Roostercat kills kermit with a rock - Megacorp Deputy Application

[Roostercat]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Roostercat12
 

Position Being Applied For: (Wiki Maintainer, Lore Developer, Deputy Lore developer): Megacorp Lore Deputy 
 

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

yes

Past Experiences/Knowledge:

From 2019 to 2022  I was a part of the Vaurca lore team. Originally as a deputy and then being promoted to Lore Writer in  mid-2021. I also of course did a lot of work with the other lore teams at the time.

Examples of Past Work:

I did a good bit of work on the King of The World arc alongside Schwann, Kyres, Sue, Shen and basically the rest of lore at the time. I made some of the articles and also did a lot of the writing on the Violet Dawn disaster and its ramifications on the Spur. 

Myself, Caelphon and Desven introduced Bulwarks through the Court of Queens minor arc for Vaurca.

Back in the dark ages I am the one that nuked Avowals for the Vaurca and spruced up the lore surrounding it. 

Myself and the other Vaurca lore team members (I believe Desven and Xev at the time) put together many of the current Vaurca lore pages, introducing lore about the Court of queens and giving each hive more of an actual identity, complete with cool ass flags made by Caelphon that are still in use today. 

I wrote the original planet pages for Caprice and Tret.

I did some expansions on Vaurca Religion once upon a time in the aforementioned dark ages.

Assisted Desven with the creation of the Tupii brood and related lore (though most of the work on that was his as I recall)

Introduced more lore for the Lii'dra including their tactics and the gear they use and also got rid of a lot of the weird ancient lore that didn't make much sense

I thiiiiink I helped in a major rework of Vaurca history in like early 2020. I'm not entirely sure how to verify that one. 

Additional Comments: 

 

1) Answer the following questions concerning the Republic of Biesel:

What are your thoughts on the Republic of Biesel’s current politics, external and internal, and how would you like to see them develop?

While I like the shift away from Dorn's Do Whatever Miranda Wants presidency, I fear we might be shifting the other way with a purely conservative Torvald that remains relatively uncontested. One of the big boons of Biesel is its variety of culture and thought processes, and I'd like it if that showed up more in lore, whether its rallies by specific parties or disgruntled groups from other parties where supporters (not official members) start causing trouble to vent their frustrations. It would also help to cement that, while greatly influenced by the corporations, Biesel is not 100 percent owned by them at this time. The internal politics is a great way to show the people making decisions on social issues instead of just the big ticket names making money-based choices. A good example is the Hadiist party no longer wanting a cultural superstate, but instead wanting peoples to keep their traditional values. This doesn't have much to do with money and its something I can see Non-Tajara being okay with. It's good for expansion. 

Externally, I would like to see the other nations of the spur start to put pressure on the Republic or the other way around. At the moment its very much a Us vs Sol environment (though for good reason) and I would like to see, say, the Coalition start having upsets with Biesel's growing Imperialistic tendencies. It's a bit harder to fit Elyra or Dominia in with stuff like this due to distance and lack of a need to start conflict for either of them. This is also something that would have to involve the other lore teams, of course.  

The CRZ having greatly slowed down is another sore spot for this. Greater clashes/obstacles and an obvious need for a stronger military force from Biesel would make the conservative majority more believable but at the same time provides a case for other parties that think the CRZ is a bad idea. Maybe the Zoleth Line stops sitting well with small formerly independent colonies that have now been integrated. 

Many of the planets under the banner of the Republic of Biesel have lagged behind in development and/or lack good pull-factors. Is there a particular planet you would like to help revise and do you have any suggestions in that regard?

Based off of the thinking I had to do for my original lore writer app, I would like to do some expansion of New Gibson in three main factors, one - how the Overstad vs Understadt conflict manifests ( Ideally in a seperate manner from Venus or Eridani who do the same thing), two - expansion on the Greimorian infestations. Who's dealing with it, how has it affected life etc. and three - the superstition and culture of the planet; especially the ones involving the snow. 

