Staff Complaint - Rotharia

[Susan]

BYOND Key: SueTheCake
Staff BYOND Key: Rotharia
Game ID:  ccH-cR2p
Reason for complaint: Removal of warning, contesting moderator judgment.

In a round that was particularly sleepy and boring, I was observing a character (Portnova's) interactions with the Captain. They lingered outside the bridge, met with him, they talked; I assumed that, given Portnova's status as a security employee, it may be work related. Either way, it looked pretty typical. Nevertheless, once the Captain led them out of the bridge, it appeared to me on my cameras that Portnova pushed him down. As a result, I moved from security over to the scene, where I used non-lethal disruptor fire to disable Portnova, believing they were taking the Captain's identification. It turns out that, no, they had explosive implanted him, and immediately decided to blow him up. My gun ran out of ammo, they tried to disarm me, I roughed them up some seeing as they just murdered the Captain in front of me, and then they went to medical.

About ten minutes later, Rotharia PM'd me asking me why I didn't call for back up. I explained that I had no reason to, as at that immediate moment it was just a visitor who may have pushed over the Captain after some, perhaps, failed workplace negotiations. They never had a weapon in their hand, a firearm, or even any restraints. The text of the warning says I ran in to an 'attempt to take the Captain hostage' but there was no effort visible to take the Captain hostage. No restraints, no weapon, and they basically just stood there over him; it looked to me like they were trying to take his ID, and I wanted to stun them before they could grab it and run somewhere I could not catch them.

I take umbrage with Rotharia's judgment call here. There are regular complaints, from both players and staff that security responds in full departmental force to relatively minor issues. At the time, this was not a call I felt required the whole department and the location was in such close proximity to me that response was easy. I ultimately OOCly did not want to send all of security after a lone antagonist which I feel would have been a bad faith gesture. At least one officer they could handle and potentially escape. But apparently there is no winning - security powergames by responding too much or plays poorly by giving antags too much leeway. Okay, sure. In any event calling for back-up would not have changed literally anything about the situation as it occurred, as I would have still been first on scene, still shot at Portnova, who would have still blown the Captain up.

Visually there was no way for me to tell they were' taking the captain hostage'. They pushed him over, they were unarmed, they were presumably a lone antag, and I did not feel comfortable siccing all of security on a single person. There was no reason to. I judged the situation from a distance via cameras:

1) Portnova was not visible armed

2) Portnova still made no actual attempt to restrain or otherwise take the Captain hostage

3) Portnova was alone

And then when I arrived on scene:

1) Portnova was still not visibly armed

2) Portnova still made no actual attempt to restrain or otherwise take the Captain hostage

3) Portnova was alone

This warning seems to hinge on the fact I should have metagamed somehow that they used an explosive implant when there is functionally no actual way to tell this is the case under any circumstances without a body scanner or the antag's word. Portnova had opportunities to disable the captain in the bridge, a location much harder to access, and did not take them. As a result, this combined with the aforementioned visual cues indicated to me they were not trying to restrain him, merely steal his ID. Why do this in the hallway? They met him in his office for an extended period of time, were right behind him all the way out to the hall and only then chose to push him over. The logical conclusion, here, would be that they wanted his ID. This informed my choices. In the end, they turned out to be wrong, but I hardly see how OOCly this is something I deserve to be warned for. 

Calling for back-up would not have changed the outcome of the events, because I was way closer than anyone else, and I was purposely trying not to destroy the antag with the combined might of the entire security department. If anything I feel this is indicative of how poor an item the explosive implant is, as there is absolutely no indication it exists, and even when arrested Portnova could have still leveraged the explosive implant to secure her release. It's not like it still wouldn't go off. They made the conscious decision to react as they did. I went off all the information that is readily and visually available to me, and as I said, there was no visual attempt to even bother grabbing the Captain to restrain him. He was just lying on the floor, unrestrained, ungrabbed, with her standing over him, unarmed, and as a visitor. I had no justification to sic all of security on what appeared to be a battery case, when I had no actual way of even knowing they had put a bomb inside him - especially when they had opportunity to do it somewhere more advantageous to them.

Additionally, I could have aimed at them, but given they could have grabbed the Captain's ID and ran into the bridge before the SIX shots it takes to make them fall over would have registered (especially considering aim only goes off once, and they were less than five tiles from doors I could not access, with an additional nearly full screen between me and them) it would have been less effectual. Again, had Portnova actually displayed a weapon or grabbed the captain or done anything but stand there over his head I would not have immediately fired on them, but there was no reason for me not to - because all they were doing was standing there and it appeared to be a scuffle or a fist-fight, not a bombing hostage situation. 

I can hardly call it 'poor judgment making on part of an investigator' when the information that would have changed my reaction is metagaming information not available under normal gameplay circumstances, or when I try to give an antag a fighting chance instead of slamming the entirety of security like a brick wall into them.

Evidence/logs/etc:

[Susan]

Addendum: I was not an investigator during the round in question, but a security officer, as the text of the warning apparently has lead people to believe I was an investigator.

[Rotharia]

First of all, the mistake of labeling you as an investigator is 100% my fault. Juggling three different tickets at a time for the antag, you, and the captain was a bit of a mess and I assumed Ana was an investigator because that's what I've seen them as most often.

