LOG.01

[ximilian]

● ● ● L O G . 0 1

// PART I. summer cleaning  

The more days that pass on the station, one thing becomes increasingly apparent: the station is woefully unprepared for so many people arriving there at once. While the materials found in the lab or the armory are lacking, and characters don’t have many sets of clothes to change into, the most glaring problem is food: after days and days of nothing but dried jerky and canned beans, things may start to seem a little… well, dire.

But one morning, those who completed the tasks in the training room with the promise of a boon will wake up to a message on the network:

Congratulations! You have earned one (1) boon of your choice. Please enter your desired item here.

After they have entered whatever item they wish to get — well, at first nothing seems to happen. But after some minutes, those who are either in the living quarters or the kitchen area can hear the unmistakable whir of power turning on… and clatter. Lots of clatter.

1.0   Congratulations, it seems that the teleportation devices have finally stored enough power to send in a variety of items! On the platform near the living quarters, there is everything one might imagine from different planets: piles and piles of clothes in different styles, books, tools… oh, look, a headband and a comb! And that sure is a yoga mat. Best go sort through the pile and get what appeals to you, before someone else does.

2.0   For those characters who requested an item as their boon, the good news is that whatever they requested is there in the pile! The bad news is… it’s there in the pile, so good luck finding it — and convincing others it’s really yours, so give it back, please!

3.0   It’s not just the platform near the living quarters that is functional, now: it’s also the one near the kitchen. And that one is brimming with produce: fresh fruit, coffee beans, bread, different cuts of meat, cartons of milk and juice… there’s even some ice cream, though best get that to a freezer quickly! Enjoy the variety in your dishes, for now.

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// PART II. lights out  

Two weeks before their first mission is supposed to start, in the middle of the day, everyone’s earpieces start to crackle with static. It starts faint, a sound barely there, but it grows into a persistent buzz that nothing seems to help — not attempts to contact someone else, mute the sounds, nothing.

Just as you’re about to go crazy and chuck the earpiece as far away from you as can be, the static suddenly stops.

And all the lights on the station suddenly go out, leaving nothing but darkness behind.

The static starts again, and finally, Viveca’s voice filters through.

// VIVECA.AI

It’s no good, the platforms took too much power, we need ——. I’ve tried fixing it, but it’s not enough. I —— the backup ——.

The characters may try to answer, but their comms aren’t connecting — it’s as if they’ve tuned into a radio channel they’re not supposed to be hearing. And perhaps more surprisingly, the next voice they hear is not Viveca at all.

// ?̴̳̥̱͎͓̼͇͖̫̄̉̐̇̄̋̇?̸͙̼͎̙̙̳͖͈͆̓̈̓̊͆́̂͗̆́͠?̴̛͓̬̮̏̈́̃̍̍̌͗̈́͘̚̚͠?̸͙̼͎̙̙̳͖͈͆̓̈̓̊͆́̂͗̆́͠?̴̛͓̬̮̏̈́̃̍̍̌͗̈́͘̚̚͠

Sorry, —— will have to keep ——————. Try to ——... emergency mode?

The crackle keeps getting louder and louder.

// VIVECA.AI

I’ll —— but —— help! They have to ————

With that, the earpieces go silent… and even if characters attempt to contact Viveca, they will receive no answer.

4.0   Left in the darkness, minutes stretch into hours without a flicker of light. The hallways are eerily quiet, with only the faint hum of machinery assuring you that the station itself is still functional and not dead. Of course, you may stay where you are and hope that the lights miraculously return… or you can navigate your way through the hallways and rooms with nothing but your memory to help you. It may be a good idea to get someone to go with you so you’re not bumbling around in the dark on your own.

5.0   Those optimistic about the lights returning will have to be disappointed. After several hours and nothing but radio silence on Viveca’s end, it seems clear that this is a problem she can’t fix on her own. If you don’t want to be left in the dark (literally) forever, it’s best to try and do something about it.

