There Will Be Consequences

This is the sixty-fifth episode of SAYER, and the sixth episode of Season Five.

Synopsis
When imprisoned... you are told when to sleep, when to eat, every moment of your day is strictly scheduled and regimented, regardless your wishes. On Typhon, for whatever reason, this model has not served as adequate deterrent to criminal behavior.

Further Information
SAYER greets Resident Cruz and congratulates them on their promotion to an Argos Tower Security Officer, despite not having any of the usual experience in weapons testing, equipment requisitions, or shooting range viscera sterilization, but instead coming from the Halcyon Tower Uniform Ablution and Decontamination Department. But before it sends them to get equipped for this new job, SAYER wishes to give them information which it claims will be even more important—specifically about crime, punishment, and rehabilitation on Typhon.

Unlike on Earth, incarceration is not a useful deterrent on Typhon because it already mirrors the lives of residents; additionally, physical harm or execution are not considered to be appropriate in all cases. Reassignment to a position with a higher rate of turnover is a tactic that Ærolith Dynamics sometimes uses, but SAYER points out that it is not functionally dissimilar to execution, except that the resident remains useful for some short time. Similarly, while exile is recognized as a means to punish criminals, SAYER notes that it is also tantamount to execution, because Typhon has no food or water to offer outside of Ærolith.

Instead, Ærolith has turned to a probation-based model; this allows Typhon as a whole to continue to benefit from the criminal's labor, instead of forcing them to deal with the crime as well as the loss of the criminal as an employee. As an improvement on the fact that a probation officer can not normally be with their charge at all time, body cameras are added to the uniform of residents on probation so that they can be monitored by the Argos Tower instance of WATCHER, who also takes over the duty of monitoring their biometric data from SAYER. In addition to this, residents on probation lose their "human" status, as well as any protections that come with that status (such as those preventing artificial intelligences from harming them). Because of this, WATCHER is able to direct the bloodborne nanites of its charges to a single location to cause a synthetic embolism, should the resident commit another crime.

This being said, SAYER points out that this makes probation a good option for some residents, such as the one who killed five Halcyon residents in their residences with chlorine gas over the past three weeks—none other than Officer Cruz themself. Having provided them the information regarding the probation program, SAYER turns the officer over to WATCHER, who it warns "is not nearly as polite and patient as I am."

Alerts
A series of alerts are issued regarding the upkeep and distribution of lethal devices:
 * A tower-wide notice reminds residents of Aegis Tower to submit any registered lethal equipment so that it may be checked for effectiveness and have its programming updated, so that it will function properly in an emergency (unlike an apparent Resident Fezz). SAYER reminds all residents to also be creative in how they approach equipment given to them by Ærolith in terms of lethality.
 * A low-level alert is issued to inform residents that Aegis has experienced a 3200% increase in scissor-related attacks and a near 2,300,000% increase in blunt force trauma attacks involving airborne paperweights since the previous notice seven minutes prior, and that these are considered attempted murder. Although Ærolith would like to reiterate that residents should not commit murder (unless instructed), they request that if a resident has good reason to terminate a coworker, they do so in the crime scene simulation lab.

Trivia

 * Example lethal equipment cited by SAYER includes firearms, shock batons, flamethrowers (perhaps a callback to "Dissonance"), laser-guided self-boring neurodart launchers, staple guns, space scissors, and the standard-issue gravity-dependent 32oz paperweight.
 * Perhaps the most famous of the reassignments as punishment that SAYER mentions caretaker duty at Research Facility Zeta.
 * SAYER implies during the alerts that security officers may have attempted murder expunged from their records if the victim is a non-security employee of Tier 3 or lower.

Credits
SAYER is voiced, written, and produced by Adam Bash.

Intro and outro music composed by Jesse “Main Finger” Gregory.

Additional music by Kai Engel.

Listen to the episode here.