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

[Peppermint]

So many of these arguments are saying the XO will overstep, trample on others, grab all the attention ect. Firstly we just remove the whitelist then. But also, the Captain is still freely able to do all this. You really need to justify hard as to going against orders via ahelp, so it's not like this would be a new problem. As right now XO is an utterly worthless role, and I think it has a lot of potential as a second. It would also be interesting with the racial stuff if they stayed, as maybe the SCC wants to trial how other races do in command or whatever now that the setting has opened up.

[greenjoe]

If xo had to get the same species requirement as captain for this to happen, that would be quite a kick in the nymph for any diona xos, who only recently became a thing with mini lore arc and everything. To suddenly go back on that wouldn't be good.

Not to mention it would not be good for any other non-skrell alien xos, who would suddenly be facing permenant demotions through no fault of their own.

[Boggle08]

21 minutes ago, Peppermint said:

So many of these arguments are saying the XO will overstep, trample on others, grab all the attention ect. Firstly we just remove the whitelist then. But also, the Captain is still freely able to do all this. You really need to justify hard as to going against orders via ahelp, so it's not like this would be a new problem. As right now XO is an utterly worthless role, and I think it has a lot of potential as a second. It would also be interesting with the racial stuff if they stayed, as maybe the SCC wants to trial how other races do in command or whatever now that the setting has opened up.

What would be the extent of their personal autonomy with such an arrangement? I have vague memories that applying quick edits to your ID to work the cargo program or open doors is bad form unless you jump through your own paperwork hoop.

The XO is still in it's weird command auxiliary role, and I feel like the people who are for the change need to do more than describe the fact that the captain can turn the XO into his personal, command authorized shitkicker. Specifics should be entertained.

5 minutes ago, greenjoe said:

If xo had to get the same species requirement as captain for this to happen, that would be quite a kick in the nymph for any diona xos, who only recently became a thing with mini lore arc and everything. To suddenly go back on that wouldn't be good.

haha

 

[Don]

I admittedly don't have the command whitelist but to me it seems like making XO the 2ic (and giving them more power, in turn), would be a net loss as a whole. The high amount of power heads of staff get on Aurora is, in my opinion, one of the best things about the whitelist, and is meant to offset the difficult application and high expectations. Having a dedicated 2ic means that there now need to be two people dead/absent for it to matter.

 

I also don't quite understand why the Horizon brought this discussion about in the first place, was HoP any different on Aurora? The job itself is an MRP holdover and doesn't have a concrete reason to exist. Not like ID or job changes ever mattered on HRP servers. Now with the Horizon at least they can/have to boss around Bridge Crew. 

[Boggle08]

5 minutes ago, Don said:

I also don't quite understand why the Horizon brought this discussion about in the first place, was HoP any different on Aurora? The job itself is an MRP holdover and doesn't have a concrete reason to exist. Not like ID or job changes ever mattered on HRP servers. Now with the Horizon at least they can/have to boss around Bridge Crew. 

They were in charge of cargo, one step above what was then the Quartermaster. I personally feel like the role had more power back then without lane overstepping, because you could remotely move funds around and work the cargo control function. In the event of a crisis(That couldn't just be mitigated by just calling the fucking ERT's), I could literally summon a box full of guns and weapons, from my office, and create my own crew militia using the armory I ordered.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Boggle08

[Boggle08]

59 minutes ago, Boggle08 said:

The XO is still in it's weird command auxiliary role, and I feel like the people who are for the change need to do more than describe the fact that the captain can turn the XO into his personal, command authorized shitkicker. Specifics should be entertained.

I feel like I should make an addendum: without an expansion of the XO's powers or responsibilities, Giving them a second in command hat will be of superficial utility to captains. They have an entire radio channel that facilitates a cabinet of dedicated specialists he can delegate problems to. Not to mention the AI. They really don't need a middleman, unless we were to take away their headset.

[CampinKiller]

1 hour ago, greenjoe said:

If xo had to get the same species requirement as captain for this to happen, that would be quite a kick in the nymph for any diona xos, who only recently became a thing with mini lore arc and everything. To suddenly go back on that wouldn't be good.

