Synthetic Application - WickedCybs
What is your BYOND key?
WickedCybs
What is your Discord ID?
cyberspy
Do you usually play a specific character? If so, who?
Sera Rail, (sometimes) Alex Adell
What whitelist applications have you previously completed?
N/A
Synthetic Info:
Name of the Synth Character you wish to play:
Liliya
What is your Synthetic’s Personality?
The Liliya model is typically found in the field of journalism. While humans can do just fine behind a desk, when it comes to getting the perfect shot or story there’s sometimes an element of danger. Especially outside of Sol and in the colonies proper. In the current age, why leave it to chance? Why take the toll for something that’ll become yesterday’s news in time anyway? What you need is Liliya. She can forgo all that extra equipment you’d want with you, like a tripod. Synth hands do not shake and she can get any shot with perfect precision. As a synthetic she also does not own anything she “produces”. It’s yours to do as you see fit! Whether taking the role of a war correspondent abroad or prowling the mean streets on Earth, she’ll give you the results you need.
Of course, that alone wouldn’t be too interesting for customers. Her overall bearing is that of a haughty, self-assured person to add a bit of flavour. This wouldn’t be expressed in an abrasive way to put down others. She’s more interested in taking action and fluffing herself up afterward, like praising a marine for having the foresight to call upon her special expertise and the like.
While you could expect her to carry around a camera while in service on the Almayer, I do not intend to really portray it as an object-based personality. Elements of her former profession would be present where it seems appropriate. She might use terms a journalist would use sometimes, but not constantly.
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?
Talking is a job like any other to Liliya. It’s important to keep up morale and ingratiate herself with the humans she’s been tasked to assist. For Enlisted, titles are used generally. Surname as well for clarity if needed. Since these are marines she’s dealing with, she’s perfectly willing to banter within reason, but she wasn’t made as a highly interpersonal model. So her conduct would be rather cool. During significant events or personal RP I could see her whipping out a camera and offering to capture the moment for marines.
An Officer can expect the same treatment overall, but Liliya would be a little more on the level with them. They’re trusted to lead the Enlisted or are learning how to do so typically, so would they like her to do anything? Do they need/want advice, maybe a level headed take on the current situation?
Her primary interest is going to be in the stories making the rounds of the Almayer. What are the marines up to today? What are their fixations? This is a good chance to collab with the correspondent (assuming they’re pro-USMC mostly) and potentially report on it, spreading the word. Maybe take part in it herself. Always gotta stay on top of the breaking news.
A secondary of hers would be hobbies of any stripe. Writing, photography, dancing, drawing, cooking and so on. She respects the “human” element of these and seeks to emulate it in an attempt to be more “authentic.” She would be naturally drawn to marines talking about what they do other than their current lines of work and the stories behind that… That aside, she would also be happy to inject her own “hobbies” into a conversation as well or relate it in some way if it wouldn’t seem forced as well as directly inquiring as to what others do. That would be writing and photography primarily.
Another interest would be in feelings and the reasons behind them. In some cases like suffering a wound and feeling terribly about it, that’s obvious and doesn’t need much prodding. Something more divisive though and innocent enough, like squad preference. Sure, let’s hear the reasons. In particular, the feelings of A.W’s are very intriguing. Like a synthetic, A.W’s were made for a specific task. They’re similar in some ways… but the A.W is wholly organic and conditioned. Their feelings are real and that’s a challenge WY and the USMC had to tackle.
“Liliya. Exactly what you needed to do exactly what you wanted to be done. “
Why do you want to be a synthetic/why should we whitelist you?
I’ve wanted to apply since my first foray into CM back in 2019. I think CM has the most interesting iteration of a synthetic on any SS13 server at the moment. As someone who isn’t very robust but enjoys the contribution they can make in a round via playing the support roles, the concept of a role where I can do just that but shift accordingly in the same round where needed is just what I need to break up the monotony sometime I think. I’m very set in my preference for medical roles at the moment, but given the opportunity to branch out I have had a lot of fun working with other players in req or setting fortifications and chatting as a comtech. I also very much enjoy the RP a synthetic brings and like the idea of also bringing my own take to it as the synthetic itself.
