test drive | 1

[unplug]

test drive

Welcome to the first test drive for Systemwide! We are excited to have you. All prospective players are welcome to tag in and test out their characters, be they unplugged or free born. We would like to offer a range of scenarios that can be expected during gameplay, which are also useable prompts for app samples, and of course, if something else about the setting strikes you, feel free to come up with your own!

Please put your character name and canon in your subject line, and indicate which prompt you are launching from.

simulation | maybe this is your first time. perhaps you've been here countless times. it's a room, as confined as a boxing ring, as expansive as a battle field, whatever you need it to be, whatever you're here to train for.

1.

Before you is a city of rooftops, empty of human life. This is a safe place, because while it may hurt you, at least it won't kill you. Perhaps you are practicing your influence over reality, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Are you successful, or are you failing to free your mind? Perhaps you're helping someone else overcome their fear of heights.

And of course, an operator can always load up some Agent-like training programs to make it interesting.

2.

Congratulations, you know kung-fu, or maybe some other system of combat, like crazy parkour archery, cartwheeling with guns, or sword fighting on horse back. Perhaps you're trying out something even more fantastic, a magical skill or a superpower.

Show me. Or a friend.

mission | whether on board a ship or with your mind sunk deep into a Matrix, you will have to join the battle eventually. sometimes things go terribly wrong. what are you gonna do about it?

3.

Something's gone wrong with this extraction.

There's a lot of information to process. Your target's been extracted, and that's the good news -- your ship, in reality, is heading to their location now -- but the bad news is your team has been scattered. You could be anywhere within this Matrix, deep in the jungle, or lost on a subway train, or staggering out of the crashing waves of a night time beach, and the operator needs a minute to figure out your exact location before they can direct you to a port out of here, or send another operative to collect you.

All you have to do is stay alive for that long. Easy, right?

4.

You were warned of this. You've been prepared in endless simulations, with a dozen cautionary tales, training sessions with the EMP. Still, it's nothing like you imagined, when the operator shouts: "Sentinel closing in at seven o' clock. It's gaining."

And then the shriek of metal.

reality | as much as many Matrixes are designed to be a comfort, you have to face the real world sometime. or maybe this is the world you have only ever known.

5.

Annual celebrations are rare to come by, but the anniversary of Neo's Truce is one that always draws in the crowd. The event takes place in a massive cavern in Zion known as the Temple, and there is music, and there is dancing [a little NSFW].

Everyone is there.

Where are you?

6.

The wind on your face, up here on the desolate surface, tastes bitter, different to what it feels like in a simulated reality. It's freezing cold and always dark, but sometimes, you need a reminder about what it is you're fighting for. Or maybe you're seeing the wasteland of Earth for the first time.

Either way, you shouldn't be out here for too long. The machines might find you.

wildcard | choose your own adventure.

7.

Perhaps you're riding with the Dothraki, or sitting under the Sorting Hat for the first time. Maybe the pleather bodysuit is pinching under your armpits as the traffic of the 90's roars by, or the Nova Empire's sprawling city glitters, towering above you. Maybe you're showing someone around the place you called home for your entire fictional life.

Or perhaps it's nothing as fantastical as that: the Council meeting droned on for two hours, and you're just happy to be home, even if it's a tiny enclosure with rust-edged furniture. Maybe someone's coming over for lunch, and there are real greens in the protein slurry today; maybe you're about to ask to join a crew.

There are infinite worlds to explore, but try to remember that only one of them is real.

Comments

[onyourfeet]

Sass my platitudes at your own peril.

[ His tone is pitched easy and lighthearted, but so it was the last time she got thrown across the room by mechanical spinning monsters. He's a salesman at heart, more than soldier.

And the programme hardly needs more than a signal from her to get started. The one she'd been eyeing off makes an immediate dash, sliding smooth and spinning with bone smashing zeal, quick enough to push her reflexes but thankfully within her line of sigh.

