TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[space_aces]

WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

Your journey only happened because of your benefactor, so it begets that it starts at your benefactor as well. SUPERBIA, which is as much of a location as it is an entity, is where everyone's search for Fortuna begins.

There's not much of a welcome party: shortly after their fateful encounter with SUPERBIA, in which they swore to join the quest to find Fortuna, the new Privateers will find themselves afflicted by a sudden change in perspective. See, teleportation is a tricky process, so from SUPERBIA's point of view, why not make the target destination none other than itself? One highly disconcerting moment later, and the Privateers find themselves inside the belly of the beast.

The vast mega-structure is shockingly lonely, void of anyone other than the Privateers. Those who look off the metal satellite and to The Network for intelligence (or take a skim at the Space Wikipedia article) will find out that the surrounding space is clear for lightyears; rumors have it that the place is cursed. It won't take long to understand why.

1

Overclocked

The innards of SUPERBIA are that of an impossibly scaled up computer, and the Privateers start right in the middle of it. You are the spider living in the dusty PS4. Literal rivers of coolant, transistors the size of mountains, landscapes made entirely of circuitry. The sky, bounded by a distant metal ceiling, is constantly alight with coursing electricity that cracks the sky with lightning storms. It can be assumed that the Privateers are the first living things to set foot here, because such a place is not ever meant to be traversed by delicate, organic, mortals that worry about things such as "temperature" or "voltage". SUPERBIA needs not lifeforms to continue its operations; why design for them? Traversal itself is difficult: unscalable walls and perilous drops are common to encounter. The only company the Privateers will find are oddly adorable maintenance robots, which sadly seem too occupied by their directives of maintaining the massive machine to offer any assistance (or even acknowledgement of their new guests).

It is immediately clear that the most urgent priority is to get the hell out of here. Before your adventure ends at the starting line.

2

Skeletons In The Closet

If one stays inside SUPERBIA, either by getting horribly lost or losing all common sense, one will notice a peculiar pattern emerge as one gets deeper into the bowels of the mega-structure. Passages shrink and become more level, and the incredible hostility and danger of the surroundings fade away, until one comes across areas which were definitely intended for humanoid organisms to use at one point.

The construction of these areas is cramped, unfurnished, and dreary; they are reminiscent of artificial environments meant to handle harsh external conditions like a submarine or bunker, but they are entirely livable. One can eventually find distinct rooms, but everything in them has crumbled to dust and their original purpose is nigh impossible to discern. Deeper investigation may reveal the few items that have stood the test of time. While it is more plausible for life to have existed here, that doesn't seem to be the case now. What happened here?

3

The Shipyard

In the opposite direction, when one finally reaches the outer edges of SUPERBIA, they will be rewarded with the place to pick up a spaceship and a stunningly beautiful view of outer space. The outside of SUPERBIA has no atmosphere to get between you and the stars, and they shine brightly, like a beacon calling one out into the first steps of adventure.

The shipyard is already filled with countless space ships of every size, form, and function, all autonomously constructed by SUPERBIA's factories over the countless years. What's the harm in taking one or twenty out for a spin? Even if one has no intentions of permanent ownership of the vehicle, it's not like SUPERBIA will miss it. For a Privateer with a more specific vision, however, there are kiosks around the yard which will allow one to design their very own space ship down to their exact specifications. When the process is done SUPERBIA's matter printers will have it out and space-ready right before your very eyes.

If a Privateer has a ship, vehicle, or large item that they intended to bring with them, they will also find them here, neatly parked in the Shipyard. Why didn't SUPERBIA extend this courtesy to the pilot's themselves? The answer is revealed as soon as the owner makes a closer inspection: the inner contents have been rearranged, like a whirlwind was unleashed inside and assorted loose items thrown around. Now aren't you glad your transportation was given special attention, and the same didn't happen to your innards?

