[Denied] LoreDev Application - Chaznoodles

[Chaznoodles]

As a note, there's very little I can reply to, or am willing to reply to, in the last page, due to a lack of context and behind-the-back dealings. If you're not willing to come and say it here on the thread, or to talk to me in private and work out the problem, when I've said I'm more than happy to talk to you, then it's your own fault.

 

Alright, I went on my epic quest to gather some thoughts from other people

 

If you could get them to post their thoughts themselves and the reasoning for it, that'd be great, rather than blanket statements.

 

This application has proven contentious, I've had a few people PM me saying they are against it.

 

If you could get them to post their thoughts themselves and the reasoning for it, that'd be great, rather than just blanket statements.

[VileFault]

If you could get them to post their thoughts themselves and the reasoning for it, that'd be great, rather than just blanket statements.

Fair enough. My last comment was a bit... restrained and didn't express the full breadth of my concerns here. Do note that I have little to say on your personality, having only talked to you tangentially through Discord, so I will leave your defense or attack on that front to others. Lets talk about this whole "nuking earth" plan though.

How?

The problem I see here revolves around exactly what you have demonstrated here: your very cavalier attitude toward the deletion of earth, and massive changes in general. This worries me because, though you seem to have good intentions, you also seem to have barely considered all the work such a thing would take. Your last answer to me wasn't what I was trying to get from you - a real plan for how you would go about changing the human timeline with all this work. Instead, it was a series of kinda vague answers to my example questions. The only thing close to a process you propose here is the following:

Having a quick gander at that timeline, I'd scrap everything pre-Second Space Age, and replace it with a 'Corporations are now mostly in charge' blurb ... First Interstellar War seems fine too and fits in with what I have in mind later, though it'd need to be modified somewhat. The rest of it seems pretty fine, aside from Nanotrasen appearing as a benelovent [sic] overlord.

It strikes me as almost comical when you talking about deleting weeks of work that you have just bothered read literal minutes ago. First off, I think there is a lot of subtly to Delta's work that you are missing. Secondly, and we will return to this point later, how can you possibly feel that you are prepared to drastically change something you barely have an interest in personally finding, much less reading? You maintain that you "wouldn't have suggested it as a change if I wasn't willing to go through with it." The gap between those who are merely willing and those who actually put in the work is the gap between heaven and hell, man. Based on the limited interest and effort you have shown here, I remain thoroughly unconvinced.

Why?

But my problem is not just your evident lack of a motivated strategy here. It is also your lack of any really solid reasoning behind your choice. Throughout this thread, we see a few one-liners thrown out in support of the idea. You yourself pretty much only say the following:

Oh, and I'm nuking earth. Again. The destruction and uninhabitability of earth is a common trend to force humans out among the stars, and I want it to return to that way. It also makes people come up with a backstory for their character and more development, rather than "he is earthman."

That first line sounds more like the abbreviated plan of a supervillain than the statement from a loredev, to be honest. But, in all seriousness, merely forcing people to put "Biesel" or "Mars" on their sheet instead of "Earth" doesn't strike me as a worthy goal for a project that will literally take months of work from you and others. Also, you talk providing a reason for people leaving earth. Well, remember the lore now. Its biosphere was basically obliterated a few centuries ago. They were forced to leave already by economic catastrophe, but it has been rebuilt to once again house the upper echelons of interstellar civilization. There aren't a whole lot of planets with usable atmospheres, significant amount of fresh water, and the right amount of gravity in the absence of generators. Earth also has plenty of minerals left, though it may have been stripped clean of a few. Anyhow, you might not like how Earth is right now, which is fine. Nothing is perfect. But merely being able to tell new people who don't wanna read the lore to fuck off when they say they are from earth is not something you should spend the next few months ironing out.

All of this has led me to worry that you aren't putting as much thought into your decisions as a lore writer really should be. Puristic impulses are fine, as long as they tempered by some sense of what is practical, but I don't see that here. It seems very likely that they will compel you to rip everything up with no real plan for laying it back down. A trip like that should easily leave humanity's lore a disjointed and fragmented mess. I think that, especially at first, you should focus on building on what exists, and subtly changing the tone of Delta's timeline where you feel that it is necessary. If that is not your intention, I have no interest in you becoming a lore developer.

Edit: As an addendum I thought it would be worth pointing out that, though I am also making a lore developer application, I don't see Chaz and I as being in competition. There were two resignations, and there were barely enough lore developers around before that. I hope you don't dismiss me as butthurt competition. I assure you that my criticisms are my genuine feelings as a player.

[Chaznoodles]

s n i p

 

Actually a very well thought-out reply, cheers. As said, I've only had a quick gander at Delta's timeline, as I'm unwilling to go further than that for the purposes of an application. The destruction/uninhabitability of Earth is a common trend and used to be part of our lore a long time back, and I rather liked that idea, as it forced humanity out among the stars with a purpose. Reading what you've written has swayed me towards keeping earth somewhat, as it points out the pluses to keeping earth as it currently is and developing from that. I see where you're coming from on this, much appreciated.

