The Syndicate

Day 3 has ended. Master Radishes was eliminated. He was:

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Master Radishes was the Hittite empire, a classical power centered in Anatolia/Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) with its capital at the ancient site of Hattusha, to the east of modern Ankara. Their power in this region was largely unchecked for centuries leading up to the period of the Late Bronze Age Collapse. At their peak they were credible rivals of every other power in the vicinity to include the Assyrians, Egyptians, and late-stage Babylonians. For this reason, it is somewhat curious that they suffered perhaps the most total collapse of any civilization that fell in this cataclysmic century. The bizarre stories of naval invaders (i.e., the "Sea Peoples") that have popped up to describe the collapses of their neighbors persist with the Hittites. However, the story of their demise might need a broader account, and some evidence suggests they were victims of an extraordinarily severe and prolonged drought. Climate change was ever a critical threat to the ancient world (perhaps we can learn from their destruction). The source of this drought is a topic of much debate, but some attribute it to Seanzie. Yes, they attribute the fall of the Hittite empire (and the climate catastrophes of the LBAC in general) to Seanzie. More on this shortly.

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Night 2 has ended. @LinearPoint was killed. She was:

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LinearPoint was the great Assyrian empire stretching across the northern Mesopotamian landscape. For their time in the region, the Assyrians were a military power arguably without equal. Like the Phoenicians I discussed previously, the Assyrians survived the Late Bronze Age Collapse, but in a weakened frame. They ceded territory to the Elamite-Babylonians to the south, and their stranglehold over the region generally waned even as their neighbors (like the Hittites to the north) collapsed completely. They were fortunate to make it through, however, even if not at full strength, because they eventually reasserted themselves as the absolute dominating force in Mesopotamia into the first millennium BCE. Very unfortunately, the long-standing ruins of the Assyrian capital at Nineveh were severely damaged in the 2010s by ISIS and other insurgents that viewed them as heretical and offensive. To me, it's an unforgivable crime.

Day 3 will last 48 hours. Votes are NOT locked, as there is still no hammer. Voting proceeds as it has throughout the game. Town must eliminate correctly to stay alive.

Guillotine was the Phoenician city states of the Levant. The Phoenicians were a scattered people of loosely connected cultures primarily in the Levantine region of the east Mediterranean, but in time they expanded to a vast mercantile empire that surrounded the southern portion of the sea. They did not truly collapse alongside the other peoples of the Late Bronze Age Collapse era, and it might have been their economic guile and unique charisma that kept them standing. The Sea Peoples that invaded and destroyed so many major settlements in the region seemed to leave the Phoenician city-states of Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos essentially unmolested, and scholars generally attribute this to their being paid off or hired for protection. They essentially turned those who would pillage their lands into their garrisons instead. Indeed, as their large imperial neighbors fell into ruin, it was often the Phoenicians that filled the void. They established themselves as an economic superpower, because even in times of great strife... someone must profit.

Day 2 final poll

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Day 2 has ended. @Guillotine was eliminated. He was:

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Night 2 will last 24 hours.

I managed to get into my office, and I have updated the Night 1 flavor. Check more Late Bronze Age Collapse stuff here if you so desire.

I seem to have locked myself out of my office, and all of my flavor is saved in there. An update will have to wait. I’m sure you’re devastated.

Night 1 has ended.

@Michelle has been killed. She was:

Spoiler: show

Michelle was the Kassite dynasty period of the Babylonian civilization. The Babylonian people were inheritors of some of humanity's longest-enduring heritages, occupying the classical Fertile Crescent region of Mesopotamia previously held by the Sumerian and Akkadian peoples as early as the fourth or fifth millennium BCE. They are named for their legendary city of historical and Biblical significance, Babylon, on the Euphrates River. Babylon was the seat of the Old Babylonian empire from the 19th to 15th centuries BCE, before it was sacked by invading Hittites from the north. This created a power vacuum that was filled by the Kassite dynasty until approximately 1150 BCE, ripe for the period of the Late Bronze Age Collapse. The Kassites frequently intermarried with royals of the neighboring Elamites (precursors to the classical Persian empire, based at Susa in modern day Iran), and it was the Elamites that eventually brought on their destruction. Intra-familial power struggles paved the way for conflict, and this allows for the fall of the Kassites to be among the best-explained endings to the empires that fell in the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Shutruk-Nakhunte, king of Elam, attacked Bablyon, under the rule of Meli-Šipak II (his father-in-law), and the Kassites were no more. Elamite control was also short-lived, as the Egyptians routed them about half a century later.

