Mid-Range Game 30/Anonymous Game 2: - Scadrian Black Ops

[Seonid he/him]

MR30 - Scadrian Black Ops

Kasheron Station. It was a beautiful glittering wheel in the bright sunlight, slowly rotating around the central spindle with its massive linear particle accelerator - the peak of Scadrian technological innovation. Here, at the Scadrial-Sun L1 point, a constellation of refueling stations, repair facilities, and smaller science lab stations that required experimental conditions that Kasheron could not provide floated in the silence of deep space.

On a normal day, the space near the station would be littered with the glowing main engines of dozens of starships coming in to dock at one of the many stations. This was anything but a normal day. The wreckage lay scattered across the void, twisted metal and plastics drifting away from the massive spinning station to find their own new orbits around Scadrial's sun. The station still rotated, wounded but not destroyed. Three full habitat modules had been blasted away from the exterior of the ring, shredded into pieces by the force of the explosion, and seven more had been damaged. Today, the dozens of starships collected refugees and survivors from the habitat modules who now no longer had a home on the station. With life support on the remaining habitat modules strained to support the whole population of the station, all ships in the area were emergency rerouted to start ferrying refugees back down a gravity well, or at least to Scadrial's massive ecosystem of orbital habitats and stations.

It is to one of these ships - unremarkable to the naked eye - that we now turn our attention. It is a small ship, as such things are reckoned, scarcely one hundred meters from end to end, but it's solar sails stretch out nearly a kilometer in either direction. Normally, this is a luxury transport, bringing head scientists, politicians, and business magnates to conduct their lucrative business aboard Kasheron station. Today, it is just another glorified passenger liner, filled to it's life support capacity with a teeming mass of refugees, on their way to somewhere marginally more safe than the wounded behemoth.

But no everybody on this transport is what they seem. Secrets abound on Kasheron station, and some are dangerous enough to kill for.

---------------------------------------------------

Hello, and welcome to MR30 - Scadrian Black Ops! This game will be a blackout game, with all of the game-relevant information unknown to players. This will also be an anonymous game, where players will be assigned one of the anonymous accounts designated for SE use, and will be able to participate without anyone knowing their identity. However, unlike the Anniversary Game, this game will primarily be using the anonymous accounts to facilitate a new, experimental mechanic that will allow some roles to swap accounts with another player. Anonymity is a secondary concern to the new mechanic. As such, prospective players may sign up directly in the thread. If you wish to sign up anonymously, please send a PM to Fifth Scholar and I in the format MR30: Signup Request. Otherwise, post in the thread to sign up as normal.

This game will have its player count restricted to 14 players. As such, if you find yourself interested in this game, but worried about whether or not you will be able to remain active, please consider leaving places open for players who will have time to remain active. Any players who sign up in excess of the 14 players there are slots for will be put in a pinch-hitter list.

Signups will last until Monday, July 9. The countdown will use midnight, Mountain Daylight Time as a placeholder time until I figure out what time rollover will be best suited for.

 

Reminder: Rules for Anonymous Accounts:

At the start of the game, you will be issued an anonymous account. There are a number of rules associated with the use of an Anonymous Account. Please follow them carefully. Given the potential for abuse of Anonymous Accounts, any rule breaking using the accounts will be dealt with harshly.
1) Do not change the password of the anonymous account you are issued. Orlok, Fifth and I will have access to all anonymous accounts for the duration of the game.
2) Do not use the anonymous accounts to PM any non-anonymous account, other than the accounts of the GMs. Please do not use your normal accounts to PM anonymous accounts.
3) Do not change anything cosmetic about the accounts, including member title, username, signature, and avatar.
4) Do not reveal your identity or explicitly claim to be another player.

Quick Links:

 

Cycle 1 - Fear
Cycle 2 - Rime of the Ancient Starfarer
Cycle 3 - Failure to Fly
Cycle 4: A Stew Long-simmering
Cycle 5
Cycle 6
Aftermath

 

Edited March 7, 2019 by Fifth Scholar

[Young Bard he/him]

I'll sign up as a pinch-hitter, seeing as this seems to be quite a small set-up for the game, and while I'm not very busy right now, I'm not swimming in time either.

[DeTess she/her]

I'm in a similar position to young bard. I've got enough time to be active, just not quite to my usual standards.

Unless you don't make it to 14 players, please put me up as a pinch-hitter.

[Steeldancer he/him]

I’ll take a spec doc, as much as I would usually like to play this. 

[Hemalurgic Headshot he/him]

Also put me in as a pinch-hitter. I can start if there aren't enough players, like Rand said.

[Jondesu he/him]

Since I'm running my own game, I'll sit this one out, but I'll take a spec doc link.

