Ancient Language: An Additional Job for Librarians

[Veterankyl]

When it comes to the ancient secrets of the universe, there aren't many people you can turn to for help. The chaplain has his godly magic, but knows next to nothing outside of his domain of work. Wizards... well, you're lucky if the worst that happens to you is you get turned into a corgi when you meet one. So who should you turn to when you come across some ancient artifact or book? How about the guy that has access to all the knowledge? The idea behind this to give the Librarian a minor duty that they can perform in their spare time. It's not mandatory, and can feed into RP with the mechanics you have to deal with to 'discover the secrets of the universe'.

Ancient Items:

At the start of the round, randomly spawned books, artifacts, and containers will appear. They'll rarely show up on the station, and more commonly be seen in space ruins and Lavaland. These 'ancient artifacts' are a bit similar in mechanics to strange objects, in which their exact use is unknown until studied. However, unlike strange objects which you just toss into the EXPERIMENTER to learn their use immediately, these artifacts take a bit more work. They'll vary in appearance depending on the possible results from unlocking them, giving you a hint as to what it may be.

Decoding:

In order to unlock or activate the artifact, you need to either do something specific with the item, or solve a puzzle of some kind. Before that though, you need to translate the inscription on the artifact. At the start of the round, a few different Ancient Languages will be randomly created. For simplicity, they'll be the normal alphabet scrambled in a random order or made up of numbers matching certain letters. The first step is to determine what language the artifact has on it. To help you, you can print out a 'Translation Text: (Ancient Language Name)' from the library computer. It'll take a bit of trial and error testing out the different languages, but you may be able to narrow it down depending on if letters or numbers are used. Once you figure out what language it is, you use your translation text to figure out what the message on the artifact is. After translating the message on the artifact, you will then have to do one of two things.

The Word of Truth:

The first possibility is a riddle or puzzle. The answer will usually be one word for simplicity, and must be spoken aloud. However, simply saying the word in Galactic Common won't work. you'll need to reverse translate the the word into the ancient language, and THEN say it to unlock it. If it is an especially rare artifact, you may even need to have the word spoken in the language of a certain species. Have fun trying to find a Kidan to speak the code word in Ancient Chittin. To prevent cheating, the artifact won't react to synthesized voices, such as the AI, borgs, or pAIs. Once you get the word spoken, the artifact will react and reveal it's true form.

Fire Will Reveal the Truth:

The second way an artifact will be revealed is though subjecting it to a certain stimulus. These can be anything from 'The secret will show when exposed to flame', to something like 'The artifact is awoken by the screams of a dozen people'. With those two as examples, you would have to either expose the artifact to fire, or get a dozen people to scream near the artifact. This has a lot of RP potential to it as you will have to often recruit people from around the station to help you unlock the artifact. Once the proper stimulus is used, the artifact will activate and reveal its purpose.

Unlocking True Power:

So you got a Vulp to swear in Canilunzt, or you got a miner to toss it in lava. The artifact is now unlocked! What did you get? The thing that is revealed is dependent on the type of artifact that you found. There are three different categories, each with their own table of potential items.

• Items: This artifact takes on the appearance of a rust and dirt covered... thingy. It's hard to say what it is, only that it's some sort of useable item. This can potentially be rare weapons like wizard staffs, cult clothes and weapons, alien tools, or even stuff that has been lost to history (return of removed items?). Or you could reveal a trombone.  I mean... it's not the worst thing you can find.
• Ancient Text: These books are old, dusty, and full of cool secrets. Of course, whoever wrote it didn't want their secrets to be discoverd so easily, so the nature and use of the book is locked and hidden till the proper trigger is used. This book can potentially be one of several things. You have a chance of getting a single use wizard spell, such as the Recall spell. Great for those DnD games where you need to recall the d20 that jerk keeps throwing across the room. You may get a book that has a complete translation of a language, allowing you to instantly learn and speak it. The book may hold secret information that may be of value to others, such as which gene is linked to a certain genetic power. Worst case scenario, you uncover a generic book that a miner accidentally left on Lavaland.
• Ancient Container: This is the lootbox of ancient times. This box could potentially contain anything! It draws from both the book and item artifact table, and if you're really lucky, may actually contain multiple items. They're a bit harder to crack than the item or book artifact, but tend to have better rewards to make it worth the effort. However, with reward comes risks. The container has the potential to house something bad, like vampire bats or a gas trap that poisons you. And don't think about simply trying to break the container open. Doing so will destroy the contents.

