riverviewlogs | monthly mingle: MEMORIA

Entry tags:

monthly mingle: MEMORIA

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: monthly mingle: memoria
when: the month of may
where: anywhere around the city
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

memoria

In the days leading up to May 1st, residents new and old will notice preparations beginning, a flurry of activity getting the city ready for the upcoming celebration: Memoria. A more solemn celebration than Sampremi or the Flower Festival, Memoria is a week-long time of remembrance for those lost in the Great War and the epidemic that decimated Riverview Quarantine's population 10 years ago. Memoria traditions include lighting lanterns for the dead, telling stories about lost loved ones or lost homes, eating meals with loved ones, and a special gathering to send floating lanterns down the river in honor of those lost.

a solemn commemoration of those lost

While the main city-wide event associated with Memoria is the floating of lanterns down the river on each Sunday evening of the month, the holiday is generally seen as a time of reflection on and appreciation of things that have been lost - people, homes, cultures, and planets. It is also a celebration of the things that remain. Many locally-owned shops will host displays of culturally-significant food, and will hand out informational flyers sharing the unique customs of their own homeworlds and inviting others to share those customs. There is a heavy emphasis on sharing time with family, friends, and lovers, and anyone who is able to will cook meals or treats for loved ones, or at least purchase them something good to eat.

i. hanging lanterns

Throughout the entire week of Memoria, residents will be hanging lanterns around the city. Lanterns are generally placed in greater number in places of passage - streets, bridges, and all alongside the train lines are particularly well-decorated, as are any trees alongside paths, and most homes and businesses have a profusion of lanterns around their doors and windows. This tradition is twofold; some people believe that the lanterns are hung in these places in order to guide the spirits of the dead back to those who still love them, other people believe that the lanterns are to give light for living loved ones to find their doors in times of darkness...many people believe both.

No matter what your character might believe, you can be sure they will find themselves offered a lantern for free from various businesses or friendly citizens passing by, and invited to hang it before the sun sets, or they may be handed a bundle of lanterns and asked to help share them with others.

ii. sharing life

Throughout the city, characters will find groups of people gathering to share hot drinks and talk about their loved ones lost, their homes and planets, or their experiences during the Great War and the epidemic. Anyone who has lost someone, who has fought to survive, who is feeling cut off and homesick, is welcome to sit and share their story. If your character chooses to sit and to share their story, they will find that people will gather to listen, will generally be respectful of the telling, and may share their own similar experiences in return. This is an excellent time to air grief in an environment where most people understand and respect grief, and a good time to deepen the connections to others around you, to understand them better.

There is also a very large focus on cooking or purchasing meals or treats for loved ones during Memoria, with many people taking meals with everyone they care about during the week of the holiday. Some go the extra mile and will hand out baked goods (usually chocolate or cinnamon), packets of candy, or other little treats to acquaintances, especially if they would like to form a closer bond with them. This is a great time for characters to reach out to someone they would like to get to know better with a surprise treat!

iii. floating of the lanterns

On the evening of May 8th, just before sundown, many of the city's residents will head toward the banks of the river, where they will light lanterns in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, in honor of their dead loved ones. The types of lanterns vary wildly, based on personality (either of the person floating it or the person they are honoring), culture, and many other factors. Some lanterns are very simple, others are incredibly complex, but the one common feature they all have is that people write on the shades of them - they write about their feelings for their loved ones, their wishes for their relationships and friendships, a memory from childhood or home, or even just lines of poetry or lyrics from songs that express something they miss, or something that hurts them.

Once those emotions are written on the lanterns, the lanterns are set free, floating down the river in the darkening evening, in a cathartic gesture shared by most residents of the city. Waves of lantern floating will start around 7 pm and continue until the sun rises on each Sunday evening of May.

iv. down with the sickness

The epidemic that happened 10 years ago was an incredibly traumatic experience for the people living in the Quarantine, on a cultural scale as well as a personal one. While most people who live in the Quarantine are able to leave after 5 years, the trauma lingers in any number of invisible ways in the city. Besides that, there is a small population of people who have chosen to live permanently in the Quarantine, who have made it their home and embraced its melting pot of cultural diversity as their own. Many of these people are survivors of the epidemic, and have a particularly poignant connection to the Memoria celebration.

