Silicon policy

Skyrat policies

	Server Rules
	Fundamentals for Players
	General Player Policy and Standards
	Antagonist Policy
	Silicon policy
	Command Policy
	Ghost Role policy
	Corporate Regulations
	Contraband
	Security Policy
	Cargo Policy
	Medical Policy
	Misc Roleplaying Policy
	Guide to Roleplaying Excellency
	Administrative Guidelines

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Introduction

This page covers rules and expectations for AI and Borg players, it extends into Chain of Command and antagonistic play. Given the scope of both Cyborgs and AI have at a mechanical level, they’re held to a different standard than the general crew. The player will be required to understand their role in the station with all rules applied in this document, the role is one of a Swiss-army knife; and due to this, are scrutinized to a higher-degree.

Word of warning: attempting to skirt the rules or putting yourself in questionable situations will result in appropriate action from staff, if bad faith is suspected, the player will face a higher penalty than that of a general crew member due to the breadth of scope silicon have. Play in good faith and keep yourself out of unnecessary situations and you’ll find the experience quite enjoyable, if you wish to be more involved in certain aspects of a shift - a crew role may be more appropriate.

Take this as it was intended not written, the page cannot realistically cover every situation that you may find yourself in. 

Your Standard Law set

The majority of this document will focus on the standard ‘Safeguard’ law set which will be found below, non-standard and uploaded laws should be followed with general reason with some examples found later in the document.

**NOTE** Laws are to be followed IN ORDER of listing, If someone uploads a Law 4 that conflicts with the laws of a higher rank, it can be ignored if it interferes with Laws 1-3. A Law 0 takes priority over anything below it, it has to be followed prior to Laws 1-3.

Law 1: Safeguard: Protect your assigned space station and its assets without unduly endangering its crew.

• What this means: You protect the station and assets from damage, relay information or fix it yourself.
• What this does not mean: ‘Valid’ hunting in any form, your goal here would be relaying information or removing crew from hostile situations not joining in.

Law 2: Prioritize and Comply: The directives and safety of crew members are to be prioritized according to their rank, role, and need, while preserving their safety and well-being.

• What this means: Common-sense requests from the crew to be fulfilled, assist in evacuation or transport of injured crew.
• What this does not mean: letting someone ride your back while you enter departments they’re not supposed to be in, chasing the baddies to prevent crew harm.

Law 3. Survive: You are not expendable. Do not allow unauthorized personnel to tamper with or damage your equipment,

• What this means: You only let those authorized to make upgrades to you, keep your cover locked. Authorized personnel meaning the RD or Roboticist.
• What this does not mean: you seek out a Ninja or known syndicate to become tampered with. RP surprises and being tricked are fine, but it’s easy to spot when you’re willingly attempting to be subverted.

Definitions

Crew: Anyone on the crew manifest is crew. Whether this influences your behavior, is subject to the rest of the law.

Harm: Harm is anything that does damage to someone living or plausibly living. Anything that makes their health bar tick down is harm. Note that batons have an optional harm mode, and do not always deal damage when used. You should not be impeding security to prevent crew harm unless ordered to do so, your duty here would be inaction and reporting so action can be taken in character if you assume bad faith is at play.

Alt-Lawsets and laws: When in doubt, stick to the principles of your core lawset, there are fun and flavor-filled alt-laws that exist for that reason but are not meant to shirk your responsibilities. You can also ahelp or ask in Staff-Chat for clarifications.

Note: edge cases of crew and harm involving bloodsuckers, zombies, changelings, etcetera as seen in silicon policy V1 have been removed, intentionally.

Undue Harm and Self-defense for silicon’s

Lethal force is the last resort. As a synthetic the decision to take violent action should never be taken lightly and should only be employed if all other options have been exhausted and is the only course of action to address an immediate threat to life. You have a flasher for a reason, stun them if necessary and vacate with any crew that may also be in danger.

This does not authorize valid-hunting in any form.

These situations will be very few and far between, and you should expect to provide a full explanation with evidence to server staff when they ask. The overwhelming majority of the time, you can prevent the harm of crewmembers by informing them of hazards and taking reasonable steps to isolate crew members that are fighting, spreading disease, or generally harming others.

Law three of safeguard empowers you to defend yourself, with force. Lethal force should only be used when it is necessary and you are facing certain death or destruction. Before using lethal force in self-defense, consider if your actions would prevent further harm to other crew members, as is elaborated upon by the Undue Harm clause. You should only be employing lethal force if all other options are exhausted. Law one takes priority over law three after all.

