THE COMPANY

Corporate Liaison

Difficulty: Medium
Supervisors: Weston-Yamada Corporate Office
Rank: N/A
Duties: Further the interests of the corporation.
Guides: This one, Guide to Paperwork
Unlock Requirements: Three hours as any squad role.
Detailed Description: |__________|
As a representative of Weston-Yamada Corporation, your job requires you to stay in character at all times. You are not required to follow military orders; however, you cannot give military orders.
Your primary job is to observe and report back your findings to Weston-Yamada.
Follow regular game rules unless told otherwise by your superiors.
Use your office fax machine to communicate with corporate headquarters or to acquire new directives. You may not receive anything back, and this is normal.
|__________|

"I work for the company. But don't let that fool you, I'm really an OK guy!" ―Burke, Aliens

Role

As the Corporate Liaison, it is your job to represent the Weston-Yamada's interests in the mission that has been given to the United States Colonial Marine Corp. You have ZERO direct authority over the Marine Corp, you merely have influence, stretching this influence too far is likely to result in detainment or possibly abandonment on the planet. You may make requests to the Commanding Officer and Executive Officer, but there is no guarantee that they will give you what you want. If you need something, fax Weston-Yamada for it. They are listening and may be happy to help. Have an issue with a Colonial Marine employee? Fax a complaint over to USCM High Command.

Try to remember that your job is one that is primarily to provide roleplay. You must remain in character at all times, and should not try to take to the planet to kill some aliens. You are a corporate bureaucrat. Not a Commanding Officer, and not a marine. Roleplaying a lot leads to more FUN. If you're not the best at roleplay, you may wish to wait a bit before playing this role. Furthermore, undertaking antagonistic objectives without being explicitly told to by Weston-Yamada will get you banned or job banned. This is known as "self antagging", and it's a big no-no. Remember that your goal shouldn't be to hinder the marines unless the company says otherwise, because they are serving your interests.

In-character things to remember

You're a Corporate Liaison: a bureaucrat. Not a marine, not a doctor, not an engineer, not a warfighter.
You will do what's necessary to ensure Weston Yamada 's interests are kept in mind by the USCM aboard the Almayer.
You have Weston-Yamada's interests in mind.
You know you have no power over Marines but you do have influence. You can complain to Weston Yamada if they are being unreasonable. Remember that the ATM is in your office and that bribery is always an option.
You have access to a fax machine.

While you can't demand anything, saying "I'd appreciate X" or "I'm sure if I got X your relations with the company would be good", as well as stating that they aren't by any means required to give it to you, usually results in you getting what you're asking for.

Liaisons are not above Marine Law. If you commit a crime, don't expect special protection from the Company.

Equipment

You have a change of clothes in your quarters depending on what type of roleplay you'll be undertaking.
Your office contains a box of food. Put that in your quarters before hungry marines eat it all.
Your office has shutters. Always close the shutters when talking with someone so that you aren't disturbed.
There are no cameras in your office and quarters. If some engineer has installed some then immediately complain to the Company.
The ATM on the Almayer is in your office. See how much money you have and use that money to bribe people.
Use the arcade machine in your office to win items to decorate.

For your time aboard the U.S.S Almayer the company has given you an automated storage briefcase to convince the crew into securing company assets.

Company Equipment: Description:

Weston Yamada's Automated Storage Briefcase

A suitcase-sized automated storage and retrieval system. Designed to efficiently store and selectively dispense small items.

50 points maximum storage.

Vendables:

Research:	Cost:	Description:
Chemical Report	50 Points	A brand new chemical report downloaded from the WY research database. The chemical will have a level equal to the current clearance access of the Almayer research department.
Research Grant	25 Points	A brand new chemical report downloaded from the WY research database. The chemical will have a level equal to the current clearance access of the Almayer research department.

Incentives:	Cost:	Description:
Neurostim Implanter	30 Points	The Neurostim Implant stimulates and regulates sensorimotor functions. Benefits include improved balance, and improved resistance to overstimulation and disorientation. Once you have implanted a neurostim into your victim you'll receive a pop up box, from there you'll be able to set a code phrase. The implant will negatively affect your victim when they hear the code-phrase (non-radio). Keep in mind that the Implant will be degraded by the body's immune system over time, and thus occasionally malfunction.
Ultrazine Pills	20 Points	Highly-addictive stimulant. Enhances short-term physical performance, particularly running speed. Effects last approximately 10 minutes per pill. Pill bottle starts with 5 ultrazine pills. More than two pills at a time will result in overdose. Withdrawal causes extreme discomfort, hallucinations and nausea. Long-term use results in hallucinations and organ failure. Conditional distribution secures subject compliance.
$1000 USD, unmarked bills	5 Points	A stack of 10 100 unmarked dollar bills, perfect for bribes.
WY Encryption Key	5 Points	WY private comms encryption key, for conducting private business.
Fancy Cigar Case	5 Points	Contains seven fancy cigars.
Weston Yamada's Gold packet.	5 Points	Weston Yamada's Gold packet, for the more sophisticated taste.
Zippo Lighter	5 Points	A Zippo lighter, for those smoking in style.
Weston Yamada's Sake	5 Points	Weston Yamada's Sake, for a proper business dinner.
Aspen Beer	5 Points	Weston Yamada's Aspen Beer, for a more casual night.
Drinking Glass	1 Point	A drinking glass, because you have class.

