Erik Tiber

I see nothing wrong with cross-training. I see absolutely no reason for anyone to complain about a character's skills if they're average or below on the 'skill' page, the only possible grey area would be for characters with skill levels above that, and even then I'm not gonna make sweeping generalizations. ...I mainly just want to see more 40-something or 50-somethings, since those should basically be young adults still anyway. But I find it a bit silly to complain so much about cross training. I have a character with amateur close combat, weapons, and forensics, from their criminal background, plus moderate engineering knowledge and advanced knowledge of information systems and complex devices. And they're 39. I'm definitely not in a position to complain about cross training.

It would be better if it were somehow.... able to maintain even a modicum of subtlety. Maybe say "centcom suspects that some sleeper agents from a radical Tajaran terrorist organization have infiltrated the crew, search all the Tajaran" or something like that. Something which isn't explicit in being discriminatory and actually has something approaching a reasonable motivation.

Like Katelynn McMullen. That's what she has? I didn't know we already had players doing this. That's pretty cool!

Well sure, if they're a bioconservative they could just forgo certain treatments on philosophical grounds and end up choosing to die early. Or perhaps they could have a kilswitch installed to cause their own deaths once they reach a certain age, like you can get in Eclipse Phase. For others, you could give them the option of living much longer, yeah. On a related note, you'd probably see some treatment or other for menopause, which combined with iron wombs really removes the age limit on having children, as well as many of the limitations associated with it. For example, you can still go to work on the rather hazardous work environment of the Aurora without putting the fetus in danger. As for varying media of life, Lockie is sorta an example of one possible variety. She had a good portion of her brain replaced with mechanical prostheses, somewhere in the ballpark of half, in addition to having all her major sensory organs replaced as well. You could also have stuff such as, say, a person in a fully prosthetic body (likely designed to appear outwardly human), or a person with a fully prosthetic brain in a (mostly) organic body. Such a person could originate as either someone who opted for a gradual destructive upload, or a synthetic who opted for an organic body. Cryoxodone and clonexadone would make so much sense as nanotech. They only activate at low temperatures. Temperature is the primary limiter on how quickly nanobots can operate. If they move too fast, heat builds up to the point where they shake themselves apart. Therapeutic hypothermia is already used to prolong the life of cardiac arrest victims, and it would also cool down nanomachines, letting them operate more quickly.

Eh, from what I've heard there's some super fishy things with their methodology, and the original experiment which showed the drive getting pushed by nothing was really just the engine being pushed by environmental forces which they failed to isolate the drive from.

Originally read about this onthis thread. Chinese scientists just admitted to tweaking the genes of human embryos for the first time in history Business Insider Read more The future is now! Woooooo!

I'd certainly imagine. I have a 62 year old security officer who looks like he's just on the cusp of middle age and is able to act just fine as a fit security officer, and his only augment is a pacemaker. We have had people naturally live to 120 years of age. We'd have had centuries to research how the genetics of that works, identify how various genes could contribute to lifespan. We're already identifying several genes which correlate with significantly lengthened lifespan, and in game you have supercomputers, AI's, computation technology which is certainly advanced enough to significantly contribute to genetics research and research in general. You wouldn't need to resort to distributed computation schemes like the protein folding distributed supercomputer run by Stanford. You could run something with maybe even a million times the power of that on the highest-end supercomputers in-universe. You'd be able to get probably at least a thousand times as much computing power out of silicon, maybe even ten thousand, and then there's quantum computers (which Positronic computers are IIRC), there's light-based computing, there's graphene, diamondoid materials... and you have so many more resources now anyway, so it's not like you'd be wanting for space. EDIT: Really, you may well see 40 year olds be considered 'young adults' similar to modern 30 somethings or late 20 somethings. 50 and 60 year olds could be considered the equivalent of 30 somethings, and when you hit 70 you're now considered 'middle aged'. In my opinion, such a different society could be very interesting to consider. That's part of why I like science fiction, because you get to look at a world different from the modern day and see how such a society functions. How would you respond to such a society? How would you act? There is an awful lot of talk about making things more interesting for kplayers, or less boring. It's why we have the alien species. What about making humans equally interesting?

