☆RESCUER TEST DRIVE: SOMETHING ABOUT US

[interdimanagers]

☆WELCOME RESCUERS

"Daft Punk - Digital Love" (Watch on YouTube)

Welcome to Interstellar's second RESCUER TDM! A part of the Interstellar plot that first opened a couple months ago, this TDM cover the second round of recruitment for those approached by the lone space pilot Shep to join him on a mission to the planet Terra to rescue those held captive by Pride Records and Virgo Entertainment. Rescuers will not suffer any memory loss and will enter the game as they are, in contrast to the memory loss/force humanization of the musician half. Powers will be nerfed to a certain degree upon entering the game fully, but during recruitment they will remain at full power.

☆A DREAM ABOUT YOU

These prompts are designed to be game canon, for both rescuers and musicians both new and already in game. For those in game, they will start occurring around New Years in the form of dreams. The dreams will be very clear while happening, but after waking, they will swiftly fade away into something barely remembered. For rescuers, these dreams will occur very shortly before they are approached by Shep or other already recruited rebels to join the rescue squad and go save the people being held captive in Vista City. Rescuers will remember these dreams as clearly as something that actually happened in real life.

Both of these prompts take place in the dreamscape, ostensibly, and the surrounding will appear as whatever fits those taking part in a scene. It can shift and change as a thread goes along, as well, and may resemble things from a captive's home, the game setting, or anything else appropriate. Rescuers that are already in game can also end up in this dreamscape, and can run into both new musicians and new rescue team recruits.



►A1) FOR THE CAPTURED: The kidnapped musicians of Vista City will dream of being themselves - in a way more true than they have been for months now. They'll dream of themselves as they're meant to be, in physical form and manner of dress, and their personality will align more easily with their true nature, even as the confusing influences of their programming nag at their mind. It could alarm them, or it could feel somehow natural. Either way, their memories will still be gone, except for what they've recovered - but they feel somehow much closer to reach, like they may break through if only given the chance to dig just about deeper. They may dream of home, they may dream of Vista, but either way...when the morning comes, their memories of this experience will be all but wiped away. Including the memories of the strangers that promised that they would find them and take them home.

►A2) FOR THE RESCUERS: The dream is the first sign of something being wrong. You'll find yourself somewhere else - either a scene from your home, or someone else's, or an alien world you've never seen. In this dream, you'll find a person. Perhaps it's someone you recognize, someone you love dearly, but that doesn't remember you. Maybe it's a stranger, lost, confused, and desperate for help. Either way, you find yourself reaching out to them - but outside of this dream, you are helpless to save them. The dream will fade but stay with you in your memory, and may be a key component in you choosing to believe and join the other rescuers when they come to your door. Something has been taken, and you will take it back.

☆MAKE THESE DREAMS COME TRUE

These prompts are design to be kept as game canon after acceptance, and can be used as the official story of how your character entered the game. Importantly, the technology used to enter your timeline causes massive time distortions, which means that the outcome of this scenario will stagger and replay itself multiple times before settling on an outcome. This means that after the fact, you character may remember being encountered multiple ways, or going in more than one direction, before the timeline settled on a final path.




►B1) JUST SAY YES: Soon after these dreams, rescuers will find themselves in a strange situation. Time will abruptly stop for every part of the world except for them, and fade into a ghostly vision of its former self - just in time for them to be approached by some mysterious strangers. Whether your rescuer chooses to run, fight, or talk, eventually they'll be told the truth - people of the multiverse have been captured and taken to a universe far away to be harvested for their souls...in the form of forcing them to becoming rock stars. You heard it here first, folks.

The people recruiting you will mostly be other player rescuers that have already been recruited (regardless of whether or not that's been threaded out - you can assume your guy got recruited by someone if you want to recruit OTHER people.) The pilot and owner of the space ship doing this appears to be a blue man named Shep. He's the guy that's apparently in charge of this whole thing, but he's so busy with the dimension hopping that he's kind of hard to find and talk to. He presumably recruited some of the first members personally, but things have been sort of getting more complicated since then.

