Survivor Epilogue
Wow. My oh my. It’s been a long and crazy ride since July 14th. Twelve challenges, sixteen contestants, 208 posts…who would have thought this would work? I didn’t. Not at first anyway. In the beginning I thought it would be kinda cool if there was some special blog to bring all those in the SW universe together and interact with each other. Who knew it would last three and a half months? (Unforeseen illnesses not withstanding.)
But I was looking over all the posts the other night and I must say….wow. What an amazing body of work! If any of you out there have the time to read over it all again, I suggest you do so. There are some hilarious and wonderful gems of writing…eh…reporting I mean, in there. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, you all have done a fantastic job.
At first I really didn’t think it would work out. For the first few weeks there were a few people who neither posted nor voted. They just didn’t show up so I thought, “Well this is a bust. Oh well.” But as it turned out, we were just getting used to the situation and getting down to the strong characters.
If I were to do this again, I think I would do a few things differently though. First off, have only fourteen contestants max (and merge at seven or eight). This would help with shaving off a few weeks to make things go a little quicker. I would also have implemented the “no-vote: you’re voted off” rule from the beginning. This would have helped clear away those people who weren’t really interested in the first place. (As a side note, I think I would also try and make sure those who signed up we’re truly committed to the project. I think that was the only real discouraging thing for me about the game when it started) But after the first month, things took off and the remaining players shined like the twin suns of Tatooine!
One other thing I definitely would change: dealing with the dreaded ties at votes. I hated having to randomly determine a tie at vote time. In a game that already relied on chance to determine who won and got immunity, it just seemed too much. Next time…eh, if there is a next time…I think I would do it this way---
Ties would be determined first by how many posts that person has at the time of voting. If you have placed more posts than the other person, you’re safe and the other person gets voted off. This would encourage players to post beyond the one post a week minimum and would have solved all but one of the tie votes for this past game!
But that’s neither here nor there. It was a learning process and I had fun doing it. I loved thinking of crazy challenges and loved even more when the winner who was posted had to figure out how in the world they were going to win. (Or in the case of Han on the swoop bike race, how in the world did he ever come in last?!?) It’s these types of challenges that make the game fun. I think next time I would also put in more creative writing challenges like the Pillar of Doom or the Three rings of Fear, since those type of challenges really pushed the envelope on people’s writing skills. But come on…ya gotta have fun gross stuff like the Hutt lick and jawa BBQ too.
I must say though, I was a bit surprised there wasn’t more posts that dealt with just the simple day to day actions of the characters in camp. I really thought Yoda and Dooku would have it out in some kind of smack down confrontation. There were some, however. I loved the little stinky present given to one of the tribes by the other tribe late one night. And the budding romance of Typho and Siri began in these episodes (Although we all know how well that worked out eventually, don’t we…) That’s why I also added other oddities for you guy to write about: sandstorms, a Tusken raider raid, a crazy idol that changes gender (ooo, I was so hoping Fluke would get that one..) which for the most part all of you did very well with. I am well aware of the burden a second blog has on people, so honestly, I ain’t complaining.
I do have one question for all the contestants though, something that I’ve been wondering throughout the entire game. Were there any secret alliances? Did any of you secretly E-mail each other to say, hey…this is how were going to vote and all? And if not…why not? That’s what Survivor is all about! I’m surprised there wasn’t more of that on the posts too.
Anyway, here is the voting record for all the Tribal Councils.
Names in green denote that that tribe (or individual) won immunity.
The name in bold red was voted off. (If a tie the names will be in bold and the one gone is in red.
An asterisk shows that person didn’t place a vote.
(And remember, this is just a game, so don't hold any grudges on who voted for you.)
Week 1
Ooteeni Tribe
Mabbitt:
Qui-Gon: Palps
Fluke: Grievous
Palps: Qui-Gon
Aayla: Grievous
Grievous: Obi-Wan
Jar Jar: Fluke
Leia: Grievous
Obi-Wan: Grievous
(It’s a shame Grievous got voted off so early. I always thought he would have some good posts down the road.)
