Remove Vaurca from Security Roles

[MagnificentMelkior]

Banning any race from any position based solely off of lore considerations is to me an even bigger no-no. Constricting what a player can play as is not something you should do willy-nilly, and it's not the path that this server has followed in the past. Establishing a new precedent here only opens a can of worms that I am sure people will start enjoying less and less when it becomes more widespread.

As Dreamix said, Lore can be changed. If lore and the realities of the game (mechanics, or species job restrictions) it should be changed otherwise what's the point of having an obviously inconsistent with reality lore? What are people supposed to base their IC knowledge and resultant behaviors on if not lore? And what's wrong with restricting certain things in order to have a verisimilitudinous world? Why can't Taj or Unathi be captains? Because lore. Getting rid of such restrictions would require a less racist and less interesting lore.

[LordFowl]

Severe and extreme restrictions on what a race can play as would:

A: Not actually have an effect on IC racism, which is the only notable racism mechanic. If people are alien-loving hippies than restricting races to certain roles won't make other people less of alien-loving hippies. People don't care what the lore says. Your idea that people base their IC knowledge and resultant behaviors on the lore is ridiculous; people base their behaviour of off emotive response. They don't give two shits about the lore or how goddamn beautiful it may be.

B: Make playing a race less interesting and opportune. Removing opportunities from a player and giving them nothing in return just to satisfy lore considerations that probably can't even be feasibly satisfied in the first place is a ridiculous notion.

If you want a 'more racist' universe, then you need to come to face the fact that the issue is not what races are allowed to do by lore, but what races are allowed to do by players. If you cannot change the player perspective on a race then you cannot, and no amount of mechanical punitive action against a race will change this. If people do not want to be racist they will not be racist, no matter how much you say they should be. In the meantime, you should not be making the game mechanically less enjoyable for players to satisfy your desire for a racist universe.

And, while I honestly have no idea why you two are saying the lore can be changed, I'll say this; lore CAN be changed but it should not be done so frivolously as is suggested, and changing Vaurca lore is a suggestion best fit for a different thread.

[SkyeAuroline]

Severe and extreme restrictions on what a race can play as would:

A: Not actually have an effect on IC racism, which is the only notable racism mechanic. If people are alien-loving hippies than restricting races to certain roles won't make other people less of alien-loving hippies. People don't care what the lore says. Your idea that people base their IC knowledge and resultant behaviors on the lore is ridiculous; people base their behaviour of off emotive response. They don't give two shits about the lore or how goddamn beautiful it may be.

B: Make playing a race less interesting and opportune. Removing opportunities from a player and giving them nothing in return just to satisfy lore considerations that probably can't even be feasibly satisfied in the first place is a ridiculous notion.

 

I'm not well-versed with Vaurca, since I haven't been around since before they were added. But I used to play quite a bit here, and on other servers that DO have restrictions on race-job combinations. So... While I'm not addressing Vaurca specifically, since I haven't really seen them much, I'll use the Tajaran and Unathi as precedents.

I may only be speaking from my perspective, but the way Aurora near-completely lifted Bay's restrictions for Tajaran and Unathi characters from command roles has only made me like them less, and express it even more here IC than I do on other servers. Tajaran are a race that, in your own lore, have been under FOUR HUNDRED YEARS of slavery. The "more intelligent than other Tajaran" ethnicity, Hharar, specifically states "However, in most cases their IQ is slightly lower than your usual human". Most Tajaran ethnicities are noted as being better-suited to manual labor. They are NOT leadership material, across the board. It seems you guys ripped all the negatives of Unathi out of your lore, so I don't have anything specific to cite there, besides the whole "women are property who aren't meant to learn to read or write, join the military, or do anything but housekeeping" deal that makes female Unathi heads of staff (and science, engineering and medical...) unlikely. Not impossible, mind you, unlikely.

The races are meant to be different from humans. Instead, what I've noticed in my time here recently, and when I last played several months back, is that xenos are just humans with fur, scales, or slime. NOBODY roleplays a xeno race besides rolling their "R"s or hissing. The "lore considerations that probably can't even be feasibly satisfied in the first place", in this case, are the requirements for a nonhuman player to ACTUALLY ROLEPLAY a nonhuman. Species-based discrimination is a thing. It's a WIDESPREAD thing, at that. Glossing over it and saying "oh, no racism here, you just can't be captain, everything else is open with no penalties, you're EXACTLY like humans in every single capability" is completely disregarding the entire point of having xeno races. You're not making it "interesting" by having no limits; you're just making it a carbon copy.

I'll give credit to the few Skrell players we have, and whoever plays Decanus and Praetorian (the IPCs). They make an effort, at least, to act like skrell and silicons respectively. I have yet to see a single Tajaran or Unathi player try and act like their respective race outside of the mandatory verbal tics.

As far as Vaurca themselves go, from what I've seen of them, half of them are slave-mentality and the other half are still weird as hell from an IC perspective. And they've only been around for, what... Dreamix said a year, IC? You realize how much trouble we have integrating people IN REAL LIFE who have been known and on the same planet- even the same hemisphere- for thousands of years, right? An entirely different species would barely even have compatible mentalities, especially something with the Bound/Unbound distinction Vaurca do, to coexist. (Something I've wondered about with the Unathi, Tajaran, and Skrell, too- their lore, and their guidelines for personalities and mentalities, are basically just baseline humans with different histories. There isn't a "different mindset" involved.)

That got kinda rambly, but I'm 100% in agreement with Dreamix; heads and security roles AT LEAST should be off-limits this early into first contact.

[LordFowl]

In that case, I repeat my sentiment. If we're justifying this foolishness with 'first contact', I say Vaurca should only be allowed to play the most menial of civilian roles, and then we should start focusing on applying 'sensible' limitations to other race's occupation pool.

[SkyeAuroline]

In that case, I repeat my sentiment. If we're justifying this foolishness with 'first contact', I say Vaurca should only be allowed to play the most menial of civilian roles, and then we should start focusing on applying 'sensible' limitations to other race's occupation pool.

And I completely agree.

Please do this.

[Nikov]

Sensible limitations on a race's occupation pool? All for it. I don't like non-humans as Security. Skrell, perhaps. IPCs, maybe. But those Unathi, have you even seen what they do to people? And every Tajaran has lethal weapons on their hands. Arrests could be problematic. Did I mention a Tajaran shot me the other day? Its a human company in human space, humans should enforce the laws.

And for that matter, Skrell in food service. Seriously guys, they're all slimey. Do you want your food with extra sauce? I don't. And Tajarans need hair nets.

[Mofo1995]

And Tajarans need hair nets.

 

I un-ironically agree with this in the context of Tajarans in the food industry.