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returnjourneymemes2021-12-10 12:00 pm
returnjourney) wrote in returnjourneymemes2021-12-10 12:00 pm
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TEST DRIVE 001
RETURN JOURNEY: TEST DRIVE 001
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.
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. Accidents and Sabotage
A. Lights Out
As everyone knows, when it's lights out in a prison...interesting things can happen.
Whether a natural fluctuation from traveling through heavy space debris or something more unnatural (maybe it was you), the power has gone out. While life support continues to function, it's pitch black and any areas usually locked to wardens are left with doors open. It's the perfect setting for a riot, breaking and entering, thievery...your general crimes, petty and otherwise. Wardens, of course, are expected to stymie these efforts, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll succeed. What's a little chaos between friends?
Our apologies if you happen to be in an elevator when the power dies.
B. Invasive Species
Being in space, sometimes space things happen.
Somehow (and hopefully you or someone you know isn't responsible for that "somehow"), a greater lunar tetacocien has gotten on board. Quite a feat, since they're the size of a rhino, but they have an impressive ability to squeeze through anything large enough to fit their beak. Unfortunately venomous, carnivorous, and native to the starstuff of Oos, the creature needs to be rounded up before it destroys anything (or anyone) aboard the ship. Please do not attempt to eat; the flesh is toxic.
The multi-legged predator can be immobilized with shots from an energy weapon... Too bad inmates can't carry them. Time to improvise! Or steal one, if you're canny enough.
4. Squalls
Occasionally, the ship passes through squalls, the equivalent of cosmic turbulence that can mess with little things like, say...the fabric of reality. These are shipwide effects, though who they hit is variable. Sometimes you might fall victim; other times you might be the one standing by, exasperated, as you deal with those affected.
(In other words, it's up to player discretion. And feel free to make up your own squalls!)
A. Truth Bomb
One week, those affected cannot tell a lie. Wardens and inmates alike can only speak the truth, though it varies whether they blurt out a response to any question asked or can keep mum.
B. Stuck Together
Another week, you're stuck together. Travel any farther than two meters from your buddy and you'll experience intense physical pain. There isn't anything visible to this connection; it isn't something you can sever (not that this means you can't try). So have fun with your group activities and try not to kill each other.
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.
no subject
It doesn't cross his mind that another warden would bother with this.
He rolls a shoulder in agreement, fingers finding the coarse bedding, picking at it. “What're you used to?” It's gentle, for all that it's also prying.
no subject
"An apartment," she offers, "just a normal one." And she is dressed like a normal, reasonably modern young woman would-- hooded cardigan, satin blouse, grey jeans, heeled boots. Nothing alien or out-of-the-ordinary about her, except for somehow everything. She turns back to peering into the cubicle, frowns. Apparently reluctant to actually open it and go inside, as if it'd be a violation of the personal space of whomsoever is being forced to fit their life inside.
"How are we supposed to rehabilitate anyone if they have to live like this?"
no subject
“You're a warden.” A note of surprise, and something else—he sounds almost stung. Taking a breath, he slides off the mattress and out of the pod, feet smacking against the floor as he lands. There's a looseness to him while in motion: less so when he stills.
“When I was an inmate”—he says it matter-of-factly, but his eyes flick to hers in guarded appraisal—“I used to hate when they tried to make it cozy. Dress everything up like we weren't in prison.”
But he doesn't seem approving. “If one of them has a nightmare it's gonna wake everyone up.”
no subject
Grace, finally, blinks, her brows raising in a surprise that near-comically overwhelms her pale little face. But of course some... let's say graduates of the program would want to come back and help others. She just wasn't expecting to meet any who would readily admit as much to a brand new acquaintance, before even so much as knowing their name. It's either brave or foolish, and Grace doesn't know this gentleman well enough to tell which. Probably never will, considering her usual social dexterity.
It doesn't bother her. Grace is used to being a stranger.
