Vulp Lore Rewrite.

[Kevak]

 

So! Finally got around to getting things in motion for the rewrite of vulplore I said I would do a month ago. Had a fairly long brainstorm with a few people.

 

Here would be a pastebin of the chat. Warning: It is long, unorganized, and may have some parts redundantly copypasted. Will summarize later, am currently tireds.

 

Anyways. This was done on the Darkmyst IRC server under the channel of #Vulplore and hopefully additional brainstorming will happen later as well.

 

I will be saving logs and plopping them in this thread whenever I am on the irc, however if I am not online and important discussion is taking place. I request at least one of those present log the convo and pastebin it. There is a cutoff point, so make sure to not let any important bits slide past the cutoff point if you're logging~

 

Stage 1 Writeup will begin once we've gotten all the main points decided upon.

 

[Kevak]

 

Draft one is up.

 

http://pastebin.com/zfKd71Ks

 

Feel free to provide feedback. I know some parts need work and rephrasing at the minimum.

 

[Tauka Usanake]

I like it. As having a semi-brand new vulpkanin character I will use this to follow up on how she should act. A little more information about their mentality and age groups might be nice however. Just to get averages and age groups.

[Kevak]

I'll expand on those bits. As I've said before. I'm not entirely satisfied with the psychology bits.

[Shadeykins]

Make sure any lore changes are thoroughly reviewed/approved by the 'min team as they have a direct impact on the server as a whole.

[Kevak]

I intend to. This is simply the first draft.

[PrincessWilly]

 

I just thought I should inform the admin team that this content is plagiarized.

 

 

 

 

[Kevak]

There's a time and place for cyanide and happiness. Wrong video. The best option would have been the one involving the Man with the Comfortable Ass~

[PrincessWilly]

 

There's a time and place for cyanide and happiness. Wrong video. The best option would have been the one involving the Man with the Comfortable Ass~

 

Your entire article described a special snowflake race of pyrofoxes from a forest planet. How is this not relevant?

 

[Kevak]

I'm preeetty sure it didn't. You're grasping at straws here.

[PrincessWilly]

 

In all honesty, though, there are a lot of problems with this.

 

#1, too in depth. The beauty of ss13 races is that they're less fleshed out. People can add their own flair to the characters, to the race itself. After all, you can't do a writeup like this on Earth, can you? There are many races of humans, many cultures, with physical, cultural, and moral differences. There are likely even space colonies that have spawned their own distinctiveness. You can't shoehorn an entire species like this.

 

#2, too many glaring unlikelihoods. Long-furred creatures evolving to sapience on a hot planet? Solar expansion, raising the temperature as much as you have? That would destroy a planet. Our own planet is struggling to survive with the climate change we're facing. The whole one litter thing? A race wouldn't last long if its reproductive organs were damaged after one birth. In a modern age, sure, but in a medieval age you would need to have many many children to fill the gap left by those that died. Puppies growing based on their food? They're mammals, that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. They need food. This is the most unbelievable thing in your writeup. A solar flare fried their technology? Then how are they in space? How have they survived? If our primitive planet lost its technology, even just its information, it would fall into chaos. Imagine one with a few hundred years on us technologically. "Kol being a barely habitable wasteland and what water there is beginning to boil away." ??? If it's hot enough that water is 'boiling' or even evaporating throughout the entire planet, mammals, being mostly water, are going to die. Just, period. What's this about only evacuating 10 at a time? That's a waste of money, resources, and wouldn't do much for a galaxy-spanning company like Nanotrasen. Try a hundred, probably more.

 

#3 Omg, almost all of this information is unneccessary. Why do we have to know so much about their extinct goverment? It goes on and on. This is how I feel through this whole 'article'. Too much information. Give the gist, let people fill in the rest.

 

#4 Behavior section...in general. Too simple, too binary. You base it on a scale of mature to happy? That's one basis of behavior, and not what people are looking for to understand the race. People want a general guideline. Vox like to trade. They listen to the person with the biggest hat. They try to keep to their own race. These are the types of simple things you want. Things people can work around, and build upon. After all, just as a species has so many cultural differences, individuals even more so.

 

#5 Above all, this all seems so special snowflakey. You have a distopian society that have such an alien leadership structure, when really, this is a dog race. In space station 13, a dog race is a dog race. Don't try to make it too complicated, build around that. People want to play dog people, and you can give them some minor helpful guidelines on how to do this right.

