/!\ READ - STATE OF TAJARAN /!\

[Lady_of_Ravens]

What Meowy said.

Also, beneath all the questionable rhetoric, Furry has a point... sort of. Angry, belligerent hate is the unsubtle and easy form of speciesism... easy to play, easy to see, and the sort of thing command staff and DOs should (at least officially) frown upon. What we need is more subtle specisism. The kind where you don't say anything overtly rude (maybe a little condescending, but not hatespeach), but you let your distaste color your actions.

A catbeast is applying for an interim head position? Hahaha... no. Someone set off a bomb? Probably one of those cats (they're all terrorists anyway). Have a Tajaran working in your department? Assign them all the shit jobs. Are you stuck working for one of those stupid furrballs? Undermine their authority by going over their head to the captain whenever you need something. Are you the officer on scene for a human-on-tajaran assault? Slap on the wrist. Did you actually make friends with one despite your prejudice? Say stuff like, "You're not so bad for a catbeast."

As with so many things in RP, obvious is okay, but subtle can be awesome.

[SierraKomodo]

I for one, love the idea of treating Tajara/Unathi attacks as Assault. That's an interesting idea, one I believe should be enforced, tbh.

i also enjoy racism against the fucking catbeasts. They deserve it with their filthy cat ways and their bloody wars and stupid meowing. Anytime one is willing to claw somebody to hell over being called a name is when they lose credibility as a species.

 

I thought anyone attack anyone was treated as assault either way? Or are you referring to as a human punching X = minor assault, while a Taj/Unathi clawing(Punching) X = major assault?

 

What Meowy said.

Also, beneath all the questionable rhetoric, Furry has a point... sort of. Angry, belligerent hate is the unsubtle and easy form of speciesism... easy to play, easy to see, and the sort of thing command staff and DOs should (at least officially) frown upon. What we need is more subtle specisism. The kind where you don't say anything overtly rude (maybe a little condescending, but not hatespeach), but you let your distaste color your actions.

A catbeast is applying for an interim head position? Hahaha... no. Someone set off a bomb? Probably one of those cats (they're all terrorists anyway). Have a Tajaran working in your department? Assign them all the shit jobs. Are you stuck working for one of those stupid furrballs? Undermine their authority by going over their head to the captain whenever you need something. Are you the officer on scene for a human-on-tajaran assault? Slap on the wrist. Did you actually make friends with one despite your prejudice? Say stuff like, "You're not so bad for a catbeast."

As with so many things in RP, obvious is okay, but subtle can be awesome.

 

See, I'd be fine with what Ravens is suggesting here. I built my earlier Tajaran chracters backstories around racism like this, fully expecting to be treated in this manner. But no, instead it feels more like there's those who treat us like some higher being, those that don't give a damn, and those that feel more like trolls than characters when interacting with Tajaran.

[Frances]

So, question, but since this is in-universe racism, how do the DOs want to deal with it?

Would complaints pitting Tajarans against non-Tajaran employees see any kind of bias? I get that NanoTrasen has to keep up some sort of public image, but would Tajarans experience discrimination in IC complaints (by being shown less leeway/having their own complaints weigh less importance), or are the DOs completely neutral and planning to curb all reported racism?

Basically, I'm wondering how the DOs would react when facing realistic cases. Not people trolling while screaming "fuck the catbeasts" on comms, but say a human and tajaran had an altercation (especially a racially or culturally-motivated one), would the DOs make an effort to favor the human over the tajaran in their judgment?

[SierraKomodo]

So, question, but since this is in-universe racism, how do the DOs want to deal with it?

Would complaints pitting Tajarans against non-Tajaran employees see any kind of bias? I get that NanoTrasen has to keep up some sort of public image, but would Tajarans experience discrimination in IC complaints (by being shown less leeway/having their own complaints weigh less importance), or are the DOs completely neutral and planning to curb all reported racism?

