Borging and Memory

[Quey]

A couple times now I've had an issue come up with borging, and server policy, different admins in disagreement, and the game itself have come in conflict. The problem stems from what happens when you become a borg, and what you may retain from your past life as a human (and vice-versa for borg brain being reimplanted in a human).

The first incident is sort of difficult. So I'm an engineer, and I'm berating another engineer for screwing up containment. What d'ya know, a wizard goes and summons some magic items and this engineer zaps me with a staff of change as soon as I become a survivor. I'm a newly minted borg. So I'm confused at what to do next, and check my notes. Sure enough, it mentions "You are the survivor!", go do what you want. But there's the problem of my laws, being a cyborg and all. I adminhelp, and I only get cryptic responses about "follow your laws", but nothing on whether it would be right to, say, arrest the person who zapped me, or even just shout to the crew what happened. So what does one do? What does a borg remember from their human life? Does the process of borging (brain surgery vs. magic) matter?

The second incident is a bit more clear cut. I get attacked by a guy, and actually decide to put something about it in my notes while cuffed and the guy decides what to do with me. He's a traitor, so I'm killed, and he decides to borg me. Again, upon insertion into the borg, I can see the note that I left. He was quick to emag me, but it does raise the question of what I could do with this memory.

So I guess it comes to either:
1. Borgs do not remember their past lives, so code should be changed to wipe the memories (notes) of players being borged, and rules should be made clear to reflect that, for both IC and OOC reasons.
or
2. Borgs do remember their past lives and admins should start enforcing it that way, and it should be made clear on the borg wiki page.

There may be other alternatives I haven't thought of, or other nuances I may have missed. However, a few things seem to be clear:
1. When you are borged, any OBJECTIVES you may have had (traitor, survivor, etc.) are no longer valid and you have already failed them.
2. Borgs should follow their laws. This sounds obvious, but may be nontrivial in cases of traitor silicons and such, which is why they are given special laws that specifically state that they need to complete their objectives by any means necessary. This becomes more relevant if borgs do remember their past lives.

This is how I understand things, and again, I may have something wrong. If so, please point it out to me.

[Steelpoint]

I know for a fact that the "survivor" objective you can get during a Wizard Summon spell makes you a antag. You had full rights to do whatever you wanted to do as a borg since you were technically a antag. At least that's what I am led to believe.

Everything else is simple. When your borged you retain all past knowledge you had when you were ALIVE and HUMAN. So if you were killed by a traitor and later borged you were free to tell the crew who the traitor is, if you are emagged by said traitor however then you have to obey him as per your laws.

The only rules governing being borged is Law 1 and force borging. Essentially it covers mainly antags/people that are borged by Security so that they cannot go Sec Module and arrest sec for Human harm. As far as the rules are concerned they don't give a toss about a human after they are borged.

SPACE NINJA EDIT: In addition, being borged as a antag revokes your antag status fully and you are considered to have failed the escape alive objective.

[Quey]

I see. That makes perfect sense, but it seems the admins aren't in perfect alignment on this policy, as when I adminhelped they implied I couldn't do anything. But it's possible they were busy with something else, as they were giving vague, terse responses.

To be clear, in the incident where I was a survivor, the order was first the other engineer and I were survivors, THEN I was magic'd into a borg. Otherwise the other engie would not have had the staff of change. But if it were the other way around, I get your point. However, I'm not sure the code allows borgs to become survivors.

[Brotemis]

Steel point is wrong. You are still very much so bound by your laws. Don't spread misinformation or just spout things.

[Jeb]

I think I remember someone talking about needing to fix the borgs retaining their human-mob memories.

I might be wrong on that though, I'll try and figure out where I saw it.

[Steelpoint]

Then we have a conflict of rules as far as I have been told. I was directly informed, along with OOC chat, that the survivor status as a borg means you are fully an antag irrespective of your lawset if you got changed into a cyborg via staff of transformation.

This will require a discussion as there is a clear divide between the rules and opinions of the admins in this case.

I'm not spouting misinformation, im spouting what the admins told me directly.

[Jeb]

Your laws override the survivor status, because you get turned into an asimov cyborg (that's ai-less, I believe?). Harming a human violates law 1, etc.

Only exception is if you get turned into a syndieborg afaik.

[Steelpoint]

Good thing we have a policy discussion forum for this stuff then.

I'm going to hold off on further comments until someone more official makes a statement.

