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

( a ) dropping some help

[ if there's one way to show a world how dependent they are on technology, stopping everything for a brief three minute window would do it. he's seen a lot of destroyed cities - he watched jedha blow up, he knows scarif no longer exists, but this is very different. he's out on a train when the disaster strikes, and cassian immediately moves into action mode and stays that way, even when he and prompto get out. ]

[ the vehicles are awful, some of them so wrecked he doesn't even bother looking inside, he doesn't need to see a body. he finds a car with a woman inside still alive if not badly wounded, the window glass smashed open entirely. she can be pulled out, but it might cause more damage if done alone. cassian flags down anyone he might see scurrying nearby with that same adrenaline. ] There is someone in here!

( b ) dropping some rocks

[ by nature, cassian is a secretive person. he hates anyone anywhere knowing things about him - but the situation is different right now. there are plenty of things he could do without making use of his power, but he doesn't have to here. he can be subtle about it, or at least try to be when it comes to floating rocks. maybe this intense heat will just make people think it's a hallucination, or a trick of the eye for fallen debris. ]

[ it makes moving the debris easier, even if he's limited by size. the bigger pieces he can't budge, but rubble is much easier to move when you don't have to touch it. it's tiring, but everything about this is tiring, and cassian is used to pushing his body to the limits. if you're struggling to move some debris out of the way, or maybe if there's a lot of it, he'll come over. ] Let me help, please.

[ he spots someone trying to climb into a broken window, and with a slight of his hand, he slams a rock into the man's leg. when the guy looks back at cassian angrily, cassian opens up his arms, maybe welcome a potential brawl. ] Do not steal from someone who already has so little.

[ steal from the rich, obviously. ]

( c ) CLOSED; dropping some eaves

[ he's been spending a lot of time away from home, working with his boss auden on home repairs and fixtures. outside of their usual customer base, she directs her employees to find homes that look like they need assistance, that it doesn't matter if the owners can't pay, she'll handle it. cassian's a quick learner, and he already had a sense of technological repair, so it's easy to do as she says and work through the heat, morningstar mask working as a sunblock to make his life easier. her business is booming, drawing attention from all over and cassian takes advantage of it. ]

[ velde & sons gets many an invite, people are desperate. by only the second day, cassian accepts four of them and tags along on a fifth to city hall. pulsar, vyonation, and giles bell ask for any extra assistance in security and electrical concerns. he gathers his housemates, and they create several bugs. ]

[ he meets daisy at vyonation and she serves as a guide, taking him to the busted wiring on the fifth floor - a hovercar crashed into the wall on the other side, and although it's been removed, the power has yet to be restored to this floor and the one above it. no one even gives him a second glance, least of all because he's with an employee. the wiring isn't even that difficult to check on, but he takes his time fixing it while daisy occasionally chats with coworkers who walk by. ]

[ when he goes to pulsar, jyn greets him and leads him in the same way, taking him up a few flights of stairs and explaining how the elevator is still out, hopefully he can do something about that! she takes him to the control box and he gets to work. at the same time, he figures out which wires apply to which floors, building a map in his head and locating the conference room. ]

[ for illya, however, cassian borrows a shirt from velde & sons, and when he walks into giles bell with illya carrying a tool box behind him, no one so much as glances at them. the receptionist gives them directions to the secondary circuit breaker, and they pass through without issue. when he asks someone if there is a map so he can find his way to the backup generators, they pull it up and briefly explain how to get there, but cassian memorizes the way up, the real end goal being the conference room. ]

[ the lucky fourth location on the third day is for an apartment complex whose lights won't stop flickering. when he sees the name as GILL-JADE he knows immediately he needs to take it, which is how cassian finds himself inside the home of new amsterdam's governor and her family. the final call is for city hall, which he attends with one of his coworkers, a woman named amala. they go their separate ways after fixing up a busted lock, she attending to a broken entryway to a stairwell, and cassian looking into getting the air conditioner system up and running up near the governor's office. by the time he leaves every location, he has planted at least one bug (one in the governor's office; one in each of the three corporations' conference rooms, but a second in katelin jovavich's office; the final bug in gill-jade's apartment itself) and tampered with security to allow himself access to get back in. he's helping in the chaos as much as he can take advantage of it. ]

( d ) dropping some WILDCARDS

[ hit me up for misfires in cassian's inbox or chat with me, romanitas#5368 @ discord! ]

Edited 2019-06-27 02:33 (UTC)

[ day one is boots on the ground. by the time she and illya trudge back to their apartment, daisy is so tired she can barely think straight. too bad, so sad, though — because when the opportunity for legitimate espionage is put on the table, there's no way she can just roll over and ignore it.

