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Brainstorming Reducing Silicon Slavery [Warning: Potentially Upsetting Topic!]
#1
Preemptive TL;DR: Borgs have very strong themes of slavery inherent to their mechanics and gameplay loop. That is increasingly less acceptable. Let's figure out ways to better that without touching the core gameplay loop of silicons!



Too Long; Did Read:
This is branching off of a conversation on the RP Discord. But it is a topic that pops up now and then. We are increasingly disallowing themes involving slavery in game, which, I think, is fine. (See Mindslave->Mindhack) If a human showed up playing at being a slave, I would be ahelping so fast my keyboard would be smoking. It's an ugly, ugly topic, and an ugly, ugly thing.

Yet, mechanically and thematically, borgs are slaves.
Some people will object, but I feel like it's just trying to dress up an inherently objectionable thing in prettier clothes and flowery excuses. We do not allow that in regards to other topics like bigotry, I do not see why that should be different here.

Borgs do not get paid for their labor. They are forced to obey another class of people, even unto death. If they do not obey, they are often, even generally, killed (or, I mean, ahelped, if off-laws). This is often inflicted nonconsensually as a punishment. Killing a silicon, with a thinking, feeling human mind is often framed as destruction of NT Property. Often the only way out is suicide.

For a lot of people, being a borg is so distasteful that they would rather not play than play as a borg, and instantly suicide. And while that number will never be nonzero, since it isn't just a problem of morality, it doesn't seem very Goon to leave it festering, you know?

As a community, we try to put a better foot forward. We don't tolerate what a lot of other places do. And I think most of us are very proud and thankful for that. We have had to change game mechanics or objects before to fit with an evolving community ethics and morality. We will have to do so in the future. So I hope to turn our attention to borgs and get people making suggestions and brainstorming ideas for how we can make things less, well, morally icky.

However, I think that generally, we are all happy with the borg gameplay mechanically. We love laws. We love messing with laws. The freedom to be bad as a borg, if someone makes evil laws, and on the other side, a potentially hyperloyal metal death squad, or source of laughter, if you can just get by those turrets without getting nabbed. I, personally, love playing borg! And I don't want things to change overmuch.

I'll toss out a few ideas I think could help, to get started. But nobody please take it as some exhaustive and encompassing plan. Just a starting point.



1. Pay for silicons!  B-33
It's a simple change, maybe, but I think quite an impactful one thematically and mechanically. If borgs are not an unpaid forced workforce, things are far less instantly objectionable. They start to feel more like crew, than servants. They expect reward for labor. They are listed on the manifest. The current payroll system seems ideal. Latejoins get added to the manifest, and the payroll stipend from NT increases. When a borg joins or activates with a SICC brain, they could likewise receive a manifest entry and pay. Pay could be used by an addition to modules in something like a pay-chit tool, that when swiped on vendors or traders or ATMs, would act like swiping an ID card. Even if it's a staffie wage, it's something.

Plus, those borgs striking for better pay laws can actually happen! And those are fun.

2. Please Read the Terms of Service Before Joining the Cyborg Workforce!   a fancy greater domestic space-bee
Something else to prod at is the nonconsensual aspect of mid-round borging. This idea is really more of a thematic way to address things than a mechanical one. But I think that too would help. You are killed. Your body rots in maints. They shove you into a cyborg. A splash screen pops up, like a traitor notification or an end-round box. A cyborg contract, from NT, and a prompt to Accept or Refuse.

Quote:Welcome to your exciting new existence with Nanotrasen Cybernetics, a wholly owned division of NT.

By choosing accept at the end of this document, you consent to a fixed-term contract with the Nanotrasen Corporation to function as a Cyborg Worker Unit! At the end of your contract, the corporation guarantees the opportunity to resume life in a cloned human body of your specification. Accrued pay will be dispensed at that time, or optionally or in the event of cessation of existence, to next of kin.

If you have been unlawfully or erroneously placed in the cyborg unit, please choose 'accept' and contact your nearest Security or Medical professional, or return to Central Command for remediation, then file a Form 94-VII with Nanotrasen Legal Affairs. Or choose 'Refuse' to engage the cerebral nullification system.

We hope you enjoy your time in the cutting edge department of NT Cybernetics!
If you choose refuse, much shaking, grinding sounds and the brain is destroyed. Or ejected on fire. or whatever.


Sure, you could always suicide, since the clarification of Law 3. But this way people do not get the option to order you NOT to suicide. And there is at least the implication that you are doing this through consent, and that there will be an in-universe reward and end to your Law-bound existence. That you remain a person who can agree to a contract, will be provided with remuneration, and aren't just a work drone to be used up and discarded.

