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Post by echidna on Aug 17, 2011 13:24:54 GMT -5
Eliza returned to the lair, not surprised to find Slade out - he was off on that "matter that needs attention" and she was left alone - it'd been why she'd gone out in the first place and not had to explain herself... everyone needed time like that, but Eliza had something on her mind now. Something... important.
She had been working it over in her head for a long... long time now. She loved her children. The Broodmother didn't treat her children like... like tools, like weapons. She knew Slade. She knew him pretty well, she liked to tell herself... even though she knew she was lying to herself. She didn't know him... not nearly as well as she would like to... and that made her edgy. Could she totally trust him?
Even his training gave her the obvious answer. Of course she couldn't bloody well trust him - what the hell was she even thinking? But her thoughts weren't only of herself. She also thought of Charlie, of Jericho especially. The idea she had in her head... it was beyond her knowledge.. but Charlie was a smart woman - surely... Surely Charlie would be able to help Eliza help her help herself? It made more sense in her head, that it did.
A bit giddy from a bit of sun and, so help her, a big ol' slice of pizza with a cold coke, she was ready to take on these complicated problems - she felt... vitalized. Yes... Now was the time.
Knocking on Charlie's door, Eliza pushed in without waiting for the response. She wasn't wearing her usual outfit - she was wearing a black silk shirt - useless, but comfortable, and a pair of black jeans with combat boots- perhaps the most comfortably dressed that Charlie had ever seen Eliza.
"Charlie... you in?" she asked, looking into the gloom of the lab keenly and tilting her head this way and that.
"Charlie, I have a project I need your help with... you in here?" she called gently into the gloom.
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Post by sephiroth on Aug 17, 2011 14:03:46 GMT -5
Charlie was fast asleep on at her desk her head resting on what must be a very uncomfortable pillow of random assortment of tools, pencils, and drawing material. On her desk were her many sketches, (if you could call them sketches, really they were various schematics and tech drawings.)
Her computer screen active flashing by various technical specs. Inside the lab there was very little organization, when it came to the tools she was using. Everything other than the desk and filing cabinets was scattered about higgledy piggldy.
It was amazing to most people but charlie had rarely spent time at home she practically lived in her lab. If you were to look closely at her room you would notice that there was absolutely no indication she was using her bed. Her room was filled filing cabinets, certificates, and more sketches. There was also a button right near the left hand side of the wall that said in big white letters "DO NOT PUSH".
There was a half finished machine of some sort sitting right in front of her. Her hand was still clutching the small wrench she had been using to design it. Knowing charlie it was some dangerous new object that for some reason she found fascinating and a solid piece of the scientific method.
her glasses hung from one of her ears as she snored almost peacefully, the basket that normally held the werewolf empty, it had obviously gone off again.
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Post by echidna on Aug 17, 2011 14:25:00 GMT -5
Eliza looked over the office with a vauge smile slowly crossing her features... she knew how it was, even if her own room wasn't this kind of mess. She was smart... but she knew Charlie to be a genius - just... look at some of this stuff! Without waking her, Eliza picked up a device at random with great care... it looked like a projectile drill thing with tendrils coming out the back? She set it down, deciding she might just not want to know... but it was all very interesting to her. She decided to give a cursory glance at the screen, before very carefully sitting on one arm of the chair and gently taking her shoulder and shaking just a little - she didn't want to be rude after all.
"Charlie... Charlie, its Eliza.." she said, sure that her voice might come as perhaps a comfort. She knew for a fact that she wouldn't like waking up to see slade hovering over her, looking disapproving. So... contrary to her training, she had a friendly enough smile on her face as she shook again gently, unsure if she'd stirred yet.
"Charlie - Charlie, I'm sorry to wake you... but it is important, I need your help with something." she murmured in indoor-im-freaking-sleeping-here tones.
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Post by sephiroth on Aug 17, 2011 16:23:45 GMT -5
"hmm...mr...*random giberish*......" Charlie mumbled to herself as she slept for a few. It seemed to take at least a minute before her brain stired back into some measure of activity. "You blood sucking....." Charlie said for a second waking up and blinking as she finally registered she was being woken up.
