Pecha Kucha

[Jessica Med-Beq]

Prior to starting the lesson by night, with [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] and [member="Paige Blossom"], in tow, she was hosting a Pecha Kucha night in Kachirho's central park, bounded by the wroshyr trees, in an attempt to allow the city's garrison or residents to actually show what they are passionate about. Each participant was presenting 20 slides on a topic of their choice, and they could spend, on average, 20 seconds per slide, with different screens earmarked for the process, along with their respective projectors. It was a wild success among the non-Wookiee residents of the city, and the session lasted until the projectors' batteries were exhausted. Once the Pecha Kucha night, which amounted to a rapid succession of 7-minute crash courses (or rather, 6 minute, 40 seconds), was over, she met the students with two different screens next to each other. Once they were sitting next to the pair of depleted projectors...

"Welcome, young apprentices. I trust that you're willing to learn something new. The things that I know you will learn without fail are Electric Judgment and Force-stun; if you want to learn something else, please let me know"

 

[Priscilla Utorna]

Paige had never heard of a Pecha Kucha before, but got the general gist of the situation after seeing several 6 minutes and 40 seconds presentations in succession with no signs of stopping, although they did actually come to an end thankfully because she knew that most of what was being presented she could do with the force anyway, thus there was no need to pay attention to such trivial demonstrations.

She was here with her instructor, [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] and another student she had not become acquainted with quite yet, [member="Yuroic Xeraic"]. While she awaited further instruction, she stood blankly at the screen, then at her fellow pupil and then at her educator wondering what on earth any of this had to do with "Electric Judgement" or "Force stunning" somebody; though it was probably because these projectors had run out of power and needed recharged or something along those lines.

Still, she stood with her hands at the length of her thighs and was twiddling her thumbs, waiting patiently for her to speak.

 

[WelshPsych]

Yuroic walked into the room, a wooden crutch holding him up as his legs hobbled with a pained expression now nearly permanent on his face. His robes tied into a knot at the short stump of his right arm. He sat down, grateful as he hated having to stand nowadays. His legs caused him much grief yet no medicine or healers could lessen it. Physically they said he had healed perfectly, yet he felt that they missed something with pain he is in.

Once he looked from the presentation at Jessica then at her Padawan, he was surprised that Jessica was going to teach this, from the appearance of confusion, very new Padawan such a dangerous Force move as Electrical Judgement. However, he did not vocalise his thoughts, trusting that she knew best. She had helped Jairdain in her training so he had no doubt in her skills. Force Stunning was another interesting technique he thought be wise to learn, if he were to ever return to combat. His skills in the Force were not as well trained as his combative skills were.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Paige Blossom"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Electric Judgment is about using the Force for electricity, projecting a bolt of green lightning. Often people are reluctant to learn Electric Judgment because of its association, true or false, with anger and provocation, or other emotions commonly used by dark-siders when using Force-lightning"

True, [member="Paige Blossom"] was a little green in the ways of the Force, unlike [member="Yuroic Xeraic"], to whom Jessica taught psychometry, alongside Jairdain; she'd know if either of them was using the dark side. But she trusted Paige to learn something this advanced this early in her learning curve, precisely because she knew how the Ming Po's intellect operated and also padawans at that stage of their learning would not have the power to weaponize it, only to use it for utilitarian purposes such as recharging batteries. She would also realize that the hard part was not to describe Electric Judgment in terms of Maxwell equations. Admittedly, it's precisely because she was solving one or more sets of Maxwell equations in her head (with its corresponding cost of computational power) that she could pretty much use Electric Judgment as a very similar level of power compared to Force-lightning, and that she knew that a blue-purple bolt would be the sign someone was using the dark side to project lightning.

"Visualize the bolt of electricity coming from your finger to the projector's battery, and then use the Force to get the bolt out"

 

[Priscilla Utorna]

"..." A sigh escaped Paige's lips as she was almost certain [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] had lost her mind. Originally, she could probably live with the heating up something and cooling it down, but this just seemed completely and utterly crazy.

