Yeehawguvnah | Command | A hip, relateable arms dealer

[yeehawguvnah]

Due to a misunderstanding, this post was originally for a Liason character. It's been edited to also go over a Head character.
Also edited to elaborate on some questions.

 

BYOND key: Yeehawguvnah

Discord Username: pinskidan#0420

Character names: (I've had a few, but I'm only including the ones I play consistently now after properly getting a feel for the server)
Bailey Garrison (Machinist)
Vera Joyce (Surgeon)
Ari Barak (Bridge Crew)
Mara-Lucius Volvalaad
Pitch Wilder
Simisola Olatunji

How long have you been playing on Aurora?: I played here and there quite a while ago (hard to pin it down, it was likely more than a year ago) and while I did hop on for a shift here and there, I've returned now to play more consistently.
Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they? N/A

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

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?:
In my opinion, a Head of Staff needs to act as a leader, which breaks down to a few primary roles:

• To set an example for the department. Ideally, a Head of Staff should have good understanding of their department - both in roleplay, and actually using the mechanics of the job. If someone isn't sure about how to do their job, their Head should be the obvious person to help out. This doesn't mean every Head-player has to have a perfect understanding of the mechanics, but I believe that the best Heads know their job well enough to improve their own methods and teach others.
• To coordinate the department, in downtime and in conflict. In downtime, this is ensuring that everyone is aware of what's needed, that the department is supplied properly, and that things are generally able to run smoothly. In conflict, this might involve acting as a mediator for inter-staff disputes, ensuring the department can keep running after a catastrophe, or stopping their staff from fucking up. And yes, sometimes this involves reprimanding or punishing staff. Making hard choices is a part of playing a Head.

EDIT (because I wanted to elaborate further): You can think of Heads as the mission control of this game. They hang back, they direct you, they give you instructions - but unless things go badly, that's it. As a Head, you should aim to do things with your crew, not for them.

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?:
OOC, a whitelisted player is playing a role that's both prominent in a round and has the ability to considerably affect other players' experience. They don't need to be infallible, but they have a responsibility to be familiar with their duties and the applicable IC regulations. They need to keep in mind that they have the power to (intentionally or otherwise) improve or worsen someone's round.

Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau ceti and how it affected your character and their career?
There's quite a bit happening in Tau Ceti lately, such as the formation of the SCC and the occupation of several planets by the TCFL/PMCG. However, I'd say the event that affected Eden's career the most was the Second Solarian Invasion. Eden Harrow, as managerial security staff aboard a research facility on the edge of Tau Ceti, was amongst the first to directly encounter the incoming 35th fleet. She lead Zavodskoi personnel to hold the line against Solarian boarders in an extended siege, ensuring the essential personnel aboard remained safe from the nationalist incursion.
Or at least, that's the company's official spin on the story. In truth, while the facility wasn't completely spared from the invasion, it was hardly bombarded - it simply wasn't worth much effort or cost to the fleet. Hostilities were minimal; most of the shots fired were in warning. But tales about heroic leaders holding the line against evil sell well, and thus the Invasion was Eden's ticket up into the upper echelon of Zavodskoi. To the company, she was ideal for presenting a positive brand image in a controversial market.

As for Vera, the formation of the SCC had an effect on her career, if only because of her own reservations. Having separated from NanoTrasen on less-than-ideal terms and joined Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals, the former corporation's prominent role within the Conglomerate has lead to a mistrust of the group as a whole, and a fear that her past unpleasant resignation may impact her career (even if said fear never actually comes true).

What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?
Chief Medical Officer
Executive Officer
Head of Security
Research Director
Captain
Corporate Liason (Zavodskoi)

Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?
Yes.

Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking.:
Eden Harrow, Corporate Liason (Zavodskoi). This character will be created, if I'm whitelisted, but isn't around yet.
Vera Joyce, Chief Medical Officer
Ari Barak, Executive Officer
Mara-Lucius Volvalaad, Head of Security

Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?
Yes.

Have you linked your byond account to the forums?
Yes.

Extra notes:
When I make a character, I tend to begin with a basic concept and work on them from there. In Eden's (the Liason I'd be playing) case, the concept that came to mind was:
For a number of reasons, arms dealers and PMCs aren't particularly popular. Eden's focus is on presenting Zavodskoi Interstellar as a boldly progressive, good corporation; one that's at the forefront of science and justice. Not a company that arms militaries and upholds the law, but one which pushes the bounds of research and keeps people safe.

