ESPIONAGE: Round Four (Spy & Informants Win!!)

[Togop]

Gee Togop, stop pointing fingers at me while trying to get fingers away from Fujiwara, mr informant-San.
If I was the spy, stop would be dead night 1. I don't like the idea of not killing that first night, skipping it is not my style. Besides, I already had a feeling Stoppie was the Detective from the start, I'd have killed her right away and laughed at how short this round was going to be.

Besides, I'm saying this again, I HADN'T SEEN DESUNE VOLUNTEER. I only saw the gaps in the main post and skipped over everything else. I tend to not read everything.
All I saw is that we needed someone and thought it should be me filling the gap.

So you think Fujiwara's the spy? Jd- was pegging him as most probably informant.

[Iwamoto Yuri]

Gee Togop, stop pointing fingers at me while trying to get fingers away from Fujiwara, mr informant-San.
If I was the spy, stop would be dead night 1. I don't like the idea of not killing that first night, skipping it is not my style. Besides, I already had a feeling Stoppie was the Detective from the start, I'd have killed her right away and laughed at how short this round was going to be.

Besides, I'm saying this again, I HADN'T SEEN DESUNE VOLUNTEER. I only saw the gaps in the main post and skipped over everything else. I tend to not read everything.
All I saw is that we needed someone and thought it should be me filling the gap.

So you think Fujiwara's the spy? Jd- was pegging him as most probably informant.

You are trying to push things on me here. Right now you seem very suspicious in my book sir... thing.
I'm only saying what could be a logical explanation for this, either way, I do t have time for this, I have to go to work.

[Fujiwara]

*sighs*

I would like to sleep do something actually useful, like find the spy, but instead I think we first have to take care of this situation. Right now I’m afraid to say anything for or against anyone, for fear that Jd- will do anything but agree with me, no matter what I say and the worst case scenario is actually that some people will agree with me, others with Jd- – an ideal scenario for the spy to take control.

I don’t know why Jd- is so insistent on my guilt. He hasn’t really explained his reasons. He said that he doesn’t want to expose his thoughts so the spy side won’t use that to avoid raising suspicion, and I can understand that – to some extend. However, yesterday should have shown that other people - including the detective, mind - don’t seem to agree with his judgement, and as such I think he should either actually explain his reasoning or back off a bit. He doesn’t even have to trust me completely. We can’t trust anyone completely, it’s in the nature of the game, but given the situation we find ourselves in, being divided is not very good. Muddy the waters, wasn’t it?

No one should be exonerated based on voting, nominating, or suggesting Ansai in any way. While the above is somewhat possible, it's much safer to just assume Ansai never identified himself for them.

See, I never said anyone should be exonerated based on voting for Ansai. You did:

So, basically: Two phases left. The game will end on Day 4 one way or the other. Anyone who voted for Ansai is highly unlikely to be the Spy or Informant... but, if they were clever, a sacrifice isn't impossible. We don't really have time for conspiracies now, though.

And for just a moment I thought we might actually have a chance of working together. Seems I was too optimistic though.

Jellitto: Unknown (little activity). Didn't trust me (even after several posts indicating I'm a civilian, including by the very person I was accusing of being an Informant), and protected Fujiwara.

I will probably regret saying this because you’re somehow going to use it to make Jelly out to be the spy, but: Are you seriously saying you haven’t thought about the possibility that she doesn’t trust you because you called on people to vote her out last round when she was the detective?!
(NB: I have no opinion on whether or not Jelly is the spy.)

Fujiwara:
[...]
I want her to be a civilian, but she did attempt to have me arrested (prior to me attempting to have her arrested) while introducing an out for herself.
[...]

It’s funny how easily you twist the facts to suit you. Because I could swear that just a few hours earlier you said our posts happened at exactly the same time:

Just to be clear: My post implicating Fujiwara came at the same time, which is quite an interesting coincidence and one I'm sure we'll discuss a lot at the end of this round. But, back on track here:

So which is it?

[Fujiwara]

We have to operate under the assumption that Ansai didn't identify himself for the Spy and other Informant to see. The only thing I can see that Ansai did was use ellipses in a prominent manner, which is something that Fujiwara also did on Day 1 in an obvious place (first line of first Day 1 post, and subsequent days, possibly for good measure to avoid 1) appearing suspicious later if it was caught and 2) putting it in a place where it was likely to be seen, such as the beginning and end of posts).

