[RESCINDED] Boggle08's Unathi Lore Deputy Application 2

[Boggle08]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Boggle08 (Discord: GrandMasterChef)
Position Being Applied For: Deputy Lore developer
Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page? Yes.
Past Experiences/Knowledge: I've contributed Burzsia, a revision for it, and some information to flesh out the Golden Deep. Mostly synthetic work. I've been here since late 2019, and I've followed the Unathi team's progress since I picked up the whitelist last November.
Examples of Past Work:

https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/14011-the-system-of-burzsia/#comment-133562

https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/16205-golden-deep-dlc-expansion-pack/#comment-149525

https://forums.aurorastation.org/topic/15985-burzsia-revisions/#comment-148144

 

 

What I intend to contribute:

Spoiler

Regional Worldbuilding:

All of the cities have about a paragraph of lore each, and very little information about the surrounding regions (with the exception of the wasteland). Great strides have been made regarding religion and various other cultural artifacts within Unathi lore, but progress here on this front has been slow, and it's affecting interaction. Myself and others have often needed to tab out and speedrun lore when exchanging backstory information that uses locations. Moghes is an unspecified setting backdrop, and while that can work for something like the wasteland, it's a detriment to something like the Hegemony or Ouerea.
    My work at a bare minimum will include the fleshing out of a handful of cities, two of them being the capitals on Moghes and Ouerea. Ideally, I would like to expand upon the various regions within the hegemonic heartlands: these would manifest as counties or cultural regions.

I understand the focus of development right now is cultural elements, but this is something I feel that requires tending to regardless of our current direction. If I am selected for deputy, I hope to make this a big focus of my tenure.

Religion:

I like the current direction the team is taking religion and culture, and it seems like most of development is concentrated here. If there was one thing I would like to work on, it would be working on the actual tangible practices, rituals, and observations of our religions.
    A priest or shaman aboard the station does not have much to work with in terms of days to observe, sermons to perform, rituals to execute. We're given outlines of what these rituals or practices would look like, but nothing concrete or obligational. Thus, it diminishes the importance of the priest or shaman relative to the rest of his constituents, and therefore his creed. The conception of Unathi Theology is important, but writing in ways for it to be physically acted out by both full time practitioners and adherents is vital to accurately reflect the gravity of religion in the average Unathi's life.

Tertiary Concerns:

I'd like to help contribute to lore pertaining to technology, infrastructure, and space capabilities of the hegemony. This is mostly a tertiary concern, because the current team has already expressed a desire to construct lore for this, and my contributions regarding locations, regions, and cities will do this inadvertently.
    I would also like to write more about the Unathi middle classes, particularly those of the guilds or working in commerce otherwise. I have a lot of ideas for this particular caste.

    I'd love to work a little more on the flora, fauna, and various wildernesses of Moghes. Given the setting, it's important to know for people who want to flex their bush-craft.

    I have some vague ambitions regarding the effects of the war, in particular the refugee crisis, but that's for later.
 

Prompt:

In order to fulfill the requested writing assignment in the lore deputy prompt, and showcase what I have in mind for location lore, I've wrote up a quick elevator pitch for a Janvir rework, mostly focusing on the history. Just a few paragraphs:

Spoiler

 

Janvir

Prior to it's permanent founding, the region surrounding what would come to be known as Janvir was a temporary settlement, seeing activity in the months leading up to the end of Kasavakh by fishermen before being abandoned during Travakh. Only ambitious survivalists stayed for the winter. It was founded permanently in the 19th century when simple electric heaters came into use. In addition to it's growing reputation for fish, it became a staging point for more ambitious expeditions headed towards the Moghesian southern pole.

The contact war did not leave the settlement unscathed: During the nuclear exchange, a stray warhead veered off course and detonated a few hundred kilometers from the settlement. While this spared the city nuclear disaster, the warhead landed on top of a tectonic boundary, shaking the earth and splitting a massive chasm that ran all the way up to the city, cracking it in half. This left much of the population homeless, without power, and Travakh fast approaching. 
    The people of Janvir must of had their prayers answered, however. Despite the destitution the quake left Janvir and it's people in, it had procured a boon: The fractures had unearthed a warm aquifer nested deep underneath the city and surrounding region, and soon, pockets of hot springs began to show up in the wilderness and crevices of Janvir.
    The people of Janvir took full advantage of these springs, using them to warm themselves while working to restore power and warmth to their city. Janvir withstood Travakh, and when when the Izweski sent a force to claim the city, the soldiers were so enraptured with the hot springs that they decided to spare the city from sacking. The ruling nobility were not so lucky, however, and most were executed to make way for the installation of Izweski nobility to rule over the city.

