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

[cestrumnocturnum]

[ Benji nods, but does not immediately ask 'like what?' She instead lets Milagros continue holding onto the book, turning away to flutter a hand towards a more cluttered work station. ]

Tea? We're really proud about tea.

[ If that isn't an old Earth marker of nostalgia, Benji doesn't know what is.

But then, she's heard there are excavation teams for coffee.

Towards the back of the book come the watercolour works. Slightly experimental, slightly abstract. Tattoos that look a bit like they'd need touch ups more frequently than firmly outlined shapes of better tradition. They are subtle colours, ranging from mild to deep.

Ghostly figures, more floral notions, a bird coming apart into petals, a watery form of flow. ]

[milagros]

Keeping calm and carrying on, ( a bit drolly, but in an almost rueful way, from where her fingertips have found the edge of the watercolour bird, distracted. ) Yes, please. That would be lovely.

( it really would, even if the courteous response is more ingrained habit than any sort of genuine tendency to consider things 'lovely'. )

I didn't think there was anyone tattooing out here-- ( that's quite a euphemism, ) --who did watercolour work.

[cestrumnocturnum]

[ There's a head tip from Benji. Out here. Her back is turned, though, as she attends to tea. Among her belongings are painted, earthenware mugs, and these she uses to pour small but not ungenerous helpings of tea that tastes like garden.

But the taste of garden might be nice, when you're a cave dweller like them. ]

I don't really think it's to everyone's taste. You see a lot of, mm. Bolder images. Abstractions instead of pictures.

[ She minces a few steps back, offering out a cup. A glance down notes the picture that Milagros has paused over, and there's a fond smile muffled out by a sip from her own cup. ]

What's your name?

[milagros]

I do see a lot of that, ( agreeably, because she joined the military here and as long as humans have military, a lot of the people in it will have tattoos of varying quality. ) Milagros.

( she hears her callsign as often, these days, and just as casually, but she still introduces herself with the name she was given by someone who didn't really give birth to her, to whom she likely has no biological relation. (a detail which lessens some of the lingering guilt at her failure to connect.) she sits down with the cup, warming her hands around it (unnecessarily) and not quite smiling. her neutrality is a bit warmer than it was, when she first poked her head in, which is not nothing. )

I like this, ( after a moment, more deliberately pointing the bird and its petals out. ) It's--

( she thinks for a moment. )

It's a little bit arresting.

[cestrumnocturnum]

Thank you. I miss them.

[ It's been a solid ten months and she's learned not to let every thought flitter across her face, including the association she has with birds. Not just because they existed in her Matrix and now they're all dead. ]

Is there a story?

[ She tips a look at the roses, then back up at Milagros, over the top of her tea. ]

[milagros]

A cautionary tale.

( mila never learned that lesson - decided not to, never will. it is grief, but a dull ache that she's had time to accept as a part of herself, not the sharp red line of pain newly got. it's the soreness of an old wound in winter, when the tug reminds you how you got it, and is not entirely unwelcome.

she considers her next words. )

We-- ( you and i, mila and benji, all the other unplugged like them, ) --had an opportunity that not everyone gets. We made a choice to live in this world.

( it's true, but it's not the whole truth. that's all right, probably.

the point is, she remembers to keep choosing to do so. not everyone got to choose. )