La Villa Strangiato

SCCV Horizon Skirmishes With Pirate Vessel The Stellar Corporate Conglomerate flagship Horizon engaged in battle with a pirate freighter yesterday, report Conglomerate authorities. On the 22nd, the Horizon was in the process of responding to a distress beacon launched from the Hephaestus cargo ship HCV Crius. On reaching the vessel's coordinates, the Horizon was assaulted by a pirate ship later identified as the ICV Wolf, which was part of a two-ship fleet of privateer vessels captained by Mictlani fugitive Olivia Sanchez. This vessel is suspected to be the perpetrators of the original attack on the Crius, and Conglomerate representatives confirm that the Wolf was attempting to steal phoron shipments from the Crius that were later secured on the Horizon. Yesterday, the ICV Wolf’s Den, the Wolf's sister ship, attempted a boarding operation on the Horizon while firing on the vessel. The boarding operation was repelled by the Horizon’s security team, and the Wolf's Den was disabled by Horizon weaponry. The SCCV Harmony, an Icarus-class carrier ship, was warped into the sector to support the Horizon. Two of the pirates from the Wolf’s Den surrendered to the Horizon after the failure of their ship systems, confirmed SCCV Harmony captain Marianne Cross, and are currently being held aboard the Horizon as investigations into the incident are ongoing. The ICV Wolf's Den has been rendered entirely non-functional in the aftermath. “The Horizon managed to secure important Hephaestus shipments at serious risk to life and limb,” Cross said when approached for comment in Burzsia yesterday. “It’s essential that we remember that this phoron isn’t just sold; it’s also used in lifesaving medicines, and used to power ships around the Spur with bluespace drives. Without the Horizon’s help, ships that desperately needed this phoron might not have received it.” In the aftermath, vessels operating in the Weeping Stars region are still advised by Frontier Protection Bureau to remain on high alert. Coalition authorities encourage all vessels to have their IFF displaying proper name and designation at all times to avoid conflicts of interest, and ensure proper safety procedures and clear radio communication.

Accepted on Caelphon's behalf!

Piracy Reports Rise Within Weeping Stars; Coalition Rangers Advise Caution A recent rise in reports of armed piracy have the Coalition Rangers urging caution to vessels traveling within the Weeping Stars, said Xanu officials yesterday. Since the beginning of the pan-galactic phoron shortage, and the retreat of Solarian forces from the Middle Ring, piracy in the Coalition of Colonies is the highest it’s been since the decade after the Interstellar War. With the return of Alliance control to the Shield Pact, it is expected that piracy in the region and surrounding areas of inhabited space will decline, but Xanu Defense Force experts speculate the upheaval will push members of the Solarian Restoration Front, as well as the League of Independent Corporate-Free Systems, into the borders of the Weeping Stars. What Coalition Ranger representatives are most concerned about is privateers and pirates unaffiliated with Solarian splinter factions, and that they may use the recent mass migration of fleets to move unimpeded through Coalition space. They may use their vessel designs or spoof their identification signature to avoid notice, Ranger officials said. “We’re requesting all vessels in the area to remain alert, and refresh passengers on proper emergency procedure,” said Ranger Captain Senna Laschivan in a press conference in Nouvelle-Rochelle. “If you detect a vessel whose signature you cannot identify, immediately hail them and request IFF.” Laschivan also recommended vessels perform regular radio maintenance to avoid friendly fire. “The best way to avoid miscommunication is to ensure your channels and telecommunications are functioning as intended. Always keep handheld radios on your person and at your bridge.” The Coalition Rangers, as well as Hephaestus Industries asset protection vessels, will be conducting heightened patrols of the Burzsia system and the systems nearby Burzsia. Authorities advise all vessels to have their IFF readily available.

I, personally, am fond of Razortail Marauders.

Currently I plan to have this discussed. The IAC is, as mentioned further up, in something of a limbo, and it being a footnote is a bit sad for a faction that has offships. As it stands, I personally would prefer you finish the WIP sections before this is fully considered, as opinions may change. Expanding on the interfactional relations can also be helped by consulting what is currently on the wiki.

This has been looked over and will be talked about in-depth soon:tm:.

