The Syndicate

Congrats to the winners! I obviously didn't end up keeping up with the game, although I wanted to at first, but by the time the Wills of the Dead Act started I had no idea what was happening so I never sent anything not that it would have been valuable or trusted anyway But basically I didn't really know anything, and in fact it's kind of funny that people tried to find other baddies based on my lynch while the truth was I had zero BTSC and zero clue of who any of my teammates were Anyway, though it got long and complicated and I don't really know what happened, it looked like a really cool and fun game for those who got to be more involved. Great job Golden!

Now that my vote is even more meaningless I feel worse about it My symbolic vote would be on Zebra.

Alriiight, I hate to do this because I really think LC is good, but there's only 10 minutes and basically no hope left for me

vote: Long Con

sig, people familiar with the show have insisted that Athena is a good character, are you ignoring that info? like I get that maybe we shouldn't assume that it's reflected in the roles in this game, but it would make some sense. are you not willing to entertain that possibility?


lorab I am so jealous!!!!!

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: The points you poked at re: nutella I just think you're wrong about. To suggest in a Mafia game that someone's tone is off-putting is to call that person suspicious.

No. As nutella I am authorized to say that you are wrong. I know what my opinions and intentions were better than you think you do. I can perfectly well express dislike of someone's tone without suspecting them. They are not even remotely the same thing.

LC has not directly revealed his win condition. I think that stating something like "all cylons are bad/should die" is allowed as an expression of opinion if he is not outright saying it's his win con.

linki: yeah, Golden pretty much confirms this

ObscureAllure wrote:Already did. And you calling out LC for what he's been all but info dumping at this point just made me feel better about my decision.

sorry, what? do you think he is role hinting?

ObscureAllure wrote:Well crap. I'm headed to dinner and don't want to chance not being back in time. I am really torn between LC and Nutella. Sadly, them being tied for votes doesn't help. However, I am starting to see a pattern in LC's posts that make me think I know why he's doing and saying what he is. However, that in itself isn't guaranteed to not be mafia (I could see a townie mafia with an "all cylons must die" wincon). But for now I am not ready to poke that bear with a stick just yet. So I'm going to go with VOTE: NUTELLA

Linki - Nutella's post to LC totally reaffirms what I'm thinking. Buwhahaha.
linki: WHOA sig! >.<

can you explain this any more?

LC, I thought you were a fan of the show? Everyone else who knows the show has insisted that Athena is a good guy. Why are you sticking so stubbornly to the black-and-white all-cylons-are-bad mentality?

LoRab wrote:LA's latest posts are not feeling so good to me. She is starting to feel cornered baddie.

I am neither cornered nor a baddie I'm afraid I'll get lynched for basically the same reasons I do in almost every game, it's really frustrating at this point but I don't know what to do since no matter how or what I post people seem to read it as suspicious.

linki @ SVS I have no memory of how I played in recruitment (I assume you're talking about the latest one) and I don't know what you mean by "anyone but me" but I swear I'm just innocent and clueless this game.

linki @ bea: I might still vote for zebra even though I feel less strongly about her, but I kind of think I'll be voting more out of self preservation at this point and she has some votes to compete with those on me anyway. I'd rather not vote LC but if it ends up being a choice between voting him and getting lynched myself I'll do it. I'll wait as close to the end as I can though (without missing it this time )

Polo wrote:I think I'll abstain from voting tonight. There's a lot of stuff going on and I don't think I can isolate everyone in time for the vote, but I'll give it a try.

It's pretty frowned upon here to skip votes and you can get punished for missing votes, jsyk

Ricochet wrote: -- stuff that does: her drive-by "I'm listening" to Matt's (rather nitpicky) suss on JJJ (this coming after she questioned Matt, instead, on why he suspects LC); her unbuild claim that Epig would have reached top choice that Day, had she not missed the vote; the dynamic of potentially sliding off ika to open new picks (this is only slightly, because I said above that the downgrade itself doesn't look so problematic)

1) was that about the "PLAN" thing? idk, it was a zany Matt theory, but I could have potentially seen it as something real -- we already know Golden is using keyword/trigger mechanics. I also just wanted to hear more from JJJ at that point in general because he wasn't posting as much as he usually does.