I had to laugh so much when I read this, I just can’t pass this up. Yes, I used a lot of ellipses this round. And that’s because I use a lot of ellipses, period.

Please do your research:

Spoiler: Fujiwara uses ellipses in Espionage Round 2

It's also curious that the same three people shared the winning votes on both days. At least one of them would have to be a Civilian, of course, but still ...

Source: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=12154&p=799068#p799068

10 of them in one post, I think I overdid it a bit here:

Alright, it's Day 5 now and I agree with shinichi'sapprentice that we should get talking. Both our lists and the detective's list of suspects should have gotten somewhat shorter and random voting will only get us so far ...
[...]
I'll be honest, I still have no idea who the spy could be ...
[...]
As for shinichi'sapprentice, I think his engagement and his visible frustration over the fact that people aren't talking are indicators of his innocence, since silence makes the spy's work so much easier ...

Damn, this game is turning out to be quite difficult. Without even knowing whether my list contains the spy or the detective (or both) one wrong step could accidentally get the detective arrested, especially now that the ranks are thinning ...
[...]
That's a very good point. I can't believe no one else noticed. I certainly didn't. Aaand the list of suspects grows again ...

Though I don't have any idea about the spy, I do have a suspicion on who the informant might be ...
[...]
I don't get the feeling that Miyano is especially suspicious, but more importantly, did you notice that Jd- doesn't give any reason at all and is simply trying to sway our votes? Of course, there's a chance that Jd- is the detective and found out that Miyano is the spy, in which case we should probably listen to him ...

But there's other factors to consider as well ...
[...]
Like the fact that he has been very quiet these past two days. While he may actually have been busy, it seems very out of character for him to be so tight-lipped ...
[...]
Not too informative. Not too informative indeed. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all of us have been more eloquent than that, it's just that Jd- himself is usually a lot more eloquent himself ...

Source: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=12154&p=799418#p799418

Aaand three more in the next post:

[...]
Aha, that's interesting to know. So a) becomes a real possibility as well ...
[...]
Yeah, I expected the vote to be 8-10 people long before the game started ...
[...]
I'm pretty sure the arrest happens first, but I can't find it in the rules right now. But you make a good point. There was indeed a tie first and no one died, which does seem to indicate that the spy didn't kill anyone after all. Hmm ...

Source: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=12154&p=799420#p799420

I could go on, but frankly if you look through my posts, you’ll find a lot of those. Anyone who knows me from the cbox or IRC knows I use them all the time. I can even tell you why I have developed this habit: I translate this Detective Comic which is full of ellipses and thus my translations of said comic are full of ellipses and from there they slowly but surely snuck into my other writing. If you’re going to accuse me with minor technicalities, at least do your research.

I am, quite frankly, getting exasperated by this. You’re not doing the Civilian side any favors with your attitude and you’re the one who should know that best. I can’t say whether you’re simply misguided or actually evil, but right now you’re only sowing discord by ignoring the fact that most people don’t agree with your suspicions and refusing to explain your reasoning. You might accuse me of many things, but at least I never accused you without giving actual, tangible reasons for my suspicions that people could refute.

[Jd-]

You guys keep fighting which doesn't help at all and you're thinking too much into this. And Jd-, stop accusing Fujiwara. We have 2 days left so if you keep saying to vote for him, I will vote against you because the way I see this, is that you are only giving yourself time until the end (assuming you are on the evil side).

Actually, to clear up any confusion: I was saying to not vote for Fujiwara because my assertion was "Fujiwara = Informant". As a result, I wouldn't really be buying any time for my theoretically evil side, would I? I would actually be lowering the amount of options, which is good for the civilians in this situation, not the bad guys. The reason I said that if we assume Fujiwara = Informant we shouldn't bother with Fujiwara anymore is that arresting the other Informant doesn't really do anything for us because the Spy will get away either way.

So, to sum that up: I'm actually giving less options by removing Fujiwara from the mix, whereas if I were on the evil side, I'd be trying to give more options in this situation where there are tons of people left. It'd have been really easy for me to just say, "Well, maybe Fujiwara is a civilian! Let's forget about it~" because that would make me seem like a civilian even more (reference earlier discussions).

---

@Fujiwara: I don't typically do multi-quote responses to individual parties since it only benefits the two of us and gets hard to keep track of later on, so I'll try to organize this in a way that's easily read without breaking things up too much while also addressing your concerns.

