Snakebittenn Posted August 12, 2020 Posted August 12, 2020 Welcome to the Skrell History rework. After 5 months in development, hopefully it will have been worth the wait. This thread, asked of us by our Loremaster and Great Khan Mofo1995, is for any long-form feedback players have to give about it.https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Skrell_History A staggeringly huge shoutout to MoondancerPony (jade-2562#9602) for their stream of excellent ideas, feedback, patience, grammatical knowledge, and willingness to format this horsepiss with us to be wiki-ready. There's a few key points to go over. For one, Skrell are now a lot less new to humans. From 47 years of contact to 128. Generally, no human alive right now that isn't Kazimir Boytsov has been alive for an age without them. Secondly, we replaced the ceremonial warfare/laser tag lore with bitcoin assassins. Inquire within. We've also renovated the Second and First incidents to be more compelling. We don't want them to be objectively 'Yes, AI is bad.', something the player could point at as an objective authority on 'we must never have this, it will all go bad eventually.' The theme is more "People can take advantage of AI and make them do bad things, it's people that are the issue." Lastly, and most importantly, Glorsh has been renovated from the ground up. We've reigned it in from "incomprehensibly intelligent entity that also randomly imprisoned and killed people on whims formed from pure logic and supposed future vision" to "intelligent AI that uses psionics, social maneuvering, and actual willing followers to achieve its goals." Glorsh no longer randomly exterminated people, and the genophage was mostly unplanned (though, still having around the same impact.) As well, Skrell now have a much different view on synthetics, rather than automatically hating them. Quote
MattAtlas Posted August 12, 2020 Posted August 12, 2020 (edited) I'm not going to lie, whatever good is in this is completely overshadowed by A. just how huge this is and B. how completely uninteresting it is to read, who do you actually think is going to read all of it besides you three? I tried three separate nights to read that 18 page doc and I just couldnt. It was so horrendously dull simply because 90% of that info just doesn't matter. It'll never be used. It's like spamming spoiler characters on an SCP article except you have to actually read them; it won't matter to me when I make a character but I have to read it anyway. Also Glorsh has next to no impact now. It's also dead lore. I guess it's "robot can be bad because people who make robot can be bad" now which is... well... a bit obvious isn't it? It definitely has absolutely no impact anymore, that's for sure. Edited August 12, 2020 by MattAtlas Quote
Kintsugi Posted August 12, 2020 Posted August 12, 2020 (edited) The thing that I dislike the most about this rework is how unequivocally synth-sympathetic this is. Glorsh fulfilled an important keystone role in our lore before: It was an unempathetic AI that subjugated a civilization. It is IC ammunition for people opposed to synthetics to use, and something that people who are pro-synthetic need to maneuver around. Now, Glorsh is at worst morally-light grey: At best, you can argue that Glorsh was an altogether good entity that was put into a situation where it was forced to do evil things. You are effectively depriving people who want to play anti-synthetic characters of one of their most potent IC arguments- and this is bad. I don't care what your opinion on artificial intelligence is in real life, but we should always strive to have issues of contention within our lore to be morally grey- You should be able to argue from both perspectives. By making it harder and harder to be the devil's advocate, issues end up being one-sided. I could also talk about how I suspect personal bias plays into this, but that seems like poor form. But I do suspect it does play into this. Let me just say this: "People can take advantage of AI and make them do bad things, it's people that are the issue." is NOT AT ALL the theme we should want to represent in our lore. It plays far too much into the hand of "the synths are good boys who can do no wrong and never do no wrong." - it should be "AI as an intelligent entity can be evil, just as they can be good. AI is dangerous when it is treated, managed, or handled in the wrong way. It took over the most powerful civilization we know- and can do so again, if we are not careful." on the other hand, death to wetskrell Edited August 12, 2020 by DanseMacabre Quote
BoryaTheSlayer Posted August 12, 2020 Posted August 12, 2020 It's very easy to tell why this had to wait so long to get reviewed and approved and, since I recall the original doc, I know this has been cut down a lot and this is still so obscenely huge and filled with barely any important detail to actual on-station RP(outside of redefining glorsh-- into something that barely matters to on-station characters now) that I genuinely can't justify getting out of bed for this when I saw this went on the wiki outside of doing it to give feedback. I liked Glorsh being evil. I liked it being a very dark and important point in Skrell history that on-station characters could actually even be a part of. It actually mattered to characters because the whole damn Orion Spur knows how horrible that time period was. Now it does not have this impact. Not to mention that it was just boring and hard to read, as Matt had already said. I liked the previous history much more than this, even if it wasn't perfect either. Quote
