[Accepted] Munks' Head of Staff (IAA) Whitelist Application

[Munks]

BYOND key: Munks

Character names: Izzsi Saeed, Ss’rite Ketriss

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How long have you been playing on Aurora?: Some months to a year at most, I got my first whitelist in March of last year

Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: Interest in trying out new roles, particularly with Internal Affairs Agent and Head of Personnel due to their relative focus on roleplay compared to roles such as CE, CMO, HoS

Why did you come to Aurora?: I was interested in playing a server that actually enforced some standard for roleplay and in-character activity. Previously I had frequented lowRP settings where there was a vague sense of playing a character but limitations on playing a feasible character (self-preservation, realistic IC knowledge as opposed to characters mastering entire departments, and some sort of professional responsibility) were characteristics I had missed. When I started looking for higher roleplay solutions I was referred to Aurora by a friend.

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:

Roleplaying is adopting a persona to participate within a hypothetical, fictional setting, forming a collective overall story through your own participation combined with the actions of those you’re interacting with. It is important on a server such as this to put effort into considering your character as an individual entity, taking into consideration their own loyalties, obligations, wants, needs, and so on, as well as factoring these in to influence the decisions you make through this character. These may not necessarily need to coalesce with those of the person playing the character: for example, while a player may wish to board the shuttle at the end of the round because this counts as “surviving” in an out-of-character perspective, from an in-character perspective they may have professional obligations such as providing medical assistance, assisting in repairs, or processing a criminal. It is vital to roleplay that one learns to separate what is satisfying to them as a player and what is satisfying to their character as its own entity, and learn to balance the two – just as it might not be as satisfying to let a fleeing criminal in maintenance get away when you could easily give chase and kill them on the spot, it might not be satisfying to others, and the story as a whole, if you abandon a heavily injured character whom the criminal attacked in order to chase after and kill them. No one is expected to completely eschew their own satisfaction, but it’s within the spirit of roleplay to allow the story to continue, possibly at the expense of your character or your own sense of personal satisfaction, so that a greater narrative can result.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?:

Heads of Staff, in game, provide the backbone of station functionality. Moreso than just being a standard departmental member with extra access, they are there to provide leadership and enable greater cooperation not just within their own department, but between their department and the station as a whole. In addition, though I do not believe Heads of Staff should be expected to be a god of their respective department and able to run every subdivision with their eyes closed, they should be generally competent enough to assist those under them and to ensure their department makes a basic, standard contribution to the functionality of the station as a whole: Chief Medical Officers should understand medicine enough that those in need of medical treatment retrieve it, even if they themselves can’t speedrun through every possible surgery off the top of their head; Heads of Security should understand the purpose and limitations of the different types of officers that work under them and keep them in line and working properly even if the HoS character itself is an unrobust bureaucrat, so on. In other words, though its important for the head of staff to be competent in the department they’re leading, its more important that they understand the significance of their role as a leader and lead with the proper intention and make use of the extra authority and access given to them to ensure that their department contributes properly to the round in progress. Furthermore, specifically relating to IAAs (considering thats my main interest to play currently), Agents are tasked with handling civil complaints and being a first line of defense when it comes to misconduct within the round. To me, a good Internal Affairs Agent could not only continue to further roleplay where overzealous, line-crossing behavior on the part of the crew could end an antagonists' round prematurely, but also resolve situations in a round that otherwise may have escalated to a full on IR filing or something necessitating staff involvement. Personally, I feel that most of the time it is much more beneficial to roleplay for infractions to be handled by those in the round, and IAAs play a key part in this by both assisting in resolving disputes, and when all else fails, providing for an in-character avenue of staff intervention rather than the hand of god reaching down and resolving conflicts.

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?:

In addition to being leaders in gameplay, whitelisted players hold a responsibility to other players due to the in-character authority given to them. A head of staff, depending on how they are played, can suppress the development of a character, or allow it to flourish. A poorly played head of staff can drive players away from the department (or even server), and a well-played head of staff can turn a one-off, random generated character into something that the player looks forward to returning to. There are active heads of staff that I actively avoid playing and sharing a department with if possible, because they consider the “perks” of being a head of staff to be a mere reward to be taken advantage of, rather than a tool to enable better RP and the development of those under them both as characters and players. As someone with plenty of complaints to give about many heads of staff, I can say with full confidence that I do not plan on turning around and being the same type of head of staff I am so outspoken about. Even in departments in which I am less than stellar at, if I were to end up playing, I would listen to those under me and strive to leave the round better for my participation, giving subordinates a helping hand if they need it, and distance when they don’t.

