the head | the hand (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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dualisooc2019-08-24 05:13 pm
headandhand) wrote in dualisooc2019-08-24 05:13 pm
Entry tags:
SEPTEMBER RUNDOWN.
My, my - isn't your time here in Dualis just flying by? Before you know it, your year will be up and you'll be returned home again. Until then, however, we still have some exciting events in the works for this month. Read on for the scoop!
As per usual, apps will be open Sept. 1-7, with AC due no later than Sept. 5. You can submit AC any time in the month before then, however!
NAPs, our regular monthly intro event for getting to know your neighbors, will be held Sept. 10-14, of course. As always, participation is optional, but you can't make new friends and enemies if you don't get out and meet people!
And hey - remember that awful plague that wiped out the city's entire original population? You know, the entire reason you've been brought here? If you forgot, there was a nice graphic reminder in last month's shared memories, courtesy of the Head. Well, the medical science community of Dualis has been hard at work concocting a cure for as long as anyone can remember, with minimal results. But this month, they believe they've finally had a breakthrough! And they need your help!
There's no formal approval process for new vaccines and medications, just a series of volunteer trials before it's determined whether what's being tested is effective. All residents are invited to participate in these trials, with a bonus of 200 extra duos as compensation for their time and possible suffering. Simply head down to your nearest MedDualis clinic and inform the MedDroids supervising that you're reporting for your civic duty. Participants will be given a quick, easy, and practically painless inoculation shot in the arm, and will walk out the door 200 duos richer. Sounds too good to be true, right?
Well ... as with most things that sound too good to be true, this is exactly that. Unbeknownst to all player characters, this volunteer trial is actually an experiment of a different flavor. The injection they'll be given is not in fact an experimental cure for the plague but a different agent entirely, which is intended to be developed as a weapon. (Against who? Only the Head knows, and it ain't telling.) The point of the volunteer trials is to see how citizens react to it and the severity of those reactions. Participants will be warned that like all experimental drugs, there may be side effects, but what they won't know is that this particular drug is intended to induce those effects in the subjects.
As for those reactions - they can be as mild or severe as you like! All bodies process differently, after all. Possible side effects can include: minor appearance changes (hair/skin/eye color), enhancing or reducing senses (smell, taste, hearing, sight, etc.), sudden mild development of extranormal abilities (telepathy, super strength, super speed, etc.), the ability to share dreams (if you're not tired of that sorta thing after last month), and/or loss of control over abilities you already possess, or those abilities misfiring. For example, a speedster like Tommy might find his zoomies kick in when he's not expecting it, or he may not be able to slow down even when he wants to. Magic casters may find that if they attempt one spell, it may either not work at all, or the effect may be something entirely different than intended. These effects can last as long or short as you'd like, but will all wear off by the end of the month.
Finally, on Sept. 21, all characters will receive an encoded message from the Heart delivered to their inboxes. When deciphered, it gives coordinates to an empty, run-down warehouse on the outskirts of town, and a promise of meeting members of the Heart face to face at a specified time the next day. If you have questions about this resistance they've been spearheading, this is your chance to ask! Once opened, the inbox message will erase itself after ten minutes, so you may want to write it all down on paper to work it out, and all messages will self-destruct within 12 hours. Hope you check your messages regularly!
Please feel free to ask questions below and use this post as a place to plot things out amongst yourselves!
As per usual, apps will be open Sept. 1-7, with AC due no later than Sept. 5. You can submit AC any time in the month before then, however!
NAPs, our regular monthly intro event for getting to know your neighbors, will be held Sept. 10-14, of course. As always, participation is optional, but you can't make new friends and enemies if you don't get out and meet people!
And hey - remember that awful plague that wiped out the city's entire original population? You know, the entire reason you've been brought here? If you forgot, there was a nice graphic reminder in last month's shared memories, courtesy of the Head. Well, the medical science community of Dualis has been hard at work concocting a cure for as long as anyone can remember, with minimal results. But this month, they believe they've finally had a breakthrough! And they need your help!
