[Expired] Sec Jobban Appeal

[Bath Salts Addict]

BYOND Key: Bath Salts Addict

Total Ban Length: A week

Banning staff member's Key: [mention]CakeIsOssim[/mention]

Reason of Ban: "Improper" escalation of force, headgibbing someone during an active firefight.

Reason for Appeal: To begin with, allow me to provide context. The round started with an engineering apprentice claiming they were attacked by a forensic technician and cadet in the bathrooms. One thing lead to another, and the Head of Security and myself were taken hostage by revolutionaries. At some point through all of this the Head of Security made me a loyalist, thus marking my entry into the round as an antagonist I managed to escape thanks to the Captain, but they made off with the HoS. Command and the revs back and forthed and Security armed up. Armed with my trusty shotgun, the Captain revealed that she managed to sneak a teleporter beacon into a bag of medical supplies the revs had included as part of their demands. The Captain then throws a couple flashbangs into the teleporter and sends Security in, with myself being the first in. Now here's where things got a little bit tricky.

I teleport in and see Joe Vicks on the ground from the flashbangs, with a cadet backed into a corner and beating the Head of Security to death, so the situation was already lethal. I clicked on Joe Vicks once with a shotgun to remove his foot and incapacitate him so he can't get up while I go and deal with the cadet, and... Well, shit. His head came off. That is what Cake took an issue with. I am not entirely sure what had happened. Maybe I didn't click on Vicks but the tile he was on, or some codebase planets aligned and did something weird, but I really don't fully understand how the gunplay on SS13 works. Maybe at some point I had set my targeting for the face during the teleporter prep phase in order to equip a cigarette as it's the fastest way, but I distinctly remember targeting the right foot in order to incapacitate while we were waiting in the teleporter room. A conversation with Cake later and I am now banned from all Security roles for a week due to, of all the things, improper escalation. Neat!

Well, I have a multitude of points to bring up. The first being that since staff did not take the liberty of asking the victim in question as to what happened or how they see the situation, I decided to do so myself. The following is a screenshot of a brief BYOND pager conversation with VaValor, the player of Joe Vicks:

 

This doesn't "un-break" any perceived rule breaks (although the opinion of the alleged "victim" should really be taken into account. Come on, guys.) but it does shed some interesting light from another perspective. Notice how he says "we were killing the HoS when you barged in". That statement confirms that the situation was already escalated to a lethal point, as if seeing your boss being beaten to death in a corner wasn't enough already.

The second point I would like to bring up is that Cake claimed this was "grief". Grief implies I intentionally set off to ruin someone's round with little provocation. This lead to my ban for "improper" escalation. Aside from the fact that I keep reiterating that the situation was already escalated to a point where lethal force was necessary (hence why no one else in Security got bwoinked for opening up with lethals on the remaining revs to my knowledge), I was also a loyalist. An antagonist. While not fully exempt from the rules, antagonists are given a degree of leniency in regards to things like escalation up to and including killing other characters during the course of a round. That entire round was escalation on both Command and the Revs' part, and wonderfully escalated at that, too. I cannot point out a single fault in the way either side handled things, and I don't believe they can, either. Demands were made, demands were met, espionage was had and an ensuing climactic raid that mirrors the escalation of conflict that staff tends to desire. I fail to see how I failed to escalate anything, as the situation was not hinging solely on me to control. I wasn't playing the "hero" of the story or the big cheese protagonist who singlehandedly fights the bad guys and rescues the damsel in distress (although there was some damsel saving that round) . The main escalation rested on the Captain's shoulders, who considered the Revs' demands, met some of them and enacted a plan to combat them before (her being a loyalist herself) sending us in with clear orders to eliminate the threat through any means necessary.

Weird gunplay mechanics aside (I hesitate to call it a bug as there's a ton of small nuances and "features" that I don't know about that may have played a part) , this was an excellently roleplayed situation by members of both sides and, assuming I can look past the ban, it'll probably go up there among my mental list of memorable rounds. I do not believe there was any improper escalation, and neither does the direct "victim" of my alleged rule violation. The conflict was escalated not between two players (although I can argue that it was personal between Vicks and Noir as well), but between revs and loyalists/sec/command that followed any good narrative a story should. Cake, unfortunately, must have saw the climax of the situation at face value and did not bother to contact anyone else that was directly involved, instead seeing something that he did not have full context of and an unfortunate history that paints me in a bad light at a glance and laid a hasty decision due to him having to be awake and bright-eyed in seven hours.

[Faris]

Cake has said that he doesn't mind it if we took this appeal if it came while he's asleep, so I'll pitch in with it.

So, for reference, you have five active warnings, one is regarding going AFK as a role outside of security, so I won't include it. They all involve in one way or another your security play-style or general play-style.

