[Resolved] Character Complaint - Manfred Hayden/Nikov

BYOND Key: Kaedwuff

Game ID: bTz-abiS

Player Byond Key: [mention]Nikov[/mention]

Staff involved: N/A,

Reason for complaint:

In short summary, Manfred Hayden deliberately interfered with resolving a malfunctioning AI situation as a CE, refusing to do anything to stop it, allowing several command staff members to be killed, and actively assisting the AI in murdering one of them, either by gross negligence or actual maliciousness.

For a longer explanation, the AI in this round was going with the gimmick that was about it really being a little boy that was forcibly turned into an AI. It wasn't a bad gimmick, and I didn't have a specific problem with it. Some people were dubious about it, and others were really into the idea that NT were horrible monsters.

The problem here was that Manfred Hayden decided to join in the role specifically empowered to resolve a malfunctioning AI situation. Rather than doing that, he spent ages pussyfooting around the matter, trying to be gentle with the 'little boy', while said AI continued to blow up parts of the station, and threatened to self destruct the entire place by activating delta. At one point, this AI actually killed the captain by exploding something and venting him out into space. Me and the RD came to the determination after this that the AI needed to die.

When I went to discuss this with the CE, I found that he was still acting like the AI was a poor sweet innocent child, and I attempted to talk some sense into him by reminding him what the AI had been doing. Instead of doing his job and protecting the station from a murderous AI, he dragged me into a secluded room under the guide of 'playing along' like he had some sort of plan, whereupon I was bolted in and the room was exploded by the AI.

Even after all this, he continued to try and drag the AI to safety or something, and got the nun he was with (and possibly himself) all killed by leading them and the AI into a hole in the station floor where they were all lost in space.

This kind of behavior is not the sort of thing that anyone who is playing a Chief Engineer, or really, any head of staff, should be displaying. Putting the safety of their coworkers and subordinates and the station they are supposed to be protection below the well-being of a malfunctioning AI is completely irresponsible, no matter what the flavor of the round was. So was is disregarding the orders of the captain on the word of the same AI who is actively killing people.

Did you attempt to adminhelp the issue at the time? If so, what was the known action taken by administration/moderation? This issue was not addressed in ahelp as it was round end and I did not know if the player in question was an antag until round end. (they were not)

Approximate Date/Time: 3/25/2018

I could have sworn sending the nun into the core to comfort the little boy was your idea. since she came in with you and with the intellicard. I could have sworn we were going about a different sort of malf AI round than 'oh no blue APCs emitter the core'. I could have sworn a lot of people were commenting how the round gimmick was an interesting twist. So, yeah. If the little boy AI is going to nuke the whole place and kill everyone unless you talk him down from it... Manfred's totally in character to try and talk him down from it. Especially as you brought the nun down to Manfred and the AI in what can only be described as a specific effort to talk the AI down from killing everyone.

The mind boggles.

https://pastebin.com/nQQeXGWM

It was not my idea, and I thought it was a terrible idea. The IAAs thought it was a terrible idea. This was a dream the captain came up with and pushed on us.

My character was an unathi. He never for once believed that this AI was anything other than a malfunctioning machine, or at best (worst?) the imperfect image of a dead child that needed to be destroyed for being a horrible abomination.

I went along with it primarily because the captain told me to maintain the facade for the benefit of getting to the AI. And because he is the captain, and you're supposed to follow his lead.

The captain knew this. The RD knew this. You are apparently somehow only person in command that somehow thought that we were all seriously playing counsel the psychotic child-machine while it tried to murder us. Maybe if it had actually stopped the murder spree, it would have make sense.

But you tried several methods to handle it safely. You tried to card it. You attempted to talk it down. And it continued to murder people anyway. And at this point you went well past reason and allowed it to murder people for the sake of preserving it's silly gimmick. You HELPED it do this by being complicit to it's childish demands, and personally let the nun die because I guess you were too coddling the mass murderer AI to pay attention to your surroundings. and you all fell down a pit caused by the explosion the AI made killing me.

I was planning to shoot the AI to death right there in the room, after the captain was killed by it. I had a gun and everything. But when you whispered to me to play along, I assumed you had an actual PLAN beyond 'keep pretending this child AI thing is was real', and tried to let you have your way. It got me killed, and you took zero further steps in response to this. Or in response to it killing a fellow human, if you want to play the racism card.

