Trifia: Town wins after Day Eight

[Fuldu]

Trifia: Minutiae in Space

An experiment in cross-pollination

Important Announcements

Pro-town roles will be posted when I have a little more time.

Everyone should read the rules post below. Because of the extra layer of complexity in this game, it is critical that all players are familiar with them. I’d appreciate it if everyone read the background post that follows the rules. There’s nothing truly important there, but I spent a lot of time on it and wouldn’t want that time to have been wasted.

Living Right

:

1. PeaceBringer, Ensign (townie)
   
2. Quailman the Security Officer (roleblocker)
   
3. Thoth the Ship's Doctor (limited resurrection)

Dead Wrong

:

• justinl the Munitions Officer (vigilante) - Modkilled Day Zero
  
• Coron the Systems Administrator (target swapper) - Mangled Night One
  
• Mgm the Reference Librarian (knowledge gatherer) - Frozen Night One
  
• Talitha the Cyborg (replacement) - Frozen Night One
  
• AndrewS, Heisenberg Lieutenant (mafia) - Lynched Day One
  
• Internet Stranger the Mechanical Engineer (doctor) - Frozen Night Two
  
• Leonidas the Chef (inventor) - Frozen Night Two
  
• mneme the Systems Analyst (deputy) - Mangled Night Two
  
• CoronII (
  replacing Flying Dutchman
  ), Heisenberg Ensign (mafia) - Lynched Day Two
  
• Locus Cosecant the Power Core Technician (deadline extender) - Mangled and Frozen Night Three
  
• PookyTheMagicalBear, Pirate Ensign (mafia) - Frozen Night Three
  
• thrawn1020, Ensign (townie) (
  replacing Phoebus
  ) - Lynched Day Three
  
• Dmi the Electrical Engineer (tracker) - Frozen Night Four
  
• Raccoon_TOF the Programmer (bodyguard) - Mangled Night Four
  
• inHimshallibe, Fh'Telna (SK) - Lynched Day Four
  
• Dragon Phoenix the Communications Officer (cop) - Frozen Night Five
  
• Save The Dragons, Ensign (townie) - Frozen Night Five
  
• Mastermind of Sin, Science Officer and Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal (mafia GF) - Lynched Day Five
  
• Maximumum, Lieutenant (townie) - Frozen Night Six
  
• Bengel54321, Pirate Lieutenant (mafia) - Lynched Day Seven
  
• Jaguar, Captain and Pirate Captain (mafia GF) (
  replacing Quagmire
  ) - Lynched Day Eight

[Fuldu]

Mafia Rules

:

• Votes must appear in
  bold
  . Votes not appearing in bold will not be counted.
  
• Please try to remember to
  unvote
  before voting someone new. This is not required, but it does help to prevent mod error.
  
• Lynchings will require a simple majority of those living. Once majority has been reached, the lynch will be carried out and further voting/unvoting actions will be ignored. You may also choose to
  vote: no lynch
  to end the day without a death.
  
• Days in this game will have regular deadlines, set in the dawn post and updated in the opening post. These deadlines exist within the context of the game and are subject to very little discretion on the part of the mod. In the event of a major justification (widescale blackouts throughout an area in which players live), I will consider shifting the deadlines. I will not consider shifting the deadlines simply due to lack of participation.
  
• If the deadline is reached without a simple majority, the player with the greatest number of votes (who reached that level first, in the event of a tie) will be lynched. For the purposes of deadline lynchings, non-votes will be considered as
  no lynch
  votes. However, a lynch will always take precedence over no lynch in the event of a tie.
  
• Nights will also have deadlines, though they may be somewhat more flexible. Any choices not received by the deadline will result in no action on the player’s part.
  
• All pro-town roles received a PM containing the words “You win when all threats to the Ratite are eliminated.” Other than that and the phrase “Please PM your confirmation,” all role PMs are different. Don’t try using the phrasing of something in your PM as proof of your identity. It won’t work, and it annoys me.
  
• The game is not to be discussed outside the thread unless your role PM explicitly says so.
  
• Once your death scene has been posted, stop posting.
  
• Do not delete/edit previously submitted posts.
  
• Don’t quote PMs from me.
  
• Contrary to popular opinion, the mod is not
  always
  right. If you feel I’ve made a mistake, please PM me or post a message prefaced with
  Mod
  in the thread. The mod will try to remedy errors where possible. However, the mod is also putting a lot of effort into this and into keeping errors out of the game in the first place. Behaving like a decent human being about any errors that do occur will be appreciated.

