Harry Potter and the Soybean Elementalist

[Jessica Med-Beq]

After the transaction that led to the sale of the ionite Ringovinda StarYards used to hold on to delivery, bought from a Christophsis-based speculator as a futures contract, to one Janus, Jessica stayed on Ringo Vinda because her relationship to this new prototype Therapy Command ordered to replace another of the aging classes used by the Alliance navy, the ANS Lothal. Yet the Lothal was still not yet ready for its space trials, no more than it would be able to undertake its weapons tests, due to its fitting-out not being quite finished. Of the weapons systems, installed onboard, only the aft hypervelocity cannon was tested, having been used on multiple occasions. So the point-defense 20mm HVCs being used as a CIWS, the long-range Scarifs and the Toprawas, not to mention the Ziosts, all of which come in triple varieties. That's a lot of power in only a small number of emplacements, so while it may cut down on maintenance, it makes the ship that much more vulnerable. Yet [member="Catherine Soja"] doesn't suspect that Electric Judgment is not about primal emotions, just vector calculus. When Catherine is about to arrive in the not-quite-finished hangar bay of the Lothal, which is being finished right before her eyes... she crossed her fingers, hoping that Christophsis never comes up.

"Welcome, young Jedi. You have searched far and wide for someone willing to train in pyrokinesis, cryokinesis and in Electric Judgment"

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

She offered a bow. “Yes, it’s not been an easy thing to find teachers for. I am grateful you were willing to do so.” She looked around the ship getting an idea for how it was going making mental notes on the ships design. “I look forward to learning and hopefully expanding my understanding of the force.”

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"That might be a little weird to some practitioners of pyrokinesis, but first you have to understand a little bit of thermodynamics to be able to grasp the relationship between pyrokinesis and cryokinesis. Beginners at your level of power should perhaps use pyro/cryokinesis to disarm opponents or to freeze their weapons. Oh and you may also use pyro/cryokinesis for cooking. The key here is to play around with the molecular vibrational frequencies of the target, if the target is solid, the rotational speed of the molecules if the target is liquid, the root-mean-square translational speed if gaseous, plasma or supercritical fluid. Also, you will find that is going to be a lot more tiresome to use pyrokinesis or cryokinesis if you want the target to undergo a phase transition"

Due to the notion of latent energy associated with a phase transition... in which case one needs to either feed or remove that amount of energy from the target. For some reason Jessica feels as if she should try going full-on with the technical explanations she could comeup with regarding these Force-powers with [member="Catherine Soja"]: she was willing to give her a chance. Perhaps Catherine would prove to have more computational power than other Jedi that she knew about. Clearly there is unfinished plumbing waiting to be installed onto the walls; Jessica would use telekinesis to move the pipe into position so that Catherine could attempt using pyrokinesis to weld the plumbing into place, at both ends. That was some sort of pipe that was rather small in size, but nevertheless important: it was part of the hydraulic systems in use for the hangar bay's elevator platforms that are used for the maintenance, repair and rearmament of attack craft.

"Now, you try heating up the joints of the pipe with the Force so that they can be welded into place"

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

She looked over, boy people were expecting her to pick this up fast. She thought briefly trying to consider things. heat was just moleculare movement and vibration. So as she reached out with a finger focusing on the force she thought of the small pieces of metal vibrating faster. Every microscopic piece would be called upon to move faster and faster. Each moment the metal got warmer. It took her a full ten minutes however to get the speed up to where finally smoke...then a spark...Then finally it began to weld in and she guided it along the seem to seal it up. Once that was finished she moved to the next one and got a little better taking less time to do the same.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"There's a reason why I made you weld pipes inside the docking bay: too often people think of pyrokinesis or cryokinesis as a weapon. They get so tunnel-visioned that they fail to see that there are many ways to use a Force-power beyond simply weaponizing it. Someone that seems more inclined towards mechanics and other technical things would find that pyrokinesis can be used as a tool whereby heat is necessary, but also some survivalist could conceivably use pyrokinesis or cryokinesis as cooking tools. I'm a little hungry; why don't we go to the galley and cook?"

And Jessica decided that she shouldn't get started with Electric Judgment just yet. Meanwhile, the droid construction crews continued to assemble the wall panels behind which the pipes [member="Catherine Soja"] just welded would be hidden. The duet walked from the hangar bay to the nearest galley, which is still being worked on. But then Jessica realized that one of the wall panels close to the kitchen was left unassembled because of a malfunction of the droid. That droid was low on power, I'll make her recharge it with Electric Judgment later, she thought. For now, though, she would use telekinesis to ensure the stability of the quadanium wall panel with her left hand, and pyrokinesis to weld the wall panel into place with the other hand. She is often disappointed into those Jedi or Sith who almost systematically treat a Force-power primarily or often entirely as a function of how it can be used in combat. She knows that many Force-users are compelled to become the flashiest and most powerful around; at least she feels that Catherine is smart enough to step away from that dangerous game - same goes for her, too; to her she is happy with a working knowledge of Force-powers but is never one to want to be among the best at any one of them, except perhaps for Instinctive Astrogation Control, which is highly cognition-intensive.

