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

Wedge Antilles ✖ Star Wars (Legends)

[sfoils]

REALITY

[ Wedge skipped the identity crisis and jumped straight into duty.

It wasn't a slight against the others. Everyone has different methods to cope. But Wedge's coping mechanisms were always pragmatic—compartmentalize, go on. It'd been surreal to see himself as hairless as a fresh Imperial recruit, to feel as weak as a newborn baby. So he'd jumped straight into physical therapy to strengthen atrophied limbs, to feel more human and less like a number, expendable. Wedge never liked feeling expendable.

Absentmindedly, he cards his fingers across his scalp, liking the sensation of softness and resistance provided by a head full of hair. It'd been a couple of months since being unplugged. These were small comforts, meaningless in the grand scheme of the rebellion. But they all need their anchors.

Wedge stands on a corner to ignore the dancers. He stands at attention: chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in. He's as still as a statue, but he addresses passersbye with a friendly demeanor. ] Sorry, I'm not a good dancer. [ He'd attended enough 'official parties' in his past life to dislike the artificial formalities of such events. ]

MISSION

[ Wedge takes to the hovercrafts like a fish to water. He's a steady and graceful pilot, guiding the ship through tunnels in maneuvers that can only be learned from experience.

But that damned Sentinel is still gaining on them. No amount of fancy maneuvers will delay the inevitable. ] Alright, everyone, [ Says Wedge calmly, fingers tightening around a lever, force of habit making him reach above his head for another lever that'll activate non-existent s-foils. ] brace yourselves. I'm going to engage that squiddy.

And I'm going to win.

reality.

[hwic]

Sad, isn't it.

[ Because of course the sound of someone being a buzzkill might attract Regina Mills, or the woman so identified when she was asleep in a pod. Just Regina, anymore. She appears at Wedge's shoulder in the area he has managed to qualify as the 'corner' of the giant cavern, her hands cupped around a mug filled with a liquor-saturated concoction of whatever kind on offer.

She had thought she might make an appearance, until it became apparent that appearances mean very little in a cave. ]

Celebrating the commemoration of something that didn't mean a damn thing, in the long run.

[ Her black hair has grown out a few inches, and she wears her home-grown garments of worn wool and cotton well, by now. She doesn't look at him, but casts sweeping judgement at the rave going on at large. Close enough in proximity to speak under the thumping music, rather than having to shout over it. ]

[sfoils]

I don't think it's sad. [ Wedge downs his drink, the liquor nondescript and cheap, but likely to get someone drunk just the same.

You can date the recently unplugged from the veterans by the length of their hair. Her attitude makes more sense in light of this new context. ] I'm just not a good dancer. [ A pause, crouching to put the glass on the floor. ] It gave them hope. That's not useless. You and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the truce.

[ A smile. ] I'm Wedge.

[hwic]

[ She looks down her nose at his motion of setting down his glass, at his insights, the look in her eye shading only a touch disappointed, but unsurprised. ]

Wedge.

[ Really. Okay, sure. ]

That may be so, but it looks to me like here is as good as it's likely to get in our lifetimes. [ She raises her cup to drink from, hesitates, and offers back; ] Regina.

[sfoils]

Yeah, Wedge. [ There's people running around with names that are just suffixes, yet it's the simple machine that gets side-eyed. ] 'Pilot' is a job description and ends up 'Antilles' was an archipelago.

[ Wedge picks up his empty glass, toasts with it. ] Nice to meet you, Regina. [ With their constant complaining, Wedge sometimes wonders why some people here choose to be unplugged. He gives them a pass because he knows they're mourning.

But it's still grating. ]

[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. ]

[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?

reality;

[last_ofthe_jedi]

[Luke trailed behind Wedge by a month or two. He's pretty fresh out of his reality check, grounded but only just. Naturally, he's excelled at his training and he's moved far faster than anyone had anticipated. That seems to be his lot no matter where he is or what he's doing.

The psychological part, the acceptance, and the realization that everything he knew and the person he was before is totally gone, has been much harder for him. His skills and learning always seem to out-perform his mind and his ability to adapt mentally. That's his ever-present curse and here, even where he's supposedly another person entirely, it's still the same.

Luke has the sneaking suspicion that he's still the same person he ever was, just in a different world. He's been hesitant to accept this 'separation between Matrix and reality' stuff. To him, what makes a person is their decisions, their feelings, and the way they treat others, not their possessions, their jobs, their money, or any other things they might have had. To him, everyone is still the same.

But then he always had an advantage, the one that let him see inside the minds of others, really know them beyond what was visible. He's sure that if he could do the same thing here in reality, everyone he knew before would feel exactly the same. Luke's always been stubborn. In a show of that stubbornness, he insisted upon continuing to use the name he's always had. He saw no reason to change it and he couldn't think of any other name he could imagine being called. Anyone who criticized that received a quiet glare.

The loss of the Force has been one of the hardest things for him to accept. He can always plug back in and feel it again, but the idea that it was all just a dream has been devastating. Of course the truth is that he never really had it to begin with, but he thought he did and that was enough.

The things he experienced in the Matrix meant that he wound up with so many implanted ports, he vaguely resembles some kind of tentacled creature when he waves his arms around.

When he steps up next to Wedge he still has that wide-eyed look about him. He doesn't even have enough hair to grab onto yet and he's never been so pale before. He still doesn't have a clear idea of what exactly the real world has in store for him. Luke gets quiet and contemplative in situations like this, so the fact that he's here and talking to people is nothing short of a miracle.]

