TEST DRIVE #2 - The Holodeck/Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

Where were you a minute ago? Well, you aren't there anymore. Instead, you're standing in a very large, dark room lined with yellow. There are doors at either end of it.

Here's where things get a little choose your own adventure-y. You could:



1: Approach a console filled with buttons, located a few feet away. Press one, and it'll let you out of the room. Travel down a long hallway and you'll be in Ten Forward, the Enterprises' entertainment lounge. Have a drink, mingle and try to figure out why you're here.

OR

2: Maybe you just muttered some vague request under your breath. Maybe you wished aloud you were somewhere else. Or for help? If you did, might be in a fire station. Muttered something about killing whoever dumped you here? Surprise - you're in a slasher movie!

Though they're confusing, these visions feel about as real as they can be. And guess what - other people can experience those fantasies with you, as if they too were really there. How ever will you escape? Or do you want to?

[OOC: Welcome to the Holodeck! If you choose this option, whatever your character chooses to say out loud will cause a virtual reality program to load and play. While your character feels as if what they're experiencing and seeing is quite real, they're purely living through the latest and best in what he Enterprise has to offer in entertainment. Make sure to detail what your character's fantasy is, so that those threading with them will know how to react.

Open til next month's test drive!]

Comments

[a_quick_study]

"My first time wasn't long ago," he says. He'd been smiling then, barely able to believe that he was finally getting to fly into space after a Ha'tak. It had been his first time in space, that mission, but he doesn't think the experience is ever going to lose its thrill for him.

In Kelowna, they'd barely been able to dream of going into space, let alone interstellar travel. And now he's part of the SGC, helping them to design their new generation of ships, however passive that contribution has been.

"That sounds like my home," he says. "We had planes and ships, but anything like this..." He gestures to the windows and shakes his head. "We couldn't have even dreamed of it. This is way beyond anything we had."

[magnificus]

"Yeah," Peter agrees, nodding. He suddenly feels a bit of kinship with this Jonas Quinn fellow.

"It seems your world and mine are a bit similar. At least as far as space travel is concerned. It's such a funny concept, space travel."

It's only something he very recently picked up.

"I think my whole family would think I'd lost it, once I go home and tell them about it."

[a_quick_study]

"I guess people always look up in the sky and wonder what's out there," he muses. It's easier to talk about space travel, which he knows a fair bit about now after months at the SGC, than to keep talking about his world.

He tries not to think too much about Kelowna.

What's the point? He chose his life on Earth, and he can't un-choose it. He's a traitor, betrayer of all he once believed in, and there's no going back from that. But still, he can't help a wistful twist in his smile. He couldn't go home and tell his family, though he could go home to his friends.

And what would they say?

Actually, he's not sure. They don't always have the best track record trusting him.

He shakes his head, again. That seems to be happening a lot.

"I can't even imagine what anyone would say."

There are ways people can be taken suddenly from one place to another, and he's certainly not familiar with all of them, but still. It's strange.

(This is not an Asgard ship.)

"Your -- uh -- your world. What's it called? You never know, maybe I know it."

With such a similar story, it could be another world the Stargate Program's rediscovered.

[magnificus]

"Well -"

Peter suddenly realizes that Jonas' question is a little bit complicated. Only because he's quite positive he's from two worlds at this point, one of which he's certain isn't anywhere near Earth.

(Earth, after all, isn't home to talking, soldier-type animals.)

"I suppose I'm originally from a place called London," he says thoughtfully. "It's a city on Earth and that's where my sisters and brother were, too, before we discovered a new sort of land called Narnia.

"And Narnia is where we all live now. It's quite different from Earth, and there's no space travel of this nature that I'm aware of."

[a_quick_study]

"London. Raining, 75 degrees."

It had been on the weather channel just as he left his office, and it's almost an automatic response, so he gives a little chuckle at himself, rubbing his ear sheepishly. "At least, last time I heard."

But all thoughts of London and weather seem insignificant in comparison to what Peter says about where he lives now. He and his siblings found this other world, and there's no space travel there. How could a group of siblings from Earth find a whole new planet without the Gate? And without space travel?

"I guess I had it the other way around. I came from somewhere else to Earth. Sounds like you've gone the other way around." He pauses. "How, uh, how does that work, anyway? Finding a new land?"

Jonas knows how it works for him and his team, but this ... doesn't seem quite right.

[magnificus]

"So you know of London."

