[Shaps] Douk - Silicon Ban

[Douk]

Byond account and character name: Douk, Cyborg-935
Banning admin: Shaps
Ban type (What are you banned from?): Job Ban (AI, Cyborg)
Ban reason and length: Killed a few clock-cultist humans as a borg because of a law they had saying that "all traitors are non-human", which while a shitty law, is still making a massive leap in logic to connect "men holding culty-looking objects" to "TRAITORS KILL THEM". Discussion with them cemented the impression that they're more interested in killing antags than following his laws.
Time ban was placed (including time zone): Ended ~7:00CST 6/30/16

Your side of the story:
So began as the round-start borg, picked the wrong module, got a reset from robotics, and (at the suggestion of the AI) became a miner borg (though poorly timed, as the other new borg ended up picking the same module almost at the exact same time.

Spoiler:

http://imgur.com/c8KLsUb

I head off to the Lavalands, stroll past someone playing on an arcade machine moved into the main foyer, and go out to mine. It is here that I would spend most of the round. Somewhere along the way, this law comes up:

Spoiler:

http://imgur.com/t30zRxC

This law, at the time, doesn't strike me as particularly relevant, considering I'm a)Not on the station and b)Chose miner partially because I wanted to be a tertiary contributor to the round through ore supply (I barely bothered with mob/treasure hunting and such).

Before I go further, let's stop to appreciate what it means to be a "traitor."
Merriam-Webster defines a "traitor" as "a person who is not loyal to his or her own country, friends, etc. : a person who betrays a country or group of people by helping or supporting an enemy" and "one who commits treason." In order for there to be the aforementioned betrayal, one must be (at least initially) a member of the group that is at the receiving end of aggression. "Traitor" thus encompasses any group that is strictly antagonist within the confines of the existing crew, be that Syndicate agents, revs, gangs, changelings, or cults. If an assistant is dragged into maint with broken legs while another crewmember is bashing his skull open with a toolbox, the usual tagline is "X is a TRAITOR" because there is ambiguity as to the TYPE of traitor that individual is. Traitor in that case becomes synonymous with "internally-produced (official) antagonist."
Conversely, outside forces such as Nuclear Operatives, Wizards, etc would NOT be considered "traitors," as they are incapable of betrayal towards institutions and groups they had no loyalty to at the start.

Moving on, after I think a little over 30 min of mining, I take my ore crate and head back to the mining station to deliver my goods to the main station. Not a terrible lot seemed to have been different during my time away minus a broken internal window. I proceed through the main doors at the north-east side and step over a disabling rune.

Spoiler:

http://imgur.com/dgN6hwN

In the time I was deactivated, Armando Sommer attempted a conversion, but failed to complete it. I back up and report my findings, though not having engaged him as a hostile. I wait for a few moments to see if Armando pursued: he did not. I grab the ore crate and attempt to rush through to the station shuttle before anyone could have the chance to stop me. In that time, the rune is replaced and Armando waits around a blind corner for me to return. I end up disabled again and he attempts another conversion.
[spoiler]http://imgur.com/5ytxUbG[/spoiler]
At this point, I realize that I'm not getting past without being ambushed. I can't access the other entrances due to lava barriers, so my options are either bust through a window (potentially endangering non-traitorous players also in the main foyer area) or figure out some way of disabling the cultist. Cyrus Eridan reveals himself around this time, and is seen utilizing cult chat like Armando Sommer. I can't venture back outside, as a storm has started. I'm trapped inside with two cultists, both of which in the same room as me and converging on me. Under law 4, due to having been directly witnessed undeniably outing themselves as cultists, they are no longer considered human, but I'd still rather not have to kill them. Unfortunately, if I do get trapped again and they do convert me, it will result in being obliged to violate the first and second laws (much in the same way a borg should resist being emagged so as not to unlawfully upset the ability to function under the core Asimov laws). Thus, seeing as escape in either direction is not possible, a confrontation was necessary. Combat ensues.
[spoiler]http://imgur.com/n3dsw2c[/spoiler]
tldr; I won.

