HIT Science & Engineering Lecture Series, v.1

[Dr Archeville]

The doktor smiled and chuckled (and for a split-second Eric could swear the youthful Archeville looked like Kris Kringle), "I would hope you'd not miss your vedding -- love und family are very, very important. You heard vhat forgoing dem did to Kohout!" He paused to take a sip of tea, "shall ve say... dis Friday, de 23rd? 10:00am?"

He seems like such a pleasant fellow.

Who? What? He didn't take any of our knackwurst, did he?

As soon as Eric made any indication indicating that that would be a good time, Archeville rose, taking his food and drink with him. "I am sorry to cut dis so short, Herr Micheals, but mein own time is not entirely as free as yours." He gestured towards several groups of people who all waved him over, then bent low to Eric and spoke in a hushed tone, "to paraphrase von of your Presidents, 'if you vould haff peace, avoid popularity'. I look forvard to seeink you on Friday!" He turned and gave a nod to Carrie and John...

... and then he was off. "Ah, Doktor Blank, Doktor Price! So good to see you two again! So, vhat haff Freedom's top two herpetologists been up to lately? Is vhat I heard about you two consulting for dat movie from a couple of years ago true?"

---

After another 15, 20 minutes of "talking shop" with assorted scientists at the reception -- and avoiding the Terraynes -- Archeville made his way to a small table where the unusually tall man he'd noted earlier was seated. ">" he said in German, ">"

[Nyrath]

Wilhelm had completed his meal a few minutes before Archeville arrived, or more precisely had finished eating and then proceeded to prepare a new slightly smaller meal using a plate and set of cutlery he'd snagged earlier on in conjunction with the purposefully noteworthy amount of leftovers. After all the old mage had been able observe the young doctor the entire time and had noted that the German genius had been unfortunate enough to not get much in the way of nourishment.

Archeville made his way to a small table where the unusually tall man he'd noted earlier was seated. "<>" he said in German, "<>"

"<>" The elderly gentleman returns in the same language, offering up a seat as he speaks. "<>" The seated older man seems genuinely, though mildly, concerned about the much younger ones comfort for the moment.

"<>" The white haired gentleman suddenly looks like just remembered something. "<<"Oh, but where have my manners flown! My name is Wilhelm von Treissen, sometimes called 'The Exile' in the circles I usually move, I'm quite pleased to meet you.>>" Wilhelm extends his hand towards Archeville offering a handshake.

[Dr Archeville]

">," he replied as he sat. It struck Wilhelm just how young Viktor looked: his bios say he is 30, and working for the past decade as he has as a superhero almost always takes some toll on a person's appearance, but this man seemed as young and fresh as many of the undergraduate students here.

Of course, taking a look with his special senses, he could tell exactly why that was.

">" For a moment, he truly does look weary.

And then he snaps right back, ">" He paused to take a sip of tea, ">" Another pause, another sip, ">"

">" he said with a laugh and a smile, then set about cutting the sausages on his plate into bite-sized chunks. ">"

[Sandman XI]

Darian tried not to stick out like a sore thumb at these type of soirees. The khaki slacks and burgundy polo shirt mismatched his icicle blue hair coloring. Still, he would of never lived it down if he missed a gathering where he could potentially get some ideas. The Mutt story made him start thinking about the human body's potential for magical science experimentation. He'd known some of the elders where talking about it in recent history and how it failed. Maybe there was a ring of truth to the story. Society needs boogeymen. Darian was getting extremely anxious. He came here to see Doctor Archeville, but what if he could find the actual person and talk to him? A shuffle around the area revealed nothing. Had he missed him? Not giving up that easily, he pressed on. Finally, after weaving through the court a third time, he spotted the Doctor talking to a gigantic man and talking in a language he didn't understand. Most likely German, he surmised. Walking matter-of-factly towards the conversation he thought about what he would say, how he would impress an intellect of that magnitude, how they would talk about theories and formulas on a level that his kind would be most gratified about. When he got to his destination, Darian froze for a split second. He was here, now what? Quickly snapping out of it he nervously extends his hand to the Doctor, "I... uh, hope I'm not interrupting you, sirs," seemingly intimidated as he tries to keep eye to eye with the Doctor, "I'm, I'm Darian Cale, I've read some of your work but to meet you in person is a great honor!"