"ohh eliza its you..." Charlie sighed as she looked over at the strange young 'apprentice.' She yawned a bit and looked around wondering if there was some form of caffine somewhere around her.
She stretched widely and began straiten out her long brown locks by tossing them over her shoulder and behind her ears. "Any chance of any coffee or caffine?" She asked as she began straitening out her papers with a rustling sound, she then put them into small manilla folders labled possible ideas.
She then checked her computer notes, and wished to goodness she still was able to use those holocomputers she had at one point. 'note to self build a new computer.' she thought to herself as she smacked her lips a few times trying her best to wake up fully.
"What do you need....." she asked blearily, obviously she wasn't entirely awake after her long night of tinkering with her device.
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Post by echidna on Aug 17, 2011 22:32:04 GMT -5
Eliza pulled her messenger bag around to the front of her body and fished through a bit... she had that Ultraquench energy drink for later, but... but... oh well. She smiled a bit at Charlie, and proferred the can to her, still minty-cold and dewy in her hand.
When the scientist asked her question, Eliza knew she aught to have something good to smack her with - something to pitch her, to shock and startle the brain into sudden activity and get her excited - that might be best... but she was a genius, wasn't she? Charlie aught to be self-motivating, shouldnt she? Just the same... she came right out with the hammer and said
"I have... a plan to fix Jericho's body, Charlie." she says flat-out, letting the moment sink in before she pulls out her sketchbook. She flipped through pages and pages of monster ideas, too fast for the eye to follow, like she was an art student of death.
Eliza soon found her page and looked it over a moment, her grey eyes scanning it over intensely with a ferocious expression before turning it.
Displayed there was a strange creature, spiderlike in build and general shape. The first image was like a tentacled spider monster, but the adjacent was a picture with its abdomen opened like a flower, with tendrils snaking out, intricate in detail and painstaking. The next sequence of images were... very specific indeed.
"Sort of like a life support machine.. thats alive, see... What I can do... is while life is suspended with in, alter the body - healing magic works very well on young in the womb... far better than on any other type of injury, see, since life processes are being taken care of already... but while the clockwork of a body isn't running, it is also prone to suggestion."
"Problem is, see, I have no idea how to go about supporting life in this manner." she looks perhaps a bit sheepish, a look unusual on her stern features.
"So I figure... if anyone knows what I need, it's you."
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Post by sephiroth on Aug 18, 2011 19:53:04 GMT -5
Charlie sighed to herself and shook her head. She still wasn't sure how to take the revelations of magic and the supernatural. As a scientist charlie belived in what was firmly held in place by her concept of reality. Things like magic what could you say, there was no basis of study there was no base period.
If you wanted to ask what it was it was magic, if you asked how it did something, it is magic. It had a mind of its own it had its own rules, it was magic. She HATED magic because of this single fundamental flaw. It had no logical understanding, and that bothered her a lot, but she had to work with what she had even if she didn't like it.
Charlie took a drink from the profered drink and shook her head a bit as she finally started to feel more awake and able to process what she was being ask.
"Whoa gir let me get this strait in my own head. You want me help you understand anatomy, because you want to create one of your creatures to become a living life pod?" She said in a slightly incredulas voice, that also reflected some of her distaste for magic. She still hadn't gotten her head around how eliza created her beings and probably felt she didn't want to know. It was magic, and magic was best explained by the fact it was what it was.
"Well there are many considerations with just life support alone, You have to monitor bodily function as you probably know. Is its heart working, is the blood flowing? Is that the color its liver should be, has the thing been poisoned? Blood type, functionality of the internal organs. All of that needs to be taken into account with any form of life support." Charlie explained keeping her mind firmly in the realm of the possible, her brain tossing out the thoughts on magic for now.
