[Accepted] Sherman Seeks the Grail of Command

[The7thLain]

BYOND key: TheBurninSherman

Character names:
Frequently Played:
IRU-Dauphine (Forensic Technician, Idris), Song Sun (Psychiatrist), Umbra SSU #4.262-C (Bartender)
Less Frequently Played:
Iskandar Khachaturian (Station Engineer, Hephaestus), Juin (Security Officer, EPMC), Vy Sai Cam (Biomechanical Engineer, Hephaestus)  Mikoyan Turah’nrov (Station Engineer)

 

How long have you been playing on Aurora?
I will have been playing on the Aurora for exactly one year this upcoming July 6th and I am posting this on July 5th. Happy Auroraversarry to me, I guess ^^
 

Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?
I want to have this whitelist as I think being able to play a staff head position would help me greatly in developing my roleplay skills and, by extension, bringing a greater roleplay element to the server and its players as a whole. I also just think expanding into new roles would be fun! I’ve also been given iCMO more than a few times, once during a canon event round, and have performed well during all of those occasions. I think I can handle the responsibility that comes with command.

 

Why did you come to Aurora?
I originally found the Aurora on my first day of playing SS13 because it had the “HRP” tag while I was scrolling through the various server listings. I came for that, due to wanting a more thorough experience in roleplay and I have not been disappointed at all. I love this place a ton and I have made many friends in the community as well who I hope to keep for a long time.
 

Have you read the Aurora wiki on the head roles and qualifications you plan on playing?: 
Yes I have.

Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?:
I received a single warning back during my first few weeks of playing on the station for talking about IC events in the OOC chat. I learned my lesson and it was totally my fault. I do not plan on breaking any other rules.

 

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each.

 

Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about:
Roleplay, in my view, is about interactions first and foremost. Similar to how a screenplay differs from a novel in  that you cannot exactly see what a character is thinking, roleplay requires that you show a character's intentions and feelings instead of just telling them. These feelings and ideas need to be shown via interactions with others, so the interaction in itself is the driving force of the RP. Whether this is put towards escalating/deescalating an antag conflict, speaking with another character in a canon interaction, or even something as little as ordering a drink at a bar, roleplay is about putting the character in the setting in the most authentic way possible by vehicle of  interactions that they share with other characters for the purpose of advancing the development of all parties involved.
 

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?
OOCly a head of staff is a resource for other players to consult for mechanical knowledge, especially for newer players. OOCly, I feel like a head of staff is someone who has the responsibility to know all the fundamentals of their department OOCly but even to a larger degree, be able to be approached and spoken to about their knowledge while being as welcoming to newcomers OOCly as they are supposed to be ICly. A head of staff should also be trusted to ahelp and report any OOCly rule-breaking behaviour immediately so that it can be dealt with swiftly by the mods or admins for the overall health of the round.
 

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?
The responsibilities of a whitelisted player in my view, are similar to what they would be in game. To be a friendly resource of mechanical information and guidance for players while also keeping an eye out for OOC rule breaking. I’d try to uphold these by being willing to talk in LOOC to people who have questions that cannot adequately be explained in game, or offering my discord to people so that they and I can open up a dialogue and so that they could ask for my opinion or advice at times when I am not in-game.
 

Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau Ceti and how it affected your character and their career?
Tau Ceti, especially recently with the reveal of what is looking to be the NBT, has become a place where tensions run high and things are held together in a delicate balancing act played by the leading system entities that are the Biesellite Government and the NanoTrasen Corporation. Ceres Lance hunting down renegade shells, race riots in Little Adhomai of Mendell, and now with dwindling Phoron deposits, it puts a menagerie of outside factors on all characters, including CMO hopeful Dr. Song Sun. Coming from New Hai Phong, she naturally has a soft-spot for Hephaestus some, but finds herself working for NanoTrasen in a deliberate action she took to buy out her own former contract from Zeng-Hu, taking advantage of the NT near-monopoly on Tau Ceti law to do so for the sake of her own happiness and health, but at the expense of most of her life savings. Now, however, she’s left to question what matters more, herself and her choice to go to the company that she works for and seeks a promotion to a command position in, NanoTrasen, or her home, New Hai Phong, and its own monopolistic corporation that rivals NT, Hephaestus Industries. Song is left to contemplate this question while phoron seems to be increasingly scarce, putting pressure on the entire spur, not to mention all while she fights with her own personal struggles unrelated to Tau Ceti events. She has garnered a positive reputation with the crew of the Aurora in the near-year that she has worked there and hopes to increase this while also bettering her own personal situation now by pursuing a Chief Medical Officer position approximately a month and a half post-Zeng-Hu contract buyout to show the crew of the station that she is committed to helping them and playing a more active role in station affairs in the name of medicine and health.