After consideration by the lore team, we have decided to deny this app on the basis that we do not want a volunteer disaster/medical relief organization being placed under the subcontractor division of a private military conglomerate.

Howdy. We'll be looking into this and discussing it soon.

Howdy! This app is accepted. Thank you for applying!

You can already wear the IAC uniform in game as a Horizon character. Also, the IAC isn't Trauma Team, it's the Red Cross. Why would they be "employed" under a mercenary group? The IAC is already kind of a vestigial lore footnote, yes, but this completely recontextualizes what they are in lore and it doesn't really fit with "not changing what they are".

Preemptively I don't mean this post to be rude or offensive, and I actually really like what you've written here. In my experience lore on real-life religions, ethno-religions, and ethnic integration that could begin to skew a little controversial are generally not added to the lore because the lore team doesn't want to spark too much controversy or hand this over to a playerbase that, let's be real, cannot handle them in some prominent cases. For example, I was politely asked not to mention a couple different MENA ethnicities in the context of demographics in a canonization app for Elyra because a few of them famously don't get along. I think this application is badass, but similar to what ImmortalRedshirt said, if we only have extensive lore for Mormonism people are gonna get kind of upset.

Surprisingly they have not! I've elaborated some on this in this comment... To elaborate further, I want to make our lore more accessible, and to do that I want to cut down on the fluff that doesn't contribute to traits to develop a character from. I've said, with varying degrees of seriousness depending on my level of elaboration, that filtering people who just don't want to read is an expected part of a setting that's so huge, and if someone's not even going to bother with reading the basics we shouldn't cater to them. But there is a lot of pages that aren't accessible even to a dedicated reader because there's so much written down. And not all of it is really relevant to a character, as I mentioned in the linked post! I struggle to properly elucidate on my point here, so let me direct you to some of my favourite lore pages and explain why I think they're good. Aemaq. (Yes, Schwann, I know you wrote this ;)) To me, Aemaq is kind of the platonic ideal of Elyra lore pages because the "schtick" of the planet is immediately obvious; it's covered in chemical seas, and most of the economy comes from filtering these seas and, as is common in Elyra, the phoron industry. Its history section is relatively brief and straightforward; it was colonized because of its economic value, and much of its ability for colonization came from Medina's magpulse drive. The Leviathans are such a neat addition, and they remain relatively mysterious while a neat anecdote about them helping a sinking ship is elaborated on on the page. The quotes on the sections really drive the culture home, and I found it very easy to envision the standup routine of the Aemaqii comedian, gestures, interjections of audience laughter, and all (but that's fairly subjective). Port Antillia. While some of the sections are a bit long for my taste and could stand to be trimmed a bit, I find Port Antillia a very refreshing, interesting read for its groundedness (it's fucked up because of natural disasters and the general poverty of its colonizing nation in the first place) and its ability to stay in touch with lore that is used to develop a character. Much of the history section is stuff that would be directly affecting a character from Port Antillia, and it's easy to see why they, as opposed to Mictlan, wouldn't oppose being part of Biesel due to the Republic's proximity. There's also language lore where some Antilles speak primarily Sol Common, and others speak Tradeband; the tones of an Antillean's voice as a shibboleth for where they're from is such a perfect thing to include in your flavour text or incorporate into a character. Also, SPORTS LORE. Europa. (hey wait this is another schwann page) Is it Literally Barotrauma? Yes. Europa, however, is a good lore page to me because there's a lot of thought that went into how a character from such an alien environment would act; quiet, superstitious, and very accustomed to deep space and ship life. I think the corporate integration with the page, with Zeng-Hu and Idris having large bases on the planet, is another good addition just because it adds so much to the atmosphere. You have Idris, with its anodyne, Instagram-influencer glitz, setting up shop on a planet of grizzled, suspicious sailors to ferry unsuspecting tourists around a truly alien sea; it gives me Mystery Flesh Pit National Park vibes. Zeng-Hu's presence makes sense not only because of the Skrell