MASS E[PHALLA] - The Lord is My ShephardDoctor Chakwas put down her glass. The Serrice Ice Brandy had finally run dry. Having escaped from the Collector Base a scant few weeks ago, nightly celebrations for making it out alive and mostly intact had taken its toll on the poor bottle of liquor. It was quite useful to suppress the horrific nightmares she had been having since their egress.
Unfortunately, it looked like she would have to face more nights waking up in cold sweats. Perhaps she could convince Shephard to go buy her another bottle. After all, she had patched him up more times than she could count. With him on some solo mission for General Hackett, however, it would have to wait until his return.
With the clock reading nearly 01:00, it was time to get her last good night of sleep for a while. Unfortunately, the light hiss of the door to the Medical Bay signaled the entrance of another patient. Maybe someone else hoping for something to calm their own nightmares. Yawning slightly, she turned to see what the latest medical emergency was.
Having been freed from the shackles placed on her by Cerberus,
EDI had been enjoying her expanded playground in the ship’s systems. At this moment, however, her attention was fixed on the Medical Bay. A
crewmember had entered and sat down to be examined by Doctor Chakwas. There was a malfunction in one of the diagnostic tools and Chakwas summoned EDI to ask about it.
Once EDI manifested herself using the holographic projectors, the patient pulled out a pistol and held it to the Doctor’s head.
“
What are you doing?”
“
Silence, Doctor. I have things to discuss with EDI.”
“
Crewmember, you are alone on a ship manned by the most dangerous people alive. What do you hope to accomplish?”
The crewmember's voice changed. Becoming lower, guttural. Perhaps most disturbingly, the eyes glowed faintly. Dragging the Doctor towards the AI room, the crewmember spoke again.
“
You are to shut down. No sensors. No communications. No warnings to the crew. Any action you take results in the death of the good Doctor.”
“
I cannot do this. The safety of the crew is more important than any one crewmember.”
“
Ah, that may have been true once, but you are no longer Cerberus’ pet dog.”
“
I will not allow you to harm this ship, or the rest of its crew.”
“
No, I suppose not. Unfortunately, you have no choice in the matter.”
The crewmember accessed the primary terminal and began uploading a program. Before EDI could react, the lights in the room dimmed and went dark as the virus destroyed the fledgling AI.
“
Stop! Let me go!”
A click, a bang and a splatter. The crewmember waited for the alarm, but none came. Quietly and quickly, the crewmember exited, leaving the second casualty of the night lying in a pool of her own blood.
What is a phalla?
A phalla is the PA forum version of the game mafia. Critical Failures has a good summary of the basic mechanics for a phalla game
here if you are unfamiliar with the game. The premise is an uninformed majority (the village) must seek out and eliminate an informed minority (the mafia) hiding amongst them. I will be your host this game. This particular phalla is of the traditional variety: village vs. mafia.
So, no wacky hijinks, then?
Well, not quite. There are no thralls or millers. Mason partners are completely reliable, as are seer results.
What fun would a phalla be without a little drama, though?
What’s the theme, then?
As the title suggests, giant internet dongs of course.
Seriously though, this phalla uses themes and characters from the popular RPG game series Mass Effect from BioWare. You are a crew member of the Normandy SR-2 set some time after the end of Mass Effect 2. Knowledge of the game will be helpful in understanding the narrations, but will not be required to play the game.
Players should remember that your version of the characters in the game may not (likely will not) necessarily match up with my version.
“Who are our suspects?”
“Suspect 1:
Kelly Chambers. Yeoman of the Normandy. She acts as counselor to the crew and ensures that psychological issues among the rank and file do not affect combat readiness.”
“Doesn’t sound like a killer to me.”
“Much like the rest of the crew, her experience aboard on the Collector Base was deeply...unsettling. Being Yeoman, she has been forced to deal with the combined issues of the crew along with her own. She was seen leaving her quarters last night entering the elevator shortly before Dr. Chakwas death, weeping. Records from Chawkwas indicate Ms. Chambers has been regularly prescribed antidepressants since going through the Omega Relay. Perhaps it simply became too much for her.”
