Arbs - Command promotion

[Arbs]

BYOND key: Arbs

Discord Username: Arbs#0485

Character names:
Mike Bisenti

Eve Drosera

How long have you been playing on Aurora?:
More than a year and a half at this point.

Have you received any administrative actions? And how serious were they?
Some warnings and a week ban once, i think that now it has been more than a year ago. Havn't had any substantial issues since.

Please provide well articulated answers to the following questions in a paragraph each.

What do you think the OOC purpose of a Head of Staff is, ingame?:
Maintain and promote the intended structure of the department they are in charge of, promote interaction on the expected level of roleplay and incite other players to enable them to follow that example. It also goes without saying that ensuring a good round flow is also an important objective for command roles.

What do you think the OOC responsibilities of Whitelisted players are to other players, and how would you strive to uphold them?:
I believe that with the privileges of a position of power, comes the responsibility that you owe to other players who will expect fair judgement and just treatment from your side. I believe that being able to serve with that intention in mind would be a net positive in the outcomes of many situations that require the interference of a command player.

I also do understand that HOS is one of the more difficult roles to play as part of the command crew, but I do believe I have the ability to handle it without issue, considering the experience I have gathered.

Could you give us the gist of what is currently happening in Tau ceti and how it affected your character and their career?
Currently the most interesting event in relation to the server development has been the launch of the Horizon ship. The way that has impacted my character is that under the premises of the Aurora station, the character in question was looking forward to biesel as a new beginning and over time developed more connections and ties so to get better settled in Mendell City.

Working as a Warden under an EPMC contract, a transfer to the PMCG detail on the Horizon meant moving out of Mendell City and returning to a situation similar to the beginnings of their career in the Navy. As such it was seen as inconvenient and not how they were planning their future or career. As a result they decided to not follow through with the transfer to the Horizon and instead found an assignment similar to his work on the Aurora on an EPMC detail in Mendell City.

However with the ability to apply for a position as a Department Head and the possibility of such a promotion, it meant getting ahead once again. This would be considered as a good compromise to make once again for career aspirations, along with better income and job privileges.

What roles do you plan on playing after the application is accepted?
HOS primarily, and perhaps HOP/XO at a later time or as a back up role.

Have you familiarized yourself with the wiki pages for the command roles?
Yes, I have thoroughly read them and I am familiar with the command structure as well as with the responsibilities, competences and limitations of each role. I also have quite some decent experience in the security department on this server as well as decent knowledge of other departments as well.

Characters you intend to use for command or have created for command. Include the job they will be taking.:
Mike Bisenti - HOS
Eve Drosera - HOP/XO

Do you understand your whitelist is not permanent, and may be stripped following continuous administrative action?
Absolutely. Being whitelisted indicates a relationship of trust between me and the staff that issues the whitelist, as well as the players that will hold a certain consideration towards my character as an HOS in-game. As such I do not intend to break that kind of trust and I will treat the whitelist with due commitment.

Have you linked your byond account to the forums?
No, though I can do it if necessary. Just havn't bothered.

Extra notes:
I am very open to answering any questions, comments or concerns from other players of staff.

[Triogenix]

Hi! Happy to see you apply, I think you've proven yourself more then capable of holding a command whitelist.

However, with that said, I am a little curious as to why you chose to promote Bisenti from Warden to HoS. To my knowledge, they've been the offender in a few IRs, primarily around potentially harassing other members of security. Why would the SCC choose them to become the head of that department then, in your eyes, given that?

[Arbs]

1 hour ago, Triogenix said:

Hi! Happy to see you apply, I think you've proven yourself more then capable of holding a command whitelist.

However, with that said, I am a little curious as to why you chose to promote Bisenti from Warden to HoS. To my knowledge, they've been the offender in a few IRs, primarily around potentially harassing other members of security. Why would the SCC choose them to become the head of that department then, in your eyes, given that?

Hey, thank you for the kind words and putting some faith on me. I appreciate that.

This is a very good question and I am glad you asked that. There are multiple reasons as to why I chose this character for the command whitelist application.

Primarily, as briefly explained in my application, this will help in regards to character development. If you're not growing, you're just dying. So for a character that has been around for almost a year at this point, it helps builds up on that RP environment through natural progression. On top of that the character is an overall experienced person at his job that performs to a high standard and is considered a competent person by most colleagues. That means he is a qualified candidate for that position.

As far as involvement in IRs go, I find your statement below incorrect.

