Nauticall - Deputy Loremaster Application

[naut]

CKey: Nauticall
Discord: @nauticall 
How long have you been playing Aurora?: About 2 years or so now, since 2023.

 

Deputy Loremaster Application

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1) What do you believe you can bring to the team as Deputy Loremaster?

I do believe as DLM I have a lot of creative ideas on how to make the setting more immersive, believable and also put the “science” in sci-fi. I like to think I have good direction in terms of crafting a compelling setting and I think I would be able to effectively help manage direction and tonality.

I’m also a contributor to NBT2/Anabasis and have a good understanding of the general tone and details pitched for the new setting, and I believe I can help significantly in achieving that through lore.

 

2) Do you have any experience managing a Team? The duties of a Deputy Loremaster often revolve around being a Project Lead, not necessarily just writing. This is especially true going forward.

I have extensive experience managing teams; I headed small game studio projects in the past as well as whitelist councils and am also helping build a setting in another project from the ground up. I know how to delegate, check in, hold meetings and take notes, and while I admit I might flounder in grand agenda sometimes, I do work best in middle management under a superior, which is why I think being a deputy suits me.

 

3) Aurora is starting development of NBT2, and as Deputy Loremaster, you will be heavily involved at a high level in this - what do you believe fundamentally needs fixing from a lore perspective that can be accomplished with NBT2?

First up: tonality and tone consistency. Aurora’s setting right now, though diverse and detailed, struggles immensely in conveying what exactly the general tone of the setting actually is. I want to stress that it’s no fault of the current writers as much as it’s just a relic of how layered current lore is on top of shaky foundations of old lore including questionable bits of history and changes in direction. As a result of it though, players can’t really decide how dystopian/utopian/dark/light the setting is, and subsequently default to this sort of “the SCC is Walmart in space” kind of flat tone that works for being inoffensive, but ends up being bland.

Second I think is the head-scratching politics that Aurora’s nations often contend with. (Fictional) politics is something I find really juicy and really appreciate in settings that take care to make their power struggles and plays stand out as key factors in the setting, and while current Aurora lore tries to do this too, they struggle with falling flat. Again, not the fault of the lore team, but I do think it could stand to have a major overhaul in NBT2.

Last would likely be the sort of “foundation” the player can go off of to build a character. The current process of building a character for Aurora is generally speaking to pick an origin and then do a small encyclopedia’s worth of reading (exaggerated, but the point stands) to catch up on lore and nuance and everything there is to know about the character to not make them out of place. I would like to help streamline this significantly, with one of my ideas being to compress origin backgrounds into little digestible blurbs, more so than what we have now, that help distill everything there is to know about a particular origin/background/species without needing to do research on the wiki. I think it’d help a lot in reducing tedium and lowering the already-astronomical ceiling new Aurora players experience when trying to head into the game.

 

4) On the other hand - what do you believe is the strongest point of our lore currently?

I love the detail and just the sheer variety Aurora lore has to offer to people. There’s all sorts of origins and species and flavors that really can take characters in almost any direction without hard-locking you into a specific trope or character-ism. Things like being an imperial noble, or a free robot, or a freedom fighter, or space pirate, or alien warrior, all of which can coexist in a single setting by how diverse the setting is. And I like that no origin truly appears shallow - there's enough heart and soul poured into each corner to make a lot of origins feel unique and alive (even if detail might be lacking in some more granular areas).

 

5) Furthermore, regarding NBT2, give a general description of how you think the logistics of such a massive rework should be done - I.E, what should be decided on and written first, and then what should follow? In general, no more than a paragraph.

I think we should do this in progressively smaller chunks. From my experience, working with building a setting like this often involves tackling the big arching themes and tones first, like the overall state of affairs, politics, major players, economics, etc (the “why’s” if you will), and then sort of breaking it up into smaller more detail-oriented chunks, like the who’s and the how’s and the where’s. To be more specific I’d first go for the tone first, then the economics, then “how things are different from current Aurora lore (2460s)”, and then increment from there until we have the whole thing lined up.

 

6) What timezone are you normally awake during?

UTC+08:00 (13 hrs opposite of EST). Common overlap times are 8PM-3AM EST and 6AM-12PM EST.

Edited Saturday at 04:45 by naut

[triogenix]

Hello, and thanks for applying! Got a few questions to sling your way

The following 1/(x) questions are about the OOC administration aspects. Please limit all answers to no more than one paragraph.

