New Species Ideas

[Killerhurtz]

Go completely off the fucking reservation

Make it exciting, something completely fucking different. A non-crew playable species

 

With these two quotes in mind, I present to you two possible new species: the Abeonates and the Hologram VIs.

Abeona

Concept: Basically, a slightly more friendly Vox mixed with parts of the Lanius race from FTL, Keepers and Quarians from Mass Effect.

Name: Abeonates (Individual name: Abeona. Plural Abeonas.)

Homeworld: Destroyed (previously a planet around 96 G. Piscium)

Population: 1.2 Billion Abeonas

History: TBD, but the rough draft is this: It's a very fast evolving species. By 1100 CE they developed "man"-machine interfaces, by 1200 CE being a cyborg is the norm - and by cyborg, it means "everything but the brain and a few symbolic organs, like the heart and lungs, being mechanical". By 1250 they stopped breeding and started growing brains and organs in incubators and just building more of themselves. They got a space colony by 1300 CE but unfortunately their planets were not in a stable orbit around their star so they were forced to evacuate as many people as they could in the fleet they had before the planet was devoured by the star. They've been traversing space ever since - because they have some very specific biological functions that disallows them from permanently establishing themselves in 99.9% of places. And of course, because resources can be limited in space, their technology basically stagnated in the millenium and dust that they spent in space, harvesting what they need from asteroid fields. In 2458 they finally stumbled upon Tau Ceti space (from pretty much the other side of the galaxy). Everything went well (as, instead of sabotaging and just consuming everything like the Vox, they've actually tried to contact the Tau Ceti authorities for arrangements) and they've elected to stay there for a while as resources are abundant and it's easier to get resources by working than by scavenging. Their tongue is too complex to speak by any other organics (save maybe the Dionae), and so they were officially catalogued as "Abeonates", after the roman goddes Abeona, who protects travelers on their departure trip. And so, all volunteer facilities are authorized to have up to 3 Abeonates working aboard, as emissaries, for now. They're curious of the Dionaea because they're everywhere.

Biology: They're thin and wiry, with big black globular (synthetic) eyes. They have a completely mechanical body. They walk on three legs, and they have four arms. They don't breathe, per se - but as a power source, they consume a mixture of plasma and oxygen to fuel a small thermal reactor that provides them with the energy to move. They speak in what, at first, seems to be humming/crackling - but it is, in fact, just extremely fast clicking and vocalizations. They move by using the exhaust of their thermodynamic generator as pressure for pneumatic systems. Body is very angular and follows the focus of "function is form".

Colors can vary, and follow general possible metal colors (they do not use paint) - greys, from dark to very pale (steels, silver, tungsten) but never white or black as it looks like titanium oxide and several types of oxides, respectively. Yellows, from very pale to bright and shiny (various forms of golds, copper alloys) but never YELLOW yellow as it's the color of lead oxide. Red/orangeish, most often vivid (brass, copper, so on) but not crimson, brown or RED red as they are the colors of iron oxides and lead oxides.. Blue/purple (blued steel) but not too dark as a form of titanium oxide is deep purple. Green is very frowned upon because only oxidized metals are green.

Society: Technospiritual. They believe that electricity is part of the vast thought process of a greater being - a literal machine god that wasn't made, but was born. A cosmic machine-AI. Not overly so, however. They're fascinated with machinery - especially sapient machinery like IPCs. They have no concept of personal space.

Mechanics:

• By default, has at least great night vision (superior to Tajara). Maybe has effect like mesons or material scanners.
  
• Instead of hunger/breathing, they breathe (or drink) plasma and oxygen.
  
• Due to above, immune to gas-related effects (N2O has no effect, most notably)
  
• Extra (2x? 2.5x?) damage from vacuum brute damage due to pneumatic systems
  
• Resistance (0.7x?) to radiation due to shielding (but not immunity because they still have organic bits)
  
• EMPs cause burn damage instead (so it does not KILL kill them, but causes some damage as it shorts their wiring)
  
• Still have blood, and are vulnerable to toxins and chemicals
  
• Resistant against anomalies (like xenoarch anomalies)
  
• Emags fuck them up
  
• Cannot spawn as antags (due to lore). However CAN be converted/recruited to antag by another character.
  
• Not compatible with exo-suits or sleepers (basically, by default they always have an "abiotic item" on)
  
• Brain extraction results in "Abeonate MMI" which cannot talk or do anything, and is not compatible with exosuits/IPC bodies/borg bodies - but can be transplanted into another Abeonate body if a spare is somehow obtained
  
• They have four hand slots by default
  
• They're fixed in Robotics instead of Surgery.
  
