TEST DRIVE MEME!

[red_shift]

WHAT HAPPENS IN SPACE VEGAS STAYS IN SPACE VEGAS

The ship has made a stop at a city-planet to acquire some supplies-- and just everyone's luck, it's one of those wonderful mostly-lawless places where you can do or get pretty much anything. About the only thing the local government seems to frown on is outright murder, though it's quickly apparent that most of the planet's places of business include some rather heavily-armed security to deter thieves and other ne'er-do-wells. Still, it's a chance to get away from the zombies and breathe some non-recycled atmosphere for a while...

Scenarios:

#1: Screw that, I'm staying on board.

Just what it says on the tin. Your character has some plans now that the ship's mostly cleared of both unwilling passengers and zombies.. the Master might even be away! Time for a little reconnaissance behind locked doors?

#2: All work and no play makes Jack something something.

Unhappily for you, you were given a mission on-planet that you should probably try to complete before you go have fun... well, unless you want to get your air supply cut off or any of another thousand yucky things. Thankfully, you just have to pick up that really big palette of mysterious crates watched over by those really big unsmiling dudes.. or was it that other big stack of crates?

#3: Well it's not technically illegal.

There's something on-planet-- money, technology, shinies, whatever your character's heart desires. Only problem is, you can't seem to acquire it by normal economic activities. Ocean's Eleven in Space, anyone?

#4: The chips are down.

It's Space Vegas. Your character is gonna go have a look at the space casinos, or take in a space MMA battle, or whatever other ridiculous thing you can think of on a planet where you can do pretty much anything you can afford... and you've got just enough in credits or barter to cash in...

#5: Wild card! Choose your own adventure!

DO

~Post a top-level comment for a character who will be NEW to the game. So, like.. everybody. If you want to.

~Make sure to label your post with your character's name and originating canon.

~Tag as if you're already stuck on this wonderful ship! Make sure to read through the game info before tagging.

~If you are really shy, try tagging one of the threads already there!

DON'T

~Walk out of the airlocks without a space suit. Jeeze.

~Taunt happy fun ball.

Comments

#1 Screw it, I'm staying on board!

[cutejustice]

Maya was sneaking around on the ship. Everyone was gone. She hadn't really wanted to go down to Space Vegas. The creepy zombies were gone, which was good. She was pretty sure that the annoying PA guy was gone too. That was a relief. He was so annoying.

Maya was currently trying to get into one of the many locked doors all over the ship. Okay, so she might have been trying to get into creepy PA announcer guy's room. What was he hiding in there? Well there was only one way to find out!

Trying to enter in codes to get into the Master's room currently wasn't working, but it hadn't sent any zombies or security droids after her, yet. Maya wasn't the greatest at sneaking missions, so that is what she was currently working on. She wasn't being super-quiet about it either, so she'd be easy to find and discover.

oh noes alert phase

[actualjedimaster]

When the ship cleared out, Flynn was likewise content to stay on board. Crazy crowded city full of hedonistic pleasures might have been his first stop as a younger man, but he had a suspicion actual alcohol would play hell with his energy metabolism, and hangovers sucked anyway. Seeing as how there wasn't a mission sitting in his inbox, exploring a little seemed like a good idea.

It also seemed he wasn't the only one.

"Greetings," Flynn said, smiling a bit as he tried not-so-subtlely to get a look over the girl's shoulder.

Oh snap! Not alert phase!

[cutejustice]

"Hi Flynn," Maya chirped.

She sighed and tipped her head back to look at him as the keypad that she was trying unsuccessfully to enter a code into made a sound that sounded remarkably like an electronic raspberry at her.

"You didn't want to go to Space Vegas?"

[actualjedimaster]

Flynn chuckled at the sass from the lock, nodding toward it.

"Guess sweet-talking it didn't work out?"

He sighed at her question, shaking his head a little.

"Vegas was only ever fun if you were drunk.. I figure Space Vegas is only really fun if you're space-drunk. I'm saving my hangovers for something a bit more special. What about you?"

[cutejustice]

"I don't have any credits. Besides, Vegas has never been my thing. If I'm going to spend a lot of money, I'm going to do it on something more fun, like go ride roller coasters or something!"

