TEST DRIVE #002

[reveriemod]

TEST DRIVE #002

( 0 0 1 ) » WAKE UP

Were you asleep or were you unconscious? It doesn't matter: when you come to, there's an odd taste in your mouth and there's a low-level mechanical hum in the air. Your head hurts and you feel nauseous. You aren't anywhere you know: everything around you is metal, from the floor you lie on all the way to the ceiling. You are dressed in a jumpsuit you definitely weren't wearing before.

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

The message repeats on a loop. If you look for its source, you find a comms device on the floor next to you. The logo on its wallpaper says REVERIE TERMINAL. Upon closer inspection, you find the same logo on your jumpsuit.

Welcome to your new home. What choice do you have but to explore your surroundings?

( 0 0 1 . 1 ) » WAKE UP WHERE?

When you wake up, you find that you're not alone. But more importantly, you find that you're in a closet. An empty closet, bar you and your new companion. It's small, cramped, and there is no door that you can see. The ceiling is low, there is barely any lights, only some coming from the tiny flashlight clipped to your suit's shoulder. You cannot be sure that there is any air coming in to the room.

Are these grooves in the wall supposed to mean something?

( 0 0 2 ) » OBSERVATION DECK

There were no windows in the corridor you woke up in and no windows in any of the crew quarters you might have checked for occupants — but there are plenty of windows on the uppermost level of the station, deck 1. In fact, there are windows from floor to ceiling all along the circumference of the station's circular deck, and it's possible to walk along it all. What it shows is a strange solar system you've never seen before and a planet that might resemble one you know, but certainly isn't the same.

You're in space. You don't know where you are. Neither does anyone else.

( 0 0 3 ) » BAR

On deck 3, you find the bar. Tucked away from the crew quarters, it's dimly lit, there are bar stools thrown down on the floor and what looks like some very old drink spills, crusty and dark against the bar top. But there is alcohol here, or at least, what you think is alcohol, in bottles with faded labels, most of them indecipherable. Take a drink, get drunk, start a fight, or start a party? You're stuck on this station, might as well make the most of it, right?

( 0 0 4 ) » SPACEQUAKES

One second, you are is walking. Magnetic boots are on, the ground feels solid enough, for a metal deck in a space station. Everything is perfectly fine, or at least as fine as it can be, given that you still don't know where you are or how you came to be here.

The next moment, it's like everything explodes around you. You're thrown against the wall as sparks erupts from electrical panels, as the whole station rumbles and shakes around you. You fall to the deck, earning yourself scratches from the grating. When you look up, it's like nothing has happened. No wires hanging from open panels, no flickering lights, no more shaking. Like an earthquake in space.

( 0 0 5 ) » NETWORK

The comms device you found next to you when waking up connects to a station-wide network, REVERIE NET. You have the option to post video, voice or text messages.

What will you share?

( 0 0 6 ) » WILDCARD

The station features a variety of locations, from sleeping quarters free for the claiming to a dirty swimming pool and a bar that still holds alcohol (though some of the bottles seem to have been opened a while ago).

Go wild, but don't wreck the place. It's your home for the foreseeable future, after all.

Comments

[kanyounot]

[ Kanan has, by this point, discovered speech-to-text and text-to-speech options on his device. Hooray. ]

I'm from a lot of places, but never heard of "Martian", or "Earth".

[kanyounot]

[ Well, there's a familiar voice, at least. Kanan doesn't relax, per se, but there's certainly a kind of relief that washes through him when he hears his Padawan. ]

Ezra. Are you all right? Have you seen the others?

[ He's tried to reach out, sense them through the Force, but for some reason he can't. ]

[impossibletruth]

[ He swallows, takes a step back, and the lights around him start flashing far more quickly - and far more encrypted. As if he's looking anywhere but her at all.

