Quick Fix 64: Spies in Starsight

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

My heart really wants to trust Stick tbh. My only big concern is some vague memories of her duping me in a past game. I think it might have been TJ's blackout (MR58?).

Idk, there's like at least a few instances every cycle that make me think v!Stick, v!Kas, and v!Mat, and I don't get those same reoccurring feelings with Hael. Disconnectedness in solving? He always offers something of value but it's usually refined. More thinking outside of thread than thinking while directly interacting in thread? Idk

MR56, as Annihilation yes. I think you noticed because of her Haywire claim that she targeted Experience when she really had no reason to? And then worked out Stink was Evil as well.

I think I'm trusting my past self here. E!Stick seemed Evil to me in basically everything except the later half of D3 in LG91, and I haven't gotten a strong/consistent Evil read off her until I started to reconsider in C4. IDK. If I were in better shape I could try to re-read her but not like this I think.

I just feel reluctant to vote Hael somehow and I don't understand why when on his posts alone I've never upgraded him beyond null.

[Stick. she/her]

3 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

MR56, as Annihilation yes. I think you noticed because of her Haywire claim that she targeted Experience when she really had no reason to? And then worked out Stink was Evil as well.

I think I'm trusting my past self here. E!Stick seemed Evil to me in basically everything except the later half of D3 in LG91, and I haven't gotten a strong/consistent Evil read off her until I started to reconsider in C4. IDK. If I were in better shape I could try to re-read her but not like this I think.

I just feel reluctant to vote Hael somehow and I don't understand why when on his posts alone I've never upgraded him beyond null.

That claim was extremely unnecessary tbh but Archer’s was even more unnecessary that entire game was a series of unnecessary suspicious decisions from the elim team I think Stink was the only sane one

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

That claim was extremely unnecessary tbh but Archer’s was even more unnecessary that entire game was a series of unnecessary suspicious decisions from the elim team I think Stink was the only sane one

Wouldn't disagree.

I guess the one thing where I could see an E!Stick world comes down to knowledge that E!Stick's doctrine is that it's worth doing unexpected things because it throws people off and that can give you an invaluable advantage as an Elim. That happened LG89 where we lynched E!Coinshot!Xino D1 and then JNV and Stick prepared for a Stick (or JNV do not remember which) bus D2 which really threw us because we didn't expect an Elim team to bus right after losing their oneshot Coinshot D1.

But IDK that still feels like a bridge too far in the case of the Xino NK? Does it?

[Stick. she/her]

7 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

I guess the one thing where I could see an E!Stick world comes down to knowledge that E!Stick's doctrine is that it's worth doing unexpected things because it throws people off and that can give you an invaluable advantage as an Elim. That happened LG89 where we lynched E!Coinshot!Xino D1 and then JNV and Stick prepared for a Stick (or JNV do not remember which) bus D2 which really threw us because we didn't expect an Elim team to bus right after losing their oneshot Coinshot D1.

This is true, but I guess I just don’t see the benefit in the Xino kill? Like, the LG89 (edit: move) (had it been successful) would’ve set JNV up for the perfect solo elim even if Turtle got exe’d in the process. Killing Xino here delays E!Stick’s win and doesn’t offer a benefit. Unexpected moves are nice but I probably won’t do them just for the sake of them being unexpected. There has to be at least some degree of an advantage to it. 

Edited December 22, 2022 by _Stick_

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

This is true, but I guess I just don’t see the benefit in the Xino kill? Like, the LG89 (had it been successful) would’ve set JNV up for the perfect solo elim even if Turtle got exe’d in the process. Killing Xino here delays E!Stick’s win and doesn’t offer a benefit. Unexpected moves are nice but I probably won’t do them just for the sake of them being unexpected. There has to be at least some degree of an advantage to it. 

Neither do I...

I legit think they could not have confused us more with any choice of kill target, not even withholding the kill .__.

It's why I keep asking 'cui bono'?

In theory it feels like there's only a few ways it could play out, right?

-Flip Xino, convince us to kill Nerdy -> requires Elim on at EoD, just kind of weird because you were already pushing for Nerdy anyway

-Convince us <Mat, Hael, me> must be clean -> so basically between Mat and Hael from my POV, has to be one of them.

-Sus you? -> Because kill was not changed. But it wouldn't just be you, it'd be basically anyone who wasn't on in time to change the kill.

This is so open-ended I feel as though an Elim almost certainly wants to shape the narrative here or try to. There is no functional point in this set-up otherwise.

Which is sort of booting me back to Hael a little tbh ughhhhh

I don't know anything anymore .__.

There's Mistakes Were Made world but that world still...

Gah.

I'm not adding anything. We know this, we've been over this. And still this is a square shaped peg in a round shaped hole.

[Mat he/him]

Is it possible xino was killed to cause confusion, to get us to change our course of thinking this turn? Because we were going to pressure Stick a lot more regardless of xino's flip, I think. The only problem with that is that Stick wasn't around to see that we were going to pressure her :P.

