[Denied] Rataca's - Vaurca application

[Guest]

BYOND Key:Rataca6060

Character Names:Oscar Tennant

Species you are applying to play: Vaurca

What color do you plan on making your first alien character (Dionaea & IPCs exempt):RGB 101, 0, 0 (what ever that translated into text means)

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes, will be going to it when i need clarification on things as well

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Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph format. One paragraph minimum per question

Why do you wish to play this specific race: The hive mind dynamic seems more appealing to me than the other dynamics going from a human character and the species itself doesn't seem to be as common as the other ones while playing and i would like to explore the RP around the different hives and how people respond to the species. Ontop of the fact i like insectoid things anyway. I also quite like the thought of playing a humanoid space insect.

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human: Apart from the fact they are space insects which opeate in hives with a different society and biology etc. The bound would be mindless drones who have to obey orders and are specialized into one role. The unbound would be more human like due to not being labatomised and having more free will but still highly specialized into one role and spend time/have spend time in VR. Both are also usually (heavily) augmented to specialize them more. They also cannot communicate in common well.

 

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Character Name: Za'Akaix'Tek' Zo'Ra

Please provide a short backstory for this character, approximately 2 paragraphs

Za'Akaix'Tek' Zo'Ra was born to the glorious Ta'Akaix'Zoleth'akeh Zo'ra brood (luckily) destined to become a unbound warrior. After the 6 month initial maturing process the neural socket was implanted and thus the year long education on how to be a warrior for the brood began, along with the culture and ideology of the brood.

Being further specialized into small arms, (offensive) engineering* and Combat intelligence (collection) Za'Akaix'Tek' Zo'Ra has become interested in how humans conduct themselves and more specifically warfare and security. Hoping to improve his and the hives knowledge int he subject. Upon being sent to NT to explore how they conduct themselves in such a manner he was trained in [expunged] to get the basic knowledge required of company rules and regulations and how to conduct himself in the capacity of their security forces. Being relatively unused to being on the bottom of the command structer and outside of VR, he will have to deal with the restrictions both cause.

What do you like about this character? That he has been brought up by a militant brood and wishes to serve it by studying how other species conduct warfare

How would you rate your role-playing ability? Im all right, i can do objective role playing better than passive. So i can RP as a security officer doing patrols etc than i can just being a assistant talking to people. Im pretty sure i could play as something pretty focused on just doing their job with some variation. I can avoid being completely out of the setting.

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Notes: I dont fully understand how to write a backstory for this species and i am also not very good at creative writing anyway, i will be happy to buff it out more if its needed and to answer any questions etc. I have also on and off played Aurora and SS13 for some period of time and havent done a application for a species in some time. * Being more orinteered in how to breach rooms, overcome defences and create them than say building tunnels for practical use or fixing electronics etc.

Edited April 18, 2018 by Guest

[JamOfBoy]

There are a couple things, so I'll start from the top.

1. You say both Unbound and Bound vaurcae alike are heavily augmented, but this isn't the case. Unbound tend to keep their natural physiology, as this makes them more versatile.

Unbound however will never undergo such severe augmentation. The great limitation of such heavy modification is that it eliminates versatility, the entire purpose of the Unbound caste.

While Unbound can and do have augmented aspects, the most common being vocal augmenters to help them communicate, they are never heavy.

2. Bound. They aren't 100% mindless machines, they're lobotomized and conditioned tools. True, they obey orders without question, but as long as such doesn't deviate from their duty as stated by the hive queen.

3. Ceti Basic. Most vaurcae are hit and miss with this - they either speak it decently enough or they call pens ink cylinders and fingers touch-stumps. I'm sure you understand this, but your wording makes it sound as though all vaurcae struggle.

4. Backstory. It's... sort of empty. It doesn't convey a character. They're an Unbound warrior in the warrior brood - whats unique about them, compared to the others? Do they prefer close combat, or range-based weaponry? What motivates your character, why are they working here? Could it potentially be the famine that the Queen Of Warfare's brood is suffering from? Or were they inspired by the warriors of old they saw in VR, and wanted to claim their own glory? What combat training did your character receive in VR? Does your character share the warmongering ideals and philosophies of their brood's queen? And so on.

