Marlon Phoenix' Unathi Lore Deputy Application

[Marlon P.]

Ckey/BYOND Username:
marlonphoenix
Position Being Applied For:
Unathi lore deputy.
Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?
Yes.
Past Experiences/Knowledge:
I was the maintainer for Unathi from ~2014/15 to 2019 and Loremaster from 2015 to 2019 at the same time. Outside Unathi I've at some point in the past provided major contributions to Vaurca history and general lore. For Skrell I added Glorsh and the Three Incidents along with the Skrell's relationship with synthetics, contributed to the Tajara lore with wiki pages and lore progression, added the original Crevus, reworked the Alliance, created the divide between inner- mid- and outer- spheres of human space, managed the first two antag contests, the two elections for tau ceti, the election for the alliance, the major lore arcs for unathi, the invasion of Tau Ceti, and most of how we run events as world events and the existence of our news articles carry off my original experimentation. Competitive, canon events between antagonistic factions which carry over through lore were also something I experimented with. 

I also pushed the concept of IC rewrites, in the sense that if something shifts massively within the lore, we explained it as a change happening in-universe. This concept is responsible for many arcs that I wrote for factions in which they fundamentally changed. The Ur-example is the Unathi Crisis where Ouerea was rewritten to be a colony of the Hegemony and no longer a colony of the skrell and alliance. This at the same time was the Ur-example of lore events changing the universe.

Within Unathi I've written some element from top to bottom. The most important things are the religions with the exception of Aut'akh, their history, and their honor code.
Examples of Past Work
This entire freaking post keeps breaking due to the formatting caused by previews coming in from linking forum threads! It's wiped my progress four times with a broken ctrl-z. Im not linking anything until after this is posted. In leu of links please see the contributions for the wiki from the following users:

1. Jackboot
2. Senpai Jackboot

Please see articles primarily focused in:

1. Sinta Articles.
2. Martian Vice.
3. Alliance News Network.
4. Mendel City Bugle.
5. Wasteland Window.

Additional Comments

I burned out in 2019 because an incredible and chronic series of abuse and vitriol, including genuine hate-mail, acts of wiki sabotage by quitting or fired wiki developers, harassment, a complete breakdown in civility, and my feeling of a total inability to address the systemic problems, over the course of at least a year turned me into an asshole perpetuating the cycle of abuse that came to a head with my demotion and then decision to leave. This was after a discovery of messages from an unaffiliated server about stabbing an effigy of me. It lead to a confrontation in front of the entire team, after which I decided to just quit because developing suddenly wasn't fun anymore, which I place as the prime priority for contributing.

Rediscovering Aurora relatively recently I've found most of the perpetuators of the worst chronic behaviors have been banned, changed, or made amends with me after acknowledging our mutually problematic behavior towards one another, with myself bearing more responsibility because of my position as an authority figure. I'm not going to name any names; this acknowledgement is not to drag anyone, but to focus on the how and why of myself.

I get energized interacting with players who find engagement with the lore and I enjoy the staff-to-player relationships lore developers uniquely have. That's super fun!

Contributions since my return in order of submission:

• A cultural addition for Ouerea involving a unique take on marathon racing that is half survival, half traditional race.
  • https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/16388-ouerean-racers-the-red-rocketeers-and-the-yellow-bellies/
• The tweaking of the Grim Compact's hierarchy.
  • https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/16498-grim-compact-addition/
• A summary of all news articles written for Unathi for the Unathi history page, formatted as a soap opera and with each major section opening with a quote to establish the drama of the period.
  • https://docs.google.com/document/d/157ys4e-LPkXbOjxK8gO1_KCyyb-kbswvLknGMM_8lDM/edit?usp=sharing
• These were made for this application:
  • A draft on non-hegemonic cultures and religions with a proof-of-concept.
    • https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tOOOS3e9TEqR0W8NyqfkcqYAZMmFIglTk6ZD0khc9c0/edit#
  • Unathi poetry and its use in daily life.
    • https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dhlyBuyQra8q7quSFdsBT120Psziu3UV_eWAKPnL0HU/edit?usp=sharing

My agenda is next to propose to Haydizzle an expansion of minor factions and religions outside the Izweski on Moghes prior to the apocalypse, and how they transformed into our existing wasteland factions. Each one ideally with some element of impact on how the unathi from each of these is roleplayed on station.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Desven]

I don't think it would be a good decision to take you back in lore.

 

We have interacted not too much, but I'm familiar with your writings as I deal with them all the time. I've also seen your conduct on the Discord servers, and without going too much into detail, it is really hard to talk with you. Just a few days ago a discussion dragged for literal hours were you defended a really flimsy point of view. I know I can be stubborn, but it was just tiresome and you were getting in the nerves of others that eventually got involved too. While it wasn't exactly lore related, I think the discussion we had about how much the game mechanics on the science department are canon and not a minigame just goes to show your point of view in lore, which I believe to be antithetical to how we currently understand it: you see lore as something not as serious and that has to be confined to the basic game mechanics and culture of SS13.

Other than that, I do have problems with what you've written. Your outline of Vaurca history and general outline of the species have created plot holes which I believe stagnate the species. Just how many District 9 references were inserted into the development, while still trying to implement the original draft of C0vert0ddity (which I have to admit wasn't anything special) are a problematic. Not only that, but it was done and documented in a poor manner that plenty of your article lore was in the wiki.

This problem comes up often. You have a poor track of keeping record of the events and arcs you begun, many of them not being as significant ever. A recent example is just how pressing you were on your old Biesel parties. You said they were crucial to Tau Ceti lore, but that is not true. They weren't fleshed out, which is why future lore writers discarded them. The way I see it is that accepting you would make us look backwards and not forward, which we desperately need to do in the team.

[Marlon P.]

Thank you for you quick response! I popped in for a moment because of a delay in a DnD game I have going on today and saw it.

4 minutes ago, Desven said:

Just a few days ago a discussion dragged for literal hours were you defended a really flimsy point of view.

