Frog6645- Failing to act as command

Ban Appeals
1

Ban Reason : Unreasonable incompetence/failure to maintain order as command/taking actions detrimental to the station/cooperating with an antag. As the captain, watched the HoS get robbed/killed by an antag.

Length of ban: 7200 minutes

Events leading to the ban : I had recently visited cargo to check on bounties and learned that the practice laser rifles can be used for the 28500 speso bounty, so I started back towards security to ask them for the rifles. The rifles were obtained (printed? were just in a chest? I was not there) and brought out. I was escorting a cargo guy to the place when hugs the void, a regular, pulled out a rifle THAT THE HOS KNEW WAS FAKE and started shooting at me. I give a dismissive “put that back” or something of the sort, but the HoS does not see it that way. They decide the appropriate response is to chase them down, against my orders as the captain without any harm being done. At this point, nobody knew that they were a syndicate because they had done nothing but shoot me with a FAKE RIFLE which nobody cares about. The HoS proceeds to get slipped not once, twice, but thrice all while I am telling them to back off so I can properly de-escalate. It is only after the HoS pulls lethals on this person who, at the time, I could only reasonably assume to be crew, that hugs the void takes lethal action against them. They then release a holo parasite which, as I can put it, would fuck me up so bad that it is not worth fighting. I told hugs that. They agreed that fighting is not in the best interest for either of us, so we went our different ways, as I did not want to die as the captain. That sounds pretty bad. In any case, the HoS perma SSD after, so I doubt they saw any future events unfold. If you have access to match replay, you can see that I was mugged by the antag in my own office because HoS fumbled the bag (lost their ID) and continued to chase somebody AGAINST MY ORDERS and got dunked on for it. I would not have won that fight and I know it, so I just talked my way out of it. In any case, I get mugged in my office and attempt to think of the safety of the crew, saying that if they have any orders that involve NOT KILLING SOMEBODY I would be willing to comply as they are incredibly dangerous at this point. In addition, I felt it would be a cool RP moment for the captain to have their back against the wall. They said they have to kill somebody, so I told them that I would meet them again and would carry soap, to which they responded they have no slips. In any case, soon after, I heard gunshots down in the hallway below med and saw a fight going on. I tried to shoot hugs, however they had a very robust holo parasite who was able to block all the bullets, so I withdrew. Once again, if you have match replay, you can see that once I thought the odds were in my favor, I attempted to attack hugs and was promptly put in my place by somebody who I concede was the better player. If you could, please ask hugs the void about the situation. I am sure they will have a good bit to say.

Reason the ban should be removed : Everything I did was in the interest of de-escalation, attempting to reign in a shitsec with a LOT OF POWER, and the safety of the crew. I did attempt to negotiate with an antag, yes, but once I heard that they needed a crew dead, that was off the table. In addition, it can be known that I was NOT working with the antags, as I was caught attempting to send a message that hugs was a syndicate and that is when they, I assume, emerged from the locker and tried to cuff me while I was on the comms computer. I believe this is just an example of somebody giving a very one sided story in a fit of anger that they didn’t get to bully some random greytider for trying to have fun with a fake laser rifle.

2

Oh, I feel that I should also mention that I did not get bwoinked before I was banned so I feel like this is all a huge misunderstanding and do not blame any admins for acting on something that on paper seems very very bad for the crew. In addition, I was having problems with the color formatting on the post and that copy pasting it as suggested in the appeal outline did not work (I have seen that it has worked for others so I don’t know how I messed it up) so I apologize for the drab color scheme. I hope you don’t mind that I just recreated it myself.

For extra clarity, hugs the void did nothing that would fully out them as a syndicate before letting the parasite rip (unless their soap was syndie soap, but I couldn’t see because he dropped it basically on the HoS) and I believe they only activated their cover blowing holo parasite to gib the HoS because “it pissed them off”. I don’t remember if I dilly dallied for a moment after my own literal head of security was gunned down with their own weapon, but if I did, I’m pretty sure it is because I was like “what the fuck” about the entire situation. As you can likely tell in my post, I myself am also quite discontent with the actions of the HoS that round as they ignored commands that I thought were reasonable, did not escalate/de-escalate in any reasonable way, and their reason to attack hugs was for “stealing” when they were clearly just joking, and if memory serves, they returned the rifle after being asked. I’m not quite sure about that last detail, but given how I tried to defend them instead of helping the HoS detain I believe that to be the case. Next, the times that I said "once I thought the odds were in my favor, I attempted to attack hugs refer to both the incident below the medical hallway and on the evac shuttle where hugs and their very robust parasite proceeded to tear me and sec to shreds in quite a humorous fashion. My appeal is a little emotionally charged, not towards the admin who banned me but towards the HoS because just as they bothered hugs, they also annoyed me by ruining another players opportunity to experience being a cool, undercover operator like how a syndicate agent should, not a glorified nukie. Hugs should not have had their clover blown at the moment and I feel like the HoS pulling literal lethals on some greytider who shot the cap with a practice rifle is  EXTREMELY fucking excessive, especially while actively being told to try and de-escalate by the captain. In addition, if memory serves, which it may not, hugs did stop a couple times after I said calm down and other such things only for the HoS to continue to try and beat the shit out of them. 