Perhaps she had missed the memo about not quite understanding how to make electricity using a sentient body, other than holding a metal rod above her head for a few hours on a rainy day. Regardless, she pointed her finger out and just... imagined something coming out of it. At first, that something was probably blood, but thankfully enough her skin was sealing any attempt of causing permanent damage to herself. She re-focused once again and did the old faithful of imagining her hand against a black backdrop and then sparks erupting from her skin. Of course, the way Jessica described it seemed like the lightning was actually inside of her body and she simply had to bring it out, so really with such a basic description it seemed like nothing more than child's play of forcing (pun intended) it out of her.

It took a while, but eventually some sparks emitted, obviously Paige wasn't adept enough to fully master the technique yet. Perhaps the fellow pupil, [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] would have better luck in doing so.

 

[WelshPsych]

He listened to Jessica's description of Electrical Judgement. Sparks of the body, he could somewhat understand that concept. Texts spoke of how the body fired electrical impses around the body. Perhaps he needed to tap into that part of his body. Getting in as comfortable position as he could, Yuroic closed his eyes and allowed his mind to explore his body. He could feel the heart thumping, the lungs expanding and contracting, the music of life. Reach forward he focused his energy, attempting to move his energy to his fingertips.

Nothing. Shaking his head, Yuroic decided a second attempt would be needed, he knew that Electrical Judgement was going to be a difficult Force Power to learn. He knew that it would require practice more than this lesson to master it on command. Yuroic took another deep breath, seeing the Padawan next to him, produce feeble sparks. Yuroic acknowledged this as a good attempt with a nod of his head. Returning to his focus, he closed his eyes once more before attempting to use the electricity in his body. However, it was another resounding nothing. Frustration was gnawing at the back of his mind. It shouldn't be this difficult!

In his final attempt he gritted his teeth, his anger at his failures fueled his power and he felt a blue bolt leap uncontrollably from his hand. This was not what he was meant to do. He knew it was meant to be green not blue lightning. It had been documented in archive holocrons as such. He cursed himself mentally and told himself to breath deeply and remove any frustrations, doubts and fears. He needed to focus on himself, use his body. Extending his hand, he reached forward and pooled what he could grasp of the Force in his hand. Feeling the electricity move in his body, he sent it shooting down his arm to the fingertips where a tiny green bolt darted forward weakly.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Paige Blossom"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"The reason why I wanted Paige to learn Electric Judgment this early is because the risks of that power backfiring are much less severe than waiting to be more powerful or more advanced. As for you two, I feel that, with more practice, you can actually recharge the projectors in full"

The same could also be said of Force-healing: she knew a case or two of people who waited too long to learn it and found out that they were actually causing cancers. And no, [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] didn't have a whole lot better luck than [member="Paige Blossom"] had. In fact, he used the dark side, and hence Force-lightning, before getting the right source of energy. Perhaps part of that was because Paige was able to get her nervous system more active faster. Perhaps it was the result of Paige's intellectual speed and agility. Then again, Paige was perhaps too weak to actually cause any real damage from using EJ at this point. But even with the two students' sparks, she knew that the projectors' batteries were far from filled: they were still low on power. Maybe her next Pecha Kucha will be on Electric Judgment, when the next Pecha Kucha night will be held. Unless they wanted otherwise. Then again, they still needed practice; while calculating Maxwell equations in her head was a reliable way to get it, it was not for everybody. However, for whom it was doable, they may as well crack open their favorite introductory topology textbook and learn IAC.

"You should probably try again so as to recharge the projectors' batteries"

 

[Priscilla Utorna]

Paige jumped as [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] erupted an array of blue lighting from his finger, startling her then nervously laughing it off as her heartrate increased exponentially. Though she knew he was not a dark sider, she knew the exact frustration that he was feeling when he couldn't properly do Electric Judgement. Which only encouraged her to try harder in doing so herself.

Paige closed her eyes once more and imagined the electricity surging through her nerves from her brain, probably a bit too graphic of a description but that's the way she imagined herself producing electricity. Eventually, all she saw was her hand and the electricity shooting out, tiny green sparks that weren't even going anywhere near the projector, rather fizzling into the ground beneath her. A wave of frustration overcame her and her face tightened slightly, giving a disappointed and pained expression; though she didn't let it get the best of her. Patiently, she reconciled her emotions and the sparks emitting from her fingers stopped entirely.