In a way, it's reassuring. It's at least something and someone to keep him tied to his past aside from his own memories and experiences. Even if it might not be the same London, it's close enough.


Peter lets out a chuckle.

"This is where it might start to sound a bit odd. My little sister, Lucy, was the one who first found the door to Narnia.


"Er, through a wardrobe in our guardian's house."

:D?

[a_quick_study]

"Of it, sure."

He's never been there. He hasn't been anywhere except for that little field trip to Nevada. But he's heard a lot about it. Or about its weather, at least. And there are some books in the base library that talk about Earth and Earth culture.

Britain's history is very interesting.

He'd kind of like to go there.

The thought gets no further than that. He tilts his head, eyes narrowing.

He's not sure if Peter is teasing him or not. He's still not quite up on the Earth sense of humour.

"A ... wardrobe?"

[magnificus]

"Yes. It was just - this sort of ... entrance. Past the fur coats," Peter explains, with the tone of voice of one who is definitely not teasing him or anyone else.

He wouldn't joke about Narnia.

"It led us straight to the Lamp Post and an everlasting Winter at the time."

[a_quick_study]

He doesn't ... look like he's joking, and he's earnest when he explains, but ... it's strange. He thought he knew a lot about space travel. How could he not, after all those SG team mission reports he's read? But just walking through a door, past ... fur coats? (That's not a phrase he's familiar with, but he can kind of work out what it might mean.)

Actually, of the two things that Peter's just said, the everlasting Winter is the easier for him to believe.

But there's absolutely no sign that the earnest young man is joking. Not even that thing that Teal'c and O'Neill do where they say something like it's completely serious and then keep looking serious, waiting for Jonas to catch on.

"I have to say, of all the ways of travelling between worlds I know, that one's ... uh ... pretty unusual."

[magnificus]

"I don't think it's usual anywhere or for anything but getting to Narnia, if that makes you feel any better."

Peter remembers when Lucy first told them about Narnia and the wardrobe. He and Susan were really rather skeptical. Edmund's beastly behaviour didn't help with that.

But Lucy had no reason to lie, and with a little bit of belief, they'd all discovered that the entrance to Narnia, and Narnia itself was very real.

[a_quick_study]

"I'm not sure it does," he says, his expression a little wry. Well, there are certainly lots of things out there he doesn't know, but that one is definitely one of the stranger ones he's heard.

Jonas is no scientist, but even to him, it seems very strange. But Peter seems to understand that and even to be kind of apologetic about it. Which is kind of nice.

"But hey, that's not your fault. It's just ... kind of surprising. I think of spaceships or the Stargate to travel between worlds, not a wardrobe."

He smiles and gives a little one-shouldered shrug.

"I guess we've all got a lot to learn."

[magnificus]

"That's right, I suppose we do," Peter agrees. "Because in my world, we haven't got spaceships or ... what did you call it? A 'star gate'?"

He looks a little nonplussed.

"It's all very new to me." It's brilliant though.

[a_quick_study]

"Yes. It's a transportation device that allows for almost instant travel between planets. It's how I'm used to traveling between worlds."

He pauses for a moment, then gives a wry smile, noting the look on Peter's face at the mention of the word 'Stargate'.

"I say 'used to', but I haven't been doing it very long. On my planet, we didn't even know what the Stargate was for until some explorers arrived through it."

And in Kelowna, there's no such thing as a spaceship in anything but the distant theories of scientists.

[magnificus]

"Does every planet get one? A stargate."

They sound fascinating, truly.

"What does it look like?"

Yes, this is Peter's curiousity coming out in spades.

[a_quick_study]

"Most of the inhabited ones," Jonas says. "That's how humanity spread across the galaxy from Earth. It's how my ancestors got to my world thousands of years ago."

And how most of the others they've encountered got there, taken from the worlds they came from, as slaves of the Goa'uld or under the protection of the Asgard. Brought as colonists to found new worlds, new societies, so many of them and so different in so many ways from each other yet still, basically, human.

The galaxy is a wonderful place.

"It looks like a big ring," he says, wishing that he had one of his notebooks on him, because if he did, he'd probably have a diagram, or at least would be able to sketch one. "It's several metres in diameter, and it's got symbols around the edge that represent different constellations. You use those to form the address of the planet you want to visit."

The words may sound dull, but Jonas' voice is full of all the enthusiasm he feels for his work and the joy of exploration through the gate.

And that is not dull at all.