Multiversal 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 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 transit 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. Welcome to Avagi Station, your new home.
Avagi
That First Step, it is a Doozy:
There are always risks to exploring new environments and Avagi is rich with new nooks and crannies to explore. You’re checking out a new corridor that’s been opened, though there have been signs warning that there are areas where structural stability has been weakened by neglect and the passage of time. But maybe things have been going well, you’ve found a few interesting things of note and you’re ready to head back to your bunk for the day.
Except when you turn to leave, the floor is giving way without a screech of metal. Hopefully you’ve got some good reflexes and can catch yourself before you topple down a shaft that seems to go down at least thirty or forty feet. Do you call for help or struggle to handle it on your own? And more importantly, how are you getting around this giant hole in the floor now that it’s there?
The Buddy System:
In order to help new arrivals find their bearings the more experienced residents on board have decided to try out the buddy system in order until the new arrivals get their space legs. The guide is responsible for answering any questions, showing them all the important facilities and making sure their new friend doesn’t wander anywhere too dangerous. And what better way to get to know your buddy than to try and help them find all the supplies they need to be comfortable in their new home? Hopefully the barter blocks have some clothes in your size or else it could get a little bit awkward come laundry day.
Shining Bright:
The Observation Station is the best place on Avagi to get a look at the storm that rages all around. However today when you stop by there’s something strange and new to look upon. It’s not clear if it’s a change in the environment or perhaps an effect of the living energy that opens the portals but the entire room is filled with softly glowing floating lights. If you venture into the room and dare to touch one of the lights you’ll find that you find a song playing in your mind that fills you with a deep and abiding sense of peace. What you do with that feeling is up to you but it seems that these lights aren’t going to cause any harm then why not let yourself relax in a beautiful space for a little while?
Kaittos
This month there is a portal to the planet Kaittos, a peaceful world containing one large land mass and a scattering of lived-on islands across a clear blue ocean. On the mainland, a large city-state occupies the central region and southern coast and resembles what some travelers from some versions of Earth might know of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Bustling and lively, the city is clean and well provided-for due to the temperate climate and the bountiful natural resources found on its northern side; orchards, farms and forests extend into the distance, butting up against a small mountain range. The technology level is low compared to Avagi, with carriages and candles in place rather than cars and electric lights, but the craftsmen of the world have managed some very impressive mechanical feats.
Kaittans, the local residents of the world appear somewhat humanoid, but the bipedal race has hooves rather than feet, silvery skin and three eyes with vertical pupils. Although there is no sign of any other sentient species in the world, the locals are nonetheless excited to meet their guests, rather than suspicious or afraid; for some reason, they are not surprised that aliens exist, merely that they are here.
Visitors are encouraged to explore the city and partake in an exchange of goods and ideas, to share their culture and stories with the locals. Perhaps there’s a merchant willing to trade a bauble for a story or you want to try something entirely unknown to your palette in the culinary quarter. The possibilities, while not quite limitless, are enough to keep the curious busy for quite a while.
'Threat assessment?' That gets a raised eyebrow. He won't ask what the result is, it would only waste time. 'I'm not familiar with the section of threat assessments that involves communication providing.' Skepticism? Maybe. But, glitch, this guy has been doing things his own way so far, so who knows.
"Rinzler" turns up no results when he runs it through his data banks, which he should be surprised by, and yet a small part of him is. There's no reason he should know this program, being from a different system with his double disks and minimal circuits.
Ram blinks, but the four small squares don't change. This doesn't make sense. But the voice... No, stop. It isn't the only possibility. Don't jump to conclusions. It takes him a few more picocycles to find his voice again.
So much for that not-bristling. The actuary's flippancy prompts a glower that sharpens as it speaks; if it objects so much to the assistance, Rinzler will be sure not to repeat the fault.
But then it lags. Then it continues. And Rinzler doesn't need the needling flickers of [Warning—] to recognize the danger here.
"Enforcer."
The word snarls out in a clatter of static: the ticking growl suddenly loud enough to feel through the metal floor. It's joined to a fluid step. A twitch of fingers: up and back. If the motions before had broadcast predator, the faceless regard is much, much sharper now.
Enforcer implies something or someone he is enforcing. Although there are obvious similarities with security, enforcer does not hold the same possibility for independence.
Ram turns his hands palm outwards, raised slightly, trying not to think too much on the rattle vibrating up through the floor.
'Not necessary,' he says, shifting to put himself in a slightly submissive pose, that also gives him a chance to analyse the curve of Rinzler's back. He's too short for Tron, but he's hunched. Once he has the angle he calculates Rinzler's potential full standing height and-- it matches.
The time doesn't match up though. Rinzler had said he'd been out of his system for 3.68 cycles, Ram saw Tron only last microcycle.