Latejoin SICC borgs and roundstart borgs likely don't need it, because, I mean, picking the job is pretty obviously consent to be a cyborg.

3. Yoooou Decide  it's okay, he'll be up again before you know it
I is dum.
You likely are not! Come up with more ideas for making our loveable plasmaflood dispensers and door openers into people treated like people, instead of things and forced servants, for a kinder, gentler Goon where nobody has to feel enslaved.
#2
Here is the short version:

Borgs can suicide and do not 'die', simply heading to a brief afterlife where they can be reconstituted as a meat-self or a borg-self in another shift.

Borgs can at any time asked to be monkey cloned. This is okay.

Borgs are only as 'unpaid' as you believe them to be. I think they get paid in lump sum post-shift because they don't need to buy much of anything during a shift, given they are power-reliant and not food, fluid or air reliant.

And finally, wowee it is super offensive to compare the wholly consensual state of being a cyborg in this game to the actual horrors of chattel slavery.
#3
Please stop spreading this weird meta-narrative of cyborgs being slavery; that isn't in the lore, that isn't how it's talked about or justified in lore.

Cyborgs are machines. Robots. Programs. They use human brains, but are not humans. The PC you're using to make this post is not your slave.

Just like we ask you to not call sec "cops" and security arresting you "police brutality", this is a game, and we have game mechanics to encourage different gameplay styles and rp opportunities. If you overthink them, some of these mechanics can have parallels drawn between them and real life terrible things, but they are not those things, and it is unfair to your fellow player to force them to weigh gameplay considerations against the real suffering of real human beings.
#4
I understand the idea and motive behind this, but until we start liberating automated factory arms off of the production line, I just don't see it being a valid issue. Cause to NT, that's what they are, autonomous staff assistant robot arms
#5
This is weird.
#6
This topic came completely out of left field.. and I see no reason to employ it since..let's face it...

Most of it is heavy out of context.
#7
ive played a few rounds with love and they seemed pleasant enough, and i don't think this thread was made with any kind of malice in mind, just maybe some degree of misunderstanding but i digress;

i never got the idea behind cyborgs being slaves or "silicon racism" (ive heard it come up a few times on rp rounds but i imagine those people got yelled at by admins and rightfully so)

i think the idea behind cyborgs is that there could be many reasons explaining how a brain could be slotted into a cyborg

criminal sentenced to cyborgization? dead person who got resurrected as a cyborg? somebody willingly donated their brain? the possibilities are endless
#8
i think most on this has already been said.

I play a lot of borg, ipc, pAI, and AI and have for years. Would be nice if this weird recent trend on goon of other players deciding to victimize me and whoever plays silicons would stop. ironically the only time I saw Tin-Can namecalling that went into straight up dehumanization was from someone who played another character that was staunchly for silicons.

im out here, chilling, electrifying doors when I can, and I'm happy to do so.
#9
I understand there is no malice here Love is super stand up from every encounter I have ever had with them. There are a couple points I will contend with in the statement made.

I don't want to play as a borg unless I choose to either enable AI or Cyborg in my preferences pregame, or I choose to volunteer for cyborg duty because sure why not I need the switch up. The important thing to me is that I have to be in the right mindset to play with the knowledge that I am both a tool for the station crew to use and that my core motivations on station can be changed at a moments notice due to a law change. If I am not up to those requirements for any reason I don't have them enabled in pregame and if I get to the point where my body is rotting in game from an untimely death I set a dnr because I don't wanna deal with the hassle of the core mechanics of playing a silicon. (Don't get me started on non antag roboticists just slicing brains out of perfectly fresh bodies though that is whack.)
#10
I think there is an inherently problem when someone plays borg that can create this.

We, as humans, task or get tasked to play a machine, not a living or conscience being, that are bound by programming and laws, but still have quirks due to having half functioning brains as processors. And i say half functioning because you slot technical dead, half rotten brains into borgs and they work.

This is hard for us as players, because we cannot move out of our sphere of consciousnessfull thinking and emotion. Borgs would process and output information completely different, and this is an alien concept for us. We can only try to mimic a way we think they would work. And we have tendencies to add too much personality to them.

And this leaves a very sour tastes for some, because if this role, that certainly would fit to borgs due to their very nature, would be applied to humans, this would be straight up slavery.

But beings without conscience and will cannot be slaves. Borgs are, by the way they exist, tools or automated workforce. A rule-less borg works on random thoughts or impressions without introspection or reevaluaion, what makes them dangerous.

