthetics. The more characters with prosthetics, the more people are gonna want to play roboticist due to interactions. Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: I feel like it breathes a little more life into Assunzione that its just missing at the moment. 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 it. My ideas for the Lucian sect are fun but that doesnt mean it'll fully fit. Long Description: Change to economy/expension for Dalyan and Said Assozione also has a large agricultural production, heavily utilizing genetically modified crops grown in massive, multi story hydroponic warehouses. They’re mainly located below or throughout Dalyan, but Said also sees these facilities pop up in unused spaces. These massive racks are rows upon rows of plants grown in trays, with upwards of 50-60 rows stacked on top of each other, with only just enough room between for them crops to grow and to fit the light arrays that allow them to grow 24/7. The environment inside the warehouses is usually hazardous, as large amounts of carbon dioxide is pumped in to feed the astronomical amounts of plants. The harvesting/replanting process is also somewhat dangerous, requiring crews to be on oxygen supply, and suspended in the air either on cherry pickers or repurposed suspended platforms, the kinds seen used by window cleaners on skyscrapers. While these facilities are typically run by government held enterprises, attempts are made every couple years at privatization in an attempt to stimulate the economy. These usually end up failing and being repossessed within a few years after outrage from degraded safety. Typically, to save costs and maximize revenue in a fiscal year, safety equipment in new facilities is bought on the cheap. This results in incidents of workers injured or dying after Safety lines snapping, harnesses snapping, asphyxiating due to faulty oxygen supply systems, or a combination of those. Addition to culture/religion for Lucism Religious divergence Over the past decade, a new doctrine of Lucism has sprung up, an offshoot of Astructuralism. Gaining popularity among adults in their late teens to late 20’s mainly. Centering around a work hard play hard lifestyle, so called “Spiritual Raves” have taken root. Being heavily controversial due to the complete change in interpretation of the religion and the low light nature of these parties and venues. And further compounded by the prevalence of drugs. The general idea of the moment moves away from the idea of worship of Ennoia through the pillars, and instead promotes the idea of closeness to Ennoia through a direct balance of light and dark. The most common way this is enacted by followers is by the aforementioned work hard play hard lifestyles. Working long hours and staying late, doing charity and volunteer work, and other “good deeds” make up the Light. The Dark being indulgence; drinking and doing drugs, making impulsive choices, enjoying expensive/luxury consumer goods, free love, and similar things. The venues themselves are mainly lit with borderline excessive amounts of black lights from every angle possible. This creates a simultaneously well lit and dim room. Lasers, flashing lights, and fog machines add to the effect. The music incorporates heavy themes of Astructuralist hymns, highs and lows common in EDM, and even a major resurgence of the Amen Break in songs that use actual lyrics rather than samples of hymns. Costume for these dance parties can be quite different between groups, but the general themes are reflective clothing, body paint, and glow sticks. A casual party goer might have a reflective shirt, vest, or other article of clothing and some glow sticks. Where someone dedicated to the rave entirely might make elaborate outfits full of reflective ribbons, baggy pants or flowing skirts, and kinds of tops that expose as much skin as reasonably possible to allow intricate glow in the dark paintings on their bodies to show. It’s not uncommon for UV reflective tattoos to be present as well. Nightlife especially has found its home in the scene, enhancing the euphoria of indulgence further.

