I’ve got three quick things to discuss and a million things to get done, so I’ll get right to it.

Great Jedi War XVI: Transcendence

The first order of business is, obviously, the GJW. As HM, I was voluntold to run two trivia comps. Now I like trivia as much as the next nerd, but I think it’s gotten pretty stale. So I’m trying to mix things up a little for Phase I.

First, it’s not always been obvious who’s participated in trivia comps because the competition doesn’t update when someone does the exam. So I’ll be trying to update competition participation every day or two to help members and summits keep track of who checked off that bin. This is a manual process, so give me a day or so, but if you did the trivia and the competition isn’t showing up as ticked off on your end, you should probably let me know.

I don’t want to overhype how hard, intense, or weird the Phase I trivia is, because I don’t think it’s that bad. However, if you’re expecting to just pull up the wiki page for the Children of Mortis and the event fics and CTRL+F your way through it in two minutes, you might want to give yourself more time than you’d planned. Some questions are standard trivia, others are more like puzzles.

Coordinating with other members to any degree on this is cheating and will be treated appropriately. Don’t share answers, don’t share hints, don’t brainstorm, don’t spoil, and don’t solicit anyone else to do any of that. (Of course, after phase I ends, you can talk about it all you want.)

The reason I’m emphasizing that so heavily is because basically everything else that isn’t a Cov violation (i.e. hacking the site) is totally allowed. If you want to ask ChatGPT to answer all these questions, go nuts. For the most part, I don’t think it’ll be helpful, but I built it around people being able to use whatever internet tools they want. There’s some other stuff that’s not hard to find but isn’t on the DB site.

Remember that just because you can use whatever tools you want on this competition doesn’t mean it’s fair game for other comps. Read the rules, reread them, and then ask the organizers if you’re not sure. Using AI tools to generate your entries is not allowed unless explicitly authorized by the competition, and sometimes comps will let you use AI in some circumstances but not others. I hate seeing good faith entries get disqualified and I hate seeing people get CoJ’d even more, so be good and follow the rules.

As with any change, I expect there will be people who love it and people who hate it. The neat thing is, Phase II doesn’t go live until 16 September. So if you have strong feelings about Phase I, let me know. I can adjust Phase II to be more traditional or crazier depending on how people feel. This is very likely the only competition in GJW XVI you will have the chance to influence this way, so take advantage of it.

Also, while we’re on the subject of the GJW: the SA decathlon will not be running during the war. That means that the comps for August and 3rd Quarter wrap up tomorrow, right as the GJW comps go live. Consider this your last call.

Art Survey

One of the challenges in developing an art/graphics curriculum is that different programs work, well, differently. Adobe PhotoShop is the industry standard and our Herald staff does much of their work with .psd files, but unfortunately Adobe charges a few hundred dollars a year for it and it’s simply out of reach for many of our aspiring artists. There are several free alternatives to PhotoShop but none of them have the same market share. So if Nora wants to teach you how to apply a cool glow effect to a lightsaber, the first hurdle is giving instructions that work for the tools you’re using.

While we can’t cover everything, we do want to cover as many people as possible. To that end, see this survey. It will remain open until after the war is closed. But as you’re working on your various war entries, if you find yourself wishing you had a tutorial for how to make something look cool, I hope you fill out the survey or drop me a line.

Changes on the Horizon

It’s been a bit quiet in terms of deploying new SA content, in large part because I’ve been putting new drafts into a big pile to work through during the GJW. I don’t want to over promise but you should expect not only several new courses, but some fairly significant changes to a few degrees. I will be taking some older courses offline as they’ll be not only outdated, but no longer required for ACS advancement. If, for some reason, you really want to take a given course, I’d suggest you get on that to err on the safe side.

I’ve given all SA staff leave to focus on the war effort; while a few have said they plan to continue their grading as normal, assume I’ll be the only grader for any SA exams submitted between Friday night and October. I don’t expect there will be many, as you should be focused on the big event as well.

Last, I’ll be having (not scary, don’t worry) surgery on 28 September and I’ll be pretty useless for a little while after. I’m going to do my best to make sure that has a minimal impact on SA exam and GJW comp grading. However, during this period please make sure you send any SA-related questions or issues to [Log in to view e-mail addresses] and address any GJW competition questions to me and Bubba and Atra via email to make sure somebody sees it.

Closing Remarks

As always, if anyone sees any errors in the course notes or exam questions, please submit them through the form. Scrolls of Foundation are a nutritious part of a healthy XP diet.

And, of course, I am always available at [Log in to view e-mail addresses] or Archenksov#2230.

Academy Changelog

DB FUNDAMENTALS
Essentials 103: The Brotherhood’s Galaxy
- Updated with art credits.
Activities 101: Fiction
- Added author credit to Ciara
Activities 102: Gaming
- Added author credit to Ciara
- Fixed a misleading question (Titius)
Activities 103: Graphics
- Added author credit to Ciara
Activities 105: Vendettas
- Added author credit to Ciara

COMBAT & WARFARE
Personal Speeders
- Fixed a typo in the course notes (Qormus)
- Fixed changed the example modification in Question 9 to correctly fit the intent of the question (Moro)
- Refixed the example modification in Question 9 to account for item size (Pel)
Personal Starships
- Removed "Common" as an answer for Question 7 as, per the course notes, there are no modifications with that rarity (Moro)
- Fixed a typo in the course notes (Halc)
- Fixed a broken link in the course notes (Nicfer)
Personal Armor
- Added author credit to Crysenia

WRITING
Descriptive Writing
- Added author credit to Erinyes
Story Structure
- Added author credit to Erinyes
- Removed the number that implied there was a follow-up course
Run-on Studies
- Updated course notes to remove link to the deprecated Run-On Rubric
- Updated an exam question to refer to the current Fiction Scoring Rubric recommended by the Voice (Ta'Xi)
- Reworded an exam question to more accurately convey how CIs work for ROs now (Shimrah)
- Updated an exam question to reflect the move from Discourse to Discord

LEADERSHIP, LAW AND COMMUNICATION
Chamber of Justice 101: Basic Covenant Studies
- Added author credit to Ciara
Wiki Basics: Policies, Guidelines & Style
- Added author credit to Declan
Leadership Reports
- Replaced a broken link in the underlying course material (Nicfer)