I just can't get over how elimmy her treatment of Silver was right up until she late voted him. Like-- she made an extensive case based on his post but didn't vote him, only doing so later when she saw the mixed responses her case gave her. That later vote was basically a poke (her vote being the only one on him at the time) and then she went to sleep, during which Kas joined her. Then, right after getting back online when it was 2-2-2-1 or something like that, she switched off Silver to 'diversify options' even though the options were clearly pretty diverse as it was. She stayed parked there until the last second vote.

Idk. That doesn't look great to me and I know Stick has bussed in the past.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[Stick. she/her]

8 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Like-- she made an extensive case based on his post but didn't vote him, only doing so later when she saw the mixed responses her case gave her.

What do you mean? 

[Kasimir he/him]

14 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Is it possible xino was killed to cause confusion, to get us to change our course of thinking this turn? Because we were going to pressure Stick a lot more regardless of xino's flip, I think. The only problem with that is that Stick wasn't around to see that we were going to pressure her :P.

Bro isn't that kind of a big problem with that theory  

14 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I just can't get over how elimmy her treatment of Silver was right up until she late voted him. Like-- she makes an extensive case based on his post but doesn't vote him, only doing so later when she saw the mixed responses her case gave her. That later vote was basically a poke (her vote being the only one on him at the time) and then she went to sleep, during which Kas joined her. Then, right after getting back online when it was 2-2-2-1 or something like that, she switched off Silver to 'diversify options' even though the options were clearly pretty diverse as it was. She stayed parked there until the last second vote.

But look. You are E!Stick. Why write a Silver case anyway? If you do that for distancing, surely the logical thing to do is to follow through, and then have Silver agree to respond? He checked the thread at least twice but said nothing. Why would you spend the effort casing a player and then throw it away by not even voting on them? If Silver had shown up as pre-arranged, she could withdraw: even then, in light of Silver's non-response, she could easily say she's uncomfortable leaving it there because it's not productive.

And I think something I also wonder: doesn't E!Stick accept the own goal as it is?

Suppose you are Village for a moment

I know, very big assumption since I have your GM PM and you do not, but work with me here.

Does E!Stick talk me off paranoiding on you or trying to construct a more robust E!Mat world? I feel like anything that keeps the Set of Four more viable is good. The thing that has struck me about her play this cycle is how much she's narrowing her own ML options down, by clearing Almond, Insanity, reversing on Nerdy, and so on. Encouraging me to paranoid on you effectively puts us both to brawling and the survivor could plausibly be blamed for any ML. Sure, we're not IC, but we're a distraction and that's good enough.

I do feel like a world in which we vote on quieter players is better for E!Stick - I have my guesses about the IC doc, but I feel the fact that a certain profile of player is being targeted may be suggestive of the state of it. Add to the fact we've agreed the Village thing to do is probably to stay as quiet as possible in it. So I feel the fact she is pushing against us resorting to that strategy is a positive sign, potentially.

Edited to add:

@Szeth_Pancakes was warning us U_U

The existence of the Inner Circle was a warning.

It was a sign!

A sign we would be doomed to spend each cycle running in circles!

Spoiler

 

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

What do you mean? 

I mean that, it wasn't like you posted the case and everyone was like, 'Oh yeah that makes sense!' and started to vote Silver. I disagreed with it, I don't know exactly who but I feel like someone else did because when you voted Silver later you were the only vote on him. So e!you in this world would have known it was probably safe to vote him without it starting a runaway.

Course, that brings up the question of why case him in the first place. But I don't think you were the only person who was looking at Silver right then.

2 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Bro isn't that kind of a big problem with that theory  

...Yes :P. It'd point to a teammate that was online as we were theorizing e!Stick but was offline by the time xino became a serious candidate and tbh I don't know if there's even anyone that fits those requirements.

The more I'm forced to tinfoil this the more I'm like yeah okay maybe not xD And your explanation below what I quoted all makes sense to me.

Kas/Stick team????? :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

TUN

Hael seems fine as an option but I'd hate to not leave room for resistance if you get what I mean

[Haelbarde he/him]

Having woken up to having 3 votes on me, I suppose you'll be looking for comment. Give me half an hour to get on my PC and do a proper read through to respond to anything you were looking for a response to.

Only things off the top of my head are, I think it was Kas musing about my appetite for gambits vs strategizing or something. The answer to that is I'm risk averse and not great and thread work. I'll participate in someone else's gambit if they've a good sell, but they'll need to be doing the thread work. Where I'm quite in to gambits is for the end game play. If I've gotten to the point where I've good odds on predicting outcomes and signs point to elim victory if we do a gambit now, then I'll push for a gambit.

In this case, they don't feel too me my style of gambit - they'd be things I'd need to be talked into, not things I think I'd suggest.

I was also going to suggest taking into consideration my activity this game. I feel that I've been more actively posting this game as compared to the last, where I posted little and what was posted was generally purely informational, because I had the elim doc to occupy my time. Although I've also finished work for the year so do actually have more time, and probably looking at my old games you'd find the village boring Hael I think tended to be less active than village role Hael or E!Hael...

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ suppose neither of them are necessarily helpful, but that's my perspective on those questions if you were curious.

