The Judge (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thejudge_tlv) wrote2022-07-13 01:46 pm
thejudge_tlv) wrote2022-07-13 01:46 pm
The Galley
CW for intense corporal punishment
GENERAL OVERVIEW
The Galley is a ship centered around order, punishment, and retributive justice. The Judge runs a tight ship (literally), and believes strongly in a system that's up front, consistent... and draconian.
The Galley's inmate equivalents are called Prisoners, and its warden equivalents are called Advocates. Qualities of ideal Prisoner candidates include basically any kind of lawbreaking, for any reason; qualities of ideal Advocate candidates include a spotless criminal record, and a dedication to the idea of an eye for an eye.
SETTING
The Galley is a literal galley, complete with Oar Banks tricked out with chains for Prisoners who are undergoing punishment. Above the Oar Banks, the Deck is sparse, and really nothing to write home about; it's good for catching a great view of space, and not much else. The real action happens down below, in the Courtrooms underneath the Oar Banks. If an Advocate catches a Prisoner committing a crime, they are required to bring them down to the Courtrooms to face the Judge. Though the Judge herself is the final arbiter of all sentencing on the Galley, Advocate input is essential: paired Advocates (or, if the accused Prisoner has no paired Advocate, then the Advocate who turned them in) act as both defense and prosecuting attorneys, arguing for either severity or leniency depending on the circumstances of the crime. Though the Judge isn't visibly present in the Courtroom, she's very responsive and engaged (even, somehow, if multiple trials are going on at once), and she delivers all verdicts in a timely manner.
Personal cabins are located on the three decks located underneath the Courtroom. Advocates tend to have efficient but comfortable hotel-like rooms containing a bed, a desk and a living area, and a bathroom with a shower, or sometimes full bath. These are not particularly luxurious nor magically customizable, but there are minor layout variations, and Advocates can further personalize them with items or furniture brought from home, or acquired in occasional ports. Prisoner cabins are attached to Advocate cabins, with a one-way-glass wall between them, although Advocates can draw a curtain if they wish. Advocates can also choose from among a few settings for their Prisoner's cabin, from a jail cell with bunk and bars, to something more like an sparse singleton dorm room. Prisoner cabins have a door to the outer hall and adjoining their Advocate's cabin, and the Advocate receives keys for both doors in addition to their own front door. This also means that Prisoners without permanent pairings have to move rooms every month. They receive an open box about the size of a milk crate to do so; if they want to carry anything more than that, they'll need to persuade someone to help. This is also a prime time for Advocates to check for contraband.
The Kitchens and Main Mess Hall on Deck 1 are cafeteria style, with the provided ingredients focused on simple, hearty mass production - sandwiches, stews, meatloaf, numerous potato derivatives, and so on. Advocates may eat here, or cook something nicer for themselves in the Crew Mess, which has several prep counters and refrigerators, as well as space for storage and a few picnic tables and decorative plants. It's not opulent or anything, but Advocates can keep nicer ingredients or private treats here, as well as get away from the Prisoners for a little while.
The Yard on Deck 2 looks like, well, a prison yard: enclosed and windowless, but with enough space for exercise and socialization, for those whose good behavior has earned it. There are in-ground tables set up for games like chess and checkers, as well as scattered decks of cards, and bookshelves stocked with nothing but hard-boiled detective novels and police procedurals. For the more active types, there's a basketball court, and the whole space is surrounded by a running track. Deck 1 houses the Infirmary, which is equipped to handle anything from minor cuts and bruises to catastrophic injury. It also keeps prosthetic hands in stock, so that Prisoners who have lost hands (see below for more info) can still man the oars when called to.
