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"The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States."; Episode 14: The Finale
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Topic Started: May 8 2016, 11:51 PM (147 Views)
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Rand Paul
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May 8 2016, 11:51 PM
Post #1
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I DID IT
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Rand Paul
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May 9 2016, 09:48 PM
Post #2
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
- Posts:
- 329
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- America's Choice
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- Joined:
- Jan 19, 2016
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Opening Speech Status: AS GOOD AS IT'S PROBABLY GONNA GET
- Quote:
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Hello, ladies and gentlemen of the jury! Before we get things started, I want to say that regardless of how this final vote goes down I have had an excellent time playing this game with all of you. All in all, this game had an excellent cast from top to bottom, and you seven were a wonderful fun-inducing mix of people I loved to love, hated to love, and loved to hate*. I look forward to answering all of your questions, especially since I'm sure you all have a bunch of them. But first I think I should answer the main two that I assume all of you are thinking right now. Why am I here, and why do I deserve to win the title of Sole Survivor? The answers to both are intertwined. I'll start with the first one by taking you all on my journey through the game:
Granite and the First Debate
I've never considered myself the most adept social player, so when I logged into this game for the first time, I promised myself I was going to do my damnedest not to repeat the mistakes of the past. I started sending out PMs to my tribemates and tried to get a sense of what sort of people they were. Some seemed content to talk about fluff instead of game stuff, and so I gave them that. Others dropped into Alliancechat right away and I was happy to oblige. Pretty soon I had all sorts of players coming to me with offers of alliances: before the challenge had ended all eight players approached me with either explicit or tacit offers to work together. At that first Tribal Council, I wanted Elizabeth Warren gone due to some sketchiness revolving around the discovery of the Koch idol forums, but I didn't want to set myself up as a gamebot or as a domineering personality trying to control the merge, so I tried subtlety to get the result I wanted: A lot people suggested voting Mark Udall out for being the quietest, and I told people that (paraphrased) "I understand where everyone is coming from with a Mark vote, but I think we should keep him. Perhaps we should consider X or Elizabeth?" and then tried to steer their thinking to Elizabeth. When a few players balked, I brought in Tulsi as reinforcement. In the end it worked perfectly; a person I considered a threat was gone, and nobody was considering me a driving force behind the vote.
At the debate, it was time to meet the Hawkeyes. I quickly identified Ted and Lincoln as people I wanted to work with, and before the debate drew to a close I had entered into a formal alliance with the latter. It was here that I first encountered Bobby Jindal and his attempts to tie me to the Koch idol. He kept telling me that every person on Hawkeye believed I had the idol and that Marco was trying to rally the others to vote me out. When the Pharmabro challenge ended and I found myself with 26% of the possible money, I knew that I had to take action to prevent myself from going home. Once the actual debating portion of that round started, I was the one who ended whatever the debate equivalent of an RVS stage is by publicly talking about the idol and my lack of having one. It was a big risk focusing the spotlight directly on me like that, especially since Bobby started saying "If you think there's a Hawkeye alliance against you, maybe you'll be safer at exile?" I saw through his trick, though; volunteering for exile at the point would have just fueled the speculation flames since everybody suspected (correctly) that there would be an idol there as well.
Incidentally, it was at this debate where I also stuck my neck out defending Vermin Supreme in his absence. While in this particular case it didn't work out for me, it is an example of how I've treated my allies in this game. Whenever I made an alliance with a player, I tried my damnedest to have their back. With only a few exceptions that I will get to later, I feel I succeeded at this goal.
Palmetto and the Second Debate
On paper, the first swap was horrible for me. From the Hawkeyes, I had Hillary, who I barely spoke with during the debate; and Marco, who I had been informed was the main guy who wanted to get me out. From the Granites, I had Carly, who was very pleasant but had never initiated any strategy talk with me; and Michelle, who was technically in an alliance with Tulsi and myself but I got the sense she was closer to Tulsi than to me. I could have panicked at this point, but instead I came up with two plans to make sure I made it through Palmetto unscathed:
1) I worked my hardest to make sure we won immunity. For both of the challenges here I led the tribe through practice rounds until we were ready to tackle them as a well-honed machine. This also led to important bonding in the Tribe Chat. I consider myself a much better real-time chatter than a PMers, and so I took advantage of the times when everyone was in the chat together to elevate myself in my trabemates' esteems.
