[Accepted]Simon's Tajara white list application

BYOND Key: Simon_the_Miner

Character Names: Tex Newhert, Mason Newhert, Lewis Click

Species you are applying to play: Tajara

What color do you plan on making your first alien character (Dionaea & IPCs exempt): Cream as seen in the Njarir'Akhran group of the Tajara species

Have you read our lore section's page on this species?: Yes

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 Tajara seem like an interesting species that would provide a great experience while roleplaying on the station for both myself and those that I will be rping with. People playing Tajara on the station have always been interesting for me to interact with, and I would like to be able to participate in getting to play a Tajaran. Overall I feel like it would allow for an even better experience than the already good ones I've had on the Aurora station

Identify what makes role-playing this species different than role-playing a Human:

The Tajara have some difficulty with some of the human languages due to the different structures of their mouth and some due to there bodies. Most speak about themselves in the third person unless in the presence of someone they are very close to or on the occasional slip up due to constant exposure to human staff aboard the Aurora. They have a tendency to roll their R's in human speech. Most names are either derived from Russian or Arabic due to them being the easiest for the Tajaran and humans to both pronounce, due to normal Tajaran names being very difficult for other species. They do not handle the heat very well while being very cold resistant. On a personal level Tajarans can be fairly loyal to one another, however this loyalty does not expand out as much towards humans do to how much humans have negatively effected the Tajarans in the past. While Niki will have had his claws filed down in order to allow him to work on robotics, most have sharp claws that will hurt more than a humans punch and they can see better than one in the dark. Filed down claws are something that is done reluctantly. Racism is still seem to a greater degree in Tajaran than in humans.

Character Name: Nikit Vasili

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

Nikit Vasili grew up in a small mining town neither close or far from a major city, as it was possible to buy a bus ticket to the closest one at a steep price and a several hour drive. His family was one the only supplier in town for tools and gear to be used in the mines that was not over priced or extremely low quality. Due to the fact that Nikit's home town was known close to rich metal deposits Nanotrasen Corp had several representatives in town to "over watch" the towns production and protect them from attacks from the Adhomai Liberation Army. Due to the attacks often taking the lives of both soldiers and civilians, Nikit saw the leaders of the Adhomai Liberation Army as the equivalent of gang bosses and scum, and the soldiers of the Adhomai Liberation Army as terrible people. Due to the fact that the Liberation Army wants to remove humanity from Adhomai, Nikit finds them to be foolish. Propaganda from the People's Republic of Adhomai taught him that Adhomai would collapse into chaos if the humans were banned from Adhomai at a young age. This instilled the idea that the Liberation Army was nothing better than foolish thugs and greedy crime lords looking to prosper through wrongdoings towards innocent Tajarans, and the only thing protecting him is the cooperation between the humans and the Peoples Repubic of Adhomai. This idea began to fade around the age of 9, however at age 10 Nikit was injured when a shell from artillery hit his home nearly killing his father. He recovered with a slight limp in his left leg and a new hatred for the ALA which was nothing more than a horrible gang in his mind; his father has a scar across his back from it. The primary reason he grew a strong hatred for the ALA was the permanent limp he got became a reason he was teased by other Tajarans his age, as well as his father nearly dying due to shells they fired.

Around his early teens Nikit began to show an interest in robotics when he began to tinker with, take apart, and repair the few and rare power tools that his family owned for use in the mines. He got better over time and around age 16 and was able to fix a broken power tool faster than anyone else in his town, often times wasting less materials when he attempted to repair the old tools since they had become the highlight of his day. At age 18 he spoke to the Nanotrasen reps in his town who had noted his experience in repairing and maintaining power tools. They offered to give him a scholarship if he could reassemble an already completely taken apart power drill in working condition within half an hour. A week after he was able to reassemble the drill within the half hour he was given a letter stating that he had been awarded a scholarship to a Nanotrasen approved college or university provided it was related to machines. Nikit chose to get a formal education in robotic engineering and shortly left his home town. Nikit did extremely well due to his hard work and dedication to studying during 8 years of education as to avoid wasting his scholarship. In order to help pay off some of the student debts owed to Nanotrasen Corp he chose to work on the aurora station at a reduced pay rate. He is currently 27 years old.

What do you like about this character?

I like the opportunities for some unique rp moments that comes with a discomfort around security, either working with at the bare minimum to simply spend as little time with them, or avoiding them all together. I also feel that he will be hard working and might even bond with some of the borgs aboard the aurora station.

How would you rate your role-playing ability? I believe my roleplaying ability is very skilled aside from the occasional/rare misspelling.

Notes:

Gonna have to -1 this for now. The backstory essentially ignores the most important part of Tajaran backstory, that being the civil war, you're required to have that as a major aspect of your application characters backstory. I don't like that he, at the age of sixteen, invented a bunch of mining robots that could replace workers with zero actual training. You totally skipped his college years too, does nothing happen except him studying during those years? Where did he go to college? It would also be nice if you changed the 'RP differences' to be more than 'kitty talk different.' I'd reconsider the -1 if some of these issues are addressed.

Gonna have to -1 this for now. The backstory essentially ignores the most important part of Tajaran backstory, that being the civil war, you're required to have that as a major aspect of your application characters backstory. I don't like that he, at the age of sixteen, invented a bunch of mining robots that could replace workers with zero actual training. You totally skipped his college years too, does nothing happen except him studying during those years? Where did he go to college? It would also be nice if you changed the 'RP differences' to be more than 'kitty talk different.' I'd reconsider the -1 if some of these issues are addressed.

I believe I have fixed those issues, thank you for letting me know about them.

I'll definitely change my stance to neutral now. The application is decent, however I've never seen you ingame and can't really judge your roleplaying ability.

I'll be reviewing this tomorrow.

Sorry for being a day late.

Checking playtime, you're no slouch. You're definitely active on the server, so that's good.

Onto the application itself.

The Tajara have some difficulty with some of the human languages due to the different structures of their mouth and some due to there bodies. Most speak about themselves in the third person unless in the presence of someone they are very close to or on the occasional slip up due to constant exposure to human staff aboard the Aurora. They have a tendency to roll their R's in human speech. Most names are either derived from Russian or Arabic due to them being the easiest for the Tajaran and humans to both pronounce, due to normal Tajaran names being very difficult for other species. They do not handle the heat very well while being very cold resistant. Tajara are very loyal to one another, especially those who follow S'rand'marr, and betrayal is highly frowned upon by their peers. While Niki will have had his claws filed down in order to allow him to work on robotics, most have sharp claws that will hurt more than a humans punch and they can see better than one in the dark. Filed down claws are something that is done reluctantly. Racism is still seem to a greater degree in Tajaran than in humans.

This had me going to the wiki and hitting control+f. It's not copy-pasted, but most of the sentences in here read very wiki-like. What I mean to say is that it isn't a very insightful section, but the only issue I might take here is "Tajara are very loyal to one another." It's really not an accurate statement, not even among those who follow S'rand'marr, considering how over 100 million Tajara have been killed in the past century- all Tajara on Tajara conflicts. I guess I can concede though that, on the average Joe Tajara level, the average Tajara would be more likely to grant clemency and band together with a rando Tajara rather than an alien which most feel exploits their race. So if that's what we're getting at here, I can shiggy diggy it. Better the dumb Zhan miner down the street than the weird anime watching bald-bodies.

Nikit Vasili grew up in a small mining town neither close or far from a major city, as it was possible to buy a bus ticket to the closest one at a steep price and a several hour drive. His family was one the only supplier in town for tools and gear to be used in the mines that was not over priced or extremely low quality. Due to the fact that Nikit's home town was known close to rich metal deposits Nanotrasen Corp had several representatives in town to "over watch" the towns production and protect them from attacks from the Adhomai Liberation Army. Due to the attacks often taking the lives of both soldiers and civilians, Nikit saw the leaders of the Adhomai Liberation Army as the equivalent of gang bosses and scum, and the soldiers themselves as terrible people. Due to the fact that the Liberation Army wants to remove humanity from Adhomai Nikit finds them to be foolish. At age 10 Nikit was injured when a shell from artillery hit his home nearly killing his father. He recovered with a slight limp in his left leg and his father has a scar across his back from it.

The impression I get here is that Nikit has bought into the PRA propaganda, which makes sense if he grew up in a more or less NT controlled town. Considering the PRA soldiers would be defending the town from what he saw as attackers, I can understand why. It's not really explained why he thinks that the fact that the ALA wants to remove humanity from Adhomai foolish though, I would love for this to be expanded on. My only other piece to add is that it's not very clear which soldiers he finds terrible people. The ALA's or PRA's? The only soldiers previously mentioned were the PRA soldiers, is he saying ALA leaders are gang bosses and scum and their soldiers are terrible people, or is it saying he hates the PRA and ALA? Normally I would assume the former, but a lot of applicants opt to push for centrism.

Around his early teens Nikit began to show an interest in robotics when he first began to try and build automated tools to do the mining for the workers. While most did not work as well as a normal tool due to lack of time efficiency or cost effectiveness, he got better over time and around age 16 he made prototype blueprints for a relatively simple robot for mining in dangerous conditions. While most what he did actually make were generally homemade power tools, they were improvements for the cost of his town and the mining. At age 18 his parents decided to strike a deal with the local Nanotrasen Corp reps, providing free tools to the miners to allow for lowered prices of the resources mined in exchange for a scholarship for Nikit to get a formal education in robotic engineering. Nikit did extremely well due to his hard work and dedication to studying during 8 years of education as to avoid wasting the opportunity provided by his parents. In order to help pay off some of the student debts owed to Nanotrasen Corp he chose to work on the aurora station at a reduced pay rate. He is currently 27 years old.