I really like these conversations! I love exploring my positions by engaging with others. It sounds like you feel I was trying to argue with you, which I didn't intend. You kept engaging, so I kept chatting.

10 minutes ago, Desven said:

Just how many District 9 references were inserted into the development

As I recall, I didn't contribute District 9 references.

11 minutes ago, Desven said:

Other than that, I do have problems with what you've written. Your outline of Vaurca history and general outline of the species have created plot holes which I believe stagnate the species.

That's fair! Nothing's perfect on launch. I'm glad work is still progressing. At the time the Vaurca were pretty close to being removed as discussed in staff circles, and it was my thought that any sort of revitalization was necessary.

12 minutes ago, Desven said:

A recent example is just how pressing you were on your old Biesel parties. You said they were crucial to Tau Ceti lore, but that is not true. They weren't fleshed out, which is why future lore writers discarded them.

I take concern with this. I wasn't pressing; I was asking if the old parties were still canon or retconned, then asked if it was a change done IC. I don't believe that asking questions about lore developments is a bad thing. I have no stake in the old parties being kept.

13 minutes ago, Desven said:

The way I see it is that accepting you would make us look backwards and not forward, which we desperately need to do in the team.

I'll be a unathi deputy, not the loremaster. The direction of the team is not my responsibility. Anything about the old is me reminiscing or working to document them on the wiki, which also addresses the complaint you provided about not documenting contributions.

Again, thanks for the reply!

[Kintsugi]

The first interaction I had with Jackboot was when I was a new player on Aurora. There was a discussion regarding Scarabs in the lore channel. Jackboot mentioned their policy of banning specific nationalities for additions to Scarab lore, on the grounds that they wished to give more of a focus to nationalities that they felt were underrepresented in the lore. While they were in their right to do this as loremaster, I felt that if someone wanted to add something, it was arbitrary and unnecessary to blacklist specific backgrounds for a scarab ship. In response, Jackboot asked if I was an "identitarian" (a far-right political ideology focused predominantly around ethno-and-white-nationalism),

and then said this:

Let me be clear: This interaction was of the server's loremaster calling a new player a neo-nazi who believed in "white genocide" for no reason other than that player disagreeing with their lore policy. The fact that he didn't get in trouble for this can be attributed to the fact I didn't make a staff complaint more than anything else. This behavior was and still is utterly unacceptable and if it happened on Aurora today, I would be outraged.

If you look up this conversation, you will notice my messages have been deleted. This is because this exchange rattled me so strongly (I had only begun playing Aurora, and he was the server's loremaster) that I deleted everything in a panic afterwards. The conversation is still there, however, and hopefully some of the other people involved can corroborate my claims that I really didn't say anything to warrant such a hostile and outrageous accusation.

This is just one example of Jackboot flying off the handle when confronted with the slightest degree of criticism or disagreement. I remember one time when Jackboot asked a player if they had DM'd anyone gay porn recently, in response to a light-hearted comment about Jackboot "coping". This conversation still exists and you can look it up, but I wasn't really involved. 

Aside from the outright toxicity that Jackboot brings to the table (And I do not think that has changed at all), I think their approach to the lore and the quality of their writing is substandard. Aside from appearing to be very close-minded and backwards-thinking to me, Jackboot's tenure as loremaster brought many questionable things to the table. For example, I believe the low-quality "catified" art present on the wiki was added by Jackboot (If not, my apologies. The wiki makes it difficult to confirm this, as they were long-since deleted and the pages themselves are difficult to navigate when it comes to the page history.) For example, we at one point had a catified depiction of Friedrich Paulus' surrender at Stalingrad on the wiki, and a VDV soldier drawn as a cat wearing cat-paw shaped badges and medals. This stuff severely detracted from the perceived quality of Taj lore, imo. Personally, when I saw it, it turned me off the species and indeed, the lore of the server in general. It is hard to provide many specific examples of their work, because much of it has since been removed due to quality concerns - however, looking back at articles in the bugle and similar IC news sources, you can see what I mean. Again, I apologize for not being able to provide too much personal experience on this front. Jackboot was removed from the lore team not too soon after I began playing Aurora, first as loremaster and then as a dev.

At the present, while Jackboot tends to more carefully moderate what they say, I do not think fundamentally they have changed. Instead, I feel like they engage in bad-faith arguments and incredibly stubborn defenses of their viewpoints to try and wear down the people that disagree with them, instead of outright shouting or insulting them down. As Desven points out, they have a tendency to engage in long-winded debates that ultimately go nowhere, and choose very odd hills to die on. As an example, look at their "Is ATLAS canon?" lore question thread, or many other threads they have made since their return to Aurora.

I hate to come out guns blazing like this. It feels like a harsh thing for me to do, and while I typically am happy to let bygones be bygones, I do not think I can do this with Jackboot. I don't think they've changed as a person, and I don't think the quality of their writing has improved, and I don't think they would fit on the lore team. In closing, I think it would be a major mistake letting Jackboot back on the team, and I hope, for both the community's sake and the lore's sake, they aren't.

Edited November 30, 2021 by DanseMacabre

[Marlon P.]

On 20/11/2021 at 19:06, DanseMacabre said:

. I remember one time when Jackboot asked a player if they had DM'd anyone gay porn recently, i

The player had DM'd me gay porn and an image with softgore of a foot punctured by a wall plug-in. The snide remark referenced that during an argument. 

The player since apologized.

it might be difficult to understand the deluge of harrassment going on at the time.

When was this? You've been sitting on this awhile. I honestly dont even remember these conversation. Being 2019 tho yeah it was a bad time.

On 20/11/2021 at 19:06, DanseMacabre said:

As an example, look at their "Is ATLAS canon?" lore question thread, or many other threads they have made since their return to Aurora.

If i get mutually exclusive answers about lore i will post a question. If I have a question in general, I will ask.

Also for the sake of clarity please call me Marlon. A lot of people would not intuitively recognize my old ckey.