"So it should be able to monitor every system of something inside of it. It should also be able to deduce these readings and work out what it needs to do." Charlie added before thinking in simpler terms. "Its not a simple matter of what is this and what do i do. Its alot like....well i had a relative in it why not.....Police work. You don't even know if its the right question sometimes." Charlie finished with a shrug. "Because the wrong conclusions can lead you to the wrong answers. In those cases people die, or you make their problems worse." Charlie finished going back to her drink so her brain could go back into full working order.
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Post by echidna on Aug 18, 2011 21:04:33 GMT -5
Eliza picked up on the bite in Charlie's voice... She wasn't accustomed to this sort of thing, not really... but Slade was a tough teacher - a little lip from a scientist wasn't too far to travel. With serpentine patience, Eliza listened and watched as Charlie drank the energy drink, mentally trying to file away and shake about what it was she was telling her.
"Well..." she said, getting to her own idea's soul and center, the whole point of it for her, and where her own idea really, really came into play... though she'd never say it was so or let her voice hint at it. "So what we need is to have a self-contained system... right? Well, a womb of sorts - mother nature does this very, very efficiently... She knows how life ticks, right? So we just... and this is just an idea, here, mind - we just make it a womblike environment with natural regulation systems, like... and as for diagnosis..." she smiled at Charlie a little
"Well... That shouldn't be a problem... not really - I am connected to my Children" she began, the capitol C sliding neatly into place "And they to me... perhaps the creature in this environment shares into that connection while inside it? That would work... I can tell when my Children have upset stomachs or a bruise - and tell you what color it is, how big, and what caused it." she said, then gave an innocent shrug. "so... we just make sure it interfaces with their nervous system... right?" she said, scratching her head as she wracked her brain for ideas.
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Post by sephiroth on Aug 19, 2011 21:55:34 GMT -5
"well yes you don't want infections disease, or other potential problems to happen while in treatment it should also be a completely sterile environment." Charlie said as she drank more of the drink, she began pulling out of her bag a small flash drive. And began clicking through the random files, trying to locate where she had stored those holographic computer designs.
"it should also be easy on the patient you want to avoid unnecessary trauma mentally as well. Also you should take it easy on yourself to, if you were to connect with that entity for too long it could cause strain on you. Which is why i was suggesting that the creature itself should be able to diagnose and treat injuries as well, also it would limit its own healing ability if it was to be around you all the time for treatement. Maybe give it something akin to your own feelings about treatment. That's all i was suggesting." Charlie finished as she kept digging t through the computer files, it was amazing her hard drive was able to read through the sheer amount of information stored there.
"As for interfacing nervous system might be the most direct route but could be the most unpleasant too. With the sheer jumble of information there, also its kind of dangerous you could affect parts of their body that you wouldn't generally want to. Cripple them, or worse." Charlie said with a shrug, "As long as the tendrils weren't to serious or didn't do a lot that would be simple, but you need to monitor the cardio vascular, lungs, and even digestive systems too when your working with life support those have to function well also." She added as she was now multitasking which she usually was doing whenever someone tried to talk to her and she was occupied.
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Post by echidna on Sept 5, 2011 2:04:38 GMT -5
Eliza nodded. It was well known to her that even her children were not impervious to diseases - there were already problems that were arising - they had their own colds, little ailments that troubled them. This was just part of life. In fact, a couple Raveners at least were taking an interest in the medical books she had. She herself had read through them - high school anatomy, some biology books, a couple medical school books she was trying to get through, things of that nature... but that was the shape of things. Her powers, like mother nature, were a pain in the ass in some ways.
"Good point... perhaps the maternal fluids should be sterilizing? That could be arranged, I'm sure... it'd take some concentration it right, but I think I could manage that much at least." she conceded, and nodded. Yes, that was a good idea - already she was glad she went to Charlie, glad that in a roundabout way, Mr. Bitingston brought Charlie here. A good deed goes around the world.
