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

I'd be more surprised if we did have them all already. Even besides what you've already mentioned about trust, some things come from observation and experiencing what's happening on the ground. We've barely arrived here, so we're lacking in that.

[They might've experienced what the Sylphid do to those newly arrived, but they haven't seen life in the city yet or how this resistance movement typically operates outside of something like a rescue, for starters.]

The bigger question on that front is how many of us are used to integrating with other species.

[ read: the earth and humans peter's familiar with aren't the most skilled at it, and so far they seem to skew earth-based. ]

It does seem like there's a number of people from Earth, doesn't it? Though perhaps some of them have interacted with the wider universe already.

[In Mikumo's universe, Earth got attacked by extraterrestrials in the late 2000s and is considerably less inhabited than it once was, so if anyone was coming from Earth there, they should have interacted with at least a few alien races.]

If anyone's from anywhere similar to where I'm from, the answer is probably 'yes, but badly'.

Earth has a reputation for being a toddler with a machine gun.

I would say I'm surprised your Earth got that far, but that does sound remarkably similar to the New United Nations Spacy's behaviour, which is the unified human-Zentradi government military that started on Earth and then spread through the galaxy. They have a reputation for breaking their own rules and escalating conflicts unnecessarily.

The Earth hasn't, broadly speaking. To the relief of most of the galaxy, it tends to keep itself to itself. There's no centralized human presence outside of Earth and a few choice delegates. They only tend to make an appearance when Earth needs a helping hand or two or five.

[ it's a very brief, dumbed down version of space politics - the avengers and associates haven't always endeared themselves to the greater universe, either with their actions on earth or in the greater context of the galaxy. they've got another of catching up to do, and it's one of the reasons peter doesn't always love returning.

like, sure, it's where he spent his childhood, but he doesn't have anything tieing him to the planet beyond that. it's home only in a loose sense, even if he jumps at helping to protect the planet whenever it needs it. ]

It's more that Earth is a bit juvenile and under-developed in the space scene, you know?

I see. This sounds quite different to Earth's interactions with the rest of the galaxy in my time, though admittedly I'm less experienced with Earth itself and more the people who have left it to live elsewhere. Ragna is quite a distance away.

What year are you from? Or decade, if you don't want to get too specific.

[That's always going to be a significant question when she speaks to people from Earth - properly gauging whether they're from an entire other dimension where Earth wasn't razed by a war in 2009.]

Ragna's a planet?

[ not one he's familiar with, so that's another difference they can chalk up.

peter doesn't have any reason to be precious about where or when he's from — the specifics relating to the guardians, to rocket and to gamora, that's different and information he's disinclined to share, but anything else relating to him is pretty much fair game. ]

2019.

Yes. It's mostly water; Ragnans are amphibious, and while they have cities on land, certain farming and other industry is done underwater.

Certainly different, then. Humans spread across the galaxy because their first contact with extraterrestrials left Earth razed and almost wiped out the species, back in 2009. They recovered quite spectacularly, but there are still only a few major cities on Earth.

Huh. Can't say it rings any bells.

First contact goes way back for ...my Earth. The 70s? Something like that and it didn't have anywhere near as much as an unhappy ending. Earth is still chugging along, as overpopulated as ever.

I assume the Brisingr Globular Cluster doesn't either?

Interesting. I did notice that people here seemed like they'd come from a variety of different places, but I hadn't been thinking as much about other dimensions. There might be a lot of different histories to share.

Nope. So I'm going to guess you have no idea who the Nova Corps are, right?

[ peter's got more familiarity with alternate dimensions than he'd care to admit, and he really hadn't been hoping for a repeat experience any time soon.

or, you know, ever. ]

Going to go out on a limb and say that differences are less important than similarities.

No, though that does sound like the kind of thing a civilian military contractor might name themselves.

[Names for those range from the very businesslike, like Strategic Military Services, all the way through to ones like Xaos, so she could see that, honestly.]

Perhaps, but the differences are interesting nonetheless. I'm sure we'll find out about plenty of both.

