Montyfatcat

These are things that machinists are still expected to do too, and very quickly becomes the aspect that overrides since machinist is a very fucking boring role if you don't have a character that carries your experience or a particular affinity for circuits. I've said from the start that this is stepping over into the vanilla scientist's territory, and still disagree with having to feed 3 extra machines with the exact same or less amount of materials.

They definitely have a big issue with being all consuming. There's no limitations because they're basically designed as lowpop assistance tools, which makes them mesh poorly in highpop rounds where the majority of roles are filled. Most of the time, I end up telling fresh borgs to assign themselves to the bar because it's the only thing not available, or cleaning, because more often than not these days the key departments they can help are capable of working themselves just fine. Part of this shift might be that the map is much smaller than the old one, meaning transit times and spread out departments make far less of a difference than they used to, and this was definitely one of the few reasons to assign a borg to the job instead of a person. The only reason to keep them around at this point is eliminating them would destroy the emotional cost of what happened over the last week or so. Even then, we could eliminate them slowly by having the SCC label borgs cost inefficient and start slowly phasing them out. Mechanically this would just mean any existing borgs would get grandfathered in until every player stops playing them altogether.

The old position was the massive mech charging room (that is frankly way in excess of any reasonable number of mechs) and the meeting room. Moving it back there and halving the size of the meeting room (since the meeting room already has double the capacity of the science department as a whole) would make the room fit plus we already had a good design for the area. The mech bay doesn't need 4 god damn chargers, it needs 2 at most, nor does research need 10 seats in the meeting room when all of research being in the room at once is already excessive due to how massively different their jobs are. I'd disagree there. R&D is one of the more unneeded aspects of the server already. The only parts that are affected drastically are firearms development and mech design, and since it's generally agreed that research firearms are only to be used when shit is utterly fucked that means that the only aspect left is mechs and hardsuits. Upgrades rarely make much of a difference outside of robotics (except mining, which can get their job done ever so slightly faster with an upgraded smelting setup), and honestly if machinists lose their ability to make their own upgrades then it goes back to begging the other guy to make them for you, when they likely won't understand what you need and rarely understand why you need them. Science in general would need a full redesign before I could accept robotics being moved back there, since right now the department is treated as something that doesn't neatly fit into the incredibly stiff department designs of the ship and game as a whole. This was never made clear, and turning the role into a factory has definitely not made up for it. The medical expertise and anatomical knowledge made for great cross-departmental conversation when talking to medical, and caused more interactions when surgeons didn't hog the mechanical organs during non-vital repairs. There are still multiple medical-esque aspects to the role too, such as prosthetic repairs and IPC repairs. I would say that machinist honestly has more potential in medical than anywhere else, not only because of location but also because the extra stuff added in the map change just treads on the toes of other departments without adding much benefit.

Honestly, the fact that machinists are the only department actually heavily affected by R&D should say a lot about how little use R&D actually has. Giving the ability to do R&D to the machinists and giving scientists time to just enjoy doing random projects would streamline the process so much, and if they really can't be moved from ops then they can label R&D as "machine calibration" and move it over. I wouldn't mind machinist getting a place in either science or medical, but I'd favour medical since so much of their job is an overlap with the vanilla scientist and they need so much surgery knowledge to do their jobs. It would also help curtail the super-doctor phenomena that Aurora has been having lately (with surgeons being able to install and repair mechanical organs). It would also make more sense as everyone with a mechanical limb has to visit the machinist eventually, so giving the machinist an easier to access location would help massively (do we really need the giant wards upstairs in medical?). Moving out of ops would also help the job be treated a little more respectfully, as right now science players seem to treat it as discount science and medical players sometimes view the role as an inconvenicence, meanwhile it's a heavily qualified role compared to the rest of ops (I'm fairly certain it's the only one in ops that requires a degree). The only issue with moving out of ops would be explaining why they're producing stuff like mechs as a medical role, but that could be given to science as something to do instead, especially considering how niche mechs usually are. This doesn't really impact that much, the only difference is that they get their mats just before science does by virtue of being on the route to science. Occasionally I've yelled at them over ops channel to deliver mats already, but honestly I did the same on the aurora back when roboticist was in science but instead over common.

