- Pronoun
- she/her
"Yeah, that's the one. Brilliant work. My world's got way more advanced genetics than anything I'd expect to be possible with Forlasan technology, but she'd deduced several important principles singlehanded. Though I gather the Covenant's got something like genetic engineering research going on, too?"Herman shook Dave's paw, and nodded to Andre. "Herman. Aura engineering. Vaguely recall the name Greenbough, might've run into her at one of the yearly congress meetups. The one cultivating uncanny berries out west, right?"
Dave listened with interest as Herman described the machine and their previous experiments. "First-gen, as in, a summoned human himself? Who's the project head?" Someone who came from a world with nuclear weapons, apparently. Cross fingers he hadn't brought that expertise to Forlas.Despite his tired, overworked visage, Herman couldn't help showing a trace of a smile. He was obviously proud of it. "Basically, we found that if you run a specific charge over certain types of Wonder Orb, it can nullify them without destroying them outright. Nullified orbs could then be exposed to Radiance in the wild—generally requires finding a rare wild alpha who's managed to manifest it—and the orbs hold onto the Radiant aura signature for a brief period. Not long, but it lets us do some exposure testing at least. This here"—he gestured to the machine—"is a way to measure Radiant output frequency. We use it to gather data on how it compares specifically to other elemental energies."
Dave had asked about the in-house efforts... Herman took a long drag with a tired, distant expression. "We tried creating a system that could replicate Radiance here in the Commission. No dice on that one, almost ended in a total meltdown. 'Went nuclear' as the project head would say. He's first gen, says shit like that."
Herman tapped his cigarette on an ashtray, his expression growing a bit more serious. "It's volatile stuff. Before we take any measurements, I'll want to know more about your group's experience with it. How unpredictable is it? What would you say is the degree of control you have over it?"
"I'd say we're pretty good with Radiance by now. We've been using it for fights for a while, loosens some inhibitions but nobody's gone full batshit crazy. Become another tool in the toolbox, more or less. But obviously you've got to treat it like what it is. Keep it at manageable levels, keep an eye on the others, sometimes you have to snap somebody out of it. You get a sense of it. It's worked for us so far."