memepad | test drive!

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test drive!

arrival.

We don't have a brilliant arrival prompt as of yet, but you're welcome to take a look at the arrival page and post your character's arrival if you desire! You may count this test drive as a canonical arrival if you decide to keep the character in game. Many of the below prompts are in possible arrival locations, but do not need to be arrivals.

Shopping, or something like it.

Maybe you want a toothbrush. A swimsuit. Enough sun protection to ease the transition for a vampire who'd lived their entire life safely tucked away on a space station far, far away from anything remotely sun-like. Maybe you just want to put yourself someplace everyone else is bound to go, sooner or later. Maybe you're just someone who will always default to "let's go hang out at the mall", for that matter.

Maybe you're used to shoplifting, and won't notice anything about the mall's security levels, at least at first. Maybe you're a scrupulous goody-two-shoes, and you're going to have a problem when you realize that not only is nobody asking you to pay, but there is literally no way to pay for anything you wanted to purchase.

Maybe you're just going to have to throw a temper tantrum when you realize that the Orange Julius-like storefront is also completely unstaffed, and no more automated than any other Orange Julius you've ever seen, and so you don't have any way of getting the perfect smoothie.

(Unless, maybe, you can find someone else who's got more experience with a blender than you have.)

On the shoreline.

Look. You've been to the beach before, haven't you? You know what to expect when you get there: salty water, some sand, the general sinking dread that the overpowering chemical reek of artificial-coconut-scented sunscreen is coming to get you; the usual, right?

This is maybe not your usual beach. Possibly because it's a little more like a coral reef or atoll; possibly because it's a little more like someone got carried away with programming fractals into a really big 3D printer; possibly because it isn't all that much at all like the beach you were just at, if you were maybe at a beach just before you came here anyway. No toddler temper-tantrums in earshot, no seagull con artists waiting for you to be the slightest bit distracted so they can steal your food right out of your hands, no overpowering chemical reek of artificial coconut...

Don't worry too much, though. There is sunscreen, over at the little vending machine over that-a-way, along with coverups and hats and sunglasses (oh my) — pity you can't tell what they're going to look like before the machine has spat them out at you, though.

(The water does, at least, feel like water, and taste like salt, even if the sand is disconcertingly perfectly-just-off-white, and only a few inches deep above the hull.)

By the way—if you came here in a boat, this is going to be home, at least for your boat. These are the only berths you're going to find; you can claim a berth, and if it was empty when you did, you can—presumably—keep it. Some berths are already filled with other boats. Some of these boats were clearly meant for public use, and others seem as if they used to have people living in them, or at least had private owners. Nobody's living in them right now, though. Strange.

Enjoy the spa.

Or else, you can try to enjoy the spa, if you’re motivated or don’t require any staff.

Because there isn’t any. Much like the shoreline, like the mall, like the apartments, there is a whole lot of absolutely nothing unless you can figure out how to wake up the AI—and even if you do, the AI doesn’t have a clue about how to do a massage or a stretch or a chemical peel.

But you can still enjoy the saltwater pools. Or the salt room.

Or the really nice lounge.

Or the lotus pond grid.

You can also get some good skin care supplies, or put up a note on the digital bulletin board stating what you’re looking to get done. There might be another new arrival who can give you the stretch or facial you’re looking for. If you’re someone with those skills? Better stick around. Someone might be in need.

Wildcard.

If none of these inspire you—or if all of them do and you just want to add another thing to respond to, it's up to you whether you want to put one response or several in a top level comment, we're good with anything you like—you've got a whole chunk of an empty solarpunk island to do something with. The further you stray from that shoreline the harder you will be to locate by others, but we encourage you to have fun!

Anything that the setting page inspires is probably fair game! Feel free to ask before posting if you've got any questions that reading through the mod journal doesn't yet clarify; consider this a sort of beta run. ♥

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On the shoreline.

A secure channel establishes that anyone on a particular cargo ship (nor the ship itself) will fire on an unmarked shuttle. He's expected. The space outside the Fedallah looks wrong, Rache notes, a moment before he's out of the shuttle bay. Space falls away to planetary gravity. In the privacy of his own shuttle, underneath combat armor, a hood, and a mask, Rache swears repeatedly as he brings more of the shuttle's power to bear. The thrusters were enough for the emptiness of space, less the rapidly approaching waterline of Xolas moon. His heart rate skyrockets, as his organs also try to move higher up in his body through the g forces on the falling shuttle. By the time he evens the shuttle out, Rache is grinning, exhilarated by the experience.

