OCTOBER + NOVEMBER TDM.

[ximilian]

● ● ● T D M . 0 4

// PART I. a crimson dream  

… What are you willing to do to erase your regret from existence?

These are the words that ring in your ears, as a slowly growing red glow surrounds you in this dreamspace, filling you with an acute sense of dread — and whatever it is that you’ve just agreed to might have changed everything forever.

It is this sense of dream that startles you awake, and as it fades, and your heart begins to slow into something resembling your normal tempo, you'll notice something you should have picked up on immediately: you are not in your bed.

1.0   White walls, clinical yet clean, sparsely-furnished rooms. You may wake in one of three rooms: a room with only one bed, a room with two beds, or a room with four beds. Those waking up in rooms with more than one bed notice that they are not alone. Perhaps the other occupants of the room are still sleeping, dreaming the same dream as you just did, or a regular one after returning to the station just barely a week ago … or perhaps you wake up to the other person in the room watching you.

What you do is entirely up to you: yelping in surprise when you wake to someone staring at you is always an option. Or maybe you’ll try to sneak away before anyone notices you...

2.0   Those with life-threatening injuries will find themselves waking up in the infirmary, in a regular hospital bed. Most of their injuries have been treated, and any lingering illnesses or conditions will have designated medicine bottles on the table next to the bed.

White curtains surround the bed on both sides, providing an illusion of privacy. But is that a rustling sound you hear? A set of footsteps? Perhaps you’re not the only one in need of some medical attention.

In fact if you’re very badly off, you might want to hold out hope for some company - you can’t stay in the infirmary forever. You'll have to make your way through the hallways of the station to the living quarters, and claim a room and a bed there.

Once upright, you might notice something in your ear: an earpiece that, when you become aware of it, quickly runs you through the instructions for how to use the network, a recorded message by a female voice that explains exactly why you’re here… and leaves you with a map of the station.

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// PART II. hotel spacefornia  

So what else is there to do but to explore, right? Best get to know your way around your new home.

3.0   When trying to decide where you go, you might find your way to the armory, where you can make attempts to work the machine and create a weapon for yourself — maybe replace the one that didn’t come with you to the station ... or maybe you decide to prepare something for the future. Any recently-returned team members will surely recommend having a functional weapon with you.

And speaking of weapons: why not put them to the test and head over to the training room, where the entire purpose of this space is to provide you with opportunities to spar and train to your heart’s content!

4.0   After you’ve exhausted yourself from training, your stomach will prompt you for something to eat. For that you should head to the kitchens and the mess hall, which is equipped with all the basic appliances you might need, along with some more unusual ones (including an ... interesting-looking waffle maker and popcorn machine), as well as ingredients for most generic Earth-based dishes. For some reason, there are also some bags of now-cold popcorn left abandoned over the counters.

5.0   A welcome reprieve to the cold, dark space that surrounds you can be found in the sunlight room. A skillful illusion builds up around anyone who steps inside the room: you can hear the trilling of birds, feel a light breeze caress your skin as you walk through a grass field. The illusion has been programmed to reflect the seasons — the leaves in the trees are currently bright with all the colours of autumn: orange and red and yellow; and the air is crisp and clean. If you follow the path, you'll be led to a bridge rising over a sparkling, babbling brook, a few fallen leaves floating on the water and falling around you like very bright raindrops.

Here, it's easy to forget (for a moment, anyway) that you are in space at all. Maybe that gives you comfort, or maybe it just makes you miss the real thing all that much more.

6.0   If you’d rather choose tinkering with objects over wandering through nature, the lab is guaranteed to provide you with some entertainment. Glass vials and jars of chemicals sit on shelves in a surprisingly beautiful display of colour on one side of the room, while the other side of the room contains stacks of boxes filled with assorted equipment: cords, bolts, panels, buttons, gears, gadgets, gizmos, and thingamabobs. The downside is that the parts available seem to have no apparent method to their sorting. So get digging and you may just find exactly what you need to make what you’ve always wanted to!

