Mercury

**Mercury** (Mercury#7020) placed 6th in Season 6 & 12th in Big Brother Season 3.

Starting the game strong on Dakai, Mercury proved to be a formidable force in the game. The de facto leader of the Dakai Tribe, Mercury was aligned with every member of his original tribe except for easy boot Cyd. Despite this, Mercury found himself beefing with Jumble when Jumble not only annoyed him on their OG tribe but threw him under the bus to the OG Isasabai members at the swap. This would see a rift form between the Dakai members, as Mercury chose to attempt to form an alliance with Reese, Mariana, and Cherry instead to have a new cross tribal majority. Things were going well for this group, until an unexpected tie between Xcync and Cherry threw a spanner in the works. Despite having very good rapport with Cherry and knowing Mariana from a prior ORG, Mercury chose to side with Xcync when he told a half baked lie about Cherry having the Isasabai Idol. Not even thinking to check in with his new ally about this, Mercury and Reese instantly obsessed over the possibility of getting an idol out of the game, and formed a new majority with Xcync (who actually had the Isasabai Idol) and tribe pariah Jazzy. This majority would dictate the rest of their time swapped, despite having differing intentions amongst its members and being a lot less steady than the original alliance pre-tie. At the merge, Mercury found himself initially in a good position. Danny was spearheading a “mega majority” of the OG Dakais and OG Moto to take out the OG Isasabai, which was proving effective. While this strategy proved to be effective as targets imploded, Mercury’s game started to devolve after Touchy Subjects, in which he was revealed as thought to be the biggest threat to win the game at the time. Mercury became increasingly paranoid, going so far as to waste an Extra Vote he found on Dakai just to ensure his own almost unanimous safety. Despite this, the target was never firmly on him as he had a decent working relationship with the new budding power alliance of Xcync, Danny, and Mariana. His OG ties carried him far in the game and he tried his best to persevere against the odds, but when Tanner flipped to Xcync and Mariana’s side despite Danny warning them all of how big of a threat Xcync was, his game was toast. Knowing the votes were coming his way as he had been expecting it for rounds, Mercury was not surprised when a 4-2 vote sent him to the Jury.

Winning the Week 1 HOH for the Celeste Tribe in BB3, Mercury would feel both proud of himself as well as worry for his threat level being an alumni and comp winner. Despite this worry, Mercury would be well aligned within his tribe as well as with Saharah- while some wanted to snipe out the alumni simply just because, Mercury had by far the best social game overall to mitigate the issue with some of them. He would initially want to nominate Noah and Raiden for eviction, with either going home; however, he would last minute decide that Raiden is a “meat shield” for his alliance, instead using Alex as a pawn. His plan would go smoothly, with the Celeste side of the house having zero kinks in the game plan. However, he would lose his number one ally Ness on the other side Week 1, something that left his future gameplans a bit emotional as he stated he would nominate Tori and Skylar as revenge. During Week 2, Mercury would last minute switch his vote to evict Nick hoping that he would swing 5-4 into the opposite direction. When Infinity unpredictably flipped as well, Mercury would attempt to play off that he still voted with his side. However, his fatal flaw in this regard would be letting others (notably Skylar) in on just how wishy-washy his decision actually was this week. Because of this, his old alliance would confidently clock that he was actually the one to flip, leaving him in a much worse position in the house than he was before. Nominated in Week 4 by HOH Nick due to his “flipping” on him, Mercury would implode post losing the veto. Feeling he was going home anyway initially, Mercury publicly called out Nick’s HOH theatrics and his close alliance with Aaron and Skylar. Additionally, he would whack Nick for targeting him over people who actually wanted him out, stating that Nick actively knew that he was aligned with both Kishor and Nick in the same alliance. There would be enough players in the game wanting to keep him and blindside Nick, giving him hope for a while. However, when several key players decided to play scared rather than make moves, Mercury’s chances were dashed and he was regretfully evicted in a 6 - 2 vote. He is remembered for being very proud of his “2-for-1” move of keeping Raiden in as an easy boot/expulsion, despite viewers critiquing that building allies over inactives/problematic players is likely a better long term strategy.