FINAL TDM.
● ● ● T D M . 10

The words ring in your ears as in the darkness of your dream, a copper glow pulses, slowly enveloping you. It is not a feeling of comfort that surrounds you, though — as a distorted voice whispers in your ear, you feel it: cold dread, and a sudden certainty that everything is about to be irrevocably changed.
It is to this daunting realization that you wake, and as your heart slows into something resembling a normal tempo, you notice something you should have noticed 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 very much 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 a few days ago … or perhaps you wake to the other person in the room watching you.
What you do is entirely up to you: yell in surprise when you wake to someone staring at you? Or maybe you’ll try to sneak away before anyone notices you...
2.0 Those with life-threatening injuries find themselves awakening 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, giving an illusion of privacy. But is that a rustling sound you hear? Some footsteps? Perhaps you’re not the only one in need of some medical attention... or you've attracted the attention of those with experience in medical aid, and they rush to your bedside, surprised about this sudden new patient.
It is not just for your injuries that you may want some company, but also for leaving the infirmary — you can’t stay there forever, after all, and will have to make your way through the hallways of the station to the living quarters, and claim a room and a bed there.
Once you’re up, you may notice there’s 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? Best get to know what is now your new home.
3.0 When trying to decide where yo go, you may find your way to the armory, where you can try to work the machine there to make yourself a weapon — perhaps to replace one that didn’t come with you to the station… or maybe you want to be prepared for the future. The recently-returned team members will surely recommend having a functional weapon with you.
4.0 After you’ve exhausted yourself training, it’s time to grab a bite. For that, you should head to the kitchen, which is equipped with all the basic appliances you might need, and ingredients for most regular dishes.
5.0 A welcome reprieve to the cold, dark space that surrounds the characters can be found in the sunlight room. A skillful illusion surrounds 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.
With an illusion so authentic it may leave you longing for a nice glass of ice-cold lemonade, it is easy to forget you are in space at all. Perhaps that gives you comfort, or just makes you miss the real nature all the more.
6.0 If you’d rather choose tinkering over 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 containing 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 make!
7.0 As you wander back towards the common areas, you may notice a room off to the side. The room takes up a chunk of the common area, and on its unassuming door is a little plaque that reads, 'The Ximusic room'. Should you enter, you will find a sound-proofed practice room that contains — yes, you guessed it, band equipment that even the most musically inclined should be satisfied with. So pick up an instrument, saunter up to the microphone to belt out your favourite tunes, or take a seat at the side of the room and enjoy others' playing.
8.0 If it’s items you’re lacking, though, some time after your arrival, the earpiece alerts you to a new message.
As you make your way to the platform, you'll see there is nothing amiss in the neat piles of items on it. There’s clothes, shoes, dishware, skincare, books… even a couple of CDs, and a few cute stuffed animals. So sort through what there is and grab what you want, before someone else does!

Maybe you have taken the warning to be ready seriously, or maybe you’ve heard someone mention the simulation room and want to see what the fuss is all about — whatever the reason for your walking into the room, the first few moments don’t seem too exciting. It isn’t until there’s another person in the room with you that the door suddenly slides shut, and the scenery starts to change.
7.0 Simulation on the Fritz: However, what it changes to is not one of the simulated missions. Instead, the room draws on its occupants. A little flash of memory here, a familiar scene there — the room molds itself after what one (or both) of the people in it know, perhaps a place they’re familiar with: the university library you used to spend hours and hours in studying, or the castle you’ve been trying all your life to conquer.
Or perhaps the room is torn between which person’s memories to draw on, and it ends up producing a strange mix of both: a busy street surrounded by lush forest instead of buildings, or a spaceship sailing on open sea.
As there is no simulated mission, there is no completing it to get out… so look for the little things that are not quite right in the simulation: a shimmer in the air, a grey brick in a red wall — a token of sorts. Finding it will make the simulation die down around you as the room goes dark again.
