PLAYER PLOT: broadcast mind!

[imperfect]

Hello, all! This mod-approved miniplot, taking place between June 3rd and 6th 5th, comes courtesy of the ~science team that isn't the Initiative's own science team~ currently run by an annoying teenager.

If your character has been involved with Ed Elric's lab lately at all (you can handwave them having heard about it if there's a chance they've ever spoken to him!), they may have noticed said annoying teenager having spent a lot of time since the attack on Elmer's world consulting with a different, less annoying teenager of the same approximate height. Specifically, Ed has been working with Billy Cranston to build some prototypes of a telepathic comm device, intended as a kind of backup usable by Exiles or in case the usual network goes down. Because not having enough different disparate ways to communicate with one another is totally why the Initiative lost this round, of course.

The devices resemble ordinary rings in size and shape. They transmit and receive audio messages (no video yet...), either mentally constructed or captured from the person's ears and brain, and they're fairly intuitive to use - also operated entirely by thought, so creating a message doesn't have to involve any actual speaking. As you'd expect from a jamjar comm device, messages can either be filtered to certain people or broadcast to everyone currently wearing one. Essentially, you slip them on and forget about them. (They're based loosely on comm devices in Billy's previous game, although with some alterations due to availability of materials and the lack of original blueprints, so if you think a character might recognise the idea from there then go right ahead!) Posts made with them, by mod request, should be posted on the network comm exsilium and labelled [telepathy] (where you'd normally denote [video], [voice], [text] or whatever), even though they're ICly a separate technology. If your character was asked to test things out for the science team they might have played around with one already, but the testing hasn't been too rigorous so far.

That's going to change on the morning of June 3rd, when an ad of sorts will go up on the network requesting volunteers for a trial of these devices. This is an entirely IC opt-in; the ad will mention telepaths and nonhumans in particular because those are the cases they think are most likely to impede the technology used, but nobody is going to be turned away. Handwaving signups is also absolutely fine.

Characters who sign up will be gathered at the lab the morning of the following day, June 4th. They'll each receive one of the comm devices and some instructions: they'll need to keep a written record of what the devices pick up and when, to try and broadcast certain things to certain people at certain times, plus some other relatively boring tasks that probably seem pretty arbitrary and arcane to anyone who isn't doing the debugging. Initially, everything will work beautifully - characters can (and are encouraged to) use them to talk to each other like the backup network they're intended as, if they don't have anything better to do.

However, after some hours, the less than perfect materials used in the devices will come back to bite them - some devices will start broadcasting not as intended. They might start going off by themselves, broadcasting at random times, broadcasting to extra people, mixing up conversations, sending to the wrong people altogether. Eventually - and this is pretty much the crux - if the machinery continues to degrade, they will start broadcasting the wrong things. Maybe the audio recording cut in at a time you didn't want it to. You could be having a regularly scheduled conversation with someone else and suddenly pick up a noise that can't have come from the other person's surroundings or the echo of something they definitely didn't intend to say. These are not at all restricted to conscious thoughts! Dreams are fair game if the device randomly goes off while your character is asleep, even completely surreal or garbled sounds cobbled together from bits of memories - the idea is that the devices are reaching into parts of the character's mind they weren't built to and that's where the weirdness is coming from, but beyond that, everything is open! Be as dark or goofy as you like!

Not all of the comm devices will malfunction, either - you're free to have them carry on working as intended through the whole trial. They'd still be able to pick up on transmissions from the devices that aren't and respond to them. Of course, it's entirely possible that the responses could go wrong too...

The situation will escalate throughout the day, with steadily more of the devices malfunctioning, until the morning of June 5th, when the trial will be called off early. In the wake of all the mess, someone from the Initiative (since the Initiative did sponsor the lab even though they aren't overseeing it) will more or less demand that the science team get their act together. An apology will go up on the normal network, including a recall of any comm devices that haven't yet been returned (malfunctioning or not) and a request for more workers on the project, so that one day these devices will work for real. This should hopefully be a decent excuse to throw old and new characters alike at the science team if they hadn't taken notice before! And then probably get pretty ill pretty fast given they'd be hanging out at the lab in fairly close quarters, but that's just fine, right?

In summary and for reference, the slightly less tl;dr timeline:
3rd: call for volunteers to test prototype comm devices
4th: morning: trial begins; afternoon: malfunctioning broadcasts start to happen
5th: morning: recall of remaining devices, apology, call for more volunteers

This post is for questions, plotting and whatever else you want it for, so have at it! :>

ETA, 1st June: In light of the mod plot just announced, I'll note that this is still going ahead! However, we've compressed the timeline slightly so that everything now wraps up on the 5th. Accounting for the incubation period of the virus, the only people displaying symptoms at this point will be those at high risk, but if that applies to your character feel free to treat it as a double whammy or just skip this one. ♥

Comments

[fintastic]

Sounds interesting! But a question, for characters already used to jamjar comm device malfuctions of this sort, will they be able to remove the comm devices themselves and be done with the shenanigans?

[imperfect]

Yep, at any time! They can return them (or... break them) at any time too, but there'll be no shenanigans so long as they aren't being worn.

