Ask Relative Curiosity

[Soleil Altan]

This wasn't the first time Sol was on some other Sith's ship and with any luck, it wouldn't be the last, either. Maybe it'd been his grades finally getting some attention or, just as likely, his name was picked out of a hat. Either way, his curiosity was quickly getting the better of him. Generally speaking, acolytes couldn't look up anything about the gates. Basically at all, actually. Pretty sure people forgot they existed at all.

Now Soleil would get to see one in person! Perfect. Plus he'd only ever met Tiamat in passing at a party once. Even if she'd stepped down from being a Lord, she was still a noted Force user and scientist with an impressive pedigree. Not that there wasn't a pile of rumors around her like any other Lord. Well, Sol certainly wasn't going to repeat them.

Instead, he spent much of the trip poring over data files about gate-related subjects that he was supposed to study for the trip. Soleil was a sucker for educational field trips. He also didn't want to embarrass himself in front of Tiamat, gearing up with comfortable and rugged working clothes, including the nice black boots he would never tell her he'd stolen at some point. His backpack had all his spare stuff, including gill gel and water. All his stuff had been checked several times over.

Was he nervous? He felt nervous. His eyes glanced up toward wherever Tiamat was and then back down to his datapad. A currently inactive miniature protocol droid was clipped to the front of his belt at an angle to translate sign in case he needed it. Sol wasn't fond of using droid translation but one: The academy had forced in on him, and two: If he really needed to say something, best not to limit it to hand signs and expressions.

@GABA

 

[Darth Tiamat]

Aboard Tiamat's ship, The Hawkward, Sol was not the only one who sat and watched the redhaired woman from afar. Her droid, Gee-Gee, kept looking between its master and the acolyte, occasionally beeping with what would be considered the emotion equivalent of delight. However, its master was a little less than pleased.

She gave the droid one job: pick an acolyte for this venture, one that was quiet, had a good record and wouldn't ask stupid questions. So, part of the problem, she couldn't be mad because he did just that, literally picked the kid that had to sign in order to communicate. Tiamat didn't know a lick of sign language; she could read and write ancient technological languages, make up her own codes, but learning modern languages, she was a complete dunce. She managed to learn a few basic signs but the ones that stuck with here were: egg, bean, and compressor.

The redhead could feel the kid watching her when she wasn't staring daggers at her droid who seemed to be quite proud of its task and would occasionally bump into Sol, trying to get his attention. Tiamat kept to her notes, reading and writing in silence in the main hull of the ship, that despite it being clean, still had notes and drawings scribbled on the walls and ceiling from when she ran out of space or needed some place more... observable as she worked out her algorithms. There was a beeping in the cockpit and the woman jumped up to ready them to exit, calling out to her droid and Sol to brace for re-entry.

When the stars fell back to stillness, the orange and red planet of Mustafar contrasted brightly against the matte of space. Though not too far off, the long stabilizing generators of the space-gate were slowly being pieced together.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Soleil Altan]

He didn't really know how to handle the energetic BG droid bumping into him in. Once he scooted a little farther away and it just rolled closer. But why though? Sol just wanted to read. And Tiamat kept glaring at the droid the whole trip. Did he miss something? Uggghhhh.

Still excited though. Tiamat was clearly the studious type from the piles, stacks, and doodles everywhere. Sol was no master of astronavigational calculations but he looked at the wall-scribbles anyway, interested for later.

Right after the Hawkward returned to realspace the silent acolyte hopped up practically slid into the cockpit behind Tiamat, leaning against the back of an unoccupied chair to look out the window. He stared with open curiosity at the massive structure. Sol'd expected something smaller when a 'gate' had been mentioned, not a colossal construct! Then he scowled, finally noticing what planet they were approaching.

Mustafar. Volcanic planets were even worse than deserts. Hopefully they weren't going planetside, but he had his stuff for hot and dry planets if he really needed it. He'd just hate it the entire time with the intensity of a thousand suns, that's all. Figuring he'd just get the question out of the way, he tapped the chair's back to get Tiamat's attention. His left hand pointed at Tiamat, then himself, then the planet with an inquisitive expression and small shrug.

@GABA

 

[Darth Tiamat]

The droid followed Sol into the cockpit and Tiamat looked over her shoulder as she guided the ship around the production lanes as supplies ran from the volcanic world to the hypergate. She heard him tapping her chair and turned to look at him, only to find him point at her, him, and then the planet. Her brow narrowed, finding it foreign to assume what he was communicating or asking, she wondered if he ever tried to telepathically speak.

She turned back around, "No, we won't be landing planet-side, we're going to the cruiser." she said taking the ship around, partially so she can get a better look at her hypergate, a small smile curled on the corner of her lip as she looked at her work before guiding the ship to the larger cruiser's hanger.