Could he be a copy? Not the Tron Ram knows, but the same program on a different system? He thinks back. The height and voice match, albeit the latter has some... changes. Ram was too caught off guard by the double disks to analyse the style, but he remembers Rinzler had merged them in his left hand. Tron was left handed. And of course, the identifier. Tron's markings were unique in a way other programs' weren't, a sign of his independence. An enforcer wouldn't share them. Unless they had been there before the enforcer code was.
Ram swallows.
It's still not certain, but the physical evidence matches up and Ram wants to do a system purge because, if this is--frag--if this is Tron, copy or not, he shudders, how did he end up like this? Tron would never go red. Willingly.
The submissive pose is warranted. The continued processing is not. Rinzler can see it hesitating on the program's features, twitching in the small motions of its throat. Like questions looped and cancelled; like a truth Rinzler had always looked for, but never wanted to find out. He should kill it. He should leave. But Rinzler too, hesitates.
And then it's much too late.
The freeze is immediate. So is the flare of loathing, sick and sharp, the hate (hate) (fear) that flares so brightly through his lights. Rinzler is perfect; Rinzler is right, and Clu (made him) was right to make him (this way). There's no reason for the glitch's question. No reason at all for the struggling, surging pulse of something that rises at the words.
For the feeble flicker of blue-white.
NO.
Rinzler won't be wiped. Won't be replaced. Something crumbles, and with it, all cause for hesitation. His disk scythes free from dock in a violent slash—throws with the same motion. Rinzler is much faster than Tron ever was, but the interplay of words was never his first language. Rinzler was made to speak with violence, made for the choking grate of conflict and the swift, decisive moves that put it down. So few programs ever survived long enough to understand.
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thisavrou_ooc2017-11-17 07:40 pm
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"Rinzler" turns up no results when he runs it through his data banks, which he should be surprised by, and yet a small part of him is. There's no reason he should know this program, being from a different system with his double disks and minimal circuits.
...Familiar minimal circuits.
/Warning: processor lockup detected
/System identified: logic_processor
/Rerouting
/Reroute successful//
Ram blinks, but the four small squares don't change. This doesn't make sense. But the voice... No, stop. It isn't the only possibility. Don't jump to conclusions. It takes him a few more picocycles to find his voice again.
'Are you independent security on your system?'
no subject
But then it lags. Then it continues. And Rinzler doesn't need the needling flickers of [Warning—] to recognize the danger here.
"Enforcer."
The word snarls out in a clatter of static: the ticking growl suddenly loud enough to feel through the metal floor. It's joined to a fluid step. A twitch of fingers: up and back. If the motions before had broadcast predator, the faceless regard is much, much sharper now.
More vicious.
"Demonstration required?"
no subject
Ram turns his hands palm outwards, raised slightly, trying not to think too much on the rattle vibrating up through the floor.
'Not necessary,' he says, shifting to put himself in a slightly submissive pose, that also gives him a chance to analyse the curve of Rinzler's back. He's too short for Tron, but he's hunched. Once he has the angle he calculates Rinzler's potential full standing height and-- it matches.
The time doesn't match up though. Rinzler had said he'd been out of his system for 3.68 cycles, Ram saw Tron only last microcycle.
Could he be a copy? Not the Tron Ram knows, but the same program on a different system? He thinks back. The height and voice match, albeit the latter has some... changes. Ram was too caught off guard by the double disks to analyse the style, but he remembers Rinzler had merged them in his left hand. Tron was left handed. And of course, the identifier. Tron's markings were unique in a way other programs' weren't, a sign of his independence. An enforcer wouldn't share them. Unless they had been there before the enforcer code was.
Ram swallows.
It's still not certain, but the physical evidence matches up and Ram wants to do a system purge because, if this is--frag--if this is Tron, copy or not, he shudders, how did he end up like this? Tron would never go red. Willingly.
'Who did this to you?'
no subject
And then it's much too late.
The freeze is immediate. So is the flare of loathing, sick and sharp, the hate (hate) (
fear) that flares so brightly through his lights. Rinzler is perfect; Rinzler is right, and Clu (made him) was right to make him (this way). There's no reason for the glitch's question. No reason at all for the struggling, surging pulse of something that rises at the words.For the feeble flicker of blue-white.
NO.
Rinzler won't be wiped. Won't be replaced. Something crumbles, and with it, all cause for hesitation. His disk scythes free from dock in a violent slash—throws with the same motion. Rinzler is much faster than Tron ever was, but the interplay of words was never his first language. Rinzler was made to speak with violence, made for the choking grate of conflict and the swift, decisive moves that put it down. So few programs ever survived long enough to understand.
Shut up shut up shut up—
no subject