[audio; open] Monday

[swatwithdragons]

Some people may have noticed that the city barriers have become solid. As in, they literally no longer send you back into the city--they just don't let you through. Attempts to break through wound up nowhere.

Some of us are currently working on examining them in detail to figure out a way past or a way to put them back the way they were, so if

Comments

[fallsoutofbox]

Who exactly is 'some of us?' 'Cause there's a whole other some of us who've been working on the exact same problem for days now.

[swatwithdragons]

I'm the one who cased the barriers; Lily Potter said she pass on my findings to Magistrate Weasley. She implied she might be getting some of the other wizards in on it too, to see how the barriers reacted to magic, but frankly, we've barely started with anything concrete, so a collaboration could only be good.

[fallsoutofbox]

Magic's very nice, but the cause of the shutdown was scientific. My friends and I have been searching for just that sort of solution.

[swatwithdragons]

Cause or no, the city's at least as much magical as it is scientific, and they've gotten mixed around pretty thoroughly in the past. Don't reject that possibility.

Speaking of, what was the cause?

[fallsoutofbox]

An electromagnetic pulse. Electromagnetic radiation disrupted the... whatever-it-is that actually powers Bete Noire's borders. Work out what that is, we might be able to give it a jump-start.

[swatwithdragons]

I heard of it. [So flatly ydek.]

The previous Magistrate--the one before Margaret, I mean--described it as the city yanking us back, more than an actual barrier. Now it's a barrier and doesn't yank us back at all.

(because I can't resist and I think I have an idea))

[geniusmanchild]

Maybe it's acting like custard. Or silly putty.

[Oh hey there. This is a Topher being a curious wee lad and musing about things out loud because that's how he rolls.]

pfff awesome, Lance needs someone silly to upstage his srsnss

[swatwithdragons]

[Some silence, because what?]

... Somehow I doubt it's anything nearly as solid as either of them.

[geniusmanchild]

You never did the oobleck swimming pool experiment at college? Dilatant properties? Shear thickening? Faraday waves? Is it a solid? Or is it a liquid? Maybe it's thixotropic. Maybe it's anti-thixotropic. Button, button who's got the button?

Come on, try and think non-Newtonian.

[swatwithdragons]

[More silence, because what. Also, he is using his handheld to look some of those words up.]

I never went to college. So no, I never did any of those things. But I suspect it's more an energy thing--psychic in nature, probably.

[geniusmanchild]

I'm not talking LITERALLY behaving like uncooked custard. Because that's just stupid, I just mean the properties of this barrier or field or snowglobe or whatever, maybe it's similar in how it reacts to different forces or energies.

Silly putty is malleable, stretchy as hell. You can squash it in your hand, stick your finger through a thin sheet of it. It bounces back at about 80% of the force applied. But hit it hard with a hammer? And it acts like a freaking solid and holds its shape.

How cool is that?

[swatwithdragons]

[Sigh.] You should have said that from the beginning. I don't know what silly putty is and I don't have a scientific education. Terminology that makes no sense to me is worse than useless.

In that context, yes, it could be said to work a lot like that. Free-moving for most things, but when one of us city favourites hits it, it doesn't let us through. That means there's something about us that exerts more pressure.

But that doesn't explain how the entire city boundary changed; the EMP didn't affect the whole city, just parts of it, so how could it affect the whole edge? I was thinking it acts more like an elastic band, and if that's true there's likely a central area, like an anchor, which effects changes in the city border. If the EMP hit that, it would explain the difference.

[diditchangeyou]

Yes, good, I was hoping someone would bring up the fact that it impacted seemingly random dots in the city instead of an area. I'd considered trying to find a central hub of some sort before--a super computer AI, or some massive power source--but hadn't found any. But it is an idea still worth pursuing.

[swatwithdragons]

The Magistrate's Tower seems like the obvious place--that or Eve's headquarters. And as it so happens, both places were hit by the EMP and lost function for a short while.

[A faint, irritated snort.] Unfortunately, Eve didn't want to tell me much, so I don't know how relevant they actually are.

[In fact, she shut him down almost completely beyond confirming that her place was very temporarily out of commission, a fact which both irritated and intrigued him. Definitely something hidden there.]

Ohai, who r u? =3

[fallsoutofbox]

So what about the opposite end of the spectrum? What d'you think about x-rays? Gamma rays?

Ohai!

[geniusmanchild]

Dangerous stuff, man. Ultra high frequency. Nasty to organic matter due to ionizing radiation. But...maybe playing with electro-magnetic frequencies isn't such a bad idea? Like looking for a key to synchronize with the field. Find the right oscillation,, match it, and voila instant pass.