modblob: (Default)
Mods ([personal profile] modblob) wrote in [community profile] redshiftlogs2019-08-02 02:02 am

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.

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!


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.


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!

itsnotaonesie: (it's fiiiiiiiiiiiiine)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-09-04 04:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Eh, it's Peter. He puts himself through pain all the time. He's a fast healer, so he's just kind of learned to deal with it. This time might be worse, though. He's had puncture wounds before, he knows how they're supposed to feel, and the pain that he feels this time doesn't feel quite right. Also she sounds really concerned, sooo yeah, he's a little worried.

He doesn't sound worried, though. He's gotten really good at faking calmness over the past couple months.

"Okay, I can feel it when you apply pressure, yeah. Kind of a dull pain, uhh... Okay, you know when your arm falls asleep? It kind of feels like that, too. Kind of a tingling sensation. Also my arm's starting to feel a little numb? So that's... probably concerning. Maaaaybe the guys who used to be here left some kinda antivenom sitting around?"

Maybe? He hopes?
Edited 2019-09-04 16:05 (UTC)
tenuefarfalla: (looking right at you)

[personal profile] tenuefarfalla 2019-10-04 05:46 am (UTC)(link)
Cho sweeps her arms over the exam table right next to them, scooping up the hedgehog and the kitten and depositing both of them into a large empty container on the shelf. They will get to them later. Peter first. Once the table is clear, Cho gives Peter a little nudge toward it. "Up." she says, in a voice that is surprisingly firm for her size and demeanour. It's a tone that will not be argued with. Not right now.

Expecting Peter to protest, she continues. "If you leg starts to go numb, I can not lift you. So just-- humour me, all right? We're going to-- find something here. There must be some sort of medical scanner. Or a-- Ha! You're not afraid of needles, are you?"
itsnotaonesie: (this is fiiiine)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-10-05 02:16 am (UTC)(link)
Peter does as he's instructed and hops his butt up onto that table. He knows when not to argue, don't even worry about it, Cho.

"I'm not afraid of them, but I definitely don't like them. I can-- I can deal with it, you just do what you need to and tell me what you need me to do."
tenuefarfalla: need raw (listening with interest)

[personal profile] tenuefarfalla 2019-10-09 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
"Hold still." She says it flatly, and it is the only warning before she finds a vein and takes some of his blood, hoping that this equipment follows the barest logical thread of what she's used to, and that the machine she is now feeding drops from the syringe into will be able to tell her if something dangerous is in him, and how to counteract it.

Right. This is going to be fine. Totally and completely fine. "Try to not move too much. Or elevate your heart-rate. Which I know is very difficult when you're nervous. Not that you need to be nervous." She bites her lip, then takes his hand and gives it a little squeeze. "This place seems really advanced, even if it's in bad shape. They must be prepared for things like this. We just need the system in here to tell us what to do, and then I can do it. I promise."
itsnotaonesie: movieconnoisseur (what i was totally listening)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-10-09 03:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Peter does indeed hold still, pointedly looking away from any needle action. Super powers or not, needles are the absolute worst okay. He's nervous okay he can't help it, sorry about his elevated heart rate. On the inside he's like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH but on the outside he looks perfectly calm, at least.

Anyway, he gives her hand a little squeeze right back. See, he is perfectly fine. It's fiiiine. "If it can't help, don't worry too much. My body's a lot tougher than a normal person's, it should be able to fight this off on it's own."

He thinks. Maybe.
tenuefarfalla: need raw (merf)

[personal profile] tenuefarfalla 2019-11-20 04:49 am (UTC)(link)
"There isn't anything to worry about. Even if everything here has mutated, it's mutated from things that the people living here were familiar with and prepared for. Maybe their spiders weren't as big, but they still had them. So I'll have a place to start." She's still holding his hand, still squeezing it tightly, and she gives it a little jiggle. "You know the way you are with computers and robots? How prepared and calm and competent you are when it comes to finding the solutions to our problems with them? Well, this is where I get to shine. I'm good at this stuff. Right now, you're my robot with a bug, and I'm Peter Parker." It sounded less weird in her head, but she hopes the sentiment translates.
itsnotaonesie: (110)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-11-26 06:04 pm (UTC)(link)
The sentiment does translate, even if the phrasing is a little bit weird. He can't help but chuckle, "See, I get where you're going with this, but I would like to point out that I spend about 75% of my energy on trying not to freak out, and only about 25% on the actual problem solving. I think what I'm trying to say is that I've gotten really good at faking it, I'm like a master of it at this point."
tenuefarfalla: need raw (oh?)

[personal profile] tenuefarfalla 2019-11-27 09:30 am (UTC)(link)
Ah. Well, then. "All right. I'm... the Peter Parker of biology with the percentages flipped. I'm 25% not freaking out and 75% problem solving." She is not actually the Peter Parker of biology, but her error is made with earnest intentions. She has no idea how smart he truly is. She's good, though. She's confident in the field, and while the equipment might not be familiar, the organic aspects of this problem are. She knows how to handle this.

