It could have happened yesterday, in one of those galaxies next door.

On a simple delivery mission to one of the Mars colonies, the freighter Ko Suteba II suddenly leaves it's planned course.
The cargo hold is no longer accessible.
Several members of the security crew are found, half-disolved in what appears to be yellow acid.
The crew starts to panic.

A first meeting on the bridge ensues. The following points are made clear to everyone:
1. The ship's controls are out of your hands.
2. You seem to be heading for a dangerous asteroid belt.
3. Your ship seems to have been infiltrated by aliens.
4. You are all cut off from your daily supply of coffee.
5. You need to resolve the situation fast, before everyone of you is dead and the precious coffee beans plus ship fall info alien hands! With the power of caffeine at their hands, they could do everything!

It's in your hands now to save the universe...

Roles going out shortly.

Space Day starts, and there seems to be an alarm. As the crew collects on the bridge, someone leads the way to a half-disolved corpse that looks somewhat like tick.
One of the more courageous crew members takes a closer look and realises with horror that tick was the ship's doctor. Having just made the discovery of a substance that protected against acid, his wonderful achievement sadly brought him no help.

As the corpse is cleared away, a voice message is heard on the bridge:

Captains Log:

I don't know but it would appear to me that the coffee shortage means time is of the essence in our deliberations.

Slightly startled, and sad about their loss, the crew starts discussing the latest events.

A first meeting on the bridge ensues. The following points are made clear to everyone:
1. The ship's controls are out of your hands.
2. You seem to be heading for a dangerous asteroid belt.
3. Your ship seems to have been infiltrated by aliens.
4. You are all cut off from your daily supply of coffee.
5. You need to resolve the situation fast, before everyone of you is dead and the precious coffee beans plus ship fall info alien hands! With the power of caffeine at their hands, they could do everything!

1. & 2. Does this look like we're in imminent danger, regardless of the alien presence. Can anyone shed any light on this, or do we ignore it for now, and wait for messages from the ship's slightly camp computer? (They are ALWAYS camp, see Red Dwarf, or Blake's 7 for proof)

3. Anyone wish to own up, or feel a slight eruption from their chest during the night?

4. & 5. Is this merely a backdrop, or is the lack of coffee going to cause any issues, eg, vote tweaking?

Yes, I'm partly asking for information, but no, that doesn't make me an alien. I'm also raising questions that arose in my mind, and may be relevant during the next few hundred posts.

Whoever got Tick, you're a complete git, and I hate you!

No random day one vote, because I don't feel bad about anyone in particular.

Looks like some people are more susceptible to lack of coffee than others - Serenity's got it bad.

I dunno Das is it?

So, does everyone have a rank?

Meep

HC: I'm guessing once we've got our coffee back we'll be able to work out a solution to the whole asteroid belt problem.

Serenity, did something happen that you know of last night? Someone keep you up too late or the like?

Gin, the same question--did you get someone's private stash of coffee beans or something?

I'm with Amata on this one--a random vote doesn't seem necessary, especially as we already have some information to start with.

So, does everyone have a rank?

CHRIST!!!

well they do now.

Irritation Vote: Mad Matt (Yeah, I know he's probably innocent... but man....)

I'm guessing, and mind you, this is just a guess... but probably the infiltrating aliens were not given ranks.

As far as the coffee goes:

1. We're out.
2. Some people seem to not function so well without it.
3. We have the option of going longer than the 10 day limit.

I'm assuming if we start pushing against that limit we're going to see other things begin to happen (ie vote/ability fuddling). I'm assuming that all of us needs the night simply to get sleep. So if we encroach on that, then the night ends, day starts, and we're all a little less lucid.

However, no night means no night kills. That means that if we work through the night we may be safe. However, if that's the case, then I have to assume that the lack of sleep is going to be a worse force on the crew than I might have originally supposed.

I was hoping the rank thing wouldn't come to light until a nasty acidic alien put its foot in the proverbial, but nevermind

I think our use of days/nights bears a little extra discussion, though my initial thoughts are very similar to Glamdring's - that the apparent safety of not allowing the mafia a night in which to kill people is surely too good to be true, and therefore probably isn't. I'm speculating wildly that the people who look like they need a cup of coffee the most are the ones who are going to get hit hardest by not getting any sleep. The results of this could be as bad as people dropping dead. So my initial feeling is that we should stick to the day/night format and try to make sure that we're tucked up safely in bed before the 10-day-limit when possible.

More wild speculation: we're out of coffee, but our tiredness is shown in the morning blurb and looks like it's going to be a daily feature. Is it unreasonable to guess that possibly there's some coffee within reach of some of us? I think not, but I don't want to press anyone to disclose that info while we're still unsure what part our coffee-cravings play in this game

However, "jittery" does seem to imply some coffee floating around in the system.

Care to explain Gin?

I don't think ranks being out is an unrecoverable mistake--if someone doesn't have a rank, they might make up one that doesn't mesh with the real ones. One can hope, anyway. To that end, I hope that noone will divulge their rank unless it becomes really necessary.

Then again, the aliens could have been given fake roleclaims with the ranks included too. Anyway!

I hope that the level of awakeness doesn't denote nighttime activity. It's not just mafia that can be busy at night. I don't think it would hint much to who is an alien either - it would be too easy. But who knows what the next days will teach us - I think it's fairly impossible to learn it today.

I'm a fan of sticking to the day/night rotation - I need to keep my sparkling personality intact.

[This rambling message brought to you by caffeine withdrawal.]