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

[ex_spins462]

[ She asked to be there when he woke up, assured like she has any idea how to handle the Winter Soldier. I know him, she explained, even though that wasn't true inside the Matrix and is now thrown further into question — she doesn't even know if they shared the same delusion or just something similar, one variation among the infinite. He might wake up not knowing her. Knowing anyone. Again.

It seems better if she finds that out before Steve.

There's one chair, and she's been camped out in it since they detached the sedative from his IV drip. Occasionally she does stretches, straining against her own weakness while there's no one around to see when she's forced to her knees on the steel floor. Most of the time she watches him, scrutinizing the lines of his face like she can glean something from them, this man who was a ghost story. It's strange to have him laid out vulnerable before her. But when Bucky stirs she's sitting with her legs crossed, reading, seemingly at ease.

There's something bird-like about Natasha like this, elfin-faced and short-haired, her limbs skinny and dotted with those metal plugs like scars from her own rebirth. Normally she wears head-to-toe black, but she's dressed simpler here, non-threatening in soft browns, skinny legs and arms exposed. No weapons. She stays out of arms'-reach but within the Soldier's line of sight. ]

You're safe.

[ Is the first thing she says, voice soothing. And: ]

You're free.

[ Because she would have liked those to be the first things she heard, once upon a time, even if she wouldn't have believed them then either. ]

[lostsoldier]

[ This time, he wakes still as water. That much he's learned over the years, coming into consciousness defensively nonexistent, not a muscle moved, buying a few more moments of solitude by letting the subtle quickening of breath and pulse be the only signs he's awake.

Not that he expects, when he opens his eyes and sees who's watching, that she missed either. His gaze is sharp and bright, following the sound of her voice, scrutinizing the new lines of her face and exposed limbs. No weapons. From the metal ports on her skin, his attention skitters to his own, peeking out from a forearm. The IV. The needle within. It isn't much.

He remembers straight red hair and a confident quirk her mouth, camera flashes against well-shellacked courtroom doors on a television behind the counter, but when he speaks, it's in Russian. ]

Is this what freedom looks like?

[ It could be an accusation, as his eyes roll over the rusted metal walls and closed door, but it sounds more like he just— doesn't know. Maybe she does. ]

SHIELD? [ he guesses, trying to piece anything together again. ]