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First Name: Chikitita Last Name: N/A Gender: Genderless, presents Female Pronouns: she/her Nicknames/Alias: Chiki, of Coffee and Love, Based Coffee Vox, Chickentita, Chicky, Bar Leech, MMI Medium, Chi, Chickentenders, Briki, Voxromancer, Medbay Mascot, CHIKI2TA, ChikititaVox39, Freak of Nature, Wiggly Worm, XENO, Birdie, "Kikeri", Chikorita, the Mad Nurse, Lizard Lady, Narcoleptic Bird Doctor Species: Vox Primalis Blood Type: B+ Height: 3'5", 104 cm Weight: 72 lbs, 32.66 kg Eye Color: Magenta Picture/s: Nanotrasen Issued ID (base by angelictactics) Age/D.O.B: ~27 years, unknown date of creation, documented as the first of January, 2541. Place Of "Birth": Arkship "Survivor of The Fighting Winds of the Star Due North, Bastion to New Ways and Efficient Production" or "Fighting-Winds" Alignment: Lawful Neutral Very dutiful to the shoal, strong enforcer of the inviolate among vox on the station. Her sense of justice is entirely tied to the vox Inviolate. Affiliation: Employed by Nanotrasen. Loyal to shoal. On the Raan-Kirkland-Anide family Spacemas card list. Religious Beliefs: No organized religion, but very superstitious to the point of obsessive paranoia. Also practices almost heretical dedication to vox rules and customs. "Childhood": As a vox, she doesn't have a proper childhood, but she spent her younger years of this host body on a raiding skipjack carelessly learning the skills of a medic through trial and error. After tragedy struck and the rest of her crew were apprehended, she made a very narrow escape by hiding. Seeing her friends carried away never to be seen again through the slits of the locker she was hiding in instilled a tremendous amount of guilt in her, and from then on she resolved to never leave a vox behind again. She laid low for a couple of years afterwards and decided to take the skills she learned on the skipjack to the next level and became a licensed nurse at 20. She was given a full ride to Croxas's Academy of Medicine- the only vox in her graduating class, as part of an alien outreach program. Her arkship suspiciously approved her attendance on the heels of her previous failures, and she hasn't returned to Fighting-Winds since. During her final year of nursing school, her caffeine addiction careened into organ failure, and her heart and kidneys were replaced with cybernetics as a result. Adulthood: After graduation, she tried desperately to get a job at a hospital, but no professional establishments were willing to take a vox nurse seriously, especially with her poor grasp on galactic common. At 21, she took up a contract with Nanotrasen treating patients in the medbay, because the money was good and other vox seemed to thrive there. She now considers most of the crew on the NSS Cyberiad to be her friends, and can't bring herself to leave them even if she wanted to. She appreciates the "respect" and attention from a job well done. Some crew have complimented her skills as a bartender, which she accredits to "being a party girl in nursing school." She swears she was cool. She loves her position in medbay, and has many regular patients she looks forward to seeing (despite the fact that them being in medbay usually indicates something bad has happened). Even if offered in a desperate situation, she will never fill the role of Chief Medical Officer. She feels guilty having others answer to her, especially because of how foreign it is for a primalis to take on such a role. Seeing vox primalis in command positions feels like a slap in the face to the shoal to her, and she struggles to see real authority in them. She has a constant twitch that can't be good for a doctor, but manages it well and doesn't struggle to treat because of it. While suspicious about the fact that her arkship keeps her so far away, she will become defensive and vehemently deny being an exile when asked about her employment situation. She considers her contract honorable, even if it doesn't all add up to her. Currently, she receives 20% of her paycheck for necessities, and the rest of the Nanotrasen shares go to her arkship. She lives on a small station of vox dorms, full of vox primalis sourced from various arkships that need a place to stay for contract work. (pictured top right) "Supernatural" Experiences: Detailed Information Appearance: Stands at about 3'5", a perfectly average height for vox, with uncommon but not unusual greenish blue coloring. Her eyes are a bright pinkish red, and she has her quills styled into a short purplish-red mohawk (whether its her natural quill color is unknown). Her blue sweater is a constant, and it looks old and worn. Rarely spotted without her nurse hat. Character Voice: Loud. She likes to sing, and considers herself musically talented. She is not. Attached is a video from bar karaoke night. chikilowqual.mp4 Personality: In her youth she was more carefree, but losing loved ones because of her actions has made her less selfish. Still, she tends to lose focus a lot, and her curiosity leads her to make very poor decisions sometimes. She hates to lose patients, as most doctors do, but seeing one of her kin die can drive her into hysterics, and she will desperately attempt to bring them to health until something pries her away, even if it is futile. She takes patients dying in her care very personally, and frequently blames herself for their passing. She's developed a more anxious demeanor as she continues to work for Nanotrasen, being subjected to experiences that cause her to be paranoid and distrusting. She fidgets frequently with her nitrogen tank, and