TEST DIVE #2

[subnauticmods]

≡U.R.S.U.L.A. NAVIGATION

_ PREMISE & NAVIGATION ✦ RULES ✦ MOD CONTACT TAKEN ✦ RESERVES ✦ APPLICATIONS ✦ HIATUS & DROPS FAQ ✦ BASE ✦ BIOMES ✦ URSULA ✦ URSULA CONTACT

TEST DIVE MEME


For information about the animals and locations, be sure to check out the BIOME and BASE pages!

A: There’s a Storm on the Horizon
A brainstorm. On advice about the ingenuity of multi person parties, and from admitted lack of understanding of many needs of organics, URSULA has selected you and a partner (or partners) to go to one of the observatories with food, beds, and recording devices to have a jam session for ideas about missions.

You are not to leave the room until you have some good ones. So get cracking! Start suggesting to one another what the base needs to do.

Or get horribly, horribly sidetracked and possibly a little crazy at being locked up together with the ocean staring at you. Judging.

B: The Abysmal Sea
You’re stranded.

One of the planet’s troublesome signal-interfering pulses has just made your communication devices 100% nonfunctional. No matter how you try to call URSULA for help, she isn’t able to respond. The database strapped to your wrist is just a useless chunk of metal now, leaving you without a useful library of knowledge to survive off. If you were driving any underwater vehicle prior to this point, it’s broken down. And unless you’re a mechanic, it’ll be pretty hard to get it jumpstarted again.

Don’t fret! The communication systems always come online eventually, so if you stay put, it’ll boot back up and give you directions straight back to base so you can finally get home. But can you really afford to stay put? The sunlight’s slowly streaming out of the sky, leaving the waters darker and darker with each passing second. Soon, you won’t be able to see five feet in front of you, and the only warning you’ll get of any approaching threat is through sound, if they even make any.

You have a few choices: take a daring risk and try swimming back to base, but on the off-chance you don’t remember the directions correctly from before you were cut off, you’re going to get even more lost, in the darkness of the night no less. Or, you could huddle in, with any friends if they were unfortunate enough to be with you, and start focusing on getting warm. Because spending the night out here in the vast oceans with the entire world against you is becoming a very, very real possibility.

C: It’s dangerous to go alone. Take them!
URSULA’s technology is breathtaking. With enough materials, she could make practically anything: weapons, vehicles, all those human comforts and entertainments she forgot to build... or perhaps she could expand the base to give everyone even more leg room. But there’s a catch: you need to get those materials to her in the first place, and scavenging can be a monumental task.

The planet Iniidae has a plethora of materials to provide, but you’ve got to go find them first. Some are easy enough to get, by plucking off the ground or breaking a rock. But some are a bit more challenging, such as Crash Powder, seeing that the Crash defending it will literally explode in your face if you get too close. And then there’s materials such as Blood Oil, only harvestable within the Blood Kelp Caves several hundred meters underwater in the pitch-black darkness… remember, you have to gather resources with your two bare hands. No such thing as driving around and conveniently collecting them within the somewhat-relative safety of an armored vehicle.

Since it’s so dangerous to go alone, URSULA will encourage you all to leave the base in pairs or groups if you’re going to try collecting some of the more precarious materials to harvest. She has heard that most lifeforms find being reconstituted from nanites traumatic, so try not to die in front of each other!

D: Almost, but not quite, Entirely Unlike Tea
The droids, URSULA promises, will do their best to make anything you want. Go on! Ask them anything! She’s excited. This seems like a great way to test out their capacities.

Of course, you need to be very careful what you wish for. Maybe you ask for Hamlet by William Shakespeare, and they do their best but only know so much, giving you a book with some… creative changes. Maybe you ask for a puzzle box, but you weren’t specific enough and things went awry.

Maybe you made the mistake of asking for tea..

No matter what, you were given something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike what you asked for. Now what do you do with it?

