Remove Loyalty Implants from Command Staff.

[Guest]

Oh boy, inb4 controversial discussion designation #01/1038. Whatever, we'll just go with it and pretend my opinion here is important.

I'll start by prefacing this with a situation. You have a full house of command staff, captain, HoS, Chief Engineer/Medical Officer, RD, Head of Personnel. Station standard op goes as normal, with the captain overseeing specific cases that the department leaders are handling. Suddenly, a string of criminal incidents starts kicking up. Security starts investigating, bagging, and tagging suspects. It eventually escalates to a case of murder, and the crewmembers are a tad bit spooked someone got killed. We're basically assuming this is a typical antagonist round, and most of the departments are very busy in their attempts to prevent their workplaces from burning to the ground and losing all sense of productivity. SUDDENLY, yet again, CentComm gets information relating to a strange reading on the 'roid, despite the fact that the station's reading is at code blue, and very close to red. Once again, we assume HQ would have readings and data based on the security alert. Like a dynamic security substation of sorts with all sorts of pretty lights and such. They don't know the EXACT situation of a station, but based on the security level they will have a pretty standard guess that shit's going down.

"Maybe it'd be a good time to put off any special requests for the station, considering that shit's going down and we're likely not going to get any results anyhow by sending people to fuck off into space?", says Ian McMullen, the intern.

"Sorry, but that would make WAY too much sense. Go get me some coffee that doesn't suck ass, and send the directive through."

So, now we have our directive out. It specifically states for the heads of staff to divert partial amounts of resources from each of the departments so that they can go and risk fucking off into space forever and never coming back.

Assume you are the HoS, and you have suddenly lost an available asset you could dispatch in the event multiple cases of criminal activity take place, and your department is at risk of burning down. Your patience and available resources are wearing thin, and with this new directive you want to rip your hair out, since you're horridly busy and you want to make sure the station is in proper order, especially since someone just got killed.

But apparently CentComm wants you to prioritize on something meaningless and inconsequential. Okay, great. Logically, in any other work environment, you'd put that off until you can get the important things done first, and your boss would totally understand if you communicated that to you.

Except in this universe, it's apparently treason to question an order. Because I've been given the impression by how the DO Corps has been operating recently as though NT's interests take precedent over standard operation. You cannot disobey a direct order from Central Command, because the implication lies with CC knowing better than the captain does. And that is a huge impression being made there.

The impression being made on the fact that CC would rather your subordinates go fuck off into space for SCIENCE instead of them standing by on-station to PROTECT the station, is not one you want to be given if you want to keep that Heavy Roleplay headliner, ladies and gentlemen. Good storytelling requires close attention to the quality of writing that the roleplaying spectrum is set in. Your setting needs to be on-point. And I can't say that forcing a methodology of roleplay onto command staff because there's that very miniscule risk of failure on the side of the head of security or the captain, who has the power to directly influence the round by way or rain or snow, is a logical way of going about it. It is destined for failure.

Now that the preface is done and over with, now comes the proposition. The removal of the deus ex machina (a story-telling device that pops up randomly in a setting to address a point that, rather than directly benefiting roleplay, only exists to inhibit it. It's to be expected, though, given the impression of a loyalty implant is to suppress and directly inhibit any amount of dissent from the subject's line of thinking. To prevent them from becoming a thought criminal, basically, and to avoid them from acting upon their dissent in order to power-trip. Once again, it was a contingency made to avoid the worst-possible-case scenario, because people got really damn sick of shitlers for captains and HoSes.

I get this. We all get this.

Except, look at our header again.

Alien/Head whitelists. Meaning, you need to APPLY, and show yourself as a responsible individual and promise you won't abuse the power you have to ruin the rounds of others in order to benefit your own experience.

But, wait. Don't we strip whitelists for powertrippers and abusers, along with banning them in future instances of misconduct?

The answer is: Yes, we do.

The way that head positions work at the moment, there isn't any room for abuse. Mistakes? Oh, certainly, to a point. We expect people to learn from their mistakes, however.

Honestly, unless someone can give me a good reason as to why we need loyalty implants to exist to effectively mindslave people to a fucking corporation besides referring to a worst-case-scenario where they got oppressed by shitcurity, I will say this.

I implore the development team to reconsider the Cap/HoS being implanted, and perhaps to remove it altogether from command staff. As I've already argued, it's proven to be nothing but a cork in storytelling and it honestly doesn't make sense why you'd be mindslaved to a corporation.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

You're still salty about this? Geeze, the entire expedition left without the entire command staff even realizing it so you're really overemphasizing their importance. The decision was made to begin testing these small side-quests in a poke at making it a semi-regular thing. We're still working out how it'll all work. Personally I'd like RNJ deciding it, but anyway.

Loyalty implants are an IC way to immediately stop bad behaviour in an IC way. Instead of being BWOINK'd when the captain or HoS breaks regs, or waiting a bazillion years for everyone involved to be interviewed by a DO to get them to do something, you have that immediate stopgap. The issue is just they're super duper ambiguous, an issue I'm trying to address here.