There's no formal approval process for new vaccines and medications, just a series of volunteer trials before it's determined whether what's being tested is effective. All residents are invited to participate in these trials, with a bonus of 200 extra duos as compensation for their time and possible suffering. Simply head down to your nearest MedDualis clinic and inform the MedDroids supervising that you're reporting for your civic duty. Participants will be given a quick, easy, and practically painless inoculation shot in the arm, and will walk out the door 200 duos richer. Sounds too good to be true, right?
Well ... as with most things that sound too good to be true, this is exactly that. Unbeknownst to all player characters, this volunteer trial is actually an experiment of a different flavor. The injection they'll be given is not in fact an experimental cure for the plague but a different agent entirely, which is intended to be developed as a weapon. (Against who? Only the Head knows, and it ain't telling.) The point of the volunteer trials is to see how citizens react to it and the severity of those reactions. Participants will be warned that like all experimental drugs, there may be side effects, but what they won't know is that this particular drug is intended to induce those effects in the subjects.
As for those reactions - they can be as mild or severe as you like! All bodies process differently, after all. Possible side effects can include: minor appearance changes (hair/skin/eye color), enhancing or reducing senses (smell, taste, hearing, sight, etc.), sudden mild development of extranormal abilities (telepathy, super strength, super speed, etc.), the ability to share dreams (if you're not tired of that sorta thing after last month), and/or loss of control over abilities you already possess, or those abilities misfiring. For example, a speedster like Tommy might find his zoomies kick in when he's not expecting it, or he may not be able to slow down even when he wants to. Magic casters may find that if they attempt one spell, it may either not work at all, or the effect may be something entirely different than intended. These effects can last as long or short as you'd like, but will all wear off by the end of the month.
Finally, on Sept. 21, all characters will receive an encoded message from the Heart delivered to their inboxes. When deciphered, it gives coordinates to an empty, run-down warehouse on the outskirts of town, and a promise of meeting members of the Heart face to face at a specified time the next day. If you have questions about this resistance they've been spearheading, this is your chance to ask! Once opened, the inbox message will erase itself after ten minutes, so you may want to write it all down on paper to work it out, and all messages will self-destruct within 12 hours. Hope you check your messages regularly!
Please feel free to ask questions below and use this post as a place to plot things out amongst yourselves!
QUESTIONS.
no subject
-Will they be pressuring police to get vaccinations?
-If Hank were to ask around, would any old timers be able to tell him how productive they've been at finding a cure (Aka barely at all).
no subject
the productivity of finding a cure (or lack thereof) is pretty well known, actually! that's the sort of thing that could be dug up in news archives, but seifer actually asked a detective about it when picking up jason that first day. (if you parent up, she says she's been on the force about ten years and lived in dualis for thirteen. we started informally calling her detective karen, and she can totally talk to hank!)
as far as player characters drawing the conclusion that vaccinated citizens are having weird effects? not sure that's what you meant, but if that is it, that would be up to the individual character - how suspicious are they, how much do they dis/trust the head, how good are they at putting cause and effect together, etc. like hank i imagine would be able to suss that out pretty easily, especially since the study's pretty up front about there being possible side effects. the effects being the intent of the study would be much harder to guess, because the head hasn't really done much outside of those memory clips to suggest it's being less than truthful about wanting to keep residents safe from this awful disease that wiped everyone out before. of course, if characters are the naturally suspicious type and distrust everything about an AI running a city, that's entirely fair for them to posit that idea, there just isn't any real way to prove it (yet).
if that's not what you meant just let me know and i'll try to clarify better!
no subject
(Hank is the type to notice that a team would plan an escape from a well-planned tower takeover and left a random weird spare parachute, it takes someone else to notice that, oh dude, one of the culprits probably is still here and didn't jump.)
Question about the warehouse. If someone offered to play cover at a distance for their friend if someone else went, would they notice anything? The area being monitored? Some suspicious people lingering around? Area being remarkably clear or anything?
no subject
the warehouse has a few security cameras and even more well-hidden people on lookout duty but otherwise looks like any other abandoned empty warehouse in the area.
no subject
Sweet. Get ready for Slim Shady Connor and a Hank in a Sons of Anarchy aesthetic.
no subject
i look forward to seeing these disguises.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Questions he'll ask.