After taking a deep breath, she imagined the scenario once again and pulled the electric out with a sudden movement of the force, manifesting in a slightly stronger green bolt of energy that began to slowly charge the projector.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[WelshPsych]

Yuroic closed his eyes and focused. He allowed his emotions to rush over him but not control him, he instead focused on the build of electricity that shooting around his body. Knowing there was plenty in his body, Yuroic built up current in his fingertips before shooting out a more controlled stream of green bolts. Hitting the projector, his strength in the Force allowed him to charge it at a faster rate than Paige could. Though it was nowhere near as powerful as he knew the move could become.

Yuroic released the current of lightning when he felt his body start to fatigue. It was a draining power, something that would have to be considered with battle and using it against a Sith opponent. Standing, Yuroic went and poured himself a glass of water and a second for Paige,. Offering her the water before he sat down, Yuroic gulped down his water quickly. Clearly very thirsty.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Paige Blossom"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"By now you have realized why using Electric Judgment can likely lead to headaches. Mental conditioning is key if you wish to use Electric Judgment regularly. Even I get headaches from using Electric Judgment. While what worked best for me was to solve for Maxwell equations in my head, I realize that not everybody's brains are wired the same"

Yes, she could feel Paige's brain glowing in the Force, as her mental activity increased in an attempt to muster the requisite charge; in fact, she realized a while ago that, as far as she was concerned, Electric Judgment fed from her own mental activity that way. From there, she had a better idea as to how their respective brains are wired. But Jessica knew that, given how her brain is wired, she just couldn't use any old calculation process to get the charges flowing; solving for Maxwell equations in her head was the way that was most effective in terms of computational power vs. electrical current for her. The only reason why [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] could even charge the projector faster than [member="Paige Blossom"] could was that he had more power than Paige did; otherwise, she knew Paige's mental conditioning was pretty good, very similar to those Jedi she knew were just as clearly a brain as the Ming Po is. Why is it that Yuroic couldn't ask his beloved Jairdain about Electric Judgment? What made him trust me over Jairdain? I know Jairdain well enough to say that she knows it, he would have trusted her at least as much, if not more so, than me, she thought, while realizing that the projectors are not yet fully charged. So she started solving for the Maxwell equations of the projectors' batteries, with the first set of equations being directed at the battery that needed it most, and the second following the first. And then the green bolt of lightning went towards both projectors.

"I think we're due for a break"

 

[Priscilla Utorna]

Paige giggled quietly as the electricity erupted from [member="Yuroic Xeraic"], though her eyes were not open she could feel it through the force as the energy emerged from his fingertips; herself stopping as the man went to sit down, although probably not as tired as him she could clearly tell that she herself was losing concentration and as such was difficult to maintain a constant energy output. As the man offered her water, she gladly accepted it and took a sip from it before beginning to stare at the ground for some time until [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] approached them.

"Maxwell what?" Rolling her head back and cracking her neck, as it had been stationary since she began trying to conjure the electricity, before sighing. "I think I can sense a migraine coming on..." speaking sarcastically, though her head was hurting due to dehydration, so she continued to sip away at her water.

Paige was startled at the sudden jolt of energy coming from Jessica while she was standing still with her water, spilling some of it on her hand, and sighing while wiping it off, although perhaps a migraine was actually coming on as she began to see zigzags of white and black lines across her vision, causing her to shut her eyes and exhibit a screwed up face indicating pain, before re-opening her eyes once again and trying to concentrate.

 

[WelshPsych]

Yuroic drank several sips of water as he watched calmly as Jessica released her green bolts with more ease than either he or Paige had displayed. It was an impressive display and Yuroic appreciated the brief break that Jessica offered. He had noticed that Paige was starting to suffer from a migraine. Yuroic understood the pain, offering her some pain relief that he carried for when his legs became severe.

Finishing his drink of water, stretching out Yuroic watched as Jessica finish charging the projectors. He had originally thought of asking Jairdain to teach him more combative Force Powers, however, due to her other commitments Yuroic decided to seek help from other Jedi around the temple. It also meant that he had to socialise with others, something he had started to avoid doing due to his self consciousness of his injuries.