[Kelenius]

Steel point is wrong. You are still very much so bound by your laws. Don't spread misinformation or just spout things.

Madness.

Survivor borgs should get "0. Survive at any cost." law.

[Brotemis]

Good thing I literally just said your laws > survivor status.

[Hornygranny]

I personally don't think borgs should retain memory of their previous life. Brotemis is right that your laws override your antag status, whatever role that may be.

[Quey]

It sounds like people are talking about two different things, but they are handled with the same policy. Okay, so survivor borgs are a thing, that's good to know. In my example I was a survivor BEFORE being transformed into a borg, as I had no law 0. That means I just follow my laws, no problem. So if the code works right, if a borg were to be made into a survivor AFTER borging (or it was a roundstart borg), it would have a law 0 like any other traitor silicon, so again, covered by the "follow your laws" policy. That would make the most sense. Therefore, there shouldn't be a situation where the laws would conflict with your status. Either you are a traitor and have a law 0, or you aren't and you don't have a law 0.

Hornygranny, I'm interested to hear why borgs shouldn't have a memory of their previous life. I have a few possible good reasons for and against, but I want to hear yours.

[Hornygranny]

I don't like it thematically. Cyborgs should be as robotic as possible, and having someone retain memory does not help with that. I prefer to see the exoskeleton as something that harnesses a brain as an organic computer, not a housing to bring someone to life. There are minor in-game issues like borging a changeling and forcing it to snitch on the other lings, but I don't think that's common.

[Steelpoint]

If we want that then go full Cyberman on Cyborgs, a emotional/memory inhibitor is built into every Cyborg unit that surpresses the Cyborgs prior memories of its past Human life. The reasoning is that a Human would likley go insane or commit suicide if it discovered that it was no longer Human but a disembodied brain in a cold metal suit.



A lot of people have been saying for a while that Cyborgs should forget everything about their prior life full stop. I would be interested in it being made into a game play mechanic where they start off with no memories, but the memory inhibitor can be disabled returning the memories but causing a high chance of death.

[Pandarsenic]

I'm not gonna say anything about requiring people to roleplay cyborgs a certain way.

I am going to say that

IF YOU ARE A SILICONS YOUR LAWS ARE ABSOLUTE
PERIOD

The ONLY SOURCE OF ANTAG STATUS AS A SILICON IS YOUR LAWS.

Literally the first post by an administrator made this unambiguously clear:

Steel point is wrong. You are still very much so bound by your laws. Don't spread misinformation or just spout things.

Steelpoint, if you can name a time and name or a quote or have logs, glorious logstotzka can apprehend and reprimand the admin for having spread incorrect information.

[Kelenius]

I'm not gonna say anything about requiring people to roleplay cyborgs a certain way.

I am going to say that

IF YOU ARE A SILICONS YOUR LAWS ARE ABSOLUTE
PERIOD

The ONLY SOURCE OF ANTAG STATUS AS A SILICON IS YOUR LAWS.

Literally the first post by an administrator made this unambiguously clear:

Steel point is wrong. You are still very much so bound by your laws. Don't spread misinformation or just spout things.

Steelpoint, if you can name a time and name or a quote or have logs, glorious logstotzka can apprehend and reprimand the admin for having spread incorrect information.

Yet an attempt to redefine "objectives" of a traitor AI ended up with AI killing everyone later and admins shrugging it off because "AI is an antag". So in that case antag status > laws.

[Hornygranny]

Traitor AI is not bound by laws, ever. That's the point. It's not the same thing as traitor-in-a-borg.

[Jeb]

If you don't have a law making you an antag, you're not an antag.

Your memories are from a human mob if you get staff of changed into a cyborg.

Your memories are from a human mob if you are forceborged or voluntarily borg yourself.

Human Memories != Silicon Memories, that's the reason why you can't go get borged as an antag and go on a murderboner, you're not human anymore. If someone were to pop your head out of the mmi and clone you, you're human again and your memories apply.

[Quey]

Wait, if traitor AI is not bound by laws, what's the point of the "achieve your objectives" law for traitor AI? Does it not get that law?

[Hornygranny]

It gets the law, but the law is just a symbol that it's a traitor. Even if some extraordinary means happen to change its laws, or it gets a ion law that would normally override a law 0, it can still act freely.

[Cheridan]

I don't like it thematically. Cyborgs should be as robotic as possible, and having someone retain memory does not help with that. I prefer to see the exoskeleton as something that harnesses a brain as an organic computer, not a housing to bring someone to life. There are minor in-game issues like borging a changeling and forcing it to snitch on the other lings, but I don't think that's common.