4

Hot Crewmates in Your Area

But how will a single Privateer man an entire space ship? No worries: when one steps into a ship, the strangely endearing maintenance robots will suddenly take acute interest. The robots will follow inside and immediately start assuming the duties of a spacefarer, eliminating the need for extra hands on deck.

Even still, there's just no eliminating the want for a human touch, though. Thankfully even that dilemma has a contingency plotted by SUPERBIA.

Communication devices are easily available on every space ship. They come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from huge stationary consoles to portable smartphone-like screens. But whenever a Privateer attempts to access the Network, a pop-up will appear, obscuring the whole screen.

Tell me a little about yourself. Are you a LEADER or a FOLLOWER? What is your best feature?
The device will be rendered unusable until one relents to the pop-up's demands and provides answers to its questions. What will these be used for? The mystery will be solved when a social media app mysteriously installs itself on the same device, with profiles preemptively made for every Privateer. Each Privateer's profile consists of their given answers, paired with embarrassingly candid photographs. SUPERBIA has eyes in many places it seems.

Comments

Cal Kestis | Star Wars (Jedi Fallen Order)

[touching]

I. teamwork makes the dream work

Cal's job the for the last half-decade was to free climb through mile+ long defunct spaceships and set up the safety rigging for other scrappers to follow (or to just place the demolition charges, but that's less relevant here), so any time he meets another climber having some trouble he either offers to spot them at the first sign of slipping or requests that they help him locate scrap metal so he can weld foot and fingerholds into the more impassable sheer drops with the handheld welding torch he brought with him. He's got a shock of red hair, damp at the temples from the exertion of getting as far out of the belly of the beast as he has so far, and scuffed up clothes that look a little like he's been dutifully washing them and putting them right back on for the last five years. Which he has been, because the Scrapper's Guild does not pay well anymore. His face has a smattering of scars and a smearing of soot from his work, but he still manages to somehow look both a touch skittish and determinedly friendly, and he stands at a pretty generally average height for a human man.

He also, notably, has an explorer droid that's a little over a foot tall riding on his shoulders who occasionally flits ahead on tiny little propulsors and comes back with detailed holo-maps to help them locate the best route out to more survivable spaces. Cal seems to be trying to be pretty outgoing on his own, but he's got nothing on the excitable little droid, who keeps up a frequent stream of beeps and boops and blats (in droid binary, for anyone who speaks it), scuttling around and scanning everything that moves—including any Privateers the two of them happen to come across.

"Beedee—" Cal interjects as soon as he notices that there's someone on the receiving end of his droid's bright blue scanning sweeps, smiling apologetically as the droid stops with a beep that sounds somehow distinctly whiny. "Sorry, he's just curious." And if they seem willing to talk: "I'm Cal, he's BD-1. Are you trying to get out of here too?" (Who knows? Maybe some people are supposed to be down here.)

II. the dust has feelings, actually

Anyone wandering through what might have once been sleeping quarters can follow a series of beeps and trills, and the low murmur of an answering voice. Further investigation reveals Cal crouched over one of those precious few remaining items, his little droid walking in a curious circuit around him and throwing out scans. Cal reaches to touch it, searching for its history through the Force, looking for the emotion of the last living thing to touch it but finding... emptiness instead.

"I don't know, buddy, there's nothing left in the echo. It's too old. Older than the Zeffo, I think." He sighs, stands up and brushes off the knees of his pants, oblivious. "Even the Force doesn't hold onto stuff forever." The droid lets out a staticky bwee! at the same time Cal turns towards whoever might have overheard him, looking like a deer in the headlights (or a more appropriate space creature in setting-appropriate-vehicle lights) for a moment. "Oh. Uh, hi."

IV. bumble for pirates

Cal's unflattering candid picture is mostly of BD-1 peering at the camera up-close and curious, with Cal actively sneezing into the crook of his own arm in the background. Lovely.

