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redshiftlogs2019-08-02 02:02 am
modblob) wrote in redshiftlogs2019-08-02 02:02 am
Entry tags:
- !mod post: intro mingle,
- dragon age: cole,
- far cry 5: staci pratt,
- good omens: aziraphale,
- homestuck: aradia megido,
- hunger games: finnick odair,
- mass effect: commander rufina shepard,
- mcu: peter parker,
- mortal kombat: kabal,
- original: cameron waltz,
- original: cho takahashi,
- original: jeff calhoun,
- poison: poison,
- red dead redemption: kieran duffy,
- star wars: finn,
- umbrella academy: ben hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: diego hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: eudora patch,
- umbrella academy: klaus hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: vanya hargreeves,
- warm bodies: julie grigio
august 2019. welcome to the void.
Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Second Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of August 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.
The redout and accompanying power outage has been going on for over a week now - even though someone must have managed to get the generators up and running so things are a little less dismal, that doesn't mean that everything is fun and games. The generators are enough to power the essentials, like lighting, the MedBay, resident sat phones, sanitation facilities...basically just the things that make life livable instead of kicking the whole city back to the dark ages.
Sometime during the second week, though, around the end of July, residents might start to notice bright spots in the darkness, mostly around the Agricultural levels. Little bobbing blobs of bright blue or vibrant green or glowing red that move soundlessly through the night, poignantly noticeable because everything else is so dark. At first, and from a distance, they might look like your typical swamp gas fake ghost, little glowing smudges in the darkness. Could be promising...but it could be dangerous too.
If residents are brave enough to head up to the Agricultural levels in the darkness and investigate the source of the light, a mildly harrowing mission, they will find that the source of the glowing is...animals. Barely differing from the usual animals one might see in a daylight in the Agricultural levels, these animals prove to simply be nocturnal versions of the usual animals that might survive in the wild and who have made their homes in the faux forest and grasslands. And when everything else is dark, these creatures roam the night, letting off a curious and almost radioactive glow.
There are, however, a slightly wider variety of these animals, who are descendants of animals exposed heavily to radiation that mutated but did not kill them. While there are the usual deer and wild horses, foxes and monkeys, rodents and insects, there are also domestic creatures that seem to have thrived in their glow-in-the-dark forms where non-glowing ones were picked off by predators. Anyone investigating may find glowing kittens and puppies, domestic mice and rats, snakes that are open to being touched, and even a few more exotic domesticated pets like ferrets, hedgehogs, turtles and foxes. While these creatures are still wild, they are the descendants of domestic stock, and with a little effort and coddling, they might turn out to be passable pets, once they're scanned in the MedBay and found to not give off dangerous radiation.
It's not all puppies and kittens, though. Some of these seemingly predatorless glow-in-the-dark creatures are mutated, just like their regular counterparts, but to a more extensive degree. Keep a close eye out while you're trying to tame that adorable glowing purple kitten, because you might find yourself as the prey to a huge mutated lizard or spider, or maybe an oversized glowing wild warthog.
Nighttime exploring, after all, is for the brave at heart...and comes with pros and cons!
As if the mutated glow-in-the-dark creatures in the Agricultural levels aren't bad enough, there's something new in Anchor to cause problems. A couple of weeks after the generator room was opened, strange apparitions start showing up in various places around the city. At first they're nebulous clouds that gather in places where there's strong evidence of past violence - in the upper levels of the city where there's serious fire damage, near the security station, hovering outside the armory or wherever there are burns and gouges into the stone walls of the city. But as the month wears on, the clouds start to take shape, and some of those shapes might be very familiar.
Starting at around August 8th, whenever a resident passes by one of these ominous clouds, it will start to coalesce into a solid form, the particles coming together into a concrete shape - the shape of fear. Whether the particles coalesce into the shape of a monster or villain from a character's homeworld or previous game setting, the nebulous representation of their worst fear, a person or thing from their past that evokes a terrible memory of trauma, or even just a generic horrific monster that would particularly frighten that particular person, it's something that is guaranteed to terrify. Essentially, they will turn into the worst thing that your character can imagine.
And these representations of fear? They're not ghosts, they're not digital afterimages, they're not apparitions or holos. They're real, or at least they feel real, they can do real damage, and they're almost impossible to kill. The best way to survive an encounter with the nightmare swarm? Run fast. Because they're generally confined to areas where the echoes of old violence linger, and the quicker you leave those areas the better. Get into whatever light you can, get somewhere safe, and the fear creature will dissipate back into a nebulous cloud, lying in wait for the next victim.
What: Second Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of August 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.
Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.
Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.
a. bright spots in the darkness.