Stationary:	Cost:	Description:
Pen	1 Point	A pen for writing stuff. A choice of 3 colors. Black, blue or red.
Paper	1 Point	A fresh piece of paper, for writing on.
Carbon Paper	1 Point	A piece of carbon paper, to double the writing output.
Clipboard	1 Point	A clipboard, for storing all that writing.

The Fax Machine

The main weapon of the Liaison is not any pistol or rifle, but a humble fax machine. The difference between a good Liaison and a regular Liaison is that a regular Liaison will go for a gun straight away while the good one will roleplay any situation out. Outside of visits to the colony which you may make at any time for any reason, it is best to stay away from extra gear and weaponry. Located in the Liaison's office, the fax machine works by putting papers inside of it and sending it away. In the fax machine interface, you can choose to either send the paper to the Company, or to USCM High Command. The document will be received by an admin that will respond in an IC paper. This paper will spawn on the fax machine.

Make sure to have a powerful subject line, but you can always use "Situation Update" or "Requesting Aid". For the content, write things in character. You can pretend you don't know anything or could pretend that you have an idea whats going on down on Big Red or another planet depending on the map you're playing. Make sure to sign your fax with [sign]. This creates your signature that can't be replicated. Always, always, always at the end of the message prompt the Company for a response. It can be anything from "Requesting further orders" or "Is this report informative?". Something along those lines so that the Company has something to send back. Remember that if you send a fax without a question, you'll most likely not get a reply. There is a human on the other reading and people usually respond better when asked a question. Remember that you can also dramatize, exaggerate, and blow everything out of proportion if the situation warrants, but keep in mind that your actions may have consequences.

What to write about? To make a list:

Give status reports on the mission on planet/station.
Send the Company research papers about any hostile lifeforms the marines may encounter.
Write about the crew. Recommend that Doctor for a promotion because he/she took your bribe and made you space drugs for your flask. Don't explicitly say he/she took your bribe or you requested space drugs, of course, but just write about how wonderful of a Doctor he/she is and how loyal she is to the Company.
Alternatively, write about how incompetent the Marines are or how incompetent the crew is.
Write about the briefing. Make sure to always attend the briefing. Did the Commanding Officer give a good briefing or bad? Was he late? Who gave the briefing if it wasn't the Commanding Officer? Write about how bad you feel about this mission because a Staff Officer had to give the briefing and the Commanding Officer was not present.
Write about the survivors and the story behind the planet/station. The Company is curious to know what happened on their research facility.
Write how terrible life on the Almayer is and how much you miss the enjoyments of life and the only reason why you're doing this is because your commitment to the Company.
Write about how much you love the Company.

Remember that a real person has to respond to your faxes, and that their primary concern is that the server is being well moderated. Don't expect responses to every fax you send, and self-antagging or getting unnecessarily angry because your faxes haven't been responded to is a great way to get banned. Being a well known good player greatly increases your chances of getting a response, and well formatted faxes (found below) are a nice way to make your faxes more enjoyable to respond to. Going planetside or doing other outlandish things without faxing the Company first is a good way to get job banned.

Lastly remember that if you plan on burning your fax paper, make sure you only do it after you've been given a response from The Company.

Fax Tips

In your office is paper and a generic pen. Don't lose it. You need it to write faxes. Unfortunately, you can no longer fit the pen in your ear slot.
Paper can go on your head slot if you have written something on it (so it doesn't show up as a paper boat). Extra slot baby.
You can drag the paper to your office.
There is a zippo near the entrance. Use it with a paper in the other hand to burn the paper. (Make sure you only burn your faxes copy once you've been given a reply) Burn important papers or faxes that would otherwise incriminate the Company. Or, just outright burn all faxes that don't make you look good after sending them.
You can turn on squad comms from your headset to listen on whats going on and report it to the Company.
Request aid when the situation gets really dire. For example when Aliens board the Almayer, write about how you're in danger and need immediate evac.
Keep in mind that the Company is a Staff Member (Mod or Admin), just a person. But they have access to all sorts of information, so the things they're sending you or objectives they're giving you are because the game can allow it.
It's very annoying to the admins if you request PMCs and weapons in every fax.
Fax templates can be found Here.