you can often find her pacing medbay and talking to herself in her native pidgin. She loathes having to fight, but does what is necessary to survive and protect the ones she cares about if it comes down to it. She feels responsible for the safety of younger vox on-station, and she can get obsessive if she sees them acting carelessly and putting themselves in harms way. For reasons she doesn't completely understand, she finds herself almost instinctively drawn to aiding injured vox. On several occasions she has had to be physically torn away from lost causes. She could never forgive herself if a young first-body vox perished while she was on-station. Once vain and proud of her mohawk when she began working at Nanotrasen, she now cares little about her physical appearance and takes rather poor care of herself- with stray quills lining the shape of her mohawk and dark circles underneath her cybernetic eyes. Character Biography Background: A vox who spends most of her time in medbay as a somewhat respectable nurse. If not in medbay, she is likely drinking a soy latte or getting herself into dangerous situations she doesn't need to be in. Look for her in medbay, the bar, or wherever there are problems. Family: None officially. Because of her lack of real family, she used to believe herself to be expendable. Idunn Raan and her family have taken her under their wing in recent years, and though it's hard for her to admit she appreciates the support and companionship. She's spent weekends sleeping on their family room couch, and 19 year old Tidal Kirkland sets up low-viewership videogame streams for her to star in online. Tidal manages most of Chiki's social media for her, as she isn't the galaxy's most technologically literate. She has a sister-like bond with an engineering vox from another station, Kikeri. Having taught Chikitita to value herself, she's the biggest presence pushing her to take care of herself and not lose herself to her work. While their friendship has had a few rough patches, they've been there for each other through unimaginable circumstances and would both give anything to keep their friend safe. Chikitita allows a runaway vox primalis, Tachaka, to sleep in her dorms to keep him from taking up residence in garbage cans. While she doesn't support running away from your arkship, she hopes she can convince him to return and make amends someday. While the concept of vox having real family is still shaky to her, Kikeri, Takoyakika, and Tachaka have all helped her to value herself and be more considerate of her life's value and she would easily lay down her life for them. History: Reset after 605 years of life for unknown reasons and stored until the year 2464. Her stack as far as she knows is near 97 years old, with 3 iterations currently. Historically speaking, lifespans tend to be cut short. Brought back earlier than most recovered stacks because of a decline in population on Fighting-Winds. Iterations: Other Information - Her usual drink order is two rum bottles filled with soy latte. She claims to like the aftertaste - Enjoys drask remakes of classic films - Secret stoner - Will rarely say no to ultra-lube Faction Relations Allied | Love | Like | Neutral | Dislike | Hate | Enemy Nanotrasen - Dislike. You scare me. Fine. But yer not breaking me. Syndicate - Enemy. A mutual hatred. At least I'll be missed when it finally comes. SolGov - Neutral. No substantial interactions. Shoal - Allied, Love. Anything for the shoal. The inviolate is my duty, even if I.. don't live on Fighting-Winds right now. I miss home.. Personal Relations

Name: Jean REGULIER Age: 29 Gender: Male Race: Caucasian. Place of birth: Mourmellon-le-Grand, Champagne, France, Earth Height: 185 cm Blood Type: A+ Hair: Light brown Eyes: Steel blue Body markings: None. Religious beliefs: Christian, Space Protestant General Occupational Role(s): Medical Doctor, all Medical roles Security Officer, all Security roles Appreance Jean's appreance is vivid, and his posture is notably good - apart from his English, which is, well, you have to bear with it. Happen you to note him aboard the Cyberiad, it is almost certain he is smiling, even during those situtions in which space has happened the most. * * * Mugshot: Art by @Norstead Biography On Jean's papers you find out that he has quite a record for his age. On the other hand, there are only the work and degree records, not much else on ink. Work records doesn't tell much about a person as themselves - they just caricature them to wear uniforms, out of which you have to guess what is moving inside their head by why they have liked that and that kind of work. Well, concerning Jean, the grey, bulk, NanoTransen-marked crew record folder you are now holding on your hands does draw Jean in a number of different jobs. Opening it, you see four smaller folders inside it, sorted by date issued. The first one is an university degree. Text is French Common by language: Jean had attended the theological faculty of the university of Paris, by years 2552-2554, achieving the degree of licence on Space Protestant theology. You notice, though, that the university seal on the degree certificate looks bit odd... printed? However, rumors say that Jean could, if initiaded, talk about all the cool grammar issues of ancient Latin, Greek and Hebrew, along with space Protestant theology, until the poor boy to initiate that gets a violent SSD attack. So for your cortical health, better not to be asking him the details of his theological studies. The next document - few papers on a plastic sheet - states: Legion d'Etrangere d'Espace. So Jean