►B2) INTERSTELLAR DISCO: After you've agreed to come for whatever reason - to save you lover, friend, some guy, whatever - you're be taken upon the guitar shaped spaceship to wait out the tide of the temporal distortions picking you up has caused. It's a long journey back to Vista City, and you've got plenty of new comrades to get to know. This mission could take a while, so you better get comfy. You're in for the long haul now.

NOTE: If you want to see the interior of the spaceship (or if you want to see Shep dance) watch the music video posted up top. It's going to be a fair bit bigger in Interstellar to accommodate the big crew, but the essence is there.

☆HELPFUL INFO

► Follow the mod plurk for updates: interstellar5555
► Check out the game NAVIGATION
► Check out the MUSICIAN TDM
► Ask the mods some QUESTIONS
► Reserves open on February 27th at 12:01AM EDT
► Applications open on March 4th at 12:01AM EDT

Comments

Greg Universe | Steven Universe | A1 (already in game)

[panspermia]

Can a lack of familiarity be familiar? Greg has the distinct feeling he ought to know this beach, like surely must have been here before, but it all comes up empty. You'd think a guy would be able to pick out a huge statue of a woman carved into the cliffside, anyway.

Maybe it's the lighting. No matter whether he's been here before or not, the greenish flames and wreckage scattered over the shore give the distinct impression of being recent rather than standard. What was probably once a beautiful view has turned eerie and unsettling, cast with an aura of things deeply important and dangerous having happened.

Greg leans his weight against the van parked on the beach--well, less parked, more with several wheels missing. It feels like that's probably symbolic, or something? He doesn't know. He's too tired to figure it out; everything about this place makes him feel unbearably tired and lost.

The death metal blasting from the van's speakers isn't helping.

[missknight]

Yeah, the death metal definitely isn't helping.

But that's partially because, from across the beach, Connie has been trying to yell Greg's name for, like, five minutes.

Since her voice clearly can't beat the screams of metal heads, she goes around to the other side of the van. Clambering up into the driver's seat and with one hand pressed against an ear like that will help, she fumbles with the volume until she can hit off.

"Mister Universe!"

[panspermia]

Between the noise and his exhaustion, Greg failed to notice her approach at all. He jerks with surprise when the music cuts out, blinking at the child in the van. How long has she been there? For all the attention he's been paying, she could have been sat inside from the start.

"Oh. Um. Hey there. Sorry, I--you want an autograph?"

Clearly.

[missknight]

"Wha-" A bewildered blink as her mind tries to process that, honestly, completely out of nowhere response. Even if that wasn't a completely weird thing to say, the fact that he's asking it in the middle of the old Homeworld spaceship wreck is... weird.

Almost as weird as the fact that wasn't this supposed to have been cleaned up AGES ago?

"No, I don't want an autograph." Her brow crumples together as she scoots from one seat to the other to get a better look at him. "Are you alright? Did you bump your head or something?" With how everything is, she wouldn't rule out cranial trauma, after all.

[panspermia]

The response had come out automatically, almost entirely reflexive. When unfamiliar voices called that name, it generally was for such a purpose, anyway.

He sighs with a weary grin, rubbing at his head. "Boy, wouldn't that make this easier." At this point, brain damage would be a lot easier to understand than all the complete weirdness he's gone through these last few months. "Uh, but really, no, I'm... all right."

Only then does it occur to him the way she's talking. She sounds.... expectant? Greg looks the child over again, really paying attention this time. He can't pick out how, but she's definitely familiar. "Uh... we... have we met before?"

[missknight]

A tentative smile starts to cross her face when he says he hasn't hurt himself. That's good, then. She remembers how worried Steven had been about his dad getting his leg broken. He'd be heartbroken if something worse had happened.

Of course, and then Greg asks that, and the smile slips off of her face. "It's me, Connie..." Her eyes widen in shock. "Maybe you really did get amnesia from a traumatic head injury and just forgot! Or, what other things cause amnesia..." She starts to count out everything on her fingers. "There's three, and there's head injuries... Traumatic events..."

A horrified gasp. "Your hippocampus could be atrophying!"

[panspermia]

Wow, this girl seems even quicker to panic than him. He raises his hands. "Woah, woah, woah. Slow down, it's not anything like that! Probably." It's a little hard to rule any possible option out.