Only then does he have time to think. He scans the area, hoping no one takes too close a look at the shuttle appearing from nowhere. Truly, nowhere. The Fedallah is off his screen and doesn't answer his calls. The Kingdom warships are gone too along with the more than a hundred smaller ships. Not just off the moon (the gate pieces have all been claimed, for better or worse). Not on scan. Nor are the closest habitats and space stations. There's only one contact on his screen, and it's on the moon itself.

Moon, planet, whatever celestial body this place is because it is not Xolas moon. That's odd. Even Moonrazor and the Astroshamans couldn't accomplish something like this. Their understanding of the gate isn't that good, and they don't have the gate, not enough to operate anything. Rache would believe being targeted for attacking the base. This isn't it. His course lays in for the lone contact. The shuttle isn't meant for long distance space flight, and the stars don't match his charts. For lack of a better option, he approaches the harbor, where some boats are docked. Nothing on comms, no one asking for his ident or purpose or anything.

The shuttle lands on a small pier to the side, where no boats are docked. None should because the shuttle is on the pier itself, not the sea. Rache loads up the weaponry he has in the shuttle and exits to the city below. In his black combat armor, face hidden under a hood and mask under the face place, he strolls down the docks. There isn't enough cover to keep himself from view so better not to scurry around, to let someone tell he's anywhere he didn't intend to go.

"You know-" A voice calls out from much further down the docks. "-if you're trying to blend in, you definitely lost this YOLO bet."

The voice is high and clear, used to projecting for many people to hear her at a moment's notice, and the girl in question happens to be not far from the end of the dock walkway. For all that, it's impossible to tell if she's been there the whole time or just happened to walk up in the last few seconds. She's just this side of what most people might consider whipcord thin, and it makes her not quite average height seem that much smaller. A tumble of blonde curls over her shoulders and black jeans, her hand gesturing with the soda can in it.

She can't believe she's been reduced to soda. But the soda is hardly a thought in the current process in Sara's head, staring at the outfit that is far too much like The League uniform, and any number of other familiar forms of armor, without being recognizably familiar (a rarity), for anything like comfort. Sara's fingertips are poised against the thin metal but not pressing with any force yet. Rather the same as her body stays still, the thumb of her other hand still hooked in the pocket of her jeans, but there's a readiness already unspooled in her mind.

Distance. Trajectory. Any number of the easily turned helpful miscellanea laying between them.

His first contact is dressed for Odin, moon, or trusts the condition of her habitat. Not for an expected or potentially unexpected walk in space. Even when he's relaxed, Rache wears a galaxy suit. That doesn't rule her out as a danger. This celestial body-bound locale has different norms. Combat armor is recognized readily. It's unclear whether she recognizes him or his mask.

Calm as the woman is, Rache recognizes the mirror of his own. Readiness. His weapons are more predictable, whether the rifle on his back or the munitions in his utility belt. He doesn't reach for them. His hands are safely held at a safe distance. "That's readily made up by how much I save in laundry," he replies deadpan. Rache doesn't angle further toward or away from her but continues his steady pace. "Fizzop?" Rache nods toward the drink in her hand. He's learned not to underestimate those with a sweet tooth.

It's a response, at the least, and one that doesn't come out sounding like a declaration of war. No matter that her eyes still track along the get-up, doing, without even meaning to, all that is seeped into the hollow of her bones and her soul. It's not hard to take an accounting in the empty stillness of the dock. The empty stillness is almost distracting. But that's a different problem for a different part of her.

Sara's been traveling in both directions in time enough that her brows briefly wrinkles at the word in question before it's instantly broken down in the closest things: fizz and pop. She doesn't even stop by the station that knows many things are being made in what she counts as the pseudo-present that is never hers but is somehow supposed to be, too. Just rolls right on through.

"Orange." Perhaps wryly oblique on purpose. Even when she looks at the can and then back up while she tilts her head to one side. "The one that tastes like the color, not the fruit."

The way she watches him feels more appropriate to System Cerberus than System Lion. At least it's open. Open enough. If Casmir were here, Rache would have suspected he already got to this woman. However, his twin is in no condition to give anyone fizzop, much less anything else. He's also unlikely to be here, based on what little information Rache has. He doesn't rule it out. "How do you tell the difference?" he asks. It's an absurd conversation, but even mercenaries can have a sweet tooth.