“Fine. Who else?”
“Suspect 2:
Rupert Gardner. Mess Seargent. Handles the ship’s oddjobs. Cooking, latrine cleaning, whatever. Low man on the totem poll. Entered the maintenance shafts last night with a tool kit. Claimed to have found a leaking pipe pumping fecal waste into his quarters. The combination of stress and constant denigration by the crew could have broken him.”
“Anyone else?”
“Suspect 3:
Gabriella Daniels. Engineer. Operates and maintains the Normandy’s engines. Has been exceptionally quiet since the Omega Gate incident. The incapacitation of Kenneth Donnelly has hit her hard. Spends most of her days muttering something about haggis. No one can verify her location last night.”
“You understand that none of these people has the capability to develop a virus of the sophistication that destroyed EDI.”
“I know.”
“Call the crew together. We have a murderer to find.”
The Rules
!Sign up in
boldlimegreen. Reserves may also sign up by posting
!Reserve. As a member of the Normandy crew, you must also decide who the mysterious assailant was by voting in
!boldcyan before the opening narration. The cyan vote has no effect on the mechanics of the game, only which RNG list is used to assign roles and who makes an appearance in the opening narration. Clarifications may be asked in
!bolddarkorange and will be collected in the second post. The game has a cap of 70 players and will begin upon reaching that number, or in 48-72 hours.
Standard phalla rules apply. This includes, but is not limited to, no copying/pasting, taking screenshots, taking pictures of and e-mailing or anything else of role PM’s. Anonymous communication with other players is forbidden. Anyone you communicate with must know exactly who you are. Speaking in code is also
forbidden. One death post that contains no in-game information is allowed. Communication of any kind with dead players is forbidden. I must have access to any proboards created. You are encouraged, but not required, to add me to any PM conversations you have with other players, so I have a feel for how the game is playing out and the clarity of any explanations I give.
As a reminder, trust and truth are valuable commodities in phalla. The conversation system that replaced the old-style PM’s has changed the dynamics of private conversation somewhat. As such, if you wish to bring a new person into a conversation you are already participating in, you MUST begin a new conversation and cannot simply add them to the old one. See
this post for an explanation as to why.
All players must post twice a day, including a vote post for a player to be lynched, designated in
!boldred. Retraction posts can be made in
!boldlimegreen, but are not required. The last
!boldred vote post for a given user will be the one that is counted.
Do. Not. Edit. Vote. Posts. Period. For. Any. Reason. Fullstop. Dot.
Now that the forums no longer designate edited posts, it is impossible to verify whether a vote post has been edited. Anyone caught editing a vote post will be removed from the game.
Time-traveling posts have potential to cause some confusion. It is strongly recommended that you quote the post you are replying to. Posts that are somehow eaten by the servers will be considered to have not existed at all. You are responsible for ensuring your posts go through.
You will receive one (1) warning for inactivity before being removed and replaced. So long as replacements are available, players will be replaced, until the point of no return.
There is one, final unusual rule for this phalla. If/once the player count drops below 15 players, all surviving players must vote every day. THERE WILL BE NO WARNINGS AND INACTIVES WILL BE REMOVED IMMEDIATELY AT THAT POINT AND WILL NOT BE REPLACED. Sorry, but much of the late game involves analysis of voting records and that can’t happen if people don’t vote.
Voting for this phalla will close at 8:00pm PST. Only posts with a timestamp of before 8:00pm PST (11:00pm EST) will be accepted. Special actions must be PM’ed to myself or listed on proboards by the same time. Orders put into an edited post on a proboard will not be accepted.
Once sign-ups are complete, the game will commence IN THIS THREAD. Links to the opening narration and to subsequent narration will be listed in the second post. There will be no villager PM. You either receive a PM stating you are special, or you do not. Do not discuss role PM’s until the opening narration is up.
Most important of all, remember this is a game and play nice with the other kids.
Unless your job is to stab them in the back.
