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

[hacker]

Wow.

[ She's trying so hard to be equally nonjudgmental, but clearly struggles, pressing her lips together with no small degree of strain to hide her smile. Steadily, she builds up to a nod, eyebrows raising because she doesn't trust herself to give feedback in actual speech yet. ]

That's … That's really sad. [ Though amusement still twines with it, she does have some chagrined sympathy for him worming in there, and she stops her nod. ] God, what's the protocol on that? I mean, do you think he's, like, a person in a pod somewhere who just thinks he's a raccoon or is that just a program?

[ So sensitive and understanding. ]

[retrofire]

Whoa now, I don't know if sad's the right word— [ It's kind of the right word. But the whole chill act hits a snag when she barrels right through it and implies that Rocket might've been a program, causing Peter to hesitate a second too long. ]

I mean, he's gotta be real, right? He was pretty convincing. And not the weirdest thing out there, actually— his best friend was a talking tree.

[ Well. ]

Sort of talking. Definitely sentient.

[ Getting sadder by the minute?? ]

[hacker]

[ Oh, this just got awkward, didn't it?

It only takes one beat of hesitation to establish Skye's bluff before she ever makes it. She balks, surprise blanching her face, and she's simply not fast enough on her recovery to disguise her obvious assumption: neither Rocket nor Groot are real humans, and the thought never occurred to Peter to doubt them.

The hardest lies to parse are the ones people tell to themselves. ]

Weird. [ She blinks quickly, shaking her head and putting on an affect that finds the notion realistically bizarre. ] But hey, aliens, right? Pretty sure the real world is way crazier than anything dreamed up and packed into my matrix.

[retrofire]

[ Awkward might be preferable. Her instinctive doubt's impossible to miss, message received, and Peter's expression turns pensive — brow pinched, matched with a slight frown. Then it smooths out into something neutral.

It's more guarded than before, same as his voice, entirely civil. Without the direct comparison of how open he'd been a moment ago, it'd probably look outright friendly. ]

Yeah, weird. And for the record, I thought aliens were off the menu until they up and grabbed me. Your matrix could be a lot bigger than you think.

[hacker]

I've got a pretty good idea.

[ Months of training tell her to hold back more and leave it at that. SHIELD is all about holding back the secrets that other people don't need to know because those secrets would endanger them. But SHIELD was never even real, and neither was the secret alien go-juice that it studied. Besides, even if it were real, wouldn't they benefit from telling a guy who had a whole bunch of alien friends that they needed to know more about it?

So a moment later, she lets the stonewalling drop, shrugging one shoulder as she reluctantly acknowledges. ]

We ... had aliens, okay. I mean I never saw one, but I saw their stuff. [ Her hands shoot up defensively. ] Artifacts. And—and writing, not. Anything else, god.