Spark/Mad

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Personality v Sparkiness

The Spark seems to be separate from every other single facet of a spark's brain or personality. We have seen insane sparks and, well, not-so-insane sparks. We've seen smart sparks and dumb sparks. Sparks can be well-intentioned or cruel. Education seems to play a part -- smarter sparks have a better chance of survival. We've also gotten hints that correct fostering, encouragement of their abilities and ambitions, can determine whether or not one successfully breaks through.

Breakthroughs

It is possible that the breakthrough of a Spark needs (or is greatly facilitated by) a strong emotional event.

For example, Agatha desperately wanted to find the Von Zinzer brothers (or her locket)... so she built a clank that finds Von Zinzer brothers (or her locket); when it arrived ✣ back at the Clay's, the clank grabbed the brother who still carried the locket. Later, she desperately needed to build a machine for the Baron... so she built a clank that built machines. Another time, she desperately wanted to rescue Othar... so she built a clank that rescues Othar. (It's reasonable to say that the Search Engine, Dingbot Prime and the Rescue Clank are all Agatha's multi-stage breakthrough; in fact it may be that she broke through so gently because she didn't ✣ do it all at once, but over 13 years ✣ and then only ✣ in her sleep).

Furthermore, it is quite possible that Zoing, presumably the result of Gilgamesh Wulfenbach´s breakthrough event, also had a strong emotional component involved. Because of what and who he was, Gil was very lonely as a kid. It appears he may have been bullied quite a bit, too. Would be reasonable to suppose that after some particularly awful day, he built himself a loyal friend.

The destructive nature of many breakthroughs could then be explained by the fact that anger and/or hatred are very strong emotions, and that they frequently lead the one experiencing them to wish to destroy whoever is the cause of said emotion.

The Spark and perception

Looking at both the language and imagery used when talking about Sparks in the comic, it would seem that being a Spark isn't about warping the laws of nature as it is about seeing things better. For examples, Agatha ✣ said she has a "supreme moment of clarity" when hyper-sparking; Albia ✣ says Agatha "peeped into the infinite"; and Lucrezia ✣ said she could see the "levers of the universe" while ascending. To add to that, very early on in the comic when Agatha is dreaming, ✣ she's looking at a model of the Solar System in a clockwork form. It could explain how Zola is able to copy a Spark's work ✣ without being a Spark; she has the knowledge of a Spark, but not the ability to learn more and build on said work. If this is so, perhaps the reason Sparks go "mad" is that they go mad from the revelation, so to speak? Mp-hj (talk) 16:57, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Origin of sparks

Facts

• wellsprings arise in many places on the Earth.
• Mechanicsburg is built upon a wellspring of the Dyne and uses it as an energy source.
• Lucrezia's parent's estate used to have a mirror that works on some circumstances.
• Mechanicsburg has a working mirror
• The Refuge of Storms has a working mirror.
• Sparking is in large part inheritable.
• Queens use wellsprings as their power source and it seems that they have to drink wellwater in order to become Queens.
• Andronicus Valois is extremily powerful and maybe Queen-like.
• The first Heterodyne has drunk the water.
• Paris has some powerful energy source that allows to waste energy onto fair signals like floating arch and tower.
• Paris is highly related to Andronicus Valois and Van Rijn.
• Jägermonsters have enhanced physical durability, so do sparks.
• Sparks are immune to basic wasping.
  • Deliberately so (basic wasps were designed not to afect sparks).
• Jägers are immune to basic wasping.
• Mechanicsburgh residents are immune to wasping.
  • Both of above inmunities are not deliberate ( basic wasps were not designed not to affect Jägers nor Mechanisburgers).
• Inoculation draught, making people immune to basic (?) wasping, contains **distillation** of "Monahan's venefirous mus elixir".
• Inoculation draught caused Bang be overfilled with energy, covered with electric lightnings and feeling like her head is going to explode.
• Drinking Dyne water by Agatha has caused her being in near-ascension state overfilled with energy and feeling like her head is going to explode. Agatha has dumped excess of the energy as electricity.
• Monahan was studying wellsprings and ascension.
• Monahan got an insight that the knowledge about composition of "effluvia" she used to know was wrong 20220325.
• Monahan has created the monster rats and used wellwater for it.

Hypotheses

• The Refuge of Storms, as well as Paris and other main cities have wellsprings beneath them. Those having operating mirrors have mechanisms to tap into the power. The power station is either a Flame inherited from ancestors or self-made, like in the case of Heterodynes.
• Storm King Adronicus Valois is kinda a male counterpart of Queen.
• Sparking is a result of exposure of ancestors to wellwater that causes persistent and inheritable changes in people.
• All sparks dynasties are descendants of the people who had been modified by the wellwater and survived.
• More is the percentage of the wellwater-altered genotype - stronger the the spark.
• The most powerful sparks in history have tapped into water themselves. The most powerful dynasties inherit from Queens/Kings.

