voice; username: h. wells

[hsalf]

Hello...hm - fellow victims. Not sure what we call ourselves. Teammates? Comrades? ALASTAIR-ains? Considering we've all been ripped from the homes we know, victim perhaps is apt enough until I begin learning names.

[Ok but that's not what this is all about, so moving on:]

I want to pose some questions regarding the powers many people here seem to have. Both of a magic and genetic variety. I'm a physicist who studies the latter back home, from the angle of how environment can effect the spread of genetic mutation that brings people to have special abilities. The phenomenon is a relatively new one back where I came from, so it's still a topic of curiosity for me.

I'm not as well-versed in magical concepts, but from my standpoint they seem to be akin to miracles - powers that warp reality, even in small ways. And not everyone is predisposed to using them. Many of these sorcerers and witches are among the most powerful beings alive.

[He pauses for a moment, the message stopping as he thinks on his idea before continuing to transmit it through the jewel.]

It's nothing you need to get deep about if you don't prefer to - I just want to know what powers you have and what you use them for. Be it back home, or here, since I imagine the use would be far different given our circumstance.

If you're not keen about talking on your abilities, I'm equally curious about the perception of abilities in different world environments. Are they accepted or reviled? Is it everyday or miraculous? Back in my home, most people are still reluctant to believe. Those who do...well, there are both heroes and villains who use abilities for their own means.

[There's another pause, shorter, and then he softly laughs before going on.]

The multiverse is a vast realm of infinite possibilities. I like to learn as many of those possibilities as possible, if people wish to indulge me. Curiosity is a vicious bug.

Comments

[burdenoftruth]

Yeah. That sounds about right. Though I guess the ability to do magic could still be ingrained in someone's DNA, right?

[She shrugs a little.]

I'm not an expert, I just like to read.

[hsalf]

[He smiles a little and flexes his hand before responding.]

It depends upon the world, perhaps. Where I come from, magic was the "first" power. Only those who gave their lives to it could make any true and full use of it. Dangerous as well as mysterious.

Of course powers may just be a more scientific form of magic, if magic is the ability to do what is impossible.

[burdenoftruth]

Oh, that's interesting. It does sound pretty mystical, though. I don't know as much about that in spite of knowing some magic users myself.

[Things like mysticism are harder for her to wrap her head around than science.]

[hsalf]

Involved in the community, huh? [He jokes lightly with a crack in his voice.] I don't know much about magic either truth be told. It exists, that is certain, but I've always been a man of science. Giving myself up to something mystical with no guarantees is asking for trouble I think.

[burdenoftruth]

Not if I can help it.

[This is said sort of dryly in response to his joke about being involved in the community, and is more of a reference to the world at large than just magic users. Not that she doesn't care, but...it's complicated for her. Though she does realize right after she says it that it's not as true as it once was.]

At least not until recently. I have one very persistent friend.

[She shrugs a little.]

But, yeah, I prefer science. It seems more grounded to me. Or at least, it's easier for me to understand.

[hsalf]

[It's not for everyone, he understands that much. It isn't really for him either, until he came into a situation where it had to be part of his life.]

You must be quite smart if science is easy to understand. [Even compared to magic, both are complicated things.] But I agree. Science has been a passion of mine since I was a child. I wanted to understand how the world functioned, how everything around me came to be long before I was born. Back home, the subject is perhaps the most important thing to the modern world.

[At least in his time and not where he came from to here.]

[burdenoftruth]

I think it helps that I enjoy it.

[She doesn't consider her intelligence especially above average or anything, but things like science and math have always been her leisure reading.]

It's important in my world, too, though. Not that a lot of...fantastical things don't happen, but they seem to have as much to do with science as magic.

[hsalf]

Science can be a miraculous thing too. People hundreds of years ago couldn't possibly imagine how much the world would change. [And that goes for people of the 21st century as well.] I know the old saying it "magic is just science unexplained" but I think science is its own type of magic too. The two are distinctly separate but amazing in their own right.

[burdenoftruth]

Oh, that's a good way of looking at it, actually.

[She can see why someone who thinks like that would end up being a physicist.]

[hsalf]

Thank you. [Flattery gets people everywhere, and he's no different.] Expanding my thinking on this...it's been a necessary practice when people began gaining these extraordinary powers. It happened after an explosion affected the city I lived in - hundreds of people mutated and received their gifts.