Today, Janvir is still known for it's fish and buildings of stone, but it is also now known for it's frothing hot springs. A great chasm still runs straight through the city, yet bridges have been built to unify it, and homes are now being carved into the sides of the exposed stone. Warmth is bountiful, whether from hearth, heater, or hot springs, and there is even now a Hephaestus provided geothermal plant nested on the outskirts of the city.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Boggle08

[Desven]

I really like your proposals, I think it's always a great thing in lore to think more of the basics: sometimes they're overlooked, when it's really important for when it comes to create a character. I'll make you some questions.

 

1. You've applied for Unathi lore before, do you think you've learned something since that experience?

2. Do you disagree with the portrayal of any faction currently, and how would you fix that?

3. What are your plans to expand the K'lax relationship?

[Faye <3]

I cannot support this applicant. I think that their writing is fine, however I do not like their OOC conduct and I would be uncomfortable approaching them for Unathi lore matters. They have more than one community strike in Aurora affiliate discord. This does not seem like it would factor into deputy selection, however one of these strikes is for posting a meme comparing being queer to being a member of the Schutzstaffel. I find this to be entirely unacceptable behavior from any Aurora staffer, let alone someone responsible for producing lore.

[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. Do you think Unathi could expand in Biesel? If so, how would you do it? 

4. How do you feel about inter-species coordination? Would you rather just develop for Unathi, or would you work together with other teams? An example of this is the Dionae Team and the Unathi Team co-developing. 

Goodluck. There are no wrong answers. 

[Boggle08]

13 hours ago, Desven said:

snip

1. Since the time I retracted my first application, I've monitored the developments of Unathi lore, spoken with regulars and developers about the lore, and created several different characters using the whitelist. In my view, doing these things gives you an intuition for the material you can't really possess just by ripping through every single article on the wiki several times. Actually creating and using characters is especially important; It's where you get a feel for the species, try new concepts, and get a read for what the community is interested in.
    I am now confident in my ability to generate concepts for the species.

2. Relative to the lore as a whole, the grim compact are perhaps in the most dire need of an update. The page for it still uses this thing.

Relative to the sort of world building I'm interested with, I'd like to eventually develop lore for the Traditionalist Coalition, before the bombs fell. Much of our wasteland and refugee characters pull backstory from these locations, and Unathi, especially in their 40's and up, will be old enough to remember these institutions and locations in their prime.
The time before the bombs fell is just as important as after, simply because the past before the apocalypse is still in living memory. This is something for further down the line, however. Developing the present is much more pressing than the past.

3. I see the K'laxian hives as being immensely useful allies/vassals for the hegemony, mainly in respects to maintaining or expanding their space program. They are an entire species that can manufacture specialists or laborers in this field on demand, possessing bodies that as a whole are resistant to most of what space can throw at them. Having them is very useful when most of your population are feudal peasants, and you've lost much of your planet's infrastructure in an apocalypse. I foresee them being a common sight aboard Hegemony operated star ships, space stations, and ports.

 

10 hours ago, Caelphon said:

Hi there. Thanks for applying.

Goodluck. There are no wrong answers. 

1. Full autonomy is extremely distant from my ambition here. I really like the work the current team is doing, and I wouldn't trade it for all the power in the lore. My ambitions here as a deputy pertain to much more specific, but nonetheless important issues with some of the writing.

2. The grounds for me applying is my dissatisfaction with the world building. There's an idea called Moghes, but I couldn't tell you much about it besides short overviews, inferences from the cultural pages, and copious amounts of headcanon. We do have locations and regions in the lore, but they are so sparse and unremarkable that most whitelist holders have to quickly tab out to refresh themselves in the middle of a conversation, just so they can maintain a believable understanding of the planet they used to live on.

