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newcombers2024-05-23 02:01 am
newcomod) wrote in newcombers2024-05-23 02:01 am
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May 2024 Test Drive Meme: The First of Many to Come
We will officially be opening our game June 1st at 12:01 AM EST.
Reserves will open on May 28th at 12:01 AM EST.
Applications will open on the 1st at 12:01 AM EST.
Applications will close on the 5th at 11:59 PM EST.
Please follow our Plurk
Our memes are open to current and prospective players alike.
All Test Drive memes are game canon and serve as a lead-up to the following month's event. The first prompt in each TDM will always coincide with the disastrous circumstances of Penumbra's collision.
This disaster will leave unique supplies or conditions for the following month until the reset in time occurs and a new collision invokes new circumstances.
Most characters upon initial arrival may suffer mild amnesia, fatigue, and diminished powers. Memories, energy, and powers will eventually return. Per player choice, this can be quickly or slowly.
You can use your TDM threads for writing samples on your application.
If you are applying for a new character, you can choose to keep your TDM threads canon to your character or not.
Even if our current players do not engage with the TDM, we strongly recommend they read each TDM to be aware of how Penumbra strikes Newcomb every month. We encourage characters to react to this via network or log posts in the community spaces.
Image Descriptions from left to right: First image is a red train pictured along raised tracks set against pine trees in sunlight, second image is a gif of a train explosion as people flee from the destruction, third image is of a dark sky with orange lightning.
Prompt
Once upon a time, Newcomb had its very own train station that was used by students and staff alike. Most students would arrive at campus via the train and supplies were often shipped in through the train. This very train station used to be located by Fitch End and was one of the first out-of-campus locations to be destroyed by Penumbra. This month, it seems as if the reset has brought the train back. For a moment, anyway. One may awaken from a deep slumber in one of the passenger cars, groggy and nearly jetlagged. You will be surrounded by other characters waking up, just as disoriented and confused as you are.
The train ride itself isn't so bad though. The scenery beyond the windows is filled with gorgeous sprawling woods, already tinged with the golds and reds of autumn. The smell of pine and old leather fills the train and you will find your backpack in a cubby just above your head or on the seat beside you.
There is no way to exit the train at this point, no matter how one might try. What is the point anyway? Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Something is soothing about a train ride, after all. You may even feel tempted to fall back asleep. Maybe things will make more sense when you wake up again.
You won't have peace for long. The train jolts violently as if being struck by something, and after, everything descends into chaos. Cars begin to slam together, some smashing upward, shattering glass and doors, crushing seats. Explosions burst from the front of the train, and as it pivots onto campus, it scorches the ground.
Cars break apart, sliding into their destruction here and there against buildings or trees. It feels as though it happens both slowly and rapidly, defying time itself, the sound of a ticking clock somehow overwhelming the symphony of metal scraping against metal.
Oil from the train catches fire across campus grounds. While the buildings are fireproof and resilient, the rest of the campus is not and neither are some characters who may be wandering about perchance. As the disaster comes to a screeching halt, characters will have to help each other from the wreckage and help put out the fires.
The train will remain on campus for June. It can be broken apart for metal parts and explored for small, sentimental items or important weapons that belong to a character. The train will vanish in the blink of an eye as midnight hits on the 31st. The Penumbric siren alerts the campus of the reset and the incoming meteor and its potential new disaster.
You will have to brace yourself for what happens next.
Note on Penumbric Collision Prompts: Characters do not need to arrive in this prompt. You may opt-out entirely by having your character fall through the sky or wake up incredibly disoriented randomly on campus. Arrival to Newcomb should be somewhat physically and/or mentally draining or damaging. Even characters resistant to pain or injury will be temporarily vulnerable to the arrival.
Image Descriptions from left to right: First image is a shadowy humanoid with a black and gray smudge effect concealing the face, second image is a pair of hands covered in a black goopy substance, third image has several clear vials containing a smoky, goopy black substance.
Prompt
A curious boxcar can be discovered among the wreckage of the train. This boxcar was carefully sealed off and kept at freezing temperatures. Inside were metal crates filled with test tubes and Petri dishes containing a mysterious black goo. During the fall, the boxcar's front end was ripped away. Between the raging fires from the crash and the exposure to higher temperatures, the vials and petri dishes thawed. Vials and Petri dishes began to break apart as the mysterious goo essentially "woke up" from its cryogenic state and escaped from the glass containers.
This mysterious goo seeks out living organisms and will subtly attach itself to character bodies. This can be as subtle as a dime-sized speck of mysterious goo behind a character's ear or consume half a character's body. The goo's attachment is painless. It has a tarlike odor and causes a strange prickling sensation the longer it remains attached to a character.
After some time, the goo will naturally slide off a character. Alternatively, a character can apply freezing water or ice to the goo and this will essentially "kill" the goo and slough it off in broken chunks.
While the goo is attached to characters, it will cause uncontrollable, unusual behavior. On a less severe end, symptoms may include disorientation, difficulty walking, slurred speech, confusion, and clinginess even to strangers. On a more extreme end, the goo may cause characters to act in ways contradictory to who they typically are: they may be prone to fits of violence, hysteria, flirtation, cruelty, or even for some, abundant kindness and outgoing friendliness.
The goo will automatically make characters want to interact with other characters whether positively or negatively. It uses these interactions as a way to migrate from one host to the next.
Image Descriptions from left to right: First image has a playing card and two white dice, second image has a text bubble that reads, "I'm not a Soft Gay I'm an Anger Gay. I love dogs and burning things." Third image shows a field of grass and wildflowers with a free-standing picture frame with torn canvas, the torn spot revealing a city scape image.
