Staff Complaint - K3Fabian

[Oddbomber]

BYOND Key: Oddbomber3768

Staff BYOND Key: K3Fabian

Game ID: cEx-dBng

Reason for complaint: This isn't necessarily a complaint against the moderator themselves as it is contesting the decision. Essentially there was a mercenary round revolving around a "movie filming gone wrong" gimmick as has happened many times. The mercenaries were never outwardly hostile and showed up with (as far as the ship was concerned, narratively) valid paperwork from the SCC authorizing both the filming and liability for the movie, as there was a clause that any damages or injuries would be reimbursed. This isn't also an argument that the mercenaries shouldn't have been arrested as it is, obviously, reasonable to arrest someone that has shot a crewmember with lethal bullets.
The complaint in question is about how the HOS's response of immediately emptying out the armory and passing out heavy/ballistic armor in response to that single shooting for what was, to that point, just a negligent movie filming crew is excessive and not at all a reasonable escalation from an OOC perspective. Keep in mind that although the mercenaries (three of them) were visible armed with lever-action rifles and revolvers, they had no body armor on and hadn't really antagonized the crew prior. There was no indication that these mercenaries were, somehow, not a legitimate movie crew that would additionally warrant the passing out of both the armory's nonlethal and lethal contents. There's a certain level of OOC courtesy and good faith back-and-forth expected of both sides during an antagonist round, especially one with the potential to be as high-octane as mercenary that I just don't feel was respected here. Keep in mind, the armory was emptied immediately after the crew extra was shot during the filming of a scene, rather than after the antagonists had actually came out with the equipment stored on their shuttle. 
The introduction of the .45s back into the security officer and investigator round-start equipment was intended to at least partially alleviate the need to immediately rush to the armory whenever something potentially dangerous showed up by giving them the ability to counter lesser threats (such as completely unarmored individuals in normal clothing) on the spot. I fail to see why the .45s and the corporate armor plates weren't sufficient to face down the three visibly-armed actors and their visibly-unarmed director, especially considering just how strong the .45 rubber nonlethal rounds actually are. I don't feel as if it was a reasonable jump to that level of escalation, nor that it was very fair to the antagonists to go play that hard with the armory (which is meant for an active and clear threat to the crew). Had it been opened after shots were fired or if we had been more openly hostile with the crew, then it would've been fair play - but opening it four minutes that particular incident doesn't seem to be in good faith.

Evidence/logs/etc: The round has ended so I wasn't able to gather screenshots of the actual paperwork involved or the actual ahelp, as the window ate them.

Additional remarks: N/A

Edited March 17 by Oddbomber

[FabianK3]

Hi! Thank you for reaching out.

First off all here is a screenshot from your ahelp between us two, for reference:



My thoughts;
As I have already explain in the ticket, I think that a waiver does not warrant somebody to get shot with lethal ammunition and the shooter to get away with it without consequences.

The sudden appearance of lethal ammunition in my opinion warrants the access to the armory, it should be noted that security was given non-lethal and lethal gear.
From what I remember they attempted to utilize the non-lethal gear first, the resulting confrontation ending up with lethal gear didn't surprise me either.
While the response of security was perhaps hasty, I don't think it was unwarranted. From the point of view from security, I wouldn't want to have a discussion about the usage of lethal weapons in the non-ballistic gear either, I can see why they opted for the armory.

As you have mentioned, having multiple armed participants in the situation, I think it's another valid reason to raise the strength of the response security opted for.
They weren't able to know if a confrontation about the incident of a crew member getting shot could've gone wrong further, leaving them in less then ideal gear.

In summary, I think three armed people already warranted additional gear alone. The waiver had no impact on the matter as shooting a crew member with lethal ammunition clearly is not acceptable, resulting in security having to react to it with certain strength. The injuries caused by the first shot displayed enough harm to additionally raise securities concern.

With the reasons above, I continue to call the armory access in that round warranted.

IC reasoning aside, I would like to add that if I am not mistaken, your ahelp came in after the action already went down, there wasn't much that could've been changed about it mid-round at that point.

Addendum: My apologies for saying to not make a player complaint but a player complaint, while cleared up afterwards, I by mistake wrote player twice as seen in the ahelp.

Edited March 17 by FabianK3
Note about making the correct complaint type based of ahelp message.

[FabianK3]

Technical note; The forum displays me as a dev just like my name is green in OOC.
This is because of multiple roles, dev and mod [on trial].

[Owen]

@zha everything broken and I will be handling this complaint. 

[zha everything broken]

@Cash7800 Please share your side as well for completeness' sake at your next convenience.

[Cash7800]

I was a little late to the round, and kinda lacking in information. I thought it was just a peace-merc movie gimmick until I heard that a crewmember got shot, I went up there and asked a few questions, then decided to have them arrested for negligence. When they refused to comply and told me they had SCC permission to shoot people for the purposes of their movie without elaborating further, I moved to the armory and handed out armor and weapons. I instructed security to use less-than-lethal ammunition to begin with. I was only informed of the waiver after I had already arrested two of the mercenaries, and by that point they had brought our ARs in response to my escalation. I don't think sending security officers with .45s against people armed with lever action rifles and revolvers is reasonable. I didn't realize they were a weaker variant of revolver until after the round.

[zha everything broken]

Hello; following discussion between Owen and myself, we are in support of the original decision made by K3Fabian in the round in question (that is to say, not intervening in the HoS choosing to open the armory when they did).

We do not believe that anyone involved in this complaint were acting in bad faith. While the entire incident clearly did not go as smoothly as it could have from both antag and security's side, everyone ultimately plays here under the same constraints of imperfect information and communication, around which we have to improvise.

It should be noted that K3Fabian's remarks to Oddbomber in the adminhelp were accurate, in that a waiver- even one implicitly endorsed by the antag's presence having been 'signed off' on by the SCC- may be a shield in the near-term, but it's never going to be bulletproof against any repercussion.

No one involved here is psychic though (as far as I know), and no one seemed to act in bad faith. As always, ahelps in-round are always welcome, especially if we can try to help things go as smoothly as possible.

[Owen]

Locking and archiving.