FlamingLily

You're missing my point. Badly. I'm not defending AI art. I couldn't give less of a shit. What I'm trying to convey here is that the attacks against people using AI art are just that. Attacks. They feel like bullying. They're conveyed in such a way that you're the asshole putting a million artists out of a job every time you even look in the direction of a generative AI system. It's cruel. Attacking people, calling them lazy, creatively bankrupt. Saying they don't deserve to participate in the creative field. (Which you said isn't what people are saying and then proceeded to say yourself). This sure is a valid point if anything that I'm talking about is monetized, which it isn't. That's what I meant by personal creative endeavour. It's not made for money. It will NEVER see profit. But that's not, and never was, what I was talking about. Neither is large multinational corporations replacing their staff with AI. This is a roleplaying server on a ~22 year old atmospherics simulator. You're not calling the CEOs soulless, or the Director of AI media creatively bankrupt or the cost-cut-happy HR manager a lazy, lowest member of society prick. You're saying all that to someone who just wants to create and play a character in a funny spaceman game. This is what's happening. This is what I've seen happen, and what you're actively doing right now. No amount of words and detailed reasoning can overshadow the fact that you are repeatedly calling anyone who has ever experimented with AI art lazy, that they're insulting the entire creative field. No amount of moral superiority can justify attacking someone personally over them just sharing something they were interested in. It's the kind of thing that pushes people away.

I'm entirely in support of removing AI art from the wiki. To be completely blunt about it, absent any arguments of morality or environmental damage, the stuff on the wiki right now just looks bad. It's off putting. There's a building on there with windows the size of a 2x4. I firmly believe that, for those images, no images are better than what is objectively slop. However. I really, really want to push back against some of the stuff I've seen from people opposing AI art lately. Stuff like calling people who play around with it for their own personal creative endeavours (like flavour text images) lazy and "the lowest members of society" (?????) and being extremely aggressive when they show things off, even if said things are AI generated. That's an extremely solid way to burn people off creative exploration at all (and yes, I acknowledge that a lot of AI art usage is used to fill a gap in creativity in the corporate sphere, but this is not the corporate sphere, and you cannot assume that anyone using AI art is doing it out of a purely soulless creatively-dry place). A lot of people lack the physical skill to create art pieces but have a creative vision, and want to explore that creative vision with AI art. Maybe they'll eventually graduate to commissioning people. Maybe they'll be inspired and build off that AI piece with their own edits, maybe that'll get them learning how to make art of their own and eventually they'll leave AI behind. None of that will happen if we shit on people for wanting to express a creative vision. We are not a community of soulless corporates sucking humanity out of creativity just to afford a fourth house. It's not fair to treat people like that just because they wanted to experiment with a technology that is absolutely not going anywhere any time soon. And, sure, could someone instead commission an artist to get an art piece instead? Yes, of course. I don't think it's fair to expect someone to spend their money on something like that. That's a choice someone can make. Am I a piece of shit for taking a screenshot of my character's ss13 sprite and using it for their relay profile picture? Of course not. It took less effort and arguably less creative input to get that image that it would have if I generated it through some AI, but no one would ever consider denigrating me for it. And, yes, sure, there is a concern about training data and all that. We're not profiting off of space station 13. If the art was part of a business, sure, but it's not. There's no profit to be made here. So, sure. Remove it from the wiki. Enforce quality standards (or outright ban it) for actual server materials. But don't be an asshole to people. Be kind.

I think making it a free language makes sense, as opposed to a mandatory one (like rootsong). As hazelmouse said, it's not automatic in lore to all positronics like rootsong is to dionae (game mechanics notwithstanding), however it is such a fundamental language to the race that imo it makes sense to give it freely (i.e. it doesn't take a language slot if you take it). This does open up IPC to having 4 languages (like shells have), but at the same time kind of balances out shells so they can't know literally every human language at once (presumably we'd be balancing out shells so they don't have free EAL AND three additional slots for a total of 5 including tcb)

