Well, at least we didn't come for nothing, there's still that...

It's nice to know that Raf' shares Cailin sentiments... Let's leave quickly!

I want a quick way-OOC discussion about the Niyaf and Muhamed thing. Basically this is going to be consuming a huge amount of IC time and I don’t want to end up with duelling posts about what is reality.

I admit that I’d totally forgotten about Addie pairing them up in the first place, so when Lindsey kept accusing her in this regard I didn’t have Addie react initially, and I had to go digging back through the archives (post 292, in case anyone cares – and I think Irn0rchid then updated 291 to take into account my post (Addie taking the unconscious hunters to the lean-to, pairing Niyaf with one of the orcs)). Apparently Addie had forgotten at first too, so I’ll have her remember in an upcoming IC post.

In guarding a camp at night, I’d assume something like two rings of people, one just outside the tents, and maybe a second ring just a bit farther out, where the fire light wouldn’t spoil their vision as much but where they were at least somewhat visible to the inner ring (at least to those in the inner ring with low-light vision). Any further afield and they could fall prey to a strong attacker, just like the hunting party did. Certainly it wouldn’t make sense to send patrols off out of hailing distance of the camp in the middle of the night (nor would Addie have sent a single girl off with one of the orcs that far afield – a few posts earlier, in 287, she spends quite a bit of time finding her own chaperone for going off to gather branches for the lean-to)

Now, that this sexual assault happened is pretty much established now. With my thoughts on the guards, it is feasible that it happened: perhaps Muhamed convinces Niyaf to go to the outer ring where there would be more privacy, then maybe the inner ring didn’t keep a careful eye out, or fell asleep, or figured that all was consensual and just didn’t interrupt, or didn’t go after them when the pair went too far out where they couldn’t be seen well. So somebody should have been able to see what was going on, and should have done something once they stopped standing up – but either nobody saw, or somebody saw but didn’t intervene.

Any disagreements on this interpretation?

You are referring to what happened in the night, but I think the assault just took place, in broad daylight.
Given how Niyaf rushed the hill, I don't think she'd have waited that long: right now, we are at the end of the day.

So they probably paired again in the day. For what? Who took the initiative?

I'm pretty sure the council meeting was in the morning - - won't try to find post numbers as I'm on my phone right now, but I think you'll it was morning council to deal with the attack the night before.

Yeah, but it dragged a lot: for Dana & Cailin to get there, it must be at best mid-morning. And for Maya & Co to arrive, you get to at best mid-afternoon.

My intention was for this to have occured near the end of that dawn/morning patrol and then Niyaf to have been woozy on the ground for however long it took to make timeline work. In my head it was solo pairs, but I'm cool with either of your interpretations as far as other patrollers since I didn't really consider actual logistics. More culpable parties is more fun!

Maya and co arriving was hand waved by Aria as far as timeline goes for interactions sake.

That was part of my intention in the post about Sim and Lindsey watching Muhamed and Niyaf while questioning of the camp went on -- to help justify the 'trial' part being late enough that Maya & co have arrived. I'm sure they'll be impressed with the agreed upon punishment for sexual assault (not!)

I took the liberty to frame things to later in the day, to make sense of the whole Maya & co being there. If anyone wanted to slide posts in before the trial/hearing/sentencing/etc, I apologize, but hopefully you can write it as what was done before this point.

If this approach is a problem for anyone, let me know here and I can back off that bridging post.

If anyone wants to write up part of the trial-type thing, go ahead. Otherwise I'll try to get to it tomorrow.

Naw, I'm curious to see what you come up with.

Me too! I'm wavering between Rick (who will speak last) coming down vengefully on Mohammed or just giving him latrine duty for a month... either way he'll say something like this at the end:

"Right, now if all that wasn't blindingly clear make no mistake, this will not be tolerated. We are in this together, like it or not, if you aren't working for the group you are in for a shit load of trouble. I'm not against a bit of romance but for frag sake, before you rush off into the bushes make damn sure there are no misunderstandings and that someone else knows what you are about. There are dangers enough out there without making more in the group...you have probably heard the rumours by now, but one of Maya's group died, I don't want that to happen to anyone else if I can help it! We need to talk to Maya now, if anyone wants to talk to the Tribunal it can wait until we have done that! Right, everyone back to what you should be doing, we'll be moving on this afternoon so everyone is on packing, hunters too, nobody else leaves the group today!"

