[Resolved] Staff Complaint: VoltageHero

[Resilynn]

BYOND Key: Resilynn

Staff BYOND Key: VoltageHero

Game ID: bT7-ako8

Reason for complaint: I'm just here to talk about my warning, which I disagree with. Here is said warning, for reference:

My main argument is that my actions were IC, and by the rules. It's true that we have a rule about performing our jobs well: "Try to perform your job to a satisfactory standard, especially in positions of power (security, head roles.) Minor failures at doing so will result in IC consequences, but constant, repeated failures without sense or reason can result in jobbans," so I am going to explain the sense and reason behind the regulations that Fernando, the character, broke.

We were having a visitors round. During this round, most of the radio chatter was focused on the ninja rather than the wizard. The few mentions of the wizard on the radio were, for the most part, minor. She removed someone's appendix and kept trying to break out of security.

Also, they kept calling her a stowaway, not an intruder, which humanized her.

 

Then Ferny was told to remove her eyes, not because she was hurting anyone, but because it would be convientient. This is when Fernando started to get some doubts.

 

When she was brought in, she was brought in in critical condition. The detective who brought her in was choking her, and nearly killed her. She had brain damage and trauma as a result. Moreover, the detective didn't acknowledge this, he just said to remove her eyes.

[attachment=2]03.png[/attachment]

 

Fernando is now assuming that she was trying to escape because she had been tortured. He had direct evidence of the torture in front of him. The first thing he did was alert command, but he was told they would investigate later. He was not about to remove the eyes of someone for convenience, who was being tortured, and trust an investigation would come later. Fernando has been well established as critical of NT and the chain of command.

(Having trouble with attachments, so I'm continuing this in another post.)

Edited April 28, 2018 by Guest

[Resilynn]

 

So Fernando starts freaking out. He's stalling by trying to treat her trauma first, and she is being sweet and vulnerable. He's a doctor, after all, working with someone who has been tortured.

 

At this point, the wizard turns the detective to stone as he stands in the doorway. Fernando, of course, doesn't know what to do or what is going on. He assumes the detective is dead, and agrees that he deserved it after double checking that it was the detective that nearly killed her. He believes security will kill her for turning the detective to stone. First, he tries pushing the statue so he and the wizard can run.

[Resilynn]

 

Unable to push the detective away, they are stuck. Fernando doesn't know wizard spells, he doesn't know the detective will unfreeze, so he thinks they'll have to force their way out. So they use the circular saw from his surgery kit to break past the statue and get out. He's still trying to treat this wizard, who he feels incredibly bad for. And he started to panic, of course, over helping her, even though he DID believe it was the right thing to do.

 

After curing her of her trauma, he gave her the detective's ID card and let her go through maint, wishing her luck.

This is when VoltageHero contacted me and asked me to explain. Here is that conversation:

 

[Resilynn]

 

[Resilynn]

 

I do not believe I have an OOC responsibility to play a perfect, lawful member of command. Fernando is not loyalty implanted. He is human, he is guided by his own emotions (more than he'd admit). There are rules in place for this kind of thing, which state you need good motivation (which I think I've shown here that I did), and specifically state that you are allowed to create conflict if it's reasonable, which again, I think I've shown this was.

I strongly feel that my warning is an OOC repercussion for something that is entirely an IC issue. I would like this warning removed from my record, I think it's misleading, and I do not believe that I broke any rules. I play flawed characters, and I believe that I play them well.

Moreover, I DID contact command about it, it wasn't addressed, and I'm hardly going to file an IR when this was one, directly related to the antag, and two, I just got a player complaint over filing an IR.

Evidence/logs/etc: For the purpose of narrative simplicity, I included all of this in text

Additional remarks: I am so, so sorry for this horrible formatting. For some reason neither of my browsers are letting me upload more than three attachments per post.

[Resilynn]

Gah, this formatting is hell. Here's the evidence of her critical damage when she was first brought in.

[Coalf]

Notification that myself and [mention]Flamingo[/mention] will be taking over this complaint.

[Kaed]

Hi there!