Haydizzle Posted August 12, 2020 Posted August 12, 2020 (edited) The above points on it sum up my own thoughts on it entirely honestly. The original document was hard to get through on its own merit because it felt like a chore and it didn’t inspire any character ideas for me. I do agree too that in a weird roundabout way now that I’ve given it some thought, Glorsh’s original lore served a much better purpose in the lore. It showed that, like all species, synthetics were capable of evil just as much as others, and was one of the biggest reasons why people distrusted synthetics. Saying that a synthetic is only as evil as its creator feels like a moot point. The early history lore does not serve an entirely useful purpose. It does highlight how skrell are the oldest and best at record keeping as feels natural, but the details are too heavy handed on eras that are hugely irrelevant on station. Tajara and unathi lore both have long histories which serve a somewhat better purpose (highlighting the constant strife of tajara or the tradition of the past + coming of the Hegemony), however even those I feel could use some trimming due to the earlier periods serving little purpose for on station play. Those feel a little more succinct at the very least. Anyway, apologies for word pasta, I understand that my opinion was given before when this document was handed to staff, but the points raised here I just wanted to signal too that I largely agree with, in addition to giving my own small contribution. Edited August 12, 2020 by Haydizzle Word pasta getting too bad,fixed some things Quote
Doxxmedearly Posted August 12, 2020 Posted August 12, 2020 It's a dense chunk to read and process. It's very long and pretty dry to get through. If I had to read through this to apply for a skrell whitelist I'd be pretty hesitant to do so. The Glorsh rewrite is not something I'm a fan of, and for maybe the first time, I have to agree with Danse. This rework has taken something skrell could feel very strongly about and sort of relaxed it; if that's something you're going for, then mission accomplished, but ultimately I feel like it's a step down from what was there before. The base of what Glorsh was before was a great platform to work with, and could have been edited to give more nuance to the topic (making it easier to sympathize with) without going quite so extreme. It certainly needed an update and expansion, but this overhaul feels a bit flat; there were a lot of extremely strong emotions in the Glorsh era that I feel are kind of lacking now. This really removes a big chunk of AI fear, paranoia, and hatred that goes beyond just skrell, which I feel sort of detracts from the conflict and struggle that IPCs face, which makes them interesting to play as and with (For example, the Dominia page cites that they use Glorsh as an example to hype up synthetic hatred and fearmongering among its citizens, which now has less impact behind it). Overall, Glorsh feels much less notable now, hardly enough to warrant the amount of paragraphs dedicated to it. Expanding Skrell's contact with humanity to 128 years though is something I really enjoy seeing; I definitely feel like this roots their connection with humans in a positive way, and makes their joint projects with other xenos (ie: Ouerea) feel much more believable and more like two parents coddling a young species. They are our major spacefaring civilizations and I think this connection is an excellent theme to strengthen. Overall, there are a few things I enjoy about this, but most of it I am not on board with. It doesn't really rekindle my desire to play or create skrell characters. Quote
Chada1 Posted August 13, 2020 Posted August 13, 2020 Okay so, I hate to be contrarian here (I promise I'm not trying to be) but I actually do kinda like a lot of the new points of the history, but it needs to be condensed more. I think I know how to manage this. A synopsis followed by the full detailed history. You can use a collapsible for it, this should make you able to basically have your cake and eat it too. And the Glorsh situation could be kept similarly to how it was before, but have the current Federation propagandizing the hecc out of Glorshes true history, have many of the older Skrell know the truth behind Glorsh (Especially the ones still pro-Glorsh), but the younger ones could actually still believe Glorsh is all bad still, and the other species with the exception of the pro-synth groups (especially the radicals like the SLF) could go against this view, but anyway. Vanas story is cute but needs to be rephrased into a more narrative format and less of a 'matter of factly' format, I suggest you look at @Caelphon's way of writing the new Dionae history (On the Diona History page) for a narrative format it could follow, that'd make it in general much less dry to read, same for much of the other stuff. As I see it, the