OOCS, Into A Wider Galaxy, Part 652

(Woo! Got my G2 with only one small mistake on the entire test. But prepping for that and stressing out before hand drained my energy so it’s tough to write right now. Very tough. Sorry.)

First

The Dauntless

“Everything is signed out and confirmed sir. I am an additional bodyguard for now.” Sergeant Smith says with a salute as his orders come in. “May I presume the reason you want me by your side is my observational abilities?”

“Precisely, I want to better understand Axiom and I will be asking for you to not only describe certain things but to also demonstrate at times.” Observer Wu says.

“Of course. Where to first then Sir?” Sergeant Smith asks.

“Just outside. From my understanding entire worlds have Axiom patterns akin to weather and while many different individuals have described them and I have files the length of textbooks describing many Axiom Phenomenons, I require someone who can explain them. Fully. Be recorded and speaking in a manner that anyone can understand.”

“For everything?”

“No that would be too much. I want you to examine things and explain the Axiom in ways that a human can understand. You claim that this does not come naturally to you, therefore your own understanding will be at a rock solid level due to the requirement to progress as you have.”

“Technical learning versus aptitude. I understand.”

“Good. Now first and foremost. This way.” Observer Wu says leading him out of the building and gesturing to the traffic in the distance. “Describe the Axiom of the traffic. Tell me what common travel does to this omnipresent, all important, but invisible power. Let everyone know it Sergeant Smith.”

“Smoke and light Observer Wu.” Sergeant Smith says turning towards the traffic and looking straight at it. “Most people can hear or feel Axiom, but I have trained myself to directly see it. Sight is possibly the most important sense to humans, so forcibly translating it along that vector allows me to better understand and explain.”

“Go on.”

“These are not colours that I can adequately describe. It is not on any spectrum or pallet that we humans have ever made use of. But they are present and distinct. Within it I can see patterns, I can see movement as differing areas of colour with their own patterns come together and intersect. But it doesn’t mix. Not truly. Axiom that has one attribute will either convert or be converted by nearby Axiom. The pattern indicates movement and density.”

“Good, now explain the importance of all these traits please.”

“Well type is simple enough to understand. It’s Axiom Primed to already do certain things. Most vehicles create a tiny amount of movement based Axiom in their movement. The Galactic Laneways are massive concentrations of these. These allow Axiom Effects based on movement to be more powerful and also more efficient. You can use Movement Aligned Axiom for other effects, and indeed many ships do. They use the same Axiom in the laneways to power life support, sensors and everything else in the ship. But it’s movement that’s empowered.”

“And what does movement do?”

“Just that. Axiom moves, changes locations and changes it’s aspect. It also causes it to shift density. Think of it like an atmosphere. It’s never actually a perfect mix. There are little pockets here and there and everywhere. Between us there could be a higher or lower density of oxygen, carbon dioxide or even monoxide, to say nothing of nitrogen, argon or any number of other differing chemical combinations. Axiom is a lot like that.”

“Really?”

“Yes, there is in fact no neutral type of Axiom, never a vacuum of Axiom, and there is always more of it. Even nothingness creates more Axiom, and any tools or people that you have measuring the amount of Axiom will actively increase it regardless of containment efforts. Trytite is a solid wall to it. But that’s all it is, a solid to the gas. No matter what you do, there will be enough in short order.”

“Where does it go?”

“It accretes off the galaxy. Spreading outwards. No I do not know where it goes. I know that Cruel Space is one of the largest concentrations of it though, That additional laneways that borderline circle the galaxy in broken waves around the edges jump the Axiom towards Cruel Space to maintain it’s density from all sides but... well that’s not my place to say.”

“What isn’t?”

“The flow of Axiom is... powerful and undeniable. But peculiar. Yes, there are some cases of giant storms lasting millennia in places like gas giants. Such as The Great Red Spot on Jupiter. A storm larger than Earth itself. But... Hmm... I understand the theories, I understand the history but some part of me thinks that the galactic state of affairs is almost too neat and tidy. Too... perfect. There are smaller Null Deposits slowly making their way through the galaxy, and all of them on a collision course with Cruel Space. All of them to eventually join it. But the sheer odds of things occurring naturally... it’s a level of math that I can’t actually grasp to understand it. But I have seen the answer that says it’s possible, I just don’t fully understand the equation.”

“How far out has The Axiom of the Galaxy spread?

“We don’t know.”

“Pardon?”

“If the other galaxies are producing Axiom of their own then it would interfere with the spread considerably. If there is not, then the debate is whether or not the spread of Axiom would be consistent. EVERYTHING creates more. And as such it’s like chaos theory. We can generalize the spread of Axiom, but not precisely, there are too many factors.”

“But you have broad answers?”

“If the other galaxies are not producing their own Axiom, then we have already saturated roughly half the local galactic cluster. But whether the Axiom that far out will be usable by the majority of local species is up for debate. If the other galaxies do not produce Axiom even when introduced to Axiom then we need to wait for a safe saturation point which... might be enough for the cloesest reaches of the nearer galactic clusters. But is not guaranteed.”

“And if they’re producing their own?”

“Then is that Axiom usable? Think about it sir, for most species it’s like going to an unknown region and just randomly eating the local plants. You’re not guaranteed to die, but you’re basically asking for it.”

“Hmm... and since almost all technology is Axiom dependent... they would... how much of the technology in a Dauntless Class Ship is made out of the discoveries designed to test these theories?”