[CadCom he/him]

Are there any inactivity filters? I should be fine to play, except for a period of about 2-3 days, where I'm not sure If I'll be able to be active.

If not, You can sign me up. 

This would be my first anonymous game, and I see I can sign up in thread, so I will do that!

 

Edited July 6, 2018 by Cadmium Compounder

[Rathmaskal he/him]

Could I get the spec doc?

[Seonid he/him]

On 7/6/2018 at 9:08 AM, Cadmium Compounder said:

Are there any inactivity filters? I should be fine to play, except for a period of about 2-3 days, where I'm not sure If I'll be able to be active.

If not, You can sign me up. 

This would be my first anonymous game, and I see I can sign up in thread, so I will do that!

 

There will not be any inactivity filters. I'm hoping the limited signup size will be all the inactivity control we need.

Welcome to the game!  We are currently at 10 players signed up. (I'm totally willing to run the game at 10 players,  and I wouldn't even be sad about it - the original setup I played was a 10 player setup, and I've expanded it for our larger expected player counts.)

With that long,  parenthetical statement out of my system, however, there are still 4 spots open if players want to sign up!

[xinoehp512 he/him]

I'll sign up as a pinch hitter, but I'm busy for this week.

[Droughtbringer]

I'd like to sign up to spectate. I would make time for this if I could, in any way, but I can not. Still sounds like an amazing game, though!

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

I'll sign up!

[+Ark1002]

I want to join! I just won't be available again until saturday.

[Seonid he/him]

5 hours ago, Ark1002 said:

I want to join! I just won't be available again until saturday.

Ooh - that's tricky. By Saturday, we'll be 2 full cycles into the game. If you won't be able to post at all until then, it might be worth sitting this one out, and signing up for a longer-term game. I expect this one to be very fast-paced. @Jondesu has a game that will be starting around next Saturday, if I read the timer right.

[Seonid he/him]

MR30: Cycle 1 - Fear

Aboard the resource hauler Pride of Terris, fear was beginning to suffuse the cramped spaces. It wasn't just the leftover terror from the rushed evacuation - as terrifying as deserting a damaged space station had been, that was not the fear that began to take over the ship. Nor was it the claustrophobic fear that breeds itself whenever a mass of desperate humanity is crammed into a space that is too small for them. Nor yet was it even the special fear that comes to flower on a spaceship packed with people as the air recyclers are slowly beginning to overload and the food supplies dwindle in the face of the all-consuming hunger of more than a dozen refugees on a spaceship designed for a crew of 6.

The fear that took over the Pride of Terris was a much more primal fear than any of these. It was a deep, gut-wrenching fear that tapped into hormonal pathways written deep in the evolutionary development of humanity. That fear that paralyzed a primitive primate in the face of a hunting cat, or suffused the earliest men when the howls of wolves sounded in the snow-covered forest. It was a prey-fear, a death-fear.

It started when the captain's body was found, drained of blood and half-dismembered, hanging half-out of a ventilation shaft. After that, refugees huddled in their little corners and tried to find the most out-of-the-way places to hide that they could, lest they be the next victim. Who knew who or what was hunting the ship? All that mattered was that the refugees were prey.

But hiding could not last forever. Eventually, the refugees slunk back out of their dark hiding holes and into the common room, where they began to determine what they could do to protect themselves from whatever lurked in the dark. But behind even this meeting lurked a subconscious fear. What if some of the people standing at the table were traitors? What if this very gathering held the people behind the hunger that stalked the ship? But there was no other choice. It was stand up, or give in. And it was not time to give in yet.

---------------------------------------------------

Welcome to the start of MR30 - Scadrian Black Ops! Remember, there are no PMs in this game. In addition, anonymous accounts have special rules, as listed below in the spoiler. Cycle 1 has started, and will last for 48 hours. Rollover time will be at 2:00 AM MDT.

 

Spoiler

Reminder: Rules for Anonymous Accounts:

At the start of the game, you will be issued an anonymous account. There are a number of rules associated with the use of an Anonymous Account. Please follow them carefully. Given the potential for abuse of Anonymous Accounts, any rule breaking using the accounts will be dealt with harshly.
1) Do not change the password of the anonymous account you are issued. Orlok, Fifth and I will have access to all anonymous accounts for the duration of the game.
2) Do not use the anonymous accounts to PM any non-anonymous account, other than the accounts of the GMs. Please do not use your normal accounts to PM anonymous accounts.
3) Do not change anything cosmetic about the accounts, including member title, username, signature, and avatar.