 

2946 2017-10-14 20:12:25 1 1 sonicgotnuked Showed little hostility before a incident inside the AI upload. Had a small conversation with their goal of subverting the AI. Asked if the AI has been fixed and after the response of yes, walked up and headgibbed the interim HoS and their officer. This is poor esculation of force as they did not really suspect you. You should've hinted more at your hostilities and plans before straight taking two people out of the round with two shotgun slugs. Please make sure to esculate properly as an antag.

3013 2017-10-24 22:00:22 1 superiorform After being trapped in a room with a traitor (with good reason) and battoning them down (with good reason), picked up his esword and hit him three times with it, instead of just running, as assistant. Stuff like that is really unnecessary, and seems a bit validhunty. In future, run if you can.

3024 2017-10-28 04:48:47 1 0 sircatnip Executed a downed, and restrained Mercenary with a shotgun as a Detective and headgored them because his teammates were trying to rescue him and he "needed both his hands free" - Security absolutely shouldn't be executing suspects as non-antags, and even as a synthetic you're expected to play a sane and well rounded character, just run away or pull them, don't execute them because they might be freed. Calm down with all the headgoring.

3063 2017-11-05 19:46:30 1 0 thedococt Falsely gave a prisoner jail-time for a repeat offence, despite this being untrue, because they were "in a sour mood." If that is how your character acts, they would not be in the security department. This is in addition to your multitude of other security play issues, including 3 active warnings.

 

This is also not counting the plethora of notes you already have. A vast majority show a certain trend, boils down to you rushing things. I'm going to post your most recent note, though you're welcome to ask me to post everyone that exhibits this type of behavior.

 

 

20003 2017-10-22 01:10:58 scheveningen Jumped the gun a bit in fragging a security cadet with a slug. context: entire security force was after them and they had comms knowledge of said manhunt, so they reacted a bit defensively. said cadet was left in a maint tunnel and not helped by their own team, so the cadet bled out. not really the ninja's fault beyond the whole slug thing. technically it is his fault, but the act is not wrong, just the sudden escalation was a bit touchy. be aware of this behavior for the future in case it repeats on a worse scale.

 

 

 

Accidents happen, we don't punish people for it. The issue however is that this is a consistent thing you've done, antag or not. You've got 39 entries from staff, they become 38 if I exclude the successful ban appeals. By dealing with the situation yourself, which keep in mind we're not punishing you for it, since as you and others mentioned, was escalated, but rather as the ban states.

Having a history of overescalation of headgoring, being warned for it, and then it happening again. Feel free to appeal this on the forums.

Even if this was an accident, which I don't believe there is a way to prove other than taking your word for it, you willingly put yourself in this situation without making sure you were fully set, resulting in directly breaching two warnings.

As of now, I'm more partial to letting you take the ban time and resuming your security play once it expires, but I'm still open to be convinced.

[Scheveningen]

Shortly after leaving that note I did notify the staff to keep an eye out for BSA's very common habit of blasting antagonist heads into gore. I already had a bias walking into that situation to talk with you before because I completely detest the methodology in which antagonists make it their sole effort to remove people from the round before providing good roleplay to other players, so I chose to go lightly and signal boost to the other staff to keep extra careful watch. It is one thing to do this once or twice simply for style but as soon as you make it a very extreme habit and make it so that it starts seeping into your security play, not only does it raise concerns about being, quite frankly, shitsec, (which were addressed in this secban) it also raises future concerns as to whether anytime you repeat this you're effectively seeking ways to gank other players for your own enjoyment, which is already not something that is constructive and conducive to roleplay in this community.

The secban could have been permanent and I still would've thought it was justified. Your actions have not just been bad in themselves, it's the shift in the server culture that's taken place anytime you're logged in with your characters. If the community has to be promoted to start instantly ganking power characters (in the sense anytime they do something they change the flow of the round immediately) in order to not get killed in the round then I'm going to be pretty disappointed. I'm really tired of your playstyle that involves grabbing a shotgun, loading it with slugs and doing nothing other than chasing antagonists even out into space with no cooling unit as a baseline IPC detective, a balance issue I am currently fixing with a shotgun just to seek to end the round of other antagonists. There's no sense of self-preservation, it's just tunnel-visioning your priorities.

The chances are very low you blew off someone's head on accident. Headgoring doesn't even happen on purpose unless you're targeting the head to begin with, which requires a single intentional click due to the fact it is part of the lower right section of the HUD. Even if it was an accident, unlikely as it is, it still makes it your fault and you need to take culpability for that action. Not insist to dismiss that it's an issue because you still want to get frags.