Basically, I'm wondering how the DOs would react when facing realistic cases. Not people trolling while screaming "fuck the catbeasts" on comms, but say a human and tajaran had an altercation (especially a racially or culturally-motivated one), would the DOs make an effort to favor the human over the tajaran in their judgment?

 

DISCLAIMER: I'm not an official spokes person for the DOs, or even a DO anymore; This is just my opinion and how I'd handle this if I was a DO taking such a complaint

It'd have to be a balance between making sure the person filing the complaint isn't having their rounds turned to shit constantly by the racist person, while still upholding the IC lore/law/regulation/etc. I'd already been taking steps to curb the blatant, constant outburst of obviously trolling racism while 'ignoring' the more subtle things when it came to start-of-shift general announcements and such. There hasn't actually been any racism oriented reports that I've seen (And were actually handled) so I don't really have a basis to work off on this. The purpose of the DOs, though, is to handle consistant, constant IC issues from characters that aren't necessarily violating any OOC rules, but are still in constant violation of regulations/in character rules/laws/etc, or who's IC activities might be disrupting the round in a minor way, but not major enough for it to be ahelpable.

[Frances]

Yeah, that targets pretty well the issue I'm concerned with.

It's a gray area. DOs are there to provide a canon resolution to workplace conflicts, but racism against Tajarans is something that's supported by lore. On one hand it would make sense for DOs to ignore minor discrimination against Tajarans (to further the lore and enforce Tajarans' position as a "lesser" race), on the other it would go against the OOC purpose of DOs. Is there a conflict here, then?

[SierraKomodo]

Yeah, that targets pretty well the issue I'm concerned with.

It's a gray area. DOs are there to provide a canon resolution to workplace conflicts, but racism against Tajarans is something that's supported by lore. On one hand it would make sense for DOs to ignore minor discrimination against Tajarans (to further the lore and enforce Tajarans' position as a "lesser" race), on the other it would go against the OOC purpose of DOs. Is there a conflict here, then?

 

Personally, I think it'd be situational, depending on the context, what happened, if it's adversely affecting a player's round more than it should, etc.

[Central]

What Meowy said.

Also, beneath all the questionable rhetoric, Furry has a point... sort of. Angry, belligerent hate is the unsubtle and easy form of speciesism... easy to play, easy to see, and the sort of thing command staff and DOs should (at least officially) frown upon. What we need is more subtle specisism. The kind where you don't say anything overtly rude (maybe a little condescending, but not hatespeach), but you let your distaste color your actions.

A catbeast is applying for an interim head position? Hahaha... no. Someone set off a bomb? Probably one of those cats (they're all terrorists anyway). Have a Tajaran working in your department? Assign them all the shit jobs. Are you stuck working for one of those stupid furrballs? Undermine their authority by going over their head to the captain whenever you need something. Are you the officer on scene for a human-on-tajaran assault? Slap on the wrist. Did you actually make friends with one despite your prejudice? Say stuff like, "You're not so bad for a catbeast."

As with so many things in RP, obvious is okay, but subtle can be awesome.

 

Every single one of your examples are going too far. I said institutional racism was alright - not 'blatant if professional racism'. That's immediate-manager racism, and can be almost -worse- because now players are being treated like shit because some people don't like Tajarans OOCly. If you go assigning Tajarans all the shit jobs, or going over their head because they're Tajarans, or the human-on-Tajaran assault, all those examples, I would consider as an IA agent terminating your employment. That kind of broad-spectrum racism would cause -more- issues down the line. Nanotrasen employs a LOT of Tajaran, if you're going to ostracize the lot of them and treat them like subhuman scum, expect them to violently respond, as they rightly should.