I also think it's good to clear up this situation first. I wouldn't have any fear about me using any suggestions (of innocence or guilt) against you or anyone possibly on your side (if you were the Informant) because as evidenced by last game, it's a good strategy to mislead others in the end-game by covering for someone. It can be done either to inadvertently indict them or protect them, depending on the situation, and if played well enough, is really hard to come to a decision either way. So, I wouldn't really worry about that anyway.

A very important clarification, before anything else: Our posts were being written at the same time, but you posted yours at 3:15. Mine was posted at 3:17. Thus, they were being written at the same time but yours came first. Yours specifically called for my arrest, which I'm OK with--I was already priming my post to call for your arrest as well. However, there's no denying that your post did come before mine and that you called for my arrest prior to my post. For those unaware, my mention of being "RM'd" by Fujiwara's post (which specifically did suggest me for arrest) is a reference to the old SMF forum. "RM" means "red message" because on the old forum, when you pressed "submit" or "preview" while typing a post when someone else posted, you would get a message like, "Warning! At least one other user has posted in this topic" (I forget the actual text now). If you are RM'd by someone, they posted before you did while you were posting your own.

Moving on to a smaller point: The amount of people that agree or disagree with an assertion, particularly in a round where there are potentially very active evil players in a small-numbered game with a lot of inactive civilians, can't really be used on its own to discount what was said. In essence, having 5 people or 0 people agree or disagree without evidence to the contrary wouldn't have any effect on what I'd asserted, personally. People are easily influenced if they don't have an existing idea in place (I was able to get Kain/Jellitto arrested as an Informant last round as well as change the trajectory of the game a couple of times on similar merits, all while gathering a majority). Of course, we know that citing the Detective's opinion, specifically, is really not indicative of anything given that it was Day 2 and the Detective had only done one Investigate and gave no indications as to who their "no-spy" result was in the first place. What I mean is that whether you're a civilian, Informant, or Spy, the nature of the evidence leading to someone being arrested is fundamentally the same but has small difference. One side will sell certainty as often as they can, while deferring responsibility to provide an out later. A civilian who speaks up, who realizes their place as just one of many with the chance to help out, is more likely to take responsibility, at least from what we've seen so far.

As for the ellipses discussion: Keep in mind I specifically stated that "This is all very sketchy and shouldn't be used to condemn anyone, but it would provide a good cover to Fujiwara if so. I just decided to mention this possibility so that we don't exonerate anyone based on these factors just yet." The obvious point of those two bullet points was to not exonerate anyone based on those posts, but more importantly, we should assume that Ansai never made contact with the Spy and other Informant. Thus you/anyone else voting for Ansai should not in any way exonerate from other suspicion. I didn't mean to outright state you were the Informant because of that, but only hypothetically that "assuming Fujiwara is the Informant" this is the only scenario that I can imagine that Ansai was able to signal their identity. Ansai's post, to me, didn't actually signal their identity and I'm pretty sure that the other Informant and Spy didn't know who he was until he died. Your evidence for using ellipses in the past is more than good enough, at least to me, and is enough for me to conclude that Ansai didn't say or include anything out of the ordinary or at the very least anything we would be able to discern/link to anyone else.

If Jellitto did not trust me due to last round, I can't really comment on that. Other than assessing player capabilities and strengths/weaknesses, I try not to carry over anything, including ill-will, toward any other players based on previous rounds. I was an Informant in that round, now I'm a civilian; different priorities, different objectives. I don't think Jellitto was distrusting me due to last round, though, but more because of just not being convinced.

I think that addresses everything. I don't think this part of the discussion is really that interesting to pursue because it doesn't really shed any new light on the game and, more importantly, muddles actual civilian discussion while distracting us. If we're both civilians, we'll be doing a lot of damage by continuing, whereas if we're civilian-Informant, the Informant will obviously benefit from it continuing indefinitely.

But, all of this is completely secondary and meaningless to what actually matters, which we'll get into in the post below this one.

[Jd-]

I did not want to post this just yet, but to avoid any further confusion, here we go:

Someone probably noticed by now, but after the surprising results of last night, I decided to try a twist on my "offer two contradicting statements at two different times" idea one more time--but with a wrinkle this time of relying on a (hopefully) fellow civilian to help out.

