Hey what do you want for synth lore

General Discussion
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sup, since im doing my lore rewrite for synths, mostly expanding company lore, which is like 80% done, I am hitting here because i want to see what the wider community wants out of synth lore.

  • What I have planned currently and am willing to talk about publicly
  • Expanding the already existing lore of the companies we have (WY, Hyperdyne, Seegson)
  • Adding the ability for players to make their own companies, which can be easily added to the wiki
  • Convert our company lore and synthetic names to be similar to clan lore - I.e have synths assigned to companies
  • Expand on why there is a synth on our ship - with the addition of allowing CO players to have their own personal synth from the WL(of course, with the synth’s permission)

Besides that, I am curious about what y’all want out of me expanding on lore, of course, if it’s too small and vauge I will likely not write it

THIS IS NOT ABOUT GUIDELINES, ML, OR MECHANICS - I WILL IGNORE ALL DISCUSSIONS AROUND IT***

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Sounds cool :+1:, covers all the bases I can think of

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It would be neat to have more about the positions certain synthetic typically fill aboard a vessel, and what makes certain companies synths different from say a weyland synth.

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Similar to Clockworks, I think a section detailing the intended/preferred duties of each synth subtype, such as the “command support synthetics”.

Could you expand more on the COs “personal synth” idea?

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Please elaborate on your mentioning of both why the synth is on the ship and company lore. Will synths be able to be stationed on the Almayer without specifically being marine-centric?

For example, will synthetic players be able to play as a specifically Weyland-Yutani loyal android? Will their loyalties still lie with the marines or with the company that provides them? What are the limits on company versus USCMC loyalty?

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This is ML and not lore.
It is just flavour.

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Already done this,

Each Company has a different style of synth - personalities, specializations, and so on. Entirely flavour.

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Similar to how a synth can be assigned a ‘company’ they can also put themselves with a ship that a CO WL has, it will not be required, nor will it have any real effect on RP outside of chinnok events.

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The only thing I want from Synths - specifically Survivor Synths, although this should apply to all Synths but Working Joes.

Basically I want them to not be able to run off and “RP” with the Xenos. Don’t want to be really negative, but “RPing” with the Xenos is usually very “Low-RP” generally, it become a bit cringeworthy is some cases. It doesn’t make much sense in reality (Yes I know the recent Alien slop show included Synths speaking and controlling Xenos, but that shit doesn’t count).

The Xenos not attacking the Synths on sight is very strange to me too, I’m not sure they’d see them as “Robots”, considering they instantly ripped apart Bishop in “Aliens” - if they saw them as just Robots, not a threat, then why did the Queen rip-apart Bishop and not just ignore them? You could argue the Queen is intelligent enough to know - but what interaction has the hive really had with Bishop at that point to see him a real threat? Either they see him a threat from the start (being identical in appearance to humans), or they’re not a threat at all, which clearly isn’t the case. Either way them ignoring and communicating with the Synths has always been strange to me.

I don’t think a colony Synth would even be that sophisticated enough to be able to outright communicate with the Xenos in the first place if you use that kind of logic too, a Synth of a backwater colony in the middle of nowhere.

I think in the lore any communication with the Xenos can be considered strange, they’re not humans, they don’t follow the same logic, they don’t act like we do, although yes they’re intelligent, they’re still animalistic and dangerous, the logic they use would be more akin to animals, they see a similar shape/sounding “thing” (Synths) to the hosts, they’d see them as a threat at the very least.

Any verbal communication at least, at the very least just stop them from having the ability to outright “talk” with the Xenos, that has never happened in the core lore of “Aliens”, yes the spinoffs and comics perhaps, but yeah it’s weird to me.

To me it’s just very low-RP, and selfish for a Synth player to run off and consort with the Xenos, without any way to retaliate (Kill them), they’re basically consorting with the enemy, which would be considered bad or a malfunction on their behalf.

Another thing to note is how valuable a Synth player can be - especially on lowpop. Most rounds you’ll get people either not rolling a Doc or Engi. So you’re screwed without an Engi at least, nobody wants to play one for the most part, similar with Doc although less of an impact. The Synths have both of those skills, don’t take up another survivor slot too, they’re incredibly valuable.

Anyways I’ve ranted enough about them, most Survivor Synths are actually really cool people, and help out the survivors, it’s just the odd cases you get people wanting to run off and do their own thing, which to me feels a bit selfish considering how valuable a Synth can be to the survivors.

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^

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Im not removing neutral synths btw. Infact Seegson will be the company that will often have neutral synths.
They are not going anywhere.

The WL Is for fun, not to win. If you want to win, play surv. If the synth goes neutral well cope. It is neither LRP or against lore, Comics, movies and games, show that synths are 1. able to understand xenos over time, 2. The language is there so RP and communication is easier so there is less stress about being neutral/engaging with neutral synths - because only talking in Me is not fun. 3. This WL is a for fun WL, if the synth player decides to not help survs, I will not force them too with restrictions/lore.

I am doing the lore rewrite, I can write lore to make it so neutral synths can exist, and that is what i am doing. Because CM does not need to be 1:1 with aliens, and having our own self referential lore, is fun and interesting, allowing players to show off their own world building and writing skills.

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I guess the colony synths can already say what they were doing on the colony, but are limited by being WY, etc. For shipside synth one being collected from a mission and repurposed would be cool. That way you can have colony synths that came from a church, or a bar, or something.

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I get it, but them being able to talk with the Xenos outright is the issue, it promotes weird kind of silly “RP” some of the time. You get Xenos crowding around the Synth, doing strange things, stuff like that, don’t want to go in detail, but to me it’s very low-RP.

Them not being able to outright talk would help with that, if they had to communicate outside of talking, it would help with the “RP”.

A lot of the time you have Xenos attack them at first, then they say things like “Don’t attack me I mean no harm” or something along those lines, and the Xenos just stop, it’s just kind of weird, if you can’t see it being weird then I don’t know what to say really.

Like I said before also - Would a colony Synthetic really have the capabilities to outright communicate with the Xenos in the first place too? I can’t see that happening with every Synth model to be honest, from a lore perspective, and the only place you actually see them communicating with them outright is with bad tv-shows or comics.

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CM is not a HRP environment, nor is it even a milsim.

since this is going off topic this will be my final post on the matter.
CM is a cartoons game, it is a funny goofy place, that has strong RP elements that elevate the capacity of the silliness. 90% of your issue here is xeno players too, not the Synth themselves.
And in your reply you kinda shown why we have synths with xeno language - because it makes RPing with them less awkward and allows the synth to inform the hive they are neutral in a non awkward manner.

And for the capacity, yes, they would. As i’ve stated. Synths are able to talk to xenos in the comics, and even if they didn’t I would still allow synth to talk to xenos with neutral synths since, as i’ve stated before, talking in just Me bullshit makes it basically impossible for any real communication or RP to develop in the firstplace.

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True, but not much you can do about the Xeno-side of it. Other then stop allowing them to interact in a direct way.

It should be “awkward”, it shouldn’t be like having a conversation with Bob who lives next door. They’re “Aliens” they shouldn’t know how to communicate like a human-being with the Synths.

But yeah this is my opinion about things, I personally think the lore from surrounding the comics and such is a bit weak, and especially if you’re considering that horrible TV show Alien Earth.

I choose to see how it is in the core movies, which there’s no room for verbal communication and such.

I mean that’s true, and perhaps the best argument you’ve stated, so perhaps I’ll concede with that point.

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