One thing to mention is...

Za'Akaix'Ta' Zo'Ra escaped being culled

Which is an error. The wiki states...

nearly all the bound warrior forms have been culled

...and your character is Unbound. Only Bound are being culled.

The rest is petty, but I'll say some anyway:

The "ra" in Zo'ra doesn't need to be capitalised.

You have "Ta'" as your name. This is very close to Ta, as in breeder. I'm sure you can do better, and I can already think of some names just by replacing the apostrophe. Is that apostrophe even supposed to be there?

So, considering this, I'll have to leave a -1.

Your app conveys a brief grasp of vaurca lore, but I'm sure you know more inside your mind. Unfortunately, it's not much use in there right now. With a little bit of work, you can pull it off. If you'd like to ask me any questions specifically, or anything like that, you can message me over Discord (@jamofboy) or the forums.

[Guest]

There are a couple things, so I'll start from the top.

1. You say both Unbound and Bound vaurcae alike are heavily augmented, but this isn't the case. Unbound tend to keep their natural physiology, as this makes them more versatile.

Unbound however will never undergo such severe augmentation. The great limitation of such heavy modification is that it eliminates versatility, the entire purpose of the Unbound caste.

While Unbound can and do have augmented aspects, the most common being vocal augmenters to help them communicate, they are never heavy.

4. Backstory. It's... sort of empty. It doesn't convey a character. They're an Unbound warrior in the warrior brood - whats unique about them, compared to the others? Do they prefer close combat, or range-based weaponry? What motivates your character, why are they working here? Could it potentially be the famine that the Queen Of Warfare's brood is suffering from? Or were they inspired by the warriors of old they saw in VR, and wanted to claim their own glory? What combat training did your character receive in VR? Does your character share the warmongering ideals and philosophies of their brood's queen? And so on.

One thing to mention is...

Za'Akaix'Ta' Zo'Ra escaped being culled

Which is an error. The wiki states...

nearly all the bound warrior forms have been culled

...and your character is Unbound. Only Bound are being culled.

The rest is petty, but I'll say some anyway:

The "ra" in Zo'ra doesn't need to be capitalised.

You have "Ta'" as your name. This is very close to Ta, as in breeder. I'm sure you can do better, and I can already think of some names just by replacing the apostrophe. Is that apostrophe even supposed to be there?

So, considering this, I'll have to leave a -1.

Your app conveys a brief grasp of vaurca lore, but I'm sure you know more inside your mind. Unfortunately, it's not much use in there right now. With a little bit of work, you can pull it off. If you'd like to ask me any questions specifically, or anything like that, you can message me over Discord (@jamofboy) or the forums.

 

First one is fair, worded it vaguly. Same with the other 3. 2: I am so-so buffing the back story a little. 3 I presumed since i was a unbound warrior they might have been subject to to minor culling at least.

4 I realsied it was close to breeder after i wrote it in and its at least in the name section of the name. (i dont fully understand the naming system) I coped the Role, bound/unbound status and hive off the wiki, so any grammar errors are form me not realizing it wrong or not correcting them. somone elses app had a apostrophe there i belive.

Thanks for the reply.

[Guest]

Addendum, changed characters name.

[Bygonehero]

It's a good start, but I think we can expand a bit more on their backstory. If you could, try to think of what your Vaurcas training would consist of. Za are specialized to be mentally prepared for combat, unlike workers, and their jobs typically involve a weapon of some kind. Many things can be considered weapons, such as information, computer programming, etc, so a generally trained Za is unlikely. Try to specialize your Za, it doesn't need to be a grunt, but if it is one, try to think about what kind of training a direct fighter would undertake. Unbound Za who are frontline fighters would likely be in charge of a group of bound warriors.

Try to think more about your characters motivations during this, and if you wanted to really go the extra mile, try to think of their lives in the real world. The real world that the Zo'ra hive finds itself in is a panoply of bad and worse situations. How would your character see its situation? What would your character do to overcome their or their hives situations? As Jam said, you could write about a famine, and how its affected your character and those around your character.