The redout and accompanying power outage has been going on for over a week now - even though someone must have managed to get the generators up and running so things are a little less dismal, that doesn't mean that everything is fun and games. The generators are enough to power the essentials, like lighting, the MedBay, resident sat phones, sanitation facilities...basically just the things that make life livable instead of kicking the whole city back to the dark ages.Sometime during the second week, though, around the end of July, residents might start to notice bright spots in the darkness, mostly around the Agricultural levels. Little bobbing blobs of bright blue or vibrant green or glowing red that move soundlessly through the night, poignantly noticeable because everything else is so dark. At first, and from a distance, they might look like your typical swamp gas fake ghost, little glowing smudges in the darkness. Could be promising...but it could be dangerous too.
If residents are brave enough to head up to the Agricultural levels in the darkness and investigate the source of the light, a mildly harrowing mission, they will find that the source of the glowing is...animals. Barely differing from the usual animals one might see in a daylight in the Agricultural levels, these animals prove to simply be nocturnal versions of the usual animals that might survive in the wild and who have made their homes in the faux forest and grasslands. And when everything else is dark, these creatures roam the night, letting off a curious and almost radioactive glow.
There are, however, a slightly wider variety of these animals, who are descendants of animals exposed heavily to radiation that mutated but did not kill them. While there are the usual deer and wild horses, foxes and monkeys, rodents and insects, there are also domestic creatures that seem to have thrived in their glow-in-the-dark forms where non-glowing ones were picked off by predators. Anyone investigating may find glowing kittens and puppies, domestic mice and rats, snakes that are open to being touched, and even a few more exotic domesticated pets like ferrets, hedgehogs, turtles and foxes. While these creatures are still wild, they are the descendants of domestic stock, and with a little effort and coddling, they might turn out to be passable pets, once they're scanned in the MedBay and found to not give off dangerous radiation.
It's not all puppies and kittens, though. Some of these seemingly predatorless glow-in-the-dark creatures are mutated, just like their regular counterparts, but to a more extensive degree. Keep a close eye out while you're trying to tame that adorable glowing purple kitten, because you might find yourself as the prey to a huge mutated lizard or spider, or maybe an oversized glowing wild warthog.
Nighttime exploring, after all, is for the brave at heart...and comes with pros and cons!
b. nightmare swarm.
As if the mutated glow-in-the-dark creatures in the Agricultural levels aren't bad enough, there's something new in Anchor to cause problems. A couple of weeks after the generator room was opened, strange apparitions start showing up in various places around the city. At first they're nebulous clouds that gather in places where there's strong evidence of past violence - in the upper levels of the city where there's serious fire damage, near the security station, hovering outside the armory or wherever there are burns and gouges into the stone walls of the city. But as the month wears on, the clouds start to take shape, and some of those shapes might be very familiar.Starting at around August 8th, whenever a resident passes by one of these ominous clouds, it will start to coalesce into a solid form, the particles coming together into a concrete shape - the shape of fear. Whether the particles coalesce into the shape of a monster or villain from a character's homeworld or previous game setting, the nebulous representation of their worst fear, a person or thing from their past that evokes a terrible memory of trauma, or even just a generic horrific monster that would particularly frighten that particular person, it's something that is guaranteed to terrify. Essentially, they will turn into the worst thing that your character can imagine.
And these representations of fear? They're not ghosts, they're not digital afterimages, they're not apparitions or holos. They're real, or at least they feel real, they can do real damage, and they're almost impossible to kill. The best way to survive an encounter with the nightmare swarm? Run fast. Because they're generally confined to areas where the echoes of old violence linger, and the quicker you leave those areas the better. Get into whatever light you can, get somewhere safe, and the fear creature will dissipate back into a nebulous cloud, lying in wait for the next victim.
c. power up.
On August 2nd, the dust storm causing the redout and power outage will subside, and a stiff wind will take its place, washing away about two thirds of the red sand piled up on the dome. This fortuitous change in weather will make it possible to start work on getting the power back up. Residents will be able to exit the city through the usual channels so they can work on clearing the dust out of the various installations outside the city that transform wind and radiation and sunlight into power that keeps the city up and running. After they're cleared off, residents can start to get the power up by making repairs to the dust-damaged computer systems. Thankfully, once the power installations outside the city have been cleared off, an automated computer subroutine will boot up on some of the computer panels in the common areas of the residential quarters, with a user-friendly guide to repairing sand damage to the power system.
Mind you, the user guide assumes that residents have a lot of tools, supplies, and assistant bots that the current population doesn't really have on hand, so user-friendly or not, it's tougher than the system seems to think it is.