E: CREATURE FEATURES (possible body horror)
As more data is collected on the creatures of the deep, DNA can also be gathered to allow URSULA to research how to integrate it into her crew members in useful and hopefully unintrusive ways, unless of course permission is given first for more obvious or exhausting additions.

Well, that's the idea, anyway.

Unfortunately, something malfunctioned while URSULA was researching. Her incomplete serum was injected into you through your devices while you slept (or maybe you were knocked unconscious by the sudden change to your body). Now maybe you have the temperament of a Stalker or the thirst of a Bleeder or Gasopod pods on your back that trigger when you're startled. How this genetic malfunction works and what it is can be up to you but while URSULA assures you it's only temporary, you're stuck like this for now.

Have fun?

F: The Caverns of Dream
The ocean calls you. Of course, it's much easier to dismiss it as nightmares. You'll probably think that's all it is after you have them. Flashes of screaming sea creatures writhing in agony, pleading for help, but these creatures can't ask for help, can they? Something huge, beyond the scope of imagination, moves in the ocean of your dreams and calls out to you to go deeper into the darkness. It pleads and begs but not with a voice you can hear or words you can understand.

You wake up in a sweat with the unrelenting desire to take a swim, even though it's late and everyone is asleep. Or maybe someone else just had the same nightmare as you? Are you willing to take a swim and try to understand the dream?

BASED ON CODE BY TESSISAMESS AND SUPERSUITS

Comments

dave strider | homestuck

[parodeity]

a: brainstorm

[ Honestly Dave is not really thrilled with being randomly selected for something with so much responsibility, but he is. Kind of trying? Maybe trying. But his ideas are sort of the least helpful because honestly he doesn't really get the point. Exploring randomly seems like the best bet mission-wise for him, and also his priorities are shit. ]

Okay, but consider: a mission dedicated to finding an underwater apple forest.

[ This is probably the sixteenth time he's come up with a dumbass plan relating to apples. ]

Or, again, we could totally use some people mixing up sweet jams. Not that I'm not into Ursula's tunes, but we could use some variety, y'know? I'm dying here. Just give me some kinda mixing equipment and I'll make up for the lack.

[ Neither of these ideas sounds like something that's going to get them out of this room...Dave's laying on one of the beds a little weirdly, his legs crossed and leaning against the glass of the conservatory wall while he eyes his partner upside down from underneath opaque shades. He's not taking those off, even though they're underwater. ]

d: this is not what i wanted

[ Dave...has actually tried more than once. He is sitting cross-legged on the floor in one of the labs, head in his hands, surrounded by a ton of different kinds of drink bottles. Why hasn't he given up yet? Possibly he just has nothing better to do with his life, or he's just trying to see how far down the rabbit hole of wrong shit he can go.

He's...ah, he's kind of laughing, helplessly. ]

No, man, I - oh my god what even is this? I want apple juice. Or coffee. Completely willin' to cut off my own arm here for either or. Or my leg. Hell, have my head if you want it, although that'd be hella awkward and actaully then how would I even drink the stuff. What did you bring me, anyway, this tastes weird. Not that I don't appreciate the effort, but who's in charge of alchemization here?

...I mean, it ain't like I can alchemize aj either, but I'm pretty fucking sure I can alchemize some better coffee. I have mad coffee skills now. It's actually pretty impressive, anyone else could tell you so.

[ The droid is predictably not going to be responding to like. Any of that. Maybe you can instead? ]

I'd say somethin' about this deck of cards, but honestly artistically speaking I'm pretty sure this is better than usual.

[ HE'LL KEEP THESE, EVEN IF THEY'RE WRONG. The "creative differences" on the playing cards are pretty avant garde and. Entirely shitty mspaint, honestly. Dave loves these, they almost make up for the lack of aj or coffee. ]

f: horrorterror time

[ There's definitely the desire to swim, but Dave's been able to hold it back just enough to be pacing inside the room leading out into the ocean. He's geared up, mostly, though his breathing apparatus is off and he hasn't swapped goggles for shades. Said shades are shoved up on top of his head as he rubs at his temples, though. ]

- No, no, no, I'm not about the horrorterror life, I'm not Rose... [ He's also kind of just muttering to himself as he walks around the room, clearly trying to avoid the whole swim-at-night-because-dreams deal but circling back closer to the entrance every time and looking annoyed with himself because of it.

