Harrysno - Player Report: William “Jester” Crimson , Rule 3 - Community Expectations, Rule 4 - No Griefing, Rule 11 - Marine Law, Mutinies
What’s your BYOND key?
Harrysno
Round ID:
27664
Your character name:
Michael ‘Ponyboy’ Calhoun
Accused character name:
William “Jester” Crimson
What rule(s) were broken?:
Rule 3 - Community Expectations, Rule 4 - No Griefing, Rule 11 - Marine Law, Mutinies
Description of the incident:
So, I was a latejoin CO during this round which means I was not directly witness to whatever briefing bullshit happened to kick off the shitshow MP situation that I was present for. However, in speaking to people across the length of the round - including MPs, the SEA, the XO, other CIC staff, and various marines - I believe Crimson’s actions were a gross over-escalation of what is reasonably expected from MPs, resulting in the malicious application of various ML charges to punish people for mundane behavior and dickishly grief people’s rounds.
As was described to me, at various points during briefing marines were engaging in the standard silly shit that has come to characterize most rounds: bumping people around, tossing small items at one another, and other forms of harmless banter that nobody in CIC had taken issue with. At some point Crimson took it upon himself to, and I quote, “make an example” of a marine because they were espousing standard anti-MP rhetoric like “fuck MPs” and “I hate the CMP.” This escalated into an attempted dropship arrest of that marine and multiple others that he had marked for the standard banter outlined above. When that did not go well he had assigned several of them, and several more, additional charges like assault and interference for bumping into him or otherwise “obstructing” the arrest in the overcrowded dropship that he had (to my knowledge) came in guns blazing on to perform an arrest. Also of note is that one of these marines were to be charged with murder/attempted murder for a firing a single shot on the Alamo that I am not entirely sure hit a single person.
Normally that would be where the situation ends, a “funny haha MPs suck” moment. But instead Crimson ordered four separate MPs, at least one of which was a first-time Cpl, to deploy to the ground and perform arrests on somewhere in the range of 8 separate people. To the best of my knowledge the CIC was not informed of this development, nor did any CIC staff order the arrest of any individual involved in the so-called “briefing shenanigans.” It is at this point that I latejoin and my CIC informs me that marines were being pushed back to the area surrounding the FOB and the FOB-adjacent comms tower. At no point did any MP attempt to inform me, as Commander, that MPs were on the ground attempting to perform eight separate field arrests in what was approaching a FOB siege.
At some point a member of my CIC staff pointed out that, to our collective surprise, there were multiple MPs outside of the FOB and actively deployed on the ground. When prompted on MP comms as to why this was the case, Crimson portrayed it as an active training exercise for the new MPs to gain experience performing field arrests. It took several more questions for him to inform me of even a single charge against a single individual while repeatedly expressing some mixture of anger and frustration with me for even asking these questions in the first place. I, at this point, ordered all MPs to return to the Almayer and cease their “training exercise” during an active combat operation, which Crimson expressed disagreement with while simultaneously ignoring the order.
The MPs remained on the ground despite me ordering Crimson to facilitate their return, meanwhile the deployed MPs were actively tasing marines at one of the comms towers that was being assaulted by xenos and actively attempting to arrest people in the FOB while the Queen was breaching it on the Western Side. At this point I still did not have reasons for 6/8 of the marines that Crimson had marked and it was clear that he had no intention to actually facilitate the MP’s return as I had ordered. I then sent out a command announcement demanding all MPs return to the Almayer and report to the CIC as soon as they had, followed shortly after by a provost announcement mirroring my order. I then received a fax from the provost informing me that they had requested the reasons for the arrest of the marked marines from Crimson similarly to how I had, and that they too had not received any response.
Once the MPs had returned to the Almayer and arrived at CIC, shortly after a brief stint with a shipside runner, I began questioning them as to what they were thinking and what reasons they had for interfering so brazenly in groundside operations. It was during this conversation that Crimson expressed his desire to “make an example” of the marines, something I believe to go wildly against the spirit of the law and factor into his malicious compliance with ML’s wording to order the arrests of as many people as possible. I interviewed a few more MPs and the SEA who had informed me that they expressed apprehension and disagreement with Crimson’s orders, but seeing as they are bound by ML and the Chain of Command to listen to his orders I did not feel it appropriate to report any of them. Before I could come to a decision on the whole situation, the FOB had to be evacuated and hijack shortly followed - prompting this report instead of an in character solution.
Overall, I believe Crimson’s actions in this round to be in incredibly bad faith, resembling malicious compliance with Marine Law rather than the application of it to prevent grief, create meaningful and inclusive roleplay, or handle bad actors in an in-character manner. It more closely resembled griefing of several individual players and attempts to shut down RP and interactions that he disagreed with.
Evidence:
As I had originally intended to handle this in-character I didn’t collect any evidence in round, so I suppose logs will have to suffice.
