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[Resolved] Character complaint: Calvin Sippl & Shirin Abbasi


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Posted (edited)

BYOND Key: NerdyVampire
Game ID: cfl-dKau
Player Byond Key/Character name:  (primarily) Captain Calvin Sippl & (partially) Head of Security Shirin Abbasi
Staff involved: --none--
Reason for complaint:
TL:DR: I am complaining about the way the captain and commander had a dying antag(me) executed in front of witnesses, then acted like it wasn't a problem at all. Partially also that the commander chose to obey the order to execute, given their position. I am not mad that I died/got shot, I am disappointed in how it was framed. I consider it a good round that just ended on a bad note from my PoV.

The story:
In the round Victor Jenkins had done a lot of talking, making threats but actually done very little violently until he encountered the Head of Personnel midround, having let himself known, taunted the commander and deprived two crewmen of their IDs at gunpoint, lastly stolen the captains voidsuit. In the office he had a long conversation before shooting the HoP twice with a freeze gun trying to turn her into an ice cube. The captain arrived and Jenkins released the HoP to let her get medical treatment, and instead interacted with the captain. Eventually Jenkins shot the captain and succeeded in turning him into an ice cube. Jenkins attempted to drag the captain away through maintenance, but met with the commander who immediately shot him with a slug with a shotgun. This was not unwarranted, their interaction on command channel had made it clear that if they were to meet, Victor would attack her. Victor escaped though and teleported to telecomms, where he realized his time was coming to an end. He found three crewmembers attempting to break into telecomms and tried to state on commons that the commanders actions would have consequences (he was dying and knew it), so he went in and harmed them, before running away, trying to treat himself and collapsing.

A short while after collapsing, the crewmembers and medical staff arrived around him, and last came the commander with an investigator. She took a look at Jenkins, restrained as he was with cables, walked over to him as he tried to mutter words, and shot his head with the shotgun.

Here is my problem. By shooting me, defenseless, dying, helpless, she deprived me on any roleplay I could have with medical, security or command staff, which I had sort of looked forward to. I knew I might die from my injuries, but shot by the commander in a room full of witnesses? That was both surprising and disappointing roleplay to me, (but apparently that's the norm now). The captain had officially given the order to "End the terrorist" -- an illegal order if that means killing them defenselessly, an order the commander is supposed to refuse and command staff protest, but no, rather shoot them in front of three-four crewmembers for the dramatic effect.

Afterwards I went out in ghost form to observe the afterplay from the PoV of the captain. They confirmed in their talks with both command and medical staff that they had indeed given the order, that they were racist against solarians and that they really wanted everyone to tell the same story about what happened. I get it, scummy captain, his station his rules, all that. It's just.. not believable to me that a captain acts like this in front of his command staff, in front of regular crew and expects to get away with it. It is not believable to me that a Head of Security does this in front of witnesses, and that the two of them discuss it in public afterwards as if it is entirely normal.

I would really like in the future if they could at least try to be actually secretive about it prior, like pull the commander aside to whisper it, or threaten them into it. Atleast pull the antag away from witnesses and do it. It's not normal, it's not something NT would just forgive, in fact its something that would cost both of them their positions, especially given how many witnesses there were. You shouldn't expect command staff to just accept lawlessness like that from the captain and commander either, and expect crew to just go with the story. Imo. that paints a meta-perspective that is both unrealistic and unwanted on this server, as if NT does not have any standards for their command staff, or care about what actions they take. Ideally, I'd like not to be deprived of my post-antag roleplay for.. what? Jenkins didn't kill anyone, he didn't destroy the station, he let the HoP go and only turned the captain into an icecube. 