was a legionnaire. If you check his appreance another time, he is not only a smiling being, he does have a certain posture aswell. That's what you get with full five-year contract with the kepi-blanc. Yes, they use those even in space marine service, if the caporal-chef is up for it; attached to their EVA head gear. If the chef's not, then only the standard-issue green beret is required, in all circumstancies. Sure it was here, where Jean learned the habit to call all his superiors "chef", for the annoyance of those Galactic Common speakers who are not so into the art of making food. Jean's final rank in the Legion was the caporal-chef. So says the 'carte d'identite militaire' as attached. The service record adds that he had specialist training aswell. Namely, on transmissions of cavalry branch units, both basic and tactical. "Well that does explain the relative lack of robust, as we are talking here of an ex-legionnaire claimed?", you note to self when reading that. Signals are for nerds. Nerds are for signals. Apparently his service went well, anyway. Off Jean got in 2559. A visible remainder of this phase in Jean's life, besides his firm appreance and chef-talk as mentioned, is his apparent fondness of beret-style headwear. Then there is the passport. Oui! Standard issue of Space France, dated to 2557, all good-looking and not-suspicious. Something you note, though, is that the passport is the only actual identifaction document Jean's papers do provide, apart from that military ID. No information on family, relatives, no medical records apart of those by NAS Trurl -based officials, nothing to give away where Jean is actually from and where he had spent his youth, before the legionnaire service. The passport states Jean birth as "France". Jean's NanoTransen mugshot does explicate it as Mourmellon-le-Grand in Champagne. As Jean's favourite philophical quota puts it - "Somebody does piss on you, too" (it was a graffiti above an urinal somewhere back in Earth) - who knows, which parts of all the stories are just nice and honking bullshit? Fourth small folder, and the last one not issued by NAS Trurl-based NT officials, are two papers in one light-blue vouche. The vouche looks like quite new; it carries the traditional UN symbol and the heading "SOLGOV". The first paper inside there is again a military service record. This time it is from the SolGov Solar Rapid Deployment Force. It states Jean as a junior combat medical officer, with a rank of lieutenant 2nd class. The date Jean got that promotion is just one month before the date of the service was terminated. The another paper may explain this: it is medical doctor's degree, namely a licence on doctoring. Jean was studying medical science at a SolGov-funded program on Earth, this time in Finland, which trained junior medical officers to military units stationed to outer Solar space. Apparently Jean was not satisfied on the terms of SolGov military service, as he had exit the Force before really being in the service. So here we come to the last record to mention: Crew Record, NanoTransen, Epsilon Eridani Sector. Namely, the catalog of this crew record folder as whole. Guess the SolGov officials was not that happy of Jean leaving the medical officer service so quick, guess there is something not so honky on Jean's personal life, guess there is something behind his uncertain origins - now he is here, in this sector, behind Space Jesus' back, anytime ready to be assigned aboard the main Nanotransen scientific asset on the area, the NSS Cyberiad. In the crew record catalogue you can find a number of shift assigment orders from hands of few Cyberiad Heads of Personnel. That indicates that Jean has been working quite nerdlike since he had arrived to the sector. Not that long ago, you note, too. According to these, all offices of the Medical and Security department had been held by Jean for several times. Even he managed to survive the Gateway! Well, only one serious assigment this says, could be just luck... and oh, what is this fancy-coloured paper with smileys on it? "NAS Trurl G7: Crew Welfare Command Assigment, Employee: 'Le Honk'..." oh, there is a stamp of SECRET visible on the edge, better not to be issued with this!" Commendations [only to be added by admin]: Reprimands [only to be added by admin]: Other Notes: - Ze French-way broken Galactic common Jean speaks has the frequent ze-sounds from the back of mouth, contrary to the German style of the cutting "Z" from the teeth. Imagine an all-drunk French gentleman saying "send", zsend. Yet, if you try Jean with the French Common, that may lead you to some questions concerning his said background. All around you could still say, that at least he acts like a French, loves the French like a French, and eat baguette, nutella and couscous royale just like a French. - Jean has picked up a habit of smoking Robust during his service in the Cyberiad. Doesn't it tell bit of him being jealous of those hard-robust dudes Jean has met (and the obvious results of those meetings)? - Happy to be friendly for everyone, Jean especially loves to do his work in co-operation with others. The favourite Cyberiad-based war story he recites by the bar-desk of the "Harmbaton", concerns one of his first assigments of Detective, having a Vox mime called Voidling as his companion. It is hard to decide, which part of that story is the most exaggeriting one: Jean not being a nerd, but robust, a mime being a Vox and a member of the Security, or the uncertain but big number of Syndicate space punks the dynamic duo were to reveal for the greater praise of Nanotransen?

