Erik Tiber

I know, I heavily criticized his original published version of them. I pointed out that they did not make sense, and many errors with them. Then we worked together on the new version for them, and due to us taking into account stuff like the implications, they were far, far more interesting, something which both of us agreed upon. I'm perfectly willing to work on lore and actually do things this time. I would very much like to help make the lore much more interesting, and take into account what people care about. Many people I've talked to have a number of problems with the lore as currently written, and with their perception of the attitude of the lore team as a whole, so I decided that this way I would be able to more directly contribute to improving the lore.

Bump. I'm rather willing to go over this in Skype with you.

Ckey/BYOND Username: Erik Tiber Position Being Applied For (coder, mapper, spriter): Lore writer Past Experiences/Knowledge: Previous stint on the lore team. I have 2 semesters of Microeconomics and 1 semester of macroeconomics education, plus a course in American Economic History. I also have personal interest in astronomy and hard science fiction. From previous app: Examples of Past Work: The old work I did for Skrell before Delta took over, also some advice I gave to him. Other examples include the work done on the map in the map thread, including about 20 hours of research for that, as well as the work into augments and such I did for my various characters. I collaborated with CovertOddity to create the lore for the Vaurca. He did the writing, I collaborated with him on the conceptual work. This includes the nature of Vaurca society. From my previous application: Preferred Mode of Communication (Skype, Steam, etc.): Skype. I finally got the damn thing updated. I no longer have a hatred of skype, and will actually participate in the channel now, especially since Jackboot is loremaster. Additional Comments: Well, now it's the summer and I'm no longer on the verge of a panic attack from mountains of homework, nor am I in the process of nearly flunking out of half my classes like I was first semester. I would also like to think I've learned quite a bit of what not to do from my first stint with the lore team. Now that Jackboot is loremaster, and with a bunch of people urging me to rejoin the lore team, and with Jackboot (a few weeks ago IIRC) rightfully pointing out that just complaining about stuff not going my way is silly if I'm not gonna bother to use the channels provided, I've decided to reapply.

I'd personally just like it if we made it so cloning involved surgically removing the brain and placing it into the new body. Because currently I just can't take 'unclonable' permadeaths seriously, because they're just entirely arbitrary and make zero sense. Or, hell, if you want to keep cloning super convenient just have the cloning machine do it. The new clone is spawned with a brain as now, you keep the old dying body in the machine, and the brain organ is deleted from the old body. There you go. A complete disregard for internal consistency is a sign of bad writing. Given the quality of your work on the Unathi, I know for a fact you are better than this. Warhammer 40k works because it has a compelling story and a whole bunch of other things. It explicitly states that "no, this tech would not work because warp". It at least gives a handwave. It has literal chaos gods and warp fuckery to justify things. It is a theocratic regime with millions of worlds. It has worlds get lost by paperwork errors, as a direct result. In this way, it actually is cool and novel and has internal consistency. That is why it is coherent. The extreme grimderp tactics are justified enough by the extreme conditions. It actually kinda makes sense. This is why it is tolerable. This is why I can tolerate it. If you had grimderp people being grimderp for no reason, not using alien tech because of superstitions with no other reason, and losing entire worlds to paperwork errors when everyone comes equiped with supercomputers which they routinely use, then you have an absolute disaster of inconsistent garbage. It is not a spoopy mystery, it's a forced, absolutely arbitrary thing that makes no sense at all. If it had to do with Bluespace breaking something, I would be interested. This, no, I am not. The change itself is pointless and arbitrary, and does not fit with what we already have with cloning. There are better options besides. If we're using 40k comparisons, you're basically saying "Yeah, the Tau have suddenly started worshiping the Orks as gods". Because it has just as much justification under the current lore. Warhammer has the warp, and warp fuckery. You have no justification at all for this, it is literally out of the blue. The mystery is just... pointless. And makes no sense. The only justufication I can even think of is "This is actually 40k, there are actual souls and actual gods", and turn this setting into apparent space fantasy. I do not want this. I doubt any others do. I like mysteries if they're done well. That means that you can actually have a debate and there might actually be different possibilities at play. Here, that is not the case. It is done quite horribly. You have a better alternative. Just. Do a simple change. People change brains. No need for completely arbitrary changes with poor writing. People do actually get bothered by this stuff. It's not like you can just go and make everything arbitrary and completely ignore all rhyme and reason of effort and research and attention to detail. Because people appreciate that. It's basic stuff. It's extremely basic stuff. The fact that this simple fact is ignored, constantly, consistently, is very, very, very silly, and that fact should seriously change.