 

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

Character name: Luxo Khazarazir

Character age: 33

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

Khazarazir was born to a modest family in a coastal city within the People’s Republic of Adhomai, supportive of the war efforts even if their active participation was limited. Young and starry eyed, Luxo would spend a great deal of time at a local theater in his neighborhood, which played mostly propagandized military dramas where the People’s Republic earned victory, honor, and respect in its successful battles against the royalty and dissident factions. In particular, he fell in love with the heroic officer leading his troops in battle and securing victory through superior tactic and leadership without ever firing a single shot of their own. Though money was tight, split between multiple siblings, assistance from his parents and money scraped together through odd jobs and a laborious stint with a cargo shipping fleet based out of his city enabled him to begin pursuing higher education with the Nal’tor College of Career Excellence at the age of 20. Though what he had amassed would not be enough to fully complete his technical education, it would carry him long enough to get his foot in the door with local military recruitment who would offer to further fund his education in return for a mandatory contract with the Republican Navy upon completion.

Upon his graduation with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration from Nal’tor, Khazarazir quickly began his training with the Republican Navy, struggling but ultimately working his way through the pipeline as an officer. Now a young Lieutenant, Khazarazir was assigned to duty aboard a submarine. The very nature of the craft meant a tight crew manifest, and that meant Luxo had a small team to rely on to keep his boat supplied and even smaller room for error. Ultimately a strenuous -- but enriching -- experience, Luxo continued building his qualifications and came through unscathed, if not somewhat exhausted. Later, he would move to a larger ship, where he would be part of a larger team organizing the transport of cargo and troops to the front line. Thankfully, here he was part of a larger team, and with his hours not so lengthy as they were aboard the submarine, Khazarazir was able to begin studying for further certification within the supply field, in addition to his standard qualifications as a Naval officer.

Proceeding through his negotiated contract with the Republican Navy, Khazarazir being subject to hectic, unreliable scheduling, often inadequate supplies, and vague but alluring exposure to the corporate side of business management through his industry certification process, began to consider the possibility of continuing his career in private industry. Khazarazir remembered many of his fellow Nal’tor classmates, as well as a few of his siblings, going to work for Nanotrasen. He also knew Nanotrasen as a close collaborator with the Republican government, and thus was naturally inclined towards them as a private sector employer. Once he was at the tail end of his commission as an Officer, he began seeking out Nanotrasen recruitment personnel, and though he’d leaned initially towards work as a Quartermaster, his position as a Naval Officer and higher education opened the possibility of him being an Internal Affairs Agent, a position of higher responsibility and compensation which he happily accepted. A yearlong internship with an IAA office aboard the NSS Canes Venatici, primarily spent fetching coffee and sorting mail, resulted in his acceptance as an Internal Affairs Agent proper, initially assigned to the NSS Aurora.

What do you like about this character?:

I enjoyed writing this app due to the opportunity to look into real-world work experience for Naval supply officers, and to put what I learned into building a reasonably down-to-earth military background for Luxo that explains how he got to where he is, and why he looked towards Nanotrasen as an employer due to the promise of a higher quality of life standard than his previous tenure with the Republican Navy. I believe the pursuit of better living is realistic and down to earth for a character but still open-ended enough to leave its execution open for roleplay.

What do you dislike about this character?:

This is a new character written for this app, so I haven’t has much experience with it to be able to say I actually dislike something about it. However, as far as downsides to his personality go, the intention is that his background as a military officer combines with the influence of his loyalty implant to make him somewhat distant and cold, though still ultimately professional and well-intentioned.

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

His experience in the Republican Navy, though very trying, was intended to set a believable starting point for his career with Nanotrasen. Though he’s inexperienced in corporate life, just as I am inexperienced with head gameplay, his knowledge of the subject matter is still there and he has all the underlying knowledge and experience required to perform well with Internal Affairs, especially after his internship prepared him for the different style of busywork and corporate politics present in the industry.

