Character Shenanigans!

[voidtreckermods]

Sometimes things happen that may have consequences further down the line. Sometimes characters decide to do things that might have immidiate reprecussion. As mods we want to have our fingers on the pulse of the game as it were, but we are also aware that we won't be able to read every single thing!

So that's where this post comes in. If your character has done something 'noticable' that you think we might need to know about, throw us a link here. Some might require a response, some will just be noted.

Example: "Over *here* my character is trying to smash the windows of the engine!"

Sometimes you might have an idea in mind that you believe will have consequences and be in the midst of writing the thread, however you want to know what those consequences will be for threads going forward. Or you might still be in the planning stages and would like to know how things might pan out. That's also what this post is for!

Example: "At the end of this event my character is planning to not rejoin the train and instead ride off into the sunset! What happens?"

Ask away!

Comments

[deductiongeek]

So after a conversation with Eva Conan/Shinichi is thinking about trying to order a set of detective badges from home. These are basically decorative pins that also function as short range walkie talkies. Would they work on the train or on missions?

[voidtreckermods]

They would work on both!

Train Communication Attempt (very late; apologies |D)

[unfavorableinstigation]

This may be the moment for the train to come in? It doesn't appear anyone else is piping up, though there are more participating/planned to participate than shown in the thread.

(The train is also free to poke the peridexis' separate prompt as takes its fancy. o7)

[springforth]

In an upstairs room of the quiet car, Persephone grew greater periwinkle over all windows and the light of the room to block light and provide privacy.

[voidtreckermods]

Noted!

Post-Jelly Mission

[unfavorableinstigation]

After the mission, Nita will take up reading by the engine wall again.

During one of these sessions (without flagging Nita's attention), the peridexis asks the following:

/I don't suppose the occurrence of void storms is documented in any sort of database, is it? If there are other cases like the Voidflash out there, it would seem most useful to have a way to track them.

I do worry that, if something is being taken for granted there, that it will come back to haunt all of us. And - if it is not too presumptive - I would say much the same about the possibility of voidcraft sentience, let alone sapience. I am not meant to be heard by those who would not be comfortable with the thought of a sentient spell, but you appear to have much more leeway./

If there's a tinge of envy at the end, there, the peridexis chooses not to elaborate.

[voidtreckermods]

Noted! No answer obviously.

Mid-Jelly Platform Day

[unfavorableinstigation]

Nita yet again has a question.

Re: Mid-Jelly Platform Day

[voidtreckermods]

She gets no answer, but the usual feeling that she has been heard.

[securityconsultant]

We don't have to thread this out or anything, but very early on Murderbot will attempt to link in with the train's systems themselves. Other than being exceedingly complex to the point of overwhelming (which is an assumption; please correct if not!), is there anything specific that it might pick up?

[voidtreckermods]

Assuming it can link in wirelessly.

Accessible things are lights, ventilation, heating, washing machines in the laundry room, most of the kitchen appliances like oven, fridge, freezer, dishwasher, kettle- they run on a basic network which seems mostly there for emergency protocols but is accessible on a very surface level. The carriage are connected too and the screens at the doors of the cabins (it will not be able to open any cabin but its own.)

It won't be able to get into anything deeper than that (nothing connected to the running of the train or any life systems.) The heating/lights/ventilation it will be able to read the data of but not control in any way.

[emerald_mirror]

someone else has taken up herd on the train wall, this platform

Not necessarily something that needs a response, if you're feeling overwhelmed (save for the generic one!) but just so it's noted <3

Garden car

[blitzcheer]

Painting on the transparent walls.

Will it work?

[voidtreckermods]

As long as they use paint that will stick on glass/glass type material then yes, it will work.

[securityconsultant]

Relating to Webmind's work, Murderbot will be picking it up where they left off and attempting to refine the code/way it works in to the system. Offhand, its initial attempts will be along the lines of trying to block a visual feed/replace it with a projection of text; the fun part will be allowing for others who *aren't* directly, y'know, able to link in to the system to input said text.

I understand this'll take time; I'll throw stuff on here if/as others get involved, especially with testing.

[voidtreckermods]

Sounds good! Keep me updated!

Mission Shenanigans

[adregem]

Decided not to TL on the Conclusion post for The Will to Fight, so I'll just make it official here :) Roland would have left behind the High Higgledy of Courage, Bambosh the Brave at Erda, as per the higgledy's request as well. Bambosh will help the world fight back against the next tide of demon invaders, especially with granting others courage to keep going no matter what.