-He heard about the guy being dragged in during the bombing and met him. How did that go?
-Has that memory thing ever happened before?
-Have they done immunization tests before?
-Have there been any sort of emergency alerts ever around the city?
-What happens to cops that die in the line of duty (he doesn't know about the rez system yet, so if she tells him how much could she tell him).
-Do the iterations ever break down/get destroyed?
Things he'll say.
-He'll be torn between getting the shot at risk of feeling like hell for a few days because that's what shots always do, judging from flu shots, or avoiding it and feeling like a filthy anti-vaccer. But he does not want.
-He'll tell her about his old work history and say that he'd like to be put on missing persons if promoted (that way he can freely look around for suspicious cases people).
-A couple of funny stories from home, and tell her about Fowler.
no subject
1. there were a lot of people dragged in during the bombing, i'm assuming hank will specify to mean jason? she'll say he was a belligerent punk and could've saved everyone a lot of hassle if he'd just come down to the station and answered a few questions, jeez. at least one of his sorta-brothers was reasonable (that'd be seifer), and she hopes he was able to talk some sense into him. otherwise, the facts of that incident was that he looked suspicious from all the blood he was wearing, the iteration that hauled him in thought he was a threat so it tasered and sedated him, and by the time he was brought in/before he even regained consciousness, jason was ruled out as a suspect, because there was surveillance footage of him throwing a tantrum at the temple during the time of the bombing.
2. her answer to the memory thing question is, in all seriousness, "what memory thing?"
3. yes, there have been a few drug trials in the past but they were all deemed failed or inconclusive results.
4. emergency alerts typically haven't been needed, but they do have a system in place in case of like, an asteroid about to collide with the city or some huge public safety issue.
5. she'll tell him that cops that die in the line of duty are brought back by the head - bodies are taken by drone to an undisclosed facility, fixed up, and returned to their homes within 24-48 hours. dualis pd gives them two weeks of paid vacation, tells them to rest up and report back for a psych eval in two weeks, and life goes on.
6. the iterations are nearly indestructible (think terminator-sturdy), and extremely durable. they wear out over time, of course, but they're designed to withstand decades of use. most of the time, they're just upgraded when needed, which just varies with the flux of technological growth.
7. she'd gently encourage hank to get the shot, because it's in the interest of the greater good, but there's no official dpd policy on participation.
and not from detective karen, but hank can totally be put on missing persons, and he can be promoted as of oct. 1. c:
no subject
2. He'll tell her more about the weird memory thing. He won't mention the Head memories (he only got the one), but he'll mention a couple of the others he got vaguely so lol that was weird.
6. Are the iterations pretty reliable or have they ever went off the rails in the past?
no subject
2. she is extremely puzzled about the memory thing and says she personally did not experience anything weird like that, doesn't know anyone other than hank who did, and has never heard of such a thing happening before.
6. the iterations are extremely reliable. one or two may've malfunctioned before but it would've been to the effect of running into walls or shutting down unexpectedly, nothing like a violent rampage.
no subject
-Would a telepath be able to get anything from trying to read any of their minds?
-Would Arkady be able to get anything if she tried to psychically pick up any psychic traces from the building itself? Like if it's been used by them before or by other people or how many people? Anything like that. If not would she be able to tell that it's shielded in some way?
Sorry for the questions and thank you!
no subject
a telepath would be able to pick up from most of the heart is that their intentions are honest - this isn't a scam and they don't want to hurt anyone, they really do want to help - a bit of fear and anxiety, because what they're doing is dangerous, and their thoughts are otherwise shielded against psychic intrusion - that is, they've had training and practice in masking their thoughts with other thoughts. (and if any of the specific npcs wish to have their thoughts prodded in more depth, we'll definitely get in touch!)
the building itself has been used by the heart before, though it's not the only space they've used. at one point it was a warehouse in active use, but that was quite a few years ago. it's been empty for a while now. and it's not exactly shielded, but they did set off an EMP at the start of the meeting - it's what took out the lights and electronics.
Steve Rogers Plotting