###### tags: `Lore`
# Lore System (And Species, And Related Fluff)

- we (backend devs) only care about "things that benefit lore exposure as a whole"
- if it only benefits one species, kick it to the end of the list; those ideas are usually easy to code, and shouldn't be the job of the 1-2 people who can handle the awfulness needed to do major backend
- if you DON'T do backend, go to the end of the page and help with species fluff for your species or whatever I don't care.

## categorization (not a system, but just the current listing)

as discussed, here you are; shuffle species around as needed.

### the place of /datum/species
/datum/species are about to not become *too* (hopefully) painful to maintain, but, i don't want code points being used on every small thing; hence, only primary, indev, and special species get a hardcoded code point. the rest (localized, IF they don't require species-specific mechanics) will be name-only varedits of custom species. subspecies will be subtypes, mostly to alleviate maintenance cost.

### Special Lifeforms (name pending)

They're not species, more creations/lifeforms. Their lore is less unified culture (most of the time) and more what they are and what they usually tend to be like in quirks (if applicable at all).

- Prometheans (Sentre: Probably could use a more interesting lore description then 'made in a lab'. Xenobiology accident? The next step in slime evolution? Spitballing here.)
- Proteans (Sentre: NEED hard limits on what their nanites can do.)
- Xenomorph Hybrids (ew)
- Xenochimera
- **Shadekin**

### Primary Species

Primary species should be the ones that are cemented in their role of
1. what they are
2. what they're like
3. where they fit into the galaxy
4. what their dynamics within the game world tend to be like.
5. If they're not, they should probably be ASAP!!!

They're usually going to be the bog standard tried-and-true Bay-like HRP races. Most major projects that deal with lore would have to take them into account, because they're bog-standard galactic races. Almost everyone canonically is going to have some exposure to them if they're well integrated in the galactic community.

- Humans (Sentre: Need to flesh out the Sol system more. Also, more notable human planets for people to come from.)
- Unathi
- Tajaran (Plume: Literally any and all explanation/blurbs of Taj Factions, Languages, Home Systems, Religions, and descriptions can be found here https://github.com/Citadel-Station-13/Citadel-Station-13-RP/pull/3839/commits/6dc1d577b29861cfcfd9a38f15e4d975df70bc4c If anything else is needed @ me on disc)
- Vox (Sentre: Need to redo the Vox biology section to reflect the new sprites.)
- Adherent (maybe?)
- Naramadi
- Skrell (Sentre: Their entire faction needs to be fleshed out, along with the species itself. Find whoever was writing the squishies and pick up where they left off.)
- Diona

### Indev Species

Wishy-washy step-up from localized; they're widespread enough to potentially be up-and-comers, but are either not written enough to be important, not decided on a cemented place/niche in the galaxy by lore maintainers yet, or otherwise just vibing without being entirely consequential to major events.
These should still be held up to primary species standards in general, because they'll be first class citizens in code along with those, including getting their own species path.

- Auril/Dremachir
- Altevian (Sentre: I'll ping Enzo about the suit sprites he's got for Vore. If we decide to keep them.)-- Cap: I believe we need a rodent race, due to the high number of such creatures in the playerbase. However, many rodent players do not identify as Altevian. I believe we should consult with Ruskit around what other avenues may be available to us. The rats we have present are not playing Altevians, and that's a problem with only two solutions. I'd personally recommend we shift to a different murine race. Note from Ruskit: I am capable of canonizing Krisitik since frnakly I wasted way too much time writing them it detail, however I need to de-Skavenify further. I am also not looking forward to doing all the spriting I need to do to make them a full race.
- Alraune (Sentre: Put all the Alraune players in a room and find out what unites them all. Compress all that headcanon into something usable.)
- [Moths (Dnin-Nepid)](/gPAZREoTSzWwsd0zODHqxQ) (WIP)

### Localized Species

These are basically still player headcanon and personal races that we decided to pay heed to and fully "approve" for inclusion.

They usually will be reasonable species, but potentially have a decent amount of unresolved issues, or are otherwise entirely non consequential. They are also usually, quite literally, localized, in locality, spanning a single planet or system and otherwise not something we need to pay heed to for server-wide lore efforts.

