Shenaanigans Posted January 23, 2020 Posted January 23, 2020 Ckey/BYOND Username: Shenaanigans. Why are you interested in applying for a Unathi Deputy position?: There was a reason why an Unathi whitelist was the first one I went for during my stay on the Aurora and it was simply because I just really enjoy Unathi as a species, with their lore playing a huge part in that. And when I get very interested in something, particularly relating to RP, my natural urge is to want to get involved with the development and maintaining of it. A position on the lore team is just about perfect for that, since it would allow me to help with keeping the lore vibrant and fresh as well as attract new people to the species in the same way that I was-- by presenting something that offers both a wealth of potential for fun character concepts and a dynamic world for current characters to interact with. What will you want to focus on if we take you on? Why?: As far as larger projects go, I've been feeling the call toward Dominian lore and would like to attempt tackling the discontent that a lot of members have with how it's structured. Particularly through exploring the differences between Empire-native versus Moghes-native Unathi. I feel that the Empire has some really great concepts to work with and serves as one of many interesting Unathi factions, so it saddens me that so many users seem to just... want it tossed. Naturally this would take some legwork to sort out what issues people have with it as well as coordination with the human lore team, so this is something I would want to take slowly and with plenty of care. Something more long-term. Otherwise, I quite enjoy filling out the cultural, day-to-day life type aspects of lore so adding usable details to things like food, entertainment, and courting (to name a few) would definitely interest me. I like coordinating events as well, to make sure that all parts of the lore feel like they're actively changing and responding to what's going on in the larger world. What is Unathi lore to you? What niche does it fill for our setting?: To me, Unathi fill a specific role that blends your stereotypical warrior culture with rigid codes of honor and faith that take them from just being a group of battle hungry lizards with sticks to an actual, unique culture. Their traditional way of life clashes heavily with the new, space-faring age and they are arguably the most splintered race, culturally, which contrasts with how multi-species sci-fi tends to be handled as Species Monolith #1 vs Species Monolith #2. They're a complex, tumultuous species that's still findings its place on the galactic stage and playing an Unathi gives massive amounts of room for varied character creation as well as faction conflict. Do you have examples of past commitments for creative works? (Hosting or playing in a DnD setting or otherwise proving you can devote time to the position): Roleplay has been a well loved hobby of mine for about 10 years now and through that time I've committed myself to practicing it through a wide variety of platforms. DnD is in fact one of them and I'm currently in multiple games, one of which that's been running consistently for a year and a half, so I do feel like my ability to commit to my chosen hobbies is very high. I've also been staff on a LOT of RPs, both moderating the OOC side of things as well as contributing to the planning of concepts, plotlines, and IC events, though I won't go much into detail with my contributions to those here. Sometimes our community can be very aggressive in response to lore developments; can you feel easily defeated by hostility towards your work?: It of course stings when something you pour your creativity and effort into gets shot down, so I won't say that I can brush that off no problem, but I've dealt with this sort of thing before in writing for RPs so it would not be anything new to me. I feel that I've built up a thicker skin to it over the years, and hey, criticism is how you improve. Additional Comments: I could dig up some of my past writing upon request, but the subject matter is pretty different from SS13.
Doxxmedearly Posted January 24, 2020 Posted January 24, 2020 I think by now people know me and Shenaanigans are close IRL so potential for bias disclaimer and all. I can absolutely attest to the honesty of what she says in her app. She has shown time and time again her ability to come up with creative ideas and writing, but most importantly she sticks to the things she starts. She’s been a staff member for several large online roleplaying groups, both in terms of moderation and also coming up with settings, lore, and IC arcs; she has quite a bit of experience when it comes to collaborating with a group and working as a team. When the roleplaying groups faded or split up, she was always one of the last ones remaining, trying to do what she could to make sure the remaining folks had a good time. She has experience with having to talk to people who are causing issues in roleplays, which I think will translate well to a deputy position where she may have to discuss a whitelist issue with someone. She has showcased her passion for Unathi lore and her ability to create interesting ideas through her characters. I don’t believe there will be an issues with her receiving criticism, either of her own work or the species as a whole. Shenaanigans is not a person who applies for these positions on a whim and I believe she intends to stick to it for the long run, as she has shown to me consistently when engaging in roleplays and creative endeavors. I also feel that as a newer player, she can bring a fresh perspective to the current state of Unathi lore, without having preconceptions from past lore shifts or debates. Quote As far as larger projects go, I've been feeling the call toward Dominian lore and would like to attempt tackling the discontent that a lot of members have with how it's structured. Particularly through exploring the differences between Empire-native versus Moghes-native Unathi. Dominia lore has historically had a controversial place on the server, and requires a lot of coordination, as you said. I would expect some resistance on all sides. Plus, it falls more under human lore domain to my knowledge, though someone can feel free to correct me. However, highlighting the difference between the two cultures is certainly an excellent idea, and one that can be felt in-game. Quote Otherwise, I quite enjoy filling out the cultural, day-to-day life type aspects of lore so adding usable details to things like food, entertainment, and courting (to name a few) would definitely interest me. I like coordinating events as well, to make sure that all parts of the lore feel like they're actively changing and responding to what's going on in the larger world. Again, an excellent idea, but also keep in mind that some of your ideas may not make it to the wiki due to trying to keep things concise. I, personally, would love to see more about day-to-day life for a typical unathi. I think your ideas are modest and reasonable; you don’t want to come in with sweeping overhauls and seem to want to settle in with what’s already there and expand on it for the players on server. I think your past experience lends well to the duties of a lore deputy here. Questions, then: How do you feel about reviewing whitelists, as you may be asked to as a deputy? If you had a disagreement with Marlon about a certain aspect of lore, how would you approach it? I know that’s vague. What issues, large or small, if any, do you have with current non-Dominian Unathi lore? If, hypothetically, you were not allowed to work on Dominian lore, would you still be interested in the position? How do you feel like you would handle not critiques, but just downright insults of your work or the state of the species? What are your thoughts on Aut’akh and their current place in lore?
