Funnelling OoC non-human changes out of game in replacement of In-game events.

[iansdoor]

There has been a rather brash player club post and seems unfocused in direction. I'll say that if non-humans were to have more of a paw into human affairs, then something needs to incite the in-game event to cause such. If cloning was outlawed when feline dna mixing into their basic gene stocks, then what leads NT to be so desperate to hire non-humans to withhold company secrets. Every conversation for the past 8 months has been dipping OoC into IC, which is frustrating.

My questions for discussion, Why would NT, a human centric megacorp, give privileges to species that they have literally conquered or enslaved? The same thing happened to the syndicate with their elite nuclear operatives.

I'll even post history of discussion and there hasn't been a good reasonable event in-game than cause its grandfathered in or some test-merge to see how non-human plays out, which is both OoC and selfish.
QM stuff
April fools
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/50230
closed
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/59189
Pushed thru by maintainers as a test merge and hasn't been unclipped
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/67518

Nukie stuff
This bug lead to human only nukie forever, 2016 to 2023
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/16075
Here is an attempt and approval by EOBgames,(our TG lore guy), only to be closed cause of the bug from above.
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/59590
Pushed thru without consideration to lore, just to fix the bug above, which 8 years of human only operatives and we know the effects of such on our rules, while being around Asimov, thinking all nuclear operatives are human.
https://github.com/tgstation/tgstation/pull/77970

[MatrixOne]

On wallstation I did a lore writeup that justified it having nonhuman heads because it was a small station on the edges of NT space, and thus legendary and distinguished non-humans were sent there and given status and power as a reward, but at the same time they were out of sight and out of mind for main NT space. It kept the feel of wallstation as a fork, a place where a small group of people had gone, and it was a bittersweet way of rewarding non-humans because the shadow of NT's discrimination still loomed, perhaps not in practice, but in the lore I wrote.

But now we're talking about main NT space. Honestly? Tacking on the actual OOC issues and arguments that people bring up can help make the IC reasons feel consistent. What's one of the OOC arguments for enabling non-human heads? We want more heads of staff, we want more people to take the role, we want to encourage the chain of command. NT needs people in command to enforce their structure, and to keep hold over the departments. When our pop is suffering, it makes sense to extend this privilege to willing and able workers. And, I'm still operating under the idea that Captain and RD would remain human - so the veneer of human structure and stranglehold is kept up. NT can justify everything neatly. Humans still hold power over asimov and AI, and the station is still in the human's name should one choose to sign up Captain. But if there are staffing issues, then heads of staff will be chosen out of the pool, rather than not at all. Because they may be non-human, but they're there to keep the chain of command. They will do what must be done to uphold NT standards.

It's a point of pride for NT to have a solid chain of command with a staffed lineup of heads who direct the station where NT needs it.

[Jacquerel]

On what basis are you saying that the QM PR is "a test merge"?
Testmerges are a specific technical function that we have that is separate from merging a PR. This PR was merged because it was intended to go into the game.
Are you confused by the "Test Merge Candidate" label? That just means that we might want to testmerge it prior to merging it, not that it won't be merged or is not intended to be merged.

The PR also does include some lore in the changelog

Thanks to a savvy contract with the Space Teamsters, non-humans are allowed to be Quartermasters still.

unfortunately this did not find its way into the actual game in any way

I'll even post history of discussion and there hasn't been a good reasonable event in-game than cause its grandfathered in or some test-merge to see how non-human plays out, which is both OoC and selfish.

This basically seems to be based on a misunderstanding and is not reflective of any actual part of the development process.

[iansdoor]

On what basis are you saying that the QM PR is "a test merge"?
Testmerges are a specific technical function that we have that is separate from merging a PR. This PR was merged because it was intended to go into the game.
Are you confused by the "Test Merge Candidate" label? That just means that we might want to testmerge it prior to merging it, not that it won't be merged or is not intended to be merged.

The PR also does include some lore in the changelog

Thanks to a savvy contract with the Space Teamsters, non-humans are allowed to be Quartermasters still.

unfortunately this did not find its way into the actual game in any way

snip

This basically seems to be based on a misunderstanding and is not reflective of any actual part of the development process.

