TortoiseGaming - Synthetic Application

Whitelists Synthetic Applications
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Synthetic Application - TortoiseGaming

What is your BYOND key?

TortoiseGaming

What is your Discord ID?

DakotaWildDog

Do you usually play a specific character? If so, who?

I only have one character right now, Baron ‘Fireball’ Faust

What whitelist applications have you previously completed?

This is my first application.

Synthetic Info:

Name of the Synth Character you wish to play:

Dakota

What is your Synthetic’s Personality?

Fidgets when “Nervous” or in high stress situations, talks to themself when working on tasks.

How will they react to the different ranks of the USCM, what would they talk about in a one on one conversation? What are their interests? What is an advertisement logline that could be written for them?

Dakota is respectful of each rank on the ship, treating everyone accordingly and never going out of their way to insult or belittle anyone on the ship. They are a people-pleaser and will do what they can to assist marines and civilians alike (marines first though). Dakota has a fascination with space travel, cryo, being asleep for long periods of time, dreams, and different theologies’ Life-After-Death myths. They would talk to anyone who would listen about such topics as it is of great interest to them.

Dakota is a new synthetic product that aims to go into deep, meaningful conversations and engage with its listener. It has life-like features and characteristics that will /almost/ make you think it’s a real person!

Why do you want to be a synthetic/why should we whitelist you?

I would love to play as a synth as I have loved them in the films and in the game. I love to interact with synths and would like to bring a fun and interesting character idea to life in-game with this synth. I have a lot of experience in RP throughout almost 10 years of playing SS13 and other RPGs. I started playing arma 3 RP and ss13 back in 2015, I have played several thousand hours of GTA RP since 2021, and I have played DND and other such roleplaying games for quite a long time as well.

What is your most memorable interaction with a synthetic?

I think one of the most memorable interactions was from a couple years ago, watching a synth with a fire axe taking down xeno walls and such, dragging marines back and helping them with medical.

Synthetic Character Story:

Dakota is a taller synth, standing around 6’4" with curious emerald eyes that almost seem to have a shimmering opalescence to them. They are a clean and well kempt synth. They typically wear casual clothing with a small black hole pin somewhere on their clothing.

On a routine recon mission, Dakota was working late into the evening - assisting the shipboard researcher, Rachel, with a project. The two were working on a new chemical compound that promised to help improve coagulation and lessen blood loss when injected into bleeding patients. So far, the experiments on rodents and monkeys were less than ideal.
Dakota turned to Rachel, “Do you think we should maybe try adding iron to the mixture? Allow it to also help replenish some of the blood?” Rachel thought hard for a few moments then nodded her agreement. “I suppose if this treatment were to work as we hope, it will gain you some notoriety in your field, no?”
Rachel responded with a slight smile, “I would suppose they might notice my work a bit more.”
As if on cue, Dakota responded immediately after she finished speaking. “I think you deserve that! This project is quite important. Hopefully we will find a fix to the problem though. It just seems to be incompatible with human biochemistry.”
Rachel looked a little sideways at them for a moment, “Do you always respond so quickly? It’s a little… disconcerting.”
“I- well, I guess I had not thought about it before. I simply responded when I thought it appropriate. It seemed that you were finished speaking and it was my turn. I apologize if this was a mistake though, I did not mean to be disconcerting.” Dakota started to bounce their leg sitting at the table, tilting their head slightly.
“It’s fine, Dakota, just… maybe don’t speak so fast after someone is finished speaking?” Rachel gave them a soft smile.

The work continued for an hour or so before Rachel looked up from her screen.
“GAH! This is just so useless! I can’t even get the calculations to line up anymore!” Rachel picked up a nearby vial and chucked it across the room in frustration and anger.
At the noise and smashing of glass, Dakota looked up with a concerned expression, “Rachel, are you feeling okay? Maybe we have been up for far too long? I do not want you to put yourself under too much pressure - please take a break.”
Rachel turned towards Dakota, a glower on her face, “Ugh, the synth telling me how to deal with my own emotions.” As soon as she said it, she realized how rude it sounded and immediately apologized, “Oh… I didn’t mean it like that… sorry.” She sheepishly said.
Dakota put on an easy smile and turned to fully face her in their seat. “It is no problem with me, Rachel, please do not feel the need to be sorry with me. I hope that you will be okay in the morning.”
“You’re… you’re right, I should get some rest.” Looking towards a clock, they saw it was closing in on midnight. “Aaaand it’s past my bedtime.” Rachel smiled up at Dakota.
They looked back, a slight tilt to their head. “I will see you in the morning, Doctor. Sleep well and do not let the space bugs bite.” Dakota neatly turned around and began cleaning their area.

