Private An Exotic Package

[Griet van Vliet]

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ATTN: Desbre Gensan

Because the last scheduled guest had unexpectedly backed out of a Force-training session, I may be wondering whether you would be interested. Topics would likely include Short-term Memory Enhancement (STME), Neural Storm and Electric Judgment, which, admittedly, to the average Jedi, would not be related to each other beyond them being usable with the light side, but to me, are closely related enough to teach in one session. If you are interested, you may come to the Valley of the Machine Gods on Iokath. Please let em know what works for you.

Griet van Vliet
Partner, forensic auditing lead
VPN LLP

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Griet was traveling across the galaxy to hunt down some mortgage fraudsters that hounded straw buyers on war-torn worlds, and, for this reason, Kintan and Kuat were worlds to keep a close watch on for mortgage fraud. This led to a surge in forensic business, much more so in the criminal investigation aspect of forensic accounting. Unlike litigation support, it could be practiced without risking an independence breach if the clients also engaged them for assurance engagements (either beforehand or afterward). Just that, for once, Griet could actually go to her home on Iokath, because she found the Valley of the Machine Gods much more hospitable to most would-be guests, such as Desbre Gensan, than the home on Orto Plutonia, while much colder, almost as cold as Hoth, was much closer to her non-forensic clients. The guest of today would, hopefully, have more of a desire to stay than the last Jedi guest she hosted on Iokath, who left quickly after the meeting started, although today's guest would come for different reasons. After the events on Kintan, Griet knows Jedi must do more to train each other if they wanted to get the upper hand on the Sith or at least keep them at bay, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. When Desbre would arrive on Iokath, she would realize a bright light spot in the Force in the Valley, guiding her to Griet, since there was no other known Force-users of her power level living on Iokath.

 

[Desbre Gensan]

Tag: Griet van Vliet​

---

The rather cryptic message would have sent Desbre into a paranoid spiral in most circumstances. She was relatively unknown. For someone to contact her out of the trillions of sentients in the galaxy who she did not recognize was enough. Sure, she was a racer back home. Half of it had been underground.

With Griel's information in hand, she spent some time doing what she could to drum up information on the woman. Finding she was an accountant, but speaking of Force training gave Des pause. Cross-referencing with what Jedi records she could get her hands on finally brought her level of concern down.

So it was that she found herself a short time later on approach to the megastructure. With her ident confirmed she was allowed into the interior. When she could she found herself nearing the area indicated, and stretched out her senses, spotting the beacon fairly quickly.

Making a flyby in her beat-up looking ancient Loronar light freighter, she sat it down and beamed a message indicating her arrival and a query for instructions. This was an unusual place, belonging to what seemed to be a much more ordered set of circumstances.

 

[Griet van Vliet]

Even though there may have been a handful of lower-level organic residents in the Valley of the Machine Gods, Desbre Gensan was the only one that actually entered the planet's atmosphere from orbit. Plus that visitor seemed to have something unusual in her head that made her much closer to Jess or Janick than to run-of-the-mill Jedi. Which meant that the lesson plan won't be the same as with the paddies on Svivren or in the floating temple on Terminus' orbit. Calm down. Only after the business of the Force I invited her here for is over can I actually ask about any accounting needs the padawan may have had. I knew that usually, Jedi didn't seem to have sophisticated accounting needs. Even though I'm primarily dealing in criminalistic forensics these days, I can still perform non-forensic accounting for Jedi. Just that STME will go first because it's the least power-intensive of the three, she thought, while having had a holo-meeting with the forensic teams keeping a close eye on Atrisia, but for a different kind of schemes for committing financial crimes. Once the holo-meeting was over, the building's security was swift in making a query for instructions in regards to the visitor.

"The visitor has arrived, Desbre Gansan" the security droid announced to Griet. "Awaiting instructions"

"Send her in my penthouse"

 

[Desbre Gensan]

Tag: Griet van Vliet​

---

A short time later one of the security droids appeared and informed Des she was admitted, and to follow them. It escorted her to the penthouse as she scanned her surroundings visually. Like most of her people, she had a much wider perception of the “visible” light spectrum, reaching all the way into and through the depths of infrared. She could see the warm spots that informed her of wiring, machinery and more. She could tell much the same about the security droid.

Paired with that, she mapped out the area as best she could with the Force and her enhanced sense of space and spatial reasoning. It was one of the subtle gifts of being a pilot but also meant to help keep her from getting lost in the depths of Arkanian mining operations. She could feel the same oscillations of energy in circuits and lights. But more than that could track every insect and bacteria. Except here the place was sanitized. As near as she could tell.

