galvarelli/sarlastory/marina-describes-farcalling.txt

―So, like what?
	You want a full lecture?

Sarla looked over her beer at Marina.
Cyril looked exasperated.

―C'mon Sarla, I don't want to think about fucking Meadowlark theory, he said.

Sarla looked down, a bit stung.
It was a good point.
The smuggled beers were expensive, and the storage room in the Hall of Roots they had hid themselves in was, though rarely-used, hardly a picture of perfect privacy.
The others probably didn't want to take those risks just to think more about their work.

―No dude, it's fine, Marina said.
	You know Sarla loves that shit.

Marina gave Sarla a wide smile.
Sarla felt her face flush, likely because of the beer.

―So, the Meadowlark isn't like, a telephone or anything.
	Obviously.
	Like, what do you hear when you connect to it?

―With a normal connection, it sounds like a faint rustling.
	Like soft wind over the grass.

Cyril rolled his eyes.
Marina quickly scolded him.

―Don't disrespect the Meadowlark, Cyril.
	You swore oaths.
	Even if Sarla writes poetry about it.

Cyril barked a conciliatory half-apology.

―Anyway, so yeah, you'll hear the actual sound because Voice is power and all that, you know.
	But that's not like, communication, right?
	Like the Voice isn't anyone's voice that can talk to you.

Sarla nodded.
This was basic Meadowlark theory.
But there was a disconnect between that and what Sarla knew about Farcalling, and Sarla's face scrunched in thought.

―So you probably are thinking of the right question:
	Where does information come out of the connection?

From Marina's tone she guessed this was a regurgitation of a lesson from one of her teachers.
When you connected to the Meadowlark, the physical sound only reflected your own mental state, and nothing else.
And using the Meadowlark meant pushing back against it, but that also didn't affect others.
She'd been near people using the Meadowlark in demonstrations, and hadn't felt anything, whether she was connected or not.

―So what's the trick? Sarla asked.

Marina chugged the rest of her beer, and opened another can.

―Yeah, so, it's hard to explain.
	I'm not like, a teacher, she said chuckling.
	Uhh, so what we've learned so far is like.
	So, imagine you're standing at the edge of a lake.
	Someone in a boat can push water at you and you'll feel it.
	Or like, um...

She trailed off in thought a moment, and Sarla finished her beer.
Cyril handed her another one.

―Okay, so.
	When you're too far in the water, you're constantly pushing and pulling on it.
	Like, you're swimming and trying to stay afloat, you know?
	So you can't tell if someone is pushing water at you from a boat.
	But if you stand on the shore, you can feel the water moving.
	And you can push back on the water.

―You're saying, you connect only partially to the Meadowlark.
	That way you can feel other people's connection and disconnection?

That made sense, the moment of connection could theoretically be sensed.
Or at least Sarla didn't immediately see why it couldn't.

―Oh, yeah.
	And like, there aren't boats in the Meadowlark so the other person is also standing on another part of the shore.

Cyril groaned.

―Marina, seriously?

―What, Cyril? Marina said, glaring daggers at him.

―Just like, Sarla gets it, okay?
	Obviously, no offense Sar, but you understand stuff super easily anyway.
	No more stupid metaphors.

Sarla wasn't sure how that could have been offensive.

―How does distance come into it?, she asked.
	Even if you can feel the connection, shouldn't it be very slight unless you're super close?
	And even if you're close, it must be ridiculously faint.

Marina nodded.
―Well that's the trick.
	You have to be very sensitive, and it's all about connecting to the Meadowlark as little as possible.
	Like, in order to not swamp out anything else you have to basically dip like, the very tip of your tongue in the water.

Cyril didn't even bother to object to that.

―And as for distance, the Meadowlark is related to like green stuff.
	Fields, I mean.
	Our ancestors would form great herds, all like, majestic, you know?
	So the Meadowlark likes to clump up near fields.
	And so like, you take a field and you cut out a section of grass, including the dirt and roots, and carry that away.
	That's basically all the big boxes that get used for Communications are.
	When you sit next to it and connect and disconnect back and forth, you can feel it even by the original field.
	There are some tricks to enhance it more, but basically being on the same field, even if it's a square cut from the same field, lets it work.

Sarla nodded.

―Gotcha, that makes sense.
	So it ends up being a grassroots communication system.

―Exactly!
	There were some other attempts with like growing long plants on trellises like wires, but they were always too unreliable.
	It was too hard to properly hear things over the grapevine.