 

[PrincessWilly]

 

I'm preeetty sure it didn't. You're grasping at straws here.

 

You have fox people on a quickly heating forest planet. It's a one-off joke, man. Just take it as a damn joke.

 

[PrincessWilly]

Additionally, I think what you have here is a wonderful example of "The culture you come from" and not "the race as a whole". I think you should roll with it, for your personal characters. It's just clearly not indicative of the entire species.

[Kevak]

 

If you actually bothered to read the lorepost instead of jumping to conclusions after skimming, you would note that pretty much all of that is explained. Please do some reading before ranting. (Maybe spoiler your rant?)

 

Also I recommend using the "edit" button rather then triple posting hmm?

 

[PrincessWilly]

 

If you actually bothered to read the lorepost instead of jumping to conclusions after skimming, you would note that pretty much all of that is explained. Please do some reading before ranting. (Maybe spoiler your rant?)

 

Also I recommend using the "edit" button rather then triple posting hmm?

 

I read your entire post. Hence all of my points. Nothing in your textwall has answered any of the things I've raised.

 

Additionally, the entire point of a forum is to offer your opinion on the topic at hand. Why would I spoiler my response to your idea? That makes no sense.

 

Triple post: My long post was being written as I read through your lore. One post was a quoted response to something in particular, that would have gotten in the way of the opinion post. The other was an afterthought, which wasn't really related to my long post.

 

You realize that you're not going to get this done without taking the opinions, criticism, and advice of others, right? I'm assuming you're fairly young. Have a little patience, and if you're going to take on an undertaking like this, accept all advice. You don't have to follow it, but always accept advice. You're not the smartest person in the world.

 

[Kevak]

I'm wondering where the hostility is coming from. Or perhaps defensiveness? Not sure.

[PrincessWilly]

 

I'm wondering where the hostility is coming from. Or perhaps defensiveness? Not sure.

 

No hostility, friend. I'm sorry you're misidentifying that. You've posted a candidate for lore, and I'm giving my opinion on it. Why do you have to assume things are hostile?

 

I falsely assumed this was a place to discuss your lore candidate. Is this a false assumption? Because if there won't be any discussion here then I guess there's no reason for anybody to comment.

 

[Kevak]

The hostility comes across based on your phrasing. If you do not intend hostility then avoid speaking in a demeaning manner.

[Pseudo_Unicorn]

 

*squint* Okay, so uh... Primary Vulpkanin player here. And I have quite a few issues with this lore.

 

First of all, let's talk 'behaviour'. I'm a huge proponent of the player-base informing the lore as opposed to the other way around and just... Well. 'Sticklers for rules', pack mentality, obedient to superiors. Have you seen the Vulpkanin players on Paradise? They're total goofballs, often very content to do their own thing, and rarely have I ever see one mindlessly obey any sort of command.

 

And, I get they're canids. I do. But ugh, can we not do this whole hivemind/collectivist thing? I swear, every single race outside of humans has this. Kidan and their hives, etcetera. I'm especially not big on the idea of Vulpkanin stupidly following commands from some arbitrary 'alpha' sort.

 

Overall, I think this is far, FAR too detailed and restrictive. Maybe it'd be fine for a heavier RP server like Bay, but not for Paradise.

 

Additionally, can we have an alien race that ISN'T treated like shit by Nanotrasen? That'd be great.

 

[Arthur_Dayne]

 

Additionally, can we have an alien race that ISN'T treated like shit by Nanotrasen? That'd be great.

 

The Skrell, to name one. The Dionae and Slime people might be up there, too.

I would say IPCs, but I'm fairly certain I'm false. Besides, it makes SENSE that NanoTrasen doesn't like aliens. They're the exact image of a greedy, expansionist and imperialistic (maybe even evil) corporation. They want to turn a profit, not promote equality, so it makes sense that they'd exploit inferior and less-advanced civilizations and species.

 

[Pseudo_Unicorn]

 

Additionally, can we have an alien race that ISN'T treated like shit by Nanotrasen? That'd be great.

 

The Skrell, to name one. The Dionae and Slime people might be up there, too.

I would say IPCs, but I'm fairly certain I'm false. Besides, it makes SENSE that NanoTrasen doesn't like aliens. They're the exact image of a greedy, expansionist and imperialistic (maybe even evil) corporation. They want to turn a profit, not promote equality, so it makes sense that they'd exploit inferior and less-advanced civilizations and species.

