Notes from lunch at Ghier's. [After half the party leaves, the other half stays to lunch] ------------- 1) Katya query translated by Ciernan: "I think she is concerned about not accidently tapping the Power of the bloodline for other effects." Ghier: "Hmm. Well, accidents are often the way that we learn the most, in that they show us the things that we do *not* expect, rather than just what we think will happen, but it's an interesting question. It should be possible to sever yourself and move the whole thing to the child, but that's not really a temporary solution. With your permission I could attempt a ritual to examine the connection and what sort of control you do have over it, compared to what you might be able to learn." This is done. Bystanders get random images and TK pokes, which become TK pummels until Katya knocks herself out. Ghier says: "You seem to have hooked yourself up very thoroughly to the Power side of things. It's not just something you can tap into sporadically, it's in a very real sense driving your entire psychic development. So no, I don't think that this is something you will be able to temporarily dampen as needed. The good news is, the power store seems to be quite fully drained, so you shouldn't have too much trouble with vastly exceeding your usual output for quite some time." Ciernan: "Is the power store expected to be that empty at this point, as we begin charging for the next go round? Or is it exceptionally low?" Ghier: "It's hard to say without knowing more details of your ritual, and how full the store was before. Reasonable safety margins seem to have been built-in, and in some cases were definitely needed. The Decider's Outline was almost completely emptied out, because they were low in that to start with. And Focus, of course. Balance and Source were not fully discharged." Katya amplified by Ciernan: "It doesn't seem to have been fully discharged by the ritual, but rather, drained afterwards by some other unfortunate events. I think that's why Katya was concerned about learning to disconnect from it. Given that it's drained, I'm more concerned about whether it will be harder to refill, either in the sense of being totally empty making it harder to start up, or in the sense of not having any left meaning we'll have to do extra work to make sure it's charged more than the others before the next ritual." Ghier doesn't think being totally empty will make it harder to charge. Though he points out, a thing to worry about if you're worrying about that sort of thing, is making sure everyone and their brother doesn't learn power projection, because then all the charge is just going to get poured in random directions. Ciernan frowns again. "Rebottling that genie make take some doing, as there are approximately two hundred people we taught to do it. On the other hand, many of them may not see much point in it, if they're not learning psi projection theory." Ghier: "Well, it's the sort of thing that really looks like you should be able to *do* something with it. Power project into your money, maybe there'll be more. Power project into your begonias and they'll win the June Bug Begonia Button. Not knowing the theory hardly stops people from the execution." Ciernan: "We had been somewhat intending to charge the Tinoori bloodline by simply having Tinoori come visit the Hegemon a few times over the course of their life and psi projecting at them for a week or so, though. I expect that they can be kept from telling humans how to psi project, but do you think that won't actually work?" Ghier: "You'd want a little more spread out attention though, like a ten-day worth of time spread throughout a lifetime. Tinoori can be very single-minded if you can convince them it's true. So that might well work. But I don't think you could get *humans* to do that." Ciernan: "The plan was never to have humans do it that way, no. But if you think there needs to be more background-process from the Tinoori, we'll have to rethink that." Ghier: "Do you need the Tinoori bloodline as full as the rest? If so, if you're just using the Tinoori, you probably want to be as efficient as possible about it. If not, well, you could get away with a lot more spillage." Ciernan: "No, it doesn't have to be. It wasn't charged at all, for this time. Perhaps the original plan, just making sure the Tinoori also know that the line will be part of the saviors of all sentience in the Linked Worlds from some future catastrophe, then." -------- 2) It is mentioned that Martya is the heir to the Power line, and that she psi-flung the ship through space. Ghier examines Martya: "She's definitely got a lot of potential power. She's not holding on to it right now, though." [Katya asks for clarification] "She isn't using it? Her ego is volitionally unconnected to her psyche? Her psi doesn't work yet? If you drop her, she won't fly? Martya waves hands around and the glowy thing over there on the floor doesn't do anything? "It's extremely rare for a pre-sentient infant to be able to use psi. At three or four zed, you get a bit of a spike, when there's understanding of not just cause-effect, but cause-effect-effect. Then a slow but mostly linear development until another big spike during puberty." ------- 3) Ciernan Interrogates Ghier: Deciders: > 1) Biggest goal is getting more information about the Deciders: What > does Ghier know about where they went/how many planets they were > defending/how they got there? He thinks they have fewer planets that the humans do, though within a factor of 2-3 or so, though they probably have similar population totals (again to within a factor of 2 or so). He doesn't know the details; he wasn't considered part of their Decision until after the ritual, and many things were on a need-to-know basis until that point. After that point, it sounds like he could have asked more