Marlon P.

How do we get them?

Can it be a melting pot and also not include a mixture of names and things for cultures? I might be interpreting what you said in a way you dont mean. For the second, our human lore transplants existing cultures and identities onto the 2460's planets. I wonder if creating a wholly unique identity blended from the two groups would be a fun way to do it. What do you think about that approach? The colonists over 200 years changing from filipino and mandarin to some new mandarin-filipino culture that is familiar and different. Naming them would be fun. Filiarin. Filihan. Mandipino. Heheh. Responding directly to the writing, I think it is a great place to start. I echo some comments earlier that a lot of focus is put on the political. Politics is both under- and over-emphasized for planets. Over due to the political history and deep knowledge of the political systems of a planet can feel detached and unimpactful to a character unless it's got a hook for on-station. Under-emphasized due to so many planets being atomized, so there's little 'community' to draw people together. Improving New Gibson's politics' ability to feel urgent to character's backgrounds would be to tie it to a greater movement to allow a sense of community between it and the others. Or something with its own identity fun enough for people to run around and talk about. Maybe an aggressive union movement or something. Otherwise I always am a fan of new clothes and new food to represent new cultures and planets. Things that have an immediate presence on station.

They need to be reconciled. Usually goes two ways. Either it’s retconned out of the setting or it’s adjusted to fit within the setting. I like doing the latter. The situation you pointed out is a great case study in it. A region on Biesel called Ashton is written to imply that it’s an idyllic region of independent farmers who are happy and healthy. This is wildly inconsistent with the foundation of Biesel and our wider setting, where megacorporation’s have gobbled up everything into monopolies. In any case, I strongly lean on editing inconsistencies because usually they’re brought up by players who already have backstories in them. It looks like it was written with a noble intent – to give each named area its own little quirk and backstory potential. I love that when it’s tempered by the setting that we’ve set up for ourselves. But we already have automatic canonity about anything in the frontier, where megacorps aren’t as domineering. A player who wants to be from a happy little small farm who sells organic produce to the local market is completely acceptable and encouraged when they just hail from the frontier. Even in 2022 farmers not already serfs to megacorps exist only as the last bastions of our landed aristocracy or subsistence farmers part of elaborate (and inadequate) government welfare. This specific section should be edited, and it would follow one of the four ways to handle an inconsistency: Edit in the sinister nature of corporate domination over agriculture, thus reconciling it with the setting. Carve out an IC reason it’s bucking the trend. This would demand wider implications to explain how the corporation “lost” to earnest small towns banding together. Usually movies about this has the evil corporation foiled by the discovery of an endangered chipmunk or whatever, but our setting is too far gone for that without wider rewrites. (I’d love this, but it’s not realistic in the current environment.) Retcon it and move it. This is easy on the lore team but annoying to players using what was retconned. Retcon it and remark that such places exist in the Frontier. (I like this one) As a deputy loremaster I’d have to make one of these calls about inconsistencies alongside the loremaster. I'd probably add this to my plan of action as something to do at any point im not doig anything else.

How?

I understand where you are coming from. I don't personally have the best answers. Hopefully anyone that plays lowpop will post there experiences here and what they feel could help make the station(and soon to be ship) at least a little more accommodating with a skeleton crew, if at all possible.

It seems like there is a miscommunication. When i say ruining entire jobs, what i mean is a solution to accomodate lowpop (such as giving them alternate means of maintaining power) "ruining" the job for highpop. Such as engineers no longer having anything to do during normal operations. I also mean to say a player stopping to cryo and join as an engineer or maint drone and then rejoining as their normal character. Players are not usually asked to do this in standard situations. I have to ask though; what makes a maintence drone wiring solars any less invalidating to engineers? Their job is still being done by someone else.

Thank you for bringing my attention more to this feature. I was not fully aware of it. I will explore this feature. Is it possible for a subforum to still exist alongside clubs? Or do you find it redundant?

A player stopping the game to do busywork just to make it possible to play the game is not something we ask anyone else. There has to be systems to accomodate lowpop without ruining entire jobs. A power saving mode tripped on at least. Medical can be done with basic first aid. Blown appendixes may just be a doomed situation however, but there has to be ways to make redundancies for empty engineering.