"...It makes sense there would be nightmares," she mutters, "given what they're here for. And so far from home... wherever that might be." She hugs her elbows, a gesture that seems to be self-comforting and protective for her, but it just makes her look like she's cold. "Strange how much of this seems to just be making everything harder for everyone..."
no subject
He is a fool, though. He wouldn't be here otherwise.
And he smiles at her reaction—wry, lopsided. It fades as she goes on, folds in on herself. He doesn't waste his time feeling bad for wardens, but here he is, feeling bad for her feeling bad for inmates who aren't even here. “It gets bad.” William lowers his eyes; that feels like pageantry, and so he raises them again. “But the worst is when wardens tell themselves there's nothing they can do. There's always something.”
Confident optimism it isn't. His voice, his cadence, is rickety. He watches her as if braced for some retort.
no subject
"That's what we're here for, isn't it? To help?" As if she's trying to encourage him, as if he's the one who needs the reassurance. There's something fragile about his presence here, she thinks, something raw and frayed.
Feels familiar.
"Or at least to try. Until trying becomes habit." Her shoulders set back a bit-- a hint of determination set in her spine. "For all of us."
no subject
“You should ask what I did.” It doesn't occur to him that there's no ready answer. That he'll have to stand here and pick apart the knot of anger, remorse, and seething bitterness that hasn't gone anywhere. “Wardens acted like they were being considerate, but I think it was...they didn't want it to be their problem.”
no subject
"I'm Grace," she offers in lieu of a handshake. In point of fact, she has maintained approximately the same distance from him for the entire conversation thus far. Close enough to read as casually attentive; distant enough to require more than one step if they were to suddenly lunge for her. Carefully calculated for maximum safety-- theirs, of course.
God forbid anyone accidentally touch her. That would be decidedly contrary to her stated purpose in being here.
She glances at his still-shoeless feet on the floor. Does she want to know what he did? Would that be opening a can of worms she can't put back? Maybe if he knew better who he was talking to, he wouldn't want her to know. This normal-looking person. Maybe she should test how normal he really is.
Almost casually, Grace tucks her legs up underneath her, as if curling up into a big easy chair for an afternoon of reading; except she isn't, she's floating there, and while her posture appears casually relaxed, there's absolutely no denying how breathtakingly incongruous the action is juxtaposed with the blank look on her pale face.
"Tell me," she states, laying her hands gently in her lap. A challenge.
no subject
The texture of the air changes. The room, its flat light, the rows of thin mattresses slotted into plastic chambers, now host to the impossible. William's head tips back as though an unseen hand has grasped him by the chin. “Are you a witch?” he asks, his eyes, his mouth—the lines of his face softening. There's something tender in the question, beating at the heart of it.
To him this is a kindness, this glimpse into who she is. He forgets what he's promised—forgets himself, almost—until she prompts him. “What I did.” His gaze fixes on her hands, prim and pale, in her lap. What can he say to equal what she's shown him?
“I tormented people. Used them, what they felt for me. Somewhere along the line they stopped...” Being people. He remembers hacking into a man's leg, down to the whirring metal. Logan flinching at his touch. He stops staring at her hands, seeks out her eyes—her gaze like a double-barreled gun.
no subject
"I'm a ghost," she states, matter-of-fact. "I think. Half. Sort of. I'm alive. I did die... I got better." A moment of pause where Grace clearly grasps for a clearer, more coherent description of her situation, near-instantaneously fails, and settles for a helpless little shrug.
This is the most she has talked about herself in a long time. It feels awful. Better to focus on William's whole deal which is depressing and upsetting, and much easier to handle. Her head tilts slightly, never breaking the dark, direct contact with his eyes as he recounts his sins. As far as sins go, they don't sound too far outside the realm of expected human behavior. Plenty of people in her world fail to recognize the humanity of anyone besides themselves. They're called 'assholes'. A category unfortunately including her entire immediate family.
"Do you regret it?" Because of course this is what matters, to her.