Shore Leave: Geartopia [Open to All]

[cityship]

||Attention all crewmen, shore leave is now in progress, attention crewmen, shore leave is now in progress...||

Stacy's voiced called the entire crew, until all of them were gathered at the Obs Deck. Then, a dossier appeared on the screens, along with the image of a rotating planet.

Planet Designation: Geartopia
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Extensive flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Yes.
Sentient Life: Homo Sapiens, Homo Animalia, Machina Erectus.
Water: 20.6% of the planet's surface.
Climate: Earth-like, Arid desert
Landscape: 70% Desert..
Air: Normoxic concentration.
Air Pressure: 101.3 kPa (kilopascals) = 14.7 psi (pounds per square inch)
Sky: Blue
Sun: A class G2V, yellow star.
Warnings: Wildlife, humanoids and plant-life can be hazardous.
Nomalanga has given us a map with which areas to avoid.
Mission: Shore leave, and preparing for an attack in a few days, planet's time. Nomalanga has promised food, clothing and animals in exchange for your cooperation in aiding her.



Once, long ago, Geartopia was built by aliens visiting the planet and granting intelligence to some native species. Of course you wouldn't know this apart from the giant black obsidian monoliths humming precariously outside of town. They are formed in a circle formation that might remind those who come from earth of Stonehenge, only built out of a much more study device. This is what Nomalanga used to contact you. The rocks cannot be moved and any attacks on them will be useless. The Wild Ones will come out of the forest at night, leaving a trace of plants as they go back and fro their own forest. The technology the elder aliens left them allows for contact with Stacy but otherwise there is nothing futuristic going on on the planet - the aliens wanted it this way and for the most part the population respects this.

All except Snidley and his goons, of course. Thankfully most of them have gone into hiding once their plot was found out. In fact, Nomalanga and those still loyal to her are busy working on making this planned attack, and getting the townspeople ready for it.

You can also find a few remains of their culture scattered around the land in the form of large stone carvings around the town, in between a wooden tavern bar or used as a sort of tribute, covered in dry plants. Most of the area is dry and arid, with very tiny grass and shrubs growing over the hill, and, strangely enough, an area from town that is densely populated by forest. Few dare go in, due to it being the territory of the Wild Ones.

As you walk around, you notice that the technology is steampunk with a cowboy flare; there is one train that comes from the towns every morning at 6am and leaves at 9pm. Horses can be rented for a price (some normal, some like this), chariot rides as well. Gears and dark clothing seem to be the norm, possibly due that their source of leather. The inhabitants are mostly humans, humanoid animals, alien natives and steampunk robots.

But enough of that, let's see what you can do here:

- Saloon and bars of all sizes, most comically named with an object, and a color. You can find all sorts of them across town, but those on the western side are more sympathetic towards Snidley and hate strangers with a passion. Do not go there unless you're ready to fight a few of them.

They do, however, have the best drinks, and card games.

There are hotels with gear pianos playing wistful tunes as you drink hard liquor made from cactus juice, honey and barley. The honey wine is especially prized and costly.

There is also a small carnival with steampunk and old west fair, sugar and cactus fruit pies, whole animals roasted over open pits, musicians, and a single wooden coaster. It's not much, but the food is excellent.

Be careful, however. The cactus fruit does cause stomach aches for most people not native to this world. Think of it much like lactos intolerance. It's a chance you take eating it. However if you do, it tastes much like an orange, strawberry and a banana were put together in a blender.

As thanks for helping her out, anyone stepping into the city is given by the mayoress as part of her exchange bartering price, one cowboy hat (all brown), one pair of steampunk goggles, a steampunk vest, and, most importantly, one part of leathersnake steampunk boots. This is a gift for anyone who is just visiting to blend with the locals and to prove she's honest about her dealings. As if it wasn't obvious after the first mission, in any case. She'll need your strange and powerful manpower in the upcoming days.

And hey, if you're up to it, you can help with a little cleanup. After all most people here don't know your skills. However, it's also calm and quiet in the farms. You want to do some honest work for a day, they'll give you some of their seeds in exchange. The system seems to be based more on services and barter than any money.

There is still currency and Stacy has given you a few golden coins, spend them wisely. A few farms are opened up to sleep for free, if you don't mind being with the animals.

The General store has steampunk items for sale, but most of them are much too expensive for anyone on the ship to by. You can try to barter.

Oh and news travels fast. Cause problems, and Nomalanga won't be too happy about it.

[OKAY ALL DONE GO FOR IT. You are also free to create additional places, to post your own private logs involving the town! Contact me if you need extra information about Geartopia either via PM to things_go_boom's account or by AIM, I'll be happy to answer. NPC goons if you want to do a bunch of bar fights, just think typical cowboy stuff. Shore leave will last until the 31st and players can go to and from the ship to the city each day, so you can have your characters stay for a day or two and then come back.

