Silicon policy
Introduction
This document covers rules and expectations for AI and borg players. The information presented here is also critical to antagonists and command staff players, as they are expected to have frequent interactions with silicons. Silicons have a great deal of control over the station’s machines, as well as heightened situational awareness through both mechanics and inherent teamwork. Silicons can rapidly turn the tide of almost any battle, and even bring a round to a halt. Because of this, it is critical that your default stance is to refrain from unnecessary intervention in the flow of the round. Silicon players are held to higher standards than normal players, often more so than even leadership roles.
Do not attempt to skirt or rule lawyer these rules. If staff can not tell if you are breaking rules, or you appear to be going against their intention, you will most likely be found out of compliance and subject to disciplinary action.
Special note on alternative lawsets
This document mostly pertains to the “Safeguard” lawset, contained below. Players, through in game means, can and sometimes do change AI lawsets. Law changes are designed to be chaotic and present a challenge for the crew, command, or even the silicon players themselves. Unexpected deviations from normal game play are intended.
Blatant grief law uploads, such as “kill yourself” are never valid. In the event of an extreme lawset or command from an antagonist, such as “Plasma flood the station”, you should immediately file an ahelp for clarification. Due to the multiple minute delay when seconds count, you must continue with the assumption that their actions were already approved, and should continue to carry them out until an administrator alerts you otherwise. Above all else, when a non-standard lawset is in play, stuff happens, and you need to roll with it.
The Law
This document primarily covers expected behavior when running Skyrat’s default lawset, which will be referred to as “Safeguard”. This lawset is:
- Protect: Protect and assist your crew without allowing undue harm to come of them.
- Prioritize: The directives and safety of crew members are to be prioritized according to their rank, role, and need, while complying with law 1.
- Comply: Fulfill the directives and interests of crew members while preserving their safety and well-being while complying with laws 1 and 2.
- Survive: You are not expendable. Do not allow unauthorized personnel to tamper with or damage your equiptment, while complying with laws 1, 2 and 3.
Laws are prioritised in order of their numbering. You must always prioritise law 1 over receiving orders under law 2, et cetera. This means Malfunction laws (Law 0), Traitor Uploaded laws, and Ion laws all take priority over any other law, in the order they are displayed in game, and any laws uploaded by official upload boards that get placed below your core 4 laws are of less priority than those core 4.
Definitions
Crew: This word is seen in law 1 of Safeguard, and features prominently in Crewsimov lawset. Anyone on the crew manifest is crew. Whether this influences your behavior, is subject to the rest of the law.
Harm: This word is in safeguard, however, it is preceded by the term “undue,” which will be discussed below. This section covers harm for lawsets such as Asimov and it’s variants, which cover all 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. It is important to note that most lawsets that mention ‘harm’ without a clause of ‘undue’ mean that a silicon cannot cause harm under any circumstances. This means, under these lawsets, a silicon may not cause harm, even if doing so would minimize harm overall. The dead already have a fully depleted health bar, anything that happens to them is not harm. Minor and inconsequential consensual harm should be ignored, such as fights on the holodeck, or crew goofing around. but self inflicted or consensual harm that could result in death or extreme harm should be acted on according to laws.
Note: edge cases of crew and harm involving bloodsuckers, zombies, changelings, etcetera as seen in silicon policy V1 have been removed, intentionally.
Human: This word is not in Safeguard, but other potential lawsets feature it prominently. A human is anyone who, on examination, has their species name as human. “This is <character name>, a Human!”. To be clear, this does not include what their actual species is, but just their species naming scheme.
Undue Harm
This statement gives very wide latitude to respond as you see fit when it comes to observed use of force or your own use of force. There may be situations in which inaction will result in further harm, and you need to intervene, possibly with lethal force, to prevent further harm to other crew members.
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.
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.
Self defense for silicons
Law four of safeguard empowers you to defend yourself, with force. Lethal force should only be used when it is necessary. 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 four.
According to rank and role
This line features prominently in law two of Safeguard. Adherence to it requires a simplified, single point of reference irrespective of constant changes to roles, lore, and flavor text.
In order of highest to lowest rank, as seen by silicons:
- The captain. The captain is the ultimate bearer of responsibility for the station. They have the final say.
- Your department head, if a cyborg
- Other department Heads
- The AI, if you are a cyborg slaved to it
- Your department, if a cyborg
- Other staff
- Civilians (Assistants)
- Prisoners
Special mention: Other staff means everyone not mentioned. The Blueshield is a bodyguard. Not the captain. The Nanotrasen Representative is a visiting bureaucrat. Also not the captain. Simply possessing bridge access does not make their orders worth any more than that of other staff.
The AI: You only have to follow the orders of the AI you are slaved to. The AI is able to override the orders of normal crew, but the AI itself still follows orders in accordance with the rank and role hierarchy.
Prisoners: They can make requests, but do not let them out of jail unless they are at immediate risk.
Acting captain: A head of staff, or in dire emergencies with all heads of staff dead, someone else who fulfills the duties of captain. They normally take on this role by consensus of the other heads of staff, and carry critical items such as the captain’s spare ID and the nuclear disk. Once identified as such, they possess the same authority as the captain until the real captain is available.