Trivia Rules

:

• In addition to the day deadline, the dawn post will also contain a trivia deadline. All players are expected to select from the available trivia categories by this deadline with a post of the form
  Category: Famous Goats
  . Categories, once chosen, are not retractable. Players not selecting a category by the deadline will be assigned one randomly and I will prod them or look to have them replaced.
  
• Once all categories have been selected (so, at the category deadline at the latest), the trivia questions will be posted. All players are expected to submit their own answer to their question by the day deadline with a post of the form
  Answer: Bill Grogan
  . As with categories, answers, once posted in bold, are not retractable. Players not submitting an answer by the deadline will be provided with an incorrect one at no charge.
  
• Because both lynches and answers are due by the day deadline, the completion of only one or the other
  will not
  end the day. As a result, it is night when the mod says that it is night. Periodic vote counts will keep players updated on both the status of lynch and the status of trivia answers.
  
• Once trivia questions have been posted, no outside research is allowed until the answers have been posted. Obviously I can’t check that you’re behaving in a sportsmanlike manner in this regard, but I can’t check that you aren’t talking with your scum teammates during the day or with your mafiascum friends in real life about the game, either. If your self esteem is so caught up in winning a game on this forum that you’re going to stoop to cheating, you might want to consider some professional help.
  
• In the period of time between when categories are posted and when questions are posted, you are allowed all the outside research you want. If the category is
  Staples
  you can research the Lakers’ stadium,
  Office Space
  ], and sugar, salt, and flour to your heart’s content. But if the question turns out to be about gospel singer Mavis Staples, don’t blame me and don’t go back to look her up.
  
• Players (both good and bad) submitting incorrect answers to the day’s trivia question will be denied their night choice by the central computer. I would hope that this will be clear from the relevant flavortext, but it’s important enough that it bears stating flat out.
  
• Correct answers to trivia questions will be posted in the dawn post of the following morning. So, everyone will know who was able to successfully submit their choices the preceding night.
  
• During each night, I will try to thoroughly check all trivia answers that I consider incorrect to see if I’ve missed something. If you think your answer merits an explanation, feel free to PM it to me, keeping in mind that I will be adhering to a ‘spirit of the game’ standard. Any supposedly ‘clever’ answer that relies on what I view as willful misinterpretation of the way I’ve phrased the question or of these rules will be summarily dismissed. Obviously, PMing me supporting documentation or Web pages is more likely to raise concern about outside research, but broad suggestions of how I might find evidence of the accuracy of your answer (if it’s something you just know off the top of your head) are more likely to help your case than to hurt it. Once the dawn post has been posted, all discussion on the previous day’s trivia will be closed. Since you won’t know my answers until this post, it argues in favor of making your case even if you think your answer is the same as mine.

[Fuldu]

Background

On June 10th, 2347, the Galactic Space Fleet launched the G.S.S. Ratite on its maiden voyage into the more uncharted depths of space. Its mission was one of exploration and scientific study, expected to last 3 years and to proceed without incident. If only...

By early November, the Ratite was getting odd readings on its sensors of energy signatures and propulsion gases in the nearby, but clearly empty, sector. The 24 person crew were worried, and perhaps a bit confused, by these occurrences, but attributed them to bugs in the ship's new central computer, REGIS (Remote Electromechanical Graphical Information System). The mission continued, but additional readings were taken and the danger was deemed to be low.

On November 27th, the ship was boarded by a team of three members of a heretofore undiscovered alien race. It was only their mistake of transporting into the ship's mess hall during the crew's Thanksgiving celebration that allowed for their quick discovery and elimination. This new alien race was, at the very least, susceptible to weapons fire. At this point, the crew begin reexamining the mystery readings, in the hopes of determining where the attackers had come from. It didn't take long...

On November 28th, the ship came under fire from a still unseen vessel in the vicinity. The weapons were low yield, so with the shields raised damage was minimal, but they were also impossible to trace. As a result, and because the alien ship itself was still undetectable, the Ratite had no useful means of returning fire. It might take the aliens a few days to break through the ship's shields, but there was little the crew could do to prevent it without a target to fire upon. A distress call had been sent back to Fleet headquarters on Earth, but it would require weeks for the fastest ship to arrive.

So, in a daring plan that would be called brilliant in success and mind-numbingly stupid in failure, the captain ordered the engines disabled, all the short-range weapons moved to the cryopod bay, and the crew into the cryostasis pods. Reasoning that the aliens wanted the ship intact, he assumed that they would board again as soon as the ship was disabled. The Ratite's shields were set to disable after one hour and the cryopods to wake the crew after three hours.