 

What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?
I hope to be playing CMO mostly while also playing HoP if I find that I enjoy it. Liaison/representative or IAA also has my interest to some degree. I may expand into other roles in the long term like perhaps captain, but that’s a long way’s off at this time and I am unsure if I’d go through with it.

 

Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking:
Song Sun - Chief Medical Officer
Albrecht Morganthau - Head of Personnel
HAN-54 (Hansa) - Golden Deep Representative 

 

How would you rate your own roleplaying?:
I’m not foolhardy enough to say that I am exceptional or great at roleplay, but I really do try to stay true to my above mentioned definition of roleplay in all the interactions I share with other characters. If I were to rate myself on a scale of 1-10 I think I would be a comfortable 8/10 right now, but I am always looking for feedback and wanting to improve.

 

Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?
Yes. It is not something I should take for granted.

 

Have you familiarised yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?
I have! They were decent reads.

 

Extra notes: A very, very big thanks to everyone who has encouraged and supported me in making this app and helping me grow and improve as a player for the year that I've been on the Aurora. I hope to have many more to share with everyone here! 

[niennab]

Sherman is a great role-player and as far as I've seen, level headed in high stress situations. I am certain they can handle a command whitelist. Moreover, nothing has me more delighted than seeing more Golden Deep representation. +1

[Roostercat]

sherman/lain is an epic gamer, and one of the few people on server who will actually have entire arcs explaining major changes to a character. For example, CMO Song Sun didn't just happen out of nowhere, there was a period in between of Song doing various iCMO shifts and DECIDING to go for CMO, talking with everyone around them about the decision. IT felt as if the character actually had life, and shows how great of a roleplayer they are. Big fat ol +1

[Daemon]

Sherman's super cool and very interactive, And is perfect for a command whitelist - +1

[Sycmos]

Though I haven't interacted with all of Sherm's characters yet, I've had a great time interacting with the ones that I have and I regularly enjoy the relationship between Nikita and Umbra whenever the two are tending. +1

[WhatsUpBrotendo]

Great player and fun to RP with. Glad they finally got around to posting their command app.

Big +1 from me, I've seen how they handle being iCMO as Song Sun and they seem to be able to handle command well.

[Melariara]

Sherman is a fantastic person to roleplay alongside. They can play a variety of characters very well and are great to see in round. Finally freaking posted their command app as well.

+1 For this esteemed knabino.

 

One of us, one of us, one of us.

[MasterAssistant]

Absolute security/medical/service/anything gamer, would love to see them and their chars into command positions as well. They RP great, handle situations well, can't find anything bad to say about them. 

10/10 would +1 again.

[VisVirific]

As others have said, the quality of roleplay that Sherman provides is splendid, and from my brief observations the player seems to handle stressful situations pretty well (be them in Medical or Security, which can be absolutely stressful). I'm very curious and interested in how Song will develop and adapt should she get that sweet, sweet CMO promotion officially, and I'm also pretty curious how a Golden Deep representative can be.

+1

[Shadow]

I'll be handling your command app. More info soon ™️.

[Connorjg1]

Absolute +1 

IRU-Dauphine is an awesome security IPC and roleplayed very well. 

[Equairio]

What fields will your CMO be proficient and specialised in? I know your character is a psychiatrist, however during the period when you did a spree of interim CMO shifts, you would also frequently work in the GTR, ICU, maybe response, and in chemistry producing both chemicals listed as basic and advanced. I just found it a bit confusing when observing this, as psychiatrists and CMOs tend not to be proficient in everything and, as far as I know from people who play CMO, tend to place restrictions on what they can and can't do to keep their characters believable.

[The7thLain]

39 minutes ago, Equairio said:

What fields will your CMO be proficient and specialised in? I know your character is a psychiatrist, however during the period when you did a spree of interim CMO shifts, you would also frequently work in the GTR, ICU, maybe response, and in chemistry producing both chemicals listed as basic and advanced. I just found it a bit confusing when observing this, as psychiatrists and CMOs tend not to be proficient in everything and, as far as I know from people who play CMO, tend to place restrictions on what they can and can't do to keep their characters believable.

