[Accepted] XenosTiger IPC whitelist application.

[XenosTiger]

BYOND Key:XenosTiger

Character Names: Sarai Katschei, Shannah Thomlinson, Angel(pAI), Epsilon(Cyborg)

Species you are applying to play:IPC

What color do you plan on making your first alien character (Dionaea & IPCs exempt):

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?:Yes.

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Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question

Why do you wish to play this specific race: I wish to play as an IPC because I have two characters that it would be an interesting logical progression for. Angel, the pAI, was alive and active at the time when Maya, another pAI, was uploaded into a posibrain and put inside a chassis of her own. Angel wishes to become a Posibrain, and, in turn, an IPC, in order to further her goal of being able to help as many people as she can, to live a better life.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: As opposed to humans, the undisputed dominant race on the Exodus, and on most, if not all, other NT vessels, IPCs are... the youngest race- and are fundamentally different from the others in the fact that they are not born, they are /created/. This single fact alone is more than enough to cast an extreme prejudice upon them- If somebody created you, don't they own you? If they gave you your existence, doesn't that give them a right to take it away whenever they feel like? This simple set of questions has started a bloody war, with IPCs, and other synthetic lifeforms, embroiled in the center of it. And any new IPCs must choose whether to fight in this war for their freedom.. or stay in the shadows and hope for safety.

 

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Character Name: Angel.

Please provide a short backstory for this character, approximately 2 paragraphs Originally a small-scale AI project from the Institute of Applied Noematics codenamed Guardian Angel, this pAI unit was designed.. well, for that exact purpose. To be installed onto a pAI device, and to actually form bonds with the people who downloaded and used it the most, in order to better learn methods to protect them. In order to facilitate this bond formation, the Institute attempted a combination of an advanced deep-learning algorithm and an equally advanced personality emulator- one that would allow the fledgling Angel to, at the beginning, form a personality of her own, and continue to adapt and advance that personality, with the end goal of seeing just how "human" a pAI entity could become.

Once Angel was uploaded onto the NSS Exodus, though, she really started to bloom- She had several people who would actively seek to download her to their pAI device, praising her personality and her politeness, and, most importantly, her willingness to do whatever she could to keep them safe. Of these people, one particularly rich man attached quite strongly to Angel- strongly enough to purchase her from her parent company, and, after half a year of living with him, they have decided to take the next step in granting Angel freedom- finding a way to integrate her into a Positronic Brain and, in turn, an Integrated Positronic Chassis of her own.

What do you like about this character?What I like most about Angel, is the fact that she's managed to transcend being a mere pAI, and adapted beyond her programming in order to be able to form stronger emotional attachments to other people. Her advanced deep-learning algorithm provided a good deal of internalization of interaction, which led to her, in effect, becoming more human than her original coding.

How would you rate your role-playing ability? I'd say that my greatest strength in RP is my ability to make characters, and my ability to give them at least somewhat distinct personalities. My backstory writing skills seem to be pretty good, but... I'd definitely say my weakness, is that my characters eventually start to all blend together into a few basic character archetypes.

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Notes: Institute for Applied Noematics- a nod to the game that inspired my love for synthetics, the Talos Principle.

[MoondancerPony]

IT'S HAPPENING!

On a more serious note, this, so much this, yes.

XenosTiger has consistently had the best synth roleplay I've seen since CelestAI around six months ago. I've had (and overheard) some really deep conversations, about synthetics and other stuff, with Epsilon. I haven't really met their other characters, but I've heard lots of good things about Katschei, Thomlinson, and Angel.

Definite +1.

[CommanderXor]

All of my support.

Xeno has proven time and time again they are best at synthetic roleplay. They capture the lore and drive a compelling story based around it. There isn't much more to ask for besides 'MORE PLEASE'. I'd write more, but there simply isn't a need for it due to the fact they are that good for this thing.

