Expand Interstation Relations--NSS Upsilon

[Chada1]

So, over my time on the Aurora and being engaged in the Servers Lore, I noticed something felt missing, and alongside others arguing that it wasn't believable for so many envoys to board the Aurora, because it's the '#1 Research Station' and a high security one at that, I came to the conclusion that it could be very possible-- feasible even, to expand interstation relations even further in the form of another Station that has usurped the Auroras' spot as the #1 research station, relegating it instead to the #2 research station, focusing on lesser Phoron research and Mining, as well as PR. And thus, a rivalry between the two Stations could ensue.

I think this is something that would very much inject some needed atmosphere into the corporate framework of NanoTrasen, to hold the Lore a bit more until the Next Big Thing arrives, and it would require negligible work on the part of the coding team. Mostly, the work would be on the Lore team.

So, here are ways to make this happen, an unveil of the new Station which is slated to be intended to be twice as efficient as the Aurora, with higher initial funding, (As the Aurora was carved in an Asteroid, it was cost-efficient, not efficient) and then a bunch of random low-intensity events could be added where the rival Station sends mocking messages to the Aurora or a CCIA event could fire praising the Upsilons achievements. This would explain why the Aurora is trying so hard to overachieve all the time, as they'd be trying to usurp the Upsilon as the most efficient, even while having less funding.

So, here's a checklist of things that could be implemented.

1: New random minor event praising the Upsilons' advances in Phoron Research
2: Rephrase the ERT being unavailable to something more Upsilon centric such as "The Emergency Response team is currently unavailable running drills in range of the NSS Upsilon, they're unable to respond for XX hours.", or in the case of the militia, that could be why the militia is being sent.
3: Rephrase of the Icarus' messages, when the Icarus is unavailable such as in Raider/Merc modes, it could instead mention protecting the Upsilon from Asteroid impact, since it's not carved out of an Asteroid like the Aurora is.
4: Cargo resource shipments could officially be sent to the Upsilon as opposed to the Odin, to facilitate extra research there. Upsilon would then transfer funds to the Cargo account. This should lead to a very light mocking Fax from Upsilon at multiple Head offices, this gives incentive for the Aurora to try to be independent instead of depending on shipments to maintain credit reserves. This fax should only happen once a round.

The Aurora could begin specializing in Service and Mining as well as production instead of being the '#1 Research Station', effectively becoming '#2 Research Station' and an Auxiliary to the Upsilon due to Uppermanagement ambition. The Aurora Management however will have plenty of incentive to attempt to usurp the Upsilon and return the Aurora to its former position as '#1'. This however explains why so many delegates and political visits happen on the Aurora, and why the Aurora attempts to impress so much. The Aurora effectively becomes the Auxiliary Hub of Tau Ceti, supporting the Odin in PR and the Upsilon in resources, while the Odin is the main Hub of Service and Bureaucracy, and the Upsilon is the main Hub of Research. 

For this to work, the Station must be given very good reason or multiple reasons to seriously dislike the new usurper Upsilon, but I think this would fill a lot of holes in the Lore ATM as well as be a breath of fresh air in content. the name of the new Station doesn't need to be Upsilon, it can be anything. And this is a very minimal and not impossible concept to implement, and I feel like it'd add to the corporate feel much more. That is all, comments and suggestions to expand the concept are appreciated.

[Snakebittenn]

I would absolutely love this concept, and I would love thinking of different messages for them to mock us.
'Aurora, hello! We just wanted to express our total sadness that you can't attend our complimentary pizza party for our continued 365 days without incident' in the middle of a crossfire round.

[Scheveningen]

This sounds very interesting, I'll say that much. I'd love to hear a collective "Fuck the Upsilon" every so often.

[witchbells]

I like this. It's fun. This is usually enough but this is the forums so I have to actually elucidate my thoughts for once in my life.

