![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
❪ test drive: #1 ❫
|
YOUR STORY BEGINS  The Storm came. You only remember darkness, but you don't remember much after that. All you know, perhaps, is that it was cold as you slept. You don't know for how long you slept, but the dreams were short, at least. You remember the expanse of stars and the universe that came in view. Every world and solar system ever known was displayed in your dreams in careful, pristine detail. You have also witnessed The Storm, which has devoured a fair portion of these galaxies. It was a dark, thick smog; ominous in appearance and ever foreboding. Your Earth and similar planets were immersed in The Storm. Somehow, you knew it would be the last you'd see of it. That was when she told you what happened, and how you can help. You knew that you'll be living somewhere new, even though you never asked for it. The details here weren't clear, but you knew you'd made a deal with Darma. Not long after, you'll wake at Thesa Station — Your body is still cold. It was all a dream, but somehow, you knew it wasn't — now, will you keep that promise you made to Darma? PROMPT: THE MESS HALL  It's fascinating to the Orbiters how such a dull room can be turned around so completely with people in it. All meals are served by Roman, and while all the food is delicious, some of it is a bit odd. Is that neon green soup? That’s hideous. If you happen to be in the mess hall at a particularly unlucky time, you and the food will suddenly begin to drift. Someone’s got jokes, and they’ve turned off the gravity control. Now it’s just you, your fellow refugees, and the floating sea of food. Wait, did that person just chuck a pie in your direction? PROMPT: TRAINING MODULES  While it’s all nice and well to familiarize oneself with Thesa Station, it is most advised that new arrivals venture out a bit. Not physically. No one is quite prepared for that yet. However, there will be several virtual reality training programs set for those who dare to be adventurous. For those who aren’t and don’t dare, well— good luck, all the same. Be advised, however, that participating in one of the training modules will start you off favorably with the Natha Orbiters’ in terms of REPUTATION. Once seated and appropriately strapped in, the system will automatically whir to life and the dense foliage and forestry of a section of El Nysa will open up. According to one’s map registry, it clear to see that it’s miles from the outer gates of Olympia, but not as far enough to venture into any other territories. So, in that sense, you’re safe.
PROMPT: STASIS UNIT  You have found the massive section of Thesa known as the Stasis Unit. There’s no special access required to access this part of Thesa Station, but refugees are warned that it may not be for the faint of heart. Here, in large pods that nearly cover every square inch of the space, are all of the people the Orbiters have managed to rescue. Your loved ones, your greatest enemy, your next door neighbor— you might find them here. These people are in a state of deep cryosleep. Due to the damaging effects of The Storm, their bodies are not yet ready to be awoken. PROMPT: HANGAR STATION  You find your way to the hangar station. Here rests are a factory worth of docked mobile suits. You recall how the Orbiters had previously spoken of a "space frontier," but only after seeing this you realize how real their words are. Most machinery have marks of wear and tear, assurance that they have indeed been used before, and an assembly of others are going through repairs and maintenance. No one seems to care that you've just strolled in. In fact, there seems to be a couple of the aircraft that beckon you to take a closer look. Maybe you’ll only look on the outside, maybe you'll be greeted by the hand of a mobile suit extending toward you and welcoming you to its cockpit. You go out and explore SPACE!!! Unfortunately, that mobile suit should have warned you it only had 20 minutes of flight time left in its system. Or, perhaps, you’re a particularly ambitious pilot and you’ve strayed past the designated perimeter. Either way, the HUD display is now blinking with errors, cropping up with a single message: DISTRESS SIGNAL. PROMPT: OMAGE
Upon receiving your mobile phone, you will be asked to set a username. Voila, you can now access the network! You can choose to send a message to the entire network, specific usernames, or you can try out the Orbiters’ service, Omage, which connects you to a random user. They thought this might be a good way for their new guests to make friends with each other...
Connecting to server... PROMPT: WILDCARD
You are welcome to write any scenarios in Thesa Station! Characters have been granted temporary access to the Observation Room, and are encouraged to study it carefully.