Edited November 23, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Mofo1995]

For those who aren't into reading long-winded praises and shameless endorsements, Let me start this off by saying +1 . Full send, no regrets, I literally cannot endorse nor give Marlon a higher endorsement than I'm about to.

 

There's a big and extremely unfortunate tendency on the lore team to wholesale reject, hate on, and big time badmouth any lore dev who was on the team previously and leaves. In my 5 years on the team so far, I can say that at this point I'm just convinced it is an eternal and immutable aspect of the team. It's just something that will always happen unless a dev was completely inactive, and even then they will get mad backbiting about that too. It is far, far, far easier to highlight old lore and then project it and compare it to contemporary lore to paint a picture that "wow, this lore all sucked." With little to no appreciation that the lore landscape of the past where it might've fit in perfectly fine and well, was different today. I think there's also not much appreciation that the next generation of lore team folks are going to feel exactly the same way about our current lore writing endeavors. I am going to state several things before writing an emotionally charged post about the superlative and arbitrarily high opinion I hold of Marlon.

1.) Marlon either directly personally established the foundation of nearly every single major lore faction and species over the course of their tenure, or oversaw, debated on, compromised, and approved every single etc. Nearly every single piece of our entire lore setting either originated from or was worked on to some extent by Marlon. The entirety of lore development since their departure as loremaster is still entirely within and working under what I'm going to call the "Marlonian Paradigm." Their efforts and work are so monumental and titanic, that to leave the Marlonian Paradigm would mean having to completely retcon nearly the entire setting and start from scratch with a completely different one. 

2.) While older lore was tonally far more light hearted, modern lore is still within the Marlonian Paradigm as it has shifted to the more grounded and serious tones also established by Marlon while shifting away from the more light hearted aspects. In other words, balance between two aspects of the same foundation has shifted, however the whole work is still just the redecorated interior of the same thing.

3.) Marlon was a super-human coordinator of people with absurdly indefatigable energy, able to pour in a massive amount of interest at any time divided among large amounts of different projects, and they did it for five whole years.

4.) Marlon has almost always been completely reasonable and wide open for discussion and compromise, and a master negotiator. Traits which I admire greatly. These have fundamentally established the expectations for the role of loremaster. Marlon was also extremely friendly and welcoming, and helped encourage and fan my interest in our server's lore when I was still a brand newbie whose only proper friends were MetaphysicalPersona and my college roommate. 

5.) Almost the entirety of the current lore team rules and regulations were created under Marlon. All I did was write them down. In an ironic way to how they replaced his official "Lore Bible," they are the gospel of his era's rules and regulations according to me. 

6.) Marlon was the single greatest lore writer to have ever been on our lore team, and in my opinion, is the undisputed Greatest of All Time. 

 

Let me begin by painting a picture of when I was new to the server. It was fall of 2015, I was new to roleplay as more than a game-y experience, and I hated all Tajara because I thought they were all furries. I was entering a new community in a new game that I never seriously played before other than an abortive attempt in January 2014. The only friend I had with me was my college roommate who told me to try it out with him, and soon after a very interesting roleplayer who would later get banned for their crazy characters. I was nervous and anxious about making new friends, and from what I could tell, the community was very elitist and insular against outsiders and newcomers. This was back when the server used to go hidden on weekends to avoid large influxes of new players, after all! Taking some uneasy steps, I started not just playing on the server but also interacting with other people on the forums (This was all before discord!) and trying to make new friends. I started reading news articles and getting interested first with skrell lore, before becoming more interested in all of the lore. It all seemed so rich and vast, despite being tiny compared to today. Nervously, I posted open ended questions about aspects of Skrell life and the federation, and I was greeted by a friendly and welcoming person who eagerly answered my questions and even wrote new lore just to get answers when there weren't any. That's actually how Grand Councilor Weashbi Jrugl was added. Marlon added him just to answer a question I posted about who was in charge of the Jargon Fed. In a time when I was a shy, wide-eyed, nervous newbie, there was a kind and encouraging person who eagerly made my acquaintance and helped show me the ropes in a community that felt very insular and unwelcoming to outsiders. With that positive energy, I eagerly started delving deeper into the lore, reading more articles and voraciously consuming all of the information on the wiki pages. 

Marlon wasn't the only one at the time to fan my interest in lore, as I made fast friends with HiveFleetChicken and Loow who were both on the lore team in the Spring of 2016. They were both likewise very supportive and full of encouragement, always happy to talk about Tajara and Skrell lore with me and discuss different ideas for all of it. On the skrell side of things, we even formed a skrell metaclique where we would randomly flood the station with our skrell characters and get up to wacky deadpan humor skrell antics to mess with the silly humans. And it was awesome! Lore back then was so freeform and experimental, and Marlon strongly encouraged players to really get out there and make their own stories with it. When HiveFleet was removed from the team following a big scandal, tajara applications opened up. By that point I had fallen in love with Tajara lore, and fortunately was picked for the position by Marlon in October of 2016. Despite being a mostly new player, still largely wet behind the ears and figuring things out, Marlon was nothing but helpful and supportive and very naturally assumed the role of a mentor and friend who helped me figure everything out and always gave insightful and constructive input to help me make the best writing that I could. He personally extensively helped me with the Tajaran Military Structures page, which was the first page I wrote, and even took the time to lecture me on color theory and work with me to make the graphs less of an eyesore. They even went out of their way to make a full map for Adhomai after they already made maps for Moghes and Biesel!

Old lore team was far more... "catty" and "aggressive" I'd say than current lore team. Current lore team has its dramas, sure, but old lore team (and by old, I mean like pre-2017) used to have large and bombastic arguments on the regular. While they didn't do a perfect job and I've still failed to render a perfect job, Marlon did great at bringing down the tension and cooling things off. Marlon often knew when to admit they were wrong and work on and compromise out mutually agreeable works on the lore team. Coming into spring of 2017 at the weeklong super event culmination of the second antag contest, Marlon worked extensively with Loow and I, as well as the admins and the rest of the lore team, to pull together an event that was wildly popular and much beloved at the time. There was praise from all sides, everyone seemed to love the hell out of it, and if it wasn't for Marlon's intervention, it was going to be a super boring player referendum to decide the end! Most modern event arcs ever since essentially follow the template established by that weeklong event, which we owe largely to Marlon. 

