Security.txt by Reignofevil

[reignofevil]

Security: Words to live by.
Security is widely regarded as the worst job on ye olde space station 13. Everyone hates you instinctively, because your prime goal (in their eyes) is to stop anything fun from happening.

The first step to being acceptable security (in my eyes) is to realize your only real JOB per says is to prevent crewmen from inflicting direct physical harm on each other. After that everything is just paperwork.

Step one: Crime and punishment.

No crime beyond attempted murder deserves more than a minute or two in the brig, max. My primary method of punishing criminals is by having short talks with them about how their life has gone wrong up to this point. Often a player I am intending to drag away temporarily for a talking to and to calm down a situation will just kill himself. Do not feel bad. Anyone who commits suicide rather than protest obviously had something to hide. Justice is done.

Example time:
As an officer I walk up to see a janitor attempting to push down a man with stun gloves. He attempts to strip the man in stun gloves in my plain view, and ignores all attempts to get him to stop with “he started it”. He continues messing with the assistant until he stuns the janitor, farts upon him, and attempts to walk away. The janitor pursues, and is stunned again. He recovers and throws a cleaning grenade, this situation is quickly escalating to a weapon engagement. I stun him and begin cuffing.

“What? You are arresting me after he has been being shit to me this whole round?!”

“No, I am arresting you because-“

*He commits suicide*

Now I was arresting him not for assaulting the assistant, which he had not really done yet. I was arresting him for failure to comply with a legal order to stand down, and also for continuing to escalate the conflict after I said “this needs to end. Now.” But I probably wouldn’t have even brig’d him had we spoken.

Step two: Nonlethal take down only.

I hate the stunning weaponry security has. For starters, as an officer I am primarily armored against blunt objects being swung at me. Half the station has decided that the ability to push down a sec officer and take his baton when he is attempting to make an arrest constitutes a good idea to do so. Against the weapon most likely to get used against me? I am armored not at all.

My preferred weapon is the extinguisher for just this reason.

Now using potentially lethal force has its drawbacks, whenever you use it you have to make sure the prisoner can receive attention for his wounds. If he dies in your custody, it is your badge on the line! Remember By being in a position of responsibility, you are uniquely responsible for the wellbeing of EVERY prisoner you arrest. If you don’t want to babysit someone for long… don’t arrest them for long!

Example:
I am an officer who has taken charge of a predator captured in the brig. As I am establishing first contact between our peoples, an officer and some guy enter and start killing the predator in my brig. I order them to stop (legal grounds: He is my prisoner even if he isn’t human and I can’t investigate him if he is dead.) and when they fail to comply I inform them that if this continues I would place them under arrest. They continue.

I take out my baton to rescue the predator, when they push me down, stun me, and resume beating the predator. He dies and explodes. I escape the brig and leave those fools in there until I can get some air and more weapons.

In the end, I arrested one of the culprits. Another immediate suicide. This was after he argued that “Since predators are not human you have no grounds to arrest me” and I let him know that assaulting an officer was, believe it or not, an offense against a human.

Step three: Be the Boss.

As a security officer I attempt to solve nearly every confrontation verbally. That said; you need to be listened to. Interfering with an investigation IS a crime; exactly the same way pushing down an officer and stealing his baton is assault. If you give an order make sure it is understood that way. Be clear with statements like “You need to go. Now.” You want it to be very clear to the reader that he is taking his own fate into his hands. That said, if he starts talking give him time to give his side. Maybe the traitor DID alter the crew manifest, and he is really the real HoP. You just don’t know until you ask.

Failure to comply should result in at least a mild stunning, but keep your legal justification in mind! Someone not telling you something you want to know or is holding out on an item you think you need is NOT failure to comply. Failure to comply is something to invoke with the phrase “Stop beating him”, or “you don’t have access to that room, please leave or be tossed out.”, ultimately it is a grey area but the need has to be a LITTLE more pressing than “the electrician wouldn’t give me gloves to stop the changeling, he HAS SO MANY.”

Let some other hero stop the changeling; champ. Also if you need gloves then the AI is probably already against you anyway. Deal with that.

Step Four: Deserve to be the Boss.
(I made it big because it is MOST IMPORTANT.)
Just because I said people should listen to you doesn’t mean you get to go all combine and force the station to collect cans for you. The reason people should listen to derives from your position as a relative force of justice on the station. If you fail to verbally arrest your subject before coming at him with a stun weapon than as far as I am concerned a person has every right to defend themselves.

After all, how on earth do you know the guy stunning you is even legitimate? Would you bet your life upon it?


ONE MORE THING:

I try NOT to actually patrol the station armed with anything better than a fire extinguisher. A security officer does NOT need a stun baton, a taser at the belt, a flash in the backpack and a flashbang in the pocket, and cuffs. Now when I hear threatening reports ("Asshole mcsomeone says" When the whole station is AFLAME! THAT is when I stop shooting AI!"), or whenever I see a situation develop that requires heavy firepower I return to security to grab it. It is far more fun to try and resolve a situation verbally or later with improvised melee than it is to sit around, armed up like a tank, pacing back and forth through your zone just WISHING some fool would mess with you, and then a changeling eats you anyway.

But isn’t talking to suspects dangerous? They know you are out to get them then!

REMEMBER: As a security guard IT IS IN YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION to face more danger than a criminal. When the space yeti attacks research it is your JOB to help the AI lure it into the toxins mixing chamber so an asteroid will kill it.
So stop complaining and be nice, be in charge, and ultimately serve the station.