I'm under the impression that there's a command discord used for people with a whitelist, right? Posting the event dates and asking if anyone is available on those days would be the best option, and failing that then reserving the slot in advance of each event and properly briefing the captain beforehand. This point was more based around one of the OMs raising the 80k for the contract in record time, which was frankly a very small amount. I was more asking for mechanical capabilities and people's understanding of their jobs to be taken more into account. Agency was out of the hands of the majority of the crew for all but the last event, this thread alone proves that many people feel this way with much of the positive feedback coming from people that actually had the chance to directly impact the story (namely, security/command/event characters). Of course the mutiny was co-operated with because what kind of message would that send if it wasn't? The direction of the events themselves, however, took much of the power out of the hands of the crew and placed it squarely in the control of the command staff. This may not have been intentional, and may have exposed a flaw in the structure and culture surrounding the command whitelist instead, but is nonetheless happened. The lore team are the ones that wrote such a character, this is the equivalent of a dnd player saying "it's what my character would do" when what their character did is still a questionable choice. They have still written the character, and are still culpable for how that character's writing has affected the agency and enjoyment of other players. In a per arc basis, or even simply "this event requires understanding of the last few events", asking that the people involved beforehand get priority seems perfectly reasonable. Briefings and communication would fill in fine if you don't want to keep a persistent command staff for an event. A request for more organisation is not immediately a request to restrict the roles in their entirety. The impression given at the time was that they were totally unaware, and that the captain was treating the crew as if they were being totally unreasonable for being sick of having the ship boarded and stripped of resources every two weeks. Their effect was almost entirely felt within the final event, which is the one that broke this pattern of command and security dominance in the arc. Not only that, I specified command and security in my response, Nakai being an incredibly important character as well as security leaves only Dennis, a character that is already known for being an issue to command and exacerbating crew feeling to an extreme (as seen when he hid MMIs from Zavodskoi). Which again raises the question of why the SCC is operating with them if they are so volatile, as well as why they are considered a mostly unified group during the majority of newspaper articles. From what I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, the phoron was taken from bandits, bandits which were fended off by ship security over the protection provided by the FSF. Caravaggio then claimed that they were owed the phoron stores as compensation. This would come under looting in my opinion, as they were taking property that was not explicitly labelled as theirs. First off the bat, that is not the correct definition of a macguffin. Macguffins by definition do absolutely nothing, and their purpose in the plot is merely to be desired. If an object is wanted by multiple groups and plays no other role in the plot, it is a macguffin. A better example of a macguffin in Aurora would be the phoron reserves that Caravaggio took, as they only acted as an object to be desired. The term you probably meant is a magic bullet, which is also not inherently harmful to a narrative if used properly. Second off, an escorting fleet does not automatically disqualify conflict from the narrative unless the conflict is purely military and ship based. In the same way that a threat to the aurora, which was within range of the Icarus and Odin at all times, wasn't automatically dismissed by a hail of gunfire from one of them at the approaching threat. Conflict can be driven from an escorting fleet even, for example the Elyrans demanding that armed ships be left behind if the Horizon comes any close to the border, or a fleet later being assigned when the FSF is labelled as rogue. This could lead to a hostage situation once the escorting ship is defeated, and cause a different kind of conflict that would not leave the crew thinking "why don't we just cancel this contract and leave them in the dust?". (This was not written by me, this was a friend coming up with something on the fly) Third and finally, characters take action because their players WANT them to. People will still cryo out of events regardless of if it makes sense or not, having more or less narrative stakes won't change that. In the same way, people know that no event will be a server ender because it's a server and nobody wants the story to end just yet. If people are going away from the event, they simply just don't enjoy the event enough to stay, and no amount of mincing of lore will change that.

From what I understand, and from what I've heard IC as well as OOC, the crew more seized the ability to determine the direction of the arc at the very end. Between WAYRT being a logistics god to raise the unreasonable sum that the FSF demanded within an hour, the captain changing for each event and the crew performing an unplanned mutiny/vote-of-no-confidence in the final event, I'd say that stuff was more jerked around because it feels like the team underestimated or underplanned for the crew to do more than they did. Player agency had to be taken by force in the end, and the majority of the events seemed to be directed by either whichever captain was in charge at the time or the rigid plan of the lore team (eg the original admiral refusing to evacuate and instead standing to fight at a disadvantage). My feedback to the event team is to organise the command structure more for multi-event arcs, as well as to consider what the bare minimum amount of departments needed to have the intended effect of the event is. For example on this arc, the captain that ended up causing the mutiny was the captain that was not present for any of the other events, leading to them implicitly trusting the FSF and not realising how much extortion was going on beforehand. Also relating to this arc, many of the events would have gone the exact same if the command staff and security had buggered off to a private server for a while and came back to announce what happend. Lore wise, it also doesn't add up all that well. Why would the FSF try to extort the faction that are their only backers in the entire spur? Why would the SCC not immediately terminate the contract after the first instances of looting on the ship, and opt for using one of their own fleets of friendly ships to escort the Horizon? In fact, why is the Horizon even going into this alone in the first place?

Some emphasis on famous slums, famous for whatever reason, would be nice. Maybe something to do with extremely violent ones, as well as ones with a unique gimmick like a well known music scene.

Will there be any way to notice that there's no hostiles on them? That would be an important one. Also more resources pls mining is only coming back with like, 15 gold for machinists.

