Lucaken

Removing the role entirely, even with alternatives introduced (like giving physicians their duties) just feels like we're moving the problem, not actually fixing it. There may be physicians in this thread and in-game that feel perfectly fine spending their first 30 minutes making meds like the late chemists did, but I guarantee you it will not last. We should consider any option that doesn't involve butchering the role structure before anything else. I personally support Ramke's basic medical package from cargo - it's flexible to alleviate rounds without chemists at the start and can still have chemists latejoin to make complex stuff. We can then at least consider longer-term options for 'fixing' chemistry, AKA making it not boring.

I also somewhat recently played under Jeriko as a hangar tech, and can confidently say they did a great job. They handled an IC dispute within the department well, and I also saw them diligently help a newer player in adjusting. Big +1.

I was a proof-reader for much of the development process of these documents, so it’s no surprise I like it. Any questions I may have had were covered by Red and Monty. My only real concern is length - although I would struggle to cut anything from this as all of it is of good quality, I think the culture document does start to stretch it all, and was where I lost the most interest overall. If this has to fit in just one page, trimming it and the religion page may be necessary - though that is more of a job for the writers. Otherwise, this has my +1.

One of my main issues with this suggestion is that third party ships are not nearly solid enough as a concept to supersede ERTs in any way. The system for determining whether or not they can be hostile, and to what degree, is very much a work-in-progress. Community attitudes toward them are still underdeveloped or just plain misunderstood (see: the EE ship trouble being discussed in a different thread). Their variety and frequency is still in question. It is way, way too early to definitively say they could function as a clean-up/support crew - hell, we don’t even really know if they will be allowed to intervene with the antag’s gimmicks. It’s all up in the air, and making claims about them right now is more than a bit hasty. I agree they have a lot of potential, but we are far from having guaranteed it. I also agree with Arrow that there isn’t really a difference between faceless ERT characters and faceless third party ship characters - technically speaking Danse is right in saying that there would be more chances with the latter, but I still find it unlikely for characters like that to appear often enough and have a big enough impact for it to make a difference in this discussion. I think we should reconsider or refactor ERTs once everything is in place, and a good couple of rounds have went by. We need more experience and examples to cast a good judgement here, both of which I think we currently lack. I would have maybe agreed to making them adminbus dependent if the crew armory was strong enough to turn the tide in most cases - another factor which I am not very confident in.

I don't think any team is currently falling behind that badly, certainly not enough to warrant a talk. A few months back I maybe would've said Dionae or Vaurca, but both have since climbed ahead. I was generally happy to see how the Bulwark addition went, and only wish we could get the same activity in terms of articles as then from the team. Dionae also got Coeus, expansions on Ursae Minoris and their integration page, which I was all very happy with. I would say the synth team's Trinary project has proceeded very well, and I would only really expect more from the Unathi team - though they just went through a new deputy process, so some leeway is to be given. The important part in this is that I am viewing everything with the perspective of a player; plans, projects and efforts may be going on that I have no clue about, and so what I think of a specific team's activity right now is irrelevent. What I wanted to get across with that point on the roadmap is that I want to ensure we keep this up, and don't have any long-time lapses in activity. Teams should always have a project to work/think about, because an aimless team is likely to fall behind, as I said in my roadmap. I can understand why it all happened considering the timing and it has probably become better in that time. From what I read of the opinions of other lore members and the previous round of deputy applicants, assigning teams to specific sections works out. I wouldn't change that process massively, but instead try and make sure every team is given something to work on - ontop of that, if it's a large multi-cultural project like the Biesel parties, it should be understood that players might expect their own species to be represented in some way. This is a very vague scenario, and the obvious answer would be 'give me more information'. Both teams don't exactly have that many planets of their own, so it makes sense to want to hold onto the oversight. In this hypothetical example, though, I would allow the Vaurca Team to have almost complete oversight since they seem very adamant on that - the compromise being that whatever Dionae enclave exists there belongs to the Dionae team. This is how I see it done on planets like Himeo and Tajara, and I see no reason to force a connection where the writers really don't want one. Afterwards LTM may try to persuade both sides to collaberate a bit more, but all of it has to be steady. We also have to accept that sometimes a connection just does not work, especially if it is not favoured by the players. It isn't the end of the world, there are plenty of opportunities for collaboration elsewhere. I am of the opinion that if we can foster enough multi-species interactions, teams will be more willing to form entirely new ones in the future. But again; everything has to be done steady and careful, never forced. I am confident that this will not be an issue, and my history reflects this. I was not joking when I said that I am not afraid to call out my friends when I think they are wrong. I could bring up a plethora of discord discussions, but to give a more solid example, here is a reply I made on a lore-related player complaint. I chose this one specifically because although Danse doesn't hold a position on the team, he was at that time already a fairly close friend. I had no issue telling him why and how he was wrong, and remained objective throughout the ordeal to this day, where I still think his reaction was not the correct one. Had I been in the position of having to judge this case, I would've given out the same warning. I soon talked to him about why I felt the need to be honest, and made sure we harboured no hard feelings. All of this is to say, I do not see myself struggling to stay true during team disputes, even though it will likely be my least favourite part of job - whether I'm judging a friend or not. Thank you for clarifying, as this is written very weirdly in the current regulations. My stance on it is more or less the same however, and I think LRM should do a bit more than just administrative work if a leave is severe enough. As for team jurisdiction, I already emphasized the importance of respecting the writers' boundaries in my original reply to Silvie. Based on the case, LRM should endavour to do the bare minimum to keep a team's lore going until they return, and with as much input from said writers as possible. Leaving an entire team's playerbase on radio silence is not really acceptable, and we should be prepared to help out if the worst happens.