Not to mention it would not be good for any other non-skrell alien xos, who would suddenly be facing permenant demotions through no fault of their own.

Unfortunately it would be necessary to stay consistent with the current lore, which is yet another negative to the suggestion, in my eyes.

Additionally, I don't like the idea that we can always just remove whitelists - that's the same argument that kept malf in for forever, was that we could just antag ban bad malf AIs, or strip them of their AI whitelist. I would much rather there not be the opportunity for the behavior that I believe would occur to exist, and the solution to be just to start stripping whitelists.

1 hour ago, Peppermint said:

So many of these arguments are saying the XO will overstep, trample on others, grab all the attention ect. Firstly we just remove the whitelist then. But also, the Captain is still freely able to do all this. You really need to justify hard as to going against orders via ahelp, so it's not like this would be a new problem. As right now XO is an utterly worthless role, and I think it has a lot of potential as a second. It would also be interesting with the racial stuff if they stayed, as maybe the SCC wants to trial how other races do in command or whatever now that the setting has opened up.

I think the key difference here though is that the Captain is THE Captain. They are in charge of the ship, so of course they can trample over the other heads of staff, and they have more of an authority to do so in the setting and regulations because they are THE leader of the ship. Making the XO above the other heads is basically saying that this person who is probably not as experienced, who doesn't have the same requirements as the Captain, and who is otherwise just a head of staff has the same authority as the Captain in regards to everyone - and that simply does not make sense.

I also submit that XO isn't an utterly worthless role - between the personnel aspects and managing the bridge/Intrepid/navigation/ship combat, I'd say it's far from worthless.

[Fluffy]

I do not feel like the concern about unspecified rampant power hungry XO players have merit, due to the fact that if they so wish, they can just make a Captain character and have even more power than simply being second in command, the whitelist covers all the heads as well as the Captain roles, nothing stops them to make said Captain and have the highest amount of power on the ship, right out of the gate, at roundstart, so I think we can easily dismiss this point.

 

We have in place a system to handle unreasonable captains, the heads can vote for their removal, same thing would work for the acting captain, if the tool is sufficient to handle unreasonable captains, it logically follows that it must be sufficient to handle unreasonable acting captains, elected or not.

If it doesn't, it's not sufficient to handle unreasonable captains either, but it's an issue of the tool that I do not see having bearing on this particular matter, it should be its own proposal to have a better tool to handle both, in its own thread.

 

Lastly, we should remember that IC, the heads (just like everyone) are just assets for the conglomerate, you are there to make as much money as possible for them, not for a democracy experiment; this is supposed to be a dystopian setting, if having the XO in between the Captain and others makes the SCC 5% more YoY profit, you can rest assured they would be down to have him stomp over each and every department to suck as much profit from their investment as they possibly can (IC consideration).

Merchant ships, right now, have the Chief Officer that does exactly what was proposed: https://www.merchantnavydecoded.com/ranks-in-merchant-navy/.

[CatsinHD]

3 minutes ago, Fluffy said:

they can just make a Captain character and have even more power than simply being second in command

As logical as this seems, people don't always want to go this route or can't justify it. Once we account in species restriction, the "just make captain" point gets a little further from the solution. Ideally just making a captain is best, but not everyone does. The easiest path is not always the one taken. Not a point worth arguing over anymore so this is the last I'll say on it.

7 minutes ago, Fluffy said:

Lastly, we should remember that IC, the heads (just like everyone) are just assets for the conglomerate, you are there to make as much money as possible for them, not for a democracy experiment; this is supposed to be a dystopian setting, if having the XO in between the Captain and others makes the SCC 5% more YoY profit, you can rest assured they would be down to have him stomp over each and every department to suck as much profit from their investment as they possibly can (IC consideration).

IC consideration is valid, but there's no way to prove if having a middleman XO would make things more efficient and extract more profit or make things less efficient and cause loss in profit. There isn't a way to prove whichever is the one ICly, so I don't really think it should affect the decision. Command isn't meant to be democratic either, it's meant to further ship goals and do what's best for company assets and so on. The captain is trusted with ultimate power because they are deemed loyal and experienced enough to make those big calls unlike the rest of staff who are either not loyal enough, not experienced enough, or not human/skrell. It's a way to ensure that company interests are secured regardless of the situation.