We can rename them if we need to, I just kept the original names to avoid confusion. I'd happily support changing the egyptian names, but I'm rubbish at naming stuff. Suggestions are welcome.

I wasn't really going for anything particularly radical, but I did want for what was basically player headcanon to be actually codified. It makes the setting more friendly for new players who aren't familiar with dregs (for example, the dude that recently made a roadman dreg)

I originally planned to scrap the nicknames for planets and keep the old slang, but decided against it on the basis of it possibly being important to a long term plan. I just couldn't bear Eridani I-V because that's a designation we use for planets we haven't bothered naming, rather than an inhabited system.

Lore Impact: Large Species: Human Short Description: An overhaul of the Eridani Federation, restoring some older lore such as planet names while giving players more reason to play Eridanians. How will this be reflected on-station?: Eridanian characters will have more culture and nuance to work with when having a conversation, as well as slightly more unified attitudes and less confusion on why dregs hate suits. Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: Yes, it adds actual cultural information beyond soy. Do you understand that the project may change over time in ways you may not foresee once it is handed over to the Lore Team? Yes Long Description: Document I want to clarify, despite the extremely awkward timing of this application, it was only pushed forward into writing by the lore update on the 27th. Many of these ideas were ones that I had a long time ago and never put into writing, but I was on the verge of beginning when the update came out. As such the whole concept was totally rewritten around the new wiki, with adjustments and labels changed where needed. As far as I can tell, nothing was explicitly removed in this version that isn't in the new wiki. I've stated my reasoning for each change below when they are substantial enough to be worth it, while other additions and changes are simply for the sake of vibes. Many of these changes were motivated by a general vagueness in the lore, as well as a lack of things that are relevant to players such as basic culture and planet lore. I was sitting on the idea of rehauling food since around March after some frustrations with the only listed food being soy, and many of the aspects added were designed by consulting West African friends about what their culture is like at the base level. Even if this is not accepted, I'm glad to have learned so much.

This will be discontinued, as Oran no longer exists in the lore.