I like the detailed backstory. A very fun read

Wanted to try a couple of different perspectives. Basically I wanted to have one sketch of Cecilia at a high angle and another from a low angle. My idea was to make it look like she was being reflected in something like a pond or a window, but I'm not quite sure I got the angle right for that. It turns out you can gank one of the deadliest megafauna in the game by just swarming it with killer tomatoes. I admit I've sort of shelved Kirsten as a character (as it so happens, she shares a name with a server regular who's been around for longer so I prefer to avoid confusion), though I still like her design. Edit: Since this, I've elected to compromise with a name change. During a particularly slow round, the librarian swapped out the 'Space Law' book in the brig lobby with a satirically awful Star Wars fanfiction that had been retitled as 'Space Law'. Again, it was a very dull shift up to that point so everyone in security had a good laugh about it. Slaughterdemon. Laughterdemon. I sort of messed up with the blood splash pattern. Initially I'd drawn the bright-red puddle, but then added the darker tone which I thought looked a bit more convincingly like blood splatters, but I couldn't be bothered to blend the two together. Something interesting I've noticed is that antag roles and security both manage to feel like an uphill battle to the person playing them. I think it's because as an antag, the player only needs to consider success or failure in terms of their own individual experience while players in security tend to view 'success' and 'failure' as something that's measured across the entire department and shift. And some miscellaneous tabletop stuff:

i just personally dont see people relying on brigphys very often it at all. its a mixed bag, you never know if the brig phys upgraded his bay or not. and most people with major injuries wont go to brigbay only to find out he has no supplies or equipment to help you. you die. Everyone just defaults to medbay due to the fact they are expected to be always prepared (also medbay antags intentionally killing off patients is also extremely rare) Most of the time i see brigphys doing work on someone is healing prisoners and installing implants to sec. maybe quick sleeper to inject healing and "off you go". I wont deny that the brigbay meta exists, of course it does. Meta exists with everything. (like robotics adding a protolathe and autolathe, engineering getting an autolathe, cargo adding conveyors, etc). People enjoy upgrading. The perhaps most important thing with brigphys is checking prisoners for implants - medbay is a very long way out, and usually sec doesn't have time to babysit treking through the whole station (and have clown and greytiders make issues all the way through), and then explain everything to a doctor (and then explain 5 more times because they're bald) and waiting for procedures to complete and come back.

So, this is a short comic I did for @Cazdon in the style of my 'Adventures of Skrek' Vox comic. It features Torque, the unfortunate IPC, who was EMP'd again...and again... and again. All by different antags. It was something he had asked me to do quite a long time ago, and I finally got to doing it, which I'm glad I did because he's pretty darn amazing. I've never been good with comics, I've only done a few before, but I feel that if I'm going to be improving as an artist, this is something I need to get better at. Cazdon has been wonderfully supportive and amazing as well. You all have been, gosh. It's nice to know that while I peruse art I've got you nerds to root me on. It's something that consistently warms my heart. I'm such a lucky person to have friends like you all. To explain the comic a bit more, the first page features Torque coming across two changelings in turbine. They were unhappy about witnesses to their crimeful sins. So, EMP screech it is. Second page? An experience I'm sure many IPCs can understand. Revenants doing what they do best... Third is an over enthusiastic cult member, who, rather than going for the lights picks the more EMP flavored option... And the fourth? Well. The forth is special. I'd very much recommend checking out this video, which dives into the secret and very sinister nature of Spacenet tm and their crimes. Thanks to Simplecities (A.K.A the dreaded Dayana) for putting it together. It's pretty darn impressive.

