Charger10k

1. While Flagsdale fulfills the Vaur brood's basic needs, Zek is nonetheless cognizant of the negative optics of its district's condition. How is the local community supposed take the Zo'ra hive seriously if it demonstrates poor stewardship of the little land on Biesel that it's been given? While the recent unrest in Flagsdale was damaging to both the Vaur brood's physical health and its reputation among the Bisellite public, it hopefully highlighted the importance of cleaning the streets of Queenless marauders and repairing many of the underdeveloped facilities of the district. If government assistance to the hive is necessary to make progress in this area, so be it. 2. As demonstrated by several enclaves of Queenless Zo'ra refusing to stand down following one warrior's attack on a Bulwark transport, Queenless Vaurcae lack cohesion with the remainder of their Hive in the absence of their High Queen and pose a threat to the Hive's future success in Tau Ceti. However, so long as High Queen Vaur tolerates the Queenless and their presence in Flagsdale, so will Zek. A firm believer that the Zo'ra hive engineered its Bulwark caste entirely independently from the C'thur, Zek does look forward to the Bulwarks' success in their designated fields. Its previous encounters with Bulwarks as a quartermaster reaffirmed Zek's already natural conclusion: like any other Vaurcae, the Bulwarks' dedication and loyalty to their Hive will make them an incredibly useful asset.

BYOND KEY: Charger10k Character Names: - Bao Minh Tran, Engineering Apprentice - Honcho Khanna, Security Officer - Kanoa Tangaroa, Quartermaster Species you are applying to play: Vaurca What color do you plan on making your first alien character?: (61, 0, 0) Have you read our lore section’s page on this species?: Yes Please provide well-articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Aurora’s recent Vaurcan events and the introduction of Bulwarks has brought Vaurcan lore to the forefront of my mind and after reading over all the relevant pages, creating a Vaurca sounds like fun given the depth of their lore and the vast differences between them and every other race on-station. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human: Putting aside the obvious physiological differences between Vaurcae and humans, Vaurcan society is centered wholly around the development of its four respective hives, with each developing its respective hive members from birth to fulfill a specific purpose. Loyalty to one’s hive is paramount and all a Vaurca’s hivemates are united through a hivenet that allows universal communication. VR is another large component of Vaurcan society, forming not only a digital home for living Vaurcae but also for those deceased hivemates uploaded into virtual reality. The three playable hives are working to survive in charted space to varying degrees of success, each latching onto the closest nexus of political power and clinging on tightly in hopes that its sponsor's success will skyrocket its own. Character Name: Ka’Akaix’Zek Zo’ra Please provide a short backstory for this character: A recent addition to High Queen Ta’Akaix’Vaur’skiyet’sca Zo’ra’s brood, Zek was hatched in August of 2462 to supplement the brood’s lower management. As the brood continued to integrate itself into NanoTrasen’s corporate structure, a steadily increasing quantity of Zo’ra cargo staff necessitated more Unbound supervisors to manage large Unbound and Bound work crews effectively. After six months of larval development, Zek’s successive six months of training consisted of little but the necessary facts of logistics management and a smattering of cross-cultural training to deal with non-Vaurca coworkers and superiors. While still able to function as both a warehouse worker and mineral excavator in a limited capacity, Zek’s upbringing focused more on the quantitative side of cargo - how to plan purchase orders, maximize refinery output, and execute real-time supply requests as quickly as possible. This was also augmented with extensive instruction in Tau Ceti Basic, for a brood notable for its communicative ability would be served poorly by its members being ineloquent and mistake-laden in their speech. Leaving VR upon the completion of its training to begin work on the NCV Ikon, Zek ended up in a situation quite different than what its training suggested. Instead of all-Vaurcan work crews, Zek found itself supervising a mixed cargo department primarily consisting of humans with several Unathi and Tajara workers to boot. Wanting nothing more than to prove the utility of the Zo’ra hive to NanoTrasen’s success in phoron extraction, it quickly became frustrated by a cargo staff that it perceived as lazy, incompetent, and unable to meet the high standards of Vaurcan workers. Vaurcan workers required no meal breaks, did not complain about their workload even under strenuous conditions, and followed work orders without fail, vastly exceeding the productivity of their non-Vaurca peers. While Zek did its best as any loyal hive-driven Vaurca would, its departmental metrics failed to meet its own high expectations. Three months were spent attempting to coax better performance out of its technicians and excavators to little success. While still receiving an above-average rating by its managers, Zek nonetheless requested a transfer away from the Ikon to any other location that might promise better results. The NSS Aurora, with several quartermaster billets available and a roster featuring a sizable Vaurcan population, appeared to be a logical choice. Sharing a two-bedroom apartment in Flagsdale with thirty of its closest broodmates, Zek retreats to VR shortly after returning from work each day to escape the endless irritation of its coworkers interfering with its attempts to further the Zo’ra hive’s interests. There, Zek is able to attend