That is unless the write-up of the tribunal changes that drastically of course

My plan is for Addie to be push for punishment as agreed to -- branding with a red hot piece of metal. Especially as Dana is here with healing magic, and Maya with more first aid training, so that they can make sure the wound doesn't fester. And she has more planned than that (things with more plot impact at that, I think) .... unfortunately I may not have much writing time until this evening. I'll try to get some quick pieces up during the day, but if you all get impatient then feel free to move things on -- Addie doesn't have to get all that she wants.

Yikes!

Well, Maya's decided - quite wisely - that our little group is staying away from the proceedings. So nothing to say on the matter.

Have fun!


By the way - I am off to Japan for a week. Mercy will keep things moving if anything requires Raf, though he mostly stays on the sidelines anyway.

I stole a bit of time to do an edit of Addie's original proposal of these rules to Rick, with a bit of a wrapper around it for the situation.

Next could be going over what happened with Niyaf and Muhamed, or looking at who was not doing their duty. It will be a while now before I could write that up, but anyone else feel welcome to do so, (but please leave some room for Addie if the conclusion is anything other than that Muhamed hurt the group (wasn't paying attention on guard duty) and committed sexual assault).

If nobody else defines what other guards should have noticed that those two weren't standing up anymore, I'll come up with names later. Addie does want to see them punished -- failing to take care of the group is a crime to her. (she might not win this one, we'll see

And there is some more once those things are done. Now to go and actually do what I'm paid to be doing right now ....

Betx, just a small correction: Maya, Raf', Vincent, Summer and Cailin didn't move, and are still on top of the hill. They didn't follow, and obviously can't listen to what is said.

Dana is cooking meat, so maybe she is able to listen, but she would be the only one of us.

Assume you are in earshot, they aren't trying to hide this, in fact Maya would probably have been encouraged to observe...

Oh, and you clearly heard Rick tell Lindsey that he wanted Maya to lead the group while he was away, so not exactly the 'never give up power' that was mentioned by someone?!?

Caillin stormed out, Dana tried to comfort her and so did Addie, Rick was left with Lindsey alone. (and the rest of the council (This is how I see that scene) so the content of that conversation is unknown to Dana and Caillin.


BTW I took Dana to prepare the meat to show how strongly she feel about it - and how difficult she find hierarchical social order. She is more concerned about the meat she killed herself going bad in the commotion, than she is in the fate of Muhammad. (Note that Dana missed also the first gathering - for the same hate for politics and sides.

I think it would be good not to go too fast there, I think at some point Cailin will want to say something, depending on how it goes.



Stormed out is a bit too strong, after all she only took a few steps before Addie stopped her (and there was a "discussion" between Lindsey and Cailin after that, so it shows if needed that Cailin really didn't go far). After that, there is the small discussion with Maya. Since no one in the small camp wants to have anything to do with all that tribunal stuff going on, unless someone really invites us to come I don't see us taking the initiative to go. Which I just did in fact... I supposed that it would be Rick who would want Maya to see that, but if you want me to change, just say it ^^



And I know Rick said that he would let Maya in charge. But I don't see how it can be possible with the rest of the tribunal (unless all of them would go?), Cailin is trying to forget about that (a common point with Lindsey, which could make me cry...), but most importantly, he wouldn't give up his power since he would take it back when it's done. And that is if Maya stays in the main camp. As I see it, she would probably want to come, I don't see her sitting on her ass while there's a confrontation going on...

Irn0rchid, If you want Lindsey can have talked to the boys, or I can write it up with Sim reporting on that part (lots of reasons things could have played out that way, I don't think we'd need to explain why).

