Naut - Loremaster Application

[naut]

Ckey / Discord Username: Nauticall (for both)

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

Past Experiences and Knowledge: Current deputy loremaster and acting loremaster for Aurora.

Examples of Past Work, if any: I've done several pieces of lore contributions to the setting and I plan to do more. My best (in my opinion) works so far would be the Mendell City rewrite as well as the Luceism rewrite and the lore on the Lemurian Sea, relevant today with Fyni's ongoing lore arc. I've also worked on the background science for the modern interpretation of phoron as a room-temperature superconductor, helping out Trio.

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1) Describe your thoughts about the Anabasis project as a whole, whether they be negative or positive.

I have a generally positive opinion on the project. I still have certain reservations about more extreme ends of the events that catalyze the event to begin with (call me stubborn), but I'm willing to work within the bounds to see to it that we have a setting that's captivating. The soft-reset of lore allows us to clear a lot of baggage and established sediment with all the odd ends we've accrued over the years, as well as bring some more marginalized parts of the setting into the limelight some more. 

Gameplay wise I'm very excited for the contracts system and the setting revamp of the ship itself. Lately with recent lore arcs we've been struggling to justify why a corporate exploration flagship is going around running and gunning everywhere it goes, not to mention the "office job" standards make roleplaying fringe characters either very rigid or, if flexing the lines a little, a little unbelievable. Mercenary work for a mercenary company in a chaotic setting allows for a lot more freedom of expression, not to mention the excuse for the ship to do a lot more actively instead of simply exploration (and the occasional pirate outpost destruction).

 

2) What is your plan regarding Anabasis as a Lore Master? What sort of focus would you bring to the table?

I'm intent on, more than anything, fleshing out the "in-betweens" that govern lore, reinforcing internal consistencies, and answering the "whys" whenever possible. Why, for example, phoron behaves the way it behaves, why people did this during the war, why this political actor behaves the way it does.

As deputy loremaster now I've mostly been focused on maintenance of the setting above anything, but when pivoting to Anabasis I think that with a hand in shaping things from the ground up, I can take on a more proactive role, affect these parts of the setting a lot more, and make Anabasis believable, grounded, and logical.

 

3) What do you think the current setting lacks? What are its biggest flaws?

It'd have to be cohesion, I think. The setting of Aurora, while all very in-depth and detailed, has a lot to desire in terms of overall painting a setting. As it stands right now much of Aurora lore is centered around human-centric states and organizations getting all the spotlight while the other aliens/races have felt like set dressing. While this has proven difficult to do anything about in the current setting, I believe that Anabasis's fresh start will allow for us to get some more cohesive setting-laying done, making peripheral elements more relevant and tying everything together in a neat little ribbon that it doesn't have the luxury of doing now.

 

4) Do you lean towards a space opera writing style regarding the events and the setting, or towards a hard-scifi style? Why?

I've personally developed a philosophy in my past writing for science fiction to have things done in a "firm" sci-fi way; that is, have sci-fi that is believable, internally consistent, and follows the established rules and norms of in-universe science, while allowing for creative freedoms and a fair bit of drama in the process, unbeholden to rigidly adhering to things like 21st century understandings of science.

In terms of set-dressing I've always been one for a grounded approach. The space opera stuff can be cool every now and then, but ultimately considering none of the player characters here are Luke Skywalker, having a setting that's more grounded, believable and gritty, rather than dramatic and theatrical, would make it a lot easier for characters to inhabit a world instead of simply reacting to it. I fear having things be too theatrical, to the point of sacrificing believability, makes people get psychological detachment from the weight of things happening, as modern lore has demonstrated in past events - nobody really understands the consequences of dramatic things besides "this was a big tragedy" or "this was a big win." I'm not saying we can't blow something big up every once in a while, but the stuff needs to be believable, inhabited, and fleshed out.

 

5) What are your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to being in a management position?

Regarding strengths I like to think I'm very good at managing team satisfaction, talking with members, creative direction, enacting policy (I've implemented several policies for the lore team already) and overall keeping the fire burning. As DLM, while I haven't been as active as I ought to have been in recent months, if stoked properly I can have things running smoothly.