Quote

To my knowledge, they've been the offender in a few IRs, primarily around potentially harassing other members of security.

There has only ever been two IRs in which my character has been directly involved. In one as a victim and only in one as an offender. The character never had any administrative or disciplinatry action taken against him.

The first IR cannonized the loss of a limb for the character, in which Bisenti is a victim. The RP situation was handled and resolved in a very clean way. The outcomes of that event are also reflected in the character's medical records, something which I see as character development.

The second IR in which he is marked as an offender was yet again resolved with no administrative action ever taken on Mr. Bisenti. That means he is in the clear and the records as well are clean with no issues to be taken into consideration.

Having IRs filed against you which have subsequently been closed and dismissed is not something to make up for valid concern in my opinion.

If you have anymore concerns or questions, I'm more than happy to answer.

[Triogenix]

10 minutes ago, Arbs said:

 

There has only ever been two IRs in which my character has been directly involved. In one as a victim and only in one as an offender. The character never had any administrative or disciplinatry action taken against him.

The first IR cannonized the loss of a limb for the character, in which Bisenti is a victim. The RP situation was handled and resolved in a very clean way. The outcomes of that event are also reflected in the character's medical records, something which I see as character development.

The second IR in which he is marked as an offender was yet again resolved with no administrative action ever taken on Mr. Bisenti. That means he is in the clear and the records as well are clean with no issues to be taken into consideration.

Having IRs filed against you which have subsequently been closed and dismissed is not something to make up for valid concern in my opinion.

If you have anymore concerns or questions, I'm more than happy to answer.

ah well, I'm happy to be proven wrong. I just remember seeing their name on a few when I glanced at the IR section of the forums, I don't really look into them that hard when they don't involve my characters.

+1 And good luck!

[Tristan63]

I have played alongside Arbs for more than a few years on other servers, and have had limited interactions with Bisenti here. Arbs is absolutely capable of roleplaying a diverse array of characters, but is also knowledgeable and competent with game mechanics/designs to be an effective head of staff. Arbs is an expert at maintaining a great command and control presence and in my humble opinion would be excellent at any head of staff job.  

 

+1

[Arbs]

Thank you for your feedback and support. 😊

[Shadow]

Trial starts today and ends in a week. Try to get feedback regarding your command play during this time.

You can post your app once per round in ooc.

 

[Ramke]

No one has posted yet despite you asking for feedback every round, so I might as well. Take this one with a grain of salt as I have been playing with Arbs outside of Aurora for a long time previous to this, and saw him as a faction leader in a different community, so I know that he can handle things well.

Bisenti has always been on-point in terms of round flow and escalating appropriately from my perspective. One of my biggest pet peeves is Security stopping entirely because of a lack of orders or a long time waiting to receive them in high-stress situations that basically stop the round, and this has never happened with Arbs so far.

He tries to keep all members of his department included, and always makes sure that everyone in the department is in the know. The hostage situation yesterday was a good example, Bisenti walked past the hostage taker to get within speaking range of most members of Security while the radio was down to keep them engaged. I can say he has been an excellent teacher too, as I am a relatively new member of Security and Bisenti was there to help me learn the more finnicky bits of Aurora combat.

The character also has depth, which really helps make a difference in the roleplay side of things and helps form interesting relations that offer conflict or friendship. It's kind of an awkward thing to mention, but it is refreshing to see as often heads of security tend to default to a stone-faced business-only personality.

+1

Edited May 5, 2022 by Ramke

[Arbs]

Thank you for your feedback Ramke, I appreciate it.

I do try to keep players of the department engaged, as I find it important to keep subordinates in the currect with instructions, especially in moments when they are needed the most. An important aspect of this is that in keeps cohesion and organization to a higher level than what it would normally be, and since people are communicating more often, you are also aware of their status more as well. In the end of the day, you do feel some responsibility for the players who put their trust in you, and I would not lead them astray with that.

Thank you for the feedback on the character too. There was a mixed range of inspirations and interactions behind this character that shaped into what it is. It's also quite likely that I may go on and create other command characters in the future as well.

See you in space.😊

[Zelmana]

I have interacted with Bisenti for a long time, likely since his first sec days.

For the sake of the app, I would be interested to see another character be played. From experience, HoS/Commander is one of the most stressful roles in both roleplay ability and "getting the job done". Mentality of making the round better for people vs. winning is something to keep in mind. As with a lot of Command, learning not only to do just the job, but also play a great character is something that is hard to do for some.

