Test Drive 032

[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!

Culinary Containment

Every month, the train's stores are filled with crates of ingredients for use by its passengers. And every month, one ingredient is the focal point of all recipes. Potatoes, cinnamon, seaweed… but as the train pulls away from the station this month, there seems to have been a blip in the system when it comes to deciding on a biologically-appropriate foodstuff.

Spilling out from the storage carriage and into the kitchen are hundreds of live frogs. They're in the sinks, they're in the ovens, they're hopping alarmingly close to the transgates that link the area up to the sleepers...

Vote-Rigging

At the behest of its passengers, the train has instituted a voting system to allow for more carriage options and upgrades. Passengers are able to submit new ideas, or crowdfund those already suggested...

It's the night before platform, and all through the train, no one was stirring... Apart from your group, with your stockpile of a thousand points and the luminous voting panel you're all currently pouring them into. Bouncy castle carriage? Funded! Fishing carriage? Funded! Clocks? Eh... You have the points. Funded!

Then it's simply a matter of waiting for the morning, and seeing the chaos you've caused to the layout of the Voidtrecker Express. What new delights have you discovered?

Repo Train

The Void Ministry have another task for the Express: locating and repossessing the contents of a number of minor storage craft in an old mercantile zone. The coordinates are given, a small fleet of space-worthy craft and sufficient hazmat gear has been deposited at the meeting site for Voidtrecker use.

The main area is cushy enough, a round communal area surrounded by living pods renovated for basic Voidtrecker requirements. The hangar above allows for groups to head to the next assigned storage location, or to return with their piles of lawfully impounded gains.

Team One

High-risk storage locations are this team's priority. Potentially explosive material, artifacts or experiments without the requisite paperwork explaining how or why they were made, sometimes living creatures, the kind that shouldn't have been left in a large metal crate habitat for a decade. Opening these areas is a study in initiative and dealing with unpleasant surprises!

Team Two

This team are the back-up for the first group - once the artifacts, creatures or hazardous material has been made safe and brought back, they have to be recorded. Scanned. Studied, and compared to the extensive lists of potential contraband or lost goods. Sometimes, they're not quite as safe as you'd like.

Team Three

Some locations, rather than being used for the storage for which they were intended, have been repurposed by sapients who have developed within the system since the depot was created. Short, furred people with clever, webbed hands and high voices, they've turned crates and ships into cramped, partially-submerged warrens. This team is cleared to assess the damage done, and, if the current official owners of the stores will agree, process the change in ownership to the Su Samuru. Not all owners are happy with their squatters, however...

Comments

[saint_14]

"That is unfortunate..." He says, and while the words themselves seem like an understatement the tragedy in the tone he uses is undeniable. "Perhaps then it is that there are universes that will be poisonous to us that you are needed for. It is unfair to take you somewhere to such discomfort, no? What makes it such poison for you?"

He shakes his head, the movement exaggerated by that massive crested helmet of his. He carries a load of the 'acceptable' items to place elsewhere, the ones approved for salvage. Such better ways to use this technology than just for resale.

"But you are well met. I am Saint-14, camrade."

[bornofthedarkness]

Still, to reside here or in a universe elsewhere with only himself bears no weight or purpose. He'll need to come to understand this tethering system, too. More than just theoretically, that is. Malekith understands the theory behind it just fine. But his chin tips up to observe this man and his question -- gives it space and time to breathe. That, and understand the readings he's getting from this piece of equipment.

"A crown is hollow when it lives only for itself." He watches as the figure takes a box away for another team or person to do their share, head turning just slightly over his shoulder. "This is not about a singular I, Saint-14. It is about a we. Who lived before the light."

[saint_14]

"Before the light?"

No, of course he couldn't mean before the Traveller. The 'Light' had become synonymous with the godlike bastion of creation. And while, now that he looks at it, the man could very much match the style of a creature of Darkness, he has learned thoroughly that judgment is something that he should not pass.

Too many have suffered thanks to his judgment. So he will not pass it now. Many Guardians make use of the Darkness as well as they do the light.

"In my world, that has one meaning. Therefore in yours I suppose it means another."

[bornofthedarkness]

He is indeed a creature of darkness which has somehow become synonymous with 'evil' to those from the light that did nothing short of invade what was once peaceful, and he could speak to it were he inclined to do so but Malekith had long come to find those with false righteousness had no desire to listen. Why waste his words on a kingdom of gold whose very bloodshed was enough to make worlds from it? That aside, frankly, he'd lost any desire to reason with people such as those should he have had any in the first place. A blade did just as well.

"Have you thoughts on that, then -- " His head tilts up, "Guardian?" Malekith watches a few more moments, weighing whether explaining was worth his effort. Here there were no allies, his people so far away he cannot feel them and -- begrudged as he is to admit it -- he's too weak to carry on alone. Pride would have him try, regardless. But perhaps there's some corraling to be done along the way or at least to propose his stand on things.

[saint_14]

"'The Light' is our power. A gift, given to necessary protectors of something we call 'The Traveller'." He does have thoughts though he doesn't want those thoughts to become presumptions. Valuable lessons had been taken to heart when the leader of the race he'd wished to exterminate had fought by his side and proved himself an ally and Saint a fool.

(He does not resent this, he prefers the life with realization as it has considerably less bitterness.)

"The Darkness that follows the Traveller gave its own gift. 'Stasis'." One that Saint has not yet partaken in, but the Young Wolf had absolutely taken their time to master.

"To me, 'Before the Light' would be before the Traveller."