SilverSZ - Deputy Loremaster Application

[SilverSZ]

Ckey/BYOND Username: SilverZ

Position Being Applied For: Deputy Loremaster

Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?: Yes

Past Experiences/Knowledge: Deputy Synthetic Writer for a while, other non-aurora related things.

Examples of Past Work:
The little boxes about Synthetics at the end of the Xanu, Himeo and Assunzione pages
Working on the Trinary Update and following Arcs
Working on Pactolus
Other contributions to Synth lore that I don’t feel are so big, like articles, the update to synthetic origins and EE synthetics and stuff I also can’t mention at the present time.
Some contributions to cross-team projects, like Port Antillia, the Dreary Futures Arcs and Skrellian Synthetics.

1. Do you have any experience managing a Team? The duties of a Deputy Loremaster often revolve around being a Project Lead, not necessarily just writing.
Yes, not particularly during my time on the lore team. But in my life I’ve been the project leader on projects in both an academic and professional setting. As well for less impressive things, like leading MMO guilds and raid teams.

2. In a brief summary, explain the direction you'd wish to see the Lore Team take in regards to Aurora Lore. 

I think that, for the most part, each individual team is in a good place working on their corner of lore. I will always say that we do have a great team overall and each individual team is more than capable of stewarding their section of the lore and I wouldn’t wish to intrude too much on that. I think the best place to put my effort and work is into the things that don’t fall under any specific team but I believe where my efforts and the efforts of a team would best be placed as a whole would be in projects that would make the spur feel more connected and alive and interactive, in my own words.

I feel that at the moment, lore can often feel like it exists in it’s own bubbles, you have skrell lore, human lore, unathi lore etc etc and these can, outside of places where cross-species cooperation is specifically pushed, be isolated from each other, with this problem being even more for some of the said species nations. That being said, I would like to see projects focused on fleshing out interactions between nations and their attitudes towards one another. I really like the interstellar diplomacy page human lore has for their nations and would like to see every major nation in our setting receive one, and cover every other major nation and the mega corps. Even if in some cases it may just be no contact or don’t care, this is still important to mention. I’d also like to expand on interstellar economics and culture, perhaps even interstellar events for sports and culture or at least between nations that get along quite well as well as looking for new links that could be forged. Cross-species stuff mostly takes the form of x species living as a minority in y location and I think expanding on the actual nations themselves is an underused area.

Along with this, I feel the SCC needs work. I like it, and I like the constituent corporations, but I think that in a sense they don’t feel present enough in the setting, and some have quite a lot lacking in terms of their characterisation, Orion Express being the primary example here for me. I personally think the Mega Corporations should be viewed as characters in themselves, the most important in our setting. They need to do more things, have more going on and more hooks to make people interested in them, as well as more disputes internally in the SCC to make it more interesting. These are the big movers and shakers of the galactic economy and they should have places they cooperate and places they compete. Some should be more friendly with others and more bullish with other ones. The CEOs and boards of directors I also think should also be expanded and given more, as a whole. Barring the Trasens who already got this and I think act as a model for what we should do for the other corporations, albeit on a smaller scale, focusing just on the CEO and board. Expanding on Subsidiaries, both existing ones and also projects like the Zhurong Shipyards and even new ones could also work well for this, creating new points of conflict and cooperation between both corporations and nations.

3. If you were selected, what do you believe should be changed about how the Lore Team operates?

Well, as my previous answer might indicate. A heavier focus on participation in cross-lore team projects would be my main thing. I understand that this isn’t always what people want to do, certainly. But I do think it’s very important and beneficial to our lore as a whole and something we should strive towards. And I also think that it’s the responsibility of the deputy loremaster above anyone, even the loremaster who needs to focus on other things, to be the person who handles all this coordination and drive behind these projects, which is something I would like to do. Other than this however, I think the teams have been doing a good job recently and I wouldn’t want to intrude much beyond my own suggestions on where I think effort could be put, as an example. I think the CoC is overdue for some love from Human Lore, but I wouldn’t want to present this as a “You have to work on this” without going over it with both the Lore Writer and their deputies but more as a suggestion. I did always find giving suggestions and ideas in other teams chats, which I hope wasn’t ever annoying coming from a deputy, as something I liked a lot about being on the team and I would like to keep up that presence and a more active editorial role currently in work projects, too. Both for content and spelling and grammar if desired.

