Majority Rule Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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pollbooths2023-02-06 09:37 pm
majoritymods) wrote in pollbooths2023-02-06 09:37 pm
Entry tags:
>> FEB. APP THIS PLEASE!
ATP
Welcome to Majority Rule's first App This Please! We are going to be doing Test Drives just a hair differently so these are going to be fairly important for our game. While players will always have the option to have their characters found and rescued in sleeping pods set adrift in space or on different planets we really wanted to build in some more dynamic "arrival" options for our game.
What does that mean? Well, every App This Please will feature at least one alternative option to being found/rescued in the traditional sleeping pod situation. The sleeping pod will always be an option in future application rounds, but the alternative options involve the characters in question having already been in game for a specific amount of time given in the options! For our first application round there are two options for how your character begins their time in game. Think of it as your very first Majority Rule poll.
What are the options? Glad you asked!
NAV • LOGS • NET • OOC • MEMES
What does that mean? Well, every App This Please will feature at least one alternative option to being found/rescued in the traditional sleeping pod situation. The sleeping pod will always be an option in future application rounds, but the alternative options involve the characters in question having already been in game for a specific amount of time given in the options! For our first application round there are two options for how your character begins their time in game. Think of it as your very first Majority Rule poll.
What are the options? Glad you asked!
1Majority Rule Navigator R33500 "Rhys".
As the Test Drive Meme opens your character will wake in a sleeping pod located on the Yggdrasil-class Battleship Lethe. The ship is located in a starship graveyard which comprises a large derelict and long abandoned space station with docking for ships and the scattered remnants of a huge space battle. The Lethe is in critical condition but currently faring better than the ship of the second Navigator. It is spaceworthy, but how comfortably spaceworthy it will be by the first game event depends on the actions of the players on the test drive meme.
R33500 will activate upon the posting of the test drive meme, brought online due to another Yggdrasil-class starship coming into the vicinity. As soon as he initializes characters will be notified that they are under the law of the Majority Rule Protocol. The rules for the polls run by this protocol can be found more in depth in the FAQ, but for a brief refresher (or introduction if you haven't touched our FAQ as of yet) character devices will all have the capability to send out polls to vote on to the rest of their crew.
Choosing R33500 as your starting Navigator essentially means you start the game from scratch. The other navigator enables your character to have a 3-month long backstory. Choosing R33500 means your character can start and vote on polls during the TDM; Alyce's crew members will not have access to the Majority Rule Protocol until the crews combine.
Additionally, Lethe crew members will be able to fight and cause harm to the enemy NPC pirates while the Caduceus crew is explicitly banned by their own Protocol from causing harm to anyone else and will be unable to do much more than run away from enemies and defend themselves without fighting back. The Lethe crew is essentially going to be the Caduceus' crew's saving grace as R33500 does not specifically prohibit violence beyond not using violence to get specific votes. If characters on the Lethe crew want to beat up some space pirates R33500 is cool with that.
R33500 will activate upon the posting of the test drive meme, brought online due to another Yggdrasil-class starship coming into the vicinity. As soon as he initializes characters will be notified that they are under the law of the Majority Rule Protocol. The rules for the polls run by this protocol can be found more in depth in the FAQ, but for a brief refresher (or introduction if you haven't touched our FAQ as of yet) character devices will all have the capability to send out polls to vote on to the rest of their crew.
Choosing R33500 as your starting Navigator essentially means you start the game from scratch. The other navigator enables your character to have a 3-month long backstory. Choosing R33500 means your character can start and vote on polls during the TDM; Alyce's crew members will not have access to the Majority Rule Protocol until the crews combine.
Additionally, Lethe crew members will be able to fight and cause harm to the enemy NPC pirates while the Caduceus crew is explicitly banned by their own Protocol from causing harm to anyone else and will be unable to do much more than run away from enemies and defend themselves without fighting back. The Lethe crew is essentially going to be the Caduceus' crew's saving grace as R33500 does not specifically prohibit violence beyond not using violence to get specific votes. If characters on the Lethe crew want to beat up some space pirates R33500 is cool with that.
2Hippocratic Protocol Navigator A71355 "Alyce".
Alternately, you woke from a sleeping pod three months ago. When you woke you found yourself on the Yggdrasil-class Hospital Ship Caduceus. The ship was in hibernation power mode and many systems were offline. Characters had to work together in order to wake the systems and bring more than basic life support online.
