TEST DRIVE 004

[returnjourney]

RETURN JOURNEY: TEST DRIVE 004

Welcome to the Return Journey's test drive meme! We appreciate your interest. Our TDM features a small sample of events your character might encounter in game, which you're free to embellish or improvise with your own ideas as desired. Don't worry if you haven't read everything yet; while we recommend skimming our FAQ for relevant questions, critical information should be contained or linked within the prompts themselves!

TDM threads can be used as samples for applications. Players can mutually keep threads as game canon after being accepted into the game, though threads featuring non-canon squalls or events may need to be adjusted.

We suggest putting your character's name, canon, and potential role (warden or inmate) as the subject. If you're not sure which role you want to choose, feel free to try your hand at both!

If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask here.

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The Peregrine

1. Welcome Aboard!

Welcome aboard the SFS Peregrine, a ship in the Admiralty's Transformative and Penal Reparation Fleet. It is presently circling the outer perimeter of the Oos Ring Galaxy.

Wardens have been approached personally by the Navarch with a job offer: Come aboard the SFS Peregrine to assist in the redemption of an inmate, and receive a miracle known as a windfall as payment. Even if you don't ask as many questions as you should, every warden will be treated to a short Warden Orientation video explaining their expected duties and conduct.

Inmates have died and been placed aboard the SFS Peregrine as candidates for reformation. You may have come willingly, offered a choice between death or redemption, or you may have been collected against your will. Inmates are also treated to an Inmate Orientation; you'll find you have less privileges than a warden, but more motivation for...latitude. Violence? Chaos? Bribery? Blackmail? Well, no one said the path to redemption was without a few bumps along the way.

Given staff shortages, some wardens may be asked for a favor. Rather than leaving directly for the Peregrine, you've been asked to pick up an inmate from the limbo between death and redemption. During this mission, wardens will have clearance to enter a snapshot of sorts, where the inmate died (so devoid of other living beings). You either have to talk them into willingly coming along...or bring their unconscious, fresh-from-death not-corpse with you in the Avro provided. Better hope they don't wake up on the way!

Inmates, in this case, you'll be presented with the choice of death or redemption from a warden rather than the Navarch. Or possibly not provided with a choice at all, if death has rendered you unconscious. Good luck when you awaken to find yourself in a small ship, with someone you've never met. Try not to cause any trouble.

2. Pairings

Pairings are a critical aspect of the dynamic between warden and inmate. While interactions between wardens and inmates are not restricted to those in pairings, this relationship is a bit more...inescapable. Inmates test the limits of a warden, whether they take a more typical or unusual approach to matters; likewise, wardens learn what makes an inmate tick (and hopefully cooperate). Chances are, your values will clash.

A pairing of any sort is as varied as the individuals involved in them. And today, courtesy of the Navarch's monthly announcement, you and your sorry partner have been paired. Temporary or permanent, with a warden for an inmate or an inmate for a warden, it's your first day together — out of at least a month, so good luck setting some ground rules and figuring out each other's breaking points.

3. Dorm Life

Hey, inmates! Ever gone to summer camp? Had a sibling? If so, you might see where this is going. If not, welcome to your first experience with shared sleeping arrangements!

The dorms are lined with bunks, though maybe they're better described as pods: futuresque capsules stacked two high, with sleek white paneling and cool blue LED lightning. Each bunk can be closed off with a sliding door privacy and boasts a bladeless fan for temperature control. Bedding is adequate. If such modest conditions do not appeal to you: consider not committing crimes against other people.

And just like with siblings or summer camp, you don't get a say in who your bunkmate is. Maybe you'll luck out and get a light sleeper who doesn't toss and turn in the night. Maybe you won't, and you'll end up with someone who will kill you if you snore. Whoever you get is who you're stuck with until further notice!

Wardens get much more hospitable quarters, but they may want to keep an eye out on the inmate dorms. Just in case an inmate does try to kill their bunkmate.