[fintastic]

Sweet!

I'm in btw, that question was unrelated to that fact though.

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

So if someone wanted to volunteer to take one and try to reverse engineer it and probably not give it back when requested uh... how well would that go over.....

(Nate here is a telepath, and one of it's few drawbacks is that he can't psi-scan people over tech, he needs to actually be there. and yes his psi-ethics are sometimes VERY QUESTIONABLE)

[imperfect]

You'd annoy Ed, because hello waste of materials and if you're smart enough to take it apart why can't you just pitch in and help like a normal person...

but absolutely everything annoys Ed, so this would be A-OK :|b

[oldsoldiersneverdie]

Nate isn't actually much of an inventor, he just hacks shit together out of other people's parts :')

(for everyone's sanity his attempts to do mind-reading via the network will fail because god this game doesn't need that)

[icy_heavens]

Wrong account, but Cissa will totally come on in after y'all screw up. Clearly, you need her genius mind to make sure things work properly!

[imperfect]

I think you had her volunteering for the science team initially so if she's been sticking with that she might already have overheard a bit about what they were doing :|a but yes she can totally get on board with it after the screwup, that's the idea!

[icy_heavens]

She's been focusing a bit more on explodey things since the whole failure in Elmer's world. Because explodey things are her first love. Sure, the other idea is interesting but . . . but . . . EXPLOSIONS! So she's probably heard them developing it, but hasn't paid too much attention until it messes up. Silly humans.

[motherofnemesis]

aww yes totally volunteering ros to get one and max to yell at them afterwards and then join up to help make them better.

[gordonowesmeabeer]

Barney hangs out in the labs a lot for someone who doesn't work there, since his best friend DOES work there, so he might hear about it and be interested.

[imperfect]

The lab in question isn't actually one of the Initiative's labs, it's the partly independent one Ed set up a couple of months ago for nefarious purposes :|b But like the post says there'll be plenty of network presence, so hopefully getting characters to hear about it won't be too difficult!

[gordonowesmeabeer]

Ah, okay. I'll still try it, because I like the idea of just making a post that is a long, rambling, stream-of-consciousness post about all the random crap Barney thinks about. You know, with "She's kind of cute" right next to "Do I have any milk?" right next to "I wonder if you could barbecue meat on a volcano?"

[deathofempathy]

I will probably sign Hisoka up for this, since he is already an empath, and has some limited telepathy anyway so. There is so much potential with this how could I not.

[vaudevil]

Volunteering Lee for this one. Since both his roommates had something similar done to them in Prospero, it's about time that Lee was exposed a little. (Or a lot in this case.) So, yep, he'll want to test it out.

[biwinning]

Signing up Sollux for this, because aw yeah new tech, even if he and Ed didn't get along too well the first time.

[ringwizard]

I'm assuming guys who have another voice in their head might be a helpful test subject?

[imperfect]

Every test subject is helpful, so yes!

[ringbeast]

I also want in for that reason.

[firstroar]

Thoughts being projected unchecked?? You mean an average day in psychic land rite
GOSH WHY IS EVERYONE SO STIRRED UP ABOUT THIS

[chittybang]

YOU JUST DON'T KNOW HOW SPECIAL YOU ARE BLUE

[misplacedxsheath]

Margulis already has some tech that can read nerve impulses, so he'll go ahead and sign up to be sure they won't interfere with each other.

But because of the game he came in from, he has an entity in his head that's part of him but also distinct enough for them to have mental conversations. (A Persona, to be specific.) Would the ring be able to pick up what she's saying and would she be able to use it normally or only accidentally by malfunction?

[imperfect]

Only by malfunction!

[misplacedxsheath]

Well, won't that be embarrassing~ Will it pick up enough while malfunctioning for her to reply to people who address her or will it be a tossup?

[imperfect]

This is up to you :>

[oncearanger]

he's sorry guys he thought he knew what he was doing

[imperfect]

no there's only room for one self-flagellating teen in this town okay

[oncearanger]

he will declare war for the title

[rewritethis]

jeez haven't we got enough of those going on already

[ofgoldenfoil]

Aurican will try this out as this sounds like magic and he wants to learn more about magic than anything else in the whole wide world.

[worldswillburn]

Would natural telepaths be able to pick up on the posts made if they're not wearing a ring?

[imperfect]

It's entirely up to you! But without a comm device they won't pick up filtered posts in any case, so the only transmissions they can be aware of are the public ones.

If it's relevant, it should be pretty obvious that the broadcasts are coming from machines.

[curatesecrets]

Artie is going to be ridiculously wary about this because it just screams "ARTIFACT WITH A DOWNSIDE" to him. Which basically means "heck yes count me in".

[omnomcinnabon]

Tsuzuki will definitely be up for it. It sounds like a really fun event.

[lar]

Ella has shown interest but she's probably immune to the ring as well...she would still try to mess with it? And if she tries really hard she might broadcast a little.

[imperfect]

As said above, there is absolutely nothing stopping her messing with it in whatever way she sees fit except the disapproval of a couple of teenagers \o\ so that's up to you!