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

[harshwords]

So, let's start with the basics. The one who died was Greed-san, who was apparently the partner. From the events that occurred earlier today, it seems rather obvious that the true target of the Communists was actually Puppington-san. Things we found in common with the two cases were the word "Johnny" found at both of their corpses.

There was also a message that said "PHI COM" at the mess hall, in an attempt to indicate Phi-san as a Communist.

In regards two these two events, I have several questions to ask. One: any ideas as to why Puppington-san was targeted? And two: is the message at the mess hall a red herring? If it is a red herring, then a third question arises: who has a reason to target Phi-san?

[angry_jerk]

Well, Clay's pretty religious. Maybe its a satanist.

[alchemicals]

I think it's kind of funny that the message showed up in the exact way Yomiel suggested the last time we failed to kill any communists.

[staunton]

I think the Scanner chose Mr. Puppington during the first night. The result was positive, so they chose to target him the following night. The Loyalty Officer, the Defense Officer and the Troubleshooter are the biggest threats to the Communists, so obviously they want to get rid of the people with special roles as quickly as possible.

[schrodingers_man]

...Whoever wrote that message should speak up now. If they're a Citizen with a real reason to suspect Phi, I want to hear it. If they're not, then we can safely ignore it.

After all, it wasn't written by the Loyalty Officer.

[in_plain_sight]

Are we sure Puppington was Greed's partner? Yomiel seemed to think so, but he obviously wasn't thinking straight at the time. We should confirm that detail before we base all our reasoning on it.

[standbyrival]

If that message is a fake, it wouldn't matter if anyone had a specific reason to target Phi Com. It doesn't matter who the Communists scapegoat.

But if it is real, it's probably someone with a stupid sense of humor using shades' guy suggestion, and likely someone with a role. So they could be pointing a Communist out to us, but how the heck are we supposed to know? They need to leave a better sign.

[plentyfriendly]

That message is a red herring. I'm a Citizen, just like Seryu and Moge-ko.

But that's what you'd expect me to say whether or not I'm a Communist, isn't it?

[fullonbraced]

What if he was targeted just to be random? Then the communists would be trying to trick us and make us all confused, maaan!

[alchemicals]

So. First of all, I'd like to offer a round of congratulations to our communists: you missed. Good job; handshakes all around.

[Well, somebody is bitter as hell, from the sound of it. Though he does seem to be smirking like a douchebag again, so at least there's that.]

Since somebody has to be the one to ask the stupid questions around here and I guess it's going to be me for the foreseeable future: we're going on and on about how outing the Loyalty Officer is going to get them killed, right? Is there a reason we're all allergic to letting the Defense Officer do their damn job?

[harshwords]

Because the Defense Officer can't just protect the Loyalty Officer the whole game. That would be stupid.

[standbyrival]

That's what I'm hoping the Defense Officer is doing, but if said role fell on someone who has other attachments already, their personal interests could screw everything up.

[murimurimuri]

Erm... because after this trial, the Defense Officer can just ask Yomiel to pass their name to the Loyalty Officer?

[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. ]

[fullonbraced]

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

[plentyfriendly]

The problem could also be that the Defense Officer or Loyalty Officer was the Indoctrinator's target on the first night. If one of them was, their ability wouldn't work.

[stinkingdeadendjob]

Hmmm, while it's against my better judgment, I'm just going to put this out in the open: yes, I was Greed's partner, and yes, I did talk with Yomiel about it... at the cost of one crushed foot, mrdr..

[Clay's been keeping his mouth shut for a good while, just listening on in. But if there's any way he could help flip the bird to the Commies, then so be it.]

... Really, I don't think I can trust any of you. And what my Partner told me about seeing this whole game of ours not as an "us against them", but a "me versus everyone" made sense, like nothing has in so many wasted years.

[He takes a slurp of FunFoods.]

If Greed, whose very name implies a good, righteous me for me attitude, thought he could trust Yomiel by even so much as hinting at him that I wasn't a communist when he could've kept his own share of traps shut... I think that says quite a good deal. I don't like him, but hey, he's no commie.

... I've really got nothing else! This could just be my last night here, and I could just take this all to my grave. But if it'll ruin the Communists' plans a bit more, hey, at least I can go out knowing I did Uncle Joe proud, right?