there (the Skrell are a fantastic addition to Europa, by the way), but because it's the perfect place for them to do messed-up experiments and questionably ethical research. To sum it all up, the stuff I want to keep at the forefront of a lore page is stuff that is obvious to incorporate into a character. Personally, if I were tasked to oversee the writing of a new planet or nation-state, I would want the lore team to come up with a few key events that they could write around and be fairly distinct in the planet's history. Is that strictly realistic? No, but we can't demand realism all the time from our funny spaceman game, and it's acceptable to leave some room for player interpretation between the lines. Yes, that's the point of killing your darlings. Things that are much beloved must sometimes be cut, and as we are a team effort, I would expect my team to do the same for me if they edited my work. That isn't to say I wouldn't want to listen to someone's reasoning for why they want to keep something in, and it would be normal if they pushed back against me or tried to argue why certain stuff that I wanted to edit out should be kept in. In fact, I would do the same! Ultimately I would hope that editing discussions could be approached in a constructive way, even if people disagreed on it. That depends on the scale and the length of the behaviour. If someone is continuously being aggressive towards other team members, is refusing to budge or take criticism on their opinions, their work, or their idea of direction for [insert topic here] for a long period of time, I'd want to discuss the problem with either the loremaster or the moderation staff before directly confronting the individual in question. It's an ultimatum; if someone can't treat their fellow team members respectfully, then their presence on the team should not be tolerated. That said, everyone has bad days, pet topics that they get a little emotional over, and arguments are just kind of part of the human condition. Not everything is a mod issue, and if someone's being belligerent in a discussion once or twice, I would simply tell them to calm down, disengage, and touch grass. Sometimes, I make friends with people. Sometimes, these people don't like each other for some reason or another. This is usually how I hear about it; Person A grouches about a slight they were dealt by Person B to me. I "subtly" ask Person B about this slight, and they elaborate that they felt Person A was treating them poorly (but Person A did not realise), they were Going Through It, or circumstances happened that Person B's hand was forced and it made them look like a bit of a jerk. Nobody ever thinks that they're the bad guy in confrontations with people, but usually the result is that both people contribute to the problem whether they realise it or not. If Lore Staff A is going to tell me that Lore Staff B doesn't want to work with them, I'd want to approach it gently; hey, Lore Staff A felt kind of upset that you didn't really talk to them or respond about Lore Idea C, and they get the impression you refuse to work with them. What happened? This usually allows a dam of feelings to be opened, and surprise surprise, once the dam has been broken, two people are usually a lot more accepting of an open conversation between each other. This definitely isn't a sure occurrence, but it happens more often than not. Even if two people continue to not like each other, they still have to work with each other; that's something I'd want to emphasize with two parties. Inactivity happens. We're adults with lives, and nobody who plays Space Station 13 is entirely well-adjusted. Some people just got some shit going on. If someone hasn't been actively contributing to discussions for let's say, three months, I'd want to check in with them and ask them how it's going. I'd want to ask them how long they might be inactive for, if they think they can still muster up the ability to be lore staff, or maybe they just need a poke to be reminded. Sometimes there are underlying problems in team-related areas, and those need to be discussed as well; solving them would probably be me and the Loremaster's job! If someone says, "I am going to be inactive for [amount of time]", I would be much more lenient on giving them that time. If it's a period of over 6-8 months, I would probably gently ask them to consider rescinding their position, as I wouldn't want their team to be bogged down with the demands of two deputies. I'm already doing them and working on implementing them, they just need a look-over by Trio. if I don't get hired, I'm just going to continue adding stuff as I feel like, and applying via lore canonization; the only lore areas I'm particularly interested in maintaining are human lore (not losing a member anytime soon), Vaurca lore (just received a member) and potentially Unathi lore. Thank you for your questions!

