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In general I want Biesel/Earth to be salvageable. Instead of having them be death-worlds that are just devoid of everything I want to make sure they're still genuine settings to piggyback off of for story hooks and origins instead of being completely dead. I know the goal of NBT2's objectives with Earth and Biesel are to wipe the slate and stop everything from being inevitably centered around them, but I think, and I know this has to be written around carefully, that Earth and Biesel can survive as sort of remnant, semi-post-apocalyptic planets where people still live on there but their power on the galactic stage is pretty much over. They retreat inwards, they stop focusing on the galactic stage, and they become self-absorbed and concerned more about their own continued survival than that of the galactic stage. They can be knackered and severely wounded without outright "dying" like the initial draft says they would. In more detail I intend for Earth and Biesel to become these sort of "post-worlds" that aren't quite Mad Max but are definitely regressed significantly compared to their pre-IW2 selves. The cities that are still standing are mostly abandoned, with a fraction of the population remaining to inhabit them. It's worth noting to distinguish this from generic zombie/Fallout type stuff that I think there should be some sort of society by Anabasis's time period and a provisional government, or several, that don't really do much besides try to wrangle the people under their control. It's best to think of them as sort of shells of their former past, like Rome after the Empire's collapse. Rome didn't evaporate into nothingness but it still lost pretty much all legitimacy and global power overnight even though people very much still lived there and society was very much still functioning (after a little rebuilding period at least). The narrative weight dies, but the planet remains intact, if you get what I mean. I think it's a more compelling idea than the alternative, both because it doesn't require as big a suspension of disbelief - which I think is also a major problem of blowing up Earth and Biesel, as I alluded to earlier - and because the planets simply being extant means they'll still have writing hooks and origins whereas the origins for a blown-up Earth or Biesel would be like a rehash of Violet Dawn: "My home was destroyed and I barely made it out alive." It becomes an abstract atrocity rather than anything you can feel consciously, and being able to have a picture of those worlds after the fact with people living there still would hit so much harder, in my opinion. Compare that to a dead ball, where it's like Starfield's Earth, where you're just left wondering what the hell happened here and not really being able to grasp the situation intuitively. It's an intuition/dissociation problem, basically, and straying too far without a reference point makes something like "Earth is gone" not hit emotionally for the reader/player, just as it failed to hit for Violet Dawn and it failed to hit for the countless other times Earth was destroyed off-screen in sci-fi. "In-universe" is the key here. I'm not saying we have to adhere to The Expanse-levels of rigid sci-fi (even they break stuff with the Protomolecule), because I've personally held that that's been a fallacy to begin with: basing distant sci-fi on existing laws of physics is like writing a modern medical setting using humoral and miasma theory. What I want, to clarify, is that we should establish a set of ground-rules that the in-universe science follows, and then build a framework around that - this is what I mean by "firm" sci-fi, and it means, above all else, consistent science, not accurate-to-life science. I know we have many fantastical elements in the setting already that would just straight-up die if we adapted hard sci-fi overnight. To be clear, my goal for firm sci-fi is not necessarily to require every reader have some sort of science degree to understand what we're talking about. What I am proposing is that the "internal consistency" allows for a cascading effect where edge and unexplained cases (i.e. "what happens if phoron explodes?") can be extrapolated using the established logic of the thing in question. Phoron being worked into what it is (and I am working on developing more about it science-wise) allows for these natural extrapolations to happen without needing to pull something out the ass. Previous works I've written for have that magic trick (the extrapolating, not the asspull) happen and it does lead to some really good self-sustaining logic that doesn't crumble under scrutiny. My main reasoning for disagreeing against "any sort of new adamantium-type element" wasn't so much that phoron had to be a one-off (though one could've interpreted what I said this way, whoops) so much as trying to add something without a proper framework for it. Phoron has a framework because as I said in that thread I spent a lot of time making sure it had believability and internal consistency (folowing up on firm sci-fi here) with stuff like chemistry and natural effects. As I've said in the earlier question I want for the "frameworks" in question to have established logic, and shoehorning a brand new element into the picture throws that in for a loop because there's no clean way to explain it without scrutiny, or at least not without phoron levels of writing and physics-bending. I didn't argue against the item's addition, to be clear, I argued against it being called an element; I was fine with it being an alloy or metamaterial or the like. And no, I don't think believability outweighs gameplay improvements if it comes to it, but this wasn't a topic of believability vs. gameplay so much as it was naming things. I think our definitions diverge here. Space opera in my mind is something specifically related to lofty, overly-detached plotlines where everyone's a gung-ho superman and every stake is existential and larger-than-life. A Dream for Tomorrow is definitely dramatic, but I wouldn't personally call it operatic so much as it is just that, dramatic. Yes, the concept was dramatic, mind-eating space aliens and all that, but the plot line was fairly grounded compared to past arcs like Lii'dra invasions or Violet Dawn or god-knows-what. Those are theatrical, those are space opera, those are things where the main ship feels like it's the only player that matters. Think of it like this: what I don't want is the original trilogy of Star Wars. I don't want evil space wizards or the forces of light and darkness or a plot-armored ship that worms its way out of any situation no-problem. What I do want is Andor. Grounded stakes, no special people, nobody has true "plot armor," no world-ending stakes or missions at hand. And for all it was I doubt anyone had ever called Andor boring as a result of that groundedness: Aldhani, the prison, Ferrix, Ghorman, the Senate Building, all those settings still had incredible action and drama happen without it leaning into overly fantastical plotlines. I'd argue that's the thing we were supposed to head for with Anabasis to begin with, no? Less of this grand "Horizon is the main character" energy, more "We are a cog in a machine" stuff. As for the psychological detachment question, there's a real phenomenon that exists for this known as scope insensitivity (and to a related extent the identifiable victim effect). You see this all the time in modern events and happenings, right: you can intuit smaller problems better than you can large ones. A plane crash is more visceral than a city airstrike. This isn't a failing of ourselves as much as it's a literal documented bias that larger things have less impact on people. And the identifiable victim effect is where if you can't identify or relate to a single person or group of people who've lived through such grandiose events, you stop being able to picture it, because you're not really able to relate to an amorphous blob. It needs a perspective, it needs grounding, and that's a way to make something feel real rather than yet another book thing. There's also the angle of narrative safety where an event that doesn't have an impact on the observer (the ship, in this case) tends to flatten tension because the brain has a habit of only really associating with stuff it is in immediate danger from. Again, that's normal. We can't force a brain into comprehending these intuitively as much as we can adapt the writing to be more relatable and grounded so that it HITS harder and hits better for individual people. Have the stakes affect the person, have them have something to see, give them something corporeal to look at and go, "Oh, so this is what that was like." As for examples: again, Violet Dawn. It was told as a single paragraph from a history book angle where no POV was shown nor any lasting personal cost as a backdrop. The planet today is an unreachable husk that killed 99% of everyone and never really got told as anything ever again except as a cautionary tale. The size of the spectacle was the only narrative hook one can have, because everything smaller just got reduced to ashes. In my opinion, that's bad writing and a key thing I'd like to use as a meta-cautionary tale and what not to do when writing things like Earth and Biesel's fall. And it all loops back to Andor, because the stakes were so personal and felt that you could truly feel it narratively without any sort of galaxy-wide needle being moved. The Empire is barely any closer to collapse than it was before, say, the heist on Aldhani. What it did do was set the range of events in motion that churned its own little story arc in motion, the after-effects, the consequences, Cassian being arrested on Niamos because of the Empire's crackdowns. That's the kind of visceral stuff I want to write for, and I appreciate that you say you disagree with me on that because there's definitely a middle-ground we can achieve on this here. I just want to state my personal goals for writing such stories because I want to have us be more truthful to Anabasis's design goals of being a more grounded and gritty setting than current-day Aurora. Going back to theatricality throws all that in the bin. I want to be clear by the way I'm not necessarily proposing we suddenly shift to small-guy stories or slotting in some sort of anthology of "little guys". We can't do that, that's not quite something we can pull off without a lot of extra effort. I still think we should do our style of articles and wiki pages and stuff, but add things like the people inside: human anchors, human stakes, a little tidbit of what happened that's more than "EVERYBODY DIES". Anecdotes, basically, even if they're only a sentence or two. I think those would help achieve the conceptual granularity I've been proposing.

