Nomi and Vic 4

There's not a lot of moments from the time the part of the crew that went to Avernus gets back to Damasa's island that Nomi would have to catch Vic alone. She is regretful that he found out about her decision regarding the shop before she could tell him. Then he's busy building a submarine, but people need to eat, so at some point when everyone else is eating and Vic is still working on that submarine Nomi comes to him.

"Hey, I want to tell you that I am sorry for promising your services to the Mechanics Guild without asking you. We had talked about it before and Talanis approached me right as we were leaving the island, but I actually shouldn't use those as excuses. I should have commed you to make sure it was alright. And if it comes down to it and you don't want to do it. I will work out something else."

Vic pokes his helmeted head out from under the submarine. He's apparently looking up at it suspended a foot off the ground using his helper arms like spider legs protruding from his back. The arms "walk" out and he emerges fully horizontal just dragging his heels behind him. They push him back to his feet and he almost pitches over forward as his weight sinks into in the sand. Once he regains his balance, he hands a tool off to one of them and then shakes and claps the sand from his gloves.

He looks momentarily confused as he considers what you've said and then nods. "You are a considerate friend that you would think to discuss this with me. It is not a problem though; do not worry at all. While you are my friend, you are also my captain. I sincerely understand the need to bargain with the resources that you have available. My labor happens to be one of the better bargaining chips to use on Avernus and getting what they offer is very important. I will certainly help."

After pausing for a moment to think, he continues. "However, even if we hadn't talked about it beforehand and we had not been using my work with the guild to gather information previously, I would back your plan. It probably wouldn't even have occurred to me that making a bargain that way could be thought to be inappropriate. I think it's probably my background in a much more hierarchical culture."

Nomi looks relieved. "Well, thank you for being a part of my crew and willing to lend your effort to making our ship the best." She smiles. "You are also a good friend, and so I want to tell you before you find out some other way: Before I went to Avernus, Damasa did something to me and now I can feel the Force. Like the others. Though obviously I don't have the training and I never have been able to feel it before but had it shut off, like Nawah. I know you have some base-line scans of me from before. I figured you'd probably want to see what things look like in my head now. I don't think you'll ever get an opportunity like this any other time. So, if you want, I am willing to sit through your exams. And maybe that can be reward for your willingness to work for me."

Vic is quiet and very still for a few beats. It's unclear what is going through his head without an expression, but the utility arm drops the spanner he had handed to it a minute ago. Neither Vic nor the arm immediately picks the tool up. You're pretty sure you've never seen him lose track of what one of his limbs is doing before. He begins speaking, but it seems that the translator is processing each word as its own sentence in the usual calm, matter-of-fact voice, so he must be stuttering or something. "What? You. But. How? Like them? But." Vic looks up. "I have...so many questions. I don't know where to even start, so I'll set them aside for the moment...as best I can. I'm not sure if this is something that is celebrated among your people, but from our previous conversations, I'd thought that this is something that you would want. So...congratulations?"

He starts rambling very quickly to the point where it's clear the translator is not keeping pace with him as his gesturing is not in sync with the words, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Yes, of course I want to study you. See if you can stop me. I wonder how often this sort of thing even happens. It didn't even occur to me to test Nawah against her previous baseline. How could I have been so incurious? That isn't the right word; what's the word in Basic for 'too dull to ask the most important question?' There isn't one? Beside the point. Wait, what was the point?" Vic looks lost for a few seconds and then pulls out his datapad and starts tapping excitedly in complex Skakoform as his translator catches up. When it does, his head shoots back up. "By the Eye, what's it even like?"

Nomi gives a short chuckle. "You are the first being to congratulate me. So, thank you. I wasn't sure that I wanted it, at first. Things are getting better."

She patiently waits for him to overcome his initial shock and excitement. It's not the first time that she has been patient with his scientific flight and it won't be the last. She has a small smile on her face as she watches him. She seems pleased that he is so happy. "...What's it like?" she lets out a big sigh. "You know that feeling you have, or maybe just the knowingness, the deep down certainty that you exist, that you have intelligence and that you are aware? Maybe like an awareness of being aware." Nomi waits for him to grasp this concept. She knows that he will, even if he takes a moment, she is sure that he has this feeling. When he indicates that he knows what she is talking about she says. "Now, imagine that sense of self as a sense pointed outward, where if you try, you can sense that about the other living things about you. And in some cases, some people can do things with that. I guess, to take that metaphor further, it's like not only a sense but an awakened body you can do things with and be taught to use, like any other skill. Like Efnir thinks he could teach me to sense other people's emotions or move things, if I wanted. But for now, we figured out that when I speak to others to empower them I connect with them on this other level and I have some ability to stop another from manipulating the Force connected to me." Nomi shrugs. "I don't know if that makes any sense to you."