When I saw that Ansai was arrested, I hurried and double-checked his post history so far and saw he'd indeed only posted once--on Day 2. Nothing in the post was really indicative of being an Order response (as is explained in the above post as well as the other one that was mistakenly read as an accusation), so I came to the obvious conclusion that he hadn't given a signal and we, as the civilian side, would eventually decide that anyone who voted for him couldn't be ruled out. BUT: Before we got to that point, there was a small chance to possibly draw out a little bit of information. A slight chance, and certainly nothing definitive, but a chance nonetheless.

As such, I went ahead and posted the exact opposite of what we would all eventually conclude. My hope was to get responses from everyone that voted for Ansai, and to see which--if any--would come out and say, "No, don't exclude us, including me, based on this!" That seemed like good evidence, to me, for someone to very likely be a civilian wanting to cover a hole before it was too late. Of course, on the contrary, anyone from that list who jumped on it and figured they could get out of suspicion based on a false pretense, I would want to look at more closely. Did it work? Who knows--we'll find out by the end of the game. As I said last night, though, I didn't want to just give up despite the dire circumstances. If there's even a slight chance to get even one bit of useful information, I wanted to take it.

Nonetheless, as you'll see from the post times, I waited to respond to anyone on this subject until someone pointed out the obvious conclusion (that you can't discount anyone based on those votes). googleearth was the first to do so, who was one of the voters for Ansai. Togop did not say anything much about it at the time, but one other of the three did: Fujiwara. Fujiwara didn't point out the problem in the logic, which could be 1) unfamiliarity and an oversight on not knowing Ansai's history somehow even though it was discussed already or 2) taking the chance to remove the limelight from herself, disengage suspicion, and hopefully have the chance to steer the civilians in the wrong direction toward the end. Instead, Fujiwara took that chance to assert her own innocence and remove suspicion from herself, even though it would be based on something that really did not hold up. Naturally, after googleearth was the one to mention it, I made sure to bold, up-size, and loudly proclaim to not actually exonerate anyone based on those votes as I didn't want that misinformation to persist throughout the entire rest of the game.

So, at this point of the discussion, it comes to: Either googleearth is a clever Spy/Informant who saw through what I posted and wanted to get on the good side of the civilians or just a smart and concerned civilian. I'm really leaning toward the latter, as I posted before, but we can't be 100% sure because nothing is definitive in this game. As mentioned before, the Spy side is not going to give themselves up voluntarily at this point--they have essentially almost sealed a victory, so our only chance is to try to open them up however we can. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't, but exploring all avenues is our best bet at this point.

---

But, all that said: The real problem is pretty simple. We are in a situation where it is very difficult for our side to win. Before Stopwatch died, there was time to experiment and follow hunches. Unfortunately, there's really not that kind of time left. The civilians as a whole could afford to be wrong a few times prior to Stopwatch's death, but afterward, we cannot. Wasting time on this really won't get us any closer to evening the odds at this point.

[Jd-]

Jd-, that clears some things out. Still it's not true that we shouldn't try to figure out Fujiwara's exact role. While we wouldn't want to vote for informants, we'd still want to know who they are.

It's true, and as I said many times, Fujiwara may well be a civilian. My inclination is Fujiwara = Informant. If she is a civilian, I hope that she will do everything possible to help us win despite any confusion I've caused against her. I'm only doing my best that I can do in the current situation, which may well be our Kobayashi Maru.

---

Come with me on a thought experiment here. We have 12 people left. Two are definitely on the evil side. The twelve are:

Jellitto
Trickster
Kaito Lady
RoboG55
PhantomWriter
seed12
miakakiri
Togop
googleearth
Jd-
Yuri Iwamoto
Fujiwara

Now, just for the sake of argument, let's imagine how on earth we are actually going to find the Spy in this situation. Only two days have passed, we have no information from the Detective since she unfortunately died early. Let's just say, hypothetically, that we know say... five people are informants and Fujiwara for the purposes of this discussion is the Informant. Not saying she definitely is, definitely not, but let's just say it to think this through:

HYPOTHETICALLY UNKNOWN ROLES
Jellitto
Trickster
Kaito Lady
RoboG55
PhantomWriter
seed12

HYPOTHETICALLY KNOWN ROLES
Fujiwara = Informant
miakakiri = Civilian
Togop = Civilian
googleearth = Civilian
Jd- = Civilian
Yuri Iwamoto = Civilian

This scenario would be great, at least compared to what we have now. In this situation, we would have a 1/6 chance of getting the Spy today, and then another chance at them tomorrow. However, we are still in very dire straits because we are still left to do a lot of guessing given that the above list is the best-case-scenario that we're never going to get to. What it really looks like is maybe three reasonable civilians, a possible informant, and a lot of question marks. Essentially, we have almost nothing.

