La Villa Strangiato

I've seen you apply repeatedly for species whitelists, and I want to be as blunt with you as possible about some of your weaknesses. You clearly seem to love Aurora, and I want you to improve so you can play more of what you're interested in. Most of these are grammar, spelling, and punctuation concerns; while not strictly necessary to roleplay, most roleplayers and readers find the experience much more immersive if you have good skills in grammar/punctuation/spelling. 1. Here's what I've noticed about your punctuation; when you are typing in English, you need to put a space between a comma and the beginning of another word. You also need to remember to capitalize the personal pronoun "I", and not just at the beginning of a sentence. 2. Your writing has run-on sentences that can make your text awkward or difficult to read. When you finish a statement, end it with a period. If your statement has multiple parts, separate them with a comma. A decent rule of thumb is reading your sentences aloud to yourself to determine their "rhythm". If you pause to take a breath, end the sentence with a period. 3. Consider breaking up your paragraphs. All of the text where you talk about what makes a Vaurca different from a human is one block, even if you discuss different parts of their species. Let me show you how much more readable your text becomes when you break up paragraphs: I split up all of these points where you discuss different things, which makes your writing flow better. When your writing has a better flow, it is easier to read. 4. The template questions ask you to provide one paragraph minimum for each of these questions. You wrote one sentence on why you'd like to play a Vaurca, and a single paragraph on what makes them different from a human. There are... ...twenty pages, not counting the pages for the Lesser Queens, in the Vaurca lore infobox. I think you can write a lot more than one paragraph on what makes Vaurca different from humans-- not just in their biology, but in their culture. Did you know that Vaurca find it taboo to research and write down their history, and Queen Leto and Zoleth are among the few broods to start breaking that taboo by having an archive of Vaurca knowledge in VR? Obviously, nobody is asking you to read twenty goddamn wiki pages for your funny bug app. I certainly didn't read all the lore pages when I wrote my whitelist! But it helps so much to have little details in there. 5. Your character concept needs to be expanded on, which is why I would recommend against a Viax for your application character. The point of an application character is to give them a distinct personality that shows your knowledge of the species, and in the case of Vaurca, demonstrates how the culture of your character relates to the brood. Viax are essentially mindless lobotomites; they have less personality (and it could be argued, sapience) than an IPC. Once again, please understand that I do not do this with the intention of making you feel bad. You seem to really love this game and this setting! It makes me smile when you talk about how much you love ants and the interactions you've had with Vaurca characters. While being able to write certainly plays into being able to score a whitelist, having passion is important too. Writing can be improved; passion is a lot harder to work on. With all that said, I have some questions for you. 1. Do you have any character concepts for an Akaix/Unbound from Xakt's brood? Or any other Akaix concepts in general? 2. Who is the Lesser Queen that interests you the most, and why? 3. Pick a hive (Zo'ra, K'lax, or C'thur) and talk about their relationship to the nation they live in (Zo'ra in Biesel, K'lax in the Hegemony, and C'thur in Nralakk). How are they treated by their government?

As you have been very gracious to me in asking me questions, I want to turn the questions back on you. If you could retcon any arc ever run in Aurora Lore, which arc would you retcon and why? If you would not retcon any, why? In your eyes, what is currently the weakest part of Aurora lore? What are your thoughts on the IAC?

Yet another tough question. I find it difficult to present one arc that I would definitively, completely retcon, and I also haven't been present for many of said lore arcs. When I think about the common aspects of certain arcs that I would retcon, a lot of them centre around the Skrell. It isn't that I dislike Skrell lore (quite the opposite, in fact), but it's been discussed to death that Skrell have been treated like the instant-win option. Warbling: The Musical seems to be the platonic ideal of this to the playerbase, as much of it was spent on the wrong end of particle blasters, and also; Ergo, given what I know and what I've seen, I would definitely want to retcon and minimize a lot of the "Skrell can duke it out with ANY species in combat ALL the time and they can do ANYTHING THEY WANT" energy. It's fine if the Republic of Biesel wants to start registering synthetics to keep good relations with Nralakk; it's less fine if the sole reason they do it is because "we will get so owned by the Skrell and they will own all of our allies". Dionae. Conceptually interesting, and integrating in an intriguing way with Skrell and Unathi, I find that much of their lore does not lend them to be exciting or relatable characters. There are definitely diona characters that I love dearly (Hope and Freedom of Self spring to mind), but it seems like the species in general is stuck in a bit of a rut in terms of exciting progression or arcs that can strongly invest a playerbase into their future. Sorry, Yonnimer and GMC. This isn't quite a weakness, but I still feel like bringing it up anyway; I think the only place that the consequences of the Interstellar War are particularly dwelt upon is Gadpathur. While we are in the Weeping Stars at the moment, and there are definitely away sites where that can be felt to a degree, I think the horror of a literally galactic-scale, inescapable war and how even the most warmongering of politicians want to avoid it should be emphasized slightly more. However, this is obviously downplayed because the Interstellar War was literally 120-ish years ago. They exist, which is to say... [goes and reads IAC page] ...that they are conceptually strong but feel like more of a footnote in the lore. I found a lot of their blurbs about their relations with the nation-states of the Spur, particularly Elyra, to be interesting, but I don't have a lot to say about them because it's not something that's super relevant to the Horizon or story progression, unless a gigahellchungus round happens and a distress signal is sent out. Admittedly this is fine; not every detail has to be Chekov's gun, and in the case of a collaborative roleplay setting, can sometimes just be there because they're there and it makes sense. Were I to receive deputy loremaster, I wouldn't feel inclined to do anything dramatic with them apart from maybe resprite their godawful uniforms. Depends on the situation but isn't a bad idea. Having been on roleplaying games where the setting stagnates due to moderation that clings very strongly to the status quo, I can safely say that collaborative storytelling often requires fresh eyes and rotations of responsibilities. As a [pretentious voice] creative, I find that taking a break, or even being forced to take a break, contributes positively to both your mental health and the end result of your creation. Of course, I don't think anyone would oppose allowing previous loremasters to come back after a certain amount of time is up, but the principle of the idea I feel is sound. To wit: the more you stare at something, the worse it gets.

