SET SAIL: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

[returnjourney]

SET SAIL: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

January 1, 2022 – January 7, 2022
Welcome to the new year and the Return Journey's opening event! We're starting with something light to get everyone acclimated and so no one feels they've missed too much if they app after the holiday season. We'd like to make it easy for any new players to jump in right away.

If you have any questions about the event, please ask here.

Navigation |
FAQ |
The Peregrine |
Calendar |
Questions & Answers |
The Helpdesk

1. What? My name is who? My name is—

Salutations! Now that everyone's respective warden and inmate orientations are out of the way, you've been given a helpful, mandatory name tag. It instantly appears on your shirt and can't be taken off, though where it appears on your shirt is a bit more unpredictable; it's an imperfect science, so it's just as likely to pop up on the back of your shirt as the front. If you try to remove your clothes, the tag appears on your skin; they're waterproof, so a quick shower won't get rid of it, either. What can we say — it's mandatory.

While the tags all follow the standard "HELLO my name is" format and have your name or most common alias, they also include some other information. For wardens, it features a space that declares "I LIKE" and one or two of your most choices hobbies. For inmates, it features these hobbies and "I have killed [x] people" (this may be a specific number or something akin to "a lot of" or "no"). Fun icebreaker, right?

2. Twenty Questions

Speaking of icebreakers, a brief announcement summons everyone to the observatory. Again, yes, it's mandatory; wardens must retrieve absent inmates before any more information is revealed. Better hop to it!

Upon arrival, passengers will discover that the Peregrine's resident bot force has reconfigured the observatory with small, portable cubicles, each with a transparent wall that retains a lovely view of the observatory's massive window. Each inmate is assigned their own cubicle and, upon entering, cannot leave without a warden's say so; the door only unlocks with a warden's CommLink.

Wardens are tasked with interviewing at least one inmate, to get a feel for their prospective charges. They can have as much time as they need to formulate what questions they want to ask, but that might leave some inmates waiting. Maybe that's on purpose, though. In any case, the exercise is over once an inmate is asked five questions and a warden receives five answers.

Archimedes will collect name tags after the interviews for incineration. The robotic owl is, notably, the only one who can remove them.

3. Polite Picnic

The greenhouse doesn't always have enough fresh produce to go around (and often what is collected is frozen and preserved), but given the circumstances — a new mission and new passengers — everyone can reap the rewards this month...if they share. A bot stationed in the mess hall mechanically tells anyone who crosses into range (whether they mean to visit the produce table or not) that they aren't to take more than three fruits and/or vegetables. If you choose not to abide by the rules...well, that depends if you're caught and by who.

The produce available are as follows:

Adalfane: Tastes like cocaine, but very nutritious, especially when eaten raw.
Tuadath: Smells awful, but very hearty when cooked, tasting a little like steak.
Tsanyi: Pure, sugary sweetness. Can be made into a refreshing drink, eaten raw, or sprinkled over a desert.

There are notably fewer tsanyi than adalfane or tuadath. But if everyone's nice and cooperates, each person can get exactly one.

Comments

[saklas]

"What?"

That's... bizarre. Volk's hostility drops at the implication that they're actually both confused here. It's a piece of a puzzle - curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.

"Don't you work for the people who wrote it?"

There's no heat in the question, he's just confirming the circumstances at hand. Volk reaches halfway to spinning Aki's CommLink around to read it for himself, then stops. Oh, right. You can't just take a dude's phone, that's like weird red flag behavior.

"Can I look? I won't go through your pictures or anything, I'm not a fucking ... pervert."

[spanning]

Do not share CommLinks. The warning on the communicator page comes to him unbidden, though there's no sensitive data on his CommLink and it's not like anyone is going to break into a forbidden area when they're trapped in a box together.

He guesses Volk could try to use it to escape, even if asking makes that seem unlikely. Not important yet, in any case.

"Can you read Japanese?" Setting everything else aside for that, first.

[saklas]

The geography where Volk comes from is fucked.

Can he read a language he's never even heard of:

"Mm, not a chance. There's nothing in Mercsat in there?"

It's not the language he's speaking right now - that's Orcish, obviously - but more or less everybody speaks a little Mercsat, he can get through eighty percent of it as long as it's not too technical.

[spanning]

Aki isn't conceited enough to think he's heard of every language, but his head does tilt as he tries to place it.

"No. The library has books in other languages, but I only rented what I could read." Though he skipped most of the suggested hits for folklore and the occult.

"Whoever wrote it doesn't seem to be affiliated with...this. The Admiralty," he corrects, though he's still not entirely sure how to refer to his newfound career.

[saklas]

Okay, so - speculative fiction, that exists.

[That makes the most sense out of any explanation.]

[spanning]

It was listed as nonfiction.

[Said dryly and as he's possibly thinking he may be bad at navigating these terminals, but he isn't that bad.]

[saklas]

Yes, clearly, but they also said we're in fucking outer space.

