Once You Pop, The Fun Don't Stop!

[cityship]

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. Tag each other in groups of 2's, 3's, and 4's, to get some interaction to start with. If a thread doesn't already have 2 or 3 people tagged in, tag it with your character's podpop popping near the other people, rather than making a new subthread. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]


||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

In the Pod Caverns, there are the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--

There was nothing. You were going about your normal life, then there was a bright light, and then? Nothing.

Then the world lurches.

The chamber here is humid.

Actually, "chamber" isn't quite accurate. You're in a cavern, half-lit by an eerie greenish light, going on and on as far as the eye can see. The light is coming from what can only be described as pods, glistening, round greenish-yellow things, glowing with a pale inner light, outlining human -- and not quite human -- forms. Each is rooted to the floor, to the walls, with something black, twisted, and unidentifiable.

They line the walls of the cavern, go up in maddeningly high columns, curling and corkscrewing up into the darkness, until the light from them is like that of the stars, glowing pale and mournful in clusters in the darkness above. Twisted walkways and stairs crisscross, traverse the platforms in front of the pods, wending their way back and forth, up and down through the chamber.

You just came from one of those pods, broke free like a butterfly from a (slimy, nasty) chrysalis.

Now you stand alone but not quite alone, naked, not knowing how you got there, who took you, or why you were taken.

As your body heats up again, you realize the air is warm -- just a few degrees too warm to be comfortable -- and muggy; it smells acrid and organic, like freshly spilt blood and sweat. Your mouth tastes of salt.

The floors are pulsing under your feet, throbbing...

Wherever you are, this entire place...is alive.

Oh, and also you're naked and covered in alien snot.

When you call out, ask where you are, a voice speaks to you, in your head. She tells you:

||You are here.||

When you ask who she is, she tells you that her name is STA'C K'LTRRB'TXFT, but that you may call her Stacy. When she tells you who she is, there is a gush of emotion, love, maternal warmth. You are on a ship. She is that ship. Her name is Stacy and she loves you. Her voice is warm and motherly, even if these messages sound almost automated.

Glowing phosphorescent lights appear in pustules along the floor. They lead you up a massive spiraling walkway that gives you a view of what are possibly millions in stasis. At the top is a room with moving vines that clean you and clothe you in a plant-like body-suit--soft, but durable. After that, the lights lead you to a great cavernous room with a clear floor that lets you see all the holes and tunnels in the walls of it. When you reach the center, the last thing she tells you before whisking you away to gather your belongings and meet the rest of the crew is this reassuring thought:

||You have been Chosen to accomplish a Great Purpose. You have been Chosen to help fight the Ohm, a race of insectoid beings that are the destroyers of worlds.||

||You have been Chosen as champions of life, as protectors of the worlds and peoples that are left. The others are waiting for you. They will explain everything.||

She will tell you nothing more. Your answers lie with these "others" she speaks of.

Comments

[wearsagun.livejournal.com]

Kate was asleep at eight in the morning, having stayed up half the night hunting down possible leads. She was trying to figure out who had ordered Coonan to kill her mother, but so far had had little success. She was sitting at her desk, head resting on her hands, and having a most bizarre dream.

She was walking through a strange room that was covered in pulsing, moving vines, and there was a liquid-like goo substance covering the floor. It was disgusting, and Beckett thought it looked like someone’s science project gone horribly, horribly wrong. She muttered under her breath, “I’ll have to ask Ryan and Esposito to look into this. Someone was probably conducting an experiment when they had no idea what they were doing.” Beckett sighed to herself; it was always the police department’s responsibility to clean up after people who didn’t know what they were doing. She wasn’t complaining; it was a job, and she didn’t mind, but sometimes she wished people would just stop being so stupid.

“Stupid like Castle is,” she added, still in a low mutter. “Why I put up with him, I have no idea.” Then, just as she was about to turn back (she figured she’d seen enough of the room), there was a huge lurch, and she stumbled forward, almost falling to the ground but catching herself at the last minute. “What was that?”

