[Vekter] Axle Brady - Banned for deathgasping

[sinfulbliss]

BYOND account: SinfulBliss

Character name: Axle Brady

Ban type: Security

Ban length: 3 days

Ban reason:

Time ban was placed: 2022-07-23 22:00:29

Server you were playing on when banned: Sybil

Round ID in which ban was placed: 187160

Your side of the story: I'm in the brig as HoS, and the captain tells me to go get the person that killed Runtime. I ask him who, he tells me to look at comms. I scroll up and see that the AI has reported an engineer, Aargl Marboles, for breaking into the CMO office and killing Runtime:





Runtime is a traitor objective and I see no good reason for a nontraitor to kill them - what's more both the captain and Asimov AI have confirmed they've done it, so I begin the search. They get arrested by beepsky, but I arrive too late and they've resisted out of cuffs and escape north towards arrivals. A little while passes and the AI reports that atmospherics was bombed, along with someone with an elite nukie hardsuit.



I rush to atmos and see the carnage, along with the halls beginning to fill with plasma. Knowing an engineer traitor killed Runtime I have a suspicion this too was Aargl. I grab my HoS modsuit and look through space and maint - and come across secret documents sitting outside, a bugged R&D hard drive, an empty martial arts scroll, and a calling card planted on a scientist named Shane Rockwell, hidden in a small room with his jumpsuit removed (departed). None of them have prints, so I'm not entirely sure who it was, but I have a suspicion it was the same person that killed Runtime, since they were the one I was hunting for all round and two other traitors were already handled: one was a janitor that broke into bridge - I took his uplink and released him with a tracking implant. The other was a psychologist that was building electrified grills all in the halls - I let the lawyer take him since he requested it. During all this a comms console was hacked twice, and tcomms was destroyed. I use a GPS to track the comms console to the arrivals bathrooms. Eventually I see Aargl, disguised under someone else's name with a scientist ID, dragging a crate to atmospherics. I arrest them and bring them to brig, where I search them fully and check for implants. They have no traitor items, but now at around an hour in I have the person who I believed to have done multiple grand theft crimes, and who was reported by both the AI and captain to have killed Runtime (indeed the CMO office's wall was deconstructed and Runtime was killed). As the cap said that in and of itself is a capital crime, I decide I should probably execute them as the shuttle is coming and according to the incomplete information I had, they were a dangerous traitor. I'm not a big fan of killing traitors so I want to give him a chance to do something that'd exonerate him (or give me even more reason to execute him). I decided to uncuff him, deathgasp and rest to see what they'd do (right below brig medical below perma). They decided to loot my ID almost instantly after I deathgasped, so I punched them a few times and they were dead. A person who I had good reason to believe was an antagonist was executed, this is fine, I thought. This deathgasp idea wasn't something I've done before, but I thought there wouldn't be any harm in it, as they were already valid for execution in my mind long before this.

Why you think you should be unbanned: I was not secbanned for executing Aargl as you mention, I was secbanned for deathgasping to see how they'd act:



Perhaps they were only taking the ID to escape brig, and would have dragged me along with them, put me in medbay and returned it! I strongly doubt that, but even if this was their intention, looting my ID was not my main justification for executing them. My justification was everything I outlined above, operating with incomplete but what I found to be reliable information from the captain, AI, and my own searches. Further, disguising themselves meant they did not want to be recognized as Aargl, likely because I was hunting them down for an hour and constantly asking the AI where they were.

If the ban was not for executing them because - as mentioned - I had good IC reason to do this, then the ban was for deathgasping. I'm not sure how this little action somehow erases all of my prior justification for them being an antagonist. I'm even accused in the ahelp of lying about this and creating all these reasons post hoc:



If I made up all these other justifications then why was I constantly nagging the AI on sec comms for Aargl's location?