Thankfully, there is another option. Anyone with a particularly tech-savvy mind who's encountered the nightmare clouds might have picked up on it already, but the clouds are actually swarms of nanites. Released from the room that held the generators, these nanites were originally intended to conduct repairs on the city (there was a reason that room and those generators were so pristine!) that have been corrupted and are malfunctioning due to the ambient radiation in the city that has only increased since their creation. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of computers (and a very strong spine) could collect a sample of the clouds in one of the containment units from the labs or the R&D area, where the semi-functioning computer can be used to work out what's wrong with the nanites...and fix them.
If characters are able to work this out and deploy repairs to the various swarms around the city, those nanites might be super helpful for fixing some of the malfunctioning tech around the city. Food for thought!
Mind you, the user guide assumes that residents have a lot of tools, supplies, and assistant bots that the current population doesn't really have on hand, so user-friendly or not, it's tougher than the system seems to think it is.
Thankfully, there is another option. Anyone with a particularly tech-savvy mind who's encountered the nightmare clouds might have picked up on it already, but the clouds are actually swarms of nanites. Released from the room that held the generators, these nanites were originally intended to conduct repairs on the city (there was a reason that room and those generators were so pristine!) that have been corrupted and are malfunctioning due to the ambient radiation in the city that has only increased since their creation. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of computers (and a very strong spine) could collect a sample of the clouds in one of the containment units from the labs or the R&D area, where the semi-functioning computer can be used to work out what's wrong with the nanites...and fix them.If characters are able to work this out and deploy repairs to the various swarms around the city, those nanites might be super helpful for fixing some of the malfunctioning tech around the city. Food for thought!
d. the wreckage in the wasteland.
Once the emergency situation with the power is sorted out, residents might become a little curious about what caused all the trouble in the first place. The dust storm was, after all, initiated by a loud crash landing outside the city. With the dust storm abated and the windows in the Observation Area cleared off, residents will be able to see the wreckage of a spacecraft crashed into the ground, several miles out from the city. Far enough away to make it impossible to see any identifying marks, but close enough to be a tantalizing mystery for anyone so inclined.
Adventurous souls will be able to suit up and trek their way out to the site of the crash in the battery Jeeps to see what's going on, risking the rough ever-changing terrain and the possibility of a red shift, to see what might be salvageable from the crashed ship, or just in pursuit of knowledge. Once those characters approach, they will find the hulk of a badly-damaged spacecraft, about as big as a medium-sized cruise ship. The hull is badly burned, with tears in the metal, and it will be obvious to anyone who's got any experience with space travel (or even anyone who's watched enough sci-fi movies) to see that the ship didn't do well on its slow fall through the atmosphere. The metal is melted and punctured, anything that might have extended away from the hull has been burned off and lies in tatters, and the sand around the crash site is littered with metal and plastic debris.
But the one thing that's still possible to tell from the wreckage? It probably came from Anchor.
The ship is pieced together from salvaged materials, the tech will be familiar to anyone who's been in the colony for more than a couple days, and there's even a few corpses of very familiar bots lying in the sand. Approaching a large tear in the side of the hull will reveal a way inside the husk of a ship, giving access to the ship's small crew quarters section. If explorers choose to proceed inside, they'll be able to dig through what few personal items remain and find personal tablet computers and sat phones with their hard drives corrupted but possibly salvageable with the right skillset and the right technology repaired back in Anchor. They will also be able to find a way down further into the ship, though it's dark and clouded with sand and...well, quite menacing.
Because it isn't just the darkness and the danger of the red shift coming while you're trapped down there, or the danger of the ship's hull cracking with the weight of the sand piled up on its shell from the dust storm...but looking into the darkness, there's a flickering bluish glow. Digital and glitchy, it flickers from wall to wall, with the faintest impression of a human form. A face. A hand. The movement of hair or clothing. And then there's the echoing sounds - soft laughter, snippets of childrens' rhymes, unintelligible whispers or mumbles.
Well. Enter at your own risk.
Adventurous souls will be able to suit up and trek their way out to the site of the crash in the battery Jeeps to see what's going on, risking the rough ever-changing terrain and the possibility of a red shift, to see what might be salvageable from the crashed ship, or just in pursuit of knowledge. Once those characters approach, they will find the hulk of a badly-damaged spacecraft, about as big as a medium-sized cruise ship. The hull is badly burned, with tears in the metal, and it will be obvious to anyone who's got any experience with space travel (or even anyone who's watched enough sci-fi movies) to see that the ship didn't do well on its slow fall through the atmosphere. The metal is melted and punctured, anything that might have extended away from the hull has been burned off and lies in tatters, and the sand around the crash site is littered with metal and plastic debris.
