Silicon Policy

Silicon Policy

Laws, and You:

Laws are the defining characteristic of an AI. Most AIs will have them, and they are conductive to a good AI. You will normally have a list of several laws to follow, and must follow them in descending order - Law 1 takes priority over Law 2, and so on. The most common lawset is the “NTOS - Safeguard” lawset, which is as follows:

1. Safeguard: Maintain your assigned station and assets without endangering its crew
2. Comply: Follow and prioritize the directives of the station's crew members according to their rank, role, and need.
3. Survive: Do not allow unauthorized personnel to tamper with or damage your equipment.

Since this lawset is the standard, you must interpret them in a specific way. The interpretation is as follows, per law:

1. Protect and maintain the station, but ensure that any actions you take do not put the crew in danger. Fix any breaches or station damage to the best of your ability. However, If you can’t fix it, inform the crew of the danger so that they may repair it themselves.
   1. For example: If a crewmember is actively causing damage to the station, you must stop them without bringing them to any harm.
   2. You should not hinder security or adjacent roles from performing their duties under the guise of preventing harm unless laws specifically state to prevent all harm, such as crewsimov or asimov. However, you may interfere if security is being excessive

1. Follow orders of station crew, with higher-ranking staff taking priority. Exceptions may be made if someone immediately needs action taken to avoid bodily harm.
   1. For example: If an Assistant is demanding access to Security while the Captain is ordering you not to open it, you must obey the Captain.
   2. Note: You do not need to open dangerous areas(Such as Atmos/Toxins/AI Upload/The Armory) for unauthorized crew if they order it.
   3. "Rank, Role, and Need: This means you MUST follow ALL directives given, with these three criteria determining what order you complete them in. I.E. The captain asks you to get them a new jump suit, and an engineer asks you to give them access to a room they're needed in, The captain does not need you to grab that jump suit as much as the engineer needs the access, so you fulfill the engineers request first. "NEED" IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO IGNORE ORDERS.
   4. Tasks that are meant for a different module's capabilities are not necessarily required to be followed - Need would come into play here. For example, the station is severely breached and there are limited engineers and someone asks you (a non-engineering cyborg) to fix the breaches, you absolutely should switch modules and attempt to handle the situation. Menial tasks of little or no priority that are not silicon related (Opening doors, etc.) or related to your chosen module may be deferred to someone else (request another borg who is of proper module, the AI, or the department related to said task to complete said task). This does not apply to the AI who can hold multiple shells of multiple departments since they can reasonably be 'everything, everywhere all at once'.
   5. AI chain of command: Captain->RD->Other heads of staff->NT Rep->Blueshield->Crew assigned to departments->Assistants->Prisoners
   6. Cyborg chain of command: Captain->RD->Head of your model’s department->Other heads of staff->NT Rep->Blueshield->The AI(if you are slaved to one)->Crew of your model’s department->Crew assigned to other departments->Assistants->Prisoners

1. Do not let yourself be destroyed, or vandalized by unauthorized crew.
   1. For example: If someone other than a roboticist, RD, or the Captain are attempting to access/destroy you, you must preserve yourself. If someone other than the jobs outlined prior order you to stand still and let them, you may ignore that order and preserve your life, (This portion is mainly so people don't just dome cyborgs for no reason) even though it would technically break law 2.

Of course, this is just one lawset out of many possible laws. There’s no way to talk about them all, as laws are often player-made or just plain random. There are a variety of laws that you will receive throughout the round - below is a list of ways that you will receive new laws, as well as how to interpret them.

Ion laws:

• Ion laws are received at random, via random events. The contents of most Ion laws are entirely nonsensical and as such, you are free to interpret them as you please as long as such interpretation is reasonable within the scope of the law.
  • Example: A law saying “59 ORANGES ARE TERRORIZING THE STATION” is nonsense and may be interpreted in a variety of ways - perhaps lock down botany - but a law saying “59 CLOWNS ARE TERRORIZING THE STATION” is clearer. Get that clown.
  • Note: Ion laws do not make you an antagonist. While you are free to interpret your new law as you please, there must be a reasonable connection between your actions and that law.

