Oh boy, here we go. Much setup speculation follows.
Alright, roleclaim time. I'm Merlin Prismriver, Trumpeteer Survivor Neighbor, and I stole ZUN's music. My only ambition is to adapt ZUN's score into a bestselling album and retire on the proceeds. The mafia are actually stooges set up by the music industry. I'm the one you all are actually after, but I'm not killing you, so take from that what you will.
I speculate that Kiro is a naive-cop-with-one-exception, due to the flavor of this game. ZUN's looking for the one who stole his music, and that's me. If that's the case, then when you lynch me today and get an innocent result from Zakeri tomorrow night, you're going to have a really nasty dilemma on your hands. So, Kiro, since you seem to like making deals so much, let me propose this to you.
If I'm correct in my setup speculation, the investigation of Alice means nothing at all. He could be either town or scum. If he's scum, then lynching him will mean a win for me and all of you (as I also doubt that Kitten would make three scum versus a useless cop). That'd be swell. If he's innocent, then I could be either right or wrong in my setup speculation. Kiro would presumably investigate Zakeri tomorrow night, and if I'm right, he'd get an innocent result, which would probably lead you all to lynch me and then lose the game. If I'm wrong and Kiro is actually a scum-plus-survivor detector, you'd have two guilty results, four people alive, and a game that's not over, which should lend credence to my story. Hopefully we'd agree on a Zakeri lynch and then we'd all win. That'd be just as swell.
Now, I'm well aware that with what you know, from a pure game theory perspective it's probably smarter for you all to mislynch me on the not inconsiderable chance that I'm making all this up, and then when my flip proved you all wrong, you'd then take your chances among Zakeri and Alice. But we're in the endgame now, and we've got posts to analyze. I think that Sodium's flip reflects worse on Alice and Zakeri both than it does on me.
For one thing, Alice's (lack of) play so far would be godfathertastic even if I didn't suspect that we have an effectively-naive cop, and I'm kind of irritated that Kiro played into it. Here's the sum of everything he's had to say about Xan and Sodium:
I basically hate, loathe and despise everything about Xan's play, but at the same time, the fact that Town-Xan ALSO works this way leaves me to be ultimately uncertain about his scumminess. Possible vote target, but again, I'd have to think about it a bit more.
He then places Sodium after Nietz and Zakeri but before Kerigis in his list of likely scum. This was the day
before the one where Sodium was lynched, and he of course didn't have anything to say on Day 3, so it's pretty much all we have on him. It's about as wishy-washy as opinions get.
Meanwhile, Suwako hit all the relevant points on Zakeri's relations with Xan/Sodium. His 166 looks especially like he's frustrated at his scumbuddy's ineptitude - notice the harsh wording combined with the lack of a vote to back it up, and I really don't like the way that he declares Xan's play in its entirety as a nulltell (which is essentially what Alice did in that above quote) in 227. Finally, 279 uses the tried and true pseudobussing technique of saying "[Scumbuddy] and [Random Townie] look equivalent to me." I can't be the only one who this raises enormous red flags for, can I?
So, all of Zakeri's actions certainly make sense in the context of being Sodium's scumbuddy, and Alice looks like lurkerscum with a side helping of vagueness about the now-flipped scum. I'd prefer to lynch Alice right now, and if he flips town, go into tomorrow with a scan of Zakeri to hopefully vindicate me, but I'm admittedly a bit biased there, since if Alice is scum and Zakeri isn't, then I'll almost certainly be lynched tomorrow over the scanned-innocent guy. I'm voting Alice, but on the off chance that you all buy into my deal but think Zakeri is scummier, I'll vote him instead and pray that he's our scum.
##Vote Alice MargatroidNow, because this post isn't long enough yet, some responses to what's already been posted:
As for Day 3, Sodium had posted twice without voting and Serp doesn't really address Sodium's lack of putting a case forward and just proceeds straight to Jan-san/Kerigis. I found that a bit odd. His reply about Sodium in #281 is pretty much sitting on the fence.
I blame this on the discussions that we three Prismrivers were having at night. I didn't speak much with Jan-san/Kerigis, but Roukanken and I went over who we thought was likely to be scum and we both figured that Kerigis was the most scummy during our N2 discussion. Roukanken wanted to prod Affinity first, and you all saw how that turned out. :V I know it's unverifiable private evidence and all, but the fact that I had already gone through the scumhunting steps once sort of threw me off when I had to re-present a case against other cases again.
Serpentarius' 241 boggles my mind. If you didn't think Xan was scummy, why did he necessitate a prod vote?
I think I explained my reasoning well enough in 165. Xan's D1 conduct didn't look bad to me at all. The prod vote was there purely due to his D2 failure. I kept it there 'till he was replaced, and then I didn't unvote and find a new case until Alice showed up and Sodium got rolling.
I also disagree with the idea that Sodium was scumhunting; he was asking a boatload of questions but getting an actual opinion from him was like pulling teeth.
When people ask questions, that's scumhunting. It's an attempt to find inconsistencies and get more information out there. His lack of stated solid opinions wasn't pro-town, but he was far from the worst in that regard. The fact that I was the last vote on him seems to mean that I wasn't the only one who thought so.
And on that note, I'd like to point out that I've held a solid stance on Xan and Sodium all game, which should be worth something. Granted, it was the
wrong stance, but Alice and Zakeri never really committed either way, and I think that's worse.
So, there you go. That's my case for why you shouldn't lynch me. All that remains for all you townies is to decide whether it's a good strategy or not. One last thing, though: I fully expect Alice to be opposed to this proposed deal; if he's scum, then it'll be for the obvious reasons, and if he's town, then it'll be because he can expect a win if both Zakeri and I get lynched instead of him. I'm more curious about what Zakeri has to say about it. If you're town, Zakeri, then you have nothing to fear. If Alice is scum, then your faction will win by following my plan. If I'm scum, then Kiro's investigation of you tonight will turn up innocent and in all likelihood I'll be lynched tomorrow. If you're scum, though, then you'd better hope that my speculation about Kiro being a naive-cop-with-one-exception is correct, or else you'd better oppose this deal with everything you have so you can get Alice lynched in your place tomorrow. So, what's it going to be?
