Jacob Kane [ Cain ] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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tushanshu2015-08-08 01:26 am
insertdadjoke) wrote in tushanshu2015-08-08 01:26 am
oo1 / radio;
[ The line opens to dead air for a good ten seconds or so before there's a sigh, more amused than anything, and the soft sound of civilization around. Cain has made his way to the Welcome Center after being tossed down in an unfamiliar area of the Turtle and is just letting it all sink in for now. ]
So, what have I missed?
By which I mean: hello, Keeliai. This is Jacob Kane speaking. I was here once before, but apparently that was a while back. Can anyone fill me in or otherwise point me in the direction of someone who can? Losing so much time out of the blue like this isn't exactly the best way to get a welcome home, but somehow I doubt anyone's established a complaints department in my absence.
So, what have I missed?
By which I mean: hello, Keeliai. This is Jacob Kane speaking. I was here once before, but apparently that was a while back. Can anyone fill me in or otherwise point me in the direction of someone who can? Losing so much time out of the blue like this isn't exactly the best way to get a welcome home, but somehow I doubt anyone's established a complaints department in my absence.
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[ He's still copying, taking his time while he puts it down to memory. In the corner every now and then, he rewrites a letter to get his hand more used to it. ]
Although then you've got the question of whether this is the only realm like this, or if there's one for every set of structures. Doesn't really matter, but it's interesting to consider for the sake of scale.
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It's a good question, and one for which I wish I had an answer. If we could understand the nature of the worlds, even just for a sense of the scope...
[She sounds a little wistful about that.]
Still, considering the way in which worlds are connected isn't entirely a useless exercise. I've often wondered if it would be possible to traverse them outside of the spell that brought us here.
[No prizes guessing why.]
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Using this place as an intermediary would be the best bet, like some kind of station or port. If nothing else, we've got what has to be the largest gathering of people representing different worlds to make it some kind of soft spot.
[ Magic isn't his thing, but Cain's read enough fiction and understands the basic idea enough that he can bandy around the idea easily enough. Not knowing something doesn't stop him so much as meeting someone who doesn't want to work with him on figuring it out. ]
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Boltzman's book is a relatively technical text, but the only elven one I have on hand.
[Unfortunately, Raine is exactly the sort of teacher who can be sidetracked into long, only peripherally related trains of thought by a student who wants to waste classtime, and she's on to metaphysics by now.]
In other words, you believe repeated breaching of dimensional walls may lend itself to a permanent weak spot, despite that the spell seems to act with an intent to avoid any damage to the worlds from which it takes us. That's... not impossible. [Raine turns that idea over, quiet for a moment.] Perhaps those worlds with a large number of representatives here...
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That's fine; it's better than nothing.
[ Well, it isn't as if there's no merit to the discussion. Language isn't going to disappear and this topic is an interesting one besides. ]
I'm not so sure the spell is working as intended anymore. When I came back, it was completely different than how I arrived the first time.
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As long as you're aware that the learning curve may be somewhat sharper.
Would you mind describing the experience? I was aware the spell had to have changed somewhat, but the specifics are currently beyond me.
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Don't worry, Raine; I've learned a lot of languages in my time.
[ He taps his pencil, then offers a rather useless shrug. ]
I basically woke up outside the city. Had to wander around for a while in the heat before I found it again. Not sure that it felt all that different, but it's hard to compare when you only have two nebulous occasions to draw on.
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You're one of the few who has two occasions to draw on, however.
[She wouldn't like to ask Bakura, given the state in which he returned. She thinks about it a little longer, then sighs.]
You're sure there was no appreciable difference? You were simply somewhere else?
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Well, it wasn't like waking up so much as just being there. Like a gradual return to awareness, but you weren't where you remembered being last?
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[Raine has progressed to tapping her fingers absently, first on her pen then on the desk. This is less helpful than she was hoping.]
Much in the nature of a dream, I suppose. Which is... appropriate, to say the least.
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[ Which is something they already know. ]
There's a lot we don't know. If we knew more about the nature of the human mind and how it dreams, we could probably figure this place out better.
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I wonder if the kedan experience dreaming differently.
[If only she had the time to pursue that research more! If enough would be comfortable talking about such things to her.]
It may be worth keeping an eye out for discrepancies in reality, at any rate.
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Because they were born here? That's a good question. Maybe I'll ask around about that.
Are we watching for purple skies and flying fish?
[ Sorry, he's back to teasing, lightly, because he does understand. ]
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[But the tiny curl of a smile tucked into one corner of her mouth says she does, in fact, know he's teasing.]
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[ That's one she won't get in a million years, but Cain is grinning to himself anyway. ]
You have a point. It's probably more to do with perception than outright bending of physics.
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[Wait, hold on, he made no sense just there.]
What does the lack of a spoon have to do with it?
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It's a movie reference. People trapped in a facsimile of the world; some learn how to manipulate it themselves in small ways instead of their captors. The spoon isn't real, it's a facsimile. There's only you, so you affect yourself to affect the spoon.
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It's not without real-world correlations.
[And then Raine makes an amused sort of exhalation, not really a laugh but unmistakably humored.]
To change the world, we must first change ourselves.
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[ It's a possibility. The sequels ruined the charm, at any rate. ]
That and how we've enslaved ourselves to technology.
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[That's just neutral-- she can't really have more of an opinion without exposure to the primary source.]
Is technology that much of a problem? You spoke before of the environmental problems your world is facing, but...
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Ah, I see. It seems an unusual way of looking forward, but... perhaps useful. Especially if it's popular...
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[ His head tips to the side. ]
We'll be okay, I think, it's just hard for people to see so much progress in so little time and not be afraid.
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Fascinating. Would any of the examples you can give be meaningful without excessive context?
[A pause, and then she nods.] Yes-- I can see how that would be.
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Well, how we used to write data is one. Used to be we could only put it on compact discs up to a certain size due to our knowledge in compressing it properly. People would to speculate what it would be like to have the world at our fingertips or hold entire libraries in the palms of our hands. Now we have the internet, like the network but with an innumerable amount of resources to look up as well as communication, and drives as small as fingernails that can hold hundreds of times times that of our old CDs.
If you want specific story-to-technology examples, I'd have to think a little more on that one.
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