reversedpolarity | [ddd; log; Jack]

He slowed a bit, as Jack began to tell him about what was going on. Even with what he'd seen in his years at Starfleet, it seemed almost fantastical, impossible. A machine that had the power to grant an entire planet immunity to a disease, a machine that had been used to turn an entire planet into one person? But, as he'd learned, there was very little that was actually impossible. Between his experiences at Starfleet and what he'd learned since discovering the community, he was receptive to the 'impossible', and perhaps a shade more willing to take what Jack said at face value than he otherwise might have been.

"I'm sorry," he said, when Jack was finished, and he meant it - for several reasons. He might not have been a captain himself, but he knew the sense of duty that went along with being a military man, and chances were Jack probably felt a bit useless knowing there wasn't anything he could do. And, he knew, feeling useless was not something men of their sort were much accustomed to, or much comfortable with. "If there's anything I can do..." He wasn't sure what he thought he would be able to do, but it was one of those situations where he had to at least offer. Maybe he didn't know Jack all that well, but truth be told that didn't really matter much to Scotty.

Scotty was right about that, though. It didn't matter whether he was in Starfleet or not, a military man was a military man, and Jack felt more than a little bit useless in a situation like this. He knew that there was nothing he could be doing, that it was out of his hands so he'd just have to wait and see, but he hated it.

At Scotty's offer, though, Jack shook his head. "Thanks, but. It's alright. You're doing what you can now, distracting me from thinking about it. It's out of my hands. I've got...I've got an old friend working on it, and he's never let me down about things like this before, so. I have faith that he's gonna get the job done. It's just the waiting part that's the kicker. So..." He smiled, lopsidedly, and yes, it wasn't his best smile but it was something. "Mess hall and then finding me somewhere to stay would be great, really."

"Mess hall an' findin' you a place tae stay it is, then," Scotty replied, smiling again. He understood that need for distraction, too. It wasn't uncommon for him to take the most dangerous jobs in the engine room, which sometimes resulted in trips to medical - which then resulted in being taken off duty for a few days. And when a man like him or Jack knew there was work to be done, and further knew that there was nothing they could do, distraction was really the only way to keep from chafing at the metaphorical leash.

He quickened his pace again, because his stomach had decided to start reminding him rather insistently that he'd had nothing to eat since breakfast. "In the interest o' keepin' you distracted," he said, after a moment of walking in silence, "If there's any questions you want answered about the ship, as long as it's nothing too specific I've got clearance tae talk about her. O' course, if there's anything else you'd like tae talk about, that's fine too. I'd start the conversation but I've never been much good at small talk."

"Unfortunately for us, I'm not really much in the way of small talk at the moment either," Jack said with a shrug, following along behind Scotty's quickened pace. "But we'll manage, some way or another..." He stuck his hands in his pockets again, looking to anyone else around like he was just taking a leisurely stroll along with the other man, rather than the situation that he was currently in. "How 'bout we start with what you were doing, before you ran into me. Not lubricating the piston shafts again, I hope. I thought you took care of those the other day." And there was a little bit of the flirt that Jack normally was, even if a little more subdued than usual.

"...think I could grab something to eat at the mess hall too?" he asked the other, after a moment. "I...kinda haven't had a moment to stop and breathe before now, let alone eat, so..." He couldn't really even remember the last time he'd eaten. Probably the night before, at some point.

He couldn't help the way his ears went a bit pink at mention of the piston shafts, but before he had time to think up a proper response, Jack was asking about grabbing something at the mess. Scotty chuckled a bit at that, and replied, "I certainly hope you don't think I was plannin' on sittin' an' eatin' in front o' you without at least offerin' you something. I'm sure no one'll mind if we coax an extra meal out o' the replicators."

He ran a hand through his hair then, before continuing, "As for what I was doin' before I ran intae you... Well." He grinned, and ran a hand through his hair again. "You'll be happy tae hear that the piston shafts are still properly lubricated. I'm afraid I've spent most o' the day today cleanin' plasma conduits, which is not nearly half as excitin' as it sounds."

Jack smiled, pleased at the reaction that he got out of Scotty, but that's as far as that went. He really wasn't up for any of the usual flirting that he got up to, after all. "Well, that's good at least. I mean, replicated food is a whole lot better than some of the stuff I've had to live on, after all. Trust me, you could be stuck with something a whole lot worse," he said, shuddering as he remembered WWII provisions.