@DrWilgy has been killed. He was:

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DrWilgy was the Mycenaean Greeks. The timeline of our game is working out nicely to paint a coherent picture of the true Late Bronze Age Collapse. We just covered the end of the Minoan civilization at Crete, and I had said that their late period coincided and blended with that of the Mycenaean Greeks, who had essentially annexed their territory extending from the mainland peninsula. The Mycenaeans were the first significant power to emerge in Greece, and sometimes they are overlooked now after the great achievements and theatrics of their Athenian and Spartan descendants. Mycenae was a city-state in the Peloponnese, slightly southwest of the isthmus that separates northern Greece from southern. The Mycenaeans were ambitious colonialists, taking postures across the Aegean and east-Mediterranean seaboard including the previously mentioned Crete as well as Rhodes, Cyprus, and the western shores of Asia Minor. Indeed, the pseudo-historical story of the Trojan War likely recounts a conflict between Mycenaean invaders and Hittite settlers on the coast of present-day Turkey. The Mycenaeans waxed to glory and then fell abruptly, and their demise is among the most dramatic to lend the Late Bronze Age Collapse its name. What happened isn't entirely clear, but numerous factors are cited: famine, disease, and drought brought on by significant and unpredictable climate change (perhaps to be revisited later in this game), incursions from the island-faring Dorians, internal political upheaval and population movement, and attacks from the Sea Peoples, a bizarre composition of human life central to Late Bronze Age Collapse.

Day 2 begins and will last 48 hours. Still no hammer. Flavor soon.

cat was the Minoan civilization.

The Minoans were master seafarers based on the Mediterranean island of Crete. Attributing their fall to the Late Bronze Age Collapse may be a slight misinterpretation, as many historians trace their destruction an eruption of Mount Thera (near present-day Santorini, Greece) in the mid 17th century BCE. This eruption is said to have thrown ash all over the Cretan landscape, and it was accompanied by major earthquakes. The Minoan people were unable to withstand the assault from nature, and their power waned considerably. Still, their culture and heritage survived on Crete for a few more centuries until the arrival of the Mycenaean Greeks. Minoan culture gradually assimilated with Greek, and they would meet their final dramatic decline together when in the 12th century the Mycenaeans succumbed to the various forces that this game is designed around.

Pictured: This is what remains of the ancient palace at Knossos, a major culture center of the Minoan world.

Day 1 poll

Spoiler: show

Day 1 has ended.

@cat has been eliminated. They were:

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Night 1 will last 24 hours. Flavor coming soon.

Thread locked

@cat
@DrWilgy
@Epignosis
@falcon45ca
@Guillotine
@LinearPoint
@Master Radishes
@Michelle
@S~V~S
@Seanzie

Day 1 begins now and will last 48 hours. There is no hammer vote in this game.

Instead of providing opening flavor of a "Mafia" sort, I want to give you a suggestion for a great one hour documentary (video podcast) about the period of history we'll be covering. You certainly don't have to watch this, and it wouldn't make a difference to this game. But if you are interested now or become interested along the way, this will be here.

The classical Bronze Age was an approximately 2,000-2,200 year period, with this range shortened or lengthened depending upon the continent being studied. In the Mediterranean and near-eastern Asia, this era stretches from the 34th century into the 12th BCE, from the ancient peoples of Sumer and Old Kingdom Egypt through the Babylonians, early Greek city-states, Assyrians, and New Kingdom (among others). This period elapsed a time comparable to the distance, in time, between the present day and the start of the ancient Roman republic in 200 BCE. In the "Late Bronze Age" we turn our focus to the 16th through 12th centuries, when for hundreds of years a handful of regional powers dominated the known world before, seemingly all together, disappearing.

The game will begin in approximately 50 minutes.

@cat
@DrWilgy
@Epignosis
@falcon45ca
@Guillotine
@LinearPoint
@Master Radishes
@Michelle
@S~V~S
@Seanzie

All role cards have been submitted. The game will begin at 9:00 PM PST this evening (Tuesday the 22nd of August). The mafia team is permitted to begin communicating behind the scenes immediately.

Days are 48 hours long. Nights are 24 hours long.

Remember that the premier rules in any Syndicate Mafia game come straight from the site rules. Review those rules below, and direct any concerns you may have to the host or moderator(s) on duty.

[Link] Rules and Guidelines on The Syndicate

Also always be mindful of the culture of respect that must be maintained in all Syndicate spaces at all times, to include this game thread and any external communication spaces relating to the game. Players must be respectful to one another, to the game host, to the members of the staff overseeing the game, to the game itself by way of its rules and spirit, to the Syndicate community in general, and ideally also to themselves. Respect is never optional. See our full manifesto on our culture of respect below.