Clearance Level

The Researchers are expected to handle research assets retrieved from the colony and conduct tests on any chemicals they might discover. This may be experimental chemicals that The Company keeps classified information for in our Database. When they scan these chemicals, they will not be able to download a description from the database unless they have been given the needed clearance level of that chemical. You can change this for them by swiping your ID card on their A-XRF, to a level limited by the current DEFCON. You are expected to make use this power and negotiation tool for the best interest of the Company.

What Else Should I Be Doing?

First of all, make sure to talk with survivors or colonists from the Planet as soon as they arrive. They might need medical attention, but after that. You can make a big fuss about talking to them before the Commanding Officer. The survivors typically don't have much to do after they arrive on the Almayer. The Liaison and survivors kind of rely on one another to be more fun.

Tell them to sit down on the chair in front of the desk and buckle yourself into the comfy chair. Close the shutters. Introduce yourself and learn the survivor's name. Remember, you don't typically know their name yet. You should usually call survivors by their first name while the rest of the crew by their last name or nickname. Next, make them comfortable. Ask them if they want food or drink, maybe a fresh golden apple from the garden or some of the two drinks (Uncle Git and Aspen Beer) that sit on the desk in your quarters.

Once the survivor is comfortable, all that's left is to ask them for their story. The survivor probably won't know much but they're responsible for writing the story while the Liaison keeps listening and asking questions and saying filler to keep the conversation going. Figure out these main points: When did the situation/outbreak start? What was the speed of the outbreak? Were there any other survivors? How do they feel about the Company? Will they stay quiet about this? The last 2 questions are for the end but remember you need to get the story from the survivor. Afterwards, you can let the survivor know that you'll arrange for an ID card (please actually do this if you do offer) and probably the Commanding Officer will want to speak with them so show them the way to the bridge. You can be present during this conversation too, or you could start writing the report to the Company. Make sure to exaggerate and blow things out of proportion, of course. Did the survivor face one of those xenomorphs down below and kill it? Well, write how he did but he crapped his pants while running away frantically before finally turning around and pulling the trigger.

Don't worry if all the survivors have different stories. They all saw the world down there differently. You could interject in the conversation with survivor Y only to tell them that survivor X told you something differently. You could do this at times to gauge their loyalty to the Company.

Ask about their loyalty to the Company or gauge their loyalty to the Company, then write about that along with all the other information you gathered. If they were loyal then write he was loyal. If they are a risk to the Company, then write about that.

Later, roam the ship and look for roleplay encounters. The Combat Information Center is a good place to start. As Corporate Liaison, one of the Commanding Officer's staff should give you some roleplay attention. If they don't, then complain about how unloyal the Command staff is and how they should be replaced with someone of your choosing. Who knows? Maybe the Company will send you orders to find a replacement. You can go to Medbay and see how the patients are doing or how the doctors are. Ask them about their work. You can wait in the Hanger and interview marines coming back, or sit and chat about a wide variety of topics. Sometimes, one of the Marines will want to roleplay. Bottom line: roam the ship and look for encounters.

Remember that the Liaison is a bureaucrat. A Liaison doesn't solve problems with brute force or cunning, but through paperwork. Find samples of legal forms online and write condensed versions of them. Examples: contracts, liability waivers, affidavits, official notices to sue etc. Contracts and affidavits can be used at the beginning of the game to ensure the silence of the Command staff. For example, an affidavit or contract "of intent to protect and preserve" the property on Solaris Ridge can be used at the beginning of the game for the Commanding Officer to sign. Afterwards, you can sue the Commanding Officer for the damages he caused on Solaris Ridge while fighting the Xenomorphs by his Marines. If he doesn't sign then you can report to the Company that the Commanding Officer refused to sign. Ask survivors to sign liability waivers and silence waivers. Afterwards, if they breach the contract, let the Company know. The Command staff will surely want information out of the survivor but you met them first and had them sign the waiver. You write to the Company that you can use the liability waiver as an excuse to murder them too (ONLY if the Company gives the order). Official Notices to sue are fun. Roleplay suing someone is hilarious. With paperwork, the Liaison is essentially creating fictional problems that are big in your role's position. It's easier for the Company to give you orders to do something with a reason rather than without.

A key to having fun as Liaison is to always put pressure on people and create problems. Not major issues, but make everything your personal issue so you can fax to the Company to complain and then ask for permission to do something about it. You don't want to divert too many Marines or the crew for your projects as they should be fighting or assisting the ground campaign.

