Kasimir

Two questions for you: 1. Your theory was that one of Szeth and Elk were Evil. If you were wrong about Szeth and indeed, wanted to flip Szeth first, then why are you confident enough to double down on Elk? 2. Why are you so afraid of Division? TUN Under strong protest that I suspect the Archer/Araris bloc is Evil and won't hesitate to gun for them any longer because benefit of the doubt only goes so far if Stick flips Village. Stick EDITED TO ADD: To be clear, if Stick flips Village, I'm done. That's two series of shoddy votes from Araris and I am going to listen to Shadow and gun for the obvious Evils. That means both Archer and Araris. I will be absolutely bloody done with playing the "would Evil do this though" IKYK game. I see Evil and I am voting to kill it. It's that simple. No more agonising or messing around. EDITED TO ADD: #3 for you Cash — @Cash67 You explicitly say the two who were killed were suspicious of Elk. Who are the two and are you including Szeth? Are you including the Division kill? If so, why do you do that? Do you think the user of the Division kill is Evil?

I feel like my question here is: why do you accord Archer more grace than Elk? Why do you say it is unreasonable for E!Archer to put E!Xino forward, or indeed, to refuse to vote V!Xino with you, but not also take as fundamentally credible the idea that E!Elk has no reason to resist Bookwyrm, and indeed, could've just done so earlier? It feels in this case you are having to go out of your way to postulate E!JNV just as a function of the original Elk premise. I don't understand the double standards implicit here. Hello there! How does this interface so far with your initial thoughts that the Illwei NK reflected the kill MO of both Mat and TUN? Clearly not Mat, but TUN? I don't disagree, which is why you are not my immediate target: TUN is. I will say TUN going onto you kind of feels like offering me a bait train, and I'm not really interested at this stage. That being said, I do think you are canny enough to metascrew and deliberately argue that E!you wouldn't do something that sloppy and then actually do it. I also think you have sufficient thread control to get away with it. I'm wary about too many 'sloppy play' assumptions because we're both applying the most charitable standards to you and denying them to Xino and Bookwyrm. [Edited to add: Sorry, am tired, this should read Elk.] So we postulate you can't have just voted Xino and moved on later - but why would you anyway? You certainly didn't take it as a deal to be committed to with Araris. But of course, Xino is absolutely sloppy enough to make a vote off a bad votecount to tie things off at about thirty six hours into the cycle and then move on and swap to Wiz within the same hour? Finally, the last time I said "Archer is more competent than to do this," it turned out that this led to a huge Orlok-fuelled tunnel on Aman and a lot of problems mid-LG84, so you'll excuse me if I'm hesitant to overlean on that assumption I think at some point in a IKYK, you just have to decide whether to check the obvious, or not to. I do think it's tempting to, and I think it has to be asked. You mentioned several times you are short on time, and I absolutely think that was as much a factor. Mat said nothing about Szeth N2, and Stick was very clearly pro-MLing Szeth. I'm not really sure where you think a clear message that Szeth was going to be kept safe comes from. I was the person specifically replying to you to say, yeah, no, actually I think Szeth is Village. So is JNV still on your postulated Elim team or not? Could you, in a single short paragraph, sum up what is behind your Stick vote besides 'could have NKed Illwei N1'? This is actually pretty confusing because a lot of my reads are so different from Araris's I start to wonder if he's Evil (cf. agenda) but I'm also really strongly committed to V!Araris for now so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm keeping my vote where it is.

Rule Clarifications: Player List:

Cycle Two: H. Shot First The mood in the Drunk Side was subdued, if puzzled. Scribbled sheets of flimsi and crumpled durasheets were plastered all over the notice board, with the aurebesh lettering already fading on the older notices. For all Smarts and Turtle knew their work, some of the regulars at the cantina were dubious. Who would want to attack Dreshdae, anyway? “What’s there on Dreshdae for anyone?” asked Seth, in confusion. “Dreshdae’s a hole, man. There’s nothing here except dust, more dust, and a lot of ancient tombs. If I had my way, I’d save enough and hitch a ride on a passing freighter, make it somewhere big. Anything but here.” “Come off it, Seth,” scoffed Shil-Ou-Te. “You’ve been talking about getting off this rock since forever. You never have.” Seth glared at him. “Yeah, and I’d’ve done it months ago if not for—” “Sith,” said old Barles. He shook his head. “You saw him. Burned through that counter, right there.” He pointed over at the charred halves of the counter everyone was refusing to look at. At the door, which wasn’t sliding shut, which had been somehow wrecked. Kalabel had come over and was working over the door with a hydrospanner, muttering to herself in concentration. Sajhe’d thanked her, and offered to pay, or at least sport her the next meal and drinks. Least he could do, really. He wouldn’t have minded trying to fix it, but the dust got everywhere in Korriban. The sooner mended, the better. “Sith,” Ullen Kos repeated. “They’re a legend. They’re long dead. They’re dust,” he almost pleaded, clutching at his drink, as though to be told that the Sith were long dead, long historical curiosities would save him from the spectre that had walked into the cantina and casually sliced up the counter as though it was day-old Alderaanian cheese. “Except Vader. He was Sith, wasn’t he? You don’t get more alive than Vader himself.” “Whatever you want to call that, that’s not an accident,” Tantyck said, nursing his drink. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?” Smarts blinked. “What?” “The comms array,” Tantyck repeated, his voice carefully level, despite the implication. Tantyck, Sajhe thought, had a level of control the Jedi would have admired. “You checked it, didn’t you, Smarts?” Smarts stared at him with narrowed eyes. “No,” he admitted. “Turtle came over and mentioned the ‘port relay was sabotaged by a comms spike. I tested it, yeah. With the comms relay down, it doesn’t matter if the comms array is gone too. Comlinks don’t work. The nearest relay is in the next sector, like he said.” “It might be possible to rig something,” Sajhe said, into the silence. “I’m no comms expert, but depending on what’s left of the relay, and if there’s a freighter left in port, you could jury-rig something based on their native comms array. Maybe it wouldn’t reach the next sector’s relay, but it might be able to keep local comms running—or reach the Valiant.” He added, a few moments later, “The Republic used to have to improvise, during the Mandalorian Wars. First thing their Jehavey’ir-type assault ships would go for would be anything anchoring local comms infrastructure, take it down with heavy bombardment.” “Yeah,” Smarts said slowly. “That’s millenia ago.” “Still used on some war-torn worlds,” Barles said, quietly. “It’s worth a shot, at any rate.” “An attack,” Ullen Kos said again. He knocked back his Corellian ale, and blinked. Too nervous, Sajhe thought. “But there’s nothing here for them. There’s no army. Is there?” “Korriban used to be a Sith world,” Sajhe said, patiently. “And that tends to draw a certain kind of character. Those—Disciples of Ragnos.” He remembered the words the interloper had used. “Just the latest vultures, here to pick at the bones of the dead.” “Told you,” Martano Hamartano said, lazily, a leg swung up pre-emptively on a nearby stool. “We ain’t sitting ducks here, and that’s easily solved. They wanna come here and try to mess around with us? Easy. A good blaster, and a shot in his skull, and he’s finished. Problem solved, you know what I’m sayin’? No need to panic or run around like headless hawkbats, eh, eh?” “Pleased Statement: This meatbag at least understands the use of a good blaster. Admonition: However, one does not want to confront a Force meatbag with a simple blaster. Thoughtful Statement: A Valken-372D Sharpshooter rifle with a custom scope might be a better weapon. Alternatively, one might consider the use of shaped charges, or even better, orbital bombardment.” The rust-plated HK droid had appeared on-planet about a week ago, following some query concerning gizka. Sajhe had resolved to keep an eye on him ever since. “Oh yeah?” Hamartano drawled. “Say, whaddya know about killing those Sith honchos, rustbucket?” “Indignant Retort: I have killed far more of these meatbags than you could in an entire lifetime. Smug Statement: In fact, I would consider myself an expert at assassination and the quiet resolution to all meatbag problems.” “And I bet you’ve never in—” Hamartono’s retort was drowned out by Moff rolling out from under a table and inadvertently knocking over his stool, tripping him up. “Sith, Jedi, unimportant, they are,” Moff smiled serenely. “Bargain, I have for you! Best death sticks in the galaxy, I have! Smoke two of them at once, will you?” “Moff,” Sajhe said, admonishingly. “I’ve told you this already. Drinking is fine. But you do not want to sell death sticks in my bar. Take it outside.” “Take it outside, I will,” Moff grumbled, and proceeded to roll out of the bar, hawking his death sticks to anyone in the vicinity. “...Huh,” said Seth. “I never thought anyone could get him to stop.” “Well, we need to act,” Loren Vash said, firmly. “While they’re working on the comms at the spaceport, we need to identify where these Disciples of Ragnos are. Where they are striking from. They must be hidden somewhere—they seemed to think we knew something about the Valley.” She scowled at the sleeping Nodice. He’d come months ago, a down-on-his-luck spacer, always up for a game of sabaac, no matter how much he lost. Sajhe’d felt bad for him and sometimes put him up in a small space over the cantina when locking up for the night. “I’d say we should be looking really hard at anyone strange who came in over the last couple of weeks or months. They’ve probably planned this.” Seth laughed. “Sure, and I’m one of those Disciples of Ragnos.” Silence greeted his words. “I’m joking!” Seth said, quickly. “C’mon man, I thought it was really funny—” A sharp whine of a blaster, and Seth crumpled to the floor, a smoking hole burned through his head. Very obviously dead, and very obviously…Seth. “Put those blasters away!” Sajhe growled, stalking over to Seth. But there was nothing that could be done for him. He glared at Hamartano and the HK droid, both of whom were sheepishly holding blasters. So were a few other regulars, though who had shot first was fairly impossible to tell. “Star’s sake, you’d think the lot of you had more impulse control!” “Indignation: The target had clearly claimed to be a member of the Disciples of Ragnos.” “You should know better,” Sajhe glared at the droid. “He was joking. I know you can process sarcasm and Tusken.” He folded his arms across his chest. “That much should’ve been obvious. Out, all of you! Take your blasters out of here! Go fret elsewhere, but do it quietly.” Smarts stared at the fused mass of wires and blinked. “And it was just like that, yah,” Turtle affirmed. “Array’s gone, too.” Dr. Dacken Humtumb let out a long exhalation that was half a sigh. “Not gizka,” he said, very firmly. “Definitely not gizka.” “Obviously not,” Smart said, wearily. He didn’t really want to think of how to explain it to Tantyck. Something about the man’s queries had gotten under his skin, as though Tantyck’d been looking out for someone to blame and had figured the technician was the easiest target out there. “It’s not chewed.” It was fused, as though someone’d taken a solder to the mass of wires and sparking parts, or a blaster. Or Smarts supposed, thinking of the table in the bar, a lightsaber. The access panel had been neatly sliced open, after all. There wasn’t much to fix, the better question was if anything could be salvaged, and Smarts wasn’t sure it could at all. “And what Sajhe said? The thing about the freighter?” Krisbaan demanded, harshly. Turtle stared warily at him. “Look, Saj’ is a bartender,” he said, blinking owlishly. “I know the ‘port. Last freighter left yesterday, ahead of schedule.” “Maybe there are ships docked,” Krisbaan said, after a moment’s thought. The last thing he wanted was for them to return to the cantina with nothing to show for it. There was no point in him having identified his quarry if he couldn’t even report Jev’s capture, after all. “I’ll check the docking bays.” Turtle shrugged. “Knock yourself out,” he said, philosophically, already returning to the business of going over the wrecked array with Humtumb, Smarts, and the quiet Kalabel. Gripping his stun cane in hand, Krisbaan accessed the first docking bay. There was a starfighter parked there, one that he didn’t recognise. A simple light-courier, painted in reds and whites that he didn’t recognise. He could’ve sworn he’d not seen it before, and he kept very close attention to the spaceport arrivals and departures. The transponder ID on the ship identified it as the Raven’s Claw, lightly-armed with the standard array of laser cannons and two mounted proton torpedo launchers. Not exactly loaded for bear, then. Did the ship have a working comms system? Probably. Krisbaan made his way towards the ship, when a cloaked figure moved towards him. “Goodbye, Jedi,” the hooded figure whispered, harshly. Moving with the swift reflexes of a man who was used to dealing with recalcitrant opposition, Krisbaan lashed out with his stun cane. A scarlet lightsaber flashed to life and burned through his stun cane in a single, humming movement, swift and economical. Then, Krisbaan found himself flying backwards, slamming into the wall of the docking bay. Wha— “Not the Jedi after all,” the figure breathed, gazing down on Krisbaan. How had this being moved so fast? Krisbaan felt himself hauled up to his feet. He slumped forward, dazedly, as hands crackling with blood-red lightning clenched about his throat and the figure laughed, and seemed to consume everything that he was, everything that he felt, vanishing down a dark, hungry maw, drained into nothingness. And then nothing. Szeth_Pancakes / Ookla the Omniscient was executed! He was a Desann Reborn! Oh sorry, he was actually a Settler, why would you believe him? The Unknown Novel / Ookla the Unknown was killed for unknown reasons! He was a Settler! The latest flimsi plastered to the notice board at the Drunk Side: The cycle has begun and will end on Thursday, 1st December 2022 at 0100hrs SGT (GMT+8)! Please be reminded that PMs are closed.