[Link] A Syndicate Mafia Culture of Respect

Game rules and guidelines (note especially voting rules #2 and #5, but all rules apply)

Spoiler: show

Voting and Claiming Rules

1.) Claim whatever you want if anything. This game has no roles.
2.) Votes in the poll are official, and I will only consider the poll votes when I resolve a day phase. It is still obligatory to call votes in the game thread, as the poll does not track voting order. Call your votes to make it possible to discern timing and order. This is not optional. Please call votes with the [ vote ][ /vote ] tags (no spaces).
3.) Votes are changeable with no limitations.
4.) Voting is not obligatory. There is no requirement to vote in any phase whatsoever. There are participation standards though, which I'll cover separately.
5.) The player who has received the most votes at the deadline shall be eliminated. There is no majority hammer.
6.) In the event of a tied vote, the eliminated player shall be decided among the tied names at random.
7.) A "no elimination" option will be included each day phase. This option must lead the tally with no ties to be enacted at any time.

Participation Standard

There is no rigid standard for participation; this will be at the host's discretion. All players are expected to make a sincere effort to contribute to the game thread consistently enough that their content can be fairly judged. Non-participation has an adverse effect upon the balance of the game. If I decide a player is not participating enough to facilitate this balance, that player will be replaced. If a replacement cannot be found, there might be a modkill. With this in mind I reiterate: it's very important that everyone try to participate. At least a few posts per day/night cycle are a bare minimum.

Other

1.) Respect all guidelines and rules found in The Syndicate's announcements section. Above all else, treat your fellow players with respect -- this is just a game.
2.) BTSC (behind the scenes chatter) is only permitted in host-designated locations.
3.) No editing or deleting of posts in the game thread.
4.) Just don't make posts when you're dead unless you have been given express permission by the host.
5.) Non-players may not post in the game thread.
6.) Living players wishing to discuss something off-topic may choose to do so in {Off-Topic} Green. There's an "OT" button for this in the post editor. This is not required.
7.) If you ever have any questions about the rules, roles, or setup, please ask me privately.

Angleshooting and loopholes

Don't.

We all know what the spirit of Mafia is about. So don't. If you ever think something might be cutting it close, just ask me before doing it/saying it. Thanks gang.

Examples of things that suck:
- Referencing out-of-game personal information to progress yourself in the game (regardless of alignment)
- Trying to use specific wording in your role card to glean information in the thread
- Openly calling for or talking about the mafia team conceding
- Discussing anything outside the game thread that should have no bearing on it (e.g., technical quirks you observe on Discord) other than ordinary metagaming
- Plenty of other things; there are too many to list

Sample vanilla town role card:

You're a civilization fighting for survival (town).

You have no special abilities.

The game begins at 9:00 PM PST tonight (Tuesday) the 22nd of August. You may access the game thread here (click).

About 3,200 years ago, human civilization underwent an unprecedented and mysterious collapse.
The Mycenaean Greeks.
The Minoans of Crete.
The Hittites of Anatolia.
The Kassites of Babylonia.
Ugarit in Syria.
Gone. Erased.

Even great powers of history that survived only dragged on in a weakened frame.
Assyria.
Egypt.
Phoenician Levant.

What happened to these people, and how could so many powers fall together in such a terrible crescendo of devastation?

We won't answer those questions, but we will play a Mafia game. Let's learn and relive history. Maybe we'll even rewrite it.

~ Any number of players from 9-17 except 12, because I hate 12
~ All Heist requirements respected, so anticipate a vanilla-heavy non-mountainous experience
~ Setup will be closed, but I guarantee that only two factions are included (town and mafia).
~ With the new semester starting soon, I will need late cycle deadlines. We'll go with 9:00 PM PST.
~ 48/24 hour cycles
~ I won't hand out flavor roles, but I will reveal flavor when phases end.
~ No hammers. All eliminations are determined by plurality. I can't be around the thread constantly to watch for hammers.

Game Staff

@JaggedJimmyJay (Host)
@Scotty (Moderator on Duty)

Players

@cat - Vanilla town, Eliminated on Day 1
@DrWilgy - Vanilla town, Killed on Night 1
@Epignosis - Town 2-shot Jailkeeper, Killed at Endgame
@falcon45ca - Mafia goon, Survived
@Guillotine - Vanilla town, Eliminated on Day 2
@LinearPoint - Town diminished doublevoter, Killed on Night 2
@Master Radishes - Vanilla town, killed on Day 3
@Michelle - Vanilla town, killed on Night 1
@S~V~S - Vanilla town, killed at Endgame
@Seanzie - Mafia 1-shot vigilante, Survived

The Syndicate

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The Late Bronze Age Collapse [END]