I don't think I am misreading how non-human inclusion was done, specifically, the pushed feelings have been in the grey area of the lore. Roleplay has always been a cornerstone of the community, even if it's belittled by main rule 4. Either way, Code changes are nice and healthy for the game, but the in-game implications are never considered, which has now been a state of argument for months. NT Command heads have and always been human posts for the majority of TG existence, is something that anyone can look at. This topic is the territory of headmins decision and somehow, this has gone far too long and off the radar.
Which brings the question up, why hasn't there been any talk about human QM by enforcing human authority upon itself? Is non-human inclusion something that was done in-game or was this by OoC codebase, or admins giving it a thumbs up. So leave the out of context of this conversation and keep to what was in our little universe, cause those pr's have just been pushing their own agenda for years and there isn't a vote to no about the issue or minimal, some bridge of understanding why any event happened in game.

[GPeckman]

My questions for discussion, Why would NT, a human centric megacorp, give privileges to species that they have literally conquered or enslaved?

I'm sorry, where is this whole "uplifted and enslaved by Nanotrasen" stuff from? I can't find any mention of this in the common core github repository, aside from Plasmamen. Even the Ethereals were uplifted by Terragov, with no mention of Nanotrasen being involved.

Edt: For that matter, where is "NT only hires humans to be heads of staff" in the lore? I can't find that little tidbit in common core either, and if you're gonna trot out this "oh there isn't any lore support for nonhuman heads" then you better believe I'm going to hold you to the same damn standard.

[iansdoor]

On wallstation I did a lore writeup that justified it having nonhuman heads because it was a small station on the edges of NT space, and thus legendary and distinguished non-humans were sent there and given status and power as a reward, but at the same time they were out of sight and out of mind for main NT space. It kept the feel of wallstation as a fork, a place where a small group of people had gone, and it was a bittersweet way of rewarding non-humans because the shadow of NT's discrimination still loomed, perhaps not in practice, but in the lore I wrote.

This is idea that I wanted to expand on, ties back into the roleplay of the game. NT could be losing or gaining hilariously money, who can really know. Their leadership at top, decides that they want more profits for the shareholders, then blam, lore was made about the direction of code.
Right now, I read and look at the arguments of "why not or my subjective feelings", which have a lukewarm reception. There is just no fun in any of those discussions for months. I just don't understand why it's not pushing on what the megacorp is doing. The only IC changes that we can see from players and our spess wo/men is that something new code change is circulating around and sometimes isn't something that we desired. Big OoC doing and feelings has been a driving force for changes that effect nearly all players, and they tax the roleplay out of the server. Something like beheading was just there, it happened. No other lore, NT announcement. This discussion needs to be a turning point to get behind, taking your examples "We want more heads of staff, we want more people to take the role" is ooc reasons. What are the IC implications of doing such and where could that lead?

Why would NT, a human centric megacorp, give privileges to species that they have literally conquered or enslaved?

[iansdoor]

My questions for discussion, Why would NT, a human centric megacorp, give privileges to species that they have literally conquered or enslaved?

I'm sorry, where is this whole "uplifted and enslaved by Nanotrasen" stuff from? I can't find any mention of this in the common core github repository, aside from Plasmamen. Even the Ethereals were uplifted by Terragov, with no mention of Nanotrasen being involved.

Edt: For that matter, where is "NT only hires humans to be heads of staff" in the lore? I can't find that little tidbit in common core either, and if you're gonna trot out this "oh there isn't any lore support for nonhuman heads" then you better believe I'm going to hold you to the same damn standard.

Sure, lets open that that discussion as well! Looks like EODgames got writers block or got burnt out, from the time birdshot had its hands forced to develop, or birdshot would get unlinked from map cycle. I can ask them about the direction of such, cause government tie in isn't really there, but it is for lizards.
From my understanding, Lizard people are subjected to less pay, lower jobs inclusions and their government, being weak, has little to no say over the lifetime contracts that NT writes it's population into. This has never been an uplifting story in terms of indentured population, so why would NT give those secrets out to their competitors, that they screwed over?

https://github.com/tgstation/common_cor ... rnments.md

[Jacquerel]

On what basis are you saying that the QM PR is "a test merge"?
Testmerges are a specific technical function that we have that is separate from merging a PR. This PR was merged because it was intended to go into the game.
Are you confused by the "Test Merge Candidate" label? That just means that we might want to testmerge it prior to merging it, not that it won't be merged or is not intended to be merged.

