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OCTOBER + NOVEMBER TDM.
● ● ● T D M . 0 4
… 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.
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.
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.)
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.
F Y I
• 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.
FOR SOME FUN:
Have a clue for your upcoming mission:
“I’m going to bed, where I may die.”
no subject
"Shows of power are invariably a threat because that's the nature of the beast when it comes to authority," There was a sudden tension in Drift's face at this. "Nobody with our best interests in mind needs to remind us of our own mortality."
no subject
He hooked a thumb into one of the belts on his hip and walks away from his grave. There was no reason to look at it any longer. It was a fact he'd known for awhile. No revelation there.
"Guess you wouldn't know if folks had been too reckless lately since you're new like me. Sometimes a reminder of mortality can make you more careful." Cobb shrugged. "I'm not sayin' you're wrong about the threat. Just not sure there isn't another reason either."
no subject
"You do have a point," Drift toes the edge of his own grave before pulling away. "This place definitely wants something of us, that much I'm certain of. It feels like a riddle they've only given us half the question to and still expect a correct answer."
no subject
"Death is inevitable?" he guessed, his expression a little more amused for a second before he was serious again. "It might not be about us. All these are people I know."
He gestured to the other stones around his. "And where I'm from, we don't usually bury people. So, this wouldn't really happen back home."
no subject
"I'm not sure," He said, pinching his chin as he crossed his arms and scrutinized a line of headstones. "You said the ones you recognized were all people you know? Would, by any chance, they all happen to be alive last time you checked?"
Drift pointed at one headstone inscribed with the name 'Rodimus.' Cause of death was acute alcohol poisoning.
"Here, my best friend. I had spoken to him shortly before coming here, and he was in perfect health and not in any immediate danger. A bit of a lush but nothing concerning," Then he went down the short line of people and noticed a pattern. "All of these people are ones I'm close to and very much alive."
The comportment in Drift's shoulders slumped noticeably when he added, "If this is about the inevitability of death, they're missing one...an important one."
He looked at Cobb and evenly said, "I'm recently widowed."
no subject
He frowned a little bit. That was a hard thing. He'd never been married himself but he had told enough folks their husband or wife wasn't coming back to know the sort of pain it caused.
"Sorry about your loss." Cobb knew the words might not mean much coming from a stranger but the sympathy was genuine either way.
But he knew his next words weren't going to sound that nice. "Could be you haven't found your spouse yet. Might need to look a little more? There's a lot here."
no subject
"No, and I don't expect I will," He added before indicating the graves with a sweep of his hand, "All of these appear grouped in relation to the person who knew them." He pulls a face before correcting himself, "Knows them. If it were here, it would be near the others."
Drift made a frustrated grunt, "Which brings us back to our own graves. Do they want us to, I don't know, act it out?"
no subject
He shook a finger at Drift like he was a young child in need of scolding. They weren't going to test that theory. Stars knows it could suddenly become real in this sort of strange place.
"You wanna talk about it?" He gestured to the grave. "Why would they think you'd kill yourself?"
Maybe they were supposed to learn something? Weird dark bonding exercise.
no subject
The humor of the situation quickly faded when Cobb asked a question that lanced through him. The holomatter was a solid construct and virtually indistinguishable from a person, so where his physical body some distance off ached, the sympathetic response was to cringe visibly.
"When I said I had been recently widowed, what I failed to mention if I was at the funeral before coming here," Drift takes another passing glance at his grave. "Guess this place has a pretty low opinion of how I'll cope."
no subject
Of course it was related to the death of his spouse. Cobb wasn't surprised by that.
"Must have been a hell of a partner." Because what else did he say to something like that?
no subject
At the mention of his 'partner, Drift let out a rueful chuckle and decided this conversation would eventually hit a wall if he weren't honest about a few key details.
"Yes, well, when you've known someone for over four million years, their absence can be...a little overwhelming."
no subject
The age is astounding even though Cobb knew there were aliens that lived for thousands of years. Millenia though? He couldn't help but stare at Drift for a second.
"You don't look a day over two million," he finally decided to say since that was all he could come up with.
no subject
The snarky remark about his age had Drift snorting despite himself. "Thank you, but I think now would be a good time to come clean. For what it's worth, this disguise is really only a matter of convenience. That, and I never know how you humans will react."
And in a blink - 'Drift' was gone. Nothing dramatic, but suddenly the man standing next to Cobb disappeared as if someone had flipped the off switch on his very existence. Seconds later, there was what sounded like an engine revving just out of sight,, followed by the clicks of metal parts sliding into place.
Gingerly walking up to Cobb, mindful of the graves, was a nine-foot tall robotic humanoid armed to the teeth with three swords; two at his hip and the largest strapped to his back.
"Pleased to meet your acquaintance once again, Vanth."
no subject
And then were was the largest droid Cobb had ever seen in his life. He was used to large mining equipment but a giant droid? Oh, that was... that was something else. He took a step back out of instinct and his hand twitched towards a blaster he didn't have.
He was speechless for a long moment, taking it all in. Drift wasn't as big as the kryat dragon but his size was still intimidating. The weapons even more so.
"You're a big boy, ain't ya?" He said at last. "And I'm starting to think you're not from my neck of the woods. Might even be another galaxy."
no subject
Immediately Drift put up his hands in the universal gesture of showing he wasn't a threat. He was even going so far as to bend on one knee, so his size wasn't so daunting. Maybe now wouldn't be the best time to tell Cobb that this place had actually shrunk him. Every interaction with humans or even his own kind was Drift trying to make himself smaller, more harmless.
"That's highly likely. I'm fast learning that being human doesn't necessarily mean you're from Earth, let alone anywhere I'm familiar with," Drift agreed. "Where are you from anyway?"
no subject
The guy had lost his partner. Cobb hadn't known droids could have partners.
"Tatooine, Outer Rim wasteland of sand and rocks." Cobb thought about mentioning Mos Pelgo but he held his tongue. "I'm a Marshal out there. We've got droids but none of them look like you."
no subject
"I'm not a droid. My species are naturally occurring and made from living metal- we're born, live, and die like anyone else. Hard for any human to make something like me when I'm millions of years old, don't you think?" Drift hoped his smile was disarming enough that Cobb could put aside his mistrust.
"This Tatooine, let me guess- it's a lawless scrap pit, and you're probably one of the few who give a damn about stopping the relentless corruption and senseless killings?"
no subject
"Look, I'm tryin' my best here to wrap my mind around you. And I'm sure I'm doin' an awful job at it." Cobb shrugged. He wasn't going to hide what was clearly obvious to the droid. "What do I call you if you aren't a droid?"
He nodded stiffly. "I wouldn't stop it. I know that but I'm going to keep my little corner of it free of trouble."
no subject
Drift frowned and, before he could think before speaking asks, "Is that your regret?"
no subject
He shook his head. "I don't regret starting this fight. If I hadn't all these people would be slaves."
And he would be dead. No, that wasn't his regret. Well, not exactly.
"And these tombstones would be pretty accurate, actually."
no subject
"The shorter-lived races leading such violent lives never fails to shock me," Drift mused. "Does no one back home do anything? I can't imagine a planet stalked by slavers can stay off the radar forever."
no subject
He seemed like the type that expected the best of others and saw the galaxy as a nice place. A forgiving place. That wasn't the case in the Outer Rim.
"Everyone knows but they don't want the trouble doin' something about it would cause." And that's the simple truth. Crime lords and slave labor keep things cheap. No one wants to disrupt a system that 'works'.