But there's one creeping up into her blind spot, and it makes a winding turn for her at the same time, the sound of whirring machinery and slicing air giving it away. ]

[hwic]

[ Her chin tips up at his refusal to take her bait and run with it, but it won't be the first time, won't be the last. She's done this before, gotten angry, demanded if they expect her to be grateful for what they've done to her, and the answer has always been no. Gratitude is never the expectation.

Because she chose it. This. The truth.

She takes a sip of liquor, and it's not bad enough to make her sneer. ]

You were a pilot before?

[ This, after her gaze has creeped over where his plugs may be visible at his arms. Hers are, a knit cardigan gathered at the elbows and draping at her shoulders, regal. ]

[damnedest]

[ In fairness, he hasn't seen even false sunrises for a long time, or what feels like a long time to him. They'd tried to explain it, about the way he perceived more information at greater speed as a result of the vampirism virus he was infected with, but that's around when he stopped listening.

It turns out this new world doesn't have sunrises either. Just the electrical storms, the endless black clouds. ]

All I expected. There could have been some music, non. Some theatre.

[damnedest]

Sunrises get all the glory.

[ Lestat has crouched down by the time Deucalion has made his observation -- as the wolf does behind him, he too takes in the details of his simulation. His white hand brushes over the gritty damp rock, fingertips exploring a crevice, only lifting his head as more light sets to dawn. ]

I so often sleep right through them.

[onyourfeet]

Take it as a bonus.

[ --is immediate, unsurprised that she might be less than thrilled, because 'less than thrilled' is her ordinary state of being. Cage is not psychic and has not been here before and does not catch her catching him paying her better attention than the new recruit flipping around the mimic machines, somehow, through the back of his own skull.

But he's still moved to ask; ]

Are you assessing me or our latest victim, Vrataski?

[polyphemus]

[ Banner does not immediately reply to that first part, letting it slide by with the kind of passiveness resultant of being particularly chill about these things. He thinks he mispoke, maybe -- he does that, not all the time -- but isn't in a hurry to correct either of them.

She has good questions, anyway. ]

Some are. Most are. But they'll populate some constructs with AIs designed to play house along with everyone else.

[ A beat passes, and he says; ]

You should reserve some judgement, 'til you get to Zion. You won't want to run out or anything.

[reality]

[hellbrokeloose]

How many?

[ Metzger’s voice sidewinds beneath even silence, barely audible alongside the last scuff of a tin cup across the bar.

He’s reading, attention downcast onto a stack of memos through the pair of glasses he has seated low on his nose. The paper is mottled dark between his hands, fiber pulped and printed over a thousandfold. The pads of his fingers are smudged grey with ink.

It doesn’t stop him touching the middle one to his tongue before he turns the page. ]

[ex_spins462]

Why am I not surprised?

[ Her amusement is cut short by the cold. She's wearing a jacket, but sitting still and open and exposed is a tactical idiocy she wouldn't continue if she was alone, especially without the muscle to resist it. A shiver, and she rubs at her own arm, glances at Steve. ]

Speaking of going in, I don't feel up to finding out how tough a Sentinal is just yet.

simulation

[believability]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is the part where you're supposed to be pulling out some Matrix-style mind tricks. [He looks down at the ground way below them] Either that or someone's getting off watching us painfully splatter and start again. Probably the second one.

[forgive]

What does that even mean?

[ Because there's helpful advice, and then there's Seth. See, this is definitely why she has a hard time figuring out what she's doing wrong. And "mind tricks" doesn't tell her anything.

Kate takes a step forward, looking down over the ledge and then back up at the building across from them. ]

Well, someone is watching us. But I don't think that's part of the lesson.

[ Then she tucks her arms in against her chest, raising an eyebrow in Seth's direction. ]

Why don't you try it?

[believability]

It means that we're going to have to do all kinds of weird bullshit Jedi voodoo to get to that other building.

[Goddammit. He was planning on avoiding this until it was time to pack it in, like a kid who didn't get his project finished and was hoping class would be over before it was his turn]

Yeah. Alright, I will. Watch and learn, young Padawan.

[and Seth jumps. and Seth falls. Painfully. A few seconds later he's back on the ledge again with Kate]

Jesus H. Christ. Shit, that hurts like a mother - [not even looking at Kate, he points a finger in her direction] Don't. Not a word.

