The Thirteenth Dynasty of Kevan
January 18 - February 21, 2015
Ascension Address
Somewhere between Jupiter’s moons, the ISV Jenny Haniver picks its autopiloted way through derelict shuttles and abandoned cargo debris, and slowly drifts clear of the giant planet’s shadow. Solar panels glint in the weak sunlight, awakening on the very edge of their operable range, and a crop of parabolic antennae whirr and track the dark sky, sifting for a signal from Earth.
A single greenscreen display chatters to itself on the unmanned flight console: no signal, retrying, no signal, retrying. After exactly an hour, it falls blank. One hour five seconds, and fluorescent striplights clunk into life, spreading from the bridge and down the corridors, flooding light through the ship. One hour ten, and machinery whirrs in the cryo-suspension bay as thick grey vapour begins to swirl and drain from the higher-ranking glass tubes.
“Good morning.” says a calm voice from hidden microphones. “Ship’s systems have been unable to contact Earth station or detect any outbound radio signals for one full hour. Under the Polaris protocol, the core flight crew have been reactivated. Please proceed to the command deck.”
Players
The following players were active during the Dynasty:
_Fox_, ais523, ayesdeeef, Brendan*, Bucky*, Darknight*, Josh*, Kevan*, Put, RaichuKFM* and Sylphrena.
Final Ruleset
Posts of Interest
- Crew Amendable randomly split the Crew into Humans and two Androids, and gave the Androids the option to "sabotage" proposals, being an untraceable veto power
- Atmospheric Control gave the Crew three emotional scales: Angry/Stressed/Calm/Listless, Reckless/Careless/Cautious/Paranoid and Euphoric/Happy/Unhappy/Depressed.
- Half Lynched offered an alternative to player elimination; players would just be knocked out of taking certain actions
- Random Command gave roles to the Crew at random
- Subroutine Rehash created a queue of commands to the ship's computer
- You-Know-What Android created Trials to disable crew
- Anonymous Orders made subroutine orders secret
- Some Assembly Required created a system of repair missions for the crew to respond to, with crew choosing to respond with secret "Repair" or "Sabotage" actions
- Demand Line Interface allowed the Androids to submit proposals anonymously - something that the previous Werewolf dynasty had conspicuously lacked
- Alert: Training Drill - the first mission. It ran for a few days, and overlapped with the assignation of Android roles on the 26th. The mission failed for being unattended, possibly aided in part by an Android "helpfully" reassigning the team when the clock was running low.
- Non-Hollow Failure made a Sabotaged mission have damaging effects, rather than simply resolving as unsuccessful
- Alert: Life Support Malfunction - four players fixed it
- Catastrophe Curve added consequences for ship systems that had reached the Catastrophic level
- Can Our Missions Actually Do Something? had successful missions decreasing the damage level of a system, rather than merely averting further damage
- Blind Man's Bot: a Demand proposal from the Androids saying that their identities be shared with each other, with the threat that "Should this proposal fail, or should the Computer deny this request, all human proposals will be sabotaged until further notice". It was voted down for giving current Androids an advantage over any future ones.
- Sabotaging Sabotage proposed to reduce the Androids' proposal Sabotage mechanic to once per week. It was... Sabotaged.
- Subroutine Report: MD1C - Brendan's Carelessness was medically removed
- Let's Talk About This proposed another limitation on Android proposal Sabotage, and was Sabotaged.
- Alert: Fuel Leak - four players repaired the propulsion system
- Message in a Bottle - an anoymous Android proposal that just gave out a burner email address to contact, as a way to prove that the owner of that address was an Android
- Tired and Emotional added another emotional scale, Alert/Tired/Fatigued/Exhausted, and a way for players to spend that scale to modify their other emotions
- Trial: Contradictory Behavior - Sylphrena put (Android) Brendan on trial for being too confident about whether a proposal would be sabotaged. No conviction.
- We Are Not Unreasonable was another demand from the Androids to have their identities shared between them. It failed again.
- Trial: We’re quite paranoid - Ayesdeeef put (Human) Sylphrena on trial for protesting too much. No conviction.
- Subroutine Report: MD1C removed Sphinx's Paranoia
- Extended Hearings increased the duration of trials from 24 hours to 48
- Tickertape Persuade allowed Androids to post anonymous comments on any blog post, via the Computer
- Magnetic Headcount added a subroutine to reveal the number of Androids on the ship
- Trustfallen added a Trust stat for every player: if Team Humans win then the single lowest-Trust Human wins the dynasty; if Team Android win, the highest-Trust Android gets the crown.
