etrayamods | ∎ arrival ∎

IC ARRIVAL
You're sleeping, until you're not. There's the soft beep, beep of a vitals monitor nearby, keeping track of your heartbeat - or lack thereof, if you don't have one. Everything feels heavy, like your body's being weighed down to the comfortable cot beneath it. Eventually, that heavy, sedated feeling starts to wear, and you're able to open your eyes, to sit up. You can stay there and pretend to sleep as long as your heart desires if preferred. Regardless, once your eyes are open, everyone is approached the same:

There's a woman with short white hair, who looks to be in her mid-twenties. Further inspection will show she is not a woman at all, but a holographic AI. Attempts to fight her, to curse at her, yell at her, will all be met with the same soft smile as she turns away from the monitor.

"Good morning." Her voice is gentle, but it lacks a certain. . . human touch. Almost devoid of emotion. "I've been waiting for you to wake up. Welcome to Etraya. And good luck."

She'll stay and explain the situation if asked nicely. Offer her name, Aurora, for anyone who asks of it. For those who struggle, fight, and offer more. . . unkind words, they'll find that Aurora's image will dissipate and leave them with nothing more than what they have in the small room: the cot, the clothes they had been wearing before arriving, an earpiece left on the table beside the cot, and the vitals monitor.

For those who are kind, or at least tolerant, they'll get to hear the story behind their arrival:

The multiverse is slowly falling apart. While worlds have not begun dying off just yet, they're on the cusp of destruction. And Echo has made an impossible choice: only some worlds will survive, and the individuals pulled to Etraya are the ones who will get to decide which world is worthy of being saved. Through their actions on Etraya, they'll earn Echo's favor, thus saving their universe. There is no alternative, Aurora explains. Many have tried to find one, spending years, decades, searching for the answer to save everything. Unfortunately, the multiverse is just too big, and trimming it down is the only way to ensure the world as a whole survives at all.

OOC BASICS
Characters are intentionally thrown into the deep end in Etraya and meant to explore and slowly discover the universe around them. However, we understand it can be tedious to play out every piece of basic information being communicated, and offer the below bullet points as a set of common publicly known facts you are welcome to assume your character has gleaned shortly after arrival.

We encourage players to do what is realistic for their character -- if they would storm out of Aurora's attempted explanation, perhaps they wouldn't learn much of the below. On the other hand, if they're the sort to read every back post on the network, they would probably pick up on most of this.

Missions occur on an every two month cycle, and Aurora announces them in advance on the network.

No one has ever spoken to Echo and Aurora cannot answer questions about them.

Character inboxes are private, but the full backlog of historical network conversations are public unless otherwise noted and available for perusing.

There was a mission that went to a dying world to substantiate the story they're told about the danger to their worlds.

Greater participation in missions and around Etraya results in accumulating points. Characters can ICly exchange requests for rewards by asking Aurora or one of the bots.

Aurora can be freely contacted and is open to in character requests in general, beyond reward points. Characters can ask or request anything from her directly, though they may not receive it.

Characters who die come back but will have lost something.

Characters may go home and come back with no memory of Etraya (standard canon updating).

There is no form of currency - everything is free to take.

There is no form of police or justice system, or any other organized enforcement of a set of laws or ethics. Characters are essentially left to police themselves.

The basement levels of the hospital contain Aurora's servers and are highly protected and secure.

Other A.I. exist that run equivalent bubble cities to Etraya. So far they have all had distinct personalities.

Locations appear at random from characters' home worlds or can be requested using points.

The bubble enclosing Etraya (and its sister colonies) is a semi-opaque physical structure that surrounds and contains the in-game space. It is easy to miss visually unless you're looking for it, but on inspection it is made of hard panels held in place by a viscous clear substance in a lattice-like network. No attempts to date in breaking out of it have been successful, but it can be damaged. The barrier self-repairs in those cases with nanomachines held in the viscous goo.

There are other known settlements on this planet beyond the bubble, but there is no way for characters to contact them.

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