TRIAL 01

[thecomputer]

Attention, Citizens! You have ten minutes to proceed to the Loyalty Chamber. Anyone who is late to the Loyalty Chamber, or who brings any weapons into the Loyalty Chamber, will be immediately executed.

[Once you arrive, you will find a large chamber, with twenty podiums spaced around the room in a circle. On the ceiling, a massive screen showing the digital eye of The Computer, turning to look at whoever is talking.]

You have one hour to come to a consensus about who to eliminate. Ties will be broken randomly.

[The floor of the chamber begins to split apart, eventually only leaving the twenty podiums as safe places to stand, above a seemingly bottomless abyss. Each podium lights up with a touch screen showing twenty user IDs (Seryu-R-CIT-1 is grayed out), plus the word “ABSTAIN”. The trial begins now!]

[[Vote Here.]]

Comments

[staunton]

Can we all stop and think about what the Indoctrinator did last night? They chose to convert despite it being more strategically sound to do so later when they have a better idea of who they want on their side. Why did they do this?

[ There's a brief pause as he considers his words. ]

Perhaps Moge-ko is among the Communists and they know people are gonna want to eliminate her, so they chose to convert immediately to keep their group from getting smaller right off the bat.

[decrees]

That's an interesting thought. Are there any other reasons the Indoctrinator would act early? We should consider all the possibilities.

[ossifragant]

Perhaps the Indoctrinator knows the person they converted.

[decrees]

That would be a good reason. I wonder if there's any way to prove or disprove that.

[ossifragant]

I can't imagine anyone would be willing to confess that either way.

[decrees]

Well no, of course they wouldn't. Can we at least determine how many people here already know one another?

[ossifragant]

I wouldn't know; I haven't spoken to everyone here.

[murimurimuri]

Um... I don't know about Horace's theory either way, but I don't think it would be for that reason.

[ossifragant]

It's just an idea; it doesn't mean I'm correct.

What makes you think that couldn't be it?

[murimurimuri]

Not that it couldn't, exactly... but if you were a Communist and had somebody you knew and trusted on the other side, it would make more sense to leave them as a Citizen, at least until you find out if they have a role or not. That's what Horace and I decided.

[ossifragant]

Still, it seems a little early in the game to be making a move like this.

And yet here we are.

[plentyfriendly]

It's not impossible for that to be true. We do have a lot of people with their "home sector" listed as California or L.A., and two from someplace called Fuyuki City. That's probably in Japan somewhere. But it would have to be one of those people.

[ossifragant]

That does narrow down the list quite a bit if those are our only options.

It's also entirely possible it was someone the Indoctrinator met here.

[plentyfriendly]

And, if the Indoctrinator is one of the people with a unique listing there, it would have to be. That includes you, myself, Logan, and Curly.

[alchemicals]

Or maybe she isn't, and they're trying to make us gun for her anyway.

[Kimbley, who the hell asked you.]

She's a great distraction, you have to admit that. If we take her out and she's not one of theirs? We're three down.

[ossifragant]

You raise a good point. We'd be playing right into their hands.

[alchemicals]

The way I see it, the girl's gonna die either way. If there's a problem with her later, we can do it ourselves.

I think we should be questioning the ones telling us to push for her as much as the girl herself.

[ossifragant]

She has a big enough target on her back someone might be willing to kill a few clones just to be rid of her.

She's not our real problem right now, especially if we keep anything sharp away from the kid.

[standbyrival]

Is that what happened? Tch, they probably think we're going to go downhill fast. If she IS a communist and we don't get rid of her, it's bad news in the long run.

[plentyfriendly]

If you think about it, though, the Communists' goal at this trial is to get us to vote for someone that isn't one of them. Because she's so dangerous, she's an easy target for suspicion.

[staunton]

Yeah, I know that. I was trying to look at the board from the angle of "Why did the Indoctrinator act the way they did?" but we're working with imperfect information. This isn't like chess where you have all the relevant information to base your next move on.

[plentyfriendly]

It's exactly unlike chess in that way. And a little more like the Prisoner's Dilemma, but not exactly.

But the explanation could be as simple as that they didn't realize they could only use that ability once.

[staunton]

The rules say the Indoctrinator can convert one time during the game, and the wording isn't unclear in any way. Only a moron would fail to grasp that, if you ask me.

[plentyfriendly]

I do think we have at least one here, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are. We don't know whether the Indoctrinator's ability is used in the presence of the other Communists or not.

Another possible explanation is that they wanted to increase their numbers as quickly as possible, since they only need to be half the remaining participants to win.

[dictator_ko]

If Moge-ko was a Communist, she'd be much happier than she is now.