EPISODE 2: "THE NIGHT AFTER THE LOVERS TIFF."

[Reicheru]

Ethics are tricky things, aren't they? For example: is it right to sacrifice a single citizen for the sake of the group effort?

Not that I knew he WAS a citizen of course. I voted him because I thought there was a good chance he wasn't. But Tenchi's plan was to split the votes and he felt honor-bound to vote Jennipher. I knew that, whichever way it went, there would be good information as to who the spies were. What I didn't bank on was the Tyler thing - although there's a couple of interesting things thrown up from that.

And while we're on the subject, Sam, you've heard enough whining from me on the subject of your treatment of inactives in Spies 2. I won't repeat it here except to say one thing.

If Tyler picks up any more penalties or proves to be idle by the time the next exile comes around, don't make us waste an exile. Let me put this in the most restrained language it deserves (edited for PG-13):

KICK
THE
MOTHERF--KING
C-NT
OUT.

I know that this means a final four, instead of a final three, but the game ends when only two remain anyway. I also know it shortens the game by one round, but this benefits the SPIES, who have to last as long as possible, and not the citizens. So nobody can accuse me of having pro-citizen bias on this one.

One other point. In every round there's an imprisonment. Everything you do that causes the citizens to lose an exile also means that one citizen will be imprisoned when there was no need for them to be. That citizen is denied a chance of winning that they otherwise would have had. This isn't fair or right.

THat's it.

[Reicheru]

This is where we find out how good the spies really are. Did they do the obvious thing and split votes, or did they make this more subtle?

JENNIPHER - Jack, Carrie, Tenchi
JAKUB - Leena, Miles, Jessica, Judith
JUDITH - Arthur
JACK - Shane
TENCHI - Jennipher
CARRIE - Anneliese, Jakub
TYLER - Tyler

JAKUB - Carrie, Jennipher, Jessica, Miles, Judith, Leena
TYLER - Arthur, Jack, Shane, Tenchi
NOBODY - Anneliese, Tyler

Let's work it out.

IF ANNELIESE AND TYLER ARE SPIES, the third spy would vote for Jakub in the second round. Anneliese voted Carrie first round so she's out, they weren't around enough to be sure that wouldn't backfire. That leaves Jennipher, Jessica, Miles, Judith and Leena.

IF TYLER IS A SPY BUT ANNELIESE IS NOT, ONE of Carrie or Jennipher is almost certainly a spy. Leena, Miles, Jessica or Judith is the other spy.

IF ANNELIESE IS A SPY BUT TYLER IS NOT, there's two possibilities: either the spies both voted Jakub, or one voted for each. I don't think both would vote Tyler, they would want the active citizen out and possibly the second exile wasted.
If they both voted Jakub, Carrie is out because Anneliese voted for her, so either the spies are smart enough to vote the same way in the first exile, in which case two of Leena, Miles, Jessica and Judith are spies. Alternatively Jennipher is a spy along with Leena, Miles, Jessica or Judith.
If they voted opposite ways, there's a few possibilities, assuming the spies didn't vote for the same person first time round:
Jack or Tenchi with Jessica, Miles, Judith or Leena.
Carrie with Arthur.
Shane with Jessica, Miles, Judith or Leena - NOT Jennipher, he would have known to vote Jakub if Jenn was a spy.


Now the paydirt: if neither Tyler nor Anneliese are spies:

Let's make an assumption here.
a) The spies split their votes 2/1 in favor of Jakub being exiled.
b) The spies split their votes 2/1 in favor of Tyler being exiled.
c) All three spies voted Jakub.

And some more assumptions. EITHER:
1) The spies split their vote between Jennipher and Jakub, 2/1

OR:
2) The spies split their vote between Jenn and Jakub, 1/2

OR:
3) The spies split their votes between Jenn, Jakub, and third party, 1/1/1.

OK let's take a look:

a1) CARRIE is a spy. JACK or TENCHI is second spy. JESSICA, MILES, JUDITH or LEENA is third spy.

a2) JACK or TENCHI is first spy. Leena, Miles, Jessica or Judith are second and third spies.

a3) Either CARRIE is first spy, Jessica, Miles, Judith, Leena is second, Arthur or Shane is third, or
JENNIPHER is first spy, JACK or TENCHI is second, Jessica, Miles, Judith, Leena is third.

b1) Jack, Tenchi, and Leena / Miles / Jessica / Judith.

b2) Impossible.

b3) Arthur or Shane, with Jack or Tenchi, with Leena Miles jessica or Judith.

c1) Impossible.

c2) First spy is Carrie, second and third are Leena, Miles, Jessica, Judith

c3) Jennipher, with Carrie, with Leena, Miles, Jessica, Judith.


r=Arthur, c=Carrie, s=Shane, n=Jennipher, j=Jessica / Judith / Leena / Miles, t = Tenchi / Jack, a=Anneleise, y=Tyler.