What is really the best option that we have here? Do we just try to narrow it down and decide on a vote? Because, one thing we can all agree on is WE HAVE TO ARREST SOMEONE BOTH TODAY AND TOMORROW, THERE CAN BE NO TIES. One way or the other, we all need to come together and decide on someone to vote.

To me, there are two options:

1) Decide someone to vote and go all-in for the day. Someone gets arrested and we just hope it's the Spy. If not, we repeat the same thing tomorrow and hope for the best.

2) Vote Fujiwara to confirm whether or not she's an Informant. If she's the Spy, we win (I don't think she is, but it's hard to say). If Fujiwara is the Informant, we would have 24 hours to investigate everything she's posted so far and look for any possible indications and signs of misdirection thus far, including who she has tried to protect in any form in previous phases. It will also tell us if I am wrong or not, which may well be the case. HOWEVER: If Fujiwara is not the (EDIT: Originally mistyped "Detective" here) Spy/Informant, we will have a new piece of information: The real Informant is one of the other players, and we will then have to re-examine everything and find out who else has been Informant-like thus far. This could give us another lead as to what's going on, however long a shot it may be.

Until I was typing this, I didn't want to arrest Fujiwara today. But, I think that given the odds and mountain we're facing, there really are not any better options on the table. We really, really need to get some discussion going on this.

Please, post some ideas on how to handle this and how we can arrest the Spy in two phases. Inactive players, now is the time to get involved, especially civilians! We don't know what role you are because you haven't said anything, and the Spy is using that to their advantage!

[Togop]

I was waiting for Jd- to post, but I'll go ahead and post this now.
I'll consider two different trains of thought so far.

First, the Yuri-Ja- line
Some facts:
1) Yuri suggested a tie vote
2) Jd- took the initiative and organized it.
3) Yuri volunteered after we had two volunteers. She said she hadn't noticed - possible, but there's no way to know.
4) Jd- claimed her to be civillian because of that, based on statements I find false.
5) I pointed that out here viewtopic.php?f=30&t=12198&start=135#p804377 and it was ignored
6) I pointed it out a second time the next day and then Jd- backtracked partially
7) Yuri and bash was protecting Jd- and Fujiwara day 2
8) Yuri ignored my question for her today.

Now, I was thinking about several possibilities at the beginning of this day (NOT ordered based on likelyhood):
1) Yuri is the spy. She used the tie to attempt to estabilish herself civillian, and informant Jd- was trying to protect her.
2) Yuri is not the spy. Informant Jd- tried to pin the crimes on her by defending her using false statements.
3) Jd- is not the informant, and he had indeed misremembered the situation as he claimed.

Now, there are some problems with each of these three possibilities (though at least one must be correct).
1) If Yuri was the spy, Jd- would have either backtracked as soon as I pointed out the problems in his logic, or would have never backtracked. In reality, he backtracked the second time I pointed them out.
2) Well, that's exactly what Jd- did last round, and I'm not sure he'd repeat it again. If 2 is correct, though, that doesn't help much. If Jd-'s the informant, he hasn't been protecting anyont but Yuri so far, and as such in this case I don't have strong leads to the spy. A weak one would be that, as I said, bash was protecting Jd- day 2 on the grounds that Jd- "felt very Jd-" to him here (viewtopic.php?f=30&t=12198&start=150#p804484).
3) In that case, I'd once again wonder why did Jd- ignore me the first time and backtracked only the second time.

Now, to something entirely different:
Fujiwara claimed to be in a pretty bad situation day 2: "Since there’s a good chance that I’ll be voted out today, I decided to leave some last remarks". Yet nobody but Jd- had said they'd vote Fuji (in fact, all responders said they'd vote someone else) so I'm wondering where did that come from. I surely see the point in making a post if you think there's even a slight chance you may die, but why did she label it last will and testament?

Another point I'm interested in is, what was the rationale behind Robo's and Jellito's votes day 2? Ansai was the only person we knew was not a detective for sure. As such, it made sense people who didn't have a better suspicion to vote Ansai (or, as a bunch of people did, self). As such, Robo, Jellito, what did you base your votes on?

Finally, there's always the possibility that the spy's one of the inactives. If that's the case, it's pretty much a lost cause because the detective was killed so early. Still,
IF YOU'RE NOT THE SPY, POST something of essence
Hopefully, this should force the spy to post something of essence, too.

