cradleproject | WEEK 3 - TRIAL DAY TWO

WEEK 3 - TRIAL DAY TWO

the pygmalion. . .

ONLINE

CAPTAIN'S LOG:
WEEK (3)

saturday TRIAL DAY ONE

(34) 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
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Rulebook
Voting

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's also possible that they wanted to avoid leaving a blood trail that would lead us to finding the body sooner, but... While I see the point of that, they had to know that we would find it eventually, especially since there was blood already in the garden.

Perhaps after he was killed, the murderer came to regret what they had done?

[ Jack nods ]

I mean, think about it. Sure, someone could've killed because they wanted the big bucks, but me, I think it's just as likely that it was paranoia gettin' the best of someone. And in that case, yeah, you'd probably feel pretty guilty about bashing someone's head in because you're out of your mind.

Maybe...

[pauses for a moment]

They only could have had the cloaking device if they were trying to kill someone on the vulnerable list. Perhaps they were going after Machias, and Allen happened to be in the way. Especially given the fact that Machias' shotgun is different than most, they may have misfired and killed Allen instead when they didn't mean to target him at all.

That doesn't explain the head injury, though... Tell me. The gun wounds on his shoulder, arm and chest, would those be fatal on their own? Perhaps if he was already dying, the killer didn't want him to suffer any longer than he had to, and decided to speed it up somehow.

I think you're onto something there, kiddo.

[ He crosses his arms, but he does occasionally gesture with his hand as he explains. ]

Hell, our killer could have been using the cloaking device themselves for all we know and just stuck it on the kid to get rid of it and conveniently hide the body. But for the wound? Yeah, you're askin' for a nice, slow, painful death there, especially now that all our mystery healing materials are gone. You don't hit a guy in the head or in the heart? They're gonna bleed out. Having gotten shot at before more than a few times, I can tell you, it's not the way you wanna go.

[ He shrugs ]

So, yeah, could've been an accident, and that's why the bandages are showing up. You'd kind of feel like a dick for killing the guy you didn't even mean to, I guess. But, hell, then that brings up a secondary point. Who knows the kid enough to feel compelled to do that? Or to feel guilty about it in the first place?

If they were absolutely willing to kill Machias, it does seem strange that they would feel so badly about killing another unless they knew this other person better.

One thing I am unclear on is whether the bandages were put there to avoid a trail of blood leading to the hidden body, or whether they were put there as an effort to save his life. The second option seems unlikely... Unless the head wound was accidental, it seems strange to cause a fatal blow and then bandage it for any reason other than to hide their tracks.

Which, we're dancing around it, but I'll just say it. If that's the angle we're looking at, absolutely the redhead. [ a pause, and then: ] The redheaded guy, I mean.

[ He's pretty casual about just calling him out, since it doesn't actually seem to matter to Jack too much. He just continues on smoothly without missing much of a beat at all. ]

As for that, could be both? Get the bandages for the shoulder to save his life, realize that it's not gonna do the trick, bash his head in, but now you've got a mess. Use the bandages to prevent a mess and to also make it not stand out quite as much that one is bandaged. But, I mean, weird either way, since that's what we're stuck on.

Wasn't the medbay all messed up? Kinda weird for it to be in that state if they were just looking for bandages. Unless they've never set foot in it before, you shouldn't have to overturn the whole place just to get them.

They might not have been looking for bandages. Or that's not why they went there. We had all our healing stuff just up and disappear on Wednesday, right? Our killer might have missed that memo, so they could've torn the place apart looking for even one.

Because they wanted to hide the wounds or because they wanted to heal Allen?

[He looks thoughtful for once.] I don't actually know anything about "hotguns" or whatever they're called, but it seems like people are saying the guy might have been mercy killed to stop him from dying slow. Could a hit to the shoulder really have killed him?

Either or, but all things considered, I'm inclined to think number two.

[ Jack shrugs, then waves a hand a little dismissively. ]

First, they're call shotguns, princess. Second, minus a goddamn grenade launcher, shotguns aren't exactly the gun you go mercy-killing with. I mean, you know how to use them, or you have a Hyperion stabilizer, you're gonna have better luck, but they're not something a novice can just pick up and use. They've got a hell of a recoil, and if you want to kill someone, you better be shooting them in the goddamn face with it.

