Space Witchcraft 101

[Cathul Thuku]

For far too long, Cathul has been operating the Mandalore Psychology Clinic full-time (and even more than full-time: overtime and even all-nighters were common for the past few years), charging as much as standard therapist fare plus the cost of the shuttle ticket for the closest off-system therapist for a therapy session. She even went so far as to advertise on the HoloNet as "the only reputable therapist within 12 parsecs of Mandalore" and some patients, most of which lived on Mandalore itself, even referred to her as a space witch, more than simply a witch doctor. For much of her existence, she always thought that her brain had "twice the power" and Force-sensitivity was just another outlet for her to use her smarts. She would think that, while her brain may well have "twice the power", said power would only increase if she had proper Force training. Although she knows that her finances will suffer somewhat, she always feel as if personal fulfillment and greater mastery of the Force will make her a better therapist. Even so, she did manage to learn a few spells for other mando'ade to use.

"All right, today, we'll cover some of the more exotic spells in existence, that few, if any, know how to use. Today you will learn how to turn sugar into alcohol as well as to modify the weight of objects"

Before the two students scheduled to learn the two spells, called Force-alcohol and respectively, she prepares a few glasses filled with hot water into which a few teaspoons of brown sugar have been poured.

[member="Allara Ven"] [member="Titan Kryze"]

 

[4ND-R0]

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

A door clicked open and a young woman stepped into the room the Witch Thuku had prepared. She appeared meek, but otherwise okay. She was dressed in garb that seemed to be a "neo-Dathomirian" look. Her body was covered with tattoos, mostly following the Witch of Dathomir look to match her clothes, until it came to her right arm, which was riddled with precisely scarred patterns familiar to the Vong. Straddling her waist was a slithering, black, serpentine creature.

"Hello? I signed up for the magic lesson?" She said, somewhat timidly. She had never had been in such public areas as of late. It was little bit of a shock.

 

[Cathul Thuku]

Background music

"I know. Please take a seat. But don't drink from the glasses just yet. They are training reagents for the first spell you'll learn today" Cathul pointed towards the prototype broomstick. "Don't worry about flying on broomsticks for today: the suppliers haven't officially released the flying broomsticks just yet"

There is just enough sugar for them to transform into one dose of alcohol. Which means about one 25-ml tablespoon of brown sugar dissolved in each cup. Also Cathul wore the pointy hats many a Dathomirian horror flick used. Cathul secretly hoped that the release of these broomsticks will happen soon enough. She was a Witch but perhaps she watched too many Dathomirian horror flicks for her own good; it seems that the Dathomirians have their own brand of horror flicks. Or, if not herself, Charzon did. In these Dathomirian horror flicks, the Witches (and Wizards; a few Force-sensitive males ended up learning the spells in these holomovies) always seemed to wear black pointy hats, and flew in atmosphere using a broomstick. And Cathul cracked open her spellbook at this time. Broomsticks, oh broomsticks, what does magic mean to you now? They will learn the limitations soon enough.

"At the end of the day, you will be able to brew your own supplies of alcohol! And also to be able to make items lighter (or heavier) than they really are! For a short amount of time of course"

[member="Allara Ven"] [member="Titan Kryze"]

 

[Titan]

"I would prefer the latter power over the former." Titan said as he walked in, he wasn't a big drinker and didn't plan on becoming one anytime soon.

[member="Cathul Thuku"] [member="Allara Ven"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"Patience. I understand that you're more interested in just one of the two and that you're not one to drink. Nevertheless even if you don't yourself drink, it's possible your vode may be bigger drinkers"

Cathul would probably drink it all if they all successfully learn the spell. Fermentation of sugar is one thing, it just doesn't seem to be a common spell. She was a Witch, but partially trained in the ways of the Sith Lords. Just that she doesn't seem to fit a Sith Lord (if only as a Sith Sorceress) mold; now that her verd'goten was over, she was free to do and learn what she wished as a Witch. But she would probably have any apprentice read both Jedi and Sith Codes as she was back on Dagobah (but Dagobah Tech even had NFU students learn about both Codes so long as they took introductory philosophy or psychology courses).

"Before you actually attempt to cast the Force-alcohol spell, it is good to know how the spell works. I'll spare you the chemical details of how the spell works; Allara, if you're interested, you may ask about those chemical details later. For now you have to understand that what it does is to transform the sugar content of the target into alcohol. You can make your enemies drunk provided your enemies are fresh. Just don't use it for AOE"

And even kill them outright, she thought.

