spaceshipit: (particle feathers)
The Mod Journal ([personal profile] spaceshipit) wrote in [community profile] driftfleet_ooc2017-06-21 11:12 am

Calibrations II - with new hosts, bonus features, and more!

A couple days 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!

Those who were a part of calibrations last year might remember some of these discoveries - if they remember anything at all about them… but this year, there are more surprises to find! So even if you remember this plot from last time, give it another read-through, there’s still something new for everyone!


Your gracious hosts return…?

The Hosts have, in the past, taken very few interactions. In fact, they’ve been absent for a long, long time… until their most recent, and apparently very final, appearance. Now, there are two new Hosts, who seem ready and willing to appear on camera as much as needed. They have the same sort of graciousness as well as a touch of something else…

The network post introducing the new Hosts will be taking questions for the duration of the plot, so feel free to tag in. Just remember that they can pull the plug at any time.

After this plot, Diamond and Beau will be officially retired. Thank you for playing with them! We promise that their suffering will end soon. :)


Continued technical difficulties...

While slightly more obvious than last time, there are still some very strange things going on with this round of calibrations. It seems like the Marsiva has the same kind of kinks and glitches one would expect on their more-rickety home ships-- lights going out, appliances not working, food sometimes not dispensing… Nothing harmful, but certainly inconvenient.

But it goes further than that.

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 the Hosts 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 consecutively, 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 2037 to 2045, but the files are corrupted and refuse to open.
  • A blank form template titled “Planetary Status Update”. None of the blanks, check boxes, etc. are filled in, but it appears to be a standardized form for reporting basic info about planets: gas levels in the atmosphere, soil composition, ratings of various aspects on a good/fair/poor basis or on a scale from one to five…
  • There’s a file titled “Standard Currency Conversion Rates - Updated 832910-B.27”. Unfortunately, it is also corrupted and refuses 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." Entries still exist for the Three Twins, the Windrose, the Golden, and the Pathstone, though they are listed as “NO? ?? ???????
  • And finally, a report of every person who has ever been a passenger of the Drift Fleet for this Cycle (Cycle 12), 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 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."

While this may be old news to some veterans of the Fleet, there is a second surprise in store for them. In addition to the jointed ‘arms’, there is also a complicated network of small glowing teal-green tubes inside the walls. They are spread haphazardly and intertwine with everything, giving the impression of luminescent veins.

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.

Characters may also notice a wall-mounted cabinet with closed - but not locked - doors. Should they look inside, they will find two personal communication devices, just like the ones they have. Further investigation reveals that these devices are listed as “temporarily out of circulation”, and were previously assigned to Varric Tethras and Yosuke Hanamura. These devices are not connected to any sort of network (network capabilities are, in fact, disabled) and all locally stored data is not at all current.

As last time, 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…

There is a special switch at the bottom of the panel with one red side and one blue side. Flipping this switch from blue (its default position) to red will override anything that is currently playing on the screen in the living area. It cuts to a camera feed of… well, the living area, from various angles that make no sense with the way the room is set up. (But aren’t the existing security cameras non-functional? Weird. Doesn’t that angle imply the camera is invisible? Really weird.)

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 one of the following passages 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.”

”Of course, keeping the public interested is just as important. I mean, who’s going to want to spend any time on something that’s become so mundane, so commonplace that it may as well be completely irrelevant? No, you have to reach out and grab your audience! Show them that, by God, there’s a universe out there! And don’t you want to tune in and be a part of it? This could be you! It could be all of us!”

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 “day mode” 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! Players are also welcome to use the comment section of this post for plotting and coordinating.

[personal profile] futureprofessor 2017-06-21 06:35 pm (UTC)(link)
IGNORE THE ACCOUNT THIS IS SHIRO-MUN I have to pretend I'm adulting

So information can't be downloaded into their DF communicators, but what about Shiro's arm? Or other electronic devices is any character has them, since you said some stuff from their rooms can be in the Marsiva.

