entranceway | video } crash sites keep me up at night impact division it splits in two

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video } crash sites keep me up at night impact division it splits in two

[There's a teenage boy staring at the camera for just a fraction too long before he starts to speak. Ed's a smart kid, and while he doesn't have any kind of phone remotely like this back home, he figured out how to use it pretty quickly. Still, he's done a lot more listening and watching and reading than actually communicating with other people through it. He wants to make sure he understands it fully before he uses it.

But he's ready now. Once he's satisfied that it's recording, he nods, then sits back.]

Hi. I'm Edward Elric. I'm an Alchemist. But from what I've heard, that doesn't mean anything to most of you. But even if you don't have alchemy, you do have science, right? What do the scientists of your worlds study?

[There, question posed successfully. He's mastered this fascinating device. He turns it off, and waits for people to reply.]

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[Toriel's seen kids object to her names before- many children don't enjoy being treated like children. But this is... a bit more extreme of a reaction than she's used to.]

...No? It is simply a way that I address children. However, if it makes you uncomfortable, then I shall refrain from using it.

I'm not a child, and I'm not small!

[He hasn't felt like a child in a very long time, anyway.]

Of course. My mistake, then. I did not mean to upset you, Edward.

[Even if she's still pretty sure that this is still a child, in her eyes.]

[He still looks annoyed, but if he stayed mad at everyone who'd ever called him short he'd be mad at pretty much every single person in the universe. So he moves on.]

What is the science of the soul?

Well. The SOUL is the culmination of one's being. It is their essence, and the capacity to feel- as well as a source of strength.

I never got terribly involved myself, but one of the goals of our Royal Scientist was studying SOULs. Figuring out just what exactly they are and how they work, and focusing on the means to replicate or reproduce lasting SOULs.

[It's why human transmutation is impossible. You can create a body, but you can't create a soul.

You can transmute them, though, if you know what you're doing. Or if you're desperate enough to pay for it.]

Souls can't be artificially created. They'd have to come from somewhere.

Yes. Unfortunately, that does seem to be true.

[That research never did end up going anywhere, so far as Toriel knows. Every SOUL collected in the Underground... she knows exactly where they came from.]

People were trying to make fake souls?

[That seems like it couldn't possibly end well.]

Why?

Hm. I suppose you would not know the reason for that without context.

Where I come from, my people, monsters, were sealed underground, behind a barrier. Anything could enter, but nothing could leave through it, unless they had an incredibly powerful SOUL. The only way to break it, would be with the strength of 7 human SOULs.

Monster SOULs are extremely weak. They do not linger after death as human SOULs do, and even the strength of every living monster would only equate to the strength of a single human SOUL.

Trying to find some kind of alternative was our only hope for escape for a very long time. Outside of senselessly murdering any innocents that happened to fall into the Underground.

[Toriel sounds particularly bitter about that last part.]

That's a lot more complicated than how souls work where I'm from. Why are human and monster souls different?

It is just how we are, I suppose. Humans are substantial, and powerful. Monsters on the other hand, have very little physical matter. Our bodies are mostly made of magic, and compared to humans, we are quite frail.

I'd think if Monsters are mostly magic, their souls would be stronger. Magic has to be related to the souls, right?

[It's the only way he can conceptualize them, anyway.]

Somewhat. The strength of the SOUL is tied to the strength of a monster and their magic. It is why boss monsters such as myself, who possess stronger souls, tend to be extremely powerful. At least compared to most other monsters.

It is more complicated than that, though. Humans, despite the strength of their SOULs, very rarely are able to learn magic- and from what I have heard and read, it does not seem to be that there have been any notable magic users in the human world since monsters were sealed underground. It is not something that is inherent to their being, as it is for monsters; and without monsters, I believe that they may have forgotten entirely that magic exists.

[It's nice, getting to teach young ones about things.]

I really don't understand this magic crap at all.

[Which he's made abundantly clear, of course, but the more they talk about it, the more the lack of logic grates on him. Why does having a stronger soul sometimes let you do magic and sometimes not? Is the soul magic for these monsters? Or for humans? How does it work?]

Well, I would be happy to help explain anything that you do not understand! Do not hesitate to ask, if you have any questions.

Though, magic is not always something that is easily explained. There have always been mysteries about it, and not everything is fully understood.

That's why I don't like the idea of it. The point of science is to learn how to understand everything.

I did not say that it could not be understood. Just that it has not yet been understood.

There are a great deal of thing that I did not think could ever be figured out, or things that did not seem like they could ever be possible, back when I was young. Just because I could not explain them back then, does not mean that they do not have explanations! I am sure that the same is true of magic.

Even using the word "magic" to describe it implies that it's beyond the capacity of science to understand.

That is not true at all! I am sure that everything about it could be understood, given enough time and study.

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video } crash sites keep me up at night impact division it splits in two

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