#neo.system failure

[machinakrp]

>> SYSTEM FAILURE: TOTAL DARK

What happens when you can no longer rely on that which you take for granted? Elysium is about to find out. There has been such dedication to promoting the inevitable and incredible interconnectivity of the human race, so much wired together, connections implanted deep in the fabric of society, sometimes quite literally into the gray matter of the brain. From handheld to internally wired, it is easy to find connection at the touch of a button. Reliance on augmentations, implantations, and interconnectivity is so absolute that even Elysium boasts of the strength of the power grid and the reliability of backup systems. Maybe it’s the only reliable thing in the whole community.  

And that makes it a target.

What happens when the grid fails?

PHASE ONE

Darkness, first. Sudden and absolute, the city is plunged into silence. The quiet is uncanny, without the offset of the neon buzz of lights, without the glow of a hundred city windows and all the brightness of a wild city under the world.

This phase lasts for about two hours. It’s not the end of the world. Telecommunications still work, particularly those on independent battery life or wired through implants. For the most part, while people are surprised and shaken, things progress through the evening as normal. The time is 9pm, when it begins. Thanks to the season, it’s fully dark at this time, but the night is not yet underway.

PHASE TWO

By 11 pm, the backup generators that are installed in some places, such as Afterlife,

which has quickly become a brightly lit haven for gossip and rampant speculation, go out. This makes little sense, considering they aren’t externally connected to the power grid, for obvious reasons.

Speculations that this was purely an effort on the part of Zeus and their father’s company to wreak havoc begin to weaken in the wake of this. Some decry that perhaps Ares and their myriad helpful hackers have something to do with this, while others point out that it makes little sense for them to throw their own world into upheaval.

Even the Afterlife has gone dark now, and there isn’t a one amongst the denizens of Elysium who can remember a time that last happened that wasn’t, for example, 9am on a Sunday (and even then, there are cleaning staff and stockers about). This is a cause for more alarm. Communication has become spotty and unreliable but not nonexistent. Tension mounts and there is a strange feeling in the air.

PHASE THREE

Time passes. It’s 1am but there are few signs of sleep. No one seems able to let go of the anxiety that interrupted connection brings. Some joke that without fast connection to the internet, without a tablet or display that can reliably function, it feels as though they’ve broken an arm, or sprained an ankle.

Now, suddenly, it seems they’ve lost an appendage all together.

Against all possible odds, with no explanation, rhyme, reason, or fanfare, all implantations and augmentations have ceased function.  Holohair is rendered plain once more, data jacks lose connection, retinal displays go dormant. Eye enhancements vanish, strength augmentations are disabled, emergency weaponry is no longer triggerable or deployable. Only bone lacing, reliant on titanium coating of the bones, for the most part remains untouched. Anything that requires external connection is, in particular, fully disabled. All cosmetic interfaces from tattoos to eye color adjustments shuts down. Chemical inhibitors or reflex adjustments go dormant.

Chaos and fear descend.

In a population so incredibly reliant on the cybernetic, what do we become when we are all reduced to purely human?

CAMPAIGN MECHANICS

Due to a lot of our inspiration coming from the tabletop RPG Shadowrun, we’ve decided to bring in a campaign style element to our events! Thus, they will have a relatively long duration OOC but be more short term within the context of the game.

IC, this particular event will span a period of 3 days, from 9pm on Saturday to 10 pm on Tuesday. OOC, however, this event will run from 2/15 to 3/15.

The tag for the event will be “neo.system failure” and muses are encouraged to also tag based on phase and location (referenced below).

So, what makes this “different” as an event? Well, we’ll be implementing some new mechanics in order to ensure that active progression can take place. In a tabletop RPG, turns are based on the completion of actions and on movement. For us, we’ll be seeking to emulate that in a few ways.

First of all, there are a few guidelines we would like to highly encourage for the event period:

We suggest putting a pause on your current threads, or at least a priority on event threads, since we’d like to develop the plot out of this.

We suggest a 300-500 word range on replies to ensure everyone can keep the action and movement going in a more “rapidfire” situation.

We suggest cross referential threading! This means making use of location and phase tagging (e.g. neo.afterlife, neo.phase2) in order to see who else is currently around your characters and implementing that in your own threads. For example, if two threads take place in Afterlife, and in one the muses get in a bar fight and in the other two muses are drinking their concerns away, the latter might then write about noticing a friend in the midst of that fight or might notice the fight and stumble away from the chaos, or find that it heightens their own worries in the situation, etc. We hope this will encourage people to keep up with threads and actions outside of their own, to greater cause a network of plotting and interacting to develop in a way that would mimic the chaos of these things in real-time.

