Botanist's "Human Lore Deputy" Application

[rrrrrr]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Timby
Time in Community: Since around ~2014, so nine years or around 1/3rd of my entire life.
Position Being Applied For: (Wiki Maintainer, Lore Developer, Deputy Lore developer): Deputy
Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page? Yes.
Past Experiences/Knowledge: I was briefly the IPC lore head for a few months many years ago. I was responsible for "I Love Meat." My sole surviving contributions are a handful of news articles and "Sven Karlssen," the in-universe reason that FBPs do not work.
Examples of Past Work: None worth mentioning

 

Why are you applying for this position and why do you believe you would make a good Human Lore Deputy?

I’m applying for this position because I enjoy writing, write compulsively, and want to build on and help expand the setting; I genuinely believe that the server’s setting is a fairly strong science-fiction universe that has a lot of room for storytelling. I would make a good “HLD” because I am a published writer (I will provide proof in private on request, since this is attached to my government name) and I am a good writer.

My favorite science-fiction writers are Samuel Delany, Philip K. Dick, and Arthur C. Clarke. I definitely favor New Wave writers more than the “big three” who dominated much of the 40s and 50s, i.e, Heinlein, Aasimov, and Clarke, but as I’ve said, I greatly enjoy Clarke’s writing.

What is your favourite part of Human Lore and why? What is your least favourite? (Note: If you submitted something that was canonised and is now part of human lore, you may not select your own canonised submission as your favourite or least favourite part of the lore.)

My favorite part of human lore (at the moment: this sometimes changes) is the ASSN and the semi-recently ended Solarian Civil War arc; way back in the Middle Ages (2014 – 2017), the lore for the ASSN was extremely lacking. It has since, as far as I can tell, been greatly expanded and heavily re-worked. My second favorite is probably a coin-toss between the Republic of Biesel – which has similarly been greatly expanded – and off-worlders, who are intrinsically cool. All I can say is that these are just cool and interesting things to read about. This more broadly goes into the fact that the server sets up organic inter-crew conflict via political allegiances… I find that pretty cool. People have to actually argue about these things, too, since they can’t just murder each other over them. No human faction is one-hundred percent good or one-hundred percent evil.

My least favorite part of human lore is Dominia, mainly because I knew the original writer. It’s gotten a complete make-over since he was around, so I can’t exactly point to anything in particular that I dislike now, but there’s that.

I also dislike the name “Einstein Engines.” Someone should change that.

What are three projects (medium to large sized additions, reworks, or arcs) you would like to do or help organize if made Human Lore deputy? (NEW PLANETS OR FACTIONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM ADDITION AT THIS PRESENT TIME. DO NOT INCLUDE THEM IN YOUR ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION.)

- There are two major planets listed on the Coalition page that don’t have their own pages: Zaurghis and Crosk. I would like to work on getting them on-par, in terms of written lore, with the other planets listed on that page… maybe not Xanu-levels of expansion, but something to firmly grasp, y’know?

- Something I’m presently working on is an expansion of human language lore, i.e, cutting out all the 2013-era BS12 badness and replacing it with my own personal brand of hot, juicy, 2023-Aurora goodness. I’ve privately shown it to some people, and I think it’s getting looked at, so I don’t know if I can put this here.

- An overview of medical advancements that humanity has made by the 25th century; essentially, the average lifespan by system, the status of diseases, and so on. Virology hasn't been in the game for a long, long time, but that doesn't mean that all disease has been wiped out. Players seem to regularly operate under the assumption that it hasn't been, anyways, which I agree with.

- While much of this is left up to the purview of the player, I think that a page going over what's considered "common knowledge" in each human country could be good. I'm also interested in adding more depth to the setting's lore on education; going over advancements in pedagogy, what exact fields of study can you lead you to being hired as an X, Y, or Z, and so on.

What do you believe are the current strengths and weaknesses of human lore? Why? What would you do to improve upon the weaknesses?

One of the major strengths, I think, is diversity. There’s a huge array of planets and systems to choose, on top of the “small outer rim/Coalition planet” fallback that essentially lets you come up with your own. Almost every conceivable culture and religion is represented by one of the planets in-game. Way back in the Dark Ages, (2014 – 2017), you really didn’t have anything like this.

I’d say that a weakness is, uh, honestly, some of the names and color schemes of certain megacorporations. Zeng-Hu's color scheme is not good. I also find “Hephaestus Industries” to be a goofy name. “Titanius Aeson” is the name of an anime villain, not a guy who runs a major industrial manufacturing company. I get that they’re going for a Greek myth-thing, but… c’mon. C’mon. Titanius Aeson. That’s the name of a guy who says stuff like “heh… everything is going according to plan.”

What are your thoughts on the past arcs that have been organised by the human lore team?

I’m going to be honest, I took a really long break from playing this game, so I’m not a hundred-percent clear on any of the arcs. I only personally witnessed the “Steel on the Horizon” mini-arc, which I found to be very fun, exciting, and cool. What little I saw of the Civil War arc was also very cool.