Greg gives her as reassuring a smile as he can manage, but the gears in his head are turning. She's talking like she knows him. This him. He has to figure out where he's seen her before. "It's sort of hard to explain, but I'm not..."

He trails off as a couple pieces come together. "You--you're friends with Steven!" He presses a palm into his forehead. "That was you on the lion. I know you!"

[missknight]

"Yes, Steven!" At least he still remembers him. That's reassuring. With that bright spot found, Connie lets herself fall down from the burst of panic that had overtaken her.

Alright, so, he still remembers Steven, and he's starting to remember her again. Connie hums and presses her knuckles against her chin. Well, there's an obvious cause here that she actually overlooked...

"Is this... a Gem thing?" she asks, tentative. If that's the case, well, her original thought had been to take him to her mom, but Pearl or Garnet would be better off if it's a Gem thing.

[panspermia]

"A what?" His face screws up. He should definitely know what a Gem thing would be. Like the thing in Steven's stomach, or the stones he sees from the women in his memories. That's what she's talking about, isn't it?

"Sort...of? That's a magic thing, right?" He rubs at his forehead. "It's complicated. But there's a lot of magic involved, I'm pretty sure."

[lateforkindergarten]

Why the ship wreckage is lying around in this dream, Amesthyst doesn't know, but she'll roll with it.

A purple-colored police officer comes strolling up to Greg and looks him, the van, and the wreckage up and down, shaking their head in disapproval. "Tsk. Tsk. Hmmm. Is this your vehicle sir?" They start jotting something down on a paper pad and then rip off the sheet and slap it against Greg's chest for him to grab. "Littering and parking in a no parking zone."

[panspermia]

"Whuh?" Greg jumps, looking between the officer and the van. He could blame the officer's coloring on the weird light of the fire, but more importantly, why is he getting a ticket in a dream?

"I--no, no it's not mine, I just--it was here when I got here, officer, I swear, I..." Greg trails off, staring at the vehicle. He hadn't been paying a whole lot of attention, but it is sort of painted with MR. UNIVERSE in big letters on the side.

[lateforkindergarten]

The purple police officer erupts into laughter and suddenly starts shrinking and growing more hair. Amethyst points at Greg and continues laughing as she returns to her real form.

"Wow Greg! Lying to a police officer? I never thought you'd deny your love of that van! I mean look at the paint job on this mobile home!" She pats the side of the van and it slips off the sideways tire keeping it crookedly elevated, making the vehicle crash a last six inches into the sand. "Or beach house," she corrects herself. "It's better when it has wheels."

[panspermia]

Okay, there's a lot to take in for a very short span of time. Greg balks at the little purple woman. "I, uh. This..." He looks to the van, to the beach, to her. This is... is this how it's supposed to be? But it's not real. It's a dream, it's all in his head.

His hands clench together, and he can't decide if he wants to back away or step closer. "I, I know you."

[lateforkindergarten]

"Uh YEAH!" Amethyst cackles again and flips her bangs. "We've known each other since you had your bangs still." She tugs him by the arm and yanks him down to her level so she can look at that bald area up on top of his cranium. No signs of rock stuck in his head or green fire. She pats him not so gently on the head as if that will get rid of any problems. "What's the matter? Did you hit your head?"

[panspermia]

"Ow--hey--" Her rough treatment is doing nothing to ease his bewilderment, though he doesn't exactly put up a fight. "N-no, that's not it, I just..." For all her smirking and rolling with this insanity, he only looks more lost. "I'm sorry. What's your name?" He is, truly, sorry. He wishes he didn't have to ask.

[lateforkindergarten]

"Whoa." Amethyst goes quiet and releases Greg from her friendly torture grip. "Is this... what Pearl was going on about last week? She said you and Steven, and Garnet were in trouble and that you didn't remember us." As if Pearl wouldn't have started rambling about her worries aloud to herself once she had dreamed about Steven or Garnet in trouble.

"It's me! Amethyst!" She announces her name loudly and gestures at herself, hoping secretly that making a big show out of her reminder would joy his memory easily. "One of the Crystal Gems, just like Pearl, Garnet, and Steven! -And Peridot! You know! We met because you wanted to hang out with Rose."

