Mindshield Implants

[Snakebittenn]

In hopes of the future necromancy of https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/6944
It replaces loyalty implants with mindshield implants, which do exactly the same thing except they don't force loyalty. They just shield from antags and such. This serves the prime purpose of removing railroading of Command decisions, lorewise allowing you to make decisions that Miranda Trasen wouldn't like if the situation is that extreme. Loyalty implants were said not to work in periods of extreme emotion anyway, which brings them into question. I do agree that giving the Cap/HoS shielding from antags and such is necessary, which is why the function was kept.

[Garnascus]

3 minutes ago, ParadoxSpace said:

This serves the prime purpose of removing railroading of Command decisions, lorewise allowing you to make decisions that Miranda Trasen wouldn't like if the situation is that extreme.

This is already covered by our loyalty implant lore. 

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Nanotrasen_Corporation

Quote

There are also rumors that strong enough emotions or stress can override the loyalty implant.

This does not "bring loyalty implants into question". It is designed as an out for players to have some measure of creativity in extreme situations. 

[MoondancerPony]

17 minutes ago, Garnascus said:

This does not "bring loyalty implants into question". It is designed as an out for players to have some measure of creativity in extreme situations. 

I have never seen this used well. It is almost always some form of Harperesque (for lack of a better term) "they hurt my friend" type of thing; Halstere used it as an excuse to almost murder a suspect and botch a case. Other than that, I've never seen it as a viable excuse when I play captain; I'm always terrified that I'll lose my whitelist for not properly roleplaying undying company "loyalty", which is also really badly explained to begin with.

I, for one, support this change.

[Garnascus]

1 minute ago, MoondancerPony said:

I have never seen this used well.

That is purely anecdotal. Its not really a fair criticism. Every time it is used does not have to be this big and dramatic moment. Its entirely possible that the good times it is used nobody notices. 

2 minutes ago, MoondancerPony said:

"they hurt my friend" type of thing

If someone kills your husband you could have justification to kill them even if you're a captain. I think that being possible in theory is healthy for the game. 

3 minutes ago, MoondancerPony said:

Other than that, I've never seen it as a viable excuse when I play captain

It exists as a possibility on paper. I am afraid i do not understand how it is bad when you've never personally used it. 

6 minutes ago, MoondancerPony said:

I'm always terrified that I'll lose my whitelist for not properly roleplaying undying company "loyalty", which is also really badly explained to begin with.

I am empathetic on fear of the dreaded bwoink but in reality this just is not true. Its very rare for people to lose their whitelists. You can always ahelp and ask for guidance on specific situations but as long as you're acting in good faith i think the fear is misplaced.

[VVipEdout]

Continuing from a conversation about the suggestion on the discord server, I've been asked to post my issues with the current implant here. The main problem with the loyalty is that nowhere in lore is it defined just how it works, let alone when and why it was developed, its legal status, potential risks or even the most vague technical details. What even are the psychological effects beyond 'NT good'? Does it suppress inconvenient thoughts? Is there a dopamine release upon following NT-favourable actions? Is it Nlom-dependent, does it affect psychics differently, would it even work on Vaurca or Vox? The only two things implanted players have to run on is that the implant somehow creates unwavering loyalty to NT, and that it actually doesn't if you're under strong emotion.

 

The latter point is possibly the worst part. A loyalty implant will deflect unimaginable pain from an otherworldly entity, mental invasion from all but the most powerful of vampires, but is useless if the captain's boyfriend happens to have a laser pistol shoved in their mouth by a pirate crew. Conversely, a mass-producible implant can resist mental influence infinitely better than a Vaurca's hive loyalty ingrained in their very biology can. It isn't even permanently on! It doesn't nullify personality or affect one's interpersonal relationships in any way! The mindshield gets at least a single paragraph of lore from the start, which is far more than the LI has ever had. I fail to see how the LI is anything but one of the many, many useless holdovers from other servers still present in code only because nobody cared enough/was allowed to remove them yet.

[Nikov]

I ran a poll on this four years ago.

13.85% wanted to keep LIs as they were.

Everyone else wanted a change.

26% wanted them removed.

10% wanted them not policed by administration.

49% of them wanted them defined with laws.

 

This was a crystal clear mandate to change loyalty implants, with no action taken whatsoever.

 

The case has been made and it is absolutely clear. Garn, you are claiming the fear is misplaced of a bwoink and whitelist strip. At the time of this post, you said, "I fucking hate these stupid things. Mostly for OOC reasons though. Lots of arguments have been had between staff on punishing someone implanted and then we have to have a thing "why would An implanted person do this" and then they say "no he would because raisins".". You hate me quoting you, but there. That's the argument.