What is an idea for a future arc that you would like to have a part in writing and organising in the future? (Note: If you provided an arc or arcs as part of your answer for question 3, you may expand on the ideas for that arc or arcs here, or you may provide another idea.)

An arc reflecting broader tensions in the setting. Working title: "Shore Leave" (those are scare quotes.)

The SCCV Horizon is waylaid by a small fleet patrolling the space around a Coalition-aligned planet (name: HZ-4451) whose local planetary government is undemocratic and suspicious of Biesel, ships flying under Biesel's flag, and the SCC. Given that we're dealing with an entire planet here (even though it's a backwater dictatorship!), "small" still translates to "capable of really messing the Horizon up." From there, things would develop: the ship would be boarded by customs officials and militiamen and searched (translate to: ransacked) and command staff would be interrogated on such exciting questions as "where are you going" and "why are you here." A possible aside wherein command staff has to shuttle down to negotiate safe passage with someone of great --- no, interstellar importance --- the Secretary of Interplanetary Commerce. After an elongated spiel about the cost of "ensuring safe passage" and a bunch of other bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, it should become apparent that they're asking the Horizon to pay a toll. Not exactly a steep toll, but who likes paying tolls?

The Horizon hangs out in high-orbit of the planet, "hosting" a small contingent of colonial bureaucrats and militiamen. Keeping them entertained and fed is a top priority. Service needs to roll out the red carpet for these guys, since they think they're very important... or at least that they can get away with acting like they are. Meanwhile, on HZ-4451's moon --- a small, airless rock that's been home to the planet's sole prison for nearly three centuries --- a small group of prisoners hijack a shuttle and escape! Getting to the Horizon might be their only real ticket off HZ-4451... the thing is, they weren't accounting for the Horizon getting shaken down. They're political prisoners. Allegedly. Would it be worth causing a minor incident over helping alleged political prisoners escape?

Some plausible other occurrences:

1. A joint Gadpathurian-Himean patrol (the CMV Indra, Bakunin, and Fuck Hephaestus Industries) passes by. If the Horizon hails them and tries to ask for help, all the bridge crew hear is cruel, cruel laughter... 'cuz Gadpathurians and Himeans don't exactly care for the SCC, themselves.
2. The "political prisoners" are lying. They're planning on waiting until the Horizon leaves HZ-4451's airspace, stealing everything they can, and bugging out.
3. The political prisoners are telling the truth! Most of them are pro-democracy activists, pacifists, and conscientious objectors. By the way, escaping from a lunar prison gets you executed by firing squad on HZ-4451. Uh-oh.
4. A survey vessel (the CSV James Hutton) working for the Coalition's Bureau of Xenogeology passes by and gets held up, too... this vessel is also boarded and, after a few minutes, any radio communications that the Horizon has with the Hutton abruptly end. The Horizon's telecommunications are fine... is the Hutton's telecommunications array down, or is something more sinister afoot?

Have you ever been subject to any strikes or bans of any kind from Aurora's moderators or admins? If so, how long ago were these actions and what were they for?

I have been permanently banned in the past for reasons that I cannot entirely remember. Going off of the threads I’ve seen on the forums, I had a week-long ban for something involving koi’s – which I did not know anything about, at the time – and I made a joke appeal in-character as a medieval “pilgrime” calling for rapscallions, knaves, and scallywags to support me in my cause. This caused the ban to be upgraded to permanent. This was back in 2016-2017. I’m not entirely clear on when it happened, because I have very few coherent memories from before 2019.

Edited October 30, 2023 by rrrrrr

[Triogenix]

You may be unaware that anything relating to corporations falls under the jurisdiction of the Loremasters, not any individual team. This is not to say projects, arcs, and additions for corporations cannot be done by others, but for the purposes of this application, I think it would be beneficial if you focused on things specific to the human team; such as coming up with a different idea for a future arc.

 

That's just a minor thing I wanted to point out, as the application is for human lore deputy, and we're far more interested in your ideas for that, rather than corporation-related things. I'll ask some questions later, but good luck with your application!

[Omicega]

I have had very limited interactions with you in-game and essentially none outside of it, but despite that I feel like I have to say your responses are so on-point with what I would have written if it was my app that it's almost uncanny. I like the idea of smaller arcs like your service-centric one, I love that you highlight the diversity of origins as a massive strength of human lore in particular, and even your favourite and least favourite areas of the whole area of human lore essentially line up as well.

At some point I'll try and come up with some questions I'd like to ask, but I'm really just making a short post here now because it's quite late and I don't have the time to write a full one, but if I don't post at all I'll forget entirely. Suffice it to say that I really like your answers. If you're at liberty to share around and show that language lore addition/rework thing you've mentioned, I'd love to see that as well.

[Flpfs]

Every forum post that I see from you, I tend to strongly agree; your viewpoints are interesting and bring a much needed dose of sobriety to the table.

For my question, you mentioned medical advancements and diseases being underdeveloped, which is something that I concur - we do need expansions on more general worldbuilding lore. What are your plans to work on these ideas? Page expansions, new concepts?