8.0 Mission — An Open Door: As the simulation starts, the scene that unfolds around you is a gilded hallway. It stretches on and on behind you and in front of you; along its sides, there are countless doors. Some are lavishly decorated, some made of pure gold, some of wood; some are decayed, looking like they might fall apart by mere touch; after a heavily reinforced door comes a door made of frosted glass… and so on.
But the longer you stand in place, the more you start to feel a sense of urgency: you must keep moving… you must find it. The orb. It’s there, behind one of the doors. All you have to do is choose which one to open.
Oh, you can open as many as you want, but be careful: you never know what is lurking behind them. It may be that you open one and step into a room that is nothing but air; it may be you unleash a horde of hungry monsters. Or perhaps you luck out and get a room that is just a room, with lavish couches and plush pillows, and maybe some grapes and apples set in a bowl in the middle of a gold-decorated table.
It’s not just the orb that you need to find, though... because just like in real missions, you receive a message that tells you your task — one that you have to complete, if you want the orb to help you in your quest to undo your regret.
● ● ●
N O T E: 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 Tell someone what you are most ashamed of.
B Let a teammate get injured during the mission.
C Steal something from one of the rooms.
F Y I
• TDM threads can be used as samples for apps. In fact, we encourage it!
• Reserves are now open!
• Apps open September 26.
• For any questions regarding TDM, please direct them here. For questions about the game, please refer to the FAQ.
shinn asuka / gundam seed destiny / ota
3.0: armory
[ Anyone passing by the Armory will see a pale, dark-haired teenager in a red uniform at the control panel, brows knitted and frowning as he contemplates how to phrase a request. At a workstation near him are a sheathed knife, a handgun, a few boxes of ammo, and … a colorful collection of a half-dozen robots scaled down to the Armory’s size limits. Up close, the little robots are weird for toys—they’re hyper-detailed, and even look and feel like real metal and rubber. And there’s a definite progression in detail levels that suggests the kid at the controls has been refining the requests, but his scowl suggests he’s still not happy with the results. (What is this, a Gundam for ants?) After a moment, he punches in an updated request: Make it piece by piece. And several flat sheets of parts drop onto the pedestal. ]
… what the hell! If you can’t do it right, just say so!
6.0: lab
[ Same teenager, this time rummaging through tech storage side of the lab. He’s focusing on piles that look like they might hold large items, and isn’t being particularly cautious about what he picks up, so there’s definitely some creaking and swaying and sliding among the stacks. After getting elbow deep in the base of a particularly tenuous pile, he pauses and grumbles to himself, half annoyed and half perplexed. ]
I don’t get it. What kind of space station doesn’t have any normal suits?
[ And then he yells as the pile falls on top of him. ]
7.0A: simulation (orb? orb! orb. orbs. damn)
[ At the very edge of the ocean is small cenotaph built on a rocky outcropping. At first glance, the memorial looks like it’s been long-neglected; its pale stone is discolored by layers of salt and smoke and dirt, there are deep cracks throughout, and pieces have chipped off and lay scattered around it. The flowers or bushes or little ornamental trees once planted on either side of it have been reduced to dry, wispy skeletons, leaving weeds and tiny blue wildflowers to take over the planters. But upon a close or thoughtful investigation, the little cenotaph clearly only a few years old. The stone embellishments are crisp, at least where they haven’t been knocked off, rather than smoothed out by decades of wind and rain, and there are no traces of moss or other growth. The park just inland is in a similar strange state of newness and disrepair — the stone terrace overlooking the ocean is pitted and stained but not weather-beaten, the metal of fences and benches has all rusted through, and the beds of flattened flowers and toppled trees look both well-organized enough to have been planted in the last few seasons and chaotic enough that they must have been hit by a tsunami or a wrecking ball or both.
