Staff Complaint - CCIA

BYOND Key: CampinKiller

Staff BYOND Key: Synnono (Since he's the head of CCIA)

Game ID: Whatever the Roanoke Pt II incident was

Reason for complaint: Disagreement with the decision of CCIA in regards to my character Marc Price

Evidence/logs/etc: This is going to be a long post. I had a very long discussion that alternated between an initial angry rant, and actual topics, with Synnono yesterday, where I was told my chances of an IC appeal are slim to none. Since I disagree with the decision as a whole, here I am. For starters, let's reference the punishments of everyone involved in the ZaBound incident:

Captain Uriel Evans - reprimand for putting themselves at risk

Chief Engineer Zachary Gallagher - 2500 Credit fine

Jawdat (Jackboot) - Handled OOC'ly

Head of Security Marc Price (me) - 1 month suspension and a reprimand

As you can see, one of these things is not like the other. The entire incident has been wrongly laid at the feet of my character, and to be suspended for a month, when everyone else got off with a slap of the wrist (minus JB) is outrageous. I'm going to start by taking the official notice and working through my conversation with Synnono.

2) Marc Price (Head of Security, NSS Aurora) is officially reprimanded for his poor conduct as a Head of Staff during the CV Roanoke incident, for disobeying a superior's orders, and for irresponsibly endangering an unqualified security cadet in a lethal combat scenario, resulting in her death.

Two things to look at here. It should be noted that the superior's orders were leading to more destruction and injuries. Combat borgs were not working against the creature, and the Captain wished to continue to have ISD throw themselves at it to protect his own pride, even after ISD had someone killed. Calling an ERT was the responsible move to try and protect people, and it ultimately lead to the creature's death, as the single ERT member (who came on as engineering, despite our situation report to them) was able to locate the creature in a trapped area for us to move in on. At some point, obeying a superior's orders take a backseat to protecting people and performing your duties.

It should also be noted that, at no time was the cadet who was killed was put in a lethal combat scenario, unless you want to count the entire station as a combat scenario. When I initially sent 3 of ISD (2 officers and a cadet) to the Roanoke, it was in riot gear, not combat gear. When ISD went back in full, and heavily armed, we were unable to get the Cadet off as the shuttle was suddenly launched by someone. Additionally, the Cadet was given a rifle by the Tup Skrell when I was not present. They turned it over to me later. They were killed, unarmed, in Cargo, evacuation civilians (iirc). At no point was there so-called "irresponsible endangerment."

Additionally, the handling of the refugee situtation has resulted in negative publicity

I'm not sure what ISD did that would cause my actions to be blamed. The only thing ISD did in regards to survivors was take gear for crowd control purposes. We did not meet them with shotguns and rifles at the ready.

Several accounts point to him being primarily responsible for Sulyard, everyone recalls the bickering from everyone else, and there was criticism from more than one source for security's handling of the refugees, which all contributed to enacting the suspension.

At the end of the day, yes, the HoS is responsible for his department. However, he never directly put her in danger via any orders or armaments. In the end, she died for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. ISD's handling of the refugees was incredibly light. Remember, we were deploying to a cruise liner, and the 3 members that deployed were prepared for crowd control, as there were supposed to be hundreds of crewmembers aboard. Back on station, I set up traffic control to direct the refugees to the Bar, per orders from the Captain. ISD was directly attacked by Jawdat in Command, and over Common, for being prepared for crowd control, but this is a normal precaution when dealing with large crowds.

The suspension was more for the handling of security in what became a highly publicized event and the general dysfunction of command, in addition to the failure to follow orders.

Security was handled as best as it could under the circumstances of an HoP who's actively opposing, criticizing, and involving themselves in every action taken by ISD, and a Captain who was making terrible, and frankly dangerous, decisions, all while the station is attacked by a gigantic monster. The single order that was disobeyed was disobeyed as a result of a string of incompetence from the Captain, to include being incredibly slow on activating combat borgs, getting in the way of ISD as they tried to fight, and placing their own pride above the safety of the station. At the point the ERT was called, it was absolutely necessary for it to come. The decision to not concur with the request by the HoS to call an ERT was met with general disbelief on Command, as well. The only reason that Sulyard was the only crew death was because of some very ballsy actions from the CMO in evacuating Medical. There could have easily been 5 killed from the incompetence of the Captain.

He has direct involvement in both deaths by being one's boss and calling the other while unauthorized.

Simply being one's boss should not lead to the death of that person being labelled as irresponsible and avoidable. The other was unauthorized, but it arguably helped the situation, as they helped hunt down the creature. For whatever reason, they came as an Engineering ERT, and not as a Security one, and were a singular person, both things that I am not responsible for.

It was the captain's call that the borgs be left to work, and the team could have been reserved. He didn't get to see whether that would have been effective because his subordinates refused to listen to him.

We'd had borgs for some time, and they hadn't worked.

