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quaranmeme2017-10-20 08:26 pm
riverview: october test drive meme
riverview test drive memeWelcome to Riverview's test drive meme! Feel free to dip your toes in on the test drive meme to try out your character in the setting, play out a mission, and get samples for your application at the same time!
● There are currently 31 Character Slots available.
● Applications are open but the application and reserve cycle will resume with apps closing on November 7th.
● Providing all parties are amenable, threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon, as the plot in the prompts presented is game canon, and may continue while applicants are waiting on the queue (including spanning multiple TDMs).
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points, so long as all characters involved are accepted into the game.
● Threading on the TDM is intended for prospective new characters, so top-levels should only be posted by players of these characters. Since the events in the TDM are considered game canon, characters currently in the game are free to use the TDM prompts for logs and posts on the regular communities.
Feel free to use the prompts below or create your own scenario. The setting is built to be flexible, so feel free to make things up as you go.
information resources
premise ● arrival ● setting ● ask a question ● calendar ● navigation
Over the course of the past couple months, something has been changing in the Abandoned City, the part of the Quarantine that was abandoned over a decade ago after the great Epidemic that decimated the population of the sprawling city. It hasn't been independent or spontaneous either - Quarantine resident Ava Orlova has been practicing with her energy production powers outside the city in a way that has had some interesting side effects.
With burst after burst of glowing blue energy surging through a spur of one of the abandoned and neglected transit train lines, something has started stirring. The line was connected to a long-dormant hydro-electric power relay station located near on the river just before it connects to the waterfalls (see the crudely-drawn map here), and with all that power being pumped through the train line and ending up in the station, the backup generators have wheezed to life.
What does this mean for Quarantine residents?
Providing the station can be secured and brought back to full power, it means that the overall electrical grid in the city will be much more reliable, the fences will be more secure, and new methods to try to direct the portal to send mistaken arrivals home can be explored. Most importantly, the part of the Abandoned City surrounding the newly-activated power station will be much easier to tame and inhabit. The possibility of expansion is very important for the Quarantine - with new arrivals coming through the portal almost constantly, overpopulation has been a bit of a concern of late.
With all of this at stake, the Perimeter Guard and the Government of Riverview are teaming up to make sure that this new area gets explored, secured, and made useful in as short a time as possible. Anyone with even an inkling of desire to explore will see ads, fliers, or Perimeter Guard Cadets talking up the exploration mission out to the new power relay station. Head over to the Perimeter Guard Headquarters to receive a free package of exploration equipment courtesy of the Government of Riverview (complete with comfortable camouflage jumpsuit, tactical belts, and a lightweight pack with a survival kit including food, water, first aid, flares, and other similar supplies) and be issued a weapon to follow the train line out to the power station and ensure the route is safe.
It isn't just the route to the power station that needs to be cleared - with all the activity and the thrum of energy and light at the station, a swarm of interested monsters and creatures has come toward the area. The exploration team and any techs interested in helping to get the station fully operational will need protection, and the station itself will need to be cleared of all threats and secured so the engineers, electricians, and technical geniuses can safely work on establishing a power grid in the area.
Join in the fray, and back up your fellow explorers to get the area safe, secure, and able to be used!
Almost any type of monster is possible, including monsters featured in previous Test Drives, monsters that players make up on the fly, and even monsters from individual character canons that could have conceivably come through the portal. The fight, however, is totally worth it. Once this area is cleared out, there's going to be a lot more space to move around and a few interesting new locations...
During the 10th month of every year on the moon, due to a complex series of chemical, electromagnetic, and magical forces that no one has ever exactly distinguished or completely understands, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead are weakened almost to the point of nonexistence. During this time, residents of the moon are able to see and interact with the dead - ghosts, manifesting in ways that run the gamut from being a strange sense of being watched or being visible or audible all the way to more corporeal spirits that can affect the world around them. The barriers are weaker in some parts of the city than they are in others, with some areas experiencing little to no ghost activity, while others are so populated with these ghosts that residents can barely go a few feet without running into one. The ghosts are generally the unsettled dead, people who died violently, or who were lost, seeking a place to call home, and their behavior is as varied as it was while they were alive. Some ghosts are angry and vengeful, some are simply lonely and lost.
While some people tend to interact with the ghosts only a little and as necessary, others avoid them as completely as possible, and yet others actively seek out souls who are suffering and try to ease that so they can stop coming back year after year. There are other people who have found that ghosts from their home worlds have come through with them, following them through the portal when they arrived, even if they did not die on the moon...
Whether facing death or making peace with those who have died, this is a time to reflect.
A Few OOC Guidelines:
● Characters may see or interact with ghosts from the Quarantine's past. These people will be as varied as the NPCs, from a multitude of different worlds, and characters are welcome to either engage or avoid, as players wish.
● Most Quarantine-based ghosts will have died in either the Great War with the neighboring reality or in the Pandemic that wiped out the population of the Abandoned City years ago.
