Edward Elric (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
imperfect) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
exsiliumooc2013-05-29 05:41 pm
imperfect) wrote in exsiliumooc2013-05-29 05:41 pm
Entry tags:
PLAYER PLOT: broadcast mind!
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 commexsilium 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. ♥
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. ♥
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I'm in btw, that question was unrelated to that fact though.