A Neural Storm in an Electric, Invisible Teapot

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Who knew these Mandos became monsters? It was worse than the Rift: at least the Primeval in the Rift campaign wasn't too keen on causing civilian deaths, and their landing craft, while crash-landing, did leave a mostly-intact cargo; here Mandos showed that, while their supplies of vehicles are more abundant than the Sith's, they are seemingly reckless with those, she thought, while there were other differences between the Rift and this attack. But while injured combatants were being tended to, it was time for [member="Ultimatum"] to return, somewhere else on Kashyyyk that would be her temporary base of operations on the planet while the cleanup operations in Silver Rest were underway. Just that, to the extent she was willing to forgive Mandos on an individual basis, she could not tolerate their constant hostility: they have proven, once again, that they couldn't be trusted. Barataria, for instance, and also other engagements against other factions. She was lucky to have access to a pool of staff of some competence to delegate the line tasks to, which she knew was problematic among Sith, especially after Dubrillion, and Jaminere before that, ended in costly Pyrrhic victories, or stalemates even, for them. And, of course, Rimcee being a Sith defeat.

"Welcome back, Ultimatum. It has been a while and I feel you're now ripe to learn more exotic powers. But before you learn the more exotic powers, I have something to say: let's say that the Mandos have raided Kashyyyk while you were away from me. Any significant missions you undertook away from me?"

 

[Ultimatum]

Kashyyyk once more, it was a beautiful world, and very different from the usual planets Ultimatum had visited before. It was a world of life and survival, though one could say that it was also one of death and war, particularly in the Shadowlands. Ultimatum did not know enough about it to decide if it were a good world to set up on, or whether it needed anything government wise. He just had failed to visit it that often, in fact, it was only twice now.

Once more the droid had come to meet with Upari's mentor, [member="Jessica Med-Beq"]. This time though, they had experienced more since their previous meeting. Ultimatum had been certain to bring their lightsaber, for he did not know what they would learn this day and it would be important to be prepared. When she asked about his recent endeavors, Ultimatum took a moment to bring past memories to the front of his mind. "I believe the most important mission to have been undertaken while away was on Coruscant. A collection of slavers and scavengers had invaded the world with the intention of kidnapping people. We worked to defend the world."

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Today's agenda is about the more exotic powers that I feel could be useful to a Jedi like you. Force-cloak, Electric Judgment and Neural Storm. As for Crucitorn, I have but two things to say about it: for the increase in pain portion, Neural Storm pretty much covers it, while the pain-killing portion is just another application of Force-healing"

While, of course, grutchin, vehicle debris and also dead Vong and Mandos were being cleaned up around them, Jessica took to another one of those Wookiee villages that were away from the main thrust of the action in that Mando attack. She had a good idea as to how [member="Ultimatum"] intended to fit those exotic powers; he previously expressed interest for exotic stuff such as Animal Bond, Convection, Malacia, Dreamscape and Crucitorn. She didn't know the last two per se, but she would think that it would be more useful to alleviate pain than to inflict pain using Crucitorn. Just that stealth were often useful to Jedi that preferred finesse. And she intended to teach him as much. Now, Ultimatum would likely be able to understand what a negative refraction index implies for EM sensory, and also for optics; she had to be cautious of not assuming other students possessed a working knowledge of optics when she worked with other students in the past. In fact, thermal sensors typically relied on the infrared band to detect heat and cold in items.

"Force-cloak is useful to escape unseen or to perform sneak attacks because it allows you to remain invisible to a wide array of sensors, such as life-form, thermal and electromagnetic sensors and to reduce your Force-signature to that of a NFU. It's essentially about changing one's refraction indices to negative-valued ones; objects have different refraction indices in different bands, so bending light is not as straightforward as one may think"

 

[Ultimatum]

Those were indeed quite different powers than what Ultimatum had heard of before. Certainly, information about them was evident in his databanks, but they were not well known, stealth aside. The droid had come across Force users who had utilized a form of stealth, though most of them had used a far simpler method than the one that [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] was suggesting. Most of the stealth users he had come across had used a type of bending light around them, so as to render them invisible. Ultimatum had wondered how this was possible, given that if all light were bent around a person, they would be inside a bubble of darkness where light could not reach their eyes. The old Ultimatum had also managed to create a device that could identify the light's change in path.

