[Processing] Dr. Crane's Vibrating Blue Squirrel

[LordFowl]

BYOND Key: LordFowl

Character name:Maximus Crane

Item name: Vibrating Blue Squirrel

Why is your character carrying said item to work? Doctor Crane carries the vibrating blue squirrel as testament to his Telescientific ability. Dr. Crane used to test upon squirrels for other scientific pursuits when he was a lad, as they were quite common vermin in his region. However, when he joined Telescience, thirty eight years ago, he sought to test the teleporter with squirrels with GPS implants. It had an unfortunate effect upon the small rodents, the bluespace injecting them with ungodly amounts of radiation. When it was found, it was rendered to this unholy state. Against suggestion from his colleagues, Crane kept the squirrel as a token of remembrance. It has been with him ever since. They have had many great adventures together, which Dr. Crane would gladly recount, if anybody ever came to him in Telescience these days, except to take the spacesuit.

---

---

Item function(s): The vibrating blue squirrel gives off light when squeezed tightly, like a flashlight, except it for it being blue-coloured light. It is NOT alive.

Item description: This is a vibrating blue squirrel. It is a normal sized item. It vibrates, and it is blue. The goal of adventurers everywhere.

Item appearance: The vibrating blue squirrel is a squirrel that is blue and vibrating, giving off some light.

---

---

Additional comments:

The squirrel is not alive. It is permeated with the bluespace. Studies on whether this effect only occurs to squirrels is pending

Sprite:

Edited December 28, 2014 by Guest

[Tenenza]

So, it's a...

Bluespace, Radioactive, Squirrel.

I dunno if the station safety code covers that.

[LordFowl]

At this point its completely de-radiated. It's been some fourty-fifty odd years since he got it. Forgot to mention.

Don't know station regulation about bluespace items, however. In fact, there's not much lore concerning bluespace, so I assume it's relatively unexplored. Perhaps the good doctor has labelled it as some research necessity.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah...

No.

[Dea Tacita]

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah...

No.

 

What he said.

This is beyond silly...

[Tablespoon]

This is extremely special snowflakey...I mean NT wouldn't even let you bring normal outside pets onboard...

[LordFowl]

How is it special snowflakey?

Have you guys honestly never seen a vibrating blue squirrel?

[Guest]

So, it's a...

Bluespace, Radioactive, Squirrel.

I dunno if the station safety code covers that.

 

It also vibrates.

It's weird. CCIAA doesn't want any complaints regarding perversive elements.

[LordFowl]

You guys are just prejudiced against squirrels. If I ordered a vibrating blue labcoat, I bet things might be different. I'm not accusing you of being racists against squirrel kind, far from it, but I urge you to look at this from an objective standpoint, all squirrel-based personal agendas aside.

[Guest]

10/10 this was a good troll.

[LordFowl]

Err... No.. This is quite a serious items request. Please don't mislead people into thinking it isn't.

[LordFowl]

I really think you should reconsider. It's oftentimes that roleplayers will try to take an elitism highground, declaring anything they for whatever various reason "snowflakey" or some variant and confusing pejorative, but people who accept applications hopefully should be taking an objective standpoint. Just because something is abnormal does not make it "snowflakey" (Although really I see no problem with "snowflakey", but I'm not here to critique the current standard of roleplay, and that's not my prerogative anyways. Furthermore, the definition of "snowflakey" itself is flaky. (see what I did there?)) Custom items are meant to inspire roleplay, to critique a custom item on being "snowflakey" is a bit counter to the point of a custom item, as they're all snowflakey to a degree, because their entire purpose is to make the character special from other characters. Uniqueness is not a character flaw.

So please, consider this application deepliery. The only really valid complaint is the fact that NanoTrasen might not permit the item for IC reasons, but this should be investigated deepliery as well.

[Tenenza]

I dunno about everyone else, but the item itself isn't the snowflaky bit, but the fact someone actually just carries a dead, glowing, used-to-be radioactive squirrel. I mean, that's kinda insane. I've got characters with plenty of crazy, but they usually keep it at home, or like, buried where the police can't find it. But, I mean, functionally, this doesn't really do that much in the way of making good RPz. I mean, people will be like "Holy Feces! That's a Dead Glowing Blue Squrriel." And then you'll be like, "Yeah, it's (Item_Back_Story), and (Item_Function)", and then they'll back away and call the Shrink, because that's fucking questionably insane.

But, yeah.

It'd be like bringing your own rats to the lab for testing. Not strictly banned, but not going to win you any friends, and is borderline unprofessional. Only the rats you take are dead, and 45 years old, and smell of embalming fluid and glow in the dark. Also, carrying dead animals on space shuttles; that sounds like something you need a permit for. Because, it's like an airplane, and carrying animals, dead or alive, is wonky. Except bringing Ian and Runtime, because the CentCom staff want snuggletime with those two as well.

[LordFowl]

As I said, to me that's really the only valid complaint, and I'm pondering over it myself.