 

 

 

[Shimmer]

I haven't had pretty much any interactions with you, however, since you do bring up Sol as one of your points of interest in human lore, I'd love to hear yours thoughts/plans on a few questions.

I'm not really sure if it's appropriate for any player to ask questions, but these are just curiosities I have, if I'm doing something wrong just poke me with a stick lmao.

 

What direction do you wish the Alliance would take, in terms of government, treatment of outsiders and outside powers (Primarily, Coalition, Elyra, Biesel), especially as it pertains to to the CRZ and the secession of Konyang? What do you believe the reaction of the Alliance should be? Furthermore, assuming elections do occur, which direction would you like to see the Alliance pulled ideologically?

 

One thing I'd be really interested to see is an expansion on Mars post violent dawn and post re-conquest by the Provisional government. Do you feel like Mars should get any attention in regards to its newfound situation, say, an expansion on whether or not the Alliance attempts some form of reconstruction effort, similar to the one done to Earth through contracts with Zeng-Hu? And expansion on what life is like post dawn?

 

Much luck on your application!

[rrrrrr]

19 hours ago, Triogenix said:

words words words

Woah, good catch, thanks. I was totally unaware; I'll come up with a new arc and edit the post to reflect that. (I still think Einstein Engines should be renamed and am leaving that there.)

10 hours ago, Flpfs said:

Every forum post that I see from you, I tend to strongly agree; your viewpoints are interesting and bring a much needed dose of sobriety to the table.

For my question, you mentioned medical advancements and diseases being underdeveloped, which is something that I concur - we do need expansions on more general worldbuilding lore. What are your plans to work on these ideas? Page expansions, new concepts?

Thank you for your kind words!

To be blunt: a lot is going to change in four hundred years. I usually find myself walking away from BS12's lore without much to say, but one thing that I think they got right --- really right --- was the option to play humans who are genetically modified.
"But we already have geneboosting," you say to me. "Wacky Dominian stuff! Seven foot tall primaries!"

Baystation 12 has about four human sub-species, one of which (space-adapted humans) have an equivalent here, one of which doesn't make sense (grav-adapted), one of which is very cool and awesome and high concept and also could not easily be slotted into this setting (Tritonians; essentially, sub-aquatic humans... very Man After Man) --- and one that leads me to my ultimate point, vat-grown humans.

We're only a decade or two away from the first artificially-gestated human. That's going to be a big deal. A paradigm shift. I genuinely think the moment that we can alter a fetus's sex, projected appearance, traits, and so on would be a far bigger deal than genuine AGI. Imagine what four-hundred years worth of research into that would give us. It'd be the genetic equivalent of wealth inequality.

I think a page on that --- an actual, in-depth page on how far genetics research has come by 2465 --- would be great. This part of the post's already pretty long, and I'd probably start getting into how that proposal could be reflected in the actual game (in other words, ahead of myself), so I'll cut that part off here.

Basically, I just think there should be a page ala the "Technology" one that goes into 25th century medical advancements. How long is the average human life? How much does it vary from system to system? Have we cured the common cold? In fact, have we cured any diseases?

It's something I'd like to write about!

10 hours ago, Shimmer said:

I haven't had pretty much any interactions with you, however, since you do bring up Sol as one of your points of interest in human lore, I'd love to hear yours thoughts/plans on a few questions.

I'm not really sure if it's appropriate for any player to ask questions, but these are just curiosities I have, if I'm doing something wrong just poke me with a stick lmao.

 

What direction do you wish the Alliance would take, in terms of government, treatment of outsiders and outside powers (Primarily, Coalition, Elyra, Biesel), especially as it pertains to to the CRZ and the secession of Konyang? What do you believe the reaction of the Alliance should be? Furthermore, assuming elections do occur, which direction would you like to see the Alliance pulled ideologically?

 

One thing I'd be really interested to see is an expansion on Mars post violent dawn and post re-conquest by the Provisional government. Do you feel like Mars should get any attention in regards to its newfound situation, say, an expansion on whether or not the Alliance attempts some form of reconstruction effort, similar to the one done to Earth through contracts with Zeng-Hu? And expansion on what life is like post dawn?

 

Much luck on your application!

Short-term, the ASSN is still not doing good. The Northern and Southern Wildlands have only recently come under Solarian control again, and probably not even entirely --- I imagine a fair number of pirates, secessionists, and extremists are still floating around out there or camped out on obscure planets, or hiding on more developed ones. It'd be impossible for the ASSN to subdue every single group out there that either does not want to be a part of the ASSN or benefits from the ASSN not exercising control over these areas... so a few news articles insinuating that, hey, it takes a while for countries that just got out of a major civil war to get fully functional again.