OOC Information is in blue: This is not a canon news site, even if it's being styled like one. Think of this more as a niche punk website that your character might know about if they have an interest in Eridanian punk bands. All songs on this page are real life songs written by real life artists, who will be credited after the audio link by putting it in blue text like this. The reason they're chosen is usually because their songs have lyrics that work in universe, if you make the connection to the real life events that led to the lyrics then I can't help that. There will be references to current lore, but don't consider this a source of up to date lore by any means. Eridanian characters might remember this website as an intranet site on Oran, if they want to reference the site in character. Thanks to @ImmortalRedshirt for letting me use their character's background to make this article. Eso: Retrospective and Modern Influence 26th July 2464 Today we'll be going way back, older than most of you, to cover the rise and fall of an old classic of a band some of you still listen to. Hailing from Platform 5, in Nebthet, the band came to characterise the Angry Generation that grew up on the station as well as define a new era in Eridanian punk that would carry on for decades to come. We'll be covering the various members of the group, as well as doing an indepth analysis on one of their bigger hits and what it represents. Eso began back in 2417, exactly three months ago. The founding members were also the final members, marking one of the rare occasions where a punk band actually stays together for more than two years without someone being replaced for being a poseur or a sellout. The band opened with their first album "Rulers of the Rust", a direct criticism of Einstein Engines and their attempts to assert control and stability onto the twins after buying them, protesting the idea that someone could just buy control of your life. As far as we know, Alaafin, real name Abioye Okorie, wrote most of the lyrics himself and very rarely consulted the band on what they thought of them. We can credit the former welder for the angry tone that every song had until his disappearance in 2422, soon after a performance directly outside the main administrative hub of Einstein Engines on the platform. Alaafin was for the most part known to be a heavy substance abuser, even in the early days, and often performed while high on on nightshade, drunk, or most of the time both. To this day, straight edge bands usually point to Alaafin as a reason for why they keep acting like such spoilsports. The rest of the band were somewhat of a different picture, usually only engaging in casual drinking and for the most part struggling to put music to the angry ranting of Alaafin when in the studio. In an old interview Simisola Ademola, the keyboardist, she stated that the main challenge "wasn't matching Alaafin's screaming, but finding a way to play aggressively enough to accompany him". Ademola is now a music teacher on Xanu, when we reached out to her she refused an interview but said that she's happy someone remembers "real music" these days. Some things never change, even when a punk gets to the ripe age of 67. Ilari, real name Taiwo Oyetola, was more than happy to talk to us about the band. They brought up an anecdote of a performance in 2421 at the band's peak, where a show was crashed by off duty EPMC officers who heard the music outside of the bar they were playing in and "got their piggy little clackers so wound up that they couldn't help but start a fight". Ilari said their memory is a little fuzzy these days, but they won't forget when one of the pigs kicked in their bass drum, causing them to become so angry that they took the stool they were sitting on and broke it over the officer's head. The stool was "uncomfy as hell and made of cheap steel" they recalled. Ilari was famously well tempered otherwise, being a skilled drummer who was fond of their snare drums and fast play. It was rumoured that they were the closest to Alaafin before his disappearance, but they refused to say if this was true. At age 70, they still play the drums, but this time for a jazz band called "No Creds", claiming they couldn't go as fast as they used to. The final confirmed living member of the band is Nkiruka Ihejirika, who went by just "Nki" on stage, which we'll stick to for tradition's sake. While we couldn't get an interview, or even basic contact, we can confirm that Nki is still alive and kicking, except not in a musical field. The lead guitarist has gone from a musician to a scientist, being a forefrontal researcher in the race to discover the source of MMPD. She is cited in multiple papers to this day, and appears to be Dr Nki nowadays. Considered the most intellectual of the band, she was known to distort her guitar in weird and wonderful ways to get a sound that would match Alaafin's ranting vocals, with her favourite stage trick being to play notes with a distortion pedal to sound like they were saying "Die pig!" in free. Today, as far as we can tell, she is working on corpo stations as a roboticist, aged 68. Now onto the sadder end of the story. While the basslines were not the most iconic sound of the band, Oni Abati was still well known in the Eridanian punk scene at the time for putting on an amazing stage performance, and their stage presence can still be seen in rare photos of the band to this day. Unfortunately, after Alaafin's disappearance in 2422, Abati would fall into a deep depression. They frequently cited in interviews at the time that they wish their last words to him hadn't been an argument, and famously broke down crying while live on SetToday. In 2424, after a long-standing battle with alcoholism that was not made public until after his death, Abati would commit suicide by gunshot on-stage at a missing persons awareness fundraiser. Today is the anniversary of his death, as well as the anniversary of Alaafin's disappearance. On this note, the team at Oran Overload have agreed that half of all advertising income from this article will go towards the Abati Fund, a non-profit made in his name to help people who have suicidal thoughts. While Alaafin is still unaccounted for, many believe he is dead. The longer time goes on, the less strength the conspiracies that he's living amongst the people on Platform 5 have, especially as he would be nearing 70 today. However, the revolutionary tone of his music continues, even after the band soon broke up following his disappearance. No song covers this theme that ran through the band quite as much as "Dead" in their first album "Rulers of the Rust". bsttps://sww.IMusic.idris/Eso-Fanclub/track/2143063 Original song: Rather Be Dead - Refused The song starts with the chanting in Solarian Common, singing "Long live the revolution" over and over, in a slightly old-fashioned way even by the standards of 2417. This chant was more common back then, and clearly defiant instead of sarcastic like it would be today. The buildup is uncomfortably long, like all of their songs, and doesn't really seem to serve a purpose other than to give the band more time to prepare on the stage. The stage performance for this one involved a lot of harnesses, since the band kept falling over face first while still playing, likely Oni's idea. One of the most important lines in the song, repeated over and over, is "Rather be dead, than alive by your design." This reflects the clear attempts by Einstein Engines at the time to rejuvinate Platform 5 to be considered liveable, although anyone with eyes can see that this failed miserably. The platform was given new paintjobs in the EE colours, any perceived "instability" was dealt with quickly by EE paid for goons, and the area was generally made to become more corporate at the cost of literally everyone there's happiness. "Alive by your design" quite literally means alive by EE's design for the platforms as a whole. The song is simple, but it gets its point across. Dregs would rather die than be forced to debt on Platform 5, even if it means letting the platform fall apart. They're in a worse state now than they were at "Purchase", as if someone's home can be purchased without them having any say in the matter, but they were still pretty bad then and it's generally thought now that the band knew what direction the platforms were going even before they went there. To this day, we can feel the effects of Eso in our music, especially how angry we all love to be in our lyrics. A new wave came, but Eso's quality remains eternal. Dia Danger

