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

ooc: it's fine! i've been building fences i know how easy uninterneting can be

[spacefaring]

"Still--"

He rises anyway. It's less a courtesy and more a reflection of discomfort. Now he's here, really sitting in his own Captain's chair with Picard standing over him, the chair represents makes him feel like he's on uneven ground, something that hadn't really been troubling him until exactly this moment. But he's always preferred standing on his bridge anyway, or moving about the ship poking his nose into everything that was happening. There was plenty of room to be still when he was dead, and apparently it was going to be a good long wait.

"You've more than outdone yourself, Captain. You didn't have to go out of your way--why, those quarters are bigger than our entire mess hall." He pauses for a moment. "Do you sleep in a room like that? I don't know what I'd do with all the space, myself." But Porthos would have loved it. Moreover the beagle would have enjoyed not being the only housepet on the ship. Probably yet another tradition he was responsible for perpetuating--he was losing count of those.

:3

[tea_earlgrey_hot]

He chuckles.

"It was no trouble, I assure you," he says. "Standard guest quarters are only slightly more modest. One of many differences between ships of your era and mine, I'm sure."

Since Captain Archer remains standing, Picard takes the opportunity to move through the room and observe some of those differences. He oftentimes wonders what it would have been like to be at the precipice of Starfleet's very beginnings, to see it grow to what it is now.

"I have had my fair share of cramped quarters as well," he adds, a touch wry. "Sometimes I find myself missing the room I had as an ensign. It was little more than a box that I shared with a fellow graduate, but it was my first real home after I left the academy. It's the memories we keep; the objects, well. They fade with time."

[spacefaring]

"It would be a shorter list to count the similarities."

And that was putting it lightly. There weren't a great deal of similarities. Even the warp engines were incomparable next to the engineering section of the Enterprise D. By contrast this ship's bridge is raw and practical. There are no soft edges and plush seats, nor wasted space, everyone worked elbow to elbow with everyone else.

"Still, I bet those rooms at the academy are still just the way you remember them. Four walls, washbasin, bunk and a desk--everything you need, none of the trimmings." Simplicity. And it was never lonely living like that. Archer's own experiences in proterozoic Starfleet had never been those of a lonely man, and his captaincy hadn't been much different; it had been a vibrant and active experience.

Archer ran his hand almost affectionately across the back of the captain's chair.

"It's hard to imagine you as a cadet. You sure you weren't brought into the world fully grown?"

[tea_earlgrey_hot]

"Yes, indeed," he muses, thinking back on the academy. He smiles, shaking his head. "That is very much the same. Along with the simplicity, there is far less privacy. I'm sure it was similar in your youth; shared quarters, tight living spaces, forcing you to share bonds and form relationships with your fellow cadets. It instills a need for cooperation and reliance early on. I still keep in contact with many of the officers I knew then. Those bonds are perhaps the strongest of any I've formed in my career, prior to my assignment as captain of this ship."

He looks distinctly amused. "I hate to disappoint you, but at one time I was as green as the next graduate. I must say the feeling is mutual, however. Seeing you at home in this environment, it's hard to imagine anything else."