Here's a screed I've been thinking about lately; this is as much a vent post as anything else. I have always been a bit of a "play it by ear" roleplayer. I develop a basic concept, an "elevator pitch", for a character before I actually create them, and decide what kind of vibe or general personality they give off. The more I play them, the more I find their vibe changes as they interact with other characters. And sometimes, they change pretty vastly! Unfortunately, sometimes that means I realize their original concept just wasn't fun at all, and they peter out. My initial Vaurca application character, Ka'Akaix'Yuta K'lax, was originally a xenobiologist (and I moved them to pharmacy because oh my god I hate xenobiology). The things that never changed about them were that they were of Leto's brood, they were employed with Zeng-Hu, and they worked at a genetics clinic on Moghes before coming to the Horizon. But the more I played Yuta, the more their personality gradually changed over time. Initially, Yuta as depicted in my Vaurca application was happy-go-lucky, cheerful, curious about human culture, and friendly to others. One of the more subtle changes I made was deciding with Mel that her character Viphorma was Yuta's actual mother/Ta. Yuta took on very cynical, sarcastic, and derisive traits, as well as becoming more introspective and philosophical. They were at their core caring for the well-being of others, but Yuta started to think that other species needed to be cared for by Vaurca because they were stupid and short-lived, and that meant they became sort of a smug, grumpy jerk. Thinking on it, though, the more I roleplay the more I find enjoyment in playing characters who are jerks at least a little bit. Or maybe they're not jerks, but they like to needle people a bit or tease them. Playing an Idris corporate representative and not-so-subtly mocking a Silversun native XO for their very rational dislike of me, being a Golden Deep consular and insulting Tribunalists, or even just being an Elyran who ribs Solarians is fun probably because it creates conflict. I've had to delete a couple of characters, and I've burned out on a few others, because they're just so damn nice. They have realized personalities, but they don't like getting into arguments or conflict with people, or maybe they're literally designed to be non-confrontational... and that means it's hard to interact, really interact, with anyone. The other problem is that I have too many fucking characters and even when I don't play them for ages I hoard them like a dragon. BUT WHAT IF I WANT TO PLAY THIS ROLE AGAIN... THIS CHARACTER AGAIN... Thankfully I have currently downsized to twelve characters, with three or four I play consistently. Couldn't imagine being someone who plays the same character for multiple rounds in a row. -_-

+1! Jimmy Navin was a great, communicative chief engineer.

Hi there, I'm sorry for the wait in a response. I decided to wait a day before responding so that I could ensure I didn't heighten emotions any further than they've been heightened. I'm sorry for my choice of words in my original post. I should know better than anyone that there's really no way to call someone arrogant without pissing them off (rightfully so), and that was a bad way to talk to you. I really do mean every compliment I extended towards you in my original post. In my mind, I did not want to beat around the bush by claiming that your creative ability was anything less than up to snuff. You are genuinely talented and passionate. You are an organiser, you have experience, and you have ambition, which is a quality I admire far more than simple skill. This is not a lie or an attempt at social engineering. I was a little hurt you interpreted my post as such, until I realised it's pretty hard to interpret that any other way. I still stand by that the interaction I pointed out, and which you posted, was frustrating and confusing. I did not bring it up to demean you or defame you, and I didn't report it to a moderator because it's not a post that was a rulebreak. You didn't harass me or set out with deliberate malicious intent. It was simply an interaction that frustrated me, and I used it as an example of what can make you hard to communicate with. I should have used less emotional language in describing what happened, because whether or not I intended it, it makes it seem much more accusatory than it should be. I continue to believe that you have served your time on the team and I would prefer to see a person who can communicate more gently in a management position (clearly in this case it is not me). Nevertheless, I made your application thread shitty, I made you upset, and I should've been smarter about how I communicated my points to you. Thus, I apologise. If you'd like to talk to me further about this or anything else, please feel free to message me on Discord.

LET'S GO THROUGH THEM SHALL WE 1. Do you feel that in some cases, lore for a species needs to be curtailed or altered to better be consistent with a vision for aurora lore as a whole? If so, what's some lore from a species you feel needs to be changed? My answer here hasn't really changed; kill your darlings, make your lore accessible, make Skrell less gigachungus instant-win buttons, and I still hold my petty opinion on Tajaran name lore. Otherwise, I think most of the lore that's currently in the game is pretty good, and doesn't need grand alterations, but I'm always willing to listen to player or team member critique about it. 2. Do you think you're able to stand your ground in the event that a lore writer takes massive issue against your rulings as lore master deputy, such as blocking a project they've been working on from being canonized? The only way in which my answer has changed is yes, I would be able to stand my ground. If someone can't communicate that they want to make large sweeping changes, and discuss them with the team first, I have to cut them off. 3 and 4: My answers here hasn't changed. 5. How will you try to make lore more accessible for new players? This answer hasn't changed too much. I expressed previously that I wanted to edit the New Player Lore Guide and the Character Creation guides, and you can see my proposed edits in the links. I think that having these pages greatly helps new players who want to read the wiki, though we obviously need to account for making the wiki a little more straightforward overall. I've mentioned previously truncating some of the lore and condensing it down to things that can be used and spoken about IC, and I think this is a relevant thing to include in this question. Lore is fun, but we want players to spend more time playing rather than reading. 6, 7, and 8: My answers for these haven't changed either.

