Something's Vaurca Deputy App

[VVipEdout]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Somethingiguess

Position Being Applied For: Vaurca Lore Deputy

Past Experiences/Knowledge: Nil, zilch, nada. What experience I have with Vaurca lore is no more than any other particularly interested bug main.

Examples of Past Work: Nothing to show. I'd been told to make a canonization app for a change to High C'thur's brood theme, but couldn't find the time.

Additional Comments: In the following paragraphs I've written some of the aspects of Vaurca lore I'd like to change or expand upon. A good part of these are on topics that have been touched upon or influenced by discussion on the species Discord.
 

Spoiler

Medical Broods: Put briefly, High C'thur's brood deals with a complicated concept for Vaurca characters, in that they're both the only ones with their original High Queen living and present, and that their specialization is hard if not near impossible to make use on-station. Leadership, even when considering the fact C'thur do not require an avowal, is a very difficult feat already outside the Vaurca's hive, let alone outside their own species. At the very most they could hope to be a particularly respected employee or employ charisma to sway alien coworkers, unlikely task considering the brood is fond of uncanny expression masks.

Therefore, considering the current state of their Queen and a lack of a brood dedicated to medicine beyond, to some degree, Scay, a proposed change was to make High C'thur's the de-facto medical brood, acting as a central agent during the First Hive War and earlier modern wars, by merit of both providing and withholding care as a form of negotiation and thus accumulating political presence. Following the evacuation of Sedantis, the dwindling of supplies during the exodus and the Lii'dra attack that left the High Queen horribly wounded, it was only sensible for Skrellian medical aid to be requested immediately; High C'thur's life support would essentially be Jargon applying the brood's 'healing-as-ransom' modus operandi to ensure the hive's cooperation.

Post-contact, the reasonable path to take would involve the brood's Ka and possibly Za to be assigned to positions in Zeng-Hu, being both the medical megacorp and having strong ties to Jargon. Studies into both Vaurcesian anatomy and technology would be a given, either from accounts by the brood themselves or by the very noticeable lack of a Zona Bovinae and thus psychic presence in the species. Depending on the lore team's agreement, it would be a possibility to allow C'thur Ta as Jargon representatives, for motives ranging from medical knowledge to supervision of their own hive's less diplomatic agents. As an aside, this new focus should come together with new Masters of Forms for the brood, given they currently lack any explicitly mentioned ones.

Viax and Bodyforms: While a brief overview is already given for Ka anatomy pertaining their general shape and bipedal-quadrupedal variants, it would be interesting to explore more specialized forms used more by Vaurca for their own convenience rather than for on-station work. Designs such as a transport Ka'Viax or, as was jokingly mentioned, a sponge Viax or a sippy cup Viax, would be great to create ways for Vaurcesian characters to demonstrate the sheer alien quality of the species and their own understanding of Viax as biological tools. While in-game implementation would be both difficult to design and justify getting past the Odin checkpoint, I feel that the mention of such concepts in the wikipage and/or lore articles would provide a creative hook for species players and possibly interest non-whitelistees to either interact with Vaurca more or apply and create their own concepts. At some point it could even be decided to run an event to show off some of the more 'out there' designs, much like in the Peacekeeper events, such as living equipment or even Ka'Viax-based portable weapons. Augments are also a central part to Ka'Viax, which should be considered at some point.

Lii'dra Arc and the Protoqueen: It has been expressed many times that a visible, 'loud' invasion by the Lii'dra as opposed to an infiltration approach was uncharacteristic and to some degree missing the point. While I agree with the sentiment, I do feel that there were parts about the arc worth playing with, either as-is or refitted into an alternative storyline. Bygone themselves stated that the Protoqueen in Elyra was meant as a narrative device to be used by any other species writer as they saw fit. With this said, I would love to put it to use either as a background element or as the catalyst for a new discovery, with a technological surge of some type in the Serene Republic without a direct explanation. Alternatively, the Ta within the fleshy construct could have been used as a source of information or even a contingency control mechanism in the case of a second attack. The possibilities are vast and generally suitable to many directions depending on the human lorestaff's plans for Elyra as a whole.

