Stacy's voice speaks over the whole of the ship. What she has to say has become very familiar over the the podlings have spent here.

||Pod Release Protocols Initiating,|| she says. ||Please proceed to the Observation Deck to meet your new crew mates.||

Those crew members that don't head to the Obs Deck on their own are hurried there via gentle but insistent tentacles. A few people stop by Engineering to help bring and pass out omnicoms and comm rings to the new crew members as well.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a green-skinned alien and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

Nightmare becomes reality....

_{[roster: Leader - Kang, Apollo, Marco, Russel Tringham, Supergirl, Tali]}

First it was the nightmares. The memories pushing back fifteen years to the last day he'd seen his father alive, the day the Drej had come out of nowhere and obliterated Earth and turned the thousands that had managed to escape into refugees. Without a home, they had become shunned by the other races, viewed with disdain. Ignored at best, openly attacked at worst.

His time on the ship had somehow allowed him to forget all that. Maybe it was being around so many other humans--the first time in fifteen years that Cale had been part of a 'majority.' Or perhaps it was that, now, everyone was in the same boat as he was, the boat he'd been in since he was four years old. Their homes were gone. Destroyed by a mysterious alien race. Whatever the reason, Cale had allowed himself to begin to forget the home he never had, to forget Earth, to forget the Titan, and to forget his father.

That was, until, the dreams.

They'd first come when he was asleep, jarring him awake with their vividness. There were several times that Cale been convinced they were real, only to wake up and be surprised that he wasn't a four year-old kid anymore. He was a nineteen year-old young man.


He wandered the streets of the city, meandering his way aimlessly until by pure chance he happened upon the statuary. He didn't recognize any of the stone sculptures. Most of them were supposed to be from Earth. That's what he'd been told by others in the crew. Who knew if it was true. Cale didn't. He'd been just a kid when the planet was blown to pieces. He didn't know squat about humanity or its history. Just that it was dying and would likely be extinct in another few hundred years. And there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Especially not him, no matter how much Akima and Korso tried to tell him differently. Earth was gone. There was no getting it back.


If only the nightmares had just stayed nightmares. Sleep was easy enough to avoid. Short cat-naps here and there allowed him to get a little rest, keep from hallucinating, without slipping into the dreamworld where his past seemed poised, waiting for him. But they hadn't just stayed nightmares. Now, the nightmares seemed to be alive. His past had walked alongside him. No. Not walked alongside him. It had tried to kill him. His past, the responsibility that had been dumped on him, was back and wasn't going to let him go. Even his father was a part of it. The man who had abandoned him, left it to him to finish what Sam had started. It was his fault the survival of their species had been dumped on Cale's shoulders.

And the Drej. If it weren't for those bastards, Earth would still exist. His dad wouldn't have left him. And everyone wouldn't be looking to Cale to save them.


"Aaaaaaargh!!!" Cale shouted snatching up what appeared to be a stone arm, broken from one of the statues--likely during one of the many battles the crew had fought in the city--and started swinging. He decapitated Venus di Milo. Another blow sent David's leg hurtling across the room. "Leave me alone!" he raged, striking the statues at random. "You're all DEAD!!! It's too late. It's all over. What the hell do you want me to do?!? Huh? What the hell do you want from me?!?"

The crew will see them slinking off, disappearing around hallways--shifting shadow shapes and the backs of heads ducking around corners. They're always people they think they know. Dead loved ones, perhaps, or loved ones they're not sure are dead or alive. They lead crew members into dangerous places, sudden drops, parts of Stacy where things can go wrong.

And they do go wrong. Floors drop out. Ducts become damaged somehow, invisibly, and suddenly spew hot steam. Around the children, items slam into walls--poltergeist activity.

Whether these are really those lost souls, or just illusions, is hard to tell. Either way, those that are part-ghost or have supernatural powers will have a helluva workout. The upside is the presence of the ghosts might disrupt the Waking Dreams to allow people to escape them more easily.

Which is good because the dreams will start to cause injuries now. Real ones.

And refusing to go to sleep doesn't save you when the dreams can happen while you're awake.

[ooc: Waking dreams will continue--and start causing injuries. Furthermore, ghostly apparitions will start to cause poltergeist activity and lead the crew into danger. Start to raise the alarm, meatship. It's starting.]

Although the atmosphere of the Special Weapons division of the ship wasn't exactly the nicest place to go in the wake of a nightmare, it was still comforting in a way, being surrounded by so much technology. He'd spent a lot of time calibrating and modifying weapons and tinkering with the Mako on the Normandy. It was easy to lose himself in the work to the point where the background practically disappeared. The vaguely creepy atmosphere didn't bother him. He barely even noticed it.