Institutional racism is distrust at higher management levels, far beyond that of the station itself. This would be along the lines of the head brass level, whom are making larger sweeping decisions based on distrust of the species, but in ways that arn't so blatant and in-your-face. No head positions. Maybe a bit of extra scrutiny during signup. More background checks. But the kind of racism you're putting out right there is post-slavery blacks in the US up to around the 50's before the civil rights movement. THAT level of racism is not subtle, and more to the point, it is extremely unpleasant to be on the receiving end of it because people empathize with their characters - its natural. If you have someone being a gigantic douchenozzle to you because 'FUCKING CATBEASTS', it's annoying as -hell-.

[Guest]

Then don't play a Tajaran. Or play a Tajaran other non-Taj characters will find relatable or tolerable. Otherwise, you're SOL. Tajaran are literally post-slavery blacks. Literally. Like, they've literally just had a popular corporate enabled, bloody revolution a la the great terror to escape slavery within the last 40 years. It's 1870/1900. You dig?

[Frances]

THAT level of racism is not subtle, and more to the point, it is extremely unpleasant to be on the receiving end of it because people empathize with their characters - its natural. If you have someone being a gigantic douchenozzle to you because 'FUCKING CATBEASTS', it's annoying as -hell-.

If people don't like it, it could be removed, though in the end it's the decision of the lore team. I personally like having to deal with adversity, but I know some people are bad at it or don't like it.

Currently, however, that's how Tajarans are, and how they've kinda always been, even with the very old lore. Whether this should be changed or not is kind of a gray area, and there's a lot of arguments for or against it (if most users are against a thing, should it be changed, even if it goes against the designers' view? And, do we want Aurora to become furry central?)

[Central]

Then don't play a Tajaran. Or play a Tajaran other non-Taj characters will find relatable or tolerable. Otherwise, you're SOL. Tajaran are literally post-slavery blacks. Literally. Like, they've literally just had a popular corporate enabled, bloody revolution a la the great terror to escape slavery within the last 40 years. It's 1870/1900. You dig?

 

It isn't about tolerable or intolerable, when you play a character that's going out of its way to harass Tajarans you're in the wrong.

[Guest]

If you play a Tajaran, expect to be treated like a second class citizen. Because that's what you are. The scum of the galaxy. Almost as bad as the Unathi brutes, if not worse. At least the Unathi aren't allergenic.

:^)

I've got a few Taj so far. Planning on making a hulking mixed breed pariah in the future for mining and maintenance engineering. I would absolutely expect my laconic and smug "noble/soldier" caste half breed to rub people the wrong way with how uppity she is. Or for people to be surprised and condescending to my residential schooled Zhan explosives engineer, despite her nearly impeccable basic and obscure human gods.

They all know they have to work hard for respect. One is completely alienated from her culture by NT. The other is full of dreams and stories of a glorious, civilized, and cosmopolitan Tajaran society that was destroyed by corruption and the predation of corporate interests.

The catbeast knows she needs to toe the line, stay quiet, and not rock the boat despite being able to go to toe with an Unathi.

Punishments should be harsher. Pay is bleak. Testimony often taken with a grain of salt. Unathi handled harshly in holding and arrest.

Too many people get Taj whitelisted and play fuzzy humans, and expect their characters to be treated with the same respect as a human character.

I think we need more realistic racism. But I absolutely do not think Taj or Unathi should be mollycoddled IC. Tajaran have no voice in galactic politics. No one is going to care about them being used up and shit out by NT.

[Central]

If you play a Tajaran, expect to be treated like a second class citizen. Because that's what you are. The scum of the galaxy. Almost as bad as the Unathi brutes, if not worse. At least the Unathi aren't allergenic.

:^)

I've got a few Taj so far. Planning on making a hulking mixed breed pariah in the future for mining and maintenance engineering. I would absolutely expect my laconic and smug "noble/soldier" caste half breed to rub people the wrong way with how uppity she is. Or for people to be surprised and condescending to my residential schooled Zhan explosives engineer, despite her nearly impeccable basic and obscure human gods.