He doesn't jump when he notices someone else, but he does squint at them, eyes bright red in the faint bio-light. ]

Yo. Sup?

a!

[dirtharama]

[Personally, Merrill thinks Dave has some really brilliant ideas going here.]

What if we made an apple orchard? You know, planted it ourselves! And maybe other fruits, too. Like strawberries or cherries... and raspberries!

[Though she's a little stuck on his second idea.]

We could make jams out of the fruits... I mean, I don't see why not! Jams are so delicious on fresh bread... [She sighs wistfully.]

[parodeity]

[ ...All right, the jams thing is actually kind of adorable, and also not a bad plan, so Dave doesn't even mind being misunderstood. Someone who understands his genius, only no he knows his plans are sort of laughable so. Merrill is clearly a poor misled soul here.

Sadly, Dave is chill with continuing down this path forever. They're never getting out of this room, are they. ]

D'you think we could get seeds for all that? And like, get an underwater bio-dome thing going. [ Jade would be good at that, he thinks, idly. She used to garden, right? He's never really had any reason or opportunity to do more than water a few potted plants over the course of sixteen years. ] Gotta say I am all kinds of down with the red-fruit fixation you have going on, too. Best color, represent.

Also, jams of the edible variety sound just as hella rad as the non-edible variety, but. I was totally referring to the non-edible kind.

[ While he's not going to correct her onto a more useful idea path, he will at least explain jamming tunes because that's Actually Important. ]

You know, sick beats? Ill-nasty raps? ...Music?

[dirtharama]

[No they're never leaving. URSULA will have to deal with a long list of probably impossible missions with some useless ones thrown in.

Merrill can't help a shy smile at the compliment. Well, red is a nice colour, thinks the blood mage. As she muses on how to get seeds for plants they haven't actually seen on this plant, she gets thrown by his other question.]

Oh! Music! Oh, yes, I love... ill-nasty raps! [She just assumes that's another word for music. Though ill and nasty are both bad things, as is being sick, so she's not entirely sure she gets it and it shows on her face.] Isabela, my friend, she knows a lot of... nasty songs, I guess. They usually involve intimacy between people. And sometimes animals.

[parodeity]

[ Honestly, what was URSULA thinking pairing these two together. Maybe Dirk or someone sensible from Merrill's life will come to save them from brainstorming hell, although at least neither of them seems to remotely care about being stuck in a room coming up with impossible/useless ideas.

Also. Also. How is this chick's vocabulary so easy to corrupt. This is still adorable. ]

Haha, really? Sounds like my kinda girl. [ At least, she sounds like the kind of person who would be hella entertaining. ] But yeah, basically I think we could use some remixes. Love the mysterious ambiance music, but I like some variety sometimes? Not gonna lie, the tempo ain't bad, at least. I can rap to it, just kinda slow and smooth.

[ But again. HE'D LIKE A LITTLE MORE VARIETY. ]

Yo, what'd you want to be here if you could pick anything? Ill-nasty jams and red fruits aside, since those are obv choices.

[dirtharama]

[Oh now she gets what a rap is at least! It's another word for singing. So ill-nasty raps... are basically the songs Isabela sings. She's got this now. How satisfying. These are definitely good words to know for the future.]

I'd love to hear you rap sometime, you know. But oh! I want so many things! More flowers... and some trees. And land, in general, you know, forests and things like that.

[Merrill is a girl of simple wants. And she wouldn't really want to wish her friends here. That seems rude. And they might blow up things. Things that aren't supposed to be blown up anyway.]

