Emmascope

Date: 06/30/2018 Time: 15:00 EST	Starting at Emma's office in the Hall of Science If offices say anything about the hierarchy of those who inhabit them, the occupant of this office is somewhere on the lowest portion of the totem pole. An ancient door has a new name plaque that reads "Dr. Durov" and leads into painted cinder block-walled office. Cramped, the occupant has managed to make good use of every available inch. A nearly antique steelcase desk divides the office into two, with a battered swivel chair behind it. A tea kettle sits on one of the filing drawers on the occupant's side. On the visitor's side of the desk, an aged chair sits opposite the instructor's position, worn from many-a-student's visit. The previous tenant managed squeeze a sofa into the side space on the visitor's side, a beige, musty beast long enough to take a nap on, stained by coffee spills and time, and a chalkboard hangs opposite it. A few potted plants dot the office to bring some much needed color to the space, and a large, glossy poster of Jupiter is taped to the ceiling, in such a position that the office's occupant can lean back and gaze at it. Various pieces of equipment lay scattered around the office in different states of repair.
Cast: Emma Alma
Emma sits in her office, door slightly cracked as she works at her desk. A notebook is open and to her right, and she carefully transcribes data one line at a time from it into her computer. There's a couple of odd looking instruments on her side table - one that looks like a telescope, but without any lens, and one that looks like a small, handheld device, thicker than your average smartphone. Maybe a GPS? It's Saturday. Emma looked really interested When Alma asked if she ever uses instruments to record people doing magic. Alma stops by Emma's office to try things out. She snakes her way down to the basement and lightly taps on the door frame. She shyly peeks through the slight opening and says, "Hi? Is now a good time to try an attempt?" "Alma." Emma says, looking up from her stack of data. She waves the other into her office, motioning for her to sit down on her couch. "Come in, sit down. I was just going over some experimental data from last night. Very unusual!" She reports, cheerfully. "I'm hoping it'll make a pretty line on a graph." She enters a few more digits into her laptop, before looking up. "So what brings you on by?" "The other day you looked so interested in maybe recording people doing magic, I thought maybe we could trythat?" Alma's eyes are happy but she isn't bouncing off hte walls. She's working to maintain a quiet and calm composure in front of the astronomer. In fact, she's dressed very differently than usual. Instead of the cargo shorts and tank, she's wearing a kurta and some drawstring pants. Those certainly have pockets, but not sturdy ones; which is why she has a simple bag slung across her chest. Her hair has been tidied and brushed before being gathered in together in a ponytail. Her hair is decorated with a few jaunty twigs. "Sometimes I've watched friends and when they apply magic there's almost a song? Or sometimes color. So, maybe you could try recording when I do something? Wouldn't that be so cool?" Emma's eyes flick to the door at the mention of magic, making sure it's entirely closed behind the graduate student. She motions for the other to sit down again, half closing the lid to her laptop. "Well... it's funny you should mention it. But I was out the other night with my terrascope, trying to measure psyco-spiritual potential in different places." She reports, gesturing to her labratory notebook. "But the frustrating thing is to measure a thing, you first need to understand it. To understand it, you need to know how to measure it. In my opinion, anyhow." "I think," Alma says. There is a pause as she stares off, thinking. She's not focused on Emma's face. "I /think/ I've been trying to do something like that, but the way I do it, you don't need to understand it all at once." She refocuses and looks at Emma again, friendly. "How much psychology or biology do you have? Have you heard of ethology?" Emma grins, gesturing to the equipment in her office like it would tell the whole story. "Biology? Little. Enough to be dangerous in a conversation, but not enough to be practical. Psychology? Well... I've taken an interest into how the mind functions lately... and I've been doing some research, but I'm early in my investigations." She folds her hands on her desk, and a thought seems to occur to her: "Do you want chai? I keep a stash in my office." "I love..." She closes her eyes and breaths in a memory, "all those scents of chai. Yes please." She opens her eyes and starts to explain some of the history of psychology, including the study of intelligence in humans and in animals. "As an undergrad, I worked in a cognition and memory lab. I spent time