4. Simulations

Occasionally, the ship enters a simulation and transforms into another location completely. All passengers live out new lives, intended to give inmates a look at other walks of life and wardens new experiences through which to examine their own. Unlike ports and squalls, a simulation affects every passenger aboard the ship. You'll have advance warning of what you're going into and will remember big moments of your new life like an intense, felt-so-real dream that lingers with you for a few days.

(Functionally, these are complete AUs. Players can form whatever backgrounds and CR as they see fit.)

---

Twenty years ago, a strange phenomena overtook an undisclosed area of Florida coastline. It manifested as a metaphysical border, visible only as a shimmering halo. Animals, humans, vehicles, radio signals, internet, waves — anything that crosses the border is lost. Nothing has ever returned, but year by year, the border creeps forward, engulfing more and more of the land. It could be decades before it reaches the nearest city, but considering it has eluded all understanding thus far, it feels like time is running tight.

Every few years, the government sends new recon parties into "Area X", hoping this team will find the source of the phenomena, return, or simply establish communication from within. And it's time to send in another crew.

5. The Peregrine

The Peregrine's layout and protocols have been designed with its intended passengers in mind, who are primarily Earth humanoids and inclined towards certain social and cultural practices. If you're wondering why you are on a ship of Earth humanoids despite not being one yourself, please understand that all ships in the Admiralty have a population capacity. At times it may be necessary to assign other species to a ship of this type, based on availability.

As a warden, you have full run of the ship map. Inmates...less so, but that's nothing a little creativity can't fix, right? Just remember, if a warden catches an inmate somewhere that inmate shouldn't be, it falls on the warden to handle the matter. And if the warden turns a blind eye...well, let's hope neither of you get caught. While it won't result in anything as extreme as a demotion, wardens can expect to get a stern dressing down; inmates, meanwhile, will be reprimanded by the warden who found them.

6. Networking

Now that you've powered on your CommLink for the first time and sat through the short tutorial and appropriate orientation, you're ready to explore the wonders of messaging. Video, audio, or text, the world is your oyster and you surely have opinions on it.

There is no anonymous option and IDs must be some variation of your name. (IC, characters will have to try their luck and see what the communicator will or won't accept when they register; OOC, it's up to players to decide what name to use if the character has multiple names or aliases.)

Wardens have access to a group network filter, something that inmates lack, and can track inmates throughout the ship with their CommLink. Inmates, best avoid getting your device confiscated or monitored.

7. Wildcard

If it's in our game pages, you can use it as a prompt! The sky's the limit.

Comments

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS.

[returnjourney]

Jack Townsend | Tales from the Gas Station | Warden

[stations]

fetch quest

( So, you've died. Congratulations! Or sorry that happened. Whichever is more appropriate. Fortunately for you, smack in the middle of processing your death, along comes Jack. He's an unobtrusive, slight, probably odd figure to encounter — underweight, average height, bruises under his eyes that suggest he hasn't been sleeping well. A keen eye might discern that he's got a prosthetic right leg, or that he's missing the smallest finger on his left hand.

In either case, he wanders up to stand beside the inmate he's been charged with picking up, and there's a beat of awkward silence while he seems to take in the scene. Eventually, seemingly unfazed, he speaks up. )

Hey. I'm Jack. Sorry about the whole... you know... dying thing. That sucks.

pairings

( So sits Jack, looking over the impressively crime-riddled file of the inmate across from him, scrolling... scrolling... eyebrows knitting a little in a way that looks possibly somewhat impressed. )

Wow. ( He comments in his steady, pleasantly polite monotone. ) That's all really terrible. No offense.

( Weirdly enough, he seems genuine, and not actually all that bothered by whatever's on the list. Eventually, he stops on the most unbelievable, outlandish sin on the list and blinks a few times, before squinting suspiciously. )

Wait, did that one really happen?

network → @gasstationjack

Hey, guys. Nice to meet you. Good job on whoever's running the space ship. First of all, let me just take a second to say, holy shit it's a space ship.

