thisavrou_log | ( june intro log )

( june intro log )

Who: Everyone
When: June 1st and on
Where: The Moira + Collectives ASH3 - BF3 - CLF5
What: The crew finds themselves visiting the vacation spot of the Collective.
Warnings: None for now. Please label your content!

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r & r
"Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us."

The Ingress has pulled you in. Your body experiences 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 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. Once equilibrium has been reestablished, you will notice you are standing on a long platform and that the room is filled with a soft cerulean light. It's slightly humid and dark despite the glow around you, and nothing is familiar. Shortly after, you are led out and toward the medbay.

Inside this room, you are given a physical scan and offered a contract to sign that states you are now part of the crew of the Moira with a specific job. This process consists of a complete work-up of medical history and current health, and afterwards, you are given your MID, a device that is integrated into your hand with only the slightest pinch. From there, you are guided out of the medbay and to your living quarters.

Having left Amissis-Re behind, tensions among crew members have continued to escalate into ship-wide consequences, and recognizing the need for some separation among those aboard the Moira, the Captains make the unanimous decision to deviate from their present course to a "nearby" planet that is notable for such popular distractions. While it is not a permanent solution, measures are being taken to monitor the crew's morale much more closely. New arrivals will be treated as they always are; yet, now, more than ever, it is important to stress the balance of working together toward their goal of reaching their destination so that everyone will return home.

WELCOME TO COLLECTIVES ASH3 - BF3 - CLF5

The Collective is a paradise resort located far from any other neighboring planets to offer the most leisurely experience possible to its patrons. Artificially created for multiple uses, it is divided into separate locales interconnected with a tubing transport system that is so fast and efficient that it’s like being teleported to the next area. Extensive mapping can be found at various intersecting points to offer some direction, and there are even recognizable adverts from a very familiar stop months before spread out across the Collective. Whether looking to explore or to simply shed the weight of anxiety, there are plenty of opportunities to be found within ASH3, BF3, and CLF5.

All crew members are given a card from the Captains that has an unlimited amount of credits on it. Organized through trade, these allow Moirans access to any of the luxuries that the Collective has to offer aside from the purchase of items considered weapons due to the escalation of recent events. Food, clothes, trinkets, or even a full spa experience—the limits, otherwise, are endless. The Captains emphasize that this is time to relax and take a break from the grind that is living and working on a spaceship as unique as the Moira.

☄ B.E.A.C.H! THE BEST ESCAPE ANYONE CAN HAVE!

For those seeking a fun time, the Collective offers a variety of activities on ASH3. There are multiple beaches to enjoy as well as beachside kiosks offering drinks, beach toys and surf equipment for those a little more sports-minded. The tide washes in beautiful shells to collect, and there are always life-guards on duty to make sure everyone stays safe while enjoying their time on the beach. ASH3 offers a safe and friendly environment with plenty of fun in the sun for everyone. There is also a boardwalk full of restaurants, bars and plenty of games and entertainment for when you want to step off the sand but don’t want to give up being out in the sun.For those who can’t or won’t bear the sun, ASH3 also offers a thriving night life on both beach and boardwalk. There are midnight boat tours to view the bioluminescent schools of fish native to the island and bonfire dance parties that go long into the mornings. On the boardwalk, all shops are open until midnight as well as many clubs and social spots where crew can mingle with other tourists in the area.

So you don’t like the sand. It’s too hot, and it gets everywhere. Then hop onto one of the many transportation systems, slip into some warmer clothes, and take to the slopes. More experienced crew can immediately dive in, but those who need help can take lessons on how to ski or snowboard. There’s hot cocoa, sleds, snowball fights, and the occasional person making a snow angel (or snow person). ASH3 also has areas for rock climbing, sky diving, base jumping, bodyboarding, canoeing, hang gliding, jetskis, mountain biking, hiking, and much more.