- Keisani
- Dusklight Titanians
- Ashet's species (Sentre: Needs clarification)
- Apideans
- Anything on the minor lore page
- Zaddat (who and why)

### Custom Species

Anything *not* approved are just player creations/weird headcanons. They go under this.

### Unknown (SORT THESE AND DELETE THIS SECTION)

I haven't heard about these at all, or I've heard inconsistencies; please verify their status and shove them in the above.
- Rapala (probably localized or indev)
- Vassillians (literally who)
- Nevreans (who? apparently Unathi client race? big if true, would be indev atleast?) (Shiru: Handled by Lord Papalus, these are the replacement sergals. Should be in Indev and his lore should be published to the wiki ASAP.)
- Vulpkanin (who and why)
- Zorren (who and why) (Sentre: Do not consider these for indev. )
- Akula (who?)
-- Uplifted by Skrell, at least the last thing I heard, Bishop was doing lore on them
- Anything not listed (who and *why*)

## species/subspecies

*System intended to add exposure to basic species information, as well as standardize species handling for the future, backend-wise.*

here's what character customization species would look like

| Species | Subspecies |
| ---- | ---- |
| Human | Abhumans, Vatborns
| **Celestial** | Dremachir, Auril |
| Dnin-Nepid |
| ... |

(visualization shit but tl;dr select species to see subspecies)
(no we're not calling aurils celestials @free fucking pick a name i can use to embody their parent species datum on jah)

Then on the right side of this panel (imagine to the right of the table's border), you'd get a description of what the species is.

Yes? (UI is just semantics, don't worry about it, that's a coder job.)

That's the species/subspecies system.
Don't worry about how it'll be done in code. That's a whole other level of hell you guys don't have to worry about.

for species:
- non species species (special lifeforms/whatever) get a top level /datum/species. they'll be stuffed into the category of **"Special"**
- primary species get their VERY OWN /datum/species top levels!
- so do indev species
- **subspecies** (light vs dark adapted moths, auril vs drema, human variants, whatever) that have the same relative lineage get shoved under that species.
- localized species get shoved under the category of **"Miscellaneous"**
- **Custom Species** get to be the first entry under Miscellaneous, under .. well, Custom Species.

subspecies are just templates, either a subtype of a /datum/species, or, for localized species, potentially just a /datum/minor_species or something (oh my god why am i going into this i said i shouldn't worry about it) tl;dr yeah that's our organization.

Which is what we'll build on for backgrounds.

## background system

*intent: to increase highlighting of 'common' cultural trends in the galaxy, without seriously, negatively impacting those who have 'custom' backgrounds.*

default backgrounds should generally be "vague" in that it's not super restrictive. Specialized backgrounds may be more so.

The hardest part of this is the "is-a, has-a, contains-a" relationships (coder talk).
Basically, what backgrounds may be what, etc.

(all of these have 'custom' variants!)

for now, we will **not** implement the economic power system; that's just, not scaleable right now (and i don't want to potentially encourage people to choose ones with higher power on first rollout.)

- species/subspecies:
- determines what **base** origins you may have
- for **some** species, forces you to have a specific language (looking at you Adherents, chime-talking nerds) (same for proteans)
- origins:
- determines base language set
- blurb of where you likely came from and what people you've associated with the most
- homeworlds are the most likely candidates for this, along with the usual void-born/space-borns
- some may give you extra language slot(s)
- religion:
- mostly non consequential and is just fluff for now
- can be restricted by species/origin *maybe*?
- citizenship:
- determines potentially another base language set
- basically origin in code design needs but for another lore type lol

## languages

we need to reevaluate the number and occurence of languages we have

- large number of languages for number of species != bad thing
- however, we need to somehow smartly scale it. we'll use background system for now; see above
- ideas are appreciated.
- Idea: Cut up species language and commit to faction language. -Ruskit
- Example Oricon nation of humans has Sol Common as its official language. It stands to reason all members of the Orion Confederation would likely known Sol Common
- The Vikara Combine containing Skrell, and Teshari invented Galcommon so that can be the common language of vikara species (which may include Akula and Vulps).
- Give Moghes Hegemony nations their own common language. Moghes Common or whatever.
- Species languages should be restricted to only species that have only been recently integrated into larger empires (Naramadi as according to Pap)or otherwise independent species.
- We cut all the "secret code" languages meaning no more tradeband/gutter ecetera.
## factions/contractors

