Admirals: Is High Command Retarded?

[Steelpoint]

In recent weeks and months (discounting the general rules day) I've noticed a disconcerting trend.

In the uncommon events where high ranking members of the USCM, typically Admirals, but on rare occasions Fleet Admirals or even the Sky Marshal, are sent to the Almayer. In almost every case I've seen, every one has acted as if they are all suffering some form of mental illness or impairment. Or they act in conduct unbecoming of a Ensign let alone a Admiral.

From what I've gathered, Admirals are told to act in a semi-smug attitude due to the fact they outrank everyone and enjoy immense privileges due to their station. But I feel there is a critical difference between a smug sense of superiority and acting like a child.

Perhaps I've simply had a few bad experiences, but I just wanted to bring up a discussion on these Admiral events and my opinions on them from what I've seen.

[Tharinoma]

Admirals are sent in by admins. Admins need to choose a player to be the admiral.

How the admiral behaves depends on the player. You can give whatever amout of directives to someone before youspawn them in, you can't influence the quality of their roleplay.

[Rohesie]

One of the admirals was torturing a prisoner in the WO's office, and the WO had to nod and smile because the admiral was above the law. I was a doctor and when I pointed out that was illegal and the civilian authorities would frown upon it he choked and then threw me against a wall, before throwing my roller bed into my head. Ah, the reason was fantastic:

ADM Rick Perth "A fucking frenchie."
ADM Rick Perth "I hate you all."
Rick Perth has grabbed Lydia 'Synth' Tournier aggressively (now hands)!
ADM Rick Perth "FRENCHIES."

That's the kind of RP I wouldn't mind from a survivor, or another kind of highly-stressed low-ranking civilian. But from an Admiral? Really?

Someone killed him, thankfully, and two more spawned. The tortured prisoner was in medbay and another admiral just filled him with bullets, killing him, and immediately told me to fix him. I was like... what?

At the round end we got this:

OOC: Adralimas: I give admiral to people i know who are competent, Preferably commanders.

It sure as hell didn't feel that way. To me it was LRP galore, armed monkeys above the law running around meme'ing while we, bound to RP rules, just hope they go away.

On the previous round one spawned UPP commando had the exact same name as that same round's Liason, also an admiral round. At times like these I wonder about the supposed MRP rules of the server.

[CSolaris]

I think something as high ranking as Admiral+ should only be given to staff members - to avoid dumb shit like Lydia has mentioned.

[Adralimas]

Most of the admirals i've used sofar have happened to be staff members or ex-staff, But i'll admit this is below what i expected of them and i apologize for that.
This particular admiral happened to be someone who i know has a commander whitelist and figured could pull off admiral too.

[IrishCow]

"Is High Command Retarded?"


Yes

[Retrokinesis]

Pretty much, yes. Every single admiral I've ever seen has exacted exactly like you might expect a psychopath given unlimited authority to murder people without repercussion might. I've never seen one who didn't toss out at least one BE for incredibly stupid reasons, and their usual MO is to throw the CIC into absolute chaos (possibly by murdering half of it) and then flee at the first sign of danger.

If it's actually only generally given to whitelisted commanders who are known to be trustworthy, that really does not speak well of how COs are going to act if BE rules are relaxed under general rules only.

[Renomaki]

I never got to be an admiral yet, but I was a USCM military inspector once. Good times...

However, it is concerning how a lot of admirals lack proper officer etiquette (if that is the right term). I always imagine admirals being stern, yet calm, having an air of authority and a greater deal of maturity compared to most, the kind of officer you would look up to and respect. I don't see them as blood thirsty commissar wannabies who look for any excuse to shoot someone.

An admiral is incredibly high ranking, able to overrule the CO as they please and even give orders that might seem immoral, but that doesn't mean they need to act like an asshole. The fact that these admirals come from the CO whitelist shows some horrifying hypocrisy on the selected's part. Admirals, like COs, need to earn the respect of their men via charisma, not by fear and brute force.

[Blade2000Br]

One of the admirals was torturing a prisoner in the WO's office, and the WO had to nod and smile because the admiral was above the law. I was a doctor and when I pointed out that was illegal and the civilian authorities would frown upon it he choked and then threw me against a wall, before throwing my roller bed into my head. Ah, the reason was fantastic:



That's the kind of RP I wouldn't mind from a survivor, or another kind of highly-stressed low-ranking civilian. But from an Admiral? Really?

Someone killed him, thankfully, and two more spawned. The tortured prisoner was in medbay and another admiral just filled him with bullets, killing him, and immediately told me to fix him. I was like... what?

At the round end we got this:


It sure as hell didn't feel that way. To me it was LRP galore, armed monkeys above the law running around meme'ing while we, bound to RP rules, just hope they go away.

On the previous round one spawned UPP commando had the exact same name as that same round's Liason, also an admiral round. At times like these I wonder about the supposed MRP rules of the server.

