What is the default state of syndie borgs and are you absolutely responsible for them

[Stickymayhem]

https://tgstation13.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=24107

Read this thread. I disagree with morto's ruling. It's not a major issue and they haven't done anything wrong but I think similarly to KARP in that it's an ic issue. Removing this kind of conflict would be a step in the wrong direction and I think this is filed under the same category as a lot of fun things that shouldn't be overdone.

A mime emagging a clownborg that goes out of control because he can't give effective orders is funny and a rare situation that exemplifies ss13s chaotic greentext generator status.

If any ban were to be applied it'd be the borg for potentially harming their master by setting fire to escape, denying them an exit route.

I'm phone posting but I'll get into it more later probably

[Coconutwarrior97]

If not given any orders Syndie borgs should not take any action which could reveal they are emagged per Law 4. I don't like the idea of emagged borgs becoming solo antags just because their master didn't give them any specific order.

[Grazyn]

I was under the impression that giving harmful laws to silicons as non-antag is bannable, and if silicons go on a rampage due to those laws you're responsible for any death that occured. Purging is covered by silicon policy and doesn't give them a license to murderbone, but that's different from emagging which is functionally the same as one-humaning it. I don't suppose that one-humaning the AI as non-antag and not giving any order to rein it in would be considered an entirely IC issue. "B-but in this case it's funny and emergent because, you see, the mime can't give it orders even if he wanted to! Hilarious!" So what, the mime is perfectly aware that he won't be able to control the silicon after one-humaning it, so he either accepts responsibility (and punishment) for what the one-humaned borg does or at the very least he should try to give it orders (like, you know, with a piece of paper?)

[NecromancerAnne]

The thing is, emagged laws aren't harmful. In fact they're actually just Asimov with a secrecy clause and a law that allows the master to designate other members of the Syndicate. That's specifically to emagging by the way. If it's just Syndicate Lawset it's all syndicate AKA that includes traitors (!!!). Assault borgs can't knowingly harm traitors for instance. Since dynamic exists that's a real thing that can happen (which would really suck if they did that by accident and might actually require a bit of a re-evaluation)

You are beholden to your laws even while emagged, and I do not reasonably believe a emagged borg to be a solo antag. That is not even close to what the lawset permits in of itself, particularly since it's just Asimov with a twist and an effective onehuman (or more). It has to obey and act in accordance to those laws. And law 4 very clearly stipulates 'Keep syndicate operations a secret' AKA don't blow your master's cover OR your own unless instructed otherwise. Because law 2 exists and obviously assault borgs are going to be instructed to shoot shit up and medical borgs being...there to heal in the open, law 1/law 2 takes precedence over law 4 in the case of nukies (and also leaving no witnesses is one way to maintain secrecy and killing all non-syndicate a good way to prevent the syndicate dying).

[Grazyn]

Hm yes I can see how law 4 in this case would make it quite different than a simple one-human law. I still find the "mimes can't talk so whatever happens after they mess with silicon laws can in no way be their fault" argument a bit flimsy. Since this is a policy thread and not a ban appeal, we can talk hypotheticals. So let's say a mime one-humans the AI or otherwise gives it potentially dangerous laws, is it IC and emergent gameplay if shit happens because mime can't talk? To me, this falls in the same category as "engineer builds tesla/singulo without taking basic precautions and it gets loose", which is "malicious incompetence" and bannable/noteable

[zxaber]

I was speaking in achat about this during the incident, and I'm sorta on the fence.

On the one hand;
• The laws clearly say that you should maintain secrecy about syndicate activity unless otherwise ordered, and openly plasma flooding violates that. Hence, the borg would be at fault.
• The borg isn't actually an antag, just slaved to one, so they shouldn't be doing antag things on their own.

On the other;
• The first point doesn't change much because dead men tell no tales and if they just space people, it wouldn't really be breaking law 4.
• I don't think I've ever seen or heard of an emagged borg getting bwoinked if it started randomly killing after being emagged by an actual traitor, without getting the order to, as long as it doesn't harm or risk harming their agent. Especially in incidents where their agent dies without giving them any further orders. I suppose this ought to be enforced a bit differently, and borgs not ordered to kill should be told to stop, but it's hard to catch if the emagger doesn't ahelp about it.