Additional Comments:
Well, I am sure everyone’s first thought will be “But Silvie, you just left the lore team, why write this?” Well, I won’t lie that I wasn’t burnt out on synthetic lore. But I had really left the team a long time ago and had months of very minimal contributions. So I’ve kind of gone past that. I absolutely loved working on the team and with the team and even considered applying for deputy loremaster the last time it was up, as the position holds a lot of draw for what I want to do and wanted to do then. But I felt it was too soon, even now. I certainly view myself as a dark horse at best, and all of the other currently up applications are by people I view very highly and would be delighted to see get the spot. But I also want it, so, there’s no reason to not throw my hat in the ring. Cael has said worse things to me than “No” already. 

Additionally, I want to touch on my perceived biggest weakness, because I really wouldn’t want to be picked without it being taken into account. I feel too bad about how it affected my time as a synthetic deputy, already. My interest in lore as a whole flits about between planets, species and topics a lot. And I am very much someone who works in feverish bursts, followed by then moving onto something else entirely afterwards. This is what caused me to become burnt out with synthetic lore, I didn’t like working on just one part of lore. And why I ended up instead talking to the other maintainers about their own lore and getting interested in that instead. Now, I think that as a deputy loremaster. This trait might not be so bad, or even beneficial for helping and working with the entire team but for the love of god. If you want someone consistent and methodical and willing to work on anything you demand of them, do not pick me. I would like to remain friends with Cael at the very least and not have him want to never talk to me after a month or two of me in the position. I have always been interested in Aurora’s lore as a whole, even now I am working on a canonization app despite not being on the team and some other plans that have skeletons written, but sticking to one part for an extended period of time just leads to me being burnt out on it, as happened with synthetic lore and in the position of a deputy for that specific team, it is much more of a problem than it might be for a deputy loremaster to have some burnout regarding one specific section of lore.

Other than this, I think I have other qualities that are beneficial, and I would hope people on the team only have nice things to say about my contributions and conduct and I would love to work on the team again in that role, barring the weakness previously brought up. I think it would work better for me than my previous one.

Edited July 27, 2023 by SilverSZ
Post-Posting Regrets x 4 at this point

[Caelphon]

As a non-Lore Writer, what is your perspective of the Libération, Révolution et Évolution Arc so far? 

[SilverSZ]

1 hour ago, Caelphon said:

As a non-Lore Writer, what is your perspective of the Libération, Révolution et Évolution Arc so far? 

Good Question.

Obviously it's quite early into the arc, at least it feels that way from the current two articles. So it's tough to give a proper perspective on the arc as a whole but I actually have quite high hopes for it, though that largely comes from the name giving me hope it might tough on some stuff I've wanted to see for a while be covered again/resolved in the ROB, like the Samaritans on Mictlan and the state of the CRZ which has been part of the Republic for quite a while now so perhaps it's done being reconstructed even. 

But, focusing on the currently released content rather than hopes and predictions, we have two articles and a wiki page. The first article is good and does something I think makes a lot of sense in universe. Biesel has a lot more responsibility now with the CRZ under what appears to be their  control even with Sol having gotten itself together more at this time. The Republic only using the TCFL rather than having a formalised military is something I've always seen as odd so it's nice to see this change happen and I like the choice of names for the branches rather than just the Biesel Army/Navy etc. Especially interested on how the corporate auxiliary forces might be used and written as it seems like a perfect possible background piece for an on-ship character.