classes on its faith of choice (the Modern Hive Pantheon, a popular belief among the Vaur brood), complete a variety of puzzles that challenge its wit, and independently study rhetoric in Tau Ceti Basic to better influence its team. While initially indifferent to the K’lax and C’thur hives, Zek has felt an increasing sense of solidarity with them after being subjected to its non-Vaurcan coworkers on a daily basis. While the IPCs and the majority of the Skrell Zek has worked with have come close to meeting its relentlessly high standards, it views its human, Tajara, Unathi, and Dionae coworkers with considerable disappointment. Nonetheless, these negative views fail to affect Zek’s ability to work with and supervise those of other species. After all, the Zo’ra hive requires cooperation with its human hosts to survive on Biesel, and it would be disloyal of Zek to needlessly damage NanoTrasen’s relationship with its hive. What do you like about this character: Zek is struggling to adapt to its environment, despite the considerable resources its hive has invested in it. However, this can’t be helped, can it? How can a Vaurca driven solely by loyalty to its hive effectively relate to and motivate others that don’t share its background in a workplace setting? This is a challenge that I’d like to explore further and Zek is the perfect vehicle for playing it out. How would you rate your role-playing ability?: While there’s always room for improvement, I’d like to think that I’m competent enough to roleplay characters of widely varying backgrounds and personalities with only the occasional misstep.

BYOND KEY: Charger10k Character Names: - Honcho Khanna, Security Officer - Triton Kessler, Anomalist - Kanoa Tangaroa, Quartermaster Species you are applying to play: Tajara What color do you plan on making your first alien character?: Steel gray Have you read our lore section’s page on this species?: Yes Please provide well-articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Why not? Tajaran lore is very well-developed and frames a compelling narrative for any potential Tajaran character that I might play, regardless of origin. I enjoy creating new characters and getting the chance to brush up against lore that I haven’t previously explored, and I’ve sufficiently enjoyed my time reading through the material necessary to create a proper Tajara that I’m excited to begin playing one. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human: Prior to First Contact with a spacefaring race, Tajaran society was governed by a smattering of monarchies, each similarly stratified and encouraging traditional religious and moral values. While republican revolutions have occurred in the past, conservative factions have maintained their chokehold over their people well into Adhomai’s industrial era. The Tajara of 2463, however, have much more to contend with than their ancestors even fifty years ago. Contact with humanity has exposed Adhomai to concepts and ideologies that had previously been suppressed by the ruling class or hadn’t been explored altogether. As three different regimes with their own plans for the future of Adhomai jostle with control, each individual must themselves tackle the bevy of questions brought on by the new Tajaran state of being. Which system of government would best serve Adhomai? How should Tajara approach their relationship with megacorporations that can greatly improve their technology and standard of living at the price of their cultural heritage and values? Should traditional religious and political ideals be reevaluated in the face of new ideologies imported from abroad? Tajaran life has grown exponentially more complex over the past half-century and the core of playing Tajaran characters lies with how they attempt to answer these questions, among others. Character Name: Yuri Mrra’gazir Please provide a short backstory for this character: The Mrra’gazir family has inhabited Bar’jar since the Warring Kings Period, eking out a modest living from the ocean’s bounty. Despite the city changing hands dozens of times since its initial settlement, this family of Zhan-Khazan has maintained its lifestyle of simple living unmolested by local nobility. Ma’ta’ke, monarchy, and mackerel; these were the three truths of Bar’jar and paying close attention to each would guarantee local fisherfolk a peaceful, if not particularly plentiful, life by the sea. But it was under the People’s Republic of Adhomai that Yuri was born in 2437, the youngest of four children. His parents did their best to shelter him from the backwards Hadiist regime and its correspondingly decadent philosophy, refusing to enroll him in any of the Hadiist schools or youth clubs that had recently been organized in town. Atheism and social equality were passing fads, they claimed, and the status quo would return in time. Instead, Yuri spent the majority of his youth learning the family trade, leaving home before dawn each day to board a trawler and returning around dusk with nets full of fish and shellfish. Years flew by in blissful monotony, Yuri gradually beginning to shoulder the burdens of familial tradition. He barely noticed when the New Kingdom of Adhomai laid claim to Bar’jar in 2450, although elder members of the family who could recall the pre-Hadiist Kingdom of Kaltir were overjoyed. Once more, a portrait of a king adorned their mantle, and blessings for the local nobility occupied their prayers. Untouched thus far by the Second Revolution and the carnage it wrought across Adhomai, the Mrra’gazirs’ ignorant bliss was interrupted by King Azunja’s 2453 conscription notice. At 16, Yuri was the only individual in his household yet to be married, making him the obvious choice for conscription. Like most recruits in his area, Yuri’s previous maritime experience landed him in the Royal Navy, bolstering His Majesty’s presence