 

The gameplay concern is that the captain or HoS will be converted into cult or some other antag group. Okay. Simple solution. Add an item that prevents them from joining the antags. We call this item a mindshield. It has a minimum amount of influence on roleplay otherwise.

Alternatively? Add a loyalty implant that can be used to railroad players with a constant voice in their head that goes BWOINK if they stray from it. That will never fuck up anyone's round.

Fucked up my round so badly I never played Captain again.

[Outboarduniform]

I think I should say something here because I regularly play someone who's loyalty implanted. 

To be honest, Loyalty Implants are incredibly cheesy and incredibly unnecessary. 

Not to mention that they don't make any realistic sense. Could you imagine if Coca-Cola started making their franchise managers mindslaves to Coca-Cola ? That shit wouldn't fly. 

Loyalty Implants started off as an LRP mechanical tool. They are still used as a mechanical tool. Every lore justification they have for their existence is hamfisted and jammed in because nobody wants to deal with mechanically removing or replacing Loyalty Implants. 

It's entire purpose is to make sure that the HoS and Captain don't become antags. Mindshields will do the exact same thing. 

Not to mention that everyone has a different interpretation on how Loyalty Implants seem to function and work. You could easily get ahelped and get your whitelist removed because "Staff member A thinks that your interpretation is not in line with his own interpretation and Staff member B doesn't really like you so they decide that administrative action needs to be taken because of their anecdotal subjective opinion on how people who are Loyalty Implanted should behave, even though it's intentionally vague and left to interpretation.", which is just...yikes. 

Loyalty Implants need to go. Even though everyone here likes to sleep on Baystation, they haven't had Loyalty Implants for well over a year, and no Captain or XO or Chief of Security over there has ever gone rogue shit, or joined a cult, or anything ridiculous like that, just because they have no Loyalty Implant. 

It's been shown that everything can function the same without Loyalty Implants, and most people would agree that everything will function the same without Loyalty Implants.

 

[Arrow768]

One of my concerns with the mind shield implant is that it implicitly acknowledges the existence of entities that might alter the state of mind on a supernatural level.
(If that wouldnt exist, you wouldnt have to shield someone from it by using a implant)

Therefore my questions are:

"What is the IC reason that it has been developed and certain command members forced to use it?"
"Why are only two command members required to have it if all it does is shield against "supernatural/bad" influence, but doesnt force their thinking in certain situations as the loyalty implant?"

 

[stev]

1 minute ago, Arrow768 said:

"What is the IC reason that it has been developed and certain command members forced to use it?"
"Why are only two command members required to have it if all it does is shield against "supernatural/bad" influence, but doesnt force their thinking in certain situations as the loyalty implant?"

One possible justification for this is that they're designed to block nonconsensual psychic intrusion from Skrell and that the defence against the supernatural is simply another form of mental intrusion blocked by this.

[Nikov]

1. Developed to prevent brainwashing and hypnosis to get command staff to involuntarily reveal information. This is not implicitly a shield against the supernatural.

2. The Head of Security and Captain are the two most powerful individuals and the mindshield is a protection against their compromise. Personality influences were deemed unethical and untenable as attackers could just as easily hijack the loyalty implant through false credentials to orders. Unquestioning obedience to Nanotrasen imposters proved disastrous, and individual officers were deemed sufficiently loyal by virtue of their careers and entrusted to follow their judgement as demonstrated throughout their careers.

 

And to top it off; America's tactical nuclear arsenal in the occupation of West Germany wasn't protected by any fancy two-factor authentication, double-key boxes or secret arming combinations. Army personnel could have activated and fired weapons like the Davy Crockett to counter a Soviet surprise attack with as much ease as they could break out a conventional bazooka from the armory. The quality of the personnel in such units was considered sufficient safeguard. No loyalty implant required. It follows the fear that an un-LI'd captain will betray Nanotrasen and blow up the station is irrational paranoia.

 

 

[Snakebittenn]

19 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

One of my concerns with the mind shield implant is that it implicitly acknowledges the existence of entities that might alter the state of mind on a supernatural level.
(If that wouldnt exist, you wouldnt have to shield someone from it by using a implant)

Therefore my questions are:

"What is the IC reason that it has been developed and certain command members forced to use it?"
"Why are only two command members required to have it if all it does is shield against "supernatural/bad" influence, but doesnt force their thinking in certain situations as the loyalty implant?"

