View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
Loki goes instantly where Huan tells her. She has a safety against landing intersected with solid objects, her or any of her belongings, so dramatic as it would be she can't just appear with her opponent already impaled. She has to actually stab him.
So she stabs him, spikes him from there. And hollows out Lævateinn and channels ice into the wound.
+ Show First Post
purposeful_glory
The Men are the only ones who have your clocks. When Father calls it.
Making mechanical ones is on someone's to-do list.
purposeful_glory
Speaking of someone's to-do list should I also bring my armor? I'm not sure if it's salvageable but it might be.
Oh, of course. If it's not we can make you something new, though it'd take about a year for something enchanted really well.
purposeful_glory
That'd be nice.
So she gathers up her armor bits into a bundle and spends the morning working on her spell and showing some of the astronomy-inclined Men visual aids about the structure of her own galaxy and has lunch -
So she gathers up her armor bits into a bundle and spends the morning working on her spell and showing some of the astronomy-inclined Men visual aids about the structure of her own galaxy and has lunch -
And eventually Fëanor says We're holding a meeting in Duilwen conference room, please join me there.
That's a lie, Tyelcormo says, He's not there yet and will get there last. Do come anyway.
That's a lie, Tyelcormo says, He's not there yet and will get there last. Do come anyway.
Mental map of the palace. Osanwë is so useful.
Duilwen conference room has a rotating marble table with a to-scale map of Beleriand sculpted onto one side. Tyelcormo rotates the table so that side is facing down and they have workspace, and then waves her over to sit.
Fëanor walks in a minute later. They settle down around the table and it's evident that they're much better at this with Maitimo on his father's right, that something was glaringly absent from previous family meetings.
"I have retroactive eidetic memory for things read in the last two days," Fëanor says, "tested and rather thoroughly vetted and not trivial to scale, but I think it'll take about a year of subjective time. I've been working in parallel on the dimensional problem and that one is much more troubling. The palantiri seem in principle to be unable to scry there, and I gave them a lot of range; there's no obvious other tests available. The obvious solution is to do the problem differently. Loki, do you think that the information in your brain mostly determines the concepts in your textbooks; that is, if physics were different enough that nuclear weaponry did not work, you would have different information in your head?"
"I have retroactive eidetic memory for things read in the last two days," Fëanor says, "tested and rather thoroughly vetted and not trivial to scale, but I think it'll take about a year of subjective time. I've been working in parallel on the dimensional problem and that one is much more troubling. The palantiri seem in principle to be unable to scry there, and I gave them a lot of range; there's no obvious other tests available. The obvious solution is to do the problem differently. Loki, do you think that the information in your brain mostly determines the concepts in your textbooks; that is, if physics were different enough that nuclear weaponry did not work, you would have different information in your head?"
purposeful_glory
"- huh, like the mechanism behind my illusions. Uh, I think there's degrees, some of my reading is just vague and some of it's forgotten to the point where I couldn't pick the right answer off a multiple-choice test. I might have enough of the first kind to sufficiently determine the necessary information about nukes but there might be some huge gap. It's also entirely possible you wouldn't get a coherent model extrapolating solely from my memories because I've absorbed simplified explanations, not being a physicist. Many of my readings would have noted that and possibly even how they were simplified, but explanations I heard from people are less likely to have come with disclaimers and I don't necessarily have redundant versions of atomic structure to compare against one another."
"We also might be able to make some necessary inferences," he says, "presumably someone in your world invented nuclear weapons in the first place. Anyhow, that's one avenue I can pursue; another is to try asking our universe what, if it had Asgard in it, would be in Asgard's libraries; another is to go ahead on the original plan. Each attempt should take me about four years, subjectively, two at full speed."
purposeful_glory
"Nuclear weapons have been invented several times but never on this infrastructural base that I know of, but it is possible you could patch an inconsistent physics model. Asgard's libraries would get you more than I know because I did not read every book in them, and if it worked would be strictly better than just turning me into a printer; but from my uninformed perspective it sounds thoroughly insane to assume the universe can answer that question."
"That we can specify the question well enough," he says, "the universe can answer anything but asking it things is really, really hard. What are typical features of a infrastructure base that invents nuclear weapons?"
purposeful_glory
"Factories. Very detailed physics and chemistry backgrounds; I don't think you have to have learned to see atoms, though, just derive things about their structure - although now I'm actually curious how far you can get with an illusion microscope and your ridiculous baseline vision. I think first versions typically involve fission of uranium so you have to be able to obtain and identify that. Um... it has to be bombarded somehow with something, I forget what."
"I'm going to attempt the approach that patches when it can't source the materials that created a memory by generating materials that could have created that memory and that are consistent with physical law. The more physical law I know the more usefully this will screen, so if you two -" he gestures at Curufinwë and Tyelperinquar - "could spend the next few years nailing down as many of our physical laws as apply to Asgard and working in chemistry and physics specifically, that will help. What's an illusion microscope?"
"Can Dwarves mine for uranium or do they get mortal diseases?" Curufinwë says.
"Does this mean that I"m doing all our magical item production for the foreseeable future," says Caranthir, "because -"
"I'll do it," Maitimo says. "I find it relaxing and with enhanced perception it'll be less tedious."
"Uranium mines," says Fëanor, "what do we know?"
"Can Dwarves mine for uranium or do they get mortal diseases?" Curufinwë says.
"Does this mean that I"m doing all our magical item production for the foreseeable future," says Caranthir, "because -"
"I'll do it," Maitimo says. "I find it relaxing and with enhanced perception it'll be less tedious."
"Uranium mines," says Fëanor, "what do we know?"
purposeful_glory
Loki starts fiddling with lenses, trying to make a microscope behave. "Is radiation poisoning a mortal disease?"
"Aulë taught us about it," Fëanor says, "which come to think of it probably means Dwarves don't experience it, and it can affect the Eldar but it's nearly impossible, while it has very dramatic effects on Men. Because they don't control the behavior of their own body."
purposeful_glory
"Well, my healing spell works on it, and I can teleport occasionally to a uranium mine if anyone's having trouble with it." She peers through her microscope. "I'd want to attach this to some sort of armature to make it controllable, but it should work like this." She scoots it over to Fëanor.
"Oh," he says, "you can do this with lenses, though you're limited by the precision of your tools. Yes, that'll probably make progress faster, if you can do higher resolution than we can."
purposeful_glory
"Might be able to, I don't know how finely you can grind lenses at this time."