riverview: test drive meme

[riverviewmod]

riverview test drive meme

Welcome to Riverview's first test drive meme! Feel free to dip your toes in on the test drive meme to try out your character in the setting, play out a mission, and get samples for your application at the same time!

● Reserves are currently OPEN.
● Applications open on March 1st.
● All threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon once the game is up and running.
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points.

Feel free to use the prompts below or create your own scenario. The setting is built to be flexible, so feel free to make things up as you go.

information resources
premise ● arrival ● setting ● ask a question ● navigation

prompt i: batten down the hatches

If the sky has seemed a little more yellow-green than usual for the past couple of days, there's a reason for that. Meteorologists have been warning of a particularly nasty storm blowing in from the direction of the Delta in the Southwestern part of the Abandoned City.

The Quarantine is about to be hit by a nasty typhoon, and there's a lot to be done. Whether you're helping sandbag the banks of the river, which is bound to be swollen by the storm and flooding, weatherproofing your building, or just huddling indoors for warmth and helping reassure your friends, family, or partner that everything will be okay, it's time to take action!

prompt ii: monster madness

There's been a lot of talk around the Quarantine about the various predators and monsters outside the fence, and how they've been getting steadily more active, crowding the fences, trying to leap over them, seemingly driven by some kind of mania. There have even been increasing instances of predators that normally mind their own business attacking the fences wholesale, slamming into it over and over as if they're trying to find a weakness.

The good news? The fences have been holding. So far.

The bad news? They won't be holding for much longer.

The Perimeter Guard is in a bad way, and it's all hands on deck. They've also sent out a few of the Perimeter Guard Cadets to post up flyers around the city asking for temporary help in fighting off the beasts. So pick up whatever weapon you're best with, hop onto a truck transport, and head on over to the fences to help drive off the monsters and keep the Quarantine safe.

prompt iii: hold your lover close

With a storm rolling in that's going to keep everyone indoors, that might cause power outages, and is just frankly pretty scary, a lot of the clubs, restaurants, and hotels are doing special events to keep everyone's brains occupied and flooded with endorphins.

There are flyers around the city advertising various couples activities: speed dating, dance classes, overnight pool parties, and all-expenses-paid lovers' nights in.

The catch? The great deals only count if you're a twosome. So if you don't have someone to love, hit up speed dating in the indoor courtyard of Riverview's largest mall, or grab the first person you see and take the opportunity.

prompt iv: solution

After a day or two of storm activity, things are definitely not getting better: the rain is torrential, the monsters are attacking with increased energy and decreased rest times, and the distractions are starting to wear thin. Power outages happen off and on, a very rare situation in Riverview Quarantine.

The government has put out an all-points-bulletin imploring anyone with an exploratory spirit to help.

From what government science techs can tell, the storm isn't natural - after all, even the meteorologists were saying that the pressure systems seemed extremely strange. They've managed to narrow the cause to an area in the delta where the storm seems to be originating from, and are broadcasting the general location so anyone with the guts can head out into the storm and try to find the source of it.

Any characters who decide to penetrate the jungle in search of the source will find a device in the shape of a pyramid, with glowing blue edges about a day's walk into the Abandoned City. The pyramid is a malfunctioning weather control device that is causing wild pressure fluctuations and causing the storm as well as making the animals in the jungle aggressive and erratic. Characters can destroy or deactivate the device to end the storm.

This mission can be threaded out however you would like, in groups however large you would like, and more than one team can accomplish the goal.

prompt v: wildcard/network

Whether you're looking for help with a mission or just want to get to know your fellow new arrivals, your character can make a post to the network.

Or you can choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!

navigation

Comments

[signifies]

[ Clark finds a small spot to sit down, cross-legged. He fishes the bar out of his pocket and eats quietly, folding up the wrapper to dispose of later. Silence doesn't bother him, and the world is never fully silent.

He watches Flint cooking, distracted only listening for anyone outside who might need help. ]

[diagenesis]

[No stranger he to silence. If the man is not compelled to speak, Flint certainly won't force the issue. He tends his soup, which is plain and hearty, the recipe is ages old. He uses few spices to make it palpable, and once it's cooked to his satisfaction he takes a bowl for himself.]

Should you change your mind.

[A nod to the pot. He's not averse to sharing.]

[signifies]

[ Clark nods. It smells good. The invitation is for the intimacy of a shared meal, with a man who's not overly inquisitive. It wouldn't hurt to make friends here at least for the time being.

He sits down opposite, taking a bowl. ]

Thank you.

[diagenesis]

[No need. And yet,]

You're welcome.

[Flint does not get drunk in any but the most dire of situations, but he still has a difficult time trusting water when he's accustomed to it being so commonly diseased and dirty back home, so he produces a bottle of wine and sets it out. His meaning is clear, but it's an invitation rather than any attempt at forcing the issue. Not everyone drinks.]

I suppose I should ask the requisite question, if you're inclined to answer. Assuming you're from Earth, what year is it for you?

[His tone is mild, leaving room for avoidance or a lie.]

[signifies]

[ Clark sets out two glasses. He doesn't mind a drink, if it's what's expected in this man's company. ]

I'm from Earth.

[ There's no reason to lie or avoid anything: he hasn't been asked about his abilities (yet). Kansas, the Kent's farm. The only home he knows. ]

It's 2013 last I knew. [ #comicbookmovies ] What about you?

[diagenesis]

[Always with the new fucking millennium. Flint is honestly used to it by now, it doesn't merit the least of his surprise.]