Plus, I'll quote what Boggle said:

53 minutes ago, Boggle08 said:

Giving them a second in command hat will be of superficial utility to captains. They have an entire radio channel that facilitates a cabinet of dedicated specialists he can delegate problems to. Not to mention the AI. They really don't need a middleman, unless we were to take away their headset.

If the captain needs something done, they have the command channel to do it. If they want the XO to go do all the legwork and delegation for them, they can tell the XO to do it. If they want the XO to be second line in succession, they can declare it over radio, shit maybe even give them the power before the need arises. That is the prerogative of the captain and not all of them might want the XO to be in those positions automatically. It is the Captain's ship, for all intents and purposes. Let them choose how best to run it.

[Fluffy]

24 minutes ago, William Murdoch said:

Once we account in species restriction, the "just make captain" point gets a little further from the solution.

Humans can be captains, that does not require any species whitelist to make one, just the command one.
But yes, people can choose to do suboptimal things, that is probably still not a glaring issue to warrant more merit than having someone be a suboptimal captain, as they can theoretically do that too, this consideration isn't specific to the XO second in command proposal, and I believe that can be dismissed and have its own thread: "how do we avoid heads to do suboptimal things?" (which probably has the answer already: a whitelist; if it's a sufficient answer, that's a completely fair discourse to entail), so we can let it rest.

 

30 minutes ago, William Murdoch said:

but there's no way to prove if having a middleman XO would make things more efficient and extract more profit or make things less efficient and cause loss in profit.

An experiment and evaluation, just like many business decision, is the tool to ascertain that IC.

You define what metrics you care about (most likely, profit), establish the baseline, trial the change, normalize the new data obtained during the experiment, compare and derive the conclusions.

 

33 minutes ago, William Murdoch said:

If the captain needs something done, they have the command channel to do it. If they want the XO to go do all the legwork and delegation for them, they can tell the XO to do it. If they want the XO to be second line in succession, they can declare it over radio, shit maybe even give them the power before the need arises. That is the prerogative of the captain and not all of them might want the XO to be in those positions automatically. It is the Captain's ship, for all intents and purposes. Let them choose how best to run it.

It would be odd to hear at every roundstart the captain saying "oh, btw, if I were to die this shift, the XO succeed me", likewise it would be weird to say "XO, I want this done, coordinate between the heads of the needed departments (that are hearing this message) to have it done", over and over, for all the things he wants to be done.

If someone does not want the XO to succeed them in case they were to somehow die that shift, they can likewise announce a different successor just as easily and less awkwardly than the Captain rolling out of nowhere and declaring "do you remember that vote thing in case I were to die? Well, screw you all, Bill will become my successor if I were to mysteriously die this shift".

I do not play captain myself here, nor I really plan to anytime soon, but having to follow the resolution of minor inconveniences between heads, keep asking how is what I asked proceeding, getting complains from John the miner because he believes the OM should really let him go mine in a softsuit and so on, while I am talking with the mercs in the meeting room, telling the BC what to reply to the offship people that want to buy/sell/dock/request assistance/threaten us etc. is not something I see as wished to be in my hand, and would make perfect sense that the XO handles the minor internal bickerings and coordinate to have the objective I declare carried out to completition, as well as handle complains and decide if they are worth my evaluation and time or not (as well as summarizing them in one short sentence, instead of John storydumping 3 paragraphs of backstory that amounts to "can the OM tell me not to go out to mine with a softsuit?".

[greenjoe]

1 hour ago, CampinKiller said:

Unfortunately it would be necessary to stay consistent with the current lore, which is yet another negative to the suggestion, in my eyes.

Agreed, which is why I'd prefer the XO to just be renamed instead, while remaining equal to the rest of the heads of staff.

[Peppermint]

The whole 'you can just make someone your second' thing is not a good argument 'cause like, nobody in the history of the world is ever gonna do that lol.

And the whole 'Well the Captain can trample people and it's fine' is not really true. They'll get yelled at by staff in the same way. Players are expected to share and be good to one another oocly over icly, so I really don't think these XO = Do bad things thing is founded. They'd just be removed.