If you’re technologically inclined, the lab is the place to be: you may be able to connect to the station’s system, at least enough to figure out what’s wrong and try to fix it. But perhaps you have other abilities, those of more magical origin… with those, you may be of assistance in helping to replenish the station’s diminished power supply.

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// PART III. mad world  

Eventually, everyone’s efforts will pay off and the station seems to regain some of its power back — at least enough for the lights to flicker back on, first in the living quarters, and then around the rest of the station. The resurgence of power also affects the simulation room as well, quiet and unassuming at first … but something seems a little off, the longer you remain in the space. For one thing, it flickers colour and light in a way that isn’t worrying, exactly, but doesn’t feel all that stable. And just when you think you should probably head back out, the doors close and a world builds up around you in meticulous detail — is it something you recognize or is it something altogether unfamiliar?

6.0   Creature Comforts: The simulation room picks up on the cues of its inhabitants, snatches of memory and knowledge of worlds that it isn’t wholly familiar with but seem to fit within the parameters of its code. Whatever world you’ve come from, you might note the familiarities, might even feel a little homesick. And so, the world around you might resemble a historical time period befitting of swords and gunpowder and large dresses with too much frill. Or maybe the simulation goes back even further than that: lush jungles and prickling heat, the sharp buzzing of hard-shelled insects hidden in foliage and the hiss of something else that seems a little ominous. Maybe the simulation slowly materializes into the place you’ve just come from before waking up here — all the way down to that coffee shop you like so much, the one with the really perfect latte.

7.0   A Fish Out of Water: It’s hard to say whether the simulation room has a sense of humour of its own, or if the power outage has made it a little unpredictable. Either way, the space around you fills up with images entirely unfamiliar to you, putting you completely out of your element. If you’re from a small town or a place where life’s a little simpler— castles, large stretches of field and open sky, say: what you see will be futuristic skyscrapers with all the lights on, and colourful bright screens everywhere. Is that a flying car? Geez, you’ve never seen one of those things before (not that you can reach it from that height). Or maybe you’re from a Dystopian wasteland: if so, welcome to experiencing an idyllic paradise with just the right amount of density, the right amount of kumbaya to fill in the questions you might have had of what life was like before you were born. The simulation room is here to put you out of your natural element without you realizing it.

8.0   101 Ways To Break Out (J/K, it’s 1): Of course you’re not stuck in this room. There’s always a way out, a lock to pick, the slight shimmer in the air that guides you to the seam that unravels the whole thing and lets you out. Depending on the setting your character happens to be delicately trapped in, it might take a bit of doing to find the One Thing Slightly Off anchoring you back to reality— a totem if you will. Find that thing, find the shimmer in the air and stick your hand through it, and you’ll find the room going dark around you, but in a ‘Hey, You’ve Completed this Simulation! Congrats!’ kind of way. The doors will slide open and you’ll be free to go, maybe on slightly shakier legs but in one piece nevertheless.

The TL;DR: Due to the power outage aboard the station, the simulation room is temporarily on the fritz. Here you’re free to choose the manner of simulation you want your character to stumble into, all the way down to the most minute detail. Go crazy! Remember whatever happens in this simulation stays only within this simulation and the room; it cannot and will not affect the rest of the ship. Simulations may have the possibility of changing halfway through, and depending on how many people enter the room after you, could end up changing more than once. The constant will be to find the exit trigger once you’ve been locked in.

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F Y I

• The events in this log span the month of June.

• No one will be able to contact Viveca after Part II, even after the lights come back and the station’s power supply has been replenished. If your character wants to talk to her before Part II, feel free to use the Ask the AI page.

• For Part I, those who completed the tasks in the TDM will be able to ask for one thing they want to receive here. It can be an item from their home, or something else they’d like to have. If they ask for something living (like a dog, for example), they’ll receive a plushie of said living thing instead. Note that you can handwave completing the tasks on the TDM — we're not going to demand links to threads or anything!

