TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[freezers]

TEST DRIVE #1

The universe is fading into a bitter, cold blackness. Planet by planet, star by star, life is disappearing. For the good ship Koska IV there is no return voyage, there is no home, there is only forward. Behind it is the devastating emptiness of a life devoured, and the threat of an unseen enemy always at its heels. It can be argued perhaps that where the Kostka goes death follows, that it leaves ruin in its wake. If you ask Ripley, though, she'll say that they're only just managing to outrun the inevitable. Waking up aboard the ship feels strangely like waking up in a mausoleum. You emerge from your cryo pod like climbing out from a tomb, born new into a world long gone silent and still. The monolithic vessel now exists as a ghost town, halls dimly lit with emergency power, the only sounds being the mechanical ticking and groaning metal of the Kostka, laboring on like a wounded, burdened beast. Don’t mind the dust, the grime or the occasional blood splatter; cleaning is a nonessential function the droids don’t have energy to waste on. Kostka IV, once a transport designed for leisure cruises to and from new colonies, hobbles along on her last leg, urged on and on by the AI left to command her - R.I.P., affectionately termed ‘Ripley’ by her now absent crew. The sprawling, shadowy halls are only trafficked by Ripley’s minimal team of droids, the least that she can spare in straining her corrupted processes, much of both the ship and her systems in dire disrepair. Preserve organic life: Ripley’s primary, core directive and singular focus, the one goal above all else, which must be met, no matter the cost. And now, your goal too, as on Kostka IV, though crippled, Ripley is God, and the body your consciousness inhabits now is not your own - a semi-organic, synthetic host that morphs to fit the form you left, rather than the skin you were born to. You were saved from what is coming (for her, for you, for everyone), because Ripley needs more hands to keep this last ark of humanity afloat, as the ship struggles to find safe harbor, making stops along the way to pick up resources, to search for life. To find a home, and a future, for us all. ( Kostka is a panfandom, scifi, survival/horror jamjar, with elements of psychological and body horror (in varying, opt-out-able levels) peppered along with your general monster movie fair, driven by character interaction and influence with heavy meta-plot guided by regular mod events. Set on a mobile ship traversing through differing dimensions, characters are transported into semi-organic, synthetic bodies that replicate their canon form, able to be upgraded with powers through bonus AC rewards, and brought onto the crew to assist a debilitated AI in escaping a force destroying the multiverse, while they seek to salvage what remains of life. Events will feature some known canon worlds (like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Bioshock, etc), along with some uniquely built between mods and player world-building. This game is invite-only, and we have a player cap of 30, with two character slots available for each player. The game has been inspired by: Battlestar Galactica, SOMA, Altered Carbon, Mass Effect, Passengers, Black Mirror, and various others. ) GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE ⬡ AKA; waking up naked with tubes/cables in half ur orifices probably, gross A spark of electricity convulses through your body, and you jolt awake - underwater. Or, at least, that's most peoples' first guess. The color is more vibrant than water should be, and heavier, your body feeling sluggish against the weight and drag of it. Or perhaps you're just slower to respond, distant, limbs and mind still drowsy and reeling. The bright fluid doesn't sting when you blink, if anything, it's soothing, healing, calming. Fortunate, that, because you're going to need it. As the pod-like chamber you're held in starts to drain of the liquid, your senses start to flood back in. Awareness filters in like a window curtain holding back the morning sun, gradually easing away with each inch the water line lowers. There's something on your face - a mask, strapped around the back of your head, and other thinner tendrils against your cheeks, your ears, your neck. Narrow tubes are channeled through in your nostrils, and cables have slithered in through your ears, plugging into God knows what on the inside of your skull. There's a click that you feel more than hear, and the tension on them slacks, disconnected from somewhere inside you. Pull - up, back, to the side, whichever way you want - and they start to drag free. Far from the most pleasant feeling (likely leaves you wanting to crawl right out of your skin), but it doesn't quite hurt or burn, yet. That's for the inch wide tube shoved down your throat and held in place by the mask. It's also what's keeping you breathing underneath this blue space-goo though, so maybe don't go yanking it off until the lid of your pod opens. As the fluid drains, a voice crackles in over the sound of water oscillating around your ears. Not something played from a speaker anywhere, nothing projected on a screen, and whether the cables are still in your ears or not, you hear her all the same, as if she's more inside your head than she is broadcasting over a speaker inside the pod or coming muffled from outside. Even still, it's stuttered and interrupted, like the connection is weak, interference like static white noise buzzing through and covering up parts of sentences. ❝ I don’t have a lot of tim— RIP can’t spare the power to run this