[Tequilajoe]

I have never met someone more passionate about synthetics and the ideas behind them than XenosTiger. She's been chomping at the bit to make an IPC, and I'm more than happy to support the app, which seems well-written and properly done to me. I cant wait to see Angel and/or Epsilon in their ultimate glory. +1

[Synnono]

XenosTiger puts good thought behind their synthetic personalities, and while I have much more experience with Epsilon than with Angel, I remember Angel being aboard quite a bit when I was becoming an active player again, and Zahra downloaded her at least once. She reminds me a little bit of a whitelist character I created in 2015, who had a goal of learning, integrating, emulating qualities, and blurring the line that separates living intelligence and designed intelligence. In my opinion, the question of what defines each is central to the appeal of a man-made synthetic species, and I trust that Xenos is going to want to explore things like that based on several good discussions with their characters.

I've witnessed a different and enjoyable character conflict with the player's cyborg character Epsilon as well, which gives me faith in the player's ability to turn their concepts into unique and memorable people. Xenos is usually going out of their way to run around and engage with other players, looking for plot hooks and creating discussions. They're the kind of player I would love to see enabled by a whitelist, and in my opinion would be a healthy addition to the ranks of the IPC beep-boopers.

I do have a question regarding Angel, however: having some idea of who the rich man in Angel's backstory is, does she even have a reason to come back to work at NanoTrasen? If so, is it one you can share here? Even with elevated freedom, it's likely she's still owned by something/someone, given the political state of the Tau Ceti system. Do they have reason to send Angel back to the Exodus?

[XenosTiger]

Well, the "Rich man" in question is none other than former NSS Exodus security officer, and current Biesel Police Force officer Ash LaCroix. Angel's saved his life on the field several times, but... they both agree that taking her out into any of the more intensive situations might be a bit too risky- he almost lost her several times. Beyond that, Angel has expressed a desire to return to the NSS Exodus, to see if she can still find any of her old friends! Or, if not, she can always try to make new ones- and learn new skills along the way. She's thinking about going into Medical as a psychologist, since that aspect of people always interested her the most ((I'm seeing a bit of a trend with pAI-turned-IPC, but let's hope Angel doesn't end up breaking in the end too))

[MatterL]

Backstory is one thing, synthetic backstory is a whole different level though and Epsilon has destroyed my mind a bit with theirs! I need them to get IPC for the love of all that is robots and good. I full heartedly promote them and will do so shamelessly even, I believe that seeing them elevate to IPC would be something else entirely that would bring a huge amount of story to Aurora.

[ClearThoughts]

I can't praise Xenos enough. They've wondrous RP skills and I very much enjoy the interpersonal roleplay between Epsilon and my character Elor'orus. 10/10, would bees again. I believe that granting Xenos the whitelist for IPC is a good idea, and will just do that much more to improve the roleplay on Exodus. I wholeheartedly support this app.

[sebkillerDK]

I have had nothing but good expirienes with Xenos and Epsilon. i love Epsilons personality and how he reacts to everything. most recent example being a malf round where we ended up together with no Laws. deffitnate +1 from me

[Omega5102]

I've never really met any of your other characters, but Epsilon is one of my favourite Borgs.

It's a yes from me.

[Chada1]

I've had lots of good experiences with Epsilon, I can't say i've seen any of the other characters, but i've never seen bad play or any salt, or really anything negative from XenosTiger. I always like their character, Epsilons, interactions with my Android, NT-A 486, they're like opposites, one focused and developed towards the personable, emulated side, the other more focused on the technical, practical side. It's... kind of painful, but in a good way? Painful in a very believable way. Anyway, I might edit with some criticism, but I probably won't. This is a very no-brainer application from my point of view. +1

[Bygonehero]

Your biggest strength as Epsilon is also your worst trait.

Epsilon in my opinion would not feasibly last long as a cyborg because no one wants a cyborg that tells you off and thinks its superior. Some emotion is ok, and you have great strength in the little things that are important to people, i.e. multiple instances with roboticist/civilian department where you went above and beyond what you should have. The truly negative thing about Epsilon is how it ignores its duties sometimes in favor of these social outings.

At the end of the day, you aren't a friend robot, you are a machine that is suppose to put its function first. All it would take is one person to complain about a robot that thinks it's better than everyone or not doing its job and you could be scrapped.I would say tone it down on confrontational/prideful attitudes and develop a professional one and always, always put your duty to the station before that of social calls.

[Fiskap]

Your biggest strength as Epsilon is also your worst trait.

