Replace Loyalty Implants - Or Else

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Loyalty implants are dumb and restrict potential character development between the LI characters and less morally upright characters. They're also dumb because we've hit critical mass with the potential avenues HoS' can take with situations, because anything ambiguous risks getting a BOINK.

My proposal:

Replace them with snitches that can't get stitches. All it realistically needs is an adjustment in the lore of what loyalty implants are, and how we treat them.

The Loyalty Implant would, instead of the tricky vague "Don't do bad for Nanotrasen" force with no manifested consequences, it instead becomes a super high tech tracking implant. Once you get the implant implanted in your spine, it becomes a little spy cam and mini-computer. It can hear, see, taste, and feel everything the user can. It collects this data and saves it, and when your HoS returns to the Odin, it is tapped into by science, and all the information is downloaded for viewing and parsing by Duty Officers and CCIA. It's like a tiny little IAA in your brain.

This allows HoS to take questionable actions, like negotiating with terrorists, or making a mistake, or not being a lapdog to the Captain during mutiny, by giving them the ability to be disloyal, but with the consequences being extremely severe once the DO's or CCIA get a hold of the data.

The same for the Captain. They're monitored and their decisions can be made which may seem disloyal, but he'll have to make sure to practice his speech justifying it when he gets to CC.

This will let loyalty implanted characters interact with criminals or other IC buttlords outside of rounds in a canon way, without being shoehorned away from it because "turn on loyalty implant, ask questions, bust all the bad guys" card that can be pulled. This still gives us a card, but it also gives us a window. And you know what they say about windows.

Fucking close them you're letting the cold out.

[SierraKomodo]

I'd particularly like to have the option of 'Implant the antag, all the antags get outed cause lol loyalty implant is truth serum, permabrigged, and the rounds now extended' to be removed from the game.

[Guest]

I'd particularly like to have the option of 'Implant the antag, all the antags get outed cause lol loyalty implant is truth serum, permabrigged, and the rounds now extended' to be removed from the game.

 

Loyalty implantation is not to be meant to be end-all be-all. It is not to be meant to be truth serum, at all.

It extends to assist antagonists as loyalty implantation forces you to forget all about who you were working for. Hence why decultification results in memory loss.

This prevents the metagame effect that results in 'switching sides.'

People who get implanted should roleplay that memory loss. I actually thought people knew about this.

[Tainavaa]

It's funny Delta, because it tells you you forget all about your masters and dark deeds when you get the implant in big bold letters.

I like Jackboot's idea though. He sold me with the window analogy. I also hate letting the cold out.

[SierraKomodo]

I'd particularly like to have the option of 'Implant the antag, all the antags get outed cause lol loyalty implant is truth serum, permabrigged, and the rounds now extended' to be removed from the game.

 

Loyalty implantation is not to be meant to be end-all be-all. It is not to be meant to be truth serum, at all.

It extends to assist antagonists as loyalty implantation forces you to forget all about who you were working for. Hence why decultification results in memory loss.

This prevents the metagame effect that results in 'switching sides.'

People who get implanted should roleplay that memory loss. I actually thought people knew about this.

 

Yeah.. Nobody does that. I was playing Uaekis as a traitor awhile back, worked with someone else to get them the nukedisk. That someone else got caught, implanted, and outed me because of the implant.

[witchbells]

I like this. It gives a new aspect to loyalty implants, but removes the terrifying mind control thing. Which was really, really cool.

Can we still have mind control?

[PoZe]

Jackboot. This idea has one little thing - making mind control implant into spying implant means that any implanted Head will not have their private and intim life to be their own secret. If you will say, that implant works only when they are onboard or they eject that each shift - I don't think someone, even with good carrier will accept to give their life to the NT access. As we know, most of the Heads are aristocrats or some big people and they doesn't like when their private things are spied by NT. I think that spying idea will not make Captain/HoS/IAA to flirt on the work.

[Guest]

I say: Loyalty Enforcement Implants (same old mind-bending ones) are kept in armoury for criminals.

And I also say: Loyalty Encoragement Implants, what Jackboot is suggesting, are what the loyal Captains and IAAs and Head of Sec have.

@Poze, implants get disabled after the workshift, and they eventually 'naturally' dissolve in the body according to lore.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Jackboot. This idea has one little thing - making mind control implant into spying implant means that any implanted Head will not have their private and intim life to be their own secret. If you will say, that implant works only when they are onboard or they eject that each shift - I don't think someone, even with good carrier will accept to give their life to the NT access. As we know, most of the Heads are aristocrats or some big people and they doesn't like when their private things are spied by NT. I think that spying idea will not make Captain/HoS/IAA to flirt on the work.

 

Once they dock at the Odin and have the information downloaded, then the implant is deactivated. Private lives outside of the Station are not monitored. Unless these aristocrats are flashing their weenies at people or trying to boink in the showers I don't know why it would stop socialization or flirting. Maybe super obvious and gross flirting, but is that a bad thing?

[NebulaFlare]

I....dunno.

I like the implanted loyalty, but I think it should be more open to interpretation. How an HoS or Captain can serve 'Glorious NanoTransen' is more than just being black and white. I don't understand why it's so against negotiating with terrorists, and the like. It is the lesser of the two evils, and implantees can interpret their own morale standing to how it best applies to NT. It's not mind control, as much as subliminal suggestions.

Implanting antagonists should only be used for the most extreme cases. Antags aren't whitelisted, so we can't expect them to know about the 'forget everything' dealio. I didn't even know that.

I personally don't like it, because it kills the backstory lore of one of my old characters (Rose Watson went nuts because of the psychological issues with the implant). And I'm sure other people who had characters in sec would have their backstories changed or nulled.

[Conservatron]

its possible to make the change without making it a retcon

maybe NT got in a shitload of trouble in Sol court and was forced to change their implants to something less 'enslaving'

[witchbells]

its possible to make the change without making it a retcon

maybe NT got in a shitload of trouble in Sol court and was forced to change their implants to something less 'enslaving'

 

That would be amazing.

Can this happen? Please?

[Guest]

An event where NanoTrasen is sued by old crackpots that went crazy from them would be more likely, since Sol doesn't have any control over NT. (NT is headquartered in Tau Ceti, which is run by the Republic of Biesel, who is independent)

I can't see any government taking action against a corporation that is the primary source of the economy within their region. So like, Einstein Engine could be funding the crackpots legal team. Lets make an event out of this.

[witchbells]

But why do they have to be crackpots? Why can't they be former scientists of Nanotrasen who quit due to concerns about sentient rights?

[Guest]

Space libertarians is probably a lot more plausible.

[Guest]

I'm saying crackpots, as they're suing NT because loyalty implants caused them severe brain damage, which is a plausible reason to sue, someone suing for ethical reasons against the largest corporation in known space that has Sol Senators and the Republic in their pocket isn't going to go anywhere.

[NebulaFlare]

I can get behind this, making it a future legal change, instead of shifting what already happened.

However, there is also an IC mechanic to consider. The loyalty implant is also a tool, as it prevents the captain and HoS from antag brainwashing (cult and non-RP-rev for example). Those who are implanted have critical roles, and if they were converted to antag, it would be way, way, waaaay too OP and lopsided in antag's favors.

[Guest]

I think what would work, is that a captain or hos comes with the old fashioned loyalty implant which can easily be re-named, and those work exactly as they did, but the loyalty implants provided on the Aurora are the new kind, that don't ruin antag rounds instantly.