Make the Executive Officer the ship's second in command.

[Owen]

3 minutes ago, JeffMomentRed said:

Do not roll Service with Operations for the OM. The communication load would be insane if HTs, Miners, Machinists, Gardener, Janitor, Cook, and Bartender were rolled into a single departmental command's chat.

I imagine it would be how it was back when there was the HoP in control of both. A service and an ops channel. If this were to even happen

[Flpfs]

I am in favor of the stated changes by staff. This is a refreshing return to base for the setting.

[Captain Gecko]

32 minutes ago, greenjoe said:

I agree, I'd want a second vote of something like "do you want the XO changes to go through if this means alien XOs have to change their job?"

At this point, then, I agree with Greenjoe. There probably should be a second vote. A lot of people didn't think this would bring species restriction in, and I assume their opinion on the matter would've changed if they did. I know I wouldn't have been too fond of the idea if I knew.

Any restrictions are going to bring a lot of frustrations when they kick in, that's inevitable... But this is different, people did originally want this, but not with the restrictions, as far as a part of them were concerned. We need to see how popular it would've been with the restrictions in mind before actually putting anything like this in the game.

[Dreamix]

Quote

Executive Officer's may tune in to other department channels in order to collaborate and ensure better intradepartmental functionality, however, they only hold authority over the department's head of staff when carrying out tasks assinged by the (acting) captain. Additionally, the Executive Officer does not hold elevated authority in matters that are not designated by the Captain.

In the absence of a Captain, should a situation arrive, it is the duty of the Executive Officer to help establish a new Acting Captain and assist them in seeing it resolved.

So basically, 2ICXO is... not actually second in command. This is, honestly and genuinely, bizarre to me, how such a simple idea of 2ICXO could be implemented like this.

If XO has to find an acting captain and listen to that acting captain, they're not actually second in command, if the XO can't just assume command themselves. It's a weird mix of 2IC and 3IC. I would expect 2IC to actually be 2IC, and NOT be expected to appoint 3IC head of staff into a 1IC role. This overcomplicates the simple chain of command we had before.

 

The vote was "do we want XO2IC or not".
It did not mention about whether it would be restricted to human and skrell only, and I imagine a lot of people voted "we want XO2IC" under the assumption that other species could still be XO.
And it did not mention all these rules that XO2IC is not actually 2IC.

 

I am very much not happy of how this is being implemented.

Not to mention how this took (almost?) a year to be implemented after the vote, which just feels like a big disappointment, to wait so long, with so many reminders and posts in the thread, being something that a lot of people were excited about, just to see this.

Edited April 4 by Dreamix

[greenjoe]

1 minute ago, Dreamix said:

The vote was "do we want XO2IC or not".
It did not mention about whether it would be restricted to human and skrell only, and I imagine a lot of people voted "we want XO2IC" under the assumption that other species could still be XO.
And it did not mention all these rules that XO2IC is not actually 2IC.

 

I am very much not happy of how this is being implemented.

Not to mention how this took (almost?) a year to be implemented after the vote, which just feels like a big disappointment, to wait so long, with so many reminders and posts in the thread, being something that a lot of people were excited about, just to see this

This, I agree with this
I'd say something of a Vote of No Confidence on the 2ic XO vote now

[Kintsugi]

As the OP, I'd like to point out that the point of this thread was to make the XO into the ship's 2IC, not to make the XO into the ship's 2IC while maintaining the present species allowances - not trying to be a jerk, but at this point this thread's purpose has been achieved and discussion about species restrictions should probably be moved elsewhere.

[N8-Toe]

What is the reasoning for the XO not assuming command if the captain is incapacitated? That feels weird they're supposed to be the captains right hand man, and given similar trust, but expected to not step up and take command should the captain be out. I agree with Dream is over complicates.

 

[Fluffy]

Honestly, I could not care less about species being restricted from being XO, some species were not even found until very recently, it is fine to restrict them from being XO if the XO is second in command.

 

But, this policy isn't what a second in command is, this policy doesn't make the XO second in command.

