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glencolaaa2023-05-01 03:59 pm
glencolans) wrote in glencolaaa2023-05-01 03:59 pm
Entry tags:
TDM #1
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.
Albert Heinrich/004 | Cyborg 009
Albert opens his eyes and immediately closes them again, throwing his arm up abruptly to block the light. Groping around, he futilely tries to find his sunglasses before stopping when it dawns on him that he shouldn't actually need them this badly, not since 1963.
Slowly, he sits up, squinting towards the horizon and noting that it takes a lot more effort to do so. He's heavy, heavier even than his drenched motorcycle jacket would feel. He brings one hand to his face briefly, then away again, testing his vision again, noting the measurement lines that are normally ever-present have vanished entirely.
In fact, he gets nothing at all from his heads up display; odd, considering he can still see. Usually if the HUD is out his vision goes with it, so it can't be that unless something is wrong that's never been wrong, and that's hard to believe considering the injuries and malfunctions he's had over the years. He feels heavy too, his hydraulics working but he can tell they're working, something that after his upgrade in the late 80's he'd ceased to notice. He moved without pain for the first time in years after that, but now there's the general buzz of soreness already creeping at the edges of his prosthetics even just sitting here. He frowns, disconcerted, and attempts experimentally to flick his knife from his arm with the mental reflex he's always used to deploy it. Nothing happens.
Scheiße.
Grunting, Albert gropes around again in the sand for his glasses and finds the walkie-talkie instead. It seems to be an older model, but he likes those better. Physical buttons respond to his fingers far easier than the touch-screens they've started putting out do. He doesn't need special gloves to operate them, for one. But where did it come from? And does it have GPS?
He's gotten to his feet by the time anyone comes around, plodding his heavy way along the tree line where the ground shifts less under his weight. He's left a clear line of footprints deeply in the sand that can be easily followed to where he's plunked himself down on a fallen tree in the shade. He's nose deep in the walkie-talkie, clearly attempting to reach out and see who else is here.
With his luck? It's either other cyborgs or mad scientists.
Or God. Could be God.
II. NETWORK
BG004H:
"This is Cyborg004; is anyone monitoring this channel? Over." Brisk, concise. Very military. And in German, for those who can sort out the language from the automatic translation.
un: jk002n
It can't be. It's been over a week. Had they finally found him? The possibility Albert was also washed up here didn't even cross his mind as he presses the button to respond.
"Heinrich. God's sake." He should probably say something about the relief or joy hearing one of his closest friends puts in him, but instead- "took you long enough."
no subject
Is he delusional if he's aware he might be delusional? That's for Joseph Heller to figure out.
"Where are you and have you seen the others?"
->private
Oh...
"Right...let me guess: you washed up on the beach with a radio on or near you. Which I guess you're using now. Shit..." He sighs and takes a moment to close his eyes and adjust that expectation. Not rescue, but he'd still be a liar if he claimed to be anything but relieved.
"I'm somewhere inland, not sure where compared to you, but I've been here over a week. I was hoping you were the rescue committee, not another captive." He pauses and then switches to a private line. "Have you noticed? Brainwave communicator's quiet. Even now. Kept hoping it was just me that got messed with, but either they messed with you too or it's this place."
no subject
Now on a private channel, Albert sighs heavily before holding in the talk button to answer. There are a lot of things he wants to say, a lot that they haven't hashed out yet, but other things take precedence. "I'd been preoccupied with my targeting system and shock absorption not working. Jamming could take out communicators and targeting, but the shocks are mechanical. Could be a combination?"
That would be their luck.
"I can't find any indication they opened me up. You?" If this is a twenty-first century Black Ghost-like shadow organization, he's going to throw himself in the ocean.
no subject
"None. I haven't had much of a chance to take a deeper look...and no one to help look me over either. Didn't arrive with anything but the clothes on my back. My jets aren't working and none of the panels are responding. Once the people I'm keeping an eye on are somewhere safe, I'll come find you." There's a small beat as he weighs his own words a moment.
"Hey...you might not be the rescue party, but uh...still good to hear your voice."
no subject
"Yours too." He'd missed Jet during their estrangement more than he would admit even to himself, but Jet had still left, and for reasons Albert thought misguided, short-sighted, and petty. He'd been right, too, but that doesn't mean he doesn't regret what happened, and seeing Jet again in the aftermath of His Voice had given rise to an intensely complicated set of feelings that Albert hadn't processed. Still isn't.
But it doesn't mean he can't be comforted by one of his family, however complicated the relationship, being here.
"Whether I'm a rescue party or not is still open for debate. What's your location? I can work my way towards you. And who are you with? Civilians?"
no subject
There's a moment of longer pause than usual and when Jet responds again, it's a little quieter, like he's stepped away from anyone else a moment. "Kokichi...didn't catch another name. And Martin Blackwood. Both civilians and Kokichi's a minor. Martin's recovering from a near-dehydration death and Kokichi's limp only just got better not long ago. We've already run into a bear and a dinosaur. Don't worry about us, We're practically back home."
no subject
He frowns deeply. The civilians are probably safer with Jet than they would be on their own, but that coupled with Jet having stepped away to talk to him about it means he's keeping his nature a secret. Smart, but that makes it more difficult to fight when necessary. "The more you speak the more I'm put in mind of Black Ghost. Was the dinosaur mechanical, or could you tell? And have your companions displayed any unique abilities?"
This absolutely all reeks of weird science.
no subject
"That's about where I keep thinking too, but there hasn't been anyone claiming to be the cause or any obvious evil scientists. Not yet. But, no, I couldn't tell. From what I've gotten out of them, they're as normal as any guy."
He thinks to the moment he'd seen a flash of something odd in Martin's eyes, but...dismisses it. "There's all kinds of weird wildlife out there, from what I've heard. Weird as it sounds, don't trust any of it to be normal."
no subject
"Tell me when you move again so I can adjust my heading. Stay out of trouble, at least until I find you anyway." He pauses for a moment. "And don't hide yourself if its a difference between life or death. Its better they know what you are while you can explain then they find out from your body."
no subject
There's another pause on his end where his hand tightens a little on the radio as he picks his words. "If you find trouble you can use help with, call me. We're not so far from other people out here that I couldn't just turn and head for you."
Probably. He's pretty sure another group is reasonably close by, at least. Martin and Kokichi weren't helpless, they could probably watch themselves long enough for that. "See you soon."
arrival
Mr. Woolen Attire over here is melting.
"If anything, we should be poking around that forest, trying to see if we can find food or shelter."
no subject
"But I don't think you have the wrong idea." Honestly if he wasn't a cyborg and knew he could survive for some time without either of those things, he probably would have secured them first before messing with the radio, but that seemed to have the larger chance of having his questions answered.
Albert stands up but doesn't approach, instead letting the stranger come to him in the shade. "Your name?"