This is a very wide question, and generally my opinion is that we should be focused on allowing these cultural clashes to happen in a drama-free, purely ICly manner. There is not much point in chucking someone's character out of the airlock for creating conflict that is explicitly supported by the lore, else there wouldn't be much point in travelling to these diverse places in the first place. As long as no OOC rules are broken, I think these cases should remain in the ballpark of CCIA and maybe the respective lore team, if needed (An example being Federation counselors or other such high-power characters needing to step in). As for punishments, I think we should once again be a bit more leniant in proportion to what the actual 'crime' was. Throwing someone's character out should always be the last result. As you can see from the thumbs up I put there weeks ago, I think it's great! Ontop of streamlining our accent/citizenship system, it's a way for us to get the lore to the players more directly. I guarantee you more people will read into the lore after seeing the little culture blurbs. I think the team should capitalize on it, and also use it to encourage cross-species lore by adding more complex origins where possible. Although I have read worries that it will restrict some character types, as long as the team spends adequate time disscussing everything with the developers, it should be fine. I have high hopes that it will mesh really well with a future update to our languages system, discussed in the thread I'll link below. You can see more of my thoughts in my replies there. I think the planet ban was a good move forward in keeping us more focused on developing what we already have, and I think it should remain that way for some time. The Horizon has more than enough places to visit and each team has more or less enough space to develop. Reverting it could take away the team's attention from progressing already established lore, and should only be done if a team feels really constrained by their current number of planets. Besides, if we make the planets we already have more complex and varied, it will provide almost as much choice to players as a larger number of smaller planets would. No, not really. I can understand people worrying about our setting becoming too saturated with tragadies and negative events, but I think we are very far away from it dominating our setting. The reason why we have so many 'bad things' is because conflict naturally pushes narratives forward, while exclusively positive events are better as punctuation points for said darker moments. At it's heart our setting is decidedly gray on the moral compass, and it should firmly remain so. My biggest push in this regard would be to make sure there is always something counter-balancing the grim with the wholesome - for example, Mictlan may be a planet undergoing ruthless megacorp occupation, but it is also a place where close-knit families have massive roof-garden parties whenever they can. As long as we can maintain this balance everywhere, I think we're fine. As I've said before in various discussions, I think it functions just fine as our baseline/introduction faction, but that does not necessarily mean it should be kept basic. In the past, I was frustrated at how small each section had to be kept, always wanting more complexity. Nowadays I understand it has to be kept digestable, and think that the right way is steady development with more complexity coming from its mini-arcs and events. In that regard, the Peacekeeper arc has done wonders to keep the faction interesting and if that kind of progress can be sustained than I think it will do great. The main points is - keep it available to new players, while using articles, arcs and other methods to entice older players, too. I do not particularly want to see us delving into a more nation-based setting, as I think megacorporations are the perfect main power/villains for a setting like ours. They are omnipresent and just about all-powerful, a fact that not even the newly anti-SCC Sol can avoid considering EE's influence. Any sort of radical shift away from this should only be done if we are really desperate for some refreshment of the setting, which I don't think we need with the launch of the Horizon. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have resistance, and in fact I believe the reason why we should keep them so powerful is so that we can keep getting interesting backlashes to the status quo. For these to keep popping up however, we need megacorporations to stay powerful enough to be at the top.