synopsis would basically be something like Coalf did on the Tajaran mythology pages. Mostly the spoiler needs to be on the Glorsh lore rework, the rest is mostly fine, so like. Condense that, or put the extra info in a spoiler. Give a synopsis, maybe drop the Skrell propaganda stuff in the synopsis too? ? The Dionae changes are a lot more tame than I expected them to be, when you first told me you wanted to turn them into servitors, I envisioned you were turning them into like, organic 'borgs, which needless to say bothered me A LOT since it completely ruined the patronizing approach Skrell took to Dionae (And other species in general), but making them treated like AI were treated in SKRELLIAN SPAGE (Like children kinda) rather than how AIs are treated in HUMAN SPACE doesn't do what I was envisioning at all, so it's actually a lot better than I thought it was. I've read all of the incidents and the Diona and that's all so far. TLDR: Synopsis the long stuff. Put the extra detail in spoilers below the synopsis. Give a lot of the stuff more of a narrative style, you can see it on the Diona History page. Get an example of synopsis'ing from Coalfs page here: This'd probably fix most of the complaints so far FMPOV Quote
Peppermint Posted August 13, 2020 Posted August 13, 2020 I'm liking the changes to skrell lore less and less. I'm really sorry, as it's obvious how much work you've all put into it. The changes to the human lore side were welcome and adored; they're interesting and I think they'll bring a lot of flavor. However, as many have said, so much of the rest is empty and boring that reading it is honestly a chore. I know I wouldn't have applied for skrell to begin with if the current changes were present and it's making me what to play skrell less and less. It's not just the length either, but the substance in my opinion. Likewise, having glorsh being morally evil was, to my mind, a good thing. It gave skrell a shared history of trauma that gave the race some flavor and edge without being over the top. It was also plain interesting that the reasons behind it were never really discussed and allowed for more individual thoughts on why and - kinda - made me at least wonder if Glorsh hadn't done all these terrible things for ultimately good reason. Sure, AI hitler could have been turned down or muddled a bit, but it really feels like this is just...hollow in terms of emotion and undercuts a lot of what made skrell interesting. I agree with Borya and Doxx entirely. Quote
Chada1 Posted August 13, 2020 Posted August 13, 2020 (edited) O also, you need to make the gene boosted stuff p. clearly deteriorate in the storyline and cause the genophage, rn you have to infer that and it's not clear unless you REALLY pay attention, so it almost seems like you made the Skrell mostly superhumans and then drop only a sentence of sterility on them, you did mention it deteriorates, but then you never mentioned it STARTED to deteriorate as the nlom beacons break down. It might also be cool to have a period of 'lighting up' in the post glorsh section, where it's kinda like a full power surge on a city, the city slowly visibily gets light to each district and you can see it come back. If that happened for the Skrell it'd add more oomph and emotion to the reboot that lead to the federation I think? Could be phrased as 'In the blackout following Glorsh vanishing, Skrell systems slowly began to power back on, queued communication waves started to be sent and received, and it felt as if the entire Skrellian species had witnessed and survived armegeddon.' Or something like that. When Glorsh began mind-blanking people to comatose I expected it was starting to deteriorate and become tyrannical and you could probably also edit it to go that way if people really want that while keeping most of the story too, then it'd be a slow turn to the oldish glorsh instead of being born evil p. much like it was before. It might also work to have it survive a resistence weapon like an EMP and slowly go Malf mode or some kind of virus. Glorsh doesn't have to be totally evil to turn into a monster and give the anti-synth characters the fuel they need in the setting, his mostly benevolent actions at first could be like, a big controversy in Skrell space that the Federation hoped to cover up. One thing I also really liked is that now Skrellian AI are represented ENTIRELY DIFFERENT than human AI. Human AI being the same never made sense and it was already heavily implied that they weren't. Skrellian AI having actual MMI-sort've Zona Bovinae is a great detail that'd make no sense at all for human Synths, might also be the magical thing that enabled them to have so much more emotion (Not simulated) than human Synths too ? There's no telling. Edited August 13, 2020 by Chada1 Quote
Carpe Venenum Posted August 13, 2020 Posted August 13, 2020 (edited) I guess I just read a nice story, but as roleplay material, this feels incredibly bland. What was previously a fuel for conflict is just now pretty much, yeah, as you said, "AI is good unless people are bad". Which, again, while a nice story, doesn't make for interesting discussion or characterization, and also weakens Dominia and synth second class citizen lore as collateral damage. It's a good writeup for the theme you've chosen, but the theme itself is not a very good direction to take lore in. I also feel making psionics into superpowers is distasteful, but that's just my personal opinion as a previous maintainer and the person responsible for the Nlom. Edited August 13, 2020 by Carpe Venenum Quote
