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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.
Have a clue about the upcoming mission—
no subject
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. ]
no subject
But a good while back, Representative Athha was here for a short time. And so was Athrun.
[ And then it's like Shinn gets a visual of those things he overheard on the comms way back then, when Athrun's name is spoken. Yzak grimaces, voice rising and taking on that snarly, grouchy tone that just comes naturally whenever it comes to Athrun. ]
He came here with no knowledge of anything that happened at the end of the war! The last thing that guy remembered was getting taken down by you guys.
no subject
Instead, Shinn startles visibly at taken down by you guys, tensing up and his eyes going wide. He doesn't want to think about that when he's off-balance in a new place. He doesn't want to think about it any time, really; he's already had enough nightmares. ]
He was alright, later, [ he says haltingly, after a moment. There's a tentative, questioning note in his voice, but he's too awkward and stubborn to come out and just ask the thing he really wants and really doesn't want to know -- How bad was it? Shinn knows that Athrun was healthy enough for a beatdown later at Orb and at Messiah, but... not how badly he and Meyrin were hurt right after Shinn ran an anti-ship sword through their mobile suit. ]
no subject
Yeah, he was. He's not someone who dies easily. Even if he has the tendency to make people think that he did for a good long time without considering contacting them! [ "People" clearly means him, here, if that extra little outburst (even though that has its own edge of upset to it because he didn't enjoy assuming that about him for all that time, either) didn't make that obvious enough.
He huffs. ]
Thankfully the Representative and I were here, so we made sure he knew that too, before he got all weird and mopey about it assuming something worse.
[ He easily notes Shinn's body language, his tone when he speaks. And his own softens just a little bit - because he knows Athrun stayed with the Minerva for quite some time. And if Shinn had to be sent out to hunt him down when he'd tried to escape ... Yzak agonized enough about the concept of "shooting down traitors" himself without actually ending up in a position where he had to go through with it. To actually do it... ]
And he was alright here, too. We've got people with healing abilities on top of a great medical staff.
no subject
He exhales slowly and nods, which is all the thanks Yzak will get unless someone buys them the world's second-most awkward dinner. ]
What happened to them? Did they fix... whatever they regretted?
[ He's still a bit stiff and hesitant, and trying to cover it up by folding his arms and leaning not-convincingly-casually against the wall.
He wonders what Cagalli's regret was, and how much it mirrors or overlaps with his own. ]
no subject
[ Short, to the point, a touch of disappointment in his voice. Because that's the case for so many others who likewise aren't here anymore. ]
We're still on this mission and our end of the deal isn't being fulfilled until we're done and recovered all of the orbs.
Rarely do people leave here on their own. Sometimes they decide that it isn't worth it, staying here or changing the past. Neither of them spoke of anything like that.
More often people just ... disappear. Just as suddenly as they came, and it's said that's because the orb isn't complete yet. Since it's not at full power, something goes wrong, like a malfunction, and just sends them back.
no subject
But you think it'll work when it's complete.
[ Yzak must, if he's talking about being "still on the mission" after two years, and again the time shenanigans point toward something abnormal going on here, but... it's a lot to accept if no regrets have actually been erased to date. ]
no subject
[ His voice takes on a terseness when he says that. Something a little deeper than a simple want to get this done because failure would be a waste of all of this work over the last two years. And that alone is bad enough. ]
We've collected a good number of orbs by now, some of which were already contracted by someone native to where we were sent. We've seen contracts broken, contracts completed, deals made and fulfilled on the spot.
So they do work, and they're bound by their contracts to complete their end of the bargain.
no subject
It's good that they work, but why do they need us if they're so strong?
[ Genuine curiosity there. ]
no subject
Their power comes from chaos, which they seek to gather in order to sustain themselves. They do that through their agreements, and the way they can cause ripples that turn into waves by being somewhere they don't belong and affecting that world around them.
Even our agreements feed them that chaos, because our form of it is being here, being sent to those places where they are rather than where we're supposed to be, too.
no subject
[ Right? There was a lot of eating and feeding and waving, and working for things that feed on chaos seems sketch. But it seems like this is ultimately Doing Good Stuff for the places where the orbs are located by removing something malignant. ]
no subject
They're being contained in the North Wing by the commander of the station. Seventeen of them have been recovered so far.
no subject
This place has a commander?
[ He is unimpressed with a commander who hasn't bothered to come out and make introductions. Actually, he is unimpressed with the fact that everyone just seems to be milling around, and no one seems to be doing anything related to keeping the station functioning. There should be people at monitors, making repairs, running drills. ]
It feels more like a lousy hotel than a base.
no subject
The AI is called Viveca. She was human, once, and the two of them were part of the previous team that was on this station, before we all came along.
[ His tone remains a neutral sort of professional. There's not a wild amount of personal affection in it, but there's nothing that breaks, falters or seems to hold any sort of mistrust or disdain for them. ]
We don't spend very much time here on the station. But it's held up fine all this time.
—well, most of the time. When we first got here we had some issues with the lights and the power systems. That was bullshit because we were all brand new and I was stuck with a bunch of people who didn't know a thing about living or working in space!
no subject
There's gravity, it's barely space.
[ But he will keep his thoughts on a station this small having gravity, not having the constantly-noticeable machine reverb of a ship like the Minerva, not having normal suits anywhere, and not having any record of anyone going outside to another thread for now, because -- ]
Hold on, how does a human become an AI? And what happened to the previous team?
[ tfw mainline canon didn't get George Glenn AI shenanigans. ]
no subject
The previous team was murdered by their commander, who had become possessed due to the orb containment not being powerful enough to avoid corruption once many of them were rejoined together.
Degar and Viveca changed their regrets after that happened. To bring them all back and send them back to where they came from without memory of what had happened - something I don't quite agree with, I wouldn't want my memory tampered with! The price they paid to forge new contracts was that they'd be bound here to fix things, avoid something like happening again, and completing their mission.
Viveca had been gravely injured, so her consciousness itself was bound to the station as it's AI.
no subject
What?