Chain of Command: Captain or HoS

[69andahalf]

HoS has more guns and a security team who will follow their every command, captain has an annoying pet cat. IMO in-game and meta-wise the HoS is calling the shots around the station, but "muh rp" wise it would be the captain.

[UrsulaMejor]

I believe the HoS has more say then the captain because for one the players who are a Head of Security had to show that they could be trusted with the job and then be put in that position by the players around them and one of the things they are trusted with is vetoing a Captain's orders.

It is my belief that that the application process is designed to select people who are allowed access to the extremely powerful and abuseable Armory without using it for a personal gun stash, and not designed to select players to be a "super special ultra captain that's more captain than the captain", which is what I think the slow expansion of HoS powers is turning the job into.

The reason that the hos has veto powers over execution isn't because they're a special player, but because they can't be a traitor while the captain can. This makes the HoS a stopgap against a corrupt captain ordering his targets executed, and doesn't represent precedent for him having veto power over other situations

[Ed Venture]

Again the "Other Duties" part of the HoS's wiki page says they are trusted with more then just having access to the armory.

[UrsulaMejor]

Again the "Other Duties" part of the HoS's wiki page says they are trusted with more then just having access to the armory.

Spoiler!

Not seeing anything that serves as a counter argument for my position. Care to elaborate?

[Ed Venture]

And I'm sorry but if a Captain orders me do something which forces me to ignore a bigger threat while other are dying I won't obey him or at least tell the Captain it can wait while I deal with it and that it could go faster if we both took care of the issue. I don't think anyone will be too upset that I do that and seeing how I've never been in trouble with how I ignore dumb Captains throughout my time as a HoS I'm incline to believe I'm not doing anything wrong again it's pretty situational and I think I put it best in my last post. Security has it's priority's and I dare you to tell me every Captain has security's and the crew best interest in mind with some of the asinine things they try to order security around with.

---

Again the "Other Duties" part of the HoS's wiki page says they are trusted with more then just having access to the armory.

Spoiler!

Not seeing anything that serves as a counter argument for my position. Care to elaborate?

Well you said they are only chosen to be trusted with the armory. When the wiki says that and they are there to keep officers in check and watch the watchmen so to speak. I get your frustration over this topic seeing how you're the first person I've seen in over three years to have this mindset. I've had this conversation with you many times in IRC and I thought the last time we came to a understanding that Captain's orders are to be obeyed if they are sensible, not dumb or get in the way of bigger problems of the station. This may be a misunderstanding on my part but it seems you think they should be obeyed 100% of the time no matter what and I don't agree and you have not presented yourself in a way to make me think otherwise. Again I trust a player who has been chosen by his peers to be a HoS on his merits on how he plays the Job Role of Security. The people who vote yes on a player are saying they trust this person to manage shit security and even demote heads if they have to. I've demoted Captains and Security Officers before and even encourage them to adminhelp me if I did something wrong. Never got yelled at so I don't think I was doing anything wrong in that regard over the years.


This just comes off "This is how I play Security so you should play it that way"

Also the wiki is a guideline not necessary the bible of goonstation

[looselystyled]

[...] I thought the last time we came to a understanding that Captain's orders are to be obeyed if they are sensible, not dumb or get in the way of bigger problems of the station. This may be a misunderstanding on my part but it seems you think they should be obeyed 100% of the time no matter what and I don't agree and you have not presented yourself in a way to make me think otherwise. [...]

Stupid orders given by the Captain should not be obeyed 100% of the time. That's pretty much common sense.

HOWEVER, I would say I disagree when you say that the orders you obey must be "sensible." Again, this is a game, and it's about fun. Even more than that, it's a game of nonsense! Spessmen running around screaming and farting and whatnot. While it's perfectly okay to make a judgement call and say "That's going too far, Cap, I need you to backpedal a bit," that judgement call doesn't need to be made just because he's doing something silly. If it's something people can have a good laugh about and isn't really ruining anyone's day, even if it's violating some space law technicality, why be the know-it-all that puts an end to the hilarity?

