Editing TheStarsAreRight:CarlNote7a (section)

=='''Hooked on Ponics'''==

'''REDLAND'''

Jack stares blankly for several moments. Something flickers across his face briefly... panic?, confusion? All the while his hands continue to idly flip through the notebook. When he speaks, it's almost as though he's failed to process what you've just been talking about (though, perhaps, this is just due to how late it is in the evening).

 

"Er..."

 

He gathers himself and flips through his notebook more purposefully.

 

"Um, right. I had a couple of (probably unimportant) questions. First, earlier, when we were talking about the necrophage, you mentioned something about a group awareness generated by the cells. I was wondering if this phenomena is what caused me to feel connected to the Fae community when I was 'infected'."

'''CARL'''

“Not unimportant.  Everything you know helps you; there’s an awful lot to know, so never feel bad about asking.

 

“In this case, I think you’re probably correct, though we haven’t done research on it.   This is an example of one of those synergistic effects I spoke of earlier.  During communion the phage enters the companion’s body, and although on a cellular level there’s predation, on the level of the ponic and vitalic structures, there’s a lot of sharing.  In effect, for a brief period, the companion “borrows” membership in the Fae circle, and in some cases, I understand, even some personal memories.  That sort of intimacy isn’t universal – it requires an amount of trust and giving between the partners.

 

“The effects of this were a lot more distinct before the coming of the Dark Queen, when the Nightfolk were generally cut off from the Worldsoul.  Then, the sharing during communion was the only time they connected with the world, and it made a big difference.”

'''REDLAND'''

"Hmmm. I don't recall if I've heard the term 'Dark Queen' used before. That is a reference to Medea, I assume?

 

"In terms of the sense of community, is it important that everyone in Los Angeles was, er, related, to Medea, or would, say, Mr. Usher feel that same sense?"

'''CARL'''

Blink.  “I don’t know.  The Fae and the Elders have not mixed at all; until Mr. Usher came out of hiding, it was not an issue.  That is one reason this proposed alliance between them is such a remarkable thing.”

'''REDLAND JACK'''

"Ah. I think I understand.

 

"On a slightly different subject, what sort of 'intelligence' do 'ponics' (or is it 'Rands'?) exhibit when they get together in large numbers?" 

'''CARL'''

“Hmm.  I wish I had my notebook on the subject here; it’s in my office in Chalon, I fear.

 

“Pons are funny creatures.  Do you know what a photon is?  Yes?  Rather like a little particle of light?  I tend to think of the magical energy we use in spells as being a fluid made similarly of infinitesimal particles.  In my early research I used the variable ‘p’ to represent the fluid charge – the particles thus became “p-ons,” or just “pons.”  Pons, ponic, you see how it went.  Then I needed a measurement of ‘useful charge’, in much the same way that electrical potential is measured in ‘volts’, or current in ‘amperes.’  I chose one ‘Rand’, named after my first research patron, to be the minimum amount of ponic flux required to initiate a self-contained reaction, or cast a simple spell.   Does that help with the terminology?  Pons are particles, ponic flux the fluid, ponics the subject matter, and Rands a unit of measure.”

 

Carl sits back a bit, stretches, and takes a deep breath, settles into lecture mode.

 

“So.  Some of the things I learned about pons early on.”  He ticks points off on the fingers of one hand.  “They prefer to move rather than stay still.  They move very fast, and they move in straight lines, unless something influences them.  That last point is important.

 

“Pons are sticky, in a sense; they pick up and carry information from their environment.  When pons meet, they don’t collide so much as pass through one another – but they share what they carry, so that each pon leaves with information previously carried by the other, as well as its own.  There are losses of course. Things get blurry as you might expect.

 

“One way ponic behavior differs from electric, is that while electrons repel one another, pons tend to attract one another.  Rather, pons are attracted to what I call ‘ponic events.’  A ponic event is anything that can be noticed by pons.  It is convenient to speak of pons as though they had senses, rather than field attractions – we’ll talk about that later perhaps.  Pons themselves are ponic events; powerful energetic reactions are also, certain materials, and even living things.

 

“At any given time, then, a pon has very weak perception of ponic events in its close vicinity.  In practice the perception is weak, its range very short, and in most cases the pon’s own urge to MOVE, in a straight line, is stronger than the attraction of the event, unless the event is very large.