Another point I would either like to revise or expand on further eventually is the Diona-Vaurca hybrid presented at the end of the New Gibson invasion, later barely used if at all. Is it possible for Vaurca to incorporate more radical traits based on other species? Is it a property unique to the Lii'dra? Can gestalts somehow relate to the Lii'dra hivemind, or even achieve communication and even share interests? Of course, this might very well have to be relegated to another moment given the focus of lore in the near future being very possibly different, but the possibility is there.

Miscellanea: At some point, I remember wanting to come up with ways to bring less played broods to the spotlight, such as the majority of K'lax, or Vetju and Vaur. Exactly how this would be done was something I want others' opinion on, as most of my ideas either depended on attributes common to all Vaurca such as the usage of modulators or Ka being single-focus near tireless workers, rather than anything really distinctive to any brood.

To end, I want to note that any and all projects will likely become richer from having to discuss them as a collective endeavor, and so that I'd be more than glad to discuss them either with the Vaurca team or with lorestaff in general if I were made deputy. Collective storytelling is the first and foremost reason to play the game in the first place to me; without using too many words, it's mad fun. Collective worldbuilding is just as interesting if not more, which is why as a deputy I'd want to mostly throw ideas at a wall both with the rest of staff and with the players and see what comes up. There are a few more loose ideas I wanted to mention here but lacked much substance to write more than a sentence or two on, ideas which I'd probably offer as a hook eventually and build on together. Thank you for reading.

 

[Guest BoxWulf]

Pan is bright, creative, and takes the lore incredibly seriously when it comes to their characters. I have no doubt that their takes on pushing Vaurca lore forward will be fresh, unique, and exciting. 
 

You actually made me laugh at the idea of a bound being used as a living weapon for a “Peacekeeper” event.
If you can somehow top the Farwa Fiasco, you’ll be a hero  

+1

[BoryaTheSlayer]

Pan, I know you've been thinking of applying for this for a while now, before the slots were opened, and I'm very happy to finally see your application. I can always rely on you to provide me with cool, fresh ideas whenever I come to you for an opinion on anything writing-related, and I really want to see you on the team. And it's not just my personal experience that tells me that, your application does a good job of showing it too.

Now that I'm done with praise, though, some questions.

Do you plan on hosting any events in the future? Bygone did overfeed us with vaurca events, but that doesn't mean we can't have more in the future.
Do you intend to work with other species writers should you be accepted as a deputy?

Good luck!

[VVipEdout]

7 minutes ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

Do you plan on hosting any events in the future? Bygone did overfeed us with vaurca events, but that doesn't mean we can't have more in the future.
Do you intend to work with other species writers should you be accepted as a deputy?

Thanks for the feedback and support. I'd like to address the second question first, because it's the simplest. To a degree, working on Vaurca lore, specifically hive-specific lore, is inextricably working with other species' lore. C'thur lore is Skrell lore, K'lax lore is Unathi lore, the same for Zo'ra and humans. While the average Hegemony citizen knows absolutely nothing about Zkaii somnambulism, or few Skrell could tell you about the Sensate, most any development that isn't niche requires working with other species writers by default. Of course, most of the actual process would likely be up to the species maintainer, but I'd love to work with other writers if it fell on me to do so.

As for events, I have to admit I wouldn't have enough experience as I'd like to run one at first. Preferably I would inform possible concepts for Vaurca events rather than run them by myself, but the idea is far from discarded. One thing I'd like to avoid would be the 'Aurora as centre of the plot' tendency a la Lii'dra invasion, which doesn't mean nothing will happen, but rather that a glimpse of the overall changes is both a better hook and more realistic than frontloading every aspect of a lore addition onto the station. In short, possibly, but definitely nothing large-scale and much less combat-based without a very good reason.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

Very good answers. Thank you for the quick response. I might ask more things later on.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

I still support this ?

[Scheveningen]

Oh god this app has been up for too long

I'm very supportive of this. SiG is very knowledgeable about Vaurca, and has been very helpful in the regard of answering questions about them - and would be a great writer for the species too.

[JamOfBoy]

Yikes, this has been up for a long while. Sorry for not getting around to this.

I'll be denying your application.