For A Fistful of Knowledge

[Janick Beauchamp]

"Personally I feel that often philosophical conflicts are used to mask more mundane objectives. What to some is a conflict of doctrines, to others it feels more like a resource grab, such as hyperlanes, materials, living space and whatnot. I knew people tended, on an individual level, to relate more to philosophical conflicts than to resource issues, but the only thing that would change would be the motivations to fight: the fighting itself would not change that much otherwise"

Ouch: I never was asked about my background, and how I just said anything about D12 with as much of a straight face as I could was... disturbing. Not that I shouldn't have said it, but that was also the sort of stuff that the very first person to have learned Drain Knowledge from me, a Miraluka, learned through it. Poodoo... usually I'm pretty happy with myself, at least more so than I am right now, she thought, with her facial expression feeling a little troubled. Crying even. Feeling that suffering would continue for somewhat different reasons, even in the absence of philosophical disputes, made her feel... sad. Not angry in the slightest, though. [member="Taiden Keth"], however, felt more curious about her with each instant he spent with her, which was, well, understandable. From what she could make out, he seemed grateful for what she could bring to the table, just that she had to make her crying stop before she could continue any further. It was interesting, to say the least, to see how it would turn out. Once that little discomfort was past her, she could then answer the next set of questions.

"As for witchcraft and internal disputes, there were so many variations, but also they were scattered enough for these disputes not to have much of an impact. Disputes may have happened, but they typically remained low-key in comparison. Finally, as for alchemized electronics, it seemed to began with a wi-fi router, alchemized to allow Force-users to connect their minds to the HoloNet, and then they would use their minds to access the HoloNet much like a computer device would"

 

[Taiden Keth]

Taiden didn’t react in the same way to crying as Kei would have, there was the gentle reach for her hand, but it was delayed like he was unsure how he should act around someone who was showing physical emotion. He had through the course of his training at the temple learned how to express himself, and had as yet not cried. He did rest his own hand over Janick’s very gently and offer a nod.

“While philosophy can act as a canvas for people to narrow down actual facts and useable concepts, a filter before ideas become more crystalized. People talk a lot yes, I feel talking around the subjects at hand. I do myself trying to find the words to actually say what I really mean. People can use many titles and elaborate displays, or long thought out responses to simply say. Yes Janick.”

The touch on her hand once more pressed lightly, a small mark of a different ancestor than Raien in his blood, but that ancestor would not have picked the estate Taiden lived in now, he would have chosen a forest hut. The displays of titles and wealth were still unfortunately intertwined in how Taiden Keth felt he must present his house and name.

“I am sorry. For all that was done to you.”

Because he knew in his heart that his family line had been behind all of it. Everything she just said. Decades and centuries across time. Keth trained Centax. He was feeling what he had suspected. Taiden released her hand and looked out across the garden again. Troubled, but he didn’t display it in the same way, his body had instead sort to twist, awkwardly tensing in the throat and chest very slightly. No tears, just a moment of time until he was able to release it again.

“Do you enjoy talking of alchemy in this way,” to another it may be obvious that the techniques were significantly easier for her to speak on than philosophy, but being who he was, he needed clarification. “and would you enjoy sharing more?” He began to open her book now, to begin to read the pages, what was noticeable is just how long the flat text took him to read, with no motion or movement it seemed to take a lifetime for him to just get through one page.

[member="Janick Beauchamp"]​

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"I knew that blood was often one of the key ingredients for alchemy, and we were often advised to ensure the blood wasn't contaminated for alchemical use unless one wanted the end product to have poisonous properties, since it was, in fact, the blood that allowed the Force to stick inside the object, and one needed to concentrate long and hard on which effects one wanted to give the object since it affected the sort of spirit ichor that would stick"

