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Franchises: The Sims (mainly Sims 4), Detroit: Become Human, some Fire Emblem and currently also Star Wars (Sequel trilogy).

Currently running:

Detroit VR (Sims 4 gameplay with a little Star Wars)

Detroit, January 2038. Daniel PL600, Gavin Reed, Tna Chen and Cole Anderson play a VR game together. They know nothing about the people behind the avatars, because it doesn't matter. But one day soon it might, and then their bond will get tested...

Previous (finished) story:

Battle for Batuu (Sims 4 Star Wars gameplay)

Read chronologically

Read only the chapters with the canon Star Wars characters

Or read round by round:

Chapter 3 of The wrecking of the Steadfast is live now.

Hux and the rebels have managed to escape captivity, but are still deep within First Order territory. On the upside they now have alliies, who provide a safe house in exchange for a mission. So this chapter could have been a breezer in between the action, with everyone wearing cosy indoor slippers and eating chocolate cake (well, they do that, too), if not for Poe and Hux becoming increasingly uncomfortable at the fact how comfortable they have gotten around each other.

"Hm, we're the last two still standing, and I have an Advantage buff while you have that nifty Deathmark. Can you think of a single reason why I shouldn't toss a knife at your neck and be rid of you forever, Ren?"

"Two words: Turn meter. I go first, kill the teddy, combat ends."

Cole had just finished saying his "See you later!" in cyberspace, when his father came back in from walking Sumo.

Hank: "Bedtime, junior! And also, it's the day for your medicine today."

The medicine... Three years ago father and son Anderson had found themselves in a traffic accident, just when Hank had driven Cole home from a weekend with his father. Cole had recovered, but now had to take a foul tasting drink every week, probably for life.

The boy remembered precious little about his life before the accident. Everything was distant somehow, like re-tellings of things he'd done as a baby, nothing he could personally relate to. Maybe it was a side-effect of the medicine.

Any other day Hank would have asked the boy about his game, or homework, or whatever. Not so on the medicine days.

As if the man had to take the icky stuff himself, Hank tended to be interchangeably grumpy and incredibly sad since early morning on those days and that was also the reason why Cole had opted to remain behind instead of coming along for Sumo's potty tour tonight.

It hadn't mattered in the past, when Hank had been a visitor at Barbara and Cole Anderson's place. But now that Cole was living with his father while his mom was abroad, the boy couldn't help but notice this odd behaviour.

Cole: *gulp* "Ew!" *gulp*

Hank: "Just pretend it's Blue Milk."

Pretend... Just pretend... Like Babs was pretending... and had roped Hank into pretending, too. Smoke and mirrors. Jumping forwards and backwards between a comforting illusion and self-loathing.

We’ve seen the medicine before in this chronicle.

RK800: "Hi, Master Rellam! I'm Arkay, one of a group of four. I wanted to ask if you'd maybe like to join our team for the upcoming five versus five matches?"

Susan: "Would, but my work schedule is erratic. I can't guarantee to always be ready to play when a match is scheduled."

RK800: "Well, without you we'd NEVER get to enter, so entering only sometimes is still better?"

Susan: "If you put it like this, count me in!"

RK800: "Okay, cool! I need to be in bed now, so see you later!"

Susan: "Wait, you're a kid? And you’re the most presentable of your group, since you speak for them?”

Susan: That explains why they had trouble finding a fifths member.

RK800: "Errr... I'm pretty sure the others are all fine chaps irl. Jaina_Jade even has a job!"

After all the fuss, Susan couldn't wait to delve again into the mix of exercise aid and escapism tool that was her favorite VR game. In Journey to Batuu heroes were still heroes and evil was evil.

When the new First Order District expansion released, Susan got it at launch.

As a neutrally aligned character, Susan could fool around in the new district without getting escorted out at every step (like some Light Side players angrily reported kept happening to them). Susan had, in fact, witnessed such infiltration failures several times.

Chris: "Try building a sandcastle! It works same as the firedance: just do the movements, and the game will pick up what you''re trying to do and offer you an icon."

Tim: "I see three icons: First Aid Practise, Beach Fun and Castaway Sim."

Susan: "It’s in the second menu, Beach Fun."

Tim: "It's working! I just hope I'm not whirling dust around in the real world now."

Chris: "So, have you come to a decision whether you enjoy this or not?"

Tim: "I'm not intimidated by the simulated environment anymore and I do enjoy the beach. But I like snow more. I never experienced another season than winter, so it is familiar and that feels good."