Very sorry for the delay - this application's accepted, and permissions will be updated when this message goes out. Welcome to Vaurca!

I have no intention to alter my position in the development team or leave any roles if I get Loremaster, if I can help it. Thanks! At the moment, I have no plans to be honest, event running is mostly a thing the species lore teams are handling right now. The big bucket-list thing I wanted to do aspirationally was an arc for Assunzione and, well, wish granted! My agenda as it stands right now is that I'd like to mostly focus on Anabasis work, that's why I haven't thought much of the present stuff, personally. However if I do get the position (and even if I don't, I'd still be DLM, hopefully) I do intend on beginning writings on a transition to get us from current Aurora into Anabasis, long term. Short term, maybe a few things to explore the fringes of either the Coalition, Federation or Dionae a bit more, give them some needed love. I'd need to consult further with the lore team on what avenues are open for that. As for my approach, I would like to fulfill my earlier statement of adding depth to the setting by making different things like third-parties reference events in question. A neat thing would probably be to have for example radio stations, news articles or stations mention what the Horizon is doing, or has done, to make the world feel more alive and stuff.

I think that the timeskip lore should indeed integrate all the histories in one package - at least, the history between present-day (in lore) and that of Anabasis's time period (anything before would touch retcons, which I can't promise would go through). As for how I intend to do it, it's definitely going to be an uphill battle given the detached natures of the lore teams. I've already taken steps to facilitating better joint collaboration with things like the #joint-discussion channel on the staffcord and, while it has minimal use now, I imagine during phases of actual planning we can get that and related policies to be used more. We also ought to be able to meet more often, I think that would help with whole-team cohesion a lot. From what I've been told the lore team as a whole has only really met once or twice in years, and I'd like to get that changed and have something more regular to allow us to compare notes and such on what everyone's working on. Ideally, the meetings would allow for lore teams to share their ideas to everyone and receive constructive feedback and/or critique/issues from other people that you wouldn't really get normally, seeing as all the channels are currently separated and there's little incentive for lore members to peek in other channels besides out of curiosity. In an ideal world the writers would all be part of one large team and be assigned provisional tasks or committees (that can be formed and dissolved at will) instead of being glued to a particular lore species. That'd be my proposal if the structural problem came to enough of a stress point that there needed to be a big reorganizing to prevent our lore team from becoming a rehash of what it is right now. It's a tough question to answer because both directions can very easily go wrong. "Cut the fat" by shrinking the scope uniformly, and we lose out on more exotic factions and make everything more monotonous; on the other hand, expand the setting carelessly and we get a lot of dangling bits of setting and worldbuilding that are poorly maintained and actively rotting at the fringes, to the point where the next time someone wants to pay attention, it's three years out of date and clashes massively with everything else that's been built up since then. That said, if I had to choose one side, it would be to narrow everything down, at least from the current state it is in lore. Focus on a stage of major players while everything else gets peripheral. There's a form of this right now, but it's currently unbalanced: most of the factions getting the spotlight belong to Human lore, a systemic issue I've brought attention to in my earlier response to Shimmer's post. I'd like to even everything out, that would mean trimming the fat off of some more peripheral areas and allowing our team to focus on more relevant parts of the lore. I'm not saying pick a planet and blow it out of narrative existence, but some parts like certain origins don't bring enough to the table to be seen as something worth maintaining from a writer's perspective, which is often rather damning. Worth noting that I'd like to do it from a per-faction perspective, not nuking whole groups. I would say, though, that Anabasis's more travel-heavy gameplay and nomadic nature of the ship should allow for a lot more areas to be explorable and made relevant in a way that directly contributes to everyone instead of a single origin, so, ideally it could be a dynamic fat-trimming instead of just picking and choosing things at random. We'll see how it goes. Given my less-than-stellar experience with military-based settings (coughs in Bay), I would personally like a more civilian atmosphere, but with bits of military. What I mean by this is that the demeanor of the ship should be more relaxed and ragtag, think, mercenaries working to pay the bills (and food), rather than anything organized or overly rigid. As for how it ought to be maintained: I don't think anything resembling military rank should be developed at all, to start. The current system of "Captain > Heads > Everyone else" holds up great for Aurora right now, so we don't need to pad it further with anything like paygrades or "Seaman/Petty Officer/Lieutenant/Commander". Stuff like personally decorating the ship in a sort of "improv" way would make the place look more alive, as would simply not trying to enforce any kind of hierarchy or "I am better than you" besides the good old fashioned job placement and job experience. And what I mean by "bits of military": Make it clear this isn't some holiday retreat where any old bum could hitch a ride aboard the ship and apparently be welcomed. There ought to be minimal standards maintained, this is after all a group of mercs and not pirates or salvagers. Things like sensible grooming standards (and by that I mean "no beards that will get caught in a camshaft", that sort of stuff), basic uniform regulations, and at least pretending people are professionals. No customer service-forward behavior, that stuff should be gone with the death of the corporate setting, but it's worth at least adapting the standards that prevented crews from mutinying in the Age of Sail, which I think is a good place to draw from regarding how people do things in loose ships that were a brush away from death.