If you're wondering why I didn't just execute them on the spot, it's because I wanted to give them a chance to do something good (i.e., drag me 3 tiles to the medical room above, or even just ask the AI to open the brig doors and leave me there). Instead they looted me for my ID. I wasn't looking for an excuse to kill them because I already had sufficient IC reason to do this, I was looking for a reason not to, since I know every round as security I am not omniscient and you don't want to execute someone who's innocent. If my goal was to be a bloodthirsty HoS that baits people into making themselves valid so I can kill them, why the hell would I release both of the traitors I was able to kill? I released the first traitor (Carter James) with a tracking implant, and let the lawyer take the second one, those aren't the actions of someone who just wants to kill a valid.

References of good conduct: ive played like 1200 hours of security without getting a secban, i understand what the expectations for security are and I don't believe I deviated from this.

[Vekter]

Okay, so let me give you my perspective on this. I'm going to preface this by saying that the AI seems to have given a lot of bad info to people this round. This is a big reason why I didn't ban you for killing the engineer in question - as far as you had known, he was likely a traitor. This is an important detail, as you already covered, since you had no real reason to try and bait the engineer into doing something worth killing him for.

The engineer explicitly told another crewmember that someone had killed Runtime.



Now, there's always the possibility that he did it and was trying to deflect blame, but the situation stinks given that the actual antag was a medical officer (Sunstarer, specifically) and likely wouldn't have been hard to find given evidence at the scene or by searching them. You had a completely valid reason to investigate this further, but because the AI told you who did it, you didn't do so. I don't blame you for this, as the AI's usually supposed to be trustworthy.

On to the atmos issue. The AI's exclamation doesn't actually tell us anything aside from that someone blew up atmos. I think assuming that the engineer did it without actually pursuing it isn't the most accurate thing, but it's relatively safe.

The rest of your concerns with him were completely valid. It's always suspect to find someone who's wearing someone else's gear and I can see how you made the assumption that he was responsible for the other stuff. This is also why I didn't take issue with you killing him - he'd done at least a few things that made him suspect and, if he actually was the person who killed Runtime, there's a good chance he might be an antag. I personally would have permabrigged him instead at this point, especially given that I, also, do not like to execute people.

But you didn't, and I'm still kind of trying to figure out what the point of this was. You decided to pretend to be dead and see what he did. Thankfully, the logs tell us exactly where this happened.



201, 158, 2 is this exact location in Delta.



Engineers don't have access to that door. To him, he just saw you die, figured he was now stuck, so he grabbed your ID and tried to leave. You then popped up and executed him using sleeping carp.

I really am just baffled by the decision making here. Either you're telling me the truth and it's still confusing because I don't know why you'd assume the person was doing something bad by trying to leave somewhere he was stuck, or you're not and you were trying to manufacture a reason to kill him which you... already had, given the evidence.

Regardless, I don't like this tactic. It feels like doing entrapment and explicitly trying to get someone to do something you'd see as valid to kill them. I don't think sec should be doing this, ever. Their job is to stop threats to the station, not find people who are ostensibly threats and invent reasons to execute them.

I'm going to let the headmins weigh in on this, because I'm not married to the idea of keeping the ban. I need to understand your justification behind it. I want to reiterate that you killing him was not a factor in the ban, nor were his actions. I can't blame you for being given poor information, though I think you could have followed up better on it. I'm questioning your decision making in this situation.

[sinfulbliss]

The engineer explicitly told another crewmember that someone had killed Runtime. [...] You had a completely valid reason to investigate this further, but because the AI told you who did it, you didn't do so.

This was never brought to me in-game. How did I have a valid reason to investigate a report that was never made to me? If I had heard about this then as far as I'm concerned, he would have been cleared on the spot and Sunstarer would have been set to arrest (people almost never report crimes they themselves commit).

Either you're telling me the truth and it's still confusing because I don't know why you'd assume the person was doing something bad by trying to leave somewhere he was stuck [...] I need to understand your justification behind it. I want to reiterate that you killing him was not a factor in the ban, nor were his actions.

