Stay On Target...(IC)

[Heritage]

"Hey I resemble that remark!" said an "indignant" Eli to... well basically everyone in the room. Deciding to answer Fulcrum's question first, Eli continued "A resonance cascade is a hypothetical scenario in which an infinite energy source, me, interacts directly with an infinite source of entropy, you. No one knows for sure what would happen, but there are a few theories. First, nothing would happen, they'd just cancel each other out. Second, when they canceled each other out, they'd take everything with it. That would create an Absence, not a Void, an Absence. The difference being that in an Absence, time also dies. And then we come to door number 3. You have an infinite energy source, an infinitely efficient conversion process and infinite mass. You effectively become god. This is because in order for such a state of affairs to exist, you have to divide by zero. It is impossible to divide by zero. In order to do so, you would have the ability to edit the very structural forces of the cosmos and all reality. A resonance Cascade is doing all 3 options at the same time. You have an infinite ability to take no action on Nothing because if something were to happen to Nothing then that Nothing would no longer be Nothing, so it would have to be Something, but the Something had to created from the Nothing because the Nothing has the Infinite energy because the one Something that a Nothing has is the ability to not be Anything. Simple right?"

Grim gaped in mute horror as Eli's mouth apparently got stuck in the 'On' position and just rambled on spewing scientific know-how.

Dear God, let it stop...anytime now... :shock:

At some point, the scary sounds finally did come to an end, and the shapeshifter shook her head to clear it.

"Eli, don't...try not to use your brain that much; I mean, that can't be healthy." She looked to the other Interceptors. "Is is me, or was he just speaking in tongues?"

[quotemyname]

"Actually, I reckon it ain't that complicated," Colt cleared his throat, "'S really simple if'n ya think 'bout't in'a 'buff'lo buff'lo buff'lo buff'lo buff'lo buff'lo buff'lo' sorta way. 'An if'n it's one thing'a know, it's buff'lo." Colt paused, seeing that had no effect either. "Basically don't put them two in'a room t'gether 'lone. Might end up breakin' reality're some such." He turned to Eli. "Grim's gotta good notion, though. Cut that out, will ya?" he smiled.

[Gizmo]

Up above Jack keyed the intercom. "Freaked out nothing, girl made me puke my handsome guts out," he called down to Grim. When Fulcrum pondered how her Terminus radiation signature must have appeared to his metamagi senses, he offered, "Sort of a big anti-backlight smell covered in half rotted, sticky mold. Y'know." He winced in spite of himself, hand reflexively moving in a slow circle over his stomach.

The fencer regarded Dynamo's whiteboard antics with a critical eye. "You guys realize he could put anything up there and none of us would know if he was making it up or not, right?" When the speedster launched into his rapid fire explanation however, Jack felt his eyes glazing over as his mouth dropped open slightly. "..or not."

[Geez3r]

"See, I've been saying all along that I'm awesome. And you guys were all like no wai, and I was all like ya wai. And then you guys were all like not sure if srs. And then I'm all like srsly. And then you guys are all like @_@, XD and wat. And then I lol'd." retorted Eli. "And if it makes you feel any better, if I did it in real time, that would have taken me about 5 months, straight. And I had a much easier time of it than other sciency types would because I get to ignore friction for the most part. See it's because I can dynamically alter the given mu of a surface when I-" Eli suddenly cut off and paused for a second. "Me eat friction. Me go faster."

[Dariusprime]

As if the first bit blew her mind, the next explanation just put her into a catatonic state. No, not that the scientific language was too complex, but because the information made too much sense, in as much an intuitive as scientific perspective. Which was disturbing and interesting all at once. She raised a hand like a kid in a classroom, but nothing came out of her mouth. Okay, the basic idea did make sense. Billy had the right conclusion. She simply nodded.

"It's okay, Eli, you can sci-speak all you want to me. I've had the crash course of a lifetime. It's fun. Speed it up for me please? I'd like to hear the rest," she said, giving Eli a warm smile and pad on the shoulder. Some part of her hoped that simple, friendly gesture wouldn't destroy the universe. When reality didn't implode, she looked visibly relieved.

Chuckling, she continued, "Why do I feel as if we are cut from very similar cloth, speedy?"

Honestly part of hoped he would continue, maybe at a friendly 5000 times faster, so she could hear the rest without bothering the rest of the team. Plus she just wanted to see if she could keep up!

[Geez3r]

Eli sat there dumbfounded for a second before a wild, manic grin that mirrored the one that could often be seen on Dr. Archeville only a little too closely spread across his face, consuming it entirely. "Hold that thought." said Eli before quickly darting out of the room, clearly enthused. He came back trotting into the room with a sign reading "CAUTION: SCIENCE! IN PROGRESS" which he placed in between himself & Fulcrum and the rest of the Interceptors.

Clapping his hands together, he continued "Okay, first thing's first, we got to see how fast you can go." He held up his pointer finger and then began moving it back and forth, up and down, much like a sobriety test. "Just follow my finger, and I'll increase the speed up until I lose ya. But if you keep up with me at max speed I will be quite cross." cautioned Eli.