The second article is interesting, more than the first I think. Nathan being appointed as the Secretary of Defence whilst remaining at NT is for starters a good showing of how blurred the line between Biesel and NT can be at times and I think this is the sort of thing that does give mega corps more of a presence and bite in our setting as I spoke about in my application. It's an obvious show of how influential they are and how much Biesel wants to cosy up with NT. Obviously he claims that he won't be bias but will that actually be the case? He's already prioritising the protection of an NT facility openly, though this is the in republic interests, perhaps there's other places where NT might take precedent, or places where he might favour them over other corporations and such. It opens up a lot of potential for future threads and turns and that's something I always like in the setting. 

The wiki page, funnily enough I totally forgot about this stuff even though I did contribute to the synthetic unit. I'm glad to see the robot spooks got in. It's a good page! And I actually quite like the lore pages that are updated overtime with in-universe developments I think that it helps make things feel alive and moving rather than simply being dumped out, though obviously, this can only be done with some lore but I'm glad it's being done where it's appropriate than just spitting all the armed forces out at once. I'm not actually the biggest military lore fan, don't really play ex-military character too often. But having read it it's good and well-written as you'd expect. Particularly I like the corporate scholarship as a display once again of megacorp integration and the same for use of Zavodskoi equipment and it being used on Mictlan and the PR nightmare that might be with the locals in some places, though it might be a good idea to mention this on the Mictlan page as well if it's going to stay as a lore tidbit because I feel lots of people might read Mictlan and not the TCAF page making a char and miss this cool bit of detail. All the megacorp integration is basically good, however, it's the stuff I was talking about wanting to see so it's nice to see it.

The star of the page though for me is the special forces, they're very flavourful and unique and are also what I wanted to see as part of more cross-species lore that isn't just x lives here on y sorta lore. It gives each species with a unit a very cool niche and display of what they are capable of as well as stuff for other characters to play off, The Positronic Century and TCIC being obvious ones for people to have conspiracies about in my mind, or any anti-synther to point at as a bad thing the the Republic does. My personal favourite though is the Light Disruption Division "Kis'lokt". I love Vaurcesian lore around their genetics and cybernetics technology and this unit is such a cool way of showing it off and giving ideas for how someone could roleplay a heavily augmented vaurca's augmentations (I've made one before) on station as well. Very cool and a good showing of how badass Vaurca can be.

The page still having lots of mentions of stuff like the Samaritans and Mictlan and the CRZ also makes me think the arc will touch on the things I want to be touched upon even more, too. Overall I'd say so far it's going quite well and I'm excited to see how it further develops from here, especially the other branches of the military that haven't been touched upon so far. I hope they have the same multi-species integration even if not as specific as units but having the Republic Fleet use species for different roles in particular like IPCs in the CIC or Vaurcaesian Marines for Boarding Actions would be equally cool.
 

Edited July 27, 2023 by SilverSZ
Talked about how cool the Vaurca Door Kicker are.

[Caelphon]

What is your opinion on the following?

 

[SilverSZ]

1 hour ago, Caelphon said:

What is your opinion on the following?

 

Well, my like of the post along with being the first comment to echo support for the proposal gives you a good idea of my basic thoughts on the proposal. But I'll go into more detail on both this proposal and my thoughts on canon events of a similar nature as a whole.

For this proposal, I was very lucky to get to experience ship vs ship combat as a volunteer for the final event of dreary futures 2, being one of the Solarians who attacked the Orchard Moon and personally I think the entire system is incredibly fun and I was only loading the guns myself. It's fun and tense and lead to some cool moments like one of our guns getting blown off and the gunner wounded too. I've not had the chance to experience it from the side of being on the Horizon but I've also heard cool things from people and, perhaps the best part in my opinion. Ship vs Ship combat seems to primarily revolve around Command, Engineering, Medical and Cargo which is nice as we often get complaints about how events end up falling heavily on the security department and others often get left out.

However. I also think the reaction to Dreary Futures does show that ship combat needs to be used sparingly, if at all, in our event arcs. It's quite a big thing to include, definitely doesn't work for all characters or players especially those who are wary or disliking of more "military" focused RP which I've seen ship vs ship combat called a move towards. But this also means that when it comes up people don't really know what to do or how to handle it. 

