Karvis
The Rebel Alliance => Jedi Training => Topic started by: Collan on September 24, 2015, 10:08:08 AM
-
[ooc: Darren, not sure what you want to do next but I was going to see about upping my lightsaber repair]
Collan sought out Niil shortly after the training in the hibernation trance. While not terribly frustrated, there was definitely more to building even a training saber than Collan could manage. He'd been working on one for a few days in his spare time but he was reaching a stumbling block. It was like the circuits and power sources just could not work together. It wasn't that they were incompatible; they just didn't seem to work in a way that promoted functional use. At best, his saber's ouput would be a short spray of sparks before the power overload melted the circuitry.
He got the basics of the circuitry but Collan wasn't anywhere close to knowing how to attune it, either physically or through the Force.
He needed another opinion...maybe two. Niil knew a little more than Collan and maybe it would be best if they approached Ch'lana together.
-
Niil looked over the training saber that Collan was working on, and his brows furrowed. Okay, what was the issue with the saber? The crystal's all right. "Just bear with me for a sec. I'm gonna work backwards on this." With that, Niil carefully removed the power supply and did a bench test. Good, no surges. The circuit board that Collan had standing by also checked out. Let's see, the emitter matrix is all right, and the crystal looks aligned . . . so what the hell is the problem here?
Niil stepped back, frowning. What was the problem? There was something off, but . . . wait a minute. Niil stepped back, peering closer at the focusing area. And smiled. "I think I might see the problem here, Collan. When you installed the electromagnetic containment field, you based it on the captured lightsaber, right?"
-
"Yeah. I figured I'd copy it outright and see how it went...but honestly...I'm not that technical," Collan admitted, "I lived in my head more than I've worked with my hands."
-
Niil grinned. Well, that makes two of us. The only reason I've got a wee bit of an edge is because I was checking out the Red Lady's lightsaber back on Karvis every chance I got. That, and Master Dhoresh telling me all about the components." A brief pang of sorrow struck Niil as he thought of the resistance there.
"See, one of the big differences between a training lightsaber and the real deal is the strength of the electromagnetic field used to contain the blade. Training sabers need a stronger EM field so that the blades wont dice us into cubes when we spar with them." Niil absently rubbed at his leg, and muttered, "Or accidentally tag ourselves with them. The circuit board that's getting crisped is designed for a training saber's power demand, and so are the crystals. Both are trying to compensate for a . . . umm . . . lightsaber blade at full power. The circuit board did it's job as a fail-safe, though; no overload. So, I guess the first thing we need to do is get a stronger EM field in place."
Niil looked at the training saber again, and peered closer at the crystal. "I can't tell for sure if it's properly aligned; it looks all right." Niil thought for a moment. "What about using the Force to concentrate, like we did in our first lesson? Once you get into that state, maybe try focusing solely on the crystal, and testing its alignment."
-
Collan shook his head, "I tried that. I can't sustain it long enough for it to help." [ooc: Craig said no to that]
"It looks like it should be correct. See here," Collan had turned down the blade power instead of amplifying the containment, "But, it feels like I need 3 or 4 hands to get it done. There's a multi-tuning process that seems to need to happen and I'm only getting half of it."
Collan added, "I'm at the point now where I need pointers. How are you doing?"
-
[OOC: I have no idea. I just said that I was taking 3 weeks to try and build a training saber. Whether I succeeded or not . . .]
-
[ooc: yeah...craig, could we have stsrted building our sabers while we were training in control or would we have had to started afterwords?]
-
[DC 16 for a training sabre. The issue is tuning the mechanism so you build up a resonance without overpowering the containment field. Think of it as aligning two mirrors to set up a standing light save. The tuning must be precise. if you're off just a little, you won't get any coherence. Too close, and you'll blow everything up.
A real sabre is DC 20, and the job there is more difficult. You must "tune" or imbue a crystal with the force, which alters and cleans up it's resonance significantly. Tuning the hilt to reinforce that resonance without destroying everything is the reason for the difficulty. it takes a lot of trial and error to tune the mechanism, which is why it takes so long. Tiny, minor adjustments must be tested, re-tested, adjusted. You'd be discovering that there is more art to this process than science.]