questions, but is fairly single-minded about all his questions being about psi. :) > Did they use a jump gate to get out of the cloud, did they stay in the > cloud the whole time, did they do something else? They went to a planet inside the cloud, and jumped to a planet outside the cloud, much the way you do it. There were four planets involved in their ritual, all outside the cloud. > Does he have any idea how the "kill all humans" decision reacted to > being saved by a human? Are they still trying to kill everyone, or > has "the flames passing" satisfied their game goal? Their Decision was proven wrong, so the few of them that are left have been rejoining the various active pluralities. Neither "kill all humans in the dust cloud to stop the Flames" nor "team up with the humans for the ritual" are active Decisions at this point, though the latter is a proven Decision. > What does it mean that we've become their focus? Well, he can tell you what it means in a psychic sense, that humans are now part of the Decider ritual (you think it's similar to the Tinoori becoming part of your ritual). But he thinks it has all sorts of ramifications on politics and society and stuff he doesn't really care about at all. The Grandmothers were all talking about it like it was important; that's why they stayed behind. > How big *were* their casualties, and did it disrupt their society, or > did they just sort of absorb them and move on, smaller? He thinks about nine percent; they were mostly among the young and the psychic fringes. Because of Outline being small, you see. So the ones who were too young to have joined any Decisions, or were insane, or were otherwise very anomalous, were much more likely to be killed. > What does it mean to be a proven decision? That it was right. It sets precedent. > Can you be in more than one decision at once, on different topics? > ("I'm in the kill all the humans decision, and the build a new dam in > Quezakistan decision.") He thinks yes. He mostly only interacted with them along the Decision line of "work with humans on the ritual", though. > Does he know when [the grandmothers] are likely to come back, of if > there's any way to get in contact with them? He doesn't have a way. He imagines the Deciders could bring them back. >>He thinks about nine percent; they were mostly among the young and >>the psychic fringes. Because of Outline being small, you see. So >>the ones who were too young to joined any Decisions, or were insane, >>or were otherwise very anomalous, were much more likely to be killed. > Ok, I don't understand how that relates to Outline being small. Can > he explain that more? What does Outline do in this context? Outline is about the shape of things. The general gist. Range is irrelevant; a circle of small stones is things-in-a-circle, and a circle of stars is things-in-a-circle, which is the same to Outline. So there was an outline of the Deciders protected, but because their Outline was small, it was an overly simplified outline, so it left out many of the corner cases. The first psi ritual we did today: > 2) Talking a little about the ritual we just did - I know that people > can use talents without appropriate schticks, if they get the talents > some other way, but is he trying to say that talents themselves can be > used for anything? Or just that it should be possible to buy the > schtick "Psi", and buy any talent you want? (Ciernan's Edu roll says): He's proven the existence of the "Mad Psience" skill, which (with the "Mad Psientist" shtick) can be used much like "Mad Science" skill is, on all sorts of things as long as it's mad. > He also said before the ritual started that it might be "good for us" > to take part and clear out our psychic pathways... does he think that > actually happened? He thinks so. (There's an extent to which each of your shticks that you used can broaden a little bit towards the shticks of the people next to you.) > I'll also ask if he has a feel for why the Lightning went particularly > wild, rather than Akito's strike or Mirris' infiltration. He phrases it in ways having to do with inherent control, etc., but mostly he thinks you had the most relevant flaws. :) Ascension: > 3) Talking a little about how Ascension is a bad thing that started > the flames, and should be avoided, and that that was what Kith was > worrying about before the Ritual. We're not sure exactly what the > criteria for when Ascension happens is, so he wants to be very careful > about that. Yes, the Deciders briefed him on the Tamorai ascending. They mostly stay out of the dust cloud for that reason. He doesn't seem to think he's in any imminent danger of Ascending, though. He's far more theoretical than all that. [Katya prompts for more] Hmm. To start at the beginning. You know how in physics, things dent spacetime? Like rocks sitting on the surface of a pond, if the pond was made of pudding with a very thick skin? Well, this whole area is like that. Here in particular, but much farther out too, because it's a very *large* rock. But the Omphalos is at the very center. Anyway, very far away from here, there's no *room* in the nascent psychesphere. Because the pudding-skin hasn't been lowered, do you see? (he holds one hand up, and puts the other hand beneath it, and jiggles the bottom hand to demonstrate that there's no room). No randomness potential, nothing can spontaneously arise. No sentience. But here, well, not just here, but everywhere around here, light years and light years and light years, there's more room. (He lowers his bottom hand and then jiggles it up and down). See? There's much more room for jumps, for spontaneous nascent possibility. And then, *in* the Omphalos (he lowers his bottom hand a bunch more, and then waves it around wildly, demonstrating that it still doesn't hit his top hand), there's all *sorts* of room