[Denied] Swim420 (RadicalSalami) Head of Staff whitelist Application

[Swim420]

BYOND key: Swim420 (I also played under RadicalSalami for a while for personal reasons, but am switching back to my old ckey now)

Character names: Felicia Corilius, Zanya Kali'vum, Kathos Corilius, Gia Havania, Geo Rockwell

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How long have you been playing on Aurora?: Almost three years, started playing at the very end of 2014

Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: Primarily to create an Internal Affairs Agent character that I've been wanting to play for a week or so now.

Why did you come to Aurora?: Aurora was my first introduction into Space Station 13 years ago, I was very interested in the heavy role-play aspect of the server and tried my hardest to learn jobs through the wiki before playing them.

Have you read the Aurora wiki on the head roles and qualifications you plan on playing?: Yes. Additionally, I have been reviewing subjects on the wiki pertaining to Internal Affairs in specific, such as Corporate Regulations, Station Directives, and the expected procedures of an Internal Affairs Agent.

 

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Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each.

Give a definition of what you think roleplay is, and should be about: Role-play is heavily reliant on player interaction, and shines through the improvisational skills of said players to be able to properly immerse not only themselves but the others they are playing with in order to cooperatively create a unique story and interesting gameplay experience. Good role-play should include things such as understanding the environment/setting that you're in, the character that you're playing, and what strengths/weaknesses that character might posses. For the sake of others, character should be maintained at all times so as to not break the guise of believability - good role-play is remembering to help others have fun alongside yourself.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: To maintain order in the station and ensure their departments are performing their intended functions. In the case of some departments, it should be the head's job to fill in for necessary roles that are currently missing from the station (i.e a Research Director filling in as a Roboticist to make necessary repairs to synthetic units/prosthetics, or a Chief Medical Officer working virology in the absence of a Virologist.) Additionally, heads of staffs should be setting the example of how their department acts in comparison to the rest of the station, similar to the first aforementioned purpose.

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: Regardless of race whitelist or job whitelisting, whitelisted players have been granted extra permissions that other players otherwise don't have access to, and thus should work to set an example for proper role-playing to other players, following similar guidelines that I mentioned earlier such as not breaking character, making interactions fun for both the player and other players involved, and constructing a well-rounded character with strengths and weaknesses. As a whitelisted player, one of my first priorities would be to try setting a good example by maintaining office-like formality in my character as often as I can, and carefully avoiding things that I know OOCly but my character might not know about. The primary reason I wanted to make an Internal Affairs Agent was actually to try creating a better role-play environment by ICly checking on the status of different departments in an attempt to create a more believable workplace/research facility atmosphere.

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Please pick one of your characters for this section, and provide well articulated responses to the following questions.

Character name: Tessa O'Malley

Character age: 32

Please provide a short biography of this character (approx 2 paragraphs):

Growing up on Biesel was easy for Tessa. She came from a wealthy family, having a lawyer for NanoTrasen as a father and a nurse as a mother, allowing her to attend some of the most prestigious schools available in Mendell City. This doesn't mean that she was perfect, however - being spoiled with money and having parents who were constantly busy led Tessa to make some interesting choices in her youth, though she quickly outgrew these phases by the time that she was out of high school due to the stresses put onto her to carry on her family's success. Upon completing high school, her parents became quickly upset with her for having not earned any scholarships or applying to any universities. In exchange for her paying for her own general education through a low-end college in Mendell City, her father offered to influence authorities in NanoTrasen to hire her as a Security Cadet.

Tessa would continue working as a Security Officer for NanoTrasen for many more years than she intended to, typically just manning security checkpoints and not doing much else important, maybe occasionally filing some obsolete paperwork for her superiors. Years would pass where she would daydream about something bigger and better - maybe becoming an artist, or a musician-- she always did like music-- though she never found time between work and rest to invest any time into these goals. Over time, she started shifting from her childhood goals of fame and artistic worth towards the study of business, eventually earning herself a bachelors degree in business/management at the age of twenty nine. Once she reached her thirties, most of her youthful hope in pursuing a new job had started to fade away, and she finally broke them off shortly after her thirty second birthday after turning her job into a career by accepting a loyalty implant in return for being promoted as an Internal Affairs Agent for NanoTrasen. It is now onboard the NSS Aurora II that she works; she hates her job, but it's paying her a lot more than she has ever made and has also given her family a reason to be proud of her again, so she does not intend to lose it.