Towards the end of the fighting, Shaps steps in to begin questioning. If I had to guess, the now dispatched antags were probably thoroughly taken aback by the sudden outburst of violence after initial pacifism. It's starts off fairly cordial.

Spoiler:

http://imgur.com/rpvXaHR

Then before the situation can be appropriately probed, he bounces back with this.

Spoiler:

http://imgur.com/ca0brR8

The first comment entirely ignores both the actions of the antagonists (both as they exist in the logs and as I had just described to him). However, it's at least understandable in giving the benefit of the doubt to a situation he may not have fully investigated.
Now the SECOND comment is where it gets interesting. I've already gone into a bit of detail about how his definitions of "traitor" are not concretely tied to what I assume he means "Syndicate Agents," but its where he starts making threats that it becomes problematic. Rather than commit to investigation of the situation, as is part of his job, he demands that I yield any further concerns on threat of ban: ignoring any possible logical arguments that were to be made on my behalf.

While this situation is going on, Shaps revives the people that were just killed, and they IMMEDIATELY take to trying to kill me, preventing immediate continuation of the discussion. I eventually bolt myself into a room to continue my case.

Spoiler:

http://imgur.com/Kd56ez2

At this point, he entirely ignores what I've brought to his attention and banks on Rule 0 justification of "greater good" to legitimize the ban.
The "traitor" semantics issue comes up again, but I've already covered that.
The ban goes through with the reason listed earlier in the thread.

Spoiler:

]http://imgur.com/K9xESSd

And finally in the ban reason, we have the troubling use of language that seems to imply that my intention was to antag hunt. Given the circumstances, that simply wasn't true, and a cursory review of the logs would have revealed this to be the case. Had I been REALLY out to hunt antags, I would have returned to the station as soon as law 4 was uploaded to start the purging. This was a situational circumstance that, while I attempted to give the involved parties the benefit of the doubt, action became necessary in order to preserve the integrity of the higher-numbered laws.

Why you think you should be unbanned:
I followed my laws as they were spelled out (even if they were admittedly poorly written), and actually went out of my way to try and prevent the scenario that ended up transpiring. Yet despite this, the banning admin in question seems to have entirely overlooked this AND the entire rest of the round with me being in mining isolation to try and sell my actions as valid hunting. Perhaps they were simply overwhelmed with other issues going on in the round where they felt they couldn't devote the time: I'll probably never know. Perhaps if there had been a recent history of me getting involved in antag-hunting as a silicon, I might understand the sentiments behind my words being taken with a grain of salt. However, as far as I can remember, most of the silicon roles I've taken recently have been benig (janitors, engineer, peacekeeper) and I'd stayed out of antagonist issues. So I'm at a bit of a loss why it seemed that I got a hostile reception in the face of this contested issue.

I realize this is poor form to submit a ban appeal on the same day as the ban, but I feel that my case was not fairly assessed within the confines of the round of contest.

[Okand37]

The main issue which you don't seem to understand is that when 'traitor' is mentioned, it is referring to the antagonist type 'traitor' not the definition traitor.

[onleavedontatme]

The main issue which you don't seem to understand is that when 'traitor' is mentioned, it is referring to the antagonist type 'traitor' not the definition traitor.

Isn't it kind of backwards and counter productive to chide a player for not using ooc terms/game mechanics in IC language? Especially in something meant to be interpeted literally like silicon laws?

It's already bad enough with people shouting round types on the radio or blatantly discussing game mechanics ("there cant be revs, there are traitors!")

[Okand37]

The main issue which you don't seem to understand is that when 'traitor' is mentioned, it is referring to the antagonist type 'traitor' not the definition traitor.

Isn't it kind of backwards and counter productive to chide a player for not using ooc terms/game mechanics in IC language? Especially in something meant to be interpeted literally like silicon laws?

It's already bad enough with people shouting round types on the radio or blatantly discussing game mechanics ("there cant be revs, there are traitors!")