Moving on, the situation as I witnessed is this: The Captain is just waking up after having been parapened and implanted with an explosive. You, obviously do not know this. As they're waking up and the antagonist is in the middle of typing a sentence, you rush in and immediately start firing off stun disrupter  at the antagonist without so much as a word. It's at this point that the antagonist blows the captain up because you ran in on them and I get an ahelp from the captain asking what happened. I explained what happened to the captain and then opened up a ticket with the antag asking why they immediately blew it up because their reasoning wasn't immediately apparent to me. After discussing with them for some time I turned my attention to you and started messaging you.

In my opinion, the argument you make that there's no winning isn't fair. Yes, sending in the entire security department for what seemed like a minor grievance does feel like a lot, however. Not alerting them that you were responding and ALSO immediately shooting upon arrival is my real issue here. You didn't call for backup because you didn't think it was appropriate from context, but you also immediately escalated to firing shots without so much as a word.

I chose to warn you because this isn't behavior that I think is conducive to good antag RP. Given that your last notes that would be related to anything like this are from quite some time ago, I decided that no major action was necessary. At the end of the day, no one won in this exchange. The captain died unnecessarily, and the antag didn't get to play out their gimmick further.

As an aside, I felt you got a bit of an attitude with me in PM's but I don't hold that against you given you obviously thought the situation was unfair.

[Susan]

I explained why I immediately fired upon arrival. The disruptor is a non-lethal weapon, and given that at least it appeared the antag had committed battery by pushing the Captain over and standing over him long enough to where it looked like they were trying to steal his belongings, I had cause to fire upon them. The antag chose to blow up the Captain instead of leveraging them - nothing stops them from making threats to be released from custody because the Captain will explode. They chose to play it the way they did. No one forced them to do it, and least of all me - it's not my fault they failed to see or elected not to take a more appropriate and self-serving course of action.

They didn't disable the Captain in the bridge, they did it in broad daylight, in the halls, said nothing, had no speech bubble over their head (so again how was I to know they were typing) and were presently engaged in the very least the battery and assault of the captain and potential theft. As far as I saw it, I had reason to fire at them on sight, least of all because delaying might allow them to actually grab the Captain or manhandle him further. 

It is not my job to completely cover for the antag's mistakes. I gave them a chance by not calling all of security, but they chose to do this in a public hallway in broad daylight and I saw them do it. As such, I fired when I saw them because I had reason to believe not firing would enable them to further place the Captain in harm's way. The series of events that followed was entirely their own making. 'Release me from prison or I'll blow up the Captain' was just as much of a valid course of action. They elected not to do this.

In the time it took me to move from the brig to the scene was a matter of seconds. Delaying to radio in what appeared to be a fistfight was a delay that could have enabled the situation to worsen. Ultimately the presence of other officers would have changed nothing, and I did not find it OOCly palatable. I think that's about the best way I can describe my thought processes in this situation.

[Desven]

I planned on making a character complaint of this in fear that there would be no consequences against what occurred, but then I was told that a staff complaint is what proceeds in cases like this, so when I asked Rotharia if they placed a warning I was not talking about Sue at all, but about NodNodNod. Because there was no proper escalation. What I thought that was going to happen was that I was going to be hostage. Yes, I was a bit bummed because how I was parapenned; there was nothing really suspicious up til that moment and I was actually checking my settings because I had just joined the round, but it never crossed my mind I would just blow up without a word said.

Do I think Sue acted wrong? Ultimately I don't think the 'gimmick' being 'ruined' was Sue's fault; as she said, this all occurred in a very public hallway and there were no attempts of moving me or whatever. Now, take into consideration that it wasn't just a 'push', and cameras showed it. As Sue mentioned above, the situation kept going while they made time to get to the bridge. I doubt the explosive implant is instant, and if so, it still takes a second or two at the very least to come up with your word. What I think happened was that NodNod was upset they were caught in the act and responded to getting tased by gibbing a man, the Captain no less. In my opinion, this would deserve an antag ban, I know I'm just repeating myself by now but there was no escalation at all. Granted, I am not a mod, but I did wish to contend this from moving forward than just telling them not do it again and at have a warning applied at them for gibbing the Captain. It felt senseless, pointless and a major overreaction to the situation. Here are the logs from my side, so you can see how silent it all was.

 

[Rotharia]

I will fully and openly admit that this situation had a lot of moving pieces, I asked for help with this over MSay at the time because I understood it was out of my depth for a second day trial mod but no luck. Whatever the outcome of this, I would sincerely appreciate feedback on what I could have done better.

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Hello, I have not been able to connect to wifi on my pc for the past two - three days, so I am sorry for the delay. 

@SampleTex and I will be taking this complaint. We will be reviewing the logs today, and hopefully we will have a response ready by tonight or tomorrow. 

[ReadThisNamePlz]

Due to myself being out of town, it's been difficult to get to this.

I will be removing the warning, you didn't do anything wrong, nor rule breaking. You didn't handle this situation the way I would have, personally, but that doesn't mean you handled it incorrectly. 

Again, I'm sorry for the delay in response, I was struggling with how to reply regarding the situation with the ex-staff member in question, along with literally having no internet access for about a week/being out of town.