Staff Complaint: Caelphon

[CourierBravo]

BYOND Key: CourierBravo
Staff BYOND Key: caelphon
Reason for complaint: Tone-deaf lore arc follow through
Evidence/logs/etc: Orion Spur article "Protests across Mictlan", Discord announcement, personal conversation (find 2 and 3 attached below.)
To elaborate, given the war going on in Ukraine, I feel like its incredibly tone deaf and not okay to have gone through with this lore arc full well knowing that its going to make people uncomfortable. I dont understand why this couldnt have been pushed back. When I messaged Caelphon to say "hey, this seems inappropriate," he refused to elaborate, simply telling me "I'm sorry if this makes you feel uncomfortable" and "This was greenlit back in December" instead of any kind of dialogue. As seen here:

Cael knew ahead of time that this was going to make people uncomfortable, as seen here:


Between the lack of willingness to have any dialogue about it, and the nature of the arc and the timing, this feels incredibly inappropriate. I ask that we go back on this, and hold this arc off for another time.
Additional remarks:
I would like to point out that "Siege of Mictlan" feels particularly egregious. The arc name at least should have been changed.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Bejewledpot
missing ending quotation mark

[Garnascus]

18 hours ago, Bejewledpot said:

Between the lack of willingness to have any dialogue about it, and the nature of the arc and the timing, this feels incredibly inappropriate.

I just have some initial observations as well as some questions. I understand from your post here that you have an issue with a lore arc due to it mirroring the real life ukraine-russia conflict. Can you go into some more detail about this? It also seems that Caelphon never said he knew it would make people uncomfortable. All he did was apologize if it makes you uncomfortable and that the arc was greenlit back in December. The response is pretty neutral. He is not necessarily required to have a dialogue about why he does not want to cancel the arc. 

[CourierBravo]

2 hours ago, Garnascus said:

It also seems that Caelphon never said he knew it would make people uncomfortable.

I feel like making a community warning that it might make people uncomfortable because of the mirroring of current events, is acknowledgement that it was a very real possibility. Else why would you make the warning? The point of an announcement like that would be so the community can infer that it's going to be potentially sensitive/touchy.
 

2 hours ago, Garnascus said:

The response is pretty neutral. He is not necessarily required to have a dialogue about why he does not want to cancel the arc. 

I'd disagree, as far as I'm aware it's his arc, as he's the one posting about it,  so if I was to talk to anyone about it and an issue had with it, i feel like it would be a very reasonable expectation to try and talk to him. I feel like that should have been handled better, because to me that felt like stonewalling. Additionally, if we cant talk to the staff about the content their making, then what good does feedback do? Especially with the sensitivity of the situation. I don't want to do a public dog piling, which I fear would happen if I made this grievance public. So I went to Cael directly. And now I'm making a confidential complaint, because again I don't want someone else to come in and make things aggressive or derail.

Additionally, the arc doesn't need to be canceled. It can be pushed back, until things are less tense and sensitive.
 

2 hours ago, Garnascus said:

mirroring the real life ukraine-russia conflict. Can you go into some more detail about this?

Sure.

The arc and situation on Mictlan, as I understand it, is a story of one nation being annexed into another nation, and civil unrest therefrom. As we've seen from the real life Russia-Ukraine conflict, you can easily draw parallels between the two. Additionally, the name of the arc, "Siege of Mictlan" leaves a bad taste in my mouth given the real siege on Ukraine happening as I type. While the two conflicts are a bit different in nature (aside from the obvious one of one is real and one is spaceman game). Ultimately, while I believe that the Mictlan arc will be more a story of insurgency underdogs rather than two nations battling it out, the timing is just poor.

I feel like now is a very inappropriate time to be having this arc, in its current state, even though it's been in the works for awhile now. I want to see where it goes, I'm rarely disappointed by how lore arc's go, but I really think we should be pushing it out to a later date. I cannot stress it enough, I dont want this arc canceled, I would like for this arc put on the backburner until things cool down in the real world. At the very least, if we're going to go through with the arc no matter what, a good move is to change the name.

Edited March 1, 2022 by Bejewledpot
additional thoughts

[Caelphon]

Hi there. You are well within your rights to lodge a Staff Complaint regarding the conduct of the lore team, and I wanted to put that here so other players can see, and understand, that this is one of many tools to voice their concerns. 

I confirm that the arc has been greenlit since early December, but production only began in it in late January / Early February, for complete transparency. I am the primary writer of the arc, however, there were significant contributions made by @Triogenix . I do not believe they are required to voice anything, but I do believe they should be given the option should they wish to do so.

The current geopolitical climate within the world isn’t new. The Ukraine-Russia situation can be seen in several other different places; America-Afghanistan, Palestine-Israel and even China-Taiwan to a degree. Unfortunately, mankind has continually done the same actions to one another for centuries (see: Ireland-English and Scotland-English relations). I apologised because conflict can be triggering for some individuals, and especially considering there is a significant amount with regions where a lot of our players originate from that is being impacted by conflict, I wanted people to know that this could cause discomfort.

Conflict will always parallel conflict. Me writing about the Samaritans being shelled by the Legion is going to look like a parallel, because conflict has been a fascination of mankind for a seriously long part of our existence. As I mentioned previously, the annexation of Mictlan can be linked to several parts of history, so of course it’s going to look like a parallel - history repeats itself. Humanity has not ascended to some kind of level where there is no need for conflict anymore. The annexation of Mictlan happened months ago, the Peacekeeper Mandate was unveiled in Oct 2021. Back then people believed I was paralleling the Revolution of South America. So again, people was always see a parallel in conflict, because conflict rarely ever changes shape or form. 

I do not believe postponing the arc would do any good, especially considering there is no “time limit” for a war. World War One took four years. World War Two took approximately six years. Should I wait four to six years to release the rest of the arc? Or twenty, if we’re going by American-Afghanistan standards? This isn’t some military exercise that is going to suddenly find itself tied up and sent on its way. It’s a bad situation, and everything is being done to assist them, but … life goes on, unfortunately. 

I apologise if it causes discomfort, but there will always be a parallel to these sort of things because they have happened countless times in our history. It was 11 months old before there was any development on the annexation of Mictlan, I do not plan on stopping / postponing an area of lore that is in dire need of lore development.

I stand with the people of Ukraine, and they are in my thoughts and prayers. 

[CourierBravo]

Thank you for explaining @Caelphon, it is appreciated. Those are all fair points, and I'm satisfied with that, I guess there really isn't ever going to be a good time, this is just an incredibly unfortunate timing. Do you think it would at least be reasonable to change the arc name? At this point, that's the only issue here that's bugging me.

[Caelphon]

I do not mind changing the name, I will just need to think of one later. Currently, what I have is the “Continuation of the Mandate” Arc.

[CourierBravo]

I'm satisfied with that. If you want me to brainstorm anything, I'd be happy to. Unless anyone else has anything to add, I'm content with how this went and would be fine with closing this.

[Garnascus]

Alrighty. Locking and archiving.