Week 2
Mabbit Tribe
Ooteeni:
Anakin: Han
Dooku: Mace
Han: Han
Siri: Han
Mace: *
Padmé: Mace
Typho: Mace
Yoda: Mace
(Yes, you’re seeing it correctly…wracked with guilt from the build a droid fiasco, Han voted for himself…and nearly got voted off.)
Week 3
Although Mabbitt won the reward challenge in the obstacle course both tribes went to tribal council
Ooteeni:
Anakin: Padmé
Dooku: Padmé
Han: Siri
Siri: Dooku
Padmé: *
Typho: Padmé
Yoda: Padmé
Qui-Gon: Palps
Fluke: Obi-Wan
Palps: *
Aayla: Palps
Jar Jar: Obi-Wan
Leia: Obi-Wan
Obi-Wan: *
Week 4
Another reward challenge only with Mabbitt the winners of that.
Anakin: Siri
Dooku: Siri
Han: Siri
Siri: Dooku
Typho: Dooku
Yoda: Siri
Mabbitt:
Qui-Gon: Palps
Fluke: Palps
Palps: Qui-Gon
Aayla: Palps
Jar Jar: Palps
Leia: Palps
Week 5
Ooteeni Tribe
Mabbitt:
Fluke: Aayla
Aayla: Qui-Gon
Qui-Gon: Jar Jar
Jar Jar: Leia
Leia: Fluke
An unusual way to call for a tie, have everyone vote for everyone forcing random determination the loser.
Week 6 and the two tribes merged
Aayla: *
Anakin: Aayla
Dooku: Aayla
Fluke: Anakin
Han: Aayla
Jar Jar: Dooku
Qui-Gon: Typho
Typho: Aayla
Yoda: Aayla
Week 7
Dooku: Jar Jar
Fluke: Anakin
Han: *
Jar Jar: Typho
Qui-Gon: Typho
Typho: Jar Jar
Yoda: Jar Jar
This week had the person who had immunity (Fluke) give a special immunity to someone else (Qui-Gon)
Week 8
Anakin: *
Dooku: Fluke
Fluke: Anakin
Han: *
Qui-Gon: Typho
Typho: Fluke
Yoda: Fluke
Tired of the no-votes, I implemented the no-vote/ get voted off rule in which after a tie on that, Anakin got voted off. Just think though…had Anakin and Han voted, Fluke would probably have been voted off then.
Week 9
Dooku: Han
Fluke: Dooku
Han: Typho
Qui-Gon: Typho
Typho: Fluke
Yoda: Fluke
A really tough tie! I hated randomly picking this one. Had the idea of the person with the most posts wins been in play, Typho would have won this one.
Week 10
Dooku: Fluke
Fluke: Dooku
Han: Yoda
Qui-Gon: Dooku
Yoda: Fluke
Another too close tie!!
Week 11
Fluke: Han
Qui-gon: Han
Han: Fluke
Yoda: Fluke
That made three in a row that Fluke beat the odds. He seemed almost unstoppable until…
Week 12
Qui-Gon: --
Yoda: Fluke
Fluke: --
Since Qui-gon and Fluke canceled out each other, it was Yoda how cast the deciding vote.
The Final Vote
And just in case you were wondering who cast the last big votes…
Dooku: QGJ
Typho: QGJ
Siri: Yoda
Noel: QGJ
Grievous: QGJ
Jar Jar: QGJ
Han: QGJ
Palps: QGJ
Fluke: QGJ
Jon: QGJ
Leia: Yoda
Dormé: Yoda
I’ve got to say I really thought Yoda was a shoe in from the beginning. He hardly ever got any votes against him which made this last vote quite surprising to me.
But hey Yoda…at least you got the chick vote.
Well, that’s about it. I think I’m going to sleep for a month. I hope everyone had a fun time doing this not-so-little adventure. I know I did. I think I might have had the best time of you all cos all I had to do was throw out some bizarre challenges and stuff then sit back and read all the ingenious, hilarious posts.
