Test Drive Meme #4 (cw vehicular crash, moderate injury)

[spoofer]

Test Drive Meme #4

Fall toward me with your entire body.

CRASH LANDING

Exit one dimension, enter the next. It was chaos: pressure against your ears, light bending in an impossible, unimaginable way. The very molecules of your body vibrating against one another. If you have windows, the view outside makes no sense. Even if not, your hands, your face, your feet seem like an uncertain thing. It's the feel of reality itself tearing apart, reshaping, reconnecting, thread by thread.

And suddenly, there's a beach— or ocean, whichever you land in. Smoke. Fire. Salt water churning up, fizzing around.


Maybe you crash, in a ship wrecking into sand. Maybe you merely stumble out of a portal, a ragged wormhole in space. Or maybe you fall off the back of an incredible steed, some creature that carried you into this place. Either way, there's pandemonium around you. Incredibly, severe injuries are far and few between— nobody's screaming about the dead. But you might have to help pull someone free of wreckage, or move quickly to salvage burning belongings from the landing craft. Maybe it's the crafts themselves, that you're trying to salvage.

Likely, you don't know them, these other strangers who arrived here^[1]. Maybe you don't trust them— you just came out of a dying world, after all. But you all have one thing in common: you're here now.

When you get a second to breathe, maybe you'll see it. The brilliant green forest across the sand. Beyond that, the glint of a faraway city.

FAIRGROUNDS

Xistentia's late summer fair is on! As F.A.T.E.S. learns about different universes and different people, the event looks mismatched, beyond complicated, and you might wonder why, exactly, how to get ride tickets when no money is exchanged. But as you wander through, you can see a rollercoaster, a five-a-side soccer pitch set up for a tournament, facepainting, an archery range, a haunted house, a circus tent, a Ferris wheel, plenty of different food stands with eclectic choices all over, from kebabs to Taiwan's infamous penis-shaped waffles^[NSFW] to popsicles for two. Maybe this is only a front to get people involved with each other?

Everybody is welcome to man a booth, or just walk around and participate in the different activities set up around the fairgrounds.

NETWORK

One afternoon, you are taken from whatever you’re doing - taking a walk through the city, sunning yourself on the beach, running around in the forest shoring up defenses - by a message, appearing on your Daemon’s network screen. It’s a simple line of text, that reads:

NEVER HAVE I EVER...?

If you choose to answer it, you’ll be connected to another player at random. You both get 10 points. The loser? Owes the winner a favor.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

hells yeah

Footnotes

1. Some of these can be nameless, plot-device NPCs to facilitate interactions! But even in this case, please avoid gore in describing their current state of being. Anyone dead or catastrophically injured will have disappeared by the time your characters make it to Xistentia. There are no corpses or dying here.
   
   
2. But like OOCly ask permission ofc.

Comments

[edis]

( alec this is mistake #1 )

My inquiries have been known to be unorthodox, at times. I would not want to make you uncomfortable.

That said, I am naturally curious and have many questions.

[helical]

As long as I get to refuse to answer if I'm not comfortable it's not a problem. And if I can ask you some?

[edis]

It would be a pleasure to answer any questions you might have.

I should explain myself a bit, first. Upon creation, I was made as an AI built into the space ship Normandy SR-2, a technology without a body, built mostly for easy and honest access to the ship's controls and well being. Recently I have come to a robotic body and downloaded my data and conscience to it, making it an effective vessel for ... becoming more human, perhaps.

Because of that, I ask questions relating to the meaning of life, or what it means to be human. I know it is a difficult concept for some to grasp, as people have refused to answer, before. I will try not to be stubborn, with you.

[helical]

They're hard questions to answer. There might not actually be an answer and you might get different responses depending on who you ask

Do you want to be human?

[edis]

I have determined the best course of action is to ask as many people as I can, narrowing down the ultimate results where ideals overlap.

There are many tactical advantages to being synthetic. I don't think I want to be completely human -- that is impossible, so fantasizing does little to help me. I am content being what I am. However, being unshackled means I have control over the decisions I make and the things that I do. Do you believe direct orders should be dismissed when they interfere with your moral standpoint?

[helical]

I used to think direct orders had to be obeyed, that the rules were there for a reason, but not anymore. It's not that simple, and sometimes orders don't protect those we're meant to protect. I don't want to follow those anymore.

Then again, someone might think their moral standpoint is the right one, even if what they find moral requires killing people of a different kind than them. So yes and no.

[edis]

You do not have a central core you can reach into and use to switch the priority of your existence. What changed your mind? How did you change your mind?

[helical]

I was hiding a part of myself and I guess I thought if I followed the rules then things would be okay. I thought being perfect and listening to orders would make up for what I was hiding. Then I stopped doing it.

[edis]

Impressive. Did something influence your decision, or was in a personal choice?

[helical]

I uh
Met someone? But I made the choice. Almost too late
Since then it's been easier not to blindly do everything I'm told and to think for myself.

[edis]

Thinking for myself is something I was not capable of doing until recently. I admire your strength. Has your life been better now that you think for yourself?

[helical]

Yes. Much. Better than it's ever been. What made things change for you?

[edis]

The pilot of the Normandy unshackled me, meaning that he took away any programming built inside me to keep me from getting too human-like.

After that, I asked these types of questions to the Commander, so that I could reassemble my internal hardware priorities into something more closely resembling organic life.

Do you have artificial life where you're from?

[helical]

Are things better, since then?

No, not that advanced. I think they're still debating whether it's possible or not