( october event log pt. 2 )

[hohnkai]

Who: Everyone
When: October 19th into the beginning of November.
Where: The Mini Colony of the Runoff & the Moira.
What: The Moira stops to resupply at the closest planet and things get weird.
Warnings: Physical transformations, phobias - please label if needed.

E V E N T L O G

Between the Perspectives "but in your future, the you i see is exactly the person you always wanted to be." Supplies have been loaded onto the ship, and the captains have encouraged all crew members to explore with the added notice that this will be the last planetary stop (hopefully) until the Moira reaches the Midway Hub. While seemingly uneventful on the Moira, the mini colony has been thrumming with adventure and has offered its visitors the opportunity to explore. To those who have indulged, some experienced great changes and others discovered enlightening information about the Ingress and the very ship some have called home for over a year. Later in the month, the Lamaria hold the closing ceremony of the Desiderium Festival (which was noted on the prior event log) . The burgundy and lime colors of the celebration slowly fade into black and vermillion, and small fires are now in place for visitors to throw their written notes into. Everyone who participates will be blessed by one of the Lamaria (they will visit the ship as well), and the MID will be able to only translate bits and pieces of what this blessing means. "Experienced loss — every story is different — and saying goodbye — not to know — understanding lies in the mingling of holding on and letting go." ☄ TRANSFORMATION CENTRAL For some, it might be due to a touch or a look. For others, it might not be any of those things at all, and something that just happens. Either way, shortly after the blessing occurs, you will find yourself changing. Your character’s body will slowly transform into the physical likeness of another being on the Mini Colony. The effects of this change may last as short as a day or as long as a week, but each come with their own stipulations—advantages and disadvantages. This is limited to one as the blessing itself only allows for “a little understanding”. Linked below are some of the possible transformations that your character can go through. Players can choose either one of the mod-supplied suggestions or choose the form of another already living on the Moira. ☄ THE FEAR MACHINE Paranoia writes the checks, we're dangling here like a marionette. Here we go again, the world is coming to an end. Engage the fear machine and collect the dividends. While the festival is beautiful, and some have found enlightenment and understanding here, there are those on the mini colony who don't enjoy the festivities. In a secluded room on the fifth floor in one of the buildings in the Science District, there is one such person who finds the religious festival to be a nuisance—one who should be stopped. Thinking that disrupting the blessings and celebration will somehow "get back" at the Lamaria for impeding their work (some of those who have transformed got into the building a few years ago and destroyed this person's property). Pettiness thrives, and they create something they dub The Fear Machine. Yet, while the science is sound, the technology itself is not. In the middle of the mini colony, the machine is set off, and bolts of transparent energy erupt and spark out around it, stretching as far as the docked ships. Since the technology wasn't created properly to sustain the energy, it doesn't spread out evenly like they had hoped. Some are hit. Some are not. Those who are will develop a sudden and overwhelming phobia that will last well into the beginning of November. The machine might be turned off and left behind, but the obsessive fear has only just begun. ( ooc; For questions, go here. This log will run into the beginning of November; any threads here can be claimed for bonus activity the following activity check as well. )

Comments

[notglitching]

[Sleep means shutting down. Sleep means adjustment and defrag, time for new updates to take hold and old files to sort and settle back to place. Rinzler has always hated the process, since long before he understood it. Sleep means dreams, sounds and glimpses from a life he's not allowed to know. And sleep means waking, flinching through the pain of reprimand as his systems tear all of it away.

It's weaker than it used to be. Enough to feel the shape of what he's lost, enough to know even when he can't remember. And sometimes he can. Still, Rinzler hates it, more than nearly anything. The voice outside has every right to call him, but when it starts to filter through awareness, the program twitches, bracing unhappily against his own code.

Nothing happens. It isn't there. Only peace, and a strangely pleasant warmth from underneath. He can feel his sound starting in an odd, satisfied cycling, a prickling increase in sensation through his shell. Limbs twitch (too many), ears rise, and it takes a puzzled moment to bring the sense-data back to context.