proctoring memory experiments, and then we'd discuss the results... I mean, you know how science works." She looks bashful again. Then as an aside, "We use some of the same math physicists use when... back in the 90s maybe? A group in Boulder developed Latent Semantic Analysis and it involved singular value decomposition. That, maybe that is important to Detroit" She looks a little defocused again, but comes back, "nevermind /that/ for now. Anyway, psychology is /hard/. Pyschologists define intelligence in ways that usually excludes animals, but people study animals and then find ways to understand behavior that is intelligent... then foolish people move the intelligence goalpost. What I'm trying to say is," She cocks her head, looking off in to the distance, "is that, for all the modern history of psychology, people slowly slowly /slowly/ worked there way up to understanding that it is highly likely that animals other than humans have things like theory of mind, mental models of the world... you can see Bernd Heinrich's papers on the string experiments... with the study of animal behavior there's the old behaviorist approach but the contentinal approach came more from observations in the field... ethology. You can observe things without a complete understanding. You just have to take careful notes." Alma nods very enthusiastically, this is really true, right? right? Emma puts on the Kettle while the other talks, and starts preparing two mugs with tea strainers. The warm clove scent of the chai wafts through the small office, filling it with a Christmass like aroma. Otherwise, she listens very attentively to Alma's story, giving several small nods throughout to show that she is, in fact, listening attentively. "I would agree with that." She pipes up, when Alma has finished. "Bits about animal intelligence falling on a spectrum. My own field says we're not unique cosmologically, why would we be unique biologically? But... taking a page out of the animal kingdom, let's say you're a an eyeless newt, and you wish to study light. Since you don't have a built in photo-receptor - aka, eyes - you need to first build enough understanding to design instruments or experiments that can measure light. You're fighting an uphill battle." "But what I'm trying to say is, we didn't have the instruments and methods to study what we call intelligence. We don't exactly them now, but what we do have is better than what we had 10 years ago 50 years ago." Alma scrunches her forehead and asides, "Do newts have light sensitive spots instead of eyes?" That distracts her for a moment but she cames back 'round again. "We are both using anologies; and while I get yours, I do not think it is as apt." She feels sheepish and it shows in her face. "I mean... I'm skeptical about it, ok? But later on I'll be thinking it over and see things from your perspective." She gives a verbal grunt of frustrating, "This is so hard for me! So much new stuff that I didn't know was possible. Anything could happen, see? Because what I experienced? It means that the rules I thought I knew don't apply..." She looks at Emma again, "are you willing maybe to try? I don't know. I think Kai is better at this. Maybe first you could talk to her and get her to show you the trees. Maybe you need to experience first before building a scope or something." Emma pauess a moment, brow furrowing. "You know, I always assumed eyeless newts were eyeless. But... maybe they have photoreceptive spots?" She says, starting to pour out the hot water into the mugs for Chai. She waits a moment to finish this, before passing Alma a mug. "I think the analogy is the important bit, though. And... yeah, like you said, I might be wrong there. But you don't have to do anything; I was throwing that out as an idea, earlier. Uh, studying someone in-progress, that is." Alma holds the mug close to her face to feel steam rising from the cup. Sometimes tiny spots condense, will it happen this time? She takes a sip and contemplates. "Ok, so, do you want me to try something? Here? Or do you want to go out in the field and watch? I've been following clues for where to go to try and peek through the shroud. That's what I've been mapping out see? I look for patterns out there that /mean/ things. all the meaning points to something." Emma considers for a moment, before taking a sip of her tea. Her eyes close, savouring the aroma and taste, before she opens them again. "I always love Chai." She says breezily. After a moment, she tips her head to the side. "Let's finish our tea, and then I'll follow you out into the field." She decides. "I'd love to see you... do some... oh, 'mind'. What my tradition would call para-psychology." "Man, have you thought about language?" She says in reaction, like someone saying, 'man, have you thought about how those sports-ball people are doing lately? what is up with that', yeah, like