Spirit ichor: Jessica, whom I know is one of the most brilliant Jedi one could possibly want to meet, would talk about that in terms of bosonic, Hermitian operators. There were three major categories of ichor to me: anima, pneuma and aperion, representing life, mind and matter-energy respectively, Janick thought, while having flashbacks of her quantum chemistry coursework. These flashbacks caused her to freeze in place since it seemed her brain was taking up a much higher fraction of her body's energy than normal. She was having visions of that upper-division classroom that contained what was ostensibly bright kids, a few of them were perhaps capable of closing in on her intellectual level for brief durations or in specific areas. I kind of understand what an Hermitian operator means: it means that its matrix representation had real-valued eigenvalues, even though the matrix itself may be complex-valued. Not that she didn't like where the conversation was leading [member="Taiden Keth"], just that she knew it was a delicate proposition to be debating the nature of the Force even between learned people, to say nothing of what happens when everyday Force-users tried to do so. The same sort of hazards would occur as in a symposium where philosophical issues of the Force are discussed.

"As for ichor, think of these as the Force in particle form. I knew several theories abound about how to classify them, beyond mere alignment. Two such systems I know of categorize ichor differently: sense-alter-control, and also the Plaugeis system, also called anima-pneuma-aperion"

 

[Taiden Keth]

How easy it was for Taiden compared to his youth to listen to direction in arts beyond scripture and custom. He was fascinated, but also composed, sipping his water calmly. The theory on how both of these systems seemed to be intertwined within Janick’s description sounded fascinating, and perhaps he should inquire further but he was at pains not to overstep appropriate decorum for a Jedi Knight.

An internal discourse with himself, and a few minutes of soft garden breeze later, “I would guess anima-pneuma-aperion would naturally be more biological in its operating principles, and sense-alter-control more theoretical, in that it would be down to the user to shape the outcome. You seem to take the view that both are not completely separated in their fundamental nature?” If she could see the links others could not, it would only go further to frustration when people argued those differences in front of her. Hmm. She was remarkably composed.

Small talk almost rather than a deep question, it bought him time to reflect, and also he found people often couldn’t handle too much silence. A light nod of his head and a smile followed as he considered her words. Wishing she might know of a 3d model he could use to better understand the dynamics, but he didn’t assume she’d carry the same technology he preferred. “If the ichor is fundamentally created by a force-particle, and both of these methods shape the nature of that particle in the first place, do you feel force users themselves were responsible for its origin entirely?” This was extremely interesting to him, and he leaned in a bit more. He suspected that Janick might have an insight that he lacked, especially as she understood two forms of alchemy almost as one body of material, both the biological and the mathematical or theoretical variation of it.

[member="Janick Beauchamp"]​

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"These theories are not mutually exclusive, not to me. That said, it's entirely possible that, in this soup of ichor, there could be one variety of ichor that may embody more than one function in the sense-alter-control system, while also embodying more than one of the Plaugeis types"

Janick knew a compendium of Force-powers that made an attempt to classify every publicly known Force-power on the sense-alter-control system, as well as by a slew of other attributes, such as the Plaugeis system, alignment and their rarity level. She knew better than to be angry over some opinion on a given Force-theory. I have to make this spike in neural activity count, and, knowing how these spikes usually go, this is where my brain runs fastest, she thought, while seemingly operating at a heightened awareness level of her neural activity. That also meant [member="Taiden Keth"] would, if he looked at her in the Force, see her brain going on overdrive, and, as such, her brain, and even more so her frontal lobe, and to a lesser extent her hippocampus, would be much easier to spot in the Force than is normally the case. By that logic, for ichor, there would be seven states to choose from among the sense-alter-control set, for want of a better name, and seven states to choose from among the Plaugeis set, and, since the SAC state is independent from the Plaugeis state, there are 49 varieties of ichor based on those attributes.

"In fact, the reason why people often seem to use midichlorian counts in detecting Force-sensitives is that midichlorians are what allows the cells to process those particles. A minimum concentration of midichlorians is necessary to attain a manipulable concentration of ichor. Sometimes midichlorian DNA mutations can cause a person to have more issues manipulating some types of ichor, and occasionally to the point of being unable to use powers that relied on a certain property of ichor, even though their Force-sensitivity is clearly established. But the Force doesn't seem to be a creation of sentients"

 

[Taiden Keth]

“It would more than likely explain why any force ability is out of one user’s specialty and within another’s. Not merely ichor manipulation.” Taiden thought it over, this time there was a longer more natural pause, and he made no attempt to cover up the permutations he was running in his own mind. As to just how this new information fitted with his understanding of the universe.