Port Antillia is also dramatically in need of an update as it has a short history and lacking presence in the Spur. I think elaborating on how they have handled the CRZ situation would give them more interesting facets to them as a people instead of just as a planet. I cannot imagine the already rough life of living on a volcanic tectonically unstable nightmare world gelling well with a corporate takeover, so an expansion could be made into what the people of Port Antillia do to resist (not necessarily violently) or perhaps what people to to integrate instead, as of now the page mostly just touches on the CRZ briefly and doesn't have anything in the way of details.

Is there anything about Biesel's (the planet) lore you really like or really dislike?

Biesel is one of the more fleshed out individual planets we have in lore, I feel, primarily because it used to be the single anchored setting the server had before NBT. Because of this fact, there is a reason for just about anyone from anywhere in the known galaxy to be involved on Biesel for some reason or another. Solarian that got scooped up in the collapse? Check. Tajaran that left Adhomai and now fights a gang war in D6? Check. Vaurca in flagsdale trying not to leak the location of its secret K'ois farm? Check. The opportunity for drama from basically any side of lore is immense and makes Biesel a very interesting location. Hell, we had a Viax driving a truck flatten a Vice President.

However, the main issue with Biesel in my eyes is that 75% of the lore on the planet involves exclusively Mendell City. Outside of Pheonixport's Einstein takeover, the VAST majority of any lore developments surrounding Biesel have been in Mendell City, leading to a lot of people simply perceiving Biesel the planet and Mendell City as being one and the same. I'd like to elaborate on the Einstein/NT rivalry more on the planet, as Pheonixport of course opens the door for that and also allows for more interesting development elsewhere on the planet. 

2) Concerning the Megacorporations:

Can you tier-list the megacorporations, graded by OOC characteristics (eg. characterisation, writing quality, contribution to the setting, relevance to played characters) with brief reasoning as to why they are graded such. Bonus points if you go the full mile with graphics (you don’t have to, that’s effort).

Idris - In my opinion, Idris has THE single most clear identity and a unique corporate culture. You can tell in about 5 seconds whether something was made by Idris, and some of the Idris based characters we've had over the years have been my favorite. IRU's, service workers trying not to get visited by the IRU's, and the super-giga-corporate shills have plenty of stuff to play with when it comes to Idris. Their impeccable drip has also enticed a number of players into giving them an earnest shot, I'm sure. I'm one of them. Idris being THE bank is also pretty good for giving them impact on individual character lives instead of just being a big ticket spur-spanning heavy hitter like NT basically is. 

PMCG - Again, great identity and a strong presence in character's lives. All of the different corps are very well written and explained and the inclusion of special groups from other lore teams like the Phalanx and the Freewater mercs give a very unique culture and background to pick from for players on top of it making sense why anyone from anywhere might get involved. It's in A-Tier because it lacks groups from some other species and, unfortunately, its a bit one-note when it comes to the services it actually provides to the Spur. Having it only be medical and security is a limiting factor. I'd love to play a Phalanx engineer or something.

NT - In A-Tier primarily because a lot of the history in lore, and even the history in the past ten years of actual gameplay, has been heavily influenced by the phoronic supergiant. It was a huge factor in the formation of the SCC and had plenty of beefs with EE to the point where, when NBT first launched, people treated EE like some sort of fucking shadow government. A place where NT lacks is its overall identity, however. It's uniforms are very generic, and it doesn't really have a company culture of its own outside of going for that purple crystal. This is mostly a byproduct of it once being the ONLY main corp that players were a part of by default, working on the NT-Owned NSS Aurora, so generic uniforms allowed for wider customization. Being in NT doesn't really bring much for the average character to roleplay with in round. 

Zavod - The weapons people. I think Zavod has some identity, mostly in the fact that it has immense drip factor, but it doesn't have much of an impact on lore today and offers only limited background for use in characters. This is mostly because its relationships with national entities, like Dominia, aren't often well explained or super played out in the way something like ZH with the Feds/C'thur is. Zavod would be better if they were more active in events/articles to remind people its a living breathing company instead of just The People That Make The Boom Boom. This would require giving them a reason to actually care about doing things, however. They need competition.