Second of all, I'm just curious. For the people who were promised something in exchange for being a Warden, what exactly were you promised? What are you getting for for doing this?

fetch quest

[murderology]

[ Sorry buddy, were you trying to have an awkward conversation with an inmate? Because that's going to have to wait, mainly because as soon as Jerry (who isn't supposed to be here but shhhhhh don't worry about that) spots Jack he is absolutely going to interrupt as he rushes over— ]

JACK WHAT THE HELL WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?

[ Oh yeah, he was supposed to be subtle. Well, he can't help it. The excitement at seeing a familiar face who also happens to be his best friend is too goddamn much to hold in.

Jerry is quite the sight, but truthfully, the baggy, red eyes and faintly stained red clothing is almost a normal look for him anyway. ]

[stations]

Jerry?

( Wow, what? Is he even supposed to be here right now?

The poor inmate looks confused as hell, but is getting completely ignored at the moment because Jack is terrible at his job already. )

Is that- blood? Jerry, are you dead?!

( Again?? )

Windblade | Transformers Cyberverse | Warden

[voxtitanis]

[ Reposting her starters from last TDM because I haven't gotten her app together yet, and can use some more voice testing. For game purposes, Windblade will be approximately 6 feet tall. I'll match to brackets or prose, your choice. ]

1. WELCOME WAGON

a) voluntary inmate
When Windblade's nervous as she arrives at the site of the incident, but trying not to let it show. Her deal with the Navarch seemed more and more intimidating the longer she sat with the concept. It was only natural to be anxious with so much riding on the line, she reasoned with herself. That just meant that she couldn't entertain thoughts that she might fail and let everyone down — both in her universe, and in this one.

But it had to be a rough start, what with them having freshly died and all. Windblade approaches them palms up, unarmed, as unthreatening as she can be. At least the Navarch has seen fit to make her comparable to the organics' size... she didn't think they'd appreciate being towered over.

"Hey... I'm not going to hurt you."

b) involuntary inmate
Her target had been unconscious upon her arrival, so there hadn't been any opportunity to speak with them. Windblade is piloting the Avro, which she finds refreshingly similar to the planetary rovers from the Ark, and therefore comfortable to drive (even if they weren't made for someone with wings). When she hears them start to stir, she pulls over and parks, turning in the seat to get a better look at them.

"Oh good, you're awake. We're almost to the shuttle. How are you feeling?"

2. ABOARD THE PEREGRINE

a) mess hall
Windblade's looking at the array of organic food with no small expression of alarm. Of course she'd asked about energon fueling before accepting this offer... what good would it be to take on this assignment only to starve? And she'd been told that it would be handled, and that the Navarch was aware of Cybertronians' dietary needs prior to making the contact. So where was it? She had to be looking in the wrong spot.

Windblade flags down a passing friendly (or maybe not) face with an awkward smile. "Excuse me, do you know where we'd get our rations that aren't... well, that? Where they'd keep more specialized food?"

b) observatory
The observatory... plenty of Cybertronian ships had them. But standing in front of the grand viewport and looking out at the starscape, Windblade feels suddenly very alone and cut off from her friends. She had expected she would miss them, but so soon? Or was it simply her mind's way of distracting her from the enormity and importance of the task ahead?

Not realizing her wings are drooping lower as she thought, Windblade ex-vents a sigh, speaking to herself and not realizing she might be overheard. "Solus give me strength..."

3. PAIRINGS

Settled into the basic routine of the Peregrine, Windblade is ready to meet her potential inmate! With their file on the table in front of her, she's standing when they're ushered in, and offers them a bright smile, determined to make a good first impression.

"Hello, I'm Windblade of Caminus. Please have a seat. I thought we could start by getting to know one another."

4. WILDCARD

Hit me with anything else or poke me at by DM or sojourney for options. Also happy to continue CR from the previous TDM!

pairings!

[oinks]

Amanda does not have a seat.

"You've got to be kidding me."

But there's no biting sarcasm underlying her uncertainty. Her eyes are wide, and she tracks every movement of her new warden with cautious deliberation, barely moving from the doorway. Wild animal skittish, ready to bolt at the first sign of any threat. "What the fuck are you supposed to be?"