The current average lifespan is 85 in many first world nations. Current projections put us at having a lifespan of at least 90+ in first world nations by 2100, not accounting for technological advances. You'd realistically be able to easily see people living well over 120 years, even without replacing literally all their parts with mechanical replacements. You can clone any bodypart you need. Organ replacement should be as casual as something like, say, getting a hip replacement. We have regenerative membrane too, alkysine, cryotherapy, MMI's and the ability to create fully prosthetic bodies... this implies an in-depth knowledge of the workings of the brain and the human body. If all else fails, you could just excise the brain of the patient anyway and put it into a new body. The extent of the cloning and gengineering tech implies a level of knowledge of human anatomy such that they could easily be made to produce stem cells for people and use that to help prolong their lives. Just produce new stem cells from the patient's body, you could probably use that on so many different injuries to help them recover. How are these people dying anyway? Looking at a chart on Wiki, 29.4% of deaths are from cardiovascular disease, 23.04% from infectious and parasitic diseases, 12.49% from cancers, 6.49% from respiratory diseases, 6.23% from unintentional accidents, 3.45% from digestive diseases, 2.84% from intentional injuries, and a bunch of others. You can grow a new heart. You have centuries of research into infectious diseases and should have a very in-depth understanding of virology by this point, you'd almost certainly see a major drop in mortality there. Cancers, you can clone new organs entirely and even then people have likely developed vaccines for many major varieties of cancer. You can replace any part of the body, or even all of it. Just take out the patient's brain and put it in a new body. Brain cancer would be the major threat there. Respiratory diseases, you can create new lungs entirely, or use prosthetic lungs. We basically have the capability, in game, for non-destructive mind uploading. People can scan brains and make new copies of that brain. That implies an immense amount of knowledge regarding neurology and how the brain functions. We can create an entire prosthetic body, see cyborgs. We have alkysine and other medicines. And we can clone literally any part of the body which is damaged beyond repair, or just replace it with a superior mechanical prosthesis. These prostheses, also interface with nerves and the brain. We have MMI's too. So really, the question is "How would people manage to die so early?" It's also pretty heavily implied that we're using some form of nanotech in medical on a routine basis. Bone gel, regenerative membrane, nanopaste. Some of the medicines from chemistry function as nanotech in all but name, like alkysine, or cryoxodone, or dylovene, or peridaxon. This is centuries in the future, with people colonizing multiple star systems, with massive advances in worker productivity to boot. The primary limiter to lifespan would be expense, not the science. With enough money you'd probably be able to make someone functionally immortal with this level of tech, or at least give them a long enough lifespan that you won't be finding out what their 'expected lifespan' is for the next couple centuries. Well, in this case you already have genetic engineering, augmentaiton to extend shelf life, nanotech, various other tech advances. You'd reasonably be able to extend the shelflife of the brain by a significant amount.

Eh, why are they using 400 year old guns and armor? We could just give them something like what you see in the movie avatar. Rather than explicitly calling them Kevlar, we could call them something like "Ballistic Armor" or "Ballistic Covering" and maybe have them look sorta like these. Or just something else that looks like semi-rigid armor, without going full Halo and using flat-out metal plates. We could say it incorporates nanomaterials into the armor. And for the guns, we could maybe just give them some new names, or generic ones. And maybe look like this. Or something else, hopefully bullpup, that doesn't look exactly like either a modern rifle or a cardboard box with a handle. Having windows into space at all is pretty silly. The windows need to withstand getting hit by a small micrometeorite with the KE of a bullet, as standard practice. They're already very bulletproof. An actual bullet isn't too much of a danger, really. Just make them hollowpoint bullets if you have to.

I'd like it if you could make skin or white colored prostheses. Skin colored prostheses would be very nice to have as an option. If a character doesn't want to visibly show their prostheses, then they would have this as an option. It should be perfectly technically possible to create convincing synthskin coverings, and it would provide a useful option for RP.