Zeng-Hu - Similarly to Zavod, I think Zeng-Hu falls short in its impact on the Spur and a somewhat limited background for characters to be invested in. Where Zavod is the People That Make Guns, ZengHu is the People That Make Medicine and not much else when it comes to broader lore implications. They are still in B because of their keiretsu lore, which has phenomenal impact on characters' lives alongside other things like their faction-specific augments. They have a strong identity.

Heph - The major industrial power, similar to the last two entries, just doesn't DO a whole lot in the broader lore of the spur. It also somewhat lacks a strong corporate identity internally leaving characters not really having much to do with working for Heph. Being in Heph is more of a necessity for playing in their department instead of something that actually influences the character most of the time. There is however exceptions to this that keep it in B tier for me. The K'lax, Burszia, Himeo and Hegemony lore are pretty well integrated into Heph and Heph has made pretty big impressions on all three, leading to character affecting tidbits of lore. The strange part about these exceptions is that its primarily stuff that happened in coincidence rather than Heph making concerted effort to make moves (outside of Himeo and Burszia). The K'lax were already known to Moghes, Moghes already had problems and Heph was just a solution to those problems, and the rest of the spur hardly ever makes mention of the megacorp responsible for big buildings and mass resourcing.  

EE - EE is in C tier primarily because you can't even currently play an EE character, making them entirely reliant on lore presence. They have pretty good lore presence though, being NT's number one hater and having hands in quite a few areas in lore. Pheonixport, King of The World Arc and generally the entire formation of the SCC was largely a response to EE. They have a good position as Sol's crutch. However, you hardly EVER see them mentioned because most people don't have reasons to talk about a Corp that basically never shows up in game outside of events, and their actions in events portray them as being an extremely subterfuge heavy, basically syndicate-esque corp in perception.

OE - It lacks in identity, has bland clothing, and generally has next to no impact on character lives or broader lore whatsoever. OE is the newest megacorp and is also the least developed. It feels like it was mostly made just so that Ops would have another corp in it besides Heph. Even with its main thing being logistics, it still feels like a lot of people see Hephaestus as the logistic and hauling company. If there's to be an update/rework to a corp, I'd probably do OE first. 

 

3) Write a small Google Docs proposal for any piece of Republic of Biesel or Megacorporate lore you are interested in for the current setting. The proposal can be a wiki lore addition or a stand-alone forum article, but must be >=2 okay-length paragraphs.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H49w2HBT8J-tgMuubBzTvH4PXXEcA_fD5sZ8cNJ8VME/edit?usp=sharing

This is a small snippet discussing the Orion Express potentially moving away from the SCC's best interests in favor of good business. One of the big problems I see with the OE is that they are very light in conflict. They don't step on any toes, and thus nobody really steps on theirs. This is odd for a gigantic megacorporation, so I wanted to introduce something that could spark some infighting. Further expansion on this snippet could include a shift in company culture towards achieving customers at any cost regardless of who they are. Pirates, enemies of the SCC, random nobodies in the middle of the frontier? Who cares? That's still a business partner, even if they don't show up on official records. I want OE to become an Icarus flying too close to the damn sun, before suffering the consequences. 

4) Finally, what’s a piece of sci-fi you are most inspired by in your writings, be it a media franchise, novel, game or something else?

I am inspired by works such as Murderbot Diaries, System Shock, the Homeworld series (not the third game hell no), and Fahrenheit 451. 

 

[Nagito Komaeda]

Shamelessly copy pasted:

How do you feel the 'Hephaestus vs. Zavodskoi' arc landed? I personally believe the premise was good (e.g. two big megacorps having some actual, tangible beef with each other) but the stakes for crew themselves were too low to be involved with the matter (from my perspective). Do you believe the Hephaestus vs. Zavodskoi idea should be improved on pre-NBT2? And do you believe other megacorps should have a similar, deep-rooted rivalry with actual in-lore justification? If so, what corporations would you pit 'against' each other?

