test drive meme: december 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. santapocalypse.

As the suns set over the unforgiving landscape around Anchor, a bright light flares in the sky, streaking low and fast across the horizon, throwing off flares of green, white, and red.

The impact...is not explosive. Just another flare of light, and then smoke to mark where the object went down. Whatever it was, it didn't come from the redshift. It came from within the planet's atmosphere, such as it is, and landed barely a few steps outside the city.

Characters who choose to investigate will find something strange at the bottom of the pillar of smoke. They'll find a small ship, one that seems to have been cobbled together with pieces of a dozen different ships from a dozen different universes. The cockpit is busted wide open, a red jacket caught on a piece of glass, with no other sign of the pilot. Except for, y'know, the red ringing the broken glass, but we'll just ignore that, shall we?

Scattered all around the vehicle, some of them scorched on the outside but otherwise unharmed, are boxes, boxes, boxes. None are bigger than a shoebox, and all wrapped beautifully with bows on top. Characters who start opening them will find box after box containing nonsense items that might be valuable to someone, but maybe not anyone here. But if they open enough, eventually they'll find something inside that could only be intended for them, it’s so specific, odd, or precious. Any other box they open after that will be empty.

Those that dare enter will find the ship appears larger on the inside. And it also seems to be mostly made of hallways. Hallways that lead nowhere, hallways that, from time to time, are filled with an ominous...jingling.

The source of that jingling is the reindire.

Twisted, monstrous creatures with talons in place of hooves, they will hunt whoever enters the ship through its halls and even back across the wasteland should characters attempt to run. Most of them can be calmed, even tamed. Eaten, if hunting for venison is your character's jam (have at, SSSSs).

Only one cannot be reasoned with, or easily defeated.

The largest of all the reindire, one with fangs and wings and a lust for blood. And a big red nose that shoots lasers. You wouldn't want it following you back to Anchor, would you? Best to defeat it out in the sands, where it can't do any real harm.

b. keep calm & carry on.

As characters have worked on improving the city, they've knocked a few loose screws back into place and rewired a few polarities that needed reversing and now, a new area has opened up. It announces itself with a loud screech as the bulkheads that kept it blocked off open up. The new space is huge, at first seemingly empty.

This space does what the VR rooms can't. It reads minds.

It won't show scenes from home, no, but it will create a facsimile of a place that your character would find most relaxing. And this isn't the simple visual experience of the VR rooms. This is full-sensory immersion. Characters will see, yes, but also be able to touch, smell, even taste what's on the air in their surroundings. If there is fruit, they can pick and eat it - it won't satisfy them, but they'll be able to taste what's there. If there's water, they'll be able to swim it in, and will even feel wet until they climb back onto the shore or out of the pool.

Some lucky souls will even get Anchor's therapy AI chiming in to their scenes, with suggestions like, "Talk to your anxiety the way you would to a friend. Ask it where it comes from, see what it’s doing for you, and redirect it into healthy self-expression." Or, "Have you tried yoga?" or, occasionally, "I think you really really need a nap."

The focus of the room is to help characters relax. Those rolling blackouts that have been happening around Anchor ever since the room opened up? They’re probably nothing to worry about. Right?

c. the network.

Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to ask a friend to back you up on the reindire hunt? 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

[mustact]

There's a quiet exhale, almost a huff, equally as wry. When that is all you need to think about, well ... It tends to occupy your mind, distract you from things that somehow weigh heavier.

"I do not believe you have told me much about them."

The people he fought with, who obviously mattered to him. Ratonhnhaké:ton hasn't asked, but he wouldn't deny that he's been curious.

[borntohurt]

"Mm. Didn't talk about them to much of anyone."

Absently, he runs his thumb along the edge of his hand, back and forth like rubbing a worry stone. Tracing the burn scar left behind. Perhaps now was as good a time as any.

"Used to run on my own, for the most part. It was more dangerous, but a lot of people would have taken one look at me and...felt some kind of way. But falling in with them like I did, it felt different. Most of them treated me like any other person."

