TEST DRIVE MEME 001

[ataraxites]

T E S T   D R I V E   M E M E A R R I V A L You wake up, alone in the dark. There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Through the fog you can see shadows of movement, the muted sound of alarms crying. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're suddenly dropped several feet onto the opposite wall. It takes you several minutes to catch your breath and gather strength in uncooperative limbs; more time still to climb up through the debris to the hole in the outer wall high above. You emerge in bright sunlight, surrounded by an immense jungle. As your vision clears, you realize you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an alien planet. There's a shout behind you, and as you turn, figures climb over the curve of the ship towards you: your rescue party, weathered and scarred by the efforts necessary for survival. B A S E   C A M P A ramshackle spread of tents and shelters built out of resources salvaged from the ship and gathered from the jungle. Not sleek, not clean, but alive: people coming and going from tent to tent, heading out into the jungle or returning with freshly foraged food. Some are working to build more shelters or improvize working tech out of parts salvaged from the ship; some are cooking; some are just taking shelter from the sun for a while. Whether you find somewhere to help or apply your skills, it's probably a good idea to get to know your neighbors. E X P L O R A T I O N The jungle is dense and green, teeming with life, high calls and cries of strange animals and birds, the low buzz and murmur of insects. There are no paths or notable markings; go too far into the trees and you may not be able to find your way back. Dangers hide in the shadows but there's also food, water - or perhaps you're looking for more, pushing further in a search for answers about this planet you're now living on. Or you can turn your attention to the crashed ship, the huge bulk of it balanced precariously on the edge of a cliff. It creaks and groans in its delicate position, audible from a distant but all the louder should you venture inside. Dark corridors made even more dangerous by the damage to the internal structure, debris and obstacles blocking progress, and any wrong step could cause it to collapse in on you, or send the ship over the cliff. But finding any tech, resources or supplies might just be worth the risk. C H O O S E   Y O U R   O W N . . . Hunt or flee from strange creatures in the jungle, take a try at rock-climbing down the cliff-face, or practise in-game gained abilities. Ataraxion is currently without a network until one is built, but test-driving on a prospective one is also totally fine!

Comments

[shouldbe]

[ Tadashi. It makes her think of her cousins, the same style of name and all.

She looks at his hand, uncertain as to what it is he's initiating. Most of the men she's met would simply take a woman's hand to bow over, if she didn't offer it first... finally, Wave offers her own hand, palm down.

What does she ask first? ]

I suppose... everything, really. How did I get here? Where is here? When I woke up, I was in a... a tube, I think.

[ She shudders, remembering. ]

[tadashiwashere]

[Tadashi lifts an eyebrow slightly at how Wave offers her hand, but he gives it a brief shake nonetheless before reaching back to rub uneasily at the back of his neck.

Despite being part of this mess for a few months now, this planet is entirely new to him. The waking up thing, though -- that he can offer some insight on.

It's a lot to take in. The tubes are gravity couches. They're supposed to be for space travel, but...

[He lets his gaze drift to the wreck of a space ship before glancing back towards Wave.]

I don't know what level of tech you have where you're from. This... might take some explaining. Do you need some water first? Something to eat?

[shouldbe]

[ And Wave, for her part, is similarly flummoxed by how Tadashi grasps her hand and shakes it up and down. It's strange at best.

But oh well. She's more interested in getting the answers to her questions, which seem like they're only going to lead to more questions. Tadashi can probably see it on her face, the way her brow furrows at first and then her eyebrow raises when he mentions "gravity couches" and "space travel." He's got to be making a fool of her. ]

Water would be nice.

What do you mean, gravity couches? Unless the "gravity" part refers to how you fall several meters out of it when it opens up...

[ See that eyebrow lifting again, Tadashi? This is the face of a woman who has absolutely no tech and is going to need a lot of explanation. Hope you're up for the challenge! ]

[tadashiwashere]

[ Tadashi does notice her expression and inwardly sighs. Wave isn't the only one who's not exactly tech savvy around here. He's slowly becoming more accustomed to providing layman's terms... even if he's still not great at it.

While he searches for the best place to start, Tadashi steps over and crouches down to retrieve the cup-shaped piece of metal he keeps on hand lately. He pours some water into it from a container that he carefully stores back into his tattered bag on the ground, then offers the cup to Wave. ]

Be careful about standing water here. The ground water is acidic, but we just had a lot of rain. We have enough stored back to keep everyone hydrated.

[He hopes.]

I'm going to guess there's not a lot of tech where you're from? But you're on the right track. The tubes actually protect you from gravity. Before whatever happened, [He's still a little fuzzy on the specifics.] that ship would suddenly move really... uh... quickly. That's not exactly accurate, but picture it that way, okay? The gel in the tubes cushioned us from the gravity.

[Is that making sense? He watches Wave carefully, hoping to take cues from her expression to see whether he needs to slow down or not.

[shouldbe]

[ Wave accepts the cup from him, taking note of the process he goes through to give it. She doesn't understand how ground water can be acidic, but nods regardless. She doesn't have to understand to take it seriously. ]

So don't drink the water. Got it.

[ Tadashi's question about Coriolis's tech gets another nod, her lips turning up in a wry smile. ]

Is it that obvious? No, we don't have anything like this where I come from.

[ She tries to picture things as Tadashi explains, a ship going so fast that you would need some sort of cushioning. It's difficult, but not impossible--a carriage when the horses spook, for instance, or a sudden stop might produce a jerking motion. If it were like that, but sped up considerably...

It's too incredible to imagine, but then, so is everything else around her. Wave shakes her head in disbelief, but there's understanding on her face. ]

And how did we end up... [ "in those tubes," she wants to say, but the words get stuck in her throat as for a moment she feels the glass around her, closing in ] ...here, then?

[tadashiwashere]

A malfunction... I think.

[He needs to add in that qualifier just because there's still much they don't know about what happened, even after they're essentially "free" of the ship... to an extent. He knows that once he travels a certain distance away, he can feel the pull and begins experiencing symptoms of some sort of sickness associated with how far away he's tried to move from the ship.

Really, though, it still seems entirely random. There are people who have pulled from their homes alone, and others like him who are one of several.

And... that thought makes him think of Hiro. He swallows hard, trying not to let the clawing worry for his little brother completely incapacitate him.]

Whenever the drive on board the ship made a jump, you might describe it as making a rip in reality. Something about that action pulls people in. It might be by design, but it doesn't really seem to choose particular people. It's the luck of the draw...