Shenaanigans Posted January 24, 2020 Author Posted January 24, 2020 4 hours ago, Doxxmedearly said: Questions, then: How do you feel about reviewing whitelists, as you may be asked to as a deputy? If you had a disagreement with Marlon about a certain aspect of lore, how would you approach it? I know that’s vague. What issues, large or small, if any, do you have with current non-Dominian Unathi lore? If, hypothetically, you were not allowed to work on Dominian lore, would you still be interested in the position? How do you feel like you would handle not critiques, but just downright insults of your work or the state of the species? What are your thoughts on Aut’akh and their current place in lore? Having to be the one to point out errors or possibly deny a hopeful member wanting to play their character is never fun, but I feel that I have a good ability to give constructive feedback to those who need it and would be happy to assist people with questions about lore or character details both before and after they've posted an application. I've disagreed with others on creative aspects of a RP before and, from my experience, the best way to handle it is to be honest and open to hearing the other person's side of things. The end goal would be to settle on something we're both happy with that's brought a net gain to the lore. It mostly seems to be continuity/plausibility problems issues with Dominia's origins and their current stance as a powerful entity. Which I'm definitely not the first person to mention. Those more central points are already being worked on by people over on the human lore team though, as I've been hearing, so I wouldn't want to step on any toes and try to implement changes that are out of the scope of Unathi lore. I'm most interested in drawing more of a distinction between Moghes-native versus Dominian Unathi, so that Dominia can become a faction as detailed and unique as the Aut'akh or Grim Compact. It'd be disappointing, but I would still be interested! So long as I knew that the work was being done by someone else I'd be fine with keeping out of it to focus on the other things I mentioned in my application. Unathi lore has plenty of other nooks and crannies to work on. It's happened to me before. Really the way I've handled it is to take a step back and question how much of what they're saying is valid (are they giving specific reasons? has anyone else complained about this? what's the swear to suggestion ratio in that block of text?) and go from there. Maybe they're just angry, but bringing up valid points. Or maybe they're just trolling. I try to take any criticism in stride and see what I can do with it to improve, while keeping in mind that you can't please everyone. I really like aut'akh. Their concept, their place as a marginalized, fleeing faction, the interesting spin they put on classical Unathi religion-- it's all very cool and something I'm glad has been getting further detail. The only thing I would want to see is just... more news on them. I wasn't around for their initial unveiling and the formation of the Exile Fleet, but in the few months I've been here they haven't really had notable events or IC changes affecting the characters. Maybe when Moghes is done throwing another fit.
Guest Marlon Phoenix Posted January 27, 2020 Posted January 27, 2020 I will respond to this tomorrow.
