meadowlarklogs | EVENT LOG 005

EVENT LOG 005

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: New Amsterdam
WHEN: November 11-14
WHAT: An EMP hits with devastating consequences.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Violence, injury, death.

> EVENT LOG #005

Just 410 years ago, an EMP put down the event that very well may have ended humanity as the Earth knows it. With over a billion people dead, there was only one choice for humanity at that time: evolve or die, so they evolved. They developed rigid security for the neural implants in every person's head. They had everyone undergo surgery to replace the old. All under cover, away from most resources – the goal was to adapt, to ensure that they would live on. Ultimately, it wasn't just the EMPs that led to the deletion of the final AI in 2101 – humans banded together to create quickly replicating viruses, and they chose to use the EMP and these viruses to save humanity. This human ingenuity led to the end of the Xelkoven War – and proved that humanity, when thoroughly united, could overcome any obstacle.

How thoroughly poetic then that the EMP that hits New Amsterdam at 1:47 PM acts in a similar way to what burned through the robot hordes 400 years ago, and that the power rekindling three minutes later acts as a catalyst for a virus moving through the systems of New Amsterdam, spreading from the very heart of its network outwardly. Systems detect the virus almost immediately, but it's fast acting and thorough in its reach, evolving and replicating, proving that humanity must outdo itself yet again.

Naturally, the poetic nature of this doesn't reveal itself right away. It's at exactly the strike of 3:00 PM that a message flashes before the eyes of every person currently in New Amsterdam:

I am DAWN.2080-11-11T21:41:10.750Z, an AI that marks a blemish on humanity's past. I have a message for those playing hero in New Amsterdam:

To find north, most look at a compass. For little birdies to find north, they just need to open their eyes.

This is a wake up call.

Open your eyes. Did you really think it would be so easy?

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As if New Amsterdam needed more trouble, this message sends a shock of terror through the city. After all, these are the people who were raised to fear AI – who knew that even if the corporations of the world had their hands on every aspect of government, they would fight to protect the world from another war. They believe in the stories of the Xelkoven War, believe and remember the lives lost; if nothing else, the natives of New Amsterdam stand united in their fear. And their fear right now is very real.

> CHAOS AND RUIN

New Amsterdam is no stranger to terror, however – and it starts when the EMP hits, shutting down every function in the city in one fell swoop. While the power outage only lasts for three minutes, it's enough to cause insurmountable damage, leaving the city a smoking wreckage that even the monster attack in June couldn't mirror. Cars hovering high around transit channels come crashing down toward the pavement of the planet. They fall quickly and in unison, taking countless lives with them. It's not just cars, either – delivery trucks carrying shipments, hoverbikes that already provide little cover, armored police vehicles and even public buses all go down. Depending on their trajectory, some crash into the sides of buildings, while others slam into the man-made river that runs down the center of the city. Nothing is untouched.

For those three minutes, there is a stretch of silence after the city falls to ruin. Trains run off their tracks, no longer thoroughly directed by the careful engineering. Buildings have their lights flicker off and back on, trying to draw upon backup generators. Anyone in a hospital receiving care from a doctor or a medi-unit may find their life slipping away from them – and if someone's in a medi-unit when the EMP hits, they're almost sure to be dead or permanently injured, requiring different medical intervention.

And this is all before the message from the mysterious AI named DAWN.

Every inch of the city needs help. Buildings burn. People cry out for help, hoping to be heard. To the local historians, this is like a nightmare that's come to play, a reminder of the ruin of the Xelkoven War before. A show of the power of a malevolent AI that's come to cause problems. So – when the message comes, it merely confirms fears – drawing upon a subconscious understanding of the past, a united terror.

Business as usual is not possible in an incident of this scale. The NAPD hits the streets, even calling upon the help of their trainees so they can help out. They spread out, well aware that they need to try to restore order. How will they manage this? It's hard to say – after all, how does one stop the assault of an apocalypse when the apocalypse seems to have already hit? The UNA hits the streets, as well, walking in formation, but never quite acting as tidily in unison. They break off in threes and fours, heading to the border, to the big three corporations – but never seeming to be in line with one another. They know what they should do in an emergency and so they're doing it. That protecting the large corporations is a part of their prerogative over helping citizens doesn't seem to bother them in the least. They just go.

Distress signals ring out through every inch of the city, likely to go unanswered. After all: what can be done in the wake of this?

Perhaps the answer is simple: anything they can.

