| The Ship |
|---|
| The Ship |
| Running of the Ship |
| AI Multi-Plex |
| Comm Systems |
| Level Six (The Hangar) |
| Level Five (Living Area) |
| Level Four (The City) |
| Level Three (Weapons and Possessions) |
| Level Two (The Caverns) |
| Level One (The Hub and Medical Bay) |
The Pod Caverns[]
The chamber here is humid.
Actually, "chamber" isn't quite accurate. It's a cavern, half-lit by an eerie greenish light, going on and on as far as the eye can see. The light is coming from what can only be described as pods, glistening, round greenish-yellow things, glowing with a pale inner light, outlining human -- and not quite human -- forms. Each pod is rooted to the floor, to the walls, with something black, twisted, and unidentifiable.
They line the walls of the cavern, go up in maddeningly high columns, curling and corkscrewing up into the darkness, until the light from them is like that of the stars, glowing pale and mournful in clusters in the darkness above. Twisted walkways and stairs crisscross, traverse the platforms in front of the pods, wending their way back and forth, up and down through the chamber.
When your character starts out in the game, they come from one of those pods, breaking free like a butterfly from a (slimy, nasty) chrysalis.
The air is warm -- just a few degrees too warm to be comfortable -- and muggy; it smells acrid and organic, like freshly spilt blood and sweat. Little phosphorescent lights in pustules along the floor guide newly podpopped crew members to where the Caverns form a spiral walkway that leads up to the Clothing Room and the Hub, which can take characters further up into the Possessions Lockers, The City, and the Living Area. (Several other Living Areas are also available through the Hub, but are likely never to come into use).
The view from the spiral walkway is incredible. There are millions of pods in the Caverns. Maybe several billion. Searching them for individuals is impossible--a local interference field renders scans useless, and their features can't really be made out through the viscous liquid in the Caverns. Also, forcing a pod open can kill the person within, as it disrupts delicate biological processes.
The Clothing Room[]
At the top of the spiral walkway of the Pod Caverns, there is a small room with what looks like greenish-black vines that dangle down. Stray too close and they reach out and snatch your character, doing a most dastardly deed: clothing them.
...Okay, so maybe that's not so dastardly.
The Plant-suits[]
The membranous material on the vines melds together to clothe your character in a soft, comfortable form-fitting greenish-black jumpsuit one that feels rather like a rose's petals.
The plant-suits actually look kinda like this:
The plantsuits are...well, suits. That are plants. They're bio-engineered suits made of a rather tough, difficult to tear, but soft plant substance. The chlorophyll pumps through them in a rather vascular fashion, so the veins pulse against the skin. It's not horribly distracting but unnerving. Since there's not a ton of light in space, they also live off of the bacteria on the surface of bodies and in the ship. In this fashion, they clean the body and are self-cleaning--they absorb substances when they spill on them.
Technically, characters could just go in the suits if they couldn't make it to a bathroom, but it would be unpleasant and you can't do that repeatedly. It would take care of it in emergency situations though. They also take care of a certain monthly female problems.
They are resistant to tearing, disintegration, and chemical damage.
When damaged, they spill out a substance that seals and disinfect wounds, an antibacterial byproduct of metabolizing bacteria, and tighten up around the wound area to act as a pressure bandage. They also help regulate body temperature, warming up and cooling when appropriate, though this function starts to break down under very extreme high and low temperatures, and after a point, the suits themselves actually start to breakdown. (Although these would be the sorts of conditions that'd be so hostile they'd be killing the wearers anyway).
The suits can be taken off, for instance to use the bathroom, but there are no other clothes available on the ship and only a few things that can used as improvised clothing. Currently if pieces are cut off, the suits will regenerate. They cannot change shape right now, though later on in the game, Stacy will allow the suits to change shape slightly and be reduced to something worn under clothes, so that characters can at least wear a mix of normal clothes with the suit. Then, if the characters came under attack, the suits would shift back to their normal state, to provide their first-aid capabilities as needed.
After a point, when they start facing conflicts, Stacy will force them to wear the suits, but that's likely when she'll allow them to be minimized under normal clothing. They are considered the first line of defense against injury, and something of a lifesaver.
Later on, as the crew faces more open conflicts, the crew will be provided chitinous body armor that goes over top of the suits and synchs up--another reason Stacy wants them to wear the suits at all times, lest they need to get their body armor on quickly because they're under attack.
The suits are creepy, but non-sentient, lack any animal intelligence, and are harmless. They can be infected by certain viral agents, but unless they get fluid in open wounds, the suit can be removed and destroyed before it infects someone. They do not exude any harmful chemicals or have any parasitic properties.
...But plot-based happenings could cause that to change, so watch out or your clothes may have you for a snack.
It's possible to remove them by tugging on the little claw like thing on your shoulder. They're easier to remove than they are to put back on, but no worse than other other uniforms.
Hub Hallway[]
Beyond a short hallway past the Clothing Room, are transport tubes that lead to the Hub.