TDM #1

[goneawaymod]

TEST DRIVE #1

So it's your first day at your new job! Welcome to the Jorgmund Family™! It's time to settle into your new workplace on the Piper 90 rig, the coziest place of employment this side of the Livable Zone. A leader in its industry, Jorgmund is excited to have you join them in enthusiastically envisioneering team-driven paradigms.  

The Piper 90 rig's mission is not only an impressive undertaking in terms of impactful customer-oriented deliverables, it's providing a vital backbone to the Livable Zone by creating a safe region for citizens to live, work, and play. Jorgmund's "outside the box" thinking means they understand the importance of wisely investing in their human capital - you! You'll soon find that you'll take pride in this vital work - and the benefits can't be beat.

Rest assured, Jorgmund's multidisciplinary approach to our world's period of recovery means we know how to keep it real when facing this opportunity for restructuring and growth. Jorgmund: Even if most of the world has gone away, we can make a world of difference!

Synergy!

USEFUL LINKS
It is recommended you check out the following links first for info on the rig, rig conditions, game mechanics, and the intro and slideshow your characters would have to endure that takes place chronologically before the Test Drive Meme: 

Welcome/Arrival  | Rig Weather & Hazards | Rig Setting Page | Game Mechanics

SCENARIO #1 - MOVE-IN DAY!

After the bewildering and unpleasant onboarding process, you've finally been unleashed on the rig. (Well. To places you're allowed to go on the rig.) It's time to get acquainted with your new surroundings, process some of All Of That™, and meet your fellow captives - err, coworkers!

a) A BIT OF A MESS
Perhaps you're hungry? The mess hall food isn't amazing, but it does the job. Characters that have higher metabolic needs than your average human might be left feeling a little hungry, though. The worst part is actually the electronic sliding door: a small sign helpfully informs you that if you want inside, you need to smile for the camera! In addition to being patronizing, this may be a problem for characters who refuse to play ball, or characters with sufficiently nonhuman faces the door sensor can't read them. Remember, if then company doesn't see people like you, it's not discriminatory -- it's just indifferent! And that isn't legally actionable!

b) GOING NOWHERE FAST
The rig's elevators are a little off-kilter today. Overhead announcements mention this, but downplay the severity and are easy to miss -- which means you and your threadmate are stuck in here, somewhere between the fifth and sixth floor. You can complain into the emergency intercomm, but it might take from a few minutes up to an hour before the elevator gets rolling again. How do you pass the time?

c) SHOULD'VE TAKEN THAT LEFT TURN
You're really just trying to get somewhere else on the rig, but you've gotten hopelessly lost. Oh well, at least you're not alone! Did you run into your threadmate here? Did you lead them astray? Are they at fault? Even worse, are you somewhere full of AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY signs, mysterious equipment, and a worrying number of security cameras?

d) NEED A HAND?
You've been assigned a room and some relatively spare possessions to put in it. Unfortunately, it seems that the staff assigned to help move in new hires are all busy at the moment. Unless you want to wait around, you're going to need to lug and assemble your new assigned foldable den furniture yourself. Do you team up with another newbie? Do you try it alone and find yourself needing help? Do you come to the rescue of someone else who did that?

e) SPECIAL DELIVERY
Somebody in processing decided to give you two a quick little errand: you're supposed to take a couple boxes of files up to the executive deck. Unfortunately, a skeptical security staffer is giving you a hard time on your way there, on account of your funny-looking face, insufficient ID or sketchy-looking package. How do you deal with this and accomplish your task?

f) BLOW OFF STEAM
You're likely still a bit sore from Jorgmund fitting you with the nanochain, but you were promised a gym and you are going to use that gym, dammit. It looks like you're not alone in deciding to try out the training area. Do you train together? Spar to let some frustration out? Or are you gonna argue about whose turn it is on which piece of equipment and resent your lost solitude? You'll also find you have to contend with the communal showers when you're done.

g) NO REST FOR THE WEARY
It's the middle of the night on the rig. You're displaced from home, it's not very warm, your door doesn't shut because privacy is a "privilege" nobody has earned yet, and occasional mysterious clanging noises ring through the rig. You can't sleep, not yet, and perhaps you're not the only insomniac wandering the crew deck?

