LAST EDITED ON 02-25-15 AT 02:53 AM (EST)

Title: "It's Survivor Warfare"

Well, here we go again. Another season of Survivor begins and with it an episode one state of the spoiling.

Par Usual, the Pre-Season was jumping.
Not to get into the whole chronology of discovery but this season was filmed immediately after SJDS, utilizing the same beaches, but with a whole new cast of first-timers and the overall theme of "castaway".
Filming ended in early September and by the second week peeps from the new cast were slowly trickling back to their social media lives.

Whence the devout searching began, cast members started popping up.
Then the finale promised a promo describing the new season and lo and behold we got vidcaps of a few more survivors.
Finally, a couple of days before the official cast release a spoiler by the name of Redmond revealed hacked images of the cast from the official website.

Since the official introduction to the cast, we finally had some ground to stand on with regards to the social media web invlved with the newest castaways.
Max Dawson, Shirin Oskooi, Carolyn Rivera, So Kim, Kelly Remington, Joaquin Souberbielle were amongst the first discovered and most of them followed each other. Sierra, Jenn, Joe and Rodney followed and interesting connections were introduced.
Jenn and Shirin are buddies. Jenn and Joe are buddies. Jenn, Joe, Hali and Mike spent a weekend in Hawaii together. Joaquin and So spent some time together. Rodney visited Joaquin in NY a couple of times. And without trying to read too much into these connections, it's apparent that there were quite a few cross-tribal friendships formed.
Which if nothing else, speaks to the fact that pre-jury and the jury itself are pretty fairly evenly distributed with boots.

Overall observation from pre-season social media... So as propositioned before, by survivor historians, this season likely won't have a tribe that rivals Matsing, The Brains or, dog-forbid, Ulong. So look for the boots to come from various tribe losses throughout pre-jury. My impression is that cross-tribal alliances with come into heavy play from the Merge forward.

To briefly speak to that I present a couple of Press-Images to consider when parsing the mass amount of tid-bits for this first episode.
Here is the full, two-piece, Tribal Immunity.

"The Stick-Man" being the prime trophy, given only to the tribe that comes in 1st at the Immunity Challenge.
"The Stick-Throne" being the secondary trophy, given to the 2nd place winners at the Immunity Challenge.

Here is "The Stick-Man" at No Collar campsite.

He is currently placed in the nook of a tree, upon a coconut half and is held relative with a string of twine around it's base and a branch.
Then again, 5 of the No Collar torches at that same tree with NO II but you can still see the coconut half base as well as the twine used to secure it.

Long story short, No Collar comes in first at a challenge and then fails to win anything in a subsequent challenge.

But before getting ahead of ourselves, let's focus on Episode 1, shall we?

SeeBS Teases: Minutes into the game, castaways are forced to choose between honesty or deception...
one castaway becomes ill after trying to satisfy his need for protein...

Introduction, amidst the explanation voiceover by JP there will be classic scenery shots mixed with tons of animal imagery.
Then we get shots of each of the three tribes arriving via color-coded haul-all.

Whence the castaways disembark, they form into tribes on the beach.

Now comes the introduction from JP about this season.
"You all have been split into 3 groups, first we have... those that make the rules, White Collar (aka Yellow, aaka Masaya).

Those that follow the rules, Blue Collar (aka Blue, aaka Escameca)

And finally, those that break the rules, No Collar (aka Red, aaka Nagarote)"

Before we continue, it must be noted that JP dropped some major hints with regards to this season's game-beginning twist.
Hinting at the first part of the SeeBS Tease... Much like what we saw with BvBvB, there is a "choice" given to 2 players from each tribe. A clue to a hidden idol OR a supply of beans for their tribe.
To get all of them to take the bait, a smaller supply of beans accompanies the clue to the idol, so even if they do choose to be selfish, there will be a "reward" for the tribe. A means to cover up their lie. Yet...
Also, this season promises to give TWO castaways, from each tribe, the choice to make between HI & small supply of beans OR large supply of beans. Will this bond them?
Human psychology would indicate the majority of people would opt for the tribal reward, versus they personal reward when having to make that decision in front of others.
Exact verbiage would indicate JP is excited most about White Collar taking the bait (and facing the consequences of such selfishness at the swap/merge)
During BvBvB; Garrett and Morgan both opted for the clue. While Trish opted for the rice. I see a similar thing happening with this season. But of course having two people in on the twist may counter-act the influence that the small supply of beans may have had.

Each of the tribes will then somehow choose 2 players to receive the map to their camps.

Jen and Will for Nagarote
Mike and Dan for Escameca
Joaquin and So for Masaya

Now, whether these pairs pick 2 more people or they themselves are somehow privy to the opening twist choice, I do not know.
But I can say that the bean pot may look like so...

Notice the round jug sitting next to the crate?
Also notice the smoke?

@Camp:
The tribes will get to know each other while building a campsite. And of course, early storylines will begin to appear.
Also look out for "Million-dollar quotes". The early episodes pretty much always contain them but separating them from the rest of the introductions can be tricky. Also of note during the first episode is keeping track of where the storyline may go.
Without straying to far from the story at hand, production is fond of laying out crumbs, in the form of alliances and rifts and arguements, to lead seamlessly into the next episode. So, while we will hear from the tribe that loses IC#1, an unusually large number of confessionals should come from the losers of the next IC, the next tribe to visit TC.