[voxtitanis]

Windblade has been forewarned that there aren't many non-organic species aboard the Peregrine, and that sometimes the inmate program (and the warden one too, to be fair) took in participants that from cultures that hadn't even gone interstellar yet. So she does her best not to react to the exclamations, even if her smile turns a little bracing. Work with me here.

"I'm a Cybertronian. It's all right, I understand a lot of people aboard this ship haven't been in contact with an inorganic species before. I promise I'm not going to hurt you. I'm one of the new wardens."

mr spock | star trek | warden.

[surak]

a. PAIRINGS.

They meet in the library, of all places. Spock finds the selection adequate, the surroundings sedate. It should, one hopes, have a calming effect on whoever he's meeting. Statistically, they are most likely human, between the age of twenty and thirty, from an Earthlike culture around the early twenty-first century. A tumultuous time and place, from what he's read.

He is not expecting trouble, but he believes he can acquit himself admirably, if necessary.

His posture is strict, straight, hands folded behind his back. He waits, nodding his head in muted greeting. "We have much to discuss."

b. INFIRMARY.

A minor injury. An accident in storage, a place seemingly prone to incident. Spock sits comfortably in one corner, wrapping a bandage around his arm, the sleeve pulled back. The bandage picks up the color of his blood-- green.

He looks up when someone enters the infirmary. "Are you familiar with this vessel?"

More familiar than him, anyway.

c. NETWORK.

UN: mr.spock

Please list space phenomena you have encountered, aboard this vessel and in general.

There is ample time to do a more comprehensive study while also focusing on individual redemption and repentance.

c, j.barnes

[counterstep]

time dissonance
lethargy
loss of appetite

the latter two being clearly effects of the first

[surak]

Chronological displacement is perhaps the most common side effect of advanced space travel. Was your experience based in relativity, or another law of physics?

[ahoyvey]

Kate's not used to double-takes. She's a mutant among mutants - it's pretty hard to startle her, when it comes to someone's looks. But the brows, the ears, that bowl cut? It's the stuff of TV reruns for her, old afternoons of childhood boredom made flesh.

Chill out, Kate. It's not actually Leonard Nimoy. For one thing, he's nowhere near as cleanshaven.

"Not really." She's got a healing black eye, but nothing else that might suggest why she's there right now. "What do you need?"

[surak]

His movements are self-assured, and perhaps a little cold in their efficiency. There is very little nervous hesitance, dawdling, or even reactions to the pain that normally accompanies the bandaging of a wound.

"At the moment, I do not need anything." The emphasis is less a tone shift than lingering on a length of vowels. "But I wonder at how poorly equipt this vessel is."

c; l.morningstar

[dealwiththe]

[ Lucifer doesn't generally wish his friends were here, but today, he dearly misses Ella Lopez. She would've freaked. ]

Does time travel count?

You do skip right to the good stuff, don't you, Mr. Spock? I'm Lucifer Morningstar.

[surak]

If time travel did not count, the entire study of space anomalies would be rendered moot.

An illustrious title to claim, if my memory of Earth theology is correct.

yusuke urameshi | yu yu hakusho | warden

[spiritgun]

The Peregrine

Upon entering the Mess Hall, one might not expect to hear shouting. Or the frenetic, objecting beeps of a cleaning bot.

Anyone inclined to investigate might circle around the AUTOMAT™ to find a short teenager, jabbing at the buttons with increasing irritation. Under one arm is a cleaning bot, tucked safely into the crook of his elbow.

Well, "safely."

In this argument between man and AUTOMAT™, it's difficult to tell who's winning. Or even what the exact objection is, though in the moment it seems to be—

"And stop giving me smaller bowls! I know you can hear me, you stupid heap of garbage!"

Networking.

@ urameshi

HEY what's the deal with this STUPID OWL????

@william.temple

[omniavincit]

Did you ask him?

[spiritgun]

What, and he'll just give a straight answer?

peregrine.