This is a very complicated topic, and is obviously uncomfortable for some (it sucks to talk about expectations in a hobby environment, we're here to have fun, not do a second job), but nevertheless I think it is manageable with a combination of using the rules we already have, and careful assistance from Lore Team Management (LRM). Communication must be at the front of all of it, because even though our regulations say that LRM is responsible for the team's output throughout the duration of the leave, this requires everyone to be very upfront about said busy times. Having read over those few lines, I can also understand why we haven't seen many of those, as I would assume writers would feel at least a bit worried about leaving their projects in different hands for an extended amount of time (even LRM, who in my opinion should generally trust the developers over themselves when it comes to their corner of the lore). So if leaves are properly announced, I think all that is needed is for LRM to run articles/mini-events that do not influence the projects of the team massively, but mostly lead up to it. This way, we can make sure that players do not feel abandoned and at the same time encourage writers to take more honest breaks if needed, without the worry of LRM interfering too much. As for a minimum contribution level, I would avoid any hard numbers/limits as that will likely contribute to even more burnout, and instead go by the (I presume purposefully) very vague standard set by the regulations. I think if a team or writer is worryingly behind on things, it will become very apparent and will also likely be highly specific to each case. Adding more specific rules is going to feel draconian no matter what, so I think the best option is to keep our rules and have LRM communicate as much as humanly possible. Private talks about performance can feel awkward, but are still a softer way of reminding writers that we do technically have a job to do. And when in doubt, I think our expectations-extended leave-resignation process is robust enough to handle very severe cases. There are far too many examples I could name here for potential collaborations, but I have to be realistic with both myself and the team here - trying to create connections where there were none previously is difficult, and more likely to sow distrust than anything else. For this reason I think it is perfectly fine to focus on the ones we already have, and strengthen them as much as can be tolerated by either team. While there are obvious picks like Gakal'zaal, I feel a large part of the work is with human space here, which due to its widespread nature has a lot of hints and mentions of alien interaction, but could go much further in my eyes. Unathi and Dominia, Vaurca and Elyra (even antagonistic interaction is good!) and especially the Coalition, which feels like the perfect place for anything not already covered. I was particularly disappointed at the weird contradictions with Solarian Skrell, which I now understand are the result of some internal complications, but I am still not very happy with. I think that connection in particular is ripe with potential, and thankfully we have already seen improvements with the Beauchamp events. I obviously cannot talk about this without mentioning Dionae, where I've long since championed the idea that their focus should be about their integration with other cultures and species. I think it tends to bring out the best in everything, and while the recent updates have been good from the Diona team itself, deeper integration should be considered. No matter what or where, I think the crucial thing is to nurture carefully and slowly, and not to force things unless new developments come from the writers themselves. Regarding the first part of this, my main plan is to make sure every old article we have is looked over, screened for non-canon details and then added to the wiki in as truncated fashion as possible. The goal of this is to keep everything important on the wiki itself, and to make it easier for players and writers alike to know what is and isn't current canon. The wiki has to be ontop of everything, especially as our lore expands and becomes ever more complicated. This is, again, a chore that will take a lot of time and I do not expect it to be worked on right now. I would rather it is handled by the teams in-between projects or just whenever they have the time and willpower. When retroactively adding anything to the wiki from these articles, it is important that only crucial, trimmed-down information is added so as to not completely upturn certain pages. Similarly, new articles that are posted should adhere to these same rules, and anything new and important added by an article should always find its way to the wiki pretty much immediately. 'Fluff' as it is can be left out of the wiki for the sake of clarity and flavour for players receiving them as they are posted. But before any work is done moving forward, the backlogs must be addressed. As for the second part of this, I am of the opinion that we only tend to watch brevity when it concerns human lore, and for good reason. Almost every player begins having to read it, and due to a lack of whitelists it must remain digestible to a massive amount of players. As soon as you get to other species however, this standard becomes a lot lighter due to the expectation of a whitelist, which is why you tend to see much larger alien pages such as with Tajara. Again, I think this is fine and how it should be - the expectations are simply different, and human lore needs to cover more bases anyway. I think the solution is simply to truncate sections like your CoC IPCs into smaller blurbs on their respective page, then hyperlink it to a more available page on the IPC team's side. That way you can keep it brief where needed, allowing players to dive in deeper on their own terms and interests. A good example of this is found on the Himeo page's Free Tajaran Council, which opens up from a few short paragraphs to an entire page of its own. In short, I think it's fine to have more pages that are deeply interlinked, so that we essentially spread our lore across more digestible pieces. I cannot give my full thoughts on a potential revamp as it is all very theoretical and would need a lot of input from players and writers alike, but overall I think giving each category a general set of guidelines would be best. For example, the lowest category may include small locations, a cultural activity or anything that is minor fluff, while the highest category can be reserved for planets, factions and everything in-between (with word count once again being the ultimate judge, not concept). It may do well to remind potential applicants that if their project is large, communication with writers is almost necessary to avoid disappointment. The main goal is to make sure both sides know what to accept from an application. If the system is sufficiently robust, players will be more inclined to have faith in it, which should translate into more additions. I can see why bias may be a worry, but ultimately I think it will be a non-issue from how I view the position of Deputy Loremaster - it is not so much a direct writing position, but that of coordination, communication and general help. I also know to put the teams and their efficiency above any of my own interests, and I expect to work more on things that people are stuck with rather than directly influencing any particular team. I would not have applied to this position in particular if I thought my only responsibility would be hanging out with friends - not to mention, that while my history may say otherwise, my biggest interest is not in any one species, but in the setting as a whole. This is where my love for cross-team collaboration comes from, and I highly doubt it will change for the worse as I am exposed to every team at once. I am painfully aware of my own hot-headedness, and as anyone that has had any sort of heated argument with me before knows, I am always very quick to put the water under the bridge afterwards. Much of the reason why I am desperate to make up is because I understand these flare-ups are momentary - they aren't really representative of what I think of a person or a topic, not fully. Almost always, I come to realize that both me and the person I'm talking to are extremely passionate about the lore (else we wouldn't be arguing about it), and that's enough to put it all behind us. As the lore team is perhaps the place with the most invested people you could find, I think I will have little trouble going back to this thinking if there ever should be any sort of trouble. I'd like to think that it has done wonders for keeping me drama-free. This is true, and you can even see me struggle to keep things short in this very thread. In my experience, however, I have had no issues when editing/reviewing someone else's work, which is likely because we all tend to get attached more to our own ideas and have a harder time separating what is and isn't actually useful. As mentioned before, I plan to work a lot more as an editor than as an original writer for most of my work, and will thus probably not have as much of an issue with this quirk of mine. I am actively working to reduce it whenever possible, and I have a feeling that the lore team environment will help a lot in keeping it checked, too. As you said at the beginning of your post, we all learn as we go and I expect this to be one of those lessons I will gradually pick up.