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subnauticmods ([personal profile] subnauticmods) wrote in [community profile] fishesoutofwater2016-02-13 02:56 pm
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Test Dive #1








≡U.R.S.U.L.A. NAVIGATION
TEST DIVE MEME


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

A1: Go Fish
You! Yes, you! Your friendly neighbourhood AI has a task she would like to encourage YOU to do! After all, you can’t forget the most important fact: you’re here to make the planet habitable. Which means cataloguing, capturing and studying potential threats to anyone’s life. That includes a swarm of Stalkers that have been hanging around the waters awfully near the base, which presents a perfect research opportunity! At least, URSULA seems to think so.

Don’t go in willy-nilly waving your knife around, though. URSULA doesn’t want you to bring in tonight’s Sashimi Surprise™, she wants you to bring in a Stalker that’s still kicking. Which means you have to capture a live one. So hold back your crazy power or trigger-happy instincts!

How will you take one in alive without ending up dead yourself? You could go in the brute-force way, slamming its jaws shut and bagging it, though it’s pretty strong itself… or you could be a bit more cunning, taming it with bait or giving it shiny metal salvage to play with before luring it into a tank to bring it into the base. You might want to get a helping hand with this task, since it’s not exactly an easy one-man job.

A2: Go With Fish
So, now you’ve got a live and very disgruntled Stalker on your hands! Hopefully, said hands don’t have to be amputated (it’s okay if they have to though, URSULA will fix it. Try not to watch the nanites go). What do you do with it? You could keep it as a pet and observe its growth! You could dissect it and study its anatomy! Or you could… eat it. (After going through all the effort to bring it in alive?!)

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: Hide and Seek Help
URSULA knows that everyone needs downtime, and no one can go salvaging or gathering specimens all the time. So what do you do for fun on an alien ocean planet when the AI who made your base forgot to make any kind of entertainment room?

Why, play hide-and-seek, of course! There’s a lot of places to hide away from others, and it’s challenging to find anyone. (Sometimes, too challenging to find them… ever… but that’s not the point.) The area around the base and submarine is relatively safe, so anyone can hide away in a coral structure or a cave, and telepathy makes it easy to taunt your seekers without revealing where you are.

Of course, you may encounter a Bone Shark or even a stray Stalker, and you won’t have time to get away or even scream as it attacks you, but hey. What other way to make hide-and-seek more thrilling than to turn it into hide-and-hope-you-get-found-as-you-shout-for-help-to-anyone-who-can-hear-your-telepathy?

E: Toilet Humor
Really, it was bound to happen eventually. Someone's in the bathroom observatory, doing their 'business', and someone is trying very hard to catch a fish for dinner outside. Your eyes meet. Someone has literally been caught with their pants down.

And in that moment your telepathy goes a little wonky, because it's good to have open communication about this incident.

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


showybusiness: (crowdpleasers)

[personal profile] showybusiness 2016-02-14 01:23 am (UTC)(link)
[ All the sound coming from Mettaton is muted, so he stands there, silent and beautiful, watching intently. He's visibly giggling a little as the jellies follow, and gestures with a single finger. He points it upward, making a spinning motion with it. ]

Twirl, twirl! Like a little ballroom dance of wet ghosts!
ghouliday: (heh...)

[personal profile] ghouliday 2016-02-14 01:42 am (UTC)(link)
[ They still have no idea how this passes for making Mettaton so happy, but... it does? And they guess that's nice? At least someone can laugh at this.

Pretty sure they get it, they use what their body learned for turning around earlier and slowly start to spin. This has got to be the opposite of "zoom trance" though, whatever genre that is. Something out of Hotland? They thought they kept up with the newer tunes, but what else could he have just barely said? So they spin faster, trying to imagine some psychedelic beat in the background. Faster. The jellies vaguely follow.

Napstablook can no longer stop spinning. ]
showybusiness: (be nice to the ghost)

[personal profile] showybusiness 2016-02-14 01:44 am (UTC)(link)
[ Oh, wow, they're really giving it their all! It's like some kind of spectral drill out there. He claps politely, mostly out of genuine concern. ]
ghouliday: (uhhhh...)

[personal profile] ghouliday 2016-02-14 10:16 am (UTC)(link)
[ Just keep spinning. Just keep spinning.

I HOPE THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED, ALSO THEY'D SEE YOUR CLAPS AND CONCERN BUT ALL IS A BLUR

Like it or not, though, here comes Napstablook. Having set themself on a certain unstoppable trajectory, they're passing right through the window and into, but not through, Mettaton. As with so many things ghost, It Is A Mystery.

