Azure Mouse

[OOC: ggwp; good graph well plotted]

Tenth of the Dusk looked over the list he'd scratched in the sand. There wasn't much to do as the highstorm continued to rage, and he'd swapped from sleeping to scratching out lists in the sand, trying to work out what he thought of the rest of the worldhoppers. Another, shorter list catalogued everything he knew of Kaddar. He was on Kaddar's homeworld, after all. This was where it had all begun, years ago, when the Blackthorn first began conquest. NOTHING IS CERTAIN, he wrote, reversing his grip on the hilt of the knife as he hit the lower point of the C. But he felt moderately confident in these assessments. The next table he sketched out in the sand as Kaikoa flapped her wings and squawked at the Kaddar scrawlings was UNSURE. NEED THOUGHT. Here, he wrote about those he was less certain of. KNOWN NEUTRALS, wrote Tenth, after this one. He added the names of Soren, Al, and Locke Tekiel to the list. Little more needed to be said at this juncture. And last came the Lord of Hate himself, Konion. Tenth looked at what he had written so far, and nodded to himself. That done, he set to the task of figuring out what he could do about Kaddar once the rains ended.

[OOC: Returning just to note I'm with both Swan and Scorpion on this. There's no reason to antagonise the neutrals while we don't have to and according to my calculations, unless he's been dawdling, Autonomy is probably more on-track for his wincon than we are for ours right now. Being prepared for funny business is okay and in fact essential - we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking they're on our side or care about us but there's no reason to immediately assume the worst. The neutrals will almost certainly have to deal with the Elims because a significant precondition of most of their wincons is surviving to actually fulfil them - or literally surviving, if you're Survival. They'll also have to deal with us because stuff like Ruin exploding First of the Sun or other invested worlds sets Autonomy back. Plus, the Elims aren't the only faction with kills. I take this to mean that they are more likely to go for a balancing act than overt play against us. I'm moderately confident we can deconflict in cases where a clash arises, but we're not close to that kind of scenario right now. In the absence of clear indicators of anything other than indifference from the neutrals, I'd rather focus on finding the Elims.]

[OOC: If we're talking about what we hate, do I get to mention that I hate having to give reads of players or analyse their posts? Does that deserve or merit any consideration? No? I thought not, but I figured I might as well represent the people who do. Well, then there you have it. You may rest assured that I will go on to be dragged back into a part of the game I honestly absolutely detest and will have nothing to add for As Magenta Albatross says - I'm not good at reading people, and I don't play the game for it. I do link analysis, voting analysis. I play to my strengths. Anyway. Dead horse. @Saffron Iguana- I hinted at it but I'll say it more openly. Dragonfly scanned them D3 and found they had High Investiture. I specifically asked if Dragonfly was willing to do it ASAP as my sense was that once the Shard/Non-Shard reasoning was hinted at, it was possible someone might try passing a Shard to Rhino D3/N3 so Rhino could go, "Who, me? No, I'm clearly a Shard." I think Dragonfly could be lying but to me the payoff is unclear. Scorpion scanned her as having used that specific scan on D3 as well, so minimally we'd need to postulate that both Dragonfly and Scorpion were lying together. And what's the payoff? Considering I was hellbent on chasing down the non-Shards on Shadesmar, if they were passing the Shard, Dragonfly would be better off not wasting an action; and if they and Scorpion were working together, then better to simply lie outright and say Rhino scanned with Deific Investiture, as that would've thrown Rhino out from suspicion. (Dragonfly might've been redirected - @Ivory Dragonfly ?) My theory is one of two scenarios: they passed Mercy to Rhino once it was clear Rhino was drawing flak (D3), figuring to get rid of the Shard since it was clear the consensus was that Mercy was Elim so having Rhino carry the suspicious Shard wasn't weird and might very well spare Mercy more scrutiny. This makes sense to me insofar as I don't see why Rhino would use Mercy's investiture action, which is what Axl scanned her as doing N3. The very person who obviously needed protection from the execution was Rhino, and Mercy can't invest in herself! Ostrich has clearly been a Shard since I scanned him as using a Shardic N3 - (doubt he still is; probably intends to soak a kill, maybe burn a protect item, and then have new!Odium do the killing since we won't know who they are.) The other scenario involves some form of pass-the-Shard, but passing comes very late on actions and passing takes an action. For Rhino to have not had Mercy D3 on a scan, Rhino would have to had passed Mercy N2. Except Rhino was on Shadesmar with all of us when Dingo did their Ruin thing - that's precisely what kicked off this entire 'Shadesmar Eight+' business, and if Rhino didn't make the Night Kill, then who did? *awkward silence as Axl and Mouse stare suspiciously at each other* So no. I think there are a bit too many problems with the 'Rhino-starts-as-Mercy-but-plays-pass-the-Shard' theory. Wilson clarified all roles will be reflected so it's possible Rhino simply started with two items instead as the rules say 'minor roles or items' for non-Shards. Anyway, I think there are some other mysteries worth checking out too, for players who don't get off on post analysis. Why Ostrich didn't put in a Shard kill N2 - Flamingo and Octopus were in the Rosharan system so there was no reason to not get off a shot just in case. Logically, Ostrich can't have been roleblocked, due to the actions economy for Autonomy. For scanners who'd like some suggestions: if Ostrich passed the Shard, and even if Ostrich doesn't, if/when Ostrich dies, you might want to keep your eyes out for non-Shards suddenly using Shardic actions, or alternatively, it's announced that a Shard has been removed from the game, keep an eye out for a Shard whose nature has changed. Don't know about whether their team could have a third Shard, but if it does, then there we go. Anyway. As promised, the sanitised/desensitised infodrop: Shardic Identities, in Alphabetical Order I know the numbers don't match. I've jumbled it up a bit and done it alphabetically: this information is largely correct if in alphabetical order with one or two small inaccuracies introduced for reasons of opsec. Known Movements Anyone interested to help fill this in is welcome. Known Scans You're welcome. I'm going to peace out as I think this game has gotten to a bad place and if I wanted high blood pressure, I'd stay with my day job. Given that I've done a decent chunk of talking last cycle, I'm going to sit back and drink tea and watch. Actions will be sent in and have already been done so. @Charcoal Hyena Thank you in particular for identifying what you wanted in a clear way that made it easy to deliver after consultation with the GM. My pleasure