-
Niil shrugged. "I just have to find a good crystal. Once I have that, I'll have to make a few tweaks to the crystal housing and I'm ready to give it a try. The fun part's gonna be getting the resonance right." Niil thought for a moment, then brightened. "Tell you what . . . let's get the proper containment field installed in yours, and give it a shot. I'll try work on the resonance, and you stand by to kill the power if I call out."
-
[OOC: One last thing - functionally, a training sabre is exactly the same as a full sabre. Technologically there is no difference. The only difference is that a training sabre uses an untuned or unimbued crystal. That makes the resonance 'dirty' for lack of a better word, so the best you can do is a non-lethal beam. In all other respects, it is identical in function and construction.
A full sabre has a crystal that has been tuned or imbued with the Force by the possessor. This significantly cleans up the resonance, making a much more cohesive (and deadly) blade. The lightsabre then functions as both a weapon and talisman for the wielder, allowing them to channel the Force through the blade, and add their control die to damage, and their sense die to attack and defence. Without a tuned crystal (or when using someone else's sabre) a Jedi is limited to how they can use the Force with their sabre.]
-
"Gotcha..." Collan plugged in the temporary power connections. He'd been using an external power source in place of the main battery to give him more working space.
"I wonder if adding an additional capacitance bridge would help? I can't have the many in the working model, but as a test, at least I know how much power I have to run," he pondered out loud, "The resonating field itself looks mathematically balanced. I'm more worried about blowing the boards when I turn it on."
Collan looked again, and hurriedly plugged in a few other components, "Forgot the power sinks...I don't want it to activate the emitter yet. Without the crystal, it'd definitely melt it."
-
Niil nodded, his attention riveted to the task at hand. "Take your time; no rush on my part. Just say when."
-
Collan picked up the tools and gingerly added an additional bridge. It wouldn't fit with the case (which was the same size as the saber Ch'lana gave him...so clearly there was something off), but it was a good place to start. Elements in place he gave a nod to Niil, who flipped power on.
Collan watched the power meters closely. Total load was correct before and after the bridges.
"All right...it looks like my power deliver issues are a function of too much going across the bridges I'd had. Well...that's the problem...now to figure out the solution," Collan nodded again to Niil to kill the power flow.
"So how do I get power across the bridges and not make the case bigger?"
-
Niil blew out his breath and shook his head. "Too much power zipping through here . . . yeah, I don't think you'll get another bridge in there. Too many bridges, and the power . . . wait a minute." Niil backtracked to the power supply. "Okay . . . what about tweaking the regulator on the power supply itself? What's the base power reading on ignition, and what's the tolerance on the bridges?"
-
"Lemme see," Collan fiddled with it, frowning and then a look of realization, "I'm an idiot."
"Okay...it looks like it's sending a steady steady along a single wavelength. I completely screwed it up. It's creating spikes that are overheating...it's not the flow itself that's doing it. I'm going to have to take apart the connections and reset it completely."
Collan took out a datapad and quickly wrote some figures into it and began to manipulate numbers and images.
"Yeah...if I did a three-phase power transmission with slightly smaller wavelengths, it should deliver the right amount of power without the burnout...and I can pull some of the bridges out and still have plenty of redundancy."
-
Niil chortled. "We should get together and create a lightsaber construction 'do's and dont's' manual. 'Problem: Lightsaber catastrophically blows up in your face upon ignition. Step One: Bacta immersion, one day. Step Two: Did you have time to detect the power surge? Was it A) The EM field generator (see page 12), or B) The emitter matrix (see page 13)?'"
Niil shook his head. "Seriously, though, things haven't been going too bad. Taking time and doing the diagnostics along every step has stopped anything nasty from happening. So . . . lemme know when you're ready again."
-
"Or c) power spikes across the capacitance bridges," Collan laughed, "And this was the easy part. Now I have to attune this crystal," he held up a smaller, slightly greenish translucent quartz [assuming we can choose], "to the resonance matrix."