GETTING STARTED

For the first phase of the event you may send a submit to the main noting your character and saying you want to roll a dice. We will roll a dice from 1-4 for you, and you will then be randomly paired with a location and a partner in that same location, as well as a brief scenario, as a DM might provide to a party at the beginning of the campaign. Additionally, if you are open to obtaining multiple random partners to accommodate later joiners, please let us know! Please note it is optional.

You’re then free to thread based on that and to perhaps get a chance to bring together muses that might not have much occasion to interact otherwise (and of course you’re welcome to plot out and thread anything else you’d like to explore with other muses as well).

Throughout the OOC weeks of the event we’ll be keeping an eye out and sending curveballs and additional details through the submit boxes, so be sure you have yours open.

Anyone is welcome to join at any point in time, and of course if you prefer to opt out of the event or any part of it for any reason, you’re welcome to do that. And in such cases, we do encourage other members to not pause non-event threads with anyone opting out.

Additionally, for anyone joining after the initial event drop, you are still able to submit a number to obtain a random scenario and partner. Depending on when you join and the state of the event, you may get a random scenario from any of the phases rather than being restricted to phase one.

[xxxxneojinsol]

alone.

@neotaeoh / the afterlife, system failure, phase 3.

when the communications crash down, it feels more serious. like the world is crumbling out from beneath their feet. a pixelated wipe of memory that leaves the world blank and drowned in a black expanse of nothing. the mods come after, but jinsol doesn’t notice that so much. his only tell is on the back of his neck, hidden from view. a sun that refuses to rise. how fitting.

all he’s focusing on is the anxiety in his stomach. slithering and lashing out like serpents. intent on forcing their way up his throat. blocking off air. leaving him gasping, in the throes of panic. he doesn’t do well like this, being severed from the world. being thrust into the unknown. rua doesn’t either. it’s what pushing him to her apartment. the electronics down, keypads non-functioning. but he managed his way far enough alone to pound at her door. was greeted by silence. and back again, into the heart of the city. into the afterlife, searching for hope. or her. at this point, they seem nearly interchangeable. 

he doesn’t find her. though this is when he starts to notice that more is falling apart, the seams holding everyone together coming apart. a distinct lack of the neon mods elysium has become known for. fritzing mechanics. and as he pushes through more people on his hunt, he finds someone. just not the one he’d been after. but they make him pause. he might’ve moved on, if not for that look of panic, the way he was clutching tight to his arm in a deadened way jinsol doesn’t think he’s ever seen. “are you okay?” it’s a rush of words, and jinsol’s not sure if he’s entirely coherent. but he fits a hand to his wrist. can feel the unsteady thud of his pulse, an erratic scatter under his thumb. “down?” jinsol makes an educated stab at it. 

[neojaein]

BOUNTIFUL.

velvet skims her hips and the crimson lipstick slashed over her lips is a warrior’s paint, wielded with a smirk. she’s on the job and eager for it, having caught wind of a particularly atrocious up and coming young businessman, who seems to think his barely there nouveau riche status gives him a carte blanche when it comes to extra curricular activities. even in the midst of the blackout, she figures that afterlife will be a good place to check, as worthy a hunting ground as any other. 

but she’s underestimated, perhaps, the resilience of the community. with afterlife still lit up and flickering, the party seems still to continue, and it’s hard not to get drawn into that allure. after all, how much trouble is a little bit of darkness, anyway? surely they’ll get it all fixed in no time and until then, it makes for an interesting excuse to congregate in the last bright spot in a dark world. there’s so many people she thinks she might go mad with claustrophobia, a crush of bodies that extends even away from the dance floor. 

so she pushes towards the table instead, fumbling a grin towards the bartender and a smile on her lips as she requests a drink, adds it to the ever growing tab, and turns to survey the crowd, which seems intent on pressing in closer around her by the second. after a few sips of the liquid she’s got a friendlier disposition to her, perhaps disregarding her hunt for the time being, and she turns to a nearby figure, brow arcing as she lifts a drink in salute. “what a fucking night, right?” her head shakes, dark tresses shifting with the movement. “who knew a blackout would get the party going like this, huh?” 

@ open! beginning (ish) of phase two 

[rinneo]

parallel.