What do you like about this character?: She's more-or-less just a regular person with enough background to make way into idle conversations with any friends she shouldn't be making. I think that she has a believable backstory that fits in well with the lore of the universe she's in.

What do you dislike about this character?: Her story isn't too in-depth or interesting, most of it was made up on the spot with many pages of lore-referencing.

What do you think makes this character fit to be a head of staff?: She has all of the qualifications required for her occupation as an Internal Affairs agent, and cares about not losing her job. She intends to carry out the duties of her job to the best of her ability, even if she hates doing the actual work.

 

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Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions.

How would you rate your own roleplaying?: I like to think that my role-playing is above average compared to most people - I try my best to remain grammatically correct when speaking in character, and strive to ignore acting upon things that I might've heard or learned about about OOCly that my character has had no chance to learn about: just because I know how to repair and upgrade a cyborg OOCly doesn't mean that my character will know how to. Additionally, I try creating seperate personalities for all of my characters, allowing them to respond to situations in their own ways rather than acting as an extension of how I think I would respond if I were there. Another thing I try to remember when role-playing is to understand what my character is going through - broken bones are PAINFUL, diseases SUCK, having someone point a massive laser gun in your face is TERRIFYING, etc.

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Extra notes: I hope that the information provided in this application is able to sufficiently describe my opinions/ideas on how to play a head of staff character. If there is anything that I might've misunderstood or not given enough information on, please let me know! I will happily respond to any further questions asked in this thread. Additionally, thank you for reading down this far!

EDIT: Updated list of character names.

Edited September 6, 2017 by Guest

[Faris]

Hello, so I believe your application is pretty good but there are a few things I'd like to call as red flags here.

Your statement here.

 

it should be the head's job to fill in for necessary roles that are currently missing from the station (i.e a Research Director filling in as a Roboticist to make necessary repairs to synthetic units/prosthetics, or a Chief Medical Officer working virology in the absence of a Virologist.)

 

Is a direct contrast to.

 

should work to set an example for proper role-playing to other players, following similar guidelines that I mentioned earlier such as not breaking character, making interactions fun for both the player and other players involved, and constructing a well-rounded character with strengths and weaknesses.

 

Being a departments respective command member doesn't mean you're fluent with all departmental functions and sections. A director that has no form of qualification in Robotics wouldn't be able to do anything there. A Chief Medical Officer isn't a super doctor and can't fill in for everything and so on. I'd like you to review these statements and tell me what you think with what I brought forward.

Secondly, your application lacks any feedback which would help immensely. I've noticed that you've played quite a bit but I haven't really seen anything of you be it due to timezone conflicts or we just never bumped into each other. I'd advise you advertise your application one per round as it is allowed and on discord if you're on it as long as it's not excessive.

I'm going to let this sit a bit longer.

[Swim420]

Hello, so I believe your application is pretty good but there are a few things I'd like to call as red flags here.

Your statement here.

 

it should be the head's job to fill in for necessary roles that are currently missing from the station (i.e a Research Director filling in as a Roboticist to make necessary repairs to synthetic units/prosthetics, or a Chief Medical Officer working virology in the absence of a Virologist.)

 

Is a direct contrast to.

 

should work to set an example for proper role-playing to other players, following similar guidelines that I mentioned earlier such as not breaking character, making interactions fun for both the player and other players involved, and constructing a well-rounded character with strengths and weaknesses.

 

Being a departments respective command member doesn't mean you're fluent with all departmental functions and sections. A director that has no form of qualification in Robotics wouldn't be able to do anything there. A Chief Medical Officer isn't a super doctor and can't fill in for everything and so on. I'd like you to review these statements and tell me what you think with what I brought forward.

Secondly, your application lacks any feedback which would help immensely. I've noticed that you've played quite a bit but I haven't really seen anything of you be it due to timezone conflicts or we just never bumped into each other. I'd advise you advertise your application one per round as it is allowed and on discord if you're on it as long as it's not excessive.

I'm going to let this sit a bit longer.

 

Thank you for your response! I think that I understand this concept a little better now that it's been directly pointed out to me, I have heard people talking about department heads needing to know a lot about their department, or people complaining that a head couldn't fill a role within their department, so it gave me some confusion. In retrospect, it makes sense that a head of a department shouldn't be a "superhero" that can run the entire department by themselves, and it's actually somewhat relieving to hear.