SCENARIO #2 - YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO PANIC

Around dawn on the morning of Day Two, something goes wrong. (Wrong-er?) You awake to the sound of alarms, and a voice over the speakers telling you NOT TO PANIC! A Stuff storm has caused a brief and contained leak onto Piper 90. You may encounter strange sights or sounds. Any anomalies should be reported immediately to rig security. Thank you for your cooperation!

The nature of the problem isn't immediately clear, but over the next handful of hours you find yourself embroiled in a bizarre fracas: a Stuff leak has caused numerous inanimate objects on the rig to come to life. Furniture and appliances small and large are roaming the decks. Some of them are docile, but others are aggressive (or just troublesome due to their size). Some examples:

• A rogue photocopier spewing paper and ink
• A mahogany conference table with old clawed feet and a brand new gaping jaw
• A water cooler that scuttles the halls, squirting people with jets in varying temperatures
• Small office supplies like pencils and paperclips that swarm in large numbers
• Dressers and drawers that spit their contents at high velocity
• A room's worth of folding chairs that hunt as a pack
• An emergency fire hose that attempts to ensnare crew members in its coils
• The angriest coffee pot you have ever seen

The objects can be dangerous, but are more strange, troublesome, and determined than deadly. If a foe seems to be incapacitated or "plays dead," even the aggressive conference table or hose will leave them with bruises and move on. Crew members who get in over their heads will be bailed out by security personnel as the incident dies down. Jorgmund staff stresses that the leak has been contained (so no new anomalies will appear), but after the initial surprise it's everyone's job to help hunt down and dispose of the Stuff-altered... stuff. It's gonna be a long morning, and you haven't even been properly briefed yet!

h) GOOD MORNING, PIPER 90
Rise and shine! There are alarms going off, announcements blaring, and people are scrambling around trying to figure out what's going on. You're one of them. Freak out? Spring into action? Team up with someone to shake down a staffer for more details? Run into someone new, perhaps literally?

i) INTERIOR WRECKORATING
You've been ambushed by an animate object that seems to have it in for you, or you've heard the shouts of someone who has and come running to help. What's ruining your morning now, and what are you going to do about it?

j) ON THE RUN
The folding chairs from Presentation Room B operate as a unit, harrying their prey through the halls with much scrambling of legs and flapping of seats. They're after you, at the moment. Can you escape, or perhaps lead them into a trap? Or do you stand your ground?

k) HERE'S THE PLAN
You and your threadmate have found somewhere secure (for now) and are deciding how to deal with a larger enemy. Are you hunting it, or is it hunting you? Are you planning to take it out of commission, or just how to get away from it? Or are you just gonna hide here and lay low until this is over?

l) PROP HUNT
Things are getting back under control, thankfully. Large disturbances have been disposed of, but that leaves the little things like elusive chains of paperclips, a small but vicious stapler, pens and markers that write rude words on walls, and utensils from the mess hall. These anomalies are stealthier, but must still be dealt with, and it's up to you to flush them out.

m) CLEAN UP IN AISLE EVERYTHING
The chaos has passed, and now you've been instructed to clean up a mess. Ink or loose paper from the copier, coffee from the rampaging pot, mopping up after a water cooler, scrubbing marker off a wall, etc. You might get roped into contending with the Yuck Puddle, which is a permanent fixture and not a new development, but someone's always contending with the Yuck Puddle.

OOC DETAILS
➤ Feel free to play around with powers. If your character has powers from canon you want to play around with, go for it. If you'd like to test out possibilities for game powers, also go for it. Feel free to change it up from thread to thread if you need to. This can be handwaved as exposure to Stuff making characters' powers shift a few times before settling.

➤ Potential players may use test drive threads as their log samples. However, at least one post in their thread must fit the requirements for apps, both in length (200 words) and in quality. If you do plan on using a thread as a sample, please make sure the writing throughout your threads is a good example of your writing skills and has some solid examples of the character's voice.

➤ Players can eventually count TDMs towards AC. They can only count towards comment-based AC proofs.

➤ Potential players can opt to keep these threads as game canon when they app in, or start over fresh, based on preference. The Stuff bringing them to the game universe can fog their memories, if players don't want their character to remember TDM threads when introing into the game.

➤ The game is invite-only. Players without invites are allowed to tdm since some of them may know someone in game to ask for one, and since some people enjoy TDMs just for fun in games they don't plan to app into. But an invite is required during the apping process.

➤ The game is at a starting cap at 30 players. Right now the current number of invitees is likely to not exceed the game's 30 slots, but if we go a few over they will still be allowed to app during this first round. Future apps will be rolling apps and will have a wait queue if the cap has been exceeded.