1/1. When the Lore Team is fully staffed, there are a total of twenty-one writers, one Deputy Loremaster, and one Loremaster; or in other words, two administrative managers and over twenty writers. While theoretically the deputy writers are under their relevant species writer instead of the Loremasters, in practice, writers are differentiated by team, with the Loremasters overseeing all teams. Do you think this is an effective way for the team to be run? Why or why not?

1/2. Assuming that you had complete and total permission to change the structure of the lore team in any way you wish - how would you structure it?

The following 2/(x) questions are about OOC aspects that show how you are to work with. Please limit all answers to no more than three sentences.

2/1. Given your activity as a member of the dev team, and how long ago it was, I debated putting this in as a question. Nevertheless, you have previously been removed from a staff position (CCIA) due to inactivity. With the insane amount of work NBT2 is going to take, and likely how unfun it will be for the loremasters, are you confident you'll be able to stick it out?

2/2. How would you describe your work personality? IDK if that's an official term, that's just what I learned it as.

The following 3/(x) questions are based on your answers to Question Three. Please keep answers two paragraphs in length at most.

3/1. When it comes to tonality, how do you see actually enforcing the tone you wish for? The past has shown us - primarily with the original scarcity implementation - that the Loremasters can write and say anything; however, it only matters if the rest of the team goes along with it. This can be answered through both OOC and IC means.

3/2. As a follow up - how would you try and stop massive directional changes in lore when positions turn over? This can also be answered through both OOC and IC means.

3/3. I'd like you to expand on the politics part. How is it falling flat, and why do you think it is? What changes can be made (generally speaking) to stop it from falling flat?

3/4. When you say, "compress origin backgrounds into little digestible blurbs" how do you see this being implemented in a different manner than the blurbs we already have? How would you go about writing the blurbs? Would you do it yourself or get the relevant teams to do it?

 

Thank you. Remember, there are no incorrect answers! (Unless you go over the limit, that's an incorrect answer)

[naut]

6 hours ago, triogenix said:

Hello, and thanks for applying! Got a few questions to sling your way [...]

Righto! Here's the stuff I got for you:

1/1.
Ultimately I do think it’s a good enough way for a lore to be run. Not perfect (see below), but arguably for what it does and accomplishes on a regular basis I think the manpower and hierarchy is a good mix of both authority-centric hierarchy and unbloated bureaucracy. Some projects have shown me that having way too many ranks and superiors does a lot more harm than good, especially in these non-profit passion works, and that keeping everything relatively flat helps make sure people both know who to go to and prevent people from overriding each other willy-nilly. Too many people in positions of power especially in creative areas creates this sort of jockeying where everyone wants to push their own vision of something and nobody can really agree on what it is in the end.

 

1/2.
Now as a disclaimer I don’t know the behind-the-scenes workings of lore, so forgive me if I’m hitting a target that’s already been shot at. But I think if I had to revise the structure it would be more minor revisions than a total overhaul. Some concepts:

1. Committees: Shared temporary lore team committees would focus on multi-branch projects like arcs, cosmopolitan polities, and NBT2 storybuilding overall. Each Committee would be headed by a Chair (selected by the loremasters) who coordinates all the stuff relating to the arc in particular without needing micromanagement from the loremasters (this lets a particular visionary get their idea through without needing to jockey for it in the process). Once an arc or project is completed, the Committee is dissolved, archived, or put into stasis until the next time it’s relevant.
2. Development liaisons: Since we know the lore and dev teams are gonna be working together very heavily on NBT2, besides integrating devs and lore to be able to see the same spaces (which is an option), I’d suggest having official developer liaisons who are trusted members of the dev team that the lore team trusts to help coordinate projects between the development and lore sides.
3. Egalitarian “human lore”: This probably might be controversial but, bear with me. To my understanding, human lore has easily the most impactful and player-facing lore of any team by virtue of them controlling the largest origins influence-wise (Xanu, Dominia, Sol, Biesel, Coalition, etc). I do think that this could stand to be divided a bit more evenly among the rest of the lore team so as not to make one team disproportionately powerful. Now I’m not saying abolish Human Lore as a department as much as open up some aspects of it to the entire lore team, as a shared undertaking (Human Lore would still have authority). If it’s already a thing, I would make it official.

