A Piece of Skor Cake

[Cathul Thuku]

"People of Skor: for far too long, the Galactic Alliance has neglected the reconstruction of our war-torn southern systems. Today, it pledges 3 billion credits for rebuilding housing and essential infrastructure for the Squib populace!"

After sealing a deal to get those salvage stations built, in an attempt to undercut Sump's share of the salvage market in the southwest end of Wild Space, she pledged to deliver the announcement in person, in front of the Hall of Big-Time Heroes of Beyond-Squib Eliteness. As a show of goodwill, she will personally be serving stuff in one of those mobile kitchens, courtesy of the second Pizza Hutt supermarket within the city limits, on top of which social housing is built, with other people like [member="Asaraa Vaashe"], and possibly even [member="Valae Kitra"], part of a Silver Jedi contingent promised as part of the Coruscul Accords, to defend against the First Order in what is dubbed the Great Galactic War, perhaps Cathul would actually go around training the Togruta padawan in a specific set of Force-powers that would be useful in combat. Pyrokinesis and cryokinesis. As the food truck made its way towards the city's slums, she now begins to debrief Asaraa about the agenda of the day prior to the food truck arriving at its impoverished destination, where, understandably, many Squibs hungered:

"Welcome, young padawan. Today, you will learn how to use pyrokinesis and cryokinesis, which I like because of its ability to be used outside of battle, such as cooking"

 

[Asaraa Vaashe]

It was an unusual posting to be sure, sent off to a new world to get trained. Of course she'd heard of the Galactic Alliance, who hadn't, perhaps the largest political entity in this region of space, and one which had set the tone of international relations in the surrounding area for much of it's lifetime. But to actually be here, seeking training from one of its foremost jedi even. Well not so much seeking as being told that it would be a great opportunity for her to take the trip with the Silver Jedi's contingent and make the most of the chance. In fact, she was sure she'd seen the Grand Master herself nearby, but then the ability to work the elements was something that anyone would want to know, from the newest Padawan to the most powerful Master.

The young woman was s wrapped up in her thoughts that she had barely even noticed the woman approaching her only realising she'd finished speaking just before she'd arrived. carefully composing her features the Togruta focused her blue eyes on the woman coming to a stop in front of her. "Well, all powers have some use outside of battle, even if you have to be...creative with it. These though seem much more useful than some...you can really use them to cook?"

[member="Valae Kitra"]
[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"In fact, I couldn't sense Vee around here, she must be outside the food truck, somewhere. However, one of the occupants of the food truck seemed to look a lot like her"

It just so happened that another Therapy Command cook that went down to Skor alongside Cathul looked far too much like Vee, and even wore very similar Jedi robes, but actually didn't have the ability to use the Force. In fact, the Grandmaster was elsewhere, probably somewhere else around the southern systems. Admirals are sometimes pretty distant from the rank-and-file crewmembers, huddled among the staff or the CIC as they might be, hence why she might have confused Vee and someone else toiling in the kitchens of some ship. But [member="Asaraa Vaashe"] might be looking at a batter made of flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, water and cocoa powder, which is about to be poured into an eight-inch mold, of which there were several. But, for the purposes of this, she had to be mindful of not assuming that the student knew thermodynamics. Yet, few people would actually go around using pyro/cryo outside of combat, even for cooking or welding; so many people would think that pyro/cryo is a weapon first and foremost.

"You will see that pyrokinesis is about making the molecules dance faster, and hence the material getting hotter, and cryokinesis is about calming molecules down. For example, you may use it for cooking, but also to disarm opponents. Now you may be using pyrokinesis to get the batter to cook into a cake"

 

[Asaraa Vaashe]

“Well this is embarrassing, isn’t it.”

Asaraa was glad that there was no-one else around apart from Cathul right now. To mistake the Grand Master of her order with someone else, well that was the kind of thing that they never let you live down. Luckily she didn’t think, well at least she hoped, that Master Cathul wouldn’t mention this little slip to anyone else. At least she didn’t seem to be making a big deal out of it as she continued talking, explaining the principles behind the powers. The young woman pressed her teeth into her lip as she pushed other thoughts out of her head, trying to focus on the woman’s voice and the lessons she was imparting.

“So basically…if I use the force to excite the molecules then I can generate heat? But well, doesn’t that require some insane control to actually move the molecules instead of well,” she waved her hand at the batter, sending a ripple through the mixture but nothing much else. “Ending in a failure?”

