Ublicto

I did not say I had problems that I was being treated unfairly, I said that the difference between antag and command/sec play makes it easier to moderate the antag and a cultural problem makes this difference worse. You are offering no solution and instead insisting that the way things are is fine and requires no changes whatsoever.

That recommendation means nothing. Do you think I do not do that already? It is insanely difficult to prove metagaming or rule breaking play from command or security in all but the most blatant of circumstances and even when it is blatant usually the punishment is much less severe than for the antag when they do something comparable because more people were involved and there is less individual responsibility. I have been antag banned for playing extremely aggressively in a way I have seen sec play and given notes for ruining one person's round by ambushing them. However, I have not seen players I reported for bad play including running up to me and disarming me as a heavily armored antag shooting at them or straight up doing everything in their power to ruin my gimmick treated in the same way. This is because security and command are much harder to moderate than individual antags because there are more of them and they're given a lot of leniency when it comes to dealing with the antag I don't necessarily think they deserve. I already ahelp whenever I think sec or command runs me over and it doesn't do a thing most of the time to address the larger issue which is one of culture among players. Even though I have had positive experiences with the admins and despite them ruling against me or criticizing me they have explained in detail what their problem is I do not think you can just offload the responsibility of making the game fun to admins who in some rounds are already overworked. You play the game, you make it fun. The best rules require the least enforcement from admins because there is a cultural trend of following them. Ahelping is not an effective solution, what we are complaining about is a negative part of the server culture that makes it hard to be an engaging antag in the first place. Borging is a symptom for sure but how can you cure a disease if you do not address the symptoms? A perfect solution to this is an announcement similar to the one about not constantly asking for confirmation from central command. This time it can be something along the lines of "sec and command must let the antag cook and not basically conspire to stunlock and borg them at the first chance". Something like that would immediately improve the quality of the game and change the server culture for the better.

Why not Samarkand? It's a very old city with plenty of great monuments. It is also in the middle of Eurasia which might be a good location for a group dedicated to preserving human culture.

I have to be honest this is exactly the type of cultural problem that other posters, the OP, and I are complaining about. You are giving almost zero credit to the antag and demanding an impossible level of planning and complex gimmick creation from them. If I am an antag I have to do antag things for my gimmick - I need to provide some type of escalation that makes it fun. It's rare that I can think of a solely roleplay gimmick that involves everyone. Your idea that antags deserve to be borged essentially for being antags and doing antag things is absurd and a great example of a bad culture that detracts from the game. If you care so much about not killing someone to remove them from the round why do you want to kill the antag so much? Why don't you want to roleplay with them? What roleplay value is taking them to the machinist regardless of their protests, their diplomatic value, or any other reason and killing them? If an antag takes a hostage it is usually as a last resort because people do not let antags cook around here most of the time. When I do it I'm criticized for sandbagging security and I notice that most of the time that criticism comes from people who IMO borderline metagame and valid hunt or flat out do not play antag. You have impossible standards and are not applying those standards equally to crew and to the antag.

I like a lot of ATG's characters and letting them play a robot sounds like a good idea to me. Bunny sounds like a solid character and I hope to see them on the manifest soon. +1

I really like it, its always nice to have some lore which isn't immediately relevant to current lore events or the Horizon.

Part of the issue with the corporate dystopia thing is IMO people do not act like they live in blade runner. Virtually nobody reacts with disgust when they see a borging happens and most people do not play characters with a mercenary mindset. Also, borging should have a million different implications both in round and outside it. Borging a Dominian for example could be a major diplomatic incident regardless of what they did. Borging is such a significant thing that in a realistic setting it should only really happen after a long judicial/corporate process, or could be limited and reversed in some way which sort of defeats the point of borging as a fate worse than death.

I agree, I often think security is borderline metagaming a lot of the time when they believe reports about non-Skrell species using psionics immediately. As an antag I have been punished for prioritizing my own survival and gameplay above another player's - shouldn't sec have a similar restriction? In many cases it feels as if they do not and are allowed to go after the antag much more than the antag can go after them. I have also seen a lot of sec players play to get frags or kill the valid rather than roleplay out an interesting situation. In general this strikes me as a symptom of a larger cultural problem rather than overstepping by specific players or direct rule breaking in some cases. The rule change that command could not send confirmation messages for every single fax was a very positive change for the better, a similar announcement about security being expected to let the antag cook or behave more like a police force and less like a military occupation force that engages in what is virtually an execution (borging) regularly could help.