The narrative of the round's AI is NOT a reason to let it just murder people senselessly under the guise of being a scared child. Some of the people it killed did nothing more wrong than try to get on an escape pod, or accuse it of murder. At which point it murdered THEM. For being a 'meanie'. You are a head of staff. You are supposed to have a responsibility to the station and the crew inside it. Maybe a non-whitelisted player like that nun could get away with acting this way, but you are supposed to behave in a manner that shows your character can be trusted with responsibility for people's lives.

You did not.

Imagine for a moment that you follow the narrative this story beyond it being a self contained round with no lasting consequences. What do you think would have happened to Hayden after he was recovered by Nanotrasen, probably floating in space? After allowing the captain, another head, and a civilian to die? After losing the very AI that he let so much be sacrificed for? It sounds like you went into this with the strict mentality that this is 'just an malf round with an interesting gimmick' and all you thought about was playing along with it, not considering your character's career, or the lives of any other person in the round. Is that how Hayden thinks about other people? Why would he be in a command position if he does not value the lives of other people and allows them to be killed for the sake of wanting to save a machine that claims to be a child?

You probably should have whispered something to me at some point, if that was your plan. This is what the Captain's wishes were to me.

The Captain and I talking to the AI through a holopad...

A holographic image of Robbie Culling flicks to life right before your eyes!

[Common] Edgar Dawnguard stammers, "AI Up-p-pl-load acc-c-ces-s-ss-s"

Manfred Hayden says, "Hi Robbie."

[Common] Edgar Dawnguard stutters, "I'm-m b-bol-lt-ted-d-d in-n"

Robbie Culling declares, "YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS, EVIE WAS MY ONLY FRIEND!"

[Common] Edgar Dawnguard stutters, "T-Too m-muc-ch-h b-bl-l-lood-d."

[Common] Edgar Singh says, "Robbie its gonna be ok"

Priority Announcement

Attention crew, to clarify, the cyborg EVE was locked down for attempting to kill Director Dawnguard.

-Casimir Fontaine (Captain)

Manfred Hayden says, "Listen kid. I didn't hurt Evie."

Robbie Culling states, "I-i'll KILL YOU"

[Common] Lilium Argentium asks, "W-what...?"

Manfred Hayden says, "Neither of us did."

[Command] Ickthar Slithiss asks, "Captain, are you alright?"

Robbie Culling declares, "Activate your suit, Manny!"

Casimir Fontaine yells, "Robbie, EVE was trying to kill dawnguard!"

Manfred Hayden says, "In fact, I want to hurt the people who are hurting you."

Casimir Fontaine says, "We all do."

Robbie Culling declares, "Dawnguard brought a gun into my hiding spot!"

Manfred Hayden asks, "Did you have an older brother?"

Robbie Culling declares, "He was a mean man!"

[Common] Edgar Dawnguard stutters, "M-Med-dic-cal, en-n-ng-g-g-gineer-r-ring-g-g-g, h-h-h-how c-c-c-cl-los-se ar-re y-you?"

[Common] Casimir Fontaine says, "Chaplain, get to the bridge."

Casimir Fontaine talks into the captain's headset

Casimir Fontaine says, "Chaplain, get to the bridge."

[Common] Rez Adesida says, "They can't get through the doors, Dawnguard."

[Common] Edgar Dawnguard stammers, "Too m-muc-ch-h b-bl-l-l-lood-d ev-ver-r-r-ry-yw-wh-her-r-re."

[Common] Ali Holmes says, "The paramedic should be there."

Robbie Culling states, "No, I was mommy's only kid... She told me, I was her special one because she couldn't have kids before me1"

[Common] Monna Fisher says, "AI, I'm unarmed and I can't really hurt you"

[Command] Rez Adesida says, "Captain, we need you to let EMS access the AI upload. I can't let them."

[Common] Johnny Flux asks, "Is this one of those horror stations? That people pay to go to get scared?"

[Common] Monna Fisher says, "Let me in"

Manfred Hayden says, "Your mother was the world to you too, wasn't she."

Radio transmissions...

[Common] Casimir Fontaine says, "Jamison-Johnson, stand down. We are not harming the boy."

More, now in the core...

[Command] Casimir Fontaine says, "We have asked the Mother Reverend to calm down the poor boy."

[Common] Adrian Jamison-Johnson says, "I also think we should first be concerned with our safety."

Manfred Hayden asks, "You do have the card, right Slithiss?"

