voice;

[whethertheyshould]

I'm sure you're all aware, ah, of the perilous nature of the situation we're all in here. The question becomes, if we're unable to do anything but comply, what is the nature of our compliance? Does Jorgmund really think we're going to give everything our all at all times with the methods they use for securing our compliance?

I'm not good at doing that.

In any case, I suppose some introductions are in order. I'm Ian Malcolm. I'm your local chaotician, which means I am pretty good at predicting when things are about to go wrong.

I'm sure I just painted a big red target on my back but at this point I'm finding it hard to care.

Comments

[hallelujahjunction]

[Dan's getting, at this point, kind of used to no longer being the "new guy". There are now "newer guys" for him to introduce himself to as if he knows what the fuck is going on, which he doesn't, but he at least knows a little more than they do and it's a moral obligation to share that.]

Have you been shocked yet? I'm not saying it's going to change your mind, because to be completely honest it ain't changed mine a lick, but I think that's valuable information for you to have before you do anything risky.

Nice to meet you, Mr. Malcolm. I'm Dan. I expect your expertise is going to come in useful possibly even more than you expect.

[whethertheyshould]

Dr., Dr. Malcolm, actually. I go as either Ian or Malcolm. Both are fine.

I have been shocked, as at first I had some choice words for those who brought me here. Somehow after experiencing it, the threat of it makes me care less than it did before I knew what it was going to be like. Does that make sense to you?

[hallelujahjunction]

My apologies, Dr. Malcolm. I don't come from a background that intersects with academia much. [He's stepping into these issues with titles all over the place.]

The full Violation One minute, with the twitching and the aftershocks afterwards? If that's so, you're made of sterner stuff than most who come in. You got my respect.

[For the record, Dan's voice is so ragged he always sounds a little bit like a talking garbage disposal.]

[whethertheyshould]

No, no, it wasn't quite to that extreme. I suppose they were ramping me up toward it, but I backed down shortly after.

I was testing the fences, as I might have said back home.

[hallelujahjunction]

An admirable effort, I gotta say. Let's just say we don't know how hard these shocks go, and that while you may know what your limits are, there are always may be people who don't deserve to be hit with the metaphorical stick.

What I'm saying is that your skills will be valuable in the collective effort, but it is something of a collective.

[whethertheyshould]

Duly noted, duly noted. I'll keep that in mind, going forward.

[hallelujahjunction]

So, I gotta admit - like I said, no background in academia - what sort of field of study is chaoti...sm? [Dan's got no clue actually what work is correct here.] I could see it applying to anything from ecology to sociology, although I barely know what those are either.

[whethertheyshould]

[ Malcolm never tires of telling people about his field, even though it's more fun when he can use it to flirt with a pretty woman like he did with Dr. Sattler. Nevertheless, he launches into an explanation. ]

Chaos, chaos theory is the term we use. And it does apply, very good. In fact, it applies to, ah, any complex system with unpredictable elements. For example, the weather—the shorthand a lot of people use is the idea that a butterfly might flap its wings in Beijing, and in the US there's rain instead of sunshine. That's a simplified version of it, of course.

[hallelujahjunction]

[Dan, for the record, is genuinely interested; the truth is, despite the aw-shucks yokelisms, Dan's got a great deal of curiosity for the parts of the world and human thought he hasn't been exposed to. Dude loves TED Talks.]

So where most people would see a system and assume anything happening in it's just a dice roll, you look deeper into the unseen connections? [Like card-counting on a massive, exponentially more difficult level.] You're going to have a blast with the Stuff. That's uprooted a lot of the basics we've assumed our worlds are grounded in.

[whethertheyshould]

You've managed to distill chaos theory into one simple explanation.

And I do intend to try to study the behavior of the Stuff, if I can.

[hallelujahjunction]

I guess I gotta make it simple for a simple mind. I've got to absorb it all somehow. [He grins.]

I'll look forward to your updates, big guy. God knows we could use some actual knowledge about what's happening here.

[whethertheyshould]

Ohhh, I refuse to believe you're simple. Being learnéd is different from being intelligent. You strike me as very much on your toes about conditions here.

[ He grins. ]

A nickname, hm? I guess I know I've been accepted.

[hallelujahjunction]

I appreciate the vote of confident. You'll have me blushing.

[His grin gets bigger.] I could come up with a more tailored one for you.

[whethertheyshould]

I take it you keep 'Big Guy' in your back pocket for occasions like this one.

lmao that typo in my previous tag 8|

[hallelujahjunction]

I do. And I keep other things in my back pocket as well. [Flirt hard, flirt furious.]

[xrater]

He's a statistician who wants to make his work sound more interesting to laymen.

[hallelujahjunction]

Why so harsh? I'm plenty interested in either.