2) I'm a little confused about your wording here but I think you mean when I said I would have voted for Epi. I would have. On Day 1 I vote for whoever my strongest ping is at the time for whatever reason, and the last time I had been in thread that top ping was Epi.

3) Again confused by your wording. Don't really know what you're saying there. On day 1 I follow wherever whichever slight pings may take me, and am likely to drop early pings in favor of stronger ones.

Linki @ SVS: I wouldn't say something if I didn't believe it, at least at the time. My opinions can change between posts and when presented with new defenses or information, but my suspicion/thoughts on zebra have all been genuine.

a2thezebra wrote:

nutella wrote:OK, probably some of it is your usual style and I'm unfamiliar with it (I've played with you a couple times but I don't really remember how you played) but I, as well as a few other people, have pointed out that your posts this game have felt kind of... detached? and kind of give off a vibe of ultra-confidence and carelessness. I'd really like to see you participate more in interactive discussion, and explain your stances a little more. I guess the closest I came to asking you a question is about your quick vote on Rico after saying you'd vote for BR, and quite a few other people thought that was weird too. Can you explain that a bit more?

There is no greater indication that I am civ than the underlined portion.

My Rico vote is simple. I have been gut-reading him as bad for some time now and since the BR suspicion had gotten stale I bumped up the Rico one to first place.

OK, fair. I am willing to concede that I am misreading your style. I'll hold off on my vote since I might need it for self-preservation anyway, but I'm still keeping an eye on you.

As Rico said though, I don't think you had mentioned any suspicion of him at all until you voted for him -- it felt very out of the blue. And if you had a gut feeling that you hadn't mentioned at all in-thread before, why didn't you at least say that when you voted, instead of not giving any explanation until someone asked? And I'm still kind of perplexed at your deciding "the BR suspicion had gotten stale" when you had just said you would probably vote for her, and then when JJJ showed you BR's posts you still expressed suspicion of her. The whole thing is just kinda fishy.

S~V~S wrote: These two quotes you post look like she is looking for a reason to vote for you, manufacturing a suspicion, to look like she has one.

The first one especially, "Well she talked about this non-suspish topic, and I totally agree with her, but otherwise, meh".

More than anything this makes me want to vote for her.

I was not manufacturing a suspicion. I had a bad gut read on Zebra and I looked at her ISO. I included that I had agreed with some of her game-structure-related posts because they were a decent chunk of her ISO but I also pointed out the bits that gave me bad vibes.

OK, probably some of it is your usual style and I'm unfamiliar with it (I've played with you a couple times but I don't really remember how you played) but I, as well as a few other people, have pointed out that your posts this game have felt kind of... detached? and kind of give off a vibe of ultra-confidence and carelessness. I'd really like to see you participate more in interactive discussion, and explain your stances a little more. I guess the closest I came to asking you a question is about your quick vote on Rico after saying you'd vote for BR, and quite a few other people thought that was weird too. Can you explain that a bit more?

I made two posts about you, one last night and one a couple hours ago. Just click on my in topic posts

Thanks indi for responding. Like I said I tend to express whatever is on my mind when I post and on Day 1 there wasn't much to go on. I may have come across as "grumpy" but that doesn't automatically mean I'm bad. I have tried to contribute as much as possible among the chaos in here but on day 1 as usual I really didn't have any substantial opinions/reads on anyone.

As much as I don't want to be lynched, I would also be sad to see LC go. I have been pretty inclined to trust him and he really seems like he's trying to help in his own zany way. He stands out as really having his own voice in the thread and has given lots of valuable perspective about show lore/possible game structure stuff etc. I would be pretty surprised and disappointed if he were to flip bad tbh.

