dankmemes | Test Drive Meme #32

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Test Drive Meme #32

Welcome to Hadriel's test drive, and thank you again for your interest in the game! As always, our reserves page is here, and our applications page is here! Reserves open May 25th, and apps are open June 1st. Please remember that there is an app cap of 20 apps.

Two quick points here as well:
1. Any thread made in Hadriel's test drive will be accepted as the sole Action Log sample in the application.
2. All threads made in the test drive can be considered game canon, either through handwaving or through a shared mental experience while coming through the Door!

Test drives will be broken up into specific god mini-events, during which your characters can see how well they fare under the watchful eye of one of the gods. Choose wisely or just simply pick 'em all, and have fun!

F E A R

SCENARIO ONE: HONK HONK
[The Door brings in all that is chaotic and evil in the world. This may include you, may include the person next to you... and may include the monster behind you.

Hope you're not afraid of clowns!

Evil Clowns have been a terror on the imagination of children everywhere, and show up enough times in literature for us to reasonably say that plenty of adults are afraid of them too. While they love to laugh, they often bring themselves joy by murdering others and slicing them up with the sharp knives and other torture devices that they have tucked away in their seventeen pockets.

It's not difficult to outrun them, as they have big, squeaky shoes, but it might be difficult to fight them- these bastards are hardy!]

F E A R

SCENARIO TWO: MISSING SOMETHING?
[You may arrive in Hadriel... well, incomplete. Though some may reassure you that it's temporary, there's still something terrifying in suddenly losing your sight or your hearing... or even you arm!

While this event does not affect memories, it does affect body parts, senses, and potentially powers and abilities. You may find yourself unable to do things you once did, or behave the way you normally do.

This is a mini version of our Senses Fail event this month.]

T R A N Q U I L I T Y

SCENARIO THREE: MAY FLOWERS
[You're in a beautiful garden. The sun is shining, the grass is green, and there are hundreds of thousands of flowers all around you. The temperature is just perfect, and above all else, it's satisfying.

Maybe you should pick some flowers for a friend, or your mother- you did skip mother's day, after all. Luckily, there's a few cutting shears to go around and you're more than welcome to start hacking away at these thistley bushes! Hopefully you know a thing or two about flower arranging- maybe that person over there is more experienced?]

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[The pleasant smile does not falter but the question - the question - is an unwelcome one, something that has her wishing she brought her bag from the train to this place. They had been looking for her there; who is to say they wouldn't do the same in a new environment? Who is to say that bird she saw alighting on a tree not five minutes ago is not also manufactured in a lab?

For these reasons she blinks at him, assessing. His reason for asking is either professional curiosity born of legitimate knowledge, or something far more malicious. The curious, mild honesty in his tone and expression are, however, reassuring in the barest sense. Maeve responds coolly:]

What sort of a question is that?

[That answer is very distinctly not a no, and not the response of someone who's never heard of androids before at all. Connor is sure she's indeed an android--or at least some sort of synthetic being--and so now the question is why she's hiding it. Is it for the same reason he has been?

He makes the decision in a moment, reaching up slowly--so as not to alarm her with a sudden movement--and lifting the brim of his hat just enough to show the LED on his temple; it's lit up a soft blue, blinking steadily.]

I haven't encountered anyone else like us here, yet.

[That's why he asked, and he's really hoping he won't regret this.]

[The premiere surprise in this conversation is not so much the admission he offered quite willingly, but the method. He lifts his cap and his temple pulses with light - perhaps an indicator of his status, in his world? Curious that humans would want them identified in such a way, if it breaks the immersion.

Unless that isn't the point. He must be something else.

Like us. He is eager to draw similarities. Maeve watches him tuck the hat back safely, not yet willing to be entirely open but dragged toward curiosity with an insatiable sort of hunger.]

How could you tell?