"It indeed sounds complex. Do most Force users take this route? Or do they utilize the simpler methods?" Ultimatum wanted to learn the best method and to use that, not to find the easiest possible solution.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Most tended to use a simpler method, although the main disadvantage was that it did, in fact, make vision more blurry in the best of cases, Force or not, and sometimes completely double-blind, which typically cause a Force-cloak user to move slowly while under cloak. The advantage of changing one's refraction index to a negative value is that you suffer no sensory disadvantage, so that you can move faster under cloak than would otherwise be the case"

Much like how a hidibrium cloaking device rendered a vehicle equipped with it double-blind: external users could not detect the vehicle, but by the same token, the vehicle cannot detect what's outside of it. [member="Ultimatum"], however, would likely realize the additional complexity could be worthwhile, and not just because he would be gaining in mobility while under cloak. Much like the difference between stygium and hidibrium cloaking devices. It's been a while since I last used Force-cloak but I still remember how that is done, she thought, while being mindful of the use one had for such a power. Double-blindedness meant that one could be slowed to a crawl while Force-cloak is in use, due to the need to get their bearings back, and often the bubble of darkness was not so large. Yet sneak attacks were often games of patience, so she knew that one would use Force-cloak only sparingly, when they knew their targets were approaching, and de-cloak when they can capitalize on the element of surprise to carry out the attack. Now she was waiting for Upari to attempt cloaking, even though she knew it would not last very long.

 

[Ultimatum]

"How do we go about turning the mathematics into practical effect? Are we affecting our individual molecules or some other aspect of our form?"

Ultimatum appreciated the advantages of not being blind in stealth. After all, there was little of value to be found in being hidden, but also being unable to interact with the environment in an effective manner. The droid had experience with stealth, but also had a preference for usefulness. A stealth like that from hidibrium was a parlor trick, for its actual uses are far lower than a stygium based cloaking system.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"It's about using the Force to create a skin-tight thin film of negative refractive index: the main difference between a skin-tight Force-barrier and Force-cloak is that, rather than to have the barrier act as a shield, the barrier instead has a negative refractive index. Here any object you carry on your person will also be covered by the skin-tight film. Of course, you could always try a bubbly kind of Force-cloak for group cloaking, but then what environmental objects are enclosed inside the bubble would be invisible to outsiders, too, which could provide a means of indirect detection to outsiders. Hence why I'd rather stick to skin-tight cloaking if you only need to keep yourself, or otherwise keep a single object, under cloak"

The implications of a skin-tight thin film of negative refractive index is that, assuming it was, in fact, possible to use, albeit at a higher cost of energy and computational power, both tutaminis and Force-cloak simultaneously. However, doing it will create a weakness that would be readily exploitable: it will give one's position away if something energy-based is somehow fired at you, she thought, while she fortunately never had to perform both powers at once. It would likely eat up all her computational power, or nearly so, while also realizing that group cloaking definitely wasn't foolproof. In fact, she pretty much summed up the difference between hidibrium and stygium: one bent light and other sensory waves, the other instead was a thin film of negative refractive index. [member="Ultimatum"] would probably understand that group cloaking is a trickier proposition, but group cloaking is best used in a stationary or otherwise low-speed situation. And also that carefully shaping the bubble of invisibility would be key if one was to use Force-cloak for group cloaking. Not that she actually did so, just that she could pretty much infer it.

 

[Ultimatum]

"Interesting. Would it be possible, with the necessary computational capabilities and Force strength, to cover multiple individual objects with this film?"

The droid's brain whirred in work to create a functioning simulation, using a mathematical calculation to find the correct form. Upari was no doubt attempting to do the same, but this particular skill required a greater processing capacity than the secondary one that the Shard commanded. Singular stealth was difficult enough, but multiple stealth may be required at some point, and the droid planned to work on that form of calculation. Of course, he understood that in the case of multiple stealth it would be unique to each situation. He could probably use similar mathematics in any situation, but different environments would require different refining.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Typically, the film would be much like a bubble if the need to cover multiple people in stealth arises; the energy consumed scales with the outer area of the bubble, while the computational power required scaled with the number of polygons"