I wish more people were interested in a Zebra lynch today. She's really the strongest candidate imo, I don't think her motivations are good at all.

Linki: Hi Zebra, still waiting on a response from you. I'll give you a chance to do so before I vote.

Yeah it's probably fine, I don't think anything will count until the 6 hours have passed. People posted out of the schedule before and Golden ignored it.

I think you're an hour early jules?

I feel like a lot of people have said they are down to vote for me without giving any reasoning. It feels like an easy bandwagon kickstarted by JJJ's ISO -- barely anybody had stated suspicion of me before he did and it's almost like he holds some sort of power over the thread that once he does an ISO of someone they become a top lynch candidate. I have responded to the actual substantial accusations to the best of my ability so far. Silver, indi, Gman, etc, do any of you care to elaborate on your own reasoning for suspecting me? I'll defend the best I can. Honestly I shouldn't be surprised, this shit happens to me every single game and it's never going to change but I'd really like a chance to play for once so I would really rather not be lynched today.

OA, I didn't mean you seemed to be latching onto me, I meant the topic of the thing you noticed with Lorab and me. I get that you don't necessarily think I'm bad for it, I just thought it was weird that you kept bringing it up multiple times after I had already said that it was coincidence. It's fair that you were responding to other people who asked for details, but it did feel like you brought it up many times and completely ignored the first time I responded to it.

Silverwolf wrote:

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

nutella wrote:JJJ, saying I disliked ika's tone does not at all imply that I was scum reading him. Early on day 1 I thought his strong defense of silver was pingy, but I quickly learned that that was their dynamic and decided his behavior made him all the more likely to be civ. LC is right that I mostly just found him annoying, and in that particular post I was backing off from my previous statement of suspicion.

Frankly if you were saying those things merely to convey that he was annoying then it's an even worse look, because that commentary can serve no purpose except to discredit ika. There's no reason to say those things at all if they aren't statements of suspicion.

Good point, it also inflames an already volatile situation. She also insinuated he was acting like an asshole. If she's not suspicious of him, then I'm left to believe it's an antagonistic approach that isn't used to get a read on ika and is therefore scum motivated.

nutella has my vote unless something drastic happens before EoD

I tend to post what's on my mind after catching up on the thread, and ika was a pretty dominant presence in the thread at the time, so I commented with my own reaction. Maybe it was inappropriate for me to continuously say how annoying he was, but to be honest it was affecting the game for me and was the main thing I had a reaction to, so I mentioned it and expressed my reaction. I don't see how that could be assumed to be "scum motivated."

Scotty wrote:So I will roll with the "waiting for DFaraday to explain more" movement.
Nutella has done nothing to dissuade the attention she has garnered. Maybe it's because she has no votes and thus doesn't feel like she needs to respond, or maybe she missed the accusations entirely.

That is patently untrue. I responded to JJJ when he first brought me up, and am trying to respond as I go. Tbh I'm ignoring several instances of people saying they suspect me without giving any substantial reasons, but that's because those are not really worth responding to. I'll defend myself against any substantial accusations, and I have so far.

If anyone's ignoring suspicions against her it's Zebra. I made a post about her last night and she hasn't acknowledged it, and she continues to post in her odd, spontaneous, minimalist manner, barely responding to anything. I found it strange just now how she said she would vote for BR, was told that BR had responded, asked/said she would look for the response and reassess, and then spontaneously voted for Ricochet before even seeing BR's responses. She didn't give a reason for her sudden vote on Ricochet and when asked she said he was "trying too hard" and explained that a bit more, but her vote post just felt so out of the blue.

I will most likely be voting for Zebra today. I would like to see her respond to this and my earlier post about her.

LoRab wrote:@OA: I assure you, it is coincidence. My posts are based entirely on when I am able to get online and play.