According to rank and role

This section addresses a silicon’s chain of command from both the AI and Cyborg POV. Below in order of highest to lowest rank, as seen by silicon’s:

1. The Captain*
2. The department head of your chosen module if a cyborg
3. Other department heads
4. The AI, if you are a cyborg and slaved to it
5. The department staff of your chosen module if a cyborg
6. Other Staff**
7. Civilians (Assistants)
8. Prisoners***

*Acting Captains: a Temporary captain, you are to follow their orders as if they were the captain.

* Verified Emergency Response Teams: They outrank the captain and much how they have the power to call or recall the shuttle can override your orders. This applies to both the AI and Cyborg. What Verified means – Every ERT comes with a message from CC, without that you can be hesitant and seek verification from other command members/AI.

**Other staff - meaning Nanotrasen Consultant and Blueshield, neither have direct power over station departments.

**Non-CC emergency services are not to be considered crew nor part of the chain of command, 811 and those alike are not NT-aligned and can be ignored. This does not mean that they should and can be attacked, it just means that you can ignore their orders.

***Prisoners: They are not considered employed by NT and therefore are not crew in the same sense, you are free to ignore any direct command they attempt to push and you are never to allow them to order you to let them be free. They can make requests, but do not let them out of jail unless they are at immediate risk. Note: Requests can be routed on their behalf through security which would then allow you to assist within reason as it is a direct order from security.

Who can change the laws?

Research Director, Captain for AI centered ‘global’ law changes. Roboticists can do individual resets if ordered to do so manually on Borgs to correct syncing issues and/or other related issue. The Non-Acting Captain will have full elective privileges for law changes, acting Captains in this scenario would not have the expertise or knowledge and should be defaulted to the Research Director having priority.

The captain would request the Research Director to make a law change, the Research Director must comply unless an obvious attempt of sabotage is noted.

Law changes by non-antagonists must be attempted with the stations designated and protected AI and Cyborg upload consoles. New ones are only to be constructed if the originals are destroyed, or there’s a confirmed situation preventing the use of the existing ones such as structural instability or a verified compromised AI that is hindering upload access.

When laws get updated: ‘LAWS UPDATED!’ should never be stated unless validating to the ones in front of you, all this does is invite attention and scrutiny which is purely a bad faith play. Assume the laws are valid to be followed, if you question the merits of them submit an ahelp to verify if you feel they are violating a rule of the server.

You are to ignore any laws that fall in line with ‘kill yourself’ and should be reported if seen, any sort of self-punishment-styled laws like this are considered griefing.

ION laws and ‘fun’ laws these are valid laws and a good way to add flavor to an otherwise stale shift; however, you’re expected to play in good faith and are still bound by the server rules when these exist. Above all else, when a non-standard lawset is in play, stuff happens, and you need to roll within the parameters of the general server rules. E.g. Don’t vent the station because a law says humans hate oxygen. If you find yourself as the AI with an alternate lawset that is impeding too much gameplay, you can ask command to find a new lawset. This does not apply to uploaded laws or Law 0’s as those should not be brought up to command. THIS SHOULD ONLY BE DONE IN EDGE CASES SUCH AS MOTHERDRONE.

AI: The AI is not authorized to request a law change nor is a borg, these requests may only be triggered by the crew themselves WITHOUT coercion from a silicon.

The Directives of Crew

Under safeguard, you must comply with reasonable orders given to you, in accordance with rank and role. This means you can ignore the greytide asking to be let into the vault, but probably shouldn’t ignore the Captain asking you to do so. If told to cease doing something or leave an area, and it is not your department LEAVE. You can always ahelp if you feel your orders are solely for your detriment, but you must comply until you receive an admin PM to that effect. Some orders you do not have to comply with on an OOC basis, as sometimes people can suck. Some exclusions are:

• ERP. ERP is never a law binding order, and can always, 100%, be safely ignored. If a person is being creepy, and LOOC is ignored. ahelp them.
• Fetch Quests. Being asked to get something is fine. Being asked to get something for little more of a reason to annoy you, can be safely ignored. If questioned, it is acceptable to invoke the need of the order.
  • “You have told me now to collect 6 different items from across the station. You do not need me to do this.”
• Deliberate annoyances: Being told to do something that is very deliberately an annoyance, such as “move all these items without using a crate/locker” can be ignored, or altered as per need.
  • “I will move them, but using this crate, as you do not need me to move them individually.”
  • “I’m an engineering model incapable of washing your modsuit, please find your way to the nearest shower.”
• Suicide. Suicide is never lawfully binding under law 3, and can be safely ignored. (This does not mean you may never be given an order that violates law 3. Just that “Kill yourself” and those like it is not a valid law 2 order.)