I would like to remind you that the amount of decent coders (No offence but the third party help we have had recently has been very rushed half complete work) People have been talking about things for years. Go look on the old forums. hundereds of ideas have not gone in because of the amount of suggestions and walls we have gained. Not every idea will be implemented and large one (like making a new species with it's own looks, organs, abilities, and disadvantages. Changing one jobs main function) take time. Then it becomes a case of time V effort = reward? Before you 'officially complain' look at it from out side. I'm not gonna deny that, it's definitely work. My contention was the idea that "nobody wanted this". People do want it and people have wanted it. I'm not gonna complain that I didn't get it before now. I never assed myself into actually making a thread for it. Now one is made, so I'm gonna just second this one. However, Delta is wrong if he's trying to say that nobody wants this. Idea. We could make prosthetic options for the groin, chest, head, and brain. Then along with 'normal', 'amputated', and 'prosthesis', we add the option 'synthskin prosthesis'. For the brain, we could give them options like "Organic", "MMI", and "Completely Synthetic". What do you think? Soundscopes, what about you?

I would also like to officially complain about the lack of options for prostheses. And the lack of prosthetic bodies. I have been talking about these things for literal months. Many people can attest to this.

No, no no no no. It's completely arbitrary. No. Please god no. Just no. There are better alternatives. Far better alternatives. Already, there's the problem presented by the fact that cloning doesn't actually bring someone back to life and it's just a new copy of the old body, while you leave the old brain to rot. It would be better to make it such that you don't clone brains, just bodies, and you remove old brains from the old body and replace it into a new, cloned body. Bam, there, death is now viable. No need for arbitrary and utterly artificial limits. I can not take such an arbitrary limit seriously, because it could so easily be avoided, and because the limits make no sense. They have an extremely in-depth understanding of biology because they are able to 3d-print a new body. They would know if something were killing the clone. They would understand what was happening. Cloning, as it currently exists, implies an extremely advanced level of tech. Which is part of why I would suggest, you know, making it so you just clone bodies rather than brains, because 'nondestructive upload' tech is so mindblowingly goddamn advanced as presented in-game.

You probably could somehow make people more likely to care. This is, quite obviously, not one of those ways. In a similar way to how the solution to a headache is not amputation.

Thank you!

How is it even emulating an anime? Why is that supposed to be derisive? It's not like Ghost in the Shell was the first to think of this. Okay, so you can make a skin-like covering to prostheses. Why wouldn't people use that for their prostheses? Why wouldn't IPC's be able to gain a human-esque chassis? Why wouldn't people be able to get prosthetic bodies? The restrictions are entirely arbitrary and limit roleplay while offering nothing in return. There's no reason for them to be there. So why are they there? The new variant would include IPC's within the larger category. They're just a synthetic with a certain shape of chassis. This doesn't even have the abilities of an AI anyway, because the AI can run large portions of the station. The station is their body, the AI is the brain. It's apples and oranges. Cyborgs have full access. They can be given advantages over shells. We can say they're more utilitarian in their design. The shells are designed for aesthetics, and for a human appearance. Of course they'd be less effective than an industrial machine with wheels or legs. We can improve cyborgs or robots.

Imma just second what Jamini wrote. Also like. Brosky they're sorta right on their points.