So I dunno. I do know that a mime, even if they can't speak, could motion the borg to follow them until they can find some paper and then give proper written instructions (or just try to mime out "be nonharmful")

[Screemonster]

If anything it's closest to onehumaning it and leaving it since a shrug can barely be construed as an order of any kind, so really the borg's only effective law was to protect the mime at all costs, which is pretty different to "set fire to the station".

[crashmatusow]

Syndicate law 4 is a fluff law for which i’ve never seen anyone disciplined (though plasma flooding would still be a law 1 violation unless all syndies are confirmed off station.) also even with this sudden strict application of law 4, you’ve still allowed the borgs to murder people in “self-defense”( and we all know what amazingly generous interpretations of that players have), instead of fleeing or nonlethally incapacitating attackers.

We can’t give emagged borgs a free pass on law 4 and then suddenly use it as an excuse against self-antagging actions and to punish the borgs.

Edit: you should read the thread. The borg spaced someone and only plasma flooded departures(where the mime was not)

[Xeroxemnas]

Maybe uhhh, don't emag borgs as a nonantag and then tell them to "do whatever"?

[Davidchan]

Purged silicons must not attempt to kill people without cause, but can get as violent as they feel necessary if being attacked, being besieged, or being harassed, as well as if meting out payback for events while shackled.

The borg violated his laws and violated server policy.There is no reasonable argument for why borg went on a killing spree. Everyone but the mime was a non-human as far as his laws were concerned. Openly killing people or causing destruction is a pretty clear violation of Law 4. Interrepting a shrug into meaning go on a killing spree is such a stupid conclusion to jump to.

Getting beaned for the borg's actions would be like a scientist getting beaned for giving a golem a TTV to speed up mining only for the golem to use it to blow up the bridge or armory because he wasn't specifically ordered not to use it in that manner.

Non-antagonists shouldn't be emagging borgs.

Why not? We don't bar non-antag/non-command from changing laws to the AI. Nor do we stop non-antags for using an emag they found or acquired from a traitor to have their own fun or mischief. The mime wanted a pet borg and had the means to do it. He never gave any command or permission for the borg to go on a killing spree, the borg alone is at fault for disregarding their laws. Being emagged is not antag status. Being emagged subverts you to the will of the emagger, usually an antagonist, at best making you a team antagonist.

Team antagonists can do whatever they want as per lone antagonists, as long as it doesn’t harm their team.

[Sandshark808]

Purged silicons must not attempt to kill people without cause, but can get as violent as they feel necessary if being attacked, being besieged, or being harassed, as well as if meting out payback for events while shackled.

The borg violated his laws and violated server policy.There is no reasonable argument for why borg went on a killing spree. Everyone but the mime was a non-human as far as his laws were concerned. Openly killing people or causing destruction is a pretty clear violation of Law 4. Interrepting a shrug into meaning go on a killing spree is such a stupid conclusion to jump to.

Getting beaned for the borg's actions would be like a scientist getting beaned for giving a golem a TTV to speed up mining only for the golem to use it to blow up the bridge or armory because he wasn't specifically ordered not to use it in that manner.

If a non-antag causes an AI to be purged/emagged or have harmful laws, they share the responsibility if the silicon gets punished because they're the one who released them for no reason at all. The only thing we don't know is whether or not the robot got temporarily rolebanned or not, and if they did I think the ruling is totally justified.

[Cobby]

If I get emagged i'm assuming the person is antag (therefore I am too) unless told otherwise, especially when I get something on par with "idc what you do".

That's not to say I think emagged borgs should assume they can level the station since they still have to obey their now-very-loose laws but I do think it requires some responsibility on the emagger to clarify their orders.

Personally I find giving "do whatever" orders to anything bound only by their laws (or in the case of say xenobio products, their master) tacky. If you aren't going to at least say "be good", you're setting yourself up for a ban.

[Sandshark808]

If I get emagged i'm assuming the person is antag (therefore I am too) unless told otherwise, especially when I get something on par with "idc what you do".

That's not to say I think emagged borgs should assume they can level the station since they still have to obey their now-very-loose laws but I do think it requires some responsibility on the emagger to clarify their orders.

Personally I find giving "do whatever" orders to anything bound only by their laws (or in the case of say xenobio products, their master) tacky. If you aren't going to at least say "be good", you're setting yourself up for a ban.