 

[Melon Dingo]

If I've been reading between the lines correctly, there's one or more mechanics in this game that allows people to take over an account. I think it's likely that the people doing this need to be lynched (after all, what could the point of such a sneaky mechanic be if the village isn't expected to interact with it). Therefore, for us to be able to easily detect body-swappers (*cough*Kandra*cough*), I'd like to encourage everyone to be active and try to get some 'typical' posts out so that anyone impersonating the original holder of an account will have to put in some work to seem genuine.

@Seonid, can you include a list of the accounts taking part in this game, so we can reference easily who is and isn't around? And if someone switches in as a pinch-hitter, would they be allowed to announce this in blue text? This might be important to avoid confusion if my body-swapper theory is correct.

Edited July 10, 2018 by Melon Dingo

[Seonid he/him]

List of accounts participating:

@Amber Vulture

@Amethyst Scorpion

@Azure Mouse

@Charcoal Hyena

@Chartreuse Penguin

@Coral Swan

@Cream Tuatara

@Emerald Falcon

@Fuchsia Ostrich

@Indigo Weasel

@Ivory Dragonfly

@Magenta Albatross

@Mauve Crocodile

@Melon Dingo

Pinch hitters are welcome to announce their arrival via blue text.

Edited July 10, 2018 by Seonid

[Azure Mouse]

@Melon Dingo Agreed. Anyway, I think I'll start off with some old-fashioned RP

---

V rested himself against a wall, feigning calmness, or at the very least, keeping the whole hauler from knowing how fast his heartbeat was going. As he looked outside a nearby window to distract himself from the situation at hand, V regarded the cosmos. Vast, empty. He was trapped, along with everyone else, in this ship. In his hand he carried two books. People still read them nowadays, though not as much as before. One was modern and thin, it's sleek sides smooth in his hands. The other was old and archaic, rough and thick. V stuffed both in his backpack, and regarded the refugees amassed in here.

Among them, who could he trust?

 

Edited July 10, 2018 by Azure Mouse
Clarity

[Amethyst Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Melon Dingo said:

If I've been reading between the lines correctly, there's one or more mechanics in this game that allows people to take over an account. I think it's likely that the people doing this need to be lynched (after all, what could the point of such a sneaky mechanic be if the village isn't expected to interact with it). Therefore, for us to be able to easily detect body-swappers (*cough*Kandra*cough*), I'd like to encourage everyone to be active and try to get some 'typical' posts out so that anyone impersonating the original holder of an account will have to put in some work to seem genuine.

Yeah, it seems that the Kandra explanation would make the most sense. What we know about the game is basically this: there's killing going on, there's account-swapping involved, and we have a lynch. It can be speculated that Kandra kill a player and then impersonate them using their account. That would mean that the Kandra first swaps accounts with their target, and then kills them, because that's how Kandras work...? Not quite in that order though. They need to kill the person before they can impersonate them. But I suppose that doesn't matter all so much. If my guess is accurate, we'll have to go back each cycle and analyse the posts of the player that gets killed, for they may be the killer kandra that we're afte, impersonating somebody else each cycle.

 

[Indigo Weasel]

2 hours ago, Melon Dingo said:

If I've been reading between the lines correctly, there's one or more mechanics in this game that allows people to take over an account. I think it's likely that the people doing this need to be lynched (after all, what could the point of such a sneaky mechanic be if the village isn't expected to interact with it). Therefore, for us to be able to easily detect body-swappers (*cough*Kandra*cough*), I'd like to encourage everyone to be active and try to get some 'typical' posts out so that anyone impersonating the original holder of an account will have to put in some work to seem genuine.

37 minutes ago, Amethyst Scorpion said:

Yeah, it seems that the Kandra explanation would make the most sense.

 

If the Kandra could just step forward, that would be great!

-----

In all seriousness though, I think it's important that we consider some elements of what this *possible* Kandra might be able to do in order to remain in balance.

First off, I would think that they have a limited amount of kills/swaps. Somewhere between 1 and 3 seems likely. That means they probably want to wait to use them until they can swap with a confirmed villager. If the kandra do have multiple, for example 2 or 3, then they might use the first at the end of D1, just to be able to actually use it, then save the others until later.

In other news, can someone confirm if PM's are allowed?

 

[Fuchsia Ostrich]

I think I've missed something - where does it hint that we have body swappers, or are able to swap anonymous accounts?

@Melon Dingo - How can you read between the lines, and come up with mechanics? The whole point of this anonymous game was that we went in blind, with no knowledge of mechanics, roles, etc. Granted, this does involve figuring them out for ourselves, but I see nothing that suggests body swapping.

@Indigo Weasel - It says in the opening post, PMs are not allowed.