As for Vera, I envision her as a doctor just nearing the end of her prime, putting up a perhaps too-strong confident persona to cover up an irrational fear that she'll either be replaced by younger staff or blacklisted after a (in her eyes) "bridge-burning" resignation from NanoTrasen in her youth.

In addition, to address the elephant in the room: I understand I'm not particularly established in Aurora. If it's decided that I need to be around a little longer before you can make a decision, I understand - but I do hope you'll give me a shot!

Edited September 14, 2022 by yeehawguvnah

[Alberyk]

From the command staff whitelist rules:

Quote

Note that you may not apply for a Head of Staff application with a Consular or Liaison character. You must play non-Consular/Liaison roles for your trial.

 

[yeehawguvnah]

2 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

From the command staff whitelist rules:

 

I see, I misunderstood what was meant by that. Sorry, that's my bad!

I did have a Head of Staff character concept rattling around in my head; would you want me to make a new post for that character, or amend this post?

[Alberyk]

3 hours ago, yeehawguvnah said:

I did have a Head of Staff character concept rattling around in my head; would you want me to make a new post for that character, or amend this post?

You can edit the post.

[yeehawguvnah]

39 minutes ago, Alberyk said:

You can edit the post.

Aaaaaand done!

[Agatasa]

Pretty good roleplayer. They can get the ball rolling on purely non-mechanical scenes. Also recently helped me figure out a fairly poorly documented mechanic, balancing OOC answers and continued roleplay, all while not becoming overbearing. Which is a pretty important command skill imo.
+1

[MattAtlas]

On trial until 11SEP2022.

[yeehawguvnah]

13 minutes ago, MattAtlas said:

On trial until 11SEP2022.

Thanks!
To make sure I understand the trial - is this for people to be able to give feedback on how I am as a Head-player, or is this solely for staff to see that I'm not fucking up?

Just checking so I know whether or not I'll still need to look for feedback.

[MattAtlas]

Just now, yeehawguvnah said:

Thanks!
To make sure I understand the trial - is this for people to be able to give feedback on how I am as a Head-player, or is this solely for staff to see that I'm not fucking up?

Just checking so I know whether or not I'll still need to look for feedback.

Both.

[yeehawguvnah]

Okay, thank you for clarifying.

EDIT: Also, updated info in the post to reflect the characters I intend to play during/after the trial.

Edited September 4, 2022 by yeehawguvnah

[Toast]

I just had a good round as a Consular with the Head of Security character (Mara-Lucius Volvalaad). Good leadership as far as I seen, any Head of Security that doesn't immediately have a unbreakable lock on regulations and can think of resolutions that doesn't involve "throw them in a cell for X amount of time" is always good in my book. I know this is kind of a short comment but there's not much to say (in a good way). Its a believable, well-rounded, engaging character.

+1

[Omicega]

On the contrary, I didn't really enjoy your HOS play. I felt like you didn't coordinate the department well at all and left it to one side in favour of text roleplay with other Dominians or the rest of command or whoever else -- I wasn't in command chat so I can't really comment on what exactly you did, all I can say is that it felt like you essentially weren't there to do more than the bare minimum of coordination at an exceptionally slow pace.

You don't list HOS as a role you'd like to play after the application is accepted, which is fair enough, but I would still say you were worse than having no HOS at all in the round I experienced with you.

[yeehawguvnah]

19 minutes ago, Omicega said:

On the contrary, I didn't really enjoy your HOS play. I felt like you didn't coordinate the department well at all and left it to one side in favour of text roleplay with other Dominians or the rest of command or whoever else -- I wasn't in command chat so I can't really comment on what exactly you did, all I can say is that it felt like you essentially weren't there to do more than the bare minimum of coordination at an exceptionally slow pace.

I can understand this. I will say that I spent about 5 minutes at the bar with the other Dominians before things kicked off (and another 2 at roundend), and that there was a considerable amount of stuff going on in command chat throughout the entire shift which (until the captain showed up) almost exclusively involved requests for my input. I don't feel the text roleplay remark is entirely fair, because of this - as you mention, you weren't in command chat.
With that said, I do recognise that I wasn't at the top of my game there. I've played a good bit of HOS on other servers, but that was some time ago, and so the usual coordination strategies I would use weren't on display. I'm still getting back into the groove of it. That's fully my bad, I messed up there.

Anyway, thank you for the feedback, even if it's a -1 in the end. I hope you'll keep an open mind on me for the rest of my trial - I believe I'll be able to show I can do better than this.

19 minutes ago, Omicega said:

You don't list HOS as a role you'd like to play after the application is accepted

(This is an error I'll correct.)

