rrrrrr

Hi! Engagement bait-y title aside, I think that "ambrosia" --- the in-universe, weed-but-not-actually-weed plant, should be deprecated in favor of just calling it what it is. It's weed. It's marijuana. Presumably, in the year 2467, weed is legal. A sci-fi drug is not, in this case, necessary! "Plant you smoke to relax" already exists on Earth. This is pretty brief. I will also promise, if this suggestion is approved, to do the legwork necessary to make weed real in Aurora via the requisite PR replacing ambrosia with weed... and also, I guess, spriting a classical looking "leaf o' weed," the kind you see depicted but never actually see in real life... y'know, like this.

Haha. Woops. Should be fixed.

BYOND Ckey: Timby How long in the community: Roughly 10 years (since late 2014 or early 2015) 1. Why are you applying for the position of human lore deputy writer? Why do you think that you would be good in the position? I like Aurora and I like writing. I have a particular fondness for Aurora’s human lore. I think I’d be a good fit because I’m a fairly competent writer with some background in writing SF. 2. What is your favourite part of Human Lore and why? If you submitted something for canonisation that was indeed canonised you may not select that as the answer to this question. Broadly, the diversity and depth of it all, especially any and all writing on the political inner workings and systems of all of the major human factions, i.e, Sol, Biesel, COC, Elyra. More specifically, I greatly enjoyed the recent “election arcs” for both Biesel and Sol and found that both of them got a fair number of players talking about and debating politics. More specifically, Valkyrie. Valkyrie is the right kind of in-game location and it just really tickles this part of my brain that likes to make up characters who, I, uh [tugs collar] proceed to not play for more than a round. I just think it’s neat! 3. What do you believe are ways that the Human Lore Team could best implement the phoron scarcity to our various factions and locations throughout the setting that would reflect the gravity of the in-character situation without grossly compromising the out-of-character things that make each faction and location unique and compelling? Given that phoron is fairly integral to the setting, every single faction is going to be hit. It’s sort of just a question of how hard! On the extreme end of things, you have Biesel and Elyra, with Biesel’s phoron scarcity write-up being absolutely wonderful and managing to paint a nice grim picture of where things are headed. Specifically, I think a vibe of ‘economic depression’ needs to be imbued into the writing, going forward. Everybody’s suffering, it’s just a question of how much. 4. What do you believe are the current strengths and weaknesses of human lore? Why? What would you do to improve upon the weaknesses? Please do not mention offworlders in your answer to this question. We know that they are a weak spot and that they require action and would prefer to hear perspectives that do not highlight this area of human lore. I think that human lore’s biggest strength is its overall breadth. It allows for an incredible diversity of backgrounds to pick and choose from, both culturally and tonally; overall, I would say that, in regards to planets, backgrounds, et al., it all coheres together into a very interesting whole. Currently, I think Elyra is a little behind, writing-wise, and probably needs a little TLC. It also isn’t currently up-to-date with the Phoron Scarcity bizness; I don’t know if anything for it is in the works, right now, though. 5. What are three projects (medium-to-large size additions, arcs, or reworks) that you would like to complete during your tenure as a Human Lore Deputy writer? Please do not mention new locations or factions in this answer. I think that the whole ‘uncharted space’ business in the Crescent Expanse sector (and elsewhere, like Light’s Edge) is a fertile place for future arcs that can manage to be high-stakes while also not being spur-defining historical events. A lot of my ‘arc-based’ ideas sort of hinge on that and I’ll illustrate one in #6. Some non-arc ideas are as follows… 1. One thing I’d like to do is write something going over what would be considered ‘common knowledge’ in each human faction; I’m also interested in adding more depth to the setting’s lore on ‘education,’ going over advancements in pedagogy, and what exact fields of study could lead to you being hired as an [insert job here] on the SCCV Horizon. 2. I’m not sure if this counts as a ‘rework,’ but getting a touch more granular planet-to-planet on what the living conditions are like, to what degree they experience wealth inequality (Silversun is a great working example of a human background that is very detailed on that!), any miscellaneous cultural touchstones stemming from what specific Earth culture settled a specific planet, so on and so forth. 3. A detailed overview of medical advancements that humanity has made by 2467. I would specifically like to focus on figuring out what the average lifespan is in the 25th century, something that would likely vary heavily based on class, faction, and specific system. For example: someone from Luna probably lives longer, on average, than someone from a podunk Coalition planet on the edge of settled space. 4. a fake democracy rating for every human planet by the Freedom from Tau Ceti Foundation 6. What is an idea for a future arc that you would like to have a part in writing and organising in the future? If you provided an arc(s) as part of your answer for question 3, you may expand on the ideas for that arc(s) here, or you may provide another idea. I am still overly fond of the arc idea I had last time I applied for this role, so, er, hopefully it’s okay if I just restate it… ha-ha… [starts sweating nervously] To summarize said idea: while in transit towards the frontier, the Horizon is waylaid by a small fleet patrolling the space around a Coalition-aligned planet whose government is undemocratic and overall suspicious of the SCC. From there, things would develop: if allowed, the ship would be boarded and searched up-and-down by some fairly unfriendly people (customs officials and space cops.) Command staff would have to answer such exciting questions as ‘where are you going’ and ‘why are you here.’ This could develop further, with command having to shuttle down to negotiate their passage through the system with a handful of bureaucrats. Maybe they’ll meet (and even, gasp, get their picture taken with?) the generalissimo in charge of this backwater planet…? In the meantime, the crew could enjoy an amazing ‘shore leave’ on a planet that has no tourist attractions! For a while, the Horizon would hang out in orbit of the planet, hosting a small contingent of bureaucrats and space cops. The service department, presumably, would have to roll out the red carpet for them. Meanwhile, political prisoners escaping from the planet’s moon-prison hijack a shuttle and book it over to the Horizon, since it might be their only real ticket out of here! Are ‘morals and ethics’ worth causing a small incident over? Who knows! Basically, some Star Trek style hijinks spread out over a few events. Fun-fun-fun. 7. Have you ever been subject to any warnings, strikes, or bans from the Aurora moderation team? If so, how long ago were you and for what actions did you receive moderation action for? Answers for this question should include actions taken on the game server, discord servers, and forums. Yes, multiple, including a permanent ban at one point. Several years ago, my overall conduct on this server (both as a community member and, briefly when I was around thirteen or fourteen years old, as a writer for synthetic lore) was poor. While I can provide an explanation for my poor behavior and highly questionable, inappropriate writing, this doesn’t really excuse any of it. A lot of this happened or is coming up on taking place a decade ago, but, regardless, I am deeply embarrassed by it and have tried to apologize to people I treated badly. It wasn’t right. 8. OPTIONAL: Do you have any miscellaneous comments or remarks for the Human Lore Team or the community? I tried to keep it short and sweet.