[panspermia]

Greg stares, in equal parts lost and putting things together fast. None of the names but Steven and Garnet mean anything to him, but it adds up with all that's leakedinto his mind over the months.

"So... so it's all real." He runs a hand over his bald scalp, reeling. "Holy cow. That's--that's bonkers." It's a bit more to accept than he can process all at once. "Unless this is all still dreaming? Yeesh, this is weird..."

He raps his knuckles against his forehead, in an attempt to massage the memories back out. Amethyst gets another apologetic look, and a sigh. "I've only got bits and pieces of it put together. I couldn't even remember Steven at first. They pulled a number on us."

[oceantier]

She recognizes this place.

This is where it began.

This is where it ended.

Jasper isn't here. Lapis reminds herself she's not. But in that moment Lapis can feel Jasper in her chest like a red-hot heat, inside her core, burning, searing, grinding; feel the weight snag through her shoulders and yank through her as though the chains still exist and her enemy is still dangling on the other end. Weight. Pulling, hauling back, back into the maw of the waves.

Just a breath away from consumption. One shattering chain link away from being eaten alive.

There's no Steven here. No small, earnest face peering out from behind the protective arms of three other Gems. It's just her . . . and she's never been strong enough on her own.

She gasps softly, pulling back a step. One. Two. Any moment now, Jasper will come. Emerge from the wreckage, throw it off her shoulders like Atlas heaving off the world, and she'll ask a question.

And Lapis won't be strong enough to resist.

She whirls, her wings unfurling in a scattering of droplets, twists to go . . .

Not realizing that Greg is just behind her.

[panspermia]

There have been enough memories for Greg to notice the common theme: these women, in all their vibrant colors, have been a big part of his life. He can't recall this one at all, but she's clearly one of them--and just as clearly not happy about this setting.

Greg himself has been feeling vaguely ill from the atmosphere, and even from behind everything about her posture reads panic. His approach is slow, careful, and he's just about to speak before she spins and--

--smacks him in the face with a wingful of water. Greg stumbles back, sputtering.

[oceantier]

For a moment her rattled mind, still tangled in memory, screams a warning note in her brain -- Jasper is here, she's here, it's too late -- and she echoes it in a shriek, shrill and sharp.

Her wings vanish, and she stumbles . . . and is suddenly in a heap at his feet.

[panspermia]

Greg yelps in reply to her scream, still caught off guard with her unintended hit, and jerks as she collapses. What did he do? Is she hurt?! Is she dead?!? This is a lot to process all at once and he's not in the best mental state to do it.

He falls dow on his knees next to the stranger, heart in his throat. "Hey! Can you hear me? What happened? Look at me if you can hear me, all right?" He rests a gentle hand on her shoulder, wondering if he ought to roll her on her back or aide or??? Something??????? God he has no clue he doesn't even know how this works for humans.

[oceantier]

She's all right; her head yanks up at his touch, eyes wide and wild, unseeing, expecting another's face. The ocean surges; it rushes forward in a roar, rearing, rising, towering . . .

Before suddenly, almost impossibly, she recognizes him. Her breath, her being shudders beneath his hand. "You're Steven's . . ."

The water starts to cede, though not without a good amount of it raining downward on them both.

[panspermia]

The ocean startles him--whatever happened here, he didn't expect this to factor into it--and Greg leans over Lapis, the thought to protect her from whatever water monster's rising from the tide.

She murmurs, and it all comes crashing down in a torrent. Greg yells in time to get a mouthful of saltwater, alongside getting soaked down to the skin. Weirdly, it's familiar--like his old memory, with the ocean raining down on them. The echo of pain throbs in his leg, dull.

So that all happened. Drenched and dripping, Greg stares down at the terrified woman below him.

[oceantier]

She stares back up at him, just as startled that he's sheltered her. Why? The startlement is visible on her face.

The ocean seeps back into itself, settling back into its waves.

[panspermia]

Her unspoken question flies straight past him; it's not even something to consider, in Greg's book. Besides, he's got plenty of his own questions on his mind.

After a futile attempt to wipe some of the water out of his eyes, he holds out a hand to her. "Can you stand?"