[OOC: First, I don't think we're really engaging with each other then, because I see this as an ongoing problem, rather than in isolation, built on a meta that involves players having a binary model of trust. Mode 1: Trust, you get everything. Mode 2: Lack of trust, you get nothing. I don't see this as being exclusive to PMs, which is how this is being presented all the time, both by players more versed with the current meta, and within this particular game. I see this as a game problem that is fundamentally about players' attitudes towards the game, and their sense of risk. I also see this as being a separate but related branch to the Mayoring problem which was very prevalent in some of the games we played together (e.g. LG12), where despite limited or no PMs, a central scanner coalesced power and then directed the Village. I sat on my hands for a decent chunk of it, or felt like I was doing it. The community has rejected Mayoring for a while, but the notion of exclusive trust groups is very closely connected and a few steps away from "Do this to prove yourself or else." Forcing players. 1) I think I would agree with this. But I also state that factually-speaking, the Gecko lynch was based purely off analysis of the votes, and then summarily, Gecko's behaviour. This did not rely on hidden information. The Gecko lynch thus cannot be used as evidence that the game runs on a hidden information lynch. And indeed, I believe you agree as you assert you began to feel disengaged around Cycle 3. I would agree the Rhino lynch involved information not all players had access too, and I would be interested in how you think that should be played, but I disagree strongly about the Ostrich aspect - I was the scanner. With or without a group, I would have done the usual tactic of throwing out a test vote, sitting on the results until mid-cycle, and then revealing, for the usual 'lynch me if I'm mistaken or wrong' deal. 2) Then I think we're talking past each other again. I'm directly countering an absolutist stance of the game state (which I accept now is not the argument you're making) with the observation that not all players do prefer this kind of interaction, and it takes two hands to clap. If I'm being stonewalled talking to a player, I have no incentive to keep on wanting to engage with them unless out of some dogged sense of principle that I need to do my best to bring players in. This is why I think this is an issue that needs to be addressed. I think in your case, the question I would ask, at least from my end was, "What could I offer you when you're already on the road to getting your wincon done?" I felt a bit stonewalled because I just did not know what else I could give you, or what else you'd be interested in. Hence the information on Valor's investment which seemed relevant, but otherwise, silence. I don't know if that's every player's experience but my experience has been that if I really don't know what a player wants from me and the conversation ends a couple times, I am not going to play conversation necromancy. I think it would really help if you could give me a clear sense of how to make this better for you especially. Again, just speaking from my perspective - maybe the other players had other reasons to stop talking, I don't know. Of course I could've just talked shop, random stuff, but I'll be honest and say Penguin was the only player I felt comfortable enough to do that in this game with because he was chill. 3) I accept trust circles are an issue as well. I disagree with your diagnosis that it's about fear of trust circles - I am arguing once again that attributing it to PMs alone is short-sighted. There is a significant problem with the meta. Look at the thread now. How many people do you think are talking in PMs? Or in docs? Because I can guarantee you right now a decent chunk of the PMs are dead but people don't appear to be going to the threads, and immediately, Roshar discussed getting people to come down to Roshar for more private discussion. Do you think they'd come back here if the PMs shut off? Or to the docs? Saying: "Doing something is better than being paralysed by fear" is the easy answer. The real difficult question the community has to ask itself is where to find that middle ground between trust/distrust and icing people out. Basically I'm saying: I think attitudes make people adapt in the wrong way to restrictions. You need people to work with you. And that means you have to solve the attitude too. All I've heard is that PMs are the problem from a significant chunk of people. Well, no. If you're not going to significantly change your behaviour without PMs, then we're back up Crap Creek with you being iced out of the game and that isn't okay either. 4) I get that you're not; I can't say I'm familiar with the current meta either, except from what the others have been repeatedly saying about the tendency to talk in docs. But my sense is that this is also fundamentally a meta problem. And that means we have to explicitly talk about our attitudes to solve this, not shut the PMs and the thread, or turn the docs into the new PMs. So what I'm saying is: it sucks that you're feeling frustrated and shut off from this game, and I'm sorry because this is awful. Because the game should be fun. And I think I've shared a bit of my own frustrations of trying to figure out communication with other players. What I want to know isn't about the technicalities of the solution - PM, thread, doc. Whatever. What I want to know is what you would see as a game that would be fun for you, and how you would be involved in it. That gives me a better idea of what to do and where to go from there. Anyway, anyone else wants to chime in, go on ahead.]

