Investigations And Character Removals - [CANCELLED]

Hivefleetchicken, the overseer of the Tajara species, has developed a new system of warning and punishment for Tajara characters who's behavior break beyond the level of what I call "reasonable deviancy" for characters of a whitelisted race. I have historically been against whitelist removals right off the bat but the lore overseers have little to no other means of taking administrative action for the whitelists themselves, unlike head of staff whitelists which have supporting mechanics for player notes and admin intervention before Tishinastalker brings the hammer down. Species whitelists have historically been removed less liberally than head of staff whitelists by virtue of my own policy and philosophy rather than a greater inherent right to keep them in comparison to Head whitelists.

With that in mind, Hivefleet has conducted a new form of player warnings and character removals that so far has the support of myself, the lore team, and members of administration. It has the following steps:

 

• If Hive or myself receive logs or transcripts from admins, mods, or players, Hive (or another member of staff) uses that as reason to hover around the reported characters and gather IC evidence of whitelist breaking behavior. Anyone can doctor logs or abuse context so there will always be a followup investigation.
   
  
• If the Tajara characters are engaging in whitelist breaking behaviors Hivefleetchicken then sends them an IC themed forum PM from the kitty KGB that effectively tells them to cut it out and report back to Adhomai for a screening and manual labor. The player is given a week to respond to the PM. "Humanitization" is an IC psychiatric term the Tajara use to describe the phenomenon of Tajara "breaking the lore" when staying in human space.
   
  
• After responding to the message the Tajara player must talk with Hivefleetchicken about the characters offenses OOC over forum PM's, byond pager, discord, or some other messaging system that Hive is available with. If Hive is unable to be reached then typically you can also talk to myself. All these investigations are vetted through myself and at least one admin and the CCIA leader.
   
  
• After discussing with Hive the issues, if you come to an agreement, your character will be unable to be played for a length of time determined by Hive. Typically this is only a few days.

This represents your character going through a lengthy and intensive journey through rehabilitation or criminal justice. Your character is expected to change the mannerisms that lead them to being reported. Your character can hate it and become a defector but the bottom line is that the behavior must stop if you wish for the punishment to end here. This is the end of the road for players that respond to this system in good faith and they can continue to play unobstructed with a harrowing experience with the bad side of our IC governments.

 

• If you ignore the messages, or if you brazenly and openly renounce your citizenship of Adhomai or otherwise flaunt the system, CCIA and administration will be contacted and your character will eventually be taken off-station during a standard shift by People's Republic and Biesel authorities with CCIA clearance. If it reaches this point it is extremely likely that your character will be permanently removed from play. At this point it will usually be clear that there is no good faith for self-improvement. Even if your character isn't a citizen of the PRA, Biesel and NanoTrasen consider all Tajara as either immigrants (PRA citizens) or refugees (non-PRA Tajara), and your Tajara can be deported if the PRA asks and has a valid reason. Even if you were born off-station and never stepped foot on Adhomai in your life, the PRA has claim over you. That is why it's in your characters best interest to avoid their notice through bizarre conduct, which this system helps represent.

 

I have to stress again that it is the single character being removed from play. If it reaches this point then the only other alternative is a complete whitelist strip and removal of your ability to play the race entirely until you reapply. This system is a step before a full whitelist strip and, if responded to in good faith, is a semi-IC form of a player warning in a way that is hoped to be more responsive and immersive than suddenly losing all of your Tajara characters.

The nature of Tajara society, and the level of these issues being higher than with other species, means that currently this system is only done with Tajara. However if it is successful it is possible that we roll out similar methods of dealing with certain characters breaking whitelist expectations regardless of race through whatever means make sense for that particular race.

This thread isn't locked, by the way. If you have questions or comments you can post them here.

If a character is reported as being part/supporting the Liberation Army or the New Kingdom, with reliable evidence, is everything skipped to the kitty police coming on the station and taking them away?

Unless they are hunted by antags wanting to do that then no. That would be if they repeatedly and openly scream "FUCK THE HADII" on public comms or something similar.

Unless they are hunted by antags wanting to do that then no. That would be if they repeatedly and openly scream "FUCK THE HADII" on public comms or something similar.

Well I mean, what'd happen instead? I have some doubts that treasonous Tajara'd receive the re-education that the deviants get, doesn't really seem like something that'd work, idunno.

Fire my famist of fams, this is a punishment tool for bad roleplay. I'm guessing if you roleplayed a traitor/deviant properly it'd roll out as discussed between the player and the lore dev.

Fire my famist of fams, this is a punishment tool for bad roleplay. I'm guessing if you roleplayed a traitor/deviant properly it'd roll out as discussed between the player and the lore dev.

I 'spose, I actually want to get taken away by the kitty police as a result of someone else seeing me pulling treasonous shit at some point though.

Just not the same if the character doesn't show up one day because I arbitrarily decided someone found out, s'not the same at all.

Fire my famist of fams, this is a punishment tool for bad roleplay. I'm guessing if you roleplayed a traitor/deviant properly it'd roll out as discussed between the player and the lore dev.

I 'spose, I actually want to get taken away by the kitty police as a result of someone else seeing me pulling treasonous shit at some point though.

Just not the same if the character doesn't show up one day because I arbitrarily decided someone found out, s'not the same at all.

 

You could probably work that out with CCIA/Hive.

What level does the station and it's heads of staff have to information about this ic punishment?

How can you become part of the kitty police?

How can you become part of the kitty police?

Grab a recorder, camera, and other such things, record deviant behavior, send it to Hive.

If you wanted to be an actual undercover agent, then I 'spose you would work something out with Hive, but it's snowflake and I wouldn't expect much traction there.

 

Hey guys this is hiveo dropping in to answer some questions!!!!!

This is just a system for breaking lore like a prick, if you're a tasteful rebel and all you don't need to get arrested for it. You CAN if you want, though, but it's permadeath and won't be a theatrical station raid like with the real deviants. Instead probably just a news cast on the forums.

Tainted, NT is an unethical megacorporation with a monopoly on the politics, economy, and workers of Tau Ceti. That said, they aren't overtly evil. THAT said, the higher ups of NT (CCIA and higher, maybe some captains) aware aware that NanoTrasen sells out records and workers to the PRA to help the cooperation of the two superpowers.

NT is totally in on it, and thus all the executives below it are (Central Command higher ups, Biesel Feds, etc).

Captains (like Sam Lowe, ayy) probably would be able to request the assistance or guidance of a PRA agent alongside CCIA agents during an investigation where deportation is a possibility. Hope that makes sense haha I'm typing on a phone

AND FINALLY, I mostly just allow lore guys to be secret police in the way that they know exactly what I'm looking for and send me the bad shit they find as IC normal catbeasts or humans before I send myself or jackboot or an admin in in as an investigator with admin/CCIA approval to passively keep an eye out and see if the behavior is really that visible and obvious and distasteful.

Unfortunately this initiative, after its bungled execution, did not manage to recover. Despite the involvement of several members of administration and CCIA there was a clear lack of personal communication between those involved and the targeted players involved. The OOC communication with the players that was meant to follow never materialized, and the forum PMs from these players were not responded to. In addition, despite the announcement asking them to, no players forwarded any messages to Hive that he missed to me.

Dealing with whitelist expectations in an IC manner has always been a lowkey goal of mine, but it's clear that this method isn't effective nor welcomed.

In the face of poor whitelist conduct, we are reverting to the old system and standards will be enforced OOC. Standards will be communicated clearly and we will clearly communicate what behavior is causing poor Tajara play so we can work on improving your Tajara play. If the behavior continues after a talk on these standards then your whitelist will be removed and you will have to reapply.