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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.
Dr. Rodney McKay | Stargate: Atlantis
[Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD, has had quite the bevy of experiences in what he would consider a life akin to your typical science fiction television show, or novel. He’s housed another consciousness in his body, been cocooned on an alien spacecraft, mutated and given superpowers (alas, temporarily and they almost killed him), so waking up in a seemingly perfectly ordinary train, a train that seemed to be earth-based, wasn’t exactly the weirdest thing that happened to him that week.
Rodney blinks, looking back and forth at the passengers around him. He rubs an eye with a palm. Was he…sleeping? The last thing he remembered was…fuzzy. He’s not sure exactly what happened before…he probably was in his lab in Atlantis, since he was in his lab a lot, which, while—possible he could have fallen asleep, usually said activity didn’t involve intergalactic-transport.
Unless he got superpowers again.
Which would be neat.
He snaps his fingers at the nearest random passenger, expectantly, like he’s pretty sure they know what’s going on.]
You. What the hell happened?!
B. Train the Second cw: blood, concussion
[It was a surprisingly nice train ride, all worries about intergalactic misplacement aside. Which of course, meant, with his luck, the train ride ended in a horrific, violent crash.
He doesn’t remember much from the initial jolt till after he jerks awake, something hot and wet dripping onto his eye. It takes him a good long second for his brain to catch up to him—second time today he’s woken up in the wrong place, but as the world clears (sort of), it’s apparent that he’s still on the train.
Except the train’s in pieces around him.
He wipes the wet stuff from his face—and realizes that it’s not water. Of course, his mind goes right to all the worst-case scenarios.
He shrieks.]
I’m dying!
[It is a very small cut on his forehead.]
C. This is why he likes DC better than Marvel, pls Venom
[So he wasn’t dying then, but he might be dying now because there is a glob of goo that has firmly ensconced itself around one arm and up the side of his neck. Eddie Brock, he is not.
But, perhaps thankfully, due to the effects of said goo, he is not in fact, panicking over being taken over by an alien entity. Which is something that was pretty much common in his universe so he knows he should be freaking out about it? But he’s just…not.
Instead, he’s nice.
Friendly, even.
A bubbling ball of charming, happy, extrovert personality.
He will be horrified later.
Instead, he walks the halls, giving people finger-guns, high-fives, and generally being gregarious.]
Hey, how’s it goin’?
Working hard or hardly working?
That shirt looks great on you!
Did you do something with your hair? I knew it. Looks expensive!
D. Oversharing Oh No cw: mention of previous injury
[Somehow it doesn’t occur to Rodney, under the influence, that his security clearance was still valid even in alternate dimensions. (Being that the SGC was well aware of alternate dimensions, it was actually written in the non-disclosure agreement.)
Ah, well.]
Greetings. My name is Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD, Chief Science Officer of the Atlantis Expedition, in the Pegasus Galaxy.
I’d like to say for the official record I find games like these stupid, but one can’t say that I’m not a good sport about them. It’s just that they don’t seem to be a really good way of getting to know people on a deeper level. I know, I know it’s technically a start, and it’s supposed to be an icebreaker in order to get past the hurdle of talking to a stranger, but then you get some people who are terrible at this game and can’t think of a lie to save their life. Being able to lie is a sign of intelligence, but I’ve never been reliably good at it, despite my genius-level intelligence. I suppose it’s a better thing to be an honest person than a devious one, but I’ve always been jealous of other people who have been able to weasel their way out of trouble with a little white lie.
Anyway.
I was supposed to be doing something.
Ah yes! Two Truths and a Lie. Here we go.
A. I was shot in the ass with an arrow once
B. I am violently allergic to citrus
C. I destroyed 3/4 of a solar system
A
I-- I don't know!
[He's expected to know this?! Wait, if the guy is asking him this question, that means he doesn't know either. At that realization, Peeta calms a little.]
I just woke up. Do you know where we're going?
no subject
Great. Just great.
[It slowly occurs to him that the kid isn't going to know much more than he does, and is probably freaking out the same way he is. His voice is marginally less acerbic.]
No. I just woke up, and I certainly wasn't anywhere near a place with a working train system. You?
no subject
Wait, this isn't his fault!]
I don't know where I was before this...