[member="Paige Blossom"] | [member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"No, Paige, it wasn't sarcasm at all: in fact, you just subconsciously learned battle precognition, in the sense that you seem to be able, for whatever reason, to predict the migraine's arrival. I could even feel your memory working harder than you could consciously put it to work with a headache active. Your brain is a fabulous machine, and you should embrace the full range of its capabilities. The right bits of knowledge will make you an intellectual force to be reckoned with"

What's happening? I knew Paige's brain was fast, but it's only now that I realize the full extent of her genius. She isn't just a regular smart girl; she may as well be learning stuff subconsciously. If her headaches didn't numb her Force-senses, she would realize that my brain is glowing more brightly now than at the beginning of the lesson, she thought, while realizing that there was more to that headache than just a headache. Because Jessica could sense [member="Paige Blossom"]'s memory absorbing a lot more information than her conscious absorption rate with the headache, thanks to Paige's hippocampus shining so brightly in the Force that, from her standpoint, she temporarily appeared more powerful than [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] was. But Paige's Force-signature faded just as quickly, back to its normal self. It was around that time that Jessica saw Yuroic give her painkillers. Even with painkillers, however, she knew that Paige should take her time to cure them. And now she has come to realize that Jairdain was, in fact, a very busy girl, but perhaps Jair's roles were more in demand elsewhere.

"That said, since Paige asked about them, Maxwell equations are about the relationships between the electric and magnetic fields, but that's as far as I'm willing to teach you about those right now" she told the two, hoping not to turn beet red, realizing that solving the actual equations requires a working knowledge and understanding of vector calculus that neither may actually possess.

 

[Priscilla Utorna]

"So much information, though thanks for the compliment." screwing her head up again and taking the painkillers that [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] had offered her, smiling and saying. "Thanks a bunch" nodding to him and taking them and then taking a sip of water to wash them down. The headache was still present, though usually painkillers took a while to actually kick in anyway. Paige saw [member="Jessica Med-Beq"] blushing slightly, wondering why she was doing so. There was nothing embarrassing about being smart, God did she know that. She was a smart woman, evident by her using logic to use the force, something she knew was rather uncommon.

Afterwards, she looked to Jessica explaining Maxwell equations and just sighed. "I mean I know I'm above average when it comes to intelligence, but I didn't really specialize in mathematics of physics or whatever this comes up under." Looking down at the ground and grinning. "I bet even Yuroic doesn't understand them." Nudging the man's shoulder, noticing that he was being quite quiet though she didn't blame him, after the energy that he had conjured up moments ago it was not surprising that he probably wanted to be left alone, still she made an effort to appear friendly, even if her people skills were severely lacking at this point.

 

[WelshPsych]

Yuroic blinked as Jessica talked about some sort of Maxwill, or Maxwell, possibly Maximum, equations. It went straight over his head. Living on Nar Shaddaa, knowledge of that style was wasted, you need to know how to survive, people skills, how to intimidate and how to persuade people. At least Yuroic needed to. Looking over at Paige as she nudged him to join in, he gave a short chuckle and nodded his head. "Equations go over my head, I tend to be more practical. Easier to just be ignorant to that stuff I find." He nudged Paige gently back.

He wasn't tired from the exercise, he was eager to get back into things. It had been awhile since he had a training session, normally it was combat based, lightsaber training, something he was well skilled in. Other Force Powers did not appeal to him. He needed powers that were combat practical, after Mirial, if he was to ever get back into battle. He needed powers that worked with his combat, not ones that would help in other areas. Though getting back into combat seemed a long way off.

However, with his success in finding the old Jedi planet, Hyu-Ken Carta, he felt sure that he was inching his way closer to becoming the man he once was. "So what is next in our training?"

[member="Paige Blossom"] | [member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"I hope that you understand what use you might have for Electric Judgment in battle, even though I made you practice EJ for more utilitarian uses. Much as dark-siders would use Force-lightning, but here it's about disabling or disarming someone without killing"

In fact, Jessica did turn beet-red: not so much because she sounded stupid (she didn't), but she was talking about that stuff to an audience that clearly tuned her out. So she couldn't talk about subconscious learning and how it was long thought to be the domain of Force-using geniuses, no more than she could talk about what could cause some highly logical Force-users, whose intellectual compositions were rather similar to [member="Paige Blossom"]'s, to struggle with the Force. However, she couldn't exactly blame [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] for wanting to learn more combat-oriented Force-powers. It was easy to feel that way after surviving a devastating defeat. The next power she had in store for the two of them before they can return to their quarters to rest was Force-stun. It was not time yet to talk about the three tiers of the power, of which she was only at Force-stasis. But the power is about pinching the targets' nerves. So, before she could allow Paige to proceed, she has to make sure the headaches are manageable; there will be a delay before the painkillers actually kick in.