Oh BOY here we go this is gonna be a whopper. I've made clear my reservations on the extremity of stuff like Earth and Biesel's destruction. I'm not going to say this is a hill I'll die on, I know it's a very critical point in terms of a lore reset, but I'd ideally like to make the process for it more... well, not realistic, but lived-in and visceral. As it stands right now "Earth blows up, billions die, very sad" is an abstract atrocity that has very little in the way of emotional weight. I plan to change that by introducing the destruction as a more slow-burn, less "and then everything exploded" kind of timeline - individual stories, a proper buildup, a protracted timeline that doesn't see a wipeout as if it's Alderaan. Again, these aren't hills I'll die on, and everything's still up in the air. I'll work with whatever lines in the sand are drawn in the end. If it's negotiable, I would prefer to have some sort of remnant stuff on, at the very least Earth, and give a VERY long term (probably centuries) effort of rebuilding the planet(s) only after things have stabilized (definitely not during Anabasis's time period). A little bit of hope, if you will. As for a catalyst, much has already been written about Anabasis's lead-up to the war, and I can't say right now what is and isn't up for change. However in line with what I've said previously I would like for the central thematic plot point to be greed and the price of dependency. This was alluded to in the dev diary and I intend to keep following up with it as a running theme: in times of shortage of the one thing that was assumed to be permanent, people cannibalize each other to save their own skin, oft to no avail. And the SCC, the biggest domino, becomes the first to fall. it's set dressing ☝️🤓 It's mostly sediment, if I'm being honest. Sediment of past lore (often an inconsistent and at times horrifying mess with staggering allegories) that nowadays is both barely acknowledged and perpetually tugs on present lore teams from simply being able to retcon things, even if it would objectively help either the lore faction/setting/event in question. Sediment also accrues with the fact that we're fundamentally a corporate ship with a corporatocratic center of attention. With Biesel being so entrenched as the gravitational center of the setting, everything revolves around it and the SCC. The less direct impact you have on the SCC and Biesel, the less relevant you are in the setting. We see this everywhere you look with the alien races following a distinct pattern, with Human lore getting the limelight, Synthetic/Unathi/Skrell/Tajara playing second fiddle, then Diona/Vaurca having very little opportunity to express their side of the lore in the greater setting. I mean this to no offense of the people working on the team (nor do I intend to call anyone out), but it's simply the way the setting is structured to where the less-expressed lore teams have less and less opportunities for the spotlight to land on them because of said corporatocracy. Nuke said corporatocracy (literally), nuke the sediment. The war is narratively intended to leave a power vacuum, and already there are plans for alien factions to start filling in the gaps, whether it be by politics, military, or technology. I have the full intent to let this run rampant and let the limelight fall on more power players that don't have a gravitational center to base themselves around anymore or have mentioned every time they're remotely on-stage. Unathi could be in the conversation without Hephaestus, as can Tajara without Nanotrasen, for example. They can have a seat at the round table of survivors, so to speak, and throw genuine narrative power around that directly affects the core setting (the ship) without it being filtered through proxy or as some sort of distant happening you only read of in a news article. And yes, I'm aware some factions are getting more power in the current setting. Though I don't think it changes the underlying foundation that they have to work themselves off of, which a soft-reset would help solve and stop them from trying to fight an uphill battle versus both past lore and current affairs. The "cohesion" I mentioned can really start to take root here, as it allows for us to really take the time to build the power-players from the ground up to be contenders against each other with genuine strengths instead of simply "Here are a handful of superpowers, and here is everyone else." The stuff that felt previously tacked-on can take center stage, and we can clear away tertiary lore elements with this soft-reset that previously felt vestigial rather than having them exist in a state of "technically it happened but technically not really." Let me drop a big thing: Violet Dawn. A big still-relevant display of theatricality where a whole planet was engulfed in flames and billions died (sounds familiar?) that has swallowed the planet's entire plot relevancy to the point of it almost being a meme. The impact's lost - you ask a Martian with visible scars what Violet Dawn was like and they will invariably say something along the lines of "My home is gone, I was burned horrifically and lost my family." The event's sudden-ness and sheer magnitude prevents most player characters from having a story that can be more elaborate than that, not for fault of their own but by fault of the way the setting is written. Mars could still have had a grand disaster that would shape several characters without it being as dramatic as it is. Hence why my agenda of groundedness is such a sticking point for me; I want to make events be more slow-burn and weighty so that character development could blossom in through the cracks and give in-depth stories that are above all relatable. I'm not saying we can't have sudden and explosive disasters (we have plenty of those in real life) as much as I would like for there to be more surrounding context both before and after to shape stories by. Who was affected, what the aftermath was like, what actions were taken. Violet Dawn's "aftermath" was people pointing fingers at each other and then proceeding business as usual. I intend for such events to not only be less scaled but also have more lingering effects and preludes. In VD's case: refugee crises, regulation fights, political battles, violent battles, mistrust towards phoron, the political destruction of the Solarian research apparatus's credibility, anything more impactful than "And then Sol marched in with an army to quash the wastelands." I do think it's an issue but I want to be careful to frame this as a systemic thing, rather than anything inherently wrong with human lore as a team. The spotlight issue I highlighted earlier really bares its teeth when it comes to basically everything being human-centric. The largest factions are human, the largest (and only) megacorporations are human, the most consequential lore events (used to be) human-centered. Mendell sneezes and Adhomai catches a cold. And that's simply the way the current lore structure is, well, structured: the Horizon is a human ship built by a human company working in a human nation. There's no real choice but for everything non-human to be fundamentally peripheral. There's not much of a way to fix this as of now that doesn't involve ripping pieces of human lore out of their jurisdiction and handing it to someone else. Much of the groundwork to solving the imbalance can be solved with Anabasis's reset. The founding of the corporate lore team is a step in the right direction in this regard I think, and while I can't name anything specific off the top of my head that I'd do to change it (yet), I think we can work with incremental reform on our way to Anabasis.

I'm not sure how up-to-date your accusation of my chronic inactivity is coming from when you were yourself removed from the lore team 4 months ago for chronic inactivity. I have been active as DLM as of late and have been running things behind the scenes, and a lot of the lore team members themselves can attest to that - just because I'm not running events or writing a new planet every two weeks shouldn't decry me as being inactive to the point of it being a disqualifying issue. Regarding CO senator in the past, I did have plans to retire anyway once my activity was petering out, and it's unfair in my opinion to look only at the final few months of my career there when I spent four years being extremely active and dedicated to the team and whitelist there. You're welcome to ask the CO Council there about my history with it if you want to. And regarding my weaknesses, like I said, I literally have ADHD, I'm just being upfront about that fact of myself (+my IRL obligations, which many people have) and how it affects my self-regulation. I have a history of activity where it counts both here and on other servers and it hasn't been a problem for long when someone has been there to help me.

Ckey / Discord Username: Nauticall (for both) Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?: Yes. Past Experiences and Knowledge: Current deputy loremaster and acting loremaster for Aurora. Examples of Past Work, if any: I've done several pieces of lore contributions to the setting and I plan to do more. My best (in my opinion) works so far would be the Mendell City rewrite as well as the Luceism rewrite and the lore on the Lemurian Sea, relevant today with Fyni's ongoing lore arc. I've also worked on the background science for the modern interpretation of phoron as a room-temperature superconductor, helping out Trio. --- 1) Describe your thoughts about the Anabasis project as a whole, whether they be negative or positive. I have a generally positive opinion on the project. I still have certain reservations about more extreme ends of the events that catalyze the event to begin with (call me stubborn), but I'm willing to work within the bounds to see to it that we have a setting that's captivating. The soft-reset of lore allows us to clear a lot of baggage and established sediment with all the odd ends we've accrued over the years, as well as bring some more marginalized parts of the setting into the limelight some more. Gameplay wise I'm very excited for the contracts system and the setting revamp of the ship itself. Lately with recent lore arcs we've been struggling to justify why a corporate exploration flagship is going around running and gunning everywhere it goes, not to mention the "office job" standards make roleplaying fringe characters either very rigid or, if flexing the lines a little, a little unbelievable. Mercenary work for a mercenary company in a chaotic setting allows for a lot more freedom of expression, not to mention the excuse for the ship to do a lot more actively instead of simply exploration (and the occasional pirate outpost destruction). 2) What is your plan regarding Anabasis as a Lore Master? What sort of focus would you bring to the table? I'm intent on, more than anything, fleshing out the "in-betweens" that govern lore, reinforcing internal consistencies, and answering the "whys" whenever possible. Why, for example, phoron behaves the way it behaves, why people did this during the war, why this political actor behaves the way it does. As deputy loremaster now I've mostly been focused on maintenance of the setting above anything, but when pivoting to Anabasis I think that with a hand in shaping things from the ground up, I can take on a more proactive role, affect these parts of the setting a lot more, and make Anabasis believable, grounded, and logical. 3) What do you think the current setting lacks? What are its biggest flaws? It'd have to be cohesion, I think. The setting of Aurora, while all very in-depth and detailed, has a lot to desire in terms of overall painting a setting. As it stands right now much of Aurora lore is centered around human-centric states and organizations getting all the spotlight while the other aliens/races have felt like set dressing. While this has proven difficult to do anything about in the current setting, I believe that Anabasis's fresh start will allow for us to get some more cohesive setting-laying done, making peripheral elements more relevant and tying everything together in a neat little ribbon that it doesn't have the luxury of doing now. 4) Do you lean towards a space opera writing style regarding the events and the setting, or towards a hard-scifi style? Why? I've personally developed a philosophy in my past writing for science fiction to have things done in a "firm" sci-fi way; that is, have sci-fi that is believable, internally consistent, and follows the established rules and norms of in-universe science, while allowing for creative freedoms and a fair bit of drama in the process, unbeholden to rigidly adhering to things like 21st century understandings of science. In terms of set-dressing I've always been one for a grounded approach. The space opera stuff can be cool every now and then, but ultimately considering none of the player characters here are Luke Skywalker, having a setting that's more grounded, believable and gritty, rather than dramatic and theatrical, would make it a lot easier for characters to inhabit a world instead of simply reacting to it. I fear having things be too theatrical, to the point of sacrificing believability, makes people get psychological detachment from the weight of things happening, as modern lore has demonstrated in past events - nobody really understands the consequences of dramatic things besides "this was a big tragedy" or "this was a big win." I'm not saying we can't blow something big up every once in a while, but the stuff needs to be believable, inhabited, and fleshed out. 5) What are your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to being in a management position? Regarding strengths I like to think I'm very good at managing team satisfaction, talking with members, creative direction, enacting policy (I've implemented several policies for the lore team already) and overall keeping the fire burning. As DLM, while I haven't been as active as I ought to have been in recent months, if stoked properly I can have things running smoothly. Weakness-wise, I do need frequent prodding and poking to make sure I don't drift away, both due to IRL obligations and due to ADHD. I can be fairly heavily opinionated as well and have a tendency of playing the contrarian to stoke an "other-side" debate, though I am trying to find a balance between being assertive where it matters and being gentle as to not piss people off. I think I can improve on that skill with due time.