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Lucaken Position Being Applied For: Deputy Loremaster Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page? Yes. Past Experiences/Knowledge: I have been a part of the community for about a year and a half, much of which I've spent heavily involved with the lore, be it through endless discord discussions, making/commenting on canonization applications and interacting personally with lore writers. Before that I spent around four years roleplaying and writing on Star Wars: The Old Republic, where I served in minor management positions for various guilds. I consider myself an avid reader of anything sci-fi related, and I'm planning on pursuing a higher education in anything writing-related. Examples of Past Work: Two of my (mostly) accepted canonization applications. And two larger pieces of writing I've done for Star Wars roleplay. They are not my best work, but I want to include them to show I'm able to execute ideas. (And some very light image editing skills) https://malgus-rp.enjin.com/forum/m/46474106/viewthread/33062119-substance-344-sehrellium-reports-development https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hRiWkzgZx1nep64_WTAJPC0Uiym43CxX8Cvb8XoVNuY/edit?usp=sharing Criticisms: As people that know me from discord will probably already recognize, I often criticize the team and state of the lore whenever I think it's needed. I am not afraid to voice my concerns in the moment it comes up, which has given me a lot of opinions and ideas over the months about what should and shouldn't happen. Some of these I have gone back on (as is expected over such a long timeframe), but I will try to compile below what I feel most strongly about and especially what relates to my roadmap. - Lack of direction for species teams. As I see it, teams only begin to fall behind when they are unable to keep themselves on target for their own plans, whatever they may be. Although I lack an insider's eyes, I think it really shows when one team is chugging along with their projects steadily and another is giving radio silence - this is felt most acutely by avid players of that species, and can completely throw some players off. - Lacklustre collaboration on group projects. Although this may have already gotten better, I vividly remember how rocky the Biesel political parties revamp was, and being astonished when I was told some writers simply didn't offer anything except some minor edits. Players (including me) later had to offer our own examples to see more representation added. Group projects, unless specifically focused on one element, should have some semblance of addition by everyone in the team. - Unsatisfactory canonization application process. While not as crucial, I think it is high time for the team to get more serious about fixing the system, largely in terms of making it more pressing for writers. Players (including me, again) who have gone through it even after the changes are often left feeling disappointed or even ignored. They take too long to go through and are often considered secondary to lore writer projects. - Bits of the lore are still scattered and seperate from the wiki, making it hard to know what is truly canon or not. Centralizing everything into the wiki is becoming ever more needed, especially as teams begin to use methods such as articles and arcs more frequently. Roadmap/general plans: - Ensure any NBT developments go smoothly. Although I am currently not aware of the team's full plans, I do know that making sure our start is as smooth as possible will be paramount for future developments. We should lay the exact groundwork for how the team is going to develop our 'main storyline', so that we are not scrambling for a method months down the line. As long as each team is aware of how exactly this will influence them, it will make everything a lot more efficient. - Keep communication up with the teams, especially with those falling behind. This includes seeing what their hurdles are, whether or not their plans are achievable and helping them keep on track. The individual teams are much more in-touch about their own lore than the lore masters, and so all that is likely needed is encouragement from Lore Team Administration. I don't believe in a one-fits-all type of method. Each case must be handled with a seperate solution; whether it is daily pings, deadlines or just the occasional DM. This also includes getting people involved with group projects. - Revamp the canonization application system. Currently, my thinking is to introduce three separate types of deadlines based on word count. The larger the addition/change, the more time the writers should be given to look over things. With size also comes greater expectation of partial acceptance from players. With all hope, this will make the process feel like less of a chore for writers, and also manage players' expectations about their scope. - Centralize everything important onto the wiki. Articles, past lore arcs and events have to make their way over onto the wiki as they are being developed. Looking through old lore will no doubt be a chore, but teams will have a much easier time going forward once everything is in place. This is where I think Lore Team Administration can help the most, personally curating with the teams as needed. - Encourage more inter-team collaboration. Much of our more well-celebrated lore comes from well-coordinated and nurtured writing between species, and having more of it can never be bad. These cannot be forced, boundaries and plans must be respected, but it should still be pushed for whenever the opportunity comes up. I think the team has already come far in this department, but it bears mentioning anyway. What I could offer as a Deputy Loremaster: Despite my lack of lore team experience, I believe my main advantage is strong ties to some of the writers on the team, and a friendly attitude with everyone else. The few times I butt heads with people I tend to make up immediately afterwards, as I absolutely detest long-term fueds of any kind after having experienced a couple during my Star Wars days. I also view my tendency to argue about ideas as a boon, often backing down whenever I've been proven wrong, but nearly always succeeding in adding something to a concept. Deputies, in my mind, should always be ready to challenge their closest friends and superiors alike. Whenever it is not needed, however, I believe I can get along with just about anyone, which is crucial to keeping the team glued together. I am also not planning on going away any time soon unless extraordinary circumstances arise, so I am likely to maintain this position for however long I am needed. Lastly, I view my place as someone without a spot on the team currently as beneficial - without a specific team to care for, I remove some potential bias and burnout that other candidates may have. Additional Comments: I am aware that during the last round of applications I was both publicly and privately encouraged to apply, to which I said I don't see myself developed enough as a writer, or just as a person, to take on the responsibility. Although I still feel inadequate in this regard (who doesn't), I have come to see this position as a lot less writing-focused, and more like what I talked about in the last section. This was also helped by the blurb about a lack of lore team experience in the announcement, as well as lots of encouragement from friends. In the end, I am doing this both to finally have a chance to act on my wishes to help the lore directly, and so that I don't kick myself later for not trying.