People in the miniplots, the mini plots will start up in a few days! There will also be a general fight for anyone who wants to join in on the 29th. Thank you and enjoy yourselves!]

Comments

[youmissed]

John 2 has what John Crichton is going to forever call the Businessman Handshake. High-roller handshake. It's exactly what you'd expect from some big hot shot in Vegas. All in your face, friendly, and yet you weren't sure if you were leaving the next morning in just your birthday suit or in a brand new Corvette, on the house. John suspects he's too tipsy to be up for this tonight.

He'd rather take the Corvette option.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Coincidences and stuff all around," John focuses on trying to disentangle his hand from John 2's. Harder than it looks. It's not really helping when his coordination is kinda crap right now and he finds himself starting to lean to the side. You know what they say about the properties of inertia and something about his professor back in college, the one with the godawful Mr. Rogers taste in sweaters. Something about proportional mass. And he's sure there's something about handshakes being really hard to get out of when your proportional mass was sliding over to the side. Don't quote him on the science right now.

John slides into John 2, staggering. "Oops! Sorry. Really nice to see some Earthlings, you know? Not the Earth man out. Got tired of it."

By now he's leaning more of his weight on John 2. Unfortunately, he might just outweigh the other man.

[syncopath]

The Master can almost taste John's resistance-- and he just. Doesn't. Care. Not after such an unforgivable insult. He holds on even more tightly, looping John's other arm around his shoulders.

When John leans too far into him, the Master isn't foolish enough to even try to hold him upright. He takes a small half-step to the side, letting John slide right off him.

"Oops! Easy now. Let me help you." Oh, it's fun to say that. "Us Earthlings have to stick together, after all."

[youmissed]

God, this guy is like the human version of fly paper, because he thinks he's trying pretty hard and he still can't get his hand free even no matter what he tries. At this point John's just trying to 1). keep upright 2). make sure he's not going to get sick and 3). maintain that buzz 'cause he worked damn hard for it and pretty soon he's gonna have to piss like a racehorse with all that alien booze in his system. John staggers and nearly ends up on the floor as he miscalculates where John 2 is, catching himself on the wall and oh wow, that isn't helping him right now. The ground and wall tilt like he's on the deck of a ship.

"Yeah," John repeats. "Yeah. You're right. Look, I, uh, I just wanna get back to my room. I think it's that way."

He waves vaguely. Right now he's thinking things are good, or at least he can't really feel that pressure in his head and that's already better than he'd been hours before, so it's as close to good as he can get. If he's hallucinating Scorpy again, he's too hammered to give a crap and that's exactly how he likes it, John flashing John 2 there a sheepish grin as key details like his exact room number blip out on him.

[syncopath]

"That's right," the Master coos. "The hotel you mentioned." He points in a direction that isn't entirely incorrect, but is certainly the longer, more roundabout route to take. "I think it's this way, actually."

He shoulders John's arm again carefully and begins to move. Once they've accomplished something of a lurching gait that somehow works down the darkened streets, it's time for 'small talk'.

"So," the Master says airily. "It'll be a bit of a walk. We may as well get to know each other a little better. Just to pass the time?"

[youmissed]

John shoots John 2 a bleary look. Okay, maybe he's had enough to think things are pretty okay in Crichtonville -- or close enough to okay -- but he hasn't had enough to start looking at this other guy and think Y'know, I'm totally up for "knowing" him better.

"I think I'm cool," John mumbles, trying to figure out how to deflect another crewmate coming onto him. He's doing that, right? John's been so out of touch with humans that he's not 100% sure here and it shows; he's sure John 2 is a nice, upstanding citizen on Stacy and he's probably even rescued a cat from a tree on his off days or walked Grandma across the street. Still, he'll have to pass on the...invitation. "It's the same story as everyone else. Doing my business and bam, snot bath and intergalactic war. You?"

At least John 2's walking them in the right direction. John stumbles a bit, head bowed, and he has to admit, it's way easier to walk with someone helping him than stumbling along before. You're not too bad, John 2.

[syncopath]

"Oh, that's not fair," the Master chuckles. "You haven't told me anything I couldn't have guessed." He's sure John has plenty to hide, but though his instincts are to force it out of the other man, he's loathe to probe his mind without knowing what he's getting into first. John's already clearly got lowered inhibitions; perhaps he just needs a show of trust to open up further.

"But if you want me to go first... let's just say I was a prominent political figure in my day. Oh, those were glorious times, John." The Master's voice has taken on a wistful tone that is not entirely faked. "Loved by billions. An adoring wife. Lots of kids. Some say I united the globe."

[youmissed]

John thought it was plenty fair, even if he couldn't tick off why he thought so if the guy suddenly wanted it in Power Point with bullets.