 

“Pons moving together, however, tend to bind together.  They are mutually attracted to one another, as an event; and in addition to sharing information, they behave as though they also share perception.  A stream of pons has a much greater inertia, tendency to travel straight – but it also has more sensitivity to local events, and can perceive them at much greater distances.  Such a stream, of course, is an event in itself as I said – it tends to attract new pons from the surrounding area.

 

“You might think that this was a recipe for disaster, as all the pons were drawn inexorably into a single great event, but there are counter-forces, as you see everywhere in nature.  Beyond a certain point, as the charge gets higher, the ponic flux begins to behave less predictably, not more.  It seems to become willful, if you like; the charge flies apart, or differentiates itself into structures that degrade, and the like.  I believe this is due to two things – one, the interaction of the ponic with the vitalic and logos elements in its surrounds, and two, the aggregate responding to patterns in the information carried by the stream itself – but whatever the source, the effect is marked; orderly behavior according to the rules of tropism breaks down at higher charge levels, and the resultant energies exhibit complex and very elaborate behaviors, interacting with the local environment in random ways.  These so-called ‘random effects’ can be induced at lower levels too, but they’re more of a nuisance than a danger most times.

 

“Should I go on?  Or does that answer your question? “


'''REDLAND JACK'''

"What creates a 'pon' in the first place? Or is that the wrong question, given conservation of matter? But, for instance, if pons want to move (very fast) in a straight line, and are only altered from this course by 'ponic events' (which sound somewhat uncommon), wouldn't they all just go flying off into space? 

 

"Also, if we have a good way to contain pons in a localized space, what would happen if we kept cramming more and more of them together (possibly while continuing to feed them new 'information')?

 

"Is there a limit to how much information one 'pon' can carry? Do we know how it is determined which information is carried and which is lost? When they get together, does one pon carry information 'A' and another pon information 'B' and they can then trade this information back and forth without retaining or losing other information?"

 

Redland pauses for a moment. 

 

"Er. Sorry, I guess I should stop there."


'''CARL'''

Carl laughs.  “No, no!  It’s good that you’re getting into the spirit of the thing.  These are good questions.

 

“The first one – what creates the energy in the first place – I don’t really know.  As an experimental science, all this is in utter infancy.  I can tell you, though, that ponic energy seems to be generated, or accumulated, in and from living things.    Doesn’t answer your question, I know, sorry.   And as for what keeps them all from flying off into space, I’m not sure of that either.  The world is surrounded by an ambient field of ponic energy, which at present averages a little more than a rand in strength; that ambient itself, and the ponic structure of the world beneath it, seems to be enough of a generalized “event” that it keeps ponic bolts from flying out into space unless they’re powerful and directed that way.

 

“That is important because, though the interaction between ponics and the physical world is normally weak, everything that exists on the world, including us, is interpenetrated with ponic stuff.  We have ponic structures that are part of us, the same way we have circulatory systems and bones – they’re part of our architecture, interdependent with the rest of us.  They help make us what we are.

 

“I don’t know what limit there is to the amount of information ponic fluids can carry.  Not sure how you’d measure that in any case.  It’s clear, though, that that information comes in two types – call them impressions and signatures.  An impression can be anything – a memory, such as the one I showed you – a spell command – whatever.  That sort of information can be imposed on the stream and sent out; it can be easily erased, or added to, or altered by skilled people; the information degrades through time and, ah, friction I suppose you might say.  On that level, my instrumentation is quite crude – any of the Avowed can tell you more accurate details than I, through their active scans.

 

“The second sort of information, the signature, is buried more deeply and seems to be more intrinsic to the substance.  A signature tells you where the flux is from – who or what sourced it, for example.  Every one of us has a unique ponic signature, yet all of our signatures have much in common for they all share the basic signature of the ambient – the signature of the Worldsoul.  Outsiders and alien things from other worlds, that have their own ponic auras, radiate flux with different fundamental signatures.  Not like ours.  Perception of that difference, on an unconscious level, seems to trigger a deep-seated reaction in most folks, some more sensitive than others.  We call it the Allergy, and in a sensitive person, it can drive you mad.

 

“It’s easy, as I said, to wipe or change impressions in power, or add to them.  It’s very hard to change signatures without utterly scrambling the contents of a stream.  When streams cross, impressions are traded, as I said before.  Though there are losses – like heat, like entropy, everything has losses – when two pons meet, something of the impressions from each with be carried away by both.  Such a meeting will not normally affect their signatures however; each may carry away an impression of the signature of the other, but that impression is not a signature itself – just a memory.  