Perhaps playing another character to showcase your breadth of roleplay ability. I see only two characters on your rooster, and while I believe that Mike isn't just a self-inspired character, playing something completely different would showcase your HRP skills. Doesn't even have to be command. Janitor, for example, is almost entirely roleplay driven as opposed to things like HoS where you balance what needs to be done in game and what should be done to drive and create an interesting round.

[Sneakyranger]

Saw Bisenti in a round today. Robot traitors had an interesting gimmick where the crew had to provide entertainment for each other and the most entertaining ones were ranked highest. Bisenti played in to it and managed to, I think improv or from memory tell a long joke that both served to further the gimmick and allow for the AIs laws to be reset at the end of the round, ending it peacefully. Very cool. I'll edit this post later if I can if I see more stuff and he advertises again to remind me, as I will say my experience with Bisenti has been limited (my experience with Arbs, though, hasn't).

[Arbs]

Thank you very much for your replies.

The characters I mentioned in the roster are my currently most active ones, out of five other written ones of different backgrounds, perosnalities and opinions. While I do have a tendency to main characters, this is mainly due to what roles I am more interested in playing more, and I am using the role of HOS for this application so that is what I am currently interested in showcasing.

As for the topic of "RP vs Getting it done", I don't necessarily see it as "making it fun for everyone versus winning". In my opinion, the decisions made in such situations have to be sensible and as they would be expected by the character's point of view. If we win, we win, if it doesn't work out, oh well. I believe that the decisions made in such given situations have to be found reasonable and justified by all involved sides.

From other examples mentioned here as well as from the example that Sneaky brought up, where out of all the ways we could've dealt with the AI problem, I decided to follow through with the gimmick and see where it would go. And I believe it was somewhere between hilarious, amusing and entertaining for others to watch as well.

Thank you again for your feedback.

[Rookie Eyes]

Wanted to add a +1 due to the simple fact that in every round I've been in with Mike Bisenti as HoS they've actually gone out of their way to control, and command, sec beyond the usual stuff (who's going on the intrepid?, I need a volunteer for x, Warden break out the guns, etc.) I think this is much needed especially for players that don't main sec/are new to sec as a whole. 

A lot of times sec devolves into chaos due to lack of guidance, lack of experience, and inability for whatever reason to get momentum going so having someone actively mitigating that is much appreciated.

[goolie]

When I used to play one of my troublesome characters years ago I remember I would get pissed off at how Arbs played Mike but holy shit never mind that didn't last long. Seeing him now I actually didn't even know he was on trial and thought for the longest of time he had been accepted and had always been Command! When I saw the application I couldn't believe that it hadn't already been accepted. This is coming from somebody who doesn't even play Security that often but you can really see the difference in communication. There was a really chaotic vampire / cult round and even though it devolved into absolute shit Arb's HoS was able to somehow tell Security exactly who the cultists were and who the vampires were and keep everyone organised. I'm not sure if it was him who did it but they were using the manifest and changing any converted crew members to "physically unfit" on it. I know it's something simple but I could see that Security were much more organised. I think Arbs has no problem RPing mechanically and roleplay wise as a HoS! Full +1 from me!

Edited May 8, 2022 by goolie

[DatSamTho]

Although I've only heard and seen some stuff that left a bad taste in my mouth, I didn't really have anything to add to this, until now.

I recently played a burglar in a round along with SadKermit. We were playing two Skrell, and were going to attempt to build a second AI core. We stumbled into some people in our way, and while we were obviously armed, we simply threatened them, and let them go, not harming anyone. Thirty-something minutes in, security was outside of the mechanist's workshop, and without us shooting at them, Bisenti started to break in through a wall, at which I shot one or two warning shots, which did not stop him. And so with pretty much no attempts to negotiate, or facilitate RP between security and the antags, the gimmick was killed 40 minutes into the game, ending with me, sitting for over an hour in the brig, (most of the time cuffed) with next to zero RP, except for a brief few minutes in the investigator's office, which completely ruined the round for me. And even when I was finally stuffed into a cell, the blast doors to communal were left closed, which left me asking security multiple times over the radio to allow me to go to cryo near the end of the round, which was ignored until transfer happened and the server restarted.

Command is meant to facilitate roleplay on the station. I have seen the opposite.

I must -1 this app.

[WAYRT]

I at first had no particular opinion about Bisenti, I thought they were great as Warden and a great Command canditate. I however have some questions regarding already mentioned veil party round. But first I want to clear up something I feel is wrong.