The idea of bringing a dead animal to work really depends; for example, taxidermic animals are pretty much paper weights or decorations, and I don't see a problem with bringing those to work. Most custom items I've noticed serve little purpose job-wise, and arguably this item is actually purposeful job-wise, but also it can be argued not. OoCly, telescience isn't very resource intensive, just time consuming, and ICly I've been working on an RP procedure that fits animals of both small and large size into it. For that procedure I argue that this squirrel item is valuable, and could be considered additive to research, but not the property of NanoTrasen. To be quite honest, Telescience isn't really a social roleplay environment, so the RP interaction you mentioned won't really exist. To be quite honest, this item's roleplay use varies from being mentioned only to fulfill notes, to serve as a reminder against misconduct, and sometimes perhaps to become the result of a telescientific experiment upon an actual rodent. All of these various roleplay scenarios are being covered by the umbrella roleplay scenario of this pretty much being a fancy paperweight, because it seems that custom applications are lore-orientated upon the idea that you bring it to work and from everyday, and I didn't want to break or question that mold.

Really, I'm just looking for more ways to develop my telescience roleplay from just this:

Spend around ten minutes in absolute science crunching numbers.

Say you can now use telescience to help people.

Security says you can't/nobody asks for help (Both have happened)

From here it branches out from abandoning my post at telescience, or it continues to:

Steal bananium ore.

Steal Syndicate Spacesuit.

Steal everything.

Get arrested.

Furthermore, stating that I would need a permit. . .

Why don't I get a permit too? If there's a permit for it, and I bring it to work, then I don't see why I couldn't get the permit.

[Tenenza]

Try like, mapping the Z-levels, becauses there's lots of hidden stuff in space beyond the derelict and the clown shuttle. (The teleport nexuses come to mind.) But, like, the thing is, the squirrel, it's just weird, and unprofessional. I mean, you have monkies and mice for this sort of thing. The Squirrel is kinda pushing suspention of disbelief regarding CentCom's policy towards bringing stuff board the station.

[LordFowl]

I think the idea of a squirrel being wierder than a mouse or a monkey is unfounded. Its a rodent. Literally any other rodent would be acceptable in the venue of telescience, or any other animal. Rats and monkeys have become popular has lab rats because of their behavioural analysis being similar to humans; for telescience behaviour is one of the lesser concerns. In fact, utilizing a wide venue of animals would probably be wiser than just localizing the venue of test subjects, owing to the foreign nature of the Bluespace. Only having three independent variables of study (Humans, monkeys, mice) is unscientific, in my mind, and I'm sure NanoTrasen would agree, it being a scientific corporation.

[Bsmiffy78]

I think the idea of a squirrel being wierder than a mouse or a monkey is unfounded. Its a rodent. Literally any other rodent would be acceptable in the venue of telescience, or any other animal. Rats and monkeys have become popular has lab rats because of their behavioural analysis being similar to humans; for telescience behaviour is one of the lesser concerns. In fact, utilizing a wide venue of animals would probably be wiser than just localizing the venue of test subjects, owing to the foreign nature of the Bluespace. Only having three independent variables of study (Humans, monkeys, mice) is unscientific, in my mind, and I'm sure NanoTrasen would agree, it being a scientific corporation.

 

This application scares me. As it looks like a troll, but you fail to acknowledge it as such...

If you're trolling: Stop, it's really not benefiting you in anyway and it wastes moderator time on insignificant tasks.

If you really are being serious: ....wot. no.

[LordFowl]

I think the idea of a squirrel being wierder than a mouse or a monkey is unfounded. Its a rodent. Literally any other rodent would be acceptable in the venue of telescience, or any other animal. Rats and monkeys have become popular has lab rats because of their behavioural analysis being similar to humans; for telescience behaviour is one of the lesser concerns. In fact, utilizing a wide venue of animals would probably be wiser than just localizing the venue of test subjects, owing to the foreign nature of the Bluespace. Only having three independent variables of study (Humans, monkeys, mice) is unscientific, in my mind, and I'm sure NanoTrasen would agree, it being a scientific corporation.

 

This application scares me. As it looks like a troll, but you fail to acknowledge it as such...

If you're trolling: Stop, it's really not benefiting you in anyway and it wastes moderator time on insignificant tasks.

If you really are being serious: ....wot. no.

 

And why not? It's easy to label something that you percieve as slightly bizarre, perhaps more than slightly, as a mere "troll" or "inconsequential" or "unworth anyone's time", and I find that quite inconsiderate. I appreciate it when people provide reasoning, instead of just saying "no" and moving on, because then progress can be made that pleases everybody.

[Tenenza]

I think the idea of a squirrel being wierder than a mouse or a monkey is unfounded. Its a rodent. Literally any other rodent would be acceptable in the venue of telescience, or any other animal. Rats and monkeys have become popular has lab rats because of their behavioural analysis being similar to humans; for telescience behaviour is one of the lesser concerns. In fact, utilizing a wide venue of animals would probably be wiser than just localizing the venue of test subjects, owing to the foreign nature of the Bluespace. Only having three independent variables of study (Humans, monkeys, mice) is unscientific, in my mind, and I'm sure NanoTrasen would agree, it being a scientific corporation.