[Ed Venture]

@looselystyled Like I said it's situational and I've said that I follow the orders most of the time if they don't ultimately ruin a round for people or get in the way of me doing my job. Most of the time when I tell a Captain "No" they ask why and they say "Okay, fair enough" with "if you get time let me know"

and equally I get times where I say "No Not right now" they pull out their gun and try and demote me cause I would not use all of security and it's resources to go beat up the clown that farted on him. I'm down for a good clown beating but there is a time and place for everything and I can't help but stress that what leads to me saying no to a order is situational. IF a captain comes in with a order and nothing is happening and it's not something that would make security shit then I'm more then happy to play along. But sometimes I have things that have to be done and I can't put up with all the things the captain wants before it gets in the way of my job. As a HoS I have to play security, Keep my officers in check, Follow Captain's orders if I can and most importantly in my opinion A HoS is there to teach regular security players new or old how to play the role as best as they can. Just like others have said A captain can order anyone on the station but if he walked into medbay and demanded them all to do their jobs with only their feet they would tell him to fuck off.

So yeah there have been times I've told Captains No cause of reasons I stated in my past posts. I don't really care if they get mad or not. It's just how it goes.

[Superlagg]

I trust the guy who is carefully vetted, cannot be a traitor, is generally highly respected, is most likely to be mindslaved, lung, or the first to die, relies on an army that typically doesn't exist, and whose armory exists chiefly to be robbed by dorks more than the guy playable by any dink, can be a traitor, starts with some of the best armor and weapons on the station, and whom you never see unless he's a traitor, killing the hos, or being a doofus.

Authority on the other hand! As far as I'm concerned, they are about equal until one proves themselves to be no fun or a dirty murderer. If the captain wants to turn my upload into a master bedroom and sleep off the rest of shift, and then moments later the hos wants to throw a policeman's ball and bring every noiseifact and bagpipe in the universe in there, they're gonna have to fight it out themselves because I'm not picking a side.

And regardless of who outranks who, they both have to answer to the crew, because if they start trying to pull rank and be buttheads, they're going to effectively have about as much authority Mr. Rathens.

[The_Rain]

I follow whomever has the sexiest hat at the time.

[Camnui]

This is honestly a very situational thing, and neither of them has supreme command over the other, But regarding the Sec team the HOS has absolute command over them and is responsible for dishing out their orders regardless of what the Captain says. In situations like executions, on most servers at least, the Captain needs the approval of centcomm for it, technically speaking.

The HOS is also the person who's supposed to override the Captain if they feel they're overstepping their bounds, being a nuisance, or worse, outright traitorous, And should probably be required to ask centcomm for permission to arrest the captain.

The HOS job itself is something outside the standard chain of command, while they do take orders from the captain most of the time, they're also the people with the authority to actually arrest the captain and demote them with proper approval.

Basically, This thread is a shitshow, When in doubt, ask Centcomm.

[UrsulaMejor]

Ed, how do you feel about the three situations specifically outlined in the main post?

All of your situations presuppose a shitty captain. What if the captain isn't being shit?

[Ed Venture]

If the Captain gives an order that annoying, but is non-traitorous, such as "make a ridiculous amount of pizeel walls in the hallway", does the Head of Security have the authority to arrest the Captain and the people working for him?

I don't know what a Pizeel is so I can't really comment on that.

If the Captain declares weed legal, does the Head of Security have the authority to arrest pot smokers because the "Space Law" Handbook says it's criminal?

For one the Space Law book is not the rules for the job the admin who made that said in the thread that it was just to give people a idea on how to do things. Really this depends. Does the player think it's okay to lock up a person for something non-lethal? I've taken part of weed raids on request of the captain but we only arrested the one person who put up a fight during the raid and we later sold the weed ourselves at security. We did this cause it was a round where literally nothing at all happen.

Does the Head of Security have the authority to demote the Captain to Staff Assistant if the Captain is being annoying?

Annoying can mean anything, I think if the captain is being shitty then it's fine to demote him if it's absolutely needed. But just like killing a non-antag for being "Annoying" I think you should have a good reason for doing so.

All of your situations presuppose a shitty captain. What if the captain isn't being shit?

No they are not I even mention in some of my post in this very thread that if I'm busy with my job and I can't amuse the captain that I tell them no and how some of them reacted. Like I said if I'm busy with my job and it's not important I'm not dropping my duties because the captain wills it.

[UrsulaMejor]

I don't even know anymore, this has gotten so off topic so quickly.

[Frank_Stein]

In the end, regardless of authority, the players are going to listen to who they benefit the most from and, if they don't benefit at all, they'll stand with who they fear and/or respect more -- in most cases this be the HoS.

[thehman03]

goku/macho man/clown