10 hours ago, goolie said:

This is coming from somebody who doesn't even play Security that often but you can really see the difference in communication. There was a really chaotic vampire / cult round and even though it devolved into absolute shit Arb's HoS was able to somehow tell Security exactly who the cultists were and who the vampires were and keep everyone organised.

I played as Operation Manager and can safely say that as far as Command channel communication goes, Bisenti had no presence whatsoever, which isn't unusual for him and happens frequently according to the rest of Command. And as far as organization goes, I encountered two security officers in medbay having no idea what has been happening for the entire round. So I feel like this is false.

10 hours ago, goolie said:

I'm not sure if it was him who did it but they were using the manifest and changing any converted crew members to "physically unfit" on it.

This was not HoS's initiative, but AI's attempt at tagging the confirmed hostiles to have the milita formed by Captain a semi-clear image of who to trust and who not to, but I understand the confusion since it was only mentioned by AI on command channel. Bisenti was proven to be not aware of it, as he entered medical lobby with two tagged officers, Luukaneen and ISU whose full name I can't remember. With no attempt to establish what exactly was happening, he disarmed the member of militia, Vaurcae named Theth and entered a stand-off with me and Chief Engineer. This was escalated by his threat to shoot me, which caused a disarmed militia member to tackle him, which ended with entire Operation crew arrested for no applicable reason, and that Vaurcae ending up dead due to punctured Phoron tank.
 

With that out of the way, there is something I wish to have more clarification about from Arbs, especially regarding investigator Pavlovich. As far as I'm aware, Bisenti hit them in the head mutliple times, along with stomping them while they were down for tapping him to get his attention. This all was allegedly done with him being non-antag, so I want to hear Arb's recollection of events that led it. 

 

 

 

[Arbs]

Thank you for your feedback everyone, I am quite glad this thread is becoming quite lively. With that being said I'll be answering your feedback accordingly.

14 hours ago, goolie said:

When I used to play one of my troublesome characters years ago I remember I would get pissed off at how Arbs played Mike but holy shit never mind that didn't last long. Seeing him now I actually didn't even know he was on trial and thought for the longest of time he had been accepted and had always been Command! When I saw the application I couldn't believe that it hadn't already been accepted. This is coming from somebody who doesn't even play Security that often but you can really see the difference in communication. There was a really chaotic vampire / cult round and even though it devolved into absolute shit Arb's HoS was able to somehow tell Security exactly who the cultists were and who the vampires were and keep everyone organised. I'm not sure if it was him who did it but they were using the manifest and changing any converted crew members to "physically unfit" on it. I know it's something simple but I could see that Security were much more organised. I think Arbs has no problem RPing mechanically and roleplay wise as a HoS! Full +1 from me!

Thank you for the praise goolies, ever since the early creation of the character, I have put some effort based on feedback from interactions to develop into what turns interactions into more conversational and engaging. So in that regard, I look forward to interacting with your characters like the other day.

3 hours ago, tomkiel said:

Although I've only heard and seen some stuff that left a bad taste in my mouth, I didn't really have anything to add to this, until now.

I recently played a burglar in a round along with SadKermit. We were playing two Skrell, and were going to attempt to build a second AI core. We stumbled into some people in our way, and while we were obviously armed, we simply threatened them, and let them go, not harming anyone. Thirty-something minutes in, security was outside of the mechanist's workshop, and without us shooting at them, Bisenti started to break in through a wall, at which I shot one or two warning shots, which did not stop him. And so with pretty much no attempts to negotiate, or facilitate RP between security and the antags, the gimmick was killed 40 minutes into the game, ending with me, sitting for over an hour in the brig, (most of the time cuffed) with next to zero RP, except for a brief few minutes in the investigator's office, which completely ruined the round for me. And even when I was finally stuffed into a cell, the blast doors to communal were left closed, which left me asking security multiple times over the radio to allow me to go to cryo near the end of the round, which was ignored until transfer happened and the server restarted.

Command is meant to facilitate roleplay on the station. I have seen the opposite.

I must -1 this app.

I understand that you may have had a bad time, but I would disagree with your statements. We had no warning, communication from the antags other than calls of armed threats from miners and engineers. When we arrived, you simply kept doing what you were doing while wielding weapons at the security department. I followed through bearing in mind gradual escalation, starting with asking you to put down your weapons and come forward. Obviously this was refused by both burglars, which resulted in us breaching in, and arresting both burglars with minimal use of force. Then I directed the officers to get both of you medical attention and instructed the Investigator to question both burglars to further the RP. Now outside my knowledge, as I appointed the officer to other emergencies and my character was processing one of the burglars, it turns out the investigator was abusing the prisoners. Which I later also had to deal with and apply charges along with a suspension.

