ipsa scientia potestas est [ETERNALLY OPEN]

[knittingbackwards]

Who| Merlyn and anyone who arranged classes with him, or wants them
What| Merlyn goes back to his first love: teaching
Where| Around the Center and the Capitol
When| Any time after this network post
Warnings/Notes| Probably none

Merlyn is more than willing to make good on his offer of lessons. Those who arranged for him to come and find him will have him show up promptly in the appointed place, a brightly-crocheted bag of books over his shoulder and a cup of tea in his hand. He greets them with a little raise of his tea mug, beckoning them over to sit with him.

Those who didn't make solid arrangements should have little difficulty finding him. He's spending his time largely in the common area or the District 2 suite, alternately reading and scribbling down lesson plans he only intends to keep very roughly to, or knitting ferociously in a corner.

Comments

[knittingbackwards]

"Well, now, that's a complicated question." One which he pauses to consider, because his cup is empty and he needs more tea. "Mm. Hm, yes, that's better. Now, as I was saying, it's quite complicated. Most people will tell you, you see, that it is a matter of logic, of piecing together the puzzle. We have fossil records - at least in my world we do - dating back to long before life crawled out of the sea. We can compare them, you see, and make an educated guess as to how they fit together.

"Then, around the 20th century, some very clever men and women began to sequence the genome, and so it became clearer which parts had changed when, although there are still some gaps.

"And by calculating how the gas compositions of the air have changed, as well, we can guess at what was being breathed and photosynthesised. That helps where we have no fossil record. That, most people will tell you, is how we know."

[justoutrunyou]

Fossils she knew about, if only through movies. How exactly people used them to figure out so much was beyond her. And as soon as he spoke about genome's her brain ground to a stop and she had to take another drink.

"OK so...we can figure out the air from plants that were alive back then...and we can figure that out from fossils. What's a genome?"

Will knowledge of all this help her survive in the arena someday? Who knows. Is she willing to keep asking questions and listening to him until her head hurts? Entirely.

[knittingbackwards]

"In the simplest terms?" Merlyn steepled his fingers, frowning at her. "When we are created, every cell of us has its fate decided by its DNA, you see. Great long strings of it, the instruction manuals for life. A genome is what you get when you put together all of those strings into chromosomes - 22 pairs in most of us, and a couple more besides - and all those chromosomes together, you see, are what make us us, and what we call a genome. 46 chromosomes, determining everything from the colour of your hair and your eyes and your height to how many limbs you have and whether you grow fur or feathers or nothing at all. Do you see, my dear?"

[justoutrunyou]

"Wow...so like, the stuff that makes cells...which makes us." She's really blown away by this idea. Just when she thought she'd heard about the smallest thing ever it turned out there was even smaller things. "If people can understand the bits that determine who we're gonna be then could they change all that? Control it?"

Maybe that was what the Capitol was doing to bring them back every time they died...they were just rebuilding them from the DNA up.

[knittingbackwards]

"They could," Merlyn agreed, with a little nod. "And they do, as it happens. When I was young, they were just beginning to explore it. But they could make clones, convince a mouse to grow a human ear on its back, even make pigs that glowed in the dark... The trouble, you see, is that it is very easy to get carried away, and to think you control everything. Nature sits in a very careful balance, between the innate and the learned, between one extreme and another. If a cell dies too quickly, necrosis: if a cell dies too slowly, cancer.

"So, at least in my time, DNA was a very dangerous thing to mess about with. If you weren't careful, you could end up with diseases nobody had ever heard of, or plants that would take over a country, or some completely unexpected result. But theoretically, if you understood every part of the genome and expected only what was realistic... yes. You could control it."

[justoutrunyou]

"Or suddenly a bunch of tributes start falling over, getting sick or worse."

Sandy suddenly thought she had hit on a stroke of brilliance. It all made sense to her now! The mysterious illness that had brought tributes to their knees in the last proper arena and again not too long ago. She had heard so many different rumors about what the cause was but this...this made sense. What if the Capitol had been pushing their luck playing god too much?

"That explains how they create such big bad monsters. They must have figured it out...at least parts of it."

As horrific as the idea was that she was just the latest in a long line of cloned girls who's DNA was hand woven by artisan mad scientists, she was clearly pleased to have made a connection to his lesson and something in her current life.

[knittingbackwards]

"I would imagine so, yes." Merlyn raised one eyebrow, stroking his beard. "You have a sharp mind, young lady. I hadn't thought of the illness being related to it, but of course, if they have been messing around with our genetics, it would hardly be improbable for us all to gain some kind... some kind of allergy, perhaps, an intolerance to something in our environment. That would explain why only offworlders were affected, and why we all fell ill at once. Very well-thought, Sandy, very well-thought indeed. You may have hit upon something there."

[justoutrunyou]

Oh sweet sweet validation, how she lives for the feeling like she's doing something right or making someone happy.

"I dunno who I'd even ask about it. It's not like the Capitol Scientists hang around here." She shrugs. "For now, where do we go next? In the lesson I mean."

[knittingbackwards]

"That depends. Would you rather focus on the genome, or the evolution of Man?" Merlyn harrumphed, reaching for his tea, and gave her a fond smile. "We could discuss the evolution of other creatures as well, of course. If you would like to know how the camel got his hump, or the tiger his stripes or..." And here he nodded to her T-shirt, with a little smirk, "how the duck came to be."

This might be a nice place to wrap unless you wanted to get some more in. Or have the last word?

[justoutrunyou]

Well she had been about to ask about the evolution of man, but his noting the duck on her shirt made her laugh.

"Alright sure, let's start with ducks and go back to humans after." She grinned reaching for her drink once again.

She had never been the best student before coming to Panem, but something about dying as many times as she did and training every day had made her more dedicated, a better listener and able to focus even on words she didn't understand.

Hopefully Merlyn was willing to keep this up for an hour or two because she wasn't slowing down anytime soon.