The PR also does include some lore in the changelog

Thanks to a savvy contract with the Space Teamsters, non-humans are allowed to be Quartermasters still.

unfortunately this did not find its way into the actual game in any way

snip

This basically seems to be based on a misunderstanding and is not reflective of any actual part of the development process.

I don't think I am misreading how non-human inclusion was done, specifically, the pushed feelings have been in the grey area of the lore. Roleplay has always been a cornerstone of the community, even if it's belittled by main rule 4. Either way, Code changes are nice and healthy for the game, but the in-game implications are never considered, which has now been a state of argument for months. NT Command heads have and always been human posts for the majority of TG existence, is something that anyone can look at. This topic is the territory of headmins decision and somehow, this has gone far too long and off the radar.
Which brings the question up, why hasn't there been any talk about human QM by enforcing human authority upon itself? Is non-human inclusion something that was done in-game or was this by OoC codebase, or admins giving it a thumbs up. So leave the out of context of this conversation and keep to what was in our little universe, cause those pr's have just been pushing their own agenda for years and there isn't a vote to no about the issue or minimal, some bridge of understanding why any event happened in game.

I'm going to be honest I am having some difficulty deciphering what you are trying to say, let alone how it relates to my post.
To reiterate: I think that several of the things you wrote in your OP are simply untrue and based on misconception, and you should probably remove them on account of their not being true or real. Nothing about the PRs linked was ever intended to be a temporary testmerge, as you claim that they were without any basis in fact.
Nothing was "forced through" against anyone's wishes as merging PRs is the intended function and purview of maintainers and the QM PR does in fact include a setting that would allow head admins to make it human-only if they so desired, additionally in fact the syndicate PR seems to have been quite popular.

You also seem to have gone further in later posts and are writing more homebrewed backstory that I am not sure has ever been part of our game and also isn't part of our common core lore repository?
The link you have provided makes no mention of lizards being subject to contracts of lifetime indentured servitude, nor do I remember ever reading it anywhere else in that repository. This, like several other things you have written here, seems to simply be something you have imagined and are now sharing as if it was commonly accepted fact about the game setting when I have literally never heard it before from anyone.

[GPeckman]

Sure, lets open that that discussion as well! Looks like EODgames got writers block or got burnt out, from the time birdshot had its hands forced to develop, or birdshot would get unlinked from map cycle. I can ask them about the direction of such, cause government tie in isn't really there, but it is for lizards.

That's completely fair, burnout and IRL difficulties are more important than the 2d spaceman game. But its not as if you need to ask permission from EOBgames to make a PR to the common core repo. If its so important that config changes be grounded in lore, then why have we gone literally years without anyone even trying to make an official justification for human-exclusive authority?

From my understanding, Lizard people are subjected to less pay, lower jobs inclusions and their government, being weak, has little to no say over the lifetime contracts that NT writes it's population into.

This has never been an uplifting story in terms of indentured population, so why would NT give those secrets out to their competitors, that they screwed over?

Can you please quote the part of common core that says this? Because from where I'm standing it honestly just looks like your own headcanon for why human authority is a thing.

https://github.com/tgstation/common_cor ... rnments.md

That was one of the pages I checked, and it has nothing to say about specieism. At best, you can say that there's nothing that rules it out, but the same logic applies in reverse; there's nothing in common core that explicitly contradicts non-human authority, so why does it need a lore explanation in the first place?

Also, I can't help but notice that you ignored the whole "enslaved/uplifted by NT" thing.