[standbyrival]

[who the hell is uncle joe]

[why does this guy keep drinking weird things??]

. . .good to know.

[alchemicals]

...I don't know if this is going to be your last night here or not.

They know you're one of ours, sure, but if the going theory is right, they knew you had a role, just not what it was. Your role is now completely useless now that Greed's dead.

Kill you now, kill you three nights from now. Does it matter? You're not going anywhere. Were it me, I'd be focused on larger threats than you.

[...]

Good on you for telling us, though. I guess.

[fullonbraced]

THAT'S BEAUTIFUL MAN!

[...Admittedly, she's a little weirded out by Clay's... everything. But good on him.]

[schrodingers_man]

...

...Thanks.

[ Did you have to mention the foot-crushing part? ]

[schrodingers_man]

Can I talk now?

Yes?

Good.

I've got some suggestions for discussion, if you'd all like to listen to me. I think our best bet for hitting a Communist tonight without the Loyalty Officer's guidance is to go back to thinking over the Indoctrinator's actions. Thinking about why was a wash, but if we can figure out who, we should have at least one Communist in the bag. They didn't have any more information about roles at the beginning than we do now, so it should be possible to reason it out.

Theory One is that they recruited a friend of one of the Communists. It makes sense. There's only five Communists to start with, so it's unlikely that two people who already know each other would end up picked. That leaves the question of who already knows each other. Horace Knightley and Simon Keyes are obvious. Rin Tohsaka and Sakura Matou are, too. I've been told it's possible that Detective Fullbright and Robin Newman might be acquainted. Do either of you want to confirm or deny that one? And... Greed told me he knew Kimbley, but I think it's pretty safe to rule that one out.

Of those three pairs, I think Knightley and Simon are the safest. Simon mentioned in yesterday's trial that they'd talked about conversion if one of them was picked as a Communist, and I don't think he'd do that if they actually carried out that plan. Even if Fullbright and Robin are acquainted, with an age gap like that, they're probably not very close. Which leaves Sakura and Rin as our most likely suspects.

By that theory.

I've got another one, but it's got a lot more conjecture in it. The first night we were here, the Communists killed Seryu Ubiquitous, scanned someone, and converted a third. The second night, the targeted Clay Puppington. He has a role, so it's likely that he was their choice for scanning on the first night. If the Communists didn't have any friends they wanted to save by converting, then it's possible they used it as a way to take out someone they perceived as a potential threat, or to recruit someone they thought we wouldn't see as a threat.

Seryu described justice as her hobby, and the kind of person who would confess to being a Communist if she was picked to be one. Clay is... [ Don't say 'a useless piece of shit,' don't say 'a useless piece of shit,' don't say 'a useless piece of shit' ] probably the only person here who cares about Communism in its original context. Even if he ended up as a Communist, he'd just be dead weight. [ Like he is for them. ] They're both people who seem like they'd take the conceit of the exercise more seriously than actually winning it.

...Somebody who fits that sort of personality is another possibility.

[fullonbraced]

Yeah, I know detective Fullbright. He arrested my friend on false charges, man!

[alchemicals]

...Right, and before anyone tries to say Yomiel is full of shit and trying to throw me under for some bizarre backhanded reason, because apparently everyone just hates Yomiel today, I can confirm that I knew Greed. I told Newman about it, too.

That said...and here I thought you wanted me to pick apart your theories. Suspecting Matou and Tohsaka seems sound enough to me.

[harshwords]

I just want to get this over and done with without any further problems, so first of all: I'd like to congratulate Yomiel-kun. That's right, I'm one of the Communists you guys are looking for. So if you'd like to vote for me right now, I won't hesitate. I'll even give you guys a free extra vote.

Besides, it's also the best for me to bow out for now, strategically.

But if you still have your doubts, why don't you go ahead and ask me right now. I won't tell you who all the Communists are since I'm bound by the rules, and I highly doubt that you don't want to all die along with me, but anything else is completely fair game.

[thefaceofjustice]

[.........DRAMATIC COURTROOM PANNING OF SHOCKED EXPRESSION? No but seriously, what even.]