[Accepted] ParadoxSpace's Command (Captain!) Whitelist Application

BYOND key: ParadoxSpace

Character names:

How long have you been playing on Aurora?: Somewhere in like 2016. I have no idea, really. Been playing SS13 since August 2014.

Why do you wish to be on the whitelist?: Other collecting all the Infinity Whitelists to complete my gauntlet, I feel like my bitching and whining about command staff will only be solved by me seeing it from the inside, and maybe even learning to like Command.

Why did you come to Aurora?: Bay got pretty slow around there and Polaris became.. well. Double plus ungood. So I was on the hunt for some new HRP experiences.

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

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, to me, is multiplayer storytelling. It's the job of everyone involved to help create and drive a narrative. That narrative can vary, but it should be the goal of everyone there to make it work. Some people have different roles in the end, some people are just there to serve as a murder mystery. Some are almost the protagonist, and some bring a little bit of conflict.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?: Not only are they the senior-most member of a department, who can be looked upon for knowledge and help when things are tough, they also exist to efficiate that their department runs smooth, and that people who are throwing wrenches in the works are dealt with. Ontop of this, they have the most influence over the above roleplay narrative.

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?: Not only does every one of them willingly or unwillingly represent Command as a whole, they can also serve as a sort of reference guide for mechanical departmental questions. Nifty! I'd do my best to be a good resource as to department gameplay OOC, and to hopefully be one of the more approachable and affable command players.

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

Character name: (Lucius) Flavius Cordus

Character age: 35.

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

(Lucius) Flavius Cordus was born a week or two late, and it's perhaps because of this that their life achievements came in late as well. They were born to a relatively strict Solarian family, notably their family had very close ties to ATLAS, his father Vibius having been previously involved with GAIA. The integration into the more extreme party around the turn of the 25th century was largely provoked by a number of his father's friends having been slain by majority-Unathi raiders. By the time Flavius was born in 2425, a good number of his siblings were already voluntold into the Artemis Initiative as aspiring Guardsmen to the frontier of Sol space, and so would Flavius at eighteen. It took him until age twenty-one to have recieved the boot, his request for exoneration going deeper than planned. The young man had grown increasingly disillusioned with their barbaric acts, seeing little point in it all, having more interest in learning the culture of his enemies, and enjoying the 'finer things' the more liberal frontier had to offer. He was later exiled by the family as his reputation as a xeno-loving, promiscuous hedonist (ontop of his being the least of the litter so to say) had grown monstrous.

Having little skills besides his wit, ability with a rifle (training he would rather wash his hands of), and a degree, he had signed up into training with NanoTrasen's Security detail, the top organization in the region at the time, going on a decade-long journey (fueled through pointed regret at his origins and a sheer amount of connections) to Head of Security, succeeding around when Tau Ceti had gained independence from the Sol Alliance. Unfortunately, this was not quite enough for Flavius, and he had grown tired of being reassigned from station to station, from organizing slime slaughters on the Antlia, to ensuring the Redemption staff were up to snuff. He still did not /feel/ in charge. Luckily, he was offered a position as 'eh, cushy middle management job, they'll call you Captain, buuuut you'll probably get bored of it' on the NSS Aurora. It was his chance.

What do you like about this character?:

I like that Flavius will have a somewhat different approach than most Command staff I see. He doesn't want to have to get his hands dirty any longer (though he is far from useless), and has always preferred using his words and charisma. He is heavy on delegation, and rarely makes public appearances out in the bar or such (a heavy user of holocomms, Sheev would be proud) saving them for when grave mistakes have been made.

What do you dislike about this character?:

I dislike that Flavius will have a somewhat different approach than most characters I play. Most of my characters are used to handling things themselves, getting their hands dirty, 'say that to my face irl.' I'll have to learn to play in a completely different way, which I think will be an adventure. (alongside me learning to get over my dislike of authorities.)

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

Flavius is very intelligent, good at making plans and organizing people to solve them (in my ooc case especially if this plan is some unorthodox thing the Rebel Alliance would be doing), and despite being somewhat reclusive in his luxurious bridge most of the time, is very affable and more than willing to chat an employee's ear off or vice versa.

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions.

How would you rate your own roleplaying?: Genuinely, I always thought this question was a 'gotcha', but I'm probably about a seven. Sometimes I let my OOC feelings accidentally break character, but I like to think I'm good at putting myself in the mindset of different people. I like to take the part and believe it.

Extra notes:

If you can read this, I'm not surprised, you're supposed to read these things thoroughly y'know.