This guide is can be useful as a starters guide to mining, but this is intended as a supplement to the wiki or someone teaching you. This specifically goes over my own methods, but is also an open thread for other people to talk about theirs. Your best results are going to be on higher pop hours, which is from about 2pm PST to 8pm PST, as thats when the science mains are around. Roundstart: what do First things first, pick the drill technician alt title if you haven't done that already. It gives you a free drill dropper and some tools, which is invaluable and key to this. Also, if you use the duffle bag, ditch it. The space really isn't needed. Now you can spawn in, head down to your mining cave and get your gear sorted. Set up your suit, grab the beacons under the suit, and grab from the locker: the Kinetic Accelerator (KA for short), GPS, Ore Detector, and the ore bag. Put everything in your backpack. You wont be going too far away from the mining airlock at first, so you dont need to take the pickaxe, but if you like the comfort of having a good melee weapon, take it and put it on your belt slot. Drills Tending: How to do it at first How many drills should someone have? The answer normally is "however many you can reasonably tend to without massive downtime." For this strat, the answer is 4. You will only need to use two droppers. If there's other drill tecks, just ask if you can tend theirs for them, usually they just want to go shaft mine anyways. Now, for placements. I haven't empirically tested it, but from limited trial and error, I've found that spacing out the drill heads 8 apart works best. 6 spaces between them. You should be able to stand in the place where a drill head is, and be able to see the other drill head at the edge of the screen. You can reasonably fit 4 drills in the big space south of mining, just dig out the rock usually present at the top of the open space, and you'll be fine. The Strat: Part one Clear an area in the south for four drills, plan out beacons for them. When drills are done, just push them south 7 blocks and start them again. I recommend doing three rows of beacons. Get them set to start drilling like normal. After a little practice, you should be able to get all your gear, cycled out, and drills set up by minute 5 of the round. Grab a box, theres spare boxes next to the mine cart tracks. Go strip mining for 10 minutes, and set your Ore Detector to Phoron Only. I cannot stress that enough, I swear to god I find and collect more ore than if I turn on a bunch of ores to detect. After 10 minutes, walk back and empty the content of the drills into the box. Go mine for another couple minutes until the mineral field depletes. Move them down the column to the second row of beacons. Now take yourself to the airlock and cycle back in, you should have enough points to buy everything you need for Part 2. Intermission: Smelting, Gear, and Science. So, you're back inside. Run over and grab the label maker, then put your ore box on the right hand side of the unloading belt. Label it "teleporter crate: do not move." While its unloading, set up the smelter. Just set it up normally, except dont alloy platinum. Theres no good reason to make plasteel, it just makes things more complicated; and looses credits for the quartermaster to dick around with. What to buy? Buy 3 ore bags, 5 Item Warp Packs, 1 Item Warp Beacon, 1 Explorers Belt, 1 Orbital Drill Dropper, and 1 Ore Summoner. If you have the points and want the close quarters weapon, grab a diamond pick as well. To move to the next step we need everything smelted and processed, so go ahead and set up the item warp packs and beacon, and put all your new items into the belt. Science time. Take all the materials, and eject any non full stacks. Pull out the platinum/tritium and slap it into a corner for the cargo techs to handle. Go to science, and divide the materials evenly between R&D and Robotics. Or just hand them all to R&D and let them sort it out. While there, ask for a custom KA to be made. It should be around minute 20-25 so if science is using the current meta for research or doing it by hand, they should have enough unlocks by now. The KA: Ask for a Vented Frame, Meteor Core, Kinetic Cell, and Firedelay Upgrade. This KA is amazing, its basically the one you spawn with, but it holds 40 shots and pumping it once gives it 40 shots. I'll credit the player who told me about that KA here if they choose to come forward. What if they cant/wont make it or theres no science? Just run with the KA you got at round start, its really good as is, but expect closer to about 80 phoron per hour. The Strat: Part Two and Actually making 100-200 Phoron per hour. Now that you have your new gear, and your KA, head back out. Drop the drills from your new dropper, and set them up. Also, before turning them on, attach the ore bags that you got with the warp packs! You can attach the ore bag to the drill, and it will teleport any ore it digs up to the crate so its automatically processed. Do the same for your first two, and start them up again because they will have filled up. All of the ore it filled up with while you were inside will be teleported to the crate. Now, head up to the upper level, set a 20 minute timer, and get to work strip mining! The one ore bag with a warp pack in it left should go in your other pocket, so your pockets should have a bag and a ore detector. Keeping it in the pocket will let it auto collect ore you walk over. Still keep your ore detector to phoron crystals only, and just spam your new KA all over. Occasionally pause though, sometimes the ore detector wont update if you're moving too fast and you'll miss phoron. Utilize the Ore Summoner to make collecting large amounts of ore on the ground way quicker. Once the 20 minutes is up, go tend to your drills, rinse and repeat. This is what I managed in one round by myself, mining for the whole round. Do post your feedback and mining yields! I'd love to be able to change my strat and get bigger numbers. The above will be edited over time, this is not the final draft.

Loving it! Out of curiosity, how do you think they'll acclimate? The change from the "honor makes right, we do what we must" culture around kataphracts, to the much more laissez faire "you are responsible for your own destiny, and little about an action truly matters if it advanced your social or financial position" attitudes found in the republic?

I'm sure we could manage to pay a handful of people to spend some time on this project. Its a lot, but I really doubt its gonna be too hard. We could probably repurpose parts of the holopad code, but IDK. I'd be willing to drop a little into the bucket here in a couple weeks.

