Searching Far and Wide

[intricate_engineer]

Glen was creating a prototype for a new gate design. It was meant to be affordable and provide quick transport between individual homes. She tests several objects and a rat and everything seems to be working.

She steps through. Instead of finding herself in the room next door, she finds herself standing on a sidewalk in an empty city. The buildings are tall and perfect, colorless with doorways far too tall for any human. The roads have no straight lines and twist in on themselves. There is no life or sound.
Glen tries to stay calm. She begins to walk along the road, randomly opening doors and exploring buildings that are as silent as the rest of the world.

She opens a door that she hopes will lead onto a roof and is instead met with warmth, and soft noise, and color.

Comments

[the_very_best]

"If he starts glowing you tell him to stop that."

[intricate_engineer]

"Glowing?" Glen asks, slightly incredulous.

[the_very_best]

"They glow when they evolve!"

[intricate_engineer]

"Okay, I don't... That makes even less sense. They evolve all at once? They glow? How is that even possible?"

[the_very_best]

"...I'm not sure why this is throwing you."

[intricate_engineer]

"Obviously there's some magic, but if they glow, that's not something animals can just do. That means the magic isn't just something they occasionally do. I don't know. It just seems strange."

[the_very_best]

"...Blink can teleport and you're concerned about how she might one day glow?"

[intricate_engineer]

"Well I can teleport, but I can't make myself glow. Unless I was wearing lights, I'd have to change my cells or something. I don't know."

[the_very_best]

"Zag can call up lightning bolts and water out of nowhere and you're concerned that one time he glowed?"

[intricate_engineer]

"But, that's spells or something, he's not a firefly. I know, it's not very logical, just took me by surprise."

[the_very_best]

"Spells?"

[intricate_engineer]

"Magic. Doing things that violate the known laws of physics."

[the_very_best]

"...it's not conventional to refer to 'mon stuff as magic except like some of the psychics and fairies and such."

[intricate_engineer]

"It seems to fit within my general understanding of the term, unless physics work differently here which actually could be an explanation."

[the_very_best]

"I guess. I haven't studied much physics or theory about how Pokémon work."

[intricate_engineer]

"Calling something magic is probably the opposite of science. It's just a way of admitting that we have absolutely no idea what's going on."

[the_very_best]

"Absolutely none?"

[intricate_engineer]

"At first usually, most magic ends up having rules and sometimes we can pinpoint its source. Recreating it is much harder. Here for instance, I could offer you guesses at what I think is going on in relation to what we already know about magic and how the universes work, but I'd be shocked if any of them were close to accurate."

[the_very_best]

"Huh."

[intricate_engineer]

"Mostly the universe is very complicated and you can probably understand one aspect of it if you spend your life studying it, but if you try to understand everything in detail you are going to be very frustrated. This makes it even more complicated to try to understand new things, but if you have lots of smart people who work effectively together you can make progress. If I try to do it, I sound like an idiot."

[the_very_best]

"Well, no need on my account, I guess, I'm more interested in what 'mon can do than in what's going on when they do it."

[intricate_engineer]

"I don't mind trying, just don't take my surprise at something that probably has an explanation, as meaningful in any way."

[the_very_best]

"Sure."

[intricate_engineer]

"If I end up being stuck here, I'll probably take some local courses and then try to rationally figure it out. Right now I'm throwing ideas at a wall and seeing if anything happens to stick."
As an afterthought, Glen adds, "Also, I might be slightly manic at the moment."

[the_very_best]

"Understandable. Are you going to crash?"