+1. Why? I think that Flavius (though I prefer the name Lucius) would be an interesting addition to the regular command characters. I've roleplayed with Paradox, and I honestly cannot recall an experience that ended in overwhelming negativity. It has always been positive, whether it be fun, funny, or character building. It's always a delight to see his characters interacting with others. Obviously, Paradox is not perfect and we've had our own personal disagreements, but we have always resolved them in a way that not only furthered our understanding of each other, but improved us as roleplayers and people, however minor. Paradox is also very vocal in his opinions, but he's actually very approachable and kind, just a bit shy. I hope he gets a command white list because I think he has genuine potential.

OOCly, I don't think Paradox and I could be more opposite with our opinions, especially regarding Unathi. I can't say I'm a fan of how he expresses them a lot of the time (But to be fair to him, that's how I feel about 70% of our players). But what he does know how to do is make good characters, and play them very well. RP-wise, my interactions with his characters has been positive every time in my memory. He absolutely knows his stuff when it comes to representing his species whitelists.

Flavius is no exception here. The story is believable but not boring, and unique without being ridiculous. I'd definitely like to see how he interacts with his team, command staff, and all the crises plaguing the Aurora. P-Dox seems to have a good grasp on what's expected of him in a command role, especially given how many species whitelists he possesses; I have no trouble believing he can uphold the standards of a command whitelist, too.

If I had to list a concern, it would be that he might have trouble serving OOCly as a sort of mentor to the departments under him, given how abrasive I feel he can get expressing frustration and opinions. But even this isn't too much of a concern to me at this time. And perhaps it's only me who feels this way about his conduct.

In the end, it's a strong +1 from me, for both a solid character idea and the abilities and knowledge to back up playing in command roles.

Paradox I have a question, maybe a few we'll see how this goes.

Now you're eeeeh conflicting, very much so and ditto about your characters they tend to be on the subversive, rebelious and law-non-abiding side.

You are a capable roleplay but you can quite literally explode when things get bad both OOC and in IC which makes me give a big think about giving you this application, the question is and answer honestly now, no empty promises to make me hear what I want to hear.

Do you think you would be able to curb your behaviour to more acceptable levels in the future or do you not see that happening?

P-Dox. Holy shit, I'm using that now.

P-Dox does tend to err on the side of being the inner rebel we all wish we had the confidence to be in terms of roleplaying characters of that caliber (he actually taught me a way to escape isolation, like holy shit, I had no idea it was fucking possible and it changes everything about security).

This is a fine character though, he DM'd me the text for review and I honestly thought it was pretty good. #reformed ATLAS member? That sounds interesting enough to me, especially since Flavius apparently joined ATLAS in the first place for an understandably personal reason.

I'm confident P-Dox will do well as a head of staff. If you can't beat them, join them.

Do you think you would be able to curb your behaviour to more acceptable levels in the future or do you not see that happening?

I'm 100% faithful that I could chill a bit, and I'm certain I could make a character that deviates from my current trend of rebels without causes. I'd have to in this case.

Do you think you would be able to curb your behaviour to more acceptable levels in the future or do you not see that happening?

 

I'm 100% faithful that I could chill a bit, and I'm certain I could make a character that deviates from my current trend of rebels without causes. I'd have to in this case.

Paradox is a good roleplayer. I do not often endorse applications, but this one has my support. I know they are a capable roleplayer and this is also a question I wanted to hear the answer to.

Alright P-Dog, I'll let you gather more feedback and trust me I will hold you by the word on this in the future.

Remember, while sometimes it may not seem like it we try to keep around heads to lead as an example, be it IC or OOC behaviour.

pee-dox is a good person and great roleplayer. I'd definitely like to see what shit they end up making with a command whitelist, and I enjoy the idea of the character he just made here, Flacidius Cockus

Peepee Deepadee is a pretty good roleplayer. They just get feisty sometimes but in pretty sure theyll be good in command.

Gonna be honest. Didn't read the application because whatever is in it probably isn't relevant to what I'm about to say.

Paradox and I have butted heads in the past, exchanged some sharp words I'm sure. But he is good at the IC stuff, character building, roleplaying - everything important for a Head of Staff.

Most notably, he reached out to me (and I'm sure others) for advice on how to play an effective Captain, and this specifically to me shows me that he is quite ready for a head of staff position as he wants to be the best he can before he's even gotten his whitelist.

Strong, strong +1.

My interactions with Paradox have been positive - I think they have a lot of good ideas in terms of characters, and I've enjoyed roleplaying with them.

I'm a fan of the character concept for Flavius. I certainly think I'd be interesting to see a captain manage 'from the shadows', only really communicating via holocomms. The whole ex-HoS thing makes me think Flavius would be fairly disciplined and serious, but from asking for more elaboration it sounds like Flavius is the kind of character who had these responsibilities forced onto him, and now as a Captain it's his opportunity to lead but in a much more relaxed environment. Mixed with his regret of his past with ATLAS, I feel this will be an interesting character that I'd like to see on the station, and he seems well-rounded with a realistic past.