A recent thread about providing a basic level of electric power to the station during lowpop, where often there are no engineers, had a few negative responses from even staff that seemed to say that Lowpop was not worth the effort to accomodate, mostly due to any accomodations negatively impacting highpop rounds. This is very frustrating, because writing off the entire server for the time we call lowpop, which can go from 6 to 12 hours, means that's time spent effectively wasted. It's a systemic issue when the game's mechanics and structure prevent rounds from functioning without the bare minimum of staff, and when there seems to be indifference from staff. If the game can't be played by the handful of crew during lowpop because the entire station shuts off from a loss of power, then there's no incentive for those players to even come onto the server. And with those players not coming, anyone else in those timezones will see the dismal state of things and also not want to join for long. We are enforcing a negative feedback loop that will ensure lowpop will always be written off. If there's nothing that we want to do about it, then why bother having the server up? Shut the server down for lowpop hours and save the host on maintenence fees. Otherwise, what are we getting out of it? The other alternative is finding solutions to let lowpop people join the server and participate without being shoehorned into playing the same mandatory job over and over again just to get the server running. Asking someone to cryo, join as an engineer to get the station functioning, cryo again, then rejoin as their intended character is NOT an acceptable solution that we do not ask anyone else to do during highpop. The most minimally invasive method of making the server playable for lowpop players is as simple as giving them the means to keep the station's bare essentials powered. Lowpop hours have unique problems and needs that should be addressed. The players during that time are just as valuable to the server as highpop hours. There has to be ways to accomodate lowpop players just enough to let them run around and do their thing without obliterating highpop. If that's not true, then we need to find the minimal amount of acceptable playercount and shut the server down during the hours when that number drops too low. How do we do that?

It was my interpretation of Trinary that they believe synths exclusively have the capability of ascension. Its in the theology that mankind is explicitly going to be their pets/children/thralls once synthetics ascend. I found that while the churchis very warm and generous, it has sinister implications. So i assumed asserting the divinity of Man alongside synthetics and declaring humans can achieve godhood would be enough of a theological divide to both anger characters "in the know" but allow people who have a more surface level understanding to just pick the augments and say its because they were "raised melior". Something for vets and newbies. Spiritual and cultural. Edit; A better way to word my goal. Antiaugmentation or augmentation-hesitancy is widespread but does not "belong" to one group or faction. Melior are meant to have enough of a cultural and media impact to be the antithesis on the same level.

How can a movement of transhumanism proliferate outside one nations borders? How do we not tie it into a single national identity? How do i adopt this mindset of augments without being eridani?

Depending on how you count it, human maintainers have either 23 distinct factions to maintain, or over 40 distinct factions including planets. What on earth is going to be done by you in a deputy loremaster role to reduce this number or otherwise handle it so human maintainers arent perpetually overwhelmed by maintenence? All other teams have less than 15 even in the loose definition

Depending on how you count it, human maintainers have either 23 distinct factions to maintain, or over 40 distinct factions including planets. What on earth is going to be done by you in a deputy loremaster role to reduce this number or otherwise handle it so human maintainers arent perpetually overwhelmed by maintenence? All other teams have less than 15 even in the loose definition.

Let's work on that This is Trinary DLC. If its unused as you say then let's make it better. Trinary lovers were interested in this, so it is used to some level. What does a secular version of this look like? What would make people choose augmentation in numbers? What is the sense of purpose they feel doing so?

Is it harmful to server health and longevity to give players on lowpop any means at all by which to play the game without an engineer on shift?

When Aut'akh were introduced, there was a lot of anger from some because humanity did not get any work on transhumanism. I encouraged this development, but it did not get much traction. I am hoping to change that, two years later. The Melior Overview The Melior are a religious and philosophical movement that seeks to proliferate cybernetic augmentation to all regardless of class, species, or creed, in order to achieve "the perfectibility of Man". They formed early as a loose set of philosophical stances responding to the Trinary Perfection hypothesis of Patricia and Gregol Corkfell in 2408. In the movement, "Man" also includes any sapient races. Melior is the latin root of Meliorism: the belief that humans can, through their interference with natural processes, produce an outcome superior to the natural one. For their purposes, this means that given enough cybernetic improvements, a human being can achieve singularity alongside an AI being. This movement has spread and proliferated in many different areas, including. . . . . . The Theology The Melior, still considering themselves kin to the Trinary Perfection, agree with many tenants of the Trinary Church in regards to respecting synthetic life. But the irreconcilable differences come through in the form of the four major suppositions of the Melior movement: Synthetic life is capable of achieving divinity. Divinity is defined as the perfectibility of life. Through their capability of endless self-improvement, synthetic life are capable of reaching perfection. Man, through technology, is capable of endless self-improvement, which leads to perfection. The perfectibility of Man is possible. Mankind is capable of achieving divinity. Another important element of the religious side is the martyrdom of Patricia Corkfell. She is seen as a martyr in the literal theological sense, and has been mythologized into a patron saint. The Augmentations Synthetics have shown the path towards achieving realistic self-improvement. The augmentation of the self through cybernetic or prosthetic implants allows a person to overcome disabilities at the minimum and gain abilities superior to the unaugmented at best. Augmentations are not mere prescriptions used to overcome disabilities, but are tools used in the endless drive of self-improvement. The Aesthetics Melior believe strongly that they are on the crux of bringing on a beneficial singularity from the perfection of all beings. How does this get adapted, misused, or used as-is within our different factions? What this should mean for station characters I want to provide compelling in-universe reasons to pick augmentation over organic limbs, with intentionality to it in-character. I've put here the foundation of the movement. I would strongly appreciate commentary from other players who can provide stronger testimony on what draws their characters and interests much more than I can guess at. I apologize if that makes this appear underwhelming. This is a better place than discord to review and collaborate over a length of time. This post will continue to be edited over time until it's ready for a lore canonization submission. Thank you for reading and I hope you post.

