EVENT LOG 005

[larkers]

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

Comments

chaos and ruin, it's time.

[laozu]

[ there are so many people, wounded and suffering, that it's overwhelming. heat from the fire and heat from the sun beating down, unhindered and uncontrolled, upon the defenseless city, has left even him stripped down to as little as possible. jacket torn into ribbons to bind broken limbs to makeshift splints, to wrap injuries and prevent bleed-out. even now, he's holding the bottom of his shirt, stained with dust and other evidence of the surrounding danger, as if contemplating using it too.

under his heel, he grinds out a small fire before it begins to spread in the direction of one of the downed cars, the door already torn off the hinges as though someone has torn into it to extract the injured parties within. it appears a moment of calm, if not for the distance in his gaze, eyes turned down towards the pavement -- not shock, perhaps nostalgia? -- how strange that in the middle of all the activity, he's taken this such moment to drift away into vacancy. ]

Are you okay, young master Sora?

[ oh. not so much that he isn't aware of the other's presence. ]

Ah, don't look over here, I've already --

[ even to that end, he puts an arm out, holding the flat of it before sora's eyes to keep them from wandering towards the wreckage of the nearby car. ]

[lighthearted]

[ It is overwhelming. Sora's been in chaotic situations like this before. He'd even had to deal with a malevolent force spreading across San Fransokyo. Still, it hadn't been on this scale, and with so many of his powers taken away from him, it's easy to feel like he simply isn't doing enough. Even if he did have his Cure magics, he knows that by this point he'd be completely tapped out on energy.

He's getting there either way, but he knows he has to keep pushing himself. The sheer amount of people that were affected by the EMP is impossible to think about, but even with the Displaced and the NAPD working at it, there's nowhere near enough resources.

By this point Sora's face is smudged with dirt and dried sweat. At least his typically favored clothing has served him well here, with the short-sleeved shirt and shorts allowing him to move along easily and not get too overwhelmed by the heat.

When he spots Xuanyu, Sora immediately heads toward him, knowing that it's better if they work closely together. When Xuanyu tries to stop him, as if shielding him from whatever might be in that car, Sora frowns and shakes his head. ]

What do you mean? Is there someone in there?

[ He knows what the worst case scenario is; he's not that naive. But he wants to be sure. ]

[laozu]

Yes, there is.

[ one thing he won't do, is lie to his juniors. sora, like him, has died before - that intimate relationship with such a state tends to strip one away of naivety surrounding the dead and the dying. all the same, he doesn't want anybody to have to see someone who did not survive their tumble from the sky - and it's for that reason that he brings his hand to sora's face and wipes at one of the dirt smears on his cheek.

hopefully, he can use that as an excuse to turn sora's head from the mangled remains of the car. ]

I already checked on them, they didn't survive.

[ the contact they share ignites blue, a risk he's willing to take; the storm of his emotions has resulted in the numbness that he feels, as though he exists precariously at the eye of a hurricane and one wrong step will send him spiraling into debris and chaos. internally, he's focused - fixated on taking one step, then another. the familiarity he has with death doesn't detach him from the regrets he has, the concern. ]

[lighthearted]

[ Sora is familiar with death, but his own experience hadn't been like this. He's still here. Still living, and breathing, and existing somehow. He remains unclear on whether he'll get to go back to his home and his friends or if he can somehow only continue on in this world, but at this point he has to accept what he's been given.

Xuanyu is doing everything in his power to shield him from the terrible fates that the people in that wreck suffered, and the worst part is that it's only one instance of so many -- too many to count.

On Sora's side of the bond, there's worry, guilt, and that never-ending drive to do something. The fact that he gets such a hollow response from Xuanyu only increases that worry. Ultimately, he lets the pressure against his cheek take its course, turning away from the burning wreckage. ]

Come on, we can keep going. [ One hand lifts to hold a fist against his chest. ] There have to be others we can still save.

[ There's nothing that can be done for those who are already gone, but how about all the people who are still on the brink? Sora won't leave them to suffer. ]

[laozu]

[ it's an automatic gesture, trying to guard his junior from such a difficult thing; he's done it for jin ling, for lan sizhui and lan jingyi, protecting and urging them to brace better for the hardships they will inevitably face. sora, who has shared with him his own death, is on similar footing as wei wuxian himself - and still, he cannot help but want to shield him from the horrors of those who have not died cleanly. deaths he, himself, has inflicted upon others and which he, himself, has suffered - violent, sudden things.

he fits his arm around sora's shoulders, and matches his drive to do something, to work just as hard as before, to keep moving forward. it sits heavy in his chest, methodical and sorrow-driven, tying him in knots that ache with how tightly they're pulled. ]

You're a good boy, [ he praises softly, tiredly, and points down the street, to where figures are limping and gathering one another up, ] let's get them moving in the right direction. Do you know how to dress wounds, young master?

