Doctors don't use weapons you say?

[Surrealistik]

spoken like a man who doesn't actually play the game, i cant name a single round even in pre alpha where i played doctor and didn't have a gun, and you cant claim its meta either because i need the gun to protect medbay, the medbay staff and our patients from the MP's more then i do the aliens.

It's funny because it's true.

Though to be fair, the MPs I've played with as CMO generally haven't been total shitbags.

I also wouldn't think that any sort of Geneva Convention/Hippocratic Oath and the like applies to aliens at a bare minimum.

[canon35]

The hippocratic oath/Geneva convention wasn't made in mind for fighting mass-murdering xenos. IIRC, it doesn't extend to animals. Which xenos are usually considered as by marines.

[Gamerofthegame]

Doesn't mean they'd start carrying them and suddenly not use them, just in case there were animals.

Having a weapon breaks the Geneva convention, besides.

The reasoning of disbarring doctor's from having weapons is sound, though on the flipside it's a somewhat "random" rule that isn't enforced at all, evidently, given the amount of doctors whipping pieces out during the usual Sulaco struggle.

[HurttleTurtle]

Someone should close this topic already. It's getting out of hand...

[Aeleto]

Honestly? This is one of the least enforced rules.. Countless times I've seen doctors using guns (rifles, shotguns, not even handguns) before a major alien invasion, with both admins and mods on. When I ahelp it, I always get "justified" from the responding staff and then they keep waving their guns around. Not an effective rule.

[apophis775]

Every doctor in the marine corp is a rifleman. That is true 90% of the time.

Every single person in my beloved corp is for the rest of their life first and foremost a rifleman. Surgeons and doctors must qualify and be trained with the beretta. And M-16. I even showed you two people awarded the CMH for using heavy weapons in battle.

1. Marines don't use doctors, they use Navy Doctors
2. Marines don't have medics, they use Corpsmen (which are Navy)

Both are allowed to wear the marine uniform instead of the navy uniform if they are assigned to a marine unit, but their specific branch is still the Navy.


Are you even in the Marines? Because, no offense but, if you are, it's pretty sad that someone from the Army knows more about your branch than you do.


As far as it not being enforced, I ALWAYS speak to doctors I see with weapons, and if you see other staff not enforcing it, report it to me.

Even the most senior medical person for the entire marine corp, is a US Navy Surgeon: http://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Agencies/He ... rUSMC.aspx

[Jdobbin49]

As I play as a cmo constantly virtually the only role I do play, anyway as I often play as a cmo/doc it would bexpect very handy to at least have a service pistol, when a patient is in critical and you have no time to call the mp and you have to rush to surgery to get an alien out of the marine it is fun however ithe is not fun when the alien pops there is no one around except for you and you can't do anything as you are weapon less then the larva gets away and the ship goes to he'll and that match usually ends up alien major victory. So incase you didn't get it I am for docs having guns XD.

[Jdobbin49]

No clue about that bexpect thing there just meant to be be

[apophis775]

I think it's VERY REALISTIC that you can't instal-shoot a larva as a doctor. In fact, we recently gave larva an additional advantage, that if they "hide", they can walk under does.

[snow5445]

1. Marines don't use doctors, they use Navy Doctors
2. Marines don't have medics, they use Corpsmen (which are Navy)

Both are allowed to wear the marine uniform instead of the navy uniform if they are assigned to a marine unit, but their specific branch is still the Navy.


Are you even in the Marines? Because, no offense but, if you are, it's pretty sad that someone from the Army knows more about your branch than you do.


As far as it not being enforced, I ALWAYS speak to doctors I see with weapons, and if you see other staff not enforcing it, report it to me.

Even the most senior medical person for the entire marine corp, is a US Navy Surgeon: http://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Agencies/He ... rUSMC.aspx

Yes marines do have doctors though not very often. We had a marine doctor at the embassy in sri lanka. And while we do use corps men they occupied a special place kinda between the navy and the corp. It's a bit weird their. But I left the corp in 02 and since then i have devolped dementia so it's entirely possible im forgetting certain things or misrembering.(Plus brain damage) Considering i drove halfway to work a few weeks ago without pants why are you taking my logic into question? But in short yes medics Which are navy must qualify. Now here is where things get really weird. This is'nt my corp. From when i joined to when i got out. To today things have changed alot more than you realize.