That's so... Insanely overdone. And stupidly grimdark.

 

Eh, either way, it's kind of the least of my complaints about this lore rewrite.

 

*Additionally it makes NO fucking sense. I see Tajara and Vulpkanin captains all the dang time. I'm sure I've even seen a Vox one a few times.

 

Edited October 18, 2015 by Guest

[Arthur_Dayne]

 

Additionally, can we have an alien race that ISN'T treated like shit by Nanotrasen? That'd be great.

-snip-

That's so... Insanely overdone. And stupidly grimdark.

 

Eh, either way, it's kind of the least of my complaints about this lore rewrite.

 

 

NanoTrasen isn't designed to be unique or original. Again, generic "evil" corporation. Also, SS13 in general is pretty grimdark. I mean, deathsquads alone is grimdark. Count in everything else, and you've got a grimdark soup.

 

[ErinCrowe]

 

Additionally, can we have an alien race that ISN'T treated like shit by Nanotrasen? That'd be great.

 

The Skrell, to name one. The Dionae and Slime people might be up there, too.

I would say IPCs, but I'm fairly certain I'm false. Besides, it makes SENSE that NanoTrasen doesn't like aliens. They're the exact image of a greedy, expansionist and imperialistic (maybe even evil) corporation. They want to turn a profit, not promote equality, so it makes sense that they'd exploit inferior and less-advanced civilizations and species.

That's so... Insanely overdone. And stupidly grimdark.

 

Eh, either way, it's kind of the least of my complaints about this lore rewrite.

 

*Additionally it makes NO fucking sense. I see Tajara and Vulpkanin captains all the dang time. I'm sure I've even seen a Vox one a few times.

 

While I haven't read the lore for Tajara and Vulpkanin before the revamp I'm going to assume NanoTrasen treats their species as a whole badly but individuals don't matter.

 

Kind of like most modern societies with enemies. Nobody hates the citizens of the DPRK but as a country as a whole it is heavily disliked by pretty much everyone.

(I could be talking complete BS right now because like I said I haven't read the lore but I think when we were doing the rewrite we decided it needed an entire revamp for almost every race anyway.)

 

[Kevak]

 

First of all, let's talk 'behaviour'. I'm a huge proponent of the player-base informing the lore as opposed to the other way around and just... Well. 'Sticklers for rules', pack mentality, obedient to superiors. Have you seen the Vulpkanin players on Paradise? They're total goofballs, often very content to do their own thing, and rarely have I ever see one mindlessly obey any sort of command.

As previously stated, this is a first draft and will require revising. As stated, I'm not entirely satisfied with the psychology bits.

 

And, I get they're canids. I do. But ugh, can we not do this whole hivemind/collectivist thing? I swear, every single race outside of humans has this. Kidan and their hives, etcetera. I'm especially not big on the idea of Vulpkanin stupidly following commands from some arbitrary 'alpha' sort.

Technically they don't blindly follow. I see it as a sort of soft anarchy. If the majority don't like the status quo, whoever's in power loses their power. Also up for revising however.

 

Overall, I think this is far, FAR too detailed and restrictive. Maybe it'd be fine for a heavier RP server like Bay, but not for Paradise.

Which parts are too detailed? History doesn't have as much of an effect as the psychology bits, and I think the history bits are way way more detailed.

 

Additionally, can we have an alien race that ISN'T treated like shit by Nanotrasen? That'd be great.

To be fair, it's a relatively decent deal. Nanotress gets a major income source from it yes but it's not absolute exploitation like with the Taja.

 

 

The Skrell, to name one. The Dionae and Slime people might be up there, too.

I would say IPCs, but I'm fairly certain I'm false. Besides, it makes SENSE that NanoTrasen doesn't like aliens. They're the exact image of a greedy, expansionist and imperialistic (maybe even evil) corporation. They want to turn a profit, not promote equality, so it makes sense that they'd exploit inferior and less-advanced civilizations and species.

That's so... Insanely overdone. And stupidly grimdark.

 

Eh, either way, it's kind of the least of my complaints about this lore rewrite.

 

*Additionally it makes NO fucking sense. I see Tajara and Vulpkanin captains all the dang time. I'm sure I've even seen a Vox one a few times.