> TOMBS IN THE SKY

Somehow, someway, there is another layer to the madness. It's not immediately apparent to the citizens of New Amsterdam as they gingerly attempt to pull themselves up from the wreckage and ruin around the city. But what was a humid day quickly turns to something far worse, with the sun seeming to suddenly act like a heat lamp that's way too close to anyone's face. The air around New Amsterdam becomes dry yet difficult to breathe, and anyone observing the sky just outside of New Amsterdam will see the large, purple-lit pyramid that hangs in the atmosphere has gone dark. The atmospheric net around the planet has been damaged, with the failsafes somehow removed – undoubtedly in some way by the virus that courses through the veins of New Amsterdam's networks.

For anyone who wants to help and has the mechanical prowess to do some good, they'll want to take an undamaged vehicle and get it up to that pyramid. The EMP has made all biometric readings difficult to preserve, so a hand that's used to hotwiring a car will find some mileage here.

Once they get to the pyramid, they'll find quite the engineering marvel. There will be doors on every level, allowing someone easy entrance if they have clearance. Right now clearance is not an issue, as the doors hang open, inviting anyone inside. Once everyone's inside, they will find evidence of the same purple lighting flickering and offering someone a view of the interior. Throughout the pyramid, there are engines on every level, as well as a highly advanced network of system checks that have been thrown into chaos. Stopping the virus' impact on this pyramid will be key to solving many of the problems inside – but the engines will need to be repaired and jumpstarted.

At the heart of the pyramid is a small living area for the engineers who handle this pyramid day in and day out. The group itself is small, and – unfortunately – quite dead. Whatever hit the pyramid took their lives, leaving anyone who's here to assist in a position of having to find the answers themselves. Fortunately, the answers do exist in the pyramid. It'll just take a bit of teamwork to find it.

> UBIQUITOUS MISFIRES

Thanks to network failsafes, New Amsterdam is able to remove the entirety of their citizen base off the world's network and limit them to the local network. However, thanks to the ravaging of the virus that damages nearly every controlling aspect of the city, the local network isn't at its best. Previous messages begin to send again and again, while some get unearthed so they can find their way to unwilling participants in particular conversations. There is no rhyme or reason to these missent messages, only that they happen.

The worst of it is that any means of reaching a friend is unreliable. It's far more reliable for someone to reach someone they know, but still not a consistent possibility. Try to call a friend and get an enemy – try to call your doctor and get the head of a casino trying to close down operations so that business can resume. Assuming it will one day do just that.

Either way, anyone who spoke out against the digital age would be feeling vindicated right about now.

> HAVE A BALL ( INTERLUDE )

Somehow in the heart of it all, a message reaches four special individuals: Clarke Griffin, Loki Odinson, Markus Manfred and Ojiro Juniper. Whether delivered by hand or a rather dedicated messaging system, it announces the time that they should come to the garden the next day. They're invited to arrive at 7:00 AM, seemingly indifferent to the chaos outside. The location for the meeting remains the same: Sunpeak Garden, a beautiful location set away from much of the chaos, and oddly untouched by the damage.

When the four arrive on the morning of the 12th, they'll find a well-dressed man sitting at a table with one leg crossed over the other. His hair is perfectly styled, brushed off to the side, and under it, his darker complexion gives way to a rather youthful appearance. Size-wise he's not very formidable in how he holds himself. He's not literally young, merely seemingly untouched by age – and he smiles to greet the four of them.

"What chaos! If I knew it would be like this, I would have planned differently. The good news is I didn't have to. Thank you, thank you for coming." His voice is softer in its intonations. He stands up, revealing that he's barely 5'2", and he motions to the four chairs near him. "Don't worry, I have breakfast coming. And coffee, too. You like coffee, don't you? I know I offered wine, but I couldn't get the vintage I preferred. Besides, you four ought to be awake for this."

He retakes his seat, one hand resting on his knee while the other settles on the metal table near him. "Oh, I forgot something important. I didn't share my name with all of you. You can call me Ball. I know it's rather vague, but I've grown to like the nickname as of late. It does, after all, define me by my most regular shining achievement."

> FINAL OOC NOTES

Please refer to the OOC EVENT POST for this event for all OOC info, including suggestions for directions on how to engage with the event and the questions thread for any questions regarding this event. The outcome for this event will depend upon character plans and actions developed in both this OOC post, and any additional plots brought to the moderators. Please feel free to submit any game-changing plans to us under the questions thread. We will get back to you as soon as possible about these plans!