But having the warmongering aspects doesn't make them interesting, in many ways I believe it detracts from them. In such a war heavy setting, being warmongering does the opposite of making you stand out, it can turn you into part of the furniture, blending in with so many other groups that there's nothing attracting people to you. That's why relatively benign planets like Konyang still maintain a decent amount of players, because they stick out as a group that for the most part left Sol peacefully. War suffers from the law of diminishing returns, one war is shocking, two wars is moreso, but once you start hitting three or four wars, the effect starts to die off. Look how quickly the interest in Mictlan fell, for example, after the initial invasion in September. By the time the second round of the arc started in February time, there was even less interest despite the flurry of articles that came out, and interest had to be maintained through constant events. How many people are interested in it now that it's having limited effects on the round? Today's round with the Samaritans was the first in couple months, at least from what I can tell, and in the meantime the Mictlanian playerbase has significantly dipped to the point that I can't remember a Mictlanian character off the top of my head (versus almost every other planet except perhaps the peripherary tajaran planet and Dominian planets like Sparta, both of which as far as I remember have pretty war-heavy lore.) I disagree, for the reasons stated before. It's the same as when Biesellites start sabre rattling at the mention of a minor conflict, it only works a few times at once, and can actually cheapen what is good lore in the process. Acknowledging their militaristic past is totally fine, and in my opinion currently accounts for the most interesting parts of their lore such as the use of swords as ceremonial objects, but a step away from there and a step towards giving them a more unique defining characteristic can go much further than enhancing their warmongering with a related culture. Being nomads, scarabs have an incredibly easy set of conflicts to choose from that would give them a driving force in the spur. We can draw from quite literally dozens of different challenges that modern nomad groups face, from land rights to stereotyping to struggling to maintain their way of life due to aging equipment and low income. Look to the Roma, for example, who are frequently run off of any land they try to settle down on, or to the remaining nomads in the mountain ranges of South America that have had to upgrade to dirtbikes to maintain their lifestyle, and are now struggling to pay for fuel. Scarabs could be suffering from an expansion crisis with their population, as ships have to hyper-specialise more and more to cope with the demands of a growing population. They could face different planets in the coc still falsely viewing them as hostile and conquering, causing scarab ships to be threatened the second they enter the system. Scarabs could have any number of discrimination issues related to some negative stereotypes surrounding them. Not only that, yet again I remind you that good lore doesn't have to always remain totally relevant to the setting. It has been proven time and again that not all groups need to be brought into the spotlight to thrive, Dominians have barely any news and we see them frequently, Eridanians come up regularly and I'm fairly certain my non-canon paper on Oran's punk scene has been the only news related to them that I've ever seen.

Just as an input, I'm the machinist in question. The reason security was giving you so much flak was that the machinist was the girlfriend of the paramedic that the delay got killed, this is fairly well known amongst a fair few of the security involved in the incident and likely why they understood it to be your fault. This would also be why, after visiting the machinist and asking "Why am I here?" while she was sobbing in her cell about the loss of her girlfriend, the majority of the security team had no qualms about leaving you out to dry. As far as perceptions went for the crew, the XO didn't care about the death at all and handled it to such a poor degree that they had no reason to back them anymore.

The military was expanded upon, but it wasn't the central theme. The lore given recently lets you have multiple long conversations with Vysokans about their home and culture without the topic of violence even coming up, whereas compare it to something like tajarans, where their lore is extremely focussed on a series of revolutions. 2/3 of the points in the history section are just about various wars and revolutions for example. Having a violent or warlike aspect is fine, and going back to my spice analogy you can see that Vysokan lore isn't heavily steeped in violence, therefore not drowning out what else is there. There's holidays and sports to get excited about, there's small cultural clashes, there's links to some planets without having to make the galactic equivalent of Idaho into an important factor of the galactic stage. The emphasis isn't heavily placed on the violence, and that's what's important. You can write a character that's totally isolated from the violence of the hosts if you wanted and that would be totally fine within the lore, you're not reaching out for something to talk about. Looking at Scarab lore, that's not quite the case unfortunately. There's a lot of emphasis placed on being nomadic warriors, but it's kind of for naught because it kind of never comes up in-character outside of a curious character asking about their culture. There's not as much to relate back to, not as much to inject into a conversation naturally. Honestly, looking at the lore, I'm slightly surprised we don't see more scarab sec all things considered.

War is a tool like any other in story telling, a spice of story telling, but just like a spice if you over-use it then you end up dominating other aspects of the story with little benefit or even to the detriment of the story. Aurora is an incredibly war heavy setting, one that's actually getting to the point where it can get a little draining to read that another war or violent event has broken out in the spur on some planet that has little impact on the station, and then having to pretend your character cares because they have basic empathy. Aurora's setting has a lot of war heavy aspects at the moment, between Mictlan and Adhomai both being in states of civil war/insurgency to the spur still recovering from the war in the KOTW event, as well as the nuclear wasteland of Moghes and the extremely militarist societies of the warlord states and Gadpathur. To put it simply, we need something else to happen. Even newer players like myself are getting war weary, and it would be nice to have groups be interesting without someone going "but what's their relevance to Sol?" or "but what's their military like?" Some more planets that reflect the mindset of the Vysoka update would be perfect, scarabs can become that if Redshirt is willing to throw in some other aspects (no pressure). Nomad cultures can be extremely interesting to both the observer and the participant, so replacing the warlike aspects with rich traditions would make the scarabs more interesting and help alleviate the war weariness of the community at large.