I appreciate you.

more stuff

I'm not opposed. It feels like a very innocent concept that allows crew to ICly test out not just ship combat, but also emergency procedures. I could see these being very helpful for teaching medical interns and engineering apprentices how to work in high-stress, high-injury situations, with less of the OOC stress that comes from crazy rounds being "real" ICly. If there were different ships involved in the various events, we could encourage noob mappers to try their hand at making different ships for different factions (CoC, Hegemony, Elyra, etc.)

I think apart from myself that you are the person I would most want to see in the position. I think you really have the drive and writing chops to manage the team, and you demonstrate the ability to work with other people, which I believe is the most important part of being on this team. Spelling/grammar can be corrected, but good attitudes are a lot harder to find, and you have a good attitude. +1

I really like TeslaBeam's roleplay, having observed a lot of their characters from afar, and I think they would make a really cool Diona character. +1

I think I'd really like to explore more outside of Mendell City with Biesel. Cape City is mentioned as being a major entertainment city in the production of holovids, but also that aliens are heavily discriminated against and dropped from contracts with little to no warning. How does that affect the Republic's reputation as a "light of liberty"? What about the alien population of other cities on the planet? Athvur is mentioned as presiding over a small population of Vaurca in Belle Cote and Phoenixport-- how does a smaller city far away from Mendell feel about a sudden influx of alien buge on their streets? To summarise, and also answer @Caelphon's question; I like the direction Biesel lore is currently moving in, slowly moving into "five corporations in a nation-shaped trenchcoat". Everything we've seen in lore so far indicates that NanoTrasen's grip around the Republic is tightening, and though the surface may be shiny and optimistic, beneath is a working class being steadily crushed by distant, oligarchic interests. I would not change this direction, but I would like to focus on the little people caught up in the tide, and maybe move the camera away to look at the parts of the Republic of Biesel that don't get as much attention. That's a tough question. I feel like the most interesting way of having corporations and nation-states interact in our lore is a constant, shadowy struggle for power over each other; Sol constantly struggling to keep the megacorporate influence at bay after the Collapse, Biesel gradually becoming NanoTrasen's puppet, Dominia and the Hegemony's deepening relations with Zavodskoi and Hephaestus. For example, even given the seemingly good relationship with Not'zar Izweski that Titanius Aeson has, Aeson's interests are ultimately destructive to Moghes and Ouerea. What will Not'zar have to sacrifice, depending on how he approaches his relationships with the megacorp? These are the kinds of questions I want to explore in terms of the expanding corporate influence across Spur; what happens if they get everything they want, and what happens if they're rebuffed? You personally already know the answer. I felt Dreary Futures and Amor Patriae really dragged on, and continued to linger on Sol's death-throes during the Collapse in a way that I didn't find particularly engaging. If the goal was to move away from Sol during the collapse, those arcs didn't really change a lot about the overall "vibe" of the setting, and I also felt that Amor Patriae turned into arc fatigue very quickly. This isn't to say "hurr too many articles", but rather I would have preferred that a development like "the SRF and the League invade San Colette, can they hold fight win their way outta this one?" happen, and then there are periods of time where we let this arc breathe, and then you have occasional updates on big battles, human-interest stories, and periods where "the on-going invasion of San Colette" can be referenced in a different article. Essentially, I would have preferred the same thing with less updates, over a longer period of time. Instead of being a negative Nancy this whole poast, let's talk about high points! While I have issues with some aspects of Cold Dawn, I thought that arc had a beautiful buildup to the climax, and I really appreciated the opportunity to poke around in Crevus, talk with the citizens, and be a tourist. It was cozy and wholesome, and the entire spectacle of the Cold Dawn finale, from the claustrophobic delve into the caves from the chases with geists and the angry mob (of which I was a part of hehe) coming to storm the shuttle. It was a great conclusion to an enjoyable time on Adhomai, even if I had my reservations. And here's my biased answer: I LOVED Not'zar marriage arc it was my favourite. I loved reading about the suitors (even if Hizoni is love and life) and the article about the wedding made me smile, especially at the vows. It's hard to really elucidate what makes loredev work for me. I think at the end of the day lore should be able to draw a player in and give them something to talk about. Which is funny, because even if I didn't like Amor Patriae, it seemed really cathartic and fun for a lot of people. When you're a DM in a tabletop RPG, to put it lightly, you have to make your players vacillate between "we're so back" and "it's so over". You give them moments of catharsis and triumph, but also tense moments and fear of losing, and it's moments like those that can make a setting feel alive and fun to be in. I also think that little details that might seem otherwise "bloating" or "meaningless" can add to how lived-in a setting feels. Details like what the weather is like, what people enjoy eating, and what little events occur in the city can do a lot for character development, and they can all contribute to how big, galactic events influence the population of a nation.