Detective in question here, to straighten out some of the facts you've misrepresented here. I did in fact strangle that wizard - the reasons for which are irrelevant to this thread -but I certainly was not strangling them when I arrived on with the head of security to deliver the to Gonzales, nor did I ever once mention their eyes being removed. Literally the sum of my actions towards them in medical were to stand around glaring at him while they whined, making sure they didn't attack you or something with their laser eyes.

As mind boggling as it is for me that someone can try to play a to femboy peace wizard with laser eyes named MELOIDO, THE FLAMBOYANT, who removes peoples appendixes and expects people to sympathize with them irregardless of the harm they cause, what's more interesting to me is that you skated over several other incidents that came up in your medbay prior to this incident I ahelped you over. Two people, including the head of security, had their hands burned off in the process of doing their job with this person, and one officer was so horribly burned that he got husked for the rest of the round. These are fairly standard things that happen when handling wizard gear, but the fact that wizard gear destroys parts of your body for touching them does not make it the fault of the person picking it up by any logical standard IC. You can't bring antimatter armor that disintegrates people's hands on contact (even if you're just dragging it!) or books that set you on fire and give you third degree burns all over your body, onto a ship you invaded and claim that it was the security team's fault for removing it in the normal process of performing their duties. That is purely using OOC information to justify IC events. The wizard claimed in LOOC that they warned security not to touch their stuff, but they also ICly spent about 5 minutes doing nothing but repeatedly screaming "OFF!!" while they were handcuffed (It literally became spamming until we taped their mouth shut), so the wizard will have to forgive us for not treating them like a sane individual who warrants listening to.

Now, perhaps your medbay doesn't communicate with each other enough that you are aware that this person was a menace in between being sad and giving you doe eyes in medical, but the fact remains that you chose, as a head of staff with limited information at your disposal, not to seek further information on this matter, but rather to decide the entire command staff was corrupt and big meanieheads to this poor little boy (who I remind you, was acknowledged to have laser eyes, which was why they were ordered to be removed, not because 'it was convenient'). As a head of staff, you should be communicating with your fellow heads, not deciding that they are all wrong and untrustworthy on the word of a sociopathic intruder. You should have reported the accusations the wizard made against me and allowed the security team to investigate. As a head of staff, you are held to higher standards and can't just decide to side with an antagonist you just met minutes ago on a whim, because your actions have far greater impact on the round than a regular crew member. Instead, at this point you allowed a murder to happen in front of you, actively assisting it. Even if you claim that ICly you thought the detective was dead before you sawed them in half because they were blocking the door, you still handed over their ID to the wizard and proceeded to lie to the entire command staff about releasing the de-eyed wizard to security custody of the detective. Does the apparent prisoner abuse that horrified you so now warrant murder which you are obligated to conceal? How inconsistent does your logic have to be to follow this train of thought?

No, you did this because you knew what you were doing was wrong and you were trying to cover your own ass. You are not expected to be a perfect head of staff, but you are expected to be responsible.

And then you cryoed, before security could actually address what you had done upon finding that the wizard was running around, back in his armor again. That's the real clincher here for me, that you chose to do all this and lie to to command staff and then run away to hide OOC. You certainly showed up the next round at start, so I don't think you had to go or anything. You chose to avoid the consequences of your own IC actions, and now you want the OOC consequences removed too? The difference between this and antagonists who ghost instantly upon being captured by security is fairly trivial.

[Resilynn]

Hi there!

Detective in question here, to straighten out some of the facts you've misrepresented here. I did in fact strangle that wizard - the reasons for which are irrelevant to this thread -but I certainly was not strangling them when I arrived on with the head of security to deliver the to Gonzales, nor did I ever once mention their eyes being removed. Literally the sum of my actions towards them in medical were to stand around glaring at him while they whined, making sure they didn't attack you or something with their laser eyes.

