redmarsshit | test drive meme: december 2019

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That seems odd, very odd. But perhaps its also a blessing, that none of these people are going to bring back painful memories for Connor. This is probably bitter sweet enough as it is.

Maybe Angel will have some idea why it doesn't replicate people. Maybe that's too complicated. And none of them seem to notice them, or if they do they don't react. Again, probably a blessing.

He follows Connor into the house, and he can't pretend he's ever seen anything like it. No furniture, no chimney pot, no pictures on the walls. Not even peeling paint.

"You and your mother?" He asks, knowing very little about Connor's life, apart from about his father.

He nods.

"And the clan mother, and a few other people." He sits down on the shelf next to the fireplace, pulling his legs up and crossing them in front of him. "This is where I slept."

It's been years since he's been inside this house. Even if he might have passed the village since his people left, he's had no interest in going further. This is strange, but in a way, it's nice to show someone he cares about how he used to live.

"Is the Clan mother a leader, or a grandma?" He asks, squatting down by the fire. The smoke seems to naturally find it's way up to the roof, so the room is surprisingly clear, warm, and cosy.

He rather likes it, despite the fact it's completely different to what he imagined Connor's village to be like. He'd always imagined conical tents on rolling plains, but perhaps that's something else, some other tribe.

"It's a lot different to the place I grew up in," Completely the opposite to the house in Crawley, in fact. Maybe that's why he likes this so much.

He huffs quietly in amusement, not because it's necessarily a strange question, but ... It sounds innocent somehow.

"A leader," he says, and studies Jacob's face for a moment, trying to decide if he should ask at all. "What was it like where you grew up?"

Jacob nods. A woman in charge of the tribe. It's not all that strange to him, as there's a Queen of England on the throne, but he wonders why they don't let women do more things back home. "Women aren't even allowed to vote, when I come from."

He sits down properly now, cross-legged. "I grew up in a little town, south of London. It wasn't..." He gestures to the longhouse, "It wasn't quite like this. Father had one of the nicer houses, because he was the schoolmaster. There was a maid and a housekeeper. We didn't share the house with anyone else. It was better when we lived with my grandmother."

Although he barely remembers that.

Wonder how little 'little' is, according to Jacob. Probably bigger than this village. He tilts his head slightly as he studies Jacob's face for a moment. From the way Jacob talks about it ...

"Was it lonely?"

Had it been? He had always had Evie's company, and there were a handful of children that came to learn numbers and letters. But Jacob and Evie had attended extra lessons in the hours before and after school, learning the Creed, learning assassin history. Learning to climb and fight and kill.

"No. But I felt trapped."

He looks around again. He has no right to complain. No grounds to feel angry. He had a good childhood. He was fed and warm and educated. He might not have chosen the path he walked, but who did?

He nods slowly in understanding. When looking back on his life now, he has a view of his village that is perhaps better than it actually was, because it was cut short and he never got the chance to return. He would lie if he tried to claim that he'd never felt trapped too. Not so much by the prohibition to move outside of the valley, but by the hovering uncertainty and anxiety caused by the expansion of the colonists and what it meant for their task to guard the sacred site. It was always there.

What precisely made Jacob feel trapped doesn't really matter. It's unpleasant.

"Me too. I did not think the clan mother would let me leave, because my village was always told to not fight against the injustices our people had to endure. That was not our task. Even after the village was burnt, we were not to retaliate. It was difficult for me to accept."

He's certain he wasn't the only one. He wasn't the only one to lose family, to lose someone so important. But everyone trusted Oiá:ner.

Jacob can't understand that. You can't just sit back and let others attack you. Especially when they are the aggressors, when you are defending your home and family. He knows that Connor's people were defending an Artefact, something powerful and ancient and dangerous, but if they were all murdered, who would be left to take up that mantle?

He shakes his head.

"You always have to fight back. Not always with fists, but you can't just sit back. That just gives people like that permission to continue."

He offers Connor a supportive nod. "Is that why you left? To fight for them?"

"Yes." He sighs quietly. "Unfortunately, it was not as simple as I expected."

The Templars were not the ones who hurt them, even though Johnson certainly tried. It doesn't matter now. The Brotherhood will simply have to keep fighting for liberty for all, including the Indians and the slaves and the poor.

There's a bark of laughter. "It never is Connor, it never is."

Freeing London hadn't been. It wasn't just that Starrick had a hold on the powerful lords, but he had poisoned every area of society, from the poorest people addicted to his soothing syrup to merchants who were being forced to pay protection money to the gangs, to the Queen herself.

"But I guess we're out of it, for the moment. Again. Have to put all our skills to better use. Not exactly sure what use but... I'm sure Anchor will throw something else at us sooner or later."

He huffs with wry amusement.

"I expect it will."

Sometimes he finds himself wondering what it might feel like to be able to settle, for a while. With Angel. It's not really possible. He can't stay, and she can't come with him. And they can't let their guard down here.

He falls silent, staring into the flames. As though it could give him answers.

Like Charles, Connor seems to often pull into himself. Keeping his own counsel, that's what Evie would call it, and she'd encourage him to do the same.

But he can't. And he can't guess what Connor is thinking. He has an idea, but he's not sure, not really.

"We don't have an easy path. But sometimes the inclines aren't so steep, and you have people with you that make it less arduous."

It might not be much of a comfort, but Jacob believes it to be true. Life isn't easy anywhere but he wouldn't trade it. He would spend the rest of his days here woth them if he had the choice.

It's enough to make him lift his gaze again, to offer Jacob the hint of a smile. That is true. He doesn't have to carry everything on his shoulders alone. Never did have to, as much as he tried.

Angel and Jacob are more insistent about it than others, though.

"I know."

test drive meme: december 2019

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