Either you're in this situation, or someone you know is currently in this situation outlined in the title. I've seen it often enough that I wanted to make a super short, step-by-step guide to try and help these new players. Let's waste no more time. Step 0: If you ABSOLUTELY NEVER WANT TO LEARN CULT EVER AHelp, and ask to have your role offered to ghosts. Yeah it sucks that you've been suddenly pulled from the round, but if you have no interest in playing cult whatsoever, you should at least let someone from DChat have fun. Step 1: PICK UP THE TOME. If you're lucky, you've just been teleported to a fancy cult base, slammed on a rune and made a cultist. If you're unlucky you've been slammed on a rune hidden in plain sight and turned into a cultist. Either way, take a look around. You should see a tome like one of these... GRAB IT! It's your most important item. Even if you think it belongs to someone else, it doesn't. It's yours. They can make another if they have to. Step 2: COMMUNICATE. You've been given access to a powerful, magic radio. Say hello! But be careful! Non-cultists can hear you whisper, don't talk when you're near them. Ask what needs doing, and what's been done. The cult will need more members. Maybe you're robust, and want to snatch other players yourself. Maybe you just want to help the cult in general. Either way, you need to communicate with your fellow acolytes. Now that you have an objective... Step 3: DRAW A RUNE. Use the tome in your hands, and choose to scribe a rune. You should see a big intimidating list. There's a LOT of options here. For just starting out, you want to know 3 RUNES, we'll start with Teleport Rune. If you're in a base there should already be a teleport rune, its how you got here after all. You can click on these while standing on them, to teleport to any other Teleport Runes. Pretty much everyone should be placing these in secret areas on station. These often get found out by security so keep placing new ones. The next rune you should worry about when starting out is The Rite of Enlightenment. This rune is how people are turned into cultists. The important thing to notice the rune requires TWO cultists to activate. Meaning, if you want to cult someone, you're going to need a buddy. Likewise, if you see a fellow acolyte dragging a non-believer onto a rune, stand next to the rune. Just keep your eyes open. Step 3.5: THE RITE OF BINDING - The 3rd and final rune you should worry about is The Rite of Binding rune. Rite of Binding lets you create Talismans from paper. By placing a piece of paper onto a Rite of Binding, you can create any of the Talismans shown above. Outside the tome, Talismans are the most commonly used, and useful of the cult items, so learn how to make them! Find paper bins, click and drag them onto your sprite, throw down a rune in a secure location and get to writing! Now what Talismans are good to make...? Step 4: GET SOME TALISMANS! Every cultist should be carrying at least a few Talismans on them. They are very strong, and your main tools for reacting to situations, as drawing runes is too slow in many cases. There are 3 Talismans you should make and keep on you pretty much all the time. Talisman of teleport. Talisman of stunning. Talisman of shackling. A very basic cult load-out. The stun and cuff talismans are a cultists bread-and-butter for getting new members, and capturing security officers. The teleport talisman is great for a quick escape if you see a security coming. These are only the basics! There's a lot more Talismans to be played with. Step 5: LEARN MORE! Ask questions of your fellow cultists. Use the MHelp feature. Read the wiki. Cult has a TON of options available to them. I made this guide to detail the absolute basics so a fresh, mid-round cultists knows the bare-bones. The vast amount of options for cultists is completely overwhelming to new members. Every robust cultist has been in that same situation, so don't feel embarrassed or frustrated about it. Learn to convert other cultists Try out some of the fancier cult items like Unholy Water or a Veil Shifter. Try out some of the more utility runes like Rite of Spectral Manifestation (DChat's favorite) and Rite of Joined Souls to rescue fellow cultists from security. Look into more Talismans like the Talisman of Arming and the Talisman of Construction It will take a few cult rounds, but if you keep at it, you can one day become ROBUST and put on an amazing show for the observers.