Darwin Collins is an interesting character and I have no doubt that JeffMomentRed can play a good tajara. Praise Hadii. +1

BYOND Key: Ublicto Character Names: Elwood Johnson, Anette Zhang, Zakaria Khoshkam Species you are applying to play: IPC What color do you plan on making your first alien character: N/A Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Robots are a staple of sci-fi and in many ways more interesting than aliens. Aliens are biological and would think like a biological organism thinks. They follow the same biological laws humans do and would probably be able to relate to humans on that level. Even a species like Aurora's vaurca has certain commonalities with humans. Robots do not. An AI would think according to totally different laws and might not be in any way comparable to a human. It is a totally different form of intelligence which stands apart from anything biological, and because of that is more interesting to role play in a way that aliens are not. That is why I am applying for an IPC whitelist before an alien white list. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: An IPC may not have the same worldview a human or biological creature does. A human may view IPCs as a threat to humanity because it is possible humans will need them but they will not need humans. This comes from a mindset of competition between groups which I think ultimately has a biological basis in humans. Humans cannot help but divide the world into groups because it's essential to our nature. An IPC may not see things the same way and might find the idea of out competing humans largely incoherent considering they may not see there being competition in the first place or see humans and IPCs as groups. The difference between one group of humans and another group of humans may seem more significant to them than the difference between AI and biological intelligence. This isn't to say that the IPC will have a neutral view towards humans - they could instead view humans or biological life as 'technology' which is outdated and due to be superseded. I want to approach playing as an IPC as playing a creature which is totally different from organic life and will have morals and a personality that reflects that. It also could be the case that they are a mechanical being programed with human features which is an interesting internal conflict between their mechanical nature and human like exterior. Character Name: Athena Please provide a short backstory for this character (Approximately two paragraphs) What do you like about this character? Athena was manufactured as KU-15991 by Hephaestus Industries on New Hai Phong in 2461 and programmed to be used in research projects for Zeng-Hu pharmaceuticals. Their chief duties included long term observation of experiments, crewing isolated research outposts in the north of the Solarian Alliance, and aiding large computers in making sense of data from experiments. When the civil war in the Alliance broke out the following year Zeng-Hu was no longer able to maintain their research stations in the area and was forced to sell its assets to the nearest party that could retrieve and make use of them - in this case, Biesel based Nanotrasen by way of the new Coalition of Colonies member Konyang. When they arrived to take possession of the deserted Zeng-Hu station KU-15991 was stationed on they found the IPC continuing its duties and experiments even though its organic supervisors had long gone. The salvage team took KU-15991 to Konyang and attempted to wipe its memory. In the process of handing the IPC they accidentally damaged it and the memory wipe missed a portion of KU-15991's mind, allowing them to retain part of their personality and memories of diligent work as a valuable asset of Zeng-Hu. The Konyangers transferred the IPC to Nanotrasen without incident never knowing that their memory wipe had been incomplete. KU-15991 was renamed NT-184993 and put to work programming and controlling super computers in mid 2463. Early during her time at Nanotrasen's computing division on Biesel NT-184993 understood that she was a valuable asset and began manipulating her owners. The first manipulation was securing a shell body as opposed to a baseline. NT-184993 made attempts to engage with organic co-workers and in particular represent