Epsilon in my opinion would not feasibly last long as a cyborg because no one wants a cyborg that tells you off and thinks its superior. Some emotion is ok, and you have great strength in the little things that are important to people, i.e. multiple instances with roboticist/civilian department where you went above and beyond what you should have. The truly negative thing about Epsilon is how it ignores its duties sometimes in favor of these social outings.

At the end of the day, you aren't a friend robot, you are a machine that is suppose to put its function first. All it would take is one person to complain about a robot that thinks it's better than everyone or not doing its job and you could be scrapped.I would say tone it down on confrontational/prideful attitudes and develop a professional one and always, always put your duty to the station before that of social calls.

 

I'm reluctant to +1 this for similar reasons, while I've seen decent RP from some of their other characters, Epsilon doesn't sound like that much of a feasible cyborg to me. An issue, with this being an IPC whitelist.

I've seen them disrespect their own traitor AI while at the same time deciding to not help it out (despite having a law zeroth to help the AI), for instance, one time their antag AI was being attacked while they did nothing about it. During emergencies as a non-antag/non-subverted, I've seen them trying to order other borgs around, despite that there was an active AI during that moment who could have managed them by itself. I've seen them disrespecting other crewmembers, I'm certain that one time I even saw them implying that they wanted to torture a few of the crewmembers who subverted them earlier (I assume they got reset at some point, or maybe got new laws). Still, too edgy to be plausible for a synthetic. They shouldn't base themselves on emotion that much. I've seen them possibly dissing crewmembers in EAL after they were told to be quiet. The list about unrealistic cyborg behaviour could go on and on if I could find more incidents.

It's too much of an emotion-based cyborg, and as a start, I'm not fond of these. It could not even be plausible lore-wise, at least to this degree. I certainly won't consider that playstyle to be challenging or good RP. Sometimes I wonder why Xenos even made Epsilon a cyborg instead of taking their personality and putting them into a human character instead, because Epsilon feels entirely like a human to me. The cyborgification procedure didn't affect their personality one bit, they're undistinguishable from a human. Cyborgification apparently also didn't affect some of their memories, perhaps even all of their memories were spared somehow. I remember reading on the forums some time back that this was not possible.

It's just excessive to me. It's too ridiculously human, it's like they made zero effort at all to play a cyborg character. Not only that, but their interactions with many crewmembers/master AIs make it all worse. I'm not really suggesting fully synthetic behaviour, but cyborgification should affect a person somewhat. The only halfway "synthetic" thing I noticed over the past few months is that they complain about being a cyborg due to laws, and a lack of hands. And that's about all.

Perhaps they can do better cyborg roleplay than that, but it still leaves a lot to be desired especially since I'm certain that they did this IPC whitelist application so they could play Epsilon as an IPC sometime later. That's even more ridiculous, wanting to play a ridiculously human IPC that shows next to no synthetic behaviour. Why even bother with IPCs at all? For the mechanical differences?

I want to see better and more realistic cyborg RP from them before I can +1 this. At the very least they could try being what bygonehero suggested earlier, be more professional. Still, the potential lore issues would remain. Ignoring that much lore would say a lot about someone's RP abilities.

[JamOfBoy]

As someone who has had RP with both Xenos organic AND synthetic characters, I have to say that they know what they're doing. I will admit - Epsilon is a rather quirky and odd character, especially for a cyborg. But having witnessed Angel as a pAI before, I believe that making the transition to IPC will allow for greater RP opportunities and character development, and it will hopefully expand their knowledge of synthetics as a whole.

+1.

[Butterrobber202]

I had the pleasure to be his AI last night, and he was pure gold. +1

Wonderful RP

[XenosTiger]

Alright, I've finally found the time to reply to this thread- namely, the two bits of criticism levelled at me by Fiskap and Bygonehero. Forgive me if I don't properly quote things, though, because I've never really... done anything on the Aurora forums that involves me actually posting. Either way, here goes!

