march 2020. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Seventh Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of March 2020
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. escape the dome.

It seems the mysterious, massive plant with its giant bud is not going anywhere. In fact, the bud is starting to bloom, which presents a problem - it's starting to press against the dome that protects Anchor. So far, no harm done, but is this really the best way to test the kind of pressure that the dome can withstand? There's got to be some way to bring the plant down without destroying chunks of Anchor in the process...

And uh, you might want to get on that. The plant has been growing, sending out thorny vines into the various levels, and the flowers growing from those vines are, shall we say, aggressive. In fact, they're liable to bite if you get too close, and these things have razor-sharp petals. More eerily, they can mimic the voices they hear, usually using those borrowed voices to beg for help at the end of long corridors or in the back rooms of abandoned shops and restaurants.

b. planetary fly traps.

Following the voices can get a body in all kinds of trouble, because, well. They want to eat you.

In those dark areas where the voices call out there are larger buds, too, ones that look similar to the one now pressing up against Anchor's dome. They're about twice the size of an average human, and they've just barely opened. The colors inside are brilliant, gorgeous, mesmerizing, kind of exhausting... Get too close, and you could find yourself being slowly dragged in through the mouth of the plant into a bath of liquid that saps your energy while also slowly (very slowly, don't worry) consuming your flesh.

Better hope you snap out of it quickly, or have some backup to get you out of there.

c. misfire mayhem.

In case that wasn't enough, there's something funny going on with the comm system again. Texts being sent to the wrong people. Simple things, small things, yes, but also some things that you might have wanted to keep private or off the network. The misfires start on the morning of the 20th with just a few texts going to the wrong recipients, but slowly amps up throughout the day until voice and video calls are connecting to the wrong people. Recordings of conversations, including the audio and video ones, getting sent to completely unrelated residents, regardless of how private the conversation was.

The reason for the malfunctions becomes... well, clear-ish when Creepy Joe appears on the network. He’s in the agricultural sector, petting a reindire and very much not in that secure quarantine where Qubit et all left him. The angle is odd--not from a communicator, but from one of the security cameras overhead. It blinks from one shot of Joe to another angle. Almost like someone is trying to keep an eye on him.

mod notes.

Misfire texts, voice, and video conversations are on an opt-in basis, it is up to each player if they want their characters tormented with their messages being sent to others or receiving misfires. Misfires can be played on this log, on the network, or in IC inboxes.

The NPC network entry will explain some details on why, but characters who were kind to Creepy Joe or who have put in a lot of effort to contribute to the community will find that their messages are getting misfired much less often and the contents are nowhere near as sensitive. Characters who were cruel to Creepy Joe or who have hurt/stolen from others will find their messages going astray more often, and with more sensitive material.

Messages received by characters can include any message posted in redshiftrp or in IC inboxes, including messages from dropped characters. Have fun with that!

Important but Unrelated: March and April have been designated as check in only for AC. If you have not yet posted your AC, feel free to just put a check-in notice under your character's AC thread. April check-ins can be posted any time on or after April 1st.

Navigation.

Comments

C - 2

[vosseeker]

Dinosaurs?

[arcadedragon]

Hanzo?

Yes dinosaurs. I was looking for dragons but none of them looked very good.

[vosseeker]

This is not Hanzo. Your device must have glitched.

Why are dinosaurs good but dragons not?

[ Look, he's bored. Might as well ask. ]

[arcadedragon]

Dragons are better than dinosaurs, but the movies I could find with dragons did not look well done.

The dinosaur one did.

Who is this then?

[vosseeker]

Starscream.

Are they not physically similar? One would assume that recreating one to the other would be mostly the same process...

[ He's thinking too hard about this. He's really bored. ]

[arcadedragon]

[Weird. That's definitely not who he called...]

I think the dinosaur movie had more money to recreate dinosaurs than the dragon movie did? Also newer. The dragon one looks all CG and bad.

[vosseeker]

Clearly the only way to settle this is to view them myself. Where are you located?

[ Did he just invite himself to movie night? Yes, yes he did. ]

[arcadedragon]

I'm in my room. I do not think you will fit.

I can set it up elsewhere though? I think there is a projector, I used it before.

[vosseeker]

[ He actually went along with it? Will wonders never cease. And yet Starscream is... inexplicably more pleased by this than he'll admit. ]

Yes. That would be fine.