As mind boggling as it is for me that someone can try to play a to femboy peace wizard with laser eyes named MELOIDO, THE FLAMBOYANT, who removes peoples appendixes and expects people to sympathize with them irregardless of the harm they cause, what's more interesting to me is that you skated over several other incidents that came up in your medbay prior to this incident I ahelped you over. Two people, including the head of security, had their hands burned off in the process of doing their job with this person, and one officer was so horribly burned that he got husked for the rest of the round. These are fairly standard things that happen when handling wizard gear, but the fact that wizard gear destroys parts of your body for touching them does not make it the fault of the person picking it up by any logical standard IC. You can't bring antimatter armor that disintegrates people's hands on contact (even if you're just dragging it!) or books that set you on fire and give you third degree burns all over your body, onto a ship you invaded and claim that it was the security team's fault for removing it in the normal process of performing their duties. That is purely using OOC information to justify IC events. The wizard claimed in LOOC that they warned security not to touch their stuff, but they also ICly spent about 5 minutes doing nothing but repeatedly screaming "OFF!!" while they were handcuffed (It literally became spamming until we taped their mouth shut), so the wizard will have to forgive us for not treating them like a sane individual who warrants listening to.

Now, perhaps your medbay doesn't communicate with each other enough that you are aware that this person was a menace in between being sad and giving you doe eyes in medical, but the fact remains that you chose, as a head of staff with limited information at your disposal, not to seek further information on this matter, but rather to decide the entire command staff was corrupt and big meanieheads to this poor little boy (who I remind you, was acknowledged to have laser eyes, which was why they were ordered to be removed, not because 'it was convenient'). As a head of staff, you should be communicating with your fellow heads, not deciding that they are all wrong and untrustworthy on the word of a sociopathic intruder. You should have reported the accusations the wizard made against me and allowed the security team to investigate. As a head of staff, you are held to higher standards and can't just decide to side with an antagonist you just met minutes ago on a whim, because your actions have far greater impact on the round than a regular crew member. Instead, at this point you allowed a murder to happen in front of you, actively assisting it. Even if you claim that ICly you thought the detective was dead before you sawed them in half because they were blocking the door, you still handed over their ID to the wizard and proceeded to lie to the entire command staff about releasing the de-eyed wizard to security custody of the detective. Does the apparent prisoner abuse that horrified you so now warrant murder which you are obligated to conceal? How inconsistent does your logic have to be to follow this train of thought?

No, you did this because you knew what you were doing was wrong and you were trying to cover your own ass. You are not expected to be a perfect head of staff, but you are expected to be responsible.

And then you cryoed, before security could actually address what you had done upon finding that the wizard was running around, back in his armor again. That's the real clincher here for me, that you chose to do all this and lie to to command staff and then run away to hide OOC. You certainly showed up the next round at start, so I don't think you had to go or anything. You chose to avoid the consequences of your own IC actions, and now you want the OOC consequences removed too? The difference between this and antagonists who ghost instantly upon being captured by security is fairly trivial.

 

Fernando assumed the burns were caused by doors. No one told him "I touched this persons stuff and was nearly killed."

I ahelped before cryoing and was told (by nursie, I think) that I could.

The rest of your argument is still that what my character did was wrong. I don't disagree. But the fact still remains that he was operating on too little information, that someone was brought in in crit, and that he was told to remove their eyes for convenience. I'm not saying that what Fernando did was okay, I'm saying that, given the context, it was still by the rules of conflict and playing a believable character.

[Winter404]

I played Fernando's pAI (SYNOW) during this incident.

I was with him for most of the round. From my perspective:

The wizard never seemed like much of a threat, like Resilynn said, they were described as a stowaway, not an intruder. So, you have this stowaway that seems harmless suddenly come into medbay choked severely by security, which caused them to receive brain damage from the lack of oxygen, and with the captain asking for their eyes to be removed. Fernando notes that the prisoner was clearly abused by security, the command staff shrug it off saying they'll investigate later (Altough, considering the other threats they were probably facing, this is understandable). While being healed, they are distressed by the member of the security team, and the wizard later claims it was them who choked them. All of these things build up and make it seem like this prisoner was being abused for no good reason. Neither Fernando or SYNOW ever witnessed the wizard or their stuff being a threat.

