Fool Posted August 18 Posted August 18 (edited) BYOND Ckey: Foolamancer Discord username: dalekteaservice (Fool, for server display name) Character names: Magnus Mothry, Scientist/Anomalist Stitcher Faro (formerly Adrien Lucky), Surgeon more in the past but it's been like a decade man i don't remember which characters were specific to this server, i think Doctor Sprockets back when i had the IPC whitelist? Species you are applying to play: Skrell ------------------------------ General Whitelist Requirements What colour do you plan on making your first alien character? Too many ideas for various characters to say for certain which will be made first. Light blue and/or light green are my usual standbys for Skrell; royal purple, red, and orange are also immediate possibilities, but I've played the whole rainbow in the past and probably will again. Have you read the lore pages for the species you wish to be whitelisted for? Yes. The fact that the squidlore pages exist and have, y'know, actual lore in them is basically the whole reason I'm back on Aurora after so many years away. Why do you wish to play this species? I've been a Skrell player on various servers since the Before Times. On multiple servers, I've been the Skrell player. I took a break from SS13 for several years after quitting the Baystation admin team, which resulted in my whitelists on most servers expiring; given the fact that I hate writing whitelist applications, I didn't go back to reclaim them and have just hung out on Bay for a while, where my squidlist was reinstated with no questions asked given my long history with the species there. I've always been more interested in playing xenos than humans, and out of the various xeno species available for play on most servers, Skrell have just become my default. They're the species that I have the most fun playing as and the one that I have the most ideas for characters with. At this point, "why do you want to play Skrell?" is like asking me why I love my mom's home cooking. I've literally been doing it for more than a decade at this point. I just like them, and I've played many, many Skrell that have become famous beyond the servers they were originally played on (Edvin Telephosphor, the character in my forum avatar, being the biggest example). They're far more interesting to me than standard humans, and while I enjoy other xeno species as well, Skrell are the ones I always come back to. As for why I want to come back to this server and play Auroraskrell specifically, that's pretty easy: I like the community, I've been encouraged to return by good friends, Aurora's rules allow for far more xeno character variety than Bay's at the moment (xeno Command is disallowed on Bay, as a simple example), and again, Aurora actually has lore, whereas Bay essentially has a blurb, and it's never been a blurb that I particularly enjoy. Aurora's lore is far more in-depth and gives many more opportunities to build interesting characters with. What makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human? access to *skwarble In all seriousness, I find questions like this vaguely annoying and difficult to answer, not because there isn't a difference, but because there isn't necessarily that much difference between role-playing as characters of different species other than the obvious physical changes. The galaxy is massive, and oddities exist everywhere, both for humans and for xenos. Humans can (and should, depending on character) be weird and Skrell can (and should, depending on character) be surprisingly relatable. That quibble aside, broadly speaking, Skrell are fun to play because they're usually quite odd by human standards. Part of this is simply divergent evolution, as Skrell lack the facial muscles that humans generally use to convey emotion; while capable of broader motion like smiling, grinning, and frowning, these expressions rarely look quite right, and are often deliberate attempts on the part of the Skrell to mimic human emotional signals. Amongst themselves, Skrell display emotion quite openly, but this is generally done through methods that humans fail to recognize, such as motion of the head-tails, psychic communication, or the use of vocalizations, many of which are out of human range of hearing. This leads to humans often believing Skrell to be weirdly cold and emotionless, when they are in fact deeply passionate about things- and in the inverse, humans often appear simultaneously limited in their methods of emotional expression, relying primarily on expression, while also leaning into that single method way too hard, which can result in mutual failures to understand emotional states across species. Skrell culture also generally tends to lack gender, at least as humans would recognize it. Being hermaphroditic, Skrell culture never developed the idea of sex-related gender constructs. While they can understand the identities that other species adopt, and sometimes adopt them for themselves if they like the sound of being a man, woman, or whatever else, Skrell tend in general to define their identities along different lines entirely, which allows for wildly different presentations and personal focuses. The other primary difference between humans and Skrell is the immense psychic potential of your average Skrell when compared to the average human. The Skrells' shared mental energies, when gathered in sufficient numbers, can be sufficient to essentially connect all Skrell on a planet in a passive, subtly-influencing mental bubble, bending most of the population's thoughts towards acceptance of the broader culture. While a substantial portion of Skrell can and do resist this effect, and it doesn't reach the point of mind control, the psychic wake does tend to force Skrellian populations into something of a conformist mentality. Undoubtedly this has been a large force behind the continued power of the authoritarian Nralakk Federation. ------------------------------ Character Application Character Name: Skipping this for now. As noted above, there are a lot of random character ideas swirling around in my head, and Skrell names in particular run the gamut from "I picked a vaguely-appropriate human name to make sure these apes can pronounce it" to "absolute incoherent unreadable jumble of Qs, Xs, apostrophes, and assorted vowels". I don't assign final character names until the rest of the character is fully complete, and it depends heavily on what feels most fitting at the time. Write a backstory for your character. This may include their origin, education, personality and how they arrived to the SCCV Horizon. Again, multiple character options playing about in my head right now. For the sake of this application, however, I'll