test drive meme: november 2019

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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.

a. the truth hurts.

As though everything happening in the past month wasn't enough, there's been a minor explosion in one of the labs. No one hurt, if you don't count the hapless maintenance bot that caused the explosion in the first place.

But there are gases drifting through the laboratories, some of them making their way into the air vents, invisible to the purifiers in the system thanks to the explosion. And those gases are leaking into the air around Anchor, little pockets of danger waiting to be breathed in.

Those who breathe the gasses in might be the unluckiest Anchorites of all.

They're stuck telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth for the next five hours, give or take. Good luck with that!

b. retromedia.

Oblivious to what's going on inside Anchor, the shift rages outside, bringing shadows of things and places from other worlds, those things flickering into existence and out of it again.

The bad news is that the Whole Foods is gone.

The good news is the shift left something behind in its place.

A long, squat building, with cement walls painted over with stucco and punctuated by big windows. A flat roof with slanted sides, painted a deep blue. In bold yellow letters bolted to the roof, a sign:

BLOCKBUSTER
The sliding doors are broken, bouncing open and shut steadily, but the inside is clean and well-stocked with rack upon rack upon row upon row of VHS tapes, all of them neatly packaged in plastic boxes. Some of them have the movie covers on them, but most bear the Blockbuster logo and tiny labels running down the back, declaring the box's contents. There's a giant, somewhat busted up standee of Tim Allen as The Santa Clause, flickering holiday lights strung unevenly from the ceiling, and symbols of various seasonal holidays stuck up along the walls and windows.

Any movie you could possibly want lies within, or at least any movie you could possibly want that was released on Earth during or before 1994. And don’t worry if you can't find a VHS player in Anchor! There are whole shelves of VCRs tucked into one of the closets, apparently part of an aborted plan to rent out VCRs along with movies.

Poor Blockbuster. They were innovators. And now they're lost to the sands of the red shift.

c. sweet sweet self-care.

While sickness persists inside Anchor's walls, those in recovery seem to be getting better every day. And while the health bots have been working overtime, some of their processes have gotten a little borked up from all the work they've been doing.

Along with medical care, they're now administering lectures to their captive audiences about the value of diet and exercise, the importance of personal hygiene, and the healing properties of massage. Some of them are forcing massages on people just to prove their point, which, y'know, could be a lot worse. At least they're good at massages?

The spa bots are getting in on the action, nagging the healthy to come for relaxation and decontamination in one gloriously bubbly swoop. They've converted several of their spa pools into sweet-smelling antibacterial baths, so you can make extra-sure you got those visiting-a-sick-friend cooties off!

No, seriously, go with them. Before they drag you there and make you take a bath like an unruly two-year-old.

Believe them, it's worth it. If you complete a circuit of the spa, including the antibacterial baths and the fresh and zesty decontamination shower, you get a shiny sparkly holographic sticker that says "YOU ARE FREE OF DISEASE" in little cheerful bubble-letters. They designed them all by themselves, totally from scratch. Are you proud?

d. the network.

Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to ask a friend which 1980s teen movie classic to watch at movie night? Maybe you need to hold your sat phone up to whatever crazy thing you're seeing and send out a recording to double-check if your eyes are deceiving you and what you're looking at is real?

Whatever the reason, the network is going strong, so feel free to include a post to it in your top-levels.

Navigation.

Comments

[vosseeker]

[ Starscream had, admittedly, been looking down for potential squishable obstacles. His gaze snaps up at the sound of his own name to lock onto Peter's form clinging to the wall with the preternatural acuity of someone with literal missile lock. His wings hike in agitation. No. No, he was leader of the Decepticons now and he was going to insist on his proper title! ]

That is Lord Starscream to you!

[ ( give him a moment. then. ) ]

Wait, how do you know my name?

[itsnotaonesie]

No, no, it's just Starscream. I'm like 95% positive.

[He is straight up just fucking with him, naturally.

Oh but wait, Screech here doesn't recognize Peter. This might get awkward. Well, more awkward.]

I-- we met in Hadriel? You were a jet, and then I climbed on you and you got annoyed by it? I-- come to think of it, you were way smaller then.

[vosseeker]

[ Insolent human!! Starscream was definitely going to come back to the whole title issue, but at the moment he's nearly too taken aback by what he's being told. Hadriel? The name, or place, pinged absolutely nothing in his memory banks. ]

Obviously I'm a jet! What do you mean, climbed on me? If you had, of course I'd be annoyed!

[ Smaller?? That made no sense either, Starscream hadn't reformatted himself to a new frame in ages. And all the frames he'd had in the past were about the same size, in any case. ]

You're babbling nonsense, human.

[itsnotaonesie]

[Peter is just the most insolent.

This is interesting, though. Peter turns himself round on the wall and takes more of a crouching position, rubbing at his chin as he looks Starscream over while not really listening to him. He's off in his own little nerd-ass science world, don't mind him.]

Musta been some sort of mass displacement going on when Hadriel's Door brought you in, but-- hey, you didn't come through the teleporter here, did you? No... no, you just came in from outside. Weird.

[vosseeker]

[ A warning sound stirs out of Starscream's vocalizer as Peter appears to tune him out, taking a step closer to the wall-clinging human. ]

I do not know any Hadriel, and you would do well to explain yourself. What is this place?

Teleporter? So there is a space bridge here. Good, you'll take me to it immediately.

[itsnotaonesie]

[Peter does not seem too concerned with Starscream looming in closer to him, he's way more interested in trying to solve This Riddle.]

Don't worry about Hadriel. This place is called Anchor, it was an abandoned space station until we all started appearing here.

