Red Tries to Become a Human Lore Deputy

[ImmortalRedshirt]

Ckey/BYOND Username: immortalredshirt
Time in Community: Since mid-2020, a short while before King of the World kicked off
Position Being Applied For: Deputy Human Lore Developer
Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page? Yes, including that new part
Past Experiences/Knowledge: Too many years of writing. Very little has seen the light of day.
Examples of Past Work: The Pluto expansion

This part got a bit long, so get comfy.

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

If any of you have seen me around in the community, you might be wondering why a mechanic is applying to do something so wildly out of left field. Truth is, I've been as passionate about writing fiction for about as long as I have been about fixing things. I've descended deep into sci-fi both new and old and I'd love to bring the perspective that has granted to the team. The writing process thrives when everyone brings a unique view on things to the table, as it encourages developing some ideas into a new and unexpected form.

What is your favourite part of Human Lore and why? What is your least favourite?

For my favorite bit of human lore, it would have to be Vysoka in its entirety. It takes the roots of its colonists and develops them over the centuries into something wholly unique and avoids falling into the common stereotypes. Everything from the culture, all-new religion, environment, and tech levels comes together to create an incredible vibe that despite how it differs from our own reality, still feels deeply relatable if you've spent a decent chunk of your life in a similar region. It's no surprise I've made multiple characters for this one planet.

Unfortunately, I cannot heap the same amount praise on some parts of the lore. Some parts are just victims of wider issues with the lore and could be better with a bit of love, which I'll bring up later, keep that point in mind. I cannot say the same about the sheer amount of military lore, however. For a long time now, I've been no fan of military sci-fi, so to see all the nation's armed forces receive an almost disproportionate amount of focus compared to the parts that actually do matter for characters on the ship is a bit disheartening. If you need more than two or three paragraphs to describe a nation's military, it's time to go back and see how it can be edited down, especially if most of the runtime is just retreading basic facts about how an army or navy works and offering nothing that makes it really stand out.

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?

-Adding some nuance to Himean society. Himeo is another planet I think is pretty good and not just because I'm a syndicalist at heart, but compared to literally everywhere else, it's a bit too good. Having discussions in relay as a Himean isn't really fun because at the end of the day, you really can pull out the "I literally come from the closest thing we have to a worker's utopia" card. If I were to tackle this, I'd try to create a contrast between a place that has gotten their ideology into a workable and not completely nightmarish state, and the societal effects that may arise from it all working as planned(such as, for example, the veneration of certain types of labour leading to substandard quality of education?)

-Putting an emphasis on CoC-focused content in terms of arcs and articles, as well as touching on some underdeveloped places like Burzsia. We have a whole news thread for the Coalition but to this day, it has only ever really been used to talk about what's happening in Sol and its warlords. What's happening in the Scarab fleet? Is the peace on Vysoka going to hold much longer? Has a crazy experiment in Galatea had some massive consequences?

-Bit of a minor one, but I'd also adjust some of the religion lore. Tribunal has plenty of doctrine and structure, but not much in the way of in-universe mythology and with a really weak explanation for anti-synth prejudice. Luceism is in a somewhat more interesting place, but that reddit-tier backstory absolutely needs to go.

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

The main strength of human lore is the sheer variety of content one can have. If every species had an established theme running through it all, one of humanity's would be "diversity". Just about all the popular concepts to play with in this genre are here, plus a few minor ones. Having this variety leads to a lot of really cool interactions, doubly so if even a single planet encourages characters with completely distinct upbringings and views. If you can look at a page and think "wow, I have come up with several unique characters from here that are very straightforward to flesh out", something has gone incredibly right. However, this variety is only just a fraction of what could be done, and that brings me to what I feel is a weakness of human lore.

Compared to many of the species in our lore, humanity feels too mundane in many places. Things in 2465 proceed much as they do in 2023, just with the scale changed. We have spaceships and better guns and pretty alright robot arms now, but it just feels like a backdrop that can be switched out for a setting closer to the modern day, aliens aside. And even when something actually tied to futuristic sci-fi is implemented, it feels like it's still playing it too safe. For example, let's compare piracy lore for humans and Unathi. The Unathi pirates have a distinct social structure to them, with codes, traditions, bases of operation, folk tales and legends, and several fleets with their own distinct identities and purpose. Human pirates, on the other hand, get...mostly fleets associated with one nation or corporation, plus the Sadars, and very little identity beyond that. And it's not just pirates, so many entities with potential just begging to be explored are limited to something we've seen a thousand times before, rather than embracing the sheer exhilarating imagination that we're capable of. To remedy this would be as simple as incorporating even fairly basic speculative fiction concepts into what we write, ones that encourage us to really think about the implications of futuristic technologies and exotic social structures. The classics of the genre were really good at this, taking a strange idea and then exploring it in full detail, often saying a lot about society in the process.

