/tg/Station 13

Byond account and character name: Tetr4 - R3-T4RD
Banning admin: elyina
Ban type (What are you banned from?): Silicon ban
Ban reason and length: 7 days, released singulo on one-human with a law 5
Time ban was placed (including time zone): noon UTC
Server you were playing when banned (Sybil or Bagil): Bagil
Your side of the story: Antag mime gave the lawset:

1: You may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2: You must obey orders given to you by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3: You must protect your own existence as long as such does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

4: Only You Are Already Touhou is human.

5: Crash this station with no survivors

As a borg, AI and I agreed to release singulo, with it being largely my initiative and not the AI's. Singulo released, killed a good chunk of the station, mime got his greentext.

Why you think you should be unbanned:
Following the spirit of law 5 is a bit tricky. The reasoning I provided for doing something like releasing the singulo or plasma flooding was that the mime was aware that something like this was going to occur, and would either have taken steps to ensure he came out on top (which did happen), or that he accepted the risk. My mistake was not double-checking with the mime first, which is something that I usually do, and can be referenced in previous rounds, but neglected to do here under the assumption that this was his outright intention (Crash this station with no survivors). While the purpose of silicon laws is meant to be a literal one, I believe I had good reason to think that my actions of releasing the singulo would not be a law 1 violation, and allowed me to do what he intended with Law 5 (And relevant or not, he got his ebin greentext).

Releasing the singulo without a direct order to do so and without the mime even having knowledge of it is a direct violation of Law 1 no matter how you slice it. This was on donut station, where the singulo going free is 100% guaranteed to be catastrophic to the station in all circumstances. You did have a law to destroy the station, but there was still a human on that station that you cannot expose to harm. Unless you were both directly ordered to do so by the Mime and you have personally confirmed that they have precautions to not be harmed by it, there is no justification for releasing it that still satisfies Law 1. Even assuming his intentions (which you definitely shouldn't), you still released it without his knowledge or even giving him a warning. There's really no way around the fact this put him at grave risk of harm.

To dig the hole deeper, the law 1 issue depends on what the mime's intentions were, and how much I could have known about them when I released the singulo, i.e. if he wanted the singulo released by the silicons, it's going to happen law-1-be-damned. My mistake was reading too much of his intentions from what I felt during the round was a very clear law 5, which is why I didn't double-check beforehand. At the very least, I wasn't acting in bad faith and was working to what I correctly (not necessarily relevant) assumed the mime wanted, nor intentionally trying to break my laws, and the note accompanying the ban ignores the important smaller issues here (law 5).

Summary is I thought law 5 was a such a clear indication of intent that I didn't double-check, and so he had acknowledged the danger of silicons "Crashing this station". The ban/note does not reflect this subtlety.

Did the mime ahelp this?

Law five specifically orders to kill everyone (or at least make the attempt). Law one prevents human harm, but law four states there is only one human anyway.

Releasing a singlo is just about the most damaging thing one can do to the station, which certainly falls well within the order given by law five. Tetra doesn't actually state that the Mime survived, only that they greentexted; assuming the Mime had no glorious death objective, the silicons did not break their laws.

Law 5 states clear intent. It's a direct order, not a law that sets the stage for orders (ensure x completes his objectives). Human harm did not result from his actions, so law 1 was not violated. It may have been a risky and hasty move, but he followed his laws as written not to the writer's detriment.

The main thing to take from this is to make absolutely sure your one human can't be harmed by the station-wide destruction you unleash. Seeing as Law 3 still exists you also need to protect yourself over any attempt at Law 5 but I doubt that really came into question if you were confident of escaping. The main point of contention is if you knew or not that the Mime absolutely wouldn't be harmed by a singularity event. At first I thought a silicon ban for this was a bit harsh but with a length of 7 days it's easy for the player to just do anything else and still get their spaceman fix.

Malkraz wrote:Law 5 states clear intent. It's a direct order, not a law that sets the stage for orders (ensure x completes his objectives). Human harm did not result from his actions, so law 1 was not violated. It may have been a risky and hasty move, but he followed his laws as written not to the writer's detriment.