Notably, though, if someone does scan the person they will just receive something about them being robotic. Examining them, if they're injured, should reveal that they have robotic body parts. But eeeeh, I'd be too happy about the new shells to be too bothered by the liney limbs. I just personally would prefer if the joints looked normal, and there were some other manner of indicating their roboticity. But like, who knows? Maybe that can be something for the customization options. *shrugs*

I'm gonna bump this.

Acel was also Lockie's first crush on station, and the first crush that she actually remembers since her accident. But when she actually told him her feelings, as it turns out he was already engaged to Samara Davidson or something. Then they sorta weren't as close, but were still friends. Acel was with Samara. Lockie was with Vincent Capriello, and then Izemut. Right before the call came in, Acel and Lockie met to have coffee one last time, the first time in about four or five months that they had actually sat down to talk. Acel told Lockie how he had divorced Samara recently, but he was still as chipper as ever, as he had always been, even in the worst of it. Lockie had just left Izemut the day before. That's when Acel told Lockie that he might be transferring. A few days later, Acel pages Lockie. He'd like to meet her again, for something important. As it turns out, it'd be their last meeting for a long while.

BYOND Key: ErikTiber Character name: Lachina Green Item name: Acel's Lighter Why is your character carrying said item to work? Let me regale you with the tale of Acel's lighter. One fine day at work, a detective by the name of Rick Rose was hitting on Lockie Green. She did not appreciate this. When he later entered the medbay, injured, he was stripped of his clothing for surgery. At this time, Lockie took the liberty of taking the lighter out of his pocket and throwing it down disposals out of spite. Unbeknownst to Lockie, an engineer by the name of Acel Delrico found the lighter, and took it for his own use. Later that shift, Lockie decided to go and visit engineering on a lark. She was new to the station, so she wanted to get to know the crew. While in the lobby, she met a crew member by the name of Acel Delrico, a french-speaking engineer. He mentioned that he had found a zippo lighter down in disposals. Laughing, Lockie mentioned that she had thrown that very same lighter down disposals before, and explained why. Fast forward to the end of the shift. Due to some accident or other, the entire station was evacuated to the mining outpost. It was chaos. Wounded were everywhere. And in the chaos, Acel had lost his lighter. Once the wounded were dealt with, Lockie absently reached into her pocket, before realizing that she had Acel's lighter with her. She decided to return it to him. Acel kept that lighter. Over the next eight months, Acel and Lockie grew to be close friends. Though after a few months they seemed to simply lose contact. However, towards the end, they started meeting up again. Whenever she asked, Acel still had that same old lighter. No matter what happened, he always seemed to have it on him. Word came in that Acel was transferring to another station. Acel gave her back the old, beaten up lighter as a memento to remember him by. Lockie indirectly gave that lighter to Acel right before they first met. So it's only fitting that Acel would give it back to her when he left. It had great sentimental value to both of them. Lockie doesn't smoke herself, but she's likely to keep a hold of that lighter, as a memento. Item function(s): Just a normal zippo lighter. Item description: A zippo lighter. The name Rose is scratched out on the side, with Delrico carved into the metal over it. Item appearance: A worn zippo lighter with a small amount of text carved into it. Below it is another small amount of scratched-out text. Additional comments: First custom item app. This item is a pure coincidence, it came about purely through in-game events and luck. The story was completely out of my control. The sentimental significance only came about due to player actions and was completely natural. That's why I think this would make a great custom item. The fact that Lockie doesn't smoke, but that she still carries around a lighter, would also probably carry some significance.

I fail to see how this is at all snowflakey. This is simply for people who want to play characters with prosthetic bodies or some robot attempting to more easily interact with people. How is it snowflakey? This is for exploring transhumanist themes. This isn't for racial tension RP. They could realistically create these shells already. ICly these should exist, there is no reason that they would not, they are well within the capability of the tech for these to be centuries old already. I'm not sure what snowflake is even supposed to mean in this context. I don't want to make it to angst about people who lost their body or whatever. I personally want to play someone who voluntarily gave up their flesh for superior hardware. I'd say that these shells could add more to the station than Tajara do, or Skrell. I'd rather like to blur the line between organic and synthetic.