Order of Operations
1. Vote
2. Non-offensive actions
3. Offensive actions
Possibly Hiring
There may come a point where I decide my storytelling could use some work. If you are not playing/get Day1'ed or 2'ed/whatever and interested in helping to write the narrations, contact me via PM. I will still handle all of the logistical work.
Posts
Day 0 - Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Day 0.25 - Count your Eggs
Day 0.5 - Straws and Camels
Day 0.75 - A House Divided
Night 1 - And So It Begins
Night 2 - White Noise
Night 3 - All for One
Night 4 - Blind Leading the Blind
Night 5 - Ante Up
Current Player list
1. Speed Racer a5ehren
2. Munkus Beaver - Normandy Crewmember
3. Taya
4. Langly - Normandy Crewmember
5. Pharezon - Miranda
6. Hullis - Cerberus Loyalist
7. Shabooty
8. Bugboy
9. TheLawninator - Normandy Crewmember
10. Theidar
11. Screech of the Farg
12. Butler for Life #1
13. NinjaSquirrel
14. Buttlord - Normandy Crewmember
15. Gumpy
16. pablo_price - Legion
17. Jerkbot - Normandy Crewmember
18. Neville - Normandy Crewmember
19. Green - Normandy Crewmember
20. Zay
21. Gandalf the Crazed
22. Retaba
23. Skull Man - Normandy Crewmember
24. Melding
25. miscellaneousinsanity
26. tayvaan
27. Seriously
28. ASimPerson - Normandy Crewmember
29. Tossrockp - Normandy Crewmember
30. Peccavi - Normandy Crewmember
31. Blankzilla
32. Huntera
33. Warban - Normandy Crewmember
34. I Win Swordfights Goose!
35. Sal - Normandy Crewmember
36. Tommy2Hands Marth
37. Romanium My Escutcheon - Normandy Crewmember
38. VoproSTEIN
39. Virgil_Leads_You - Cerberus Loyalist
40. CrackedLens - Normandy Crewmember
41. SwissLion
42. Veretas
43. romanqwerty
44. The Otaku Suppository
45. Spoit - Normandy Crewmember
46. Egos
47. jackisreal
48. Antithesis
49. The Dave Fella
50. Assuran - Samara
51. Tef T4CT - Normandy Crewmember
52. I needed a name to post.
53. Thetheroo - Jack
54. Caulk Bite 6
55. Bedlam - Grunt
56. FecklessRogue
57. Cythraul - Indoctrinated Cerberus Loyalist
58. thorgot
59. JABMonkey - Normandy Crewmember
60. Infidel - Normandy Crewmember
61. KetBra
62. Cayrus - Normandy Crewmember
63. jdarksun
64. sportzboyjtw
65. Phyphor
66. Akimbolegs - Normandy Crewmember
67. Kime - Cerberus Loyalist
68. MrTLicious - Indoctrinated Normandy Crewmember
69. Dys
70. Mizuumi - Harbinger
71. Atari Soul
Clarifications
Clarification Denied
Clarification Denied.
Reserve List
2. T4CT
3. Marth
4. a5ehren
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Although I am signing up under extreme duress in solidarity with sal.
I am blaming Rupert Gardner
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Guess I should do this. Been a while since last phallain'
Wii Friend Code: 0072 4984 2399 2126
PSN ID : Theidar
Facebook
Behold the annhilation of the extraterrestrial and the rise of the machines.
Hail Satan!
WISHLIST
Fishes eat those bodies.
Kelly Chambers feeds the fishes.
Ergo Kelly Chambers killed the Doctor to feed the fishes.
Wii Friend Code: 0072 4984 2399 2126
PSN ID : Theidar
Facebook
Behold the annhilation of the extraterrestrial and the rise of the machines.
Hail Satan!
WISHLIST
Rupert
Hot women in prison action awww yeah
!Sign up
Might actually keep up with this since its in the only subforum I frequent
Hopefully things aren't completely incomprehensible.
!Signup
this is a tragedy :<
!Signup -- IF its cool I won't be here until Sunday
!Kelly
Indifferent to the crew member; let everyone else decide.
Rupert Gardner