"Well... You're probably right there - a sudden link to a concious mind could be pretty traumatizing - it's not like just speaking to a mind, like telepathy - not how my powers work, its full sensory integration, as I understand it." she conceded. "So keeping the body in stasis of some kind, under minimal running parameters then linking, it could simplify things greatly - perhaps a venom, pre-connection, to numb the pain off as connections are established." she pulled out her sketchbook and scribbled away a bit, brow furrowed as she gives this some thought on paper.
"Well... the back of the head... the spine... they can be accessed pretty easily with minimal damage to tissue... but the tendrils wouldn't have to be big - needle-thin, at most... long as they got beneath the skin to touch the spine and brain stem, that would be enough, wouldn't it? Even just..." she let Charlie see the tendril idea, a thick thing that unravels into many, many smaller appendages that grow into the skin's pores over a large area, on the back, head, etc.
"Would that work?"
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Post by sephiroth on Sept 5, 2011 2:18:30 GMT -5
"it would preferable to have an anetstetic, or nerve agent to hold the person in unconsciousness." Charlie added finishing the idea on holding a person in stasis and looked down at the drawing anylizing it very quickly in her head.
"Well it does seem that you have considered most things for life support. Now the problem with most modern life support is it only keeps you alive, it doesn't cure you." Charlie said as she gave up on the components of holo computers for now, the electronic draw, and other problems like gloves/implants for screen manipulation were annoying her greatly as she read through the schematics.
"You know future tech is too expensive." she said more to herself than eliza. "hhmmm Hey eliza do you know much about the brain?"
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Post by echidna on Sept 5, 2011 2:32:47 GMT -5
"Venom, anesthetic, same thing, really... just a neurotoxin with a very specific effect in mind, right?" she murmurs, waving her pencil in an agreement kind of way.
"As for the curing... well, we just diagnose the damage - a bit of knowing and a bit of nerve-reading does that just fine - accelerate natural healing processes, and add new material - I could probably even make the metrial environment sympathetic to channels of sympathetic energy, to help it along even further, if time is a factor... I've not done that yet, but it'd be a good experiment, don't you think?" she asked, grinning a bit at the prospect. "It'd be a good exercise in application of Ezekiel Tom-Whitman's Principles of Sympathetic Resonance... we'd just need a crystalline component in there to structure the energy artificially so the body could use it in that amplified matrix." she said, slipping into the arcane.
"Its just a matter of regulation, really... the body knows what to do with it already, just don't want it to go off in a random direction without a matrix - could cause... unforeseen side effects." she said, and trailed off, chewing her bottom lip as equations flew under her pencil and a sketch formed, component by component, on the opposite of the page, something with hard lines moored in flesh, and a diagram for an organ to produce and maintain it.
"... The brain? Yeah... I know the shape of it, how it... feels, you know? A lot of my children are sapeint. Why?"
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Post by sephiroth on Sept 5, 2011 2:52:58 GMT -5
"That sounded scientific..."Charlie stared at eliza for a good few minutes rather surprised. "i always associated magic with rituals, smoke and mirrors, and other nonsense." Charlie added for eliza's benefit.
"you might have to show me that later on."
"... The brain? Yeah... I know the shape of it, how it... feels, you know? A lot of my children are sapeint. Why?"
"Ohh right I have had an idea in my head for a while, its been a brain whacker to myself and my EX friends at the military and universities." Charlie cleared her mind pushing aside all the new ideas suddenly wanting to shove them inside her brain.
"Self aware computation software." She said finally after a few seconds. "Synthetic life......ahhh..... Artificial intelligence." she said her mind failing to come up with more reasonable explanations that she could express aloud.
"True Ai is impossible right now, the most you could do is create a simulated set of responses so they seem intelligent. The problem with the current definition of AI is the fact that you ask them a set of questions and they answer in specific ways so they seem alive. But a computer that can actually think, reason, and create emotional reaction that would be something else entirely." Charlie added her mouth going faster than her brain could keep up. It happened to her every once in a while when she found a thread of thought it was hard to let go once you had it by the throat.