Weakness-wise, I do need frequent prodding and poking to make sure I don't drift away, both due to IRL obligations and due to ADHD. I can be fairly heavily opinionated as well and have a tendency of playing the contrarian to stoke an "other-side" debate, though I am trying to find a balance between being assertive where it matters and being gentle as to not piss people off. I think I can improve on that skill with due time.

[Omicega]

Haven't you been chronically inactive in your DLM position as of late? Wasn't this also an issue with your position as CO senator over on Colonial Marines? Do you mind me asking what will be different this time if you were to succeed at applying for loremaster, other than the assurances you've already given in your app? Your self-admitted weaknesses there don't exactly fill me with confidence that you wouldn't have commitment issues in what is an even more important slot to fill than the one you currently hold.

[naut]

I'm not sure how up-to-date your accusation of my chronic inactivity is coming from when you were yourself removed from the lore team 4 months ago for chronic inactivity. 

I have been active as DLM as of late and have been running things behind the scenes, and a lot of the lore team members themselves can attest to that - just because I'm not running events or writing a new planet every two weeks shouldn't decry me as being inactive to the point of it being a disqualifying issue. 

Regarding CO senator in the past, I did have plans to retire anyway once my activity was petering out, and it's unfair in my opinion to look only at the final few months of my career there when I spent four years being extremely active and dedicated to the team and whitelist there. You're welcome to ask the CO Council there about my history with it if you want to. 

And regarding my weaknesses, like I said, I literally have ADHD, I'm just being upfront about that fact of myself (+my IRL obligations, which many people have) and how it affects my self-regulation. I have a history of activity where it counts both here and on other servers and it hasn't been a problem for long when someone has been there to help me.

Edited Friday at 04:54 by naut

[Shimmer]

I'll preface this by saying that Sammy is a dear friend of mine, and knowing who she is as a person and her personal character is a big reason for me to come about in a show of support and to wish you so much luck in this application. Good luck Sammy!!

 

But it also allows me to put in a few words to her character. Sammy is pleasant, affable, and joyful company to keep around. Committed and importantly punctual to whatever shenanigans I put her up to. She is willing and enthusiastic to put in the effort into a project or activity she finds passion in, and eagerly engages and participates in it. She is a joy to work with, a joy to talk to, and generally a complete sweetheart all around.

 

BUT this wouldn't be a Shimmer post without the requisite Yappanese questions would it? And I do have a few things I'd like you to elaborate on, to talk more about your vision for Aurora's lore beyond the big picture, the nitty gritty details and how you hope to address those in your tenure as loremaster.

 

On 05/08/2026 at 17:19, naut said:

I still have certain reservations about more extreme ends of the events that catalyze the event to begin with (call me stubborn), but I'm willing to work within the bounds to see to it that we have a setting that's captivating.

Could you expand (within reason, obviously, not asking for any leaks LMAO) what elements of Anabasis do you feel reservations towards? What extremes are we talking about? Do you have alternatives in mind? What is your general vision for the project's catalyst, the ground zero that kicks of the events leading into Aurora's soft-reboot?

Which elements are you excited for the most, what brings out your passion with Anabasis?

 

On 05/08/2026 at 17:19, naut said:

As it stands right now much of Aurora lore is centered around human-centric states and organizations getting all the spotlight while the other aliens/races have felt like set dressing. While this has proven difficult to do anything about in the current setting, I believe that Anabasis's fresh start will allow for us to get some more cohesive setting-laying done, making peripheral elements more relevant and tying everything together in a neat little ribbon that it doesn't have the luxury of doing now.

What do you believe currently stands in the way of achieving a more cohesive setting, that prevents you from leaning away from this feeling of aliens as a dress setting? What do you see in Anabasis that gives you the opportunity to break away from this issue, and how do you envision this cohesiveness going forward? Do you have any examples in mind? 