Oh and stories! I miss stories. My friends all told the best stories. And we'd get together to play cards. I'm not very good at it but it was fun. There needs to be more fun.

[parodeity]

Mer, you literally just have to say the word if you ever want me to throw down Stider style. [ Apparently we are now on the nicknaming basis, although admittedly Dave only needs 2 seconds with anyone to get to that level. He can't help himself sometimes. ] Also, I feel you on the land stuff? Even though I never spent a lot of time around green shit. Grew up in a desert state, then spent three years on a hunk of rock hurtling through space. But the time I did spend around forests and stuff was nice?

[ Jade's planet was cold as fuck for a while there but it was Nice. He'd do the whole flowers and trees schtick again. ]

Stories and cards, though, I think we should be able to do that? I am one hundred and fifty three percent behind you on the fun thing. Like, man, what's the point if you're not having fun? Worryin' about everything all the time is only gonna run everyone into the ground. We should have campfire story time. Minus the fires, because I'm not totally sure that's a thing we can do without wrecking shit here. Maybe we can get a glowy rock and put it in the center of a room and gather round? Holy shit I wonder if we can get marshmallows?

[dirtharama]

[Considering two of her best friends call her 'Daisy' and 'Kitten', nicknames remind her of home. It's such a warm feeling.]

I could make a fire. I mean, in my hands, and hold it out between everyone? Though it might be a little small for gathering around unless everyone likes being squeezed together.

[Though he's introduced another new concept to her.]

Marshmallows? Those flowering plants? They're good if you've got a cold. Are you sick from, uhm, all your ill-nasty raps?

[This is sincere concern. Singing so much might have given him a sore throat!]

[parodeity]

Oh, you got fire magic? Radical. I'm a time knight, myself. I mean, "The". The knight of time. Ain't no other.

[ Pr...obably? Okay maybe there is another, but not one he's met. There's a snort of amused laughter at the concern over his throat, though. ]

No, no. I mean, yeah, I guess it's a plant? Apparently? Like I said, plants and I do not go way back. But I'm talking about the white sugary confection of the gods. Tastes really good toasted and smashed between graham crackers and chocolate. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you're not familiar with graham crackers, so just trust me when I say they're a heavenly biscuit, and the cinnamon kind are best, but...you know what chocolate is, right? Please, please say that chocolate is a thing wherever you're from.

d;

[chataclysmic]

[He'd made a curious attempt at getting one of the Droids to make Camembert cheese, which had ended catastrophically if he could get away with saying as much himself, but there was something inherently hilarious about wandering into one of the labs to find a guy in aviator shades sitting on the floor surrounded by what had to be at least twelve bottles of liquid.]

[Apparently, none of these liquids were what he wanted, which as Adrien lingered in the doorway and slowly shifted to lean against it listening, he discovered the wants included apple juice and coffee. Two very different drinks, which struck him as both odd and comical simultaneously, but mostly it was the fact that he was sitting there talking a Droid's lack of ears off.]

I don't wanna be the bearer of bad news or anything, but I don't think the Droids are that great with conversation.

[parodeity]

[ Honestly, Dave hardly needs anything or anyone to be great with conversation for him to ramble on ad nauseum. He'll talk to his friends when they're afk. He'll talk to himself when he's alone, or even when other people are around. Running his mouth is a habit he can't actually break at this point.

Or one he hasn't bothered to try to break, anyway. ]

I figure if we keep talkin' to them maybe they'll pick it up. [ Not really, but hey. He gives a little two-fingered wave in Adrien's direction. ] URSULA kinda works like that, right? NGL, I kinda tuned out a lot of the shit people have tried to explain to me.

[chataclysmic]

[He pushes off the door and meanders in without invitation, grinning and not quite laughing.]

Did you seriously just say "NGL" out loud? [Because that's the important question to ask here.]

[parodeity]

[ Hey, it's a free base. Supposedly. ]

Sure did. You understood it, though, so s'all good, right?

