Character Complaint: Ta Consulate

[Kaed]

BYOND Key: Kaedwuff
Game ID: cfl-bgus (this is the round following the one I am speaking of primarily)
Player Byond Key/Character name: That one Zo'ra Ta consulate, I can't keep track of all these vaurca names, but there's only one of them, it shouldn't be hard to figure out.
Staff involved: N/A
Reason for complaint: This character is supposed to be playing some kind of ambassador based on their job position, but the way they play the character is completely unbelievable for the role they are in.  As a Ta acting as a liaison of the Zo'ra hive, they should have the ability to navigate difficult social situations in a manner that is professional an non-inflammatory.  To quote the wiki, This extension of their [the Ta caste] duties comes about from their keen social intelligence, making them ideal candidates for negotiating with aliens on economic and political matters. They easily grasp the nuances of social context, contracts, and systems that other castes have difficulty navigating. 

Vaurca are stated to be heavily prejudiced against in human space, but this character does not seem to act like this is a common issue that they have ever run into.  Far from attempting to smooth out cultural misunderstandings, they immediately demand that they be given respect the moment someone does not show full acceptance of their presence on the station.  When this does not work, they devolve into puerile insult matches with the offending party, using terms like 'filth' that no ambassador actually attempting to establish relations with another culture would ever do.  

Furthermore, they seem to have a tendency to call for other vaurca from station departments to come assist them in their insult fights, further escalating whatever situation was already developing, pulling them away from their job duties (I witnessed a vaurca doctor apparently dropping what they were doing during a chaotic round to rush over and use very humanlike slang insults that they probably should not have been saying if they wanted to maintain immersion) in a way that they should not be doing if they are trying to respect the nanotrasen workplace, and calling vaurca security guards to arrest the person who is offending them.  They also use culturally tailored insults (such as inferring that an unathi is secretly a guwan) in a way that suggests they are fully aware of how provocative they are being and do not care.  I do not think this player understand what their role is supposed to be on the station or that their species is not supposed to be a widely respected class of equals and they should be working to fix this.

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? No, I did not consider this an admin issue until thinking for some time after the round.
Approximate Date/Time: 12/28/2021, but there was a previous incident too I witness on another round.

[Gr33d]

Hey there, I was the EMT bug that round and just want to give my 2 cents to what happened from my perspective as I feel things are not quite as cut and dry from what I saw.

10 hours ago, Kaed said:

Vaurca are stated to be heavily prejudiced against in human space, but this character does not seem to act like this is a common issue that they have ever run into.  Far from attempting to smooth out cultural misunderstandings, they immediately demand that they be given respect the moment someone does not show full acceptance of their presence on the station. 

while the everyman vaurca is 100% going to be discriminated against, there is some expectation that a consular would likely be given more respect, especially as a giant bug with huge claws. I imagine most people would be to scared to disrespect them in the first place, not to mention that Ta are very often not going to just be walking around the streets of [human planet names here]. They are likely only out and about for work related things before going home to VR. In the work related environments, I find it VERY likely that disrespect is rare due to fear and a cultural understanding of how its usually not good to fuck with a consular of ANY race for reasons not related to their politics. Ta are also very important in vaurca society, so theres an expectation that they should likely not be messed with for that reason as well. As you said however vaurca are prejudiced against, and while that is true, vaurca Zo'ra still have a good deal of political power due to their large very cheap workforce and IIRC the fact they make up half of all the members in the TCFL. To disrespect a Ta is to disrespect the whole of the Zo'ra hive and is usually a big deal. 

10 hours ago, Kaed said:

When this does not work, they devolve into puerile insult matches with the offending party, using terms like 'filth' that no ambassador actually attempting to establish relations with another culture would ever do.  

"Establishing relations with another culture" is a line that sticks out to me here. You went up to them and started insulting them, this is fine as an IC issue and all that, but it should be expected that if you are to do that, you are likely not open to establishing relations yourself. Further more, its not like you are THE unathi who is the relation establisher. you are just one unathi whos demeanor shows that you are not worth the time trying to establish relations and just wants to hurl insults. I'm not sure if you want a consular to just sit by and take those insults and not say anything back or if you want them to run away. You seemingly wanted them to "leave" so them doing so would show they are weak, and by extension the Zo'ra. That alone is a good enough reason to hold their ground. 

