acatalepsy_logs | World Jump #2: Struxta

World Jump #2: Struxta

I ▫ main	IV ▫ premise			XI ▫ applications	XIV ▫ activity
II ▫ logs	V ▫ rules	VII ▫ bestiary	IX ▫ canon updates	XII ▫ taken	XV ▫ drop/hiatus
III ▫ ooc	VI ▫ faq	VIII ▫ setting	X ▫ mods	XIII ▫ reserves	XVI ▫ players

welcome to
the collected nations of struxta.

It will happen at random- you could be asleep, or wandering the Temple, or a variety of other options. It will feel a little strange, like a sudden warmth spreading across your skin, and then your bracelet will light up. When you blink again, everything has shifted - changed, developed, like in that blink of an eye you have advanced thousands of years into the future.

Around you is a city, a technological marvel. Buildings rise up from the dirt and through the clouds, figures of all shapes and sizes buzz around you. They seem to pay you little mind - a quick glance, maybe a pause, and then they will continue on their away. Ahead, there is a low rumble of thunder, a dim flash of light. It doesn't seem to be raining, but there is an electric hum in the air.

A NOTE FROM YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD WITCH

But before anything too weird can happen . . . your watch flashes again, beeps once, and on it has a new message, a hologram-sparkly image with a young woman who (to some individuals!) looks a fair bit brighter than she did a few weeks ago. To those who are new, you will recognize the voice -- Astoria, the guardian of the Temple (or, if you're a bit more pessimistic, your effervescent kidnapper).

"Hello, my beloved travelers ♥ and new ones, too! My name is Lady Astoria the Witchess-san." The way she says it, though, it is very clearly something of a joke. "I'm so glad you are settling in, adjusting to your new powers . . . I apologize for not coming forward and greeting you all like last time. But I am feeling much more like myself, and ready to send you to a new world ♥

This one is named Struxta . . . Struxa? No, I think it's Struxta. It's very metal. I'm not sure what's wrong in this world . . . but I can feel something building. Pulsing, it's very chaotic. I'm afraid I can't be more detailed than that, I did have a headache earlier . . . Akira told me I was fine ♥" And, again, you can likely guess that Akira definitely did no such thing. Astoria clasps her hands, her bright blue eyes shining, with a bright smile. "Now! Please be safe, and please mind your manners, and tell me all about it when you return! I'll see you soon. ♥"

And, just like that? The humming in the air grows louder, you feel an odd tug in your stomach, and before you can properly adjust yourself to the sensation of being cast across the universe . . . you find yourself in Struxta. (Astoria, it seems, did have it right the first time.)

THE HOSTEL

Just as it was in El Minha, it appears that upon arrival, each character is outfitted with a room at one of the largest, arguably most impressive skyscrapers in the city. Nearly two hundred stories tall, and with each floor containing nearly sixty rooms. Every floor, every room, every door is of the highest tech and the more advanced security. The watches that Astoria has given each of the Circle Members act, in many ways, like a key, a credit card, an ID, and any other form of identification the players will need during their stay.

The rooms themselves are simple - one bed, roughly full sized, with a light, a desk, a chair, and a variety of plugs and buttons. Characters are welcome, if they are able to find the appropriate plug, to charge any and all devices they may have. There is a TV of sorts in the room as well, with access to all manner of shows and news stations.

The bottom floor of the building is almost as large as a city block. It is open, sleek, and clean-cut. A kind of open meeting room, which has - upon inspection - been modified to include what appears to be a restaurant. Which, given the fact the group of Circle members who have arrived in the city are the only natural bodies around? Includes the fact you are the only members of the city who have to consume food and nutrients. Upon even closer inspection, the technology used to make the food seems a few decades behind that of the rest of the city, but it still works, and the food can still be produced. It might taste a little weird and turn out to be some sort of glorified goop, but it has some nutritional value.

The rest of the floor has a variety of seating arrangements and places to sit and chat with your other Circle members, but beyond the Welcome Committee, who is set up on the far northern corner, there doesn't seem to be many of the natives walking through.

