cradleproject | WEEK 10 - Trial Day Two

WEEK 10 - Trial Day Two

the pygmalion. . .

ONLINE

CAPTAIN'S LOG:
WEEK (10)

saturday TRIAL DAY ONE

(16) survivors

At 9 AM, a klaxon alarm begins blaring in every area of the ship. The alarm will continue to go off until everyone has gathered in the conference room. Should anyone be running late or avoiding the trial for whatever reason, a robot guide will appear wherever they are and gently but firmly escort them into the room. Once all the living players are present, the conference room doors will lock shut; anyone who wishes to leave for whatever reason will need to ask AL-2955 or one of the robots. Anyone leaving for non-investigative purposes, such as bathroom breaks, will be accompanied by a robot escort.

The large round table in the center of the conference room has been set up to help the trial run as smoothly as possible. Three holographic screens hover above the center hollow of the table, visible from every angle. The first screen displays the pictures and profiles of the suspects and victim; the second displays the autopsy report; the third displays a blank word processor. Each of the chairs comes equipped with a virtual keyboard which can be used to type information directly into the third screen, such as theories and updated information; they can also be set into privacy mode, which will transfer whatever notes someone writes directly into their datapad instead of on screen. There's also a tablet function for those who wish to draw charts or pictures on screen. The keyboards will detect the DNA of whoever's using them and record who's typed what - simply press an area of text and the name of whoever wrote it will pop up.

The area to the right of the table has been temporarily sectioned off with a glass partition and sliding door for hygienic issues. Inside, the victim's body has been laid out on a metal autopsy table, covered by a plastic sheet. Above it is a holographic screen that displays a close-up color photograph of the body when it was found. A hand sanitizer dispenser has been considerately attached to the wall nearby for anyone getting up close and personal to the body.

To the left of the conference table is a display case. Any evidence found during the investigation will be carefully collected by the robots at some point the previous day and placed here before the trial starts. Beneath each piece of evidence is a small tablet where players can type up information, such as a short description or where it was found. There are also empty areas left over for any evidence that may be found during the trial. The shelf at the very bottom of the case has been reserved for an extra rulebook in case anyone needs it.

Food will be served throughout the day by the robots, who will take individual orders whenever you're feeling hungry. The trial will end at 9:00 PM, at which point all players will have been expected to cast their vote.

victim

suspects

Character Statuses
Setting
Rulebook
Voting

Threaded | Flat

Above the center of the conference table, the rightmost holographic screen displays the autopsy report:

Autopsy Report - Elizabeth

Cause of Death - Appears to be due to blunt trauma.

Body Discovery - Found floating through space. Body announcement alarm went off at 9:31AM.

Time of Death - 8PM - 9:30AM

Condition of Body - Bleeding from the head. Frozen due to time spent in space.

Condition of Scene - Viewport untouched aside from the reenactment of Snow White.

Autopsy Report - Todomatsu Matsuno

Cause of Death - Appears to be either blood loss or trauma from stab wounds.

Body Discovery - Located in a freezer in cold storage. Body announcement went off at 9:50AM.

Time of Death - 8PM - 9:30AM

Condition of Body - Bled profusely. Several stab wounds. Frozen due to being placed in freezer.

Condition of Scene - Frozen over blood found in freezer along with body. Knife was lodged between the freezer and the freezer door. Body was frozen, and left facing upwards.

The holographic screen in the middle displays the photos and profiles of each of the suspects. Pressing their photograph will bring up a tab where the suspects can type up their alibi.

Whereabouts - Thursday Night - Friday Morning, Week Ten

Alibis here.

Edited 2016-08-14 09:35 (UTC)

The display case to the left of the conference table houses all the evidence that has been found during the investigation so far. Below each piece of evidence is a tablet where players can label the piece and type up any notes they may have about it. There are also empty slots with blank tablets for any evidence or information that may be found during the trial.

All evidence and other information found during the course of investigation should be listed here.

(OOC: Please also link the thread where the evidence was found!)

Previous findings here.

The right area of the room has been sectioned off by a glass partition, which players can enter via a vertical sliding door. Elizabeth's and Todomatsu's bodies has been laid out on two sterile metal autopsy tables. Their bodies are covered with a plastic sheet, but the sheet can be removed. Other than the position and the sheet, the body has not been changed from how they were found.

A holographic screen above the body displays two color photos of the scene when the body discovery alarms rang at 9:31 AM and 9:50 AM. The photographs are close ups - they portray Elizabeth's and Todomatsu's bodies, but no more of the scene than is necessary to do so. Still, if you want to check their position, it makes it easy to do so.

Previous body findings here.

[Once the 9AM alarm has rung and all players have awakened, the statue in the alcove in the back of the room chimes gently. Holographic water begins pouring out of the jug the statue is carrying, forming the shimmering image of a vaguely feminine figure made out of liquid.]

Greetings, participants. As always, I am at your disposal should you need to ask anything. Good luck.

[The holographic image will remain throughout the trial. You're free to ask her whatever you want, though whether she'll answer is a different question entirely.]

[ He'll just drag the dead robot along with him. ] If you look at the side where its arm came off, it looks like it was dislodged and pried off. So it wasn't pulled off or cut through.