 

Is called standardization.

Important to science, since it means you can use all the old data from extensive prior testing on the animals to analyze your own data. It lowers the amount of unaccountable variables in the experiment.

[LordFowl]

Standardization is important when you're testing for one specific thing. Testing if a rat will go through a maze solely for cheese that doesn't exist. But in the case of Telescience, you might be testing if when you put a rat through a telewarper will it's organs be in the right place? Check. What about a monkey? Check. Well, since these two animals clearly represent the entire spectrum of the animal kingdom, straight onto humans!

When testing experimental technology that can seriously effect humans, you try every variable you can. Standardization is in place when the item is no longer experimental, but now just being experimented on. This is a confusing use of terminology, I do admit, but I'm not sure how else to concisely phrase it; basically telescience is foggy and unknown and probably highly dangerous; thus we don't use it without confirming to the highest degree if it is safe for humans, and this is done through a variety of ways; in this particular case ascertaining whether it is safe for every possible thing BUT a human. Now, I can't very well order an entire zoo of animals, some who passed and some who failed, but this squirrel is meant to be representative of said zoo. When and if telescience goes from being probably highly dangerous to probably not too dangerous, then standardization becomes important as we begin testing the full extent of telescience's power.

[Tenenza]

But a glowing blue squirrel (Dead, 45 years, mind you) is hardly a proper variable for this test. It's nonstandard (most squirrels don't glow) has properties relating to a not entirely understood additional variable adjacent to what you are testing (bluespace augmentation), has been contaiminated by high levels of radiation, and is presumably either artifical preserved or exhibiting resistant properties to decay.

If you really want to test different animals, either get cargo to order some (they've got a selection, namely, Goats, Cows, Chickens, Corgis, etc) or ask Xenobio for slimes and stuff, or ask Genetics or Protohumans, or ask the RD for Lamar (Lamar needs to get out more anyways.)

I know I've been kinda skeptic about this, and a bit stubborn, but it just kinda seems like having this Item really would probably get your character psych eval'ed every other round, and I kinda don't want that to happen, because it does seem like you really do want to do science right.

[LordFowl]

A psych eval every round at least gives psychologists something to do. That's the entire point of the custom items, to promote roleplay. To me, the squirrel is quite unique in that it can both promote roleplay of the "Is this guy quite alright in the head" sort, and of "This is a scientific procedure. Scienc, science science. Science."

As to the idea that bluespace augmentation is an auxiliary variable; nay! It is merely yet another goal. Research into bluespace can go into all sorts of dimensions (Literally!), and the effects it has on living things are to be studied thoroughly. The fact that after 45 years this damn squirrel still looks like it was alive yesterday (Albeit blue and glowing), warrants only continued investigation and research. It's nonstandard properties warrant further investigation. It's foreign nature in entirety warrants research, and that is what my character does; research.

[Bsmiffy78]

Right. I'm just going to quote Skull from the guide.

 

Think realistically. Whatever item you apply for is supposedly carried to work and back home nearly every single day they spend aboard NSS Aurora.

 

The fact is that we're playing a video game here and perhaps we shouldn't be TOO stingent on realism. However, this application surpasses the cutoff. It's uber-unrealistic and absurd and quite frankly, would give no benefit to role play other than sending your character for a psych evaluation each round. Which is horrible for the continuity factor and annoying for anyone in a CMO or Psychiatric position. Come back with a better idea.

P.S. The idea of having a variety of test subjects for science is an interesting topic. Perhaps a box of species cubes that work similarly to monkey cubes except for farwa/naera/etc. either way, you will likely find nothing but disagreement on this application due to its level of absurdness. Drop it and reapply with something a bit more realistic.

[LordFowl]

This application is hardly more absurd than the scientific task it seeks to serve as research for. Bluespace as a topic is completely ridiculous; in fact many of the scientific venues in this game are essentially farces (Genetics giving you superpowers? Is this a comic-book game?)

I think as realistically as I'm expected to, and the standards of the game are the standards I uphold. Not ONLY are we playing a video game, we are playing a video game that makes no pretense to hold strict the laws of reality or physics. In this case, I interpret Skull's guideline of realism to at least providing some reasoning to your item's existence or being; if such is the case I've done so quite clearly, namely that it is a result of Bluespace augmentation; literally caused by what may very well be an exploited breach in the fabric of reality its very self. Drop the realism argument and reapply with something a bit more cogent.

Sorry to take such an aggressive stance, but I'm quite firmly against the idea that the item itself is unrealistic, at least to the standards that are being upheld. In fact, this entire server's stance on realism tends to fold backwards on its self multiple times, but that's not a topic for here.

[SgtSammac]

P.S. The idea of having a variety of test subjects for science is an interesting topic. Perhaps a box of species cubes that work similarly to monkey cubes except for farwa/naera/etc. either way, you will likely find nothing but disagreement on this application due to its level of absurdness. Drop it and reapply with something a bit more realistic.

 

I am about 80% sure you can order the species versions of monkeys via cargo. (I understand you need cargo or captain in order to do this, but still.