● Characters may also see or interact with ghosts from their own or other characters' canons, providing the character in question is dead in canon and is not currently being played in the game.
● Canon-based ghosts should not be simply transplanted into the game as they were in canon - they are ghosts, and therefore 'not quite right,' and should not be used as an excuse to NPC a canonmate for a month. These ghosts are there to be used as plot devices to open up new avenues of CR, to create angst, to help a character make peace with their past, or other similar reasons.
● Ghosts should not be complete corporeal physical presences indistinguishable from living people, but barring this, how strongly the ghosts manifest and how much they can interact with the world around them is up to player discretion. Ghosts shouldn't be present the whole month straight, but can disappear and reappear at random times.
Since October 9th, the residents of the Quarantine have been having a stranger-than-usual experience that's been drawing them closer together (or pushing them apart). The machinery in control of the process that's used for canon updates has gone haywire and is releasing nanites that usually function to restructure characters' bodies to match the updated information. The nanites are doing something different, though - they're sharing memories between characters.
Memories can be shared in several forms:
● First Person: This is experiencing another person's memory as if it's your own, seeing through that person's eyes in all its detail. This option wouldn't clearly expose the identity of the person whose memory is being viewed unless the memory includes that information specifically.
● Dreamscape: Mostly happening during dreams or with shared flashes during the day, this is watching the memory as if it were a three-dimensional movie, during which you can meet and talk with the person whose memory is being viewed.
● Network: These are memories shared through the network by accident, either as audio/video uploads or text-based descriptions transcribed to the network. These would be posted with the ID of the person whose memory is being shared.
● It is up to individual player preference how much feelings can be used in the memory, but knowing the other character's thoughts is not permitted.
● All memories must be from your character's canonpoint or earlier.
Whether your character is accidentally sharing a memory, posting up a silly word game, trying to get hold of a friend, or putting out feelers for people to go out into the fray with, the network is going strong.
Alternately, an offer for a free app is popping up on new arrivals' devices - Friendr is a friend-finder and/or dating app. If characters choose to install it, they will fill out a short bio and parameters for what they're looking for, upload a snap of themselves, and then proceed to browse for matches. This is a typical swipe-left-or-right type app.
Friendr base code is by photosynthesis.
The code in the textbox is for the default color scheme, but the Friendr app has a wide variety of themes, so feel free to customize with colors and patterns as you see fit, but do not remove the credit line out of respect for the creator of the code.
Use the wildcard prompt to choose your own adventure and do whatever else you like in the setting!
no subject
Turning his words over she has to say: ]
Define what you mean by "spaceflight".
[ Because she has a sneaking suspicion they have two very different experiences when it comes to space and flight. ]
no subject
[ But really though: ] Interplanetary travel.
[ He gestures overhead. ] Where I'm from, getting from here to there would be easier than short-circuiting a Headhunter.
[ .... ] Z-95s, they were starfighters, early model for the-- You know what, never mind.
no subject
Wow. Okay.
[ She holds up her hands then moves them as she talks, counting off things. ]
We've been to our moon. We've explored our solar system and have been going out further to find other planets with possible life on them. When I left, there were still plans being made to try and colonize one of the other planets in our system so... not as advanced but we're getting there?
no subject
[ Obsessive, dedicated, fascinated-by-anything-with-wings pilot. He listens in silence as she speaks, one eye on their surroundings.
A single solar system. Plans for one colony. Poe shakes his head, trying to fit his thoughts into that small a starscape. It's impossible. He wants to ask her how many sentient species there are on her world, what kind of planets share the system, what kind of possible life they've found. That stuff is more in Poe's wheelhouse than--well, than most of what he's experienced, here. Certainly more than being ground-bound for this venture when it would be so much easier to clear the place with a ship and a decent weapons system. ] Last estimate had our galaxy at 3.2 million habitable systems. I've seen a few dozen of them.
[ It's not a brag, and it doesn't sound like one. Just a recitation of facts. ] I was born on a colony out in the Outer Rim--that's what we call the edge of explored space. I say the edge, but the Outer Rim is bigger than the Mid Rim or the Core Planets.
[ It's weird to describe things that are considered general knowledge. But hey, he has to get used to it at some point.
His hand goes briefly to his blaster as something darts between the trees overhead, but the feathery monkey-thing gives an angry hoot and launches itself on to a different set of trees. ] What's your planet like?
no subject
It's much easier to focus on one thing at a time.
Like 3.2 million habitable systems. Karen can't even imagine such a thing. She breathes out a 'Jesus' at that, eyes wide and rubbing the back of her neck when she remembered she pulled her hair back and up for this venture.
She stops at the noise and looks up, too, almost thinking she was looking at a howler monkey for a moment. Still looking up at the canopy of trees. ]
Um, well. Some parts are like this. Miles and miles of jungle and rivers, waterfalls. Mountains.