+1

Trial period begins at 25.7.2018 of my time and ends at 1.8.2018.

For clarification, when a head of staff applicant is in Trial it means we encourage more feedback on their application but this time from actually BEING with them and seeing what they are like.

-1

While I've had limited direct experience with his characters in the past, the experience I have had make me come here and post on a whitelist application, which I never do.

Paradox's characters strike me as incredibly snowflakey. I have previously given them direct orders during an emergency as the Head of Security, and been told to fuck off, and actually shot at by this person, when they were not an antag. Do I have an issue with being told to fuck off? No, I get told it on a daily basis. The problem here is opening fire on a head of staff that has given you a direct order.

Moving on from that incident, I find Paradox's OOC behavior to be awful. On numerous occasions I have been personally attacked, degraded, called retarded, and generally insulted for my "awful" IC decisions. A couple of these incidents have caused OOC to be muted as a result of what is said. I do not believe that Paradox should be able to hold a command whitelist if they cannot act like a mature human being. It's not just me who gets insulted, either. It gets done to a lot of people, especially those in Command and Security, on a regular basis. If it were just memeing or the occasional complaint, it wouldn't be an issue. It's constant vitriol, and that's unacceptable for someone who holds a Command whitelist.

I find your attempts to distill my characters into mere snowflakes both obnoxious and hyperbolic. It is nearly every single one of my characters that have internal and external changes, goals, achievements, dreams and fears. I would rather you have made a complaint if these issues were so egregious rather than foul my whitelist attempt, but since I am a reasonable person, I will counter your post. Please do not let this last more than a half page, for sanity.

The first incident in which you described was myself, Faysal Al-Shennawi (as played, of course, by [mention]Alberyk[/mention]) and a couple of other Cargo staff were attempting to hold out on a code red situation (I've no recollection of why it was code red.) Faysal, the HoP at the time (a role with direct oversight over the operations and staff of Cargo), saw it fit to arm us with bolt action rifles, and whatever else we could reasonably and inexpensively get our grubby hands on. You, Marc Price, the Head of Security, then saw it fit to intrude upon our department with two other Security personnel, forcefully that is, and demand the confiscation of our self-defense equipment while the aforementioned catbeast informed you our armament was fine. When this clearly did not work out in your favor, you elected to fire stun shots and clouds of pepperspray in our general direction, attempting to handcuff one of our staff. We then made our way towards the cargo break room, and you pursued. I did, yes, tell you to 'fuck off', and I did, yes, fire a shot in your direction. We later escaped towards the pods as you branded us en masse as seditionists and mutineers.

The second round, which I'm sure you're speaking about, was a round in which we raiders demanded financial compensation (for our mesothelioma) of 10,000 credits and four canisters of phoron. While the crew, largely Willow Harper and Shane Castralo attempted to gather this, you actively worked to halt them, branding them seditionists for taking alternate methods. I say 'alternate methods' as negotiation had never crossed your mind, rather you took it upon yourself to have a firefight with myself, I believe Deathless Death, and Cassian Graves (who we later held hostage as a bargaining chip.) It is simply your tendency to use force, threats of physical violence, and endless accusations of mutiny/sedition in order to have other people kowtow to your will. Another round I have had post-round OOC salt (who doesn't salt in post-round OOC?) was a round in which you refused to listen to an ERT trooper, Special Trooper Vasili. Though I cannot recall at this time the exact circumstances of this round, I believe it ended in the revelation that Marc Price was unimplanted, and thus, everything was fine. My confusion, and frustration at that, was merely that the character should not have to be implanted in order to act in a reasonable non-antisocial fashion.

Fortunately, that is all I have to say in this space, and I look forward to engaging with you ingame.

-1

While I've had limited direct experience with his characters in the past, the experience I have had make me come here and post on a whitelist application, which I never do.

Paradox's characters strike me as incredibly snowflakey. I have previously given them direct orders during an emergency as the Head of Security, and been told to fuck off, and actually shot at by this person, when they were not an antag. Do I have an issue with being told to fuck off? No, I get told it on a daily basis. The problem here is opening fire on a head of staff that has given you a direct order.

Moving on from that incident, I find Paradox's OOC behavior to be awful. On numerous occasions I have been personally attacked, degraded, called retarded, and generally insulted for my "awful" IC decisions. A couple of these incidents have caused OOC to be muted as a result of what is said. I do not believe that Paradox should be able to hold a command whitelist if they cannot act like a mature human being. It's not just me who gets insulted, either. It gets done to a lot of people, especially those in Command and Security, on a regular basis. If it were just memeing or the occasional complaint, it wouldn't be an issue. It's constant vitriol, and that's unacceptable for someone who holds a Command whitelist.

Elaborate on snowflakey for me. What constitutes a snowflakey character?