more t—, so pay attention. No one knows where it came fr— out of radio contact when it happened, whatever it w— Everything in its path. There is no fighting it. Only surviv— Droids handle most of the maintenance, but she’s getting wor— Take the load off. Whatever happe— just keep Ripley running. If the ship stops, we’re all dea— —’re bodies are new, still adjusting. You’ll be on unsteady legs for a while, so take it slo— might end up face-planting, and there’s only so many replacemen— Mess hall’s lock— so make do. The cryo pod fluid’s the most nutritious thing around, just don’t think about wh— —’s all I can tell you. Good luck. ❞ » » » READ MORE HERE « « « At the end of the long lines of cryo pods, the halls meet at a small medbay. It seems some merciful someone has left a stack of thin, cloth sheets on one of the medbay tables, so it's best you pick one up, towel off a bit, and then toga it, until you find something more durable. Hopefully, at some point, someone will discover a door leading to a storage room is unlocked. There, you'll find some very stylish, bright orange jumpsuits. With luck, you'll make it there before you freeze. NETWORK ⬡ AKA; welcome to Kostka IV, Have Some K-Pop While Projection is not yet available, all HOST bodies share free access to a neural network through which they can communicate via text, audio, or video. One of the first things the HOST platform will prompt the new mind housed inside it will be to set up a sequence of finger taps to open up the network HUD. The system is fairly intuitive, and all one need do is reach up a hand to touch the option they wish to select. For text, a keyboard overlay will appear in the HOST's visual perception, and, dy default, all messages will show: a name, a username, and an ID code. Feel free to make these up as you like. These can be adjusted, and a HOST can post anonymously to the network as well (no guarantees Ripley can't trace it back to the origin, but she's not going to tell). There are no real rules on the usage of this network, aside from don't try to hack your friends, or your not-friends (just don't hack anyone, okay, it's rude). Ripley does understand the human need to socialize, especially in trying and stressful circumstances, so have at it kids. Ripley, however, will be making one quick announcement that she will not be capable of replying to just yet - waking you jerks up took a lot out of her, so give her some time. The voice that you hear doesn't come through any speaker or intercom around you, nor is it originating from any of the bodies or droids nearby. You hear what sounds like a young girl speaking as if inside your head, and she sounds exhausted: ❝ ATTENTION ALL CREW: This is Ripley. While I realize abduction and consciousness displacement is frowned upon in many human societies, please understand this was an emergency protocol enacted at the last possible moment. You have questions. I will answer as best as I'm able, as much as I'm able, but much of the data you're looking for has suffered massive corruption, held in a type of quarantine. The most important thing you need to know is that you, and all organic life within the multiverse, are being hunted. The mission of this vessel is to protect and preserve what remains of that life. Take time to acclimate to your new platforms. We'll talk more later. Ripley out. ❞ MAINTENANCE ⬡ AKA; get that human skull out of the filtration tank pls, or u stepped on a droid and now it's mad. We're hoping you had time to get over the Bambi legs and get your space legs under you (as well as some space pants onto your body), because Ripley expended a lot of processing power to waking you up. That means it's up to you to make up the difference and get to work cleaning this place up to make it habitable for you and your new crewmates. It's been nothing but RIP and her droids for the last who knows how long, so those things that need to be functioning for the continued survival of organic bodies need to get working. Here's the chores on the docket: ⬡ Water Filtration; Hydration - always a must for you squishy, fleshy things, isn't it? The canal that runs through the Ring atrium is a large part of the reserves, and at one dark innocuous end an uncomfortable grinding noise can be heard. Beneath the surface of the water where there should be wall, there is instead an enormous fan about ten feet in diameter. It's grinding so loud the sound escapes the water barrier, and the cause is pretty clear. There's something wedged between one of the fan blades and the circular housing it's contained in. Someone will need to dive down ten or twelve feet and unstick the human skull stopping the filtration system from running. Beware, though — the second it's free the fan blades will begin spinning, sucking gallons upon gallons of water down into the depths. Hope you can swim! ⬡ O2 Garden; Oxygen - another must. The up-side here is that the facility has been virtually untouched, yielding unchecked growth for the time no one's been tending to it. The bad part is more about the chaos that's left behind. The garden is nearly a jungle at this point, and if crew is to make their way around easily, manage the hydroponics, and set up the vegetable gardens again to provide food outside of the cryo soup, there's some major work to be done. It likely doesn't help that some of the more volatile samples have broken free from containment and mixed in with the rest of the garden. One hostile species will spit acidic venom at things wandering close to its roots while others just chomp down on anything that ventures within reach. Riply advises boots and protective gear when taking on this