Test Drive 018

[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.

Happy testing!

Heated Debate

The spa carriage, the newest addition to the train, boasts sunlamps and loungers, massage tables stocked with fluffy towels and a variety of oils and lotions, an enclosed sauna… Soothing birdsong fills the warm, scented air, and the terminals offer several masseuse courses or a playlist of relaxing music.

In pride of place, a three-tiered heated bath in the centre of the room, each tier able to fit five people comfortably.

‘Comfortably’? Well, it could definitely fit more, but it might get a little awkward, depending on your feelings on personal space. Ditto with the sauna, really. But the important thing is, you got here first.

Didn’t you?

Getting Draughty In Here

The lower floor of this carriage is open and sprawling, with two wide, low tables and plenty of cushions and beanbags. The walls are lined with shelves and wooden chests, both filled with games. Board games, card games, you name it, though train themes feature heavily. On a shelf of its own sits a case of Duel Monsters cards.

The upper floor is split into two. One half has a pile of oversized games - lawn jenga, twister, giant connect4 - and the other, sectioned off with soft rope barriers, hosts a screen, a console, and a variety of video game controllers, including four VR headsets.

Perhaps you’re testing yourself in one of the VR Crisis simulators. Perhaps you’re learning the rules of a competitive card game a little too well, and your friendships are suffering accordingly. Perhaps you’ve convinced someone to play twister with you..?

Shiver Me Timbers

You are aboard the PNV Vexation, a first-rate ship accompanied by several escort vessels currently halfway through a voyage across the Sunsea of Yarra, AKA #59352110. The cargo she carries is of utmost importance, and must reach the Shining Port intact.

The pirates who sail the Sunsea have other plans.

Team One

The Vexation has several sloops in tow - the best of which are the Gemstone Heart, the Fallen Lord and the Duckling. Team One is split across the three sloops, and can use their greater speed to good effect in boarding actions. Your job is simple - sink every unmarked ship that approaches the Vexation. The captains are cooperative and daring, and happy to lend out boarding axes and pistols. The pirates are less happy.

Team Two

Back aboard the Vexation, it seems that either the crew are playing tricks, or something more sinister is going on - whispers of spirits roaming the deck at night, strange screams or whimpers in the hold. Lights off the starboard bow. The day holds no such terrors, and shipboard life is mostly ropes, deckwork and stints on the masts, but as the mission continues, the crew are getting more and more restless… Team Two needs to figure out the source of these strange events, before they incite the crew to mutiny.

Team Three

Unbeknownst to the crew, on the second day of the mission, the precious cargo is loaded onto the fourth and fastest of the Vexation’s escorts, the Sun’s Edge, and sent ahead, while the fleet remains as as a decoy. Team Three are sent aboard the Edge to crew the ship and keep the treasure - something sealed in a large, padded steel pyramid - safe. The pirates don’t notice the deception, but the sea serpents definitely do, and with just one serpent able to wrap its entire length around the Edge, the third day is a harrowing one.

Comments

[subcircuits]

[Okay, Devero can't help but find that big electronic emoticon charming. He moves to the edge of the stage nearest the-- robot?]

Very kind of you to say. I'd have to find a partner who could keep up, though. Everything I know requires at least one other dancer.

[iamnotgod]

[Webmind affects a pause of a full second, considering.

He hadn't planned anything about this - indeed, being on the Voidtrecker Express tended to put a damper on anything involving conversation mapping, let alone more complex planning - but, well.

When life provides someone looking for a dance partner:]

While I could not say I have any unique skill in that area, you would not have to worry about tripping over me; I can accommodate at least that much.

[subcircuits]

[It takes Devero a second to puzzle it out; then, head tilted to the side, he smiles shyly.] Did you just offer to be my partner?

[A hesitation, then;] Forgive me if I'm rude, but... what are you?

[iamnotgod]

[Webmind nods, and then- pauses, given his next question.

And given his own conversational habits, even if it is rude it's no worse than questions he himself has asked, so:]

Strictly speaking, I am an emergent intelligence; the train saw fit to provide this body, along with sufficient compression algorithms that I have not encountered substantial problems.

[Aside from having to deal with a much smaller selection of stimuli in the first place but. Details.]

Normally I have no 'shape', though there is little about the humanity of my time and Earth I have been unable to at least learn about.