They quickly woke the Navigational AI of the Caduceus, A71355, who indicated that to the crew that she was operating under the Hippocratic Protocol. First, do no harm. Second, treat harm where you find it. This Protocol prevents the crew of the Caduceus from attacking or injuring other people - if they try to do so they instead pass out. It also requires them to render aid if it is in their ability to do so, manifesting as an intense desire they can't shake. All crew of the Caduceus is bound by the Hippocratic Protocol and will be unable to break either of these laws until they become crew of the Lethe.
A71355 was unable to give the crew much information about how they found themselves on the Caduceus and no other lifeforms aside from the characters who woke there were anywhere to be found. The AI was initially shy and uncertain but was openly willing to answer any questions asked to the best of her abilities. Her memory was found to have been significantly damaged by a long hibernation and all the prior crew logs were deleted. The only information remaining were many medical logs, details on her Protocol, and the crew manifest. The manifest held the names of every character who awoke on the Caduceus along with some others.
The Caduceus has been traveling ever since. After some time on the journey A71355 requested that the crew refer to her as "Alyce". Recently they were in transit to a new world when they came under attack by Reapers, a loose collective of space pirate crews. The Caduceus has no offensive capabilities and they were forced to flee. In the one-sided battle of retreat the Caduceus was half-demolished. Alyce was able to keep life support online and to guide the ship into the starship graveyard where the TDM opens. With the ship dying and gutted Alyce's functions are limited and she is "dying" in every sense of the word that matters. Her fate depends on the actions of her crew and that of the Lethe.
Obviously a lot more than this happened in those three months. Characters visited two different worlds together and likely fell into learning how to work with one another and got to know Alyce as they sought answers together. Create as many noodle incidents as you'd like - this is just a basic outline to work with about what they'd have experienced and what they might have done. The two worlds that characters visited, in order and briefly, are:
TL;DR: Players who select Alyce as their character's default Navigator will be committing to playing characters who have been awake and operating on a different ship's crew for the past three months! Their characters will be unable to cause harm to others and will only be able to defend themselves in the case of attack. Which is going to be a bit inconvenient when the scene opens from an attack on the Caduceus.
Alyce will be an option in March as well where any players who select her as their character's navigator will have the option of having their characters have escaped the attack on jettisoned escape pods that landed on our first planet (March's event planet). Keep in mind that characters who begin as Alyce's crew will be unable to vote on or view the Majority Rule polls initially. By the end of the Test Drive the two crews will be combined and they will be able to vote on the polls and will no longer be subject to the Hippocratic Protocol, though the details of how that happens are largely up to player decisions.
They quickly woke the Navigational AI of the Caduceus, A71355, who indicated that to the crew that she was operating under the Hippocratic Protocol. First, do no harm. Second, treat harm where you find it. This Protocol prevents the crew of the Caduceus from attacking or injuring other people - if they try to do so they instead pass out. It also requires them to render aid if it is in their ability to do so, manifesting as an intense desire they can't shake. All crew of the Caduceus is bound by the Hippocratic Protocol and will be unable to break either of these laws until they become crew of the Lethe.
A71355 was unable to give the crew much information about how they found themselves on the Caduceus and no other lifeforms aside from the characters who woke there were anywhere to be found. The AI was initially shy and uncertain but was openly willing to answer any questions asked to the best of her abilities. Her memory was found to have been significantly damaged by a long hibernation and all the prior crew logs were deleted. The only information remaining were many medical logs, details on her Protocol, and the crew manifest. The manifest held the names of every character who awoke on the Caduceus along with some others.
The Caduceus has been traveling ever since. After some time on the journey A71355 requested that the crew refer to her as "Alyce". Recently they were in transit to a new world when they came under attack by Reapers, a loose collective of space pirate crews. The Caduceus has no offensive capabilities and they were forced to flee. In the one-sided battle of retreat the Caduceus was half-demolished. Alyce was able to keep life support online and to guide the ship into the starship graveyard where the TDM opens. With the ship dying and gutted Alyce's functions are limited and she is "dying" in every sense of the word that matters. Her fate depends on the actions of her crew and that of the Lethe.