They all know they have to work hard for respect. One is completely alienated from her culture by NT. The other is full of dreams and stories of a glorious, civilized, and cosmopolitan Tajaran society that was destroyed by corruption and the predation of corporate interests.

The catbeast knows she needs to toe the line, stay quiet, and not rock the boat despite being able to go to toe with an Unathi.

Punishments should be harsher. Pay is bleak. Testimony often taken with a grain of salt. Unathi handled harshly in holding and arrest.

Too many people get Taj whitelisted and play fuzzy humans, and expect their characters to be treated with the same respect as a human character.

I think we need more realistic racism. But I absolutely do not think Taj or Unathi should be mollycoddled IC. Tajaran have no voice in galactic politics. No one is going to care about them being used up and shit out by NT.

 

Except NT. Being a raging dickhead to the entire species is going to cause revolt on a massive scale. Upper level discrimination can be grumbled about by the Tajaran and Unathi, and less of a shit given about them from management levels, but outright going out of your way to be a dick to them makes you both IC and OOCly wrong - ICly, individual racism is going to cause major productivity problems, and unless you expect NT to start treating them as slave labor (they wont) or loyalty implant the lot of them (they wont), you have to treat them with some basic level of respect or YOU are the one causing productivity problems and will be dealt with as such.

[Guest]

Looks like we have very differing views on what NT is capable of and interested in doing to its borderline slave labour force. It's not worth arguing about until Sue or Jackboot weigh in, though. So for now, I'm perfectly happy to just disagree and leave it at that.

[the_furry]

Looks like we have very differing views on what NT is capable of and interested in doing to its borderline slave labour force. It's not worth arguing about until Sue or Jackboot weigh in, though. So for now, I'm perfectly happy to just disagree and leave it at that.

You mean the lore writers? One of which has perhaps the most agressive taj on the server, the other has a taj that is a head of personnel... just from their actions it shows that taj are more accepted than just slave labor.

[Susan]

Ana's aggressive because she doesn't have three million dicks stuffed in her furry holes.

Unlike 99% of other Tajaran.

 

[the_furry]

Ana's aggressive because she doesn't have three million dicks stuffed in her furry holes.

Unlike 99% of other Tajaran.

are you saying she just needs to get laid to cool her temper? Travis can help with that.

[Gollee]

I came online while meant to be with my family just to post this...

[SierraKomodo]

I came online while meant to be with my family just to post this...

Swiggity swavis here comes Travis

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Ana's aggressive because she doesn't have three million dicks stuffed in her furry holes.

Unlike 99% of other Tajaran.

are you saying she just needs to get laid to cool her temper? Travis can help with that.

 

You are the poster boy for why this entire controversy exists.

[Jboy2000000]

Yes, its the fact that theres an entire Meowfia built around you, or the fact Ana is only rivaled by Phoebe in how bitchy and aggressive they are. Non-traditional, aggressive Tajarans are only allowed if you're in charge guys, you're just stupid for thinking otherwise, sheesh.

[Central]

And yet half the problem exists because whiny assholes get upset when an aggressive Taj or Unathi attacks them for being a walking dickwaffle.

[Frances]

As an observer who currently doesn't play any catbeasts, I'd like to pitch in.

I think some people are confusing IC conflict creation and bad roleplay. There's two elements to roleplay that pretty much go hand in hand: "does it make sense for the world?" and "is it fun to experience?"

Characters such as Houssam don't really create any issues, as far as I can see. Why? Because Houssam plays by the rules (or appears to). He does a lot of shady shit, but attempts to hide it (and succeeds reasonably well). Tajaran culture is extremely narrow-minded, but you can be a gay Tajaran as long as you don't scream it over comms every five seconds (that would get you shanked by other Tajarans, if more people complied with the lore). Furthermore, Houssam might have hurt a few characters' feelings (usually through hilarious and justifiable ways, such as calling them out for flirting at work or on comms), but thankfully players aren't their characters, and are mature enough to recognize that these situations are more OOCly funny than real annoyances for them.

