Question: **Dateline**: 2067

**Setting**: A research base at the bottom of the [Marianas Trench](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench)

**Depth**: 10,000 meters.

**Mission Duration**: Thirty days

A research base lies at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, housing 10-12 scientists of both sexes and a cat.

The mission starts well, the team have trained together for months, and they're tight knit. At least they thought they were...

One by one, they start to die, and it becomes obvious that their deaths are not accidental.

**Question**:

What would be a reasonable prime purpose of this research mission? For what reason would a dozen scientists be sent to the bottom of the ocean for a month where a robot/scans would not be appropriate?

Answer: 
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> What would be a reasonable prime purpose of this research mission? For what reason would a dozen scientists be sent to the bottom of the ocean for a month?
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Study of the Xenophyophores down there - we don't know very much about them and a study of how they are able to survive such immense pressures would be of plausible scientific value. Some of the ones identified as living down there are as big as 10cm across! That's pretty noteworthy.

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> What physiological reason could there be for one (or two) members of the research team to kill others, but for that same cause not to affect any other member of the team?
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Claustrophobia, particularly the Cabin fever/stir crazy form - it's a an oldy-but-a-goody. Wiki describes the symptoms of being "stir crazy" as including "elevated and often increasing levels of anxiety, frustration, agitation, fidgeting, manic depressive type mood swings, and accessory episodes of acting out impulsively or otherwise antisocially on those feelings," combined with the description on the Cabin Fever article of "a distrust of anyone they are with" and that sounds like a recipe for a bit of good old fashioned homicide amongst "friends". Not everyone is affected by these things and if a member of the team were prone to such effects and it were missed during the pre-mission pysch screenings (maybe they even lied a little to get on the mission?) it could easily only affect one or two people sufficiently to cause them to go homicidal.
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> What would be a reasonable prime purpose of this research mission? For what reason would a dozen scientists be sent to the bottom of the ocean for a month where a robot/scans would not be appropriate?
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It's not the easiest to do a scientific reason here as by 2067 there shouldn't be too much we can't do through robotics that a human could do easier. That being said, I'd shift the reason from pure science...ya science can be a secondary reason, but the primary reason is more like the reason we stepped on the moon. To prove to the rest of the world we could.

I'd go with PR. This is some nation setting out to prove they can, either to show up a competitor nation or simply bragging rights. "We have the technology to go anywhere, including the Mariana trench". There can be some 'tourism' reasons coming along as well, just as 'space tourism' will come about, proving the technology can allow millionaires to see whatever is in the trench could also be a reason. In the end, it's just about proving we can.

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> What physiological reason could there be for one (or two) members of the research team to kill others, but for that same cause not to affect any other member of the team?
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The fun part of using a PR reason is you've now introduced the 'sabotage' motive...a well hidden spy sabotaging the mission. Someone intentionally planted in the group with the idea of making the entire 'prove we can' fail.