She frowned at the keypad, before turning her attentions back to Flynn.

"I'm not that great at computers. I don't think that I can sweet talk it into opening. But since the zombies are all gone, I figured maybe I could get some answers, you know?"

[actualjedimaster]

"A lady of taste, I see," Flynn said, before motioning at the keypad.

"I can give it a crack, if you're really hot to get in there. Not sure it'll help. This isn't the only locked door around here."

D1 command is probably a much better candidate for breaking and entering... But he'd run out of ideas for the moment on how to jimmy that lock.

[cutejustice]

"Flynn, there are a lot of locked doors around here," Maya said with a sigh. "But we have to start somewhere! And I just want to see what he's hiding. I mean, I doubt it's anything we can blackmail him with, like a lot of creepy space porn, but maybe there's answers or something, you know?"

She moved aside to let Flynn get at the lock.

"By all means, be my guest. I'm not the best with computer stuff. And of course loud annoying PA guy didn't have an easy code like 1-2-3-4-5 or anything like that. I tried other things too."

[actualjedimaster]

Flynn crouched, frowning at the keypad. This was probably going to take a while, and his knees were not gonna like him for that.

"I like how this conversation jumped straight to creepy space porn. Really gives the whole thing a nice touch," he said, practically twinkling at Maya before he turned more serious attention on the lock.

Well, there were only so many possible passcodes, and if you left off all the easy ones... He felt around, trying to pick out if any of the keys had more wear on them so that he wouldn't have to try and brute force it for hours.

[cutejustice]

"Creepy space porn is clearly the best kind," Maya teased. "Try to keep up, Flynn. And I figured that it wouldn't be anything obvious. But sometimes people are dumb and figure you won't try for the obvious stuff cause it's too obvious. There are idiots who keep the Password on their computers as Password for that reason, you know."

Maya settled on the floor next to him, peering at the keypad.

"So. Do you think that there are going to be any crazy Indiana-Jones style traps that come out of the wall at us if we fail too many times?" she asked, peering at the keypad.

[actualjedimaster]

"Yeah, social engineering works almost all the time. Since we're failing that..."

Flynn hummed and tried a couple possibilities, chuckling a little when the lock made another rude noise. Cheeky thing.

"Worst coming to worst, the security subroutine will lock it down and we'll have to go looking for a master terminal to cancel the lock and try again.. actually a remote hack might be a good idea. Or I could peel this plate off with the right.. hmm..."

Welp, that settled it. He was probably going to be muttering over the door lock for hours. Flynn had done his share of encryption cracking, so there was a matter of professional pride involved. Really.

[cutejustice]

"So are you just going to take it apart?" Maya asked. "Like pop off the panel and climb in the wall and hotwire it?"

She peered at it curiously. "And why is this a boring keypad? You would think, with us being in space, it would be something fancy, right? Like a retina scanner, or a handprint scanner. Or having to sing a song backwards. Heck, I have a code lock on my phone."

Maya settled a little more comfortably on the floor. This might take awhile, if Flynn was going to make it his personal crusade.

[actualjedimaster]

"Yeah, maybe. Not a whole hell of a lot the program can do if I'm messing with the hardware..." Hey did he have a widget in his pocket? Maybe he could unscrew it...

"Nah.. DNA or retina scans can be fooled if you bring the person by, whereas you and I are stuck right now without the keypad. Simpler can be better."

[cutejustice]

"I guess so. But if we get swarmed by angry robots, or more of those creepy space zombies or whatever once you break the hardware, I'm blaming you, Flynn," Maya said, cheerfully.

Why no, she was not taking any responsibility for any potential traps, even if it had been her idea to try to break into the Master's room in the first place.

Security Droids?

[protectorrobot]

MDR-27 as he called himself was not someone who went partying normally. Being unable to ingest alcohol and this not being a place of a great deal of Electro-stim activities, well, he was just staying aboard to do some training. Keep up with the shooting accuracy, make sure his power converter was in tip top shape, and just wandering around this damn vessel. He needed to let himself map it out and he wasn't upgraded with the latest radar map scanning tech. There were downsides of being an upgraded security drone.

