Poll Deciding on the Novakid Lore

As most of you may know, the staff and our Lore team have been working hard on the completion of racial lore and technology lore. We've reached the Novakid who have largely been a troubling race to write lore for due to their less-than-concrete backstory compared to the other races. Because of this we have two different takes on the Novakid lore. We have done a strawpoll on discord to gauge interest in a new take and we now have another vanilla take on it to compare with.

Reconus's version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bg8ovclVXvdP0Oc8neAvR7UvMDF7rhk5-yodD-XPH4Y/edit It is a remake of the Novakids.

Khaltor's version: https://www.antaresroleplay.com/threads/novakid-lore-summary-a-first-draft-khaltor.12232/ It is a vanilla elaboration of the space cowboy Novakids.

Both takes are drafts, meaning that they are unfinished works. Do not read them as finished documents.

Please be sure to read both lore threads if you are going to vote. Voting will help us complete the Novakid lore and continue our quest to hammer out lore.

 

Gonna toss a comment here.

In Khaltors lore, the novakid are Cowboys because they picked up human movie transmissions, watched them, and decided to shape their entire goddamn culture and society over it.

Thats honestly stupid and sounds like Chucklefish writing, post 1.0.
Khaltor did well with the Physiology though, but everything else is just awful.

 

I'm voting for my version purely to be able to view the results.

 

Ye, that was a last minute decision and not necessarily a good one, it's a first draft and that idea is fully subject to change.
The idea was that they came into contact with humans indirectly via these transmissions and because they found themselves in a similar "frontier" situation, adopted aspects of that subculture.
I guess it's supposed to imply that Novakid are somewhat impressionable.

 

So if they found BBW porn transmissions their entire culture and species would be centered around that?

The "last minute change" isn't an excuse, especially when you went into so much depth on the Physiology.

 

I'm choosing the elaboration, two neutrons stars in a binary system? Both stars decaying at the same time? I know it's a draft but I noticed that it said they couldn't see, speak or think but then in the same sentence it says they could see, then in the next paragraph it says they had a final thought. It's very confusing, unlikely and it doesn't seem to explain why the Novakids have the culture they do at all. The elaboration isn't all that great either, I'd prefer if the vote was done when they finished them so we could see what we are getting entirely, seems like it was a rush to complete both. I'd say hold off on the vote until they both have something solid.

 

Reconus' version is incomplete. I don't want to vote either way until that is finished.

Just as a comment: I am torn pn the idea of the Novakids following the lifestyle of the Quiet Ones. I always imagined the Novakids as pranksters and things like that. The ones that follow the way of the Quiet Ones seem like monks almost. But I won't say anything else until it is done.

I do agree that the idea of the Novakids just viewing the transmissions of the Old Wild West movies and then saying "Yea. Lets form ourselves into that image, culture and everything. Sounds like a good idea to base our culture off of this mysterious transmission we watched." is kinda bland and unimaginative. I do like the physiology and the technology section of Khaltor's though. The idea of producing a lot of pollution and not caring due to the fact that it does not harm the Novakids is interesting.

Just my two cents.

 

The physiology was a result of doing some superficial research, multiple drafts and taking different feedback into account over the period of at least two weeks.

What i wrote up was an example of how the Novakid could be if we stick to the original theme they were given. I created my thread in more or less an hour, by myself, whereas Reconus' draft is a collab between himself and Aiko.

I can agree that perhaps my current draft or even trying to cling to the original idea is nonsense, however, my thread originally had its own strawpoll: Reconus, Khaltor, or something else, Staff didn't give it any thougt that if my vanilla view were to be rejected, people could potentially not really like what Rec and Aiko wrote up either.

 

The problem there is that it's a lot of work to really finish up a whole racial lore draft, and we don't want to do two just to have one be trashed.

Right now, Reco & Khal's docs should just be judged on story quality since the details of both remains the same.

The physiology between both is essentially identical, their general lifestyle remains the same (apart from a new Novakid culture added on to the original, the Memorant)

Culture and things vary a bit, Reco's doc offering more types of culture as opposed to the vanilla version.

You might as well just be comparing Reco's doc to the 'History' section of Khaltor's, since that's all the Origin story really is.

 

Well then why not just poll which History section we should use, at least until Reco's thing is done

 

Personal as much as im not a fan of either, I can only accept Khaltor's more because if anything ill go with the base vanilla lore as it is more scientific based to a certain degree. I can agree with most but I cannot accept the binary sister lore god thing. It reminds me too much of Kluex worship and I dont wanna see Novas turned into some religious race.

