crystal.

[biggame]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Xiomara
RECIPIENT: Everybody
NOTES: Threadjacking approved and encouraged

Hey, if we cut an eluvian in half, will it still work? Because imagine. If we could strap one to a griffon, we could be anywhere, and only one person would have to do the traveling. Or we could strap one to the bottom of a griffon and fly low over a battlefield or a lake and people could jump through without the griffon even needing to land—

[ Or maybe that's just her personal paratrooper fantasy, parachute part PENDING, RESEARCH. ]

I think we could be thinking bigger here. Or smaller. But in a big way.

Comments

[aberratic]

Very handy, [ and ness is appropriately impressed. ] In Faerûn, there was magic that could achieve something close to the same effect, message and sending spells, sending stones—but they were out of reach for most people. Almost no one would ever see magic done, much less be able to do it themselves, or hold a magic item in their own hands.

Was your world very safe? I can't imagine these vanes staying up very long in a world ravaged by war and disaster, or industry dedicating itself to communication innovations when machines of war are needed.

[portalling]

‘Safe’, ( is so very much relative. He has to think about it for a moment. ) Yes and no. I’ll say, cynically, that communication innovations are in fact a part of the machines of war, so. There’s a vested interest in everyone being able to get information quickly.

If sending crystals were a widespread technology here that both Riftwatch and Tevinter used, but they relied on the same vanes, we’d presumably still want them up and working for our own purposes. Taking them down to sabotage both the enemy and yourself would mean cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[aberratic]

Which is something no entity of power has ever done, surely, [ because like. he's not wrong. but some people are still stupid enough to do it. ]

You are right, though, of course. It just seems... Most governments are more concerned with how to kill more people more expediently than with how to communicate troop movements quickly. At least that's how it seems in reading histories, having never been in war prior to this I'm certainly no expert.

[ despite talking like she is. ]

Is this technology replicable in Thedas, do you think?

[portalling]

Someday, [ bleakly, ] the two could be one and the same. Think of pressing a button on your crystal and thousands of people perish in Denerim. The quicker it gets, the more distant you are from the immediate impact.

[ But trying to tilt the conversation back towards something lighter: ] I promised Novoa I wouldn’t let Research push the technology and let it get too wide-spread. It does seem like we’re somewhat limited in our manufacture of this, anyhow; we haven’t been able to make very many more of these since the initial cache was discovered.

Would you want everyone to have a sending crystal?

[aberratic]

Well, that's... horrifying.

[ how easy would it be to make deadly decisions if you didn't have to be around to see their effects? how easy to allow expedience to outweigh ethics, when you don't have to reckon with its cost?

she takes a moment to sit with that, to really try to understand it. ]

I think... there have been some situations I've experienced that would have been improved by use of a crystal, [ a diplomatic way of saying "if i'd been able to call my father on the mindflayer ship i might have survived it", but also: ] but I understand that would simply be trading one problem for another, now.

It seems there's no good that cannot be warped by those determined enough. Are antibiotics, penicillin—can those be harnessed for evil, too?

[ fear of what could happen is no reason not to innovate—bad does not cancel out good, they exist side-by-side—but it would be good to know what to look out for. ]

[portalling]

[ Huh. ]

Over-use them and your body can get too accustomed to them, diminishing their efficacy. Overdose on them and you’ll have adverse reactions, but that’s any medicine. I think I can actually say this one’s a universal good.

[ He’s a born cynic. Even he sounds a little surprised to mention something so hopeful. But it means it’s worth it; all the time and effort they’re putting in with the professor, it’ll be worth it someday. ]

[aberratic]

Oh.

[ ness sounds just as surprised as stephen, to be fair, and she's not a born cynic. it just seems like something that good... it can't be that simple, can it? that uncomplicated? nothing is uncomplicated, that's not how the world works.

but maybe, just this once, it is. her smile is audible when she speaks. ]

Well, good. We put in so much effort to snare the Professeur, I don't know if I have it in me to talk him around again.