TCJ - Tajara Whitelist App (Wannabee Noble Edition)

[hellfirejag]

BYOND Ckey: hellfirejag

Discord username: raistlin_jag

Character names:

• Song Shi-Won
• Farida Shi'berud
• Hamid Shi'berud
• Xandra Satavelakar

Species you are applying to play: Tajara

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General Whitelist Requirements

What colour do you plan on making your first alien character?: Half-Knuckle White (RGB 205, 175, 149)

 I planned out his entire appearance in my dev-environment. 

Have you read the lore pages for the species you wish to be whitelisted for?:

I have, it's been incredibly fun cross-referencing multiple pages, maps, and gathering all the little pieces of trivia needed to make this character.

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question.

Why do you wish to play this species?:

    I will confess that of the characters I usually play, Farida and Hamid were originally my Tajara characters from the era of when Aurora was first started by a bunch of people (including me) fed up with Apollo. The whitelist didn’t even exist yet, and the server exclusively took place on Box Station. The two have since been rewritten as humans, and though I have no intention of playing them again as Tajaran, I have a lot of friends on this server that have been begging me to make a Tajara and join them. The last time I played Tajara on Aurora, the Tajara lore straight up didn’t exist. I feel like I owe it to all the passionate people like Catsin to spend the time getting invested in their “new” lore. It’s all new to me, since I’ve got 10 years worth of lore to catch up on.

   I am also looking to find reasons to branch out in my dev work and find additional parts of the server to be invested in. I generally have a hard time wanting to develop for something I can’t play as, so the various Species sides of the work feel like a gap in what I code.

What makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a human?:

 

    To me, the biggest difference between Tajara and Humans has to be psychological and cultural. The Tajaran cultural mindset is one that resembles a snapshot of a time that I vaguely remember from my old childhood, when people who were different had to choose to either pretend they were ‘normal’, or suffer through discrimination. A key point of difference in their development was in the lack of “progressive” movements that accompanied their industrial revolution. For over three hundred years after the invention of the steam engine and their own industrial revolution, the Tajaran nobility succeeded where Human nobility failed, in hoarding the benefits of said revolution entirely for their own selfish lifestyle. They succeeded in not just stealing the benefits of technology, but also in repressing the progressive movements that its use would have likely given rise to. 

    On Earth, the transition from Absolute Monarchies to modern Democracies was a gradual process that took two hundred years, as new progressive ideas were built upon each other. This failed to happen on Adhomai, and it wasn’t until their first contact in 2418, that a key revolution finally occurred which would allow these ideas to start taking shape. On Earth humans had 600 years to build those ideas before the present of 2468, Adhomai has only had 54 years since their first contact. There are likely Tajara alive in the present that were born before humans even first showed up. Their existence is a snapshot of a people repressed not just in technology, but also in philosophy, and so many ideas humans have about the rights of those who are different are themselves totally alien to Tajara.

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Character Application

Character Name: 

Tul’dramaher Zarr’kannlhal. 

Write a backstory for your character. This may include their origin, education, personality and how they arrived to the SCCV Horizon. (2 paragraphs minimum):

    Tul’dramaher was born in 2433 in what pitiful remains there were of his family’s manor built in the valleys of the Zarr’jirah mountains. He was an only child of his father– a Former-Baron of modest means and small wealth from coal mines, and a local M’sai mistress known for her beautiful singing voice. Though he did not know it for the first few years of his life, his father’s marriage to a “commoner” was both a blessing and a curse for him. A blessing, in that the act helped distance his family from the noble trappings that might have gotten them killed at the time, but also a curse in that his ‘washed out’ fur would give him a great deal of grief in his life as a nobleman. His father escaped being disinherited for this ‘miscegenation’ solely by virtue of the First Revolution claiming the lives of almost his entire extended family; there were no surviving grandparents, aunts, or uncles to even protest it.

    He was deeply lonely as a child, unable to make friends with the M’sai locals, but also unable to make friends among his peers, such that his closest friends were the variety of tutors his father brought in. The money that could have been spent repairing his family’s holdings was instead spent giving Tul’dramaher a private education in the “science of the nobles”, the works of electricity, magnets, engines, of reading and writing, poetry and song. He also learned about the beauty of the world through his mother, who taught him to enjoy the vibrant colors in a rich musical composition as one would a fine painting (He had inherited synaesthesia from her)

    Tul’dramaher was sixteen years old when the New Kingdom was first established, yet its borders were so far from his home. For two years he and his father longed for the Kingdom to come to their lands and bring back the rightful rule of the Nobles. In a cruel twist of fate, the Second Revolution started just a few weeks after his eighteenth birthday, and he was swept up by the PRA army into a conflict that almost immediately claimed him as a casualty. A mortar shell took his left arm from him, and gave him shrapnel wounds which would later migrate and claim his lungs. He returned to his aging father as a broken young man, and for seven years was little more than a hermit prince who spoke to none. 