I understand you have high expectations, but I am not a superman. The department was horribly udnermanned and I had to personally deal with different separate issues in quick succession back to back. So frankly, I wasn't too able to sit in front of your cell, while there were more than three to four emergency calls in between that required my direct attention to it, Including disciplinary action for the investigator. Maybe it could've been better in different circumstances, but with whatever was in my hands I did make sure that you were not treated unfairly.

 

1 hour ago, WAYRT said:

I played as Operation Manager and can safely say that as far as Command channel communication goes, Bisenti had no presence whatsoever, which isn't unusual for him and happens frequently according to the rest of Command. And as far as organization goes, I encountered two security officers in medbay having no idea what has been happening for the entire round. So I feel like this is false.

Quite to the contrary this is a false claim because my character is very readily available on command communications, unless engaged in handling a security issue directly. And as for this round there was a serious altercation in the investigations area of security, where my character's radio and ID were taken while being in critical condition due to engaging in CQC with the vamp antag. Regardless, the first chance I had, I used a station bounced radio to deliver multiple calls to the captain over common channel to the Captain, informing him of the situation of what had happened, and identifying the threat of a rogue security department, which lead to the captain taking action on it.

 

1 hour ago, WAYRT said:

This was not HoS's initiative, but AI's attempt at tagging the confirmed hostiles to have the milita formed by Captain a semi-clear image of who to trust and who not to, but I understand the confusion since it was only mentioned by AI on command channel. Bisenti was proven to be not aware of it, as he entered medical lobby with two tagged officers, Luukaneen and ISU whose full name I can't remember. With no attempt to establish what exactly was happening, he disarmed the member of militia, Vaurcae named Theth and entered a stand-off with me and Chief Engineer. This was escalated by his threat to shoot me, which caused a disarmed militia member to tackle him, which ended with entire Operation crew arrested for no applicable reason, and that Vaurcae ending up dead due to punctured Phoron tank.

To continue on the previous, the AI being able to identify the hostiles and the Captain calling for the need of a militia, came only after I directly informed him of the security department being rogue, as the vamp/cult had infiltrated it. Furthermore my chracter was in surgery after making several calls on the radio. If you were paying attention, my character came out of surgery, to see the vaucra threaten one of those security IPCs or another member of security in the medical lobby. Hence the disarm of that individual who was incompetent in handling a weapon. Your quartermaster threatened my character with the use of force if he didn't drop the weapon, didnt ask say or ask anyother questions, and failed regardless. As for the Vaucrae and others being engaged, I believe it resulted to similar actions akin to ones taken by the vaucra, leading to a response by the IPCs, and not my orders. After this whole incident the main priority for me was to recover the HOS ID, which I eventually did so that I could resume coordinating security personnel, even the compromised members on what to do to de-escalate the situation while the IPCs were engaged with cultists.

So all things considered, I believe things were handled pretty well for an HOS that spent a good amount of time in surgery, without gear, ID or a radio.

2 hours ago, WAYRT said:

With that out of the way, there is something I wish to have more clarification about from Arbs, especially regarding investigator Pavlovich. As far as I'm aware, Bisenti hit them in the head mutliple times, along with stomping them while they were down for tapping him to get his attention. This all was allegedly done with him being non-antag, so I want to hear Arb's recollection of events that led it. 

Pavlovich was involved in an altercation earlier and refused to take any action to assist me and Luckaanen as we were fighting with the vamp. So inherently they were counted as ineffective or compromised in my character's perspective. As I explained, the ID and radio was stolen so I wasn't able to communicate to that point, in fact I was heading to the brig to get one. So what she does is run up behind my character and attempt to disarm him. So recognizing that as a threat, the appropriate response was to put her on the ground and into a submission position. Which is when she started talking and informing my character of some information. While it is a misunderstanding, I don't think running up to someone and pushing them over is the right way of getting their attention to engage in conversation.

[Omicega]

I'm posting just to back up Arbs' statement regarding the round WAYRT is complaining about. I've known Arbs since 2014 in another community and consider him a close friend, so I'm not offering a +1 or -1 on that account, but I want to make a few things clear here as someone who participated in that same round.

