[Striders13] Imitates-The-Lizards - Allowing security to hand off prisoners like slaves without sufficient IC reasoning.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

When and where this incident occured (Game Server, forums, Discord): Sybil
Byond account and character name OR Discord name: Typhnox / Imitates-The-Lizards
Admin: Striders13
ROUND ID HERE IF APPLICABLE: 205825
Detailed summary:

During this shift, I signed up as a Prisoner. Spent some time meandering around Birdshot perma since I'd never been there before, and picked up some tomato seeds to start a chill shift of gardening in permabrig. Might break out later, might just chill, who knows. Suddenly, after only a couple of minutes of being in perma, a security officer and an assistant walk in, with the security officer shooting his disabler at me wordlessly. I don't resist, since that wouldn't end well at all considering I am already in custody. I am cuffed and they start escorting me out of perma...in a body bag. I don't like where this is going. I ask them what they're doing. The security officer says they're GIVING me to the assistant. I understandably freak out since I've been cuffed and tossed in a bodybag with effectively no explanation to be handed off to a random assistant. I start screaming for help to another nearby secoff. They intervene, but only mildly, before eventually letting the assistant take me out of the brig still in cuffs. I scream for help to anyone in the halls and am summarily ignored. I am promptly taken to a bathroom stall and killed and sacrificed by the heretic assistant.

So, I ahelp. It seems absurd to me that security just handed me out like candy to a heretic. Striders13 picks up the ticket, and says he'll look into it. Comes back and tells me it's fine to hand out prisoners for experiments. I ask him where that is in policy, and he says it's his own subjective interpretation. I point out that I signed up to be a Prisoner, not a test subject, and that it's pretty failRP for security to literally hand sacrifices to a heretic (Who later easily ascended, by the way). Striders says they had no way of knowing he was a heretic, and then Striders tells me he agrees it's a bit much for them to just hand me out like that, but this is all he's going to do and if I have a problem with that, file a complaint.

So, I have two complaints here. Firstly, the bit about "File a complaint if you don't like it" seriously rubs me the wrong way. It would have been much more constructive and less abrasive if he said something like "Perhaps this could be more fleshed out in a Policy Discussion thread?". Minor complaint, I know, not everyone is perfect, least of all not myself, but, still. I'm sure Striders has some complaints about my conduct in the ticket as well, but two wrongs don't make a right. And for the record, I did try making this a Policy Discussion thread first, but I couldn't really make it fit logically while typing it out, because "Prisoners are not literally slaves that Security can hand out as they please" seems so inherently obvious to me that I can't believe it would necessitate a policy thread, and the more I typed it out, the more ridiculous it seemed to me. So, I decided I needed to opt for the complaint, because the policy discussion thread would have just looked like an admin complaint in the first place no matter how I typed it out regarding this situation.

Secondly, there's no logical way that the conduct from the officers should have been allowed. Prisoners are not slaves, or slabs of meat to be handed out to whatever random passerby. How does that even work logically? My character was in for tax evasion, not an antagonist. So, it's fine if you evade taxes and then you can be handed out to random people to be "experimented" on? How does this make any sense? If I were to walk to my local prison and be like "Hey can I have some of your prisoners to do experiments on them?" how do you think that would play out? Like, I didn't want the security officers banned or anything, but a note would have been nice (Not that I know if they got noted or not, but the text from the ahelp implied they were just given a verbal even though my entire shift was ruined for what was at best extreme failrp, and at worst self-antagging or some kind of weird slave-rp), and Striders attitude about the whole situation implied to me that he only talked to them begrudgingly, as if he didn't want to discuss it all because he didn't feel like they did anything wrong. I basically got treated like a chattel slave to be done with whatever Security felt like, and Striders didn't seem to see any issue with it.

So, I guess I'm asking to clarify that prisoners are not slaves and y'know, a confirmation that what happened in this shift was failrp and Striders should have noted the security officer in question if he didn't, and even if he did, his conduct could have been better. I don't want him demoted or anything like that, just a "Come on Striders, this one should have been a slam dunk, try to do a little better next time.".

[Striders13]

Hey, thanks for continuing this discussion.