"Before we move on to Force-stun, which allows to stun people or critters without killing them, I have but one question to ask Paige: do you think your headaches are endurable?"

 

[Priscilla Utorna]

[SIZE=10.5pt]"[/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]Well, it looks awfully similar to lightning... surely you could zap somebody with it regardless.[/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]" Smiling nervously to [member="Jessica Med-Beq"].[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]Paige had never been involved in combat, at least on a large scale. The most she had done was thrown snowballs at other children in her childhood, outside of that remaining a pacifist for the majority of her life. Looking towards, [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] she could clearly tell he was a seasoned combat veteran, and Jessica, well, she had heard she was an extremely experienced fleet admiral. She couldn't help but feel slightly out of place in this crowd.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]"[/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]I've had migraines all my life, if I was going to let this one stop me then I'd be damned, though it doesn't feel like normal. Usually I wouldn't be able t o stand and speak like this, I'd need to lie down, but I feel quite... calm.[/SIZE][SIZE=10.5pt]"[/SIZE]

 

[WelshPsych]

Yuroic could sense that combat was not Paige's style. It was easy to see that she was green in terms of combat. There was nothing wrong with not wanting to be involved in combat, it was grizzly and harsh. Killing was something that changed a person, even if killing the person was in order to save your life, it never felt natural or right to Yuroic. However, unlike Paige, Yuroic was not a pacifist. He felt that the Sith needed to be fought and blood would be shed until they were stopped.

He smiled as Paige convinced Jessica that her migraine was not that bad. He could admire the determination the girl had. It would be all too easy for a person to just give up and let the pain swallow them up but she fought it. While it would not be the easy way, Yuroic believed it was the right way to be. Looking over to Jessica, Yuroic was curious to understand how Force Stun worked.

"So how does one use Force Stun?" He asked, eager to learn.

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"] | [member="Paige Blossom"]

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Good. You will realize, as you get better at using Force-stun, that you might be able to stun multiple beings at once at later stages, which is called Force-stasis. While i didn't get up to that level yet, I know that the stasis field is the ultimate level of that power"

Now that she knew that headaches were part of Paige's daily grind, perhaps because she was pretty accustomed to high levels of mental activity, she knew better how to move forward. The temple kept a few Eol Sha crabs in reserve for training people in Force-stun; they were simple enough creatures to be stunned by beginners in Force-stun, such as [member="Yuroic Xeraic"] or [member="Paige Blossom"]. Jessica had to wait for a while for the crabs to arrive on-stage, while the projectors used for the Pecha Kucha night were being taken to the temple's storage, which took longer because the sheer amount of chairs in the city's central park made the process of stowing chairs rather protracted. She now attempts to explain how the process of stunning people is done, while awaiting the arrival of the crabs, captured in an attempt to pacify the local population of Eol Sha that was terrorized by a crab epidemic, which turns out to be caused by a Netherworld rift in a nearby cave. Once the crabs' cages have arrived... time was short.

"Force-stun is about pinching nerves, so you might want to use telekinesis on the crabs' pressure points. However, do be careful: if you apply too much pressure on a pressure point you may end up paralyzing the target for prolonged periods of time even though you may leave the target alive"

 

[Priscilla Utorna]

"Would pinching someone's nerves not just cause them to become paralyzed to anything that connected to that..." mumbling to herself quietly, though regardless she attempted to do as [member="Jessica Med-Beq"], perhaps this would be the one that she could nail perfectly.

As per usual with every force power, she closed her eyes and imagined the crabs against darkness, though this time the persistent snapping of their claws proved to be a distraction towards her mental concentration, each snip causing her eye to twitch slightly in an effort to not fail at this as bad as the last time. Snip, snip, snip. Argh, that's s annoying. Speaking into herself, and had she not known any better she would have responded in a flurry of anger and probably ended up killing the harmless crabs. Though, she resisted and simply imagined the nerves that she had seen all too often in diagrams of humans and near-human species, so she assumed something as mundane as a crab would be just as easy to deal with.

Just as explained, she pinched the pressure points specifically connecting to the crab's pinchers, causing them to cease momentarily, but it proved too much after about 2 seconds and the crab kept snipping away.

[member="Yuroic Xeraic"]