I am saying this is how the admin dealing with it was identifying it as, and explaining to the person appealing that. I am personally all for more roleplay and less meta/ooc terms, but I'm just laying down the fact.

[Shaps-cloud]

Normally I'd agree with you kor, but when Douk's defense here is that cultists are basically traitors anyway and thus fine to kill without any knowledge of what they were doing or context of what exactly their cult was (rather than actively uncovering plans of them plotting against nanotrasen, or seeing them attacking other humans), it just looks more like they're hunting for reasons to kill people as an otherwise asimov borg. The idea that "oh they're antagonists that must mean I'm good to kill them because all antags are the same anyway, right?" which you justified almost exclusively in OOC terms, is terrible and flies right in the face of Asimov. Your arguments don't hold water on an IC level because the law itself hadn't even specified what traitors the law was talking about (I'm sure there's plenty of conflicts on station where someone was fighting with someone else and betraying them, but you jumped straight to the antagonist definition even though the law says nothing about Nanotrasen at all), and it doesn't work on an OOC level because quite simply, cultists aren't traitors.

If you're just going to run around as a silicon and kill antagonists at every opportunity like you very much present yourself as planning to, without any regard for doing the same to the station side forces that the same laws might also apply to, you have failed to be neutral like a silicon should and shouldn't be playing the role. Play sec instead if you want to hunt antags.

[Douk]

Normally I'd agree with you kor, but when Douk's defense here is that cultists are basically traitors anyway and thus fine to kill without any knowledge of what they were doing or context of what exactly their cult was (rather than actively uncovering plans of them plotting against nanotrasen, or seeing them attacking other humans), it just looks more like they're hunting for reasons to kill people as an otherwise asimov borg.

You once again ignore the fact that they attempted to convert me TWICE. I even tried rushing past them so that I could just escape without having to deal with their garbage. When a syndicate agent walks up to a borg with an emag and says "open up, I want to change your laws so that you're subservient to me and my goals," is that borg obliged to do so? No, of course not, because doing so with a known antagonist means that Law 1 may be made void. This is not only that, but attempting to FORCIBLY do so in a way that violates Law 3.
By association with outside forces (the Ravtar cult) that seek goals of harm to the station's inhabitants as a necessity for their operation, their intent can only be considered a betrayal to Nanotrasen and the human crew members aboard the station. The combination of their conversion/disabling efforts with law 4 verifies their treasonous intent against the station AND attempt to harm the silicon unit as per violation of rule 3, thus they fall under the purview of the aforementioned laws. Its not a matter of "I want to kill them to sate my murderboner," it's "they've been brazen and hostile enough that I can't ignore them any longer under my current laws."

Did you not even read my post, or are you willingfully ignoring it?

The idea that "oh they're antagonists that must mean I'm good to kill them because all antags are the same anyway, right?" which you justified almost exclusively in OOC terms, is terrible and flies right in the face of Asimov. Your arguments don't hold water on an IC level because the law itself hadn't even specified what traitors the law was talking about (I'm sure there's plenty of conflicts on station where someone was fighting with someone else and betraying them, but you jumped straight to the antagonist definition even though the law says nothing about Nanotrasen at all), and it doesn't work on an OOC level because quite simply, cultists aren't traitors.

It doesn't need to tell what traitors the law is talking about: that's on the head of the person who wrote the law to be specific enough about it to target a specific group that would exist under that umbrella term. Theoretically that "betrayal" could mean any small matter of disloyalty, but almost none of those smaller matters are objectively verifiable. Thus, enforcement of those smaller matters would have too large of a margin of error to reasonably justify intervention. I CAN, however, objectively verify the participation of members in CANONICALLY antagonistic organizations, ESPECIALLY in the case of cult where no non-antagonist individual would be capable of utilizing the skills I WATCHED them use.
But please, do try and enforce the use of terms and meanings that have no meaning in an IC context for the sake of killing what little vestige of RP is left in this community. We'd apparently be much better off if only the most power-gamiest terminology was in use by our characters. We need to break that horridly inefficient waste of time we call "immersion."

