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quaranmeme2018-09-20 10:12 pm
riverview: september 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 58 Character Slots available.
● Reserves are currently OPEN and will close on September 1st. Applications are currently CLOSED and will open on September 1st at 10:00 pm EST.
● 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.
● 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 ● exploration progress report ● ask a question ● calendar ● navigation
Residents of the city may or may not remember a particular patch of fertile ground that was scouted over a year ago, and the highly-intelligent and territorial alien hogs that were protecting it because the soil's fertility stems from it being a alien hog graveyard. After that revelation, the city had abandoned the project for the foreseeable future, as digging up an intelligent species' graveyard is more than a little beyond the pale.
That would've been all well and good, had the alien hogs stayed in their territory. However, after being disrupted by two teams over the course of a few months, the hogs (who have an excellent memory for this kind of thing) have started to get a little restless. It's not enough to be left alone - they want revenge. And with the summer winding down into harvest season, they've figured out how to get that revenge. As September winds down and October starts to dawn, the powerful and intimidating hogs have started on stage one of enacting that revenge - they've been making concentrated runs at the fences closest to their territory, hitting it in the same spot over and over again, herd mentality at its strongest, trying to make a dent. And they're succeeding.
The big problem here is that, on the inside of that fence, is the bulk of the Quarantine's agriculture sector. Fields full of livestock and crops that are meant to make up the majority of the winter's food supply are in danger of being wiped out if that fence falls, and if that happens, it's going to be a cold, hungry winter, no matter how many supplies the Capital World manages to send up to the moon.
Residents are being called into service for various containment missions - construction teams to reinforce the fences from the inside, tech teams to develop defensive force shields or repellent soundwaves to drive off the hogs, and teams including flora and fauna experts to try to find out what's causing the hogs to be driven into such a singular frenzy and fix it - there are a wide variety of team types being suited up, and anyone who wants to take a solo or duo trip out into the Quarantine's agriculture district who might have some insight into how to fix or at least better the situation is welcome to come. On top of that, all these teams are going to need some protection, so bruisers and fighters are needed in droves.
Sometimes, people are just no match for nature. Around September 25th, the hogs finally break through the wall. At first it's just the laser fences and force shields crackling out of service, and then the stone of the wall itself starts to crumble. By the evening of September 25th, the hogs have made it into the fields and are wreaking havoc, stomping and rampaging through the crops, crushing and destroying as much produce as possible, and terrifying and killing livestock wherever they're able to. The numbers of them are immense, much more than was anticipated by people who previously studied the hogs, and it doesn't take long before there's a massive breach in the wall and hogs are pouring in, along with other creatures from outside the wall, to destroy and eat as much as possible.
This is a melee, and there are desperate pleas from the Government and the farmers whose livelihood is being decimated by the breach to come and help protect the crops. Whether you're tech-savvy or a mage, or just a really good fighter, your help is desperately needed to stem the tide of monsters through the fence, to try to patch it up, and to either drive off or destroy the creatures who are threatening the crops. If this goes on, there's going to be some serious trouble this winter...
Around 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. This year, unanticipated and probably due to the upheaval in the city over the past year, this breakdown is happening earlier than usual. 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.
Not everyone in the city is focused on the troubles in the agriculture sector. In fact, some people in the city are trying desperately to distract people from it, to keep morale up as much as possible. Some of those people are the ones who run the Amusement Park, where the end of the Dragosta celebration of romantic love and the start of the Feast of the Dying season with all its horror themes, have smashed together into an enjoyable date night event. Characters who don't want to think about the trouble befalling the city, or who just want a break from it for the evening, are encouraged to attend Doom Dates, a horror-themed night at the amusement park. Featuring free entry to all of the rides with the price of admission, discounts on fairground treats meant to be shared, and plenty of fun and spooky prizes to win for that special person (or persons), it's definitely an enjoyable night out to forget your troubles.
It's not just the free rides that are a big draw, either. The park has gone all out and set up 5 different haunted houses throughout the grounds, running the gamut from a kids haunted house where the scares are mild and vaguely fluffy to a high-tech holographic haunted house that adjusts to suit the fears of the people entering it. There are also actors dressed as horror-themed characters ranging from zombies to creepy clowns to characters from well-known horror franchises wandering the park, scaring passers-by. Whether your character is taking someone out for a creepy date, going with a group of friends, attending alone to make some friends (or more-than-friends), or even working a night gig as a zombie, everyone is welcome.