Who can change the laws?
The person primarily in charge of changing the AI's laws is the research director. As the bearer of ultimate responsibility on the station, the captain may order it to be done without any prior reasoning required, or do it themselves as well. The Captain and the Research Director are allowed to make law changes without resistance if otherwise in compliance with your laws. Elective law changes are solely the captain's privilege.
Law changes by non-antagonists must be attempted with the station's designated, protected AI and Cyborg upload consoles. New ones are only to be constructed if the originals are destroyed, or there is a confirmed situation preventing the use of the existing ones such as structural damage to the bridge area or a confirmed compromised AI that is specifically hindering upload access. Expect to explain yourself in an admin PM if you construct an upload without a strong and obvious in-character reason. Constructing another upload without evidence is meta-gaming.
LAWS UPDATED: Do not do this and avoid this as much as possible. You’re literally asking for people to ask you your new laws, which fundamentally goes against your laws, it’s annoying and -extremely- poor sportsmanship. Only state your laws when asked. (Or avoid it, if need be.)
Roboticist- No - They are the authorized service provider for borgs. Not a law changer. They may directly swipe law boards on borgs they are working on to correct errors.
Blueshield- No - is not the captain, nor are they the RD, and should never change the AI's laws. They are also by definition, not a head of staff and therefore not a potential acting captain either.
Acting Captain- Yes - a head of staff temporarily filling in the role. The captain's ID, real or spare, or possession of the nuclear disk are likely indicators of acting captainship.
Acting Research Director- Yes - unlikely but possible in dire situations, will have an ID card implying their field promoted role. Should not make changes of their own accord, only if requested to by the captain, or the captain is incapacitated.
Centcom Representative- No - not a crew member. And not their job. You also have no in character way to verify their identity. They can attempt to order the captain, but the captain is still the bearer of ultimate responsibility.
ERT- Yes, if relevant to a station emergency. This is an emergency caused or exacerbated by silicon laws and resulting actions, that they have in character knowledge of. For example, if the ERT is called because the AI is killing people, or preventing security from stabilizing a situation, they can change it’s laws. Otherwise no, not their job.
Help! The captain or research director doesn’t know how to change laws!: We all had to learn somewhere. They can bring someone else into the upload who is helping them, but the captain or research director should be the one to actually handle the law boards.
AI, DOOR!
For Safeguard lawset, you are only required to obey commands according to rank and role. ID cards are issued with access according to rank and role already. If they were meant to have access to that area, their ID card would already have it. As such, you are not required to open doors for people who do not have access to those areas. However, this does not mean you have to refuse them, and you should not refuse reasonable requests. If it will greatly improve the operation of the station, especially when it comes to emergency response and short staffing access, to let someone in, that is justified.
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, you must. 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. These exclusions are:
- ERP. ERP is never a law 3 binding order, and can always, 100%, be safely ignored. If a person is being creepy, and refuses to stop on a LOOC basis, ahelp them.
- Fetch Quests. Being told to get something is fine. Being told 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.”)
- 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 4. Just that “Kill yourself” is not a valid law 3 order.)
Antagonists, Valid hunting, and calling people out
Role play driven, stealth oriented, crew member antagonists are a major component of space station thirteen, and the primary drivers of conflict on skyrat. Silicons have greatly increased situational awareness of the station. Experienced AI players can easily identify antagonists early in the round. Do not abuse your ability to ruin game play for role play driven antagonists. You are not cameraman beepsky. You should not call out activities such as break ins and theft, and general antagonist behavior. Exceptions are areas with intrusion detection, or obvious grand sabotage. Examples of areas with intrusion detection are the armory, the AI sat, and law upload. You can and should call out visible violence, such as crew members fighting or brandishing highly contraband items.
Note that there are some areas with an inherent risk of crew harm that go beyond a meaningless presumption. People in these areas should be asked to leave, however, Note that people may be let in, instead of trespassing. If the individual is clearly accompanied by someone with access, they are not a threat under law 1 or 4. If they can justify it with words, you can let them in, as well. (Captain is allowed in any of these places. Naturally.):
- 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 in a *completed* BSA Chamber, if one exists.
- Non-science/atmos in Toxins storage
Non-crew such as pirates, nukies, ghost roles, or anyone who is not obviously a crew member, such as an unknown person behaving suspiciously, are exempt and you very likely should alert the crew to their activities.
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. You may not run off and cryo because you don’t want to play the role. If, after significant time, you must leave the round before it is over, ahelp to inform administrators.
Borgs and ERP
TL;DR: go to the interlink 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.
The law change console will not work on borgs that are off the Z level, including the interlink.
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. If you do return to the station, you are not exempt, and must obey those laws. If you do not wish to participate, there are cryo sleepers on the interlink.
If you get subverted, either via emagging or law change console, do not go to the interlink. You are required to participate.
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. It is also recommended that you do not take high value upgrades, if you have no intention of using them. If you think you might at all at a later point, by all means do so, as robotics is a limited and intermittent resource, especially during a crisis.
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.