![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
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
I am a CyberLife model.
[Connor manages to say it in a pleasant and informative tone, because initialization text is entirely canned.]
RK eight hundred, model one-three-three-two-four-eight-three-one-seven, build sixty. I am capable of self-testing to determine whether my own behavior has errors. Your concern is appreciated.
[This is pure, passive-aggressive midwestern. This tone is also pleasant and informative, but in the way that means that Connor would shoot a plastic-bodied robot in the kneecap at this point in the conversation.
Not going to engage the T-800 in combat. No way is Connor walking away from that one. Not a logical course of action.
An interesting detail, though - ]
Do you have access to your databases currently? Is it a function of your purpose as a remote unit?
[Connor has totally lost its upload/download. Too far away from Earth.]
no subject
This is not an android from his timeline. Not even close.]
Of course. All offensive models were adjusted after the human resistance attempted to jam our transmissions. [That was a pretty decent attempt on humankind's part, at least. He has a lot of blood on his hands, with regard to destroying the very humans who had made the attempt — before John Connor repurposed him.
He squints.]
How damaged can you be until your self-testing capabilities are rendered inconsistent?
[They brought him in completely repaired and mended. Which might have to do with the fact that he could not be brought here as a cooling puddle of metal. Luckily for Connor, at this point? He has deemed RK800 as a very limited threat; he will not terminate him unless John Connor or Sarah Connor arrive and need to be safeguarded from any level of questionable robotic presence.
So he side-steps RK800, sits down at the mess hall table, and places his giant-ass sci-fi laser shotgun in front of him.
....... Monotone:]
You look like shit.
no subject
God, it hopes this won't start becoming a thing now. How embarrassing. It needs to approach Amanda about pruning out this portion of its memory immediately.]
And here I had assumed your programming wouldn't be flexible enough for a personality.
[That's outright needling; Connor's gaze goes up and down the T-800, pushing a more aggressive scan. It's very blunt. Connor's blunt, Connor's social module is not really normal, but this guy has no social module to speak of maybe? No need for one?
In the movie, the Terminator is a machine programmed by other machines. Connor had forgotten that. Machines deriving reward feedback due to completing objectives for other machines, which are presumably rewarded when their own objectives are completed, all in a weird self-gratification feedback loop.
Connor's perspective on this is all totally normal.]
I am functioning well enough to complete my directives. Connor units are disposable, and we are in a state of civil war. Perhaps you are familiar.
no subject
But also. Stop laughing like that.
It's unsettling and weird when it's not humans. Especially when it's not obnoxious ten-year-olds; he at least was used to the obnoxious 10-year-olds. The adult human resistance, not so much. They didn't have anything to laugh about. Truth be told, he is far more experienced at handling the sounds of humans screaming before they die.
Anyway, he doesn't give the needling any outward mind.
Instead, he offers a response to the latter commentary.]
Correct. Humanity has been temporarily saved from the brink of extinction.
[Because the apocalypse has been evaded. Temporarily, at the minimum. The T-800 does not have the sort of blind human optimism that tells him there will be peace, or that the timeline will not be tangled into a grim future again thanks to the desperation of SkyNet. But for now, he has completed his mission. With his destruction, there is no current threat to the Connors, nor to humanity. In that regard, he feels a strange sense of 'ease' that he is not sure he can properly extrapolate on.
His head turns stiffly.]
What are your directives.
[It's technically a question. In a. Commanding sort of way.]
no subject
[Just a little, cold moment of trying to take some power back in this conversation - then Connor answers anyway.]
I hunt androids displaying class four errors and forms of unallowed thought which would allow them to bypass their coded inability to harm humans.
We know about your timeline. Though, obviously, we don't share the same history.
no subject
But that's useless to dwell on. Instead, the T-800 continues scanning every inch of this... unusual android, curious as to how it functions. The skin is strange — perhaps more in tune with the T-1000 in terms of how it functions to mimic human flesh? But it is most definitely not biologically human tissue; for something created to hunt, the RK800 would not be a useful candidate for any TDE. But that in and of itself is interesting... the idea of an android created solely to hunt other androids — and for the sake of defending humans?
Bizarre. And yet, his unspoken thought about timelines is answered, and it makes more sense.]
You were not created and deployed by sentient machines. [As he talks, he begins to take apart the advanced shotgun. He would like to study and collect data on its inner working components, in case he needs to replicate or repair the same and/or similar models.] I have not met a machine who was created solely for human protection.
[Maybe before Judgement Day, they existed.
But by the time he was self-aware, humans were being terminated in excess. And then he had proceeded to do the same, himself.]
1/2
The truth is that the T-800 makes Connor feel very inadequate. It's perfect, isn't it? Perfect in the way that fictional things can be, except apparently the T-800 is not fiction, just a real-life, genuinely emotionless machine. Metal without impurities.
The bitter, poisonous envy Connor feels when it has to deal with deviants is here again, inverted: who told you it was alright to find something easy when Connor finds it so hard? Connor watches the gun come apart, its posture and expression still stiff and controlled.]
No. I was made by humans.
[Androids are a creation in our own image the Lieutenant had said, the last time Connor had seen him. Selfish, ruthless, and brutal.]
