reverielogs | ( 002 » ENSEMBLE ) gravitational.

( 002 » ENSEMBLE ) gravitational.

» WHO? EVERYONE
» WHEN? JUNE 1 onward
» WHERE? ALL OVER THE STATION (literally)
» WHAT? Gravity is always on, until it isn't.
» WARNINGS? zero g, paralysis, the vacuum of space, possible asphyxiation, possible character death

0 0 1 » LOSS OF GRAVITY

The outer rings of Reverie Station rotate around the shaft of the station, using inertial forces to simulate gravity. One moment, this works fine — people are walking along corridors, sleeping in their beds, eating in the mess hall or having a drink at the bar. The next moment? In some parts of the station, a crunching sound can be heard, like metal against metal, and shortly thereafter, the rings cease to spin, causing a jolt to go through all rings.

And then what passed for gravity just stops.

Your food, drink or blanket might have floated off after the jolt. Remember to engage your mag boots, if you're wearing them, lest you follow suit. Good luck getting around in zero g.

( ♪ )

0 0 1 . 1 » UPSIDE DOWN AND FLOATING

The lack of gravity may be disorienting at first for those not used to operating in zero g environments. Fortunately, mag boots mean you can continue walking along corridors — though the boots will engage with what used to be the ceiling of the corridors as much as what used to be the floor. No matter which part of the corridor you're attached to, if any, better make sure to collect anything that may be floating around, lest it becomes a dangerous projectile whenever gravity turns back on.

The mess hall and the gym area in particular are in a significant state of disarray. In the mess hall, some cutlery (of the grey, hard plastic variant) has been left unsecured and is floating harmlessly through the air. The same holds true for a large amount of protein powder. In the gym area, meanwhile, the entirety of the dirty water from the pool is no longer in the pool.

( ☺︎ )

0 0 1 . 2 » PARALYSIS INDOORS

One moment, you’re walking — or maybe you’re floating, mag boots disengaged. Either way, from one moment to the next, you become unable to move. Your arms, your legs, even wiggling a toe becomes a thing of impossibility. There’s a heavy weight on your chest, despite the fact that gravity is still not back on. Taking a breath is an ordeal. You can’t call for help, you can’t signal to anyone, you can only stay still.

( ♪ )

OOC: The length of paralysis is up to players.

0 0 2 » TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

It isn't clear why the rotation of the rings has stopped and gravity ceased, but one thing is certain: life on the station is a lot more difficult without gravity, especially for those not used to living and working in a zero g environment. The sensible thing would be to fix whatever is wrong, but in order to do that, you have to figure out what's wrong first.

One way to get an idea might be to put on a suit (if required) and go out an airlock to have a close look at the upper ring, where the crunching noise could be heard the loudest. The objective is to identify the problem and, if possible, fix it — but unless you have the power of flight and can breathe in the vacuum of space, the walk from the airlock to surveying the ring will be taxing in and of itself.

Better not lose hold of the station or each other and whatever you do, do not disengage those mag boots. Hopefully, no debris will come flying at you. The station may be built to withstand it, but you aren't.

( ♪ )

OOC: There are some 20 vac suits with oxygen packs and small thrusters for (weak) propulsion available in the spaces currently accessible to characters; these can be found in various airlocks.

0 0 2 . 1 » FLOATING AROUND

The station may be built to withstand debris, but you aren't — which makes it all the more unfortunate that some debris does catch you. In the side, in the face or in the legs, it doesn't matter: what matters is that the impact is strong enough to disengage the mag boots, which means you are now floating in space.

Did your suit take damage? Do its thrusters still work, or not? Is your oxygen pack still connected properly? If your connection to the station network is still intact, now would be a good time to call for help and hope that someone's close enough to get to you in time before you float too far from the station to still be reached, before your oxygen runs out, before any possible injuries you may have sustained take their toll.

( ♪ )

OOC: With this prompt, the extent of possible injuries, the time before rescue and factors such as oxygen or damage to the suit are all up to players. Please keep in mind that character death is very much a possibility — but that death means relatively little. Should a character die from their injuries or lack of oxygen, they will awaken again. As per the death mechanism outlined in the FAQ, characters are brought back to life (possibly repeatedly, if rescue takes a while), but they lose something. What they lose is up to players as well (a limb, memories, senses, social skills, ...) and the duration of the loss can range from a few days to permanent loss.

