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

Aidan Nichols | OC

[toomanynitrogens]

"What happened to Texas?" he says to himself as he looks around at the strange room. Seconds after he speaks, the grid fades away, replaced with sand, tumbleweeds, and buildings from the 19th century. Somehow, he's found himself in a Western and his clothes have been altered to match.

"Has anyone see the man with only two fingers on his right hand?" he hears someone loudly ask nearby. Shit. He only has two fingers on his right hand! Aidan sticks his hands into his pockets and tries not to walk away from the center of this small dusty town too quickly. It might attract attention and that's the last thing he wants if someone's looking for him for some reason.

(OOC: Basically, he's stuck playing the part of a man accused of burning down a barn and killing the horses inside it. Are you out to lynch him? Will you try to clear his name? Does he need a lovely lady to take care of him until the situation calms down? Take the cheesy situation and run with it.)

[rejoined]

"Texas?"

Okay, Dax is 95.3% sure she hadn't been running an old Earth Western program about two minutes ago, but here she is now. Someone asking about two fingers catches her attention, too, though she probably looks about as out of place to a human as Aidan feels here. Her spots do stick out and she's kind of glad that this is a holodeck program.

Hard to tell who's part of this and who isn't.

Hands on her hips, Jadzia frowns around the center of the town from where she's standing on a porch. "All right, who wants to tell me what's going on?"

This is... probably not the way to do this, but she has no patience for games right now. She might develop patience later, but right now she's just confused. And Dax does not like being confused.

[toomanynitrogens]

Several people in the program tell her that a man with missing fingers had been the last person seen near the barn of the largest farm in town before it burst into flames last night, killing the horses within. In fact, smoke and the unmistakable smell of burnt meat still linger in the air. A couple openly express their desire to have the culprit killed.

He's not far from her porch, ducked in what might be an alley with his white cowboy hat off, and while part of him listens to the details of his supposed crime, another part is very aware of the spots along her hairline. Freckles aren't that large or that patterened, so who, or what, is she? But she seems as confused as him and that's as good a place to start as any.

Aidan creeps to a place that should be on the edge of her vision and eases out his right hand to reveal that he only has his thumb and index finger. Where the rest should be is nothing but varying shades of healing scar tissue. His palm is intact, just not his fingers.

Re: Yoda | Star Wars

[princessstabbity]

Small child soon joins him. She gasps at him with wide eyes and asks, "Are a goblin?"

[diplomaticsolutions]

She has taken to wandering the halls, perhaps to seek a purpose, although if there is one to be had, Padmé has not found it yet. It is still, in truth, an attempt to adjust to this new situation that she has found herself in. No doubt it is harder for those who are not familiar with space travel, although Padmé has never been one to remain for extended period of time aboard a ship.

It can be argued that it would be hard to miss him, although the complete opposite is also true. Small as he is in stature, he is large in other ways. There is a pause, before Padmé does make her way towards the Jedi. "Master Yoda..."

[princessstabbity]

"My bestus friend in the ENTIRE WORLD is a goblin," she informs the not goblin in that serious way that only small children can.

"Uncle Rory wanted me to do lessons but I didn't want to do lessons so I'm hiding." She put a fingers to her lips. "You can't tell him I'm here."

There's logic in this. Somewhere.

[diplomaticsolutions]

He is much the same, although... Although perhaps older, she thinks, as she gets closer. He has always seemed so, and Padmé knows that he has been around for ages. Then again, she feels she has aged decades in only minutes before coming here, and that sadness still clings to her like a cloak. She does offer a smile though. "As does my own, although I am sorry that you have found yourself aboard this ship."

[rejoined]

The more Dax hears of the program, the more she figures this is probably either a malfunction in the hologrid -- in which case, she has to go all the way through the program to get out -- or there's someone out here with her. Stuck, from the sound of it. Either way, they'll probably have to go through the story.

Turning towards the person barely waving a hand at her, she carefully makes her way over. She doesn't hurry, as though she intended to go here to meet this person. Once out of sight of the main road -- and now close enough that whoever this is will have a clear view of the spots all the way down her face and her neck -- she looks him over with a frown.

"What happened?" she asks. "The whole town is looking for you. Are you as lost as I am or are you part of this program and you're thinking I'm completely crazy?"

Can't hurt to figure that out right away.

[diplomaticsolutions]

Her brow furrows slightly, as if trying to make sense of his words. Of course she could see him, and clearly too. Unless... She still isn't certain if this isn't some other plane of existence. Has he somehow cut through it to arrive here?

"I can, yes, very clearly." It is offered with a small nod of her head. As clear as ever." His next question though. She misses them still, those babies she would never even know. Ani... Even Anakin. There is a shake of her head as her hands rest below her stomach. "Yes, and no... The situation."

[diplomaticsolutions]

That she is dead is a given, but some of the events that Padmé has learned here don't point to everyone being in the same state. She cannot explain it, anymore than she can explain most things here. "It is the last thing I remembered before coming here."

That lightness in her voice, as Padmé has always known that all things come to an end. But that? That does still her, give her pause, and yes, a brief flash of hope and longing. Her eyes search his, and drop. "Comfort? Perhaps. It would depend what the future held, but it needn't be only about comfort."

[toomanynitrogens]

"Lost. Or I've been around too many chemical fumes. One moment I was at home and the next I was in a room with a yellow grid. I think I said something to myself about Texas then this...whatever it is appeared around me. A program, you said?"