 

On 05/08/2026 at 17:19, naut said:

I fear having things be too theatrical, to the point of sacrificing believability, makes people get psychological detachment from the weight of things happening, as modern lore has demonstrated in past events - nobody really understands the consequences of dramatic things besides "this was a big tragedy" or "this was a big win." I'm not saying we can't blow something big up every once in a while, but the stuff needs to be believable, inhabited, and fleshed out.

What alternative do you envision to the theatrical? How do you intend to make the players feel more involved with the actions they commit? Can you provide an example of the theatrical getting in the way of believability, and how your alternative accounts for and solves those issues?

 

And for the final question, it isn't anything related to the application itself, but it is a question that I think matters for someone in a management position of the community's lore. Currently, in my opinion, the weight, influence, and workload of the various lore teams is incredibly out of balance. The majority of our lore is focused around humans and human nations, being physically the largest, having the most amount of content, diversity, and notably, workload.

Is this something you find issue with, or an issue period? How do you intend to go about resolving this imbalance? 

[naut]

Oh BOY here we go this is gonna be a whopper.

 

23 hours ago, Shimmer said:

Could you expand (within reason, obviously, not asking for any leaks LMAO) what elements of Anabasis do you feel reservations towards? What extremes are we talking about? Do you have alternatives in mind? What is your general vision for the project's catalyst, the ground zero that kicks of the events leading into Aurora's soft-reboot?

Which elements are you excited for the most, what brings out your passion with Anabasis?

I've made clear my reservations on the extremity of stuff like Earth and Biesel's destruction. I'm not going to say this is a hill I'll die on, I know it's a very critical point in terms of a lore reset, but I'd ideally like to make the process for it more... well, not realistic, but lived-in and visceral. As it stands right now "Earth blows up, billions die, very sad" is an abstract atrocity that has very little in the way of emotional weight. I plan to change that by introducing the destruction as a more slow-burn, less "and then everything exploded" kind of timeline - individual stories, a proper buildup, a protracted timeline that doesn't see a wipeout as if it's Alderaan. Again, these aren't hills I'll die on, and everything's still up in the air. I'll work with whatever lines in the sand are drawn in the end.

If it's negotiable, I would prefer to have some sort of remnant stuff on, at the very least Earth, and give a VERY long term (probably centuries) effort of rebuilding the planet(s) only after things have stabilized (definitely not during Anabasis's time period). A little bit of hope, if you will.

As for a catalyst, much has already been written about Anabasis's lead-up to the war, and I can't say right now what is and isn't up for change. However in line with what I've said previously I would like for the central thematic plot point to be greed and the price of dependency. This was alluded to in the dev diary and I intend to keep following up with it as a running theme: in times of shortage of the one thing that was assumed to be permanent, people cannibalize each other to save their own skin, oft to no avail. And the SCC, the biggest domino, becomes the first to fall.

 

23 hours ago, Shimmer said:

What do you believe currently stands in the way of achieving a more cohesive setting, that prevents you from leaning away from this feeling of aliens as a dress setting? What do you see in Anabasis that gives you the opportunity to break away from this issue, and how do you envision this cohesiveness going forward? Do you have any examples in mind? 

it's set dressing ☝️🤓

It's mostly sediment, if I'm being honest. Sediment of past lore (often an inconsistent and at times horrifying mess with staggering allegories) that nowadays is both barely acknowledged and perpetually tugs on present lore teams from simply being able to retcon things, even if it would objectively help either the lore faction/setting/event in question. Sediment also accrues with the fact that we're fundamentally a corporate ship with a corporatocratic center of attention.

With Biesel being so entrenched as the gravitational center of the setting, everything revolves around it and the SCC. The less direct impact you have on the SCC and Biesel, the less relevant you are in the setting. We see this everywhere you look with the alien races following a distinct pattern, with Human lore getting the limelight, Synthetic/Unathi/Skrell/Tajara playing second fiddle, then Diona/Vaurca having very little opportunity to express their side of the lore in the greater setting. I mean this to no offense of the people working on the team (nor do I intend to call anyone out), but it's simply the way the setting is structured to where the less-expressed lore teams have less and less opportunities for the spotlight to land on them because of said corporatocracy.