"I think that I can understand in a way. On the one hand, I am a stranger wherever I go, disconnected physically from everything around me. But on the other, I am an engineer: I understand the technological and geological and through that understanding, I find my place in the galaxy. For example, I can walk onto a new starship that I've never seen and know what to expect when I pull open a panel or where to go to find a turbolift. When I connect to the holonet, in some ways I cease to be alone." He says the last a little wistfully, staring off over the water. Turning back, he continues, "But I'm not sure what feeling other people must be like. Is it...pleasant? I can see the upsides, but does it not become oppressive to feel people, animals, sea monsters, and...everything?"

Nomi nods and shakes her head at the same time; of two minds. "When it first happened it was the most beautiful and most terrifying thing I have ever experienced in my life, Vic. Damasa didn't tell me what she was going to do, she just did it. And so I wasn't prepared. Well, as prepared as one can be to experience something like that. And before Efnir taught me some skills on quieting my mind it was very... distracting. But, I think it's like any sense. Imagine if you did not have eyes and then could suddenly see. It would be overwhelming and it would hurt and then you would get used to taking in all of the extra sensory information and processing it for use. If I focus on that sense it increases and if I focus on something else, I don't feel it as much.   Efnir compared it to music for me and he had a good point. It's like a range of instruments that was always playing but below my hearing and now I can hear that thing. It makes the music richer, if louder."

Nomi looks at Vic, concern on her face. "Vic? I am sorry you feel alone. Is there... Can I help?"

"That one," he gestures over toward Damasa, "is a wonder and a terror. I'm starting to get some inkling of understanding of why her students came to... feel the complicated ways that they do about her. She really just does whatever she wants and damn the consequences. She did it without telling you?" He shakes his head again. "And yet...she sees things that we do not. Perhaps she knew that you'd come out sane and for the better. Maybe she just forgot what it means to care about consequences out here. Or maybe that's what the others have been trying to warn us about this whole time. That's a disturbing thought I hadn't really considered. It does seem like she cares about the inhabitants here, but what if she's forgotten how to care about other people like us?"

"No. Thank you, though. I didn't mean to sound quite so maudlin there. It is simply the result of the life I've chosen. In truth, I feel more connected to people now than I ever have since leaving Skako, and perhaps even before that. Aside from my brother and father, I've not been particularly close with anyone since I was a child. I do miss them terribly though. At one time, I thought perhaps someday I would tire of this particular sort of solitude and return to my home world. That does seem unlikely now; I'd only be putting my family in jeopardy."

"A bit ironic for a being who can see the future, not to worry about consequences, huh? I do think she cares, but maybe in a way that is different than we understand. For example, I think she did this..." Nomi gestures to indicate her head and thus her new Force sensitivity, "to help Lilikai or help me help Lilikai, which shows she does care, right? Maybe she just doesn't want to show it."

"Is your family... well?"

"Ironic, or perhaps there is a causal link. Perhaps when you are drowning in a sea of dark, shifting futures, that could be one of the only sane ways to cope. The more I think about how these gifts must have affected her outlook and personality, the more surprised I am that she's functional at all. That's one of the reasons that I keep feeling like there's another shoe that's about to drop."

"My family? I don't...really know. I have not spoken with my father for some time. I suppose I've been trying to give him some sort of deniability if a connection with me becomes a problem for him. Ori says he's doing okay and I believe he knows that I am alive. Ori himself has been a bit cagey about what he's been up to, but that's nothing new. I wish I'd asked after him more the last time we spoke, but I guess I've been a bit focused on my own troubles."

Nomi nods. "Yes, I do not envy her those abilities. Even if that makes my life more guess-work than hers. I like to cling to my feelings of free will, illusion or not."

"It's hard not to get caught up in everything that is going on and forget to reach out to those who are out there. You still have time. Why don't you give them a call next time we are closer in to the core? They'd probably be happy to hear from you."

Vic nods in agreement, his mind still turning over questions about Nomi's new abilities. "I had thought that you knew you could not feel the force. If it wasn't like Nawah, how did it happen? Is it repeatable? Sorry, that's the scientist in me asking." He's firing up his scanners to do some comparisons to his baseline medical tests. He begins to run a scan offhand as he's talking. "The first thing that popped into my head when you told me was that if Damasa figured out a way to awaken people's force sensitivity, I wanted to get in line, if only to do the thing that she and Nawah can do with objects. I cannot tell you how...envious that leaves me when I see it done." Vic shivers like someone walked over his grave and then laughs. "What I wouldn't do to tell myself from a year ago that I'd be on the run with people whose abilities I'd only heard described in fearful whispers and fairy tales. What would he think of me now? No, actually I know what he'd say: he'd be disappointed that I didn't have more time and equipment to study the absolutely fascinating geosphere here. Mysterious stone that cannot even be categorized, seawater that defies all laws of chemistry I've ever known, volcanic activity that doesn't fit with the rest, and...well...them." Vic points over to where Green Coral is tapping away on the tablet. "And I'm too hard pressed for any of it."