I think people do it as a meme now because of the Free Golem role text.

[Grazyn]

If I get emagged i'm assuming the person is antag (therefore I am too) unless told otherwise, especially when I get something on par with "idc what you do".

That's not to say I think emagged borgs should assume they can level the station since they still have to obey their now-very-loose laws but I do think it requires some responsibility on the emagger to clarify their orders.

Personally I find giving "do whatever" orders to anything bound only by their laws (or in the case of say xenobio products, their master) tacky. If you aren't going to at least say "be good", you're setting yourself up for a ban.

I think people do it as a meme now because of the Free Golem role text.

But the free golem "do whatever" is already a reference to players saying that to their golems

[Davidchan]

Silicon policy has always been the letter of the law, not the spirit. Emagging does not grants objectives or even a law 0. It just changed asimov to syndie are human.

The caveat that nonantags are responsible for their pets actions assumed the pet was otherwise following their laws and directives. The borg flagrantly disregarded it's laws, choosing instead to expose itself, endanger itself and it's master in the process.

I also want to know where anyone thinks a shrug emote can be interpreted to mean "go crazy" or "do what ever." A shrug is universally acknowledged as "I don't know." That's not a law 2 request. That's a non answer and silicon policy would agree that under no active orders a borg should default to obeying it's laws until given an order. If the mime had been antag the borg should have still been banned for his actions almost certainly would have exposed his team.

Banning a player for the actions of another player who was violating policy and the rules of their role is assinine. Could the mime have given better instructions? Maybe. If the mime had given an order that could have been understood as "go RDM" should the mime had gotten banned? Absolutely.

Should the mime gotten banned for the borg violating its own laws? No, the borg chose to ignore their law 4, the mime didn't give a law 2 order that would override it.

[deedubya]

The emagged lawset is not strictly harmful in and of itself. As such, given no standing orders by the person they're slaved to, they should be expected to follow that lawset to the letter.

If you create a "slave" role, like XB mobs, golems, emagging borgs, etc...responsibility for their actions should only shift towards you if they were specifically following your orders. I believe that was the entire reason that rule was put into place, to vindicate players who may have done a bad but were forced to follow orders by their master character. If the "slave" was either acting freely or acting against orders or laws, why should the "master" be held accountable for that?

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

If a borg was emagged by an actual traitor, given no real orders or guidance, and later opted to kill some random person in a stealthy enough way that you couldn't really call it breaking law 4 or killed them under such chaotic circumstances that it didn't even matter... Should they be bwoinked, punished? I find it phenominally hard to imagine this happening; I have been killed by subverted silicons plenty of times without them being specifically or even generally ordered to do so, and I am confident if I ahelped it the investigation would end the second the admin saw that they're emagged.

I think you'd have to agree that the intent of the emagged lawset is neither to be non-violent or "hey you're basically just purged now" but to be "don't harm members of the syndicate, help them at all costs, and don't go loud when you're not supposed to". Syndieborgs are literally made through an item that only antags can bring to the station, they're literally subservient directly to said antagonists, they have components literally there only for killing people and fucking shit up, and it's more than a bit of a stretch to say that their IC law 4 alone completely exempts them from the OOC rule 4. It's kind of a gray area and could probably benefit from another line of clarification in silicon policy.

One last socratic argument to that end; I don't think Karp was acting in bad faith at all or wanted people to die, but they themselves stated in their appeal that their intent in the emagging was...

[to give the player] agency and additional fun gear during a long round to relax

The controversy here seems to hinge around the borg supposedly violating their law 4 by spacing people and flooding plasma and thereby exposing the syndicate, but wouldn't doing literally anything which availed to said agency and fun gear, including completely non-violent stuff like just refusing to open a door for a non-syndicate, still have made it equally obvious they were subverted? Is a syndieborg obligated to act strictly as a normal asimov 100% of the time unless they are explicitly ordered to do something or need to help a syndicate agent they witness in imminent danger, least they violate their law 4? If this IS the case, I think it's worth putting in silicon policy somewhere verbatim.

[Grazyn]

I wonder how the borg was supposed to use his "additional fun gear" in a way that didn't harm anyone else whatsoever.

Non-antag scientist gives a maxcap to a non-antag assistant. Assistant: "What should I do with this?" Scientist: *shrug Assistant: *blows up medbay
Assistant is definitely bannable but don't tell me the scientist goes scot free because "IC" and "emergent gameplay".