So for the actual proposal. Lorewise, the Horizon is Armed, and travels to regions of space where combat could be expected to occur with various groups and has in the past canonically. So I think that the SCC running VR training for the use of the ships weapons, piloting in combat situations, damage control, weapon loading etc makes perfect sense. The SCC would want the Horizon to be prepared to defend itself and I see it as the same as other training they would provide for the crew. The VR event in Dreary Futures also established the precedent that it can happen and is possible IC, so I really don't see why from a lore perspective it wouldn't go forward. The most important thing to decide would be the type of ship used as an enemy combatant from a lore perspective. I'm not a mapper but ideally I think it would be the most interesting if the SCC used a variety of ships that would reasonable have the knowledge to model in VR, in order to give the crew a mix of experience IC, players variety OOC and to make use of the ship-combat capable maps we already have. It also allows for volunteers to RP a variety of different crews which would be fun too. Solarians, Elyrans, Dominians, Bieselites, Tajara, Unathi etc etc rather than just Sol Man Navy Guy every time.

From a perspective of gameplay. I think it would be a fun experience. In the end it allows people to engage in a very fun piece of the game without having to put their character at real risk and also means the player-base will be ready for when these events come up in a serious canon sense during arcs. I think it'll also be much more palatable because of the VR nature of the event, you aren't actually having to fight Sol marines and also the arc you might be invested in isn't requiring you to be involved in a pitched ship battle which your character might avoid at all costs. It's essentially a one off. I think once a month would be a good frequency and having it be sign-posted in advance means people can choose to participate or skip as they wanted. The experience will also make "real" events where it is used run more smoothly too, which is good for everyone in my opinion. It'll also move us towards over-map combat becoming more normalised for the potential far future where over-map antags become a thing.

The one thing that would need to be addressed I think is the seriousness of the VR events, when I've seen VR used in the past. Such as at the Golden Deep Party Event, or in the Palace of the Free Tajara Event. People very much did not treat it seriously from what I saw, which is fine in these cases as they were just side-pieces to rather light-hearted events and essentially IC video game playing. Roleplaying as a Dominian Consular joking around as an ALA militant was funny and enjoyable for me too. But I think for events like this we would want it to be something that sits more closely to a regular round in terms of seriousness and I would argue that it should be said in the events description that people should play it as a normal round, not as being in a VR experience. Simply state that the SCC wants the event to be as close to the real thing as possible and so the crew involved are to act as they would in a real situation rather than it just treating it like a video game. Is this a very meta solution for a HRP server to use? Yes. But I think it would produce the best experience both for gameplay and roleplay. It could also give people who won't really have much to do in ship combat an IC reason to be there, like service members, they're playing the side characters in the simulation to make it as real to life as possible.

I would also like to say that I really really like what I would call mini-events like this. One off events in general that are canon but not tied to any arc or greater plot but instead just offer a different experience or situation that people can play out and hold with their characters due to the canonical nature of them. When I had very newly joined the team, butter ran one where Samaritans were bought aboard the Horizon and Borged and I really liked it, personally playing one of the Samaritans. It had some issues like all events do but the concept stuck with me. Other good examples are the TCFL recruitment drive Cael did once, and the sorta mini-tajara events Alb did on random rounds throughout the Arc and also the experiences people had visiting Adhomai and talking to locals on extended rounds were much the same too. 

As Deputy Loremaster I'd like to push for more of these "mini-events" to happen and put effort into making them happen myself, ideally they wouldn't require any coding or spriting or mapping work. Just stuff to be spawned in and set-up. And when we have an arc like the Tajara arc they can use the assets or maps already made for those arcs as well. They really don't have to be anything big, like for example, if for an event we asked for a full set of volunteers to fill the Tajaran Village map and set it up to be easy for the crew to travel there and said the SCC in cooperation with the PRA/DPRA/NKA was allowing the crew the chance to visit the planet on SCC dime. An event like that would have been cool and given people who might not usually play characters or roles that go away a chance to experience the fun of the off-map stuff Adhomai had. These events could happen just as often as the proposed VR ship combat events, one every month or so. Maybe more during an arc like bi-weekly or just between the major planned arc events and I think they would be a very fun and cool addition to the server and I think deputy LM sits in a good place to organize them both outside of arcs and also during arcs where the actual team is already very busy with the main events. I also think that as a rule these events should have none/minimal chance of losing a character, so that they give more for people to do in Arcs or with Canon Events as a whole when they might be the type who doesn't want to go fight Solarians or risk life and limb in ancient Tajara Tombs later in an Arc and should be sign-posted in advance the same as regular events so everyone knows when to attend.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by SilverSZ
Slight wording change and addition

