modormenace: (Default)
modormenace ([personal profile] modormenace) wrote in [community profile] f20202020-09-15 12:53 am

SEPTEMBER 14TH, 2020: THE SYNOD IS CONVENING.

All fourteen Gates simultaneously reverse polarity. For the next seven days, and only these seven days, any imPort stepping through a Gate will arrive safely in the Porter building: the only place on this fractured planet that can safely contain the energy of the imPort community in its entirety.
SO IT BEGINS
THE SYNOD
THE
DEATH
TRAIN

While the Gates are the simplest form of transportation, those making the journey to the Synod from the White Tower have the option of travelling by train, if they wish. Despite the playfully grim moniker, there haven't been any recorded fatalities on board the Death Train in many years. Or ever, really. Raw, untamed entropy doesn't do anything as simple as kill.

For that delightful reason, passengers will be reminded at frequent intervals not to attempt to leave the train once it enters the active zone of the Porter's defenses, or to do anything that could jeopardise the integrity of its shielding.

The journey is relatively comfortable and takes approximately two and a half hours. A limited menu of pastries and alcohol is available from the buffet car. The smallest tables seat two.

 

As the train passes through the entropy-saturated wasteland of the Deathdome, the view from the heavily tinted windows of each of the train's four-person cars is impossible to comprehend: every atom of the landscape is in a constant state of flux, scattered in endless possibilities across the multiverse.

WELCOME CARPET

Inside, you get the impression of three towers; no view from outside is possible. You're totally sealed inside for the week, by the same Fate-built tech that shields this place from the ravages of cosmic radiation— the train station is built into the structure, entrance tunnel hermetically sealed.

You're greeted by welcome robots, primitive little things full endless enthusiasm and covered in dents. What they lack in intelligence they make up for in persistence and durability. Each and every ImPort is assigned their own personal robutler.

Though they tend to hinder more than help.

Boop boop boop boop. They provide you with a complimentary swag bag. Inside is one (1) t-shirt, one (1) top of the line tablet (pre-loaded with this year's Agenda and a simple game app that looks suspiciously like 2048), a stress ball, personalised souvenir pen and eraser (but no pencil), and of course, a lanyard keycard for accessing the comfortably adequate accommodations provided for all attendees.

Given the week-long Synod, your room itself is a decent suite, furnished with dark colors, redolent with a smell you can't quite place. You may find yourself assigned an unexpected roommate, which may feel awkward considering you'll find arrayed on the beds, a half-dozen complimentary tickets to the spa, restaurants and the power gym, with its preternaturally durable equipment.

Robutlers constantly remind: do not attempt to leave the Porter facility or do anything to jeopardise the integrity of its shielding.

CONVENTION

Talks and panels take place in the convention area, which feels like a miniature city within the Porter's defenses, a hive with padded audience seats, wide stages, and complete with holographic audiovisual equipment that's curiously compatible with presentation software from every city.

Here, ImPorts will present and debate various topics regarded as major concerns for all. [OOCly, players are invited to suggest topics! Scroll down; they will be added below.]

This is also something of an expo, where cities practically demonstrate— or show off their good works. From the latest hovertechnology models to demonstrations of healing powers, playful duels in the forcefield-enclosed stages to magical books that temporarily transfer skills on touch, this is the place to pretend you're showing off your cards... while playing the most important ones close to your chest.

PANELS AND DEBATES

PRESENTERS
TOPIC
Joseph Kavinsky vs [N/PC]
White Tower ImPort Overpopulation and Dimensional Instability
Tony Stark and other technopaths
How Technology Will Save Us
Joshua Foley
The Mysteries and Intricacies of ImPort Physiology
Count Dooku and volunteers
ImPort Factions Must Align Against the Shared 'Resistance' Threat
Jin Bubaigawara (x3)
The Twin Cities are NOT Dimensionally Unstable No Matter What You Heard
Kang
Bridging Old and New: Maintaining Infrastructure with Limited Modern Resources
EVENING
EVENTS

Every night of the Synod, ImPorts gather to dine in a grand hall with a ballroom party. Each dinner is hosted by one ImPort city, gruntwork complete with robutlers-- which guarantees food safety, and complete with multiple cuisine options, cultural decor, and entertainment.

Given the range of cities represented, food options vary from greasy burgers to six courses of seafood and blue venison, and rarefied vegan fare.

When ImPorts aren't here eating, they're most often talking. Ergo, it's not uncommon for low-key drama to break out, but this year, the majority of Synod days seem to be passing uneventfully.

Fortunately, speeches are reserved for daytime. After dinner, it's time to dance.

 

The last song of the night is always obscure music no one can quite remember the words or melody to afterward. It's a slow dance song meant for two or more partners; the ballroom grows dark and the world seems to fade away. Or rather, it just fades back into one's hotel room.