Even if part of the upgrades were free will and sentience. The blue glowing droid did come upon Maya before long though, watching her trying to get into the Master's room now. He adjusted his shoulder connections some before tapping her on the shoulder. "You trying to get the lot of us in trouble or something?" he stated, his voice synthesizer doing a good 'mild irritation' thing.

Sneaking mission... how do?

[cutejustice]

Maya eeped when MDR-27 tapped her on the shoulder. She turned to look at the robot-looking man and smiled nervously at him, giving him a small wave. This had the potential to get kind of messy.

"Um... hi there! I'm not trying to get us in trouble. I just thought that I could maybe get us some answers. Especially since annoying PA guy seems to be gone! I'm wondering what he's hiding in there. After all, it's not like he's going to come out of there and taze me or anything... right?"

Oh, Maya. That was not comforting.

I'm not good at sneak

[protectorrobot]

"Well, I think it would be easier to get a plasma welder if you want to get in there. But I doubt sticking our heads into his house is going help out our situation. Though that could be an ol' bot talking. Spent too much time under an engineer's welder to want to head that way again," His synthesized voice wasn't the best, definitely clearly robotic, but there was enough emotion to it. He shifted from annoyed to more interested as he spoke.

"As much as I'm interested in getting in there, I know that if we leave any signs about our entrance, I'm worried he'll send us into a f*Beep*ing sun. But come on, let's check the lockers and s*Beep*t and we'll see if have we have tools that would be good for cracking this nut without leaving signs. Even if a plasma torch would be a sight faster."

We can run from alert phase together! ^_^

[cutejustice]

Maya blinked at the robot-man's suggestion. Was he self-censoring himself? Was he programmed not to swear? The world might never know. And Maya certainly didn't know how to ask those questions, since this was the first time she'd met a robot aside from the little goony bots around the ship.

"Well... it sounds like you know a lot more about breaking and entering than I do! I was just trying to brute force the lock open. But he doesn't have an easy code to guess. And I guess it was too much to hope that he'd have something silly like 1-2-3-4-5, huh? But... um... won't getting tools and forcing the door open make it a lot more noticeable that we broke in? I mean, won't that be a quicker way to get thrown out of an airlock?"

That asked, Maya got to her feet. The robot-man was right. She wasn't having much luck trying to coax the door open anyway.

Good Idea! Alert Phases are no Joke.

[protectorrobot]

Well, sometimes when you're a few thousand years old robot that's burned through a couple shells, well, you wind up with some really stupid base programs cluttering up your main things. Thus self-censoring.

For her situation, though, that was a lot simpler. "Used to be programmed to guard against it. Though if we had a skilled engineer, well, they can take something apart and reassemble it the way they found it provided they had one of those nano-engineering kits. I'm good at self repair, but nano-stuff's not something I could ever wrap my head around. Huh... that code sounds like something an idiot's put on his luggage. This guy sounds insane. Not entirely smart, but I doubt he thinks that orderly. Hey! Why don't you give 5-4-3-2-1 a try?"

He waits for a moment after saying that before realizing his mistake. "Though if he's nutty about security, it probably logs any attempt someone makes on it, so if we don't have something to wipe our attempt... even if we got it right he'd know. Oh, yeah. I know this stuff because I used to run a lot of security, so all these little details are what I'm programmed to check and detect for. Guess we should go do something else and maybe soft ball some ideas."

[cutejustice]

"I tried 5-4-3-2-1, as well. I tried several things. I figured it wouldn't hurt to try the easy ones first. After all, there are some people who leave their password as 'password' you know," Maya said, with a roll of her eyes.

"But here's what I want to know. We're in space, right? Why is the lock for this door a keypad? I have one of those on my phone. Why don't they want... space stuff for the lock? Like your palm print or a retina scan or something like from any of the sci-fi movies I've seen? Why is entering in a number enough?"

She frowned at the lock and sighed. "Unless there are traps or something once we get the door open. Maybe you're right. Maybe we should go brainstorm and regroup."