[repetitio]

[ there are times when it still comes as a surprise how well he knows her, even though of course it shouldn't and rationally speaking, she can explain it. he had what she had at verdun, and he's probably watched her die as many times as she watched--

anyway, it surprises her sometimes, and then she is less than thrilled at her own surprise because it shouldn't, but then sometimes there is a gap between should and does or their negations.

arms crossed, she comes to stand next to him. ] Can't I do both? [ multitasking. ]

[sfoils]

[ Wedge taken to mechanic coveralls. They hide the majority of his plugs, of which there are many: three in each forearm, three in each calf, five down his spine, and the one in the back of his head.

(He isn't ashamed of them. When they freed Wedge they told him the machines must've compensated for the increasingly difficult illusion that was his life as an ace pilot/rebellion leader by adding more ports for more sensory input.

But a body can only take so much. As the illusion grew in complexity, so did its cracks.)

Right now his sleeves are rolled up. It's awfully stuffy in here, that with all the people in close proximity to other another. ] I am a pilot. [ He corrects, looking at her ports. ] Ends up over twenty years of piloting in there translates well to out here. Snubfighters, hovercrafts...it's all the same to me.

And you? [ Slightly wryly. ] What do you do for our wonderful rebellion?

[forgive]

[ Oh, she has to see this. Though part of her is rooting for him to make it, because then that might actually mean she can too — or he can offer a more constructive suggestion than just "bullshit Jedi voodoo." So, she keeps her lips zipped and eyebrows raised in waiting as she watches him take off.

She does rush to the ledge, reflexes making her flinch and gasp. Though when he's back up beside her, she presses her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. ]

What? I didn't say anything!

[ She just laughed, it wasn't a word. ]

Maybe we're thinking too hard about this. Or maybe we should have picked a different program.

Re: reality 6

[mrsnippy]

Cold. Radioactive. Lonely. I spent most of my time digging expired cans of food out of irradiated rubble and trying not to get snacked on by the mutants that survived.

[That quirk in returned allowed him to let his smile smooth into something more natural and far more cynical]

It was just my luck I got stuck a glitchy Matrix that kept picking up events from the real world. I was at the same time point as the real world, but the machines were networked to the ANNET instead. She hooked everyone's brains into her virtual world so they didn't have to see the polluted mess we lived in, [He smiled cynically, knowing he was telling a familiar tale right there] but I was incompatible with her broadcast. I'm sure you won't be shocked to learn that she decided to turn 99% of the world's brains off one day, and then some smartass decided to nuke her servers in revenge without warning the rest of the world first. WW3 broke out because everyone thought everyone else was responsible for killing most of humanity. That was ten years ago and it's sucked ever since.

[He sighed, then a moment later shrugged a shoulder as if the entire event hadn't profoundly affected him]

So I'm pretty grateful at the moment. There's air that's almost breathable, it's not nuclear winter, and there's people. I'm half scared I've gone crazy in the wastelands and you're just someone's skeleton propped against a wall.

Reality

[mrsnippy]

[Snippy was already sitting outside the exit, appreciating the air just as she planned to do. He'd spent ten years in a radioactive wasteland after his world ended, stuck behind a respirator and praying he'd find more filters for when his current ones ran out.

He'd also been desperately lonely, so waking up in the real world had seemed a miracle, except now he found he just couldn't handle large crowds. It left him disgusted with himself, so he'd gone seeking some peace and quiet and whatever comfort he could inhale.

He looks over his shoulder when she comes out the door, already scowling balefully at the revellers he's expecting have come to interrupt his brooding with their canoodling. She's something of a surprise]

You look about as ready to party as me. You're not here to tell me to get inside again, are you?

[starbucker]

[ If she'd expected to have company, it wasn't obvious in the automatic tension of her shoulders, the way she shot a look at Skye like she was seriously considering breaking her jaw--but she let it go, rolled her shoulders, and turned away. ]

I don't know [ She answered truthfully. ] Is it? Were we ever these people?

