CentCom Officer

One of many Jobs
CentCom Officer
The Boss's Boss
Department
Virgo Central Command
Access
All (incl. CentCom)
Duties
Observe the station, conduct audits, write reports, fire the director
Supervisors
Central Command
Difficulty
Thankless

You are in the direct service of Virgo Prime Central Command. As a CentCom Officer, your job may vary with whatever is currently needed, but is generally to help your assigned station by either directly observing day-to-day affairs, or conducting covert investigations against staff members with a record of poor conduct.

Sometimes you'll also do fun things like organize parties for VIP visits, or hand out Medals, but in any case you're there to be a tool of the company's administration.

The Boss's Boss

You outrank everyone on the station. This is both a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, you outrank Colony Directors, Emergency Response Teams, and even Asset Protection must bend to your whim (although they won't like it). Your only equals are other CentCom Officers, and your only direct superiors are higher ranked individuals at CentCom its self, such as the the CentCom Chief Officers.

On the other hand, because you outrank literally everyone, if you abuse this, you will make a lot of people not want to do their job because somebody higher up is available to blame when things go wrong. You will also be the first person people will complain to because most crew don't understand how to follow the Chain of Command, so they will automatically skip to the highest ranked person around to fix all of their tedious problems.

As such, the reason CentCom doesn't deploy its CentCom officers regularly to the station crew is because it actually severely hampers productivity. So long as you are present though, you have a strict policy that you are expected to follow.

Contacting Central Command

Anyone can contact Central Command at any time by using a simple fax machine. Some heads of staff also have access to an emergency transponder in the command console for incidents that require live support, but if a CentCom officer isn't actively listening to the station's comms, this may go unheard.

Fax is the best way to get into contact for something that's new, the emergency transponder is best for things that are ongoing.

Note, faxes are also sent to the admin channel on Discord. Even if no admins are online, we can still read faxes. Think of it as an in character admin-help button.

How to play a CentCom Officer

Typically the role is only used by admins, but it is not exclusive to admins, and in fact, any player can request to spawn as one. However, both players and admins should abide by certain etiquette before trying to play a CentCom officer.

First and foremost, you must have an actual reason for being there, preferably one that was requested by the crew or at least prompted by some on-station event. Below is a list, albeit an incomplete list, of reasons a CentCom officer might visit the station:

• In response to a fax specifically requesting CentCom, usually from an Internal Affairs Agent who is reporting a serious problem.
• In response to a fax regarding an extraordinary event, such as a major Xenoarcheology find.
• In the aftermath of a major disaster, in order to conduct an evaluation of damages.
• As part of an investigation if the internal process already on station is suspected to be compromised.
• To teach a class or host a seminar for the crew (such as Jeremiah Acacius's gun safety course).
• To conduct a planned (but not necessarily announced) station inspection.
• To conduct ceremonial duties such as commendations or the issuing of Medals.
• To represent NanoTrasen when VIPs visit the station.
• To remove an unfit Colony Director or other command staff. This particular task is almost exclusively done by admins.

These are not the only reasons, but they are just some of the most common ones that are known to be reasonable.

Once you have a good reason, an admin can spawn you in as a CentCom Officer by player request. Just make your character as you normally would, go into Observe, and an admin can then spawn you.

Your Equipment

You get a CentCom PDA, a CentCom ID with all access to everything the company owns, including CentCom its self, a CentCom headset with access to all company radio channels including ERT, and a spiffy CentCom uniform.

However, remember that the pen is mightier than the energy sword. Write down anything worth noting and keep it with you until you can fax your superiors back at Central Command, or take the documents home with you by yourself. You also may occasionally be equipped with a weapon for self defense but this is usually at the preference of individual observers. (For admins, that means you get to ass-spawn ONE weapon when you arrive. Make it count, but be reasonable.)

Non-Interference Policy

When you come to the station as a Central Command Officer, you follow a strict Non-Interference Policy. As such, unless whatever you are dealing with pertains directly to the purpose of your visit, you are not to interfere with anything that is happening, no matter how badly things are going wrong. By interfering, you take responsibility for a crisis upon yourself, while the people who normally should have been responsible now can't be fairly punished for their negligence because you got in the way.

Your job is not to just sit around all day and have people come to complain at you. If that is what you wanted to spend your work day doing, you should just stay at CentCom and wait for an Internal Affairs Agent to fax you. Instead, your presence on the station should have a predefined purpose, and a set goal.

Here are some of the things you might do as a CentCom Officer:

• Aid in the transfer of high value prisoners from NanoTrasen to the USDF, such as terrorists, or pirates.
• Greet VIPs who are visiting the station.
• Instruction seminars for the crew.
• Oversee executions.
• Perform safety inspections of the station.
• Punish head of staffs like the Colony Director, up to and including termination of employment.
• Serve as a neutral mediator between ambassadors of SolGov and any alien civilizations that might exist on the edge of the galactic frontier.
• Taste testing the crew.
• Testing and/or distribution of new standard equipment.
• Etc.

The Thin Metagaming Line

A CentCom Officer is usually an admin's way of dealing with in-character disputes that should stay in-character. However, because you are in-character, the character doesn't necessarily know everything you know OOCly, such as attack logs, things people said, etc. Unlike an admin, the CentCom officer doesn't have access to server logs, so they must find evidence on their own. As a result, they might make mistakes, play favorites, be bias, fail to find the bad guy, etc... Ideally you should never be banned for something that was only in-character. If you broke actual server Rules, the admins wouldn't bother using a CentCom officer to tell you so. They would just sent a private message to scold you, or ban you.

If a CentCom Officer is how the admins choose to deal with something, then rejoice, because it probably means nobody is getting banned right now because whatever went wrong was still interesting enough to warrant the plot not being disrupted. Keep in mind, pissing off a CentCom Officer might still result in other consequences, so just because you're not going to be banned doesn't mean you should be an asshole.

This is the only time admins on Vorestation are allowed to play favorites or have biases, but as with all things, if you think this privilege is being abused, you should contact other admins to express your disapproval. The only reason this is allowed is because nepotism in the work place is something that happens in real life, so it's interesting to emulate this conflict of interests in the story environment.

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