Alright. here's some pictures:
 

Spoiler


2056052087_OrderstoExecute.PNG.b982d5ba4e80f43bbd9e8843fa3ceb42.PNGimage.png.31ced313b944cfd8e5f84a5f107eb8dc.png1365779457_Victorshotdowned.PNG.75a405e04b6dd61ccdd75c0119b95559.PNG

108198263_CaptainavoidinganIR.PNG.9c6ccd98af1ece578a295ca99f56f2b2.PNG1252165363_CaptainavoidinganIR2.PNG.b92cb0f42cd654bb521595669181f206.PNG

In order:
1. The captain gives the order to end the terrorist, the commander afterwards states that Jenkins is dying
2. The commander know Jenkins is dying, publically says she's going to finish the job
3. Commander comes and finishes the job in front of 4 witnesses, ignoring that they are witnesses to what is clearly illegal
4. The captain tries to correlate a false story in front of a medical staff
5. The captain admits to being a racist in front of medical staff and the commander. Last thing for that meeting "I wanted us to have the same story" - again in front of a civilian.

What about all the other witnesses.. let's just ignore them no problem, none of them are gonna file an IR, so why act like that's a problem. Anyway, closing thoughts I am not upset with the players at all, I am not sure if they are experienced command players or only recently started with these characters. I don't hold a grudge either, I just don't think these choices should be ignored or overlooked. Otherwise it'll happen from round to round, and it'll really turn into a norm to execute antags at the first possibility.


Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time: No, I spent a long time in the round observing their explanations, behavior and deciding if this was worthy of a complaint at all. 
Approximate Date/Time: 06/12/2021 03:00 GMT+1

Edited by Faris
Posted (edited)

Hi, so, I play Shirin. I can give my basis for what happened here:

Victor Jenkins broke into the Captain's office and did the usual traitor stuff of editing his ID and taking a laptop. We raised to blue, and security was ordered to search for him. If memory serves, no weapons were issued at this time. However, it was then revealed that Jenkins had 'experimental science weaponry' with him. Shirin, having seen weapons from science that evaporate peoples' blood in two seconds flat, arms her officers and instructs them to find Jenkins. This also coincides with the hacking of the AI, which she wasn't sure if Jenkins had anything to do with. She makes numerous attempts to hail and talk to Jenkins, to little avail. She makes a clear stated intent to fight the individual if she finds them. Throughout this round, Jenkins has teleported very often, had near-encounters with security that he teleported from, and had infiltrated the bridge, stolen items and (in her mind) likely hacked the AI who was a severely destabilizing and outright hostile force. Somewhere around here, the Cpt orders Jenkins dead.

The round escalated when Shirin walked up to the HoP's office, to find that there had been an attack. The HoP was on the ground wounded, and they told Shirin that the Captain had been attacked and the intruder fled. She goes into the maintenance tunnel, and finds Jenkins dragging the Captain encased in a block of ice. Interpreting this as an act of kidnap, if not murder, she moves to shoot and kill them. She hits them in the chest with a slug. After a brief shoot-out, they use the ice-block as cover to flee into maintenance, abandoning the Captain. Shirin shoves the Captain Ice-Cube into the arms of an engineer and tells them to get to medical, and gives chase. She follows their blood-trail to a dead end, and figures that they've teleported away. Comms chatter from earlier talked about something happening in tele-comms, so she moves into medical and happens into the Captain. The Captain orders her again in no uncertain terms that they "want the terrorist (Jenkins) dead'."

When my character moved to tele-comms while hearing people yell for help, and she found Jenkins on the ground dying. She had orders to kill him, and so she did. She did not know if he still possessed his science weapon, his freeze-ray, or if he could still teleport. Was shooting them twice on the ground a bit much? Yes, in retrospect. It was only after she shot Jenkins to finish them off did she realize he probably wasn't a threat due to his wounds. But Jenkins had been teleporting around, taunting the crew, attempted a kidnapping of the captain , stolen peoples' IDs in muggings, attacked crew with weapons, attacked command members with weapons, stole important items, broken into restricted areas and attempted to overthrow control of the station. Additionally, Shirin had orders that he was not to live. 