that. language. So: "have you thought about language and colonization? or something? Like, I learn about the euthanatoic tradition and..." Alma catches herself and, where was she? that wasn't exactly a rant but one could get the idea that it could be or it could be a very earnestand sophomoric 'tell it to your blog' kinda talk that maybe belongs at 2 am in a bar or something. well, she catches herself and goes back to explaining, "To be honest, what I do for the gauntlet/shroad thing has to do with 'spirit' and that gets called 'cit' in my tradition, which translates to 'consciousness' which is like mind, see? but what people call 'mind' we call 'manas' which actually translates to 'mind'. So, I think you want to capture 'consciousness' in my opinion. Agree or no?" Emma's eyebrows go up as Alma just about goes on a blog-style rant (and stops herself), a smirk forming at the corner of her lips. "I think about it a lot. Language. Because the words I learned - the vocabulary I learned - is entirely different from the other Traditions. Yet another way we're similar-yet-different. But yeah... I want to measure consciousness. Or. No, not measure. That's not my end goal. My end goal is to understand where consciousness fits into this whole..." she gives a vague wave. "... mess. Because I've had my consciousness messed with." Alma's eyes widen and she looks astonished and just blurts out, "what the fuck?! what. the. fuck. fuck!" she takes a breath and then for good measure a sip of tea and hten another deep breath. "You're the maybe the second person I've heard about that happen to. It's not good. Are you worried someone will do it again? What I'm doing is memorizing my friend so I can catch if any weird shit starts going down. if I can do that, then maybe I can go get help from people to help my friend out." Emma holds up a finger. Trying to calm the other down. "I *know* it'll happen again. But..." Emma thinks for a moment. "It's not malicious. This is... well, from what I was told, a byproduct of their natural..." Emma pauses again, apparently giving up on that explanation. "... It's complicated. But my gut says it's not out of malice. Probably." Alma slows down and hmmmmms. "Ok, so... well, do you want to know how to tell when someone might be malicious? or lying? I can do that with mind, or entropy. In my tradition entropy is called 'tamas' which translates as 'dark initeria'..." she grumbles, "but I don't know why they call it dark inertia? what the fuck is up with that. Entropy is about making and breaking and coming together and apart and also about how much information things have? why initeria? inertia is a thing everything has? and why dark?" Alma got carried away again because this is bugging her and maybe an astronomer knows all about dark inertia? but, the weird natural life process thing with consciousness? "Do you think something is trying to talk to you by probing your consciousness? like, you know, everything is alive? so it could be like... SETI or something except right here... I tried to read the mind of the ground because you know about root systems? there's gonna be a mind that's an organizsm of the root fungi symbiots with trees and stuff... but I couldn't read it yet. but we can try... but it's really hard okay" Emma shakes her head. "No, I don't think so. I genuinely think... these creatures... whom I can't say too much about, because I'm protecting their privacy... they naturally mess with your mind. It's just... how they function. It isn't malicious, it's just... well. It's mental camoflage, maybe. But instead of not being seen, you forget what you saw." Alma looks at Emma very carefully. "Huh." She takes a sip of tea and stares at Emma. "I've known people like that." She scrutinizes Emma some more. sip. "like, you know, /people/." pause "/friendly/." sip "with /personhood/." Maybe it was the 'creatures' bit Alma objected to? maybe she's not being entirely honest here? Emma huhs softly, looking momentarily confused by the other. She takes a long sip of her tea, savouring it again. "I think... I think we're off topic, though. Suffice to say I have reasons I want to learn about it, and I'm a motivated student. I really don't want to say more about the reasons why, if that's okay." "Uh, okay" Alma says. "Just, as a favor. Try not to use dehumanizing language when talking about someone who is a person. Humans are animals, technically, but when you call someone an animal in a particular context it is dangerous." She looks a little pained. "I'm a little uncomfortable at the thought. I guess maybe I jumped to some conclusions. Well, uh, given your goals, do you want to study someone working with what you call Mind? becuase you need hte para-psychology knowledge?" Emma drums her fingers for a moment, pursing her lips, she thinks seriously for a beat. "Not just need the knowledge." She decides. "Need