 

While I haven't read the lore for Tajara and Vulpkanin before the revamp I'm going to assume NanoTrasen treats their species as a whole badly but individuals don't matter.

 

Kind of like most modern societies with enemies. Nobody hates the citizens of the DPRK but as a country as a whole it is heavily disliked by pretty much everyone.

(I could be talking complete BS right now because like I said I haven't read the lore but I think when we were doing the rewrite we decided it needed an entire revamp for almost every race anyway.)

No, Vulps were the only ones who needed a rewrite and the only ones I'm interested in rewriting. Their wikipage has been completely blank for about half a year at least due to the previous lore being special snowflake nonsense.

[TullyBBurnalot]

 

Right, so... just gonna be completely blunt here and give my feedback on this. Also preemptive warning, I am a NITPICKER. Point for point:

 

Vulpkanin females normally give birth to litters of between 2-5 pups. Vulpkanin rarely give birth to more then one litter in a single lifetime. Often the pups exiting damage the ovaries beyond natural repair.

 

This makes 0 biological sense. A species that could only give birth ONCE in their entire lifetime would never progress to the point where they could be spaceworthy. In fact, that particular trait would most likely be completely eliminated long before the species even reached sentience, since it's a FUCKASS HUGE disadvantage.

 

In addition, only being able to give birth once would make creating a civilization incredibly hard, since you'd basically be just barely holding on in terms of population size.

 

most pregnancies are the only one a given Vulpkanin will have, and often, the result is fatal to the mother..

 

This would mean the Vulpkanin race would've gone extinct ages ago.

 

Vulpkanin pups can sustain on bare minimum nutrients,, however they will not develop physically or mentally until they reach a certain threshold of nutrient input

 

I'm sure you can chalk this up to Bizarre Alien Biology, but that's not how aging works. You WILL age, regardless of nutrient input, you'll just age stunted. That said, Bizarre Alien Biology.

 

as stage one pups, they do not functionally age, nor can they develop a functional mind. The more nutrients they get, the faster they mature. A given pup can mature to adulthood by the biological age of 12 provided it receives proper nutrition.

 

Again, Bizarre Alien Biology applies here, but aging and maturation isn't something you can speed up. It's hardcoded into a species' genes, and assuming Vulpkanin work like species do on Earth, this would also make no sense. Aging and maturation are separate from nutrient input. Then again, as I said, Bizarre Alien Biology applies, and I'm willing to suspend my disbelief here.

 

After a datablank, the movement began collapsing violently in on itself. Reviled and hated by the populace.

 

Taking a small moment here to say "YEAH FUCK THE NAZIS".

 

heterosexual inbreeding slid up to the absolute top of the “Do not do” list.

 

This legitimately made me laugh. Good job!

 

The industrial age saw the formation of the current format of government. The system worked and so it stuck.

 

One, you may as well tell us what it is. Two, a One World Government seems highly unlikely, for the same reasons as here on Earth.

 

Discussion and comparisons of notes between numerous scientists determined that Gol’s slow expansion was rapidly making the star system uninhabitable.

 

This is not how stars work. Five centuries is not enough for a star to go from "Ok, something's wrong here" to "WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW". For reference, it's probably going to take us at least 150,000 years before we need to start worrying about the whole sun getting closer thing, and even then it'll be a slow as hell process.

 

The Vulpkanin could not evacuate the multiple billions scattered across their homeward and its moons within the time it would take for Gol to boil them away.

 

Assuming their entire civilization was directed towards achieving this one goal, and considering how stars work, they probably could.

 

Numerous corporate scientific vessels descended on the Probe’s system and began triangulating the origin of the signals.

 

Fast forward ten years. The Vulpkanin system had been triangulated by now.

 

Bit of a weird contradiction here. Also, Nanotrasen has FTL ships and Bluespace technology, preeeeeetty sure it wouldn't take them ten years.

 

Fast forward another five years. Ke had just been ravaged by its first duststorm. Kol being a barely habitable wasteland and what water there is beginning to boil away.

 

Sorry to insist on this, but again, not how stars work.

 

without any major diplomatic fuckups

 

We ARE talking about Nanotrasen, right?

 

10 Vulpkanin civilians evacuated per every six Terran months a given Vulpkanin worked for Nanotrasin at halfpay

 

That's more fucking like it.