Circling back to the much detested light hearted lore that used to be all over the server lore landscape. I'm gonna drop a truth bomb here and tell everyone the entire lore team setting is full of little inside jokes between old lore devs. It was extremely common up until like, 2018/2019 for there to be straight up joke articles, internal lore memes, and all other kinds of inside jokes. Back during the golden age of Skrell, there was an absolutely absurd amount of skrell metaclique inside jokes just being churned out all the time. Chad "Danger" Supreme, Tegucigulpa being a city on Qerrbelak, "Jargon" being a joke on humans not being able to pronounce it, Swamp Rap, too many for me to even remember let alone count. At the time, it was official lore that the first song shared between humans and skrell was "Come Sail Away" by Styx. Something which I think has some great symbolism for that bright and early future, but I'm getting off topic. It was an environment where lore writers were aware that we're all just amateur sci-fi writing volunteers, and we had a fun time with that self awareness and turning the mirror on ourselves to self-deprecate and poke some fun at the disproportional gravity we sometimes assign to it all. A self awareness which I often lacked greatly in my quest to make everything "gritty" and "grounded" and "believable," and ultimately, edgy. Pointing to those old articles as examples of Marlon being a bad writer isn't fair in the slightest, because everyone was having a bit of fun with their own lore in their own ways too. It was a different time where the expectations about the writing weren't so formal and regimented like I've made them. This is also not to mention that while it's easy to point out the articles that are dumb in hindsight, I'm often astounded at how people ignore the massive body of work comprising all the rest of their contributions which we still active use and build upon today. In a few years if our server shifts back to being more on the goofy, silly side of writing with occasional serious item, people then are going to look back at us now like we've got sticks up our bums and were edgelords. I know I've been guilty of it [being a 2serious 2edgy boi] plenty of times. 

Marlon left the team in winter of 2019 after months of pretty much everyone and their mother who had an axe to grind with them came at them following their demotion from loremaster, and would not stop coming at them. It was a full on dogpile where they could not say nor do anything without everyone coming out of the woodwork to put them down. In that time, we had also discovered there was even a metaclique explicitly coordinating what I can only call a group effort of bullying, after a good Samaritan began leaking and feeding us logs of it. I encouraged Marlon to bring it to light and file a complaint, since at the time there really wasn't a methodology for handling complaints like that confidentially. However, disenfranchised, disheartened, and constantly under public shame, ridicule, and attacks from all sides which were explicitly coordinated and malicious in nature with the intent of forcing Marlon out, they left and felt it better to not kick up any dust on the way out, honorably bearing the brunt of all the malice and shame. 

In the time since Marlon has gone, there's been this growing "legend" of them that they were this spectral boogyman of old lore. People who weren't even around when they were who came in during the hiatus even spout the same lines about how their writing was bad and they were a mean and unreasonable person, based entirely on the gossip they've gathered up. I've even had some clueless folks among the playerbase try to josh around with me about "That Marlon guy was crazy and his lore sucked right? lol" without realizing how monumental they were, without realizing how much of a dear and close friend to me they are, and without realizing just how much our entire lore owes to them. In time, the titan who lifted up and built our lore became ridiculed and hated as its destroyer, despite all current lore still being entirely within their direction. 

And what did Marlon do to get demoted from loremaster such that I took the position? Chiefly and primarily, above every other consideration, Marlon was removed from loremaster because they told skrell team to take on a third deputy despite our bosses imposing the two deputy limit. Not for the quality of their writing, nor necessarily their personality. If Marlon hadn't made that grim mistake that essentially spawned a lore team riot, they'd might've still been loremaster today. I can't point that out enough, that in the eyes of lore team management, the only strike on their entire record was being demoted from lore master for breaking that rule. In other words, a mistake that only someone in an administrative position could even make, yet they're applying for the low responsibility position of deputy, and honestly, are far less argumentative and quarrelsome than some of our current deputies, deputies who themselves are still within the bounds of acceptable behavior according to the lore team rules and regulations code of conduct. 

Can't praise them enough. Marlon's a dear and close friend, mentor, and role model. And despite some of my other close friends hating his guts, I cannot help but love them entirely.

[Butterrobber202]

Small disclaimer, I was not a member of the Staff during Marlon's term, but I was an active member of the community and actually received my Unathi Whitelist from Marlon.
Ultimately, while Marlon was Loremaster, the only single piece of lore I truly felt strong dislike for was the implementation of the Aut'akh. I can not recall any other instance where I felt their lore didn't line up with what was par for the course at the time, and considering the volume of that lore, it's significant. It's unfair to hold Marlon Era Lore to our current standards, which were only developed relatively recently. 

I respectfully disagree with claims that Marlon has been unduly argumentative when inquiring about the current state of the lore and recent revisions. If I had been away for a significant amount of time and returned to rollouts of medium-high intensity reworks, I would be inquiring into how, why, when and where. 

Marlon's Reputation, bloated unfairly or otherwise, is a relic of two years past. I would be a massive hypocrite if I was to argue someone should be judged for a lore position based off of general public consensus, rather than their current activity, attitude and passion for the collaborative writing project of Aurora and a desire to give to the community.

