97th ♫ | i'm not lonely at all! i'm not lonely at all, although. . .

[mytarget]

The Murder Game Meme



You know the script. You wake up in a place you've never seen before, with a whole bunch of complete strangers and there's a mysterious voice or a mascot or what have you ready to let you know how things are going to work around here.

The rules are simple: You're trapped here, with no hope of release or rescue. You've been provided with all the basic necessities you need to live comfortably, and all you have to do is settle down and live out the rest of your days here in peace. But if you can't do that -- if you're really so desperate to escape that you'll do anything -- then there's one teeny tiny thing you have to do first.

All you have to do is kill somebody.

But it's not quite that simple. Every death will be followed by a period of investigation, followed by a trial in which the survivors will attempt to solve the mystery and out the culprit. If the survivors guess correctly and out the culprit, the killer is executed and life goes on. But if the survivors guess wrong, then the culprit is free as a bird and everyone else is executed.

Even with the promise of freedom, can you really bring yourself to kill so many other people?

tl;dr: it's a murdergame meme. TIME TO HAVE A BIG OL' MURDERGAME BLAST.


Settings

1. High School A classic! Doesn't matter if you're too old or too young to be in high school -- you've been enrolled and the only way for you to graduate is to kill a fellow student. But hey, the faculties are nice!
2. Tropical Island Weren't you just hankering for a nice tropical vacation? No? Too bad! You're going to have a nice sunny vacation at the beach and if you don't like it, just kill someone and go home. Simple!
3. Prison It doesn't matter if you don't remember committing any crime; you've been tried and found guilty of something or other and now you can go ahead and rot away in jail. If you ever want to see the sunlight again, better put that criminal mind to good use and get rid of your inmates.
4. Mall A huge mall stuffed full of stores, places to eat and all the regular amenities like deadbolted doors and the threat of death. It's like Black Friday but even worse because you can't leave and all the rest of the shoppers might actually kill you for real this time.
5. City Holy shit, you've got the run of a whole city this time around! Maybe with all this room to keep out of each other's way, you'll be able to make sure no one starts killing people. But probably not.
6. Cruise Boat YOU'RE ON A BOAT, MOTHERFUCKER. The accommodation is all five star, even if there's no one around to act as wait staff. The only snag is that you still have this whole murder thing hanging over your head – but on the plus side, they have those little drinks with the umbrellas in, so...
7. Space Station THE FINAL FRONTIER... Maybe you're familiar with space stations like this or maybe all this future tech is fascinating to you. Not like it matters either way, of course, because you won't be getting out of here unless you lay down a murder on someone.
8. Wildcard! None of the above scratch your murder itch? Go wild and come up with your own setting!



Downtime

1. Excuse Me, Who Are You? You've just woken up in this weird place and you have no idea what's going on. But hey -- maybe this stranger's more informed than you. Or maybe you can put your heads together and investigate what's going on.
2. Social Link Go! Well, if you're going to be stuck in here for however long, you might as well get to know the people stuck in here with you. You've got plenty of rooms to explore together and there's enough to do to keep you occupied. How do you plan on passing time without killing each other?
3. Vending Machine Woes Somewhere in this place there's a mysterious vending machine that spits out all manner of bizarre items and occasionally dispenses items that belong to you and the other people trapped here. You've got a fat stack of tokens and nothing to lose.
4. The Corners of My Mind So as it turns out, your lovely hosts have been fiddling with your memories. Maybe you're just discovering this now or maybe you've had a particularly upsetting memory regain you're dealing with.
4. Wildcard! GO WILD AND BE FREE (or as free as you can be here, anyways)



