voidtreckerexpress | Jelly 3: Orange Team meet(ing) and mingle

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Jelly 3: Orange Team meet(ing) and mingle

Who: Orange Team (+ anyone else?)
Where: Music Car (top level)
When: Jelly 3:, morningish.
What: Orange Team meet(ing) and mingle
Warnings: None? - there is an OOC post to go with this!

Either Eva or Curufin, or they both use the ICP to remind Orange Team of the meeting. "Orange Team, please report to the Music Carriage for a Team Meeting. It isn't mandatory, but we do encourage everyone to attend as there’s things that need to be sorted out in terms of team structure. If you need a bribe: we have snacks."

For this meeting, Eva's commandeered the top of the Music carriage, given the number of people in the team, and notable, she has Lele out, the porygon2 set to record the meeting so the minutes can later be printed out.

Food-wise, there's there's enough food and far too many oran, pinap, and cheri berries across numerous bowls. There's also bags of sweets and lollies spread across several bowls and room for any other food that’s either been made or scrounged up from the kitchens.

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"I'm glad to help with anything you guys want help with." Senku said.

"I would be a good medic, I have a white band and I am a doctor." He pointed out.

"But if there's something more suitable that's fine too. I have a lot of skills, I'm happy to offer them."

"We certainly need medical people!" answers Curufin. "But if there's any other skill you want to contribute, I have no objection. Besides, you might be able to fill more than one role, if you want. What other skills are you thinking of?"

"I have a wide vareity of skills. I'd be a good leader, I've been the chief of my village for years." Senku said, although his tone was kept rather even because that was just his resume. "I'm a scientist and an engineer, good at keeping on top of things, especially when they're my job. I've organized large scale missions, with more people and less resources than these ones."

He hummed thoughtfully. "I'm not spoiled for choice to volunteer, but really, since you guys are running things, I'm also willing to fit where you think my skills would be the most useful."

"Regardless of whatever capacity you want to make use of my skills, I always take responsibility very seriously. I already consider the people of the train on this team and otherwise, as people who, if something needed to be done to look out for them and it was within my capabilities, I would do it." It might have sounded like a grand promise, but he was completely serious about that. He didn't need permission to ensure people were well taken care of.

"If you have leadership skills, then you may be needed. Eva and I don't make absolutely all the decisions. There are often situations in which the person who is on the scene at the time must make the decisions and rally others to join them. I'd be glad to know that you're ready and willing to step up."

He nodded. "It's been obvious since you arrived on the train that you take responsibility seriously. Everybody knows that, and we are all grateful for it. And as far as the team goes, I think it's flexible. If you want to do science and engineering, there'll likely be an occasion for it in the future. There has been in the past."

"Ah." He considered what Curufin said and looked like he was thinking. "I didn't mean that in a bad way. I don't make all of the decisions either, at home. We discuss, debate, argue until we come to a solution that works for everyone. I mean more that I respect the fact that you two have been leading the team. I know from experience it's not just the decisions, it's dealing with the repercussions of those decisions."

Senku nodded though, completely serious again. "I would, without hesitation, even if I wasn't asked to. The safety of the team is important." He sighed. He knows he isn't the most expressive person, but he's doing his best. "And I'm interested in ensuring that people aren't uncomfortable or suffering unnecessarily, regardless of this situation."

At the mention of science he chuckled lightly. "You don't have to worry about that. I'm constantly working on my own projects. I've managed to find things to keep my busy. After the mission I'm making chocolate." Even though they had some, but he'd collected the materials, they weren't going to go to waste.

"Apart from that I have longer term experiments going on around the mystery of the train and how to get off of it. Not meaning to offend anyone, of course, but I'm someone who has a lot going on where I'm from. I'd rather if people were here, it was their own choice."

"I know you didn't mean that in a bad way. You're one of the most positive people I've met in my travels. And your description of how you make decisions at home, that is my ideal as well -- discuss, debate, argue, and come to a decision that works for everyone. I'd like to see the team follow that model. But you're right about leadership, either way, it's not just the decisions, it's dealing with the fallout."

Curufin smiled. "Your concerns are the paramount ones, the safety of the team and preventing suffering. That sounds very sane to me."

And then he chuckled along with Senku. "After this mission, you're making chocolate? I think you'll find that everyone on the train will be willing to participate in that project, even if only to verify the quality of the chocolate." By eating it, of course!

"What kind of experiments are you doing, with respect to the mystery of the train? I think that work is really important. I, too, would rather that people had a choice as to whether to stay or not. And whether to get on in the first place!"