task, but getting rid of those weeds is up to you. ⬡ Assist the Droids; The won't talk, but they do beep and boop and shove things at your person to hold. If you're unwilling to help with anything else going on, you'll be assigned as a glorified pack-mule. Hold whatever the droids give you, hold it right there, hold it steady, and if you get shocked because you moved too much to the left, well, you really only have yourself to blame. Keep a mind to where your feet are falling as well - stepping on a droid zooming past will not only be likely to get you knocked on your ass, but probably earn you an short, sharp, electric shock from them as well. Good luck, have fun, try not to die because Ripley's exhausted from waking you up, and the droids suck at first aid— not to mention, very stiff bedside manner. VR / SAFETY TRAINING ⬡ AKA; ur gonna die a lot because space sucks. Let's face it, we weren't all born ready to space labor, or even space living. Loath as Ripley is to expend the power reserves on VR, the lot of you need to be trained up and the droids lack that personal touch that inspires excellence. RIP will be taking point on this assignment. It's a One Time Offer (well, we're calling it that now): the crew working away has freed up some CPU for Ripley, and because positive reinforcement is proven to work well on new puppies, she is rewarding you with Brain Stimulating Activities (aka safety training (or not)). This ship, especially dilapidated and running on emergency power as it is, is a dangerous place to be, even without the endless vacuum of space waiting outside to murder the absolute shit out of you. Characters will be given a VR visor, droids tapping a few buttons on a nearby console, and zipping away. Which, regretfully, means you won't be getting a warning or a say in what you're walking into, but walking into it you are, none-the-less. Sort of. Virtual walking. ⬡ Space walk; The Kostka IV has seen her fair share of daring battles and random asteroid clusters, leaving the frame of the beast of a ship pock-marked with damage. There's weakened structure, thermal panels missing, guns that don't want to get un-stuck and retract back into their housing. All kinds of nonsense. It's your job to tend to all that. Instructional videos will crop up on your HUD, walking you through your repairs, but that's assuming you can get to your spot at all, rather drift off into the sparkling black nether of the universe. Keep a good grip on the handrails outside. Now and again, something might give a quick, sharp shove, like hands against your side or your arm, attempting to dislodge you. Hold on tight, don't be tricked, and don't get lost. ⬡ Planet-Side; Suit up, it's time for a (practice) deployment, onto a little planet that doesn't exist in reality. The objective in this mission is resource retrieval, with taking samples of life forms as secondary. Some of the life forms, however, are not feeling that friendly. Depending on how the VR roulette spins you, it could be a dry planet, with deserts bordered by harsh mountain ranges, low on vegetation but populated by carnivorous dinosaur looking, that burrow deep, deep underground for water, and sometimes reach up to grab onto an ankle, pulling prey down into the sands to finish them off. It might be a thickly forested planet, humid and crowded with exotic flora. Ripley will tell you to collect water and samples of plants, perhaps bring a couple of fauna with. The smaller ones look cute and harmless, until they open their maws and you see rows and rows of needle-sharp teeth. Once you've been in there for a while, though, you start to feel a little paranoid, a little like you're being watched. Remain too oblivious, or just happen on bad luck, and your new stalker will be leaping out to make a meal of you. Or, maybe you end up somewhere completely different. Players are free to get creative with the setting as much as they like! Remember, this is VR, so they can (and likely will) die as much as you wish. Ripley will just spin the VR program back up for them to start again. ⬡ Crew Bonding: It's time to learn CPR! These kinds of first aid basics are necessary when having little fleshy people running amok, and Ripley would rather the crew be responsible for resuscitating their peers than having to grab a droid every time someone needs a shock back to life. An explanation will be given, and crew will asked to pair up and practice either on each other or a few spare HOST bodies not yet filled with a mind save. But, when it comes time for a test, one of the new crew will have to play the victim. Ripley's always been one with a vested interest in authenticity, so she takes control of victim's HOST platform - they stop breathing, their heart stops beating. It’s been a while since she’s People’d, okay? Anyway, the pressure is on, and your crewmates are counting on you to keep them alive. If you fail, she'll... probably turn their hearts back on before they're well and truly dead. We hope. » NAVIGATION « General questions about the game can be directed to the FAQ, while TDM questions can be answered on the comment header below! Awakening threads for GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE, MAINTENANCE and NETWORK can be used as game canon so long as all parties agree. Arrivals are on Day 1, while the other two prompts can take place any time during the first 5 IC days of the game timeline. The VR PROMPTS diverge a bit from what we have planned for the opening and cannot be used to game canon, so please feel free to get creative with those! Reserves will open on: March 1st @ 8PM EST Applications will open on: March 5th @ 8PM EST