The Hawkward landed and Tiamat gestured for the acolyte to follow and despite telling the droid to stay put, it also decided to follow behind also. She was greeted by another engineer who handed the woman a datapad with progress updates; as they walked to the conference rooms converted into workshops, the engineer debriefed the woman.

"We are struggling with coordinates. When we first started, we were in luck when we were able to line Mustafar with Dantooine, but now we're facing some blocks, so we tried Felucia, Korriban, and even Eridau, but we have not had success." he explained and Tiamat remained quiet, reading through the calculations before flipping to the files on anomalies, "And we've checked for blackholes, storms, other planetary obstacles, but nothing is matching to the readings."

Tiamat remained quiet and stopped and so did the engineer. Her mind working through all the obvious questions before she started to think of the not-so-obvious, "Very well." she stated quiet, lips pursing in her thoughts as she kept her eyes on the datapad. The engineer stiffened, seemingly nervous by her response. "We'll work on it," she said and looked at the engineer, "Do not stop progress, continue the gate's construction." she ordered. The engineer nodded and acknowledged her order as the woman turned on her heel and entered the temporary lab she established for herself.

She hooked up the datapad to reveal the coordinates and sensor readouts until she slid her finger on the datapad to change to several graphs and diagrams. "Soleil, what can you tell me about hyperspace travel." she probed, glancing at the acolyte and then to her droid, "Gee-gee will translate for you." she directed, her gaze returned to the fluctuating graphs.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Soleil Altan]

Soleil breathed a visible, but quiet, sigh of relief at the news they wouldn't be walking across a volcano planet. As laid back as he tended toward, extreme dry heat always put him in an exceptionally foul mood, on top of just being horrifically uncomfortable. Cheered, he followed right along as they left the ship, looking around and idly patting Gee-Gee's head when he bopped into Sol for attention.

The report was listened to attentively. This didn't stop Soleil's eyes from wandering around the area after he'd seen the engineer's face. He didn't comment, but at least offhand it kinda sounded like a local problem somehow. Not that he knew of anything that could disrupt travel like that besides like, an interdictor field. Once Tiamat started moving again he followed right along, leather boots squeaking for a moment when they turned into the lab.

His eyes looked around with obvious interest and curiosity at the setup, never having been in this kind of lab before. Sol got needlessly close to a complicated-looking readout, brows furrowed as he tried to figure out what the fuck- He straightened again when addressed and turned to Tiamat, then the droid. It eagerly rolled in front of him to translate. Sol thought it was rather like an excited puppy, although he didn't get why it seemed to like him so much.

Sol thought for a moment, eyes looking up and to the side toward nothing before his hands began to sign. Tiamat's question hadn't been all that specific, so...

<Hyperspace is coterminous with realspace, with a unique point in realspace being associated with a unique point in hyperspace. Making use of a trans-physical effect to create ripples in space-time, a hyperdrive-equipped ship would propel off these ripples to jump into hyperspace, allowing it to traverse the galaxy at speeds of hundreds or even thousands of times the speed of light. It-> and so he continued, quoting an astrogation textbook from the academy's library word-for-word as if he was reading right from the page. Whether he understood all the specifics wasn't quite clear.

@GABA

 

[Darth Tiamat]

The acolyte had taken a moment to think before replying, she starred at his hands, her eyes flickering to his own as she tried to catch any of it. Luckily Gee-Gee seemed to hold some gasp of what the kid was explaining, its photo-receptors picking up the patterns and translated to droid binary, which Tiamat understood perfectly. Her gaze left Sol and went back to the floating holo images over the table. Her chin propped by her palm as her elbow rested on the surface; in her silence, she was thinking of multi facets of this problem her gate engineers were facing.

When Sol finished though, she didn't say anything right away. She knew what textbook he had read that entire segment from and though he wasn't wrong, it wasn't what she wanted from him.

"So, what do you make of it then?" she asked rhetorically, "Memorizing directly from books doesn't solve problems, it is the ideas we weave after, Sol." the redhaired woman leaned back in her seat and turned to face the acolyte.

"The problem with hyperspace travel, it continuously limits itself on the fourth plane being like the third, second and primary." Tiamat explained, "We don't realize how much space and time are moving, so getting solid coordinates is not going to always happen. Especially it seems to be here and trying to connect to the other end of the galaxy."

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Soleil Altan]

Soleil blinked at Tiamat. What did he make of it? He supposed that depended on what was being specifically spoken about. Hopefully, she wasn't going to ask him to do astrogation calculations. He held that vague worry behind a still expression by the time Tiamat turned around to look at him. It took Sol a hot few seconds to grasp what her explanation was actually covering.

She was, kind of, explaining the background of the hypergate's problem. Or he thought she might be, at least. Hypothetically. Soleil crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head slightly, staring at a random display in silence as several seconds ticked by. It sounded like it was, like... Trying to know where something was without seeing it, or something? He eventually unfolded his arms and signed something.

