ten_fwd_ooc | TEST DRIVE #6 - The Bridge and Ten Forward

Q

[Which is kind of him.]

Why should he? You are but ants to him. Or rats, I suppose since he's experimenting on you all. Can't really experiment very well on ants. Hm... Anyway. All powerful reality warping beings tend to be like that.

[And Alec is only being a tiny bit hypocritical there. If only because he doesn't experiment on people.]

Q.

[ He knows all about choosing names after all. ]

No, they don't.

[ That's a little personal of an answer. ]

And you get consent because you recognize that you aren't the only sentient being.

Yeah. His entire race is named Q. I'm fairly certain there has to be some sort of ... intonation or ... pheromone... wavelength... thingy that they use when speaking in their natural forms to differentiate Q from Q but I've yet to discover it.

[Names are important. The ones you chose and the ones you're given. He tilts his head a little at the other man curiously.]

They don't? Know many of them? And that would require him to care about that.

Telepathic or empathic communication perhaps?

[ This actually is helping after a fashion, distracting him from his aching head and motion-sick-like feeling he's getting from needing to adjust to completely different electromagnetic radiation. This is why he dislikes teleporting - it's the rapid, sudden shift of his bearings and even if his nervous system is fast, it's an adjustment. ]

A few. The only one who seemed to struggle with the concept was a five year old child.

Telepathic. I don't think they have any empathy.

[Bah-dum-shink... And yay to helping!]

Well, most five year olds have issues with that. And some never do grow out of it either. I imagine if you grew up with the ability to turn someone into a poodle because they annoyed you and no one ever told you it was wrong, you'd have a hard time with the empathy thing.

They exist together less frequently than people think. For various reasons.

[ It's the good thing about his more scientific nature - he can bury distractions and physical needs in order to pay attention to his work. On the other hand...he can bury distractions and physical needs in order to pay attention to his work. ]

That was my point. He's a child, it's to be expected. He had a good family though, and many people who love him. He'll be all right. But even those who are shown cruelty are capable of deep empathy.

[ Like his daughter. ]

[Alec is only a little bit miffed his pun went unnoticed. Admittedly it's a bad pun, but even a tiny wince might have been nice. Though Magento probably has other things on his mind besides the terrible puns spoken by a strange stranger.]

Mmm... yes. And Q has been accused of this on occasion, but he'll flat out deny it. But in any case you're stuck here for... some unknown period of time. Possibly until he gets bored with you. Hopefully it'll be quickly because then he'll send you home.

[ Given he was talking about powers, the pun flew over his head. ]

Most would deny it.

[ And that wasn't welcome news - he was needed. ]

I could manage to be boring. How long have you been here?

[Ah well. There's other people out there to appreciate his so called sense of humor.]

I've always owned up to the fact that I have the maturity level of about a six year old. Thirteen on a good day. But I'm fairly self-aware of my faults and issues.

[Some how Alec doubts Magento Master of Magnetism and All That could manage to be boring. But he won't contradict the man.]

Me? I dunno. Maybe about an hour or so. I was here and then I left and came back again a few times. But, I'm also pushing my luck. Eventually they'll notice me doing that and either kick me out permanently or smack me down and force me to stay here.

[ No one gets his humor either. ]

That's rare.

[ He can be boring. It's how he fakes his own death so often. ]

How are you leaving?

[ All discomfort forgotten, his gaze focuses sharply on Alec. ]

[No one realizes he's died because they never hang around long enough to see if he's alive or not?]

I can sort of... mmmm... side-step out of reality and into ... this non-existent space and go elsewhere.

And no, I can't take you with me. I can only move myself. It's not teleporting it's ... I'm not really completely here. I exist partly outside of everything, kinda like one of those Cthullu creatures, and I'm more projecting myself into this space. So the side-stepping is leaving this space and going somewhere else.

[At least he sounds apologetic about it.]

[ Occasionally. Other times he just...vanishes. ]

So you're more fitting into the spaces where dimensions bump against each other?

[ that is disappointing, but physics is more distracting. He's actually forgotten about eating. ]

[Alec blinks in shock at Magento's statement before flat out beaming.]

Yes! Exactly! That's a brilliant way to put it. I never thought to explain it that way!

[People have sometimes compared Alec to a parakeet. At this particular moment in time, as he gets excited at Magento's statement it's easy to see why.]

I'm totally stealing that!

I can steal that, right?

[ Given all the time he's invested in his own fields of study, the excitement is good to see. ]

Of course you may.

How do you keep track of the different dimensions?

You mean individual ones? Because there's kinda two different types. You've got the ones that are radically different from each other - like this one from yours - and then you've got the individual variations with in the individuals. Kinda like a forest?

[He starts drawing lines in the air, leaving glowing marks, each a different color.]

So, this is your reality, this is my reality, this is this reality here, for example. And then you've got the branching.

[He draws branches off each of the main lines. It looks kinda like a conifer tree now.]

Which is the variations with in the main trunk. The whole turning left instead of turning right, killing Hitler etc.