"Sounds like a lot of wishful thinking to me," John said under his breath, wobbling. "Is this before or after Y2K?"

It was half sarcastic, if he had it in him right now to get all smartass. Right now he thought he didn't and after all the people wailing about Y2K, he'd gone and missed it. For all he knew, instead of mass panic and banks shutting down and cats and dogs (and you know the drill), they went for world peace and he was hanging off the second coming of Ghandi here.

[syncopath]

The Master stiffens a bit at John's disbelieving little display of snark. Oh, John. If you weren't at all interesting.

"Y2K?" He doesn't have to force himself to laugh. If anything, that question is an indication of complete ignorance on the other man's part, and that likely means he never experienced how absolutely inconsequential the whole thing was.

No point in telling him that either. Not yet.

"Oh, you have missed out, haven't you?"

[youmissed]

"I've been out of town," John says, privately glad that he can even drop Y2K and this guy knows what he's talking about. All that time on Moya and he'd started to get used to the confused looks from everyone, even something as simple as trying to explain the difference between the Dodgers and the Lakers and no, the Cubs weren't even in that ballpark. "So I missed you being King of the World and promoting world peace and all that. What else?"

He's proud to say that his legs are still Jello but also still his. Sometimes he's fallen asleep on Moya and that's when the freaky dreams start: dreams like he tells his hand to do one thing and he glances away and glances back and it's off doing its own thing. So his legs are still his and maybe they're not doing much but barely keeping him afloat -- he's still feeling pretty decent about them, even if he suspects that if John 2 wasn't here, he'd probably tip over flat on his face.

If John 2's telling the truth, he guesses he can see why he was picked for the Stacy Draft. It's like that question of if you were gonna build another Ark, who would you pick to go on it? People like Ghandi or Teddy Roosevelt. Personally, he always picked Elvis.

[syncopath]

Out of town, indeed. "I'll say," the Master arches a brow, but that's the extent of his commentary. For now.

"Hmmm." He somehow gets the impression John isn't taking him one-hundred percent seriously. Ah well. Soon enough he'll know for himself. And he'll be begging the Master for mercy. Worshiping him as a god. They all will.

"Well, Big Brother, for one," he says mildly, "But I wouldn't call that much of a loss."

[youmissed]

John isn't sure what he means by Big Brother. Either way, he thinks John 2 here (seriously, he needs to come up with a better nickname for the guy) is taking the whole aliens and by-the-way-Earth's-toast thing really, really well. Hell, he wishes he could take it half as well, but he'd made it a point to get nice and drunk so he wouldn't get caught up in thinking about Dad and his sisters and DK and that neighbor's dog that used to bark at the stray cats through the screen door like it was going outta style.

He even misses that damn dog.

It also occurs to John maybe he isn't hammered nearly enough.

"So what're you gonna do now? President of the Galaxy," John makes a sound in this throat that's a probably a laugh. "Feel free to run up to the Ohm and use those people skills of yours."

He'll blame John 2 for being a buzzkill. Right now he just wants the other guy to help him back and tuck him in bed and maybe hold his proverbial hair for him if he decides to barf. It's the least Ghandi here could do.

[syncopath]

How perceptive of John to half-guess his future plans. Try Supreme Ruler of the Universe, but it's close, John. It's very close.

"We'll see," the Master says mildly. He has a feeling he still isn't being taken very seriously. Lucky for John he doesn't give a toss what a human thinks. Still, time for a topic change.

"Where are you from, John?" He's already guessed Earth, and America, based on previous comments, but perhaps the other man will let slip something more interesting.

[youmissed]

"Kansas. Left my Toto back home," John grunts. "Did I tell you they don't even know where Kansas is where I was before this? It's criminal. Big galaxy and they can't even make a guestimate where the Milky Way is."

He didn't expect John 2 to really get it. If the guy was adjusting to life out in space this well, he probably wasn't going to be bothered by the little things like talking about missing milk and cookies and getting blank stares all around. Or that all the stuff he thought as World News Important back on Earth wasn't even a second thought to the aliens. Kinda put things in perspective.

[syncopath]

The Master purses his lips in a tight smile. Cute.

"The universe is an awfully big place," he coos, adjusting John's weight on his shoulder. "You can't expect every species to be enlightened enough on Earth's glorious history."

[youmissed]

"At this point, I'd be relieved if they could just point me in the right direction," John grumbles. He has to lean more of his weight on John 2's shoulder, the ground seeming to tilt under his feet. "You ever just wanted to go home? Really bad?"

[syncopath]

"No." The Master might have said that a little too quickly, but the question caught him more off-guard than he cares to think about. He sets his jaw and begins again.

"Moot point, anyhow, isn't it? For all appearances, 'home' is gone. Destroyed." He may be trying to hurt John, needle in the cold, hard facts of the matter. Maybe just a little.