Whether your character is 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!
Bodhi Rook | Star Wars
Bodhi is a city kid.
He's quick to pick up the basics for simple repairs like this (while glancing longingly at a tech team where he'd like to feel more at home but where most of the machines don't work in any way he finds familiar). The medium is new--he'd be much happier working on an engine block--it has predictable physical properties and is fairly simple to deal with. Even if the whole exercise does remind him entirely too much of his teenage chores of (ineptly) fixing holes that the slow-boiling war of occupation left all over NiJedha.
The work is fine. The big scary thumping noises? There's no getting used to it. He jumps half out of his skin every time.
iii
NiJedha was once the center of dozens if not hundreds of faiths, big and small, strange and simple, united only in being centered on The Force and the kyber crystals that made the little moon what it was. Then it was a smoldering ruin, the surviving monks and pilgrims reduced to indigence and guerrilla warfare, the ones who did not survive often declining to go gentle. In other words, Bodhi grew up in a very haunted city. The glimpses out of the corner of his eye are a bit unnerving, but the dead really don't frighten him in general. He doesn't look long at any of them, though. Because there are plenty of dead people in particular who frighten him very much.
It's not one of those he finally has to acknowledge, though. That almost would have been easier. Bodhi spends most of his time in a state of slow-burning abject terror. But seeing Corporal Tonc--just for a second, a flickering but unmistakable figure a few feet ahead of him--that he can't handle nearly so easily. Of everyone he met in the horrible few days after his defection, the only one who showed him unmotivated, simple kindness--and one he knows for certain died as a result of his stupid plan. Well, who didn't, that day on Scarif, but the master switch was Bodhi's idea.
That finally leaves him looking like he's seen a ghost.
iv
While he wasn't quite sure what he'd be getting into, a couple quick glances have demonstrated to Bodhi that he absolutely would not enjoy seeing the big, scary haunted houses. Gore and torture and psychological torment are constant companions, not novelties. He's intending to walk (quickly) back to the rest of the park and the rides that feel a little bit like flying again when he stops at the one clearly intended for children. He's never been a sucker for cute, but after all the unpleasant little tugs at his nerves checking out the real scares, there's something incredibly endearing about the silly, colorful tribute to the idea of being scared, perfectly harmlessly.
He hangs back despite the temptation. It's... probably a little weird for a lone adult to be so intrigued.
v
» Seeking: People to talk to
» Preferences: I could probably talk about most things, really?
» Interests:ships, piloting, geoscience
» Bio: cargo pilot, born on Jedha, trained in Terrabe, I've seen every episode of Beyond the Outer Rim
iii.
He stops and stares at Bodhi, for what's probably far too long, but he's trying to figure out if the man is real or not. Then he sees Corporal Tonc too, quickly followed by the way Bodhi reacts, and Cassian knows he is not an illusion this time.
He hurries over, but in a very careful way, so as to not startle his long lost friend (he can use the word friend, right? All of them in the end he would at the very least call friend). "Bodhi?"
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But that doesn't keep him from being glad. He may not be able to see the Captain as much more than an intimidating stranger that he owes a lot, but he's here and alive and to all appearances reasonably well, and he's unabashedly happy about that. Bodhi Rook has never successfully concealed a feeling in his life, and while his smile is nervous, it's real. "I--Cassian?"
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But Bodhi has always worn his feelings on his sleeve, so it's not hard to tell how glad he is to see a familiar face, albeit there's still something a little worried about it all. He holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Not a ghost, I promise."
Cassian offers him a relieved sort of smile in return. Yeah, he is smiling, that's a product of being here for so long too. "Tell me you have not been here for days and I am only just finding you now."
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But he's still glad to see him here. His face does somber up a little bit when mention of recovery comes into play. "The hospital? I was there for quite some time too, when I first arrived. They seem capable of fixing even the most... damaging of wounds. Are you okay now?"
He realizes he doesn't know... what happened to Bodhi on Scarif. He doesn't know what happened to anyone else, except K2. He isn't sure he wants to ask, not yet.
