StrikerEZ

Yes, that is correct. Yeah that's fine! No worries Right now we're only at 9 players, so no Human Refugee yet. If it's getting close to the start of the game and we're at 13, it'd be awesome to have you switch to playing since we already have three other pinch hitters. But for now I will list you as a pinch hitter.

I’ll still look for an item, but y’all can follow each other if you want.

Is this a signup?

Day Zero “Administrator. A human has escaped containment.” The tall dione turned, uncharacteristically quick. Their office appeared empty, but they could smell iron and rotting fruit. They opened their mouth, but paused, their long fingers twitching. “When and how?” Administrator Petra of The Diplomacy rarely wasted time with irrelevant questions. This was something Aire appreciated about them. “0315 hours.” The rotting fruit smell grew stronger to communicate Aire’s distress. “The human feigned illness.” The keepers had been concerned as the human had not eaten its evening meal, and at 0310 the human began making pained sounds and rolling around when it should have been sleeping. “Our overzealous Keeper Murray went into its enclosure with another vet to administer aid. The human then bit him, outmaneuvered the vet, and somehow evaded the enclosure lockdown.” The Administrator hissed sharply, baring teeth. “The Keeper is alive,” Aire clarified. “They are being checked for any infectious diseases the human might have been carrying.” “This is the last thing we need.” The Administrator gestured at the reports still littering their desk. Thefts. Graffiti. Stockpiles of munitions ‘disappearing’. The pattern arising from those reports was a familiar one to Aire. The Diplomacy was the newest Superiority outpost in this sector to several planets, poised to evaluate species intelligence and even offer secondary citizenship to new peoples. But initial promises of welcome and co-operation had turned into suspicion and frustration, and communications had quickly broken down. The worst of it was that Aire’s spies had reported rumblings of dissent from even citizens of the Superiority stationed here. The species here would not join the Superiority, and their poisonous ideas had infected their own. The Administrator knew this. They had been struggling to find a way to report this for months now. “The station is already on a knife’s edge,” the Administrator said. “We’ve established early curfews. Doubled the patrols. The citizens are afraid and restless. An escaped human would be…” “Panic. Chaos. The flame to the primed starship fuel.” Aire smelled of iron once more. “… That is… appropriate. Sometimes I forget where your covert operations took you, Aire.” “If I may, Administrator. This may be the excuse you need for full martial law.” The Administrator hissed again. “No, no. Aggression is the last resort of the Superiority. We are here to prove we can be better, that we are of primary intelligence! That is the entire reason we even permitted the construction of a human enclosure!” The Administrator paced the length of their office. “How many know?” “The keepers, the guards on shift, myself, and you. I have the situation locked down for now, but news will leak. That is already too many people.” “Double the patrols once more. I’m authorizing a higher setting to the weaponry. Tactical armor. Our goal is to recapture the human and ensure the citizenry stay safe.” “And if the people happen to witness a show of force, that’s an added benefit?” A sigh. “Something like that.” The Administrator stared out the window, folding their arms. “I don’t like this, Aire. I don’t think this is the Dissidents’ doing, but I worry this falls into their plans. Something about this…” “Smells off?” “I wouldn’t be so crude, but yes.” "As you will, Administrator. But I would advise you start making plans for when the news does leak. Some public statement. It’s only a matter of time.” “Don’t tell me how to do my job, Aire.” The Administrator waved their hand, dismissing her. They sat down at their desk, and began to rub their temples. ~~~ The figment drifted out the office, into the vents, through the heating system, into the open air. Through the busy streets, clocking every worried glance, every furtive movement. Varvax and Tenasi guards stomping through the roads. Children watching from behind their parents. A team of Kitsen trying to paint over anti-Superiority graffiti. Scanning, observing. The signs of dissidence were subtle. Worry and anxiety were everywhere. She tried to look for signs of paranoia, of whispers and gatherings. Some folk smelled her and looked even more paranoid. Most did not. Finally, she drifted into a nondescript citizen’s home, into the basement, past the barrels lining a wall, past that false wall, into a room where the Dissident leadership sat waiting, planning. The leader smelled her, looked up. “Ichor. What news?” They’d been patient so long. Waiting, watching for the right moment. The Human enclosure had been one of Aire’s plans, and the one that had finally borne fruit. The Superiority would be wholly concentrated on finding and recapturing the human. And when they ran roughshod over all those they considered ‘lesser intelligence’, the embers of resentment would flare into open rebellion. Aire gave off the smell of fresh earth after rain. “Opportunity, my friends. Chaos, and opportunity.” ~~~ Welcome to QF79: Death and Murder in the Stars! Always good to be back to GMing. I’ll be posting the rules in this post down below, but I recommend looking at them here instead. The formatting always gets funky coming over from Google Docs. The impartial moderator for this game will be @Araris Valerian, and my co-GM is the lovely @Doc12. Everyone thank Doc now (and preemptively) for the write-ups as he’s doing all of those. If you wish to play, just post in this thread and I will add you to the player list! If you would rather spectate, just let me know and I'll make sure to send you the spec doc when the game starts. If you want to sign up as a pinch hitter, you can also do that here in the thread. The game will start as soon as I can send out all the GM PMs and get the thread posted. Rollover will usually take about 30-45 minutes after each turn ends. As a heads up, the Human Refugee will only be in the game if the player count is 14 or higher. Rules: Rule Clarifications: Participants: Quick Links: Signups will end at 7 pm CDT on Friday, May 8th.

