Pledge of Allegiance (Game Over! Page 76)

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

@Debonair Danny DiPietro, what did you think of Nicodemus's Post 164? You don't like his Jack vote from the start of the game (I'm indifferent; at that point it's a reason to vote and he didn't do any pushing to make it an issue particularly) and I don't disagree with what you've got to say about his most recent post but I'm not sure why you're pushing him over, say, Phate just now.

Meta argument on Parama tells me nothing. Think he's a bit hypocritical in his critique of xvart who jumped on the QT "issue" much like Nico jumped on the number of scum thing making the worst possible assumption without really thinking things through. I don't like his critique of LF and he's suspicious of UK for gut which means nothing to me. Really his behavior is toss-up at best there.

Is there a reason that Phate is a much better lurker lynch than any of the other lurkers? Because I'm not seeing enough from him to really separate him from that bunch.

[LlamaFluff]

So then he was scummy for the ordering, sound like if it was the other way around it would have been a null factor.

I read his post that his case was based on how his gut feeling on every post was off, then an afterthought of shallow logic. That's how it reads to me. When I build a case I start with the concrete and then would follow with "oh, and every post he makes I do not like."

So ordering was scummy?

You are ignoring the simplest answer still. It was a QT from a past game hydra. Are you honestly trying to argue that Eli tried to prove a point by quoting the scum QT in such a way that it could not have been accidental? They arent masons, they arent scum, they ARE both town. Let it go, you are wrong.

Yes, I was; although it was not because I was ignoring it.

Good, so you are going to join the DGB and Eli are town camp I guess?

Please... read between the lines. I looked at my role and immediately speculated on how many town players there are, and likely how many scum/other exist. How could speculating in this setup possibly be a tell?

And how definite was your speculation?

Kinda specific. I would say 4/5 scum and 5/6 other. There are ways town can speculate on numbers though. If you are a cop that gets to investigate as many people as they want in a row untill they find two people that do not share alignments, you can make a guess that there is a lot of anti-town. If you are a hated-miller-gravedigger-voteless townie, you can assume there arent a lot of scum.

This is actually somewhat along the lines of charter-town play.

Good to know. Thanks for answering for him.

Saying I have a town read on him for saying something isnt answering for him.

[Zorblag]

@Debonair Danny DiPietro, there were a couple reasons that I went with Phate as the lurker that was the most appealing to see if there was interest in lynching. The one that I think is most likely to appeal to you is that unlike most (all perhaps) of the others on the lurker list he's got his second post where he tries to look like he's following the game by asking a question that should have an obvious answer about DrippingGoofball's opinion. Given your reaction to Nicodemus's careless read of what DrippingGoofball said I thought it might appeal to you.

The others which I don't think are that likely to sway you are convenience (he was the lurker with a vote other than mine at the time) and because I wanted to see what DrippingGoofball would do when I brought him up as out of place for the rest of her reads.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[Debonair Danny DiPietro]

Balter is such glaringly scummy, it's hurting my head. First he hops on Xvart and declares Xvart as the lynch. The next day he hops on Phate. It's painful reading his scummy posts.

##unvote
##vote Balter

DDD, do you think Balter is scum?

I really don't know, first off I don't know if I've ever played with VPB-scum (Fact-check: He replaced in as a cult mentor in Mini 845 and I was an even later replacement as town; And he was scum in New York 91 and I was on an opposing scum team but I was modkilled by a moron by this point in the game). So I have, but I guess never within this sort of context where we were both started the game together and I'm actually looking for scum. More generally while the vote hopping bothers me a small amount; when it's very early in the game I don't think it's particularly scummy; later on it's much more serious.

On the other hand I'm not fond of his lynch targets at all because they seem like very low hanging fruit. Parama, xvart, and Phate are all easy targets and I'm not terribly thrilled with those wagons.

I guess VPB wouldn't be a bad lynch from my perspective today, but not nearly as good a lynch as Nico or Pops who just went spiraling up my scumlist with his one post.

