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Remove IPCs from Head of Staff / Command roles


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I can understand IPCs being good as base employees in highly specialized fields, but I cannot understand how a synthetic machine would ever be placed above an organic professional in a command position. Being specialized in a specific task would render it mostly unable to cope with complexities of the subordinates. They also technically not versatile enough to have an overall knowledge of the various subjobs within their departments, for CMO, CE and RD roles, for example.

They don't have the capacity and nuance to understand organic life, emotions, and general thought processes, thus, incapable to effectively manage a station which is largely comprised of organics. Never mind that no organic in their right mind would ever be completely fine with a machine being above them in the "social food chain". This is especially true for a HOS, HOP. Also, IAA cannot be IPC for some reason, so it's a bit incoherent.


AI are obvious exceptions to all this since they're there to manage station systems, not jobs. And SERVE the crew, on NT standard lawset.

Borgs can change their "knowledge base" according to their loaded module, which makes sense.


I find IPC heads a bit of a meme overall. Except maybe for a HOP, which is largely an administrative role, so it would make sense.

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Yeah, I'm all for this. No organic wants to be bossed around by a machine, especially the Skrell, and I don't think they really have the creativity to really work as RDs or the empathy to work as CMOs. As for IPC HoS, I don't think they'd form the same bonds with their subordinates as they would an organic, and with CEs I don't think folks would trust machines to make sure machines were fully functioning. I would imagine HoPs and IAAs to be a job that NT would assign them, since they're just data-crunching bureaucrats and administrators which would then send back the data to organics at the head office to then sort through, but that would give NT a cold face and be bad for public image.


Totally +1 to this, sorry toasters but it's gotta be done.

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The reason IPCs had gained so many roles in NT was due to past events and even a week long antagonist contest. Just outright removing them from the positions would just completely wipe all the work people have done just to remove those IPC players you feel are memeing in the roles. (Which, if you feel they are doing so, perhaps you should inform Cake or Kyres about them, or even Coalf and the Head of Staff whitelist teams, because that is definitely a whitelisting issue.)


One of the main reasons why IPCs have so many different options for head roles is because NT is trying to appease the Tau Ceti 'Progressive' mindset,


In addition to that, not all head-jobs require what you say they require, ya' know?


Chief Engineer really requires someone who can thing on the fly, and able to solve problems quickly.

IAA needs someone who is cold and isn't plagued by bias, something a cold-hard machine would more than be able to do

HoP and HoS need the ability to cordinate large amounts of people, and even the HoS is chipped with absolute loyalty much like the other loyalty implanted organic personal.

CMO needs someone who can handle situations quickly, in case of an emergency, I really don't understand the "Robots cannot feel empathy11!!11!", when in reality, all it would require is programming to fit something that is like empathy, but even empathy isn't a big part of the CMO slot, its being able to coordinate your team into one common goal.

RD is the same as that, its a Research Director, someone who directs a team.


I very much disagree with the outright removal of IPC heads of Staff, because its just brushing off months and months of roleplay and IC actions.


For some examples of the events that have taken place, just look at every policy change regarding IPC Heads of Staff.


https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=2981&start=80#p75377 <- The original start of the event, an attack from a rogue fleet trying to take Tau Ceti. Enslaving freed synthetics/etc. The next few articles are all what happened during the events of the Synthetic Canon Antag contest.


https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=2981&start=80#p75614 <- IPCs being awarded the highest honor for their assistance in saving President Dorn, among other things.

A quote from the news article itself

"Tau Ceti has become a beacon of liberty and hope for synthetic populations," Dorn said, "during the struggles synthetics fought and died for the virtues that we had taken for granted. These were not tools operating with programmed parameters, but fully conscious acts of selflessness. These synthetics show a new Synthetic Patriotism unique to Tau Ceti, and we must, going forward, truly commit to the ideals of liberty and fraternity. In our restored Republic we will be a true beacon of unity as we move forward with our many voices united in one purpose. We must, today onward, appreciate free synthetics and recognize that their freedom is not only an obligation, but an inherent right. If we are to go forward with a spirit of unity and purpose we must embrace one simple truth: We are all Besellites, and together we are strong."