[youmissed]

No. Short and to the point. John still couldn't get behind it, even though he thought after all this time he should've gotten over it. Got used to the idea he wasn't going home. He told himself he had. And maybe he should take a page out of John 2's book and just accept it, but he just...he just couldn't. He couldn't understand at the core level how that guy would say "no" like it didn't matter.

Whatever John 2 intended, it was work. John's expression darkened as he struggled not to let it get to him. "I'll believe it when I see the rubble," he said, but even that sounded weak to him. "I just don't get how you're not more upset. What about family? Friends?"

[syncopath]

The Master smiles, just a little, at John's rampant denial. "Are you asking me if I want to go 'home', or if there's anyone I miss? Because those are, in fact, two very different questions."

He doesn't miss Lucy, anyhow. How could he? But he does miss having a family, and that power over twelve billion Earthlings, Toclafane included. Oh, how he misses that.

Gallifrey, on the other hand... the Master grits his teeth and concentrates on keeping John at least fairly upright. Gallifrey is entirely off-limits.

[youmissed]

John frowns. To him it isn't different. Someone can trot out that trite Home Is Where The Heart Is saying, but at this point he figures Earth, America; United States of is pretty much close enough for him. Home's got all the people he misses, all the stuff like chocolate and crap TV at 2AM and that's just scratching the very surface of it. He can get not everyone being Stepford friendly with their neighbors or hating their dump of a city, but c'mon, how can John 2 not miss anything or anyone back on Earth?

Or maybe that's just him projecting. These days he still finds it...difficult to deal with other humans after all this time.

John doesn't seem to be doing too well on the upright front. He glances over blearily at John 2. Between the booze doing its thing and everything else, he hasn't worked out yet if he feels sorry for the guy.

"Was asking both," he reaches up to try to rub at his eyes, as if that'll make it easier to have some meaningful conversation with Mr. King of the World here. "Family? Girlfriend? Hell, favorite food joint."

[syncopath]

"Of course I miss my family," the Master sniffs disdainfully. "A man has to love his children, doesn't he?" If John is in any way still sharp, he'll probably notice the careful omission of the wife.

Being fatally shot, after all, tends to put a damper on affectionate feelings.

"Still, home. It's always much more complicated than a few loved ones or landmarks. And some of us lost that long before the Ohm." The Master's voice has gotten dark, soft, bitter.

[youmissed]

Well, they don't have to, but John likes to think they really should 'cause, hello, kids, parents; it's kinda what they're supposed to do.

"Figured that's kind of a dad's job," John mumbled, despite the haze of the booze getting the distinct feeling that he wasn't moving fast enough for this conversation.

Sorry, John 2. If you wanted an intelligent, meaningful talk full of life's philosophical answer and what was Coke's secret formula, you were totally talking to the wrong guy right now. John's head dipped to his chest as he blinked out the ground, then at his feet, and then at the fact that the other human wore that plantsuit like it was an Armani.

"So you're saying you've got nothing to go back to. You don't have family or friends on Stacy?" John thinks he's kinda too hammered to be offering a friendly ear here, but hey, the guy's giving him his shoulder, so...

[syncopath]

The Master chuckles, growing agitated. "Stacy isn't exactly home, now is it?" This is all going wrong. He's supposed to be needling John, wresting answers from him, not the other way around. He has to get back to more advantageous ground.

"How about you? Any loved ones to share your rations with?"

[youmissed]

Apparently what John 2 says hits where it should -- Stacy isn't home. He used to think Earth was, except these days he's not so sure and he finds himself missing Moya's hums and the damn endless corridors more than Sunday night football. He chews on the inside of his cheek, not wanting to go down that road because it's all couldas and shouldas and a guy could get turned around obsessing over it.

"Just my..." He doesn't know if he can call Aeryn his girlfriend. She's definitely like no girlfriend he's/i> ever had before. "Shipmate. Woke up about the same time I did, so she's still checking out the ship."

[syncopath]

Well, there was quite the pause.

"Is she?" the Master comments casually, eager to explore this new development. A former ship, and a girl. And the girl is here. Interesting.

"And how is she getting along on Stacy?"

[youmissed]

Looks like John 2 may have just hit one of John's sweet spots. Apparently John's in the mood to talk about his not-girlfriend, seeing as he thinks blearily about what it'd be like not to have her GI Janing it up all over the ship and realizes he just can't do it. He's gotten too used to having her around. In fact, he thinks he doesn't want to go back to how it was before. All he sees is Aeryn Sun.

It's complicated. John heaves a laugh.

"Probably two steps away from waving a gun in the pilot's face and steering us back home," John says with a grunt. He has no idea how this guy would deal with Aeryn. Aeryn's not exactly the type to buy into the politician thing. Hell, he doesn't even know if they have politics like he knows it on Command Carriers. "Does the ship even have the pilot? Who's steering this boat anyway?"