[Jacquerel]

In terms of uplift it is possible that Iansdoor is referring to Ethereals, who canonically were a medieval-era society under observation until there was an accidental crash on their planet which forced the hand of TerraGov (not Nanotrasen) into establishing closer contact and sharing technology.
https://github.com/tgstation/common_cor ... hereals.md
While this has been destructive to their previous cultures and ways of life and they are certainly in many ways being exploited both for their labour and also the resources of their planet, there's no mention that they are commonly "enslaved" and uplifting them wasn't even on purpose (or done by Nanotrasen, who merely have a stake in colonial ventures on the planet).

https://github.com/tgstation/common_cor ... asmamen.md
Plasmamen are also a species who virtually only exist in relation to Nanotrasen as they only enter existence on one of the small planets that Nanotrasen is exploiting and are presumably almost exclusively employed by Nanotrasen. You could make a better case that they're being enslaved and they're definitely being exploited as they are totally dependent on the company for their continued existence, but it's not as explicit as seems to be implied in this thread.

[MatrixOne]

I just don't understand why it's not pushing on what the megacorp is doing.

I wrote about this in my previous post, I'm not sure why you didn't engage with it in the slightest, but I guess I'll rephrase and hope you engage with it this time.

Let's say you're the admiral in charge of 20 different stations. You have to make sure they're all productive and reasonably protected from the many enemies of NT. You need a solid top-down structure of command, you need captains at the helm of the station who can direct heads of staff to guide the employees to do their jobs and the sec teams to protect the stations.

What if many of the stations are severely understaffed? Then you have barely any control over them. There are very few NT certified officials to report back to you. The stations are staffed by a crew who do whatever and further their own goals with no supervision. This is unacceptable. You need security and you need heads of staff to enforce the NT values and directives.

So what do you do?

You promote from within.

You can't magic out viable humans out of nowhere. There aren't enough to go around. But you have a lineup of capable and willing non-humans that you can pick from and bestow this honor to. They'll be under scrutiny, of course, there'll be an AI to keep stranglehold in human favor, but it's in your best interest to promote a lineup of non-humans to run the station. Because if they can make these stations profitable and safer and adherent to NT standards, then that's better than a lawless command-less hunk of metal that produces not much value and is ripe for hostile takeover.

I'm using the OOC problems we're facing to create an IC problem. It makes sense to do it. It merges IC and OOC in an intuitive way. So don't dismiss this as not being IC, because it is. We're facing pop issues. NT can also run into pop issues on their many research stations. This is a proposed solution on how they might deal with it. It makes sense as an OOC argument and it makes sense as an IC argument as well. If you've enslaved a large group of workers and they're all in a chaotic group somewhere, you need a structure to keep hold of them, a structure that still reports to you. If you had humans to assign to keep watch over them, you would, but what if you don't have enough humans? Then you'd choose from within.

It's only logical. NT needs structure that's in NT's name. A non-human structure is better than no structure at all. When faced with issues impacting their control and their bottom line, they'd make changes to uphold the structure.

I have no "subjective feelings" to make nonhuman heads a thing, I voted against it. But I'm an experienced writer, so I'm trying to find a logical line here in the event that it happens. Without heads of staff, the station is lawless and out of NT's control, and it's vulnerable to attackers.

NT needs a strong and loyal chain of command. Sometimes that means promoting non-humans to fill in for blanks.

[GPeckman]

I appreciate the clarification, but I'm already aware. I mentioned the Ethereals briefly in my first post:

Even the Ethereals were uplifted by Terragov, with no mention of Nanotrasen being involved.

[Jacquerel]

I appreciate the clarification, but I'm already aware. I mentioned the Ethereals briefly in my first post:

Even the Ethereals were uplifted by Terragov, with no mention of Nanotrasen being involved.

You are right, either way I think we can be reasonably clear that Nanotrasen isn't really "conquering" anyone and isn't really in the business of managing civilian populations outside of the people who work on their stations (and even then, it's not totally clear if people live on SS13 long-term of commute from somewhere else which might be managed by SSC rather than Nanotrasen).

Which leaves me a little confused as to what this topic is about, given that it's a question of "in character" justification of changes despite seemingly not understanding the setting as it is currently supposed to exist?

[iansdoor]

On what basis are you saying that the QM PR is "a test merge"?
Testmerges are a specific technical function that we have that is separate from merging a PR. This PR was merged because it was intended to go into the game.
Are you confused by the "Test Merge Candidate" label? That just means that we might want to testmerge it prior to merging it, not that it won't be merged or is not intended to be merged.