pick one at random and flesh it out on the fly; this is literally being worked up as I type it, so bear with me. Consider a Skrell born with advanced psionic capabilities, placing them firmly into the Listener category. This Skrell is raised on Qerrbalak, at the seat of the Nralakk Federation's power, and is fully aware that Listeners are viewed with suspicion by the others around them. They have doubts about the authoritarian nature of the Federation government, but are also fully aware of their isolation and lack of ability to challenge said government in any meaningful way. As a result, they make an attempt in their early life to suppress their natural psionic resistance and force themselves into acceptance of the Federation ideals around them, essentially trying to efface their own identity in exchange for acceptance in broader culture. To the best of their ability, and likely with the aid of psionically-effective drugs and/or technology, they attempt to force themselves to simply stop being a Listener. The one real passion they retain through all of this is in cooking. Cooking is safe; it allows them to be inventive and creative and wild without drawing suspicion, but instead earning praise. Their career is meteoric, and before long an investor offers them a position as a chef in a prestigious restaurant in one of Silversun's resorts. This is a dream come true; outside of the easy reach of the Federation, with access to both human and Skrellian ingredients, able to experiment with their cooking and relax on a personal level like they never have before, they are actually very happy. They even achieve minor idol status, becoming a minor celebrity chef among both human and Skrellian circles. And they discover that the human food called "crab" is probably the single most delicious thing ever to exist. Their history with psionic suppressants, however, has been tracked by the Qranqi, and an agent of the organization approaches them, informing them that their long-suppressed Listener nature has never really been a secret. The Federation has always known, as have the Qranqi themselves; for all their ability, they're untrained, and their attempts to purchase suppressive drugs and technology have been clumsy. The Federation has been content to leave them alone because they're the ones selling the goods; potential subversives voluntarily subjugating themselves is the ideal outcome, after all. The Qranqi, meanwhile, have the resources to teach them to properly control themselves; to continue their act as a standard psionic receiver without having to neuter themselves through mind-altering drugs and technology to suppress their own brain activity. Externally, things can look as if they've never changed; internally, they would be allowed to be themselves. In exchange, they just have to stop pretending. Accept that the doubts they always had about the Federation were always valid, and that subversive action against them is not only justified, but ethically required. And they take a new position, far from Silversun, on board the Horizon, where they are to await further orders for actions that will advance the Qranqi's objectives in ways that the Federation could never anticipate. ...So now the Horizon has its very own minor celebrity chef, who may or may not actually be plotting some kind of nefarious psionically-based sabotage. Or maybe they're just there to act as a monitor for the Qranqi. Who knows what the subversives are after? How has the recent events of the Orion Spur impacted your character? Events such as the Phoron Scarcity, the Solarian Collapse or even the Invasions of Biesel for interstellar-wide affairs, while region-specific events such as the Peacekeeper Mandate, The Titan Rises or even Cold Dawn may impact your character. In general, these actions have had little direct effect on the chef's life. This is due in large part to two factors: one, their living directly on Qerrbalak and thus being insulated from most events, and two, even after moving away from Qerrbalak, their deliberate attempt to keep their head down and not get involved in anything. They've gone out of their way to be left alone as much as possible, and to deliberately not think about anything related to major political movements or upheavals that they can possibly get away with ignoring. Of course, this hasn't been great for their mental health, as, even when burying yourself in your work as a minor celebrity chef, having to constantly police yourself for wrongthink and actively change the subject away from any recent news articles isn't a particularly great condition to live in. The Independent Traverser movement in particular has been very difficult for them to not think about, and the internal stress of continually shoving those thoughts away are a large reason as to why they were so ready to accept the Qranqi's offer. How does your character view the megacorporation they work for? The chef doesn't exactly like Idris, but the corporation also isn't the main thing they're concerned with. For the most part, they consider them to be shady, manipulative, and self-serving, perfectly willing to crush people underfoot in the name of profit- but this is hardly a criticism unique to Idris. It's the nature of capitalism and corporations. They're not a good thing, but they're also far from the most harmful force currently operating in human or Skrellian space. For now, the fact that they sign the paychecks is the only thing that really matters; so long as the employment stays secure and thus their position on the Horizon is not threatened, there's not much else to say about them. Edited August 20 by WhatsUpBrotendo
WhatsUpBrotendo Posted August 20 Posted August 20 Hi, thanks for applying. A few things: Skrell cannot smile, frown, etc. The wiki says that they lack significant facial muscles. Your character backstory does not mention much about their life within the Federation, and halfway through they end up in Silversun. For Skrell applications, we ask that characters are from the Nralakk Federation so that applicants can properly showcase their knowledge of Skrell lore, which the Federation is a large part of. From what I have been told you've very recently returned to Aurora. We ask players to have some playtime before applying for whitelists so that feedback can be given by the community, as well as showcasing your roleplaying ability and that you're able to follow the server's rules. I'll be denying this application for now. I suggest reading accepted Skrell apps and joining the lore discord so that you can discuss the server's lore and Skrell lore with other players. You can reapply in a week.
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