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

She found this odd somewhat to use it directly for this but did not question it. As she followed and entered the galley she looked at what was up for offer. Seemed some basically meats or veggies things you could cook in a few ways. She began with water for the plant based food and a simple pan for the none plant based. She then focused on the same idea only this time in the air beneath them. It took several minutes to do this the molecules vibrating faster every second. The head eventually began to reach high enough temperatures to cook the food. But as she did this she breathed out heavily as she felt herself straining to keep it up for both. She also had to feel out and do the math on how hot each one was in her head.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Good, now, let's eat this steak meal, shall we?"

While the rooms around the galley are still being built, holding living quarters for the future crew of the Lothal, Jessica watched [member="Catherine Soja"] prepare two plates' worth of steak platter, much like those she would expect to eat at a restaurant, a decent one, but not a higher-end one. Sure, she did eat on business trips at times, or even on royal banquets back on Glyss, just that she never liked those pompous events that much. Because she doesn't have much of a concern with cutlery, she summoned only one set of utensils for each person to eat with, using telekinesis. Hopefully, this Force-cooked meal will actually taste like an actual meal; it's easy to get it wrong on so many levels when one uses pyrokinesis for cooking, especially beginners. She will soon find out whether it actually tastes any good. But before the plates are in place, with the food on it, Jessica still has an additional piece of wisdom to impart to Catherine:

"Mental conditioning is important, I can tell you as much. By now you realize that if you're mentally impaired, your ability to use the Force will be impaired, too. Even though intellect is distinct from mental fortitude, we both have it in pretty sizeable amounts"

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

She nods listening. As they sat down she looked to the meal she had prepared. Once it was served up she took a bite. It tasted fine nothing amazing to her mind but well for a fist one not being under cooked was good. She listened to the words of the other jedi. “I’m finding that out with a lot of force powers.” She then took another bite of food.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Cryokinesis is very similar to pyrokinesis, in that you play around with an object's thermal energy, but the energy goes in the reverse direction. But it might be best to wait until this meal is over and then you can practice it - on a bowl of powdered cream"

The classic of training in cryokinesis for those who are inclined to use it for cooking: the Force-induced soft ice cream. Not the tastiest meal, or even the one with the best nutritional value, just a practice item. Nevertheless, she did eat Force-prepared meals on occasion, such as today, where she eats a steak cooked with pyrokinesis, while telling the apprentice what comes next. Many among the staff onboard that can actually see the scene being played out are bewildered when they realize that [member="Catherine Soja"] (and also Jessica) are using pyro/cryokinesis for cooking, and other peaceful use of those Force-powers. In the minds of most among the public, using the Force for cooking or welding was a bizarre occurence; to these two ladies, it's a distinct possibility, although it is something that took Jessica a while to get used to. Once she has finished eating her meal, she just summoned a metal bowl filled with powdered cream using telekinesis.

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]


She evnetually finished her food and wiped her face. "So then what is the next lesson?" She asked letting the teacher decide where they would go next. She concluded quickly that yes the cryokinetic ability woudl be the inverse of the pryo thankfully it followed scientific principles fairly close.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Now that you understand what the relationship between cryokinesis and pyrokinesis is, try to use cryokinesis on that bowl of powdered cream"

With cryokinesis, once you understand how it relates to pyrokinesis, it's very easy to do it either way. One supervised practice round is often enough in the second, just to make sure the student actually understands it in practice, she thought. While, of course, the decks above and below her are still being built, under the confines of pressurization, all Jessica does in the meantime is to weld the ceiling tiles together, using pyrokinesis, held in place with telekinesis. And then she would have [member="Catherine Soja"] practice cryokinesis, under her watchful eye, looking for anything wrong in the practice of the Force-power in the bowl of powdered cream. Sure, beginners tend to take longer in cooling down even quantities that are practical to use in one's daily grind, like those used to cool down cups of water or to make ice cream. Now that's what using the Force as a tool looks like. There are tons of Force-users that not only treat Force-powers as the contents of a sweets shop but also treats Force-powers as weapons or armor. Yet Jessica was a different kind of Jedi, almost using it as a spellweaver would...