Mad hypotheses

• Possibly, anyone can be made a spark and a queen, giving enough accumulated dose of "venefirous mus elixir" to get accustomed to it enough.
• Possibly sparking is associated not only with accumulated dose of The Component, but also with ability of brain to signal neurons to cause them utilize it in a controllable way (mastering which skill is a prereq for "finding an internal spark and turning it into inferno" and just not exploding because of geting large enough dose of it during short period of time), which is highly correlated to familiarity to the substance (the dose of the chemical present in cells) during the periods of increased neuroplasticity — prenatal development and early childhood.
• Possibly a modification of inoculation draught can be used to make a person a spark in an accelerated fashion.
• Monahan's "venefirous mus elixir" contains a high-energy chemical compound ('The Component'), that
  • is one of components of wellwater, and so jägerdraught.
  • is the essential component making a person immune to wasping. The rest of components are unneeded and/or shorten the term needed for the elexir to make a person immune to wasping and/or releiving some non-fatal side effects. "venefirous mus elexir" has to be distilled because it contains not the pure high energy component, as it was intended, but due to Mohahan imprecise knowledge of effluvia composition it contains impurities. When designing inoculation draught Tarvek somehow managed to figure out that those impurities concentration have to be removed.
    • That, though, doesn't explain why so complex machinery is needed to process the effluvia. It can be possible that certain impurities cannot be removed via just a distillation, but their presencenis still OK for the purpose of inoculation draught.
  • is consumed by flame-based power stations.
  • is nearly entirely extracted from water by Mechanicsburgh power station, but trace amounts remain in the water consumed by local residents, affecting their bodies through many years
    • making them close to sparks, enough to be immune to *basic* wasping;
    • making them close to sparks, explaining their extreme enthusiasm about making technology.

• Immunity to spark-wasping is granted by other components of inoculation draught (i.e. some inhibitors neutralizing inhibitors within spark-wasps, protecting some crucial wasp part from reaction with The Component). Immunity to basic wasping is a prereq for immunity to spark-wasping.
  • The inhibitors were needed because wasping technology was not developed by Stormvoraus clan, but reverse-engineered with pretty poor understanding of its internal working. They have not figured out why exactly that compound in wasps reacting with The Component is needed and how to properly replace it with the one having no reaction with The Component. So they just applied an ad-hoc solution by adding an inhibitor.
  • distilled "venefirous mus elexir" is not a mandatory component of the draugth, but only for the ones who are not already immune to basic wasping.
    • Since the only time we know its formulation is when Gil is preparing 2 doses, in order to protect Bang with one, who supposedly was considered not a Spark, he may have added The Component just for her.
  • Finishing the recepie of the draught needs a lot of human experimentation. And of course just local non-sparks were intended to be used as guinea pigs. In order for them become immune to basic wasping The Component is strictly needed, that's why it was written.
    • Since there was only one spark-wasp, the Order had probably intended to test it on an ordinary person made immune to basic-wasping, then test the rest of the draught.
    • Since the draught has not been tested (because it was claimed that there was only 1 spark-wasp made, and it was unused) against the intended kind of wasp (spark-wasp) in vivo, there is some chance it doesn't work against it.
    • The main purpose of the draught likely was protecting the Stormvoraus clan before mass-producing spark wasps and taking over the Europa elites with them.

Challenges

• Why were not so many Kings/Queens yet alive.
  • Eliminated by schemes of their enemies/competitors/relatives.
  • It may be irrational to ascend.

• If they have chosen ascension, why is it not known about founders of most of dynasties being Queens/Kings?
  • It may be considered closely-guarded secred by the most of dynasties in order to prevent
    • potential competitors from searching for the wellsprings and harnessing their power for themselves, as the first Heterodyne has done.
    • and especially to keep family members away of:
      • ascending themselves and splitting the power of a single source
      • own children trying to ascend themself and killing oneself in process
      • a bloody feud within dynasty for maintaining exclusive control over the wellspring

• If they have chosen not to ascend, why have they chosen so? Ascension gives enormous powers, but it is the powers of the ascended one himself. While sparks get power from own unique technology they create, ascended ones tap directly into nature doing, relying on miracles done directly by them. It is a more primitive mindset, that doesn't fit well the mindset of most sparks that prefer to overengineer things. This is highlighted by the fact that in the dialogue of Agatha with Alba when Agatha was offered mammoth meat sitting by the fire wearing primitive clothes. It seems that ascended ones stop creating own technology and rely on superpowers. While technology consumes widely available conventional natural resources, magic consumes unique sort of energy of their wells extensively. While the amount of sparks and their technology is limited by competition for conventional widely available resources, amount of ascended ones is strictly limited by the capacity of a wellspring. While miracles are bound to the ascended one, gadgets created by sparks can be transferred to minions and each other. Ascension requires taking the wellwater, which is risky. This creates incentives to rely not on miracles, but on making machinery, that can be shut down when unneeded (so not wasting wellpower), and on usual reproduction to get just sparks, which should create enough sparks for a dynasty maintaining its position.