The Omnibus of Gods

[Allan]

Allan got the impression Danika was uncomfortable. "Only if you want to." He smiled. He was her boss after all and not everyone got along well with their boss, and Allan remembered seeing them together at the gala. Not that he'd been paying much attention to everyone of note. Just those who could wield the power the nine did as well. That was part of his job then.

"You look great by the way. You shouldn't feel uncomfortable." He'd remembered Bethany's habits of demurring herself when she felt common. It brought back sad memories. When was the last time he'd been out like with with a woman. Their server went to pour him a glass of wine and he covered the glass. "None for me." Drinking while on duty was frowned upon. Drinking in general was something Allan preferred to stay away from. Last thing he needed was to lose control and put himself and Danika at risk.

"Thank our friend and invite him to join us. We can talk of less dramatic things like the theory of teleportation."

[Danika]

His reassurance left her smiling. "Thanks," she said, biting her lower lip just a little like she was embarrassed. However, when teleportation theory came up, she visibly perked up. In fact, she couldn't quite finish swallowing her water fast enough. 

"Oh! I love the theory of teleportation. Can you imagine the vast amount of energy to even make it possible? Never mind actually designing the process. Successful teleportation would require deconstructing an object at one location, transmitting its precise information or “pattern” to another destination, and then reconstructing that same object using that information. Everything down to your quantum state would have to be scanned and encoded then we would have to transmit from this vast amount of information, and then recreate it all again at the final destination."

She shook her head in wonder, dreamily looking away.

"Do you think its possible? You know, someday?"

[Allan]

There was such exuberance with Danika's excitement, it almost made him want to jump right into the theories. Not that he understood half of what she said, he was a philosopher after all not a scientist. But when her question was directed at him he gave her a devilishly handsome smile and leaned in as if to tell her a secret. And it sorta was. "I read an old book, a book about things our ancient ancestors could do with our god given gifts. And one of those things was traveling instantly through space to another place. So possible. Yes." He had emphasised god given gifts with a wink and a flick of his hand though no flames erupted from them as he would have done in the Kremlin. But out here he tried not to scare the civilians.

"Possibilities are endless once we understand the nature of these things. Healing at a touch. Compelling a person to do and behave differently. All things done without our understanding. And with your technology, maybe we'll see it happen in our lifetime." He leaned back smuggly and smiled defiantly. "And the first person to do it will be king of the world." And Allan knew the Ascendancy would figure it out one way or another and reap the rewards -- that was his nature.

[Kaelan]

She was late enough that Kaelan was growing annoyed by the time she arrived. She paused at the front to scan the tables for him, and he took the opportunity to study her. Their training and lives crossed paths multiple times in the past, but it had been years since he last saw Victoria in person. She was older than he recalled, but then again he assumed he was as well.

She spotted him, gave a small wave and joined his table. “I am so sorry, Kay,” she professed as she sat. She hooked a bag over the back of the chair and laid her Wallet on the table in front of her as though intending to keep constant eye on any messages. She was military back then, but she worked at the Kremlin now. Her responsibilities must be many, he supposed. He gave only a raised brow and nodded at the behavior, but did not comment on the shortened version of his name. It always bothered him when people assumed it was fine to adjust, but he supposed if anyone had the right to intimacy, she did.

“How are you, Victoria?” He asked as he summoned a server to take their orders and move this along.

They both ordered, and Victoria asked if the kitchen expedite things. She was on a tight schedule. The server glanced briefly at her Custody uniform, gaze hovering on the patches of rank and formal expression, and nodded that he would relay the message.

Once the business of food was complete, she smiled tiredly and shook her head. “Damn, but its good to see you. I’m good. Thanks for coming. I am in a hell of a bind and can’t figure this out.”

She sighed with relief after swallowing several gulps of water, then her gaze settled on the room over his shoulder, flashing with the expression of recognizing colleagues. She gave them a nod, those she knew, and leaned to speak quietly. “I told you this is a popular place with Kremlin personnel.”

Kaelan looked over his shoulder, brows raised anew as he refreshed the view with this new perspective.

“I’ll keep that in mind and be sure not to spill any of your government secrets,” he replied dryly.

“Shit, don’t even joke like that.” She said in retort.



((OOC: Torri written with ppc permission))

[Danika]

When he leaned across the table, Danika was captured in the attention. Maybe it was the topic of conversation or maybe it was the reminder of her night with Marcus, but she suddenly realized how handsome he was.

She accepted the tease with a coy smile and anticipation that something might actually spark from his palm. The light-heartedness immediately put her at ease, which she waved away good-naturedly.

“You are right, of course. Magic is just science we do not yet understand.”