And like, as for Ana (since she's being brought up), I'll actually say that I don't really think her presence as I witnessed it a few months ago would really support current Tajaran lore. (But I haven't seen her recently. Have you? Is she the same?) However, she still has the redeeming quality of providing rather hilarious banter. Not saying it's perfect, but not saying it's evil incarnate.

On the other hand, though. You've got Tajarans engaging in furpiles, buttgrabs, turning their fur pink and asking everyone to have sex with them. You've got Tajarans that will refuse to speak to you for trying to get them to comply with basic workplace regulations. You've got Tajarans that will physically assault you for calling them "cat". And the sad thing is... there's not really any redeeming qualities to this. Not only is open aggression and ridiculousness like this absolutely contrarian to the lore, but the lore was written specifically to curb this kind of situation. And this point can be sorta hard to explain, because I can't just use the excuse of "this is a roleplay server!!1" when there's also people making jokes about pizza and pasta and playing funny assistants, but the end of the line is I see a lot of stereotypically bad "furry culture" elements resurface through Tajarans, and people in general tend not to like these elements (I, for one, just don't want to see catbeasts constantly trying to have sex with people at work or "nuzzleglomp" them or whatever it is they do, while also making ridiculously misguided efforts to be taken super-seriously. It's dystopian.)

So the solution, especially when compared to characters like Houssam? I think you should actually feel free to act like them. If you want to play a subversive Tajaran, do it in secret. Think of it like 1950s era black US. You don't come in at work and insult your boss every day while refusing to work until you get fired (and a lot of the Tajaran community would hate you for it because you essentially gave them an even worse name.) But you can mount underground protest rings, you can organize underground support groups, you can engage in all sorts of clandestine activities. The way to do it is just not to scream on comms or resist openly (unless you stage something where all the Tajarans on station can have a revolt at once and cripple the supply lines?), and the day everybody realizes what the proper way to do things is, the race is going to play a lot better.

[the_furry]

Where are these agressive tajara i keep hearing about? When was the last time a taj clawed someone over being called a cat? I keep hearing about how terribly agressive all the other tajs are but really ive yet to see one log of it actually happening. This thread was created over a month and a half ago and to date there have been zero player complaints, zero incident reports. If this bullshit is so blatantly bad that you guys keep screaming cats are to agressive then fucking prove it. Its been over a month. I will gladly take that challenge because i dont believe the taj community does half the shit you say it does. So by all means, find an agressive cat, log it, post a complaint, if you cant then shut the fuck up. Cause up until now all this claiming and bitching about tajs has been completely unbacked. Were going on 2 months of this bitching with literally zero logs to support your claims.

And ill give you the same damn challenge for safi. She doesn't go around asking for sex. Try and prove your fucking claim with logs (i know you cant cause i dont do that) or shut the fuck up.

And frances, this isn't just directed at you but at everyone thats been bitching about this.

*edit*

You say youve personally observed this? Then why didnt you report it or log it.

Finally, the reason the taj players are bitching about the lore writers is because they are literally the closest example of the thing you guys are bitching about. They are the most agressive and most sassy. Every other taj is less sassy and less agressive than those two. Idont even have a problem with their agression or sassyness but when the rest of the community is being told dont be so fucking sassy/agressive when they are the worce its only natural to bitch at them.

[Baka]

Please calm down. There's no need to be overly defensive.

[the_furry]

Being accused (again) of just asking for sex and being overly agrasive is getting really old. Who do you think fance was directing the comment of turning pink and asking for sex at? Im just asking for logs or for them to quit bitching.

Im gona go back to joking about this. Im so much more pleasant and its fun to joke. And lets face it, thats what this thread is, a joke.

Sue can we make travis x ana a thing? Like one drunken night where they both made terrible mistakes that they will never discuss again