Test Drive #11.

[powersthatbe]

Welcome to the Synodiporia Test Drive Meme! Below the cuts there are two new prompts, and here are the prompts from previous test-drives, which you’re still welcome to use in this post. When you comment, be sure you specify what prompt you want to play with, and please put up your own threadstarter - it makes for a much more friendly environment that a forest of bare toplevels! OCs are especially welcome! Please take a quick look at our Directory & familiarize yourself with the concept and setting of the game before you jump in.

Our upcoming app round runs September 1st-7th. Our next Jaunt, The Lightning Age, a postcolonial steampunk romp with a hunt for a fugitive disordering a peaceful flying city, will run September 12th-October 19th, and an alternate player-driven setting, or Walkabout, will be available (but the specific setting has yet to be voted upon).

Prompt #33 is set in the sometimes Mad-Max like post-apocalyptic academia of the Ivory Tower jaunt, where an isolated school works to restore civilization decades after a brutal war destroyed it. But off-campus, things can get a little rougher…

Prompt #34 is set in the world of Heartbreak Academy, a shoujo high school world where Social Technology, or S. Tech, allows the physical conjuration of emotions - sparkles, roses, soundtracks, emotes and rainclouds. Heartbreak Academy teaches elite students how to better master their S. Tech - and as you could imagine, this makes practical exams… very interesting...


Prompt #33: Pop Quiz.

There are chlorine bombs in the library, and snipers outside.

To be more specific, the library is an open-air market set up in a suburban French high-rise parking garage, one of the few buildings on this side of the city to survive intact, and a good place for gatherings that might need a quick getaway. Academics from across Europe use it as a trading post - bringing old books, or bringing computer printouts collected in three-ring binders, driving up in dune buggies or armored trucks, landing on the ceiling in helicopters, conducting a rapid swap of the valuables, and leaving.

But this time, the warlords knew they were coming. On each floor, among the parked cars, there’s a truck or van with deflated tires and an empty gas tank, in which an oil-drum and a detonator have been mounted. It’s overkill, but worse is the fact that in half-demolished buildings to either side are snipers. To the west, they only have crossbows, but the raider on the northeast has some sort of pre-War antimateriel rifle, and he’s already scragged a buggy in the exit ramp and shot a chopper pilot on the roof.

So now, it’s up to the academics. Those who study environmental sciences are trying to find ways to neutralize the chemicals. Engineers are working to disarm the detonators or fix the vehicles enough to safely transport the bombs. The history and humanities students are given the job of finding some way to stop the snipers, and stop raiders from getting in to steal any of their texts or other resources.

And some, of course, are caught in the fine traditions of academic debate, and may need Travelers to steer them to more decisive action… but of course, there might be Travelers among the raiders, too.


Prompt #34 Partner Exercise

The exam is simple. Each of you’s been given a spare, teacher-monitored Moe-Meter and left alone in the exam hall. Using S. Tech - not just fancy manifestations, but your words and actions, your persuasive skill and acting ability, all the skills that make you effective with S. Tech - you and your partner for this exam have to bury the needle. The problem is, you have to do it in both directions - positive emotion, maxing things out with cuteness, fondness, or warm feelings - and negative emotion, hitting empty on the meter through sadness, anger, or fear. Any sort of against-the-rules physical contact is an automatic F (if your partner reports it), but apart from that, it’s up to your imagination. You have fifteen minutes - that’s like Seven Minutes In Heaven and Seven in Hell, with one minute of cooldown in between.

Comments

[stormcell]

"That's not true," Thor protests, though he straightens from his sullen slouch as though the implicit challenge in her reply has galvanized him. The thundercloud continues to spit sparks, but it looks a little less likely to decide to actually drench either of them.

Just a little.

"You can't even join the forensic league if you lack any skill in persuasive S. Tech, and personal digs and innuendo are barred."

[claudiometer]

Getting drenched would probably doom any hope of actually passing the positive half of the assignment they might have, so that's good.

"Okay, we're up to one club in the entire school. The newspaper doesn't let the facts get in the way of a good story, the Host Club is... the Host Club, they have an entire AI dedicated to giving out romantic advice instead of anything more useful - it's ridiculous." Well, anything more useful other than the occasional Surprise Tattoo.

Claudia shrugs. "I think the only thing that makes the robotics team more bearable is we're too focused on how to make them work to put the effort into gossiping."