And then you've got the really weird bits where things sometimes blend.

[Some of the lines get smushed together.]

Which is when two realities have a coinciding history with each other, so their worlds blend. That actually happened in a couple of variations of your world. There was another world with superheroes and the two of them got smushed together. Heroes had their histories scrambled so um... Xavier got mixed around with another hero called Dr. Fate as well as your world's Doctor Strange so he became Dr. Strangefate. Then you just have your sort of standard crossover which is when two realities connect and people from one crossover into another because of various circumstances.

[Alec studies the forest he's drawn]

It's easier for me to keep track of the bigger trunk realities because they're so different from each other. It's like keeping track of books you've read. The smaller variations tend to blend into each other, so I don't really bother.

[There's a pause.]

And that was totally more information than you probably wanted to know.

[ He's not just studying Alec's drawings - he knows how the realities work, after all, he's studying what the young man is doing. The other information about some of the variant worlds and timelines are filed away for later. ]

No, it's interesting actually.

[The lines look rather like what someone would see in a photograph of some one playing with light. They don't give off any heat either. As for Alec, himself, this is clearly a subject he knows a lot about and is greatly interested, but also knows that some people's eyes might glaze over. He draws the lines like he'd draw on a chalkboard and he puts about as much thought into doing them.

Despite his apparent age, Alec is very comfortable with his abilities and his readiness to just use them off-handly shows that hiding, or needing to hide what he can do has never occurred to him.]

Oh, that's good. It's a bit of a hobby of mine.

Actually, what Q has done is something rather interesting and insanely difficult to do. He's turned the Enterprise into a Nexus point.

[He scratches some more trees and have their branches tangle into one spot.]

Usually Nexus points are like tiny ... tree houses that are free floating from any one reality, major or minor branching. They exist sort of like me, but draw people to them. But by bringing so many people from different realities here he turning the Enterprise into one.

Which is bad. Because then you start getting cracks. [He finger quotes around the word cracks.]

((Oh, yes, happy Christmas if you celebrate it! If not happy end of all the Christmas suffocation! XD))

[ It's not just infrared radiation he's looking for, but anything that isn't visible light. His senses are weakened, but they are there. Even if he's still very disoriented. ]

It's a good hobby to have.

[ And he's glad - relieved - to see Alec so free with his powers. Glad to see him now cowering from them. It's soothing, on some level. Makes the current situation seem (slightly) less threatening. ]

Go on. Explain these cracks.

[ When he finds out his daughter is a Nexus being, he's going to flip. But that's a way off still. ]

Edited (And thank you! Happy Christmas to you too, if you celebrate.) 2014-12-24 17:36 (UTC)

[If he's looking for that sort of thing, then he's not going to find it. They just sort of exist there in defiance of everything, giving off light because... Alec likes shiny objects.]

Keeps me busy.

[In the society Alec grew up in, everyone has powers - not these in particular, they're a bit of an additional feature - so the idea of not using them, or being afraid of them is like being afraid of his left arm. Which is utterly silly!]

They're caused by stress points and the power of belief. Each person carries in them a tiny fragment of their reality and unless you're very lucky, even people from the same main trunk of reality are from their own splinters. And you end up having sorrta... like what happens with magnets? They start pushing away from each other. You've got people from worlds where magic can't exist butting up against worlds where magic has to exist and they create little stress points, little paradoxes. Especially in a world like this where magic isn't really a thing. It's usually just science and trickery.

The cracks show up, like on an egg shell and the little paradoxes start weird shit happening like... I don't know... everyone getting turned into a pony or unique aspects of one world briefly taking over the entire nexus point. Say, something causes everyone to have magical powers, even those who are from worlds where that can't happen. But then it shifts and returns to normal or something else happens.

[Being a nexus being, as Alec could assure him, sucks ass. Discovering your daughter is one sucks even more ass. Because how are you supposed to help them that way?]

((I do not! But the sentiment is always appreciated! ^_^ Also, this has been a fantastic thread.))

[ He listened, intent and focused. It wasn't a face many people had seen - Magneto the Scientist, not the terrorist or the dictator that so many knew.

It was strange to him, a world were magic couldn't exist - any sufficiently advanced science or technology after all - among other things. Both existed in his, magic and science blending and functioning together. ]

Being busy is good, I often find. Those cracks, can they bleed back into the worlds we come from?

( Sorry I got really sick there and then started working on my app. I thought I replied to this. )

[If only he could stay more the scientist and not the terrorist life would be so much better. For him and others.]

It really is strange for Alec too, he grew up in a world where magic was everyday. Being "magical" in non-magical worlds, especially worlds where there isn't sufficiently advanced enough technology to hide his abilities always made him itchy.]

Yeah, last thing I need to be is alone with my own thoughts.

[He frowns a bit at Magneto's question, thinking it over.]

No... not generally, from what I've been able to tell. It's usually just focused on that one particular reality. That being said, the multiverse is varied enough that things like my ex-wife who was theoretically completely wiped from existence from all of time and space still exists... because there's a reality where it didn't take.