The most interesting direction that I think the ASSN could take, post-civil war, would to have it experience more trouble. Remember, the ASSN was stagnant for a long time. Recent events have shown that it's also not impossible to get rid of, on a local level. That'd embolden a lot of people who, before the whole Frost debacle, probably just kept their heads down and decided not to rock the boat. This would, naturally, lead to more authoritarian measures --- elections being delayed on a local level, martial law on certain planets, constrained freedom of speech/movement. First the post office gets bombed... then they enact martial law... then a bunch of Eridanian mercenaries show up to "keep the peace"... then they shoot your dog... so on and so forth. Political violence is a vicious cycle that's hard to break. The ASSN is going to be unstable in certain places for a long, long time, especially on the frontier.

As far as interstellar relations go: I do not think the Alliance's relationship improving with Biesel or the Coalition would make too much sense. The ASSN just got out of proxy wars with both and both are currently in possession of worlds that formerly belonged to the ASSN. Biesel itself is a relatively young breakaway state controlled by megacorporations whose interests are frequently at odds with the ASSN. Depending on how things play out --- further nationalization of megacorporate assets, Einstein Engines (bad name) becoming more intertwined with the Solarian state --- it's not really a recipe for good relations. The phoron crisis is probably hurting NanoTrasen's bottom line, more and more as time goes on, and, hey, it just so happens that NanoTrasen is the top dog in the SCC, who just so happen to be completely in bed with the FRB's government...

The way things are now would probably embolden the ASSN to do something against Biesel. A full-on war would be off the table, but there's a lot of things that countries --- especially countries at this scale, with all these resources and all this wacky technology --- can do to each other.

Regarding Elyra: I can imagine things returning to the pre-collapse status quo. [John Sol voice] Gotta get that sweet, juicy phoron... even if it means playing nice with the Elyrans... and anyways, Elyra's a break-away state... broke away a long time ago, though... why do we hate Elyrans, again...? Mm... phoron.

As for how the ASSN develops ideologically... I don't think that political ideologies in the 25th century would fit onto a left-right spectrum. Not neatly, anyways. I see more hostility to non-EE megacorporations, "populism", authoritarian measures, and so on. That kind of thing.

 

Mars has felt weirdly deprecated ever since Violet Dawn. It used to be a pretty big deal. I mean, it still is, and there are a lot of Martian characters, but it comes with the caveat of everything you know and love dying. Talk about a bummer. So, yeah, some kind of reconstruction effort would make sense... Mars is a major-league planet in the inner sphere. There wouldn't not be an effort to get it back to where it was. It needs to be expanded on what life is like inside of the arcologies that managed to come out of it mostly unscathed --- i.e, the places that the vast majority of Martian refugees would end up going. If Mars is even half-successfully redeveloped, there'd be a major resettlement effort, given that there are refugees from other places inside of the ASSN, mainly on the frontier.

[rrrrrr]

OP has been updated with a (hopefully) valid arc idea.

[painus]

BLUF: +1; Botanist would be a good addition to the lore team and would provide quality products to build upon the setting.

 

I've known Botanist for a while and can say that they possess the requisite autism to write lore for SS13 are capable of producing thorough, granular, and quality products that are unique, fit the setting, and allow the necessary depth for players and characters to provide creative and interesting stories in a collaborative environment. They have a refreshing candor regarding the lore and would do a phenomenal job of shaping the setting in which our characters inhabit for the better.

 

My only problem is that Dominia is badass, and disliking Dominia is not badass. Once that silly quirk gets fixed I don't see a reason to reject them from the team; more lore is not always good lore, but I think in this instance we would have a linear growth of both quantity and quality.

[rrrrrr]

Further updated the OP to remove any ideas/thoughts that were irrelevant to the role I'm applying for. Mostly megacorporate stuff.

[Carver]

I've rarely seen anyone with so consistent of a passion for this game over the years as Botanist, most would be thoroughly jaded after as long as he's been around but he's still kicking about with good takes. While I don't agree with everything you've said or done prior, the majority of what you have outlined here is truly refreshing and I'd be excited to see you carry out some of these promises (particularly human language debayification, dear Lord I've been waiting years for that). The only questions I could have are regarding that aforementioned language rework, but if it's under the wraps I'd much rather let you cook.

+1 for whatever it's worth!

[rrrrrr]

3 hours ago, Carver said:

I've rarely seen anyone with so consistent of a passion for this game over the years as Botanist, most would be thoroughly jaded after as long as he's been around but he's still kicking about with good takes. While I don't agree with everything you've said or done prior, the majority of what you have outlined here is truly refreshing and I'd be excited to see you carry out some of these promises (particularly human language debayification, dear Lord I've been waiting years for that). The only questions I could have are regarding that aforementioned language rework, but if it's under the wraps I'd much rather let you cook.

+1 for whatever it's worth!

Given that the "language debayification" proposal is, at most, being looked at by some people with zero promises as to whether or not it'll be accepted, I think it's okay to share. Here's a link to the Google doc.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dw2acBWyUIS4i1Xhc9oJYot2IwThtKYQAHEkaJQO_Og/edit?usp=sharing

[GeneralCamo]

Two questions for you:

What are your thoughts on the political lore for the human societies?

You bring up a language rework proposal. Are you willing to work with the lore team and developers directly, to make this work?

