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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1. Arrival

[ For a split second, when Shion awakens on the beach, she's actually happy. Seeing an almost familiar natural landscape after months of extremely slow and desolate space travel will do that to a person. As satisfying and grandiose as it was to save the entire universe from a cosmic horror or two, there's still a small part of her that wishes to go back to a time where she lived on a tropical island and hadn't yet incurred the losses that would come from choosing to be a hero.

It doesn't take long for her to realize that isn't what's happening here though. This island isn't on Second Miltia, there's no galaxy-wide network, and her family is still gone. Oh joy. But, as confusing as all of this is, it's nice to feel sunshine and smell the ocean again. And at least she's not alone. She can spy a few others who seem to be waking up here as well, and she waves tentatively at the nearest one ]

Hello? Are you alright?

2. Network

I take back anything I ever said about your fascination with ancient technology, Jin.

[ Shion smiles a bit sadly as she mumbles this to herself, readying the green radio that was mysteriously in her possession upon arrival. She knows exactly how it works because she often rolled her eyes as her brother taught her to use a similar one when she was a child. She hits talk, and rolls through her mentally and hastily prepared spiel. ]

Radio check, this is Shion Uzuki. Is anyone listening? Over.

[ Yep, that's it. ]

3. Exploration

[ Shion hasn't actually ventured too far from the beach in her exploring, she's just inside the rain forest's canopy, attempting to lash some large unsplit palm fronds together with some vine she found to form a makeshift rain catch. It's not going so well, and she tosses it aside with a scoff of frustration for a moment, knowing she'll have to come back to it. She didn't see any water outlets to the ocean, so fresh water might be a long trek away, if there even is any. And with the warmth and humidity, they're going to be in trouble sooner than later if they don't think of something... ]

Oh! Hi, Shion. I'm listening. Over.

[A pause, then another transmission follows that one from the same callsign.]

Sorry, that was really stupid. I'm Martin Blackwood. Are you- Okay, if you're like me and some of the other people I've been talking to, you're probably not okay, but... but are you, um... as okay as you can be in the circumstances? Over.

[ There's a low groan as Lalo begins to push himself up. The sand burns underneath him and the sun burns above him, but the heat is a welcome respite from the water that covers him and weighs him down. ]

What...

[ The sound of a voice pushes through his consciousness enough to startle him into alertness. The voice is young-sounding and female, so his guard is down a little more than it would be otherwise. ]

Me? Oh, yeah. I'm fine. Don't worry about me!

[ The deep red scrape on his cheek and slight limp as he struggles to his feet beg to differ, though. ]

Edited 2023-05-10 02:37 (UTC)

[ Jill approaches with her hands up, but a big knife at her side (which is why her hands are up in a position of surrender, frankly). It's a slow and steady approach with careful steps forward, boots sinking into the sand. She wishes she had a little more on her, but she knows her body can be a deadly weapon if required and frankly? It seems like the younger woman might need a helping hand before things get really unpleasant with the weather.

Jill wipes at her face, smoothing her half-fringe back and over her scalp where it stays for the moment. ]

Might be able to help you with that, if you don't mind a stranger joining up with you. My knife's pretty sturdy and has recently been sharpened -- well, before I came here it was -- so we might get better work done with it than hands alone. [ It's now that she drops her hands, comfortably at her side, one settling on her hip as if she's expectant of something. ] ...I'm Jill.

TDM #1