[canon35]

Lets not forget that it takes place over a 100 years from now. For all we know, there could have been a new Geneva convention or a new regulation stating that docs can use weapons in emergencies.

[apophis775]

Yes marines do have doctors though not very often. We had a marine doctor at the embassy in sri lanka. And while we do use corps men they occupied a special place kinda between the navy and the corp. It's a bit weird their. But I left the corp in 02 and since then i have devolped dementia so it's entirely possible im forgetting certain things or misrembering.(Plus brain damage) Considering i drove halfway to work a few weeks ago without pants why are you taking my logic into question? But in short yes medics Which are navy must qualify. Now here is where things get really weird. This is'nt my corp. From when i joined to when i got out. To today things have changed alot more than you realize.

No, I looked it up, and asked some marine friends. Marines have never had doctors. Always from the Navy.

[Pseudomaniac]

Sorry, had to make an account to post this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocrat ... rn_Version

Read this through.

Where do you see : Do no harm?

As for Geneva conventions, you realise that's for when two civilised countries formally declare war on each other? Not against a race of hungry aliens willing to put huggies on peoples faces and/or rip them to shreds? And it's to prevent soldiers from going up to doctors, going "I see how you like treating injured enemy soldiers", shooting them in the face and suffering no repercussions?

In regards to 'balance'

I don't know if I'm just a crappy player, but unless a xeno is sitting there and saying "shoot me", it takes a good magazine of M14AA to actually kill an alien, especially if they're on weeds. A pistol is basically a last resort and at best can only drive them off, especially since they fire so slowly. Also remember that most doctors won't be wearing armour, meaning it literally only take three or four swipes to critically injure them, and that's if you don't instantly face hug them.

I'm fine with a concept of a doctor not properly knowing how to use a rifle, but even then any idiot can pick up a pistol, pull trigger, make bullet fly, and these people are what we assume intelligent, especially since they've had to go through 7 years of med school (unless aliens lore has that differently) and probably have a high enough IQ to know what a gun is.

Anyways basically unless a doctor is metagaming and instantly grabs armour + guns 'in case we are boarded', a doctor having a pistol (which will basically do jack against any alien in a 1 v 1 situation) is perfectly justifiable, unless people still assume doctors are allergic to guns, and have heart attacks whenever they even look at one.

[Jdobbin49]

I have got to go with pseudo maniac I mean a doctor should at least have some sort of thing to defend him/herself yes the larva can't do damage to you but if it is not killed and it gets away then everything goes to he'll and it is all pretty much your fault because you didn't have a weapon to kill the thing popping out of your patient even if the doctor isn't given something in their inventory but maybe there could be a medbay gun just a single gun for all medway so that not all doctors have them, put it like in a small cupboard which only the doctors have access too or something like that so at least then the doctors aren't carrying around a gun 24/7 but here is this medical community gun so they aren't completely defenseless

[snow5445]

Doctors are allowed to use weapons after the sulaco has been boarded right?

[apophis775]

The link isn't referencing the "entire" hippocratic oath. Specifically, it's referencing the part taught at the hippocretes medical school: "Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient".

The ENTIRE point/reference of the oath, is in involvement to human players (specifically aimed at those who remove limbs from patients), not fully involving aliens. But at the same time, it should be in place that, the aliens ARE living breathing things, and you don't know anywhere near enough about them for doctors to have reason to shoot them (and not want to capture/study).

But no, doctors get no guns. They are on a MILITARY SHIP. They are NOT expecting the ship to be boarded or to be in danger at all. If they are down on the planet, it should be SECURE IN THE FOB.

A doctor bases their "defense" on the marines. If the ship is boarded, they should be doing what they can to keep casualities alive and on the battlefield not shooting their gun.