Off to her side, a little chime from the machine with his blood has her shifting her attention yet again. She turns it toward her, swipes through the information on the touch screen. "Well, the bad news is that it's extremely venomous, and it seems to be very fast-acting. The good news is that I know this, because the medical system knows this. I don't think they're supposed to get this large. You sure are something else, Peter." Which is her way of saying that any normal person would be dead right now.

A new machine now, to synthesize an anti-venom. She takes a moment to learn the interface. "You're going to be fine. How much do you weigh? I'm bad at guessing human weights."
itsnotaonesie: (80)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-11-29 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
Yyyeah just judging by the size of the spider, Peter's sure that if literally anyone else had been bitten, they'd be super dead right now. If his were to go untreated, Peter can't say whether or not his healing factor would be enough to combat the venom on it's own, but thankfully Cho seems to have a good idea of what she's doing. Peter might be a little worried, but he's not on the verge of panic or anything.

"About 150, give or take." Though it might be less now, since he hasn't been eating as much as he should be lately, but not by too much.
tenuefarfalla: (interested)

[personal profile] tenuefarfalla 2019-12-19 02:10 am (UTC)(link)
Good. Perfect. "All right. Let's give it a range of one forty to one sixty and factor in a heightened metabolism. I'm assuming you have a heightened metabolism? Doubled? More or less?" She's working while she talks, making adjustments, learning how this machine works by making mistakes and correcting them. She accidentally has it spit out one vial of an anti-venom that she's pretty sure could take down an elephant. Not good. Trying again, then.
itsnotaonesie: (158)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2019-12-26 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)
"More or less, yeah. I haven't really crunched the numbers."

All he knows is that he could eat pretty much all day, but that could be just because he's a teenager.

"Hey, would it be bad if I laid down right now? I'm feelin' super light headed."
tenuefarfalla: need raw (sunny smile)

[personal profile] tenuefarfalla 2020-01-04 08:16 am (UTC)(link)
Oh flip.

Outwardly, Cho just smiles reassuringly. Inwardly, she's freaking out a little bit more now. "No. Not at all. Just don't close your eyes, all right? Don't go to sleep. Why don't you talk to me about something? You can pick the topic." She just really needs him to not go to sleep.

She also needs to see that he can still form words and follow coherent threads of logic. What better way to do that than with some casual chit-chat?

Everything is fine!
itsnotaonesie: (142)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2020-01-04 06:03 pm (UTC)(link)
NOTHING IS FINE.

Peter lays down on his side, not wanting to lay on the wound in case she needs to get back in there or something. The good news is that he doesn't fall asleep, but he does look pretty close to just passing out.

"Topic, uhhh. Topic, okay. Got one. Pet names, got anything in mind for the hedgehog?"
tenuefarfalla: ** (a little uncertain)

[personal profile] tenuefarfalla 2020-01-14 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
"I hadn't really thought about it yet." Oh God, Peter, don't pass out. Please don't. Not on her watch. Not on any watch. "What do you think? He doesn't really look like a Harold, does he? Did you pick out a name for the kitten? Are you keeping it?" Pet names are as good a topic as any, and now Cho has something she thinks should counteract the venom coursing through him. Time to put it to the test.
itsnotaonesie: (44)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2020-01-14 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)
He's trying not to pass out okay, he's doing his very best!!

"Uhhhh," Peter shifts to look over at the kitten, but almost immediately gives up because now he's super dizzy. "Chernobyl. I am absolutely keeping him, I love him already. I know next to nothing about taking care of cats, though, got any tips?"
tenuefarfalla: (looking over shoulder)

[personal profile] tenuefarfalla 2020-01-15 04:10 am (UTC)(link)
She loads up a syringe and sticks him, no real warning, and she hopes he'll forgive her for that later. Right now she's most worried about wasting time they don't have.

While the anti-venom does its work, she leaves herself in his line of sight and tries her best to not look worried. She's not sure it really reaches her eyes, but she takes his hand and gives it an encouraging squeeze. "That is the most ridiculous name for a glowing cat and I love it. It's perfect. You're going to need a litter box, and some toys, and there are some things you're going to want to make sure to keep locked away. I'll make you a list? Marmalade has gotten obsessed with playing with these little rubber rings that he keeps finding when we go on walks. I could bring you some. Maybe Chernobyl will like them, too."
itsnotaonesie: (144)

[personal profile] itsnotaonesie 2020-01-15 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
He winces a little when she jabs him, but that's all he really does by way of complaining. Right now, he doesn't really have the energy for much else. He barely even has the energy to squeeze her hand back, but he does his best.

"A list would be great. Might have to make a litter box, I can't say I've seen any of those just conveniently laying around."