THE SUPER CENTER

Have you ever wanted to go shopping in the most technologically advanced superstore possible? Here is your chance! It appears that if you use your watch, you have been given a moderate amount of credit to buy clothing, toys, electronics, items, and anything else that might suit your fancy. You will not have enough to buy anything significant, such as limbs, organs, advanced computer technology, etc. But you are more than welcome to find a job to help collected more credits! Many of the stores within the Supercenter are hiring - greeters, cashiers, manual labor, errand runners, and everything in between!

The Supercenter is attached, as most of the buildings seem to be in this city, by a roadway of interlocking bridges and stairways- to a point that you could, if you wanted to, move about the entire city without stepping foot outside. There are bridges on every level of the Supercenter, as well as a network of pathways and semi-roadways within the center itself.

There are no restaurants or bars, but there are plenty of areas to relax and ~~people~~ robot watch if you so desire. Otherwise, shop, explore, find weird mechanical devices of the likes you could never imagine back home. There are all manner of stores, some art galleries, music centers, arcades, and more here. There is no limit to what you can find and what you can experience.

Everything is automated, but there are still helpful employees of various appearances at each of the stories to help you decide and browse- small, flying blocks that speak in primarily beeping noises that (thanks to Astoria's wonderful watches) you can somehow understand, completely human-appearing androids of the utmost style and elegance, and everything in between. Take your time, do a little shopping or go to work, and enjoy the pique of futuristic capitalism.

THE RACES

In the south-eastern district of the city, a large section of the city has been modified into a multi-level, vast, complicated race track of sorts. Think Tron, meets Speed Racer, meets a type of racing that is something all their own. It's fun as hell, fast as hell, and dangerous as hell. Sounds great, right?

What is simply known as ‘Racing’ here in Struxta is complicated, but at its heart is exactly what it says: it is a race. A race of cars, bikes, and everything in between through an obstacle course of everything you can imagine. It seems to all be linked, electronically, to a motherboard that decides - each race - what the drivers will find. Each race was drastically different, with dangers galore. One day you might find that the road is full of spikes, the next it might be slick as oil, there could be loops that defy gravity and breaks in the road that seem to be impossible to cross, but that's what the modifications and specialists in the garages are for, right?

The rules are simple: if you have a vehicle, and you have a driver, you are allowed to race. First one to complete the track, wins.

Surrounding the main track is an entire industry of shops, stores, garages, meeting places, lounge areas, and viewing rooms. There are robots who make entire livings on the industry surrounding the Races, without ever having to step food onto the course. Some of the areas will be cleaner, like the rest of the city, while others may air on the side of back-house garages. While there won't be any dirt or natural life forms, for the first time you might catch sight of rusted metal, oil slicks, broken down previous versions of what's out on the road. There are some practice tracks, some experimental safety sections to test out new additions, etc.

The one thing that holds everyone together, here, is the excitement around watching. The excitement around the competition. There are Races every five days, so that gives you just enough to get settled. And maybe find a car.

THE LIBRARY

As many have already come to hear, there are plenty of libraries and museums all across Struxta. However, there is one that is known as The Library, which archives anything and everything in the history of all of Struxta, spanning back its entire history, over thousands and thousands of years. The building itself is as large and impressive as The Hostel, nearly two hundred stories tall, possibly more, and as wide and long as a city block. But where in the Hostel each floor had been made up of rooms, each of these floors are large, open areas, with dark, imposing servers held behind tight, clean cabinets.

No one else seems to be here, which gives the impression that The Library is not open to just any native of Struxta, and that in fact - as members of the Circle you are being given special access to what would normally be off-limits.

In the middle of each floor, there is a small collection of tables, with large screens. These touch-screens will be your access into the Library archives. And that is the thing - you will have access to everything, but as it turns out, everything really means everything, and with backups spanning the course of thousands of years in the past, it will take a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of research determination to find anything of use. Not because it is difficult, just because it is so massive and so overwhelming.