Dakota then returned to their quarters, writing in a journal that was gifted to them by their research partner a couple of missions prior. Each night Dakota would write a brief synopsis of the day’s events, good and bad. The upkeep of this journal felt important to the synth to complete every night. They wrote for a few hours before laying down on their cot and staring at the ceiling for the remaining hours of the night. As the lights flick off, the ceiling and walls start to glow slightly with varying sized and colored dots, constellations form and a familiar sight appears on the synth’s walls/ceiling - The Milky way from the perspective of Earth.

Morning lighting flicked on after 5 hours, 36 minutes, and 17 seconds after Dakota layed down in their cot - having counted every second.

Skills:

Engineering:

I would say that I have decent understanding of engineering. I am competent with making cades and constructing general machines.

Command:

Somewhat, I play SO every now and then.

Medical:

I have some difficulty with CM medical, but I know other systems i.e. paradise like the back of my hand. It wouldn’t take long to learn medical over here.

Requisitions:

I have a decent understanding of Req, though I don’t play it very often.

What are some scenarios that you can perform combat in? Give us a brief example.

In self-defense cases like saving injured marines or non-lethally taking down a ship board combatant.
I can also take down non-human or non USMC personnel in cases of self-defense and even kill if needed.

Final Info:

Have you been banned from CM in the last month for any reason? Do you have any active jobbans?

No

Are you currently banned from our Discord?

No

Let us know why you were discord banned.

N/A

Do you have anything else you would like to include about your application?

I have been apart of the CM community since 2015 and have enjoyed it the whole time. I would like to bring an interesting character to CM in the form of a synth.

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Brotherman, what are you hours looking like?

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I don’t have the whitelist however I will try and save you some time and point you in the right direction as unfortunately the application will not be seen up to par

What is your Synthetic’s Personality?
Fidgets when “Nervous” or in high stress situations, talks to themself when working on tasks.

This isn’t really a personality, this is more of a quip, an example of a personality would be a jubilant and outgoing late night talk host or an overworked, grim noir style detective, after you have the groundworks then quips can be worked into the personality

I also believe that this may fall into the trap of being “inefficient” that many people accidentally do, to put it into simple terms, the USCM wouldn’t buy a synthetic that is intentionally slower than other ones, synthetics are programmed how to act and so the personality should synergise with how gameplay will run rather than interfering with it

Synthetic Character Story:

To start, compared to other stories, it’s lacking, I’d like to think of it as can you guess the personality from the story alone, which is what you should try to achieve

What I can tell though is they are tall, they might be dedicated to research and their personality might be linked to social awkwardness, introversion or obsession over topics.

Among this there are some other issues, for example from a quick read, there is use of the word “notorious” which is fame for wrong doings, and I’m not sure about a synth having a bed, you will need to ask the proper people after this.

Skills:

This is where it does get iffy, from all of your answers there doesn’t seem to be a clear answer of competence other than engineering, a synthetic should be someone you can turn to for answers for every situation, they are supposed to be a jack of all trades while being a master at the same time, especially when lives can be on the line, a synth shouldn’t be struggling with tasks such as triage, surgery, etc

I would recommend getting a good grasp of every field so you aren’t stumped by anything

What are some scenarios that you can perform combat in? Give us a brief example.
In self-defense cases like saving injured marines or non-lethally taking down a ship board combatant.
I can also take down non-human or non USMC personnel in cases of self-defense and even kill if needed.

Although there aren’t many scenarios that haven’t been said, I can’t really tell anything from what you know compared to what I can already read in the synth guidelines it feels very cookie cutter rather than what you can infer from it, I would recommend going into specifics of scenarios, like if there is a CLF operative who has backed you into a corner, in which you would see lethal action as the correct option

Overall some work definitely needs to be done, for starters,

Call for some help in the whitelist-app-help channel on the discord, there are many people, in and out of the whitelist who would be more than glad to help with story, questions, what can be improved etc.

