livestudioaudience | Viewing Party 2

Sometimes obvious evidence isn't just a framejob or red herring.

[Xander.]

But yeah, something doesn't feel right here. ...We might be looking at Dudely's shapeshifter showing their hand, here.

I... kind of hate to jump right to the sci-fi conclusion, but yeah. That's what I'm thinking, too.

...I don't know if you've noticed, but we've all been kidnapped from across the multiverse, onto space-stations, and gifted with these fancy bits of jewelry that apparently pump us full of nanomachines. I think we're pretty well past the point where "sci-fi" conclusions are gonna be some kind of outlier.

[Also you're an esper and he's a time traveller with a magic box.]

Look, I just--I was a normal twenty-first century human being for twenty-one years of my life, let me have this, all right?

[G e e z.]

The shapeshifter, if there is one, hasn't made any moves so far. Is there something different this week that would force its hand?

That's the big question, isn't it. If it were just a matter of escaping, it would've had better chances right at the start. So either someone, Leon or Akande probably, was gettin' close to spotting something, or it remembered something critical...

...Or the fact there wasn't going to be a murder this week fucked it up.

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stitch_in_time - 2017-09-16 19:23 (UTC) - Expand

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misanthropicprinciple - 2017-09-16 19:27 (UTC) - Expand

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stitch_in_time - 2017-09-16 19:29 (UTC) - Expand

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misanthropicprinciple - 2017-09-16 19:38 (UTC) - Expand

Noctis wouldn't--

[Woah, okay, rein it in there.]

...You could be right about the shapeshifter. Either they had a hand in this, or committed the entire thing outright.

[Well anyone could or would do it with the right incentive, that's arguably what this kind of setup is supposed to "prove", if it weren't some kind of sick cash-in. But this is definitely not the moment to make that argument with Ardyn, so-]

That's what I'm thinking, yeah. Why now, though...

[i mean hey if ardyn 'mass genocide' izunia didn't kill anyone-]

I don't know. Maybe it's pressed for time for some reason we're not aware of.

People keep dying. There's fewer options - it's being penned in, if one of them really is it in disguise.

If. I don't want to assume one of them has really been something like that all along until we've seen conclusive evidence in favor of that.

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thesciencemind - 2017-09-16 19:31 (UTC) - Expand

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scourgingstars - 2017-09-16 19:33 (UTC) - Expand

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thesciencemind - 2017-09-16 19:34 (UTC) - Expand

You believe that they've been disguising themselves as Noctis?

[Whatever the shapeshifter is, calling them "it" isn't something he'll do.]

They'd have to have been, or they're real good at finding blind-spots in the cameras. If Dudely'd seen them changing anywhere on surveillance, he wouldn't be bothering with a trial.

...He might not even realize who he actually is. There's a lot of different kinds of shapechanging. If they're not the original Noctis, they might very well believe themselves to be, on a conscious level.

It's definitely not anything I'm familiar with, just by the way he's described it so far. But it's a big galaxy.

[Even the science guy doesn't know everything.]

I'd like to see how he's reacting to this.

...That's...that's not-

[Did it just get really hard to breathe in here? No? Just Ardyn, then.]

Edited 2017-09-16 19:11 (UTC)

We don't know anything for sure, yet.

[Not like the only remaining Chameleon Arch in existence could already be in the studio's hands, ha. Ha ha. Haaaaaa.]

...Do you need to get out of here?

It could be an imposter, but we thought that too, remember...

...I'll be alright.

[Ardyn took a slow breath and pressed a hand to his head--his right hand, with the black ring matching Noctis' own.]

I'm not going anywhere. Not until we know what's going on and if that's...if that's even Noctis.

["It" could be its chosen pronouns!]

[Either that or it's incredibly dehumanizing, he'll err on the side of they]

['Dehumanizing' is an inherently homo-sapiens-centric speciesist term, OOOOOH]

[You've all got translators in, how do you know he wasn't using the Salarian-centric word tbh]

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misanthropicprinciple - 2017-09-16 19:21 (UTC) - Expand

If it was the shapeshifter. Then wouldn’t voting for this boy get them all killed?

[She misses when it was just people being framed.]

That's the trick, yeah. ...One of the tricks. If they'd done it using Noctis' form, they could trick Dudely into executing the incorrect culprit, but that'd involve changing back an' forth out of view of the cameras...

It depends on whether the "shapeshifter" shares Lord Noctis's title, as Sir Jack did.