The PR also does include some lore in the changelog

Thanks to a savvy contract with the Space Teamsters, non-humans are allowed to be Quartermasters still.

unfortunately this did not find its way into the actual game in any way

snip

This basically seems to be based on a misunderstanding and is not reflective of any actual part of the development process.

I don't think I am misreading how non-human inclusion was done, specifically, the pushed feelings have been in the grey area of the lore. Roleplay has always been a cornerstone of the community, even if it's belittled by main rule 4. Either way, Code changes are nice and healthy for the game, but the in-game implications are never considered, which has now been a state of argument for months. NT Command heads have and always been human posts for the majority of TG existence, is something that anyone can look at. This topic is the territory of headmins decision and somehow, this has gone far too long and off the radar.
Which brings the question up, why hasn't there been any talk about human QM by enforcing human authority upon itself? Is non-human inclusion something that was done in-game or was this by OoC codebase, or admins giving it a thumbs up. So leave the out of context of this conversation and keep to what was in our little universe, cause those pr's have just been pushing their own agenda for years and there isn't a vote to no about the issue or minimal, some bridge of understanding why any event happened in game.

I'm going to be honest I am having some difficulty deciphering what you are trying to say, let alone how it relates to my post.
I think that several of the things you wrote in your OP are simply untrue and you should probably remove them on account of their not being true or real.

You also seem to have gone further in later posts and are writing more homebrewed backstory that I am not sure has ever been part of our game and also isn't part of our common core lore repository?

Then list concerns them, or keep to the topic? I am not sure what you aren't clear on with that vagueness.

All of those pr's plus the history of discord discussion funneled into 2 sentences, isn't going to cut this topic easily. Most of those major changes are driven, without the consideration of roleplay, on the game server, QoL or not. I think we can agree that game server is equally important, and my raised issue is that the repercussions of said changes are driven by OoC needs and desires and not needs of the in-game universe itself. There is no explanation to bridge the connection. The only PR's are that straight up affect every player and their interaction within the game server.

Since you are here, What would the QM head status fall under? Codebase or headmin discretion?

[Jacquerel]

Head admins can change any config they like, and as the ability to make a change so that only humans can become a quartermaster exists within the configuration of the server they are of course free to do it as they like with that power.

This change was not snuck in via the back door as any kind of trojan horse "temporary" merge (in fact enough time was spent on it to implement the configuration ability you want, which are discussed within the very linked PR) so your original post is still misinformed, pointlessly inflammatory, and incorrect.
The PR author even did in fact attempt to provide the very thing you are asking for with an in-universe justification for the change included alongside the code change, that the Quartermaster's elevation to Head of Staff status was part of a labour dispute and the teamster's union was strong enough to win the concession that existing non-human staff could continue to occupy the role (or be promoted to it in the future).
Continuing to maintain misinformation there despite being corrected is a strong show of bad faith on your part, which personally seems foolish when it feels like what you are aiming to achieve with this topic is some kind of greater unity between code changes and how they are presented in the game.

[britgrenadier1]

I think you can make it as simple as NT realizing the financials of hiring non-human command (who can be paid less than human command) and implementing the practice.

[dirk_mcblade]

If you've enslaved a large group of workers and they're all in a chaotic group somewhere, you need a structure to keep hold of them, a structure that still reports to you. If you had humans to assign to keep watch over them, you would, but what if you don't have enough humans? Then you'd choose from within.

At the end of the day you're pushing for something you want OOC and trying to justify it IC after the fact.
You can just as easily handwave reasons why NT wouldn't promote nonhumans.

Terragov could be issuing work permits to non humans that explicitly ban them from taking managerial positions. This is consistent with contemporary real world visas that grant permission to work only specific jobs.
NT could not want to give nonhumans access to command roles because they could more easily steal corporate information and run off to places outside of Terragov's jurisdiction. Real world analogy would be foreign nationals receiving security clearances... This doesn't usually happen.
NT could simply be apartheid in culture regarding other species.

Just because tgstation had a population crash due to unrelated policy decisions doesn't mean it has to sell out and become another furry/otherkin safespace. That wouldn't even attract new players because virtually every other server already allows nonhuman heads.

[MatrixOne]

but... I don't want nonhuman heads OOCly lol

I'm just writing what would make sense IC, the fact that it coincides with OOC reasons only makes this stronger and more immersive

[iansdoor]

I just don't understand why it's not pushing on what the megacorp is doing.