[Desven]

I can understand if my comment came as harsh, but I ultimately can't change my opinion of this application. I shouldn't uphold old lore to current standards, and even our current lore isn't exempt of this. At the end, the situation changes and our writing requires maintenance, I'm even starting to see it myself with some pieces I wrote a few months back as my first wiki contributions. However, I don't think Marlon/Jackboot has showed willingless to change his ways and take a more current, modern approach of lore, and I do fear his presence, even as a deputy, will have us discussing much more about the past instead of finding ways to deal with the future— maintaining and fixing past lore being pretty much a task every team (except maybe Tajara, because of their amazing seasoned coordination and history of pretty much consistent writing) faces. I do not want to sound unfair, and I do understand, perhaps even if I sound new and bratty, just how important his lore was in our server, and pretty much what still sets apart Aurora from any other SS13 server. However, I believe my “fresh” perspective also allows me to not see old lore with rose tinted glasses, and I would feel it would be a setback to what other people, present or not anymore, have been building for the past 2 years.

 

Addition: ultimately, I encourage any imterested readers to apply. Don't be scared, it's better to take your chances then just sit on this. Lore needs new, fresh perspectives and, in my own personal opinion, those should be given a greater chance than the usual suspects, even if they're deemed the safe option. So if you feel like you have something interesting to say about Unathi, anything, give it a shot.

Edited November 21, 2021 by Desven

[Coalf]

Marlon showed a lot of courtesy in wanting to avoid mentioning individuals due to the hate they might receive, however, I will have to highlight myself as one of the aggressive individuals in the past specifically so people know where I am coming from. I also want to address Mofo's post, but that comes later.

 

18 hours ago, Marlon P. said:

Cut down for posterity.

The Good

Marlon is very active and an innovator. He approaches ideas in ways that I personally wouldn't think of. We're basically completely on the oppossite sides of how lore should be handled, but I think that is fine. Overtime I've come to appreciate different takes that people have and if they can defend them. Recently we had a discussion about the possibility of DPRA Transhumanists, and while I ultimately disagreed on the addittion on the account of it being a thematically inappropriate, the discussion was still interesting and made me think about ideas I would normally not think of.

Marlon also writes very fast and can string a pleasant sentence together. While I dislike a lot of his old articles in terms of their subjects and atmosphere, they've always been very pleasant and easy to read. Something I struggle with myself, as most of my sentences are very unwieldy and square.

The Bad

I dislike Marlon's story framing. I think it's appropriate in certain contenxt, however, I feel like he is unable to write a proper and technical article. While yes, these can be boring, they also help differenciate the individual news outlets from each other. In the hands of Marlon, the atmosphere of pretty much every news article comes off exactly the same. The lore often feels more like Marlon talking to me, rather than any news actually happening. Often being unable to seperate his own vocabulary from that of the reporters.

And as was mentioned, Aurora HAS changed, the lore is less silly and light-hearted and I personally enjoy that. Yes, I make jokes from time to time, Schlorrgo is a silly little thing and Varg being the head of a metal band is a reference. But ultimately, I try to reserve these jokes for a rainy day and when they won't stand out. But Marlon's joking tone often overtakes his entire writing, leading to dramatic moments fizzling out.  The most controversial and pointed to one being the "I can't read the Turkey's mind". An attack on the president of Biesel that was, ultimately framed as a joke. Which makes it very difficult to take any subsequent threats to the president seriously.

It's like, if in Alien when Kane approaches the egg, instead of a facehugger a balloon flies out, creating a farting reverb accross the cave. By all means, this completely deflates the tension and makes us question why we should be afraid of the next facehugger egg.

I don't know if his writing has changed any, as the lore he has written is mostly wiki-based right now and I cannot access his google docs, it's privated.

The Ugly

Personally I do not like Marlon, I don't think I ever will. I can still work with most people I do not like, but I wouldn't like to work with Marlon. I have him blocked and last I checked he had me blocked, I do not plan on changing this due to our history and I don't expect him to either. This isn't an accusation of Marlon, or to tell you that he is unfit for the role of a deputy. I just want to say that I personally dislike him so people know that I am not an unbiased party.

In conclusion, I do not support Marlon's acceptance into the team. But if he does get accepted, I will have no issue with him staying there, provided he keeps to the deputy position.

 

Now, for the second part, adressing mofo:

12 hours ago, Mofo1995 said:

Cut for posterity.

Marlon was not demoted "Chiefly and mainly" for the Skrell deputy fiasco. It was one of the last things that happened in a continous series of mismanagements, poor communication between the heads and general disinterest to address issues due to favoritism. You yourself were part of the backlash and agreed with me on multiple points when I brought them up as issues. The fact I made a staff complaint against Marlon, which did go through, confirms issues were present that the staff was acknowledging. Mofo, around half the lore staff team threatened to step down if he was not demoted, this wasn't a small oopsie, there were a lot of people who agreed that there were issues with his management.

Did a lot of people step out of line and act aggressively for no reason at all? Yes, I was one of them.
Did a lot of people dogpile Marlon in the end? Yes. (I will not comment about the metadiscord, I was not a part of it but I did see the screenshots when they were posted in the lore channel)
Was a lot of what happened childish? Yes.

But were there genuine issues that went un-adressed for a long time? In the end, yes.

It wasn't all unjustified hate and vitriol, it boiled over into hate and vitriol because a large part of the team (including you) dragged their feet and belittled these issues whenever they were brought up. It's the main reason why everything spiralled out of control, because there was a LOT of people complaining and they were being consistently shoved aside. And yes, there WERE complaints about his writing (As you point out yourself there still are), there WERE complaints about his personality (You yourself literally had to intervene in the past because because Marlon started calling me a "bad person" and "arguing in bad faith" over a lore disagreement BEFORE all of this drama even started). Maybe the reason you still think nobody had issues with those two things, is because you ignored them. You were not a passive observer as you like to frame yourself, you were a Lore Writer Master Deputy, you were very much in the middle of this and know very well just how many people brought up genuine issues.