For lore, it depends what the lore teams want of course, but I'm not seeing why it would need to be super limited. You might only need PRA cats or something, but that's already a thing - the Horizon is, in the current arc, bettering relations with Tajara, so it really doesn't feel much of a stretch. Ect, ect. 

I don't think a rename is going to fix that the role is not really needed for anything. Yes, for ship combat it can be okay, but that's a) pretty rare and b) Doesn't really need that much organisation outside of 'you do sensors, you do firing, and hey ops we need some more ammo'. 

By losing its ties to cargo and now needing to help service which has never really required it, it feels pretty unnecessary to keep around. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Peppermint

[Boggle08]

2 hours ago, Peppermint said:

By losing its ties to cargo and now needing to help service which has never really required it, it feels pretty unnecessary to keep around. 

My concern is that the role will be directionless if it's on a full roster whose captain isn't consciously feeding it directives.

If their command authority is weak in such a scenario, they're just going to go right back to the subordinate state they're in now. If their command authority is too strong, they might start to contradict what the captain or the rest of command is doing in an attempt to be helpful. Current XO shines on sparse command rosters, especially ones where there isn't any captain to begin with.

I'm not necessarily against the idea of a second in command XO, but I feel like their directives need to be outlined in this thread for this suggestion to get anywhere. They can't just have their authority trickle down from the captain like they're a bridge crew, Quartermaster, or Service Manager.

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Boggle08

[Triogenix]

From my perspective, species restrictions on Captains are not relevant to this discussion. Should the XO position be made the second in command of the Horizon, simply because they're second in command doesn't mean they're a Captain and will have all the powers that come with that position. They can still issue orders, but don't have the total control that the captain has over the vessel. Less than 2 months after KOTW, the Solarian Nationalization, and a certain Head of Security betraying NanoTrasen to assist the Invading Fleet(kinda), we still had captains that were explicitly sympathetic towards the Solarian Military, and supported the Provisional Solarian State. This is not to say such captains were bad, but merely that if we allowed that to occur(which we did to my knowledge), there is no issue with allowing potential Tajara, Dionae, IPC, and Unathi XOs from being second in command. There is a reasonable argument with Racism, the upper levels of the corp being biased against all besides Skrell and Human, but again, the second in command isn't a Captain, and having non-normal(?) species in that slot is fine in my eyes.

As an example, should this change be merged, in my eyes it should be regulated thusly:

Executive Officer Command(probably going to need a better title):

Quote

In the event that a captain is not present, or is unable to command the vessel, the Vessel's Executive Officer assumes command of the vessel. The Executive Officer is granted temporary decision-making power as if they were a Captain and is entrusted to uphold the standards and values of the SCC. Unlike the Captain, the remainder of Command may override the Executive Officer at any time and for any reason through a Captain-Level decision. Such Overrides should be reported to Central Command with the members of command, including the XO, and the reasoning for the override attached. Central Command will not rescind any overrides against Executive Officers made by command staff in the field but may open investigations into either party, the Executive Officer, or the rest of command if misconduct is suspected.

Should an Executive Officer assume command of the vessel, and after time passes a Captain wakes up, command of the vessel is automatically transferred back to the Captain, and any orders given by the Executive Officer, previous or current(given after the captain is awake) are to be considered null and void unless the Captain has made the decision to delegate command responsibilities to the Executive Officer. A Captain is allowed, at their discretion, to delegate some of their responsibility of commanding the vessel to the Executive Officer, and allow them to issue orders to other heads of staff. The Captain who delegates this responsibility will be held responsible, along with the Executive Officer, for any decisions or orders given by the Executive Officer. Should an Executive Officer attempt to continue to give orders after the Captain has awoken without their express consent, they are to be charged under i211, "Sedition" and sentenced to the maximum possible punishment(suspension and holding until transfer).