PUTTING THE MURDER IN MURDER GAME

1. Motive Your mysterious overseer has decided there's not nearly enough murder going on and so they've ~helpfully~ given you a little push to do the deed. Maybe one of your loved ones is in danger, maybe they're offering more money than you could ever dream of or they're threatening to reveal your deepest darkest secrets. Whatever is it, would you kill for it?
2. Murder WELL APPARENTLY, YES. Are you a killer or are you being killed? Either way, someone's not walking away from this alive.
3. Body Discovery Rise and shine, murdergame! It's a brand new day and someone's dead. Better get investigating!
4. Trial You know how this one goes. Line up all your evidence and sniff out the killer -- or sit there and sweat and hope no one works out you're the murderer. Will they go down with a confession or put up a fight?
5. Afterparty You've survived another trial, but more of your friends have died. Even without the executions, trials are a stressful enough affair. It's time to destress and lick your wounds and support each other.
6. Mastermind It's the end. It's time to uncover all the mysteries behind this murder game -- and find out just who trapped you here. Are they really an unconnected party, or is the mastermind someone among you...?
7. Freedom Just as it says -- you're finally free, but at what cost? Have those you love been returned to you, or are you still reduced to just those who made it to the end? Are you on your own, or is anyone here to help you? And more importantly, how the hell are you going to get home?
8. Wildcard YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO


OPTIONAL FUN

Lots of murdergames have in-universe public profiles for other characters to get the skinny on yours. If you'd like to fill one out to post with your toplevel, peep at the code below!

<center><b>Name:</b> NAME | <b>TITLE (Super High School Level, Ultimate, Champion, etc)</b> <b>Age:</b> AGE | <b>Species:</b> SPECIES | <b>Occupation:</b> OCCUPATION <b>Likes:</b> LIKES <b>Dislikes:</b> DISLIKES <b>Traits:</b> A HANDFUL OF NOTABLE TRAITS <b>Trivia:</b> A PIECE OF TRIVIA</ul>

Comments

[favoriteanalyst]

[Let's put aside whatever moral quandaries might arise from putting an AI on a dating-murder game. (shawna said laughing hysterically) The fact that anyone in the universe decided Mobius should be on a dating game show type production would be laughable to him, and then the bodies started dropping, and then he realized his purpose here.

Because he needs a purpose. And that's to keep everyone safe, or as safe as he can. And to solve the mysteries as they emerge. Sometimes that is the way to keep people safe. Solve a murder to keep the rest of them alive. It's exhausting in a way his job had rarely been, simply because of the terrible social aspect of it. These people, they're not just numbers, not just wayward variants (well, they might be, but not under his jurisdiction at any rate), but people he has to live with.

(And date? Is the dating thing still on the table? Yeah, because all this just screams roses and candlelit dinners.)

Lambda, bless her digital soul, has grated on just about everyone's nerves, leading to plenty of arguments left uncomfortably unfinished for her refusal to take any blame. It might simply be her programming, but to program a love-obsessed virtuadoll to be so fucking obstinate sure was a choice if so. Mobius gets along with her well enough, if only to help keep any fights from happening before they begin.

And Sundays just plain suck. When memories leech back in through dreams, it's always chaotic, a tumult of emotions, and one really has to wonder if perhaps some of the least stable people in seven galaxies were chosen specifically for this. (Hey, it might lead to more murder, apparently!) He does his rounds and finds the karaoke bar...strangely barren. The garden is, in fact, one of the last places he looks, because it's completely out of her norm.

He watches her for a little bit, as though he might divine out of the air what's going on, before he finally strolls up and takes a seat on the grass next to her.]

[amorevolous]

[ Her silence and lack of response when he takes a seat is troubling. Bubbly and friendly as she is with everyone, Lambda's got her particular favourite people like everyone else does and she tends to perk up like an excitable puppy when she spots any of them. Mobius has earned himself a spot on the Lambda's Favourite People list purely by being one of the increasingly rare people on the station to have not gotten into a fight with her at some point but all she does is glance at him before going back to staring at the memorials.

He usually has a good idea of what to say. Even when he doesn't have all the answers, or when Lambda's boiling over with frustration at the others, he's usually good at helping her to understand where they might be coming from.

So... maybe it's worth asking him what's on her mind.

After a long while of still silence, Lambda shifts a little bit where she's sat. ]

Do humans ever find out what happens after they die?

[favoriteanalyst]

[It's not the kind of question he was expecting, and for as Weird And Troubling as her disposition has been this whole time, it's that that really takes him aback. And it's a loaded question, too. Because there are gods (and monsters who would call themselves gods) and spirits and souls and dimensions and realms beyond understanding. And every culture of every species in the universe has their own ideas about death, and what lies beyond death.

