I can suspend my disbelief about a whole lot of things in Crack Den for the sake of roleplay. I can come up with excuses why my character stays in Hathian, despite how unsafe it is. I can shrug off the fact that murderers are out on the street after a week in jail and that people recover from serious injuries in just days. I can pretend someone's new home that they 'moved' to is in a different place then their old house even though it's on the same plot of land. I can shrug off the fact that people age years in the blink of an eye or have a pregnancy that lasts just a couple months. I get that you have to make compromises for the sake of everyone having fun and for the sake of CD's theme.

So it's not that I don't understand that there is corruption in the HPD to a level I have to shrug off for the sake of roleplay. I've done so in the past. But this recent public execution by the HPD captain has me in a delimma. I'm not trying to stirr up any more shit than is already flying around. I like some aspects of the drama and character development it has brought. But a lot of people seem to be assuming that Jeremiah is going to get off with a wrist slap for killing an unarmed, handcuffed prisoner in public. People are assuming this, as the sim's theme and history sort of dictates it. Some of the people who assume this are having issues moving forward.

Inara was at the scene of the execution, so I've been rolling with it and telling people in her life about it. A few of them have asked OOCly, "Can we just ignore this?" and feel that you can only step outside the realism so far before stuff just stops making sense. The captain of the police being judge, jury and executioner and getting off scott free would be over that line.

IC actions equal IC consequences in CD, to a degree. The IC consequences are always much less than in the real world. But this IC action was so far out there that if it were in real life, the consequences would involve getting fired, imprisoned, and worldwide attention focused on Hathian. IC consequences being the assumed wrist slap is so very far from this that it makes it hard for some to excuse that fact just for the sake of the sim's theme. I've always been able to shrug off national attention being focused on Hathian for the transgressions of the HPD or criminals before, but this one doesn't just border on terrorism, it is terrorism.

I like to think that Crack Den is a more grown up sim. The majority of characters learn from mistakes and try new solutions to problems. They develop and change. There are some who are eternal rape bait, sure, but most are more grown up and multifaceted than that. And in the end, we're all here to have fun. This event is making it hard for me, as one of those more multifaceted characters, to respond in a realistic fashion. And thus, the fun is diminished. I'm not trying to sabotage Jeremiah's character or put blame on anyone, I'm just expressing that point I'm teetering at. If I have to ignore things that happen in CD in order to feel it's a fun place to RP and have my character develop, there's a problem.

Anyway, this post is mostly just to get a dialog going. Maybe some of you can come up with the sort of shrug-offable reasoning that will make it easier for me to deal with a wrist-slap level of consequences for Jeremiah, IF that is where the RP leads. I also want to just remind people that we don't know what those consequences are yet, and to chill out and see what happens. And finally, it's a query to the admins. Do we have a chance to affect the consequences of what happens to Jeremiah? Will riots cause him to be fired? Could that sniper take out the captain? Or is this one of the things that we have to overlook to continue playing in your sandbox? And I don't mean that last one in snarky fashion. I just want to know so people having trouble wrapping their heads around this and I can prepare ourselves.