 

“On the other hand, when a very powerful stream encounters a smaller less potent one, the weaker one may be utterly overcome by the stronger, swept along with it, becoming part of it.  In such a case, usually, the smaller stream doesn’t go on its original way – it’s been subsumed by the larger stream.

 

“Does that help?”


'''REDLAND JACK'''

"Yeah. That mostly makes sense, I think. It's interesting that a field averaging a single rand in strength can 'deflect' the pons. Does that mean that, to some extent, the 'ponic strength' of the event isn't necessarily significant in redirecting the forward progress of other pons (or more specifically in determining the attraction of a 'ponic event')? 

 

"Assuming that the pons are reflected in some way similar to that of light striking a mirror (presumably from both the earth and the sky), I guess that answers, to some extent, the question of where the pons come from. That is, while it doesn't get at their original genesis, so long as they are not destroyed in some fashion, their continual presence is simply a matter of reusing the same pons over and over. 

 

"Now, when I use one of my two tricks (telepathy or making a ring light up), am I using pons from myself or am I drawing them from the environment around me?

 

"I haven't noticed this Allergy, at least not that I can recall with the Outside elements I've met, namely, the Fae and the Dark Pharaoh. Perhaps Mr. Usher was more problematic, but I don't remember. Does this indicate that I have a weak connection to the Worldsoul or is it more random (or explained by something else) than that? Also, Avowed are Soldiers, right, with some sort of connection to the earth. Do they then have a correspondingly stronger reaction/Allergy to the Outside? Is that why Rebecca is so hostile towards them?"


'''CARL'''

“Events don’t have to be ponic at all, so long as they can affect pons.  For example, great whirling masses of iron and steel are – or generate – ponic events, because the pons that intersect the metal are affected by that contact.  We didn’t talk about ponic philic and phobic materials, did we?  Maybe later.”  Carl smiles.  

 

“As for why one person has a strong Allergy, another a weak one, I don’t really know.  I’ve chosen to look most closely at the very basic forces; once you get into complicated systems, like people, things get very murky.”  He shrugs, raising an eyebrow.   “Soldiers can be very sensitive – but in Rebecca’s case I think it’s training and history more than anything else.

 

“As for your metal ring, that’s an excellent example.  Silver is a philic material – pons travel more easily within silver than through the air for some reason, so a weak charge travels round and round in the ring.  You charge the ring with your own pons – but once they’re in there, that little circular flow is an ongoing event!  It attracts more flux from nearby – the new energy joins the old – and the charge builds up until eventually the will to ‘go’ exceeds the allure of the rung and pop!  You get the flash, and your energy flees off elsewhere.”


'''REDLAND JACK'''

"Okay. This all makes some sense. I guess I sort of knew a lot of this already, just in a more, er, vague or ad hoc fashion, so I hadn't really put everything together, and I hadn't really understood the relationship between various elements.

 

"So, the more complex 'machines' you build are then a combination of philic (say, silver) and phobic (say, iron) materials. This allows conductivity within the machine, with the silver material, while keeping the pons constrained in a specific area, with the iron material. Is that sort of how that works?"


'''CARL'''

"In principle, yes," Carl nods, pleased.  "In practice, we don't use straight-up phobics very often because they don't just constrain the flux, they also scramble it; that can cause a lot of random effects.  There is a technique I use to alter the structure of the metals to make them more useful in the machines; treated philics and phobics can be applied as conductors and insulators in simple circuits, rather tlike electric ones -- though of course the laws and rules are quite different.  More complex components, analogous to valves and bridges, can be built up from the simple ones, or made using alloyed metals and other tricks.  

 

"Much of the field gear you've seen -- the grenades, the ponic 'ray gun', the charger -- are straightforward adaptations of your simple ring trick.  There's a ring, it charges, it discharges -- and that discharge is used to feed a larger ring, et cetera.  Cascading rings can gather quite a large charge very quickly."


'''REDLAND JACK'''

"Now, with something like the ray gun, I believe there are warnings against carrying iron or silver while using one, is that right? Is this simply because it makes it more difficult to 'focus' the pons into the gun to be discharged (either through a general difficulty of manipulation when carrying a phobic or because the pons want to move in multiple directions when carrying a philic)? Or is there something else going on here (such as some sort of localized disturbance that interferes with the actual operation of the gun)?