I think my tone is just landing badly; I have zero intention of being facetious with you, considering that I respect you, your opinion and also enjoy playing this game with you. It probably reflects poorly on me that my responses make you want to stop posting and I apologize for that. I think we may have seen different things because while I fully believe that what you're describing is real, I don't think I've seen it to the extent that you have. My experience as of this year is that people are generally communicative and sort themselves into solving problems based on what's necessary; for example, during a recent round, there was a firefight in starboard-side maintenance on deck two. How this was handled by a mostly-full department involved staging, preparing materials, using the new cart to move sheet metal, and working with Security to fix what we could while negotiations were ongoing. The roleplay in the lead-up to this was fun and the roleplay that occurred during the aftermath was also fun. It was an ideal situation --- but those don't always happen. I agree that there's something of an issue with over-preparedness and people full-tilt sprinting to fix, say, a broken APC, but many of the situations that Engineering as a department deals with are emergencies and sort of require acting quickly. I am also actively planning on adding more content to Engineering to the best of my ability and will be taking time this weekend to do so. I am mostly hampered by a lack of experience with DM and Git but working to understand things better. Engineering, in general, has received a lot of TLC lately from specific developers (Batra, Fabian, both of whom have great stuff in the works, from what I understand!)

Just got back from the doctor's office. Wow, this thread sort of blew up. I think that my post about the actual department size (11) is relevant. I also think that a lot of the discussion going on and seemingly driving this PR is culture-based. I'm going to try and piece-meal give my two-cents on this whole thing, so forgive me if this reply is sort of scattered. First of all, thank you for your reply. I think that this PR is a little premature, personally. I had a thread up about a year ago with a few ideas on how to get more gameplay into engineering and while I'm fairly busy at the moment, life-wise, I'm trying to make some steps into getting those ideas into the game this weekend; Engineering as a department thrives when it has a lot of work to do but, sadly, given the way the game is, a lot of that work comes from non-canon antagonist rounds. Filling this out by adding more random events and making repairs less trivial to do would be a huge first-step. I agree that Engineering suffers from a lack of specialization. This is why I support the return of alt-titles to, specifically, Engineering. While I overall sympathize with what you're saying, having played Engineering very consistently for two years now, essentially exclusively, I don't know if I fully agree that Engineering has a "pervasive and oppressive cultural issue." I agree that there are mild problems present --- for instance, I've had two rounds in the past six months on highpop where there was simply no steel or plasteel present in the equipment room. Other people took it all! I had to ask them for some! What Engineering is currently suffering from is "popularity." There's a lot of vibes-based arguments going on, here, so I'm going to similarly argue based on vibe. Not so long ago, Engineering was not so vibrant and full of warm bodies. Oft would I join a round and there would only be one or two other engineers. Glorious were the few times one, let alone two, atmospheric technicians would be present. This is not the case anymore. Over the past two months or so, I've missed out playing on high-pop rounds because the department was full twice. There are a lot of apprentice characters and, I think, two characters who consistently play tech assistant. I really do not think that reducing the number of slots will solve anything. As a solo engineer, you can get everything on the ship up and running in around thirteen to fifteen minutes. The solution is not to reduce the number of engineer slots (which, I think, would negatively impact roleplay) but to make engineering harder and to give the department more to do.

