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A touch of brain

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WanTheFloof

WanTheFloof

Active Member
RP Date
Y42
RP Location
Kennewes University
Egwene had graduated Kenwess some time ago with a degree in several subjects. Not because a degree was her limit, but because she was bored of the slow pace in which things were moving and she could only handle a degree before going insane and fleeing into the wider universe for a year. Though, she came back eventually, and managed to get a temporary position as a professor due to her Ken-TEC connections.

With a class in front of her, she began to scrawl a formula on the holographic display in front of her.

'c = 1/(e0m0)1/2 = 2.998 X 10(8)m/s '

"Maxwell's Equations are the foundation of the understanding of Light, and indeed all electromagnetic understanding, in whole or in part. Ampere's Law, Faraday's Law, Lenz's Law, and Gauss' Law are the concepts that make up these equations, each one pertaining to a different part of the spectrum. Using some-" Egwene paused for a moment and laughed a little "-not-so-simple calculus, Maxwell's equations can be used to show that the electric and magnetic fields obey wave equations. The speed of an electromagnetic wave is determined by the constants of electricity and magnetism. Light, is an electromagnetic wave; discovered by the scientist James Clerk Maxwell, and detailed in the equation on the board.

This equation and Maxwell's work revolutionised the technological era, the discovery of radio waves, Infrared light, ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays all coming within a century of the discovery of this formula. It is the core to the understanding of all electromagnetic properties, and so it is the first thing I shall be teaching you before we progress"
 
Ceilia had entered, dressed in her usual university uniform, having caught a transport all the way here to attend some of the special seminars held this week. The blue eyed brunette kept her hair up in a mature bun for once. She carried very little on her, not needing most manual tools, something that those who knew here were well aware of. It was also a good reason to take a trip away from home, and move on from her late husband, only sad she couldn't bring her children along. But it was fine, her step mother having pushed her to take the trip, having offered to sponsor it as well as watch the kids for her.

The young woman with the best smile she could muster, simply rested her interlaced hands on the desk top, pulling up her note program to begin transcribing. She simply sat there and observed, seeming to just take all the information in as it was given, even though her mind was doing far more currently.
 
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"Light's speed is the fastest anything in the universe can go. Going faster is an impossibility, and terribly inpractical if you could. The majority of FTL drives operate in bending space to shorten the distance between here and there rather than moving fast. Additionally, all electromagnetic photons carry thermal energy, but Light photons are the one's with the greatest capability for thermal energy, which is why lasers are uses rather than electroweaponry. Though generally Light photons do not have the energy to do much in the way of weaponry, which is actually why the world laser is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Through this you can channel varying amounts of light photons through varying lenses that condense the power to combat levels"

Elou would then pull out a magnifying glass and a piece of paper, smiling softly as she looked up and then held the magnifying glass up.
"This small experiment proves that light's thermal energy can be brought to dangerous levels quite simply, though never enough to truly effect body armour or compound armours, it shows the basic process in which a Laser does melt through a person's breastplate" While talking, the focused beam of light would fall on the piece of paper and, after a few moments, catch it on fire. "Though, the size of the magnifying glass you'd need to effect a person is inordinately large. I don't suggest that as a science project"

She would then put out the fire with her hand, and smile to the class.
"Any questions?"
 
The young woman having just finished her current note, raised an eager hand. "Wouldn't ultra-violet be the most effective spectrum of light to use for laser weapon technology, and is the lack of overall effectiveness why most have started resorting to using lasers in a lesser role for weapon technology? Such as laser based firing pin replacements for more effective use of caseless munitions.", Ceilia asked, having remembered some of her step mother's mumblings when helping her in the lab. The organic seeming girl knew some of this, but it was exciting to learn all these finer points of the science behind such technologies. Perhaps it would broaden her knowledge base, so she could be even more helpful in the lab.
 
"The ultra-violet laser, or the 'Xaser' can be more effective in some situations. However, due to the problems of creating lenses that can reflect X-ray waves, the Xaser has to get all it's grunt-force in one pass of the gain medium. While this might be a helpful thing for ground level simple rifles, mutli-lensed sniper rifles and tank weaponry benefit from the increased focus and precision that comes from having several lenses. Additionally, if you want your Xaser to be more powerful, you need a more powerful energy pack, which has its own size or technological drawbacks. Carting around a small nuclear reactor sucks on multiple fronts.