Teleporter only brings people in, but maybe you'll have better luck fixing it than we have? Assuming you can even fit in the room...

[Hmmmm that might be an issue. Poor giant robot.]

[vosseeker]

[ Hrm. Starscream definitely intends to pursue Hadriel at a later time, but for now, it seems like the most prudent course of action is to continue pressing this human for answers. At least Peter's description confirmed that others had appeared here in the way he had -- or somewhat the same, since he inferred from Peter's surprise at him coming in from outside that most didn't do that. ]

Anchor, then. Who built this station and why was it abandoned? How many others have appeared here?

[itsnotaonesie]

[Peter taps his chin HMMMM]

We don't really know exactly who built it, but just based on the structures and architecture, we assume that whoever it was was human, if that helps. A lot of information that we've dug up suggests that the previous residents all died somehow, aaaaand I wanna say there's maybe thirty people here?

[vosseeker]

[ sounding sour: ] Yes, I gathered humans were the architects of this place given how diminutive everything is.

[ Thirty people, hardly a formidable force, but if they were well supplied... (He thinks of MECH. He now knows better than to dismiss humans without gaining their measure, first.) ]

And you all appeared here... suddenly? Without explanation?

[itsnotaonesie]

See, I figured I'd specify since I've met a lot of different aliens who are roughly the same size as humans. I'm sayin' the style is really human-like, not just the size.

[But now he's just arguing because he can. SIGH okay back to the important stuff.]

But yeah, that's what happened. From what we've heard, people used to just appear at random on the planet's surface and either die or mutate because of the radiation. All the portal here does is funnel people into Anchor instead.

[vosseeker]

Most organic species are small.

Yes, well, this portal seems to have missed the memo in my case... how fortunate I have no need to be concerned by radiation.

[ That was... mostly true. There were still certain types, and extreme levels, that could affect Cybertronians. But broadly speaking, he didn't have anything to fear by the amounts humans had to worry about. ]

And you're... what? The welcoming committee?

[itsnotaonesie]

Nah, not really. Just your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man.

[And that joke is only funny to Peter. Le sigh.]

I-- now, this is just a guess, but I think the portal might have known that it wouldn't be able to handle someone of your uh, girth. You're kind of huge, dude, I'm not so sure you'd even fit in the new arrival room at all.

[vosseeker]

[ Starscream wonders whether Spider-Man is just some sort of strange human subspecies he hasn't bothered to read up on, but it's what Peter says after that catches him off guard. His wings hike upward in annoyance. ]

I don't have--! Girth is a platitudinal way of saying "slow" and "heavy"! I'll have you know this is a finely calibrated Seeker frame, not some airborne battering ram.

[ He's definitely getting fixated on the wrong intent behind Peter's statement. ]

[itsnotaonesie]

Y'know, now that you mention it, you really do have more of a twink build.

[Just completely straight faced over here. He'll be thrilled if the space robot knows what a twink is, but if he doesn't, that's fine too.]

But yeah, having seen your plane form, I can definitely see that you were designed for speed and agility. Very slick, I dig it.

[vosseeker]

[ Suspicion! But Starscream has sadly not spent enough time on the internet to know what the term means, and when Peter follows it up with praise for his alt mode (even if he's still baffled as to how he knows it), he's forced to conclude that it was something positive. That, at least, seems to mollify him slightly. ]

Then I'll have to explore as much of this terminal as I'm able.

[itsnotaonesie]

[Ha haaa, giant alien robots are the best. But yeah the plane thing is legit one of the coolest things Peter's ever seen in his life, even if Starscream is Starscream.]

Yeah... You can probably fit into the garages and parts of the lab just fine, maybe some of the more open areas on the agricultural level. So-- out of curiosity, how well can you handle the radiation outside? Just- it would be amazing if you could do some scouting outside at some point? We don't know much of what's out there, and you could do it way faster and way more efficiently than a group of humans with a couple busted land vehicles could.

[You bet your ass he's sucking up. Everything outside has been something that Peter's been curious about since the day he got here and here's a dude that can turn into a plane.]

[vosseeker]

The lab, hmm?

[ Now Starscream sounds more interested. Peter's interest in the outside environment - and his shameless ply of the Seeker's ability - could certainly be a way to gain an advantage here. ]

Depending on the type and concentration of ionising radiation, Cybertronians generally don't suffer ill effects until it reaches the 150-200 sievert range, or about thirty times what's considered a fatal dose for a human. There are other factors -- frame shielding, for example, or exotic radiations -- but that'd be an adequate estimate.

[itsnotaonesie]

Some of the smaller rooms you wouldn't really fit in, but I'm sure we could rig something up for you.

[see look at him being all helpful, no ulterior motives here whatsoever.]

And are you like, already equipped with sensors or something that can give you some kind of radiation reading? I'd honestly be surprised if you weren't, but I figure it couldn't hurt to ask.

[vosseeker]

[ Starscream's going to find there's indeed a lot of areas that will be inaccessible. He might not realize it yet, but he's going to end up having to rely a lot more on the other Anchor residents than he's expecting. ]

For someone who hasn't deigned to give me his name yet, you're very presumptuous about the qualifications of my frame.

[itsnotaonesie]

[Oh noooo sucks to be you Nerdscream]

Oh, sorry, it's Peter. I spend a lot of time in R&D if you ever need anything.

[vosseeker]

[ It is going to be The Worst when he finds out. (Or at least he's going to act the worst about it.) ]

R&D you said... and just what sort of projects have you been cultivating here?

[itsnotaonesie]

[cry moar Shitscram]

I mostly use the space to upkeep my own equipment and repair things for the station. I haven't had a lot of time to start too many personal projects.