He cocked his head at the mention of the technology, though. "Plasma conduits, huh?" he asked. "That's some technology there, Mr. Scott. It always amazes me, how different each of these worlds connected through the community is from my own. I mean. I've lived a long time, and I'm from way in the future from where you are right now, but. Either I missed something in my history lessons, or our technology must've branched off in a different direction than yours somewhere along the line..."

Scotty was perfectly content to go without being seriously flirted at; it was one thing to flirt a bit back and forth through the community, but he had no doubt that if Jack were to really get going, he'd be hard-pressed to keep up, let alone give as good as he got. He was out of practice when it came to the matter of dancing.

The subject of technology, however, was one in which he was more than knowledgeable, and - now that he had a better idea of what Torchwood actually was, thanks to Sulu's bare-bones explanation - he was a bit more willing to share. "Warp technology," he said, glancing at Jack. "From what I've heard around the community, our history is a great deal different from most. Most o' them seem tae have skipped right over the Eugenics Wars in the late twentieth century."

They came up on the mess then, and Scotty headed on in, pausing in his impromptu tech history lesson to give a brief demonstration of the replicators; as soon as both of them had their meal of choice, he launched right back into his speech. "In the early twenty-first century, the first warp engine was built, an' we've been perfectin' it ever since. What you're lookin' at here is about two hundred years' worth o' improvements from that first warp engine."

Jack shook his head. "Oh no, don't go reading me wrong, here," he said. "We've got warp drive technology. It comes a little bit later than here...26th century, if I'm remembering correctly. But it's not powered by the same sort of technology you've got here, I don't think. I mean... Human ships are powered on anti-matter, in that time. Although..."

Jack shrugged. "As you might be aware, anti-matter is kind of ridiculously dangerous to have to work with, so as soon as we figured out how to patch into the space-time continuum, we started being able to do simple teleportation, eventually moving onto star jumps, and then even the ability to travel through time itself." He put a hand on his wrist, feeling for where his vortex manipulator should have been. "I... I'd show you if I could, but. That's gonna have to wait until after we find my device in the rubble of the Hub. It should've survived everything, though. Pretty resilient and all, vortex manipulators..."

"As a matter o' fact," Scotty replied, holding up a hand, "I'm acutely aware o' how dangerous antimatter is tae work with." He lowered the hand, and then motioned to a nearby table, gesturing for Jack to sit as he did so himself. "Seein' as you know about warp capability... No harm in givin' you a proper rundown o' how it works around here, then." He paused to take a bite of his meal, before forgetting about it entirely as he prepared to launch into a full-blown lecture.

"The warp engines are powered by the matter/antimatter reactor - the mix column. The antimatter's stored in containment units an' funneled intae the mix column via the antimatter injector. The dilithium crystals in the reactor are non-reactive tae antimatter, an' those control the matter/antimatter reaction. The result o' that reaction is electro-plasma - which is where those plasma conduits come in. The plasma conduits take that electro-plasma an' funnel it tae the warp field coils in the nacelles."

By now, his plate was nearly entirely forgotten as he continued, "It's entirely possible that our technology is so advanced for the time period because of the Eugenics Wars - that's World War Three, if you will. Like I said, seems most places linked to the community skipped right over that point in our history." He seemed to remember that he was supposed to be eating then, and took a few more bites, although now that Jack had got him going it was going to be next to impossible to get him to stop. "I'd like tae see this vortex manipulator o' yours, though. I've already perfected transwarp beamin' - no easy task, that - an' I'm itchin' tae move ontae another project. Transdimensional beamin', maybe. I've already got several theories worked out."

Jack chuckled as he ate, listening to the other man talk as he did so. Bringing up the ship, Scotty's job, and the technology they had in this universe... It had obviously been a wise choice for him to make, considering the enthusiasm with which the other man was rattling off terms and explanations that Jack really felt like he should understand, even if he didn't.

"Well," he said, as Scotty stopped to take a breather and another bite of his food, "I'll definitely let you take a look at it, when we recover the thing. Possibly before I get it put back into a wriststrap, if you're very lucky. But you can't go messing around with it and then not put it back together the right way, mind. I kind of need it, for my job. I mean, it's not just a vortex manipulator. It's Agency issued, so it's got other little tricks it can do. Which comes in handy, considering the Doctor deactivated its travel capabilities, and all. I..." He shrugged. "I might be able to convince him to give that back, though. Recent events considered, and all."