Full ticket log (god it's a pain to format):

► Show Spoiler

typhnox - Hey so security just let a random assistant kidnap and murder me from the very start of the shift for basically no reason.
striders13 - I was hoping he'd do something more interesting
striders13 - I'll look into it
typhnox - This is literally the height of failrp, I just straight up got kidnapped and murdered willingly and security let it happen.....
striders13 - Well, there's also the point that prisoners are there to be free test subjects if anyone wants to perform tests on them. And the assistant did say he needed you to do some experiments.
typhnox - Where the heck does it say that!??
striders13 - It doesn't and is completely my own interpretation. It's fun to be a test subject sometimes, and prisoner sounds like the perfect role for that.
typhnox - I signed up to be a prisoner, not a test subject! Security isn't jsut supposed to hand me out like candy to whoever comes along and asks!
striders13 - Alright then, if you didn't want it, I'll talk to secoff.
typhnox - I DIDNT want it. I wanted to be a prisoner!
striders13 - Okay, warned em to be more respectful to the wishes of people playing their role. Should ship you back to perma once you're treated.
typhnox - ....That's it? Security got me killed and kidnapped and that's it? Like I know this is LRP but isnt that a bit too lax?
typhnox - Like its not even a stretch to say they literally helped the heretic. They did.
typhnox - They handed a heretic a sacrifice on a silver platter.
striders13 - They had no way to know they were talking to a heretic
typhnox - Yeah but, that doesnt mean they should just hand out prisoners to people just because they ask, right? Like, "Here, have this person, we'll even cuff and giftwrap them for you"
typhnox - Like dont you think thats a BIT of a stretch?
striders13 - a BIT. That's why I warned em. Anyway, I did what I thought was necessary. If you have an issue, open a complaint.
Resolved by Striders13

So, I have two complaints here. Firstly, the bit about "File a complaint if you don't like it" seriously rubs me the wrong way. It would have been much more constructive and less abrasive if he said something like "Perhaps this could be more fleshed out in a Policy Discussion thread?". Minor complaint, I know, not everyone is perfect, least of all not myself, but, still. I'm sure Striders has some complaints about my conduct in the ticket as well, but two wrongs don't make a right. And for the record, I did try making this a Policy Discussion thread first, but I couldn't really make it fit logically while typing it out, because "Prisoners are not literally slaves that Security can hand out as they please" seems so inherently obvious to me that I can't believe it would necessitate a policy thread, and the more I typed it out, the more ridiculous it seemed to me. So, I decided I needed to opt for the complaint, because the policy discussion thread would have just looked like an admin complaint in the first place no matter how I typed it out regarding this situation.

I said 'open a complaint' and resolved the ticket because you disagreed with my ruling and requested a harsher punishement. That's fine, but I believe it's completely pointless to argue about it in the ticket, since I've already made up my mind.

Secondly, there's no logical way that the conduct from the officers should have been allowed. Prisoners are not slaves, or slabs of meat to be handed out to whatever random passerby. How does that even work logically? My character was in for tax evasion, not an antagonist. So, it's fine if you evade taxes and then you can be handed out to random people to be "experimented" on? How does this make any sense? If I were to walk to my local prison and be like "Hey can I have some of your prisoners to do experiments on them?" how do you think that would play out? Like, I didn't want the security officers banned or anything, but a note would have been nice (Not that I know if they got noted or not, but the text from the ahelp implied they were just given a verbal even though my entire shift was ruined for what was at best extreme failrp, and at worst self-antagging or some kind of weird slave-rp), and Striders attitude about the whole situation implied to me that he only talked to them begrudgingly, as if he didn't want to discuss it all because he didn't feel like they did anything wrong. I basically got treated like a chattel slave to be done with whatever Security felt like, and Striders didn't seem to see any issue with it.

I believe the whole 'requesting a permabrig prisoner for experiments' to be a fun roleplay interaction. It's just a cool opportunity for the test subject to interact with the rest of the crew as prisoner, since you're usually locked away from the rest of the station in solitude.
And, well, the dude who wanted to experiment on you turned out to be heretic (I was hoping he'd ghoul you tbh), sucks! As I previously stated, security officer had absolutely no way to know he was dealing with a heretic, so it's clearly not the case of knowingly assisting an antagonist.
You disliked being interacted in such way, I talked to the officer because you took issue with it. I don't believe punishing secoff outside a verbal warning to get consent next time was necessary., because:

• Secoff had under 100hrs playtime

• He proceeded to take actions to treat you and return you to permabrig even before I bwoinked him

All in all, the situation wasn't fine, the officer was told how to improve his conduct, but it wasn't a horrendous rulebreak that should get someone instantly permabanned.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Hey, thanks for continuing this discussion.

