So, let’s get rroooiiigghhhtt into the news, with the recommended sentencing times and whatnot for criminals.
minor crimes = 3-5 minutes/500 gulag points
medium crimes = 10 minutes/800 gulag points
major crimes = 15 minutes
capital crimes = shadow realm
Don’t forget that the labor camp can also be used to hold permabrig prisoners/head revolutionaries. Simply do not issue a prisoner ID when transferring them to the camp.
The gist of Space Law is for security OFFICERS to have a baseline to what they should do with criminals. Note how I specify security officers, and not higher forces of security, like the captain.
Space law is by all means, only an in character roleplay suggestion.
It has NOT been adopted as an official administrator policy by any means.
CentCom will only intervene if criminals are being treated unfairly. If you are arrested and get 8-10 minutes instead of 5, when space law states you should only be getting 5, talk to the lawyer or warden as it’s considered an IC issue.
If you try and cite Space Law in an admin help or in OOC communications, there is a good chance that you’ll be laughed at.
No one is enforcing you to play fair or enact justice.
(except maybe daddy/mommy HoS, but dey always wuv u, even if u might not think so sometimes :3)
The Warden or Head of Security
They are (generally) responsible for incarcerating and sentencing prisoners, as well as handling long term confinement. Seriously, if you’re a sec officer, and you don’t even bother to run your arrests through the warden, there’s a good chance that they’ll just let them go.
First-time offenders get jailed for a short time and any threatening objects or contraband (tools, weapons, drugs, etc, you probably know what to look for) are to be confiscated and put in evidence. Scoldings are optional.
Remember to tell daddy/mommy HoS about the cool toy collection you and the detective built up in the evidence room, you wouldn’t want it to go to waste!
Repeat criminals (i.e. someone who gets arrested again after you’ve already arrested them once) get the gulag treatment and implants. This goes without saying, but remember to implant them BEFORE you stuff them in the gulag teleporter.
Try to get daddy/mommy HoS to let you implement the Three Strikes Policy, where if someone is arrested 3 times, they’re automatically a capital criminal. It works wonders, I swear on it.
Capital criminals are given solitary confinement in the form of straight jackets, blindfolds, leg cuffs, muzzle, earmuffs, etc, all that jazz. If they fucked up someone else’s round, you have full authority to fuck up theirs.
If you get permission from heads, or it is a confirmed threat, things like rampaging cultists, revolutionaries running amuk, nuclear operatives, some fucklechuk wants to bomb sec, feel free to kill capital criminals on the spot.
If you get permission from other heads of staff (or really if you have reasoning that will hold up in an adminPM), feel free to throw them into permabrig.
The Head of Personnel and the lawyers are not part of the security hierarchy AT ALL and should not heavily be involved in security affairs. The HoP cannot order security around and cannot enter secure areas such as your holy land, the armory. You have full authority to rough up the HoP should they enter your armory without the say so of someone higher.
When to use lethals:
Code Red Situation
Code red is declared, or a situation that warrants it (command staff is too preoccupied to declare red alert) such as: full blown mutinies (revs), hostile boarding parties (nuke ops), and Space Wizards automatically authorize lethal force.
NLWs Ineffective
Certain targets are immune to stun baton, such as Mechs, Xenomorphs, borgos, and Hulks.
Severe Personal Risk
Sometimes you just can’t get close enough to apply the baton. Deadly force from range is recommended to subdue Wizards and Changelings in particular.
Criminals in hostile environments such as space or fires also fall into this category, as do criminals believed to be in possession of explosives.
Armed and Dangerous
If a suspect is in possession of ANY weapon, including stun weapons or improvised weapons, lethal force is permitted.
Unauthorized personnel in the armory are considered by default to be Armed and Dangerous.
Additionally, in the event of, say, something like a couple unscrupulous engineers trying to break their CE out of the brig, feel free to fire disablers/lasers through the glass.
In general, all you should care about is the law.