It makes him a secretary. The Captain's personal assistant. We might aswell give him an office in front of the Captain's one, with a computer and a multiline phone to handle calls on his behalf, and the Captain's calendar to schedule appointments for him. "Hello I am calling on behalf of Captain John Biesel, he would like to [...]" and little else isn't what most people consider being second in command to mean, I think.

I do not think anyone voted XO2IC for that. I certainly didn't.

[NG+7 Gael]

Gonna be totally honest, I don't see how this change does... anything positive, really. This doesn't make the XO 2ic, because they don't even have elevated authority- XOs could already be assigned as in charge of whatever by the Captain or by command vote, or simply be in charge of departments as needed if there wasn't already a command member active in the department. While this change technically means the XO has more responsibility within lore because they know the nuke codes... this is entirely irrelevant to just about every round, and more importantly has absolutely zero effect on canon RP.

All of this comes at the cost of deleting basically every active XO character, because most of them are IPCs or Unathi.

I guess the staff have said they are deadset on making this change, but I really think it should be reconsidered, because this doesn't actually do anything positive.

Edited April 4 by NG+7 Gael

[Peppermint]

I also don't care too much about the species changes. I think they're a shame as I don't really know what things do to the fun side of RP, but I don't think they really matter that much in the grand scheme of things. 

That said, I agree with the sentiment that this isn't really a 2IC? It's just what we have now, with the nuke codes (when was the last time these were ever used?) and putting pen to paper for something the Captain could already do and order the XO to take over tasks they're too busy with. Idk. I don't really get what these changes accomplish outside of a tiny bit extra RP, I suppose. But I've been wrong about this stuff plenty of times so maybe it'll be the same here again,

[Arrow768]

5 minutes ago, NG+7 Gael said:

All of this comes at the cost of deleting basically every active XO character, because most of them are IPCs or Unathi.

I have seen various claims such as this in this topic.
Below you can see the number of XO Rounds played per species from the time the topic was created until today.

As you can see that claim is not backed up by existing facts.

Edited April 4 by Arrow768
Rewording

[OolongCow]

2 minutes ago, DanseMacabre said:

As the OP, I'd like to point out that the point of this thread was to make the XO into the ship's 2IC, not to make the XO into the ship's 2IC while maintaining the present species allowances - not trying to be a jerk, but at this point this thread's purpose has been achieved and discussion about species restrictions should probably be moved elsewhere.

I don't Disagree, Danse, but splitting the thread is liable to reduce engagement with that idea and make tracking who said what more difficult. I think the pros of staying in this thread outweigh the cons.

 

As for the statement on retroactive species restrictions, I have to say it's just deeply confusing. This is an administrative-backed OOC change that will effectively delete the histories and arcs of multiple characters, without consulting anyone or even mentioning it beforehand. You knew this would happen. You knew it would upset people. But you didn't even bother to try and compromise or even inform the playerbase ahead of time?

What are the affected characters supposed to do? Just retcon ever having occupied the position? Get what is ultimately a slap in the face demotion IC that the SCC will magically face no consequences for despite it being INCREDIBLY overt rather than subtle now that their hiring practices are racist? Are characters just supposed to ignore that only aliens got demoted and not say a word? Was any of this even considered?

[Arrow768]

6 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

What are the affected characters supposed to do? Just retcon ever having occupied the position? Get what is ultimately a slap in the face demotion IC that the SCC will magically face no consequences for despite it being INCREDIBLY overt rather than subtle now that their hiring practices are racist? Are characters just supposed to ignore that only aliens got demoted and not say a word? Was any of this even considered?

This is again my personal opinion.
I do not see why xeno characters who were XOs cant keep that in their employment history, they are just assigned to another suitable position.

In my opinion it is quit obvious that if we expand the XO to have the same access and knowledge of ship systems and quite similar powers to the captain, that the hiring standards/restrictions will also be updated to relect that.
It is not possible to explain why we would trust someone with the most guarded secrets of the ship, as well as working in a position that is designed to train captain candidates but never trust them enough to become captain.

The hiring policies are already specist. (Not racist, as there is no differentiation between "races" and only between "species"). This has never changed.

Edited April 4 by Arrow768
Wording

[Shimmer]

Just now, Arrow768 said:

It is not possible to explain why we would trust someone with the most guarded secrets of the ship, as well as working in a position that is designed to train captain candidates but never being able to become captain.