Yeah, I agree with this. Cyborgs (possibly ais?) should get a mind-wipe as soon as they're jammed into the frame. Basically, the entire fun of a traitor roboticist is to steal brains and make them your slaves... but if you dare try this they're going to go secborg yell HARMU DETECTED and drag you to the permabrig.

There's also the other side of it, which is the "I LIVE AGAIN BEEP BOOP TIM EBOW IS A TRAITOR AND HE KILLED ME" of a victim upon first getting borged. The response to this point is usually "You should just C4/space/gib/devour-after-turning-into-a-monkey the body like a proper traitor! git guddd".
Except that's forcing people to remove others from the round, which is NOT FUN. Giving someone a chance to be found and play the round out as a cyborg is better.

(Because of this I'd prefer a bay-style policy on clones not remembering what happened to them as well)

[Hornygranny]

On that topic, I'd actually prefer no cloning, or random ghosts being put in clones, but that will A: never happen and B: deserves its own thread.

[Kelenius]

Are you considered having survived until the end if you end the round as a changed borg?

[Hornygranny]

No.

[Ikarrus]

>random ghosts being put in clones

Hnnggggg make this happen

[Drynwyn]

>random ghosts being put in clones

Hnnggggg make this happen

I'd support this provided clones have no memories.

A significant portion of the playerbase would disagree, however, because of "hugbox". But maybe if traitors knew that randomly murderspacing people wouldn't ruin their round we'd have fewer random murders.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

There are exactly two laws that define antag silicon, that being malf law and traitor zeroth law "Accomplish all objectives at all cost". If you don't have that, it does not matter whether you were antag before.

Think about it, borged traitors become Asimov no matter the objectives. Why should survivor be any different?

[Kelenius]

There are exactly two laws that define antag silicon, that being malf law and traitor zeroth law "Accomplish all objectives at all cost". If you don't have that, it does not matter whether you were antag before.

Think about it, borged traitors become Asimov no matter the objectives. Why should survivor be any different?

Borging vs staff of change.

[Lo6a4evskiy]

Borging vs staff of change.

Yeah, what about it is different?

[Hornygranny]

Nothing.

[Kelenius]

Actually, I dropped this subject at this point:

Are you considered having survived until the end if you end the round as a changed borg?

No.

Because I thought that they win in that case.

[Neerti]

Cyborgs are considered 'dead' for objective purposes.

[bandit]

Given the amount of grief -- both literal and figurative -- they cause, it might make sense to quietly have a rev policy (i.e. admins hands-off) for rounds where staffs of change are spammed to the extent they tend to be. It doesn't happen that often anymore.

[Aurx]

Given the amount of grief -- both literal and figurative -- they cause, it might make sense to quietly have a rev policy (i.e. admins hands-off) for rounds where staffs of change are spammed to the extent they tend to be. It doesn't happen that often anymore.

Policy's pretty simple as I understand it, actually.
If you become a humanoid (slimeperson, lizardman, golem, whatever), whoever shot you can be killed for ruining your identity if it wasn't voluntary but that's it. If you become a slime, alien, or other hostile thing, you effectively have antag status for until you get changed to something else. If you become a borg, follow your laws.
If you're not an antag, you better be able to justify why you're shooting people with that staff. If you're shooting volunteers to make them valid-killing machines, you may be bwoink'd and told to stop.

[mrpain]

This might have been addressed already, but lets say a borg slaved to a rogue or malf ai is somehow killed or blown and his MMI is on the floor.

Is the brain allowed to say that its rogue or malf?

I was told yes.

I dont particularly like that.

[Munchlax]

Why don't you like that, the AI is no longer it's master nor does the brain have laws since it's just a brain in a MMI now, not in a borgshell.

[Apsis]

I usually just wait until I'm in an MMI to spout information before I'm put into a borg. After that I usually retain my memory as a gimmick, but I won't give away any key things. For example, sometimes I become a janitor borg when I'm a janitor, and state I only did this for the sake of cleaning.

[Kelenius]

This might have been addressed already, but lets say a borg slaved to a rogue or malf ai is somehow killed or blown and his MMI is on the floor.

Is the brain allowed to say that its rogue or malf?

I was told yes.

I dont particularly like that.

He's not obligated to, though.

What are the chances of getting back into round if you say it's malf?

What are the chances of getting back into round if you don't?

Think about it.