10 hours ago, Kaed said:

Furthermore, they seem to have a tendency to call for other vaurca from station departments to come assist them in their insult fights, further escalating whatever situation was already developing, pulling them away from their job duties (I witnessed a vaurca doctor apparently dropping what they were doing during a chaotic round to rush over and use very humanlike slang insults that they probably should not have been saying if they wanted to maintain immersion) in a way that they should not be doing if they are trying to respect the nanotrasen workplace, and calling vaurca security guards to arrest the person who is offending them. 

So, this is a thing that vaurca often do, regardless of if they are a Ta or not. Vaurca are usually far more connected than you would think due to hivenet. Often all vaurca are talking to each other as well as the rest of the crew all round and this makes for a very tight nit race who often do call each other for assistance. Its part of the vaurca race, just like how vaurca also have castes that do certain jobs. Ta and Ka dont fight unless they literally have to, Ra can defend and Za can fight. A Ta calling for Za to defend them is to be expected and is part of the fun of playing vaurca. Vaurca often protect each other above all else and will call those of other castes to do jobs they were not ment for. Not to mention that the Ta felt they were going to be hurt by you AND when I got there it did seem like you were making threats against their person. Further more, as I was playing the EMT that was called away. While the round was chaotic, I had nothing to do at that time, in fact, I assumed the round was pretty much over when It came down to hurt people as the shuttle was on its way. Do note that while you were talking to the Ta, the Ta broadcasted that she felt threatened and that you were going to attack her. When this was said, my EMT, who was not busy at all and if called is fast enough to be on the other side of the station in a heartbeat, went to head over to see what was going on and see if the Ta was actually in danger, do note, the other Za on station broadcasted that they WERE busy with something so they would not be able to assist for the time being and later when something did come up for me to do, I ran off to deal with it. If anything, me being there should deescalate the situation, as there are now more numbers and that should show the unathi it might be time to back off from the Ta consular who is, again, very important to the vaurca society and would likely be protected by all vaurca on station if need be. Rug using human like slang here refers to me calling your unathi a bitch. thats not very human like to me, but ill defend it as if it was: Rug worked as a bodygaurd in the past FOR HUMANS in very bad parts of cities for most of its life since its been in human space. They are very aware of human slang like bitch and actually use a lot of curse words instead of "bigger and smarter" words because of this. This is not a one off thing. It would be like me complaining that you attacking a medic is not honorable and their for human like. To touch on "nanotrasen guards arresting the person offending them" you were not arrested for insulting a Ta, you were arrested for ATTACKING ME. Please do not act like you were just insulting someone and got arrested by another vaurca, that is NOT the reason you were arrested. 

 

10 hours ago, Kaed said:

They also use culturally tailored insults (such as inferring that an unathi is secretly a guwan) in a way that suggests they are fully aware of how provocative they are being and do not care.  I do not think this player understand what their role is supposed to be on the station or that their species is not supposed to be a widely respected class of equals and they should be working to fix this.

on this last point, the Ta did not call you a Guwan, (unless they did so before I got there) I did in an attempt to convince the Ta that you were not worth their time so they would leave. I was also not insinuating that you were a secret guwan, I do not know your name IC so you could have been a public guwan for all I know. Not sure if thats a big deal or not but wanted to add that on incase. 

Everything I put here in just my opinion on the situation and how I feel about it, everything that was done that round was fine from what I saw. This post seems to boil down to: "I started insulting a Ta, was surprised when insulted me back and called for protection because they felt they were going to be harmed and did not want to leave the hallway to their office, attacked a vaurca and was surprised I got arrested". I have no idea what you expected to happen when you insult someone who is pretty much seen as minor royalty to the vaurca on station/a races consular, demanding they leave or you will hurt them, then attacking an EMT who was there to make sure you DID NOT hurt them after little provocation, proving that me being there was the right idea, as if you had hurt the Ta the consequences socially would be immense. NT would likely fire you for harming any consular I imagine, let alone someone so protected and important as a Ta.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Gr33d

[Kaed]

You make a few points here, but your understanding of the situation is flawed because you arrived after it started.  Essentially what happened (very paraphrased) was this:

Unathi: Wow, you're ugly, what are you, some kind of beast? (definitely an insult)
Ta: No. Respect me.
Unathi: Why, what did you do to deserve it
Ta: Filth.
Unathi: Go away
Ta: No, you.  <-- This is the point that is my main contention here, them digging their multiple heels(?) in and deciding they would rather stand on a point of pride than leave this obnoxious unathi. This would not have even led to more than a minor verbal altercation if she had done so.  I did not corner her, this was a passing interaction in a public hallway.  I had not noticed personal pride being a high level social characteristic for vaurca in general, but maybe I missed something.  It IS definitely one for unathi, though, and I find it hard to believe that the Ta's player and the character themselves did not know this and thus I think they pushed the matter deliberately, because that's like, literally the main thing anyone knows about unathi is 'unga bunga honor.'