The Captain and HoS (realistically the HoS since sec always defers to them and not the Captain for some reason) have the largest and barely unstoppable power of being able to drastically alter or shoehorn an entire round. Whatever the HoS orders from security gets done, unless a full blown mutiny erupts within the security department. The HoS has his nose and hand in every single department, and dictates who does what and when. Having a physical IC way to stop the abuse with an IC proactive way is good in an OOC way.

IC'ly, loyalty implants reinforce the idea the roles come with a very heavy responsibility. To enter the roles, you have to accept being mind controlled. It reinforces the moral greyness of Nanotrasen.

And the concept of Nanotrasen ever considering a few murders as more important than science is silly. The station only exists for research, and CC's word is law. The HoS does not get to assume personal control and dictate who can do what and when. That is the Captain's job, and above him, CC's job. Committing sedition because you demand every single officer be on the case (while being nearly silent on the security channel and not even realizing an officer was on the expedition the whole time, negating the entire point of your salt) isn't something that is acceptable for a loyalty implanted Head of Security.

This suggestion seems to boil down to a desire to shirk the expectation of compliance to Central Command, and I don't like that. To reiterate the point: the HoS doesn't run the station and doesn't have to personally agree with everything that goes on. There's an entire station outside the security department that want to play the game too. If you want to run every department, be a Captain.

[Guest]

Loyalty implants are an IC way to immediately stop bad behaviour in an IC way. Instead of being BWOINK'd when the captain or HoS breaks regs, or waiting a bazillion years for everyone involved to be interviewed by a DO to get them to do something, you have that immediate stopgap. The issue is just they're super duper ambiguous, an issue I'm trying to address here.

 

That didn't stop you from slamming officers into windows or tabling them. But, hey, whatever, let's pretend loyalty implants actually work instead of just reinforcing the same half-assed belief over and over again. Consider the following: A Head of Security doesn't get to where they are by shit-talking NT every step of the way. They'd be stuck at Ofc. Sec-1 for their entire career if they did this.

Wouldn't removing loyalty implants end up in less backlog, and less retarded arguments such as 'well hurrrr your implant is a thing, so you can't do X Y or Z or phrase it in a manner of A B or C"? Idealistically, more people would be watching the heads of staff and making complaints about the truly bad ones. Both the staff AND the DOs can micro-manage command staff play much better with the removal of implants. There's literally no point in having them EXCEPT as a stopgap. Also, the definition of a stopgap implies it's a temporary measure, and it's not going to last forever. We need more elegant solutions to IC problems than mindslaving. It doesn't make sense, period. It's not practical for a corporation, a corporation, not an actual government that COULD plausibly get away with this shit, to get away with mindslaving. The political implications of it would be drastic, and the universe the Aurora sits in would collapse due to fallaciousness and soft languages. These writing choices don't even make sense, they don't have a purpose besides to fill in stopgaps. Let me repeat this, once again. This is a lazy, unsophisticated way to go about it.

 

The Captain and HoS (realistically the HoS since sec always defers to them and not the Captain for some reason) have the largest and barely unstoppable power of being able to drastically alter or shoehorn an entire round. Whatever the HoS orders from security gets done, unless a full blown mutiny erupts within the security department. The HoS has his nose and hand in every single department, and dictates who does what and when. Having a physical IC way to stop the abuse with an IC proactive way is good in an OOC way.

 

Hey, dude. Remember that the Duty Officer Corps exists for a moment. I implore the rest of the community to remember this as well, and to actually PUT EFFORT into ousting assholes and powertrippers from command as is their duty as part of the community. The solutions are right there, in front of you, yet none of you are taking advantage of it. What gives?

 

IC'ly, loyalty implants reinforce the idea the roles come with a very heavy responsibility. To enter the roles, you have to accept being mind controlled. It reinforces the moral greyness of Nanotrasen.

 

The position already implies very heavy responsibility. Like, fuck, dude, if you're gonna play a HoS or a captain, you're expected to take the job seriously and do it right. Implant or not, there is no room for error at all because you have a much greater affect on the round than an antagonist does. The round absolutely hinges on your methodology and conduct as command. You would be surprised how much a head of security or a captain can do to fuck up the round. It is so unbelievably easy to do so, I can guarantee I am able to make every single person fucking cry and not actively break corp regs or SOP, as either position. I can guarantee that others can get away with it too, so what's your point here?

Also, 'reinforcing moral greyness.' Top kek, okay?

 

And the concept of Nanotrasen ever considering a few murders as more important than science is silly. The station only exists for research, and CC's word is law. The HoS does not get to assume personal control and dictate who can do what and when. That is the Captain's job, and above him, CC's job. Erupting into mutiny because you demand every single officer be on the case (while being nearly silent on the security channel and not even realizing an officer was on the expedition the whole time, negating the entire point of your salt) isn't something that is acceptable for a loyalty implanted Head of Security.