It was impossible. This wasn't a case of her losing her memories, she was physically a year younger than she had been - her features changed almost imperceptibly for anyone other than Marlowe. Marlowe knew, without a doubt, that this was her. There was no way they could fake him out. But she also wasn't her.

[ A halucination? Improbable. His own mind would offer the most up to date version it could, and anyone else projecting a vision into his head wouldn't be able to do so with that level of detail--

He took a step back, and then another, and he knew his heart rate was rising. ]

That was a year ago.

004

[spd_green]

[ The quake hits Bridge hard too. He crashes into a wall and then slides down onto his butt, wincing with each hit. Once everything's settled down, he gets onto his knees, wincing and rubbing his lower back.

He stops though to raise a hand. Like a kid in school when the teacher's asked a question. ]

Oh, uh, the whole station shook. That's what.

[ No sarcasm here, he's answering your question, sir. ]

[donkeyballs]

Then you're one of the lucky outliers.

There's a few of you, but not as many as the Earthers. Think I can count 'em on one hand, especially after Kat disappeared.

[improbablelie]

[ It shouldn't sting as hard as it does, the step away from her. It hasn't been that long that he's been close to her, has only even been in the past few days that she hasn't just frozen every time he touches her at all. Closeness to people, physical contact -- she can handle them on a professional level, if she needs to to sell an identity.

Actual closeness, the sort that comes from knowing and being known and caring, that's harder to compute. Marlowe in the past few weeks has been the first time in years, and as new as it still is, as strange as it still, it twists in sharp as a knife to have it removed.

She watches the data, sees the encryptions, the lack of trust, and that trust was still so new and building that she doesn't know what to do, just looks at him, her face going blank the way it has several times when he says things that she doesn't know how to process yet, has to take time to pick her way through. ]

I don't understand what you mean by that. It was just a few days ago. You were --

[ She pauses, tucks her hands into her pockets so they stop trying to twist together anxiously. ]

It can't have been -- I just got here.

[kanyounot]

[ Yeah, that's super helpful. Meanwhile, Kanan is trying to find something to grab onto to pull himself up. Hello, blind guy? Any assistance? ]

Thanks for the rundown, I got that much. I was asking if we got hit by something, or what.

[kanyounot]

You're saying that most people on this station claim to be from a planet called "Earth"?

Kind of an obvious name for a planet. Might as well call a planet "Rock ball".

[merging]

I'm- I'm fine.

[Ezra approaches the window, so that he can look out with Kanan. Or actually, to get a better look at him and convince himself this is real and not a vision or something.]

The others aren't here. This place, whatever it is, it's pretty far from our galaxy. Or maybe it's completely outside of it? But how are you? And uh, what do you remember before this? Sorry, that.. probably sounds weird, right?

[kanyounot]

It's not the weirdest thing I've heard so far today. And explains why I can't sense the others at all, I suppose.

[ He frowns slightly in thought, as if trying to recall a dream. ]

We'd escaped Atollon. We were going to split up - Hera on her way to some base on Yavin, and I was heading to Mandalore.

[merging]

Yeaaah, I'm from a little after that.

[To say the least. Which is what he'd rather do right now.]

And I've been here a few weeks or so? I think. It sorta seems like time passed here without me realizing it. Or something weird like that.

But before, there were three other Force users here. And there was someone else, uh, I didn't recognize his squadron, but he was with the Rebellion too. We were all from different times too.

[kanyounot]

Different times? Okay, that's definitely weird. Never heard of that before.

[ The Force can do a lot of things, but Kanan has never heard of time travel being real. Seeing the future? Sure, that's possible sometimes. But people from different points in time actually meeting, talking? Nada. ]

Whoever or whatever did this must be incredibly powerful.

[merging]

It's possible through the Force.

[The way he says it makes it clear it's not just one of those everything is possible through the Force things.]

But I don't think the person behind this used the Force to accomplish it. Other than that, I probably have about as much of a clue as you.

