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 Two Stars are destined to collide. Rev and Adamant, your inexorable path begins here.  Learn and teach. You may now draw Birth Cards.
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May 15, 2021 04:19
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| # ? May 19, 2024 04:34 |
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Rev Valterra Seven of Birth: You are lucky enough to gain an education - where? In what did you excel? Revan "Rev" Valterra attended high school at Reverie Lee Institute, a prestigious private school in North Koyannas county. It was named after a famous pioneer in psychotherapy, and served as a local magnate school.  Revan, or "Rev," as his friends called him, excelled in sports (go "Raiders"!) but didn't focus on any academic subjects in particular. His final projects were mostly about simple AI consciousnesses, and scored him fair marks. His youth, his physical health, and his lack of innate neural interference made Rev an ideal subject. He was integrated into the Pharmaceutical Treatment of Simulated Dreams Experiment as a willing participant without issue.
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May 15, 2021 11:53
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Adamant Swee 10♥ You are frustrated in your training - what do you do to overcome your issue? Adamant Swee, for the most part, passed under the radar during basic. The austere accommodations, the exerting routine, and even the constant mind games hit like a plush mitten for one already used to it. Someone without prior knowledge of the Patrol's training regimen would've assumed that Swee would pass his Close Quarters Combat test with characteristic adequacy. Swee was told to prepare for a glorified kickboxing match against one of the drill instructors. He was instead paired up against a 1.5 ton Scarab drone tank. Having no time to question this scenario, he held his ground. The Scarab advanced slowly, flailing its turret in a perpetual arc - apparently giving it ammunition would be too unfair. Swee could duck under the bludgeon, but had no way to deal with getting run over. So he waited for the turret to arc in front of him, then clambered onto the hull. As the turret's barrel came back for another swing, he latched on, tucking his body. With the Scarab's top-heavy design, the extra weight was too much for its center of gravity, and it rolled onto its back, crushing Swee's legs under the hull. No, conscripts weren't expected to take on a tank empty-handed. The idea was to surrender against the impossibly lopsided matchup, be reprimanded for failure, and learn the Patrol's unspoken value of fatalism. Instead, Swee defeated the tank, at the cost (to the Patrol) of a pair of cybernetics. They were pissed, but not to the point of wasting all that money by expelling Swee. By the way, the onion cut is technically permitted by the Patrol's grooming regulations.
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May 15, 2021 19:01
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Rev Valterra Jack of Birth: Your homeland is particularly known for something - what is it? Rev Valterra: "Why? (pause) Do I have to answer this?" Researcher-5B: "Your responses are important for establishing cognition patterns for our readouts. Do you want me to repeat the question?" RV: "No, it's fine. Koyannas county, Texarkana. That's where I'm from, in the northern part of the state. What we're known for is being the place where the Frytown massacre occurred." R-5B: "Please elaborate. We need you to speak longer so our instruments can gather enough data." RV: "Well, a couple years before I was born, a branch of radical behavioral neurologists apparently received a research grant from the government to conduct studies on cognitive therapy and the human genome. They set up a large research compound in the outskirts of Frytown and started a program of experimental gene treatments on families in the area. Some say it was coercion of those in poverty with existing mental illnesses, others argued that they were willing subjects. Anyway, somehow someone discovered that there was a definite cult-like situation developing in Frytown with the potential for bioterrorism, and the government sent in men and later tanks to... (pauses) quell the cultists before their genetic experiments infected the public. Hundreds of people died. There - is that enough?" R-5B: "That should be fine. On to the next question-"
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May 15, 2021 23:13
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Adamant Swee 2♥ You find yourself in a dangerous situation and need to defend someone. Who? The abandoned corner shop was surrounded by road pirates. Their target, a traitor and informant named Mothmar, huddled under the manager's desk, his blood slowly oozing into the carpeting. The only thing standing between him and pirate justice was the sole survivor of the rescue team, a patrolman with polymer legs and the dumbest haircut he'd ever seen. Would they live to see morning? "I'll keep the bops off us. You just sit there, have some huffies, can't hurt." Swee selects a package of suspicious off-brand Lace from behind the counter and tosses it to his wounded charge.