Yeah this is usually just the kind of thing I'd ahelp with "I feel like this is a little eyeroll-worthy and edging into ignorant, maybe ask them to tone it down", and I hemmed and hawed a bit over whether I should bother with a player complaint. I figured it was such an obvious "dude, don't" that it would get dealt with, but I get that admins aren't omnipotent. Ultimately I was encouraged to make the complaint by admins, so I thought I might as well just point out the stuff I found kind of stupid. Ultimately for the offense of a Family Guy-tier joke I'm not gonna attempt to argue too much; what's there is there and administration can do what they want with it. I should also clarify that I don't think you're an Evil Fucked Up Racist @Ublicto but yeah come on, "Abu-Phoron"?

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 fiction and fan-fiction for eight years now, and I've been roleplaying for (checks) twelve years. Over the years I've been honing my craft to the point where I'm very proud of my ability as not just a writer of fiction, but also as a writer of convincing essays and analysis. I've been a game master in TTRPGs and played more TTRPGs than I can count, and I'm currently working on developing a few stories and constructed worlds of my own (which, yes, are forever in development hell). Examples of Past Work: I previously had an application for Mictlan fluff accepted and placed on the wiki page (the existence of the maton, and cultural foods for Mictlan), but I cannot find it in the archives. A CEO expansion Mukun-Yaba, home of the Kohlanari: A few scraps of lore that I wrote for an alien species I played in a Stars Without Number game. Much of it is unfinished; all text in Courier New is my work, while the text in Arial is the work of a friend who also played the species. Primitivism, Modernism, and Abstraction / Who Tells the Story?: Nonfiction example; two essays I wrote for my art history class in which we were asked to answer specific questions. Both of these essays centre primarily on Canadian Indigenous artwork, both contemporary and historical. Do you have any experience managing a Team? The duties of a Deputy Loremaster often revolve around being a Project Lead, not necessarily just writing.: I have informal experience with managing a team. When I manage people and give them specific tasks, it's usually in the context of personal familiarity. I am good at being a go-betweener for people and otherwise getting them to get along; as well, I think communication is an effective part of being a project manager, and I have always considered myself a very strong communicator. In a brief summary, explain the direction you'd wish to see the Lore Team take in regards to Aurora Lore: Personally, 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 corporate, dystopian future of 2465 feels somewhat underemphasized, especially in Tau Ceti, and I would love to see and create more lore that centers around the shadowy machinations of capitalist bickering. This is not to say I would like geopolitics lore DELETED 5EVER, 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. If you were selected, what do you believe should be changed about how the Lore Team operates?: I have the same concerns that everyone else seems to have, that being scheduling arc timing more appropriately and encouraging activity (but we're all adults with real lives so this is whatever unless it becomes egregious). Ultimately I do not know a ton about how the lore team operates, but I believe in the power of collaborative idea-lobbing so I would probably stick with things largely how they are. Additional Comments: Even though I am very handsome and incredible, I too have flaws. One of my bigger drawbacks as a writer is a struggle to fill in the middle bits, namely creating a storyline with a rise, a climax, and a fall. The middle part, or how one gets to a climax and an ending, are a real PITA for me to plot. Secondly, I am a student with executive dysfunction, and during my school months my activity may be a little all over the place. I would try to maintain communique as much as possible, but such is the concern with having a real life. As a deputy LM, I would largely just be managing, so I do not forsee it being too crippling. I am pretty good at getting along with people, but I can definitely be abrasive or say impulsive things whether I mean it or not.