[zoraster]

Day 1 Vote Count

charter ( 0 )
Cobalt ( 0 )
d3x ( 0 )
Debonair Danny DiPietro ( 0 )
DrippingGoofball ( 0 )
Ellibereth ( 0 )
farside22 ( 1 ) RedCoyote
fishythefish ( 0 )
Gammagooey ( 0 )
imaginality ( 0 )
Jack ( 1 ) Gammagooey
Jazzmyn ( 0 )
LLamaFluff ( 0 )
Nicodemus ( 1 ) Debonair Danny DiPietro
ojanen ( 0 )
Parama ( 2 ) xvart
phate ( 7 ) farside22 DrippingGoofball VP Baltar Zorblag Shotty to the Body Jack imaginality
popsofctown ( 0 ) Parama
RedCoyote ( 0 )
Shotty to the Body ( 0 )
UncertainKitten ( 0 )
VP Baltar ( 2 ) phate charter
xvart ( 6 ) Ellibereth LLamaFluff ojanen Nicodemus fishythefish UncertainKitten
Zorblag ( 1 ) Cobalt
Not Voting ( 3 ) d3x Jazzmyn popsofctown
Total Votes ( 24 )

Deadline: May 18th at 11:00 EDT
With 24 able to vote, 13 needed to lynch.

[Jack]

@Debonair Danny DiPietro, there were a couple reasons that I went with Phate as the lurker that was the most appealing to see if there was interest in lynching. The one that I think is most likely to appeal to you is that unlike most (all perhaps) of the others on the lurker list he's got his second post where he tries to look like he's following the game by asking a question that should have an obvious answer about DrippingGoofball's opinion. Given your reaction to Nicodemus's careless read of what DrippingGoofball said I thought it might appeal to you.

The others which I don't think are that likely to sway you are convenience (he was the lurker with a vote other than mine at the time) and because I wanted to see what DrippingGoofball would do when I brought him up as out of place for the rest of her reads.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

That's a lot of reasons. What did you expect to possibly learn from DGB?

[RedCoyote]

What did you like about Parama's opening reasoning on me?
Looks to me you are confusing what farside was referencing with Parama's case, his vote wasn't on Jack.

I'm not sure what you mean. I liked Parama's opening reasoning on Jack, not you.

Elaborate on this. Where you thinking altruistically of game balance or what? Why not choose other?

Oh, no, I just thought the mafia would be gimped, subjected to a lot of restrictions, or there would be multiple mafia groups. That kind of takes the fun out of it, imo, because then it becomes a shooting match. I like a more intimate 2-3 person mafia team versus everyone else (e.g. Newbie or Mini games).

---

You give a 'do lynch/don't lynch' list after saying "I'll tell you right now that I'm not going to play the one sentence post game with Jack, Parama, VP, and xvart. I just don't have that kind of devotion. I propose we lynch them all, what do you say?" To clarify, is that list a semi-tongue-in-cheek "lynch these people cos I don't like their posting style" list, or an actual list of scum v town reads?

It really isn't tongue-in-cheek. On a good day I don't usually have but enough time to check the website once, maybe twice. On a bad day (or week, as in, university finals week), I simply don't have the time to comb over the "no u" arguments. I'm just making it clear that I wouldn't mind if we cut out a bunch of noise by cutting out those that feel it necessary to have a post count of 50 by the end of the first real-time week of the game.

---

FoS: farside

for timing on jumping on my wagon

That's hysterical considering I was the first to vote for you.

Why would you not go back over and make sure this is accurate before making claiming this? That seems kind of lazy to me.

RC: I was busy this weekend and I like RVS. I voted to vote and nomrally I don't see condition to voting using a # sign so I just go off what I normally do. How is that scummy?

It's as good as vote as any. Apparently it's becoming a bit of a pattern here, as now you're trying to frame Parama with inaccurate information.

---

I'm considering it a null tell, but enough to keep my eye on you.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Where do you get your numbers for "half of them are scum"?

And to be fair, I hate playing the quote stripe game but I'm more interested in finding scum than arguing for pages about how you make my eyes bleed. Though it took me a couple games to realize this ^-^;

Take any group of lurkers and I would suspect that, chances are, half the time they wind up being scum. Would you disagree? I know I kind of put myself into a bad position at this point because of that, but I'm going to be making more posts from here on in.

Actually I think I may have realized that we have a different definition of "quote stripe", because I was referring more to the idea of people making 4-5 one sentence response posts with another person in a row.

---

Add Gamma to the list of Jack, VP, Parama (although Parama is growing on me), and xvart for his nonsense on page 8.