In the rounds where I have played iCMO before, the reason that she often fills so many roles is that medical is incredibly short staffed as of late. The character in game has a Medical Doctorate specialised in psychiatry, among other degrees like a master's in chemistry. In theory, in a fully staffed medbay, she would do nothing aside from General Treatment and psychiatry/psychology, however, given as medbay is often very short-staffed, she has been flexible. In short, I would have her primarily specialised in the areas of Psychiatry/Psychology, the GTR, and Chemistry with the ability to perform very limited surgeries if absolutely needed. Surgery is her weak spot, as was virology when it was still around and with the line between GTR and ICU often being blurred, I try to strike a balance between the two. I originally planned her to be able to work three primary areas of medical, but, as I said before, given as medical has been very short-staffed recently, she has been pushed into other roles to stop other people from dying on low-pop rounds where its only her and perhaps one or two other people in medical, if not only herself. If other people can fill the roles, she is more than happy to let them, but in some cases its not and only then, and if its needed/an emergency, would she step into those areas not normally within her purview of psychiatry.

Edited July 6, 2020 by TheBurninSherman
Further elaboration and clarification on the original answer.

[Equairio]

Quote

In the rounds where I have played iCMO before, the reason that she often fills so many roles is that medical is incredibly short staffed as of late. The character in game has a Medical Doctorate specialised in psychiatry, among other degrees like a master's in chemistry. In theory, in a fully staffed medbay, she would do nothing aside from General Treatment and psychiatry/psychology, however, given as medbay is often very short-staffed, she has been flexible. In short, I would have her primarily specialised in the areas of Psychiatry/Psychology, the GTR, and Chemistry with the ability to perform very limited surgeries if absolutely needed. Surgery is her weak spot, as was virology when it was still around and with the line between GTR and ICU often being blurred, I try to strike a balance between the two. I originally planned her to be able to work three primary areas of medical, but, as I said before, given as medical has been very short-staffed recently, she has been pushed into other roles to stop other people from dying on low-pop rounds where its only her and perhaps one or two other people in medical, if not only herself.

This doesn't really clear up my concerns. Above all, a character needs to be believable, someone who has training in literally EVERY field of Medical might fail to tick that checkbox (though that's not entirely for me to say). While Medical is often poorly staffed, I think it is important that your character's skills are rigid regardless of how many people are staffing the department. Filling in for missing roles is fine to a degree but, ultimately, the believability of your character is paramount on a roleplay server and I would still find it off for a psychiatrist-now-CMO to know surgery, basic and advanced chemistry, response, resuscitation in the ICU, virology as you mentioned (though virology has been removed), regular work in the GTR and all of that on top of being extremely proficient in psychiatry. That list is quite long, and while there are no numbers on how many sub-departments, per se, you can and can't work in, generally medical staff only work 2 to 3 of those in line with their roles.

Either way, I'm looking forward to your trial.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Equairio

[The7thLain]

34 minutes ago, Equairio said:

This doesn't really clear up my concerns. Above all, a character needs to be believable, someone who has training in literally EVERY field of Medical might fail to tick that checkbox (though that's not entirely for me to say). While Medical is often poorly staffed, I think it is important that your character's skills are rigid regardless of how many people are staffing the department. Filling in for missing roles is fine to a degree but, ultimately, the believability of your character is paramount on a roleplay server and I would still find it off for a psychiatrist-now-CMO to know surgery, basic and advanced chemistry, response, resuscitation in the ICU, virology as you mentioned (though virology has been removed), regular work in the GTR and all of that on top of being extremely proficient in psychiatry. That list is quite long, and while there are no numbers on how many sub-departments, per se, you can and can't work in, generally medical staff only work 2 to 3 of those in line with their roles.

Allow me to clarify, when I say weak spot, I mean areas that she would most-likely not touch in any regard unless absolutely dire. She's a novice at best when it comes to surgery, and typically her lines do fall in the three areas of Psychiatry/psychology, the GTR, and chemistry. As for responding, if someone is calling for help and the department is staffed without a first responder, I find it hard to believe that from an ICly standpoint a medical professional would not go to help them even if it was maybe not in their direct job description. Is it believable for a medical doctor to let someone bleed out in mining because they are not an EMT and its not within their lane to go there if they are the only one or one of two or three in medical and are the first to think to act? As for the claims of resuscitation, I don't believe there has been a case where she has done such a thing in the ICU. She's assisted trauma physicians in the act by injecting chems, but even a nurse or intern could do something like that.

I see your concerns, and I do think they have some validity to them as they are things that I try to police myself on specifically because I do not want to just make a Mary Sue-esque do-all character in medical. I do want to be believable and I want to really make it so this character feels authentic and is invested in the roleplay of the station, its why I play and why I wanted to make this application in the first place, I really do love the RP, and I do try to watch myself as best as I can. This being said, I also believe that there is still an element of gamey-ness to playing on the Aurora that must be taken into account even if the emphasis is on heavy roleplay, as it should be. Are we to blow all our blood and kit-sourced dexalin on a patient who we know is going to die regardless because we lack a surgeon or a chemist to make pneumalin and then do let them die for the sake of staying in the lane? Or, if our character could within reason know how to make pneumalin and have the educational credentials and command authority to do so, would we do that, save supplies that we would not want to waste from an ICly standpoint, and stop a person from being taken out of a 2 to 3 hour round when its perhaps only 20 minutes into it instead?