Additionally, it really really helps me when you get feedback, keep on advertising in the round for feedback!

[Guest]

It's a good start, but I think we can expand a bit more on their backstory. If you could, try to think of what your Vaurcas training would consist of. Za are specialized to be mentally prepared for combat, unlike workers, and their jobs typically involve a weapon of some kind. Many things can be considered weapons, such as information, computer programming, etc, so a generally trained Za is unlikely. Try to specialize your Za, it doesn't need to be a grunt, but if it is one, try to think about what kind of training a direct fighter would undertake. Unbound Za who are frontline fighters would likely be in charge of a group of bound warriors.

Try to think more about your characters motivations during this, and if you wanted to really go the extra mile, try to think of their lives in the real world. The real world that the Zo'ra hive finds itself in is a panoply of bad and worse situations. How would your character see its situation? What would your character do to overcome their or their hives situations? As Jam said, you could write about a famine, and how its affected your character and those around your character.

Additionally, it really really helps me when you get feedback, keep on advertising in the round for feedback!

 

I shall edit some more in the morning.

[Bygonehero]

You are on the right track and have given your character an interest. The human history of warfare is rich with detail, these details can be recreated perfectly in VR simulations. What if your Za was part of a recreation of a famous human battle? How surreal would it be to see a Vaurca attempt warfare in a recreation of D-day,Gettysburg, Stalingrad, Midway, or going further back to the First Crusade, or Battle of Cannae. To be clear, you don't need to edit your original post with this, these are just some ideas to help you develop your character, you need to understand their motivations, and a prompt like this would definitely help you out. As it is, you still need a bit more detail about your character, and as always keep on asking for feedback!

[Guest]

Further backstory, to extent on military interest.

Za'Akaix'Tek' Zo'ra has taken a adamant interest in guerilla warfare/insurgency's in relation to humanity and to a lesser extent other species and as such plans to peruse a security career with NT. The security position would open him up to learn about the threats against stations from irregular (and to a lesser degree) regular factions alongside generic human training in such affairs, how they defend their stations, train their staff, how they conduct intelligence gathering, what threats they have etc.

(to be added to the current backstory, i can flesh this out more if needed as a motive to specifically go with NT security)

[Bygonehero]

I'm having difficulty seeing your character beyond an objective base. I get that Vaurca are indeed extremely objective focused, being born for a duty to the hive, but unbound are still people. What I am trying to get at is that your character as it is written would be no different than any other character that someone else decided to make. Look at the outline,

Za Unbound 1111 is born

Za Unbound 1111 assigned to train for combat

Za Unbound 1111 assigned to work security for Nanotrasen

Za Unbound 1111 arrives on NSS Aurora

What I am looking from you is a way to make the character your own, as it is now, you are detailing them working for Nanotrasen. What I was suggesting before is that you insert a subjective viewpoint into your stories outline, something like above could look like...

Za Unbound 1111 is born -objective

Za Unbound 1111 assigned to train for combat by emulating human battles. (How did he train, what did he do?)-objective

Za Unbound 1111 develops a fondness for human history-subjective

Za Unbound 1111 is removed from Virtual Reality before training is complete-subjective

Za Unbound 1111 realizes training outside Virtual Reality, indeed the real world in general sucks.-subjective

Za Unbound 1111 nearly starves, as their broods food stores dwindle.-subjective

Za Unbound 1111 volunteers to work, (Why did they decide to volunteer, as a way to escape their situation or for their hive?)-subjective

Za Unbound 1111 is assessed to be fit for Nanotrasens security programme. -objective

Za Unbound 1111 begins cadetship.-objective.

Simply put, you need to expand beyond simply listing what your character did, and explain more about why and how they are doing it. Why they do what they do. Why did your character choose to study insurgent behaviors? What did they experience that created this interest? How did they train themselves to study human behaviors?

[Guest]

I will write the new backstory when i get time to concentrate and write it.

[Bygonehero]

Excellent, I've tagged your application and await your post. Please let me or someone else know if you need help with anything or if you have a lore question!

[Bygonehero]

Application declined due to inactivity. Please feel free to reapply.