[And makes life exceptionally awkward for Alec sometimes.]

(No worries! I just got sick myself. My brother's New Year's gift to me.)

[ He is what is required of him. He will not allow his new people to suffer as the people was born into have. He cannot allow it. ]

I enjoy time alone, especially in great wild places. But people, all that I've met, no matter the species, have been shaped by evolution to be social.

[ He considers it. He's taking it on faith - for now - but the boy does have a greater understanding of the universe and multiverse than most he's met. Likely he has as innate understanding of the multiverse as Magneto himself does of electromagnetism. For now, he'll take it. ]

That would be awkward. Though hopeful for others, I can imagine.

(Ugh, sorry to hear that. Feel better soon! ]

[And Alec won't blame him for that. Unlike some people. Because he at least gets it.]

I tend to get really paranoid. Not quite tinfoil hat... but I do know an actual reality where wearing tinfoil hats does prevent people from effecting your emotions. Interesting that one. There's a part of their population whose magic is triggered by ingesting certain kinds of metals.

[The 'boy' despite all appearances is actually quite a bit older than Magento as well. It's just that his aging, both physically and mentally has been slowed down to an almost imperceptible level.]

Sadly, no. My life doesn't work like that. If someone's going to be made the fool, nine times out of ten it's going to be me.

(First time in three days that I do, finally! Not a fun New Year's.)

[ Really what sets him off? People down playing his fear and minimizing what's setting his paranoia off. For a psychiatrist Charles does a REMARKABLE job of not addressing his best friend's mental illness at all. And when you have someone as powerful as Magneto having a panic attack and being paranoid...well...

Just not being dismissed and having his points acknowledged does a huge amount to keeping him stable.]

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't trying to kill you. Or worse.

[ But THAT bit? He's interested. ]

Any kinds of metals or certain ones for different powers?

[ He'll get used to that idea eventually - after all it's not unheard of. But those older than him tend to lord it. But if someone has a naturally different life span, the difference in mental aging makes sense to him. ]

Everyone has their lot in life, our wills be damned.

[ He may be teasing. He may just being honest. ]

(Glad to hear it! I need to stop sleeping my entire off days but god I'm so exhausted.)

[Yeah, telling someone like Magento that they're wrong about something doesn't tend to end well.]

[That whole sane thing Alec had going on? It cracks. For the briefest of moments there's a very haunted and broken look in Alec's eyes. It's not wild eyed or twitchy so much as someone who has seen really, way too much and can't take any more. Of someone who should be locked up in a padded white room screaming into the walls. It vanishes quickly, but it's definitely there. And he mutters to himself.]

Personally, I'd rather kill the assholes who did this instead.

[But the crazy is gone... really... and he latches onto Magneto's question like a lifeline.]

Certain metals can do certain things. It's called Allomancy There's... sixteen of them, if I remember correctly, sixteen is an important number in that universe. And each metal is paired, one being an alloy of the other. So you've got steel and iron. Iron pulls on nearby sources of metal and steel pushes away nearby sources of metal. Zinc inflame emotions and brass dampens them. Most people who can use allomancy can only burn - as they call it - one metal. And then you've got the really rare ones that can burn all sixteen. Oddly, it's one or all, not anything in between.

[Alec scratches his head thoughtfully at that point, thinking it over.]

Dunno why, but that's something that I've noticed a lot. One or all. Anyway.

[There's a shrug and a snort. Alec takes him at honest because...]

I actually have an alternate version of myself that literally is the Fool. Like a personification of the Tarot card. And free will is an optical illusion.

(Isn't that the point of a day off? To be able to sleep it all if you want to be able to? Though admittedly then you don't get stuff done.)

Nice! Rarely meet someone with one so old!

I think it's because RPers range younger

And now I feel *old* XD

So do I.

*starts an old fogies RP club*

*waves the 'used to be the youngest where did you ids come from' banner*

*shakes cane at the youngens and talks about how in my day RPing ...blah blah"

*we only had ONE icon!*

Gosh. I remember how exciting it was when we got THREE icons.

AND THEN THERE WERE FIFTEEN. It was like O.O :D

What were we supposed to do with so many icons!? :O

Andnow 250 doesn't seem like enough for some characters!

I know! A friend went to IJ because 250 wasn't enough

I've been tempted.

Me too, but I like the edit features and stuff here.

Yeah so do I. Fun fact, btw, there were Marvel/Trek cross-overs!

I may have all the comic books/novel from that crossover... >.>

NICE. I want to get those. And the Exicablur/Who ones

I have the Star Trek/Who, I didn't realize there was Excalibur/who

there was a LOT of stuff that was only released in the UK

That makes a sad amount of sense! Was it any good?

Total. Marvel. Crack. I love it.

That is the BEST stuff. Marvel crack at its crackiest is wonderful.

Excalibur was Marvel owns it's crack, I love it.

I heard the early run was pretty insane.

And now I feel old XD

starts an old fogies RP club

waves the 'used to be the youngest where did you ids come from' banner

we only had ONE icon!