Much like 3D rendering took longer the more polygons there are in a CGI render when using computer-assisted design software. That's why Jessica preferred a combination of rather simple, low-poly geometries if it came to that sort of stuff: her brain might be fast, but even then she knew her brain has its limits, and headaches are her biggest bottleneck for that sort of power. [member="Ultimatum"] would have realized as much, and the other complications associated with modifying refractive indices, especially with ambient lighting being a consideration. Many optically-challenged Force-users would rather bend light at this point than to create a thin film that changes refraction indices. Or perhaps because they lacked the computational power. Just thinking about the headache risks she would be exposed to if she tried that sort of items is enough to make her liable for headaches on a Neural Storm-level. Speaking of which, that was about causing neurons to fire uncontrollably and/or to cause the flow of neurotransmitters to accelerate, seizures happen either way if it worked.

"You must have realized by now how my ability to use the Force is impaired if I get too much headaches from using a lot of computational power"

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum had assumed that the increase in Force and computational necessities would make the mass stealth system less feasible. However, that did give rise to a question. If the focus was the creation of a low number of polygons, so as to decrease the necessary effort, then would it not be possible to create simple polygons that are not quite skin tight. The droid guessed that the slight difference would not affect the stealth too severely, though he had no way of telling due to a lack of experience. He queried, "Would it be possible to utilize a lower polygon system to allow for easier computation and Force usage? For example instead of a proper skin tight film, what about a loose cube, or similar construct?"

The droid had come to the conclusion about [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] and the migraines and headaches. Because Jessica was so reliant on the mental computation, if her mind were compromised then that likewise compromised her Force capabilities. It was an unfortunate combination of methodology and organic weakness. It was a logical cause and effect, one which Ultimatum assumed was a more negative issue than a positive one.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Pretty much. Now, are there any other concerns you may have before you can actually start cloaking?"

Although I never consciously kept track of polygon count while using Force-cloak, I guess, this is one of the tradeoffs of lowering polygon count: you lose skin-tightness and it's somewhat easier to detect that something is under cloak, she thought, while also realizing the implications for her future uses of Force-cloak. Now she could have the ability to engage in group cloaking without fear of incurring those dreaded headaches. Oh and bending light in a bubble was presumably a low-polygon operation, too. [member="Ultimatum"] would find it too funny to be true that, as a padawan, Jessica was, on multiple occasions, referred to as a Force-using droid. Sure, she might have nearly unparalleled computational power by organic-FU standards, but she just couldn't make a precise estimate of how big a polygon count she was actually running when using Force-cloak; all she did infer from her past usage was that her use of that computational power was, in fact, scaling against polygon count. And yet, Jessica nodded about how a loose prism would be able to make savings on the polygon count.

 

[Ultimatum]

"There are no concerns. We are prepared. Is there anything further we should cover?" The droid was thankful for his computer mind in this case. The required computational ability to determine the number of polygons and how they best fit into his appearance was reasonably large, by organic standards. But computers had been rendering of polygon characters with semi-realistic proportions for millennia, at least as early as the invention of the microprocessor and its use in the holo-game department. Not only could a computer relatively quickly render a carefully designed polygons shape of Ultimatum, which he had done when he first created his bodies anyways, theoretically he could present multiple different forms at the same time. The difficulty would have arisen in the requirement of creating an entirely new polygonal structure, particularly for other people.

The droid had an almost perfect skin-tight film in polygon form. He decided not to push it further, due to this being the first test and he was uncertain of Upari's ability to handle the information as it was. Ultimatum, therefore, had given a high polygon count image to Upari, but it was not quite perfect for the skin and had points where it left minor air pockets, less than a millimeter in most cases. Now came the exciting part, for Ultimatum. The Shard had to turn that image into a physical effect that would counter the reflective values of their body. Upari was merely awaiting the definite signal from [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] to start.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Now you may start"

In this sense, it was similar to CGI in that respect: "low-poly" sentients for CGI purposes tended to be about 1-3k polygons, and not entirely skin-tight, and that seemed to be applicable to Force-cloak, too. I'm not entirely sure as to how CGI polygon counts translate to Force-cloaking. Now, a millimeter or two of air-gaps are acceptable if that drives down the polygon count, and does not severely endanger the detectability of the cloak. So the main challenge in group cloaking is to enclose the people inside a bubble whose polygon count isn't that much higher than a single-object cloak, Jessica thought, while she had a very rough estimate of how many polygons could her computational power handle. Now that [member="Ultimatum"] had a render ready, in CGI terms, she knew the challenge was to implement group cloaking while staying within the 1-3k polygon framework she believed to operate in.

