funky station

This was spurred on by a comment on a youtube video about the new changes to Funky Sec. The comment was pointing out that the new more-corrupt more-evil Security make Lawyer even more toothless than it already was.
That's a topic for another conversation, but it had me thinking about how Magistrate is the Lawyer with teeth. Except they're not really... While the Magistrate is the highest authority on Space Law (second only to CC), as I understand it they are still an employee of NT and are NOT an impartial judge. In my limited experience dealing with Magistrates they come off more as NT's top prosecutor, not a judge arbiter.
Would divorcing the Magistrate position from NT and having them be a truly neutral party add the experience? Where the Captain, CCVIPs, and the station may have to actually fear being found in the wrong?

While I was playing with the idea of this, I realized I didn't actually know what the NTR's duties are. Reading the SOP and guidebook, they seem to just have an expanded version of the IAA's duties.
The IAA makes sure SOP is being followed in departments and reports issues to the heads of those departments.
The NTR makes sure SOP is being followed across the station, including by heads of departments.
This seems redundant to me. (And makes me feel like most IAA are playing the role wrong, as I usually see them writing heads up for SOP issues, not reporting to them.)

What are y'alls thoughts on:

1. Making the Magistrate a neutral party that prioritizes adherence to Space Law.
2. Upgrading IAA into the role NTR currently fills, prioritizing adherence to SOP.
3. Changing the NTR to be more "brand" and "loyalty" focused, where they are willing to break SOP and Space Law if it helps further NT's goals and they think they can get away with it.

The NTR would still outrank the IAA and Magistrate (except in cases of Space Law) and have final say over most matters.

I think the three CCVIPs having somewhat conflicting goals could introduce more depth to high command roleplay and antag interactions.

The SOP Workgroup is currently reworking Central Command jobs into their own unique niches. To my knowledge, the Justice Officer (the equivalent of the Magistrate) is still an NT employee, but does not have as much power as the current Magistrate does.

I think it's worth mentioning that the criminal "justice" system in real life is not necessarily impartial either. Like companies don't literally own judges (yet), but judges still enforce a system that rewards you for being rich, a cop, whatever, and punishes you for being poor and/or trying to fight the system. Even if we made the Magistrate wholly impartial between corporate and worker, this still causes a lot of issues. We'd either have them enforcing a corrupt system (something we're actually working on in addition to keeping them corporate) and it would still have the issues you have with Magistrate, or they'd be granted the power and incentives to immediately dismantle the premise that Funky provides, as every boss and cop has to be nice at all times.

This isn't to say that there will never be a case that goes against higher ups. In real life you have situation where the most heinous person in a horrid system gets a few softball charges put on them to appease the public. It might not be justice, but it's a small win for the little guy.

Given that stuff like unions are in the works, I hope collective bargaining and protesting will be more viable for driving that kind of legal conflict in the future.

ForgottenLands wrote: Mon May 18, 2026 7:05 pm

While I was playing with the idea of this, I realized I didn't actually know what the NTR's duties are. Reading the SOP and guidebook, they seem to just have an expanded version of the IAA's duties.
The IAA makes sure SOP is being followed in departments and reports issues to the heads of those departments.
The NTR makes sure SOP is being followed across the station, including by heads of departments.

So, as someone who has played IAA uh… the guidebook isn’t really correct, the NTR does SoP everything command related and the IAAs are their assistants and keep an eye on the crew for them, the IAA still have to go thru the NTR for anything to be actually. IAA is meant to be played as an overzealous bureaucrat annoying people on niche cases of SoP and the NTR is meant to keep them in check and be a more reasonable person, the combination when played correctly does work really good! Normally the IAA sees a SoP breach goes to said person and annoys them about it if they continue they go to the NTR who then goes to the head of said department.

The SOP Workgroup is currently reworking Central Command jobs into their own unique niches.

Ah cool cool! I'm interested to see what comes out of that.

I've perhaps over-stated my want for "true" neutrality on the Magistrate's part. I'd never intend to take away from the corporate dystopia aspect nor the inequality found in most justice systems. I have just felt that Magistrate comes off as entirely in the pocket of NT so trying to appeal to them is pointless.

Given that stuff like unions are in the works, I hope collective bargaining and protesting will be more viable for driving that kind of legal conflict in the future.

Yes! Big yes. I am very much looking forward to see how Unions play out, and I am sure CCVIPs will be thoroughly embroiled in those interactions.

IAA is meant to be played as an overzealous bureaucrat annoying people on niche cases of SoP and the NTR is meant to keep them in check and be a more reasonable person, the combination when played correctly does work really good

Absolutely! But I'd love to see the difference between them played up even more.

For example: there was a relatively recent round on Olympus where command locked employees in the old XenoBio chambers, turned them into zombies, and experimented on them.
I'd like to picture the IAA saying "No! This is breaking so many company policies!", the Magistrate saying "No! This is breaking so many laws!", and the NTR saying "Yes! This is furthering our research and giving us an edge over our competitors!"