ElorgRHG applies for a second job - Tajara Lore Deputy Application

[ElorgRHG]

Ckey/BYOND Username: ElorgRHG

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

Have you read the Lore Team Rules and Regulations wiki page? I did, but it’s quite a convoluted page.

 

Past Experiences/Knowledge:

I rely on what is offered in:

“Note: No prior work is necessary for the role. Anyone can write lore, this application is so the team can understand what your vision and drive.“

I have never been in any lore writing position, team or official project. The only lore writing I did officially would be my attempt to spearhead writing proper lore over on Paradise. My very WIP rewrite, which was not ready for publishing, had parts of it used in its current revision under my permission. I did work with the Tajara lore team with a small amount of resprites, but that is not relevant to actually writing lore.

 

Examples of Past Work:

Considering the above, I do not currently have any examples of past work.

 

- Is there any part of Tajara lore should be expanded, removed, or changed? Explain why.

I am not necessarily sure whether this is a “pick one” or “list all applicable” type of question, but I will assume the latter, as I do not consider myself to be passionate enough on any specific, single part of Tajara lore to elaborate upon it enough to give a comprehensive answer. But I do have a few unrelated ideas I can try touching upon. While I would like to write a few things about the FTC, I know that it was the favourite pick of the last few Tajara lore developer applications so I will not continue that cliché (in this part).

 

Starting with expansion, and my recent Tajara lore interest–Hro’zamal. I believe Hro’zamal represents a part of Tajara lore that hopefully heralds the future of Tajara lore in NBT2. Namely, the attempt to move the lore outside of Adhomai, as the three-way cold war is starting to outstay its welcome. Unfortunately, Hro’zamal is currently written under an extremely restrictive tint, which disallows, or makes it quite hard for educated characters to leave the place. There are also little hooks for potential Hro’zamal characters, and it is important to mention the fact that it was colonized in 2459, which leaves very little time for the colony to be developed. But to work within the constraints of what is currently written, I have a few ideas how Hro’zamal could be changed. It would mainly focus on removing the draconian restriction mentioned above, and potentially adding some blurbs for major settlements similarly to the short descriptions in the “Major Cities” sections of the three nations, adding a map (I have no clue how making maps for planets works), and at most pushing back the colonization date from 2459 to 2458 or 57 to potentially coincide with formation of the Kosmostrelkii. It could also be made a headquarters of the PKSC to have a reason to funnel more funding into the colony, corporate or otherwise. Considering it will evidently be the new headquarters of the exiled PRA (according to the dev diary), some groundwork for that should be laid down sooner than later.

 

Onto the second idea, which would be the removal. And in this case it would be the reduction of cultural influences of the Soviet Union, and generally the Eastern Bloc of the Cold War upon Tajara lore. I am of the opinion that Tajara lore has outgrown its need to use such influences as a crutch of understandability or familiarity. Of course, I am rather certain such influences are impossible to entirely excise, my example being the aforementioned Kosmostrelki, being a pseudo-borrowing and loose translation of “space shooter”. This reduction can also be accomplished, though I am not sure how successfully, by disallowing, or giving some sort of additional restrictions (cultural or otherwise), for Tajara characters to still hold, or continue to adopt Xeno-Influenced names, which the tutorial for how to make Tajara names should be made less convoluted to help with that, though I have no ideas how to accomplish that at the present. I am also rather fond of the direction the Tajara team has been going with its application of Siik’maas conlang translations for various items. This was received well in most places and I believe it is an excellent idea that should be continued.

 

And for what should be changed, that would be the Kazarrhaldiye Operations Group, and two small things about them. First, giving them any sort of tiny recruiting presence in Crevus, so Adhomian Tajara will be able to join them without needing to travel to Little Adhomai first. Second, to elaborate slightly on the medical part of KOG, namely how the medics work, and what’s the specialty of Messa’s Men. Currently it’s written that the groups each have their own medics, while the Messa’s Men are hinted, though not outright stated, to be a civilian-only group. I think it would be slightly more interesting to subsume all KOG medics into Messa’s Men, or write about how they assist each group during their own missions. The other idea I have is removing Messa’s Men entirely. They are this weird part that seems to have been added just to have a reason to have KOG characters in medical. KOG’s whole gimmick is that it segregates Tajara according to their citizenship, but for some reason it decided that doctors are enlightened enough to not require being segregated into citizenship-based groups. It also goes against the idea of the KOG being ruled by a triumvirate, where there is a leader for each of the three groups, while the medical group apparently governs itself.

 

- What area/topic (faction, notable characters, direction, etc) of Tajara lore would you like to work on the most, and why?

