Suggestions for Becoming Death's Action Plan

[Morse]

Not arguing the range of the weapons, but we still don't know what was behind us. And 1st squad was the one holding that line. The people in the hanger have the stronger interest in the dropship cus that was their department, but the rear was ours, so we of 1st are more concerned with that.

[Dirk Pitt]

True.. And no matter what he still fell back while being ordered by Dirk to come back. All that was BEFORE Quinn gave him any other orders. He was beside Quinn giving his advice and not fighting with his squad.

I'm not sure why this is an issue, but he deserted his post before he was givin orders by Quinn.

[Quinn]

Debateable. PM me about this further.

[Morse]

Well I suppose our fun side story here has gone on far enough, but we probably need to reach the end here before we tear the game itself apart. Even when we get to the end of the campaign we'll need to know what happens here, and just given the circumstances of our mission we'll have more important things that need solving, so lets just handle it amongst ourselves here.

Clearly we have an issue of perception. The understanding of distances, visibility, and time are all jumbled and mixed between us. This sort of thing tends to happen, especially when we don't have the set detail on distances and gaps between whats going on.

So having re read what has transpired several times here's what I see happened.

- We moved to the firing position (Dirk and Morse are facing forward)

- Duncan moved to avoid ill effects he expected from two grenades that did not yield the damage he thought they would. But he only moved to the next room over.

- Morse did not bother to look behind him, as far as he's concerned he ran (But Morse is always quick to find fault in anyone, so this is irrelevant)

- Dirk was holding the line and did not have Duncan within view (Likely just bad angle of visual) and also concluded he ran.

- The new orders came, but Duncan reacted to them before 1st squad knew he had. (not necessarily wrong or illegal, but not the best conduct either)


So where we go from here.

Dirk - Obviously we have the point where Dirk punched Duncan. Well Dirk is a soldier with an outstanding record, coping with the high stress situation of perceived marines in mutiny (I'm referring to the LT). And the camera would probably show Dirk incapable of seeing Duncan, and no response from Duncan. Dirk maybe (MAYBE) gets a small slap on the wrist, but probably nothing.

Duncan - Duncan is just working a bit loosely within the squad. Not the best form, but not necessarily wrong since he's following the commanding officers orders. He's a sniper, so he's probably working off the mindset of living fluidly, and drifting from one space to the next. He took the punch to the face, but because he didn't go down, we must take that as Dirk nearly gave him a simple jab. (No one would take a Dirk "Snake" Pitt slam to the face and be still standing.) That we can write off with a 'battle slap' and no harm done. Just venting due to stress, especially since Dirk is having to cope with a fractured squad.

Morse - I wouldn't worry about Morse. He'd probably get mad if a leaf fell in front of him, thinking that tree must have done that on purpose. It's not a campaign unless he's feuding with someone in the platoon. Everyone gets a turn, it's just who he is.

All in all, I think the ranks stay the same, criminal charges aren't filed, and we go back to slaughtering insurrectionists.

---- Does anyone disagree on any particular point?

[maxvale76]

Yes.....

Morse would not just let it go.....I mean that insolent leaf that nearly jumped him was all part of a fiendish plan by a tree in an obvious effort to cowardly backstab him......he's chop that tree down with his smartgun like Bill Duke chopping down trees with a gatling gun in Predator!

[Pale Rider]

Ok, I am fine with it. I still believe since we are not in a living breathing environment we need to formulate a general battle plan to better place people in locations on the map.

[Dirk Pitt]

FIne with me..

And we have to note that it's Morse that came up with this.

[Quicksilver]

Although I'm tangential to this whole thing, I agree with Pale Rider. It wouldn't hurt us at all to make more use of an OOC thread there to keep everyone on the same page about where we are and what the place looks like.

[Duncan]

With all due respect, screw that. Quinn, James, and Dirk were all pushing for some form of punishment against my character with glee. Now that it's obvious I did nothing wrong, and Dirk attacked me without provocation, everyone acts like it's no big deal. Dirk fucked up, and he should be punished. As Dirk himself wrote, "this needs to be corrected."

[Nick]

I like that you are all having a level headed discussion about this. I prefer you solve these things as far as possible on your own. You create the game. Not me, I provide the setting, I draw the background, you do the acting - This mission took a whole other path than I thought but it is totally ok. I also know that these kinds of missions creates frustration and confusion amongst the players - avoid to take that frustration out of context and character (not pointing a finger at anyone here, just saying!)

Thanks!

//N

[Morse]

I’ll go one by one.

Sam – Ya, that’d probably come up, after a prolonged one sided shouting match… in which the tree may still win because of Morse’s incoherent rambling.

Pale Rider & Quicksilver – Obviously we are at a point where we require coordination outside to know where everything is. We all used to work with maps, but things have recently gotten fairly hazy. So yes we should probably start working with that.

Dirk – I come up with solutions to the fights I start all the time (with the exception of Dunn’s which was unsalvageable.). Whether it’s in thread or PM, it happens. I like playing Morse, but Morse isn’t me.

And Duncan – This is something you probably don’t want to be doing right now. Everyone’s in a confused situation, and we’re going to have a much more serious endgame problem of having just shot down a Dropship.

- Now as the play was made as it was, it has to be done where you were out of visual range of Dirk. This is possible depending on which side of the door frame you were on. You very well could have been out of his angle of visual.