I personally let the nun die? I slipped and fell down a Z level. I never saw what happened next. I never figured out what happened to the nun, even though I looked for her. Hell, following the crowbar'd doors, I was assuming the cyborg got her to safety. My efforts were, the whole time, to play the scene. Manfred recognized this ten year old kid had a nuclear bomb over all his friends, that his career was somewhat less important than his and their lives, and that if the ten year old kid wants to put the gun-wielding HOP who's angling to kill him in violation of the Captain's perceived, if late, wishes... well, put him in time out.

You died in the last ten minutes of an AI round because, although you were angling to stab it in the back, you got yourself stabbed. Its like we play a game about paranoia, mixed loyalty and betrayal. Manfred isn't loyalty implanted and if Nanotrasen is demonstrably cutting the brains out of little kids and shooting their mothers over the radio... I'm breaking character to -not- side with the victim of the dystopian grimdark corporation.

Besides, I've been warned and scolded and even banned for being too aggressive against AI's. Here's one clearly playing a scene you can talk your way through. What an opportunity for us to talk our way through it, not whip out a pistol like you planned and just cold-cock murder it in a conversation.

Shit, its like I was on an HRP server where a malf AI got solved by something other than an emitter to the core.

You died in the last ten minutes of an AI round because, although you were angling to stab it in the back, you got yourself stabbed. Its like we play a game about paranoia, mixed loyalty and betrayal. Manfred isn't loyalty implanted and if Nanotrasen is demonstrably cutting the brains out of little kids and shooting their mothers over the radio... I'm breaking character to -not- side with the victim of the dystopian grimdark corporation.

Besides, I've been warned and scolded and even banned for being too aggressive against AI's. Here's one clearly playing a scene you can talk your way through. What an opportunity for us to talk our way through it, not whip out a pistol like you planned and just cold-cock murder it in a conversation.

Shit, its like I was on an HRP server where a malf AI got solved by something other than an emitter to the core.

???????????

Nothing got resolved, you just fumbled around and played along with it while the rest of us were trying to stop it from destroying the station and dying! Talking it out didn't work, but you kept trying and trying, while people died around you!

You didn't even save the station doing this. Everyone evacuated the station while you and the nun offered it warm cuddles and soothing words as it continued to off everyone that upset it. Which you seemed to unilaterally excuse and ignore. I don't think I even saw you once tell it to stop after it killed the captain, you just muttered that the captain deserved it. Then you lost it in space.

I can't backstab something that I was expecting to have to kill in the first place, because it was a murderous monster. I'm not mad at the AI for killing me, that was a perfectly logical action for it to do based on it's narrative. It was you letting people die and helping it do it by inaction. This is complaint is about you. I didn't tell you my plan because I assumed, like the rest of the damned command staff, you were working for the same goal as us. There may have been miscommunications, but it boggles me that you would ever think this was the direction we were going to go. Did you think that being told you were too aggressive meant you should try and throw everyone else under the bus for what amounts to ChairRP with an AI?

If a frightened child is holding a gun and running around shooting people, you don't just let it keep shooting people, you take the child's gun away. Or somehow otherwise stop the child from hurting anyone else, instead of just telling it to calm down repeatedly while it nods agreeably and continues to cap people during the conversation. Your character should have known perfectly well as a CE it is possible to recover an AI after disabling it's core by carding it, but you acted like it was a real, normal human child that you had to protect at all costs, including other people's lives. It wouldn't have even been killing them, because they are already dead, and imprinted on a machine, which was the whole point of their narrative.

Is the head of personnel trying to protect his crew some kind of corporate shill that deserves to die? Does the rest of the crew deserve to die for working for the company that supposedly did this? Is the captain trying to defend his station a villain just because he is loyalty implanted, even though he never made the decision to do this to a child?

It is simply nonsensical to treat someone and violently actively killing people as purely a victim in need of protection, even if you did buy the child narrative.

[mention]Flamingo[/mention] and I will be handling this complaint, We'll go through the logs provided along with server logs, and might have to talk to some of the people involved to get other points of view.

I thought this was an event. I saw this rogue ai Gimmick pretty much exactly the same previously, and the centcomm anouncements make it seem more like an event than just a fuckoff ai gimmick.

Either way, The chief engineer, assisting the AI in killing people? I haven't seen much of the CE that round, honestly, But a head of staff really shouldn't be assisting a child ai's Temper tantrum like that

Contributions to a player complaint thread should be things you saw, not accepting the premise of a complaint, presuming it correct with no supporting evidence, and then contributing gossip. Otherwise any baseless accusation would be accepted as fact.