Due to the insurmountable amount of damning information Danse has compiled about my person (five imgur folders, sixteen different round-chat logs and two 'mappies' voice channel recordings), I am being forced to give my +1 for this application. Please do not take this post and any other ones made by me that relate to it as serious or reflective of my real opinion on user 'Dansemacabre'. Danse, if you're reading this, please release my family. I'm sorry I called your human deputy application 'larp', I really didn't mean anything by it, it was a dumb little joke.

As I said in the discord discussion and Peppermint said just now, I believe Surgeons who butt their heads into managing the GTR are already ahelpable, and if they are not, then they 100% should be. In my eyes, it is the equivelent of an investigator going frag-mode because they have a shot on the antagonist, and should be punished in the same way (unless there are no Officers up and the situation is dire, or in this case, not enough physicians functional to help patients in need). Removing or further blurring the lines between the two titles only creates confusion, which is doubly important with medical, where you don't really have the time to deep-dive into records and check who has surgery permits as a guy lays dying on the table. That said, I agree Physicians are not in the best shape as a role and could use help. The 'second-in-command' role is something to look into, a Warden-style role as others have described it. We'd have to do it in a careful way though, as medical already has a lot of roles and adding something like that might make it worse. It would still be leagues better than just outright removing Surgeons, though.

I have faith in both Faye’s seemingly endless well of passion for IPCs, and her critical mind when it comes to viewing the lore as a whole, synthetic or not. Any questions I might’ve had were posed by Caelphon and Danse already. I think she’d make a swell deputy. Just make sure to touch grass every once in a while. If your moderator application goes through as well, you might find yourself with a lot more responsibility in a very short amount of time - but as long as you keep ontop of that, and keep a cool head, you’ll do great. +1

I'm satisfied with most of your answers, and after a couple of more days thinking about it, I'm happy to give my +1. I think you'd do a good job considering your experience and general drive to make things better. That said, I am not very happy about your ideas for canonization applications. While giving more breathing space to developers is good, forcing applications to be reviewed only in specific times a year would be alienating to a lot of players who contribute lore - largely because you might have to wait even more than 3+ months, while the developers do whatever they want/are required to do. It discourages players and might make the writers view submissions like chores, which is the opposite way we should be going. I heavily disagree with this policy and hope it's either tweaked or just straight chucked out for something a bit more encouraging to both sides (as their current state is not great, either).

While I can support this from an aesthethic sense, I am fully against it if it does affect Dionae. I'd rather not have to keep a constant extra source of light on nearby to not die. It wouldn't just be annoying, it would probably ruin whatever mood the reduced light was making anyway. And that's just if you are a stationary Geras - I can't imagine how terrible it will be for Coeus.

I don't really know about your past, but I do think dredging up 2018-era discord screenshots to supposedly prove your reaction to criticism is disgustingly petty, and not at all something that shows whether or not you are a good candidate. At the same time, I have had Deputy Loremasters lash out at me and would really like it if that didn't happen again. So, I do think Niennab is at least right in saying that a person in this position has to mantain a cool head - I get that's very ironic coming from me, but it's still a fair point. Another valid criticsm is regarding your resignations. I've been lead to understand that at least one of them were caused by personal life issues (perfectly understandable and reletable), but I don't think this is a bulletproof reason. I've seen staff take fairly long hiatuses openly and not lose their positions, assumedly because the rest of the team understands and tolerates it for a bit. Resigning twice and then coming back each time is a tad more dramatic, and Lord knows the last thing the team needs is drama. That said, you have a very impressive list of contributions, to the point that me (relatively new generation of aurora player) still hear a lot of positive things about what you made/led, and continue to like the events and additions you are responsible for. You have even helped me out personally a couple of times, which I'm still grateful for. The only thing that stops me from giving my support is your plans - namely, the fact that they still seem a little vague. It makes it harder to compare you to other candidates who've already provided a lot of answers, so, here are some questions. What are your thoughts/plans on the Canonization Application process, and the general idea of player-written lore? In some of your answers and original post you talk about managing the team so that they are working towards one project, and not on their own sandboxes. What would you do if a team or a writer didn't want to participate, or just generally disagreed with this style of development? Related to this, how would you split up the time teams have between their own projects, and so-called 'lore team' projects? Should a writer experience severe burn-out from your management style or otherwise, what would be your next steps? Thanks, and good luck!