Eli lost the other Interceptors in short order but Fulcrum was able to keep up with him for quite a bit*. "Allllllright, that about seems to be your limit. Incidentally, this puts you at about a class 3 speedster, which puts you pretty near the top. Right, Science! OK, so all this junk occurred way back with Newton and his 3 laws. We're initially concerned here with laws 1 and 3: an object in motion stays in motion & equal and opposite reaction. This spawned the idea of perpetual motion, which is entirely theoretical. In order to get an object moving requires an external force of some kind, once in motion it will stay that way unless something reacts on it. Unfortunately for us, friction reacts on everything as do plenty of other forces. But, if you somehow made perpetual motion, you have an infinite power supply contained within a loop. This is where I first come in. My ability to convert energy into "GO FAST" is nearly unparalleled, because I not only bypass friction, I can convert it into energy as well, both in a form usable to run my muscles and pure electricity. Bugger all if I know how it works, it just does, so for now roll with it. Relative to what it would cost a normal human to do what I do, I require no energy, in this case, food. I figured it out once, I'd have to eat roughly 3,000 tons of pure nectar for every 0.000000001 of a second I spent at my top speed. So while I'm not a perpetual motion machine, I'm really, reeeeeeeeeally close."

"Ok, so due to a loophole in physics I can generate damn near infinite energy. So what now? The process that runs, well me, is highly efficient, but also highly specialized. I GO FAST, that's my deal. If we want anything more out of that energy, we need a converter of some kind. But if we've got infinite energy, we need a converter with an infinite capacity." Eli sticks his hands out at Fulcrum as if to say "Ta-dah!" "To paraphrase you earlier, 'my powers break the fundamental laws of everything' in a nut shell. If you were able to selectively use the Terminus to mitigate the final few forces preventing me from being perpetual motion, I would become it. If I could funnel the energy I generate into the energy sink that is the Terminus, your powers would become infinite. You would literally have more energy at your disposal than is in the known universe, and the scope where you can utilize it. Right, with me so far? Now let's see what the egg heads have to say, and then we can start cracking on the white board there..." said Eli before he launched into a more in depth look at everything he's explained so far. He starts citing different cases, studies, papers, dissertations and books. He intersperses it with talks of all of the different facilities and such that have been looking into this. He also highlights some of Archeville's work. Once he gets a grounding in what's known he starts diving into all of the theoretical stuff, and gets down to the nitty gritty science of advanced mathematics. Wormholes, blackholes, alternate dimensions & time lines, alien technology, unknown phenomena, you name it, it's been given a number. There are also a few spots in he just shrugs his shoulders saying "this is where they lose me" or "this is their best guess, but it's a blind guess". Clearly there are some unknown variables at work here, but if not for a few gray areas, it seems pretty darn solid. "... Aaaaaaaaaaand that'll be that." says Eli returning to normal speed.

* The rest of this conversation occurs at x5000 speed.

[Heritage]

"... Aaaaaaaaaaand that'll be that."

Grim fell straight back on her tuchas, arms thrown out wide, and groaned with relief. "Thank God! Our long national nightmare is finally over!" She lifted her head and leveled her gaze at Fulcrum. "And don't you encourage him, Mona, at least not while I'm in the room." She let her head flop back down and lay there for a few seconds before doing a kip-up back to her feet.

"Okay, so we now know that Eli possesses the eerie power to melt men's brains by opening his mouth; anything else we want to work on today?"

[Dariusprime]

Fulcrum couldn't contain her excitement. She leaped up, arms thrust triumphantly into the air, and exclaimed, "It! Could! Work!"

She was about to add the obligatory Let's Roll! when the little issue of destroying the universe resurfaced. She lacked the maniacal grin, but something about the twinkle in her eye was a bit disturbing. Now perhaps the idea of an infinite power grab didn't seem like her nature. Something, something about the proposal, even if only hypothetical, proved a tremendous Tempter. Omega would have no power over her or, more importantly, her universe! Any universe! She'd knock him off his throne! She'd be the Lady of the Terminus! She'd be...the Terminus?

Ah, delusions of grandeur. Now she understood where mad scientists came from. Her arms dropped to her side as she mulled over the possibilities. Before Grim's admonition registered, she flipped back to super mode and replied at her full speed, "I know this is more philosophy than science. Hypothetically, if I had infinite energy and infinite scope in which to utilize it, subject to the laws of the Terminus, than wouldn't I as such be a personified, self-defining manifestation of those same principles, ie the Terminus?"

Realistically, the whole issue left her skeptical, but somehow, awed. Snapping out of her trance, she slowed down and turned to Grim, "Sorry, Tink. We'll make sure to schedule these sections."

[quotemyname]

"Okay, so we now know that Eli possesses the eerie power to melt men's brains by opening his mouth; anything else we want to work on today?"

Colt simply shook his head clear after Eli's stunningly fast monologue. "I... don't do that'a gain. Please." Colt smiled in spite of himself, "Anyways, Grim, I reckon there is one more thing. This ain't about workin' on th'team t'day. Or t'morrow. Or fer'n hour'a day." Colt fixed each one of them with his gaze. "It's 'bout ev'ry day'n all th'time. This ain't somethin' ya stop workin' on. So if'n ya got'a minute, use't t'ask questions'n such. Th'more we know, th'better we are. But'as far's m'preachin? Yea, I'm done." Colt smiled and folded his arms. He felt like they'd made a lot of progress down roads they didn't normally walk. That made him very happy.