Here, he gives the other a knowing look. "And that wasn't usually the case."

[mustact]

He nods slowly in understanding. He'd been lucky too. A lot of people treated him like any other person, and he had the luck of having a British father and thus lighter skin than most of his people. When his lighter skin wasn't seen as a virtue, however, he was less for not being one or the other, called a half-breed far more often than he was called a savage. His father received some kind of respect for 'getting a taste of the forest fruit', but he, who had never chosen it, didn't receive even the most basic of courtesies. Not to mention how the colonists treated his people as a whole.

If one were to compare him and Charles, he's certain he'd be treated better nonetheless.

Everyone at the homestead were different. Those he'd helped, or those who had simply found an opportunity to build something. They saw everyone as simply people, who loved and hurt and had their own thoughts and beliefs, and no one was considered less worth than any other. One would think that is simply to be expected, but it seems to be something rare and invaluable.

"So you stayed."

[borntohurt]

"I stayed. Longer than I should have." He reaches down absently to worry a blade of grass between his fingers. Feels so real, it might as well be, and he doesn't give its legitimacy a second thought in the moment.

"Saw the people I cared about dying, and...there was nothing I could do. I knew if I stayed, I'd end up the same. Everything fell apart because the man leading us got so lost in his pride and greed he couldn't see the people around him anymore. And all his pretty words didn't mean so much then."

There's a tension around the edges of his face now, jaw clenching briefly. "He talked about being equal, but he threw our people to the wolves as a distraction to save his own skin. I couldn't look at him after that."

[mustact]

Betrayal. He knows very well what that feels like. How easy it is for a man to reach a point where he will make excuses for anything and stop seeing people as people. Perhaps the problem is he simply stops caring.

It's bitter. It's always bitter.

Ratonhnhaké:ton takes a deep breath, turning his gaze to the sky as he thinks about Washington, and Adams and his Sons of Liberty. How they would talk about freedom yet hold people in chains and sell them as property.

"It seems it is easy to talk, and much more difficult to act accordingly."

[borntohurt]

"Talk was enough, for a while. I believed him. I thought..."

His lips thin for a moment as he shakes his head. But those times are behind him, now. Wherever Dutch is, whatever he's up to, it's no longer his concern. That life is done and dust, even as he stares at the few things about that life he honestly might miss.

"Then I met you. Angel, Jacob, Cassandra, everyone back in the city who treated me fair, even when it didn't get them anything in return. Knowing it can be like that...it changes things."

[mustact]

Talk is always enough, until it becomes time for the person talking to make a choice. Then you can truly see what kind of person they are. Washington has showed it. Adams has showed it. And over and over again the people at his homestead have shown that they do truly believe what they say.

His people had been hopeful, despite all that had happened, but they were still not allowed to leave the valley. The village was always safer, even when it wasn't safe at all. Even so, he'd been raised with the idea that it was possible to work together, to reconcile, if the will was there, and he hasn't lost that belief thanks to his friends. And he is glad to hear that Charles can see it too.

He wants to believe it's possible.

"I think we get more than enough in return without asking for anything."

Someone who cares, someone who can share his wisdom, someone who will cherish and protect them for as long as they live. That matters far more than whatever gain this leader Charles speaks of might have wanted.

[borntohurt]

Charles's smile gently creases the corners of his eyes as he nods, hums his agreement. It's the same all around. The sense of community is enough, in a way it never truly could have been in the gang. It was what the gang always aspired towards but never quite reached, too mired in violence and the dreams of a narcissist who wanted them to all live equally and free...but not quite as equal and free as him.

But not everyone was like that. Those that they'd lost along the way...many of them could have done well, even in a strange place like this. He almost chuckles to himself, imagining how baffled Arthur might have been by all this, and the swearing and complaining to follow.

"There are some that I think could have done well, living like this. Outside of all of that. They just never got that chance. I owe it to them to try, I think."

[mustact]

"I think you owe it to yourself to try."