is a powerful motivator. But... I'd love to learn more. I'm a career learner, after all." She breaks into a wide smile at that. Her ruffled feathers start to lie down again. Alma's face softens, almost back in to a smile. She's still settling, though. "Yeah, I feel you. Uh, I was gonna suggest we go out for the Spirit work, but if you want Mind we can do that here? I could look at your mind and you could record my attempt? I won't perceive your thoughts. just emotions and impressions of things." She looks around the room at all the equipment. "Is what you need portable?" Emma downs the last of her tea, setting aside her dirty mug and snapping up her small, handheld computer device. It's like a thick smartphone, maybe the size of a handheld GPS, or a fictional tricorder from the movies. "Very portable." She chirps cheerfully, waggling the device. Emma starts to rise from her seat. "Want to try this somewhere else?" "Yeah," Alma admits. "It's more comfortable outside. And there was a spot I want to look at, near the Hall of Humanities." She finishes up the last sip of tea and sets the cup down. I'm ready when you are." Emma finishes closing her laptop's lid, and then picks up her bag. She slips the small tricorder like device into the bag, where it clacks against something else. "Let's go!" She says, cheerfully. They exit the Hall of Sciences and Alma guides Emma to a different part of campus. But Alma takes care to show Emma things that were part of finding hte spot. "It's all a process of magic," Alma explains. "I can't detect it all yet, but I'm so certain that if we practice we will be able to perceive almost to the smallest possible working of magic." As they walk from the Hall of Science towards the part of campus that contains the Hall of Humanities, the buildings get older. The pavement is less maintained and plants are growing up in the dirt that spills out from cracks in sidewalks, and parking lots. Alma points out a cracked base of a street lamp, and then points to two antenna on top of a building. rods in right angles. "It was a moment, I looked up and saw those two antenna. and there was a bird on each one. The next moment I looked, one had taken off. Thought and Memory, see? I have thought. It was Memory. Huginn and Munin and if you look in the course schedule there's a class on world mythology in room 102A. I've scoped out the window and there's a tree." Alma continues to walk in the general direction, but the first time she walked this path, it was a random walk and one can probably tell on the narrated rewalking of it. Emma follows along curiously, trekking after Alma as she heads along her walk. She looks like she has a question, but it hasn't quite formed on her lips yet. Instead, she comments, "I was just reading about them - Hugin and Munin - the other day. How serendipitous." And why, exactly, was Emma reading a book on Norse mythology? "I almost got a tattoo of them, but I put a lot of thought in to it and got Betty and Abel instead. Maybe that tattoo is for another time." She switches topics for a moment as something occurs to her. "Do you pick up magic that is ongoing? Or do you need to be there when it starts? I've got a mental safety net I meditate on. It lingers and maybe you can detect it?" At this point she finally stops at a tree. The Hall of Humanities is close by. "And there is where the world mythology class is being taught. You have an interest in Norse mythology or maybe like ravens?" Who wouldn't like and want to read everything about ravens, ever? I mean, really. "I recently got interested in Norse myths." Emma confirms, nodding a few times. She looks around to the point where they stopped. She twitches a bit at the use of the word 'magic' again, but keeps that reaction mostly to herself. "I think it'd be easier for me to detect things when they start." She considers slowly. "But... isn't this a little... exposed?" "It's the weekend and almost the 4th of July. Not as many people around. There's any classes," She says. "Besides, it's not like I'm loud or ostentatious or anything." She settles on to the ground next to the base of the tree. She pulls out a walnut from her bag and hands it to Emma. "Here. for you." Emma still seems ill-at-ease, looking around all the same. "Well." She drawls slowly, looking to the distance, and then to young mage. "I... I *guess*. But this strikes me as a bad idea." She says, weakly, before settling down after Alma. She accepts the walnut, giving Alma a quizical look. "It's meditating." Alma says, a little discomfort growing from Emma's. "Meditation is a normal part of society, so I thought it is okay? But I don't like that you are uncomfortable. We can do this someplace else. Do you have a bike or something? I have a bike. We could go to measure 2 maybe. Or maybe come here when it's a lot darker?" Emma shakes her head again. "No, it's fine." She