SHIP MECHANICS
Powers/weaponry: Advocates may keep their abilities in full, unless they're normally so powerful as to be potentially setting-breaking; in that case, they'll be nerfed down to a more reasonable level. They also may keep their weaponry; if they don't have a personal weapon, they're issued a taser with settings that go from "mild shock" to "instant kill". Advocates are all issued a wristband that, when activated, surrounds them with a protective energy shield. Both the tasers and the wristbands are not user-locked, meaning that it's possible for them to be stolen and used by others. Prisoners are stripped of all weaponry, as well as all powers/abilities that aren't essential to their survival. Prisoners are never regranted use of their abilities under any circumstances; the only way for them to regain their powers is for them to graduate.
Death/revivals: Death on the Galley is permanent, without exception. From an OOC standpoint, this means that Barge characters who die aboard the Galley will remain dead until the event ends.
Graduation: Upon arrival to the Galley, each Prisoner receives an itemized list of their crimes, as well as a specific length of time that they've been sentenced to stay on the Galley. All Prisoners are also assigned a certain number of hours of community service (i.e. working jobs around the ship, including regular manning of the oars). Graduation, therefore, is straightforward if not always simple: all Prisoners come in knowing exactly what they've done and what they're expected to do to make up for it. Further crimes committed onboard the Galley can increase a Prisoner's sentence; likewise, a Prisoner's paired Advocate may (successfully or unsuccessfully) petition for a sentence reduction based on long-term good behavior. Snitching on other Prisoners is considered to be good behavior, and (if their Advocate argues for it) can lead to a sentence reduction. Unlike on many other ships, graduated Prisoners are not eligible to stay on as Advocates in exchange for a deal: even post-graduation, their criminal record automatically disqualifies them from service.
Demotion: Committing or participating in a crime, as well as witnessing a crime and electing not to bring the offending Prisoner before the Judge, is a demoteable offense. Providing weaponry to Prisoners is a demoteable offense. Disregarding or undermining any ruling handed down by the Judge is a demoteable offense. Being aware of a negligent or rule-breaking Advocate and declining to report the issue to the Judge is a demoteable offense. If an Advocate accuses another Advocate of wrongdoing, the offending Advocate is brought to trial, and the accusing Advocate is required to present reasoning and evidence for the accusation.
Pairings: The size and complexity of an Advocate's deal is directly proportional to the length of their Prisoner's sentence: serving as Advocate for a Prisoner who's sentenced to five years will net the Advocate a bigger, more consequential deal than serving as Advocate for a Prisoner who's sentenced to ten months. Unlike on the Barge, Advocates do not receive files detailing the life stories of Prisoners that they're permanently paired with: only the crimes committed matter to the Judge, not the circumstances or context the lead to them.
Communicators/the network: All passengers receive iPad-style communicators with audio, video, and text capabilities. Prisoners may not use the network to send private/filtered messages to other Prisoners, but may communicate privately with Advocates.
Locked areas/general security: In order to leave their cabins unsupervised, Prisoners need to carry a pass from their Advocate (or any Advocate, for those who are unpaired).
Jobs: All Prisoners are automatically assigned rotating work shifts in the kitchen, on the custodial team, and at the oars. Kitchen and custodial work are required to be supervised directly by Advocates. Rowing is unsupervised (unless an Advocate decides to come hang out, which they may, but they aren't required to), but Prisoners are chained in place while on their rowing shifts, and attempting to remove the chains in any way leads to the cuffs delivering shocks of increasing severity.
Ports/floods/breaches: Like the Barge, the Galley makes regular port stops, although passengers falling overboard isn't something that happens - the Judge takes security much too seriously for that. By default, only Advocates are permitted to go out into ports, although they can petition the Judge on behalf of their Prisoner to allow them off-ship as a reward for good behavior. However, even if the Judge approves the request (not a guarantee) any Prisoner misconduct in port or escape attempts are the Advocate's responsibility and potentially grounds for demotion, so this reward is best offered with caution. Floods and breaches are more rare, and once or twice in recent memory a particularly disruptive flood lead to a Lockdown, where all affected Advocates had their keys temporarily confiscated, leaving unaffected Advocates responsible for delivering meals to those pairings under house arrest. Veteran Advocates tend to keep their cabin mini-fridges well-stocked in case of a repeat incident. Breaches are as random as those on the Barge.