This. I post when I am here and caught up. If Lorab and I are posting around the same time it's just because we happen to be online around the same time. Although such coordination would be a nice asset for BTSC, it does not in any way imply we have it. I have no BTSC, and at this point no opinion on Lorab's alignment.

linki: OA honestly I think it's strange that you've locked so hard onto this. Again, being online at the same time IN NO WAY implies BTSC. I feel like you're really digging for something to latch onto here.

JJJ, saying I disliked ika's tone does not at all imply that I was scum reading him. Early on day 1 I thought his strong defense of silver was pingy, but I quickly learned that that was their dynamic and decided his behavior made him all the more likely to be civ. LC is right that I mostly just found him annoying, and in that particular post I was backing off from my previous statement of suspicion.


@Rico - I personally think D2 is a good choice because it has the biggest gap around it, but tbh anything is probably worth checking

Oh, I misremembered, only OA talked about zebra, zebra never responded. I was thinking of Zebra's odd vote for BR -- I don't think she ever acknowledged that BR had in fact posted before then, and she never conceded to others' (including myself) claims that BR tends to be quiet at first.

Looking at her ISO, I do in fact get an odd vibe from zebra, right from the start with her gung-ho "hey matt let's chat" and general eager, almost flippant tone. She participates in the "could some cylons be good"/win condition debate and I actually agree with everything she said on that topic, but otherwise I don't feel great about her. She also said "don't lynch me because I'm town" verbatim two separate times, unprompted, here and here. Does she usually do that? It feels off to me.

linki @ OA, sorry I misremembered the thing about zebra. and fwiw I really think you're thinking of a different person but only zebra can confirm. Also, why do you think Lorab and I have btsc just because we posted near each other? We happened to be online around the same time?

I said I would figure out who my top suspects are but I honestly have no idea. At this point I feel like anyone could be bad and I'd have no clue, though there are a handful of people I trust more than others.

Lots of people have named G-Man as a top suspect and I'm curious about that -- I haven't seen as much silly posting or participation in general as I might expect from him, but idk. I was also pretty on board with the observation that JJJ was not his usual zillions-of-posts self, but he's jumped in to do some ISOs as a response to that accusation, and I'm not sure whether to read that as defensive coverage or just a change in timing/availability/energy.

I would like to hear more from Zebra, I think I tend to get odd vibes from her usually but I'm really unclear on what she's done this game and her name sticks out as one I'm curious about. In fact I might go look at her ISO and see what I find (all I remember is the OA thing).

LoRab wrote:

indiglo wrote:Hey, Drums, you triggered another secret event! A Spoiler Tag / Quote malfunction! Hooray!

I did that before. I found it quite disconcerting. Someone will be along to clean it up shortly, I imagine.

OK, sorry for a moment of nostalgia, but this totally made me remember a game from a thousand years ago where every five minutes, the host popped up with, "A secret event has been triggered." I think it was on The Piano, not LP--really early days. ZOMG Zombies, maybe? Or possibly Computer Lab? Or some other game from around that time that I just can't come up with. Does anyone remember? Because this is bothering me now.

I think it was dan's zombie game (which IIRC was the first game on the piano) but I'm not positive.

Speaking of nostalgia I have to say I giggled when Silver said LC's posts were "fluffy."

Drumbeats idk what happened with your post but are you trying to say that N is not a frequently occurring letter?? because it very much is a very frequently occurring letter. trust me I am a Scrabble nerd Unfortunately it wasn't frequently occurring in the cipher, but there's no way I could have known that. At least I pointed out that it was indeed a cipher -- a fact that many people ignored even when that's what Golden called it.

Alright, caught up again. Good to see we got a rezz ship, but disconcerting that it's just *a* and not *the* :/

JJJ made a case on me I see. I realize I haven't posted much but that's because I've barely had time to catch up on the thread a couple times each day and just post when I'm done. I posted about ika on day 1 but decided I didn't actually suspect him; it makes the most sense to me that he (and probably also Silver) was civ, I just didn't like his style and wasn't used to it at first.