[protectorrobot]

He nods. He figured the usual place for organics to hang out was the galley. Because that's where he found them. He decided to lead her that direction for them to just talk. "Well, keypads are pretty common for anything where biometrics won't work. I mean, I'm a robot, so I don't have unique biometrics that can be keyed in. And biometrics can be fooled in a way a simple keypad can't. Keypads can be hacked, but you know, that requires specialized gear, and can bust your brain if you use a brain hack," He told her, detailing why that might be there.

"Ultimately any security system is a trade off of how easy you want access versus how secure you want it to be." He knocks on this wall. "If you wanted to hide the secrets of something? The wall of a ship is good. Hard to access without spider drones and hard to find if you don't know where it is. But still takes forever even with spider drones and previous knowledge. And can't spot weld it out cause that might set something you need on fire," He shrugged some. It wasn't long after his boring rant that they were at the Galley and he sat down, his body moving like he was taking a deep breath.

"This ship is such a hunk of junk."

[cutejustice]

Maya was all for food. Food was delicious. Sometimes. The food on this ship... not so much. Though she had the good grace to look confused at some of his discussion about robot spiders. And it probably came through in her expression.

"Um... okay. I understood maybe a quarter of that. Hiding stuff in the wall makes sense. Robots not being able to access unique biometrics makes sense. you lost me at spider drones," Maya said, shrugging a little. "The most complicated thing I know how to work some days is my cell phone. And since getting unceremoniously dumped here, I don't even have that anymore."

She sighed a little. Though at his statement about the ship being a hunk of junk, Maya laughed.

"I have to agree with you about the ship. Most of the ships in the movies and stuff that I've seen are a lot... nicer. This one seems to be falling apart."

[protectorrobot]

He decided he'd make her some food. Just some practice at it. He head over to the kitchen, inviting her over to watch him. He rumaged around the supplies as he thinks on it. "Well, I've been on a lot of ships myself. This would be an okay ship maybe if we were just starting to fly into space. Artificial gravity, stuff like that. But I've been on a Colossus-Class Dreadnought where I'm from and those things are 5 KM long but a crew of 250 can operate it efficiently enough. This thing is much smaller than that, but got's dead heads all running about to keep it working. Don't worry about the spider bots though, I just ramble sometimes. Old bot habit."

He shook his head some as he got a few things he recognized. Eggs and bacon. He got a pan, spinning it around before putting it down to heat it up. "Knowing how to cook means most organics are more likely to give me power," he noted. "Be good if we could get a skilled engineer though. So what time and pace are you from? I've noticed most of us have some overlap of details."

[cutejustice]

"Well, this is the first time I've ever been on a space ship," Maya said, watching him cook. "And you're the first robot I've ever met that talks and moves around and stuff. And... let's not talk about the 'dead heads' as you put it. They're really creepy. It's like they're alive, but not alive. Really creepy zombies."

The zombies scared Maya. A lot.

"So what are you going to make?" she asked, watching him cook. As to his question as to where and when she was from, she figured there was no harm in answering it. No robot apocalypse anytime soon, right? This guy seemed pretty friendly. "I'm from 21st century earth. My name's Maya, by the way."

[protectorrobot]

He nodded some. "Figured that would be the way for a few people. Heh... I get that plenty. I'm an oddity even in my own universe, but I'm used to zombies like that. Guess why I just kinda shrug at it. But let's move on if they creep you out."

"Bacon and eggs. You can have it, just being nice." He chuckled some, putting the bacon in. He washed his hands first though before handling it directly. "23rd century was when I was built. Earth though is my home too. Though I left around... um, 77th century? I think. I got turned off for a few thousand years here and there, so I missed a lot of it. Think I've gone through four shells though. Oh, I just go by my original designation. MDR-27. I've never been that creative." He shook his head some, taking the bacon out before putting the eggs in so they'd soak up the bacon juices.

[cutejustice]

"Wow. I just... Um. Wow. So... you're about five thousand years old? Even if you were turned off for some of it? And four shells? So you're on your fourth body? Does it hurt when they move you from body to body? Do you get to keep your memories?"

This? Was fascinating. In a way it was like talking to someone who had been reincarnated a lot and got to keep all their memories. At least from Maya's frame of reference.

"I'm a spirit medium. I can deal with people that are alive or people that are dead. But those zombies are kind of caught somewhere in between. That's what makes them so creepy."