Sezrak is a character that proves that a job is in the roleplay, and holy shit can you get drawn in. I'd love to see how he's going to be adapted for RD and I think Gecko himself might help breathe some needed life into research.

OOC Information is in blue: This is not a canon news site, even if it's being styled like one. Think of this more as a niche punk website that your character might know about if they have an interest in Eridanian punk bands. All songs on this page are real life songs written by real life artists, who will be credited after the audio link by putting it in blue text like this. The reason they're chosen is usually because their songs have lyrics that work in universe, if you make the connection to the real life events that led to the lyrics then I can't help that. There will be references to current lore, but don't consider this a source of up to date lore by any means. Eridanian characters might remember this website as an intranet site on Oran, if they want to reference the site in character. Vysokan NomadPunk band Tortured Jagalaws announces spur-wide tour, including Oran 11th July 2464 Coming out of the ports and fields of Vysoka's city state of Netalem, Tortured Jagalaws are one of the new names in punk making their way across the spur and even into Oranges itself. Their music is a mix of traditional Vysokan instruments, punk vocals, dub and whatever the fek else they managed to throw into the pot when designing their sound, and somehow it actually sounds really good. Normally a bunch of kroks slapping "punk" on the end of their new music genre wouldn't get our attention at all, but Vysoka actually has some slick ties to Eri when it comes to music, and this article is not just a coverage of the band, but using them to help write a love letter to the flexibility of punk. Most of you would hate Vysoka, it's wide open, it gets dark at night and there's fek all to do once you get there except walk around and look at the scenery. Might as well go to a holoroom and save yourself the money. Despite this, they do actually have some cities here and there, although they're so rare that a city actually existing is fairly notable, and the cities themselves aren't like Oran, you can cross most of them by foot in a day if you wanted. All of this means that there's actually some knabs that would rather walk around the empty bits and struggle to live than stay in the cities, kroks are weird like that, and this is where Tortured Jagalaws come in. All of them are knabs that saw all the crime in their home city of Netalem and decided "fek that" before running off into the countryside, running the trails of some bandos called the Night Devils and enjoying the fruits of crime. Pretty normal knabs, honestly, but this is outside Eri so this story is supposed to be shocking I guess. A lot of Night Devils reckon that riding around cities and doing crimes is a pretty natural part of being a human, and that theme is what's picked up in the touring band's album "Perfectly Natural", especially their song "The Old Time" which we've got on the site for today. The sounds on this album are something else, there's the usual stuff like the drums and guitar we all know and love, you can't have a punk album without them, but then they've brought in some traditional Vysokan biz too. Bear with me if I spell this wrong, it seems to have a million spellings and I can't be fekked seeing which one is right, so Vysokans reading cool your tits. You can hear a weird string instrument called an usvolo, it's a 4 stringed thing that they rub a stick and string along, but sometimes they pick it too like a guitar without a pick. You'd think it'd sound shit on the fact that it can't use a distortion peddle, but they actually merge it properly and it sounds pretty slick, especially when it's mixed with the vocals. There's something about the Vysokan accent when singing that really works with this thing, and honestly the whole album wouldn't work if it wasn't Vysokans doing it. Give it a listen. bsttps://sww.IMusic.idris/Tortured-Jagalaws-Official/track/7893214701 Actual song: Not a Crime - Gogol Bordello There's another kind of instrument there too that anyone who's familiar with a history textbook might recognise, a fekkin accordion. I honestly forgot they were a thing until I saw a video of them live, and there is Hanzi Pauly going mad in the background, jumping about and being the life of the show even more than Yanko Cripps, the singer, was. The band isn't just a good sound, they put on a fekkin show, and their stage presence is something else even through hardlight. Some of the bands back here could take a few notes from them, I wanna see Dia beat their dancing honestly. These knabs represent probably the best thing about punk, they can take some instruments that make absolutely no fekkin sense and manage to make them into something beautiful with some attitude and some skills. It's always rusted letting kroks perform on Oran, especially boring ones, but I think these ones are gonna be just fine. Between their arctic performance and the fact that they grew up in, from what I can tell, the shittiest city on Vysoka, I think they're gonna take Oranges by storm while knowing how to handle themselves. If you want tickets, I don't blame you, they'll be in the New Age Arena on the 12th of October, make a note cause it's no tickets and a big tip jar. Santu Namkoisse

I was actually considering working on this very topic and making a doc of things I think might change (based on current shifts in religions) in irl religions. Some things include Abrahamic faiths as a whole getting more progressive on certain issues, since we've established in lore that they're no longer considered issues i.e gay people. Others would pose questions that would honestly be best answered by people of those faiths such as would the Jewish belief of Pikuach Nefesh extend to augmented prosthetics, to my understanding it would but perhaps someone could interject to explain how it's more nuanced. Regarding more naturalist religions like Wicca, how have they adapted to the species going pan-galactic? These questions are ones that could theoretically be inoffensively answered, and be relevant to lore. It's not like these religions would stay static for 400+ years from the point of divergence.