Collan unplugged the power supplies and sinks, "Oh...and fit the power cell in now...but that's trivial," Collan pointed the hard point connectors, "I made it so I can test with external power and the internal cell on the same ports. I'm having to learn electrical engineering at the same time I'm learning how to make this work right."
"I'll probably end up spending the next two weeks just making this part work...I'm pretty sure the circuit patterns and power controls are right."
-
OOC: Gahh, I had a great post almost set up, and then I realized that I overlooked a very crucial point that made it impossible . . . I already said that Niil hadn't found a crystal yet. So now I have to put it on the back-burner until I find a crystal. Snort. ::)
"Yeah, all the tweaking and calibrating, And don't forget the calibrating and tweaking. Say . . . if you've got some spare time, can you give me a hand hunting out some good crystals to test out?" Niil hesitated, then added in an embarrassed mutter, "Something in purple, or bluish-purple would be great."
-
Collan smiled, "Of course! Ch'lana has a fairly decent collection of quartz and quartz-like ones. I don't think he has any lightsaber crystals...or if he does they're not in here."
He pointed towards a rack of drawers, "I found this guy in there. I don't remember if I saw any purple or purplish-blue though."
Collan stretched and flexed his fingers and rotated his wrists back and forth to loosen them back up. He walked over with Niil to help him look.
"How long have you been studying that saber now?"
-
Niil slid the first drawer open and had a look through the crystals there. Greens, blues, yellows, but nothing in purple. Checking the second drawer, it was much the same. He idly played a finger through the crystals, but nothing in the color he was looking for. So you can't find purple. What . . . are you trying to make a fashion statement? He did select an interesting yellowish-orange quartz crystal, though - more yellow than orange - and carefully set it aside; it looked like it had good clarity, so it was worth testing out. The next drawer revealed much of the same, and Niil chose two other crystals; one a vibrant green, and another with a cloudy light blue color.
He opened the final drawer, and started sifting through the crystals there. Nice quality quartz. He selected another blue as a likely candidate . . . and stopped.
And grinned. There, right underneath the blue one he'd just selected and socked against the corner of the drawer, was a blue crystal tinged with purple. He set aside the blue one, and gently plucked the bluish-purple one out of the drawer as if the very act of breathing on it would shatter it. He stared at it intently, and slowly nodded to himself. It looked good . . .
Carefully picking up the five crystals, and brought them over to the work station. "Found one, Collan! More blue than purple, but check this out! Oh, yeah, I also selected a few other ones if you wanted to check them out. I've got a really bright green one here, a yellowish with a tinge of orange, a cloudy light blue, and a deep blue. They look pretty good; I was gonna use the engineering calibration laser to test out their diffraction patterns."
-
Collan took a look at the deeper green and ooo'ed.
"I missed that one. It's just the color I was looking for. I have a feeling all of these crystals either are completely or have no flaws to prevent them from being used."
Collan tossed the green stone in the air, "let's see how they look!"
-
There, right underneath the blue one he'd just selected and socked against the corner of the drawer, was a blue crystal tinged with purple.
No way am I letting you have a purple sabre. :)
-
OOC: Ahhh, bite me. :( ;) Okay, I can deal with that IC.
Niil lugged over the engineering calibration laser, and set it at one end of the table. Hitting the activation stud, he punched a button on the laser's datapad and looked over the menu for a few seconds. Finding what he wanted, he pulled out a mini-vise from the laser's accessory case and carefully attached it to the front of the laser's casing. Tightening it down, he then handed a set of sterile gloves to Collan. "Okay, slap these gloves on first. Next, you wanna clean that crystal off as best you can. There's a cleaning solution you can use to scrub it down. Make sure you get every millimeter of the gem cleaned thoroughly. Two minutes should do. Then, you want to wash and scrub the crystal down with ionized water for about the same amount of time. Once you've finished that, give it a good blast with some compressed air to dry it off., and wipe it down with a lint-free cloth. I'm gonna do the same thing with my crystal here."
-
[OOC: He's got yellow quartz, blue quartz and green quartz available.]
-
He grabbed the gloves from the air as Niil tossed them. Collan put them on, wriggling his fingers in and then pushing the fork between each finger together on his hands to secur the gloves. He took a bottle of the cleaning solvent and the smell wafted to his nose and eyes. He blinked and crinkled his nose.