Quote

 

Welcome to the start of MR30 - Scadrian Black Ops! Remember, there are no PMs in this game. In addition, anonymous accounts have special rules, as listed below in the spoiler. Cycle 1 has started, and will last for 48 hours. Rollover time will be at 2:00 AM MDT.

 

 

[Mauve Crocodile]

Hello everyone.

~~~RP~~~

Denesta Vreaux ran a finger along the steel wall. The scraping sound made some refugees nearby glance over and shiver at the sound of metal on metal. Denesta returned their gazes with unblinking eyes. She withdrew her hand from the wall and clenched the metal fist.

The strangest thing about a mechanical arm wasn’t being unable to feel anything. It was expecting to feel something when you touched a fire, a cold beer, or a metal wall, and then finding nothing beneath your fingertips.

Fifteen years, and she’d never quite gotten used to it.

The refugees stood around the table in the common room, staring around each other with weary eyes. To Denesta, they looked as if they’d actually slept in the previous three nights. They were the lucky ones. As lucky as one could be, trapped in a sardine tin shooting though the emptiest emptiness in existence, with a bloodthirsty beast staring at them from the ventilation ducts.

Denesta did not join them just yet, instead sitting on her bed and watching them for a few moments. She’d torn the canvas straps that secured the storage boxes deeper in the ship and woven them together to form a sort of mat. Anything to protect her elbows, shoulders, and hips from the cold metal floor.

When she’d silently announced her claim to this spot, by dropping her meager belongings here and sitting down to rest, the others had looked at her strangely. Some had even spoken to her, calling her crazy before retreating to their hideaways underneath shelves or in vents.

She’d shaken her head at that. If a creature wandered the halls—she was not sure if there even was one—then wouldn’t it keep to the shadows? Wouldn’t it lurk in air vents? Denesta remembered hearing that there were hundreds of metres of ducts and vents through any ship, ample place for a predator to hide and navigate.

And if the killer was actually a human then he or she, too, would keep to the shadows. Humans who killed others were just predators wearing human skin.

The common room was large, wide, and closest to the food stores. Not only that, but the freshest air passed through here. Denesta knew that those who complained of coughing lived in the outer parts of the ship where the air was stale. Yes, she liked her place here. And if she died in the night, then she died warm from the heater next to her blanket, and with clear lungs.

Denesta sighed and stretched her legs. She’d gone through her third life extension twenty-three years ago, and was wondering if the grey hairs were something she would keep the next time around. She felt…distinguished. Respectable. Her friends had gone through the procedure and come out buxom and flexible. She’d asked to be comfortably mature. She hadn’t thought that her joints would start to ache earlier than before.

She rose from her mat and walked purposefully over to the gathering of refugees. They had started to whisper about the food shortage, about the power levels in the engine, about their destination. No one was talking about the predator. One of the men was sitting over by a window, fiddling with his backpack.

Denesta rested her metal arm on the table. The heavy clunk made people look over.

“This is pointless,” she said in her most commanding voice. “Starvation will kill us slowly. Power supply will kill us slowly. This killer in the shadows will kill us quickly. But all of these things will be made quicker if we drift apart.”

Dead eyes stared back at her, and she forced herself not to shiver.

“We need to establish something,” she said. “A council. Leaders. Someone to give us order and make decisions so that we can defend each other.” Denesta looked over at the man by the window and beckoned. “You, come here. We need every voice to help.”

[Melon Dingo]

20 minutes ago, Fuchsia Ostrich said:

 

@Melon Dingo - How can you read between the lines, and come up with mechanics? The whole point of this anonymous game was that we went in blind, with no knowledge of mechanics, roles, etc. Granted, this does involve figuring them out for ourselves, but I see nothing that suggests body swapping.

 

From the sign-up thread:

Quote

Hello, and welcome to MR30 - Scadrian Black Ops! This game will be a blackout game, with all of the game-relevant information unknown to players. This will also be an anonymous game, where players will be assigned one of the anonymous accounts designated for SE use, and will be able to participate without anyone knowing their identity. However, unlike the Anniversary Game, this game will primarily be using the anonymous accounts to facilitate a new, experimental mechanic that will allow some roles to swap accounts with another player. Anonymity is a secondary concern to the new mechanic. As such, prospective players may sign up directly in the thread. If you wish to sign up anonymously, please send a PM to Fifth Scholar and I in the format MR30: Signup Request. Otherwise, post in the thread to sign up as normal.

 

[Charcoal Hyena]

Charcoal Hyena checking in! If there is account swapping, it'll make it rather difficult to maintain reads, so that's something to consider.

[Fuchsia Ostrich]

Oh, right. It's been a few weeks since I read that. I jumped in blind, like the anonymous ostrich I am.