"I'll take good care of it," Scotty assured him, "Assumin', o' course, I get a chance tae look at it." He tapped his fingers against the table once or twice, his eyes going a bit distant for a moment. "Mm. You mentioned teleportation - sounds like our transporters, that. Time travel... I know the theory, but I've never had a chance tae put it intae practice. Don't know how much Sulu's told you about our little corner o' the multiverse here, but..." He trailed off, going silent a moment, before shaking himself out of it. "Well. That's neither here nor there. I've dabbled a bit in multiversal theory, anyhow, an' if I can figure out how tae get enough power tae the transporters without blowin' them out, along with figurin' out how tae find multidimensional coordinates, the rest should be easy. Well. I say easy. I've no guarantee it'll even work, o' course, an' even then I'll have tae run tests before I can let anyone go through..."

Another pause, briefer this time. "You mentioned star jumps? I can't think o' anything we've got here that might be similar to that." He wasn't asking because he wanted to gain the technology so much as he just wanted to understand how it worked, whatever it was.

Jack nodded. "Yeah, star jumps. Patching into the space-time continuum to make a ship jump from where it is to anywhere else in the Universe. Granted, there are restrictions. I mean, it's a pretty big energy drain, to have to do that--the Shadow Proclamation has some pretty intense rules about when and where you can make one, because of it. But...yeah. That's a bit before my time, so I'm afraid I can't tell you more than that."

"As for how much Sulu's told me..." Jack said, trailing off. "Well, to be honest, he's probably told Ianto a lot more. Sulu spends a lot more time with him, after all, than he does with me." Jack's tone was pleasant while he said that, though, like it didn't bother him in the least. And the truth of the matter was that no, it really didn't. He really didn't mind the two of them together--they were good for each other, as far as Jack was concerned. And they were good for him. Wasn't that what mattered, in the end, after all?

He wished that he'd thought to bring his PADD with him; he ought to have been taking notes, jotting down ideas. Then again, if he'd had his PADD with him, he'd likely be paying more attention to that, rather than helping distract Jack by going on about the differences in technology between their two universes. "Patchin' intae the space-time continuum," he mused aloud, his eyes going distant again. "Now there's a thought. O' course, if the Klingons or the Romulans were tae get their hands on that sort o' thing..."

With some reluctance, he forced his attention back to the conversation at hand; he was supposed to be keeping Jack's mind off what was going on back on his world, not getting himself lost in thoughts of theoretical physics. He still wasn't aware that Sulu and Ianto were together - not that he'd care, beyond being mildly amused at the thought that they were taking the long-distance relationship thing a bit far. But Ianto hadn't mentioned it, the one time they'd spoken, and Sulu hadn't brought it up either.

But the reason Scotty had mentioned Sulu was because he didn't know if the helmsman would have mentioned Nero - and that was the path the conversation continued along, as Scotty spoke again. "I asked because we were talkin' about time travel, an' believe it or not, you're not the first person from the future I've managed tae run intae," he told Jack, grinning a bit. "I'll grant you, he wasn't from quite so far in the future, an'.." He stopped himself before he managed to make a fool of himself by trying and failing to casually mention that Jack was rather a bit more attractive than the older Mr. Spock. "Well. The reason I mention it," he continued, just praying that he hadn't gone and turned pink again, "The only practical experience I have with time travel is as the result of a wormhole."

Jack had really no idea whether Scotty knew about Ianto and Sulu, though he sort of doubted it. Neither of the men were really particularly talkative, especially concerning their private lives. Ianto might speak a little too fondly of the other man, of Sulu might seemingly go a little too far out of his way for Ianto, but beyond that they did a pretty good job of keeping things on the low-down. That didn't mean that Jack sometimes wished that they'd just be open with this so that he'd have a better gauge as to who he could say what to, and all.

"Wormholes, huh?" Jack asked, pausing in his eating to contemplate that. "Well, I'm not sure if wormholes work exactly the same here as they do where I come from, but. I mean, it's kind of like that. A wormhole's a lot more stable, though, connecting two different points, kind of like a passageway between them. The space-time continuum, though..." Jack shook his head. "It's a lot easier to mess things up, with that. I mean, my job is basically to monitor a Rift in space and time, and let me tell you, a lot of bad things happen thanks to that thing. Some good things too, but. Far more bad than good comes out of it. Rift storms, for one, are a freaking pain to have to deal with."