 

"Also, I think I recall something about how telepathy can be disrupted somewhat easily. I assume this is because it is a ponically based ability, and the pons want to move in straight lines, so if you stick a ponic event in-between the sender and receiver, the pons get confused and move off in a different direction... or something like that?

 

"One other question. When, say, the Brotherhood is trying to contact an Outsider, do they use pons as well?"


'''CARL'''

Carl sighs, nodding. “Everyone uses pons, Jack.  Or, to use the more common vernacular, ‘Power.’  One’s available ponic energy is often called one’s ‘Power’ by the sorcerers and such.  It’s the stuff that’s used to cast spells and perform most summoning rituals.  So yes, most likely, the Brotherhood uses Power.  

 

“Iron and silver both interact with Power, as we’ve discussed before.  In particular, when in a highly charged field, such as somewhere a ponic grenade has gone off or lots of spells are being thrown, the metal gets very hot – and sometimes will cause random effects to occur.  That’s why we recommend you not carry such things into the field – and if possible, remove silver fillings if you have them.  It’s because you can get hurt – not because it will affect the weapon.

 

“As for mental contact, yes, you’re right.  If you establish a link with someone, not only are you vulnerable because you’re deaf and blind to the outside world while the link is active, but there is a sort of ponic thread between you and the other fellow. That thread can be blocked, it can be disrupted, it can even be eavesdropped upon – or it can be used to determine the direction of the other participant.  In theory, a skilled adept might even be able to push something up the thread to ‘get at’ the participants, but none of us has yet tried to develop such a skill.

 

“Food for thought, eh?”


'''REDLAND JACK'''

"So, when the Brotherhood sacrifices a whole stack of people, what they're doing, essentially, is creating a major ponic event, sort of like chucking a bomb. The pons erupt from the event like shrapnel, disrupt the earth's barrier so that an Outsider can come in, and some of them push out into space where they are picked up by the appropriate Outsider who they were trying to contact, who gets the information from the pons and manifests to contemplate some sort of bargain. 

 

"Pentheus, recognizing that this is a crude method, does something similar, but instead of creating a bomb, which requires a lot of sacrifice, they create a radio, and they focus a 'beam' of pons that shoots straight out into space. They still need a sacrifice, because that is something that is an important part of the 'message' to be sent to the Outsider (or maybe it's important to allow the Outsider to manifest). Is that sort of the upshot?"


'''CARL'''

“Oh my!  I doubt that’s the whole story.  For one thing, just killing people doesn’t make a summoning, otherwise you’d have tentacles pushing out over all the battlefields there ever were.  At the very least, there are elaborate ritual spells that serve to open the way – powered, admittedly, by the energy of sacrifice, but ponic energy by itself doesn’t do the job.  In any life sacrifice, the vitalic yield is probably more important than the ponic, but the ponic carries the message.

 

“Let’s see.  Think of vitalic force as the fuel for the effect, and the ponic force carrying the information – like circuitry, if you will – that determines how that energy will be used.  Ritual sorcery imposes the information on the ponic flux through repetitive sound, gesture, and material correspondences.  An Avowed soldier can do more, more simply, by directly imposing commands on his Power and sending it out.   In both cases, though, the effect needs fuel to be performed.  There’s enough vital essence in everything that most magic seems to “just work” – but it’s no surprise that  magic involving sacrifice is more powerful.

 

“In your example, presumably, part of the message concerns the opening of the door to Outside, and part concerns where – or rather, which Outsider – that door opens to.”  He shrugs.


'''REDLAND JACK'''

"Okay. So the sacrifice is more about generating vitality than a ponic event. Is that the only way to generate it (in large amounts)?
 

"Also, it sounds like we don't really have much to fear from 'sorcerors', other than, of course, the fact that they can summon 'demons'. Other than that, there power sounds slow and feeble relative to the people we have on our side."