I personally don't think that Nanotrasen should be a political organization and should just say a megacorp. One which tries to at least put a figleaf on its actions. For example, such as in the round I was just in, you wouldn't have an ERT just shoot a prisoner in the face when they're not a threat and in front of so many witnesses. You would have them at least try to, well, hide the fact that they're murdering someone and at least institute some plausible deniability. I also seriously do not get why a megaocorporation would even be considered to jointly govern anything. It seems just extremely silly to me, I much prefer when they simply, well, use way more plausible methods like subverting the existing government or something like that. I like it when NT is subtly evil. Evil is fine. Just, I don't want it to be so blatant. I like cyberpunk. But even then people still put up appearances.

Yes, you could have a massive variety of potential IPC's. Pretty much the only constant is that they're self-aware AI's in mobile chassis. You could have differently shaped sprites, possibly, dependent upon the machine's aesthetics. It's not like there'd be all that many technical limitations on mere aesthetic appearance. Your machine's appearance could say quite a bit about who they are. Or at least, people could use it to prejudge them. Maybe you could even make some choices regarding body shape. After all, we have prosthetic limbs for humans. I found that Aaron Beck's art was really helpful with this. Potential Medic bot: A vaguely more human-esque medic-bot with a synthskin mouth. An obvious synthetic with a pretty convincing-looking fully expressive face, for the purposes of social interaction. This could imply an awful lot about how that machine feels about humans. Or it could simply be them attempting to more easily facilitate social interaction. Maybe the cyborg is a budding anthropologist. Maybe it's programmed for social interaction and has something vaguely resembling a simulated sense of empathy. Or maybe it's sociopathically choosing to adopt this chassis because of the utility of manipulating facial expression in a social context when dealing with humans. A machine with a more utilitarian design. Just ignore that armor plate over its neck. Or why have a face? Why not a camera ball? What do you think?

I want my 4-hours-of-sleep-a-night space cyborg to work doubleshifts. Yes.

Aha I'm older than you! I'm older than all of you! Aha! Erm, clothed 19 year old non-druggie. Who has played when I should have been doing homework.

I'm going to second this. I think that you're referring to the minor RP crimes Cassy is always referring to, right?

It's not really the issue of semantics at all , more an issue of honesty or the lack thereof. If people keep yelling down others talking of civility, then it's obvious that what they really want, whether they admit it or not, is to have the 'complainers' quiet down and stop causing conflict period, regardless of the validity of a complaint. People, such as in Jaker's recent post and even yours, whp go and dismiss both sides as somehow equally wrong and claim the moral highground, are counterproductive to any discussion, even moreso than the 'hostility' which these posts decry.

I would like this for Lockie. We don't need anything, well, crazy like any implanted lasers or something like that. But the ability to have a cortical stack or other manner of neural implant would be great. We could have auricular (ear) implants too, and the ability to have our robotic limbs be flesh colored (like in ghost in the shell) if we wanted. Oh, and possibly data ports at the back of the neck, and robotic lungs or kidneys. And then we could include interesting new options for antags. They could focus on things other than just robusting. Maybe hack someone's augments to see through their eyes (analagous to an existing genetics superpower), or an antag ability to broadcast their thoughts to their team(with some way to counter and block the signal). They could focus mainly on enabling nonlethal takedowns, perhaps.

I am inclined to agree with this. I don't think it's something that can be resolved in one complaint. At least, not properly. But, I do want to keep poking this matter. The Mods and Admins are having a meeting on Saturday to discuss a few things. The incidents in question, and more precisely, how the complaints were handled will be discussed as well. I promise you, the staff are not seeing eye to eye on either account, and as such, we'll be addressing those concerns and problems that they raise. As per every meeting, minutes will be posted as a minimum. I just hope that my move above isn't seen as empty. As I noted in my original post on this thread, at the top of the page, moves like this take planning. Because what's called into question is the modus operandi, and there are flaws pointed out with it. These are not things we are going to change on a whim, nor in the middle of a complaint. Changing this will go through public review, will go through public debate. It's not seen as empty by me, don't worry. There is a reason why the comments like the one you posted above get deleted. They're not conductive to dialogue because of the way you present them. This goes past tone policing - the simple fact is that you won't get a straight answer out of a person by riling them up. Thus snide remarks end up being removed, because they do little more than start flame wars. And yes, you can say that people need to toughen up, and accept what you have to say at face value, no matter how rude you might be while saying it. But the truth is they simply won't, and you can't do anything about that. So you are the one that needs to adapt, in the end. If you don't, you're simply posting here to hear yourself speak. Do note that as one of the people most concerned regarding tone policing, I'm seconding your post here. Let me clarify one thing. And understand my intention is not to discredit your post nor to poke holes in it. I just want to make sure that this point is not misunderstood. FFrances is not in the running for Head Administrator position. No person who is not actively a member of staff will ever be considered for Head Administrator. As it stands, she is an applicant to become Moderator, and the previous Head Administrator. Also, the animal noises on TS are made by me and ChrisCa usually <.< >.> Also thanks for clarifying this, and I totally think you're handling this very well given the circumstances.

