TEST DIVE #2

[subnauticmods]

≡U.R.S.U.L.A. NAVIGATION

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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

[chataclysmic]

[Little blonde fashion Disney Princess, more like. He returns the gesture, moving carefully like he's afraid to jostle the creature he's sitting on.]

[Thankfully, he's not especially iffy about the telepathy. It's odd, that's for sure, but after a moment's start when he realizes this guy's voice was in his head (of course it was, they were both wearing masks so they could breathe, those certainly didn't allow for verbal communication!), he scrunches his nose like he's concentrating to respond.]

Peaceful sea cows.

[Another gentle pat to the Gasopod.]

Man, even manatees can be scary, though.

[splinten]

[It takes him a moment. Manatees? They're definitely extinct, and come up less frequently than cows in Dirk's ancient histories research. But he does remember this one film. He thinks he's got it. Enough to realize that he didn't actually need to work out what they are, but Dirk sure does love to overthink things.

That said:] Gasopods can be fairly dangerous themselves when they're threatened. I'm going to assume that you're not planning on giving the mysterious alien mammals a big scare.

[chataclysmic]

[Oh the Huge Manatee.]

[The comment makes him go still, and he looks down at the Gasopod he's seated on with as little movement of his head as he can manage, then turning a startled look to Dirk.]

Definitely not planning, no, but is there anything in particular I should avoid?

[splinten]

[GOOD JOB NOT FREAKING ADRIEN OUT, DIRK. He wants to hit himself in the head. This is why he is a terrible parent. That Dave ended up the great kid he did is a goddamned miracle. He is in no way suited to help anyone else.

Instead of giving himself a Strider Beatdown, he takes an inhale through the gas mask. Stay cool. Be actually helpful.]

You're too small to be more than a vague weight the way you are. As long as you don't cut them or make sudden, violent movements, you should be fine.

You should also avoid their tails.

[chataclysmic]

[One hand resumes the idle patting on the Gasopod he had started up before, nodding as he listens.]

[It's really not you, Dirk, Adrien is just a bit of a scaredy-cat sometimes-- Being told by someone who seems to know what they're talking about that something he's just climbed onto can be dangerous is definitely something that unnerved him. Thankfully, being told by that same person that it isn't terribly difficult to not make aforementioned poisonous sea cow dangerous relaxes him again, and he smiles sidelong at him.]

Well I guess it's a good thing I wasn't planning any funky dancing contests or knife-throwing practice on this guy, then, huh.

[A glance over his shoulder at the Gasopod's tail earns a telepathic whistle that he isn't sure he understands the logistics of.]

...I can see why, those do not look friendly.

[splinten]

[At least Adrien seems better now. ...That whistle is a little distracting. It's odd thinking about the logistics of it. He supposes they're the same logistics that allow for communication at all.]

That's another reason why this isn't the time to practice your knife-skills. The pods are released and break when the Gasopod is frightened. A knife could probably pop one early, and then we'd both be sick for a couple weeks.

[chataclysmic]

[He takes another moment to look over the pods, nodding.]

Then it's also good I haven't got any knives or skills with them, fencing sabres not included.

[He looks back over at Dirk and considers him for a while, shifting on the Gasopod. He had pretty pointedly not been thinking about the dream he woke up from, and Dirk and his Gasopod talk certainly helped, but it also drew him right back to the fact that it was the middle of the night and he wasn't the only teenager out on a weird poisonous sea cow.]

Weird question, maybe, but what brings you out here?

[splinten]

You fence?

[No. He stops himself from following up. Normal teenage boys don't practice their duels on deathbots, and Dirk doesn't want to decapitate anyone. Or get decapitated, again. Move along.

The sound, if it can be called that, over the telepathy, is something like a brief 'hm.' It is visualized in a trail of bubbles from his snorkel.]

I heard something while I was sleeping. I was hoping that I could hear it better in the water, but it seems like everything is quiet around here.

[chataclysmic]

Yeah, for a long time now.

[He'd rather keep his head on his shoulders, it does enough wandering to the clouds when he's around his crime-fighting partner anyway. But given the chance, he would totally fence with you, Dirk. He's watching those bubbles and marveling a little at their means of communication with the thoughtful hum in his mind, and then turns his attention out to the ocean around them.]

...me, too. But it's definitely creepy-quiet out here.

[splinten]

[Dirk looks out on the ocean. His goggles have his sunglasses design on them because, so it's hard to read his expression. ]

Yeah. It might be we don't have the right ears to hear it. At least, not while we're awake.

[chataclysmic]

[Adrien watches him anyway, squinting in thought at the comment. Unlike the Strider, Adrien was an open book even on his worst days, and the curiosity in him over the cryptic statement is plain as day.]

I mean, I've definitely not always been telepathic. You think maybe it's something relating to that?

[splinten]

[Poor curious little cat. Alas, it is a frontrow street to Dirk Strider, prince of both the Infodump and being opaque as hell. In this case, he appears to be tending towards opacity.]