And he doesn't know.

Well, in some regards, that's not wholly true. The question as she asks it is if humans, with all their tests and experiments and deductive reasoning, ever come up with a definitive answer in their long and storied existence. That, as far as he's aware, he can answer. But it's also not the question she's actually asking, he thinks.]

There've been cases, all throughout human history, of people on the brink of death, or people who have in a strictly medical sense died but been brought back, who claim to have seen something or been aware of something beyond death. Whole religions have formed asking the question of what happens to the human consciousness after the body dies.

[That isn't an answer to the question that she asked nor the question she didn't ask. Deliberately. It's not like Lambda the love-crazy doll to ponder death and what comes after it. In fact, it's the polar opposite, and a reason (among many) that she's gotten into such vehement fights with others, for a regarded callousness, a fixation on those still alive and being alive and living that to the fullest and if they die well at least they had a good time first.]

What did you remember?

[amorevolous]

[ And that's just the question, isn't it? Because she can remember the sequence of events, she remembers what was said, she remembers the horrible noise of the professor bellowing at her like he had but... she doesn't know what any of it means. Would Mobius know, if she tried to explain it? Experience tells her yes but even she can't miss the way he so carefully dodged giving her a real answer to her question.

But this horrible tangled up feeling in her chest has to go somewhere.

Lambda pulls in a long, slow breath. ]

... It was the Professor. [ And he's always the Professor even after all this time – the project head, the lead programmer, the man who coded whatever passes for the heart that gives Lambda her spark of life. She's spoken of him with nothing but warmth before this, but now she sounds tentative and unsure. ] He was angry about something and he thought... he asked me if...

[ She trails off, letting the thread of thought unravel before going back to add a few anchoring stitches. ]

Did I ever tell you he had a son?

[favoriteanalyst]

[Remembering something negative about someone you care about, that's always a shot to the heart (or equivalent part). He thinks about Ravonna for a moment--and blinks her away, refocuses. Better to consider someone else, someone who needs his help.

So yes, he recalls Lambda speaking so fondly of the Professor before. Anger had never come up before.

He looks at her, watches her, with a tilt of his head, then looks back to the garden. It's calming, even in the midst of the deaths memorialized. Mentally opens up a filing cabinet and roots through information that Lambda's told him, as opposed to everyone else.]

You've mentioned him in passing, I think. Did something happen to him?

[amorevolous]

Mm. I didn't know him at all, but going by what the Professor said...

[ She tilts her head thoughtfully. ]

He died, I think.

[ In any other situation, she might have sounded comically casual. ]

Some sort of accident... or something like that. The Professor didn't really explain himself. He was just so angry and so sad.

[ She's hunched up small, chin resting on her knees, but now she grows tense her shoulders stiffen into a grim line. ]

I started trying to cheer him up. I told him... hardship helps humans to grow. They form bonds and communities with each other through it... and it helps their ties to each other grow stronger and deeper. I thought he'd be happy about it... because that'd mean he could be with the pretty lab assistant he loved so much. But when I said it, he went so, so quiet. And then...

[ For a moment, Lambda is quiet too. But then she speaks up in a voice eerily unlike her own, an unsettlingly close approximation of someone else's cold anger, grief, disbelief – a whole cocktail of emotions she'll never come close to understanding. ]

He asked me "Did you do this?".

[favoriteanalyst]

[That sounds entirely too much like Lambda as she's been since they all woke up here. Not really fully understanding or grasping the power that mortality has on people. She's got the spirit, but the deeper implications always seem to elude her. A difference between a hardship and something tragic and horrible that could break a person.

Until it sounds entirely unlike Lambda.

There's the quiet horror in realizing that it's a very good question. If she thought...a tragedy could help the Professor be with someone he loved...

He crosses his legs, leans his arms on his knees. This is going to be a rhetorical question. If she had done it, she would have indicated a knowledge in having done so. It sounds like it was an accident, but that could mean anything. He's going to ask it anyway, evenly, without judgement.]

Did you?