@neotaeoh / the afterlife, system failure, phase 2.

the club usually isn’t bright. that’s the entire point of it. a swamp of light green neon that permeates the room, flashes of spontaneous light, a neon show behind the bar like accent marks to the dim. but even those are gone now. and so is the music. without it, the club feels wrong. it’s purpose robbed from it. there’s a buzz of noise, and a wave of paranoia that circles the room. like a sway of an ocean, but more uneasy now. a calm before the storm rather than the frantic, collective crashing she usually expects from the place.

rin has half a mind to leave. she’s not so sure now why she came in. because it acts like a hub to elysium? because she expected some dregs of normalcy from it? but it all just feels eerie. maybe even worse than outside, on the streets. she finds herself hovering near the outskirts, back stuck to the wall. occasionally jostled by a miss-aimed shoulder of frenzied bodies as they shuffle past her. her jaw’s clenched. it feels like there’s white noise underneath her skin. the radio lines are too scattered now. she can’t make any more sense of what’s going on from the thin waves of police scanners she can pick up on. art of her wants to scatter, too. but she doesn’t. in times of stress, rin tends to root into place. lock-jawed, a strange look of being collected that never seems to match on the inside. she hates when people mistake it for strength. but in situations of panic, maybe it’s for the best. 

it feels like separating cement from the ground when she turns to make her way back toward the door. but she’s distracted by a flash of metal on the way there. gears and steel and a familiar face. she alters her path, catches up the back of his shirt in a fist and tugs before he can disappear behind a crowd of packed bodies. “theo, what the fuck’s going on?” rin asks him when he whips his head around. if anyone might have an idea, he might be among them.

[neoyani]

haven.

everyone’s making a lot of fuss about a few lights. this is her first opinion, on the whole thing. she’s got backup generators for the plants and, on top of that, they can manage a few days solely based in the aquaponic set up, without the aid of the lights and rigmarole. that’s mostly just to stimulate growtimes to meet up with jinsol’s ridiculous demands. the business grows by the day and nature can only do so much to keep up. 

so she heads back an hour or two after the generators all power down and afterlife isn’t fun anymore anyway,  just a crush of bodies in a dark room that is rapidly becoming way too humid and claustrophobic for her liking. the back streets are still cool from the winter air, at least, so she takes a deep breath. the taint of pollution is still there, to be sure,  but at least she’s as accustomed to that now as one can be. it’s relatively fresher, anyway, than the tangle of panic soaked bodies in the room she’s left behind. 

the green house is quiet. she doesn’t really have anything to do, and she can’t really tell, when the final phase sets in. there’s nothign to give her a clue that the world has been plunged further into chaos. lacking in modifications herself, she’s wrapped up rather peacefully in botanical sketches of the latest hybrid plant she’s bred into existence, has been carefully nurturing. it sits in front of her, with curling leaves and a fuzzed stem, and is the object of her entire focus when gun comes crashing into the room like a man possessed, grabs her by the shoulders and yanks her around on top of her stool to face him. she blinks up at him skeptical and owlish. “can i fucking help you, weirdo?”

@neogun third phase in her greenhouse

[neogun]

trigger.

@neoorua on the last day of the system failure, just before the city comes back to life

by tuesday night, gun almost thinks he can get used to this. the absence of technology. funny, because his livelihood is so reliant on it and customers have already run around to find him, frantic, wanting to book the first appointment available when the power comes back to erase the trauma they’ve suffered over the outage. and, unsurprisingly, he’s obliged happily. spoke them off the ledge, so to speak, when some asked him if the power would even come back at all, looking up at him like he would know. would have the answers. of course, he’d say. voice soothing, smile gentle, your sins will be forgiven soon. and that was that. another week, month even, booked. 

sometimes, it almost frightens him how easily it happens. 

other times, he drinks to that. like tonight. amber liquid filled a little too high in his glass as he sits in the darkness of absolution. with his detonators offline and cctv’s out of commission, he’s babysat the machine and his database for a better part of the blackout. paranoid as ever that someone might take this chance to riot, to loot, to destroy everything he’s clawed his way out of the gutter for. but after the umpteenth customer coming in frantically with scars evident on their face, no longer hidden by the magic of tech, his mind wanders to a different one. 

a face framed with dusty blue locks and tired, dark eyes. 

a face used to looking brighter, reliant on it. 

idly, he wonders how she’s handling it. then he wonders why he’s wondering. then he looks at the glass in his hands. then at a full bottle of wine in his glass cabinet. 

half an hour later, he’s at her door with that bottle in his hand. 

this is just a courtesy visit, he convinces himself. it’s how he built up his original clientele, charming them until they couldn’t resist. and it’s how he’s kept them to this day, rapport. building a sense that he cares about them, looks out for them when really, they’re just another name in his books. oh rua isn’t just a name, though, but he pretends she is. he compartmentalizes the same way he does when some pervert asks for the latest. 

and he does so now, shutting that part of him out, the businessman. knocking at her door as just gun. smiling something small when she answers warily, eyes avoiding his like they’re back at absolution and no amount of hot water can wash her regret away quite like gun can. still, he tries to get their attention, holds the wine bottle up close to his face and gives it a little wave. “i owe you a drink,” he says by way of greeting, “for all those times i denied you one. it’s been quite a few days since your last wipe, so i’m sure it’s safe to drink now.” 

