Garold runs for Tajeputy - Tajara Lore Deputy Application

[VeteranGary]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Veterangary
Position Being Applied For:  Tajara Lore Deputy
Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?: Yes.
Past Experiences/Knowledge: 6 years of Tajara roleplay. Experience in GMing in smaller communities in the range of 5-20 people. Particularly in horror, grimdark, and dystopian settings. 
Examples of Past Work: I have not been a part of any major additions, changes, or projects in my time in this community. Aside from voicing opinions and feedbacks since I started playing here.

- Is there any part of Tajara lore should be expanded, removed, or changed? Explain why.

For starters, I’d like to lay out that I don’t come bearing a major project or a vast swath of changes. I plan to take part in polishing what we have, and making it more clear and concise. An issue with Tajara that’s been here ever since I got my whitelist is the bloat of text. It’s hard to even come up with a character with so much going on on Adhomai, not to mention the FOUR off-world communities of varying amounts of substance. (RIP Hro’zamal, most people probably think it’s just a soda brand). I’d like to simply put my efforts into cleaning up what we currently have, my first focus being the Tajaran History wiki page. To which any prospecting new tajara applicant will have to endure is our own scrolling zhan pit, the order and format it displays history can be redone to be easier to navigate.

The first six entries could be condensed into optional tabs to open up. Pre-history/Historical Eras while amazing that we even have it, is almost entirely irrelevant to tajara characters in our current setting, outside specific concepts like archeologists. These aren’t vital for even Tajara-mains to know. Not my priority but I could also look into fixing the years of pre-contact tajara. There is something comical about there being a 338 year gap between the invention of steam power, to the first automobile. The nobility couldn’t have been that incredibly stagnating on technical developments, especially if this gap of time is the entire Industrial Revolution equivalent. I get there is supposed to be a theme of noble oppression on technological advancement, but this is a bit much. No trains, no tractors, minecarts, ANY motorized equipment for the workers? For three centuries? And then it's just limited to nobility. I do vaguely remember that the years were mostly just thrown down there to provide flavor, and most of this lore is an optional thing for the historian inclined tajara. But details like this make over analyzers like me to mull over the logic of it. 

Before I get sidetracked, moving on. Modern History is fine for the most part, until it reaches the server’s timeline, around 2458-onwards. Each year could be summarized into bullet-points of the most important and major events, much like how this section starts before server time. Instead what we have currently is a link to a news article followed by a vague summary of it, it’s a very indigestible format that involves flip-flopping between the wiki and the forums. I still think we should keep these, maybe condense it into another drop-down window. Another addition that should be made is linking the major event arcs that took place during some of these years, since these are unfortunately entirely left out. Ultimately I’d even like there to be a visual aid to display the modern timeline of Tajara history, so it can be looked at to help players understand how closely packed events truly are. I have a feeling some forget, Adhomai was unified for a short time and a majority of these characters would have been around prior to the Second Revolution, either as a child or young adult. But maybe the propaganda is just that powerful.
 

- What area of Tajara lore would you like to work on the most, and why?

Personally I lean more towards working on DPRA/PRA lore as that’s where my interest has always laid, I’ve never really had much interest in the NKA unfortunately. There isn’t a singular part of Tajara lore that I have a strong focus for, though I believe that what we currently have could be better. If I had to write a new character application today, without any of my prior knowledge or experience I would be incredibly lost, or maybe discouraged. So my main focus is to fix that, and refine what’s there into something even a little bit more concise without culling anything that’s already there and has no reason to be removed. 

- What would you like to see in the future of Tajara lore?

Frankly, I have no idea what I want to see. As it stands we are locked in a stalemate Cold War with no major developments or conflict. On one hand I like the bitter uncertainty that Tajara lore has been left to dawdle upon. But there is no point to building tension if Nothing Ever Happens, we have all of these setups that have been built up and set in place that I’d like to see through. We have the DPRA/ALA with juntas that all have feuds against another, and the civilian government. Amohda is practically begging to become the site of a proxy war. Perhaps that’s why a certain Headmaster is mustering a personal militia, he is anticipating– or planning. The NKA is busy trying to subvert a repeat of the First Revolution. The pieces are already set in motion, it’s just a matter of when they fall into place. It just seems that we put all of that on pause around four years ago with the Armistice, and as of recently we have only the Adhomian North Pole race as a point of international conflict. 