[arcadedragon]

[Hey man, a party is a party. And unlike Hanzo, Starscream actually wants to be there. So hell yeah he will set up a projector and get popcorn and blankets and shove some couches around so they have a place to sit. Which he hopes the giant robot fits on.]

I will have it going on the third floor, there's a big blank wall that is perfect for movies.

[vosseeker]

[ Starscream knows the spot, and comes up from the research level a short while later, moving with surprising lightness for someone 25' tall. He does judge the couches probably not sufficient for his size, but he does fold himself down into something of a spiky ball on the floor. ]

Is the other person you were trying to contact also coming?

[arcadedragon]

[Genji kicks back on the couch nearby glad to have company even if it is very large and spikey.]

I don't think so. He doesn't enjoy having fun.

[He's finagled the projector into working with the VCR and soon they shall have Jurassic Park emblazoned on the side of a wall.]

He thinks it's bad for him.

[vosseeker]

[ In all fairness, most people would accuse Starscream of the same, but then, most people aren't interacting with him in a purely social setting. (And usually he has more airs to put on, among the Decepticon ranks.)

The movie earns a surprising level of attentiveness; the exposition in the early segments especially is appreciated, as Starscream doesn't have the cultural inundation of "dinosaurs" like humans do. But the explanation of the cloning has him leaning forward. ]

The parallels to Shockwave's beastformer cloning are striking...

[arcadedragon]

[Genji has never seen it either and is pretty delighted with the dinosaurs. Why can't they have that? They're watching the exact movie telling them why they shouldn't have that.]

You do cloning on your world? Of dinosaurs?

[Who knew mosquitos were so useful.]

[vosseeker]

Of Predacons. Prehistoric beasts which ruled our planet before modern mecha, much in the way dinosaurs did to Earth. The similarities to what's being illustrated here...

[ Starscream gestures at the projected screen. Despite the calm way he relays the information, on his back, his wings hike slightly higher in agitation. ]

[arcadedragon]

Did they evolve into different types of mechs? Or did one replace the other?

[Do robots evolve? Do they clone each other? There's robo ancestors? He's learning a lot since this is 100% different from the Omnics back home.]

Could you clone them like this? I'm not sure we have that technology in my world, we can repair a lot of injuries, augment humans with synthetic parts. But I don't think they can recreate entire species like this.

But I'm not a scientist.

[vosseeker]

The latter. The Predacon species was wiped out by the passing of a red giant star, an incident recorded in history as the Great Cataclysm, their remains fossilized.

[ Starscream's attention returned to the movie for another moment, considering. ]

Shockwave collected samples of these remains, and extracted their genetic CNA. In that, it seems to be a similar premise to the movie.

[arcadedragon]

Oh I see. That sounds very similar. What were you going to do with the genetics? Try and remake them? You can make a park like this one!

[About 30 more minutes into the movie and he'll see why that's a terrible idea.]

[vosseeker]

Originally, they were intended to be used as soldiers, not pets. Though Shockwave certainly treated the beast as one.

For all his "shock" — [ yes, he did just make an atrocious pun ] — I think he was lying about not knowing the Pit-spawned creature was sentient the whole time.

[arcadedragon]

Oh, you were trying to make an army with them?

[Well that certainly sounds familiar. His own world has an entire super soldier program, not to mention legions of robots.]

He knew it was sentient and treated it terribly?

[That came out a little more snappish then he intended. Hits a little close to home.]

[vosseeker]

We were trying to make a better army. We had a war to win.

[ Starscream's red gaze slides down to Genji at the biting question. He'd treated the beast far worse than Shockwave had, it was true. If anything, the scientist had doted on it. But Starscream wasn't going to volunteer that inforamtion if it gained him nothing. Besides, he'd more than paid for it, given the situation he'd been in when he'd been brought to Anchor -- one he's not looking forward to returning to. ]

No way to know for certain. In any case, it -- he -- made the truth known eventually. We reacted accordingly.

[arcadedragon]

Hm.

[There's a part of him that knows deep down that the two of them are probably on opposite sides of the wars on their world. Starscream would likely be Null Sector on his planet, and Overwatch would be trying to stop him. But this place isn't their world, and differences need to be worked through in order for all of them to live together.]

I see. Well that is good.

[Unless 'reacted accordingly' means they murdered it. ]

I think I'd rather have dinosaurs than try and bring back my ancestors.