BYOND Key: lavillastrangiato Game ID: co1-aFG9 Player Byond Key/Character name: Ublicto/Ali Ibn-Omar Al-Thariun Al-Aemaq Abu-Phoron Staff involved: N/A Reason for complaint: Honestly, I feel like just the name "Ali Ibn-Omar Al-Thariun Al-Aemaq Abu-Phoron" is in itself ahelpable. It's kind of like naming a Mictlan character Juan Taco de Romano Jungelo. While I admit I laughed a bit at the absurdity, as the round wore on I started to get tired of a progression of uncomfortable Islam stereotypes being played up for "comedy". Most of this was very basic, eye-roll worthy misconceptions; Abu-Phoron demands all alcohol across the ship be thrown out. Not all Muslims abstain from alcohol. Abu-Phoron demands pigs on the ship be airlocked, clearly a funny-haha reference to "Muslims don't eat pork, it's not halal". In Islam, pigs are considered unclean and therefore not eaten, but it is absolutely considered sinful to be unnecessarily cruel to animals. Halal meat is literally meat from an animal that has been killed, humanely. Another bizarre few moments in the round was where Abu-Phoron called Elliot Keles a "mamluk". A mamluk is a term for a slave-soldier in the Arab or Ottoman dynasties around the 800s to the 1000s, and an anachronism so eyebrow-raising I can only assume it wasn't known what it meant when it was used, because no Arabic-speaker is ever going to unironically call someone that. This becomes egregious when even a brief glance at the wiki page for Elyra will also tell you that Elyrans are not religiously conservative. Secularism is state-enforced, imams are regularly policed on if their sermons disrupt or target a certain group (such as IPCs), and while Muslim doctrines obviously influence Elyra, it certainly isn't space Saudi Arabia. Which seems to be the impression Ublicto was trying to give; As an appendix, there was also occasional chatter in-round that could be construed as similar to the whole bit, like asking where Mecca was in space (and therefore, which direction a Muslim would pray when on a spaceship), jokingly parroting "mashallah" or "inshallah", or an Unathi claiming she was going to convert to Islam to avoid persecution (though in this context she was being forced to "convert or die", itself an uncomfortably common stereotype of Islam). I am of the opinion that these are fairly lighthearted, well-meaning riffs, both meant to be ironic ICly and OOCly when placed in the scope of how over-the-top and stereotypical the antag was acting. Given what I have said above, I think that the way this gimmick was executed was ignorant, at best. Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time?: I didn't and I should have. By the time the round was really cooking I had started to turn my brain off and merely tolerate it, and I had taken the lazy position of "this is clearly so head-assed that somebody'll fix it". Writing it out now makes me look back at everything with context that happened and go "oh, I probably should've ahelped that". Thus, here is the complaint. Approximate Date/Time: July 26th, 2023, something like 9pm MST

Hi there. I was given permission to post this by Peppermint. I play Sralza Kassaka, the CMO. First, I do apologise that you got job-banned. Believe me when I say it brings me no joy to bug mods about bad play, especially when I (having played this game for a very cringey amount of time) have my fair share of blunders. I don't like being a gatekeeper over a twenty year old spaceman game. That said, your medical gameplay is pretty shaky, and it seems like you don't take suggestions to improve very well. The first thing that jumped out at me, this round we're referring to, was when Sralza asked Neves to "please hang up some medical masks on the IV stands". I was under the impression I phrased this request politely, and it was Sralza's intent to simply politely remind someone about what they might have forgotten. Your response to this was something along the lines of "Thank you Livesey for setting up the GTR", clearly meant to be read as sarcastic. In this complaint, you proceed to recall that "besides the fact I was helping set up the whole GTR alone and by myself". As a physician, this is your job, and I have to be honest with you that it is really not hard to set up the GTR. You have to fill oxygen tanks, put blood bags, medical masks, and oxygen tanks on the IV stands, apply vitals monitors to the beds, and perhaps turn on stasis beds if you really feel like being a filthy powergamer. These take a few clicks of buttons. This was purely an in-character issue. From my OOC impression of the event, two Vaurca miners died out on a mission, and Chenzhang-Zhao, one of the surgeons, stated they were idiots because they were Bulwarks. Livesey proceeded to tell this to Nizhaa Zo'ra, the other surgeon, in a way that Nizhaa interpreted to be Livesey calling the Bulwarks idiots for dying. Nizhaa came to speak to Sralza about the issue, and Sralza gained the impression that Livesey had made this "lol dumb bug died" comment. I should also mention that Avelka, the first responder had been telling Sralza that Chenzhang-Zhao and Livesey had been making passive-aggressive comments at each other for the entire round up to that point. Being fed up that none of them were acting like adults, Sralza dressed them both down and told Livesey and Chenzhang-Zhao that it was unacceptable to make comments like that about the dead, and it was just as unacceptable that they had been arguing for most of the shift. From your post, I get the impression that this interaction might have stressed you out. I am not my character, and what she says does not reflect on you as a person. My character, who is your character's boss, was telling her underlings to be polite even if they don't like each other. That's it. The rest of this is honestly pretty rote. You say you were scared to inject for fear of overdosing someone; call out what you inject, and use the scanner to see what amount of medicine someone has in them. You keep bringing up the prosthetic arm of a patient and I don't know why, given I recall the arm just had some moderate damage, and what I wanted from you at the time was to make sure a person who was going into shock was able to be stabilized. As CampinKiller said, your general problem seems to be that you struggle to parse what to do and you have a slow response time, which means people's injuries get worse. When you do treat them, you often make gaffes such as giving ten units of mortaphenyl for minor physical trauma. There are other issues that I've seen and been told of, such as a tendency to walk right into danger (getting shot up by hivebots despite me telling medical to stay back, walking into a potential black k'ois infection with just a cloth mask and apparently no knowledge of what black k'ois was), but these are the big ones that stick out to me. Again, I'm sorry that you got jobbanned, it definitely sucks to have that told to you. I don't know if a job-ban also means you can't play a medical intern, but I would recommend doing that whenever you get the opportunity, and getting some people to show you the ropes. There's a few guides (here and here) that you can read up on to help you get an idea of how this system works, and you can always ask questions ICly, in LOOC, or in the Department Hub Discord that's attached to the official Aurora Discord. Have a good day.

