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

[electro_kinetic]

"Wait, sobriety ages aren't a thing here? Righteous," Nori says with a nod. This place might be worth not hating. Eventually. Maybe. "Why, out of curiosity, can't it produce real alcohol? It's not that difficult."

For the record, they're not really prosthetics; they're gauntlets, she still has functioning arms under them. The tan lines make a nice delineation of where the metal usually ends, though the more striking thing is that the forearm underneath the metal is heavily scarred with look like steam burns. "Yeah, man, this? This is nothing like the only space travel we've got--or had, rather--in my world. Pretty sure NASA would have killed to even dream about this kind of technology."

She kneads a ball of cleaning putty in one hand as she talks, working it into consistency to clean the metal. Water plus high current, not exactly the loveliest of cleaning options.

[asklepian]

"Fell by the wayside once we found out how arbitrary counting age is when there's any number of other civilizations that do not, and synthehol was invented. 18 is generally accepted as a tradition, but enforcement isn't nearly so strict. In fact..."

Julian waves over a bartender with a smile to ask for another. Not like he has to worry about a tab, the Federation didn't use money in the same way prior centuries did.

"On me. Though money is an outdated concept as well, so I'm afraid the gesture isn't quite as generous as it could be."

Because he wasn't exactly adverse to talking work business while drinking and has basically no shame, he continues right along. "May I ask about your hands?"

He might not be able to correct the scarring, but if he knew what caused it, it was more likely.

[electro_kinetic]

Now that offer gets a raised brow. "Huh," she chuckled, tilting her head at the glass. Well, it's not like her professors are here to yell at her for it, and Noriko hardly minds the taste of alcohol. (And it does far less bad things to her than PCP did, she supposes.) And actually, this doesn't taste bad. Doesn't taste great, either, but then she's not picky.

"This place is full of surprises, isn't it? No money, fake alcohol, time traveling. And people are surprised at mutants," she says. "You can ask. They're steam burns from electrical current turning my sweat to steam. I act as an electrical conductor, it's a genetic thing. Unfortunately the side-effects suck."

[asklepian]

Better not be, because you're probably not going to get anything different unless you make friends with someone getting care packages from Earth.

"Not so much for me, the only surprise there was waking up some eight years in the past and halfway across the Quadrant."

He doesn't startle at the mention of mutants, despite it calling up memories of Jack and the others--and himself lumped in with them, he supposed. Jack had, anyway.

"I see. One of us may be able to heal some of the damage at least, in Sickbay. Doctor Crusher is a fantastic physician, as is Doctor McCoy. And I'm not bad myself, if I can say so without sounding like an arrogant ass."

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah, it's...we're about four hundred years and a million and a half miles away from where I was before here," she says, and shrugs as she studies her arm.

"This could turn out to be a really awkward conversation, but they're recurring burns. It happens every time I sweat, which is kind of all the time," Nori shrugs. "And taking the gauntlets off is not a good option." Especially here, though she doesn't go into why. (But she would like to not be responsible for everyone being in the dark, and potentially electrocuted.)

"You don't sound like an ass, no. But speaking of yourself, you got a name?"

[asklepian]

"Awkward how?" Julian frowns, the supercharged wheels in his mind already turning. Perhaps some sort of superconductive material could draw the heat away and negate it...it was something to think about at least, he could bring the idea up to one of the engineers at some point.

"More often if your hands are encased in metal. It doesn't really breathe, you know. And a dermal regenerator may be able to at least help with any pain--hands are sensitive things, with quite a lot of nerve endings."

Julian might not know when to lay off, but he's not going to shy away from the conversation.

"As for my name, it's Julian Bashir."

[electro_kinetic]

"Because bringing up the idea of an otherwise human woman acting as an electrical conduit--or mutants in general, where I'm from--tends to draw awkward questions," she says, shaking her head. "Yeah, I know it doesn't breathe. But without the metal, my mutation is uncontrollable, and I like not electrocuting people. Or melting circuitry I'm unfamiliar with."

She smiles easily, and holds out the hand whose cover isn't partly disassembled. "Ashida Noriko. Most of the time people go with Nori. Good to meet you, Julian Bashir."

[asklepian]

"Well, I assure you, I simply find it interesting." He really can't say anything at all--he's not exactly baseline human himself. At least with a natural mutation, it wouldn't be looked upon the same way as someone like Julian, who was artificially enhanced.