FINAL OOC NOTE
These threads may be carried over as game canon if players choose! Players are encouraged to submit TDM threads as application samples, but they are not required. Please direct any OOC questions to the questions thread below! A Training Module thread of AC length on the TDM may be submitted for 1 NATHA ORBITER REPUTATION POINT after acceptance.
QUICK NAV
premise ●
faq ●
world ●
map ●
reputation ●
npcs
taken ● reserves ● application calendar ● hiatus/drops ● modbox [ FULL NAVIGATION ] |
Giovanni Rammsteiner | DOGS: Bullets & Carnage
Stasis Unit
Hanger Station: 1
omage
omage
that's kind of a weird question
why wouldn't i be glad?
no subject
no subject
i guess i kind of stopped caring!
it's happened a few times now and
well you just can't keep being sad about it
no subject
training module 2a
Yeah, I can handle a brawl. [She answered him, crouching down and thinking about tactics.] Waiting for the guards makes sense. We need to think up a way to catch them off their balance. I think they'll be expecting us to put up a fight. You any good with faking sickness?
no subject
Her question comes, and he barks out a quick laugh.]
No doubt you're right. I can't say I've ever faked sickness before, [Being immune to it and all that, he's hardly had much experience.] but how hard can it be?
no subject
no subject
Unlikely. I'm not exactly built like most people.
no subject
Do... do you not have a mid-section?
[Is that what he's implying?]
no subject
Of course I do, but I'll recover too quickly for your effort to have been worth anything.
[He shrugs then, raises a brow.]
Perhaps you'd be better suited to faking illness than I.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
training modules
The whole jailbird prison sim scenario? Not really his first choice.
Peter glances over at his cellmate, hands hooked over his knees, fingers laced together as he takes a break from burning a hole staring at the door, trying to work out if he can get the door off its hinges since the walls look sturdy. Like, surprisingly well built sturdy like someone out there really, really took their job seriously.
"I can handle myself," Peter's basically on a name basis with the guy by now but he doesn't know too much about him other than that. Isn't like they were swapping their life stories. "Not sure I'd call it fun though."
Sure, adrenaline's a rush but if there's too many guards or they come in with backup or sedatives or tasers...
Now he doesn't know about Giovanni, but him, he doesn't like the idea of drooling away on the floor because he jumped the gun.
no subject
"Suit yourself, I suppose. We all have different ideas of what constitutes a good time," because imagining it is already something that stokes the blood, makes the thing in his Spine scrabble and pant, something faint but no less attended to for it. It's what he'd wanted to begin with, after all, a touch of violence. Some familiarity in an unfamiliar place.
It's a little hard to habour concerns over physical threats when one was designed for endurance.
Still. There's a part of him that supposes underestimation here would be a dangerous thing-- so far the simulation has proved flawless, good enough to trick even his heightened senses and as such what's to say that it hasn't been calibrated with his particular genetic advantages in mind? Or that, being a simulation, they wouldn't carry over into a place like this? However--
"Fun or no, it still seems the soundest tactic from where I'm standing. I wasn't made for negotiation, hahah."
no subject
If that's what Giovannia thinks is a good time, he has to wonder what the guy thinks an actual crapfest looks like.
Scary thought.
Peter shifts from where he's been sitting, planting his hands on his knees so he can lever himself up into a slightly stiff standing position with muscles protesting and a sore butt that wasn't a huge fan of the floor. At least they didn't bother restraining them them outside of the actual cell...which could swing in a few ways: either they're that sure this place is like Alcatraz and they'll be lucky to make it ten feet from the door or they assume that whatever's outside the prison's walls are way worse. Peter looks at the bright side - at least he gets to stand up and move around, and the cooler part? He isn't chained to Giovanni either.
"Okay, so I'll do the sweet talking. Rate you're going, you're gonna triple-dog dare them to take a swing at us," Peter glances at his cellmate, the look on his face? See, that right there? Way too confident for someone who doesn't have a legit escape plan of his own up his sleeves that's a little more concrete than Beat the Jackasses a new one and hope that all works out. "Did they say anything to you before you got in here?"
