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driftfleet_ooc2015-11-08 10:54 pm
spaceshipit) wrote in driftfleet_ooc2015-11-08 10:54 pm
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But wait, there's more!
A couple weeks have passed, and there are still no clear signs of when (or even if) the Drift Fleet's passengers will get to leave this strange wing of the Marsiva. Calibrations continue during the "night" cycles, for those who can remember the experiences.
But one more strange thing starts happening during their stay! It's entirely opt-in, but if anyone wants a little more for their characters to investigate and chew on, it's here to be discovered!
→ Timeline (revised)
Since this information is coming out late, and we don't want people to feel rushed (especially while so much calibration activity is still going on) the end of the event is being extended to November 23rd.
→ Event links
→ Your gracious hosts return
Diamond and Beau sure are... Something, aren't they? There will soon be another post up in the main comm for characters to come talk their usually one-sided hosts one more time! While this is an optional thing to do, it's open to any and all passengers, regardless of whether or not they notice the weird things around them.
→ Continued technical difficulties...
So what's happening? At some point during their stay, some passengers will start to notice parts of the environment that they didn't notice before... Which is weird, right? Just like characters have never quite been able to comprehend parts of the Fleet (How do upgrades get installed? What's all that weird stuff under the panels on the hospitality deck? Why do pilots have such a hard time with comms technology?), the augments of the passengers have been keeping some details about this wing of the Marsiva unnoticed...
But like Diamond and Beau have said, there are a few kinks they still need to iron out.
Having your characters notice these things is entirely optional. This particular "glitch" kicks in for passengers sometime during any day you choose, and is always repaired that night. While the glitch is active, they are able to see and understand things that were somehow hidden from their perception before, and lose the ability again after the next night cycle.
Passengers may experience this glitch multiple times, if you want. These glitches could even happen on consecutive, as long as the passenger runs through the routine of forgetting and having some amount of time of being repaired after each night.
And after a passenger's glitch is repaired overnight, the player can decide if they remember nothing about it at all, have only vague inklings that something had happened, or are certain that they'd found something but can't remember the specifics or how to see it again. Characters who catch on can try clever things like leaving notes to themselves for the next day, but remember that anything belonging to the Marsiva will also be reset during the night cycle. Passengers will have to leave notes on their communicators (or written on their personal belongings, if they don't trust the electronics) if they want the notes to last until morning.
Passengers could attempt to record the strange phenomena they discover, but unglitched passengers still won't see the hidden things on video, or even audio. The events can only be documented through original writing, sketching, extremely creative sculpted reminders, and so on.
If one of these strange things is specifically pointed out to a passenger who is not glitching, they might be able to tell that something is weird there, with some effort... but they'll have trouble seeing it, keeping it in their brain, or whatever variation of that theme you'd like to go with. Even direct attempts to make unglitched passengers understand the anomalies (such as guiding their hand to a 'hidden' terminal and making them push buttons, for example) won't seem to help much.
While passengers can't detect or do a whole lot while they aren't glitched, they can still be told about or retaught some of the information about what is going on, and understand it enough to discuss this new information. They just lack the ability to process the original anomalies, or any recordings of the findings.
→ What do they find?
Different characters will be able to discover different things, depending on their augment (and in one case, their abilities).
Pilots and Communications
At several places around this section of the Marsiva, there are squares of black glass set into the walls that seemed featureless and entirely decorative. But, for those with a glitching Pilot or Communications augment, they will suddenly realize that those squares of glass are actually computer panels. A little fidgeting with the unlabeled dots below the screen reveals that they're actually buttons, and they open up a network separate from the one the Fleet uses. It seems to be mostly cleaned out or corrupted, but with some maneuvering, they will be able to uncover a few interesting files. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to download any of this information to the personal communicators.
Engineering and Maintenance
The facade paneling of the walls of the Fleet ships and the Hospitality Deck of the Marsiva have been removed before on several occasions, and it's already been discovered that the interior walls are made of indestructible, densely-packed mechanical parts likely capable of complex movement. Though passenger augments have kept this information from being noticed or focused on for very long in the past, those with glitching Engineer and Maintenance augments may find that they are suddenly very aware of the fact that there is an impossible network of moving parts in the walls all around them. If they remove a section of paneling, they will find they are able to focus on the interior workings of the walls much more clearly than in the past, and can even puzzle out some subtle and complex release mechanisms that allow jointed 'arms' to be unfolded from the tangled mess. They won't get much further than that, and the arms are still just as indestructible as everything else, but at least they'll get a better look at them. There are also serial numbers stamped on many of the most important-looking parts of the arms, marking them as belonging to "Multimedia Enrichment Host Ship #56295001."