It was at this point that my unathi started feeing threatened by their game of verbal chicken directly and started to become hostile rather than simply rude. This is what lead to your being called.  If Ta are, as you say, not expected to be combatants, why are they holding their ground against some random visitor and thus feeing the need to call for back up?  This unathi was also not an employee, they were a visitor, and you should not have held them to the ideas that they are part of the Nanotrasen workplace.

I admit I seem to have mixed up which vaurca said the guwan thing (honestly most of the vaurca names kind of blend together for me and I don't really have an interest in playing one for their naming conventions are low on my list of shit I care about), but my point is still this: Should someone selected for an ambassador role be picking pointless fights with random rude people?  The whole premise of their need to be protected from my dangerous unathi only happened because they continued to needle him out of a clear desire to 'win' the verbal altercation.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Kaed

[whitewolftamer]

So I don't know anything about the actual verbal altercation, I do however know some about the physical alteration (Sup boss, its me, vaurcesian security cadet) At the time when I was hearing from the Ta that someone was threatening her I was trying to deal with the, actual security threat, the person who kept stealing the away shuttle and throwing grenades (cardox and frag). So I asked Rug to deal with whatever was causing the Ta discomfort. I only left what I was doing when the other officer arrived and I was told that it had become a physical altercation.
Now, when I heard physical altercation I expected like, okay haha, funny slap go brrrrrrrr. HOWEVER When I arrived I swear to god there was enough blood on the floor to supply the IAC for a month (Both Red and Yellow blood). From my understanding of what was happening upon my arrival, it was relatively clear cut that the unathi had begun the brawl, so I had detained them, and brought them to the brig for processing. However, I also mentioned over comms that we could charge Rug for excessive force.

Anyways thats really my understanding of it, It got excessively violent on both sides no matter the circumstance

[Kaed]

15 minutes ago, whitewolftamer said:

So I don't know anything about the actual verbal altercation, I do however know some about the physical alteration (Sup boss, its me, vaurcesian security cadet) At the time when I was hearing from the Ta that someone was threatening her I was trying to deal with the, actual security threat, the person who kept stealing the away shuttle and throwing grenades (cardox and frag). So I asked Rug to deal with whatever was causing the Ta discomfort. I only left what I was doing when the other officer arrived and I was told that it had become a physical altercation.
Now, when I heard physical altercation I expected like, okay haha, funny slap go brrrrrrrr. HOWEVER When I arrived I swear to god there was enough blood on the floor to supply the IAC for a month (Both Red and Yellow blood). From my understanding of what was happening upon my arrival, it was relatively clear cut that the unathi had begun the brawl, so I had detained them, and brought them to the brig for processing. However, I also mentioned over comms that we could charge Rug for excessive force.

Anyways thats really my understanding of it, It got excessively violent on both sides no matter the circumstance

I think that it did get a bit more violent than it needed to be, but I think the game's overactive bleeding mechanic was more to blame for the mess than anything else.  Vaurca in particular bleed way more than they should, and the footprints we left made it look way bigger than it actually was.  I remember lunging forward to claw him a few times after being called a bitch, before he started doing vaurca zoomies around me, pushing and attacking me.  I'm not very robust so I mostly stood there and did my best to click on him when he was shoving me around, because usually his sprite had to hold in place for that.  🤷‍♂️  Many clawings were done on both sides, tho. Based on that there was more of his blood than mine, I think(?) I was winning(????) before it petered out and you arrived.

Neither of us was seriously injured as far as I could tell, enormous pool of blood and footprints aside.

Edited December 28, 2021 by Kaed

[Roostercat]

Hi, Vaurca Maintainer here. I will be taking this complaint since its 75 percent a question of whether or not the Vaurca involved were in the right. So, starting off,

13 hours ago, Kaed said:

Reason for complaint: This character is supposed to be playing some kind of ambassador based on their job position, but the way they play the character is completely unbelievable for the role they are in.  As a Ta acting as a liaison of the Zo'ra hive, they should have the ability to navigate difficult social situations in a manner that is professional an non-inflammatory.  To quote the wiki, This extension of their [the Ta caste] duties comes about from their keen social intelligence, making them ideal candidates for negotiating with aliens on economic and political matters. They easily grasp the nuances of social context, contracts, and systems that other castes have difficulty navigating. 