Captain Inability:

Quote

A Captain is considered unable to command the vessel when they have received critical injuries, either physical or mental in nature, or is deceased. In both cases of critical injuries, it is the responsibility of the Chief Medical Officer to declare the captain in-able. A report must be faxed to Central Command alerting them that the captain is unable to perform their duties, with relevant information attached(body scans, physiatrist reports, etc.), time of declaration of inability, and what was done/will be done to return the Captain to duty by the Chief Medical Officer after the captain is declared unable to command. This report must be sent once any emergencies are resolved, or a time of thirty minutes has passed since the declaration of inability. Inability and the subsequent report do not need to be sent should the cause of inability be death. Central Command reserves the full right to override the Chief Medical Officer's decision based on information provided to them and charge the Chief Medical Officer, as well as any other collaborators, with i211(Sedition), and i303(Mutiny) should the Captain be declared in-able under false circumstances. Should a chief medical officer be unavailable, other on-duty personnel who hold medical doctorates may also declare the Captain in-able but must be backed by a member of command also holding at least a doctorate, who will share the responsibility of the decision with the medical personnel.

A Captain may also, at any point, declare themselves in-able, and transfer command to the Executive Officer. In this case, the Captain reserves the right to declare themselves able again whenever they choose, transferring command of the vessel back to themselves.

Central Command approval is not needed to declare the Captain in-able, and once declared in-able, the Executive Officer assumes command of the vessel. Should Central Command override the decision of the Chief Medical Officer, or the Captain becomes able through treatment, the Executive Officer transfers back command of the vessel to the Captain.

Obviously, it'd need some tweaking, and probably written better, but it's defiantly possible to have a 2IC that makes sense and doesn't have the total power wielded by Captains. Personally, I don't really care if they get made 2IC or not, as I think it won't change much, possibly only giving the XO slightly more to do. In the end, Heads will still be in charge of their individual departments, and both Captains and XOs will give them room to work within their departments or get smacked by the admins even if XO is second in command.

There will probably be some teething issues as people are suggesting, with XOs overstepping their bounds. Over time the moderation team will speak with enough people and hand out enough warnings that such behavior is curtailed, and the bounds of what is acceptable behavior set in stone, known to everyone.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Triogenix

[GeneralCamo]

43 minutes ago, Triogenix said:

and any orders given by the Executive Officer, previous or current(given after the captain is awake) are to be considered null and void

Too destructive and broad, we generally should trust XOs to make the right call at the time. I feel a debrief should be necessary, so that the captain can make any needed corrections or decisions, but completely overriding the XO's order to arm security, while armed mercenaries are shooting the hallways, would be incredibly chaotic and needless for something that a good captain would probably order anyway.

[Carver]

I'll re-iterate my concerns in different wording:

A default successor to the Captain would be a massive mistake, and go against Aurora's unique command structure and all said structure works toward. You are handing extra power to a role that does not deserve it, on account of a role title that by all metric appears to be a mistake to have changed because it apparently has led to incorrect expectations.

Does the HoP (as I'll call that in this discussion, because in effect it is the same role) have less to do without Cargo under it? Truthfully, no. It has effective oversight of the Bridge and more decidedly important, Gunnery. Cargo is for the most part a self-sufficient corner of the vessel that has so little need for oversight barring travel bans and relaying shipping orders that I would argue the role that truly has no purpose is OM, you could merge OM and HoP again and it wouldn't change the work-load of the HoP whatsoever.

Moreover, let's discuss why de facto second-in-line is a consistent mistake that Aurora has done well to move away from: You are giving inherent power to a role that has exceedingly lowered expectations and responsibility compared to the role it is the successor to. This empowerment is consistently a detriment unless you go to great effort to raise the requirements for said lower role; this is why HoP and Warden alike lost their traditional SS13 'second-in-line' positions.

If such grace was given to the HoP, then one can surmise that the SCC trusts this individual to a degree above the rest of Command - for why else would they be placed in a position where they assume Captaincy for lack of a Captain? So, therefore, why would the SCC place this trust upon an individual that is not:

1. Of a species that is in the 'trusted circle' of the SCC's upper echelons, that is, humanity and the skrell.
2. Mindshielded.
3. Put through stringent background checks that, on an OOC level, would place them with the Captain and HoS as being mechanically barred from the Revolutionary role.

Ultimately, as others have said, it would be a preferable outcome to change the role's title to dispel these delusions of grandeur given by the unfortunate associations the role has with similarly titled roles on Baystation and CM-SS13. I suggested Chief Bridge Officer over in that separate thread, and I will reiterate that suggestion here.

