California Trilogy: City of Angels - On Camera (Game Over)

[elmosaurian]

You see, Carrie Fisher, you really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?

I do want to hear what you think. We have to make a choice here, Carrie, between #1 and #2. IF you advise us the wrong way...well, I suspect you will lose the trust of your friends here, and the trust of friends is the most valuable thing there is.

[elmosaurian]

Locke, I must say that I don't agree that we're wasting time here.

I do say that Carrie needs to tell us which door she would pick if she had to guess, and she needs to do so now, before any change happens. If she does not make a guess us, or if she is wrong...well, then, I'm afraid an angel isn't going to get her wings, if you know what I mean.

[elmosaurian]

Interesting, Carrie.

So, your inclination would be to stick with door number 1 at the moment? Despite the whole "monty hall" math thing?

Do you have any reason for thinking that?

[elmosaurian]

There must be some easier way for me to get my wings.

[elmosaurian]

Door #1 would be preferable if we were confident that KY Krew was not a trustworthy chap and that he had planned all this out, but I don't really know if I believe that right now. It just seems too obvious, like a setup. I'm leaning towards door #2.

[elmosaurian]

I am...conflicted.

Not long ago, I was quite confident she was not trustworthy. But when those who are not good people pick, as their advocate, the one who we all distrusted the most, it makes me wonder if perhaps we were not SUPPOSED to trust her. Perhaps I should just drink the wine in front of me, but...I am not confident of any train of logic that start by assuming those who are working against us made the most obvious choice possible.

[elmosaurian]

I never said that if we waited we'd get more information. Also, I'm not sure why you're in such a heavenly rush; we have almost another full week, and we should take all of it to make our decision.

[elmosaurian]

This is the part I don't get.

Ok, the people working against us picking one of their own, having that person pick the "Right" door, on the assumption we would then switch, makes sense as a scum stratagy. I could totally see that happening.

But, if they were going to do that; why would they pick the member of their team that we were we were the most suspicious of? No matter who else is on their side, they would have to be less suspicious then the former Carrie; everyone is. So, why make her the advocate, if they wanted us to just follow the plan and switch?

Something's not adding up here.

[elmosaurian]

Carrie; do you think the old carrie didn't give us all the information she has? Do you think she might have gotten some you don't have access to?

[elmosaurian]

I would have thought that if the old Carrie had any information as advocate, that it would be given to you as well.

[elmosaurian]

Oh, my dear Carrie, of course there is some doubt about if the previous you was evil. Only after death can a person's worth truly be judged.

I had been assuming that since, as you say, there is only one advocate, and it is you, that you would know whatever the advocate is supposed to, but if not, then that's fine. Everything happens for a reason.

Now, of course I don't think the old carrie behaved appropriately.

And yes, of course if she was evil, she would have known what the doors would do. That was why I made a specific point of trying to pin her down to picking a specific door, and telling her that she would likely lose our trust if she told us the wrong one. I'm not sure she entirely understood what I was getting at, but before she switched out, she again indicated that she thought we should pick door number 1, even though that is not what the math would suggest we do, which is interesting. I am not sure if she really understood what was going on, though, and unfortunately she was switched out before it could really be clarified.

[elmosaurian]

If the original carrie was not trustworthy, and was trying to outwit us either with or without advice from other untrustworthy individuals then...well, in that case, without knowing who was advising her or how or when they decided what to do, and without being able to probe farther into her thought process, there's no way of knowing what she'd do. In that case, I think Kelly is right, we might as well flip a coin; trying to outguess an unknown person playing a shell game is futile.

If the original carrie was trustworthy, or if she was just acting randomly without thinking it through, then there is a 2/3 chance door 2 is the correct option.

Also, along with the fact that the current carrie, who I find almost as untrustworthy as her predecessor, is pushing for door number 1, makes me pretty confident of my choice here.

I'm going to vote now, but let's remember, there are unseen forces at work here. We don't want to make our final decision until the time is right or until we receive a sign from the heavens. SInce we are nowhere close to that at the moment, and time is limited, I'll cast my vote now.

I haven't been able to talk with my other half; he did tell me he's still following the situation at hand, but as he still hasn't had a chance to comment, I'm going to expect that he's not going to have a chance to. If he disagrees with this decision, though, he should feel free to say so here.

Vote:Door#2

[elmosaurian]

In the last scene, and afterwords, I was completely convinced that the old carrie was evil; if my memory serves me correctly, I believe I was actually one of the people driving the suspicion on her, and I was quite frustrated when she removed herself from our grasp.

Now, I am not so confident. Something in her play today makes me doubt; it was not what I would have expected from one who was untrustworthy and who was being coached by other untrustworthy types. I actually, in my heart, have a gut feeling that she's more trustworthy then she appears to be.