Anyone have boys they want to have been negligent on watch (who missed what was going on)? (I was thinking about putting a girl in that pairing, but there are only so many girls to go around and we've have a dozen already on watch, it seemed unlikely that another was also watching.)

I was thinking of having Pierre be with someone -- he may have lacked the social confidence if paired with more confident boy who was all 'don't worry about it.' But if anyone else writes up this part, do with it as you will (basically just throwing one of Addie's allies into trouble too)

Okay, so I'll assume Dana heard Rick's instructions, she'll make them known the next time Maya talk to her.

Sorry for dragging out the 'trial.' Aria -- do you want to have Rick say something here, or should I carry on?

Hope the next scene after the trial would lift moral somewhat. (or not...)

At least for some (Cailin among them ^^)

You'll probably get some people thinking you poisoned the food, or the tables are enchanted to steal their soul or stuff like that but it doesn't matter much.

Well haters will hate and my character is used to be treated with hostility, she spent two years with people that did not say it to her face, but grew silent as she entered the room and privately considered her an abomination. So being called a freak to the face, beats the pretending...

Something Cailin will probably never really understand

Right from the opening scene we knew that this sort of issue was likely. I like how Irn0rchid made this a difficult case rather than a simple clear bad guy or something. It is bound to be sombre.... But personally I suspect things get worse before they get to be anything else. Just feels more horror movie than Robinson Crusoe to me.

I'm not going to be able to contribute till probably tomorrow, but everything seems to be going fine.

I'm loving it, please crack on! I'm away for 4 days now so unlikely to be able to post, if you want to write something for Rick to say that's fine, he wants this done to focus on the toxic! To keep the moral quandary going he might offer Mohammed exile as an alternative to branding, perhaps Maya will take him in?!?

This was always intended to be more horror than desert island discs ;D

Just a quick note that my phone seems to have suddenly died this morning (sent text, put in pocket, pulled it out three minutes later and completely unresponsive). I write my longer posts on the computer, but I did a lot of keeping up with what was going on, or shorter posts in the ooc thread, on the phone. So if I seem a bit less present for a while that will be why.

I've got the next part planned out, but want to know if Maya will be there. Sorry for the long gap between posts -- great concert last night, but it kept me off the computer.

Hah, was finally about to start typing something up and Beta got there first! Going to wait till Maya responds, but once they get to the council Lindsey is going to push for a guilty verdict and upholding the punishment laid out by Addie originally. Doesn't stop him from helping out, makes a real visible statement, and will constantly remind the girls of the 'boy danger'. If you've got a plan for the meeting Beta, you're welcome to just have Lindsey basically say that if you don't want to wait for me to post in the middle of it.

I'm good with that -- what Addie is going for too (especially with magical healing available, and even Maya's first aid skills)

Maybe you should ask if the mages are ok to heal (or Dana at least, since you don't know for Cailin but you do for her) ^^ If Sim doesn't know the spell at least, otherwise I don't see why he wouldn't.

Absolutely --- that was why I wrote Rick calling Maya over (to bring her into that conversation, then she can pull others in (we don't know Caillin as well, Dana has wandered farther away).

And heck, maybe Maya -- or any of the rest of the small group who joins the conversation -- will come up with a punishment option that all will like better.

Or maybe the entire small camp group washes their hands of the whole situation, refusing to get involved in it, because they feel it has nothing to do with them. But Addie still doesn't understand that impulse, so she won't really be taking it into account.

No problem, in fact I much prefer it that way, I don't know what would be Cailin's reaction to that ^^



I would (have another option at least, as for "liking" it, it's another matter), but...



It may very well be true for Cailin but she won't take the initiative. Maybe if asked she would, but I'm not even sure of that. It would send a weird message if Maya asked the others' opinion right now in fact, when the main campers weren't consulted...

The way I read the text, I find it a bit offensive that Rick invites Maya to discuss his verdict. If I was one of the kids that it would have made me extremely upset. She is not council and actually not even part of that camp.
You bring her, an outsider and a woman into the most delicate of discussions. How can she possibly be objective?

1. she is a woman and would take.