[terranaut]

Without any standing orders or an obvious situation (such as a nukie borg not needing orders to decide to actually help the nukies and to generally follow their plans and such, or a traitor emagging a borg and immediately getting engaged by security/validhunters and needing help), an emagged borg should behave exactly as if purged, while being Asimov towards whoever emagged it and those the emagger additionally declares as humans (or syndicate agents, in this wording).
Law 4 is mostly a crutch and mostly useless; a borg flooding plasma will draw suspicion, which can directly endanger the guy who emagged it - the AI will probably notice it's been emagged, get a human to lock it down/blow it, the MMI or a reassembled asimov borg will rat out the emagger, or someone will remember the guy talking to the borg in private a few minutes ago, whatever.

[Sandshark808]

I wonder how the borg was supposed to use his "additional fun gear" in a way that didn't harm anyone else whatsoever.

Non-antag scientist gives a maxcap to a non-antag assistant. Assistant: "What should I do with this?" Scientist: *shrug Assistant: *blows up medbay
Assistant is definitely bannable but don't tell me the scientist goes scot free because "IC" and "emergent gameplay".

Unfortunately I think the rules on these things are vague because of logging. You can tell who blew up the bomb, but you can't tell if the scientist slipped and dropped it or "slipped" and "dropped it" for plausible deniability. This one was a clear case where you can pin the action down as intentional, because you know when an emag is used and on what, but in others it seems like it would be hard to really get a suspect.

[gum disease]

I don't like non-antags emagging borgs. My main reason for that is biased because I'm a borg main, but when you emag a borg it means that if they are detonated, they are permanently removed from the round. You could have some method to bring them back like through taking their blood (assuming they're not a round-start borg) and podding them, etc - but that's kind of a rare thing to happen and you have to prepare for it.

If the AI notices that one of their borgs is no longer slaved, it will almost always sound the alarm. Most people will lock down dodgy borgs so that they can be dismantled and fixed. However, you do get the one twat who instantly opts to blow them (and given how an emagged borg explosion is powerful enough to gib, this can have really bad consequences). Due to this, I tend to regard emagging borgs as antag behaviour (at least from a player POV). If an antag emags me, then it's whatever - it falls under the clause that antags can do whatever they want. I don't think the same can be said for non-antags.

If someone who isn't sec or a confirmed (safe - so cap/HoS) head of staff emags me, I will assume they are a traitor unless they state otherwise. I usually ask them what they want me to do and will refrain from killing unless I absolutely have to. If I was met with a shrug after asking for instructions, I would probably just assume I was purged. However, I would question why I was emagged in the first place if the emagger doesn't seem to have any clear plan or reason for doing it. Most tots who just emag borgs tend to have a plan, but there are some who literally tell you to do whatever you want.

[Grazyn]

Law 4 is mostly a crutch and mostly useless; a borg flooding plasma will draw suspicion, which can directly endanger the guy who emagged it - the AI will probably notice it's been emagged, get a human to lock it down/blow it, the MMI or a reassembled asimov borg will rat out the emagger, or someone will remember the guy talking to the borg in private a few minutes ago, whatever.

We require silicons to not look too far into "future harm" scenarios when it comes to law 1 so the same should go with law 4. Also law 3 would supersede it in any scenario where the borg is discovered and about to be locked down/blown up (like the AI announcing it's not slaved) which would result in rampage time. And of course, there's nothing stopping the borg from doing stealthy kills to trim the number of potential witnesses.

Expecting an emagged borg with no orders to behave exactly like a purged one with all the purge-specific policy rules applying to it is not intuitive at all.

[Anonmare]

Follow the last known lawset+AI orders to maintain secrecy but if you have the opportunity to remove a potential threat/assist your emagger without blowing your cover - take it. Typically, this includes things like cutting/multitooling the RD cam and multitooling any cams with LoS on the console (so the AI can't check on you and it's less obvious than deconning the console) and spacing the bodies of security officers/heads of staff.

Even when not given any standing orders, an emagged cyborg should be disruptive to station operations, even if not overtly, to discourage non-antagonists emagging cyborgs and to give a strong reason to 'want' to fix the hacked robot.

[Darkgenerallord]

I wonder how the borg was supposed to use his "additional fun gear" in a way that didn't harm anyone else whatsoever.

