Modding Discussion Avali 1.0 Reboot Discussion

I'm curious as to what everybody else's opinions on how a packless kit would be treated in the Illuminate are. The way I have Jiro's backstory set up right now (prepare for gross summarization): he was born into an ADF servicevali tribe, homeschooled and raised as a whole by a single elder who happens to be his biological grandfather (which doesn't really mean anything in Illuminate society, just thought it would be at least somewhat important to mention to RPers). The reason for his being packless throughout life is the various mental oddities both present at birth and caused by the event which left him packless in the first place; no tribes were willing to accept him as an additional packmate because of these. Eventually Kemura (his guardian) just decided to bite the bullet and raise the kit himself, since Jiro's parents were already too preoccupied with duties to try and care for him and nobody else had the willingness to raise him due to not having experience with packless avali.

Jiro ended up being quite an introvert due to being rather neglected companion-wise and even bullied earlier on in his life; really the only exception to this was Nayoli, a member of what would become the Ralai pack who took a special liking to him and attempted to stand up for him, though the rest of her pack certainly did not share the feeling at the time. When entering his teens he joined an ADF officer training course, where he reunited with the Ralai pack after several years of isolation and generally learning to open up to others. After a couple years of courses, he graduated about a month after his 15th hatchday at the rank of lieutenant. Suck on that, Rhaomi.

Now I can definitely anticipate people calling bullshit on how quickly, early, and at what level he graduated, but I'm under the impression that unlike with human military enrollment, an avali is chosen for a role depending solely on their ability, aka you're not forced to a lower rank upon graduating for ordnung's sake. As for pack exercises, he likely just hung onto the Ralai pack's tail the whole way. There's also the issue of somehow not being admitted into a pack throughout his entire early childhood: however, I think when you take the circumstances into account as I described them, then it makes a lot more sense. Still, I understand there is a lot of room for inconsistencies and errors with a backstory skirting the canon line this much and probably even just going out of bounds altogether. I mean, that is why I asked for you guys' opinion, after all.

 

I've got to read the Wiki on that, It's been a loooong while. I'll give you an opinion one Enlightened c:

Do you have the full story, though? I'd love to read it.

 

I should also mention the canonicity of Jiro being raised with so much human media. A large part of why he graduated as he did in my current backstory is experience from human and avali simulation games alike. The effect it had/has on his current personality and psyche is also definitely worth mentioning: even when barely coming in contact with humans, he's pretty much perfectly capable of assimilating with them mentally.

Now the feasibility of human media availability in the Illuminate, especially when taking into account Yellow's headcanon where it's outlawed, is definitely sketchy. As of now I've never really been able to give a definite explanation or explanations as to how these would be accessible to Jiro, though it almost certainly involves Kemura.

Unfortunately the only place the full story currently resides is in my head, though you may be better able to get an idea of his backstory if you take a look at his DeviantArt text description here: http://captaingreninja.deviantart.com/journal/OC-Reference-Jiroku-the-Avali-AU-Temril-629450523

 

Gotcha, Imma read it right now.

 

Do we actually have an Avali Discord chat?

 

There are a few servers out there... don't know if any of them are official, though.

 

I've finally talked about all of this to a physicist. And yes, the nitrogen in the atmosphere would scatter blue light, now he said that since the atmoshphere is denser than Earth's, that blue would be more present (Like in Titan's photo a few posts back). We've also need to know what radiation does the star give out, that could change the outcome of the atmosphere color on it's own. As for the layer of cloud, we're still working on something... I'll keep you guys updated and I'll probably make a render.

 

Thanks, this sort of thing is a bit out of my area of expertise, but it will be very helpful if I have to depict Avalon in my machinima (quite likely). As for the color of the sun, I don't think there's any specific info. I'd guess it's either yellow or white, since we know Avalon orbits a gas giant and I don't think red stars are massive enough for gas giants. I don't actually know if that's true, though.

I think you've already hit on my main criticisms: too young, too fast. Whether he would be a lieutenant or not depends on the rank scheme of the ADF: I think I remember you talking about second and first lieutenant, which are US Army ranks. Officers come out of the academy a second lieutenant in the US Army, but it varies in other forces. Some have an intermediate midshipman rank, or something else. My rank scheme for commissioned officers goes ensign, sublieutenant (second lieutenant, granted to academy graduates), lieutenant, subcommander, commander (captain), fleet commander, admiral. As for skipping him forward a rank, I don't feel like that would be a thing. He may have had technical aptitude, but he didn't have experience (no, games don't really count).

However, I read that avali don't place as much emphasis on ranks as human miltiaries. Personally I find this doubtful, but in any case by the time I found out I had already made Rhaomi a sublieutenant.

That said, I have doubts that your character would be admitted to the ADF. He seems timid and clingy--not battle characteristics and definitely not officer material. He'd either wash out of training, they'd beat those traits out of him and leave him bolder and more confident. But the biggest obstacle is his lack of pack: a lone avali isn't just lonely, it's like they're mentally handicapped (something I kind of ignore in my machinima for the narrative's sake). As has been mentioned before, an avali pack is almost more like a single organism than a social group. So admitting Jiro by himself would be kind of like admitting a triple amputee or someone with Down Syndrome.

For this reason, I have doubts that they would let Jiro grow up without a pack. His only obstacle to acceptance seems to be "quirkiness" and some physical abnormalities, and I find it difficult to believe that no young pack in the whole Illuminate would take him in. I'm sure that there are organizations whose purpose is to find packs for children with special circumstances.

Bloodclaw was an exception because he was a sociopath and actually incapable of forming a pack bond. They still tried to find him one, despite the stigma such individuals carry.

It's your character of course, but I'd say let him have a pack. It's not like The Monsters Below where the story is focused primarily on two people who are proxies of their societies (and you're not limited by the number of characters you can control at once or the number of voices you can do).