Vaurca are stated to be heavily prejudiced against in human space, but this character does not seem to act like this is a common issue that they have ever run into.  Far from attempting to smooth out cultural misunderstandings, they immediately demand that they be given respect the moment someone does not show full acceptance of their presence on the station.  When this does not work, they devolve into puerile insult matches with the offending party, using terms like 'filth' that no ambassador actually attempting to establish relations with another culture would ever do.  

 

 

28 minutes ago, Kaed said:

You make a few points here, but your understanding of the situation is flawed because you arrived after it started.  Essentially what happened (very paraphrased) was this:

Unathi: Wow, you're ugly, what are you, some kind of beast? (definitely an insult)
Ta: No. Respect me.
Unathi: Why, what did you do to deserve it
Ta: Filth.
Unathi: Go away
Ta: No, you.  <-- This is the point that is my main contention here, them digging their multiple heels(?) in and deciding they would rather stand on a point of pride than leave this obnoxious unathi. This would not have even led to more than a minor verbal altercation if she had done so.  I did not corner her, this was a passing interaction in a public hallway.  I had not noticed personal pride being a high level social characteristic for vaurca in general, but maybe I missed something.  It IS definitely one for unathi, though, and I find it hard to believe that the Ta's player themselves did not know this and pushed the matter deliberately, because that's like, literally the main thing anyone knows about unathi is 'unga bunga honor.'

 

 

29 minutes ago, Kaed said:

 

 but my point is still this: Should someone selected for an ambassador role be picking pointless fights with random rude people?

I do not see an issue with the Consular's behavior here. You walked up to them, insulted them, and they insulted you back. Consulars and Vaurca as a whole are allowed to do this. Ta are high in the social hierarchy of Vaurca, and while they are there to build relations, they are by no means required to be nice and accommodating to people actively talking down to them, threatening etc. I also do not view this as the Consular picking a fight, either. This is because, even by your own description, you are the one picking a fight here. This entire complaint essentially encompasses an entirely IC issue.

13 hours ago, Kaed said:

 

Furthermore, they seem to have a tendency to call for other vaurca from station departments to come assist them in their insult fights, further escalating whatever situation was already developing, pulling them away from their job duties (I witnessed a vaurca doctor apparently dropping what they were doing during a chaotic round to rush over and use very humanlike slang insults that they probably should not have been saying if they wanted to maintain immersion) in a way that they should not be doing if they are trying to respect the nanotrasen workplace, and calling vaurca security guards to arrest the person who is offending them.  They also use culturally tailored insults (such as inferring that an unathi is secretly a guwan) in a way that suggests they are fully aware of how provocative they are being and do not care.  I do not think this player understand what their role is supposed to be on the station or that their species is not supposed to be a widely respected class of equals and they should be working to fix this.

 

There are two parts to this section, The calling of vaurca to their aid and the humanlike insults, so I'll tackle them one after the other. 

 

1: Calling other Vaurca

This is something Ta and other Vaurca do incredibly often, as others have said. Ta can, and are expected to, call other Vaurca to their aid in situations like this as they are very important in the hive's structure, and are revered in Vaurca society. There is no issue with doing things like this as long as the Vaurca attending are not currently busy with another emergency. 

2: Humanlike insults

While the Vaurca can be socially ignorant or confused, to the extent this goes is largely determined by the player. All three major hives are integrated into a species' society in some fashion, and all three also involve humans. Thus some Vaurca would know how humans speak and talk, and would know their insults as well. There is little issue with a Vaurca swearing as long as it is kept reasonable and there is a just cause for it. The Guwan calling falls under this umbrella as well. You insulted a Ta, so you got called a Guwan. Tit for tat. Do not expect Vaurca to just bow down to whatever insults are being flung at them, as retaliating back in this instance doesn't quite hurt the hive's reputation.  

 

Overall, this complaint reads like this: 

Unathi: Insults Ta

Ta: Insults back and calls Vaurca after being threatened

Unathi: Attacks

 

And then a player complaint was made. This is an IC issue, and fits an incident report far more than a player complaint. If nobody else has anything to add, this will probably be locked and archived in 24 hours.

[MattAtlas]

Locking and archiving, since it has been over a hundred hours.