Nuke said corporatocracy (literally), nuke the sediment. The war is narratively intended to leave a power vacuum, and already there are plans for alien factions to start filling in the gaps, whether it be by politics, military, or technology. I have the full intent to let this run rampant and let the limelight fall on more power players that don't have a gravitational center to base themselves around anymore or have mentioned every time they're remotely on-stage. Unathi could be in the conversation without Hephaestus, as can Tajara without Nanotrasen, for example. They can have a seat at the round table of survivors, so to speak, and throw genuine narrative power around that directly affects the core setting (the ship) without it being filtered through proxy or as some sort of distant happening you only read of in a news article.

And yes, I'm aware some factions are getting more power in the current setting. Though I don't think it changes the underlying foundation that they have to work themselves off of, which a soft-reset would help solve and stop them from trying to fight an uphill battle versus both past lore and current affairs.

The "cohesion" I mentioned can really start to take root here, as it allows for us to really take the time to build the power-players from the ground up to be contenders against each other with genuine strengths instead of simply "Here are a handful of superpowers, and here is everyone else." The stuff that felt previously tacked-on can take center stage, and we can clear away tertiary lore elements with this soft-reset that previously felt vestigial rather than having them exist in a state of "technically it happened but technically not really."

 

23 hours ago, Shimmer said:

What alternative do you envision to the theatrical? How do you intend to make the players feel more involved with the actions they commit? Can you provide an example of the theatrical getting in the way of believability, and how your alternative accounts for and solves those issues?

Let me drop a big thing: Violet Dawn. A big still-relevant display of theatricality where a whole planet was engulfed in flames and billions died (sounds familiar?) that has swallowed the planet's entire plot relevancy to the point of it almost being a meme. The impact's lost - you ask a Martian with visible scars what Violet Dawn was like and they will invariably say something along the lines of "My home is gone, I was burned horrifically and lost my family."

The event's sudden-ness and sheer magnitude prevents most player characters from having a story that can be more elaborate than that, not for fault of their own but by fault of the way the setting is written. Mars could still have had a grand disaster that would shape several characters without it being as dramatic as it is.

Hence why my agenda of groundedness is such a sticking point for me; I want to make events be more slow-burn and weighty so that character development could blossom in through the cracks and give in-depth stories that are above all relatable. I'm not saying we can't have sudden and explosive disasters (we have plenty of those in real life) as much as I would like for there to be more surrounding context both before and after to shape stories by. Who was affected, what the aftermath was like, what actions were taken. Violet Dawn's "aftermath" was people pointing fingers at each other and then proceeding business as usual. I intend for such events to not only be less scaled but also have more lingering effects and preludes. In VD's case: refugee crises, regulation fights, political battles, violent battles, mistrust towards phoron, the political destruction of the Solarian research apparatus's credibility, anything more impactful than "And then Sol marched in with an army to quash the wastelands."

 

23 hours ago, Shimmer said:

Currently, in my opinion, the weight, influence, and workload of the various lore teams is incredibly out of balance. The majority of our lore is focused around humans and human nations, being physically the largest, having the most amount of content, diversity, and notably, workload.

Is this something you find issue with, or an issue period? How do you intend to go about resolving this imbalance? 

I do think it's an issue but I want to be careful to frame this as a systemic thing, rather than anything inherently wrong with human lore as a team. The spotlight issue I highlighted earlier really bares its teeth when it comes to basically everything being human-centric. The largest factions are human, the largest (and only) megacorporations are human, the most consequential lore events (used to be) human-centered. Mendell sneezes and Adhomai catches a cold. 

And that's simply the way the current lore structure is, well, structured: the Horizon is a human ship built by a human company working in a human nation. There's no real choice but for everything non-human to be fundamentally peripheral. 

There's not much of a way to fix this as of now that doesn't involve ripping pieces of human lore out of their jurisdiction and handing it to someone else. Much of the groundwork to solving the imbalance can be solved with Anabasis's reset. The founding of the corporate lore team is a step in the right direction in this regard I think, and while I can't name anything specific off the top of my head that I'd do to change it (yet), I think we can work with incremental reform on our way to Anabasis.