Will I ever do this again?
Maybe.
Not right away obviously but who knows… Maybe a few months down the road, when the dust has settled and perhaps a new crop of SW bloggers are furiously writing away I may just come back with…oh, I don’t know…Survivor: Hoth?
...We’ll see.
In the meantime, thanks for playing along.
It was a blast.
Goodnight.
-J.J out!
P.S. I hear Palps is selling the yellow spedo he wore on the show on Ebay even as we speak.
posted by Jawa Juice at 7:59 AM
22 Comments:
Were there any secret alliances? Did any of you secretly E-mail each other to say, hey…this is how were going to vote and all?
When the tribes merged, the four of us who came from the Ooteeni tribe thought we had detected an alliance in the final vote of the Mabbitt tribe, so we decided to vote as a block in order to protect ourselves. So we decided to vote off the former Mabbitts one-by-one in an alphabetical manner.
After the first vote among the merged tribe, it became obvious that there was no alliance between the former Mabbitts. But by then it was too late. We felt the former Mabbitts would be able to tell we had formed an alliance, so we would have no choice but to continue our alliance and vote them all off.
Well you see how well that worked out. (Ahem, Han and Anakin) As you can see, we never got past "F". By the time we were down to the last three contestants, two of them were former Mabbitts! (So, no, I didn't have it in for Fluke. I was just trying to vote as we had agreed.)
I agonized for a while when it came down for me to vote between Qui-Gon and Fluke. I felt I needed to decide who was the biggest threat. This was difficult. I felt both were equally strong writers with equally funny posts. To me, neither writer was clearly the weaker among the two.
But I remembered a couple of comments left by others on one or two of Fluke's posts to the effect, "Wow! This is the best post out of the whole contest!"
I couldn't remember anyone posting a comment like that on anyone else's posts. Of course, this was just one or two people's opinions, but what if others felt that way? And then, Fluke wrote that whole hilarious series of posts about bladder issues and imaginary ponies. I felt Fluke had to go.
Still, I knew I didn't have it easy. Qui-Gon's posts were just as strong and funny as mine (maybe better). Besides, what if there were others who thought that Qui-Gon had written the best post out of the whole contest, and just never bothered to comment to that effect? I was up against a tough competitor.
In any event, Qui-Gon won. And it was well-deserved. Qui-Gon's heart and soul were clearly poured into the writing of those posts. And so I am glad the old brownie ghost won.
Once again, congratulations, Jinn!
-Bill J.
"Master Yoda's Stupid Intern"
I'm curious about Week 4 when the Mabbits ganged up to vote off Palps. How did that come about?
Oh, and one more thing...
Han, you freaking backstabber!
You voted for me in Week 9?? I was sure it was Fluke!
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Okay, I'm cool now. :)
I had such a great time following this.
If anouther Survivor game was played, I would deffinitely want to participate. A possibility is to get other non-Star Wars characters involved as well (Professor X, captain Picard, there has to be plenty out there).
It could be almost anywhere as well, Tatooine, Hoth, Hacknor, Rigel 7...
I don't know if I'd want to host it myself, though. I don't know, it's gotta be easy, right? No?
I just couldn't figure out who decided who would win the challenges.
This was a lot of fun. I happened upon this from Master Yoda's site and have been following since Week Two. A shame some of us non-charactered folks can't play as well, 'twould be fun. (Then again, perhaps I could claim Farscape's Crichton?... or BTVS's Xander? Hmmm...)
Anyway, good going folks. Thanks for good bloggertainment.
I do want to thank JJ for doing an outstanding job of putting this together.
His challenges inspired me to do what I believe to be some of my best writing to date.
The experience of collaborating with other writers was a thrill.
Thanks for everything, JJ! It was fun!
-Bill J.
"Master Yoda's Stupid Intern"
"Han, you freaking backstabber!"
Now, let me explain!