It's clear that the whole place was built with care and love and reverence, and even in this state of disrepair it's beautiful in a melancholy way — the little pale cenotaph stands out against the bright waters of the south Pacific, the waves crash steadily against the rock of the outcropping, and the sea breeze tries valiantly to rustle through the dead flowers and grasses. It's also clear that after it was built with all that care and love and reverence, it got beat to hell and back. But was it beat up by natural disasters? By war? (Porque no los dos?) If the simulation doesn’t shift too much when someone new enters, you could ask the teenage boy standing in front of the cenotaph looking gloomy. And if the simulation shifts a lot for a new entry, what shifts do they introduce....? ]
breathes all over you also 3.0
He's used to others being in the armory. Enjoys it, even, because it usually means a friendly spar and the shakeup is welcome. But what greets him here now is a complete surprise, because he's come to never expect to see the familiar crimson (or any color, really) of a ZAFT uniform. So upon the door sliding open with an audible shhh and taking a single step into the armory, Yzak stops. He stares, not even noting the multiple grades of gunpla lined up on the workstation. His expression is very clearly taken aback for a moment.
And when he meets Shinn's gaze, the gears are already turning in his head. He knows him.
Well. Vaguely. But enough to recognize him after a beat. ]
Shinn Asuka?
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[ He responds immediately, without looking up, so it comes out in the casual drawl of someone responding to roll call rather than someone responding to an officer.
When he turns to look at whoever called his name, there's a solid moment in which he shows zero recognition of anything other than the white commander's uniform. It takes another beat to recognize that there was a guy in that uniform with this unusual light hair hanging out with one of the Lacus Clynes that one time -- and even then, Shinn is only ninety percent certain that this is the same person, both because Shinn was too distracted by the PDA at that meeting to focus on the Clyne posse, and also because the guy at that meeting definitely didn't have scars and probably wasn't wearing, what is that, a weird glove? The scars are a little disconcerting, geez. On the other hand, a white-coat he barely recognizes knowing his name isn't disconcerting in the slightest; Shinn figures he's one of the most well-known figures of the second war, duh people would know who he is.
Yep, if this thread is running independently of the summer TDM thread with Sabriel, all Shinn has got is that he maybe saw this guy across a room once; without a name, he can't even make a connection to the team at Junius 7. His lack of recognition is easy to read -- he's frowning and staring pretty blatantly at the scarring when he finally blurts out: ]
The hell happened to you?
[ Oh, wait. He has no idea how much of a stickler this guy is. Shinn belatedly, half-assedly salutes, and even more half-assedly tacks on.... ]
... sir.
[ Yeah that sure makes asking "what's wrong with your face" to a guy whose name you don't know more respectful. ]
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*to him
His expression doesn't do much to hide this, nor does the way he begins to lift his arm in salute but stops about halfway up when Shinn poses the question. ]
Major Yzak Jule. [ It comes out haughtier than intended, but he doesn't seem to care. ] And I've been on this station for over two years, that's what happened.
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His attention snags visibly again at "two years," and he scowls slightly, because that doesn't make any sense. ]
It hasn't been two years. I just saw you with Lacus Clyne.
[ "Just" is a stretch, but definitely not two years ago. Also geez Yzak being somewhere for two years isn't an explanation for getting scars; normal people don't just get a new dramatic scar every every two years. ]
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[ It's a bit odd when that memory floats to the surface of his mind. It feels both so long ago and fresh in his mind. That's probably exactly because it was one of his more recent memories before he came here and everything changed. Including his physicality because he gets a dramatic new scar every couple of years, thank you. ]
Ah, I know when you're talking about.
But that was still as long ago as I just said. This station doesn't exist in our space or our time. Ridiculous as that still sounds to say, it's the truth. You're going to hear shit a lot weirder than that here.
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[ As one would expect from dropping that kind of bomb, he reacts with prickly disbelief. But he's also, totally disregarding politeness, peering in to see if Yzak looks like he might be two years older. It's not a particularly reliable method for someone he's only seen once and heard once, but it's the only way he can think of to evaluate the batshit crazy claim that time runs differently.