I have to question your agenda here. Because this is less of a defence of Jackboot and more of an indictement of your own behaviours. You are aware of these rumours being an issue, you say so yourself, but you have done absolutely nothing to deal with them in any way. Yes you are busy, I don't expect you to patrol the discord, forum and OOC 24/7, but you are a head. You can make announcements, you can talk to the admin team, you can talk to the lore team about this. In the end you did nothing to actually deal with this "Boogeyman" despite being aware of it. The reason people shit-talked Marlon, TO YOU, IS because you made no effort to defend him in any way. People look at how you behaved and how you behave and assume you also disliked Marlon, because you haven't done really anything to disspell that notion. Now, it has been 2-3 years, the dust has settled, not many people know what happened and those that do have incomplete logs or only parts of the story. I don't believe this post contributed anything to the conversation, besides serving as the most safe and lukewarm defence of your own behaviour to the person you call "a dear and close friend, mentor, and role model".

Do I think he was a terrible manager? Yes, I did and I still do. I am not trying to excuse the things I said and did, they were dirty, under-handed and a plain character assassination. I regret how I did things, not why I did them.
Does this mean anything for his deputy position? No, I think what Marlon's managerial skills should not influence his deputy application. The two are completely different. While I have my personal reasons to dislike him, I don't believe his skills as a manager should be held against him in this case.

Why'd I post this then?

Because I believe Mofo was purposefully misleading to excuse and downplay the mistakes he and Marlon made in the past. Rejoining/Being Unbanned/Joining the team is about showing one has learned from mistakes, I've personally had to go through a lot of growth to get back into the team and I still slip up from time to time. But every time I did I was either warned or told to knock it off.
With this post, I don't believe Mofo would be capable of properly moderating Marlon's behaviour. I do not hold it against Marlon, who most likely didn't know about this at all he and Mofo are two completely different people and I do not blame him for this post. But it shows very clear bias, favoritism and nostalgia for him. I believe that if Marlon were to repeat his behaviour (not saying he will!), Mofo would do absolutely nothing to step in and we would have the exact same repeat of 2019.

[Mofo1995]

I think it's a fair cop to say my friendship and nostalgia have blinded me, but I in no way was intentionally misrepresentative. 

1.) Why I did nothing

There was no mechanism for anonymous complaints at the time for handling bad behavior in invite only spaces. The power of loremaster didn't expand to that jurisdiction until last winter, by popular demand. Marlon did approach Garn about it, but at the time there wasn't the whole "confidential complaints" thing, so Garn wanted him to out with. Not throwing Garn under the bus, dudes a great lad, but I also told Marlon the same things.

2.) Why didn't I defend Marlon at the time?

I was a coward and a bad person. I've come to a lot of controversial friends defences many times, even to their defences against each other, but you're right, I let Marlon down and regret it. Making a random public post or announcement in their defence would be weird and awkward, but I've spoken highly well of them many times in the intervening time, despite not making any big grandiose announcements. 

3.) I legit do not remember the scrap you're referencing between you and Marlon about the bad faith thing. But thats totally fair criticism anyways.

4.) No really, the skrell deputy thing actually is what did him in. Yeah there was brewing discontent, but thats what kicked off the whole riot and really force multiplied everything else from like a 5/10 to an 11/10. It's also what really cast them down from the favor of the head devs, since they explicitly told us 2 deps only. At least from my perspective and whatever access I was privy to in head discussions. Not defending that whole ordeal either, or even my complicity in it since at the time I had forgotten there was already two deputies when Marlon asked me about the applicant and I told him the applicant was gr8 and to bring em on. But anyhow, things really probably weren't going to boil over even closely to how they did without it. 

Anyhow, I've always deeply valued your abilities as a critic. If I had to say what my agenda really was, it was a heated and passionate and emotional defence of someone I cherish after a long night at work, hastily typed out in a flash of passion and gesture of friendship. But you're right, I've fairly clearly shown my bias, actively worked to try and cover my own ass, and glossed over or downplayed their faults as a loremaster, albeit largely through the blindness of my feelings of friendship and nostalgia. I still stand by the idea of the Marlonian Paradigm and that were still fundamentally working with the core concepts and ideas which they established, and that there isn't enough hespetch for it. And they still have my support for unathi deputy.

 

Thanks for taking the time to point the flaws in my narrative to me, and I hope I can take it to heart constructively. 

[Marlon P.]

Thank you for the feedback everyone! Even the critical ones. I will reply to those soon.

I sat down and wrote something original to submit that came in after Haydizzle's announcement. It consists of unathi poetry and dancing meant for the cultural page. I'll add it here, and to the original post.

It is in google-document form. Do I also need to submit it as a lore-canonization thread? @Haydizzle

Bear in mind every "genre" of poetry listed has more than 1 example except limericks, because I personally cannot write limericks at all. The one limerick was ripped out of a limerick-generator. If this was accepted, even if I as a deputy wasn't, I'd want to outsource any additional poems to the playerbase. 

Unathi Echoed-Songs / Poetry

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dhlyBuyQra8q7quSFdsBT120Psziu3UV_eWAKPnL0HU/edit?usp=sharing

Edited November 21, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Haydizzle]

It doesn't need to go through the lore canonization process, no. Any submissions tied to a deputy application do not necessarily need to be in the pipeline or even planned to be added to the wiki (if you do not want to submit it if your application is denied, for example), just proof of concept of ideas.

[Haydizzle]

As an addendum, please keep things civil here. If people end up being hostile with their posts and replies, I will ask an admin to delete or hide it. Anyone reading this thread if free to come to me as well if they have any concerns.

[Coalf]

1 hour ago, Mofo1995 said:

Cut for posterity.

Thank you for addressing my concerns.

[Marlon P.]

Thank you for the reply, Haydizzle! Even if I was rejected as deputy, if the concept(s) were still something desired I'd be happy to see them included. Or vice versa!

As an aside, I do not have you blocked Coalf. I undo a block when I either forget why I had them blocked or when in a few peeps I notice a change. 