The solution, in my view, is to tackle the problem head on. It's a problem that isn't just a Canonization application fix, and requires attention and contributions over a long period of time, hence my applying. Skalamar will be first on my list, as it is the capital, and where most Hegemonic characters cite origins prior to employment aboard the Aurora.
    
3. This does tie into my interest for developing settings for Unathi, now that you mention it. If I were to implement some kind of location or district for Unathi, it wouldn't be the full thing, more like half of a district, mostly desegregated, and heavily intermingling with humanity. Unathi in Biesel are in a position where they have to intermingle and develop an opinion of humanity, simply because there's no insular ghetto that players can just put their characters in so they don't have to think about it.

4. I personally believe that lore development generally benefits from the overlapping of different cultures on top of each other, and species are no exception. What Unathi lore has done so far with Dionae, Vaurca, and even Tajara is in my books a success. If there's one thing I'm interested in expanding, however, is the Skrell on Ouerea: Their cultural influences, and where they're at now.
    They're kind of just a footnote on the Ouerea page, which is understandable given the era they were implemented in, but expansion now would provide a lot of opportunities for character concepts and interactions. 

If lore development is insular, so will the writing be. If the writing is insular, the players will be. And if the players are insular, then the species whitelist can turn into an exclusive clubhouse. Which is terrible for facilitating interaction.

 

9 hours ago, Faye &lt;3 said:

snip

Just to briefly address this, every one of my strikes has expired by now. The image you're talking about has absolutely no bearing on my personal views, which was probably why it was just a warning strike and not an outright ban. I have a vulgar sense of humor that functions in an apolitical context, which means I have to be more aware when I'm posting here. That period where I was receiving strike after strike turned into a valuable wake up call.

My conduct has been clean since then, as it was prior to those series of strikes. I will monitor it further if I acquire this deputy position, as I also consider good conduct a base expectation of being staff.

[Faye <3]

2 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

I have a vulgar sense of humor that functions in an apolitical context,

What you have said is completely untrue. This is (one of) the things you have posted in the past:

 

There is no 'apolitical context' about this. This meme (which uses 'autism' as a perjorative, by the way) directly compares exploring one's identity, being trans, non-binary and other queer identities with being interested in the Schutzstaffel, or POL POT. You know, the guy that committed genocide? This makes me sick. It's extremely insulting, in many more ways than one. To be lore-staff is to be an ambassador of the lore you write for and represent. Lore-staff exist as community resources - they are meant to be exemplary roleplayers who showcase the lore they write, who get others interested and excited in that species.  How will this look to the more vulnerable members of our community? That someone who posted stuff like this and said it was apolitical is meant to be someone who members of the community can go to for writing tips? Who members of the community are supposed to look to and go "Wow, so this is what a lore-abiding, well-written Unathi looks like."? Ridiculous.

 

-1.

Edited November 23, 2021 by Faye <3

[Boggle08]

1 hour ago, Faye &lt;3 said:

snip

This is one instance of a small handful of tasteless jokes, held against three years of involvement and proper conduct within the community. I removed the post myself when I was confronted about it, then had my strike applied. It is an anomaly in regards to my interaction with the community, my conduct around others, and my contributions to the server's lore. You were not the only person who saw that post, and as far as I'm aware, they all moved on. A misdemeanor handled.

I don't expect you to change your opinion of me, but I can assure you and the rest of the community that my conduct won't feature that kind of content any more. As far as I'm concerned, I've kept to that promise.

 

[Marlon P.]

There is a stage in our lives where we do things that which we mature out of. It sounds like there is a concern that the behavior of the past can continue into the present. I am not sure I have seen Boggle repeating this behavior, but I haven't been watching him really. Even acknowledging past wrongs, I personally am a strong believer in people changing for the better.

On 22/11/2021 at 16:05, Boggle08 said:

All of the cities have about a paragraph of lore each, and very little information about the surrounding regions (with the exception of the wasteland). Great strides have been made regarding religion and various other cultural artifacts within Unathi lore, but progress here on this front has been slow, and it's affecting interaction. Myself and others have often needed to tab out and speedrun lore when exchanging backstory information that uses locations. Moghes is an unspecified setting backdrop, and while that can work for something like the wasteland, it's a detriment to something like the Hegemony or Ouerea.
    My work at a bare minimum will include the fleshing out of a handful of cities, two of them being the capitals on Moghes and Ouerea. Ideally, I would like to expand upon the various regions within the hegemonic heartlands: these would manifest as counties or cultural regions.