Ashton To Commence Festival of First Sheaves Daily News Hundreds of thousands flock to the city of Ashton as the breadbasket of Biesel is set to begin its annual mid-summer Festival of First Sheaves. Set to take place at the beginning of every August, the festival is an agricultural event that traces its roots back to when Biesel, especially Ashton, dedicated most of its resources to farming and livestock. While the planet is far more industrialized today, farming still forms an enormous part of Ashton culture, down to the popular festivals that draw in crowds across Tau Ceti. In line with the name, the Festival begins with initial “sheaves” (bundles) of wheat taken from the first-ripening crops of the fields. Presented at city hall, the sheaves are decorated with all manner of picked flowers and made into banquets. Over the next few days, a large fair is held, featuring farmer’s markets, tours of farms and gardens, wine tastings, and fruit-picking. Competitions for summer-harvested fruits, including melons, corn, tomatoes, and eggplant are set to also be held, as well as more tourism-oriented activities like plays and live performances at several venues citywide. The Festival has been attempting to redeem itself following last year’s controversy where several participants imported food outside of Ashton and falsely labeled them as “homegrown,” despite festival regulations to only sell Ashton-grown produce in the farmer’s markets. Stricter regulations are being levied on participants this year, and vehicles entering the markets are subject to stringent customs inspections with threats of fraud charges if found out. The festival is public-entry, though only two events are held totally free-of-charge: the Midsummer Carnival open throughout the event, and the Sheaves Music Festival held every night for the first week. All other venues are paid admission, excluding the shops. The festival is scheduled to run for two weeks. Most Read: | Science | Curing death? Not as far-fetched as you'd think | Lifestyle | Dieting & You: How things are best in moderation | Biesel | Mendell's growth is slowing - here's why that's a good thing

Protestors Chop Down Luka Trasen Memorial Tree in Phoenix Park Daily News In a dramatic escalation to protests against Nanotrasen last Tuesday, a group of four people, brandishing chainsaws, cut down a memorial maple tree dedicated to Luka Trasen, father of Nanotrasen chairwoman Miranda Trasen and heir-to-be of the company until his tragic death in 2403. The protests come as part of a mix of grievances, mainly targeting the company’s dominance in the phoron industry and issues with workers’ rights. Though most of the protests were nonviolent, several were still arrested for vandalism. The four are facing additional charges after the tree proceeded to fall on and injure several protestors, including 3 who were severely injured. In a statement, Nanotrasen severely condemned the actions of the protestors. “While we support the right of everyone in Biesel to have freedom of speech, this is a step too far,” said a spokesman for the company. “Desecrating memorials to the deceased is a heinous, reprehensible act, and it accomplishes nothing for perceived goals nor public sympathy. We condemn the actions of these four criminals severely.” First in line to the Nanotrasen fortune after his father Xavier, Luka Trasen’s early life was punctuated by both spectacle and scandal. Named Spurley’s Most Handsome Man in 2395, he was on track to earning a business degree when he became embroiled in multiple controversies including flings and alcohol abuse. Though he entered remission, marrying Philip Trasen in 2398 and, with the help of modern medicine, had a daughter with him, Miranda, in 2401. His life was tragically cut short in a traffic accident in 2403, when Miranda was just 3, and his father had a tree planted in his honor that same month in Phoenix Park. While Miranda was never close to her father, being young when the accident occurred, she often cited her own father’s story as the reasoning for her public falling-out with her grandfather in his latter years and as a cautionary tale to not repeat such pressure for other members of the Trasen family. Her office has so far declined to comment on the situation. The four people charged in cutting the tree each face a litany of charges including felony conspiracy to commit criminal mischief, malicious destruction of property, disorderly conduct, and reckless assault and endangerment, each facing up to 7 years in prison. One of the conspirators is additionally facing assault of a police officer charges after swinging at police that tried to detain them with their chainsaw, damaging a riot shield and faces up to an additional 8 years. Most Read: | Politics | Meet the candidates already gunning for the next election | Travel | How Assunzione is shaping up to be the next Spur getaway | Opinion | Is Konyang's approach to synthetic rights an example, or a cautionary tale?

Everyone, attention! The Lore team is looking for a new head writer for Vaurca. They'll be responsible for hashing out the direction and tone-setting for Vaurca both now and, ideally, into Anabasis/NBT2 as well. Interested? Copy and paste the form below and submit an application to this section answering each question. Application Format CKEY & Discord Username: Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page? Past Experiences/Knowledge: Examples of Past Work (if any): === 1. Do you have a long-term vision for Vaurca Lore going forward into Anabasis? 2. How would you describe the themes and overarching tone of Vaurca? What makes the species and its history appeal to you? 3. How do you see the Hives addressing the irreversible loss of phoron-based technology in the future, particularly with the Hivenet relying upon bluespace technology? 4. Is there anything regarding Vaurca lore that you'd really like to remove or heavily rework, but it's so ingrained in the lore to the point where it'd be challenging to do in a way that's satisfactory? 5. What do you think are your strengths and weaknesses in regards to both management and teamwork?

FROM: Captain Alessia Marino SUBJECT: Recovered Tartaros Notes Good evening, crew, Following the conclusion of the expedition to (and subsequent destruction of) Tartaros, I've seen it fit to publish the data recovered from the terminals with information into the psirens and the Outer Eyes' links to them. If you're interested in the mechanism of action and what the station was doing behind the scenes, read up on the below. Please note that we are still pending the decryption of a recovered data disk that may have more findings. All information here is subject to change. ___________________________________ ___________________________________ It is my hope that this information is useful to know for the general crew as to what kind of threat we were dealing with as well as helping to explain the reasons Command made the decisions it did during the expedition to Tartaros. Be safe, and hopefully this should help enlighten you. 2468-07-18

We've decided to accept your application! Welcome back to lore and welcome to the start of Megacorp Lore team.