I usually have OOC disabled during rounds, so it's rare that I talk on it very often, but I will try to advertise my whitelist there inbetween rounds whenever I can! If there are any other problems you see with my application, please let me know and I will try my best to correct them and learn from the mistakes.

Thank you again for the feedback!

EDIT: If I were to reform my response that was corrected, (the statement on heads being expected to fill in missing roles,) I would say that heads of staff should be there to supervise their respective department and ensure that it is functioning properly and efficiently, it is also up to them to take responsibility in the event that something in their department goes wrong, a few examples of this from the top of my head would include: the HoS taking responsibility for security not being dispatched to a call/incident, the CMO taking responsibility for a neglected patient, the HoP taking responsibility for misorderly conduct of those he's supervising (though that should also go for the other heads as well,) the Chief Engineer taking responsibility for problems with the engine, etc.

[Faris]

So I've let this sit for a while longer, it hasn't received any feedback. Have you tried posting the application for feedback?

While feedback isn't the solo deciding factor, it's still very important.

I'm going to ask a few questions and I'd like you to answer them.

You've picked the role of an IAA for your character, could you explain to me what that role entails along with providing relevant links of the things you'll be enforcing?

What other jobs do you plan on playing since you believe you are knowledgeable enough to tackle?

I'm placing a deadline on this application to be the 17th of this month.

[mention]Swim420[/mention]

[Swim420]

So I've let this sit for a while longer, it hasn't received any feedback. Have you tried posting the application for feedback?

While feedback isn't the solo deciding factor, it's still very important.

I'm going to ask a few questions and I'd like you to answer them.

You've picked the role of an IAA for your character, could you explain to me what that role entails along with providing relevant links of the things you'll be enforcing?

What other jobs do you plan on playing since you believe you are knowledgeable enough to tackle?

I'm placing a deadline on this application to be the 17th of this month.

@Swim420

 

I've been advertising my whitelist app every once in a while in the OOC chat whenever I participate in a full round, though that hasn't been very frequent as of the last couple days. I think that the hiatus I took has left many people unfamiliar with my characters. In response to your questions:

What does the role of IAA entail, and what will I be enforcing? The job of internal affairs, as I interpret it, is to ensure that the station's departments are following procedure and in turn being as productive as they can (NanoTrasen isn't paying them to goof around!) As Internal Affairs, the primary references that I will be looking into enforcing are Corporate Regulations and the Station Directives. Though easily confused by most people, I also understand that my role is not to be an advanced Security Officer; it is not within my role to detain, apprehend, or brig those who break Corporate Regulation. As an Internal Affairs agent, I will do my best to remain impartial and unbiased towards involved parties, following the proper procedure of my job.

What other jobs do I plan on playing? To be honest, I am not yet at a level of game-mechanical knowledge to be able to comfortably play as any other head roles. It would likely be a long time before I'd consider creating characters such as a Chief Medical Officer, since as it stands I barely know anything about the medical department from a mechanical standpoint, I likely also wouldn't be playing as a Chief Engineer since there are still many things I need to learn about within engineering, specifically atmospherics. It should go without saying after these previous statements that I do not intend on playing the role of Captain, either. However, aside from Internal Affairs, a head position that I might be comfortable with would be as a research director - I have played enough science characters to be able to comprehend and understand a good majority of what that department entails OOCly, and this could make roleplaying a head of that department much more comfortable, though it still is not something I am currently planning on doing.

I hope that these answers have helped clarify any sort of concerns you might've had. I would also like to mention that if I still don't sound qualified for head whitelisting, that I am entirely understanding about re-applying later down the line when I have a better grasp on the aforementioned subjects I mentioned being uncomfortable with. After all, as it currently stands I only feel absolutely comfortable tackling one of the jobs included in this whitelist.

[Faris]

I'm afraid that while I like your application, revised answers and how you've responded to my feedback, that I'll still need to deny this. The lack of feedback and relative long hiatus has made it hard for me to judge you based on how you play, as I haven't been able to catch you playing.

I advise that you do apply once you've got more play time and to try and pursue interim positions to roles you are capable of or to possibly be an assistant to any active IA agents. When making your need application feel free to post this application using your amended answers, since that's not the lacking part here.

And one more thing, we do apologize for the lengthy process and assure you that next time will be much shorter.

Application Denied.