THE BLACKOUT

On Monday, September 21st, shortly before the Gates are due to resume ordinary function and allow attendees to leave, the Porter building suffers a power cut.

Abruptly, all the lights cut out. Music stops. Your faithful robutler freezes in place, unresponsive— though its internal systems appear to be running, the centralised command hub that it relies on has fallen silent.

Though the robutlers are out of comission, technology-minded ImPorts and their tech drones hasten to reassure that systems analyses are underway. Within a few hours, repairs begin, the estimated time being two days.

In the meantime, thanks to the diversity of powers on hand, there is enough food and water. Candles start to circulate. It might even be a little romantic, if it weren't for the chaos outside. Characters might find themselves trapped in an elevator for a few hours, or compelled to seek comfort from one another.

numberthree: (☂ 00.138)

[personal profile] numberthree 2020-09-21 04:09 pm (UTC)(link)
It's too thin a comment for her truth detection to lean either way on his voice and so few words. Not an outright lie, or it would go off like a five-star alarm, but she's not focused on that either. Her brows knitted, considering the last of the stragglers as they walked out of the room, and her warring feelings between this half-ruse, half-necessary step, and the more of her that honestly would rather just wish Tony straight out of existence straight to his god damn face as her retort instead.

"Do you think so?" It's honest, curious, but there's a touch of worry there she lets hover only for a second. It needed doing. It has to be enough. (It doesn't feel like enough. There's so much more she's capable of, and a fire under it that longs to burn.)
rebelarrow: (003)

[personal profile] rebelarrow 2020-09-23 12:33 am (UTC)(link)
He nods.

"More people need to know what Krakoa is capable of. Away from..." he waves his arm. No time to "knock" and see if she was open to the idea of carrying on the conversation telepathically.

"I'm a soldier first, but even I know war isn't the first option, despite that being my role to play. Diplomacy is just as important."
numberthree: (☂ 04 & 07 (2))

(Also, I'm totally down for telepath things, too!)

[personal profile] numberthree 2020-09-23 03:17 am (UTC)(link)
"I'm rarely the diplomatic one," Allison says, but most of the world rarely need telling that. Allison was still mostly made of sharp edges. Except for Luther. And Claire. And whoever being one of The Five was continuing to make her into, slowly kept wearing the venom out of her veins, but not taking out her teeth or their sharp willingness.

She owed this to Josh. (She owed so much more.
Especially when she still wasn't going to stop.)

"Jane would have had them all smiling by the end somehow."

Not that this topic was something people should be smiling about. But there was a point to it all the same. Allison knew what her strengths were, and even if she could do this well, with enough preparation, it didn't fit her like a glove. It wrinkled, and she wore it as she was assigned to it, and did the very best to create a serious-prep-spin for the potential reveal from Stark, but it wasn't her. This wasn't.

"I definitely think I've earned a drink."
Even before ten. "You in?"
rebelarrow: (003)

[personal profile] rebelarrow 2020-09-24 12:54 am (UTC)(link)
Judd understood the sentiment well. He was the clean-up crew, not the welcoming committee. But still, if there's one thing his brief tenure as SnowDancer lieutenant taught him, it's that shaking up the norm is sometimes important.

"They would expect Jane. They weren't expecting you."

Because here, sometimes there needed to be more sharp edges. You never knew who was concealing a knife in their perfectly tailored sleeve.

He shakes his head slightly.

"I do not drink.... But I wouldn't mind the company."

This is par for the course for Judd. He'll hang out, but he'll never partake.
numberthree: (☂ 00.45)

[personal profile] numberthree 2020-09-27 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
That is one of the things she likes best about Judd, and she can have that thought even when she's still prickly inside her mind. Restless and a little too sharp edges for specifically having blunted them for the whole last hour. That he's incredible to the point, and he has a keen eye for things.

In the way, Klaus does in rarer bursts. But all the time.

"Wonderful." Allison doesn't even pretend anything away from relief. She could harry Luther away from whatever he's doing, but knowing him, he's probably somewhere in the Expo Hall in a long talk without whoever brought the newest space and space ship data this year.

"Let's go, then. I'm..." It searches, but she not home, and letting her tongue be too free isn't a thing she can do at the Synod. Especially not this one. She gestures around her with a careless air and heads herself and them toward the doors everyone else just piled out. "....done with this room."
rebelarrow: (011)

[personal profile] rebelarrow 2020-09-28 12:17 am (UTC)(link)
Judd begins to hear towards the door, seemingly ignoring her discomfort. Instead, there is a semi-familiar noise that can only be described as a knocking sound inside her mind.

Would this be more comfortable? I can shield your mind from anyone who would wish to eavesdrop psychically.

It might eat up a bit of his power, as he'd have to be more subtle than leaving psychic dead space in the middle of a crowded room, but he's managed far worse.