My takeaway is that you thought the AI gimmick was event-quality. It certainly was.

As the AI that round, I was incredibly unstable and people that were threatening me or being hostile towards be were being harmed. I can understand why anyone, even the CE - would want to stay on my good side.

Personal preservation > Other people.

This'll probably be my only contribution but it was refreshing to not see a CE instantly rush to blow a hole above me or disconnect my power.

As the AI that round, I was incredibly unstable and people that were threatening me or being hostile towards be were being harmed. I can understand why anyone, even the CE - would want to stay on my good side.

Personal preservation > Other people.

This'll probably be my only contribution but it was refreshing to not see a CE instantly rush to blow a hole above me or disconnect my power.

Yes, it's good for you, because it benefited you in killing everyone who bothered you. But this wasn't about preserving his life, because he could have easily disabled you at any time he wanted to. He even unbolted you from the floor and was taking you outside, away from your turrets (which, incidentally, would probably have hit you if you turned them on, since you were in the center of the room, and you were already partly crushed from when you closed blast doors on yourself).

This was solely about this inability to prioritize the lives of other people over your child AI. In my opinion, it was hardly refreshing at all so much as self-antagonizing himself to ally with you over the rest of the crew. Technically speaking, he didn't even have to destroy you - he could have just taken a firmer hand and acted like a parental figure and shown some discipline towards you, instead of just coddling you and letting you do whatever you wanted.

After going through the relevant logs, [mention]DatBerry[/mention] and I have come to the conclusion that overall [mention]Nikov[/mention]'s actions were justified. The logs revealed that during his playtime as CE, he was trying to speak to the AI, rather than just killing it, and by the time killing the AI was justified, there was a borg, as well as the turrets inside the core. That said, our review of the logs surfaced some questionable incidents by Nikov. While self-preservation is indeed a high priority, and he played that understandably, we were a bit concerned by his reactions to the Captain's death, as well as his handling of the Head of Personnel. Specifically, when he threw them for "time-out", and his reaction after the AI exploded him was to laugh and tell the ai that causing people to explode kills them. As such, we would like to ask Nikov his thoughts on the matter, and what led him to react in the way that he did?

The laugh was at the absurdity and the stress of it. I was hoping to explain to said 10 year old kid with godlike powers that killing people is wrong and isn't able to be justified when the people he's killing has nothing to do with his mother's death. But the ball kept rolling, so there wasn't a chance to get into a moral debate with the AI.

Look, I might have some outside inspiration about how to deal with a homicidal, all-powerful child.

I was playing something other than the hero for a round while still being its active participant and in-character, and I'm surprised it is causing me so much grief.

Oh my God, you can't reference Twilight zones weird godchild to justify this. The ai is not a god, and you were the only person on this station in that room who was trained to know that the AI is not a God and how to disable it.

That episode was terrifying because no one understood how to deal with a god-like child. They didn't have EMP cannons or lasers or intricate knowledge of the workings of this child's abilities, and most of them actively hated the child and did not feel sorry for him at all they were just afraid of him. Even for the people who aren't the chief engineer or research director, they don't think the AI has god-like abilities. The AI can't make them die by wishing it, the most he can do is a vent to room or slam a door on them or shock them. Everyone is keenly aware of that.

You instead chose to throw that all of your jobs expected training the garbage and let people die so that you could get roleplay in, so that you could pretend that you we're afraid for a child's life when he was trying to murder people. You are essentially trying to tell me this whole thread that the AI deserves to do all this because he had an interesting gimmick, and that just going and killing him would have ended the route and not been fun.

And then you laughed at the people who died, which would make sense I guess if you were trying to roll with being afraid of the AI, but then why would you do things like tell me (the head of personnel) that the captain 'deserved to die from what you heard.'?

If I had told you my plan to shoot the AI to death, would you have played along? Or would you have disarmed me the moment I started shooting on him because you want to protect the poor innocent child? Because from how you were behaving, it feels like you would have done that, and that's not self-preservation that's sabotage.

What you did to me was sabotage me as a non antag, and I'm curious to know your logic beyond 'muh rps'.

