Alright, now for some really long and mostly meaningless analyzing of Steel!
Day 1
RP, followed by him stating for the first time that he’ll be hunting for SK’s because he knows their playstyle. Also poke votes on HH.
A long post. Suggests again that Steel will be focusing on finding the SK’s, and proposes a method. Says that SK’s will be killing those they suspect and we should find the SK’s by looking at who they kill and who suspected them. However, Steel heavily implies that said suspicion should be found through PM’s. The rest of this post I find NAI, but the part that I paraphrased here is one that I’ll look into more below.
Asks Fifth about how Vin’s powers work. Pretty NAI.
Suggests that Vin will be easier to find than Zane because of her inconsistent abilities.
Disagrees with Araris’s statement that the Mistborn aren’t really SK’s. Says that Mistborn can definitely be called SK’s.
Removes his vote on HH after being reminded that they posted.
Votes on Araris because of him seeming to downplay the importance of SK’s. Although Araris later flipped village, I think that he was a reasonably justified D1 target and Steel’s vote fits with his plan of hunting the SK’s.
Joke about a chicken spike. ELIM CONFIRMED. (Kidding.)
Moving on to N1.
Asks Maill about the rationale behind his vote. Then acts apologetic about his vote on Araris, which I find quite interesting, because it’s like he’s refusing to take responsibility for voting now that Araris flipped village. Although I could potentially see a villager doing this, that kind of move kinda raises alarms for me. Afterward, he asks for more clarification about whether SK kills and elim kills will be differentiated, for his plan of identifying suspects. (Then speculates about Joe, which is less relevant.)
Pokes Fifth again about elim kills vs. SK kills.
Responds to Fura pointing out Fifth’s previous answer of PAFO
Says that he plans to make PM’s. States, concretely for the first time (when it was implied in his second post D1), that he will try to hunt for SK suspects based on people’s suspicions shared in PM’s. Also provides some advice on hunting SK’s. This is one of those posts where it really feels like Steel is trying to order the village around. Most of the advice seems pretty straightforward. The third point is a bit suspiciously phrased: I think that simply stating that elims and villagers alike are going after SK’s would have come off as more village-sounding than the fact that we should trust the elims. His final part, especially about getting in “the right headspace”, especially sounds like… condescending? I don’t know.
Day 2
Expresses frustration at the kills not being differentiated. I agree that this differentiation would probably have been helpful.
Then tentatively agrees (?) that Bard was implied to have been killed by SK’s.
Reacts to revelation of Joe as Kelsier and the mist whispers.
Says he’ll do an analysis of the people who interacted with Bard. More talking about Joe and the mist whispers, but saying that he wants to focus on Zane instead.
Comments on the fact that yellow text is hard to read.
Analysis of D1! Notes some people who voted on Bard. SAYS THAT A ZANE SUSPECT WOULD HAVE MORE LIKELY NOT SUSPECTED BARD IN THREAD. THEN VOTES ON THE FIRST PERSON TO VOTE FOR BARD (Rae). I will concede that it was intended as more of a temporary vote and you requested information from PM’s about who suspected Bard. However, this asking from PM’s seems kinda sketchy to me.
Notes that Rae’s defense was “not very helpful”, as though he might have been looking for more reasons to suspect her? Also pokes Fura to reveal players who suspected Bard in PM’s. I honestly don’t think that those players would really be suspicious, since Bard was a popular target but he didn’t really have much justification to be voted on. As Fura said, Bard was a popular suspect and many people who express suspicion in PM’s kind of reflect on what they would have posted in thread anyway.
Reacts to Coop checking in.
Notes that the gap in logic that he made (from Zane likely not openly suspecting Bard to voting on Rae) was intended to pry information out of Rae. However, he still doesn’t take his vote off Rae, which is what I would expect at this point. He literally makes a case against voting Rae, then votes on her.
Warns that he won’t be on at rollover. Still keeps his vote on Rae.
Meanwhile, the Rae lynch solidifies
Night 2
This is where it really gets interesting. Steel opposes the lynch on the very person he voted for. I guess I see where he’s coming from, since his vote was less of a serious vote, but he never opposed a lynch on Rae, and he never moved his vote off Rae, which would be the thing to do if an information-gaining Lynch doesn’t give you information reveals. Also: The people who voted on Rae mostly didn’t even think it was a smart lynch; they seemed to be more paranoid of an elim hammer on Elend.
“Irrelevant post”
Comment about how bad wifi sucks (which it does)
More annoyance about Rae having been lynched. Now, if you think that the people who lynched Rae had bad reasons for it, and they voted on her for similar reasons to yours, then how is you voting on Rae and not taking your vote off justified?
Mostly reacts to people reacting to his reaction to the Rae lynch. This actually makes me less suspicious of some earlier posts, because this explanation is pretty convincing. Something more interesting is his statement that he wants the village to look for elims, because he’s focusing on finding the SK’s. This kind of implies that he believes he should be the only one looking for SK’s. Why? We can’t necessarily trust you just because you’re doing this. The village is not just going to blindly let ONE PERSON look for SK’s without clearing them as village or anything.
Says that he doesn’t have particular reads on Xino and Rath.
Says that people who suspect Maill as a SK are likely to be SK’s? Also says that I’m his top suspect for Vin. I’m not Vin, but at this point I don’t really have much to prove that I’m not.
Joke about him wishing he was Zane.
Aaaaaand we’re back to today. I'll refrain from looking at the whole Smoking situation for now, as it would be too much for one post. Now for some thoughts involving PM’s.
Steel PMed me, and I'm assuming many others, requesting lists of suspicions for elims and SK's. Although I understand where that strategy may be coming from (looking for suspicions of people, followed by seeing who's killed by SK's later on), Steel has stated (or at least heavily implied) that that would be his strategy. That, precisely, is what is making that strategy not work, as it creates an IKYK situation where SK's would refrain from telling the truth about who they are suspicious about. Taking that into account, Steel's PM hunt now looks less like a benevolent attempt to track down SK's and more like demanding information, which I don't like.
Conclusions?
Mostly, what raises red flags about Steel is his tone (of trying to order around the village), his vote on Rae and his failure to retract it, his proposal of him being the only one to try to hunt down SK's, and him demanding information out of PM's. @Steeldancer, would you like to defend yourself about any of this? For now I'll vote on you. Steel. There's a few other players that I'd like to look into this round, namely Elandera and Mailliw, but I'll handle that in a later post I guess.