[Lucaken]

You already highlighted the main issues I have with your application, which is the fickleness of your attention. I won’t lie, it’s a pretty big mark against, and you are going to need to make a strong effort to continue contributing every day.

That said, if you get the position and feel like you are losing interest, do not be afraid to move on as quick as you feel is right. No one really cares about a short tenure - but they absolutely care if you stagnate and sit on a position for a while.

Also, try and write less. I know I made the same mistake at the start, and probably never grew out of it fully, but it will help keep reader retention.

[SilverSZ]

4 hours ago, Lucaken said:

You already highlighted the main issues I have with your application, which is the fickleness of your attention. I won’t lie, it’s a pretty big mark against, and you are going to need to make a strong effort to continue contributing every day.

It's certainly my biggest weakness, hence the big highlight. I don't have much to say outside of what was said other than that effort will be given to atleast touch some lore everyday.

4 hours ago, Lucaken said:

That said, if you get the position and feel like you are losing interest, do not be afraid to move on as quick as you feel is right. No one really cares about a short tenure - but they absolutely care if you stagnate and sit on a position for a while.

Definitely the biggest regret I have from my time as deputy was not leaving the position sooner and I am sorry for that still. I wish I had resigned much earlier and I did consider it months before it actually happened but didn't for a variety of reasons which I now see as rather stupid. I'll certainly keep this in mind, though I wouldn't want to resign for a long time personally if it does work out. If it doesn't work out I have no intention of hogging such an important slot.

4 hours ago, Lucaken said:

Also, try and write less. I know I made the same mistake at the start, and probably never grew out of it fully, but it will help keep reader retention.

I do have a tendency to be wordy just naturally, and feeling like I have lots of thoughts to get across with only this application to do it doesn't help with that. Rather than being able to break it up into multiple discord posts in a discussion or Google doc comments etc. Hopefully this post shows I'm capable of it, at least, and I will keep this in mind as it's something I've been working on changing myself in other places over the past months too.

 

Thank you.

Edited July 29, 2023 by SilverSZ
Slight Corrections

[GeneralCamo]

This is an important question in my mind that I will ask all deputies.

Lately, I have seen a disconnect between the desires of the development team, and the lore team. Examples include the attempt to give skrell Sol common which is blocked by maintainers, and an attempt to remove special glove types by maintainers which was rejected by lore. Do you feel that this is an issue at the moment? Do you have any ideas to potentially improve cross-team talks between lore, development, and moderation? 

[SilverSZ]

20 minutes ago, GeneralCamo said:

This is an important question in my mind that I will ask all deputies.

Lately, I have seen a disconnect between the desires of the development team, and the lore team. Examples include the attempt to give skrell Sol common which is blocked by maintainers, and an attempt to remove special glove types by maintainers which was rejected by lore. Do you feel that this is an issue at the moment? Do you have any ideas to potentially improve cross-team talks between lore, development, and moderation? 

It's hard for me to personally appraise if this is an issue for not, as I'm not currently on either team. Which means I think the best way to address it would be to communicate with both teams and see if they think it is an issue and if so why and what they think should be done to change this and go from there as the people actually involved will be the ones with a much more useful and valid opinion than me. From an outsider perspective what the Lore and Development team seek to do is done with different intents and goals and so a disconnect at times is going to be inevitable and it will need to be discussed and at times one side may not be happy with the outcome as well, there's some places where you can't really find a compromise.