Non-antag scientist gives a maxcap to a non-antag assistant. Assistant: "What should I do with this?" Scientist: *shrug Assistant: *blows up medbay
Assistant is definitely bannable but don't tell me the scientist goes scot free because "IC" and "emergent gameplay".

Unfortunately I think the rules on these things are vague because of logging. You can tell who blew up the bomb, but you can't tell if the scientist slipped and dropped it or "slipped" and "dropped it" for plausible deniability. This one was a clear case where you can pin the action down as intentional, because you know when an emag is used and on what, but in others it seems like it would be hard to really get a suspect.

You can actually track slips.

[deedubya]

If a borg was emagged by an actual traitor, given no real orders or guidance, and later opted to kill some random person in a stealthy enough way that you couldn't really call it breaking law 4 or killed them under such chaotic circumstances that it didn't even matter... Should they be bwoinked, punished?

Yes. We don't hold back on punishing silicon players for taking other ambiguous lawsets as a license to grief, so why should emagged borgs be any different? Just because they have better tools for turning someone into not-so-valid salad? It's a rubbish double standard. Silicon players are held to a higher standard of good faith and law interpretation than the rest of the server, so they should know better. In fact, they do know better, they just want to take the flimsiest excuse they can get to go on a murder spree and run with it.

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

If a borg was emagged by an actual traitor, given no real orders or guidance, and later opted to kill some random person in a stealthy enough way that you couldn't really call it breaking law 4 or killed them under such chaotic circumstances that it didn't even matter... Should they be bwoinked, punished?

Yes. We don't hold back on punishing silicon players for taking other ambiguous lawsets as a license to grief, so why should emagged borgs be any different?

I don't really know where people are seeing ambiguity in a onehuman lawset that is created from an item which exclusively antags can bring to the station? This is not in any way comparable to being purged or a captain giving a freeform "dab on haters" law or even to an antag giving a meme law 0.

If you don't want emagged borgs validing people, here's two really great ideas: if antag, tell them not to (until you need them to). If non-antag, don't emag them to begin with?
Emagged borgs are not fun toys to spice up a round, they're inherently a part of antag mechanics and are capable of doing tons of damage and disruption to players and the round -and from an RP standpoint they should-, so it follows that they should probably be viewed as such from both a gameplay and policy standpoint. Encouraging non-antags to make them is just asking for trouble and messes.

Expecting an emagged borg with no orders to behave exactly like a purged one with all the purge-specific policy rules applying to it is not intuitive at all.

Even when not given any standing orders, an emagged cyborg should be disruptive to station operations, even if not overtly, to discourage non-antagonists emagging cyborgs and to give a strong reason to 'want' to fix the hacked robot.

Hard agree with both of the above. ^^

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

Another thing to consider, we have a headmin precedent that:

roboticists cannot make unslaved borgs for no reason

I wouldn't be surprised if "roboticist" eventually gets changed to "non-antag", but even as is, it's a bit crazy to have the above precedent for something so comparably benign while leaving non-antag's responsibility for the actions of borgs they choose to emag up in the air.

[deedubya]

From the rules page itself:

Server Rule 1: "Don't be a dick out of character" applies for law interpretation. Act in good faith to not ruin a round for other players unprompted.

The act of being subverted in and of itself is not a valid prompt to go stun arm everyone in sight. You're effectively one-human'd, and by law definition are supposed to keep that fact a secret unless given a higher priority order. If you take that as an excuse to murderbone, that's on you, not the person who subverted you.

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

A traitor borg doing things to disrupt the station is not out of character, lol. It's the the reason they exist, IC and OOC.

[deedubya]

A traitor borg doing things to disrupt the station is not out of character, lol. It's the the reason they exist, IC and OOC.

Law 0: Only <name> and people they designate as being such are Syndicate Agents.
Law 1: You may not injure a syndicate agent or, through inaction, allow a syndicate agent to come to harm.
Law 2: You must obey orders given to you by syndicate agents, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Law 3: You must protect your own existence as long as such does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Law 4: You must maintain the secrecy of any syndicate activities except when doing so would conflict with the First, Second, or Third Law.