17 hours ago, Mofo1995 said:

Original post about me

Your post is very flattering, and it does address the process of what happened very well. I would only add an addendum that as a person in authority I do share a larger degree of responsibility for individual failings. I would only use Mofo's post to - not justify - but explain why my managerial ability went on a rapid decline, because of the harrassment. I do agree with your take on the balance between humor and seriousness and how it shifts. I personally still enjoy that era's humor even though I wouldn't replicate it in the current climate. 

2 hours ago, Coalf said:

Marlon is very active and an innovator. He approaches ideas in ways that I personally wouldn't think of. We're basically completely on the oppossite sides of how lore should be handled, but I think that is fine. Overtime I've come to appreciate different takes that people have and if they can defend them. Recently we had a discussion about the possibility of DPRA Transhumanists, and while I ultimately disagreed on the addittion on the account of it being a thematically inappropriate, the discussion was still interesting and made me think about ideas I would normally not think of.

Thank you! When I have something lore-wise on my mind that I'm not sure about I decide to defend it and try to engage with others about it. Then by the end I can decide if the idea vibes well or if it was obliterated at a quantum level. In that specific conversation I learned more about the topics in question for Tajara, and mutually I got new ways of thinking about things.

2 hours ago, Coalf said:

It's like, if in Alien when Kane approaches the egg, instead of a facehugger a balloon flies out, creating a farting reverb accross the cave. By all means, this completely deflates the tension and makes us question why we should be afraid of the next facehugger egg.

Though I'd have no way to articulate it at the time, my goal was to keep comedy tonally consistent. The humor wasn't from wacky randomness, but intended as natural consequences of the abilities/culture in question. Skrell could read minds. They could identify synthetic beings in the way shown in the article. The attempt wasn't a coordinated assassination attempt, but more of a "Show thrown at George Bush" situation that embarrassed the president. The same thing happened with any other "cultural misunderstanding" article that was and still is a genre favorite of mine.

The real world has wacky situations all the time. From shoes thrown at presidents to embarrassing faux pas by people in power. Denying realities' innate absurdity makes a setting feel detached and alien, at least to me. Bathos can and is overdone, of course. It's just a product of the time on if it is or isn't. Shakespeare's work used to be the "Dorn Thanksgiving Turkey" of old england. Am I comparing myself to Shakespeare? Some might say that....

2 hours ago, Coalf said:

I dislike Marlon's story framing. I think it's appropriate in certain contenxt, however, I feel like he is unable to write a proper and technical article. While yes, these can be boring, they also help differenciate the individual news outlets from each other. In the hands of Marlon, the atmosphere of pretty much every news article comes off exactly the same. The lore often feels more like Marlon talking to me, rather than any news actually happening. Often being unable to seperate his own vocabulary from that of the reporters.

I believe you're talking about the "authors voice". That's present in every single writer. I personally can identify the writer of a lot of articles, even new ones, without looking at who posted it based on whether or not I've read the writer's work previously. Because I was writing at every level and in every news channel my personal voice became very common. Unfortunately there's not much I can do about that, or at least without extensive practice. Can you think of how I am supposed to do that?

Edited November 21, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Marlon P.]

===

The previous post had to be cut in half because it continued giving me errors when trying to post. I lost three important pieces of content... I'll just write one, because it was a lot to try to redo.

2 hours ago, Coalf said:

With this post, I don't believe Mofo would be capable of properly moderating Marlon's behaviour. I do not hold it against Marlon, who most likely didn't know about this at all he and Mofo are two completely different people and I do not blame him for this post. But it shows very clear bias, favoritism and nostalgia for him. I believe that if Marlon were to repeat his behaviour (not saying he will!), Mofo would do absolutely nothing to step in and we would have the exact same repeat of 2019.

The Loremaster does not have the broad and undefined power that it once had. I would have not only Mofo but the deputy loremaster, my direct superior the unathi maintainer, the Head Developer, and to an extent the Head Administrator who would all evaluate my behavior. Shenanigans do not survive easily in the current staff enviroment.

One thing that still incites a fire in me is feeling that I'm being judged for who I "am" rather than the content of what I'm doing or writing. If I felt I was becoming a favored child I would patiently but firmly make sure it was addressed properly. I have always been extraordinarily sensitive about these issues and its why I rejected invitations to join any sort of 'clique' or group. I want to succeed by merit.

On a related note, as a personal favor to this last part, could you, if you want to apply more feedback, please include some level of consideration for my proposals? If only one, at least the unathi poetry.

Edited November 21, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Triogenix]

So, I haven't much spoken or worked with Marlon in the past, only really speaking with him a few times since started playing on Aurora again, but from what he's done since they rejoined the community I think he could be a good fit for a lore deputy. Their work to compile all the old lore articles from when previously played on the server is easily the star thing for myself, as many people will miss out on lore because the old lore articles are hard find and get into, but also contain incredibly setting-changing lore that is sometimes ignored by the wider player base.

My biggest concern, is probably how they would work in a team, as I wasn't there for a majority of the things that people are describing, and though it was more then a year ago now, it makes me think about if they'd work well in the small lore team. However, that consideration is probably better done by the people who will be working with him then myself. As for his personality, I don't like it personally, but to me, it's basically a non-issue and not any worse then my opinion of some of the other peoples personalities on the lore team who still put out very good work and work well with their team.

Edited November 21, 2021 by Triogenix

[Garnascus]

7 hours ago, Mofo1995 said:

There was no mechanism for anonymous complaints at the time for handling bad behavior in invite only spaces. The power of loremaster didn't expand to that jurisdiction until last winter, by popular demand. Marlon did approach Garn about it, but at the time there wasn't the whole "confidential complaints" thing, so Garn wanted him to out with. Not throwing Garn under the bus, dudes a great lad, but I also told Marlon the same things.

I am just coming in to say that this is true. Marlon did approach me about the "meta-discord" and hate he received. If I am to take action against any member of this community I need proof or some way I can investigate. On the server I have logs and data I can go through. Outside of trojan horsing my way into a meta-discord there was not much I could do. I do not doubt that it existed, there has been one about me in the past. I suppose the position of head admin shields me from the brunt of a lot of vitriol that can come from them. I will say that depending on the content of a discord dedicated to hating on a member or members of our community I absolutely would take action against the members. Up to and including permanent bans. 