18 hours ago, NerdyVampire said:

an illegal order if that means killing them defenselessly, an order the commander is supposed to refuse and command staff protest, but no, rather shoot them in front of three-four crewmembers for the dramatic effect.

This is untrue. There are multiple announcements and a page on the forums that state the Captain's word is law. You carry out the order, and then complain afterwards. This is what Shirin did. She did not know the Captain's reasoning for the order, but assumed he had one. She expressed upset and shame for having executed Jenkins, and called one of the people who was there into her office to apologize. Her dialogue telling the Captain that Jenkins wasn't a threat was not bragging, but a condemnation. Shirin's public declaration of wanting to kill Victor was a result of Jenkins attempting to kidnap the captain and attacking two command-members, and engaging in a brief shootout with her. She was hopped up on adrenaline and anger, given she just interrupted a kidnapping, was shot at, and had orders to kill Victor. The station was in a state of madness given Victor's activity and an actively hostile AI, so I do not think that her threat is at all unreasonable. She was also confused by the request for a cover-up, and asked to leave the Captain when they started saying they hated Solarians. She argued with him on it. Shirin would not have killed Jenkins without the Captain's orders to do so, but he ordered their death in no uncertain terms.  The Captain told Shirin to kill Victor multiple times, both in-person and over command comms.

 

 

Edited by Faye <3
Posted

Well I can follow your reasoning, and I expected I would which is why I only named your character as a partial part of this complaint... But executions are still illegal, because they are covered by law, not regulations.

image.thumb.png.ff5e0abbc1205a4cfa4524d2eb9f9e59.png

Same page -- "Aiding and abetting a criminal makes you an accomplice; you can be charged with the same crime as the person you aided and abetted."

We can find the Biesel law on (https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Guide_to_Law#Republic_of_Biesel) and we find the phrase "Capital punishment is not legal." and "Cyborgification is not considered capital punishment.", which is why one is illegal and the other is not.

image.thumb.png.dfe8bf8d3fee885216e53c6ec166d5da.png

The captain cannot get away with committing crimes. The rest of the quotes only relates to the captain breaking corporate regulations, which again this isn't. It's law. Command members are not allowed to follow illegal orders. No one are allowed to do something illegal, no matter how big the hat is on the person who tell you to.

image.thumb.png.3e34609de2b0a52be16aa5c472209acc.png

So what you can do if the captain is trying to order you to break the law (not regulations) is start a command vote to remove them from their position, and you are expected to refuse orders you know are illegal. Jenkins was restrained when you found him, by every measure of they term he was incapacitated and yes he was your prisoner, and unless you shot him dead in combat I would classify what you did as an execution.

I agree that the captain can order Jenkins killed in combat while Jenkins was an active threat, and that the order should only be carried out while he was an active threat. In my opinion I feel that you as a commander should be well within your right to determine that the situation is different when Jenkins is restrained on the floor, and that what the captain is now asking you to do, is perform an execution which is, again illegal. So doing that in front of four witnesses is effectually the same as putting yourself in jail -- unless you and the captain take steps afterwards to damage-control those witnesses and somehow avoid the questions CCIA will ask once those witnesses tell their story.

If I am wrong in all this, I would very much like to know it. Is there a way a captain can make a subordinate break Biesel law?

Posted (edited)

The last screenshotted paragraph specifically says,- "They (The Captain) may take any action or issue orders that violate regulations during non-standard situations. Generally, these orders must be carried out. Even if you feel an order from the Captain to be against regulation, your moral code, or generally detestable, you still have to follow it. You are entitled to begin a vote within command to have the Captain arrested if the order breaks a serious regulation, but disobeying the order or obstructing it is failure to execute an order."