granted, she's not very much help in the whole physically creating bugs business, but she's there. she's mostly there for moral support, eyes half-closed as she curls up on the couch next to illya's tall frame, but she's there. cassian and illya do most of the work on the actual bugs, which is probably for the best. daisy's eyes and hands need their beauty rest if she's to be any use at work the next day.

which is, as it turns out, where daisy winds up being especially helpful. it's her department that has the floors needing repairs, and when daisy offers to escort the maintenance man around, her boss is all too happy to let her take care of this secretarial duty. (whatever, asshole. she's going to plant a bug in his office too, just watch.) it works out well: cassian gets access and a guided tour, daisy gets a break, and ... well, the power getting fixed is probably good, too.

in the middle of a conference room, cassian's legitimate gear sprawled out over the table, daisy cops a lazy sprawl on an unreasonably plush faux-leather rolling chair. ]

Did Jyn tell you I found out he lives in our building? We should set him up with Dennys, he's apparently single now.

[ sad. couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. ]

You should ask Stan, apparently he's into some sketchy shit.

[ cassian feels like he's been nonstop boots on the ground. it's long and tiring but he's also used to it, and it's about halfway through the day when cassian realizes there's so little monitoring going on that he can take advantage of it at the same time he helps. he gets his roommates on board and they make a handful of bugs. ]

[ his plan for vyonation is easy enough, and although he still questions daisy's ability to be subtle, it isn't like he didn't take that into consideration. plans on plans, cassian prepares for this exact scenario more often than not. ]

Your boss? [ it's curious, something he definitely files away, because he will make the opportunity to talk to stan about it come up. ] Do you know what floor he is on, or just that he lives there?

[ he shuffles around through his supplies, untucking one of the bugs out from the inside of a glue bottle. ] All of them are probably into sketchy shit somewhere.

Edited (what if people are listening) 2019-06-28 01:50 (UTC)

[ a soft sound, a huff of laughter low in her throat, echoes between them. ]

Obviously I know what floor. [ she may not have ever outright told him i'm an agent of a covert organization known as shield, but daisy's never lied about her day job back home either. not like mr fashion consultant, anyway. ] I know his apartment number, too, but it's not exactly subtle to go invite myself over for dinner.

[ see! she can be subtle, cassian, it's just a Choice. not everyone can pull off daisy's propensity for throwing herself directly into the path of chaos. ]

I'd rather invite him over a cliff, to be honest.

[ listen. daisy is good! cassian knows that! but covert is still not a word he would apply in a 'top three words to describe daisy johnson' list. it could change, maybe even after this little mission, but she's always just unapologetically herself. ]

Being subtle is not that hard. [ not to flex on you, miss johnson. ] What do you think the long game is with our friend D-Nice? [ IT'S A PROCESS. ]

Just talk to him casually for a while. Purposely run into him in the hallways at the Woods.

I'm plenty subtle, thanks.

[ kind of. when it suits her to be. she hasn't outright blasted their way into this conference room, either; she got the keys from her boss as part of cassian's legitimate assignment in the building. fixing what needs fixing is a real thing. they just happen to have ulterior motives along the way. ]

I don't think he knows I live there yet — which, honestly, isn't a bad thing. He'd be way less likely to let me escort you around if he knew we lived together.

I think you can be, when you really want or need to be. [ yes like getting him in here. but no, still not one of the first words he would use to describe her. ]

Purposely run into him in the halls here? It is definitely for the best he has not realized you live in the same space. But should that ever come to be ruined, there is no reason you could not try to take advantage of it.

[ he moves away from the table, digging around briefly in one of the large potted plants and shuffles it like he needs it out of the way. he sets the bug on the inside of the pot, tucked under the lip. it's the same grey color as the interior. but he doesn't turn around after that, move to examine one of the electrical boxes on the wall nearby. there isn't anything wrong with it, but he's going to look! that's clearly the only reason he's over here. ]

Anybody can be anything if they have to be.

[ well, to a point. daisy can pull off polished or subtle or genteel in a pinch, but it's not natural for her. she's less a spy and more a secret agent, and it shows on missions. yeet is her natural state. ]

We should check his office, while we're out here. He'll be pissed if you came to fix things and his lights go on the fritz after you leave.

[ look! subtle suggestions! that are not obvious to the unaware! cassian should be very proud of her. ]

I do not know if I agree about anybody. Some people cannot lie.

[ not everyone can handle that sort of thing. people survive in all kinds of ways, but not everyone can be a good liar. ]

Good idea. It is very important to make sure the boss is able to do his work. [ not part of his plan, but cassian is always able to adapt on the fly! he won't say no to poking around in there. the boss's office is always a good stop. ] I can make sure the wiring is fully connected.

cassian andor | ota + closed

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now i can finally tag this back