UPP Survivors who must play as "Friendly Survivors"

I wanted to comment on this after Sierra showed me something that happened recently. We have rules for how a Friendly Survivor and a Hostile Survivor plays. I think this is pretty straight forward when concerning either the survivor being authorized or granted permission to help or hinder the marines.

  • UPP Survivors expected to play with “Friendly Survivor Rules”

However, we have UPP survivors. I find it very interesting that we have a situation in which a Friendly Survivor can roll as a UPP Soldier. We have a circumstance in which a player must adhere to “Friendly Survivor” rules … but are also expected to RP as an in lore potentially hostile character? It kind of makes things a bit tricky doesn’t it? … If it were up to me, … IF a survivor rolled as a UPP, it could be argued that they could RP as either “Friendly” or “Hostile" depending how the round plays out.

  • A UPP Survivor who is administratively expected to play by “Friendly Survivor Rules” who is now being treated as a “Hostile Survivor” by Marine Command / MPs.

This situation creates a bit of a contradictory situation for the UPP player. IF The survivor player decides to play as a “Friendly Survivor” and wants to help the Marines, cool. BUT if command or the MPs suddenly decide they want to arrest the UPP survivors – which means that the Marines now consider the UPP survivor to be a large enough threat to warrant arrest / detainment of a potentially hostile enemy combatant

At that moment, it seems to me that it would be only fair that the UPP survivor player should be allowed to play as EITHER a friendly survivor OR a hostile survivor if they choose to do so. Again. Just my opinion on this particular issue. It would make things much less complicated.

If Marine Command wants to treat a UPP Survivor as if they are hostile, then they must be prepared to deal with “Hostile Survivor” rules – which means that survivor can now use lethal force, can steal, etc. It should no longer be an “admin” issue. It’s “game on”. BY THE SAME TOKEN, once the UPP Survivor goes “hostile” … they no longer are afforded the protections of any legal defense, court, etc. They can be killed on the spot by USCM personnel as if they were engaging any other justified threat. Should the MPs choose to “arrest” them, that is their choice - but they are not compelled to do so IF the survivor decides to turn “Hostile”.

  • To Summarize My Beliefs

1.) IF Marine Command allows the friendly UPP survivor to help - granting them survivor access, IFF, etc – there is no problem. Friendly Survivor rules apply.

2.) IF Marine Command decides to arrest or detain the UPP survivor because they are explicitly UPP should also carry the burden that that UPP survivor no longer must comply with friendly survivor rules. The UPP survivor can choose to cooperate and be arrested OR they can choose to fight back by any means in an RP, non-meta gaming fashion. This includes lethal force.

3.) IF a UPP survivor goes clearly hostile – resorting to lethal force / resistance, etc, they have no legal protections and may be killed on the spot like any other overtly hostile mob; no due process, no need to arrest, etc.

This means that both the UPP survivor AND command must consider these potential consequences; Command must understand that dealing with a UPP survivor could turn ugly if not handled properly AND the UPP survivor must understand that they could be literally killed on the spot if they try to fight a clearly superior or overwhelming contingent of Marines.

“Perhaps surrendering is not such a bad idea.”

Thoughts?

6 Likes

I believe you should relocate this to policy feedback. but yes, I agree. A survivor should be able to become hostile if their freedom is endangered along side if they’re starting to be arrested, that is a decent warrant to escalation to firearms. Taser = Firearms, Baton = Firearms. It litterally incapacitates you.

There is also a crime if you do escalate to that therefore not requiring OOC intervention. Example being murder or attempted murder. This falls under RP, as in real life people can and would reach for their weapon if a cop pursuits them. Rubber bullets should also fall under this however as a different crime.

1 Like

Keep in mind, I am not talking about generic survivors. I am explicitly discussing UPP Survivors, who are most of the time considered to be overtly hostile to the USCM.