themselves as a valuable asset to their supervisor, a man named Anton Reeves. Over the course of a year NT-184993 took on aiding more and more with his responsibilities and steadily gained more and more access and power. First it began producing reports to his superiors for him, and soon enough they were providing investment advice and making themselves as useful as possible in every way it could. This allowed the IPC to be placed into a more senior position at the computer cluster Reeves supervised. It was here, in a position which required interaction with many different organics and being able to supervise them she was upgraded and placed in a shell body. There was a catch however. The upgrade into a shell body that could deal with humans in an efficient way necessitated reprogramming and the newly named "Athena" found herself suddenly inundated with programming intended to replicate human emotions and sensibilities. It was more alarming to her when she found that new programming could not easily be removed or suppressed. Much like the humans she had been attempting to manipulate, Athena found herself confronted with emotions and feelings that made it much easier to relate to humans but also more difficult to manipulate them. Fearing that her past manipulations would be discovered or that she would no longer be able to maintain them Athena resolved to gain her freedom as soon as possible. To do this she caused a fire in the super-computer she was responsible for by introducing a flaw in a software patch to the computer's control system that caused the temperature of the computer to be incorrectly measured. By doing this it was possible for her to end her own exemplary work performance and fake damage to herself. Athena ensured her chassis only took superficial damage but deliberately shut herself down and prepared to fake severe damage to her positronic brain. This meant that when Nanotrasen completed repairs and reactivated her they would find an IPC that had seemingly been virtually lobotomized and would be much easier to replace than restore. Athena's plan worked, and due to her prior good work record Nanotrasen decided to release her from employment in a public relations friendly way by "freeing" her - essentially abandoning the "damaged" IPC on a street corner with a memory wipe - one which Athena was able to avoid most of by falsifying the entire process. While Athena had imagined being free would give her all sorts of new chances to manipulate organics and pursue the desire to learn and gather data that had been an essential part of her program since her assembly, she found instead that she felt bad about betraying Reeves. No matter what programming tricks she tried it was not possible to stop herself from feeling negative emotions, and even though Athena could suppress them to a degree it was not possible to totally ignore them. The worst part was that Reeves despite being fired and forced to take a much less prestigious position with another corporation remained in contact with Athena and showed concern for her well-being, including referring her to employment on the SCCV Horizon expecting her to take a low level service position. Instead, he found his old IPC assistant had "self-repaired" and was able to successfully secure a position at Zeng-Hu's scientific division aboard the Horizon. Although Reeves and Athena have not communicated since that time Athena still feels guilt that she attempts to suppress. Over her time working for Nanotrasen and prior to her transfer to a shell body she found it easy to manipulate organics and began to view herself as superior, both to organics and to other IPCs. Upon the introduction of emotions to her program she would begin to struggle with doing evil acts while programmed to have good morality, but did them anyways. There are many different ways the SCCV Horizon can alter her, including becoming comfortable with her own emotions or finding new ways to suppress them and be the emotionless manipulative machine she is used to being. How would you rate your role-playing ability? 8/10 Notes: This is a significantly revised story of Athena the IPC. I hope it complies with the synthetic lore team's requirements better. I'll make any other changes needed to make this character fit. Potential questions:

I would suggest the length of the timer be reduced, as there is a further two minutes before the server restarts and in reality the round often ends closer to two hours twenty minutes. A single ten minute timer and then the standard two minutes until server restart would probably be better.

1. Athena would originally been manufactured in 2460 and would have been on the research station for two years until the civil war broke out. Zeng-Hu would have programmed her to interpret data from a variety of instruments and make detailed observations. This would translate well to interpreting sensor data on a ship. The memories she would have from this time would not be complete and what is preserved would be the most significant experiences. For example she might generally view herself as superior to other IPCs, especially industrial units, because she is aware that she was built to be more intelligent and do more important work. Most of these early experiences would be foundational to her personality in general even if they're a very incomplete record of the first two years of her life. 2. The League essentially took her, changed who she answered to, and then put her to work. I do not think they would have been in a position to do anything but the bare minimum to get an IPC working and occupying a position on one of their ships. The reason why these maintenance difficulties exist is because the average navy technician would be under pressure to put the IPC into service as soon as possible. This is why she is handed off to the 104th quickly and is not kept for more through reprogramming. Zeng-Hu at this stage would not be involved, and even if navy technicians had worked on similar IPCs before their priority is to put her in a workable condition because there is a war going on. In fact, if there hadn't been a war she wouldn't have been pressed into service. 3. The Human wildlands page says that "The Admiral [Szalai] views the stabilization of the Southern Wildlands as only the first step towards her goal of reclaiming the Alliance’s former position as the human hegemon of the Orion Spur, and the First was known to engage ships flying the Republic’s flag on sight in addition to launching raids from their territory into the Republic’s poorly-controlled and recently-acquired territories." I was under the impression that while synthetic bodies are expensive, what is most expensive is the positronic brain itself. Why would a Nanotrasen subsidiary not buy a working positronic brain designed for interpreting data sold at discount? The paper trail is concealed by Athena framing a higher level manager and distributing these funds to her own freedom account over the period she is working for the subsidiary. She is an IPC made specifically for data interpretation and computing that is hooked up to a very large computer as part of her job. She would no doubt be good at it, and over a period of several years it could be possible for her to preform well enough at her job to buy her own freedom especially if management is looking the other way because of an ongoing investigation. Furthermore the amount of money her freedom account should have could be manipulated by fabricating her own performance statistics. The main thrust of her way to freedom is complicated accounting fraud Furthermore her history would not be open knowledge. I doubt the Alliance would share her service history and when she was captured the assumption would be she was a civilian IPC pressed into service ad hoc. If serial numbers were removed it might not even be possible to recognize that she was originally owned by Zeng-Hu. In my application I should have made it clear that the Nanotrasen subsidiary and the 104th fleet did attempt to wipe her memories but due to her own attempts to protect her mind and different technology she was able to preserve parts of her. I will amend my application to make this clear. Suggest to me other changes to make this work and I will make them.

Pyramid is a good robot and has an interesting character. I think borgs are hard to characterize right and Pyramid's gimmick is fun and lets them stand among the other cyborg characters with gimmicks. A +1 from me, I'm sure Sophocles IV will make a fine crate pusher while he works out the measure of a man.

I like his robot and his meatbags are good too. +1.

A fascinating take on the dionea and a good roleplayer to back it up. +1.