This specifically says that Command /can/ begin a vote, yes, but that disobeying the Captain is still in and of itself against regulations. How was Command to begin a vote to remove the Captain from power during a code-red situation, when a malevolent AI was actively attempting to kill crew, and someone was teleporting around, mugging people at gun-point for their IDs, attacking command-members, attempting to kidnap said command members, harming crew and inciting action against and the overthrowing of station command? It isn't feasible to remove the Captain during a situation like that, much less force everyone in command into a meeting to vote, edit permissions, hand-over equipment, etc while the station falls apart. I disagree, and I am sorry.

Edited by Faye <3
Posted
1 hour ago, Faye &lt;3 said:

issue orders that violate regulations

Again, regulations are not law, even if it is only in this very specific instance of the 6 bullet points of law that actually exist. NanoTransen does not have the privilege for all their captains to break law as they see fit, in an emergency, if this is unclear to a head of security and a captain both, then this needs to be clarified. But judging by the captains attempts to hide it? I think they knew.

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
On 05/12/2021 at 21:51, NerdyVampire said:

BYOND Key: NerdyVampire
Game ID: cfl-dKau
Player Byond Key/Character name:  (primarily) Captain Calvin Sippl & (partially) Head of Security Shirin Abbasi
Staff involved: --none--
Reason for complaint:
TL:DR: I am complaining about the way the captain and commander had a dying antag(me) executed in front of witnesses, then acted like it wasn't a problem at all. Partially also that the commander chose to obey the order to execute, given their position. I am not mad that I died/got shot, I am disappointed in how it was framed. I consider it a good round that just ended on a bad note from my PoV.

The story:
In the round Victor Jenkins had done a lot of talking, making threats but actually done very little violently until he encountered the Head of Personnel midround, having let himself known, taunted the commander and deprived two crewmen of their IDs at gunpoint, lastly stolen the captains voidsuit. In the office he had a long conversation before shooting the HoP twice with a freeze gun trying to turn her into an ice cube. The captain arrived and Jenkins released the HoP to let her get medical treatment, and instead interacted with the captain. Eventually Jenkins shot the captain and succeeded in turning him into an ice cube. Jenkins attempted to drag the captain away through maintenance, but met with the commander who immediately shot him with a slug with a shotgun. This was not unwarranted, their interaction on command channel had made it clear that if they were to meet, Victor would attack her. Victor escaped though and teleported to telecomms, where he realized his time was coming to an end. He found three crewmembers attempting to break into telecomms and tried to state on commons that the commanders actions would have consequences (he was dying and knew it), so he went in and harmed them, before running away, trying to treat himself and collapsing.

A short while after collapsing, the crewmembers and medical staff arrived around him, and last came the commander with an investigator. She took a look at Jenkins, restrained as he was with cables, walked over to him as he tried to mutter words, and shot his head with the shotgun.

Here is my problem. By shooting me, defenseless, dying, helpless, she deprived me on any roleplay I could have with medical, security or command staff, which I had sort of looked forward to. I knew I might die from my injuries, but shot by the commander in a room full of witnesses? That was both surprising and disappointing roleplay to me, (but apparently that's the norm now). The captain had officially given the order to "End the terrorist" -- an illegal order if that means killing them defenselessly, an order the commander is supposed to refuse and command staff protest, but no, rather shoot them in front of three-four crewmembers for the dramatic effect.

Afterwards I went out in ghost form to observe the afterplay from the PoV of the captain. They confirmed in their talks with both command and medical staff that they had indeed given the order, that they were racist against solarians and that they really wanted everyone to tell the same story about what happened. I get it, scummy captain, his station his rules, all that. It's just.. not believable to me that a captain acts like this in front of his command staff, in front of regular crew and expects to get away with it. It is not believable to me that a Head of Security does this in front of witnesses, and that the two of them discuss it in public afterwards as if it is entirely normal.

