DE: It's a kind of magic

[bjornwilde]

From electro_kinetic :
So, Milliways is a pretty technologically advanced place if you don't go for the magic explanation. How does your pup try to explain the wonders of The Bar to people who're pre-Industrial Revolution? Conversely, if your pup *is* pre-Industrial Revolution, how do they accept Milliways' 'magic by another name'?

Comments

[mjolnir_retriever]

Thor is from a world technologically advanced enough -- in terms of both science and magic, though that's not a distinction they draw -- that explaining things to 21st century humans is pretty similar as far as he's concerned! However, he's also not a scholar or particularly concerned with precision here. So he'll just sort of throw out vague layman-level explanations until either a) the person seems satisfied (and doesn't seem to have the facts wrong in any way that will lead to rudeness or deep inconvenience), or b) the person starts demanding more specific details in a way that makes sense to Thor.

River does care about precision of terminology, but she's also aware that she sucks at explanations. So unless the person seems likely to grasp the scientific terminology she'd throw out to explain her hypotheses on the mechanisms of all this, she's likely to just go with "...Magic!" SURE WHY NOT, says River. The lack of detail and precision is annoying, but it's a lesser evil than frustration.

Regan is very well aware that Milliways is full of WEIRD AND DISCONCERTING THINGS, so she doesn't blame anyone else for being weirded out by it. She tends to start with "Well, does your world have magic?" and then tailor her answer from there. The gist in any case is basically "People tell me all this is magic; I'm somewhat dubious, but I don't have a better explanation. At any rate, here's what I've observed, and you can draw your own conclusions from that."

Clare doesn't even try. Clare sucks at explanations.

Trowa is in Regan's camp, except less empathetic about it and a tad more skeptical about magic. (He doesn't doubt the results, but it might be sufficiently advanced technology.) And less inclined to give away everything he's observed -- not by a long shot does he do that -- but he's spent a lot more time observing Milliways in a much more focused fashion than Regan has, so her 'all the important details for a first-timer' and his 'a vague overview of the most obvious things, phrased with greater apathy and far less detail than is accurate, and framed in such a way as to imply that this is all I know' work out to about the same thing.

Enjolras, on the other hand, is from mid-Industrial Revolution! This hasn't come up yet, since he has yet to enter. But he is a) dead, so will assume this is all an afterlife thing, and b) a big believer in Progress And The Future without being a scientist interested in how the exact mechanics work, so he will be a-okay with accepting all of this as miraculous future technology that humans will invent to ease their lives and better the world etc.