[neoorua-blog]

ARTIFICE.

the lights go out and she moves to afterlife. so what, she can’t lose herself in a virtual reality land more appealing than her own. so what, she can’t hide in a pixellated world that promises clean air and green grass and the ruffle of wind in trees. all she does is hide, these days. from others,  from herself. with pills and powders and masks, she hides...from everyone except jinsol, maybe. but in the nature of that, too, comes weakness. there’s the fear that the more she exposes the less time she’ll have with him. one misstep, one ugly truth from solitude. she doesn’t know how to live like that. the prospect of it terrifies. she’s wedged between a rock and a hard place and she chooses indecision, inaction, avoidance. it’s not her finest hour. so she’s people watching at afterlife, when she sees him. 

with a face like that he’s every bit believable as the prophet he claims himself to be. he fits the role of a sainted man to perfection, this twisted promise, this fallen creature. like lucifer brought down from heaven. it’s funny, to think of gun creating the narrative of himself as savior, and to see taesun selling it part and parcel like that. the serpent tongued figurehead and the power that rests behind him. how fascinating, to thrive in borrowed power and to beg the attention of the world for it. but then, is it all that different from she herself? perhaps not. just shades of grandeur and bravado. 

when the glamour stops, however, what is she left with? a bare face she barely shows jinsol and her heart on her sleeve in a way that sends her pulse rushing, head spinning. the world around her devolves into utter chaos as augmentations shut off in a wave. the anxiety of it becomes a physical thing that presses around her with the weight of a hundred worlds. her hands fly up, as if to cover her face and she pulls her hood up over her head thereafter, tugging at the strings. the crowd around her becomes riotous and she’s jostled, tumbling into the boy she had, a moment before, been examining from a distance. what stupid luck. but he’s a friendly face in a maelstrom so she grabs him by the arm, presses her face into his shoulder. “taesun, get me out of here,” she commands him, as if there isn’t a waver in her voice and the tremble of an anxiety attack mounting in her bones, rattling her from shoulder to fingertip to toes. someone else collides into them on their way past and she yanks at his arm, “now? now.” 

@neotaesun afterlife, beginning of phase 3

[xxxxneojinsol]

oblivion.

@neosiwoo / subway car, phase 1.

they rocket through the vast tunnel with a speed that shouldn’t seem possible. but that they’ve all somehow grown accustomed too. in that way where the impossible morphs into the expected. jinsol keeps his eyes half-focused on the window. occasionally there are quick blurs of color. warped and blotchy. signs, maybe. or missed stops from the express car they’re currently occupying. him and siwoo. at the reminder of his presence jinsol drags himself from his daze and turns to face his cohort. is that what he should call him? they feel like friends, sometimes. siwoo offers him attention and offers himself up with a ready sort of neediness for what jinsol’s able to provide.

and jinsol eats it up.

predictable, but only if you know him well enough to spot the pattern. that’s his trick, most don’t. not that this is for pleasure, their rendezvous. work oriented, and they’ve been slinging secrets for money for a while now. jinsol’s an ardent supporter of the revolution, but mostly only when he’s in the same room as siwoo. fake as the holo-girls those desperate sort pay arm over fist to see. jinsol doesn’t find a problem with it.

he does find a problem with the way the lights flicker overhead. a quick snap of light-dark-light. that static pop-crackle of electricity that fizzles like imitation fire. and then the grinding drag of metal. a spine-shivering screech that burrows into his ears and has jinsol flinching. by the time the subway’s stopped, the cart is completely black. it’s silent, too. half because there’s nearly nobody on their cart, half out of what he assumes to be shock. he can hear the thud of his heart in his ears. amplified by panic and adrenaline. he tries not to let it show in his voice.

“what the fuck?” it’s a hoarse sort of whisper he hadn’t meant. wraps his fingers around siwoo’s wrist, if only to prove to himself that he’s still there and stuck with him while his eyes adjust to the lack of light. he doesn’t have a mod to help with that.