The disallowance of mute in security and the opinionated reasoning behind it.
Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:47 am
Hello, I used to play a mute security officer who goes by the name 'Leandris Ash' on main before being told to stop due to her having the 'mute' trait. the reasoning given was that speaking in comms is an absolute requirement for security, as well as head positions, and regardless of the requirement, is simply inconvenient to others. another arguement I can remember being made against it is there simply being no justification for NT hiring a mute security officer. lastly, some have argued that sec is a teamwork-oriented division and mute goes against that. I would like to take the opportunity to argue against these statements in an attempt to change these opinions.
Firstly, as a mute, you can in fact speak. through the circuitry system, you can create a text to speech device in about 30 seconds, that converts whatever is typed on it into hearable words. Second, the station-bounced radio is available in every single security checkpoint, alongside two sec headsets to extract keys from, and a screwdriver. beside that, you have the ability to PDA message, as well as emote or write on paper, and paper is available in the loadout menu. your pda contains a free pen.
Regarding mute being inconvenient, deaf, nearsighted, blind, pacifist, brain tumor, blood deficiency, and simply sucking at your job, are all equally if not moreso inconvenient. RDS is not mentioned as according to some admins, that is already disallowed in head and sec positions. The inconvenience argument also doesn't make much sense to me, as ss13 is designed to throw many inconveniences at you, and this one can be worked around quite easily. practically all negative traits are inconvenient to the player and those around them by design, and yet many are still allowed.
Tackling the 'NT would not hire you' argument. This one probably makes the least sense of all to me. The whole theme of NT is a giant, bureaucratic mess of incompetence and getting away with being as cheap as humanly possible. It is not unbelieveable that they would hire a security officer that cannot speak, considering they hire traitors, changelings, revolutionaries, etc despite all their background checking, crazy complicated soul-binding contracts, and so on.
Finally, regarding the teamwork argument, EVERY single role on the station barring assistant and their side roles (clown, mime) can be argued to also require teamwork and communication. mute does not prevent this in any capacity, it simply adds complexity to it. That itself is not against the rules, and if you're going to disallow mute on those grounds, it would stand to reason that every negative trait should be disallowed in every division by that same argument.
and to add another point onto this post, I was under the impression that main was supposed to be a rather unbelieveable, non-serious station where you can do many inconvenient and dangerous things as long as you are doing your job to the best of your ability and have good intentions. I hope to get this decision reversed, as this was an instance where a character I created was genuinely engrossing to play, and it hurts to be disallowed from doing so, especially on such opinionated, debatable grounds.
Also, demotion exists as a mechanic that can easily tackle this issue. if an HOS or captain believes you are not good enough to be sec, wether by competence or disability, they can just demote you. there's simply no solid argument to outright disallow it.
side note: a round in which I was told that I could not play mute sec anymore, and was therefore my last round as security with this character. me and a few other friends of my character helped me petition for my job, and we gained approval from the captain to do so, who was also fine with my character's condition. the result was as follows https://imgur.com/a/xuzFV7G
I hope you'll consider how I feel about this situation and my desire to play my character again as well as getting more trait diversity for others in the same kind of situation. Thank you for listening.
Firstly, as a mute, you can in fact speak. through the circuitry system, you can create a text to speech device in about 30 seconds, that converts whatever is typed on it into hearable words. Second, the station-bounced radio is available in every single security checkpoint, alongside two sec headsets to extract keys from, and a screwdriver. beside that, you have the ability to PDA message, as well as emote or write on paper, and paper is available in the loadout menu. your pda contains a free pen.
Regarding mute being inconvenient, deaf, nearsighted, blind, pacifist, brain tumor, blood deficiency, and simply sucking at your job, are all equally if not moreso inconvenient. RDS is not mentioned as according to some admins, that is already disallowed in head and sec positions. The inconvenience argument also doesn't make much sense to me, as ss13 is designed to throw many inconveniences at you, and this one can be worked around quite easily. practically all negative traits are inconvenient to the player and those around them by design, and yet many are still allowed.
Tackling the 'NT would not hire you' argument. This one probably makes the least sense of all to me. The whole theme of NT is a giant, bureaucratic mess of incompetence and getting away with being as cheap as humanly possible. It is not unbelieveable that they would hire a security officer that cannot speak, considering they hire traitors, changelings, revolutionaries, etc despite all their background checking, crazy complicated soul-binding contracts, and so on.
Finally, regarding the teamwork argument, EVERY single role on the station barring assistant and their side roles (clown, mime) can be argued to also require teamwork and communication. mute does not prevent this in any capacity, it simply adds complexity to it. That itself is not against the rules, and if you're going to disallow mute on those grounds, it would stand to reason that every negative trait should be disallowed in every division by that same argument.
and to add another point onto this post, I was under the impression that main was supposed to be a rather unbelieveable, non-serious station where you can do many inconvenient and dangerous things as long as you are doing your job to the best of your ability and have good intentions. I hope to get this decision reversed, as this was an instance where a character I created was genuinely engrossing to play, and it hurts to be disallowed from doing so, especially on such opinionated, debatable grounds.
Also, demotion exists as a mechanic that can easily tackle this issue. if an HOS or captain believes you are not good enough to be sec, wether by competence or disability, they can just demote you. there's simply no solid argument to outright disallow it.
side note: a round in which I was told that I could not play mute sec anymore, and was therefore my last round as security with this character. me and a few other friends of my character helped me petition for my job, and we gained approval from the captain to do so, who was also fine with my character's condition. the result was as follows https://imgur.com/a/xuzFV7G
I hope you'll consider how I feel about this situation and my desire to play my character again as well as getting more trait diversity for others in the same kind of situation. Thank you for listening.