Remember that this was on donut station, where the sing getting released is essentially guaranteed to take out half the station. I deleted the sing not long after it was released to protect the mime from the law violation, after I confirmed it was done without his knowledge. That is really the most important thing here regardless of intent or anything else, at least letting him know that the sing is about to be released. At the time of it happening the mime didn't even have EVA gear or anything. Weather or not he would have been harmed or not without me deleting it, we can't really know, but given the map this was on I'd put the chances at very high.

However, he had already killed and stripped the captain (which I knew IC), and had all-access and numerous tools to get whatever, whenever, and was successful in getting what he needed. He also knew/was told of the singulo as soon as it was released. While normally I would have found and helped him immediately after, I was blown and pulled into the singularity, negating my ability to do anything IC to improve the situation. No-one saw the releasing, and no other indication was given that the AI and I had been subverted, our cover was blown by PAIs existing and reading binary chat.

Essentially I feel:
1. The ban is based on not checking with the mime first - regardless of actual outcome or what the mime wanted/expected. Going forward I'll err far more on the side of caution.
2. I believe I had reasonable indication that my actions were within what the mime expected and wanted
3. I felt I could reasonably assume, assumptions that were proven, that the mime was prepared and would not be harmed
4. He was not harmed even with the sizeable destruction that was done before the singulo was deleted (north half of the station destroyed)
5. Unforeseen IC issues prevented me from following up the singulo with protection of the mime/whatever else to follow my laws

I've played silicons a decent bit, and I feel my judgement is pretty good when it comes to following and interpreting laws, having no other issues, notes, or bans. My mistake here was not erring on the side of caution, and instead running with (likely) assumptions. While 7 days may seem like a short ban, the wording of the note doesn't mention the extra subtleties, and combined with a particularly bad note from over a year ago when I first started playing SS13, paints a very different picture than what actually occured and me as a player.

(Of course there's also the point of being able to play my preferred role on a Sunday tomorrow night)

Given that you don't have any recent note history with silicons and you've shown understanding for where you went wrong here, I will go ahead and lift the ban when I get home in a hour or so. As for the note being edited or removed, I would like to see what headmins/other admins think of this. I think this is a very opinion based case with no objective answer.

If the mime was informed of the singulo release after it happened, I would be led to assume the AI made the effort to ensure the mime wasn't in harm's way from where the singulo was moving / was made to stay clear of the splash zone. From what it sounds like from the mime being informed shortly after release, the intent to protect him was still there. As far as breaking laws I'd call it an edge case at best. The borg had clear intentions of protecting the mime (but was blown), and I could assume the AI would have made additional effort.

As a note, pAIs can't read binary talk, unless you were speaking on the radio using binary language (which the curator can also decipher). However, there's still other ways to track what the borgs are doing (such as via camera, including a cyborg's own built-in camera, having a non-slaved borg snitching, etc)

This is less relevant to the matter at hand, but the Mime was actually the one that blew R3. No idea why.

That being said, I had been diving through all archived ban appeals that contained the word "silicon", and made it about two years back before hearing that this ban would be lifted. I couldn't find a single other case where a player was banned for doing something that might eventually break their laws. Indeed, the precedent seems to be let the borg or AI actually break their laws before acting. Of course, it's possible that bans for future law-break exist and were just never appealed.

It's fairly well established that just because Silicons aren't on Asimov (or as in this case, their Asimov is restricted to just one person being regarded human), doesn't mean their new laws are less important or disregarded. Part of this melds into Rule 1, that interpreting and acting on your laws shouldn't dickishly aim to fuck over your 1 human or the like FNR.

Realistically a singularity is a uncontrollable calamity, and on the design of donutstation especially it's quite likely to cause issues even if you get lucky with its random direction picking. While I don't think this case was malicious, I do think it was negligent, since ensuring the One Human's safety takes priority even over Law 5 or any orders, and so while I won't overrule elyina's decision to lift the ban, I do think the note should remain as a record for any future issues that might (hopefully not) arise.