I'm not saying that what Fernando did is right, I am saying it's understandable. He was under pressure, judging by the state the prisoner came in, if security found out he hadn't removed their eyes or what happened to the detective, they'd probably kill the prisoner.

[VoltageHero]

An alarming issue I noticed you brought up early into the adminhelp, was that you stated you were partially motivated by OOC circumstances so that it would "create conflict". You should not be factoring in your IC actions based on your OOC relationship with the current round and taking into account what will "make the round more eventful". Now, this could have been a mere handwave as an attempt to look at both IC and OOC reasoning but this still doesn't devalue the fact that this was a factor in your actions.

Moving onto the actual statement, nobody is asking you to play a perfect character, but instead a realistic one. The issue with this being is that you are still held to a higher standard as a Head, and by creating conflict where you shouldn't be doing so creates a strange atmosphere for future players to attempt to mimic. As an example I pointed out to you, if the Research Director decided to run off with a patient from medical after believing they were being mistreated, this would not stand because it lacks a degree of realism. Intervening in a circumstance where you believe it is being mishandled would, from a professional standpoint, not include taking people and running off with them. Instead, as I mentioned, there were a lot of different ways to handle this professionally. You stated that you didn't want to create an IR report in regards to the situation, and that you alerted the command staff previously, but going off the logs you posted it seems like you only gave them a short statement about it being abuse. As you already mentioned, the round itself had been hectic and unless there's evidence of you trying to raise this issue with more depth to any of the Heads, it looks like you weren't doing much in the way of informing the Command staff of your qualms before your actions leading to the Wizard's escape. In fact, from your logs, it appears that the Head of Security was going to speak to the offender(s) after the fact, which further leads question in to why the Chief Medical Officer would take the approach they did.

As well, I consulted fellow staff during the leadup to the warning, in which it was determined that the actions weren't really fitting for someone in your position. While I understand your character isn't "perfect" and still has a personality, they should be less likely to just break under pressure and resort to drastic measures.

[Resilynn]

An alarming issue I noticed you brought up early into the adminhelp, was that you stated you were partially motivated by OOC circumstances so that it would "create conflict". You should not be factoring in your IC actions based on your OOC relationship with the current round and taking into account what will "make the round more eventful". Now, this could have been a mere handwave as an attempt to look at both IC and OOC reasoning but this still doesn't devalue the fact that this was a factor in your actions.

Moving onto the actual statement, nobody is asking you to play a perfect character, but instead a realistic one. The issue with this being is that you are still held to a higher standard as a Head, and by creating conflict where you shouldn't be doing so creates a strange atmosphere for future players to attempt to mimic. As an example I pointed out to you, if the Research Director decided to run off with a patient from medical after believing they were being mistreated, this would not stand because it lacks a degree of realism. Intervening in a circumstance where you believe it is being mishandled would, from a professional standpoint, not include taking people and running off with them. Instead, as I mentioned, there were a lot of different ways to handle this professionally. You stated that you didn't want to create an IR report in regards to the situation, and that you alerted the command staff previously, but going off the logs you posted it seems like you only gave them a short statement about it being abuse. As you already mentioned, the round itself had been hectic and unless there's evidence of you trying to raise this issue with more depth to any of the Heads, it looks like you weren't doing much in the way of informing the Command staff of your qualms before your actions leading to the Wizard's escape. In fact, from your logs, it appears that the Head of Security was going to speak to the offender(s) after the fact, which further leads question in to why the Chief Medical Officer would take the approach they did.

As well, I consulted fellow staff during the leadup to the warning, in which it was determined that the actions weren't really fitting for someone in your position. While I understand your character isn't "perfect" and still has a personality, they should be less likely to just break under pressure and resort to drastic measures.

 

Again, I don't think that what Fernando, the character, did was right. But I think it was reasonable for the character. Our rules are very specific about this. Moreover, I did not log my entire conversation with command, I logged the highlights. I really, really believe that you are confusing my in character breaking of regulations for an ooc breaking of rules.