 

[Ultimatum]

Upari drew the Force to itself, calling upon the strange and awe-inspiring power to take the information Ultimatum had created and turn it into reality. It was hardly easy, as with most things related to the Force, but in the challenge lay growth. The difficulty arose with connecting the refraction indices to the render. The droid body began to shimmer, as the Force reversed into the wrong direction. Then, realizing the mistake, Upari changed to the other way. As the reflectiveness subsided, the Ultimatum began to disappear. It started to level out, with the body almost being invisible, however, there was a faint outline and a rippling effect as Upari tried to finish.

"It is quite difficult. Is this one of the more Force intensive abilities in a Jedi's arsenal?"

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Yes, it is, in fact, one of the more energy-intensive powers I know that can be kept up that a Jedi can wield, Jessica thought, while realizing that, where [member="Ultimatum"] used to stand, there was only a faint outline generated by rippling effects. Which meant that Upari was at least partially successful in using the Force-CGI-render for individual cloaking, but she could always chalk up the ripple effects to inexperience somehow, to Upari not being used to such computation-intensive uses of the Force, or to vertex effects. She was also reminded of how long she could keep Force-cloak up when she began using it: only about thirty seconds. But she had to be mindful of the energy level of the apprentice. By now she should know that it won't do any good to teach material to a student at a point in a session where they don't have the energy to practice using it. So the time would be ripe for her to tell him to stop, and that would mean additional practice would come in at a later date. And then she would start covering Electric Judgment: a lesson she feels is within grasp of the apprentice. As usual, she expects a multitude of questions from him and also using the time to ask the questions as a downtime to recuperate part of his Force-energy.

"I believe you should stop now. At this rate it's entirely possible you won't have enough energy left to undertake the last two lessons: Electric Judgment and Neural Storm. Electric Judgment is a little different from Force-lightning in that it does not require any input whatsoever from the dark side. Nevertheless, it is about projecting a green bolt of electricity to a target, or sometimes a chain of targets, so I'm using it to recharge batteries attached to wireless devices"

 

[Ultimatum]

As [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] told them to halt their attempt, Upari slowly reverted the indicies back to their original status. Ultimatum's body would become steadily more apparent until Upari stopped entirely and the Shard began to draw from the Upari crystals in Ultimatum's suit to restore his Force reserves. He hoped to be near completely restored by the time that they began the next test.

Ultimatum had never heard of Electric Judgement, it almost sounded like a music group to the droid. The implications for the power though made Ultimatum a little concerned. It was the idea of using electricity in a droid body that most concerned Ultimatum. However he was here to learn and the robot was fairly certain that Jessica had thought these things threw. He asked, nonetheless, "Is it safe to learn such a power, could it negatively impact my body's functionality?"

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"The main reason why Electric Judgment was shunned by even organic Jedi was because of its association with Force-lightning and hence with anger, aggression and the dark side. That said, typical colors of Force-lightning in use are purple, red and black, while typical Electric Judgment colors are green, orange and white"

The risks of Electric Judgment are why I instead prefer to solve for Maxwell equations outside of my body when using the power, in a straight line between the exit point and the first target. In fact, I'm using my neurotransmitters for effecting Electric Judgment, and not just Force-light, just different properties for different purposes, Jessica thought, also realizing that her ability to generate the required current scaled with her use of computational power, simply because she would then cause more neurons to fire. Sure, light-siders with less computational power, or otherwise more limited in their E&M knowledge, would either not bother with actually using any E&M knowledge whatsoever, or simply solve for more basic E&M equations, such as Ohm's law. Now [member="Ultimatum"] had valid concerns, especially if he thought that he would be using his own internal electrical currents as a basis to perform that power, just that Electric Judgment and Ionize were one and the same to her. She also remembered Celiana showing chain-casting of Electric Judgment on Zeltros, albeit a pale lilac color; it was just a little different in color because the Echani still had some darkness left in her back then.