Guest Marlon Phoenix Posted January 29, 2020 Posted January 29, 2020 Hello, Thank you for your interest in Unathi! On 24/01/2020 at 15:18, Shenaanigans said: It mostly seems to be continuity/plausibility problems issues with Dominia's origins and their current stance as a powerful entity. Which I'm definitely not the first person to mention. Those more central points are already being worked on by people over on the human lore team though, as I've been hearing, so I wouldn't want to step on any toes and try to implement changes that are out of the scope of Unathi lore. I'm most interested in drawing more of a distinction between Moghes-native versus Dominian Unathi, so that Dominia can become a faction as detailed and unique as the Aut'akh or Grim Compact. Can you expand on this? What do you mean by the origins of the faction? And would you want to see them throttled as a whole? We share the faction with the human devs and we focus more on the Unathi side, so anything as a whole would be a project with Pegasus. What do you think about the Unathi houses themselves specifically? What kind of characters do you see coming from the Dominian unathi or what would you want to encourage from these factions? What should the primary differences be between Moghean and Dominian unathi? Quote I really like aut'akh. Their concept, their place as a marginalized, fleeing faction, the interesting spin they put on classical Unathi religion-- it's all very cool and something I'm glad has been getting further detail. The only thing I would want to see is just... more news on them. I wasn't around for their initial unveiling and the formation of the Exile Fleet, but in the few months I've been here they haven't really had notable events or IC changes affecting the characters. Maybe when Moghes is done throwing another fit. If you were given full freedom on Aut'akh what kind of stuff would you want to see developed with them? Where is their place within unathi lore?
Shenaanigans Posted January 29, 2020 Author Posted January 29, 2020 38 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said: Can you expand on this? What do you mean by the origins of the faction? And would you want to see them throttled as a whole? We share the faction with the human devs and we focus more on the Unathi side, so anything as a whole would be a project with Pegasus. What do you think about the Unathi houses themselves specifically? What kind of characters do you see coming from the Dominian unathi or what would you want to encourage from these factions? What should the primary differences be between Moghean and Dominian unathi? If you were given full freedom on Aut'akh what kind of stuff would you want to see developed with them? Where is their place within unathi lore? I'll split this up into two chunks to answer! Other people have said it before and likely could give a more comprehensive summary of the holes, but in general I agree that, as much as I love Dominia as a concept, the lore behind its founding tends to stretch suspension of belief to its limits. For one, the way the timeline lines up puts the Lightning War a whole year before Unathi even had a rocket launch, and while I understand that the pirate band was supposedly made up of Unathi previously shuttled off world for trafficking it seems to toe the line of implausibility that they amassed enough power to form a pirate fleet (ships and weapons included) in only four years and then take over what was a very successful colony in such a clean sweep. Shifting the timeline around a bit to put Dominia's founding later into the Unathi's foray into space travel would come across as much more plausible in my eyes, but then that brings us to the next point of how the Empire managed to become a galactic power within only 25 years of existing in its present state. Sure the colony was chugging along well before the arrival of the Unathi, but the wiki seems to lack allusion to the fact that Empire is still very young in its current state. It should still be dealing with the struggle of forming a cohesive identity, chafing under its new rule and cast system, battling tensions between humans and the Unathi who now by default occupy the upper echelons of society. It needs... more flaws, is the way I would put it. But! As I mentioned a post earlier I would not want to step on any toes in the human lore team to try and make these big changes to what is primarily a human faction, so these are just my thoughts on how Dominia could be steered in a positive direction. As far as Dominian Unathi go, I'm a big fan of the Unathi dominated Houses that are already established in Dominian lore and think that characters from the setting are an interesting sidestep from Moghes born Unathi. The Tribunal is aligned with the Sk'akh faith in the same way that Catholics are to Protestants, similar at the core but with enough difference to create friction, and I know I personally like playing my Dominian Unathi's loathing for synthetics. Which is something a Moghes born might nod along to, but not share so vehemently. The two origins have similar enough beliefs that you won't stick out in the same way as an Aut'akh, but Dominia offers enough of a shift from the classical Unathi to give a bit more variety in character concepts as well as outlooks on life aboard the Aurora, and that variety is something I consider extremely helpful for encouraging interesting characters to be made. Hm. One thing that comes to my mind for Aut'akh is the possibility of seeing them interact with other species. Obviously they've had an extremely rough time trying to be recognized as legitimate within Unathi culture, but I think there's some potential for interesting dynamics with the other, more augment friendly species if the Aut'akh tried to reach out and spread their faith. Maybe they'd become a mixed species faction, or perhaps a friendly reception from one of the other races would earn Unathi ire and prompt some spicy inter-species conflict there. I would just personally love to see them get out of their rut, stuck in exile on New Gibson for the most part, and have some movement within the galactic stage. Right now they serve as an extremist splinter of the Unathi race, subverting much of the species' core values for those who want to play something really different while exploring that transhumanist sci-fi feel, and I feel like they have little chance of really exerting change on Unathi as a whole-- thus prompting my thought about them reaching out to find a foothold with other species. It's really just an idle thought that I had, though, since I'm not privy to what the direction of the Aut'akh is planned to be.
Snakebittenn Posted January 30, 2020 Posted January 30, 2020 Shen is my personal preference. They're a very nice person, extraordinarily passionate about the species, and have given wonderful answers to these questions.