He hoped, anyway. Not that he was going to advertise his own status to the world.

"Though I do appreciate the effort not to electrocute people." It's filed away in his mind to pass the idea to a couple of engineers, try to figure something out.

He grips it without hesitation, despite the comment about electrocuting people. "Nori, then. And please, feel free to call me Julian."

[electro_kinetic]

"Well, that's good," she says. "So are mutants more common by now? You seem pretty familiar with the concept."

Well, she's pretty safe with the gauntlets on, honestly; though it's normal that people think otherwise with her introduction. "Okay, Julian. Not fond of nicknames?" Hey, already he's worlds better than the other Julian she knows. Then again, as he's not telekinetic and a pain in the ass, this is not an impossibly difficult task.

[asklepian]

"Not as such, but if you're expecting surprise, well." He makes a show of looking around the room, and sounds amused. "In this crowd, I wouldn't." Aliens, you know.

"Not particularly. Doctor is a title, not a nickname, and if people are calling me by anything other than name, that would be it."

[electro_kinetic]

"Oh, yeah, I've seen the aliens. We got it so wrong with E.T.," she says with a distinct grin.

"Doctor of what? Medicine or philosophy?"

[asklepian]

"Well, we haven't quite scoured the far reaches of the galaxy yet. There's still time." Not that he knows the reference she's making, he's not a 20th century movie aficionado. Except for Bond films. He loves those.

"Medicine."

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah, but all the aliens here speak pretty fluent English. Or fluent something we can all understand." She doubts they're speaking Japanese, or French, that's her only other option.

"Nice. Do you have a specialty, out of curiosity? Do people still do that now?"

[asklepian]

"Federation Standard, which is...yes, basically English, though we are on the Federation flagship, and there may be a bit of 'when in Rome' behind that. There's also the translators."

He's not sure if the civilians were given them, but he had his own in his commbadge.

"I sort of do it all, though if I had to say--surgery."

[electro_kinetic]

"You keep mentioning that it's the flagship--does that make it different?" she asks. "I mean, we don't have a Federation where I came from. Not one anything like this, anyway."

[asklepian]

"It means that it's representative of the Fleet. Usually sent on diplomatic missions and the like." Though a Galaxy class also was quite capable of defense as well.

"What did you have?" Julian's not exactly up on his 20th century history, aside from the few days he spent there.

[electro_kinetic]

"Diplomatic missions to other planets," she says, still trying to wrap her head around the ease of interstellar travel everyone seems to have. "What, you mean for military? In Japan, we had the Ministry of Defense, so army, navy, and air force were under them, once they were reestablished after the second world war. In the states, the same three plus marines and a whole shitload of mostly-covert agencies."

None of which particularly like mutants with potentially militaristic capabilities, or protecting mutants with potentially militaristic capabilities either.

[asklepian]

"I'm not exactly a student of history, so I know little to nothing at all. There is no military on Earth any longer, not since the 22nd century. I know the timeline of a few battles, that's about it."

World War 3 sort of soured everyone on the every nation having standing military thing, and once the united government was established, there was really no use for each state to have its own defense force.

[electro_kinetic]

"There...is no military," she echoes, blankly.

"How do people defend themselves? What happens if there's a war?" she asks, surprised--and it's obvious on her face.

[asklepian]

"There isn't any war on Earth in this timeframe--all the nations are united under a single planet-wide government. Starfleet is a diplomatic, exploratory, and defense force, so I suppose we're the closest it comes--but we're not strictly Earth-based. Though there are a rather large number of Humans in Starfleet."

Julian shrugs.

I am *so sorry* for not noticing that misfire earlier, omg. D:

[electro_kinetic]

"I'm suddenly really glad I probably won't live to see that," Noriko says, brows drawn together. "Because if this planet-wide government works the way it's been talked about in my time it's awful and despotic. Putting it lightly," she murmurs.

rofl it's okay

[asklepian]

"...I don't know what it's like in your time, but the Federation, and United Earth, are nothing like that."

Julian looks pensive and slightly concerned--just how many differences were in play here?

I'm such a derp sometimes.

[electro_kinetic]

"In my time there are a lot of people who want everyone like me dead," she says bluntly.

She doesn't mean women, or even Japanese. She means mutants. "And the only player who might realistically succeed in a bid for global power has done exactly nothing to stop that happening."