for pretty much everything. But *in* the Omphalos, here (still waving hand wildly) the nascent possibility can get really big, much like escape velocity. (He zooms his bottom hand up, crashing into his top hand, and both hands wave away into the air). Rupture the pudding-skin, out of the pond entirely. This is the only place you can *get* out of the pond, because of the depth. But anyway, the Tamorai did that, at least, some of them did. What they didn't realize is that going through the pudding-skin would set up ripples. A big pudding ripple (he makes wiggly motions with his fingers) all the way out to the edge and then back. It doesn't matter way out *there*, because there's nothing there. No nascent potential. But here, it's where all the sentience pops up, we're floating around in the pudding and when the ripples come back, they drag our thoughts off away from our physicality, and then there's nothing left. [How to avoid ascending?] "Easiest way to tie a rock to your ankle, just get out of the Omphalos. But I don't think one can easily 'accidentally' ascend. But that's not to say that one can't ascend without knowing the ramifications of what will happen when one does. Hmm. I suppose it's possible to be completely disconnected enough from psychic norms that one could accidentally ascend.... or, could one push someone *else* into ascending? That seems more possible. Hmm..." > If he doesn't have XenoPsi, I probably go ahead and talk a little > about that, too, in the context of what little we do know about > avoiding Ascension. Yup, he does have XenoPsi now, though it's definitely got a stronger Decider focus than you guys do, and less Brochoah/Tinoori. Paddy: > 4) Mention that Paddy seems to be an extraordinary dog, and ask how > long he's had him, and if he's noticed anything odd about him. He's had Paddy since he was a pup, about eight years ago. Of course he's an extraordinary dog, he was born and bred on Rupert's Hole! [Akito tries touching Paddy, but nothing interesting happens.] ------- 4) Ghier interrogates Ciernan >1) How did the human ritual go? Obviously it mostly worked, but what > was the setup, and what did you adjust how from the original, and > why, and what parts went wrong, and why? I'll give him most of the details. I don't actually remember who was supposed to travel in the original version, but I'll explain how it worked in the version we actually did, and that we used a Tinorri perception hegemon to splinter the power flow and spray it out to cover the outworlds. Most of the things that went wrong were due to the Terrans taking every opportunity to attack us. >2) You have a Vertaki on the crew - what do you know about how they > work? Uhm. He'll have to be more clear what he's looking for there. And at least some of that information may be secret, I'm not sure. >Are they a true symbiosis? Is the 'vampirism' obligate, or just >preferential? Do they have a double-cost stat? Do they seem to have >particularly common shticks, that you've seen? That sort of thing. "Symbiosis? My impression is they're a race impersonating a human form, rather than a race on top of humans, but I'm not certain. I think the vampirism is how they eat, so it's as obligate as food. I believe Fortune is their double-cost stat. Abilities certainly include long life and vampirism, I'm not sure if they're actually schticks, or just racial properties." >3) So, you've been teaching yourselves Xenopsi? Do you have any > hybrids? How is that going? Yup. We know a total of four hybrids, at this point. None of them very far along, but it seems to be working ok. Only one of them is really exploiting their hybridization, to exploit some psychic hardware we found in the Inworlds that works better when the person using it has reliability. >4) Katya mentioned accidentally overpowering psychic things with the > Power bloodline. Like what? What happened? (Not the things he was > in, he knows about that). I wasn't around for it, really, but in combination with another psi who channels the dead, she brought back a large number of ghosts at Crux recently. >5) Did your ritual all go up to 12 too? Yup. >6) How many sentient races do you know about? Ciernan: "More than I'm allowed to talk to you about, I'm afraid. Publicly, Tinoori, Brochoah, Vertaki, Humans, Deciders, and Tamorai." After a glance at Ciernan, Katya adds: >He says he doesn't care what they're called or where they live, but >could you at least describe their psyches? Calling them blueboxes and >redboxes and purpleboxes and such would be fine. "Mmm. I don't know very much about them. The blueboxes are clearly a sentient race, with the ability to 'store' their mental images somewhere, and to vary their physical form greatly. I think mental images can only be put in a physical form similar to the one it came from, but can be consulted by other members of the race when not in physical form. Depending on the physical form the particular member of the blueboxes takes, their psyche seems to be able to vary between a human-like one, a decider-like one, or probably other things. "The green and brown boxes are interrelated in ways I don't understand. Greenboxes are proto-sentient, not all the way there yet, and seem to have some sort of herd mentality. Brown boxes are sentient, and I believe similar to humans in their psyche, but there are very few of them, and they're somehow involved in the greenboxes becoming sentient. "Oh, and there's the floating balls of emotion that occaisionally show up in Hyperspace, I don't understand what's up with them or if they even qualify as sentient." >He thinks that anything that looks sentient to a human in hyperspace is >more likely to be a perceptual bias, the way a butterfly will think that >anything brightly colored is a flower, but he would want to do some >experiments in hyperspace to figure out more.