 

2/1.
CCIA was admittedly pretty draining by how creatively stonewalled it was and how it felt a lot like just a regular government bureaucracy job but done in addition to my regular studies. I think I’ll be able to “stick it out” for this one a lot more since lore writing’s a lot more creatively stimulating - sure, there’ll be burnout and creative block, but it’s a lot more manageable and recoverable than thinking you’re not doing anything meaningful at all.

 

2/2.
I’d say I’m assertive and opinionated but cooperative. I do like to voice my opinion on things and defend my position, but I rarely pick hills to die on and will give way to well-structured arguments and counters, and generally speaking defer a lot to higher-ups for stuff like major changes if I’m required (but I’ll happily take initiative if I’m told to do so).

 

3/1.
The primary kind of “tone” I’m talking about really is the sort of setting tone rather than writing tone, to be clear - the matter of how articles are written and stuff is mostly just semantics. For setting tone, I think what I’d do is sort of establish anchor points in what lines to not cross, for example: “No absolute morally bankrupt factions”, “No perfect states”, “No species abilities without tradeoffs”, etc etc (these are just examples, not actual agenda). Then help cement that through a Primer written by the loremaster team (with possible help/peer review of the writers) that showcases the state of things and, importantly, compares and contrasts the differences between NBT2 lore and the known baseline of modern Aurora lore, so that writers have a baseline to work off of. 

Regarding the fact that tone depends on if the rest of the writers agree, I agree on that sentiment too, which is why I think this needs to be a collaborative process. Ideally we could hammer this down in a meeting or big collaboration where we get together and nail down the specifics of such a Primer and its components so that we’d all be on the same page and nobody is (entirely) being pulled against the current here.

 

3/2.
It’s tough to guarantee this because everyone coming into a new position has their own agenda and it’s practically guaranteed that people will enact massive changes if left to their own devices and in a position of authority. The biggest thing I think that could be used would be momentum - making it so the ball is already rolling so hard in a particular direction that it would take a lot more effort to stop it than to simply adjust course or keep it going along its path.

Momentum would be used both OOC, in terms of projects and creative momentum where people are already working on stuff they want to do, while IC developments, gossip and lore-based character arcs help stymie directional changes from going too far off-course without repercussions and big cleanups.

 

3/3.
It’s not that the politics I think are bad, per se, it’s not a critique of the lore team’s handling of the politics as much as it is yet another symptom of old lore’s roots seeping up to modern events. While a lot of the newer polities are really cool and compelling (especially in their modern variants), I do think ultimately origins like Sol and Biesel are just so static and archaic in how they're portrayed that it's tough to have any meaningful politicizing going on with them. Sol in its current state is a black box for most of the Spur, which is rather bewildering considering it's supposed to be the cradle of humanity and the 1st/2nd most populous human nation in the Spur. Biesel, meanwhile, is a corporatocracy that is also not a corporatocracy, and I think the inconsistency here heavily affects the worldbuilding avenues that can be explored regarding how the government proper handles things.

If anything I would also like to have the politics have more direct impacts on what the NBT2/Anabasis ship would be able to do, like for example directly affecting the ship’s own relations with government or corporate entities as well as physically changing what’s available. Warp Lane 7’s scarcity effects in game was a good trailblazing example on how I think this should be done - except this time with politics instead of just physical scenarios. For example, posters might change, regulations might update, and consular positions might dynamically change based on ongoing developments.

 

3/4.
This is partially a development thing but I’m thinking of overhauling the origin selection GUI to be more streamlined to accommodate this. Basically when selecting a character’s origin there’d be a menu to preview all the origins (instead of the clunky click-click thing we have now) that’d give a lot more space for the origin’s description. While I don’t intend to fit the entire wiki into something the idea is to show a compacted, almost traveler’s guide-esque sparknotes of an origin, with many essentials sorted into bullet points. Take for example Assunzione; the bullet lists would look something like this.

• Characters follow naming conventions and appearances consistent with that of the Mediterranean regions (countries touching the Mediterranean sea), most commonly Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Northern African.
• Characters follow Luceism, a religion worshipping light after the mysterious and cataclysmic death of their own star.
• Characters often have a spiritual fear of the dark.
• Characters are more likely to be scientifically-minded.

Other origin categories like citizenship and even wealth class could benefit from these kinds of blurbs, with wealth in particular showcasing what, for example, “Impoverished” actually buys you and some example scenarios of what might lead a character to become part of that class. As for the writing: I’d generally leave it up to the writers to summarize it, but have revisions done by the loremaster team.