I have played a lot with Murky over the years, and she played Pathfinder on Baystation before coming here. I think she's a really strong research player, but also a really strong research roleplayer who engages really effectively with research players. Essentially, she gives a lot of feedback through her characters, and even though I'm biased, I would give her the whitelist. +1

I like [Polish] and Marisa, from what I've seen of them! From OolongCow's PRs I think they have a pretty good understanding of engineering, and I would like to see them in a leadership role just to see what they could pull off. However, I would tentatively recommend you make a separate HOS for your trial. Making a character that you already have a head of staff can be a good way to burn out on them, and HOS is already a really stressful role. Otherwise, +1!

I've been playing with Fluffy's characters for a while, around since they first started on the server, and I will say that they've come a long way in terms of roleplay. I like CL, Deshan, and Salvo, because they're very funny and their "quirks" are played into in an amusing manner. One of the things that kind of bugged me about your medical play is that, while you are obviously playing a character who is a little bit of a dick, you tended to treat your mechanical responsibilities as just "mechanical" rather than taking small roleplay opportunities where they present themselves. When I say "small roleplay opportunities", I mean communicating with your patients, making them feel comfortable before they go under for surgery, and asking them how they feel when they wake up. You can't do this all the time, and that's fine! In a round where things are very stressful, I also like to get my patients out of the black screen of surgery and the drone of the GTR as soon as possible. But IRL, good doctors are ones that don't make their patient feel like a slab of meat to be operated on (though god knows I am also guilty of this when shit is particularly stressful, which happens). I think if you are going to play a command character, they should be a logical extension of your quirkier characters. A character who is a little bit weird rather than straight-laced and professional all the time goes a long way into making them interesting, and another thing that helps is finding commonalities with other characters. Capitalise on those little interactions; when I played Zelda Zamora for my command trial, she got along with Frederick Zhao because they were both engineers. Make friends, say "oh thank god" ICly when a command member you like rolls up, have favourites among your subordinates. For now I remain neutral on this app as a whole, though I do think you should be given another shot at a trial. Godspeed.

LENNY I FORGOT TO EDIT THAT OUT AND REPLACE IT WITH [GENERIC MAGAZINE] (thabk u tho)

(come in here, dear boy, have a cigar, you're gonna go far...) Lore Impact: Medium-Large Species: Human, General, Megacorp Short Description: Adds several paragraphs' worth of description of the CEOs of the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate (and Einstein Engines), with exception of Miranda Trasen (because she already has some), and Kubra Mobolaji (because I forgot PMCG existed, and I might add some for him later). How will this be reflected on-ship?: This definitively provides a history for CEOs, as well as establishes some friendships, rivalries, and brings some new names of previous megacorp leaders into the mix. It can be referenced by Corporate Liaisons in particular, and provides some opportunities for good old-fashioned celebrity gossip. Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: Yes, it rounds out the personalities of some very central characters in our setting, and allows merc players to pick the right accent in case they want to play the CEOs in a gimmick provides opportunities for more inter-faction bickering. 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: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11T5lizx4VV7UrOas15sOooz7R4YousRP9vIHAVTmXHM/edit?usp=sharing Obviously, any lore mistakes in terms of timeline can be brushed past or fixed later.

While I know from experience that Goolies tend to go a little overboard in making very eccentric characters, I know he's a great character writer and I, personally, would love to see him play a Xetl C'thur. I think he would use the whitelist with a lot of respect, despite impressions. (jk ilu) +1

hi :^) lyudmila zavodskoi female ceos (chin-hae hong is orion express' ceo. ikr i didn't remember her either) sskedi aelia volvalaad mspaint thing i made months ago

