annexedmeme | Test Drive Meme #1

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!test drive meme

Test Drive Meme #1

Test Drive Info

⇝ Test Drive Memes usually take place in a virtual reality simulation occurring in characters' minds that tests them for 'fitness' before they enter the setting officially. However, for the first TDM, it will be set in the real world and centered around the arrival of the first crop of extra-universal "recruits."
⇝ Test Drive Meme threads may be considered game canon so long as all parties agree to it.
⇝ Test Drive Meme threads do count for Activity Check.

Welcome to the Broken World.

You can't even remember how you got here.

All you know is that one moment you were in a world you were used to, comfortable in. It might have been a regular day or the most important day of your life, in the middle of a meal or brushing your teeth or the battle to save the world or the moment of your death. Whoever took you didn't seem to care what you were doing when you were taken, and now that you're here, they still don't seem to care.

You wake up after what seems like the blink of an eye, nauseous and dizzy but otherwise unscathed, possessions taken away, barefoot and dressed only in a set of plain grey clothing, like the most bland uniform ever imagined, in an empty room with empty walls and one single door with a small barred window and a single number printed just above it. The door is locked and cannot be broken by any means, you can feel your connection with any superhuman powers you had severed, leaving them just out of reach - you can feel them there, tingling at your fingertips or in the back of your brain, but you just can't get to them. There is no one to greet you or explain what's happening. You start to lose track of time, the only sound the distant ticking of what sounds like a massive clock.

Just when things seem hopeless, when you feel like you're about to go mad, there's the sound of a commotion outside your door. The sounds of a battle, or perhaps an infiltration gone just slightly wrong. Either way, when the door opens, there is a figure there with a hand outstretched.

"Welcome to the Broken World. Come on, we'll explain everything just as soon as we get you and the others out of here."

i. The Rescue

The moment of peace and freedom doesn't last for long.

Even while you're still disoriented from everything that's happened in the past few hours, the person who's just freed you pushes a gun into your hands. If you're familiar with guns, it's simple enough to use, with a recognizable safety and trigger, a magazine of bullets attached to the bottom. If you're not familiar with guns, well...the person who just rescued you will give you a minute-long introduction to it. Press this button, click this hammer back, pull the trigger to shoot. Nothing fancy, but enough that you won't hurt yourself or anyone else you're not supposed to be hurting. Probably.

After being handed the gun, the person rescuing you looks at you not unkindly and gestures for you to follow, leads you through a maze of concrete corridors to the entrance of the building. There, you'll find something of a small warzone, a battle in progress though almost completed, in the parking and courtyard area between several small, squat concrete buildings. There, huddled in the safety of the building's entryway, the person who just rescued you will point across the courtyard toward an encroaching patch of jungle and quickly explain the situation - you've been brought to this place by the Sylphid, long-standing enemies who will "eat your soul" and replace you if they catch you, and the person rescuing you is part of a resistance army intending to overthrow them. You're to make your way across the courtyard and into the jungle, where you'll find someone named Brycen, a blue-skinned man who will get you out of here even as the battle rages on.

The courtyard is mainly open, with a few benches and trees that can be used as cover, and there is a small group of Sylphid - the enemy, the people who took you and are now shooting at you, but who look like average everyday people - who are taking potshots at whoever crosses the courtyard even as they engage with the rebels. You'll be provided with suppressive fire from those same rebels while you cross the courtyard, but other than that, you're on your own unless you want to take the run with whoever else just got rescued.

ii. Race Through The Jungle

Once you make your way across the courtyard and into the jungle, you'll find Brycen waiting for you about a 10 minute walk in. The moment he sees you, he gestures you over and leads you a few feet further into the underbrush where there are a few All-Terain Vehicles parked in a small clearing. Shooting you a little grin, Brycen spreads his arms to present the vehicles, then heads over to the closest one. What follows is a quick explanation of how to use the ATV, a small hovercraft that can seat two. Brycen points out another ATV that is driven by a member of the resistance, and tells you that this person will guide you to the Witches Camp, where you'll be living from now on. But it's on you to pilot the ATV from here to there.

Well, you and your new friend.

See, there are half as many ATVs as there are people, and each one does seat two. Brycen gestures at the nearest extra-universal arrival and tells both of you to hop on. Now, you're both bound for the Witches Camp together, for better or worse. It's a long walk, so don't piss off your pilot!