Get in contact with the synth councillors, you can ping the role in the mentioned channel, they have signed up to help people get into the whitelist so using their help is a great benefit

Not many people get the perfect application on the first try, its pretty much standard to have a few drafts before getting on the right lines, my personal advice would definitely be keep trying to work for it

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I suggest withdrawing this application. It is unfortunately not up to snuff.

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around 200 hours in marines, but that’s only since those hours were counted. Like I’ve said, I’ve been playing since 2015 off and on.

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Yeah mate, Im not a whitelist holder myself, but I would advise you listen to the lads who replied earlier because they are essentially correct.

Have a look at the various successful Synthetic applications and compare them to the ones that haven’t succeeded and compare them to see what they have/lack and the advice/criticisms they have recieved.

Also take a look at the discords #Whitelist-app-help channel, there are plenty of people there willing to go through your application, story, personality and quirks to help you form a potentially successful application.

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I think the confusion with the story part comes from it saying to not make it long… Unless I read it wrong, that’s what I was going off of, otherwise, I would have made it longer.

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My biggest issue here is the personality, regardless of the story. Why would the USMC employ/buy a Synth that has a quirk such as this, knowing well that the synth would experience highly stressful situations?
My point here is that, employing an overall net-negative personality that doesn’t have any benefit in the terms of battlefield leaves the taste of soup in my mouth; you’d need very high skills in terms of role play to not add stress to a situation.

I always recommend a rule of three when it comes to a Synth and its personality. Have a theme in mind, then build off it with three archetypes to its personality. Your synth was more than likely designed to fill a role, explore that fact. what personality traits would best reflect your synth in that role, and can you build on it further?

always start simple- then build off that, look at your personal life; what hobbies/interests do you have that can be applied to your synth? There is always something that you can work from.
I recommend looking at previous accepted apps and going from there.

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I get all that, I just don’t really see how those traits are negative? I was basing this character a bit off how I act and trying to display that through this character idea. I’m autistic - that being the basis for this idea. But if it’s a net-negative personality, I’ll come up with something else.

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Hi TortoiseGaming, thanks for your interest in the synthetic whitelist. Unfortunately, we cannot at this time accept your application.

Firstly, your personality. Fidgety and nervous aren’t really traits a synthetic can have outside of extreme circumstances not really applicable in the setting of a synthetic under ownership of the USCM. Besides that, those traits are not in and of themselves an entire personality. They are traits, just that. A synthetic’s personality will need to have more depth than those things on their own, along with you evaluating if those traits would make sense on a USCM synthetic at all.

For your reactions question, it seems like you are going for more of a philosopher/psychologist archetype, which is a good start. If you want to keep this sort of stuff, I advise expanding on it along those lines. You can even go in a more therapist oriented direction if you’re comfortable with that.

For your story, and more importantly dialogue, there both wasn’t a lot of it, and the stuff that there was didn’t really have a lot of depth. On the first point, a synthetic’s application story is usually much longer. You can look at some of the recent accepted synth applications for a reference of how they usually look. On the second topic, your dialogue also could use a lot of work. A common piece of advice I give is instead of trying to write the character, put yourself in the role of the character, act out the scene with yourself, and write what you say.

As for your skills, they are unfortunately not up to the synthetic standard at this time. Synthetics are meant to be experts in all aspects of CM support with few exceptions, so being decent or having difficulty with certain aspects doesn’t mesh with the standard we work to uphold on the whitelist.

Your combat answers, in an extremely vague and broad sense are generally correct, however lack the depth we’d like to see in the answers to these questions. I advise looking deeper into the synthetic guidelines on the combat portions, perhaps even reviewing some accepted/denied reports on synthetic combat violations to get a better grasp of how they work. Additionally, providing examples on the difference between frontline and non-frontline combat along with the specifics of delta alert will certainly be beneficial.

In summary;

  • Work on your synth’s personality and story.
  • Make sure you’re an expert in the core areas of CM support like medical and engineering.

Lastly, it’d be a good idea to make use of the #whitelist-app-help channel in the main discord, along with communicating through DMs with the synth councilors. I say it a lot that it’s impossible to get denied on the basis of your application’s content if you take the time to prepare, because it’s true.

As I said, this application is going to have to be declined at the moment, though you’re free to reapply in a month’s time, 15/10/2024 (15th of October, 2024). We hope to see you back soon.

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Added synth:denied and removed synth:waiting