But the one thing that's still possible to tell from the wreckage? It probably came from Anchor.
The ship is pieced together from salvaged materials, the tech will be familiar to anyone who's been in the colony for more than a couple days, and there's even a few corpses of very familiar bots lying in the sand. Approaching a large tear in the side of the hull will reveal a way inside the husk of a ship, giving access to the ship's small crew quarters section. If explorers choose to proceed inside, they'll be able to dig through what few personal items remain and find personal tablet computers and sat phones with their hard drives corrupted but possibly salvageable with the right skillset and the right technology repaired back in Anchor. They will also be able to find a way down further into the ship, though it's dark and clouded with sand and...well, quite menacing.
Because it isn't just the darkness and the danger of the red shift coming while you're trapped down there, or the danger of the ship's hull cracking with the weight of the sand piled up on its shell from the dust storm...but looking into the darkness, there's a flickering bluish glow. Digital and glitchy, it flickers from wall to wall, with the faintest impression of a human form. A face. A hand. The movement of hair or clothing. And then there's the echoing sounds - soft laughter, snippets of childrens' rhymes, unintelligible whispers or mumbles.
Well. Enter at your own risk.
ooc: exploration info.
As you can probably tell, this final prompt is kind of a doozy! While the first level of the ship is available for anyone to explore with the information provided in the prompt, going further into the ship will require mod guidance, via an NPC.
Any questions can be asked in the mod questions thread below, and if your characters have progressed to the point of wanting to explore deeper in the ship, please hit up the NPC request thread with a link to where the NPC should tag in.
Have fun guys!
Any questions can be asked in the mod questions thread below, and if your characters have progressed to the point of wanting to explore deeper in the ship, please hit up the NPC request thread with a link to where the NPC should tag in.
Have fun guys!
no subject
Peter turns his attention back to Kieran, giving his arms a quick, hopefully reassuring squeeze before letting go.]
I believe you. Trust me, I've seen some pretty weird stuff today too, like-like this. People being there and then not being there.
[You're not going crazy, cowboy, it's fiiiine. It's super weird and terrifying but it's fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine.]
no subject
[Still, Kieran can't stop looking over at where he saw Colm. He swallows and crosses his arms around his middle, rising and falling with his heavy breathing.]
It was like a ghost, 'cept not.
U-Unless ghosts can grab and move people. I ain't never met one before so I c-can't tell.
no subject
Yeah, can't say I'm a ghost expert. I don't think this is ghosts, I think there's something else going on.
[WHAT though, he has no idea. Yet. His nerd brain will figure it out eventually.]
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What the hell else could it be, then? People don't just... just... appear and disappear like that!
[He says to the kid who can climb ceilings.]
no subject
[Dammit Kieran way to make this complicated. Peter has to pause for a moment and come up with an answer that someone from the friggen dark ages might be able to understand. He can't just drop "maybe it's nanomachines tho" on someone from 1899 or whenever.]
Um. I think it might have something to do with the uh, the technology around here. Like the- you know the bartender? Have you been to the bar yet, the metal guy?
no subject
[The fruity drinks that happen taste really good. Seriously, why is everyone complaining, have you guys had liquor from 1899 it's actual swill y'all whippersnappers got it good here!!!]
[Anyway, Kieran nods, although his brow furrows in confusion. What do tequila sunrises have to do with traumatic experiences with big bad outlaws?]
no subject
Yeah, yeah. That's the one. Now imagine like, a billion of him, and they're all super tiny. Like, let's say ant sized.
[Peter makes kind of a weird face, because this already sounds fucking ridiculous but it's too late to back out NOW, so. YOLO?]
...God. So these teeny little metal guys can uh, join together to make different shapes. Like, people shapes. It's uh. It's just a theory. Not really a solid one. Actually, I'm just still in the tossing spaghetti at the wall phase of my theorizing so-
I should just stop talking, huh.
no subject
[Just let that sink in.]
[But no, Peter is doing a good job like a good boy, and Kieran is doing his best to keep up. It does make sense, in its own way, and he can kind of picture it, but...]
Okay, I... I think I get what you mean.
[He kind of does.]
