fandomhigh | Popular Science | Thursday, 3rd period

Entry tags:

mad science

Popular Science | Thursday, 3rd period

Miguel was giving today’s movie a scowl. “We’re not even watching this one, because it fails spectacularly. I'm not sure who put it on my list, and I'm not even showing it. You can watch it on your own if you want. The point is, we’re working on matter transporters. Trying to get things from one place to another without physically picking them up and moving them. There are a lot of potential applications of this one, from fast shipping to military infiltration. And first lesson of science - do not try it on yourself first! If there’s any other choice.”

That really ought to go without saying.

"See if you can make a working matter transporter. If you do, we'll talk patents."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Disgruntled. Or like a fly.

Norman Babcock

Astrid Magnussen

Peebee

You're on your own if you want to watch it, because Miguel has a grudge against it. For some reason.

Make a matter transporter! See if you can get rich off it!

Yeah, Norman definitely wasn't going to have any luck with this one, but he was kind of inspired by a different story when he used an old television and attempted to send a chocolate bar across the room toward it.

Hard to have a grudge against chocolate, right?

Miguel watched and nodded in begrudging approval. Yeah, it was hard to have a grudge against chocolate.

... yeah, that was not happening. Peebee would, however, spend the rest of class in an ill fated attempt to make a prototype mini mass relay.

At least it looked accurate, in 1/10000 scale, if not functional.

"How's that supposed to work?" Miguel asked.

"Well, it doesn't," Peebee grumbled. "Not that I expected it to, but . . ."

She sighed. "Full scale, we use pairs of these to facilitate rapid long-distance space travel. Near instantaneous, really. But this? Nope."

"Yeah?" Miguel eyed the model curiously. "So how does it work? Or how is it supposed to?"

Peebee rolled her eyes, just because she was annoyed with the Protheans and their dumb indecipherable tech. "Two of these aligned with each other create a sort of ... conduit that reduces the mass of a starship to almost nothing. Minimal mass, the same amount of thruster force, maximum acceleration and near instantaneous travel. We know how they work, anyway. Replicating them is a whole different story."

"Huh. Yeah, I'd guess that takes a lot of energy. Or does it get it from the starship's mass?" Miguel asked.

"Honestly? We're not entirely sure how they work," Peebee admitted. "They're... artifacts, I guess you could say, left behind by some long gone, highly advanced civilization. We know how to use them, but no one's really been able to crack the code of how exactly they work. The amount of element zero needed to run those things is gigantic."

"Damn, that's the worst. And nobody to explain them and you probably can't even take one apart, huh?" As a scientist, he was affronted.

Peebee flung her hands up. "They're basically indestructible!" And would stay that way for the better part of two centuries until someone, and we're not naming names, Shepard, went and crashed an asteroid into one.

Honestly, you wouldn't think that was something to sound so annoyed about, and yet.

"Besides which, we do sort of rely on them for getting around, so taking one apart would probably cause a galactic incident."

Again. Shepard.

"And they never break or anything?" If they were that old, surely they needed maintenance?

You'd think. And it was probably a good thing nobody realized exactly how old the mass relays were, otherwise Peebee would be going completely out of her mind right now with frustration.

"I mean, sometimes they're dormant until a civilization advances far enough technologically and figures out how to activate them? Otherwise, as far as I know, there's no known record of any of them being destroyed."

JUST GIVE IT TIME, MIGUEL.

Hey, he'd live to be a thousand! ...He still didn't want to wait that long.

"So no parts or anything, either. That sucks. Why leave tech around without directions?"

Honestly, people!

Because directions might make it easier for people to figure out they were all being shepherded down the technological advancement path by giant sentient mechanical cuttlefish who planned to wipe them out in a hundred-something years, probably.

"Because it's old. Really old." Peebee shrugged, then sighed. "That's my best guess, anyway. I mean, I don't even have the directions for the blender I bought three months ago any more, you know?"

Miguel barked in laughter. "Okay, point. Still, you can take the blender apart if you need to."

If he ever got to Peebee's world, he was totally going to try to take a mass effect relay apart.

THAT WOULD CAUSE A GALACTIC INCIDENT, MIGUEL. See, this was why so many people in Citadel space side-eyed humans.

. . . not that Peebee wouldn't try to take one apart herself if she had the opportunity.

"Yeah, I kind of did that about a week after I got it?"

"Yeah? Learn anything cool?"

Peebee snickered. "Mostly that centrifugal force is a highly underrated source of fun?"

Look, some people liked the challenge of finding fun in weird places.

Miguel cracked up. "You do the hero thing at all when we get invaded? I need you on our baseball team. You'd get a kick out of it."

Wait, she was a kid. He probably shouldn't suggest that. "Um. If you're not staying safe in the dorms like a responsible person."

"Pfft, stay in the dorms? Who does that?" Not Peebee, that was for sure. "I usually like to have some kind of say in saving my own ass, and the more unconventional the better."

"Last invasion, I slung the things around and Zack sliced them in two," Miguel said. "Like baseball."

"Not too familiar with that one," Peebee said, giving her relay shaped paperweight a pile out of spite. "But I'm guessing that A) there's a ball involved, and B) that's not how it's usually played? I like it."

"You throw a ball at a bat and hit it," Miguel explained. "It's just our balls were weird naked dog things and the bat was a huge sword."

"Definitely a lot less boring," Peebee said, nodding. "I'd be up for it."

"I'll find you to throw something at next time," Miguel promised. "What can you fight with? Weapons, abilities...?"

"Yes," Peebee replied. "I've got pretty good aim, but I'm better with my biotics. I still think fondly about throwing frozen sharks into a tornado a while back. Ah, that was a good time."

"Think I missed that one," Miguel said. "Do I want to know?"

He's here!

Meh. Is it nap time yet?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Popular Science | Thursday, 3rd period

Sign in!

Re: Sign in!

Re: Sign in!

Re: Sign in!

Listen to the lecture/watch the source material

Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Re: Class Activity!

Talk to Miguel

OOC!