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May 16, 2021 01:43
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Rev Valterra King of Birth: You are not alone in this world - who helped raise you into who you are now? Isolde Valterra, née Jardin || D.O.B. 08/28/2046 || Occupation: Elementary Schoolteacher  Revan Valterra's biological mother Isolde Valterra (née Jardin) gave birth to him when she was only 24 years old, shortly after completing her degree in developmental psychology for teaching in elementary school. She and Revan's biological father, Jarrod Valterra, married the summer after Revan's birth. It was a short-lived marriage, due to an industrial accident that took Jarrod's life when Revan was only 6 years old. The settlement from Jerrod's death was enough to keep food on the table and the rent paid for most of Revan's early life, but Isolde was still accruing the same debts expected of any single-income, single-parent family. As a result of the death of his biological father, Revan became a sullen and serious adolescent with occasional aggression issues. His mother Isolde provided for his emotional needs adequately in the times she wasn't busy with her own schoolwork, but she was still working on a single-parent's income and in need of assistance. She agreed to send Revan to the state therapists in North Koyannas that were assigned to her by her teachers' insurance. This is where the clinical casework on Rev Valterra begins. - - - - - - - Patrick "Trickshot" Rothsberger || D.O.B. 05/13/2043 || Occupation: State SWAT Recruitment Captain  Revan Valterra's step-father Patrick Rothsberger married to Isolde Valterra when Revan was 11 years old. Aside from the income support he provided, as a State-level SWAT Recruitment Officer, Patrick was deemed a positive masculine influence in Revan's life by his therapists. Patrick Rothsberger originally met Isolde Valterra while he was canvassing in North Koyannas county's schools to disseminate official state recruitment, advisory, and safety materials. About a year after Patrick and Isolde moved in together with Revan under their roof, Revan began to show a marked improvement in school, especially in sports and physical education. Furthermore, Revan showed an aptitude for focusing on academic subjects once again. Patrick Rothsberger was observed by Revan's therapists outside of sessions to be a bit of a taskmaster with a very firm hand with Revan, but Revan seemed to respond obediently to the man's directives, willingly if not positively. Despite the stability that Mr. Rothsberger's presence provided young Revan, however, Rev Valterra still maintained a distant and humorless affect to his personality.
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May 16, 2021 05:26
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Adamant Swee A♥ Despite your youth, you have a particular talent that has drawn a good deal of attention from your betters. What is it? "I thought we were going to be captured, tied to two trucks each, plucked in twain, classic style. But this Swee kid, he held off the whole bande. Couldn't get anywhere near the store we were holed up in. I could feel them getting frustrated, as one of them would try to make a move, but Swee somehow already knew and would pop the guy, even though there were six or so other guys keeping him busy at the same time. Yeah, yeah, I was on Lace. But us roadies, say what you want, but we're very good at what we do. I don't see how just one patrolman could've stopped them, without some kind of miracle. So we're good? You'll move me out of the country now?"
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May 17, 2021 01:46
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Rev Valterra Eight of Birth: You had a negative experience - to whom did you turn for comfort? [The sound of several helicopters overhead passes.] Rev Valterra: "Fuckin' ghetto-birds. Man... what was that, again?" Researcher-18: "Who do you turn to when you need to talk?" RV: "Uh, well... you promise this is confidential-like, right? This wont get back to my parents, right?" R-18: "I assure you: they won't know unless you're expressing a desire for self-harm." - - - - - - - Cozette Bevington || D.O.B. 12/06/2070 || Occupation: Student, Part-Time Pharm-Aid Clerk  Around the age of 16, Revan Valterra began dating an older classmate by the name of Cozette Bevington, while he was in his sophomore year and she was in her junior year. Cozette was heavily involved in her high school's dance and cheerleading troupes and was fairly well-regarded by most of her teachers as a mostly-above average student. At the age of 18, she entered in a local beauty pageant, the Miss Texarkana Rattler Ball, and came in third place. As of recording this, she is currently working part-time as a cashier at the Pharm-Aid in west Koyannas on Bagwell Blvd. and Klamath St. According to testimony from Revan, Cozette is not only sexually active with him, she is also sharing various recreational drugs with him. Further caution has been advised of Revan, for now. Addendum: Contact with Ms. Bevington has been made, and pure SDL-108 (Synthetic Drug Lattice 108, or "Lace") has been supplied to her via our agents' indirect sources. Additional operatives are performing surveillance duties for our research needs.