Fire is attempted at each of the camps but it appears from the caps provided that only Escameca and Nagarote achieve the coveted smoke.

Doesn't stop Masaya from trying though...

Also, let's delve briefly into the other SeeBS Tease, "one castaway becomes ill after trying to satisfy his need for protein."
I present these images of Dan...



While most other shots of castaways are of them working or talking, there is only a few shots of "lazing" survivors. In fact there is only shots of Dan in horizontal.
Not to say that there aren't images of him working and or talking, but he is the only one seen showing signs of illness due to possible protien supplementation.
My thought is that the tease is the beginning of another's storyline, not the ep1 bootee's story. Dan makes a rash food decision, gets a tummyache and lives to see another day.

The tribes will then gather for the first Immunity Challenge.
The first challenge has the tribes starting from the top of a large ramp, running down into and through a large pile of hay.

Running through an obstacle...

then untying and unlocking a ladder...


(Vince and Lindsey Un-Locking, with So Un-Tying.)

In the closeup we can see that Masaya's Key Ring is still hanging from the post...

(Joe, Mike and So (still) Untying.)

using the ladder to climb up a platform...

and then using it to get down from the same platform...

Then they'll have to manouver the ladder through a maze/puzzle...

Using the ladder one last time to retrieve 1 of 3 bags...

1 bag contains 50 puzzle pieces, another contains 10 pieces and the last contains 5 pieces...
choose an easy 50-piece puzzle, a medium 10-piece one, or a hard 5-piece one

Here is Joaquin going for the big guns...

dependant upon which bag was chosen, a person will solve the corresponding puzzle.

50 piece, as Joaquin has picked and Shirin is solving, versus 10 pieces apparently both Sierra/Mike and Joe are solving.

A 50-Piece Puzzle – Basically a picture puzzle made of squares.
A 10-Piece Puzzle – A tree-shaped puzzle (similar to the one used in “Survivor: One World.”)
A 5-Piece Puzzle – The player must use five flat shapes to create a perfect, 2-D square.

As evidenced below...
Nagarote wins the first IC!

Leaving Mike (after taking over for Sierra) to try to use Red's finished puzzle as a guide for his own tribe's undone version...

and Shirin trying to figure out a flat picture puzzle.

Who will win 2nd place and the "Stick-Throne"?

For that, it is still up in the air... kinda.

Figuring out the boot this first week will require a dip into the future and deductions because of those future facts.
Visible (and discernable) from future vidcap evidence...

Safe up to Ep 2
and tribes at beginning of Ep2 IC
Will, Hali, Joe, Jenn, Vince ~ Mike, Lindsey, Sierra, Rodney, (?) ~ Shirin, Max, Carolyn, (?)

Sierra, Mike, Lindsey

Carolyn.

Safe up to Ep 3

Shirin, Tyler, Joaquin ~ Dan, Rodney, Mike

Jenn, Joe, Will, Hali, (?)

Without consideration on the finality of the immunity challenge in episode 1, The above means that for episode 1's TC only, the following people can be considered in danger...
Nagarote: Nina
Escameca: Kelly
Masaya: So

However, using the cap of Nagarote celebrating at the puzzle, it's assured they will not be going to TC1.
This leaves Kelly and So as the biggest contenders for Episode 1 bootee.
Dependant on which tribe comes in second, will further pare the list down, but I'll leave that up to you.

Edited to add...

I feel confident now that it will be SO as our first boot.
With the following images, we can assure ourselves that Shirin, Tyler, Carolyn, Max and Joaquin make it to episode 2...

(from ep 3)

(from ep 2)

(from ep 2)

(from ep 2)

And to boot, here is a celebrating Kelly at Ep1 IC...


for reference...

tribe's SOTS bullet-list:
* HI Clues: Jen/Will from Nagarote - Joaquin/So from Masaya
* Extra Beans: Dan/Mike from Escameca
* SeeBS MisDirection: Dan eats something that doesn't agree with him.
* IC #1: Nagarote (#1) and Escameca (#2)
* TC #1: Masaya go to TC
* Bootee: So

• RE: S30 | SOTS | Episode 1,suzzee, 12:37 PM, 02-24-15
• RE: S30 | SOTS | Episode 1,michel2, 06:26 PM, 02-24-15
• RE: S30 | SOTS | Episode 1,Sheldor, 01:28 AM, 02-25-15
  • added confirmation,tribephyl, 01:50 AM, 02-25-15
    • RE: added confirmation,Sheldor, 03:24 AM, 02-25-15
      • RE: added confirmation,PepeLePew13, 12:07 PM, 02-25-15
• RE: S30 | SOTS | Episode 1,CTgirl, 04:31 PM, 02-25-15

Sweeeet! Another finely crafted SOTS Tribe. Thanks for all your pre-season hard work. I would so hate for my BTS avatar So to be the first boot but I've picked them before

Not So much. Ha!