Comments

[cicatrize]

[ for a moment there, jack had been thrilled, and relieved beyond belief. there was no saying goodbye to steve, a little less than a month ago. he was there when jack went to sleep, and gone by the morning. he and bucky went around badgering staff and shouting at guards, panicking, refusing to believe he was really gone, terrified it might've been something worse than just being sent home.

selfishly, jack had feared it would come out like natasha and some of the others had - even if he were to come back, he might never remember meeting jack, or the months he'd known him, after. all the times he'd called him family, promised they'd find a way to get him to their universe and save him from returning to shiloh. well, this sure as shit isn't shiloh, but it's still better than where they were.

barely half a minute of flooded relief and joy, and the second thing steve says shatters it, confirming those fears. he doesn't know him.

all the animation in jack's features, in the hold of his body, flood out, leaving him more like a statue, and he sinks back and steve eases him away, moving an extra foot or so to put distance between them, and lean his hip against a counter top, arms folding over his chest. he swallows, clears his throat. ]

Jack.

[ detached, reported. there's a sorrow boiling up in him, and jack does everything he can to swallow it back down and bury it. he hardly even needs to ask this - ] I'm guessing the word 'Duplicity' doesn't mean anything to you, does it?

[accountability]

[ The reaction gets him. In the same vein as Bucky's earlier, the sudden shift. Like a wall going up. Even if he doesn't know the guy, it's enough to summon up guilt prickling under his ribs. His features soften a bit, chin dipping down. A slight pause. Not because he has to think about the answer- ]

It doesn't. [ Not if he means anything more than the dictionary definition, anyway. Gives his answer the way someone might say sorry, written on his face the same way.

His head cants to one side, eyeing the guy. Jack. ]

The name Bucky mean anything to you?

[ Slick his hair back, put a little more meat on him, he might pass for James Buchanan Barnes' twin in another lifetime. Another universe.

At this point, it wouldn't be such a wild stab in the dark. ]

[cicatrize]

[ there was a small window, a brief period of time, that jack considered bucky a kind of brother. that was before all this. before the ship. tj remained at the station of near-twin, but bucky became something much more.

jack swallows, considering the question for a second. ]

He's a— [ friend, lover, family, best thing to ever happen to him. ] Friend.

[ steve may as well be another person now. much as jack would like to have faith that he'd come to accept him the same way he had before, his cynicism is too deep for that. ]

Not related.

[accountability]

[ A quick nod. There's that pause before friend, and he holds back from his own questions for a minute. Offers what he knows so far instead: ]

He's here too. [ Bucky. If Jack didn't already know. ] Mentioned something about a city. That I was there too. [ a light snort ]

Beardless, I'm guessing.

[ Is that where Jack met him? Or are they dealing with another dimension- the thought gives him a bit of a headache. ]

[cicatrize]

[ jack gives a minute nod - yes, he knows bucky's here, and given steve doesn't even know the name of the city from him, jack's guessing bucky was pretty tightly guarded about any further details. he can hardly blame him, given how much it took for the two of them to get to a point of honesty about feelings and attraction between them. perhaps the thought of duplicity's influence on top of that.

hell, even jack's somewhat unnerved by it, being outside of the city and the pressure of it. had bucky not immediately been so affectionate with him, he'd be more worried about the absences from the city meaning much of what happened there couldn't be recreated outside of it. he sure as hell doesn't want to admit to his own involvement with steve when the man has no memory of it now. ]

Beardless. Shorter hair. Younger, maybe.

[ it's hard to tell. the beard does give him the whole, u know, daddy look, so. ]

[accountability]

[ His gaze drops to the floor, head tilting to one side, as if considering the picture Jack's painting. ]

So you and this other guy-- [ the other Steve. His gaze lifts again with the question: ] -- you were friends too?

[ Given the enthusiastic greeting followed by the way Jack closed up the second he realized Steve wasn't the same guy. Good to get context, he figures. Not really trying to pry-- no one seems willing to talk about that city in much detail.

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't curious, though. About the shared history.