He'd cleared the dust off one of the desks, laid down his gear, and got to work. His omni-tool lit up over the blast-scarred armor laying on the table, holographic schematics hovering above his outstretched hand. Somewhat satisfied with the results (there would always be room for improvement when it came to armor), he moved on to his M-92 Mantis sniper rifle, making sure everything was up to his standards. Sure, the Viper had a much better rate of fire and a more efficient cooling system, but there was nothing quite like the classics. The rifle had served him well on Omega, and it wouldn't do to not take care of it in turn.

Of all the stupid decisions in the world, Link always had to go and make at least one of them. How long has it been, now, since he decided to wander off and he still hasn't figured out which way goes back to where he'd started? Link sighs and pulls his hat off, ruffling his unkempt hair a bit while he looks around. There's a bunch of buildings off one way, a blue tree in another that Link had been skirting warily (blue is not a normal tree-color), and much farther back from where he'd come from, there'd been statues.

Okay, so he admits this whole not-getting-lost thing was a heck of a lot easier with Navi around. Before now, Link had never realized exactly how dependent on his little companion he'd become. He keeps expecting to hear her voice in his ear telling him which way to go, or to be smacked upside the head with a tiny bundle of sparkles every time he takes a wrong turn, but they never come. Occasionally, he thinks he catches sight of her out of the corner of his eye, or hears her chime in the distance. Whether it's his mind supplementing him with fleeting memories of her presence, or something else playing with his head, he can't be entirely sure. Wherever she really happens to be, Link hopes she's safe.

Now which way went back...

He hadn't realized just how much he'd missed tinkering on ships until he'd gone some time here without doing anything like it.  Growing up, Luke had always been up to his elbows in some project or another, fixing droids for his uncle or modifying the speeder he used; later on, the tinkering turned into working on real ships like his X-Wing, the Falcon, and then Mara's ships.  There was something comforting in it, in the logical way that components fit together--and right now, with so much having happened recently, Luke found that tweaking systems on his X-Wing to better than spec was the best way for him to organize his thoughts.

Jaina, Han, and Chewie showing up had been enough of a jolt to Luke's mind.  Jaina wasn't the only child of his sister and best friend now; she hadn't watched her twin fall to the Dark Side.  Chewbacca was, well, alive.  Han was years younger.  And then there was Jacen, who only had the tiny seed planted by the torment he'd suffered at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong and their insidious mental shaping.  And then there were those nightmares, and the strange surreal dreams that twisted aspects of his memories...

It was on Jacen that Luke meditated while he lay on his stomach, head and shoulders inside an access bay, using a hydrospanner to make adjustments to the shielding system and periodically sitting up to check the diagnostic readouts on the ship computer.  It wasn't going smoothly, and he muttered a very un-Jedi Huttese curse after checking it again, and sighing.

It was really bad when a Jedi lost his center.

Slowly but surely, the nightmares have been chipping away at the mental defenses of the crew.

Even those who attempt to stay awake to avoid the nightmares find themselves too on-edge to completely concentrate their defenses.

And the Nightmare King has not been idle during all this, no. He has been slowly feeding off the crew, gathering his strength so that he may yet break free from his prison.

And he now uses that new found power, reaching out to affect the minds of the crew even in the waking world. Even those avoiding sleep will find themselves drifting in and out of their nightmares, bringing everyone a taste of despair.

After all, no one can escape the grasp of the King of Nightmares.

No one.

[ooc: OH NOEZ. As you can guess, the Nightmare King is getting stronger. As such, the crew will start experiencing waking dreams. These are much more subtle than the normal nightmares, however, and are more so depressing and surreal than actually brain-breaking. Mostly they would be miserable versions of the character's normal life, or perhaps even their life on the ship.]

The entire business of destroyed universes and great destinies was something Tali had chosen not to dwell on. By all appearances, the only real proof of the entire claim was that the creators of this ‘Stacy’ AI had said so, meaning there wasn’t enough data to go off of to even fully understand the hypothesis, let alone confirm it as fact.  Therefore, for the time being, Garrus and she were simply on a new ship in unknown space, doing what they had always done since joining the Normandy: survive whatever threats may come until Shepard gave more specific orders. There was the small complication of Shepard not yet being released from stasis to issue such orders, but she would be released eventually, of that alone Tali was sure. Until then, their mission would have to be to prepare for her arrival by gathering all the information and allies they could for the Commander. It was a plan that hinged on a very key variable, but at the moment the idea that Shepard may be lost to them was not allowed entrance to Tali’s thoughts. It simply could not be.

 

So information gathering it was. Of course, when Tali was given the choice of locations to investigate, her mind immediately went to the heart of the ship. Engineering. Despite the grimness of the situation, she was practically quivering with pent up excitement at being able to explore the inner workings of an engine capable of traveling not only distances but, by all appearances, through time and dimensions as well. How was such a thing even possible? What could fuel it? All the technology she could learn of, assess, rebuild. She almost felt guilty at the sheer amount of gleeful anticipation running through her veins. It was all for the mission, of course. That thought at least lent her some justification for her widened eyes as she entered the engineering deck and began looking around.

 

“Hello?”

[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... )

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a green-skinned alien and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]