So, I have two complaints here. Firstly, the bit about "File a complaint if you don't like it" seriously rubs me the wrong way. It would have been much more constructive and less abrasive if he said something like "Perhaps this could be more fleshed out in a Policy Discussion thread?". Minor complaint, I know, not everyone is perfect, least of all not myself, but, still. I'm sure Striders has some complaints about my conduct in the ticket as well, but two wrongs don't make a right. And for the record, I did try making this a Policy Discussion thread first, but I couldn't really make it fit logically while typing it out, because "Prisoners are not literally slaves that Security can hand out as they please" seems so inherently obvious to me that I can't believe it would necessitate a policy thread, and the more I typed it out, the more ridiculous it seemed to me. So, I decided I needed to opt for the complaint, because the policy discussion thread would have just looked like an admin complaint in the first place no matter how I typed it out regarding this situation.

I said 'open a complaint' and resolved the ticket because you disagreed with my ruling and requested a harsher punishement. That's fine, but I believe it's completely pointless to argue about it in the ticket, since I've already made up my mind.

I mean okay, sure. I guess you and I have a different view on complaints? Like, the way that came across to me was less "Hey we could continue having a fruitful discussion about this elsewhere if you don't like how this was resolved." (Which I would have thought would be more in line with the Policy Discussion subforum) and more "Tough shit, this is my decision, if you don't like it, fuck you file a complaint."

Secondly, there's no logical way that the conduct from the officers should have been allowed. Prisoners are not slaves, or slabs of meat to be handed out to whatever random passerby. How does that even work logically? My character was in for tax evasion, not an antagonist. So, it's fine if you evade taxes and then you can be handed out to random people to be "experimented" on? How does this make any sense? If I were to walk to my local prison and be like "Hey can I have some of your prisoners to do experiments on them?" how do you think that would play out? Like, I didn't want the security officers banned or anything, but a note would have been nice (Not that I know if they got noted or not, but the text from the ahelp implied they were just given a verbal even though my entire shift was ruined for what was at best extreme failrp, and at worst self-antagging or some kind of weird slave-rp), and Striders attitude about the whole situation implied to me that he only talked to them begrudgingly, as if he didn't want to discuss it all because he didn't feel like they did anything wrong. I basically got treated like a chattel slave to be done with whatever Security felt like, and Striders didn't seem to see any issue with it.

I believe the whole 'requesting a permabrig prisoner for experiments' to be a fun roleplay interaction. It's just a cool opportunity for the test subject to interact with the rest of the crew as prisoner, since you're usually locked away from the rest of the station in solitude.
And, well, the dude who wanted to experiment on you turned out to be heretic (I was hoping he'd ghoul you tbh), sucks! As I previously stated, security officer had absolutely no way to know he was dealing with a heretic, so it's clearly not the case of knowingly assisting an antagonist.
You disliked being interacted in such way, I talked to the officer because you took issue with it. I don't believe punishing secoff outside a verbal warning to get consent next time was necessary., because:

• Secoff had under 100hrs playtime

• He proceeded to take actions to treat you and return you to permabrig even before I bwoinked him

All in all, the situation wasn't fine, the officer was told how to improve his conduct, but it wasn't a horrendous rulebreak that should get someone instantly permabanned.

Sure. I could see Prisoners being used for experiments under a variety of circumstances. Maybe medical wants to do an experiment and put my brain in a monkey. Maybe Science got the xeno egg and they want fodder. If it was either one of those circumstances? I would have thought that was just cool, and totally fit in with the RP setting. However, that isn't what happened here. This was a random greyshirt who walked up at the start of the shift and asked for a prisoner for "cruel experiments", and Security just handed me over, no questions asked, didn't bother asking me if I would volunteer at all or anything, just wordlessly disablered me, cuffed me, and handed me off to a greyshirt, and even took no issue when he was STRANGLING ME in the Brig. I would like to remind you I was not an antagonist, and neither was security. I don't think it's unreasonable of me to expect non-antag security to protect other non-antagonist crewmen from literally being strangled to death in the middle of the brig, much less effectively kidnapping them and handing them off to random people. Hell, even the other secoff said it was fucked up multiple times and compared me to being passed off "like a sex slave".

