TDM #1

[glencolans]

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

Welcome to Glencola Reef's first Test Drive Meme! This is a place where anyone interested in applying a character - or just curious to see how their characters might interact with the setting and others in the game - can mingle with one another. General prompts are provided below for inspiration.

TDM GUIDELINES

• Please read the rules before posting to the TDM. These still apply here and will be enforced, up to and including deleting tags/toplevels and prebanning.
• Posts from a TDM are required to apply. At least three tags across any number of threads within a TDM, posted within the last 6 months, must be provided in every application.
• TDM threads can be used for AC. Note that new characters only need to check in for their first AC cycle, but established characters can use TDM tags for their AC.
• TDMs are not considered game canon by default. This is mostly for logistics reasons - due to how characters travel on the map, it's unlikely that non-network threads that take place here will actually happen in-game. However, I won't stop anyone from working out how to make parts of threads game canon if they really want to.
• New TDMs will be posted every three months. Keep checking back into the current TDM for new toplevels!

I. ARRIVAL

You awaken on a tropical island beach, soaking wet, powerless, and without any idea how you got here. Were you carrying something important, or wearing powerful armor? How unfortunate - it looks like only the most basic clothes, items in your pockets, and simple weapons managed to make the trip with you. Are you even physically the same as you remember? If you had superhuman abilities tied to your physiology, you might be stuck in a completely different body that lacks your usual senses. You might've been whisked away from a tense battle or a near-death experience and wake up delirious, or even injured.

Thankfully, against overwhelming odds, you're not the only one to wake up on this particular stretch of beach. You and your companion have a lot of puzzling out to do.

II. NETWORK

Even if you weren't lucky enough to wake up near someone else, at least you've arrived with a military-grade radio transceiver gripped tightly in your hand (or mouth, or other vaguely opposable appendage of choice). The clunky walkie-talkie will start buzzing and crackling for every public message that starts coming your way. Answering them back is as easy as pressing the "talk" button on the side of the device and either speaking into the receiver, or using the keypad to type into the message box that appears on the screen, then pressing the button again to send. A list of ongoing conversations with responses that are less than 24 hours old can be found by scrolling through the menu, identified by the callsigns that are participating in them. It seems that you've been assigned a callsign, too - it shows up in the top right side of the screen, format AB123C. The letters and numbers picked are...probably random.

This is your easiest avenue to communicating, or coordinating with, or complaining at the other people stuck on this island; how you decide to use this tool is up to you.

III. EXPLORING

For a place that appears, by all signs, to be an equatorial island in the middle of a tropical ocean, the local environments are surprisingly diverse. Beaches range from idyllic white sand to storm-swept pebble crags to cliffs with waterfalls cascading off the edges; the interior forests can be thinned from sandy soil or dense jungles full of prickly underbrush and with towering canopies; and the central mountain peaks, perilous enough to climb on their own, terminate in ravines and sinkholes that are hidden by thick foliage until you already have one foot over the edge.

The animals that make their homes here are equally as varied, and sometimes just as dangerous. The standard Earth fare of tropical fish swim right up to most shores, especially where reefs have grown, and a multitude of seafaring and jungle birds make their homes in ocean-facing cliffs and trees. Any one of these creatures would make for an easy snack. But you're not the only opportunistic hunters here; sharks prowl the waters, big cats stalk the jungles, and feral boars raid any camps that smell enticing. And that's just the stuff that looks like it came from modern Earth. Your improvised fishing rod might have captured a trilobite, or maybe that deer you were stalking has rounded on you with a set of alien mandibles full of sharp teeth. Or maybe, among the plants and animals completely foreign to you, you've stumbled across one that's strangely familiar to your home and no one else's.

There's a lot to figure out about this place. At least, in this instance, you aren't doing it alone.

NAVIGATION

Comments

[3_strikes]

[ Three takes the proffered clothing, more out of habit than anything. It is still slow to remember sometimes that it does not have to do everything humans ask of it.

Including answering questions. ]

SecUnit 003, contracted to Barish-Estranza Explorer Task Group-Colony Reclamation Project 520972.

[ Naturally, it assumes the human is asking to determine its corporate affiliation. It wonders if the human will ask for the whereabouts of its clients—or if he knows that contracted SecUnits should not be capable of operating without said clients in proximity. If it is lucky, he does not. At least he doesn’t seem to be panicking over the possibility of it being a rogue construct.

At least, not yet. ]

[royallyunappreciated]

[Ardyn pauses and blinks.]

That's not a project I'm familiar with. [Nor is that designation. Ardyn finishes getting his boots off and dumps water and sand from them before gesturing toward the nearby treeline. He carries his own boots, but he leaves the SecUnit to carry the rest of his clothes] Let's walk, 003. Who exactly commissioned you? You're far more advanced than any other magitek I've seen.