I mean, to those who scratch their heads about what I'm driving at, read a post like this,

Oh, you're asking whether it is or not and not what exactly is doing that? Yes, asking for reasoning for their comments and suspicious is part of how I can tell if they are legitimately scumhunting or pulling things out of their ass like you are.

"Oh, you're asking whether it is or not and not what exactly is doing that?"

Read that out loud. How many times do you have to read that for it to make sense in your mind? It's pointless posting for it's own sake.

---

Fishy and Balter on a scumteam.

Xvart is scum.

Jack is scum.

Parama is town.

Zorblag is probably scum.

I'm keeping my vote on Balter for the time being. I think Balter and Xvart have the same number of votes.

I'll hold onto this for later, but I don't get the Zorblag hate. Do you agree with DGB, charter? I just don't get what I'm not seeing in his posts.

---

Phate 216 feels scummy. I don't like the single question that add nothing to the game post.
I'm on the fence with Elli
Seriously 2 post from Phate that say next to nothing and a very minor (one line) case against VP. Either bussing or bw vote either way Phate gives me scum vibes

This seems kind of like a cop out to me. I mean, I'm one to talk, as I'm the only one voting you, but do you plan to push Phate's wagon, farside, or are you just throwing something out there?

I'm going with my gut read of phate based on how little he has said this game (meta) right now.

This just seems misguided to me. I don't like how Parama caught you and it looks like you are trying to back away from that. I can buy you saying that Jack/xvart seem town to you, but it's still kind of awkward. I guess if Phate was the only one lurking it would make a little more sense, but why Phate over someone of the other lurkers?

---

Dear Players,

I issue this challenge to you.

(1) ISO Phate
(2) Vote Phate

Can you do it? Let me show you how it's done.

Vote: VP Baltar

I firmly believe that the vast majority of accusations of 'flailing' come from scum. It's like 'overdefensive'.

(edited the vote)

*shurgs*

How is this worse than pops, SttB, or Jazzmyn? I mean, it's certainly not any better, but if we're just going to lynch lurkers then let's at least be upfront about it. Far be it from me to step on the idea of a lurker lynch, especially in a game this big, but it just seems kind of arbitrary.

##Unvote
##Vote: Phate

I'll go with it though. I want him to at least respond to farside, because I know she has been voting him for a while now. I'll bet Phate has checked the thread since then, even if he hasn't posted here.

---

The one that I think is most likely to appeal to you is that unlike most (all perhaps) of the others on the lurker list he's got his second post where he tries to look like he's following the game by asking a question that should have an obvious answer about DrippingGoofball's opinion. Given your reaction to Nicodemus's careless read of what DrippingGoofball said I thought it might appeal to you.

The others which I don't think are that likely to sway you are convenience (he was the lurker with a vote other than mine at the time) and because I wanted to see what DrippingGoofball would do when I brought him up as out of place for the rest of her reads.

I guess that's okay. I'd argue that it seems kind of like we're "settling" on Phate, rather than finding him, but then again I guess Phate wouldn't be an acceptable lynch if not for 12 pages of looking for scum without his presence.

I hope that sentence makes sense to you.

[LlamaFluff]

Hey RC, do you have any scum reads that arent one of the top five picks for the town?

[Ojanen]

I'll post later properly, no time, but that Phate vote from RedCoyote has about the least conviction ever and I don't understand why he wanted to put it out. "Wagon seems a little arbitrary but lordie it is completely beyond me to defend lurkers, so bam me put down an eighth vote so he has more motivation to answer some questions." Strikes me as some sort of overcompensating.

Oh, no, I just thought the mafia would be gimped, subjected to a lot of restrictions, or there would be multiple mafia groups. That kind of takes the fun out of it, imo, because then it becomes a shooting match. I like a more intimate 2-3 person mafia team versus everyone else (e.g. Newbie or Mini games).

Can you still elaborate on the specific qualities you like about intimate mafia groups? Note from your wiki: your dislike for multiple groups does not seem to be based on first-hand experience, you've never drawn mafia in a large game.

[Shotty to the Body]

Just going to dive right into this actually, catch up is not a fun prospect at 3am.