<Cup phones.> was the first thing he said through Gee-Gee's translation. <Or a bridge from here to there?> He might not get the details like Tiamat did but those seemed to fit the idea of communicating between two points. Sol did know that different points in the galaxy didn't all move at the same speed and had lots of variables, which was why some places needed hyperspace beacons to get to. <Could a beacon help?>

Whatever her intention, Tiamat had presented Soleil with a problem. Which, to him, meant a puzzle to be solved. Clearly she'd hooked him into the whole thing by doing so, visibly interested in her response.

@GABA

 

[Darth Tiamat]

The room fell silent as her gaze returned to the data on the holoprojector. She remained silent in her thoughts, quietly dropping the pieces together, moving them around in her head until something seemed to feel right. The droid sat quietly between the Sith, turning its visual sensor occasionally between the two, only seeming to perk up when Sol shifted his stance. Tiamat noticed too, watching him quickly sign and Gee-Gee translated.

The woman's eyebrow slowly rose and she nodded, "A beacon would be good." she said pulling up the coordinate system. Lines of code ran across the holoscreens.

"We have one established on the gates to track the other for the two-point access." she explained, running through the system, "However, they work independently, and though they talk to each other, they are not really syncing." she said bringing up the coordinate algorithm, the number and letter pairs moving at separate points, nearing a match, but never making the connection with coordinates that complemented each other. "Its almost like..." she paused, watching the coding run, "Almost like the same poles on a magnetic field. You can push them together with force, but they can't touch."

Tiamat leaned back in her seat, "It seems ridiculous, but I wonder if needs to be set up so it opens away..." she said reverting the numbers.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Soleil Altan]

Oh hey, his suggestion wasn't complete nonsense. Sweet. Soleil walked closer to the stuff Tiamat was looking over, squinting a little at the screen. And yet no matter how hard he stared at it he still wasn't a code jockey. Luckily Tiamat started explaining things so Soleil didn't have to pretend he knew what the fuck he was looking at.

Even without coding know-how, he could pick up on coordinates not matching. Her magnet example actually helped a great deal, a thoughtful look appearing on the young Wrean's face, trying to remember facts he knew about space and holonet communication. Soleil stared harder.

After many unmoving seconds, he looked around the workspace in search of a holomap. Inevitably he found one in the astrogation scientist's lab and walked over to it. Then he stared some more. Sol stared at Mustafar where they were, then at Dantooine where the other gate was, back and forth between the two. All at once, his face brightened up and he lightly, if excitedly, tapped on the holomap projector to get attention from either Gee-Gee or Tiamat.

He pointed at the deep core, a known pile of black holes and other cosmic nonsense. If one were to draw a straight line between Dantooine and Mustafar it went right through that whole mess! <Could that be why?> he signed in Gee-Gee's direction.

@GABA

 

[Darth Tiamat]

Tiamat continued to watch the coordinates on the holoprojector while Sol also fell into his own thoughts, working to find a possible answer to this puzzle. The room was silent except for the quiet beeping of the computers and the occasional taps of Tia's finger against the metal edge of the projector. She looked up to see Sol move around, searching for something until he revealed a holomap. Her brow narrowed, curious to see what he was thinking about until he begun to sign, Gee-Gee translating for him as he pointed to the core.

The redheaded woman grinned, "Yes, in space, the shortest distance necessarily isn't a straight line." she explained, walking over to the map, "Many make the mistake of just two planes, we see hyperspace routes and just assume we're going from point A to point B, but really, these routes are on three planes, well and those planes are always moving, space isn't stationary, these planetary bodies are moving, these systems are moving, and sometimes it is easier for us to see things as either two or three planes, than thinking..." she paused and grabbed a piece of paper, folding the top and bottom opposite corners together, and then slowly opening back up, "Its never just flat either, so as you pointed out, if they keep trying to creating a straight line, yes, you will run into things like cosmic instability like the core."

She walked back over to her holopad and begun typing the instructions for the new coordinates. "If you like this type of stuff, I can give you more projects to assist with in the field." she explained.

@Mr. Teatime

 

[Soleil Altan]

Soleil turned to look at Tiamat examine the map as she spoke, paying close attention to the little lesson about hyperspace travel. Apparently, his idea had merit! He didn't get the specifics of her correction, but he understood the concept of a workaround.

He'd been staring at the map again with a rather serious expression when the other Sith mentioned his participating in further projects. Sol turned wholly around and blinked at her a couple times. Then his face lit up with a smile, signing a response. "I'm interested! I'll have to read up more on the specifics, but it's really cool how you've set this all up."

Travel across the galaxy in moments? How could that not be considered amazing? After an attempt to get reading recommendations from Tiamat- including reports she'd done herself- he'd get back to whatever they needed him doing for the duration. Tiamat had his academy contact info for field projects already. Soleil was looking forward to it.

@GABA

//End Thread