TEST DRIVE #15 - Holodeck and Ten Forward

[ten_fwd_mods]

001: Where were you a minute ago? Well, you aren't there anymore. Instead, you're standing in a very large, dark room lined with yellow. There are doors at either end of it.

Here's where things get a little choose your own adventure-y. You could:



1: Approach a console filled with buttons, located a few feet away. Press one, and it'll let you out of the room. Travel down a long hallway and you'll be in Ten Forward, the Enterprises' entertainment lounge. Have a drink, mingle and try to figure out why you're here.

OR

2: Maybe you just muttered some vague request under your breath. Maybe you wished aloud you were somewhere else. Or for help? If you did, might be in a fire station. Muttered something about killing whoever dumped you here? Surprise - you're in a slasher movie!

Though they're confusing, these visions feel about as real as they can be. And guess what - other people can experience those fantasies with you, as if they too were really there. How ever will you escape? Or do you want to?

[OOC: Welcome to the Holodeck! If you choose this option, whatever your character chooses to say out loud will cause a virtual reality program to load and play. While your character feels as if what they're experiencing and seeing is quite real, they're purely living through the latest and best in what he Enterprise has to offer in entertainment. Make sure to detail what your character's fantasy is, so that those threading with them will know how to react.

Open til next month's test drive!]

Comments

[of_totters_lane]

"Not ordinarily, no," he replies, hands going to his lapels.

"But if it is projected, perhaps in conjunction with some variation on deflector technology, it can be done. It seems they did it. Quite marvelous, really."

He takes a few steps forward.

"And do you notice - how large was this room when we entered?"

[splendid_roman]

"Yes," he said, nodding. "It was a lot smaller than it looks now." At least bigger on the inside was a concept he was used to. Even if it defied explanation.

"It's just an illusion, though, isn't it?" He still couldn't get his head round the idea of light you could touch, despite the Doctor's explanation. Which he didn't really understand, but didn't want to look ignorant by saying so.

[of_totters_lane]

"Precisely, and again precisely."

He smiled, beginning to walk around the pyramid.

"The room is of one size, yet here we are, moving inside of a far greater space. It is not transcendental - so clearly, we are moving in a space that is moving with us. Amazing, isn't it?"

[splendid_roman]

"It is," Ian agreed, a little breathlessly. He looked around, at the sky and the floor, but the illusion was complete and he couldn't see any sign of how it all worked.

"How does it know where we are in the room?" He tapped on the floor, but it felt like the ground, not a floor on a ship. "What would it do if one of us stayed here and the other walked a mile away?"

[of_totters_lane]

"I suspect it would move the hard-light 'ground' under our feet, and use projection and our own perceptions to do the rest. I suspect we do not actually move very far into the room, but the room moves around us.

He thumped the ground with his cane, nodding in approval as sand scattered.

"Impressive detail."

[splendid_roman]

Ian shook his head, not really understanding the Doctor's explanation. Which was nothing new.

"What happens if I try to take it out of this room?" he wondered, bending down to pick up a handful of sand. But when he straightened up he realised there was a problem with that. "Where's the door gone?"

[of_totters_lane]

"Hmm?" He turns from his examination of a fallen bit of statuary, then looks around in a slow circle.

"It appears to have vanished on us!"

Oh dear.

[splendid_roman]

"It must still be there, we just can't see it." Logically. Ian started walking in the direction the door had been, his arms out. But of course the illusion moved with him and he never reached the door.

"There must be some way to get out of here." He looked around him, as if a clue would appear. "Open sesame!" he tried, and a door opened in the nearest pyramid. It was not the door to the corridor, but the door into the pyramid.

"That wasn't what I meant."

Oh gosh we've started a First Doctor adventure and it is *wonderful*

[of_totters_lane]

"I'm surprised it worked at all," he replied, taking a careful step towards the pyramid.

"Hrm. Perhaps we are required to finish the program in order to exit. Until we can figure out the proper commands to terminate it early, at any rate."

This was all very familiar, if holographic. Though at this stage, he'd be not at all surprised to see Barbara Wright as Nefertiti, enthroned and giving orders.

Well. Nothing for it then. "Well then, we'd best get to it."

[splendid_roman]

"We don't even know what the goal of it is." He wished Barbara was here. They'd probably have to carry out some historical act and he didn't know what it could be.

But he headed into the pyramid before the Doctor - if there was any danger he wanted to confront it first.

Inside there was a flaming torch by the door, which Ian took. The rest of the corridor was dark, but there were some hieroglyphs on the wall. Ian held the torch closer to it, but it didn't mean much to him. "Do you know what this says, Doctor?"

[of_totters_lane]

He leans in, close behind Ian, lifting his spectacles.

"Hmph. Whomsoever disturbs the tomb will suffer an agonizing torment in life and the afterlife."

He half-chuckles.

"Fairly standard curse, really."

[splendid_roman]

"Enough to keep out anyone superstitious." Which didn't describe either of them, so Ian carried on.

He'd only gone a couple of steps when there was a roar from up ahead. "That sounds like our agonizing torment. Or a set up to try and convince us there's a monster in this pyramid."

[of_totters_lane]

He makes a displeased sound which says a lot about his thinking on beings who allow such superstitions to get the better of their natural intelligence and curiosity.

"I would say so!" he pronounced, hand on a lapel. But his eyes were watching the walls.

You never knew when they were going to suddenly close in, after all. It seemed less of a historical pyramid and one in which he expected Peter Cushing to appear.

[splendid_roman]

Just a roar wasn't about to stop Ian - he'd faced all sorts of monsters in the past - and he carried on walking. At least until he came to a fork. He held the torch down each corridor, but they didn't look any different to each other. And the possible-monster was quiet.

"Does any of this tell us which one leads where?"

[of_totters_lane]

After all they have faced - what terrors could a holographic beast in a holographic labyrinth have for them?

He looks around, using the light to examine every possible angle of the fork.

"None whatever - but a fork alone is strange - pyramids were usually quite straightforward affairs, barring the blockages to deter intruders."

[splendid_roman]

"I suppose this is someone's idea of what a pyramid should be like." Or they decided to put a maze in a pyramid, who knows. "All right, let's take the left fork every time we have a choice." And he proceeded confidently down the left tunnel. Accordingly, the beast (if that's what it was) roared again, sounding closer this time.

[of_totters_lane]

"It would appear so, and a poor one. I wonder - has something happened in the intervening centuries to prevent accurate knowledge from filtering through?"

He follows after, watching the walls.

"Keep your eye out for tripwires, Chesterton."

[splendid_roman]

That was just asking for Ian to walk into one. He didn't realise he had until he heard the sound of shifting stone and looked behind him to find the walls were closing in behind them.

He rushed over and tried to stop the stone from moving, but whatever force was behind it was stronger than he was. "Let's hope there's another way out of this maze."

[of_totters_lane]

He tried to brace it with him for a moment, wondering idly at how the 'stone' could exert pressure like that.

"There would have to be - else it wouldn't be fair, now would it?"

He had a theory about these things, that when encountered they tended to follow certain rules, especially the fictional ones.

[splendid_roman]

"Hmm," Ian said, generally unimpressed. "I feel like we're being herded into a trap." Which was only confirmed from him when the next fork of their maze revealed the left corridor to end a few metres away, leaving the right corridor as their only option.