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test drive | 1
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?
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.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.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.
no subject
It must have sucked for you when you first woke. I had a physical life, but I doubt it compared to how well trained you must have thought you were.
no subject
at his words, her shoulders draw up for a moment, betraying some tension before they drop again, deliberate and slow. she hadn't liked waking up to physical therapy, to not being able to control her body the way she'd been used to. ]
Didn't enjoy it, no. [ after a moment, she adds: ] But at least I already knew how to train myself.
[ mental discipline has translated far better than physical strength. ]
no subject
He prefers to think he's a realist as opposed to a pessimist.]
Sounds like the better method. I just followed the doctors' orders until I became strong enough for manual labour.
So where do you work? [Because he very much doubts a woman like her would choose an idle life] I've ended up in the hovercraft repair bays; it turned out coming from the relative future gave me a leg up with that sort of technology.
hhh sorry for my slow i was sick ._.
her jaw ticks for a moment. she's well aware, of course, that not everyone has the same drive she has to push themselves. ]
Defense Grid.
[ she's also well aware that she's not the most talkative of conversation partners. still, a moment later she adds: ] Relative future?
:D It's like getting an unexpected present
He shrugged and elaborated.]
Compared to the others like us. A lot of unplugged seem to have come from around the last millennium. At least I've seen hovercraft before.
[He looked away then, frowning at the sudden sense of dissatisfaction that washed over him. He'd been enjoying their conversation up until then, as terse as it had been.
Damn it, it wasn't him who ruined it this time. He glanced back at her, still frowning]
You know, you're not as subtle with your expressions as you think you are.
<3
rita is not the kind to spare much thought or energy towards being diplomatic in conversation or anything else. he's been nothing but personable the entire conversation; it's rita who keeps people at an arm's length. ]
I wasn't trying for subtlety.
Re: <3
Next time you're jacked in, why don't you ask your Operator if they've got a book of manners they can upload into your brain?
[He huffed and looked away over the landscape, seeking calm in the roiling cloud-scorched horizon]
You might be the one pulling people out of their pods, but you still need us support. In-flight repairs can't do what a fresh team in a dock can.
no subject
[ that's the only thing she says in response to his words. whether she means that manners have no place in a war, or whether she means to imply that dock personnel is not needed in a war isn't immediately obvious, though the second interpretation would be blatantly stupid and while rita vrataski is many things, she isn't that. ]
no subject
Though he's well used to dealing with nonsensical idiots, she doesn't fall quite into the usual mould, so extends her the benefit of the doubt and assumes she's socially awkward/naturally rude]
There's a war going on for the people in cavern too, but they've learnt how to switch off.
[He realises the hypocrisy of pointing that out while he's lurking as far away from their merriment as he can get. He huffs out a cynical breath of a laugh and looks away.]
You're not the only one who needs to learn from them.
no subject
[ not if switching off means being sociable or forming attachments, at any rate. things like that are liabilities in a war; in the end, all they do is make it hurt more when someone gets themselves killed. for what it's worth: she does switch off sometimes, but for a different definition of switching off.
right now, she raises an eyebrow, one corner of her mouth quirking up as well at the cynicism in his laugh, the moment he realises the hypocristy in his statement, the way he corrects it. ]
no subject
At least he can take comfort in the fact she doesn't know that part.]
Next time. I'm going to go and spend a little time in the cave next time. Who knows, maybe I'll drink enough that I'll lose my good sense and go dance.
[He puffs out another laugh again, the cynicism replaced with a dose of self-deprecation.]
I have no idea how to dance.
no subject
[ the implication in both words and tone is, of course, that he's free to do that, but she will not be joining him for that.
rita knows some dancing, but the kind of ballroom that comes from a few lessons followed as a teenager. she'd be able to pick up most kinds quickly, most like, given that training her body and remembering sequences of motion is second nature to her, but she doesn't see the point. ]