*intent: to increase **tasteful** IC conflicts of methodology, and to explore how characters that tend to work for certain corporations can be developed towards, and against that corporation's stereotypical ideals.*

this will be the fifth section of "Background" tab on character, along with (sub)species, origins, religion, and citizenship.

this should be somewhat disjoint from background, but, tl;dr

- species determines what factions you can work for
- sorry some companies are racist, deal with it
- not all factions are "playable" obviously
- if you choose a non Nanotrasen faction, only some jobs will be playable by your character.
- lore team has to finalize factions and decide what is sensical to be played by what
- (Plume: Basically any competitive corp faction makes sense working Science imo, considering IRL companies attempt to snatch personel from one another often. Limiting Sci to only NT personal is dumb, but entirely limiting Command positions makes sense.)
- **hard no on command/security/science** for now, argue about it later, not interested in the first wave being merc-rpers sowwy ^w^ (i am going to hit u with a brick)
- (Cap: I second the above. NT's R&D team is top-tier. Letting subcontractors come in from other companies to work on projects increases the risk of corporate espionage. Doesn't seem like a smart move.)
- Faction Split Up -Ruskit's Version
- Generic
- Frontier Worlder (Non-Megacorp World)
- Nanotrasen
- Humans
- (Citizen of the) Orion Confederacy
- Core Worlder (Sol System, Alpha Centauri)
- Rim Worlder
- Megacorporate Contractor (Restricted Roles in exhange for reward)
- Aether Atmospherics (Engi/Atmos)
- Hephastus Industires (Sec, Robotics)
- Vey-Med (Medical)
- Zheng-Hu (Chemistry)
- Ward-Takahashi GMB (Science)
- Centauri Provisions (Service/Botany)
- Other (All jobs but give some penality)
- Tajara (Plume: Went ahead and added the factions defined in the Major Species Update but these might be a weird bit considering they are semi citizenships/factions? Might need to bother me about it)
- Confederate Commonwealth (Default)
- People's Republic of Adhomai (PRA)
- Democratic Republic of Adhomai (DRPA)
- New Kingdom of Ahdomai (NKA)
- Free Cities (FC)
- Spacers (Spacer)
- Tajaran Contractor
- Rhyn'yai-Dyson Cybernetics (Robotics)
- Moghes Hegemony
- Kingdom of Moghes (Unathi)
- Exiles
- Naramadi Ascendany
- Onkera Synthetic Solutions (Robotics)
- Zaddat Corporations
- Minor Species
- Apidaen Hives
- Hivers
- Colonies
- Aurils of Sanctum
- Natives of Sanctum
- Expats (Left Sanctum)
- Exiles (Kicked out of Sanctum)
- Dremachir of Infernus
- Cities of Infernus
- Prisoner (Recently exiled to Infernus)
- Escapees (Escaped Infernus)
- Vox
- Arkships
- Exiles
- Antag
- Syndicate Remnants
- Ironhammer Securities
- Kynde Pharmacueticals
- Anti Corporates
- Pirates
- Vox Raider Clans
- Frontier Militias
- Leftist Extremist Groups
- Espionage
- Tajaran Spies (Steal Tech)
- Corporate Infiltraitors

## yaml loading / what you guys need to write for the above 3 things

while the lore codex is dead for now (pointless), we are hopefully getting a loading system to load referential-capable lore data

- for non nerds this means you can reference lore data from other things, so you don't have to write the same paragraph 3 times for cataloguer, species, and examine or something insane like that.

two methods:

- we might make all of this loaded from .yaml files to ease editing
- if not, we'll just write the datums for you once a list is compiled of each
- regardless, we will need the following
- factions
- origins
- citizenship
- religions

oh and

- ignore all "special lifeform" species; we can generate them, unless you guys really want to write those too.

## the section where full systems go (shove your ideas here so i can process them with code knowledge)

## the section where individual species ideas go