From what I've read charter, DGB, troll are probably town. Not sure where I stand on Llama, my gut is tingling there. I don't really agree with the idea of xvart being scum from his ISO. That last post from RC is pretty weak, but I'm not in a position to complain about it till I do a phate ISO and put some thoughts down on that. That'll probably happen tomorrow once I move home from college.

[RedCoyote]

Hey RC, do you have any scum reads that arent one of the top five picks for the town?

Top five picks for scum or for town?

I gave a list in my previous post, and I'd say it was a pretty good range of players. xvart, Jack, farside, Gamma, and any of the lurkers (including Phate, Cobalt, pops, Jazzmyn, SttB) would be acceptable lynches for me at this point (I had VP/Parama on there as well, but I've been liking their more recent posts).

There's a lot of scum in that group, no doubt.

---

"Wagon seems a little arbitrary but lordie it is completely beyond me to defend lurkers, so bam me put down an eighth vote so he has more motivation to answer some questions." Strikes me as some sort of overcompensating.

I don't really get what separates Phate from the others, especially to the degree that DGB and farside see it. They both strike me as though they see something that obviously sticks out. I don't, but I'm not opposed to a lurker lynch, especially on D1.

Can you still elaborate on the specific qualities you like about intimate mafia groups? Note from your wiki: your dislike for multiple groups does not seem to be based on first-hand experience, you've never drawn mafia in a large game.

Mostly from EM (epicmafia), which, granted, is a different beast altogether, but it's really difficult to coordinate more than three scum, I think. I might be able to find you an example off of EM. You're right though, I've never played in a large mafia team on MS, but I suspect it would be very similar.

[DrippingGoofball]

I guess VPB wouldn't be a bad lynch from my perspective today, but not nearly as good a lynch as Nico or Pops who just went spiraling up my scumlist with his one post.

In a target-rich environment such as this one, it really breaks my heart that we have only one lynch.

[DrippingGoofball]

Phate wagon is good, although I'm wondering why DGB chose to follow Zorblag's lead on starting that wagon when she has a scum read on him.

(1) I'm always willing to help scum bus.
(2) I'm not 100% sure of Zorblag's alignment; but whatever it is, his observations are correct.

[DrippingGoofball]

How is this worse than pops, SttB, or Jazzmyn?

Or d3x
Or Cobalt

I hunger for the blood of these cowardly lurkerscums.

[Phate]

Good day. I know most of you but for those that I'm meeting for the first time you're welcome to call me any of Zorblag, Zorb, Zor, Z or Troll.

FLUFF

Introducing yourself is not fluff.

Let me start by saying that I'm particularly thrilled to see that people seem to be doing a good job following the format for the voting. I was expecting that people would get that wrong a fair amount but I enjoy being wrong thus far.

SUCKING UP

Willing to write this off as a character quirk rather than assume it's sucking up. Why aren't you?

Hopefully that means that everyone has read the rules and has a good understanding of the instant night mechanism. That along with a relatively short deadline for day one (15 days with 24 players means that we're going to have to stay focused and present) are the next two things that we want to make sure we're all on top of.

INFORMATION INSTEAD OF ANALYSIS (IIoA)

IIoA is when a player spends more time dealing with information (such as setup speculation) than analysis (such as scumhunting). It's a legitimate scumtell. However, some setup speculation is justified in a player's first post.

.

If I was one of the first posters this game I was probably going to ask questions similar to the ones that Ojanen asked; they seem a pretty valuable way to get meaningful conversation going in this game. I think that it should be reasonably valuable to start with our expectations of how likely people are to pick various teams and work there.

INFORMATION INSTEAD OF ANALYSIS (IIoA)

See above.

Personally I picked town...

WIFOM

That's not WIFOM. Seriously, if you think that's WIFOM go read the wiki. Besides, there is nothing wrong with stating a fact from your point of view, especially when it's a leadup to another statement. Do you consider assuming yourself to be town in your reads to be scummy? Listing yourself in your town list, for example?

...because in general scum is fairly easy to play

FALSE

I agree that this is false. In my experience, it's much harder to be scum than town. I'd have to meta Troll before I came to any conclusions as to what this says about his alignment, but this may be the only real scumtell in the post.

...whereas town is a nice challenge without being as impossible as other would be likely to be (I can get killed as town and not lose for my team; I imagine that wouldn't be the case for most other roles.) I like a challenge but I also like to have a decent shot at winning when I play a game.