[He feels generally groggy and confused. He knows at least the basics of who he is and where he's from, but not much more.]
I've been on trains, but they were different from this.
no subject
I can't quite remember exactly what I was doing, either.
[Rodney throws his hands up, but in general he always does that with his hands.]
So great, whatever did this to us messed with our heads, too. Fantastic.
no subject
I'm sure we can figure this out. We could ask an attendant, or try to find landmarks outside.
[Since he's closer to the window, he looks out of it intently, craning his head to try to see past the forest whipping by. There isn't much to see but green.]
no subject
Right, we should--let's go do that. There's obviously some sort of attendant here, or at the very least a conductor...
[Rodney stands with the aura and air of someone about to be a customer service representative's worst nightmare.]
Hello? I'd like to talk to someone's manager!?
(no subject)
(no subject)
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no subject
Most technicians I've known [with one important and very distantly-outlying exception] can't lie to save their lives, but can talk for hours about personality matrices and why different talents take people in different directions.
Did you destroy part of the solar system to get revenge for the arrow?
no subject
[He has no idea what kind of technician she's referring to, and he actually is the guy that fixes everything and also an engineer, but he likes to show off.]
...now that I think about it, I wish I had.
But unfortunately, they were two separate events.
no subject
Do you want to talk about the solar system? [the first few can be hard. she knows that from experience.]
no subject
...which solar system? There's a lot of them.
[He would, actually. He loves space!]
no subject
The one you destroyed part of, if that one's true. I'm starting to think no one here is from any realm I know, but it's interesting to learn.
[not that she knows all of the hexarchate's thousands of inhabited systems, much less those in foreign polities, but no one here seems to have lived under a state-mandated high calendar.]
(no subject)
D
no subject
[Should he be worried? It just feels like he should be worried.]
I did get shot in the ass, ha! The lie is it was actually 5/6 of a solar system.
no subject
...of course you do.
no subject
It's important to note that some of the system remained intact.
no subject
(no subject)
B
Good thing he didn't buy a ticket because this ride sure sucks.
John has been in tunnel vision ever since he dragged himself out of the rubble, trying to get an overview, trying to get people to safety, trying to keep his cool while he has no idea where he is or what the hell is going on. When he hears the familiar voice he freezes, then hurries towards it immediately.
There's worry. There's relief. Mostly relief because Rodney screams how he's dying and that usually means he's not - but this is a pretty bad crash and John is not about to take any chances. He circles around some debris, finding a way through the fire hazards until he spots his clamoring teammate.]
McKay!
[He ducks below a crushed doorway. There's a broken off carriage reaching into the air above them like some pretentious display of modern art and John glances upwards worriedly when it moves and shifts with a metallic groan. Good thing Rodney hasn't spotted it yet.]
Hang on, I'm making my way over there.
no subject
Sheppard!?
[Doesn't mean he's not going to yell more about it, though. He winces, dizzy from what was probably a burgeoning concussion, realizing he's still seated on one of the (now broken) seats.]
Tell me how it looks. Is it bad? No, don't tell me how it looks, I don't want to see how gruesome it is...it's bad, isn't it? It's a mortal wound, it is...
no subject
[He's not looking.
His eyes are clearly focused on the rubble and the carriages, finding the best and safest way to get to Rodney.]
What the hell did we hit? Damn thing looks like we rode straight into a mountain.
no subject
[He cannot take it.]
I don't know, I was knocked out and woke up...here.
What did we hit?
[He blinks, realizing that he probably, really, does have a concussion. He touches the cut on his head again, wincing. The world spins slightly and his head droops down, losing consciousness for a brief moment.]
no subject
[And then he realizes McKay has fallen silent and that's not good.]
Rodney?
[John's face immediately turns serious and he hurriedly bridges the remaining distance, squatting down to check his head for injuries. There's only the cut on his forehead but that looks like a concussion if he's ever seen one. He squeezes his shoulder instead of shaking him, raising his voice.]
Rodney! Wake up. Come on, buddy, my back is killing me. Don't make me carry you.
(no subject)
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(no subject)
D
maybe
(He's actually awful at telling when anyone is lying, so!)
no subject
It was just with a giant, unfortunately automatic planetary defense weapon.
The ass-arrow was a different event.
D. Display Name: Knock Knock