[goty]

Ellie makes two mistakes when she walks up to the AUTOMAT. First, she assumes there's a problem, and second, she assumes the teenager is an inmate. So she wanders over with less hesitance than she normally would, concerned mostly with appearances.

"You gotta put that down," she says, "they get stuffy about contraband, here."

They get stuffy about 'contraband' everywhere, or it wouldn't be contraband.

Re: peregrine.

[spiritgun]

In fairness, it's an easy assumption to make.

"It wouldn't stop slamming into my ankles," Yusuke offers, snippy over the insistent tootling of the bot. "The other one was way smarter, hightailed it over to the next room."

Presumably. It'd gone out the door, and Yusuke hadn't chased it. He rattles the tray beneath the AUTOMAT resentfully, slitting a sideways look at Ellie.

"This thing really doesn't take requests?"

The evidence of repeated experimentation is right there, bowls upon smaller and smaller bowls, but Yusuke still has some note of expectation in his voice.

Aloy | Horizon Zero Dawn | Warden

[metalflower]

I. Life on the Peregrine!

Permission feels like a petty thing to wait for.

The Avro had been easy. Not as easy as it could have been –– her Comm had blared Clearance Needed For Launch at her just for flipping switches on the dashboard –– but where there's a will, there's a way. Flying vehicles are easier to brute force into compliance; they're built less durably than land machines, which have their machine-parts hidden behind thicker and more durable panels. Not so with flying machines. Being lightweight means their dashboards come apart with a solid thwack with something hard. Back home, that would have been the reinforced carbon fiber blade of her spear. Here, it's the corner of a heavy-duty tool box. Thwack, thwack, access granted.

She has the lights on and the engine ready to go in no time, filling the Loading Bay with a steady hum.

But to get the Avro out for a quick flight, she'll need to get it out into space. She has given little thought to the vacuum of space beyond the loading bay door; it's something to avoid, certainly, but she is about as afraid of it as she is of anything. If death comes for her, she'll pull herself together and find a way out of it. Girl versus space seems like a fair future challenge.

Interlopers may find her knelt by an exposed wall panel in the Loading Bay, trying to find some manual override for the bay doors. It's intense, focused work, though occasionally she stops and looks around the room, eyes tracking something unseen.

"Okay," she says to herself, as she works. "Maybe there's another power source somewhere? But the power runs this way, so..."


II. Hello, Inmates!

She loves pick-up duty.

Space is stifling. Looking up is fine –– she's grown up under the boundless night skies, under the marbled black-blue-pink clouds of the cosmos. It's down that's the problem, at the yawning darkness below. It makes the world feel topsy-turvy. And the ship is stable, its vastness affording it some level of stability, but to a girl so attuned to the land and the natural world, it is impossible to not feel disconnected from the Earth. Whether she truly feels some slight shift under her feet or whether it's the knowledge that she's floating in space, Aloy isn't sure, but it feels unreal just the same.

Getting out, even if just for a jaunt to pick up some inmate, is something she relishes each and every time, even if it's grim work.

Maybe she's touched down at the moment of your death to collect you, a vision with wild red hair braided back from her face and pigskin-and-machine-cabling garb. Maybe you've come to on a transport ship, where she's listening to a podcast about MTV and The Real World and occasionally doing donuts, prolonging the distance between them and the Peregrine, just for fun. Either way: you're stuck with her now!

III. Network

[a rare text post from Aloy; she’s not sure how to pronounce some of this, and a list might be easier written out rather than spoken. ]

- Pizza
- Frickin
- April Fools
- Pepsi
- Coke
- MWF

[And then she switches to audio anyway. She sounds sure of herself, but there's a little twinge of frustration –– the indignity of being off-kilter in the matter of Old World affairs.]

I'm almost finished reading back on the whole network, but my dictionary’s always been bad for slang and names. Any ideas?

iii.

[counterstep]

did you need those explained?

i can answer for most slang, if you'd like
but yeah the dictionary probably won't help for those

audio

[metalflower]

That's why I asked, yeah. Either you tell me or I spend time digging through Archimedes' archives looking for context.

