I believe its somewhat relevant to mention that this is the very first report I've had filed against me to my knowledge on any SS13 server in my roughly six years of playing. The reason I bring that up is to provide some measure of "character witness" on myself that I am genuinely not a trouble-maker, nor a griefer whose focus is on ruining the enjoyment of others.
I would also like to express that while I don't believe many of the statements which have been made thus far in the thread are accurate, I also don't believe that anyone is intentionally being deceptive. When people get emotional about something, they're quite likely to choose a story which more rightly details their feelings on a matter. Regardless, I don't blame them whatsoever for anything they post here, correct or otherwise, and would encourage anyone who had anything to share about the round in question to offer their opinions on what occurred so that everyone can grow from it together.
To begin my defense:
Rule 4 is not seemingly an accurate accusation.
A potentially minor point, but having read through the entirety of Rule 4, it appears to have been written almost exclusively to prevent Griefing wherein a person would deliberately try to ruin someone else's round. At no point throughout this round in question did I set out to destroy any opportunities for having fun, or for creating a good story. The round lasted for several hours, and so I think that this should be fairly evident. Of the problems listed here, I neither committed any EORG, nor did I allow for any major disruptions to take place near roundstart by restricting equipment, though it was recommended to me that I enforce a strict "helmet-only" mission. I denied this, because I didn't want multiple players to be arrested near the start of the round for something as minor as not putting on the correct hat-sprite.
I wasn't actually that strict.
I had set out to play something of an authoritarian and a bit of a jerk, because I don't typically see much of that when I play (I'm sure it happens, but I don't see much of it, or recall seeing it often.) That being said, I still didn't want anyone's round to be totally screwed, and I recognize that sitting in the Brig isn't an enjoyable experience. Multiple times throughout the round, I took efforts to try to shorten or pardon crimes where possible, and I avoided sicking the MPs on every single issue that popped up for the most part. I believe the only people I personally ordered arrested were: A disrespectful Marine who I had threatened at Briefing, A drunken Lieutenant, and the CL at the end of the round, when the shuttle would be launching up shortly.
As per the Briefing incident, a Marine was being very disrespectful in the midst of my Briefing, and I made a comment about them "valuing their lives." While this could be interpreted as a threat to BE, one should also recognize that shooting someone over a basic insult is stupid, and not something I would have personally followed through on, regardless of how many insults were thrown. That being said, a Private in this Marine Corp essentially relies on their Command staff to direct them, and so someone focused on insulting those taking the lead demonstrates that they show little value to their own well-being as these will be the people providing them with direction, munitions, reinforcements, and general support.
The totally real BE
When I first heard of the CAS incident, I had just received assistance from an absolutely excellent Executive Officer who was running the CIC with extreme ability, and so I was able to leave CIC for a moment to check on the remainder of the vessel. I was already in the Medbay when I heard about the bad CAS, or at least heading down that way. I decided to take a detour, hearing Marines complain loudly about how a PO had killed "at least 15 Marines". I recognized that was likely a big exaggeration, but CAS'ing a ton of allies seemed like a chance to earn some loyalty from the upset Marines, and I knew exactly what trick to pull.
I did smack a PO a couple of times with a baton (I think I accidentally hit him in the head, even though I was just trying to knock him down. Didn't want to hurt him too bad so I left after that disciplinary action), and then walked my bloodied uniform back to CIC where I promptly reported that... some random name I came up with out of the blue had been Battlefield Executed for bad CAS. Of course, this wasn't a real person, a fact that could be checked by anyone with a Manifest, but which I knew absolutely no one would, because no one pays attention to this sort of thing. In fact, I have used this trick multiple times in the past in order to secure loyalty, and have discussed its use several times in Discord. No one has ever called me on it, and so it stands to reason that it is a legal move, if not sneaky in nature.
Of course, when someone started talking about how it was actually a PFC's fault that the CAS had occurred, it presented an awkward situation. Most people seemed not to mind too terribly about the PO in general, but at least one person did think that they were the wrong person punished. I did in fact reply with something along the lines of "Oh Well", because there really wasn't anything else to say. It's not like I could retroactively say, "Oh, nevermind, I didn't BE them." and I couldn't actually revive someone, because they weren't even a real person. I wasn't going to march down and shoot some random PFC for accidental bad CAS, especially when it seemed like only one or two people out of the collective cared at all about their role in the incident.
Mutiny
I'm not entirely certain how to defend the idea that I wasn't actively attempting to create a mutiny. I had set out to be somewhat scummy, and so I recognized it was certainly a possibility, especially with encouragement given to the MPs to be strict, but I never really discussed it until some time into the round had already passed, and someone on the MP channel started discussing "mutinous thoughts" rising. The MPs seemed certain that any mutiny would be incited by an outspoken member of Bravo's engineering team, and... I let them do their thing. Don't think I ever ordered them to take the mutineer in, but I certainly didn't backtalk or challenge the people who were absolutely loyal to me in case one did break out, and I trust Solidfury generally to be a decent player and a capable MP, plus, he had Alan Jones on his side, and they seemed to be in agreement.
