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redmarsshit2019-09-21 12:52 am
modblob) wrote in redmarsshit2019-09-21 12:52 am
redshift: tdm #4
Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.
▶ Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.
▶ All TDM threads can be considered game canon, and current players are welcome to either top-level on the TDM so prospective players can tag them, or use the prompts for logs or network posts on the communities. All threads on the TDM can be used for Activity Check.
▶ All TDM threads can be considered game canon, and current players are welcome to either top-level on the TDM so prospective players can tag them, or use the prompts for logs or network posts on the communities. All threads on the TDM can be used for Activity Check.
a. the red shit.
There are rumblings in the deepest, most overgrown part of the agricultural area, where until very recently there was a lingering pocket of red algae. The good news is, the red algae is gone! The bad news is, it all got eaten by a mutated bear-thing with giant antlers. The algae did a number on the poor thing, doping it up and confusing it to the point where everything is an enemy.
What’s worse? The algae has adapted, colonizing the creature’s entire body. The algae has mutated in the process, releasing a protective cloud of toxins that causes severe hallucinations, as well as some of the protective and euphoric qualities that the red algae originally possessed. Which means the mutated, antlered, bear-thing is accompanied by a small army of other creatures, from large to small, who are all very invested in its survival and also are being driven crazy by its presence.
Prepare yourselves for one hell of a hunt. These animals can pop up almost everywhere in the agricultural zones, and when they do show their paws it’s to go on a rampage.
What’s worse? The algae has adapted, colonizing the creature’s entire body. The algae has mutated in the process, releasing a protective cloud of toxins that causes severe hallucinations, as well as some of the protective and euphoric qualities that the red algae originally possessed. Which means the mutated, antlered, bear-thing is accompanied by a small army of other creatures, from large to small, who are all very invested in its survival and also are being driven crazy by its presence.
Prepare yourselves for one hell of a hunt. These animals can pop up almost everywhere in the agricultural zones, and when they do show their paws it’s to go on a rampage.
b. fashionista.
It wouldn’t be Anchor if the bots weren’t fucking shit up.
This time, the spa bots have gone full stylist coach, chasing down residents and trying to do their hair, nails, makeup, or change their clothes. In some cases, they're literally sweeping people off their feet and carrying them to the hot springs, massage rooms, and spa areas to be pampered. Too bad most of their cosmetics are fifty years out of date and the closests they’ve raided either had another resident’s clothes or moth-eaten dust-covered rags.
Is that the jacket Idris Elba was wearing in the introductory video? It kinda looks like it.
But it’s not all bad! The bots actually give great massages and fantastic mani-pedis. They also have a small stash of fresh cosmetics and clean clothes that got left behind in the spas. They might not fit great, but they look pretty good!
If your character doesn’t practice proper self-care, well. They’d better watch out. These bots have a particular eye for the sad, the filthy, the tired, and they’re going to make sure you get some damn fine pampering.
This time, the spa bots have gone full stylist coach, chasing down residents and trying to do their hair, nails, makeup, or change their clothes. In some cases, they're literally sweeping people off their feet and carrying them to the hot springs, massage rooms, and spa areas to be pampered. Too bad most of their cosmetics are fifty years out of date and the closests they’ve raided either had another resident’s clothes or moth-eaten dust-covered rags.
Is that the jacket Idris Elba was wearing in the introductory video? It kinda looks like it.
But it’s not all bad! The bots actually give great massages and fantastic mani-pedis. They also have a small stash of fresh cosmetics and clean clothes that got left behind in the spas. They might not fit great, but they look pretty good!
If your character doesn’t practice proper self-care, well. They’d better watch out. These bots have a particular eye for the sad, the filthy, the tired, and they’re going to make sure you get some damn fine pampering.
c. whole foods: 2.0.
Remember that whole Whole Foods grocery store thing that happened? Well, the grocery store and the zombies are still there. Only now there are more zombies, and two giant supply trucks have shown up, one behind and one in front of the store.
The one at the rear of the store can be accessed fairly easily. It’s painted to look like a giant United States flag, with a dramatic crying eagle emblazoned across the back doors. Inside, there is beer. Lots and lots of beer, and a bunch of semiautomatic rifles. Also some skeletons. Seems like the guns and booze didn’t help them.