Me neither. [He scoffs softly.] I'd rather have a drink in my hand. [It's spoken rather matter-of-factly. Luke's not typically one for shallow comforts but something familiar might be nice, at least.]

[sfoils]

[ Wedge never thought it possible that someone from his Matrix would ever be unplugged. He'd been told the ratio of plugged humans to unplugged humans was a ridiculous 10 to 1. Mathematically, the chances of someone who'd shared his illusion joining him in the Real World were slim to none.

Leave it to a Corellian to beat the odds once more.

Luke had been—no, was—his commander, his best friend. The medics were afraid Wedge's presence wouldn't allow Luke to accept true reality, but Wedge successfully argued Luke and himself were too strong for that. Neither Luke or Wedge had ever been adept at lies, though Wedge compartmentalized and suppressed his feelings more than Luke ever did.

Really, if they had to worry for someone's grip on reality, it was Wedge, not Luke.

He still remembers the day they found Luke, how he'd been, curiously and thankfully, part of the crew who pulled him out. That'd been when Wedge truly began questioning the conundrum of their 'fake' versus 'real' lives. Because to accept that their past lives were fake meant that he, Wedge, was fake too.

But Wedge knew that not to be true. Just because the world itself wasn't real doesn't mean perceptions of and emotions from it aren't. In his case, he'd been torn away from the life he knew and had to start over from scratch once already. Yet that hadn't made Wedge, at his core, a different person.

So why would it be the case this time? ] I got you. [ Wedge grins flatly. He unzips the top of his coverall (the only clothes he felt comfortable in) and pulls out a bottle wrapped in brown paper. ] Not Whyren's, I'm afraid. [ He says it not like a shameful secret but rather an inside joke. Luke looks pallid, hairless, like a newborn rather than the Tattooine-tanned, hotshot pilot Wedge knew him as. And it broke Wedge's heart, made him want to reach out and be gentle, caring, a friend. ] But still whiskey. Got it off an Irkallan who needed some...discreet repairs to his ship.

[ He presses the bottle onto Luke's hand. ] Come on, give it a pop.

[last_ofthe_jedi]

[Luke doesn't look surprised at all that Wedge would have liquor hiding somewhere on his person. It's yet more evidence to the fact that he's still the same Wedge that Luke's always known. The corner of his mouth quirks up as he takes the offered bottle.]

Nothing is Whyren's but Whyren's. [Even if it isn't, Luke's grateful for merely the mention. Wedge loved that stuff so much that Luke's wondered if he might not attempt to brew a reproduction at some point in the far future when there's time and leisure for such things.

As he takes a sip, Luke ponders on how such an act might be viewed by others. Likely it would be seen as an attempt to hold onto some shred of their former, 'fake' lives. And they'd be right. The only thing is that Luke doesn't see the problem with that. That world may not be real but their memories are, and before they woke up that's all they had.

Sure, none of it actually happened, but that doesn't mean they can't reminisce, treasure what they remember and experienced. It made them who they are right now, and evidently Luke and Wedge have managed to salvage at least one relationship from their former lives. It was treated as some sort of taboo, something harmful that should be avoided but Luke simply can't understand it. It was claimed that since it was a product of the machines that it should be viewed as an abomination, but many of these people who have been unplugged have never seen war before. Maybe Luke is just too desensitized to the concept of horrors bestowed upon him by an enemy that he has no trouble reclaiming them as his own.

Wedge was his friend. Still is. They're both here, so why shouldn't they lean on each other for support? Luke's mused on the thought that if Wedge hadn't been there to ease him into reality, he might not have handled it as well.

Perhaps the real reason why he and Wedge have been discouraged from interacting is because everyone else is envious, and they feel that if they have to start from scratch, so should everyone else. Few others have been so lucky to have someone here that they already know, let alone a close friend. Luke feels pity for them but it's annoying all the same. He'll continue to roll his eyes and ignore their warnings as he's done since he woke up.]

Not bad. But not Whyren's. [He takes one more swig before handing the bottle back to Wedge.]

I don't think they're going to like us fraternizing. [Luke repeats the term that's already been used. He doesn't sound remorseful at all that he and Wedge are blatantly ignoring the unspoken "rules". In fact, it's been one of the few joys he's had since being unplugged.]

[sfoils]

They can go to hell, boss. [ Wedge takes a swig after Luke. Wiping the mouth of the bottle never crosses Wedge's mind.

If the Council expects Wedge to torch the common ground he and Luke built and stood on, then Wedge would gladly resign his commission. Obeying morally bankrupt policies was against everything he stood for.

His experiences are not a zero-sum game, a 'before' like some sort of expired milk carton. If a pilot isn't allowed to trust his instincts, then what the hell is he supposed to trust? What happened in their past reality (because Wedge hasn't voiced it, but it's clear he considers his Matrix no less real than their current reality) shaped them into the people they are today. No amount of machine bias will change that. ] For people committed to the survival of humanity, they sure don't like us being human.

[ Wedge isn't naive enough not to know that the war was a direct result of human hubris. And that, really, is the lesson of all this: humans will be humans. Friendship is human. Connections are human. Investing in the well-being of someone he considers a friend for life is utterly, irrevocably human.

If the Council didn't see this, weren't made to see this, then this rebellion is pointless.

For it goes against the core of what they're fighting for: humanity. ] If they don't expect rebellion out of career rebels, then this too is another reality we've been forced into. [ He purses his lips. ] Maybe the tibanna gas fumes finally got to us.