[Dr Archeville]

Archeville turned and smiled as he tried to hastily chew and swallow the bit of food in his mouth.

Oh, who's this then?

Is he bringing us more food? We're running low on saurkraut.

You are a sour kraut.

Still smiling, he shook Darian's hand, "not an interruption at all, Herr Cale, always happy to meet und greet new people! You are a student here?" He gestured towards an empty chair, "please, sit, join- oh, but I see you are mitout nourishment! Please, go, get some food, den come back here und ve vill talk some more!"

[Sandman XI]

Darian nods exitedly with a cheshire grin, "Thank you sir." Archeville could of told him to go get transparent aluminum before he would talk to him and he would of happily obliged. He looks around the courtyard for the concession tables, a lot more easy to find than one man sitting at a table. Quickly jogging over to the smorgasbord of Greek and German delicacies, je stops when he realizes the amount of choices he could make. Stopping short of drooling, he closes his agape mouth, "Gotta make this quick," he mumbles to himself before his stomach growls, "Damn metabolism," he mutters. Spotting something that looks... interesting to say the least, he grabs a plate and gets a few pieces of it. He then races back to the table where Archeville sits, hoping that the doctor has not left yet.

[Dr Archeville]

Oh, good, he's back!

Did he bring us anything?

"Ah, good, you found de zungenwurst! When I went by earlier no one had touched it; guess it's too hearty for these New England stomachs!" he said with a laugh and wink. He again gestured towards an empty chair, "please, sit und join! So, you are a student here? Or... from one of de high schools?"

[Sandman XI]

Darian sits as the doctor motions to the seat. "No sir. I, um, am sort of self taught," he sticks a fork in one of the sausages and saws away at it with a knife, "er, I mean I DID go to high school, but... they didn't teach me anything I didn't know." Stopping for a second to look at the gigantic man sitting at the table, he quickly goes back to focus on cutting the sausage. "I got bored with it. After a few months I got tired of hearing the same thing over and over again, so my parents paid for me to take the SATs and ACTs early. I passed both with perfect scores," he says in an almost sing-song voice, like he had said it a milion times before. "I could go to college, but I'm an inventor at heart," he says with a grin as he pushes his plate to the center of the table and takes a PDA out of the front pocket of his slacks and places it on the table, "This is one of my first inventions. It's a babel fish for machines."

[Dr Archeville]

Oh, he is just adorable!

Is... is he not gonna eat that?

"Self-taught, eh?," he says with a clearly impressed tone in his voice. "Most impressive. I vould, however, advise on not skipping college: even if you feel dere is nothing dey can teach you, you may be surprised at de lessons you can pick up. I learned qvite a bit in mein years here, both in de class und outside."

He leans over slightly to pick up the PDA, and speaks a bit softer to Darian, "if nothing else, it teaches you proper time und resource management, und some truly critical social skills. Who you know can be as important as vhat you know"

Picking up the item, Archeville sits straight back up, holding it in one hand and his cup of tea in the other. He looks the device over, turning it this way and that. "Hrm, nice lines, sleek, lightveight... dough, just vhat do you mean, 'like a babelfish for machines'? Ist ein universal translator?"

[Sandman XI]

Darian perks up as the doctor examines his work, "Yes sir, it lets you understand machines and machines understand you," he sighs wistfully, "I hope to get it to understand people languages sometime in the near future, but that's in the experimental stages." Shaking off the glum, he smiles half-heartedly, as if the next words would be his doom, "I... I can show you how it works."

[Dr Archeville]

Archeville is quiet for what feels to Quark like an eternity. His eyes flick back and forth, from the PDA to Quark. He strokes his chin, tilts his head to one side then the other, then, after agonizing moments, finally says, "Ja, please, do!"

Meany!

What?