Comparing and contrasting other departments to Engineering, excluding Head roles, the numbers currently stand at this --- Engineering - 11 (if PR goes through, 7) Medical - 11 Security - 9 (!!! no wonder slots are so coveted...) Science - 10 Operations - 9 As you can see, Engineering is currently on-par with Medical (although Medical's eleven roles all exist in fairly distinct niches, i.e, 2 Physicians, 2 Surgeons, 2 Paramedics, 2 Pharmacists, 1 Psych, 2 Trainer roles.) Overall, I don't think this part of your reply is true. Regarding the cultural issues you mention, I think this has been discussed in the past and I agree that it's "real." I don't personally think the solution involves reducing the number of slots available.

Made a thread for this PR: https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/21376 ... because I think it's a fairly major change and should potentially be discussed before being merged. I personally disagree with this and commented on the PR to that effect, but that doesn't matter. I am one person.

i don't think the tool that lets you click on someone and immediately be able to intuit what's wrong with them needs to be buffed, personally

Going to chime in to say that, as someone who regularly plays engineer, I don't think this is actually true. This is not an actual division of labor that exists. (I do support DCT being an alt-title for ATs, though.) Who deals with breaches and fires first tends to depend more on who arrives there first. I will grant that when there is an extremely hot fire (i.e, INDRA explosion that causes the burn chamber to leak into the reactor room) ATs will be the ones dealing with it because their suits can deal with hotter temperatues (5,000 to 10,0000.) My one criticism is that I think any suggested alt-titles that are three words should be cut down to two for brevity, where possible; i.e, Propulsion Systems Technician/Engineer to something like "Engine Technician."

I feel like calling Bubble "iconic" is a bit of a stretch.

To briefly play devil's advocate for not having a 30-day limit for papers on notice boards --- disposals and paper shredders exist. Presumably, players can do their due diligence in removing outdated/irrelevant papers on departmental noticeboards and janitors can do it for public ones.

Belated reply but that looks really nice. I'm a bit hesitant to add more to really justify it, mostly because I'm not sure if the lore team considers it necessary.