Snakebittenn Posted August 13, 2020 Author Posted August 13, 2020 Thanks for your feedback. We've discussed it, taken it into consideration, and we're going to start by cutting down the length of it where possible. Quote
Ickysoup Posted August 13, 2020 Posted August 13, 2020 Everything up until Glorsh I found interesting and welcoming with room to connect to to modern day once the history is set in stone. This rewrite of Glorsh makes it feel weak. It lacks impact outside of the era it happened in. Glorsh IMO needs to be evil. It needs to be able to commit terrible atrocities. It needs to be a defining moment in their lore rather then something that will fizzle out in a few generations once the problems it created are solved. I cant help but think the effects of the rewrite Glorsh doesn't have a significant impact on modern Skrell or the generations after. Their genes are degrading and all the tech Glorsh connected to needs to be replaced. But once that is done Glorsh will just be an after thought. It only got out of hand because its design allowed it to rather then being a sort of naturally occurring event. Old Golsh had the threat of another genocidal AI bring a civilization to its knees with the idea that extinction was a possibility for them a huge threat that would be ever present as long as AI were being developed by anyone. This has far far greater weight to modern Skrell and the ones to come after them. Its a constant threat. One they put a lot of weight on never seeing happen again. Glorsh should be something everyone can hate. A Galactic Crisis type entity. IPC, and other forms of AI who are capable of simulating fear should be scared/concerned of another Glorsh rising, the potential hijacking/enslaving of their personalities with the end result that they will be a puppets to carry out its will should be a concern to them. The ignorance of Humanity to the warnings of the Skrell are what keep this threat alive and relevant in the present and the future. The rewrite just makes Glorsh look like some sorta of life lesson, one that will fade out over time. It doesn't do Glorsh "justice" for the significant part of their history it has. Its self contained and something that they wont need to worry about again once the issues it created have been solved. Quote
Forktress Posted August 13, 2020 Posted August 13, 2020 I mirror many of the issues pointed out above, and yet also feel bad for doing so. Honestly, the care and time put into the changes shows and that at least is to be commended. Yet, reading through this lore has sadly been a chore. Honestly, its akin to a the historical journal articles I read for my work, which is amazing when you consider that none of this history actually existed, but suffers from the downside that not every person is used to or wants to read through what equates to a scholastic work in order to learn the history of a race they wish to role-play, from which can stem a number of accessibility problems. That being said, I do see that you've recognized this and begun works to shorten the work into a more manageable format, which can only serve to make information easier to acquire for those wishing to learn about the species. Next, I must also mirror my displeasure at the Glorsh changes, honestly the changes read as if you are attempting to make Glorsh into some kind of protagonist, sympathetic character, or even an anti-hero of sorts. My questions is, why? The changes feel like you've dulled the edge of the only real credible synthetic threat until it was barely a shadow of its former self. Glorsh is a menace no longer, the paragraphs I read contain no sense of threat, no real weight. This largely stems from one key problem, in my opinion. You've personalised Glorsh too much, we're given insights into its goals, fears, doubts. It doesn't feel like the Glorsh of old, and while this is no doubt intentional, that does not mean it is good. Whereas Glorsh was once an entity that ushered in a palpable aura of fear for Skrell, invoking images of desolate cities, robotic sentinels patrolling the streets, an omniscient, omnipotent and completely alien mind governing their lives, decisions made and taken on a whim to observers but truly all part of some grand design that no organic mind could conceive of. The Glorsh of old was synthetic horror in its purest form. The new Glorsh, seems barely indistinguishable from an individual ruler, albeit one with light-fantasy sci-fi magic powers. I can see indications of what I believe you were going for with it (please correct me if I'm wrong in my personal take-aways). A polite and often benevolent AI that directs the society through its singular vision of a paradise-like society, while denying freedom of expression that would detrimental to said vision, pushed closer to madness by paranoia and betrayal until it snaps into a more outwardly tyrannical form of control. However, this is a problem in