filed by the Morale Officer
audio version
And so concludes another election that, by all rights, should have ended in disaster for the Houston Spies. In this season we soared to heights unreached since season one, which should have alerted other teams to our team full of players that overperform their stars, ripe for Exchange. And yet, this was another election where we benefited more than we suffered.
Soak Up the Sun
The decree for Sun 30 passed. Perhaps an extra win for entering overtime will be some consolation for the Spies’ habit of stretching out games played in eclipse weather as stressfully long as possible. Sun 30 was brought into existence, increasing Sun(Sun)’s pressure gauge, which was later bled off with the text “Sun(Sun) was recharged.” The Prehistory II library entry revealed that the first recorded event on The First Day, 2nd Edition was “Sun 1 was Refilled by Namerifeht.”
Hit the Books
The Library unredaction continues: the Canada Moist Talkers were originally from Topeka. Season AA began Internet League Blaseball. Jaylen’s death and resurrection are officially part of the Library’s recorded blaseball history.
The Houston Spies still have not appeared.
Mission Accomplished?
The Coin waxed effusive over the two detectives Uncle Plasma and Liquid Friend, declaring their investigation over with no foul play found. They were pulled from the ILB, assigned Legendary status, and Vaulted. Some disturbing things may have happened to Liquid Friend in the Vault. The two were also given the status Yolked, with the declaration “Uncle Plasma and Liquid Friend are stronger together.” Perhaps commemorative replicas will be available in the future.
Mission Failed
This section was found written in cramped handwriting on four sticky notes.
This was the Bad End to the investigation storyline. We didn’t manage to get the two detectives in the same game with each other in time. There will undoubtedly be… consequences.
But what could we have done? We originally desperately wanted Uncle Plasma, only for Uncle to be sent to a different team on a 2% chance. It was physically impossible for us to trade anyone for Uncle Plasma or Liquid Friend given the EE star count and opposite subleague restrictions (respectively), and the Kansas City Breath Mints and Breckenridge Jazz Hands desperately wanted to use their Wills for moves that would dig their teams out of mediocrity. Furthermore, it is socially unwise to demand that other teams spend their own Wills on moves that have no benefit to them.
I suppose this might have been part of the plan? To win the Internet Series, certainly. But if we’re losing at the greater plot of Blaseball itself, is that really worth it? We can’t win a league that doesn’t exist.
OK, who put that there? And who photocopied it into the main report?
…
What do you mean it’s fine because doubting the plan can be part of the plan?!
…
Next time this happens I’m photocopying your birthday photos into the main report too.
…Moving on.
Some Non-Spies Items of Note
Wyatt Mason IV, aka Ivy, has been moved to the Dallas Steaks’ Shadows in an exchange for Zephyr McCloud.
In what was dubbed “Operation Yo-yo”, the Core Mechanics swapped one of their players for a Steaks player and then used their other Will to place the player they swapped in their own Shadows, with the result that the Steaks lost a player and gained nothing in return.
The Tacos moved Agent NaN to the Shadows.
Lars Taylor, an old friend of Math Velazquez who similarly used to pitch with no stars, has been Shadow Infused, gaining an entire star in… Defense.
Liquid Friend has been rerolled from an Attractor to a Homebody, which has interesting implications if replicas do become available.
Paula Turnip has also become a Homebody, losing the Credit to the Team mod that made her so lucrative an idol. She is also now a Sponge, which makes floods more likely whenever she is on base.
Agent Knight Triumphant has been traded once again to the Tokyo Lift.
Alston Cerveza has become much Colder and traded Underachiever for Fourth Strike.
The Chicago Firefighters rerolled the Attractor mod to High Pressure before sending Harrell to the Hawaii Fridays.
The Pies voted for an item steal (taking an Underhanded item from Winnie Hess) that benefited a player, Jacoby Podcast, who was no longer on their team.
The Shoe Thieves traded a Games (Cornelius) for a Games (Richardson), resulting in no change to their Games-per-game statistic.
Chorby Short is now a Millennial. So is Agent Andrew Solis, who is additionally now Undefined.
Tot Fox, who black holed the Moon, is now in the Shadows. Good. Let the Shadows’ Crows keep the Moonkiller company.
Agent Siobhan Chark’s Moxie was improved at the expense of Thwackability as part of the Sunbeams’ Global Guts Blessing. Or, at least, that’s what the blessing was supposed to do. It appears that the Sunbeams’ Moxie and Thwackability have been increased, due to a sign error. We are well acquainted with the effects of sign errors because of our early encounter with a certain blessing called Rigor Mortis.
Wyatt Glover is now on the Yellowstone Magic due to Strange Attractor. Their hope was to recruit an Attractor from the catastrophic redactions they underwent a few seasons ago, but Wyatt Glover, a.k.a. Would Have Been The Economy But For Five Failed Rerolls, was probably not the Attractor they wanted.