☄ WHEN I SHOP, THE WORLD GETS BETTER

Not everyone enjoys shopping, but this Collective entices even the most frugal and reluctant into spending their credits here. In fact, the Captains are encouraging this. They give the explicit “order” to buy whatever you want for yourself and your fellow crew members, but more than that, to consider making purchases to better the ship. Is there any area of the Moira that needs spruced up? Maybe some fresh paint in the mess hall,or new furniture in the decks? Maybe some fancy curtains for all those windows on the observation deck, or a few throw pillows? New pots and pans for the kitchen might be something to add to this list as well as equipment for the rec area, or whatever else you think BF3 will have to help increase comfort aboard the Moira.

To enhance your shopping experience, the technology here allows you to try on clothes without lifting a hand. The food here is an unlimited spread of gourmet dining to comfort food and every dessert you can think of. When you’re finished with your purchases, have all your packages and larger items delivered back to the ship for you.

☄ TREAT YO SELF

The accommodations on the Collective of CLF5 are as unique as they come. Lodging is available for those who want to sleep in an environment that’s underwater or perhaps those who desire something as simple as a soft bed. No matter what kind of room you want to purchase for the night, it’ll be available here, and the only true limit is the imagination. When you aren’t relaxing in a hotel room, you’ll find that there are numerous spas and hair salons that offer varied services. Gold face masks rejuvenate your skin, the Ever Young™ Spa can make you look ten years younger with one treatment, and the mud baths are known across the universes for making you feel youthful and refreshed. If you’re looking for a new hairstyle or to relax, this Collective is the place for you to spend those hard-earned credits.

( ooc; For questions, go here. Please comment to activity check to receive new ranks (if applicable)! )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's good that they've established names. He doesn't think he would have been likely to slip and call her by it, but if a drink is why he might not have noticed her presence earlier, it could also have allowed other mistakes to slip in.

He might not walk the beach with other people he didn't know, not without some kind of controls on the situation, but his previous experience of Clara makes him think it's probably safe -- if she's like her other iterations, she's more likely to get in trouble of her own than to cause him any.

"We can." He's not sure he'd been dancing so much as making a show of the act of dancing, a fine distinction. "Do you have any questions about the Moira? I might not be the person to answer them, but I'll try."

"I figure I'll learn most things on my own." She's very hands on with getting information, and likes to learn through experience. Not ever one to turn down information when it's freely offered to her though, she offers him a smile and leads him away from the bonfire to walk along the water's edge. When they're a good enough distance away from everyone else, her energy settles into something more focused and serious.

"On the day I arrived, I met a girl who told me about the Ingress. Do you know if it's confirmed that it's malfunctioning, or is it just what the captains want us to believe?"

"I don't, and I don't know whether or not there's really any way to find out aside from waiting it out. However, if that's the case, then we have yet to see a functioning Ingress. Another question might be why every single one of them we've come across is broken in some way. I didn't even come in through the one on the ship."

He matches her pace as they move along the sand, and his energy is also now more focused and serious: every trace of the objectively somewhat silly dancer is gone.

"So there are others out there." She lightly bites at her thumb as she thinks over what that must mean. Without the Doctor here, so many of her questions are going to be left unanswered. He'd know the answers she's looking for, or at least would pretend to know, but she's more than capable of reaching conclusions and finding her own answers.

"My experience with traveling between universes and dimensions is a bit muddled with travel through time. If these machines are pulling people in, they must be doing it through the time vortex."

She stops walking for a moment and looks out at the water. It's so beautiful at night, but now her mind is racing with possibilities and she can't really take the time to enjoy it properly.

"They're likely all broken, because they aren't supposed to exist in the first place. Even if no one on board has seen a functioning Ingress, surely the captains are able to tell us their actual purpose. Have you spoken to them at any length?"

"Not at length. They've had other concerns lately."

After a beat, he adds, "Time vortex?"

She glances over at him, nodding. "It's what you travel through when you go through time. I thought it was a bit more noticeable than it actually is, like strawberry jam, but it turns out it's just a twisted jumble of light and a bit of discombobulated senses." And given the state she saw some of the other new arrivals waking up in, their senses were most definitely out of sorts.

That's not really her concern here, and she bites her cheek before she can say anymore and turn into a rambler. There's a difference between talking fast and saying way too much.