[Roostercat]

I think the rivalry is a good thing, but it ultimately, as you said, didn't amount to much for players in game nor has it gone the distance in lore over time. Zavod trying to steal the ship manufacturing market and Heph trying to go after ship weapons fits both corps and did actually lead to Zavod building the Dominian fleet, but the thing is, I'm not sure if Heph ever had deep inroads into Dominia prior to that, and ultimately both corps still have strangleholds on their markets. It's a rivalry with no risk of loss for either side, and thus low stakes.  It's why I said Zavod needs a competitor, because they still don't quite have one but certainly could. Actually, Zavod's lore includes reasons for them to go up against almost EVERY OTHER CORP besides maybe Zeng-Hu and OE, they simply haven't acted on it. They muscled NT out of the TCAF gun supply, they cut Heph off from Dominia and Lyudmila Zavodskoi is Alex Mason's number one hater. There's certainly gunpowder, it just has to be lit. 

I think deep rooted rivalry for giant megacorps is interesting and necessary because it breeds conflict, which breeds change. It doesn't have to be violent conflict mind, but it certainly could be. I like corporate espionage, and giving people more reasons to commit it goes the distance for in-game impact. A good example of this is that the Corporate Liaison page on the wiki encourages Zavod reps to poach Heph employees. I want more stuff like that (albeit more accessible to the rest of the crew because I have never seen a Zavod rep before).

If I were to pit two other corps against eachother, I'd say NT and ZH could probably have beef. Back in ye olden days NT was primarily a biomedical company prior to the discovery of Phoron, and now that Phoron is becoming rarer and rarer, it makes sense that NT would try to get back into that market in earnest, ultimately clashing against ZH sooner or later. 

Heph and OE becoming enemies as OE slowly expands and ultimately becomes a legitimate competitor to their mining business is pretty natural and the seeds for it are already planted. 

I don't see OE and Idris becoming enemies via their service branches because, as the wiki elaborates on, Idris goes for the middle-upper class and OE goes for the lower-class and poverty line folks. They don't really compete with eachother and this is one of the instances in which I'd say that fits and contributes to the identity of both corps.

I can see Idris having beef with the PMCG, though. One of Idris' big things is their IRU and ISU lines, but with so many new PMC contractors coming out like hotcakes, there are less reasons for people to buy the poorpeopledestroyinator 9000's. This is good for expansion.

PMCG could ironically have a lot of conflict with itself as well. I imagine the original members of the Golden Fist would see themselves as infinitely superior to the lowly species based groups and smaller PMC's like CAP. That could be fun for expansion. 

[Kintsugi]

I'm curious to hear how you currently feel about NBT2, in light of how important the megacorp team will be in completing the transition to the new setting. Could you post your thoughts regarding the new setting and the planned gameplay and lore changes that will come with it?

[Roostercat]

Ironically I think the fall of the megacorporations will make it a lot easier to give them actual impact. Without owning everything, they will have some level of desperation, which is enough to jump to rash action in order to stay afloat. They can still have influence in the new galaxy, and iirc the plan isn't to snuff them out totally. It just means busting the chainlink and making everyone be out for themselves again. 

I like the new gameplay changes, primarily the contract system and the independent ship setting. That too makes corporate characters stick out more, since they won't be the default anymore. It also makes it so that the Captain doesn't have to bend to the whims of the corps anymore either, leading to more reasonable and believable responses to any espionage bullshit that would occur. The Corps being less all-encompassing actually helps them here narratively, in my opinion.

I'd say my biggest hangup with NBT2 would be rendering Biesel and Earth uninhabitable. I think this is a mistake since it would cut down a LOT of good lore and make it a narrative dead-end for both planets. I would rather greatly damage the planet (Biesel, I wouldn't have a say on Earth of course) and force it to go through a period of transformation, not too dissimilar to what happened with Xanu. I have a rather unique idea for this that doesn't directly involve just 'the planet gets bombed everywhere' that I don't want to spoil here. If I can't change the fact that Biesel the planet is getting screwed, I will instead make it as interesting as possible.