But it doesn't belong to him. Not really. And that has him as close to floundering as he gets, partially closed off. ]

[cicatrize]

[ 'this other guy', steve says, and the petulant part of jack wants to interject 'you'. because he knows steven grant rogers. he spent long nights talking with him, hours lounging around on his sofa, watching crappy soap operas and shooting the shit, hearing stories about him and bucky in brooklyn, or in the war. he knows him, and some part of jack is bitter that he's denied it now.

jack also has the mentality of a five year old now and again, he knows, and that's hardly his best foot to put forward when having to reintroduce himself to someone he holds deep respect for. ]

Yeah. [ he says after a while, pausing to swallow dryly, because he's about six months out of practice in looking like he isn't as affected by something as he is. ] We were close.

[ very close, incredibly close, closer than jack had been with anyone before coming to duplicity. steve and bucky - they called him family. they're home to him, and what happens when home doesn't recognize you anymore? ]

It was about six months in the city.

[accountability]

[ Another slow nod, his gaze shifting back to the floor, his expression turned inward. Closed off. Not a conscious choice of on his part, not a conscious attempt to wall off Jack.

Six months is a long time in a hard place. And he, of all people, knows what it's like to get this particular slap in the face, a blank look from a friend.

With Bucky, all those memories were still in there. Somewhere. Steve couldn't let himself believe otherwise at the time. And fortunately, he hadn't been wrong.

There aren't any memories of those six months buried in his own head.

The pause from him is long, long enough to almost be awkward. When his eyes lift to Jack again, it's with another apology. ]

I know it's a big ask, starting over-- but it doesn't look like we'll be going anywhere for a little while. [ At the very least. Or when/if the other version of him might turn up. It has to be a possibility, given the current circumstances (he doesn't know yet whether to wish for it to happen, or hope it never does). ] So I'll be around.

[ If you don't mind starting over. Not straight away, while the shock is still setting in. And hopefully, hopefully they'll have the time to talk about more if Jack wants to.

It's the best he can offer right now. ]

[cicatrize]

[ 'a big ask', as if it's anyone's choice, really, that they start over. he gets what steve means - spending the time to get to know one another again and having the patience with steve to catch up (even if jack's not sure he wants to, not sure he's interested in seeing it unfold like this when he's nearly entirely sure it only happened the way it did because of some very specific circumstances).

but that doesn't stop it from sounding kind of funny, and he chuckles, voice dry. ]

It isn't exactly a matter of options, Steven-- [ it cuts off short not because jack's saying anything in particular that shouldn't be said, but the fact he full-named him, which was something of a running joke between the lot of them. jack's tendency to talk to him, will or bucky ("buchanan") like he's their grandmother when being wry, bemused, or informing them that they've done/said something stupid.

steve won't remember that now. he'll just hear jack sounding like his freaking mother. so that's great.

anyway, the point is, yes, that's fine, he's here either way. ]

It'd be strange calling you 'friend' if getting to know you the first time around was a task I'm loathe to repeat. So. Don't sweat it. [ or something. christ. it was easier to lie to this fuck when he wasn't so fond of him. ]

I'm not going anywhere anytime soon either.

[accountability]

[ An eyebrow quirks upward at Steven. The last time anyone called him that was... god, either Stark being facetious or some dinner event he didn't want to attend in DC, for an award he didn't earn or want, and grimaced his way through.

In any case, yeah, it's been more than a few years. And while the name is jarring to his ear, he can sense the humor behind it. Enough so that he lets out a faint huff, the ghost of a smile pulling at one side of his mouth.

With relief, too, when Jack answers in the affirmative.

He's only got so many friends in his life. Hate to lose one before he gets the chance to at least know the guy.

Another exhale through his nose, his expression shifting. A crease at his brow, frowning. ] I'm sure you don't need me telling you this, but keep your eyes open.

[ A tilt of his head, indicating the room. The ship. Because he doesn't want to lose anyone either. Nothing seems right about this place. ]

[cicatrize]

[ it's nice, hearing the concern, but jack's head immediately supplies "it's steve rogers, he'd say the same thing to a complete stranger and mean it just as much, and that's still part of why he's incredible, even if it doesn't make you special, you selfish little twerp you".

all the same, his lips pull into a small smirk, and jack leans back against one of the medbay counters, frame relaxing somewhat. ]

Friendship Lesson the First: I'm a war vet. [ a single finger held up. it is trivia time. ] The paranoia's there whether I want it or not.

[ unless he is asleep.

and then, jack's ass is asleep.

you will need mortars or shouting commanding officers to rouse him. bucky's gotten decent (and varying) results from the "lift and shake" method, though. ]