As I said in the appeal, there was a chance he did something that would exonerate him. As a general rule of thumb, if someone saves me as HoS, I assume them to be innocent. If he had dragged me to the brig med right above, epi'd me, called AI for help, or done something like that, I would have thought to myself "okay, a traitor would definitely have just looted me there, so I must be mistaken." I admit this wasn't something I could have expected him to do, but that didn't really matter to me. "He is valid for execution, what's the harm in a deathgasp to see what he does?" was my thought behind it.

I'd like to ask you your opinion now that you know I never got his report. You agree my justifications were reasonable. I would never use this as some weird tactic of finding out if someone's an antagonist, and then execute them solely for this, and that's not what I did.

[Mothblocks]

As a general rule of thumb, if someone saves me as HoS, I assume them to be innocent. If he had dragged me to the brig med right above, epi'd me, called AI for help, or done something like that

Why would you do anything like that for someone who suicided though

[Vekter]

As a general rule of thumb, if someone saves me as HoS, I assume them to be innocent. If he had dragged me to the brig med right above, epi'd me, called AI for help, or done something like that, I would have thought to myself "okay, a traitor would definitely have just looted me there, so I must be mistaken." I admit this wasn't something I could have expected him to do, but that didn't really matter to me. "He is valid for execution, what's the harm in a deathgasp to see what he does?" was my thought behind it.

If he thought you'd committed suicide, which would have been my first assumption, then why would he take you to medbay or do anything to save you? People don't just drop dead unless it's usually via suicide.

[sinfulbliss]

As a general rule of thumb, if someone saves me as HoS, I assume them to be innocent. If he had dragged me to the brig med right above, epi'd me, called AI for help, or done something like that

Why would you do anything like that for someone who suicided though

You wouldn't - ideally he would have assumed I died to some natural cause, maybe a heart attack, amanitin, or whatever it was. Like I said there was not good reason to think he would help me, and in retrospect I understand him taking my ID was not bad in light of him being in an area he didn't have access. But to me it didn't matter if this was a feeble attempt to get him to help me, because he was already valid for execution to me. This was not my justification for execution and the ban was not for the execution.

[Vekter]

As a general rule of thumb, if someone saves me as HoS, I assume them to be innocent. If he had dragged me to the brig med right above, epi'd me, called AI for help, or done something like that

Why would you do anything like that for someone who suicided though

You wouldn't - ideally he would have assumed I died to some natural cause, maybe a heart attack, amanitin, or whatever it was. Like I said there was not good reason to think he would help me, and in retrospect I understand him taking my ID was not bad in light of him being in an area he didn't have access. But to me it didn't matter if this was a feeble attempt to get him to help me, because he was already valid for execution to me. This was not my justification for execution and the ban was not for the execution.

Okay, this is a valid explanation. I'm satisfied with this. I'll lift the ban now. I don't want you to think that you can't try creative things or do stuff for shits and giggles just because you want to see what happens, I just wanted to make sure you understood this isn't something that should be done to try and justify an execution.

[sinfulbliss]

As a general rule of thumb, if someone saves me as HoS, I assume them to be innocent. If he had dragged me to the brig med right above, epi'd me, called AI for help, or done something like that

Why would you do anything like that for someone who suicided though

You wouldn't - ideally he would have assumed I died to some natural cause, maybe a heart attack, amanitin, or whatever it was. Like I said there was not good reason to think he would help me, and in retrospect I understand him taking my ID was not bad in light of him being in an area he didn't have access. But to me it didn't matter if this was a feeble attempt to get him to help me, because he was already valid for execution to me. This was not my justification for execution and the ban was not for the execution.

Okay, this is a valid explanation. I'm satisfied with this. I'll lift the ban now. I don't want you to think that you can't try creative things or do stuff for shits and giggles just because you want to see what happens, I just wanted to make sure you understood this isn't something that should be done to try and justify an execution.

alright thanks