"This stuff is potent," Collan noted as he began cleaning. The little soft cleaning brushes barely fit in the hands of the glove but it worked. Collan scrubbed and scrubbed with it getting every nook and crevice on the semiprecious stone. Finally he got to the cleaning stage with hyperpure ionized water to pull off any lingering bits of debris or solvent. He then put the crystal into the compressed air chamber and set it to blow pure nonreactive nitrogen to dry it.
"Niil...do you have any mounting cases to hold it when I get it out? I'd like to keep it as clean as possible."
-
Niil shook his head. "Nope. The medbay has some sterile glass vials, though; that might work. Give me a few minutes; I'll run down there and grab a few."
He returned some time later with a handful of vials. "Just take a set of micro-clamps, swab them down well, and use them to plunk your crystal in one of the vials; that should do the trick. Maybe treat another crystal or two as well if the green one doesn't pass the diffraction test. I'm gonna start cleaning the purple-blue one I found."
Niil again picked the crystal up in his hand and held it up to the light, admiring it's color. "This should make for a cool saber blade . . ." His voice trailed off as he stopped, puzzled. He could feel a slight stickiness on his fingers. Frowning, he transferred the crystal to the other hand and looked at the hand that he'd been holding the crystal in. He didn't imagine it; his fingers were sticky. What the hell? Grabbing a cloth, he soaked it in isopropyl alcohol and rubbed his hand off. Setting the cloth down, he took the crystal back from the other hand . . . and found that the fingers on his other hand were now sticky!
"Okay, what the hell is going on here?" Niil muttered to no one in particular as he took the rag and thoroughly scrubbed his hands clean. Tossing the rag back on to the table, he picked up the crystal and looked at it again with a critical eye. Now the surfaces were badly smudged; he could see the impression of his fingerprints all over the crystal's facets. Niil's eyebrows rose. On top of all that, he could now smell a faint odor from the crystal itself. Collan had turned to look after Niil's outburst, equally puzzled. Niil brought the crystal to his nose, and took a careful sniff. Then another one, albeit deeper. Puzzlement gave way to startled recognition, and recognition gave way to a mix of amusement and disgust. "This has got to be someone's idea of a joke," Niil grunted as he shook his head."
Collan came over. "What? What happened?"
To Collan's amazement and horror, Niil placed the crystal in his mouth. "Uh-huh. A grape rock-candy. Not a frakking word of this to Ch'lana, you hear me? Not a word. Let's get your real crystal set up for diffraction testing, shall we?"
OOC: There, I got rid of the bluish-purple crystal in an IC post. ;D
-
Collan looked appalled and then burst out laughing.
"All right...let's see what we have here."
Collan rolled the crystal gently into the laser calibrator and flipped it on.
"Spectrometer says it's almost pure silicon dioxide with trace elements," he then his the rotators and watched the difraction meters.
"And a near perfect structure. I think this one is a good candidate."
-
"Excellent," Niil said around a half-mouthful of rock candy. "Tell you what . . . go ahead and test another backup or two while I get my . . . replacement gem cleaned up."
Niil looked at the others he'd selected, and finally settled on the milky blue crystal. After taking a tentative sniff of it - good, a real crystal, not kanda fruit! - he proceeded to meticulously scrub it down with the solvent. Satisfied, he then repeated the process with the ionized water and then blasted any remaining solution and micro-particles off with compressed air. Picking it up with a dry clean cloth, he rubbed it down and carefully placed it in one of the glass vials.
"So, did you find a good backup crystal? Mine's ready to be tested."
-
Collan held up lighter green crystal he'd had earlier and was starting to clean.
"Sticking with the first one I found," he replied as he started cleaning it for testing. He watched Niil cleaning his crystal, "I figure the really hard part is going to be working the crystal. I've not yet thought of a way to test if it's the right size or configuration without just trying it out."
"So how did you figure all this out?"