0 0 2 . 2 » PARALYSIS OUTDOORS

One moment, you are walking along the hull of the station. The next, you're frozen. Your arms and legs no longer move and there's pressure on your chest. Even taking a breath becomes an ordeal. You cannot move forward. You cannot move back. You can't even signal or call for help.

What choice do you have but to wait out this paralysis and hope that it loses its hold on you before your oxygen runs out? Better not panic, lest you use up more of it.

( ♪ )

OOC: The length of paralysis is up to players.

0 0 3 » WORK IT

For those who've successfully made the walk across the hull of the station to find the problem, it will soon become obvious what has happened: debris crashed into the station and got lodged between the uppermost ring and the shaft of the station, where it is stuck, preventing the spinning of the ring.

You will need to work together to cut through the debris or dislodge it. It's heavy, and you have little leverage in the absence of gravity.

Keep in mind also that if you successfully dislodge the debris, the outer ring will start moving again. Be prepared, especially if you're still connected to the ring by your mag boots. Inertial forces can be quite strong, so you will need to brace yourself or risk being dislodged yourself.

( ♪ )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Ryo is well aware that Akira is only a half-step better than a damn Luddite; it'd taken him nearly a week to acclimate himself to a phone that had capabilities beyond calling and texting, and he was very slowly making progress in understanding the device that he kept strapped to his own arm. Now, for most things, he left them to Ryo. He didn't need the communicator for all of that programming and hacking and shit that he tended to get into, so he could just keep it all. But gaming? That's more his speed. Especially when it's something old-school like this particular program.

So he's paying very close and careful attention to the tutorial that he was being given. After all, he'd been the one who'd asked Ryo to make him a game.

He's so absorbed in the screen in front of him that he misses the approach of the stranger. He looks up at the word, setting the guy in a blank gaze for a moment. He doesn't look familiar. That's fine, though. A fiendish grin spreads across Akira's face, and he shakes his head.] Nah. Better. [He waves his hand in front of his communicator, fingers splayed, in a grandiose flourish.] This is Crawl.er, the evolution of Snake.

[Fine print: it's basically Snake, but there's a network-linked leaderboard.]

[ Ryo pauses in his explanation as Akira does, eyes lifting up to the stranger below with no more than an initial nod and the absent retracting of his hand. It is a contradictory answer in two parts, perhaps, but it works all the same. He'd spent the better part of four days coming up with something like this, given his coding skills weren't typically flexed for more "pleasurable" pursuits. To Ryo, making games was something he could do, but not something he often poured his time into. There were other things that that knowledge could do and Ryo often made ample use of it.

But, a request is a request. It wasn't something he minded, coming from the right person. ]

It has the same fundamentals, [ he adds. There's a small, but present tilt to his lips. It reads polite, but there's not much else. He turns his attention toward the holographic display again, indicating with the tilt of his chin that he's welcome to investigate it more if he'd like. ] But, most would recognize the adjustments as they play.

[ Read: it really is just an upgraded Snake. ]

[Well, if they were inviting, why not? Minato disengages his mag boots to float up to the ceiling alongside them, settling himself underneath them where he could still look at the communicator without getting all too close, both for his own disinterest in having his personal space invaded, and the respect of their own. He sits himself into a pretzel position, hands stuck in his pockets.]

Did you program this yourself?

[Akira grins as the other guy detaches himself from the floor and drifts upwards to where they were situated on the ceiling, thinking to himself that he could've lived in space for over a month and been dealing with zero gravity for a day or two and he still would never get used to this shit. Minato would not have to worry about his personal space being infringed upon from Ryo, who had very similar sensibilities, but Akira — was a different story. Fortunately he currently had Ryo to torment, though, and at least he didn't really mind.]

Yeah, it's a little different, but, [he gives a sage nod,] it's better.

[Spoken like a true master of what he was talking about, even though he really hadn't had much of a mind for games back home. He liked them, sure — he just hadn't really played them too often, though Snake had been one of the few that his ancient cell phone had supported.

The question isn't directed at him, so he doesn't answer, but he does clap Ryo encouragingly on the back.]

