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Entry tags:

she-ra: entrapta

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Who: Entrapta & others
When: late Septeril
Where: the ghastly abandoned house in Dorchacht Entrapta has been using as a base of operations
What: misc science nonsense
Warnings: spider business

Gonna just be putting toplevels for specific other characters in the comments! Hit me up if you'd like to help out in the lab – this is mostly going to be stuff to do with the radio control centre Entrapta's building for the Resistance but if you want to hit Entrapta up about some specific supplies or something please go ahead 🔧

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"Oh! No, actually!" She kind of twists herself around so she's hanging right way up, as though this will help with explaining. "A magic blackout could potentially knock out all the magic in an area, so it's possible the local enchantments would be cancelled out as well!"

That gives her some pause.

"Hmm," is all she says for a moment, before she moves to head further inside, because standing around in the hallway like this isn't doing it for her. "I'll be honest with you: I'm not really hearing an immediate downside to doing that."

Miss 'I'm going to reset all of the systems on the space station and temporarily cut out the air and power just so I can get through a door that my brother doesn't want me to get through' over here.

"Risk of unintended consequences aside, that is..."

Entrapta nods enthusiastically. "I don't have the equipment or the data I'd need to seriously evaluate the potential risks, but, well, there's only one way to get that kind of data..."

Morgan stops suddenly, and gives Entrapta a serious look. All of Morgan's expressions are typically... muted. She only smiles or frowns the slightest bit. Now is no different, except that there's a vague sense of worry coming in over their bond to back up the tiny frown that is curving the corners of her mouth.

"There are a lot of lives at risk here," she says firmly. "If we pull a stunt like that, it should be to aid the success of the mission. Not just to see what would happen."

Entrapta hangs there for a moment, looking unsure.

"Well... it's not like it definitely wouldn't help, right? I mean –" She starts looking a lot less unsure as she talks, "– if the goal is to aid the success of the mission then this is a gamble but the potential benefits for the mission would be significant."

"Maybe... But it kind of seems like something we should have discussed with everyone else in the planning stages," says Morgan. She shakes her head lightly. "Yeah, we definitely should have talked it over with the resistance first, at the very least. They know the city and it's magical systems better than we do. We could wind up doing the operation a lot more harm than good."

Entrapta pulls a face.

"Mmmm maybe you're right... But the thing is I really, really want to do it."

"Entrapta," Morgan says sternly. "We can't risk hurting other people just for the sake of satisfying our own curiosity. Trust me. That's not a path you want to go down."

Entrapta stares at her for a few moments with an unreadable expression. Her shoulders scrunch upwards a little bit.

"Haha, I mean," she says. "It's not like it'd be deliberately hurting people, though. That's just, a potential side effect, that might be worth it depending on how we evaluate the risk!"

Edited 2019-10-15 01:57 (UTC)

Morgan resettles herself, crossing her arms uncomfortably. She's a lot more upset about this than she wants to let on, and she's trying really hard to keep her temper in check.

"What kind of data could you even possibly be hoping to gather from doing something like that?" she asks quietly. "Because correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you mainly want to satisfy your own curiosity. That's not an acceptable reason for putting people at risk like that."

Entrapta looks genuinely perplexed. It's not that she doesn't understand anything Morgan's saying – she understands not acceptable just fine – but...

"Curiosity is the whole point of gathering data."

Morgan seems, for a moment, just as perplexed. She's always been such a 'big picture' kind of scientist, so to find Entrapta with motivations so simple... Yes, there's something to be said for the sheer thrill of discovery and feeding one's own curiosity. But...

Every major discovery, every invention, every project, everything. All of it, it always had a more complex motivation behind it. Impress her parents. Live up to the family name. Become bigger and better than the rest of them by changing the world, usher in a new era of progress for humankind.

"You've seriously never done or made anything for any other reason?" Morgan asks, looking vaguely incredulous.

"Well, sure," says Entrapta with a lopsided shrug. "I made a lot of my bots to perform specific functions around the castle, or to keep me company... And I guess some of the improvements I made for the Horde are just because Catra asked, but even with those, I mean – the Horde's technology was way beyond most of the stuff I'd seen before so getting to work with it at all was really exciting..."

Morgan exhales, pushing a hand back through unkempt hair as she considers this carefully. She's trying to remind herself that Entrapta isn't being deliberately malicious, but Morgan is also feeling flustered, and she's not sure how to explain actions and consequences to a woman who is literally the same exact age as her without sounding like she's talking down?

She picks her words carefully.

"Honestly? I kind of envy that you're able to work as hard as you do, running off of nothing but the power of your sheer natural curiosity, or whatever other poetic name you want to slap on it. But everyone involved with this plan is trying to do a good thing here by freeing the slaves trapped in this city, so I'm hoping you can at least see how it would be selfish to put their efforts at risk, just to satisfy your own curiosity."

"Ah... hm. Yes. I... get the risk involved... of course there's always some risk in discovery, but, I can appreciate that in this situation the risk inherent to the experiment is... Unacceptable." She's twisting that length of wire around her fingers again; Morgan isn't the only one who's flustered. "I just, didn't really get what you said about, the kind of data I wanted from this, I – don't you ever just try to find out about something because it's interesting?"

Entrapta conceding that much is enough for Morgan to allow herself to relax, at least a little bit. She lets her hands drop to her side, one resting on her hip, and she turns away slightly with another sigh.

"Sure. That's always been some part of it, anyway. I wouldn't do the things I do if I didn't find them at least a little bit interesting. But that was never my sole motivation."

That one recording she'd seen of herself... The second, actually, which Alex had shown her in one of his many desperate bids to convince her that she just wasn't herself. The Morgan Yu on that tape. That woman with the devil-may-care attitude, negging her overly-cautious brother, excitedly demonstrating her newly obtained supernatural abilities while talking about uplifting humanity. She'd wanted to change the world. But for what reason? For fame? Glory? Had she actually wanted to help people, or had she wanted to change things for the benefit of herself, or her company, and her family?

That's the hardest thing about her condition. All these regrets, and she'll never know why she did all the horrible things that she did back on Talos. She can't even begin to understand what that Morgan must have felt, because after what she, this Morgan, had experienced? She can't think of a single thing that could possibly justify the atrocities unleashed by the typhon.

"Huh," says Entrapta, tilting her head slightly, oblivious to Morgan's internal turmoil – or at least, what of it she can feel over the bond she puts down to discomfort with this conversation. "You never, y'know, messed with incomprehensible powers beyond your understanding just because you wanted to see what would happen?"

"Nope," she says simply with a shrug, slipping back into the casual irreverence that she typically presents to the rest of the world. That answer IS the truth, at least as far as she understands it. She never messed with any incomprehensible powers just for that reason.

"I'm guessing that means you have, though." As if that wasn't obvious by now.

She shrugs. "Well, sure! That's practically what incomprehensible powers beyond our understanding are for, y'know?"

"...I suppose I can't really argue with that."

Or. She could, but she's not really feeling up to putting in the effort at the moment. She gives Entrapta another stern look though, trying to look authoritative. "Seriously though, don't overload their magical power grid. I'm asking you as a friend. People will probably get seriously hurt if you do."

Entrapta deflates a little. As a friend...? Well...

"You don't know that, though..." But her heart isn't in it, and she concedes with resigned disappointment, "No, you're right, I should do a serious evaluation of the risks before performing this kind of experiment..."

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