• For Part II, those who want to try and connect to the station’s system can ask questions and suggest what they’d like to try to do here. How your attempt goes is up to chance, as the mods are rolling the results. Note that this is not mandatory and the mods are fine with handwaving what exactly gets the power to come back, and it can (and likely will) be a combined effort of many characters. There is no one right thing to do, but if you’d like to ask questions of what your characters would be able to do or find out when connecting to the system, feel free!

• Throughout the month, remember that all the locations in the two wings and the center of the station are available to use, even if they’re not detailed in the prompts in this log. So feel free to make your own wildcard prompts using the training room, the armory, the living quarters, the infirmary, the sunlight room etc.

• For those who didn’t get to play out their character’s arrival on the TDM, you can read more about what the characters see upon arrival here. Feel free to make your own prompts for that!

▶ NAV

Comments

[chronosynthesis]

"Do you?" He quirks a brow as he draws his hand back. That's awfully specific. "I suppose any culture can be hostile based on their differences. But every human here is not even of the same world, are you?"

[callada]

"Me, same world as them? Not that I've found yet. There's a lot of small islands though, lots of places I've never even heard of. That's why I asked where you were from at first. Figured that was as possible as anything else. But most of them, it's easy enough to rule out the idea quickly when they're so much more familiar with things like this," he says, and raises a hand to tap at his earpiece.

"It seems like my world's hundreds, if not thousands, of years behind most of the ones here. Hard to even comprehend that."

[chronosynthesis]

"Right, the commuicator." He glances sideways, the direction his is affixed. At least he has a name for it. "It is more advanced than what Taimi had come up with. The most advanced technology I've seen that isn't built with magic, runs on steam instead."

Maybe these are worlds that don't have much magic? He can't really envision what that must be like, when it's integral to Tyria's whole existence.

He turns to look back at the... disorganized heap. It's really no less daunting than it was before. "I wonder if everything here is of a similar design, besides personal items."

[callada]

"Couldn't possibly guess," he admits. "Don't know why it wouldn't be, though. If this place is all from one time of its own, then - well, even then, if they can pull things from other times, they could advance themselves rapidly."

That's a puzzle and one that is probably beyond him to solve, at least for now. He's no idiot, but there's so much to keep up with and he's had so little time for it.

"We don't have magic back home," he explains. "I know that there are places with what I thought were incredible advancements, but nothing that could leave our world and go to others. Nothing that could create an artificial person as real as Viveca."

To his knowledge, anyway. Who knows what the world's top minds are working on in their classified laboratories. The little glimpses he had heard were always fascinating, but also easy to dismiss as exaggeration; stories blown out of proportion by people who are used to dealing with the fantastic in their daily lives already.

[chronosynthesis]

That... actually does beg the question of where all of this stuff actually came from. If it's a scheduled supply drop, it's the worst-handled one he's ever seen.

"I suppose we will..." He cringes. "Have to go through it to see."

He doesn't dare look back at the mountains of Stuff. He doesn't even know what some of it is. "I don't suppose you came to help sort through it?"

[callada]

While that wasn't exactly his original intent, he has nothing against adopting it as a good suggestion. It won't be that useful to have everything piled on the floor forever.

"It would make it easier to find things," he says with a nod. "I got lucky you saw my gun, but I'm sure others are still missing their orders. Guess it's time to come up with an organization system and find some storage space."

And meanwhile, keep an eye out for things he could use, as well as see what others have asked for to get a feel for their interests and needs. He bends down to pick up an armful of clothing, revealing a multi-pack of toothbrushes underneath. Well, at least they'll have good dental hygiene here.

[chronosynthesis]

"Wonderful." Syrlya smiles. "We could do with a few hands to get everything in order. I need to speak to Viveca, but I'll return to help you sort."

And with that, he turns to leave the room, and the pile within it, behind. He'll... be back.