For now my vote is still undecided, hope to see some more responses, but leans towards Yuri or bash. I know my arguments are not strong, but I don't see any stronger.

PS: There were three posts posted while I was writing this, so I'll go review them and maybe post again.

[bash7353]

I'm a bit confused as to why you're suggesting to vote someone you don't think is the Spy, Jd-. If Fuji is arrested and it turns out she is the Informant - as you've said you suspect she is -, who would that mean is most likely the Spy and should be voted the following phase? Why not vote that player this phase already?

You seemed very sure Fuji's the Informant for most of the game and when I just hinted at that fact that I thought you may have become a little bit less sure of that over time, you immediately said I was wrong. But now, when only two phases are left for us to find the Spy you wanna use one of those phases to arrest Fuji? Considering how sure you seem to be about her being the Informant, I find it a very curious suggestion...

[Jd-]

I'm a bit confused as to why you're suggesting to vote someone you don't think is the Spy, Jd-. If Fuji is arrested and it turns out she is the Informant - as you've said you suspect she is -, who would that mean is most likely the Spy and should be voted the following phase? Why not vote that player this phase already?

You seemed very sure Fuji's the Informant for most of the game and when I just hinted at that fact that I thought you may have become a little bit less sure of that over time, you immediately said I was wrong. But now, when only two phases are left for us to find the Spy you wanna use one of those phases to arrest Fuji? Considering how sure you seem to be about her being the Informant, I find it a very curious suggestion...

If Fujiwara is arrested as the Informant, we'll be a lot closer than if we arrest one of the random inactive players as a civilian. If we don't, that will put us back in this exact situation tomorrow, where we still don't know if Fujiwara is the Informant or not. If Fujiwara really is the Informant, we can closely examine everything she's said so far and maybe get an idea. Additionally, we can analyze those that have acted in conjunction with her in some form.

The problem with dilly-dallying? There are only a few hours left and, in the past 18 hours, we've gotten exactly... nowhere. We can't afford a tie, we all agree on that, right? Then, someone better come up with some sort of actual suggestion soon or we're going to be repeating all of this tomorrow with absolutely no direction at all.

I contend that arresting Fujiwara is the best bet if nothing else is mentioned. We don't know for sure if Fujiwara is the Informant based on my reasoning--maybe she's the Spy? She may be a civilian, but if she is the Informant and she's arrested, we will have information to go on. There is no denying that arresting Fujiwara--an extremely active player that has posted a great deal of information--as an Informant would provide a lot more leads than arresting Civilian A, B, or C.

So, you tell me: Do we arrest a suspected Informant, or do we decide on a random inactive target? Or do we choose an active target? If we do not decide soon, we will be losing this round for sure without even actually trying anything at all to win.

I have given a solid idea. It may be right, it may be wrong, but it is an idea. Does anyone else have an actual idea that we can follow through on? I am completely open to any and all possibilities. We need to make a decision one way or the other and do so within the next 4 hours from now at the latest or else we'll not have enough time to realistically weigh our options and coordinate.

BEFORE WE WASTE TIME DISCUSSING THIS: As I said in the other post, I didn't come into this wanting to arrest Fujiwara. It was only when I responded to Togop and began weighing our options and simulating how we could even have a chance at winning that I realized how bad this situation really is. Not even the Spy/Informant side from last game was in such a bad state as this. This is by far the worst possible scenario for the Civilians, and may be the worst that they ever face in any round we play in the future. HOWEVER: Given we're not doing anything else productive, Fujiwara is who I would suggest for now but would really like to hear some other options ASAP.

[Togop]

Jd-, if you're a civillian and believe that Fujiwara's the informant, there's only one explanation as to why you'd want her arrested: if you have a fairly good idea of who the spy is, but you don't think you'd be able to convince us unless you've already shown that Fujiwara's the informant. However, since you have my suspicions for being informant, I can't really go along unless you give the full picture.

Edit: For now I've cast fote for googleearth for the lack of better option and based on what I said here (viewtopic.php?f=30&t=12198&start=210#p804856)
If I wake up before day change, I may revise based on new posts...

[Jd-]

I understand where you're coming from and why you think so, and you're almost entirely right. But, we all have to come to terms with the current situation. We are in a position that is really, really not a good one. I want to hear your and googleearth's prospects, especially, on what you think are viable strategies at having any reasonable chance at coming out in this on top.