"I don't have much time to dwell on the negativity." Senku admitted, that was really the root of it. If he did that, he'd be very upset all the time, and that wasn't very productive. He nodded at Curufin's agreement with their methods of leadership that seemed to align very well.

"I'm sure they will." Senku grinned. "I got a good amount of interest when I mentioned that. I had a lot of cacao pods, and once it's done sitting in its skin, we'll be drying it and roasting it. Some people expressed interest in helping with that and then from there it will turn in to chocolate. Admittedly, I grabbed a lot of that because Gen's a big fan of sweets."

He considered Curufin's question about his experiments. One of them was a secret, but the rest weren't really. "Well, we've been trying to order a wide variety of books through the system, which hasn't really been successful so far, but still worth trying if we think of something. I've been looking at samples from each world to see if they're interconnected and linked together in an unseen way, and while it's not conclusive yet, I may not have enough locations."

"Aside from that, I'm interested in the tethering system which is probably the key to the whole thing, but it's risky to mess with, I know that. I'm not interested in a solution that will harm or sacrifice anyone." He clarified, if only because that seemed to be the first thing people thought of. He understood the stakes. "My experience in removing my SCA on the mission and a report I have from someone else, doesn't match meaning potentially a few different variables. I'm not broadcasting this experiment, because it is risky, and I already know there are people who would protest my engaging in it. I think understanding exactly what they do is vital. Not to mention, I'm going to open up the broken one properly, I've just been a bit busy, but when we get back, definitely."

"Nobody has time to deal with the negativity," said Curufin. "The more we focus on the positives, the better!"

He smiled. "I'm sure you'll get a lot of help with the cacao processing. And I've noticed Gen's interest in sweets!"

He nodded. "I've heard discussion of books that relate to Void travel and the nature of the multiverse. You're taking samples of material from the worlds we visit and trying to determine whether they are interconnected? How are you doing this research? It sounds fascinating." And of course he didn't know about the secret experiment, but if Senku was willing to divulge it, Curufin wanted to hear about it.

"Many of us are wondering about that tethering system. And also, wondering whether there is any way to test it. You and this other person both removed your SCA devices, but you had different experiences? Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if that meant that there was more than one variable involved. That was courageous of you both, to take the risk. And if you find out anything new when you take the broken SCA apart, I'd be interested in knowing what it is."

"Some people have managed to collect some books." Senku confirmed. "That I'm going to go through and read but everything I've asked for hasn't materialized which is kind of vexing." He admitted with a bit of a frown.

"Oh, well, primarily I was just observing things, but now that I have a microscope, I can get a closer look at my samples and see how they differ from world to world. So far I haven't found a link, but some things look standard in appearance but under the microscope they're completely different to what I thought they'd look like which makes it incredibly fascinating." He gushed, just a little bit.

He considered that. "When I took mine off initially it was just the circumstance, but now I'm going to make an experiment out of it. I'll be sure to let you know if I learn anything."

Curufin nodded. "I've noticed that when a person asks the train for a book on a particular topic, the train may or may not come up with anything useful."

He listened with interest as Senku described using a microscope to look for differences in the samples. "No wonder you are fascinated with this question! I wonder if these differences relate to the properties of individual worlds, or if they are actually caused somehow by the Void connection?"

"Be careful, if you're really going to use yourself as an experimental subject. I wouldn't want to find out that we lost you because you were left on some mission world. But I wonder if the train has a way of retrieving a person even without an SCA? If it can collect people from different worlds and universes to be passengers and Void Warriors, then maybe it knows a way?"

Edited 2021-01-21 04:50 (UTC)

"It's a real pain in the ass is what it is, I just want to learn something, that can't be that challenging." He huffed lightly. Oh well, he'd have to learn some other way.

"So far the samples I've seen don't have much in the way of connections, but it's too soon to tell. There could be some other connection but I can't see it that way at least. It's all been interesting if nothing else."

He nodded. "I'm not planning on taking it off for long periods of time, if I can help it. I'm thinking of doing it for five minutes or so to monitor the effects, if any, when removing my SCA, and with someone because there's always a chance that things will go wrong and if I need a rescue it would be stupid do it alone. I promise I'm taking safety precautions."

If Senku were anyone else, that assurance wouldn't have to be made, but he knew who he was, it definitely did.

Curufin laughed ruefully. "I sometimes wonder if the train is doing that on purpose, as for instance when a person asks for books or media on Void travel, and the train's response is tales of the Merry Little Void Train. Maybe it has an odd sense of humor!"