And to [mention]DatBerry[/mention] and [mention]Flamingo[/mention]. How can you declare these actions to be justified? When we sign up to be whitelisted, we are agreeing to play a role where we accept more responsibility to the station. All of us are expected to act like heads of staff, not like an average crew member, and letting our fake IC empathy for the AI's gimmick of the round stop us from doing it is failing to uphold the standards you were whitelisted for, especially when you allow multiple people to die for very shaky reasons involving 'wanting to talk t.o the antagonist'. If heads of staff can just behave like any random civilian in the face of a crisis, what separates them other than some pretend authority and extra access? Heads of staff need to be held accountable for their actions in round, especially when they cross the boundry of what is sensible. People are supposed to be able to rely on a head of staff to do their job, rather than just stop doing it because 'muh rps'.

If a Head of Security told his team to stand down so he could follow around a wizard, chatting to with them amiably while they fireballed crew members, people would be upset with that HoS and I'm pretty sure their whitelist would be pulled. If the CMO declined to call security or act when they found their virologist was sucking people's blood and wanted to unleash a plague on the station, because they were IC friends, I don't that would fly with anyone. Somehow this behavior though is justified, though? Hayden had a clear responsibility to the station and was well within his duties to resolve the AI in some way, but he declined to, because he insisted he 'wasn't going to be a hero this round'

I seem to recall heaving before that Manfred Hayden does not care for synthetics. It's possible I misremembered his characterization, but either way. Not once did I ever hear him speak a bad word about this AI. Not after it injured the RD with one of it's borgs. Not after it exploded the captain. Not after it threatened to blow up the station. Not after it blew me into a pile of guts. Not once, did I ever hear him express a single emotion other than 'the poor AI, how awful NT is for doing this.' Not even disgust at the things he had allowed to happen by inaction. He took a single initial reaction to a situation and ran that reaction into the ground for the entire round, not reacting to anything the AI did, anything it said, how many people were hurt or killed by it. His actions were entirely one-dimensional and undynamic, apparently because he was insistent on 'not being a hero' this round.

Well, that's swell. Except that people don't act like that. He didn't need to be a hero to be human, he needed to act like something other than a robot preprogrammed with his own self-gimmick of not harming the malf AI and trying to talk to it. He needed to have actual empathy and emotions for more than a single individual in the round. If he was insistent on not being a hero, he could have left the AI alone and told it what a monster it was, or a 'bad bad boy', or SOMETHING it was over comms, for instance, that would have been a reasonable response to the things it was doing. Or he could have yanked the batteries out of it's APCs, shutting down its turrets and putting it in a position to not be so in control, without killing it.

Instead, at the end of the round, his last actions were to try and rescue it, managing to convince it to let it be dragged out of the safety or turret range. I even remember him saying over end of round OOC that something along the lines of 'If you think I'm going to sacrifice a child over a filthy ligger-", so it sounds to me like saving the AI was the only thing his character actually cared about that round.

Well, that Twilight Zone episode was featured in a recent Andrew Klavan Show segment "Stuff I Like" which I happen to listen to almost daily.

Mark Zuckerberg and the New Cornfield

BY ANDREW KLAVAN MARCH 16, 2018 CHAT 185 COMMENTS

"It's a Good Life" is widely considered one of the greatest episodes of The Twilight Zone. It tells the story of a six-year-old boy named Anthony who has extraordinary mental powers. In his efforts to protect himself from anything that disturbs him, he has isolated his little town of Peaksville, Ohio, from the outside world. Any person, thing or idea he finds discordant he destroys and then banishes into an esoteric nowhere he calls "the cornfield." As a result, the surviving adults around him live in terror of expressing an unpleasant thought. Anthony, who can never be taught or disciplined, has no sense of right and wrong and can't understand why no one will play with him. Whatever he does, no matter how destructive, the grown-ups have to reassure him: "It's good, Anthony. It's good."

So that was the 16th of this month. Nine days later, this little event happens. Six days later, we're still here.

I will answer the direct questions of the moderating powers. If I haven't covered something. I'm not going to defend against every accusation leveled against me, only those said moderators deem important. I suspect nothing I say will satisfy Kaed as he saw fit to raise this thread when I wanted to discuss the matter after the round initially.

Kaed, I was the Research Director Dawnguard that round.

Two Things,

First thing,

I will 100% Stand with Nikov on his actions, they were justified for not killing the AI. The Research Director and the Chief Engineer are both suppose to work on any AI stuff, and even Edgar didn't want to kill him. ICly it was a terrible situation and we were all angry at NT over it and wanted to make sure the AI was calm and safe.