Hi! Thanks for your application. We've decided to go with another candidate, unfortunately, but if you might still be interested in applying for the Megacorp team, you're welcome to apply for deputy in the future.

Hi! Thanks for your application. We've decided to go with another candidate, unfortunately, but if you might still be interested in applying for the Megacorp team, you're welcome to apply for deputy in the future.

There's a running foot-dragging in the lore team happening due to you not having the Skrell whitelist before making this application. I know this wasn't listed as a prerequisite before (it is now) and I apologize for retroactively applying it here, but I think to make people more comfortable in your knowledge of the way Skrell actually work, I'd suggest making a Skrell WL application in tandem with this one; that way we can review both sides holistically and determine eligibility then.

Lore Impact (Small/Medium/Large): Medium to Medium Large-ish - Not exactly world-changing, but significant enough to affect a big, big origin. Team Purview: Loremasters Short Description: The Mendell City Rework is a comprehensive from-the-ground-up reimagining of Mendell City with the aim of making the city feel lived-in, real, and cosmopolitan. Currently the city gets far too little writing for how significant and influential it is as a setting, and I figured that making the city feel like its own, crazy thing with rich culture and a more proper personality than "This part is great, this part sucks" would go a long way in making it feel lived-in and not just a static element. The rewrite frames Mendell as this fusion of New York, Seoul, Shanghai, Delhi, Manila and Tokyo: cosmopolitan, grungy, capitalist, extremely populous and highly stratified, but alive, trudging along and making light out of bleak situations. How will this be reflected on-ship?: Characters originating from Mendell City (a lot more than you'd think) would have a lot more flavor to choose from regarding the city, what parts their from, and what kind of culture their home district(s) of choice might reflect in their mannerisms and overall view of the city, as well as giving a fair few talking points and solidarity of Does this addition do anything not achieved by what already exists?: I'd say so. 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?: Yep. Long Description: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bC5KilG2eWaDrVJo56EWHhy1mvg4sQk0rv6v6WKSIPc/edit?usp=sharing

Righto! Here's the stuff I got for you: 1/1. Ultimately I do think it’s a good enough way for a lore to be run. Not perfect (see below), but arguably for what it does and accomplishes on a regular basis I think the manpower and hierarchy is a good mix of both authority-centric hierarchy and unbloated bureaucracy. Some projects have shown me that having way too many ranks and superiors does a lot more harm than good, especially in these non-profit passion works, and that keeping everything relatively flat helps make sure people both know who to go to and prevent people from overriding each other willy-nilly. Too many people in positions of power especially in creative areas creates this sort of jockeying where everyone wants to push their own vision of something and nobody can really agree on what it is in the end. 1/2. Now as a disclaimer I don’t know the behind-the-scenes workings of lore, so forgive me if I’m hitting a target that’s already been shot at. But I think if I had to revise the structure it would be more minor revisions than a total overhaul. Some concepts: Committees: Shared temporary lore team committees would focus on multi-branch projects like arcs, cosmopolitan polities, and NBT2 storybuilding overall. Each Committee would be headed by a Chair (selected by the loremasters) who coordinates all the stuff relating to the arc in particular without needing micromanagement from the loremasters (this lets a particular visionary get their idea through without needing to jockey for it in the process). Once an arc or project is completed, the Committee is dissolved, archived, or put into stasis until the next time it’s relevant. Development liaisons: Since we know the lore and dev teams are gonna be working together very heavily on NBT2, besides integrating devs and lore to be able to see the same spaces (which is an option), I’d suggest having official developer liaisons who are trusted members of the dev team that the lore team trusts to help coordinate projects between the development and lore sides. Egalitarian “human lore”: This probably might be controversial but, bear with me. To my understanding, human lore has easily the most impactful and player-facing lore of any team by virtue of them controlling the largest origins influence-wise (Xanu, Dominia, Sol, Biesel, Coalition, etc). I do think that this could stand to be divided a bit more evenly among the rest of the lore team so as not to make one team disproportionately powerful. Now I’m not saying abolish Human Lore as a department as much as open up some aspects of it to the entire lore team, as a shared undertaking (Human Lore would still have authority). If it’s already a thing, I would make it official. 2/1. CCIA was admittedly pretty draining by how creatively stonewalled it was and how it felt a lot like just a regular government bureaucracy job but done in addition to my regular studies. I think I’ll be able to “stick it out” for this one a lot more since lore writing’s a lot more creatively stimulating - sure, there’ll be burnout and creative block, but it’s a lot more manageable and recoverable than thinking you’re not doing anything meaningful at all. 2/2. I’d say I’m assertive and opinionated but cooperative. I do like to voice my opinion on things and defend my position, but I rarely pick hills to die on and will give way to well-structured arguments and counters, and generally speaking defer a lot to higher-ups for stuff like major changes if I’m required (but I’ll happily take initiative if I’m told to do so). 3/1. The primary kind of “tone” I’m talking about really is the sort of setting tone rather than writing tone, to be clear - the matter of how articles are written and stuff is mostly just semantics. For setting tone, I think what I’d do is sort of establish anchor points in what lines to not cross, for example: “No absolute morally bankrupt factions”, “No perfect states”, “No species abilities without tradeoffs”, etc etc (these are just examples, not actual agenda). Then help cement that through a Primer written by the loremaster team (with possible help/peer review of the writers) that showcases the state of things and, importantly, compares and contrasts the differences between NBT2 lore and the known baseline of modern Aurora lore, so that writers have a baseline to work off of. Regarding the fact that tone depends on if the rest of the writers agree, I agree on that sentiment too, which is why I think this needs to be a collaborative process. Ideally we could hammer this down in a meeting or big collaboration where we get together and nail down the specifics of such a Primer and its components so that we’d all be on the same page and nobody is (entirely) being pulled against the current here. 3/2. It’s tough to guarantee this because everyone coming into a new position has their own agenda and it’s practically guaranteed that people will enact massive changes if left to their own devices and in a position of authority. The biggest thing I think that could be used would be momentum - making it so the ball is already rolling so hard in a particular direction that it would take a lot more effort to stop it than to simply adjust course or keep it going along its path. Momentum would be used both OOC, in terms of projects and creative momentum where people are already working on stuff they want to do, while IC developments, gossip and lore-based character arcs help stymie directional changes from going too far off-course without repercussions and big cleanups. 3/3. It’s not that the politics I think are bad, per se, it’s not a critique of the lore team’s handling of the politics as much as it is yet another symptom of old lore’s roots seeping up to modern events. While a lot of the newer polities are really cool and compelling (especially in their modern variants), I do think ultimately origins like Sol and Biesel are just so static and archaic in how they're portrayed that it's tough to have any meaningful politicizing going on with them. Sol in its current state is a black box for most of the Spur, which is rather bewildering considering it's supposed to be the cradle of humanity and the 1st/2nd most populous human nation in the Spur. Biesel, meanwhile, is a corporatocracy that is also not a corporatocracy, and I think the inconsistency here heavily affects the worldbuilding avenues that can be explored regarding how the government proper handles things. If anything I would also like to have the politics have more direct impacts on what the NBT2/Anabasis ship would be able to do, like for example directly affecting the ship’s own relations with government or corporate entities as well as physically changing what’s available. Warp Lane 7’s scarcity effects in game was a good trailblazing example on how I think this should be done - except this time with politics instead of just physical scenarios. For example, posters might change, regulations might update, and consular positions might dynamically change based on ongoing developments. 3/4. This is partially a development thing but I’m thinking of overhauling the origin selection GUI to be more streamlined to accommodate this. Basically when selecting a character’s origin there’d be a menu to preview all the origins (instead of the clunky click-click thing we have now) that’d give a lot more space for the origin’s description. While I don’t intend to fit the entire wiki into something the idea is to show a compacted, almost traveler’s guide-esque sparknotes of an origin, with many essentials sorted into bullet points. Take for example Assunzione; the bullet lists would look something like this. Characters follow naming conventions and appearances consistent with that of the Mediterranean regions (countries touching the Mediterranean sea), most commonly Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Northern African. Characters follow Luceism, a religion worshipping light after the mysterious and cataclysmic death of their own star. Characters often have a spiritual fear of the dark. Characters are more likely to be scientifically-minded. Other origin categories like citizenship and even wealth class could benefit from these kinds of blurbs, with wealth in particular showcasing what, for example, “Impoverished” actually buys you and some example scenarios of what might lead a character to become part of that class. As for the writing: I’d generally leave it up to the writers to summarize it, but have revisions done by the loremaster team.

