Kermit's Skrell Lore Deputy Application

[kermit]

Ckey/BYOND Username: sadkermit

Discord Name: smellyelle.

Position Being Applied For: Skrell Lore Deputy

Past Experiences/Knowledge:

I’ve no experience writing lore for any online community.

Examples of Past Work:

Nothing relevant or significant enough for a lore deputy application.

Why do you want to join the team and how do you plan to spend your time as a Skrell deputy outside of assigned projects?

Having experimented with just about every aspect of skrell lore through many characters, I feel I have a fairly solid understanding of skrell lore as it is presented on the wiki and in-game via other peoples’ interpretations of the lore. This leaves me with a general idea of what is fleshed out enough and where some lore may fall short.

Besides that, I just all-round enjoy playing skrell and being part of the player-base which holds the whitelist. Discussing lore and seeing what other characters people make using the lore has always been interesting.

As for how I plan on spending my time outside of assigned projects, I have often dabbled in small/medium contributions – nothing amazing – so I can see myself working on skrell-centric contributions. Being in the position where I can better talk through players’ views on skrell-lore would also be an easy thing to do in spare time as a deputy.

What are your thoughts on Skrell lore, both good and bad? You should also mention what you would like to change or expand upon.

It’s hard not to mention psionics and how they’re tied into social influence and used as a tool by the Nralakk Federation’s government – I really like this. The ways in which skrell from different groups take measures to isolate themselves from the Srom/Nlom is another part of the psionics lore which I like making use of with the characters I play. For a long while, a lot about psionics didn’t feel that impactful in-game, but the addition of the Nlom vote has remedied that. I am looking forward to the first skrell event which features a more powerful psion interacting with the lay-skrell and manipulating the Nlom. 

The Zi’Pluax is another part of lore I really like; the generation ships in general are all a good read. How culture affects the usage of psionics is something I think could be expanded from just the Zi’Pluax to other areas of Skrell lore, making the usage of psionics unique to location. Zi’Pluax culture developed a psionic usage to commune with what they believe are the dead, perhaps skrell of Aweijii may have developed more agricultural uses of psionics - tying it into mechanical psionics, there could be Origins-based psionics added to go along with the Core psionics all skrell have access to.

Europa also sees some cultural effect on psionics usage, which probably explains why I've enjoyed playing Europan skrell a lot. Another part of skrell lore I really like.

As for what I don’t like, I’ve honestly never been fond of the skrell religions. It’s a strange juxtaposition, with the Nralakk Federation being at the forefront of science and yet still emphasising spirituality – I've tried playing skrell who are religious, but given I tend to play Science or Command roles, it's a bit weird justifying why they'd follow the more spiritual religions, they just end up doing it for conformity reasons more than anything. That said, I understand the significance of skrell religions, especially their effect on early history.

Kir’gul and Suurka, on the other hand, appeal a lot more to me, given they’re more philosophies than religion. Expanding Kir’gul and Suurka is definitely up my alley, as Kir’gul especially could do with some love given it’s anathematic to Federation values. My proposal below takes a proper look at Kir'gul and tries to make it something more useful for in-game play.

A proposal for a new piece of Skrell lore. It can be about anything, but it must be something that could be reasonably added to the wiki. The proposal must be provided as a google doc with legible formatting:

I wrote this Kir’gul expansion last year when skrell deputy applications were last opened. Let it gather dust when I decided not to apply but, given Kir’gul hasn’t at all been touched since apps were last opened, it remains my main proposal and I'll probably further expand on Kir'gul as a deputy with this as a base. I haven’t thoroughly gone through Meep’s proposal in their application as I’m aware it also touches religion, but I’m hoping they’re both compatible so both our proposals could potentially go in, regardless of who is picked for deputy.

Kir'gul Expansion

[Caelphon]

Recalling your Skrell Application, from almost a year back, you have an incredible ability to weave a story based on what’s given to you — and I think Skrell Lore would perform admirably with you. 
 

Just a few questions:

1. How do you feel about Dionae and the Federation? Anything you like, anything you don’t like? What would you change if you could hypothetically change it unilaterally. 
2. Do you see any issues with inter-species coordination and developing lore that would impact more than just Skrell Lore?
 

[kermit]

2 hours ago, Caelphon said:

Recalling your Skrell Application, from almost a year back, you have an incredible ability to weave a story based on what’s given to you — and I think Skrell Lore would perform admirably with you. 

Honestly surprised and a little flattered you still remember it, thank you <3

2 hours ago, Caelphon said:

1. How do you feel about Dionae and the Federation? Anything you like, anything you don’t like? What would you change if you could hypothetically change it unilaterally. 

I really like how dionaea have been integrated into the Federation, from the socialisation of Federation values into adopted nymphs to the effect that has on dionae mindtypes, to how Xrim struggles with both Glorsh and Nralakk influences. The one thing missing that springs to mind is how the Federation may exploit dionae biology to create new technology. Rubbish examples as I've not put too much thought into yet, but something like a dionae-based weapon. Writing this, I just had some wacky thought about a Qukala naval ship deploying a Dionae Kraken during the ongoing Traverse conflict, and I'm just gonna stick with that. I do like the more untamed and monstrous side of dionaea – the recent Voidic Proto-Culture page was a welcome addition for me, and I've always had a sweet spot for the Viscerabelt. Hopefully, I'll think of something more workable on the theme of Nralakk-dionae tech. innovations down the line.