• Limbs behave in groups - both left arms are, mechanically, one left arm. Groin is target for third leg (insert joke here)
  
• Is it's own "role" (Emissary) - limited to three per round OR 10% of the crew (unless special circumstances) (whichever is lowest - so at >=10 people, only one. At >=20 people, only two. Thirty or more gets the full three emissaries. Spawns with Assistant access, and has to request access/a guest pass (depending on who's available) and a PDA for communication. However, it does spawn with a slightly larger backpack. Literally cannot spawn as any other role.
  
• Cannot wear gloves, but is naturally insulated from shock, like station-bound cyborgs.
  
• Up for debate, but arguably: not authorized to obtain access to Research and Security.
  
• Special language: Abeonean. To non-speaker, can either translate to "TTKKTKKKTKKKTKMMMMMM" all the time, or a blanket *modem noises* or *buzzes* would do.
  
• On Code Red, confined to be brigged. It's known, it's accepted - they don't mind - and they DON'T TRY TO BREAK OUT.
  
• They can't hide, because they automatically regularly emote the hiss of the release of their pneumatic system (which also releases some CO2 into the atmosphere
  
• Maybe, maybe not - but it might be an interesting feature to have them automatically drain significantly the oxygen of the air around them, Lanius-style. Leave one of them alone in Research with atmos off and it takes 5-10 minutes for the room to become unsafe for people to breathe in due to lack of oxygen.

 

Hologram VI

Concept: the EXACT opposite of the maintenance drones.

Name: Hologram VIs (or VIs for short)

History: Born as a side cousin to AIs, VIs are dumbed out intelligences - little more than a fancy interface to a database.

Biology: Slightly translucent. Possibly allow them to select a basic appearance through the character creation screen, and possibly allow them to pick a color. Mostly non-physical.

Mechanics:

• Not AI-bound - rather, all of them are linked to a central server somewhere. (AI core? Research? Command? Engineering?). All VIs become inactive (and disappear) when the server is taken offline/damaged.
  
• Designed to assist crew. Can only have very basic interactions with machines (Cyborg level, to SOME machines - APCs, SMESes and atmos alarms are off-limits, and some physical - they may drag/grab objects (the verb - they have no real hand slot), but cannot open doors).
  
• Non-physical - they can pass through walls, but can only exist within the area of influence of a holopad.
  
• Languages - They can interpret and speak all languages, like pAIs
  
• Summoning - Using the Request consoles or an option in a PDA, a VI can be called. There would, ideally, be a dibs system and a jump system so that the VI does not have to seek the person.
  
• As part of their laws, they don't do anything but seek people to help unless told to do so. If someone requests general help, they cannot be 'unbound' from the requester unless specifically released, or requested by a person with a higher authority.
  
• They have access to general knowledge database - and so while they can't DO anything, they canonically have the knowledge to tell everyone how to do everything.
  
• They cannot answer complex questions or be talked to about things in general - think of it like a fancy Google that's player-driven.
  
• Because they're not actually intelligent, they don't (by default) inform crewmembers of things that happen that they witness (like, say, a traitor, a nukeops or a breach). They CAN however be requested to.
  
• They cannot speak through common comms. They essentially have a dummy item that's a headset with the microphone off (and they can't take it off themselves to change it or anything)

 

Thoughts?

[hivefleetchicken]

I honestly think we should add a mer (elf) race. Humans fill the role of the neutral race, vaurca and skrell fill the role of the practical race, Unathi fill the role of the immature and angsty assholes that will always have your back race, tajara fill the role of the risqué and bombastic and also immature race, but we have no entirely puritanical and connected to earth race (that isn't lame as fuck (Diona)). The thing we lack the most of all in Aurora is a race that's fast thinking, snotty, in some cases very spiritual about the earth, and very emotional. The tajara usually fall flat on their faces when their players try that shit on a character, just sayin.

EDIT: And by mer I mean the whole shebang. Atmer, Dunmer, Bosmer, Orsimer, Falmer, Dwemer.

Yeah, they aren't way out there, but I don't want another emotionless "pretending to be human like to absorb cultural influences" race like the skrell, Diona, and IPCs. I want NEW fucking behavior that none of the races can emulate without being hella snowflaky or hella dumb.

[Damarik]

Is this form up for any and all races? I've got one or two in mind from the novel series I'll probably never finish writing.

[enkas]

I honestly think we should add a mer (elf) race.

 

 

 

On a serious note, as much as I like some of those ideas, I do think we already have more than enough races available. Oh, and you mentioned that the VIs can drag items? HOW?

[Gollee]

 

I took great joy killing that arsehole.

This idea is... Interesting... My only concern is that lorewise, it seems like a cross between the Vaurca lore, and the Quarians.

As for mer races. I would apply for a whitelist, obviously.

[Conservatron]

ill only support mer if their entire society revolves around removing humanity from the history of the universe because they're a corruption of reality

[Guest]

Make it exciting, something completely fucking different. A non-crew playable species

 

That means it's antag only, FYI.