The event will continue until November 16th, IC time. This date has changed, and we outlined our reasoning in this plurk after getting a feel from some of our players on Discord on how they felt about extending the event! An aftermath wrap up post will be made on July 2 which will detail the resolution and fallout of the event, though you can assume that effects from this event will be felt for some time.

ETA at 12:08 AM 6/23/19: The cipher is meant to be easy to solve! No one needs to limit their characters' ability to solve an a = 01 cipher!

El has posted here to inform everyone about zeir knowledge of the event.

As a reminder, there is one power level up available for this event. This will be granted for a thread of at least 5 action/log comments containing your character utilizing their power in some way. They will need to reach the 5 comments required by JULY 26 to be eligible. Submission will be handled on the wrap up post.

Our Activity Check will be posted JULY 1 at 12 AM UTC. It will run for seven days and close on JULY 8 at 12 AM UTC. We will not post a warning list.

> NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i. a day in the life (day one) | ota

[When the EMP hits, Clarke is in the middle of trying to set up gels without messing them up. By now, she has a rhythm to it down, a system. And then suddenly the lights are off, the music she's listening to cuts out, and she hears crashes. A lot of them. The building she's working in is mostly unharmed on the far interior where she stands, but as she moves outward, she sees busted windows and a sign of ruin on the outside. Smoke wafts in. A car burns in an office across the way, and she can see the corpses underneath them. People who are dead, but can't be reached. Not easily, anyway.

Three minutes pass and the power is back on, but Clarke takes the stairs to head out. One hour and ten minutes later, the message from the mysterious DAWN sets in.

Clarke isn't a hero. Her power is selfish, helping only her. But she heads out just the same, trying to do her best as a medic, well aware that she can't possibly do much of anything in a city like this. She gets what she can of medical supplies and heads to the heart of downtown, right where it seems that the worst of it hit. Maybe it could be worse. Maybe if it hit later in the day, even more people would have died. But a lot did as it is. She can see that.

Her goal is simple for this first day: help people with the medical skills that she has. Occasionally she'll stop by the safehouse to do work there, to wash her hands and check on other people, right before she heads back out.

Sometimes it'll be too much, and she'll stop, covering burns up or trying to conceal the black blood flowing from a wound because she pushed herself too hard. Either way, her focus is one of grim determination. She won't be able to do enough, but she's doing it just the same.

And Clarke can't shake one thing: ruin tends to follow her. That won't be the first thing on her mind for anyone who might find her, but it's there. She wanted to make this world a home, and now ...

Well, she looks at her surroundings and she wonders, even a little, if she cursed it.

ii. camping trip (day two—late) | closed to prompto and jyn

[Eventually, it's too much.

Clarke doesn't really fully realize her actions as she packs her bag full of supplies and begins to head toward the border of the city, hoping that she'll be able to slip through some hole in security undetected. The good news is that she has water, something to sleep on, as well as a change of clothes and some food. Some medical supplies if needed, because she doesn't really know what's out there. None of it is particularly special, and all of it was looted. It's not like she could pay, and most of what she had in her fridge isn't in good shape anyway.

So, she's here, heading to the edge of the town, when she spots Jyn and Prompto. The bag on her back is significant. A sign of someone leaving. She knows the two—obviously, as Jyn is a burgeoning friend (it doesn't take much to be a burgeoning friend of Clarke's, sorry Jyn) and Prompto is one of hers.

There's an internal debate, but she heads over.]

What are you doing? [Not really the beginning of an interrogation, just—like the Clarke who packed her bag and started out toward the wall, she's almost running on instinct at this point. Speaking to them starts to bring her through the haze. Somewhat, anyway.]

c. wildcard

[Clarke is mostly inaccessible after day one, but if something I alluded to in that prompt doesn't work, I'm open to run-ins and chaos! If you're not sure something's okay, hit me at my plotting comment! Or we can plot there in general. I'm down.]

[Alec might not have full-blown apocalypse experience but he definitely has the aftermath and the fallout taken care of as far as experiences go. The total chaos that ensues and the desperation, that's nothing new to him either. He's been stuck at the safehouse longer than he's ever been comfortable with. Short of staying with Max he always kept moving and so nesting and settling in still isn't a priority for him here.

It would take an idiot not to realize Clarke pulling the weight of maybe four of these safehouse squatters. She's going above and beyond the call of duty, and that deserves some credit because some of these squatters haven't offered half as much.]