"You'll have to ask Damasa, really, what she did." Nomi gestures to the back of her head at the base of her skull, where the Lekku create a fold over themselves. "She put her hands just here, which is probably one of the most sensitive parts of my body and also where the brain is the most vulnerable- I am not sure if you knew that about Twi'lek anatomy- and for a moment it was the most excruciating feeling. It was like something breaking and burning and tearing all at once. Maybe a dam, or barrier. And then when that passed I could almost sense the whole galaxy for a moment before it backed off. Had it stayed like that I do not believe I would be sanely talking to you. I don't know if she can do it to everyone and I don't know if she can do it to you, but even if she can't, Vic, they may be able to do some amazing tricks, but they will never have the understanding and insight that you do with such objects. And I don't know anyone else in the entire Galaxy who could turn a party boat into a working submersible. You are amazing without tricks."

Vic looks closely at the spot Nomi indicates, but does not touch her. "I have to admit that while I studied enough about Twi'lek anatomy not to kill you or your sister if I needed to give you medical attention, my knowledge of the particulars could be better." [Vic has gotten multiple ranks in Medicine since we started, but still has no ranks in Xenology.] He asks a battery of questions about how things felt before and how they feel now. It seems his focus at the beginning is more on Nomi's well-being than her new sense and abilities. Vic requests that Nomi tell him everything she can remember about when she felt connected to everything, trying to tease out specific details about anything she can put into words. He takes careful notes.

Once his initial barrage of questions are answered or frustrated, he returns to the conversation. "I think you are right, to a point: my knowledge and abilities are exceptional." It seems like he's teasing you a little. Vic is never that grandiose. "However, there is a limit to what I can learn and how I can manipulate matter. Did you see the way that Damasa deconstructed the artifact? She had no idea what was inside or how it fit together, but was able to disassemble it easily and quickly. I worked with it for weeks and had only scratched the surface. Figuratively, I mean. I imagine being able to see through an engine I am working on to diagnose a problem or to better understand how it worked like Vesper. Going back to your earlier analogies, it seems like I'm learning to play music without being able to hear it or learning to paint without being able to see it. It seems like you can... know. understand. comprehend... a person or an object in a way that I find difficult to imagine. I'm sorry, but there is a word in Skakoverbal that isn't translating here. It means something like 'to gain a deep, intuitive understanding' or 'to fully comprehend in an all-encompassing manner.' It occurs to me to wonder why Skakoans have a word for this, when there are no Skakoan force users."

Nomi patiently answers all of his questions and sits still for every scan and inspection. From what he can tell, physically she appears to be just fine, no lasting damage despite the pain she described. Nomi shrugs "Damasa probably had an advantage too, in that Firith basically made the artifact for her, right?" She thinks about the Skakoan vocabulary for a minute then says. "It's because you can do that without the Force. I did it with people, before I could sense the Force. Even with Nawah's skills in manipulation of people through the Force, I can sometimes intuitively and without the Force understand them better. The Force is a shortcut or an amplifier for sure and does make it possible to do things that no one else can do, but it's not the end-all. And I can't do what Nawah and Vesper can. Nor can Efnir. Nor can they do what he can. But... I am sorry that you feel some limitation and that I can't do anything about it."

"You appear to be in perfect health at least." Vic sighs (backwards, of course). "I suppose you're right. I'm perhaps ascribing more value to these senses and skills that would be better given to the underlying talents unrelated to the force. Although...maybe they are related too. What if your talent for understanding people and your related force ability comes from the same place? Better put, what if one arises from the other? Oh! I know the colloquialism in Basic for this one. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? I hypothesize that this is an area of study that could benefit from subjects like you and Nawah, as it would likely be impossible to separate these things in one who can sense the force at a young age or one who is later cut off from the force. However, I do wonder whether your talent with people might arise from latent force abilities or whether your abilities manifested in the way that they did because of your talents."

"Thanks for looking me over." She cocks her head at him, her eyes slitting a bit as she considers. "Perhaps your talent for machines, gadgets and the like also comes from the Force. Maybe Sakoans don't have force sensitivity like other races in the galaxy show it. What if it manifests in you as your strong relationship with these things? As your insight that others don't naturally have? You are magical after all!" She sighs. "Truly, I will do whatever experiments that you come up with Vic. And I don't know if we will ever know the answers you seek, but I will try and help you find them."