I can actually answer a few of these with in-lore stuff. 1. Plenty of corporations IRL employ convicted felons, anarchists, communists, and former competitors. In the case of Guwan and Gawgaryn, it is explicit that NanoTrasen preys on them because they have no social network to help them fall back on when they become Guwan. The bottom line is the bottom line; if corporations think they can exploit you for money, they will do so. In the case of Einstein Engines, it's not unreasonable to assume that SCC corps try to headhunt Einstein talent to steal away any advantage they can from their competitor. 2. Presumably if they could they would. It likely takes a lot of money to pay surgeons to implant everyone with a mindshield implant, however, and some people (like Dominians, Unathi, and Skrell in particular) might not be so keen on getting brain surgery or a funny little implant in their head that could potentially malfunction. Having something to "protect" your thoughts makes being employed with the SCC less attractive to people. 3. Time, money, and resources. Also, danger. Plenty of Americans are moderately trained in the use of small arms; this does not mean that they have not accidentally discharged their gun and blown off/blown a hole through their own leg/dong/vag/hand/foot, accidentally shot someone else, or pulled a gun and fired on someone in the heat of the moment. Plus, in a lot of scenarios, pulling a gun on someone trying to attack you usually just means you get your gun pulled away and you get shot in the head. It's safer that a ship's security have several well-trained people who can (allegedly) handle a gun and use it appropriately rather than having a bunch of people with various states of stability try and fumble a derringer. 4. IPCs are expensive, Zavodskoi, Zeng-Hu, and Hephaestus work with peoples that are very anti-synthetic by nature (Dominia, Nralakk, and Izweski in order) and they want their strongest organic soldiers on the ship as well. Also, IPCs can totally go against their "directives"? They're not lawed. You're thinking of station-bounds. 5. This is a concession for antag gameplay. 6. Well, we had an escort vessel... 7. Also a concession for antag gameplay, but another answer is that this makes a civilian ship uncomfortable. There's a reason that the default state of the ship is "don't have your weapons visible and out, and don't be wearing your plate carrier around like a schmuck". Also, no matter how much of a trained epic killer you are, many, many organizations prefer not escalating a potentially dangerous situation. It's why even SWAT teams say "Get on the ground, now!" People, even trained epic killers, are generally averse to blood and dying. 8. See point #3. 9. Uh laser carbines are not subpar, lmfao. If you're asking about the crew armories, these are generally not used except in serious danger cases where the entirety of security is FUBAR. 10. There are turrets at several important locations on the exterior of the ship. Part of this is an antag concession, but another part of this is money that a ship in distress might need to dock quickly. 11. Bay used to have this. I think it would be cool to port it, actually. 12. Erm actually it's a venator-class. (I dunno. Nicer atmosphere, probably.) There are plenty of IC reasons why we're not the SCCV Gigachungus Hellship, but a lot of it boils down to money, time, and resources. Besides, I should be asking why our sensors suddenly take two minutes to scan a destination when previously they didn't do that. We are well-armed. We have the Longbow... ...the Grauwolf, and the Canary with its Francisca. We also have a whole security team, and two armories full of armor and weapons. Even if the crew armoury does not have good weapons, they are regardless able to kill someone. There's pretty much never been a time where the Horizon can't roflstomp an antag if they really put their mind to it (and I find more often than not that people are lenient!), and the climax of Cold Dawn had someone PEAC'ing an Adhomian tank. I think the Horizon is sufficiently protected for the job it is designed to do, which is exploring, looking for phoron, and finding cool stuff for the corps to ruin. We're simply not meant to go up against a battlefleet (or an SFA corvette, whatever). If that happens, we run away. I'll let my points and Matt's points stand on their own, here (sorry I basically called you a LARPist, Matt). Let me restate;

All good points. Listen, if I'm Jane SFA and I see a cannon unlike anything I have seen before that looks like a xenomorph's [REDACTED] sticking out of the side of the ship, I feel like I can safely assume that shit hits hard. If I am an Unathi pirate, however, that means we're going Klingon mode. Apart from that I am in general agreement with your points, Fluffy. I will test it today after I download Visual Studio.