Re: Mission Shenanigans

[voidtreckermods]

Noted!

What a brave Higgledy.

[shegypt]

SORRY I'M LATE I THINK I MISUNDERSTOOD WHETHER OR NOT THIS COMMENT NEEDED TO HAPPEN

Bakura is going to attempt to kill Kaiba and succeed in killing Yugi. This will happen either on platform day or shortly afterwards, depending on how the logistics work out best OOCly, somewhere on the train (also working out that.) Only players who want their characters to be involved will be; it will not be public knowledge. She will be contained afterwards and decide not to try that again.

For now. (Which can last as long as I need it to.)

kazoo 16 (or, platform day)

[blitzcheer]

The radio bought afaik is going to be taken apart, I shall link the individual it's going to here if you like!

But I suppose this is a good spot to ask if the radio would pick up anything on the platform? Any difference inside the train itself?

Re: kazoo 16 (or, platform day)

[voidtreckermods]

If it is going to be taken apart that is fine!

The radio isn't picking anything up on platform or on the train though there is more static on the platform than there is on the train.

[deadwenwalking]

So Wen Ning kinda sorta broke an ICP. He feels bad.

[voidtreckermods]

Noted! Poor Wen Ning.

[shegypt]

Bakura, and those seeking to stop Bakura, are doing a real number on the second floor of the triage car. The fight is ongoing but right now there's a glob of web on one wall, a scalpel sticking out of a different wall, and one of the surgical tables has been punched into the floor. Magical energy blasts have also been fired off, so...whatever damage that would do to the walls and ceiling has been done.

I will comment in this thread with more splash damage as additional fighters show up to help.

[voidtreckermods]

Noted!

[schrodingersghost]

So... any long term effects to repeatedly pushing the edge of how long you can stare into the void until a migraine hits?

[voidtreckermods]

He will find that the time gets shorter every time, the headaches come quicker when he starts looking at the void. He will also find his sleep gets worse, his dreams become sharper and sometimes it's hard to shake them off when he wakes. More often he finds himself unable to sleep at all until the time when he is reset to his bed.

He also finds that despite the pain he wants to watch the void more. Surely, if he just looks a little harder he can find some meaning in all of this chaos...

[wizard_redfive]

Just to note, Dairine is talking to the train here.

[voidtreckermods]

Noted!

As usual she will feel the connection open and a presence, it won't draw close but the connection will stay open.

[chocobosnap]

Hello!

Prompto is taking pictures of the platform fog, and the side of the train just for the memories.

Anything out of the ordinary to see that might not be captured by the naked eye?

[voidtreckermods]

Nothing unusual comes up on film!

sorry for dumb teen with authority problems

[promiselisting]

To quote myself from the discord:

"Like even if the train didn't tell her not to [use mind abilities on the chaos river], her first instinct, as a navigator, would be to do a scan [of the area] with her Persona as soon as leaving the train
now that the train's told her not to she's almost certainly going to do that"

So how bad of a time are we potentially talking about here. Will it get worse the more she tries to focus on studying the river? And if so, is there anything (i.e. a headache or something like that) that might warn her off proceeding? |D

Also in general it seems a lot of our characters have more passive sensing abilities, would those be affected at all and if so, how.

Re: sorry for dumb teen with authority problems

[voidtreckermods]

The whole world feels quite intense to her scans when she scans the world, the river almost blinding in that first whole area scan, like it is going to hurt to look closely at it.

If she focuses on the river it will be Headache Bad times. She detects everything in a rush of information and emotion that is impossible to separate or understand. Extremely overwhelming like she is drowning in information.

She will have a bad head for the whole day and will find it very difficult to use her scanning ability. Essentially everything she tries to sense all day just brings back pretty colours and more headaches.

The passive scans wont instantly make Bad Things Happen, they will more, blur over the river and give the rest of the lay of the land.

[thawed_pride]

Okay, so...several things, of varying levels of 'Vexen why':

1) He passively senses light/darkness of the metaphysical, emotional variety. This isn't quite empathy, but different sorts of light or darkness can be actively identified in the same way one could identify a familiar flower by scent. He also has some other 'on by default' stuff, of the typical Square-flavored condition monitoring magic. Anything in particular he'd notice just on approaching the river?