Tenth of the Dusk said, "I don't speak for the others. But my quarrel is not with you. Do what you need to. Vote on me if that pleases you. Or not."

[OOC: Remember the issue that started the Ostrich train? I scanned Ostrich last night and saw him use a Shardic action. So the save has to be Mercy's Shardic, as Mercy's Investment won't work on a Shard and Ostrich had to be a Shard last night. The one scenario I can think of involves Ostrich passing the Shard D3 and also investing. But he was definitely a Shard until oh, now ]

[OOC: I'm sorry for voting on a majority Elim train guys ]

[OOC: Yeah sorry I meant the 'faction' one as Odium's investee. Thanks for the proactive clarification! ]

[OOC: Scan could indicate issues with the scanner. But I doubt so. Rhino was on the cards for the execution D4 - I suspect the Investiture Action that was seen was Rhino using the Shardic kill (little reason for it to be Mercy's Shardic - who would Rhino even protect?), Odstrichium invested in another team member, and Mercy handed the Shard over figuring it was a liability anyway.]

[OOC: Sorry - I agree with the sentiment but not with the premises. Inclusion goes two ways: all players need to talk more in thread, simpliciter. And simply telling players to just do so also isn't going to work - categorically denying players the ability to handle sensitive information just means they won't talk about these things. In addition, it's hard to do that despite engaging other players in PMs if they don't want to be engaged. Zebra, for instance, has flatly stated to not be included in PMs. And I should not be needing to play 20q with people on what their hobbies or what their favourite superpowers are just to establish a rapport or to try to pull them in. Funny, 'cause you know what I remember too? I remember a time in SE when we had games where Village trusts ran everything even without PMs, and it kinda sucked for everyone else in thread because all you had to do was follow the people who were more or less considered/read strongly Village. And that ain't great and that's still alienating for players. It's almost as though there's a bigger problem here. If there's an issue with this, it's a meta issue. Lion has spoken of this. So has Axl. Meta issues don't get solved by fiat - they're meta issues because of player behaviour. But hey, we like straightforward infrastructural solutions, don't we? ]

[OOC: Birb Bro they claimed Alcoholics Autonomous, you showed up late to the party, want some soju?]

