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OOC YSS Ryūjō: Into the Unknown

Acewing13 said:
I'm fine with being removed from SAINT, so long as I can get him back in without having to get permission from anyone but the GM (Navian) to do so.
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Navian said:
I don't run SAINT, so as long as Fyodor is still FM-approved (and I don't see why he wouldn't be) he'd be able to get back in offscreen automatically after the mission
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Someone alerted me to this whole little thing. Here's the actual answer: A SAINT operative assigned under a captain's command can be demoted by that captain in the field and suspended from performing their duties as an operative. The operative can even be made to carry out another job under their current chain of command. But they would remain in their actual occupation (03 Intelligence Operative) until relieved of such by the Executive Intelligence Directorate and Star Army Personnel Command.

There's no such thing as "getting out of SAINT for messing up and then being made an operative again later." If the character did something egregious enough to lose their SAINT status, it would be permanent—which is a decision the GM can make—but from what I can gather that didn't happen so no worries, really.

tl;dr: Star Army Intelligence doesn't abide f-ups, so don't throw around getting kicked out of SAINT as punishment unless you accept the gravity of the act and its permanency.

Just a quick note because y'all seemed confused.
 
@raz, it's not messing up that's the issue, it's that his conditioning didn't work--instead of escape from the enemy, he tried to rescue someone else. In other words, he made an inefficient (if heartful) decision, against orders, instead of following the instincts given by his conditioning.

I think you can understand why that might be a problem for an intelligence asset--the former aspect could get him captured and/or compromise other assets, and the latter means that they can't count on him to do his job. It's no better than having an operative who never agreed to the conditioning in the first place, and such individuals aren't allowed to be operatives, as my character from the Eucharis can attest.

If you say it's permanent--that they can't retry the indoctrination process and reinstate him--and that this is a reason he wouldn't be expelled, it means they're permitting an operative who can't meet their standards to continue to be one only because they're too rigid to work around the problem rather than through it. It's the military, so this wouldn't surprise me, but the implications of that seem more harmful than those of this.

If the problem here is that SAINT conditioning is never supposed to fail (or at least not for someone who's made it to Itto Hei), I don't have an answer for that--I allowed it because I didn't want to take control of the character away from the player against their will.
 
The Standard Conditioning Package doesn't remove free will from the character (or player), nor does it prevent the operative from choosing to accomplish additional tasks in their attempt to avoid counter-intelligence threats. Were that the case, SAINT operatives scouting alone behind enemy lines or embedded in a hostile unit would be some of the most useless dudes ever. SCP makes a character like the Angosian supersoldier from TNG: someone who can shrug off pain and react thoughtfully to sensory data without delay in order to address present threats—not someone who will literally run away from their squad and wounded comrades just to save their own skin.

Honestly, you can watch TNG 3x11 "The Hunted" if you want to see SCP in action, lol. Something tells me it heavily inspired SAINT conditioning.

A failure of the package would be something like willingly giving classified information to an enemy agent or "uhhh why didn't my head explode when they found a way to access my data?!"

Again, just an informational note. I'm not asking you to let me make your GM decisions for you, but believe you should make them with a full understanding of the setting elements. I feel like I've provided that knowledge, both in my first post and this one, so probably won't post again unless tagged again. I actually love that you're giving consequences to an insubordinate character. It's great and needs to happen way more often! But I'm not sure that removal from SAINT—which amounts to the loss of security clearance and institutional trust to protect national security—is warranted because an operative didn't bee-line away from some enemies.
 
This seems to contradict the wiki. 'The overriding, nearly instinctual impulse activated in Level I situations is to get the operative to a location that will be secure until extraction, as the mental and physical demands will likely leave the operative temporarily in a hallucinatory, dream-like state with torn muscles, ligaments, and tendons and possibly broken bones.'

You might say the rest of the section agrees with you, but I find it ambiguous.

What the section I quoted describes is what SAINT and the Ryujo needed from Fyodor: To escape with his intel, on instinct. This makes much more sense to me, for a long list of reasons, than your description, which seems to suggest there is no overriding impulse and the operative can do whatever they want, receiving all the benefits with no cost but physical strain.

If Fyodor decided what to do instead of acting on instinct, it doesn't seem the Stage I conditioning serves any purpose to SAINT except to boost their operatives' capabilities temporarily, in which case it doesn't make sense for it to be exclusive to them.

I feel like you came in here with inaccurate, second-hand information about what happened--the assumption that I 'got it wrong'--and you're sticking to that assumption, trying to find some way, any way to make it stick, even when I tell you your information's inaccurate. This isn't about someone 'not bee-lining away from some enemies', and I wonder if someone else fed you this line or you invented it yourself. All it does it prove someone has an attitude problem that motivates them to spin doctor the RP.

Regardless of that, I'm still left without a solution other than to leave it as-is. Since working with Raz is... not working, that seems more efficient than... I'm not even sure what the alternative is. Having Fyodor serve exactly the same role and function while keeping his nominal status? I'm not sure why we even bothered with this, now, for any reason other than site politics.
 
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Just in case this comes up, I really don't care what happens to Fyodor. I'd like for him to stay/be able to get back into SAINT, but that's the end of my preference. I like the consequences that came from doing something pretty dumb that damaged a few fighters and put lives at danger, its good story telling which is what we're here for. I'll go with whatever Navian goes with, as she's the GM and in charge of this part of the Ryujo's history.
 
I think it's cool you're so trusting of Navian as a GM! Must be something right, Navian!!

Have you asked @BloodyScarlet if they're coming back to GM?
 
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