Also, again, I'm not asking for a permaban, I just want a simple low severity note. I got one when I was new to tg too, for being dumb with the golem flavor text.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Actually, you know what? I was upset at the time, but I think it's much more funny and valuable to have a golden green pass from Striders to fuck with imprisoned non-antag crew with no limits. I'm gonna just go play security and start strangling people to death in the middle of the Brig if they get a perma sentence from the HoS or Captain for breaking into the Captain's office or something, or selling them off as slaves to the highest bidder after they break into Tech Storage to be used in cruel experiments (Remember, my crime was tax evasion. Literally not even as bad as b and e.). Not how I thought Security was going to work, but this incident has really opened my eyes to the possibilities of what you can do as Security. Feel free to close this, I would much rather ascend to a new higher tier of shitsec than ever before than see some random noted.

[Striders13]

I implore you to re-read the last paragraph of my responce.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

I implore you to re-read the last paragraph of my responce.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you think I was being sarcastic? I wasn't. I unironically went and tried it in the next shift and sold an (apparently traitor) assistant into slavery who broke into EVA to the QM for 300cr, which was well received by the crew of the shift at large. I genuinely think we should explore the depths of what level of fuckery is allowed with prisoners, and I am in no way upset any more, and am quite thankful to you for allowing me to realize there is genuine roleplay depth to be had in this space. Perhaps this could be turned into a Policy Discussion.

[vect0r]

To clarify, are you closing the complaint?

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

To clarify, are you closing the complaint?

I have no further interest in the complaint as, after we discussed things further, I realized there was valuable roleplay to be had in this space. Although I do still think that Striders mismanaged this situation, I'm much more happy with the expansion of roleplay than I am upset about how one shift of mine was ruined. Headmins are free to pursue or close the complaint at their leisure, if they wish to comment.

Edit: Okay yes, I was being SLIGHTLY exaggerative in my first comment on this matter, especially with the strangling bit and the shitsec ascendency bit. But I genuinely think that allowing security to use prisoners for things like experiments or other up til' now unusual usages like selling a traitor prisoner into slavery should be allowed as it will enhance the overall roleplay experience, and should my complaint be accepted in it's original form, I think it would be harmful and restrictive to roleplay at this time. Also hush Chadley, this is a game, not real life, ancapping in a corporate dystopia makes sense.

[kieth4]

Strider looked at this specific situation and ruled in a way that he felt was the best for the round. This is not setting a prescendent and is more of a rule zero thing.

He also makes clear that he did warn the person but felt a note wasn't necessary because they were a newer seccie who misread the situation and wasn't entirely aware of the rules in this regard.

I'm only commenting here because I don't want you to go out and grief random people thinking that you have permission when this is not what this is.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

I'm only commenting here because I don't want you to go out and grief random people thinking that you have permission when this is not what this is.

You know, if I were truly being petty like everyone thinks, it would be really easy for me to argue that you just agreed what happened to me was griefing, and also on a scale large enough both to ruin my entire shift and everyone else's since the heretic ascended, and that a low severity note would be completely warranted in that situation, making this a totally valid complaint because that level of severity is borderline negligence on Striders part to simply verbal.

But I won't do that, so please, Striders told me if I didn't like his ruling then I should file a complaint, I did so, but now I just think this is better suited to policy discussion. I have no wish to grief people, so the headmin team should flesh out what is and is not grief in regards to prisoners.

[kieth4]

It feels like you're not understanding so I will rephrase.

The person who did the thing to you was punished. Due to the overall grey nature of this situation and the fact that the seccie was new the punishment was a warning. You not liking the punishment does not mean that this is an enforcement of the behaviour.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

It feels like you're not understanding so I will rephrase.

