[EVENT] Scientific Summit on Glitch Research

Update 2
The event is now happening for sure. Wednesday, 22:00 EST. 1000 1000 Gamma Alula 18-IV.

Update 1
The event has been pushed back until tuesday/wednesday to give more time to coordinate with interested parties—please let me know if you're interested in being a speaker at the event.

What: An IC discussion and paper-reveal focusing on producing a unified understanding of our head-canon related to the Glitch, which is inclusive rather than definitive. Should be interesting for characters wondering about particular Glitch or the race in general, or players who are interested in discussing basic contemporary philosophy of mind (including discussion of artificial intelligence) and/or theoretical neuroscience (as opposed to in-depth, applied biology) as applied to or explained by an in-game race.

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When/Where: Likely this tuesday or wednesday at 22:00 EST, please indicate what day is preferable for you, or indicate a better time frame that suits you. I am flexible this week! The event would be hosted at the 2K club, around 1000 1000, Alula 18 IV.

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Who/Roles: Anyone is free to attend the discussion and read the paper IC when it is released, but there are basic tiers of attendees that will determine when or if your character should speak during the event. Basically, debate should be present but kept to a minimum—only 'speakers' or above may offer criticism—the main point is to establish highly variable Glitch as server-wide head-canon, to answer IC questions that may crop up as a result, and to just have some fun, in-depth role play.

Host- Aerdem Sunwing, of the Applied Interspecies Science Institute (AISI). Exuberant author of the paper.

Speakers- Those who wish to comment on the paper or discuss the content with the host. If you want to talk, please contact Aerdem IC (assume you received an invitation of some kind) and post in the comments below. Preferably, your character has researched or interacted medically with Glitch before. Updates to this post and any IC announcements will include these names. Limited to 6 slots (unless more are really needed).

Staff- Those who want to serve drinks and act as quiet message-deliverers, security personnel, or barmen of some kind. (Aerdem has put out radio messages IG, so indicate that you'd like to respond to the offers below, or otherwise contact me IC) Limited to 5 slots.

Guests- Those who just want to watch the proceedings—there will be a general questions section where they can post inquiries, after the discussion between the speakers and the host following the release of the paper. Unlimited, please feel free to invite friends as long as you aren't planning on being rambunctious.

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Goal: Introduce, organize, and explain various head-canon interpretations of the Glitch race, including Physical Systems (e.g. synthetic muscles, hydraulics, what makes glitch move, and brain organization and permutations), Mental Attitudes (e.g. linguistics, thought processes, programmed reactions vs. free will, etc.), and Societal Organizations (e.g. kingdoms, hive-minds, family structures, and basic interaction).

Please note that nothing that Aerdem will propose in the paper he is writing rules out anyone's personal representation of the Glitch. Instead, this event and paper are meant to serve as a way to make sense of and give reason for any and all explanations of Glitch characters. By focusing on categories and allowing for crossovers and exceptions, the document is meant to give a strong, organized explanation for the many, many different kinds of interesting Glitch characters that populate our server. That is to say, the paper and this summit will confirm ICly that Glitch are surprisingly unique and that perhaps they come in even more differentiated types than do their biological counterparts—Aerdem wants to "avoid thinking about the Glitch race as a homogenized group like other races, given the huge potential and observed differences of Glitch populations and individuals."

This head-canon is based on the Glitch lore of Starbound, but is centered around how Glitch characters are played here on the server—the Glitch storyline and character traits that are represented in the books given to you at the start of the game as a Glitch are therefor seen as non-applicable to all Glitch characters—for instance, there could be a non-outcast glitch character on the server.

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Requirements: The IC and OOC rules are simple: don't talk over others (if you are not a speaker or the host, you will be limited to the general question session after the researcher discussion), especially OOC, because there may be walls involved, and ((I)) ((hate)) ((seeing)) ((this)), please don't start any IC or OOC turbulence (fights or arguments would detract from the discussion, which has the potential to be very interesting—pls don't rain on my parade, because on Alula 18 IV it already rains fire), and just generally be polite—it is a scientific summit, after all. If your character wouldn't pass a basic background check in terms of outbursts or proneness to violence, they wouldn't be invited to the delicate 2K club in the first place.