POSSIBLE COMBINATIONS:
a, y, j
y, c/n, j
a, j, j
a, t, j
a, s, j
- c, t, j
- t, j, j
- c, j, r/s
r/s, t, j
c, j, j

Let's assume the spies WERE all present and DID split 2/1 in favor of Jakub.
Now, I think we can safely assume Jessica and Jack are out... I think Judith and Carrie are out, although Judith is very clever and might be indicting her fellow spy to clear her later one...
Jennifer and Tenchi / Jack are out, that's clear enough, so I've eliminated all possibilities there...
Interestingly, Judith told me Shane was hinting at voting Jenn, yet he actually voted Jack and Arthur. One or the other is lying, therefore a spy?
Shane hinted Arthur and Judith could be spies. He has a strong suspicion of Jack. I'd say Shane and any of those three are out.
Tenchi openly challenged my reasoning for why Jack wasn't a spy, so those two aren't cooperating.
Tenchi and Judith are out. He didn't challenge Jack talking about Jessica being a spy either...
Jack and Jessica are probably not both spies. Jack didn't challenge Tenchi over Judith.
Anneliese and either Jennipher or Judith are not both spies.

If the spies split 2/1 to Jennipher:
CARRIE, JACK, MILES
CARRIE, JACK, LEENA

If the spies split 2/1 to Jakub:
JACK, JUDITH, LEENA
JACK, JUDITH, MILES
JACK, LEENA, MILES
TENCHI, JESSICA, LEENA
TENCHI, JESSICA, MILES
TENCHI, LEENA, MILES

If the spies split three-way:
CARRIE, ARTHUR, JESSICA
CARRIE, ARTHUR, LEENA
CARRIE, ARTHUR, MILES
CARRIE, SHANE, JESSICA
CARRIE, SHANE, LEENA
CARRIE, SHANE, MILES


Let me get my thoughts in order. I think CARRIE switched her first vote to Jakub because she is a spy and wants Jakub out. That narrows it down to eight possibilities.

Carrie is in every single one of them.

Miles, Leena, Arthur and Shane are each in three. Jack and Jessica are each in two.

If I'm right then EVERYONE bar Carrie, Jack, Arthur, Shane, Leena, Miles and Jessica is safe.
If I'm wrong about Carrie but right about the rest, there are six possibilities only.

Miles vs. Leena vs. Jessica - I would say Miles stands out as the least likely, especially after his reaction to his role and his questioning regarding the number of spies (which looked genuine). Leena could definitely be, she's a bold one if so. And Jessica has picked up a lot of suspicion, but she was chatty post-role as well.

Arthur vs. Shane - inactive spy vs. active one? Judith had strong suspicions of Shane. And yet apparently he had strong suspicions of Jack and Arthur. He calls Jack "quiet". He wished everyone good luck "except the spies" which seems kinda bold for his very first statement immediately after roles are announced!

Sam, I'm gonna call it... I think the spies are CARRIE, LEENA and SHANE. Now gimme my million bucks. :-)

[Reicheru]

Short confession due to day off.

So the big question: why have I accused Judith?

First thing: she could be a spy. If Belle were a spy, I don't think she'd be another Leo or Julian. If for no other reason than she's a compulsive liar, Belle would want to mix this up a bit. She'd play more aggressively. I have been thinking that she and Carrie can't be spies, but a really smart spy might want to give that impression. Belle... she's not a smart person - what Tyson said about her being "about a quarter as smart as she thinks she is" still stands, sorry Belle! - but she's bloody good at things like alliance forming. She can also ape others' strategies without being noticed as much for doing so (she did it with Adriana the whole way through both the last two Spies games!) She could know who I am. She could accuse Carrie to throw me off, although I don't know if she's smart enough to single me out like that.

If Judith is 1) Belle and 2) a spy, we're gonna need all the ammunition we can get against her. I fire one shot now and half a dozen people can fire the next sally, take her out. On the plus side, the accusation may not be necessary. I hope it's not because the Antonio situation sucked (especially since it eventually killed me!)