[member="Titan Kryze"] [member="Allara Ven"]

 

[4ND-R0]

[member="Cathul Thuku"] | [member="Titan Kryze"]

Allara nodded. She already knew how sugar became alcohol. The sugar was broken apart and fermented in a chemical process involving yeast. "No, no. I understand. My old master told me of how his family used to brew ale back on Naboo. "It's just, I'm rather curious how we're supposed to use the Force to replicate fermentation in the glass." She said, tipping her head off to the side a little bit. She kept her eyes on the Twi'lek carefully. This teacher seemed rather odd to her, looking more like something out of a children's book about wizards, witches, and wands.

 

[Cathul Thuku]

Cathul was not in the least surprised that Allara actually knew the chemical details of how the spell worked. Yeast was the main ingredient to make alcohol without making use of the Force; yet, yeast was a catalyst. Perhaps in the end the chemical details of how the spell worked mattered. Glycolisis was the easy part, one that did not require the Force. The main part where the Force was important was the catalyst, ADP and phosphate. She was too tempted to spell out the chemical reactions involved on some holoboard to say where exactly the Force would be used and how the Force acted at that step. But not many spellweavers would have been able to do such.

"You're asking for how to make use of the Force to substitute for yeast. That is at the core of the spell. Sorry for having to talk about the chemical details of the spell when I said that I wouldn't. Using the Force to substitute for yeast amounts to using the Force to create virtual phosphate and ADP molecules, in a very similar way that people do to Force-accelerate growth of plants, which also make use of the very same virtual ADP and ATP molecules. In both cases they are catalysts for different reactions - reactions that are ultimately the basis of how the Force power works"

A-ha... Cathul can just modify her Force-alcohol spell a little bit so that she could use the Force to enhance crops, so that it targets different chemical reactions. Alcoholic fermentation can be substituted for the photosynthesis one, where the caster supplies both virtual photons, ADP and ATP molecules. Her approach to spellweaving was highly systematic: understand the chemical or physical processes involved in the spell first, and then weave a spell out of it. The main difference being that fermentation is exothermal whereas photosynthesis is endothermal. For some reason she didn't know how to Force-accelerate plant growth while she can do it now. She almost views spellweaving as if some engineering process, something that requires scientific knowledge to get it right. But in that she differed from many a spellweaver. She mystified more than just a few NFUs with not only the use she made of the Force (a.k.a. space magic) but also how she created new spells from memory. Like Charzon and Jessica.

"All too often poor understanding of the spell's function can cause said spell to fizzle. Many a space wizard failed to learn spells because they failed to understand the spell's inner workings. You think I'm a witch from some Dathomiri horror holoflick but now that you know what the yeast does and how to use the Force to replicate the reaction taking place in the yeast... and even Charzon, the designer of the flying broom over there, had that impression at first"

[member="Allara Ven"] [member="Titan Kryze"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

After she gave her explanations for how Force-alcohol worked, it seemed that both people actually learned how to make alcoholic witch brews based on sugar, as Cathul tested all the samples, all of which had just the alcoholic taste she would expect out of a Force-fermentated mixture containing the amount of sugar she put inside the practice targets. But clearly Allara was better at that aspect of spellcasting than Titan was, for Allara had a better knowledge and more motivation to learn about how to use the Force to make alcohol using the Force as the yeast (i.e. catalyst) and even circumvent the normal chemical restrictions. And the spell both pupils came for, well, made use of physics few would actually get the chance to learn, and even fewer would in the context of spellcasting. In fact space wizards would usually refrain from learning such advanced physics, sticking to their spirit ichor and whatnot to cast spells.

"Now we'll cover how to change the weight of an item: the principles behind the action of the Force behind it may be a little abstract to you but I understand it in full. What you actually need to understand is that the Higgs field actually has a nonzero vacuum expectation value, or vev, which determines the mass of the target. One word of warning though: the spell changes the vev of the Higgs field, or Higgs vev, inside the target, and the mass of the object is proportional to the Higgs vev. The heavier the target, the less you can change its Higgs vev"

Cathul knows that the Higgs field arises as a result of symmetry breaking which, in its unbroken state, would mean that hte particles are massless and only after the symmetry is broken can the field acquire a vev. But she expects to be bombarded with questions about the Higgs field, the Higgs mechanism afterward. That was the tedious part of teaching the spell as she expected it to be, if it occured.

[member="Allara Ven"] [member="Titan Kryze"]