[Declined] Sleepy's Vaurca Lore Dev Application

[SleepyWolf]

Ckey/BYOND Username: Sleepy Wolf

Position Being Applied For Vaurca Lore Dev

Past Experiences/Knowledge: I DM'd for five years with my close friends, and a few strangers. Made a huge world, with storytelling in the world, where they felt they had an impact. I made characters and species for this, along with a few different societies they lived in, and had to think about how my players would deal with some of the errors.

Do you play Vaurca extensively? Why? I do, because I really enjoy their feel - space bug babies that need constant care and maintenance. Beggars, out in the streets begging for credits so that they can buy the k'ois that's been monopolized by Nanotrasen. Selling broods of drones, to get enough credits to barely survive. All of the hives - secretive and deceitful to anything that's not their own. They have so much to go off of, mostly on their natural greediness for materials and now realizing the value of credits after being monopolized in their own food source.

If you were chosen for Lore Developer, what would your plans be for Vaurca?

[suggested talking points:

The nature of VR.

The nature of Unbound and Bound.

The nature of Vaurca's overall status in the galaxy.]

Without their technology, the Vaurca would steal the 'Holodeck' vibe on Virtual Reality, making crowded rooms underground in the districts they live in - Unbound lazying around, enjoying this small taste of what they wish was more, but are dealing with. This 'Holodeck' would have huge monitors across the walls and ceiling, with holoprojectors in the ground for whatever the unbound wish to dream of. Exploring 'caves' with a holo-Vaur'ketz, having fake 'issues' that the Unbound would work together to fix, basically playing video games in one big cramped room - sometimes fighting over what games to play. Puzzle games, building games, Minecraft, and for only Warriors: FPS games.

Now, my changes for their actual society would be having the Queen only communicate with Lesser Queens, who would have a squad of higher ranking Unbounds who would all have squads of lower ranking Unbounds. All of these would all have designated bound units from numbers between two and two hundred assigned to one unbound, or queen, to control and command.

Hard work would yield rewards - The Queen would only talk to the Lesser Queens, and most Unbound work hard to become the closest they can to the Lesser Queens side - to receive the Queen's orders on their own antennae. More rewards would likely be the ability to go into the proper VR - plugging their neural port into the barely preserved VR tubes and floating in a maintained stasis to play the perfect game of Minecraft-In-Space.

The Vaurca in Tau Ceti would become beggars, asking for handouts of credits after Nanotrasen releases the new 'Kois Bar' to public areas. On this, realizing the importance of the Credit finally, they would begin asking for credits in their trade deals with any companies, instead of phoron or metals. They would become greedy, stockpiling credits, constructing cheaper drone-based factories that make nanopaste, Thermal-drills and weapons, and a new form of 'Game-Toy', a game-boy like mini-pad to play portable VR games on.

Nanotrasen's monopoly on the Vaurca k'ois would increase tensions - and force the Zo'ra hive to do some expansion. And now, with the Zo'ra Queen able to command the Lesser Queens properly, nestled in the bedrock of Biesel, they will try to begin rebuilding Titan Prime to help in the defense of their new home - finally being part in the effort to attack the Lii'dra, who's attacks have moved closer and more common to the center of the Republic of Biesel.

And, finally, Honour is not something in their society at all - Loyalty is unquestionable to the Hive, and was not a word to them beforehand. The Queen would have Kings that do nothing but fertilize eggs, and the Kings are the only males - selectively bred and kept in storage like Queens. There are usually ten Kings to a Queen.

TLDR; Vaurca become greedy beggars and find the meaning of money, capitalize on their own ability to buy things after trading drone workforces for credits, use those credits to make a hand-held video game toy and sell that, along with a few guns, and then use the money from that to try and rebuild Titan Prime so they can get defense from the Lii'dra. Also, they are video game junkies now.

Would you embark on major or minor rewrites of Vaurca lore? If yes, why is your rewrite worth it? No, I'd only grow and expand on what Fowl has done, making a leap forward in what Fowl has been building up to.

[LordRaven001]

+1.. Just... +1.. Sleepy only plays Vaurca or Tree people.. Only.. He is a great guy I've known him my entire stay at Aurora and frankly there wouldn't be a better candidate for this position then him.. Heavily recommend, mucho support, Good luck..

P.S http://www.hardcoreprawnlawn.com/ its an inside joke.

[NoahKirchner]

+1

Sleepy's vaurca was the first one that I ever met on Aurora, (Vag, in particular), and he spent a fair few 30 minutes walking me through a bit of their lore in LOOC. He's obviously determined, and he's a p/ cool dood.

[Bygonehero]

VR as it is written in Vaurca lore can mean a lot of things. The simplest being that VR simply shuts down the conscious mind whilst injecting a crap ton of dopaminesque chemicals into the Vaurcan brain. In this context VR is literally nothing but happiness. The person experiencing VR isn't aware of anything, they are simply happy.

As I said in another dev app in a world without suffering or sadness happiness and joy become meaningless as there is nothing to compare your state to. If you see VR as a game, which game would it be? What would Vaurca do in it? Would they have different objectives or rewards depending on their job to the hive? I.E ( A miner Vaurca's VR is a mining simulation. They get rewarded Pavlov style with happy chemicals.)

VR is ultimately desired by all Unbound Vaurca, are they addicted to it or the happiness it provides them? How does a Vaurca experience happiness outside of VR? Can happiness from the real world ever compare to VR happiness?

[SleepyWolf]

VR as it is written in Vaurca lore can mean a lot of things. The simplest being that VR simply shuts down the conscious mind whilst injecting a crap ton of dopaminesque chemicals into the Vaurcan brain. In this context VR is literally nothing but happiness. The person experiencing VR isn't aware of anything, they are simply happy.

