[ACCEPTED] sperky7933 Vaurca Application

[sperky7933]

BYOND Key: sperky7933

Character Names:

Marvin-224

Silvester

NT Bookworm

NT Cleansworth

Species you are applying to play: Vaurca

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: (131, 41, 11) unbound brood of Ta’Akaix’Athvur’zezkt’azi Zo’ra

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: You're aboutta find out

 

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question.

 

Why do you wish to play this specific race: I want to play an interesting and fleshed-out race that differs from all others. Honestly I've played this damn game and this server too long and it's starting to get boring so I want a new race to play. I also never or very rarely ever see any other vaurca on the server. It's an interesting race that people gotta appreciate more - and that means playing the race until you burn yourself out.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: A lot. Let's start from birth of a typical engineer human and vaurca unbounded engineer. A human (we'll assume in this game and under normal circumstances) is assigned a mother and family at birth, the rest is up to fate, then they end up becoming an engineer. Totally different for our vaurca. Once laid as an egg, they are put into a hive-cell apart of a greater "brood" (a family unit depending on their queen), under a hive led by a high queen, united as a nation that they are biologically loyal to. Once they are hatched it is up to the hive to further develop their fellow broodling. Depending on job, bounded or unbounded, and caste, they could spend many years in a VR that could be anything depending on the queen they serve. Finally, our engineer is unplugged and sent off into the real world where they will experience the harsh life of reality. This VR experience depends and varies on many things, but for our hypothetical unbound vaurca engineer the VR was exclusively for training.

There are many biological differences between vaurca and humans. There are many, but I will just list a few of what I think are the most important, disregarding the obvious (exoskeletons, antennas etc). They breathe phoron gas, and those that do not literally breathe it have built in augmentations that require phoron-laced food to upkeep it. Their sense of smell is significantly exacerbated due to their style of communication and amongst many other reasons. They must also communicate to other species using a built-in augmentation as well, but it depends vastly on both the individuals circumstances and augmentations. Normally it is inferior to their natural way of communicating. Their size and shape differ depending on caste, and their color differ depending on brood, boundedness and caste.

Character Name: Ka'Akaix'Kezo Zo'ra

Please provide a short backstory for this character:

They never wanted to leave the virtual reality heaven. They left their egg in 2458 and spent, in their opinion, too many years of their life outside of VR.

Let's start from the top.

At first assignment, Kezo was working in the beautiful realm of their queen Athvur in Phoenixport. There they subconsciously learnt of the culture of humans, their way of thinking, culture, government, currency, learning to accept bright light-bulbs that slightly burn your eyes... All things that made humans, humans. Consciously though, Kezo was working as a desk engineer designing experimental containment chambers for supermatter engines in their hive-cell of innovative engineers. The development of an experimental chamber was successfully developed and ready for testing. The virtual reality, though, could not facilitate an experiment that required real-life implementation. Plans were made, and it was set to be experimented in the Hongsun Park Engineering Institute's Supermatter Facility. There they were to work with the university engineering team. As Kezo's hive-cell team was assembling, Kezo begged to be let out. They wanted to see the world, see humans, experience the outside of VR... The team of five engineers were about to leave before a shortcoming on the university side of things required them to take one more of their own engineers. Kezo left the VR with the team of six vaurcae and several bounded menial engineers in 2460. The out of world experience that Kezo experienced was immaculate, almost overwhelming. It is hard to describe what they felt.

Running out of voice synthesizers, they augmented Kezo with perhaps the worst, most crappiest one they could find. The rest, as they put it, "Are better off for our Ta's. You are an engineer who works in the VR. Why would you need a better one anyways? You sound fine.". It would be almost an insult to have it while being apart of Athvur's brood, but nevertheless they went with it as nothing else was available. Kezo would be permanently stuck with perhaps the most annoying and hilarious voice a vaurca could possibly have.

The job was simple on paper. Go to Hongsun Park Engineering Institute, build the chamber, get the test done, compile results, and get back in the VR. Kezo and their family got straight to work, building the chamber, designing it exactly how it was planned out and designed, while his family ordered around the bounded workers to build it to perfection. They didn't know, though, that on the day of the test, higher-up university officials would be there. As the test was beginning, the shard began emitting heavy amounts of radiation. Kezo immediately knew the idiots at the university gave them a different class of shard that they ordered. There and then, Kezo donned a radiation suit and barged into the chamber, knowing the suit would do little to stop the insanely heavy amount of radiation being dispelled, and ejected the supermatter. They were sent immediately to a hospital.