“A lot. Everything Null resistant that isn’t ours or the Triii’s belongs to numerous scattered attempts to probe beyond the galaxy. But unfortunetly...”

“Some kind of disaster?”

“No. A severe lack of political will. If the problems closer to home aren’t more important, then they quickly will be. And to be honest I can’t blame them. The process of trying to scout the nearby galaxies takes just long enough with Non-Axiom tech that something else comes along. To say nothing of all the times that pirates or something else hits a fleet like that.”

“Hmm... So... back to the earlier topic. Everything, from the air to the people to even nothingness is producing Axiom and it moves like gas. It can be compressed, but too much of it creates Null which is dangerous. However... was it your utterly stripping Axiom from an area that created the False Vacuum?”

“That was part of it. There’s a certain tolerance level, well below where people start to die from lack of Axiom, where you can still remove Axiom from an area. That’s the False Vacuum, and the more you strip from an area the harder and harder it becomes to contain the area as a False Vacuum, leading to the boom you heard earlier.” Sergeant Smith explains.

“Very well, so there is no neutral Axiom?”

“There are areas of Axiom where no one specific type is dominant, but so well mixed together that if you draw on it then you’re not getting one type or another.”

“I see, but in the traffic ways above there is a consistent type of Movement Axiom you said?”

“Yes. I’ve heard of some Adepts calling themselves Inversion Adepts, people that can flip Axioms frequency. But I haven’t seen it. Now... if I was to call... well mixed Axiom clear to assign it a colour, then let’s call Movement Yellow. Because believe it or not. Sunlight actually produces Movement Axiom.”

“Because light is in motion.”

“Right, so in places where a lot of movement of air, and vehicles and people and cars all come together and the Axiom is movement. But conversely, there is a Stillness, or perhaps Stability Axiom produced by the central pillars of the Spires. Axiom Effects about standing still or blocking things are more powerful there. Make sense?”

“What about other places?”

“It seeps in everywhere. Whatever a place is used for is reflected partially in the Axiom, and the Axiom will naturally prime some places to be better at one thing or another. It’s halfway between a location having a theme and it almost having a life. Hell, you’ve seen it come to full life. You have interviewed the Sorcerers yes?’

“Yes.”

“That’s Axiom alive. A living thing made of energy and anchored in what creates it and what it influences in turn. The exact mechanism is... not something that fully translates to any human language.” He says before saying something in galactic Trade that Observer Wu hasn’t heard before. “And that’s the simple explanation. It uses concepts that don’t translate. At least... not yet. One of the points of consternation between The Nerd Squad and The Research Division is what to call these effects in a way that can be better understood by humans.”

“What are the closest translations?”

“Lacking. Utterly lacking. Energy Mutualism was discussed a few times but is lacking severely. We tried Congicient Energy Mutualism, but that also doesn’t work as Axiom can just affect an area without cognitive pushes towards it.”

“What is the exact thing that you are lacking the definition for in human terms? Be descriptive.”

“The mechanism in which Axiom shifts it’s phase to influence the physical world. Most words that use it are defined in term as, Axiom meeting physicality mechanism. Or some such. Different languages all have words with slightly different meanings due to cultural reasons and the Galactic Trade Version is supposed to mean all of them, or at least an approximation of all of them.”

“Hmm... tricky. Let me guess, the closest human equivalent is magic, or something that means magic.”

“Yes, we were told explicitly we were not allowed to use any such terms. I heard a lot of arguments for Thaumic or Enchantment. A few guys even got a good chunk of the research division to try calling the measurement of Axiom a Thaum or Deci-Thaum as appropriate. But when command found out the book series they were referencing they put a stop to that.”

“Why?’

“Because they have to pull back on the reins every now and again. Otherwise... we get things like the earlier incidents.”

“Such as?”

“We have several nerds with very interesting scar patterns.”

“Ah, them. Yes.”

“We also had several trying to use memorized formulas to snap create some of the most deadly substances that they could imagine and they are now under direct orders to never do that again unless they’re in a fist fight with an actual combat mech.”

“... And they got into a fight with an actual combat mech?”

“And proceeded to force FOOF down the barrel of it’s railgun. The entire mech was a write off and the surrounding city blocks, plural, had to be evacuated and decontaminated. Flourine based explosives are mean and dirty.”

“I can imagine. What does that look like? The process of Axiom causing one thing to turn into another. Surely you’ve seen a transmutation at least once.”

“I have. It’s... Hmm... it’s energy intensive. It... I can see the Axiom forming into the altered atomic structure, or at least draining down into doing that. I can’t actually see atoms. But I know what they’re doing. I understand that the wavelength of Axiom is shifting into one that we’re more familiar with and properly condenses in the right orbital path to reshape things. It’s absurdly complicated in the base level, but something is sort of helping it along? That’s another thing that is confusing about Axiom. It moves with purpose. It acts, it responds and it seems to know. Maybe it does know what you want, because you know what you want. Axiom is in everything, including your own mind, including, perhaps, your own soul. But I can’t prove anything in one way or another. I can tell you that Axiom noticeably depletes, and if I were to take an area roughly the size of my fist, and prevent new Axiom from forming or entering it I could use it to transmute the air around me into a perfect statue of myself in solid gold before we would be at risk of False Vacuum Collapse.”

“That implies there is an enormous amount of energy even in standard Axiom. And Null is when the Axiom is too thick.”

“And Earth and the surrounding solar systems are saturated in it. I know.”

“You believe it might have other, otherwise unknown effects on humanity.”

“I think it would be very long odds that it did not.” Sergeant Smith says.

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