Week 2, I didn't think I'd get any votes from anyone, so I voted for myself. Almost a huge mistake. ^_^
After that I was voting for the person with the smallest post, until the tribes merged.
After that, we were going to vote along alliance lines, which was fine with me since Aayla didn't post that week. I would have voted that way anyway.
When it was clear that the other tribe didn't have an alliance of their own, I stopped voting.
And then work got busy and I didn't notice the new "don't vote = don't stay" rule until it almost came down on me.
So, after that it was random. Hey, the challenge winners were random, why not the votes? I figured that would even still be in Han's character.
I found some dice in my desk my predecessor had left, so I used one of them. There were six contestants and six sides...seems pretty simple. Right?
Wrong. After using them for two weeks I discovered that they almost always landed on 6 (Typho) or 1 (Han). I'm not sure where my predecessor purchased these, but they're fairly clearly rigged. Sorry Typho, I didn't know.
After that I eliminated myself as a possibility and flipped a coin, even to the final vote.
This was a great game. I'm really bummed that I got so busy at work towards the end and couldn't participate as much as I wanted.
-Phoenix G.
"Han's Brilliant-but-Overworked-and-Underpaid Intern"
Thank you all for the warm complements. I’m very glad you enjoyed it. It’s nice to see that other people outside the SW universe was following it also. Thanks for the comments, jmr.
Jon, the hard parts hosting the game were coming up with fresh, different challenges that allowed for a fun creative response from the contestants. But that was only half of it. The other half was creating the pictures, maps, props and adding in other off-beat things to happen when there seemed to be too much down time. In a sense, it’s kinda like playing a DM for sixteen other Dungeon and Dragon players who are not even in the room with you. Just a little difficult, but I think with the rules in place and one game under our belt already, things should be easier next time.
I wouldn’t mind hosting another one. I actually enjoy the part of DM. It would have to be in a few months though…sometime after the first of the year. But if you wanted to host one, Jon, I would have no problem with that.
If I do host another game, I think I will expand it a little beyond the SW characters who can join, but they must be fictional characters still—no real life people please. So the intergalactic gladiator, Captain Picard, maybe even Professor X could also sign up. Their character would just have to lend its self to a strange planet environment. And they would have to be committed to the game. We’ll see. That thought is still some months away.
QG- congratulations again and I’m glad you enjoyed the game and that it made you and Bill both stretch in your writing, which I think really is the main reason for this fun stuff.
Phoenix-I’m sorry to hear all the troubles you’re having with work. I totally understand that the “real” world can really mess up this little slice of creative space. Over all, I think you’ve done a fantastic job and your posts were some of the most spot-on-character things I’ve ever read. You do Han very well. (eh…that didn’t come out right, but you get the idea.)
And Shaak-Ti, you will be notified when the next one comes around. Like I said, probably after the first of the year.
Ahhh…now back to my own blog and a bit of rest too. Maybe I can actually finish my book, also.
Thanks everyone. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
This was great fun, and I am sure that all involved had a good time working with the format.
1. How in the heck did I get voted off? I mean, being the evil guy that I am, I was sure to cheat in later challenges in order to benefit my tribe. Instead, they ALL turned against me? That’s OK, we all know that I will eventually take over the galaxy and destroy the Jedi. No problem. ;-)
2. Voting was pretty random for me, even at the end. I think that while Yoda played the best game, in the end he was pretty evil in how he managed to win some things. Plus, he was the phantom dooker that kept leaving little ‘presents’ for us, so I had to vote for QGJ. (Sorry Bill…)
A public thanks again to Eric/JJ for being the host, and really doing most of the actual ‘work’ involved in the project. He deserves special kudos for all the time and effort he put into the ideas…we just riffed off of them.
Hopefully we can do this again, perhaps after the first of the year?
I was surprised about the vote as well - but I went by what Grievous would have chosen
Special thanks goes to JJ
So, after that it was random. Hey, the challenge winners were random, why not the votes?
I distinctly remember the Ooteeni tribe making an agreement to knock off the Mabbitts first before turning on each other.