Lockie is a good character up until she starts screaming, and once she starts screaming she doesn't stop. It's usually directed against members of security, during an alert, when she should be doctoring. The only known way to contain SCP-69 "the Screecher" is to utilize flashes or other "stop" equipment. I mean she's a good doctor and character, she just gets waaaaaaaay too goofy with anger. I remember when she was standing in the medbay entrance arguing with a security guard while corpses and injured were being shuffled in and out, and she refused orders left and right until someone had to flash her and drag her to the brig. Thanks for the feedback! To be honest that's me letting my OOC aggravation bleed out into my IC behavior. I'm gonna really try to work on that. And please, do feel free to point out if I'm not improving in that regard!

If I might suggest something? I'd suggest the "deadspace" location the vox jump to be a sort of station, a conglomeration of ships that have docked to one-another, akin to an ever-shifting city with various vox from each ship intermingling and bartering/trading between various raids/trading missions. Having the "Inviolate" would essentially be a code Vox follow so that they do not damage each-others ships while docked to the these 'arkships'. Vox would, as a rule, simply apply it to the Meat Arkships by convention, and would expect that the meats do the same to them. (up until they don't.) ... would you like to collaborate on the writeup perhaps? I'd be interested in sharing some ideas. I'm rather a fan of the Vox. That sounds like an absolutely great line of thinking in regards to the Vox. I really like it when people go into why that culture is the way it is. I'm very fascinated by how the Vox might view their own culture in such a normative manner and simply apply their own values to the humans like that. It seems very interesting. Oooh, you could also probably discuss things such as, say, how their environment shaped their culture. They live in space, in an environment where you need to really maintain your equipment. They seem to act in the background of society rather than openly, so maybe some of their behaviors are partially designed to keep a low profile (Perhaps using technologies which minimize their heat emissions, or by using more discrete methods of communication like sending dead-drop probes on long period orbits, and having them be intercepted at a predetermined point by other Vox. Or using such secretive methods to deliver sensitive cargo). They might also navigate their ships in a certain manner in order to make it harder for people to pinpoint the locations of their arcships. And maybe the coordination needed to stay semi-secretive is all executed in such a manner that people simply mistake it as them being stupid bird gypsies doing stupid bird gypsy things.

Yeah, I'd personally agree with that analysis. Sorry for some of my comments on OOC Konfliqt, I let my frustration bleed over. I'm more wondering at why the Nuke Ops decided to detonate the nuke when they did. I heard it was due to the crew not following their demands, but I don't know what those demands were, and they didn't seem to be communicated very effectively. I could see how they'd be annoyed at all the people talking back to the heavily armed terrorists over comms of course, but still. Also, as a side note, I thought it was absolutely hilariosu when I saw a nuke op walking by medbay. I decided to have Lockie not notice at all, because I thought that would be absolutely hilarious, and just lol'd so hard when I saw a janitor pass by them. It was like they were going full Bolivian Fire Drill. And when I laughed about it in LOOC apparently nobody around me noticed the person in the blood red hardsuit. Oh god their reactions were hilarious.