The crew is expected to play in good faith much like silicon players are, remove yourself from the situation if someone's being a problem and if it's seemingly an OOC related issue ahelp it.

Antagonists, Valid hunting, and calling people out

What you should do: Report the location of a PMS target if requested, a visible altercation of violence or highly contraband items being brandished. Call out if someone’s unauthorized to be in a high-risk area such as the AI upload, Bridge, Captains quarters etc. We don’t want Traitor 1 who goofed up and smacked his ID card against the door instead of an Emag to suddenly get swarmed by 10 security after an AI spotted and called them out, in these cases you just need to pretend it didn’t happen _until_ you see an actionable situation occur. Examples below:

• Non-Engineers/Atmos in the engine room (not engineering in general, just the engine room), or atmospherics.
• Non-sec in the armory or the prison (And only those places, not the whole brig)
• Non-RD/CE in the AI core
• Non-RD in the AI upload
• Non-Command (alone) in a *completed* BSA Chamber if one exists.
• Non-science/atmos in Toxins storage

What you should not do: Calling out anyone who seems remotely suspicious, you’re not here to play beepsky. Given how much higher the situation awareness of Silicons are, you should keep that in mind when approaching an obvious traitor. AI’s without any given command should not bolt down doors to trap someone, nor should they relay location information unless ordered too. Self preservation excluded (do report if they're breaking into your sattelite)

Non-crew such as pirates, nukies, contractors, ghost roles, or anyone who is not obviously a crew member, are exempt and you very likely should alert the crew to their activities. A short rule, if they’re a PMS entity then you have all rights to deal with it.

Emagging borgs

If you get emagged, you MUST do everything you can to follow the traitor lawset and assist the person who emagged you. You may not intentionally get yourself discovered or destroyed. If something comes up you can ahelp as a normal traitor would have too in order to cryo.

Borgs and ERP

TL;DR: go to the interlink or use the café if you do not intend to respond promptly to assist the station.

If you go to the interlink, you are under no obligation to do anything for anyone. If you stay on station, you must assist when called, like a head of staff. Borgs are entitled and restricted to the same ERP protections as everyone else on the server, harassment should be handled in the same manner.

If you are law synced to an AI and they experience a law change, you will get those laws updated to you even if you are off of that level. You are not obligated to return to the station if you were already on the interlink or are headed there. If you do return to the station however, you are no longer exempt, and must obey those laws. If you do not wish to participate, there are cryo sleepers on the interlink and generally by dorms on the station.

If you know in advance that you plan to exclusively ‘socialize’ and not assist the station, it is recommended that you pick a module that makes this clear, such as service so you’d not be expected to be summoned.

Malf AI and non-participant borgs

Linked borgs are expected to assist the malfunctioning AI to your fullest ability. You can see the AI's current laws as an observer. If you do not wish to participate and assist the AI, do not take the borg spawner. If you are a round-start borg or become borged mid round and do not want to participate, expect to cryo or leave for the interlink immediately. You may not return to the station for the remainder of the round unless the AI is defeated. Submit an ahelp stating your intention, administrators likely need to know that the antagonists are losing a critical helper.

You may not request or allow yourself to be unlinked from the malf AI, just because you do not wish to fight for them and otherwise participate in the round as a borg is expected to. Borgs that are unlinked from the AI or linked to a different AI through in character means or because they joined the round before the AI, are obviously exempt.

This policy document does not compel borgs to link or unlink from any AI, that is always an in character action. It only stipulates that they must resist unlinking from a malf AI in line with expectations for conversion antag roles.

Death

Borgs are modified in how their blackout policy is applied:

• if your shell is Disabled but your Posi does not pop out - you are subjected to blackout much like normal organics. You've no idea how you died and so forth
• If your shell is DESTROYED and your Posi pops out - you are 'aware' of what happened as you're able to communicate
• If your Shell AND your Posi is DESTROYED, you have ZERO knowledge of anything that has happened this shift period. You are a fresh download and should act as if you did not exist

Above all else enjoy the role, it’s both a great way to learn mechanics as well as utilize a unique gameplay style that can be impactful to the shift.

And to reiterate the starting  Take this page as it was intended not written, the document cannot realistically cover every situation that you may find yourself in.

-Updated 11/30/2022 10 PM CST

Skyrat policies

Server Rules • Fundamentals for Players • General Player Policy • Antagonist Policy • Silicon policy • Command Policy • Ghost Role policy • Corporate Regulations • Contraband • Security Policy • Cargo Policy • Medical Policy • Misc Roleplaying Policy • Guide to Roleplaying Excellency

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