[Resolved] Character/Player Complaint - Tazhir Kra'xis, HoS

[Snakebittenn]

BYOND Key: ParadoxSpace

Game ID: bTc-dsWv

Player Byond Key: No clue tbh

Staff involved: Flimango

Reason for complaint: It was a cult round. I spawned in as a Chaplain (my human Chaplain, Kei Luchtar), to a lot of screaming and worry. Lilium Argentium tells me that there's weird shit going on in the bar. I come down, grab my gear, and go to the bar. There's blood runes. Obvious bad shit, but nothing that's outside of my abilities as a Chaplain to handle. I clear out the runes, one of the crew tells me there's weird swords too. I later demonstrate to some Security (Powell) my ability to purify swords. With this, I should be able to purify the people wielding them. There was an officer sitting in processing (without a timer, might I add.) Ardent Rygos. I decide to try on them. Holy water does nothing, so I use my null athame (Clearly, something recognized by Central and the ISD.) Tazhir comes in, swinging his authority, and tells me to leave him alone and stop 'assaulting him with a knife' before I'm arrested. Needless to say, I'm arrested after Ardent resists deconversion. After sitting there with no charges or timer for some time, he lets me out. I inform the Captain, Phoebe Mitchell (played by @DasFox) that he's acting outside of the crew's best interests (the exorcism of DEMONS) and she says 'sure, we'll try it.' I do this again to Ardent, and the null rod slips out of my hand and hits him (RNG, not me.) Both of them freak out, accusing me of assaulting people, Tazhir grapples me and throws me out.

Clearly, this Head of Security was not interested in the slightest in nonlethal options. He ended the round with /two guns/ on his person, saying https://i.imgur.com/GUB9lPZ.png. Clearly, he wasn't interested in giving me a chance to actually do my duties as a Chaplain. This was endlessly infuriating.

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? Yes, I was told 'IC issue.'

Approximate Date/Time: 3/3/2018, around 6:00 MST.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Guest

[Kaed]

Hi, so. I'm the HoS in question.

ICly, I'm not required to give a damn about your 'duties' as a chaplain. The prisoner you were waving your athame over and occasionally beating him with - random failure chance has no bearing on what people perceive your actions as IC. If you don't like the random attack chance that happens with, make a suggestion to have it removed. But I'm not going to look the other way and shrug when I see you beating a prisoner - had no interest in your religion, and I have no reason to believe that your religion is anything more than complete hokey.

What you are essentially asking me to to is table how my character behaves ICly because you want to use the cult deconversion tactics in peace. This effectively the opposite end of the no-metagame card, where we are not allowed to automatically understand antagonist abilities and their nature even though OOC we know what they are. Should I also start arresting wizards who used a nonlethal spell like turning a patch of ground into grass, because 'it's my duty as security to take down antags?'

As for not being interested in non-lethal options, I was basically the the first person actually advocating for non wholesale slaughter of the antags that entire round, and only loaded up a shotgun because they were using EMPs on everything. My disappointment was more in not being able to try out my new weapon than not getting any valids, especially since I went to a lot of effort to order special slugs from the cargo department. If I'm interested in taking out a screaming cultist rushing me with a sword - because that had already happened once, and I nearly died - does that somehow make me bloodthirsty?

[Snakebittenn]

Hi, so. I'm the HoS in question.

ICly, I'm not required to give a damn about your 'duties' as a chaplain. The prisoner you were waving your athame over and occasionally beating him with - random failure chance has no bearing on what people perceive your actions as IC. If you don't like the random attack chance that happens with, make a suggestion to have it removed. But I'm not going to look the other way and shrug when I see you beating a prisoner - had no interest in your religion, and I have no reason to believe that your religion is anything more than complete hokey.

 

I mean, it's literally my job and skillset to handle. I'm sure I'd know more about 'hokey' than a HoS, even if he is a Unathi, a highly spiritual race. Also that's nice, but what about the first time? Before I ever accidentally hit the guy? You still threw me out, later getting mad at the Captain herself for letting me come back.

[Kaed]

I mean, it's literally my job and skillset to handle. I'm sure I'd know more about 'hokey' than a HoS, even if he is a Unathi, a highly spiritual race. Also that's nice, but what about the first time? Before I ever accidentally hit the guy? You still threw me out, later getting mad at the Captain herself for letting me come back.

 

Being spiritual does not mean you accept all religions as valid. There is no current lore about unathi religion that involves waving obsidian knives over people, and even if there was, I'm not obligated to act like a human religious practice is a valid method of exorcism. Did you chaplain even know anything about Sk'akh or Th'akh faith? Do you?

Nor did I hear anything that indicated this was a spiritual matter, other than your chaplain saying so. The officer was behaving like an entirely sensible and rational individual, not like an insane cultist or demon-possessed monster. He was even apologetic about his behavior, which, I want to point out, wasn't even related to attempted murder or cultist behavior, but rather, attempting to incapacitate a cadet. Definitely illegal, but not grounds to assume he was 'possessed'.

By contrast, you vehemently insisted he was possessed, based on what felt like very shaky grounds to me, that was largely built upon the foundation of 'I know it's a cult round, and I want to deconvert this cultist.' I did not even really see anything that indicated you even have a religion - you were strictly focused on the mechanical aspects of your role as chaplain, and did nothing but spam your obsidian athame on the prisoner wordlessly, then grouse at me for stopping you.

You are also a civilian, regardless of what duties you might have. If the head of security tells you back away from someone, you don't just keep doing what you were doing, you back away. That is why I separated you. You could have given me some sort of rational, even religious argument about what you were doing and why it was needed, and it might have worked. Instead, you became irate at me blocking what you felt was activity you were obligated to be allowed to do based on the round type and your job, and just tried to push through my authority, before rage-quitting when that didn't work.