Im confident that Paradox has the ability to hold the Head of Staff whitelist. They have been very cooperative in any situation that has come up with them and roleplay wise have proven with there attitude and demenor that they can handle it

+1

While I understand why you feel that it would be better placed to make a character complaint than commenting on your application, I feel like it might be the best place for it. He clearly did not feel it was sufficient reason to make a complaint, but that it is sufficient enough to bar you from playing as Command Staff. I feel this is appropriate - we have OOC requirements for Heads of Staff, and if someone feels your actions are in conflict with them, then I can't think of a fitter place than on your complaint.

As such, as I plan to comment on your response, I will try my hardest to relate it entirely to your duties as a Head of Staff, so this doesn't become yet another drawn-out back-and-forth thread.

You, Marc Price, the Head of Security, then saw it fit to intrude upon our department with two other Security personnel, forcefully that is, and demand the confiscation of our self-defense equipment while the aforementioned catbeast informed you our armament was fine. When this clearly did not work out in your favor, you elected to fire stun shots and clouds of pepperspray in our general direction, attempting to handcuff one of our staff. We then made our way towards the cargo break room, and you pursued. I did, yes, tell you to 'fuck off', and I did, yes, fire a shot in your direction. We later escaped towards the pods as you branded us en masse as seditionists and mutineers.

To disobey the direct order of a Head of Security is not against the rules. If you feel it's in your best interest to do so, you are not barred from disobeying. This is, optimally, an in-character decision based on in-character information and motivation.

As the Head of Security clearly did not want armaments handed out, I would question the Head of Personnel's judgement in deciding to give guns to cargo, as it is clearly in conflict with securities (perceived) best interest. That said, to obey the order of a Head of Personnel justifies your actions of arming yourself (which I am normally HUGELY opposed to OOCly, but that's a personal viewpoint).

The issue is the presentation of your character, in their abrasiveness, lent to the feeling of it being OOC motivation that inspired your character to act in such a manner. Thus, it, and everything that came from it (ie: shooting at him), was unjustified.

This relates very strongly to your Head of Staff whitelist: if he believes, based on your actions, that you have no intention of OOCly respecting the chain of command, or acting in a realistic and believable sense, then you cannot truly be trusted to act as an integral part of both the chain of command and of roleplay.

I'm tempted to agree that there is an issue here. To fire at someone, with a lethal weapon, as a non-antagonist, especially as non-security, should always be treated with the utmost significance. There is not a person alive that does not think death is a significant act. Yes, you had some form of motivation in being pepper-sprayed, but your disobeying of his orders was entirely your decision. Your telling him to fuck off was entirely your decision. Your actions were what escalated the conflict, and this is why he takes it so significantly. Further, telling your superior to fuck off is not something that I would want anyone with a head of staff whitelist doing, because it is not all that believable. Under the stress of red alert, there's further motivation, but it's not the kind of thing that ever happens in real life if someone wants to keep their job.

Thus: your actions made him feel like you attempted to undermine and drive conflict for the sake of being OOCly armed against the antagonists.

(who doesn't salt in post-round OOC?)

Staff.

A large majority of the playerbase, save for the overtly vocal minority.

The issue here is that salt in OOC intertwines IC and OOC actions. It shows unwillingness to separate characters and players, which is a huge red flag for a potential Head of Staff. Someone who can't seperate characters and players will act based on OOC motivations rather than IC ones, thus setting a poor example for their employees. It will mean that getting frustrated at someones IC actions will translate into dislike OOCly, making them less likely to interact with them, a requirement of any decent head of staff. I have seen this many times with heads of staff who, on deciding that they dislike a character or player, simply cease interacting with them, or start berating them as their superior.

The fact that you still feel it's appropriate to “salt” at the end of the round is especially unforunate because it was directed at insulting a player for their actions. This should never be done by a head of staff. It shows lack of control. You need to be in control.

Fortunately, that is all I have to say in this space, and I look forward to engaging with you ingame.

But, before I can support your application, you need to demonstrate that you can seperate IC and OOC.

This means considering how significant shooting at someone really is. How significant telling a head of security to "fuck off" is.

This means no longer insulting people in OOC because you disagree with their actions ICly (even if you believe they were driven by OOC failure, we have forums to issue calm complaints, and plenty of ways to talk with people about their decisions without being salty).

Yes, myself and Coalf have been over this, and I've readily said that I will attempt to keep myself in control in the future in OOC spaces.

I meant to post this the other day, but, I forgot.

After playing with Paradox's Captain, I have to say he's probably one of the better Captains in recent memory. I like how he doesn't show up at every arrest that ISD makes, or that he's not 24/7 breathing down the throat of everyone on station, showing up at every opportunity. Instead, he's pulling the strings from his office. Hell, he has a spine. We need Captains with a spine.

Rescind my -1, replace with +1

Application accepted.

Locking and archiving.