TRIAL 02

[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 (the dead are grayed out), plus the word “ABSTAIN”. However, ABSTAIN has now been grayed out as well. The trial begins now!]

[[Vote here.]]

Comments

[murimurimuri]

Y-you think one of the Communists is posing as the Defense Officer?

[harshwords]

Either that or he's the Loyalty Officer himself. Though his story is too convenient if you ask me.

[harshwords]

If you want to be aggressive, then go right ahead. I prefer the aggressive approach myself, but we won't get anywhere if we keep going around in circles.

[alchemicals]

Who knows? Maybe Yomiel's a communist. Maybe the person posing as the Loyalty Officer is a communist. Maybe whoever ends up going to Yomiel after this is a communist claiming to be the Defense Officer.

I've been saying this from the first day - if the computer wanted everyone to die this badly, he could have just left it up to some of us and we'd have gotten it done in less than half the time.

[alchemicals]

You think so?

[No, really, keep going.]

[alchemicals]

It's not just Yomiel we'd have to assume is safe - anyone can roleclaim here, can't they? I mean, you could say you're the Loyalty Officer right now.

[cantarellacookie]

[Anthy is looking at her PDC.]

He said that the Loyalty Officer scanned him, which is also why the Loyalty Officer trusted him. But it says in the rules that there's a Communist role that can trick the Loyalty Officer.

[murimurimuri]

I see...

I believe you.

[schrodingers_man]

I guess we'll know for sure how innocent I am if the Loyalty Officer ends up dead.

But you've got a few things wrong. I pushed hard for Moge-ko at first, sure, but that was because I thought she was a threat to the entire exercise. It turned out I was wrong, and after that, I didn't do much of what you could call "pushing". I just threw out a few theories. Moge-ko wasn't my only one, but she was the strongest. I turned out my best guess was still wrong. I got ahead of myself and we should've abstained last night instead. I'll admit that. That girl's blood is on my hands, more than anyone's here.

Greed didn't tell me for sure that Clay isn't a Communist, and he definitely didn't say it was because they were partners. I had no idea. What Greed told me was that Clay was probably safe because of how much he hated Communists. At the time, I brushed it off as a stupid reason, but I didn't really suspect Clay of being a Communist myself, so I didn't say anything. I didn't think anything of it. Not until this morning, and then it all clicked together. We were talking suspects, and there wasn't anybody else Greed said was probably innocent. It... had to be Clay.

Clay hates Communists. Ask him yourself, he's not shy about saying it. None of us were likely to suspect him. That's probably why they targeted him, and probably why they targeted Seryu Ubiquitous, too. Anybody they killed would lower our pool of suspects, so they aimed for people we weren't likely to suspect in the first place.

That's... what I'd like to say I was thinking, at least. I'm a civilian programmer, kid. The only dead people I'm supposed to know are my grandparents. Not murder victims. I lost my head for a while there. I didn't... exactly react well to the body yesterday, either.

[standbyrival]

Seriously? Claiming to be something you aren't is asking to die. Even if it were for the "greater good" and they were trying to cover for someone else.

If they're tossing around roles in private, that's another thing, but still stupidly risky.

[alchemicals]

...I am seriously surrounded by people who are obtuse as fuck.

You know exactly what I meant.

[schrodingers_man]

The Defense Officer might not be trustworthy, themselves. You could be the Defense Officer for all I know, and I don't know if I'd feel safe trusting my neck to you.

[ Greed might've mentioned a thing or two about knives ending up in backs. ]

[murimurimuri]

I don't know about the Loyalty Officer, but I don't think Yomiel is one of them. He was so upset about Greed...

[in_plain_sight]

And if Yomiel is a communist, after his role in yesterday's trial, he'd be the obvious choice for them.

[There are a lot of caveats to what the Loyalty Officer can do, huh...]

[schrodingers_man]

...Thanks.

[standbyrival]

[he looks thoughtful, and then points to names on his comp screen thingy]

Fine.

"Robin" and "Logan" are two I've been watching for a bit.

The first, despite being really freaked out when we first arrived, had no objections whatsoever to possibly killing an innocent Citizen, even though she was crazy and I'm pretty sure we're all glad she's gone. Someone that loud staying in the background doesn't sit right with me, and I'm well acquainted with loud morons.

"Logan" simply due to watching him right now. I agree we don't know if Yomiel is 100% safe, but pushing him that hard for answers that could compromise the safety of other citizens doesn't feel right. Admittedly, this is flimsy at best, but I'm trying to narrow down my areas of focus.

[alchemicals]

Thanks, jackass.

[At least he seems more amused than anything.]

While we're standing around giving each other shit, I'm probably going to be giving you a lot at this trial, too. Because really? I'm getting bored with this game and we're only two days in; the sooner we take out a bunch of communists the better. And giving you hell seems to get results.

I don't know, I'm bad at sentimental bullshit. But hell, if Greed trusted you, so do I for the time being. So try not to take out anyone else on our side.

[standbyrival]

Not really.

Unless you were seriously asking if I was. Then no, I'm not.

[alchemicals]

...Yeah.

[That...actually seems to get him to shut up to some extent.]

Yeah, I don't think he's fucking with us when it comes to being pissed off about Greed.

[schrodingers_man]

...If I killed a friend of mine, even by accident, I wouldn't run away from that. I won't deny the blood on my hands. But Greed's and Seryu's, they aren't there.

[fullonbraced]

But! What if someone takes out the Defense officer after everyone knows who the Loyalty officer is, man?

[alchemicals]

...I didn't think you were.

The point is that whether it's in private conversations or not, anyone can claim a role. Literally anyone. And I don't know whether you've noticed or not, we are all really fucking bad at this game.

[harshwords]

Having his "friend" get scanned and then being scanned himself and huddling up like a big family so easily is stupid. After all, there's a role that the Communists have that can mask their identity.

[alchemicals]

The chances of that are a lot lower if the Defense Officer knows what's good for them and keeps their mouth shut.

[standbyrival]

. ..

[he visualizes five or six of them yelling out "I'M THE LOYALTY OFFICER" "NO IT'S ME."]

[and rubs at his head]

Okay, valid point. I'm just going to hope the actual Citizens who want to get through this game don't pull off such a stupid move.