MoondancerPony's Head of Staff Whitelist Application

[MoondancerPony]

BYOND key: MoondancerPony

Character names: Tanya Robinson, Ferrin Sytes, Monica Huntington, Robert Huntington, Ryann Ford, Susan Ford, Susanna Callisto, Lysander, Hadley Bishop, Assister, ResearchMate 2459, HI-A 2238, Abigail Smith, Sunshine, Gaea/Blaire Baker, Maxwell Turner

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How long have you been playing on Aurora?: Since about July of 2016, so about 14-15 months.

Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: It's been over a year now, and despite having several characters that are command-oriented, I've yet to apply for a Command whitelist.

Why did you come to Aurora?: It was the first SS13 server I played after learning about the game, and the lore and medium-to-high roleplay made me stay. (Also, I'm staff now. Huh.) The community is also great, despite how diverse players' opinions, beliefs and backgrounds are.

Have you read the Aurora wiki on the head roles and qualifications you plan on playing?: Yes.

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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: Roleplay is, essentially, stepping into someone else's shoes for a moment, even though that person doesn't actually exist. It's about acting appropriately to the character, developing meaningful friendships (or enemies), relations and interactions between characters, and creating a narrative involving your character.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: Heads of staff have a huge responsibility of driving the round. In rounds with antagonists, they serve as the crew's leadership in dealing with whatever is happening, and in extended rounds they keep the shift interesting and under control. They also serve as an example of roleplay, character design, and behaviour. If a player is new to the server, then should help them acclimate, both in-character and via LOOC/OOC, for things that need to be explained OOCly (such as UI interactions, 'click this' or 'use this verb').

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: Whitelisted players are supposed to be the example of an ideal player (or at least close to it). They need to be well-behaved both in and out of character, and on and off server. They have to be respectful and understanding, and not doing this could possibly lead to a warning, whitelist strip or ban. Players should strive to be the same quality as players with head of staff whitelists, and whitelisted players should strive to be an example to those who, perhaps, aren't quite there yet.

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

Character name: Ferrin Sytes

Character age: 33

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

Ferrin Sytes was born on Biesel in 2426, to a middle-class family in Homewood (District 5 of Mendell City). Her parents were employed by NanoTrasen as researchers following the discovery of phoron in the Romanovich cloud, and encouraged her to pursue a career in science. Despite some initial struggles regarding her abrasiveness, she eventually entered a program for gifted students and excelled in her classes, specifically physics and biology, and eventually got a merit scholarship to the South Selene University of Biomedical Science, where she got a BSc in biology and a Masters in genetics.

However, the Second Great Depression hit her family hard when she was a few years into her PhD in xenobiology, and she had to balance a job, taking care of her aging parents, and schooling. Eventually, her parents passed within a few weeks of each other, and she took a year off of her schooling to deal with it. When she returned to schooling, the academic landscape had changed drastically following the creation of state-of-the-art research stations such as the NSS Aurora I in the Romanovich cloud, and she struggled to find a place. When she eventually got her PhD, she had about a year to get used to the status quo before the discovery of 'slimes' shook the field, and she was hired to the NSS Exodus.

While working on the Exodus, she suffered an accident in Xenobiology, was cloned, and subsequently transferred to telescience until she could transfer back to the Xenobiology department. Approximately a year passed, during which the Exodus was decommissioned and she was reassigned to the NSS Redemption for xenobiology research, before she felt ready to go to the NSS Aurora and take a leadership role.

What do you like about this character?:

While having a diverse range of skills, she's not too strong in any of them. Her skill in Xenobiology is tempered by her unwillingness to work with slimes, and for ethical (and practical) reasons she can't do genetics experiments on the Aurora. However, this doesn't mean she can't apply her knowledge; she has plenty of theoretical knowledge, as well as the ability to instruct and help others.

What do you dislike about this character?:

I feel like I'm unable to characterise her properly in the way I picture her in my head. She either comes across as too casual or too rude, instead of striking the balance of formality and bluntness reminiscent of, say, Susan Calvin from Isaac Asimov's stories (which is what I'm aiming for).

What do you think makes this character fit to be a head of staff?:

Ferrin is knowledgeable in her fields and has plenty of academic experience, as well as experience working under others. She understands the chain of command, as well as the responsibilities of the Research Director aboard the NSS Aurora. Additionally, while she may be abrasive sometimes, she's never caustic or rude; at most, I try to make her truthful but blunt. However, that's not to say she's tactless; she acts professional in professional situations, especially when dealing with superiors.

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Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions.

How would you rate your own roleplaying?: This question isn't one I particularly enjoy answering in applications, but I'll try my best. I've come a long way, but I definitely have room to improve. I'd say that, out of ten, I have a solid seven and a half.

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Extra notes: I've been delaying this for far too long.

[Synnono]

Happily endorsing this. While Moondancer's individual characters can occasionally set some people off, there are few people here who construct them with the same level of care and attention to detail that this player uses. They are also a longtime member of the community who is aware of the expectations of staff and players, and I think they will do their best to meet them. Ferrin the character will also probably do just fine in a leadership role, from what I've seen of her over the past year.

A question for the applicant: Why is Ferrin deciding that now is the time to lead the department? She can occasionally feel closed to other people, which may have an impact on her ability to lead. What appeals to her about taking the Director's role, when her interests have previously been more narrow?

[MoondancerPony]

A question for the applicant: Why is Ferrin deciding that now is the time to lead the department? She can occasionally feel closed to other people, which may have an impact on her ability to lead. What appeals to her about taking the Director's role, when her interests have previously been more narrow?

Part of this is an out-of-character shift in how I want to play Ferrin. She wasn't true to her character when I played her as incredibly reclusive and acerbic, so I decided to change that.

But there's also an in-character aspect. Given the increasing use of machines and robots in research, for telescience calculations as well as xenobiology. She's worried that if she doesn't expand her skillset and influence she'll be made obsolete and forgotten, which to her is the worst thing that could happen to her. One way to prevent that is to have a Command position, where she can teach others while also adding to her own knowledge.

Another in-character reason: given debt and various other things, she's not doing too well financially. Her interests in a Command position aren't entirely altruistic; she could really use the pay increase.

[AmoryBlaine]

I'm a big fan of Moon's characters, and I think that they entirely have the ability to take the position of Director. They are good with RP, and I cannot recall any instances of their presence in the brig. I would wholly like to see Moon play as a Director of RnD.

[Zundy]

Character wise I enjoy interacting with Robert Huntington as Mellis and player wise Moon seems pretty cool. The app seems solid as far as I can see and from what I can recall OOC IG Moon knows what their doing and, to echo the points above, is aware of the expectations of staff and players.

+1 from me.

[Azande]

I won't lie, we don't seem to get along OOCly and I don't really like you (I'm sure I could if you'd stop arguing with me in OOC)

But your characters are well put together, including the ones I don't like. I enjoy your new scientist. +1

[Scheveningen]

No issues here. Accepting.