 

So that's my pitch for a new librarian/library mechanic. I'm aware that something like this would probably take a ton of coding, and I'm not expecting it to be something that's accepted. Still, it's fun to theorize about possible new mechanics. I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions on how this can be altered or improved.

[Esha Nas]

Can it be? The Librarian update that also kicks science and mining into action? It can be!

[Veterankyl]

Potentially so. This would promote a lot of cross department work. The entire process could look something like this.

• Mining finds and artifact on Lavaland, the mechanic brings something in from space, or an assistant finds one in maintenance.
• The artifact is brought to the librarian to translate.
• The librarian determines what is needed to unlock the artifact.
• The librarian gives the artifact to the relevant department or organizes several people together to unlock the artifact.
• The artifact is unlocked! It can then be put on display, given to a specific department to help them, or use by an antag.

[Reyblood]

100% Agreed. The process should have some comeback such as an small explosion enough to blow limbs in case the librarian himself does something wrong, or some poisoning, Redspace stuff.

Also the spells or artifacts should have minor utilities, like a super cleaning mop for janitor, or a talisman that increases the effectivity of healing items on others. It'd be interesting if most of the items contributed to all the station himself. Would give the librarian more stuff to do, achieve good small results that make practical difference.

 

10/10 idea, if i was headmin i'd approve

[SteelSlayer]

I totally like the idea of giving useful and interesting stuff for the librarian to do, and I wonder what the headmins/maints would think of this.

[Shina]

I really like the idea, since librarian is a job that's very lacking. I guess the only negative thing about it would be the unreliable nature of getting things to do. If nobody brings you an item to study there will still be nothing to do (not more than now) and, beside maint diving, you'd have no way on getting your hands on them except if you leave the station. Then again, I like the idea of a possible librarian-mechanic cooperation, where the librarian travels space to find artifacts and further his knowledge. Either way, it sounds fun.

[Drakeven]

Honestly, I really like this idea too. There's been a lot of ideas for what librarian needs to spice the roll up, and I think this is on the list of GOOD ones. Unfortunately it's a matter of, it won't get done unless someone codes it... So. Wanna learn how to code?

[Veterankyl]

Ironically, I'm actually looking into learning coding. Thing is, I'll be starting pretty much from scratch. I'll probably need a few tutorials to watch and some time to learn the code.

[Veterankyl]

In the mean time, I might make a quick write up on the unlocking mechanics, loot, and examples of languages. If you got questions, feel free to ask.

Edited November 23, 2019 by Veterankyl

[Teabaggy]

Loving this idea!

It would be great for more of the currently 'RP-only' jobs to have something to do beyond sit around and talk to people. This would also cause interaction with other departments rather than just having the librarian sit around at his desk and never do anything.

[BryanR]

On 11/22/2019 at 7:55 PM, Veterankyl said:

Ironically, I'm actually looking into learning coding. Thing is, I'll be starting pretty much from scratch. I'll probably need a few tutorials to watch and some time to learn the code.

Start with something smaller, like adding items or fixing small bugs in the game. Build up to a project like this that will require a great deal of work to make it from scratch. That way you'll get experience in learning to code and finding out what the maintainers and coders we have on staff look for in PRs.

Then when the time comes and you've gained experience, you can pitch your idea to the Heads and Maints, who by then would have a better idea on your ability and how well you work which works better in your favor to make a larger project a reality.