Cycle closed!

I'd agree with this assessment, yeah. Similar to your thoughts on Araris, mostly. I feel that in an E!Xino world, once Xino got off to two votes, there was no way Cash was moving anyway. The Bookwyrm train had to be anchored. IDK. I do find Xino's vote weird, Elk's refusal to go Bookwyrm sus (but then why make the obvious lynchbait your sus when Evil, c'mon) but kind of prefer to vote the guy who is on both my potential Evil teams at this juncture. I have just enough E!Stick credences that I think you could make a coherent team, but I kinda buy the <Archer-TUN-Xino-Cash-Turtle???> Maybe insert Araris somewhere? team a bit more. If I were really feeling bold I might wanna vote Archer actually but IDK. Does E!Archer actually seriously derp and suggest Szeth was NKed? That doesn't feel like a natural mistake or slip-up, even in typing, for E!Archer. And yet... True. I suppose the fact the Blades move around do shake things up a bit, thanks to the Shaman. Edited to add: Jez is an action scanner, Kalak is a roleblocker. They have those aspects too, which I feel could even things out a bit, maybe. IDK.

GM Reminder: The cycle closes in slightly under an hour! Get those votes and actions in! Further clarifications (sorry about the format, have a draft to finish): Force Dominate does not require the target to have voted. Unlike the Jedi, the Disciples of Ragnos are not weak. A Desann Reborn using Force Drain can indeed be redirected onto themselves, effectively draining themselves to death. You can thank the Stack for this.

Why Insanity paired with TUN specifically? Possible. But I do also kind of wonder about the Cash vote in light of that, which is one reason why I am further stuck with regard to the E!Xino issue. Bah, Xino, TUN. That is fair, yeah. My thought: Stormlight limitations, we know Pailah started out in Village hands, and also, Beagle. Would Kalak and Jez starting out in Village hands, along with Pailah and the other progression Blade make sense with E!Chana? Not saying it's impossible, but it's something I want a sense of.