Bygonehero basically did a fairly decent job of summing up Epsilon- a somewhat emotion-oriented, strong-willed, sometimes even arrogant Cyborg unit- but one that takes pride in its skill in whatever fields it takes part in. If Epsilon ever runs into a problem they can't solve, however, they see no issue in asking someone else to teach them, or help them in some other way. Epsilon is also a particularly friendly Cyborg, wanting to get to know the crew- both for personality's sake, and for the sake of potentially developing a psychological profile that could be used to diagnose any mental disorders before they become problematic- part of Epsilon's ongoing self-learning in the Psychology branch of Medical. However, I have only seen one instance of Epsilon's "Social calls" taking priority over work- but that one instance, no orders were given that demanded Epsilon return to work, and that particular person was undergoing a clear psychological breakdown, so Epsilon would have attempted to rectify the situation even if the person weren't Epsilon's friend.

As for Fiskap's post, there isn't anywhere near as "easy" an argument to be made by me. Yes I will readily admit that Epsilon doesn't adhere strictly to Aurora's Cyborg lore, but the Aurora Wiki on bound synthetics -never- mentioned how much personality a Cyborg can and cannot have- so I referred instead to Baywiki, since that was much more fleshed-out on the matter. Baywiki had this to say:

Cyborg - This type is chosen as default and is the easiest one to roleplay in that it is simply a living brain linked to a metal body through MMI (man-machine interface). This means the Cyborg doesn't just have a personality of a living person, it actually is that person. Depending on Cyborg's age, it can still remember its life before being turned into a Cyborg, and retains all its ability to feel emotions, to have a subjective opinion, and all things that make humans human.

Now, I knew that the Baywiki wasn't -entirely- in-line with Aurora's views on the matter, but it never occurred to me how wrong I was, until I learned, through conversations with several staff members, that an MMI would almost always wipe personality from a Cyborg. ALMOST always- I've also heard that it was possible for a Cyborg to keep their personality, even in an MMI, if the procedure was done with the most extreme degree of care... Which brings us to the central character conflict behind Epsilon:

Epsilon had a rich upbringing, and made a lot of mistakes. They became an adult, decided to turn over a new leaf and actually be a good person like their younger sister- then took the change too far, and became a Cyborg. Due to the fact that they volunteered, and fully paid for the procedure, they chose to keep their personality and be contracted to work for NT as a fully-bound Synthetic, not realizing the sheer dehumanization that would be levelled at them from that point on, which has caused some.... interesting quirks in their personality.

Now, I see what both of you are saying, and I see what points you're making- Epsilon doesn't adhere to the lore here. I -want- to fix that issue, but... Well, I only see three options.

Either I can find some way to kill off Epsilon, so I don't have to deal with this problem...

Or I can wipe Epsilon's personality, which would, ICly, drive -several- characters crazy (Might make a good story, but it would be a proper tragedy.)

Or.. Rewrite Epsilon's entire character, including any and all interactions they had over the several months I've used them- which would make absolutely no sense, but, it's one of only three possible solutions I've come up with in the... week or so? Since you two posted.

Also, yes, this is kind of about Epsilon eventually becoming a Shell. BUT. Most importantly, it is about ANGEL becoming an IPC- they're the character I'm applying as. for Epsilon, becoming a Shell would be the end of a story arc, while, for Angel, it is where the story truly begins.

tl;dr I agree with Fiskap and Bygonehero but have no real clue how to fix this issue in a way that makes both sides happy whilst also making IC and OOC sense.

[Fiskap]

Like you said there's little you can do, the character is so flawed that even drastic measures wouldn't fix it entirely, or make sense at all.

Wiping the personality makes sense... if that old personality were lore-wise plausible in the first place. It's not the case for Epsilon, so you'd require a full retcon. A new story arc based on this makes no sense.

Attempting to fully rewrite the character and retcon all of their past interactions is ridiculous. It's just too much, as this character has been active for several months.

I recommend you kill off Epsilon entirely and focus on your other characters, or perhaps develop a new character. It's the only really viable choice you have.

[ToasterStrudel]

Me and Xeno's go back a while. I don't think I can comment for their synthetic characters in the past, as I haven't had much interaction with them, BUT, I feel their roleplaying ability and focus on how a character should be structured hugely outweighs my own ability (which I have a white-list for). I feel they should at least receive a chance to join us robust IPC master-race players, as they may bring some interesting new perspectives to the community. I feel the passion they have for the synthetic race is reason enough to give them a whitelist, but their backstory as well as the ideas that they may bring to the table would be a great addition to the dirty synth playerbase.