Edited October 28, 2023 by GeneralCamo

[rrrrrr]

After some discussion on the Discord (which was fun, thanks to everyone who chatted), I'd say that my thoughts on "which direction the Alliance should take" need to be clarified a little more. I don't think that things should go back to business as usual. When I wrote "authoritarian measures," I meant keeping the status quo in the SRMs, which are likely to be unstable for a while. Having elections be delayed or even cancelled in the SRMs could lead to some fun debates in-game.

My thoughts on how the broader Alliance should move forward is more of a mixed bag; reform is needed, yeah, and I think that's the way to go. It'd be a breath of fresh air compared to how Sol's been doing things for as long as I can remember playing on this server --- almost a decade, now. I don't think that it should be easy, or straightforward, and I do think that the threat of backsliding should be a possibility, but as far as things go outside of the SRMs: reform, political tension, tension between the Navy and a newly elected civilian government, more nationalization of megacorporate interests. The latter's something that I definitely think should continue, story-wise, because it's morally grey. Nationalizing private assets is arguably good for the Alliance... and bad for the Republic. It'd keep the fun and I'd honestly say integral conflict between Sol and Biesel in place without having one side be space fascists.

I also think that there ought to be two or three more notable Solarian politicians, on top of Strom and Trang. (Varzieva isn't a politician.) I also-also think that Strom becoming the Prime Minister would be a bad move, story-wise, since Strom represents the "civilian" Solarian right-wing... the guys who were in control before Frost showed up. A left-ish Prime Minister could be a good change. I'm not sure how elections are going to be handled. I recall players getting to vote, last time there was an election... a neat little "election season" arc with a lot of political news articles spurring debate in-game could be cool.

2 hours ago, GeneralCamo said:

Two questions for you:

What are your thoughts on the political lore for the human societies?

You bring up a language rework proposal. Are you willing to work with the lore team and developers directly, to make this work?

Regarding your first question, I'm not a hundred-percent sure on what you're asking, since it's a very broad question, but I'll try my best to answer it.

I think that it's in a good place, as of now. Almost all of the six major human factions (Biesel, Sol, Elyra, Eridani, Dominia, and the Coalition) are imperfect, some more than others. For example, Biesel, Sol, Elyra, and the Coalition all have flaws, but there are arguments to be made for each of them. All of them (except Elyra, which is stable at the moment but likely to experience issues as the phoron crisis continues) are democracies with major flaws. Both Biesel and Sol are in bed with megacorporations, Biesel more than Sol, Sol was stagnant for decades before collapsing, and the Coalition's hands-off approach with member states allows dictatorships to exist inside of it, on top of sheer size being a problem... Sol's just coming out of a military junta, which is going to be interesting and something I'd be excited to help work on, if this application's accepted. Dominia and Eridani are both openly bad places to live, which I think is fine, honestly. There are countries today that, frankly, I'd have trouble finding a good side to.

My thoughts are that having most major human factions be flawed is a good thing. Nations are inherently imperfect. I'm getting dangerously close to revealing my actual political views, which aren't all that interesting, so I'll stop there. There's no clear "good guy" or "bad guy" in the setting, as far as humans go, which I think's a good thing.

Yes, I would be willing to work with the lore team and developers directly to make it work. I wouldn't have applied if I wasn't willing to work with others. I understand that concessions need to be made and that, more likely than not, what I'm proposing is more of a rough outline than the final product. In my prior experience as the synthetic lore head, many, many years ago, I worked pretty closely with community members and the loremaster at the time. While I often injected my own ideas of what was funny or cool into what I wrote at the time --- which has lead to almost none of it surviving --- I should point out that I was about fifteen years old. Nothing I wrote at fifteen has stood the test of time. That's just how it is.

Edited October 28, 2023 by rrrrrr

[canon35]

1. What is your current thoughts on parts of the setting where human and non-human lore cross over? Do you think there should be more? Less? What are the strenghs and weaknesses, in your eyes, of these crossovers?

2. What are your plans to advance the setting for the nations besides Sol? It obviously has gotten the most attention with active lore developments like with the article arc for San Colette, I am curious to know what you think other nations should be doing.

3. What is your thoughts on Off-worlders? Do you think they should be expanded, cut down, or removed?

[rrrrrr]

1. See, another great part of the setting as a whole is that nothing exists in a vacuum. I'll use the Skrell as an example, because Skrell lore is a wonderful example because it was deeply lacking for years and isn't, now, mainly on account of it actually tying into other things in the universe. I think some background's worth talking about... much like every other alien species proposed back in 2012, the lore was bad. Ridiculously bad. And by the way, the reason we've got the main three alien species that aren't unique to Aurora is because they were suggested by people who were staff on BS12 at the time, el oh el... anyways, Skrell lore was initially this: "They are frog people. They are from the Jargon system. They are more advanced than humans."

That was it.