[Pseudomaniac]

The link isn't referencing the "entire" hippocratic oath. Specifically, it's referencing the part taught at the hippocretes medical school: "Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient".

The ENTIRE point/reference of the oath, is in involvement to human players (specifically aimed at those who remove limbs from patients), not fully involving aliens. But at the same time, it should be in place that, the aliens ARE living breathing things, and you don't know anywhere near enough about them for doctors to have reason to shoot them (and not want to capture/study).

But no, doctors get no guns. They are on a MILITARY SHIP. They are NOT expecting the ship to be boarded or to be in danger at all. If they are down on the planet, it should be SECURE IN THE FOB.

A doctor bases their "defense" on the marines. If the ship is boarded, they should be doing what they can to keep casualities alive and on the battlefield not shooting their gun.

Aliens = Patients now? But all the doctors I walk up to as an alien run away or try to saw me when I want to be treated...

Joking aside, technically "either help or do no harm" is in a textbook and not part of the oath, and assuming that you've been boarded, wanting to shoot said aliens that have probably killed dozens of marines is probably justified. You'd only want to capture and research them if there was one, and you know, if they weren't perfectly willing to cut off your head in a moments notice (or an absolute bitch to capture in the first place). If the aliens were civilised sentient beings, who were perfectly willing to have a decent conversation and tea, then sure, you'd have no reason to harm them and you'd consider them on the same level of a human being. However when you hear that there are beings that are cutting up marines and kidnapping others forcing face hugging crabs onto their faces, they sort of lose that protection of "we're a friendly race of aliens" and sort of instil the "oh god there are aliens butchering us god help us". Most logical and sane people would assume that they're on par with savage animals, not human beings, otherwise 80% of the doctors in the world would be against animal testing and harm. Secondly most logical and sane people wouldn't go "WE MUST UNDERSTAND THE THING THAT IS BUTCHERING EVERYONE AND NOT HARM IT", but go "OH MY GOD SOMEONE NEEDS TO KILL THAT THING RIGHT NOW". Finally most logical and sane people would at that point would want a weapon they can use easily to prevent said situation from happening i.e. a pistol.

Secondly we're not talking about expecting to be boarded (which everyone agrees is meta) when a doctor has a gun. We're talking about when there are ACTUALLY aliens on board which ARE posing a threat. If you're expecting doctors not to want at least some form of defense, especially when you're all alone and with no marines in sight well...

Finally yes, a doctor should be prioritising injured marines over all else, someone that wants to go and shoot instead of treat injured probably shouldn't have even signed up for the job, but assuming there were no injured marines or you were alone, would ANYONE in any situation not want at least SOMETHING to defend themselves with?
These are people with brains, not free cannon fodder (though despite it all, you probably will end up as fodder and not even the most precious snowflake is exempt)

TL;DR Do no harm is a phrase in a textbook, not in the oath. Aliens are animals not humans and can be shot freely, and we're talking about when there are aliens onboard, not meta'ing that they can board and that a doctor would be powergaming if they stashed weapons just in case and that rambo doctors should be jobanned and apart from that there is no good reason for a doctor not having a pistol or being allergic to them

Now I'm going off to draw an image of a xeno having tea with a marine because I find that analogy funny.

[Kyrac]

Say you join the Military, real life stuff you know? In the United States Air Force, if you enlist you're put in bootcamp where you learn how to handle a firearm and more. If you become a Commissioned Officer(A doctor will /always/ be a CO, circumstances change in Army & Marines for Corpsman and Healthcare Specialists), you don't go through the same training. I also read a post in here where someone said all doctors 90% of the time are riflemen, that's really inaccurate.

With the idea of an Marine Expeditionary Unit in mind, which is really what this looks like. The Navy attaches Corpsmen to squads that're deploying, and they're actually qualified to handle firearms as it's a Basic Training deal for pretty much /all/ enlisted. By the the time your a CO Around CPT+, the action isn't always going to be there, especially in CM's position. A rank I'd guesstimate for the CMO is Probably HMC, or something beyond that. Still pretty high up, and Sergeant grades on a higher level like Company or Battalion like F/SGT and M/SGT are attached alongside Company / Battalion, where even then they don't get to see much action.