"Organic Force-users are also exposed to some risks when using Electric Judgment or Force-lightning, too. They also incur electrocution risks; for this reason, you are using the Force to create an electric field from the exit point of the current and the target, and also between a target and another if you were to use Electric Judgment in a chain one day. The most powerful electricity-based Force-power users were able to cause their targets to explode. Also, if a droid is hit by Electric Judgment, it also has the tendency to disable droids"

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum could understand the fear; association was a potent factor in organic thinking. To the uninitiated, it did not necessarily matter what a person did; instead, it was what they appeared to do. Thus, a Jedi who used the Force in the form of lightning could be misinterpreted as a use of Force Lightning. It was even more important now, when Jedi were not necessarily trusted just because of their association with the Jedi order. Color would probably be a rather superfluous difference to a normal person who saw the Force being used in that manner.

"So how do we create the electrical current? And then control it? Is there a way to adjust the amperage and similar structures of electricity?"

The droid was certain that it would be dangerous for a droid to be hit by the electricity. He doubted that it would be akin to throwing a lightning bolt at the enemy, since it was a created form of electricity it would, hopefully, be more controlled and perhaps easier to adjust in strength and potential danger.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Electric Judgment the way I practice it is a dual-stage power: the first stage is to use the Force as a transformer, and the Force would then have an adjustable secondary, external coil for the current output; controlling amperage depends on how many turns you want the secondary Force-coil to possess, knowing that the primary Force-coil, which is internal to you, has a fixed amount of turns. In fact, in the context of electricity-based Force-powers, the Force is a perfect transformer"

Typical EJ/Force-lightning users possess very limited knowledge of electromagnetism, so I'm not surprised if any talk of electrical transformers would be inintelligible to the other practitioners I know. The Force-transformer is the easy part, although usually the current output is at very low voltages for a tiny fraction of a second. The hard part is to adjust the voltage, which then requires me to solve for three Maxwell equations since one is not typically operating in ionite; even then it's still a linear electric field so that ought to limit the expenditure in computational power, she thought, while realizing, as [member="Ultimatum"] hopefully would, that Electric Judgment can, in fact, be kept up. But given her own experiences with Electric Judgment, both personal and with those of others she knew that used it, it led her to question why EJ was weaker than Force-lightning or statements to this effect were simply Sith propaganda. Electromagnetism would dictate that, regardless of one's alignment, one should get the same bolts, assuming an EJ user and a Force-lightning user were both capable of using their respective powers at the same current and voltage over the same distance. She did not believe that alignment posed any bottlenecks whatsoever in terms of either the Force-transformer step or the strength of the electric field that could be reached.

"The second stage is creating a linear electric field between the Force-transformer's secondary, usually just a few millimeters outside your body, and the target. The voltage can be adjusted by adjusting the electric field strength: stronger electric fields would result in a higher voltage but also force you to spend more Force-energy"

 

[Ultimatum]

It was complicated to be sure, and he had no doubt that most organics could have accomplished this sort of equation and calculation in their head. This only proved more thoroughly to the droid that [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] was an exceptional organic. Ultimatum knew that it was fortunate indeed that this had been their first teacher, for he doubted any organic could hope to live up to his standards after Jessica. Eventually, he would need to find more other tutors, to learn more about the Force and its internal functioning. Some might have questioned his methodology, because learning how to use the Force did not immediately seem to be the same as learning about the Force. But any scientist would understand. They would know that in order to learn about something, its properties and functions were one of the first few things tested.

Ultimatum's mind ran through the equations. It was not new information, he had learned all this some time ago, but he had to bring the calculations and numbers back into his mind from the aether of his databanks. The data was old, but the results and answers, even the numbers put into the equations, were entirely new. Ultimatum could not have predicted that these equations would have been used in such a manner, in the Force, when he had only just awoken for the first time. And even if the numbers had not been new, the droid would likely have placed that as extraordinary coincidence, rather than any predictive ability on his part.

As [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] explained the first step, Upari began to follow with the correct conditions and equations taken from Ultimatum. The droid asked for the Shard, "For the purposes of this lesson, where would you like us to direct the electricity?" The last thing they wanted was wild electricity being sent in a random direction.