CKey: Nauticall Discord: @nauticall How long have you been playing Aurora?: About 2 years or so now, since 2023. Deputy Loremaster Application --- 1) What do you believe you can bring to the team as Deputy Loremaster? I do believe as DLM I have a lot of creative ideas on how to make the setting more immersive, believable and also put the “science” in sci-fi. I like to think I have good direction in terms of crafting a compelling setting and I think I would be able to effectively help manage direction and tonality. I’m also a contributor to NBT2/Anabasis and have a good understanding of the general tone and details pitched for the new setting, and I believe I can help significantly in achieving that through lore. 2) 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. This is especially true going forward. I have extensive experience managing teams; I headed small game studio projects in the past as well as whitelist councils and am also helping build a setting in another project from the ground up. I know how to delegate, check in, hold meetings and take notes, and while I admit I might flounder in grand agenda sometimes, I do work best in middle management under a superior, which is why I think being a deputy suits me. 3) Aurora is starting development of NBT2, and as Deputy Loremaster, you will be heavily involved at a high level in this - what do you believe fundamentally needs fixing from a lore perspective that can be accomplished with NBT2? First up: tonality and tone consistency. Aurora’s setting right now, though diverse and detailed, struggles immensely in conveying what exactly the general tone of the setting actually is. I want to stress that it’s no fault of the current writers as much as it’s just a relic of how layered current lore is on top of shaky foundations of old lore including questionable bits of history and changes in direction. As a result of it though, players can’t really decide how dystopian/utopian/dark/light the setting is, and subsequently default to this sort of “the SCC is Walmart in space” kind of flat tone that works for being inoffensive, but ends up being bland. Second I think is the head-scratching politics that Aurora’s nations often contend with. (Fictional) politics is something I find really juicy and really appreciate in settings that take care to make their power struggles and plays stand out as key factors in the setting, and while current Aurora lore tries to do this too, they struggle with falling flat. Again, not the fault of the lore team, but I do think it could stand to have a major overhaul in NBT2. Last would likely be the sort of “foundation” the player can go off of to build a character. The current process of building a character for Aurora is generally speaking to pick an origin and then do a small encyclopedia’s worth of reading (exaggerated, but the point stands) to catch up on lore and nuance and everything there is to know about the character to not make them out of place. I would like to help streamline this significantly, with one of my ideas being to compress origin backgrounds into little digestible blurbs, more so than what we have now, that help distill everything there is to know about a particular origin/background/species without needing to do research on the wiki. I think it’d help a lot in reducing tedium and lowering the already-astronomical ceiling new Aurora players experience when trying to head into the game. 4) On the other hand - what do you believe is the strongest point of our lore currently? I love the detail and just the sheer variety Aurora lore has to offer to people. There’s all sorts of origins and species and flavors that really can take characters in almost any direction without hard-locking you into a specific trope or character-ism. Things like being an imperial noble, or a free robot, or a freedom fighter, or space pirate, or alien warrior, all of which can coexist in a single setting by how diverse the setting is. And I like that no origin truly appears shallow - there's enough heart and soul poured into each corner to make a lot of origins feel unique and alive (even if detail might be lacking in some more granular areas). 5) Furthermore, regarding NBT2, give a general description of how you think the logistics of such a massive rework should be done - I.E, what should be decided on and written first, and then what should follow? In general, no more than a paragraph. I think we should do this in progressively smaller chunks. From my experience, working with building a setting like this often involves tackling the big arching themes and tones first, like the overall state of affairs, politics, major players, economics, etc (the “why’s” if you will), and then sort of breaking it up into smaller more detail-oriented chunks, like the who’s and the how’s and the where’s. To be more specific I’d first go for the tone first, then the economics, then “how things are different from current Aurora lore (2460s)”, and then increment from there until we have the whole thing lined up. 6) What timezone are you normally awake during? UTC+08:00 (13 hrs opposite of EST). Common overlap times are 8PM-3AM EST and 6AM-12PM EST.

There's one of two ways an IPC can learn a skill: either through accrued knowledge or a datapack. Datapacks are the most direct way for an IPC to learn something, like for example work theory, languages, skills, etc, but this only imparts the "theory" and doesn't really go into depth of practical experience, which the IPC must learn themselves through standard education or training. This loops into the second method of accrued knowledge, where an IPC, either spurred by theory from a datapack or from raw experience, can learn a skill similar to a human, by either being educated on the topic the old-fashioned way (whether that be via teaching or apprenticeship) or just basic knowledge and techniques. IPC treatment varies sharply by planet and nation. Besides some havens like Konyang, most locations in the Orion Spur discriminate against IPCs to varying degrees. Even more "liberal" places like Tau Ceti often treat IPCs as second-class citizens at best and chattel at worst, finding them often expendable or annoying. Even the law accommodates for this with IPCs being regarded legally as property unless they're self-owned, and even then, life is hardly easy for them. Some planets like Burzsia treat IPCs identically to regular, dumb machinery, frequently pushing them to the breaking point and then wiping them routinely to prevent any kind of feelings or sympathies from developing. Pascal did face a lot of discrimination initially, yes; a lot of Alaena's patrons were initially reluctant about the idea of a robot staffing the bar, let alone talking to them about philosophy. However, for the reasons aforementioned in the story, many slowly warmed up to it, hence the "trusted advisor." Now, to be clear, this didn't apply universally - Alaena had other human bartenders working the counter as well, and a few patrons still opted to stay well away from Pascal, often mistrusting it for varying reasons. The discrimination was a lot less physical - most of the patrons were wealthy after all, and decorum obviously stood in the way of raising fists - but the tension never really quite went away, especially on a place like Silversun. It'd be a lie to say Pascal's early life was "interesting." Most of its routine while employed at Alaena would be to walk 15 minutes per direction from its domicile to Alaena to see the bar's opening from 9 AM to 2 AM the next day. While the graveyard-shift walks in the middle of the night were particularly dangerous, sticking to the Boardwalk let it stay mostly out of trouble for most of its career on Silversun. As Pascal grew older, though, it began to seek a fair bit of recreation from across the place. While most of Silversun's activities were restricted to deep-pocketed human tourists (Pascal was neither), it would frequent a lot of IPC dive spots in the middle of the night around the basements of Helios, often sticking to the "safer" (relatively speaking) ones frequented by other Idris units too. At these spots Pascal picked up on philosophy and reading, even picking up on painting as a hobby. Pascal would over time acquire canvas and paints in its domicile that it would slowly work out its skills with. At first the work was soulless: crisp stills of the Grand Boardwalk and other places of Helios City and Silversun were among the first works. Over time, though, it grew to put more expression into the paintings and branched into different genres too, including abstract and introspective works, before eventually covering the walls with paintings. Initially throwing the ones it didn't like away, Pascal would later be given permission to have some of the paintings framed and rotated in Alaena, though under the condition that it not be disclosed that Pascal made them, as it would disturb some of the regular patrons there. It wouldn't be until Pascal left Alaena that it was disclosed the paintings were made by it. Pascal also kept a series of journals it would frequently write in, regarding the state of its life, the galaxy, and politics; it was an avid insider to the state of galactic affairs from the gossip and talks inside the bar, and would gradually use both the journals and its own reasonings to debate earnestly with some of the more introspective patrons of Alaena on topics like politics, though obviously only when it was appreciated or specifically asked of it to do so. The thirty-plus years of life Pascal has had has certainly given it a very deep, detailed worldview, one that it used to its advantage during its waning years on Alaena and uses for newfound hobbies like writing or even painting. It likes to think of itself as "wise" as a result, even though it knows the label is rather self-serving for "only" having lived 30 years.

