Audio, public.

[ewestmarch]

[A sharp, scratchy female voice comes over the network, spitting her words like bullets.]

Where does the solidness of the objects come from when you turn on a spawner? How does it convert electrical energy into bread, or cloth, or gold? Is there a limit to how much of a certain material you can tell it to conjure?

It's all well and good to have spawners in every fucking color of the rainbow, but my world has too much power and not enough food. One of these could change the entire economy. Bring the bottom closer to the top.

And don't get any sly damned ideas. I saw it first. Just answer the questions.

[Private, also, to Braska.]

I've seen you over the network. What happens to the dead when they aren't Sent?

Comments

technobabble ahoy!

[timesbureaucrat]

Well, since you asked...

It appears to use a non-standard energy-matter conversion system, running energy through a variation on transdynamiplattic coils to decelerate the energy particles to hypolight speeds, then force a narrow beam through a type of pressoritron to assemble the energy into various particular forms of matter, the kind of matter depending on the the configuration of the atomic assembly, each of which is determined by a unique set of programming.

[Narvin actually looks really happy to talk about it. He likes gadgets. And showing off.]

But I wouldn't take alien tech to your home world if I were you.

[ewestmarch]

Non-standard. There is a standard system? Mechanical? More or less efficient?

[timesbureaucrat]

I mean to say that it's not standard compared to the types of systems I've seen and worked with before. The basic physics is the same, but the nature of the technology the aliens developed to harness the physical laws is peculiar. I can replicate it, but I'm not sure I entirely understand it yet.

[ewestmarch]

You can?

Could you make it portable? Mobile?

What do you need?

Show me.

[timesbureaucrat]

At the moment I can't alter it or improve it, merely duplicate the technology as it is.

The size is probably as small as physics allows. A certain amount of space is required for adequate energy build up to take place. Even the Gallifreyan variations I'm most familiar with are of comparable size, and not terribly portable unless stored within a dimensionally transcendental space.

[ewestmarch]

[Dimensionally transcendental. She doesn't want to ask what it means unless she has to. So.

Dimensionally. Adv. Relating to a property of space or extension in a certain direction. Transcendental. Transcendent? Transcending properties of space?]

If it couldn't be smaller, it could be larger?

[timesbureaucrat]

It could be encased in a container smaller than the spawner itself. That wouldn't change the weight, however; it would just twist space around it so it takes up less volume.

But it's all hypothetical as Time Lord law expressly prohibits allowing Gallifreyan technology to fall into alien hands, so even though I could build a dimensionally transcendental box, I won't.

[ewestmarch]

Asshole. What kind of name is Time Lord?

[timesbureaucrat]

[His eyebrow goes up at the swearing, but he says nothing about it.]

It is the name of my people, and a perfectly apt name for the first race who perfected time travel.

[ewestmarch]

If you have time travel, why is everything still so fucked up?

[timesbureaucrat]

Because you can't use time travel to just fix any past mistake that strikes your fancy! Every novice knows that.

[ewestmarch]

Why?

If you were going to correct it, wouldn't it already be corrected? It's only your hesitance that prevents the problems from currently existing at all.

Besides, it's not my fancy. I can think of a couple of genocides a well-placed knife could have nipped in the bud.

[timesbureaucrat]

That's exactly why it shouldn't be done at any old whim. If the problems no longer exist, then there is nothing to incite that future time traveller to go back in time and make the problems cease to exist. It creates a paradox, and those have to managed very carefully or else you can start fraying the very threads of reality. It requires discretion and a highly-trained professional touch.

Besides which, if we decided to use our powers to remake history we, like any race, would surely do it to our benefit, not out of altruism for the downtrodden. It is a sign of Rassilon's wisdom that he set down laws forbidding us from following that dark path. [A path which Narvin saw in an alternative universe. It wasn't pretty.]

[endsorrow]

[Braska starts off by bowing his head in greeting.]

Then... Their souls linger on in the world. Over time, they will come to envy, and then resent, the living. In this hatred, they find the will to create a new body, and will return to the world as monsters to enact their anger upon those still alive.

This... is not always the case, as there are sometimes exceptions. But it is what normally happens on Spira.

[ewestmarch]

[For some reason this makes the voice giggle, then cackle, an awful rasping sound.]

So what do you do for those? Kill them again?

oops i forgot to mark the first one as [private]

[endsorrow]

[She... must be laughing at the irony of it all. Yes, that must be it. Braska has to admit, he can see it himself. But this is quickly approaching topics that Braska himself isn't entirely comfortable thinking about, let alone discussing, so he can't bring himself to join her.]

We must, yes, if we hope to defend ourselves and those around us.

[private]

[ewestmarch]

Can't be reasoned with, hm?

[She sounds unreasonably sly for the subject matter.]

I'm sure that's a drag.

[private]

[endsorrow]

[Her tone is leaving him with the distinct impression that he's missing something. His reply is, as a result, more on the cautious side.]

I don't know if we've ever been given the opportunity to try.

[private]

[ewestmarch]

Did you try standing far away and yelling?

[private]

[endsorrow]

[Braska laughs.]

"Heeey! Would you kindly not eat my friend? I would greatly appreciate it!"

[private]

[ewestmarch]

Yes. Like that.

[It's not funny, says her tone.]

[private]

[endsorrow]

If anyone has tried and succeeded, I've certainly not heard word of it.

[Whoever this woman is, she's certainly a curiousity. Braska pauses to consider his words.]

May I ask a question of my own?

[private]

[ewestmarch]

Can I even stop you?

[private]

[endsorrow]

[Braska's chuckle is low and quiet, not exactly something full of mirth.] No, I suppose not. But if it crosses any boundaries, then by no means will I push the matter.

This is obviously a subject you're very invested in. Why?

[private]

[ewestmarch]

That's very polite.

[She's being sarcastic. Politesse is a waste of time, in her opinion.]

I'm dead. We're all dead where I'm from. From the day we rise until we're destroyed the living hunt us, try to cleanse us from our own homelands, see us as a mockery of the lives we lived.

Maybe we are. But we won't die again. Not without a fight.