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

Sentinels 8(

[bloodhorse]

[It probably feels like a rebar bouncing onto her belly at first-- but it's all muscle and sinewy wrist, crooking around the diminutive shape of her waist. Horse hauls her off the floor as if she weighed no more than a carton of deli salad, hoists her over his shoulder. He's fast: she probably only has the fleeting impression of his bulky shoulder, the nearly hairless side of his head, the socketless back of his skull.

Probably what demands more of her attention: the long, corrugated tentacle weaving into the hull hole now. Red light coming up over the jagged edge, like a nightmare sun coming up for a new day--

--and then someone else slams the door on it, cutting off her view. Horse's voice is deep, nearly gravelly, almost buried under the rumble of metal friction and the ship bouncing off rock, trying to scrape another sentinel off its belly, but she can hear him when he hollers:] Where is your station?

Feel free to ignore if you wish! Super duper late D:

[the_vishual]

Port--Portside! [ She's desperate, and she's clawing at Horse's arm not to break free but instead to lift herself to kick helplessly at with her legs. It's the only defense she has between the the tentacled beast--it's downright flailing, but her instincts tell her to do something.

Horse is helping her, though. As much as she dislikes relying on others, his strong form is getting her out of the way and she's surprised she's not screaming, instead clinging to him, hands around his shoulders for safety. ]

[bloodhorse]

[There are always children on ships, because the world is unkind and necessity ruthless, but not for the first time, Horse thinks to himself, irrelevantly, why are there children on ships. Because they're gifted and tougher than they look, Horse. Because we need them to work.

A squiddie claw bounces off one of her flailing kicks.

The next takes her shoe.

The metal is cold on her foot. She feels the robotic pincer snag the cuff and pop it off her heel, and the tentacle shoves forward further in an effort to close the growing distance between them. The mechanized joint starts to grind shut on the round bone of her ankle, a desperate scrabble. Horse swerves around the corner, but perhaps not fast enough.]