[Geez3r]

As soon as Dr. Archeville's back was turned Eric immediately lost all sense of compsure and had to literally put his hands over his mouth to stop the laughter from being too loud. "Holy ****. I just had a conversation with Dr. Archeville. Wow, wow, wow. Hahaha." Eric just keeps running his hands through his hair, mumbling "wow" to himself over and over again, obviously quite star struck. Then he suddenly stops, and fishes in his jacket for a moment, pulling out a small note pad and a pencil. Eric begins scribbling furiously on the note pad, and anyone looking over his shoulder will notice that they appear to be preparations for a meeting on Friday.

[Sandman XI]

Darian happily jumps up from his chair. He riffles through his pockets and pulls out a set of earplug headphones. "You have to hook this into it," pausing for a second before sighing, "It would also help if I had something to demonstrate with." Dejected he sits back down, "Well, as for what it does: yes sir, it's a universal traslator of machines and technology and their ilk. It's very crude as of now, you can only ask the device what it knows. Computers and radios are going to know a lot more than, say, mp3 players or electric can openers," he abruptly stops and blushes with guilt, "Not-n-not that I've tried to talk to an electric can opener."

[Dr Archeville]

Ooh, I bet I know something that would blow this lil' kid's mind....

Hey, now, be- oh, I think I know what you're thinking. Honestly, that's not a bad idea for a test.

Archeville grins and begins rummaging around in his own labcoat pockets, "vell, den, I'd be very curious to see what your little technologieübersetzer -- er, 'technology translator' -- would do if applied to... oh, vhere did I put... ah, here ve go!"

The doktor pulled forth a slender wand-like object, studded with numerous tiny buttons and diodes all along the length, with some sort of emitter on one end. Quark, and most everyone else present, would know what it was (if not necessarily how it functioned): the doktor's "Electromagnetic Screwdriver," a wondrous bit of super-technology that, while not very powerful, had an unprecedented scope of capabilities.

"I've had this for almost a decade, Herr Cale. I'd bet it vould haff much to say, don't you?" He held the device out, then quickly jerked it back and gave Quark a dead-eyed stare, "of course, if your machine breaks it, I shall be very cross."

He then burst into a small fit of laughter, and laid the 'screwdriver' down on the table.

[Sandman XI]

Darian's eyes are fixated on the doctor's invention with equal parts shock and awe. He looks at it, then suddenly turns to look at the doctor, then turns back to the screwdriver, all the while with a wide-eyed, tight lipped expession. He reaches for his own device and plugs the earplug headphones into it, never taking his eyes off of the the doctor's screwdriver, as if he were to take his gaze off of it, it would explode. He takes a deep breath and exhales before looking back at Archeville, "Well, it only works one sided now. I mean I haven't tweaked it for where everyone can hear it. I mean," Darian pauses, then holds up the earphones, "You put these in your ears," demonstrating what he says as he talks, "you take the pen, you press Start, Programs, Quark Tech, Sound Decoder, and then Machine. This causes the PDA to send out a signal to every machine in the area. In turn they will then send back a signal the PDA. The decoder in the PDA scrambles the signals into intelligible sound. All the while recording the your brain waves, turning it into a signal and sending it back out into the machines where they can understand you." He again half-heartedly smiles at the doctor, "What would you like to know of your masterpiece?"

[Dr Archeville]

Heh, this should be interesting.

Yes, indeed.

"Ask it..." he says, then pauses a moment. "Ask it... if it has anything it vould like to say."

What would it say? What could it say? Archeville's Electromagnetic Screwdriver has seen countless wonders and horrors in the years he's worked as a 'super-scientist-hero,' and there was no telling what it might utter. Would it speak softly, or in a proud and haughty tone? In English, in German, or some other language? The thing held components from every continent -- circuitry from Asia, Daka crystals from Africa for lenses and emitters, metal alloys from North and South America, polymers made from Antarctic petroleum, software and interface elements from Europe, and a power supply from Australia -- but would that matter? Would it laugh? Scream? Cry? Sing? Speak in one voice, or many? Archeville was as curious as Quark.

