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

That might be a difficult question to answer.

[Having known something was coming from her erstwhile shadow, Elma doesn't even pause or blink at the question. Instead, she turns to fully face the xeno.]

When humanity fled Earth, their biological bodies weren't ready or able to handle the strain of space travel for an uncertain length of time. Also, the evacuation was pretty hurried, as these things go. Ultimately, humanity chose to upload the genetic profile and minds of the evacuees into Ark Ships. Those minds then piloted robotic bodies, called Mimeosomes, using the wireless relays of the Lifehold's computer banks. When Earth was destroyed, the original bodies and minds died with it. So the first question is, are the uploaded minds still human? They existed only as data, piloting artificial bodies, after all.

On top of that, something strange happened with the Ark Ship I was aboard. When we landed -- or were shot down, I suppose is more accurate -- the Lifehold databanks were completely destroyed. That should have been the end of all the minds inside it, but somehow they were preserved. Instead of remotely piloting the Mims, they instead inhabited them. So, are those human?

[She lets all that exposition sink in for a bit.]

For what my opinion is worth, humanity is still humanity, even after all that. But I know some people disagree. You might too.

[Usually, no one notices that when Elma is talking about humanity, she always carefully phrases her comments so that she never directly states she's a member of the species, and instead relies on the implications thereof. For a change, though, she isn't hiding her true nature -- she doesn't know it, at this point, which is honestly deeply concerning.]

[The question was a bit different when it came to this one, as she possessed qualities that were human and not. At first the exposition comes as a bit of a surprise but as Elma continues to discuss the experiences of her people, Eight settles in to listen to the story. Frankly, she appreciated the thoroughness.]

[She's quiet throughout, her eyes drifting upwards as she tries to imagine interstellar travel, the conversion of people into digital memories, and the process of establishing sapience in artificial forms. The philosophical and existential questions abound if one was allowed to think about it.]

[She'll consider it more later.]

The last human had died out over a thousand years on my world. The only thing that remains are the culmination of their hopes and a desire to pass on their knowledge to the next worthy successor. [She's choosing her words carefully, but despite her metered response there is a bit of a dip in her tone with the words 'worthy successor.']

In that time you were away, the planet was claimed by the descendants of the sea. So, would you include us in your definition of 'humanity?'

That's not a question I can answer easily, without knowing a great deal more cultural and historical information. Moreover, I'm not certain I'm the one who can answer that anyway.

[She's sure that isn't the answer the girl wants to hear, but she's not going to lie or even claim a standing she doesn't think she ought to have. Honesty is the best policy, in a case like this.]

[She does seem a bit deflated, but it is a measured answer to a question that doesn't really had an answer.]

[Still, there was a glimmer of hope...?]

Should I tell you our culture and our history, what qualities would you need to see and hear?

I'd love to hear it. [No lie there, although that may be somewhat lower of a priority than -- well, at this moment, literally everything.] It's clear, though, that the universes we know have taken a very different path. In fact, I'd say this is clear proof of multiverse theory.

[Assuming any of this is actually reality. Elma still has her doubts, but no way to act on them, so she'll act according to what she's seen and heard rather than overthinking it to no point.]

Your universe's humans might actually be nothing like ours. So that makes it even messier.

It's hard for me to tell. But the conversion of the self into digital data sounds like a way the humans I am aware of would attempt to save themselves. [They seemed clever and extreme in all things, but this woman did not seem that way.]

I suppose... [She gives the matter some thought.] In the end, it doesn't really matter. We are here and your people are not. There's nothing humans can do whether they approve of us or not.

It's only my opinion, but for what it's worth, I think most of the people of NLA would be happy to hear that somewhere out there, some form of Earth is thriving.

[Some wouldn't, of course. Some would be jealous, or feel they'd been treated unfairly. But that's humanity for you.]

[There's just a moment, but after Elma says that, Eight's eyes draw themselves up to hers and, with a cheery Vee~, she would reveal the broadest snaggletoothed smile.]

[And just like that, it's gone. As Elma was quite conservative in expressing her people's approval, so too is Eight's joy going to be similarly reserved.]

[It was still nice to hear.]

So, are you a cyborg, android, or something else? Do you refer to yourself as your former name, or is there a different designation that you were assigned? When you were converted to digital data, was there anything lost? How did the system keep consciousness distinct from each other when they were being stored??

[Uh oh... she's finally able to move on~~]

[Elma leans her weight to one side, resting a hand on her hip as she settles in to answer.]

Strictly speaking, I'd call Mims android bodies. They're as absolutely close to real as possible, so we can smell and taste and eat and even excrete, but there's still no biological parts within them. People kept the same names, and the same identities -- the truth is, they didn't know they were uploaded. They believed their bodies were in storage in the Lifehold, that they were piloting the Mims from their own brain instead of a digitized consciousness.

[They sure hadn't been happy when that came out, quite understandably.]

I never heard anyone complain of losing something, but then, how do you know for sure that you've forgotten something if you never knew you had it? Any compression or conversion issues would come in the most ordinary memories, things that the mind had broken down into pure linguistic terms instead of sensory images. People lose or garble those memories all the time already, so is there really a difference? The storage system wasn't truly more complicated than an ordinary system's file structures -- no need to reinvent the wheel there, when programming a seventh-generation quantum mainframe was complicated enough.

[Thankfully for all concerned, Elma doesn't mind answering questions. Being so closely tied to the entire Ark Ship project, she'd dealt with many of these before, after all.]

[Eight doesn't mind either. She enjoys listening to detailed explanations. Half-way through she may even get comfortable sitting bow-legged on the floor, hands to her cheeks and eyes barely blinking.]