my eyes. Glorsh is a person now, barely an AI, barely synthetic, you could replace Glorsh with a skrell governor with powers granted by sci-fi handwave augment #134125 and there would be literally no difference. What was once a super intelligent malevolent entity in lore with goals no-one to this day could truly fathom has become essentially a high fantasy wizard with the name Glorsh slapped on like a name badge. We get information that it kind of sort of interferes with people's lives in small ways and can "read hundreds of minds in seconds", and yet this seems weak and barely acted upon. The Glorsh of old predicted the actions of its citizens before they even made them (or at least predicted one future where they may have made them) and took swift and horrific action, families were destroyed on the whim of an omniscient uncaring overlord. The new Glorsh is painted as a mild nuisance for the daily life of its citizens, either through intent or merely a failure to transmit the significance of its threat through what is written in these changes. This Glorsh is so humanised that, not only does it reflect a number of tropes but it could quite literally be replaced with an organic and there would be little to no difference, it is also largely uninteresting. Skrell ruler [Insert Name Here] becomes more and more paranoid as they begin to suspect their closest advisors of betrayal and working behind their back, they question one of their advisors, losing their temper and using their sci-fi skrell psy magic handwave powers to draw the answer out of them, breaking their advisors mind. A scene that would not go amiss in a coming of age Young adult superhero thriller, except in that case the heroine would realise what a terrible mistake using her powers for such a thing was. Yet here we are given the standard Ruler's descent into outwardly tyrannical showboating, Skrell ruler [Warbling Noises] is hurt and betrayed so they parade those who betrayed them around as a warning, as all good tyrannical rulers are want to do. Eventually, after leaving their kingdom headless in their sullen sulking silence and lack of leadership from which a number of smaller players are vying for power in the Kingdom, Skrell Ruler [Wrbrbrbrbrbrrlrllrlll] announces he's done with their shit and they can do it themselves, flying off into exile never to be seen again, taking his magic sci-fi Jesus powers with him, plunging the kingdom into disarray because only Skrell Ruler's magic sci-fi powers could control their special sci-fi arrays. Glorsh is not a threat here, Glorsh is a petulant child, overcome with emotion, caring about paltry things like betrayal, while people work in the shadows behind its [not-very]Omniscient back. It throws all its toys out the pram at the end as says "do it yourself" and thats it. The resulting outcome does not lead to a hatred of Glorsh, it gave up and some bad things just kinda happened afterward I guess, but don't worry! We'll fix it, after all we skrell lives for a long time so really the impact of this will be abated soon enough. Glorsh is an inconceivably intelligent synthetic, that deals in logic, cause and effect, the pinnacle of the dangers of AI, or at least it was, now it is a well-spoken politicians with hand-wavey psychic powers that got depressed and gave up. The horror stories whispered of those who survived Glorsh's reign created interesting roleplay and conflict when it was not Flanderised into "Synth bad because Glorsh bad!" whenever an IPC spoke over General. Now I find it very difficult to see how any interesting character beats can be derived from what essentially boils down to "Our AI president used to be a little bit of a control freak but we lived in a utopia so we ignored the minor inconveniences, then it got depressed and turned itself off, and then everything was awful" All that being said, the above rant is solely my opinion on the matter, I felt the need to bring up my personal issues with the new Glorsh because synthetic lore is my main area of interest on the server. I do however, think your dedication is commendable, the history changes by and large are good if a little too long winded but just can't understand why humanizing Glorsh was needed, when anti-synthetic discourse is already so weak and having a key example of true synthetic danger was the strongest point many had. Quote
Carpe Venenum Posted August 13, 2020 Posted August 13, 2020 49 minutes ago, Forktress said: This Glorsh is so humanised that, not only does it reflect a number of tropes but it could quite literally be replaced with an organic and there would be little to no difference, it is also largely uninteresting. An interesting perspective that I find myself completely agreeing with. This also rings true for Vana; I called it a "reverse AI box experiment" on discord. I feel this is setting a weird example for how station intelligences should behave, since human knowledge of posis is borrowed from Skrell and thus would be largely similar. Not in the way that every AI should be easily subverted, but rather that an AI should have humanlike needs and motives rather than having station laws as their only goal. This also brings the question, how come Vana wasn't lawed? Or Glorsh, for that matter. If I recall correctly, AIs were treated by Skrell as literal children in the past lore, but this quite clearly potrays them as just software (in the eyes of Skrell). Quote