The topic of Ianto and Sulu was quickly forgotten as Jack explained how wormholes worked where he came from, and then mentioned the Rift again. Scotty's half-eaten plate was forgotten as well as he pushed it aside, leaning forward a bit to place a hand on the table. "If space an' time exist in four dimensions," he began, tracing a large circle on the table in front of him, "In a four-dimensional sphere, if you will, then travelin' from Point A tae Point B, like so--" He swept his finger in an arc, demonstrating. "Then even travelin' in what in three dimensions is a straight line, you're takin' the long way around. The wormhole--" This time, he drew a straight line from the first point to the second point. "--tunnels through space-time, as you said. A passageway. But around here, findin' a stable one is tricky, an' we haven't quite got the tech tae create them ourselves. The one that I've got experience with, that one was a mistake. Shouldn't've happened."

He hesitated, wondering how much he should tell, and finally settled on, "Two ships fell through, ships that shouldn't've been here. It changed history, changed our future. Branched us off intae an alternate universe, as you like. As I understand it, the other one still exists - or should still exist." He paused a moment, before reclaiming his plate and trying to at least make an effort at finishing a meal. "This Rift o' yours, though. If you don't mind me askin', what is it, exactly? If it's what it sounds like..."

Jack listened to what Scotty was saying, about ships falling through a wormhole, changing history, and he had to wonder...if these things didn't work differently here than it did where he came from. If the rules were different, or... "Well, it's no wormhole, but. What does it sound like then, Mr. Scott? What are you thinking? And, more importantly..."

Jack cocked his head at Scotty, leaning forward in his seat. "How do you know that it did that?" he asked, looking at the other man intensely across the table. "How do you know that it changed history, that it supposedly branched you off into another universe? Unless someone told you about it. In which case..."

Jack sat forward, propping his head in his hand. "Time travel is dangerous, you know. There are rules that have to be followed. At least, within your own universe, and all. If you travel back in time and meet yourself, but you can't remember meeting yourself to begin with, for example... Well, that's a paradox. And the Rift. It's not just a means of travel. There are creatures that live in there that love to come out and rip your universe apart, if you run around creating paradoxes like that."

"I know," he replied, leaning forward as well, "because it wasn't me that discovered the equation for transwarp beamin'." He hated to admit that, but it was, unfortunately, the truth. "It was me in the future that did that. One o' the ships that fell through - it was Mr. Spock, only from that other future. It was him that gave me the equation, an' from what I hear, he spoke briefly with his younger self. As odd as it is tae say this, the laws o' time might not be universal. It might be different here than it is where you're from. See, thing is - the other ship that fell through, Nero's ship... It's a long story, but short version is, they destroyed a planet that exists in that other Spock's future. So either this reality branched off, or else that paradox is rippin' apart the very fabric o' space-time itself. Which it's not. Pretty sure we'd notice if it was."

Personally, he didn't like to muck around with time travel - doing so tended to get very messy and very complicated very quickly. He had several theories regarding alternate universes and splintering time lines, and going by what Jack said about time travel in his universe, the only logical conclusion was that somehow, universal laws weren't constant across the multiverse.

"As for that Rift o' yours... sounds like a rift. A rent. A tear. How far off am I?"

Jack shook his head, unable to keep himself from chuckling a little at that question. "Not too far off at all, but. That would be because it is a rift, Scotty. It's a rift in space and time, that's why we call it the Rift. It's a tear, and things fall through from other places and times, or get sucked to other places and times from here. Everything from aliens from other planets and times, to a plane that flew through a rift storm from the 1950's and ended up in our time."

"That's how it works," Jack said, sitting back a little, and sipping his drink, now that he was kind of reassured that things must not work the same way between their universes, because otherwise he wouldn't be there and talking to Scotty anymore, because the Reapers would have gotten rid of anyone involved in the paradox there at all. "It's unstable, because it's a tear and all, so when there's a buildup of energies, it forms a storm, and anything caught in the center of that is sent into the space-time vortex, and end up wherever they happen to end up. It's not anywhere near as direct as a wormhole, and unless you've got a vortex manipulator, you end up wherever it spits you. Which could be pretty problematic, especially if it ends up spitting you out into the middle of a star, or deep space, or anything like that."

"Is there a way tae repair it?" he asked, folding his arms on the table in front of him. A typical engineer question, that. Something's broken? Find a way to fix it. "Patch it, maybe, if not outright close it?" The answer was probably no, he thought, because if there was a way to repair the Rift, it probably would have been found at some point. "No," he answered his own question. "No, because if I'm understandin' the temporal laws o' where you're from, if you'd repaired the Rift before something from the distant future fell through..."