Or overturn the ATV or crash it, because the path from the clearing to the Witches Camp is rough, without many trails or paths that have been carved out of the underbrush, something the revolutionaries have done to avoid being tracked back to their home. The ride will be bumpy, hover-vehicle or not, with a lot of swerving to avoid obstacles and dodging to avoid branches. Hopefully, you won't have a run-in with any of the local jungle wildlife, which can range from small, relatively harmless animals to lizards the size of small dinosaurs and wild cats.

It's a wild ride, but eventually you make it to the Witches Camp, a sprawling maze of low-to-the-ground buildings and markets interspersed with jungle for cover, and the rebel leading you keeps doing so until you pull up in front of Central Command. This building is one of the nicer ones in the area, and houses the Witch herself as well as the seat of the revolution. This is where all of the rebel plans are made and where new arrivals are put up.

iii. Welcome Home

Once you enter Central Command, you'll find that they've prepared space for you. First, you'll be led to the residential area of the large building and given the keycard to your new apartment, a small furnished studio apartment with a main living/sleeping area, a desk, kitchenette, bathroom with shower stall, and a walk-in closet for storage. Once you've been oriented to your new apartment, you'll be taken to pick your network device from an array of devices ranging from ultra-modern tablets that can fold into the shape of a phone to an equivalent of regular modern-day cell phones to magical tablets or books that can be interacted with by characters unfamiliar with technology. They'll also offer to alter your own phone or device to access the network, if you prefer that.

After that, you will be guided to one of the big board rooms in the Central Command, where you'll find a large spread of food on the table, ready to be dug into - all the staff at Central Command have brought food from home to share with the new arrivals. You'll also find notebooks and pens to take notes, because this is the official orientation, and you'll come out of it having learned pretty much everything about the rebellion, the Sylphid, how the rebellion originated and most importantly, how you got here and how you can go home.

This is where the rebels point out that helping them is helping yourself, because the only way to send you home is to commandeer the device that brought you here in the first place, and the only way to do that is to overthrow the Sylphid overlords.

After this presentation, no matter how accepting or skeptical you are, you'll be given a small stipend and set free to explore the city, linger around and chat over the potluck leftovers, go back to your apartment, make a network entry to meet other people, or whatever else you'd like to do. Want some new clothes? They can direct you to the markets. Looking to start learning magic? They can direct you to the Mage's Sector where you can find a teacher. Looking to dance your cares away in the wake of this terrible upheaval? They can direct you to a club in The Electric Heart that sells cocktails that'll erase all your pain for the evening.

Go wild. The Witches Camp is your new home. What will you make of it?

iv. Network

Once you've settled into your apartment in the evening, you're free to browse the internet and intranet on your new network device. Care to make an entry and meet the others in your same situation?

NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Worked out of a space carrier? On the outset this doesn't sound like an especially stressful job, probably because Codi has no idea what a space carrier is or does or what kinds of jobs you would have on it. Maybe it's like a cargo carrier? Industry? Mikumo doesn't look like she works industry. Answer doesn't pass the sniff test, requires more follow-up.

But Codi puts a pin in that for now, cooperating gracefully with the flow of the conversation. "I'm from Earth, yeah," she says without hesitation. This isn't information she finds especially sensitive, so it seems like a reasonable chip to bargain for something in return. "Today was...March 10th, 2019. You?"

Mikumo's brows arch very slightly at that, but whatever interests her about the date doesn't come out just yet, as she instead just chooses to more directly answer the question posed.

"Late November 2067," she replies. Assuming it was still late November after she was captured, since she somewhat lost track of time during that period. That entire section of time after Freyja's birthday had been a little spotty for her, honestly, given everything that happened, and she reaches for her drink again almost to give herself something else to focus on.

"And I'm familiar with Earth, but I live on Ragna, which is some distance away. Ragnans are amphibious, since there's few natural landmasses on the planet - humans added a few of their own when they arrived."

Codi does her best to look suitably shocked by this information, although she was honestly expecting the date to be further in her future based on what Mikumo's told her already. Less than 50 years later, and humans have already colonized other planets with aliens on them? she thinks. Codi supposes it could happen, but she also feels like, with the world's foremost patent-producer at the head of her R&D department, she should have a good sense of how quickly and where technology is progressing in her time - and it's not been towards space travel. Everyone's been way too concerned with internal affairs to bother with stuff like that.

Codi mentally waves off the tangent. Details. There's enough time travel bullshit to explain away the discrepancy, she's sure. Besides, it's never been her job to untangle these sorts of questions, and she's not about to start now.

"Wow," she breathes, leaning back slightly on her stool. "Ragna, huh? And--please forgive me if this should be obvious--are you a Ragnan?"