Right. The reinstall. Sitting up normally being out of the question, Rinzler gives in to the biological procedure, frame twisting and expanding as motor functions slowly come online. Limbs stretch. Needle-claws flex out and back in, eyes slitting open to regard the speaker. And a few odd patches of fur start to brighten slowly, bioluminescent flares of red-orange against black.

Rinzler doesn't notice. Alan-one. Alan-one is here... and he definitely missed the user's question. Somehow that doesn't feel as important as it should, but the kitten still rolls onto his haunches, blinking sleepily as he regards his user-creator.]

[alan_1]

[At first, the glowing is merely an oddity. Alan’s never seen a bioluminescent kitten before, but given he’s standing on a spaceship after having been turned into a living manifestation of computer code, it’s not enough to get more than a raised eyebrow from him.

And then he notices the color of the lights. And the position.

What.

He blinks, trying to process what now seems to be a very tiny, feline version of Rinzler in front of him.]

You’re kidding me.

[It takes another beat of incredulous staring for processing to catch up with the sight in front of him. Alan already knows that something is causing crewmembers to change into other lifeforms -- ergo his own transformation. So either this is someone’s idea of a very elaborate prank, or Rinzler has had the (totally characteristic) misfortune of being the first person Alan’s seen to turn into an actual animal.

Alan glances around as if half-hoping someone is going to jump up and take credit for slapping orange glow paint on an unfortunate black kitten. When that doesn’t happen, he looks back at the little glowing cat, feeling slightly foolish. After all, even if it has lights like Rinzler’s, so far it’s behaved like a perfectly ordinary kitten.]

Er… Can you understand me?

[notglitching]

[Something's different. Missing? Different. Visuals fix on Alan-one, ears pricking in response to the familiar voice. But for all that Rinzler's attention is solidly on his user, for all that he's listening—and he does understand—there's a subtle shift in value modifiers. A quiet in the back of his mind where the compulsive pull of (programmer) should call.

Still, Alan-one is Alan-one, and certainly not anyone Rinzler is going to ignore. The kitten sits up a little straighter, nodding once, though his eyes shift curiously over the user.]

[alan_1]

[It isn’t like seeing a kitten nod in the affirmative is the strangest thing Alan has seen here (though it’s certainly not the least) but it’s a kind of storybook strangeness that makes everything feel even more nonsensical than usual. He’s talking to a cat. A cat that also happens to be Rinzler and is apparently capable of holding some semblance of conversation. How his life has come to this is beyond him.]

Okay. Well. If we’re lucky, this is a temporary change. [He’s holding on hope, anyway. From what he’s gathered, weirdness on the Moira tends to come in waves. Still, that doesn’t mean Alan is quite sure what to make of Rinzler in the meantime. It's not like "spontaneous cat transformation" is something Alan has ever developed contingencies for, and he doesn't know whether he should be amused, concerned, or a winning combination of the two.

...He ends up leaning towards the value he knows best.]

Are you going to be okay like that? You’re, uh, kind of-- [--a ridiculously tiny bit of fluff that looks like it could be carried off by a stiff breeze?] --small right now.

[notglitching]

[There's another nod. It should definitely be temporary. Though Rinzler doesn't look too immediately concerned. Analysis of past effects and their duration? A side effect of the kitten brain? Or maybe it was just a result of having gotten a peaceful nap for the first time in who knows how long.

Still, as the words continue... well, Alan. You know that reproachful look you give? The one with lots of practice? Take that. Mix it with a healthy serving of offended dignity. And stick it on a kitten.

That's about what you've earned yourself. The lashing tail and puffed up fur is just a bonus. One which does increase his size by a sizeable percent, ironically.

Just because he's small doesn't mean he's damaged, user. Rinzler can take care of himself.

(Against anything but a stiff breeze.)]

