The Premerge

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Rat

Hey buddy, we never got to meet but thanks to my trip to Rushmore at the mutiny I did get the opportunity to see how excited you were to play this game in the tribal forums.  It's a bummer they turned on you in the first round.  I think you might have taken some piece of the Auction home with you, and if it was the Heist Plans I definitely owe you one because I got to play from a strong position with my idol and the potential Rushmore idol never came into play.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Kylie

I swear I sent you an intro PM, but these boards being as they are I can't access the Outbox to confirm that.  Whether I sent you a PM or not, you never sent me one.  My Inbox is barren, parched for Kylie correspondence.  You were trying to play a team game in the challenges but you didn't stick around to fight for yourself after our first loss and I can't feel bad for voting out someone who wasn't talking to me.  I hope you'll play again and get into the messaging game next time!

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Klaus Daimler

I was surprised to learn you were seen as an easy vote since you were an active participant in tribal challenges.  I think you fell victim to being an easy consensus since you weren't involved in either Foxy Fox's overt alliance or the covert Margot/Madame/Peter thing that was happening so both sides could lose you without having a power struggle and without the people straddling the middle having to reveal their true allegiances.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Steve Zissou

The last person I never met, and the first really dynamic vote on the Rushmore tribe.  I have you to thank for setting up a divide I could so readily take advantage of when I mutinied.  I'm sure I don't have all the context, but it sounds like if you hadn't gone rogue and tried to push something different from your (very vocal) alliance leader Foxy Fox that you might have had another relatively simple round and not gone home here.  Very interesting What If...? scenario to think of how it all would have gone differently if you and your Foxy power alliance made it through one more round intact and had a chance at winning over the mutineer after the twist.

You really should have gone for the Team Zissou rings too.  It's honestly criminal that more Auction items didn't go into thematically appropriate hands.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Sam Shakusky

Sam bam.  My dude, you managed to be sketchy enough to give even the legendary Shady Richie the heebie jeebies.  What was you doing?  We spent like three solid rounds dancing around the idea of having a trio chat with M. Gustave and instead of actually launching that chat you aborted it and started pushing Gustave and I as a dangerous pair.   I was not prepared to contend with that kind of energy all game.  Heck, I got bloodthirsty about it.  While you were selling your narrative of how things were going on Ivanhoe to the Rushmores during the Cable Car twist, I was busy making sure there was a supermajority on Ivanhoe ready to send you packing.  I was so confident I had you cornered that I mutinied with the express purpose of blocking you from escaping the tribe and your date with destiny.

Even so, you peeled Anthony away from a very comfortable position insulated among the alliance structures of Ivanhoe to side with you, and you picked up an aggressive ally in Peter and his Double Vote.  You had the chops to make things happen, and it's another major What If...? to think about how the game would look if you guys had managed to pull Duke back to your side and force a tie vote against M. Gustave.  Would Writer have flipped on the revote instead of facing rocks?  Would the Sam Bam Power Clan be down here at the final four right now?  The people that came to your side of that vote got booted themselves in short order, but maybe there's a timeline where you all run the game from that point on.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Max Fischer

We didn't get to talk very much which is something I regret.  You were in a very tough position in the round we met, coming off the wrong side of a vote as one of only two people left from the minority, and meanwhile the only other person on your side of things had won the Mendl's.  I suspect you knew you were in very deep trouble because it seemed to me like you had been more active on the boards before we were on the same tribe and I hardly saw you online at all in the round leading up to your exit.  I was devoting my energy at that time to ingratiating myself with the people in the majority position.  There was a chance that you could have survived this round if Foxy had been left to their own confident devices and failed to play the Mendl's, but Buckley leaked the fact that there was a vote split happening to them and sealed your fate.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Foxy Fox

Gods, Foxy, I still feel bad about the way you put such blind trust in me and how I abused that.  I hope you've been able to take some lessons from your time in the game and from your time spectating.  You've got a good skill set to build on.  You just came on like a sledgehammer in this game.  Taking charge of your starting tribe, not being subtle in any way about it, and confidently stating and restating that you were the most well liked and well connected person both in private and in Tribal Council answers.  You made it easy for people to duck behind you, follow the leader as long as it was convenient, and rise up to overthrow you as soon as it wasn't.  Your assumptions about transactional loyalty just aren't realistic in Survivor.  You approached me from the moment I mutinied with a blunt statement that you wouldn't allow me to be targeted and as a result we were working together now.  The way it was presented there was no saying no to you, but I had other plans for my time on Rushmore which I had to get to work on for my own long game even as I played the good little soldier boy for you.  By the time we got to Grover Cleveland there was just far too much I had done behind your back that would come to light in the merge.  I could only assume that your black and white views of loyalty would apply equally to the idea of betrayal and that you would be an extremely aggressive adversary if it came to that.  I wasn't willing to risk it so I had to make sure you didn't escape from the swap tribe.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Anthony Adams

Double A!  Agent Negative!  My man!  Damn but I wish you'd taken the other side of the Sam vote.  Even before I mutinied I knew you were setting yourself up for a fall with how much you resisted it, and with how you freaked out about me saying Herman wasn't actually on the bottom.  It wasn't rocket science to predict but I certainly called the shot when the other swap tribe sent you home after the major Ivanhoe split on Sam's elimination.  If the first three eliminations were the low hanging fruit and the unconnected outsiders, the next six were a methodical deconstruction of the minority alliances from both sides of the game.  Steve, Max and Foxy, one two three.  Sam, AA and Peter, one two three.

I had a lot of fun playing with you.  The spy bureau was such an excellent little alliance on Ivanhoe, our information clearinghouse where we shared nearly everything any of us were involved in.  I wish you would have trusted in it just a little bit more, because it was that trio with Writer that had you so well insulated as someone who wouldn't fall to the bottom of the tribe any time soon.  As a group we straddled both the Horsemen foursome and the Auctioneers Crossed Keys alliance of five, and we had the power to influence either group in who they would target.  But Sam was a natural target because he was one of the two people outside of both large groups and I can only assume you got freaked that I saw Herman, the low man in the five person group that you WEREN'T explicitly involved with, to be above him.  I don't know how strong of a side deal you made with Sam but I can only assume it's importance to you since you went to bat for him and went down with the ship.

I miss you buddy.  If there were one person in the game I could reach out and yoink forward into the merge it would have been you.

Your friend,
Agent Mordecai

P.S.  As Pietro has pointed out, we would be remiss not to mention the fact that your profile picture is not Anthony Adams at all.  You were a secret agent with a false identity from the start.  Deep Cover Special Agent Dignan, job well done.