I figured that would even still be in Han's character.
Well, I can't argue with that logic. Can't trust a spice smuggler.
Slimy no-good @#$^&...
What I said was: "Well, if the Mabbitts truly have an alliance to vote together, we have no choice. I don't like it, but there is no alternative."
IF the Mabbits truly have an alliance, THEN I'm in.
Once it was clear that they didn't, I was out. And I didn't say anything about it, because I was pretty sure my former tribe-mates would vote me off after the Mabbits were taken care of. So I played it quiet.
And you can trust Han. At least, you can trust him to BE Han, and do what's in his best interests. That may mean an alliance to vote off another alliance, and it may mean not betraying his new tribe-mates (you don't want to burn bridges; you never know when you might need help to move a body).
If I could have gotten away with not voting for anyone, I would have. And since there was no way to vote without betraying someone, I let chance do the choosing.
I'm sorry Typho was voted off (and I'm even more sorry Han was voted off). But, I still had a great time. ^_^
I had fun too. I just wish I had lasted a little longer.
If we had knocked off all the Mabbitts first like we (ahem) had agreed to, I would never have randomly chosen who I was going to vote off next. Yoda would’ve had to go first.
Yoda played the best game, in the end he was pretty evil in how he managed to win some things.
Palps, I think that's why Yoda lost so decisively in the final vote. He remained true to his character and he was consistently mean and ornery throughout the game. It came back to bite him in the end.
I figured getting rid of the no-shows would've been better to do than getting rid of ANYONE that posted SOMETHING... But, in looking at some of the votes here, I maybe was the only one who felt and thought that way.
No, you weren’t. Early on Yoda and I got together and decided that we’d vote so as to keep the strongest writers / best players in the game for as long as possible. Some other people said they were going to do this too, but they started to not vote and that plan got screwed up.
I guess I did feel like I was being targeted after the merge, but wasn't sure just how.
Well, you were the biggest threat on the Mabbitt side. You would’ve easily won against Yoda.
Ahem.
Palps, I think that's why Yoda lost so decisively in the final vote. He remained true to his character and he was consistently mean and ornery throughout the game. It came back to bite him in the end.
Probably, and in fact, that was the theme of the post I wrote featuring Yoda's speech.
However, in Yoda's defense, I don't think he would have made Bob the Bantha "blow" QGJ off of the pole. I think that's a line Yoda(at least the way I write him) would not have crossed. It just seems like cheating, as if he pushed QGJ off himself.
Not that I'm complaining. QuiBecca was nice enough to ask my permission before using Bob. And I think I may have even suggested 'losing by bantha fart'. Besides, it was a darn funny post, which is the important thing.
I try to portray Yoda as grouchy, and sometimes a little mean, but not cruel (unless you count how he treats his Stupid Intern). I don't know if that always comes across.
Well, you [Fluke] were the biggest threat on the Mabbitt side.
To clarify, we weren't singling him out. The reason we started voting for Fluke and kept voting for him was that his name was next alphabetically.
You would’ve easily won against Yoda.
Not quite sure how to take that.
You would’ve easily won against Yoda.
Not quite sure how to take that.
I think that Yoda would've had a problem in the final round against any of the mild-mannered contestants. He would've done better against Dooku or Palps, I think.
Palps, I think your tendency to conjure the mental image of a wrinkly guy in a speedo may have contributed to your downfall.
Well of course I conjured that image...that's what kept the whole thing interesting. ;-)
Rebecca,
No need to apologize. It was a darn funny and well-written post, which is the most important thing.
I guess I did feel like I was being targeted after the merge, but wasn't sure just how.
Well, you were the biggest threat on the Mabbitt side. You would’ve easily won against Yoda.
I voted for a person who I thought to be a weaker writter and who Grievous would want to go
You're pure dag nasty evil. It's just a fact.
I love that spoof film (a lost hope) I finally read the comments for these Survivor posts. A very belated 'great job' guys
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