Prompt.
Who isn't familiar with the bizarre urge to overshare to total strangers online? It would appear that the mysterious goo has an intimate understanding of this instinct and intends to capitalize on it.In other words, the mysterious goo's influence is not limited to in-person interactions. Even characters unfamiliar with technology will have the burning desire to get out their new phone and create a public post to all Fermii users containing two truths and a lie about themselves.
These can range from embarrassing and silly to serious and incriminating. Characters will continue to feel an itch to respond transparently to those who correctly guess which is which. Even the most sophisticated and chronic liars cannot resist the force of the mysterious goo's presence.
The urge to overshare will ebb away the more truth is exposed.
Ironically, this may be a minor blessing to those unfamiliar with smartphone technology. It would seem that the mysterious goo has managed to assimilate the knowledge of how smartphones work and helpfully pass it into the mind of its host. However, the price of exposure might not be worth the shortcut to knowledge.
no subject
[ the compulsion to overshare is strange, but he's too exhausted to question it now. after living a full day in high crises with no powers, it's hard to be phased by yet one more wound to nurse. ]
They were
Mine were
Well, it's complicated. I think I have feelings for one of them.
[ because he definitely wanted to tell everyone about that. ]
no subject
I... wasn't close to many people who are still alive. I had students, and housemates. But.... [drat. offering less sensitive information hadn't worked; the compulsion wouldn't let go that easily.] There was... someone I left behind, years ago. Operational security. I couldn't talk to her much, but she was the only human who knew where I was for a long time.
[they couldn't have been more, with the fraternization taboo that had existed even before formation instinct made consent all but impossible within the military. Cheris had shed the Kel name years ago, had gone gloveless since, but having had been so impossible that neither of them had let wanting take root.
it wasn't supposed to be hard to say her name.
she wouldn't have shown up here anyway; that sort of thing only happened in bad dramas. more likely would be... when had she last seen '25? it feels recent, but it shouldn't be.]
There was another friend who was with me the day I left the military. It's sarcastic and constantly tries to bully me into not taking risks, but I don't know what I would have done without it. I just... can't remember what happened to it. At least everyone seems to be having memory problems, so it's not just me.
no subject
I wanted to go to him but I couldn't because I'd be putting him in danger. And then he found me anyway, and I stayed with him, because I'm weak.
And then he got out and I stayed behind. It was what I deserved.
But I missed him. And I wanted to see him again.
[ if he were speaking, he'd be taking a great breath of air now to fill his lungs— as it is, he stares numbly at the words he sent, small on the screen, yet looming so large in his mind. it's terrible to think of what he threw away. of how precious what he was given, and how little he appreciated it. for an angel to know the love of a human, and then throw it away like it was nothing—
he hates himself for that more than most things. ]
You're not human?
no subject
Whatever this place is, it has a lot to answer for. There's something important I need to do, but it's gone and I can't--
[what do normal people say about something like this? "maybe you'll see him again?" so far there seems to be no way home for any of them.] Maybe he'll find you here too.
Oh, I am. Khiruev was just the only other human who knew where I was. We were working with a nonhuman enclave. I'll tell you about it later. [a wild promise, but she'd preserved the servitors' secrets for so long; hopefully the compulsion would let her off before she informed the whole network that machine intelligences are people too.
she remembers the two truths, and -- her experiences with resurrection having been very specific -- ponders whether there's a polite way to ask whether he, like the man whose memories she used to carry, is anchored to someone else who might still be in there with him.]
Are you?
no subject
[ that seems almost counter-intuitive. he doesn't know why they're here, but if they all just want to leave— or maybe that's the point? give them a reason to try to solve the problems plaguing this place so they can free themselves? he still hasn't gleaned the entire story of what's going on here, too preoccupied with trying to put himself back together, but there's clearly a crisis at hand.
he isn't sure if he wants dean to find him here. dean is better off living his life back home— dean doesn't need him. though, when he thinks those thoughts, he can't help the pang of regret that rings through him. he's leaving an entire life behind. ]
Oh. Okay. I'll look forward to it.
[ he can't imagine what kind of non-human enclave a human would be working with, so he'd really like to know. ]
No.
I'm an Angel of the Lord.
no subject
Maybe. It's clear we were all selected and placed here somehow. There must have been some purpose.
Which lord? [while some minority groups or heretical sects insist on worshipping ancestors or deities, the concept of a higher being has not been part of mainstream hexarchate culture for a long time. to her, "angel" sounds like a title of some sort, or a faction name, and "lord" like a kind of official rank.]
no subject
the jumbled, patchy memories tumbling around up there didn't help matters, either. naomi had done a good job making that mind malleable, but she never could have forseen her little automaton being snatched right out from under her nose. ]
The Lord God. The Christian God.
An angel is a powerful non-corporeal being. [ this isn't the first time he's had to explain this today. ] We're God's soldiers.
no subject
but an army of Jedaos -- or Kujens -- would be a terrifying thing.]
I was anchored to a revenant once. He could have been much more powerful, if he hadn't been restricted. Is an angel like a ghost? Oh -- is that why you didn't pay attention to your injuries? [because of course, an incorporeal being might not notice its vessel's condition. terrible and unsustainable -- and immoral if he was the kind of revenant who would simply jump into someone else's body when the current host was used up. Jedao, of course, hadn't had that freedom.
she's glad text doesn't transmit tone.]