Clown

Service

Clown

Access: Maintenance, Theatre

Difficulty: Depends on how much you sweat when someone yells "TELL A FUNNY JOKE"

Duties: Honk, slip Security, try not to get killed after slipping Security.

Supervisors: Head of Personnel

Subordinates: None

Guides: [TBA]

The unofficial mascot of Space Station 1̶3̶ 14. The Clown is the most important crewmember. A Clown's jobs are to entertain, amuse and, to an extent, annoy. Unlike the reserved and silent Mime, the Clown operates from a place of obnoxiousness; each Clown is standard-issued with throwable custard pies, slippy banana skins, an irritating horn, and squeaky shoes.

The art of HONK

DISCLAIMER: Being a Clown is not an automatic license to grief, or ruin someone else's round. When in doubt, ask yourself: "Are you irrevocably fucking with someone's round (killing, incapacitating, etc.)?"

If yes: don't do it. You'll probably get robusted, arrested and very likely banned.

If no: you're probably fine, but if you have an elaborate scheme in mind that might need additional approval - talk to the admins.

Being a Clown presents an occupational hazard: be prepared to act as the station's punching bag, rightfully or wrongfully.

Any good Clown knows that annoyance is only a path to amusement. The amount that you're going to be able to get away with is directly proportional to how funny it is. Slipping on a banana peel is only funny once, so be creative. Tell jokes, scale your pranks up, involve the Mime (as confederate or target), steal the Captain's shoes. The only limit to Clowning is your imagination (and Security (and the admins)).

A history of clowning

In the early days of Space Station 13 under management of the SomethingAwful Goons, the Clown was previously a punishment position made to replace the Janitor; the incompetence mutation was there to make it a lot harder for them to do or use things that could be easily used for griefing. Like the Janitor, it turned out that giving griefers an entertainingly shitty job only encouraged them, and it was made a regular job.

Goonstation's admin opinion on a job that had open sanction to grief as hard as it could without breaking the other rules soured once they realized that for every entertaining Clown, there were 50 shitty Clowns that either plain sucked at being entertaining or actively broke the rules, thinking the job would make them immune to reprisal. On Goonstation, the job was removed but the outfit and job items were left scattered on the station for those who still believed in the true Honk Life.

Eventually, it was reintroduced to the Goon codebase, at which point other communities (/tg/, Paradise, /vg/ and Beestation) had already been using the Clown for years - and as before, now thrives within SS14.

We all float down here

So you're a traitor clown. A rare, but nonetheless terrifying experience. Given your status amongst the crew as a nuisance to be avoided or ignored entirely, you have one of the best covers for your nefarious deeds. Nobody will care where you are or what you're doing, so long as you keep out of reach of Security, meaning you can fulfill your objectives without needing to worry about responsibilities on the station. Many spacemen have been "harmlessly" slipped only to then be diced with an energy sword. Honk.

With that in mind, you also have access to a number of unique tools that are specific to your role.