I can't think of anything I'd change about dioane-skrell lore if I had Unlimited Power, so I'll offer something on only-diona lore. I haven't glossed over dionae religion for a while, so I may get some stuff wrong, but dionae, which learn through consumption, suddenly developed a fancy for the Eternal somewhere – this isn't isolated to human society—integrated dionaea, it's something which affected isolated clusters too, like the viscerabelt. I think the Eternal even developed with the Blossoms cluster as a starting point, and the Blossoms aren't even from the Spur – though maybe this is an allusion to an extra-Spur state which planted the seeds of religion into the Blossoms, then the Choir, and so on? Therefore, if I could change something, and this is in-line with how I like to see dionaea as inovationless and instead great at mimicry and plagiarism, it would be to emphasise how dionae religion is a result of genetic-learning from the other races which already had developed religion. Again, not done too much reading into Dionae religion recently at all due to my favour towards wild dionaea, so maybe this is something already emphasised and I just glossed over it – the Blossoms and what I see as an allusion to an extra-Spur state may be enough too.

3 hours ago, Caelphon said:

2. Do you see any issues with inter-species coordination and developing lore that would impact more than just Skrell Lore?

Not at all, I welcome the opportunity to work cross-team, if only with a little bit of hesitancy due to my lack of experience.

[meep109]

Love your points on religion and I've made that in my Weishii proposal by making it a mostly lower-class religion of the Fed, but I think Qeblak is in a good place right now- it's another method for the Fed to control people, as I see it.
Got a few questions for you too:

1. Do you think Qeblak in specific needs any changes, or is it all religion as a whole?
2. This is a question just for fun, but hypothetically if you were a Github god and could code anything humanly possible, what kind of psionic powers would you like to add, if any?
3. Is there anything you want retconned or massively overhauled? Maybe an arc or a weird lore piece you think doesn't fit into the bigger puzzle

[kermit]

12 hours ago, meep109 said:

it's another method for the Fed to control people, as I see it.

12 hours ago, meep109 said:

1. Do you think Qeblak in specific needs any changes, or is it all religion as a whole?

Yeah, definitely, this is how I see it too. I think it would be interesting if this was explored a bit more then, as while it's mentioned on the Beliefs page, there is no clear distinction as to who follows it. To me, right now, it seems like an optional belief system you adopt for goodie points with the Federation. I think, if I find out it's not already been done after thoroughly going through the wiki, I might take a page from your Weishi proposal – which I quite like – explaining how different groups within the Federation see Qeblak: scientifically-inclined skrell may simply adopt it to get a boost to their SCS for that high-end lab position; government and religious officials may not even follow it, knowing that it's just a tool, but say they follow it, etc.. Nothing to say this can't already be assumed, but making it explicit may do some good and introduce a bit of nuance.

An idea I just had would be a potential article mini-arc where a high-level Starchanter is found out not to even be a devout Qeblak follower, only to gain the full ire of the Federation and disappeared – perhaps to the Lyukal's delight, as they'd spin it as the weakening of an institution core to the Federation.

12 hours ago, meep109 said:

2. This is a question just for fun, but hypothetically if you were a Github god and could code anything humanly possible, what kind of psionic powers would you like to add, if any?

Not necessarily a power as they're introduced now, but something I like the idea of is a selectable skrell disability where, at a random but infrequent interval, you are prompted to enter your current thought that is then leaked to everyone around you. I noticed one skrell player already do this using Commune, then going 'Whoops, didn't mean to broadcast that.' Not even being able to control your own thoughts and who hears them is an interesting concept I like.

I mentioned culture-based psionics in my application too. Origin-based psionics would be a very cool thing I'd add if I had the know-how. Aweiijans, the ability to invigourate plants to have a larger yield and to detect mineral deposits like an orescanner; Qerr'Malic skrell, a stronger form of Suggestion; Europan skrell, the ability to befriend and command a whitelist of simplemobs; Tattutig skrell, the ability to do some kind of combat focus where their firerate and accuracy with guns increases for a few seconds for those Spaghetti Western shootouts. I think stuff like that would be cool. At some point, I may take a look into actually doing something like this, but I think tying it into Origins might be quite difficult, as they're isolated systems.

12 hours ago, meep109 said:

3. Is there anything you want retconned or massively overhauled? Maybe an arc or a weird lore piece you think doesn't fit into the bigger puzzle

Nothing serious immediately springs to mind, to be honest. If I think of something, I'll edit it into this post.

For now, I will just say that I don't like how slimes are connected to Glorsh, and we'd be better of just removing slime lore and slimes in-game, but that's neither very significant nor an unpopular opinion, I don't think. It would be difficult to remove the lore for them though without finding an in-game replacement for xenobiology to work with, but PRs which rework parts of science are oh-so-rare. I'd rather see xenobiology create super wacky hybrid simplemobs, Rimworld genetic engineering style.

[WhatsUpBrotendo]

I've decided to go with another applicant, but thank you for applying. I hope that this doesn't dissuade you and you will be interested in contributing to the lore through the lore canonisation application process.