Foreword: Knowing BB Code is not so much a bonus as it is a requirement. So, you've decided to fax Central Command and hope for the best. Well then, here are some pointers on how to do so properly. Part 1: What are faxes? Faxes are paper-based communications sent from any fax machine on the station to either another fax machine or Central Command. You write on a piece of paper, stick it into a fax machine, select your desired destination, and BAM! You're done. They are usually reserved for official communiqués, be they CoC orders, departmental audits, staff complaints or even demotion/arrest orders. For the purpose of this guide, we're assuming you are faxing Central Command. For starters, here's where you can find a fax machine: Any Head of Staff Office, including the Head of Personnel and Captain; The NanoTrasen Representative's office; The Magistrate's office; The Internal Affairs office In addition, only members of Command and the IAAs can actually use the fax machines. Everyone else is locked out of them by default. As you can see, access to them is quite limited, and it should. Faxes carry with them a heavy aura of authority and finality, and a well written fax can make or break someone's entire shift. The sole exception to this level of access would be the fax machine in the IA office, which often sees more interdepartmental activity. However, you want to know how to properly fax Central Command. Well, it's time for a little OOC note. Every fax you send to Central Command is seen by Administrators, ranked Game Admin or above. These faxes are listed in the Fax Panel, along with the title, time it was sent, the person who sent it, and a nifty little "Reply" button. We can also see interdepartmental faxes, but those are beyond our jurisdiction. As such, when you fax Central Command, you are faxing the Administrators, and when you receive a response from Central Command, that's our word in it. What does this mean ICly, however? Well, Central Command (or the NAS Trurl if you want to be technical about it) is the main hub of activity that the NSS Cyberiad (the station you're on) is associated with. They handle several other stations in the systems around them, and handle all the administrative burden associated with that (NAS stands for NanoTrasen Administrative Station). When you fax Central Command, you are essentially calling upon the highest IC authority you can muster. It's the equivalent of someone in the US faxing Barack Obama (or whoever's President when you read this). Central Command's decision on something is final, and should be treated as such. Central Command communications, as was noted already, can make or break someone's entire shift. Comdoms can be demoted, great people can be promoted, and even Karma jobs can be circumvented if so required/desired. Whenever there's a stalemate in Command, Central Command faxes break it. Whenever the Magistrate is being ignored for no good reason, Central Command shouts louder. Whenever the Representative finds a severe breach of SOP, Central Command raises their eyebrow. What I'm trying to get across here is that Central Command is not a toy, nor a tool, and should not be treated as such. "I'ma fax CC" should never be used as a threat, and demanding things from CC should not (normally) be done. But more on that later. For now... Part 2: The Title Yes, this is important enough to warrant its own section. The title you give your fax is the first thing we look at when we open the Fax Panel, and appears on our chat box whenever you send a fax over to Central Command. Here's a couple of things that should not be in your fax's title: paper; all lowercase letters; CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL; Incredibly winding, pointless diatribes that seek to explain everything that could possibly be explained but just end up being ignored because of how text parsing works; "FUCKING SHTICURITY!!!" or any variation thereof; butts You get the point. Keep your fax's title as short and concise as possible, so that we can get an idea of what's going to be in there before even opening it. Part 3: Formatting Hey, remember this? Yeah. BB Code denotes everything that can be used to format your text, just like in Microsoft Word or Wordpad. A few examples: creates a neat little horizontal line that can be used to separate blocks of text; [logo] creates a NanoTrasen logo; [large] lets you shout in writing And many more. BB Code is quick to learn, if not to type, and it really adds flavour and substance to your faxes. Why is this important, you ask? Well, bluntly put, your chances of getting a proper response go up the more formatted your fax is. Remember when I said you faxing Central Command would be like a US citizen faxing Barack Obama? Well, what do you think would happen if Barack Obama received a piece of paper that wasn't signed, or stamped, and contained this message: A response, if it even existed, would most likely be them telling you to take your time to write a proper message. If you fax Central Command, it is expected that you're doing so with utmost professionalism, and that involves not sending a wall of text with absolutely no formatting whatsoever, no signature and no stamp. The importance of signatures and stamps cannot be overstated. Why? Well, Central Command is not omniscient. Even though the Administrators can see (or find out) everything going on in the round, Central Command cannot. Faxing Central Command should not be like sending an Ahelp. Do not assume that Central Command "just knows". If you send us a fax with no signature and no stamp, how are we to know someone didn't just break into your office and faxed Central? Having a piece of paper signed and stamped by you