Once again, some engineering undergraduates have overestimated their own prowess and summoned something when they should have been finishing their homework. The engineering TAs would like to take this moment to remind all the engineering majors that it is not a part of our jobs to track down whatever you summon and that you will fail any and all assignments that summon anything. As per university policy, we cannot grade summonings.
As a precaution, until further notice, the maker’s space is now closed to all students. Access will only be allowed under the direct supervision of a TA (good luck finding us) or a professor (assuming you can find one outside of office hours). All senior theses must be hypothetical - any practical theses proposals have been retroactively rescinded. Laboratory research is expected to continue as usual.
Safety is everyone’s responsibility when working with the unknown! Your TAs have prepared some helpful reminders to reduce the chances this happens again.
Complete the mandatory Elsewhere Lab Safety Training! If you do not complete this by the end of the quarter, things will befall you! Don’t test our patience!
Never work alone in the lab! Not only is this bad practice for most experiments, but two are better than one when it comes to stopping unusual lab problems.
Carry your iron rod, salt packet, and water bottle at all times. Replacement rods are available at the academic advising office, salt packets can be taken from the dining halls, and water bottles can be found at the athletics department.
All projects must be made out of iron. For iron alloys and composites, consult a TA, professor, or postdoc to see if the iron percentage is higher than the threshold.
Follow university policy regarding safety best practices in the classroom and around campus.
Bioengineers: only use samples acquired directly from other labs. Neither Elsewhere University nor the Engineering Department can guarantee that samples arrive uncontaminated (remember the Great Homunculi disaster?).
Electrical engineers: the efficacy of copper against the Fair Folk is still yet to be determined. Do not listen to the upperclassmen who tell you that copper works just as well as iron. This has been suspected to be a way of hazing new students and violated the university hazing policies.
Chemical engineers: use the fume hoods. Accidents happen much less often when working in a well-ventilated area.
Civil engineers: your steel pins may contain too little iron to be useful. Do not rely on them in a pinch. Yes, they look cool, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Your faculty advisors will be conducting iron checks to ensure you have enough iron on you at all times.
Mechanical engineers: how many times do we have to remind you that just because something could work doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to build it? Remember the machine that nonstop summoned things for weeks? And how hard that was to stop? Please don’t build that again, or anything like it.
And, as always, report accidents to the relevant safety authorities. The sooner the damage is evaluated, the sooner it can be contained and fixed.
On behalf of the entire department, we preemptively thank you for adjusting to this change in departmental policy.
Please understand that your midterm grades will be coming out late, as we are working hard to understand what was summoned and how: if anyone has information about it, please direct it to the Dean’s office.
engineering students know that the 3D printers will work best only when not observed. they are shy, but that’s normal for new technology. give it 20 years and they’ll be ready for an audience
The Gentry are especially wary of engineering students, bringing life and thought to metal. They are rarely taken lest their iron children seek them out.
In Canada, engineering students receive a ring called the Iron Ring upon graduation, but these days is made of stainless steel. It's meant as a reminder of your duty as an engineer to do your job well and not cut corners. What sort of protection would it afford me if I came to do a second degree at Elsewhere?
Holding to those principles in your dealings with them is already extremely good practice, and will serve you well.
There they stood; a tall lanky man with the usual studious stoop of a scholar and, the Hollowed eyes and pale skin of a man who spent far too many hours indoors; together with a slender woman who seemed wrong, perhaps it was how she stooped over him, hiding a height that must be impossible, or perhaps it was raven black hair the trailed inches from the ground.
The stood still for an eternity, or seconds, nobody was to know.
It was infinity that he saw in her eyes, an infinity that he was afraid that he’d lose himself in, and he did.
He saw nothing but beauty and was lost in the depths of those deep neverending pools that were her eyes.
She knew she had him and nothing could change that. He was an easy target, not an ounce of iron on him and skin that looked to have never seen salt. So many she had taken away this way. The truth was that her eyes were deep hollows into her skull, her cheeks sallow and gaunt. She arched over her prey and all he saw was a goddess, so true was the magic of the fae that this was his entire reality.
She reached in to take his hand, to take him.
PAIN
It burnt to touch. Seared into her palm were the marks of his fingertips and the illusion had fallen and he saw her true face. Realising the danger this face posed, he ran. He ran straight back to the workshop he’d been slaving in for hours already.
She cursed herself at having missed the signs. The cracked hands from the hours of lead fumes, and the iron filings that must surely be hiding in those cracks; the greenish tinge of copper wire streaking his hands; the slightly manic yet always curious look of one who liked to tinker.
Too bad really, he would’ve made a good toy.
And so Zero the engineering student met the fae for the very first time, however it surely wouldn’t be the last; so dangerous was the call of curiosity.
x
[Follow-up ask: I feel as though Zero (the student I’m making) would try to see if Jimothy’s teeth conduct electricity, so as to make a robot (or other mechanism) without iron, but then I think that perhaps that may end in disaster if it did work out…. Side note: He’d likely do this because he loves to teach people about how things work, and what better audience than the Gentry who do not understand human magic, with it’s habit of involving fire and iron.[
submitting on behalf of an engineer friend who has no tumblr
The mathematicians, the physicists: they care about what is
true
. The engineers care what is
useful
. Engineers would accept gold-for-a-day. If it should turn to toadstools or snakes or an equal mass of spiders tomorrow, that was fine, as long as they only needed it to be gold for a day. The physicist, the chemist, they would want to watch it happen, they would want to know WHY it happened, they would want to know what happened to the gold, they would want to know what happened to the spiders. (The spiders, for their part, would usually happen to everyone in the vicinity). The engineer might use the gold for its conductive properties, demonstrate the principle and then wash their hands of it, leaving the spiders to happen to an empty lab bench. Those whose curiosity carries them past the horizon and those whose curiosity stops abruptly can both be useful and entertaining in their own ways. But the true prize comes after the first classes on Laplace and Fourier transforms. You see, there are problems that are too complex, too difficult, or too dang tedious to solve through traditional means. Instead, the student is told, we transfer the problem to another mathematical domain, where it is simpler, easier, and more interesting. An opportunistic soul might wait outside the classroom and watch for the starry eyes of the student who internalizes that message. Because you can always offer another domain that promises to solve all kinds of problems. What’s important is to catch them before they learn that sometimes the transforms don’t quite work as planned. Sometimes you can’t find your way back. (all that about Laplace/Fourier transforms is 100% true)