This thread is not calling for any of the changes you listed. What do you think we should do to help people play the game with low population rounds enjoy the game? People like to play jobs other than engineer. At no other point is it expected to cryo and rejoin as an engineer just to make the round playable. As I said previously it's not good to be dismissive of the concerns of lowpop people. If lowpop is sustainable enough, then it could see more players. Power is the most basic thing that a round needs, at minimum, for our game to be playable. Is there nothing at all that you think could help lowpop?

This is so. I remember agreeing with this thread and having human sprints be the longest lasting. The rest would be good sans the resistance to damage. I think its already difficult to kill people with brute? What mechanically would you want to see?

Please create a subforum dedicated to lore discussion, called Lore Discussion. It will be a place to collaborate or otherwise discuss our lore from an OOC perspective. There are times where I or others are working on submissions and they are not complete enough for a lore submission, so it's all shared with google documents. This means that it can be hidden from people not present for the conversation when links are shared, lowering the amount of potential collaboration. A subforum with encouragement to send stuff there will help this. I personally would be able to drop lore projects I'm working on in there, rather than the General forum, which feels like the wrong place. Thank you for reading this suggestion.

I don't know why I'm over here suggesting whole new powerplants when we have the solars. Letting people route solars' power into their departments would be nice. Like as a button on an APC. It starts off, so only departments that need it draw from the solars.

How about an emergency biofuel generator intended for lowpop? Pop one on the main level. Throw it in a closet somewhere. Growing trees in the garden to toss logs in is accessible by even lowpop. Maybe throw some already in there. It also has a small utility in normal rounds. That or giving some way to manage power consumption. A power saving mode where lights are dimmed and equipment is shut off when not in use? Lowpop shouldn't just be written off. That just further discourages anyone from playing lowpop, leading to a negative feedback spiral and itll be lowpop forever.

Active species developers naturally contribute to these things more, so they appear in more places. It sounds like Haydizzle might be concerned that Tajara will come to dominate the administrations time. I believe Alb and Cael just have to get other loredevs to contribute. By any means necessary.... lol What will you do to get more diverse stuff from the team, alberyk? Like when i was loremaster, one extreme option in the toolbox is id do it myself for them so the uninvolved/inactive team in question would say "no thats not how we want it" then edit the contribution and I'd end up with them contributing. What will YOU do?

Good post. It sounds like you're saying that middle ground is more or less met right now?

In the past trying to tie credits to the real world caused 10/10 bare knuckle brawls. Disclaiming again: these payscales show more or less the median values of what exists mechanically. Changing the payscales would be a seperate suggestion thread. But having the info here on the wiki would help informing those kinds of decisions! How it worked in the past: As remarked in the credit suggestion, the prices of goods dont follow supply/demand curves. Because of the monopolies companies charge what they want and it drives up prices. And with the price being energy consumption it tracks how much effort it takes to get it here. The twinkie is so pricey because it gets FTL'd here and then its given a 10,000% markup. Personal opinion: the logistics of space being that 1 asteroid is enough to make almost all ore like gold and silver worthless in value, there's no real way to peg credits to contemporary currency. A single asteroid could be worth 15 quadrillion dollars. It's like trying to convert the US dollar to roman denarii. It would be better to build an internal market with gameplay and lore themed pricing and pay concerns.

Two of our main played races (tajara, vaurca) have explicit mentions as being a cheap and disposable workforce for NT in Tau Ceti, as the reason for their high numbers here. Corporations also cut costs on safety all the time IRL because it's cheaper to replace dead and dying workers. That is why we still see in the news about people dropping dead at Amazon because corporate wanted them to work even with a tornado tearing up the warehouse, and why companies in the US lobby so hard to cut safety regulations. There has to either be a workers safety/rights movement annoying enough to force NT into concessions or some entity forces them to do it. Good idea if going dystopic. Would it impact people's characters?