FLUFF - INFORMATION INSTEAD OF ANALYSIS (IIoA)

He's providing us with valuable information - his opinion of his own playstyle. This opinion can be verified or disproven with meta, and provides insight into his playstyle, allowing for more accurate reads regardless of his alignment.

Parama looks like he's going to be pretty distracting unless he settles down a bit. I mostly read his play thus far as clumsy rather than scummy but I don't have any experience with him so I might have to go look at some of his other play. He also is the one person who didn't pre-in so his claim that he joined based just on player list seems pretty decent. The rest of you I expect joined in larger part because it gave you the chance to pick your alignment.

NON-COMMITTAL - INFORMATION INSTEAD OF ANALYSIS (IIoA)

Here you're accusing him of being noncommittal in his first post. I realize that pretending you've caught all the scum in your first three or four posts is standard operating procedure for you, but it's obviously not for most other players. So why single Troll out? Why not jump on RedCoyote, or SttB, or Ojanen, or LlamaFluff for not being convinced of the setup in their first post.

The whole cult as non-hostile other idea seems pretty odd. Given that Vi was part of the design team here it's probably more likely that if we've got non-hostile others they'll have win conditions more in line with some of the ones listed in the possible win conditions listed in Mafia Reverberation (lyncher, moychendiser (which was already mentioned), researcher, reporter and survivor would all work.) I don't think that it's worth spending too much time on the setup speculation until we've seen some flips but those are the sorts of roles that I'll be keeping in mind when watching for behavior. Cults and Serial Killers are the obvious potential hostile others but I'm sure that it would be possible to come up with others..

GIANT, PLANET-SIZE INFORMATION INSTEAD OF ANALYSIS (IIoA)

The way you're trying to paint it now, speculating about the setup at all is scummy. That's not a very protown view; setup speculation is one of our best tools.

Parama's scum numbers are ridiculously specific but everyone should be keeping how powerful their role mind when looking for scum. If others seem to be working with the assumption that there are lots more/less scum than you are it's a pretty decent flag that their alignment might not match yours (keeping in mind that there should be some variation of power inside the town.)

BIG OLE INFORMATION INSTEAD OF ANALYSIS (IIoA)

See above.

For those that know Jack, is this his standard play or is the cult business an unusual distraction?

DOES NOT CONSIDER JACK MAY BE SCUM

"Is the cult business an unusual distraction" does not preclude "Jack is scum.

##Vote: Charter

for being the first one alphabetically by user name not to have posted yet.

AFTER ALL THIS TALK, A RANDOM VOTE???

In conclusion, this post by DGB pung my scumdar, hence my question. If it was a provocative post designed to get a reaction from Troll, I understand. However, a few pages have gone by, and DGB hasn't said "gotcha!" I don't understand how a good scumhunter can possibly consider this post as scummy as DGB seems to think it is. Since DGB is a good scumhunter, this casts doubts on her alignment for me. That said, I am not in favor of her lynch today. Regardless of her alignment, she's useful today.

As for my 'lurking', I've been working 9.5 hours a day for the past week. I'm also modding two games and playing in two large games. My work schedule is more relaxed at this point, so I'll be able to post more now.

Now I'm going to go through the thread looking for questions addressed to me.

[Phate]

Huh. That's odd. Couldn't find any. Hmm.

[UncertainKitten]

@VP: Oh, I'm sorry. You've never ADEQUATELY explained it. Since, you know, you've been

completely fucking wrong

.

Already explained it. Since you are planning to ignore things that don't fit your version of events, I'm not going to waste any breath on you.

Just die.

@xvart: Yeah, multiple wagons are actually pretty good. Just pointing out that it's very convenient there's a counterwagon forming when there was a healthy wagon on someone I thought of as scum.

At this point I'm going to mention that pops first (or was it second?) post gave me huge scum vibes, but I have no idea what they are from. It was more like, I read it, and there was like a big red SCUM sign flashing in my head. I'd have to reread his posts before I followed that line of thought further though.

@Nico: I only get profane when someone is being completely fucking stupid and impossibly bad at being town, or even looking like it, while attacking me with the shittiest logic I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. tl;dr incompetence pisses me off.

@Red Cayote: I'd say lurkers are slightly more likely to be scum, but not to the point that it becomes a 50% chance. As for the quote stripe comment, it was a general comment on "I hate a certain type of playstyle, but lynching based purely on that is not a good idea".