The one in front of the store is thickly surrounded, the creatures clawing at the plain white sides of the semi like there’s something precious inside.
If Anchorites can make it through, if they can fend off the monsters and keep from getting torn to pieces by a hoard of bloodthirsty beasts, they’ll find out what that precious truck contains.
It’s twinkies. A semi full of twinkies. We hope you’ve got a sweet tooth, Anchor.
The one at the rear of the store can be accessed fairly easily. It’s painted to look like a giant United States flag, with a dramatic crying eagle emblazoned across the back doors. Inside, there is beer. Lots and lots of beer, and a bunch of semiautomatic rifles. Also some skeletons. Seems like the guns and booze didn’t help them.
The one in front of the store is thickly surrounded, the creatures clawing at the plain white sides of the semi like there’s something precious inside.
If Anchorites can make it through, if they can fend off the monsters and keep from getting torn to pieces by a hoard of bloodthirsty beasts, they’ll find out what that precious truck contains.
It’s twinkies. A semi full of twinkies. We hope you’ve got a sweet tooth, Anchor.
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Peter doesn't really budge, but he does web the bot to the floor so that it can't come any closer. Those scissors aren't going to cut that webbing ROBOT, eat shit.]
There. What's up? Something interfering with your doo-dad?
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No, the signal's fine! It's just not making it into his thick CPU.
[ He waves his hand at the robot, this time with a brief flare of his powers to disconnect its batteries. It can't fall over properly because it's webbed to the ground, so it just slumps awkwardly sideways. ]
Something in the event handler, probably, or a compromised receiver. Either that, or you jinxed it.
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He keeps a close eye on Qubit while he does this, just to make sure he doesn't give himself another migraine while doing computer magic.]
I mean, I can't say I'd be too surprised if I jinxed it.
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Great. We'll call that a verdict. [ He picks up his tablet and resumes his seat on the couch. As an afterthought, he adds- ] You might as well come have a seat, if you're sticking around. [ beat ] Pun retroactively intended.
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As far as puns go, that wasn't too horrible.
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[ But thanks, probably. It's odd, Qubit's in a weirdly good mood today, in spite of all the typical Anchor bullshit going on. Maybe it's because the stakes are lower this time. This is fairly urgent, but no one's in real danger from it. And the debugging itself is tricky enough to hold his interest, but not tedious enough to frustrate him. It's like, the perfect sweet spot between boredom and bedlam. ]
So what brings you down here? Working on a fix, too?
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Yeah, pretty much. I uh, I wasn't expecting for there to be so many robots going all battynuggets all at once?
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It's because it's a software issue. They're skipping over huge chunks of the user input module, and they can't find their pathing boundaries. But the patch I'm working on should fix both those issues.
[ Hear that, Peter? He's got it covered. You don't really need to do much. Isn't that a nice feeling? ]
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Oh, cool, sounds like you've got it pretty much covered, then.
[And here's a few seconds of awkward silence before Peter just can't keep his mouth shut any longer. Thaaaaaaat's Peter.] ...So, sorry if this sounds weird, but I'm really glad to have someone like you here. I mean, I know it sucks here, and none of us even want to be here, but uh. I just- you've made things a lot easier for me, y'know?
[Now if only Peter could figure out how to RELAX]
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[ ... It does make him think, though. Obviously he didn't ask to be brought here, but ... he hasn't found himself wishing he were somewhere else, lately. It sucks being away from home for so long, of course, after leaving at such a precarious time, but he's long made his peace with that. Even though he's needed there, he's confident they won't be without him for long - he's cracked time travel once, after all, he can do it again.
As for Earth-β, he... doesn't miss it that much? Oh, he misses and worries about the people he met there, of course - Max and Tetsuo and Emmett and Angela and Newt and Hermann, particularly, after he said he wouldn't miss their wedding for the world - but he never truly found his niche there. He was redundant at best, and more often he just felt... out of place.
After a moment, he shrugs and looks back to the tablet, resuming his work where he left off. But he's not actually typing, oddly enough - just making quick, intentional gestures at the bottom of the screen, while new snippets of code spring into existence one after another. He keeps talking, though, because apparently he can do both at the same time. ]
Honestly, I'm happy anywhere I can do some good. And it's not like this is the worst dimension I've ever managed to strand myself in.
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Well, you're doing a lot of good here. Now I'm gonna stop being sappy and ask what the worst dimension you've ever been in is, because that sounds nuts.
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[ Anyway, has he gotten back to that definitely-not-magic coding he was doing? He gets back to that. ]
What was your last stop like, out of curiosity?
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Well, uh. It was kinda crap. It was this city that was ruled by these gods, right? They had to feed off of our emotions to like, power themselves. Some kinda god-fuel or something. I dunno. They could also like manipulate our emotions, make us feel certain ways, influence us to... do things that we wouldn't normally do. Then you snap out of it and you're like "holy shit, what the hell am I even doing" and it-- it wasn't great.
But, um. Anyway, so the gods could also like, teleport the city around to different planets? There was this race of killer robots after them, so that was how they hid from them. When I first got there the city was divided between a few islands and we had to get around on boats, then we went somewhere that was basically an arctic wasteland. That one was my favorite, I went with some people on an expedition to this abandoned alien bunker and it was super creepy but also kind of awesome. I have a ton of pictures from that. Then there was the jungle planet, and it was humid and terrible.
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Anyway. For the first half of that, Qubit's very visibly concerned - the whole emotional manipulation thing is a big yikes. He's had some experience with that sort of thing himself, and it was bad enough that he ended up pumping his brain full of nanotech to prevent it happening again. What might Peter have been forced to do against his will...?
... It's a downer question, though, so he doesn't ask it. The rest is much less of a bummer, and it piques his professional interest. ]
Intriguing...! And this city was on the larger side, I take it? Teleporting the whole area must have taken a phenomenal expenditure of energy to accomplish.
[ Man, wouldn't it be cool if you could just... teleport an entire city out of harm's way, if need be? Like, say, if someone were about to sink Singapore into the ocean? Wouldn't that be a great thing to be able to do? ]
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Nah it's cool go ahead and ask Peter about that time he strangled Newt the Kaiju Guy to death because the Rage God threw a hissy fit over her dead girlfriend, that'll go well.
Actually don't, he's already visibly uncomfortable thinking about that stuff. Thank god for this topic change.]
The one God, uh... Fear, I think it was? He could teleport the city around. You're right though, it took a ton of energy for him to do it, so whenever he needed to he'd uh. More or less turn the place into something out of a horror movie to get energy from us. Wasn't really a big fan of that.
[Like, the teleporting to a safe place away from killer robots thing was nice, but the horrible, gory shit really wasn't too great.]
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and he doesn't actually have that information, but this does mean I desperately want him to find out someday. and now back to your regularly scheduled non-metagaming!
Even without any specifics, he curls his lip in disgust at Fear's shenanigans. It's an interesting way to generate power, but at what cost? Kidnapping people to serve as human batteries, and then terrorizing them whenever you need a boost? ]
Repugnant. They sound more like monsters than gods.
[ Look, as much as he wanted to try and keep the discussion light, he can't just gloss over this. It's way too fucked up. ]
How long have they been doing this?
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Peter shrugs, half because he's agrees with that description and half because he has no goddamn idea man.]
It's uh, complicated? Like, I'd only been there for a year, but I don't think anyone that I met there had been there for longer than... three years? That sounds right. But we weren't the first group they'd been uh, feeding off of. Their previous uh, they called them hosts, they were these aliens that were kind of like big snails with tentacles. Actually, I still have a chunk of shell that I broke off of one. Still surprised I was able to hold onto that.
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Anyway. Three years would be bad enough, but then they've done the same to at least one other species... Will they just go on indefinitely, if they're not stopped? To call their victims hosts is morbidly appropriate, given their parasitic nature. ]
The same aliens whose bunker you found?
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[He takes his phone out, because he absolutely took pictures of that shit for research purposes, but he hesitates to actually turn his phone on. Sooo he's sitting here staring at his black phone screen.]
We buried it. Ground was frozen, I was the only one who could get the shovel through it.
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... Sorry. It wasn't my intention to dredge up bad memories.
[ He pauses, then- ]
We can talk about something else, if you'd rather.
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No, no, it's fine. I don't want you to think you have to walk on eggshells around me or anything. I'm okay, it's just...
[It's just A Lot and Peter's only just recently realizing just how much A Lot it really is.]
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