Also, when I realized I had missed the vote and said I would have voted for Epi, I had not even read the lynch result yet, so I didn't know what he had flipped. I just saw that he had a handful of votes and he had been my top/only actual suspect the last time I had been in thread, and I honestly probably would have voted for him.

I've also gotten some criticism for my interpretation of Epi. And to be honest I still don't really know where I stand on that either. When he first flipped cylon and rezzed, I assumed he was bad, but also seemed to be in an interesting position to help us for some time. After much of the discussion from people familiar with the show, it seems quite possible that Athena is a good role, so I don't necessarily want to automatically go after him again (plus he might just get rezzed again). On the other hand, there's the possibility that he's actually Boomer. So really I have no idea where I stand on that issue.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote: ~~~

Generally I don't think nutella has been entirely consistent in her mindset (consider that it's her mindset I'm talking about and not her reads), which suggests to me that she might be making it up as she goes. I think some of her content is just suspicious at face value, and moreover her rate of participation is right about where I'd expect most of the baddies to be in a game that has moved as fast as this one.

Of course I'm making it up as I go, that's what I always do You've seen me get absolutely skewered as a civ many times just for being wishy-washy, that's just how I play. My opinions change throughout the game. And I haven't been able to post much but I'm trying to contribute when I can.

I have to go for a little bit but when I come back I will figure out who I suspect the most. For what it's worth I actually trust some apparently unpopular people rn, namely LC, Rico, and Matt.

wait was zebra on RM or something? I thought she was from one of the music forums? or maybe you're thinking of a different person

So Say We All!

RIP ika iywg. The conscription thing is intriguing :hmmm:

LoRab wrote:

Silverwolf wrote:
Somebody tell me how in the hell I scumhunt if we are going to assume anyone is town or scum? WTF am I supposed to do in this game then?

For starters, stop shutting down the opinions of those who are used to complicated set ups. Those of us that have been playing here and on Syndicate's Cousin Sites are used to set ups in which good and bad isn't all that clear cut. This is just another variation on our normal.

To be plain, I would be absolutely shocked and disappointed if this were a simple game of civ v mafia. That simply wouldn't make sense given the description, the roles, and the general expectation of this site (with a game like this with no win conditions listed--there are certainly civ v mafia games, but they are described as such).

It's a different skill set, to be sure, to find baddies in such a game. Perhaps it could be useful if this is entirely unfamiliar to listen to those for whom this is not unfamiliar territory.

Yes, this. We have had numerous games that were not simply black and white "town" versus "scum" because honestly that gets really boring after a while. SW, ika, this may be new for you but try to keep an open mind about what a mafia game can look like and how complex the alignment system can get, and also maybe pay some attention to those who have show-lore-knowledge that might help understand such complexity for this particular game. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but show some flexibility and open-mindedness because that is how we play here. You are welcome to your opinions but please don't be rude about them or try to shove them down people's throats.

God damn this is by far the most asinine mafia thread I have ever had to read.

OK, caught up, what an adventure. And shame on me for posting before catching up and thereby missing another so say we all.

This resurrection ship thing is pretty unfortunate, we have an outed baddie who we can't kill yet :/ I hope we can find and destroy the ship soon, but if not it might admittedly be a waste to try to lynch Epi again right away. But if we can't kill him maybe we can get some info out of him

holy shit I'm a dumbass and got distracted by RL and missed the vote. so sorry Golden I am kicking myself I probably would have voted for Epig anyway but I need to catch up on a shit ton

I think it's word, not world, but thanks for clarifying. I know next to nothing about him so he blends in with the other newbies for me.

Follow-up question: who tf is world?

ika wrote:i just check my post counts and i have like triple silvers post.

Wow, thanks so much for this valuable information that contributes so much to the game! Quantity aside, her posts are much more substantial and MUCH more coherent than yours. Also, stop being an asshole and answer Rico's question for real. Not everyone who plays mafia uses the same terminology.