Rumors spread in the hive-cell about the university recommending Kezo to corporate positions in human society. Without much of an option or resistance, Kezo was immediately sent headfirst into human corporate life working as a contracting engineer. Kezo absolutely hates it and wishes to return, but Kezo's loyalty to their family and their decision-making make him stay as he believes it is what they think is best for them. They have a new family now, and it is their co-workers, their fellow exploited workers.

What do you like about this character?:

I always wanted to play as a vaurca that had the trademark hilarious v and z voice. Also, I enjoy playing as an over-qualified, job-hating engineer who does their job ruthlessly and efficiently yet is soulcrushingly getting through each day. They also have something I can put into an antags secret information thing, that they worked on an experiment that would be worth money to some people.

How would you rate your role-playing ability?:

Pretty good. I don't do long Me's, but I am very capable at becoming completely in character. Also depends on the people I'm playing with.

Notes:

There may be some inaccuracies about lore in here. I'll be honest, I'm not even sure if there's a supermatter facility in Hongsun Park. It's not in the wiki, but I'll assume they at least have something somewhere even if they don't.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Desven

[Desven]

Hello, thank you for applying for a Vaurca whitelist. I really like your enthusiasm and believe you have put great effort to this application. However, there are some things that stand out to me that I believe we should address first.

As of 2462 (around two years ago, give or take), Nanotrasen requested all of its employees to relocate from Phoenixport. This was a ruling overlooked by the Vaurca team of the time, but that has since been corrected on the wiki. The new location of Athvur's brood is Belle Cote, a fashion and arts city in Biesel. There probably are some Zo'ra Vaurcae still on Phoenixport, but it's very unlikely. Mainly due to the fact that Zo'ra has a strong relationship with Nanotrasen and Biesel, so it wouldn't be good optics for them to remain on the rivaling city which belongs to Einstein Engines.

Moreover, the decision for making an Athvur engineer is a bit odd. It's not far-fetched or even disallowed, but there are far better suitable broods in the Zo'ra Hive for engineering work. I understand the appeal of Athvur, especially for a newer player that wants to dip their toes to Vaurca lore for the first time but may be intimidated due to their alien nature. Nonetheless, whitelist applications are meant to stick more to the norm rather than try to bend it, just so we can see that you truly understand the lore behind what you wish to play. The same thing goes for their voice modulator—the wiki states Athvur's brood likely has some of the best. I myself play some Vaurca characters with thick accents, but from other broods which would be more suitable.

At the moment, I couldn't tell you where in the wiki you can find this, but the supermatter is meant to be a scarce engine, rarely available. Now, I think that some universities could probably test with SM shards, as the full crystal is meant to be used in prestigious ships and engines. You do mention a shard, but I'm not too sure on how these experiments would be held. Likely just a nitpick by me, but I don't know much about university lore to say if Hongsun would use that kind of engine.

All that said, most Vaurcae don't really live inside Virtual Reality again until their demise. Maybe it would work better if Kezo was assigned to do engineering work closer to the Hive, probably constructing one of their newer cities and building infrastructure, before being sent afar. That solution would also help with Kezo's delusion of being now surrounded by humans, doing human work in a human ship.

I'm giving you a chance to change some of the application in order for it to be more lore-accurate. I would also recommend you check other Hives, like K'lax. While it might be scary at first because you may think you need to know Unathi lore, only the basics of other species is required. Despite that, there are some K'lax broods that fit perfectly for the type of character you want to play.

[sperky7933]

Sup man, thanks for everything and such. I really didn't expect this level of help and assistance and I'm actually quite happy and extremely grateful for this. While writing the application I definitely was considering the... slight absurdity of a Athvur engineer working on a specialized and rare engine. It is true I wanted a more human-oriented vaurca so I could settle into the play-style more easily, however I'll consider your advise on a K'lax brood because it fits an engineer of this specialization and makes more sense. I wouldn't think that Athvur would specialize into something like that.

I'll think of some good character by at most Friday. Either I fix Kezo to do what you advised (infrastructure construction, etc) or make a K'lax dude.