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"Um. You?" It's hard to figure out normal social inquiries under circumstances this weird, but he'd like to know.
v.
I haven't met anyone who's interested in geoscience, but in a city like this you could probably find a few. Maybe a club or something.
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[But he has trouble imagining a city big enough for interests that specific it it's not Coruscant.]
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I mean, not for geosciences specifically. Probably. But a lot of things for bringing people together. It's not the worst place to end up.
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Kind of thought of it as a big prison. Maybe a place with a handy excuse to rake in soldiers. Turns out it's not that deep.
[ Sorry to take so long on this network tag! Work ate me towards the end of last week. ]
i.
So he's on the ground, on protection detail with a squad of the Perimeter Guardsmen. There's not much for them to do, really, but walk back and forth around the tech geeks like battleships in orbit.
Poe is passing by with BB-8 on his heels when one of them jumps for what has to be the fifth time. He stops, putting a gentle hand on the man's shoulder. ]
Relax. We're here to make sure nothing--Bodhi?
[ No, he hadn't met the man more than briefly before he disappeared, but there's a part of Poe that's kept an eye out ever since. ]
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The moment's fright doesn't last long, quickly tamped down with the help of long practice. Normal conversation. He can do this. Though all that preparation kind of falls apart when he hears his name.
He looks up in surprise. The man doesn't look familiar.]
Um. Y-yes?
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You don't remember, do you?
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All of which is easier to focus on than the strangeness of the question, which is painfully discomfiting. His memory's kind of a sore spot. Bodhi does his best to lean away from the hand, torn between discomfort and hating to be rude.]
I... I just got--no.
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Yeah, you probably... [ Hang on, he needs a second to put his thoughts in order. ] Sometimes people come here and then leave, and another... version comes later? Or something like that. I was here before, too, before the time I remember I mean.
Anyway, I'm Poe. [ This time he offers Bodhi his hand instead of just straight-up invading his space. ] Poe Dameron. It's good to meet you again. I mean, to meet you the first time.
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Looking a little less brittle, he meets the handshake, quick and a little too careful, but at least he manages. Contact he chooses is usually alright, especially something so neutral.]
I...I'm not sure how introductions work if, um. If y-you already know my name? But. Yeah.
[His name and maybe more. He tries not to think too hard about what a stranger might know about him.]
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We only knew each other briefly. Didn't even talk much. The other guy and me, I mean. I only know what Cassian and Jyn have told me about you. I know you're on our side, even if you didn't start there. My best friend's the same.
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Though admittedly, on our side is probably giving him credit he's not due. He was a rebel for about five minutes before he defected from them, too. Hopefully that won't be too much to live up to. He clasps fidgety hands in front of him, standing with eyes down and shoulders hunched, but that's more or less normal for him. Time to turn the conversation away from him and keep it there.]
You, um, you know them, then? Are you with the rebellion?
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[ Poe scrubs a hand through his hair, thinking. ]
That's... ah... That's kind of complicated. I'm. [ He gestures to BB-8. ] We. Are from your future? This place kind of mixes timelines up. Brings people from all over.
[ He's gotten used to it, or he thought he had. Meeting Padme was startling. And he's never had to explain the timeline thing before. Someone else had always gotten there first. It sounds crazy, he knows it does, but when he steps back to think about it the whole moon in another universe thing is even crazier.
It's amazing what a person can get used to. ]
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By comparison? Well, the other universe thing was a hurdle, and new timelines don't feel that strange on top of it.
No, it's just another weird interaction without any sort of social script to help him along. Great.]
Oh. So... h-how's the future going, then?
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[ He resettles his grip on his rifle, trying to figure out how to put... anything, really, any of it. He could cop out and tell Bodhi it's better that he hears it from Cassian or Jyn, but that's the coward's way out. ]
You guys did it. You got your message out, got the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. They destroyed it, turned the tide of the war, all because of what you guys did.
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When he gets hold of himself a few seconds later, the exhausted half-smile he turns on Poe is downright puppyish.]
It's gone?
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Then Bodhi says that and looks at him like that and Poe exhales into a smile.
Same rules apply to Bodhi as apply to Cassian and Jyn: none of them will ever know, not from Poe or Finn, that there was a second Death Star. None of them will ever know about Starkiller Base. ]
Yeah, it's gone. Blown to dust.