2) I went to Marco with my concerns about him and we talked it out like adults. I easily could have slipped into paranoia here and launched an Ahab-like quest to get him out before he did the same to me. But we were able to address each others' concerns, bond over a mutual distrust of Bobby Jindal, and walk into the second debate with yet another formal alliance declared.
The second debate was very reminiscent of the first; Bobby tried to sweet-talk me into volunteering for Exile again. Once more, I assumed it was a trap and declined.
Republicans
This tribe is where the events that led all of us to this Tribal Council took place. I finally reunited with Ted Cruz, and we had a very illuminating conversation about Tulsi and Donald. The former considered me a threat and was trying to set me up for failure. The latter considered Ted a big threat and wanted him gone. This put me in an interesting position: I had my two Hawkeye allies in Ted and Lincoln, and two Granites in Donald and Ben who wanted those two allies out. Here I had to do a lot of talking in order to keep everything from blowing up. I knew Donald and Tulsi were close, so at this point I couldn't 100% trust Donald. I was able to build trust with Ted and Lincoln by keeping them appraised of the anti-Ted rhetoric that Donald was saying. Meanwhile, I kept Donald appeased by assuring him that Ted's time would come eventually. It wasn't an easy sell; multiple times Donald suggested intentionally throwing the challenge so that Ted wouldn't have a chance to reach the debate and reunite with the other Hawkeyes. I kept talking him off of that ledge, and not only did the Republicans sweep the next two challenges, but we did so largely due to my efforts: I was a significant contributor to the avatar challenge and did the bulk of the shitsheet work myself. My keeping the Republicans away from Tribal Council paid off right before the debate; Michelle used her Chatzy with Donald and redirected his ire towards Bobby and Barbara to the point where he decided to make amends with Ted. Now we went into the Convention with the heat turned off of myself and my closest allies.
The Convention
The Convention started out as a nightmare. For starters, I was tethered to Barbara, who I knew was a likely target. Secondly, due to idol fears it became clear that people were not interested in voting for Michele/Bobby or Carly/Donald. Third, while my preference here of Hillary/Ben was together (I had gotten the impression at this point that Hillary was not interested in working with me, and at the time I thought that both Ben didn't like me and that he was closer to Donald than I was), the connections Hillary had to Ted/Lincoln and Ben had to Donald meant that their names were pretty much a nonstarter. That left Ted/Lincoln and Mark/Marco as viable pairs, so I knew that no matter what I was going to lose an ally. This is where I worked hard at convincing people; I could have handled losing one ally in Marco and rebounded; losing two allies at once when I had so many enemies probably would have been the death of me. In the end it turned out that Ted/Lincoln were never in real danger after all thanks to Bobby's idol, but I didn't know that and it doesn't negate the work I did sticking up for my allies.
Merge
By the time we merged, I thought I was in a decent position. There were five members of the Granite tribe to four Hawkeyes. There were also five Republicans who were supposedly not trying to kill each other any more to four** Democrats who were splintered after the Tulsi vote. When Ted and Lincoln jumped on the opportunity to take out Donald, I easily could have crumpled up and withered away; with Donald's departure it appeared that I stood alone. The Hawkeyes were against me, and I suspected that Carly was upset with me as well. The conditions were perfect for a majority to come and take me out. Here I once again turned to the diplomatic game, smoothing things over with Carly and setting the Granites together again. When Barbara started reintroducing Kochidolchat, instead of allowing it to put doubt into the Granite's minds I took things public with yet another promise I didn't have it. Furthermore, I promised that if I ever used an idol I would effectively forfeit my chances of winning the game. This was an important move, as it basically stymied what I saw as an attempt to smear me as somebody who needed to be voted out and killed it in a manner that took away all the power from the rumors.
That's not the most important thing that happened at that Tribal Council, though. Barbara had sent me a message telling me that all I needed to do was wait for the Hawkeyes to turn on each other at F5 and try to make my move then. Unbeknownst to her, I had already started trying to crack the Hawkeye alliance and I had no intention of waiting until F5. I identified that the Hawkeyes were subdivided by Running Mates, and I knew that Barbara was dangerous. That solidified my decision to court Ted instead of Lincoln, and I sent him a heartfelt plea at F8 telling him that it was only a matter of time before Barbara and Lincoln turned on him and if he wanted to stop that it would be best if he did it before I was out of the game. It didn't work right away, but the seed was planted.
At F7, the seed bloomed. It needed a little watering, though; at this point I asked Barbara if her advice to "make new friends" was referring to her. She told me that she was TOTALLY willing to work with me. I didn't believe her for a minute, but that was okay because now I had a smoking gun to show Ted that Barbara was entertaining the idea of betraying him. I showed it to Ted, and soon the Hawkeyes were broken.