S~V~S wrote:

sig wrote:
linki: That is a good question LC regarding smiles, I've never thought about it for a meta thing. I guess I use them more as a civ? Also why would I indicate my own scummieness? That would be silly.

I was told once that pretty posts with lots of smileys and no typos were my big baddie tell. I cared about what I said more whne I was bad so I proofread it and dressed it up more.

ha, how clever of you to slip in a typo all natural-like.

Matt wrote:For those of you who haven't seen the show...

Every episode starts with the intro, and during the intro there are title cards that read...

"The cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled. There are many copies. And they have a plan."

After the series ended, the creators came out with a movie called "Battlestar Galactica: The Plan" which was an interquel of sorts to the show, showing us the POV of the Cylons during the first few seasons.

For some reason, 3J capitalizing PLAN makes me feel uneasy. I can totes see Golden giving the baddies a challenge "one of you must capitalize the word PLAN in one of your posts on Day one" or some such.

*sigh* Rereading this, it does look like Matt talk.

What does everyone else think?

I could buy this. I await Jay's response.


Current thoughts: I find ika incredibly annoying but I don't think he's bad. I don't really see the Rico suspicion, but idk how to read him in general. He seems fine to me Epi, on the other hand, I agree with the assessments that he is much quieter than usual and that's somewhat suspicious in my book.

Zebra, you seem to have ignored or missed the fact that BR made one post checking in and said she had been too busy to catch up so far. Seems legit, and she does have a history of being pretty quiet early on as a civ iirc. Your vote for her was pretty odd imo.

I'm also puzzled by OA's vote for polo. Where did that come from?

Not sure what I think of sig and the silly smiley speculation saga; he seems normal otherwise. Matt seems like his usual self and I'm inclined to trust him; same with LC. Other than that I don't have many strong opinions.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:Question for the Coward: why are there two Cylon number eights?

Also, why is the number 33 in this post subject?

I've only seen the first season of the show so I don't fully understand it but I'm pretty sure the cylon numbers are sort of like "models" in that there are multiple clones/identical-appearing cylons in various places, and the two Sharons are the same model

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:

nutella wrote:JJJ, why the popcorn?

You unwittingly engaged in a discussion that has taken place in pretty much every ika/Silverwolf game here to date. To be fair, their records have mostly reflected their claims that they read one another effectively.

I don't believe I've ever played with either of them. Regardless of their history, I really dislike ika's tone. Maybe it's not much basis for suspicion, especially now I'm aware it's common behavior, but I really don't like it and his unshakeability rubs me the wrong way.

Matt wrote:

Golden wrote:If one presumes anything other than that I don't intend for clarity out of my shrugs, you are probably doing it wrong. The best presumption is that I hoped the game would throw up these discussions, regardless of the truth of game setup, and it's much more interesting for me to watch exploration of what the game might be than to give you any hint of what it is.

Cool but I still think LC might be bad now.

Whaaaat up

Pls explain??

JJJ, why the popcorn?

this game is confusing :/

after a quick readthrough the player who sticks out to me the most is ika I guess. Not only do I find his rife-with-ignored-typos posts difficult and obnoxious to read, I'm unsure what to think of his fierce insistence on being able to read silverwolf no matter what, and the back-and-forth with Rico has been interesting to say the least. To some extent I understand the idea that some players might not really be able to help how they behave as civ or scum (I have been guilty of it myself). But the way he's talking about it and not allowing for any possibility he could be wrong is just really setting me off.

I wouldn't say he's necessarily vote-worthy for it yet, he's just so far the only blip on my radar, and day 1 for me usually involves having no clue who to really suspect and just voting for the strongest slight ping, so something else could come up.

omfg but that would have another r and an s. i am dumb

oh wait, raiders would make sense. that's a type of ship in the show I believe (don't remember if it's the good guys' or the cylons' ships though)

wait but is it actually a cipher? as in the letters are all changed on top of us not knowing any of them?? seems like that would be too mean

lol I fucked up and didn't read all of the rules thoroughly. so say we all...

N