3 WAY PRISONER'S DILEMMA: future is now

[idolpro]

[ The room you wake up in is barren. The floor, walls, and ceiling are all metal, and the only furnishings are a large television-sized touchscreen monitor and a massive pane of glass cutting through the room, separating Angel | QW5nZWw= from the rest of the unit. You can beat against the glass as much as you like, but it won't break. Both the touchscreen monitor and the elevator doors are on the same side of the room as everyone but the hostage.

Once Mukuro finishes his intro spiel, the monitor display switches to a catalogue of pictures of flowers, each with their name, associated meaning, and a checkbox underneath them: ]

Amaryllis (Red&White) - Talkative
Baby's Breath - Purity of Heart
Calla Lily (White) - Maidenly Desire
Camellia (Red) - Perish with grace
Camellia (White) - Waiting
Cherry Blossom - Transience of all things
Foxglove - Insincerity
Hydrangea (Blue) - Heartlessness
Iris - Faithfulness
Lantana - Change of Heart
Marigold - Despair
Morning Glory - Willful promise
Mountain Laurel (Red) - Ambition
Oleander - Caution
Poppy (Red) - Fun-loving
Poppy (White) - Rejoice
Poppy (Yellow) - Success
Tulip (Red) - Fame/Charity/Trust
Yarrow (White) - Conflict

Comments

Re: DISCUSSION

[nohalation]

Oh, Intensity said I should treat you like a little brother! I don't remember if I have any actually.

Re: DISCUSSION

[a_fine_human]

Don't listen to Intensity so much.

Re: DISCUSSION

[nohalation]

. . . why not?

Re: DISCUSSION

[a_fine_human]

[how do i put this...]

He's a little... presumptuous.

Re: DISCUSSION

[nohalation]

[look at him being huffy]

...I just think he's funny!

Re: DISCUSSION

[a_fine_human]

Good thing someone does.

Are you afraid of being hurt?

Re: DISCUSSION

[nohalation]

Hmm . . . I don't think so. I don't think I'm the kind of person that likes pain though! But I'm not really afraid of it.

Re: DISCUSSION

[a_fine_human]

You're probably going to take some sort of damage, so that's good.

Re: DISCUSSION

[nohalation]

[oh, is that good????????]

Oh, good, I'm glad it's good! I don't think I would like it if Brother Three would get damaged . . .

Re: DISCUSSION

[a_fine_human]

Uh... I wouldn't either, I guess.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

Can we FOCUS on what message we're sending for fuck's sake. Complain about titles later.

[nohalation]

Yeah! What do you wanna send?

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

Waiting for one - to show that we don't have any fucking idea what we're doing.

[a_fine_human]

Are you going to play differently based on what flowers we get?

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

Of course. We don't have any information about anything right now.

[a_fine_human]

Really? We have everything we need.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

And what's that?

[a_fine_human]

Yeah. It really only matters what you want the long term outcome of this game to be. 'Winning' is in large part chance. It's better to think of it as damage control, and which damage you find most objectionable.

[ticks off on his fingers]

If the goal is to avoid anyone having permanent damage, or at least to avoid receiving or being responsible for anyone having permanent damage, the only logical play is to plan to betray but also warn them that we will be betraying them. That way everyone sustains significant damage but it's nothing that can't be repaired.

If the goal is to have the best public face, then we trust and send along our nice-type flowers and basically just cross our fingers. Angel might be permanently disabled, but we could argue that we're blameless.

If the goal is to win, then the best odds are obviously to send out nice flowers and then betray them.

Of the three, the first option is the one where we can best control the variables. Obviously I'd like to win, but the number of points at stake aren't really worth being known as the completely ruthless team.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

While I completely agree with you, Angel says she wants to trust people.

[a_fine_human]

Well, if she doesn't care what happens to her, that does 'make us look best'.

[negotiatoronsite]

It seems unlikely anyone will be able to convey anything meaningful with these, so it's mostly arbitrary.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

Are you sure about that? I would expect AlcheME! to send the flower meaning talkative or fun-loving to get people to recognize who they were.

[negotiatoronsite]

Possibly, but there's no way to know what criteria each unit will use to choose their flowers. What we expect, and what they hope we expect, could be entirely different.

[bluescreenwhitedragon]

That doesn't make them meaningless.

[negotiatoronsite]

I suppose we'll see when we receive one, won't we?