While the universe is broad and technological capabilities between people are radically different, there might be a power pack of sufficent power to allow an Xaser to pull all the requisite energy in one pass, but that is something you'll be finding in the most advanced nations in the universe. On ground level, for you and me, it's not something you should hold your breath for"

She'd scrawl more equations on the board and then point to them with her laser pointer. It was a handy thing, lasers.
"As for effectiveness and efficiency, it is, like everything, dependant on the situation. A solar-charged or fusion breeder pack for a standard assault rifle sized laser gun can store up to two hundred shots in a single thirty bullet mag size, recharges over time, weighs significantly less and requires less skill to be accurate with, has less moving parts and thus greater reliability on the ground, blows people up with flash-boiling, and can be modified to different power settings at the flick of a switch. While anti-infantry weaponry against heavy armour is a dumb decision for anyone to make regardless of what weapon you are using, there is some benefit to volleyed laser fire against tanks and power armour. The compounding electromagnetic photons hitting the side can interfere with the internal electronics. You'll still want to use proper anti-armour weaponry like a Guass Bazooka or a heavy plasma cartridge if you can, but you are not completely helpless if you are deprived of these weapons, so long as you have the rest of your platoon with you. Additionally they are decent budget anti-aircraft weaponry, as beam cohesion is rarely an issue in the modern world unless it's made in a cave with a box of scraps. You probably won't do much damage, but the same electromagnetic photons can cause a stall, which is infinitely more deadly for a guy in the sky than a guy on the ground/

So, for people that need to travel light and fast like my flight suit or are situated away from a supply zone for extended periods of time, a laser rifle is a blessing. It does not cover every requisite situation you might run into, but for a standard infantryman on the ground, it is a good gun to be using against other standard infantrymen on the ground"
 
Giving a nod and smile with that satisfying answer, the woman went back to digitally scrawling notes. However, it seemed odd, how the topic was meant to be electromagnetism. Yet, the topic seemed to bleed into military tech, modern civilian applications, and even survival pointers. Managing resources, seemed like a weird addition to learn today, but not an entirely unwelcome one. For a moment, she actually spared a second to think on what her step mother would think of this lecture, or that cute scientist who worked in the department under her. Perhaps she would stop by on her return and ask him his name.
 
From here, Egwene would go over the topics of electromagnetism. Explaining features both heavily electrical such as the skin effect and the electron avalanche, and things more photon based like the Compton scattering and Breaking Radiation. A cute story about a cat was fit in between these two, and then the several hour lecture on the sciences was over and Egwene let the class go about to their next student activity. She remembered back when she was a student herself. it wasn't a great time, but that was more due to the madness and slowly dying nature of herself rather than anything about the school. The school was nice.

Sticking around after class in case anyone wanted to come talk to her, she set her papers up and prepared for the next talk. This one more militant, so she'd definitely get to throw in her Combat Flight Suit there and get to talking with the technicians in training that she could hit it up with.
 
With the lecture over, and the class done, the young woman simply stayed seated. Filing away all the data she had gathered during it, and preparing for the next. Admittedly, she was very excited to see what the topic of the next session would be. So setting a pad down, the screensaver looking like a family photo of sorts, save for a very large mech docked in it's station behind her, the man, and three infant children. They were positioned right before it, the man having a sort of pilot suit on in the picture.

Raising her hand, and giving it a slight wave to get the instructor's attention, she asked "Excuse me, miss? What will your next class be about? I'm sitting in and wanted to title my notes for this one correctly".
 
"Hmm? Ohh, hello dear. It's a, one for the student technicians. Mechanical engineering and all that. So I guess mechanical engineering works as a proper title for your notes. Though I have some time if you want to talk, I do like talking about my work"

Egwene gave a smile and primed some files on her suit in case the woman did want to talk. She wasn't needing nearly the whole processing power right now so she could do stuff that wouldn't pay off.
 
"Oh! Does that include such things as mechanics behind mechanized movement, such as mechs and what not? I wouldn't say I am some sort of expert in that regard, or anything like that. But that would be more like an anatomy lesson in my case.", Ceilia answered cheerfully, only thinking at the last moment, how that might sound odd coming from a flesh and blood girl. She clearly wasn't a robot, at least by most nation's standards anyways.

"O-oh uh, what I meant by that......oh poo how do I explain this?"
 
Egwene would stare at Ceilia for a few moments and then her irises would twist on their side, changing colour as they did so. The woman's body was organic, and Egwene couldn't see anything that might spark the idea that mechanical engineering was an anatomy lesson for her...She seemed organic but then so did Egwene, so she had to make sure.

"Y...ea, you'll have to explain that one to me" Egwene commented as her eyes returned to normal. "I'm not picking up anything that would help me with that"
 
The girl gave an awkward smile, a bit embarrassed by the confusion she had just caused the instructor. "I should probably start by introducing myself I guess. I'm Ceilia Ryzka, a citizen of the conclave, and an AI. An Evolutionary Virtual Extension AI, or EVE as we're called. We have the technology to give AI's organic bodies, at the cost of our normally high speed processing rates for the most part. Still a bit faster then normal humans, but not as fast when we're uploaded into something else.", she started off before giving a brief pause to let that sink in.