 

While the whole "NSS Aurora is the best research station! Simply the most advanced!" thing certainly has its charm it's always felt a little empty. A little forced, like we were making ourselves believe even though it couldn't possibly be true, because there are so many other things the station should be capable of, mechanically or otherwise, but we're just not! We're not the best, we've been lying to ourselves!

 

Upsilon fills that empty spot just right, in addition to being a catalyst for oodles of conflict for roleplay. Also the name is great, it's perfect, do we all agree on that? Yes? Awesome, let's keep it.

[GreenBoi]

I like this idea a lot, and it gives more leeway for character concepts. You no longer have to make explanations as big as before to explain why THIS person was chosen to be at the #1 Research Station with their attitude or whatever, now you can say "Oh, NanoTrasen just needed an extra Janitor for the Aurora" AND, now you can make characters that were demoted to the Aurora after something happening on the Upsilon. I also think there should be a small hallway at the Arrivals part of Odin leading to the Upsilon Arrivals Shuttle (of course, it doesn't have to be fully mapped in, just add a door with the name; it could be like the Romanovich Exploration Guild door)

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I got frustrated when I first saw this pitched as "Make Aurora unimportant" but this is actually a very compelling dynamic. I really like it.

[Chada1]

5 hours ago, ParadoxSpace said:

I would absolutely love this concept, and I would love thinking of different messages for them to mock us.
'Aurora, hello! We just wanted to express our total sadness that you can't attend our complimentary pizza party for our continued 365 days without incident' in the middle of a crossfire round.

It would be great to have just a random 'Neighborly' greeting from Upsilon to fan the flames.

4 hours ago, Scheveningen said:

This sounds very interesting, I'll say that much. I'd love to hear a collective "Fuck the Upsilon" every so often.

I hope Upsilon deserves that fuck you.

28 minutes ago, Senpai Jackboot said:

I got frustrated when I first saw this pitched as "Make Aurora unimportant" but this is actually a very compelling dynamic. I really like it.

In what I've outlined, the Aurora would still be very relevant, just not #1 in everything. It's still the premier mining Station for Phoron, and it still does general research. It'd just also act as a Service Hub, (Which explains all of the Civilian, communal jobs that people constantly call senseless for a #1 research station that we have, as well as why so many people visit, it wouldn't be fitting for them to visit the Upsilon) and without the Aurora, Upsilon wouldn't be able to maintain its' research output, so... Still pretty relevant. You could consider the Aurora akin to field research while the Upsilon is the big advanced lab. The Aurora gathers materials, does a peripheral analysis and then after they're done with it, it's shipped to the Upsilon. This also links pretty well into stuff like Xenoarcheology, now we know where those ancient relics of ages long past would go. Doesn't mean the Aurora doesn't want to reclaim its' position as the more prestigious of the two Stations when it comes to research, that element is necessary for the dynamic to work, and I imagine its main goal would be to discover the ins and outs of their finds before it got shipped off, to do just that.

Edited December 2, 2018 by Chada1

[Zundy]

I brought this up before and I'm bringing it up again:

 

Antag round where a team from Upsilon Station come aboard for a tour but whisky they're here they have to sabotage work on the Aurora legally in whatever way they can.

[Hendricks]

This does sound really cool, we could have events between the two stations, as well as getting a new chunk of lore to absorb. I like the idea so far! 

[Butterrobber202]

I’d be about this, sounds like fun.

[ben10083]

I love this idea, and can already think of things that can be said, such as: "Oh boy, the Aurora is in trouble again, why can they just operate normally like the NSS Upsilon". I never understood why the Aurora was the "best" considering how other stations were, so this fits that hole nicely. +1

[VTCobaltblood]

I don't really like this. Some events make extremely little sense if they're not on The Flagship(tm). Why would political parties hold their meetings on an insignificant aux research facility? Why would bumper pod contests be held on a mining station and not on the big boi Upsilon? Significance of the station is what made these somewhat plausible, but you suggest to remove even that tiny strand, and now most of the peaceful events make no sense except "well, we play on aurora duh". I'm not a big fan of the whole mockery dynamic, either - it feels cartoony instead of mature. -1

