Caverns - Staff Report: Enforcement Action Taken - smellyhippie
What’s your BYOND key:
Caverns
Round ID:
32348
Your character name:
Trip Weeter
Their BYOND key:
smellyhippie
What are you reporting?:
Enforcement Action Taken
Description of the incident:
As a doctor aboard the USS Almayer, the round was largely uneventful, outside of the Corporate Liaison being assigned acting Commanding Officer by ARES, as for the entirety of the round, the Medical Bay received no face-hugged marines or notable wounded soldiers of any kind.
An idea came to me when marines entered a FOB siege (which was followed moments after by an evacuation): creating LSD (mindbreaker toxin) syringes in order to help marines nurse over the loss of their comrades - and there were indeed many losses. Given the already somewhat off-kilter nature of the round, as a result of the CL aCO event, I believed that it was befitting for the marines to receive these drugs, which I planned to be used as a form of placation for the evacuated marine front, which I assumed, in-character, was suffering from a lack of will to go on.
I then filled up a box with various syringes of mindbreaker toxin. Multiple syringes were created before FOB broke, and were never able to be sent down. After nursing the casualties from the FOB siege back to good health, I discovered someone had scattered the syringes across Medbay, and I decided to place a further box of 14 syringes in the Medbay foyer. I then announced over the general channel: “Medbay has free mindbreaker toxin syringes if you wish to forget the deaths of your comrades for a while.” An Alpha combat technician proceeded to ask me what the drugs were; I responded “LSD.” They told a nurse and I to “Get [them] that lsd,” a request which we obliged. Immediately thereafter, hijack occurred, and the syringes were left in the Medbay foyer. The nurse in question was new, and I proceeded to show them the red alert armories on level three of Medbay - the Normandy impacted then, and we became preoccupied with surviving and supporting remaining marine elements and the CBRN squad. Only one other nurse survived and escaped, the new nurse and I did not.
During this round, I received a note, with the following admin PMs (and my accompanying response) shown.
“Admin PM from-SmellyHippie: It is griefing. Do not make harmful drugs and then tell people they are stimulants. I’m going to leave a three hour ban. Please read our rules in full in the meantime.”
PM to-Admins: I never told people they were stimulants.
“Admin PM from-SmellyHippie: I’m going to leave you with a warning. It is imperative that you do not make drugs that can be harmful to people. You never know what people will say they are if uncertain.”
“Warning - Rule 4 - Griefing: As a doctor, made some LSD syringes and left them lying on the ground during hijack. When asked why, stated ‘They were to help the marines with overcoming their recent loss on the battlefield.’ by smellyhippie (Staff Manager)”
As for the rule in question - 4. “Griefing is the intent of one player wanting to cause grief or annoyance to other players or the server without a valid roleplay reason.”
I would like to break this rule into parts.
- “Intention to cause grief or annoyance.”
Never was it my intention to cause grief nor annoyance, as I believe I have demonstrated through my testimony and actions. I made it abundantly clear, when asked, that the syringe in question was filled with LSD. Mindbreaker toxin, which is indicated on the CM-SS13 wiki to be analogous to LSD, causes hallucinations like LSD does - there was never an intention to mislead concerning the nature of the drug. I also stated in the general channel that the syringes were “mindbreaker toxin.” Furthermore, I never injected any individual who did not explicitly ask for an injection (the Alpha combat technician was thus the only individual I myself injected). I believe these precautions I took in warning others demonstrate that I had no intention for grief, nor annoyance. While it could be argued that the creation of mindbreaker itself causes grief or annoyance, the fact that it was never used on unwilling individuals by me seems to underscore how flawed this argument would be.
The “You never know what people will say they are if uncertain,” is vague, yet seems to refer to a specific event event - in OOC and LRC it was mentioned that an individual attempted to tell others that the syringes were stimulants. As a result, the note appears to suggest any “harm or annoyance” resulting by the creation of LSD syringes was caused, in part, by an individual, outside of my control, telling others that LSD was a stimulant. I would thus like to pose a question - if an OT creates a maxcap bomb, and an individual tells others that it is a harmless cleaning grenade, is the OT at fault for any ensuing friendly deaths? It is clear that I myself had no intent to grief - yet I feel I am partially punished for another individual’s mislabeling of the syringes. If this is not the case, I would like further clarification on this portion of the warning.
- “Without a valid roleplay reason.”
The roleplay reason in question is mentioned within the note itself: “They were to help the marines with overcoming their recent loss on the battlefield.” Naturally, opinions will differ on whether this constituted “valid” roleplay, yet I feel it does. The nature of the “medication” - LSD - I feel fits within the overt Vietnam War era themes present within the USCM. Let it be remembered that hijack did not begin until after the batches were made; is it so “in-valid,” for a doctor to give marines medication to de-compress following their recent loss? The LSD could be seen as “harmful” under the purview of an impending hijack - marines would need to be unhindered. Yet in the immediate roleplay, in-character environment, a hijack was completely unexpected, and the LSD served instead as a facilitator of roleplay in the form of a much-needed relaxant for a defeated group of marines.
Thus, I fundamentally disagree with a characterization of my actions as “griefing.” I believe that they were grounded within the in-character roleplay of the round, which had begun with a zany twist, and were never done with the intent to hinder any other individual’s round. Logs will show that I never attempted to inject anyone with LSD other than the Alpha combat technician who explicitly asked for a dose. Indeed, I in fact explicitly announced over the general channel that the syringes were “mindbreaker toxin.” Although it is true that the LSD could have been more secured (although marines cannot use syringes anyway), I was preoccupied with teaching the new nurse how to survive hijack. While there may have been attempts by some individuals to misrepresent the syringes to others (I do not know if this occurred, and request logs for these statements), to at least partially punish me for this, an action I did not take, is a decision that I too find issue with.
As a result, I formally request that this warning is removed from my Admin record.
Evidence:
All relevant communications and actions by myself and others can be found in the round’s logs. However, the following relevant screenshots in imgur album form are included, with appropriate captions.