[ briefly, he wonders what rich would have to say if he passed on the sentiment that the nova corps sound like a bunch of contractors.

he supposes the difference — truth — is neither here nor there given the number of times the corps have been destroyed and reformed and destroyed and reformed; and especially of very little import given the calibre of individuals the corps were made up of the last time peter spent any extended amount of time around them. ]

They're space cops.

[ it's a very loose definition of them, anyway. ]

Underwater basket weaving is interesting, doesn't mean it's useful.

[ peter quill: stubborn idiot who likes to pretend he doesn't dwell on the past when he absolutely dwells on the past way more than he should. ]

I see. That sort of work gets split between contractors and NUNS where I come from.

[And while Mikumo doesn't have much of a past to dwell on herself, that doesn't mean she isn't curious about other places.]

And I thought I was bad about only focusing on work and necessities. Have you considered that it's also useful to know who you're working with and where they're coming from?

Yeah, yeah, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I know the saying.

I like to know my team.

But you can know who you're working with and where they're coming from without knowing where they're coming from, you know? Boundaries, comfort levels, all that jazz. If it's important, you'll [ probably ] find out one way or the other, but it's an organic process. [ or it should be, peter's found out that out the hard way.

more than once. ]

What I'm saying is, maybe that info's useful, maybe it's not, but you're not going to get it from everyone and there's always more than one solution to a problem.

And if you wanna know something just to satisfy curiosity? Eh. Curiosity killed the cat, right?

Edited 2022-08-10 07:22 (UTC)

[Mikumo gets that particular angle, but in her usual blunt fashion, can't help but remark on it anyway.]

You might want to work on your phrasing if that's what you meant to say from the outset. I don't expect everyone to be upfront with everything, of course, but I also find it's quite rare for people to only share "useful" information, so I presume I'm going to find out some information that's purely interesting one way or another.

That said, it probably depends somewhat on the overall types of people who are here. If it is mostly combatants, they tend to keep things closer to the chest in my experience.

[A lot tend to be more wary about things being used against them, or they have skeletons in the closet or other things they feel they need to hide.]

Might give it a shot.

[ "eh." ]

Depends on how orthodox they are and how much they want to play into stereotypes.

Or how used to being burned they are. But seeing that through actual interaction will do more than guessing at it over texts.

Is there anywhere here you've been so far that you'd recommend being worth a look?

[Mikumo wants to learn the layout of the place overall, but she also isn't used to having much time to waste, so she may as well enjoy it.]

The Night Market reminds me of this sweet station from back home. Seems to sell a lot of junk, but I've seen the odd treasure and found some really flarking good food.

Cyborg does decent coffee and beers.

I mostly went to the markets for clothes earlier, but they did strike me as similar to the ones back in Barrette. I'll have to take a closer look later in the week.

Considering what my coworkers were like, I'm somehow not surprised those are the two drinks you're basing the recommendation on.

[Her previous restrictive diet means she's never had alcohol and has had coffee maybe once or twice ever if she had to sit undercover at a cafe or something, but beer and coffee are definitely somewhere near the top of the list of drinks she's heard other people talking about on the regular.]

( meanwhile, peter's never given his diet much thought. coffee is more or less a personal requirement for both getting up and successfully navigating the day, whilst the guardians have always tended towards opting to spend their downtime in a bar when they've been planet-side. )

I managed to find a few bits and pieces to make this place feel a bit more like home.

I'm pretty sure we have caffeine to thank for a lot of human advancement and innovation.

It certainly seemed to keep a lot of of the carrier I worked on running. Though Ragna had to import it, since it doesn't seem like they managed to find a coffee bean that would grow there.

[Which is saying something, since there's quite a few things grown on Ragna which probably shouldn't logically grow in heavily saline soil. Or underwater, for that matter.]

I always kept a jar of instant on my ship in case of emergencies.

( peter had discovered quite early on that not all planets cared for coffee — it didn't grow everywhere and not all species found it pleasant to drink or digest.

let alone the question of growing it. )

Well, I can't imagine you'd ever have to worry about it going off, at least.

[Instant coffee almost seems like an ideal ration to keep in a smaller ship, up there with anything else freeze-dried.]

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jetboot - 2022-08-17 09:58 (UTC) - Expand

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stargazed - 2022-08-17 13:35 (UTC) - Expand

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