How much information do you feel each city should have, and what information is "important" to have in your mind? What do you want to put across when people read about Moghean cities?

Thank you for any answer - and sincere good luck in your app in this friendly competition. 😄

[Peppermint]

41 minutes ago, Marlon P. said:

There is a stage in our lives where we do things that which we mature out of. It sounds like there is a concern that the behavior of the past can continue into the present. I am not sure I have seen Boggle repeating this behavior, but I haven't been watching him really. Even acknowledging past wrongs, I personally am a strong believer in people changing for the better.

In your own words, you have not been watching this. As someone on staff who has been, I personally do not think it's a good look for someone to be posting this kind of thing - I'm not going to dredge up the past and post more logs, as that's just rude -to be given a staff position in a community where there are plenty of more vulnerable members and those belonging to the LGBT group. I would not at all blame those people being uncomfortable in asking for help with the species which, to my understanding, is a major part of being on the lore team. I didn't want to post but people defending this is really questionable.

-1.

[Marlon P.]

52 minutes ago, Peppermint said:

In your own words, you have not been watching this. As someone on staff who has been, I personally do not think it's a good look for someone to be posting this kind of thing - I'm not going to dredge up the past and post more logs, as that's just rude [...]

I did not make any form of defense. Past behavior deserves criticism. So does minimizing the behavior.

Has his behavior continued? If so, -1.

If it hasn't, then in my mind he's sincere and I can judge him on his own merits.

If im mistaken, please show me why I should not +1. Has he lied about his behavior changing? Do you believe his behavior will remain problematic as a member of staff? If so, why?

It sounds like you believe im minimizing harm. I'm not doing that. I say this as someone who faced a coordinated harassments campaign from within this community and was driven out by it. I believe people should be judged by who they are, not who they were.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Peppermint]

19 minutes ago, Marlon P. said:

I did not make any form of defense. Past behavior deserves criticism.

Has his behavior continued? If so, -1.

If it hasn't, then in my mind he's sincere and I can judge him on his own merits.

If im mistaken, please show me why I should not +1. Has he lied about his behavior changing? Do you believe his behavior will remain problematic as a member of staff? If so, why?

It sounds like you believe im minimizing harm. I'm not doing that. I say this as someone who faced a coordinated harassments campaign from within this community and was driven out by it. I believe people should be judged by who they are, not who they were.

If I didn't think there were problematic parts, I would not have commented. This is also my own opinion and I am absolutely not going to post about another player's behaviour - Persephone's post is enough there. That would be neither fair on Boggle's, nor relevant to the application now that I've put in my two cense. In the interests of not derailing this application into an argument about when we should trust people who have actually changed (the discord stuff was 2 months ago btw) I'll just leave what I've said here at that. 

[Flpfs]

Hi, I liked your contributions to the overall lore of the server, and I think you'd be a great fit for the role of unathi dev, I've always enjoyed talking to you about many topics in the lore and the overall server. You are dedicated to what you do and it's always great to see somebody who really has a passion for lore apply as a dev. I just have a question for you...

What was the biggest project in lore you have contributed, in your opinion? And what will be your next big project, if you already have any idea of it?

[Boggle08]

I don't want people to think I'm operating in bad faith. It wasn't really even my intention back then, more just me being stupid and callous. Doing things that don't reflect my disposition. Some people have shown continued interest in my application's progress, and I appreciate that. However, I feel as though it's already a sign that this is application is quietly turning into something that's polarizing. I hate drama, and I don't want it to sour the relatively mature atmosphere we try to cultivate in our community. I don't want to see the development team inherit the same value judgements and mistrust I'm getting right now, and If Haydizzle were to accept me, it could risk putting him and his team on the spot.

    I still want this position, but I can't pursue it in good conscience any more. Right now, I am in way too hot, riding off administrative actions I still have to make up for with time. I think the only way I can fix this is if I rescind my application, and continue to show that those posts aren't me, rather than only being able to say they aren't. Because they aren't me. I'm far from being done with the community, nor with contributing, but It's going to be a while before the next time I try for a staff position again.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Boggle08

[Haydizzle]

Following the wishes of the applicant, this application is being closed. I'm available for any questions.