Intro Log: The Forgotten City

GOOD MORNING NEW ARRIVALS

This time for real!

WAKEY WAKEY.

As the storm finally peters out and characters can once again move above ground it becomes abundantly clear that the landscape has changed. Where vast expanses of sand dunes once laid is now the half-buried remnants of what looks like some sort of...city? Full of structures. It stretches so far it's really hard to tell. But there is one thing characters will notice:

There are more stasis pods.

Revealed by the sandstorm, a whole new flurry of pods can be found scattered on the way to the city (curiously though, not in it. Hurry and wake those guys up!

SPREAD THE LOVE. OR ACID.

With the departure of the storm there's even more new arrivals to be found besides those fellow travelers of yours! The "Seedlings" and "Cactus" are now both available, the former blown in by the storm and the former uncovered.

The Seedlings are generally pretty harmless. They like to burrow into the sand so only their "Leaves" plant-like leaves remain above ground, and they're quite happy to stay that way until surprised. Then they pop up and trip over themselves a little, before slowing down and wandering aimlessly. When they find a patch of sand that looks comfy they begin burrowing back down.

Pull or yank on their leaves though and you'll find yourself with a face full of pollen that makes you want to just tell everyone how super-cool they are. It lasts a while, and then you get a fever and vomit for two hours. Good times.

The Cacti are much less harmless and just...why would you eat them? Everything about this plant is poisonous, and cracking it open causes a corrosive acid-like substance to spill out. It'll eat through everything but...dirt, oddly. Metals and flesh are like hot oil on plastic.

DON'T GET LOST

And last but not least: The Forgotten City. Maybe you want to check out the Hull first for some loot, but maybe that's not such a cool idea anymore? Although it looks like the ship's definitely more powered after draining the suits of whoever went in, now it's started to spread and fill the sinkhole the ship's in. Suits can go from 100% to 0% in just ten minutes--not good!

Lucky for everyone else, it looks like finally there's some sort of civilization up ahead. Go on and check it out!

OR DO. THAT'S OKAY TOO.

Go nuts, have fun, and enjoy! (This is the wildcard option)

OOC

The Flora, Fauna & Resources page has been updated with information on the seedlings, cacti, and crystals! These items are now all available for Discovery, and The Forgotten City will be available indefinitely from now on! Characters can take this time to settle & build up a foundation for themselves, explore the area, and of course, harass those poor little seedlings.

We encourage players to make their own open posts for this setting--you don't need to stick to just this intro log! But make sure to make our newbies feel welcome!

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[ Jim purses his lips and tips his head in a nod. ]

Well, I've done it with less, so.

[ Or he would have, if Khan hadn't had his own plan in mind. Point is, it's always possible to take a ship, and sometimes with fewer people it's even easier.

Not that Jim wants to do it unless he absolutely has to. ]

[The look Max gives Jim is an evaluating one, readjusting her initial impression just slightly based on the new information provided. If he's done something similar before, he'll make a good ally.]

May I ask how?

[ He knits his eyebrows together. ] Long story.

[ Which he's not averse to sharing, or at least give her a general overview. ]

Had one man inside the ship that disabled most of the main systems, then me and another guy flew from my ship to the other. Just the two of us in suits, so they couldn't see us, and we flew in before their systems were back online. Then we made our way through the ship little by little until we made it to the bridge. [ And that's when things went to shit but that's neither here nor there. ] A stealth mission, you could say.

[It fits well with what she'd do given similar circumstances; better to go quiet and careful when numbers aren't in her favor.]

The man I spoke to upon waking told me there's way no formal organization among the people here, but I think it would be wise to start discussing strategies.

[She wants to know what everyone is capable of, so that she knows how they can be used.]

I agree. Even if it might be a little tricky for some people, I think the fact that most of us want to get out of here is a pretty great motivator for us to get together and work towards that single goal.

[ Whether finding a way home or just a more hospitable place where they can survive. Jim wonders if maybe not everyone here would choose to go home, given the chance, and if they've got options, then that's for them to decide. But this planet, or at least this part of it, is very far from ideal. They have to move along, sooner rather than later. ]

Unfortunately that may not work as well in practice as it would in theory, people can be difficult to wrangle.

[Especially if they haven't gotten their shit together by now.]

'Difficult' has never stopped me before. It's at least worth a try, especially since we don't have any better options.

[ He smiles a little at her. ] We seem to get along so far. That's a start, right?

[The optimism is nice, but Max isn't inclined to share it.]

You never know, you may slit my throat in the night when rations grow sparse.

[She... sort of... sounds like she's joking. Kind of.]

[ Whether or not she's joking, he still laughs, shaking his head. ]

You've got no reason to trust me, but I'll tell you anyway. I wouldn't do that. [ He'd rather die than hurt anyone. ] I'll try not to hold it against you if you do slit my throat in the night, though.