I am also extremely impressed with myself there. And to think I almost used it on you instead.

So, I definitely did use my fabrial on Fallen last night. Araris just initially told me the wrong info. Anyway, Fallen. She fired the gun last night.

Miss Fallen said last night they were gonna follow you. But then apparently searched for items instead, according to my fabrial. Not sure what happened there, but we at least know that Fallen didn’t shoot the gun.

So there’s little chance of Verdance having lied about not having the gun and then choosing to die with it right? Options here are either that someone shot them or that someone redirected a gunshot from someone else. Actually it’s probably simpler to just assume someone directly shot Verdance. I know Miss Fallen didn’t have the gun. She was searching for items. I am 60% sure Doc was being honest with me about not having the gun. Either that or he chose not to reveal to me that he has the gun because he knows I’ll try to get him exed for a chance at the gun. That leaves me with the choice of Mippo, Conure, or Qianwellian. I think I’m gonna vote for Mippo/___. I think Conure or Qian would’ve gotten more active last night if they’d had the gun. Or at least I hope they would have. So that leaves me with just Mippo.

Oh that was absolutely misunderstanding the rules. My bad. That means you're still on my radar. Which is still net zero information gain for me lmao

Okay, Mippo didn’t have the gun, so I don’t have it. That doesn’t mean Mippo can’t have it now. It one of their Akimiko voters had the gun, then it would’ve just been tossed around randomly again. And Mippo could’ve ended up with it anyway. So net zero information gain for me there.

Well, I bolded my text. Then I made it red. Easy peasy.

I'll do a retaliatory vote on Mippo/___

I see no reason why Akimiko couldn’t have the gun. Star died with it last night, so no one voted for her, which means any of us could have the gun right now. The only thing I can think of here is Akimiko misunderstanding the Hero rules and thinking they can’t have the gun if they’re the Hero. But have they even voted on anyone in the past? I can’t remember.

I mean, the guessing is the same as any other guess at the start of a game: completely random. Unless someone wants to come out and claim it. Or unless someone notices a drastic change in another player’s behavior. But considering no one is voting on anyone yet, I’m gonna throw a vote on Miss Fallen as I think they usually would have responded by now and haven’t yet for some reason.

I have also found an item, but I will be keeping the identity of said item secret. Also, what if we just didn’t vote on anyone this cycle? Let the Gods of Luck and Chance decide who’s going out next.

Huh. Looks like my suspicions from earlier in the game were prophetic. Thanks for the valiant sacrifice Star. Hopefully future gun holders don't feel the need to continue this trend we've got going on of sacrificing themselves over and over again. Also it would be really funny if Star just shot someone else anyway.

I shan’t apologize. Lying is fun.

Hey I’m so sorry y’all it’s been a busy day. I’ve fully caught up. And I must admit something: I roleblocked Star. I was so sure that Star was acting suspicious because they had the gun, so I thought them claiming to follow me was gonna be them shooting me instead. So I roleblocked them. And decided to lie about it essentially for the lulz. But hey, it got Fizz to confess to having the gun. So uhhhhh, go me? Anyway, Fizz. Thanks for your sacrifice. Also I’m just preemptively letting y’all know that I have zero intentions of following the plan of following someone else to prove my action during N3, and I’m saying this before I even potentially get the gun. I will be searching for an item instead. Thank you, goodnight, etc.

I found a non-boot item that I would really rather keep the identity of to myself.

Was anyone supposed to follow me last night? I thought I remembered someone saying they were, but I was kind of out of it yesterday.

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but if I was following everything correctly, we know Frozen Mint should be the Hero, right? Doc came up with the claiming Hero plan, so presumably he’s not the Hero. And both Fizz and Star have claimed to not be the Hero. I see no reason, if you were a Hero, to not claim so. So @Frozen Mint: are you the Hero?

I'm honestly beginning to suspect that maybe both Mist and Star are villagers here. To me, the likely sequence of events seems to be that Mist just wanted to throw out a made up following action (either to sow confusion, for chaos gremlin fun, or to obfuscate an action they actually took), and Star initially was like "oh cool, sweet." Then Star went to actually check their GM PM, and the rest of the confusion happens in thread as it occurred. Mist is probably doubling down to avoid admitting they lied. Regardless of what side Mist is on, that doesn't look good. A thought I had while writing this: Mist could have been motivated to lie about a following action N1 to claim an action other than using the smoking gun. If this is the case, would we get anything from exing Mist here? They can't still have the gun, right?

It was mostly just vibes based on what other people were saying about the whole predicament. I basically just picked you out of you and Mist because the most recent opinion had been leaning towards you being elim.

I'm starting to think there's a chance this might all be some weird confusion. Because I know I sure as hell am very confused. So I think I'm fine leaving my vote where it is for now and letting the tie decide for me.

I think I’m going to vote for Star here. I thought I remembered there being something weird as I was reading through all the exploration claims last night. I was just too tired to notice exactly what.