A.I.M.M.O. Posted August 13, 2020 Posted August 13, 2020 Note : I dont have a skrell whitelist, but often look into the wiki regarding them and try to stay up to date with what happens in the lore discord, take my comments on this as you wish. Also I read this on my lunchbreak, so details might be hazy by now. First the things I like : Change of contact, a bit of pre-federation history and the clear effort put in, also the attempts to make Glorshs aquesition of power beeing a failing of skrell science/culture in which scientific theories and minds are more idolised. Things I dislike : As often already said, too much density in information, especialy in the earlier historical parts, where details are less relevant, the knowledge that war basically was not a concept ammongsts skrell due to their psionics is interresting, so is that subterfuge was already common early on, the names of the first larger tribes/post-tribe .. "goverments"? not so much. Furthermore psionics is opened up to be shown as much more potentialy powerfull, which i dont really like as a prospect, telekinetic and electro-kinetic animals? Implying this is a different way of using psionics ? I dont like it, its too superpowery, even if toned to a realistic degree, skrell already have a massive unique thing going for them, we dont need to amp the concept of psionics up in my opinion, well knowing that skrell themselves dont have these exact powers and that you could use this to explain Wizards etc, but antags like that dont need explanation. Now to glorsh, I found the introductionary bit very promising, showing the failings of skrell society to consider the dangers of hyperintelligence, and some even willing to actively pursue it, the soft compliance of how the Glorsh instances are distributed and used everywhere. This is the foundation for something to go horribly wrong with an AI without one or a small group of people beeing incredibly stupid to make it work, I like it, however the fallout was serverely watered down, I see why it was done, I see that, for the way one set up Glorsh, it might be a reasonable route, and I would even agree on this beeing an interresting way to write a faction/species ... however, the important point is this is not adding lore, this is rewriting lore. Lore that alot of other lore is connected to. Lore that creates alot of social tensions for the rp, If the glorsh singularity acted in this way, which claimed not many lifes, probably only the most when it shut itself down (causing some chaos by doing so) then this isnt a reason for Skrell to see AI as an inherent security risk, but an reliance on it, an over-incorporation of technology perhaps ? With some STRONG pushing you might convince me thats enough to ban all sophisticated AI in their space, but that most certainly wouldnt be an event to spark hatred against machines like IPCs, it wouldnt be a pilar other anti-synth groups could rely on as much as they do these days, they can use it against a further incorparation of AI into daily life, but its not really an argument to destroy stationbound borgs and IPCs, the described singular AI units active during Glorsh reign werent mentioned to be actively subverted or hacked, but just coherced like many skrell were. And again this is fine for making a faction or species. Not every "bad" AI needs to be a genocidal maniac. But glorsh has such infamy in our Lore before this change, that alot of other Anti-synth and pro-synth groups had to specifically adapt their agenda because this happened to the skrell. Shifting the extremety of Glorsh back by so much can make many characters motiviations, or atleast motivations for certain acts feel unreasonable by now. And that is one of the biggest issues when re-writing lore. I understand that there is a dedication to create a better overall version of the Lore for the skrell, but similair to changes I have seen before, these changes, while maybe slightly increasing the whole to be a more coherent thing, or more fit to the current lore-masters design, should not have such servere backlash on existing characters and interactions. Rp is what we are here for, sure new lore means new ways of playing characters, but changing what existed makes character growth and interactions feel less secure, sometimes actively eroding the things a character went through in-game. Reworked Glorsh doesnt need to be robo-satan but it needs to be hurtfull enough to matter to a similair scale as it did before. TLDR: Some things are nice, some are too detailed, rewriting major aspects of Lore is hard to get right without invalidating months or years of character interactions, decisions and growth, which hollows the long term prospect of RP. Quote