There was a philosophical question of course, as to whether the user or the particle itself influenced what properties the force user could attain through their training, or in some theories both at the same time could form what a Jedi could achieve through his lifetime. An obvious point, this time he knew Janick would already have considered it and so remained silent.

“Though more observations would be needed. Do you have facilities capable of observing force users in their natural environment, to avoid any neural bias in a testing scenario?” That would be something to see, how to set it up was beyond his understanding at present. A long pause followed. Taiden’s visual acuity was high, very high, the sense of Janick’s brain’s neural activity was one reason for even more pauses than usual, drawn to this topic as they had been, and previously sharing each other’s minds. It was the first time he’d thought about reading someone’s mind just from neural activity through the force. This wasn’t possible with a click of his fingers of course, but the idea was there, and something to train in his own time.

“Scientists can, of course, read a mind through equipment. Perhaps it could be done in the force, and further, perhaps the Ichor could be studied as to how the neural signals are sent through the force to the ichor itself, as it seems to be a petri dish for want of a better word."

[member="Janick Beauchamp"]​

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"The hard part is precisely that, equipment. I don't have that equipment"

It seems that Jedi or Sith training favored early specialization. I knew Jedi were perceived in my corner of Wild Space as Force-using bounty hunters, I acknowledge that often a Force-order gains new expertise through people that joined later in life. Even so, perhaps I didn't develop that much expertise pre-Shusugaunt to be on the Sith's radar, and Shusugaunt was apparently enough to make me fall off their recruitment crosshairs, Janick thought, while her mind was wandering in a different direction. But yet, she knew that this neural bias [member="Taiden Keth"] implied was worth investigating prior to even making an attempt to take measurements. He raised interesting questions that she knew only a few Force-users would even be able to understand the full range of their implications, which, to some, may amount to hair-splitting. The only other person she heard about that could was Jessica. She, too, is a high-profile genius, but, unlike her, is light-sided. For some reason, she feels the urge to inquire about that Jessica, to make sure that she wasn't getting distorted information about her.

"But perhaps you know about this... Jessica, if only by name: I'm not entirely sure but she seems to be another person of similar intellectual level to mine. She is perhaps one of those people that best exemplify what Jedi can get out of someone who was trained as a Force-user later in life"

 

[Taiden Keth]

“I have heard of Jessica by reputation.” Taiden smiled, smelling the fresh herbs as they drifted over from the garden, only adding to how peaceful this moment had been for him. “I wish I had more time to spend at the temple, or with the order, I miss much that happens there, and those who carry its torch forward now wouldn’t recognize me, save a few.” If he was honest, he preferred it that way, the distance or space suited him.

Taiden stood up slowly, though his body language had been leaning toward this for a minute. He held out a hand to see if she would take it. “Let’s see if we can’t find the equipment we need.” The gesture was held for a long moment. Traditionally Echani didn’t exactly offer gestures like this, this was more his former familiarity with those at the temple and his training showing.

There was no rush, and no flinching if the gesture wasn’t taken. It seemed the time to conclude their walk back into the estate, perhaps he could offer some small token to return her kindness, but first the question. “What have you heard of Jessica?” He would ask on the way back in, assuming she came. Either way, he would not hold her hand long, before his own linked behind his back, reserved as he was.

The path back was much the same. Very organized and tidy. The floors free of clutter, and the rooms elegant but free of all but the necessities within them. It would be one room, in particular, that copied a certain design of his ancestors which they came to. Pure white, with a map of Dac in the center, 3D of course. In fact, anything he punched up on the screen ahead of them now would be in three dimensions, with a focus on movement, flow, and connecting points of interest.