By the way, that applied to every other species. Everything was very simple and the level of interaction/interconnectivity was zilch. There was nothing. Let's compare and contrast that to what the Skrell are now: in terms of cross-species interaction, you've got the entire C'thur hive, a lot of great writing on how dionae get by in the Federation, and some straightforward writing on how things would be for the very rare (presumably human) non-Skrellian citizen... and vice versa. In human space, the local Skrell population is influenced by what system/country they're living in. Solarian Skrell tend to be more in-line with their government, since they're presumably guest workers with high social credit scores; the ones in Biesel are more of a mixed bag, since this is where you start seeing refugees, exiles, criminals, and so on... out in Coalition space, as far from the Federation as possible, things get weird. They're living in some of the freest human sectors having either personally escaped from or being one or two generations removed from people who have escaped from what must seem like an unimaginably oppressive government... so yeah.

This alone has created some fun interactions in-game. Keep in mind that, before August of this year, I hadn't consistently played this game for a long, long time. Slowly finding out, in-character, that the Federation was not, in fact, this vaguely more advanced superstate where everything was perfect was a surprise. Finding out that there are Skrellian refugees was a surprise and the canon event wherein someone was forcefully deported was a surprise.

That kinda thing wouldn't happen if human lore and non-human lore didn't intersect at all. The writing sows the seeds for these fun interactions and events. I think they're in a good place, right now. More writing on what life is like as so-and-so species in such-and-such place would be nice, but not under the purview of this role, I think.

2. I'm gonna be blunt and say that I think the major focus should be on whichever sector the Horizon is currently in. We're in the Weeping Stars, at the moment, and so far, going off of what I've seen, I think that's true... but I do think that a bigger focus on the Coalition as a whole would be good. A lot of the stuff going on with Sol and Eridani can happen in the background.

One major thing that I'd love to see is hammering in that the Coalition is politically diverse. It's decentralized. Yeah, there are countries like Xanu and Konyang that are peaceful, stable democracies --- but there are presumably just as many that are the exact opposite. I'm sorta hinting at this in my arc idea: I don't think that the Coalition is some freewheeling libertarian paradise where everyone gets a vote and a gun and you can grow weed. It's a hands-off group of planets who are aligned for the entirely practical purpose of survival. By sheer size, the Coalition is probably the largest country in the galaxy. All of the major systems are pretty spread out and not all of the worlds in-between Xanu and Assunzione are pleasant to live on.

In terms of that, I think seeing more tension between Coalition member-states would be neat... for instance, Gadpathur might think that Xanu's going a little soft on foreign policy and the Himeans might agree. The Coalition's political culture has the stated reputation of being disagreeable and argumentative. Planets ain't in the Coalition to make friends. They're in the Coalition so that they've got trade partners and people to fall back on in case their local planetary navy isn't capable of handling pirates.

I'm pretty sure that Biesel's a loremaster thing, but I'll just say that I think Biesel's going in a good direction right now. The Mictlan arc's great.

Elyra and Dominia getting into a proxy war on some systems in the Sparring Sea might be fun. The way people talk about Dominia in-game, you'd figure that Dominia was half of the galaxy and actively pushing for the SCC to start firing synthetics out of the mass driver, so I think that having Dominia punch above its weight class a little and pushing into that sector and either directly annexing a system or propping up a proxy state could be good. Dominia should live up to its reputation, I feel.

3. I love off-worlders. I've got a one-track mind, sorta, and I regret not making the current character that I'm stuck on an off-worlder. I think they need to be expanded by quite a bit... out of all the off-worlder characters I've seen in-game, only two of them weren't Scarabs. One was a Jovian and the other was a Burzsian. The Coalition's got the stated reputation of having more spacers than any other country in the game, but I don't think that's reflected all too well. You've got the Scarab fleets, which have a fair bit of depth to them, and you've got Burzsian star-men, who don't get much more other than "Hephaestus employs them" and "they're extremophiles who love cybernetics." Nothing on their culture, religion, or why exactly Burzsia has a "local off-worlder population." The planet's pressure is listed at thirteen-thousand, which means that it's got a higher gravity... they live in orbit, so it goes, but work on the planet itself. That's gotta be rough. Not a whole lot to grab onto, which is a shame, 'cuz Burzsians are cool, conceptually.

One thing that puzzles me is that gravity generators were invented in the early 23rd century; previously, they were a much more recent invention, dating back to the 2420s, if I remember right... I think reverting it to that more-recent date would open up more possibilities for off-worlders. A billion people are listed as living in orbit around Earth. A solid percentage of that billion's gotta be off-worlders, right?

So yeah --- I think off-worlders should be expanded. They're a whole species (subspecies, I guess) that's received comparatively little love over the years.

Edited October 29, 2023 by rrrrrr

[rrrrrr]

I was accidentally invited to what I guess is a "clique" (read as: a group of friends, cliques aren't real) discord so we can probably count this as three -1s, even if they're too lazy to just post in the thread.

I can't control who talks about me when I'm not there, but I noticed that I didn't know any of these people. Please try and get to know me before you threaten to kill yourself in the event that I become lore staff. It's not that bad. I like to think that I'm a pretty pleasant person. I'm also not that scary. I weigh 105 pounds. I'm five-seven, at most. Some of my clothing is from the children's section of Macy's.