He didn’t seem interested in the wine, so Danika took a sip for herself on her own, but as she did, she raised it in a small toast to the statement.

“Did your book tell you how they did it? Because if so, you gotta spill.”

[Allan]

Of course she thought that. All scientists would. Allan liked to beleive that there was still some magic in the world. Something that they would never understand. That was philosphy after all wasn't it?

He sadly shook his head. "Unfortunately the book was enlightening the hunters to all the powers that the gods of old had so as to keep an eye out for such magics and was not a reference book for preforming such deeds. But there are things in the book, that I've seen with my own eyes -- our very own Ascendancy has preformed many -- and the healing being one of which we could all benefit from if enough of us could do it."

That Jensen James existed was not uncommon news but where the man was -- that was a secret.

[Marcus DuBois]

After he spoke to the waiter, he focused back on his wallet, reading the projected screen (visible only from his single perspective) finishing up his meeting notes while it was still fresh in mind. This last had been with Fiorella Sannazaro, who oversaw the Applicant Division. The announcement regarding Force users had opened the floodgates as people reported anything that seemed strange or out of the ordinary. Sometimes it was from the person themselves, talking about dreams or smells or premonitions or hallucinations. Sometimes it was family, friend, work or school colleagues. And sometimes it was just anonymous tips.

People looked for patterns in the best of times. And these were....changing times, to put it most charitably. People saw the unknown or the unknowable everywhere and reacted. Domovoi headed up any reports of possible creatures that might pose a threat. But what about a girl who slept all day, a faint humming coming from her, with rampant growth of flowers and shrubs outside her window?. Same with the anonymous complaint from someone who got a headache every time they bumped into their coworker. The fantastical and the crazies- not that they were mutually exclusive- flooded them. And they took time to work through. In times past, even those who had legitimate abilities might still find themselves being treated for mental illness or drugged to the gills. Weeding fact from fiction, disentangling memory from drug induced fog, and above all, classifying was a monumental task.

Fiorella was dogged and kept at it. It was one of those situations where you started nibbling at the edges and worked your way in. From a certain perspective, it seemed like a massive collection of special edge cases, each one unique and requiring its own study, classification and processing methodology. And from that perspective, it would be intractable.

But Marcus had stolen from the field of Abstract Algebra and specifically Group Theory, the way mathematicians had been able to abstract away extraneous details of different objects like polygons, sets of numbers, polynomials, knots, permutations, and matrices to derive groups, rings, fields and so on. This then let them make use of their tools of analysis techniques from one specific domain to find a solution in the other. It had been taking a topological object like an elliptical curves, expressing it in a modular arithmetic from, and then bringing to bear on that form complex analysis that allowed Wiles to solve the 500 year old question of Fermat's last equation over 60 years ago. Translating from one Group to another and then using the tools for that group to find a solution.

It had taken some time, but Fiorella had gotten the spirit of it and the endlessly unique list of reports to process had begun to take shape as certain forms were discerned, and gradually become manageable. It had been successful enough that now they were moving to making use of machine learning. Part of her team was researching what kind of neural network architecture would be best, while another was doing the laborious and tedious work of combing through and preparing the data so that training could be done. The goal was that the trained model would then do most of the work of processing reports, freeing them up to actually do something about them.

He made a note recommending a hybrid of a Graph Convolutional Network, useful for graph structured data like social media- necessary to determine proximity or relation to known persons of interest- Autoencoders for cleaning sparse or noisy data- which summarized most reports- and Siamese networks, ideal for measuring similarity and dissimilarity. The architects would be busy putting this together, he knew. But the potential was worth it.

He looked up as the server returned with the invitation. He thought for a moment, considering- This could be interesting- then nodded, closing his wallet so his screen disappearing, and prepared himself mentally before he asked that his meal to be brought to him there when theirs was served.

He wore a friendly smile as he approached and touched Danika's shoulder warmly for a moment, his smile widening considerably. "Danika, It's really good to see you." Not a trace of apology or awkwardness showed. Neither of them had done anything wrong, after all. He turned to the man, extending a hand. "Mr. Rikovy, it's nice to see you as well. It's been a while since I visited the Dominion Facility." Movement behind him resolved into the waiter bringing him a fresh water with lemon. He pulled the chair out and sat down.

He busied himself taking his napkin and putting it in his lap/ "Thank you for the invitation. Taking a solitary work lunch always seems like it will be productive...But you miss the potential back and forth of conversation."

[Danika]

The touch on her shoulder sent sparks down her arm only because it was Marcus’ hand that did the touching. She couldn’t help the sheepish smile that followed as she watched him sit. It was one of familiarity, sure, but she hoped it wasn’t also one that said ‘I’ve seen you naked.’