The core of what I've been saying is we really just don't have a lot of options. No one has given us another avenue, so my suggestion: Let's aim for someone that one of us considers a pretty viable suspect of something. If we can eliminate the Informant for sure, our nominations on the last day can go unhindered if we do find our way to the Spy. As it is, though, we don't know what Fujiwara really is. If we find out Fujiwara isn't the Spy/Informant for sure, that will indeed be bad and will just cement the fact that we're in a nearly impossible situation. But, if we can find out that Fujiwara is on the evil side--and by luck is the Spy--we will finally have one solid thing going for us. Just one--one possible thing that could help us out.

Of course, I may be entirely wrong about Fujiwara to begin with. And that's just something I'll have to take responsibility for later; I'm not above being wrong, happens all the time. I'm just trying to help us put up a respectable fight against what are generally virtually insurmountable odds.

So, either we're together on this or we're together on something else. I'll be here on-and-off up to phase change working on some things. If any single idea comes up, I will definitely love to hear it and am ready to go with it if it seems sound.

Response to Togop's Edit: I respective the initiative for sure. But, did you read the post I made earlier? googleearth deliberately pointed out the problem when he could have otherwise just let it slide and had his name taken off the table for good. That's either the work of a clever Spy/Informant or a smart civilian wanting to disown bad information even at their own benefit. Fujiwara, on the other hand, responded exactly as I expected an Informant/Spy under suspicion to respond, which yes could have been a civilian in a bad spot, but it could also be more than that.

[bash7353]

I know I've been defending Jd- among other people even when Fuji outright called for him to be arrested, but I just changed my mind about. I'll be voting Jd- in this phase and I hope more people are gonna join me.

Two times now has Jd- argued that he said something which he didn't believe 'in order to see how how others react' as he said. I'm doubtful about that being the truth. I think what he's been trying to do here is create some chaos among us. Different people were supposed to think different things about what happened. Do we eliminate people who voted Ansai from the suspect list? Do we not? At the very least, because of that it took us longer to reach a consensus about that. I think he's trying to prevent us from coming to a conclusion as to who it's best to vote - other that Fuji, that is - making me think he's hoping for a tie - if it's not Fuji we arrest, anyway...

Also Jd- wanted to arrest Fuji for quite some time now, but now that his reasoning Fuji should be voted since she's probably the Informant shouldn't make sense anymore, he still maintains it. Either he's again being deliberately disruptive of the town's effort to reach a consensus, or he really, really wants Fuji out of the game.

I will ask you this, though: Even if you don't agree with my decision to vote Jd-, don't vote Fuji, please!

[Jd-]

Wow, now that one is shocking. I just spent the entire phase defending you.

If you take the time to look at my posts, you'll see that everything checks out. Every post and every timing attached to them is exactly as they should be because that is exactly what happened. After the game, you'll see that every claim I've made was exactly as I said it was for the exact reasons I've attributed to every action. Did Fujiwara react as you would have expected someone wanting to be exonerated would act? Yes. Was that because they were an Informant wanting to be off the hook and blend back in, or as a worried civilian? What happened there? You never addressed that in your suspicions of me, which makes me very cautious to listen to what you've posted there.

Maybe Togop has googleearth right as the Spy. I'm a civilian, that much is obvious to anyone who has actually read through this topic. This is also from the person that I defended. Here is what I advise everyone to do:

Take a step back: Jd- has put himself on the line on two different occasions with no strings attached whatsoever. In fact, what has ANY other civilian apart from myself done to establish any sort of credibility whatsoever? If I had been the Spy, why on earth would I have volunteered myself on the first day? I was the foremost volunteer and introduced myself into the voting effort. It would have taken one "honest mistake" and I'd be gone deliberately if not even just from the randomness involved with an arranged vote which claimed Conan-chandesune as its victim. If I'm the Informant, who am I even protecting? I wouldn't have known who Ansai was and was willing to vote for him anyway (it's true, I posted it at least once before).

I sincerely do not think that googleearth believes me to be the Spy. Either he's the Spy, he's an Informant, or he is embarrassingly wrong and will entirely jeopardize any chance the civilians have at winning this game if I'm arrested this phase. If you do vote for me, take a screenshot of the PM to dumytru and catalogue it, because I can promise you will regret it later. Keep it as a souvenir and a reminder for future decisions, because man is that one going to haunt you.