 

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Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions.

How would you rate your own roleplaying?: When I wrote my last application, I acknowledged that my roleplaying was average at best. I’m hesitant to say more than that about myself, however I nonetheless believe I have progressed greatly since then. Since then, I have turned my focus away from Security gameplay, which has been a great help to improving my roleplaying on the server as I had much more time to sit down and interact with people playing medical, and no longer instinctively viewed those interacting with me through the lens of potential antagonist, as since I began playing Medical I largely stopped caring about whether or not someone was an antag in general. I believe I am ready to take up Head of Staff responsibility.

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Extra notes:

Luxo Khazarazir previous existed for a very short time on the station, so he may be present in my stats already. Playing him a few times on station, his general idea was similar to how he is presented here. He was not played much and I don’t believe anyone would even remember his earlier conception, so I chose to sort of retcon his previous work aboard the station and further develop his career history as well as his current position with Nanotrasen, going from history in supply worker and Quartermaster-hopeful to a much older business manager and IA-hopeful.

Thanks for reading.

[Fire and Glory]

Just dropping in to say I would like for you to work on your OOC demeanor if you intend to be a head of staff, whitelisted players do not need to be nice all the time but most of my memories of you OOCly have you come off as wrapped in sandpaper.

Looking through your recent forum posts you seem to be more courteous of late so perhaps you are working on it already, but those are my two cents at any rate.

[Munks]

I appreciate the feedback and I'm glad this was brought up first because I'm sure my past behavior is going to be the biggest obstacle to getting this accepted. I'm not unaware of the reputation I've built among some and I'm confident that I've made headway in this regard and will prove as much should my app be accepted.

[MattAtlas]

I have to agree with Fire and Glory, your past OOC attitude is your biggest obstacle here. Your application is great and the character you put forward is obviously well built, and I really like your answers. Other than that, I'm sure you can play an IAA effectively, with what I've seen of your characters.

Overall, it's a +1 from me if you're already working on your OOC attitude. Good luck with the whitelist.

[Worthy]

It's already been mentioned, but I'll have to repeat it. Your attitude is sometimes pretty ehhhhh, most of the times you say shit I can agree with, but just bring it in such a tactless manner which makes you appear really abrasive sometimes. It has gotten better, however, and I don't think it'll be too much of an issue, especially if you're continuing to improve on your OOC conduct.

Mild bashing aside, I like your characters, you take RP seriously and your characters are realistic because of it, which is an important trait to have when being a head whitelistee. Because of this seriousness I think you'll be more than capable of being any head of staff, not just an IAA agent.

So yes, I'll throw in my support here, I don't think you'll be a bad addition to the pool of command members.

+1.

[Kaed]

I was asked to weigh in on this. So let's see what I can find to say about this.

It's a well-written application. It certainly seems like he took the time to write out well thought replies to the inquiries.

I think munks is capable of being a head. I don't see any particular reason why he shouldn't get whitelisted.

But, stop playing disgusting cat beasts all the time. You have a perfectly working unathi whitelist, use it. Come back from the Dark Side.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Guest

[climax708]

Hi Munks,

I had the pleasant experience of roleplaying in the same department as Izzsi Saeed. I play medical frequently.

From what I've seen you're doing a great job making a believable EMT/Paramedic. I have absolutely no issues with the way you carry yourself IC, and OOC.

Even though you're primarily focused on internal affairs, I'm sincerely looking forward to seeing you as a CMO sometimes.

+1.

[Kappa]

Hello,

I really liked to roleplay with you, sometimes in the same department (Izzsi Saeed), but usually while we were on different departments. I'm really interested on how you could play other roles (since I've only seen you as Paramedic)

+1

[The Stryker]

Munks has some extremely realistic characters and just this app alone tells me that this is gonna be another realistic character. As for RP, they do it really well.

Their OOC conduct isn't so bad compared to some of the salt we get.

I'm looking forward to this character, but given the situations IAA gets, I'm worried this is gonna turn into another hanged cat beast.

+1.

[MattAtlas]

Application accepted.