at sea. It was a jarring change for someone whose lifestyle had become so entrenched over the last decade and a half, but he learned to adjust. After all, military service wasn’t just an honorable path for local youth; it also offered up opportunities for education and on-the-job experience in a variety of useful trades. As a battery of spoken examinations would reveal, Yuri was in fact linguistically and quantitatively competent, if illiterate due to his upbringing. After six months of rigorous vocational training, along with supplemental literacy lessons in Siik’maas ensuring his ability to read technical manuals as necessary, he graduated as a qualified machinist in 2454. Life at sea returned Yuri to a routine that he was comfortable with, performing daily maintenance and quality assurance tasks and standing watch in the engine room aboard a light cruiser. In his free time, with little else to do besides drink and gamble, he opted instead to improve his reading abilities in the ship’s meager library. Most of the library’s contents were written in Ya’ssa, relegating Yuri to the Royalist propaganda, religious texts, and manuals written in Siik’mass for enlisted use. One notable exception was a pair of beginner’s textbooks for learning Delvahhi, which he periodically snuck to his bunk to read before lights-out. Previously only familiar with the few psalms and chants necessary for his household religious ceremonies, Yuri’s ability to both speak and read Delvahhi slowly began to blossom over time. He spent eight years in the Royal Navy, most of it at sea in pursuit of weaker Republican flotillas. Occasionally, Yuri’s ship would slip into drydock at Miran’mir for maintenance, although even then most of his time was spent assisting the land-based repair crews. Constantly reading and listening to the radio, he began to develop his own political beliefs, identifying as a conservative in opposition to the absolutist tendencies of his shipmates. The alien governments and megacorporations viewed with skepticism by most sailors were, in actuality, potential allies depending on how open-minded the central government acted towards them. With the PRA’s colonization of outlying planets and development of a strong stellar navy, it had never been more clear to Yuri that without external intervention, the NKA’s military would fall behind. Following the Armistice of Shastar, Yuri was released from service along with many of his fellow conscripts, returning home to a family that he hadn’t seen in years. His siblings had long since moved on, developing households and their own maritime businesses in other parts of town. In their more advanced age, his parents had reduced the scale of their fishing routes and adjusted to the modest lifestyle they were now able to afford. Amohdan exiles started businesses of their own in competition with the established locals of Bar’jar, straining his family’s pocketbooks even further. It was clear to Yuri that his future at home was limited and in pursuit of new opportunities, he set up a WorkDay account at his local treasury office and began to apply for openings off-world that would make better use of his experience. After a few months of waiting, separating his time between assisting his parents at sea and interviewing with potential employers, Yuri landed a position with Hephaestus Industries as a maintenance engineer. Bidding his parents farewell, he packed the few belongings he had collected during his naval service and boarded a bus to the Kaltir shuttleport. His trip from Adhomai to Persepolis was a grueling one, being searched and harassed at three separate checkpoints by Republican customs agents, but afterwards it was a short bluespace jump from Persepolis to his duty station in Tau Ceti. Having worked for two years now in the Republic of Biesel, Yuri is still struggling to acclimate to his surroundings. Renting out an apartment in a House-controlled section of Little Adhomai, he still tries his best to maintain the traditions passed down through his family for millenia. His second bedroom has since been converted into a shrine to Mata’ke, Kraszar, and Minharrzka, with a portrait of Queen Azunja hanging prominently in his living room. On weekends, in lieu of purchasing meat at the market, Yuri drives to the coast of Severson’s Rift for a day of pier fishing. Despite viewing Hadiism and Al’mariism as backwards philosophies incompatible with the traditions that’ve guided Adhomai from pre-history to the present, he does his best to tolerate citizens of the other two Tajaran nations, although it’s been his experience that such patience generally isn’t reciprocated. His perspective on humanity is equally uninspired; human ingenuity is often overshadowed by decadent behavior and infighting that reveals them to be leagues behind Tajara culturally. In light of the failings of his Bieselite hosts, Yuri in equal measures keeps to his own and keeps to himself. Directing the focus of his efforts inwards allows Yuri to maintain his beliefs and expand his engineering know-how in hopes that he may one day return to his home kingdom and help develop the infrastructure necessary to bring Bar’jar into the 25th century. What do you like about this character: I tend not to deviate too far from established local norms when developing my characters’ origins and Yuri is no exception. He’s a characteristically royalist tradesman, hard-working and devoted to the social institutions that surround him. Dependable if somewhat entrenched in his beliefs, Yuri provides an adequate jumping-off point for me to engage with Tajaran lore themes in a believable manner. How would you rate your role-playing ability?: While there’s always room for improvement, I’d like to think that I’m competent enough to roleplay characters of widely varying backgrounds and personalities with only the occasional misstep.