I dunno how I feel about a teenager designing power tools and robotics to replace pickaxes. I really feel like, in the context of this story, NT could've easily have just done that themselves if they really wanted it and cut out the middle-man. I feel like a better rewriting of this section would be something more along the lines of he took an interest to maintaining the rarer power tools , and the experience and knowledge he gained there helped him land a scholarship with NT- rather than a scenario where a kid revolutionizes his town and makes a personal deal with the biggest corporation in the galaxy. The section just needs more grounding, since the way it currently is places it kind of up in the clouds. Anyways, from there getting an formal education in robotic engineering and then going off to work on Aurora at reduced pay to fend off his Student debt is A-okay.

I'm interested to hear your response.

I'm interested to hear your response.

This had me going to the wiki and hitting control+f. It's not copy-pasted, but most of the sentences in here read very wiki-like. What I mean to say is that it isn't a very insightful section, but the only issue I might take here is "Tajara are very loyal to one another." It's really not an accurate statement, not even among those who follow S'rand'marr, considering how over 100 million Tajara have been killed in the past century- all Tajara on Tajara conflicts. I guess I can concede though that, on the average Joe Tajara level, the average Tajara would be more likely to grant clemency and band together with a rando Tajara rather than an alien which most feel exploits their race. So if that's what we're getting at here, I can shiggy diggy it. Better the dumb Zhan miner down the street than the weird anime watching bald-bodies.

I will keep these things in mind and will address them later today once I get home, would you rather I edit the original or copy past a new one and post it as a comment? Is there anything you would like me to address with this section aside from the loyalty part or is this ok?

As for the ALA opinion I will touch that up to add more hatred for them, and will tone down the power tools to merely maintaining them instead of building them so as you said; not revolutionizing his town and then making a deal with NT, but merely getting a scholarship/admission to college.

I'm interested to hear your response.

 

This had me going to the wiki and hitting control+f. It's not copy-pasted, but most of the sentences in here read very wiki-like. What I mean to say is that it isn't a very insightful section, but the only issue I might take here is "Tajara are very loyal to one another." It's really not an accurate statement, not even among those who follow S'rand'marr, considering how over 100 million Tajara have been killed in the past century- all Tajara on Tajara conflicts. I guess I can concede though that, on the average Joe Tajara level, the average Tajara would be more likely to grant clemency and band together with a rando Tajara rather than an alien which most feel exploits their race. So if that's what we're getting at here, I can shiggy diggy it. Better the dumb Zhan miner down the street than the weird anime watching bald-bodies.

I will keep these things in mind and will address them later today once I get home, would you rather I edit the original or copy past a new one and post it as a comment? Is there anything you would like me to address with this section aside from the loyalty part or is this ok?

As for the ALA opinion I will touch that up to add more hatred for them, and will tone down the power tools to merely maintaining them instead of building them so as you said; not revolutionizing his town and then making a deal with NT, but merely getting a scholarship/admission to college.

Ah, just go ahead and edit your current application. There's no reason to make a brand new one.

I'm interested to hear your response.

 

This had me going to the wiki and hitting control+f. It's not copy-pasted, but most of the sentences in here read very wiki-like. What I mean to say is that it isn't a very insightful section, but the only issue I might take here is "Tajara are very loyal to one another." It's really not an accurate statement, not even among those who follow S'rand'marr, considering how over 100 million Tajara have been killed in the past century- all Tajara on Tajara conflicts. I guess I can concede though that, on the average Joe Tajara level, the average Tajara would be more likely to grant clemency and band together with a rando Tajara rather than an alien which most feel exploits their race. So if that's what we're getting at here, I can shiggy diggy it. Better the dumb Zhan miner down the street than the weird anime watching bald-bodies.

I will keep these things in mind and will address them later today once I get home, would you rather I edit the original or copy past a new one and post it as a comment? Is there anything you would like me to address with this section aside from the loyalty part or is this ok?

As for the ALA opinion I will touch that up to add more hatred for them, and will tone down the power tools to merely maintaining them instead of building them so as you said; not revolutionizing his town and then making a deal with NT, but merely getting a scholarship/admission to college.

 

Ah, just go ahead and edit your current application. There's no reason to make a brand new one.

Alright, Since it has gotten late by the time I have seen this post I will work on it as soon as I am able to tomorrow. Please let me know if you want me to change anything besides the loyalty part in the section you said was close to the wiki.

Ah, just go ahead and edit your current application. There's no reason to make a brand new one.

I have updated the application, if there is anything else I can fix let me know, and thank you for giving me the chance to fix my application!

Sorry for the wait! I got carried up with the pre-Easter and Easter rushes at work. I'm off tomorrow and will be giving my final review then.

Sorry for the wait! I got carried up with the pre-Easter and Easter rushes at work. I'm off tomorrow and will be giving my final review then.

I'm eager to see what the verdict is and I hope you enjoyed your Easter (and that your work wasn't too stressful)!

I think it's a strong improvement! The form of the writing isn't the very best, but it communicates everything clearly and properly demonstrates the important themes of Tajara which I look for. Tnthusiasm to roleplay as the race is also clearly present. I think this is good enough for a whitelist.

Application accepted.