Now, googleearth has nothing on me, obviously, on account of me being civilian. But, if you want to play this game, we can. Let's look at googleearth's behavior so far. Exactly one person was seriously accused yesterday--Fujiwara--and one person came to his aid more than any other: googleearth. He saw he was about to be exonerated with my false post before, along with Fujiwara (an Informant), but also realized that Togop would be exonerated too. This would be an undesirable outcome for them, as we've just seen with Togop's recent conclusion. I don't believe this is honestly the case, but it may be. I'm just more honest about my conclusions, but if I really wanted to push for googleearth's arrest I would have just gone along with Togop earlier and let it snowball from there. Instead, I defended him, again and again. Why would the Spy or an Informant ever do that?

This is a real shame, because the fact that at least seven players have been entirely inactive, with at least five of them being civilians, has made this a real railroad for the Spy side. When the civilians lose--and they absolutely, definitely, without any doubt whatsoever will at this rate--a lot of the blame is going to go onto having almost as many active civilians from the start as we had Spy/Informant players. At the very least, it will be a lesson going forward.

Here is a challenge to googleearth if he is so sure that I should be arrested today:

Vote with me to arrest Fujiwara today, and if you think I'm the Spy after that (which is the role you believe me to be, or else there's no reason to arrest me, right? That's your exact logic for being suspicious of me wanting to confirm Fujiwara's identity), everyone can arrest me next. This is a perfect solution that serves both sides: If I'm right, it'll be shown. If you're right, it'll be shown. No one else will have to bicker and debate over nonsense any further than this agreement here.

googleearth's logic is entirely backwards and makes no sense. If he won't take this deal, he is clearly covering for Fujiwara or someone else and just wants to remove the chance at a real arrest today. The reason, in his eyes, for an arrest today is to vote for the Spy, which is who he believes me to be. If this is the case and he is a civilian: Why would we not go ahead and find out Fujiwara's identity today? He can then spearhead the arrest of me tomorrow, and I will not resist whatsoever if I am wrong. If I am the Spy and Fujiwara dies as a civilian, it will be obvious--through his logic--that I am the Spy. However, if Fujiwara dies as the Spy or Informant, everything changes, and I bet that is what googleearth is really worried about.

googleearth: If I am the Spy, tell me how this deal is in any way invalid. Not even if you were killed would it be stopped. Everyone would simply assume I'm the Spy and vote me out anyway on account of "trying to silence you".

As additional defense of myself, which in an active game would not even be necessary: If I were really the Informant/Spy, I would not have to push for anyone's arrest because the chances of the civilians winning is already almost zero. Why would I put myself on the line if I had anything going on? In fact, I'd do what I did last time, which is not say anything as the endgame approached.

On the specific charge of me causing "chaos": This is especially humorous because what I really gave you was order. I told you a specific path of action that could lay the way toward a victory. Either Fujiwara was an Informant and we could confirm that and know that it's then only civilians vs. one lone Spy and examine everything Fujiwara's said throughout the game, or Fujiwara would be the Spy and we would just win. Ironically, it's actually you who just introduced the chaos, not the other way around.

And I'm still not voting for googleearth! Talk about a real civilian here--even when accused, completely wrongfully, I won't turn around and vote for someone without an actual reason to do so.

[Jd-]

I think he's trying to prevent us from coming to a conclusion as to who it's best to vote - other that Fuji, that is - making me think he's hoping for a tie - if it's not Fuji we arrest, anyway...

I want to individually address this point on account of it being particularly bizarre. Several hours ago, I specifically said the following:

What is really the best option that we have here? Do we just try to narrow it down and decide on a vote? Because, one thing we can all agree on is WE HAVE TO ARREST SOMEONE BOTH TODAY AND TOMORROW, THERE CAN BE NO TIES. One way or the other, we all need to come together and decide on someone to vote.

googlearth didn't say that. Togop didn't say that. Fujiwara didn't say that. No one said that except for me, who took the time to specifically point out that we cannot afford a tie. A tie is amazing for the Spy side, so if I'm really on that side, why am I specifically doing everything possible to ensure one doesn't happen? If I were on the Spy side, I wouldn't have had to say anything of consequence this phase--I would have taken Fujiwara up on the peace offering and never said anything else, because the civilians have no concrete idea who the Spies/Informant really are. The reality just doesn't follow that scenario he's cooked up; it's just some sort of weird fantasy that's got me worried because it's very likely going to mean this game is done.