The glass panes in the Coalition Ranger ship are invisible.

So I've been considering, after I read Kyres' application, about talking about plans for the structure of the lore team, rather than just lore developments. Looking through my previous application and some of the notes I had during that period, I want to compile this together into a more consistent roadmap/set of plans for the structure, and some Hot Button IssuesTM that I'd like to touch on. 1. Accessibility for new players. I'm not going to bullshit you here, reader; in a community like SS13, it is not only okay to gatekeep, but it should be expected. If people on the SS13 subreddit choose not to join Aurora because of a post going "wah wah HRP Melariara banned me, I only said the n-word one morbillion times", that is a good thing. Nobody wants the average Internet chud playing on this server. But there are definitely ways that we should make being a new player accessible. At the moment, the beginner lore primer is somewhat disjointed, a little overly long, and makes you think "wait, where should I start if I'm totally new?" You can move on to the character creation guide, which, while explaining some key elements of our lore (e.g. that Sol is no longer the centre of the galaxy), it doesn't really tell you what the loadout screen looks like, doesn't really tell you how to customize your character, doesn't link to the Aurora character records generator or the Baystation paperwork simulator tool, and is also pissing me off with all those headers. We've always expected a certain amount of reading to be done to properly get into this server, but immediately linking to five lore guides is a good way to overwhelm a newbie, especially when SS13 is already esoteric in terms of controls. My proposed solution is cleaning up the new player pages, taking a reader through an example of character creation, and truncating what lore is fed to a new player, perhaps by a Star Wars-style title crawl on the lore primer. This is also a great way to ensure people read the wiki at all; making sure the first pages they encounter are reliable. An example: 2. Event guidelines. This is pretty simple to set up; write a more structured guideline on not only how to run events, but what supplies should be given to crewmembers in more intense events, and how to approach griefy/OOC-motivated behaviour in events. Developing a role for lore writers to have may also factor into this so that they may better run events, but this is a decision best assisted by the administration team and the maintainers. 3. Scheduling. As I've expressed in my previous application, I felt Dreary Futures and Amor Patriae dragged on, and could have been remedied by periods of letting the arc breathe while we focus on other developments. I think a lot of the times arcs go out when they're ready, and I'd like to have more structured, timeline-based posting of article arcs so that players can be drip-fed steadily, don't have to talk about just one thing ICly, and that the team can have less pressure on them to be trying to fill the space. 4. Activity, obligations, etc. I've mentioned in my previous applications that Diona lore is a very weak link in our species lore because they have no arcs where they're prominent, no developments in the species they're tied to, and their pages are considerably barebones next to other species. Perhaps because of this, they are not particularly popular as a whitelist. There are definitely other species that have activity problems, and I've said that while I don't like putting big quotas and obligations on a volunteer team's shoulders, this is a situation that we need to avoid. I want my above point of scheduling more strictly to hopefully inspire more lore development and arc content from the teams, but that's also going to require communication and collaboration between the teams. Which leads me to my next point... 5. Team communique. I don't know everything about the lore team because I'm not part of it, but the general problem I've heard from my friends who are in it is that some people are less receptive to creating content together, and some teams aren't interested in cooperation with other teams due to being burned in the past. This is unambiguously something we need to move past and work together on. The lore team today is not anywhere close to the horror stories I've heard from 2018. We're all grown adults, we can all express our concerns and reservations in an open forum, and if we have beef with each other, we need to be mature and work past it while we write together. Again, this is something I don't know much about because I don't know the team dynamic, but I have confidence we simply need to be more upfront with each other.