[Boggle08]

10 hours ago, Carver said:

Does the HoP (as I'll call that in this discussion, because in effect it is the same role) have less to do without Cargo under it? Truthfully, no. It has effective oversight of the Bridge and more decidedly important, Gunnery. Cargo is for the most part a self-sufficient corner of the vessel that has so little need for oversight barring travel bans and relaying shipping orders that I would argue the role that truly has no purpose is OM, you could merge OM and HoP again and it wouldn't change the work-load of the HoP whatsoever.

[...]

Ultimately, as others have said, it would be a preferable outcome to change the role's title to dispel these delusions of grandeur given by the unfortunate associations the role has with similarly titled roles on Baystation and CM-SS13. I suggested Chief Bridge Officer over in that separate thread, and I will reiterate that suggestion here.

The HoP is in a unique position where it can seamlessly manage the administrative end of any department in a very "hands off" manner. What limits their power currently is that they must respect the lanes of departments who currently have a head. They essentially lost a leg with the OM change, in exchange for a function of the ship that, for the most part, sits in a vacuum from the rest of the field of play.

The second-in-command proposal definitely has bugs I want to see worked out before I can be comfortable with it, but it will absolutely murder my interest in the role if it's relegated to nothing more than just the bridge QM. Why even give it command authority if that's the only thing it should concern itself with?

[Boggle08]

15 minutes ago, Boggle08 said:

The HoP is in a unique position where it can seamlessly manage the administrative end of any department in a very "hands off" manner. 

In fact, the more I think about it, that could essentially be a directive for a second-in-command XO: To keep tabs on departments who have supervisor vacancies. It's already an implicit ability they have, and they're better at doing it than any other command role aside from the captain.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Boggle08

[Carver]

3 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

The HoP is in a unique position where it can seamlessly manage the administrative end of any department in a very "hands off" manner. What limits their power currently is that they must respect the lanes of departments who currently have a head. They essentially lost a leg with the OM change, in exchange for a function of the ship that, for the most part, sits in a vacuum from the rest of the field of play.

The second-in-command proposal definitely has bugs I want to see worked out before I can be comfortable with it, but it will absolutely murder my interest in the role if it's relegated to nothing more than just the bridge QM. Why even give it command authority if that's the only thing it should concern itself with?

That 'leg' was no more than a toe, given that cargo needs next to zero oversight to function and OM is even more destitute than the HoP in what it has to work with - thus, by that argument, should OM be the one made second-in-command? It clearly needs it more given it was not given oversight of the weapons as some had expected it would have. As it were, I have no interest in dealing with an every-round mini-Captain unless they're brought under the same strict requirements as the Captain proper.

3 hours ago, Boggle08 said:

In fact, the more I think about it, that could essentially be a directive for a second-in-command XO: To keep tabs on departments who have supervisor vacancies. It's already an implicit ability they have, and they're better at doing it than any other command role aside from the captain.

So they should take the Captain's primary duty?

[Boggle08]

19 hours ago, Carver said:

So they should take the Captain's primary duty?

Doling out interim head roles is something that the captain usually defers to me. Just have it so I run my choices past him for approval, why not?

19 hours ago, Carver said:

As it were, I have no interest in dealing with an every-round mini-Captain unless they're brought under the same strict requirements as the Captain proper.

I'll take anything as long as it isn't a drastic contraction in their responsibilities and expectations. The point of this thread and the other one trying to come up with a name for them is really all about trying to nail down what the XO's role aboard the ship really is, and putting that into something we can actually put on the wiki. Making them only and just only the grand poobah of the bridge bunnies isn't something I particularly want. Maybe I'll flip if the overmap game gets more going on for it, or if the bridge has more interactions with the crew besides wanting their dependencies from engineering, and occasionally hosting expeditions that other roles have gotten better at doing.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Boggle08

[EJJ]

I feel like Aurora wouldn't really benefit from a 2IC. As someone who mains XO fairly often and tries hard to use it as a medium to generate RP, occasionally using it for hosting little mini-events IC or whatever. I find that making a role above the others is only going to bring us away from a lot of the stuff that made command votes and captain level decisions more interesting. Having no captain, or a captain dying in rare cases and forcing the rest of command to elect someone brings a lot more interesting RP than just having someone reliably there to take the spot.