[ Ryo jerks forward a little under the impact, but not enough to get him to nudge out of his position. It is just enough to get his expression to shift into something temporarily and fleetingly surprised, his head turning toward Akira once he manages to pull himself back together. The look he gives Akira could have been termed "exasperated," if it wasn't for the way the blue of his eyes seems to lighten a little. He nods though, after a moment, his attention turning back to Minato. He appreciates the space, even if all current presentations would speak to the contrary. Or, rather, would speak to the fact that he's known Akira long enough to be this comfortable sitting so closely. ]

Yeah, I wrote it. It wasn't too complicated since the original isn't either. [ He wouldn't call it "better," but then again he hasn't bothered to play phone games for a while. ] It has some new features.

[ He'll concede that, at least. ]

[These two certainly looked well acquainted. The way that Ryo was looking at Akira hinted to exasperation (and some fondness in there, definitely) cooked up in doses well beyond the lengths of time that people had apparently been on the station, not to mention how Akira was practically draped over Ryo. He felt glad for them, that they had each other — it's always good to have friends, especially tried and true friends, in tough situations. Or more than friends? They did seem awfully close...]

New features does sound like it would be better.

[After all, snake wasn't a particularly interesting game, so much as it was just a mind numbing way to spend your time. It seemed as though he spotted scoreboards when he'd walked into the room though, and that was certainly a way to spice it up, not that Minato would consider himself someone to ever be a top contender. Never underestimate boredom, though.]

What did you add?

[Akira merely grins, confident to the point of cocky - he's aware that there's a single exception to the distance that Ryo maintains between himself and the outside world, and he's the sole person who fits into it. It's a privilege that he flaunts incessantly, but he decides to rein himself in a little bit, focusing more on the discussion at hand.

Akira's never played too many video games. Occasionally, sure, but he hadn't really had a game console at the Makimuras' house. He hadn't even had a smart phone until recently, so some of the only games he had any passing familiarity with were the shitty kinds of games shoved into a flip-phone: like Snake.

He's started poking at his communicator again, toggling some of the settings. The question causes him to look up to Minato with a bright smile.] You can change all the colors.

[Its - really not that impressive, Akira.

But he appreciates it, so.]

[ Ryo isn't necessarily one to complain about his awareness of that either, at least internally. He does put on a half-hearted show of resistance occasionally, but that's neither here nor there. Akira's always had him figured out in most ways anyway.

And vice versa, as it would seem. He isn't surprised that Akira hones in that feature. He anticipated that he would want to change the colors or the patterns at some point. Ryo was contented with great degrees of minimalism, but most people weren't precisely like him. Actually, very few people were. More than anything, that had been his major problem in life. But, still his attention evenly (or somewhat evenly) divides between Akira and Minato. He watches for a moment as Akira fiddles with his communicator and offers Minato a toothier smile. It prompts him to turn to offer his own attention to Minato as well. ]

Are you familiar with the online versions? [ Comparatively, Ryo is seemingly much more subdued than Akira is. He lifts a hand, gesturing toward the holographic projection, but his focus doesn't shift. ] It's closer to that.

[ Another thing that Ryo is good at: anticipating human behavior in some respects. He knows that humans grow bored of the same formula unless new information or aspects are added in. He knows this is true of himself to some extent as well. If he doesn't have something to work with, he seeks something out. ]

While you can play singularly, you can also compete with other players over the network. [ That had taken a little more effort. ] It expands the rules marginally, in that colliding with your own body or another's body will terminate your run. However, it's also advantageous to trap other players. By forcing them to run into your own body, you give yourself more access to limited resources and make them disperse their own. [ He glances briefly back to to Akira, curious to see if he's elected any snake to use by now. ] The larger they are, the more they leave behind. [ In other words, it is a slightly more refined version of a lot of games. ] The scoreboard, therefore, has a dual purpose: it not only tells the player in the lead that they have control of the field, but alerts everyone else to who they should target.

[ He pauses, before tapping at his own communicator with incredible dexterity. ] If you'd like, I could send you the executable file.

[ He cants his head faintly. ]

Edited 2018-06-29 16:36 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( 002 » ENSEMBLE ) gravitational.

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oops this tag got lost when my paid expired

thats ok im slow anyway

same here lol