Because Peter, he remembers getting into the training module and then waking up facedown on the floor, with Giovanni already awake and looking almost quietly amused at everything.
no subject
That look of quiet amusement remains as he watches the other man rise from his seated position, though it's followed by the sharp click of tongue against teeth, a little shake of the head that seems to convey his feelings of vague disappointment without the use of words.
"Suit yourself. But a little violence never hurt anyone," and the crooked slant of his smile then, it's sharp and wry and knowing, "if nothing else, your talking will provide a fair distraction whilst I establish the best way to disable them."
Confident, yes. Cocky, certainly-- though internally he isn't so sure. Still doesn't know just how well this simulation 'knows' them, so to speak, whether it would be prepared for his particular skill-set. The lack of extra restraints could be seen as both promising or foreboding, depending on how one chooses to look at it. Underestimation of their capabilities, or a certainty so complete that there didn't appear to be any need. There's only one way, he supposes, to find out for sure.
But for the moment there's his unwilling cellmate's question to deal with, and with an air of detachment he shrugs.
"You and I were the only ones here upon my waking...if one can really call it that," he's never dealt with a simulation before, he has no idea what else to call it, "if I'd known it would be this tedious, I really wouldn't have bothered."
no subject
He's half-turned toward his cellmate, working out the kinks in his aching shoulders and lower back, glancing sidelong to keep tabs on Giovanni. Guy's hard to read. He gets he isn't worried about this - in Peter's opinion, a little worry's perfectly healthy - but the truth is he doesn't have much more than that. Doesn't know how he is in a fight. Doesn't know if he'll even have his back in a fight. Guy could sell him out or use him as bait and slip away and Peter might not be able to do a thing about it.
So basically this is like the old days, before Xandar. Before the Guardians.
He faces Giovanni with his hands planted squarely on his hips, eyebrows raised. "So what made you get in there, then?"
Because Peter wouldn't necessarily say that awaiting possible torture/interrogation/whatever is tedious. Not how he'd word it, but maybe that's just him.
no subject
no subject
but then, unlike giovanni, lenalee comes and goes into the stasis unit with little to no hint of trepidation. perhaps if he had caught her at the start, at the very first instance she's learned of the room,
he might have seen a similarity in their reactions and opinions.
she's steeled herself then, reluctantly accepted what it's for in the few hours she's spent in there.
lenalee observes him mildly, takes in the shift in his expression. has he not gone further inside yet, seen anything else beyond the view from the entrance? ]
Is it not for you? [ she returns the question before she starts for the entrance once more. ]
no subject
(Mother. Heine. All of it.)
And so he shakes his head, even as this unknown woman turns away from him. Face made tight around a frown.]
I don't know. Hence the question.
no subject
lenalee pauses once more in her tracks, her gaze flickering at his expression. the lines on his face, the tug at the corner of his mouth. all very telling. ]
Then I'm afraid I can't answer your question. [ for him. on his behalf. ] That would be presumptuous of me.
[ there's a small lilt to her lips, the strained start to an attempt at a smile. more helplessly wry than openly friendly to her words.
there are more words waiting on the tip of her tongue, words she would have happily lashed out if he had been someone else. someone familiar. but he's not, so they stay there out of civility. instead she turns her gaze back to the units inside, glowing under the cold light.
are you afraid of seeing them? ]
They're waiting. They won't be going anywhere else.
no subject
He still can't decide which is worse-- finding them in here, any of them, that soon they may wake and things will return to the way they had always been, only in a different setting, a different shape. Or finding out that they're nowhere at all.
Both possibilities crush and compel him. Without them, what purpose would he have? Would he need one? And with them-- well. There's only the long bleak slide into oblivion that he both fears and longs for.
And so he answers with a sardonic drawl, voice slipperysmooth but bitter.]
Waiting. That's if they're here at all, hahah.