[lighthearted]

[ That weight on Sora's shoulders is something he's not prepared for. It's not exactly a friendly gesture. It's protective, but it also feels like Xuanyu might be trying to lean some of his weight on him. With how he's feeling (or not feeling) at the moment, maybe he needs more support than he's letting on.

Instead of drawing attention to it, Xuanyu points out other victims of the disaster, people who need to be patched up and escorted either to the hospital or to a safe place.

At the question, Sora peers up at Xuanyu with a worried stare and slowly shakes his head. ] Before I always had Cure magic, so I didn't have to learn. But I have another power now. It won't help with the physical wounds, but with how they're feeling.

[ Maybe Xuanyu might benefit too, but Sora knows they need to focus on the injured first. He picks up his pace toward the group, lifting a hand to grab their attention. ]

[laozu]

You really are quite talented. I know how to mix herbs for medical purposes, but even that is dependent on the body's own ability to heal. It isn't magical, not really.

[ which is an honest statement; most cultivators of sora's age were only just reaching the heights of their practice in self-healing and subsisting without food for long stretches of time. and here he was, possessed of a medical marvel of a skill. well, once he was - it's a cool reminder that they've been stripped of many talents they ought to have had.

the group they approach are confused, some limping and some clutching at makeshift wraps around injuries. they are the walking, talking wounded and thus not in as deep a crisis as some others might be; still, he asks them to slow for a moment so that he and sora can check their wounds and talk them down from their fears. ]

We'll walk with you to where it's safe, yes of course - here, why don't you lean on me?

[ he speaks in hushed tones to some of them, supporting and gentling them

it feels reflexive, but he's seen worse on battlefields. he's caused worse. ]

Sora, would you help me with this gentleman's leg? We just need to splint it, I'll show you how.

[lighthearted]

[ Mixing herbs? Sora's never thought about it, but someone had to have made those potions and ethers that he so often used, so maybe it's something similar. They definitely don't have the ingredients for something like that here, so it leaves them pretty ill-equipped when it comes to helping.

That doesn't stop Xuanyu from approaching the group of injured, and Sora's quick on his heels, nodding along as he explains that they're here to help.

Among the group is a girl who's probably no older than ten who looks scared, clutching to an adult's hand with a white-knuckled grip. Sora approaches them and crouches down, assuring her that everything will be okay now and she'll be safe soon.

He sets a hand on her shoulder, his own chest glowing blue as his power activates and the girl slowly calms.

Then Xuanyu calls out to him and Sora jumps back to his feet, returning to him and the gentleman in question. ]

Of course! Just tell me what to do and I'll help.

jesus finals are over and i can stop failing u

[laozu]

[ the girl calms, and he's pleased to see it. sora exudes a gentleness that could soothe even the most irate of individuals, and he tends to children with the kindest of hands. as someone who had once been a small, frightened child who had not received such sweet things, it reassures him to know that others are not being ignored or further harmed the same way that he once was. at the side of the gentleman, he's already gently testing the bruised flesh around the obvious injury - whistling a soft little tune to coax the man to be calm as he does so. ]

Take some of that cloth, [ he's already prepared the items in question, having torn them from the hem of the plaid overshirt he has tied around his waist ] and the boards as well. You're going to set the boards on either side of his knee and tie above and below it.

[ patiently, he whistles again to calm the gentleman - who's gnarled hands are braced on wei wuxian's shoulders tensely, calming little by little as the music reaches his ears; he walks sora through it while he hums and sings, low tunes that keep the man lulled into an almost mindless state. it protects him from the pain. ]

What you did with the little girl - that was kind of you, young master. I'm glad you're looking out for these people.

except now it's my time to fail u

[lighthearted]

[ While Sora may not be good when it comes to learning from books (though he's been doing his best to keep up with the school that Riku's inflicted on him), he does a lot better when it's a situation like this, where you have to learn by doing. Even Merlin's magic lessons had suited him better than the classroom settings back on the Islands.

So he sets to work, following Xuanyu's instructions with a set of steady hands. At first he thinks that Xuanyu is just humming and singing softly for the sake of it, or as some kind of nervous habit, but then he realizes that the man they're helping seems almost unnaturally calm. And Sora isn't using his power this time. ]

Huh? But I was just following your lead. You're helping too, Xuanyu.

[ Sora smiles as he ties off the cloth at both places, effectively splinting the man's knee. Then he stands and dusts his own knees off, nodding to the man with reassurance. ]

Be easy on it, okay? But it should hold long enough for us to get you to the hospital.

[ Then he looks back to Xuanyu, as if searching for approval that he's handling this correctly. If they can get everyone here into the hands of professionals, then he'll feel as if they did their part. Of course, there's still so many other people who need the same treatment. ]