[whethertheyshould]

[ Malcolm does laugh at this comment. ]

Oh, yes, well, certainly there's that, but there's so much more to chaos theory than what can be quantified by classical statistics.

Video

[scavengineer]

Hi, Dr. Malcolm. I'm Gadget. I'm an inventor. Also a mouse. That part seems to surprise people.

Video

[whethertheyshould]

[ Malcolm takes a moment to peer before switching to video. ]

You are indeed. Somehow that's not as surprising at it seems like it would have been before I'd arrived here.

Re: Video

[scavengineer]

It's all a little new to me too. Well, before I got here I mean. Humans usually can't understand me back home. Or any other animal for that matter.

What got you interested in chaos theory, if you don't mind me asking?

Re: Video

[whethertheyshould]

Oh, well, I got my master's degree in mathematics, but somehow chaos theory just kept coming up, and it intrigued me. I looked into it and wanted to learn more, so I pursued my PhD in the subject.

Re: Video

[scavengineer]

Now that you say it, that's a really obvious answer. I'm not sure why I expected anything else.

Re: Video

[whethertheyshould]

Hey, for all you knew I was going to say my mother made me do it.

Re: Video

[scavengineer]

Honestly, so far you don't really strike me as the kind of person who would do all the work necessary to achieve a PhD simply because your mother told you to.

But you do have a point.

[whethertheyshould]

My mother can be very persuasive.

However, ah, it really was just my own curiosity, in this case.

[scavengineer]

I can definitely understand curiosity as a motivator. I became an inventor and joined a detective agency for a reason, after all.

Well, a few reasons anyways. Curiosity was definitely one of them, though.

[whethertheyshould]

Detective agency, huh? What kind of cases did you take?

[ He's barely just learned that mice can be inventors, much less detectives. ]

[scavengineer]

Golly, all sorts of things, really. Missing persons, missing animals, missing hermit crab shells, burglaries, robberies, hijackings, cults, scams...no case too big, no case too small, y'know?

[whethertheyshould]

[ He's honestly a bit surprised to learn the mouse world struggles with these kinds of things, but it's also not outside the realm of what he might consider possible to learn. ]

It sounds like it! Was it something you enjoyed doing?

video

[vampthropologist]

[Have a tall man, with deathly pale skin (quite literally), wearing dark glasses. His eyes aren't quite hidden behind them; they glow, red-orange and eerie. However, his smile is friendly, even a touch delighted.]

A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Malcolm. My name is Beckett. Should I assume chaotician means you study mathematics, with emphasis on chaos theory?

[whethertheyshould]

You've hit the proverbial nail on the head. Do you know much about the field?

[vampthropologist]

Only what I've read in the journals. I'm more along the lines of an anthropologist myself, although it wasn't a degree when I was attending school.

[whethertheyshould]

Oh, then certainly, feel free to ask me any questions of aspects of it you're curious about. [ Malcolm chuckles. ] Or not, that's fine too.

[vampthropologist]

Well, the most pressing one is unfortunately rather broad, so I won't take it amiss if you don't have an immediate answer. I've mostly contemplated chaos theory in relation to my own fields, which focus on the behavior of groups and cultures over time. Do you find there's much applicability there? The structures and ideas I've been able to comprehend - maths is, unfortunately, not my strong suit - seem passingly familiar.

[whethertheyshould]

Oh, there are definitely, definitely applications in the field of anthropology. Human behaviors are complex and hard to predict, but there are social attractors that determine outcomes. Are you familiar with the concept of attractors?

[vampthropologist]

Yes, that was one of the parallels I noticed. It's impossible to say what exactly a group of people will do - but you can make certain reasonable predictions, because there are patterns that people fall into, time and again, comfortable ones to which they gravitate. Attractors seem to be a similar concept, but expressed as mathematical equations?

[whethertheyshould]

Yes, exactly. You seem more well-versed in the theory than you even realized.

[vampthropologist]

Excellent. One hates to be a bore. But now that you've assured me I've not misunderstood the premise, here's my next question: can those patterns be interrupted? What I've read of chaos theory so far is preoccupied with prediction and observation, not interference. It would seem reasonable to conclude that if these attractors can be identified and predicted, they can also be thwarted, and an inevitable outcome perhaps avoided?

[What an oddly intense look he suddenly has]

[greyerrant]

[ Chaotician sounds suspect as heck for all the wrong reasons to the space marine, but the man on the voice call seems to be saying the right things. ]

Things are already awry here, are you guessing they are about to get worse?

[whethertheyshould]

You know what they say, things always get worse before they get better. There's a reason that became an expression. Clichés almost always have some grounding in the truth.

Sorry about the lateness, RL dunked on me.

[greyerrant]

ANything in particular that you'd point out as a possible threat?