7.0   Some time after your arrival, the earpiece alerts you to a new message. If it’s items you’re lacking, you may just be in luck.

// VIVECA.AI

Hi again, everyone. Those who’ve been here for longer know the deal, but to those new here: there’s a new supply drop. Hopefully you’ll find useful things there. If you made any requests for items, before, you should find them in a separate pile near the platform.

Indeed, the platform located near the personal quarters is still whirring with power, and new items form neat piles on top of it. There are clothes, shoes, dishware, skincare, books ... and in one pile, a varied collection of what seems to be Halloween decorations and costumes. So, sort through the piles and grab what you want before someone else does! (But don't forget: sharing is caring.)

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// PART III. trick or treat  

Whether you’re a quick study and you’ve become settled into life on the station, or you want to get the full lay of the land (in a manner of speaking) first, if you decide to explore the hall past the control room, you’ll eventually come across the simulation room. It’s been equipped with a new simulation to show you the drill where the missions are concerned, so step in and see what it has in store for you!

8.0   The moment the doors slide shut behind you, the space goes dark and then quickly lights up again, but instead of the blank empty walls you initially walked into, you’re surrounded by colour and lights, the sound of music and chatter, and the smells of deep-fried foods and overly sweet beverages. Someone calls, ‘Step right up, step right up!’ while another voice from somewhere starts to cheer as an electrical sound of a buzzer goes off, announcing its winner for prizes.

It seems that you’ve entered the Carnival simulation, so come on in and have a little fun.

There are booths spread out across these simulated grounds, each one offering food, drink or games. As you wander past you’ll notice that there is a touch of macabre to everything — the colours are black and orange and violet and red, the drinks offered have strange names, some you recognize like ‘Witch’s Brew’ and ‘Eye of Newt’, and some you might not, like ‘Viole(n)t Breeze’ and ‘Undead Essence’. It’s as though all of the things strange and wonderful find themselves spread across the entire universe to unite here.

Once you’ve had your fill of food and games, you can make your way past the little market area to a brightly glittering ferris wheel with carts rotating in a cycle, enticing you to try it out. Or if you’d rather be spooked, there is a hokey little ‘haunted mansion’ to your left that won’t take more than a handful of minutes to move through. Creatures and ghosts will pop out at you when you least expect it, their masked faces exaggerated with paint and some fairly realistic prosthetics to get the adrenaline pumping. Take a friend with you, or go it alone — just try to keep your cool through it all.

9.0   Eventually, once you’ve had your fill of the festivities, you may notice a wooden sign pointing you past the haunted mansion. Pressed on it is a round mark, and you remember that this is simulating a mission — you’re not here to just have fun, but to try and retrieve a simulated orb.

As you follow the path, you’ll find the hustle and bustle of the carnival growing quieter. All around you, there is nothing but woods — and hold on, where did all that mist come from? It surrounds you slowly, the ground seeming slightly damp as you keep walking… and arrive at a graveyard.

So the orb… it’s there, hidden in one of the graves? There’s nothing else to do but to start walking and looking at the gravestones — but when you do, you’ll be shocked to find some of the names are terribly, terribly familiar.

They might be names of your loved ones, people who were still in perfect health back home; and yet here those stones bear their names, along with an epitaph that brings tears to your eyes. And if you move closer… you may experience a flash of colour and light, and a memory suddenly plays out in front of you: the death of your loved one, whoever that may be.

Or perhaps the name you see on a gravestone is something else even more familiar to you: your own. But ... how, right? Reluctantly, your heart pounding, you approach with tentative steps, and yes — the name does not change. It's yours right there ... and it's your own death that you witness when the grave’s spell binds you.

● ● ●

N O T E:   The deaths witnessed are intended to be non-canon deaths, so feel free to go wild inventing them -- this also goes for characters who are canonically dead. These are “alternate universe deaths”, not canon.

Additionally, there are three personal tasks provided to each character as they enter the simulation. In-game, each character will be given one task. For the purposes of the test drive, we’re leaving it to players to pick a task for their character and run with it.

