cradleproject | WEEK 5

the pygmalion. . .

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CAPTAIN'S LOG:
WEEK (5)

saturday TRIAL DAY ONE

(32) 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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What was the point of weighing her down to begin with? It's an exceptional amount of effort for something that seems so especially pointless.

What, you've never heard of dead man's float? [There's a small smirk.] If somebody wanted to hide the evidence right away that could be why. Even after a person dies they float for a while until the air's pushed out of their body, I think. In a pool it would take a while for water to replace air so to speed up the process there's no saying they wouldn't use the weights. Look at the window of time between her time of death and when Jason found her body.

It was found at 9 am on the day of the murder. It clearly wasn't of much help, particularly with blood in the water. If you didn't want the body found, why not hide it literally anywhere else.

9am is also when the alarm went off to get the rest of us up. For all we know they actually didn't have time to hide the body anywhere else before they had to book it.

But your premise relies on them having time to drag weights down from the gym in order to leave the body there.

We're sure Jason got there exactly at 9am?

Does it matter? The point is that arguing the suspect weighted the body because they didn't have time to hide it elsewhere doesn't take into account the amount of effort to bring the weights down in the first place.

It does if it was somebody who could move with enough ease to grab the weights and drown her without a lot of struggle. The gym and the pool are closer together than anything else. [...no. No, it really, really doesn't make sense.]

(no subject)

tevinteriscoming - 2016-07-09 23:56 (UTC) - Expand

chiseler - 2016-07-10 03:22 (UTC) - Expand

tevinteriscoming - 2016-07-10 03:29 (UTC) - Expand

chiseler - 2016-07-10 03:32 (UTC) - Expand

I didn't notice the body immediately because she was weighted down. Granted, it didn't take long to spot something in the water once I got close enough, but it still took a couple of minutes to drag it out. Maybe our killer was stupid enough to think sinking the body would buy them some time before the discovery announcement went up.

[Not that it helped much. The window of time is still pretty hecking small.]

I suppose. Would it have taken longer than even a passing glance to notice that something was amiss? Moving weights around is risky, and potentially loud.

Maybe if the water didn't look like a cherry Jell-O experiment gone wrong. You really have to wonder when the weights were moved around, though. Within the time frame given for the murder, or before?

It...

[Well, fuck.]

If Bull was in the gym, it would have been difficult not to notice the killer skulking about. Assuming he wasn't the one to move them, of course. Though it would be a profoundly stupid choice of alibi if so.

Maybe he's banking on it being such a stupid alibi, nobody would think to question it?

[It's a stupid suggestion, but???????? Fuck these trials.]

Well. I can't pretend that doesn't sound like something he'd do.

As far as I'm concerned, it definitely wasn't him, mind.

As far as we're all concerned, it definitely wasn't any of the people we like. But life is full of surprises.

tevinteriscoming - 2016-07-09 23:49 (UTC) - Expand

On the contrary, wouldn't the blood that seeped from her wound into the water make it immediately noticeable that something had occurred? Why not drag her into a corner instead?

Bingo. Shoving the corpse into, say, the shed would have been less obvious if you cleaned up the mess afterward. Besides — why murder someone next to the pool in the first place?

Perhaps she tried to attack them first. That would explain why they were able to take her gun.

So they disarmed or knocked her out, and then... What? Shot her in the head just because they could?

That's a good point. No, if they would have known that doing such a thing would cause their own death if they were found out. If they weren't willing to commit murder prior to being attacking, I don't see why they would change their mind.

Still, I do wonder why she would have her gun on her normally. Would anyone happen to know if she commonly carried it around in the case danger befell her? Otherwise, just having it with her would seem to imply she was looking to harm someone.

antagonize - 2016-07-09 23:15 (UTC) - Expand

bloodbiter - 2016-07-09 23:16 (UTC) - Expand

antagonize - 2016-07-09 23:24 (UTC) - Expand

It did buy them some time, didn't it? Maybe the pool thing wasn't to hide the body, but to call attention... Like, if the killer knew they couldn't get away in time, but they figured they could lay low a few more minutes since most people would check out the bloody water instead of looking around.

[Hm...]

Shelley said one of the driers in the gym was still warm, didn't she? If we were busy dealing with the body, we wouldn't have gone back to the gym to look around for the killer. Not to mention, the body was already cold thanks to being in the pool. None of us stopped to think she might have been dead for less than two hours.

Yeah. The killer could've been riding out the whole thing out in the locker room, drying their stuff. They'd have to have nerves of steel, though...

You'd need nerves of steel to murder someone on this ship in the first place. Murderers get an automatic death penalty if discovered, remember?

Fair enough. But you could also just be dumb, or clumsy. This really doesn't look like something that was planned way in advance, after all! --What I'm saying is, you can probably rule out anyone who seems too jumpy to wait around right just steps from their own crime scene.