I also find it a bad practice that staff can vote as the vote seems bias. I mean mods are ok but having senior staff support something seems like that its a definite decision for one or another.

 

My thoughts exactly. We don't need Novakids twisted into another religious Grounded vs Flightless esque thing. Not saying I don't like that conflict, I'm just saying that we don't need another one of those.

 

Id rather leave the orgin lore a mystery and just focus on the known lore which is Nova towns and their known birth creations. Keep it vanilla as noone official still knows the lore

 

Yet vanilla Novakids are just so boring. They're not 'mysterious' they're just "hey we're star people who are basically just minge characters since we don't have any lore behind us".
They're either played as just a ADHD Cowboy or... a cowboy, or a human in a gas-suit.
Look at the other races, meanwhile. Hylotl, you can be a temple protector, or a scientist working on combatting Florans, or a peaceful monk, or a samurai-esque warrior...
There's so much you can do with the characters when you have canon more behind why they are who they are.

 

Why limit creativity? Just basically make a good physiology base that they can or cant do, common habits etc, a backstory isnt necessary since no one really knows. If you literally have their strengths, weaknesses, and social habits you have a lore in general origin can remain a mystery.

 

Both backstories are meh, both physiologies I agree with. The quiet one, and the memorists in general are a bit too ceremonial for the Novakid I feel and the alternative is something that I read as a starsuit. I prefer Khal's until the Wild West Inspiration reason is added. I don't see why the Novakids need to be inspired to take on Wild West. Given that they're the most whimsical of the races, I think it'd be best if it was just some fun coincidence that it has a number of similarities with the Human Wild West.

If you guys really want a thesis and an antithesis I recommend going for a softer approach to what I feel Reconus was trying to do. Some Novakids are trying to progress their society further by doing what they can to move past the Wild West motif, catalog what they know, and put aside their whimsical natures. While a majority don't really see much point in it and are simply living their lives doing what they find to be easiest and the most natural because its what they were taught to do.

But really, Novakids seem like the least populous of the races as well as the most easygoing. I don't see what a thesis/antithesis would do to enhance Novakid RP or even why one would exist.

Put simply, they are what they are.

 

I prefer Khaltor's. I don't think rewriting a race's history or theme is neccessary(even if it is to fluff up the writing). But you're just injecting lore into the vanilla game, and then every new player who has to join has to learn that lore and adjust their playstyle and their own cannon and perspective to match that of yours-- just to start the game as a proper Novakid.

If I were to roleplay an Orc on some Warcraft server, I don't want to read pages of someone's headcannon to learn that Gul'dan and Thrall and all of these lore characters I came to know from the actual source material don't exist, and instead I have to worship some guy named "Skullkill" and all of his marvelous ideals made up by some guy who entered the environment just like me.

If you're going to rewrite backstory and make stuff up, it's best done through things made specifically for that(like the belief system of a certain faction of Novakids for example).

Regardless, I probably won't acknowledge any of the fluff of Reconus's lore on any of my Novakids unless someone brings it up, to which I'll simply state "Who cares about history, I don't remember it," or something of the sorts.

 

To be fair, that is an option in their lore, the "Modernists" are what you're describing.
I'm just not really a fan of Reconus and Aiko's way of changing up the lore, with the whole "Silent sisters" thing, and the "memorant" having memories of these two "sentient(?)" stars?

 

As for Khal's wild west influence, although it is looked down on because it's pretty much vanilla-- I mean. It is their theme. It is their race. It is literally what they are, from their ships to their guns to their armor and more. And yeah, it's chucklefish writing (cue: community boo, hiss, death), but their theme involves them being highly impressionable, and with a genius that allows for many of them to adapt the things they saw from western in a short span of a few hundred years (and for their kind to take a particular liking to it and really follow along with it, not that they have to, I mean, Novakids, like any other race, will follow a number of styles. And they will be able to pick that up from any influence, because they're probably the most individualistic society in Starbound).

I don't see why that's a big upset for people-- no one questions the Eastern/Oriental influences on Hyotl and no one tries to rewrite that or act like it doesn't exist-- in fact they embrace it as much as possible with their samurai themes and their honor and their katana.

 

That's a good point, Hylotl are asians, Avians are mesoamericans, Apex are german-russian communists, Glitch are european knights and they all have pretty bullshit reasons for their cultural theme, yet somehow everyone takes offense with the bullshit excuse I came up with for the Novakid...