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Questions/Comments/Contact: It is very possible that I missed something along the way, or misused the forums somehow, so please feel free to ask questions, give me feedback, or comment in general. For the sake of simplicity, discussion/basic questions can remain freeform, but if you are informing me of a role you'd like in the event, please indicate it with a Roles—roleyouwant first line/heading so I can add you as soon as possible. Thanks! :>

If you want to reach me IC, hop on late at night EST (bad internet this week, but I'll try) or on the forums here (or ask me for steam/skype privately).

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p.s.
I am terrible and very bad at using forums so please let me know if I need to fix anything or move this or have an IC post on starnet or whatever. Thanks~

 

Excuse me? I don't understand, this is related to Glitch in general—though it would be interesting to have some Glitch characters present at the summit.

 

I'd be interested in talking with you IC or otherwise about the summit—Oak should definitely attend! The point of the stuff I'm working on is not to overwrite existing lore, but tie the huge variety of Glitch characters on the server together into a cohesive picture.

 

Hi!

To Fel:
I decided to make this an IC event because, why not? I don't think every RP event needs to have guns, murder, and disorder involved. Maybe we can just take a break, and discuss some things over a nice bottle of wine.

Also, there will be Glitch speakers and perhaps attendees (wink wink, nudge nudge). Aerdem just thinks they're more interesting than most people make them out to be.

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To those worried about the headcanon/lore to be proposed:
I'd like you to take a look at the real mission of the event/my paper:

From the Goal section of my post above:
"Please note that nothing that Aerdem will propose in the paper he is writing rules out anyone's personal representation of the Glitch. Instead, this event and paper are meant to serve as a way to make sense of and give reason for any and all explanations of Glitch characters. By focusing on categories and allowing for crossovers and exceptions, the document is meant to give a strong, organized explanation for the many, many different kinds of interesting Glitch characters that populate our server. That is to say, the paper and this summit will confirm ICly that Glitch are surprisingly unique and that perhaps they come in even more differentiated types than do their biological counterparts—Aerdem wants to "avoid thinking about the Glitch race as a homogenized group like other races, given the huge potential and observed differences of Glitch populations and individuals."

A clearer explanation edited from a conversation with Hawke:
"I don't plan on excluding anyone's personal lore, because those choices are integral to character creation, and are especially important to most Glitch characters I've interacted with. Instead of establishing a certain group of characteristics as canon on server, I've decided to create guidelines that allow players to classify their Glitch, and better understand the extent of individual-level differences in character—if someone's lore doesn't fit a particular value in a category, more can always be added—and each will have an exception clause as well. Basically, Cementing variability as the established lore is the goal. By setting out guidelines, I want to justify unique and interesting glitch."

So, don't misunderstand the conference or the paper. Anyone can claim anything about the Glitch, and sometimes people add interesting details or derivations to their characters, and I aim to embrace that by laying out some of the ways Glitch differ from each other (with three main lists of classifications), giving some IC credence to all Glitch characters that deviate from whatever people consider a 'normal' Glitch to be. There will be no proposals that start with "all Glitch," because it is entirely possible that someone will join the server and create a character that does not conform to our standards. It's my intention to make the whole point of the paper and the conference the legitimization of many different configurations of Glitch.

I want to embrace all the different ideas (from motor-oil chugging, hydraulic beings with computer-accessible brain parts to those who eat and enjoy 'traditional' food while resting on synthetic muscle fibers, whose neural-network brains are only as editable as biological counterparts), give them a bit of legitimacy (by explaining how these different configuration parts make sense without ruling out other possibilities), and make some people IC/OOC think about the Glitch in a new, interesting way.

-graw

 

I think so, the paper will be posted on Starnet along with the IC announcement, and the post will be updated with a summary/thank you from the host. If you'd like to propose a date change, I'd be more than happy to try to accommodate. Wednesday at 10 PM EST is what I'm planning on for now.

 

Here's a link to the IC post/invitation: http://community.playstarboundrp.com/threads/science-conference-on-glitch-classification.6136/
And to the paper: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8ublJ_DI_A2TlVsRDg0S19YdUU/edit?usp=sharing

 

In-depth conversation can be done on steam, but this is more to start a new way of understanding the Glitch for the average person, not a science-heavy summit on the details.