But how do those little... metal... ants... [IT SOUNDS SO WEIRD.] know how to do that? And how do they know what he s-sounds like? Hell, they had to know what he smells like, too!
no subject
Uh, okay, so they'd know how to do that the same way the metal dude at the bar knows how to do his job. Basically, someone taught them. [Well, programmed, but close enough.] The rest of it, though, I don't have an answer for yet. I have no idea how they're so... so accurately able to mimic real people that we knew say, back home. Like, they pretended to be my aunt earlier, and it totally blew my mind. So um, yeah, that one's something I'm gonna have to put some more research into.
no subject
[Then he rubs at his eyes, the bags and wrinkles underneath may as well be growing darker and deeper with every passing moment, doubling the 20-somewhat years old Kieran actually is. Next, he finds the nearest wall and, with his back leaning against it, slides down until he's sitting in a gangly, long-legged manspread.]
[He's Very Tired, Peter. So very tired.]
So.
[Kieran sucks in a deep breath.]
Yer telling me that a buncha... a buncha metal ants were taught by someone how to hold their buncha metal ant hands and look like actual people we know and can do it so well that we can't tell th' difference between them and real folks back home?
I-Is that it?
no subject
Aaaah, yeah, basically. Again, its just a theory, but...
[A shrug. But yeah he thinks he's pretty close with that theory.]
no subject
[Kieran covers his face with his hands again and leans the back of his head against the wall.]
[He takes in another deep breath and just, kind of... yells... for a moment while he drags his palms down his cheeks.[
[Just give him like another second or two, Peter, he's got some feelings to air out.]
[...]
[Okay, he's done.]
no subject
waits patiently
for this poor poor man to finish having a freak out
Once he does seem to be done, Peter kneels down next to him and gives him a gentle but firm clap on the shoulder.]
Yeah. Yeah, I feel you.
no subject
[Sure, Kieran only feels like maybe a tenth better, but that's still less awful than before, at least.]
There's... there's gotta be a way to get rid of those things, right?
no subject
Oh, absolutely.
[HA HA HE HAS NO FUCKING IDEA BUT HE'LL TRY]
I'm not quite sure how yet, but we'll figure something out!
no subject
Hey, kid? A bit of advice...
[He looks peter right in the eye and, although his tone isn't unkind by a longshot, it's about as dry as a desert.]
...when yer tryin' to help a feller feel better, just stick to the 'absolutely's and 'no problem's. Don't add that other 'maybe' stuff in there.
It kinda... kinda ruins it. Y'know?
no subject
Y-yeah, that... that's a good point. Good advice. I'll-- I'll try to remember that. Sorry.
no subject
N-Not that you didn't do a good job! I appreciate your help, Peter. Honest!
[He really does!]
no subject
god they're both disasters. Honestly, that realization alone is enough to get Peter to smile. Good disaster vibes.]
Thanks, man. I'm still gonna work on it though, there's always room for improvement.
no subject
[Kieran's shoulders rise and fall with another sigh as he rests the back of his head against the wall again. If nothing else, the little exchange has been enough to keep his mind off of the swarm attack; that's enough to bring his heart rate down.]
So... what were you doin' out here?
no subject
Nothin' too exciting, really. I've been patrolling the halls half the day, working on stuff at the lab the other half. Right now I'm just heading back to my place for something to eat. Maybe a nap. I haven't decided yet.
no subject
[Kieran cocks his head to the side with a look of blossoming confusion crossing his face. Never mind that Peter seems pretty young to be patrolling and... labbing? There's something else that's bothering him...]
Yer awful calm about this whole mess. Does it just not bother ya, or...?
[TELL HIM YOUR CHILL SECRETS, CEILING BOY.]
no subject
It bothers me, I just... I think I'm just used to it? The last place I was stuck was even worse on the psychological horror front, you just get desensitized to some things after a while.
[The secret is "pretend everything is okay all the time" but y'know.]
no subject
[Kieran pats the ground next to him to invite Peter to sit instead of just kneeling or squatting or whatever the heck he was doing. If he was already sitting then just ignore that I'm just in a rush to get to the gym and can't be assed to read earlier on in the thread.]
You mean this isn't the first place you've been stuck in?
[Cue a sympathetic glance because dang kid, that is rough.]
no subject
I don't remember either and I'm too lazy to read back so Peter sure does sit his butt down next to Kieran if he wasn't already doing so. Then he nods, and sort of just goes silent for a few seconds because YEAH MAN, IT WAS PRETTY ROUGH.]
Yeah. I was uh, I was in the last place for about a year. Hadriel. It was a city that was run by these uh... Well, they called themselves Gods. I don't know much about that, but they needed us around because they were essentially feeding off of us. Not like literally, they weren't eating us? But they got their power from our emotions, and if they needed us to feel a certain way, they could manipulate our emotions however they wanted. One of them specifically dealt with fear, so you can probably imagine how much fun that was.
[IT WASN'T FUN AT ALL, K.]
Compared to all that, this place doesn't seem so bad.
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