Edited December 3, 2018 by VTCobaltblood

[Doc]

4 hours ago, VTCobaltblood said:

I don't really like this. Some events make extremely little sense if they're not on The Flagship(tm). Why would political parties hold their meetings on an insignificant aux research facility? Why would bumper pod contests be held on a mining station and not on the big boi Upsilon? Significance of the station is what made these somewhat plausible, but you suggest to remove even that tiny strand, and now most of the peaceful events make no sense except "well, we play on aurora duh".

The thread pretty clearly already addresses this issue- the Aurora is not insignificant or auxiliary. It's adjoined to a similar, slightly more impressive facility, in a codependent supply chain. The reason for why important events occur on the Aurora instead of the Upsilon is also already explained; the Aurora is explicitly constructed with civilian functions like the bar, kitchen, holodeck, library, chapel, and other civilian areas to host these things, where the Upsilon was not.

As for it being "cartoonish", that's just personal preference. I personally believe it contributes more than it detracts from, giving the Aurora's immediate vicinity more life and in some ways, more meaning. The "cartoonish"-ness is, in my mind, not really cartoonish as it is the just slightly less than "dead-serious" tone that gives our lore life.

Edited December 3, 2018 by Doc
typos and clarification, as you do with edits

[SleepyWolf]

Another thing too, when important people come to the Aurora with this - they could just say... 
"Hello, Aurora! I just came over after having a private, mono a mono with all of the scientists over at the Upsilon. But that's nothing compared to the speech I'm about to give here for you!"

this would IMPLY those scientists are getting special treatment, and that our characters are just 'second best' in the same way. I REALLY love that, and want that, and love this. 

give me the Upsilon so I can hate it.

[Chada1]

Small bump to inform that feedback is still appreciated, and that this suggestion is not dead, on the contrary it's only gone to the next level. So if anyone has any reservations or concerns, they should express them.

On 12/3/2018 at 8:18 AM, VTCobaltblood said:

I don't really like this. Some events make extremely little sense if they're not on The Flagship(tm). Why would political parties hold their meetings on an insignificant aux research facility? Why would bumper pod contests be held on a mining station and not on the big boi Upsilon? Significance of the station is what made these somewhat plausible, but you suggest to remove even that tiny strand, and now most of the peaceful events make no sense except "well, we play on aurora duh". I'm not a big fan of the whole mockery dynamic, either - it feels cartoony instead of mature. -1

Everything Doc said is correct; The Aurora will be a service hub and doesn't require that status to be visited. Upsilon will not be outfitted with the necessary facilities to host these events while the Aurora will be. Not only that, but Sleepy was correct as well, in the event of a political visit, they could have simply visited the Upsilon first and then went for the Aurora.

Edited December 7, 2018 by Chada1
Cleaned the comment up a little bit.

[Scheveningen]

I'm fine with it being a service hub while still one of many important research divisions at work. It's a neat split between "the station is unimportant but it exists" and "the station is the flagship effort of nanotrasen despite dozens if not hundreds of similar stations existing across the galaxy asffafsfsaf -foams at the mouth-".

The latter just felt like a forced trope where we were giving ourselves a false participation trophy of wax pretending to be gold. It just added to the cringey feeling one experiences when someone tries to behave like an anime protagonist.

[Chada1]

I believe this has been implemented on the Lore front, as of this link. However, there are still some minor fluff code additions that would make it more compelling as already laid out, but if those aren't going to be done, this thread has served its purpose and can be archived.

[SatinsPristOTD]

Ah this makes me so excited as a Captain player. Yes!

"Pick up your trash. We're not the damn Upsilon. We work around here."

[Chada1]

This can be archived ESPECIALLY, this is like, ancient. (Completed projects)

Edited October 28, 2020 by Chada1