The only natives you will find will be on the first floor, as a kind of secretarial position for the building. They are more than happy to try and help guide you through the search process, but they will not follow you up to any of the other floors, and there is a distinct feeling of being entirely alone when you do go up to begin your search. Alone, but watched, somehow.

Remember- if there is something that you wish to look up specifically, please ask over on the world interactions post so we can be sure that the correct information is shared! The best way to go about finding something in the Library will be going at search terms in teams, as there is so much information there is no way one person will be able to wade through it all.

Additionally, please feel free to write up and work with your own prompts! These are presented as jumping off points for your characters, not limitations. The idea of this world- as with all the others- is to explore. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask them back on the mod questions thread back in the OOC post from before! And if you have any ideas regarding how your character will interact with the world, also feel free to check back into the world interactions comment from the OOC post from before, as well!

From this point forward, the Circle has become involved with the Collected Nations of Struxta. What your character finds out, decides, and does from here on out will affect the future of this city- one way or another! But what you do is completely up to you. What you discover, explore, and uncover will be yours to discover, explore, and uncover. Who knows what you might find? :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i. hostel

[ So far, Struxta is a double-edged sword. Being surrounded by machines makes it pretty hard for Simon to forget that he is one, but the absence of humanity or anything organic and familiar, aside from Circle members, also means he isn’t constantly seeing reminders of what he’s lost. Except for this nutrient slurry everybody has to choke down, but he’s not particularly envious of that. He doesn't have to constantly confront the fact that there isn't a place for him among humans, not like before, but it isn't as if there's anything to replace it with. He doesn't know how to be a robot, either.

But he did get a weird little robot toy because it looks like something Catherine would buy, and it is marching placidly across the small portion of the table that he allows it.

He repositions it when it approaches the edge. The whole process is distracted, more compulsive than anything; Simon sets it down, it does a tiny robot trek some arbitrary distance, and he picks it up. And then he begins the cycle anew. As you do, in the middle of robot hivemind country that you know is nothing like a rogue A.I.’s clumsy attempts to “preserve humanity”, but still.

Eventually he addresses whichever unlucky Circle member is close by and requires sustenance. ] So... how is it?

[ his tone says “because it sure looks terrible", ofc ]

ii. all bots go to heaven

a. [ This just in: the scrapyard is fucked up. It looks like a place where the Mass Subconscious’s mass “empathy” failed. Simon can’t make heads or tails of why they would do it this way, another dead end in the maze of ascribing human values to robots who seem really human.

So if you head southeast while he’s at this sad junk pile, he’s kneeling at the edge of it, examining what looks like a hard drive. Well, it doesn’t look like anything, just kind of like a box, so Simon can only assume that’s what it is as he turns it over in his hands. Like something he would’ve found in PATHOS-II — a robot brain, like his cortex chip, an entire mind left in a field of discarded parts. Or maybe it’s something else entirely. And yet he's touching it. He's gotten his hands all over worse things.

So yeah. Maybe you had the same idea and trekked to the scrapyard, or Simon’s yelp when he picks up some kind of marble only to turn it over and see an incredibly human-looking eyeball staring back at him is that loud. ]

b. [ Later in his investigation, a stealthy broken piece of metal takes a slice at his palm, and he yanks his hand back with a hiss. ] Agh, shit—

[ and when he sees black ichor welling up into a rivulet from the cut he stares at it, frozen and winded with alarm. this is wrong- ] What the hell?

iii. library

[ The library is comfortable busywork. It's something Simon would've liked even back on Earth, actually, or like PATHOS-II without the death and decay and constant threats to his life. The absence of those things means he could do this sitting, like a normal person, but instead he operates it with both palms flat on the table whenever he's not using the touchscreen, in that dumb weight-on-one-hip sticks-leggy-out lean.

Much of what he finds he ends up skimming, and eventually, to the nearest Circle member, ] There has to be a better way to do this.