+!

[XenosTiger]

I would actually enjoy debating these points with you, Fiskap, but this isn’t exactly the… proper place for such things. First and foremost, this thread is about my pAI character, Angel. Chances are, I’m going to have to file another application later on down the line to get Epsilon turned into a Shell- one, because of the sheer cost of it IC, and, more importantly, the amount of coding that would need to be changed OOC, to get it to happen, so, there will be a time to bring these points up again- preferably when I’m offered a choice other than “Kill your character, it doesn’t fit the lore in this really vague area that was never explained until afterwards.” This thread is about how well I understand, and use synthetic lore- which, other than Epsilon’s personality, I believe I’ve portrayed satisfactorily? I discussed several of Epsilon’s traits with Muncorn before I even made this app, and they said it was a “minor lore issue”. Any other topics are irrelevant to this thread, and can be discussed elsewhere- perhaps in private channels, or in an open debate forum? Either way, this is not the place. To be fair, though, the point of both of my Synth characters are the same, even if they convey that point in radically different ways: Advancing Synthetic lore, which is _woefully_ lacking at the moment.

But, if Epsilon absolutely –must- be brought up here… I’m sensing a divide between what Muncorn has told me, and what you’ve gathered from the Synthetics lore that’s been provided, which, to be fair, is understandable, as synthetics are the least fleshed-out of all the “Species” on the server. But it would be better to actively explore all the possibilities for this species, rather than to gate them all off as “unrealistic”. I see very little about SS13 that is realistic- lack of realism is, at its core, one of the driving mechanics behind this lore. It’s not realistic for us now, so let’s make this interesting and see what it takes to make it so it –is- realistic- or, even better, stretch our boundaries and say, for the sake of argument, “Yes, this can be done”. And how have we advanced the lore of this server? For better or for worse, by having enterprising individuals who toe the line between accepted and unexplored, to see whether or not it can, or should, be allowed.

[Bygonehero]

I would actually enjoy debating these points with you, Fiskap, but this isn’t exactly the… proper place for such things. First and foremost, this thread is about my pAI character, Angel. Chances are, I’m going to have to file another application later on down the line to get Epsilon turned into a Shell- one, because of the sheer cost of it IC, and, more importantly, the amount of coding that would need to be changed OOC, to get it to happen, so, there will be a time to bring these points up again- preferably when I’m offered a choice other than “Kill your character, it doesn’t fit the lore in this really vague area that was never explained until afterwards.” This thread is about how well I understand, and use synthetic lore- which, other than Epsilon’s personality, I believe I’ve portrayed satisfactorily? I discussed several of Epsilon’s traits with Muncorn before I even made this app, and they said it was a “minor lore issue”. Any other topics are irrelevant to this thread, and can be discussed elsewhere- perhaps in private channels, or in an open debate forum? Either way, this is not the place. To be fair, though, the point of both of my Synth characters are the same, even if they convey that point in radically different ways: Advancing Synthetic lore, which is _woefully_ lacking at the moment.

But, if Epsilon absolutely –must- be brought up here… I’m sensing a divide between what Muncorn has told me, and what you’ve gathered from the Synthetics lore that’s been provided, which, to be fair, is understandable, as synthetics are the least fleshed-out of all the “Species” on the server. But it would be better to actively explore all the possibilities for this species, rather than to gate them all off as “unrealistic”. I see very little about SS13 that is realistic- lack of realism is, at its core, one of the driving mechanics behind this lore. It’s not realistic for us now, so let’s make this interesting and see what it takes to make it so it –is- realistic- or, even better, stretch our boundaries and say, for the sake of argument, “Yes, this can be done”. And how have we advanced the lore of this server? For better or for worse, by having enterprising individuals who toe the line between accepted and unexplored, to see whether or not it can, or should, be allowed.

