NOTE: The locations in this test drive are placeholders and do not fit with current game events. Due to ongoing changes as we shift to arc 3, contents of this test drive as they related to specific areas or activities are unfortunately not able to be incorporated as game canon, though if it is possible for a particular thread, you may assume conversations took place similarly in a different setting once the changeover happens ICly. Test drive threads may of course still be used for application samples!

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Ingress travel can be disorienting, but there’s no need to worry! All side effects are temporary and lessen with each trip. Your body may experience several sensations at once: being pushed forward as if a hand is resting on your back, momentary and startling blindness, a gentle ringing in your head. You may have difficulty discerning whether it is hot or cold, but where you have been prodded is noticeably warmer than the rest of you. Some may suffer from dizziness while others are perfectly fine. You notice that the area you are in is filled with a soft cerulean light and feels slightly humid and dark despite the glow around you. Regardless of your current state, however, the stress of initial Ingress travel forces your body into unconsciousness.

Waking up is another story. Or maybe it isn’t.

You find yourself in a nondescript room; sometimes with others who have found themselves in the same situation, sometimes alone. A robotic medical tech is always present to explain what’s happened in a rote fashion, though his programming does not permit him to answer specific questions. He provides some clothing, a TAB, and a guide that explains the basics of Ingress travel and why you are here. Outside the room, you'll find you're on a space station that is staffed only by other robots; the only other organics there are those who recently arrived with you, or perhaps your predecessors, who are strolling the halls in search of an observation deck or the tech they've been sent here to fix. Why not introduce yourself and say hello?

phanos

* The planet Phanos is not as it was during the last visit there. Storms of dark energy swirl across the sections of the world, though they do not yet overwhelm it. The temperature is cooler now, but sandstorms still kick up with great frequency, making cooperation an important part of survival as groups make their way across the landscape, investigating the changes. The pyramid forest remains, but the griffins who live there now venture farther down from their nests, and around a third of them have been twisted by the storms' energies into even more aggressive, monstrous versions of what they once were. Do not take one on alone, or it may be your last mistake.

* Inside one of the tallest pyramids, the lab remains intact, and rumors speak of a locked chamber in its heart that contains valuable material—but is that in the technological sense, or does it hold something monetarily precious in the right market? Maybe you don't care and you're just nosy. Either way, the vault is sealed away behind a series of complicated sliding puzzles that have just one catch—they are not possible to solve without two people operating the locking station. Are you here with a friend? If not, better hope the next guy to come along has a sharp mind for this stuff.

OUT OF CHARACTER INFO

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I am battling alien abduction and only have this t-shirt for my valiant efforts"

Doesn't quite have the same ring, but I'm open to suggestions.

Is the humour supposed to be in how literal it is?

Maybe the humor's a little beyond your generation. That's just how some things are, y'know?

Don't fret about it, Prof. You're still cool.

[ Beyond his generation. Well, it's certainly nicer than just calling him "old." He has to give the kid credit for that. ]

Thank you for that. I think.

And for the record, I think we're all aliens now. Whatever difference the distinction makes at this juncture.

[You were old ten years ago, you're even older now.]

This opens up so much for discussion. Are we the good aliens, the bad aliens, the neutral aliens. *Are* there bad aliens?

If I keep typing aliens it's gonna stop being a word soon. Aliens.

A l i e n s.

[ W O W. Rude af, Peter. ]

Good and bad, as always, remain more a point of view than anything with a concrete definition.

[ You know, it's the same discussion we could have right now about you-know-who. He doesn't press it beyond that; there's no need. Regardless of who they're actually talking about, it still applies. ]

Here, it very much depends on whose perspective you're measuring. Though I would be careful about how public you are with that line of questioning at present.

[Rude would be calling you ancient. Old is just a fact!]

Am I close to stepping into some weird political minefield or something? Duly noted.

[ ~~Huffemoji.gif~~ ]

Something like that.

In fact, I believe you could even call it
An alien political minefield?

[If that's an attempt at humor, Peter's gonna just - yeah, Prof. No.]

So I'll keep my anti-everything chats and riot planning rebellions private, got it.