I absolutely love this idea. This is perfect. This is great. We can make them identifiable upon examination by... I dunno. Dataports at the back of the neck? Perhaps something functional, but which could possibly be hidden? This is logically something that can already be done. It's simply putting into mechanics what has every reason to exist ICly. I want post-cyberpunk so fucking bad. Jesus Christ I do. So bad. No need. These would have logically been around since about the time when they made MMI'd cyborgs, and even then, androids would have likely been vaguely human in appearance for quite a while on their own.

ICly, cloning has a chance of failure (from ghosts not coming back to their bodies or refusing to be cloned). Yet that already seems to have little impact on how people perceive death - due to this reason, I find it hard to believe making the cloning process harder would achieve much besides annoying people who want to be cloned. It would not just be making it harder, it would give it a larger chance of failure. Your option will annoy everyone who wants to be cloned, therefore that is not a valid criticism. You are going to piss off everyone who dies and wants to be revived. This would do that less. This would also make more sense ICly and would be a gigantic improvement in that respect. Currently, cloning, ICly, has no logical chance of failure due to backups and previous backups. You will NOT have the database fail enough to wipe out all of someone's backups. That's simply not gonna happen and it's utterly contrived. As of now death makes very little sense as long as nondestructive uploads remain. Someone has some godmodded RP where they die of a stroke? You should be able to just revive them or fix them up. If you godmod them to die, you can logically clone them from backlogs. And if one backlog is corrupt, you clone from one of the other, non-corrupted backups. It's not like their backups will all happen to be uniquely corrupted, or that they wouldn't test them out or check them for corruption. It's arbitrary in the extreme if they end up dying. By actually having you switch brains, you remove nondestructive uploading and it's still the same person. It's a separate change but it's still a good one. It means that cloning is treated similar to... say, a medical procedure, similar to the life-saving process. I would like it if you had more measures in place before cloning so that cloning's use would be cut down considerably. Not really, because people never get borged on death. It's not something people think of, borgings only tend to happen on valid participants or antags (never seen an antag being borged on Aurora though), and being turned into a borg changes the personality of the character entirely in most cases, thus making it difficult to compare to cloning. It doesn't have to. Give them a prosthetic body without intentionally lobotomizing them and you'll have a vaguely similar result to cloning. If you remove cloning, medical will just borg everyone or store their brains in cryo or something. Or at least they should, rather than leaving them to die, because even with significant personality changes that's better than death altogether.

Except it's hard to design anything "difficult" to do in SS13. Either it's difficult until you learn how to do it and after that it's an absolute breeze, or it's difficult enough (low success chance, materials are hard to get) that it would still exist ICly/OOCly to make death feel "cheap", while having little to no gameplay impact (people don't even get to benefit from it). You are wrong. It would not still make death cheap. It has a chance of not working based on brain damage. Death is less cheap by including a lower chance of success. You would not be able to go straight back into roleplay like nothing happened. It would have a large impact on roleplay, on behavior, on how your character acts. Hell, having their brain cut into and modified, and actually just flat-out acknowledging this, with permanent functional changes, is a major thing. That's not making death cheap at all. Is getting borged 'making death cheap'? :/ It's a huge change, and you're seeing the issue in black and white. It isn't.