[Killerhurtz]

You interpret it as antag-only. And even then, as argued elsewhere, I said it should be called "assistive roles".

And an assistive role that's non-antag but still heavily limited and not officially crew still counts as a non-crew species in my interpretation.

Plus, lore and code wise, it makes no sense for us to have another antag-only species considering how rare it is for the Vox to be even voted in. There's no point to a new species almost no one will see (I've seen the Vox, IC, a total of... two times? One of them was because of wizard morphing). The cost-to-use ratio is too low.

That is why I chose to interpret it differently.

[Skull132]

Make it exciting, something completely fucking different. A non-crew playable species

 

That means it's antag only, FYI.

 

Actually, it doesn't. What I meant by that is, as it stands, it's kind of an unwritten requirement for all new races to be capable of fulfilling standard crew roles, wear human like gear, have thumbs and fingers, etcetera. This singular requirement eliminates and completely kills so much creative potential it's ridiculous. Which is why, if we ever wanted to make an actually interesting alien race, this unwritten requirement should be tossed out the window, and a piano felled on it.

[Dea Tacita]

Which is why, if we ever wanted to make an actually interesting alien race, this unwritten requirement should be tossed out the window, and a piano felled on it.

 

cough*Resomi*Cough

[Skull132]

Which is why, if we ever wanted to make an actually interesting alien race, this unwritten requirement should be tossed out the window, and a piano felled on it.

 

cough*Resomi*Cough

 

 

a whole new set of clothing/icons specifically for this species

 

I mean. I think you didn't get my point.

[Dea Tacita]

Which is why, if we ever wanted to make an actually interesting alien race, this unwritten requirement should be tossed out the window, and a piano felled on it.

 

cough*Resomi*Cough

 

 

a whole new set of clothing/icons specifically for this species

 

I mean. I think you didn't get my point.

 

Well, Zuhayr DID make an entire set of clothing/icons for the Resomi already. So, that's taken care of afaik

[Skull132]

...I'll just... Walk away now...

[LordFowl]

I think playable mobs with a hand count greater than two is among the more interesting changes possible, because it would significantly change the meta of play, being able to use three or more hands at once. I say we have a creature that instead of having hands manipulates objects with a dynamic orbital pull, meaning that it has mechanically an infinite number of potential hands.

[Dreamix]

I think playable mobs with a hand count greater than two is among the more interesting changes possible, because it would significantly change the meta of play, being able to use three or more hands at once. I say we have a creature that instead of having hands manipulates objects with a dynamic orbital pull, meaning that it has mechanically an infinite number of potential hands.

 

Let me quote Skull, here:

 

I'm honestly thinking if we want another playable species, we: Remove/retire one of the existing ones. Go completely off the fucking reservation.

Like, how many times can NT meet another species and integrate them into the standard crew compliment to serve the same purpose as humans? (...)

 

And, what I think: Unathi and Tajara (and Skrell probably too) are greatly limiting us, these races not really different from humans and themselves, reskinned humans like they say. Unathi and Tajara are everywhere, on many servers, it's so easy to play one, easy to think of a generic backstory.

So, we could retire our cats and lizards, in favor of better, much different from humans, not earth fauna-like races. Or, if the ground map ever comes, we may alternate between the ground map with new races (maybe ones that breathe nitrogen/whatever the atmosphere is made of, like, imagine, they could be local workforce employed only on that particular station, imagine the possibilities) and the boring space map with these two races stuck in never-ending uprisings/rebelions/whatever. Think of the possibilities, Killerhurtz's and others' many, many suggestions wouldn't be a waste of potential and daydreaming. Want Resomi, sure, might also want to restrict them from using clothes at all and make them weak and small, give them special belts to allow other races be bullies and steal their stuff. Fowl's orbital pull-race? Of course, give them an entirely new job, only allow them to be the station's helpers that are really wise and smart, but only talk and pass wrenches.

But, we could just stay where we are with the current races, not progressing any further, not really opening any new roleplaying possibilities, and of course not being the "mean, bad, literally nazis"-people who take away someone's fun and restrict them from playing their rebellious argonians and fluffy furry cats.

[LordFowl]

Let me just quote myself here, then, since we're quoting devilishly handsome and unquestionably influential people:

Don't remove any races in favour of this one. The racevault is closed - no more entry allowed. Removing race A just to pander to people who want race B will make people who like race A really quite mad.

 

No races are getting removed. Just because you personally dislike race A, and no matter how good your reasoning sounds, it's not getting removed. The simple fact of the matter is that people like the Unathi and the Tajara, and even the Skrell, probably more than any race we'd ever replace them with. Even if that race had literally infinite hand slots.