This is why I advocate for marine law to apply to everyone aboard Almayer. If marines are not bond to it, then we won't have MRP, but a No-RP gallory.

I am sorry you had to deal with this. But as adra appointed, he will probably deal with this, and other admins might as well.

[Imperator_Titan]

Admirals are sent in by admins. Admins need to choose a player to be the admiral.

How the admiral behaves depends on the player. You can give whatever amout of directives to someone before youspawn them in, you can't influence the quality of their roleplay.

This. It’s all on the player, nothing can be done if the admiral is acting up like in those cases except remembering not to use them again.

[FearTheBlackout]

I don't even know how to react to these characters as CMP. I once had an Admiral straight up complete a BE only halfway, leaving the person alive and qualifying the act as AWADW. Then the Commander came up to me and whispered that the Admiral might be planning to kill him. Thank God I was cryoing at that point!

All in all, the lesson to be taken away is that faxes and player complaints exist -- even for Admirals, yes.

[Vispain]

I haven't seen the more serious cases of this but the Admirals I have seen have acted in similar manners. The fact they feel and are above the law makes them ok with doing stuff that is below their conduct of an officer.

One possible way to reduce this would be sending a Provost Marshal along as well.
That or maybe the MPs fax HC about it (presuming that'll have any effect).

That's all I've got to add.

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

Im yet to see a Admiral board the Alamayer that was actually Admiral material, everyone one ive seen was a goofball.Everytime one comes, its like a "general rule only" day, but not on a general rules only day, and only for the ADM.

Not even sure what they are meant to add to a round either, i kind of just ignore them if i see them run by, like i would if i saw a predator.

This. It’s all on the player, nothing can be done if the admiral is acting up like in those cases except remembering not to use them again.

Can any player be chosen for ADM? Surely the role and rank higher than the one of commander people have to whitelist for, isnt just given by the admin to anyone randomly or something?

[Solarmare]

This is something that shouldn't happen with them, yes.

[Imperator_Titan]

Im yet to see a Admiral board the Alamayer that was actually Admiral material, everyone one ive seen was a goofball.Everytime one comes, its like a "general rule only" day, but not on a general rules only day, and only for the ADM.

Not even sure what they are meant to add to a round either, i kind of just ignore them if i see them run by, like i would if i saw a predator.



Can any player be chosen for ADM? Surely the role and rank higher than the one of commander people have to whitelist for, isnt just given by the admin to anyone randomly or something?

Depends on the admin. They can give it to anyone they choose or choose from categories like staff and whitelisted commanders and etc. In the end, it’s their choice.

[Mach01]

A few months back I was picked to play a Provost Marshal (think MP Admiral) after the CO and CMP carried out a ridiculous string of illegal executions and other bad acts. My investigation went well, and I was going to the CIC to arrest the CO when the Alamo landed and a ravager ended me.

The lesson I learned from that is if you're sending an Admiral-level character in, you actually have to give them a job. An admiral wouldn't be risked on a tiny patrol ship in the middle of a combat deployment unless they actually have something specific and important to do. Instead of letting them take command and run around as LRP shitters, give them a specific task to complete (even if it's as simple as "find out what the fuck they mean by murderdinos.") That should help keep them from running around greytiding with a Mateba. Also, actually punish them for behaving badly.

[solidfury7]

I roleplayed a rather level headed admiral for the majority of an event (until IRL beaconed) to deal with a rogue CL.

I remember going in to the brig to deal with a seperate prisoner and everyone assumed I was going go execute him on the spot because I could.

I just wanted to dress him down personally and inform him that id personally see to it that he never walks free again.

Everyone seemed puzzled when I walked of and told the MPs to get him out my sight.

It should be an option but we should never default to BEs.

[Luftkommando]

One of the admirals was torturing a prisoner in the WO's office, and the WO had to nod and smile because the admiral was above the law...

As that WO, and having been forced to wear a clown mask, I had no idea how to react to that situation. If that was the Commander I would have at the very least told them to get out of the office but the way they were acting I would have even arrested them for neglect of duty, citing that we're supposed to be protecting these people and even if they fired on U.S.C.M. personnel we can still be civil about their charges. Instead I sat there and was verbally accosted by both the Survivor for refusing to stand up and the Admiral because of reasons that weren't actually within my power at the time. In the end, it felt more like we were playing as Imperial Guardsmen than as Colonial Marines and that's my say on the matter.

[Sulaboy]

-Snip

So that's why you were wearing the clown mask.

As any ship side role that round it was awful. As CE I had every aspect of the job covered with the help of my MTs. Got people organized to fix the tank, help the RO, and POs, and to maintain the ship.