    In 2458, when he was 25 years old, the NKA’s revolution finally came to his home town, and for a brief time in his life he was filled with a new sense of joy. He thought that he could– one arm and all, finally fight to restore his rightful status in the world. Fate had one final act of cruelty in store for him, as his village instead turned to the ALA liberator cells. On a cold night, he returned home from a long walk to find his father killed by the “liberators”. At the urging of his mother, he spent three years hence keeping his mane shaved, while claiming he was a M’sai so that the liberators would not kill him too. 

    Freedom for him finally came in 2461, with the NKA seizing both his home and village. The Princeling finally had his title, and with it a hollow victory, and a pocketbook inheritance that felt worthless to him. He lacked the money and means to restore his family’s manor, or even to buy back the coal mines which were taken from his father when he was a child, his physical inheritance was a building which he would empty for enough knuckles to get offworld. When the revolution was finally over, Tul’dramaher sought work off-world using the only thing that the cursed revolutionaries could never have taken from him- his education. The Prince swore to himself that someday he would return to his family home with enough riches to ensure his title was not a hollow thing, that with money from the alien corporations he could buy back his father’s holdings and become a real nobleman in his own eyes.

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. (1 paragraph minimum):

    The ongoing Phoron Scarcity has put a great deal of pressure on Tul’dramaher to make good on his dreams, seemingly pushing them back every time he thinks he's gained ground on them. His habit of investing in stocks is not the key that will bring him back to the Noble lifestyle, it is in fact the chains that doom him to also lose his fortunes with every little negative thing that gets reported in the news. Tul’dramaher is incredibly vain, choosing to do everything in his power to give himself the impression that he’s a “real” nobleman. His expensive lifestyle grows ever more expensive by the day as the Spur’s Phoron supply starts to run dry. He often finds himself compelled to sell pieces of his holdings whenever his paychecks cut a little too short of his desired lifestyle.

How does your character view the megacorporation they work for? (1 paragraph minimum):

    Tul’dramaher views Hephaestus as nothing more than a tool to regain his status and wealth. He spends twenty percent of his paychecks on buying stock in the company- not because he has any sense of loyalty, but because he enjoys having the dividends. He views the accumulation of Hephaestus stocks as though they were bringing him one paycheck closer to owning land again, and the stock dividends remind him of the money his family’s land once provided. He intends to someday sell off his corporate holdings and buy back “his” holdings, which are at the present day nothing more than worthless empty mines in stripped out mountains.

Edited 6 hours ago by hellfirejag

[StewardsCap]

Not only an incredible player, but an amazing role-player. I have never seen someone who can curate such characters with relative ease. Someone who genuinely cares and contributes to the server, and a good inspiration to many including myself. Absolutely do not see why they would not be accepted +1 

[GeneralCamo]

Hi there, just a few questions:

• You mention the NKA liberating your village from the ALA. What's your character's opinion on their domestic policies, however? Such as their desire to enforce caste structure?
• What about the PRA?
• What are your characters feelings and relations towards the Gods? You mentioned being a petty noble, and most nobility take a lot of importance in S'rendmarr and/or the Ma'ta'ke religions.
• You don't really mention your opinion towards other factions outside of Adhomai. What are your character's feelings on the factions the NKA has ties to, such as Idris and Dominia?
• On the topic of the NKA, you mentioned being of mixed heritage. How public are you about your mother being a commoner?

[hellfirejag]

Heya! Thanks for the quick reply to this. I will confess I actually ran out of steam writing the backstory, which I felt cuts off abruptly in 2461 (7 years before the present day), so I feel like the backstory I gave is "too short" in spite of being about the same length other whitelist apps are typically given as, but I can answer all of your questions from my internal notes. The single most important bullet point I have about this character in my notes is that he has to have strongly internalized the idea of being a noble, regardless of the facts of his circumstances or his physical poverty. I'm running off a theme I have read into from the life of certain kinds of poor folks, who believe themselves to be important and are only "temporarily impoverished". 