2) Provided nothing he senses just on approach is enough to convince him he Should Not, he's going to be attempting to use more focused scanning magic on the water. He will be exercising some amount of caution, but given his magic specifically is able to read hearts in intense detail, is there anything that would happen beyond the standard 'head hurtie, scan stop workie'?

3) Independently of both of those things, he's going to be trying to use his own world hopping magic to open a portal to the world from the previous mission. Will anything happen specifically trying to reach a world nearby in the Void, while in a Void nexus?

[voidtreckermods]

1) The concepts he understands a 'light' and 'darkness' are muddled in this very bright very chaotic river. On passive scans his scans almost want to skip over it as too confusing, too much to deal with.

2) The sensory overload will be emotion based- every possible emotion you can think of slamming into him all at once, threatening to drown him.

3) Assuming these are similar to dark corridors- in that they work at all because he can use the to transport himself around in a world as well as inter-world, opening one will result in feedback strong enough to knock him back about five feet. The portal will then snap shut, he wont be able to use them.

[firewalled]

Rich is potentially about to fall in the water over here. He will likely be pulled out, but what could happen if he's in there for a couple minutes?

[voidtreckermods]

Rich...

Since he got pulled out pretty quickly he will survive but he will feel very weird all day. He will feel almost over-sensitive to touch and will feel a tingling sensation like pins and needles that won't go away until the next day. He will have a pounding headache that can be lessened with normal pain relief/magic but remain at a low level. He will find himself a bit more emotional than usual almost like his emotions are closer to the surface.

Tech shenanigans

[subcircuits]

Dev's been working on a couple of tech things that I'd like him to test out on this mission if possible!

First, the 'remote body' drones that Entrapta, Dev, and Kaiba have been developing are ready for a field trial if that's okay. Using Helpmates tech pilfered from the hollow world mission, they've been trying to develop a system where they can use a drone and a VR headset to pilot a hardlight hologram body remotely. (Dev will also have built in the capability for them to sync up to other wireless controlled systems so that he can run one with his Implant and Interface.)

He's also been working on tweaking his Interface's scanners to be able to read SCA signals the same way it reads emIDs per a convo that Katy and I had on the Discord. Since he ordered a beefier Interface to use on missions, I was thinking he could actually have the breakthrough with that, since it probably has more powerful scanners and software to match.

Thoughts?

Re: Tech shenanigans

[voidtreckermods]

~ A field test for remote drones sound like something that can happen this world. The tech will fit in well enough in the world to not cause a commotion.

~ It sounds fair to have the scanners have a break through- as per the convo we had on discord!

So yes to both!

What Their Eyes See: Network Scraping Shenanigans

[bodyoftheseus]

I'm assuming this is the character shenanigans this goes to but if not lemme know so I can move it :3c

So as noted here V would put together a quasi-AI virus to seek out and find information on prisons in this world in the early morning hours of Llama 6.

It would work without any connection to V until such a point it finds what it's searching for, at which it would start sending files over an encrypted connection to V's Agent for V to review at his leisure.

[voidtreckermods]

Sounds good!

He will find that most prisoners are moved out of the city to prison facilities elsewhere. There are a couple of holding facilities in the city itself though these are very short term until people get transferred out.

There doesn't seem to be a lot in the way of courts or fair trials in this world and bribery is rife.


Spectura stuff

Specturacorp are a well established company on the world, their headquarters are in the city and they own three factories, one of which is in the city and two elsewhere. There were plans for a fourth.

They are as borderline corrupt as any corporation here but it doesn't seem like they have any actual bad intentions other than 'sell people escapism and make a load of credits doing so'. Their internal messages and files from the last week show a state of panic. No one knows what is happening, all the programmers have been dragged in, everyone is under non disclosure gag clauses but truthfully it doesn't seem like they'd have answers even if they weren't. Because they don't know what went wrong.

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the code, but the virus is everywhere and the leaders are losing patience. It's a mess.

Nothing suspicious seems to have happened before the virus appeared. No security breaches, no mysterious new members of staff.

[wewillwewill]

I have a small laundry list of questions! Apologies in advance. Not all of these things will be immediately investigated but he will be doing so.