“It’s really good to see you, too.” She said back.

“We were just daydreaming about the difference between magic and science. Allan has some really cool ideas about things that maybe could be discovered with the channeler power.”

She hoped that was enough of a bridge to get Marcus up to speed.

“Like the wormhole idea.” She nodded excitedly and offered to pour Marcus some of his own wine.

[Allan]

Allan chuckled when the Consul called him Mr. "Mr. Rikovi is my father. Allan is fine. This is a casual lunch not anything formal." He smiled. "And when you fight side by side against horrible creatures I think first names are appropriate after that."

He was grateful his spanakopita arrived, it eased the need to always talk but also allowed him something to do with his hands instead of lifting a wine glass. "Read a book about the so called Atharim gods and some of the things they could do. One of them was travel instantly from one place to another. Danika asked if it said how and unfortunately it wasn't that kinda book."

[Marcus DuBois]

Danika's smile was warm and for some reason Marcus felt himself relax. Which was odd, frankly. He didn't think himself tense. Perhaps it was concern that there might some hostility or friction. Their tryst had been consensual. And while it wasn't always smart, there were no real laws against fraternizing. Especially with someone who, in many ways, was more of a consultant. This wasn't a country that was hamstrung by HR or anything.

But friction was friction. And maybe he was concerned that there might have been some resentment. That must be it. Her smile put him at ease. Though he couldn't help but remember the way her eyes flashed that night, the way her nostrils flared- the way she bit her lip at the end. The way he had felt. Which surprised him. He wasn't one given to nostalgia. He wasn't sure what it was about her. Maybe it was her innocence that he picked up on. Or something familiar.

In any case, his concern seemed unwarranted, now. Given an "in" into their ideas, he considered with some pleasure. Their topic of conversation was exactly what he hoped would flourish in his Consulate. The casual, momentary inspirational back and forth that only happened under the right circumstances. "Interesting," he said. At her offer, he let her pour the wine into the empty glass at his place, took it and paused, thinking for a moment as he raised his glass for a toast. David Hilbert coming to mind. "To Knowledge:  [color=#202122]We must know – we will know"

The wine was good, he supposed. He wasn't any kind of connoisseur. He secretly suspected that a lot of it was just made up pretentious gate keeping. It wasn't bad, was probably the best assessment he could give. No lingering bitterness or aftertaste or anything. That was as far as he would go.

At Rikovi's explanation, he leaned forward with interest. The Atharim. That was a source he hadn't considered. "Interesting. So it claimed they could teleport? Instantly. Hmm..." All kinds of questions flashed through his mind, but he held back. He held back, too, the skepticism that always lurked. It would not do to be confrontational or challenging. People shut down when you responded that way. "Where did you see this book? Do you still have it?" 

He didn't ask about its provenance or age. Whether it was a copy or an original. Most people never considered such things. If it was in an old book, it was true. An idea he understood, but which contained a monumental blind spot. Thucydides or Herodotus might be be from 2500 years ago. But none of the copies of those books were 2500 years old. They were copies- copies of copies, multiplied many times over. Papyrus and even vellum wore out, especially with use. Copies meant errors. In different places, to be sure. Copy A might have an error in the beginning, while B had one in the end. All copies made from A would now carry that error. So would those from B. Families of manuscripts, sometimes classified by those very errors, resulted and then compounded as more copies repeated that process, splitting into rivers and then branches and then tributaries. Add the ravages of time and the loss of copies anywhere near the originals and you ended up with the oldest existing manuscripts being 1000 years after the original were supposedly written. Add the fact that many times those that existed now were fragmentary and incomplete, and well...the degree of confidence was definitely low. Certainly, not something to die or go to war for.

But he would say none of that because he he had no information. It might be that this book was a true original, ancient beyond belief. He wanted to see it- badly. Because knowing how the Force was used in the past- something accurate- could be a guide for him.

He filed it away, hoping to press Rikovi more for its whereabouts.

The immediate question, though, was teleportation. He frowned, thinking aloud. "I read an article about the possibility of teleportation. It was from maybe 30 years ago. I want to say that there was a claim that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle wouldn't let you get all the information you'd need to describe each particle's state. Solutions to Schrodinger's wave equation are probabilistic, not exact There was something else, too....No. I lost it." He thought for a bit, remembering spirit in particular. It definitely did not behave like the other four types. It was what allowed his Tau-gates to work. "But the power isn't necessarily bound by those strictures though, is it, Danika?"

He took another sip. "Have you found anything in your research that might give a clue?"