Test Drive Meme #32

[hadrielmods]

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?]

Comments

[madambutterfly]

[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?

[missiondeterminant]

[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.]

[madambutterfly]

[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?

[missiondeterminant]

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.]

[madambutterfly]

[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.

[missiondeterminant]

[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.]

[madambutterfly]

[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.

[missiondeterminant]

[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.]

[madambutterfly]

[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.]

[missiondeterminant]

[Connor is having difficulty admitting to himself that he might be deviant at all, let alone potentially part of the deviants as a revolutionary group. It's too much too fast, his worldview already completely overturned in a moment.

He glances toward Maeve again at her question, and then at her words themselves, and he feels... Something. He isn't sure what, exactly, but it's almost like how he felt when Amanda spoke to him; nothing overt, but an underlying sense that he should do as he's told, because it would be best for everyone.

He unhooks his arm from Maeve's, taking a step back, not exactly alarmed but feeling the need to have some space.]

I can hear it.

[But it's probably apparent in his tone and posture that he'd prefer not to. He still doesn't think Maeve means any harm, but the whole things bothers him in a way he wasn't expecting and isn't sure exactly how to define.]

[madambutterfly]

[He starts and pulls away, an act that surprises her in a situation that has spiraled so deeply into a lack thereof. Maeve raises her palms in a gesture of supplication and apology.]

I wasn't certain you would. [Seeing as they appear to be from vastly different worlds, Maeve would not have put much stock in the success of efficacy of the very technique she used to evade the orders that the humans planted in her.] I won't hurt you, or make you do anything you don't want to do.

[Gentle, soft. Sincere. She isn't yet certain if she can without making a suggestion obvious, but neither would she want someone directing her about. She's had enough of that for several lifetimes, and Connor is blatantly new to his own emancipation.]

Our code must be similar. The ability is something I came into quite by accident.