[chataclysmic]

[He carefully minces around the bottles of unidentified liquid to drop into a crouch within a companionable distance from Dave, rolling his shoulders in a shrug.]

I've just never heard somebody use internet slang verbally. "NGL" isn't that many fewer syllables than "not gonna lie", anyway.

[parodeity]

Eh, my mom does it, too.

[ Since Adrien has no idea Dave's mom is exactly Dave's age, Dave does not bother to correct himself from what his mouth wants to say. Roxy never cared, anyway. ]

Anyway, it's how I think so it's how I talk. You know?

[chataclysmic]

[A brief flicker of thought on his face and he grins crookedly, lacing his fingers together.]

That makes sense, yeah. It's cool that your mom does it too, though. I guess it's not really something you expect from a mom.

[parodeity]

She's a pretty young mom.

[ Though he kind of imagines Roxy Lalonde will still use chatspeak even when she's old and grey... ]

I'm Dave, bee tee dubs.

ffff

[grimdeity]

[ Rose is in the similar boat as "wanting to swim" but has yet to complete that plunge into the dark depths. She is about that horrorterror life, and is weighing the pros and cons of such a venture. ]

Oh, but I'm sure we could fix that. Do you want one of my headbands?

[ Take off your shades, put on makeup and perhaps you too can be Rose Lalonde. ]

[parodeity]

[ Why this, why him. Since she's about the horror terror life, Dave basically just...commits to the idea they're going to go swim out in search of probably trouble. Because like fuck he's going to let Rose swim off into the ocean alone. Even if she can 5000% handle herself, he's not sure the rest of the planet can handle Rose.

Dave makes a frustrated face Rose is doubtless familiar with, before reaching up and flipping his shades back down over his eyes. ]

What, no. We're not that look-alike. I mean. Mostly. Fuck, how didn't we figure out we were related before John literally mixed slime together to pop us into existence? [ hashtag regret maybe he wouldn't have said a lot of the things thirteen year old dave said to rose pre-related revelation if he had known...but knowing him, he probably would have anyway ]

And why am I not surprised that you wanna swim out into the void and find tentacled nightmares...Rose, c'mon, let's play like, go fish or something instead. Orrrrr do literally anything else.

[grimdeity]

[ Yes Dave, you must protect the ocean from Rose. It's the knightly thing to do here. You cannot leave this poor planet to the likes of your sister, who knows what horrors would be unleashed at her hand. ]

Truly, it was error on our part. Likely facilitated by our distance during our childhood. [ Because seriously, wow guys. Actual twins, Rose and Dave. ] And we did not exactly expect ectobiology to, in simple terms, be a thing.

Feel free to stay here and play go fish yourself, if you can resist the curiosity. [ She hadn't fully decided that it was wise to venture into the horrorterror depths, but the fact that Dave is suggesting they shouldn't seems to put the matter to rest in her mind. ]

[parodeity]

[ oh my god you contrary little piece of shit don't decide on a course of action just because he's against it!!!!

Dave makes a strangled noise that might include the words oh fuck it but basically which is just. The exasperation that Rose inspires on occasion. ]

Rose, I'm obv not letting you go out into the weird-ass ocean in the dead of night alone. You'll like, murder everything out there.

[ You're the only one who blew your planet quest to smithereens just 'cause, brosis. ]

And/or make some deathmagic pact with whatever horror terror things lurk in the depths, and if you're going to be makin' ill-advised deals with devils I have to be there to snark about it and/or to sign on as well. Like, I'm pretty sure we covered this at some point in our sibs career, right? You're not allowed to go on stupid missions alone.

[ Remember how you tried that all of once and then Dave followed you anyway and you both died. He's still going to follow you now even if the dying thing happens again.

At least they're immortal, he guesses. ]

If shenanigans occur I have to be around to commentate, this is like, rule fuckin' one of the Strilonde family charter that I'm officially gonna write right the fuck now.

[grimdeity]

[ what did you expect from her, dave, really. have you met rose lalonde contrary little piece of shit is her aesthetic.