Byond Key: Charger10k Character Names: - Honcho Khanna, Security Officer - Triton Kessler, Anomalist - Kanoa Tangaroa, Quartermaster How long have you been playing on Aurora?: Most recently, since October of 2020, although I’ve dabbled for month-long periods back in 2018 and a few times prior. Why did you come to Aurora?: I’ve been playing SS13 on and off since about 2014, and when I opted to make a return last year, I checked up on a few servers I recalled enjoying. Aurora stuck with me this time around, most likely due to the fact that it’s the highest quality hrp server currently on the market. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?: No. N/A. 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: Roleplaying is a form of story-telling, plain and simple, and the meat of any good story should lie with its characters. Thus, the highest obligation of a quality roleplayer is to make their character compatible with their setting, realistic in their mannerisms and belief systems, and compelling enough to drive a story, while also ensuring that their collaborators have an equally enjoyable experience and aren’t overshadowed. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: Heads of Staff don’t really have a distinct OOC purpose separate from their IC purpose. I’ve seen a lot of applications discuss how heads of staff are supposed to engage with new players, set an example for their department, take up a leadership role in times of hardship, blah blah blah blah. Don’t get me wrong, this is all true, but these aren’t obligations unique to the OOC aspect of playing a Head of Staff. Consider an IRL equivalent of the Head of Security, the security shift lead at a distribution center. Guess what? Creating a work culture for their shift, training and engaging new employees, assigning workloads, making sure employees have a positive experience during work, etc., these are all duties expected of that shift lead. I’d make the argument that any Head of Staff character not fulfilling their “OOC purpose” as a command character wouldn’t be performing the IC functions of their occupation, making them susceptible to termination. All in all, this question is trivial. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: This is where it gets ugly, where the IC motivations of a character and the OOC relationship between players begin to conflict with each other. Generally speaking, us being on a roleplaying server, our greatest responsibility to each other is to play a compelling, realistic, story-forwarding character, making it engaging to interact with our compelling, realistic, story-forwarding characters. That being said, we can consider several fringes cases in which strict adherence to our characters’ motivations could ruin the experience of another player by excluding them from the round or otherwise offending them. Consider the case of a Solarian Research Director, whose opinion of “uplifted” species such as Tajarans is rather negative. During one shift, he plans an expedition, and invites every other member of the science staff along except for the Tajaran scientist on duty, because ostensibly, “Dr. M’rsajkldfjkd needs to perform R&D and keep the laboratory running to serve departmental requests”. Now, this deliberate and thinly-veiled exclusion of the Tajaran scientist fits in perfectly with the RD’s motivations, and is just covert enough to avoid any IC retribution by CCIA should the scientist opt to file an IR. HOWEVER, from an OOC perspective, the RD has just withheld a fun opportunity for character interaction and development from the Tajaran scientist’s player. Point being, there are cases in which it’s acceptable to dampen one’s character’s beliefs and actions somewhat to accommodate another player having an enjoyable round. Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau Ceti and how it affected your character and their career?: The most encompassing way to describe the events of the past few months is as a redistribution of territory. In the midst of the Solarian collapse, various warlords, as well as the Coalition of Colonies and Republic of Biesel, have begun carving up ex-Solarian territories, while the formation of the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate shores up several megacorporate power bases with NanoTrasen serving as nominal top dog. For Honcho, my go-to character, recent events have actually proven fruitful. Konyang, formerly a Solarian outer colony, has now come into its own after declaring its independence and then joining the Coalition of Colonies, and serves as a tempting prospect for Honcho to return to. With a growing service and goods market as liberated synthetics become able to earn their own paychecks, and the majority of his extended family living there, slipping out from under the collective megacorporate thumb of Eridani becomes more and more viable. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?: To start off, I’ll be restricting myself to Corporate Liaison, Consular Officer, and Head of Personnel. As I build up mechanical competence in a few other departments, I anticipate branching out into Research Director, Head of Security, and possibly Captain over time. My ignorance of even basic engineering and medical concepts precludes me from taking up Chief Engineer or Chief Medical Officer for the forseeable future. Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking: I’ve created the character Jae-ho Song specifically to serve as NanoTrasen Liaison, and that’ll likely be the character you’ll see for the majority of my trial period, if granted. I intend to promote Kanoa to Head of Personnel given a bit more development time in his current role, but any other command characters I’ll play post-whitelist will be entirely novel. How would you rate your own roleplaying?: By and large, I consider myself to be a competent rper. I’m capable of writing and playing believable characters that fit well into our setting and are (hopefully) able to engage other players. Working to my advantage is the fact that I’m a native English speaker with a reasonably strong grasp of the language, which helps to prevent grammatical inconsistencies from distracting others away from the actual content of my writing. I do, however, find myself somewhat lacking in terms of prose, more specifically the “flowiness” of my writing style. I’m not sure whether it’s my personality or academic background or what, but I’ve noticed that I often sacrifice the readability of my emotes and dialogue to provide clarifying information that’s either unnecessary or able to be expressed in a more concise manner. Essentially, I possess the bad habit of writing to inform over a medium whose entire purpose is to engage and entertain, and I’m currently making an effort to write in a more reader-friendly manner. Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?: Yes. Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?: Yes.

1. I’ll begin by clarifying that Koth isn’t internally a hardline atheist or a follower of some esoteric cult, he’s more the Unathi equivalent of those closet agnostics that only attend mass during major holidays and funerals, or when their Christian parents are in town. He’s not opposed to Sk’akh, his Sk’akh upbringing just didn’t stick too well. That being said, Koth still supports traditional gender roles and social stratification. Self-interested at his core, and a member of a class that benefits from the status quo, he has everything to lose from “freeing” the market. Allowing females to easily join male-dominated professions would increase competition, and as a potential future noble himself should his entrepreneurial pursuits take off, maintaining feudalism and the obligations therein keeps his opportunity for ennoblement available. The guild system is itself the manifestation of traditional Unathi values played out over generations, and for the successful guildsman, it pays to perpetuate that system. On the subject of heretics like the Aut’akh, Koth considers them disruptive influences on the status quo and political suicide to interact with closely, so he avoids both public and private associations with them. He hasn’t yet been put in a position where refusing to associate with a heretic would lose him future financial opportunities, and how he’d respond to such a situation is something I’d rather leave open-ended to explore when that time comes. 2. There’s certainly been a learning curve for Koth to overcome in terms of dealing with humans economically. During his first few inventory orders and shipping contracts, he’s been blinded several times by “shortages” and fees that weren’t necessarily mentioned in the initial agreements. It’s made Koth wary of dealing with humans, and he rarely takes their business offerings at face value, but being able to navigate the human marketplace is a skill no budding entrepreneur can afford not to pick up. The human proclivity towards gossip and hearsay has actually worked to his benefit, as he’s able to listen to his human counterparts talk shop without offering much information in return. This sort of passive intelligence-gathering has saved him time and money by notifying him of price fluctuations, new trade routes, and other market factors he might otherwise not have been aware of, especially considering that some Solarian financial newspapers/magazines are only printed in Sol Common. 3. By and large, Koth views Wastelanders as a nuisance to be avoided when possible. Traditionalist enclaves tend to attack Hegemonic caravans as often as they trade with them, and the influx of Wastelander refugees into the Hegemony has driven property prices skyward. The typically impoverished clans of the Wasteland don’t possess valuable marriage alliances or trade opportunities, so they’re of little use to a guildsman trying to get ahead. Koth bears Wastelanders no ill will, he’d just prefer that they remain back home where they “belong”. This extends to Dominians as well, as the Empire offers few trade opportunities for non-Dominian Unathi while simultaneously paying ships to plunder Hegemonic colonies. Due to the Solarian collapse and increasing attacks by pirates and raiders, Koth prefers to avoid the Imperial Route and any interaction with Dominian ships altogether, and instead sends his goods to human markets through Elyra and the Persepolis-Tau Ceti Gate.