“What tools precisely do you think would assist us?”

[member="Janick Beauchamp"]​

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"Equipment? I have to say that known ichor-detection devices seem to be constrained by their sensitivity: the most sensitive are barely sensitive enough to tell Force-sensitives apart, and even then there are risks of false-negatives and false-positives when used for this purpose, especially in the more borderline cases"

Here it was obvious to her that any precision level greater than what's necessary to detect Force-sensitives would be spurious at best using current equipment. Yes, she knew that EEGs could be used to determine what happens in the minds of Force-users when the Force was in use, but it seemed that, for a given use of the Force, the neural activity was more or less the same regardless of intensity while the power was kept up in most cases. Those few cases where power levels may change one's neural activity when a spell was used tended to be cognition-intensive. And yet, she wasn't that surprised that [member="Taiden Keth"] didn't know that much more about Jess than she herself did. Perhaps he was living like a similar kind of recluse to Venefica. It was the only person she actually heard by name that she knew could actually consider as an intellectual peer - and she knew that, even if the estimate of one-in-a-million held, there were still millions at her level, and she would likely not meet more than a handful of them at any given time.

"All I did know about her was that she was a genius, too, and she has several areas of expertise"

 

[Taiden Keth]

“Have you tried taking the opposite approach and monitoring the force sensitive themselves at the point of interaction, thus negating their strength in the force as an issue. I believe devices more capable of monitoring the minds of force users exist, as they are used often enough to treat medical conditions.” The problem being, of course, the huge variety of minds, species and other biology that existed out there, and how to account for it all in any test.

Whereas the ichor itself was a neutral and much simpler variable to measure. He realized the dilemma and leaned on the backfoot in thought. “May I ask. Is Ichor the only ingredient or substance that is malleable when touched by a force user’s thoughts or will, because if we have two at our disposal, then perhaps we can cross reference even small changes to perfect any equipment necessary.” That still left the problem of which device to use to attempt it. It might help weed out any errors in their testing procedure at least.

Taiden was getting engaged in this, and though he wasn’t animated, the display ahead of him certainly was. It flashed and changed, shifting to large 3d models of worlds, data, broadcasts, research papers with moving text and so forth. In fact, he read this motion and movement so quickly that compared to him reading her static book it might seem odd. His copy of which now rested on top of the console, carefully placed so not to damage it. Books were important to him, even if it was a challenge to read them, he often preferred taking his time.

“Hmm. Do you think from what little you know of Jessica, she would be open to collaborating on an involved work such as this?” She was after all a Master at the temple, and Taiden a Knight. Not a very overt Knight at that, preferring the assignments out of the limelight. He had no real idea how she would react if he approached her with this, possibly quite badly given how carefully one must operate within the Jedi Code.

[member="Janick Beauchamp"]​

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"As interesting as all this may sound, this is not something that can be resolved overnight. However, we have a much better idea of what happens in a person when the Force is in use. But it was found that most physiological reactions to a person using the Force for something other than enhancing a physiological function didn't depend on the power level of its use, so testing ichor properties using a physiological function as a proxy would probably require the subjects to use a power that enhances a physiological function. I'm sure Jessica would be open to collaborating"

Welp, that ought to explain why there has been no apparent progress in determining the exact nature of the Force for millenia: the equipment for testing any hypothesis was a major bottleneck and also hypotheses on the nature of the Force had the same effect as Force-philosophy when people attempted to discuss it in groups, probably because such items are part of Force-philosophy, Janick thought, realizing it's entirely possible that some Force-powers would require a heightened level of mental activity to work, and also to test what was happening with the various ichor. That would mean not the tests subjects, all of which would need informed consent for the experiment to proceed, would have to either know given powers at the onset or to learn them on the fly. And maybe one group would be the experimental group, while those who had to learn the stuff as part of the experiment would be the control group. Just that she could feel [member="Taiden Keth"] was on to something, and experiment design was the tricky portion. The hardest part for good research evidence was to have a variety of test subjects in stuff of this nature.