Why is this something a 2iC requires? A 2iC exists to take control over a situation when the 1iC is incapacitated.

 

This is not to mention that all of this is fluff- this doesnt come up in game. Those are all nebulous secrets and systems that arent acknowledged in game bar the nuke, and are usually not something a 2iC needs to know.

 

If we are going by the line of reasoning that the 2iC needs to know of this because they relay that information to an acting captain that they just appointed- what happens to the acting captain that learns of this information? Do they poof out of existence because theyre an IPC? Does the SCC blackbag them?

 

Why any of this?

[NG+7 Gael]

15 minutes ago, Arrow768 said:

As you can see that claim is not backed up by existing facts.

Statistically, yes, it makes sense that Humans would be the most played species for any role. I should clarify- as I realize my initial statement needs the clarification- that I, and I think most people in the thread, don't mean to say that non-Humans have more rounds played that Humans, but rather that currently, the established Aurora XO characters that people know, who are consistent, and who are played regularly are mostly non-Humans/Skrell.

Obviously I don't know every active Aurora character, but as someone whose previous and current character (both of which are/were, at the time of writing, my only active characters) were BCs, I can very much say that I, personally, have mostly seen IPCs and Unathi XO characters. All of the currently active XOs that I can name off the top of my head are IPCs or Unathi.

I'm not disagreeing with the statistics, but I think that the statistics don't tell the full story.

Edited April 4 by NG+7 Gael

[OolongCow]

1 minute ago, Arrow768 said:

This is again my personal opinion.
I do not see why xeno characters who were XOs cant keep that in their employment history, they are just assigned to another suitable position.

In my opinion it is quit obvious that if we expand the XO to have the same access and knowledge of ship systems and quite similar powers to the captain, that the hiring standards/restrictions will also be updated to relect that.
It is not possible to explain why we would trust someone with the most guarded secrets of the ship, as well as working in a position that is designed to train captain candidates but never being able to become captain.

The hiring policies are already specist. (Not racist, as there is no differentiation between "races" and only between "species"). This has never changed.

I don't disagree on that. I think that's an entirely reasonable assumption to make. But it's very obvious that any IC consequences for the SCC, from factions causing a fuss to outright returning the favor, will not be approved or allowed. The Hegemony is not going to look at their citizens being insulted and told they're lesser to humans and do the same to humans working for Hephaestus. The Trinary is not going to release a statement condemning this as a blatant act of discrimination. The SCC will escape any and all consequences for doing this, because in reality, it's an OOC-motivated decision and not one made with the lore in mind. And people who come here and enjoy playing their characters in a position that before this decision were entirely allowed, are going to get nothing out of it. Either they wordlessly retcon everything and move them to a position they don't even necessarily enjoy, or they get absolutely no roleplay hooks out of the deal and just have to eat a fat IC demotion L with nothing to bounce off of because the universe tells them the SCC can do no wrong and will never get their comeuppance. The same thing happened on Konyang. Will the SCC lose face and be embarrassed because they sent the Horizon's crew in with empty stun batons and non-functional flashlights to disable the warehouse transmitter? Nah. It's just swept under the rug despite being treated like an entirely IC issue despite being caused by poorly-tested event maps and unfortunate design decisions.

This isn't an IR where these characters did something wrong, or they're given something meaty to work with for future roleplay. It's not done due to lore developments or with a possibility of reversal. Staff said "we are doing this" and plan to implement it in a completely unsatisfying way both OOC and IC. It's a dry, boring OOC rules change wearing the facepaint of being due to IC reasons while having no IC consequences or hooks. And that's just baffling.

[Peppermint]

I'm not massively into the species changes but both here and on the discord, people are going a bit too hard and really aren't using their nice words? It sucks when you lose a character. It really does. I've done so too (RIP some dominia lore). But when this poll came out, there was a possibility of that happening so I don't think it's very fair for folks to act like this is totally out of left field. It was discussed back then as well. 

I would like the XO to actually be more of a 2IC. But worst case, we have some change, can see how it goes and if it sticks. Keeps things fresh, though I am sympathetic to people who won't be able to play their character in the same way - is there no possibility of using it to change their arc up, give them some biases, ect?