2. She is an outsider - does she really have the best of that camp in mind when she offer her thing? Does she have to live with the consequences ?

3. As far as the popular crowd goes, the small camp is still a suspect for the attack. The council initially came together to discuss the attack last night, some of the people in the council have claimed responsibility - including Sim that wanted to lunch a retaliation. This is the council - the people that take responsibility not the mob. The mob would be easier excited.

That is I fail to see how Maya can join that discussion without unrest at camp, perhaps a rebellion even. I'd imagine the orcs looking up for their own sticking in for him - perhaps even arguing that Muhammad is more useful than Nyaf so she is the one that should leave. They want to survive right? Going against the popular opinion of physically superior orcs is not the way to do so.

Well, Rick has more than once tried to get Maya into the camp leaderships(before she left, saying he'd want her to lead the large camp while he led the push against the supposed toxic shaman), so it seemed to me consistent that he would pull her in again if he can.

In another thread, he doesn't seem to have much eagerness to brand anyone, and exile to Maya's group might be an out -- but she would have to agree (he'd see it as Maya's group, I'm guessing, while Maya might want to consult with her group rather than make a unilateral decision)

And from a player perspective, it pulls another player into that discussion.

If you want a reasonable way out, just volunteer him to hunt the toxic.

I see a rebellion if you try to brand him, I do not see a strong orc fighter that is basically one of the backbone of camp security humiliated without consequences. Especially over a grey case of he said she said, and go figure where the truth really lies. Lindsey was already making things worse for the girls with the share of the hunt. Just saying, realistically speaking it is orcs that are probably running that camp. They are the backbone of guard and hunt duties and are physically strongest so they do the heavy lifting as well.
I bet they (with a certain degree of justification) should see themselves as privileged and entitled for more - and even in the middle of the wilderness where everybody depends on them, they still become bottom of the rack. I see some unhappy orcs and some leadership challenges for Rick in the future.

and I agree that your post is loyal to Rick, but the way that camp treats Maya he is going to pay a political price for including her. He is also likely to pay a serious political price, for branding one of his own kind at the accusations of a human girl. "who first spread her legs and then cried rape, rape the day after".
I mean most of our characters are female so our characters are unlikely to see it like that, but I can totally see that version becoming increasingly popular.

I would agree with Gilga. Cailin doesn't know anything about leadership though, so even if she said anything, it wouldn't be with that angle.
I think it was Simon and not Sim however.
And there's no way the small camp would accept Muhammad, there are four girls for two boys there. And even if there weren't, accepting Brok was one thing, accepting Muhammad would be completely different.

If agreed upon rules fall to the wayside in the name of political convenience, it will obviously be a notable turning point. The actual council discussion will require Aria to speak for Rick, I think.

That things may fall apart more I don't doubt -- but I don't think that inviting Maya to the deliberations was an irrevocable step in that direction.

Well, it's a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation so...

This is a great discussion and I want to hear from others as well. I am going afk for an hour or so, but will be back on. I would ask that we do not have Rick make a decision until I get a consensus from my group.

Do the beaten up hunters have names?

I don't think so.

I am back online.

Hmmm. I just read Gilga's post and am a bit confused. I think that there has been nothing but appreciation here for her efforts and she is definitely not taken for granted. I think the post is not accurate in that regard and would hope that neither Dana or Gilga really feels it is. She has lived with us a couple of days now and much effort has been made to make everyone in the smaller camp welcome as a valuable addition. At least that is my impression.

This is her backstory, how she felt maturing with the cult.

That is her past, yes. Now she has a future with people that respect and accept her. At least I hope she has a future here.

I edited my post to include Dana in the conversation and have the conversation somewhere less public then the campfire, where the main camp is having a dinner party for Grok.

Two notes on Addie's last post (thanking Maya and talking branding)

- Fig is the survivor of the two boys who attempted rape on the first day.
- The rules council has never officially decided that Fig should be punished, I think, and it could be argued that his offense was before there were any rules. Addie obviously is not looking at it that way.

It's the same for Muhamed in fact, unless I'm mistaken, I don't think they were made public before now.