He shook his head, raising a hand to scrub his fingers through his hair. "So the best you can do is keep an eye on it, then? Because o' the paradox that fixin' it would create. Right?"

"Dead on," Jack said, taking another bite of his food. "Even if there were some way to fix it, that kind of technology... We don't have it, in the 21st century. Or in the 51st century, as far as I'm aware. Wasn't exactly dealing with this sort of thing back then, though, so. Can't say for sure."

"But you're right about the best thing we can do is to keep an eye on it. Which is what we do, in Torchwood. We monitor the Rift, and deal with what comes out of it, keep track of who or what it takes... Take care of them if it sends them back..." That part had been Jack's special added touch of humanity to Torchwood, but he wasn't going to go into it. It was a little too depressing for a first meeting, and all. "I'm the captain, Gwen's the people person, and Ianto's...well. Everything else. That's Torchwood, in a nutshell," he explained.

"Sulu explained a bit about it. Ah. Your Earth, it hasn't had the sort o' contact with alien life that ours had in the twenty-first century, has it? Or rather... Sulu said your Earth has a lot more alien contact than our Earth had, because o' the Rift, but I take it there's not been any First Contact situation like what we've had." He smiled then, reaching for his drink. "I'm glad the captain's cleared you tae be on board, by the way - an'... I feel I should apologize for my attitude when we first spoke. I hope you won't hold it against me."

Jack nodded. "Oh, yeah. Earth's had a whole lot of alien contact already. And unlike whatever first meeting you guys must've had, ours hasn't been public, or anything. Most of the world is in denial that any of it has ever even happened, and we'd really rather like to keep it that way. Or... Well, we try to. Explain it away, Retcon them... Whatever works best."

"Don't get me wrong," Jack said, "I'm well aware that there are good aliens out there. I know a great deal of them personally, and believe me when I say that they're good," Jack said, a little hint of his normal flirting showing through for a moment. "But the Earth is currently on restricted access, so. Really the only ones we ever end up dealing with are either ones that ended up there by accident, or ones whose intentions have been...well," Jack said, his eyes lowering to the table as he recalled the most recent threat, the 456. "...not so good, really."

"I'm sorry, but... Retcon?" Out of everything else, that was what stuck out the most. He had no idea what that could possibly be. He knew the definition of the word, but in the context Jack had used it, it didn't make any sense.

He did reply to the rest of Jack's comments, though, because the topic of the differences in history between Jack's world and his were absolutely fascinating. "The Vulcans - the aliens that initiated first contact - had a rule that there was tae be no contact with planets that hadn't discovered warp drive yet. Between Earth an' Vulcan, the Federation was founded, an' that rule about first contact still exists as the first an' most important rule o' what we do here. I'll grant you, we got lucky. If it had been the Klingons that'd found us first, or the Romulans..."

Jack nodded. "Yeah, Retcon. Compound B67. It's... Well, it's an amnesia pill, basically. An amnesia drug. Give them one pill, and they'll forget everything they've done for the last day or so. Everything they've seen. Make them really susceptible, so you can plant false memories and the likes. It..." Jack said, trailing off, realizing he should probably explain a little more. "It was something I picked up from the Agency, and brought along with me to Torchood. The recipe is under lock and key, though. Wouldn't want something like that getting out for the general public anytime soon, after all."

"But yeah," Jack said, shaking his head. "Official first contact, when the Proclamation takes its hold off of visiting the planet, is a lot more peaceful than what the real first contacts of the planet were, and all. We had to try and save face from all of the bad examples that all of the others had set, and all, so." He shrugged. And what a whole lot of bad examples out there there were, too.

It was Scotty's turn to nod, both at Jack's comments about his world's official first contact and about the amnesia pill. "I can understand why you'd want tae keep that recipe a secret. I can only imagine what'd happen if it were widely available." He paused, to take another bite of food, only to discover that somewhere in the middle of his lecture about the warp drive and talking temporal theory he'd managed to finish his meal without realizing it. "It's amazin', isn't it? The differences between your world an' this one. Even our galaxies're different - I mentioned Klingons tae Ianto, an' he had no idea what I was talkin' about. An'..." He trailed off, clearing his throat, knowing that there was no way Jack was going to miss the blush creeping into his cheeks. "You hadn't heard o' the Orions."

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