Omicega -- Skrell Deputy Lore Writer Application

[Omicega]

Ckey/BYOND username:
Omicega

Position being applied for: 
Skrell Lore Deputy

Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page?
Yes.

Past experiences/knowledge & examples of past work:
I'm going to just lump these two questions together since there's a lot of overlap.

I was the human lore deputy for a large chunk of 2021 and 2022. I participated heavily in the Eridani rewrite and the Elyra rework, including the implementation of Elyran Standard to remove the long-standing plot hole around Ceti Basic being the Elyran national language, as well as expanding the accents available to Elyrans up from one to about six or seven. I also contributed less substantially to many other lore projects at the time, and still occasionally help review content for them in the early stages of pre-release.

On the Skrell team, you'll occasionally work closely with the Vaurca and Diona teams. How familiar are you with the lore of those two species? Is there anything you want to develop or change about their integration?
I have a Vaurca whitelist, so I think I have a decent grounding in Vaurca lore, especially regarding the C'thur as the hive that interested me the most when initially applying. My knowledge of Diona lore is surface-level at best -- I don't hold the whitelist and don't have much interest in the species, but I have a surface level understanding of their integration into the Federation and relationship with the Skrell.

What are your thoughts on the Nralakk Federation's internal politics and current state of the Traverse? How would you like to see them develop in the longer term?
I think the Traverser vs Core Worlds angle has wound up stagnating a little since the whole flight of Weibii to Biesel. I'd like to see the Traverser movement in particular having to work through internal differences, particularly regarding whether the main elements or central figures within it would push more for an independent Traverse free from the Federation, or whether the idea of some limited autonomy from Nralakk would be preferable in the end. I think it has a lot of potential for an interesting dynamic between the Core Worlds and Federation as both sides try to figure out how best to get what they want from the other. I can see the Federation trying to grapple with whether to continue with its authoritarian stance and crack down more harshly on any ongoing secessionist sentiment, or whether a more subtle and diplomatic approach towards reintegrating the Traversers would work better for them -- something which has a lot more scope within Skrell lore than it would for other species given how the Nlom can be incorporated into it. I won't pretend to be an authority on how exactly Skrell psionics 'work' at the moment, but I can see the Federation using some sort of serious and stepped-up 'thought campaign' with Nlom relays or whatever to start pushing the Traverser movement more towards pro-reunification sentiment.

The Nralakk Federation’s isolationist period is ending, and it intends to expand its involvement in the Spur. How would you want to develop their relationships with the other nations and corporations?
I would like to see the Federation stay largely aligned with the ASSN as its largest ally, especially with a view to having the potentially troublesome Traverse 'sandwiched' between the Core Worlds on its western side and the Alliance to its east. I don't imagine the Skrell would ever really countenance direct Solarian involvement in what they would still view as an internal Nralakk affair, but even so I think they'd be shrewd enough to realise that there's no loss whatsoever in keeping the Alliance onside and preventing any potential separatist aid flowing across that border towards Free Traverser sorts. I wouldn't want to see it aligned any more broadly with Biesel and the megacorporations -- aside from its special relationship with Zeng-Hu (and Einstein, to some extent?), I think it makes sense for the Federation to be somewhat wary of an undue level of direct involvement with them, and to look into ways of solving the Spur-wide phoron scarcity by its own methods.

Is there a specific part of Skrell or Federation lore that you, personally, are particularly interested on writing about? It can be as niche or broad as you would like, but it should be something you're genuinely a big fan of.
Psionics. I think psionic lore on Aurora has been criminally underutilised for the longest time now. It's a massive USP for the Skrell species and is the focus of my lore proposal -- in my view, psionic lore essentially just is Skrell lore extended, as no other species even really interacts with psionics without considering Skrell somewhere in the picture. I think we could stand to do a lot more with it, both in terms of how vague the lore currently is on the subject and in terms of translating it in-game in a meaningful and interesting way. There's already a nice amount of depth for me regarding things like psionic navigators (even if that's a bit of a 40K expy...), dream police, and other interesting psi-jobs unique to the Skrell, but when it comes to actually reflecting any of those in-game Aurora has actually gone backwards, which is worse than just having stagnated (Skrell lost their psionic 'radar' power in the psionic rework, which was something I occasionally saw being flavoured as a Europan navigator themed ability).

The following proposal is also requested in a Google Document, with a shared link in order to have your proposal be viewable:

Write a single proposal for the Nralakk Federation or skrell lore.  This proposal is purposefully very broad to allow applicants to write something that they consider missing or worth adding on something as big as defining a part of the nation as a whole, a minor planet or territory in the Traverse, or as specific as proposing a new part of skrell culture. Show us your interest!

Here you go. This is a brief look into the ways in which I'd like to tighten the bolts on current psionic lore a bit -- tying the whole concept inextricably to the Skrell species, expanding on areas of interest in ways that are engaging and make sense within the Aurora universe, and also trying to keep the door open for enough weirdness and inexplicable vagueness to still have the concept be cool and mysterious without veering entirely into space wizardry.

The Nlom And You: Psionics For Dummies