[ it's kind of only now coming into focus how impossible it will be to find anything here ]

iv. wildcard

[ simon will feasibly be pretty much anywhere, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ throw me a starter or hit me up at honchkrow to plot! ]

[ Hi I'm slightly wildcarding this and saying 9S followed along with Simon to the sad scrapyard.

Now that we have that established, when they get there, it doesn't take long before 9S breaks off from his fellow robot to idly explore the property for himself—and he's definitely less horrified about stepping over the bits and pieces of former machines and androids. After all, he's done this hundreds of times by now.

With Pod in tow, his first pass around the junkheap is little more than a cursory glance, getting a gist of what sorts of old parts one might find around here. The quick inspection is soon interrupted by a very Simon-sounding yell. ]

Wha—? [ 9S turns around, backtracking to see what's going on. ] What's all that shouting for?

[ Simon’s dropped/flung the offending robot eye back into the heap by the time 9S turns around, and he’s not about to explain it. Catherine may be absent, but her contributions to the “have you ever considered not loudly having so many feelings all the time” task force, of which 9S is a distinguished member, are still keenly felt. ]

Nothing.

[ Instead of pursuing that line of conversation he gets to his feet to pace around the perimeter. The mix of androids and sapient robots and nonsapient drones looks like a nice harmonious society when they’re alive, but if there are claw machines in hell, this is probably what they look like. ]

This is crazy. How can you spend your entire life connected to somebody else’s mind and... feel everything they feel, and then just throw them in a junkyard when they die?

[ DEATH IS SERIOUS ??????? ]

[ Nothing his ass. 9S even peeks over his shoulder in hopes of spotting whatever it is that spooked Simon so much, but he sees nothing more than more junk laying around.

Sheesh...

Simon is swift in moving on, however. Moving on to... being horrified about something else, anyway. 9S is prone to growing exasperated when Simon yet again fails to grasp that there simply are differences between humanity and mechanical beings like this; this time, there isn't any of that. Instead, 9S takes a long moment to mull over the question, like it's one of the first legitimate things Simon's bothered to ask. ]

I doubt they understand death like humans do.

[ 9S is no different, and he seems a little ashamed about admitting so. But no android nor machine he'd ever met could say they did, and when this world is lacking humans much like his own was, well—there's probably going to be a lot of the same problems. ]

[ At that response, Simon looks at him for a long moment, and something in 9S’s tone gives him pause. When his focus shifts away you can practically see him buffering, even without a proper face. He sounded almost vulnerable in saying it, and Simon now has to contend with the possibility that his approach to understanding this... is maybe... wrong?¿?¿?

He resumes his pacing, ensuring they’re not really facing each other when he speaks again, his voice more subdued this time. He’s starting to understand why Catherine seems to find it easier to have conversations when she’s looking at a computer. Or is a computer. ]

What about you guys? Does death even exist? When you get too damaged, they just put you in new bodies, right?

[ A true death didn't used to exist for YoRHa units such as himself. That ended up changing once the tides turned against them, after a series of successes—but that's just how that war had been ongoing for so long, he supposes. No one ever stayed lucky for long.

9S isn't feeling inclined to start correcting him about it, though. It's easier not to, especially with someone like Simon. ]

Yeah. We were synced up with a server so we could make frequent backups of our personal data. As long as we had that, it didn't really matter what happened to our bodies, so... I don't really know if getting killed out in the field ever meant actually dying.

[ He's still not sure it counts when his data had been wiped clean so many times, either. He's still here, after all—and that wouldn't be possible for a human. ]

[ Oh. Right. Androids can do that, and they don’t think it’s a big deal. The robots of Struxta must do it too, and this scrapyard full of death is just the result of a difference in perspective.

Simon stops to pick up something else, one of the many undefinable hard-drive-things in the vicinity, and when he’s back to pacing he’s barely conscious of the fact that he’s still carrying it. ]

What if your backup was uploaded into something else? Like a ‘machine’. Would it matter then?

[ He’s not expecting the personal relevance of this question to slip past 9S, but it’s not leading or pointed in the way he asks it, either; just earnestly curious. ]

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