Factually wrong. He self-presed slightly under two hours to rollover, as can be seen here: This feels like a misunderstanding between the two of you. If you pay attention to his votecount, it includes his vote. It does make it seem like he suspects Bookwyrm insofar as he chose to put the vote on Bookwyrm rather than TUN, tying Bookwyrm with Mat (according to his votecount.) It's why I say the main world in which Xino's vote makes sense to me for E!Xino basically requires Xino to be Evil with TUN and probably voting in defense of TUN. But it'd also require a bunch of other mistakes or weird calculations to happen. The one point I do appreciate and I think Araris raised it, or I'm just tripping by this stage, is that it's weird for E!Archer to offer to vote Xino with Araris and then sort of refuse to. We now know all three lead trains were Village: E!Archer has no reason not to vote on V!Xino. But then offering to vote E!Xino is equally weird: unless, I suppose, Archer makes the statement in response to Araris, and then Araris reads it as an offer but it's not intended as an offer. And then Archer declines to vote by taking the read back. Ok, I could sort of see that, yeah. IMO, it's fairly on-track with how he was playing in his more recent Village games. Like...as I was saying, D1, Chana or Vedel and dear Force I hope it is Chana because Vedel has no excuse - put me in contact with three other players in PMs. Alv is one of them. My sense from Alv's willingness to solve when working with me is that I'm willing to cut him some slack for the moment, knowing how his playstyle is and his thoughts feel to me as though he's more Village. But that's where I am on Alv at the moment. I don't rule out he could be Evil. But he's not where I'd shoot first. Basically that. Archer insisting Szeth was consensus Village read is just weird to me. I don't feel I have a strong read on TUN, and by this point in the game, I'm willing to take that as reason to go there. And NKing Mat and Illwei would've been within E!TUN's MO for kills, as Ash pointed out in LG90. I would say it's probably worth cross-checking, but I don't fully disagree about the Wiz point - I just think that citing Bookwyrm's defense made it more palatable. Question for you, Stick. Do you think V!Chana is likely at all? I would agree, but abooouuut thaaaaaat... Chana maaaay be out of charges. Edited to add 2: @_Stick_ I guess to be clear, I'm considering whether roleclearing Chana would be a mistake, given, you know, Beagle.

No, but I want to get it right, and unfortunately, I don't think anyone in this game is currently interested in doing that. The set of <Xino, Stick>, with a <TUN, Archer, Insanity> side still looks reasonable to me but Chana should really start stabbing the quiet people to make it clear sitting back is not going to save them. At this point, if I were Chana, I'd nuke that whole set, quite frankly. I don't really buy this counterproposal when at least 7/15 surviving players have shown they can't be bothered to play a game they signed up for despite checking the thread. I'll agree this is a harsh assessment from me, but I have had enough of this. Edited to add: I mean, we have two choices, right? We can assume at least one of the remotely communicative players is Evil. This minimally gives us a set of <Archer, Stick, Kas, Araris, Xino, JNV, Elk, Cash>. And I hate to say it but I'm being generous on some of them. Or we can assume the Evils are in the quiets, who are functionally everyone else, and due to low posting and voting, are immune to varying degrees to post/vote analysis. So we can decide to bite that bullet and vote them now and hope V!Chana stabs. Likely: 10-5 We ML today and a kill goes through because Pailah and Vedel are either Evil or are out of charges: 8-5 6-5 4-5 With or without Chana, it'll take us three more cycles in which to lose, hopefully in which everyone else wakes the hell up and decides to play. Frankly if I were Evil I'd stab me too. No one bothered to rethink Bookwyrm. Araris literally threw a vote and left. People sort of hopped on the train and didn't care. We're not substantively thinking about Xino [Edited to add: or Stick] and no one is engaging or thinking beyond the few basic points that have been chewed over again and again. Do I feel like making it a coinflip? Hell no. I want thoughts. I want people to poke holes. I want people to get their crem together and start making sense of these things because last cycle, pretty much nothing happened and that's frustrating as all hell. Edited to add 2: Like, Stick doesn't count because she was V!Bookwyrm all the way. I nudged her about Araris's point and that didn't even bloody matter? So people are just throwing one thought out, sticking with it, and going for it. Great if you're short on time, awful for the Village. Sure, this can probably be a meta-conversation again which Hael will fondly remember from the inactivity blight, but that's just a bloody awful game landscape. I don't want to make this about whose life sucks more, so I'm noting I get what it means to be busy. I actively am making time because last week, I was on medical leave and sick, I'm still preparing for the two exams which require me to work on ongoing project submissions, I have work, and I have to make sure my own game is running smoothly. And I watch the World Cup! Because Deutschland! And great football! I get that Thanksgiving is a major activity damper for people and RL >>> SE. And with all of that, I still say: if 7/15 of your living players cannot be bothered to show up or say anything, we have a problem. My current reads while shooting in that fishbarrel of silence? Still think Chantara could be Evil. Disagree that I read her post as Village, think her votes look opportunistic and Evil, disappeared off the face of the Earth, therefore no better read. Silho? Great, thanks for getting back into the game. Had a major dgaf D1 and vanished for quite a while. Would I stab him? Sure, why not, let's roll the dice, right? Who knows who is Evil anyway in this bloody game? Cash? Disagree that his post looks Village too - don't feel Elim doc coaching comes into play without an assessment of his experience level. Whast we really need from Cash are actual views. Slight negative for votes, maybe slight positive for D3, depending. For someone committed to E!Elk, sure seemed to favour staying on Bookwyrm, so kinda frowning on him. Alv? Gut Village, thank frick there is one player here I vaguely feel I can read just a little. Araris? Probably busy af but one good D1 vote. In all fairness, am not putting him with the quiets, but Bookwyrm focus is uncharacteristic, D1 doesn't seem to reflect his Elim doctrine so ok he can be Village for now. Insanity? Opportunistic votes as all hell, continues to watch and lurk but says nothing. Sure, why not, could be Evil. Tani? Still no response, sort of out of things. Gut Village on the basis of player profile, she says she flipped a coin between Mat and Wiz here because she wanted to participate. No idea why Mat / Wiz, possibly because Don't really read this as E, but you know, at this point, my reads are based on a wonderfully paper-thin frickin' basis, wow. Turtle - Arguably in this territory but not. I'm not really inclined to give them too much credit for more than early N1 vote possibility analysis because they're not doing anything more, or anything with their 'three reads' so that's cheap. Sus padding vote D2, dgaf D1. Could be Evil, could be Village. Who knows? Certainly not me Strangely enough, it is very hard to read people when you are running off fumes and the sound of an empty thread JNV? Disappeared from the thread by now, uncharacteristically declines any reads at all. Kind of want to V read them because E them has their crem together, but let's be real, that's an apathy clear, and I don't really want to push JNV and ML them after two games in a row, so the functional read is: "I Don't Know." Xino? Hell knows. Weird af votes, apparently invested in staying alive despite not actually wanting to play the game. Elk? Ok I've laid out my views on V!Elk, but I am coming round to E!Elk all over again because I don't understand reluctance to vote on Bookwyrm unless you think Bookwyrm is such a bad train, but then EoD shows complete indifference to all the trains. Sod knows. I'm going to go re-read and re-think yet again. Anyone I'm forgetting? You're probably Evil then.