[OOC: Heyo my drinking buddy! I got some soju here in your Honour ]

[OOC: Just sayin', this is what happens when you take out the foremost centre for philosophical research in the Cosmere. Silverlight's University had an unimpeachable ethics curriculum And now.... ]

[OOC: Slight point of order - Mercy does have an indiscriminate hoover nightly Shard action. Could be used as an interrupt, though Mercy definitely does not want to intercept a kill. Good point about Cultivation's Shardic - I misread OoA and stand corrected. This looks more and more fishy then.]

[OOC: Not the mods, but here's my tracker: ]

[OOC: God, it's been over a week and I'm still learning how to play this game >> So noted with thanks, then I was not redirected.]

[OOC: Just a few points of order: -Rhino, the scanners could be lying, yes. But considering you were scanned across two separate Turns by two separate scanners (lets call them A and B, though I have already alluded to who they are in the table), and someone else (C) scanned one of the scanners scanning you (scanception?), I feel like it'd take a lot of Elim coordination or bad luck with redirects for all three to be mistaken. -Technically, Cultivation could've been hoping to put a Shattered Shard back together in the same Turn it has been Shattered. It would help if I'd been able to scan @Fuchsia Ostrich's target too, but unfortunately I can't yet do so. The problem with that is that firing blindly does put Cultivation at risk of being detected by, say, an action scanner.]

[OOC: Alright, we're a little under 12 hours to go to cycle close, so here goes. As I've hinted on a previous cycle, I scan actions. I scanned Ostrich last Turn (N3) for reasons and found Ostrich was using a Shardic action. I also know Ostrich claimed to Opal Lion to have done nothing the previous night. That's one thing. The other thing is that I have information on a number of Shards, but the three that remain unknown are: Cultivation, Mercy, and Odium. Honour at al are irrelevant to this as Shattered Shards have no Shardic actions. Moreover, as there are no Shattered Shards (or ones that can be mended, anyway), there is little reason for Cultivation to use a Shardic. I could have been redirected, that's true. If someone Village-side hit me with a redirect, would be good to let me know. And if there is a false claimant among the known Shards, it'd be good to know too. Otherwise, I'd say 2/3rd odds of a hostile Shard look like pretty good odds, don't they?]

Tenth of the Dusk was pretty sure he was going to regret this. But it was raining on Roshar, and it was cold, and lonely in the crevasse though a little less lonely now this day. And he wasn't going anywhere near the Alethi warcamps until the highstorm's fury was expended, the Father permitting. If the Father permitted. The Father is merciful, his trainer had said, the first time they set foot on Patji's sand. If you screw up, you will die swiftly. He wondered if Kaddar was going to kill him. But there was only the hunt, and then the next bounty. The life of an itinerant, with enough variance to add splashes of colour. Yesterday Shadesmar, today Roshar. "Got any of that alcohol to share, then?" Tenth asked, and hoped he wasn't going to regret this too much. Chase the damp away, at least. He may as well join Al in getting some rest before the cold grey light of mourning faded to the afternoon sun.

[OOC: Your agents are beautiful, as are you, but you should consider doing a degree in philosophy at the University in Silverlight and get a new aspect for it. Learn about life, the Cosmere, and everything. Oh wait. Someone destroyed it ]

[OOC: Analytically, that's straightforwardly false. And also, only if you take truth to be agent-perspective truth I can see why that's an appealing view for Alcoholics Autonomous but for instance, people who subscribe to the correspondence theory of truth as I do can apply it to agent-perspective correspondence but also agent-independent correspondence Sweet.]

