xistentiaooc | Test Drive Meme #2

Test Drive #2

I saw a flower, furrow, and brook

New TDMers are free to RP here as if "new" or "established;"
"new" is likely easier to keep in continuity after apping.

When gameplay begins, the second wave will have
their own intro plot and crash log!

CREATURES IN THE DARK

Far away from the city, the wall of light that is F.A.T.E.S. seems calm, glowing peacefully. You’re on an evening walk through the city, or maybe on a camping trip in the woods, or maybe on a romantic date on the beach; whatever it is, you’re outdoors, enjoying the apparent peace and quiet, for once.

That is, until you hear a noise. It’s a rustle, or a step, a branch breaking underfoot, a heavier sound than a human would make. And that’s when you find yourself faced with one of the many Xistentia critters: the Green Backed Bison. She's massive, with small horns and a broad, mossy back, a small calf at her side. She does not appear to want to charge you^[1], but that might change, depending on what you decide to do! Either approach it, run away, or go into aggressive mode; how will you react to being introduced to the incredible fauna of Xistentia?

Glitch in the City

The city of Xistentia now boasts a population of over 200 sentient souls! Congratulations on surviving your apocalypse, now feel free to enjoy the city and outlying forest. Today, a number of local businesses are open, including the local tailor, our diner Pop's Chocklit Shop, and Sue's Salads. For now, the only bar and lounge is the atrium of the Citadel, the outpost overlooking the sea. It's a lovely day to be out and about.

But at midday, the rendering errors begin. New arrivals, those who came into Xistentia since the second crash find themselves subject to a bizarre phenomenon, where a holographic projection seems to be floating above their head! It contains data about the character's marital status, preferences for fun and dating activities, and pet peeves... and perhaps embarrassingly, it isn't necessarily accurate.

As your daemon will explain the glitch is easy enough to fix! You can either move 100 yards from the location where it began, or another character can remove it for you by touching the graphic.

RENDERING ERROR #285
Preferred Alias: F.A.T.E.S. McWeirdo
Marital Status: Hateboning Nemesis
Preferred Dating Activity: Creating new universes, maintaining the equilibrium of the multiverse, organizing temporal divergences/alternate universes, restoring damage inflicted by D.E.S.T.I.N.Y.
Other Enjoyable Activity: DJing music
Pet Peeves: Unfiltered tap water, gluten-fee pasta, unscheduled apocalypses

Optional Code

GAME NIGHT

At 6 p.m., your Daemon starts making noise - a software update is being installed. It lasts for a few minutes, your Daemon mainly unresponsive if you attempt to make it do anything else than upload the data F.A.T.E.S. is sending it. Afterwards, it resumes acting as normal as it did before the update, but if you ask it, your Daemon will tell you:

Upgrade was installed for entertainment and integration purposes; Hangman.exe was installed.

Launch the application, and you will be given a match against one of your fellow citizens who also decided to join the game. On your holoscreen is a rudimentary, simple game of Hangman, as well as a chat window to taunt your opponent if you so choose. However, it becomes clear that F.A.T.E.S. has no idea what she's doing... the first word is 16 letters long, and she has pre-filled in the letters Z, C, and Q.

It's a good day to complain about technology, or start a new game afresh.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

hells yeah

Footnotes

Note any violence or injury in your subject headers, thank you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( elena, like jack, tends to be among the last people off the planet. she's faster than most everyone and durable as all hell, and is therefore an ideal choice to stick around, capable as she is of getting people out of danger in an expedient manner. it's what has her zipping around camp now, herding people into the last shuttle — well, almost last. jack and d'artagnan always take that distinction, and elena makes sure to catch jack's eye before she steps onto hers. is he okay, does he want her to stay behind, does he think he'll need her? — the answer, as it always is during extractions, is no, but elena wouldn't be herself if she didn't ask. she likes to think it's a ritual for jack as much as it is for her, but she knows he doesn't really go in for that sort of thing.

take off doesn't go smoothly. turbulence rockets the shuttle every which way, and at one point elena unstraps herself from her seat to check on a junior recruit — stupid, obviously, and she snaps at tony to sit back down in his when he makes to do the same thing — and a sharp jolt sends her flying up into the ceiling, her neck snaps, and she falls unconscious.