The latest crumpled durasheet added to the collection of letters and advertisements on the bulletin board: Sajhe studied it critically. He wasn't sure it looked quite right to him, and some of the names were downright odd. "Smarts," he called out, sternly. "Have you been messing with my notice board again?"

You missed Araris's vote: I am having light difficulty seeing Stick and Xino teamed, but also not. Not going to be my final vote, but one particular point bugs me on Xino. I am okay with voting one of <Stick, Xino>, with TUN as the outsider candidate. And I'd still like to hear from @Elkanah. I'm exceptionally riled by EoD lurking: if you are invested enough to check if you are under threat at EoD but not to say anything, I question the extent to which your investment is pro-Village and despite my read on Elk, I'm not interested in cutting him slack for that. @_Stick_ - Your thoughts on an E!Archer world? Not sure how I feel about it but something feels very wrong with the consistent thread death. I believe that if your Honorblade was taken by the Shaman, you should sound off if you've used it and tell us what your actions were. We've had two Nights by now, and I am finding 'don't expose the Shaman' very hard to swallow when some Honorblades grant information, and feel it is minimal risk if you have already lost your Blade anyway. You might as well tell us what you did so we can gain some information about what happened on previous cycles, especially with how this game has been deader than young Dalinar's enemies. I'd also note I'd still like to hear from @Ookla the Implosion, @Cash67, @Chantara, @InfiniteInsanity, @Ookla the Unknown, @Alvron, @JNV. This cycle is exceptionally dead which makes me once again fear no Elim is under threat, and I low key hope Chana will stab within this crowd tonight. It beggars belief that this entire set contains our whole Elim team, but in the world it does, they are fundamentally being rewarded for inactive play, which I detest, and think they should minimally face the threat of death more. On the assumption that none of <Archer, Stick, myself> are Evil, all the Elims have to do to grab the thread by the throat by this point is to kill all three of us. If I'm the only Villager among us, congratulations, the second they stab me, the Elims have thread control. I respect that people have other priorities than SE. I accept that RL happens. I accept as well that not everyone wants to do analysis. I certainly am not always in the mood to, especially when I'm GMing and also have World Cup, my day job, and an upcoming pair of exams to prepare for. Yes, that's right, Christmas exams, go me. But I do want to point out that if you are even moderately invested in your team winning, then unless you are Evil, you need to get in the damned thread. Blades are not going to win this for us, barring moments of individual brilliance. The most fundamental Village power is called 'showing up and posting the the thread and voting,' both so you can read others and let others read you. Frankly, Village control of the thread shouldn't be predicated on a single life, or three of them. - Kvaseth-son-Wysan felt the dark sting of regret as he walked through the streets of Earthen Truth. You picked up the sword to make a difference. He firmly believed that. He had to. The sword hurt; he carried the weight of his stone in his heart each day, but the stone was both reminder and promise. A reminder of the blood-price already paid; of the farming village going up in flames, the stench of blood, charred human flesh. It was a promise, that no one else would have to carry this stone. That someone else could treasure the lush feeling of the vines against her fingers, the sunlight in the ripening wheat fields. He had been too late, too indecisive, to save Szeth. He saw the scar that divided the dry earth. What did you do, against a sword of the Heralds themselves? There was Dazi-son-ron as well, and for all they'd found themselves on the wrong sides of the arguments that raged in the days within Earthen Truth, there had been a wary respect there. He had come to be convinced that Dazi-son-ron was not on the side of the Tukari, but Kvaseth wondered if he had been wiser not to vouch for Dazi, if the wiser path would have been that of restraint. Perhaps they'd killed Dazi because they thought he'd been trained by the Stone Shamans. Perhaps they'd killed Dazi because he was onto them. Kvaseth felt like he was chasing at the wind. He was only one man, and much of Earthen Truth had become apathetic, quietly indifferent to the Tukari. Perhaps the Tukari would cut all of them down. The windspren had been following him through the city. He watched her dart at the angerspren bubbling about his feet. He didn't like feeling so helpless. Maybe it was better to be as the windspren. He didn't think she knew, or cared about the Tukari, the way Vartan and the rest of the High Council had gathered others in Earthen Truth to die. He watched a child buying a skewer of candied fruit from a street seller, and felt the sharp tearing pain of grief; love abruptly halted, still reverberating through his soul, even now, and he turned away, against the sharp stinging in his eyes. They were all going to die and no one cared. Not the High Council. Not the residents of Earthen Truth. And Kvaseth-son-Wysan was only one man, and he couldn't have saved Szeth, or Dazi-son-Ron, for all he'd tried, for all he'd felt as though it was his fault. Maybe he shouldn't care either. Maybe people who didn't care about the sword at their throats deserved to die. But something deep within him rebelled at that bitter thought, rejected it. Sometimes, people wouldn't save themselves. It didn't mean you didn't try anyway. Edited to add: It's often easier to generate Village reads when Evil than Evil reads when Evil, for obvious reasons. In a world where there are lots of ties, your votes on a Village/bad train look less bad if you sell them as defending your Village read compared to if you actually think the player you voted on was Evil. I don't deny it's a valid tactic Village-side - I just did this in QF63 by MLing TUN (sorry) because I had a strong Village read of Archer and wanted to defend Archer, and was leaning null/null- on TUN, so he was basically the only viable train I thought I could get a protective CW on. (Recall, I Village-read Wiz and wanted a CW on Turtle but knew I was not going to ever get Turtle to agree to vote Turtle, so didn't have the numbers.) If Stick wants to protect Bookwyrm, then arguably she either makes a Wiz train go through or a Szeth train. Elk didn't want to go on Szeth - Elk was hopping between Bookwyrm and Wiz, so functionally Wiz would've been her only option. I could see it as being both an Elim and Village move so I don't know if I'd ascribe especial credit for it. I do give Araris more Village credit for tiebreaking because I feel that tiebreaking when insisting Bookwyrm is Evil (remember, LHF!) is a mildly more gutsy move than defending V!Bookwyrm, since Evil!Stick knows Bookwyrm is Village anyway. That being said, at some point you just have to decide which way you think the IKYK goes and check. Part of me is theorising an <Archer-TUN-Xino-???-???> team, maybe with Cash on it? IDK, Elk? I think V!Elk but in an E!Archer world, I'd wonder about E!Elk. E!Xino more likely since in E!Archer world, E!Stick is the CW to E!Xino. Part of me is theorising a <Stick-TUN-???-???-???> team. I think TUN is a good fit on either team which should probably tell me I am actually better off voting him today. I don't know I fully believe E!Elk because Stick did push Elk and then defect partway through, and now went for Xino. So I guess Elk might be Evil in that world anyway. I won't completely dismiss the possibility of E!Araris from either team but would suppose he fits better. <Archer-TUN-Xino-Araris-Cash>? Wow look it's D3 and I;m already boldly guessing potential teams like we know enough to do so, congratulations Kas, good work, get judged wrecked by the dead doc. Edited to add 2: @Ookla the Debonair - Right, my bad. In short, I would say there is some form of tactical reason, namely that if you expect Bookwyrm to be a ML after that, you won't be seriously implicated by vote analysis. Whether that's what's going on here, I am not so sure. I am not absurdly sold on E!Stick. I just feel that at this point, due to there only being so much information, thanks to the dismal state of the thread, I am more or less making far too much extrapolations on far too little information.