Chris: “Snow, ey? Haha, you’re a Miller for sure! Not giving you ba... Uh, Sue? We aren’t expected to give Tim back after the field test?!”

When Susan realized that she had remained silent for long enough to get interpreted as that they were expected to return Tim to CyberLife, she shook her head and instead told the other two the truth: “I don’t know... I didn’t think to ask...”

The sand in the VR landscape didn't feel like sand, but like the Millers' apartment floor, so Timothy spread two woolen blankets out when Chris and Susan announced that they wanted to "cloudgaze" at the simulated sky above their heads.

Himself he picked up two spoons. Then he held his hands out towards the bonfire (that was positioned where in the real world their kitchen table stood) until the "firedance" icon appeared. Tim activated it and immediately his avatar seemed to hold two burning sticks that synchronized with his movements. No heat whatsoever got generated, of course.

Timothy: No heat... no risk of catching fire... this isn't real. No, real it is, just not tangible. I'm spending time with my humans, I will generate memories of our time together, so how could this not be real? Feelings are real. In fact, thoughts and feelings are the only things that are real! I'm real. I... am. I ... am... Timothy. Timothy Miller!

And with that, there was no denying it anymore. Tim was a sentient creature. His masters could still order him to perform tasks though, or stop him from doing whatever it was he was doing at any given moment.

The order Tim was under currently was “Find out of you enjoy VR”. Their android’s preferences mattered to the Millers, that much was obvious. But it was still an uncircumventable order...

Timothy: "If this is just an overlay over reality, that means we cannot go to the beach, on account of it really being the apartment across the floor, right?"

Susan: "Correct on principle, but we can move the landscape closer to ourselves! Like..."

Susan: "...this!"

Chris: "We can't enter the water, though. Or rather, enter it we could, but not feeling the waves would break the illusion so bad, that I wouldn't want to do it."

Chris: "So, how do you like VR?"

Timothy: "I honestly have no idea. But now I understand how your baby is feeling when you feed him something new and he is uncertain whether he likes it or not. Can we, perhaps, stay for a while longer?"

Chris: "Not for too long, seeing that we have to work today. But Susan's subscription is good for the whole family, including androids. Now that you're registered, you can return here whenever you feel like it."

Timothy: "I’d rather not, Chris. If there's one thing I'm absolutely certain of, than that is that I don't want to be here on my own."

After the fire, the Miller family decided to treat themselves to breakfast at Sulani - while still being back in Detroit in time for work.

"That's not poss..." Timothy, the new family android, started to say, but stopped before finishing the sentence. Hadn't he witnessed some seriously impossible seeming shit himself those last days? "I meant to ask: How exactly is that possible?"

Chris: "I've sent you a link, just do whatever you do instead of clicking it and the system will guide you through the rest."

One registration later, the kitchen vanished before Tim's eyes, only to get replaced by a tropical island scenery.

Despite this, the android's internal thermometer claimed that it wasn't any warmer, the humidity level hadn't changed and his outerskin didn't register the gentle wind moving the leaves. In fact, Tim's "Where is my device" still gave the same location it had put out half a minute earlier.

Susan: "Look around, but take care not to bump into furniture!"

Timothy: "Furniture? Here? - Huh! My eyes claim I can still move a long distance, but I can feel our kitchen counters right in front of me! This is just a clever illusion, right?"

Timothy: "Okay, I take that "clever" back..."

Susan: "Well, the system isn't perfect, haha! It cannot enlarge our kitchen table in the real world."

Cleaning up after the fire.

The shock still sat deep in the family member's bones, and the empty space where Damian's play carpet had been didn't let them forget the incident.

Susan had been looking forward to buying something personalized for Damian, something the boy really enjoyed, not picked by his parents before his birth already. That day had come (even though the occasion could have been a lot happier)!

Trouble was, "upstairs in the apartment" wasn't the perfectly safe place Timothy had envisioned it to be!

FIRE!

"Take the kid and run!" Chris shouted, but of course Susan hadn't needed this prompt. "Run, Tim!" Chris added, when he spotted the family android standing frozen in panic.

Only when the three he loved the most in this world were out of the room, did Chris' hands stop shaking. Why three, he'd wonder later. Timothy was just an object, a piece of furniture, that conveniently could get itself to safety on a voiced command.

But then again, in the last few days what Tim was had stopped mattering; only Chris' and Susan's feelings towards him were important.

Had Timothy felt sheltered after Susan had protected him against the anti-android protester, in the evening he felt strangely agitated. What was this emotion and what purpose was served by him experiencing it?