To do list:

1) Get friendly with Tenchi, get him to start some rumors that he's targeting me and Jennipher. That should safeguard us both.

2) Talk to Carrie and Judith. Say to Carrie that I think she's safe because she changed her vote on principle. See what she's willing to say about the people I think are in this with her. Also see if Judith will genuinely vote for Carrie.

3) Find out at what point Judith started getting "aggressive" and who Tenchi and I had talked to before then who might have tipped her off she was suspected.

How about JUDITH, JACK, CARRIE?

[Reicheru]

OK a couple of things because I'm tired as hell:

1) Challenge time is ideally Sunday, because I'll be fresh. If not then, it'll have to be tomorrow night.

2) On the TYLER subject, rather than kicking the alias out, kick the player - and bring in a replacement, Josh-style?

[Reicheru]

FYI, me and Tenchi are officially together now... we've had a private chatroom together (as created by Anneliese)... we'll probably end up engaged. Wouldn't THAT be fun? First Spies showmance!

PS - I thought the idea tenchi might be BEN was horrible, but what if I'm wrong about Judith and he's actually BELLE? That one would keep me awake at nights...! :-)

[Reicheru]

So right now we're back in the middle of Episode Two of Spies 1... the one where NOTHING HAPPENS. I'm seriously worried about one of my alliance being imprisoned because we're the only active players in the game. How the hell do the spies even know who's doing what?

I had this theory that there'd be another active spy in the game. I still suspect Judith, Anneliese and to some extent even Tenchi, but if he's one he's a bloody good actor. Superb in fact. (He'll laugh at this after he's revealed as a spy.) Judith and Anneliese are a different matter. Either COULD be a spy. Anneliese's reaction to Tenchi's suspicions leads me to believe that she's most likely not, but they could be in it together. Although that sounds way too paranoid...

Just as I quite like having no "abilities" (because it means I have only my wits to rely on), I rather like this idea of there being an active spy or two. In that case, the game should be a challenge; whereas if the spies are some combination like Carrie Shane and Miles, or Carrie Shane and Leena, as seems most obviously likely right now, the only challenge seems to be how to avoid imprisonment. They've done exactly the same amount of stuff as Julian, Gigi and Mercedes managed to avoid suspicion, which is NOTHING. Either they're innocent and confident (like Jakub) or they're simply bad spies. Either way, one of them is probably out next exile, and I'm gonna say it'll probably be Carrie. If she's a cit, it'll be time to rethink some assumptions.

I haven't had much time to think about the citizens' agendas as yet. Right now most of them seem to be staying low and trying not to get imprisoned. In the previous two spies games neither of the two people imprisoned second was an obvious threat to the spies, so I'm hoping that my alliance and I will survive so they can take out a neutral. If Belle is a spy, and she knows who I am, she should take me out - even with the worst case of selective memory, she cannot ignore the case I put to her against Gigi in Spies 1, two days before Gigi was exiled. (Although she didn't give it too much credit! - trying to persuade Belle she's wrong is like trying to persuade the sun to come out at night, only harder.)

I'm gonna make another prediction here... I think one spy is alumni, the other two are probably new players. As to the role-players, Anneliese is or claims to be one of them, and I really haven't seen enough of the others to knwo if they are or not.

You remember when in spies 2 you said (and I agreed afterwards) that I spent too much time hanging with Adriana's alliance and ignoring Davoni's? I hate repeating my own past mistakes... unfortunately finding someone else to hang with is proving difficult. Guess I'll have to see what happens.

[Reicheru]

So the situation is, we think we've narrowed down the spy list to: Carrie, with Judith Miles Jessica or Leena, with Shane Arthur or Jack. Since Judith and Jack look much less suspicious after their own suspicions of Carrie, that effectively leaves four possibilities if you rule out Tyler: CARRIE MILES SHANE, CARRIE MILES ARTHUR, CARRIE LEENA SHANE or CARRIE LEENA ARTHUR. It's worth noting that nobody on that suspect list has done anything whatsoever in terms of active spymanship. Either we're catastrophically wrong, or the spies think that they can stay completely under the radar for the first two episodes and expect everyone else to remain clueless.

I'm actually hoping we're wrong right now, because a four round Spies game sounds like so much crap... didn't anybody learn ANYTHING from the way Tyson and Ally played the game? Let's at least have ONE surprise spy! Judith or Tenchi perhaps...