I would really like in the future if they could at least try to be actually secretive about it prior, like pull the commander aside to whisper it, or threaten them into it. Atleast pull the antag away from witnesses and do it. It's not normal, it's not something NT would just forgive, in fact its something that would cost both of them their positions, especially given how many witnesses there were. You shouldn't expect command staff to just accept lawlessness like that from the captain and commander either, and expect crew to just go with the story. Imo. that paints a meta-perspective that is both unrealistic and unwanted on this server, as if NT does not have any standards for their command staff, or care about what actions they take. Ideally, I'd like not to be deprived of my post-antag roleplay for.. what? Jenkins didn't kill anyone, he didn't destroy the station, he let the HoP go and only turned the captain into an icecube. 

Alright. here's some pictures:
 

  Reveal hidden contents


2056052087_OrderstoExecute.PNG.b982d5ba4e80f43bbd9e8843fa3ceb42.PNGimage.png.31ced313b944cfd8e5f84a5f107eb8dc.png1365779457_Victorshotdowned.PNG.75a405e04b6dd61ccdd75c0119b95559.PNG

108198263_CaptainavoidinganIR.PNG.9c6ccd98af1ece578a295ca99f56f2b2.PNG1252165363_CaptainavoidinganIR2.PNG.b92cb0f42cd654bb521595669181f206.PNG

In order:
1. The captain gives the order to end the terrorist, the commander afterwards states that Jenkins is dying
2. The commander know Jenkins is dying, publically says she's going to finish the job
3. Commander comes and finishes the job in front of 4 witnesses, ignoring that they are witnesses to what is clearly illegal
4. The captain tries to correlate a false story in front of a medical staff
5. The captain admits to being a racist in front of medical staff and the commander. Last thing for that meeting "I wanted us to have the same story" - again in front of a civilian.

What about all the other witnesses.. let's just ignore them no problem, none of them are gonna file an IR, so why act like that's a problem. Anyway, closing thoughts I am not upset with the players at all, I am not sure if they are experienced command players or only recently started with these characters. I don't hold a grudge either, I just don't think these choices should be ignored or overlooked. Otherwise it'll happen from round to round, and it'll really turn into a norm to execute antags at the first possibility.


Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time: No, I spent a long time in the round observing their explanations, behavior and deciding if this was worthy of a complaint at all. 
Approximate Date/Time: 06/12/2021 03:00 GMT+1

Hi, I play Calvin Sippl.

I'm going to talk about ICLY what happened first from my perspective, and then some OOC notes I'd like to address.

Starting off here I late joined this round at roughly the one hour mark. Walked into my office and announced "Huh was anyone in my office." Security rushed on over and began the initial investigation into this. After finding out on the PDA you changed your ID tag to Zeus. I knew you had elevated your access. After I inspected my office I realized you also stole the captains voidsuit and headset. Shortly after I learned you subverted the AI(Lotus) to assist you in your endeavors to secure the station into a beacon of science (If I remember that part correctly). As Zeus you talked over the command channel  demanding that we should "Beg for mercy."  Security was already after you. I gave the order to take you out after I learned you were messing with experimental weaponry and  you insisted we'd surrender the station to essentially a terrorist. 

I made my way into the HoP's office with the intention of talking to Katya Caladius(HOP) about faxing central. You were in the captains voidsuit with a weapon out staring at Katya in the middle of the room. I was able to tell you'd already wounded her before with something. I drew my disruptor on you and then parleyed for Katya to be let go in exchange for myself. Angela Ulery and two crewmembers that you stole their ID's from were outside the bridges doors and witnessed me being shot with the freeze ray. You froze Calvin into an ice block and proceeded to drag him into maintenance out by the HoP door. Head of Security Shirin Abbasi intercepted you and had to push the ice cube out of the way as you were using it as cover. Shirin eventually slugged you in the chest and moved me out of the way after you retreated.