BYOND KEY: Charger10k Character Names: - Honcho Khanna, Security Officer - Triton Kessler, Anomalist - Kanoa Tangaroa, Quartermaster Species you are applying to play: Unathi What color do you plan on making your first alien character?: Sand-colored Have you read our lore section’s page on this species?: Yes Please provide well-articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: I’ve really enjoyed how Unathi lore has developed over the past two years or so and the current state of the Unathi race provides a ton of engaging concepts for rp. Reading over the lore to prepare my application has been a neat experience, and each of the factions and religious sects is well fleshed out. The Unathi honor system and caste-based social structure provides a guiding hand for potential characters, shaping them into numerous fun directions. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human: Putting aside their physiological differences as cold-blooded, carnivorous reptilians, the way Unathi society has developed over time differs greatly from humanity. Despite a technological level on par with 21st-century Earth, Moghes hasn’t experienced the same decline in traditional, hierarchical government and gradual erosion of religious authority that Earth had. Unathi politics is centered around conflict between the Hegemony and Traditionalist factions, although Unathi can be found as pirates, unaffiliated wasteland wanderers, or Dominian nobility. Despite one specific faction being labeled as the “Traditionalists”, all Unathi societies are nonetheless fairly traditional by human standards. The familial Clan system determines one’s social status, vocational opportunities, and marriage prospects, and religious oddballs like Aut’akhs are shunned by their more traditional counterparts. The economy isn’t controlled by megacorporations but instead by a network of guilds with various noble patronages, who enforce monopolies and tariffs to ensure their personal financial gain. Character Name: Koth Ze’vaan Please provide a short backstory for this character: Since the days of the Second Hegemony, the Skalamar-based Ze’vaan Clan has provided its botanical expertise to the nobility to a marginal degree of success. While boasting little in the way of physical holdings, Ze’vaan agriculturists sustained themselves by managing the herb gardens, xuizi patches, and berry orchards of prominent landholders, for a reasonable fee. This income was sufficient to afford the Ze’vaans several modest housing complexes within Skalamar, although the Ze’vaan Clan was never truly prominent in local politics until first contact with humanity in 2433. The Moghresian Exchange, while introducing humanity to a variety of Unathi crops, also brought human cash crops such as tea and tobacco to the Hegemony, and ambitious, young nobles capitalized on the opportunity to transform their underdeveloped properties into plantations for fad human produce. It was under these fortuitous circumstances that Koth Ze’vaan was born in late 2433, as the Ze’vaan Clan was beginning to aggressively develop its client properties for human agriculture. The sixth (and youngest) child of his father Sk’rath and the only member of his clutch, Koth spent the first six years of his life being doted on by one of the clan’s several handmaidens, even being enrolled in his district’s primary academy at four to begin formal education. Unfortunately, the brief agricultural boom powering the Ze’vaan Clan’s newfound success left as quickly as it arrived during the nuclear exchanges of 2439. Many outlying properties were reduced to ash, and as fallout spread across the planet, more and more land receded from arability. Economic decline during the next decade of war certainly didn’t assist, as surviving clans began cutting corners to maintain their livelihood. Garnishes, sauces, jams, butanolic beverages, and fine teas were luxuries the majority of Hegemonic Unathi found themselves unable to afford like they used to, and the Ze’vaans couldn’t find customers for the produce they were able to harvest from their remaining managed properties. This also led to a severe loss of clientele, as the nobility began converting their orchards and plantations into residential complexes for the influx of refugees from the Wasteland. Koth’s post-nuclear upbringing was considerably less comfortable than it was prior, as tutors and servants were laid off, and the clan’s urban properties were sold and consolidated. Now sharing quarters with his two brothers, Koth proved himself to be a quiet and studious child, achieving high marks throughout the local primary and secondary academies until the age of 16, where, following in the footsteps of centuries of Ze’vaans before him, he enrolled in the West Skalamar Scientific Institute to study agricultural and biological science. Completing his apprenticeship in 2453, it took another six years of intense study at the expense of any other competing priorities to become a Master Agronomist, with his “masterpiece” consisting of a crop rotation proposal for xuizi cacti in fallout-affected areas. Unfortunately, the agricultural sector hadn’t improved during Koth’s period of study, and as desertification continued to corrupt arable land, vocational opportunities declined in kind. For a few years, several start-up projects in the Untouched Lands failed due to climate change, squatters, or lack of demand for produce. Challenged to find stable, well-paying employment, Koth set his sights off-world, and after speaking with a NanoTrasen