test drive!

[lilypadmin]

Code

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. ♥

Comments

[armeyets]

"My... what?" He keeps staring at the drone (he has a habit of that, even when he's not stranded on an inexplicable alien planet). For a fleeting, incomprehensible second, Bucky thinks of manila folders and reports and files on himself. One such report does exist, but he's pretty sure that's not what this thing is referring to.

"Not sure what you're talking about, bud."

[softwareghost]

Even then non-corporates were familiar with some forms of publicly shared information. Theirs was different, with more minimal requirements. “Public information, usually at least a name and gender identity.” In some of the dramas, they don’t have feeds or don’t use them the same way. Rare ones. 2.0 doesn’t have its media tagged for that particular detail.

“You can call me SecUnit. The gender field entry is ‘not applicable,’” Murderbot 2.0 shares. As it knows from its records, the name field doesn’t have to be what it calls itself. It stole the name from 1.0, but it could hardly steal Asshole Research Transport.

[armeyets]

The man stands there for too long, still staring up, a challenging (and stubborn) tilt to his chin as he takes it in and weighs over his response. Annoyingly, his immediate instinct is to be unhelpful. To dig in his heels and play his cards close to his chest, because he's spent a lot of time on the run and with several spies, and certain habits rub off.

But it, whatever it is, offered its designation first. So. What the hell. Finally, with a tick in his jaw, he forces himself to relax. Just an inch.

"James Barnes. Gender identity male. SecUnit— does that stand for Security Unit?"

[softwareghost]

This person—man—is not familiar with The Company as 1.0 refers to it (to such a degree Murderbot 2.0 doesn’t know the name of The Company). Or the Corporate Rim more broadly. Interesting. The Targets didn’t know either, but James Barnes is not acting like a Target.

It probably reached this place via alien technology. Nothing it knows would do so. If the same happened with this man or this place is far far away from the Corporate Rim (it really needs more information) that could explain the question. “Yes,” it says (in a timely fashion because it thinks at computer speeds). Like ART, its pauses are more deliberate or a really really bad sign.

Risk assessment is moderate. The exchange of information has lowered the risk. “Have you encountered any problems in need of security, James?” It asks. This drone body isn’t much, but if the threat is networker or has any technological connections, it’s very good inside of things.

[armeyets]

Bucky snorts. "Not yet." That yet speaks volumes, too: a paranoid mind, expecting the worst and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But he's still trying to figure out the ins and outs of this advanced drone and where it's from, and where he winds up is, well, slightly off from accurate: "You a built-in system from this city? I've only seen a couple people around here, but no threats that I can tell. You're the first talking mechanical thing I've come across."

For lack of any native residents, he's starting to think maybe there's an AI powering and inhabiting this empty city instead. Maybe this drone is part of it.

[softwareghost]

Murderbot 2.0 is glad it doesn’t have a face. This drone doesn’t change, dropping, wavering, or anything to give away its surprised reaction. 1.0’s face is far more telling. A built in system. It laughs to itself. Imagine people using SecUnits (or killware) for mall security. No one is that comfortable with SecUnits.

This drone, admittedly, is far less fear inducing. Possibly because it’s not that hard to damage/destroy it. That’s why Murderbot 2.0 has backup and ideally would like to be a networked system.

It connects to the mall map, which it found with another part of its attention, and places where they are. That’s something. “There is no universal network currently in this city,” Murderbot 2.0 says. “The shopping mall has a navigation system.”

It pauses to push the connection to the interface on James’s person. Then Murderbot 2.0 permits itself a quick total scan of the admittedly small capacity interface. It’s hardly utilized, as though James Barnes is as paranoid about interfaces and feeds as SecUnits are. It scans him again. The man’s definitely not a construct, the metal prosthetic not withstanding. That clearly is a post-creation add on. “I’ve connected it to your interface.” It pauses, what would be a moment to breath if it had lungs, “I am an independent security system created originally to handle threats spread via communication systems.” Handle those threats to death and/or destruction, whichever fit. “The navigation system will not harm you.” There, useful.

[armeyets]

"My interface?" Bucky's briefly lost again — but for being an old man, he's also relatively quick on the draw. And besides, he hadn't come here carrying many belongings at all, so there's not much to choose from: just the clothes on his back, that small ship in the harbour, and a useless brick of an iPhone. He fishes around in his jacket pocket, finds the phone and pulls it out.

There's still no network detected — the device was never in use much back home and it's even more pointless here, only available for taking notes and photos and looking at his old pictures, at least until the battery dies and he has no way of waking it up again — but ah, there it is. Somehow, despite the lack of a network, the drone's managed to push a map of the mall into its database, with the blue dot helpfully marking where they are. He makes a noise in the back of his throat. Impressed, maybe.

He looks back up at the drone. "Thanks," he says, hesitating, before he adds: "Can you sense anything else in this city?"

[softwareghost]

James Barnes (and his interface) more closely resemble the Targets and their technology than what Murderbot 1.0 (and thus also 2.0) is used to. There's probably some reference files for historic linguistics, but no module was ever provided to SecUnits. If it had, it would have been trash and likely made this conversation more difficult.

"You're welcome," Murderbot 2.0 replies following Preservation etiquette. No one in the Corporation Rim thanks bots. "I haven't yet surveyed most of the city. Since it is not networked, that will require manual scanning," Murderbot 1.0 says. It's a long cover its own ass (if it had an ass) answer for, 'Not yet, but I'm going to poke it with a stick.' Perhaps it should extend itself into more drones and create its own network. It's so slow to move around a place at the speed of physical objects.