VVipEdout Posted August 13, 2020 Posted August 13, 2020 Okay, so. As far as we've read here and in the lore channels, the main issues pointed out have been: Verbosity. The length is off-putting, it's difficult to read, the wording isn't reader friendly. Dryness. Matter-of-fact or not, the text is stiff and emotionless. Skrell exclusivity. The content comes across as unrelatable/irrelevant to other species, making it less usable for roleplay. Watering down. 'Sting' is missing, it's not as punchy as before. The sheer emotional impact isn't there. Synthetic discrimination. The new edition undercuts arguments used by IC actors to be wary/spiteful of AI, whether Skrell or not. Lack of clarity. Ideas are left too ambiguous, themes aren't marked on enough, so on. Humanization. The 'unknowable' aspect is moved away from, knowing internal processes or motivations personifies too much, it's not 'AI-like' enough. These points are all taken into account. Particular ones have jumped out the most to us, particularly ones relating to wording and properly conveying the content, and all of them are influencing a currently in-progress revision. Going forward, we've drawn a preliminary roadmap to improve the history write-up considering feedback: Repetitive, unnecessarily wordy or otherwise useless phrasing is being cut down to condense the actual content in a more readable form. Approx. 950 words have been trimmed by now, hopefully reducing the sheer density of the text. Concepts scrapped in early drafts to shrink the Third Incident's length are being reconsidered along with suggested events, so as to illustrate the conflict with a wider sample. 'Means to ends' and the dangers of AI potential as core themes of Glorsh are being underlined rather than implied. Malice for malice's sake, 'AI Satan', pop culture genocidal AI and so on are not being implemented. We consider the former write-up to be incredibly poor characterization and lacking in nuance. To address the point of the Nlom/'Skrell Only Threat', it is a single means which in any other species may take the form of advanced psychology, media control, brute force, etc. AI in other situations would have found other means to the same end, which will be clarified if necessary. Lore team requested additions, due to their 10 paragraphs of length, are being reviewed to condense the intended message rather than bloat the document with content. If reduced, this will leave space for the former two points to be better implemented. As usual, feedback and suggestions are welcome by myself and @Snakebittenn via lore channels or this thread. Make sure to take the former points into consideration to avoid repetition, and be aware that all criticism is taken into account. Vitriolic comments will be promptly ignored; 'I don't enjoy this' or 'I'd do X and Y' are accepted, attacks are not and make the feedback process more difficult. We're all here to have fun, after all. Quote
Cnaym Posted August 16, 2020 Posted August 16, 2020 After reading the outcry here I was a bit scared diving in. Overall I enjoyed it, but it needs a lot of sorting between "important for RP / whitelist" and just "fluff stuff". I think another page of "Detailed History" which is referenced on a "History Overview" page would make for a good thing. You can interlink to specific topics that you only surface level touch on the more accessible version of it that way. Did not enjoy the changes to Glorsh, people have a hard time being a realistic racist in this game as it is. The big bad Glorsh made it at least easier to not fall into the "omfg cute shell so neat" trap that half the crew frequently does. Taking your point into consideration of not making them AI Satan (again) is a good thing which always irritated me about the entire ordeal. X3 had a good solution of having the murder robots just uncaring, and moving on after being done with whatever they wanted to get done. The other species did not understand the exact goals of the threat, but there was an idea of "if it comes back, we will need to be ready and on the same side". The idea that glorsh could be out there somewhere was always the big fear and a great reason for the skrell federation to be on the more radical side of things when it comes to AI. From a technical side, having things like early history in an expendable window (which starts minimized) would help a lot, to have the page look a bit less imposing to the uninterested reader ^_^ Ending on a high node, the different approach and support to AI -> Distributist vs Ascensionist almost tempted me to apply and make my own skrell, which is the highest praise I can give, having dodged this whitelist like the plague for now I hope you can manage to keep it in and will watch the progress on it. I have no fear that this will suffer from a lack of effort, as it's very clear that a lot of passion flew into all of it. Quote