[Snakebittenn]

I mean, it's literally my job and skillset to handle. I'm sure I'd know more about 'hokey' than a HoS, even if he is a Unathi, a highly spiritual race. Also that's nice, but what about the first time? Before I ever accidentally hit the guy? You still threw me out, later getting mad at the Captain herself for letting me come back.

 

Being spiritual does not mean you accept all religions as valid. There is no current lore about unathi religion that involves waving obsidian knives over people, and even if there was, I'm not obligated to act like a human religious practice is a valid method of exorcism. Did you chaplain even know anything about Sk'akh or Th'akh faith? Do you?

Yes, I am whitelisted actually. And yes, they do. Unathi know well that obsidian dampens evil, ask Jackboot.

[Kaed]

Yes, I am whitelisted actually. And yes, they do. Unathi know well that obsidian dampens evil, ask Jackboot.

 

Fine, that single part of my argument can be conceded, but the rest still stands, including the second half of that sentence..

[Faris]

I'll be taking this complaint.

Edit: I just realized that this was also ahelped. Can you expand in why they deemed it IC issue?

[Snakebittenn]

That's.. That's really all they said iirc.

[Faris]

That's.. That's really all they said iirc.

 

How did you make it seem like you actually knew it would work? It seems like you join and almost as soon as you knew and saw, removed the runes.

[Snakebittenn]

That's.. That's really all they said iirc.

 

How did you make it seem like you actually knew it would work? It seems like you join and almost as soon as you knew and saw, removed the runes.

 

I did some prayer shit with the athame I made up on the spot over the bar runes, after Lilium told me that she couldn't actually step over them. I neglected to actually do this for the rest of the runes, but I tried to make a production out of the first one I saw. I did things very quickly with the swords, because I was unsure what happens to you when you hold them for too long.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

[mention]ParadoxSpace[/mention] Hello. Obsidion cancels runes is not ver batum how it goes for Unathi chaplains. Unathi can accept the supernatural at face value as spooky supernatural instead of wringing their wrists about """this mysterious unknown technology""". Combine the acceptance of the supernatural with their beliefs that they can imbdue mundane objects with prayer then it is acceptable that a unathi chaplain investigate runes and other odd occurrences.

However, you can't just instantly wipe them away. It's poor sportsmanship to use Unathi religion to pre-suppose antagonist vs null rod interactions. There is the expectation that you call on the ancestors to fill the spirit of whoop ass into your null rod because for Unathi it is not literally the obsidian but rather the action of blessing the mundane object. Null rods are just culturally relevant items - like a catholic using a rosary to pray. It might be unreasonable to ask you to do this whole process for every single rune as time goes on, and without directly looking at the logs I am wanting to assume you prayed a bunch, but would need logs or some witnesses.

Unathi spiritualism allowing more interaction with supernatural antagonists and events is meant to be used to progress interaction and showcase Unathi religions - loudly praying for your uncle T'omm to posses your null rod before wiping away runes, then chattering to everyone nearby about how the ancestors are rad in their abilities, is an ideal way to handle it.

I asked Kaed for the religion of Tazhir Kra'xis, and was told he's Th'akh. I asked Paradox for the religion and age of his shaman, and he is 55 and th'akh. So for Kaed: Physically accosting your elders is a major haram thing to do as a Unathi. It would be kosher if you were Sk'akh, because domineering dismissiveness is the relationship those unathi have to th'akh. Yes the shaman had accidentally beaned the cultist during the conversion but you gotta respect the elders enough to at least briefly act conflicted about pulling them out, and at least apologize. Please remember that for Unathi the ancestors are as real of a force as the wind or the tides and they will not hesitate to curse you with eternal IBS for the double whammy of disrespecting someone who is both your elder and a shaman.

In regards to Unathi play (my lane) both sides should take the above into consideration for future interactions. In regards to everything else (Abosh's lane) I cannot really delve into.

EDIT:

I guess paradox wasn't playing their unathi chaplain? They said they were playing a th'akh and were talking from the perspective of Unathi religion. Paradox please provide information on who you were playing. Were they a human? I look silly for rambling for all these paragraphs about a non-existent unathi haha

[Snakebittenn]

my b, OP edited. I was talking about the obsidian memes because I was attempting to imply that the HoS would've probably known about this by now, being an Unathi. I honestly wasn't sure about if only shamans and such know about exorcisms and such, or if it was everyone.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Well the perspective I talked about describes the themes of unathi spiritualism so it is still relevant, and Kaed's Unathi is not being given a frowny face on their record for accosting your character. There is not really that much for me to handle in this complaint any longer since the behavior from the HoS is now more of an issue of Head responsibility and general Command playstyle, so I will withdraw from this complaint. Thank you for clarifying the situation and I hope that my post will at least better inform these sorts of encounters in the future.

[Snakebittenn]

Yeah, I'll definitely take your post into mind when I do play my Unathi shaman.

[Kaed]

Deleted

- Sharp

 

That's nice, but I'm not you, and this cultist in question was handcuffed to a chair, with no weapon or book.

The situation was completely different.

[Faris]

I feel considering the context present between both parties, none are really at fault here. Each side acted as best fitting of their characters without violating any server rules. With that said, I feel a side topic presented here is something that needs to be addressed and possibly removed, that being the fail chance with the null rod.

So, verdict is that this isn't much of an issue, as Flimango said, In-Character issue. The picture shown doesn't really show much malicious intent, more of a joke or off hand comment to me.

Going to leave this open for another 24 hours if anything else is presented.

[Faris]

Locking and archiving.