"One last thing: while the effects of the Force in people can be tested much more readily, it appears the nature of the Force itself has the same effect on people as would discussing other aspects of Force philosophy"

 

[Taiden Keth]

If Echani could laugh at her last observation he would have done, actually, there might have been a smile if she was paying attention, but they never lasted that long. Certainly, his body posture slowed at the console, working the controls which were largely circular by nature more deliberately.

Sadly Janick was right, he found little equipment that could be used to test what he was seeking, but he felt, that if there was a connection between the nature of the force, philosophy and what people could actually achieve themselves, then it must by design also be present in a person’s mind. The popular misconception of people labelling the mind and body so often separately never had sat well with him. Though he could understand that the wider force itself may just be said to be moving through a person, that notion may also be discounted if the force user's philosophy dictated that they commanded the force, not the other way around.

“Yes. It would depend if the person’s force techniques and training dictated that they commanded the force, not that the force moved through them,” which would sadly lean more toward darksiders than light, though certainly not exclusively. Perhaps not dark and light, but active, reactive or responsive, and passive personalities making the difference in how effective the testing could be. Hmm.

Many variables to consider, he started taking notes of the different testing criteria. He had yet to consider as she had, just how difficult informed consent while keeping an unbiased test would be, perhaps over a longer period of testing that might still be possible, when the consent was no longer in the back of a student's mind. He wasn’t sure if he should make an entry in the scrolls of Keth as well but deeply considered it given how valuable this discussion had been to him, that and he regarded Janick highly already. “Then we should seek Jessica out, to take this further.” Though the introductions to broach the topic would be difficult, and he was no wordsmith or speaker. “Perhaps written missive might be better received, do wish anything added to it for your part?” A preference for taking his time with the written word, especially so given how slow he read or wrote.

[member="Janick Beauchamp"]​

 

[Janick Beauchamp]

"I'm happy that I could even have discussed the matter productively"

And lucky, too. In most Force-using circles, I knew intelligence was either undervalued or otherwise not fairly valued, such certain areas being valued more highly than others. There is no rush, since I knew funding for that sort of research project worked on a slow schedule, especially the more complex the experimental protocols got, Janick thought, suspecting that Jessica was a very busy person. Also, adding personalities into the mix made the need to consider what's reliable for testing active vs. passive personality. It was going to be very involved for it to produce data of any value, and require quite a bit of resources, and not just equipment. [member="Taiden Keth"] would likely have realized as much. What was clear, however, was that few Force-users would want to be subjected to a battery of experiments, even if each individual experiment had to be staggered in time to reduce the strain on the test subjects and, of course, each of them would know exactly what the experiment entails on their schedules before they could give their approval for the ethics portion of the experiment.

"Thank you. It has been a pleasure for me"

 

[Taiden Keth]

“The pleasure was mine.” Taiden bowed again, then spent a few moments finishing up on the console. “If you need anything else, the estate is at your disposal, whether I am here or not. At any time.” They would let her in as a guest. He got too few guests here and with his work around the galaxy the estate’s space was wasted with nobody in it.

The Echani would then walk her to the front room, taking the long way back through the garden if she followed, glancing over to the herbs, and plants to make sure everything was attended to, before slowly arriving back in the hall. Two servants would be there, dressed while not as traditionally as he was, they were still mostly in lighter colors, greys, whites, yellows being the boldest break from tradition.

“Thank you again, if you need anything, a room, or anything else they will happily attend to you as my guest.” With that final bow, a small show of familiarity and affection in a smile and more importantly a lingering, Taiden turned to go to his study. No doubt to disappear into his meditations and contemplations for several days.

It would be some hours before he had managed to write the letter, then a few more before he’d added his finishing touches. Going into intricate detail, trying to cover everything he could, in a manner a Jedi Master would want to receive it, while still retaining brevity in the written word, none of which was easy for him.

Fin for Taiden.
[member="Janick Beauchamp"]

OOC

Spoiler

Thank you for the fun thread