While I am a bit skeptical due to your obvious past issues, I have faith that every person can change if they legitimately mean it and try. I was never personally involved with any of it however, so I do not have much to pass judgement on anyway. I was pleasantly surprised by how good your arc concept read to me. Generally I would prefer it was a lore piece instead (I think being able to write wiki pages is a much better sign of stability and ability), but your concepts seem solid. Though I know this post is pretty recent, I noticed you haven’t commented on the Grim Compact thread currently flying about. Personally, what changes would you bring for the faction as a lore writer?

The concept and the document as is are fine - for someone's first submission, it is succint and well-written. That said, I do have some pointers/issues. Most of these are negative, but I do want to make it clear I like this submission, especially the school sports, frontier differences and patronage parts. Those have a lot of potential, even after edits. I don't really like the concept of non-geneboosted individuals competing against geneboosted ones for the simple reason that it just seems unrealistic. Not in a fencing way (I know next to nothing about it from an IRL perspective). but in a conceptual way. I view it as the noble class' ultimate way of triumphing over the masses - they quite literally create babies with superior genes, going above and beyond to show off the powers of nobility. They would have very little reason to allow things like mixed tournaments, unless it's about reinforcing their image of superiority. In a similar vein, I don't think Kirihide is a good idea - not just because techniques only go so far with an individual who is stronger, faster and sturdier, but also because (in my experience) when you write down an edge-case or exception in lore, it quickly becomes the norm for players. I get what you were probably trying to do - having a method in which non-geneboosted individuals can fight back is great for conflict, but with the current iteration I promise you that every single non-geneboosted character will be a master of Kirihide, and use it as an excuse in every duel. You can put as many restrictions and requirements, people will abuse it. I have seen this sort of thing play out even worse with Star Wars Lightsaber Forms back in the day. I would suggest keeping the grappling/more wacky characteristics, but losing the non-geneboosted element. In terms of patronage, while I am a huge fan of the concept, I do think the idea of being uplifted to a noble through dueling should be less lax. While I understand that it would provide players with a way to rise and thus get some character development, I don't think it would be that easy, nor should it be. Enoblement should be a much, much harder task usually done by exceptional individuals - and while that could be accomplished through duels, I think it should be emphesized how rare that is. Then instead of enoblement being the norm, you can expand on the benefits (social, personal, political) of being a family's personal champion. That's a much more varied and interesting position than simply being uplifted to a noble, I think. Lastly, I was going to comment on length, but you responded to Alb's feedback faster than I thought. I still think this is a little bit too long to slap onto another Dominian page and I think Alb is right in saying this isn't likely to have its own page. My advice is to cut down on the Royal Dueling Tournament as much as possible. As nice as that fluff is, I think people can guess what it means by the name alone. Still, as I discussed with Faye in DMs, it technically isn't your job to trim things for the final edition, so I would be conservative with what/how much you remove. The writers will ultimately decide what they want to keep, it's really just about setting your expectations for when it is changed for the final submission. That's really just advice from one contributor to another, not a definite way of doing things.

Good idea. I think people forget how long an entire year is, and if you see no meaningful activity during that time, it's definitely cause for concern, and has 100% been the bane of many events. I heavily expect the NBT weekends to be even worse regarding this issue, so this seems prudent.