Obviously a lot more than this happened in those three months. Characters visited two different worlds together and likely fell into learning how to work with one another and got to know Alyce as they sought answers together. Create as many noodle incidents as you'd like - this is just a basic outline to work with about what they'd have experienced and what they might have done. The two worlds that characters visited, in order and briefly, are:
If you have any questions or want clarification on anything please refer to our mod toplevel on this post! We also have a specific Caduceus toplevel where players can discuss "noodle incidents" for the ship or discuss crew relations. Upon the completion of our application round we will collect and edit a "Caduceus Ship Log" page for later reference.Baatera, a large planet with two moons that is mostly comprised of huge tropical rainforests. The planet is near enough to the sun to be hotter than most are used to but not so hot that it can't be endured. Of the many species on Baatera there are two the characters would have had notable experiences with based on their landing site. The first are the Sashute, a small catlike folk known for being friendly and hospitable to strangers who live in elaborate treehouse villages. The second are the Vecialae, a large reptilian species known for their warmongering tendencies who live in underground caverns and tunnels they dig out. The Vecialae frequently attack the Sashute and anyone else who happens to exist in their vicinity.
Teclite, a smallish sized ice planet with no moons at the far edge of the star system Baatera is part of. Teclite is home only to the Tecra, a mammalian species with two legs and four arms who grow venomous spines over their body. Their "religion" is cybernetics and even their young children are made over into cyborgs. They are wary of anyone who doesn't have some form of cybernetic enhancement but allow certain visitors. They permitted the Caduceus to land after the hospital ship responded to a distress signal sent out by the Tecra due to an outbreak of illness in one of their smaller colonies.
TL;DR: Players who select Alyce as their character's default Navigator will be committing to playing characters who have been awake and operating on a different ship's crew for the past three months! Their characters will be unable to cause harm to others and will only be able to defend themselves in the case of attack. Which is going to be a bit inconvenient when the scene opens from an attack on the Caduceus.
Alyce will be an option in March as well where any players who select her as their character's navigator will have the option of having their characters have escaped the attack on jettisoned escape pods that landed on our first planet (March's event planet). Keep in mind that characters who begin as Alyce's crew will be unable to vote on or view the Majority Rule polls initially. By the end of the Test Drive the two crews will be combined and they will be able to vote on the polls and will no longer be subject to the Hippocratic Protocol, though the details of how that happens are largely up to player decisions.
I'm not sure which to pick...
That's fine. You just need to choose by the time you apply for the game! On the test drive players are welcome to write their character as being from either of the crews if they want to see which perspective and set up they enjoy writing from more. The crew they choose to apply as is the one whose interactions will be game canon, however! Our test drive will additionally feature toplevels where players can interact with the two navigators, although both are in varying stages of corruption at the moment. Their status and coherency will change as characters on the test drive take actions or make choices that help or harm them.
Okay, so when is the TDM you keep mentioning?
Oh, you want dates, huh? Lucky for you, we're happy to provide those. As a note we do not have a set posting time for our actual posts beyond "on this day". There's specific times for Applications and reserves expiring since we go by timestamps for that even if we don't manage to flip the status of something to open or closed at exactly the right time. This is to give the moderator team leeway in case one time of day is better for us one month and then bad another month!
06th. Our App This Please meme is posted. You're here now! Our reserves are also live.
10th. Test Drive Meme is posted.
15th. Applications open at 12:01AM EST. Reserves close.
20th. Reserves expire at 12:01AM EST. The moderator team begins processing applications.
28th. Applications close at 11:59PM EST.
Comment form.
Please fill out the below form and post it in a comment to this entry! Feel free to edit the code as needed or simply fill it out plain if you prefer. Replace PLAYERNAME and CHARACTERNAME with the required information.
PLAYERNAME
CHARACTERNAME
CONTACT: Plurk / Discord / PM.
TIMEZONE/AVAILABILITY: What is your timezone and what is your usual tagging availability?
TIMEZONE/AVAILABILITY: What is your timezone and what is your usual tagging availability?
CANON:
AGE:
ABOUT: A brief blurb about your character. Who they are, what they're like, what they can do. Just enough to let people know who they're plotting with.
NAV CHOICE: R33500 or Alyce? Refer to the above sections if you skipped down here and don't know what that means.
PLOTTING: Basic things you'd like to do if you picked R33500. This section can also be used for people choosing Alyce to discuss the past few months of their expedition.
OTHER: Comments, random quotes, memes, whatever you want goes here.
AGE:
ABOUT: A brief blurb about your character. Who they are, what they're like, what they can do. Just enough to let people know who they're plotting with.
NAV CHOICE: R33500 or Alyce? Refer to the above sections if you skipped down here and don't know what that means.