Second thing,

The roles of head of staff aren't to murder any antags you see, but the continue the RP from one to another. To make sure that everyone is RPing where they can and to give Antags the RP they wanted. We tried our best to RP with the antag. And IMO that was one of the best RP Malf rounds I have done ever.

Kaed, I was the Research Director Dawnguard that round.

Two Things,

First thing,

I will 100% Stand with Nikov on his actions, they were justified for not killing the AI. The Research Director and the Chief Engineer are both suppose to work on any AI stuff, and even Edgar didn't want to kill him. ICly it was a terrible situation and we were all angry at NT over it and wanted to make sure the AI was calm and safe.

Second thing,

The roles of head of staff aren't to murder any antags you see, but the continue the RP from one to another. To make sure that everyone is RPing where they can and to give Antags the RP they wanted. We tried our best to RP with the antag. And IMO that was one of the best RP Malf rounds I have done ever.

Just because I wanted to kill it doesn't mean that was the only route to take. I've been spending this entire thread pointing out alternatives that Nikov completely ignored that could have protected the crew without killing it so he could stand around coddling the murderous AI. I know he knows these things before I mentioned, because he's admitted earlier to being warned for being overly aggressive against malf AIs before. He just did none of them.

But standing around talking to it and trying to make it feel calm while it murdered people and doing nothing to prevent it was almost self-antagging imo. Nor did anyone try to catch onto how silly and stupid some of the fake announcements were, they just ate it all up, yum yum. (Why would NT have brought his mother in just to execute with the broadcasting radio on? How did they even get here there in the span of an hour? The whole 'woops I left the recorder light on' gag already happened earlier in the round, why didn't anyone question it happening again? These were all things I would have brought up after killing the AI, had I not been dragged away to be executed by it, but that's largely moot.)

For the record though, I found the round to be tiresome and cliched. I don't like it when players make their characters act vulnerable and whimpery, and I felt very little sympathy for the increasingly hamfisted attempts the AI made to tug on our heartstrings. I will admit the gimmick was somewhat unique, but I was tired of it after about a half hour of listening to everyone gasp in shock and accusation nonstop.

Kaed, I was the Research Director Dawnguard that round.

Two Things,

First thing,

I will 100% Stand with Nikov on his actions, they were justified for not killing the AI. The Research Director and the Chief Engineer are both suppose to work on any AI stuff, and even Edgar didn't want to kill him. ICly it was a terrible situation and we were all angry at NT over it and wanted to make sure the AI was calm and safe.

Second thing,

The roles of head of staff aren't to murder any antags you see, but the continue the RP from one to another. To make sure that everyone is RPing where they can and to give Antags the RP they wanted. We tried our best to RP with the antag. And IMO that was one of the best RP Malf rounds I have done ever.

 

Just because I wanted to kill it doesn't mean that was the only route to take. I've been spending this entire thread pointing out alternatives that Nikov completely ignored that could have protected the crew without killing it so he could stand around coddling the murderous AI. I know he knows these things before I mentioned, because he's admitted earlier to being warned for being overly aggressive against malf AIs before. He just did none of them.

But standing around talking to it and trying to make it feel calm while it murdered people and doing nothing to prevent it was almost self-antagging imo. Nor did anyone try to catch onto how silly and stupid some of the fake announcements were, they just ate it all up, yum yum. (Why would NT have brought his mother in just to execute with the broadcasting radio on? How did they even get here there in the span of an hour? The whole 'woops I left the recorder light on' gag already happened earlier in the round, why didn't anyone question it happening again? These were all things I would have brought up after killing the AI, had I not been dragged away to be executed by it, but that's largely moot.)

For the record though, I found the round to be tiresome and cliched. I don't like it when players make their characters act vulnerable and whimpery, and I felt very little sympathy for the increasingly hamfisted attempts the AI made to tug on our heartstrings. I will admit the gimmick was somewhat unique, but I was tired of it after about a half hour of listening to everyone gasp in shock and accusation nonstop.

And I find it annoying with someone wants to complain about someone helping an antag follow their RP.

Nikov as far as I know has gotten better at being overly aggressive towards AIs. And the annoucements were part of it, we didn't know it was fake, we got no confirmation, nothing. So all we knew was it was true.

I want to point out, the point of my gimmick was to inspire people to join me and defend me... That was the whole point... CE’s are not implanted and he probably wanted to live himself. I was pretty sparing with what I blew up, I used my powers just a few times and twice in unoccupied locations just to send a message. The people that got murdered were those that antagonized me - Manfred refused to do this and lived because of it.