He nodded. "It does sound interesting, comparing samples of worlds. I wonder if there is really any way to tell? Are there Void particles in any of the samples? You'd think that those particles would drift out of the Void and onto the planets. I don't know how you'd detect them or how that would help with the comparison, but maybe it would show a connection at least." He shrugged. Just the speculations of an Elvish mind.

He nodded again. "What kind of effects are you looking at when you remove your SCA? And how do you measure those effects? And oh good, you're not doing this alone. Someone will be there to rescue you in case of accident." That was a relief!

He was glad for the assurance, since those who experiment with reality are invariably those who are willing to take risks. Curufin knew this from his own experience. Safety precautions were very much in order.

"It definitely could, I wouldn't put it past it even if it is an AI of some kind." That was his present hypothesis at any rate.

"Not that I've noticed, which is strange, because wouldn't there be some kind of connection to the void since we came from there?" Senku asked. "But so far, they've seemed mostly ordinary, except on Irivar, those samples had something magical woven into them. Fascinating, definitely, but not exactly the most helpful. At least, at the moement. The thing about science is that you don't always get all the puzzle pieces in one shot." Senku explained. It wasn't a bad thought, or tangent. It was good to have other people's ideas on his experiments, it only made them better.

"As for my experiment with the SCAs, when Tidus removed his, he seemed very likely to die within moments. It was at a platform, and not on a world, I'm not sure if that makes a difference." He held up a finger, that was one parametre. "Or if, perhaps, they're tailored to us individually." He held up a second.

"Apart from that, we know it handles translations off the train, very handily." Senku hummed. "That much I've confirmed. But when I removed mine, aside from being warmer, and the air being muggier, there wasn't much of a change. So it was regulating climate." He held up a third finger. "What else can they do?"

The nature of the train was still a matter of speculation. Curufin knew it was possible for an AI to be very complex in personality, from his friendship with Webmind.

"Indeed, we travel through the Void every time we voyage from one world to another. And I don't know how the train collects its passengers normally, but does it pull them through the Void? And me. . . I traveled through the Void in spirit form for eight months before the train collected me and set me on the platform. Wouldn't I have brought some Void particles with me? And as for the Irivar samples, it makes sense to me that magic is so persistent that it can inundate the very fabric of a world. And I do understand about scientific inquiry, because it's fairly similar to what Elvish craftsmen and craftswomen do when searching for new materials and techniques. New knowledge is obtained piece by piece, experiment by experiment." He'd be pleased if he could contribute anything in the way of ideas to Senku's explorations.

"Tidus removed his SCA on a platform, and he was injured or sick at the time? I don't know this story, sometimes I miss events on the train. Like you, I wonder if the SCAS are made for us individually or if the train just has a bin full of identical devices and just issues one every time it collects a new passenger. I suppose these devices are able to adapt to the individual in ways we don't know in detail. They must, if as you've discovered, they can handle translation on and off the train, and they can regulate the climate around a passenger. Obviously, they connect the individual to the train in some way, since they allow us to not only receive the train's transmissions but to be pulled back to the train in case of emergency. How does the SCA know that a passenger is approaching or actually in a danger zone on a planet? The SCA must be transmitting information to the train at every moment, and I'd guess the train compares our locations on a planet to a map it has in its own brain. But it must have more information than simply that, to determine whether a passenger is in trouble."

“Eight months? Really?” Senku asked Curufin, tilting his head slightly. “Do you remember anything at all about being out in the void?”

“One would think you would have.” Senku gave him a look that meant he was studying Curufin at the moment, a lot of people might get offended, but it was just the way he was. “Fascinating. So if there are such a thing and they are clinging to you at all, which is a decent hypothesis, then it can’t be seen with the naked eye.”

Curufin was being exceptionally helpful, because he was coming up with new ideas. How did he travel through the void? “I don’t know how I managed to get here.” He admitted. “How I got picked up and with what the train said, I’m just missing in my world.” He mused thoughtfully.

“There’s another experiment I wanted to run, but now I’m curious about something else to do with it, and I’m going to have to focus on that too.” He grinned, all excitement. “Do you think I could have some of your blood?” Senku asked as though that was a completely normal, non-alarming request.

“I think he wasn’t able to breathe if I recall right. He seemed like he might die.” Senku explained. “I didn’t witness it.” Nor did he really want to, outside of the science Tidus was a friend.

“It’s definitely individualized in terms of translation, but so is the train. How it does that though, is really curious.” Senku gushed lightly. “Besides, when we speak, now I know you’re speaking English, or something else maybe, but follow me for a moment, but even though I know English, it still automatically defaults to Japanese, probably because I do, since it’s my primary language.”