Additional Comments: Figured I would try for this, the opportunity is just sitting there. Someone is better than no-one, no? Though ultimately I am kind of offering up just a wiki-maintainer role. I don't consider myself a good writer by any means and it's definitely not one of my preferred hobbies. Though at the very least I think I make a half-decent critic, proofreader, and taj lore aficionado for what that's worth. The only issue here is probably learning to edit the wiki, but it doesn't look difficult. Maybe will take me a week or two to grasp.

[CatsinHD]

Thank you for applying! Just a couple of questions.

18 hours ago, VeteranGary said:

Though ultimately I am kind of offering up just a wiki-maintainer role.

1. Could you expand on what is meant with this?

 

2. A large part of the lore writing process is iterative and collaborative. What is you experience with the reviewing process and having your writing reviewed?

 

3. You mentioned that you would like to see more flashpoints in the Cold War, which would come from article arcs. Is there an idea for such an arc or a region where one would be particularly interesting?

[VeteranGary]

1 hour ago, CatsinHD said:

Thank you for applying! Just a couple of questions.

1. Could you expand on what is meant with this?

 

2. A large part of the lore writing process is iterative and collaborative. What is you experience with the reviewing process and having your writing reviewed?

 

3. You mentioned that you would like to see more flashpoints in the Cold War, which would come from article arcs. Is there an idea for such an arc or a region where one would be particularly interesting?

1. My main interest is cleaning up the wiki, there's a lot of places that can be tidied up for legibility as I described in my first response regarding the Tajaran History page. The main offenders is the years 2464/5 which lists every single news article and doesn't adequately describe major events of the most recent years, which would be the most relevant to current tajara characters. Kind of have to go out of your way to read every article, and find the event arcs on a separate page to get the full picture. Like, the DPRA fielding their first nuclear bomb, and ICBM are just footnotes when it's a huge deal in my opinion. It should be summarized as major event of that year and how it impacts the Cold War, and describe how each side pushes and pulls throughout this phase of history. 


2. So I don't find my writing particularly good, often I find myself with good ideas, inspirations or concepts but be completely unable to flesh out or expand in a satisfying and logical way. In a vacuum I'd just consider it bad, but with input and critique is where I thrive. Personally I much rather have review and collaboration available to me. Not sure what else I can add to this question.

3. There should be some more border conflicts in general, mainly with the ALA/PRA borders with the Junta Ahem Kah'nrir, he is probably the last person to operate peaceful border operations. This is the man who believes xenos should be purged from Adhomai, that the existence of the PRA prevents Al'mari's return, and I don't see Nated or Harrlala being able to talk him down for long without having to concede to his delusions. I figure his trust in Nated can only last so long as it innately conflicts with his broken psyche and world view, from the Armistice to Nated entertaining the creation of the civilian government. 

We could even tie the Tesla Resurrection conspiracy into this as another reason to motivate his decline as he is totally the type of person to misconstrue this into a part of his theory regarding the return of Al'mari. Maybe he played a part in the body being stolen out of DPRA custody, or at least his loyalists. As far as I see it he is a weak link in both of the eyes of the DPRA and PRA, and both sides would be mutually interested in ridding of him, it just needs to be done in a way that doesn't make one side vulnerable. It's time for Izaku's fate to be foreshadowing for Ahem. 

This would be the easiest conflict to handle as it's rather binary, and pushing an Amohda arc would likely be far out of my capabilities, especially tying in the NKA component into that as I don't fully grasp their lore. But I wouldn't doubt the PRA being interested in providing training or weaponry to the Amohdan nationalists as a way of indirectly destabilizing ALA control of the island, and we already have a militia mobilization taking place here on Chaniska by the head of PSIS. 

My idea is that generally, small parts/leaders of each nation should be striving to keep the war going but in the background. Not everyone in each nation agrees with the armistice. And then the faces of those governments will have to figure out how to handle this; outing these actors as a scandal and going full scorched earth on their reputation, or blaming it on another nation as a smear/false flag campaign. To my knowledge we have only had one semi-high profile scandal where two Hadiist researchers attempted to defect and failed, and the murderer who fled to the DPRA border. Else the interactions between the nations throughout this cold war have been quite sparse, beside the race to the North Pole.