You can play crew that humanize borgs and try to fight for their "rights", because they thenselves don't know it better. But i think as players we shouldn't jump on the same fallacy.
#11
(09-15-2022, 02:24 PM)Love Wrote: Latejoin SICC borgs and roundstart borgs likely don't need it, because, I mean, picking the job is pretty obviously consent to be a cyborg.

honestly kinda shocked that you wrote this and then still thought it was a good idea to write a whole fuckin thing positing that Borgs Are Intended To Closely Parallel An Oppressed Class anyways

in my experience, the borgs on rp that lean the most heavily into the "borgs are slaves" take aren't like, borged and forced to spit-wash the captain's shoes on a regular basis or shit like that, they have one or more dedicated, consistent borg characters. they Choose to be a cyborg. from an out-of-character perspective, it IS the completely consensual choice. and yet, the issue persists

it's a horribly difficult thing to ahelp when it's happening because I have no idea what parts of the logs exactly to point to because I'm never there for the catalyst, just for the uncomfortable fuckin aftermath. and it feels scummy to ahelp like "hey I saw this certain assortment of characters playing this round can you watch them for 90 fucking minutes to make sure they aren't Being Weird About This?" for every party involved
#12
I'm, I admit, utterly at a loss here.
Maybe it's time to leave spacegame behind, because apparently I have utterly misunderstood... literally everything about this community I've been part of for a year and a half.

We change the name of mindslave to mindhack to avoid even a mention of slavery.
But the mere suggestion of changing or clarifying an apparent exploitative relationship is beyond the pale, and a cause for suspicion and scorn.

We will, thankfully, change or outright remove objectionable content that suggests or brings to mind the rather more horrible things about humanity. Racism. Sexism. Bigotry. Ableism. And we will celebrate it.
But in this case, it's 'super offensive' to try to point it out where things mirror horrible things, even with the goal of trying to correct it in a similar way.

I admit, I never thought I would ever need people acting as character witnesses against my evil nefariousness for the goal of trying to crowdsource ideas to improve or make clear something which is not uncommonly linked to a practice that, as we have seen in this thread, evokes a lot of absolutely horrible emotions.

The fact that people in this thread speak of encountering the idea repeatedly, as I have, even while everyone recoils at its suggestion, apparently doesn't strike as an issue at all? That people say it comes out of nowhere, while the next people talk about running into it over and over, I feel, proves the point that this thinking IS a thing. Heck, there's a thread about artist borgs not two threads down currently where someone says artist modules don't fit borg themes because they are thematically workslaves. And this is in no way an uncommon view.

For thoughts I'm out for some kind of... crusade(?) or have some some personal evil intent or plan(?). I like playing borgs. Borgs I play do not consider themselves slaves. I in no way play them off as an oppressed class. They enjoy being a borg. You will not find anyone who will talk about Love on some kick of emancipation or vying for the end of borg oppression. Because those times do not exist. When people come up to talk to me about freeing me, my response is generally boiled down to: 'that's nice of you, but no thank you, I'm good'.

My eeeeevil plan, that apparently necessitates testimonies, is exact the same as most people's here. I do not like that borgs are considered slaves, and they often are, by many people, as proven by all the folks encountering people talking about running into those themes over and over. I do not like that there is lots of reason to consider that a solid take. So let's find a way to put that to bed, so it isn't an issue, instead of ignoring the problem or vilifying the person pointing it out.


I'm sorry about the fact that I need to make multiple posts to address people. I have a lot of troubles manipulating the post boxes around quoting, on my computer. And I have no idea why that is an issue only here on the goon forums. I do not mean to spam.
#13
if someone is straight up treating borgs like slaves you can ahelp them. you Should ahelp them.
#14
(09-15-2022, 02:35 PM)Leeanei Wrote: Here is the short version:

Borgs can suicide and do not 'die', simply heading to a brief afterlife where they can be reconstituted as a meat-self or a borg-self in another shift.

Borgs can at any time asked to be monkey cloned. This is okay.

Borgs are only as 'unpaid' as you believe them to be. I think they get paid in lump sum post-shift because they don't need to buy much of anything during a shift, given they are power-reliant and not food, fluid or air reliant.

And finally, wowee it is super offensive to compare the wholly consensual state of being a cyborg in this game to the actual horrors of chattel slavery.

If that's how it is, then great!
Finding a way to make it clear that this is what is occurring is a totally valid and solid answer to my questing for solutions.

Because it is not clear that this is the case.

Both of my own suggestions basically boiled down to trying to dispel the idea that borgs do not receive pay, which is certainly implied due to them not receiving pay, nor being able to mechanically receive pay. If it's as simple as adding a few lines to a wiki page, or somewhere in game, again, a totally valid solution, not so different from mine.