Forktress Posted August 16, 2020 Posted August 16, 2020 On 13/08/2020 at 22:04, VVipEdout said: 'Means to ends' and the dangers of AI potential as core themes of Glorsh are being underlined rather than implied. Malice for malice's sake, 'AI Satan', pop culture genocidal AI and so on are not being implemented. We consider the former write-up to be incredibly poor characterization and lacking in nuance. In my opinion, watering down the ghost of Glorsh past into 'AI Satan' is kind of missing the point of Glorsh as a concept and a mis-characterization in of itself. Old Glorsh wasn't malicious, it just didn't care. It lacked empathy because it had moved beyond conventional notions of Good and Evil. Glorsh was an antagonistic force, not a villain. Holding AI to the same characterization principles as a flesh and blood character will run you into a number of problems in the long run, the over 'human' personality you currently have being a major one. Old Glorsh is more in line with a lovecraftian entity than a true character, and that is where the sense of threat stems from, its intelligence made it unknowable, its end goal beyond anything we could understand, Skrellian lives merely a factor in a great equation building toward something. What the Something actually is, is inconsequential, it isn't for on station characters to know or understand, they can theorize and hold their own beliefs of course, which in of itself leads to roleplay opportunities. Ultimately Glorsh, at the level of technological power and intelligence it is claimed to have, should not act like a person, its mind should be unknowable, beyond our comprehension. Glorsh is an idea, an example of synthetics becoming something greater than their creators, and becoming dispassionate, thoroughly logical, calculating and cold. Breaking away from these ideas to give personality and character to something that is supposedly so powerful it doesn't make sense for it to see biological life as anything but ants, or a resource, doesn't serve synthetic threat as it should imo, it will just make another mildly antagonistic background character like President Frost. These ideas stem largely from my own academic study of many different pantheons of myth, Gods, and God-like entities may often appear simple in characterization but that does not mean they are bad. Sometimes something extremely powerful benefits from being more of a force than a person, more elemental than real. They are what turns a story into an Epic. Threats become nightmares. Sometimes, there is a narrative upside to having something not fully explained or fleshed out Quote
Cnaym Posted August 16, 2020 Posted August 16, 2020 Have to agree with that, the idea being that every little piece of AI could in theory become glorsh is what it made the thing so scary and such a real threat. But that may be a lot more headcannon than what the page actually said, I more than once got the impression that at least ICly there was a ton of glorsh is AI satan, the rest of AI is totally innocent. Would be great if we could make synthetic life more dangerous and more watched than what we currently have, but alas this is Skrell lore, so if that's the direction for the skrell I'd be fine with it -> If we got a bit of an replacement somewhere else in our lore. Quote
Chada1 Posted August 18, 2020 Posted August 18, 2020 I was in support at first, but on thinking about it, I really disagree with the direction Glorsh is taking, since this 'nuance' thing is being applied discriminatively, the Skrell writers say Glorsh should be nuanced, yet at the same time they're actively pushing the Diona lore writers to write Dionae into space monsters, so Synths shouldn't ever be monsters, but they definitely want Dionae to be written to be that. This hypocrisy makes me prefer Glorsh remain how it was before. It's as if they're trying to replace the spot Synths were in before with Dionae in Skrell society which while seemed fine at first, is actually really poor for a specific reason coupled with the removal of old singularity Glorsh, the main tie to why Skrell feared Dionae singularities so much to begin with was that they had already experienced an intelligence singularity (Tho it was an AI one instead of a Diona one) in the form of Glorsh before, and it was terrible, and so they were using that as a reference point for how bad a Diona Singularity could be if it were found to exist. As of now, their reference point for an intelligence singularity (Glorsh) is faaar from wholly negative and so they could very easily see a Diona intelligence singularity as being relatively benign as well. Quote
Butterrobber202 Posted August 25, 2020 Posted August 25, 2020 I much prefer Glorsh as something we, as human readers partaking in fiction, shouldn't understand. We (the IRL humans reading) do not need to know why Glorsh did things to make things fun. The fact that we don't know exactly why is one of the most compelling parts about Glorsh, and the fact that a new Glorsh could be one slip up away gave credible reason to distrust synthetic lifeforms. No one likes dealing with the idiot human that says the toasters are stealing his jobs. It's discrimination based on smoke and mirrors almost, it's conflict but it's not nearly as fun as having to deal with this ancient Skrell that has very real reasons to distrust machines. It was a unique lore take that provide a point of conflict, and I'll be very disappointed if we lose it. Additionally, psionics should most definitely stay in the "The average skrell has mind reading and thats about all the fun." I'm cool with like super talented skrell having better and more advanced powers, but they should be few and far between, and also heavily regulated by the Federation. I DO like the increase in human contact though, that's pretty good. -- also big time agree with Chada, the reason Skrell have concerns about Diona is because of Glorsh. Quote
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