15728/A Rope Is Not A Hammer

A Rope Is Not A Hammer
Date of Scene:	27 August 2023
Location:	Roof - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Caitlin's getting better at the lasso, but it turns out the Amazons may have more of a call for her engineering skills than her rope work.
Cast of Characters:	Donna Troy, Caitlin Fairchild

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Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna's lasso doesn't glow when Caitlin holds it. Donna can't explain why. Interestingly it doesn't always glow when Donna holds it either, and she can't explain why that is either. Her response, when questioned, is a nonchalant shrug. It's just something she has got used to. Her lasso glows golden when she's about to use it. Why? How? Magic. Who needs to know more than that? Those brought up with magic as a part of their daily lives rarely seem to have the same empirical interest in the hows and whys that someone with a scientific background will frequently react to the presence of magic with.

    It also doesn't do other things when Caitlin uses it, but this may simply be a matter of training. Lassos are not the most standard item in the Amazon arsenal; in fact only a relatively few Amazons learn the rather complicated and time-consuming techniques. When Donna, Diana, or Cassie use their lassos they seem to be able to make the rope dance; subtle flicks that tighten or loosen the loop at the end, and watching for the twentieth time when Donna demonstrates the technique is barely more illuminating than the first time. It's possible that this too is something more magical than physical when it comes to those Amazon lassos.

    It's not the first time Caitlin has tried with a lasso of course; the option was there, so why not? It's just that it takes a few years of pretty dedicated training to get good with one, and so far Caitlin hasn't put that much time in. There were plenty of other, more central Amazonian combat techniques to concentrate on first.

    "Let's focus on something else," Donna suggests. "Rather than trying to snare the bad guys, try just knocking them over." The 'bad guys' in question are a row of three soda cans lined up along the backs of a pair of chairs placed back-to-back to create a narrow yet stable place for them to sit. Trying to get the lasso to actually lasso one of the cans is hard enough, trying to pull the noose tight without actually tipping the can over seems impossible. Perhaps it's all magic and Donna's cheating.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin sighs wearily but nods at Donna's instruction. The lasso isn't coming naturally to her. The sword, she picked up faster than she would admit, and anything that could be thrown, Caitlin mastered in no time.

Tossing a rope? She's really struggling with 'getting it'.

The redhead is dressed in brief grey athletic shorts and a close-fitting sleeveless blue top. It's a nice and cool outfit when confronted with the late August sunshine beating down on the roof. Thank goodness it was long ago painted with a thermally-repelling paint to keep the temperature down.

A windup and a swing and a toss-- and a miss. It doesn't even come close to the can, and Caitlin groans wearily. "Why am I just not *getting* this?" she demands irascibly-- speaking more to herself than Donna. "You *promise* it's not magic, right? You can actually do this with a plain old regular rope?" Donna's given a narrow-eyed look, the sort Caitlin uses when she suspects she's being pranked.

She winds up, tosses again, and manages to knock a can skittering along the roof when she overshoots it by a mile. "Oh ... CRABAPPLES!" she fumes, and stamps a foot against the roof in frustration.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "I mean... it /is/ magic," Donna says. "We know that. Otherwise it would just be a rope and it wouldn't glow, or change length, or be impossible to cut," she points out. "But on the other hand yes, I can do this with a regular rope too. Just keep in mind that Diana started teaching me how to use a lasso well before I first came to America, and you never saw me with one before... I left again. When I went back to Themyscira, I spent the best part of two years concentrating on the lasso with Asterope and mom. Cassie took about a year to get good with hers, so consider that the baseline before you're gonna feel like you can use one reliably. Even then, you'll be a few good years away from the kind of dodging, weaving and striking sparring matches you've see Di and I do."

    So encouraging, Donna.

    Donna has never been troubled by the heat the way her red-headed friend has. Being raised on Themyscira does that for you. Nonetheless it's probably a relief to Caitlin that Donna is not wearing her armor. Though the hybrid armor she has these days is much lighter and more breathable than the heavy metal breastplate she used to favor, it would still make most people sweat just looking at someone exercising in that under this sun. Instead she's wearing the entirely un-Themysciran sports bra and yoga pants she favors when exercising in the gym rather than doing combat practice.

    "The most important thing to remember is that this is /not/ a sword," Donna says. "Or a hammer. You're conditioned to think of the motion you give to your hand being transmitted very rapidly to the tip of the weapon you're swinging. When you're swinging something that isn't rigid, you have to consider the speed at which the force of your motion travels up the length, and how much of that force is lost before it gets there. Think in sine waves."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"I know it's not a sword," Caitlin mutters under her breath. Mostly. The redhead gathers the lasso back into her hand, doing as Donna showed her and turning it in her wrist each time so it's held loosely in her fingers in nice, easy-to-release loops.

"All right, all in the wrist. Sine waves," she echoes, and looks up at the targets through her slender eyebrows. Her next cast is... a little less technically pretty, with one arm reaching out in front of her and a foot stuck backwards for balance. It looks like someone tossing a ring at a bottle in a carnival game.