Tell me a little about yourself.
I'm Cal Kestis. I was a scrapper, but there doesn't really seem to be a market for that here, so I'm also a decent mechanic. And BD-1 says he'd be willing to help us out on the search too. He's an explorer droid, I should mention that. He says "hi".

Are you a LEADER or a FOLLOWER?
I don't know. I guess I don't really want to be in charge of anything, but I prefer decision making by committee.

What is your best feature?
I'm good at finding stuff. That's gotta count for something here, right?

WILDCARD

If you have something else in mind that doesn't fit any of those starters, go ahead and throw it at me, I'm flexible! Alternatively if you'd like to plot something else first hit me up by PM or at Cris#4369 on Discord.

i

[dumedknight]

Kanan is making fairly good time in his attempt to get somewhere less precarious. Although he can't see, the smell of coolant and the heat alone are motivation enough to find somewhere objectively safer. He's been listening for others, ready to help, but the trill of binary is the first unusual sound he's heard. He pauses to determine the type of droid when he hears someone speak.

"It's fine. I'm used to more cantankerous droids."

He flashes a wry half-smile.

"Kanan. And yeah I'm looking for somewhere a little less deadly."

omg a kanan!! ♥ hello!

[touching]

Cal laughs, shoulders easing slightly at the pleasant response. He pauses long enough to wipe the sweat from his brow as BD gleefully resumes its nosy inspection of the man. The little guy is about as polar opposite of Chopper as any droid could possibly be, and it spits out a cheerful little splat of noises as soon as it's done. The thank you in them is pretty clear, even without being able to understand droid binary.

Looking over the man, Cal is surprised by how calm he seems. Cal is sort of in his own element, and he's still freaking out a little bit. Alright, a lot he hasn't been able to reach anyone on comms, and he's using the difficulty of escaping as a way to distract himself.

"I don't think that's going to help him, buddy," Cal says when the droid backs up to an equal distance between them and shines a bright holo-map of the path they've travelled so far and the place just up ahead. "Sorry, Bedee got some scans from past this wall, it looks like there's a corridor there but it's a straight shot up. How good are you at climbing?"

hello!!

[dumedknight]

If anyone else had been here, he might've jokingly suggested a trade-- Chopper for BD. But there wasn't an audience for the joke, so he stuffs it down.

Kanan's calm is achieved through a lot of practice and a fair amount of compartmentalization. Having someone young-sounding nearby just solidifies his need to be calm and confident.

Ah, a holomap. It'd be helpful, sure, but Kanan has learned to use the Force to supplement his remaining senses, so at least he's no more lost than anyone else. He tilts his head, turning toward the wall and reaching out in the Force to 'read' the surface of the wall. Certainly scalable, even without any equipment or Force-abilities.

"Pretty good. And the boiling lava is a pretty good motivator."

ii

[sisterspider]

"Hi," the turquoise-haired woman returns, a smile curving her full lips. "You have some sort of talent for psychometry, then?"

It wasn't the weirdest thing Nia Worn had encountered in her life. Sure, it amazed some and frightened others, but she'd always felt that what really mattered was how these people used their powers. Did they menace others? That was a problem. Otherwise...live and let live.

"I'm Nia. Didn't mean to bother you, I just heard a voice and couldn't help myself. Had to come and investigate. Everything okay? Need a hand?"

She had two of those, in working condition, even, so why not offer?

IV

[kid_devil_you_dont_know]

[[OOC: Like I was really going to be able to resist tagging you, with the faceclaim I have... LOL. I rambled about Eddie's ship in my own top-level so you have details to react to.]]

At some point after Cal's answers have posted to the social media app, an alert sounds -- he's received a message from someone else here on SUPERBIA.

I don't mind decision making by committee either. Currently it's just me here, in this ship I had made. And a bunch of bots giving me the silent treatment. Wanna swing by and check it out?

4

[sleepfan]

Decision making by committee is terrible. It involves so many meetings.

What is a scrapper?