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More video game mechanics from dreams
Jul. 15th, 2022 12:45 pmFor whatever reason, "we" were inside an environment that could be changed by thoughts, but there was a lot going on in there already, and some thoughts were pretty damn persistent. There was surveillance scanner technology, which could read things inside structures, but not always, and a lot of things were overlooked by either the scanner AI or the technicians.
At some point the hollering hullabaloo that was vaguely Homestuck-influenced (kind of an arcade ski track freefall thing with thought-influenced battles and object reaction) shifted to more traditional sci-fi dystopia, and the surroundings became very polished white floors and white walls, with some floor stripes that responded to the presence of an identified person by color-coding themselves to that person's access levels when the scanning was completed. Black meant neutral or no access (and no access attempted), yellow and red meant bad things, green meant access granted, royal blue was a condition that the scanners were not prepared to handle, and purple was something beyond that.
My heroine (a very smart woman of color in the sciences, with small children who were just as smart) was going through some kind of situation where she had legitimate accesses but some of the people with her did not, and she was getting accesses stripped for associating with people who tripped off the scanners. There was a lot of going into places where the doors opened, and then lines on the floor lit up and one or another of the members in the party had just lost an access level and needed to leave, for the crime of confusing the scanners. Some of the party tried to shelter in little "phone booth" areas (there were no phones, but you would dodge in there if there was a sweep or a bunch of large equipment coming by), but those were also scanned and unauthorized parties rejected. Even the ones that were more passive still lit up the floor, and there were busybodies in nearby work/clearance areas who would verbally call out alerts that the system would respond to.
The most dramatic parts were the long teleportation rods -- you would hold onto what was basically a white stick, held horizontally out in front of the main party in both hands -- with hands on the white areas; the active areas would light up colors and when it was turning green (in bands around the stick) the whole party had to get a good grasp of it before the whole thing turned green and took you to the place -- and the laser demoters. The laser demoters went through a list projected on a screen and scanned down it, and the process took layers off people's clearances, and the people on the list who did not match had their names turn red, which activated a manhunt.
At some point the hollering hullabaloo that was vaguely Homestuck-influenced (kind of an arcade ski track freefall thing with thought-influenced battles and object reaction) shifted to more traditional sci-fi dystopia, and the surroundings became very polished white floors and white walls, with some floor stripes that responded to the presence of an identified person by color-coding themselves to that person's access levels when the scanning was completed. Black meant neutral or no access (and no access attempted), yellow and red meant bad things, green meant access granted, royal blue was a condition that the scanners were not prepared to handle, and purple was something beyond that.
My heroine (a very smart woman of color in the sciences, with small children who were just as smart) was going through some kind of situation where she had legitimate accesses but some of the people with her did not, and she was getting accesses stripped for associating with people who tripped off the scanners. There was a lot of going into places where the doors opened, and then lines on the floor lit up and one or another of the members in the party had just lost an access level and needed to leave, for the crime of confusing the scanners. Some of the party tried to shelter in little "phone booth" areas (there were no phones, but you would dodge in there if there was a sweep or a bunch of large equipment coming by), but those were also scanned and unauthorized parties rejected. Even the ones that were more passive still lit up the floor, and there were busybodies in nearby work/clearance areas who would verbally call out alerts that the system would respond to.
The most dramatic parts were the long teleportation rods -- you would hold onto what was basically a white stick, held horizontally out in front of the main party in both hands -- with hands on the white areas; the active areas would light up colors and when it was turning green (in bands around the stick) the whole party had to get a good grasp of it before the whole thing turned green and took you to the place -- and the laser demoters. The laser demoters went through a list projected on a screen and scanned down it, and the process took layers off people's clearances, and the people on the list who did not match had their names turn red, which activated a manhunt.