➤ The first game round will be apps only, no reserves. Apps open: Sat 4/11/20. Game start: Fri 4/17/20.

Comments

Alloran-Semitur-Corrass | Animorphs

[takenalive]

Alloran is a blue centaurlike alien, about six feet tall ignoring the stalk eyes, with a dazed, lost-in-his-own-head affect. He may have had his upper half jammed into a long-sleeved black shirt, which serves to highlight that it only has a mild resemblance to a human torso.

A bit of a mess

It had taken some time to contemplate the door, and realize what had to be done to access it, and finally to make himself act, but Alloran picked a human morph and condensed himself into a smaller form in close-fitting clothing, shredding his mandatory shirt in the process. Hopefully you didn't see it happen. Morphing is an ugly, dismaying process.

Now he's barefoot and cold, the exposed human skin ridging itself up into bumps to fluff out woefully inadequate fur. Sooner or later someone will complain he's out of uniform. For now, the bombed-out disconnect on his face lifts as, slowly copying someone, Alloran tastes a cup of unsweetened black instant coffee and is astonished.

No rest

It's starting to sink in. This probably isn't a fantasy Esplin is making seem real for him. It's lasted too long without any timeskips and, honestly, is neither as nightmarish nor as pleasing as those visions tend to be. There aren't any Hork-Bajir, either.

What does that mean? What does he do?

With the doors open, some of the sound disturbing would-be-sleepers is made by four neatly split hooves on the deck as Alloran walks to and fro, not seeing much, trying to convince himself that for however long this lasts, he is alone in and truly inhabits his body.

Re: Alloran-Semitur-Corrass | Animorphs

[wheyoftheadept]

A bit of a mess

Saturday glances at her tablemate and his single cup of incredibly bad coffee. Then she glances at her own plate, piled as high as the staff would allow with as much protein as she could sweet-talk them into.

She furrows her brow, glances at the coffee table this time, then leans towards him.

"...is it really that good?"

[takenalive]

Carefully Alloran draws some more liquid into his mouth and holds it. The sensation of the heat and the flavor blossoming is novel and intense, difficult to describe, but there's acidity there. Glands in his mouth produce predigestive fluids, diluting the liquid. He obeys instinct and swallows, finding there are also receptors down his borrowed throat.

This clears his mouth. Humans, and everything else that breathes and speaks and eats with the same orifice, have a horrifically flawed design. He could thought-speak to get around it, but he's not in a hurry.

"It is," he says slowly, very deliberately shaping the mouth-sounds so they don't run together or repeat. "The best water I've had in years. I know humans like this sort of thing. What's it called?"

[wheyoftheadept]

"Coffee. Instant coffee - it's not usually actually like. Good. Can I...?" Saturday gestures towards the cup. She takes food seriously, and the idea of "good instant coffee" is clearly one she's struggling with and fascinated by.

[takenalive]

"As opposed to coffee that takes time," he says dryly. Alloran's picked up a lot about humans and human culture over the past three years or so, but it's far from a complete picture.

With his two, linked eyes he looks from the cup to Saturday and back, a suggestion of a frown on his borrowed face. Sharing things humans eat seems different from grazing from the same swath of grass. Esplin wouldn't accept, either way, and that's why he takes his hands away from the cup. "I suppose you can."

Unfortunately, as an Andalite Alloran has absolutely no reference for what is and isn't good flavor. More is better and that's about all there is to it, and this coffee, whatever else is going on, has more.

[wheyoftheadept]

Saturday sips and gags. "Jesus christ this is worse than the stuff Bit drinks - "

She looks contemplatively at her plate. The food here is absolute drek, but she's had worse, and she's confident she's hacked together a meal that is at least on par with your average low-rent Red Town eatery. Not one of the popular ones, mind, one of the real cheap ones you only go to if you're drunk or down to your least nuyen, but -

"Hold on a sec." Saturday gets up, grabs another plate, portions out half of her meal onto it, and slides it over to the weird little dude. It consists of pancakes (just a bit too breadlike) soaked in syrup (just a bit too sweet); scrambled eggs whose dryness is barely offset by the tabasco sauce; and two sausages the size of half a ring finger which are probably pork. Probably.

"Try some a' this."

[takenalive]

Alloran smiles, faintly, lopsided, but it's a smile. "Maybe we taste things differently."