 

If I were to pick one of the four factions to work on, then I would pick the People’s Republic, Free Tajaran Council, or the New Kingdom, though definitely learning on the former two, which is what I will elaborate upon here. Comparably, I do not hold a similar level of interest for the DPRA, but the recent articles about the three southern warlords bickering between each other got close to swaying me to the Al’mariist side. 

 

I have learned to enjoy the PRA and its lore, vibe and what it stands for over time. It is very interesting how this controlling, totalitarian, monolithic culture cares for the standing of Tajara people in the galactic stage. How the ideas of the First Revolution are applied and continued, successfully or not, and how society was changed by opening up to change instead of remaining stagnant. The conflict between young idealist reformists and old apparatchiks trying to hold onto their Party stool is also interesting, though not too elaborated upon at the present, which will definitely be a factor in NBT2. 

 

The opposite side of the coin being the FTC. A disorganised, uncontrolling and downright (almost?) anarchist (I am still not sure whether they can be labelled as properly anarchist or not) society that prioritizes collectivism, and freedom, over anything else. It is also extremely interesting to me that it is the nation that, to me, is written to hold to the idea that this is a group of revolutionaries in exile rather than a “state” resulting from a successful revolution. The clash between young reformists, and older conservatives is also present here but not elaborated upon too much, which I am not sure is a good thing or not. The only unfortunate part of the FTC is them being too divorced from Adhomian conflict to take advantage of a massive amount of lore written for the big three on Adhomai, yet too isolationist to consider them a proper and integrated part of the Coalition of Colonies, unlike the comparably well-integrated Bieselite Tajara. This does however result in most FTC characters being the enlightened ideologues of every ideological conversation between Tajara characters, which is an interesting consequence of the FTC in its own right.

 

- Where would you like to see Tajara in NBT2?

I have a few, scarce insights of what Tajara lore will look like in NBT2. That is mainly due to already being a developer, and from my work on some sprite projects with the Tajara (and other) lore team(s). But what I would like to see is a bit of the continuation of what I have always held as one of the forefront parts of Tajara lore—the corruption of idealism. What the First and Second Revolution has promised, and how that turned out in the end. If the Third-Time’s-a-Charm Revolution is able to continue the trend, with its own spin on it of course. 

 

Though mainly, I would like to see Tajara moving past just being this volatile, snow-covered planet where nothing good ever happens, misery reigns and people avoid like the plague, to make Adhomai the capital of some sort of minor (or major) regional power. I think this is why the three Tajara nations have never become relevant in the lore outside of being the place where “the species that discusses politics like that one uncle at every family event and a species that we can underpay” come from. Related to that, I would also definitely like to see, and it is one of the main goals of NBT2, is to decouple plot relevance from corporate presence. All the nations on Adhomai (maybe excluding the DPRA, but that's by design, and even then, a DPRA character can always somehow get to Crevus) have only one large means of communicating with the rest of the Spur; that unfortunately being the SCC, but mostly NanoTrasen. So much lore and relevance of the Tajara as a species (and quite frankly every species on Aurora, but this is a Tajara lore dev app) hinges on whether or not they have an easy connection to the SCC to get hired and eventually land on the Horizon.

 

And to slightly touch upon a slightly underrepresented part of Tajara lore, that is still important nonetheless, that being the continuation of various flavors of discrimination lore in some way or the other. The Tajara are a species which still is very connected to its conservative roots, and no revolution yet has changed it by much. Be it things more at the forefront of Tajara, that being the caste system, discrimination between ethnicities, eugenics, to uncomfortable topics due their unfortunate prevalence in the current age, like homophobia and transphobia. Currently, such discrimination is written plainly, at most “this prejudice still happens”. To elaborate upon it more to have more ways to spark conflict between characters alongside the new, or continued, ideologies in NBT2. 

 

However, one thing that I would say is lacking between characters (and not only Tajara characters, but I am writing this under the lens of Tajara lore) in the current setting is the sense of camaraderie. Currently, Tajara characters can fear for their life and wellbeing for becoming too close to a Tajara of a different nation, as our setting is very allowing to potentially having such characters deported and disappeared (whether it is actually a reality that can happen in game by overeager consular players is not what I'm describing here). I hope that NBT2 allows us to explore allowing such camaraderie to grow and prosper between characters. There is a time and place for ideological diehard characters, but characters whose only crime is being stuck on the other side of the border should have a place too.

 

And last but not least, I do of course hope they do find Al’mari Hadii so Ahem Kah’nrir will be vindicated in the end.
 

Additional Comments: 

>1984 words
I struggle with being brief.

I do not understand the DPRA. 

FTC needs its own “Council members commonly greet each other by saying…”

M’sai are too bright.

Hadii’s grace.