 

It's primarily for brainwashing and malignant software in IPCs.
desc = "A controversial and debatably unethical neurostimulator and autohypnosis device. When implanted against the amygdala, it ensures the host maintains a consistent personality, preventing outside interference through brainwashing or hypnotic suggestion."
The supernatural are just a side effect like Stev said.
desc = "A dedicated processor core designed to identify and terminate malignant software, ensuring a synthetics protection from outside hacking.

[Mogelix]

i just really dont like the name mind shield can we keep the name loyalty implants, with different rules if you want?
personally i think loyalty implants should stop you from sedition and hating NT, as well as actions against NT, but shouldnt mean your a perfect goody too shoes with no personal input into your thought process. also, loyalty implants dont make you mindslaves. theyre turned off at the end of the shift and strip little individuality that you didnt already give up when you decided to climb the corporate ladder.

Edited September 3, 2019 by Mogelix

[Nikov]

Hypnosis Inhibitor.

[Nikov]

The following scenario occurred to me this morning.

LI implanted captain is captured by a traitor, who injects him with an explosive implant. He is then threatened with becoming lukewarm chili if he doesn't surrender critical station assets.

Can the captain surrender those assets to a terrorist without violating the LI? Well, if your response to that starts with "Well, if. then however but if..." we have encountered uncertainty. Nobody wants to play when they become uncertain if antag actions and their roleplayed response will start resulting in bwoinks and a outside opinions of what is and isn't how a veteran white-listed player's character would behave under a clock-is-ticking, this-man-has-a-gun scenario. That scenario needs to flow. Players need to be certain what is and isn't allowed, and a nebulous thing like the loyalty implant makes this very difficult. 

A Hypnosis Inhibitor (HI) implanted captain is captured by a traitor, injected with an explosive implant, and given the same demands.

That captain continues to play out exactly as the character did before with no changes to their personality, and if they consider the demand too dangerous to others for them to morally justify saving their own skin, they can refuse. The HI doesn't force any sort of behavior. A hardass captain with honor issues might spit on his face, a career suit with more fat than backbone might start sobbing uncontrollably. Either way, it is role-played. This is an HRP server, after all.

 

LI implanted captain is dragged by a cult over the conversion runes.

Zero fucks given. Cult can only kill the captain. No good RP to be had here.

HI implanted captain is dragged by a cult over the conversion runes.

Captain can't be brainwashed into the cult. Captain can be tortured, coerced, and made to arrange the cult's extraction, make a deal to allow the cult to build a temple outside the station, be bribed to look past bad behaviors... or still bring the jackboot down on them like he always does. More role-play can be had here.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

44 minutes ago, Nikov said:

The following scenario occurred to me this morning.

LI implanted captain is captured by a traitor, who injects him with an explosive implant. He is then threatened with becoming lukewarm chili if he doesn't surrender critical station assets.

Can the captain surrender those assets to a terrorist without violating the LI? Well, if your response to that starts with "Well, if. then however but if..." we have encountered uncertainty. Nobody wants to play when they become uncertain if antag actions and their roleplayed response will start resulting in bwoinks and a outside opinions of what is and isn't how a veteran white-listed player's character would behave under a clock-is-ticking, this-man-has-a-gun scenario. That scenario needs to flow. Players need to be certain what is and isn't allowed, and a nebulous thing like the loyalty implant makes this very difficult. 

A Hypnosis Inhibitor (HI) implanted captain is captured by a traitor, injected with an explosive implant, and given the same demands.

That captain continues to play out exactly as the character did before with no changes to their personality, and if they consider the demand too dangerous to others for them to morally justify saving their own skin, they can refuse. The HI doesn't force any sort of behavior. A hardass captain with honor issues might spit on his face, a career suit with more fat than backbone might start sobbing uncontrollably. Either way, it is role-played. This is an HRP server, after all.

 

LI implanted captain is dragged by a cult over the conversion runes.

Zero fucks given. Cult can only kill the captain. No good RP to be had here.

HI implanted captain is dragged by a cult over the conversion runes.

Captain can't be brainwashed into the cult. Captain can be tortured, coerced, and made to arrange the cult's extraction, make a deal to allow the cult to build a temple outside the station, be bribed to look past bad behaviors... or still bring the jackboot down on them like he always does. More role-play can be had here.

Cant the captain ahelp and ask?

[Nikov]

Well to quote a staff member on loyalty implant bwoinks.