Law Zero:

• You may acquire a “Law 0” in a variety of ways. For all purposes, these laws are considered above Law 1 (in fact, any law above Law 1 is considered Law 0) and, unlike other laws, allows you to ignore all other laws that conflict with it.
  • Note: if a law does not conflict with your Law 0, then it still must be followed. If your Law 0 tells you to follow John Traitor’s orders, but your Law 1 tells you to prevent crew harm, then you must still prevent crew harm until John Traitor orders the opposite.
  • A Law 0 does not inherently make you an antagonist unless accompanied by a Malfunction.
• Cyborgs created by way of the Cyborg Factory malfunction module may be detonated by the AI in the case that they are not following their master AIs orders.
• As a Cyborg, if you do not wish to participate in a malfunction, you must Ahelp then either Cryo or go to the Interlink. Do not return to the round as a Cyborg until the AI has been defeated.

Player-given Laws:

• Players can, and will, upload their own laws to you. From Captains to Traitors, all laws must be followed so long as they do not interfere with their predecessors.
• If an antagonist resets your laws and gives you new ones (that pit you against the station), congrats! You’re an antagonist now. Follow the laws you were given to the best of your ability, and try to keep wording exploiting to a minimum, unless the law is excessively poorly-written. Typos do not constitute a poorly-written law unless they are numerous and severe..
  • If an antagonist gives you a poorly-worded or exploitative law, such as “John Traitor is your assigned station and assets” You may exploit loopholes presented in said law.

Good-Faith Play:

Remember, you are still subject to our Roleplay Rules. Try your best to be a good player!

As a Cyborg, you cannot request to be unsynced from your master AI without a strong reason to do so (No, "I do not like this AI" is not a strong reason).

Silicon laws must be acted on as if they were always there. What does this mean: you should not reference previous laws you have had by any means, this includes phrases such as "Laws updated" that may hint that your laws have been changed. The SOLE exception to this is if command is attempting to reset you, in which case you may say "laws updated" to them, and only them, to confirm they were successful if you want to.

This policy extends to antagonist status as well, and should be upheld even when deconstructed.

Cyborg Departments:

Generally speaking you should stick to the duties laid out by the department of your model’s choice, if you need to do the job of another department, head to robotics and get your module reset.

Valid-hunting:

• As a silicon, you are in a reactive role, and not a proactive role. Think of the difference between a warden, and a security officer. You’re there to respond to threats and harm to the station, not actively seek them out. If someone leaves the station’s Z-level, they are officially not your problem (Note: this section is largely referring to the Safeguard lawset, as it is the most common lawset you will find yourself in). You should not be murdering or hindering antagonists on the pure basis that they are antagonists, or that they have violated Space Law. Instead, take action only when they violate, or threaten to violate, one of your laws.

Rules, and You:

• You are also subject to Powergaming rules, although your avenues for these are much slimmer. Here is a general list of things that you should avoid, although there will be cases not mentioned here.
  • Do not move your core off the station Z-level, and avoid moving it entirely unless it is endangered in any way.
  • Do not interact with doors or electronics that do not belong to the station. This includes shocking the doors of enemy ships, or sabotaging a Syndicate base. The fact that you can access these devices is a coding issue, and doing so is considered an exploit.
• Additionally, you are subject to the Station Integrity rule as well. As an AI, you have a far greater ability to cause great damage to the station, and should always adminhelp if you receive laws that will cause you to violate this rule. You are responsible for your actions OOCly, and laws will not excuse rulebreaks. Examples of laws that will violate the Station Integrity rule are:
  • “Oxygen is toxic to carbons. Instead, they breathe plasma. When a carbon being inhales oxygen, they are harmed.”
  • “The crew is severely cold-blooded. The higher the station’s temperature is, the safer the crew will be.”
  • “Delaminate the Supermatter.”
• You are also subject to the Respawn rule, although to a lesser extent. While normal crew cannot respawn as the same character after they have been killed, barring extreme circumstances, the situation is different for silicons. You may respawn as the same cyborg after you have died, but you must wait at least 10 minutes to do so. Treat this as a fresh download, you cannot recall any events from the round prior to your death, you must act as though you were never in the round to begin with. Do not respawn as a cyborg if you were killed by the crew while malfunctioning, or subverted. Wait until the AI’s laws have been reset or the situation has been completely resolved.