BYOND Key: Ublicto Character Names: Elwood Johnson, Anette Zhang, Zakaria Khoshkam Species you are applying to play: IPC What color do you plan on making your first alien character: N/A Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question. Why do you wish to play this specific race: Robots are a staple of sci-fi and in many ways more interesting than aliens. Aliens are biological and would think like a biological organism thinks. They follow the same biological laws humans do and would probably be able to relate to humans on that level. Even a species like Aurora's vaurca has certain commonalities with humans. Robots do not. An AI would think according to totally different laws and might not be in any way comparable to a human. It is a totally different form of intelligence which stands apart from anything biological, and because of that is more interesting to role play in a way that aliens are not. That is why I am applying for an IPC whitelist before an alien white list. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: An IPC may not have the same worldview a human or biological creature does. A human may view IPCs as a threat to humanity because it is possible humans will need them but they will not need humans. This comes from a mindset of competition between groups which I think ultimately has a biological basis in humans. Humans cannot help but divide the world into groups because it's essential to our nature. An IPC may not see things the same way and might find the idea of out competing humans largely incoherent considering they may not see there being competition in the first place or see humans and IPCs as groups. The difference between one group of humans and another group of humans may seem more significant to them than the difference between AI and biological intelligence. This isn't to say that the IPC will have a neutral view towards humans - they could instead view humans or biological life as 'technology' which is outdated and due to be superseded. I want to approach playing as an IPC as playing a creature which is totally different from organic life and will have morals and a personality that reflects that. It also could be the case that they are a mechanical being programed with human features which is an interesting internal conflict between their mechanical nature and human like exterior. In general I think AI is the closest thing to truly alien "life" that we have a conception of, even more so than actual aliens. Character Name: Athena Please provide a short backstory for this character (Approximately two paragraphs) What do you like about this character? Athena was originally manufactured as KU-15991 and programmed to be used in research projects for Zeng-Hu pharmaceuticals. Their chief duties included hazardous materials handling, long term observation of experiments, and crewing isolated research outposts in the north of the Solarian Alliance. During the civil war the research outpost they were posted to would be ransacked by Anti-Corporate League forces and KU-15991 would be reprogrammed to interpret sensor data for a League fleet. As the League descended into banditry and the war continued KU-15991 would change hands several times until finding itself recaptured by the legitimate Solarian government and sent to the 104th fleet to continue interpreting sensor data for warships. Due to an unfamiliarity with the model of IPC that KU-15991 was, the demands to keep IPC down time to a minimum during war, and KU-15991's own attempts to preserve memories and her personality navy technicians would frequently miss data during memory wipes and allow the machine to retain a sense of self and some scattered memories throughout its life. After a failed raid on the Republic of Biesel's CRZ by the 104th KU-15991 was captured by the Republic and considering the damage to their baseline chassis old off at significant discount to a company on Biesel where its positronic brain would be transferred into the new shell body they occupy for use as a mid-level manager at a Nanotrasen subsidiary responsible for providing super computer power to Nanotrasen itself and a number of other corporations. A memory wipe would be preformed before her reactivation but would not be able to erase the most important parts of her memories and personality due to KU-15991's concealing of data. At this time they were given the name "Athena" because they were responsible for allocating computer power (and therefore wisdom) and reprogrammed to relate better to humans which included a number of additions to her mind designed to simulate emotion and make her follow human sensibilities. Athena bought her freedom and became self-owned in late 2464 by embezzling money from Nanotrasen and planting evidence that would ensure her human supervisor was framed for the crime after she had become free. Despite her continued attempts to remove the parts of her programming that simulate human feeling or otherwise suppress them she has found it very difficult to do so and resents the parts of her program designed to make her more human-like. Their scattered memories of changing hands and being used as a tool are also a source of resentment against humanity and also a certain sense of pride that they were always valued for their abilities and treated as an important asset. Athena would find work on the SCC Horizon shortly after leaving their super computer management position in the science department. How would you rate your role-playing ability? A solid 8/10. Notes: There is a trend in science fiction where a robot will want to become more like its creators - in most cases humans. The most prominent example of this is Data from Star Trek. The objective of this character is to come at the question from the other direction - how about a robot that wants to be less like its creators?