As her robotic companion lead her up to the penthouse she considered the matter. This place felt different. The Force still came easily enough. She could access it in deep space, or anywhere really. Perhaps, since beginning her training, she’d become much more aware on a subconscious level, the life around her. This place left her in a mental lurch.

The droid snapped her out of her reverie as it cycled the door and showed her in. Des cast her eyes about, taking in the penthouse around her with moderate caution. This all felt much like being back home, and not entirely in a good way. As a de facto second-class citizen, others like her were often at the mercy of the rich and powerful. And this place, these circumstances smacked of that. She didn’t bother to call out though, as her senses (not just her ability with the Force) would tell her where others were. Eyes, ears, nose, and even her sense of taste could and would tell her whether she was alone or not. For the moment, she simply stayed put.

 

[Griet van Vliet]

"Welcome to my penthouse in the Valley of the Machine Gods. I am Griet. You must be Desbre, correct?"

While the guest has just arrived, Griet wasted no time in getting a feel for Desbre Gensan in the Force. Especially as it relates to mental attributes, such as memory and intelligence, and what these imply about more obscure stuff such as neural plasticity. And, of course, her neural activity. It was all too tempting for Griet to draw comparisons between all three of Des, Janick and herself. Even so, she knew that high intelligence was a double-edged blade, and that, while romanticized in certain circles, it was not very appreciated among Force-users. May make someone look different from the others, but then she knew that STME was a very delicate power to use, even though it really doesn't take a whole lot of energy to use. And it would be obvious that Griet was mentally active.

"As I mentioned in the last message I sent you, the first item of the day is short-term memory enhancement. Its mechanism may be complex to some, but it's about enhancing one's neural plasticity. Now there are limits to how much of an enhancement you can get from someone, based on its existing plasticity: if someone's natural plasticity is already high, it won't work very well. And one more caution: if you use too much energy, you can instead cause seizures in someone, but causing seizures is still better than killing someone outright"

 

[Desbre Gensan]

Tag: Griet van Vliet​

---

Desbre raised a pale eyebrow as Griel greeted her. In little more than a glance, the girl took in space, assessing by distance and ranges. The location of everything that could be a weapon, entry or exit. She took in Griel herself, scanning her for weapons, assessing her form and shape and the potential lethality there. She gave off a sort of ‘ping’ in the Force. It might have given away her position but in an instant, she mapped out everything she couldn’t see, and the returns gave her new layers of data, new information. There was no sense of urgency or anxiety. It happened on an almost unconscious level.

Finishing her instant tactical analysis, Desbre took in the blonde with an appraising look. They were almost identical in height, with similar builds. And Griel fairly crackled in the Force. A piercing, singular intelligence lay behind those eyes. Des felt like she was looking at one of the scientists and other high minds from home. It was comforting and intimidating. Griel was far more dangerous and likely to have a different set of ethics and moral code. At home, on Arkania, she’d been not much more than a slave. A wage-slave, but still a slave. Racing, and the escape of vice, had largely been her only escapes until she’d managed to get off that frozen rock.

A mixture of intimidation and almost homesickness emanated from her. Not that she wanted to go back to Arkania to live under anyone’s thumb. But she missed her grandmother. And even her know-it-all, ‘superior’ sister. The Golden Child could do no wrong. Resentment followed, but tempered itself with guilt and longing before fading away under a cool layer of ice and then neutrality like someone flipped a switch. The girl became almost emotionless.

Neuro-plasticity. She searched for the term. It was part of some of the educational processes on Arkania especially for teens and young adults that were struggling. And often older adults too. Back home, they ran mild electrical currents through the brain to stimulate it and allow greater function, greater efficiency. Some received implants to create a more permanent effect. And the side effects were known, but somewhat rare.

”Indeed. Lasting brain damage or death is also possible, but that’s pushing it to the extreme,” she added. She grasped the concept immediately. “I assume this will involve moving electrons to create an electrical current, among other aspects like monitoring the neural activity of the subject in question. Mapping the storm, as it were.”