No one else is immediately around them. It's been far emptier than such a pristine habitat would suggest, unless the lack of people explains its cleanliness. He slows, so they have time for more of a conversation. "How much math did you have to do to get it?" Rache asks. It's far more absurd, but Casmir's rambling sticks in his memory.

She'd been about to say because it tasted nothing like the fruit, just like Grape, but then he asked about math, and her brow twitched. "You have to do math for soda?"

The you is pressed upon: all incredulity and some pity.
Sara knocks him off as not from her Earth for both questions.

"I have some great news for you about this trap then."

Maybe not even her universe. Also, this way too much for a conversation about soda, but she'd started and settled on it anyway. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd had one, but until she found herself a good bottle of Whiskey or Scotch, even if none would be as good as Rip's time stolen stash, it would make do. At least while figuring out this getup and whether it meant any of the things she thought it did.

Rache laughs, dryly. Good, she doesn't know Casmir. "I've been offered math for soda," he says. It makes about as little sense now as it did when it was offered. "Work shown and all."

'Trap' flags his attention. Rache doesn't shift his posture, but it's a useful piece of information. Another kidnapped guest of this metropolis? Whatever gate or other device opened to bring him here he hasn't been able to find. If it's anything like the gate and gate pieces everyone is after, she could be from anywhere. However much the two kinds of gates have in common. Interesting.

"Complementary beverages?" he deadpans. "It would take more than fizzop to make my day." Still, it's useful information.

"Well, you aren't the worst person I've run into today then."

Beat.

"Unless this whole thing-" There's a wave at his outfit. "-changes that."

She'd hate to have to start this whole thing with killing someone. At least she'd like to hold on to that sentiment; honestly, it might make her feel calmer briefly. But she doesn't allow herself to focus on the too deep, too true impulse. At least not any longer than she does any other dozen times of the day it presses up, even about the people she respects and loves in her own crew.

"So, what gives? Costume party I didn't get an invite to?"

He doesn't aspire to be monster Kingdom parents warn their children about, so Rache files away the fact someone terrible may be here. He knows so little, it doesn't affect his choices. "Hmm," is all he says.

Rache pauses as she waves at him. At his armor, perhaps, or rifle on his back, the DEW-Tek pistol, the SK-Ram pistol, or the grenades on his utility belt. Probably, it's all of it together. When stations are peaceful, people usually blanche at the armor. That's why he sometimes opted for a galaxy suit and the pistols. As always when in public, the mask and hood. He considers the time of day.

"I've had an eventful week," Rache says. "Don't know how you missed the party. What have you been doing?"

"Saving time and space?"

Said with all the arrogance of someone who doesn't mind showing off that fact. Especially since most people don't really get who the Legends are as people, what the name means, and how the name actually has absolutely nothing to do with the definitions or the arrogance that no one has around it. Except as being proud of who they are, what they do, what they've sworn themselves to. Sure sometimes it's hell, but sometimes -- most times -- they mess things up for the better.

"Must have missed the memo." Another, without even aiming for subtle as she stays on this track. "What did you get stolen from?"

Appearing straight-froward curious, but it anything not put off by it. She's out of numbers already for ways she's considered the attack. Deflections. Reaching, taking, or disarming. Same with all the things on the docks around them. It's always nice when people bring her toys to take them down with. Means she doesn't have to do the work.

Which doesn't discount just how many weapons are hidden behind her unassuming outfit.

"Hmm," Rache repeats. Saving time is curious. There's plenty of fiction around the matter. Other than traveling from one system to another in an instant, via the gates, time travel isn't a regularity in the Twelve Systems. Any current time is complicated enough on its own. He doesn't like the thought of Jaeger with access to time travel. Not that Admiral Mikita would likely be any more biddable than Rache or Casmir.

"Would you like an invitation to the next one?"

He lifts an eyebrow. It isn't visible through the mesh mask. It covers a multitude of sins, but Rache isn't easily perturbed. His descent was in clear view of the docks, so odds are she noticed his arrival. Given how little was out there, especially if she had a similar experience, it's not hard to put two and two together. Yes, he sighs mentally, that is in fact math. "An errand," he says. In space. The other reason to wear something that can protect him from a vacuum. She'd be out of luck in the shuttle if someone shot a hole in it. "Yourself?" He trusts her as far as his surgeon can throw a crusher.