Regarding the why. I think I can meet the expectations of the whitelist and further the enjoyment that synth players can bring to others on the server. They excel at helping others and providing a presence that gets players to be more comfortable with engaging in a bit of roleplay in them. I enjoyed that positive influence on myself and others and it’s for that reason I’ve applied. When there is RP on CM, it can be quite good.
What is your most memorable interaction with a synthetic?
I have to add three here, because for me it’s always a combination of things.
Firstly. One round I had repaired and talked a little bit with her and then saw her off. Later in the round during the holding of a fuel pump, our position was lost and I went into crit in an adjacent maintenance room. Xenos were pretty much right next to us. Carla swooped in and fireman carried me. During that, I muttered “I owe you one.” to her and while I had no way of knowing it was her , I did notice in the chatlog that someone said “I know.” To me that was pretty cool even if it was minor. I’m a sucker for the little things.
Secondly, I had a round with Molly where she was a PMC synth. I was just a Corpsman, so our paths didn’t really intersect much at first past the beginning. One there was some real time in the round, Molly was deployed and helping out marines here and there. We still didn’t really speak much due to the round being very active but we had a good thing going where she’d carry marines over and I’d bring them back up. At roundend I ended up seeing her again in eta caves. She paid me a compliment, I responded that it was some good teamwork and that mostly concluded things as I was pretty burnt out and also carting out a marine that went blind from some iffy stims and was also hugged. If there was a next time, I’d try to take more of an opportunity to talk although I suppose that’s one of the benefits of Rifleman there, you don’t feel as obligated to have to constantly keep doing your job. I appreciated them.
Third. I had a civil conversation with Desmond while playing as a Lesser drone. Weird things happened in the round, where a large delay ended up in xenos getting a queen and starting up again after all the marines went back up shipside upon their victory. Desmond was seemingly wandering around and as he was breaking some of our resin structures, I popped up from a door. There was a short staredown, probably as we both assessed whether the other would strike, then we talked. I told him we had no quarrel, so why not step aside? He responded that he was bound to help the marines and that they were going to ultimately kill us, with him helping that objective. We bantered a little bit about that, me calling him a slave, him asking if we could just accept what was going to happen to make it easier. Then a scout spec popped out of invisibility and killed me instantly after the synth mentioned I was about to die. He was right.
Synthetic Character Story:
Skills:
Engineering:
Core tasks like setting up comms and power, I can easily do. In terms of cade theory, I know straight lines aren’t everything and that you want to maximise the amount of guns being able to fire while at the same time making it dangerous and not so easy to slash a cade. So instead of a straight line or outwards fortification in a cave choke, a cadeline that faces inwards can be a lot more defensible and harder to break through for xenos. Entrances should also be at corners typically rather than in the middle of a cadeline in order to maximize lanes of fire and minimize FF. Defensive lines should be arranged in a way that there’s room to manoeuvre and that a trapper boiler damages as few cades as possible and with room left for people to step. Usually that means you want at least three tiles of distance between one cadeline and the next. I can make my metal last for a while as I’m quite the looter on the battlefield. Window frames? Usually free metal waiting for me to take it. Of course, those can also still be useful intact sometimes too as some xenos can’t easily break those and take time to move over.
Command:
Core tasks like setting up comms and power, I can easily do. In terms of cade theory, I know straight lines aren’t everything and that you want to maximise the amount of guns being able to fire while at the same time making it dangerous and not so easy to slash a cade. So instead of a straight line or outwards fortification in a cave choke, a cadeline that faces inwards can be a lot more defensible and harder to break through for xenos. Entrances should also be at corners typically rather than in the middle of a cadeline in order to maximize lanes of fire and minimize FF. Defensive lines should be arranged in a way that there’s room to manoeuvre and that a trapper boiler damages as few cades as possible and with room left for people to step. Usually that means you want at least three tiles of distance between one cadeline and the next. I can make my metal last for a while as I’m quite the looter on the battlefield. Window frames? Usually free metal waiting for me to take it. Of course, those can also still be useful intact sometimes too as some xenos can’t easily break those and take time to move over.