"What have the captains been preoccupied with lately?"

"There's been a rash of violence among the crew -- that's us, you understand -- but it seems mostly confined to specific individuals. No one seems to be able to agree on whether the punishments are too harsh, not harsh enough, not enough of a deterrent, unfair in form, and so on."

He shrugs, then adds, "I have to tell you, with regard to the time vortex... it's very unlikely that this is your original universe. Possible, but unlikely. Your theory is worth pursuing, but I'm not sure I'd lock onto it, if I were you."

"I've been to plenty of other universes and dimensions," she shrugs in return, not really caring too much if the time vortex is or isn't present here. It's not the one responsible for what's going on here, where the Ingress or its creators are very much so at fault.

She takes to walking yet again, reaching up to tuck hair behind her ear as a breeze moves over them.

"I'm more interested in the crew." Since she's going to be stuck living among them for the foreseeable future, it's the more pressing concern. "And what sort of specific individuals the violence seems to be centered around?"

"An artificial intelligence of some kind, called Rinzler. Has a physical form and is prone to violence, but he's also been a target for retaliation several times. Attacked on one occasion, then on another, someone tried to recode him without his permission. A number of the recent debates have centered around appropriate punishments and the rights of perpetrators.

"There's also a kid named Peter Maximoff -- he can move very quickly. I wouldn't say he's dangerous or ill-intentioned so much as hot-headed and vocal.

"Then there was another incident recently... that perpetrator was a large sentient robot. It didn't seem connected to the previous two, except that it ignited a similar sort of debate."

With a sigh, he adds, "You might as well know that they're constantly filming us. There was video of all of these incidents, even ones that took place in cabins."

"Sorry?" She looks absolutely horrified at the thought of someone filming her inside her cabin, and decides right then and there to tear apart the room once she gets back on board to find the camera and dismantle it. Her roommates will thank her for it later, she's sure.

"They can't just film us in our cabins!"

She acts as though that's the more important thing of what he's just said, but really she's filed away the names he's given her to look into later. There's nothing she can do with the information now, but on the ship she can seek the people out and try talking to them.

"Especially not if they're expecting us to form some sort of system of punishment. How are we supposed to trust them to properly carry anything out if they're spying on us everywhere we go?"

"I'm not any happier about it than you are, but whether or not anyone actually watches the footage if nothing has happened is up in the air."

He has reasons of his own for not wanting to be filmed, but they'll seem esoteric to most people. How do you explain that the availability of your image could be a matter of your life and death? It's easier to explain that he'd rather not have his picture taken, that he's camera-shy, but then people assume it's a matter of preference, and that they can simply charm or annoy him into changing it.

"The ship you were on before... how did it travel through time? Not through wormholes, I'm assuming."

"I'm not sure of the technical aspects of it, but I do know it has a power source that enables it to travel through the time vortex. It's self-sufficient, as far as I'm led to believe." The Doctor's always been good at keeping the exact specifics from her, not that she's ever wanted to listen to him ramble on so she's kept herself from asking.

Feeling like maybe she's tapped into all the relevant info she can get out of him until another topic comes up, she looks back out toward the water. "Have you ever been in the ocean at night?"

"No." Or maybe he has, but that doesn't matter very much. He kicks into the surf with one foot, spontaneous, making a little splash that may or may not hit her with a few drops. "But the Mediterranean, yes."

That's not true, but he's stayed in a beachfront hotel in Monaco -- just once, to investigate a race-fixing scandal at the invitation of the royal family. There hadn't been a second time, because the royal family is almost as surveillance-happy as he is.

"I asked about the travel mechanism because I was on a ship before the Moira." His tone is conversational. "It also malfunctioned in a way that caused it to bring people in from other places, but in that case, it seems to have been the faster-than-light drive itself that caused the malfunctions."

The splash hits her, and she winds up giving out a squeak of surprise. And since she's already been splashed, really, the only logical thing to do is kick off her sandals and pull her sundress over her head, making sure both are safe on the sand before she walks out further into the water. She doesn't forget she's in the middle of a conversation though, and turns so she's facing him as she backs her way out until she's waist deep in the ocean.