[And in his tone there are traces of his ambivalence, making it that much clearer that he doesn't know, really, what he wants to find in here.]
no subject
the bitterness registers to her like a familiar friend's call. a reminder of what she once was and, perhaps, still is. but as always, she makes no note of it. simply acknowledges it and his words a slight tilt of her head, a mild lift of her brow. ]
Then what is holding you back from finding out? Surely, someone brimming with self-confidence as you ...
[ lingering, asking questions with carefully-crafted nonchalance, waiting for others' answers despite the empty satisfaction it brings.
surely.
a sound leaves her, an ironic huff. it's probably bravado, after all. ]
Wouldn't feel so uncertain about seeing it for yourself.
no subject
(worthless mutt, useless dog, stand up and fight)
But it's good to know, he supposes, that the mask still holds. That he still has a false exterior to hide behind, practiced and cold.
Although it still leaves him the problem of how to respond in the wake of such a statement. Because he remains uncertain down to the core of himself, whether it's better to be torn apart by the not knowing, or broken by the reality that waits inside these ominous halls.
His shoulders slice at the air in a knifey shrug. Settles, finally, on a non-answer--]
Perhaps, in the end, it doesn't matter one way or the other.
(no subject)
(no subject)
stasis unit.
his friend was too prideful to be rescued, to not have fought to the vest last breath when the storm came for his world. to not have woken himself up out of sheer, pigheaded stubbornness once he became enclosed within a pod, because he was the sort who would rather die than to be seen like this. and so if gilgamesh wasn't already roaming around causing problems on the station, then it so follows that he wouldn't be anywhere at all. it was sad, but enkidu had come to terms with this thousands of years ago.
that being said, given enkidu's sense of direction, it can't be helped if he ended up amongst the pods anyway, because some things just happened whether you were prepared for them or not. it's with a quiet sort of curiosity that he'd been roaming from sleeping face to sleeping face, only stopping when he realizes that there was someone standing there around the corner, and that someone was getting ready to address him.
the question comes as no surprise. it's difficult enough to come to terms with your loved ones being encased in glass without touching on the philosophical elements of it, or so enkidu was led to believe, based on what he knew about human mentality. but the furtiveness of the question, followed by the quick, jerky motions of the man's chin, causes enkidu to believe that there must be more than that here. it's intellectual curiosity that causes him to pause and to sincerely consider the question, as though the answer would decide the fate of a world. )
It is not for me to judge worth. My answer cannot satisfy your need. ( in the end, however, he supposes that that is the only answer he's liable to come up with, and the rue shows in enkidu's expression as he considers the young man's expression once more.
he's lingering outside of the room, is he not? therefore, there must be a part of him that wants to enter, as much as the part of him that wants to remain outside. but in enkidu's mind, the decision is obvious. he turns. )
Come, walk with me.
( and without another word, the tailend of his green hair disappears back into the room.
giovanni's move. )
no subject
Not so very long ago, he'd thought it was only a matter of time before he came apart, piece by fractured piece. How absurd it seems, to think that he could be the only survivor, now.
But much like this stranger's thoughts on his lost friend, unknown to him as such thoughts are, it seems preposterous to think of Mother contained somewhere in here, frozen in place, sleeping beneath a shield of glass. She's too big bright all-encompassing to be held at bay by anything so mundane...but on the flipside of that, it seems just as absurd to think she could have been destroyed.
As for Heine. Well. That's different, but if he doesn't have that point of reference against which to define himself, if he no longer has the promise of a final reckoning to keep driving him forward, then surely he has nothing at all.
It's too much, all of this. It fills up his head and knocks against his ribs until he finds it difficult to breathe, metal bands snapped tight around his lungs, constricting him. As such, there's hesitation in him when the stranger makes his suggestion (if that's what it can be called), and almost he doesn't respond to it, almost turns sharp on his heel and walks away.
But then the moment breaks, and with that same somnambulistic quality, as though his body doesn't quite belong to him (it never really has, has it?), he instead finds himself moving forward, hot on the stranger's heels. The interior of the stasis unit rises in acres of metal and glass and sleeping bodies in terrible alternation, the distance between him and everything else seeming uncrossable, somehow. But he tails the green-haired man all the same.
For the moment, he says nothing.]