Now though, he looked like he was seriously considering the additional data that he might’ve overlooked which was entirely possible when he was focusing on one thing over another. “It has to be. I’m definitely going to tear into my broken one and see if I can get a sense of what it’s doing, and also how it’s doing that. The danger is individualized too. I came across some poison ivy and it went haywire, but not for Persephone.”

"I remember the whole eight months. The Void was dark and quiet and very peaceful. I could feel the emptiness around me stretching out to infinity, and both my mind and my senses could encompass it. There was no regular light source and yet I didn't feel lost in the darkness. Once in a great while, I would perceive a flash of rainbow light, always in the far distance. I suspect that these flashes indicated portals to individual universes. I was traveling on intuition, and my intuition told me to keep going, so I did not attempt to explore these occasional lights."

Curufin looked back at Senku with a smile. He didn't mind being studied; he understood Senku's style.

"It's hard to say whether those Void particles would have clung or not. I was traveling in spirit form, not my bodily form. But what is spirit? It might be explainable as some form of energy, and if so, might it not attract other energies or even matter? I wouldn't expect that Void particles would be viewable with the naked eye; I'd think they were more like the particles described in the physics texts, that is, fundamental particles. Like photons, neutrons, protons, etc. Also, might I have shed them when I landed on the platform and embodied myself again? Or would they still be clinging to me?"

He nodded. "Normally, people don't remember the transit between their own worlds and the platform, so it is not surprising that you don't remember. I'd give a lot to know exactly how the train does it."

He grinned back. He wasn't alarmed by the request. "What experiment were you thinking of? Yes, you can have some of my blood. I'm curious as to how that relates to your experiment?"

"I'm glad Tidus didn't die!" He had always enjoyed interacting with Tidus and would have missed him. Of course, he probably would have come back via the Luggage Car.

"As for the language issue, it is a mystery, isn't it? It's true, I'm speaking English now. But even if I impulsively blurt out a phrase or a sentence in one of the Elvish languages, the SCA still translates it, and there is no gap in my conversation partner's understanding. Your SCA translates everything I say into Japanese? So, I guess the train has some way of knowing an awful lot about us, not to mention. . . how does it know all the languages that the passengers speak? That must be some amazing translator program!"

And as for the SCA and the danger warnings. "Your SCA sounded the alarm over poison ivy? For you but not for Persephone? Strange, unless you have a radical allergy to the stuff."

"That really is very fascinating, and impressive. It's difficult to keep your mind active for longer than ten days in total sensory deprivation, although if you were getting occasional lights that's at least stimulating to a degree." Senku would know, exactly how long it took for a mind to get tired and want to give into a deep sleep.

"Those are good questions about the particles, and I'd think the microscope could help, maybe." He mused. "We'll have to see, that's how we look at those types of particles, to some degree, but I might not have one powerful enough to see them. That's a bridge to cross after some investigation."

Senku brightened a little bit. "Ah! Well I had the opportunity to look at Inigo's blood after I asked him and it's very different from my own, I showed him and I gave him a very basic overview of why I would want to look at blood and how it works, but I'm curious to know if people who are from other worlds have blood that is similar to mine or if it's different, and there's always a chance, no matter how remote, that it may give us a key to explain how it is we're all drawn together in particular." He paused. "Also, looking at blood is pretty cool."

"Yeah." Senku said, looking like he was thinking. "Not just Japanese though, the dialect I'm used to." He felt the need to specify that. "My language was probably more formal before, but since we moved into the village, we've adopted into our language words that the villagers would understand. That's evolved my language to a new dialect. When I was without my SCA, the people speaking Japanese, it was familiar to me, I still know the language, but it sounded slightly different."

He quirked a smile. "Giving me something else to think about, when I think about home." He was always, always thinking. "But the train, and the SCA, have to know that Japanese is my default language, the one I go to first, no matter how fluent I am in other languages. I could understand you in English just fine, but Japanese to a degree is more comfortable and what I use most often."

At Curufin's final question, he nodded. "Ah, yeah, I do. But why would the SCA know that, unless there is a personal component to it? I'm allergic to urushiol, a fairly severe allergy that I mainly ignore so it's gotten worse over time, but it hasn't affected my breathing, yet." That wasn't all that encouraging. Would he stop messing with it, if it did? "It's not a common allergy, but it makes me allergic to lacquer, poison ivy and oak, mango trees, and the inside of mango skin, pistachios, cashews depending on how they're cleaned...I'm just allergic to a lot of bizarre things."