Edited September 5, 2022 by yeehawguvnah

[JormungandrButCooler]

51 minutes ago, yeehawguvnah said:

I can understand this. I will say that I spent about 5 minutes at the bar with the other Dominians before things kicked off (and another 2 at roundend), and that there was a considerable amount of stuff going on in command chat throughout the entire shift which (until the captain showed up) almost exclusively involved requests for my input. I don't feel the text roleplay remark is entirely fair, because of this - as you mention, you weren't in command chat.
With that said, I do recognise that I wasn't at the top of my game there. I've played a good bit of HOS on other servers, but that was some time ago, and so the usual coordination strategies I would use weren't on display. I'm still getting back into the groove of it. That's fully my bad, I messed up there.

Anyway, thank you for the feedback, even if it's a -1 in the end. I hope you'll keep an open mind on me for the rest of my trial - I believe I'll be able to show I can do better than this.

(This is an error I'll correct.)

Since I was the bartender that round, I can vouch they weren't there for long. five minutes at the start of the round, and at the bar slightly before and during bluespace. I've seen plenty of Chief of Security who spend much longer at the bar, so, they were pretty timely and didn't waste too much time.

Edited September 5, 2022 by JormungandrButCooler
misgendered, my bad

[yeehawguvnah]

2 minutes ago, JormungandrButCooler said:

Since I was the bartender that round, I can vouch he wasn't there for long. five minutes at the start of the round, and at the bar slightly before and during bluespace. I've seen plenty of Chief of Security who spend much longer at the bar, so, he was pretty timely and didn't waste too much time.

Thank you.

[Dreamix]

Played a merc round as my orange XO, with them as HoS Mara-Lucius Volvalaad. Seemed alright, communicated with command (me), we have both arranged negotiations with the mercs (or at least tried to), communicated with their security team, coordinated an attack from two angles against the mercs, at the right moment when crew got the advantage. It was a fun round.

[Cirukcaller]

In the years that I've played in this server I've never once been able to run a Mercenary warband without someone dying on the station, or ship, at some point. I've never been frustratingly able to actually, truly, negotiate with the ship to try and find a bloodless resolution. Now, I know there are Command players out there who'd push for these unlikely means, but I've just been unlucky, until Mara-Lucius Volvalaad was the HoS.

It was a Raider round, and I played a Unathi named Barrage. Barrage, with the help of his team (He wasn't actually leading them, he just spoke for them, everyone was equally robust and I take no credit), snuck into the Bridge after we heard the BC take a break and quickly barricaded it, essentially taking control of the ship. Our team had pre-emptively agreed to ask for realistic demands: we'd take no hostages beyond the ship, and we'd only ask for fuel, not plasma, and for food. The stand-still was a very nervous and twitchy one, with both sides on the verge of shooting at each other, but Mara-Lucius kept their team in tight reins and provided us with some of our demands with the hope of #1, an opportunity to arise where they could take us down, and #2, preserve crew life at all cost. They succeeded in the second: not a single shot was fired.

Being privy to their channels and seeing their back-and-forths with their team was interesting, the eagerness of security to storm the bridge in spite of our threats to send us straight into a meteor shower. The constant attempts at out-maneuvering us: eventually creating another helm console, removing our thrust so we couldn't move the ship, taking our power so we couldn't shift its momentum after doing so. They neutralized us 100% as we negotiated, in a non-antagonizing, crafty manner.

They played it really well. Could've pushed for the mundane, "Storm the bridge," and people would've died, but that's what often happens. Instead we had a tense round with many members of the crew coming together to minimize the threat, while also keeping it from escalating.

I really enjoyed them. They were my enemy through and through, opposed my character until the end, and because of this I got to see them at their best.

+1 from me for sure

[yeehawguvnah]

I see that on the Web Interface, it says I do have the whitelist, and I have access to the Head of Staff section of the User Menu. Does this mean that the whitelist is accepted? I don't recall seeing that during the trial. No intent to rush you all, just checking whether this means I'm good to go (and play a Liason character) or whether I just didn't notice it before!

Edited September 11, 2022 by yeehawguvnah

[MattAtlas]

I've noticed some issues with your command play, so this trial is being extended by 7 days and will end on 19SEP2022.

DM me on Discord when you're available so we can iron out what's wrong.

[yeehawguvnah]

Shit, I thought I'd posted to mention this a couple of days ago, but I must not have - as I was busy on the 17th-19th I wasn't able to play on those days.

[MattAtlas]

Accepted.