More often, I see HoSes take Acting Captain rather than XOs.

And I have to echo the rest of the thread. Elevating XO to a 2IC should not be allowing anything but humans and skrell to hold the position. There will also be a ton more responsibility and stress foisted onto the new XO role that I and a lot of people won't really be appreciating, especially myself. I don't plan to play XO anymore if this goes through.

[Triogenix]

On 17/02/2023 at 00:14, Carver said:

It has effective oversight of the Bridge and more decidedly important, Gunnery.

To my knowledge, Gunnery is rarely used outside of events and won't be used unless someone codes in overmap antags, or the rules around ghost-roles are changed. Both of these are worth suggestion posts in their own right. So, while it does have oversight over gunnery, save for random times when hazards need to be cleared, it's not really used, resulting in it being a minor tack-on to the XO(for now).

On 17/02/2023 at 00:14, Carver said:

You are giving inherent power to a role that has exceedingly lowered expectations and responsibility compared to the role it is the successor to.

For now, yes, but that would obviously change OOC'ly through more strict enforcement of the rules, and IC'ly, through regulations.

On 17/02/2023 at 00:14, Carver said:

This empowerment is consistently a detriment unless you go to great effort to raise the requirements for said lower role

I also agree with this, but if we make the XO only empowered when the Captain is neither; present, or wanting the XO to be empowered, I think it can work fine. Either way, departments, as you say, pretty much run themselves, and anyone who sticks their noses into it for no reason will get smacked. It'll take time for people to stop doing it, but eventually it'll be fine.

On 17/02/2023 at 00:14, Carver said:

If such grace was given to the HoP, then one can surmise that the SCC trusts this individual to a degree above the rest of Command - for why else would they be placed in a position where they assume Captaincy for lack of a Captain? So, therefore, why would the SCC place this trust upon an individual that is not:

1. Of a species that is in the 'trusted circle' of the SCC's upper echelons, that is, humanity and the skrell.
2. Mindshielded.
3. Put through stringent background checks that, on an OOC level, would place them with the Captain and HoS as being mechanically barred from the Revolutionary role.

For these points, I'll lay them out.

1. As I outlined, should the XO be elevated to a 2IC position, they would not have the total power given to captains and still be held in check by the rest of Command. Captains are unique and should stay unique, even if this proposal goes through. As for the 'trusted circle' that is up to CCIA and the Lore Administration, so Lancer, Cael, and Luka, to decide exactly what powers species can get. As I stated, given that we've had full-fledged Captain's that have supported the Solarian Military, and Solarian State, directly after such support caused betrayal during the 2nd Solarian Invasion of Biesel, I see no reason other species despite their political affiliations and difficulties could be untrustworthy. If anything, they'd be more trustworthy, since corporations hold significant sway within their developing nations*.

2. I agree if this goes through they should be mindshielded.

3. Agreed, barring them from the revolutionary role shouldn't be too difficult either.

 

*besides the DPRA.

[Bear]

Limiting more species from more command roles would be a mistake imho.

[NerdyVampire]

I vote nay. While I usually favor disruption I feel that the command team is already too stable and their decisions are made too easily when it comes to hard decisions that ought to foster discussion, but instead gets resolved by someone taking acting captaincy.

I think further cementing the chain of command would just make it easier for heads of staff to take a backseat in decision making, even if it isn't intended. As I see it, the absence of a captain should only lead to an acting captain when departments must be directed to a common purpose, and in such cases those executive decisions ought to be made by the head most affiliated with the situation. Ie, the commander when the ship is threatened by an internal force, the XO/OM from ship combat, RD from AI shenanigans, CMO under borer, CE under cascading calamities, etc.

The XO in particular I feel has a responsibility for arranging the distribution of power, communications with the crew, communication with the SCC and potentially communication with other sector entities. I see them only as the obvious heir to the captain in cases where diplomacy is necessary.

[Evandorf]

I have to disagree with this. I think issues of race, whitelists, and abuse of position are secondary and could be worked around, however our current system of "all heads as equal" and creating an acting captain when needed is much more flexible than a strict chain of command.