 

[Griet van Vliet]

"Precisely. As you said, it's also important, before you go around creating low-intensity electrical currents in someone's brain, to monitor not only one's neural activity and one's existing neural plasticity. That's also the reason why it wouldn't work very well on either of us, so I usually tend to use it more on people that suffer from memory problems"

I'm lucky that, in public accounting, it was much easier to know what to expect from one's colleagues intellectually, and accounting generally seemed to have some intellectual barriers to practice. Not the same as in medicine, law or engineering, though. However, with intelligence on Desbre's level or higher, there are so many things that can go wrong in their education, especially if they are left unchallenged, she thought, while leaving the impression that Griet may have had clients in the pharmaceutical industry. Because, like it or not, once an accountant understands an industry's operational environment, it can then go in greater depth in the finances of a client's projects, especially when special attention needs to be paid to stuff such as R&D. Desbre Gensan seemed to understand a lot faster how each of these items were connected to each other than she had seen in other Jedi, though. And also, for some reason, what Janick always floated around concerning Memory Rub seemed to resurface now. Griet's brain seemed to be going on overdrive, realizing that the student of the day may already have a feel for her mental attributes.

"I know a dark-sided power that could even attempt to use that sort of technique to either infuse, alter or remove knowledge, but the dark-sider I know that does it regularly mostly uses it to infuse knowledge, while taking great care not to exceed the slower of the practitioner's mental bandwidth or the other party's. Sorry for the digression"

 

[Desbre Gensan]

Tag: Griet van Vliet​

---

Desbre avoided really any kind of mental contact, keeping herself mostly closed off, besides a layer of mild “listening.” She didn’t know Griel at all. While most Jedi were in favor of more “open” communication, the invasion of another’s mental space was more than invasion of privacy. Were Griel a friend, someone she had a connection with, she might bridge that gap more as there were fewer and fewer boundaries. But Griel was a stranger, and more than that, she had no idea how the other woman would react.

Maybe in a lesson, she might. But that was simply a matter of tele-empathic communication. It allowed for much faster dissemination of the ideas, concepts, and feelings involved from teacher to student, and back. It was a faster feedback cycle. It was the closest thing to an information download she could think of without literally cramming memory or the like into someone’s head.

As Griel mentioned such a technique she frowned. Most techniques, as she understood them, were just tools. It was their use and intent behind them that aligned them to one outlook or the other. Transferring memory and information in such a way, forcibly, she supposed would be very much the Dark Side. It was quick, domineering, and could be destructive. It was a form of mental rape too, she supposed. But with two willing participants, and working in tandem? That struck her as a unique and uniquely intimate partnership, if for only a brief time. And that, she supposed, was the farthest thing from it. The same was true for sharing memories. Especially intensely personal ones. Many Jedi had been known to do that. It was part of entire cultures in some places like the Camaasi.

As Griel apologized she shrugged one shoulder. “It’s fine,” she said, waving it away dismissively. “I’m just here for now. I’m not used to being summoned especially with a bribe of training techniques. So the ball is entirely in your court.” She stuffed her hands into her pockets, not really knowing what else to do with them for the time being. “Though… I’m kind of interested in learning all three of the things you mentioned, and anything else really.”

((OOC: Sorry for the delay, bad mental health days.))

 

[Griet van Vliet]

"Thus far, now that you know how STME and Neural Storm differ from one another in the actual execution, ethical considerations make it virtually impossible to properly train either one on live subjects, here on Iokath. Maybe in some hospital facility with traumas that cause them to incur memory problems, or other mental health issues, however, it could be more feasible. On the other hand, Electric Judgment can be trained in more ethical ways"

And Janick is one of those dark-siders who would rather use the dark side for something other than aggression. I respect her expertise in the area of mental data transfer, which personally has been underestimated for millennia, it's just that the stereotypical image of the dark-sider includes aggressiveness, blood thirst even, she thought, having dealt with dark-siders in the forensic business. Another aspect Jedi seemed to overlook as it pertains to Electric Judgment, which was all too often associated with anger and aggression, but Griet sometimes used it to recharge her ammunition power packs. And then some drained Chalacta-II power cell (used on Svivren) were taken out so that they could be placed in front of Desbre Gensan for a future drill. But even someone like Griet, whose knowledge of electricity was somewhat limited, maybe at an introductory undergraduate level at most (which would still be somewhat advanced by Jedi standards), would still grasp what's involved in the creation of electric currents, and Desbre seemed to easily absorb the information at the speed Griet provided it to her.

"Electric Judgment is much more intense than even Neural Storm or STME: the voltages and currents involved are orders of magnitude higher than even the highest intensity you could imagine even Neural Storm or STME being used at. For someone at a low level of power, it may be best to use it to recharge power cells. Oh and one more thing, before you visualize the current going from your fingertip to a power cell terminal, and then let loose the current: EJ emits green lightning, while Force Lightning is purple"