Lab Support and Cooks
In the event of a glitching Lab Support and Cook augments, they may find they suddenly notice a mostly-featureless door at the far end of the dormitory hallway. The touchpad outside will only acknowledge passengers with those two augments (whether they are currently glitching or not), with a digital voice saying "level four access granted" for lab officers, and "level five access granted" for cooks. The room inside appears to be a mostly-gutted laboratory. Nothing is particularly damaged or in disrepair, other than what would come from simple neglect. The lights still turn on, the air is still ventilated. Whatever packed up this lab did it in a lazy, but non-violent way. The things left behind are either small objects that didn't seem worth the time, like empty vials and clipboards, or large, half-functioning machinery that is probably both too outdated and too heavy to bother moving. Though there is quite an array of telemetry equipment, it's all dismantled and won't provide any fantastic revelations. The half-dozen empty cryobeds, however, are definitely of interest. Somewhere in the backs of their minds, glitched investigating passengers will know that these cryobeds are specifically intended for intermittent cryo-sleep that goes along with enduring long space-flights. They all bear the same #56295001 serial number, plus a suffix number. The beds in this room are suffixes 050 through 056. Finally, passengers with other augments can enter if the door is wedged open for them, but they (and non-glitching lab and cook augments) will only see a storage room full of nondescript junk on the other side.
Security and Tactical Support
It has never stood out to anyone before, but passengers with either a Security or Tactical augments may become aware of panels labeled with "Manual override" in several places around this wing of the Marsiva. Opening the panel reveals several rows of buttons, dials, and switches. With some experimental button pushing, they will discover these controls can do any of the following: open and close hallway doors, close "blast panels" that can cover any door in this wing, adjust the temperature and humidity settings in any room, open hidden (empty) storage panels, restock or overstock the kitchen and bathroom (up to an excess of five rounds per day. that's a lot of toilet paper...), open or close vents, and turn lights off and on. There are also several buttons that make the lights flash different colors and sound varying levels of alarm, and a few switches that seem to so absolutely nothing. Maybe they're opening some bay door in some other branch of the ship...
Personnel
Strangely, passengers with Personnel Support augments will detect nothing new on the ship. The only anomaly that these passengers pick up when their augment is glitching, is they will find the following passage clearly stuck in their heads, word for word:
"To see an almost certain horrible death--you know how crowds all sit at the edge of their seats, praying subconsciously for a spectacular accident--and then to be whisked away from it so suddenly--brought to the edge of tragedy, and then to have their better natures win out, showing them how much nicer they always knew they were--that was the supreme thrill.”
Psychics (and other supernaturally-sensitive characters)
And finally, there is one more anomaly that certain passengers may detect while glitching, regardless of the type of augment they possess. If a passenger has the ability to detect thoughts, feelings, life-force, auras, or other supernatural energies, they can detect something strange... It may be subtle to the point of being barely noticeable, or stark enough to be a little startling, but there is energy here that there maybe shouldn't be. All around them, from no particular direction, is a very general sense of life, thought, and being. There is thinking without any particular words or emotion detectable in the haze; energy without any sort of intent or polarity to it. It is neither a good nor bad feeling, but it is pervasive. If you'd like your character to potentially pick up even more detail, or have specific questions about this mysterious energy, feel free to ask us about it in the comment section! Otherwise, go ahead and play with the information as it is explained here. If you think your character might be able to sense it, just go ahead and assume that they can. You can also decide whether your character detects the augment-specific anomalies, the psychic-specific one, or both, during any particular glitch.
→ Anything else?
How you all play with these elements is up to you. You can decide whether to make new posts in the comm, or add toplevels onto the second mingle. You can play out discovering these things for the first time, or you can imply that your character has already figured out some of the basics (as much as they can, anyway). Characters can talk about it like it's just started happening, but it's also safe to assume that this knowledge will get around--so it's also all right to handwave your character hearing basic accounts from other passengers.
Since the augments are messing with who can detect what and when, and who even remembers what they've seen, it's okay to get a little bit weird with the order of what is discovered and known at any given time. The glitches will be happening on and off for the rest of the event.
These additions do not affect Calibrations, which will still be going on for the remainder of the event.
If anyone has any questions about this and what they can do, feel free to leave it at the QUESTIONS comment below! We also encourage players are also welcome to use the comment section of this post for plotting and coordinating.
But one more strange thing starts happening during their stay! It's entirely opt-in, but if anyone wants a little more for their characters to investigate and chew on, it's here to be discovered!