BYOND Ckey: Nauticall Discord username: @nauticall Character names: Leslie Asoya Alessia Marino Seoyeon Park Species you are applying to play: IPC ------------------------------ General Whitelist Requirements What colour do you plan on making your first alien character?: N/A Have you read the lore pages for the species you wish to be whitelisted for?: Yes Why do you wish to play this species?: I’ve loved playing as robots in other games and media; they have interesting perspectives from a philosophical perspective especially that differ from humans, and there’s a lot of opportunities to play out different dynamics, stories and beats including personhood, “realness”, and life’s purpose. It’s also always engaging to try engaging in the mindset of a robot, thinking rationally (or irrationally in some cases) to things and how to go about it. What makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human?: The most obvious difference between an IPC and a human is that an IPC is not human, no matter how much one might try to emulate the latter. The way they process risk, make calculations, see the world and even form relationships is done in a completely foreign way to humans owing to the different workings of their brain. Everything is either logical or random, with no hormones, overwhelming emotions or gut feelings to influence their judgment. However, a lot of their drives, often eccentric, hinge on their directive for self-preservation, influencing both their risk tolerance as well as their outlook on life later on. IPCs also benefit from learning through datapacks and preprogramming instead of the traditional education/training gauntlets organics often have to go through before being able to work; this lets them often enter work fields immediately after creation and continue doing so for as long as they’re allowed or capable. Their status as an indentured second-class people also makes their ambitions and goals significantly different from that of a human; as upward mobility can often be hard-limited to factors outside of one’s own control, “goals” may be a lot more simple in concept but more elaborate in execution; like working towards paying off one’s freedom, discovering enlightenment, escaping something, or simply making it to next year - because of their situations these often need a lot of careful planning and elaborate steps to avoid getting caught or being set back. ------------------------------ Character Application Character Name: Pascal Write a backstory for your character. This may include their origin, education, personality and how they arrived at the SCCV Horizon. Background On the Grand Boardwalk lining the coast of Helios City’s resort corridor on Silversun lay the Alaena Bar, six stories above the ground, and far away from any kind of hustle and bustle. Its door was made of wood, its signage nothing more than a simple board denoting its name and its location, and its outdoor menu crafted of chalk. Its entrance is overshadowed and dwarfed by its massive, bright neighbors, and this was very much by design. One would expect a bar in this prestigious of a location to be filled with cosmopolitan grandeur: glass chandeliers and RGB lighting fueling lively drinking contests and constant chatter. Instead, Alaena offers a different allure. Its modest size and unpretentious, contemporary decor belie its status as a haven for the truly elite, a sanctuary quietly marketed by Idris to those of status seeking a haven away from the perpetual whirlwind of the casinos and attractions lining the levels below; a passion project by the company’s more reserved officials and clients. Marketed by mouth as a "getaway from the chaos," it stands apart from the dive bars and cheap clubs peppering the coastline, attracting a clientele with discerning tastes and deep pockets. Its patrons were true aristocrats, often older, and with a longing to be treated like a person for once in their lives, rather than the walking wallets their colleagues often made them out to be. Alaena offered them such a chance. Behind the counter of Alaena stood a bartender named Pascal, a first generation Bishop frame IPC in white and gold, dressed in a three-piece suit, sporting a gold name tag symbolizing exemplary service. For the past three decades Pascal had engaged in many deep conversations that often propagated the bar, often diving into philosophy and life ambitions. On some days Pascal would assure a disillusioned politician, or challenge the worldview of a corporate executive. Unlike its contemporaries, Pascal did not bend the knee submissively to elite patrons, lending it initial ire from the higher-ups but eventually warming up to its down-to-earth treatment of customers. Pascal was always one for honesty. It would tell its opinions - of which it had many - and said them frankly, but did so in a respectful and humble manner. Whether it was advice, political debate, philosophy, literature, or science, no matter how complicated, Pascal had a way to join the conversation if invited and contribute. This made it a valuable advisor among the bar’s clients, one motivated by its job and not by the premises of wealth or reward. Pascal was one of the first synthetics to be deployed to Silversun. Initially assigned to a more prominent bar in Helios, a young and inexperienced Pascal and its three other Bishop frame coworkers faced rampant discrimination by both clients and even coworkers, driven by distrust and the fear that a robot was stealing their job. At one point it was even attacked by a drunk native patron at the bar, and another it was attacked and beaten in an alleyway while running errands. While Pascal recovered, it still holds memories of these incidents and, while it has taken more caution to draw less attention to itself, they’ve given it a sense of almost self-doubt and questioning that festers in the back of its mind, resurfacing occasionally during deep debates. In an effort to win over patrons while not attempting to show off and attract even more ire, Pascal would adopt a degree of formality and closeness with patrons, particularly regulars, to a degree that none of the other bartenders had quite matched yet. While it certainly was attractive, it wasn’t exactly awe-inspiring, and Pascal continued to mostly blend in as one of the robots behind the counter. After its talents were noticed by a touring Idris executive, Pascal’s abilities were made known to the company’s management on Silversun and, by personal request, it was quietly transferred over to the then-brand new Alaena Bar. Years passed, and while neither Pascal nor Alaena made it to worldwide renown, it became a quiet household name among its clientele. One day, however, Idris decided that Pascal was becoming too old to continue staffing Alaena, alongside geopolitical concerns, and decided to quietly move it away from the bar, much to the dismay of the bar’s remaining customers. Pascal eventually was reassigned to the SCCV Horizon, continuing to do its job in a quiet corner of a high-profile ship. There it continues serving the same combination it had done for decades: a cocktail, comfort, and a conversation. Personality “I do not like pretending to be something I am not.” Over the course of its over thirty years of existence, Pascal has developed a plethora of opinions and life experience, information accrued from its training and its decades of talking to all sorts of customers from behind the counter. Decades of working at Alaena has given Pascal a formal vocabulary that extends into its speech, even when off duty. It speaks in sophisticated yet nuanced language that is direct, but not robotic; formal, but not coldly so. Pascal additionally has conversational skills so adept and well-developed that it is only betrayed by its appearance as a robot, albeit one with a highly polished and clean chassis. This aspect of itself makes no attempt to hide, and although a younger Pascal may have tousled on occasion with the nature of its existence, it has since learned to accept its position and status as a mechanical being, and even embraces it, having a personal dislike for the pretend-rich nature of others. Self-ownership in particular is one aspect Pascal, almost uniquely among older IPCs, does not view as a positive thing, thinking of it as trading one series of problems for another. Pascal’s advanced age means it struggles to adapt to new trends, favoring “old fashioned” methods and ideologies that give others the perception that it can be out of touch. Despite this, it is continually reading to attempt to improve itself and research the ever-changing trends of today, although it reminisces about simpler times and misses when quality was favored over looks or flashiness. It also struggles with the idea of a looming “retirement” and, following its reassignment to a ship, is currently actively attempting to find other hobbies, of which include classics like painting, reading, and playing instruments, of which it is competent in several. How have 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. Throughout most of its life, Pascal was only lightly affected by geopolitical events, being largely insulated by Idris Incorporated’s business-as-usual approach on Silversun. However, the Solarian Collapse led to Idris shuffling around personnel significantly and huddling operations together in the wake of the crumbling infrastructure around them. Alaena would see fewer and fewer patrons in the wake of the event as elite patrons were less willing to pay a visit to the planet than before. 2466 saw a critical break in this threshold as Alaena lost more and more customers. Idris sought to replace Alaena's staff with a younger crew as a result, with Pascal itself being moved away from operations for a while. With too much goodwill to be simply retired on the spot, Pascal was relegated to the Horizon to both put employees to work and placate frustrated corporate officials who used to frequent Alaena. How does your character view the megacorporation they work for? Pascal is loyal to Idris Incorporated, even though it accrued enough wisdom to know that the corporation likely no longer returns the same sentiment to it. Pascal remains nostalgic of the “old” Idris that favored quality over flashy displays, yet still performs the work it does, with quality and attention, seemingly to remind people of the perceived “golden age” that Pascal and its employer had once worked for, believing the corporation’s commitment to quality, especially in its more elite circles, is something it has to uphold.