But fuck you anyway because you're my competition :^)

[Faris]

I'm also in agreement that while some disaster would be fine for Earth, but for it to reach a point that we can no longer base our characters from Earth is not something I personally want to see happen. One of my primary characters is based from Earth as well.

 

Can you explain your reasoning behind this, aside from "my character is from there"? How do you think keeping earth would help the lore?

 

Personally for me, the way I see it is that Earth is the beacon of humanity, while it doesn't have to be the central hub of SA, it certainly is the spiritual capital of Humanity, a place of origins that has led them to be a mighty nation, while they may be a vestigial nation right now, they are akin to a sleeping giant, but enough of that.

I believe that removing Earth may actually harm the lore and the current setting we have right now, with it being a central and known location of interest and as I previously mentioned, of *spiritual* importance. I don't think that a whole lot of people would diversify the lore even with Earth gone, as there are still other places that can be related to, like the moon or Mars, or just anything within the solar system. In fact, removing Earth might end up limiting role play opportunities, since it might be felt that there is a forced way to play a human. I'm not saying this for the sake of my characters either, as I have only one character from my signature list or ones I've put on ice that is actually from Earth, the rest are spread from currently existing lore settings to ones I've created myself.

[K0NFL1QT]

Actually a very well thought-out reply, cheers. As said, I've only had a quick gander at Delta's timeline, as I'm unwilling to go further than that for the purposes of an application. The destruction/uninhabitability of Earth is a common trend and used to be part of our lore a long time back, and I rather liked that idea, as it forced humanity out among the stars with a purpose. Reading what you've written has swayed me towards keeping earth somewhat, as it points out the pluses to keeping earth as it currently is and developing from that. I see where you're coming from on this, much appreciated.

 

There are plenty of reasons for Humanity to have desired to spread through the stars that don't involve nuking itself. Chief among these is simply profit. Richard Branson already wants to trap passing asteroids and mine the fuck out of them. Elon Musk wants us to spread onto other planets just to mitigate the likelihood of human extinction by a chance happening. There's the simple economics of Earths finite resources and space being rapidly consumed by a multiplying organism known as the Human. If you don't want Earth to be a shining galactic jewel of prosperity and progress, I don't mind Earth being an over-populated, over-industrialized and polluted slum planet if you want to have Human space exploration more incentivized, just don't wave a hand and have the whole thing nuked. Again.

[Chaznoodles]

If the general opinion is that earth is better the way it is, and that can be explained which it has been, I'm more than happy to keep it as-is and expand on it.

[Loow]

to engage in a 'cold war' of sorts with the Skrell.

Pump the breaks there, bud. We already have so much sexual tension in the House of the Rising Skrell that it's igniting swamp gas and convincing wayward astronomers that the galaxy's ending. As the pretentious S.O.B. they put in charge of Skrell, I'm super down for hearing a word or two, but damned if I'm not sour on the thought of another coworker defaulting to "But we cold war now." These are strange times in which we live! Shit's gone from back and forth so much that I swear Paula Abdul had a say in it. Wait then, what's the business? Am I supposed to be singing praises or bitching relentlessly? Both. Alright then let's get at it.

 

As a note to the crass and unapproachable, I'm more than approachable

Good. Personally, I think being a little direct now and then is a good thing. That said, what happens when I decide I've gone off the edge and call your work garbage?

Can we go 'round and 'round a bit and still make up in time for brunch?

Can we talk out our emotions and come to understand each other? Can we just disagree on some things and not be totally up in arms about each detail?

Probably. What I really care about is that we can all come together and deal after one of us pisses the rest of the bunch off.

Next, we've got Earth. I'm a fan of it. It serves purposes. Good to see you're willing to build on it rather than raze it.

We also still have that little issue of a cold war "of sorts" with the Skrell. To me, this sounds like a statement that grabs attention without giving much substance. Albeit, you haven't exactly been interrogated on it too harshly up to this point. From my perspective, every damn race has tension with the Skrell including the Skrell. Jackboot saw fit to add "also they have a cold war with unathi xD" at some point. TajaraxSkrell has gotten a little awkward since the PRA pressed the big button on an ALA city. Humans are currently snipping at each other as one group gets close to stepping on toes. And then there's the on-station IPC's who I shit you not have ended up being more racist toward Skrell than Skrell have been toward IPC's.

Making "a cold war of sorts" with the Skrell is neither new nor sexy from my perspective. I don't see retconning the past to make the current relationship more tense than it already is as a very attractive option. In fact, "tensions with the waterboys" are something of an ever-present theme already. What do you really want to do? What's new? Anything pleasant coming down the pipes?

Now that I have that out in the air, I'd like to take a moment to say I can sometimes be approachable as well.