Obviously, I'm in competition for the same position; it's a given that any critique I provide can be taken with a grain of salt, particularly when it's negative. With that out of the way... I think Kyres is a skilled coder, a talented spriter, and has a plethora of ideas that he was able to effectively implement to widespread approval and praise, as evidenced by King of the World. He's had a long tenure on the lore team, and he continues to have a productive stay on the development team. With that in mind, one of the reasons I can't support this app is because, as I just mentioned, Kyres has had a long tenure on the lore team. You argue that one requires experience to be a properly good contributor to the server. Of course, adding good code, sprites, writing, etc. requires some previous developed skill, but I think you miss the point. When some tout an interest in new blood and new talent, this is because we are a collaborative roleplaying experience. The idea is that anyone can contribute to the code, the lore, artwork, sprites, and so forth. Previous developers have been in support of "new blood" because that has always been the point of an independently-run game server with its own plot, because you can tap the playerbase for ideas. Why should this team be a club comprised of only "experienced" people? From an outsider's perspective, a lot of the current staff team in general tends to rotate in and out of various positions. Why should only a certain subsect of people be permitted to create for this server? But when I contemplate this question in relation to your answers, I come to the other reason I can't support this app; you are incredibly arrogant, and consistently frustrating to communicate with. Your points in this app are clearly and thoroughly laid out, but in a chat you argue in circular, long-winded manners where it can be difficult to determine your point, and when someone expresses they don't understand your point, you get obviously annoyed and talk down to people. I've been on the receiving end of this behaviour; I recall when I misinterpreted/forgot what a question on the lore applications was supposed to mean and assumed it was a yes or no question. Instead of quickly cluing me in what I was supposed to write in the field, you publicly pinged me to cryptically ask me if I was supposed to be ironic, and proceeded to not succinctly explain what could easily be worded as "you have to justify your application". It was a bizarre, awkward, and even a little embarrassing! I felt like I was being condescended the entire time. And it's not that someone shouldn't be confident in their abilities, but why do you think you know the best lore teams to reduce deputies on? It's obvious to anyone that Diona lore is incredibly stagnant, but Vaurca lore has always had a fairly active playerbase and not to mention it's more intimately tied to Biesel, the Hegemony, and the Federation. Why knock down their slots? And some of your plans for progression aren't irrelevant; I, for one, would love a wiki that doesn't run on just basic HTML styling. But in some of these I think you forget that discussing "obligations" is more suited to a proper game development studio, and less so an SS13 server where people are volunteers, doing stuff with their time that's fun. Do we need to kick people in the ass to make them do things to make it fun for people? Absolutely. But implementing actual, measured quotas is definitely something I don't want to place on the shoulders of the team. Overall, I'd like to see some of the plans you have for structure and direction implemented, but I don't think you should do it as deputy loremaster.

The short answer is no, I wouldn't be opposed. To elaborate further, when I say that certain aspects of planetary lore feel bloated or do not contribute to the development of a character, let's take a look at this piece of lore on the Damascus II page: It's not even that this piece of lore is bad. There's nothing wrong with reading this sentence on the wiki, but how does it contribute to creating a character? You mention sports, holidays, TV shows; I love reading about stuff like that, because it's stuff your character can just casually bring up in a conversation. If you have a character who plays basketball as a hobby, maybe they could bring up the latest game between the Flagsdale Hornets and the Phoenix Park Firebirds. Recently Damascene Independence Day happened in-game and that was fun, because my Elyran character got something to bring up! And some of my characters' friends mentioned "oh, it's Damascene Independence Day, it must be an important day for Gülay". This was a small interaction, but it allowed me to show a little bit of my character's pride in her nation, despite that she's previously been critical of Elyra's government. It allowed me to show my character's personality. In my opinion, that's what planetary lore should focus on doing, first and foremost. And I don't even mind the little gritty details of a planet's colonization being mentioned, but stuff like Xanu Prime has no less than eleven drop-down subsections in its history section. When we reach that point, I think we need to be more mindful of what we add to a planet's lore, and why. I have mentioned The Titan Rises already as an arc that I found particularly compelling in that regard, but given that a lot of Cyberpunk-style corporate espionage is, well, espionage, it's difficult to put that front-and-centre in our setting through an article or an arc that happens on the SCCV Horizon. So what do we do? I don't want to "current event" too hard, but we see shitty corporate practices that get high-profile attention before fading; I think it's entirely possible to centre an arc around stuff like that. I think Idris, Zavodskoi, and Zeng-Hu are rife for potential controversies, from unethical practices, to selling weapons to conflict zones (as it's mentioned in Zavodskoi's wiki page!), or literally anything with IRUs. I also think developing the Big Five CEOs in general would help a lot with bringing a little more interest from the playerbase, which is what I was trying to do with my CEO lore app. If characters are talking about how weird John CEO is, it's a form of engagement with the lore, and that feels like a success in my book. You brought up Biesel, though, and I'd like to finish this post off with this point; I think any "starting origin" in a roleplay setting is plagued by complaints of "it's boring and generic", even if that is not necessarily so. I personally think Biesel has some very interesting setting points, but it suffers from being what is more or less Space America in a sea of far more intriguing, novel options. I myself only have an IPC as a Biesel accent character! If Biesel has a weak point, I don't think the megacorp-centric nature of it is so. Thank you for your questions! I've done a lot of thinking about them.