'''CARL'''

“One for one, I’d tend to agree – a well trained soldier is faster and more versatile than your typical sorcerer.  Of course, we don’t have all that many well trained soldiers – and some of the spells used by sorcerers are extremely dangerous to everyone, so it doesn’t do to downplay their power or their threat.  Spells may take longer to cast, or cost more to the caster than what the soldiers can do, but they work, and they can be just as powerful as anything the soldiers have.    By analogy – put two people in a room full of materials.  One man may be able to fashion a knife very quickly, and swiftly go out to hurt people, one at a time.  It takes a lot longer for the other fellow to make a bomb – but when it goes off, the bomb has the potential to do much more damage, all at once.
 

“Indeed, the main limitation on spells is that they have to be learned from somewhere, from a teacher or a book – their mechanisms aren’t very obvious – while the soldier can train himself up to almost any effect he can concretely visualize, given enough practice.  That training takes longer than learning the spell might, if the spell were available.
 

“Which is one reason we teach spells to the soldiers when we can, and when they’re useful.  See?”

“Yes, there are alternatives to ritual sacrifice, or at least to killing.  Vitalics can be extracted from the blood, and used directly to power workings.  It’s not as effective, it takes longer to prepare, but it can be done.  Alternately, a soldier or sorcerer can cast a spell using excised Power – that is, he can power his working with his own structure, short of death – permanently cutting away some of his ponic and vitalic self, that he will not normally ever regain.  That yields very potent results.
 

“Nonetheless, there is more to the issue of sacrifice than simply the amount and kind of fuel available; there is a connection between the life force and the will that I don’t have any mechanical means to measure or describe.  It is safe to say with certainty, however, that the most potent effects remain those generated not only by human sacrifice, but by conscious, knowing, willing sacrifice – where the victim gives up his own life, devoted to the working and the cause for which it is done.”

'''REDLAND JACK'''

"When the sorceror uses human sacrifice, then, he's just basically being lazy (or, I suppose efficient, if he is 'evil'). That is, any effect he could generate by sacrificing people, he could achieve by acquiring a sufficient amount of blood.
 
"And if you catch a sorceror unprepared, he's just another guy, right (unlike the Soldier, who is still very dangerous)? It sounds like his 'bomb' is not very portable, since his effects require a lot of preparation. Or do I misunderstand this, and the sorceror is perfectly capable of creating something like the 'ray-gun', that, once created, can be used swiftly? Or alternatively, he has 'spells' that are quick to perform and he can just chuck a ball of pons at you and wipe you out in an instant (or would he chuck vitality)?"

'''CARL'''

"There is no single answer to that one.  Sorcerors know what they know -- there is no single school or curriculum."  Carl seems amused at the thought.  The ones who summon may not -- probably do not -- know that they can avoid the murder, nor might they care.   And yes, there are quick spells and slow spells, and some of each are very dangerous -- but one never can be certain what the sorceror actually knows, do you see?  Some -- many -- may require all the apparatus and rigamarole, while others will surprise you.


"That's the catch, isn't it?  As well as the catch with the Mythos as a whole.   There is so much, and so much variation, that every situation is different.  Makes it tough to know what to prepare for!


"All one can do is be prepared oneself -- and look for the signs of familiar things where they occur."  


Carl shrugs.

'''REDLAND JACK'''

Jack checks his watch to see how late they've been talking. While he has it out, he glances at it curiously.

 

"This item from the Dark Pharaoh ... Does it work the same way as everything else, or do the Outsiders use a different technique ... Is it even possible to have a different technique?"


'''CARL'''

"Both, I should say.  Asking if everyone uses the same technique is rather like asking if all chemical reactions are the same, since, after all, they all use atoms.  Hmm?"  He shrugs.  "I don't really mean to be flippant.  And, not having examined the watch -- or the Pharaoh -- in any detail I really don't know.  But I suspect that, down at the bottom of things, the same basic energies and rules apply.  It's just that those basics combine in countless very complex ways -- and we haven't done more than scratch the surface here." 

'''REDLAND JACK'''

"Ah. Okay. I wasn't sure, given that, from what you've told me, Outsiders are so strange that they operate under different physical laws."

'''CARL'''

“Yes they do – but so far at least, *almost* everything I’ve had a chance to see used the same basic stuff.”   He laughs once.  “Of course, that isn’t to say there isn’t more out there.  I’ve seen examples even here on Earth of effects that didn’t use any measurable amounts of the three forces directly.   But if we must make assumptions, and we assume that if something is to work *here*, then it interacts with us using the forces that are the building-blocks *here*, well, that seems something that will be right most of the time.” He shrugs.