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[_DivideByZero_]

I wouldn't necessarily say it's routine training beyond 101-level courses (and I would say that enough of biology is drilled into people's heads that should they be the last person on earth, they would be able to repopulate - redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, a rally cry...We must transmit our knowledge ever onwards, the societal raison d'être, Elena's reason to be here...), but I would definitely say there's a lot of medical knowledge available for those who are interested.  I mean, it's not like nobody's ever going to need replacement organs...and with power to spare, it's not like medical/biological research would be unsupported by the environment.  Scanning the brains of spiritseers as they communicate in an fMRI machine, developing cyberlimbs, genegeneering with CRISPR...spider goats.  And they don't generally have a "You're not ready to know that".  So someone whose interest is biology could go far.  That said, I was thinking Elena would call home on shortwave or something and ask an expert later, because her field of interest is more mech-e/cs than bio-e.

Obviously you're the GM, though.

Sure. People on Fragment don't have a lot of physical needs to worry about, so they tend to collectively know a lot about biology, physics, and the intricacies of magic. That said, knowing about something is different from being experienced with it, so even though mothers craft brains optimized for spiritseeing, it may be easier to just grow your own by using an ordinary piece of brain matter, then training it to respond to spirits. Sort of like a neural network.

[TheBiggerFish]

Sure, but in that case, what makes a bunch of neurons different from an FPGA (hardware-level programmable circuit board thing)?

[_DivideByZero_]

Sure, but in that case, what makes a bunch of neurons different from an FPGA (hardware-level programmable circuit board thing)?

Neural analogues function very differently from FPGAs, they tend to be a black box so far as you can't really peer inside a neural net to see its thoughts. Not as clearly as you can do in a microcontroller, anyhow. But the main difficulty is the complexity. Elena would have to spend a lot of time on it, learning relatively little about magic.

[TheBiggerFish]

Sure, but in that case, what makes a bunch of neurons different from an FPGA (hardware-level programmable circuit board thing)?

Neural analogues function very differently from FPGAs, they tend to be a black box so far as you can't really peer inside a neural net to see its thoughts. Not as clearly as you can do in a microcontroller, anyhow. But the main difficulty is the complexity. Elena would have to spend a lot of time on it, learning relatively little about magic.

True.  But that is exactly why she'd call back home and ask if they had anything.

[dgr11897]

I might drop out of this game if that is OK...

[TricMagic]

Hmm.. Doesn't the shield have some form of noise in it? Not the power source, but the shield itself.

[_DivideByZero_]

I might drop out of this game if that is OK...

I see. Sorry if the pacing was too slow or hard to follow.

Sure, but in that case, what makes a bunch of neurons different from an FPGA (hardware-level programmable circuit board thing)?

Neural analogues function very differently from FPGAs, they tend to be a black box so far as you can't really peer inside a neural net to see its thoughts. Not as clearly as you can do in a microcontroller, anyhow. But the main difficulty is the complexity. Elena would have to spend a lot of time on it, learning relatively little about magic.

True.  But that is exactly why she'd call back home and ask if they had anything.

I'm assuming your character's home is very close then? Inter-continental communication is an active project in this setting, since long-distance communication is complicated by the difficulty in laying undersea cable, and the radio-absorptive nature of the mist.

Hmm.. Doesn't the shield have some form of noise in it? Not the power source, but the shield itself.

Any signal other than your own, in the absence of a filter, is noise. So to project the shield, the emitter is creating noise in the space above, by sending out the signal that creates the shield.

The visual noise (sparks and crackling) comes from magic being used. You will see that any time significant amounts of energy are being used, like to lift objects or to form a barrier.

[TricMagic]

Noise is a form of energy, redirecting the flow into the sigil will create a hole in that flow. That should create a hole in the shield as well, allowing my crystal to pass through.

[_DivideByZero_]

Noise is a form of energy, redirecting the flow into the sigil will create a hole in that flow. That should create a hole in the shield as well, allowing my crystal to pass through.

Quite honestly I don't think I've caught up with what you've been saying. While I like it that your character has a different background in magic than other characters, I think a lot of the terms you're coining have zero physical reality in the setting.

Is what I understand you to be doing, basically creating a sigil (mechanically a mandala) that is extremely sensitive and thus projects any signal it comes across, thereby creating a 'hole' in its center through the action of projecting those signals? This will work, and use your Tempestry die (which I'm sure you want to use).

[IcyTea31]

Is there an easily available moldable rubber or rubber-like material in this setting? Something to make a contruct bounce on the ground without using magic?

[TheBiggerFish]

@DivideByZero: I believe you said something that leads me to believe that the mist's signal attenuation would be less of an issue.  Am I wrong in so thinking?

[_DivideByZero_]

@DivideByZero: I believe you said something that leads me to believe that the mist's signal attenuation would be less of an issue.  Am I wrong in so thinking?

What are you thinking of? If you have a very strong focusing array then you should be able to communicate with a similar antenna pointed your way at the receiving point, but low power broadcasts (like a walkie talkie) are just food for spirits, pretty much.

Is there an easily available moldable rubber or rubber-like material in this setting? Something to make a contruct bounce on the ground without using magic?

Springs?

[IcyTea31]

Springs aren't very good for making wheels. The plan would be to have the disc accelerate as much as possible just before the final stretch, then turn to its side at the point where the magic runs out and to roll and bounce the rest of the way. The marble-like material might be too inelastic and fragile for that, but adding a bit of rubber to the edge would make the idea more workable.

[_DivideByZero_]

Springs aren't very good for making wheels. The plan would be to have the disc accelerate as much as possible just before the final stretch, then turn to its side at the point where the magic runs out and to roll and bounce the rest of the way. The marble-like material might be too inelastic and fragile for that, but adding a bit of rubber to the edge would make the idea more workable.

I think foam might be better than rubber in this case. Still, you might be able to make a rubber-like substance from the tar in the city fountain, considering that rubber is just another permutation of "long hydrocarbon chains."

[TheBiggerFish]

@DivideByZero: I believe you said something that leads me to believe that the mist's signal attenuation would be less of an issue.  Am I wrong in so thinking?

What are you thinking of? If you have a very strong focusing array then you should be able to communicate with a similar antenna pointed your way at the receiving point, but low power broadcasts (like a walkie talkie) are just food for spirits, pretty much.

I was thinking some combination of mist-piercing comms which you said were available to me, and just straight-up cell service stuff.
...hey actually, could you use that effect?  SMS over spirits?