I think however, this sort of cross-team discussion and activity is something that should be a duty for the deputy LM to take up, speaking with the teams where conflicts come up and acting more as a mediator for everyone than just advocating for the lore team, as the team in question like Skrell in the case of the first example can do that themselves. I'm very much in favour of sitting down and talking things out so even if someone doesn't get what they originally wished they can at least understand and accept why it didn't happen. I would like this to be a principal of mine both within the lore team and in my interactions with the other teams as well. It would also be important for me that the development and moderation teams feel that when these conflicts with the lore team come up they can reach out to me for a fair hearing and discussion too, rather than feel like I wouldn't give them a fair hearing for their perspective even if it goes against a specific lore team or the whole teams wishes it is communication that keeps everything together and keeps people happy.

Edited August 1, 2023 by SilverSZ
Slight Correction

[Fluffy]

What is your opinion on factions on the more "evil" side of the spectrum (eg. Lii'dra, SRF, ATLAS)? Any plan/direction on/for that front?

[SilverSZ]

7 hours ago, Fluffy said:

What is your opinion on factions on the more "evil" side of the spectrum (eg. Lii'dra, SRF, ATLAS)? Any plan/direction on/for that front?

I don't have any plans personally. I don't think the areas the Loremasters directly oversee like Biesel would benefit from any factions like that. This would be left to individual teams to do as they see fit and my thoughts can come then if requested or needed.

In a general however, I think factions like this can be very good, they are true antagonists and can be very useful in that role. As seen with the SRF serving as such in the recent human lore article arc. The key is to properly use them and restrict them. ATLAS being playable on station for example, from what I know of them being before my time really, is something that seemed a little too wacky. And I think the Lii'dra and SRF have a much better approach in being Antag only. But, any judgements on specifics would have to come down to what plans the lore team in question presents and how said evil factions, current or future, play into those plans.

[canon35]

1. Do you feel that in some cases, lore for a species needs to be curtailed or altered to better be consistent with a vision for aurora lore as a whole? If so, what's some lore from a species you feel needs to be changed?

2. Do you think you're able to stand your ground in the event that a lore writer takes massive issue against your rulings as lore master deputy, such as blocking a project they've been working on from being canonized?

3. Times change and so does lore, many species over the years have experienced retcons and rewrites. Some for the better, some for arguably the worse. While I do doubt that any large scale retcons or rewrites will happen again, how would you handle a species maintainer wanting to make major retcons for their species?

4. There's a sense that one day lore might be "done". No more planets to add, no more cities worth writing out, etc. Do you think we're anywhere near that for any species or factions? What's your feelings on the idea that more species may have to focus harder on event arcs or article arcs to really add anything?

5. How will you try to make lore more accessible for new players?

6. Are there any practices or ideas currently existing in lore or being done by the lorestaff you feel has to stop?

7. What are your thoughts on the idea of "antag lore", like the retconned Dominian vampire House Haradis or the Secret of Ouerea easter egg?

8. Just for fun, faction or culture has your favorite "feel" or aesthetic to it?

[SilverSZ]

3 hours ago, canon35 said:

1. Do you feel that in some cases, lore for a species needs to be curtailed or altered to better be consistent with a vision for aurora lore as a whole? If so, what's some lore from a species you feel needs to be changed?

2. Do you think you're able to stand your ground in the event that a lore writer takes massive issue against your rulings as lore master deputy, such as blocking a project they've been working on from being canonized?

3. Times change and so does lore, many species over the years have experienced retcons and rewrites. Some for the better, some for arguably the worse. While I do doubt that any large scale retcons or rewrites will happen again, how would you handle a species maintainer wanting to make major retcons for their species?

4. There's a sense that one day lore might be "done". No more planets to add, no more cities worth writing out, etc. Do you think we're anywhere near that for any species or factions? What's your feelings on the idea that more species may have to focus harder on event arcs or article arcs to really add anything?

5. How will you try to make lore more accessible for new players?

6. Are there any practices or ideas currently existing in lore or being done by the lorestaff you feel has to stop?

7. What are your thoughts on the idea of "antag lore", like the retconned Dominian vampire House Haradis or the Secret of Ouerea easter egg?