[ He makes a hand motion that roughly carries the spraying sense of a shotgun's pellets. ]

From anything but point blank, you're gonna give someone a hell of a time. Best case, they're gonna have some sweet new scars, but worst, you've got a nice, slow death ahead of you, 'cause that spray is gonna make a shitton of wounds.

Getting smacked in the head doesn't sound like a nice quick death to me.

So here's my question. If you're right and the killer wanted to heal Allen - if they'd gotten hold of the healing serum, would they have been able to save his life? Would he be dead from the shotgun no matter what, or would he have been more or less fine if he hadn't been hit in the head?

Doesn't the serum only work on light wounds?

[He shrugs.] Maybe! Like I said, I got no idea how shotguns work. I'm just wondering which of the wounds would have been most responsible for the guy dying, since people are saying they might have been caused by two different people.

[ this is where jack's knowledge of murder outclasses my own sweats... bear with me ]

Oh— I mean, yeah, maybe? Kinda hard to predict with the shotgun, since I mean, it nicks a major artery, and you're pretty much screwed. Hard to tell without a really "in there" autopsy.

[ aka the difference between three and seven meters isn't something I want to return to google images to figure out ]

But I get your point. Wasn't the shotgun that actually took him out, considering the autopsy, but it sure as hell didn't help.

[join me in my shotgun wound hell that my character wouldn't even icly know]

So the killer might have "mercy" killed him for nothing? That's...fucked up. [Not that he sounds at all disturbed by it, because it's actually more amusing to him than anything else.]

Still doesn't make a ton of sense though. I get bandaging his shoulder wound to try to stop the bleeding, but why bandage his head wound if you did it to kill him anyway?

Yeah, possibly. Which- [ Jack starts to laugh ] Which, to be honest, would be hilarious. You ended up a killer for goddamn nothing. But, other than that, that's the part where it's a little less clear. Bandage it up because you don't want to drag the blood around, you don't want brain spilling out, or just because you can't handle column A or B there without vomiting... Could all work, but there's probably something better than that.

[Okay, he has to snort at that because he's an asshole.] Mercy killings would be stupid as shit here anyway, so they'd deserve it. Someone's still gonna die during the trial, so they might as well cop to it from the start instead of making us go through all this shit.

If they bandaged up the head so there wouldn't be blood, then they might have bandaged up the shoulder for that reason too. It doesn't make any sense to say they did one to save him and the other to stop him leaving a trail.

Noooot in the slightest, no. Now, I know I'm not exactly the guy that's gonna bandage up anyone that I'm either trying to shoot or bash in their head, so that's why I'm just thinking both are amounting to wishful thinking. It doesn't make any sense, but if you're desperate, hey, why not, right? Especially if you, I dunno, just killed someone you didn't mean to.

How exactly do you accidentally shoot someone and bash their head in? I might not know much about guns, but I know you have to at least pull the trigger to get it to work.

[thanks resident evil for teaching him this since it's week 3 and no one wants to do medieval explanations anymore]

You'd be surprised what seems reasonable when you're paranoid out of your goddamn mind.

[ Jack says, like he has no personal experience with this. Gosh. But he waves a hand slightly. ]

So, take that we've got Allen in the garden, doing his thing of burying the dog tags, because, I dunno, he's got morals or something. Then we've got Lavi, who is going to have extra reason to be paranoid, considering he was one of the vulnerable players this week. So Machias decides to take advantage of that, gets his shit, and they meet up in the garden for their showdown. Not literally, since that would kinda be even weirder, so just sayin', that's a figure of speech here.

Machias plans to kill Lavi, but Allen is already there. We knows there's a fight, so Allen tries to protect Lavi, something like that? From what I'm hearing, he sounds like a pretty heroic kid. He gets shot, maybe even bashed in the head—

[ Jack shrugs, since as he's talking, he's thinking of something here. ]

Actually, clocking him could've been accidental too, for all we know. Machias got a pretty sweet concussion, so if we've got our guy swinging around the shovel enough to do that, maybe he wasn't exactly careful. That and the shotgun, and he might've done more damage than he intended. Or, hell, he might have just been too paranoid to trust that the kid wasn't going to kill him.

The shotgun might've been intentional, and that part could have been from Machias. But that's not what killed him, seems like. The head wound that ended up finishing him off could've been the accident.

Edited 2016-06-26 21:21 (UTC)

This's pretty in line with where my thoughts are goin', just sayin'.

[ like. it sounds shitty. but. ]

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