He reclaims his coffee while the stranger is up, but it doesn't take long before she's back and re-portioning her serving, which genuinely surprises him. "If you're sure. I could get my own."

He hesitates, dredging up the etiquette that he saw the last time Esplin had to do it to pass for human. Implements. Small amounts at a time. Not letting digestive fluids drip, not letting food fall. He was present while Esplin negotiated those rules, of course, but he didn't have to do it himself. It's very complex, and he can stall for a moment by commenting on part of the smell.

"Some of this is a meat, isn't it? Take that back... please. I've had rather too much meat."

[wheyoftheadept]

"Oh sure." Saturday is happy to snag her sausages back. "Trust me, if you don't go up there knowing what you want, they'll give you whatever they're trying to offload. I don't even wanna know what's in that stew at this point. Dig in."

Saturday certainly is. And besides, something about this stranger is activating her primal need to feed people.

[takenalive]

He's not very confident about slang but context helps - oh, yes, humans might well consider eating and digging to be similar acts, with the implements and the piles. Alloran picks up the thin and flimsy plastic spoon, as something that looks easier to operate than the other options, and moves in on the eggs.

They were probably reconstituted in bulk from a powdered form but heck if he can tell. The yielding texture means less time needed to grind it with those exposed bones so many mouth-people have, in fact it doesn't quite need to be processed with them at all. What a strange and interesting experience. Like the coffee, the curious intensity of it pulls him into the present moment, into the here and now and this body.

Speaking with food in the mouth, if he remembers right, is a violation of etiquette, and he's adding more rather than clearing it. Alloran switches to thought-speech, which is mostly perceived like sound, but not quite. Because Saturday's heard him talk through his Aria morph, that voice is probably how she'll hear his thought-speak.

<It has a tingle to it. Astonishing.>

[wheyoftheadept]

Oh, homeboy is a telepath - comes through clear and shocked, before she quite deliberately shuts down other thoughts and brings herself into the now, focusing on what she's doing and saying in the moment. Not out of paranoia, but politeness.

"That'd be the hot sauce," she says wisely. "Makes it spicy - without it, you'd just be tasting wet cardboard. If it's too hot, just grab a glass of milk. Now, the round brown things are gonna be kind of sweet and savory at the same time - and way softer than pancakes should be, unfortunately, but they're edible."

[takenalive]

He's something like a telepath, but he only projects, no ability to receive at all. Nothing comes through, and he's not looking at her to register if her expression changed.

Alloran files that away. Humans eat cardboard when it's properly prepared, and then it turns soft and yellow. <I see. How do you eat them?>

[wheyoftheadept]

"Like so." She demonstrates, cutting a pancake into pieces, spearing two on her fork, and swirling it in the syrup. Then she eats it. "With really good pancakes you don't wanna drown them like that, but these are not good pancakes, so just use 'em to carry the syrup."

Saturday alternates bites of pancake with sausage and eggs, and, after a moment's contemplation, adds some more hot sauce to the eggs.

[takenalive]

Humans have so many elaborate rituals for food. It must be complicated to be a hunter-gatherer.

Alloran copies her attentively, though he does drip the syrup in the process of getting it to his mouth. There's the urge in him to just eat as quickly as possible, with both hands and no more fiddling with little tools. He considers it and settles for leaning in close so he has to move the items a shorter distance.

No rest

[ahtohollaback]

The temperature on the deck isn't that uncomfortable, if you have ice witch privilege. Elsa, too, is trying to clear her head -- is this where the voice was trying to lead her? It seems impossible. The voice had seemed so -- so good, and this place is so very bad. Bad, and confusing, and ugly. Not just its design (although the rig isn't exactly a palace) but in its people. The executive organization, Jorgmund, feels like a very ugly machine.

She places her hands lightly on the railing and looks up at the sky. "Is this where you were taking me?" she whispers, uncertain, not sure the whisper can even hear her. She hasn't felt it, or heard it call, since she arrived. "Is this where you wanted me to go?" The psychic silence isn't the relief Elsa'd thought it would be.

But then she hears hoofbeats behind her, and her back straightens in curious confusion -- she hadn't expected there to be a horse on the rig. But when she turns, her eyes go very wide indeed, and she gasps, hands grasping the railing. That is most definitely not a horse. Small ice crystals form on the rail around her hands.

[takenalive]

Alloran does not seem to notice her right away. All his eyes are glazed and distant. He moves a little faster out here with the open air, on some base instinctual level that responds to the less restricted space around him.