[3_strikes]

[ Three dutifully follows the man, quickly falling back into following client-SecUnit protocol. It hadn't wanted to go back to this. Seeing the memories on the help-me file had confirmed as much to it. But this is easy and familiar, and it feels safe when so much of the situation is still beyond its grasp. ]

I'm sorry. I cannot provide an answer to your query. This unit was manufactured for rental to clients as a feature of an inclusive security package. No one commissioned my production.

Additionally, I am unfamiliar with the term 'Magitek.'

[ A brand name, perhaps? Or a regional term for another category, like constructs? Three cannot yet say. ]

[royallyunappreciated]

[Curiouser and curiouser. Ardyn hums, but holds his peace until they reach the treeline, where upon he ponders a moment, then moves to break a pair of small branches off a tree. They're stripped of leaves and twigs before the man plants them into the ground in the sun, digging them into the sand to ensure they stay upright. He turns his boots up and over the branches. A poor drying stand for them, but it would do in a pinch.]

Find somewhere to lay my clothes out so they'll dry, please. You might like to dry your own clothes out, as well. We wouldn't want you damaged. [Not before Ardyn can figure out what this unit actually is.] You say you've never heard of magitek, but I'm afraid I've never seen anything of your construction made in another manner. Please state the last known date according to your internal records and your specific location prior to activating here.

tfw there no dates or years are given in a character's canon 😬

[3_strikes]

[ Three does as the human says, finding a low branch at the treeline and carefully hanging the man's coat, gloves, and scarf over it to dry. After a moment, it takes off its own jacket and lays it over the branch, too. Saltwater poses no threat to Three's hardware, but there isn't any purpose to keeping on a jacket in this climate, wet or not.

And then Three hears the man's next queries. It stills for a moment, trying to calculate the odds that such data could be used to implicate it or the humans aboard the Perihelion. The first part of the request should be safe to address. The second... ]

The last known standard Corporate date according to my internal records is— [ and it provides it. Safe to say, the year is far beyond the 21st century. ] As for my location, my clients in I were aboard a transport in orbit around a Barish-Estranze-owned former colony planet. [ A pause. ] Its coordinates are proprietary information.

[ None of what it says it a lie. It is simply omitting unnecessary detail—and hoping that the human does not take too close of an interest in its uniform, which bears the insignia of the Perihelion transport and the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland—not those of a security company and certainly not those of Barish-Estranza.

...Perhaps it should have removed more than its jacket when it had been prompted to do so. ]

i'm so sorry, but I feel your pain on sparse info

[royallyunappreciated]

[Ardyn listens and observes carefully, even as he pretends like he isn't, plopping himself down in the shade and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. He should probably take it off, as well, but it feels... unwise. The sun isn't hurting him, but it's been a long time since he was nearly naked under it. It doesn't feel right.]

Ah, well, that explains my confusion. I rather think I must be from a time well before you. [Which is irritating. He's gone through this before. At least he hadn't been made to actually suffer the intervening 2,000 years again. How very merciful of the gods.] It's only 766 for me. I feel terribly behind the times. Space travel! That seems like such a far off dream for us.

[3_strikes]

[ A time before it?... Three stares uncomprehendingly, even after the human elaborates. Perhaps it is a joke? He could not actually mean that the last year he remembers is so early as to be before the advent of space travel.

...Or perhaps he is suffering from delusions. There are a number of conditions that could cause such a symptom and several of them would be quite expected from a human who has just washed up on the shore of a deserted tropical island. ]

I will attempt to locate freshwater, [ it says, moving back towards the treeline. ] The surrounding climate and environment create a significant risk of dehydration.

[royallyunappreciated]

[The response has Ardyn's lip curling up in amusement. Magitek. They'll never be quite as satisfying to banter with as real people. He stretches and then crosses his legs as he leans back against a tree trunk.]

Yes, all right, then. I suppose I'll wait here. Have you got something to actually carry it with when you find it? I'm afraid I'm short on canteens.

[3_strikes]

No. You could remain here and I can return and guide you to the source once I have located it, or you could accompany me.

[ It suspects the human will choose the former. Stranded or not, he seems to be making himself quite comfortable here... ]

[royallyunappreciated]

I'm afraid I'm terribly distressed from the recent ordeal.

[He doesn't sound the slightest bit distressed.]

Be a dear and let me know when you've found something.

[And with that, Ardyn drops his hat down over his face to indicate he's done with the conversation. For now, at least. He needs to think about his next move. Strange magitek and a world millennia into the future once more. The gods are, as ever, cruel.]