Feedback is something that I find to be lacking from time to time, so oftentimes my first few lines can be somewhat critical.

If you end up being added to the team, I will be working with you.

[Chaznoodles]

Probably. What I really care about is that we can all come together and deal after one of us pisses the rest of the bunch off.

 

If you read one of the previous posts, you'll see someone isn't willing to do that.

Next, we've got Earth. I'm a fan of it. It serves purposes. Good to see you're willing to build on it rather than raze it.

 

We also still have that little issue of a cold war "of sorts" with the Skrell. To me, this sounds like a statement that grabs attention without giving much substance. Albeit, you haven't exactly been interrogated on it too harshly up to this point. From my perspective, every damn race has tension with the Skrell including the Skrell. Jackboot saw fit to add "also they have a cold war with unathi xD" at some point. TajaraxSkrell has gotten a little awkward since the PRA pressed the big button on an ALA city. Humans are currently snipping at each other as one group gets close to stepping on toes. And then there's the on-station IPC's who I shit you not have ended up being more racist toward Skrell than Skrell have been toward IPC's.

Making "a cold war of sorts" with the Skrell is neither new nor sexy from my perspective. I don't see retconning the past to make the current relationship more tense than it already is as a very attractive option. In fact, "tensions with the waterboys" are something of an ever-present theme already. What do you really want to do? What's new? Anything pleasant coming down the pipes?

 

It's just a vague plan currently, as I don't plan on actually writing stuff unless I'm accepted, because it would be wasted time. TajaraxSkrell is dumb, because Tajara are underdeveloped. UnathixSkrell is dumb, because Unathi are underdeveloped. IPCxSkrell is dumb, because they're not even a race and don't have their own controlled systems or governmental bodies.HumanxSkrell makes sense, because they're around the same technological level due to Glorsh Omega fucking up Skrell progress tenfold. We're talking a technological race, full of backstabbing, sabotage and silliness, rather than "we might nuke you".

 

Now that I have that out in the air, I'd like to take a moment to say I can sometimes be approachable as well.

Feedback is something that I find to be lacking from time to time, so oftentimes my first few lines can be somewhat critical.

If you end up being added to the team, I will be working with you.

 

Good to hear, I'm more than happy to give you constructive feedback if we do end up working together.

[sonicgotnuked]

Chaz, Chaz, Chaz. August was a fucking mess and it gives me a sour taste. Anyway I am all for giving people another chance but I got a few questions and stuff.

• To what extent will you make humans racist towards other species.
• How will sol handle diplomatic ties to the other species.
• How will N.T handle the racism in question 1.

 

I personally want to have more racism, I want more excuses to rake my cat beast claws on human faces.

[Chaznoodles]

• To what extent will you make humans racist towards other species.
• How will sol handle diplomatic ties to the other species.
• How will N.T handle the racism in question 1.

 

 

- Prioritising humans over other species on human-governed worlds, marginalising different races, et cetera.

- Iron gauntlet, velvet glove.

- NT are the big bad and are a human-owned corporation, so they'll happily dick over other races if it means paying them less or more profits.

Speaking of which, why are all the corporations human? Where muh skrellporations?

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Chaz-san, while you have brought your stances and plans to the table, I've had several red flags pop up when reading your application.

You carry a very casual attitude over major reboots of established human lore. You open the gate with wanting to destroy Earth, effectively reverting my entire early tenure when I first became loremaster. Delta and I both had to pull teeth with one another for the level of changes he established, but we both came from the same place and wanted to move towards the same goal, which culiminated mostly in here.

https://aurorastation.org/wiki/index.php?title=Timeline_of_Humanity

So I can be convinced into major changes but I am very hesitant about them. What was most alarming is how you casually abandon or change your attitude towards your own goals - you dropped your major development plan for Earth after a single refutation from Loow.

It's important that successive lore developers don't each grab their part of the lore and run off with it for personal projects. This sort of attitude tends to plague other HRP servers with successive loredevelopers - our major reboots are all settled and we are trying to settle in, not uproot again.

With all that said,

I have always defended my staff decisions, supporting my loredevs even when they are controversial or deeply unpopular with staff or players. What I look for is a coherent plan, investment in the source material, and good intentions.

Your plan seems to be rather scattershot and uninterested in what came before you - you are focused on what you will bring yourself. You don't seem that invested in the source material, as you have said here in the thread that you haven't read most of it.

I can't and won't deny that you staff have voiced concerns about you being on staff, but I appreciate that staff have trusted me enough to let me fill my roster with individuals that they've disagreed with or were even alarmed over.

In situations where I waver on the applicant's relations with staff, I am won over by their merit enough that I can feel confident in defending their choices and behavior.

I'm not entirely sure what you've presented allows me to defend myself and yourself against possible, probably inevitably flare-ups with what would be fellow staff.

I hope I was able to articulate myself well enough, and I'm going to have to deny this application.