[stormcell]

One corner of his mouth twitches at her mention of the Host Club. It's not a smile, not even close, but that is, apparently, one thing on which they can both agree. He'll hardly begrudge other students their entertainment, but he's too fundamentally honest for that particular branch of student activity to be anything but uncomfortable.

"Robots don't use S. Tech," he says. "So you're not using it any better than the rest of us. What would you even use it for?"

[claudiometer]

"The robots don't. Doesn't mean the competitors aren't expected to. Half the competitions are collaborative instead of combat anyway, and you have to be able to build and present a plan to get things done. If you don't know your team, you don't stand a chance."

She's warming up a little herself, now that the topic's on firmer ground. Keep up like this and they just might get out of this assignment in one piece.

[stormcell]

"What do they do?" Thor asks, curious almost in spite of himself. He can't even pretend otherwise; the edges of his personal stormcloud lighten, as though the sun is beginning to contemplate peeking out. "The robots, not the other teams. I'm quite used to competitions, both friendly and otherwise."

[claudiometer]

"Depends on the competition. Usually the goal is to build something, sometimes it's a mock rescue or disposal. A few of them get more unusual than that, but not many."

PROGRESS FOR THE SURLY TEENAGERS. \o/

[stormcell]

"What do your robots rescue?" If the look on Thor's face is any indication, he's almost certainly imagining something closer to a scene out of a mecha show than anything that could be reasonably expected of a high school robotics club. Fortunately, he's neglected to study daydream theater, and so whatever absurd thing he's envisioning declines to play itself out in the air overhead.

Or perhaps unfortunately; imaginary mecha might further lighten the mood.

[claudiometer]

...Was that a laugh? Well, almost, surely. Not enough to officially call the mood completely lightened, but it's further progress. She knows that look, in any case, even if it isn't floating overhead - someone who doesn't know the ins and outs of robotics competitions assuming they do.

"Calm your pants, it's nothing like anime. Also nothing like actual hostage situations. They just set up a mock-up and we're supposed to get one or two things out of the area while disturbing the rest as little as possible."

[stormcell]

He's too accustomed to open expression to completely mask his disappointment, though this time, at least, he seems to take the correction in good stride rather than with embarrassment or irritation. "That's too bad. Can you imagine the excitement if it was? Half the city would turn out to see your machines in action."

Which should have been his first clue, in retrospect. Nothing that interesting would stay secret for long.

"Is that what you think we should be doing? Mock hostage rescues with other students?" On the one hand, the gleam in his eyes and the rise of his meter's needle as his interest fully engages means good things for the current exercise.

On the other hand, it probably means a headache for whoever their faculty overseer happens to be.

[claudiometer]

Claudia doesn't do nearly as well containing the laugh this time. It's a little sad, considering a hostage rescue of sorts is exactly what she has in mind for when she goes home, but the meter's still ticking upward even with that.

"Not exactly. But... this stuff's all about the connections between people, and there's more kinds of connection than just romantic. Family. Friends. Enemies. Even just having to put up with each other long enough to get through the day. It... it gets old when all anyone wants to talk about is the latest crush gossip."

She's on the young side for it anyway, she's never really understood it, and the one time she did try to date anyone was an unmitigated disaster.

[stormcell]

"What better way to cement the bonds of friendship than working together towards a common goal?" Thor replies. Sorry, Claudia, he has an idea in his head now, and thick as his skull is, dislodging it may be quite the trick.

[claudiometer]

"Something like that."

...WAIT WAS THAT A SMILE. Maybe, possibly. It's gone now, anyway, but still!

[stormcell]

HE SAW THAT. He thinks. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it certainly looked suspiciously similar to a smile.

"Then it's settled!" he declares, and only just remembers that this is, in fact, an exam in time to not bound up out of his chair. "Once we've finished this test, we'll go to the faculty, and convince them to start a club to drill us in how to best use our talents in an emergency situation."

(That this is almost certainly bound to be more dynamic than classroom lectures and structured practice may, in fact, inform his enthusiasm. Just a little.)

[claudiometer]

...Okay, you win, Thor. Claudia cracks up.

"That's. Not exactly what I had in mind? But hey, why not, could be useful."

[stormcell]

"And," Thor notes, holding up one finger to illustrate what he clearly believes is a cunningly-made point, "will have little enough room for relationship gossip."

It's possible he's underestimating their fellow students' ability to bring gossip into any and every situation, by an order of magnitude or so.