tells us that you did, indeed, send the fax (or that someone at least is really good at forgeries), and you'll actually get a proper response. As for the formatting itself, well, simply put, it's easier on the eyes, and it's prettier. Having to sit and stare at a gigantic wall of text that just keeps going without any sort of formatting whatsoever is painful, boring, and just looks sloppy. If you're taking the time to fax Central Command, take the time to make your faxes look official, and not a hastily scribbled note at the end of an exam. Part 4: The Message Now we reach the crux of the matter. What you're actually telling Central Command. Now, as stated before, faxes are supposed to be official communiqués, and are expected to be permeated with the utmost professionalism. This is because Central Command, in all their power, expects some level of sanity from the people they give fax machines to. What does this mean? Well, consider the following: you're aboard a futuristic space station that can, among other things, create physics-defying handbags, harness electrical power from a contained black hole, craft heavily armed military mechs, and have clown VS mime showdowns. Should you really be faxing Central Command to complain about Security insulting prisoners? Don't get me wrong, there are legitimate grievances to be had regarding IC behaviour. However, Central Command, being the final authority on pretty much anything, should only be contacted about important stuff and, most importantly, stuff that cannot be fixed ICly. This includes any situation where the relevant Head of Staff is ignoring SOP/Space Law and is refusing to actually address issues, forcing you to go over their head. If the situation can be handled internally, it should be. Speak to people, have reasonable discourses with them, and try and solve the situation then and there. If that fails, then get the fax machine. This goes for pretty much every complaint or investigation handled by whoever writes the fax. Central Command should only be contacted over staff complaints if: The complaint is actually valid; You have reasonable evidence backing it up; Assuming a and b, the relevant Head of Staff isn't listening to you Should all three conditions be met, a fax to Central Command would be the best course of action. If, however, the relevant Head of Staff is willing to cooperate with you, keep it internally. It adds to the overall level of RP and actually lets you do something against bad behaviour. That said, sanity please. If you complain about Security manhandling prisoners when there's an active, hostile cult on the station, it's Code Red and there's an ERT on the field, you're most likely getting ignored/slammed down hard. Context is paramount. When it comes to departmental audits or other similar investigations, having a detailed description of how every Department is doing will go miles towards grabbing attention to your message, will increase the chances of you getting a reply, and will generally make you feel incredibly useful. That said, don't go overboard and write a small novel detailing every last thing every last crewmember is doing. Keep it concise, keep it to the point, and note important details (such as a particularly good/bad crewmember) if needed. Part 5: Fax Ettiquete Oh boy, here we go. Most of this section will be OOC, and directed at the players, not the characters. First off, respect. Central Command is not a toy, nor is it a tool. Central Command is not your stick to wield, and is not your weapon for when you want to comdom around and try and pretend you have authority you do not have. Central Command is, for all intents and purposes, your boss. What I mean by this is that you shouldn't go around threatening to send faxes whenever you want to boss around people, or when you want to throw your weight around. This goes double for the IAAs and the Representative, who have no actual authority and are merely there as advisors/investigators. "I'MA GO FAX CC AND DEMOTE U" is a shitty attitude to have, and will most likely get you stonewalled by Central Command if you actually make good on your threats. Do not make demands of Central Command. Do not fax us demanding to demote someone, or to promote someone else. You may suggest doing so, amidst a well detailed report with reasonable evidence and information to back up your suggestion. But never demand it. You wouldn't walk up to your boss and yell out "I want you to fire Jenkins this instant, he smells funny!", would you? (if you answered yes, wat, just wat? Really?) As for the tone, we do not expect you to remain detached and clinical (this isn't the SCP Foundation, after all, despite what the level of gruesomeness might imply), but we expect you to remain professional and formal. Don't speak to Central Command like you would to a coworker, but rather how you would speak with a company rep, or with Internal Affairs at an actual office. You won't get slammed in the face if you talk to Central Command like a schoolyard friend, but you most certainly will receive a poignant reminder of what's expected of you. Do not keep sending the same fax over and over every few minutes in order to "bump" it. If you sent a fax that never got answered to, either the Administrators believed it wasn't worth a response, or they missed it (which is entirely possible, the fax notification on the chat box is hilariously easy to miss). A quick Ahelp fixes that, but please don't keep bwoinking us with "REPLY TO FAX PLOX" every few seconds. Lastly, and to finish off this guide on a high note, no butts. Never fax butts. It is a time honoured tradition to BSA anyone who faxes butts to Central Command, and we do so love the sound of explosions.