In Elidibus's canon, aether is the energy that flows through all things. It is not just 'magic energy' though it is what is used to USE magic. It is also life force, the energy of natural phenomena, etc. Sometimes it is just in a 'base state', sometimes (though not always) it is elementally charged (fire, ice, water, lightning, wind, earth, light, dark). For instance, a volcano's eruption is marked as 'aether heavily aspecting toward the fire element'. Electricity running through a device would be lightning aspected aether and so forth. It cycles to the Aetherial Realm and back again as new life. It exists between worlds as well. And of course it is woven into spells, constructs and creation magic (Elidibus's people could literally create very near anything given enough aether and focus; it was a gift the whole race used naturally.) Elidibus possesses the ability to see the flow of aether.

1) When first appearing on the platform, what would the flow of aether be like in the surroundings? Would it seem a static presence (meant to be permanent), temporary (will disappear once its use time runs out), an old creation or something newly created?

2) About the SCA: In the same vein that aether is not 'just' magic, what sort of aether might flow in it? Does it interact with their wearer's aether? Does it connect to the train in some fashion?

3) Would the fog be part of the natural surroundings (naturally part of the aether flow?) or would it be interrupting/diverting it (Like a spell or a barrier)? Would the train be shrouded by this if so or could its aether still be seen beyond it?

4) When the train is visible what sort of aether would flow around it? Does it have any spells about it? What of its composition? If the fog can be 'seen' through with these senses, would it still be there? Would it have any notable changes or would it just be hanging out, if you will?

5) What about the train from the inside? Any interesting aether connections going on here? He would peek at hotspots for certain (the engine room wall for example!)

6) About Voidspace, canon FFXIV has 'Void' being an existence being completely Aspected to the 'Dark' element. Dark represents growth/activity/chaos. Something which Elidibus can move around and in with relative ease normally because of his nature. I get the impression that Voidspace in VT is a different concept so I want to confirm that and also want to ask, aether-speaking, how that might differ. (He is certainly wise enough not to look at it overlong but would be interested in studying it to determine the nature of it. Seeing if a small, harmless spell can take form in it that sort of thing.)

And that is it for now. There are some other things I'll have questions for later but this would probably apply to his first few days and I already feel it's a lot of stuff to answer. Thank you for your time!

7) I lied. One more thing: I remember it mentioned in setting that sometimes a sound like choral singing can be heard but may be dismissed as the wind. I do think if heard Elidibus would seek out its source. He is possessed of what is canonically called the 'Echo' but on a MUCH greater scale and scope (and control) than the game's player characters and mortal NPCs portray. The closest comparison is a bundle of psychic-like clairvoyance and plot MacGuffin. I think he would tentatively seek to try and determine whether this 'singing' is just the wind or something else. Cautiously. Very cautiously. Shit like this lead to bad things happening to his world. But it's also why he can't leave it alone.

[voidtreckermods]

1) The aether on the platform is very fluid. A place in a state of change. The platforms have been explained IC to be liminal spaces- to ease transition into the void and the energy reflects that.

2) There is a connection between the sca the train and the passengers. Life maybe? Energy? Magic? It will feel strange and not quite like anything he knows but he will be able to sense that there is the connection there.

3) The fog is part of the natural aether of the platform. It doesn't seem to have any spells but it won't feel or seem like fog he knows of. The train is partly shrouded by it but can be 'seen through'.

4) Is metal an aether? Because he will get enough to know that it is a train. There's no other energy apart from that of the other passengers. No magic, no life energy, not even a power aether.

5) The inner walls and furnishings act like he would expect normal walls and furnishings to act. With the same aether as you would imagine. He can sense nothing from the outer walls or the engine room wall (indeed it seems like his sense skips the engine room wall completely).

6) He won't be able to see the aether of the void through the train windows- its as if his senses stop at the outer walls. Likewise no magic will leave the train into the void.

7) Cautious is good! As he tries to tune into the singing it will sound louder, calling him and seem very much more singing rather than the wind. It will also come with a rapidly growing headache.

[najaran]

Not sure if this is the correct place, but here goes. Najaran is attempting to have a few of her creatures carry a bunch of dirt from the Greenhouse car into the Garden car to make a "bed" for Woodfolk. Not sure if the Train would have an issue with this, so wanted to post it up so if there is a response I can put it into her threads. (And if no response, should this be posted elsewhere so people know there is now a small dirt bed in the Garden Car?)

[voidtreckermods]

That's fine! Best place to pop it up is here on setting.

[cureofmanyworlds]

Nozomi would like to open up those locked dressers in the Dressing car. She might end up having to rip them open as Cure Dream, sorry.

[voidtreckermods]

She would have to rip them open, it would be pretty difficult to do! But let us know how many she smashes.