I like this concept, and especially Colfer's edition to it. I'd love to see more ghost roles in game, and this would be an excellent way to utilize the feature. My only concern was, people sometimes suck and do stuff like they did with rats. Colfer's idea pretty much squares that away. I'd love for this to be implemented

Alright, here we go Question 1: As mentioned above, they're a *Competent Choir. Misspelled that one, my bad. They came to this system out of convenience, as the social nymph is allowed to manage the groups conversations for the most part, while the rest are free to focus on the engineering work and processing of information. I decided on this one also partially because it allows me to experiment with splitting, since I imagine its not as uncomfortable or traumatic as it would be for a singular sound, the other seemingly good starter one. Question 2: As mentioned above, they do not like the Eternal. They believe that this is a waste of resources, both physical and knowledge, and its a suicidal cause. However, they recognize that it can be a necessary evil, as it bands diona together around a common cause, allowing them to safeguard eachother and pool their resources more effectively. Question 3: So far I think it would have only encountered Humans, IPC's, Unathi, and Vacura. They have mixed feelings about Humans, as while they're incredibly clever and resourceful, they're also massively wasteful, arrogant, discriminatory, and chaotic. They'll keep humans to a tendrils length where able. IPC's, it finds an uncanny resemblance in, but tolerate them. They dont like that they're also a being thats the sum of its parts, whos personality and intelligence can be changed by linking new things in or taking them out. How shells are uncanny to many humans, IPC's are uncanny to Weaving Steel Like Vines. They have started to like Unathi, as they have heard tales of the Diona that reside on their irradiated home, and their treatment. They also like that even though they're a violent species like humans, they heavily manage their fights, and shun those causing chaos. Finally, they dislike Vacura, though they've only met a handful of viax and no akiax. They've heard the stories of Titan, and the struggle to survive they endured. However, they did not hear of the resolution, that part being conveniently left out. They appreciate the hives commitment to structure and castes, but they, as their current knowledge stands, cannot come to forgive the pain they inflected to the other Diona. Question 4: They have, their oldest Nymph, Copper Weave, managed to find someone who was trapped, and died recently after their birth, which was shortly after the outcome of the riots. The rest later did drink blood, as to allow better communication with humans. And finally, they have managed to save enough credits in their work with Hephaestus to get one transfusion of engineers blood, fleshing out their knowledge some and giving them better command over language. If there's any follow up questions, please let me know :^D

They would have had moments of struggle, wishing they were still connected, but they believe strongly in the idea that if a nymph does not fit the whole, and wants to leave, they should be able to do so. A continuation of the idea that a sick nymph or one with a mental block the whole cannot fully support will be ejected to allow it to seek help At this point its been a couple years since the split, so they have somewhat moved past it. But there are times they would wish they were whole, all 7 again. Something between a lost sibling and an ex.

BYOND Key: CourierBravo Character Names: Elizabeth Cox, Zeke Quirin, Fiona Petrov, Seti Al-Miah, Hannah Mi-Young Species you are applying to play: Diona Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes, over the course of several days, and I've enjoyed the whole process. Why do you wish to play this specific race: I've been looking for an alien species to dip my toes into, and Diona seemed the most mechanically and lore interesting. I've always loved seeing Diona while playing, they're incredibly cool characters and are made up of cute little creatures. I personally want to experiment roleplaying as them due to the challenges both mechanically (light, blood stuff, restricted diet, and conditional pacifism) and lore wise (new politics and new discrimination interactions with player characters) Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Mechanical differences aside, I believe my favorite difference is their ability to merge and split. The idea that a creature can meld with another creature to exponentially increase their own intelligence, skills to draw from, and personality, is fascinating. Humans are just us, we are who we are and while we can improve our own skills, I can't just piggyback onto a plumber to become someone who can roleplay extensively and do plumbing services. And with that, the blood learning. I have to go to school or take courses or do trainings if I wanna learn new skills. Diona have the ability to accelerate or bypass this entirely by drinking blood and or eating flesh, making their ability to both gain knowledge and increase skill in a field have a biological shortcut. I also want to note their love of light, and that I think a Assunzione Diona would be really fun to play because of that groups own obsession with light in the dark, Character Name: Weaving Steel Like Vines This Diona is a Hephaestus contracted engineer from The Narrows cluster. Merged in 2453, they became a 7, now 6 strong Chirping Choir. Due to needs of the time, and knowledge shared by the oldest nymph in the group, they became an engineer under Metal Forms Made Ready. Cutting their teeth in the early years, they worked their way into becoming an Engineer Overseer. Far later on, an incident occurred with Weaving Steel Like Vines, and an Eternal following botany cyclops. A disagreement between the two turned verbally hostile as they debated The Eternal. Weaving Steel acted immaturely, being incredibly inflammatory towards the other gestalt. Due to this, and an unwillingness to apologize, partially out of embarrassment and partially out of stubbornness, they were demoted. Seeing that their opportunities at home were now very limited, they mostly chose to join Hephaestus's engineering team and move elsewhere. One Nymph, Gas Controlling, did not want to leave and chose to split, staying with the cluster. Having spent a time with Hephaestus in the CoC getting the degrees and certifications needed, they now reside in Biesel, having loosely joined the The Biesellian Choir. While still having a disdain for The Eternal, they have reasoned that living in D11 and working with and donating to the Choir is their most effective use of resources, relying on the strength in numbers and other resources the Choir can offer to get by until their next relocation. Hephaestus first put them to work repairing vessels handling pirates, but have now been transferred to the NSS Aurora to increase the Hephaestus presence with a seasoned professional. What do you like about this character? I like that they're story isnt perfect, but also not filled with tragedy or suffering. They hit touch stones I liked learning about, the Narrows, Diona debate, the Biesellian Choir, and the politics that can arise from being a Diona that has to associate with the Choir while also not liking them. And I'm going to enjoy doing engineering with them, as its a role I'm comfortable with so it will assist with me learning how to better roleplay a Diona. How would you rate your role-playing ability? Pretty good, I wouldnt say I'm a roleplayer that stands out, but I dont think my characters are forgettable for the most part. A handful are, usually because I'll make a character, play them, and decide they dont fit in this environment. Notes: PLEASE leave feedback, and ask questions! I'll be available for another few hours after posting, then I'm usually available in late evenings PST