[OOC: @Sapphire Elephant: Roleclaim unclear - please confirm if claiming Autonomy or Alcohol thx. So, @Plum Rhinoceros- as I said, that's the whole point of me preparing that handy evidence table. Because if I hadn't, then there'd be no breadcrumbs for the Village to follow on my inevitable flip. So, just to recap again: Odium Investee & Odium Candidates To recap: Odium investee candidates in purple, Odium candidates in orange highlights. Connections indicates who a player is connected to, who you need to check and ask, "Can these folks be Elims together" because they're either getting pocketed or misinformed or are fellow Elims. Certainty is my personal assessment of the strength of the evidence, which is captured as well under 'Basis.' So on a slight tangent but that's relevant to your question about how certain I am of the claims: Here's my problem. I don't actually know how to make sense of the lack of a N2 Odium Shardic kill because Odium being redirected or targeting a non-Shard or a Shard not in the Rosharan system would have been written up as an attack-protect. Odium was very likely role-blocked. And yet I'm fairly certain of the information from Shadesmar, to the point I was like "ohgod y'all gotta be crapping me" when I realised I'd been laser-focused on the Investee but not on Odium. I am most certain of Dingo, Hyena, and Gorilla. For them to be Odium or non-Shards, something will have gone very wrong. IMO Dingo has the strongest claim because the rules of the game pretty much entail that Dingo must be a Shard. There is very strong situational evidence for Gorilla and Hyena to be Shards as well. I know the exact Shards they claim to be, but I'm not outing them to the thread. That much should be their choice. I am fairly certain of Scorpion and Dragonfly and Iguana - less so than Dingo, Hyena, and Gorilla, admittedly - but if push came to shove, I'd look there for my Odium candidates, possibly you if you claim the Investiture Scanner was lying about you. I am not as disturbed by the number of Shards on Shadesmar. For one, Dingo and Dragonfly complained previously about the difficulty of finding a non-Shard. For another, by that point, we're easily looking at 16-15 Shards to 9 non-Shards: first, your chances of encountering a Shard are higher, and second, as non-Shards have charge-limited items or minor roles, it's more logical we'd consider picking up more items or abilities to improve what we can do. And especially when C1 Prudence had been very restrictive about PMs, it's hardly surprising that the roles that would value PMs more highly tend to be Shards (safeclaiming, or finding a trused investee, etcetera), and would want to go to Shadesmar. If it wasn't for my need to get in contact with Elephant or Axolotl after yelling at each other in thread previously, I'd have just hopped to Roshar or Nalthis outright. So I don't really see why the logic of self-selection would be considered so odd. Failure Points: Odium's Investee: Curious and Curiouser: Hatoful Mr Splinter-Me-Timbers: Where Are You? On the Ostrich issue: I'm divided, but I had wondered in retrospect (N2) if the Beagle issue was meant to push a train to try to save Gecko, as nothing else appeared to be gaining traction. The problem is this would make the Beagle train a heavily Elim-dominated train (I'm sure some would contend entirely Elim dominated, in which case if I ever die this game, enjoy the flip! ) and that seems a bit overt to me. But this is a team that got Gecko to try to save Crocodile, and having to work purely off actions here, I don't put utter trust in my profiling of the Elim team, either. It will be of necessity reactive and I'll have to adjust it over time. But this synchs up well to me with what Coral Swan is saying: that Team Odium probably tested various trains to try to see what would stick, and what might get enough buy-in to defeat the Gecko train, or at least cement a solid alternative. Especially with Gecko coming in onto that train as well. (@Plum Rhinoceros, I'm curious; since you were fourth, why even join a train Gecko was on? At the point I first piled the vote, Beagle hadn't responded, and by the time I got back (as I said in thread), it was really late, Gecko was solidly on the way to an execution, and I dislike last minute votes on principle unless necessary so I didn't see a reason to swap trains like that.) Anyway - for the moment, Rhino, Ostrich for reasons. I will finalise hours before rollover tomorrow, preferably, if you all don't do last minute info dump stuff. Finally: In short, if you prefer me executed today to clear up the air and to be very sure I'm not deceiving you, go ahead. I don't really care, though I dispassionately think it is useless and irrational, as I am reporting the information I have collected - and that I have often been told despite wanting to play this game at a chill, RPful, quiet level Moreover, my sources have not contested their presentation as being connected to the mentioned individuals, which in my view, demonstrates that I'm not incorrect in my characterisation. You're (general you) better off interrogating the people who are deeply intertwined with specific pieces of evidence in favour of Shardic/non-Shardic status, but hey, you all do you all. I've been told I'm very distracting >> ] Edited to add: I'd take anyone on Ashyn to be hardcleared (well, soft if you think the Elims have a kill item/role) as Odium and softcleared as killers since they were roleblocked.