☆RESCUER TEST DRIVE: DIGITAL LOVE

[interdimanagers]

☆WELCOME RESCUERS

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Welcome to Interstellar's first ever RESCUER TDM! A part of the Interstellar plot that has just opened up, this covers the entrance of those recruited 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.



►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
► Reserves open on January 2nd at 12:01AM EDT
► Applications open on January 11th at 12:01AM EDT

Comments

[balletbattler]

Pearl draws back the hand that she was about to place on his shoulder, tilting her head to try and get a better look at his face. There's a deep sense of worry within her that she doesn't know what to do with just yet because she can't rationalize it. Steven's here, he looks unhurt, and whatever's bothering him can't be anything she won't be able to figure out. Human problems can be messy sometimes but she's never met one she couldn't reason with.

"Is there something wrong? It's alright Steven, you can tell me," she says, gentle and confident.

[tigermillionaire]

He feels guilty, like she's mistaking him for someone else. He curls his knees closer to his chest, shaking his head as he hides his face.

"I'm not Steven," he says, pleading. "I don't know you.

[balletbattler]

"What? Don't be silly, of course you are."

Unless... no, Amethyst's shapeshifting isn't so advanced that it can fool Pearl. This is something else. Maybe a malfunction of the human brain or... well, maybe he just needs a reminder. She stands up straighter and gestures at Steven then herself, smiling confidently and matter-of-fact.

"You're Steven and I'm Pearl, of the Crystal Gems."

[tigermillionaire]

He folds his hands into his hair, tugging at his curls as he keeps his head buried in his knees. And soon enough, he finds himself crying again. He's already under so much stress all the time, stuff like this just makes him feel like he's falling apart.

"I don't know what that is," he says softly, his voice wavering and weak. He doesn't look at her. He doesn't want to.

[balletbattler]

"Oh no, oh Steven..." she reaches out to put her hands on his shoulders, then pulls back, not sure what to do for a moment. If he really doesn't remember her, which is a reality she's not going to totally accept just yet, then she doesn't want to smother him. But at the same time he's so upset and she just wants to comfort him. This is Steven, her Steven, and she wants to make it better.

She kneels down in the sand beside him. "Tell me what's wrong, I'll fix it for you."

[tigermillionaire]

"You can't," he insists, and there is a harsh tone of frustration there that is so totally foreign to the Steven she knows. He's filled with anger, and sadness, with seemingly no way to fully relieve either.

"I'm not really here, I can't be. I'm...I'm still in the HQ and if they knew...if they knew I was doing this I would be in so much trouble..." He sobs. "Who are you?"

[balletbattler]

"I'm Pearl!" she insists, pressing her palm flat against her chest. She leans forward and her eyes go desperate as she tries to see Steven's face.

"HQ? Steven, what are you talking about? You're scaring me!"

[tigermillionaire]

"You're scaring me!" Tiger yells back at her, and then stumbles to his feet in the sand, trying to dash off across the beach and slipping in the dust. He runs towards the temple statue. He doesn't know why - it just seems like the only place that's important.

[balletbattler]

"Wait!"

Pearl scrambles up to follow him, easily catching up on her long legs. She sounds desperate, a touch frantic as she wrings her hands together.

"Please, I can fix this! Just tell me the last thing you remember, we'll figure this out!"

[tigermillionaire]

In his attempt at haste, Tiger falls in the sand. He scrambles back defensively as soon as he does, his confusion and fear becoming enough to make him irrational.

"I don't know anything!" he yells back at her, tears beading down his cheeks. "I don't..."

[balletbattler]

Pearl follows, hovering as close as she can get without actually touching him, because she's worried he'll break or get upset or something and she can't stand the idea of making this worse. She hesitates a moment.

"Just, just wait here! I'll go get Garnet, she'll know what to do..." she says, glancing up at the house. Something's already telling her that's not going to work. Garnet's not there, or she might get mad, or something, something's off about this whole thing and Pearl wishes it would stop. She wrings her hands nervously and doesn't go up to the house, obeying the instinct that she needs to stay.

"Oh Steven, just please stop this! I'm trying to help!"

[tigermillionaire]

Her saying that to him makes him feel guilty, and resentful of that fact. He keeps his arms curled around himself and looks away, flinching ever so slightly, calming his motions in practice even if not in spirit. He just finds himself reminded of Jin and of so many other people in his life, demanding that he stop making a fuss, demanding that he stop fighting.

He hunches down miserably and doesn't say anything, refusing to look at her. He doesn't know what she wants him to say.

[balletbattler]

Pearl kneels down again, sitting back on her heels but leaning toward him, still wringing her hands. She searches his face for some kind of clue, a way to figure out what's going on, but mostly she's thinking about how she can't lose him, she won't.

"Do you really not know who I am?"

[tigermillionaire]

"I don't remember," he mumbles, still avoiding looking at her, though his expression rapidly is moving from frustrated to sorrowful. He rubs some snot from his nose.

"I'm from Vista City in Americana. I've never...I've never been here before. I've never met anyone like you."

Not that he remembers anyway. It's so hard to come to terms with the idea there could be so much that he's still forgetting.

[balletbattler]

That's it. Pearl has officially decided that something is Wrong. Her expression shifts from sadness to determination - there's no way she's going to lose him. Not when he's all she has left of Rose, not after everything they've been through together. Her tone is firm when she speaks, and she leans forward to put her hands on his shoulders.

"Steven, I am going to fix this. I know you've forgotten who you're supposed to be, but I will find a way to fix this. You just have to hold on."

[tigermillionaire]

Something about her asking him to do that makes him start to break down. Hold on? Can he? Things are getting so bad, he feels so scared all the time...

"I'm scared," he finally admits, staring at the sand. "They don't...they don't want me to think about this, they...They'll do something bad to me if I mess up again I know they will."

It's almost like he's mostly talking to himself now. Trying to convince himself that someone trying to fix him will only make things worse.

[balletbattler]

"No one's going to do anything bad to you, not if I have something to say about it," Pearl says. She hugs him then, because she can't bear not hugging him anymore, and she tries not to tremble with fear because she doesn't even know if she's strong enough to do it. Not without Garnet, at least, but something tells her she's going to be alone in this one.

"Just hold on. I promise it'll be over soon."

[tigermillionaire]

He lets her hug him. At this point, he finds it nearly impossible to turn away, even when he is so confused and upset. It's something he craves so deeply.

Does she even know where he is? What's been happening to him?

"They already did," he says, voice shaking.

[balletbattler]

"Oh, Steven," she says, her voice close to breaking. "This is why I always wondered if Garnet was right to bring you along on missions. We could have kept you safe, kept you away from danger for a little longer..."

She doesn't pull away. If anything her hug just gets tighter. Maybe if she hugs him long enough things will sort themselves out. He'll remember her and she won't feel so lost and alone.