NewOriginalSchwann Posted January 31, 2020 Posted January 31, 2020 As the person currently digging through Dominia's guts and ripping it apart, I am eager to see Shenaanigans' take on the often-maligned Empire. Most of my lore-related questions have been answered, so I just have two for you. 1). Do you intend to do anything with the Grim Compact at all? 2). How do you feel about potentially having to revoke a whitelist, if necessary? I look forward to your responses!
Shenaanigans Posted January 31, 2020 Author Posted January 31, 2020 55 minutes ago, NewOriginalSchwann said: 1). Do you intend to do anything with the Grim Compact at all? 2). How do you feel about potentially having to revoke a whitelist, if necessary? First off, thank you! I'm very fond of Dominia as a faction, despite its shortcomings, so I'm glad that my ideas resonate with the people who are actually digging into that beast of a task. The Grim Compact is other group whose concept I enjoy (though you'll probably notice I say that about all Unathi factions.............. since it's true), because who doesn't like space pirates. I haven't been struck by much in the way of ideas for them, though, beyond some work that I think could be done on possibly introducing more methods for a character to have a background in the Compact yet still feasibly end up working on the Aurora. There's not a ton of ways that someone whose a part of what's basically organized space crime can end up with a 9-5 on a research station and that makes the Compact a bit hard to engage with as an Unathi character. The faction just sort of exists without having much bearing on your existence. I would possibly propose some practice within the Compact that sends members out to integrate with other groups, maybe as a sort of intelligence network or means of paying for breaking the Star Code, OR further interaction between NanoTrasen and the Compact that leads to NT actually tolerating their presence. Thus making it more realistic for a literal pirate to be hanging around. I also noticed that the "Relationship with Dominia" section has yet to be filled out for them........... winkwink. I personally think the two wouldn't get along well, since Dominia literally has an Unathi dominated house who specializes in piracy maintaining the Empire's navy. Do they ever clash? Seems like something that merits further exploration. Most anyone in a staff-like position for a role play is probably going to agree that disciplinary/rule enforcing responsibilities are the least pleasant part of the job. It's not fun. Not for the enforcer nor the person having their whitelist revoked. BUT as un-fun as the role is it is still very much necessary for keeping things running smoothly, so I do accept that it's potentially something I would be tasked with doing and would try, to the best of my ability, to be clear and reasonable about. The person should know exactly what the cause of this punishment is as well as how they can improve in the future to ideally regain their whitelist.
NewOriginalSchwann Posted January 31, 2020 Posted January 31, 2020 13 minutes ago, Shenaanigans said: First off, thank you! I'm very fond of Dominia as a faction, despite its shortcomings, so I'm glad that my ideas resonate with the people who are actually digging into that beast of a task. The Grim Compact is other group whose concept I enjoy (though you'll probably notice I say that about all Unathi factions.............. since it's true), because who doesn't like space pirates. I haven't been struck by much in the way of ideas for them, though, beyond some work that I think could be done on possibly introducing more methods for a character to have a background in the Compact yet still feasibly end up working on the Aurora. There's not a ton of ways that someone whose a part of what's basically organized space crime can end up with a 9-5 on a research station and that makes the Compact a bit hard to engage with as an Unathi character. The faction just sort of exists without having much bearing on your existence. I would possibly propose some practice within the Compact that sends members out to integrate with other groups, maybe as a sort of intelligence network or means of paying for breaking the Star Code, OR further interaction between NanoTrasen and the Compact that leads to NT actually tolerating their presence. Thus making it more realistic for a literal pirate to be hanging around. I also noticed that the "Relationship with Dominia" section has yet to be filled out for them........... winkwink. I personally think the two wouldn't get along well, since Dominia literally has an Unathi dominated house who specializes in piracy maintaining the Empire's navy. Do they ever clash? Seems like something that merits further exploration. Most anyone in a staff-like position for a role play is probably going to agree that disciplinary/rule enforcing responsibilities are the least pleasant part of the job. It's not fun. Not for the enforcer nor the person having their whitelist revoked. BUT as un-fun as the role is it is still very much necessary for keeping things running smoothly, so I do accept that it's potentially something I would be tasked with doing and would try, to the best of my ability, to be clear and reasonable about. The person should know exactly what the cause of this punishment is as well as how they can improve in the future to ideally regain their whitelist. Excellent responses. Your application has my support, and I look forward to working with you on Dominia assuming you are accepted. Best of luck!
geeves Posted February 1, 2020 Posted February 1, 2020 Shen has good answers, good personality, and good experience. I trust them. They have my support to become my co-deputy.
Guest Marlon Phoenix Posted February 7, 2020 Posted February 7, 2020 Hello! Thank you very much for your interest in applying. I am going to go forward with accepting this application.
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