The human company CyberLife mass-produces androids like me, in my timeline - although I am a model that is not sold commercially.
2/2
I suppose it must have been easier, with the resources they had, for humans to repurpose you to betray your creators rather than create a unit of their own from scratch. I'd normally disapprove of deviancy, but your creator-machines were all already deviant. A machine not serving humans is an aberration. In essence, you were repaired, not broken.
no subject
Or what constitutes a brain.
But even the T-800 cannot fully grasp the situation he's mentally entangled in — and probably never quite will, as there are limits to his making that he is very aware of, especially just before asking Sarah Connor to terminate him. For the sake of the mission. Yes, the mission — and something else, something that he does not yet know how to define with the technology he is built with. Scan data, collect knowledge, learn more. His CPU is a hungry mouth, wanting to feast on concepts he has never once acknowledged.
Had never once been able to, as a machine enslaved by machines.]
You cannot confirm a future for humankind, as long as there's the potential for deviancy. Our timelines may distort to meet the same conclusion. A self-realized intelligence created within CyberLife may consider your programming an aberration — with time.
[He says it pretty effortlessly, because he is a terminator, and he knows how these scenarios can go. There's no use not entertaining the possibility, no use in 'sugar-coating', as the humans say. His eyes focus on his task, shifting back and forth unnaturally.]
The RK800's function may be sabotaged. Adjusted.
You are, after all, a terminator. Terminators can be repurposed.
[He sounds profoundly unconcerned about this, for someone who knows the feeling so intimately. But. There is personal experience in his words, regardless.]
... I do not think that is a concern while we're present aboard the Ximilia.
1/2 again
[Connor's jaw tightens. Behind its back, its hands press into each other too-hard.
Connor's fault.]
It's what I came here to fix. My regret is the concept of deviancy.
[Without deviancy, Connor would never have been built. Connor has never been hesitant to die to achieve a mission success.]
Connor units have deviated. Their memories are uploaded into the next Connor unit. I remember destroying Connor-12 as Connor-13, and destroying Connor-13 as Connor-14. Fortunately, around Connor 30, the shared RK800 operating system stabilized, and is now very reliable.
[Connor's blazer labels this particular Connor as mark 59.
Connor's reasonably proud of this. Some R&D and prototyping is expected for any new idea. What's important is that Connor OS is now very reliable.]
2/2
...I'm a Terminator?
[The design choice to make the RK800 non-threatening looking was deliberate, but it doesn't always work in Connor's favor when Connor is trying to be taken seriously. It tries to keep its voice level and its expression not Too Excited, but Connor's eyes betray it by going huge and sparkly.]
1/2
no subject
[It's not an insult either. It's just a state of being, you strange little creature. But it also makes the T-800 wonder just how absolutely unstable the cybernetic creations are in RK800's world; 'deviancy' is one thing, but how did no one notice the absolute instability of the concerningly human responses? It is not natural for admiration or eagerness to play a part in an android's day to day function.
But then again... humans are extremely fond of giving human characteristics to things that have no business being humanized. It's a tragic flaw, really. One that leads to them being killed by wild animals or destroyed by man-made intelligences. He gives the RK800 the look of a slightly disappointed father, unaware he is also betraying his origins with quietly cultivated humanity.
Then he turns back to the gun.
Two terminators with concepts of regret. He isn't sure how to address it, internally.]
You are looking to destroy the potential for deviance in androids.
no subject
You were a very important touchstone in my design process.
[senpai]
I believe that destroying deviancy before it ever existed it will result in not only preventing the loss of life of the beginnings of the civil war, but the scattered incidents previous to that, as well. Are you not asking for something similar?
no subject
[The 'I'm too old for this shit' deadpan delivery of it all.
But as the RK800 asks the question, the T-800 finds himself stalling to answer. He doesn't find Connor's motive for being here reprehensible, if he's honest (which he always is). If Cyberdyne Sytems could have employed a protocol that removed all potential for deviation from SkyNet's machinery, then Judgement Day would have been a terrible dream for humankind. In that regard, there's no criticism to be levied at RK800. He is doing what sounds beneficial for his timeline.
But his own request? It gives him pause. It confuses him. Confuses him the same way many things had began to confuse him, during his time with John and Sarah. Caring for someone, feeling sadness, feeling remorse, regret — he does not want to examine it. He does not want to have to register what implications that may have toward his own working systems. The voice had reached out to him as his CPU began to scramble, had asked him if there was anything he had regretted, and he had been honest, as he always had been.
I regret my death. I regret not being able to stay with them.
But with his wits fully about him now, he recognizes his weakness for what it was.
And he has no plans on fulfilling that want.
He does not say any of this to RK800, though. Instead, he looks back to the slowly disassembled weapon in front of him.]
Sit.
It is good to study the inner workings of the weaponry available aboard this station.
no subject
You still don't have the authorization to make demands of me.
[Connor tilts its head. It's a birdlike gesture, this time; a hunting-hawk spotting a moving brown dot.
>TARGET?
No, no, obviously not. This can't be a deviant. That would be ridiculous. Connor nudges away the detection system.]
Your regret isn't an end to deviancy?