[Gamerofthegame]

For the sake of argument, the interplanetary and apparently down right galactic United States Colonial Marines probably has little to do with the marines of yore.

Outside of being on a ship.

That all is somewhat irrelevant, however, as it's based on the Geneva convention, less so how the Navy/Marines organize.

[Kyrac]

All in all, what I was trying to say is they aren't expected, and really just don't use weapons.

[Wickedtemp]

I already addressed the whole "Geneva convention and oaths say you can't..." argument.

If a bunch of animals board the ship and start killing everyone and it's painfully obvious that the marines are losing, whatever rule or oath there is barring you from picking up a pistol for self preservation or for the sake of the patient that's about to be torn limb from limb DOES NOT MATTER.

Again, you could swear an oath not to eat meat and you could swear to be a vegan. But if you find yourself starving to death and I hand you a steak, chances are you'd eat it and you'd be grateful for it. Yes, you broke the oath you swore you would keep, but it's what you had to do to stay alive.

You could even argue that by allowing yourself, as a doctor, to just get massacred without putting up a reasonable fight would cause harm to the marines. Why? Because now their injuries can't be treated, because you let yourself die.

[apophis775]

For the sake of argument, the interplanetary and apparently down right galactic United States Colonial Marines probably has little to do with the marines of yore.

Outside of being on a ship.

That all is somewhat irrelevant, however, as it's based on the Geneva convention, less so how the Navy/Marines organize.

Nope. Officially, the USCM is the successor to the USMC. Staight from the lore: "The USCM is the successor to the United States Marine Corps and are at permanent readiness for immediate deployment across human-controlled space without any additional reinforcement, training or provisioning."

I already addressed the whole "Geneva convention and oaths say you can't..." argument.

If a bunch of animals board the ship and start killing everyone and it's painfully obvious that the marines are losing, whatever rule or oath there is barring you from picking up a pistol for self preservation or for the sake of the patient that's about to be torn limb from limb DOES NOT MATTER.

Again, you could swear an oath not to eat meat and you could swear to be a vegan. But if you find yourself starving to death and I hand you a steak, chances are you'd eat it and you'd be grateful for it. Yes, you broke the oath you swore you would keep, but it's what you had to do to stay alive.

You could even argue that by allowing yourself, as a doctor, to just get massacred without putting up a reasonable fight would cause harm to the marines. Why? Because now their injuries can't be treated, because you let yourself die.

They aren't animals. Proof of intelligence would be then being able to operate the shuttles.

But again, the PRIMARY reason, doctors can't use weapons is BALANCE.


In fact, here's a 100% perfect example of why it could end up being a BAD IDEA to let doctors use weapons:


Last night, there was a round where the commander basically "revolted" against CentCom. A commando team was sent to meet up with the CL and investigate. They met the XO in the hanger, and a doctor (who is now permabanned from being a doctor) ran down, and "poisoned" the XO and several PMCs (after it was made clear several times by the PMCs AND by centcom, that they were there to investigate and not hostile). The PMCs took the wounded to medbay. They began treating their wounded, AND the wounded XO, along with wounded coming back from an assault on the planet. While they were trying to get help from the doctors, the doctors were actually arming themselves. They began opening fire on the marines with Syringe Guns loaded with lethal drugs, at the behest of the commander who ordered them "restrained". In the end, the Sulaco was destroyed by the rescue ship escort as they placed the PMC leader and another PMC into crit despite maybe 6 warnings to not do so.

The PRIMARY combat, happened in the medbay, by idiot doctors who, as players, decided that they should fight instead of do their jobs.


That is the PERFECT reason, why doctors shouldn't have weapons. It might be added on day, that the doctors can pickup a weapon to use in self defense before death, but I'm not a fan of doing that. The doctors, should be concentrating on PATIENTS, to the point that, by the time they'd have to USE a weapon, the battle is over, and marines have lost.