 

https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=2981&start=100#p83008 <- The apointment of an actual Shell to be apart of President Dorns cabinet for 'Synthetic Relations'


And finally https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=2981&start=120#p93075 <- An agreement struck with Nanotrasen to loosen the restrictions of IPCs in the NT workplace.


To outright remove all heads of staff and bring them back to what they were in the past would just be retconning months and months of events and stories, just because you feel that some people are ruining the whitelist slot. There are good Synthetic Heads of Staff, but there are also bad ones, it may seem meme-y sometimes, but it was well fought for ICly and even OOCly."


Also if you don't like being bossed around by a toaster, bring it up ICly, make your character a member of ATLAS or something. Dispute their rank ICly, don't punish the playerbase OOCly.


Massive -1.

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I wouldn't say "organics might not like it" it the best basis for the argument, because it can be switched around too. Synthetic players are going to feel cheated if they can't play command at all, also regular humans might not like working under a Tajaran, IPCs might not like working under a Skrell/Unathi, anybody might not like working under a Vaurca (not that Vaurca heads are common by any means). It sounds much more like an IC issue and should be handled as such, in IC. No sense punishing an entire section of players that might be prospective command, or already command. And like it was said above, it'd be throwing a bunch of previously established RP in the bin


Huge -1

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I don't know whether I'm the one to dismiss this as it appears to be the OP asking that we restrict the jobs OOC, but I'm not supportive of it. There's now been history/lore establishing what the species can and cannot do within the system and the company. We have recently updated regulations to reflect the supposed discrimination that already exists. I don't think we need to target characters by barring them from command slots too.


We often brand ourselves as 'sci-fantasy' and it can at times be more valuable to a plot or narrative to just suspend your disbelief when it comes to hard realism. Or, like Strudes mentioned, make it an IC facet of your characters and promote the conflict it causes, rather than asking for a community-wide change.


Not sure if I can vote on this, so I'll hold off for now until I get an admin's clarification.

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Guest Marlon Phoenix

We had an ambitious living-universe arc that involved a lot of events on the station as well as within the greater universe who's purpose was to either expand or restrict the rights of IPCs within Tau Ceti.


The pro-IPC bloc succeeded and that lead to the chain of events to where we are now.


While having a reactionary movement erase the progressive advances made through these events might be "realistic", it would definitely be extremely mean spirited. I'm not very interested in retconning the current status of IPC's when it was an important part of Aurora's history and culture that got us here.

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I was a staunch anti-synth actor throughout the contest, and while the results weren't concrete and had some arbitration in play, it was decided and settled with much debate in spring 2017. While a reversal isn't impossible in the fiction of the setting, it would be wrong to pull a full reversal of a monumental moment in the server's lore history. Players arguably earned it, and it would be a raw deal to snatch it away. I think good judgement in analyzing the various results of the,contest were used, and the current status of IPCs is legitimate.

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Also just to note, IPCs can be IAA, it was agreed upon a while ago, not sure why it wasn't added to the Wiki. I fought hard for those IPC paperpushers smh.

 

Local Mod doesn't actually read the wiki and we totally made no edits to it after your post nope none

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And to add some relevance, I don't think those positions are beyond the reach of a purpose-made machine. If you see one floating around trying to do too much beyond what is expected of its role, that seems more like a character issue to be settled by the lore devs or admins.

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I don't want to limit characters OOC, this is something I saw as ICLY nonsensensical.

But I had no idea that there was an entire IPC arc within the lore.

In which case, yeah, I don't think there's much to do about it except ICLY anti-synth. But even so, you can only be so to an extent, no company would keep an employee that was against its policies.


The thing is, this is not a complaint on IPC players at all. There is no reason to bring IPC-players it up with loredevs if the lore for this has been established. Except maybe in cases that players are obviously out of line with the lore.


I guess from lack of previous lore information, IPC heads never made sense to me.


In which case, I guess you can disregard this entire thread.

(Unless the lore pulls a 180 and removes synths from command 0w0. Would just cause them to be demoted at most tbh. )

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