Pretty discouraging to see people, including lore staff, writing me off completely because of stuff I wrote (at this point) seven-eight years ago. If you have reservations about this application, just post in the thread, please.

[GeneralCamo]

Well that solidified it for me.

+1. Give them a chance.

[Omicega]

2 hours ago, rrrrrr said:

I was accidentally invited to what I guess is a "clique" (read as: a group of friends, cliques aren't real) discord so we can probably count this as three -1s, even if they're too lazy to just post in the thread.

I can't control who talks about me when I'm not there, but I noticed that I didn't know any of these people. Please try and get to know me before you threaten to kill yourself in the event that I become lore staff. It's not that bad. I like to think that I'm a pretty pleasant person. I'm also not that scary. I weigh 105 pounds. I'm five-seven, at most. Some of my clothing is from the children's section of Macy's.

Pretty discouraging to see people, including lore staff, writing me off completely because of stuff I wrote (at this point) seven-eight years ago. If you have reservations about this application, just post in the thread, please.

This is from a Discord that @La Villa Strangiato created and runs too, as I understand, so I guess that's even more funny.

I can't really reiterate my +1 any more strongly, but I guess my concerns beyond that should be obvious.

[Alberyk]

Hi. While I understand the concerns about the behavior in these images, please make use of the proper channels to report staff behavior instead of bringing it here. Focus on the person who applied.

[rrrrrr]

I would really prefer it if people looked at the application on its own merits and didn't just say "+1" because I accidentally found out people were backbiting. It's unfortunate, yeah, but it doesn't really have anything to do with this thread. I have a reputation. A lot of the stuff I wrote as IPC lore head was, frankly, weird and gross, mostly due to some personal events in my life that I was dealing with. I was fifteen. I put it in the OP because I think someone called it "interesting" around the time I started playing and talking in the main Discord again. I understand why a fair number of people would have reservations about this application and I think that's fine. It's just unfortunate that some people weren't willing to voice them publicly.

can someone post something about like, elyran phoron shipping lanes, this has all taken a very strange turn

Edited October 30, 2023 by rrrrrr

[Triogenix]

Hello! I'm back after my original post, and have some questions for you!

1) What would you say is your biggest flaw in terms of potentially writing for the lore team?

2) As a human deputy, you will need to comprise alot, not only with Lain, but with other teams or the LTA to get things you want added. What do you think is the best attribute that would help you reach these compromises?

3) Human lore is one of the most oft-criticized sections of our lore and has a large player base as it is the only unwhitelisted species. Given this, do you think there are some topics you'd be nervous to approach due to how player feedback may be massively negative? If so, how would you go about approaching such topics? If not, why?

4) What are your thoughts on the current size of human lore? Is it too much? Is it not enough? With reasoning.

5) Lastly, what are your thoughts on article arcs vs in-game events? Is one better than the other? Which stories should be told using which?

Again, good luck with your application!

[rrrrrr]

1) What would you say is your biggest flaw in terms of potentially writing for the lore team?
Gonna be up-front and say that the lore team would be taking a chance on me. That’s sort of true for everyone, but my history on this server’s been pretty fraught. From about 2014 to as late as 2018, I was: weird, rude, and immature. I find my past behavior embarrassing. My stint as the head for IPC lore was unproductive and next to nothing has survived. The parts that people remember were, honestly, disgusting. A lot of it stemmed from things that I was dealing with outside of the game that happened between 2012 and 2017. It was a horrible period of my life. More detail than that is unnecessary. I listed something from back then as an example of my past work because, honestly, it is. No changing that! I could try and make excuses, but I’ve given it some thought, and honestly, “being fifteen and autistic” isn’t an excuse. I made a nuisance out of myself well into 2018, or almost five years ago. After that, I mostly stayed away from the Discord and never played the game itself.

Basically: I was bad. I think I’ve grown a lot as a person over the years. Only the people in my personal life actually know that this is true, so the team would be taking a chance on me.

2) As a human deputy, you will need to comprise a lot, not only with Lain, but with other teams or the LTA to get things you want added. What do you think is the best attribute that would help you reach these compromises?
I’m a fairly easy-going person, these days. I’m also very familiar with the reality that sometimes, something you really like in the first-draft might not survive. That goes double for collaborative writing… not everyone’s gonna share your aesthetic predilections, or vision, or, frankly, understand why you think something is necessary. Compromising is a basic requirement, and, honestly, a best-case scenario. On top of that, sometimes, you’re just gonna have to kill an idea that you really like because the other people on the team think it doesn’t mesh well with everything else. That’s life! To be more concise… I’m here to relax, not get into arguments. I’ve also spent the last few years writing and submitting stuff to online magazines, so I think I have a decent idea of what the process here is.