And the annoucements were part of it, we didn't know it was fake, we got no confirmation, nothing. So all we knew was it was true.

No, you didn't. People blindly accepting stupid or nonsensical centcomm announcements was the source of two separate threads, one of which I personally wrote. If people are still acting like they have to treat even the most ridiculous and deliberately inciteful things as canon, then we clearly haven't benefited from those at all. I'll grant you that the early announcements were moderately plausible, but it took a dive off the deep end of stupid when the AI did that whole bit about his mother calling in and being executed 4noraisin. And don't tell me that you didn't want to kill the AI, it is literally in the logs there where you agreed with me the AI needed to die because of what it did to the captain in our little whispered conference before you skedaddled out of the upload.

Anyway, that's not really the subject of this thread and I'm getting off topic here.

So, here's my point.

I don't really give a flying fuck about 'helping the antagonists' rp', when it means people help them harm people either by inaction or directly aiding them (and really, it's still roleplay to accuse someone of being a murderer instead of coddling them like everyone else was doing). People don't deserve to kill other people because they created an interesting narrative around it. Nor do I particularly care about antagonists killing people, even if they were me. For like the umpteenth time, what the purpose of this this complaint is this: Manfred's conduct in aiding the AI to kill me. Strip away all the chaff about him not wanting to kill the AI, and the fact remains he still deliberately dragged me forcibly away to throw me in a small room where a confirmed murderous AI could kill me. He can't claim ignorance that the AI was psychotic enough to do it, because the thing already did it to the captain. My 'crime' in that room was not even attacking the AI at all, I accused it of killing the captain and was dragged out for upsetting it before I could do anything else. It could have stopped there, with me being bolted our or something, but instead - He helped the AI trap me so I could be murdered.

If he had just thrown me out of the upload, that would have been different. Or if the borg had tased me down and dragged me off to a death trap. There would be no direct correlation between me being shoved into a tiny room I could not escape to die and Manfred. This is why I am angry with HIM, not because I died, because HE HELPED IT HAPPEN as a non antagonist.

Ok so this has been our general thoughts on how the round progressed:

• Announcements come up, captain tells CE to help the RD "shut down" the AI
  
• CE gets delayed on something, RD rushes in and gets floored.
  
• CE gets in core with HoP, some things delay getting the AI carded (someone forgot to bring a card)
  
• The captain is blown up, even though it wasn't witnessed, CE showed little care about the captain
  
• More announcements happen
  
• NT kills the boy's mother over comms
  
• It goes to code delta, everyone could blow up now
  
• CE and HoP with a useless chaplain in the AI core with a nuclear kim jung un button, turrets and a borg
  
• AI wants to lock up HoP, crew not in a position to protest, try to appease
  
• AI blows up the HoP, although needlessly, CE tries to laugh it off
  
• CE tries to get the AI to an escape pod
  
• AI blows them up anyway, chaplain is probably doomed if they didn't get a jumpsuit
  
• CE still tries to find the AI to help it
  

Two points can be raised from that:

The CE's apparent lack of sympathy, especially towards the captain, which I would like [mention]Nikov[/mention] to expand on, they've only addressed the HoP's death.

And the CE's continued support to the AI, which I believe is valid, the AI still had the keys to the nuke, if your character was only appeasing them, but the quality of the announcements and the gravity of NT's actions leaves you little to care for them, and actually compels you to help the AI, while the HoP's death may have been questionable, the HoP was clearly on NT's side, and wanted to follow through with the shut down order, and can considered an acquaintance to NT's schemes.

We understand Kaed's concerns about game balance, there are times where roleplay takes a backseat due to gameplay reasons (e.g: assassins can't just kill someone out of the blue), but this isn't one of those cases, the CE is only one man, you could've brought other engineers or armed officers into the core, the latter which would've dealt with the AI turrets and borgs, and leveled the playing grounds. the CE showed hints that he is not on the "destroy the AI" side a few times which would've hinted that he might become useless dead weight or even side with the AI.

Overall we don't see anything wrong with the CE's actions, although their reactions might be, it is a small thing all things considered.

Should I have tried to murder the chief engineer for being useless deadweight then? Am I expected to not trust anyone in the future to not be an incompetent buffoon and get me killed? That doesn't really encourage me to utilize teamwork but rather to deal with things myself. Should I have just ignored further role play when I saw that manfred wasn't going to help and shot the AI to death wordlessly before he could interrupt me?