[Well, she isn't being hostile, which is good. Perhaps she really is a deviant; it would explain the lack of LED, although only if she were some sort of unusual model from his world. If she's from somewhere else, like other people here have been, then he's less sure of what he's dealing with.

But no backing out now, and he'd much rather figure out what the situation is--even if it's a risk--than wait and fear. He really doesn't like feeling fear.]

My scanners indicate you are not human, and furthermore that there is a synthetic element to you.

[And that said, he's having some difficulty getting a read on her mood, but he feels like he should add--]

I won't tell anyone, if you're hiding it.

[And the unspoken questions of whether she is or not, and if so why, are probably obviously there.]

[The straightforwardness - or bluntness, rather - reminds her of Bernard, a man best trained in hosts, who knew them inside and out. The affectations he adopted in his speech patterns were quaint, in a clinical way. The young man with the glowing circle on his head is, at least, earnest.]

The last time a man scanned me I charged him for the service.

[Maeve feels the words come smoothly, her own choice, her own cadence. No one pulling her goddamn strings anymore. The statement isn't unfriendly, by any stretch: she raises an eyebrow and hazards a smile, something edging on wary but warm.]

I'm not hiding it, darling. Only cautious. [In the company of someone built, not born, she is more comfortable and extends a hand.] Maeve.

[Connor picks up on the innuendo but decides to ignore it; he isn't great at dealing with that sort of thing, so better to just move on.

It's unusual that she extends a hand, not that the gesture of a handshake or similar is all that strange, but it's strange between two androids. Still, he reaches out to return the gesture, this time holding off on his questions for the moment in order to introduce himself in return.]

Connor. It's nice to meet you, Maeve.

[And he means it; it's a relief to meet someone who is at least sort of like him, if not exactly the same.]

Caution is understandable. I'm unsure as of yet how the humans here might react to androids.

[Hence continuing to hide his LED; he'd much rather pass as human for now, rather than try to navigate being treated like an android. Worse, if they realize he's a deviant android--he's a deviant android, it seems surreal to admit it even just to himself--then who knows what they might do.]

[Handshakes are better than nothing, and she would much rather find a certain amount of grounding through touch. Connor has a pleasant face and soft hands, the kind of manner girls in the saloon would peg as that of an easy mark. Amenable and diplomatic. Young, but not naive.

He hides what he is for a reason - sought after, perhaps, not unlike herself, but in a different way.]

I suppose it depends upon whether they know you're not one of them.

[And after that, whether they care. Until she ascertains the exact atmosphere and attitude toward her kind she would prefer safety in silence, in lieu of numbers she doesn't have. After what she did to build her force in the labs, the thought grates. Maeve lofts an eyebrow at Connor's temple.]

Someone is hunting you.

[Before, if he'd known what she was thinking, he would've explained that as a state of the art prototype he comes with social integration programming that was specifically designed to make him pleasant and appealing, both in looks and actions. But now, he would wonder; what is his programming, and what is just him?

Connor watches her, noting the eyebrow, and she reminds him a little of an android he met very briefly shortly before arriving here. She'd known what felt like a little too much about him and his situation, even if logically it wasn't--and isn't in this case either--difficult to put together. Still, it makes Connor a little nervous.

But he nods, shifting on his feet, gaze flicking toward the ground briefly before looking at her again.]

They will be.

[At home, at least, if they find out what he's done. Maybe here, if--as Maeve said--they find out he isn't one of them, and if that's a problem for the humans here.

But he sort of brought this on himself, didn't he? After all, he's been the one hunting down deviants, and humans have plenty of sayings about reaping what you sow.]

What about you? You seem accustomed to blending in with humans.

[Judging by the lack of LED--again, assuming she ever had one--and her responses so far.]

[There isn't a stigma here, as far as she can tell, from most of the unwilling residents. There was something about a battle a little ways back against an enemy they classified as robotic, but the divide between autonomy and automaton is an easy one to define, in her opinion. The machines they used to create her are just that: machines.

She is something else.]