"I was originally installed into a combat mech called an XM1, hence my earlier comment, you could say it's the other me to an extent. Though I haven't been in it for some time, ever since my pilot......my late husband, passed away." The smile was tinged with a sad curve for a mere couple of seconds before she remembered she was talking to someone, before restoring it to almost back to it's full cheeriness.
 
Egwene would listen to the woman but get progressively more confused as she spoke, to the point of utter exasperation by the end of it.

"But why though?" was the only question Egwene had. Staring off into the distance and shaking her head. "You are in the perfect body for existing anyway. Hell, if I wanted to I could procreate with just a few weeks of study on how to make that work. But, you come out of a mechanical body and into an organic meatsuit that takes so much maintenance not to just outright fail on you that you can't even do anything you want. How do people live, spending half the day just not dying?" Egwene was clearly passionate about the whole situation, which was understandable, given her history with organic components.
 
The woman blinked at her a few times from the sudden passionate outburst before speaking, "Someone once told me that it took knowing the fear of death, to truly learn how to live. I know it may be hard to understand, is I know that more then anyone. I wasn't born an AI, neither did I ever ask to become one in the first place. But suffice it to say, I enjoy living in my own skin then in a body that would outlive everyone I love, never aging. I still will even after this body expires, but I will give to live my life along side them on my their terms and footing."

Ceilia shook her head as she finished, only adding with an apologetic smile, "I could always change bodies, but when it comes down to it, just not the same experience. At one point, I even forgot what pain was like."
 
"Ohh, yea, like having a mechanical body makes you invincible. With the technology of the current day, an organic body can outlive everyone you live just as much as a mechanical one. Plus you get to just shut everything down when you are done with life, not having to bother with the whole messy suicide business. Honestly, you are talking like aging and hurting and your body slowly collapsing in on itself because....what? Because everyone else is doing it? Please, explain your reasoning to me"
 
"Because not everyone accepts, or has that option, I sure as hell didn't growing up. How fair is it to live aging, while the people I love do?", Ceilia answered, almost seeming annoyed now with how this woman was simply seeming to say her view was idiotic. "It's certainly not an option I would ever force on my children, and one my late husband would have went for. I have done just fine living in a human body, and I never said it makes you invincible, only convenient to change shells."
 
"Why would someone choose to live in constant pain, feeling your body dying with you trapped inside it and not want to fix that? What kind of neurosis do you need to want that kind of existence? Sure, if you are perfectly healthy and funloving and all the rest, it's fine. But by the time you are an LI, you are sort of beyond being healthy. People aren't born LIs, so clearly everything has already screwed up. Why stick someone back into the screw up for it to happen again?"

Egwene was clearly passionate on a personal level about this, which came with bias, but she didn't seem vindictive about it. Just maybe a bit too coldly logical.
 
"For my brother, who had to watch me die when he could do nothing. To give him the flesh and blood sister he almost lost for good! The only reason I live now, is because of a deal he made in order to save me! As what I am now, I can help him fight when he needs it, I am much harder to kill now. But I wanted to be there in the way he needed when there was no fighting. For the longest time, we only had each other, and he looked out for me. I'm repaying that kindness......."

A few tears streaked down to her chin as the conversation reminded her of all that had lead up to her being like this. To everything they had lost to date, and everything faced with what they had now. She wiped her chin dry before continuing, "What so wrong with just wanting to be normal, to wanting to live with people as they do? You said before, "Because others do it.", so yeah you're right, but because the ones who matter to me do. Some of them can't, just like my step mother, because elysians can't use technology in their bodies, or minds."
 
"Well that's stupid, now he is going to have to watch you die again. Though if he made a deal to save you after he watched you die when he could do nothing, then you aren't you but a facsimile that thinks you are you. Sure people might like to ignore that, but it's not something to ignore. It's a delusion, and an unhealthy one at that" Egwene shook her head, not able to understand why.

"And on the Elysian front, that's bullshit. You can't say the whole universe is so technologically advanced they have harnessed an entire different dimension to run energy in ground level tech finds anything impossible. Difficult, maybe. But let me reiterate the use of an entire different dimension to run energy in ground level tech"
 
The young woman looked utterly lost for words, the tears renewed worse then before. Her look of sad annoyance, had turned to pure pained horror. Every doubt she had ever had herself, had just been slapped in her face. Her knees felt weak, her footing feeling non-existent as she felt on the verge of collapsing. It was an absolutely terrible feeling of dread, one that fueled a need to run, and not hear these words.

The pad she had been holding in her hands, creaked as her hands gripped the casing with white knuckles as if holding onto it for dear life like an anchor. "N- n-n-noo.", she could only whisper as her voice quivered, before turning and bolting for the door, eyes flooded with tears as she dashed out the door and into the halls. She ran and ran as far from that room and woman as she could before finally tripping, then unsteadily getting up and walking away again.
 
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