waking up on a beach is not totally out of elena's realm of experience, so she manages not to freak out quite as much as she might otherwise. she checks her blackglass for a transmission from the neheda, for the personnel tracker, anything, but it's inoperative. luckily it only takes a few minutes to catch a familiar scent, and she grins as she speeds in jack's direction. )

Reminds you a little bit of Macha, huh? So green, ( she says before she's even stopped next to him — and then she notices the bison. or at least what looks vaguely like a bison, by earth standards. her arrival's spooked it, and it huffs in their direction, moving to stand in front of the calf at its side. )

Maybe don't move and she won't try to gore us to death?

Edited 2017-06-18 03:43 (UTC)

[ it isn't uncommon to see elena speedily bolting in from the distance, typically always one of the first to respond to a call. but spotting her at least gives him some hope that the others will be nearby. that d'artagnan will be. lifting his chin to her, jack still has that frown of 'thinking/assessing' on his features, but she gets a nod of greeting. he's generally more terse and distant during mission runs. ]

Macha was hell. Good riddance. [ he'd lost his sister there, lost dagger, saw david chipped away. so much bad came from macha, he's glad to leave it behind. jack's busy tapping at his cuff, besides, trying to bring up anything familiar on the display. he'll later learn it now functions as his daemon, but at the moment, it's just a blur of nonsense coding, nothing helpful.

glancing up, he looks at the bison when she moves, squinting for a second, before digging for his blackglass instead. he has his armor on, and elena's durable as hell. the creature won't be a problem. besides, his plasma rifle is still in the pod behind him. ]

She's the least of our worries right now. Did you see any other pods land? Can you get anything from your cuff?

Yeah, but it was better than Substrata, right?

( macha was when elena's life support got turned off, and after they left it she was put on grey team. the only thing worse than those two experiences was turning her humanity off on substrata, the threats and the fights with everyone she cared about. macha may have been jack's least favourite planet, but substrata was elena's. )

I didn't see any other pods. I only found you because I tracked your scent, and I can't smell anyone else we know around here.

( elena keeps an eye on the bison, trying to subtly maneuver herself in front of jack as she does. it's as much about him as it is not spooking the animal; jack would be offended by the implication that he needed to be protected, even if logically he can acknowledge that she is, if nothing else, less likely to die when stabbed through the stomach than he is.

her juggernaut cuff sits around her wrist, a persistent weight, ready to be used. )

I tried the personnel locator, I tried to text Tony and d'Artagnan on their blackglasses — I even tried Mom. Nothing.

If we're going to start ranking missions from bad to worst over the last ten years, we're going to be here for a lot longer than we have time to spare, Elena.

[ yes, substrata was also hell, for elena specifically, for a lot of reasons. they've been through a lot of planets that were complete hell, and once their blown into cosmic dust, jack likes to erase them from his mind just as simply. the answer she gives has a tremor of tension sneaking through jack's jaw, especially at d'Artagnan's name, but he's a unit lead, he's meant to keep it together in times like these. ]

They could still be stuck in their pods, or something in the atmosphere here may be messing with the signal. [ it isn't the first time they've had communications down, or glitches in the cuffs or blackglasses. they're lucky the things are apparently still working to keep their biometrics stable. ]

We couldn't have fallen far from Neheda. Let's focus on trying find a way to boost the signal. We can start with the pod. [ a glance spared towards the grumbling bison thing, and how elena's starting to scoot her way between him and the creature. she won't see it but a small smile quirks one side of his lips. so many years and she still wants to protect him. this hellish job has showed him more kindness than home ever did. jack lets out a sharp whistle, calling the Bahari's attention. ] Ringo, chase. Do not harm.

[ they don't need to potentially offend any locals by slaughtering wildlife of potential importance. best to just run it off and avoid damage, and Ringo's obedient enough to keep his claws and fangs to himself when told. ]

Test Drive Meme #2

❚❚❚❚❚ creatures in the dark/arrival.

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