A bit of this is copypasted from my old app as I think that is still relevant and whatnot. Ckey/BYOND Username: Lavillastrangiato Position Being Applied For: Deputy Loremaster Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?: Yes! Past Experiences/Knowledge: I have been writing creatively for eight years now, and I've been roleplaying (in TTRPGs, forums, and online games) for twelve years. My experience is in both fiction and non-fiction writing, such as essays, and I've contributed and helped proofread a lot of lore for this community. Examples of Past Work: Medina expansion CEO expansion A Bursa page which will be added to this application once it has passed muster from my sensitivity reader, and been posted on the forums A brief note identifying the course and creative direction that you'd hopefully like to pursue: I want to see Aurora lore focus less on geopolitics, and more on the corporations of the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate. I have always felt that the bleak, corporatised future of 2465 feels somewhat under-emphasized, especially in Tau Ceti, and I would love to see and create more lore that centres around the shadowy machinations of capitalist bickering. This is not to say I would like to significantly cut back on geopolitics content, as I do find it makes the setting feel more active and higher-stakes. However, I would enjoy bringing more relationships between the SCC to the forefront. The Titan Rises is an example of an arc that I'd like to see more of, and I'd also like to focus more on how the expansion of corporate influence affects the average citizen. Criticism of the current state of lore: Often, I find that some pages are excessively detailed in ways that do not contribute to the development of a character. Some planets have very long, extensive sections on history (Visegrad, Xanu Prime, and Damascus II are the ones I note) that could be greatly condensed or simply made more accessible to the average reader; Aurora is already very reading-heavy, and if you're creating a character, a lot of this text simply becomes irrelevant. To me, less is more, and I think we should be painting a more general idea of a planet, how it is organized, and its history than overwhelming the reader. This also puts less pressure on not just our lore team, but also the people who submit canonization applications to write a lot. "Kill your darlings", as the saying goes. What do you believe you can bring to the team as Deputy Loremaster?: I think I can bring new ideas and a fresh perspective to a lore team that has a fairly self-contained population. I am a good copy-editor who can comfortably read over a lot of text, and I've had informal experience in working with a team of people to work towards a goal. I've always considered myself a good communicator, and I think that's a major part of being DLM. Your thoughts on me as a loremaster, and how best you think you can assist me: I think you are a pretty no-bullshit guy (which is a compliment) and I think you have a personality that is well-suited to reining more fanciful impulses in. I think I'd be best suited to helping you on copy-editing, proofreading, and lobbing more out-there ideas at you, which you are free to restrict or expand on as you're able. Additional Notes:

Certain spots have their blast door switches hidden by the wall, like right here at the Supermatter Waste Management:

Every single north-facing lightbulb is floating above the tile. Yes, every single one. Also, someone forgot to install source in the gravity generator:

I would absolutely recommend BoomerThor for command, as they repeatedly show themselves to be a skilled player, a communicative interim, and a wonderful roleplayer. +1. What I would suggest, though, is making a separate character for your trial, at the very least. In my experience, everyone who has promoted a regular character of theirs to command finds that they grow stressed with command play, and end up playing a beloved character a lot less.

What kind of roleplay do hivebots generate, though? "Oh no, I got shot 100000 times in the face and I only have my disruptor and now I'm dying and also I'm on fire because fire is bugged". Cool roleplay. I support this PR.