As for the statement I made about my OOC motivations, basically, that I also released the wizard to facilitate the conflict in the round, it's true. I had sufficient IC motivation, sufficient lead up to the decision I made. I was motivated primarily by what Fernando had experienced that round, ICly. However, I also made a whitelist application for my position where I filled out a segment on how I had an OOC responsibility to help facilitate rounds. This is why, say, when I see a changeling is alive on my HuD and scanner, I claim the equipment is broken, even though Fernando prooobably wouldn't think all the equipment is broken. This is why when I see someone is consistently standing next to people taking suffocation damage on sensors, I don't immediately alert command about the vampire, I give them time to do something with their role.

But my IC motivation was, by far, the greatest motivator in this entire thing.

[Kaed]

Dude, it's a warning for you to improve your behavior, not a ban. Why don't you just take it under consideration for your future actions?

You are being told what you did wasn't acceptable so just.. work on it. Try to play a character that wouldn't disregard the rest of the command structure and station to Go It Alone. The whole disregarding the entire rest of the station for a private agenda is an antagonist thing. Doing things that create conflict To Make The Round More Interesting is an antagonist thing, barring very minor things.

This was not a minor thing.

[Lucifina-chan]

Resilynn is lying about why the wizard had his eyes removed. I played Security Cadet Lucille Banzarok. The reason Security had the wizard's eyes removed is because Melodio attacked a Security member with his laser eyes while he was in isolation, badly injuring him. I know this because I witnessed it first-hand. This is corroborated by the log excerpts Resilynn posted. The wizard didn't have his eyes removed "for convenience", the wizard had his eyes removed because they posed a threat to station security.

[Coalf]

It seems we gathered what information we could, tommorow we should deliver our final verdict if nothing comes into our way.

[Coalf]

Sorry it took longer than expected, timezones are a bitch.

Anyways, after a long discussion we have decided the warning is: Valid

While we agree that heads of staff CAN have emotions and stick to helping antags if it seems reasonable, however the way you went about it was frankly the part we found an issue with.

As a CMO you hold quite the amount of authority in your department and a simple "The Patient isn't ready to go back in security," basically completely shuts down any attempts at arrests security may pose on you, there were many ways you could have handled it and the way you chose to go about it was found by us as the non-desirable one.

Yes you are expected to give antagonists more leeway but what was described above was too much, the warning will stick.

However the warning WILL be reworded as we found issue with the fact HOW it happened and not that it DID happen.

Complaint will be locked and archived in 24 hours unless more proof surfaces.

[Itanimulli]

This is where I, the one playing the wizard, will interject.

Gonna use first person to avoid having to type the name over and over.

The only time I attacked anyone was while in the cell, and even then, the individual was wearing ablative armor and minimized the issue very quickly with a stun-cuff.

Besides that, I didn't personally remove anyone's appendix, and warned all of security several times, in front of a command member, to not touch anything. I was searched a total of three times, consecutively, that round, all of which made it apparent that security just didn't give a fuck about listening, and were determined to continually burn off their own hands or suffer the weird issues that come with touching wizard items, despite all of them having witnessed the relatively harmless appendix removal that occurred to the cadet.

On to the cadet, actually. The cadet wasn't a particularly good member of security that round. They decided to flash and cuff me mid-sentence for no discernible reason. Marwani yelled "She shot laser beams out of her eyes," when in fact I was simply showing off for the bartender, and did not harm anyone. I then proceeded to attempt to play the arcade game, lost the game, and shot the arcade machine, breaking it. Now, no one said anything about that. Only that "You've attacked the crew," when in fact, I did not.

There was also a fairly power/metagamey looc statement: "Should we remove his clothes?" that the same cadet made. In fact, if the cadet had not decided to disregard the fact that a warrant-less arrest can be replied to by speech, or at least an attempt to explain what was going on, the match would have gone completely different. In fact, so benign were my actions in the bar, that later on, Marwani ended up helping me out.