Also... I checked its non-missing arm and it seemed like a decent match for Elizabeth's head wound. So I think that caused it and the robot clearly played a bigger part in this than we thought.

Judar went down to check the drop in the fuel reserve, but didn't find the robot arm like I thought he would. So it's still missing.

Alice tells me that there's no person on this ship who could tamper with the power or robots without aid. When asked whether it could be done with aid, she told me I ought to bring her a theory.

Shall we brainstorm?

[Coming back from Alice with a box.

Let's open it up and see what's inside?]

[so after a to-do list has been jotted on the board, the intrepid investigators set off to do some testing. first on the list - taking the elevator down to bring the button to the airlock. but...]

Shouldn't we test the elevator? We're already here.

[just so they can ride the elevator back up when they finish airlock testing in peace.]

[After the elevator shenanigans and they all returned to the room, Luke started looking at the profiles again. He waffles between them before he frowns heavily and speaks up.]

I think...we should really be asking harder questions. We spent a lot of time screwing around yesterday--[Being doxxed for being leashed tbh]--but not enough time questioning people. All of the profiles seem pretty straight-forward by now except for Dave and Roxy's. [Which makes him feel awful but. They need to get this done.] I have some questions myself but if somebody else has something in mind...? [Ugh don't make him go first.]

[Coming back upstairs with the Mystery Box after the Lower Floor tests.]

The mystery box works to shut off all power and lock the doors on whichever floor you're on. It's clear that on Friday morning, at 9:20, someone pressed the button to shut down the power. At this point, the lower floor went dark, the doors locked, the elevator stopped working, and, importantly, the door that leads out into space opened, but the door leading into the airlock room was shut.

It seems clear that the killer, sometime before 9:20, moved Elizabeth's body into the airlock room and shut the door. Elizabeth had likely been in the freezer; it would explain why there was no blood anywhere else. Then, at 9:20, the killer pushed the button on the mystery box and turned off the power. Elizabeth would have been pulled into space. The killer would then simply have to push the button again, at 9:35, and the doors would open and the power would come back on.

This confirms that Luke cannot have been the killer, as he was in the viewport at 9:30; the killer would have had to be on the lower floor for the duration of the blackout. All of our other suspects were on the lower floor, though notably, Adrien and Dave were together at the time, so for either of them to press the button would be quite a risk.

[let's stare at this timeline for longer before beginning to make more notes. she's talking to herself, but it's easily overheard.]

So, given the results of how long it takes blood to freeze, the latest Todomatsu must have died would have been 8:40 am. Elizabeth must have been moved in the space after 9:10, as the patrol would have ended at that point. Ten minutes to move her, get to safety, and then hit the button. But with the size of the freezers, where was Elizabeth in this half hour...? Did we miss something?

[tapping one of the markers against the board, she frowns.]

Grell pointed out that a bolt was found in Todomatsu's room, under his bed. We checked, and it definitely matches the robot that was used to both kill Elizabeth and create a distraction in the fuel reserve.

So—why would it be in his room? Either it suggests something happened in there or it was planted. Of course, the keycard isn't in play here. [ But cough cough, intangibility is, would be the implication. ]

[since this is her one job, she has to do it when the clock gets close to the time.]

Thirty minutes left in the trial.

[vote so you too can hate yourself for your choices!]

[Well, he's doing this. He's accusing a teenager of murder based on some rather shoddy guesswork. But what else can he do, there's not much time left. He adopts his best 'aren't I clever' smile, the better to make his way through an unpleasant exercise.]

Elizabeth can't have been in the freezer after 8:40. Thus, between 8:40 and 9:20, her whereabouts are unaccounted for. It doesn't seem possible she was simply stashed somewhere, what with the number of us moving about in the morning, and the lack of evidence. The only explanation to have made sense of this is that her body was being stored in Dave or Roxy's sylladex. It must be said - I don't think for a moment either of you did this of your own free will, but we will do no one any favors turning a blind eye.

Now, then. I propose two theories. Both rely on the notion that the killer, rather than pressing the button at 9:35 to restore the power, sent it out the airlock, and the power was restored once the box was out of range. This would be impossible for an ordinary person, and they would have had to turn it on inside the airlock, at which point they would have been trapped there.

First, Roxy. It would have been no matter for her to enter the airlock, remove Elizabeth from her inventory, press the button, and then leave the box and use her intangibility to get back through the airlock door. At which time she would have waited in the hallway for the power to come on, and pretended to be coming from the archives.

Second, Dave. A little more complex, this one. Dave has five seconds of time travel - rather useless, except that he has extraordinary speed. I've taken the liberty of attempting to sketch out my thoughts, as they're rather complex, but I believe the theory passes muster. [He'll post something on the whiteboard]

The question is really whether he's fast enough; it would be a considerable amount of speed to be sure, and it would have to be possible to evade Adrien's detection. But if it were possible, it is, in my opinion, the better theory, as it means the purpose of the power outage was to create an indisputable alibi.

Your thoughts?

Threaded | Flat

Autopsy Report

Alibis

Findings

Findings

Host

robot arm

robots and power

MYSTERY BOX

button testing!

[S] Interrogation of Homestucks