OOC Information is in blue: This is not a canon news site, even if it's being styled like one. Think of this more as a niche punk website that your character might know about if they have an interest in Eridanian punk bands. All songs on this page are real life songs written by real life artists, who will be credited after the audio link by putting it in blue text like this. The reason they're chosen is usually because their songs have lyrics that work in universe, if you make the connection to the real life events that led to the lyrics then I can't help that. There will be references to current lore, but don't consider this a source of up to date lore by any means. Eridanian characters might remember this website as an intranet site on Oran, if they want to reference the site in character. Concrete Rats Drop New Single Unannouced 5th July 2464 Concrete Rats have always been considered a reliable band on Oran, their albums always match up and their message is usually pretty damn consistent: Oran is absolute shit. Two days ago, their drummer Akosi Storm posted on all of her social medias stating "New album out, go find it drongos." without any other kind of hint where to find it. It only took a day for the album to be found on Storm's old intranet site, which was originally thought to have been taken down when she stopped paying for it. It's been taken down again since then, Storm posting again on her Chirper to say "That was fast, it's on streaming now. Hope you all like the album art, credit to @JadaDoodles!" The new album, featuring Snake Asare, is a single about Storm's childhood underground as well as what she saw when she moved to the next underground over as a teenager. Almost everything in the song is probably something you know, from krok needles to bodies to broken windows. Like I said, their songs always follow the same theme: Oran is absolute shit. The music isn't though, and I'm happy to say that we've got the audio here as well the album art. a5e2aefdfb9a2878ed303fb7ce269776(1).mp4 Actual song: My Town - Frank Carter and the Rattle Snakes Ft. Joe Talbot Dia Danger

I would much rather there was less focus on war with factions altogether, honestly. This is a step in the right direction, especially for scarabs, considering that spur-wide politics doesn't play nearly as big a part of the round as it does in peripheral areas like the relay. War in general is, in my opinion, losing its impact in the setting, and I'd imagine a non-negligible amount of the community is also war weary too. Taking out the "conquest" aspect of the scarabs basically won't affect their behaviour in round at all, and would allow for different kinds of conflict in the future. Maybe instead of being conquerors, they could face the issues that modern nomads face? News reports about scarabs being run out of systems by angry or superstitious populations could provide actual interest in the affairs without any inherently war-like attitudes flaring. How would a more nomadic scarab fleet coming into Gadpathurian space end, especially when you consider how paranoid Gadpathurians are about foreign ships? Scarabs having the attitude of "I just want to stay as I am" would be an actual part of conflict in a changing spur. Lore also shouldn't need to link in perfectly, things should be allowed to be totally isolated from one another without much fretting over how they tie in to some large scale affair. Having Scarabs just react to what directly affects them, or hell just be apathetic, would add more depth to the world than linking them in fruitlessly. Nobody would know or care about every single conflict or issue, I couldn't tell you anything about the ongoing civil war in the Central African Republic and I doubt anyone from there would care about the current divide in the UK Labour Party being catalysed by Kier Starmer as premier. Having unlinked groups is not only fine, it's realistic. +1

OOC Information is in blue: This is not a canon news site, even if it's being styled like one. Think of this more as a niche punk website that your character might know about if they have an interest in Eridanian punk bands. All songs on this page are real life songs written by real life artists, who will be credited after the audio link by putting it in blue text like this. The reason they're chosen is usually because their songs have lyrics that work in universe, if you make the connection to the real life events that led to the lyrics then I can't help that. There will be references to current lore, but don't consider this a source of up to date lore by any means. Eridanian characters might remember this website as an intranet site on Oran, if they want to reference the site in character. Martian Death Cult Release Limited Edition Single 25th June 2464 After a long period of isolation from both touring and creating albums, the Solarian band Martian Death Cult has announced both a limited edition version of their single "How It Goes" as well as a new tour around the Eridani Federation. The band's drummer, Aaron Kowalski, said on their Chirper that the band "finally got over some issues, but we're back for an important cause". Kowalski went on in a Chirp Longer thread to declare that this tour was a purely charity based event that would be used to raise money for "victims of Biesel's imperialism" as well as "remind everyone that our hatred for Sol doesn't mean we're about to side with Biesel on everything". The band recently came under fire after their last tour on Venus in which they set fire to multiple Solarian Alliance flags on stage, as well as declared the whole alliance murderers after Violet Dawn. It was largely believed that they had disbanded after this, especially as then bassist Zhao Cai was significantly in favour of the Sol Alliance during this controversy. It looks like Cai was removed from the band, as the old bassist Noak Arvid is seen in the promotional material. The tour dates are: The EPMC has already announced that the performance outside of the Asmara will be disrupted by force if "it becomes a threat or disruption to the diners within the Asmara itself". Once again, the EPMC shows that its only purpose is to stop the disenfranchised from being heard by those who could help them. The lead guitarist, Jackson Harcroft, has announced in a Chirper statement that "If the pigs wanna play rough, we'll bring some extra pyrotechnics!". Harcroft said something similar at a performance on Olympia, soon before throwing a molotov cocktail onto a bonfire directly in front of police cordon. It is also being speculated that the band will be playing their infamous protest song "How It Goes", released originally as part of their "Carve Em Up" album released in 2460. This is mainly coming from the coincidental release of a rerecorded version of this song coming out as a limited edition single at the same time that a tour of the same name has been announced. The single, which has already sold 100,000 copies since yesterday, was recorded live in an air bubble set up on the surface of Mars in an area of the metal dunes that were recently cleaned of phoron. The proceeds from sales are being donated to pro-Samaritan charities, as well as The Foundation For The Victims Of Cyborgification. How this will affect the band's reputation is still yet to be seen, but in the mean time we can appreciate that they still hold the morals that made the band so controversial in mainstream music circles. The new single can be heard here: MDCAlbum.mp4 Actual song: This Is How It Goes - Billy Talent Santu Namkoisse Sponsor