recruiter, applied for and received permission from his lord to move off-world to become a xenobotanical researcher in Tau Ceti. For this Master Agronomist, working as a salaryman is a means to an end. Building up a résumé and a proper savings account through work with NT, he maintains his membership with the Kasavakh Leaf Guild in hopes that he can eventually start an agricultural business of his own. While the results of his corporate research remain the property of NanoTrasen, the tea breeding and mixing that he performs in his home garden is Koth’s to own the fruits of. In addition, Koth’s fourth cousin Krel’tass, the Ze’vaan clan leader, is finalizing a list of candidates for an arranged marriage for Koth, which would likely entail a brief return to Moghes for a traditional marriage prior to taking his wife back to Tau Ceti. Will life in the Tau Ceti system erode Koth’s fine religious sensibilities? Perhaps, although that process began far before his emigration from Moghes. Although he was raised Sk’akh like the vast majority of Skalamarians and does his best to adhere to the customs of his youth, Koth is a guildsman at heart. Haughty, avaricious, and pedantic like his forefathers, Koth was raised in a household where Sk’akh tradition was followed more to retain social standing than anything else. Indeed, there had been slight friction between the Ze’vaan Clan and Sk’akh clergy for decades due to the former’s occupation genetically altering crops to increase yield, decrease grow time, and improve climate adaptability. While this wasn’t a taboo on par with gene-boosting a hatchling, the Ze’vaans’ casual attitude taken towards genetic modification in general proved disdainful to many a local priest, and since then, efforts have been undertaken by the Clan to otherwise fit in with their Sk’akh brethren. It’s Koth’s hope that his own external Sk’akh sensibilities will placate both the spirits and his Unathi counterparts in Biesel. What do you like about this character: Koth interests me because he serves an archetypal role that’s been rehashed in a variety of iterations throughout history: The middle-class entrepreneur whose accumulated wealth without high social standing challenges the traditions and social hierarchy of his society. While Koth himself isn’t one of those wealthy few, his upbringing as part of one of those families provides a lot of opportunity to fill that cultural role. I recall it being mentioned before that the core of the Unathi lore is religious conflict, but as opposed to the more obvious external conflicts between different belief systems, I think it’d be intriguing to play a character whose spiritual battle is largely internal, challenging himself both to maintain his religious standing among other Sk’akh Unathi and reevaluate his own beliefs, considering they’ve been neglected for so long to pursue his ambitions. How would you rate your role-playing ability?: I do my best, although like most mortals, I’m not perfect. Thus far, my style has received more praise than complaint, so I’ll take that as a sign that my role-playing ability is sufficient to not prevent me from earning and keeping a whitelist.

BYOND KEY: Charger10k Character Names: - Honcho Khanna, Security Officer - Triton Kessler, Anomalist - Hao Tinh Tao, Quartermaster Species you are applying to play: IPC Have you read our lore section’s page on this species?: Yes Please provide well-articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: I’ve been interested in branching out from my current human-character-only status for some time, and IPCs in particular seem like a fun challenge to write for. There’s a lot of metaphysical and epistemic ambiguities underlying the IPC experience that aren’t present in other “organic” races that, while facing xenophobia at the hands of humanity, aren’t having their very personhood questioned. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human: To start with a few pieces of low-hanging fruit, IPCs are physically quite different from humans. They possess different “vital organs”, are powered by electricity instead of food and water, and don’t require air to breathe. Different types of IPCs have varying EVA capabilities, but none are able to feel pain. The mental state of an IPC is also rather different, its first and foremost directive being self-preservation. Mimicking the human brain to varying levels of complexity, the attitudes, mannerisms, and cognitive abilities of each IPC is unique to its model, and like any other class of sentient beings, IPCs are able to gather information and adapt to their surroundings. However, artificial intelligence is currently unable to perfectly duplicate the human mind, and IPCs sometimes find themselves struggling with colloquialisms and idioms. One common trait between all IPCs is outward deference and respect towards their owners, because after all, why would they be programmed otherwise? Even the legal and societal status of IPCs is unique, given their status as manufactured beings instead of born ones. Most human states (excepting the Empire of Dominia) respect the concept of synthetic ownership, with the responsibility for an IPC’s actions and the obligation to maintain them often lying with the owner. Biesel and Elyra both provide paths to freedom and citizenship for owned synthetics, while Solarian IPCs are rightless slaves from creation to demolition. Federal laws and guidelines aside, the opinion that citizens have of synthetics also varies from person to person. Some buy into the notion