This is depressing because I was V!reading you on the strength of "E!Archer wouldn't be insane enough to suggest Mat was the Chana kill." Now you're forcing me to go back to the drawing board ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'd agree with that, but I think at some point, we are just going to have to be upfront about action results. We're not nearly there yet, but we have to keep this in mind because too many Villages hesitate when it should just be shared to clear the slate. And yeah, I do have LG90 and the close of AG8 in mind here. I would agree on life, disagree on offsite games. Confounding factor for players like Turtle and Illwei, sure, but anyone who has GMed Tani a couple of times will notice her asymmetric reaction to randing Village as compared to Elim and the engagement differential. Ultimately I'm still going to use it in the absence of anything else, but I want to know what her mindset was on the coinflip point anyway. Agreed with this. But with Xino on two votes, and tie-hungry Alv lurking like a shark, any non-Xino wagon padded would've given him a better life expectancy. But this is something to hear from Xino about.

Is this a good time to mention Alv was my teammate in the very first SE game I played, and the very first SE game I played was also the very first Evil game I played? >>

Your first post this cycle suggested Szeth was Elim killed. Any reason why? You were making a partial case for E!Szeth last Night, which is why I'd agree with Chana shooting Szeth rather than Mat. Fair enough. I would agree with this assessment - it's sort of my issue with the Elk push D2. I don't disagree, it just seems very blatant and unnecessary for E!Xino D1, though he's historically had a habit of unnecessary votes and getting sussed for them, cf. his D1 in LG89. That's what's pulling me short: I just don't really see that sort of blatantly wrong votecount and fourth vote making sense, since he created a Bookwyrm-Mat tie. It maybe marginally makes sense in an E!TUN world and even that is generous because it's so many hours into the cycle. He could've just sidetrain voted and gotten an easy passage into D1. Xino wasn't on a main wagon D2, FWIW, since he was on Elk rather than Bookwyrm. Any wagon he voted on would've been a main Village wagon, short of himself and Araris. I at least am willing to believe V!Araris right now, so that's my conclusion. We know Szeth flipped Village, so there's just not many viable trains at this point. But it's self-pres one way or another so it doesn't count. That being said, I am really riled by Xino's lurking so I feel it washes out for me. Fair. Don't disagree - with nothing forthcoming, I don't have a strong conclusion. I'd actually almost lean a very, very light shade of Village on her because of her player profile - she's still of the demographic that mistakenly finds Elim the 'cooler' alignment, so I can't really see her being this uninterested in the game if she's Evil. That being said, it's been quite a while since she's played and I wouldn't bet the farm on this line of reasoning (or on teammates just telling her not to respond) so I'm back to fifty shades of IDK. Edited to add: @Ookla the Forgotten - To be blunt, you signed up for a game. If you are Village, help us not ML you. What are your thoughts behind any of your votes, anything in the game, and where do you think we should go from you? Do you have any information at all that can help the Village?