- Subroutine Report: MD1C healed Skju's injury
- Alert: Life Support Malfunction - three players repaired it
- No Sleep ‘Til Callisto had players lose an alertness level whenever they responded to a malfunction
- False Flag banned Humans from making anonymous Demands
- Trial: Prisoner No. 523 - (Android) Brendan attempted to put (Human) Ais523 on trial for causing an early mission to fail, but it was invalid under the "No Crewmember may post a Trial unless the Atmosphere is Angry or Paranoid" rule
- Trial: Now that we’re properly paranoid - Bucky put (Human) Ais523 back up on trial, for feigning inactivity and failing to vote on controversial proposals. Ais was due to be convicted, but tactically idled before it could be passed.
- Subroutine Report: MD1C removed Josh's Happiness
- Asleep at the Wheel barred sleeping and knocked-out players from missions
- Alert: Life Support Malfunction - four players repaired it
- And Zero Side Effects added a Stim Dealer role, who could wake players up with a chance of making them Paranoid or Angry
- Vengeful Justice is Reasonless Justice barred defendants from starting counter-Trials
- Subroutine Report: MD1C woke Bucky up
- I Can Let You Do That, Dave removed the Computer from quorum on Missions and Trials
- Here comes the Lynchman to lynch off your head allowed players to publicly and/or secretly nominate targets, with the most nominated one being damaged whenever a proposal said to "Flush the Marks"
- Activity Monitor linked mission sizes to the subroutine queue size
- That Just Makes Me Angry allowed players to gain that emotion at will while on Trial
- Subroutine Report: L0GS, somebody privately accessed the subroutine logs
- Phasers to Stun gave every Android a one-shot stun gun
- Scan Complete: a (probably new) player was scanned by the Computer to see if they were an Android
- Alert: Scanning Malfunction: a solo mission succeeded
- Subroutine Report: MD1C healed Ayesdeeef
- Should You Choose To Accept It gave a bonus to those who might sabotage a mission: their Marks would also be removed from the system
- Metaphor Police changed "Trust" to "Clearance" (following on from some earlier Imperial unease about the "Trust" mechanism not really being a measure of trust at all)
- ID-10T Error allowed the Computer to defer to the Mediator on proposals
- Marks Have Been Flushed: Ayesdeeef was injured
- Alert: Scanning Malfunction was repaired by three players after some discussion of whether it was worth doing or not
- Subroutine Report: S33R: somebody accessed the databanks
- Subroutine Report: MD1C woke Skju up
- Emotional Texture added some additional effects of emotions
- Target Practice attempted to make Android phaser use a Strenuous action: it was sabotaged
- Subroutine Report: MD1C woke Sylphrena up
- Ye Cannae Amend the Laws of Physics added an Engineer, with missions only improving a system's status if the Engineer attended
- Hostile working conditions allowed players to create system failures, which would also automatically fail if they themselves were assigned to repair it. A new TRAK subroutine could identify tampering.
- Alert: Life Support Malfunction was attended by Sylphrena, Josh, Bucky, Fox and Darknight and was sabotaged. Life Support severity became Moderate.
- Subroutine Report: MD1C woke Darknight up
- Double Shift restricted tampering of a system that was already the target of a mission. It was later retroactively sabotaged.
- Marks Have Been Flushed caught Ayesdeeed in a depressurised part of the ship again. They became Disabled.
- Trial: Reckless Airlock Operation: Bucky accused (Android) Josh of needing "a very good reason for privately conspiring with someone else to covertly can Ayesdeeef". It didn't get enough votes to reach Command Quorum.
- Subroutine Report: L0GS - Bucky claimed to share the logs in a comment
- Alert: Life Support Malfunction - required two crew to repair, Sylphrena failed to report for duty. Life support became Critical.
- Marks Residue added historical log entries for processed M4RKs, which were otherwise deleted. (It was later retroactively sabotaged.)
- Subroutine Report: ASUM swapped the Diplomat role from Skju to Put
- Don't Leave Us closed the loophole of idling to avoid a Trial outcome
- Mysterious GNDT update: Bucky became Disabled in a manner which the rules did not require the Computer to explain. ("Looking through the ruleset, I’m guessing this was a phaser shot?")