[CakeIsOssim]

It was not an "active firefight" until the flashbangs started teleporting in. I was ghosting the room pretty much since they brought the head of security there. They had been torturing him, yes, but they did not start killing them until security made their move to take them down. Something I found interesting (and the most indicative of what I perceived to be intent to collect valids) was that the VERY FIRST attack log of the entire fight, was Noir headgoring Joe Vicks with a shotgun. This struck me as disturbing especially coming from a security regular (I hold security regulars to a higher standard that new people - they should know very well how to properly do their job, not saying you don't here) as Joe Vicks was not even part of the fire fight. They were on the floor, deaf and stunned, and they got their head turned into a red pile of waste. Meanwhile, the only other hostile in the room who was actually standing up was beating the head of security's skull in with a telebaton until he was killed by friendly fire.

That was the biggest point out of all of them, but I will address some of the other points in your appeal as well. Starting off with "not discussing the issue with other parties." Why did I need to? I witnessed you break the rules. It was pretty black and white. If someone gets griefed, they cannot tell me not to ban the griefer because they weren't offended or were "okay" with being griefed. It doesn't work like that. Speaking of grief, I did not intend to refer to you as a griefer when I said "that does not undo the grief" or whatever I said, cannot remember ver batim. I did neglect to inform you that I was not calling you a griefer. So, no, this was not grief by rule definitions.

Finally, you were a loyalist, yes, but antagonists are still expected to escalate properly and make things interesting for the other players. It could have been literally anyone in your position and I still would have punished them for it. It was a play that I determined to be in bad taste. With your history, it just compounds that punishment. And as a last little note, you did perform the mechanical point blank shot, as the logs did state "Noir fires the shotgun point blank at Joe Vicks!" which requires their mob to actually have been clicked on at least once with a loaded firearm on harm intent.

I will not immediately close this appeal as I wrote this on my lunch break and I would like to hear your thoughts on this. I will come back in a few hours or so.

[Bath Salts Addict]

Since there's no way I can prove the headgibbening was a freak, accidental occurrence either through personal error or bug, I suppose I'll have to try and argue from a different angle. To quote the rules:

 

While antags will sometimes kill, it is expected for you to provide interesting roleplay to your targets first, if your goal is assassination. This does not mean that you need to monologue your opponent before killing them: roleplay leading up to a murder can take place over the course of the entire round, for example, leaving the murder scene itself to be “wordless”.

 

Here is a fun little snippet. If you go back further into the round, towards the very beginning, escalation began at the very start with the engineering apprentice going to my character for help. At that moment, Joe Vicks and other Revs practically knew they were boned. One even complained in LOOC about the IC betrayal, but that's besides the point. The HoS (for some inane reason) brought the two suspects, Vicks and the cadet, into the detective's office where said apprentice was staying in, terrified. I instantly noticed how they took formation, blocking both exits and even switching to an intent other than passive, but I didn't bring that up OOCly because I wanted to see how things panned out. There was a bit of conversation between the HoS, myself, and the cadet and Vicks as well as a nearby sec officer before all three turned the situation forceful, taking us both hostage. I managed to escape, and Command and Security as a whole parlayed with the Revs, who made reasonable demands but then began crossing the line into irrational insanity. As stated by the thread Skull made regarding barricaded suspects (https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=111&t=6516), Security has to take into account whether the situation was stable and/or the suspects were acting irrationally. The Revs made a reasonable demand at first with first-aid supplies, and then demanded the Captain made crude announcements to degrade herself and say other inane things over the announcement system. From that perspective, they were going batshit loopy.

Now, here's the thing about that situation. I, being backed into a corner with the HoS being taken hostage by hostiles in front of me and a terrified civilian behind me, had full license to kill with my detective's revolver and plentiful ammunition. I could have, and that would have been the end of that situation. Revs would have been instantly shut down or bleeding to death, and staff would not have said a peep. That's what really boggles me. Simply put, if I had pulled lethals and killed all three Revs, which I really was capable of doing thanks to IPC stronkness and readily available lethals in comparison to their stuns, I would not have been bwoinked. Instead, I elected to let the situation play out and only after the escalation had reached a climactic point where it could not be escalated further, I was punished for killing an antagonist as an atagonist. You say it was an attempt to claim valids, but if that was my intent, I would have done so during the first conflict in the detective's office and I would likely not have been punished for it. You can claim otherwise, but it's the truth. Anyone can say they'd have done things differently. If I knew what the consequences were going to be for electing not to acquire valids, to go along with a Revs gimmick, get taken hostage and possibly result in my own death, then I'd have simply pulled the .38 and dropped the Revs right then and there. Boom, bang, done.