1. Tul'dramaher's views on the world are pretty soundly within the Conservative Royalism camp, though he himself is not strictly 1:1 on following their belief system as I feel like most people don't naturally fall into perfect compliance with a political party. Tul'dramaher pretty wholeheartedly believes that the current system of a Parliament and Constitutional Monarchy is perfect, and that the commoners don't really need to have a vote. Yes this is very hipocritical if one points out he has a M'sai mother, and that's kind of the fun about writing irrational characters, because real people aren't perfectly rational. For that reason he's not exactly a "perfect conservative" either, he can be fairly empathetic towards Commoners even if he genuinely doesn't believe they need a vote. Part of this is Paternalism, but it's mostly because of the effect his mother had on his upbringing. This also ties in a bit with my answer to question 5, but he does not see any issue at all with enforcing the caste system, which is also a somewhat irrational view. It's entirely plausible he might at some point in the future even marry a m'sai or hharar, and even still think the caste system is perfect, but that would require his character development on the server progresses down certain paths. 
2. They are the reason he is "temporarily impoverished", and are the recipient of the bulk of the blame he gives for everything wrong that ever happened in his life, outside of the death of his father. The PRA is the primary driving reason why he wholeheartedly doesn't think commoners deserve a say in government, because letting them have a say means letting them demand his lifestyle be taken away and his holdings redistributed. It happened to his father, and he does not wish to have it happen to him after all he's been through. For similar reasons related to his deeper political and religious views, he is moderately empathetic towards the DPRA, but this is strongly tinged by resentment over blaming them for the death of his father.
    
3. I think this is another fun point that I'm really sad I didn't get to touch upon before running out of steam writing the full backstory. He wouldn't be a strongly devout character, but he's also not the kind of person to fall into cults, heresies, or atheism. There is an underlying theme that the style of the religion is intrinsically linked to nobility, but not necessarily its substance. If pushed on it he knows all the common prayers. Ironically he buys more into the Values of the S'rand'marr faith than he does its trappings, which are to him just an ornamental part of Noble Culture. He's strongly on-board with the conservative teachings concerning what is sinful, yet he is also what I would describe as "Not a very good S'rendarr follower", there is a lot of ways he would go against the faith's teachings.
   
   One thing that may be seen as sinful is his musical preferences. His favorite hobby is in collecting music, but as he also has Synaesthesia, he overwhelmingly prefers music that is "More colorful". His music tastes would be one way he leans away from traditional Tajara culture, and more outside of the NKA. He is the kind of person who genuinely enjoys Raskariim music, in complete spite of it being taboo, because he enjoys the colors he hears. Yet he also enjoys music from his own homeland as well, so long as it meets this "Colorful" requirement.
    
4. I would consider him to be Aloof towards Dominia, rather than someone who admires them from afar. Dominia accepts the rule of Nobles, that's the only thing they really have in common. The culture of the Tajaran nobility is something he values highly, and the Dominians don't share this culture, they have their own nobility separate from his. It was surely nice of them to recognize his nation as legitimate, but he can't help but ask if his people are really gaining more from that relationship than is being taken from his world.
   
   I mentioned this before, but he generally views all of the alien corporations as merely being a tool that can be used to relieve himself of his poverty. He likes that they bring wealth and technology and the music he enjoys, but he does not enjoy the idea that this also means bringing humans to Adhomai. This is one way that he doesn't strictly side Conservative Royalism, as he views the human tourists visiting Adhomai as being worse than commoners. He detests the Tourism industry that Idris brought to his nation, and thinks it's unsavory to "sell out" the noble culture for more knuckles. He would prefer that his people have more of a taking relationship to the humans than one where they let the aliens build mega-resorts on the beaches that belong to his people.
    
5. Ironically despite him being of mixed heritage, he is internally in denial about having a M'sai mother, and identifies fully as Njarir’Akhran. This view comes from the time period between 2458-2461 when he had to pretend he was a M'sai for safety, as it deeply traumatized him and fully entrenched his view of himself as a "Temporarily Impoverished Noble". He never again wanted to pretend otherwise as soon as that period of his life was over. He would not have so much as trimmed his mane in the entire 7 years since, and intends to go the rest of his life never letting a blade touch his fur. He doesn't openly admit to his mother being a M'sai, and if confronted about it (even with hard evidence) would likely cast it off as "No she just has a fur condition. It's kind of like albinism". It's definitely embarassing to him, but he also loves his mother quite dearly, and would never willingly treat her as anything other than the "Real Noble" he thinks she is. In his mind, he equates her being such an important figure in his life as proof enough that she's a noble like him and his father.

His mother would be Zarragh Washoff, and it shows in his mane's colors being incredibly light. (I used a white fade).

 

Edited 4 hours ago by hellfirejag