I may very well be wrong, much of the logical evidence in fact speaks strongly in favor of that possibility, but you claiming that her being evil is "blatantly obvious" and attacking me for not going along with you on that is not going to change my mind without a more concrete argument on the subject.

Also, why do you claim a "I suspect you therefore I'll go with the opposite door" argument is bad? Didn't you just make that exact same argument very recently?

As for your "clearly stated rationale", it clearly only applies if you assume Carrie is untrustworthy, which I am not willing to assume; and even if she is not, if you think about what you most recently said on the subject, it becomes clear that even you realize that your speculation on what an evil Carrie might do is almost completely a blind guess based on a confusing wine in front of me situation, and that you could just as easily be wrong as right.

[elmosaurian]

All I can say, my dear, is that my best guess at the moment was that those who are working towards ill ends should have known, and probably did know, what the effect of making old-Carrie the advocate would be. My hunch is that they did so both hoping that we wouldn't trust her, that the situation would lead to her being replaced and then killed by terrible mob violence, and that this would also provide enough WIFOM confusion to give those working against us plenty of cover to manipulate us.

If I did think old-carrie was scum and this was all part of some master plan planned by the scum group as a whole, I would still choose door #2, because if they know we don't trust her, and if we think carrie-scum "wants" us to go for door #2 by monty-hall logic we would be expected to go door #1. But that kind of attempt to outguess those who know we are trying to outguess them isn't especially reliable, or even all that helpful, in my experience.

[elmosaurian]

Do not despair yet, Mr. Locke. The enemy is wise and tricky, and they appear to have multiple tricks we were not expecting, and apparently the inclination to murder; however, good may yet prevail.

I was given some insight into our present situation. Would people prefer for me to share what I know first?

[elmosaurian]

Of the three choices, there is apparently one choice that is good, one choice that is bad, and one choice that is neither good nor bad; that choices is merely indifferent.

I can also tell all of you that I know that The Mother is not the bad choice.

[elmosaurian]

I actually did not get a note. I looked upon the face of the mother, and I just knew that she could not be the bad choice.

[elmosaurian]

Preytell, how is my information mostly useless?

It actually seems to be significantly more useful then the note my counterpart got.

Also, I think it is fairly clear that those who are not to be trusted quite intentionally made me and Locke the advocates in the hopes that we would not be trusted, and that that would trick those with good intentions into removing one of us from the situation, instead of doing what must be done, and removing the false Angel from our midst and then destroying him.

[elmosaurian]

OF course I added something useful. The information I have told us that the "mother" choice is not the bad choice, and is therefore a safe one to make. That seems far more useful and direct then the puzzle my counterpart was given.

[elmosaurian]

As for which advocate is telling the truth, I think it's pretty obvious that the answer is both. His note would certainly worthless without my information, and it makes sense for both pieces of information to exist. The information just seems very complimentary. Also, if he was lying, I doubt he would have shared his info first, without knowing what I had; I was actually assuming I was going to be the one to share the info first when he suddenly told us everything.

[elmosaurian]

"99% chance" that I will die today, just because someone as obviously untrustworthy as Angel says that I should?

I have more faith in human nature then that.

[elmosaurian]

You are right, Angel is acting quite inconsistant. Earlier, he was trying to claim that scum would sacrifice themselves for little gain, now he's claiming that they would not for anything? ANd that earlier stance was also inconsistant from what he was saying before then.

I will say that your logic is incorrect, though; if there are currently 5 people who can not be trusted, then if 3 of them are removed, then none of what happens with any of our decisions matters at all. So it wouldn't make any sense for them to trade 2 of their own for a on-scene decision. Also remember that we are dealing with 7 choices here; I would expect the amount of resources they are willing to sacrifice for any one choice are quite limited.

Personally, I'm quite convinced that the only reason Angel keeps contradicting himself is because the only reason he ever claimed to believe that the scum would sacrifice one of their own for such little gain was because that way he could continue to try and attempt to destroy John Locke, when John is clearly a trustworthy fellow. The fact that those who can not be trusted apparently forced Locke into a position that seems designed to make him look worse fits well with that.

[elmosaurian]

(shrug) Anyway, based on what Locke was saying and the format he was saying it in, I'm pretty sure he's telling the truth.

Plus. if Locke was scum, that would mean that the scum currently have a LOT of power, due to his ability that I can't really discuss right now. He's the last person they would want to sacrifice; they'd probably do their best to keep him out of the spotlight, in fact.

[elmosaurian]

Even after day 4, Locke will still be able to appoint people to other important positions, can he not? I am not certain how that works, and I can not find the detailed discription of it.

Also, you seem convinced that the scum would be desperate after the town choosing correctly on day 1 and day 2, and that they would go to any lengths to prevent that from happening now, but you seem to have forgotten that the town chose correctly on day 1 largely because of John Locke. How do you reconcile the two?