Who? Care to spell this out a bit more? Tbf, my issues with Stick just come out of voting, a bit back to my <Araris, Stick> pool issue, and finally because I'm not fully comfortable with the Elk push, so that is where I'm at. I'll spell it out in a bit more when I'm not handling other things, but I'd also like to better understand what you mean by this.

Care to spell this out a bit more? Same with this. They might, but it would be a bit odd for the Elims to have both vote manip Blades, is my view. But I'll happily agree it's an assumption. In terms of distro, we know one protect Blade started with one Villager. No idea about the other one, or if Jez started in Villager hands. I do think that Chana is Village, sort of. E!Chana starting PMs instead of killing N1 is odd to me. It could be some high level play, which might explain why I'm still alive, I guess. That being said, one of Chana/the Elims killed Mat, the other killed Szeth. I'd agree with you that Szeth feels like a low-info Elim kill, but something is bugging me, and that's that collectively, Chana and the Elims revealed a significant swathe of the D1 wagons, and I can't help but wonder if that's really intended. It nudges me just a bit into leaning V!Chana. I guess I could see the Elims starting with E!Vedel in that landscape, possibly one of the roleblock Blades. The issue about people watching for save attempts and forcing a tie is that given the previous Day, I feel it isn't the end for them - they can easily cast suspicion on those people, iof the flip goes their way. The events of D1 in my view generated tie-hostility. But I'm also of the view that the low tempo persisted through the entire cycle, and that doesn't really speak of a cycle where an Elim was persistently under threat to me. Some of it could naturally be swallowed by the Bookwyrm train, but Elk's docility when he could easily vote Bookwyrm claiming to block a second tie after the D1 backlash doesn't seem quite right to me either. I'm aware you're also on V!Elk right now, I'm just trying to think this through/aloud, as is my wont. I will say I don't feel the Elk train is as 'wrong' as the Bookwyrm train, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with it. My issues with Xino are a combination of disliking his votes, and feeling that disengagement tends to be more indicative of E!Xino than V!Xino, historically, although he's had overriding reasons for these. I don't feel I can make a coherent judgement of whether E!Xino would or would not vote Bookwyrm to tie with Mat, it just feels really odd, and my sense is that an Elim should be less likely to make that mistake, not more likely. I'd like to bounce thoughts off on this score - I feel like I could be making a mistake somewhere, but am not sure where. I'm going to be fair and state that I don't have a strong read on JNV. I'm just not ready to reconsider them at this juncture because I've tunnelled on them in two previous games and gotten them killed so I do not feel right pushing against JNV right now. If there's a case, I'm willing to reconsider but I am not really okay with this. Turtle's activity and attempts at analysis make me think V!Turtle, but I still dislike their votes, so they haven't moved out of the grey zone for me. I don't trust myself at making a successful player profile of Turtle, so I don't want to rely overly on playstyle. I am glad to see more activity from Silho, but the fact Silho's readslist basically is Village on every proactive player makes me feel a bit :| No active read on Silho at the moment, but I have a significant amount of doubt. So far, I've been working off the assumption the Elims killed Szeth as a low profile kill, but the part about it that doesn't make sense to me is that killing Szeth sort of doesn't work. The Szeth train has been lurking repeatedly and Archer himself was making an E!Szeth case. As far as I can recall, I was the only player defending V!Szeth or willing to, and I can't block a train on my own. With Szeth as a potential mislynch target, I feel that Mat makes a bit more sense as an Elim kill - with Archer and Stick and I V!reading him, he's basically not going to get MLed anytime soon. Suppose I'm right here: suppose that Szeth was Chana-killed and Mat E-killed. I still lean towards V!Chana: I don't know, the idea the Elims are cool with flipping Szeth seems odd to me since that still gives us sight into a decent chunk of D1. But in this world, I almost lean towards E!TUN: suspicion kills are very much part of TUN's MO and one of the players that Mat was suspicious of D2 was TUN. Add that to the N1 Illwei kill and I don't think that's a bad place to look. Ngl guys, feeling like the Village Thilo Kehrer right now, so discussion is appreciated so I can actually correct my thoughts/get back on track

I wasn't hoping for much but dear Force Germany why Can we please start with a target man this time? I know 9s aren't fashionable anymore, but good Lord. I approve of this message Roger. More faded flimsis plastered to the bulletin board of the Drunk Side:

K, feeling slightly unwell and there's Germany v Spain soon, so breaking your usual GM announcement format to remind you: The cycle will end in slightly under 24 hours!