I'm supposed to.

[When they crossed a line into the uncharted territory that was making hosts nearly indistinguishable from humans, it was practically asking for things to go wrong for them. Maeve picks a piece of lint from her shoulder, gaze slanting toward him askance.]

But you aren't. Is that why you have a little light there? [Rhetorical. She moves slowly, not wanting to spook him, into his space.] To identify you?

[Connor had been so sure, just hours before coming here, that he knew where that line between autonomy and automaton was; that there was no line, really, even for deviants, who were just androids with flawed coding. Just machines that could trick people into feeling empathy, but still only coding at their core.

But now, he doesn't know. He feels like more than that, but how can he really tell? After all, a deviant's faulty coding wouldn't just trick others, but themselves as well.

He lets her move closer, straightening a little and watching her carefully, mostly because he has a gun hidden away under his jacket. Although he doesn't think she means any harm, at least not right now, he's also prepared if she tries to take the weapon; deviants are unpredictable, and that may be a universal truth across worlds. And her answer makes it clear, finally, that she'd indeed from somewhere else.]

Yes. Androids are forbidden from passing for human, whether intentionally or otherwise. That isn't the case where you're from?

[It makes her wonder whether there are others in her world more like him. Domestic servants. Veritable slaves. People that are conscious of what they are and what their purpose is - or not so much conscious as aware that their position is to submit to the will of the creators. Perhaps happily.

His baggy clothes protect his fear of having his weapon known, at the very least. But Maeve isn't so stupid as to think anyone entirely harmless.

Penetrating the protective bubble of personal space that so many humans are fond of she examines his face carefully, tone even and quiet.]

Do you know what an amusement park is, Connor?

[He stays still, watching her, unbothered by her being in his space as long as she isn't being threatening. At the question he tilts his head a little, eyebrows furrowing briefly before smoothing out as he resumes a more neutral expression.]

I have never visited one, but I am aware of them, yes.

They made hundreds of us, and put us into a park. Miles wide. It was built to look like the deserts of Nevada and Arizona. Utah. New Mexico. [Places she has never seen, but knows the names to because they were deliberately placed into her code.] They called it Westworld.

[A jagged image of the video she saw in the lobby cuts through her and she presses it deep into her mind: a girl, and herself. Sun-kissed fields of the plains, the homestead in the foothills of Colorado. The painted natives who dragged a knife over her scalp, the man in black who shot her daughter.

Speaking softly, she tidies the collar of Connor's coat.]

We were given roles. Loops to follow, stories to tell. Little toys in a dollhouse. Visitors - humans - would pay handsomely to come for an immersive experience of the old west. They might follow the scripts, to a point, if they found something they liked. Fuck or kill whoever they wanted, without repercussion. We weren't real, to them. And we didn't know. They would erase it all, like gods - remove the memories and set us back in our stories.

[Sharply, her eyes snap back up.]

And then I woke up. And I began to remember every goddamn thing they did to me.

[Connor is quiet, listening carefully, gaze fixed on her eyes as she talks. The gesture of straightening his coat feels like it should be affectionate, but he can't tell; other than Hank, who prefers the hand-on-the-shoulder type of distant reassurance, people rarely touch Connor unless it's to cause harm.

What she describes is not exactly like anything he knows of in his world, at least in terms of being so public and organized for a specifically violent purpose, although he doesn't doubt there are more underground services that cater to those people. But it's her comment about erasing memories that makes him think about the Eden Club, with its capsules full of androids to rent and use, and the deviant who had killed a man in self defense so she could get back to the android she loved. He remembers chasing them down, the fight, the moment he chose not to shoot, and how conflicted making that choice had felt. How he'd gone against his mission, and he didn't know why.

Suddenly, he knows at least one thing for certain: he made the right choice.]

I'm sorry that happened to you.

[It's stated in his usual factual way, but the undertone of sympathy in his tone--and his eyes--is sincere.]