edits: was brute forcing editing it to try and figure out what symbols I was using that was not letting me post it/gettign error 500's

ckey: CourierBravo Over the past few months I've been playing an increasing amount of Merchant. And I've come to believe that merchant, as it currently stands, needs either tweaking or a minor overhaul. For context, I play Elizabeth Cox, a regular late night merchant character (Pacific Standard Time). The routine is usually to: Grab things from around hideout, Load up Merchants list, Sort items in crates while furiously checking merchants list every minute to see if someone new is there My main concern for this thread is not to do with the hideout or the mini warehouse contents, but rather the Merchants List program. Vocabulary to note: Contact: the NPC that a merchant buys and sells to/from How it works, from what I've gathered, is that you get a list of contacts with one contact who's always there at the start of your list, and 2-5 others rotating in and out from a list. Each one has the options for buying, selling, and trading. Most will sell, those who don't sell do trades only, and very few buy. This rotating list of contacts has someone either leave or become available every minute. This list is mostly made up of, in order of most common to least common (based on my own experience only): contacts who sell guns, contacts who sell armor, contacts who sell mining equipment, contacts that sell robots or hardsuits and modules, and contacts who sell novelty items. The contact you have as your permanent contact is usually a novelty items contact, but the quality of items sold can vary. I am, currently, unsatisfied with the loop it provides. I feel like my job is more to arm security rather than to sell things to player characters. How would I address this? The list below is my suggested changes, and my thoughts on them 1. Change the time for new contact/contact leaving from roughly one minute to 40 seconds. Main concern: the cycling through will increase the odds of getting more gun contacts, with potentially more powerful weapons, allowing merchants to arm security even more powerfully Fix: reduce frequency of arms contacts, increase frequency of novelty contacts Pro's: A. More contacts moving in and out means cutting down on the time a merchant will spend at their hide out looking for items they think PC's will want to buy. B. makes the 'ask to stay longer' button feel more worthwhile for the cost Con's: More flow of contacts means potentially higher chance for overpowered items to become for sale 2. Add new, lore appropriate contacts to dilute the pool Main concern: a lot of the contacts are not lore fitting, several being very obvious references to media, such as 'the emperors lasgun shop' and 'the redshirt', going through and renaming and adding new ones will take awhile Fix: please just make more contacts that give nice things players will be interested in Pro's: more lore interaction, and alien species interest items Con's: will take awhile to do 3: Change several of the already existing contacts This is just opinion, but I don't like that there's quite a few contacts for mining and robotics that are either mostly useless due to a general lack of miners and roboticists, or are made redundant by the presence of miners and roboticists, and their pricing being very inconsistent and/or absurdly expensive. 4. Make more contacts buy, and increase amount of items they're interested in buying. Main concern: merchant is a role that, if the stars line together, can let you just print credits. I've made over a million credits a couple times now from just buying/selling diamonds for 10 minutes. This would make doing so cheaper, letting a player just buy all sorts of crazy things and not care about the cost Fix: make a limit to how many credits a contact will spend on buying things from the merchant Pro's: makes buying/selling from merchants list something done more often, allowing capital to be built up for more expensive trades Con's more OP items can be bought with some elbow grease put in, potentially upsetting the balance of the round currently being played. I'm going to bed for now, its 3am as I'm posting this. I'd love feedback and discussion, and more suggestions. I'd like to personally try to implement a handful of changes, the more simple ones, to give myself some coding experience so I can develop things for the server.