I have a couple thoughts on this. 1. When you put it that way, it feels like the Leviathan runs the risk of becoming an artifact of our current state. Our current state is that ship combat is underutilized because not all the offships (hello, Kataphract vessel) are prepared for it, people are still getting used to it, and as I said, it is currently unviable in an antag round because of the nature of antag ships. In the hypothetical (and possibly distant) future where all overmap vessels are as combat-viable as they're meant to be in lore, how should the Horizon stack up against these ships when people are simply better at using the mechanics because they've had longer to use them? Once it becomes easier to train bridge crew in ship combat because more people have done it or had longer to understand the mechanics, the Leviathan inevitably becomes a bigger and bigger threat. This, I believe, is when the issues I brought up in my original post become more prominent. 2. Tee bee aytch I am not opposed to the Horizon losing. As a writer, and someone aware of the many headaches the animation industry endures when a big story beat changes, I obviously understand that it is a gigantic pain in the ass for the Horizon to get owned in a ship fight and be destroyed. People lose their characters, you have to write a scenario of "how do we go on?", you have to make new assets for wherever the crew goes next, etc. But... I just don't see a lot of real, wide-ranging consequences for whenever the Horizon does Something Wacky:tm:. The negative consequences of Cold Dawn were that two characters were exiled from the Dinakk mountains for life and can never go home again, and the guy leading a building-looting got demoted (also a lot of people died). The negative consequences of the Dreary Futures finale was that a few people died but otherwise, Horizon major. Anecdata, but I barely see anyone talk about these very serious and possibly traumatic events. I'm starting a tangent here, but the point is I don't think it would be bad if we as a community prepared for more negative consequences that have long-term effects. Maybe that means we'd need to be careful with who gets in command during canon events, or maybe admins need to emphasize that you should act like a person during canon events, or maybe that just means we need a backup plan for when the Horizon happens to go kaput. Matt you coded it Omicega and DanseMacabre were the other crewmembers for the SFA ship; Danse has also been pretty set on ship combat before it was officially added, and while I'm not sure if he was the one playtesting most of it, he was definitely better than most of the bridge crew at it. As for Omi... Jokes aside, coding the system that people are using does mean you understand it a lot better. The Horizon winning was also very much because of adminbus, because when it looked like the SFA were gaining the upper hand one of the targeting computers was taken offline to hamstring them. As I recall from observing the event, this allowed the Horizon to finally gain the upper hand and land a shot on them. If everyone was as knowledgeable about ship combat in the finale, would adminbus have been necessary? Of course, but I also mentioned that the Leviathan feels like tacit encouragement of "GTFO my ship or die". You mentioned wanting to give the Horizon more cool things; what is a cool thing in a video game if not meant to be used? A good command player knows that the Leviathan is simply too powerful to bring out early, but all it takes is one bad OOC judgement call from a player to aim the blicky at the dinky pirate ship. Mind you, I've always been a firm advocate that powerful features are best when they are moderated, not removed. We see this with the AI (though maybe that's not a good example as I would also remove that given the opportunity), we see this with the crew armoury, we see this with calling for help from allied offships around the sector. I do, however, have other reasons I think the Leviathan is a different beast, which I'll get to shortly. As mentioned before, I am of the mind that this is a matter of time. Currently we do not have any reason to use the Leviathan, which is one part of my argument. When ship combat is expanded, and when people learn more about how to shoot funny gun, the balance is going to start to swing, which leads into the Leviathan becoming just too damn powerful to use. The other other side of this argument is that depending on the scenario, the Leviathan may very well become cool, yet impractical. I remind you that the Longbow can do this (screenshot provided by my good friend ShakyJake): You can scrap a pretty good amount of a ship with just asking a hangar tech to load the Longbow gun. No Leviathan key stuck in the Captain's office, no command swiping at terminals, no 30% SMES charge, just you, an HE shell, and the absence of God's mercy. When you consider the amount of damage that the regular guns can do, the Leviathan becomes somewhat superfluous. However, that leads me to your final point... I think ultimately why you and I disagree on this is because we have very different ideas of what's "cool". For me, the coolest thing about the overmap is visiting planets, away sites, and talking to other ships. As a xenoarchaeologist, I can make up stories about the weird artifacts I find and exchange "theories" I made up on the fly with other science players when they exist. When I'm not science and I get to interact with the overmap, I might be a first responder helping out injured crewmembers from a wrecked ship, or an engineer repairing a sensor relay or helping a distress call. Hell, I might even get the chance to find canisters of phoron from a derelict, fight off greimorians, and generally have a fun little adventure with medium stakes. On the ship itself, what I find "cool" is neat spaces to interact with other people. I keep harping on the forums about missing Patience and the pool and whatnot, but one of the things I liked about the Horizon when I first joined Aurora was that it felt like a lived-in space, in contrast to the Torch on Bay. You have canon residential spaces, comfortable lounges, green spaces, and recreational areas to make this feel like not just a workplace, but where everyone also lives. The combat-ification of the Horizon kinda bugs me because it feels like we're focusing more on arcs where people shoot each other a bunch and it's hard to just play A Normal Guy, or A Normal Guy Who Didn't Sign Up For Huge Guns. Some people I have spoken to who played on Aurora when it was actually the Aurora have expressed to me that they feel like an enjoyable slice-of-life "civvie" aspect to the server is gone with the moving over to the Horizon, and stuff like the Leviathan magnifies this new vibe. Which makes sense to me, even though I like the Horizon, because I'm joining the war on chairRP... on the side of chairRP. By contrast, Matt, your preferred content is more space opera. You like sweeping battles and tales of military heroism, with geopolitics and their sweeping consequences carefully assessed by a Greek chorus of woeful civilians as they contemplate the decisions of men and women far beyond their homestead. (This is maybe a little dramatic and not entirely accurate so forgive me if I missed your vibe a bit.) And you also like when guns make a cool sound and shoot bigly. I am assuredly not opposed to action, but my preference for RP is quieter and more introspective. You could probably divide a lot of the playerbase down the same lines, and as much as I mog on "LARP", I don't think the opposite is entirely invalid.