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]


She thought on the matter for a minute, what might be more efficient cooling the bowl or the cream itself? After some thought she cooled the cream itself focusing this time on making the various sub atomic particles slow down to nearly not movement at all. Eventually slowly but surely the temperature of it dropped and dropped until it began to freeze.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"Good. You may also want to use cryokinesis for air conditioning"

Once [member="Catherine Soja"] succeeded in lowering the temperature of the cream, she stashed the bowl of ice cream away into the now-functional freezer. It just seems that the crews waited a little longer to activate the relevant switch on the electrical switchboard for the life support systems of this area of the ship. Speaking of electricity, the final lesson of the day is Electric Judgment. Yet she realizes that talking about how Maxwell equations relate to the use of Electric Judgment (or Force-lightning if she ever was to fall to the dark side) would probably be a lot more taxing to her student's brain than there would be a need for it. Oh, of course, that would be a little less technical, but she would not expect, even though the kinetic theory of gases (and, with it, matter in general, albeit in different forms) seems conceptually easy enough to understand. The last lesson on Electric Judgment is meant to dispel the notion of EJ being associated to aggression if she uses it for something other than that.

"The final lesson for today is Electric Judgment. I know so many Jedi who would shy away from Electric Judgment because they seem to associate it with anger and aggression: I will show you that isn't the case. At the beginning, you will only be able to use it for defibrillation or for recharging power packs, much like the one in your lightsaber. Speaking of which, do you have an idea how low on power it is?"

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

She checked her saber it rarely ran out of power but well n time it would. "Mmm looks like 65% enough time if a emergency came up. But i try not to rely solely on it. It's why the force is so important. When a saber is damaged or destroyed or powered down the force can be used when other tools cannot." She said. Thinking on the concept of electrical power she blinked a few times. "The thing I;ve never gotton is how one manages to create an electrical current that doeisnt shock the user."

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"When you use Electric Judgment, think of your own body as a power generator, with your fingers"

So her student would be wondering how could one create an electrical current that doesn't shock an Electric Judgment user? There were many theories about this. Some Force-lightning users would claim that it is the energy of the dark side, but for Jessica it was mainly about using one's body and, in particular, nervous system as a power generator. That is a legitimate question, she thought. At the same time, she knew that so many that used the Force as a tool to the point that some would resent it, especially the more radical anti. Yet [member="Catherine Soja"] would not be deterred, and neither was she. But now that the section of the ship was nearly finished, she let the other crews do their work elsewhere onboard. No and she won't tell about the deal with having to solve for the target's Maxwell equations. That would be perhaps a little too complicated for someone whose intellectual merits are still unknown quantities. But, if Catherine was able to solve for Maxwell's equations in her head, perhaps Instinctive Astrogation Control is the way to go.

"With that said, imagine a current between your finger and the target"

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]


She listened and began to think, slowly imagining the force flowing liek an electrical current. At first nothing occured really but slowly as she focused more on the idea slowly making her mind focus and visualize it green electrical arcs formed. Not large yet mind you but they were slowly crackling and growing. She continued to focus thinking of how electrical currents tended to work and so used this to imagine how it might jump the gaps between her hands. Soon it began to work fully and arcs flew across at first causing minor pain until she began to control it better. Still it was rough she'd need to practice more.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"You seem to have used the Force quite a bit lately. I gave you a foundation. Now, since you learned everything on the agenda for today, do you have any questions?"

[member="Catherine Soja"] might have a question or two. It's legitimate that, to ensure her satisfaction, Jessica should at least try to answer what questions a student might have. There are times where a student has questions she might not answer, but that's OK and then she would be confronted to the limits of her knowledge. However, most people who get close to her often seem to notice just how much knowledge she has the closer they get, regardless of whether or not they mean it in the context of using Drain Knowledge. Yet, knowing how they come to realize that, close carry several different context-dependent meanings: physically close if someone means it in the context of Drain Knowledge, socially close outside of Drain Knowledge. May she actually use Electric Judgment without associating it to aggression and anger, she thought, while awaiting whatever questions the student might have before letting her go home.

 

[Catherine Soja]

[member="Jessica Med-Beq"]

"How harmful could the electric judgment be? Is it dependent?" She asked looking to the master jedi.

 

[Jessica Med-Beq]

"It depends on several factors, most importantly how skilled and powerful the user is. Certainly it is more dangerous the more vulnerable to electricity a target is, and also how deep into the dark the target is. But, as you progress in the use of Electric Judgment, you can use it to stun and later injure targets (higher-level users can do even kill using EJ) and also use it on several targets in a chain. However, if you use it on several targets on a chain, the first target will take more damage than any subsequent targets"

Sometimes learning a power too late in the learning curve can carry serious consequences, but also learning it too early can. I know that, in the case of Electric Judgment, and even more so with Force-healing, too early was preferrable to too late, if the aim was responsible usage. New users of Electric Judgment slotted where Catherine is in her learning curve of the Force would much more easily learn that EJ has nothing to do with aggression or anger, she thought. Paradoxically, the powers in the infamous Elemental Trio take less power to be used for non-weaponized uses than for weaponized uses. But [member="Catherine Soja"]'s question was legitimate: while early in the learning process one couldn't weaponize it, at later stages, where one could weaponize it, later in the process, what to expect out of it had to be Electric Judgment was one area where high power-low skill people were dangerous both to themselves and their targets, and low power-high skill people could be preferrable. Same goes with Force-healing, too.