Reporting Personnel: Alessia Marino Job Title of Reporting Personnel: Captain Game ID: cBe-aCCq Personnel Involved: Glen Traumer, Shaft Miner - Offender IRU-Malachite, Security Officer - Witness Zastria Brenghali, Security Officer - Witness Mira Tilton, Assistant (off-duty) - Witness Iphigenia Konstantinou, Lab Assistant - Victim Secondary Witnesses: The following personnel were investigators who were not primary witnesses but nonetheless involved in the investigation: Clark Coldsmith, Investigator IRU-Squire, Investigator The following witnessed the intoxication incident in the bar in various capacities: Ungnyeo, Bartender Frida Cross, Bartender Jennifer Volvalaad, Chaplain (Tribunalism) (off-duty) Brian Pinkman, Hangar Technician (off-duty) Time of Incident: approx. 04:30, 8/23/2467 (real time: approx. 1:30 AM EST 8/23/2025) Real Time: (Ex: 05:00GMT 3/24/25) Location of Incident: (location here) Nature of Incident: [ ] - Workplace Hazard [ X ] - Accident/Injury [ ] - Destruction of Property [ ] - Neglect of Duty [ X ] - Harassment [ X ] - Assault [ X ] - Misconduct [ X ] - Other: Possession & abuse of contraband. Overview of the Incident: Several incidents regarding Glen Traumer took place over the course of this shift alone. Incident #1. About 15 minutes after clocking in on shift, shaft miner Glen Traumer entered the kitchen for a meal. Upon doing so, sitting across from Dr. Jennifer Volvalaad, who was reading a Tribunalist Codex on the counter, he promptly took the book, said aloud, "Get this trash off the table," and tossed the book onto the ground. While Dr. Volvalaad was unfazed by the altercation, I felt it was a disturbing preview of what would happen afterward. - Incident #2 (PRIMARY). Several minutes later in the bar, Mr. Traumer entered the place, sat down, and ordered a vodka from the bartender on-shift, Ungnyeo. Upon receiving it, he then proceeded to down the entire thing in rapid succession, asked for another one, and then entered the bar lounge. Ms. Tilton entered shortly after him and found him not breathing with a pill bottle of Colorspace on the table. Ms. Tilton called for medical assistance, following which Dr. Volvalaad and IRU-Malachite came to perform CPR, which succeeded. While being transported out of the bar towards the medical bay by the on-duty medical drone, Mr. Traumer escaped the bed and returned to the bar to ask for more alcohol, which Ungnyeo declined him from having. Dr. Volvalaad informed me via PDA that the incident of him stopping breathing was likely due to him taking barbiturates as well as alcohol at the same time, causing him to enter respiratory arrest. At this moment I recalled seeing him attempt to (unsuccessfully) poach a pill bottle of Mortaphenyl to crewmembers, one of which was Ms. Tilton. His medical record states both that he is an opiate addict and is contraindicated to receiving mortaphenyl per medical orders; this made the Mortaphenyl on his person, as a result, contraband. Due to this, I filed a search warrant for possible contraband possession which the security officers on-shift attempted to execute. However, he was elusive, and was unable to be tracked down until Incident #3. - Incident #3. Iphigenia Konstantinou (listed in personnel involved as a victim), for reasons irrelevant to this incident report, voluntarily placed herself in a body bag. Mr. Traumer, upon finding said body bag, proceeded to drag her from the place she was found into the dining hall while she was still talking from inside the bag, before leaving the bag with security and walking away. The security team concluded this was a case of battery. At the same time, Ms. Tilton admitted to being offered (but rejecting) the illicit sale of Mortaphenyl to her. She offered to have her bag searched, but I declined to authorize it as we did not have sufficient probable cause. Instead, at security's recommendation, I upgraded and authorized Mr. Traumer's still-outstanding warrant to that of an arrest warrant under charges of Battery and Contraband possession. Around this time, I had to enter residential. Before leaving, I gave Officers Malachite and Brenghali guest passes into Operations/Mining to attempt to locate Mr. Traumer, and they alongside investigators Mr. Coldsmith and IRU-Squire were participating in the search to varying degrees; however, after some time searching, he fled to residential himself, and the search was called off. --- I would like to state for the record that the rate at which Mr. Traumer had been racking up incidents this shift paints a picture of a deeply unstable and confrontational crewmember who cannot be trusted to remain peaceful on the SCCV Horizon. Officer IRU-Malachite suggested as well that an Incident Report like this be made due to Mr. Traumer's substance abuse behavior. As Captain this is way over the kind of behavior I would personally tolerate and why I had issued a warrant for his arrest to begin with. In addition to punitive affairs, if this Incident Report is actioned, Malachite and I would recommend counseling sessions for substance abuse, especially if this turns out to be a chronic issue (which, as indicated in his medical records, is a chronic issue). Submitted Evidence: I needed to enter residential before sufficient evidence could be compiled. On duty security staff might be able to provide more, or at least provide credible testimony. 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? - N/A: I was the residing Captain on-shift and the only head of staff awake. Actions taken - I issued a warrant for Mr. Traumer's arrest; however he fled to residential before he could be detained.

So recently I was part of a discussion talking about the status of in-character Incident Reports (IRs) done by CCIA staff, particularly regarding the way they were handled, how they apply, their process of information gathering/interviewing, and the roleplay element they contribute to, if any. I'd like to use this thread as feedback and discussion for potentially overhauling the way some IRs work, rather than shouting into the wind and complaining about problems. Some suggestions from the masses (I don't necessarily support any of these but I just want to throw in what's been talked about so far): Denying IRs that clearly are of little consequence to anyone and seemingly don't deserve HR's time to investigate. Encouraging Discord interviews either through the relay or through Discord messaging. Current stigma is that Discord interviews are a "last resort" and discouraged. Being more transparent in punitive action given to individuals, even if it's only available OOCly. Making CCIA interviews less "boring" and more proactive discussions, possibly by involving multiple people in the same interview.