There is a kind of aura to him. Or something like a sound, like there was a song closely associated with a specific emotion playing on different instruments, with vocals in some other language.

The song in question is 'brooding', maybe, or 'disconnect'. It'll be a moment.

[ahtohollaback]

It's fine. Weeks of being sung at in her own mind have prepared her for this. It's not the voice she was hearing, but it doesn't send her into a panic.

And he looks strange, but so do trolls, and many other things about this place.

Elsa lets go of the railing, leaving the ice there. Her hands come up in front of her, more unsure and awkward than defensive or protective. She wants to know about the sound.

Carefully, she clears her throat. "Excuse me," asks Elsa, in a tone only barely loud enough to carry to where he is. "That sound. Is that you?"

[takenalive]

It's another moment, but one of his stalk eyes shifts, swivels, focuses on the pale human. The aura or whatever it is fades, cutting off rather than winding to cease.

<Ah. Apparently I was singing. It was not my intention, but I suppose it's habit now.> There's a disgruntled aspect to that more-or-less-a-voice. Thought speak may be perceived as like sound, but almost sourceless. <I suppose I was singing something different for... years.>

[ahtohollaback]

"I thought it sounded like a song," Elsa offers. If this were a human, she would be more secretive and cagey, but historically, she bonds better with nature spirits and sentient snowmen. Also, though it's a long shot, this creature might know something about the Voice. "It reminded me of a voice I used to hear at home, before I came here. No one could hear it but me, and I thought it was calling out to me, telling me to follow it." She looks away and draws her shoulders up. "I wasn't sure I wasn't going crazy," Elsa admits. "But it sounded a little like the way you speak. Or sing," she adds.

[takenalive]

<It is to me. My people don't communicate as yours do. We have some traditions of sound-music, but it's primarily the djafid,> he says absently. The last word doesn't translate right, doesn't have a great fit in this language, and just becomes some nonsense syllables.

She gets another eye for that. Alloran is coming more fully into the present moment. <Is that so? Was it in words, or perhaps images or emotions?>

[ahtohollaback]

"Emotions," Elsa replies with certainty. "A-and images. There weren't any words. Just a feeling." She wraps her arms around her torso, wistful and -- hurt? She shouldn't feel betrayed by a voice she never fully trusted. And yet.

"It felt like there was somewhere else I had to be," she explains. "Like somebody like me was out there, asking me to find them. I--I thought they were good." Elsa winces. "But as soon as I admitted I could hear it, and started to sing back -- I found myself here."

She feels extremely foolish. Elsa knew it was dangerous, knew any change might risk the happiness she'd found in Arendelle, with her family. But she'd sung back anyway, and look where it got her. On the rig, in a strange world, with no family, weakened powers, and no Voice.

[takenalive]

Well, that sounds not unfamiliar. <It almost sounds like a mirror-wave call. Perhaps a poorly calibrated one where part of the message was lost to static. Is there something that sets you apart from those around you, who didn't receive it?>

This doesn't seem like such a bad place to him. Oh, sure, it's a bad place and however good their ultimate aims may be these are bad people in charge, but compared to where he was it's amazing.

[ahtohollaback]

The fact that he might know what it is spikes Elsa's interest and hope.

"Yes," she admits, wide-eyed. "I was born with power over ice." She holds out a hand, palm-up, and a small flurry of snow swirls in the air above it for a moment before dissipating. "It isn't very common. No one else in my kingdom has it."

[takenalive]

That's something new. She gets all four eyes now. The main ones, the ones set on his face in a more humanlike configuration, are very large and lambent, with creases around them suggesting experience with strain.

<That isn't something Andalites can do. Are you a human?>

[ahtohollaback]

"Yes, I am," Elsa says. Human mother, human father, human sister, so she must be, too. No reason to suspect any different. "Are you an Andalite?" She repeats the unfamiliar word carefully.

[takenalive]

<I was the Andalite-Controller. The only one, the Abomination. Now it seems I am free, and perhaps again only an Andalite,> he muses, and there's some hint of that song again. He's lost so much of himself, by attrition and deliberately. What's left, at this point?

Just him, standing with his blue fur fluffed in the chill, telling things to a human youth who likely has no more context for this than he has for... hers?

With some effort, he smiles, a subtle effect, a change in the eyes. <So, human. It's been a long time since I could tell anyone my name. I am Alloran-Semitur-Corrass.>