Other miscellaneous info and quirks: Though Advocates have some leeway in arguing for more or less leniency for their Prisoner, sentencing for crimes committed onboard is generally consistent. Default sentences for some common onboard crimes include:
There are also two more things of note that passengers tend to discover quickly (accidentally, or otherwise): the Judge sees and hears all, but justice is blind. The Judge knows her ship's goings-on well enough to be able to tell when she's being lied to, and punish the offender accordingly - but despite this, she doesn't often circumvent her own system by auto-demoting Advocates or auto-punishing Prisoners without seeing them sent through the Courtroom first. After all, a system works best when it's working as intended, and the intentions of the court are for accusers to be able to prove their claims. She may know that Prisoner A absolutely did the crime they're being accused of, but if their accuser isn't coming prepared with ample evidence (physical evidence, witness testimony, or otherwise), then their accuser isn't doing their job properly. This means that Prisoners (or Advocates, for that matter) who commit crimes must truly be caught before any punishment takes place. It's a delicate line for the ship to walk sometimes, but Advocates generally have good incentive to play along - after all, the ship descending into lawless chaos would get in the way of them getting their deals.
Additionally, like the Barge, the minimum age for Galley passengers is 15.
Feel free to use this post for questions and plotting related specifically to the Galley: sharing ideas for what your Barge character might do onboard, discussing what its residents might have been getting up to with each other before the Barge transplants descended, and so on. Questions about the event as a whole, or non-ship-specific plotting amongst players (such as soliciting and offering up castmates, plotting out with your CR who's going to go to which ship, etc.) should go in the main plotting post here.
MOD QUESTIONS ||| REPORTING SHENANIGANS ||| REQUESTING COMM ACCESS ||| JUDGE REQUESTS
The Galley is a ship centered around order, punishment, and retributive justice. The Judge runs a tight ship (literally), and believes strongly in a system that's up front, consistent... and draconian.
The Galley's inmate equivalents are called Prisoners, and its warden equivalents are called Advocates. Qualities of ideal Prisoner candidates include basically any kind of lawbreaking, for any reason; qualities of ideal Advocate candidates include a spotless criminal record, and a dedication to the idea of an eye for an eye.
The Galley is a literal galley, complete with Oar Banks tricked out with chains for Prisoners who are undergoing punishment. Above the Oar Banks, the Deck is sparse, and really nothing to write home about; it's good for catching a great view of space, and not much else. The real action happens down below, in the Courtrooms underneath the Oar Banks. If an Advocate catches a Prisoner committing a crime, they are required to bring them down to the Courtrooms to face the Judge. Though the Judge herself is the final arbiter of all sentencing on the Galley, Advocate input is essential: paired Advocates (or, if the accused Prisoner has no paired Advocate, then the Advocate who turned them in) act as both defense and prosecuting attorneys, arguing for either severity or leniency depending on the circumstances of the crime. Though the Judge isn't visibly present in the Courtroom, she's very responsive and engaged (even, somehow, if multiple trials are going on at once), and she delivers all verdicts in a timely manner.
Personal cabins are located on the three decks located underneath the Courtroom. Advocates tend to have efficient but comfortable hotel-like rooms containing a bed, a desk and a living area, and a bathroom with a shower, or sometimes full bath. These are not particularly luxurious nor magically customizable, but there are minor layout variations, and Advocates can further personalize them with items or furniture brought from home, or acquired in occasional ports. Prisoner cabins are attached to Advocate cabins, with a one-way-glass wall between them, although Advocates can draw a curtain if they wish. Advocates can also choose from among a few settings for their Prisoner's cabin, from a jail cell with bunk and bars, to something more like an sparse singleton dorm room. Prisoner cabins have a door to the outer hall and adjoining their Advocate's cabin, and the Advocate receives keys for both doors in addition to their own front door. This also means that Prisoners without permanent pairings have to move rooms every month. They receive an open box about the size of a milk crate to do so; if they want to carry anything more than that, they'll need to persuade someone to help. This is also a prime time for Advocates to check for contraband.