You can treat the prisoners like garbage as long as you don’t hurt them too much or let them be harmed egregiously during their sentence, besides, that’s what CentCom and the lawyers are for.
Remember, your job as warden is to not just watch the armory, act as dispatch for the sec officers, check the cameras (AIs job), beating the HoP whenever they waltz into your armory, beating whoever the HoP gives armory access whenever they waltz into your armory, or beating the engineer dickweeds who try to cut a hole into your armory.
You also have to actually think about punishments a bit in order to try and actually lower the recidivism rate on the station. That’s a part of the job that daddy/mommy HoS never notices, or anyone else really, but you do it anyways.
Traitors range in hostility, but going for the cheap stun is recommended in dealing with possible traitors. If someone is suspected of being a traitor, search the person in question, possibly performing implant checking, and maybe have the detective search their department for hidden items, especially in the case of a head of staff traitor. You should generally just bum rush traitors before they have a chance to activate the minibomb they COULD POSSIBLY have in their storage implant. In the case of someone who is struggling to keep their murder boner in their pants, and is splurging it all over the hallways, lethals are good in this situation.
How to deal with traitors that have…
Improvised Weapons:
Order the AI to lock down the area, use ranged stun weapons to wear them down. They are a low risk threat to you unless they are somehow able to stun you.
Stolen Station Weapons:
Assume they are carrying at minimum a ranged firearm capable of stunning. Ask the AI to locate and lock down the area. Multiple officers should attempt to simultaneously attack the guy. Use of flash bangs will prove effective if the guy is well entrenched.
Syndicate Weapons:
Suspect should be presumed to be armed and dangerous (aka use lethal force), AI should report and track perp’s location. Do not approach without backup. If the suspect has something like a DEsword, energy weapons such as disabler guns will prove ineffective. Flash bangs, stun batons, shotguns or the detective’s revolver will be suitable.
Toolbox/Spray Bottle combo:
A rather unique weapon. Small amounts of water/space lube can slip people for long periods of time, making you drop your weapon. If the suspect is reported to possess a spray Bottle or fire Extinguisher, you should be just as careful as if they have a gun. If the suspect is using ranged weapons in a conjunction, be wary and avoid getting into a bad situation.
If there are confirmed reports of Changelings,
Be VERY wary. They are armed with bio-organic armor, shields that stops ranged weapons in their tracks, tentacle arms, and an incredibly deadly arm blade. Don’t underestimate them under any circumstances, because jesus christ, fleshmend is overpowered. I generally apply the same tactics to traitors as I do to changelings, but do note that some changelings can get up instantly after being stunned and sometimes melt their handcuffs. I’m not too sure on how effective this is now, due to the stun baton rework where it does stamina damage now, but if they do, you may need to switch to the good old 12 gauge, and run them over with your gulag shuttle.
The Nuke Ops
are equipped with a deadly array of weapons and devices that are better than yours in every regard. Guns that can knock you down and kill you with a few rounds. Assault mechs and cyborgs that can tear a hole into wherever they goddamn please. Hardsuits that offer protections from the hazards of space and energy weapons. This is a team of five (or maybe more!) hardass sons of bitches who won’t go down without a fight, and they’ll probably explode if you manage to take em down.
When fighting nuke ops, use numbers and cover to your advantage. Avoid exposing yourself and concentrate on one operative at a time. If you can attack an isolated operative, go for it. If you down an op, attempt to strip as much of their gear as you can before the op triggers their explosive implant. Remember that as long as the disk is with you, you only need to defend, so don’t give up that advantage until you have to.
You will probably be finding yourself acting as the personal bodyguard to the captain or whoever the disk carrier is. Get yourself an AA, a disk pinpointer, and one of the hand teleporters, because you are most likely gonna be the guy to pick up the disk from wherever it spawned in maintenance/toxins test site/xenobiology/whatever fucking godforsaken place the disk respawns at when the captain or disk carrier is inevitably introduced to a handsome mech pilot (cite, Mauler).