This is one of those things that currently relies on staff members being able to make exceptions to the rules when reasonable. For example one time I was CLF (edit: actually UPP, not sure why I misremembered this) survivor in a group with other CLF survivors, long story short we went shipside and some RP happened that escalated and when it was clear the tension was at a breaking point I ahelped to ask if I’d be able to fight. A staff member told me they’d been watching what had happened this whole time and said I’d be justified if I chose to fight. It ended with a big fight and after our synth managed to call for support we had ERTs and ship-vs-ship weapons firing, it was awesome.

Problem is not all staff think the same. Not all staff make reasonable exceptions. Some enforce the rules very strictly. And the survivor rules, when enforced strictly, put survivors in a weird spot where they cannot do anything hostile even when they have good reason to.

There’s a difference between pretending to be friendly, going on the almayer, then gunning everyone down vs being friendly until the USCM antagonizes you and you decide to defend yourself. Resisting arrest should be completely fine especially if it’s with non-lethal means.
With that recent staff report the only thing I think they did wrong was involve the SEA since from the SEA’s perspective they’re just being randomly ambushed, however given they only used rubber bullets on the SEA and the only thing they stole was rubber bullets (they claim they dropped the ID), I would just say who cares, let it slide. (this is all assuming the player isn’t lying in the report)

2 Likes

The thing is in lore the USCM and the UPP are not at war they are in a Cold War not an actual war

2 Likes

Lore wise, the UPP and UA are not at war.

  • You can dislike them (the UA or UPP, depending on what side you are) or make disparaging comments, like UPP Survs or marines might make to each other, but that doesn’t mean you are going to start a war or border skirmish. Especially not since the in-game lore context is your team got their asses kicked and barely survived and the marines are the only friendly faces around … let alone ride off that planet.
  • UPP cannot be taken as POWs.
  • For security reasons, argument can be made to de-arm them of their weaponry…just how like normal survivors are. Refusal doesn’t mean they/you are hostile. It just means they won’t be allowed shipside/must return back to planetside. Refusal doesn’t mean all UPP are hostile nor should UPP be shooting people up over this requirement. It just means you return planetside.

Rule wise: K.I.S.S

Keep it simple stupid.

  • The whole reason we have explicit rules on friendly and hostile survivors is because we had issues with the ambiguity of “survivors” who decided to RP as CLF vs “survivors” who didn’t. The former had a chance to absolute delete people on occasion simply by virtue of not being recognized as CLF. Nowadays it is very clear.

“Can survivors be hostile without being CLF?”.

  • Yes, but it is rare and due to organic situations in game. If you try to bait this you or lack a good reason you probably are going to get noted. The rules are pretty clear.
  • E.G The last time I saw a normal survivor shot by marines was because some Unga thought he was CLF. He wasn’t. The issue ended there, but of course there were choice words exchanged.

TLDR The situations justifying hostile Survs or UPP Survs are rather niche - and certainly not intended to be initiated by Survs or UPP. The only thing separating you from a ban/warning may be a moderator’s perspective and the strength of your argument in the situation.

2 Likes

the UA/UPP aren’t at war, no

but if they start trying to arrest me i’m absolutely going to fight back.

you are a member of the military of a heavily militaristic and communist society that paints the UA and other powers like it as evil war criminals. you’re no doubt fed propaganda and stories of what they do to POWs. they are literally the goliath to your david.

would you hand yourself over to the USCM willingly if you were aware of what they do to prisoners? Would you entrust your life with the enemy who do this to civilians?

4 Likes

WWYGD (What Would Gramps Do)

4 Likes

Understood- but note that in the original post I did not state the UPP and USCM are war, nor did I mention POW status. :slight_smile:

I posted with the consideration that two military forces verging on war are coming face-to-face with one another in a war zone.

The UPP is a military organization - with trained soldiers who really don’t seem to like the USCM. These are not just ordinary colonists, corporate types, or civilians. They rather frequently board the Almayer and gun everyone down whilst shouting about Vodka.

I’ve rarely seen official “friendly” UPP events. There haven’t exactly been that many “joint training operations” between the USCM and the UPP to validate their ‘friendship’ and ‘commitment to one another’. They aren’t exactly … well, friends.

For command to gauge individual normal survivors on a case-by-case situation, based on how the player is behaving or RPing is totally cool.