1717. [And, with mild amusement,] June 6th, if we're to get precise about it.

[signifies]

[ Clark smiles. ]

Did something happen in 1717 before June 6th?

[diagenesis]

[He chews, perhaps longer than he needs to on a chunk of dumpling. He's smiling too, which adds a sort of playful edge to what he says rather than one meant to mock.]

The sun rose. It set. The wind blew. A thousand men died the world over and a thousand more were born. Presumably, in any case.

[He spent it in a gaol in Nassau's fort with an old, familiar book for company that he knows now by rote, but that's neither here nor there.]

Besides that, nothing remarkable that I'm aware.

[signifies]

[ Clark's smile broadens and lingers. ]

The same thing happens in 2013.

[ Give or take one or two aliens. ]

[diagenesis]

Remarkable, how these things stay the same.

[He takes one of those glasses, and gestures for Clark to fill it with a polite nod.]

I've heard cars are quite the delight.

[signifies]

[ Clark obliges him. ]

As are planes. We even managed to land on the moon forty five years ago.

[diagenesis]

[He's about to open his mouth to ask what a plane is when that next bit sinks in. And if he were but a lesser man he'd have choked on his wine right there. As it is--]

The fucking moon?

[This is perhaps his first and truest moment of surprise in this hellbegotten place. Magic, he can accept. Cars make a linear sort of sense. Planes, once the concept is described to him, will put him in the mind of a man from Venice once upon a time. But the moon?]

[signifies]

That's right.

[ Gently out of habit. It's his first moment of overt surprise. De la Terre à la Lune came out in 1865, long after this man will be dead. ]

[diagenesis]

May I ask how, exactly, this came to pass?

[The surprise is gone, laid to a timely grave. Now he is only curious. It's boyish, almost. His first love, before Miranda, before Thomas took hold of his heart and took it with him to an early grave, was for learning.]

[signifies]

[ Clark's first love, since even before he knew he was from another world, were the stars. After he learnt what he was he devoured everything about it, and feels confident in his ability to explain rockets. ]

Do you have a pen and paper?

[diagenesis]

Mm.

[A soft, agreeable noise. Such things are never far from him, and he rises to fetch both with his food now forgotten. The paper here feels odd under his hands, too smooth and too perfect, but it is cheap and plentiful. He's been keeping a log in ancient Greek, which is the least-known of the languages he speaks, but it is not that book he offers to Clark, merely one like it.]

[signifies]

[ Clark draws a rocket, then a lunar excursion module, and finally the Apollo spacecraft, going from one to the other. He lingers on an aspect if Flint shows interest in it, unhurried in his explanation.

Humans haven't built anything as wondrous or efficient as the Kryptonian scout ship yet, but they will. ]

[diagenesis]

[His questions are sharp, and they show an innate understanding of the sciences as they stand in his age. If corrected on any account, he will not make such a mistake again. He learns quickly, with efficiency and by the end he's nodding. Christ, but what a world. Thomas would have loved it. It would have appealed to the freest part of him, and Flint's fingers are unerringly gentle as he traces the curve of a drawn rocket.]

Miraculous. Thank you for showing me this.

[signifies]

You're welcome.

[ He closes the notebook, and hands both it and the pen back to Flint to keep. ]

I'm happy to tell you more. I read a lot about it as a kid.

[diagenesis]

Please. As much as you feel comfortable sharing. Would you accept payment for your troubles?

[Education is never free, after all.]

[signifies]

[ He feels he can sit with this man quietly, else talk about something with levity. Money feels like a silly thing to use in this world anyway, when there's such a small community of them. ]

I wouldn't, but if you insist, a shared meal now and then would be nice.

[diagenesis]

[Men who ask nothing for their services, for their time are only ever of two sorts. The most trustworthy you will ever meet, or the most duplicitous. Flint trusts his instincts such that when he decides which this man is, he will be correct on the matter.

But he nods.]

So long as you don't mind simple fare. Of all the things I'm to catch up on, I admit that culinary pleasures are rather lower on my lists than the sciences.

[signifies]

I don't mind.

[ It's not the food. It's the sense of belonging that never clicks no matter how he grasps at it. Very few humans have come close to offering a sense of understanding, let alone companionship.

He already feels there'll be no one else like Lois. ]

If you like, I can use that journal and draw some more diagrams for you.

[diagenesis]

Consider it yours, then. Draw whatever you'd like.

[He gets up from the place he'd taken at Clark's side. He is slow about it, which may be mistaken for a disarming lack of wariness. Certainly he does not move like anything ails him. Yet, he is a man well-traveled and often injured, and the cold and the wet have sunk into his bones.

He feels old. And he is, for a pirate. The most reputable among them have often made their name before they were ten-and-twenty. Few can contend with the time on Earth that Teach and Hornigold had. Flint is nearly forty, and he knows damn well he doesn't heal like he used to.

It's cause for a pensive silence as he sits back down beside the cookstove. He shuts it off, stretches one leg out and leans his hand on his knee.]

What are the people like, in your time?

[Are they free? He wants to ask, refrains. He knows too much of human nature to be uncertain of the answer, yet hope persists in dark places.]

[signifies]

[ Clark tracks him by sound, alert for some illness in the body. Somewhere Flint himself might not know to look. Medicine has progressed since that time, and Clark has a useful X-ray machine in his eyes.

He folds the notebook in half, smooths the page, and starts with a cross-section of Sputnik. The sketch, in-progress, is clearly visible to Flint. ]

That's a broad question.

[ Clark looks over at him. ]

What are you thinking about, specifically?