8. Just for fun, faction or culture has your favorite "feel" or aesthetic to it?

1. I don't think so, no. I think all of the current species fit into our setting just fine and there aren't any changes I would want to pursue unless they were proposed by the species maintainers themselves first.

2. I think I would handle this fine. I'm not afraid to speak my mind and stand on what I believe is best for the server. In the event that a writer reacted in this way though I would want to explain why I made the decision that I did and try and talk it out so that hopefully they can understand why I've made the decision that I did even if they aren't satisfied with it.

3. This really depends on the nature of the retcon, there have been some which I think were good for the species as a whole and should have been done. There's also the case that I might think it isn't worth the trouble and disruption to the established lore of the species. I'm not against the concept and there's even some lore I would personally want to see retconned, like the past Lii'dra invasion which I feel hold the hive back a lot lorewise. But I do think for the most part most species lore is in a good place and doesn't need this.

4. I don't think any species is really near this. No. I think all of them still have great potential for expansion and fleshing out of current existing areas. However. I don't think having to focus on event or article arcs would be bad at all or somehow a negative in the case this did come to past. Both of these are already very important parts of our lore, especially event arcs which draw peak player numbers most of the time. But a time when these are the primary focus? I don't know if we'll see that very soon. 

5. Personally I would want to make it easier to access and read articles. A lot of important events and parts of lore and in these and reading them, even if we make a cut-off at what I consider to be the major arc that began the current "era" of lore in-game. King of the World. Is lots of reading for a new player who wasn't around in 2020 to do. I'm not quite sure how to do this, especially including even older articles. I think a full review of articles to finally decide everything that is non-canon or canon would be a good start however, as I've seen many people groan or argue over certain ones. I would also like to find a way to integrate articles better into the wiki, or sign-post their importance better, but I'm unsure how to do this for now.

6. Not particularly. In my time on the lore team I felt like it was a good, cohesive group and that everyone did a good job with the fields of lore that they worked on. I would like to see more inter-team cooperation at times especially on larger projects that cover the entire Spur and more cross-species lore in general, so that would be a change but more putting emphasis on something we already do than stopping anything.

7. This depends. I don't think anything on the wiki should be conditionally canon, as to say dependant on it being an antag round for this thing to exist like House Haradis which otherwise just can't exist, because vampires aren't canon to our setting ever. However writing antagonistic groups that can be used as antags and are also canon just generally are perfectly fine, the recently added Unenlightened of the Moroz Holy Tribunal are a good example of this I think. For our more supernatural antagonists however. I think they can be thrown a bone, just not by having canonical factions but instead rumors about things that are canonical that players can play off with these antags. To once again mention the Moroz Holy Tribunal rework it talks about how the Inquistrix of the Empire are rumoured to possess supernatural agility, durability and what could be magic/divine/psionic powers. These rumors are always canon, all that changes on an Antag round is that they are true for that round. Which I think is fine.

8. I don't think it would be a surprise for me to say Dominia to anyone who knows me, or reads lore canonization proposals. Dominia is wholly unlike any other piece of human lore and I must admit I adore it for that. It is a strange autocratic monarchy with a quite frankly insane state religion and I very much enjoy the aesthetics this brings to the table. I also enjoy the diversity of origins you have, whilst the noble primaries and great houses are often highlighted and then I feel Fisanduh comes just after them. My favourite groups recently are actually the secondaries/ma'zals of the Empire. Being able to play as a character who could oppressed by Dominian Society, benefitting from it or a mix of both is very interesting to me and has so many different ways you can play different parts of the lore I don't think I'll ever get tired of making them. Even more so with Primaries, Fisanduhians and Lyodii having a similar level of diversity, even if they appeal to me generally less.

[NewOriginalSchwann]

I've personally worked with and alongside Silvie multiple times before on both human and synthetic lore matters -- I've never had any issues with them and believe they would be a good fit for the role if chosen. With that said, questions!

1). Do you believe article-based arcs, such as Amor Patriae for the human team and The Titan Rises for the unathi team, are a good addition to the lore? Should we pursue more of these?