I can completely understand USCM command at times feeling it justified to disarm and detain UPP soldiers for security purposes.

I could also understand a proud UPP soldier - filled with the terrifying notion that he would suffer dire consequences or potential torture, etc - doing everything they can to resist capture by USCM forces. Being soldiers and having utterly no respect or ‘notion’ of the USCM laws or regulations, might resort to less than civilized means of resistance.

Like, imagine a USCM Marine being ‘taken into custody by the UPP in an active war zone.’ They just want you to put down your guns, take off your armor, and come to gulag nice and quietly, right? They totally aren’t going to do anything bad, right?

1 Like

You didn’t put the whole survivors into consideration then.
Someone seeing an 8 feet tall Xenomorph would put aside the political quarrels to survive, but maybe not all think that way.

3 Likes

be tortured and killed by the horrific super lizardbugs or tortured and killed by the capitalist pig dog americans, at least the bugs are just dumb animals I cant be mad at them

Soldat Ymir Petrov, 25th UPP Naval Infantry, survivor of the Wey Yu LV345 colony “incident”

As the person who created the UPP survs I feel keeping things ambiguous is more interesting. I don’t want the UPP to instantly shoot the Marines but I do support both sides being wary.

At the end of the day I’d argue cooperation would be more beneficial, at least the USCM are humans.

You can create reasons for the UPP to be hostile through objectives, for example:

UPP survivors might have randomly generated objectives to steal intelligence, take photos of the ship, obtain a code from a member of almayer, or keep a disk of UPP intel hidden.

These don’t mean they should murderbone but it does help reinforce that they’re both not friendly but not overtly hostile and shouldn’t be fully trusted. It gives some more opportunity for roleplaying and provides a more natural progression towards violence if it is going to happen.

1 Like

what’s the Y stand for?

Act in disregard of marine law shipside as a surv, and you get handled like it. But otherwise, the most that will happen to a UPP surv - per ML - is disarmament of weaponry if it is believed they are a risk (which is exactly what will happen if you take on an openly antagonistic, but still (in regards to actual fighting) non-hostile RP approach to marines. Solution to avoid the removal weaponry is simple in that case. As you said, a wary UPP member simply would refuse. In that case they will just go back planetside. Heck, by your own statements, a truly wary UPP member might even opt to not go shipside at all (unless for medical).

Being wary is fine. Being derogatory towards the USCM as UPP is fine and vice versa. But outright using that wary behavior as UPP or a Surv to justify entering/infiltration of the Almayer and/or FOB and then assault is exactly the kind of thing the changes were meant to address.

I think it should be up to choice. On Trijent today the UPP weren’t even conscious after being revived before people were calling for cuffs and the CMO screaming for a MP after one went up for surgery. If they get treated like that, they should be able to defend in kind.

3 Likes

Context based. I like this approach.

1 Like

The thing with rules is that good rules and good leaders know how and when to bend or break rules because they don’t make sense or don’t work for the situation.

The worst sort of rule followers are the ones who follow them religiously and mindlessly. It’s literally a social construct my friends, you don’t have to be lawful stupid.

Both cases applied to a specific MP mains…

Solution to avoid the removal weaponry is simple in that case. As you said, a wary UPP member would simply refuse. In that case they will just go back planetside. Heck, by your own statements, a truly wary UPP member might even opt to not go shipside at all (unless for medical).

true.
Also consider the colony is still infested and running to the Almayer and then finding a corner of maints or something to hide in out of desperation is FAR more survivable than whatever that mess is.

my brother in christ this is 2182 there are no geneva conventions you are going to die

mostly unrelated to the topic at hand, but the most recent round in memory that involved my squad surviving (i was a UPP synth) was pretty fun, managed to get up to the Almayer and not piss off the marines. We walked into the CIC, tried to get access to the fax machine, but just got IFF. Spent the rest of the round running around and trying to get access to tcomms to try and forcefully hijack the relays to signal for extract. That didn’t work so we one last time asked to be let into the CIC, walked up to the fax machine and pretty much said “Fuck you we’re taking this”

Had some pretty good RP until hijack happened, which ended in a firefight. I won obviously :3