"Thats why i asked, You know how it is to think to be alive, to have brain power, you know the thought process to create a living thing. heck you do it every day........" Charlie stopped for a few minutes her brain blank as she lost her grip on the thread.
"Ohh sorry i didn't mean to be rude or anything i guess i'm not used to talking to people." There was an awkward silence following her long discussion.
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Post by echidna on Sept 5, 2011 3:19:10 GMT -5
"Magic is just... push and pull, once you have the feel for it... but its gotta be precise... I'd be happy to show you - it's just applied math, really." she said, and flashed Charlie a bright smile. "Rituals and shit like that... its not how I was taught - but its probably just to get the mind right, my best guess."
Eliza leaned forward as Charlie started off in her explanation of her interests in the mind. As she tried to come up with a good way to say what was on her mind, Eliza jumped in with a helpful "Artificial Intelligence?" at about the same time as she came up with it too, saying it at the same time, then nodding "Yup."
Eliza never much got into science fiction, but she had no idea that mankind was even this far into making artificial intelligence - even if it was supposedly "impossible" by modern science's standards. This was a fascinating topic, even if she did normally only deal with the mundane and biological - the prospect of a digital life... it was more than a neat idea, it was a fantastic idea, the stuff of dreams! Probably. Eliza couldn't believe she just thought that... but whatever. Charlie's excitement was rubbing off on her.
In response to her offbeat ramble, Eliza just maintained a grin, legs dangling as she set aside her sketchbook. "Well yeah.... but like I always say - mother nature does it best... biological life is simple - it knows what its doing already, we just show it a direction and it goes off to do its own thing." she nodded. "But don't worry about it... I don't... get to talk to people much, either" she said, faintly blushing on her pale cheeks.
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Post by sephiroth on Sept 5, 2011 5:38:33 GMT -5
"Well here later aft i help you finish this could you help me with this idea? You see we scientist know what a brain is, how its set up and such but we don't know how it should be." Charlie said then shrugged realizing how bad that sounded.
"Ok we don't know what makes a person a person, we know there are electrical impulses and such, but we don't know how they are aranged. You know we don't know what makes us....us." charlie felt she was explaining this absolutely horribly and stupidly.
"I've built a blue box, and have behavioral blocks if i were to ever sucessfully devise an AI but since its impossible right now....I guess you could call it a curiousity." Charlie finished aloud rather embaressedly.
"so you have everything you needed idea wise for your new critter?" charlie asked as she leaned back in her chair and began taking out tools messing with the object she had been designing. It flickered to life and showed a really badly visualized image of a very cartoony shark. It looked like something you would see underwater through heavy fog and a badly tuned tv fused into one. It was obviously supposed to be some sort of projector but it was again limited by the technology of her day.
"Theres a thought.....Eliza you know how a mind should be right? You know what makes something sentient and aware? Would be willing to help me program an ai?"
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Post by echidna on Sept 5, 2011 21:31:53 GMT -5
"Yeah" she said, and nodded. "I could probably help with that... but I'm no good with code - we'd have to devise some way for me to interact with the system so I could feel it... that's the only way I know how to sense and shape a mind - by touch. That hindrance aside." she nodded a bit, finishing an arcane equation that took up half the page.
= 0, at the very tail end. Eliza smiled - perfect balance... Life was full of little giveways and interactions with the forces the word "magic" represented... in fact, it was practically MADE of the stuff. Sometimes, Eliza just thought that life itself was just a metaphor for the flow of those energies, a macro-scale matrix of that energy intended to let the fates that be see it guided in the right course and control it. Bunk, she knew, but it was an interesting thought... and she understood better than anyone who'd written on the subject that she's read that this was so.
"I'd like to get cranking on this... Would..." she hesitated. Very few people have seen it... but for some reason, she felt a need to show Charlie that her powers weren't... poof! Monster! There was something visceral about her powers, something... special, and she felt that Charlie should see it... especially if she was going to be entrusting Jericho to her care, for a cure to his condition.
"... would you like to watch?" she offered, and gave Charlie a sheepish look.
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