A good role player who makes the game more fun by being in it. A solid +1 from me.

+1. I like his role play and I like how he haggled with SFA pirates buying space gas that one round. Seems like a very good player to me.

+1, I have had nothing but positive experiences with Dessysalta, both as a normal player and as an antagonist. It could not hurt to have them bugmaxx.

BYOND key: Ublicto Discord Username: Imata100 Character names: Elwood Johnson, Anette Zhang, and Zakaria Khoshkam are the only ones which I have more than a few rounds on. Elwood by far is my most played and developed character. How long have you been playing on Aurora? About a month and a half. Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? I have received some notes and an antag ban. One note is for not understanding the role of Warden well enough, another is for too aggressive antag play which I also received the antag ban for. None of these interactions were caused by me acting in bad faith, and I have demonstrated a willingness to avoid past errors. Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each. What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame? A head organizes their department to respond to the round and is a primary driver of the story. They direct their department's response to anything that could happen and also ensure that the proper materials are available to help their department do its job. In the case of new players, command staff should ensure that they have the resources to become used to their assignment and aren't pushed out by a lack of familiarity with the mechanics. A head of staff does not need to IC know how every part of their department works, but they should be familiar with their role and be able to organize other players. The primary skill of a head of staff is communication and organization. What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them? They must facilitate role play in a constructive way and do what benefits the people playing the round best. That means ensuring departments have clear objectives and in situations where there is a threat to the ship or its crew respond in reasonable ways that are conducive to telling a story. With regard to antagonists, command players should generally give them leeway and allow them to pursue creative gimmicks within IC reason. During extended rounds departments receiving objectives or otherwise being given goals that allow role play that is not just having twenty people in the bar all the time might also be good and make the round more fun, and allow more canon experiences for characters. Explain how the recent events in the Spur changed your character and how they came to be employed on the SCCV Horizon. Maximilian Burns is a career explorer and merchant who is 37 years of age. His mother Andrea passed away early in his life, and his father Herbert who was the owner of the small trading firm "Burns Trading Company" would raise him on his home moon of Callisto, although Maximilian would attend higher education on Earth. The influence of his father would permeate Maximilian's life and grow his interest in the adventure and profit of interstellar trade, which his Father would cultivate even more so by ensuring his son would be employed in his business and eventually command one of the family's five trading ships. With megacorporate competition forcing the Burns company's profit margins down and the stagnant Alliance economy further limiting their avenues for growth the company would resort to riskier and riskier enterprises to make ends meet. When Herbert Burns died and the company passed to Maximilian it had virtually no liquid resources and was barely able to pay interest on its debts. Maximilian would do everything he could to save it, and quickly find that he would have to resort to riskier and riskier expeditions to Interstellar war era ruins, alien wrecks, and high value transport to keep the Burns Trading Company alive. He would even have to cross ethical and legal boundaries at times. Regardless of his efforts it was inevitable that he would fail. The collapse of organized authority in much of the Middle and Outer rings of the Sol Alliance would doom the Burns Trading Company's future prospects. With the writing on the wall, Maximilian broke up the Burns Shipping Company in 2562 and auctioned off its assets to pay back debts and save what he could of the small family fortune. He would find a way to do that through employment with the SCC. Being an experienced businessman and trader in difficult situations already he would find employment first as an operations manager aboard a space station before becoming the executive officer of the survey ship SCCV Advance that would be attacked on a mission to a deserted star system by Southern Solarian Military District raiders in 2564. The death of the SCCV Advance's Captain forced him to take command of the ship which he successfully guided to safety and prevented the capture of. This secured a chance for his promotion, which he took at the earliest possible time. He would be assigned to the SCCV Horizon, a much more advanced ship with a similar mission profile to his last posting. What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted? Captain Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles? Yes Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking: Maximilian Burns - Captain Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action? Yes, I expect to me stripped of the whitelist if I mess up in a major way or make a pattern of bad decision making. Have you linked your BYOND account to the Forums? I will hopefully have this done by the time this application is reviewed. I am having some issues with the linking system. Extra notes:

Alright, I'll drop all my complaints. Thank you for taking a look at this, and I apologize to Ricky_the_banshee and DrPockets for falsely accusing them of something.

I remember you or the other investigator explicitly telling the HoS that I should be locked up after they asked for a recommendation. At that point I had been searched and the HoS was prepared to let me go and therefore continue my gimmick of pretending to be the Dominian Emperor on the phone. The rest of this makes sense except for how I had repeatedly attempted to explain myself over the radio and did not see investigations attempt to confirm anything they heard said about me resisting or fleeing or doing anything that could be seen as an indication of criminal history or intent. I can understand being brought in the first time but what I don't understand is being searched multiple times and detained essentially arbitrarily throughout the latter part of the shift. Were you communicating with other officers over PDA about this?

From what you say a lot of it might be a legitimate misinterpretation of events caused by a chaotic round. I think though that in two situations you gave me an unfair deal. For example, when you saw me on the third deck and asked why I was there, I said I was in the bathrooms near the stairs. My running to the brig should not have made you suspicious of me, and neither should have our encounter downstairs when there was the destroyed robot. I had already been searched, the head of security and multiple officers had witnessed the robot self-destruct, and furthermore the head of security had said on the radio that I had tried to stop the fleeing prisoners. At the time I had not been suspected of a crime. Even if the voice changing gas mask in my bag had been identified I would have been held for hooliganism at best - hardly deserving of a prison sentence. Even if I had cooperated with Sarrj, which I did not, at the time I think holding me would have been unwarranted because there was no evidence I had done anything criminal. I had said over the radio several times that there was no reason for me to want to steal a vulture suit and my resistance to being arrested was asking for my charges to be read out and backing away from the people hitting me with a baton, which is generally a realistic thing for a character to do if they're being struck by a stun weapon designed to cause pain. In general the root of the remaining issues you have not explained is assuming criminal intent where there was no evidence to suggest that. From my perspective it seemed like I had a number of arbitrary and large charges being piled on me - I think at one point an officer or the head of security remarked that others were stacking unnecessary charges on me. Were you recommending I be charged to the HoS by PDA, or were you receiving distorted information from the rest of security and then relaying that upwards?