Medical:
Surgery is something I know very well from my past stint on CM in 2019 and I’m never really caught guessing or taking overly long in an operation. I also know how to expedite things, like if a late-stage hugged patient came in, I would scalpel scalpel, disarm bonesaw to immediately break the ribs, retractor, pict, hemostat, trauma kit in case there’s organ damage I can handle and then finish up the closing. Field medical in Corpsman is my favourite thing to do in the game and I’m good at triaging and prioritising marines that are at risk of going perma, those who haven’t died yet that I can save without giving a shock (therefore, avoiding heart damage), specs and such. Chemistry is very rote and past my first few rounds where I was seeing how it’s done these days, I don’t really have problems with it and have taught nurses how it goes. Chems like IA, MB, KD, D+ are already burnt into my muscle memory and I’m still timely on the lesser asked chems too. In the interest of applying for synth, I’ve also taken the time to get to know improvised surgery and I can competently do so. My preference is still to carry surgical tools though.
Requisitions:
It all started to click after I noticed CM has an in-built search bar on vendors which I missed for an embarrassingly long time (I’d ctrl f instead). I know where things are, know how to get marines their attachies, can operate ASRS. What I see as the most important skill to req is the FOB crate and frontline crate and what to put in them. There’s overlap there although I’m not going to send mortar shells to the frontline unless for some reason the mortar was there as an example. Another thing to req is knowing how to maximise what you can get from the ship and preventing needless expenditure. MRE’s are extremely easy to get in bulk without buying, as are flares. You can also pack ammunition. I’ve gotten a feel for how much metal FOBs tend to require on various maps and order accordingly if it’s up to me,
What are some scenarios that you can perform combat in? Give us a brief example.
I’m travelling with a hugged marine A lurker spots us and starts to attack. I can try to deter the lurker by attacking it. If it backs off, that’s the end of the encounter as I won’t be trying to chase it. While I could have outran the alien, I would not be abandoning the marine unless I deemed the situation hopeless and a threat to myself. Pragmatically, I could likely get away with a fireman carrying the hugged marine away and that’s going to be my suggestion if the marine is mid-late stage and won’t be helpful in driving a threat away.
I’m a synthvivor and thus a bit more unrestricted in my ROE at the moment. A lone sentinel is melting my barricades and so I take a more active part in discouraging it along with other survivors by leaving our fortified position to attack it. If it flees, I might threaten it by following some distance as I can be more proactive in eliminating threats. However, I’m not following it to the ends of the earth as my self preservation is important here. Once the marines land, I revert back to the usual synth rules on combat.
I’m on the frontline. Unluckily, a prae has hooked me, a warrior flinged me afterward and now I’m in dangerous territory. I run back as far as I can but in the home stretch a runner is body blocking me. My frontline combat restrictions are still active. Since the only way I can leave is through the runner, I strike the runner to get it to leave my path and as soon as it does I leave immediately.
I’ve been deputized and asked to bring a marine in with the MPs. A diplomatic approach is my first solution and if that fails, I would be using the minimum required force to bring them. Perhaps using my telebaton to knock them over, then grabbing them. I absolutely cannot hurt them nor can I excessively use non-lethal force. I have to follow marine law absolutely.
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?
Special thanks to the Synthetic Council, HIDgamer, Omicega and NewOriginalSchwan for looking over my story. Thanks as well to those who clarified things for me on the whitelist_help section of the CM discord when it came to some matters.
The feedback on the story in particular was cool to see. It was largely positive and also garnered some constructive criticism I’ve been thinking of for a while now, which delayed me posting the application. I was considering a revision to adjust the dialogue, but my thoughts ultimately had me being happy overall with it and being keen on seeing what other feedback it garners. Should this application fail, I imagine I’ll get even more feedback that will be helpful for me when it comes to the next one.