That's not an answer, Sara's eyebrows are quick to note and comment on. She adds 'cagey' or 'secretive,' among several other potential qualifiers. But not without noting that it's not like she wants to tell anyone else what she is when she's covered in blood and still has to get from one place to another. She's rarely in clothes that give up what she is anymore.

But anything like her isn't an early factor in good points for a person.

"My ship. I was headed to bed. Walked through a door. Suddenly here."

One step in the quiet of the night of her Waverider, the next, it was water and wind and voices. Which she picked up the second it happened, but by the next second glance over her shoulder, the ship was already gone. She didn't like it. But until she found the right person to hold against a wall with a knife, she could be patient. How patient might make it worse when she did find that person.

This shadow of a conversation is more peaceful than most people get when he's in combat armor. Rache doesn't wear it all the time, only when he sees a high enough likelihood of violence. Captain Lopez, for all she had no logical reason to attack him at this time, had attempted to blow him up in the past. His intentions, despite what they looked like, are peaceful. Or were. This place, he's unsure of.

"Hmm," he says. With the amount of information she's shared, the reference to walking through a door, Rache decides to return in kind. "I flew out the shuttle bay." They are both a kind of door. He appreciates it not happening when he walked around his ship in only a galaxy suit.

"How long have you been here?" Rache asks. He doesn't trust the answer as is, but if she knows about more than the free drinks (or even of drinks that are actually healthy)... It's not as simple as an outright attack, but not everyone shoots on sight.

Bucky watches that shuttle descending from afar.

It's a far flashier arrival than his own (one rundown fishing boat, bumping up against a pier), and thus a more noticeable vehicle between the towering buildings of the white city. And so he finds himself observing its landing with its one lone figure emerging, and moving down the docks. He's still fixated on the idea of aliens, but he can't really tell what the person looks like under the armour, mask, and hood.

He waffles over whether or not to approach. Any company is better than this ghost town, but this one looks like it means business— in the end, opting for a middle ground, Bucky moves out from the shadow of a building and starts trailing the new arrival, moving along the street behind them, close enough to follow them through the city but hopefully far enough back that they won't spot him.

Which probably won't last. And is probably not the least suspicious way to be spotted, Buck.

His route starts off simple and direct--for anyone being direct (friendly or unfriendly) to make themselves known. This place doesn't have the population base he expected, at least not by the docks. On a city floating on water, the docks should be a busy thoroughfare. Either the city is so immaculate because it has no people or something sharply and suddenly happened to them in the (eh, handwaved sense of time) near past. If something could bring him here, something can likely take people away from this place. Either that or it's a deathtrap, like those plants that ate flies and other insects. He's down the gullet. Well, it will find he's hard to swallow.

Fine. Sometimes the well armored obvious target makes people wary. Rache starts using corners and going down narrower streets, maneuvering among as many obstacles as he can find. Eventually he uses one to 'disappear' and reappears after the amount of time it would take him (if he were the one following) to be close to the other side. His face isn't visible through the mask, hood, and faceplate, but he's smiling. "What are you looking for?" Rache asks.

Bucky goes still and motionless, his shoulders strung taut with tension. Busted, he thinks, and not for the first nor the last time, he suddenly misses having Sam's eyes on the situation, the visor with the heat vision, the voice in his ear reporting on the bird's-eye view. He wouldn't have slipped up like this if he'd had backup. He's apparently gotten— accustomed to having someone watching his six. Operating as a team, rather than one lone wolf any longer.

What a funny time to realise it.

He turns around slowly, hands up in the universal gesture of harmlessness, despite the fact that he hasn't been baseline harmless in some eighty-odd years.

"Other people," he says, which is the truth. "This place is a freaky ghost town. Wasn't sure what to expect from you."

Edited 2021-09-13 00:06 (UTC)

Their location is too quiet, too devoid of the signs of life. It’s a valid answer, even if it’s low hanging fruit. What does this person, who knows how to follow someone this well without the cover of a populated place, want with other people? The other guy asking a similar question—about someone who can spot such a tail.

Rache isn’t about to trust him just because he professes to be on the same side (or despite it). Still, people are people, and they’ve what they got to work with. “Wasn’t sure what to expect of this place,” Rache says. “How much of it have you checked out?” In lieu of any immediate threats to his life, information’s the way to go.