But the lasso casts out and lands on the back of the chair with the can right in the center of the ring. Caitlin squeals in joy and claps her hands, twirling once in place. "I got it! I got it!" she crows, and starts gathering in the slack.

The rope ends up slipping off the chair and taking the can with it. Caitlin's face falls, but the proud expression returns a beat later. "Well, I mostly got it," she says.

"Do you know what it's called when you've got a rope and like a, uh, rock or something on it? Like those chain things Terry did for me in Wonderland," she says. "I thought those were pretty cool. Do the skills translate?"

Donna Troy has posed:
"Flail," Donna responds in a slightly distracted voice, her eyes on Caitlin's biomechanics. "Not really. The heavy weight on the end changes the dynamics completely. Way more inertia, way more momentum."

    She pauses, frowning slightly. "On the other hand for someone like you or me, maybe that's just not very relevant. To be honest I've never really used a flail seriously. It's a very imprecise sort of a weapon, and that's just not me. I wouldn't think so though, you'd have to use quite different techniques."

    Donna fetches the can, and sits it back onto the edge of the chair. "The flick to tighten the noose I had you doing last time was a lot easier than this," she says. "When the thing you're trying to lasso doesn't move easily, you can tighten the noose by depending on the resistance of the thing you've caught, just pulling against it. With this you have to make a very sharp, rapid flick that is timed so that the... huh. I guess it's about wavelengths. The point is that you're creating both force and counter-force. If the motion causes the loop of the noose to pull against the can, it's gonna start falling, and unless the noose is already contracting very rapidly, it's going to slip right out."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin rounds up the rope again and attempts another cast. This one's a little prettier looking, both feet planted on the ground and her weight settled normally. The confidence from getting it right once seems to be infectious and her next toss lands atop the last still-standing can. She squeals again and hops a little on her toes, then focuses on the lasso and narrows her eyes. Her wrist twitches a few times before she gives it a single little flick *out* and then a flick *in* to draw the lasso tight. It stops a half-foot away from working before she overcorrects and knocks the can over, but it is a sight better than her previous attempts.

"You thought I was silly for using a warhammer, too," Caitlin reminds Donna. "I figured out how to use myself as a countermass pretty quickly. *No one* likes getting hit with a heavy maul," she says with a smug expression.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna gives a little nod. "Good. You got the technique's right there, but the amplitude was wrong. Basically you got to make the amplitude of the sine wave one half of the difference in circumference of the open noose and the closed noose, and the frequency... " she pauses again. "Fast. Exactly how fast depends on how damped the motion is, so it's down to the lasso you're using. Basically you'll get used to it with practice."

    It's a very Donna way to put it. That her explanation is both technical and instinctive shows how much she's the product of two worlds. Talking technique with Caitlin and Dick in particular has given her a perspective on these things which is unique amongst the Amazons, who presumably because they think of training as something that happens over centuries tend to rely on very precise muscle memory as their primary teaching process.

    "If I thought you were silly to use a warhammer, I wouldn't have encouraged it by giving you one," Donna points out with a grin. "It suits you. You're never going to be able to change the direction of your hammer round as rapidly as the tip of your sword, but then you're never going to get as much force into the tip of your sword if you're changing direction rapidly. My fighting style relies more on speed than yours does. And you've got a body mass advantage when it comes to being the counterweight to a hammer."

    The grin spreads wider, a sure mark of Amazon mischief incoming. "Don't worry Cait, I'm not calling you fat. You're just big boned."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin rolls the lasso loop in, exchanges it for another loop on the other end of the lasso, and gives it a firm *flick* at the back of Donna's thighs. "Anyone calls me fat, I'll sit on 'em," Caitlin threatens-- but she laughs merrily all the same. Caitlin's got plenty of body image issues, but given her physique, 'fat' is not a term she'd remotely apply to herself.

"Something I've noticed about you, though," Caitlin prompts Donna. "It's the flying. I mean not just the flying, but it's that you use it a lot in ways that you don't think of. Kara does it too," she explains. "Like... not thrust. Kian flies directionally, with momentum. You guys, its maneuvering in three dimensions. I've seen you do some pretty improbable things in a swordfight where terrain wouldn't normally let you have the footing to get away with it."

She rolls a shoulder at Donna. "I've been trying to spend more time with the sword, too. You're right; the maul just isn't as versatile, especially against anyone a lot faster than me. Plus if we're covering the team, I can do that a lot better with a shield in one hand," she points out. "Going all out on offense just ain't the solution all the time," she says with a wry little laugh.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna skips over the rope flicked at her legs; a smooth bicycle step Caitlin has seen both Donna and Diana do countless times when lasso sparring with each other. A whole other aspect of lasso skills, dodges and defensive motions just as much in sync with the sinusoidal motion of the rope as the attacks have to be. Part of it is practice, part the supernatural agility the sisters both show. When the two compete, even other Amazons like to watch. If the two have a kryptonite when it comes to lasso-fighting, for each of them it's their sister. Sparring sessions can take a while before either manages to get a rope on the other.