Leonard McCoy | Star Trek (AOS)

[homeostatic]

Favor

( It isn't a great omen to be drafted in as an impromptu ferryman of the yet-to-be-redeemed before he's even arrived at the Peregrine, but McCoy is adaptable.

Just, not without complaint. )

Short-staffed. Wonderful, ( he mutters to himself, pulling a couple blankets from the stock of camping supplies stowed aft, before he returns to the inmate he schlepped aboard the Avro a short time ago. McCoy folds the first blanket again, and slips the fleece-y pillow easily under their head. Transporting someone unconscious is familiar turf, at least, and with their vitals satisfactory, his goal now is to keep them warm and comfortable for the trip.

And, y'know, hope they don't get ornery when they wake up. As they probably will– he's not lucky enough for quiet journeys.

The Avro judders around them, so McCoy places a protective hand on the inmate's shoulder, keeping them from flopping around. Annoyed, he mutters under his breath: )

Think I'd rather be unconscious, too.

Infirmary

( So the Auto-Doc? Is really cool. The bioprinter? Equally excellent, and familiar at that. Bones taps his communicator against his palm, whistling low as he reads through the various documentation on offer for each. )

They're still running on nuclear fusion and they managed to design a working bio-replicator that can print a human brain?

( The neurologist in him might be salivating a bit.

Well, that's the most exciting part of the place– he noses into the supply inventory to find they're well-stocked for preventative care, emergencies and other scenarios that tend to play out on spacecrafts, satisfying finds across the board. Some of the supplies are a little dated compared to Starfleet's, some quite similar, and some are obviously meant for more alien use, but he's prepared to work with what they have. Has someone come by to be patched up? He'll wave them off the A-D and gesture them in closer. )

Don't bother with that; what seems to be the problem?

Pairing

( Not for the first time, he's asking himself why he's here. He doesn't like prisons; he largely doesn't approve of imprisonment for reform. Federation prisons are nothing like the Hellish institutions of the 21st century, those built to broadly punish the expected products of society's own inadequate and unequal support systems, but even their modern, compassionate facilities still leave a bitter taste in his mouth. Always, always they can and should do better.

The Peregrine isn't immune to his beliefs, especially not because of the extreme power imbalance at work here. Authority isn't an uncomfortable role for him, and neither is managing the well-being of another person, sometimes multiple persons, sometimes a hundred, but never has he worked with these kinds of stakes. If he dislikes imprisonment, he hates death, and avoiding it is a good enough cause to fight tooth and nail for.

With all that in mind, after receiving his assignment, he tracks his inmate down. )

My name is Dr. Leonard McCoy. Seein' as how we're assigned together for the month– ( he takes a seat across from them, leaving them an open escape route, ) –I'd like to get to know you.

Network - un: dr.mccoy

Professional curiosity here; how many of you are from spacefarin' worlds?

Wildcard

( hmu via pm if you're feeling something else! he's gonna settle in pretty quick and be as useful as he can, so I'm sure he can be all over the place. )

infirmary

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Five months and Claire has yet to have much luck when it comes to the infirmary. No one's taken much interest in learning even basic first aid--a thing she supposes might change once the inevitable crisis occurs that renders both her and the auto doc out of commission. But now? Now, the Navarch has apparently heard her agitated thoughts in the middle of the night and blessed the ship with someone else, actively looking and reading and Claire could kiss the man.

She doesn't, of course.

She merely approaches with a polite, pleased smile.]

You sound familiar with things like this.

pairing.

[youarethevirus]

Of course you would.

[ They're in the greenhouse, naturally, where she's been familiarizing herself with the hydroponics and looking for security cameras. There must be leaves that could drop, cuttings she could take and propagate in her cell - provided she can bypass security. The idiotic orientation already made clear that removing flora from the greenhouse constituted theft.

And here comes a man with the bedside manner of a kindly doctor, asking her to take a seat in a chair near the entrance. They're never actually kindly, these doctors, when it comes down to it, but they always want to start out that way. Pamela rolls her eyes. ]

Let me guess: You want to hear about my relationship with my mother.