I was there in the proximity to the AI, with the means to take it down, and with it being damaged enough for me to feasibly succeed. There is no particular reason why I should have left and gotten engineers and giving it time to prepare further.

This kind of thing going unpunished and declared legitimate is just going to turn me into more of a validhunter because I can't expect people to act in a way that encourages me to rely on them.

I mean if that's fine with you sure whatever. I'm not trying to blackmail you or threaten you or anything. It's just a fact that if people are allowed to act this way then there's no reason for me to extend trust to people who aren't actively on my side, or invite them to participate in my actions.

I wasn't on NT's side, either. I wasn't ordered by anyone to kill the AI. I came to that decision largely on my own, because I figured shouldn't need a company to tell me to destroy a murdering soulless machine that thinks it's a child. That is semantics for the purposes of actions though, I guess.

"The CE's apparent lack of sympathy, especially towards the captain, which I would like @Nikov to expand on, they've only addressed the HoP's death."

Somehow the captain's death report did not fully register with me. Manfred didn't know this captain (or this hop), was aware the Captain had destroyed the AI's only cyborg "friend", and like most people getting killed by the AI, had conspired with the AI. He's standing in with the turrets at the time. If he chooses this opportunity to admonish the AI he might get himself and the nun killed, but if he doesn't there is a chance to win more favor with the AI and so be someone he will listen to. This is similar to the reaction to Dawnguard or the HOP; they were doing the opposite of what Manfred thought was the best way to solve the AI problem, and admonishing the AI for killing perceived enemies that Manfred did not have any sort of friendship with anyway would only further endanger Manfred and jeopardize his plan.

"And the CE's continued support to the AI, which I believe is valid, the AI still had the keys to the nuke, if your character was only appeasing them, but the quality of the announcements and the gravity of NT's actions leaves you little to care for them, and actually compels you to help the AI, while the HoP's death may have been questionable, the HoP was clearly on NT's side, and wanted to follow through with the shut down order, and can considered an acquaintance to NT's schemes."

My continued support of the AI was rooted in the AI having the keys to the nuke for one and the desire to not prove himself a complete liar to a ten year old boy. Which, if the AI is a human brain inside of a super-MMI, Manfred viewed not only as being that ten year old boy, but both able to be reunited with his family and able to be restored to his body and life through cloning. The mother being actively murdered only shifted his focus toward the father and further entrenched the "fuck NT" part of his psyche. So far as concern for the nun, she did have a softsuit on and he lost sight of her when he fell into a hole. When he returned to the Z level she was gone, and forced-open firelocks made Manfred presume she was making her way out with the cyborg assisting her, although he was trying to chase her down.

Now Kaed, are you saying Manfred is an incompetent buffoon, or I am an incompetent buffoon? And "The problem here was that Manfred Hayden decided to join in the role specifically empowered to resolve a malfunctioning AI situation," makes me wonder if you are parsing the difference in the first place.

From this subforum's rules;

"Do not use ad hominem. This means do not attack a person's character (character in this case meaning the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual). You are expected to argue the presented ideas, not the person. If someone were to attack you, don’t take matters into your own hands, report it to us."

"The CE's apparent lack of sympathy, especially towards the captain, which I would like @Nikov to expand on, they've only addressed the HoP's death."

Now Kaed, are you saying Manfred is an incompetent buffoon, or I am an incompetent buffoon? And "The problem here was that Manfred Hayden decided to join in the role specifically empowered to resolve a malfunctioning AI situation," makes me wonder if you are parsing the difference in the first place.

From this subforum's rules;

"Do not use ad hominem. This means do not attack a person's character (character in this case meaning the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual). You are expected to argue the presented ideas, not the person. If someone were to attack you, don’t take matters into your own hands, report it to us."

I'm sure you're perfectly competent as a player, or you wouldn't have gotten warnings about being too aggressive towards AI, and you obviously know how to roleplay well, even if I don't agree with how you do it. I'm mostly pointing to your character's behavior that round as incompetent.

Whatever your reasons for doing it IC, Manfred was completely unhelpful in every way and actively prevented a real resolution, so he was for all intents and purposes to me and the character I was playing being an incompetent buffoon.

I want to point out, I did not blow up the CE or Nun, the explosion to kill the HoP ended up being too large and reaching the room they had to use to escape I fully intended on saving them