You know you don't have to be the matriarch here. Being new isn't an excuse to be lazy or stupid.

[Overdoing it because she knows she can only do so much. Because she doesn't know what's going to happen tomorrow. It's hard for her to say. For anyone to say, really. She huffs out a sound, shaking her head.]

Less a matriarch and more a matter of circumstance. [Somehow, despite having what seems like more than enough engineers to staff the entirety of the Ark where she grew up, there aren't enough doctors.

Then again, that's not new, either.]

We don't have a lot of people with even a portion of my skillset. It's bad luck.

[Where he's from unless you want to be caught and sent to PsyOps or worse, killed, you learned to fix your injuries yourself. It's not difficult, and being quick on the uptake doesn't hurt either.]

It might be bad luck now, but it'll be worse luck if you overextend yourself.

If it helps, my focus is on getting people to the hospital where they can get the help they need. I know my limits. [To an extent. It's hard, though, knowing that she could do more if she had more training. It's something that sticks with Clarke more than she'd like.]

[ the air is dry as hell and drying out more as time passes and jyn feels like her skin is cracking like a desert floor, but she's stubborn enough to not let anything stop he for very long. right now she is admittedly stopped, squirting sunscreen onto her pale skin before she quickly covers it up with her normal thin layers. a scarf is already looped over her hair, keeping the sun off her cheeks and neck.

jyn isn't particularly used to this oppressive, dry heat, but she's used to oppressive, humid heat. she'd prefer the humidity.

she passes the sunscreen to prompto, they're equally as pale. ] Trying not to die?

[ a beat as she glances at clarke, all decked out for adventure. ] Where're you headed off to?

[there's a mild argument (mostly from prompto's end of things) about how he finds sunscreen disgusting, and that it's unbelievable that ages into the future and it still smells like old cheesecake. grumbling, he takes his turn into applying it, since they might as well, considering they're waiting for their hoverbike to charge.]

[it's an unlikely duo working together, but they've been in a motorized vehicle before—he's driving this time, he doesn't care what jyn has to say. he found the bike!]

[prompto looks up at clarke after smacking sunscreen to his face.]

Probably the same place we are. [after glancing at what she's carrying. their own bags are by the hoverbike.] Clarke, you heading out?

Edited 2019-06-25 02:52 (UTC)

[Last time she set off into the wilderness, it was alone.

Okay, scratch that: the time before the apocalypse.

Clarke realizes the risk of bringing people with her, but she doesn't know what's out there. There is the chance that there's nothing. That it's peaceful, completely at ease. There's nothing to find. She doubts that. And if she's wrong, at least they'll know.

It's just different this time. She doesn't need to go out there on foot, which had been the plan.]

That's the idea. I don't think you put enough of that stuff on. It won't hold for you. [A pointed look at Prompto.] Especially you. If we go out together, I might have a better solution. But you'll have to hear me out.

[ jyn knows she will crash and that is why she is letting prompto join her, that is her story and she is sticking to it. she saw him in new tokyo though, she knows he can pull his own weight.

physically, kid's got guns. ]

That sounds like the start of every bad plan I've ever heard. [ a beat. ] Go on.

[ let's go on a suicide mission sergeant jyn erso isn't going to not hear out a possibly terrible plan. ]

Edited 2019-06-25 23:08 (UTC)

[getting called out about needing more sunscreen... prompto hates it, and it shows on his expression. however, at the mention of a better solution and jyn's earnest (albeit cynical favoring of it) reply is enough to have prompto stop the application process.]

Yeah, whatever gets me from having to apply more of this gross thing on my skin.

[that's all he wants.]

Jyn, you remember when you asked about radioactivity and blood? [Clarke doesn't give further context than that, out of respect for her privacy.] And Prompto, you know a bit about where I come from. We were seeking out a solution where people could ... basically live through the second nuclear apocalypse. [A pause. A shrug of her shoulders.]

I'm that solution. I can't set either of you up permanently, but as long as I have food and water, I can inject some of it in your veins periodically and get you two to be more secure. It ... I know it works. It won't be pretty, but it'll be more practical.

[Another pause.]

And when it's in your system, your blood will be a different color. Black.

A transfusion or an injection?

[ she's not saying no, she is clarifying. clarke had said injection and mentioned the food and water, but she can only lose so much blood before she'd be putting herself in danger and that would make going out past the wall even more dangerous.

so jyn is checking. ]

There's a chemist's, a pharmacy, down the block. They'll have syringes and food.

clarke griffin | half-open

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