insists, with one last furtive glance around. She remains planed where she is. "So..." Emma drawls again. "Meditation. I've done yoga. Is that close enough? Or...?" Alma looks a little confused and says, "Did you want to try or did you want to use the device on me while I'm meditating and stuff?" Emma facepalms for a moment, letting out a laugh that seems to bleed away so much of the tension. "Sorry. I got so wound around the axle, I forgot what I was doing, eh?" She smiles ruefully. "Okay, yes. That's why we're here. You meditate, I collect data." "We could try to practice together some time, in case we teach each other stuff? But right now, I'm going to meditate and expand my mind, if you can pick up Mind or para-psychology events, it should show up if I do it right." She takes a breath, "I'll just talk you through what I'm doing, ok?" She settles in to a cross legged pose. In a relaxed tone of voice she explains what is going on. "I'm settling in to this pose. It doosn't have to be this exact pose, but it suffices. I breathe in. out. from the diaphragm." She breaths for time until she has a quieter mind. but talks through the process a little, "there are kinds of scattered thoughts, and I just let them flow and don't catch them. let them go. for now I focus on mind. my being in this moment, my body, my breaths. slowly I settle. slowly." this goes on and then she starts a new refrain. "And now I think on connections among people and the interdependency with nature. I gave you a gift. not just a walnut. and this moment is a gift too. Everyday I walk the city and see the links people make. kissing, wiping a brow, sharing a meal, hitting. I am part of this system." At the start of this she closed her eyes, and as she talked through the meditations her eyes became half lidded, a little fluttery and now she opens them. <<DICE>> Alma rolls arete, difficulty 3 <<DICE>> 1 success (2 6, Specialty: No, Willpower: No) <<DICE>> Emma rolls intelligence + technology, difficulty 8 <<DICE>> 2 successes (1 2 3 6 8 9 9, Specialty: No, Willpower: No) <<DICE>> Emma rolls perception + awareness, difficulty 8 <<DICE>> FAIL (6 6 6 7, Specialty: No, Willpower: No) Alma says softly, not coming out of her state, "are you getting anything?" While Alma is getting ready, Emma pulls the small device out of her bag again, starting to work through the screen, knobs and dials to get to whatever feature she was apparently looking for. She tweaks something here, pushes something there, and gets a very, very focused expression on her face as she tries to puzzle out this 'fortean' phenomenon. "Fascinating." She breaths, looking down to dig out her notepad. She jots down several numbers, and underlines one several times. "Simply fascinating." She jots down something else: it looks like pure nonsense, but the nonsense flows from her like she knows exactly what to write. She even doodles a quick graph, lining up the data points by hand. "That's twenty /three/ T-E-Vs. That's... at least seven more than I expected!" "And... I'm going to look at myself now to see my mind. See if your meter changes for the, uh, states? emotions?" Alma holds out her hand and watches it. Emma continues to take her measurements, jotting things down at lightning speed. She looks like she's going to respond to Alma, but shuts her mouth. And then opens it again, like on the cusp of saying something. Just then, the screen flashes blue. This is apparently something that urgently needs written down. 'BLUE.' Underline, exclaimation point. Alma watches her hand for a time, to keep things simple. Sometimes the hairs on her arm stand up, sometimes she's got a shit eating grin on her face. She tears up at some point. She is experiencing something, whether it is real or not is for Emma to figure out. After a while she asks, "did you get enough? I'm about ready to stop." Emma takes a while to finish writing, quite into the... whatever the hell she's doing. When she finally notices Alma's about to stop, she looks up, blinking through the reverie she'd been in. "I think I got everything I need." Emma confirms, shutting down the small device and putting it back into her bag. "This data should keep me... busy. At least for a while." She starts to break into a wide grin, quite pleased with how things turned out. "Damnedest thing, though. I couldn't tell anything was going on... beyond my data, of course!" Alma is happy that Emma got data and shares in her excitement. "I really like blue!" She says. She sighs and frowns a little. "I'm too tired to try and peek through the shroud tonight. I've had a rough week. Do you want to try that next time?" Alma hopes there is a next time. Emma closes up the notebook, tucking a pen on the cover. "Next time." She confirms, starting to stand up with her bag and book. "Thanks for this. You don't know how much it'll help advance my Science." She says, ernestly.