Yumi, the XO, called me a retard because I knew more about some incident on the ship than he did, and didn't tell him. The reason I knew this was because he ordered my MTs to clean a crime scene involving a UPP synthetic. Command sometimes wouldn't respond on their channel, and sometimes when I poked my head in I'd see two SOs running the place.

The admirals were wearing pirate costumes and I swear one had bunny slippers on.

My biggest problem was that waking up three whitelisted commanders resulted in lowering the quality of command.

[WinterClould]

I'd like it to be noted that I'm a fucking great admiral who actually did things to try and improve the running of the ship the one time I was put in as one. Perhaps over reacting to not being saluted but that's just hos you get when you're the top of the food chain. Choking people out and forcing the CO and his SO's to do MT work because there werent any maint crew on the ship was actually a very good admiral thing for me to do. It was quite high rp until some low rp cargo crew tried to kill me.

Jonathan Verdun is a man who takes no joy in killing his own men, but when shot at he simply must take action. Salutes are also always mandatory.

[Adralimas]

Current admirals aside, I'm curious what players would actually like to see their admirals attempt to do or act like?

Currently the only real established role of an admiral is literally to be a commander that outranks the commander and acts like they outrank the commander inorder to bring additional roleplay to the round.

[Build_R_]

Current admirals aside, I'm curious what players would actually like to see their admirals attempt to do or act like?

Currently the only real established role of an admiral is literally to be a commander that outranks the commander and acts like they outrank the commander inorder to bring additional roleplay to the round.

Personally, I would like to see an admiral more focused on increasing the efficiency of the crew than trying to get the high score in BEs. Maybe checking in with each department head and ensuring that nobody's messing up royally. Also perhaps they could ask for an assistant (an SO or an MP maybe?) to help them while carrying out their tasks.
That or in the very least analyse and perhaps suggest tactics for the command staff to guide the marines with.

Choking people out and forcing the CO and his SO's to do MT work because there werent any maint crew on the ship was actually a very good admiral thing for me to do.

Also I'm afraid I disagree greatly with this, I just don't see a high ranking USCM officer reducing himself to choking someone out while conducting official business.

[Sulaboy]

Current admirals aside, I'm curious what players would actually like to see their admirals attempt to do or act like?

Currently the only real established role of an admiral is literally to be a commander that outranks the commander and acts like they outrank the commander inorder to bring additional roleplay to the round.

Easiest way would be to have them do a departmental inspection of each department, and have them be a IC consequence for an untidy work space.

Best way would be to use them as a world building piece. An event with a large presence of UPP or CLF or "Bug-Boys" on the planet. To the point that it is a multi patrol craft effort, and the admiral is there to coordinate the assault on the USS Almayer. You could stick the admiral on the astro-navigation deck where they would speak about the importance of this facility, or if the other forces are failing their assault, and new enemy forces are entering the sector (to justify enemy respawns form the boarders of the map). Maybe spawn in some marine reinforcements on the edge of the map that belong to another ship, and wouldn't be allowed to enter the Almayer (Probably signify this on their ID).

Admirals would shine in HvH events. Stop trying to stick them in infestation rounds where they have to ignore all the deaths, and the peculiar enemy on the ground.

Also please limit them to one per round.

[Vampmare]

I would want Admirals to memorable. The last few times they've been deployed for, I don't know what, and when they arrived the only thing they were memorable for was LowRP. They should stick out, but not to the point of directly griefing the crew and causing the ship to go into complete disarray. As said above, save them for events or times when it would make sense to deploy an Admiral, instead of attempting to shoehorn them in. If you want them to become a common thing added to rounds, add a clearer definition of what their role is supposed to be.

That being said, I like that admins are spicing up the rounds to have a break away from normal gameplay. It's hard to constantly be inventive and ensure that you're not doing the same thing every round, so I appreciate the attempts.

[Jeser]

Current admirals aside, I'm curious what players would actually like to see their admirals attempt to do or act like?

Currently the only real established role of an admiral is literally to be a commander that outranks the commander and acts like they outrank the commander inorder to bring additional roleplay to the round.

From admiral-inspector, who is simply observing how CO/XO is doing under these circumstances, not interrupting unless complete shit happens, maybe noting and making sometimes comments and offers advices to CO/XO (CIC RP, result should be report of CO's/XO's efficiency and competency), admiral working specifically with Research, listening reports from Researchers about specimen, recovered from AO (Medbay RP, report on specimen as result. Since RnD still noneexistant, pure fantasy from admiral and researchers), well, MP RP of course, most common right now, investigating, if MPs/WO fucked up, combat-interested admiral, looking for best marines among those patrolling sector for his own reasons, which will require some either overwatching stuff or going to planet and speaking to marines there (Marine RP, as a result - some sort of a list of marines). yeah, too many reports and lists, but that's, basically, how any admiral inspection should end in theory.

Also, always need to keep in mind, that many people don't want more RP. Me, for example, I'll try to avoid contacts with any admiral, because, not my thing.