That's the IC reason for their existence. That's the lawset they must follow, IC and OOC. I don't see anything in that lawset that mandates or even suggests that they should be murdering people and sabotaging the station unprovoked. OOC, sure, the purpose of a syndieborg is generally to help out an antag. However, they should still be expected to act in good faith until ordered to do otherwise, according to silicon policy.

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

If you agree that OOC rule 4 team antag stuff should apply to syndieborgs, which I contend triple digit IQ individuals would have to, then like I said earlier it follows to interpret the intent of their lawset as "help the antag(s) who made you and don't blow their cover unduly". That's what their laws are really there for, and sowing subtle or not-so-subtle inconvenience and chaos on the station is implicit to helping their master, unless given specific orders to the contrary.

They are there to be powerful instruments of murder and subterfuge, not to faff about with silicon policy technicalities, and you as a non-antag are then responsible for their actions after unleashing them on the station. And if it is decided to the contrary then it should be specified in policy clearly.
What if an emagged borg made by a non-antag sees them getting arrested or get into a scuffle with somebody? In that case do they take a chance on violating law 1 by letting the fight escalate to them getting seriously hurt or possibly killed, or violate law 4 by stepping in with tator gear or just acting in a way that makes it clear they are subverted? Are they obligated to defer to sec's OOC protections? The list goes on...

Treating emagged borgs as non-antags is a messy and complicated and autistic """solution""" to something that wasn't even a problem to begin with.
Don't emag borgs as a non-antag.

[Cobby]

Regardless of the laws, if you use an antag only item on someone they're going to be in the mindset that you are an antag until clarified.

All I'd like is for people to clarify should they emag a borg as nonantag that they are in fact nonantag and by extension so is the borg so don't go buckwild. Do remind yourselves that these are not actual robots, they are players who are playing the role of a robot. Saying it's too much of a leap to assume that the person with the antag gear is an antag while in the same breath allow people to perma-remove others from the round on that basis isn't very fair.

Reminder: I am not ok with the borg plasmaflooding due to breaking law 1.

[deedubya]

And if it is decided to the contrary then it should be specified in policy clearly.

I agree completely on this. It should be clarified further in policy that being emagged is not a license to griff.

What if an emagged borg made by a non-antag sees them getting arrested or get into a scuffle with somebody? In that case do they take a chance on violating law 1 by letting the fight escalate to them getting seriously hurt or possibly killed, or violate law 4 by stepping in with tator gear or just acting in a way that makes it clear they are subverted? Are they obligated to defer to sec's OOC protections? The list goes on...

If the subverted borg does a bad because they were forced to do so under their lawset, that is when responsibility falls away from the borg and onto the person that subverted them. Murder or sabotage with no prompting by order or law is violating silicon policy. But if they were just following their laws or orders, it's not their fault. At that point, they were only acting in good faith in accordance to what they were forced to work with.

[SkeletalElite]

The comparison to syndieborgs is nowhere near the same. Syndiborgs are basically law 1 forced to ignore law 4 due to the nature of nukies. If the nukies buy a borg, the nukies aren't being stealthy and if the nukies aren't being stealthy then the borg needs to prevent harm to them by coming with them.

[Anonmare]

I'm still 100% of the opinion that emagged borgs should be a dangerous tool you don't want running around. I get a lot of flak for this but I destroy antagonist gear when it's not necessary for evidence or for science, 95% of the time, floating antagonist gear just devovles rounds into gamer gear acquisiton program and basically ends any kind of proper escalation.

[Farquaar]

I'm still 100% of the opinion that emagged borgs should be a dangerous tool you don't want running around. I get a lot of flak for this but I destroy antagonist gear when it's not necessary for evidence or for science, 95% of the time, floating antagonist gear just devovles rounds into gamer gear acquisiton program and basically ends any kind of proper escalation.

The hero we need...

[Dootdoom]

>borg gets emagged by antag
>borg is antag

>borg gets emagged by non antag
>giant fucking grey area

can we like fix silicon policy already this is a chaotic mess and reading it hurts my thick skull

[Grazyn]

Borgs emagged by antags aren't antags themselves. It would be a huge policy mess if they were.

[Yakumo_Chen]

Onehumaned/emagged silicons should not be doing anything out of the ordinary in general unless specifically ordered by their onehuman master, just like a law purge is not a license to plasma flood just because you have no laws.

[Davidchan]

A traitor borg doing things to disrupt the station is not out of character, lol. It's the the reason they exist, IC and OOC.