I'm still pinning my hopes on Judith being a spy. If she is, it makes my chances of being imprisoned that much less, as well as making a much more satisfying ending than three partial inactives turning out to be spies.

Off to bed. Goodnight!

[Reicheru]

Forgot two possibilities: CARRIE ARTHUR SHANE and CARRIE LEENA MILES. Although they're not as likely as the other four in terms of votes cast. As well not to forget them though...

[Reicheru]

So two people have immunity from imprisonment... and neither of them is me. AAAARGH!!!

You know how on "The Apprentice" someone sometimes gets into the habit of saying the opposite of what everyone else is saying so that they can say in the boardroom afterwards that they actually disagreed with the bad decisions made? I'm gonna be an asshole and do that... I think we're wrong. Spectacularly wrong.

OK, here's why. I don't think it's possible for anybody to be as stupid as the spies, if our Carrie theory is correct, appear to be right now. If ANY of them was in either previous spies game, they have to know that just waiting around like they seem to have been doing will get you picked off. The most proactive spy got to round ten (and didn't lose because of his tactics, but because of some stupid mistakes he made that the final two cits picked up on). None of the four passive spies survived past round five. If you add up the rounds Allison and I survived, it's three more than the rounds every single other spy combined managed. It's not rocket science.

Apart from me, the most proactive people in the game are Anneliese, Judith and Tenchi. I think my reasoning about Jennipher holds up even if we're talking active spies here, so let's put Jessica, Jack and possibly Shane on the second tier of activity. Which of them could have organised the vote? Could one of them have told Carrie to switch if Carrie is innocent? That argues a helluva lot of knowledge about how this game works and how citizens are likely to think, but why the hell not? Judith is most likely Belle, and Belle is not stupid. She's still my top suspect for an active spy, even if Carrie goes, because she hasn't made any actual moves against Carrie. She's just so unlikely though...

Oh, and before I forget - SKEPTICAL, SKEPTICISM. Can't remember which one it is now.

The spelling is wrong of course... is that deliberate, or a mistake on anneliese's (the spy's) part? Interesting question to ponder.

[Reicheru]

Breaking news: Spies found. Nobody cares.

Seriously, it's about fifteen minutes before the imprisonment, where the hell IS everyone?

[Reicheru]

Sam, in case you didn't get my IM, you are EVIL. And I like it. :-) What I said in the group chat I'm about to post was absolutely true, when Tenchi and I turned out to be the first two unsafes I practically crapped myself. Then for about a minute and a half before the result was posted, I was literally holding my breath. That creepy-as-hell music doesn't help either. It's INTENSE.

Seriously though, Leena? What the hell happened there? It means one of two things: either the spies have no idea there's an anti-Carrie alliance, or one (or more) of our own is a spy and is happy to vote off someone who doesn't point away from our chief suspect. If Carrie goes tomorrow it should sort out which.

The good news is that if we ARE right, that's one of my chief suspects out of the game. The bad news is that Leena seemed really nice for the little time I actually got to see her around (one short private convo and a couple of group chats) so her loss sucks. Rather her than many, many others though...

[Reicheru]

I am very nervous about tonight. Firstly because there's a lot of people voting Carrie and I'm not convinced she's a spy. There's a lot of other possibilities, mostly involving Jack... and unlike Carrie, Jack DOES have potential to be a good spy. He's fairly proactive. He also might suspect that I'm onto him.

Secondly, I don't really think I'm as safe as I thought I would be. I like to keep some potential spy candidates thinking I might be unsafe, but that's a fine balance to keep and I don't want this to turn into a rout.

[Bebe]

"She can also ape others' strategies without being noticed as much for doing so (she did it with Adriana the whole way through both the last two Spies games!)"


What does "ape" mean? Is that British slang?

[Reicheru]

I imagine so.

I think it means something to "unimaginatively copy". It's rather negative because it implies the person doing the "aping" can't think for themselves. Sorry, Belle!

[Bruce]

That first post confused the Mofo out of me. I had to go drink a Dew to regenerate my Mofoness, and then I made (some) sense of it. I guess the merger probably didn't make your theories very happy, because you were obviously going pretty deep with them.

[Bebe]

The first post confused you?

I thought it was pretty clear. Especially this part:

KICK
THE
MOTHERF--KING
C-NT
OUT.

[Bruce]

bebe said:

The first post confused you?

I thought it was pretty clear. Especially this part:

KICK
THE
MOTHERF--KING
C-NT
OUT.

Well, that part I got, and enjoyed ;D