Space Station 13 / 14

[huckleton]

this post edited together from a long explanation i wrote down the other day for some non-ss14 friends who asked

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i played a shorter round a few days ago. (in normal ss14 server terms it'd actually be normal-length but this was only half the round.) the server i play on usually has 3 hour long rounds, as it's a roleplay-focused server with less in-game threats, thus the need to evacuate early is pretty rare. i joined as Casey Gale, a service worker, about 1h30m into the round.

i could talk at length about Casey Gale. they've been my main SS14 character for about a month or so, and i've had them as an OC for longer. all you need to know for now is that the Bit of Casey is that they're like, a pictogram representation of a person inhabiting 3D space. they have some social connections, but for the most part they deliberately try to make themselves a background element of other people's lives. this is also a furry server which makes casey even more inexplicable.

WARNING LONG description of round

this shift was on a map called Tortuga, medium-large map with an "interesting" service department layout. there are three kitchens joined to one central "break room" area for the chef, but each individual kitchen is small and shitty - it does mean, however, a massive surplus of supplies. the hydroponics bay is massive with the most amount of soil / hydroponics trays out of any map we have. there's a massive park area with a stage.

the first part of their shift was pretty standard, filling in for botany in their absence. while the botanist was out trapped in some conversation, casey tended to the plants and fielded requests from the two chefs.

i'm taking a brief detour to also explain one of my favorite species in this server - thaven. 

thaven long explanation

thaven were designed over at the server Impstation, and are often light-heartedly called "space elves" (or spelves). thaven look a bit like humans with Longer features, and have some biology they share with space carp/dragons. their blood is incredibly psychedelic, they do not need oxygen (they can breathe any gas and need to do so to stimulate their biology), they cometimes have gills and tails and scales and other fishy biology. most importantly, however, thaven have a culture of strong principles and virtues, and feel strongly about the moral lessons they keep close to their heart.

the thing is, the unfiltered radiation of space can fuck them up a bit. thaven have brains similar to the positronic brains of a cyborg, which gives the cyborg "laws" that they follow. (think asimov.) however, like cyborgs, thaven are vulnerable to ion storms - just as cyborgs may gain nonsense laws or have their laws corrupted by ion storms, thaven will undergo rapid personality shifts and abrupt changes in principles. passively existing in space in this way has made them kind of loopy in general, which leads to their "moods" mechanic.

thaven are subject to a random selection of "moods" per shift. one is shared across all the thaven, the others are individual to the particular thaven. a shared mood might look like "violence against thaven is permitted without repercussion", "your uniform determines your job", or "today is [certain holiday]". individual moods might look like, "never trust anyone who is smiling", "you must refer to individual people instead of groups of people", "you must pray regularly", or "command should be asked for advice on everything". in addition, ion storms and emagging will cause thaven to develop wildcard moods, which are much more severe and strange. for example: "you are immortal", "you deserve to be shunned", "everyone who obstructs your goals is either a criminal or a demon", "you must lie to people".

due to their cultural focus on strong moral principles, the thaven naming convention is virtue names. which is to say, their names embody some positive quality or moral lesson that the thaven should hold close to their chest. for example, "honesty", "desire", "seek truth", or "be courteous to others". some really funny and out-there names emerge from this.

at some point casey hits up one of their friends, Satan Was An Angel Too, a thaven musician for this shift. she invites them to watch her and a slime-person acquaintance of theirs named Sorrel Biff perform, and they decide to-- actually, no, they pick up a mop and clean up massive blood spills dragging through every major hallway. but anyways, then casey shuffles over to the bar to watch the performance, then sorrel and casey get drinks.

(pictured: casey, satan, sorrel)

 

sorrel leaves after hearing that the atmospheric technician has finished his "torture chamber". casey takes up the now-empty bar in place of the previous bartender who decided to cryo (exit the round) for the night. they serve an engineer and their buddy.

 

eventually satan returns and inexplicably appoints Casey as her voice of reason.

casey and satan have been hanging out a lot more lately, but something casey has been struggling with is feeling like they have been enabling satan's impulsive behavior a little too much lately. on one round casey let satan talk them into giving her around 100u of their own blood, which she used to make drinks that made her deliriously sick. on another round casey attended to some of the chef's botany orders while satan mutated plants into generating gas (though this was a very good thing for the station ultimately). so at this point, casey wants to dial it back a bit and give their own input on things. they ask her to elaborate.

satan tells casey that there's a public-access door that she can't enter, and she wants to break into it. but when she and casey walk to the door in question, it's unbolted. it's a maintenance bar.

casey shuffles inside, but satan immediately asserts herself quite intrusively. she stands on the bar counter and declares she can do whatever she wants, because nobody else is real. the bar owner, Scrawl, gets his manservant bouncer "Guy" to drag her out. they bolt the door to keep her out. casey catches up a bit with one of their other friends, Mera, who happens to be in the maints bar at this same time. 

(pictured: mera, scrawl, guy)

 

they tell her they feel bad leaving Satan out in the cold while everyone's in here, while they debate to themselves if they should leave to keep satan company. at this point, however, everyone in this (crowded) maints bar hears slamming against the bolted airlock. satan is attempting to break in.

casey attempts to reason with her behind the door just as she finally breaks it open.

 

at this point Guy throws her out again, and then chokes her out, but now nothing is stopping her from intruding on the bar. satan thinks scrawl's distaste towards her is related to some feud between her partner and him, a feud that she apparently knows nothing about even though it's been plaguing them for months. everyone is positively bewildered. satan speculates they're exes (a thought that makes scrawl utterly disgusted). then casey shakes her out of it enough to get her to evac on her own.

satan is extremely banned from scrawl's bar. casey's maints bar permission status remains unknown.

apparently, this was satan's list of moods for this shift, which is why she was completely unhinged instead of getting a multitool and remote signaller to undo the door bolts herself like a normal person.

the wacky moods of Satan Was An Angel Too

fun aside note: yesterday casey actually followed up on this whole thing with satan, and they had a good talk about how this was Not okay to put on them and finding ways to navigate satan's moods without encouraging destructive behavior.

what casey doesn't know that in the narrow window of time between this situation and that conversation, satan and her partner had a shift where both of them were so extremely out of it and pissed off that they ended up shooting at scrawl and guy with improvised firearms at a beach party out of a hellish desire for Justice. oops!(?)