[She doesn't trust anyone, really, but if she decides he's the self-sacrificing type, she'll at least trust him not to kill to save himself.

As for herself, she just smiles.]

Oh, you don't need to worry about me. I used to be a model, I can handle starving for a little while.

[Another lie, but an easy one considering she looks like that could've been true. What she can do is slow her metabolism down and give her energy levels a boost with things like photosynthesis, if necessary. Shape-shifting is useful.]

[ Considering their situation, chances are she'll soon find out just how self-sacrificing he can be. Even for people who might not be as deserving. But that's neither here nor there. ]

What does being a model have to do with starving? [ He knits his eyebrows together, but then— ah. He nods. ] Right. 2015. Keep forgetting how archaic things were back then.

[That... actually cheers her up a little, despite the situation.]

Are you telling me they don't have to airbrush out visible rib cages anymore?

Not really? I mean, some models are skinnier, obviously. And some races just have different body types, so some might have naturally showing ribcages. But you have a bit of everything. Feels like it should be the point with models. People don't all look the same.

[ There's some 23rd century body positivity to make your day a little better. ]

Thankfully, too. No fun to be had with that.

[Max looks the way she does because it gets her what she wants, and she can't help but wonder what she'd have to look like in Jim's world, or if she'd always have to be changing, when there are so many races.]

I suppose the future doesn't sound all bad, then. At least we managed to get one thing right.

[ Chances are she'd have to do more than just change her appearance to get what she wants. Some things are easy to get by simply being easy on the eye, granted, but people aren't nearly that superficial. Although Jim can't talk much, when even he could've easily been talked into things by a pretty face once.

But that was then, and a long time ago, it feels like. Things are different now, and he's changed in that regard too. Thankfully. ]

I like to think we got a lot of things right. [ He gestures towards her. ] Currency's still something you guys deal with in the early 21st century, for instance.

[The strategist part of her says she should be finding out more about this place and working out how to deal with it, but the part of her that's a fucking nerd really wants to know more about the future.]

How do you pay for things?

[Her tone is simply curious, not disbelieving.]

[ Just embrace the nerd side, Max. And the future where Jim comes from happens to be pretty spectacular. At least that's what he'll say if asked. ]

We don't. The need to buy things has become obsolete since replicators came into common use, and people at large aren't nearly as driven by a need to have things as they used to be.

[ Ah yes, the smell of utopic socialism in the early morning. ]

I've never handled currency, for instance. You should see me trying to figure out the little coins on other planets, it's ridiculous.

[Max doesn't really do like, honest expressions a lot; usually she thinks about what she wants to convey and chooses the expression to match, but she's way too excited about what Jim just said, and her face lights up.]

That's wonderful.

[Max is a big fan of a basic income programs, which isn't exactly the same, but is probably the closest thing without something like a "replicator" (she can guess the function of it).]

How do you handle services? You can't replicate a lawyer, I assume?

[ Okay, Jim has to laugh at that. ]

God, no. Why would you want to replicate a lawyer? That sounds horrible.

[ Imagine the horror. What are they doing next, replicating PE teachers? ]

People just do what they like. I don't get paid either, I'm a Captain because I like it. That's true for basically everyone. Any job that no person wants to do can easily be done by machines, so.

[It makes sense. If no one needs money to buy things like food, they don't need to earn a wage. People must be so much happier.]

More and more jobs are becoming automated, where I'm from, but it's a cause for concern to people who haven't realized how flawed capitalism is.

[She doesn't get to talk about economics like this, usually, because she has other people to do it for her, so it's refreshing.]

[ Generally speaking, yes. There are always other reasons to be unhappy, but not needing money does make life a whole lot better. ]

I think it was a little like that in my own world too, at first. People thinking machines would just... take over somehow. [ He knits an eyebrow and shrugs, shaking his head like that's a ludicrous notion. To him it sort of is. ]

I'm glad we left all that behind, honestly. It'd have been the end of mankind as we know it if we hadn't moved on. Changed.

It would be refreshing to be past that concern already.

[Max knows she's lucky; she's had to work hard to survive but rarely because money was ever lacking, though that's because she's always had theft as an option.]

I hope the future of my world has as much to look forward to, if only because I'm not sure what other options there are for us.

I'm sure things will work out, one way or another. At the very least it doesn't hurt to be hopeful. [ Jim smiles at her. ] Although, I'm sorry to tell you it might not change much during your lifetime.

[ She's young but certainly not young enough to see replicators become common use, or for deep space travel to really establish itself. ]

Oh, you never know.

[Maybe not replicators, but Max has a lot of ideas about how to change things and a lot of time to do it.

But right now she's just going to ask Kirk a million more questions about the future...

(It's like a FTB except there's no sex, only nerds).]

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Intro Log: The Forgotten City

GOOD MORNING NEW ARRIVALS

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