[ She kicked around the things in the room idly, nudging a box of things in under the bed before flopping down on the edge, then keeling over the rest of the way, arms crossed above her head.. ]

There's my wall, my uh--other wall. My stairs. My painting. My window. It's all just code. It doesn't mean anything.

[starbucker]

[ Kara doesn't give him any space, getting right into his face the moment she's jumped down off the stairs, eyes narrowed, hands curled into tense fists. She could turn violent at any moment, but when is that ever new? She's earned herself a reputation for it now, and were it not for her piloting skill she'd have been kicked down the ladder months ago.

She sneered, baring her teeth defiantly. ]

If you can't ride the bronco, you'd better stay outta the saddle.

[ And then she was straightening up, startled by the admission--okay, unnerved. No ammo? ]

We can't be out of ammo. We're three days out of Zion.

[paragon]

Yeah.

[ Steve looks out across the surface, a little doubtfully, like maybe he's having a hard time sharing the sentiment — despite his words, fighting the enemy in a world of its own making seems counterintuitive at best, and someday (also soon) he'll want to see them here — but it's agreement just the same. he smiles at her, a small, private press of his lips: he learned amusement through the cold a long time ago. ]

Can't imagine why you dragged us out here.

[ he pushes himself to his feet, holding his hand out to her as he straightens like he's still the same man who pulled her out of the rubble of a bunker, like he can still carry her weight. ]

[mrsnippy]

[If she's trying intimidate him, it fails, as his response to aggression is to get even more mulish than he usually is]

Have you seen how many ships Zion's got to equip? Have you seen the state of the factories? Did you see that Sentinel I was shooting while you were doing your best to smash us against the walls? Everything's rationed to bullet and we've just blown our ration up.

[He throws his hands up, stamping away so he can get his full rant on]

What did I tell everyone? This is a stupid route to travel and we're all going to die. Did anyone listen to me? No, because it's same old Charles, complaining like always, but I was right. I was right and now we're going to ripped apart by machines because someone decided we needed to be adventurous.

[The worst part of being a pessimist, he finds, is never being able to properly enjoy saying I Told You So, since being right means he's Doomed]

[righteously]

No friggin' kidding.

[He mutters unhappily. Nachos, god damn, he's never gonna get to eat nachos again. Nachos and cheese. Nachos and beef. Beef. Steak. Bacon. Pie. His lips turn down into a scowl, because what the hell's the point in even living if all the little things that made it worth it are gone?

God, he hates the real world.

He really friggin' does.

His eyebrow arches a little as her cheeks puff out, study her expression, and nods in acceptance at the answer.]

Nothing.

[He echoes in agreement, annoyance in his tone.]

That's great, that's what we've got to sustain on from now into infinity.

[hacker]

So you can keep a blank slate to indoctrinate into this world all creepy-like? No thanks.

[ Rebuffing the very notion, she shakes her head scornfully. ]

But you can tell me how to know the difference. People, they die in the real world if they die in the Matrix. But programs wouldn't. So how can you tell?

[hacker]

What else am I supposed to find purpose in?

[ It sure as hell isn't what she thinks is false. The question helps her deflect whether or not she's actually seeking a purpose for herself; mostly, she's seeking a way to help, to do what she thought she'd been doing with SHIELD. ]

[hacker]

[ Well, shit.

Successfully dodging one puts her right in the path of the other, and she can't move quickly enough to get out of the way of its moving parts. The machine plows straight through her, but instead of simply taking the hit, Skye leans away from it, raising her gun between them to fire a shot into it from close range while it drives her back into the wall (and to her knees). ]

[hacker]

But it did.

[ The safer response, she decides, than to point out that it obviously still does if Kara is coming to visit it. They're all questions that Skye has been struggling with, herself: how much did anything in that world mean if it never really existed? But just because it only existed in their minds doesn't mean it never existed at all. Some of them were machines, true, but some weren't. Those were real people she was trapped in the false reality with, real people making real choices, just like she was. ]

All of it still happened, even if it only happened for us. We remember it: we felt it. [ She gestures around. ] You lived here.