Now I had a choice to make. Lincoln was my preferred target, but he got immunity and mucked those plans up. Hillary, on the other hand, was very close to Ted and I didn't want to worry Ted by gunning for all of his allies just after he had turned on Barbara. Carly was a compromise vote here; I wanted to keep her in the game but there was reasonable fear of reversing the pagong and I wanted to put Ted's mind at ease. Other than the Marco vote, this was the only time I voted for somebody who thought I was working with them. I regretted it, but ultimately it was the best move for my game.
F5 had my preferred Final 3 in Me-Ted-Ben, but it also had a 3:2 Hawkeye:Granite ratio. This was another critical juncture. Although Ted could have switched back to the Hawkeyes and still done well, I convinced him to keep me. This is where I offered my first formal Final Three deal, as well as a Final Two deal with Ted. At this point in the game I had built up a reputation as being an honest, trustworthy person, and so he stood with me.
At F4, I had Ben come to me and suggest voting Ted out. It may have been a strategically sound move, but I had gotten this far by keeping my backstabbing to a minimum and I wasn't about to change then. I wasn't thrilled with Ted's decision to force a tie; if Ben had won the challenge I would have had to seriously consider breaking my F2 as I'd have been justified after he broke our F3. But in the end it didn't matter; I picked up two individual immunities in a row and then kept my word to take Ted with me.
That's a lot of words. But why do you deserve to win?
I have overcome a lot of adversity in this game. I have been hounded by rumors that I've had idols all game. I had a target on my back at the first debate. The Hawkeyes who made the merge had strong bonds from their Running Mate forums, while my running mate basically made three posts in our forum, none of which had any substance. I was by myself after the F9 vote. I had Bobby gunning for me since the start of the debate, and my main ally from the Granite tribe was also planning to betray me.
And yet despite all of that, I am still here. And it wasn't due to luck. Despite constantly fighting uphill, I was able to use my bonds to advance, one round at a time.
I have not played an Under-The-Radar game. I was one of the three most visible Granites at the first debate, and multiple people expressed concern that I was popular. I was good at challenges, as well, and I was not shy about showing it. My risk analysis time was over a minute faster than the other two players who did the alphabetization. I was instrumental in victories in the Coalition challenge, the shitsheet, the avatar challenge, and the Who Are You? challenge. I missed winning the obstacle course by seconds and got second place on the quiz. I don't think anybody should be surprised I was able to win the last two challenges.
I was a threat.
So why am I still here?
Simply put, my social game deserves me the win. I have been able to convince a lot of people to keep me in the game, even when the prudent move would have been to cast me out long ago. I've been able to do this by being honest, treating people with respect, and ultimately being persuasive even when not in a majority alliance. I've been able to reach the Finals by playing a clean game, without the safety of idols, and while playing a game that I feel I can be proud of. I'm sure some of you on the jury will say "But Rand didn't have any control over the game! Why should we vote for him?" It's true that I didn't have direct power a lot of the time. But I was usually able to steer people away from me and towards the people I wanted and in the end that is a form of control in and of itself, a form of control that I worked very hard to cultivate. By the time Barbara, Lincoln, and Hillary were ready to cast votes towards me, it was too late; I was able to reach the Final 4 with all three players I had personally decided I wanted in my Final 3 back at the convention, and I made sure that I reached the Finals with a player of my choice.
Survivor has three traditional subgoals that lead to victory: Outwit, outplay, and outlast. I outwitted every player who wanted to vote me out, I outplayed my competitors in most of the challenge, and I have outlasted 16 players despite the deck being stacked against me the entire way. I am the Sole Survivor of this game, and I think if you all take a moment to think about it, you will come to the same conclusion.
I look forward to answering all your questions. If there's anything up there on which you want me to elaborate, I will gladly do so.
*"Hate" is overselling it, but I want to keep the parallelism of the sentence structure.
**I'm counting Michele as a Democrat since she was able to PM them, even though she was technically not on the tribe.
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Rand Paul
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May 9 2016, 10:47 PM
Post #3
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
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I'm not thrilled with my opening speech, but I never claimed to be a wordsmith.
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Rand Paul
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May 10 2016, 12:51 AM
Post #4
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
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The quote tags aren't actually part of the speech, I just wanted to make it clear the Status Report was separate.