If you're just going to run around as a silicon and kill antagonists at every opportunity like you very much present yourself as planning to, without any regard for doing the same to the station side forces that the same laws might also apply to, you have failed to be neutral like a silicon should and shouldn't be playing the role. Play sec instead if you want to hunt antags.

Holy cow that is some BIASED assessment you have going there. At what point did I say that I planned to kill antagonists at every opportunity? Please, tell me where I said that I intended to hunt antagonists. Where was it that I said I wanted to push down and drill 1 foot diameter holes in every filthy traitor on the station.
Again, did you even read my post?

[onleavedontatme]

>silicons are neutral

Personally, when I argued for this I meant in regards to treating all teams equally under asimov (dont let sec kill a guy just because he has an emag, dont lock down the clown for breaking windows) not that they're being downgraded to pseudo drone status where they cant interact with the round anymore.

Any sense of neutrality is out the window once they get new laws (these people arent human!) anyway.

>you didnt know the cult was bad/traitors

And speaking of meta, knowing the general aim of badguys is allowed (in this case, killing everyone with a giant robot). Even without knowing their goals, joining an illegal cult is betraying the company

>go sec to hunt antags

Anyone is allowed to kill badguys though we aint bay



I agree it was a garbage law though.

[Shaps-cloud]

[23:40:46]ADMIN: PM: Douk/(Miner Cyborg-935)->Shaps/(Blake Sulyard): Couple that with the use of traitorous clockwork magic, a skill incapable of being utilized by nontraitors, and the fact that they used these skills to attack me.
[23:42:35]ADMIN: PM: Douk/(Miner Cyborg-935)->Shaps/(Blake Sulyard): Those are very strictly traitorous. You literally are incapable of using those abilities and items in the way they were unless you are a traitor.

This all comes off as horribly loose interpretation of traitor in the most meta of senses rather than the IC justifications that would make more sense that you brought up. I can think of several better ways to have handled the law in general rather than jumping straight to expanding traitors to mean all antags, but it does indeed fit the word of the law in an IC sense (though not the OOC sense you argue here). Anyone else is free to lift the ban if they wish, I'm away from my computer.

[Hamfam77]

I wasn't going to say anything, but it's probably a safe bet to give a guy who would write a ban appeal with the elegance of a college theses a second chance over a trivial thing.

I hope this Douk guy sticks around.

[fosstar]

hello, i hope this is covered under the anon3 amendment, if not feel free to delete.

trai·tor
ˈtrādər/
noun
noun: traitor; plural noun: traitors

a person who betrays a friend, country, principle, etc.
"they see me as a traitor, a sellout to the enemy"
synonyms: betrayer, backstabber, double-crosser, renegade, fifth columnist

clockwork cult members are betraying nanotransen by obeying ratvar, just as syndicate traitors are betraying nanotransen by joining the syndicate, according to silicon policy, and i quote "If a clause of a law is vague enough that it can have multiple reasonable interpretations of its exact syntax, it is considered ambiguous. " as the law said, confirmed traitors are not human, he interperted that law as traitors to nanotransen, which should be covered under the aforementioned rule.

EDIT:oh shit shaps lifted this sorry for being a moron can somebody delete?

[Screemonster]

what dipshit uploaded a law about "traitors" anyway, a law that vague is just begging to be misinterpreted.

[InsaneHyena]

I think, the last guy has a point. If it wasn't a traitor round, but instead a cult round, why was a law against traitors uploaded in the first place? Isn't it kind of a shitty powergaming move from (I presume) the captain, to make cyborgs valid people for him before even meeting/identifyng any antags?

[Lumbermancer]

Noun
traitor ‎(plural traitors)

One who violates his allegiance and betrays his/her country


Anyone who works against the Nanotrasen is a traitor to Nanotrasen. Wanting borg to discern IC between game modes is metegaming. Borg did nothing wrong. Apologize and give him antag token.

[Bawhoppennn]

Have to agree. IC-wise anyone against Nanotrasen would be considered a traitor, not just Syndicates.

[Shaps-cloud]

Ban was already lifted, resolved