[2 Dismissal archived]Command and antaggery.

[Pratepresidenten]

So, its been a long time coming for this suggestion on my part, but Ive simply forgotten to put it up.

So my suggestion would be as following:

Allow Captain and Head of Security to be able to become changelings (and vampires).

I honestly dont think its too far fetched as stated by some, that changelings can bypass the loyalty implant due to their morphing nature, hence ignoring it.

As for vampires.. Being a loyalty implated vampire (Cap/HoS) would prove a bit more challenging. You cant directly violate regulations and corporate interests, but then again, you can have other people do your bidding. Draining blood from people isnt directly harmful, and the targets cannot recall what happened.

There might be a conflict regarding to contingency protocols, but whoever can chime in on that I suppose.

In any case, this suggestion is primarily for allowing the two to become changelings.

[sonicgotnuked]

I agreed, a Ling should be able to sneak its way up the command chain.

[Superiorform]

I can see this just leading to overpowered antags, and people not trusting the only two loyalty implanted people we ever have on station. I am thoroughly opposed to this idea.

[Kaed]

Maybe lings can be captain/HoS but don't get a loyalty implant if they start out that way. I mean, they basically ate your captain and are impersonating them, soooo.

I dunno about vampires, though. Their story is entirely different and doesn't involve killing and impersonating someone.

[Azande]

No. The reason they are restricted is because it's far too much power. A ling captain can issue many orders, which security CANNOT refuse to follow, without being guilty of mutiny. Could also suspend/demote all of security, etc etc,. Just no.

[Kaed]

No. The reason they are restricted is because it's far too much power. A ling captain can issue many orders, which security CANNOT refuse to follow, without being guilty of mutiny. Could also suspend/demote all of security, etc etc,. Just no.

 

They sorta can't, though, without pushback. Just because you 'technically' have ultimate authority over the station doesn't mean that you can just wave your captain badge around and do stupid, pointless things like fire the entire security staff for absolutely no valid reason.

The captain isn't even really supposed to get directly involved in other departments affairs when there is a head there, they're supposed to just oversee the other heads and step in when needed. They cannot order regulation-breaking tasks, like summary arrests and executions without valid cause, because any security member with half a brain would refuse out of hand and suspect something is wrong with the captain. They can tell security they want someone arrested, but they can't issue warrants themselves.

Even if I'm wrong about all that, if you behave like a maniac, you're going to lose your captainship. People aren't going to follow someone obviously trying to sabotage the station.

[Arrow768]

For the following reasons I am voting for dismissal:

As mentioned above, allowing the captain and the HoS to be lings / vampires (or any antag) would be a severe issue.

Right now you cant make a move against the captain, unless you get central approval before.

And good luck convincing central that the captain is a ling / vampire

I dont really see how being in a position that requires killing company employees goes with a LI.

Killing the Employees of the company is surely not in the interest of said company.

Regaring a few points raised in the discussion:

The captain cant issuewarrants / demote security personell

I am just going to quote the CCIA Notice regarding the authority of the captain here:

This is a reminder that the station's assigned Captain has full authority over the operation of the station. He or she is authorized to shut down departments at their discretion, reassign crew members, issue direct orders to all crew members on the station, and take actions within reason that may violate regulations in non-standard situations.

The Captain is loyalty implanted, and is therefore trusted to act in the best interests of the company, crew, and station he or she is assigned to. Any complaints or concerns over the Captain's decisions should be addressed after their orders have been carried out, and after the situation that prompted those orders has been resolved.

 

The captain can order the arrest of anyone

The captain can demote anyone

The captain can shut down any department

Personnel is expected to carry out these orders and can not refuse them.

Refusing such an order is mutinity. (They can complain after carrying them out)

All that will severely upset game balance and will cause issues once a captain roles ling or vamp.

If a ling or vamp manages to compromise a captain, they can wield that power already.

But I dont want to see an antag with the power of a captain at round start.

Also if someone has a interesting idea what to do as vamp / ling captain, they can always ahelp before the round and explain their idea to the mins to become a ling captain if the mins deem it is a good idea.

[JKJudgeX]

I am 100% for ling and vamp captains and HoS's and think it would provide some pretty crazy rounds as the crew begins to question the motivations of top-level command.

The power of command is not as absolute as it's being made to sound here.

This isn't something that would even still happen very frequently. Just look at the probability of the captain or HoS actually being a ling even on a ling or vamp round? It's pretty slim, right?