Telepathy could have opened up a kind of receptiveness in your mind. It isn't a link you could be certain of without knowing how they projected into our dreaming minds.

[chataclysmic]

[A small eruption of bubbles from his mask accompanies a mental snort of a laugh, which is still an odd thing to hear more in his head than from his own mouth, and he leans back carefully on his hands, mindful of the Gasopod as he does so.]

That makes enough sense. You certainly seem to know a lot about it, though. Or maybe I just don't watch enough sci-fi movies.

[splinten]

[Dirk doesn't understand what was funny. This is troubling to him. He dislikes not fully understanding the situation.

Best response: pretend the laughter never happened and move on.]

This feels more like run-of-the-mill, paranormal cliche bullshit. It could be Lovecraft or something, but probably nothing more advanced than that. Stories of the oceans singing to people are as old as humans living on coastlines.

[chataclysmic]

[It was more of him laughing at himself. Receptive minds struck him as an almost ironic subject. He's happy to move on without addressing that as a whole, though. Very happy.]

Are they? I've been missing out, then.

[splinten]

Do you read fantasy or anything?

[Just working out chaton's frame of reference here.

Dirk folds his arms on the gasopod's back and rests his head on it. Under the circumstances, this is honestly even more relaxing than dives back home.]

[chataclysmic]

I read a little bit of everything, just not as much since I started public school. I avoided a lot of "darker" stuff, ["Darker" is a thought accompanied by air quotes made with his fingers.] Because they gave me nightmares as a kid and my Father decided I was too delicate for them, even now that I'm older.

[He shifts around carefully on the Gasopod, patting it gratefully for not dropping poison pods and making him horribly ill and also for tolerating his squirming.]

[splinten]

[Admittedly, to Dirk, this seems like a really nice, loving thing that a parent would do. Protecting your kid from nightmares. That'd be nice, right? It also strikes him as something he absolutely never would do as a parent, so this makes him think even more that maybe that's the most caring decision.

What I'm saying is Dirk Strider is so bad at understanding real parenting that, to him, Gabriel Agreste is a plausible candidate for Good Dad.]

In that case, a better way to approach it might be to consider the psychology behind it. While it is absolutely, completely bullshit that humans only use ten percent of our brains, it actually is true that a great deal of the human mind operates on a level outside our usual consciousness. That is true of our waking minds, but it tends to be particularly true when we sleep.

It stands to reason that if there's something out there that communicates via channels we don't normally use consciously, we would be more receptive to their messages while we're asleep.

[chataclysmic]

[Adrien tries on at least a daily basis to convince himself of the same, even if in more recent days he's started to be concerned about his father's state of Creepy. And, you know, hoarding weird things about his mom in a safe behind a giant mosaic painting of her, coveting rings, the like. It's still difficult for him to settle on thinking his Father isn't at least passable, which really is the saddest part.]

[He settles finally, in a similar way to Dirk, tucking one hand behind his head and propping himself up just enough to still watch him not-speak.]

Oh, that makes sense. Sort of like Dreamwalking, except apparently it's enough to wake us up?

[splinten]

[And so their mutual illusions about Gabriel continue to float on through. Someone please correct them one day.]

That's my theory, anyway.

[He doesn't have more to go on. It is, admittedly, very strange not to more fully understand what is happening in his dreaming life.]

[chataclysmic]

[Please. Season Two, please show my Son the truth. Save him.]

[He nods, folding his legs at the knees and crossing one over the other, tapping his foot to a beat somewhere in his mind.]

Sounds solid enough. Do you figure maybe it's something we should look into? Whatever's calling out to us?

[splinten]

[Dirk is far less expressive, both in body language and in face. (Glasses.) He does seem to think it over, at least from the moment of silence that follows.]

It is without a doubt something we need to look into. I'm not certain the best way, or safest way, to do that.

It's dangerous to tangle with anything as powerful as this feels.

[chataclysmic]

[Adrien has no concept of a poker face, at all. While he may be decently good at prancing around like a show pony for his father, he never had been any good at masking emotion. "Extremely emotional", Gabriel had once said.]

[Another mental hum, and he shifts to drum his fingers on his knee in thought, or maybe it's just that he can't sit still.]

Do you think URSULA has anything to do with it?

[splinten]

I doubt it, but it would be worth asking her. URSULA doesn't seem that great at hiding it when she's dodging something.

[A pause] You might not want to overdo it on the fidgeting. [The gasopods are generally gentle, but do you want to push it, kid?]

[chataclysmic]

Or you could just be really good at reading sentient underwater bases. Those glasses kinda make you look like a secret agent, it's completely feasible that you have some kind of mind-reading ability, even with AIs.

[He blinks, and stills his fingers on his knee, lowering his crossed leg to lay still.]

Right, yeah. Sorry.

[The apology is directed both at Dirk and the Gasopod.]