Allow me to cook. 1. Why does the SCC's civilian exploration/phoron-gathering vessel have a massive, experimental, fuck-off wave motion gun bolted to its port side? The in-character reasoning for this change was because the Horizon would shortly be traversing into the Badlands, accosted by various pirates, and the presence of a massive, experimental, fuck-off wave motion gun naturally deters violence. From a mechanical perspective, this does absolutely nothing in antag rounds (admittedly not canon) because the merc or raider shuttle can simply teleport next to the ship and physically board. In antag rounds, ship combat is pretty much non-existent. Obviously we can suspend our disbelief to a degree, because that's what one does when you create a collectively-written setting within the engine limits of SS13, but I do find it notable. I am unsure if the rumours that off-ship antags being reworked to have a working shuttle are true or not. If true, there's no doubt that this would take an extraordinary amount of work and time for our coders and spriters, especially when events and on-ship content are priority. This is fine; I would much rather the product of volunteer work that I get for free take a long time and come out when it is finished. However, the point here is that there is no real need to begin charging the Leviathan in the first place, because using it on antags (except when someone steals the Intrepid I guess) is a moot point. As well, I believe it was previously ruled that ships in opposition to the Horizon (such as the SFA or Izharshans) should not wantonly attack the Horizon, because it would technically be a violation of both self-antagging and "play a reasonable character who values their life" rules. Why would any sane, moderately intelligent person try to raid or attack a cruiser, even a civilian one, that has more firepower than you can shake a stick at? INB4 "they don't know about the Leviathan because it's top secret", it's sticking out of their port side. Half of it is visible from an eyeball distance away. 2. Because antags are a moot point, the Leviathan rarely, if ever, gets used in a round, and is a pain in the ass to use. It's not uncommon among engineering to simply allow the Leviathan's room to run on the main breaker, or run at minimal settings. This essentially means that nobody is going to fire the Leviathan in the round, regardless if anyone wants to. For engineering laymen; If the Leviathan is being powered on the main breaker (i.e. directly from the ship power sources, the Supermatter or the Tesla), its SMES (the power storage that powers its area when charged) will not charge. The Leviathan requires its SMES to be at about 30% charge capacity to fire a single shot. It cannot drain directly from the main power grid. 30% may not sound like much, but the Leviathan has a way bigger power capacity than the usual 250kW in most SMESes. It drains a ton of power, and because of that it's impractical to use except when you're using giga hellchungus setups on the Supermatter and Tesla, at the same time. It's simply not worth the resources to fire on something like a cloud of dust or carp shoal. You might say that we've had opportunities to use it in event rounds, but I recall the first "big" event round after the Leviathan was installed; the Dreary Futures finale with the Horizon fighting the SFA (Kobayashi Maru event doesn't count because it don't real). Everybody knew that the Leviathan was the instant-win button. I knew it, you knew it, the admins knew it, so they specifically directed Command that round not to fire the Leviathan at the SFA ship carrying a phoron bomb payload. The IC explanation was that the Leviathan might detonate the bomb, ergo it was necessary to dogfight the SFA without the weapon we had specifically been equipped with to fight off pirates with. I can't for the life of me remember if the Leviathan has been used to devastating effect in other event rounds; Cold Dawn had brief ship combat at the beginning (RIP Bridge Crewman Ciel Latte). Other than that, I can count on one hand the times I remember the Leviathan actually being fired in a hostiles situation. Which leads me to my next point. 3. The Leviathan, when it can be used, stomps on conflict. I recall some conversation in the relay discord or game OOC where it was discussed that if off-ship antags were given their own proper shuttle and made to do overmap battle with the Horizon, it would be easy enough for Command to shut their gimmick down by simply firing the wave motion gun at them. And from an IC perspective, why not? Why shouldn't we charge up the blicky and just obliterate every pirate that crosses our path? From an OOC perspective, however, we all understand that this is bad. Much hay has been made over how it is easy for security and sometimes command to shut down an antag's gimmick by cutting right to the heart of the matter, that being "GTFO my ship or die". The Leviathan feels like a tacit encouragement of that. We obviously don't want hostile off-ships self-antagging, but what about times where it's entirely appropriate for people to engage with the Horizon aggressively? Should a potentially interesting story be abandoned just because we have a cool weapon? Are we forfeiting our chances at proper offship antags with the existence of a shipbreaking weapon? To get back to Dreary Futures, imagine just how boring it would be to have a finale where the Horizon just shoots the other ship in half. I didn't particularly like Dreary Futures, but I understand that the point of a big ship battle is to have, well, a big ship battle. When the Leviathan can be fully charged by a few resourceful engineers when prepared for ship combat, it kind of makes its entire existence a blatant deus ex machina for someone wanting to be an antag. I don't want to shit on the great amount of effort and time that clearly went into the Leviathan's development. I love its visual design, I love the sound design that goes into the slow hum of its engines starting up, I love the ship-rattling sound of it being fired. But I've only heard it like, three times, and I would rather not hear it if it meant that we could have actual tension in future ship combat. So, what is there to be done? Below is me spitballing, because I am an ideas bitch before anything else. 1. Honestly, if the Leviathan was removed, it should probably just be retconned. There's no plausible IC explanation that the Horizon would remove their powerful fuck-off gun to make the ship even more vulnerable, unless the explanation was "lol the corpos hate u, have fun with your grau and longbow". Which also doesn't make sense given that the SCC wants to protect their best asset. Can you imagine the complaining on the relay? 2. Replace the Leviathan area with Patience Or a pool. 3. Someone (pretty sure it was t0l/bluntforce420) suggested replacing the Leviathan with some other form of artillery, which feels more logical but also feels more LARP-y, so I'm not a huge fan? I think as a civilian corporate ship, even one that is venturing into weird dangerous places, the Horizon already has one more gun than most offships have, so the bases are fairly covered. Considering we have three bridge crew slots anyway, you can have one bridgie piloting the ship, one firing the Grauwolf, and one firing the Longbow. Post comments, opinions, and "please I'm Kyres and Matt I worked very hard on the Leviathan don't remove" below, but if you're mean to me remember this is who you're being mean to.