Being an Antagonist

Do NOT Self-Antag. If you are doing a good job with roleplay and reporting to The Company with your fax machine, you MIGHT be given special goals. These goals MIGHT allow you to break some of the server rules, depending on the situation. If you are unsure, ahelp FIRST.
Causing harm to marines or damage to the Almayer without first contacting the Company through your fax WILL result in a job-ban and possibly a short server ban.
You may *attempt* to bribe marines to work for you, however you do not outrank them (you are a civilian), and thus they don't have to listen to you. Usually 500-1000 dollars is enough to bribe someone to do your bidding, as long as its nothing severe. Never bribe someone to murder someone because they'll never accept if they're following the rules. Most Marines, by default, hate you because you're with the Company, but some roleplay as liking the company and will help you out even without a bribe.
Only use the name of the Company in your bribes when they specifically ordered you to do something that would otherwise break the rules. Remember, you don't want to shame or incriminate the Company. You're the most loyal person on the ship to the Company.

Possible antagonist objectives:

Eliminate the mercenaries.
Eliminate a survivor because they don't have the Company's interests in mind.
Collect X amount of samples, like Alien lifeforms.
Retrieve or destroy something on the planet, such as some documents in the science dome.

Tips

Your briefcase is a robust bludgeoning weapon, see that CO who's about to BE you because you killed Jones? Bonk him on the head with it, it might knock him out, and you might even get a sweet Mateba because of it. You're likely going to get hunted for it though.

You are the least cared about person aboard the Almayer, nobody cares if you're missing, use this to your advantage!

Ultrazine is toxic and if put into anything, a drink, a cigarette, will eventually kill them with fatal organ damage, resulting in them being unrevivable.

Books can be cut out with wirecutters in order to store normal, small and tiny items in, only one item fits in at a time, perfect for bribes or smuggling illicit goods into areas.

Your safe is not SAFE. It can be easily cracked, some admins may consider this as metagaming, (ahelp if you aren't sure). Create a secret compartment or storage somewhere in maintenance or in another safe area, your drinking glass box can hold small contraband, nobody is going to search it.

If you're on a map that has it, get the alcohol vendor from the colony, bribe an MT or engineer from one of the squads to get it, not only is this a great machine for roleplay, its bottles can be used to knock down anyone with a hit to the head for quick disposal of their body, plus some alcohols are more potent than others and can knock out if too much is drank, example is Jailbreaker Verte, experiment!

Bribe Req and an MT or the CE if you're lucky to hack the ASRS machine, say it's for exotic ingredients or carpet from the exotic crates, you can order a multitude of black market crates and other gear if you're feeling gimmick-like.

Bribes can get you far, try bribing an MT to edit your airlock so you can pulse a button and shock and or bolt your office doors, bribe the researcher for some warcrime grenades, make some low-grade bots and screwdriver them, then enable all of the spooky options which may be lethal, or just a nuisance to people passing by.

Special operations crates from requisitions have pistols that fire tranquilizer rounds, these are very effective since they come with silencers, so you can easily shoot your target from off-screen, wait until they're down, nab them and take them to somewhere more secure.

Stay in your boundaries. Nobody will ever suspect you, with the exception of the survivors, antagonist CLs happen so rarely that the MPs probably wont care, nor think you did anything wrong. It's very hard to scan a medibot that is injecting toxins into you for fingerprints, and you can just say you were trying to get away from it since your abdomen started hurting after it injected you for no reason. Unless you go out plainly and start shooting your target in plain sight (don't do this, you will fail, everyone is better equipped at combat than you with few exceptions), it's not going to be fun for your target. Try to be an engaging antagonist, and try to follow your objectives assigned by Weston-Yamada. With them, maybe you can get promoted and back to your desk job on the Gateway Station. Good luck in your endeavors Junior Executive.

PMCs

Another resource that the Liaison has is the command of the Corporate PMCs. The PMCs can come randomly as one of the Responders called in emergency. They must ensure the Liaison's safety before doing anything else and have the primary mission of saving you. As such, they should obey all of your commands. If you are dead, they should then report to the Commanding Officer or Executive Officer of the Almayer.

There is another corporate military group: the Corporate commandos, these guys don't report to the Corporate PMCs which makes them not respond to you, only to the Corporate High Command. Accordingly, you as a Liaison do not know of their existence, but the squad are informed about the Liaison's existence. This can be a problem, since their mission will be the elimination of everyone they see and that may or may not include you.

Tips and Suggestions

To Begin the Round

Set the Company relation status to LOYAL in your character profile.
To have the best experience, use staffwho at the beginning to see if there's a moderator or higher rank online. If not, then don't expect faxes from the Company. But don't fret, if a moderator comes online and sees all your faxes, you may be rewarded!

Other

Be acquainted with Marine law. A good Liaison has a serious chance of being arrested. A great Liaison may be arrested multiple times. Make sure you're arrested for good reasons though. Know your rights to keep your radio and take your last words.
Confiscate all survivor weapons.

Your Skillset

To find out about how the skill system works head over to the skills system page.