Reporting Personnel: Mira Tilton (Witness) Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Security Officer - Idris Asset Protection Contractor Game ID: czq-dtGa (Waystation RZ Canon Odyssey) Personnel Involved: Ricky Oberst - Captain (Offender) Mania Haller - Head of Security (Offender) Lynn Reyer - Warden (Witness) Aehruk Thos'kar - Security Officer (Witness) Frank Jurgen - Security Officer (Witness) Secondary Witnesses: (Name, Job Title - Short description of what they witnessed) Acacia Floros, Kobra Aslani - Hephaestus Asset Recovery Contractors (Victims, Non-crew, unlikely to be questionable) Jarek Radzig - Security Officer (Witness, Also involved in the gunfight) Narasi Perlyalna'Shirani, Lazarus So-Jal, Azarii Markarr - Bridge Crew (Witnesses, likely heard the exchange between the captain and the head of security.) Wesley Miyazaki, Voyager-468 - Responding medical personnel (Witnesses, saw the firefight) Lysandre Depardieu-Bodin (Witness, See attached evidence) Time of Incident: Approximately 00:00 04/05/2467 (00:00 GMT 04/05/2025) Location of Incident: Waystation RZ Nature of Incident: [X] - Workplace Hazard [X] - Accident/Injury [ ] - Destruction of Property [X] - Neglect of Duty [ ] - Harassment [ ] - Assault [ ] - Misconduct [X] - Possible Attempted Murder Overview of the Incident: Late in the evening of 03/04/2467, the Horizon received a distress beacon from an unknown installation. It was later revealed to be a Hephaestus installation, and two Hephaestus synthetics were found there. After a period of support, Head of Security Haller formed the view that the two synthetics were runaways. Shortly after this determination, two Hephaestus Contractors arrived to recover the synthetics. Without engaging in any form of meaningful discussion or diplomacy, nor even offering to verify their identities or tag scan the synthetics, Haller outwardly and explicitly refused, citing Captain Obert's orders. When the contractors refused to allow the Hephaestus owned synthetics to leave the Hephaestus owned facility, Mania ordered that they be shot with lethal force, which was later confirmed by the captain. I proceeded to attempt negotiations, and was constantly hindered by Haller, to the point that she ordered me suspended for it. I refused to comply, and accept any responsibility on my behalf for it, but I did so to prevent the meaningless bloodshed of myself, my colleagues, and other employees of the SCC. This did not stop Haller in any way, who continued to order an open, active, bloody gunfight, nor did it stop Oberst, who went along with such orders with no pushback or communication whatsoever on the security channel. Eventually, a fight broke out after Haller (or someone on the SCC's side, I'm unsure) opened fire on the Hephaestus Employees. I want to reiterate, these were Hephaestus Employees. They were both detained, and thanks ONLY due to the exceptional service of the medical staff, were able to both be brought back alive. I believe one of them, if not both, now suffers permanent brain damage, but I do not know their complete medical state. It's my view and of all the officers listed in this complaint that Haller and Oberst are impulsive, illogical, and poorly qualified for their positions, and that they have caused severe, permanent and debilitating injury, unnecessarily, to SCC employees that had committed absolutely no crime, no breach of regulations, additionally endangering our security staff for absolutely no gain, and fundamentally failing in the duties expected of the head of security. Submitted Evidence: I don't have comms logs of the order being given, because it was given verbally. A while after this incident, I was provided with the following transcript by Lysandre Depardieu-Bodin. Presenting this here for further evaluation. Would you like to be personally interviewed? [X] - Yes [ ] - No Did you report it to a Head of Staff or a superior? If so, who? If not, why? No. The Captain is an Offender. Additional Notes:

old pics but gold pics ignore the highlights i stole this lol

BYOND Ckey: FlamingLily Discord username: FlamingLily Character names: Lillian Nyström Mira Tilton Hazel #S-H14.47 (Optic) Aieszk Kukssal Species you are applying to play: Diona ------------------------------ General Whitelist Requirements What colour do you plan on making your first alien character?: Green, but like, a slightly darker, sicklier green than usual, on account of the pollution present in the Underhive settlements Have you read the lore pages for the species you wish to be whitelisted for?: Yes, primarily the main page, the forms/biology/mindtypes pages, the culture page, and the underhive collective page. Why do you wish to play this species?: To put a massive tl;dr on it. They're alien as hell. I have long maintained that Diona are one of the setting's most alien of aliens, and I love playing characters with unique psychologies. The psychology and mind-state of my characters has always been a large point of focus in my roleplay, and Diona give a fantastic opportunity to do something unique with it. To take this a step further, when you consider specific facets and factions of the lore, such as Nralakk, the Narrows, and the Underhive, to name a few, and when you apply the unique traits of Diona to those archetypes, the potential stories you can tell are endless. Of particular fascination to me is the Underhive, as you might've guessed, as Diona have this inherent wisdom about them and their belief systems via the Eternal, and when contrasting that with your average Eridani Dreg, this makes for a fascinating story that I want to tell. What makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human?: What doesn't? There's almost nothing about Diona that really sticks out humanlike. Their whole biological structure is completely alien; A mycelium network of tiny little creatures that merge bodies and minds to make one whole? The impact this has on their psyche both normally, via mindtypes, and when things become tragic, and they lose whole parts of their body and mind as a Nymph dies. Their faith is unlike anything in the human pantheon, and the way it ties into their search for knowledge is such a tangible and useable belief system that you can springboard so much from that, in a roleplay sense. The way they learn things by absorbing directly from others, but also how they mimic those around them, it provides a fantastic way to explore other locales and cultures through the unique lens of the Diona. ----------------------------- Character Application Character Name: Constant toil tooling Borgos for the band. The labour binds us together. The band keeps us safe. Write a backstory for your character. This may include their origin, education, personality and how they arrived to the SCCV Horizon. (2 paragraphs minimum) Grown as a series of third generation Diona nymphs within the Glowcaps settlement in New Kivu, Constant Toil has not known life outside the cramped, grimy Eridani syndicate. Inheriting the genetic memories of their progenitor, Constant Toil has an in depth knowledge of the electrical and mechanical workings of mobile machines, namely, the IPC scrappers that the Glowcaps commonly work with. Maturing into a life of labour, tending to these IPC when they're in need of repairs, replacements, and the like. Constant Toil has learned to appreciate the often physically demanding work - reflected in the name the gestalt has taken for itself. Now, however, the Glowcaps, guided by their faith in the Eternal, begin to believe that Constant Toil is being stifled by the unchanging circumstance of the young Coeus' existence thus far. So, with a few favours, back alley deals, a risk-taking Hephaestus scouter, and a hell of a lot of luck, Constant Toil has secured a machinist contract with Hephaestus Industries (Thanks in part to the company's ownership of Eridani I) and a series of Heph postings, leading ultimately to a cushy job on the Horizon. Constant Toil is certainly not unwilling, either. The opportunity is prime for developing new experiences, new memories. It's prime for enlightenment, and promises to bring them closer to the Eternal- and to help others along the way. However, Constant Toil is also not a being of pure excitement. The nymphs- a little disjointed and argumentative, but not quite to the extent of cacophony, instead settling in as just a somewhat impassioned Harmonious Hymn- have grown accustomed to the relative safety and protection of their brethren in the Glowcaps. Now, venturing out into the unknown, the excitement is met in equal parts with trepidation. You would be forgiven for not knowing it from speaking with them. Inherited slang from a series of Dregs has expanded Constant Toil's vocabulary curiously- a mix of Dreg slang often finding use- as well as given it a bit of an attitude, Re. citizenship, Eridani Diona are now getting a none citizenship option so I'm just going with that with the eventual view of Toil getting a citizenship with biesel, maybe. How has the recent events of the Orion Spur impacted your character? Events such as the Phoron Scarcity, the Solarian Collapse or even the Invasions of Biesel for interstellar-wide affairs, while region-specific events such as the Peacekeeper Mandate, The Titan Rises or even Cold Dawn may impact your character. (1 paragraph minimum) While Constant Toil has been fairly isolated from the rest of the spur during recent events, as a new onboarding to Hephaestus, they have been given a range of training on events in the corporate politics sphere. Training- naturally- biased towards Hephaestus' interests. Perhaps a desire to expand, populate Hephaestus' robotics personnel has in fact been the key motivator that's set everything off. One must ask, of course... why was a Hephaestus scouter poking around in New Kivu? Of particular note to Toil was the recent Burszia attack. As a Hephaestus robotics worker, the similarities struck a chord with the gestalt. Sure, they had seen violence before- New Kivu is not a nice place to live- but an attack of this magnitude, this far out from the safety of the whole Glowcaps community? It certainly didn't give Constant Toil any reassurances. It came out of this discovery with a faint aversion to Zavodskois, generally. Just a small one- and one that manifests (in the Dreg way) through sarcasm and snark. How does your character view the megacorporation they work for? (1 paragraph minimum) To Constant Toil, Hephaestus is a means to an end. They are not a family, they are not deserving of utmost loyalty. They aren't the Glowcaps. However- this doesn't mean Toil dislikes Hephaestus. They are a means to an end. A way to explore this new horizon presented to them. A way to grow, mature, learn, and become ever closer to the Eternal, and a way to collect money to send back home. Out here on the Horizon, a lot of Toil's needs are met, and it has not a huge use for spare change. Back home? The Glowcaps are always in need of more, and Toil is more than willing to repay their patronage. If it came to it, Toil would decry it all to save the Glowcaps. But, Hephaestus is good with its training materials, after all- and if the Glowcaps weren't at issue, Toil's loyalty would likely lean gently towards the anvil. The gestalt is also young, impressionable. There is space for it to learn, even something as foundational as Hephaestus' family values- should it be treated to such.

This might sound rude, but an in-game arterial bleed is more bloody and visceral than the piece of art is. You can attack someone with a surgical saw and listen to an extremely pronounced snapping sound as their tendons are severed. Is it abstracted? Yes. It's still more graphic than the image is, because the image is not gore. In my opinion, the real problem with this piece of art is that it's SO prevalent. And that's because we don't have many pieces of lobby art yet. The only solution here, imo, is to get more lobby art. Not necessarily violent, but just more. More art to show off more variety. This is something that'll take time, because we need people to make them, and that's a slow process.

later... later...

Just confirming, you've updated your byond install to the latest version? On top of that, try clicking those two HERE links in chat and try typing Fix-TGUI in the box under the chat on the right?