InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "YATTA!"

The Doctor (notginger) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2008-07-22 23:51:00

Entry tags:

complete, day 8, katara, the doctor

Who? The Doctor & Katara
Where? The restaurant.
When? Evening.
What? The attempted teaching of science/technology.
Rating G, probably.
Status Complete.

After barely managing to successfully order a room-service brunch through a lot of giggling, the Doctor had decided that he would venture down to the restaurant to collect them something for dinner rather than go through another one-ended conversation with a golem on the phone. It was just easier when they could at least nod a confirmation to him. So, he had dressed in his suit trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, deciding to leave off the tie and suit jacket due to the change in resort. Finally, the planet was making him give up on the full suit, which was something of a miracle, although Rose's relaxing influence might have had something to do with it. He no longer felt the need to use his suit as a protective shield, stopping anyone from getting too close.

He headed into the restaurant, picked up a menu and ordered them some pasta to go - it felt like it was way too hot for chips, but he was sure Rose would disagree, so he ordered a portion of them as well, and headed over to a nearby table to wait for his order to cook. He fished Rose's mobile phone from his pocket; he'd promised to take a look at it and see what he could do about it's inability to call any other planet. He pulled the back off and examined the device he'd inserted into it to give her universal roaming; perhaps if he just tried to increase the signal even further he might get somewhere. He took his sonic screwdriver from his pocket; this was exactly why he needed the suit jacket, carrying everything in his trouser pockets was a little awkward. He pressed the tip against the roaming device inside the phone and turned the screwdriver on. It emitted a blue light, and gave an electronic sound, something like a mixture between TV static and a dial-up internet connection. He moved the blue tip along the edges of device, concentrating hard as the phone started to heat up in his hand. He doubted that the signal was the problem, but it was worth a try nonetheless.

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k_waterbender
2008-07-24 10:48 pm UTC (link)

“It’s all right. I don’t think I’ve met anyone that was from a time without technology like this yet, so I don’t think people without experience with more advanced tools are exactly abundant. It would be easy to forget.”

Katara was quite confused when he said something about a double negative. She’d never been to school, so she had never had grammar lessons. The waterbender only spoke how her people spoke because that’s what she’d learned. She wouldn’t ever say a sentence like ‘You haven’t seen nothing yet’ because it simply wasn’t how she was taught to speak, but the rules of grammar were lost on her. The Water Tribe femme simply shrugged.

She listened as he explained what a mobile phone was and its uses, then his crack about Americans. “I think I met an American. He told me he was from… um…” Katara thought a moment to remember exactly what Rusty had told her. “The United States of America in North America. He had something that looked like a mobile phone in his hand, but he just looked at it and put it away, but he seemed uneasy. It was probably because it wouldn‘t work. Another person and I looked at a computer. He tried to send a message on there, but it wouldn’t work. It allowed him to see messages he had received from others, though.” The waterbender didn’t ask what his comment about Americans complicating things meant, and instead just examined the objects in his hands.

Katara actually did establish that different mobile phones had different numbers, so a person could call another’s and speak to them that way. It didn’t make sense any other way, and it seemed a lot faster than in her home. “Where I’m from we usually use messenger hawks, or we have special people to travel between places to give messages that way. In one of the larger Earth Kingdom cities- Omashu- they have a special system that relies on gravity and earthbending to get mail and other things to people quite quickly.

“The Fire Nation was probably the most advanced. They have these machines with wheels that that don’t need to be pulled by animals or people. They’re run on coal. My brother and a scientist came up with a lot of interesting inventions, though, like boats that go under water and are powered by waterbending. I don‘t know if they could figure something like this out, though.” She said, motioning to the telephone.

A smile lit Katara’s features, and a chuckle left her lips at his joke. She knew he knew she didn’t have a mobile phone. “So, what’s a ‘signal’ or a ‘roaming device’?” The waterbender asked.

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notginger
2008-07-25 06:33 pm UTC (link)

"Oh, really? There's a woman here called Ayla, she's a sort of..." he bobbed his head from side to side, trying to think what the most politically correct term would be for her. "I want to say cavewoman, but that's not quite accurate," he shrugged, figuring it was enough to give the general idea at least.

He nodded along as she described the American she had already met. "He could see the messages people had sent him?" he asked; although the Doctor was unlikely to have received any emails, he couldn't help but wonder about Rose. He was sure Mickey still tried keeping in touch through email, but then he wasn't sure if reading something and being unable to reply would actually be a good thing. "That... might be rather distressing, not being able to reply," he commented eventually, deciding not to mention it to Rose for the time being. He'd focus on getting the phone to work instead.

The Doctor was curious to hear about the methods of communication used by Katara's people; although they were less advanced, all human progress was interesting to the Doctor. He was quite sure he would be familiar with everything she would tell him, but he couldn't have been more wrong. He frowned deeply, pulling his eyebrows together in complete confusion. "Sorry, Earthbending? Waterbending? Now you've lost me!" he grinned. It was funny; the Doctor never lost his ability to be surprised, and that was especially apparent at times like this. The student had suddenly become the teacher.

He leaned forward, keen to explain further. "Right, so on a normal telephone, the information would be carried along wires, known as a telephone line, which is why you'll hear people saying things like stay on the line. It would come out here," he pointed to the base of the telephone, "and when it's invented on Earth, it'll go underground, and the lines will run overhead attached to big logs and stuff, joining every telephone together. But the mobile telephone is different. It uses what we call a signal. I mean, did you ever use smoke signals?" he asked, wondering if she had ever even heard the word before. "It's a signal like that, I suppose, but it's a radio signal. Which is... invisible, it's in the air, and it can be detected and turned into sound or... other information..." he frowned, not quite certain if he was making any sense.

"So, these phones send and receive these radio signals, and we have these... big poles detecting the signals and turning them into sound. But... you need to be near one of these big poles in order to make the phone work, otherwise it's like trying to send a smoke signal without any wind. But this--" he tapped the back of the phone where the battery would normally be, "-- is a little gadget of mine. It makes the signal stronger, so it can travel without the... the wind, as it were. But, apparently it's not strong enough to get off of this planet."

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