 

Vulpkanin primarily operate on a Territory/Ranking system. Likely originating from their tribal Pack system almost two millennia ago. A given Vulpkanin can only hold as much territory as they and their secondaries can maintain. If you can’t maintain it, your claim to it isn’t valid.

 

Territory Claiming is on a first come first serve basis. If nobody owns the territory, you become the Primary of the territory. If you set up shop in someone else’s territory, you become their Secondary. Territory Disputes are settled usually by having documented dates, times, and geographically logged areas of claimed territory. Whoever came first is the Primary. If the Primary cannot be determined due to lack of documentation, whomever of the competing parties is deemed more capable by the Secondaries within the territory becomes the Primary, if there are no Secondaries to determine who gets it, the competing Primaries split the territory 50/50.

 

This may work fine for, say, a colony or a bunch of explorers, but it's an incredibly shitty way of running a Space Age civilization, mostly because you have stuff like nations, systems of government, economies and property law. A civilization advanced enough to be spaceworthy would NOT be running around on a "I claim this land, screw off" system.

 

In fact, I'm not even going to paste the rest of this part, because the whole Primary/Secondary system is, with all honesty here, ridiculous. Having a Mayor of a town be the de facto ruler of this town would simply not work in any advanced civilization whatsoever. Not only can you not expect a single person to go around basically keeping tabs on everyone, but you have a central government, laws, protocols, underlings, bosses, parties and whatever passes for a bloody CONSTITUTION to answer to. Literally, this entire segment reads as if you were imagining small communes, or individual locations as separated from a larger collective. Nations exist. A civilization advanced enough to be spaceworthy would have nations, or something similar, and with it would come sets of laws. You can't have every Primary be the ultimate ruler of their land so long as they obey a set of murky, ill-defined moral and ethical rules. Those are not good guidelines to build a civilization on.

 

If a Secondary isn’t maintaining their Secondary Territory, then they don’t get to keep it. A different Secondary gets control of that zone if it can be maintained by them. If a Secondary refuses to maintain their Secondary Territory, they don’t need to be fed. If they want food, they either grow it themselves or start maintaining their territory so they can enjoy the literal fruits of others labor.

 

Not. How. Civilization. Works.

 

The whole example section is a great example (HAH) of my point. It reads as if there is no central authority, and every Primary is a mini-king. One wonders how the hell Vulpkanin got to the point where they could build Ark Ships.

 

As previously touched upon, Vulpkanin personalities can vary from extremely serious to chipper and hyper to the point of having difficulty focusing on anything. This is normally dependent on how long it took for them to mature.

 

Don't forget genetics, upbringing, social class, current economic status, dominant religion, dominant political thinking and the endless number of factors that affect one's personality.

 

If you set one off. Just back off and let it calm down. Admit you fucked up. Better then trying to push with it getting more and more stubborn.

 

Big fat fucking NO. For two reason:

 

1) Lore Reason: I'm sorry what? The hell kind of species trait is this? Again, one wonders how the hell Vulpkanin survived so long if they act like this ALL THE TIME. Arguing and reaching a compromise/solution is something that Humanity has been doing ever since we had a goddamn language to do it in, and is the basis for MODERN DEMOCRACY. What kind of species would evolve to be spaceworthy if their proposed way of handling issues is "just back off and let them cool down"?!

 

2) In-Game Reason: This would mean Vulpkanin players could go around demanding people apologize for anything, and would instill a "Can do no wrong" mentality. You don't get to tell others how to act. Vulpkanin are SENTIENT, and with sentience comes the perennial "MAN UP AND DEAL WITH IT". Not about to have "RP" dictate that I have to apologize to a Vulp player whenever they get pissy.

 

If they don’t recognize the person, they probably won’t do it.

 

Again, one wonders how Vulpkanin have a civilization like this. Welcome to the real world, where it doesn't fucking matter if you recognize your boss as a figure of authority, HE'S STILL YOUR BOSS NOW GET TO WORK. Unless you, like, don't want that paycheck or something. Seriously, SPACEWORTHY CIVILIZATION. Not a tribe.

 

Seriously, just this general "Let's play the loyal dog stereotype as straight as possible". That's what I'm seeing here. Overcomplicated, overdesigned, inefficient collectivist tribalism. Maybe it could work in small communities. Maybe. But for a spaceworthy civilization?

 

Yeah, no.