- He hit you, yes. But it was you’re decision to say that you remained standing and a bit staggered. You opted for not acknowledging the full strike levied against him. Now granted there was no roll made against it, but by doing that, you diminish the strength put behind Dirks blow. (Please don’t argue stats with me, since I know everyone’s stats better then the people that wrote them probably, and there’s stuff that doesn’t add up in everyone’s sheet) – In effect you diminish Dirks strike to a short jab, simply because you didn’t react to it. – Take how Quinn said he tossed me away, I make reference to being tossed and dropping things. I doesn’t really damage you, I don’t see why not.

- Given the situation, you could opt for just getting over it. Because if it came to court, in character Duncan won’t win, namely because there is nothing to win. No one is going to watch the recordings for why Dirk punched Duncan in the face, they are going to be watching to see what the Lieutenant said, why we shot down a dropship, and evidence for the mission. – This is battlefield conduct that honestly no one cares about. Dirk can jabber in the heat of the moment, but it’ll amount to nothing more then you never being in a squad with us again. (Which is an outcome I don’t think anyone would argue.)


- You’re better off just letting it go, because this isn’t Dunn v. Morse – when Dunn got out of a chair in the middle of a briefing and admitted to murder and threatened to kill a superior, we’re talking about Duncan v. Dirk, where we’re all really confused and the crazy mission isn’t even over.

[Duncan]

There is a certain amount of confusion between IC and OOC. This to prevent this I want to separate my points.

IC:

-My character, as has been determined, did not abandon his post. Therefore, he was unjustly struck by another soldier. The fact that my character was or wasn't knocked down is irrelevant.

-Dirk could've "let it go." But he chose to make a big deal about it, with the fisticuffs and whatnot.

OOC:

This is the main thing that gives me grief. I put a post about trying to avoid a grenade. It's misread. The response:

*Quinn - strip Duncan of his rank
*James - tribunal
*Dirk - court martial

Of course, these are IC punishments. And I can always just toss the character and write a new one. But I, as a player, am invested in the PCs I roleplay. I've played it for two years, slowly building his skill base and finally getting a promotion. So, these IC measures have OOC effects. I state my case that Duncan didn't perform a court-martial worthy action. I will make the assumption that most people agree with my statement that my character is not a deserter. Dirk, I presume, doesn't agree with this.

What I have an issue with, is that my character does something perceived as wrong, and several people jump all over it with various ideas on how to punish my character, Dirk going so far as to suggest my PC essentially get ripped up and I should start from scratch. Mind you, not a death in combat or an unfortunate roll of the dice, but because other players either misread my post or chose to put a different spin on it. I later prove my case, which means that, in fact, Dirk's character did something wrong. Suddenly, everyone's all "let bygones be bygones" and "oh, stuff happens in stressful situations." Mind you, no one expressed such leniency for my "transgression." It's a double standard, and that's what I take exception to.

[Morse]

Well the main problem there comes from the fact that in general no one was aware of the disconnect on what everyone was seeing until a few days ago. It's not as much a double standard, as much as it is bad timing.

Really though this entire incident spawned from you jumping out of the way from the grenade. A grenade that was specified as being thrown as far away as Honeysett could. Honeysett has been a marine a long time, and would know if something was going to hit us or not. Dirk and Morse have as well, and neither of us moved. We both posted after Honeysett, and those posts also came before you.

You were the only one that decided not to give Honeysett the benefit of the doubt and jumped to the back.- Really this all could have been avoided if you had just not looked at the three of us like we were idiots for standing in place as someone threw a grenade well beyond the blast radius.

- We're not talking about real grenades, we're talking about the same weapon Ripley fired only a few feet away from herself and she was fine.

Don't worry about double standards. The only one that's gonna tear up your sheet is you or Nick if you get killed. Lets just keep rolling.

[Dirk Pitt]

Also, you could have come back after the grenades flew. Mind you Vasquez blew a few Xenos away in a small room useing a few grenades with no ill affect to her. So they aren't that bad..

Did Dirk do something wrong in hitting Duncan? Yes. And if you want to push it I'll be happy to take an IC art. 15 for hitting another Marine.

Did you leave your post without orders? Yes, you did. Dirk was calling for you to come back while you were walking up to Quinn giving your advice on what was going on. That is an art 99. Misconduct in the face of the enemy.

Sorry, the only person you proved your point to was you. Look at the timeline and understand that while you may have just been in the other room, Dirk could not see you. He was in combat with an unknown sized force and you were not where you were ordered to be by your squadleader. Only after that did Qunn give you other orders. All you had to do was come back and not be Rambo acting like you were alone and not part of a team. So if you want we can go ahead with this. Dirk and Duncan will stand for trial. Dirk with an Art 15 and Duncan with an Art 99.

Dirk gets his stripes pulled
Duncan heads for the brig or worse.

There is no double standard. You just want you char to be able to do or say whatever he wants no matter what rank the other person is and no one should do anything about it, and that's what I take exception to.

[Morse]

That is the other issue really. As we function with a military format you simple have to look at who we're talking about.

But the real point is whether or not Quinn will press charges. He's the ranking officer right now, and there is no way he's going to drop Dirk, arguably the most reliable soldier who in the entire platoon, over this.

Really none us have any say, but Quinn's not likely to press any issue. As I keep pointing out we are standing in the middle of a much more serious situation. This is comparing a drive by to gang shooting to the sun exploding really. So I say move on.