Still, you're the first person to be from a time before me which well- [Makes sense, he stops himself from saying.] Actually, there was Revan, but that's kinda different? Like that's way, way, wayyy back.

[kanyounot]

[ Ezra says it like he has personal experience of it. Which shocks Kanan. He doesn't sound or feel much older than when Kanan last saw him - what could've happened in a matter of months that involved time travel through the Force???? ]

That's a story I might want to hear sometime.

[ Seriously, kiddo. ]

Can't say I've ever heard of - wait. Revan? As in, the legendary Jedi-turned-Sith who started a huge war thousands of years ago?

[impossibletruth]

No. You don't understand. You weren't taken a year ago.

[ He sounded grave, and he felt sick, like his whole world had tilted and gone off balance and it had nothing to do with space. ]

We've been- you've been there the whole time, we've--

[ But his words stuck in his throat every time and he tried to find the surveillance equipment that must be watching them, right now. There. That was probably a camera, even though it was unlike anything he'd ever known. And there-- ]

This isn't possible.

[merging]

We'll see.

[His tone's playful, or as playful as he can manage now.]

Wait, you know him? That's definitely him, but he's not exactly a Sith anymore either. Or that's what he told me. I don't know, he seemed nice enough.

[Probably should not mention how they discussed balancing both the light and dark and specifically Ezra's connection to the dark.]

[spd_green]

[ Deciding that he's okay and capable of helping others, Bridge springs to his feet to do just that. He takes the other man's hand and helps pull him up. ]

I figure if we hit something -- and I don't know for certain, maybe this is just me, but if I were in charge of things -- If we hit something there'd be a lot more in the way of sirens and clanging and Emergency, Emergency and red lights and things.

[kanyounot]

Well, I know of him. He lived thousands of years ago, like I said - a legend. We told stories about him when we were younglings. You know, great Jedi heroes and villains of old, the Jedi and their ancient enemies the Sith Empire...

Kids' stuff.

[kanyounot]

[ Kanan frowns, but nods in acknowledgment of the assistance. ]

Thanks. I mean, if this were any other place, I would assume you're correct about that, but this station doesn't seem to be fully functional in the first place. There aren't even any maintenance droids that I've come across.

[merging]

You know that's not normal kids' stuff, right? Like, you're aware at this point, right?

[Kinda teasing, kinda checking.]

He was a little surprised none of us knew who he was, but I guess that makes sense. He seemed... sad too, when I told him about the future.

[kanyounot]

Hey, meditation and lightsaber forms? That's weird. Swapping stories about heroes and villains? Always seemed like a pretty normal kid thing to me.

[ But he has to acknowledge that Ezra is right in the sense that he doesn't have much practical experience of what "normal" is for most kids. ]

I'd probably be pretty sad, too, learning about the Empire for the first time.

[merging]

Okay, I actually have to admit I don't know what normal kid stuff is either. Plus, all the stories I knew were about the Empire.

[And you don't have to be a rebel to get tired of hearing about how Palpatine saved us all for the umpteenth time.]

Yeah... But he was optimistic too! About me- us, being able to rebuild the Order.

[kanyounot]

Also, somehow, not surprising.

[ Kanan allows himself a proud smile at his Padawan. Anyone would be optimistic about the future, after meeting Ezra. Seeing the man he's becoming. The Jedi he'll be. ]

So. I need your eyes, Ezra. Anything you see out these windows I should be aware of?

[merging]

[Ezra assumes he means based on what he's heard of Revan, of course. And rebuilding the Order alongside Kanan actually sounded possible. In the real world, things were much harder.]

There's two planets from what I can see, though one of them's too far to really see anything. The one in front of us has two moons, like Lothal. One's white and the other's kinda pinkish? The planet itself looks like grasslands and oceans.

You don't really need to be aware of it since no one's been able to recognize it, but also you should at least know as much as the rest of us.

un: sweetie

[retrorsum]

That depends on what your limits are for these suggestions.