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Rand Paul
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May 10 2016, 08:27 PM
Post #5
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
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I feel like out of all the questions asked so far, the hardest one is that fucking "assign an animal to each juror" one.
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Rand Paul
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May 10 2016, 09:00 PM
Post #6
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
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I'm putting my medical degree to good use, because I just doctored that confessional quote to Lincoln.
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Rand Paul
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May 11 2016, 09:58 PM
Post #7
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
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Ugh, I feel like I'm not handling this as well as I could. I'm gonna get a head start on my closing speech. Already picked an opening poem:
It's easy to grin When your ship comes in And you've got the stock market beat. But the man worthwhile Is the man who can smile When his shorts are too tight in the seat."
EDIT: Eh, poem doesn't work with the tone I'm going for.
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Rand Paul
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May 12 2016, 08:52 PM
Post #8
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
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I am awful at finding gifs.
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Rand Paul
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May 13 2016, 08:41 PM
Post #9
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
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Well, Ted and I have both given this Final Tribal Council our all, and all of you* have asked us some excellent questions. Hopefully the responses I have given to you have provided the answers you sought, and now you all probably aren't interested in reading a bunch of words because you feel you have all the information you need to place your vote. But before you do, I want to take this last opportunity to reiterate the main points I want you to take away about my game and state one more time why I am the Sole Survivor of Survivor #2016.
I made social bonds that protected me every time I was in danger. I've already mentioned that I had an enormous target on my back for almost all of the game, but look at what I survived. Did Donald really need to be targeted right away at F9? Was Michele really the best Granite for the Hawkeye plurality to eliminate at F8? I don't think they were, and yet I was able to avoid being voted out. At the convention Barbara and I were both threats, and both could have been conceivably been eliminated at once, but I was able to talk our way out of that thanks to the bonds I had made with the others.
Another time that didn't even come up during questioning was during F5. If Ted wanted to get to the FTC with Hillary, voting me out there was his best chance to make it happen: Lincoln is a smart, pragmatic guy and I think he would have understood Ted flipping on Barbara. But I stayed, because I was able to convince Ted to stick with me.
I pulled off an impressive set of moves to get here. "Wait!" I hear you say. "What about the whole proactive/reactive thing?" It's true that my playstyle meant that even when I did make a big move (i.e. convincing Ted to vote for Barbara) it meant that Ted got the credit for it. But ask yourself this- why do moves have to be big? 4+4+4+4+4 all add up to 20 just the same as 10+10 do. I made a LOT of small moves during the game to get me here. Barbara described it as "in more of a defensive position, taking the moves Ted offered him", but I think that sells me short. I had to do a lot of small things in order to convince people to target others instead of me - and I stuck the landing every time.
Think about how little margin of error I had. If at any point my social game had faltered, I would be long-gone. The road I took to get here today is impressive, because there were SO many times when something could have gone wrong but thanks to my social connections they never truly did.
I set a strategy into motion and then executed it to near-perfection. It's been implied that at least some of the jurors are treating this FTC as sort of a moratorium on what sort of playstyle is the best. I want you to ask yourself, which one of us played our chosen playstyle the best? Imagine a hypothetical perfect reactive run through this game and compare it to me. Then imagine a hypothetical perfect proactive run and compare it to Ted. Which of us is closer to the gold standard? I posit it is me. I understand there is disagreement about who I should have taken to the FTC with me, but at the end of the day I achieved my goal of reaching the FTC with the player I wanted. Ted cannot say the same.
I said it in my opening statement, but it bears repeating: Outwit, Outplay, Outlast. I have done all three of these things, and I feel I have done them well. I'm proud of the game I've played, and while I have nothing but respect for my opponent, I am being 100% sincere when I tell you I honestly believe my game is the one that deserves the win.
Thank you all for your time and patience, and I look forward to seeing you all at the reveal.
#StandWithRand
*Except Hillary, who did not ask any questions
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Rand Paul
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May 14 2016, 01:36 AM
Post #10
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"In 2000, Fisher-Price changed the rotary dial for a push-button version with lights in an effort to modernize the toy, but consumers complained and the rotary version returned to the market the following year."
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Welp, I took a gamble in choosing Ted and getting the jury to take my side on the proactive/reactive debate, but it appears it will not pan out; Ted just murdered me with his speech.
My only hope is that Ben still wants me to win like he said after the tiebreaker challenge, Carly gets offended at the gif Ted gave her, Michele attributes the death-avenging to me, and Donald decides he just likes me better.
All of those things happening individually are all feasible, but all happening at once? Ugh.
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