This is then followed by the third damn search of the round, in which two officers burn off hands on the exact same item. They then basically permabrig me, without explaining anything. I was told that I was being brought in for assault, and then asked who assaulted, and then they searched the bag, and upgraded it to attempted murder. All of these people were present for the entire scenario involving me warning people not to touch items in the bag, or the stuff I'd brought in general.

After this, I began to (irritatingly) protest my fate over coms, after which an officer decided to take said coms. I'm unsure why Aserok Guwan or whatever his name was had to come back into security for a second time, but whatever it was, I decided that the shenanigans of this solitary confinement had gone on long enough, and began to fire on him. He was outfitted in ablative armor and seemed to sustain barely any injury, though I could definitely be wrong here. I was fired back on, and promptly gave up at the first sign of pain, instead directing my focus on the badly burned chest I had incurred, rightfully so considering I'd fired first.

After this, I was sedated by medical, and was essentially not a threat any longer. While in a sedated, comatose state, the detective then came in, climbed onto the bed, and began to choke me out. I ahelped midway through this, because killing a sleeping prisoner seems a little ridiculous, especially when they'd taken so long to do it. Whatever happened (something about the HOS), they stopped, and dragged me all the way to medical. Didn't know that my eyes should be removed until later, mind you, because I was once more in a coma.

Fernando flipped out over being basically brought a prisoner that had nearly been choked to death, and would later learn that the one who brought me, was the one who tried to kill me. I then decided that maybe the one who'd induced these traumas shouldn't be following me around during a therapy session, and promptly flesh-to-stoned them. I was fading in and out of consciousness during this entire scenario in medical, and had nothing to eat, so I could not have broken past the detective on my own. Fernando's IC reasoning was that if I didn't escape, security would immediately, unquestionably kill me. Regardless, he had to saw past what he assumed to be a permanent statue, and I wasn't much help considering I couldn't hold items because of the damage the detective themselves had caused. Irony aside, the detective essentially forced Fernando to remove him, as he was in the way, and security was, in Fernando's eyes, a bunch of hyper-violent hooligans this time, because no one explained anything to them.

And so kaed's character died to his own antics, and they had the gall to claim they'd been removed from the round, when they'd just attempted the same to another character.

The cadets this round were essentially the forefront of idiocy, all ignoring the word of anyone else in the vicinity of the crimes they claimed to be arresting people for. The bartender vouched for me in the bar. Nope, cadet to save the day, woo-hoo, "You're a threat to the bar." Later on, Marwani explaining that she was perfectly fine and helping the wizard under her own free will. Nope, another cadet, this time aiming a gun and demanding my arrest when there was a blob I was supposed to be helping with.

For the record, Kaed's original excuses about Fernando's decisions after the round were that "OOCly you shouldn't be removing a character from the round, you're whitelisted and should know better," which forces me to assume that he was salty over dying to his own actions. He accused Fernando of self-antagging, which given the context of the situation, was completely false.

Apparently, none of command had any damn idea the detective had tried to kill me. And Kaed expressed oocly after the round that he was definitely going to choke me to death if not for the HoS's 'remove eyes' order. He also seemed to gloat about the fact that Fernando did get a warning.

[Flamingo]

Thank you for your input as the wizard in this situation, but at this time, it will not affect our decision on the complaint. Our issue doesn’t stem from them assisting you, but rather with how they went about it.

[Kaed]

-stuff-

 

You're seeing hypocrisy where it doesn't exist. My issue with my death was not that 'I died' but that 'the CMO directly assisted in murdering me'. Had he, for instance, looked the other way uncomfortably while you destroyed my statue, or even tried to elucidate that a cycle of vengeance helps nothing while not precisely stopping you, or something other than completely disregarding and blowing off the fact that someone literally was 'murdered' in front of him (aside from roleplaying to an empty room for about thirty seconds that he was concerned he had just killed someone, apparently as an afterthought, because at the time of my murder, he apparently was more concerned with removing me as an obstacle in the doorway than my ultimate fate), I probably would not have ahelped him. It's was his utter disregard for my character's life, as a person in charge of the department literally all about keeping people alive, that jived wrong with me.

[Flamingo]

Locking and archiving.