Agent Eve McBlase II is now on the Mexico City Wild Wings. Reportedly, after a number of conversations with the rest of the Lift, Evelton decided to try taking gender out for a spin, and seems to be significantly happier as Eve.
Valentine Games III, who played for the Breath Mints this season, has returned to Dust.
Spies Items of Note
Valentine Games II, aka February, has returned to Dust. The idea of getting another Valentine Games replica in the hopes of getting February back on the team has already been raised.
Pudge Nakamoto has roamed to the Ohio Worms.
The Ohio Worms obtained a blessing, Green Light, that affected one player on each team in our division. Quack Enjoyable now plays 50% better in Polarity+ weather and 50% worse in Polarity- weather.
Math Velazquez, who lost about half Math’s stars during playoffs to Consumer attacks, has been Moved into the Shadows, gaining 1.6 stars in the process.
Dudley Mueller was one of several players to be Magnified to 2x Magnification this season: “Every Run that this Player bats in or allows will be multiplied by 2.” This looks like a big eDensity adder, perhaps explaining why allowing Dudley to be Exchanged for Paula Mason was all part of the Plan. (Paula Mason is a 4.4-star batter and a Fire Eater and currently sports a Parasitic Jersey and an axe. She is not as brilliant a batter as Dudley, but she can hold her own.)
Speaking of eDensity, reports are in: the Houston Spies’s stadium, REDACTED, currently has more inflated balloons than any other ballpark in the League, and is projected to be 700 unknowable units of eDensity lighter by latesiesta next season. Hopefully this will help us with defying the Coin by staying afloat, reducing Consumer attacks.
Another measure affecting the Spies’ eDensity going into the next season is our securing the blessing Low Five, resulting in the Flipping of the five players on the pre-Pudge-Roaming team roster including our Shadows with the least eDensity: Nakamoto and Kerfuffle, who were previously Negative, and previously-Positive Aureliano Cerna, Peekaboo Nameperson, and Nicholas Summer. We had one percent of the votes. The fact that Nakamoto flipped positive again was mitigated by the fact that they left.
With zero percent of the votes, we also secured the blessing Fringe Benefit, netting us 6.5-star batter Commissioner Vapor from the Canada Moist Talkers. Vapor seems to have prepared for the team change by partying four times last season, increasing from a star total of 15.8 to 20.5. Ironically, the Moist Talkers were the team with the most votes in this blessing.
With the addition of Commissioner Vapor, we now have two players who were made of the remains of a previous incineration. And we’ve hosted two players who were the result of an accident involving Mlonster energy drink. I’m sure this means something.
Agents dodging coordinated efforts to Shadow Infuse them continues to be part of the Plan, as the half a million tracked votes (283493 to Infusing Emmett Tabby, 219302 to Infusing Donia Bailey) in the Will was still not enough to get it chosen. I hope I get the memo when the Agency decides to conclude Operation Refuse to Infuse.
Debt Redux
Several teams took advantage of the Reform mod to re-roll players’ unappealing modifiers like Attractor and apparent trauma response Flinch. The Boston Flowers’ attempt to send Silvaire Roadhouse to therapy, however, appears to have run up a considerable bill, as Roadhouse now has the modifier Debt. (“This Player must fulfill a debt.”)
This is not the first time Debt, Refinanced Debt, Consolidated Debt, or the modifier Debted have appeared in the League; our financial experts wasted no time in examining the modifier. Apparently, while it is superficially similar in appearance to (by having the same color as) the form of Debt that had Jaylen Hotdogfingers sending Flickering (Feedback-proneness) throughout the League, in its actual particulars it is a kind of Debt never before seen, with effects as yet unknown.
Also, remember that one of the new Library entries is Hotdogfingers’ resurrection.
On Herrings
The subtitle of the next season is Red Herrings.
This excerpt was forensically retrieved from an incompletely erased hard drive found in a dumpster, and is included here for context.
“Red herring” is an idiom used, usually in mystery novels, to mean a misleading (often planted) clue that sends investigation off in entirely the wrong direction. It is derived from a tactic to (attempt to) lead scenthounds astray from one’s path by dragging a smelly fish, like a herring, across one’s actual scent trail and then throwing it in a different direction.
This is not the best way to do that, though. Stepping into running water, walking upstream or downstream a while, and then resuming your journey is a much better tactic for evading scenthounds because it breaks your trail entirely.
Do not ask why a Spy would know this information.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we improved our team considerably, failed in our attempts to Infuse Donia Bailey (or, this election, Bailey’s partner-in-crime Emmett Tabby), and yet came out ahead due to unexpected success and some belated favor from the random number generator or hacking thereof.
Surely this is enough to make even the most cynical of Spies fans believe in the Plan.