No one has yet to provide me with reasoning as to how it was improper escalation, which is the crux of Cake's judgment being laid down, as everything has been done according to the way the rules are written. In all honesty, though, the headgibbing thing is quite cheap and even when I intentionally do it, the brief sense of triumph pales in comparison to the nagging realization that I've just instantaneously taken someone out of the round, and sometimes bares with it consequences and an OOC distaste for me a person. I'll probably cease to do it.

 

"that does not undo the grief"

What grief? If you had literally just taken a few moments to talk to the guy like I asked you to, you'd know that he was okay with how that situation panned out. No one incurred any grief at all.

[Coalf]

"that does not undo the grief"

What grief? If you had literally just taken a few moments to talk to the guy like I asked you to, you'd know that he was okay with how that situation panned out. No one incurred any grief at all.

 

I have an issue with this.

If I ERP on the server with someone and they're okay with it, does that mean rules weren't broken?

[Bath Salts Addict]

I have an issue with this.

If I ERP on the server with someone and they're okay with it, does that mean rules weren't broken?

Arguably the victim in that scenario is the staff that have to see the logs... Unless they're okay with it. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I'm not saying it doesn't unbreak the rules, but it seems strange to talk about how much grief I've caused when the evidence is there clear as day in regards to the fact that no one walked away from that situation feeling salty.

[Azande]

As the Captain who organized this security mission, it was a bad time all around. The kidnappers had the head of security, they were actively abusing/torturing him.

When we got our chance to sneak a teleportation beacon in, I took it - shortly after, about 20-30 minutes, I was able to beam our sec team in after three flashbangs being sent in first, the area they beamed into was the medical briefing room, which had been modified with fortifications and made the entire staff wing of the sublevel a small fort.

This was not a capture mission, this was a loyalist run mission to kill, their orders were to shoot to kill. However, despite this, I do not believe BSA (Noir) meant to immediately head-gib someone, the area is incredibly close-quarters based on what I saw after going to see after the situation was ended. and because the hostiles did have the head of security's weapons, opening fire as soon as they teleported in was the only option to not risk their own lives, and it was also their assigned task.

I am someone that has regularly complained about BSA's behaviour, specifically about headgibbing with a shotgun, but in this circumstance, I do not believe that he meant to do it, and if he did - I do not believe it was unwarranted.

[CakeIsOssim]

Let me start off by saying, once again, I am not accusing you of grief. I did already mention this but I guess you took it out of context or something. It doesn't matter.

Something to consider in that conflict within the detective's office is how you would have eliminated the opposition. You certainly couldn't have headgored them with the .38 revolver. That is pretty much the whole issue here; you are performing cookie-cutter persistent antag play, even if it was accidental, it is still persistent. Become antagonist, obtain shotgun, and headgore the opposition. You, yourself, are already aware of this trend. We punish other antags for this as well, such as those who bomb the station every time they roll traitor.

 

This was not a capture mission, this was a loyalist run mission to kill, their orders were to shoot to kill.

 

If this were true, I fail to see why three flashbangs were necessary. This ties into the fact that the first act of real aggression in the room was to headgore the nearest downed suspect.

Knocking the ban reason down to "improper escalation" is really missing the point.

Having a history of overescalation of headgoring, being warned for it, and then it happening again. Feel free to appeal this on the forums.

The ban was because you have a history of overescalating the use of headgoring, which is something that should be used lightly and in good taste. "Constantly" does not fall under these two categories. The ban is not because you overescalated force in general.

In short, all of this is pretty much about persistence and why it should not be so. Please, consider this a break from the nature of how security (and security antag) is played and try to gain some perspective. I honestly think it would be good for you. This appeal is to be considered denied in 24 hours pending addition of new information.

[Bath Salts Addict]

Seeing as there's just a few days left before this ban runs out, I'm willing to eat it and admit that I did jump the gun a fair bit, as even though I never intended to headgib him, and was intending to aim for his foot instead, I shouldn't have lethaled someone that was already down from the prior flashbangs in the first place, and I've had people come to me and tell me to stop since they don't want to see me slapped with a permaban from sec roles. So I'll put a damper on the headgibbing, although I don't believe the issue regarding headgibbing to be as consistent as the meme seems to imply.

Do I do it more than others? Perhaps. Is it the bread and butter of everything I do when I get my grubby hands on a shotgun and some slugs? Arguably not. The last time I headgibbed someone before this ban was applied was, quite condemningly I'll admit, when Catnip applied a warning to me for headgibbing a merc, about 11 days ago.

Feel free to close this, I suppose, although part of me is hoping for some degree of mercy to be shown on the promise that I severely curb the way I play security for the remaining three days be commuted.

[Faris]

Ban expired. Locking and archiving.