2). How long is too long for an arc? Would you step in and tell people to hurry up, or to write less, if you saw one becoming too long?

3). What are your thoughts on new additions to the lore, such as expanding "paragraph" planets into full pages or adding entirely new locations?

4). What makes an arc personally appealing to you?

5). Would you make placing articles onto the wiki a duty for lore writers or for the wiki team themselves, perhaps with lore writers advising?

[SilverSZ]

11 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

Do you believe article-based arcs, such as Amor Patriae for the human team and The Titan Rises for the unathi team, are a good addition to the lore? Should we pursue more of these?

Even when I was on the team I was an advocate for article arcs, and I think the ones we did for the Trinary Perfection on the synth team were great and well-recieved. With how I think event arcs should go in the future towards being like the Adhomai events so we're going to have to use more article arcs to push lore forward in areas the horizon isn't visiting, and article arcs built alongside wiki updates are the best way to do this imo.

11 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

How long is too long for an arc? Would you step in and tell people to hurry up, or to write less, if you saw one becoming too long?

I don't think there's really a defined too long or too short. It depends on what the arc has to cover and the scope of the events it'll add to the lore. I think the best solution in this case is to have an article arc come with proposed entries or time length prior to work starting on it so the loremasters can review this and decide if it's too long before it even enters proper production. This way the issue of something being too long should be solved before it comes up. But, in the event an in progress arc felt too long it would be a case of having to talk to said lore team and see what works best for them whilst also satisfying the desires of the loremasters rather than a set solution.

11 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

What are your thoughts on new additions to the lore, such as expanding "paragraph" planets into full pages or adding entirely new locations?

I'm in favour of it! After all, Orepit was expanded and Pactolus and Midaion added to Synth Lore when I was part of it. I do think this needs to be balanced with the continued reviewing and maintenance/updates to ensure existing lore that is behind on standards doesn't languish forever. It's a, sometimes unfortunate, necessity. But it's plain to see that writing new areas and planets either brand new or as expansions is something that people on the team want to do and something that people in the community enjoy seeing. So I'm completely in favour of new additions to the lore as part of the whole work of the lore team.

11 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

What makes an arc personally appealing to you?

In a general sense. I like Arcs where you can see and feel a fundamental progression in the lore across it. Amor Patriae and The Titan Rises for example I both liked because they have made big changes to the setting, resolving the aftermath of the Solarian Civil War and what feels like a complete change in the power dynamics of both the Hegemony and Hepheastus as well. This goes for any Arc, Event or Article.

For event arcs however I think the Tajara arc shows that for an arc to be appealing it isn't just about the events and arc itself but also creating that feeling of really being able to visit and interact with a lore location. I found the unique offmap locations and ships made for Adhomai to provide just as much fun and engagement as the actual events themselves. And keeping up this level of effort for future event arcs would be a priority for me. 

11 hours ago, NewOriginalSchwann said:

Would you make placing articles onto the wiki a duty for lore writers or for the wiki team themselves, perhaps with lore writers advising?

I think this would have to be discussed with the wiki team to ensure they were fine with the task. But having thought on the idea more I would like to find a way for lore articles or arcs to be pointed too on pages where they are relevant. Such as for example, Amor Patriae being properly sign posted on relevant pages like the main sol page, San Colette and reconstruction mandate pages for example. In this case it would most likely come down to the wiki team doing it with lore team advice or pointers. But exact implementation would have to be discussed. Even if it's just a box at the top of the page saying "Hey, this article/article arc is relevant to this page, you might want to read it"

 

Thank you for the kind words and I hope these answers answer everything sufficiently.

Edited August 9, 2023 by SilverSZ
Minor Spelling Mistake

[Caelphon]

Thank you for your application.

Your time on the Team was a valuable one, and we do share many common grounds on the direction we wish to take the lore. You have many ideas that I think should be implemented, and I'm hoping to commence some of them, and I want to thank you for that. I'm glad you threw your hat in the ring, but I've selected another applicant.