[[ I'll leave it to you to determine what it 'says,' though if you'd like to bounce some ideas off me I'd suggest we do it via private message. ]]

[Sandman XI]

Darian nods seriously and makes sure that the earphones are in tight, he speaks in a clear and articulate tone to not fumble his wording, "Electromagnetic Screwdriver, do you have anything to say?" Looking worried in a not-at-anyone-really-but-staring-straight-ahead fashion, "Well, that's never happened before," he blinks then turns to Doctor Archeville and nervously laughs, "I, I, I think your screwdriver is a music enthusiast, doctor." He offers the earphones to Archeville, "Would you like to, um, listen?"

[Dr Archeville]

Hunh?

Wha?

Archeville seems truly perplexed, and nods as he takes the offered earbuds. "Oh, my... that is unexpected, though... very fitting, ja." After listening for a few moments he takes the earphones off, and disconnects his electromagnetic screwdriver, returning it to his labcoat pocket.

"So," he says after taking a sip of tea and a small bite of some sausage-type thing, "vhat other marvels do you have planned? Und, more importantly, vhat do you plan to do mit dem? I mean, inventing just for de sake of inventing is fine to a point, but in the end dere must be some goal, some purpose. Like... vell, like makink love: de process of inventing can end in de creation of something new und wondrous to share mit de vorld, or it can be just an exercise in slef-indulgent self-gratification. So," he pauses to get another small bite, "vhat are your goals? Your aspirations? Vhy do you do vhat you do? Vhere vould you like to see yourself in, say, a year? Or a decade?"

What's with all this counseling crap?

Well, if we make sure he stays on a good and productive path, and doesn't become some sort of supervillain, it'll be one less guy we'll have to fight later on.

[Sandman XI]

Darian nods enthusiastically and with awe, drinking in every word that the doctor says. He blushes at the thought of inventing being like sex, but stops nodding and blushing when he hears the questioning of his purpose. "I do have something in the works," he says reaching in his messenger bag, "but it'll probably take me the better part of a decade or more to do," he sighs but grins when finds what he needs. Pulling out composition book after composition book and putting them on the table in front of him, he speaks as he does so, "This, this is my life's work. I've been writing every thought I've had, every invention I've made for the past ten years. From the Holographic Dream Personifier to the Emotion Amplifier to the Babel Fish and all in between. But you know what? You're right, it all was just self-gratification," he says the last sentence while trying to keep a straight face. "But it all came together with this," he triumphantly pulls out the last notebook. It dwarfs the other composition books. Darian looks at it like it was his favorite child, "I, I want to help this city - nay - THE WORLD with this project."

[Dr Archeville]

Oh, he is just precious!

Myeh. Ooh, I know, let's try that predictive psychology trick on this kid!

Archeville takes the opportunity to grab a few more bites to eat as Quark pulls out his notebooks. When he pulls out the big notebook, though, the doktor stops. "Ah, vell, vhat is this, then?" He wipes his hands and mouth with a napkin, "No, no, vait, please, let me guess..."

Archeville is silent a moment as he leans back and looks Darian over, steppling his fingers, then leans forward for a closer look, at one point looking him directly in the eyes. "Hrrmm... young... highly intelligent... very energetic, very enthusiastic... somewhat frail -- er, no offense -- so possibly a history of beink bullied by others. If not physically, den intellectually, told you aren't 'good enough,' told you're not 'experienced' or 'wise' enough. Told you're 'not ready.' I vould guess it is... somethink you vear, ja? Somethink... protective, somethink... all-encompassink. Somethink big und bulky, or dat at least appears big und bulky. A full, powered suit. Dey seem very popular dese days, powered suits; must haff to do mit de imagery of knights in shinink armor.... So, somethink to protect you, to enhance you, something to let you bring your unfathomable intellect directly to de forefront of a conflict, to let you prove yourself vorthy und capable. Flight, I vould guess, or perhaps teleportation. No, no, flight, you seem de sort to vant to see de sights along de vay, and to have others see you arrive. More dan dat, though, much more, given de thickness of dat notebook. Somethink... somethink vhich can... take? No, copy de abilities of another, to use de powers of your foes against dem. Turn their strengths into your strengths."