As I said in another dev app in a world without suffering or sadness happiness and joy become meaningless as there is nothing to compare your state to. If you see VR as a game, which game would it be? What would Vaurca do in it? Would they have different objectives or rewards depending on their job to the hive? I.E ( A miner Vaurca's VR is a mining simulation. They get rewarded Pavlov style with happy chemicals.)

VR is ultimately desired by all Unbound Vaurca, are they addicted to it or the happiness it provides them? How does a Vaurca experience happiness outside of VR? Can happiness from the real world ever compare to VR happiness?

 

Their games would correlate to their jobs, a doctor would receive different patients in different conditions in the game and, once finishing their job, feel the satisfaction that all Vaurca get from a completed task. Here, it could also depend on the Vaurca-They could believe a perfect or job to just be no patients at all, where they're always in the perfect little hive simulation and simply sit, happy that their hive isn't dying. Or, it could be a constant stream of patients and such that will always keep them busy, etc etc.

A Vaurca' s desire to be in VR is up to interpretation. Some Vaurca might see it as a way to prolong their lifetime, and be able to give commands without their body decaying, some might just enjoy their video games, and some might actually get the chemicals you said. It's really up to the player to decide.

Real world versus VR, the real world will always be imperfect. Some unbound might seek to fix the imperfections and try and suspend their disbelief, trying to recreate their little simulation in real life.

In the end, I don't want to restrict VR to only video games. Id also like to think of it as libraries of information, history, and maybe a public hivenet bar-like area where the unbound can talk, drink phoron, and have whatever simulations they want at any time. Maybe even have commanding drones from Hivenet VR be another game, like an RTS.

I really think the gaming-aspect makes even unbound still "love" working, which I feel is the core aspect of the hive mindset.

[Bygonehero]

My favorite themes I explored in my Vaurca application was VR, and not the happiness that they get from it, but the absolute existential horror it can create when you compare it to the real world. Imagine you have lived your life in a fantasy world, free of abject strife and darkness, poverty and suffering, free of alien mindsets and diseases and suddenly you are thrust into the "real" world with all of its failings and vagaries between happiness and sadness into an unknown alien landscape that no Vaurcan life ever considered to exist.

Everything would feel wrong. Out of place. It would eat at you in some ways.

Because of the nature of VR, who's to say it's not real and that the real world is some nightmare imagined by the sleeping mind? This interplay between these two ideas is fairly compelling for me at least.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Hello! Thank you for your interest and application.

Your proposal seems to be to better clarify what VR is and how Vaurca operate in it, and why they would want to get back into it. Your biggest change from our current status quo is the communication with the major queens on Sedantis (or elsewhere), who plot together with the lesser queens for all sorts of intrigue.

Now, since their original rewrite by me following Covert's departure, the primary queens have been a Big Deal. Contact with Sedantis is a Big Huge Deal. No one knows the state of the planet since the Hiveships left. The fear of the unknown is what drives the major factions to throttle Vaurcan expansion and give their blanket ban on trying to contact Sedantis again. I am deeply unsure if we should end that, because the suspense is currently the theme.

I do like your proposal to give the Vaurca more initiative in trying to take control of their own destinies. If you were hired and given the greenlight on this arc, what impacts would it have for station Vaurca? How can players get involved in the developments that you have planned?

[SleepyWolf]

I do like your proposal to give the Vaurca more initiative in trying to take control of their own destinies. If you were hired and given the greenlight on this arc, what impacts would it have for station Vaurca? How can players get involved in the developments that you have planned?

 

 

Involvement could be in actively trying to sell the gameboy-esq toys, actively using money in game to purchase things/tasks from people, and being greedy marketplace workers in cargo. Nanotrasen could make a deal, where they get 20% of the proffits, if you think that's a good way to reincorperate them being used again, even after working so hard.

Honestly, there's tons of ways to get invovled, you just have to think like a greedy bug that doesn't know how capitalism works but is trying to get with it.

Some bugs might hate the idea of this capitalism, but try to do it just to help the hive. Some might see everything as just a price tag - That stack of metal? Ten credits. Two seismic charges from mining? I'll sell it to you for 500 credits.

 

Your proposal seems to be to better clarify what VR is and how Vaurca operate in it, and why they would want to get back into it. Your biggest change from our current status quo is the communication with the major queens on Sedantis (or elsewhere), who plot together with the lesser queens for all sorts of intrigue.

 

 

As far as I assumed the new Zo'ra Queen was birthed in the underground of Biesel, but I would revert what I said and just keep that as a hypothetical way of communication - and why the Lesser Queens still aren't doing much, because there's no Queen that's there to help guide them all.

[Bygonehero]

I would like to hear your thoughts on the nature of the Vaurca hive-mind.

I personally think the term hive-mind is a misnomer, Vaurcas don't completely share consciousness. It is my personal opinion that The Vaurca 'hive-mind' is more like a giant organism. Take Zo'ra for example, with the Queen as the brain and Lesser Queens as vital organs. Worker and Warrior groups of Vaurca with a similar profession or jobs compose a Hive-cell, lesser organs in the body of Zo'ra.

In this setup, Individual hive-cells can be completely ignorant of each other and still be connected. After all, a bodies immune system does not need to know what the stomach is doing to work.

This is by no means canon, it's just my personal interpretation. It neatly explains Vaurca reasoning and the brutal efficiency highlighted in their species while also allowing each Vaurca to have different enjoyments and hobbies.

To reiterate, what is your interpretation of the Vaurca Hive-mind? Is it pheromones? Technology? Or is it something else entirely?

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Thank you for your application. I really appreciate the work you've put in. Unfortunately another applicant has been chosen, so this thread will be locked and archived. I encourage you to keep participating in the server's lore and development in the future, and to keep in consideration any future openings that we have.