Edited April 5 by Peppermint

[Noble Row]

I don't understand why the XO isn't the 2IC but instead is this weird Bridge Crew+ character now, but now with less species and the forced removal of characters.

I'll also like to point out that a lot of people effected by this change were not even here when the vote happened because it took an entire year for this to be decided on, which, in my honest opinion, is an egregious amount of time to decide whether a vote passed or failed.

[Captain Gecko]

27 minutes ago, Peppermint said:

I'm not massively into the species changes but both here and on the discord, people are going a bit too hard? It sucks when you lose a character. It really does. I've done so too (RIP some dominia lore). But when this poll came out, there was a possibility of that happening so I don't think it's very fair for folks to act like this is totally out of left field. It was discussed back then as well. 

I would like the XO to actually be more of a 2IC. But worst case, we have some change, can see how it goes and if it sticks. Keeps things fresh, though I am sympathetic to people who won't be able to play their character in the same way - is there no possibility of using it to change their arc up, give them some biases, ect?

I think the issue is that no side of the conversation gets a satisfying outcome out of this thing currently.

- On the one hand, many people just don't like seeing more species restriction being applied, whether it is ICly or OOCly.
- On the other, other people are not happy with the newer XO being described as what is ultimately a very underwhelming thing- perhaps what exacerbate the first issue even more. As Fluffy put it, it's more like a secretary right now... Unironically it feels like the current XO actually has more influence/authority over the ship than what is being proposed. At least the current XO can actually become an acting captain. Genuinely, I think that would the current proposal to pass in the state it is currently being presented as, you could expect the XO role to get MUCH LESS popular, with or without Xenos.
- It's been ONE YEAR. Characters changed, opinions changed, PLAYERS changed, lore moved forward, etc. Opinions between when the vote was made and now may actually be different, who knows.

 

I also agree that the species restriction was a POSSIBILITY, indeed, but that's exactly the issue: a possibility. Hell, this was debated from the get-go, see Carver's first post on this thread, on page one... But that was debated indeed. It was not exactly set in stone what would happen. Some may have even assumed that we could've gotten a chance to discuss this later on. (Hence why I say we should have a second vote now, with all of this new information)

As far as the character arc thing goes, I agree about the potential, though not everyone can just get an excuse for things to work out, it's inevitable that many characters are just going to disapear if their player want to keep their characters' stories serious... That, and, this just feels unfair. A character, in any roleplaying game, SHOULD have its story evolve along with the setting, but that is not an evolution of the setting right there. There is no lore coming with this, no signs of this move coming, nothing to really roleplay about until you're actually fired/on a new post. This is mainly a gameplay/OOC change.

Edited April 5 by Captain Gecko

[OolongCow]

I should make something clear. I don't think these new restrictions are wrong or inherently bad. I don't think it's bad and admins are bad for considering it. It can be handled well. But I don't think it has been, nor will it. How this has been handled, very frankly, just feels disrespectful. Disrespectful of the time and effort people put into the affected characters. No effort was made to find compromise, or ask for input. It wasn't phrased as "this is something we're considering, give feedback so we can hear what everyone wants to do and try to smooth it along". It's just a dry declaration that really only has two possibilities: either you are just finding out that people are actually upset that their characters will face serious retcons through no fault of their own, or you did know, and simply chose not to address that in any way before declaring this course of action. Both possibilities are incredibly disappointing and make it feel as if staff don't consider player input or feelings important to how the server is run.

Edited April 5 by OolongCow

[greenjoe]

2 minutes ago, Captain Gecko said:

It's been ONE YEAR. Characters changed, opinions changed, PLAYERS changed, lore moved forward, etc. Opinions between when the vote was made and now may actually be different, who knows.

This, yes, it's been so long since the vote finished with all but radio silence (outside of the occasional "the results will come soon")

[CatsinHD]

42 minutes ago, OolongCow said:

The same thing happened on Konyang. Will the SCC lose face and be embarrassed because they sent the Horizon's crew in with empty stun batons and non-functional flashlights to disable the warehouse transmitter? Nah. It's just swept under the rug despite being treated like an entirely IC issue despite being caused by poorly-tested event maps and unfortunate design decisions.