The Kitchens and Main Mess Hall on Deck 1 are cafeteria style, with the provided ingredients focused on simple, hearty mass production - sandwiches, stews, meatloaf, numerous potato derivatives, and so on. Advocates may eat here, or cook something nicer for themselves in the Crew Mess, which has several prep counters and refrigerators, as well as space for storage and a few picnic tables and decorative plants. It's not opulent or anything, but Advocates can keep nicer ingredients or private treats here, as well as get away from the Prisoners for a little while.
The Yard on Deck 2 looks like, well, a prison yard: enclosed and windowless, but with enough space for exercise and socialization, for those whose good behavior has earned it. There are in-ground tables set up for games like chess and checkers, as well as scattered decks of cards, and bookshelves stocked with nothing but hard-boiled detective novels and police procedurals. For the more active types, there's a basketball court, and the whole space is surrounded by a running track. Deck 1 houses the Infirmary, which is equipped to handle anything from minor cuts and bruises to catastrophic injury. It also keeps prosthetic hands in stock, so that Prisoners who have lost hands (see below for more info) can still man the oars when called to.
Powers/weaponry: Advocates may keep their abilities in full, unless they're normally so powerful as to be potentially setting-breaking; in that case, they'll be nerfed down to a more reasonable level. They also may keep their weaponry; if they don't have a personal weapon, they're issued a taser with settings that go from "mild shock" to "instant kill". Advocates are all issued a wristband that, when activated, surrounds them with a protective energy shield. Both the tasers and the wristbands are not user-locked, meaning that it's possible for them to be stolen and used by others. Prisoners are stripped of all weaponry, as well as all powers/abilities that aren't essential to their survival. Prisoners are never regranted use of their abilities under any circumstances; the only way for them to regain their powers is for them to graduate.
Death/revivals: Death on the Galley is permanent, without exception. From an OOC standpoint, this means that Barge characters who die aboard the Galley will remain dead until the event ends.
Graduation: Upon arrival to the Galley, each Prisoner receives an itemized list of their crimes, as well as a specific length of time that they've been sentenced to stay on the Galley. All Prisoners are also assigned a certain number of hours of community service (i.e. working jobs around the ship, including regular manning of the oars). Graduation, therefore, is straightforward if not always simple: all Prisoners come in knowing exactly what they've done and what they're expected to do to make up for it. Further crimes committed onboard the Galley can increase a Prisoner's sentence; likewise, a Prisoner's paired Advocate may (successfully or unsuccessfully) petition for a sentence reduction based on long-term good behavior. Snitching on other Prisoners is considered to be good behavior, and (if their Advocate argues for it) can lead to a sentence reduction. Unlike on many other ships, graduated Prisoners are not eligible to stay on as Advocates in exchange for a deal: even post-graduation, their criminal record automatically disqualifies them from service.
Demotion: Committing or participating in a crime, as well as witnessing a crime and electing not to bring the offending Prisoner before the Judge, is a demoteable offense. Providing weaponry to Prisoners is a demoteable offense. Disregarding or undermining any ruling handed down by the Judge is a demoteable offense. Being aware of a negligent or rule-breaking Advocate and declining to report the issue to the Judge is a demoteable offense. If an Advocate accuses another Advocate of wrongdoing, the offending Advocate is brought to trial, and the accusing Advocate is required to present reasoning and evidence for the accusation.