In addition, the cooperating with an antag part could also be referring to my general lack of extreme hostility towards somebody who I knew was a syndie, but I have a few reasons to explain that. First, they were extremely dangerous and fighting them was not in my best interest most of the time unless I had a lot of backup (and even then I still had my ass kicked). Second, I felt like it was cool RP to have a less pronounced AOS and more of a “I’ll get you some day” with them. Lastly, I am not sure if captain is allowed to negotiate with antags in any capacity, but any negotiation attempts fell flat on both ends because they had to kill a member of the crew which is not tolerable.

I have recently contacted one of the admins to learn about captain in a little more detail and found that I should probably try and be less of “a giant wuss” and bring the hammer down harder when I believe my crew is being endangered, either by external threats or even my most trusted command. This entire experience has been very informative, as I am a new captain and am prone to making many rookie mistakes, especially underestimating the slip meta. I’ve only just realized the true power of the CE, their advanced mag boots. 

3

Oh yeah, ONE LAST ADDENDUM that I felt like was unspoken but probably needs to be mentioned. In most circumstances, it does not matter what context the killing of a command member is in, it should be on sight at that point. I however believed, and still do believe, that this was one of the few examples that killing the HoS would be justified. You did nothing wrong, the captain is chasing after you telling them to stop, and after you slip them three times while the captain (who doesn’t have handcuffs and that’s honestly my bad for not snagging a pair) is helplessly yapping at them, ordering them to stop, they pull out a gun on an  UNARMED MOTHERFUCKING PASSENGER  (they were a syndie but we didn’t know and they had done nothing to out themselves). In these extreme circumstances, I felt like the HoS deserved to die and would have promptly taken them to med afterward (and possibly demoted them, but I can’t be sure if that would have come to mind) if hugs did not, ya know, pop a holo parasite and start trying to gib them because they were upset about shitseccing. Based on the information that the HoS had, there was absolutely no reason to shoot hugs other than having a bruised ego that they got tripped three times during a single chase, had their baton taken (and handed back, but looking back on it now maybe hugs was trying to give it to me? I can’t speak for their intentions that were not stated) and were being called out by the captain for an unfair chase. 

4

I just found the replay and realized that I actually missed the holo parasite popping up while trying to de-escalate as I was typing, the HoS was fully in their rights to start shooting at hugs once they made it emerge, I remembered things going down differently because I was banned the round after this one. My bad for being wrong about stuff. In any case, I still don’t think they should have chased Hugs like that, and my bad for saying something that was false. I still stand by how I kind of just backed down (my back was to maints, you can see me evaluating if I should jump in with my baton and then putting it away) since I did not want to die.

5

Upon review of the replay and pending an administrative vote on the actions described in the appeal, we’ve elected to deny this appeal at this time.

While we can appreciate occasionally missing minor details of situations, the overall state of the round and the impact your lackadaisical attitude towards the antag in question as well as the fact that you essentially let the HoS get killed and looted under your command leads me to believe you may need a bit more time in regular roles before you can give any kind of Command another go. Playing Command _does _require you to pay more attention and weigh the needs of the station against what one or two people want to do.

As a side note, I would like to remind you that admins do share details of investigations with each other, and that DMing one admin wih additional information as opposed to just plainly stating your case here comes across as a bit like you’re admin shopping. While that may not have been your intent, please try not to do that in the future with your next appeal. Just put the facts in the thread so it’s less chasing around anyone has to do individually.

The role ban may be appealed two weeks from today, March 2nd, 2024. Given the length of the ban in question, the administrative team have also elected to let the remaining time stand - your game ban will expire on March 4th at approximately 3:30pm EST.

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