A   Find the grave of a teammate and witness their death.

B   Team up with a fellow Orber win in one of the Carnival games.

C   Scare a teammate in the haunted house.

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F Y I

• TDM threads can be considered game canon so long as all parties involved agree to it.
• This TDM covers both October and November, so there will be no new TDM for November.
• TDM threads can be used as samples for apps. In fact, we encourage it!
• Reserves are currently open!
• Apps open October 27 and will remain open until November 30.
• For any questions regarding TDM, please direct them here. For questions about the game, please refer to the FAQ.

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FOR SOME FUN:

Have a clue for your upcoming mission:
“I’m going to bed, where I may die.”

▶ NAV

Comments

[thelastb1]

I have. I've written about it all in my autobiography. From Trenches to Wrenches: The Roger Story. [he takes out a datapad from behind him] Now available on the Holonet for an extremely reasonable price! It covers more than 30 years, two major galactic wars, and various other misadventures. And I'm still working on a second volume!

The Freemakers reactivated and then rescued me on Ord Telloram after all the battle droids were all shut down. That was the first time I heard about the Clone Wars ending, so I started working for them and living on the Wheel where they did.

[droide]

[ Elthree's optic widens excitedly. ]

You're a published author?? Roger Freemaker, you have my full attention.

[ Not only is he a veteran of the Clone Wars, but he's written a book about it!! This is one of the coolest droids Elthree has ever met. ]

Can I see that?

[thelastb1]

Well, self-published, but yes. [He's somewhat surprised, as this is the first time in decades anyone has ever reacted with excitement to hearing about his book. Most of the time it's just annoyance. He does hand over the datapad, though. The table of contents reveald that the book has hundreds of chapters. Most are nearly perfectly accurate accounts of what happened, with most lines of dialogue being transcribed exactly as they were spoken. The writing technique, however, is unskilled. The content of the book also goes past the end of the Galactic Civil War and into the era of the New Republic, though it stops short of the beginnings of the First Order.]

I've also been writing another book along with the sequel that I've been calling Droidography. Sort of an encyclopedia with stories about other droids. Mostly for organics, so they can understand more about us.

[droide]

All the same, well done.

[ She flips through some pages of the book on the datapad. Most likely this style of writing is only appealing to other droids rather than reaching any organics' interests, but to Elthree it's amazing.

She pauses however, and flips back to the table of contents. ]

What... What's this about a battle on Yavin? And-- [ She keeps flipping forward. ] Endor? Jakku?

[thelastb1]

[Roger freezes for a second, looking confused. He'd been assuming up until now that Elthree had just somehow survived Kessel, or rebuilt her body, or something. The idea that Elthree was from a different point in time had not seriously been considered. But no one could live in the galaxy and not know about the Battle of Yavin or Endor, could they? After he spends a few seconds trying to figure it out, Roger hesitantly asks a question.]

... What year do you think it is?

gdi I hate star wars calendars...

[droide]

[ That's... quite a question, now isn't it? ]

Year 25 of the Galactic Standard Calendar. Why? What year do you think it is?

[thelastb1]

34 ABY. 34 years After the Battle of Yavin. Which was 19 years after the Clone Wars ended. There's a whole New Republic now that put in a new calandar. [or at least, there was yesterday. But that's not a story to tell someone who only just found out about the Battle of Yavin, Roger decides.]

[droide]

[ Elthree lets that news settle for a moment before responding. ]

So someone managed to overthrow the Empire. ...Huh. That's nice.

[ Shame she won't live to see it. Or so she assumes. ]

[thelastb1]

Yeah, we did. And it was. [Particularly for those who had put so much effort into bringing it down.]

[droide]

[ Elthree glances down at the datapad in her hands, before handing it back to Roger. ]

I want to read all of this, I do. But right now I've got a simulated mission to complete. Can you tell me where your grave was?

[thelastb1]

Oh. Right. [Roger puts the datapad back onto his transmission pack. He then pivots and points to the exact location of his grave.] Have you seen your grave here? I got the same task.