Since every question I would have asked already has been,(nice work everyone <3) I'll just leave a nice comment. MccRrib and his roleplay is genuinely what made me stay when I first came to Aurora. He has a mastery of believable insanity, and has displayed a seemingly deep understanding of skrell lore, having probed his characters on the subject. I've never not been enraptured by his characters talking about skrell topics, always bringing them to life in unique ways. From their biology to their culture to their beliefs, regardless of character I always find myself talking to. I have total faith in him being able to bring both excellent writing skills and interesting ideas and unique perspective to frog lore. I support MccRrib fully, I'd leave a thousand +1's if I could. Froggers in chat

If we were to do something like this, it should probably be chaplin as the primary job and librarian work as secondary work. The chaplin stuff, while underused, is good representation for both IRL religions and in game species's beliefs. But on a ship, something like tech support could easily become a role in itself and work with or be apart of engineering. also alt titles in general are just nice to have, it gives good fluff and allows characters to specialize.

oh my god that took ages to figure out why it wouldnt post. Finally, got it up

BYOND key: CourierBravo Character names: Zeke Quirin (Ex Security, Janitor), Hannah Mi Young (Engineering), NT Clark (all cargo), Marceline Soto-Knot (Hydroponics, Cook), Mason Fournier (Chef, Bartender), Jasmine Rey (Pharmacist) How long have you been playing on Aurora?: About eight months I think Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: Ive gotten a bit tired of the normal gameplay loop, and I think that the extra responsibility and access would add new options to make a round more interesting for both myself and other players Why did you come to Aurora?: It was the second server I ever tried for more than 20 minutes, and the welcoming and patient community has made me stay long term. I love the HRP environment thats been curated, and its difficult to find anything close to it elsewhere Have you read the Aurora wiki on the head roles and qualifications you plan on playing?: I have, yes. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?: I have not, no. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about: Roleplay is an act carried out by one or more people to create some kind of story, narrative, or adventure thats fun or satisfying to some level. I believe that having, if not fun, at least a solid enjoyment of what is occurring is a major part of roleplay. There will always be lows to match the highs, and it can be or is difficult to manage. How people roleplay may conflict with how you want things to go, but its your choice to make something with what they're giving, to work against it, or to ignore it. But that's how it is. No one is going to like how everyone roleplays, but good roleplay can come from that and should be capitalized on. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: I believe heads of staff are to be part leaders, and part enablers of more unique roleplay. They're able to set a tone and agenda for the round for their department, and nudge players into both playing in a different way and getting them to roleplay in ways they normally wouldnt. When a round has a crisis and the antagonists for the round make things destabilized, command is there to bring back structure far easier and discourage LRP. They also should be able to make rounds more unique, by enabling easier cross department cooperation and helping to make new stories. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: I believe that whitelisted players generally have to follow the rules to a closer degree, and take the servers rules of (don't be a jerk) more seriously. Being able to communicate and work together with people is a given, as thats a requirement in character as well. But Generally, I think the role OOC isnt gonna be a big one. At most? We should be encouraging people to try new things, play new characters in new and interesting ways, and help nudge them into that direction. Words of affirmation and constructive criticism are two very powerful tools at a players disposal, that are amplified by being command. Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau Ceti and how it affected your character and their career?: With the formation of the SCC, we're seeing what feels like Eridani 2 forming, but with corporations incredibly increasing cross company interaction and employment. The amount of power thats now in their hands is immense, and the people who come out with more than they lost when this is all over will probably be the ones who sided with the SCC. Unless the republic government does something crazy and drastic, I imagine that theyre gonna be ever more a puppet to legitimize NanoTrasens, and now the SCC's, jurisdiction rather than a real government separate from and above it all. Some of my characters, like Hannah and Petrov, will be coming better than they went in, as they are more loyal to NanoTrasen and the SCC than Biesel. Others like Zeke and Jasmine, are gonna end up in a bad situation for, while still feeling loyalty to their company, being more loyal to their government. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?: CE, HoP, and Captain. But mainly CE. One day ill try out CMO and RD but I dont play those departments much so I don't have enough knowledge to be confident in playing such roles. Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking: Hannah Mi Young (Chief Engineer). How would you rate your own roleplaying?: Above average. There is many ways I still can and will improve, as Aurora is my only really good experience in roleplay. But Im trying, and Ive come a good way since I started, and Im asking other players for feedback and taking their advice whenever I can. Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?: Absolutely, and I encourage staff to remove my whitelist if I prove too irresponsible to manage it. Have you familiarize yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?: I have read them, yes.