I once had my memories extracted too, but they were converted into compressed objects called mem cakes. I think you are right that a bunch of small memories being missing doesn't really bother you that much, but when you're missing the big things... [Or everything even. You feel lost as a shell of yourself, like being in the middle of a skyless sea.]

Have you... [No, even without knowing Elma she was pretty sure she wouldn't be that cruel... or would she?] ...could you ever see a reason why you may choose not to give someone their memories?

We don't have the ability to selectively edit memories or separate them from minds, so it's not an issue I've ever considered before.

[She folds her arms and takes about three seconds to think, before looking back down at the girl.]

That being said, there are circumstances in which we can prevent memories from forming. What comes to mind is severe physical trauma. In that case, I believe it's entirely consistent with medical ethics and humanitarian principles to prevent someone from remembering extreme physical pain, considering the amount of harm and lack of any meaningful gain from the experience. That's probably not answering your question exactly, though. Sorry about that.

[Its enough to get her to lift herself up a little.]

I don't know if you should do that even if you could. I don't think it is really your choice what a person should and should not remember.

[She lowers herself a little, realizing she may have gotten a bit too invested in this conversation.] ...er... that's what I think... anyway....

That's a very understandable way of thinking, considering you had memories removed from you. But then... [Elma spreads one hand to accentuate her point.] People are anesthetized for surgical purposes. Would it be more ethical to administer a paralytic, and let them feel everything, instead of denying them that memory?

I don't think our medical methods are the same as yours. [Unfortunately while there were many points of convergence, physiology was definitely not one of them.] Case in point, a paralytic would be something that we would be more likely to use on our enemies to incapacitate them relatively peaceably.

That would make the comparison different, yes. But I think in any significant sense, we're in agreement on what's important.

["We don't need to be from the same species to be able to recognize our common ground." A philosophy that had never failed her.]

[Because Elma had been so kind in answering her questions in such detail, Eight gives the comment longer consideration than outright dismissal. But no matter how she looks at it...]

I do not think I can agree. [She nods, certain of that conclusion.]

I know surgery is a procedure that is sometimes used on other species with flesh, blood, or exoskeletons, but the specifics of how one is done and why is not something we need to know.

[...perhaps this would need a more direct demonstration.] Allow me to show you.

[She raises out her hand and before Elma's eyes it just... melts. The skin tone flushes to the bright magenta of the girl's hair, loses definition, and plops to the ground into a gooey heap. The effect continues from the arm to the body and then finally the head. The whole sequence lasts less than a second and by the end of it Elma has a puddle of magenta goo where a girl used to be.]

[Then, just as quickly, the puddle begins to rise into the air, creating a formless mass that is vaguely human-shaped before the differentiation of the larger and then finer details. With a loose shake the excess magenta goo seems to fluff off, restoring the girl back to the person Elma had been talking to not a few seconds ago.]

[Then, to accentuate her point:] We don't surgery. We don't need to have things removed and we can recover anything lost.

I do not understand your metaphor.

[Elma has seen much, much weirder. A sentient being that is capable of dissolving and reforming tissue to that extent is particularly unusual, but not as strange as, say, the Ghosts, who are basically incomprehensible to known physics thanks to their proliferation of antimatter. So instead of looking surprised, she merely smiles, brushing back one lock of hair.]

Let me clarify. We both agree that memories are of critical importance. Neither of us would consider casually tampering with them, our own or another's.

Oh. [She nods, that she can agree unreservedly.]

[She has a pretty smile...]

[Elma is considered attractive, sure, but in NLA that can lose a lot of oomph. Most people chose to have Mims that resembled themselves closely, but not everyone did, Elma being literally first among that number. And on the other hand, the xenos that live in NLA all varied from human norms and attractiveness wildly, but even across those boundaries, common ground and even attraction could and did form.]

On another note, I'm surprised you're still able to change like that. The suppression chip disabled a lot of things I'd have thought too inherent to my Mim to be disabled. It's noticeably more fragile now, and I can't enter Overdrive.

[Where she's from, women made up a very large percentage of the Octraian higher ranks, with their leader King Octavio being the one notable exception. She's had a very strong appreciation and respect of women in positions of authority, which Elma exudes.]

[Enough so that she is appreciative of the change in subject.]

Mmm... I wasn't able to until we passed through the barrier around the town. I could feel my body loosened free immediately. Even the injury I sustained during the escape was repaired nearly the moment we entered here. I am not used to combat damage not mending itself within a few seconds.

[It was a strange sensation to not be able to have control of your body when you have near total control over it. She didn't like it, and the ability to use what came natural felt like a return to how things should be.]

Interesting. I thought initially that might be related to the 'power' we're supposed to gain, but if it comes when we enter the suppression field, it must be normal. [Now Elma has to frown slightly.] I hope my Mim isn't damaged, then. We don't exactly have a repair facility here.

Your Mim, you mean your body?

[That would be a problem.] Would you require tools?

[Octarians seldom have access to all the resources they needed to achieve their goals and would have to jerry-rig what was needed as they were needed.]

[That gets her to crack an amused smile.] And a skilled engineer who isn't me. It's a little hard to work on things like your own back, or your own head. And replacement parts come in pretty handy, too. And the truth is, I'm not much of an engineer at all. That was Lin's job, on my team.

Mm... [And someone she can trust, she suspects. Far be it for her to rely on a random person that she just happened to stumble across.]

I heard of a place called "The Electric Heart" that I was going to look into. Word is, they have a lot of technology and devices and may even have someone who is proficient in repairs. [Or not, but that would be one place to go.]

There's also a hospital in this sector.

Test Drive Meme #1

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