Corporate Liaison

Internal Affairs' task is to remain impartial at all times, conduct investigations, and then summarize your findings in reports and deliver them to the relevant Head of Staff of the affected department. Remember that you are not a Lawyer, it is not your job to determine whether or not someone should be in jail. Rather, it is your job to make sure that the station's staff is working efficiently and following Standard Operating Procedure at all times.

Duties of Internal Affairs Agents

 * Remain Impartial. You are an arbitrator, first and foremost. This may impact your social life, but you are required by your job to put aside emotional attachment to any particular crewmember in order to function.
 * Follow Procedure. NanoTrasen upholds a Standard Operating Procedure which should be followed at all times.
 * Trust the Facts. Acting on allegations is an easy way to get you fired. Make sure you have sufficient evidence before you do anything.

Do Nots of Internal Affair Agents

 * Do Not Threaten While a well written and damning report can lead to someone's demotion, or outright contract termination, it is not your job to wave it around like some kind of club. SEC actually has clubs and fill that niche nicely.
 * Do Not Be a Film Noir Criminals and other threats to the station are under the purview of the SEC team, and you shouldn't have much of a cause to interfere with them.
 * Do Not Be a Vigilante Have a legitimate suspicion to start an investigation before you attempt to do so. Consulting a head of staff for more information is always a good idea when starting an investigation.
 * Do Not Take Sides Just don't. See line two of previous paragraph.

Procedure
Crewman X would like to register a complaint about Crewman Y's behavior/conduct.

It is your task to learn Who, What, Where, When, and Why when launching a new investigation.
 * Who is involved in the incident
 * What happened
 * Where it happened
 * When it happened
 * Why it happened

Interview each and every crewman involved before summarizing your findings into a report that you present to the offending party's department's head of staff. The matter at hand can range from obvious prisoner abuse to simply leaving the Xenobiology pens open or refusing to serve drinks at the bar.

Do not worry if people are loathe to answer your questions or outright refuse to. Refusing to answer case-related questions is a briggable offense. (To a minimum of ten minutes)

You do not want to know what happens to people who lie to a IA Agent.

The Lone Ranger
Remember that you are to remain completely impartial in your investigations. To do this, it may (and probably will) be necessary to isolate yourself from most of the crew outside of an investigation. In simple terms, you should not be 'buddy-buddy' with any crew members. If a case comes up in which your opinion could be potentially biased, it's recommended that you transfer the case to another IA Agent.

Security and You
More often than not, security officers and heads of staff will ignore your complaints. The best course of action in this scenario is to take your complaint to the highest authority, noting that your valid complaints were completely ignored. If nobody on the station is listening to you, it is within your power to inform Central Command about the station crew's (lack of) cooperation. NanoTrasen Command usually takes the side of Internal Affairs Agents because they are loyal and trained in procedure and Corporate Regulations. A single Internal Affairs Agent has the power to make a crewmember's life miserable once he or she leaves the Aurora; it is a bad idea to mess with Internal Affairs!

Commonly asked questions
Q: Exactly which departments/positions is IA allowed to investigate?

A: All departments fall under the purview of Internal Affairs. That is the point of Internal Affairs, to act as a check and balance system, as well as a non-partisan investigator into departmental and inter-departmental issues.

Q: What exactly does investigation entail, and how should it be prioritized in accordance with other station operations?

A: IA takes little direct action in all but the most extreme cases, advising the next in command over the affected departments of their findings, and offers suggestions of actions to be taken. However, if the chain of command is unable or unwilling to participate in the investigation, then a breach of integrity has occurred, and IA has been entrusted by CentComm to take whatever actions necessary to ensure the sanctity of the station.

Q: What actions can they take to 'resolve' issues?

A: Internal Affairs conducts thorough and unbiased investigations of all involved parties if possible. If impossible due to death, incapacitation, SSD, or insanity, then a detective's or suitable security personnel's documented findings along with verbal interview as well as witnesses will suffice. Their findings, once compiled into a cohesive summary, will then be presented to the applicable head of staff along with suggested actions to be taken. However, if a head of staff is involved, then the captain is utilized as the next go-to person for judgement to be passed. If the captain is involved in a potentially negligent, harmful, or otherwise destructive manner, then IA can and should summarily dismiss the captain should confer with the heads of staff for a vote for the Captain's removal. IA cannot, at any time, break the station's chain of command nor make any decisions that would fall under a head of staff.

Q: At what point are their actions considered exceeding their authority?

A: At any point that an IA agent is conducting illicit or unwarranted interviews with any crew that is unrelated to an incident that is being investigated, or if there is no investigation to be performed, then an IA agent may be reprimanded, relieved of post, or otherwise made fully in-line with Internal Affairs integrity guidelines (additional loyalty implant, checking of current implant for defects). Internal Affairs agents are not exempt from the law, and as such may be arrested by Security in the case that an agent exceeds his or her official power. Demotions and/or arrests of an IA agent can only be authorized by the Captain or a majority vote by all Heads of Staff.

Q: Under which circumstances (if any) is the IA allowed to be completely ignored / sidelined?

A: If the IA agent is performing illegal investigations, or otherwise impeding lawful procedures of the security department in apprehending or sentencing a suspected criminal. This is not to say that an arrestee is not able to call for investigation into their bringing into custody, but the IA agent should not be present in any way if possible for the arrest and detaining of the suspected criminal. Only after the defendant has been placed into custody, searched, and investigated by the security team in a lawful manner will the defendant be able to call for an internal investigation into the matter.

Q: What exactly is the minimum level of activity to mandate IA participation in an issue?

A: Any inter-departmental issue that cannot be settled peaceably or willingly by any constituents, or any in-department issue that cannot be handled by that head of staff can be referred to an Internal Affairs agent for investigation. During that time, Internal Affairs agents are only allowed to speak of the case to those involved, and only information that is need-to-know, I.E. why they are being investigated, and if non-criminal, assuring that they are not being arrested or detained in any way. However, failure to cooperate with an Internal Affairs investigation is considered insubordination with a NanoTrasen official and is a briggable offense.

Q: What happens if a claim of abuse or malpractice is levied against the IA (including circumstances where there is disagreement with their decision)?

A: All decisions made by IA are finalized by the head of staff or captain, and are considered suggested courses of action rather than set-in-stone judgments. If the IA agent is acting in a malicious or seditious way, then he or she can be handled accordingly by following the previous codes.

Traitoring
Considering all Internal Affair agents are scrutinized to a higher degree than even captains are, as well as subjected to mandatory loyalty implantation, creating a IA enabled traitor would require some extensive and invasive surgery... And would still be next to impossible because there are always two IA agents, one to watch the other one for any funny business.

To clarify: It is impossible to be a traitor IA. You'd be physically forced to turn yourself in.

Addendum: The loyalty implants are patently less reliable than the server code is currently, and doesn't actually do shit. So the previous paragraph can probably be ignored.

Roleplaying Tips
Be impartial, be detached emotionally, you deal with reports of every idiot ever conceived in the history of ever, and nobody ever listens to your recommendations, your soul is crushed, there is no god, and at the end of it all, people hate you for trying to do your job.

It's generally accepted that Internal Affairs Agents are sent directly from CentComm and are located in a different department altogether. Most IA Agents are usually loyalty implanted and are, more often than not, extremely loyal to NanoTrasen. Extensive knowledge in Corporate Regulations and Standard Operating Procedure are a must.

Basically, be a moderator without the benefits and super-secret moderator chat.