I wrote about this in my previous post, I'm not sure why you didn't engage with it in the slightest, but I guess I'll rephrase and hope you engage with it this time.]

I didn't say too much, as we both share the same vision. I feel that tying major game changes back to an in-game lore reference, would be the best outcome towards the game server itself. I was thinking about my response laterally with the folks that don't share the same idea.

Let's say you're the admiral in charge of 20 different stations. You have to make sure they're all productive and reasonably protected from the many enemies of NT. You need a solid top-down structure of command, you need captains at the helm of the station who can direct heads of staff to guide the employees to do their jobs and the sec teams to protect the stations.

What if many of the stations are severely understaffed? Then you have barely any control over them. There are very few NT certified officials to report back to you. The stations are staffed by a crew who do whatever and further their own goals with no supervision. This is unacceptable. You need security and you need heads of staff to enforce the NT values and directives.

So what do you do?

You promote from within.
Sad snip cause its the good stuff.

NT needs a strong and loyal chain of command. Sometimes that means promoting non-humans to fill in for blanks.

I couldn't ask for better IC lore statement, you answered the question.

Matrix, you understand where I trying to go with this conversation and clear up some loose ends about in-game universe itself that non-human head discussion makes. This has been very heated ooc topic for months without direction, just ultimatums. I am hoping and praying that incoming headmin lean the lore bit up and have more communication of the reason of why or why not, as the cloning removal did.

[NoxVS]

What's the purpose of this policy thread? I feel like it's just asking about lore stuff which isn't really the realm of policy. We have common core if you want to make lore changes to accommodate a change, and it's not like it'd be some monumental change to justify

[GPeckman]

I still don't think it would need any change at all. Like I said, nowhere in common core is there anything explicitly written about human authority.

[TheRex9001]

This is not policy, this is lore, this is for the codebase and not the administration

[iansdoor]

This is not policy, this is lore, this is for the codebase and not the administration

This is part of your domain now. QM being a head plus non-human turned off in config, is something to consider in your eyes, by virtue of being on the config.

The point of this conversation is that there needs to be consideration on how to turn that into a positive event, keeping the why not or personal feelings out when non-humans command is flipped on. In hopes that's lore driven to be the bridge of how something came to be. You don't have consider this option, uncomment the config on y'all's own time and make an announcement on newbus and see how it plays out the fun of the experimentation.

The only other time that non-human command flipped and stayed on, was QM in 2022 as a joke. There wasn't a newbus event towards the change and QM reception is still mixed to this day.

If you look at discord search of "QM is", there is wild opinions and mostly around that it's not a head role. The chatter of the two headcoders, orangenz, mothblocks and three headmin, mothblocks, melbert and timbers over the past 3 years, have been interesting in the relationship of HoP and QM. mostly HoP losing out on alot of access and responsibility, besides their one important ability to open up slots, is generally useless. Now, there may be the possibility of more than just QM being a non-human head and I want to see the endeavor succeed if that is what is needed.


You can lock this up if it's not something you're interested in.

[Jacquerel]

This is not policy, this is lore, this is for the codebase and not the administration

This is part of your domain now. QM being a head plus non-human turned off in config, is something to consider in your eyes, by virtue of being on the config.

This thread is about proposing that headmins disable nonhuman QMs now? That certainly isn't what it was when it was posted.
I think that it's kind of clear that there kind of isn't any actual policy implication to this thread at all. If you wanted a thread called "make nonhumans unable to be QM" that would be a much clearer OP and easier to understand.

[Striders13]

I'm not sure whats the ask here but im not interested in making qm human only. I'd love for qm to be banished from their head status but that's not my domain.

[iwishforducks]

NT realizes they can reduce spending by hiring non-humans in place of humans (non-humans only receive 75%)

or some “woke DEI” shit. They’re hoping the new DEI program will cover up the recent carpet bombing of civilians. Out of touch megacorpo trying to come up with some new controversial thing to make the more sane-minded people have to fight human supremacists instead of War Crimes

not sure how this is policy though

[TheRex9001]

We don’t really understand what is being asked of us policy wise and what we can gather isn’t policy related.