When the time came for the execution, I tried to have the evidence presented to me of the Marine's sedition, because I knew that a sudden execution of an Engineer would lead to a bit of a fuss. Of course, the evidence was all "audio-log", and so it couldn't be recorded, but I did request that another MP verified the statements of the CMP to add a bit of legality to the whole thing. Afterwards, I called the CMP, and informed him that if he wanted to perform the execution, he had to make the announcement, because I wanted to wash my hands of the matter. I certainly didn't want the Marines turning on me, which raises another interesting theme throughout the round; While I supported the CMP to a great extent, I also tended to allow blame to be levied against him in my behalf to prevent any mutinous uprising.
No Evac and Normandy
By the time I had called for the no-evacuation, there were still a number of Marines on the planet. I recognized it wasn't a popular announcement, but it was meant to force a group that had stalled in its push to regroup and to pick up its feet (Sun Tzu says something similar, about forcing your men into a position where there is no retreat in order to make them fiercer). While orders were given to the Marines to get to the FoB at LZ1, this order was only rarely followed, and most Marines stayed in Hydroponics and Fitness, leading to the imminent loss of LZ1 very shortly after the no-evac message. The dropship was sent up by the Synthetic in an attempt to capture the Queen which was nearly successful, but which ultimately failed.
Normandy was chosen to serve as temporary transport to get some wounded out of the area, to deploy new Marines to the fight, and to provide munition support. Of course, I expected the Marines in Fitness and Hydroponics to hold for some time since there was a relatively heavy grouping of them in the area, and even with the heavy alien numbers, I thought they would be able to last given that they weren't abandoning their barricades to run to LZ1 for rescue. I was, sadly, exceptionally mistaken, and by the time the Normandy had landed, what had been a large group of Marines had been completely wiped.
I hadn't realized, of course, that the situation had gotten quite
that dire when I had sent down the Normandy, and watching the cameras and seeing the men being swarmed, I very quickly tried to relaunch the Normandy to the Almayer to save whoever was left aboard it. This was not entirely an error of character so much as a mistake of perception, not noticing that the situation had gotten quite as bad as it had. The fact I mentioned that there were plenty of men still on the surface wasn't made in jest or deception, because I genuinely had thought there were still men on the surface. I do apologize for my lack of perception here, because I recognize that if I had checked more thoroughly, I could see that everyone was dying. Sadly, my omnipotence has always been a weak point.
Prevaricate
Of course, this meant that the operation was basically over as far as we were concerned in CIC. There were literally no Marines left to command barring a few souls still on the Almayer. Being in a situation wherein I was the Commander of a vessel which had just lost its entire compliment of soldiers, my career was very much in jeopardy, and the XO sensed this issue. He offered calmly that we simply write in our reports that the Dropship had been stricken with an anti-air weapon on its way down, leading to the deaths of the Marines. Of course, anti-air weapons don't activate themselves, and the CL had been a thorn in my side throughout the round (I actually really enjoyed our RP together though. This was the culmination of a story that had lasted nearly the whole round.)
The Dropships hadn't been damaged, and so conventional weapons couldn't have been used against them, so I made up some non-sense about radiation anti-air having killed the Marines, and set about to cover up. The Chief Engineer was sent to ARES to search for logs supporting our claims, and the MPs were dispatched to arrest the CL. In the process of fetching the CL, it seems they ran across a PFC who they determined was involved in the scheme, but who I didn't know about whatsoever, and they also brought her in to custody. As a character, I had no reason to believe that the Xenomorphs could ever attempt to fly a Dropship back up to us, but as a player, I recognized that my antics could intentionally be delayed until the shuttle had already launched, and then we could "shift" attention away from the scheme.
When the Dropship did launch, I ordered all of the MPs to head to the North Pods so that they could provide us with some protection. I didn't particularly care about the lives of the prisoners, but expected they would be released from their cells and allowed to run off somewhere. The XO announced that there wouldn't be an evacuation (I did not, in fact, agree with this statement at any point.), and then we decided in CIC that we would all attempt our own evacuation. As soon as able, I activated the pods, and we ran unsuccessfully towards the North Pods where I was killed, because there was a swarm of something like 70 Xenos onboard.
Other Statements
"This is clearly mutiny baiting. I've spoken to the player in question, and they even told me they were doing a character gimmick of being Authoritarian and admitted that he knew that his actions would cause a mutiny."
I never actually said this. I'm not sure where this has come from. I stated that I accepted there COULD be a mutiny, but not that my actions would cause one. Incidentally, one was never caused.
Incidentally, at no point in the round did I want the Marine forces to lose. I tried for multiple hours to secure a victory for us as a group. I believe my role as a Commander is very much to lead the forces through whatever strategies I can devise, and to provide a bit of High RP to an otherwise Mid-RP server as per the role descriptor that shows up whenever I join as a CO.
I also never set out to ruin anyone's round on purpose, and I'm genuinely sad that at least 4 or 5 souls seemed to have not have an enjoyable time throughout the round, at least partially due to my actions. I'm a storyteller at heart, and I derive the greatest enjoyment out of creating something exciting and interesting to remember. Some of my best rounds have been absolute losses, but I know that not everyone gets joy from the same things as I do, and so I put forward some legitimate effort to secure a win for us, since I know that some people play exclusively to get those and shoot Benos.
While I don't believe I've done anything particularly heinous, or even in violation of the rules, I still apologize to those people who did feel that my actions negatively affected their enjoyment of the game session, and I hope that you all enjoy your next dozen sessions to a greater level than the one yesterday.
Originally Posted by Exodus
Spoiler:
