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

[ossifragant]

I've been wondering about that.

If true, the clues aren't even meant to throw us off. They're just there for decoration.

[in_plain_sight]

That would explain why she was strangling herself in addition to being shot.

[That's been bothering her for a while. She knows a morbid sense of humor when she sees one.]

[ossifragant]

If the computer can manufacture the crime scene, it's possible neither the arrow nor being strangled is what actually killed her.

[in_plain_sight]

If you're going to get away with murder, a flashy cause of death is a liability anyway. But if the computer did it, it could have just locked her in a room and filled it with nerve gas. Then dressing up the body to confuse us wouldn't be hard.

[ossifragant]

[He might not know what nerve gas is, but he has an idea given the topic of discussion.

Let's re-check the rules, shall we?]

There's nothing in the rules about needing to solve the murder. The point of this trial is to choose someone to eliminate. I think we can consider the way she died and the way we found her irrelevant to this discussion unless the computer gives us a new rule to work with.

[in_plain_sight]

So... all we have to go on is the Loyalty Officer, who's kept quiet so far... and deciding who sounds the most suspicious. That's barely better than choosing who to execute at random...

[At least the mutual killing plan back home would have given everyone a real murder mystery to solve. Nothing should be less fair than something her sister came up with.]

[ossifragant]

[He doesn't like these odds at all, but Kimbley also has a point: the Loyalty Officer revealing themselves would mean they'd probably be the next person to go if they out themselves now.]

We don't have anything concrete to go on.

[If there was anything at all, he wouldn't be feeling as annoyed as is he. As it is, Greed is frustrated. They're not even grasping at straws here.]

[staunton]

The Loyalty Officer could out themselves and rely on the hidden Defense Officer to keep them safe, but that's a pretty huge risk to take.