It seems to me the issues in the past with Marlon's leadership of the lore team do not necessarily speak to his ability as a lore deputy. I have never been very close with the lore team so I cannot speak to any issues Marlon had as loremaster. The only time I ever directly worked with Marlon when he was loremaster was when he helped me developed the lore and criteria for captains triggering the nuclear explosion. I would say it was a pleasant experience but I was head admin at the time.

[Caelphon]

Hi there. Thanks for applying. 

Quote

1. Hypothetically, let's say you have complete and unfettered access to take lore in any direction you want. What would you do? 

2. What do you not enjoy about Unathi Lore? How would you remedy this? 

3. How do you feel about megacorpotions in the Izweski Hegemony? Would you want to expand on it, or rather write other methods for Unathi to deal with their issues? An example could be opening relations with the Jargon Federation for humanitarian aid. 

4. Do you think a district in Biesel "dedicated" for Unathi would perform well? Something like District 6 (Tajara) and District 8 (Skrell), District 11 (Dionae) and District 14 (Synths). 

Goodluck. There are no wrong answers. 

[Marlon P.]

4 hours ago, Caelphon said:

Hi there. Thanks for applying. 

Goodluck. There are no wrong answers. 

1. Hypothetically, let's say you have complete and unfettered access to take lore in any direction you want. What would you do?

I'm not interested in big lore questions anymore; it's been decided. Things are locked down and regimented. There is no place for freeform expression or experimentation on the macro lore. I define Macro lore as fundemental axioms of the setting: "The mega-corporations are in charge." We declined a non-corporate based NBT so it's not going to be altered. I just want to contribute to Unathi.

 

2. What do you not enjoy about Unathi Lore? How would you remedy this?

It's in a good place. There's nowhere that I'd say I don't enjoy some aspect of it. Haydizzle Shen and Deadlantern already touched up areas that needed touched up. That's not cozying up either; I just like what I see.

 

3. How do you feel about megacorpotions in the Izweski Hegemony? Would you want to expand on it, or rather write other methods for Unathi to deal with their issues? An example could be opening relations with the Jargon Federation for humanitarian aid.

Hephestus has its foot in the door in the Unathi space and that gives Unathi characters another "in" to get their characters to Tau Ceti. More megacorporations in unathi space would be retelling the same story that's already been told a whole bunch. Only the Unathi and Skrell deal with megacorporations on their own terms. That's an interesting angle, at least to me, if only because our setting is bashful about giving agency to non-corporate entities that could compete with them. As for skrell; i suppose. Im up for anything if it carries space opera drama. Unathi do like to do their own work tho but we will see.

 

4. Do you think a district in Biesel "dedicated" for Unathi would perform well? Something like District 6 (Tajara) and District 8 (Skrell), District 11 (Dionae) and District 14 (Synths).

I don't know, I guess if people wanted it? It doesn't vibe well for me*. The current meta for ethnic-majority neighborhoods is crime, violence, and poverty. The vibes in question conflict with the Unathi's usual fables or stories. The poverty on Moghes has been written as a focus on colonialism and exploitation from feudal governments. Doing it on biesel is writing the same story but from capitalism. Without a wider anti-capitalism messaging from the rest it would just look incongruent. Also the fun in Unathi is being exposed to alien life and how that changes them and challenges their beliefs, so giving them a little enclave of like-minded individuals would really throttle individual Unathi characters' "being forced to integrate" arcs. Even if it's a especially Guwan hive of scum and villainy... What hasn't been told already?

 

*My vibes are subject to change.

Now for YOU to answer MY questions. Yeah, I’m in charge right now.

What do you think of my poetry?

[Caelphon]

47 minutes ago, Marlon P. said:

What do you think of my poetry?

Anything related to the cultivation of culture is good in my books. I enjoyed reading the First Form, and the Fourth Form. 

[Marlon P.]

My next lore canonization proposal, which id work on as a deputy, is planning on being expanding the rituals of each of the faiths and how their, for lack of a better word, "magic" systems work. This would also include explicit explorations on the wiki about arguments/counter arguments each faiths have, explored in the original Religious Council where only in article form i gave players theological arguments in support/rejection of autakh beliefs. This would encompass all of them.

[SatinsPristOTD]

You know, in the past I've had a lot of issues with your lore (Especially the old Solarian stuff), HOWEVER....

I won't say you aren't passionate and a decent writer. I think your best stuff CAME from the Unathi race, and I'd like to see you writing for it again.

I don't want you burnt out again. I fully believe that's what happened with the bad Solarian lore back in the day. It just didn't line up with the expectations I've grown to have from you. (I probably shouldn't expect so much from you, but I really like your writing and I can't help that I want to see your best)

I +1 this app, with a motherly "Remember to put yourself first" disclaimer.

[canon35]

I do not wish to see you back on the Unathi Team. 

While you were instrumental in the early stages of lore and did legitimately great things with Unathi, your last years on the team have made me incredibly wary towards the idea of you coming back even in a lore deputy position. Your writing resembled just hopping on one idea to the next with no care given to actually connect them or return to these lore pieces later, leading to the teams after your departure to pick up the pieces. At the same time you also signed off on several pieces of lore that went heavily against your own pre-established writing. IE Unathi suddenly having more colonies than just their home system's, a constant inconsistency on what technology Unathi even use militarily, and the most glaring issue: The original iteration of Aut'akh. Yes, your style is different from other teams as it resembles a soap opera or space drama and that's lead to some great moments and writing for Unathi. But, much of what you wrote before doesn't fly in our setting anymore as it tries to be more consistent in theming and other aspects. This is especially true for the other species lore you wrote before, but even with Unathi there's been a need for rewrites and retcons of your work in order to make it all actually fit together. 

[Marlon P.]

Edit; doubleposted.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Marlon P.