BYOND key: Timby Discord Username: botanist Character names: Maja Gretzsky, LENNY How long have you been playing on Aurora? Since 2014-2015. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? Yes, several, as far as I know, all on my now-lost CKEY. I believe that I was once permanently banned after submitting a joke appeal to a week-long ban. I also had a reputation as someone who was terminally unserious. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame? For starters, the OOC purpose of everybody playing this game is (hopefully) to create an interesting and engaging story; it only stands to reason that command roles have that responsibility times ten. You can make or break rounds depending on how you respond to certain things, which gimmicks you entertain, and so on. I believe heavily in the maxim "yes, and" which comes from improvisational comedy; you should never say "no" to anything (within reason.) You should build on what other people are giving you, even if you can't directly give them what they want. Beyond that, another OOC purpose is directing your department, managing, delegating, and so on. I previously played Head of Security and Captain, so I think I still have this in my bones. I "get" it. You gotta manage. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them? I think I answered most of this question with my previous answer; your responsibility as a player, period, is to create an interesting story within the round. More broadly, to entertain one another. That's all that role- playing is. It's entertainment. Another important part is to not make yourself a problem for other people, or at least not a problem that feels unmanageable. Everybody's had a bad boss. I think that it's okay to play a Head of Staff who is, to be blunt, an asshole. The SCC is not a mom-and-pop shop where the owners know your name and your order and they smile every time you walk in through the door. It's a massive conglomerate of competing megacorporations, some of whom hate each other, all of whom have only one goal in mind: making that sweet, sweet schmoney. Explain how the recent events in the Spur changed your character and how they came to be employed on the SCCV Horizon. I'd be bring out an old, old character that I previously played as Captain back in the day, Walther Brooks --- Brooks was a Solarian who believed fully and completely in NanoTrasen's mission. (Remember when it was just NanoTrasen? Pepperidge Farms remembers!!) The only thing that mattered to him, ultimately, was making sure the (at the time) station's mission wasn't threatened; naturally, this meant making sure that any present heads of staff were taking the due diligence to actually manage their departments, checking in on ones without a head of staff, making sure no one was being brutally murdered, so on and so forth. I'm not sure if I played Brooks on any canon events (or if those even existed back then), but I'd play him as a true believer coming out of retirement due to how important he believes the Horizon's mission is. Phoron is foundational to the intergalactic economy. The Horizon's mission is to discover new sources of phoron. It's pretty straightforward... Aside from that, I'd play him as having been retired for a few years. (I didn't play for a long time.) He has a Bachelor's in Criminology, a Masters in Management, and (now) a PhD in Business Administration. He believes that work transcends species, nationality, and sex. The Solarian Collapse and Einstein Engines' resultant takeover of the Solarian market disturbed him greatly; the formation of the SCC pleased him... basically, a true-blue believer in the SCC! Other minor, dumb character details: he's Swiss, meaning that he technically has no stake in intergalactic politics. He has a long, long career with NanoTrasen and previous work experience as an elementary school teacher. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? Captain. Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? Yes. Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking: Walter Brooks, Captain Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? Yes. Have you linked your BYOND account to the Forums? No. Wait. Maybe. I dunno. Extra notes: I have none.

This is great --- I highly support it (although my support doesn't mean much) and it'd pair nicely with the skill system, when that comes around. Baystation 12 does something similar with the way their engineering department works. (Curiously, they also have a "Senior Engineer" role... could be worth discussing in the future? Who knows.)

Lore Impact: My heart says "small," but my brain says "moderate." Species: Human and potentially any synthetic or skrell characters who have lived in the Sol system. Short Description: A few neat little details added to Unity Station; that is to say, changing the station's description from being a somewhat vague series of layered decks to a suitably large Gundam-style cylinder station with a population to match the political and bureaucratic class of a nation that covers multiple star systems. It also moves Unity Station from Earth orbit to Earth-Moon L5, a metaphorical "half-way" point between Earth and Luna. How will this be reflected on-station? Background fodder for Solarian consuls, diplomatic aides, bodyguards, and potentially any character actually from Unity Station. I propose an accent tag. Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists? It adds minor detail to an important place. It makes the setting moderately "crunchier" by implying that realistic space colonies may exist elsewhere. Do you understand that the project may change over time in ways you may not foresee once it is handed over to the Lore Team? Yes. Long Description The "Sol" page is really great and provides wonderful run-downs of each planet in the Sol System, all of which provide wonderful fodder for writing a character. Oft have I read it and gone, "wow, Ganymede!" or "wow, the asteroid belt!" Recently, I read it and went, "wow, Unity Station!" This proposal adds a little more detail to Unity Station: what it looks like, what kind of person lives there, and why space stations are so darn cool. Hope you enjoy reading. As in my prior lore canonization app to add some details, I will be quoting directly from the wiki page and underlining my suggested additions. I've only included sentences that I've changed to, uh, not include a big block of text. [I FADE INTO A BLUE MIST AS THE WIND SWEEPS ME AWAY] Located at Earth-Moon L5, Unity Station is the seat of the Alliance’s modern government. ... Alliance architects built Unity Station as an O'Neill Cylinder, a design that, while antiquated after the invention of artificial gravity generators, had proven to be a straightforward way of housing a large number of people in a pleasant and Earth-like environment. Important governmental buildings, such as the Prime Minister's residence and the Senate, are surrounded by kilometers of residential suburbs and commercial districts. The station's docks also serve as the Interstellar War Memorial, permanently hosting the museum ship ASSNV Cincinnatus — ... Due to this design Unity Station has a permanent population of around five million, and is a member state of the Alliance which elects its own senators. This is what the proposed accent tag would look like: I understand with a (not so) heavy heart that accent tags are a bit of a hard sell, but I think they go a long way in encouraging players to explore unappreciated backgrounds. (Remember when the Orepit accent got added?) Either way, sort of an optional thing I'm throwing in. I swear I'm usually better at spriting, it's just that accent tags are hard and I mashed Earth and Luna's together and, uh, yeah, not great.