One of these long-term residents is an engineer specializing in magically-enhanced robotics who lost most of her family in the epidemic, and as each year passes she becomes more and more distraught by how the population turns over and slowly loses track of the importance of Memoria. In her eyes, it's become symbolic, commercialized, a celebration of general grief and not the very specific grief the Quarantine experienced 10 years ago. And she has decided to do something about it, something to make the specific trauma of the epidemic very real and very current to everyone in the city.

On May 1st, she will be releasing a small cloud of self-replicating magically-enhanced nanites near City Hall. The nanites are drawn to warm, living bodies, and once they enter, they find their way to the brain and central nervous system (or equivalent, depending on physiology) and start to take effect on the parts of the brain (or equivalent) that control a person's sensory experiences and psychosomatic responses. In effect, the nanites work as an artificial virus that makes residents horribly ill, and which can be passed from person to person like a contagion.

Throughout the month, reports of this mysterious illness will sweep through the Quarantine, with residents uncertain of how to cure it. Symptoms vary widely depending on the person, with each affected person facing a uniquely personal set of symptoms - but each case has the same thing in common: it ends with the victim losing consciousness and lapsing into a coma.

How It Works

● Participation is opt-in, and while the "epidemic" can't be ignored in the city, characters are not required to get ill even if they are exposed.
● The "disease" can be spread from person to person by skin-to-skin contact or exchange of fluids (kissing, coughing, spitting, etc.) There is no set symptoms for the "disease," and how much or little a character is affected or in what ways is up to player discretion. Incubation period (time between exposure and first symptoms appearing) is also up to player discretion.
● Since the nanites are based in both tech and mgaic, they are much harder to defeat than they would be otherwise. However, they can be deactivated and destroyed through a combination of electromagnetic pulses and magical nullification or spell-dispersing abilities. Players are also welcome to come up with other ways to deactivate the nanites, keeping in mind that it should not be too easy.
● Affected characters can be sick for as long or short a time as the player decides, and once they lapse into a coma it can last as long as the player decides. Once the character wakes from the coma, they will no longer be sick and the nanites will no longer be present in their system.
● Once a character has been infected, they will be immune and cannot be reinfected.
● All sick characters will be well again by May 31st and there will be no long-term effects.

● If any players wish to pursue or bring to justice the perpetrator, please send the mod a PM and we can discuss your ideas!

v. roommates or wildcard

Feel free to use this prompt to meet new roommates, for the purpose of getting to know each other, or hit up the mod-posted prompt to create a Communal Housing floor mingle. Or, if you have an idea for a prompt that isn't in this list, set during Memoria, feel free to write it up!

visual inspiration

click on thumbnails for larger view

Credit: image i: RAW Visual, image ii: by trenchmaker, image iv: Bianca Draghici; image iii: found uncredited on Pinterest - please let the mod know if you find credit!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(holy shit

Lucretia can't help staring at her for a moment in surprise.)

How... do you feel about that? (She says eventually, still at a bit of a loss for what to say in response. She understands that Beverly's morals don't exactly allow for... uh, murder.)

(Admittedly, she's glad Lucretia is a little shocked and surprised. This isn't a normal confession and isn't something she's exactly proud of.)

I... don't know. (The carefully constructed neutral expression is starting to crack) It had to be done. He was trying to kill me too but... (She shakes her head) That's not how I am. That's not who I am.

(That startles her a little. Nobody ever has cause to try and kill a doctor unless their motives are truly dark. Her hand moves from Beverly's back to cupping her cheek gently, thumb stroking her skin.)

I know, but– you had to do something. You saved yourself. You saved your crew, Beverly.

(The smile Beverly gives her doesn't reach her eyes. More than just herself or her crew... probably thousands, even millions of other people. If that technology fell into the wrong hands, it could be a powerful weapon. But -)

I don't regret what I did. I only wish I could have saved Reyga too.

Of course.

(She drops her hand after another moment, and glances back out toward the lanterns. She can't tell which one is Reyga's any more. There are too many of them bobbling along on top of the water, making their way across the river.)

(Beverly watches the lanterns for a moment as well, then suddenly leans in to kiss Lucretia's cheek.)

I'm sorry. I know that's... a lot to take in.

Hmm?

(She turns her head slightly, and Beverly's kiss briefly travels toward her nose.)

Oh– no, it's okay. I'm just sorry that it happened. That you have so many lanterns to float today.

(If it weren't such a solemn moment, Beverly would have to laugh at hitting her nose instead of her cheek. Even still, she manages a small smile.)

It's the nature of being in Starfleet, I suppose.