He stops, taking another sip of tea, "So, am I right?"

[[ I'm assuming the big notebook is on his Quark Suit. Using Extra Effort to stunt Mind Reading 11 ("Deductive Observation"; Flaws: Distracting, Limited - Must Carefully & Closely [within 30 feet] Observe Subject And Their Facial Expressions; PFs: Subtle 2) off his Enhanced Intelligence 10. ]]

[Sandman XI]

Darian grips his prized notebook on both sides and pulls it to his chest while staring at the doctor with wide eyes. There is a hint of fear in his expression, but it seems he is trying to not show it, "I, I haven't told but two or three people about this project, yet you know the first phases." He hangs his head in a defeated manner, still with a grip on the notebook, "Apparently loose lips sink ships." Looking at his pile of composition books and again to the doctor in a pleading manner, "But I can tell you, right? It's not like you're going to run out and try to do what I've tried to for the better part of two years, right? Professional courtesy, right?"

[Dr Archeville]

Ohhh, yeah... look at that terror!

Can't take you anywhere...

Archeville grins at Quark, though for a split-second it seemed disconcertingly wolf-ish. "Of course, Herr Cale, of course! Stealing de vorks of others is von of de highest of crimes, und I vould never dream of stealing de vork of a fellow inventor und scientist!" He reached out and patted Darian on the shoulder, "you haff vorked very hard on dese, dis much is clear, und you should receive any und all accolades due to your vork. Besides," he leans in a bit closer, "I'm not much von for suits anyway. I like folks to see mein face, for dem to know who it is, und to have a full und unrestricted range of motion."

Archeville leaned back and took up his drink in one hand, and fished around in his pockets with the other. "Of course, I cannot vouch for everyone else present, so you may feel more comfortable speaking in private about dis. Assuming, of course, dat you do vish to speak of dis more mit me. Perhaps I could even offer a few pieces of advice? Only if you vant dem, of course." Eventually he pulled out a small notepad and pencil, and slid them across the table towards Quark. "Now, since dis is your project, I vould let you decide on de place und time ve meet. I vill not be available dis Friday, de 23rd, but most any other time dis veek or next should be good for me."

[Sandman XI]

Darian looks around nervously when the doctor mentions other people. Quickly, but neatly, he starts putting the composition books back in the messenger bag with one hand while keeping the bigger notebook firmly against his chest with the other arm. He stops packing when he hears the offer of meeting with the doctor at a later time. "That would be great, sir," he gleefully takes the pad and pencil and writes down an address, "Saturday would be good. My parents are going to seminar on Ethereal Engineering, they'll be gone all weekend." He looks to the doctor with a smile, "Thank you, sir."

[Dr Archeville]

Ethereal Engineering?

Ethereal Engineering?

"Saturday de 24th sounds wunderbar," he replies, nodding. "Any particular time? I tend to be an early riser."

He leaned a bit closer to Qark, lowering his voice to a whisper, "oh, and don't vorry too much about 'loose lips' -- mein brain has this nasty habit or deducing things. A somewhat-unwelcome side-effect of its great processing power."

He then leaned back, and quickly finished the few scraps of food left on his plate. "As much as I hate to eat und run, dere are many more people around here who I am sure vish to meet mit me."

[Sandman XI]

Darian nods appreciatively while packing the giant notebook back into it's rightful place in the messenger bag, "First thing in the morning sounds good to me. How about eight?" Looking around absent-mindedly for the Babel Fish, he quickly finds it sitting right in front of him. "Ah, before I forget," he scribbles down a phone number on the paper while putting his device back in his pocket, "You can reach me at this number if you have a change in plans or anything else." Darian grins nervously when the doctor mentions the power of his deductive reasoning. He whispers back, "Well, thanks for not processing the other details of the project." Leaning back as the doctor does, he smiles half-heartedly as Archeville mentions he has to leave, nodding one last time, "Yes sir. Have a nice day."