2 hours ago, WAYRT said:

I played as Operation Manager and can safely say that as far as Command channel communication goes, Bisenti had no presence whatsoever, which isn't unusual for him and happens frequently according to the rest of Command. And as far as organization goes, I encountered two security officers in medbay having no idea what has been happening for the entire round. So I feel like this is false.

This is just you being ignorant of what happened in the round, and isn't the HOS's fault at all. Every single member of security except for myself (the ZI IPC that latejoined), the ISU that latejoined, and the HOS himself was a vampire or a thrall of a vampire. When the one vampire (Baker, IIRC) wound up dead, all the thralls began to roleplay as if they'd lost their memories during their time as thralls. They were all perfectly aware OOC of what was going on, given I saw them try to murder the HOS along with their vampire master earlier in the round. 

Regarding no radio presence, it is pretty hard for a HOS to communicate on the radio when he's in surgery for well over half an hour AND loses his radio because he played along with an obvious antagonist. If you'd have liked him to do anything different here, I'd love to hear it.

You are basically just wrong here, so his assertions aren't really something you can say you "feel like" is false. Everything you've said is essentially invalid because of the circumstances of the round, and you didn't make any effort to actually get the proper context to what was happening. Using the IC actions of two secondary antagonists (thralls) as justification for Arbs' OOC ability to play command is something I find really questionable.

2 hours ago, WAYRT said:

With that out of the way, there is something I wish to have more clarification about from Arbs, especially regarding investigator Pavlovich. As far as I'm aware, Bisenti hit them in the head mutliple times, along with stomping them while they were down for tapping him to get his attention. This all was allegedly done with him being non-antag, so I want to hear Arb's recollection of events that led it. 

Pavlovich was one of the vampire's thralls who assisted in attacking Bisenti earlier in the shift. I saw this and logs can and will confirm it if you doubt me on this account, or you can go find their player yourself and ask them. I'd say a HOS hitting an antagonist back for having attacked them earlier in the round is more than valid.

I understand you're unhappy with how that round went for Operations and your militia, but I'm a little irritated to see you come in here and fire shots at someone's application without even doing the bare minimum of research beforehand. The end of round blurb showed the vampire and their thralls, too, so it's not as if that information was unavailable to you either.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Omicega

[Alfa1561]

I've never had an issue with Arbs' warden play and I've been able to observe their HoS gameplay recently. I wanted to post about a recent changeling round, one in which quite the situation unfolded with the Chief Engineer over turning the gravity off. 

Despite that incident and the assault leading to an IR, that is purely IC of course. I wanted to post here to state that while my character (and many others) were very dissatisfied with the outcome of the situation, I can say firmly in my case at least, that the situation from an OOC perspective was handled extremely well. I felt very bad that it was a trial round for Arbs because it was an impossible situation to make everyone happy in, with no relation at all to the antags of the round.

Bisenti utilised his authority in a measured but firm way to force both parties in the conflict into his office after de-escalating what was milliseconds away from becoming a full blown fight. He then forced a tentative agreement between both parties, with the Captain present, not to fight any further in the shift. He handled it as best anyone could and avoided having to brig anyone unnecessarily, creating more roleplay than just resorting to tossing people in cells by the letter of the law.

Ultimately, I wanted to praise his handling of the situation because from an outside perspective it might seem as if I wasn't happy with the resolution, but that is all purely IC reasoning and instead the whole matter has opened up new avenues of roleplay and character relationships.

[Rookie Eyes]

I wanted to come and confirm what Omicega had replied in regards to the vamp/cult round that had devolved into in-fighting. I spawned as Evan Oliverson, responded to an IC call where the antags were attacking Mann. Separating IC from OOC Evan placed his trust in Edmund Baker, and Pavlovich to help him take the suspected assailant, Liam Nuemann in for questioning. As soon as the medic, and victim left Evan was stunned, thralled, and given a general order to forget what had happened + consider Baker a close friend. This would include later preventing Leukannan from helping Mike Bisenti as they were being attacked by Edmund Baker. 

In short: at that point the entirety of security was either thralled, or a vampire. Bisenti did not have control of them because being a thrall prevented that. IC narrative prevented Bisenti from controlling his officers. In addition getting beaten almost to death tends to limit your ability to command anyone.