→ Timeline (revised)
Since this information is coming out late, and we don't want people to feel rushed (especially while so much calibration activity is still going on) the end of the event is being extended to November 23rd.
→ Event links
- The second event mingle
- Beau and Diamond, part two (coming soon!)
- Main event info post
→ Your gracious hosts return
Diamond and Beau sure are... Something, aren't they? There will soon be another post up in the main comm for characters to come talk their usually one-sided hosts one more time! While this is an optional thing to do, it's open to any and all passengers, regardless of whether or not they notice the weird things around them.
→ Continued technical difficulties...
So what's happening? At some point during their stay, some passengers will start to notice parts of the environment that they didn't notice before... Which is weird, right? Just like characters have never quite been able to comprehend parts of the Fleet (How do upgrades get installed? What's all that weird stuff under the panels on the hospitality deck? Why do pilots have such a hard time with comms technology?), the augments of the passengers have been keeping some details about this wing of the Marsiva unnoticed...
But like Diamond and Beau have said, there are a few kinks they still need to iron out.
Having your characters notice these things is entirely optional. This particular "glitch" kicks in for passengers sometime during any day you choose, and is always repaired that night. While the glitch is active, they are able to see and understand things that were somehow hidden from their perception before, and lose the ability again after the next night cycle.
Passengers may experience this glitch multiple times, if you want. These glitches could even happen on consecutive, as long as the passenger runs through the routine of forgetting and having some amount of time of being repaired after each night.
And after a passenger's glitch is repaired overnight, the player can decide if they remember nothing about it at all, have only vague inklings that something had happened, or are certain that they'd found something but can't remember the specifics or how to see it again. Characters who catch on can try clever things like leaving notes to themselves for the next day, but remember that anything belonging to the Marsiva will also be reset during the night cycle. Passengers will have to leave notes on their communicators (or written on their personal belongings, if they don't trust the electronics) if they want the notes to last until morning.
Passengers could attempt to record the strange phenomena they discover, but unglitched passengers still won't see the hidden things on video, or even audio. The events can only be documented through original writing, sketching, extremely creative sculpted reminders, and so on.
If one of these strange things is specifically pointed out to a passenger who is not glitching, they might be able to tell that something is weird there, with some effort... but they'll have trouble seeing it, keeping it in their brain, or whatever variation of that theme you'd like to go with. Even direct attempts to make unglitched passengers understand the anomalies (such as guiding their hand to a 'hidden' terminal and making them push buttons, for example) won't seem to help much.
While passengers can't detect or do a whole lot while they aren't glitched, they can still be told about or retaught some of the information about what is going on, and understand it enough to discuss this new information. They just lack the ability to process the original anomalies, or any recordings of the findings.
→ What do they find?
Different characters will be able to discover different things, depending on their augment (and in one case, their abilities).
Pilots and Communications
At several places around this section of the Marsiva, there are squares of black glass set into the walls that seemed featureless and entirely decorative. But, for those with a glitching Pilot or Communications augment, they will suddenly realize that those squares of glass are actually computer panels. A little fidgeting with the unlabeled dots below the screen reveals that they're actually buttons, and they open up a network separate from the one the Fleet uses. It seems to be mostly cleaned out or corrupted, but with some maneuvering, they will be able to uncover a few interesting files. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to download any of this information to the personal communicators.
- A series of files titled "multimedia sourcing and research reports," numbered from 2025 to 2037, but the files are corrupted and refuse to open.
- In one of the few active directories, there is a text readout of coordinates that pilots will recognize as locations that the Fleet has been so far.
- A list of all current ships, their launch dates, and the fact that they are all listed as "currently undergoing maintenance."
- And finally, a report of every person who has ever been a passenger of the Drift Fleet, along with basic (non-spoilery and non-personal) demographic information, such as augment, species (which is listed as some six-digit code), and status. All current passengers have a status of "active". Those who are no longer on the ships are simply listed as "inactive".
Engineering and Maintenance
The facade paneling of the walls of the Fleet ships and the Hospitality Deck of the Marsiva have been removed before on several occasions, and it's already been discovered that the interior walls are made of indestructible, densely-packed mechanical parts likely capable of complex movement. Though passenger augments have kept this information from being noticed or focused on for very long in the past, those with glitching Engineer and Maintenance augments may find that they are suddenly very aware of the fact that there is an impossible network of moving parts in the walls all around them. If they remove a section of paneling, they will find they are able to focus on the interior workings of the walls much more clearly than in the past, and can even puzzle out some subtle and complex release mechanisms that allow jointed 'arms' to be unfolded from the tangled mess. They won't get much further than that, and the arms are still just as indestructible as everything else, but at least they'll get a better look at them. There are also serial numbers stamped on many of the most important-looking parts of the arms, marking them as belonging to "Multimedia Enrichment Host Ship #56295001."
