Exlor
Just putting this out there. Will the system come back into the story anytime soon?? I'm curious what changes his shift to 2nd-class designs will bring. Obviously its evaluations of his designs will adapt to their market's standards, but what about his Status page? Considering Ves had to defer to Gloriana for their vampire mech, it's clear his '2nd-class' knowledge is lacking....Will those 'Journeyman' and 'Senior' rated skills he worked hard to upgrade (i.e. Mechanics, Physics, Math, etc...) regress to 'Apprentice' to reflect his actual abilities relative to a full-fledged 2nd-class designer?? Or will the system cram more knowledge into his head to fill the gap?
[Gloriana suddenly smiled. "That is not all, though. After a brief discussion with my boyfriend, we decided to provide some of you with a different opportunity. While none of you managed to measure up against the fifty who met our expectations, Some have come close. We would like to extend an offer to two-hundred of you to join the Larkinson Clan in a different capacity."]… I am starting to think like Gloriana and Ves, maybe I not as ethical a person as I think I am. ["The standard that a society should actually embody its own professed principles is a utopian one, in the sense that moral principles contradict the way things really are --- and always will be. How things really are --- and always will be --- is neither all-evil nor all-good but deficient, inconsistent, inferior. Principles invite us to do something about the morass of contradictions in which we function morally. Principles invite us to clean up our act; to become intolerant of moral laxity and compromise and cowardice and the turning away from what is upsetting: that secret gnawing of the heart that tells us that what we are doing is not right, and so counsels us that we'd be better off just not thinking about it." - Susan Sontag] Truthfully… as an interviewer, if one of these individuals applied at my company or bank stating, “I was a Larkenson Clan Mech Designer finalist but was not crazy enough to be hired.” I would approve them on the spot.
Hmm... if there were contestents who were willing to take a lesser position of "technial lead" instead of on the design team - are there others who are willing to join up as a random clan member doing basic mantientce? ANY clan member can invite them after all, and they all passed the Bright Warrior test.