[droide]

Thank you. [ She points out her own grave. ] Over there. Second row, seventh stone in.

[ She turns to head towards the grave he indicated, but hesitates, turning back and adding, ] For whatever comfort it's worth, what you saw isn't actually your death. I witnessed mine, and it was laughably inaccurate.

[ Being torn limb from limb by an angry wookiee and thrown out an airlock. Brutal, but not how she actually remembers dying. ]

[thelastb1]

Thanks. [Roger responds, both for the help and the assurance. With that, he goes to find Elthree's grave. It's nice to know someone else's death was so innaccurate, when his own seemed like such a plausible result of the events he had been facing. It may not help much, but it does slightly.]

[droide]

[ Elthree nods, before turning to head for Roger's grave. It doesn't take her long to get there, and when she does, she unceremoniously steps forward just close enough to trigger the holodisplay of the simulated death sequence.

It's sad, of course. Watching someone she's only just met but is already very invested in get stranded and power down, all alone on some inhospitable moon? It's really sad. Watching his human companion die is sad, too. The whole thing really tugs at Elthree's heartstrings.

...Her metaphorical heartstrings.

Once it's over, Elthree steps back, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. Something occurs to her, and she starts looking around the neighboring headstones, noticing that they all share the Freemaker surname.

Had Pace and Lena actually adopted R0-GR into their clan, making him more than just a droid, but family?

She thinks about trying to find Pace and Lena's graves, but... No. Why bother witnessing a death that probably isn't even real? Instead, she heads back towards her own grave, to meet up with Roger again. ]

[thelastb1]

[After watching Elthree's innaccurate death and completing his own personal task, Roger returns to analysing nearby graves for any kind of clue as to where the as to where the Orb is. Upon hearing Elthree's footsteps, he quickly stands up and turns around.] Did you find it?

[droide]

I did.

[ She doesn't comment further on the subject, knowing that it might be a sensitive topic. Instead she turns to look at the grave plots Roger is standing near. ]

Now we just have to find and exhume this 'orb.' ...I don't suppose you have something that can scan for energy readings?

[thelastb1]

No. But I don't think that's how we're supposed to find it. [Roger slowly turns in a complete circle to look out over the graves as he continues speaking.] I think it's some kind of puzzle. And some of the gravestones might have hints or clues or riddles.

That's what a simulation would try to test, right? There's no point in just seeing how many graves we can dig up. [Because Roger already knows for certain that he is able to dig up every single grave in the cemetary and also that he really does not want to.]

[droide]

[ Leave it to the older, wiser droid to see through to the mission's true purpose. Elthree nods, seeing the truth in his words. ]

Makes sense. [ She straightens, shaking her dome slightly side to side. ] I suppose we'd better start gathering what intelligence we can. I can try to walk through, stone by stone, and scan the engravings, see if I can determine any patterns or hidden meanings.

[ She looks out over the massive graveyard. ]

That might take a while, however.

[thelastb1]

That would help, [Roger says, looking over the area again. His own search, so far, has been disorganized. The only advantage he currently has is that he remembers every gravestone with perfect clarity. He assumes Elthree has the same ability, and so her actually making a more organized search will probably benefit them greatly.]

I've already looked through 38% of the cemetary. Finishing will probably take me a few more hours. We can meet back up after both of us are done.

[droide]

Which ground have you covered? I'll start on the opposite end.

[ She's assuming he has the same ability of perfect recall that she does, so between the two of them, they should be able to appropriately analyze the tombstones' data. ]

[thelastb1]

[Roger points at where he started] I started over that way- [he then traces his exact path with his finger] then went over there... then there... and then over that way- then all the way... [He eventually finishes his journey, pointing directly at the ground beneath him.] here.

[droide]

[ She follows the path he indicates, mentally mapping out his route and analyzing how best to divide the rest of the graveyard between them. ]

Perfect. You keep going that way, [ She points off in a direction continuing his earlier path. ] And I'll go in this direction. [ She indicates the opposite end of the cemetery. ]

Meet back here when you're done.