Once Edmund died I ahelped asking what to do since from my understanding Thralls are kind of half-antags that don't really act on their own. From my understanding( which is to say I could be wrong) the ahelp confirmed that while I was still a thrall I was correct that I wasn't expected to begin taking antagonistic actions on my own. We all RP'd as Omicega put it: with no memory of what had happened. During the course of that the AI had declared the entirety of security to be rogue, and the station kind of fell apart. I don't think it was a situation that could be realistically handled by a single person, but he did still go out of his way to direct officers such as ordering Evan to arrest one of the cargo techs despite the fact that Bisenti had every reason not to trust Evan.

 

Lastly: When he attacked Pavlovich they had been one of the thralls that stood by while he was being beaten to death earlier, and they did run up, and try to disarm him which I think may have been a misclick due to intent. 

 

In short: Ship rioting, officer's loyalty in question, several officers equally not understanding what's happening, active gunfights popping up everywhere, there is no way anyone is controlling that. 

Edited May 8, 2022 by Rookie Eyes

[Diggey]

8 hours ago, Arbs said:

akin to ones taken by the vaucra

Hi, the Vaurca here to clear some things up

There seem to be a couple issues with lacking information on all sides here, as such I will not use this to +1 or -1 I am here to clear up some facts

9 hours ago, Arbs said:

disarm of that individual who was incompetent in handling a weapon

Completely intentional, Theth was vomiting all over the place, handing a Vaurca worker a weapon for any reason other than to show force is a poor idea. Not like they were actually incapable of firing accurately but the idea of conflict stresses them out to no end.

Stress was a main factor in the portrayal of the character that round and I tried to keep it as meek as possible for keeping the players safe from my insane ass OOCly who would have fired at Pavlovich the moment she entered as she was marked as "physically incapable" and started barking at the receptionist.

9 hours ago, Arbs said:

I directly informed him of the security department being rogue

This is the entirety of the information all of Operations got.

9 hours ago, Arbs said:

Your quartermaster threatened my character with the use of force if he didn't drop the weapon

inaccurate.

This is important because it plays into the perception of the player OOCly and the handling of the character ICly.

I was taking very specific care to check who was an antagonist, because I had no idea what the fuck was going on, and if Malcolm was the Antag I would have had to help Bisenti (neither were antags so this was a fruitless endavour)

McGulby did not speak up when Bisenti disarmed Theth

He had a full conversation with Bisenti who at this point was holding a lethal anti-personnel weapon that was not issued to him. McGulby did not object.

Mike said that he wanted his department to have access to medical, at this point all the information Operations had was that "the entire department is compromised"

McGulby replied that the Medbay has been designated as a Safe haven and as a no-weapon zone unless you are trusted by the captain. He Informed Mike Bisenti that it was blue alert and to "please drop the weapon if you want to enter medical"

Mike replied (and I quote loosely) "Okay, where do you want it? Head or belly." - Implying shooting the Operations Manager in the Head with a gun he just stole.

 

Theth at this point only had two reference points: Ringer was dying in the Medical Lobby, His Boss (who has been nothing but helpful) is trying to keep medbay (and Theth's assigned partner) safe. AND. The ENTIRETY of the Security department was compromised.

And he just threatened the request to please enter the safe haven unarmed with "do you want to die fast or slow?"

As a result he merely pushed over Mike and ran, trying to safe his colleague, his boss, and finally the entirety of Medbay.

---

I was under the impression that Security was playing it smoothly and trying to trick their way into medical.

Multiple of them were vampire thralls and that Mike Bisenti was the Head Cultist

This was a wrong impression but the impression I got from him

Mind you me and Ringer were on the Asteroid mining for 1 and a half hour we didn't even know the ship was in red alert, and the first 15 minutes back aboard were spent carrying his dumb ass to medical after we dispatched of a space eel. So we had 0 context for anything going on

---

My character is shot in the lung by the IPC, I run to operations, I get treated with supplies in the warehouse, we realise the implant is damaged , typical round all things considered, IPC comes in to try and kill me for the audacious crime of pushing his boss as he was threatening to summarily execute a Command member for the crime of safe haven

It is all a big clown show at this point

---

Here comes the kicker.

We needed to get the implant fixed, but the Hangar Tech was new, they didn't know what to do or how to get me to the machinist, so they put Theth in a chair and rolled them to medical.

Mike Arrested both.

Mike decided all of Operations was guilty of crimes against the crew and needed to be arrested.

This is where I thought FOR SURE that Mike was an antagonist.

Going to do this word for word because just me saying it sounds like Slander.

...

Mind you I was on the Asteroid for an hour I was not aware Mike was just in surgery and I sure as fuck wasn't a cultist while on that rock

And he let out his frustration of beeing hurt on a random crewmate who he denied medical aid?????