[ Looking back at Poe, ]
Other parts are covered in ice and humans can barely live there, it's so cold. Other parts have deserts that seem to go on forever. Then you have more ocean than land. I guess... it's a little bit of everything.
no subject
[ You never know. She could be something like a Keshian, or one of a dozen other bipedal species that fall along a similar evolutionary spectrum. It's a little strange, a little funny, to know that a whole different universe can have a species in common. (Though he does wonder if her universe's version of humans is the same as his, but. Biology. Not his thing.) ]
no subject
Last time I checked, yeah.
[ A beat, ]
Is that what you are in your universe or are you called... something else?
no subject
[ Sure, that's one of the things that annoys some species--the prevalence, persistence, and consistent expansion of humanity from planet to moon to new system. But Poe can't help having a certain degree of pride in his species' exploratory zeal.
A small troupe of the feathermonkeys swings by overhead, calling to each other and sending some kind of bird into a squawking fit as they pass. ]
Any other sentients on your planet?
[ He's curious now. With an ecosystem that diverse, something else has to have developed there. ]
no subject
[ Because after all the movies she's seen about the end of humanity or aliens trying to enslave humanity, it's good to know they can't be snuffed out even in a place as big as where Poe comes from.
She looks up again at the bird, laughing a little before she looks back at him, ]
"Sentients"? You mean animals?
no subject
[ It's pretty clear from the look on his face that he didn't mean animals. He's talked to people who have never been off-planet before. If he thinks of it that way, describing the galaxy isn't all that weird. But describing what a sentient is short circuits his brain a little. They're... what they are. ]
Sentient species. People.
no subject
Humans. That's... all there is along with animals.
no subject
Yeah, okay, some planets tend to develop a single dominant species, that's true, but there's so much life in the galaxy. There are so many systems that support so many species, so many places where sentients mix. But from the sound of it... ]
Must get lonely.
no subject
Not when you live in a city with thousands of people. If anything, it's hard getting a moment alone sometimes.
[ Not that it's always good to be alone in Hell's Kitchen. ]
no subject
City girl. [ Back to being casually cheerful. ] I'm a farm boy myself. What'd you do there?
no subject
A farm boy that learned to fly.
[ She stops short when something else jumps in the branches. Looks like a lemur of some sort -- just with a long white tail. Much longer than anything she's seen. She finds herself staring in awe as it uses it to swing from tree to tree.
Then she remembers the question, ]
Oh. Um. I was an investigative reporter. Wrote for one of the newspapers in the city.
no subject
[ He waves the question of his age aside, tracking the primate through the trees overhead. This place really does remind him of home.
...So many reporters. Suralinda would be laughing at him right now if she knew. He's not equipped for media stuff ok. ] A reporter turned explorer. Though I guess it's sort of the same thing in a way.
[ He gives her a curious look. ] Is that why you're out here? Seeing what you can learn?
no subject
[ Just trying to make her way down the stairs on her own had seemed like an epic adventure at that age. Or maybe she had been older? She just knows she had been very young, very small. Most things were adventures back then.
Nodding, ]
Yeah. I mean, how else am I going to? I can't just rely on people to tell me.
this got all serious on me
[ Which isn't a whole answer--the whole answer is too personal, the feeling of magic as his mother's A-wing broke free of the moon's gravity, the whole universe opening up around him. He still dreams about it, or about some conglomeration of those first flights. They're probably more dream than memory any more.
He focuses a little more sharply on their surroundings, the old overgrown train line leading off into the distance. Yeah, he's not big on relying on what people say, not after years of the New Republic Navy and the New Republic itself refusing to take action against the First Order. Not after years of people ignoring a rising threat because the illusion of peace was better than a new war. ]
Is that why you became a reporter?
you say that like it's a bad thing
Better to head towards the tracks when she spots them. Best trail guide for them to have in all this.
His question just leads to a whole new wave of emotions and she shrugs a shoulder some, ]
In a way. I kinda just fell into it without meaning to. I was actually a secretary at a law firm at the time.
fair point
[ At least when he shifted jobs it was from pilot to, well, pilot. ] What story switched things up?
no subject
It's a long story. And one that's not really mine to tell.
no subject
Fair. [ He resettles his backpack, giving their surroundings another careful scan. ] Seems everyone has at least one of those. You like it? Being a reporter?
no subject
Nodding, ]
Yeah. It's different from what I'm used to but I like it a lot more. I feel like I'm making a difference, you know?
[ Which is so important in a place like Hell's Kitchen. And not just for Ben's memory, either. But she forces herself to smile more, ]
Don't have to ask if you like being a pilot, though.
[ He's already made it pretty obvious. ]
no subject
Poe hopes Karen will do better, be happier with the truth. Not that the truth is always a happy thing.
He shakes the brooding off, running a hand through his hair and making it stick up a little in the humidity. ]
Gee, what gave it away? [ A careless grin, no sign of troubled thoughts. He does sober, just a little bit, enough to say: ] It lets me make a difference, too.
[ He loves flying, with or without a mission, but being a part of the Resistance--it's everything. ]