OOC Information is in blue: This is not a canon news site, even if it's being styled like one. Think of this more as a niche punk website that your character might know about if they have an interest in Eridanian punk bands. All songs on this page are real life songs written by real life artists, who will be credited after the audio link by putting it in blue text like this. The reason they're chosen is usually because their songs have lyrics that work in universe, if you make the connection to the real life events that led to the lyrics then I can't help that. There will be references to current lore, but don't consider this a source of up to date lore by any means. Eridanian characters might remember this website as an intranet site on Oran, if they want to reference the site in character. Oran Overload Finally Launches Oran Overload is finally here on the extranet, with the help of generous donations from true believers in fekkin good music as well as the help of our new tech guy Shako, who's running the servers for free until we can get some advertising revenue going. We'll be covering the lastest releases, news and drama from the punk scene, reaching from Oran to Nebthet to Olympia. Expect an Eridanian centric coverage of bands, since that's where we're all from, but any knabs that actually reach across to our ears get a chance of coverage, long as they audit well. We got a few writers off the bat, all of who are here purely cause of their love for good music. Our tech team consists of Shako, Shako and Shako, who you'll be seeing plenty of until the accounts page stops exploding every five minutes. Let's meet the team: Shako Moussa - Tech Support - He/Him Shako is to Oran Overload what a liver is, important to have any fun with what we've got but also important to keep happy and healthy. He didn't actually want to say anything for the page, the moody fekker, but we're sticking him here anyway. Knab loves to bitch about equipment, but is actually bones once you get him away from the monitors and into the bar. As well as keeping the website actually alive, he's our specialist for finding out whether some creaky sounding story actually checks out. Santu Namkoisse - Writer - They/Them Santu is our main foreign punk expert, pretty much anything that comes from outside of Eri is gonna be scribed by them and you better believe they know what they're on about. They've promised to make sure that we don't turn into some Eri circlejerk that only covers our own nation's music, so anyone from outside Eri who's reading this you should drop them a thank you. They tend to write about the context of the song too, so if you're not into that then fek off. Dia Danger - Writer - She/Her Our main talent, most of our articles are gonna come from her. She likes to pick anything that she audits more than once, mainly because that passes her standards. All of our new bands are spotted by her, as anyone that used to use the local site will remember. She'll be bringing any new releases and upcoming bands that play loud and proud from the undergrounds, none of those posers that forget where they came from the second they get an album published. Some people might recognise her name from Acid Thieves, yes it's the same knabino. Tulengi Kongbo - Site Admin and Graphic Designer - He/Him That's me, the drongo that thought it was all bones making a punk site and that it wouldn't take up all of his day and night. Every graphic on this site has been done by me, as will most of our more website related posts like this one. Any big news or updates for Oran Overload will be coming from me. I'm also the one that approves the ads that come on this page, so if you see one that you hate then yell at me instead of the others, I'll be sure to put it on the complaints pile. So what now? Oran Overload is now available spur-wide, anywhere that has an extranet connection can read our articles. Expect this to broaden our access to new punk from across the spur, but don't worry we'll still be covering new bands you can go see live on Oran itself. Most site updates will be covering the new account system for the next few months, but once we've sorted that out we'll start taking on new members of the team and bringing new kinds of article in. Anyone who's coming in from outside Oran, there might be context missing on drama and series articles, this is because we can't adapt our old intranet site from the proprietary format used in Oran's residential areas (thanks Heph) so you'll just have to figure it out.