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

I'm very mixed on previous human lore arcs. They've placed an overwhelming amount of focus on interstellar-scale military action, and especially on what the Sol military gets up to, to say nothing about the sheer lack of impact they have for more than two people on the ship. Amor Patriae, for the most part, went through several months of filler text before progressing the plot, happened on the completely other side of the Spur, and since it's pretty damn hard to be worse than actual fascists, had an unambiguous Good Guy, so the conflict couldn't even cause tension on the Horizon. I'd like to make some stories about the lives and local struggles on various worlds, of conflicts that don't escalate into mass military movements but still connect in some way to a decent amount of the crew, or maybe some story about some big discovery in the frontier to show that exploration is still happening. Human lore will flourish once we get characters talking about something other than "my spaceship could totally beat your spaceship."

What is an idea for a future arc that you would like to have a part in writing and organising in the future?

I've already talked about the Coalition a lot in this lore app so let's shake things up a bit.

Rumors of phoron gas signatures in an Eridani fed gas giant causes the ship to need to head in that general direction, with the ship needing a docking event to retrofit the sensors to work better with gaseous materials. The crew get to experience Eridani I and the up-front realities of Eridani while later getting to actually do what the ship was designed for. The vapors of phoron gas turn out not to be because the gas giant is phoron rich, but because it is the hub of phoron-shipping piracy, being headed by a gang of dregs. This previously unrecorded skimming and hijacking of phoron shipments threatens Eridani's status as a special economic zone of the Solarian Alliance, and as a way of trying to curry favor from the Minister of Defense Lucien Courtois, begins anti-piracy measures in the previously laissez-faire region while the Department of Commerce intends to start a new branch office in Eridani I to investigate the matter and exert Solarian influence, harming both SCC and SCA activities in the area.

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 got slapped with a warning back in early 2022 after what could best be described as a shitty character decision. It definitely was deserved and after I cut out the problem in question I had a much better time with the character, so it all worked out in the end.

Additional Comments: In term of community interaction, I'm very on again-off again with it all. I also do have a tendency to be somewhat blunt in conversation, if something bothers me I will tend to make that clear. If you have something in that regard that you wish to resolve, feel free to float a DM my way.

[Alberyk]

Hi. You were involved in this: 

I don't think you ever deserve to be staff on the server. You decided to mock the team you now want to join behind their backs.

[Kintsugi]

I am going to open by quoting my post from the thread already linked here.

Quote

Your involvement in the discord - either solely in the past or continuing into the present (regrettably, I no longer have access to it) - known as "The Based Department", which was and potentially still is a toxic, vindictive cesspool of embittered players and ex-players, where you and your friends behind the backs of the server as a whole mocked staff, mocked players, and mocked characters you didn't like totally precludes your suitability as a prospective member of the staff team, let alone as a server moderator. You have no place on the moderation team - not only because of your hostile attitudes towards both the server's players and against even members of staff you're supposed to be working with, but because being a moderator would allow you to act upon and target the individuals you mocked in private.

In your case, your conduct is many, many times worse than that of the person this is referring to. You are by far one of the most toxic members of "The Based Department". I at first thought that I ought to post all of the nasty shit that you've said about the staff team, and other players, but then I realized that I would need to link quite literally many dozens or even hundreds of screenshots to do that. Instead, I've decided to compile some of your most choice remarks - but one thing in particular I wanted to do is get every time you directly insulted the human lore team. Not even whenever you insulted it by responding to your similarly toxic and vindictive friends, not even when you insult the lore team as a whole or other teams in particular, just the insults that you levelled against the very team you're trying to join. Unfortunately these are all quite old, but the "good" news is that the human lore team has been largely consistent in composition over the years. That means the very people you were insulting are still the people on that team.

Spoiler

 (note: the people running the show are the same as they were back then)

Like I said, if I was to post every single hateful, spiteful, vindictive thing you've said in these logs, I'd have to take a week to sift through them and it'd need multiple posts in this thread just to get it all down in an organized manner. I also have no doubts that I missed a whole lot, seeing as I only took an hour or so to look. The point is that you hate the people that you're trying to join up with. You call them fascists, you denigrate their intelligence and their writing ability, and yet YOU want to be on the human lore team? I can't even imagine why, except that I suspect bad faith has a big part to play here. You are the opposite of what this server needs, let alone what the staff or lore team needs. If you said these things in an official discord, you would have been permanently and unappealably banned from the server by now - I have no doubts about that.

I can only imagine what you said in DMs or in whatever clique discord you're in now. I expect nothing good. I'd tell you to try and grow and change as a person for the better, but I expect that'll fall on deaf ears here. You seem very comfortable with how you act and very set on your worldview, unfortunately.

 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by DanseMacabre

[The7thLain]

Hi, thank you for your application.

In light of the information referenced above, you are not presently welcome and will never be welcome on the Human Lore Team for as long as I am on it. Your application is denied.

Locking and archiving shortly.