PLOTTING: Basic things you'd like to do if you picked R33500. This section can also be used for people choosing Alyce to discuss the past few months of their expedition.
OTHER: Comments, random quotes, memes, whatever you want goes here.
no subject
[ he mulls over the answer by bringing a hand to his chin, and his lips purse into a straight line as his eyes look to the ai before glancing off to the side. then there's no difference to them aside from being a threat, and then it all circles back to her morality which falls in the threshold of making sure everyone is safe, and preventing damages. ]
This implies that you see no difference, and it benefits your abilities to help those that need assistance. Those who are part of the medical field normally swear an oath to not be prejudice towards those that could potentially need help.
[ could that be why she sees them as what they are without being afraid considering that word isn't in her vocabulary? she can see it on his face that he has another question on his mind as his brows knit together in thought, but it passes as soon as it comes. ]
no subject
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[ he pauses for a moment. ]
What does it feel like when you try to remember?
[ this question is too his curiosity at work, wondering how she's explain the loss of her memories either human-like or machine-like. memories tend to come back in due time when trauma is caused to a specific subject. it may not be as severe as he's thinking, considering she was woken up abruptly. ]
I wouldn't have minded hearing your thoughts on the other navigators.
no subject
Like...a void? I know there was something there once. But...I don't know what it was. Some of it feels different. There are places that feel like something was removed whereas others the missing data feels like a simple loss from damage.
no subject
[ forced extraction, maybe. information they didn't want her to remember, something that wasn't supposed to be told to them. such an outcome is expected, but that would take longer to try and figure out. alhaitham brings a hand to his chin, cupping it in thought as he thinks over the many options presented before him. ]
Tell me, Alyce. Would you be interested in routing your missing data back into place? Due to your protocol, I think it's only correct that I help those in need.
[ as much as he would rather not in general, this feels different anyhow. this doesn't feel against his will, this is more choosing the rational and smart option that'll help in the long run. ]
no subject
no subject
[ his attention is now on alyce once more, emphasizing this is more about her than him. with access to her code, then they'll be able to work in hopes to restore what she's lost, and being unable to do harm keeps her safe. he doesn't attempt to think of ways to loophole such a situation since that's the opposite of what he's suggesting. ]
If you lead the way, I can look over your code. You'll be there, and can supervise my every move.
no subject
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especially when they were hooked to the akasha, which connected them to the city's system and they were all woven together utilizing the same pool of information. it would have been an idiotic mistake not to learn a craft that goes in hand with sumeru's technology.
being the scribe allowed him into various, important place of the akademiya while also offering him chances to strenghten his skills even more. ]
I wouldn't suggest the idea if I weren't.
[ he's confident, but he has to be considering what he's requesting to mess with. alhaitham begins to move to the where the transporter happens to be, and glances at the watch for alyce. ]
What are your thoughts on copying your code? [ he pauses, looking to her for an answer. ] Shuffling back and forth to your code to edit small things every day will become a hassle, so I'll be able to work on it as time passes. This way you can review it before implementation rather than after.
no subject
Well, as I said, I can't authorize you to edit my code itself. I don't believe there is an issue with the programming; most of the damage is physical in nature to the memory banks. Some of my memory code is on servers detached from my core, and many of those were damaged. My source code is separate to those information databanks.
no subject
[ without having her memory in tact, there's probably other things she doesn't know which would cause future problems. if he can lower the risk then that means they'll be fine, not for a long time, but enough that they don't have to worry at the moment. ]
You want to help us, and under the jurisdiction of this ship; I have to assist.
[ he said it once, and he'll say it again. if only that wasn't the case, but she knows how her protocol works over them. luckily for alhaitham, it's best to work smarter, not harder. ] This is why we have to see them up and running. Memories are important, some would say that they are integral to your identity.
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[ he pauses, well he didn't expect her to say that. ]
Do you believe you can grow up?
no subject
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[ his question before was to identify her awareness on the matter. ]
But what I think on this matter doesn't mean as much as to what you think. Do you think it counts? That's something you can decide for yourself, no one should ever tell you differently.
[ alhaitham has a strong sense of individualism, and despite he still treats her like a batch of data. his beliefs still remain the same. ]
no subject
no subject
Well then, as soon as your memory banks are properly running then you can tell me. Make it a goal in your growth.
[ his arms cross, and ocean they're in the depths below the bridge will he start walking again towards the location she stated before. ]
How does that sound?
no subject