I will mention, quickly, that this is not entirely true. While CCIA can't make lore article posts like the LTA, the SCC quite literally has an active investigation launched by the KAF against Command for the actions during that event. IRs aren't bombastic, sure, but consequences are there.

As far as my own opinions on the changes proposed, I'm not happy. As Gecko said, it's not satisfying for either side. The folks who wanted true 2iC are getting a few fluff changes but not actual 2iC. The others who didn't want 2iC (like myself) aren't getting a true 2iC but are instead getting more species restrictions (which I'm not a fan of). The changes do give justification for the restriction, but as has been said before, if we're cutting away all but 2 species for what is effectively fluff and points for people to regulation lawyer about, I just can't give support. At this point, I'm not even against true 2iC if only to give a reason behind the higher restrictions on the role. If not that, then just don't make the change. Nothing listed can't be done in round except for all access and the radio, which can already be provided by the Captain anyways. I just don't want this half-step.

As for a year passing, yeah. A lot can change in a year. Life gets in the way sometimes, sure, but in that time opinions can change, people can reflect and really figure out if their original position is still the same they hold. Plus, while restrictions were possible, being a possibility doesn't mean people factor it in. But alas, I will end my parroting of earlier points already made

[OolongCow]

13 minutes ago, CatsinHD said:

I will mention, quickly, that this is not entirely true. While CCIA can't make lore article posts like the LTA, the SCC quite literally has an active investigation launched by the KAF against Command for the actions during that event. IRs aren't bombastic, sure, but consequences are there.

Thank you for the convenient segway. There's an IR against COMMAND. Not the SCC that failed them at every conceivable level. That gave them nothing to work with and told them to "just go do it lol". No higher ups were fired for putting the Horizon's crew in that situation. The guy who gave us a non-functional cargo shuttle didn't lose his job. Nobody ever apologized for undersupplying and underinforming them despite the danger and gravity of the situation. The SCC, the company, the faceless entity, may as well just be immune to the consequences of its own actions. It will never be humbled, stumble, or fail at a level higher than the Horizon. When, not if, this change goes through, the Spur will just not react to thousands of xenos losing their jobs across the SCC's fleets. Nobody will comment on it. It may as well be declared dubiously-IC, because despite using IC justification of the SCC's racism, the universe and staff will treat it like an OOC decision with no IC consequences.

Edited April 5 by OolongCow

[Faye <3]

You know, I was originally quite against the idea of 2ic XO, and I voted against it. But in the passing year and the more I played BC, I was slowly convinced it could be more interesting and fun than I first lent it credence for. It is for that reason that it’s really rather unfortunate that is perhaps the most disappointing implementation of this idea I can think of.

We have waited well over an IRL year for something that is not even true 2ic, at the cost of everyone who has an alien XO having to retool or shelve their characters if they cannot. I could more easily accept this if xeno XOs had to be sacrificed for a true 2ic position, that is having de facto authority with no Captain present, but the amount of power leveraged upon the new XO feels far short of requiring that they all be human or skrell. It’s the worst possible requirement for an only somewhat more powerful role. 

as well, I think the attitude of “we will not discuss this further” and “well that’s the result, if you want to discuss it go make a new post” is really rather insulting and flippant, given the sheer amount of time passed between the vote and the result, and the extremely negative stipulation introduced. This wasn’t on the docket, and I am of the opinion that people may have voted differently if it was made clear that non skrell/human XOs were on the chopping block, not to mention the cultural changes and changing of opinions on the server in the year it somehow took to implement this change. I echo the sentiment that the handling of this change is callous, disrespectful and quite frankly, bizarre. 

Edited April 5 by Faye <3

[Butterrobber202]

I don't have a strong opinion on the XO race restrictions.

However, if the XO is to be the Second in Command, empower them properly. This "XO's duty is to make sure things get done but only if the Captain gives them authority out right" is a half-measure that effectively functions as hot air. If we are going so far as to axe Species for the position, the XO's should wield proper second-in-command authority and be elevated above the rest of Command (not including the Captain, obviously.)