Alderaan - Love and Intrigue

Now with all the components assembled, Ashlin sat at a low table in the middle of the room with her legs crossed under it, tongue held between her teeth and goggles on as she soldered a component into place. Hopefully everything would work well.

Mechanics/Hard to make emitter, one advantage automatic: 4eP+1eA+2eB+3eD 7 successes, 2 threat
(2 threat reduced to one by auto-advantage)

Zeno was nearby watching her work. He wasn't really helping. Not in any meaningful way. He was more like having a remote droid to assist. Can move a tool, put two pieces together that snapped and were clearly marked, or put in or take out a bolt. He didn't want to interfere with any of the precision stuff though. When he did put minor components together, they seemed to click perfectly into place, seemingly guided on their own.

"Did you grow up here?" he asks. Can't assume as much with the other nobles he'd met from off world.

She did take a moment to watch him work. "Huh. Those usually take more fiddling from me. Nice work." She looked back to her work. "Yeah. I was born and raised here, though I headed for Anaxes as soon as I could swing it. Where did you grow up?"

"Dromund Kaas. But more specifically on the Deathwright orbital station. Moved up there more permanently when I turned 9 or 10," he answers. "Lived with my fellow pilots and trained with them until it was time to start learning as a Sith."

"Part of my study of mechanics is that I've learned to allow items to make themselves whole. The force flows through everything and if you train with it you can even influence things that aren't living like this," he says. "It helps me guide the process of construction. But it doesn't give me specific knowledge or skill. Like soldering."

He pulls out a burned out circuit board that was sitting nearby and sets a small broken chip on the board where it would need to be. He then pulls out a soldering iron and solder, holding it a good six inches above where someone would usually perform such a task and drips a bit of the liquefied metal on the connection point. It lands right where it needs to and even kind of settles the chip a bit for a better fit.

"I mean, you can see that it's not the best solder job in the world, because it's limited by my actual knowledge of how to do so. But my training gives me a sense of where and when I need to do things to ensure the process goes right."

"Huh..." She watched what he did, finally nodded. "I know I'm super oversimplifying it, but I guess it makes sense that if there's something connecting everything, then you could use that to get them even more connected."

"It's not really oversimplified," he says with a shrug. "Most of what the force is just relates to how things are connected and how someone can influence it."

"Huh. Neat," she said as she turned back to her work. "Why do people seem so confused and alarmed by it?"

"Because it's something that they cannot do, but can see others do. It's like having an extra limb beyond what you should. It seems wrong to people that don't know how useful it is."

"I was just thinking it reminded me of an extra limb, too," she laughed. "I mean, as long as it works, who cares?"

"I think maybe people don't often notice how connected everything is, too. I bet not having that point of reference makes it harder to understand."

"Yes. I can't remember a time when I couldn't feel a sense of that, but it has only gotten stronger over time."