I was then taken to medical afterwards. Shirin then insisted you surrender more than once after she wounded you with a slug from a shotgun. I was still in medical recovering as it puts you into pain crit after being frozen. I coordinated the director, one officer, and two engineers to break into the AI core to fix Lotus. During that time I was informed you had perished and I presumed you died from your injuries in Telecommunications. Shirin came to me in person outside the brig after I requested her to and told me she had done something awful. She talked about finishing you off and was she was very upset with me about it. I correlated the story with her to ensure she wasn't going to get in trouble with the Odin team. Calvin Sippl knows the first responder(pictured) Kalyna so talking to her came easy.  Kalyna was headed to the AI core to assist the issues down there. I admitted Calvins distaste for solarians after one was being a jack ass in cargo at that time. Calvin is from New Gibson and they have always had notable liberal and anti-Alliance sentiment.

Finally ending off with us having the same story to ensure it stayed that way. Calvin was trying to help her and himself.  The AI was reset and we ended up transferring. 

OOC. I tried answering your complaints from 1-5 in order. (Not sure if I did it correctly.) On another note I had no idea you were prone/in handcuffs at that time when you got domed. At that time I was playing Calvin it was roughly two-three rounds into playing him and captain. I was still figuring out his character as I have stopped being "scumbaggy" since. I have played Sippl alot now and overall refined with what I want/like his character to be. We've interacted a lot since and I enjoy playing space with you. I will happily explain myself into further detail should you require. Happy Holidays B)

 

Posted

Shoot to kill vs execution were two separate things. Should have @NerdyVampire been in handcuffs and isolated. I would preferred them alive in the end truthfully. My orders still standing refers to a lethals authorized situation to shoot them. As they had previously gotten into a gunfight and shot 2+ people and attacked/stole items from 4+ people.

Posted (edited)

Shirin was told specifically this image.png.d4cae34f0a67a8f078eabe0eddf4bba1.pngand thisimage.png

To me, this says 'kill them no matter what, we are no longer interested in receiving them alive.' At medical, after I shot the antagonist the first time,  Shirin was told that in person and over comms repeatedly.

 

Edited by Faye <3
Posted (edited)

So from what I see here is that no party was really malicious here. I’m not finding any issues in this particular case beyond it being a case of miscommunication that involved parties will keep in consideration for the future. 

 

@KesterShadowHair While you didn’t intend to phrase it as a direct kill order, it felt to me as an outsider that you ordered a kill command on Jenkins. In the future, just be aware that Captain orders will often be taken literally. If you told command to jump, they’ll jump. In this context, “taking them out” and “your orders standing” can easily be taken as a “Yes, I really want them dead”. So it really boils down to the choice of words here. 

 

@NerdyVampire I’m going to quickly elaborate on a few points you made. 

1- While there is a distinction between corporate regulations and actual laws, there are circumstances where characters can be justified to set them aside to complete a task. Captains are given absolute authority and Biesel essentially being a corporate shill, there is an overlap between the two. There are incidents where executions not being legal, have sufficient build up to justify it, despite it being “illegal”. 

 

2- In regards to how the execution was carried out. While ideally it is better if there were no witnesses, it probably would have been a worse situation if you were dragged to medical or somewhere else in terms of aftermath for executions. Had they brought you to the holodeck after treating you for a public execution, then that would definitely cross the line. This is not to say executions should be a common thing, they are a very infrequent thing, and if we put aside that the execution order came from a miscommunication, I feel it was appropriate given the explained timeline of the round itself. 

 

So to summarize. Captains should be careful when describing their orders, wording is key here. Executions are illegal but if extraordinary circumstances occur, people can do what they feel must be done, within reason. This incident was a result of miscommunication, they happen and we learn from them for the future. 
 

@Faye <3 In the future, I do recommend that you shoot a quick Ahelp when you get an execution order to make sure it’s alright. It’s completely okay to ask us for permission before doing something extreme. 
 

And as a final note, this is more or less being treated as resolved. I’m going over the logs to make sure everything lines up, so if everything here is true and nothing is missing, this’ll likely be the final verdict. 

Edited by Faris
  • Faris changed the title to [Resolved] Character complaint: Calvin Sippl & Shirin Abbasi
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