[A broad gesture, to indicate the viewing window, and all of the fucking Outer Space.]

If you have access to it through that thing, it's programmed to feed you only approved things and propaganda. Trust me. I've been looking through it. The apps and OS are both custom, somebody bothered.

[Also, it's going to be SO annoying to have to type on a slightly different size of keyboard because they didn't just use Lito or Google?]

[spanning]

Have you been to the resource library?

[saklas]

No, I got here and they threw me in this cell with you.

[spanning]

Answer two more questions for me and we both get to leave.

[Yes, he's keeping count. Though he foregoes asking another question right away.]

Just out of the materials I can read, there are thousands—tens of thousands—of them. It isn't feasible to fake all of that.

[Barring, maybe, some kind of contract, but he isn't interested in entertaining that line of thought.]

[saklas]

[Volk spreads out his arms in a "how on Earth am I supposed to react to that?" gesture.]

What the fuck are you proposing here? And how do I even know you're not just making this up, conveniently in a language I can't read.

[spanning]

Once you're out of here, you can check for yourself. And whatever you think of that—it's your business what you do with it.

[Aki is confident Volk has no interest in actually being convinced, short of what he can see with his own eyes. But even then...]

Obviously, you don't think any of this is real. But if you can't find evidence to the contrary, what happens then?

[saklas]

I have evidence! You can't put this many people in space without someone NOTICING!

[His voice really hits a high shrieky note on that last one. Even he knows that was too much; he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, pushes his palms down. Okay. Okay. Breathe. Don't start letting the magic get out of control. That would be extremely bad.]

Don't... fucking tell me what is and isn't real.

[spanning]

[Aki waits. Honestly, he can't complain about being around someone who can calm down on their own. Or...who calms down at all.]

I'm not telling you what is or isn't real.

[It isn't soothing; it's flat, delivered with his typical bluntness.]

Consider it a hypothetical: You conclude this is real. What do you do from there?

cw suicidal ideation

[saklas]

[This is dangerous. He knows that. He knows there's a pit at the center of this conversation and he's been trying to have a duel on the tightrope over it. Space, very stupid, that's whatever. No demons, also bewildering, but he can adapt. But -]

If I'm dead...

[He sits there for awhile. He looks out at the stars, frowns, the dark lines of his lipstick parted just a little. Thinks: about Marilyn Monroe, about Eli Pompeii, about Henri Sawtooth, Kurt Cobain. About blues guitarists, troubled starlets, people who got too famous too young.]

God, what a relief.

[He turns back to center, smiles humorlessly.]

I'd take a vacation for once.

cw thinkin bout someone w suicidal ideation

[spanning]

[His fingers twitch and tighten around the edges of his CommLink. It's a visceral recognition ("You can let me go! ... I've been ready to die for ages now!") and Aki is struck by how sick he is of death—and remembers in warped, shattered pieces, his own. But resignation is different from waiting to die, wanting it.

He's sure Future will gloat, once he gives the devil a chance.

Aki doesn't look Volk in the eye when he says,] From what I remember...I should be dead.

[He is dead. He doesn't question it.]

What do you think happened, to land you here? If it isn't death.

is this five? whats your count

[saklas]

How should I know? The burden of proof here is on the one making the extraordinary claims - that's you guys.

4/5 lets goooooo

[spanning]

[He lets out a thoughtful huff.]

I don't really care about proving this to you. I'm trying to understand what you think is going on.

But if you don't want to answer it, I can ask a different question.

[saklas]

I don't want to answer anything. I think I woke up here and I got threatened and told I was a bad person, and now you're trying to get more information out of me to better convince me that I deserve to be here.

Let me ask you something. Even if I'd, I don't know, killed someone-

[Actually, an-eye-for-an-eye is still a pretty popular punishment. Wrong way to approach this. Volk waves it off.]

No, better. Why do you think that most places in the world have trials for criminals, instead of letting every cop and guard on the street mete out punishments on the spot for whatever they decide is happening?

[spanning]

[Great, they're back to this again.]

I'd guess you're about to give me a detailed explanation, regardless of what I say.

[saklas]

[Volk crosses his arms and sits back in his chair with an audible thump.]

No matter what I say, you already decided I'm guilty. I could answer all the questions in a way that makes me seem like a saint. All it would do is give you ammunition.

[He raises his eyebrows. Is he right?]

[spanning]

Ammunition for what? I don't have any control over how you got here, let alone why. Getting an admission of guilt out of you would be pointless.

[saklas]

To pick me open and figure out what I want and what makes me cooperate.

[It's not paranoia if all social interactions are like this anyway.]

[spanning]

[Well, Aki can't say he's entirely wrong.

As it is, he nods once.]

That's five. You can leave now.

[saklas]

[Volk is out of his chair so fast it's clear he hasn't even taken the second to consider whether this is a joke and Aki is messing with him. He tries the door, gets it open, and he's going to straight up bolt. Very limited window to stop him here - he's not even going to say goodbye.]