Clearly. ]
Edited 2016-02-14 10:18 (UTC)
showybusiness: (♥cutesy ghost bullshit)

[personal profile] showybusiness 2016-02-14 04:19 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Considering a ghost doesn't hit very hard, and he saw them coming, Mettaton did step back enough to make some space. With an overdramatic "oof," he grabs hold of the wet spirit and squeezes them like a big body pillow. ]

Oh no, a sea ghost got me! Aaaahhh! It's so cute!
ghouliday: (i'll never forget when you cheered me on)

[personal profile] ghouliday 2016-02-14 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[ That's a change in atmosphere. Wow, and the world's becoming clearer. As their own little ghost mind tries to stop spinning too, a dizzy Blook can hardly squirm and simply goes limp. You caught one! ]

sorry...

or... heh... i mean...

you can't escape now... even if there are three of you... oooo

unless you really want

[ Just a bit dazed, still. ]
showybusiness: (be nice to the ghost)

[personal profile] showybusiness 2016-02-14 04:38 pm (UTC)(link)
You only had to spin once, sweetheart. Why would you hurt yourself like this? I mean, I'm right here - if you wanted to see me, you could just float over!

[ He pats the poor sheet-like ghost's head. How does a robot handle a ghost at all? It is a mystery. ]
ghouliday: (i'd just weigh you down)

[personal profile] ghouliday 2016-02-15 03:48 pm (UTC)(link)
nnnh... you're right, i messed up... oh. both your friends are gone.

[ Let the loopy vision subside. ]

i'm really not hurt... just started thinking of a new beat and wanted to show you on the way, i guess... somehow it got a little out of hand...
showybusiness: (that ain't a cosplay)

[personal profile] showybusiness 2016-02-15 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)
[ What friends? ]

The little floaty things outside are still going. See?

[ He taps a finger to the container glass, watching the floaters lazily twirl and spin. Like drunk people trying to dance. ]
ghouliday: (i didn't want to be rude)

[personal profile] ghouliday 2016-02-16 02:55 am (UTC)(link)
no, the two others who looked exactly like y...

[ Not only guessing at what he'll say but getting stable enough to know what those were and feeling even sillier, they try to shake their ghost head. Then they think better of it and slowly look back at the glass, slumping on him. ]

... nevermind. they're nice, aren't they... i hope they weren't encouraged too much...
showybusiness: (♥cutesy ghost bullshit)

[personal profile] showybusiness 2016-02-16 04:23 am (UTC)(link)
[ Oh, is it cuddle time? Man, ghost cuddles! They're so rare and extremely difficult to have with a corporeal person! This means Mettaton is a very powerful, lucky robot - or in his words, he's pure of heart, which is how he gets this arrangement to work. Wosh your SOULs, viewers, or no ghost will grace you with affection! ]

Maybe they'll be too tired to go around... uh. Biting people?
ghouliday: (i closed the blinds...)

[personal profile] ghouliday 2016-02-16 05:00 am (UTC)(link)
[ They're also worn out, at least in ghost terms, but they will not protest robot cuddles? From the obvious robot who obviously just has the magic... of a winning personality! One might think this ghost would be impressed.

All they do is "ooo" softly. ]

right... they actually do that sometimes... i think? awkward...
showybusiness: (♥off air)

[personal profile] showybusiness 2016-02-16 05:15 am (UTC)(link)
Well, we're here to perform! Something to take the mind off everyone's terrible days... wrangling mean fish! It'll be fun, Blooky. A shame Shyren isn't with us, hmm? She'd fit right in!
ghouliday: (i just wanted to say hi...)

[personal profile] ghouliday 2016-02-16 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
even if she didn't feel like she blended in... they would probably like her... but what if she got scared of the experimenting?

[ The second the words leave their mouth, their eyes wander with guilt. ]

sorry...
showybusiness: (♥aw cute)

[personal profile] showybusiness 2016-02-16 02:52 pm (UTC)(link)
That's a good point. We'd just have to check in with her more often, hmm? Lots of little jam sessions and such. So she never loses her pretty voice.

[ Poor girl. She was so talented. ]
ghouliday: (the flash of light wanted to come in...)

[personal profile] ghouliday 2016-02-20 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
those sound nice... like we could help her feel at home. i don't want to assume this place would just seem that way to every fish monster...

just hope she doesn't have to be lonely.
Edited 2016-02-20 16:08 (UTC)