To clarify, I did specifically ask Danse to share this thought because I felt it was prudent to the discussion and these things get easily lost in discord conversations. I also wasn't getting much feedback, and I wanted a reason to add a (hopefully final) tidbit on this document. Danse is largely correct - the only issue is, this is pretty much what I wrote in the document. The two central parties are explicitly stated to be headed by Xanu and Gadpathur, both examplars of their respective ideologies. However, I think that keeping the planets tied completely and wholly to themselves is a wrong idea, as you would both have way too much work trying to wrestle each and every single faction's ideals - thus, a two-party system (or more like three, see below). It is a compromise, and it does somewhat encroach on the concept of the Coalition from a writing perspective, but I write about that too. To me, it does not make sense for the Coalition to stay completely and utterly still, with no one making any moves to unite it all after so many years of staleness. This is what the Caucus is there for - it shows an avanue the faction could take as a whole in the future, much like any human faction's political parties do. While in the present, they really are only unified by their aversion to Sol. To that end, the CFP presents a back-lash and a return to the original concept of the Coalition. This way, characters get to participate in a more dynamic political environment, rather than just sticking to their planet's lore and calling it a day - an attitude that wastes the potential of the Coalition as an entity, in my opinion. That said, since it has been two months since the last addition, my thoughts have changed about the application. Owing to both Schwann's early complaints to me about two-sided conflicts, as well as Danse's comment, my current view is that there should be three parties - The Caucus, lead by Xanu (more forward-thinking, pro-centralization, favouring corporations and positive interstellar diplomacy) - The Coalition Freedom party, lead by Himeo (Anti-corporate, somewhat isolationist and generally focused on keeping the Coalition safe) - and finally an upscaled version of Hakamism as a party, headed by Gadpathur (interventionist, anti-centralization and militaristic). I would still saddle each planet into the corner of at least one of these factions, though perhaps more cleanly than I have. I won't edit the document to reflect this, as it's already monstrous and we are nearing the deadline where this has to be reviewed. Nevertheless, those are my thoughts. I would also like to thank everyone that did actually take the time to read all of it, and to also comment. While I originally shrugged off the length of it (I would still find it hard to shorten it), I think it has been to the detriment of getting actual feedback. It has been a useful lesson for the future.

Whole this sounds interesting (and different from many other antag types), I really advise against leaving the Monster's weakness either up to the players or pre-selected. With the first, even good antag players are prone to mistakes and might come up with something horribly contrived and hard - while the second limits the ways in which a gimmick may be created, which you never want to do. I think it's perfectly fine to leave the Monster fairly strong if it's the only physical antag on the station, and also has some kind of limitations on whatever abilities/strenghts it has. Overall though, I like this a lot. When I think back to my earliest, most favourite SS13 moments, it's always some kind of stressful or fearful part of a round. Seems much more refreshing compared to being gunned down or mechanically forced to obey someone's commands.

From the above two commentors, I would only agree with the Purpose and Crosk removals - Zavodskoi and EE serve their niches well within the megacorp line-up, Xanu Prime and Gadpathur are crucial links to the Interstellar War (and including Himeo, catalysts for a major political overhaul of the CoC!), while Hro'zamal and Gakal'zaal are planets that are definitely needed if the Tajara team ever wants to expand beyond just Adhomai lore. Personally, I'd remove Epsilon Ursea Minoris. I know it just recently got some great lore, and it is written well, but I still hold the same opinion I did months ago - we don't need to make Dionae work the same exact way as all the other races. They don't need their own little capital planet, I think the whole draw of the species is that they tie themselves to whatever civilization they inhabit, forming unique interactions. EUM, as well written as it is, just doesn't fit in with my personal view of the species.

As I have moaned about several times, I think the Interstellar War is a very underused and unexplained event that we could use some help. The improved timeline largely left it alone, and other tidbits about it remain scatterred throughout the wiki. All this in spite of the fact that it birthed both Elyra and the Coalition, and setting the slow decline of Sol. More than just a forgotten link, I view it as something with a lot of potential for the human factions and their histories, most notably the Coalition, Elyra and Sol (all somewhat neglected goverments, as of now). We'll have to see what the Elyra rework brings first, but I would hope to be able to work on a project like that, specifically with regards to the Coalition. More than ever, I think it will call for a lot of collaboration with the writers, as we're talking about a piece of lore that spans several nations.

While it would be great to have each and every single human faction with the same depth as that of Tajara lore, it is simply not realistic. They have more planets and factions due to the sheer fact that we play a human-dominated setting, where humanity was very successful with their colonization attempts. Human lore does not need to match that depth to succeed (see again: Dominia), and viewing it as such is setting yourself up for disappointment. If anything is going to happen on that level, it'll be a steady, upward process after a majority of old lore has been covered - hopefully through news and whatnot. The writers have already proven themselves as capable of writing quality lore, they simply need a deputy loremaster that will not interfere in the process itself too much, and ensures their activity. To get back to the point of this thread, that is mainly why I would prefer Alberyk over you or Haydizzle - I simply think he would be more capable of achieving that goal. With that said, I do want to apologize for hijacking the question - though I'm sure Hay will be able to provide his own thoughts on it.