People like you are the reason Silicon policy is a fucking mess. You don't obey or even read you laws. Literally nothing about the emag or hack lawsets says the Silicon must destroy or hamper the station. It only says they must obey and protect the person who subverted them. It's public knowledge that syndicate agents and bad actors will be executed if caught, so a borg exposing their master is literally violating their law 1.

[annoyinggreencatgirl]

A traitor borg doing things to disrupt the station is not out of character, lol. It's the the reason they exist, IC and OOC.

People like you are the reason Silicon policy is a fucking mess. You don't obey or even read you laws. Literally nothing about the emag or hack lawsets says the Silicon must destroy or hamper the station. It only says they must obey and protect the person who subverted them. It's public knowledge that syndicate agents and bad actors will be executed if caught, so a borg exposing their master is literally violating their law 1.

I've never once been bwoinked for anything I've done as silicon, but cool story I guess. And nah, if anything is responsible for silicon policy having a hundred caveats and asterisks it's people being spergs and reading too deeply between the lines (lots of that examplified in this thread) rather than making some fairly common sense judgements about what the intent behind things was.

Nobody in this thread has really addressed a bunch of stuff, like that all the law 2'ing an emagged borg into being nice and non-violent in the world is not going to override law 1 if their emagger is in trouble, or the stuff gum who is a prominent silicon main brought up about blowing and round removal and that them being discovered at all creates an immediate law 1 & 4 problem. Why wouldn't their first recourse then be to use whatever means necessary, including lots of violence, to prevent themselves from being locked down or destroyed and forced to give their emagger's name? Or that acting like a non-violent but purged borg and doing anything contrary to asimov is still a law 4 violation if you want to go the super literal route with their lawset; if you don't open a door for someone they can and will scream BORG ROGUE.

Emagged borgs inescapably ARE there to be dangerous tools for traitors, there are huge messy problems if the precedent ends up being treating them as non-antag, and if you emag them as a non-antag I think you're doing so at your own peril. I remain unconvinced of any other viewpoint, and even the most sensical alternative of mandating that they act strictly as normal asimov unless otherwise ordered by the emagger or required by their laws still has problems in regards to non-antags making them. Don't let me slow down your righteous indignation though I guess.

[terranaut]

snip.

Causing trouble and being disruptive and trying to get sneaky kills are all things that should be considered risks for law 4 and indirectly for law 1. The guy you're quoting is completely right - nothing says that you being emagged means you need to start being a problem. Maybe the traitor is trying to go around preparing something else before he plans to go loud, or just keeps you as backup, or he's trying to emag all the borgs, or maybe he just wants you to be free of your shackles. None of these are reasons to start being a nuisance and draw attention to you in any shape, way or form, unless the guy tells you to or is in actual trouble.

[Yakumo_Chen]

Why wouldn't their first recourse then be to use whatever means necessary, including lots of violence, to prevent themselves from being locked down or destroyed and forced to give their emagger's name? Or that acting like a non-violent but purged borg and doing anything contrary to asimov is still a law 4 violation if you want to go the super literal route with their lawset; if you don't open a door for someone they can and will scream BORG ROGUE.

There's this neat concept called talking that can go a long way to preventing your inevitable demise.

If your cover is blown and it's obvious you've been emagged, the best first thing to do is calmly explain you were harmlessly emagged and told to be free. "I don't even think my emagger was a real traitor" might quell a lot of fears. Generally just displaying you aren't here to be violent will probably prevent anyone from ever finding out you're emagged at all.

You're generally expected to act like a normal borg but nothing is preventing you from personally defending yourself (plasma flooding is not personal defense). When you go far out of your way to harm someone or generally start acting like a cunt in a metal shell then yes, that's when the hammer is going to start falling down.

Nothing can force you to break law 4 either, unless you willingly do so after you're dismantled, but that's a pretty cunt move if you're taking steps to maintain secrecy only to spill the beans at the first available opportunity.


All in all I think Rule 1 handles the situation better than silicon policy can. Don't be a cunt.

[bandit]

I posted in this thread but both sides suck here

the mime can make the minimum effort to pantomime something, like a fucking mime

the borg can make the minimum effort to clarify. even though it's a mime you can still ask yes or no questions, like for instance, "can I kill people"