"Do you think it could be a busted light drive that's causing malfunctions here too? It'd be an easy issue to diagnose if it was, I wager."

That wasn't what he was expecting, but after being still for a moment, he wades into the water a little, up to his knees, then his thighs. He doesn't want to shout from the shore. The temperature of the water is perfect, lulling, and therefore utterly artificial.

"I don't. I haven't seen any indication that they're using that kind of travel here, but also, the Ingress that brought me in wasn't even attached to a ship. If they were all part of ships with drives that manipulate space-time, or maybe if everyone from the ship I was on prior to the Moira was here, I'd think the chances were higher that the malfunctions were caused by that kind of travel mechanism."

He sighs, then adds, "Aside from that, nobody knew what was causing the drive to malfunction. But it probably isn't relevant anymore. You said you'd been to many other universes and dimensions... would you care to elaborate on that?"

"In a mo'," she holds up a hand, wading out a little further. The feel of the water is perfect, and she wants nothing more than to go in far enough that she can be in over her head and see the fish that supposedly glow at night, but that might make it a little difficult to have a conversation.

"Got a question first. If you came in on another Ingress altogether, how is it you ended up tied down to the Moira? And more importantly, did they give you a decent work assignment upon arrival?" Because she's a little bitter over being assigned something like gardener, even if she finds the gardens to be perfectly lovely.

"The Moira was stopping there. It was the only deal on offer that involved getting home, so I took it. The other option would have been stranded on a gaseous whaling planet without any known potential to go home."

He pauses. "Define 'decent.' It isn't what I'd been doing for the past few years, or what I was doing at home before that."

"Decent doesn't have to be what you're used to doing." She's backed her way out pretty far, to be chest deep in the water. It's nice to pull up her legs to tread water, even if she doesn't actually need to. It gives her something to do so she can stay busy.

"I'm fishing for your job title, in case you want me to spell it out for you. Tell me that, and whether or not you enjoy it, and I'll tell you about my travels." It's a decent trade, she figures. Information for information. She really just wants to know what sort of jobs are out there, because the second she goes back on the ship she's finding a captain and insisting that she be allowed a different position.

"I'm a cleaner." He smiles brightly as he says it. Everyone on the ship is a cleaner. Most people are also something else.

There's a temptation to slip into floating on his back, but he decides not to, for the moment; it seems spectacularly unwise in a general sense.

"Everyone's responsible for cleaning. And doing their own laundry too." She laughs as she says it, moving forward so she can skim her hand atop the water and splash him. She files away the fact that he hasn't told her what his actual job is, and the fact he smiled so brightly while saying it. Her eyes study his mouth for a second, then look up to his eyes.

"I've got a second duty. Everyone I've spoken to does."

"What if I'm expected to clean often?"

Now he's clearly just teasing her. He stands in the water, smile not fading.

"Or what if my other job is a closely guarded secret?"

Her eyes quickly look back to his mouth, trying to figure out if he's being genuine or patronizing her. He reminds her of the Doctor in that respect, so it puts her a little more at ease than she would with someone who didn't remind her of her best friend. At least it's obvious that he's only teasing, so her response is in kind.

"Then my stories are closely guarded secrets, and you'll have to earn them by helping me see the things this planet has to offer."

He tilts his head, eyes narrowing, expression entirely quizzical, looking as if he's genuinely thinking about it. He crosses his arms over his chest.

"What do you have in mind?"

And that makes her smile, because she feels if he's asking what she has in mind then he's already mostly interested. So she floats her way over toward him, stopping when she bumps up against him.

"I want to see the glowing fish at night. And collect shells, and build a giant fortress out of sand, and go sky diving, play all of the games on the boardwalk, and eat as many sweets as I possibly can before I get sick. There's plenty of other things here to do, but I'm basically looking for a companion so I don't have to do them alone."

He doesn't move away, but he doesn't make any move to get closer.

"That's a lot of things. What if I'm afraid of heights? Do I have to go skydiving?"

Still teasing, still amused. His eyes widen as he raises his eyebrows.

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