[personal profile] futureprofessor 2017-06-21 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
this is all I'm getting from this event

namisan: (Default)

[personal profile] namisan 2017-06-22 12:18 am (UTC)(link)
1) Are any of the listed former passengers identifiable as people we've met on the Interceptor Fleet?

2) Odd question: the weird, strange energy. Would you say its source is very creative or very logical or somewhere in between?
namisan: (so cheerful (run))

[personal profile] namisan 2017-06-25 12:35 am (UTC)(link)
No worries!

Follow up question-- will a recording of the apparent demise of Diamond and Beau survive any such purging of records on the communicators?
therewerefifty: (ooc)

[personal profile] therewerefifty 2017-06-26 03:23 am (UTC)(link)
Curses! Okay thanks! o/
supertardiness: (35)

[personal profile] supertardiness 2017-06-22 02:13 pm (UTC)(link)
For the lab/cook glitch:

Would there be anything on the communicators ie. serial numbers and the like that would match up any of the abandoned cryobeds with either the communicators they found or their own communicators? Maybe not a perfect match, but similar?
supertardiness: (68)

[personal profile] supertardiness 2017-06-22 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Innnnnnnnteresting.

Also, I'm assuming the cryobeds are only big enough for one person?

Also the second, is there paper on the left behind clipboards or are they just sad pieces of wood and metal?
supertardiness: * iris (72)

[personal profile] supertardiness 2017-06-24 11:57 pm (UTC)(link)
o7 Duly noted!
tempredmental: (Confused Or Worried)

[personal profile] tempredmental 2017-06-23 07:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Is there a certain level of sensitivity or skill needed for the psychic happenings? Keith's been shown in canon to be able to detect strange energy (he picked up on the Blue Lion, even though it wasn't his Lion to bond with), but it's not a honed skill by any means, and it's not something he makes a point of doing. It just kind of happens for him. I'd like for him to be able to pick up on the energy here, but I don't want to overstep. ^_^
tempredmental: (Yeah Sure)

[personal profile] tempredmental 2017-06-25 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks!
goldenglasses: (This is my KEYSMASH face (bjhahbae!))

[personal profile] goldenglasses 2017-07-06 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
If Vash had information he found with this glitch from the last calibrations on the Twin Roses should I assume it will be gone once their back on their ships?

Like notes or something he's written down?
Edited 2017-07-06 21:00 (UTC)
goldenglasses: Maker on LJ (Default)

[personal profile] goldenglasses 2017-07-08 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
I think it mostly did! Like for example the first time the calibrations happened Vash wrote down (on himself like he's doing again this time) notes on the files he could see while glitched. He was a pilot then too.

When they returned back from the Marsiva to say the Three Twins (the ship he was on back then) he would have written down what he had on say paper he got on a planet they visited. Because he's a secretive jerk when he wants to be and is worried about the cameras that might always be watching he would have tried to write it down in a code he created, but still written down somewhere.

So what I'm wondering is if paper Vash had strewn around the Twin Roses (not the Marsiva) with weird writing (that I'm 10000% fine with the hosts figuring out what it is) would still be there for him to look at again once the event is over and they're back onto the individual ships. Or if a power that may be might go: nope. We don't want you to have that. YOINK!

Basically I want to see if he keeps the notes he had last time after the event ended last year that would still be on the Twin Roses as of right now.
goldenglasses: Maker on LJ (Hey!!! Me likey!)

[personal profile] goldenglasses 2017-07-08 03:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Awesome! Yeah! Mostly I want to see if he can compare his notes in an effort to combat that mental reset IC-ly. Thanks again mod team!
iattractmushi: (Default)

[personal profile] iattractmushi 2017-06-28 06:44 am (UTC)(link)
Just to check... people who don't have the pilot/communication augment can't see anything on the black glass 'computers' even if a pilot is fiddling with the buttons, right? So even if they pull up a document, it'll still look like a plain black panel to anyone else?
iattractmushi: (Default)

[personal profile] iattractmushi 2017-06-30 09:31 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks for the info!