So if this were allowed it would be like, one out of every 4 or 5 vamp/ling rounds the captain would be a vamp or ling? And of those times, the number of captains that would actively abuse the role they had in massive ways like shutting down entire departments or demoting people? Probably not every time. I just don't see it as that big of a deal, and I do see it as something that would have the potential to create some pretty cool rounds where command begins to doubt each other because someone showed up dead in the captain's office and ... where is he?!

As someone who very frequently plays antags and captains, I've wanted this for a long time. I'm sad that there's already a dismissal.

[TrickingTrapster]

I don't think it's a good idea either. I'm pretty sure we used to have loyalty implanted people able to be changelings, but I don't know when it was removed. Also, consider backgrounds for these antags. If a ling got so close to a captain they could absorb them and take their identity, why would they have the need of going to the station in said disguise instead of, oh I don't know, trying to get higher through central command? As for vampires, as far as I know, all newly transformed vampires get frenzied and need blood to get back up to speed. I'm calling huge bullshit on no one noticing a captain character being in this state, even if it was off-station.

[JKJudgeX]

I'd like to go ahead and quickly add that if you're considering the captain's access to the station part of why this is too powerful, borgs by default have a much greater set of tools for accessing the station, and they are allowed to malfunction quite frequently and nobody bats an eye.

[TrickingTrapster]

With the exception that a borg is easily shut down by beating it up or EMPing it. A changeling captain not so much.

[Kaed]

I don't have a lot of stakes on this conflict here, but I feel I should point out 'except that you can kill it' applies to captains, too.

Captains aren't immortal and are generally capable of being tasered (or lasered, or bulleted) to the ground, something that borgs are not vulnerable to.

That's not really a good argument.

So let's be honest here. This isn't about it being hard to take out captain antags, don't use that point as a fulcrum for your arguments against it. This is about how you feel the implicit power you'd be giving antagonists at the start of the round would undermine rounds.

This is about how it would undermine the throwaway McGuffin of trustworthiness that is the loyalty implant, a mechanic that currently serves absolutely no purpose in the game except to be something everyone can point at and go, yep, that's not an antag, Because they have a no-antag chip in them, and it can't fail or be subverted because then we would have to make some kind of reasoned judgement about whether someone is trustworthy or not.

Both of those are valid issues with this suggestion though, despite my clearly sarcastic tone. There's a current roleplay dynamic available with loyalty implanted command positions that definitely has a strong impact on how people view HoS and Captain characters.

Of course, whether that is a dynamic that needs to be kept is sort of subjective. I personally have never much cared for loyalty implants. While the concept is sound nothing is ever DONE with them, beyond using them as a not-an-antag plot token. They are barely even defined in-game, and are so ambiguous ("you feel loyal to nanotrasen") that it's easy to forget they are even there until you need them as a justifying plot coupon for why someone shouldn't be/isn't currently antagging. I think that they need to be taken off their silly pedestal of perfection. Much like how AI are supposedly not known for malfunction, but everyone in existence nevertheless is somehow constantly on the lookout for any signs of synthetic uprising or free will, loyalty implants need to be something more than what they are now, even if that means situations occur where an active antagonist ends up having one inside them.

What does being loyal to nanotrasen even MEAN? It's just generally taken as 'you can't do things that would be antaggy', but plenty of people do awful things in the name of a cause they are loyal to.

Sorry, this is getting really philosophical, but the point is, I think I like this suggestion as a groundshaker for the stagnant situation we have right now with loyalty implants.

[Pacmandevil]

borgs by default have a much greater set of tools for accessing the station, and they are allowed to malfunction quite frequently and nobody bats an eye.

 

Borgs also have numerous built in killswitches they can't really do much about. Blance wise you can shit on a borg with EMPs, A crossbow, the console that kills them, the AI.

They also psychically can't be lings or vamps. so I don't see what this adds to the suggestion. I think the only antags they CAN be are malf (which can be solved by unbinding them from the AI and resetting laws) and autotraitor.

and borgs by default also are not implanted with something that forces loyalty to Nanotrasen. they only have laws.

I seriously doubt a ling/vamp captain/hos would even be possible. perhaps vamp at worst.

[Alberyk]

Besides what people said about the captain's power and his relation with the possible antag status, I also find that being loyalty implanted and being an antag are hardly compatible, with the exception of being a loyalist, and it will limit heavily what someone can do when it comes to be an opposite force to the crew. So, if we allow implanted crew to be antagonists, we might as well remove the implants as whole. And due to those reasons, I am against this suggestion and I am voting for dismissal.