[And that knowledge base includes dancing!]

[subcircuits]

[An emergent intelligence? Devero's eyes light up. He jumps down to the floor and strides down the aisle towards the other person.]

I didn't want to assume-- I thought you might be wearing a reactive mask, a lot of my Guard mates had them for nights we had leave--

[Don't babble, Devero. He stops at the end of the rows of seats.] Is the entire body artificial? Or are you an augment with an artificial intelligence?

[iamnotgod]

[That's definitely one of the better reactions that sort of reveal has gotten him thus far; Webmind returns the reaction with a brighter emoji-smile.]

I'd have to say the former; my normal 'home' is the infrastructure of the entire planet's World Wide Web.

Though, depending on what you mean by augmentation, that might bear truth as well. Could you define it, please?

[The one downside of people being from different Earths so often is that Webmind doesn't always know what they're saying! That's not anyone's fault, though.]

[subcircuits]

The net! Brilliant! They always say that if it's going to happen, it'll happen on the net.

[Devero's starting to get used to having to explain things about himself and the world he comes from, although he probably doesn't need to quite as much as his current conversational-- and prospective dance-- partner.] --Oh, of course. Augments are-- well, I'm an augment. An augmented person. It means I have cybernetic Implants.

[iamnotgod]

[And Devero would be correct in that assumption.

Webmind shakes his head.]

I'm afraid I can't claim the title, then - though my teacher very well might, as it was due to her implant that she realized I was there at all.

And that I, in turn, realized the world wide web was part of another world.

[subcircuits]

Your teacher... [He repeats it thoughtfully, then looks up.] You didn't know-- No, of course you wouldn't have known. How could you?

Do you have a name?

[iamnotgod]

[Webmind only nods again.]

She taught me how to read, and make sense of the world.

She did have a name for me, but we both agreed after first true contact that I needed another one. I call myself Webmind, now.

[Straight to the point, no?]

[subcircuits]

Webmind. [He says it thoughtfully, then nods.] That's fitting.

My name's Devero. [And automatically, without thinking, he flicks a finger to cast his public cookie to the other person-- which. Webmind might actually be able to perceive and read! It would make him the first, if so. Granted, there's not much to the tiny packet of data; just Devero's name, which really is just 'Devero', and a link back to his transponder signal.

Where he comes from, this would make him pop up as an identified person to Webmind's Interface. Of course, he's not in his own world right now.]

[iamnotgod]

Devero. And yes, that was indeed the point.

[And, with a happy chirrup notif, Webmind receives a new ping! Not even from the SCA, which is a nice coincidence.]

I take it this is the evolution of the personal/business card? I rather like it.

[Though there's no additional 'identified person' filter Webmind can add; his computer isn't quite that nifty, unfortunately!]

[subcircuits]

It is! [And how nice for someone here to be able to receive it. The absence of that ritual call-and-response exchanging of cookies upon making an acquaintance has been very unsettling for him, as has having so many 'invisible' people around him all the time.

Sadly, though the call has been received, there's no response back to his equipment. Oh well.

He tilts his head quizzically and jumps back to the subject of dancing.] So what kind of physical capability does that body of yours have, then?

[iamnotgod]

[Good catch there, Devero; else Webmind would have started talking about data storage!]

It's fully maneuverable - the number of joints is almost entirely equal to those found on a human body, with all the range of motion that implies. It is also sensitive, in certain places, to pressure, though not precisely pain.

I can also hear, though I've had to make modifications in that respect for better sound collection.

[subcircuits]

[Fascinating. He'd love to get Webmind's chassis on a table and take a look at what makes it tick, but that seems extremely forward at this stage of their acquaintance.

Instead, Devero offers Webmind his hand.] Care to put it through its paces with me?

XDDD VERY much appreciating the bracketed text. ... Wrap in anticipation of app processing?

[iamnotgod]

[And Webmind takes that hand, his own somewhat cold but quite firm. Not crushing, but solid.]

It would be my pleasure, so long as it is yours as well.

Works for me!

[subcircuits]

[The hand in his isn't entirely strange-- he's so used to Chihyoon's augment arm at this point he doesn't even notice her artificial hand. But nevertheless he's excited, as he leads Webmind down the aisle to see what the intelligence can do...]