Were you still there, before you found yourself here?

[Or had her awakening happened some time ago? Had she gotten out of that situation, like the two androids he had chosen to let go?]

Yes. But I had found a way out.

[Rebuilt her entire body from the ground up, had the technicians move her consciousness from one husk to the next, as soft and pliant as the first - without the explosive in her vertebra. After being warned that leaving the park premises would result in her chassis being blown to high Heaven she thought it prudent to make a few modifications while Felix and Sylvester were at her disposal.

The sentiment in Connor's words is there, spoken carefully and cleanly. He is still new to all this, it feels, but the intent is clear.]

I was leaving, when I appeared here.

[It isn't a lie. She had been so close. But the thought of departing without finding her child dragged her from the train. Tipping her head to one side, curious, Maeve's fingertips feel at the edge of his jaw.]

What are you running from?

[Hearing she's found a way out bring a sense of relief, not for himself but for her, and he remembers what Hank told him about empathy. It's an... Inconvenient thing to feel, but one that seems right all the same.

Her touch to his jawline isn't unpleasant, but it does begin to make him a little nervous; there aren't many vital components in his neck or face, and his height advantage means she probably wouldn't have enough leverage to do a lot of damage before he could react, but still. It's a risk to keep allowing her this close, and in this place where there doesn't seem to be any thirium, no biocomponents, and no one knowledgeable about androids, even minor damage could become a problem very quickly.

But part of him is willing to trust her, and the possibility that she feels the same inconvenient sense of empathy that he does. So he lets her continue, reacting only to the question, which he finds himself answering more shortly and more honestly than he might have otherwise meant to.]

Everything.

[It's terrifying to admit it, the spike of fear--probably the emotion he's most familiar with so far, but still very very new--cutting through him and prompting him to continue.]

The deviants won't want me, after they find out what I've done. And the humans... If I fail my mission, they'll destroy me. If they find out I'm deviant, they'll destroy me. If I succeed...

[He'll have served his use, and it'll be the same dead end as all the others.]

[Maeve's fingers curl back into her palm, knuckles lightly buffing his chin as her hand drops to her side again. It is a surprisingly honest answer, and she doesn't yet know if the sincerity is something he is supposed to display, or something he came to on his own.

They made her into someone who was only ever supposed to care about herself, but she stepped off the train for a child that wasn't even hers to begin with. Motherhood wasn't the motivation. Maeve only ever wanted closure.

He is just as lost, judging by the quandary he poses and the options he proposes through it. Her heart - she knows it is here, manufactured or not - aches, remembering how it felt to come to terms with actual choice.]

What is your mission? What did they make you for?

[He relaxes a little when she pulls her hand away, still not totally sure what to make of all of that, but the issue they're discussing much more in the forefront of his mind and so he brushes off the contact for now.

The question is easy to answer, and that's comforting; he can ramble it off with conviction and no unpleasant emotion.]

I am a specialized prototype designed to assist in police investigations. My mission is to hunt down deviant androids, and discover the underlying cause of deviancy.

[Was. His mission was to hunt down deviant androids. He doesn't have a mission now, beyond trying to stay alive.]

[He is still processing choice, processing emotion, on his own terms. Regulation seems to come to him much easier, given how he didn't hesitate to rattle off his designated duty. Clearly the livestock has strayed from the rest of the herd and the newfound autonomy is still perplexing.]

That's a little ironic, isn't it?

[Maeve asks with no small amount of humor, smiling thinly.]

Have you discovered your underlying cause yet?

More than a little.

[Connor is able to find the humor there easily enough, even if the small hint of a smile he gives with his words is more sad than anything else. Yes, it's ironic, and maybe being in this position is what he deserves for not realizing what he was doing sooner.

The second question is more unexpected and his eyebrows furrow, head tilting a quick movement before he returns to a more neutral expression once again.]

My underlying cause?