-
Niil laughed. "I was thinking back to my senior school days on Alderaan. Physics. Well, more particularly, optics. I remember Ch'lana telling us that we had to use crystals with stable patterns in lightsabers, or else the resonance would go to hell. So I thought back to an experiment that we did involving lasers and prisms. We even tried some gems. So I checked around in here first before asking Ch'lana, and there was the engineering calibration laser right over by that bench. The thing has a built-in manual, and a walk-through guide on how to use it! So I browsed through the menu, and lo and behold, there was a section on checking mirrors, prisms and industrial gems for refraction/diffraction."
Niil shook his head. "I feel like an ass, Collan. I got so wrapped up in all the different training and experimenting with this laser that I completely forgot to tell yo about it. Sorry about that."
-
Collan waved him off. The apology was unnecessary. The laser calibration was just a formality.
"It'd have not been an issue; I have a feeling that all the crystals are good...except the ones that are candy. Shame...it was a pretty one," he gave Niil a grin.
And then it him...he'd been on Karvis...six...seven months? It was probably clear that something was going on in his head.
"You know...I just realized how much I've changed. I was jumpy and scared not six months. When I first met Mariah and Dawson, I felt like I could barely function in some ways. I'd been free only a fee weeks...maybe a couple months. And since then, I've felt so much stronger. Even since we rescued," he stopped, "oh...damn."
Collan looked down at the crystal again. It was fine but he was rooting around in his head, looking at the images of people he'd not yet had time or space to think about.
"Damn. Damn. Damn," he said softly, "Geneva's gone too."
It was so much easier to think about death in abstract terms when it wasn't personal or those who were committed to evil. Collan realized suddenly how it felt to be thinking about someone in the present tense when they were gone from his life.
And the Dark Side could sense it too. He felt a push towards the despair and anger that his sadness could fuel. Collan felt a wetness in his eyes but he choked it back.
Collan took a deep bresth and closed his eyes. He focused on the calm place and a sense of peace. Laying down his tools and putting up his materials and supplies, he stood up.
"Niil...if you don't mind, I think I'm going to break for the day. I think I want to talk to Ch'lana about something."
[ooc: going to continue but go off to a new thread to talk to Ch'lana]
-
Niil gave Collan a sympathetic look, and nodded. "Yeah . . . no problem, Collan. I'll be around in here for awhile anyway if you want to swing by later. Catch you later."
He watched Collan go, then sighed. He did remember when he first met Collan; despite the fact that he was among friends and allies, one could still notice that he had the air of a hunted animal. After all that he told me about his family, who could blame him? Hell, I was pretty well in the same sailing barge when I first got to Karvis, and I was still twitchy after that. Ch'lana and Demaia . . . damn, they helped me a lot with that.
Unbidden, Niil's mind also flashed back to Karvis, and back to the sight of the Star Destroyers razing the northern resistance base. Jex, the royal family, Major Tiberro, Geneva, my Alpha team . . . all gone. Niil's breath caught in his throat, and he felt his eyes start to burn. "Oh, hell," he muttered savagely as he slapped the cleaning cloth down on the table and wiped at his eyes. And sure enough, the Dark Side was there, extending welcoming tendrils out to him, encouraging his grief, encouraging him to twist it into anger and thoughts of revenge against the people that vaporized his friends, encouraging him to use those emotions as fuel and strike out . . .
His hands tightening into fists, Niil's head snapped up, and he snarled, "No. Death will get me one day, but you never will. So go whisper your drek to your weak-minded puppets." Niil sat at the bench and closed his eyes, trying to ease the emotions that were making his mind a turmoil. The presence of the Dark Side was making it difficult, but Niil's mind shot back to the feeling that he'd encountered just as they jumped out of Karvis space. The feeling of peace, and the understanding that they were on a path that led to hope. Niil latched onto that, letting it and the Force flow through him. Slowly, slowly, the anger and grief ebbed away, and the Dark Side receded. Still, Niil felt physically, mentally and spiritually exhausted, and he sat there at his work bench, resting his body and mind.
It was a good hour later before he rose from his seat. He took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly, and went back to the task at hand. He'd test his crystal with the laser first, then he, too, would pack up and call it a day. A hot shower and an extended sleep cycle seemed to be very much in order this evening.
-
[+1 CP each]