[sperky7933]

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: (RGB 61, 0, 0)

Character Name: Ka'Akaix'Kezo Zo'ra

Please provide a short backstory for this character:

In 2459, another unbound Vaurca was hatched to Xakt's brood, in a hive-cell dedicated to the continuing infrastructure development for her hive in Luthien. Trained in VR for the design and engineering of general infrastructure, housing and the occasional human buildings, Kezo worked with their hive-cell members and the local government on the construction of these buildings for the expanding and recovering hive. For the next two years, Kezo would work with their hive and work with various different people and government workers and lawmakers in the process. In doing so, Kezo made both contacts and references outside of their hive and with that acquired experience in interacting with humans.

In early 2461, the busy-body Kezo and their hive-cell was sent as an emergency force dedicated to an emergency in a small human colony at the pole. The queen Xakt, eager for the chance to ease tensions between both factions, sent them. Their complex heating system failing, Kezo both designed and improved on the heating system dedicated for the small colony, and greatly simplifying the system using the techniques from their ancient systems learnt in VR. However, Kezo was smart enough not to expose humans directly to their technology. Kezo then led the unbounded engineers to fix the failing heating system and save the tiny colony from certain evacuation and death.

This act impressed an Hephaestus official who was attempting to solve the issue for weeks without any success from their engineers. Hephaestus offered to hire Kezo, who then refused. However, Hephaestus sweetened the deal with a contract on the maintaining and repairing of ships, which was accepted immediately. Xakt's brood was certainly eager to acquire experience, training and the technology knowabouts from them for their hive, which they desperately need. Unfortunately for Kezo, it was demeaning for a once great engineer in charge of a great army of unbounded servants to now be working the same job as them, except for a greedy and foreign corporation.

What do you like about this character?:

Kezo is an interesting character from an interesting brood. I like the queen of choice, Xakt, and I like that Kezo should be easy to play with humans and other xenos due to their experience with them, while not being completely assimilated coming from a debatably isolated brood. Also, coming from Xakt shall give me a good excuse for funny Vaurca voice. I also enjoy playing as a little-bit of a snobby character.

 

[Desven]

14 hours ago, sperky7933 said:

What color do you plan on making your first alien character: (RGB 61, 0, 0)

Character Name: Ka'Akaix'Kezo Zo'ra

Please provide a short backstory for this character:

In 2459, another unbound Vaurca was hatched to Xakt's brood, in a hive-cell dedicated to the continuing infrastructure development for her hive in Luthien. Trained in VR for the design and engineering of general infrastructure, housing and the occasional human buildings, Kezo worked with their hive-cell members and the local government on the construction of these buildings for the expanding and recovering hive. For the next two years, Kezo would work with their hive and work with various different people and government workers and lawmakers in the process. In doing so, Kezo made both contacts and references outside of their hive and with that acquired experience in interacting with humans.

In early 2461, the busy-body Kezo and their hive-cell was sent as an emergency force dedicated to an emergency in a small human colony at the pole. The queen Xakt, eager for the chance to ease tensions between both factions, sent them. Their complex heating system failing, Kezo both designed and improved on the heating system dedicated for the small colony, and greatly simplifying the system using the techniques from their ancient systems learnt in VR. However, Kezo was smart enough not to expose humans directly to their technology. Kezo then led the unbounded engineers to fix the failing heating system and save the tiny colony from certain evacuation and death.

This act impressed an Hephaestus official who was attempting to solve the issue for weeks without any success from their engineers. Hephaestus offered to hire Kezo, who then refused. However, Hephaestus sweetened the deal with a contract on the maintaining and repairing of ships, which was accepted immediately. Xakt's brood was certainly eager to acquire experience, training and the technology knowabouts from them for their hive, which they desperately need. Unfortunately for Kezo, it was demeaning for a once great engineer in charge of a great army of unbounded servants to now be working the same job as them, except for a greedy and foreign corporation.

What do you like about this character?:

Kezo is an interesting character from an interesting brood. I like the queen of choice, Xakt, and I like that Kezo should be easy to play with humans and other xenos due to their experience with them, while not being completely assimilated coming from a debatably isolated brood. Also, coming from Xakt shall give me a good excuse for funny Vaurca voice. I also enjoy playing as a little-bit of a snobby character.

 

I'm going to accept this application. However, there's a single detail I'd like you to review: Hephaestus only employees K'lax. This is by no means your fault, there's a small table on who employees who that we haven't uploaded to the wiki yet (but we should). I'll leave it here so you can review which companies employ Zo'ra.