Lab Support and Cooks
In the event of a glitching Lab Support and Cook augments, they may find they suddenly notice a mostly-featureless door at the far end of the dormitory hallway. The touchpad outside will only acknowledge passengers with those two augments (whether they are currently glitching or not), with a digital voice saying "level four access granted" for lab officers, and "level five access granted" for cooks. The room inside appears to be a mostly-gutted laboratory. Nothing is particularly damaged or in disrepair, other than what would come from simple neglect. The lights still turn on, the air is still ventilated. Whatever packed up this lab did it in a lazy, but non-violent way. The things left behind are either small objects that didn't seem worth the time, like empty vials and clipboards, or large, half-functioning machinery that is probably both too outdated and too heavy to bother moving. Though there is quite an array of telemetry equipment, it's all dismantled and won't provide any fantastic revelations. The half-dozen empty cryobeds, however, are definitely of interest. Somewhere in the backs of their minds, glitched investigating passengers will know that these cryobeds are specifically intended for intermittent cryo-sleep that goes along with enduring long space-flights. They all bear the same #56295001 serial number, plus a suffix number. The beds in this room are suffixes 050 through 056. Finally, passengers with other augments can enter if the door is wedged open for them, but they (and non-glitching lab and cook augments) will only see a storage room full of nondescript junk on the other side.
Security and Tactical Support
It has never stood out to anyone before, but passengers with either a Security or Tactical augments may become aware of panels labeled with "Manual override" in several places around this wing of the Marsiva. Opening the panel reveals several rows of buttons, dials, and switches. With some experimental button pushing, they will discover these controls can do any of the following: open and close hallway doors, close "blast panels" that can cover any door in this wing, adjust the temperature and humidity settings in any room, open hidden (empty) storage panels, restock or overstock the kitchen and bathroom (up to an excess of five rounds per day. that's a lot of toilet paper...), open or close vents, and turn lights off and on. There are also several buttons that make the lights flash different colors and sound varying levels of alarm, and a few switches that seem to so absolutely nothing. Maybe they're opening some bay door in some other branch of the ship...
Personnel
Strangely, passengers with Personnel Support augments will detect nothing new on the ship. The only anomaly that these passengers pick up when their augment is glitching, is they will find the following passage clearly stuck in their heads, word for word:
"To see an almost certain horrible death--you know how crowds all sit at the edge of their seats, praying subconsciously for a spectacular accident--and then to be whisked away from it so suddenly--brought to the edge of tragedy, and then to have their better natures win out, showing them how much nicer they always knew they were--that was the supreme thrill.”
Psychics (and other supernaturally-sensitive characters)
And finally, there is one more anomaly that certain passengers may detect while glitching, regardless of the type of augment they possess. If a passenger has the ability to detect thoughts, feelings, life-force, auras, or other supernatural energies, they can detect something strange... It may be subtle to the point of being barely noticeable, or stark enough to be a little startling, but there is energy here that there maybe shouldn't be. All around them, from no particular direction, is a very general sense of life, thought, and being. There is thinking without any particular words or emotion detectable in the haze; energy without any sort of intent or polarity to it. It is neither a good nor bad feeling, but it is pervasive. If you'd like your character to potentially pick up even more detail, or have specific questions about this mysterious energy, feel free to ask us about it in the comment section! Otherwise, go ahead and play with the information as it is explained here. If you think your character might be able to sense it, just go ahead and assume that they can. You can also decide whether your character detects the augment-specific anomalies, the psychic-specific one, or both, during any particular glitch.
→ Anything else?
How you all play with these elements is up to you. You can decide whether to make new posts in the comm, or add toplevels onto the second mingle. You can play out discovering these things for the first time, or you can imply that your character has already figured out some of the basics (as much as they can, anyway). Characters can talk about it like it's just started happening, but it's also safe to assume that this knowledge will get around--so it's also all right to handwave your character hearing basic accounts from other passengers.
Since the augments are messing with who can detect what and when, and who even remembers what they've seen, it's okay to get a little bit weird with the order of what is discovered and known at any given time. The glitches will be happening on and off for the rest of the event.
These additions do not affect Calibrations, which will still be going on for the remainder of the event.
If anyone has any questions about this and what they can do, feel free to leave it at the QUESTIONS comment below! We also encourage players are also welcome to use the comment section of this post for plotting and coordinating.