Additional remarks: I find that, for everyone else to essentially get a slap on the wrist, and me to get absolutely annihilated by CCIA is asinine. People who were there will tell you that the deaths were not Price's fault, and I've talked to several who think that this result is absolutely bullshit. Additionally, at least one person was never contacted for the investigation (@CommanderXor), because the assumption was made that nothing new would be gleaned from it. I would like this suspension by CCIA to be nullified.

On another note, at the end of the day, canon events are supposed to be fun. They are not supposed to cause someone to have their character removed for an extended length of time because of the event itself, and the IC actions of others. This whole fiasco has pretty much guaranteed that I will never play another canon event, because I am at risk of being thrown into 50 IRs by people who are salty, and then having my character suspended without cause.

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Corporate_Regulations#Captains_and_Authority this is why as hop i called out your hos. You HAVE to follow the orders. You HAVE to. You and the ce would only be justified voting no confidence.

The ert you called died. I saw as a ghost. They died and it was combat borgs that killed the vaurca.

"Everyone got a slap on the wrist except the people that didnt" makes no sense...

The captain wasnt prideful.

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Corporate_Regulations#Captains_and_Authority this is why as hop i called out your hos. You HAVE to follow the orders. You HAVE to. You and the ce would only be justified voting no confidence.

The ert you called died. I saw as a ghost. They died and it was combat borgs that killed the vaurca.

"Everyone got a slap on the wrist except the people that didnt" makes no sense...

The captain wasnt prideful.

I am well aware how the Vaurca died, and that the ERT died. Why they came unprepared to fight, who knows. I am also aware of the fact that the Captain's authority is final, but in the situation, we could not have relieved them of command via no confidence, since it requires a unanimous vote, that Jawdat certainly wasn't going to allow, considering his behavior. And if the Captain wasn't acting prideful, I'm not sure how else to describe it, other than acting stupid.

I will also say that the action taken against you was not just from this round, but from multiple rounds, so it doesn't really apply.

I'm handling this along with the CCIA Liaisons, Doc and Shame.

Hi there Campin. Also mentioning [mention]Sharp[/mention], [mention]Doc[/mention] and [mention]ShameOnTurtles[/mention] for review's sake.

For disclosure's sake, CCIA actions to take on this incident were proposed by me, after a review of our transcripts and the consideration of team member summaries and discussion. Also, while I'm talking about them in this complaint, it is not our expectation as a team that people who submit Incident Reports be entitled to hear about actions taken by staff on other players' characters. Typically, we disclose on a case by case basis at the team member's discretion.

You and I talked extensively in DMs about this already, so I'll summarize the points that I made or wanted to make in those prior chats.

Firstly, concerning the differences in levels of fault/punishment:

I looked to assign fault according to the individual conduct of each character and the consequences of the events of the round. The most severe of these consequences was, by far, the two canon employee deaths of Security Cadet Michelle Sulyard, and the Response Team Phoenix trooper that was requested via keycard authentication device.

These deaths are the things primarily responsible for the suspension, and are attributed to Marc Price for these reasons:

1. Cadet Sulyard was Price's direct subordinate, and had been used as a fully armed and armored officer during the Roanoke operations and in combat with the xenoform. Price indicates she was issued lethal weaponry for handling the fighting in his own interview. Both Command and Price's own security team indicated that Sulyard was not prepared for such a threat, and should not have been placed directly in harm's way. Just as the Captain is directly responsible for Price's actions, Price was directly responsible for Sulyard's. Central Command agrees with this assessment.

2. Price failed to heed the Captain's decision not to call an ERT. This is the only reason a trooper arrived to be killed by the xenoform at all. Price coordinated the swipe over comms. Unlike the other Heads who were willing to swipe, Price is also the Head of Staff directly responsible for the security of the station, and at this point has demonstrated that he is unwilling to defer to the Captain's authority over it. He made that security decision, and in the end, while it could not be determined that the trooper had a tangible effect in handling the threat, it was very clear that he had paid for it with his life. Blame can't be passed on for this after Price had demonstrated he wasn't willing to obey the authority who could have otherwise been held responsible by us. He took the act and responsibility for it into his own hands.

With the deaths out of the way, what remains is basically a storm of dysfunction within command, and the actual act of disobeying the order. Gallagher and Price were reprimanded for these things. Both of them acknowledged that it happened and that it was an explicit act, either in their logs or in the interviews.

Evans was similarly reprimanded for failing to assert command over his Heads of Staff, and for recklessly endangering himself as a high-value employee.

Jawdat's involvement in the round was handled as an OOC issue, and as a matter of staff policy we do not apply IC and OOC punishments for the same actions. There is no comparison to make here on this point.

With the above in mind, it was clear to us that Price had the heaviest responsibility for the consequences of the round, and therefore received the heaviest IC consequences out of the group. I think that it was a reasonable assessment, and at the moment I'm not inclined to modify it.

Secondly, concerning the restrictions placed upon you as a player:

At the moment, you, CampinKiller, have an OOC obligation not to log Marc Price in as a working crew member aboard the Aurora. That is the extent of what is explicitly defined by the action applied to that character.