Her surprise might be mostly fabricated, but this question is genuine. Observations have told Codi that the difference between human and alien is not as clear-cut as she might have anticipated they would be. Maybe it's as simple as 'Ragnans have purple hair.' Could be anything, really.

The way Mikumo's smile shifts slightly upwards implies that yes, it should be obvious, but considering most of the significant alien races in her universe are humanoid, she can't entirely blame someone for asking. Windermereans are practically indistinguishable from humans besides their runes, for example.

"Ragnans have fins and gills, so no," she says, rather simply. She's fairly certain some elements of her 'design' were to favour the fact that she mostly lives on Ragna, but she herself isn't a Ragnan. "Does your Earth have any alien contact at all at this point in your timeline?"

It's obvious already that things didn't go down the way they did where Mikumo comes from, but the discussion she had earlier involved someone from the same year as Codi who'd also already had alien contact with their Earth, so it's worth inquiring further.

Codi huffs a laugh and shrugs at the first answer - probably should have guessed that the amphibious species had more obvious aquatic features to them - but her expression becomes a little more curious and reserved when Mikumo follows up. This line of questions is starting to feel targeted, like Mikumo is fishing for something. Could just be idle curiosity, but it could be something else more personal, too.

There's no need to lie about it, though. "None that I know of," Codi replies with another casual shrug, swirling her drink with the not-quite-olive flag. "Or if anyone has, they haven't made it public yet. Why do you ask?" A beat and she chuckles, bashfully. "Am I that obvious?"

"Partially," Mikumo says rather straightforwardly, because it was somewhat obvious that Codi didn't have experience with aliens and it did prompt her to go further down this topic route. But it's not the only reason, at least. "But I'm also curious to know how many different...timelines, I suppose, or dimensions, people are coming from. Yours would be the third different history of Earth I've heard so far."

Mikumo's is a devastating enough history that it kind of stands out when someone's Earth doesn't align with it, but even then, the other two she's heard about so far have major distinctions from each other as well. Considering dimensional travel isn't really practical where she comes from - even folding bears a risk of getting stuck in a dimensional rift - the fact that people have been pulled in from across dimensions here feels like a significant marker of the kind of technology the Sylphid have access to.

Codi sighs and raises a hand in a sort of 'what can you do?' gesture. She doesn't mind exaggerating her ignorance now; it'll make asking more blunt and potentially touchy questions of others more viable later. After all, who could stay mad at clueless little Codi from backwater Earth? She'll ride that wave for as long as she can get away with it.

Starting now, in fact. "The third?" Codi says, mouth agape in shock and wonder. "What were the other two like?"

Mikumo only takes excuses so many times, but it's a little early to drag people for not making an effort at this point. So she lets it slide this time without too much of a comment, since it's not really overt enough to do more than be mildly amusing in the first place.

"One was someone from the same year as you, whose Earth has already had alien contact, but hasn't properly gotten involved in space politics. And then there's mine, which is quite easy to tell apart from most others considering Earth was razed by Space War I in the early 2010s," she says, tone rather mild in saying that. For her, it's historical events, things that happened well before she was born and well before most of the people she knows were born as well - she knows Earth is some degree of habitable again now anyway, she's just never been there herself.

It probably goes a fair way to explaining why her Earth developed long-distance space travel so quickly, though.

Codi's immediate, impulsive follow-up question would be to ask who came from that first Earth, but she holds herself back. She's only been here for a day and formally met a handful of people; how could she possibly expect to know who that person is, or if she'll ever meet them before some Sylphid shoots them on a mission or something? It's probably not important enough to risk sounding nosy and rude.

Prying about Mikumo's universe, on the other hand, Codi gauges as fair game. "That's horrible," she gasps - an at least somewhat genuine reaction. Codi likes Earth. The idea of the whole thing getting sacked is something she would have previously brushed off as cliché, but now that feeling is backlit by a real, annoying undercurrent of anxiety. What if the Sylphid did that to her Earth after taking her from it? Her whole fledgling commercial empire, dust. The thought is humbling.

Anyway. "But I suppose that's all old history for you," Codi continues somberly. Mikumo's matter-of-fact delivery makes that obvious. "Unless you're somehow more than fifty years old. I mean--if you are, you're looking fantastic and I need to know your secrets."

"No. I don't think even anyone I work with is that old," Mikumo says, vaguely considering the fact that she's never really met anyone old enough to have gone through Space War I. Lady M might have been around back then, but she does make rather a point of secrecy, so it's difficult to be sure. Beyond that, the oldest person she really interacts with is Captain Johnson, and she'd probably place him at maybe being 50 at the oldest. Granted, she's not too familiar with how Zentradi (or half-Zentradi) age.