Because in the end everything going on inside him only happened because CyberLife wanted it to happen, right?

Chris: "Did you instruct the android to dance to the stereo, Sue?"

Susan: "No. Must be a randomized thing. Want it to stop?"

Chris: "Nah, I think it's cute. A bit like having an au pair teen in the house."

After his masters had went to sleep and didn't need his attention anymore for that day, Timothy repaired Susan's computer.

Outside life went on, as Spice Market as a whole never went to sleep. Individual humans did, but someone was always active.

Alas, between himself and the bustling of the city was a thick sheet of ice-covered glass. After the near-riot Timothy didn't dare go out anymore if he could help it. Everything he could do from home, he did from the safety of the Miller apartment.

And again anger was building up...

---

Gameplay note:

The first screenshot reveals that the whole Tim-gets-attacked arc was the result of the game deciding that it was Neighborhood Brawl Day. I took the opportunity to also vote in Roughhousing encouraged to represent the growing anti-android (and anti-android allys) resentments.

In the days to follow, things grew worse. The Detroit News had grouped Gavin's article about the street musician's and the android's brawl together with similar ones, and as a result the call for better protection of human life against the "dangerous machines" grew louder.

Protester: "They tell us that it's just Spinning Jenny all over again, just some backwards people rejecting new technology.

But they forget to mention that workers lost fingers and even their life in the spinning machines. Now think about how much more advanced androids are compared to automated looms! How much more damage they could do!"

Protester: "Destroy this doomsday devices where you find them!"

Susan: "I bet now you wish our PL600 would have beaten you up in my place."

“In the story of my life, this was the chapter where I lay on my back and did nothing. And being idle is… not my favorite pastime. Once again I was the damsel in distress. Just once I’d loved to turn the tables and rescue Finn instead of getting rescued all the time! But as things stood, my deplorable condition prevented us from committing to our prison break. Our enemies caught up with us, but then “enemy” and “ally” blurred, when we were facing torture and Hugs of all people protected me.”

Chapter 2 of The wrecking of the Steadfast is up

When he gave the cop details about the attack on his android, Chris Miller couldn't help but notice how both this man and the journalist he'd spoken to earlier were unusually tense.

They seemed to cross-reference Chris' and Tim's words against information the civilians were not privy to.

Something was going in the city, something that Chris didn't have to concern himself with as security guard at CyberLife tower.

But every night after returning from work he lived in this city, so it prolly DID concern him and his family!

Susan: "Now that you mention is, the questionaire I had to read to selected customers did have some strange questions. Buried in the whole thing the odd questions didn't draw the participants' attention. But as the one who had to go through the whole thing dozens of times I kept them in mind."

Susan: "This isn't just some luddites still rejecting androids in 2038. I get the impression that something is going on with the androids themselves. Something that the people would blow severely out of proportion if it became known."

Chris: "Like, for example?"

Susan: "Data gathering on a hitherto unheard of scale. Or features installed in, but not unlocked for, the cheaper models. Sales would plummet if modders discovered how to circumvent that restriction."

Officer Person: "And what's a dock worker android doing at Spice Market?"

Simon: "Delivering shipments to vendors, officer."

Officer Person: "Hm..."

I didn't want to reveal any Jericho members so early in this save, but Simon's face and posture here are just too perfect not to use.

It didn't take long for a journalist to arrive at the scene. In this regard, Gavin Reed thought, his profession didn't differ much from the cops: You got a call, then you showed up at the scene where you started taking pictures and pumping people for information.

Gavin: "So you are the owner of the glitched android that attacked a street musician? How are you feeling now?"

Chris: "Relieved! But you got that wrong, my android only defended itself. When the attacker backed down, so did Tim."

Gavin: "Why'd an android defend itself in the first place? That's violence against humans and one less replacement device potentially sold by CyberLife. It makes zero sense!"

Chris: "Ours is a different case. It's a protoype in testing."

Gavin: "A prototype, so..."

Timothy: "That shouldn't come as a surprise. CyberLife at any given moment has several projects ongoing."

Gavin: "Our readers would like to know how many of those are capable of entering hand-to-hand combat with humans!"

Chris: "Ah, the police! Finally! Too bad the culprit will have run already."

Gavin: "I can find them if your plastic bodyguard gives me the same description it'll give the cop. Faster, too."

Chris: "Why does that sound like payment for my slip of tongue regarding the prototype thing?"

Gavin: "Because it is exactly that, haha!"