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May 20, 2021 01:56
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Adamant Swee 9♥ You are particularly fond of a certain technique. What is it? "When you get laced, you start to see poo poo, all five senses. So being it, actually. Things that are going to happen. But you keep on seeing new futures at the same time, and when you get to a new one the old one just un-bes. You don't forget it, but it mixes in with everything else you know is nix. These new futures are happening about a million times a second, so by the time you're untied you've got one thing that's going to happen and a tree of zillion that aren't. And since coming back to the now un-bes the real future, it gets mixed in with the rest. Too much fun, so they banned it instead of any other Texarkanian research chemicals. You can buy Lace from a mom and pop, become a hooting psycho or turn your dick off forever, government's just fine with that. But even if you get the particular poo poo, all you get are too many hallucinations... right?" "Now I don't like pulling this, almost makes you forget who, where you are, what causes comes before what's next. But that's the key, listen! You have no hope of finding the real future after you're laced. You have to make do while. The trick is to work against your instincts. You're baffled, so you try to remember what just happened, but since you have to think both in terms of normal time and the future-to-future of it, you get nowhere. But if you turn that instinct flopwise, and instead focus on "What's next," it turns the futures in on themselves. Hard for me to describe, but they all just zip together. And at the end of it, you still have the infinity premonitions to deal with, only now they're almost all copies of the same future - the real one. And I find that a bit easier to deal with."
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May 21, 2021 05:37
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| # ? May 19, 2024 04:34 |
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Rev Valterra Four of Birth: You spend a peaceful day exploring your homeland - describe it. Rev remembers... relaxing.  "Right, so... me and Cozette had a day off the other weekend, where my mom and Patrick were out of town for some cop wedding or someshit, and I was supposed to be watching the house. Cozette had told her mom that she was on a camping trip with her girlfriends. Little did she realize that we'd been planning a little camping getaway of our own, with just the two of us... "So - once Cozette and I spent enough time fooling around at the house, she pulled out this baggie filled with a white powder. 'It's a new research chemical,' she'd said. 'It's almost pure.' 'What does it do?' I asked, and she said 'it feeds your mind.' Apparently you just put it under your tongue, or snort it or smoke it. Anyways, I tried some of it. "I... had a bad reaction. I got mega-paranoid at first - I thought we were being watched in the house, and that we had to get out right way. So we packed up our camping gear into my jeep and we drove west, out towards the wilderness. "Once we were moving on the road, I finally relaxed. It was a beautiful day, just cruising along. It was the end of spring, with large clouds drifting overhead. "We set up camp out in the desert, far away from signs of anyone else. I wanted it to be just me and her and the stars above..." "We took more of the... powder... that night. "I... don't know how to describe it. I saw my whole life flash before my eyes like a movie reel, and then when the film reel finally reached where the projector should be the filmstrip suddenly started splitting and branching in all directions, but for some reason I could still see all the different movies if I wanted... "...Sorry, I kind of spaced out for a second. Yeah, so, that was my relaxing weekend: Cozette and I went camping and we tried this crazy research chemical together. "What was it called? Uh, it had some letters and a number written on the bag, like SDT-103 or SCL-154 or something, I'd have to ask her."
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May 21, 2021 22:11
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