"Either way, it feels very distant. It's how many of the people I know came to be born in the particular parts of the galaxy they were born in, but that's it. People are even living on Earth again, though it's much fewer than before the war."

Macross City is the central population hub these days, to her knowledge. It's certainly the only place on Earth she really hears about.

"Hmm." Codi nods, finally taking that sip of her martini that she's been teasing for the past few minutes. Answer feels genuine, so she's probably not lying about her age. Codi assumes this - and her follow-up question - are not super important. "That's true for you, too? Your parents relocated to Ragna?"

"I wouldn't know. I don't remember my parents, but it's extremely easy to migrate between planets in the same system, so they could have come from anywhere in the Brisingr Cluster," she says, the omissions of pertinent details there coming quite easily considering most of this was just how she lived her life prior to a month or two ago. Assuming you had amnesia when you actually just hadn't been alive longer than three years is an interesting experience to get snapped out of.

"Most of the people I work with are from different planets, we're just stationed on Ragna, so that's where we live now. I assume it's much the same as moving for work in your world."

Codi makes another noise of understanding. She doesn't catch anything suspicious about what Mikumo's told her here, either, nor was she necessarily looking for anything along those lines. Her parents could have just died when she was too young to remember them, and everything else about space travel fits with the parallels Mikumo suggests. This all makes sense.

Besides, Codi has something else she wants to come back around to that feels much more interesting to her. "I understand. Company-sponsored housing is a routine part of onboarding nowadays," she shrugs, then changes tracks with a slight lean forward and narrowing of her eyes. "So if I'm getting this right...you work on a space carrier, which operates out of Ragna? What do you do on there?"

Company housing actually isn't so much a guarantee in Mikumo's world - the "dorms" for Delta Flight aren't even on the Macross Elysion - so her brows do arch slightly at that, but she puts it away for the moment in favour of her own situation. That smile is playing around her mouth again, because she knows how absurd this may end up sounding to some people here.

"The carrier - the Macross Elysion - is run by a civilian military contractor called Xaos. Planets in the Brisingr Globular Cluster contract us to help protect them because the human government military is spread too thin," she says, decidedly not mentioning the laundry list of other problems with the New United Nations Spacy that might have planets not inclined to ask for their help. "I'm the lead singer of Walkure, a tactical sound unit deployed to deal with outbreaks of Var Syndrome. To put it simply, it's a sudden-onset condition that drives large numbers of people into mindless violence."

Codi starts off looking confident and studious, but the more Mikumo dives into the weeds of that answer, the more openly befuddled Codi becomes, before finally shaking her head in a pleading gesture to stop.

"Mikumo," she says, eyebrows creased. "I'm sorry, but I understood maybe half of that? Or maybe I understood all of it and..."

A skeptical glare is shot at her drink on the counter.

"...Okay." Codi exhales, holds up a hand to reset. "Civilian military contractor owns a space carrier. Individual planets have their own unique governments that hire them out, separate from the human government and their military. There's a disease that makes people go berserk. You combat it as..." She leans forward slightly and arcs an eyebrow. "...A singer?"

That reaction only makes Mikumo's amusement more obvious, because that's about what she was expecting to come of the explanation. Even in her world, where there are a number of recorded incidents of music having unusual effects in conflicts, what Walkure does is strange for some people, and not always well-understood even by their supporters.

"Essentially, my voice and those of the rest of my group have a particular quality - a resonance, you might call it - that interferes with the effects of Var Syndrome and cancels it out, since it's caused by an unusual alien bacteria. So of course, we work alongside a fighter squadron to handle the kinds of situations we end up in, but yes, we combat these outbreaks as singers," she says, apparently not too fussed about having to explain given how layered the whole thing is. "But music has played a role in a number of conflicts throughout the galaxy in the last few decades. Is conventional weaponry what you're more used to?"

Codi nods slowly, although her still very confused expression says that she's still not grasping as much of this explanation as she'd like. She can't complain too much, though - she did want to get a more thorough explanation of Mikumo's job, and, well, she delivered. Now that she's starting to feel genuinely embarrassed by her lack of competence on the subject, Codi is more than happy to call that question answered and step away from it.

"Well," she says with a tilt of her head, "I guess that depends on your definition of 'conventional?' I'd call it 'guns,' but I don't know what that baseline is in your future space world."