3) Human lore is one of the most oft-criticized sections of our lore and has a large player base as it is the only unwhitelisted species. Given this, do you think there are some topics you'd be nervous to approach due to how player feedback may be massively negative? If so, how would you go about approaching such topics? If not, why?
I don’t think there’d be any topics that I’d be nervous to approach, since I’ve got confidence in my writing, but I think that player feedback has to be taken into account. I could go into something feeling confident and, hey, it could turn out that that doesn’t really matter. People could dislike it anyways. I think I’d be careful and avoid retreading things that we’ve already seen; that includes trying not to do something that’s been done already, just with different factions. It isn’t possible to please everyone, of course… it’d be pretty foolish to try. A lot of people play this game. They’ve all got different tastes.

Of course, if something’s been set up, I think you gotta follow through on it. Dropping something just because people are voicing their distaste with it isn’t cool, in my opinion. It’s disappointing to anyone who was enjoying it and I think it messes with continuity. One tentative arc idea I went over earlier were Elyran-Dominian proxy wars in the Sparring Sea… at face value, this is similar to what’s been going on in the Wildlands for a while. Something that just ended. The main difference, I think, is that it’d put the spotlight – at least in news articles – on a country that, from what I’ve seen, isn’t played a ton. Elyra. Dominia’s a super-popular origin, too, and it’d drive roleplay from that end. This is also something that’s been set up for a while, now: the Elyra-Dominia smackdown. It’s like golf, I guess. Follow through!

Also, anything that ties into our present-day reality has to be handled with care, too. Religion, ethnicity, Terran nationalities, that sort of thing. While I love thinking about (and writing about!) religion, dealing with the major ones in anything more than broad strokes and the specific, localized variations that’d crop up a few hundred years from now would be pretty fraught.

4) What are your thoughts on the current size of human lore? Is it too much? Is it not enough? With reasoning.
Like you said, humans have a fairly large player base – probably the largest – because they’re the only species that isn’t behind a whitelist. It makes sense to me that human lore, as is, is pretty large... I think it could be a little bigger, but mostly in the form of expanding on things that haven’t gotten as much love over the years. Any major additions, like a new faction, that’d be super excessive. I think I’ve gone over the stuff I’d like to give some attention if I’m accepted and I don’t think any of it represents a major addition, just adding more depth where there wasn't so much before.

5) Lastly, what are your thoughts on article arcs vs in-game events? Is one better than the other? Which stories should be told using which?
Articles themselves do a lot of fun things. For starters, they can be the set-up for an in-game event, like the ones that preceded Steel on the Horizon… they can provide flavor, since they’re sort-of-kind-of connected to the game itself, via newscasters… or they can be whole arcs, in and of themselves, like the Mictlan one that’s going on right now. Generally, I think that the last one – article arcs – should only be for things that aren’t directly effecting the Horizon at the moment. They’re there to drive roleplay, and that’s about it. That’s what this is all about, anyways. Roleplaying!

I’m a sucker for in-game events. I have yet to meet an in-game event, canon or non-canon, that I didn’t like. I love ‘em. I think everyone does. That’s why the player count jumps whenever there’s one going on. In-game events are for things that are going to effect the Horizon directly. For instance, way back when, you couldn’t just drop an article about the 35th Fleet besieging Biesel and have that just be an article. You’d have to an event – that’s the main course! Articles about a fleet moving into Tau Ceti and panic in the streets the closer it gets is just flavor. You need both, I think.

[pocheto]

I'm going to be honest, all of these lore thoughts (especially the language rework stuff) has my special interest in aurora lore awakening. God I need this. Give me my coalition despot planets. +1

[goolie]

Thought I'd stick a +1 for the way you handled the negativity on the post previously, didn't dwell on it for too long and replied to it in a mature manner. Of course you dropped some interesting lore in the application too! 

[The7thLain]

Hi, pardon the delay on these questions. I've had some personal events delay these for you and all other applicants. I will ask you three questions, the first I will ask to all applicants and the latter two will be tailored to your application specifically. Consider these questions as being from both myself and my deputy.

1. On balance, how do you see the Human Lore of the server being different with you than without you; what is something that only you bring to the table as a deputy?

2. Something that has brought the Human Lore Team some concern throughout this application is your past body of work, and while you have acknowledged your prior immaturity in this area of things, we wanted to understand how your process in writing now differs from how it way back then. While we have a very broad swath of lore, factions, arcs, and locations, in human lore, we cannot focus on everything and keeping things tonally consistent between our 40+ planets can sometimes be challenging. What do you see as the tone/mood of our setting, what are your biggest priorities from a writing standpoint, and how would you implement them into human lore?

3. You mention wanting to focus elsewhere rather than Sol and Eridani. This is not an uncommon sentiment among the player base, as while we have a solid collection of people who love Sol and find it interesting, a general trend of opinion within the community is that we should move away from Sol-focused content for a while. The Coalition is a place that you mention as something that you want to see expanded upon, and as of this writing it is one of the lore team's primary areas of focus. Rather than how you may see the Coalition interacting with itself, we wanted to ask how you think the Horizon could interact with and be impactful within the Coalition's future developments?