Sojourn

Account & Character Name: returntozender, Rust Ennui
Striking admin: TrilbySpaseClone
Job Strike: due to malpractice, as I understand
Reason: Rust stated in the presence of a recorder that he nicked an artery while performing surgery on Ranger Morikawa. As I understand, this is all that could be proven.

What happened: What actually happened was, in a previous shift, two characters started a long conflict with Rust by grabbing him (Rust) while he was treating someone else. One character was named Webb, the other named Rivas. However, due to Rivas' resemblance to Morikawa, the two were mixed up. During the shift in question, Rust removed the brain from Morikawa's head, and attempted to put it in their liver (I had both surgery tabs put up and he just put it back where it was supposed to be, as far as I understand. I'll treat it IC as if he performed the surgery correctly.)
Why this job strike should be taken off:
There was zero physical evidence as to what happened, despite the Ranger having full access to the OR and tools for investigation for at least a half hour afterward, and the "confession" alone isn't evidence, as it doesn't discuss anything that actually happened. There was no arrest and no reasonable evidence to support one occurring.
The only witness is the victim who was unconscious during the procedure and only felt sick afterward, which could be explained as any other illness. They are not an impartial witness, and they certainly aren't a witness who can say anything concrete.

OOC, they immediately sprung to asking what happened, when death sickness is felt, I don't consider it HRP to immediately assume "the doctor killed me." Under most circumstances, Rust's explanation would not result in any hiccup, they only knew what happened because they saw it in the deadchat. Additionally, their doctor friend that they used for the investigation arrived right after their death from the lower colony, almost immediately. I think their friend showed up for OOC reasons because they were the one that recorded the "confession" and were they not to show up shortly after the incident, there would have been no issues. I believe they took advantage of their metafriend to investigate the incident in question, as no other doctors were contacted for their opinion despite there being two others on shift at the time.

Rust performed the procedure adequately and experience shows that moving the brain the way he intended to would result in no decrease in bodily function, though feel free to test it yourselves. Yes, it causes a "bodily" death but the movement was so fast that it wouldn't reasonably cause the brain or any other organs to start failing, the heart didn't stop working or anything similar the gap was so short. There was zero overall damage to the patient, not even the defibrillator burns were left incompletely treated.

In short, it should be taken off because there was no arrest, no action taken, and no evidence that anything went wrong.
My character meets all the self-antag guidelines for this case because:
1) Was not hostile to crew (for any reason, let alone an illegitimate one)
2) Didn't break or steal anything
3) The IC reason was a continuation of the conflict that was going on between Rust, Webb and Rivas. The character in question closely resembled the other character and a reasonable person could believe that they were one and the same, especially with enough time passing like it did in my case. I admit that part was an accident, though. Totally on me.
4) What Rust did wasn't exactly what a normal character would do, but given his tendency to engage in intense rivalries outlined in his employment records, this case specifically follows that trend. Morikawa wasn't round removed, they got up and walked off with no issues, and they would have done so even if the brain was properly moved. They only had an issue with it because their stats got minorly reduced six hours into a shift, which I personally don't think is enough for there to be an OOC issue. Any reasonable colonist wouldn't jump to malpractice immediately like they did.

I guess the last thing I have to say is, I'm sorry. I made some serious mistakes while being under the impression that this would stay an IC issue because the lasting consequences are minimal, I didn't think their small stat loss was that important to them. I don't expect them to forgive me IC or OOC, but I do hope that this explanation helps. I hope the fact that this is my first-- and only-- incident despite my playtime shows that I don't just go removing brains willy-nilly, and that it was justified under my framework. It's not necessarily an excuse that absolves me of blame IC or OOC, just an explanation.

Hi,

I will keep this short since I believe all of what is needed is kind of covered by yourself and I honestly do not doubt your explanation.

Job strikes are usually for IC things and / or rulebreaks. If there's nothing stating you can't do something, such as even self-antag steal tons of things - just as an example for my point, then you can rule-wise do it. But the consequences may result in your character being fired. Thus a job-strike would be placed against the character, just so it's not the same character doing it every time.

Job strikes clear after 3 months, then it resets like a clean slate. Notes itself as removed typically.

In this case I'm a bit on the fence. The reason why is - yeah, you did do it even by your own admission if its by accident.

However, I am unsure why Security did not arrest you if they heavily suspected you and claimed to have evidence of it to the point of requesting HC intervention.

I'll be considering this and update you with a post later today as I want to try and get some insight from any staff what occurred. Apologies for the delay, it's been a bit of a busy week today. I'll have this decided on and handled by the end of the night.

Apologies for the delay as the holidays had me a bit distracted.

Normally I wouldn't accept a sort of appeal of this since - you admitted to doing the action that resulted in the job strike. But I'm going to accept it a bit hesitantly for the following reasoning:

- No IC procedure was taken by the victim party nor Security personnel apart from a fax complaint. Not even a levying the issue to a Council or so forth.
- No provable evidence was found. (Or at least presented in the complaint fax other than a vague recording of someone making loud noises.)
- And, finally, while you did commit what would technically be 'murder' (More likely manslaughter, or even just outright malpractice since evidence on it would be VERY hard to find) you quickly fixed it on your own and, at worst, gave a player a minor debuff in stats. While it may be an annoyance it wasn't exactly intentionally directed at them nor does that come off as exactly that malicious as it wasn't purposefully targeted at that player nor targeted for an OOC reason.

That being said I am accepting this appeal. The note will be edited and amended shortly.

If you do not wish for such actions being taken though - this will act as a clear warning of sorts that such actions, if properly reported/investigated/charged, would result in a job strike that would not be accepted upon appeal. This is a specific case issue rather than the 'norm' of what happens. If you were properly caught for this, your job strikes could be more severe than this specific case.