Edited July 6, 2020 by TheBurninSherman
added the word "authentic" where I had meant to previously but did not

[The7thLain]

27 minutes ago, Equairio said:

Either way, I'm looking forward to your trial.

Thank you! I'm quite excited to get to it should I get the trial ^-^

[Equairio]

22 minutes ago, TheBurninSherman said:

Allow me to clarify, when I say weak spot, I mean areas that she would most-likely not touch in any regard unless absolutely dire. She's a novice at best when it comes to surgery, and typically her lines do fall in the three areas of Psychiatry/psychology, the GTR, and chemistry. As for responding, if someone is calling for help and the department is staffed without a first responder, I find it hard to believe that from an ICly standpoint a medical professional would not go to help them even if it was maybe not in their direct job description. Is it believable for a medical doctor to let someone bleed out in mining because they are not an EMT and its not within their lane to go there if they are the only one or one of two or three in medical and are the first to think to act? As for the claims of resuscitation, I don't believe there has been a case where she has done such a thing in the ICU. She's assisted trauma physicians in the act by injecting chems, but even a nurse or intern could do something like that.

I see your concerns, and I do think they have some validity to them as they are things that I myself try to police myself on specifically because I do not want to just make a Mary Sue-esque do-all character in medical. I do want to be believable and I want to really make it so this character feels and is invested in the roleplay of the station, its why I play and why I wanted to make this application in the first place, I really do love the RP, and I do try to watch myself as best as I can. This being said, I also believe that there is still an element of gamey-ness to playing on the Aurora that must be taken into account even if the emphasis is on heavy roleplay, as it should be. Are we to blow all our blood and kit-sourced dexalin on a patient who we know is going to die regardless because we lack a surgeon or a chemist to make pneumalin and then do let them die for the sake of staying in the lane, or, if our character could within reason know how to make pneumalin and have the educational credentials and command authority to do so, would we do that, save supplies that we would not want to waste from an ICly standpoint, and stop a person from being taken out of a 2 to 3 hour round when its perhaps only 20 minutes into it instead?

Thank you, this clears up my concerns. 

 

14 minutes ago, TheBurninSherman said:

Thank you! I'm quite excited to get to it should I get the trial ^-^

Good luck  : )

Edited July 6, 2020 by Equairio

[SooshyFish]

So far I've enjoyed every interaction with each of these characters. Not gonna lie I'm a tad surprised to see they're all played by the same person, they're all pretty varied, which is pretty rad. I like being able to see people handle different styles of rp and characters, and from everything I've seen they do it incredibly well. Pretty dope OOCly as well.

+1

[NewOriginalSchwann]

Normally I go through whitelists and ask a bunch of questions. On this one I have no questions, just my support. Sherman is somebody I've seen play believable and realistic characters for a year, and they're wholly deserving of a fair shot at becoming a head of staff. Best of luck, and +1.

[Shadow]

Ye got a trial.

Lasts a week, try to get feedback regarding your command play.

 

[KattenHatten]

Popped up as a chief medical. Seems to be cared about blob. Asked for a detective to look up after single engi in a team

[The7thLain]

12 minutes ago, KattenHatten said:

Popped up as a chief medical. Seems to be cared about blob. Asked for a detective to look up after single engi in a team

Thanks for the feedback! I am a little unsure as to what this means however, is it intended as positive good, feedback or negative?

[Faris]

I can't really comment on them for their trial as I haven't really seen them play or shared a round with them. I can comment on how I've played with them before. 

Sherman is what I'd consider a new friend of mine, but before that we've been playing the same rounds for months. In that time I've seen them play in a way I'd call well thought out. In that they'd thoughtful of others and considerate, without really leaning towards the dramas and outrages communities sometimes have.

All in all, they're a thoughtful person with a play style that meshes well with the flow of a round. I think they can be trusted with roles that have greater impact and control of the rounds itself.

[KesterShadowHair]

I've had a good experience with Song Sun as chief and before they were even a chief. They also assisted my character in setting up medical records which was nice. Works well in IC even under pressure from antags or just a boat load of wounded people. +1. 

[Connorjg1]

Welp I gave a +1 before the trial and I've got no idea if I can give extra feedback now the trial has begun but....

 

 

I got to interact with there CMO during a round today and they played a fun character that was enjoyable to interact with and we had some fun banter.

 

That's a big +1 from me