- Subroutine Report: MD1C healed Ayesdeeef, but not enough for them to recover
- I Feel Fantastic added an Emotional tiebreaker for tied Clearance, at the point of victory
- Trial: Danger Zone - (Android) Josh accused (Human) Ais523 of "still acting in a manner that is explicitly set out to destabilise the humans, does not deny it, and admits that he will continue to do so". The Trial failed to reach Command Quorum.
- Bad Atmosphere allowed multiple Emotions to be part of the Atmosphere
- Speeding Things Up was an Android Demand to disable all Humans. It failed.
- Alert: Propulsion Malfunction - its four-person team failed to attend, propulsion became Moderately Severe.
- My Mind Is Set On You allowed disabled players to still nominate Marks
- Prevent Brendan winning by default increased the Pilot's Clearance when a Mission succeeded
- Subroutine Report: MD1C awakened Darknight
- We need a medic over here reassigned the Doctor role
- Subroutine Report: MD1C awakened Darknight again
- Alert: Life Support Malfunction required three crew, but failed as a result of Sabotage or Tampering. Life Support became Catastrophic. The identity of the possible culprit was discussed.
- The Flushing of Marks disabled Darknight
- Knocking on the Glass put a block on new players joining after a certain date
- Subroutine Report: ASUM removed Diplomat status from Put
- Trial: Why Josh is an Android - Ais accused (Android) Josh, but got no support.
- Subroutine Report: M4RK was processed with no effect
- Ghosts was a Demand from the Androids to give dead players some actions. It failed.
- Alert: Energy Malfunction was repaired by a solo team
- Daisy, Daisy caused the Marks to be Flushed every 48 hours if three ship systems had gone Catastrophic
- Trial: Why Brendan is an Android was raised by Sylphrena against (Android) Brendan, with no conviction made. (It may have been one vote shy of Command Quorum, with (Android) Josh declining to support it?)
- Mass Conviction proposed to disable all players and blank all scores. It failed.
- Subroutine Report: L0GS had its outcome shared by Ais
- Subroutine Report: L0GS came out blank
- Drugging: Bucky - Bucky was drugged to feel Reckless, with Ais commenting "This proves that Bucky is a Human. Drugging someone else doesn’t work on an Android, and a hypothetical Android Bucky couldn’t self-drug due to being Disabled."
- Disable all Android Powers proposed to do just that, and was sabotaged.
- Put Down proposed to disable Put directly without a Trial
- Trial: Brendan really should have been Disabled was raised by Ais523, but invalidly as the atmosphere was neither Paranoid nor Angry
- If MI6 is a Secret Service, why do they keep putting its main headquarters in James Bond movies? proposed to reveal Android identities. It was sabotaged.
- Subroutine Report: MD1C woke Sylphrena up
- Prisoner Exchange was a Demand to get an extra phaser shot in exchange for making everyone paranoid (which would re-enable Trials). It was voted down.
- Trial: Actual evidence for once - (Android) Brendan accused (Human) Fox of "Stimming Bucky while Life Support was Catastrophic. Humans can’t do that.", after Fox took such an action. Put's action was reverted by the Computer as having been illegal, but Put was convicted regardless.
- Trial: The Curious Case of ais523 - (Android) Josh accused (Human) Ais, on broad principles. With Command Quorum at 2 and an Unhappy Atmosphere, Ais was convicted.
- Drugging: Bucky - Bucky was made Unhappy
- Triumph - Mediator Josh was declared Triumphant
Ascension
The dynasty had been at a standoff for several days, with a Command Quorum of 4. An effectively unanimous proposal to Disable Put (who was in the process of idling out) reduced the Command Quorum to 3, with five players still active: Josh, Brendan, _Fox_, ais523, and Sylphrena. The Androids, Josh and Brendan, were the first team to be online and ready after the proposal resolved, and made Trials against _Fox_ and ais523; Sylphrena voted for _Fox_, and after a Phaser shot locked this vote in place and some Emotion manipulation reduced the number of Trial votes required to equal Command Quorum, the Androids could then Disable all the Humans in turn, with no remaining Human ability to stop it. Josh had higher Clearance than Brendan at the time, and thus ended up with the win.
Discussion
Most of the behind-the-scenes planning that was going on in the dynasty is detailed in the DoV or the post-game discussion post, which includes the Computer's log of all Subroutines.