At clueless as he is about the where or why of this, Aidan is fortunately genre-savvy in Westerns thanks to one of his grandfathers and his hat color's a convenient clue. "I've got a white hat so I'm the good guy here. Someone, probably someone important in this place, is going to be wearing a black hat. They're the real bad guy." Beyond that, he's flying blind and if the woman near him is supposed to play the part of his love interest...well, that's got a snowball's chance in hell of playing out as intended.

[rejoined]

Room with a yellow grid accurately described the holodeck out of use. Jadzia isn't familiar with Westerns like this -- Earth things -- but she can follow along with someone who is. As for the love interest thing? Not happening. Jadzia is a married woman. She can pretend, but... nothing more.

"We're on the holodeck," she explains. "It's like... playing through a storyline. If you're the good guy, that's the part you're supposed to play. My guess is that we'll have to play through the whole thing to get out of this." Which could be good or bad in the long run.

"If that's true, this bad guy probably wants you for something. The people here were talking about someone burning down a barn. You... probably didn't do that, did you?"

[diplomaticsolutions]

There is both joy and sorrow at that. Sorrow that she isn't there to see their first steps, to hear their first words, to send them off to school... Oh, but such joy as well. All she ever wanted was the best for them. A soft breath is exhaled, although she knows by now it isn't needed. "Thank you, Master Yoda."

[diplomaticsolutions]

She does, trailing behind him like a ghost- quite literally. She is still learning, but the basics she has discovered. "It is a ship called the Enterprise, which belongs to a United Federation of Planets. An entity called Q is given credit for bringing us here. It-"

She pauses. "It seems to defy most rules. I've spoken with Master Kenobi, and he has yet to experience what I have."

[diplomaticsolutions]

"I- there is some he already knows." Everything? No, certainly not everything. Yet she had been confused to be here, confused when she had spotted him. The last she had seen him was there in that medical bay. She had thought, perhaps, he might know something but she had found out that he didn't.

[diplomaticsolutions]

There is something in his words that does have a thought popping up in her head. Padmé knows she has nothing to return to. She is dead. She isn't blind as to what she had arrived in, knowing funeral customs well enough. "No one has addressed that issue, about what happens to those who leave."

[toomanynitrogens]

"There's no way to force it to stop?" That doesn't make sense; programs are supposed to be able to stop whenever someone with the right authority tells it to. Aidan believes her, but that makes things annoying. How is he supposed to figure things out when nobody in the town will talk to him?

When she asks him about the barn, something sad crosses his face. "I've never intentionally damaged property in my life and wouldn't do it here," he sighs and picks his words carefully. "I'm Aidan, by the way. What do I call you?" Down on the far side of the main street, the farm's owner, a man with a black hat firmly on his head, strolls by asking questions.

[OOC: You are welcome to write NPC stuff as well if it helps progress matters.]

DW ate my tag apparently.

[princessstabbity]

She gasps. "ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE INVISIBLE?!"

Her eyes go wide. "DOES THIS MEAN I CAN SEE INVISIBLE PEOPLE NOW?!"

Clutching her head she wavers about in an overly dramatic gesture. "THAT'S SO COOL!!"

Volume control, she has not.

[diplomaticsolutions]

She can feel his gaze on her, although her own eyes remain looking out in the vast expanse of space. They are very Jedi words that he speaks, and a Jedi she never was. Human, as plain and simple as that. "Can- can you still feel it here? The Force?"

Ah well.

[princessstabbity]

She's five and doesn't understand the concept of treading carefully... then again, no one in her family does.

Still, she does rein in her volume somewhat.

"What's the Force?"

[diplomaticsolutions]

She doesn't know it's ways, yet she is surprised by that. Padmé doesn't press, as she knows that Jedi have always tended to hold information close, but she would have thought dying would have changed some things. She isn't living, so what does that mean.

Even still, Padmé will admit that there is something calming about the Jedi Master. Even the appearance of Obi-Wan had done that. But as to his meditation, she does provide, "They will assign you quarters to reside in eventually."

The Doctor (The original, you might say) | Doctor Who | OTA

[of_totters_lane]

The arrived in the strange room from...well, nowhere, really. Even he would be hard pressed to explain what precisely had happened. Transmat beams left a certain feeling that was lacking here. This was, in point of fact, new.

He looked around at the room, a muttered 'hmph' being his only comment. He would soon discover its use, at the panel by the door. He moved to it, squinting at it, then clapped his hands in delight.

"Holographic technology, how delightful."

Adam Worth | Sanctuary | OTA

[bastard_sobriquet]

Observe a man. He is dressed in a Victorian-era suit, of good quality but nothing flashy. A decent suit, for what appears to be a decent man. The face looks around, wide-eyed as he nearly stumbles out of the holodeck door, blinking at the sudden change of light.

"Imogen, where..." he turns in a full circle, not seeing who he is looking for, and there is a moment of almost stillness.

Then, were you looking carefully, you would observe the look shift, and become something...else. Something that observes all around it with a significantly more jaundiced eye.

:P

[princessstabbity]

"Magic! I know that! I have magic! Magic is everywhere! But it's not here. Which is hard."

[princessstabbity]

Force, magic, similar but somewhat different things. But one of those things that is hard to explain why.

"Uncle Rory says that our magic is weaker here because there isn't a cosmic web in this world." From a pocket she pulls out some candy and offers one to Yoda. It's chocolate, only slightly melted.