The person who did the thing to you was punished. Due to the overall grey nature of this situation and the fact that the seccie was new the punishment was a warning. You not liking the punishment does not mean that this is an enforcement of the behaviour.

I understand perfectly well. You're saying he was punished, that punishment was a verbal, and that you feel that this punishment was sufficient based on the circumstances of the ahelp.

Fair enough. I disagree, but this complaint was still valid because the admin overtly and directly invited me to make the complaint, and there was still an arguable and reasonable basis behind it. If you feel like the punishment was sufficient, then it was sufficient. I would point out that this sort of thing won't impact me because I'm pretty cheery and let things go easily, as evidenced by the fact that I quite quickly went from upset to in a good mood in this thread, in addition to having quite a few hours already (I'm about 2k on sybil at this time) but if it happened to a new player, this would have been much more serious, and might have even caused them to quit, much less the fact that the entire round got upended with him easily ascending, in part due to security's help. But hey, managing the admin team is your job, not mine, so if you feel like him handing out a verbal was fine here, then it was fine. I'm not a member of the admin team, much less the headmin team, so my opinion scarcely matters in regards to policy, as people on the forums, especially oranges, love pointing out.

However none of that invalidates that I feel like there is genuine discussion to be had on the limits of the disposability of prisoners that was never seriously considered until this incident. I have no interest in seeing Striders punished, and based on the wording of his initial post, Striders felt like this would be more of an opportunity to further discussion about Security's treatment of prisoners, which is something I would love to see explored. The peanut thread further echoes this sentiment, with a few people agreeing it would have been a much more reasonable incident had it been an MD or scientist instead of a random greyshirt. Can traitor prisoners be sold as slaves? Will this lead to more interesting roleplay with them escaping their masters? Can we feed prisoners to xeno eggs? The possibilities really are endless, but that discussion should be had in policy discussion, not here.

So, to that end. I'm not upset any more. Wouldn't you rather see this turned into a fruitful discussion about what we can do with prisoners, where I, the complainant, walk away happy with a new potential avenue of roleplay to explore? You say this isn't an enforcement of the behavior in question, but that doesn't mean it's out of the question either, right? Isn't the whole point of a complaint to try and come together to work up a meaningful resolution to a dispute a player has with an admin?

Well, then, consider it resolved. I'm quite happy with how this turned out, and I'm sure Striders has no interest in arguing down my mood either.

[kieth4]

Let me rephrase what I'm saying because no ruling was made here about the validity of this actual complaint or anything, ahem.

DO NOT TAKE THIS AS A PASS TO RANDOMLY GRIEF PEOPLE AS YOU EXPRESSED INTEREST IN DOING EARLIER IN THIS COMPLAINT.

THIS IS NOT A PRECEDENT.

[Imitates-The-Lizards]

Let me rephrase what I'm saying because no ruling was made here about the validity of this actual complaint or anything, ahem.

DO NOT TAKE THIS AS A PASS TO RANDOMLY GRIEF PEOPLE AS YOU EXPRESSED INTEREST IN DOING EARLIER IN THIS COMPLAINT.

THIS IS NOT A PRECEDENT.

I would never. I have, however, opened up a policy discussion thread: viewtopic.php?f=33&p=686292&t=34082&sid ... c598563587

That's surely fine, isn't it?

I apologize if my bit of hyperbole gave you that impression, however, I was merely excited by the roleplay possibilities and I can now see how it may have come across as a bit much earlier in the thread. I just love this game very much and got a bit over-excited. I was working based off of the incidents involved in this complaint, but there is clearly a line between acceptable and humorous roleplay abuse of prisoners and unacceptable, and what I mentioned earlier clearly fell into the unacceptable side of that line. I will of course be continuing my long-standing tradition of always playing in line with the rules.

Sorry for the inconvenience Kieth.

[Misdoubtful]

We believe that a general understanding has been reached here, and appreciate the creation of a policy thread about this to make things more clear for futures sake.

Otherwise...

Striders exercised their autonomy and made a ruling they felt was right for the creation of interesting gameplay. Striders also made sure people were aware of the rules in the manner they felt best fit the situation. Said rulings aren't always going to make everyone involved happy.

We do not believe there is anything that needs to be acted on or corrected here, and will not be upholding this complaint.