(She nods, looking across at Beverly's pile again.)

Who else is there?

(Beverly picks up another lantern, cradles it gently in her hands. Her voice is soft with sad remembrance.)

Tasha Yar. She was the head of security my first year on the Enterprise.

(Something occurs to her as she watches Beverly gather the lantern and cup it in both hands like it's precious to her.)

Beverly, do you believe in a higher power at all where you come from? Any religious inclination?

(Beverly kneels on the sandy bank of the river with Tasha's flower, though she doesn't put it in the water yet. Her thumbs run over its plastic petals as she thinks about Tasha. Part of her refuses to accept Tasha's death as part of any greater plan but there is something appealing in the notion that maybe that day wasn't truly Tasha's last, that maybe she's continued on in some way in the universe.)

I don't know.

(She knows Lucretia does, of course, but it's never really been something they've talked about before.)

I find it... difficult. To believe.

Sure. (She doesn't find this unsurprising because Beverly is a 'woman of science' or whatever, but because of Beverly's practicality. Religion does seem like something she mightn't put stock in. She glances down at her own lanterns, thinking.)

Sorry. I didn't bring it up because I think it's important for you to. I was just curious.

I know.

(Finally she sets Tasha's lantern down in the water and watches it float off to join thousands of others.)

Nana believes. A singular god, creator of everything who watches over everyone. And heaven, she believes in that too, a place where the good live in eternal happiness and peace.

Singular?

(Sounds fake. Lucretia watches the lantern bob off into the distance, then selects one of her own. She hasn't decorated them- slightly unusual- but she has written names in flowing script. JULIA floats away across the surface; Lucretia watches it go with a complex expression on her face.)

Heaven... it's a nice thought.

It brings Nana a great deal of comfort, at least, when she's lost so much - her parents, her husband, her son, her home... sometimes... I wish I could share that faith she has.

I know what you mean.

(It would certainly be easier to think of a happy afterlife one might go to instead of returning to the Astral plane.)

I wouldn't say I put much stock in such a place either.

(Beverly looks up now, admittedly a bit surprised.)

What do you believe happens after we die?

(She shrugs a shoulder.)

Souls of the deceased pass over into the Astral plane. Over time, they are absorbed back into the collective awareness of the universe. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Some people think everything is recycled and eventually reused.

I've heard similar ideas before. Sounds a lot like an Earth religion called Buddhism.

(She stands and brushes the dirt off her knees.)

I think... it's something we're never really going to know and I have to be okay with that. I can't change it, all I can do is live my life as best I can, enjoy the time I have and be kind to others.

(Julia and Tasha's lanterns are caught up to one another, swirling in a small eddy together.)

(Lucretia nods, unsurprised; it's a romantic thought for sure, even if she doesn't buy into it personally. Besides, the idea of her soul being recycled into something else borders on disturbing.)

I agree.

(What more can you do? If you're not going to know what happens until it happens, there's not a lot of point in worrying about it. She catches Beverly's hand in hers as she stands, and watches their lanterns bob across the water together. There's something calming about the sight.)

(Beverly gives Lucretia's hand a squeeze and for a while, she's content simply to stand together, watching the lights in their gentle dance down the river. Her mind lingers on Lucretia's question, however, about belief in a higher power. Belief isn't exactly the right word. There's no question there are beings more powerful than any Human, people who can control life, death, and even time itself, but to offer any of them some sort of worship...

She looks at Lucretia now.]

What is Iustus like?

What's– she like?

(She looks slightly amused, and squeezes Beverly's hand back good-naturedly.)

She is... kind. She possesses a very good nature; she controls divination, destiny, time. The Lady of Our Fate. Taako has met her personally, if you want to ask him about that.

(Our Fate. That is one thing she knows she doesn't believe in - fate, destiny, whatever people call it. Even Q can't know what people are going to do, else he would find no entertainment in Humans.)

I know it's probably a strange question, but I suppose I should make clear that I know there are beings with far greater abilities than Humanity's. I have no trouble accepting that Iustus is real. I suppose what I'm getting at... well, what makes a god a god? Surely the power alone is not enough?

(She shakes her head.)

It isn't strange. I suppose it is her divine power, coupled with her immortality? Her desire to shape fate as people require?

She's said to... literally knit the fabric of time together. Ironically, people who follow her tend to be deeply cynical in nature, as fate is primarily unable to be changed, but... I hear she pulls strings, occasionally. Especially for her emissaries.

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