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quaranmeme2018-10-20 10:02 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 58 Character Slots available.
● Reserves are currently OPEN and will close on December 7th. Applications are currently OPEN and will close on DECEMBER 7th 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
As October winds down, the city is starting to prepare for the moon's short winter - this fall has been pretty rough, though, with the recent attack of giant, aggressive hogs that broke through the outer wall and have been wreaking havoc in the Agricultural District, trampling crops, terrifying livestock, and prompting a massive effort on the part of the Perimeter Guard and many citizens to either fight on foot against the rampaging monsters, or help pilot mechs to join the battle - and the battle hasn't been going very well. On top of that, the weather has been getting steadily worse over the past week or so, with clouds rolling in, fog making the mornings dreary, and intermittent heavy fits of rain. These storms are often accompanied by a weird slightly metallic smell that rolls in with the fog.
In the last week of October, the weather starts to get even worse, with thunderstorms complete with crackling lightning and booming thunder. Despite the best efforts of Riverview's citizens, it isn't the fighting that finally drives the hogs away, but the weather, and that weird metallic smell. And so, the Agricultural District is left with fields of muck and trampled crops, with end-of-season fruits shaken off the tree and vine, and with livestock so terrified and in many cases injured, that they can't produce the way they normally would this time of year. Even worse, the homes and equipment used by the many farmers in the Agricultural District have been destroyed or reworked in a panic to provide defense or offense in the battle with the hogs. As the dust clears and the fighting subsides, things are looking pretty hopeless for the Quarantine's winter food supply.
Residents are being asked for their help in the cleanup and disaster relief for the families that live in the area, and anyone who's willing to clean, to try to salvage what can be salvaged of crops and the stores of food already harvested earlier in the season, to try to help the farmers rebuild their homes and repair their equipment, or otherwise provide aid in the form of supplies, labor, or special skills will be welcomed with open arms. Citizens may also see an increase in drop ships from the Capital World bringing in what supplies and aid they can - no personnel, but equipment and food, all of which needs to be unloaded and stored wherever it can. Riverview is a community, and this is exactly the kind of situation that brings citizens together! Any new arrivals who are willing to pitch in will be very highly regarded.
Remember that weird metallic smell that comes along with the storms? Unfortunately, after a couple of days of storming, residents are going to find out just what that smell was - it starts slow at first, with weird prickly sensations on any skin that gets wet with the rain, like it has a mildly irritating effect. As the rain gets more irritating to the skin it touches, anyone looking up might notice that the clouds are starting to take on a sickly green color, and by the time the clouds have been green for a day or two, the rain has gone from irritating to dangerous.
As the rain falls in heavy sheets, it's the same unnatural green as the clouds, and it quickly becomes obvious that the rain burns any living creature like acid would. Thankfully, it's very mild acid - a few minutes of exposure will only result in non-living biological matter disintegrating, like hair, fingernails, and the outer layer of horns. But stay out in it much longer than that, and any exposed skin will start to itch and peel and then burn and sting like a bad sunburn. Feel safe with your umbrella or raincoat? Good luck, because stay out in the rain for more than 15 minutes and it will start to erode even synthetic fabric and plastic, though it seems completely ineffective against metal, stone, glass, and plant matter like leaves and wood.
Unless you're really creative, the only safe places are indoors, under the eaves of buildings, inside vehicles with solid tops, and anywhere else with a solid roof - hope you're sharing the closest hidey-hole with someone you really like!
Thought the acid rain was going to stay moderately annoying unless you hang out in it for a while? Unfortunately, things are never that easy in Riverview. As the storms get heavier and heavier, with disturbing-looking green lightning and sickly green fog (that thankfully isn't acidic like the rain) rolling in and lingering, the temperature starts to drop. October and November in Riverview are usually relatively mild, and this is something completely different, cold enough that most residents are digging out their winter clothes a month or two early, bundling up with sweaters and jackets and scarves when they feel safe enough to leave their homes.
Even worse? While most of the electricity in the city runs through metal wires, a few key components of the power grid involve synthetics like plastic and other materials. As the acid rain gets worse and worse, it starts eating through parts of the grid that are susceptible and rolling power outages start to occur at random in the city. While the whole city isn't affected and the fences remain at full power, many places will suffer a complete drop in power, resulting in blackouts and trapping characters together in uncomfortable spaces like SkyTram cars, elevators, behind doors with electrical locks, and a wide variety of other places.
Here's hoping your characters can keep themselves warm and entertained until all the digital comforts of the modern world return - time to break out the candles, board games and cards, or swap some stories. And probably swap some body heat.
Something seriously has to be done about this situation - with the acid rain falling, all work on the Agriculture District has come to a standstill, and the damage to the electrical grid is compounding as the rain continues to fall. Unfortunately, the city simply can't survive this way, and so all the best minds available have been gathered together to come up with solutions, and they need the help of some brave citizens for a few dangerous tasks.
Decked out in super-stylish full-body suits that will (hopefully) protect them from the rain, volunteers will be tasked with collecting samples of...basically anything - the rain itself, the fog, plants that have remained unaffected, materials that have been affected or not affected, barometer and temperature readings, and just about anything else to do with the storms. Volunteers may also be asked to help out with refitting the parts of the power grid that are being damaged with coverings made of materials that are not affected by the rain, or to continue work on rebuilding the part of the wall that the monsters came through even though it's raining. Volunteers can also comb through the forest looking for anything that might help - animals that are unaffected by the rain, for example, may provide clues on how to make the people of the city immune as well.
A very brave (and uninsurable) few volunteers who are willing to give it a try are offered various solutions that the great minds of the city have come up with. Use your imagination for what those brilliant minds might have thought up, from umbrellas to force shields to special raincoats, but one of the most favored possibilities is an experimental machine reworked from prototypes developed during the last acid rainstorm that will blast a compound into the sky that may nullify it. Whether or not that will work, considering this storm has a different cause than the last one, and no one really knows what the cause of this one even is....well, that remains to be seen. But it's worth a try to lug the thing out into the forest and shoot at the clouds to give it a try, right?
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!