What the hell?
Why is Phate posting a defense of Troll? What the fuck?

Oh, I think I know and it makes me SERIOUSLY want to vote Phate.

His explanation falls flat. I think he's trying to discredit the person that started the wagon on him. Still...I like xvart scum :S...

[VP Baltar]

Already explained it. Since you are planning to ignore things that don't fit your version of events, I'm not going to waste any breath on you.

quote your explanation then because I don't see it. Also, elaborate on what is inadequate about my explanation of the point. You keep skirting the issue and stamping your feet, but you're not actually saying anything.

Feel free to let your fake indignation stop because it's quite a bore and you're not going to provoke me. I don't get mad at der Internetz.

[UncertainKitten]

@VP: You quoted it yourself. The indignation isn't fake, you are just playing that terribly and like a moron, and it's pissing me off.

Honestly, I'm mostly being a truculent jackass about this because I flat dislike you at the moment.

As for why your explanation is inadequate, it's explained in my explanation.

For the record, you claimed my explanation was inaccurate or something earlier when...it wasn't. But whatever.

[farside22]

Why would you not go back over and make sure this is accurate before making claiming this? That seems kind of lazy to me.

Meh it may be lazy but I felt I caught something that others were missing first. I thought I made the first case and vote. I still dont' see xvart's vote as serious.

It's as good as vote as any. Apparently it's becoming a bit of a pattern here, as now you're trying to frame Parama with inaccurate information.

framing someone is a bit strong. It's called reading and coming to a conclusion. I had at least 3 post showing my issues with Para. How is it inaccurate?
You have Para on your scum list aren't you being hypcritcal on my case

This seems kind of like a cop out to me. I mean, I'm one to talk, as I'm the only one voting you, but do you plan to push Phate's wagon, farside, or are you just throwing something out there?

I voted for him and pointed him out to others. What do you think? Seriously.

This just seems misguided to me. I don't like how Parama caught you and it looks like you are trying to back away from that. I can buy you saying that Jack/xvart seem town to you

Really how did Param catch me exactly? And where are you getting that I found xvart town?

[Jack]

##unvote:phate
##vote:Gamma

I liked that response.

[Zorblag]

@Jack, that is a lot of reasons, yeah. I actually had slightly different versions of the last two paragraphs of Post 269 typed up before I noticed that I was asking both DrippingGoofball and Debonair Danny DiPietro questions about Phate. Looking at the vote count led me to add the first paragraph and change the overall tone to what it ended up being. I didn't have a particular reaction that I expected from DrippingGoofball; what I got was satisfying though.

@Phate, so the only things in the game that were worth going over right away since you were here last were the analysis of DrippingGoofball's post on me (which was here before your previous post) and to come to the conclusion that it casts doubt on her alignment but that she wouldn't be a good lynch? I'd be thrown off by being defended and having my own view on DrippingGoofball's usefulness in the game being copied (with the added bit where you're saying that you see suspicious behavior) on their own, but I'd certainly think that there would be other things as worth commenting on that have happened since.

-Zorblag R`Lyeh

[farside22]

Phate: What is your view on the game at hand and everyone so far?

[Phate]

farside: I am not going to give you a view on everyone. Town doesn't benefit from scum knowing who town thinks is town. I'm going to take a shower now, and then go to work. When I get back tonight, I will reread the game, then read those I find scummy and players with wagons on them in iso. Then I'll tell you who I think is scum and why.

[Fishythefish]

Things:
- Nico’s 217 feels strange. DGB’s case is not drifting into “too townie to be town” land. Why even comment on this case without really drawing any conclusions about it? I don’t see why Nico would ask LF to guess how many scum are in the game.

- I don’t know where charter gets a VP-me link from (222). Anything in my play you’d like me to explain or comment on, charter?

Fishy: Is there any reason you attacked Jack for his I would have chose mafia but ignored RC for saying close to the same thing?

Not particularly. By the time RC made his post, much more had happened – I was having a useful exchange with Jack and felt Parama was scummy – so this point just wasn’t as significant in the context of the game as it was when I first posted.

Phate’s post that got jumped on was scummy. But I think his recent defense is pretty good; I can believe that train of thought there.