[Sayo's incessant pacing slows, then stops as she listens to Palamedes, nodding intently and cupping her chin along with the steady rhythm of his words. It was a relief to finally discover someone who could follow along with Sayo's own lofty, philosophical hypotheses about the nature of existence in Trench, and what's more sling back his own ideas to synthesize something close to a functional theory. Chara could follow along, but then again they were eleven, and Sayo occasionally collaborated with Satoko on her projects, but then again Satoko was an ordinary human and it was difficult to explain some of the more... witchy concepts that underpinned Sayo's ideas. So talking to an actual scientist was a relief, in part because Sayo was hardly accredited herself and having someone with obvious qualifications guide her thoughts was already proving productive.]
If your theory holds true, that implies many interesting things about some of the phenomena in Trench. After all, if the squids are how the Waking World translates concepts that are alien to the way its own natural laws work, then who knows what else may operate by similar principles? Alien ideas imposed onto reality and given form as something the world can "understand." If we could divine how this process works, then...
[Pausing, Sayo shakes her head.]
Such high-minded research can wait for later. We need to understand the fundamentals for now. To go along with your thought process, the Sleeper squids would be interpreters of sorts. They're the ideas that we are, translated into something that fits in the Waking World. Then, the squid itself changes to approximate the truth of the original Image, which is why we walk around on two legs instead of scuttling around on tentacles. In most cases. Maybe some Sleepers are naturally squids, I don't know.
If that's the case, then the reason why some kinds of magic are incommunicable despite us being fundamentally the same creature is that in the original Image, the idea that we have is that sort of magic can't be taught. To change that, we would need to change the way the squid interprets our information, which seems like... a risky proposition on all counts.
The only way that we can directly modify our bodies using the rules of Trench is via our Sleeper blood. Other than that, we'd have to dissect the squids ourselves and experiment on them, which like you said is... very unethical.
This gives me more of a direction to work toward, then.
no subject
If your theory holds true, that implies many interesting things about some of the phenomena in Trench. After all, if the squids are how the Waking World translates concepts that are alien to the way its own natural laws work, then who knows what else may operate by similar principles? Alien ideas imposed onto reality and given form as something the world can "understand." If we could divine how this process works, then...
[Pausing, Sayo shakes her head.]
Such high-minded research can wait for later. We need to understand the fundamentals for now. To go along with your thought process, the Sleeper squids would be interpreters of sorts. They're the ideas that we are, translated into something that fits in the Waking World. Then, the squid itself changes to approximate the truth of the original Image, which is why we walk around on two legs instead of scuttling around on tentacles. In most cases. Maybe some Sleepers are naturally squids, I don't know.
If that's the case, then the reason why some kinds of magic are incommunicable despite us being fundamentally the same creature is that in the original Image, the idea that we have is that sort of magic can't be taught. To change that, we would need to change the way the squid interprets our information, which seems like... a risky proposition on all counts.
The only way that we can directly modify our bodies using the rules of Trench is via our Sleeper blood. Other than that, we'd have to dissect the squids ourselves and experiment on them, which like you said is... very unethical.
This gives me more of a direction to work toward, then.