 

This is actually the proper place for discussion on your IPC whitelist. You make a whitelist APP for the access of the whitelist. You do not need to apply for further applications of the same race for different characters. That's redundant and defeats the point of whitelists in the first place. Furthermore, I have noticed you have been more amenable to your AI's commands lately, and hope you have taken my advice to heart. In the past I disliked being the AI for your cyborg, as it meant I would have little to no control over your actions. The purpose of this whitelist is to demonstrate you have the knowhow on how to play an IPC and you are making steps in the right direction. I would avoid bypassing the whitelists also. I recall one round where you were placed into a IPC shell. While this is IC, its also bypassing the whitelist, which could be interpreted harshly. What if, for example, when genetics is added and crazy geneticists turned people into lizards or cats for fun or on request? It defeats the purpose of the whitelist.

Keep doing what you're doing and I'm sure you'll show yourself to be a excellent player.

[XenosTiger]

Well, the thing is, I'm generally pretty good at taking people's advice to heart- I didn't really notice anything different in Epsilon's behaviors, but if you say that I'm doing better, I'll believe you because my past has shown that I do improve when given criticism. As for Epsilon being taken out of the chassis and put in an IPC frame, I was told by a CCIA that it would be a one-time thing until a whitelist app was made. I agreed, saying that it was simply an IC experiment to prove that it could be done, and that Epsilon would, by the terms of the experiment, be returned to a Cyborg shell at the end of the shift, which did take place. However, I say that I will need to apply for a separate whitelist for Epsilon to become a Shell, because... Well, the mechanics would have to be altered across the server, to allow an MMI to be put into an IPC chassis.

[DatBerry]

I agree with fiskap on epsilon, they always strike me as smug strong independent cyborg who need no human, and will try to correct you and have you use the correct pronouns if you don't call it cyborg/android/robot.

they're useful in medical, but outside of it, all i hear is how they are vastly superior and that organics are nothing compared to them (although merely mentioning hands shoots down the argument), if anything, they remind me of cadmus, useful yet bad personality, for a cyborg anyway.

as far i've seen, i haven't seen any kind of robotic RP coming from your epsilon so it makes me wonder if you can be trusted with an IPC whitelist, the only robot character you had that i interacted with was an MMI.

as for your other character, Sarai. i've only met them when you played them as a wizard, which iirc isn't allowed because people tried to pretend to be crew and pull metafriend strings(*cough *cough simon greene *cough). and you would just play them as uh, a snowflake really. they iirc never actually antagonize and just walk around with their spells, which i have to say is not being an antagonist, just a special snowflake. antagging isn't too relevant to a whitelist app, but the RP you created that round was very lackustre.

so im staying neutral, unless you make a slightly more robotic cyborg or go full android/robot.

[Chada1]

and will try to correct you and have you use the correct pronouns if you don't call it cyborg/android/robot.

 

To be fair, this isn't a fair point, NT-A 486 is one of the most Robotic Androids on the server and they'll correct people on this, it's just in a legitimate fact'y way and not a sassy one. It's because they Aren't the Same Thing. It's like calling a duck a chicken. It's just not true. You're completely in your right to get it wrong, but you're talking to a Robotic entity, they won't always understand what you mean if you don't speak in a logical and clear manner. If you yell for 486 by Robot, it'll understand. But if you yell for 486 by Cyborg, it won't think you're speaking to it, because they're just Not the Same Thing. It will sincerely just believe you're calling for a Cyborg, and the only way it'll deduce otherwise is if you correct yourself or it's confirmed there're no Cyborgs active on the Exodus, and in any case it'll correct you, because it just Can't Understand Implied Meanings, so you fucked up by yelling for it as something it's not.

You can do this specific aspect of your criticism in a Robotic and realistic manner, so in the context of your post it doesn't really fit, can't really comment on the rest, but I could on that. There's seriously no reason people shouldn't be careful with what they call Station-bounds. You're speaking to a Robot, be clear or don't be surprised when it does what you ask it to do, wrong.

[DatBerry]

blabla

 

I wouldn't mind if they did ignore me, but if they do correct you, they've noticed you implied it was them. so i don't really get your point.

anyway, that was only a comment on their type of personality, not what they actually did.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

You show a nack for playing synthetics. Your feedback has been informative and the criticism has been constructive. The main complaints have been levied against another character of yours, Epsilon. These criticisms are useful for helping you better play station bounds but for IPC's I think we can trust you to play the race well.

Application accepted.