 

A friend sent me the link to that series a few months ago, and I didn't watch it because I thought it was just a dude trying to make his charater feel alive, back then, I only watched the first 10 minutes. Until recently, a friend of mine asked me if I watched it, and I replied "no, not really... you know what, send me the link, we're watching it whole, one sitting". After setting up a simple youtube sync technique (we should've used watch2gether) we watched the entire series. It was then, at the end of the last episode, I realized how wrong I was to ignore it. And I think it's a great example of Story > What you use to tell the story. Wether it's live action or a crappy 2D animation done in someone's free time, the story is what made the whole thing for me. I watch a lot of "Well written" series/movies, Black Mirror is a prime example. Well I'd put your series next to Black Mirror in terms of writing quality. It is Impeccable and makes you think about everything you cover in the series after watching.

...sorry if I went too far...

Pls make a season 2 ;u;

 

Yeah, the opening is super boring and can be best summed up by Rhaomi's first words. I don't blame you for being turned off, and I'm glad you enjoyed it in the end. Season 2 is currently in production. We'll be taking a trip to Ori and the Blind Forest this season, with a return to Starbound in season 3.

Also, thank you very much for drawing my attention to watch2gether. I've been wanting to have watch party of season 2 when it comes out, but by the time it's done I'll be somewhere with internet that's too slow for a livestream. Watch2gether sounds like it will work perfectly.

 

Well during his time in training, those quirky traits of his were definitely addressed, either by him losing them altogether (which is probably not the case) or by him learning to subdue them when the need arises (which is the more likely outcome). As for the mentally-harming effects of lack of pack/pack loss, due to the separation occurring so early on in his life and the ensuing amnesia, the effects would definitely be lessened I say. As I already stated, the academy considered him part of the Ralai pack when it came to recruit organization.

You bring up a good argument here: an argument I cannot refute, in fact. I must say that, unfortunately, if I ever stated I'm willing to edit the character in the way of background, I was lying: I am really incapable of editing Jiroku's backstory so severely at this point. He has been in a number of engaging roleplays with other avali characters already, and these roleplays depend on his current backstoryif they are not to be utterly broken. So Jiroku might not be a character in a machinima, but he has other shackles to be bound by.

In addition, I would like to come out and say that I am incapable of roleplaying as a pack on my own: I simply do not have the time and am not willing to put in the effort required. At this point it really is just forming a makeshift "pack" with Jiro's closest companions.

 

That's teriffic news! If you guys need any help for Season 3 for outerspace renders and for scientific advice, my lil' team is ready to provide ^^.

I'm working on that as we speak! Render should be coming sooner or later.

 

I have another excuse to give here, come to think of it. Chances are Kemura (his caretaker) would have been unwilling or at least reluctant to assimilate Jiro into a pack from a tribe of another specialty, when the tribe of both him and Jiro was strictly military service. When Jiroku was still so young and not really sure what career he wanted to go into, Kemura probably wouldn't have taken any chances akin to sending him off to a tribe that specialized in geology, for example.

In other words, locating a proper pack for a "spare" kit is harder than one might at first think.

 

https://discord.gg/DERjFex
here, its the official Avali triage discord server.

 

I suspect avali child services would have a thing or two to say about that, though. Raising a kit alone could well be actively unhealthy. I'm sure that there's a way to handle it (have families instead of packs, for instance) but the Illuminate doesn't strike me as culturally flexible. Plus if military service is the goal, having a pack would be a prerequisite.

 

Uuunless one were to be assimilated into another pack for ADF operations. It wouldn't take that long to pick up pack-specific terminology and memetic cues. The ADF should be willing to get creative.

As for Jiro being in another social group to keep him mentally healthy, the kit's elder does happen to be his biological grandfather and he often takes Jiro to visit acquaintances and relatives (in Kemura's current lore, the rest of his pack has either moved on or passed away).

 

Just because you're in a few roleplays doesn't mean you can't change the backstory. Just start new roleplays with a different backstories and eventually you won't be in any roleplays with the old version.

 

Well I've also found this from Oceana: http://oceana.deviantart.com/art/Avali-Discord-join-us-675682057

I don't believe it's the same server: if it is the I apologize. Personally I don't know if I'll ever join, since I am not in a position to now and I have a personal dislike for Tara/Oceana/Pixelburst/Vegamon. It's a long story, but basically:

She accused me of harrassment and attempted to report me to Ryuu for questioning her main character design, which doesn't at all follow canon unless you take feather dyeing into account. Then she blocked me because somehing happened between her and my in-RP love interest on CSRL (a semi-private barrels of fun and stupidity avali Discord server), blah blah. I ask the server admin for CSRL (a good friend of mine) about it, and he basically details her having various temper tantrums, not taking her responsibility as mod seriously, and ultimately getting banned from the server. At first I was just like "good riddance", but the more I dwell on it the more I wanna shut this girl down/expose her. I feel like a revenant or wraith or some shit.

What I don't understand is that she is perhaps the most prevalent person in the entire avali community. How does she stay popular and well off on friends with that attitude? Also, the vent art is real. I have no idea what this girl's deal is, but I really wanna perform an action of questionable morality directed towards her if she shamelessly insulted my mate like that.

These roleplays mean a lot to me, they aren't just some throw-away item. Not a chance, sorry.

 

Well Hello!
I am back, and this time... I've got new stuff~.

Huzzah! The Husky Pup Strikes again!
I hope you guys enjoy this and please remember, this is not a final version, this is merely a stair step to something increcingly more realistic.
Feedback, please.

*cuddles anyone close enough* c:

 

*eagerly cuddles back*

You aren't lying, it looks better than ever! Just don't forget the ammonia seas and likely volcanic spots.