Who Says The Best Ideas Come From Movies? [Open]

[bonnypiperlad]

Despite having traveled with the Doctor and having been awake on Stacy for however long now, there's still certain aspects of 'modern' life that Jamie often finds himself fascinated by - even if it's something he's experienced before. Watching the moving pictures in the media library is definitely one of those things. There's so many to choose from

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[bonnypiperlad]

"Och, no. No regrets," Jamie says, almost immediately. "It's been great. I'd not change a thing."

Once upon a time that may not have been strictly true, but waking up on Stacy means that the two things he'd want to have happened differently have more or less worked themselves out. The Doctor's awake, even if it's not his Doctor, and Victoria is back in his life. The latter, especially, is something he's quite glad about, and something of that reflects in his expression briefly.

Then he gives Zouichi a thoughtful look. He may not be from a steampunk fantasy world where there was horseback riding and moon bases with teleporters, but he's had his share of dealing with strange and unusual concepts over those past few years - and a very specific way of dealing with them.

"Aye, well, I'd say it's a matter of how ye think about it. There's plenty of things that I've seen that'd not existed in my day." He gives the hoverboard a rather meaningful sort of look. "But if ye find something that you're familiar with, ye can take that new thing and make some sort of sense out of it. You've a lot of technology from your world, right? Why not think of magic as some sort of other technology?"

[zouichi]

Zouichi shook his head. "Technology on my world works under the assumption that there are fundamental physical laws that are more or less immutable. And for that reason, it's understandable. If you drop a ball, it falls to the earth. Why? Because the gravitational force of the Earth attracts other bodies with a force proportional to its mass. It doesn't matter how many times you drop it; constant physical forces exert their influence on it, and it will fall at a predictable velocity. You can't mutter some magic words and turn it into a balloon; it exists and behaves independently of your will unless you make a physical effort to change that behavior."

"Magic, on the other hand, often doesn't conform to particular physical laws. Certainly not the ones that were in place on my world. When you turn someone into a rabbit, where does the extra mass go? Where does the power required for the spell come from? How do they retain human consciousness in an animal brain? If the person can be transformed back into a human being, that implies their state was somehow saved so their original body could be recreated -- but who saves it, and where?" Although some systems of magic at least seemed to be based on some sort of understandable real-world principles, stretched as they might be. For instance, that alchemist Zouichi had met before...

[bonnypiperlad]

As Zouichi outlines the differences between the two, Jamie tries to follow along - although not without a puzzled look appearing on his face. This is the same person who thinks aeroplanes are flying beasties and space stations are twenty castles in the sky, after all. It works for him - but clearly it doesn't work for Zouichi. That much he's able to grasp. Some of the rest of it, not so much.

"Well, if ye put things that way..." he says finally, after working through it as best as he can. "I suppose there could be some things that might need a wee bit more explaining. But ye can't disagree that it exists...even if ye can't explain it, now can ye?"

[zouichi]

...Sorry, Jamie 8|

"No," Zouichi said, "And that's the trouble. What do you do when something exists, but doesn't conform to any logical rules? I don't like relying on things that I don't have at least some understanding of."

[bonnypiperlad]

Hey, he does pretty well, all things considered.

"Aye, well, that's when ye have two choices - ye can try and figure it out, if it's something that ye can figure out. Or ye can accept that there's things that are beyond your ken. Not everything has to be logical, ye know."

Honestly, the man sounds a bit like Zoe, talking about logical rules. Somehow he could see them having quite the discussion about it - if she ever wakes up, that is.

"As for what ye do, ye find out what ye can about it. If it's something that's dangerous, there's often ways to protect yourself against it, aye? Or ye could try and avoid it all together, I suppose. Some of it can still be very useful all the same, mind ye."

[zouichi]

"I can accept it," said Zouichi. "I just don't like it."

Like psychics, whose abilities at least followed some sort of internal consistency while they were running around using their telekinesis on things and surreptitiously obtaining information on alien life forms. And were almost invariably out to get him.

"Yes, of course. Magic users aren't immortal, after all." Generally speaking. Anyway, point was, Zouichi mostly just dispatched tricky opponents before they could do anything to him. "In any case, simply avoiding them isn't really an option on this ship."

[bonnypiperlad]

"Maybe so," Jamie agrees. "But then again, it'll give ye a chance to try and figure out more about magic if that's what ye want to do."

Granted, he still thinks that's a dangerous thing to be toying with, but it's Zouichi's choice whether or not he wants to find out more. And at least here the crew wouldn't be trying to do him harm in the process - at least not on purpose.

"Ye just have to find the ones that are willing to talk to ye about it."

[zouichi]

"It's not really a matter of what I want to do," Zouichi said, looking a little grim. "It's my duty as someone who maintains safety aboard the ship to find out more about potential dangers."

He took his job pretty seriously. Uh. Like he took most everything else. "Unfortunately, the magic of one world is apparently not at all like the magic of another. Sometimes it's almost like a science -- transforming one object into another requires that you first possess all the component elements needed to make up the structure of the final product and mass is conserved. Other times it requires extensive preparation ahead of time, with various symbolic ingredients. And sometimes it requires nothing at all, save for willpower or a single magical item."

Zouichi was being a ray of sunshine right now, obviously.

[bonnypiperlad]

"Alright, or what ye need to do," he amends. He has to admit it's that's a fair point, and for someone on Security, it's likely necessary. Personally, he's just as glad that he doesn't have to worry about that as much.

"Sounds as though you'll not ever get done with it at this rate," he remarks, not exactly helping shed any cheer or optimism on the conversation himself. "Even if ye figure out what ye can from everyone awake, ye never know when someone else might wake up with a completely different way of doing things."