027M03 Smart Humans, and Blanks
- Location
- Ontario, Canada, Earth
027 M03
"Your little humans are quite smart, you know?"
"Hmm? I agree, but what made you say that this time?"
"This Chris Vantrace of yours managed to develop functional machine spirits millennia ahead of 'schedule' simply due to the availability of warp-saturated materials and the crude ability to play hot-cold with what is warp-safe or not, thanks to the partners."
"Interesting. Yes, I can see how that would work, now that I'm looking up the research myself. I'm still amazed you can stand to pose as mundane researchers to collaborate on the science rather than just taking the data from the partners."
"Please. We both know that any backdoors that are even theoretically capable of manipulation or mass surveillance would be too juicy a target for Chaos to ever leave alone. The only reason they can safely piggyback off my communications infrastructure is because I dug an isolated channel within my network that uses my soul as a buffer and it doesn't touch the channel itself."
The Emperor sent a conciliatory feeling. "Oh, I'm aware. I'm just pleasantly surprised that our partnership has remained as equitable as it has. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were."
I felt the urge to nod a few billion heads at the thought. "That's certainly true. Oh, by the way, can you source some of those warp-saturated materials for me to study? I'd love to have access to some of them now that their creation is possible."
I got a surprised feeling back over the link that we now maintained in the background most of the time. "You actually lack the capability to manufacture them?"
I sent a mental nod. "Yes. So far as I've been able to determine, any individual soul is incapable of making warp-saturated materials like that. Oh, we can dye material with our immaterial presence, but that only leads to one outcome. The reason these composites are interesting is because it takes the overlapping portions of millions of souls and distills the commonalities into a single idea. It creates a much simpler warp-matrix, but it's also that much stronger and purer as a result."
"Huh. So truly a novel material to work with, in that case. I may have to acquire some to run some tests on myself. That sounds like an interesting avenue of research."
"I would be interested to see your results, as ever."
Our conversation lapsed for a time, as it often did, before the Emperor spoke up again. "Have you made any more progress identifying these so-called 'pariahs' or 'blanks' and why they haven't been showing up to date?"
"Oh, I have theories, but I would need to find a Necron Tomb World to confirm or deny any of them, lacking a human example to study safely."
"Why the Necrons? Ah. You suspect that their warp-resistance stems from the same source?"
"Precisely. The fact that it is possible to manufacture on the scale of an entire race and yet naturally occur very rarely among the souled races gives us some clues, if they are indeed the same phenomenon. My current working hypothesis is that rather than being truly 'blank' to the immaterium, they actually lean in the opposite direction from psychic phenomenon entirely. Hence why they can combat the local warp incursions into realspace, rather than just avoiding the effects themselves. Much like positrons or antiprotons are to matter, these 'blanks' are beyond psychically dull or absent, they are actively opposing the natural eddies in the immaterium around them. The reason it can show up naturally but thus far hasn't could be as simple as lacking the triggers for the condition in the first place. If it functions like a psychic equivalent to an autoimmune disease due to a prenatal hypersensitivity to Warp energy, then we may simply be at too low a background incursion level to trigger such a transformation naturally."
We both pondered the idea for a while. "The idea hangs together logically, but I can see why it would be difficult for you to test any of the conditions yourself. If it is indeed a purely oppositional reaction to psychic effects, then your own methods of networking would preclude making use of the effect yourself. When you do discover a Tomb World, be sure to ship me some samples. I would be interested to see how they respond to my own presence."
"Change of subject, since we can do no more to study the effect without samples, I was wondering about your thoughts on allowing some warp-submersion testing to allow for future warp drive research. You seem content to use my gravitational lensing techniques for now, but a reliable warp drive would be a faster method of travel, if such a thing isn't self-contradictory."
"On the plus side, it would allow for more extensive warp-hardening research, but that seems a scant recompense for the dangers it would bring when mishandled, because you know it would be mishandled. With humanity being unaging, longer experienced time isn't really an issue for travel, and if we could get the double linked spatial warps to provide a stronger benefit when directed between low mass stars, most of the downsides would be negated. On that front, I have a few realspace/warp interface geometries to test. I had an idea the other day about skimming the immaterium, much like a hydroplane or a hovercraft, to extend your submarine analogy of warp travel. If we assume that spatial compression techniques stay in contact with the surface of the immaterium-"
"Your little humans are quite smart, you know?"