Pairings: The size and complexity of an Advocate's deal is directly proportional to the length of their Prisoner's sentence: serving as Advocate for a Prisoner who's sentenced to five years will net the Advocate a bigger, more consequential deal than serving as Advocate for a Prisoner who's sentenced to ten months. Unlike on the Barge, Advocates do not receive files detailing the life stories of Prisoners that they're permanently paired with: only the crimes committed matter to the Judge, not the circumstances or context the lead to them.
Communicators/the network: All passengers receive iPad-style communicators with audio, video, and text capabilities. Prisoners may not use the network to send private/filtered messages to other Prisoners, but may communicate privately with Advocates.
Locked areas/general security: In order to leave their cabins unsupervised, Prisoners need to carry a pass from their Advocate (or any Advocate, for those who are unpaired).
Jobs: All Prisoners are automatically assigned rotating work shifts in the kitchen, on the custodial team, and at the oars. Kitchen and custodial work are required to be supervised directly by Advocates. Rowing is unsupervised (unless an Advocate decides to come hang out, which they may, but they aren't required to), but Prisoners are chained in place while on their rowing shifts, and attempting to remove the chains in any way leads to the cuffs delivering shocks of increasing severity.
Ports/floods/breaches: Like the Barge, the Galley makes regular port stops, although passengers falling overboard isn't something that happens - the Judge takes security much too seriously for that. By default, only Advocates are permitted to go out into ports, although they can petition the Judge on behalf of their Prisoner to allow them off-ship as a reward for good behavior. However, even if the Judge approves the request (not a guarantee) any Prisoner misconduct in port or escape attempts are the Advocate's responsibility and potentially grounds for demotion, so this reward is best offered with caution. Floods and breaches are more rare, and once or twice in recent memory a particularly disruptive flood lead to a Lockdown, where all affected Advocates had their keys temporarily confiscated, leaving unaffected Advocates responsible for delivering meals to those pairings under house arrest. Veteran Advocates tend to keep their cabin mini-fridges well-stocked in case of a repeat incident. Breaches are as random as those on the Barge.
Other miscellaneous info and quirks: Though Advocates have some leeway in arguing for more or less leniency for their Prisoner, sentencing for crimes committed onboard is generally consistent. Default sentences for some common onboard crimes include:
- theft (first offense): a full day working the oars
- theft (second offense): a full week working the oars
- theft (third offense or higher): loss of a hand
- caught with weaponry (first offense): two full days working the oars
- caught with weaponry (second offense): two full weeks working the oars
- caught with weaponry (third offense or higher): loss of an eye
- lying in the Courtroom (first offense): loss of a tooth
- lying in the Courtroom (second offense): loss of a tongue
- murder (first offense): loss of a hand and an eye
- murder (second offense): death
There are also two more things of note that passengers tend to discover quickly (accidentally, or otherwise): the Judge sees and hears all, but justice is blind. The Judge knows her ship's goings-on well enough to be able to tell when she's being lied to, and punish the offender accordingly - but despite this, she doesn't often circumvent her own system by auto-demoting Advocates or auto-punishing Prisoners without seeing them sent through the Courtroom first. After all, a system works best when it's working as intended, and the intentions of the court are for accusers to be able to prove their claims. She may know that Prisoner A absolutely did the crime they're being accused of, but if their accuser isn't coming prepared with ample evidence (physical evidence, witness testimony, or otherwise), then their accuser isn't doing their job properly. This means that Prisoners (or Advocates, for that matter) who commit crimes must truly be caught before any punishment takes place. It's a delicate line for the ship to walk sometimes, but Advocates generally have good incentive to play along - after all, the ship descending into lawless chaos would get in the way of them getting their deals.
Additionally, like the Barge, the minimum age for Galley passengers is 15.
Feel free to use this post for questions and plotting related specifically to the Galley: sharing ideas for what your Barge character might do onboard, discussing what its residents might have been getting up to with each other before the Barge transplants descended, and so on. Questions about the event as a whole, or non-ship-specific plotting amongst players (such as soliciting and offering up castmates, plotting out with your CR who's going to go to which ship, etc.) should go in the main plotting post here.