I actually can't see how Bokaza was metagrudged against on a personal level. Complaints made against him were made following certain convictions or beliefs, which puts him in the exact same situation Sue has been in, with the only difference being you don't think Bokaza deserved any of these complaints, while you think Sue did. The difference is that Sue has repeatedly engaged in repeated borderline or outright grief and has an extremely hostile attitude towards anyone that slights her. I'm unsure of how Bokaza's character going and acting as a security officer is at all comparable to going and shooting restrained suspects, repeatedly going Dirty Harry as the detective, and consistently engaging in absurd levels of police brutality and then justifying it as a character quirk. If you can't see the difference, you would need to be either completely disbelieving of the testimony of everyone in that thread, in which case they're all lying for some reason, or you'd have to be willfully ignorant. I'm not implying that, but I am pointing out that she has engaged in rather egregious behavior in the past and so far, it seems, people have felt reluctant to come forward with complaints. I'm not saying the administration as a whole is crooked, or asserting the existence of a conspiracy. It's just that people simply do not want to put out complaints about her, because they don't want to be retaliated against by her. Or because of differing attitudes and differing tolerances from different behaviors from different players. As others have mentioned, if it was a bald that did this, they'd be job banned. If it was some new player, they'd be job banned. Because the behavior is frankly absurd. People are speaking up about being upset, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing bad about the act of making complaints alone - what I would like to discuss is why people feel the need to make these complaints, because there are a lot of behaviors I'm seeing go heavily criticized that I don't think should be criticized. And I'd like to see if I'm alone in thinking that way. I might be. If I am, that's too bad. But until I'm proven that I'm the only person remaining on the server to think that way, I'm going to try my best to defend these users, because I believe the way they're being treated is unfair. I'm unsure of how it's unworthy of complaint if she's been showing a pattern of misbehavior and letting OOC rage get in the way of IC conduct. Including disobeying orders, regularly killing or using lethal force with little to no justification, using lethal force repeatedly as a detective in direct contravention of SOP, and an incredibly hostile attitude. Her entire counterargument consisted of calling everyone else a sore-loser who didn't like getting outrobusted. You didn't see this as problematic, and yet you're complaining about a personal attack against you because someone said they were disappointed? In the thread, it was really nothing but you engaging in poor faith debating and defending them despite literally everyone bringing up bad interactions they had with her. It's quite obvious to see that you're biased in her favor, given that you're repeatedly equivocating two blatantly different things and completely glossing over Sue's entire history, dismissing all counterarguments as some manner of metagrudging hivemind, and expecting that everyone just happen to have logs of everything on hand. You're holding her to a double standard.

That doesn't really represent the problem well :/ A certain category of players has been catching a lot of flak recently for reasons I feel are unjust. This does not mean there's anything inherently wrong with the complaints system, simply that people don't seem to be agreeing on how the game should be played. Except it is rather dishonest of you to imply that Sue's behavior is at all comparable to Bokaza. One is someone who got metagrudged, the other one is a player who has had chronically problematic behavior, who's so far had the advantage of being one of the more popular members. There is a common factor, that being the inconsistency with which actions are punished. Sue has engaged in behavior that would have gotten many other people boatloads of complaints. And when people finally come forward, now a thread is made complaining about others being open about these complaints, a thread where you are conflating two completely separate things. This is nothing new, this problem has always been here, and now it's simply being brought to light.

I am going to disagree here. I never saw any of these complaints as blood feuds, or anyone pursuing a grudge against someone else. Rather, people are ranting against events and actions that should not be deserving of any blame. Why that happens, I suspect, is because people are either overzealous, or simply refuse to accept that a good part of action RP involves people taking action, and not being nice all the time. But I don't think it's particularly because anyone has beef with another person. If you don't think that Sue is being unfairly targeted, which is part of the obvious implication, then explicitly state it in your opening post. Personally I think that it's simply dealing with a long-time problem player. You're really putting her in the same category as everyone else with your statements, which is extremely silly. Bokaza just pissed off the wrong clique, while Sue's caused countless legit problems, people have simply previously not felt safe calling out. The only way they're related is the role which shaming and the threat of shaming played in both incidents. Can we not resort to personal attacks, this accomplishes 0% of nothing. I fail to see how stating his disappointment with you is a "personal attack". Quite frankly I also have my suspicions regarding the motives of your posts, because given the context it's quite reasonable to have such suspicions. And you really are conflating Sue's complaints with Bokaza's. If you're not going to admit to this, then yes, I think it's not all that out of line to bring your credibility into question.