Drop everything. Securing the disk is literally your only job now. Keep the disk bearer alive at all costs and protect it, with your life if you have to. If you have a choice between killing an operative and jumping in front of the disk carrier to use your body as a shield to protect them from the 3 L6 bullets that are about to hit the disk carrier, the captain better be giving you the purple heart medal after this.
If you lose the disk, quickly secure EVA gear and scour the exterior of the station to find the ops. If you are lucky you can catch them trying to arm the nuke, but by that point, crew morale will usually be so low that they just give up and let them arm it, because this is Beestation, and the people on this server make me laugh and cry at the same time.
If a wizard is confirmed,
Rally the lads and arm up with the best weapons you can get. The best way to terminate a wizard is to stick together and focus fire on them. Shotguns are ideal weapons, because they deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time (but are annoying to reload). If you try to face down a wizard alone, don’t be surprised when you wake up in cloning. If you can safely stun them, either finish them off or remove their clothing to shut down most of their spells. Do not enter into melee range unless you can confirm that they cannot use Disintegrate (“Ei Nath!”) or Magic Missiles.
Revolutionaries are as deadly as a traitor with improvised weapons,
However, their greatest strength are their numbers. Energy guns and stun batons are of little effect against a swarm of 10 to 15 people clambering over the stunned and twitching bodies of fellow communists to get at your mommi HoS’s throat.
Immediately crack open the cases of mindshield implants. There is one case in the Armory and another in the HoS locker. Each contains four implants. These will run out fast, so your first priority should be implanting the cargo staff and especially the quartermaster. Once they’re implanted, their job is to order you mindshield implants.
By the time you’re at the point of implanting crew, there will probably be enough revs that within your first couple implants you’ll deconvert someone, showing you a message such as “Robert Robust looks as if they’ve remembered their true allegiance!” Immediately ask them who converted them; that’s one of your revheads.
When you subdue a revolutionary, you should take them to the brig and arrange them to be mindshield-implanted. This will remove their antagonist status and guarantee their allegiance to security and the command staff and prevent them from being converted again.
Protect the command staff and suppress the revolution. Cargo and Medbay will be vital battlegrounds fought over, as it acts both as a source of mindshield implants for security and a source of weapons for the revolutionaries. You should be protecting the command staff the same way you would protect the disk carrier on a nuke ops round.
In the more likely case that things aren’t going smoothly, knocking a revolutionary out with an object upside the head has a 50% chance to deconvert. Naturally, this does not mean “Hey, let’s just harm baton everyone we see”. If you suspect them of being one, then this is usually a bad course of action. If you actually see someone doing something scummy, you should probably assume they’re either a rev or a greytider, so harm baton away!
Remember that turtling and making yourself an almost impossible target, such as hiding in the corner of space with 3 hours supply of air, is poor form, and will usually attract the wrath of the space gods if you keep it up.
Fighting cultists requires all hands on deck.
You must be vigilant in fighting cultists, because anyone outside of security and the captain can be a cultist. Work together to lock down the station, IMMEDIATELY declare martial law (red alert), perform random searches for cult items, and organize raids on departments. Remember to always keep an eye out if people are suspiciously surrounding you or other various signs of an ambush.
When you capture a cultist, your options are limited. Unlike Revs, mindshield implants do not revert their Cult status, and only forces the cult to sacrifice non-cultists and turn them into constructs instead of converting them. As such, you have few options.
Deconversion:
You should be aiming to deconvert all captured cultists, however at times this may not be viable (Usually during a shortage of Holy Water). A cultist can’t be summoned by other cultists if cuffed and either grabbed or buckled (read below).
Permabrigging:
Like with force borging, this usually isn’t worth the effort. Cultists can easily make a new ritual dagger by just slitting their wrists and then just teleport out.
HOWEVER, this can be used as a temporary solution while preparing to deconvert them, secure the cultist with a straight jacket and muzzle (so they can’t use cult comms), and keep them in a visible area so they don’t unbuckle themselves to get summoned by another cultist.