Ratonhnhaké:ton has only just started learning how to live for himself. All this time he has lived for his mother and everyone else who lost their lives that day, and for the people who were still alive that he wanted to keep alive. He doesn't think that was wrong or bad. But it is strange, to take steps away from that and do things he wants to do and allow himself to have things he wouldn't have a few years ago.

[borntohurt]

He huffs, half-nodding. Fair point.

"It can be both."

But it's always been easier to look to someone else, even if the choices and consequences rest solely on him, now. He's committed to living his own life, for himself, but so much of that is always going to be wrapped up in the people he's chosen.

People like Connor, who deserve to have someone in their corner no matter what.

[mustact]

That he can accept. To live entirely for yourself would be to live without company. So long as it's mutual, and he's been lucky in life, to have many who are willing to give back what he offers them. Even Haytham, it seems, tried to do what he could and wasn't as selfish as he seemed.

"Mm. I still need to learn it too."

[borntohurt]

"Mm." It's true. Connor has that same tendency, to think of others first. Whether it's for the same reason or not, he's still a far better man. His principles, his heart, they've always seemed pure to him.

"I think we have the sort of people with us who will remind us, if we forget," he points out with a wry smile.

[mustact]

He laughs quietly, more breath than sound, and smiles with nothing but fondness.

"We certainly do."

If it wasn't for Angel being the way she is, telling him to make choices for himself for a change, they wouldn't be where they are. Wouldn't be together. While they perhaps could have stayed simply friends, he can't deny that it brings him much joy.

[borntohurt]

"I don't suppose your order has any instructions for what to do if you end up sent to another world. So it would be up to you, regardless."

Charle furrows his brow.

"What happens if we stay here, or get sent to another world? Do you remain an Assassin, no matter where you wind up? Or would you ever decide to change that?"

[mustact]

It's a good question. Somewhere like this place, where it's unlikely that there are any Templars, perhaps it's easy to think that a member of the Brotherhood would have no purpose. However, he thinks the Brotherhood and being an Assassin is much more than simply fighting the Templar Order. His beliefs have not change.

Perhaps he has the freedom to choose - more than he ever felt he had - but even so, he only shakes his head.

"I will always be an Assassin. Perhaps I did not choose to join it, but I believe in the same thing the Brotherhood does. I will never stop fighting for freedom, and against tyranny, and always seek to stop or alleviate suffering. It matters not where I am."

[borntohurt]

"Gets a little vague in a place like this, doesn't it?"

One that offers them such respites as this. But it could all change, he knows that. Any moment, the danger could surface. Do they just continue to deal with it as it comes, or try to dig deeper, discover more, in the hopes of finding an answer? It's all little too grand in design for him.

"I want to help them, too. Keep everyone safe. It's the 'how'."

[mustact]

"I believe there will be many people here who do not wish to stay, as it was in the City. We need to find out what it is that brings people here."

If the first arrivals had time to build all of this, it's likely very difficult, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try. And in the meantime, they need to look after each other. If you ask him, little has changed from the City. Some will want to stay, others will not. So long as there is free will, it doesn't matter which.

[borntohurt]

"And what happened to those who left. This place has been damaged, but it seems more from neglect than conflict."

Though it's hard to say for sure. He just has a gut feeling to go on, and the way the collapsed parts of the complex appear to him. Nothing more.

[mustact]

"Perhaps they found a way back."

He doesn't quite believe it, however. It seems like they should have left information behind about it, if so. That, and considering how the man on the introduction video seemed, and how big this is and how many people must have surely lived here, it seems unlikely that none of them would like to say.

"But it was most likely something worse."

[borntohurt]

"Probably."

With a quiet sigh, Charles moves to pull himself to his feet. He's stayed idle long enough. Glimpses of the familiar are nice, but there's a lot left for them to do.

"We'll keep looking until we find something. We've got time, I think."

[mustact]

He stands up at the same time as Charles does, and nods.

"This place seems safe enough." There's a pause, as a slight smile spreads on his face. "I am glad the four of us are here."