"That's still conventional for ground combat for us, yes. They might be different types of guns, but you can only improve so much on automatic weapons," Mikumo says, somewhat dryly. There were, at one point, moves towards drones and other automated systems, but after one particular disaster involving them highlighted how easy it was for them to be hijacked and turned against anyone, that path had been given up on and never picked up again.

"So if you were hoping for laser pistols, I'm afraid I can't help you there."

"Ah, too bad," Codi sighs in exaggerated disappointment. Truthfully she's relieved that the weaponry she's encountered so far here has been stuff she's recognized, at least tangentially; her aim might be shit, but she still knows how to use a gun, and that puts her in a better position than a lot of the new arrivals she saw during their escape. It's an advantage she'd like to hold onto.

"Then, sure--conventional weaponry," Codi continues with a wave of her hand. "Corporate bureaucracy is usually the first line of defense, but guns solve most of the problems that it can't. Helps to be proficient in both."

Mikumo's head tilts curiously at the prioritising of that particular flavour of bureaucracy - while civilian military contractors are a huge part of conflicts (and in some cases peace-brokering) where she comes from, they're not really treated the same way as companies.

"Corporate bureaucracy, rather than government?" she asks, apparently ready to find out a little more about the kind of world Codi comes from now that she's discussed her own fairly thoroughly. "Or are you from the kind of world where they might as well be the same thing?"

While none of the Brisingr Cluster planets are like that, she is at least familiar with planets where certain entities have more control than the actual government.

Codi tilts her head right back, though more out of surprise than pure curiosity. Of all the differences from her universe to another, the idea that corporations might not be the seat of power isn't what she would've guessed. How interesting.

"More like, the reverse of the former," she says, quirking an eyebrow. "'Government bureaucracy' hasn't been part of the big picture since the 40's. Corporations organize all of that, too."

"So corporations run everything where you come from? That sounds rather dangerous," Mikumo says, though the amusement in her tone says she finds it novel just the same. She's seen how some of the larger conglomerates in the galaxy behave - war profiteering and playing both sides, a lot of the time - so she can't imagine it's any better when they're literally in charge of everything.

"Obviously large corporations have power where I come from, but government chosen by the people is still the most common kind, besides some planets that still have their seats of power handed down."

Though honestly, the only planet in the Brisingr Cluster with a monarchy that comes to mind is Windermere.

Codi chuckles gently, working hard to not look defensive. The global oligarchy of her world might be well-established enough to be the status quo, but that doesn't mean people don't exist that disapprove of it - and, as the CEO of her own large corporation, she has absolutely encountered, dealt with, and in many cases ended up working with them. Handling these sorts of arguments is, therefore, old hat for her.

"Naturally. On my world, those sorts of governments still exist for individual countries, and they're still voted in," she explains with a practiced patience. "It's just that they're sponsored and elected by corporate boards, which consequently represent their workers. Ultimately it's the same system - just a lot more organized, and with more tailored interests."

Codi leans back, putting on an air of amused exasperation.

"It's frankly amazing to me how anything functioned back in the day without corporate funding and direction. We get stuff done now."

"At the cost of dealing with those 'tailored interests'," Mikumo remarks easily. Her own amusement remains, but mostly because, from the outside, a system like that seems like a comically bad idea. "I thought regular governments were bad enough about prioritising their own interests above anything else. But if that's what you're familiar with, I doubt thoughts from worlds that run things differently are going to have much effect on you."

When it comes to arguing particular things, Mikumo is only likely to dedicate her time to topics she has an actual investment in, which usually involve people not bringing their all to serious situations. How other people's worlds are run isn't ultimately something she's ever going to have an impact on.

"I imagine anything is better than the situation here, at the very least."

Codi's smile turns bemused, but she tries her best not to be too dismissive. Her goal isn't to disrespect Mikumo's opinions, after all, even if (to Mikumo's point) she finds them ridiculous.

"By far," she scoffs, taking a gentle swig of her drink. There's not much left of it to keep sipping from at this point. "I let the results speak for themselves. There haven't been any wars since the GTP was established--" because corporations wage skirmishes instead to resolve conflicts, resulting in equally large losses of life that are written off by finance, "--basic necessities are distributed in ways that make sense--" to the employed, and only as much as they absolutely need to survive and continue working, "--and technological innovation has boomed under corporate supervision," but only under the already-established tech giants of her time, which have now become monoliths that squash any further competition in the market that could challenge them. These qualifications are vague in the back of Codi's mind, and obviously not something she would bring up in a conversation like this one.

"I'd say it's a poor comparison, by those standards," she concludes. "My world's doing pretty well for itself!"

Test Drive Meme #1

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