This is a misnomer in two ways - one, Biesel is not under the jurisdiction of the human team, but under the entirety of the lore team (and mostly the Loremasters, as I've come to understand). Furthermore, as I've argued at lenghts with others on Discord, you really can't consider Eridani it's own standalone faction. Not only does it not have the scope of a full standalone faction, it is pretty intrinsically tied to the rest of Sol once you begin to read through the other planets. Affording it the same amount of time and attention would, indeed, make it a lot - but as it stands, the true workload is around four large factions with various orbiting groups around them. Using the planetary navbox as a measure of how much maintance (which is also the wrong word to use for reasons explained below) a species requires is a bit cheap, because it really doesn't represent the true depth of the lore elsewhere. Purely as an example, using your list, you'd be led to think that Tajara are the most abandoned corners of our lore. When in truth, should you go down into their various other pages (culture, government, history) you would find their lore is very dense with information. I haven't done a complete wordcount, but I'd bet you that Tajara would sit very high up, and any Tajara whitelist applicant will understand what I mean. More planets does not mean more 'maintanance' because -- -- not every rework is the same. Using this recent New Gibson update is particularly bad because based on the numerous discord posts and forum thread, one could say it did not hold up to the standard people expect of planets. Most additions simply do not spawn nearly as much criticism. To compare it to an actual human lore project, the recent Dominia changes were fairly massive, and yet inspired very little response. In fact, the number of Dominian players skyrocketed - a sign of stable and popular lore. Should something similar happen with the upcoming Elyra rework, we will have plenty of evidence that what Haydizzle and others are suggesting is true. Getting the reworks right is all that needs to be done. Afterwards, there will be plenty of space for the team to run arcs, news stories and everything else that is more 'active' development.

I would write more, but I would just echo everyone else. Your suggestions and direction are exactly what I want to see in an applicant, and you’re one of the few people I believe could actually carry it out, too. And while I have little doubt about your stability as a staff member, it would be a serious loss to the entire community if you burned out from wearing too many hats. The chance is small, but there. As long as you keep that in mind, this has my wholehearted +1.

I'm not going to get into whatever sordid history you may or may not have with people from the past - all I will say is that I don't think you can have this amount of regular players and developers (both here and in your other application) saying that they don't want to see you in a position without some merit behind their arguments. You would have to excuse every single incident with 'I got angry, I'm sorry, I'm definitely better now', and by that point it would just be ridiculous. When you have this many receipts, you can't just handwave it away with a 'that's in the past.' That said, as many people have seem to forgotten in this thread, edge-cases like that are not exactly for us to judge - you can post your points and anecdotes, but you're not Marlon's lawyer. Especially when people try to discredit legitimate concerns by saying the poster has a personal vendetta, it just makes whatever +1 you give rather flimsy. But to get to my actual points - even if you didn't have this reputation, I have severe concerns over your plans for 'managing' the current lore environment. Most of these plans, while seemingly coming from a sincere place, are either horribly tone-deaf and genuinely worrying for both players and developers, or simply sound ineffective to fixing the 'problem'. Starting with: While admirable, this is doesn't sound like an effective way to get players involved. Players already have a direct way to contribute through lore, and that is canonization applications. We have recently seen a general increase in those, and that has worked to great effect. Sponsoring more of this behaviour, as well as the general cooperation between players and developers would make it so we can keep improving the same systems we already have, and not have to introduce new and potentially worse ones. Having a hundred pie charts simply doesn't measure up to that - it's indirect and lacks actual action. Given that most of the teams seemed eager to go over the articles themselves, internally, introducing this rigid system of oversight doesn't seem that useful when that is already something they are more than capable of doing. It is more likely to clog the pipes rather than speed them up, ontop of it already being extra work that they do not need. No players are interested in using it because much of it is lore that is more likely to be retconned than not. Even if you did filter everything through, you would still have a massive catalog of work that needs to be cross-referenced with current lore, and even then it's mostly going to be fluff. In short, a hilariously labour-intensive project with very little actual impact and worth to the player population/writers. No thanks. We do not need etiquette classes on how to properly have lore discussions - it can already be hard to get people to join said talks, and seeing that there will be private discussions to handle stepping out of line a little is likely to make it even more daunting. This is not even within the perview of the lore team. We have an entire moderation team to oversee this sort of behaviour, and I don't see why we should put that power into the lore team's hands. I've recently had a discussion where the deputy loremaster had to be talked to privately because they themselves got heated and lashed out - proving that there is a reason we put the moderation into the hands of other staff. And even with all that, I have serious concerns that you are the one to be able to enforce this kind of set of rules. Not that far back, you repeatedly said 'it sounds like you have standards you feel strongly about that you want applied to Unathi', because I called a piece of ancient lore (Unathi Super-Dreadnaughts) stupid. I have seen you do the same in other arguments. Someone that makes these sort of gaslight-y comments in the middle of a debate should not be the judge of other people's attitude. This is the one point that seems the strangest and most worrying to me. As a setting, we prosper due to the diversity of our writers and the improvements that come with every new generation of developers. To lock down pieces of lore this rigidly for future teams is a deeply troubling idea, considering 'The Basics of the lore' could be just about anything the loremaster decides, and may only be challenged by said loremaster. I don't know the minds of every single developer, but even just as a player wanting to contribute, this seems like a needless exercise that is more likely to lock us down into old lore than actually help us move forward. It sets a bad precedent for the functions of the loremaster, and makes us far too rigid. Overall, the same critique holds true, no matter your personality or legacy - the ideas you suggest to 'fix' our lore seem more geared towards keeping us in the past. Everything from your applications to your suggestions since your return shows an interest in old, faulty lore that we have little use for, and is more likely to make progress harder. More than ever, I think we need fresh blood with fresh ideas, and putting you into a position of power that could one day also make you loremaster seems like a serious folly.