It's almost a familiar ritual: that immediate focus on practicalities, on intel, on exchanging actionable information. (Soldat; report.) So when Bucky speaks again to answer the question, it's a frank and to-the-point recitation of what he knows so far:

"Been to the mall— that building over there, with all the shops— and picked up this jacket. I've spent most of my time on the beach trying to figure out what's going on there, though, since that's where I arrived." A beat, before he adds, "On a boat. Not from this planet. Yeah, I don't know how that works, either."

This guy (or woman? or alien? impossible to tell under the mask and armour) had an arrival that made a bit more sense, at least: a spaceship screaming down out of the sky. At least that tracks.

"Did you land here on purpose?"

Edited 2021-09-17 02:50 (UTC)

The arrival via boat, via transportation from one habitat to another, not in space, falls under the type of impossibility that is even more impossible than gate travel, so far as scientists studying wormholes could explain it. That fits with the lack of a gate present on this end (not that shuttles are good options to use traveling through a gate). It’s alarming.

“There were not any other contacts detected on this half of the planet,” Rache replied. “Until there’s a steady source of fuel, I deemed it best not to waste it in a new sector of space.” He paused.

“I’m not a local of this system.” It was not any of the Twelve Systems. Rache had been to them all.

"Me either."

The mention of the lack of fuel leads to a twitch at the corner of his expression, a quick flicker of disappointment. Part of Bucky's brain, on autopilot, had started considering either stealing the ship or teaming up with the stranger to go flying off-planet in search of Sol, and Earth, and home — because surely it's gotta be out there, right? They're not in Kansas anymore, but maybe they're just very, very, very far away.

Maybe.

Part of that stoic facade finally seems to crack and he sighs, scrubs at his face. All that wary caution starting to splinter in favour of just— tiredness. Walking on your toes all the time is fucking exhausting.

"Okay," he says, as if the stranger had actually asked a question. "I'm James."

A flip switches in the man before him. Rache doesn’t fully relax. Too many assassins have been sent after him. Too many betrayals from both crew and allies. It’s a bad sign from someone who has clearly been here longer than him. Rache extends the timeframe by which he hopes to return to System Hydra and the Fedallah.

Names. If no one here knows Admiral Mikita’s face, David Lichtenberg’s face, or Casmir Dabrowski’s face, Rache could take off the hood and the mask and melt into the marooned population in this place. Awkward to do in front of someone, but it would potentially read as a similar level of relaxation. Rache hasn’t explored enough of the area to know if that’s true. Not everyone studies military history of centuries past. In somewhere completely new with people that haven’t heard of him, Tenebris Rache as a name stands out like a sore thumb. There isn’t time to ponder a new identity for this place.

“I’m David,” Rache says and gives a Star Kingdom bow. Standard, no knights’ flourish. David Dabrowski. Rache almost snorts.

Bucky watches the bow, a little taken aback and bemused at the unexpected formality of it. Bowing feels old-fashioned, like a vestige out of an older century, compared to someone who can soar across the galaxy in a spaceship. "Nice to meet you, David. Where I come from, we usually just shake hands," he says, and then extends a polite palm.

And like this is his own little test — maybe his own mark of still not letting all his guard down at once — it happens to be his gloved left hand which he holds expectantly out. If David takes it, the grip will be carefully-calibrated standard pressure, but the hand surprisingly hard and ungiving, the metal unrelenting beneath his fingers.

Behind the mask, Rache smiles. Either James is not from the Kingdom or he does not want to be known to be from the kingdom. His accent has not been characteristic of the Kingdom, but that tell can be trained away along with the rest. Plenty of other systems and literature usually just shake hands. Rache has his doubts that this man is from any of the Twelve Systems. The only way he could have grown up ignorant of the Star Kingdom was if the AI's on Verloren Moon adopted a baby and raised it, restricting its access to human communications. This place is beyond the Twelve Systems. He gives a small nod of recognition.

He matches the greeting gesture, proper and firm. Surprise, surprise, James is cybernetically enhanced. It's more obvious than Rache's enhancements. His hands are strong, but Rache isn't using their enhanced strength. Beneath his gloves, they look like human hands, flesh and blood. He wonders whether James's replacement is the result of a conscious choice or grievous injury. People in one or both situations have joined the Fedallah, joined him. "I'd offer to buy you a drink," Rache says and shrugs, "but I doubt I have local currency." Plus, he was cut off from the banking system and the overwhelming majority of his liquid and illiquid assets.

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test drive!

Tenebris Rache | Star Kingdom

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