Considering I laid out a whole post defending Szeth as Village, I'm not sure V!Szeth is 'interesting' - to put it mildly, I'd've said it was fairly apparent this was the more eminently sensible read based off Szeth's player profile. Edited to add: Just to throw some of my thoughts out: This is the raw EoD from D1 with the flips coloured in. Prima facie, if I colour in any player I have even the slightest reason to V!read, I have a problem: No voting was the lowest D1. It's higher D2, but we'll cross that bridge in a short while. The first problem: I don't believe there is a coherent Elim team in <Insanity, Chantara, Tani, TUN, Turtle, Silho>. Which entails that at least one (realistically, probably a whole bunch) of my Village reads was badly assigned and must be revised. I also don't believe so many trains were pure. Functionally, I expect at least two Elims on both the Wiz and Bookwyrm trains in total. The other problem occurs in D2: This isn't raw EoD. It's before Mat switches, but is close enough to EoD. Again, if I colour in any player I have even the slightest reason to V!read, I have another problem: This isn't a vote distribution that makes too much sense. Which implies that there's likely a bunch of revisions I need to do. Since I'd like a brief nap before Germany v. Spain, these are the rough buckets of players I'm not down to revise for the moment: NO: <Archer, Araris, Alv, JNV, Cash> Functionally, I need to reconsider: <Elk, Stick, Xino> It helps that I'm not really convinced that the D1 Wiz train was pure or that Tani was the only Elim on it: I'm not prepared to rethink my V!Alv gut at this point in time. I'm sure people have died for underestimating E!Alv, just as they have for underestimating E!Araris, but whatever, if I can't trust my gut on the first teammate I played SE with, then what the hell is it good for. I don't rule out that Tani is Evil. RNG hopping onto the Wiz train is a bit ? But not especially catchable at this juncture. Between <Elk, Stick, Xino>: (E1) D2 EoD felt too low temperature. Szeth and I were complaining about the quiet. But in truth, it was already quiet (and this is why I took the timeslice I did) before Mat's swap from Araris to Bookwyrm. I don't feel the Elims (or Elk, for that matter, who was lurking at EoD) feel so calm if Elk were Evil, given Alv's propensity for ties, and fears of vote manip. As a result, I think that's some reason to look at V!Elk. (E2) Fifth vote on Bookwyrm is kayana, I'm sorry. And that's where Elk functionally was for part of D1. I think it shows a level of comfort or dgaf with the thread and with how he is perceived that makes me think Elk is more likely to be Village. The fact that Elk was embroiled in the tie issue at EoD shows that you can't take the reluctance to vote Bookwyrm as being E!indicative, because E!Elk would have no trouble just voting Bookwyrm: it's an open and shut case. But D1 EoD shows Elk didn't have trouble actually endangering Bookwyrm and was in fact indifferent to it. So I see this as making more sense with V!Elk than E!Elk - with Elk's reluctance being explained straightforwardly by the considerations he mentioned with regard to not wanting to immediately leap on Bookwyrm. Ok, sorry. I'm going to have to get to the rest later. I am feeling dizzy and I really need that nap before Germany-Spain. Time to get my heart broken again :sob:

I think Turtle is referring to the thread PM Xino TUN On further reflection, I am not as confident in Xino as I'd want to be. I'd like to be talked out of it or into it, because I've been sending maybe five to ten permutations in my GM PM and feel things are getting increasingly kasyana. I functionally cannot see Xino's vote on Bookwyrm D1 making sense with E!Xino. It's the exact opposite of where an Elim wants to be: it's noisy and attention-grabbing, it's an excessive fourth vote, and it gets the number of votes on TUN wrong. It does appear Xino selected Bookwyrm over TUN, which should be very telling in an E!TUN world. But that being said, Xino's vote coming the way it did with over thirty-six hours in the cycle doesn't feel right for E!Xino. I feel like E!Xino should've been more on top of the votes. I'll note that with Mat and Szeth flipping Village, most of the lead trains for most of D1 were always Village and have flipped Village. Mat, Szeth, myself, Bookwyrm, Wiz. This makes me believe E!Xino just had very little incentive to make the vote he did. Oh? I'm willing to vote Stick as well.

Canonically, durasheets and flimsiplasts are more reusable, because the writing fades over time and they can be reused, while you basically have to use pencil for paper. But I'll point out sustainability wasn't part of the worldbuilding at that point, since a lot of EU materials were written in the 90s at the very least, if not 2000s. Long story short, a lot of early Star Wars works just underestimate the impact of the Internet and how media affects our lives. You can see this in the way the HoloNet is mentioned very glancingly in a number of early works, and writers sort of just figured it'd be like a newspaper, or Web 1.0. So the worldbuilding issue is more simply that it doesn't really appreciate what it'd mean to have PDAs everywhere, just as it failed to anticipate what the HoloNet would really do to public trust, institutions, and a socially constructed sense of truth. Informational overload, and all of that. In that sense, I think Shadowrun does a better job, even if it is really dystopian. You don't take notes by hand anymore, you take it on your datapad, just as you'd use your smartphone and laptop to take notes. The idea that analogue persists makes some sense, just as fountain pen enthusiasts stick around. But then you'd just expect flimsis and paper to be things a few people use in very narrow use-cases. But anyway I am not setting a very good example for a GM, take it to the GM PM if you're interested, I'm not derailing the thread further

It does actually. Paper, flimsi(plast), durasheets. Paper's rare and some of the early sourcebooks say there isn't paper but let's be real, most of the EU novelists soon realised they needed a paper analogue, hence flimsis and durasheets. But that's really worldbuilding problems IMO. Edited: Paper shows up in say, Republic Commando: Hard Contact, Dawn of the Jedi, Champions of the Force, and the Revenge of the Sith novelisation, flimsis appear in I wanna say RotS novelisation as well and also Jedi Trial from TCWMMP, and durasheets are basically exclusively Jedi Apprentice / Jedi Quest materials. ...It's fine, @Wyrmhero, you don't have to say it, I know I'm a nerd >>

Faded writing on a flimsiplast sheet glued to the bulletin board of the Drunk Side: Sajhe studied the board and shook his head. Sometimes, some of his regulars scrawled messages that didn't make a lick of sense, and he'd figured he'd seen things that were pretty weird in his time. Edited to add: I'm on Day Two of handling Ookla Season as a GM and as a player and I'm already getting drunk. I'm accepting submissions to the bulletin board from players via your GM PM. These will be featured during the interim game announcements. I reserve the right to reject anything that I feel conveys too much in-game information.