"It wasn't difficult for me to keep my mind active in the Void," answered Curufin. "I just thought about my life in my world, and about how the last few hours of it had changed me and caused me to take a radically different direction, and about how I had continued on my new path in the two other worlds I lived in before I came to the Voidtrecker Express. I thought about my relatives and my friends, and how much I loved and missed them. But remember, I was in spirit form, and that is a different experience than being in the body and in a state of sensory deprivation. Even in the dark of the Void. I could reach out with my mind and map the space around me, and I had a sense of the distance I had traveled and the time it was taking. It did not matter that the only sensory data I was receiving was from those rare flashes."

He tilted his head in curiosity. "I do wonder what is the scale of those Void particles. Are they large enough to see with an ordinary microscope, or is an electron microscope required? If they are truly elementary particles, then I would think the latter. I wonder if there is any chance one could be built, or if the train could provide one through the Stores?"

He had to chuckle at Senku's description of his blood experiments. "Yes, it does sound interesting! Besides, you and Inigo are both mortals, so the differences between your blood characteristics might make it possible to say something about the differences and the similarities between worlds. And I'm not only of a different world than you, I'm of the Elvish race. There might be some interesting differences and similarities there, too."

He nodded. "I understand about regional differences within the same language. I speak six different dialects of the Elvish language, Quenya, Noldorin, Vanyarin, Telerin, Sindarin, and Ossiriandic. Noldorin is my primary dialect, and the train translates everything into Noldorin for me, rather than any of the others." He scratches his head. "But I frequently think in Sindarin, as that was the dialect my clan spoke most often after we immigrated to Middle-earth, that being the local variant. I wonder how the train can tell which one is my primary dialect and which is my adopted one? Strange. And your situation is complicated, too, since you speak a dialect of Japanese that was actually created by you and your family, or whoever it was that you moved into that village with, as an amalgam of standard dialects."

And now onto the topic of allergies. "It must be worrisome to be allergic to this urushiol substance, since it makes you react to so many plants, in a potentially dangerous way. But yes, how would the SCA have that information? And if it has that level of detail in its knowledge of us, than what else does it know?" He shook his head and smiled.

"That really is truly fascinating." He paused. "Didn't mean to assume, I was trying to understand." Clearly, at some point, someone had told him that leaping to conclusions was a problem for him recently and so he was walking on eggshells a little bit.

"I couldn't say. What I'd try to do maybe is use the microscope I have to see what would happen, and if not, then we can try an order an electron microscope. The train gave Gen the last one, so it might be possible."

Senku smiled. "Well what's interesting about Inigo is that while he's mortal, he also has dragon blood mixed into his heritage so it was incredibly fascinating. I can't say offhand how elves would be different from humans since we don't have elves in my world but I'm interested in finding out. That's less of a train project and more just my fascination with things."

"You could consider my village to be my family I guess." Senku said with a bit of a thoughtful hum. "If they weren't, I wouldn't have any family. My dad was my family, and he's gone now." He glances away briefly, that does still make him sad. "But I have everyone in the village now."

"It is fascinating though, that everything adapts to what I know the best, even though it could give me options. It's something I want to know more about." He admitted.

"Nah." He shook his head. "I'm not that worried about my allergies and in native Japan mostly it's the lacquer that gets me. Mangoes are tropical fruits on the other side of the planet for the most part. I'd like to know exactly what the train knows about me, and how it knows all of this." He admitted. He probably should worry about his allergies more, Gen would attest.

"I'm not offended even if you were presuming. Everybody does that, since we all have different experiences and education, and making an assumption is a part of trying to understand. The assumption can be verified or not, and either way, it opens the way for us to collect new, more accurate information."

"It would be interesting to have an electron microscope. Let me know if you need me to buy one with my points."

"Wait a minute! -- Inigo has dragon blood? For some reason, I didn't know that, even though I've known him for a while. That is most interesting! And as I said, you can have some of my blood, and I'd be interested in hearing of anything you discover about the differences between mortals and Elves."

"I'm sorry your father is gone. I can identify, having lost mine once in my own world and once on the train. But it's good that you have the village as a chosen family. Very good."

"I'd like to know what the train knows about all of us. And how it knows. This is a great mystery, as great as the mystery of how and why it collects any given person to become a passenger."

"And I'm sure we'll continue discussion on these topics in the future. Meantime, shall we head for the refreshments table?"

"You've given me a lot of ideas, as always." Senku admitted with a bit of a chuckle. Ideas were not a bad thing at all, they could help him refine his experiments, or come up with new ones.

"I could eat something." He agreed with a nod. "I'll let you know how my experiments are going."

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Jelly 3: Orange Team meet(ing) and mingle

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Sorry I never got back to this thread! This is a wrap anyway, since I'm on hiatus.

Yep, enjoy your break see you when you get back :D