And it makes a little sense, in that the orbs would have to be able to mess with time to erase regrets.... ]
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It's not really going where we are here. The Ximilia exists... [ He waves a hand as he puts it into words. Two plus years here and it still feels weird explaining this kind of thing. ] outside all of that! Even where two people from the same place are concerned.
But it sounds like you're from around the same point in time as I am, at least. [ Big emphasis on the you're. And said with a touch of exasperation - the kind that sounds as though he's had a different experience with somebody else from home before. ]
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Huh? Who else is here from the PLANTs?
[ Here and... not from the same time? Again, weird and he's not sure he believes it. ]
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6.0: lab
[Ivy would be only too happy to ignore a new, random teenage boy if he weren't making a racket and, more importantly, disturbing her experiments.]
You're going to wake up the drosera rotundifolia.
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Wake the what?
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So, you know.
[Her affect would be nearly flat if it weren't for the truly staggering level of sarcasm.]
Maybe don't knock it over.
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What happened to you?
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[Do you want to start with the negligent, rich asshole abusive parents? Environmentalism? Lab accident? The whole thing with her connection to the Green?
Nope.]
How about we go with this: what the hell are you looking for? Maybe I can tell you where to find it without the whole rampage.
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Normal suits -- or pilot suits, if that's all you have. There aren't any anywhere on the station.
[ The continuing irritation is now tinged with disbelief! ]
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[Ivy crosses her arms and frowns at him. The pilot suits helps slightly, but only slightly.]
So like a space suit, or...? We don't generally leave the station aside from missions, so you might be a little bit out of luck.
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What if something breached the hull, or something went wrong with life support? Hell, what if you just needed to fix stuff outside?
[ He rattles these off with the matter-of-factness of someone who considers these real problems and has had people drill the possibilities into him, rather than someone just spitballing doomsday scenarios on the fly. ]
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7.0A
Sherlock knows this isn't Cordona. There was never such a sight on that island, and while he fears for a moment that he's back in that other world, the rational part of him reminds that this is somehow possible with technology. ]
This place is familiar to you, isn't it?
[ He says with no indication of needing to rush. He feels his own nostalgia and loss. Sherlock quietly surveys the scene around him. He almost hopes to see another man his age up to some antic, but there's only the teenager. It's probably for the best. ]
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The Mediterranean sunlight is familiar enough that he recognizes it as something that belongs on the other side of the world. (Take her away from all this--.) The wind shifts, blowing in from the new addition. A dandelion seed floats past Sherlock's ear. ]
... and to you?
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Parts of this place seems like it would fit on Cordona, but I don't know this specific location, no.
[ Sherlock still maintains a respectful distance. He knows a little something about giving space to those at a mourning site. ]
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[ Which is depressing, but every place honors their war dead one way or another. He brushes his fingers over the cenotaph in farewell, then turns to Sherlock. His eyes track the seed and his narrow a little suspiciously at it. ]
It's Onogoro Island, in Orb.
[ The last word is accompanied by a tiny flicker of annoyance. It is so dumb that the regret-fixing magictech things share a name with a country, or vice-versa. ]
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Have you used this simulation before? I thought this is supposed to prepare us for a mission, but this is closer to sightseeing.
[ He's from 1882; he's clueless on how this technology works. ]
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It's my first time. I guess it's supposed to remind us why we're here.
[ With Sherlock moving around, he steps to pluck the bit of dandelion fluff out of the air. ]
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Standing around doesn't seem to be the solution, so I suggest we move in a methodical way until something telling appears.
[ He flicks his gaze toward the teenager. That seed must have caught on some creature before freeing itself. Did the rest of the flower's seeds remain on the stem, or have they flown off somewhere? ]
In the interest of completing the mission, perhaps I'd ought to introduce myself. My name is Sherlock Holmes.
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If the simulation is about the reason we're on the ship, and the simulation is this place...
[ With an odd mix of glumness and self-consciousness, he looks past Sherlock to the ruined planter-beds in the park space. ]
There's probably something to do, not something to find.
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