"Hmm? I agree, but what made you say that this time?"
"This Chris Vantrace of yours managed to develop functional machine spirits millennia ahead of 'schedule' simply due to the availability of warp-saturated materials and the crude ability to play hot-cold with what is warp-safe or not, thanks to the partners."
"Interesting. Yes, I can see how that would work, now that I'm looking up the research myself. I'm still amazed you can stand to pose as mundane researchers to collaborate on the science rather than just taking the data from the partners."
"Please. We both know that any backdoors that are even theoretically capable of manipulation or mass surveillance would be too juicy a target for Chaos to ever leave alone. The only reason they can safely piggyback off my communications infrastructure is because I dug an isolated channel within my network that uses my soul as a buffer and it doesn't touch the channel itself."
The Emperor sent a conciliatory feeling. "Oh, I'm aware. I'm just pleasantly surprised that our partnership has remained as equitable as it has. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were."
I felt the urge to nod a few billion heads at the thought. "That's certainly true. Oh, by the way, can you source some of those warp-saturated materials for me to study? I'd love to have access to some of them now that their creation is possible."
I got a surprised feeling back over the link that we now maintained in the background most of the time. "You actually lack the capability to manufacture them?"
I sent a mental nod. "Yes. So far as I've been able to determine, any individual soul is incapable of making warp-saturated materials like that. Oh, we can dye material with our immaterial presence, but that only leads to one outcome. The reason these composites are interesting is because it takes the overlapping portions of millions of souls and distills the commonalities into a single idea. It creates a much simpler warp-matrix, but it's also that much stronger and purer as a result."
"Huh. So truly a novel material to work with, in that case. I may have to acquire some to run some tests on myself. That sounds like an interesting avenue of research."
"I would be interested to see your results, as ever."
Our conversation lapsed for a time, as it often did, before the Emperor spoke up again. "Have you made any more progress identifying these so-called 'pariahs' or 'blanks' and why they haven't been showing up to date?"
"Oh, I have theories, but I would need to find a Necron Tomb World to confirm or deny any of them, lacking a human example to study safely."
"Why the Necrons? Ah. You suspect that their warp-resistance stems from the same source?"
"Precisely. The fact that it is possible to manufacture on the scale of an entire race and yet naturally occur very rarely among the souled races gives us some clues, if they are indeed the same phenomenon. My current working hypothesis is that rather than being truly 'blank' to the immaterium, they actually lean in the opposite direction from psychic phenomenon entirely. Hence why they can combat the local warp incursions into realspace, rather than just avoiding the effects themselves. Much like positrons or antiprotons are to matter, these 'blanks' are beyond psychically dull or absent, they are actively opposing the natural eddies in the immaterium around them. The reason it can show up naturally but thus far hasn't could be as simple as lacking the triggers for the condition in the first place. If it functions like a psychic equivalent to an autoimmune disease due to a prenatal hypersensitivity to Warp energy, then we may simply be at too low a background incursion level to trigger such a transformation naturally."
We both pondered the idea for a while. "The idea hangs together logically, but I can see why it would be difficult for you to test any of the conditions yourself. If it is indeed a purely oppositional reaction to psychic effects, then your own methods of networking would preclude making use of the effect yourself. When you do discover a Tomb World, be sure to ship me some samples. I would be interested to see how they respond to my own presence."
"Change of subject, since we can do no more to study the effect without samples, I was wondering about your thoughts on allowing some warp-submersion testing to allow for future warp drive research. You seem content to use my gravitational lensing techniques for now, but a reliable warp drive would be a faster method of travel, if such a thing isn't self-contradictory."
"On the plus side, it would allow for more extensive warp-hardening research, but that seems a scant recompense for the dangers it would bring when mishandled, because you know it would be mishandled. With humanity being unaging, longer experienced time isn't really an issue for travel, and if we could get the double linked spatial warps to provide a stronger benefit when directed between low mass stars, most of the downsides would be negated. On that front, I have a few realspace/warp interface geometries to test. I had an idea the other day about skimming the immaterium, much like a hydroplane or a hovercraft, to extend your submarine analogy of warp travel. If we assume that spatial compression techniques stay in contact with the surface of the immaterium-"
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