As I've already explained, this is completely serious. I'm not joking. I would be willing to do this.

I finally have access to my forum account, so I can post! For the record, this is a serious post. This is a serious suggestion. What do you all think? Which one looks better?

Just to further this line of questioning, since it's a topic near and dear to me: why should certain issues, like drug abuse, be disconnected from reality? What purpose does that serve? Alcohol's in the game; should that be removed and replaced with a more powerful, fantastical analog? (Sorry if these questions sound too harsh!)

This is absolutely amazing! The ship itself looks great; love the massive propellant tanks, love that you need to do EVA to set up thrust, love that there are huge, noticeable radiators on the sides of the ship... and the docks being on the fore? Oh man. This here is one believable space ship. Love it.

At the risk of being somewhat off-topic, I feel like this idea should be explored in a different thread... mostly because I think it's a good idea. The Horizon being the flagship seems to preclude certain things, which is sad.

Wow, that's really cool... would those go well with the current walls?

Inspired by this thread. A few ideas for random events and making it less easy to fix things in ten seconds. Keep in mind that this is a knee-jerk thread with ideas that I came up with in two minutes. I'm going to the grocery store. random events, haha - Rats chew some wires in maintenance. Ten-to-fifteen minutes later, an announcement is sent out with GPS coordinates, ala "space fungus." Wiring in a "normal" area (i.e, covered by flooring) could just "short out," I guess. This would be neat, because you could feasibly "catch it" before the announcement goes out, if you're paying attention --- substation power would start dropping... gotta go and figure out why! - A section of pipes in an area burst (be they disposal, scrubber, or air.) Much like the above idea, an announcement revealing the exact location is delayed by a few minutes... possibly a long time. Carbon dioxide build-up, garbage piling up under the floor... wow! - "Hull damage." A section of the outer hull receives mild damage. Why? I don't know. Space debris. Who knows. Go outside and fix it. making things more difficult in general make walls more time-consuming to build. not in terms of actual time but in terms of steps. make it require bolting the sheet metal onto the girder and then welding it in place. same steps for reinforced plasteel walls. autolathe supremacy this is a "dante must die" mode-level idea i.e in terms of "what if things were just more of a pain to do" but: remove the ability to just fabricate rods floor tiles and crap by hand. yes it is convenient. how are you doing that though make getting these things require an autolathe and add an autolathe to engineering. (alternatively: no lathe in engineering. either build your own or work with operations/the machinist and use theirs.) instead of walking around with your twenty-five sheets of steel you have to actually understand what the problem is before you show up in order to fix it.

I think a major part of this is that on CM, every task is for "your team." Every task works towards a tangible goal. This is not how things are on Aurora, at least not most of the time. Each department has a different set of skills and these very rarely overlap into a "team effort" when it comes to dealing with problems --- the only real example I can think of that would require teamwork are a hivebot beacon. I can only think of one time where I went out of my way to check vending machines for rampant intelligence before anyone called it out. I did this because I was extremely bored and sort of tired. That's the mindset here, really. I don't see it as a "rat race" so much as "extreme boredom." People want things to do. When there is something to do, they will do it. The solution here, I guess, is to add more things to do, make mindless tasks more engaging/complex, but I'm not a coder and I'm not someone who comes up with good ideas.

Looking at this from the perspective of someone who plays engineering: I think I'm guilty of this, to be honest, mostly because when there's something to actually do --- boy, do I wanna go out there and do it. It triggers the rat portion of my brain that lights up when I "accomplish" something. I got a similar feeling when I had to fix the dishwasher at the restaurant I used to work at. The issue here is that one is a complex task that takes time (and one that I wasn't qualified to do, but had to, anyways!) and the other involves, at most, a few clicks. There is no middle-ground when it comes to fixing engineering problems in this game. You are either doing it as quickly as possible or you are not doing it. The best you can do is drag your feet and draw it out for as long as possible, which I try to do, if it isn't important. The issue is (like Sheeplets said) that people go stir crazy. I'm actually kind of struggling to understand what the real problem you're getting at is. The reason people fix minor problems so quickly is because they are minor problems and the map is not very large. In an ideal world, you would have to do quick-time events to fix a broken vending machine. (That isn't sarcasm.) This isn't an ideal world. You click on it with a debugger and wait... or, you click on it with a screwdriver, click on something with a wire cutter, click on it again, then click on it again with a screwdriver. For the hypothetical broken window at the chapel, you click on something and wait. If there are five other guys behind you doing rock-paper-scissors to click on it, this is because they are excited that there's something to do, even if it's totally mindless. also i like running everywhere because i like going fast