Rose grins, the same grin she always wears when she manages to inspire Dave's exasperation, or anyone else's. Not that it's... hard... ]

Your faith in me is astounding, Dave. Don't you trust me?

[ That. That is probably why he doesn't. ]

Yes, well, that was an unforeseen pact of sibling-hood I did try to avoid, you know. But I will accept your undying loyalty to it, since I suppose breaking it would be awfully tiresome.

[ Rose would prefer they don't die, but considering their normal circumstances she won't be surprised if they do? Like, what is this, a regular Tuesday for them. ]

Oh? Are you certain Roxy and our father [ see, it's normal to call Roxy Roxy but funny to call Dirk "father"/"dad"/etc... in front of dave, anyway ] will agree to your terms without complaint? We should hold a family council before we make such lofty decisions. They might have input that we never could have imagined.

[parodeity]

[ honestly this is...exactly what he expected...but he didn't think far enough ahead to try to reverse psychology her and if he had she probably would have gone all right away we go to the ocean, dave! since rose lalonde does what she wants. ]

Ugh, don't pull that bullshit, you know I trust you. I just also know you, Rose. Ripping apart the fabric of the universe is something you would totally do for fun. And while that'd be hilarious, I do sorta like inhabiting the universe. ...Not that we know what universe this is, but as we're currently in it I find myself kinda fond of the place.

[ Dave crosses his arms, but once again takes his shades off - this time captchaloguing them. The exaggerated wince when she calls Dirk "father" is...probably ridiculous since Dave cannot stop himself calling Roxy "Mom", even though he calls Dirk by name or occasionally by "bro". They are both hypocrites to the extreme. ]

And wow, Dirk'll totally back me up on this one. [ maybe??? ] Mom, too, since it'd mean she'd get to hang out with us more. Like she wouldn't want to go for a Strilonde field trip through the deep - as long as we were both goin' I doubt she'd care what was going on with the whole destination thing.

[ Roxy is honestly super carefree and Dave admires that in a person. ]

Also I feel like their input will mostly be laughing at us [ OR HIM SPECIFICALLY ] so let's just skip to the good part. We gonna do this shit or not?

[ Time to gear up for an underwater exploration, y/n? The resolution to go for a swim eases the annoying need to go, at least. Fighting it off wasn't really working. ]

[grimdeity]

[ and then where would you be dave? in the same situation as you are now, except brain tired from trying to fight your impossible sister. ]

If it makes you feel better I will make you a promise not to tear any holes in the cloth from which this universe is made, at least while we inhabit it's watery folds. [ ... ] At least not right now. Perhaps in due time that will become necessary, but I doubt that day is today.

[ Master hypocrites, these two. Their hypocrite levels are simply off the charts. Where did it even come from, Dirk and Roxy are so much nicer than this. ]

Fair point. I don't doubt that either would follow us-- I'm not sure if that says more about them or us, however. It bears far more consideration than we currently have time for.

[ Meeting Roxy certainly did put her own original mother in perspective for Rose, though not in the way she expected. She still isn't sure what to do with that information, nor with the phrase "omg haha youre dirk" as the other Lalonde so eloquently put it. She still needs to hound him for "the dirt on his proclivities". ]

That is... likely accurate. [ NO THEY'D LAUGH AT BOTH OF THEM ok mostly dave ] Yes, let us do this shit.

[ Y, time to gear up. This is a great idea that in no way can go wrong. ]

[parodeity]

A'ight, sister dearest, but if this ends in us needing a revive I'm gonna make a mix tape titled I Fucking Told You So just for you.

[ AND A RAP. Also he will say I Fucking Told You, Rose for the next month or two at the least. Still, now that they've determined they are in fact doing this shit (they are making this shit happen), Dave will just go to suit up with the dumb diving gear and wetsuits and shit. ]

No peeking. [ he says, like his sister has any interest in doing so whatsoever ]