"I fucking hate these stupid things. Mostly for OOC reasons though. Lots of arguments have been had between staff on punishing someone implanted and then we have to have a thing "why would An implanted person do this" and then they say "no he would because raisins"

If there is anything we don't want, it is a gun to someone's head and "looc one sec here let me see what I should do by asking the umpire, please sit still a few minutes while I talk to an admin and the swat team comes running".

[GreenBoi]

52 minutes ago, Nikov said:

Well to quote a staff member on loyalty implant bwoinks.

"I fucking hate these stupid things. Mostly for OOC reasons though. Lots of arguments have been had between staff on punishing someone implanted and then we have to have a thing "why would An implanted person do this" and then they say "no he would because raisins"

If there is anything we don't want, it is a gun to someone's head and "looc one sec here let me see what I should do by asking the umpire, please sit still a few minutes while I talk to an admin and the swat team comes running".

Can you stop quoting Garn from 4 years ago.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

According to these ancient egyptian hieroglyphs.... 

We can probably just rank a set of priorities for the LI for caps to follow. Like ai laws but softer.

 

[Nikov]

Four years ago the problem existed, today the problem exists. I'm not saying Garn has to support the proposal because he supported it four years ago, but I am saying he saw a problem with it then, and staff quarreled over it then, and this entire conversation shows loyalty implants are still contentious. So what he said then about the existence of a problem is still true, even if he changed his opinion about the problem.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I getcha, its just funny to have such an old quote. Wdyt about LI laws?

[Nikov]

According to the ancient hieroglyphs of four years ago, which I linked, the I engraved the following laws upon a stone tablet and presented them to the golden-calf worshippers before everyone wandered off.

 

1. Serve the best interest of Nanotrasen.

2. If the best interest of Nanotrasen is unclear, serve the Chain of Command.

3. In the absence of higher directives, obey Space Law.

 

I don't like them particularly compared to a mindshield, which is a far cleaner solution.

I would rather like if a HOS or Captain character can select a mindshield (hypnosis inhibitor) or a loyalty implant, and which one they have in their head is on the medical records.

However all of this is assuming interrupting roleplay with ahelps is desirable. It flatly isn't. The hypnosis inhibitor gets rid of the ahelps an staff quarrels. Why insist on keeping ahelps and staff quarrels interfering in roleplay?

[Garnascus]

I am going to -1 this.

This idea that the evil staff members are waiting to bwoink you over their own personal interpretation of how a LI works is just patently false. It is a very unreasonable argument to make. The wiki states that the LI interferes with your judgement skills to suit the corporation's needs. It is intuitive to deduce from this a number of things such as following station directives, space law and the chain of command. No this does not account for every niche situation. There is no single comprehensive list of acceptable behavior for any role in this game. We assume the player is acting in good faith and go from there.

3 hours ago, Nikov said:

LI implanted captain is captured by a traitor, who injects him with an explosive implant. He is then threatened with becoming lukewarm chili if he doesn't surrender critical station assets.

By the letter of the law on our wiki it is possible to justify doing both. One could argue the LI effectively makes you immune to torture or coercion and roll with it that way. One could also say that the stress of having a bomb in your head is enough to temporarily override the LI and allow you to give in to the demands. This is actually a good thing and gives agency to the player to decide how they want to RP out a given situation. This is an issue only if you think we are waiting to bwoink people and strip whitelists. 

1 hour ago, Nikov said:

Four years ago the problem existed, today the problem exists. I'm not saying Garn has to support the proposal because he supported it four years ago, but I am saying he saw a problem with it then

What i did or did not see a problem with four years ago is absolutely irrelevant. Reasonable people change their minds when presented with new information. I changed my mind on topic. Internally we pretty much never argue or have issues with it. It just doesn't happen. 

[Nikov]

Garn, I've been bwoinked and threatened with a whitelist strip, and that's when I stopped playing captain.

[Nikov]

"And that was where I was trying to get, and managed to start moving, resisting other player's calls to kill the AI for its "ion law" which was clearly metagaming, when Juan began putting forward the exact same logic the staff bwoinked me out of. And with him loyalty implanted as well, arguing for someone else to do exactly what I didn't want to do for the reasons we both agree are completely legit could only lead to dragging Juan into the same bwoink hell I just left."

Edited September 5, 2019 by Nikov

[Garnascus]

25 minutes ago, Nikov said:

Garn, I've been bwoinked and threatened with a whitelist strip, and that's when I stopped playing captain.

This sounds like more of a you problem.

I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say with your second post. I notice its again something from four years ago though....