MOD QUESTIONS
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Gonou-specific, he has three powerful magical earrings that change his appearance away from his real youkai form to his old human form. They're not weapons but they ARE magic; could I have these be taken from him even if he does get to keep other belongings? (I kind of want him to be stuck in youkai form for a month.)
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So, for example, the draft dodger and pot smoker would definitely be prisoners (but perhaps with lighter sentences compared to murdering maniac), and the cyberpunk authoritarian would be fine as an Advocate because Authorized Use of Force Is Not Murder, but there might be some societies less in line with her particular draconian views whose crimes she might decline to list/prosecute.
Norton would definitely get points from her for use of force and completion of his missions as a properly authorized agent! Loses a ton of points for the various treacheries, treasons, and petty sabotages! Doesn't reeeeaally care about 1950s homophobic laws, though. It would have been better to follow the rules than break them, but not a big enough deal to include in a Perfectly Long List Already unless you wanted to play with that - there's some definite wiggle room for player preference here.
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As a "First Offense" to murder, would that be in response to any murder event as a whole? Or, if he were to murder more than one, would that immediately bump him to the "Second Offense" status and immediate death? Because if that is the case, I'll adjust plans so he murders only one person his first time through.
That being said, the "First Offense" punishment is to lose a Hand AND an Eye, and with my plans Flint will end up committing a "Second Offense" and being executed at some point and put him out for the rest of the month...
I assume this means when the plot is over, he'll return to the Barge and deathtoll. BUT will he be fully restored? Or will this mean he'll return sans eye and hand? Because again, if that's the case I may rethink things so he can return to the Barge fully intact.
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When the plot is over, the Admiral will do his very best to restore everyone, but cross-boat resurrections are tricky and he will be working with more limited resources. In practice, this means whether Flint is fully healed or not will be up to OOC player choice as well.
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(He is using this gray area in canon to protect his deceased commander's works, clean out the children trying to get rich quick with no care at all of the bindings and laws beyond mere mortals, and to find a way to retire cuz he's tired.)
Would he be considered one of the Advocates because he is working within the laws of this secret government branch or would he be more of a Prisoner because they are not Officially recognized?
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1) part of returning him to human baseline & canceling his more useful powers is also reducing his light sensitivity
2) he has no powers AND still has light sensitivity, sucks for you bro, don't do crimes
3) he has no powers AND still has light sensitivity, but he is permitted to wear some heavy duty sunglasses (that can possibily be lost or broken for Plot Reasons at some point if you wish)
Any of these would be OK with us!
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can I have a giant griffon with wings and talons clipped (+ his magic gone obviously)
I'm imagining him stuck mostly-permanently in the oar banks
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OH ALSO second question, just out of curiosity, what would the punishment be for assaulting someone but not killing them? say, if she was pulled away by someone else before she could kill whoever she was meaning to kill.
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examples (to try to make question clearer)
for the 1st part: say, minor destruction of property/maybe punching someone but not like a full on fights - would these be crimes that would be expected to have full on reported to court?
for the second: is something like being uncooperative about going to work/or something that might be counted by a strict warden as pushing authority but might not fall into 'crime' stuff which might get a response but not considered a court case?
Thanks
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While Akira currently can't, in general, use his Personas yet, they are all related to tarot arcana. Specifically, two of them, Metatron and Michael, represent Justice and Judgement respectively.
Any chance Akira could manage, with enough effort, to manifest one of them, since they are in tune with the Galley's conceptual ideals? The sheer dramatic irony of using Divine Judgement on the gavel is too much not to at least ask.
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After talking with Shen Wei, Xie Lian wants to try to disrupt things with the Judge by trying to grab the gavel in a moment where he has full power to try to occupy any cracks with his spiritual abilities instead of the Judge. Would there be any effect?
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