Test Drive Meme 014

[voidtreckermods]

Welcome to the Test Drive Meme! Here is the place to see how your character might fit the setting, grab samples and have fun!

1. Post with your character, including their name and series in the subject. We’ve written out some prompts but feel free to make up your own, you have a whole train to play with!

2. Assume they've been around long enough for threads to jump right into the action.

3. Have lots of fun. Mandatory, mod-sanctioned fun.

Happy testing!

Making Music

The latest addition to the train is the Music Carriage, a double-decker space with reasonable acoustics and more tambourines than you can shake a drumstick at.

Upstairs, a small stage in the middle holds a piano, and seating aisles on either side run back to the ends of the carriage and the stairs back down. Curtains and basic stage lighting give some control over the performance space, or act as tools to annoy your fellow 'treckers.

Downstairs, boxes and racks of acoustic instruments up to the size of a guitar litter one side, along with sheet music, manuals, music stands and stools for the budding musician. The other end has several screens set into the wall, through which you can access either a jukebox or an extensive but ecclectic music library from millions of unknown worlds. Your SCA can store up to a hundred tracks for your personal enjoyment, so find your favourites. Or maybe you're the unfortunate soul who found that entire crate of recorders...

Green Fingers

The greenhouse is a surprisingly bright room, its vaulted ceiling made of a transparent, incredibly tough material that shows the light of the Void along the entire length of the room. The single metal support beams is bedecked in roses. The aisle of grass running through the centre of the carriage is riotous with strange plants and flowers, small stone paths leading off to this flowerbed or that.

Usually, this is a fairly calm place to be. Usually, someone hasn't smuggled a bag full of magical seeds back from a mission, and planted them all through the greenhouse. Seemingly overnight, the room has filled with a multitude of strange and wonderful plants. Dare you investigate?

Unplugged

The latest mission has the Voidtreckers in a strangely barren city, its citizens wearing skinsuits, wired gloves and headsets. Just like the ones the dressing car put you all in..? It makes more sense when you turn on the visor and the world comes alive around you. Welcome to Amp Online! The danger this time is in the virtual world overlaid with the physical, as a wave of animal-themed viruses sweep through the cyberscape, destroying livelihoods, and perhaps lives.

Team One

Primarily the fighting is limited to the virtual world. The locals are happy to upload basic combat software into Team One's gear, but the good stuff is locked behind paywalls. Hackable paywalls, definitely, but, luckily, the viruses seem to be dropping something called amp-cred when slain. Which... is apparently money, because the balance in the corner of your vision just ticked up. Time to grind. Wait, are those... limited edition skins?

Team Two

The technicians and sysads insist that the viruses are totally foreign to Amp Online. So... where did they come from? Team Two is tasked with deep-diving into the network, through back-end servers rendered by their gear into dungeon-like labyrinths. The 'monster' viruses are fewer here, but instead, paths are blocked by worms and barrier-like popups. You all have tracking apps and hacking software that looks oddly gamified. Go!

Team Three

Not all threats are online - after a while, a virus manages to follow a link back to the real world, and hijack something. A combat drone, a refridgerator, someone's car... Another follows, and another. Team Three are ejected from Amp Online to troubleshoot in the physical world, protecting data centers and civilian housing stacks from rogue machinery... or their own smart-homes. Ever fought a toaster? Alexa, play Ride of the Valkyries.

Comments

[tactlesstantei]

[There weren't many places on a train where things could be hidden or thrown away, and it would be pretty hard to get away with throwing out a pair of cymbals. The smart idea would be to get them back where they belonged, but Masumi didn't want another attempt at opening the windows, so she might as well go along with this.]

"If you want them off the train, you'd be best off waiting for a stop to happen, but that might take a while to happen. The other option would be to hide them with your belongings, or try to hide them in the luggage carriage and hope no one finds them in there, though apparently people who vanish tend to come back in that carriage."

[nocawsforconcern]

[She grumbles.]

I don't want them in my stuff... They're too loud as it is. Luggage carriage, then. Bury them there.

[tactlesstantei]

"...Alright. Want to come with to make sure they're hidden?"

[Masumi was pretty sure she could do it, but she wanted to see what this girl's problem with the cymbals even was.]

"By the way, what is it with the cymbals? Afraid someone will be too loud with them?" [That was her guess, but it didn't line up with the comments about them not being 'shiny enough'.]

[nocawsforconcern]

[Enna nods.]

They're too loud even when no one is using them, even though they're shiny. And someone's definitely going to be too loud with them. That's what these things are for.

[tactlesstantei]

[That was understandable enough. Cymbals were loud, and while Masumi still felt weird about trying to hide them rather than find another solution, she wasn’t going to argue the matter much when the alternative was trying to open a window to throw them into the void.

That said, there was that mention of them being shiny again. What was going on with that?]

“You’ve mentioned them being shiny a few times. What’s up with that?”

[nocawsforconcern]

I like shiny things! They're nice to look at. Usually feel nice, too.

[She seems very happy about that for a moment.]

Usually, shiny things are treasure, after all. But these aren't as loud as treasure shinies, but they're loud enough to be really annoying.