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"Yes, I realize that infusing heat by making the molecules dance requires more control than other methods of using pyrokinesis. If it ends in a failure, it's possible you might have induced chemical reactions without wanting it"

So that impostor-Vee's job in making the Skor cakes is now over, and moved on to other recipes, such as Vader cookies, of which one batch is being baked. [member="Asaraa Vaashe"] realized that Cathul didn't make much of a deal out of impostor-Vee, but that was mostly because the real Vee couldn't be on Coruscul when the talks were held. But Asaraa's concern was one concern no one else voiced before, and she found herself furrowing a brow, and she was a little bewilered to be entertaining the possibility that this method of using pyro/cryokinesis may cause parasitic chemical reactions, but she knew from experience that such usually happened only when substantial jumps of temperature were involved. Sure, chemically, she was far from the best, but she still understood the logic behind the comment. Baking a cake using pyrokinesis? She could do it, but she had to be cautious around the Togruta. And the bottom component of the Skor cake. She might be tempted to take over for Asaraa, but perhaps an alternate mechanism will do the trick, because conservation of energy.

"So just use the Force to infuse ambient heat into the object, although I do realize that it will make other stuff around colder in comparison"

 

[Asaraa Vaashe]

"So just transfer the energy from the air or from the pan and put it into the cake mixture? That doesn't seem too bad then."

All she had to do was shift the energy, that might be difficult, no screw that she knew it would be difficult, but it was still eminently doable. Asaraa had heard of the Jedi who could absorb energy, the power of a blaster bolt, a lightsaber. What she was about to do wasn't anything like that hard, all she had to do was direct the energy to the target she wanted. The young Togruta closed her eyes, letting go of everything as she reached out for the force, seizing it, shaping it in a way she'd never tried before. Using the force to move things, to guide her, there came naturally to her, but here, what she wanted to do was different, she wanted to great a path with the forge, a guide that the heave could run down. She could feel an ambient heat in the air, spread out all around her and she could probably pull it all in but she didn't want to try to bite too much off at once. But this was a kitchen, there was always a flame burning...there. A warming plate nearby had all the energy she'd need as she reached out, drawing a line in her mind and pushing at the force, shaping it into the line, the trough she needed to pull the energy where she needed it to go.

The Padawan wrinkled her nose as she smelt that wonderful stomach rumbling smell of a cooking cake.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"Nice cake!" impostor-Vee commented, upon seeing the spectacle of pyrokinesis taking place in the cake.

Sometimes it takes just the right method to teach somebody. That method provided some advantages, such as the ability to use cryokinesis simultaneously with pyrokinesis: all you had to do is to transfer heat from the cryokinesis target to the pyrokinesis one, she thought, while realizing that she has been much more reliant on computational methods which, while affording more precision, require more computational power and hence can burn her mind out much faster. [member="Asaraa Vaashe"] would probably want to eat a slice of the resulting Skor cake once it's ready, but before it's ready to eat, there is one more lesson on cryokinesis she might wish to teach the young Togruta, knowing that the remaining slices will probably be given to the more needy Squibs around this region. But she feels compelled to deliver a caution; using pyrokinesis to melt metals, such as in rendering weapons unwieldy for opponents, or using cryokinesis to freeze water, were but two concrete examples of where latent energy would come into play. She summoned a bowl of powdered ice cream:

"One word of caution: sometimes you will find that the temperature won't increase (respectively decrease) for a while until it starts increasing (respectively decrease) again. This is due to a phenomenon called latent energy of phase transition, which is a very real thing in pyro/cryokinesis. Cryokinesis is the reverse process of pyrokinesis, where you wish to take energy out of an object and into its environment. Try taking out heat from this powdered ice cream; if it works, we will have soft ice cream to spread over the cake"

 

[Asaraa Vaashe]

The Togruta couldn’t help the grin that spread across her features at the compliment from Imposter-Vee as she glanced over at the cake.

“Hopefully it tastes as good as it looks.”

Once the process had started then it was easy to keep it going, keep the current of energy flowing into the cake. The ease of the process surprised the Padawan, she’d thought this would harder, that shifting energy around like this would take more effort. But once the process began it took very little thought to maintain it, all she needed was a little thought and energy to keep it up. This offered…interesting possibilities. If she could transfer heat back and forth like this, then surely she could transfer other forms of energy. Asaraa had heard about Jedi who were able to absorb or even re-direct blaster bolts before, perhaps those stories weren’t so outlandish. The Padawan wasn’t entirely sure how she’d figure that out but…it was something to think about.

“Well, I do love Ice-cream.”

She reached out with her mind, creating a pathway between the powder and the cake, pushing with her mind, feeling the energy slipping along from the powder into the cake. It was slow, but she could see it, see the ice cream slowly starting to form in the bowl.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]