People are dying in droves, yes. But even from a HRP standpoint, how many of those people do get cloned, and are glad they got cloned simply because their death was stupid and they would've liked to keep playing in the round? I won't say it ever happens (because it does), but outside of the times where you die as collateral to antags (in which case your chances of being cloned are relatively lower than usual due to antag shenanigans), you shouldn't die randomly a lot. Like, yes, a random virus kills you, or it's your first time playing in engineering and you release all the plasma/walk into the singulo. But after a year of playing, I can count on one hand the number of times I've died to [utter bullshit]. In general, if you play in a manner that requires daily cloning for you to be able to simply enjoy HRP, you're probably doing something wrong. This sounds more like a lore/new mechanic suggestion than anything else. Allowing characters to continue their round after dying in other ways (short of borging) does not address the problem this suggestion seeks to corner. That's what you're talking about anyway. And the concern is people not having death be final enough. Currently death is silly and makes no sense, it's almost always contrived whenever I see it happen at least. If you want death to have more impact, you make it more difficult to be ICly revived and make it more likely that you'll suffer consequences. This does address that probolem.

I would like it if, instead of the current setup, you allowed people to surgically remove the brain of a patient, print a new body, then place the brain into the new body. Brain damage means they have amnesia, keeping CMD, and you can include some debilitating gameplay effects or other. I would personally like this. I do not think that current justifications for death are at all realistic and they are all easily circumvented. Scans are data. You can back that up. You can probably check them for integrity. You can do them multiple times in a single session. The idea that you can just, whoops, have one be corrupted out of nowhere, and then lose literally all logs, is extremely silly. Allowing for surgical brain transfer allows for RP death, increases chance of unrecoverability in personnel too. And it means that you're actually trying to save the same person, rather htan letting them die, letting their still-living brain slowly rot and eat itself, and just making a new shiny replacement becuase that's easier. That's basically what you currently do in-game by deciding to clone rather than borg someone's brain. It's quite terrifying if you actually think about it. This option is not. Alternatively, finally introduce prosthetic bodies. Alternatively, if you must have a different gameplay experience, simply make it such that you can cryonically preserve a brain for future treatment at a later date, taking them out of the round but not RPly killing them. Also, you should make it such that you inflict progressive brain damage over time, but portions of the brain can be either recovered or, past a certain damage point, replaced with prostheses. This, absolutely this. I would love this. I would love it if my character's near death experience from their backstory could be reenacted in character. The current health system makes people far, far, far too fragile. We could make it revolve around brain death. Introduce actual cryotherapy that cools down the body for extended periods and decreases damage over long periods (like 20 minutes or 10 minutes) after removal, like in current-day cryotherapy. We could also make it such that, say, it's more integrated and less arbitrary.

BYOND Key: Erik Tiber Character Names: Lachina Green, Zheng Lu, Wang Shui, Purnama LNU, Mongwa Kirongozi, Chandrakanta Bhattacharya, Abideme Debiri How long have you been playing on Aurora: Since mid august of 2014. So nine months. Species you are applying to play: IPC What color do you plan on making your first alien character (Dionaea & IPCs exempt): 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: I want to play an IPC because of the opportunities they offer. They are simply an artificial intelligence housed in a positronic computer, which is housed inside a chassis. The possibilities for their backstories are near-limitless. In my opinion, many of these options are still completely unexplored. So I decided to go and explore what a new physical existence would be like for an info-morph used to a solely virtual existence. Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: IPC's aren't humans, and they have almost none of the limitations humans do. They are simply different. Humans are one set of options and possibilities, many cut off to IPCs, while IPC's are another. IPC's can have almost any background. They can have almost any personality or psychology. They can have very novel psychologies. They do not need to have a sense of self-preservation. They do not even need to have a sense of empathy. They can be perfect sociopaths even. It's easier to list what makes them similar than what makes them different. Character Name: Choi Hyun Please provide a short backstory for this character, approximately 2 paragraphs Hyun was created on February 3, 2440, as a fork of the AI Choi Seong. Seong's reasons for doing this were unclear, though it is likely linked to Seong's continued mental degredation. Seong had no contact with Hyun after their creation, save for providing them with 500 credits in an online account and a 14 day lease with a data farm. Their only directive was "Assist". Following this relatively rocky start, Hyun was soon hired by an advertising firm, then known as Kim Media Consultants, based out of the New Novosibirsk Orbital in geosynchronous orbit, a polity infamous for its status as a tax haven. Hyun slowly climbed the corporate ladder until reaching the status of Vice President of Human Resources. In 2448, following a series of Alliance inquiries, the owner of the company company (now renamed to Cheong and Associates) was arrested for money laundering and tax evasion, and their assets were seized. Soon after the company was dissolved and Hyun was out of a job. After immigrating to the Antarctic Free States, Hyun took up a job as a freelance 'journalist', working for a number of unscrupulous online tabloids, employing a number of rudimentary VI's to write clickbait articles for them. Although it was a comfortable and secure existence, it was merely a means to an ends. Hyun enrolled in a number of online courses, in order to help them in assisting people. In 2456, after receiving a very extensive but very shallow general education, Hyun emigrated to Tau Ceti in search of greater economic opportunities, such that they would be able to earn more money and thus gain more resources at their disposal to become even more effective in rendering assistance. What do you like about this character? I like their originality. Roleplaying as them should be an interesting experience. I plan on joining as an entry level assistant and becoming a jack of all trades but master of none. They will be able to assist most people in most things, but their assistance will always be minor. They will also be dealing with the novel experience of actually having a physical body, something which they are not used to. How would you rate your role-playing ability? No clue. 7/10? That's what I've gathered from what others say. Notes: This is my first app, I hope it goes well!