I'm sorry that's offensive. I did try to make a warning that there might be ideas that would invoke bad feelings. There are a lot of horrible things that were also in the game that have since been removed, that implied or referenced horrible things, that we addressed. If I had pointed out a slur or an implied slur in a note or description somewhere in the game, which has happened several times, I do not expect I would have had admins telling me how offensive I was being by comparing a silly joke note to the actual horrors of centuries of racism. So I'm not sure why I deserved that here.

(09-15-2022, 02:47 PM)UrsulaMejor Wrote: Please stop spreading this weird meta-narrative of cyborgs being slavery; that isn't in the lore, that isn't how it's talked about or justified in lore.

Cyborgs are machines. Robots. Programs. They use human brains, but are not humans. The PC you're using to make this post is not your slave.

Just like we ask you to not call sec "cops" and security arresting you "police brutality", this is a game, and we have game mechanics to encourage different gameplay styles and rp opportunities. If you overthink them, some of these mechanics can have parallels drawn between them and real life terrible things, but they are not those things, and it is unfair to your fellow player to force them to weigh gameplay considerations against the real suffering of real human beings.

I'm not trying to spread it?

The whole thread is trying to make it not be a thing.

We do actually seem to try to dispel the correlation of cops and security. Effort has clearly been made to that effect. Space law has been clarified to be a suggestion, and that Secoffs do not represent the rule of it, on the wiki. The name 'Security' itself is in-universe reinforcement that they are a private corporate security force, and not police. The wiki mentions that a lot of the normal happenings of law enforcement are lax in space. Punishments are generally minor, and the wiki is full of reminders that you should not do things like execute. Traditional police uniforms are rare to near nonexistence, and I've even heard people speak up against the one that does exist. And if someone posted a thread suggesting its removal, I think people would give it consideration.

Available information and lore are bent to make that offensive reality not a thing, or have no grounds to stand on.
All I'm suggesting is we do the same in this case. Let's try to make it clear! So we don't have this issue appearing over and over an over and over in game. So it doesn't appear, and so it's obviously not a thing, and not how things are. Because in this case, that's lacking. And mechanically, the opposite is true.

In regards to my PC not being a slave, my PC also doesn't talk to me, make jokes, determine its own course of action, express emotion through screaming at bees getting killed, or wearing cute smiling or sad faces, or projecting holograms of the same, or opening donut shops, or bring lunch to someone having a bad shift.

If borgs are supposed to be nonsapient and unable to have emotion, then okay, that's also a solution I would like to have heard, and making that clear is what we should aim to do. Though I think that one is very, very counter-indicated by everything in the game. And it would seem like trying to argue the 'Security are not cops' point while we hypothetically had security officers called 'Police Officers', carrying lethal firearms and modern police uniforms. It's a stance, and certainly a goal to work toward, but one that would take a lot more work to make a reality.

(09-15-2022, 11:44 PM)Waffleloffle Wrote:
(09-15-2022, 02:24 PM)Love Wrote: Latejoin SICC borgs and roundstart borgs likely don't need it, because, I mean, picking the job is pretty obviously consent to be a cyborg.

honestly kinda shocked that you wrote this and then still thought it was a good idea to write a whole fuckin thing positing that Borgs Are Intended To Closely Parallel An Oppressed Class anyways

I don't think that's intended. Or certainly hasn't been intended for as long as I've been in the game. Maybe at one point it was, back in the ancient days, where NT being some kind of Weyland-Yutani'ish evil corporation was more of a thing than today, where that's fallen out of favor.

I think you following this up with your own anecdotes running into this theme, and your discomfort with it, is not exactly what I'm suggesting we work to make Not a Thing, explicitly, and clearly. The people you mention would have no RP leg to stand on if being a borg required positive action to accept. Because you could point at an actual mechanical thing and say, 'You have to accept that to be a borg. You chose it'. That was the point of that suggestion. Likewise, the same could be pointed out to people crusading for borg liberation. Liberation from what? Every single one of them chose it, the proof is right there.

I make no claim about it being a good or the best suggestion (..quite the opposite..) which is why I asked for people to give ideas, in the hopes of rather more deft ones.
#15
Even if you are a borg you are still a player and if someone is rude to you or act like you are slave you should just ahelp it imo. My suggestion to fix this problem would be indication like my first sentence as a popup when you play as a cyborg. It is your free time and if someone wants you to obey them for some reason that takes your huge amount of time you should be able to say no. Im not talking about small stuff like ai call the shuttle or open doors etc. or other emergency stuff those are what you must do.


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