The plan worked just as intended. After the shields turned themselves off, the aliens fired a few more shots, damaging the ship somewhat, though not beyond repair. Then they scanned the Ratite for life and, finding none, turned off their ship's stealth generators. Finally, a large portion of the alien crew boarded. They were, however, stymied by the many locked doors and disabled systems and, about an hour-and-a-half after boarding were shocked to discover that they were under fire from within the ship.

While the majority of the crew dealt with the surprised alien invasion force, a small team made their way back to the bridge, to deal with the alien vessel. An array of weapons were brought to bear in one quick volley, surprising the skeleton crew still aboard and crippling the ship almost immediately. The aliens returned fire, doing additional damage to the Ratite, but it was clear who would be the victor in this battle. It was simply a matter of mopping up the alien boarding party and the Ratite was able to win without a single casualty. Brilliant!

[Fuldu]

Prologue: Day Zero

During the tedious process of organizing repairs to the ship, it has become clear that nearly all the important work can be done by the Ratite's teams of maintenance robots. However, power levels are sufficiently low that many of the ship's systems need to be disabled in order to proceed as quickly as possible. While you are engaged in your part in this, your workstation's REGIS screen flickers, and goes dark. Communications within the ship are a high-priority repair (in the event of another alien boarding), but remain down to this point. On your way to the bridge to report your difficulties, you note other crew members moving in that direction as well and a quick conversation indicates that all the terminals in the ship appear to be behaving the same way.

Upon arrival at the bridge, you see that most of these workstations are disabled as well. All, in fact, except for the captain's screen (the primary REGIS interface), which displays this message:

WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME?

Press

h

to continue...

The captain is clearly angry, not only because he is in no mood to play a game, nor simply because this sort of problem suggests sabotage rather than damage-related glitches, but largely because REGIS lacks a keyboard input and the captain can't figure out how he's supposed to "Press

h

." You watched amusedly for a few minutes while your commanding officer rants and pokes at the machinery, failing to notice a green gas seeping onto the bridge through the Ratite's ventilation system. Only when those around you begin coughing do you realize that you're starting to get a little woozy.

And, as if that weren't enough, all the other dark screens on the bridge choose precisely this moment to light back up, reading:

Power Supply Critical
Life Support Disabled in 168:00:00

As the displays begin to count down, someone standing near the captain's chair (Is that the captain? You can't seem to remember) says, well, something unbecoming an officer and follows up with "Alright everybody. Back to the cryopods. According to this, we only have seven days before life support is cut throughout the ship and, to be honest, I'm not sure I trust this computer to count my fingers any more. The robots will wake us back up when enough repairs have been completed to power up the emergency generators and get critical systems running again."

In no mood to argue, you rush to the cryopod bay, only to discover that the faster members of the crew seem unable to get their pods opened. A nearby screen briefly flickers away from its countdown to state:

Please return to the bridge

Back at the bridge, little seems to have changed, although the air seems thicker and you're not confident you've ever seen any of these people before. Confused, both generally and specifically regarding why REGIS wants you back here, you loiter separate from the rest of the crew until you hear a brief buzz from the primary REGIS terminal. Gathering in front of the screen, you note that the message has changed:

Everyone, please choose a category:

AIR
EARTH
FIRE
WATER

With life support in jeopardy and access to the cryopods your only hope of survival, you suspect you should probably do what REGIS asks. And quickly...

[mneme]

Air.

[Mgm]

Hmmm, I don't like any of these in particular.
I'll randomly choose

Category:Earth

.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

Air

[Mgm]

Pst, mneme. Read the rules. You need to format that....

[Fuldu]

Thanks, Mgm, but that bears repeating:

All players are expected to select from the available trivia categories by this deadline with a post of the form

Category: Famous Goats

.

[mneme]

Thanks, Fudlu. Knew I'd missed something.

Category: Air

[Quailman]

Category: Water

[PeaceBringer]

just to be different

category fire

[Maximumum]

Open the door, Hal....

I'll take

Category: Fire

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

category air

[Dmi]

Category: Fire

[justinl]

category: earth

[Coron]

category: Air

[Locus Cosecant]

Sigh. I'm a big fan of the oxidation process, but...

category: earth

[Bengel54321]

Category: water

[Raccoon_TOF]

Category: Water

to try to balance the elements a bit more...

[Mastermind of Sin]

category: water

[Talitha]

I like my feet on the ground, I'm a virgo.

Category: Earth

[Save The Dragons]

fire is tight, and it's what all the dragons are into these days. Old skool. I'm done.

Category: Fire

[Internet Stranger]

Category: Water

[AndrewS]

Category: Fire