Forced Borging:
Borgs can both be stunned and converted into constructs by cultists, so this isn’t really worth the effort.
Execution:
A controversial approach both IC and OOC. This removes the cultist permanently and removes the threat. It is quick and easy without any unneeded effort on your part. However if the AI witnesses or finds evidence of this, the AI can be obligated to eat your penis because “muh law 1”.
But remember that, at the end of the day, valid man bad, and you’re totally free to kill confirmed cultists.
Dealing with the gangs
and coming out on top isn’t as difficult as it may seem. The gangs will, hopefully for the most part, be preoccupied with killing the other gangs. Still, gangs should be considered armed and dangerous and are just as likely to kill you than to recruit you.
The best way to shut them down is to deny them the station. And to do that is simple: simply evacuate. Unfortunately, gang leaders can recall the emergency shuttle from anywhere on the station. However, every time they do this, they leave a trace that the communications console (cite, AI) can pick up on.
Like revolutionaries, mindshield implants can be used to deconvert gangsters.
Keep an eye out for suspicious behaviour. Immediately arrest any non-mindshielded security, because they West Side now. If you spot someone spraying gang tags, report them. Chances are if you manage to capture some gangsters they may spill the beans of their former gang or former opposing gang in hopes that you’ll be able to deal with them.
Gang leaders, like head revs, can’t be deconverted, and will resist mindshield implants.
The gangs will be fighting over turf. They’ll be marking their territories with spray painted tags. Generally, the more territory a gang controls, the stronger they will be. One effective way of curbing the growing power of gangs is to keep the station clean and tidy. Gang tags can be removed with the janitor’s mop, soap, or simply taking down the wall/floor tile.
If a gang is attempting to hack the station, your life is on the line! Work together to destroy the gang’s Dominator device before the time runs out. It can be damaged with pretty much anything a cyborg can be hurt with.
Sometimes, you just need to straight up SWAT raid a department…
But don’t do this liberally, because there is a very good chance that more than once person will die (cite, lethal ammunition locker). So before you organize a bangup, try to see if one is necessary…
- Is the flavor of the round confirmed to be conversion based (gang, cult, monkey, or revs)?
- Are we past 20 or so minutes into the round?
- Is there mass rioting and grey tiding, e.g. people running around killing other people for no apparent reason?
- Are masses of people not doing their job and fucking around?
- Is a head of staff missing from their particular department (e.g. they are hiding out in brig because revs)?
- Are a lot of departmental staff in a different department for no apparent reason (e.g. engineers and scientists languishing in medbay, despite the fact that there is no disease or anything to warrant this congregation in medbay)?
If you can answer YES to at least 3 of these…
Feel free to crack open the armory and rally the boys (security officers) for one fun round.
By ‘feel free’ and ‘SWAT raid’, I mean “IF REQUIREMENTS MET, GO HAM”, like, if the requirements are met, you have an OBLIGATION to toss a flashbang in there and buckshot everyone who’s down and doesn’t have a mind-shield.
Warden Brain in action…
CONVERSION ANTAG: EXIST
HEADS OF STAFF: NOT EXIST
CIVILIAN CASUALTIES: EXIST
:s all sec meet me at armory, it’s important
In conclusion, remember…
Space Law is a suggestion, and is never a substitute for thought, intent, and context.
Remember to keep the perma prisoners tied up until you can properly implant check them.
It is encouraged (but not recommended) to arrest Heads of Staff with approval from HoS or Captain (unless they are clearly dangerous or traitorous).
Your job is to keep order, but try to not do it to the point that your suspects will be praying to the admins for ultimate justice.
If an admin contacts you, please explain to them what happened. Just because you’re sec doesn’t mean you’re wrong by default. Try not to take this job too seriously and have fun (at the expense of criminals, of course).
CentCom will only intervene if you’re given grossly unfair punishments. If you get 5 minutes instead of 3, talk to the warden or lawyer because that’s an in character issue. If you try and cite space law in an admin help or player/ban report, don’t be surprised if you get laughed at.
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