As I said, I'll respond properly to any enquiries and share my thoughts in a little.

[Amanuensis he/him]

Gah I don't wanna vote v!Hael.

One thing I'm bumping my head against. Nerdy has to be confirmed elim, right? If Nerdy is V, why shoot Xino? Xino would be ML'd today and they could just shoot someone else. Framing Nerdy further just makes no sense. We'd have probably yeeted v!Nerdy today anyway.

Nerdy

Edited December 22, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Stick. she/her]

5 hours ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

The thing is, I DON'T KNOW how to read people. When someone does something suspicious, I E! read them, but I can't keep an active watch for 24hrs to see what people are doing! Any read that I post is probably wrong and could hurt the village, so I evaluate other people's evidence and add some of my own. In addition, I don't change my reads that much. What I should have done with Xino was wait for him to die from inactivity and voted for my other suspicions.

If I'm Elim, (which I'm not), then Kas voting with me on Xino makes him look incredibly sus, doesn't it? But if Kas is village, than am I suspicious for going with Kas?
Just throwing that out there.

Hm. 

5 hours ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

What I should have done with Xino was wait for him to die from inactivity and voted for my other suspicions.

Hm? 

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

Hm. 

Hm? 

Clarify please.

[Stick. she/her]

1 minute ago, NerdyAarakocra said:

Clarify please.

I wish I could  I think it should mean something but I don’t know what

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

I wish I could  I think it should mean something but I don’t know what

In that case, I think that Grapefruit has the highest C! read .

[Mat he/him]

Because... yeah, an e!Nerdy flip clears xino. So why kill xino unless you think that Nerdy's dead, which was the case up until I switched my vote.

Nerdy but idk nothing feels right

Who would be Nerdy's teammate? Someone who wasn't online at EoD. Still could be Hael, no? I don't remember except for that Kas was there.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[Amanuensis he/him]

14 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Gah I don't wanna vote v!Hael.

One thing I'm bumping my head against. Nerdy has to be confirmed elim, right? If Nerdy is V, why shoot Xino? Xino would be ML'd today and they could just shoot someone else. Framing Nerdy further just makes no sense. We'd have probably yeeted v!Nerdy today anyway.

Nerdy

In case I didn't lay my line of thinking down clearly:

Either Nerdy or Xino were expected to die. If Nerdy flips V, it's likely we go after Xino next. If Xino flips V, it's likely we go after Nerdy next. If Nerdy flips E, however, it's likely we ignore Xino. With Nerdy in the lead most of the day, the only reason to kill Xino is for that reason.

Otherwise, if v!Nerdy got yeeted and v!Xino got NK'd, all the elims gain is messing with us. I could believe e!Aman doing that but I've checked my PM several times to make sure I'm not an idiot.

My instincts say gambit because it's such a ridiculous situation, but I think I need to settle on Occam's Razor and hope we live to see another cycle.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Mat he/him]

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

If Xino flips V, it's likely we go after Xino next.

:hmm:

[Stick. she/her]

Nerdy/Silver still needs a third…

[Amanuensis he/him]

3 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

:hmm:

You saw nothing! 

8 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Because... yeah, an e!Nerdy flip clears xino. So why kill xino unless you think that Nerdy's dead, which was the case up until I switched my vote.

Nerdy but idk nothing feels right

Who would be Nerdy's teammate? Someone who wasn't online at EoD. Still could be Hael, no? I don't remember except for that Kas was there.

I could see TUN. I could see Hael and Stick. It doesn't really change our PoE at the moment, but I feel like I'd rather lower elim numbers than take a potshot at another active villager.

ED1T:

Kas and Nerdy work too 

Edited December 22, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Kasimir he/him]

11 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Nerdy/Silver still needs a third…

At this point I'm happy to go Nerdy and pray to be exed or NKed so this isn't my problem anymore >> It does feel like taking the easy way out and part of me continues to feel nothing has been particularly Village about TUN's play but yeah okay.

It at least pleases the part of me that still does not feel voting Hael is right.

But on the off-chance it is somehow still my problem, it's at least next cycle's rpoblme ig.

Merry SE Christmas everyone, to those who celebrate.

Enjoy the suffering.

Edited to add:

17 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Who would be Nerdy's teammate? Someone who wasn't online at EoD. Still could be Hael, no? I don't remember except for that Kas was there.

Hael was on. He made that meme remember? Right after your voteswitch.

Edited December 22, 2022 by Kasimir

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

Nerdy, because Aman hasn't allayed my suspicions.

[Stick. she/her]

fine Nerdy

inb4 we’re playing right into the gambit’s hands…

but also the logical flip following v!Xino was always nerdy

i don’t like this gambit 

[Amanuensis he/him]

Just now, NerdyAarakocra said:

Nerdy, because Aman hasn't allayed my suspicions.

Fair.

[NerdyAarakocra They/Them]

Just now, Amanuensis said:

Fair.

I do thank you for defending me, though.

Here, take this <Arbitrary value> of <Insert superiority currency>.

Edited December 22, 2022 by NerdyAarakocra