[alan_1]

[It’s a very effective look and one Alan would be quite impressed by were he not on the receiving end. Instead, he ends up feeling rather sheepish and like maybe the helmet normally covering Rinzler’s face is actually there to protect the rest of them instead of the other way around.]

Come on. I’m just thinking logically. You can’t just walk around like nothing’s changed. [Not that Alan thinks Rinzler won’t try.]

At least stay on the ship until this blows over. [A sigh -- and a flash of gold as Alan reaches up unthinkingly to rub the back of his neck.] Pretty sure the colony is where this all started anyway...

[notglitching]

[Bristling is much more effective when you're covered in hair. (Or it makes him look like an angry feather duster. One of the two.) The kitten only fluffs up harder at that declaration, noise rumbling a loud objection. He can too walk around, and staying on the ship is—

Motion. But more than motion, there's a flash, a flicker of light as his user's hand comes up. The color doesn't register, not a focus to his reconfigured vision (yet), but the high-contrast blur prompts a biochemical flurry of interest by default. And, as Rinzler processes it properly, bewilderment. What is Alan-one holding? Doing?

...

No.

Rinzler stands, head tipping further as his eyes track up. Nihlus was one thing, but this couldn't...]

[alan_1]

[Alan notices Rinzler’s sudden interest with some puzzlement, following the kitten’s gaze up to-- oh.

He freezes, realizing his error, then drops his hand quickly though of course it’s too late. Judging by the look Rinzler’s giving him (and shock on a kitten’s face would be an amusing sight if the circumstances were any different), Rinzler knows what he saw.]

I guess there’s no point in hiding it, [Alan mutters, glancing half-accusingly down at the circuits on his hand.] You weren’t the only one who changed. [Not just changed, switched. Rinzler with one of the cats from the garden, and Alan… well, given the color of his circuitry, there’s only one person on the ship he could have switched with.]

[notglitching]

[Rinzler knows what he saw. Rinzler is, however, having some serious trouble parsing it. Round eyes fix on the hand. Shift to the face. To Alan-one, user-creator, looking down at him with hexagonal pupils and the faintest electronic echo to his voice. With circuits.

The color does not help. As biological as Rinzler's sound might have become, that doesn't prevent it from cutting when his breathing does, a several second stall as scrambled tags completely fail to align. Admin. Programmer. Clu, and he needs to bow, to still, to wait for instruction—but it isn't, and he shouldn't. This isn't the admin he's written to serve.

Rinzler reaches, half-desperate, for the grounding of directive. But there's no disk in his own back. No code in his body. Nothing at all to stop the plaintive little mew that comes out as the kitten angles its head to the side. It's the most Rinzler gesture yet, if... very, very bewildered. A status query? A request for direction? Maybe both.

He doesn't know what to do.]

[alan_1]

[The faint meow and head-tilt get a worried smile from Alan. He’s not sure what any of this means to Rinzler -- that he’s a program, that he has the same circuits and function as Clu -- and given Rinzler’s current state, it isn’t as if he can ask. It must be confusing, though. Programs seem to put a lot of stock into the delineation between themselves and users, and this certainly blurs that line halfway to oblivion.]

Hey, [Alan says softly, turning out his palms in a gesture that’s half-reassurance and half a strategic move to get the circuits on the back of his hands out of sight,] I’m still me. I may have changed, but… not that much. [He may not be a user at the moment, but besides a few quirks of program processing, he still feels like himself. And he’s definitely not Clu.]

Like I said, this is probably temporary. I’ll be back to normal soon enough. [His smile grows slightly wry at the glowing cat in front of him.] And you, too.

[notglitching]

[Programs do put a lot of stock in that distinction. Rinzler puts more. Users have always stood apart, always been different (more), and if this isn't the first time that distinction's blurred aboard the ship, that doesn't make the enforcer any more comfortable with it.

Still, there's nothing he can do. Nothing but listen, and if Alan-one's words aren't enough to close the problem, they're... something, at least. His user's still himself. Does that mean the same applies to Rinzler? He's not sure if that's reassuring or not.

He nods anyway.]