Anyways, after what feels like 5 minutes of awkward silence and staring while I was actively pleading for my life one of the Cadets wheeled me over to the EMT terminal where a Skrell and the Captain did surgery on Theth

I was so fucking sure that Bisenti was an Antagonist at this point I expected him to sink his fangs into me and suck me dry.

Nope

This is normal Bisenti performing his duties normally as a normal HoS where he is taunting a hostage who is actively pleading for their life after they.... pushed him... for threatening to execute their department head.

---

Sorry I got a little heated there.

This isn't an attempt to discredit his ability to handle security issues i just wanted to make it clear that this was not a cut and dry case of McGulby beeing unreasonable.

If McGulby had been randomly threatening people then Theth wouldn't have pushed Mike.

---

Arb was in a very high stress situation and he was seeing connections where there were none and trying to stop the cult all means necessary.

I get that.

I definitely am not qualified to handle a situation like that and he actually leaves openings for antags to do shit

I couldn't have pushed him if he didn't let me push him.

I actually fucked up and he waited for 1 tile for me to catch up and try to push him again.

He is definitely playing the narrative role of beeing a command member very well and he makes the game more interesting than 180 no scoping the unarmed vaurca for standing up and walking up to him xD

[Arbs]

Point is that when you come out of surgery without an ID or radio, you will not know any of those events. What you do end up seeing however is a vaucra wielding a weapon in a firing position (two hand wielding) and i believe threatening either one of the IPCs or one of the investigators in medbay, i can't recall correctly, but irrelevant.

9 hours ago, Diggey said:

inaccurate.

Facing a person while wielding a weapon with both hands means you are in a firing position and are telling the person in front of you that you have taken in consideration shooting the person and will do so if need be. This is why most of the time you will see officers with the weapon either secured in armor/back slot or unwielded unless the chances are they are going to be shooting at someone, and it is something I've been taking the attention of officers to keep in mind even when playing as a warden before.

Now as an HOS, seeing this happen, the threat of use of lethal force on someone who was either unarmed (there was no armed threats in the lobby) or the IPCs which are arguably immune to corruption by cultists or vampires, is seen as irresponsible and a threat to crew more so that maintaining order. On top of the fact that seeing the chaos of the situation, I wouldn't say order was effectively maintained anyways. The lack of information that you received is not my problem in this case, as you had you own separate chain of command. That is not for me to judge however. But all I can say is I do not see why you'd percieve my character has an antagonist when he was the whistleblower to begin with.

Hence why the disarm of the vaucra. As for the quartermaster, he doubled down in this line of action, telling my character to put it down, while facing him with a wielded weapon. The line my character responded with wasn't a threat and was in fact irony, to remind him that his demand was not acceptable. The weapon in my character's hands was not wielded, and there was no intention of shooting the quartermaster, what you witnessed was just intimidation, because shooting someone like that would be completely unacceptable.

At this point you could say there was tension, but no hostile action was taken. However the situation escalated when the vaucra, moved on to disarm and resulted in an engaging the IPCs.

Not wanting to escalate, my character did not pursure the Vaucra, nor was any order given to the IPCs any order to engage or arrest the militia, so I'd assume that was their own initiative to reacting to something percieved as a threat after my character was pushed over. Which unfortunately led to your character's death and the Quartermaster opening fire.

As for what happened next, I'd say medical aid was not denied considering your character went to medbay and the rest is simply IC dialogue in the form of psychological pressure to discourage the other members from taking similar actions, considering the example they just saw.

Now if possible I'd like to move on from this particular scenario. I understand the unpleasantness of some, but in such situation there's rarely much way of undoing the chaos, so you can't expect me to be in control of every possible antag-related mayhem that happens during rounds. If you are unsure, talk, speak up. Make sure the action you are about to take needs to be taken. Make sure who you are about to shoot, needs shooting, because it can very easily lead to situations like these. Communication is the key here because otherwise it leaves space for mishaps like this to happen. And nothing was communicated to me.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Arbs

[WickedCybs]

Arbs plays what I would call a pretty responsible HoS. He's friendly, he could be on good terms with you but he's your boss first and foremost. I can always expect he's on top of things, or at least trying to be during a chaotic situation and he tries to keep his department grounded as well by requesting updates and assigning people to tasks. I'd say his actions are pretty stabilizing for security and I've never really seen him go overboard on antags. He's fair and even handed from what I've seen.

[Shadow]

Accepted.