Here is what it does not do:

1. You are not server banned. You are free to log in and play whoever you like, in whatever role you like, so long as it is not that one named person, in an on-duty role.

2. You are not job banned. You are free to join in a security role on anyone else, because the restriction is IC and applies to a character, not you as a player.

3. You are not prevented from playing Marc Price. You are allowed to board the station in a visiting capacity to continue to develop or characterize him, in a way that does not involve his security roles. Some people even use suspensions like this as springboards for development arcs.

I don't think that the above amounts to you being 'completely annihilated' because it effectively leaves you as a player untouched. If you miss the server, it is still available to you. If you miss the security gameplay, it is still available to you. If you miss the character, he's still available to you. If you cannot accept those conditions and insist that we've been unnecessarily harsh with you, I would say that to a degree, this is you creating some of your own hardship. Compared to someone who has lost a whitelist or been banned, I believe that these are softer measures, which is just about where we want to land in CCIA.

Finally, concerning the notion that canon events are supposed to be fun:

I entirely agree, and that starts with the people playing in them.

It's worth noting here that no-one in this round would have landed in any IC trouble had the involved players managed to simply play through the event, let alone attempted to work through their problems with one another during it. We were not proactively monitoring this round, ready to leap on people who broke protocol during an emergency. We were asked to arbitrate the events of the shift by all four of you. You, specifically, made two reports to target different facets of the events.

When looking not to be reported yourself, comments such as these don't do you any favors:

[05:14:35] bVm-alQZ SAY: CampinKiller/(Marc Price) : (Ceti Basic) Your incompetence is noted, and will be on my report.

[05:14:54] bVm-alQZ SAY: CampinKiller/(Marc Price) : (Ceti Basic) Jawdat will be reported within seconds of me arriving-

[05:26:40] bVm-alQZ SAY: CampinKiller/(Marc Price) : (Ceti Basic) Evans and Jawdat are about to be ass-blasted by CCIA.

[05:31:29] bVm-alQZ SAY: CampinKiller/(Marc Price) : (Ceti Basic) Fuck off. Have fun with CCIAA.

In fact, they encourage other players to make good on their own threats, instead of just working with you face-to-face. I recognize that you were not the only one engaged in doing this, but the actions of others shouldn't be used as an excuse to give it back, either. You were also previously a member of this team, and so I hope that you're already aware of how filing counter-complaints is not a productive process. I feel that your behavior is just as much to blame as anyone else's for the existence of the IC investigation, and that investigation has now concluded.

When you all request that staff investigate a situation, you are effectively telling us that you either won't or can't handle your issues with others, and would prefer that we take the judgement and resolution of those issues into our own hands. As a third party, you can expect that we will examine each individual's behavior and determine what we can, regardless of the information originally submitted. Then, we're going to talk about and act on it, in place of the people who handed it off to us. That is what I believe we did, here.

I think that covers most of what I originally wanted to say.

How did Price come to the realization that crisis borgs were ineffective when the time between swiping for crisis and ERT was around 2 minutes?

I thought they were called much earlier (from memory/OOC'ly in the round and IC'ly) than the ERT. I know Price and others had requested/approved of them when they were mentioned, and he re-focused on fighting the creature without realizing that the borgs were never activated, and so, as the situation worsened, called for the ERT without realizing the borgs hadn't just been activated.

One thing I will add about arming Sulyard (or rather, letting her stay armed), is that it was done for self defense purposes, considering she was evacuating the civilian area while the main part of ISD engaged the creature. I did not order her to directly confront the creature at any time (that I can recall), nor did I expect her to do so, and, in my mind, evacuating civilians would be something a Cadet would be up for in that situation. We were also down in numbers on officers, as one had been wounded before her death.

(Insert apology for triple post here)

Not sure I ever mentioned it, but a month suspension for this just seems generally excessive. Considering the only other thing on Price's record is a minor incident from over 2 years ago, to get a month suspension just seems incredibly excessive, even if he was in the wrong. I don't care about "high-profile incident," being some random factor into this. This is an IC consequence that is longer than some OOC bans for rulebreaking. And while, yes, I can still play the slot, who wants to play a throwaway character for a month? Nobody.

I'll just start this by saying our investigation turned out that what verdict CCIA came with was valid. We'll go over a few points.

• The difference in punishment may be severely different, but that is due to the amount of issues CCIA have found with each individual. When we isolated each individual with their punishment and actions, we found it to reasonable. Especially the Chief Engineer who was working on the Head of Security advice.

• The investigative procedure itself didn't really seem to have any lapses. We went through each individual interrogation and seeing as they were provided with the relevant logs to conduct their investigation. This also was not a singular effort, but rather a group effort by a number of their team, showing us to they were rather thorough.

• We feel the points in which they picked their punishments were also valid, which Synnono was kind enough to clarify here.

Locking and archiving.