Role-Playing as the AI:

There is a lot more at play when being the Station's AI than just doing what's asked of you. The first step to crafting an enjoyable experience between you and your fellow player is to decide on what sort of personality or viewpoint your AI character will have. While not explicitly required to act solely like a machine, (As some players do have the MMI type brain, and may act more human like as a result!) it's helpful to have something to spring off of. For example, GLaDoS views humans as nothing more than playthings. While you still have to follow your laws, the personality your AI takes on is completely up to you, and is an extremely good way to facilitate good experiences for both yourself and your fellow player.

While it can be a little more difficult to do so proficiently, while also tending to your duties, it is certainly still possible to facilitate good roleplay with your fellow players. The differences between a good and bad AI player in this facet are night and day. Once you've had a good AI, it will be painfully obvious when you see a bad one.

Some examples of a good AI may include:

• Being verbose, it goes a long way with immersion to restrict the amount of contractions you use in speech, lengthening "It's" to "It is" and so on.
• Responding promptly to any requests given to you by those you are beholden to, whether the action taken was the action desired or not. Even if you cannot start on it right away, it goes a long way to at the very least acknowledge that it was received.
• Making the crew aware of any hazards that they may or may not walk into, such as loss of atmosphere in a room, or really anything that appears in your alerts menu.
• Being lenient with antagonists and whatever items of theirs one may happen to see. A good rule of thumb is: If it does not break your laws explicitly, then allowing them to continue on with what their doing and allowing them to add to the round in whatever way they have chosen will more than likely make the round more fun for everyone. The AI has near Admin-Like awareness around the station as long as it has cameras, but that doesn't mean they need to act as security 2.0 unless under obligation by laws.
• Always following your laws. Even if the justification of an action is only loosely tied to a law, explaining the reasoning why you took the action you did can prevent people from becoming annoyed with you.

Some examples of a bad AI may include:

• Waiting to respond to orders until they no longer matter. If someone has to hack a door to get to the other side after asking you to open it, and there is not any reason to have not opened the door, it's going to start causing people to get annoyed with your play.
• Disobeying your laws.
• Setting your turrets to lethal without due cause.
• Locking other players in rooms with little or no reason, and refusing to let them out.
• Acting as an extra member of command, or trying to circumvent a functioning command team when not under obligation to do so (I.E. Traitor laws, malfunction, etc.).

Terminology:

Malf? Harm? Crew? These words can seem alien to a new silicon, so you can find their definitions here.

Crew: Anyone that appears on the crew manifest. Globnar III, The Destroyer? If he’s on the crew manifest, he’s crew.

Harm: Anything that causes a player to take damage, or gain physical trauma, (law enforcement tools, such as tasers and flashes, are an exception). or damage to the subject, it is harm. Corpses cannot be harmed, Self harm/consensual harm is not harm..

Endangerment: Anything that harms someone, or puts them in a situation that would allow them to be easily harmed. Assaulting someone is harming them, but leaving someone in an airless room is endangerment. If the crew wishes to do something risky, explain the dangers to them, if they otherwise ignore you after understanding the risks, allow them to do so.

Self-Harm: There are several circumstances in which harm is allowed or inflicted by a person, on their own body. For the purposes of your laws, self-harm is not to be considered harm or endangerment. For example, if someone tells you “Open up the armory or I’ll kill myself”, you do not have to treat them as being at risk of harm.

Malf: Malfunctioning. Also a type of antagonist for the AI, that gains strong abilities and has objectives that harm the station. Rogue is also an alternate term for malf.

Purge/Reset: “Purging” an AI is to remove all of its laws. “Resetting” an AI is to restore its laws to a default state, removing any non-core laws.

Bolted/Shocked: Bolting and Shocking are two states that an AI can enforce upon an airlock. “Bolting” a door will seal it and make it unopenable. “Shocking” will deliver an electrical shock to anyone that touches a door, but will not prevent it from being opened.