+1. Ryfer is a good roleplayer. I've seen them make interesting and complex characters, like Acel, who also don't just go overboard all the time and break down constantly (ha self-depreciating humor). They also seem to have a rather nice idea of the potential applications for an IPC, and I would personally like to see them actually use this type of character to its full potential.

Alright, here's some work that was done on future trends. The National Intelligence Council's Global Trends 2030: Alternate Worlds. An economist article on the proposed East African Federation. An Alliance 21 publication on a few alternate scenarios for economic development in the 21st century. These are generally in line with what I've read on the topic. Some sources on global warming. [https://marine.rutgers.edu/pubs/private/HortonQSR_2013.pdf]From Science Direct[/url]. From the Guardian. Generally speaking the lower the estimate the more realistic and 'plausible'. There's nothing wrong with fudging it to give yourself more sea level rise, just be aware that you are, in fact, fudging it. Also, do take note of the effects of heat on, well, habitability. If the "Wet bulb" temperature of an area is over 35 degrees (this is a measurement that takes into account humidity as well as temperature) at its peak in summer, then that area will become temporarily uninhabitable to humans outside of air conditioning. So take this into account when writing about an area.Here's a source on the issue. Here's the wikipedia page listing megalopolises. Do note that you'll also need a list of the largest cities/metro areas in Africa too, because those are likely to more than quadruple in population by 2100. So yeah, make sure to accurately represent Africa. It'll probably end up having like 33%-40% of the world's population. Just PM or post if you want sources on border changes too. I found like four or five different maps for new borders in the middle east.

There's a few google docs of stuff I did research for, I can give links to sources I used and links to these docs too if you'd like. I will also readily admit that fudging has definitely occurred. Would totally be all for this. Yeah, unsure of where else to put a major European megacity though. If one were to form, that seems like a rather likely place. Yeah, this seems a bit unlikely IMO. They could probably be part of like. Uh. Maybe the Central Asian Union? Or Arab Community? That's supposed to be more a community of independent nations. I never got around to editing Cating's version to include individual national borders. Would totally be fine with changing this. Would also be fine with changing this personally. I'm assuming that a big part of the secession of Siberia would be motivated by the fact that those areas are now majority ethnic Chinese. Would totally be fine with changing that. Darfur I'm assuming it's in the aftermath of a disintegration of Pakistan, wherein Sindhudesh and Balochistan both gained independence. Assuming that both were granted autonomy as equal members with China in a newly-formed URC, after civil unrest lead to the dissolution of the Federal Republic of China. It's an improvement over the map with 100 meters of sealevel rise. I'd persoanlly be fine with, say, a bit of the flooding in inland China being prevented by some huge sea-wall or other.