A New Platform [Intro Post May]

[voidtreckermods]

On the Train

Like clockwork, the Voidtreckers are awoken by a familiar message this morning.

"Good morning Voidtreckers, it is day one of the month of Llama. Points have been updated on the system."

With points updated, everyone can spend the morning shopping. Most people will be expecting the second announcement that comes a few hours later.

"Shortly arriving into a designated void platform. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." A lurch and a jolt and the windows fill with the fog that means they are at a platform. The air is sticky and warm, the windows almost immediately dewing over with the humidity outside.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing, walking silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers. Azula, Prisoner, Amery Vallet, Dyme Graydon, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, Yoite, Piccolo, Bulla Brief, Xie Lian, Kurosaki Ichigo, Hua Cheng, Renee Corbin, and Ran Mouri; all pass through the platform, not looking back before they disappear through the barriers and into the fog beyond.

But on the platform itself there are new faces. Wearing hoodies in all four colours, in various states of confusion.

For New Passengers

At first all they can see is steam billowing around them as they come to their senses. As their eyes adjust, they find themselves on a platform, rich wood and pale stone forming a natural, tree-like structure overhead. Behind them is a set of barriers, and in front of them is a single set of tracks extending both ways into thick fog. The air is rainforest-hot, and the sound of frogsong can be faintly heard over the drip of the artificial canopy.

They are standing, in clothes that are not their own and a style they might not even recognise. They are carrying a rucksack on their back. For a moment it seems to just be them, alone in the white haze; then the fog begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform isn't large, and seems smaller with twenty-eight figures scattered around, all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. Then there is a roaring sound and out of the fog arrives a train. Jet black with gold writing on the side. The Voidtrecker Express. There is a hiss as the doors slide open and out pours a strange assortment of people, over a hundred at least. Some are human, some are less so. Most are wearing the same hoodie in one of the four colours, red, orange, blue and purple, though some are sporting different clothes in a variety of styles.

Behind them, the doors close, and the train is cloaked in the same fog that hides the world beyond the platform.

The Train

After a short time, the fog clears and the doors hiss open again. Those from the train may encourage those on the platform to board. It’s not like there's anywhere else to go and even if there was, you feel a pull. A need to board, a feeling that staying on the platform would lead to something terrible. If that is not enough, there are plenty of people on the platform now, to encourage them onto the train.

Each ICP shows the same message and next to the screens there are stacks of leaflets written by those on the train, with further information (see
'Publications'). The store rooms have been restocked with fresh ingredients, including several crates of nori, the ingredient of the month of Llama, as well as all sundries.

For passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage in various suitcases and bags. For each member of Purple Team, a small silver box with their name on it contains a glittery cupcake.

New passengers will find their ticket allows them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, but at least they won't be alone in their confusion - since the sleeper carriages are now double-decker, and experience isn't going to avail the passengers in finding their rooms.

Room is tight but there are storage cubbies at the head of each bed, beds fold up and the bottom bunks double as benches for the small table. There is storage under those benches full of spare blankets and pillows.

The new double carriage's transfer ICP is active, allowing people to move to a double room should they meet the requirements with another person, though they'll have to move their belongings themselves.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers taking advantage of the fresh air, and the doors slide shut. Veteran passengers know what will happen next, but they may wish to brief their new companions.

The train sets off, the fog obscuring the view again as it picks up speed.

"Welcome aboard, passengers of the Voidtrecker Express." A female-coded artificial sounding voice echoes throughout the train. "Please take the time to read the passenger information displayed on the Information and Communication points and familiarise yourself with the layout and emergency exits."

The train begins to tilt, leaving the ground and rising up into the fog-filled sky.

"Entrance into Voidspace imminent. New passengers are advised to remain seated. Entry into Voidspace in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."

A shudder, a jolt, a lurch to the left. A flash of light, colourful and blinding. As quick as it happens it is done. The train seems to steady itself. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever-changing colours.

Welcome to the Void!

Comments

[irrationally]

Smart, getting the obvious answer out of the way first. Not that Alice felt inclined to snark at Leia - mostly since she tends to give women a little bit more leeway than men when it comes to these things - but she can imagine other smartalecks definitely would have gone for that answer first.

"I imagine the answer to that question is going to sound fairly unbelievable," she warns. Alice is used to how quickly people find an idea totally ridiculous, and this place is on another level entirely when it comes to that. "But this is a place inbetween worlds."

[motherofresistance]

Even if she did, Leia could easily deal with a bit of snark and give it right back as well. But for the moment, the relatively straightforward answer was appreciated. "Not nearly as unbelievable as you might think, given the place I was brought here from," she said. "It doesn't quite look like the Between to me, but honestly that's probably a good thing for everyone here. Much easier to avoid getting lost this way."

"Now for the possibly more important question; any idea why we're all here? After all, if I'm going to be interdimensionally kidnapped, I prefer there to be a good reason."

[irrationally]

... The Between?