 

*FURIOUSLY CITES AWFUL FANFIC EQUIVALENTS OF SEEMINGLY INNOCUOUS SETTINGS TURNED GRIMDARK FOR ALMOST NO REASON*

Yeah, no. Shit needs to make sense before you can ever take it with a grain of salt as lore. Leaning on lore to justify bad game mechanics is the kind of excuse you'd get from a medium RP server, but it's what you'd actually expect from a medium RP server.

This is the exact same shit a former duty officer warned me about, you know. They told me to watch the fucking red tape, but here I am, arguing against someone who seems to enjoy abusing the red tape to further his own agenda, as it seems. This is why we keep the obvious power players out of internal server politics, because once you give them an inch, they proceed to take a couple meters ahead of you and then WHAMMO, you lose control of the situation without even realizing it until it's too late.

While we're at it, can we make the station have more spikes and black in its design scheme? Since we're focused on lore justifying mechanics and vice versa, let's make the station an eldritch temple dedicated to the monument of evil NanoTrasen secretly is/is not. That seems like a logical thing a secretly (not) evil corporation would do. The ratings you'd get from it would be pretty sweet though, right?

 

This suggestion seems to boil down to a desire to shirk the expectation of compliance to Central Command, and I don't like that. To reiterate the point: the HoS doesn't run the station and doesn't have to personally agree with everything that goes on. There's an entire station outside the security department that want to play the game too. If you want to run every department, be a Captain.

 

No.

It boils down to the desire to want to be able to roleplay, instead of being forced into the position of having to deal with and fix everyone's problems without actually having a personality, because that kind of thing isn't something NanoTrasen would want out of their little mindslaved employee. Productivity is more preferable to personality.

But, hey, go ahead, continue on in making this setting so adolescent friendly that anyone who wants to take roleplay seriously around here and make an attempt, no, SEVERAL attempts, in enjoying it, to hesitate in vomiting at this Deus Ex-tier crapfest of bad writing.

I do wish to commend Sue for their work on the Tajaran race and culture, and sticking to their guns on ensuring it's not riddled with pop culture and modern media references. Though their work is clearly inspired on 30s American culture, it is still original and enjoyable to read. Kudos also to Jackfractal, for their development AND lore work on making IPCs doubly more interesting. The work on shells was absolutely fantastic, and I enjoyed roleplaying maintenance with everyone possessing an IPC whitelist.

I do not approve of you making a megacorporation which acts under the bounds of Sol Alliance and Biesel law to, quite bluntly, be the fucking law, because of pitiful screenwriting tropes.

You can make a mega-corp more powerful in other ways besides just obviously GIVING them that power to get away with the most inhumane and illogical shit.

Once again, reciting Grimmification. This is not necessary, at all. Just make NanoTrasen what you think a corporation would actually do in the universe. Don't forget it was started up by an aspiring human, maybe emphasize a little on NT trying to advance their knowledge and technology?

Gee, I dunno. You have much more usable plot devices, do you not? Get creative, but understand what their actual impact will be BEFORE they are implemented.

[EvilBrage]

The only purpose that loyalty implants serve is to give me the extra challenge of removing the implant before I convert them to a cultist/thrall, and to upset me when it is decided that this will be my punishment for my antagonistic behavior.

I invite you all to read this thread as well as the other numerous threads on this subject, but my thoughts are as follows:

 

They were an effective de-revving agent back in the days where flashes were used to convert people to the revolution, but now, they're primarily used as a tool to force antagonists to give up their evil games. Removing conflict should not be so easy. Why permabrig someone when you could, with a quick dash of paperwork (or not) stick someone with a needle and be 100% guaranteed that they are now entirely loyal to NanoTrasen?

As the server evolves from the pre-established, implied SS13 lore that NanoTrasen is the sole power in its sector, I believe it would fit along nicely with our Sol Government to remove these sorts of implants entirely so these stories can continue. The captain and head of security would still be barred from any sort of antag assignment, of course - but this could easily be attributed to rigorous polygraphs, background checks, investigative details, et cetera before the start of a shift. The only change is that the heads of staff don't have loyalty implants to stick people with.

 

Your captain or head of security should not be a mindless drone, but they should also not be capable of antagonist roles - and let's get real, paperwork is only actually completed half the time.

[Guest]

Your captain or head of security should not be a mindless drone, but they should also not be capable of antagonist roles - and let's get real, paperwork is only actually completed half the time.

 

I'm still within the belief that captain+ head of security must still be immune from antagonist roles, implant or no.

[jackfractal]

Your captain or head of security should not be a mindless drone, but they should also not be capable of antagonist roles - and let's get real, paperwork is only actually completed half the time.

 

I'm still within the belief that captain+ head of security must still be immune from antagonist roles, implant or no.

 

That's interesting. Can you unpack that?