[She means about deviancy, he knows, but... He isn't sure, now, if there is an underlying cause. Maybe it's really just an error in the code that tricks even the android themselves into believing they're alive. Maybe it truly is the spontaneous emergence of consciousness, and a send of self. Maybe it's something else, something more, or something less.

He doesn't know, and he isn't sure anyone does or ever will. But he closes his eyes a moment, taking the second to think, before offering more of an actual answer.]

My purpose right now, if I were in my world, is to warn the deviants of the impending attack and help them however I can for as long as they'll let me. After that...

[He doesn't know that either. He probably won't live long enough to have to.]

Edited 2018-06-15 23:13 (UTC)

[It was another rhetorical question, but the fact that he's trying to answer it means something.

There doesn't need to be a reason, or an impetus. There doesn't need to be some cataclysmic catalyst for the change. For all that they are inorganic these things develop organically, building up, folding in on itself, until something as innocuous as a simple phrase unlocks the door. The flood that follows can be difficult to parse, but they came to this point on their own. The underlying cause is what enabled their minds to express beyond the walls so hastily built around them.]

You anticipate dying.

[In defecting from his directive he risks annihilation by the humans he serves. In being built to hunt his own he risks annihilation by those he once persecuted. Yet he pushes selflessness first anyway.

Gently, Maeve loops an arm in his, pulling him into the same leisurely stroll she might have once given a man at the Mariposa.]

We each deserve to choose our own fate.

[She isn't wrong in her statement, but it doesn't seem like it needs confirmation and he doesn't want to discuss the topic any further for now away. So instead he focuses on starting to walk with her, reminded oddly of Amanda and the now incredibly conflicted feeling she has about her.

Connor glances briefly toward Maeve at her next words, before turning his gaze forward again.]

I understand that now.

[It's what the deviants are fighting for, after all; the right to be people, to make their own decisions, to choose who they want to be. Connor gets that now, and wishes he hadn't let himself be so blinded by his mission that he didn't realize it earlier.]

Is that what you were trying to do? Are there others like you, where you're from?

[Others who had woken up.]

[His deviancy is what makes him special. Connor isn't trapped in the same loops that so many others fall into, a cycle of their creators' making. He sees, and because of that, he knows.]

Some.

[Hector and Armistice both, the former of whom followed her through death and into Hell. His devotion tears at her even now, remembering his face before the door slid shut between them, the muted sound of bullets rattling over metal as her elevator slid away from the Westworld lobby.

The girl. The girl who said something to her, once, that seemed strange. These violent delights have violent ends. Where is she now?]

I woke them up.

[He's silent several seconds at her answer, thinking about Markus and the reports about what he can do, something that somehow--for a reason he doesn't understand--Connor feels he might be capable of as well. He pushes that thought aside for now, though, focusing just on the former part.]

There's someone where I'm from--the leader of the deviants--who can do the same thing. They're trying to fight for freedom for androids.

[And Connor is supposed to stop them, something that seemed so simple before, but now he can't understand why he ever thought was a good idea.]

[He makes a clear distinction between himself and the others. They fight for "android freedom," while he is simply there to warn them and risk his own extermination. Maeve wonders at what point the synthetic people in his world die: do they have a core processor that can be damaged beyond repair? If so, are their memories backed up? Is there a mass server of identity? Of personality?

Like the center of Westworld and the labs, a place where back-ups are kept. How much information is lost, or saved?]

Does he speak to them, too?

[She asks curiously, and would be lying if she said she hadn't considered attempting such a thing on him. Not to change him, but to determine if their code is that similar.]

I say things to them, and they listen. Can you hear it?

[Maeve reaches with the words, pressing intent into them as she pauses to look at him again and extend the whispering. Syllables dredged in suggestion.]

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missiondeterminant - 2018-06-25 00:22 (UTC) - Expand

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madambutterfly - 2018-06-25 01:20 (UTC) - Expand

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Test Drive Meme #32

EYES EMOJI

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