The room was still, and for a minute, nothing happened. But then there was another lurch, stronger this time, and Beckett finally fell forward, expecting to slam heavily into the floor. She did hit the ground, but something was different. There was no liquid substance on the floor, and… And she was naked.

She sat up slowly, eyes widened with confusion and a barely perceptible hint of fear. The realization that she had no clothes hit her, and she folded her arms in front of her, hoping to shield herself in case anyone came along. This was nothing like she’d ever seen before, but even so, her mind was working quickly, trying to come up with some explanation for all of this.

She opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to call out for help, in case anyone was around, but what she said was totally different. “Castle, I am going to kill you. What did you do?!”

[fiercerhyena.livejournal.com]

Grim Eyes was in the process of trying to peel the goo out of her mane, fluffing it until she thought it was standing at a reasonably intimidating height. It wouldn't do to make a bad impression on the hairless monkeys, after all. She knew how they got about non-humans.

Still, the woman who had emerged from the smelly pods near her sounded like she had some spit and gristle to her. "If they're the one responsible for all this, I'll help," she said dryly.

[wearsagun.livejournal.com]

Beckett frowned down at herself and the goo that was covering her, but pushed it aside for the time being. She could always get cleaned off later. Right now, she just wanted to process the load of information that had been thrust at her by the disembodied voice that apparently belonged to someone called "Stacy".

Her attention was distracted by someone speaking to her, who appeared to be a sort of lion-thing. She tried to not look too fazed, and replied, "I don't know if he is, but if I find him, I'd appreciate the help."

[fiercerhyena.livejournal.com]

"Oh, males," Grim Eyes said, taking on a tone that was at once understanding and totally condescending. "The type to ruin something just by bumping into it, is he? The hopeless ones are always the worst to deal with."

She shook her hand, trying to dislodge the goop stuck to it, making a face.

[wearsagun.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. That's a pretty accurate description of him." She rolled her eyes, putting her hands on her hips. "He can be serious when he wants to be but that's not very common, unfortunately."

"I'm not buying any of this business about the universe being destroyed by insects. It sounds like a story written by some second-rate science fiction author."

[fiercerhyena.livejournal.com]

"If one of our storytellers tried this one we'd have laughed him out of the hogan for nipping at the mead a bit to hard," Grim Eyes said, "but I've seen my fair share of unbelievable things lately, and I'm not sure why I would hallucinate a roomful of hairless apes. And slime."

No, she didn't seem to realize that 'hairless apes' was a ridiculously offensive comment. Tact, not Grim Eyes' middle name.

[wearsagun.livejournal.com]

"And if Castle tried writing something like this, he would lose all credibility as a writer. That is, I think he would. Sometimes I think the man is more famous than he deserves to be," replied Beckett with a hard edge to her voice. She was mildly put off by the hairless apes comment, although she didn't comment on it. It was true, after all.

Why waste time arguing something that when it was boiled down, was true?

[fiercerhyena.livejournal.com]

Grim Eyes snorted. "Yours is a storyteller, then? They always seemed a bit flighty for me - in my opinion, a male should have a good practical head on his shoulders. Notice when you come home from a hunt, happy to see you, all that. Storytellers - feh, always with their heads in the sky."

Yep, looks like we have a bit of cross-species miscommunication, here.

[wearsagun.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, sort of, although I'm just going to guess that your idea of a storyteller is different than the one that's called normal where I'm from." Beckett smiled slightly. "Care to elaborate?"

"I can agree though that Castle's got his head stuck somewhere else that's not reality."

Possibly, but that's bound to happen when you get a bunch of different species on the same ship. They'll work things out eventually.

[fiercerhyena.livejournal.com]

Grim Eyes shrugged. What was there to tell? "They carry the stories of the tribe, and the stories of all the tribes. The tales of She-is-Fiercer, of the Mother of Earthquakes, of Sweetgrass Voice and the First Nameless in the beginning. They teach the history to the young."

Then she smiles. "It sounds like you've got yourself a handful in that one."