[Wickedtemp]

Nope. Officially, the USCM is the successor to the USMC. Staight from the lore: "The USCM is the successor to the United States Marine Corps and are at permanent readiness for immediate deployment across human-controlled space without any additional reinforcement, training or provisioning."

They aren't animals. Proof of intelligence would be then being able to operate the shuttles.

But again, the PRIMARY reason, doctors can't use weapons is BALANCE.


In fact, here's a 100% perfect example of why it could end up being a BAD IDEA to let doctors use weapons:


Last night, there was a round where the commander basically "revolted" against CentCom. A commando team was sent to meet up with the CL and investigate. They met the XO in the hanger, and a doctor (who is now permabanned from being a doctor) ran down, and "poisoned" the XO and several PMCs (after it was made clear several times by the PMCs AND by centcom, that they were there to investigate and not hostile). The PMCs took the wounded to medbay. They began treating their wounded, AND the wounded XO, along with wounded coming back from an assault on the planet. While they were trying to get help from the doctors, the doctors were actually arming themselves. They began opening fire on the marines with Syringe Guns loaded with lethal drugs, at the behest of the commander who ordered them "restrained". In the end, the Sulaco was destroyed by the rescue ship escort as they placed the PMC leader and another PMC into crit despite maybe 6 warnings to not do so.

The PRIMARY combat, happened in the medbay, by idiot doctors who, as players, decided that they should fight instead of do their jobs.


That is the PERFECT reason, why doctors shouldn't have weapons. It might be added on day, that the doctors can pickup a weapon to use in self defense before death, but I'm not a fan of doing that. The doctors, should be concentrating on PATIENTS, to the point that, by the time they'd have to USE a weapon, the battle is over, and marines have lost.

I agree, the doctors at MOST should have secretly prepared a non-lethal sedative, AT ABSOLUTE MOST. Even that would be difficult to justify.

However, I'm not talking about a few PMC's or just asshole Military Police. I'm talking about when the Sulaco is boarded and aliens are ripping people apart. If a doctor has a sidearm before that point, they can be brigged for contraband.

And I'm not saying doctors should have shotguns and rifles at ANY point. Service pistol, SMG at most, ONLY when the Sulaco is boarded.

This has been done before, and it's been done well. It was me and two other doctors at briefing, Xeno's took over medbay and we were behind the marines, assisting any of them who pulled back from their injuries and we got them back into the fight.

We had sidearms, and helmets (due to friendly fire) but I don't believe more than one or two bullets were fired because treating the marines took priority. We saved the shooting for when we were cornered and could do nothing else.

The people that would grab a gun and shoot crew as doctors are breaking the rules and should be punished, but they would have done so REGARDLESS of a rule of "Doctors don't use guns."

So, my suggestion: Allow doctors to use a service pistol when the Sulaco is boarded, to be used in self defense. Doctors that decide to play Rambo get warned/banned from Medical and can appeal later. Doctors that have guns before the Sulaco is breached...MP could handle it, like any in-game problem that isn't immediately detrimental.

I think this is fair, and while it may require a bit of moderation, this is why we have moderators. Hell, I'LL keep an eye out for misuse of firearms by Medical if it really is such a problem, I'm not asking permission to make Medbay it's own militia, just service pistols and AT MOST, SMG's, ONLY when the Sulaco has been boarded.

[coroneljones]

One thing that would atleast limit doctors on guns would be recoil,since they arent really trained to compensate it i belive
Also...they should probably focus on staying BEHIND FRIENDLY LINES where there are ARMED MARINES protecting them as they treat people,when the sulaco is boarded

[Wickedtemp]

One thing that would atleast limit doctors on guns would be recoil,since they arent really trained to compensate it i belive
Also...they should probably focus on staying BEHIND FRIENDLY LINES where there are ARMED MARINES protecting them as they treat people,when the sulaco is boarded

Not really the case with service pistols, just about anyone can handle one.