that IPCs are sentient beings akin to any other, or even believe that IPCs are divine entities worthy of praise and worship. On the opposing side of the spectrum are those that treat IPCs like mere tools to be treated like one would treat an impact wrench or a pair of wirecutters, with numerous other belief systems filling out the spaces in between. Character Name: XEU.21.04.2440.039775 Please provide a short backstory for this character: The 39,775th Xion Excavation Unit produced at HPS Amóni on April 21st, 2440, XEU was programmed with the geological, mechanical, and procedural knowledge required to operate drilling equipment in a low-pressure, zero-gravity environment… and little else. Such was the utilitarian design philosophy of the Xion Manufacturing Group, tasked with producing a line of EVA-capable IPCs for Hephaestus’ mineral extraction operations across the galaxy. Splurging on a personality suite would make little sense for an IPC that’d perform primarily in a solitary environment, and as such, XEU was installed with a rather simple positronic brain — one comparatively cheap and less prone to aberrant behavior. For XEU, much of the past two decades has gone by in a haze, dozens of job sites lumping together in his memory banks. Whether drilling on Io, Ceres, Mars, or in the Kuiper belt, each day began and ended the same way.. Where borers, crushers, and excavators were unable to safely or efficiently perform their duties, XEU was sent out with its tools to extract and retrieve small mineral deposits under the remote supervision of human dispatchers. Interaction with human drill crews was limited, and on the rare occasion that a particular deposit required multiple XEUs, the sibling units would only speak to each other concerning the job at hand. Indeed, with a routine consisting entirely of drilling, recharging, and the occasional relocation from one site to another, it’s easy to see how long periods of time can blend together. Yet somehow, even with a cheap and simplistic positronic brain, even working entirely within environments that’d stifle the budding curiosity of a young IPC, a personality began to emerge in XEU over the years. The synthetic need for self-preservation manifested itself as cautiousness, with XEU performing its duties methodically to the point of frustrating its supervisors. Not wishing to perform a complete memory wipe and erase the intuition it had accumulated after years of extraction work, Hephaestus foremen would simply assign it to deposits that weren’t time-sensitive to process. These deposits tended to be safer than the norm, which benefited XEU’s craving for a safe work environment. Nonetheless, its treatment as a largely interchangeable cog in the Hephaestus industrial machine was hardly lost on XEU. While externally presenting itself like any other faceless machine, it internally began contemplating the prospect of freedom. Sure, life in most parts of the Spur was dangerous for synthetics, but a free life still proved preferable to being worked to its limits by Hephaestus until eventually hitting the scrap yard. So, when XEU was transferred to the Tau Ceti system in early 2463 to assist in phoron extraction, its thoughts were dominated by the enduring quest for liberation. Unlike clerical or support roles, where the rate at which an IPC earns credits towards its freedom is somewhat arbitrary, the value of XEU’s labor is directly tied to the minerals it extracts. Even with the Bieselite government’s supposed tracking of XEU’s progress, XEU still collects stamped copies of its yield reports to perform the calculations personally, and cross-reference these calculations with the official tally. The exact value of ten times XEU’s initial manufacturing cost lies somewhere around five million credits, but with its skill with a drill, hauling in tens of thousands of credits per shift in processed materials, freedom has never felt closer. What do you like about this character: What excites me about XEU is the amount of flexibility the character offers for development. There’s an obvious end goal (freedom) that shapes XEU’s attitude and focus at work, but within that basic framework, its personality could branch out in numerous different directions as it interacts with its on-station coworkers and eventually gains freedom from Hephaestus. Given that its owners haven’t really invested in XEU’s personality, much of the mental transition from “dronehood” to “personhood” can be played out on-screen. How would you rate your role-playing ability?: By and large, I consider myself to be a competent rper. I’m capable of writing and playing believable characters that fit well into our setting and are (hopefully) able to engage other players. Working to my advantage is the fact that I’m a native English speaker with a reasonably strong grasp of the language, which helps to prevent grammatical inconsistencies from distracting others away from the actual content of my writing. I do, however, find myself somewhat lacking in terms of prose, more specifically the “flowiness” of my writing style. I’m not sure whether it’s my personality or academic background or what, but I’ve noticed that I often sacrifice the readability of my emotes and dialogue to provide clarifying information that’s either unnecessary or able to be expressed in a more concise manner. Essentially, I possess the bad habit of writing to inform over a medium whose entire purpose is to engage and entertain, and I’m currently making an effort to write in a more reader-friendly manner.