That isn't any place Alice has ever heard before, though she reserves that question and her curiosity in the back of her mind for now. She can always ask about it later.

"Is there ever a good reason to be kidnapped?" She still can't help but ask though, because that idea is so baffling to her. After all, regardless of what anyone thinks about the train's intentions - granted, Alice herself isn't very likely to be positive about them - they're all still kidnapped.

"But if you want to know, this train seems to think that we are a bunch of heroes who should go around various worlds to save them, whether we want to or not."

[motherofresistance]

"That generally depends on your point of view," Leia said. "I can think of a number of reasons that I'd consider good ones, and even a few situations where I might plan on being kidnapped, though in the latter case it wouldn't be interdimensional kidnapping. The last place I was brought to, I was pulled there due to something of a long-term cosmic emergency; I didn't like that place's methods, but its reasoning was sound."

"But helping other worlds and people tends to fall into what I'd consider a good reason. It's still a very poor recruitment method, but it's highly doubtful that there's anything we can really do about it, so we'll just have to make do."

"In any case, you said the train thinks this?", she said. "So it's sentient in some way?" Experimentally she reached out with the Force, searching for something that stood out to her as potentially being the train's mind, but the jumble of other minds around her created too much interference. She'd need to properly alight herself with the Force here before she tried again.

[irrationally]

The girl pulls her shoulders up into a shrug.

She doesn't know if the train thinks for itself or if there's something actually controlling it. It seems to be the former, considering they've never seen a person involved in the latter, but.. is there really a difference? She would be annoyed regardless of which scenario it was.

"If it wanted people to help it out, it should just have gone around and asked. No matter how 'good' the reason, this isn't something it can just do to people."

She definitely seems annoyed as she says it. After everything she's been through, Alice is not just going to put up again with yet another force greater than her trying to make her bend to its will.

[motherofresistance]

"Oh it's definitely a questionable recruitment method, at best," Leia agreed. "Though if it feels the need to go to the effort of doing so, it may not have access to more conventional methods. I'd have to look into that a bit to be certain though." After all, it can't be easy to reach across time and space and bring a bunch of people together like that.

[irrationally]

"Are you.. usually this okay with being kidnapped?"

Can't blame a girl for feeling kind of confused about that, right. It doesn't seem like Leia is incredibly pleased, sure, but Alice expects anyone who finds themselves whisked off to some place against their own will, without notifying anyone back home, to be at least a little bit ticked off at it.

No matter the reason.

[motherofresistance]

"No," Leia said. "But this is hardly a 'usual' kidnapping. And since it doesn't seem that any of us are in immediate danger, I'm far more inclined to give the one responsible the benefit of the doubt- at least initially- than I might be otherwise."

"Don't get me wrong; I'm not especially happy about having this happen a second time. But there's a lot less dependent on me now than there was the first time, and given the peculiarities of time in the place I was taken from, I might not actually have been gone that long when I get back. So I can afford to be a bit more forgiving than some."

[irrationally]

"I don't believe this is a matter anyone ought to be forgiving about."

It's not said with any real intensity. It's not an opinion Alice is interested in forcing upon other people - there may not be such an opinion at all for her in the first place. But it's still something she believes in herself, enough so to at least make sure to have voiced it out loud.

Because the idea of anyone being forgiving over a kidnapping, no matter the reason, is still just a little.. weird.

"You shouldn't let people or.. well, things, I suppose, walk all over you like that. If you give someone an inch, they will take a mile."

[motherofresistance]

Leia quirked an eyebrow at that last bit because, wow. "You know, you're probably the first person to ever accuse me of letting people walk all over me," she said. "Though maybe 'forgiving' was the wrong term. Being 'diplomatic' about it would likely be more accurate. This really isn't a situation where being angry or aggressive towards the cause of it would be particularly useful, so dealing with it with consideration and reasonable argument will likely get much better results than going at it looking to pick a fight."

[irrationally]

Hey, Alice is just going by her own experience.

An experience that has mostly involved smashing things, but still..

"Reasonable argument has never worked for me." Not back home, nor here. Not that it means that she's chomping at the bit to be aggressive - she knows that trying to destroy the train would do absolutely no one any good here, and she's not dumb enough to stoop to such levels.

"Nor has it worked for anyone here, or everyone who wanted to leave this train would have been able to do so already."

And yet that hasn't been the case at all. No matter how reasonably anything is presented to this train, it won't let people go.

It's very much like all those awful men - and one queen - Alice had to deal with back home, in that regard.

[motherofresistance]

"The fact that it hasn't given people what they wanted as of yet doesn't mean that reason hasn't had any effect," Leia said. "Especially when we consider that the train might well have a very different definition of what constitutes being 'reasonable' than most of us do. After all, it is still a machine, even if it's a sentient one."

"Of course to properly engage with it and find out anything, we'd need to be able to communicate properly with it. And I'm guessing that that may be easier said than done." That seemed to be the way it worked, after all.