    "Kara and I have worked on that together," Donna admits. "That's not something that you learn as part of Amazon training given how few Amazons can fly. But it makes a whole lot of sense. We're not relying on wing beats and lift. We're pushing against the air in a way I don't really understand, but whatever it is, it works. No reason why not to use that in other ways. I'm sure there's a whole new martial art there to be developed for those of us who can fly like that, but as far as I'm aware nobody has done it yet. Maybe there's some aliens who have, and if so I want to spend some time learning with them. Kara and I did figure out some pretty useful little tricks though."

    She gives a shrug. "Kian's flying is different, but he's damn good with it. The way he uses his wings for differential air-braking to pull of some really sharp turns is impressive to watch. It's not the same kind of instantaneous force that Kara and I apply, but he could probably use his wings for balance in combat in some very interesting ways, if he was inclined to get good at combat. He's not, so I've never given it a whole lot of thought. And that's fine. The Titans have room for all kinds, not everyone has to be the combat specialists you and I are."

    Donna breaks into another grin, but this one is comradely rather than mischievous. "I'm glad you're doing more sword work, but honestly... we /are/ a team. Greater than the sum of the parts and all that. When you've got your maul and I'm fighting with sword and shield, I'm more effective at covering the team than you are, and you're more effective at producing the big hits than I am. And you know what? That works really damn well, Cait. We've been doing this long enough that we know what each other brings to the fight, and work with it. We're a dangerous combination, and if we both try to be generalists we lose out. Being better as a generalist is useful when we're not fighting together, but don't talk down the maul."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin matches Donna's grin with one of her own; it's a rare and completely uninhibited expression from the redhead, full of the same earnest joy as Donna and even in the afternoon sun, it lights up the rooftop.

"Yeah we're kind of awesome," Caitlin agrees with a casual immodesty. "We've only been doing it for... golly, almost eleven years?" she muses. "Seems like forever, doesn't it. I have known you for ninety-plus percent of my entire life."

A little rearranging moves the lasso back into a ready position and Caitlin makes some more casual tosses, this time aiming for the chair backs rather than the precision required for catching and snaring the soda cans. This enterprise proves more successful, and she gets some practice in flicking the cinch shut by going one direction, and loosening it up with a different twist of her wrist. "Wonder how long we'll be doing this," she muses. "I mean, not just the Titans, I mean-- nothing lasts forever," she amends. "But you and me fighting bad guys. In... whatever form that takes, in the future. I mean, we've got Amazons guarding the spaceport. Can you imagine putting our sisters in space?" she says-- and there's a look of wonder on her face as she looks skywards, speculating. "Defending the planet, here and on the stars."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "I imagine it all the time Cait, that's the long-term plan. Di already has the Amazons guarding the space port wearing a special uniform." Donna gives a happy laugh. "Mom's coming around to it, slowly but surely. When Di left for Man's World to fight in the First World War, the senate had a lot of debates about what the Amazons should be doing, and they never really stopped. There's a difficult issue to resolve in that nobody really thinks we should be interfering too directly in the affairs of other countries, but if we don't it really limits what we can do."

    " Di, Cassie, you, me -- we're doing it as individuals and that's kinda fine," Donna continues. She leans against the ledge lazily, watching Caitlin score hits on the cans. "We can't really send the army in to solve problems without causing a whole lot of extra problems though. If we're doing it without a request from a UN recognized government we're invading, and if we do get a request for help then other countries start panicking that we're taking sides if we help people. Protecting the planet from forces from outside though? That's something everyone can get on board with. It's the future, Cait. I'm certain of it."

    She shifts, a little uneasily. "Of course, we've seen it. When Alura's sister messed around with time and we got to see an alterative timeline where the Kryptonian Hegemony was fighting Amazons in Earth Orbit. Whatever happened to Earth in that timeline, the Kryptonians must have presented enough of a threat to Earth that we... the Amazons... took the decision we're starting to make now a long time ago. We took the first step on that path when Diana brought the army to Metropolis to defeat the Warzoon. It's important that we keep taking more steps down that path so that we aren't forced to make that progress while Earth is under attack."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Space Amazons," Caitlin muses. "SpaceAzons. Amazaspacers." She looks at Donna and wrinkles her nose. "We'll have to work on the name," she acknowledges. "Next time we're home, I should talk to Pallas about it. I bet we could use some of the exotic silks and skins on the island to make pretty durable environmental exosuits. I've had a couple ideas for that in the past, I mean I had to customize ours to work with armor already," she reminds Donna. "I don't think it'd be a huge effort to apply those designs for the rest of them."

Caitlin gathers the lasso back up into neat loops and sets it aside on the table. She interlaces her fingers and stretches her arms up over her head, producing a noisy series of *pops* from her shoulders. "Oh, that's better," she sighs.

"Alura invited me to come to New Krypton more often," Caitlin says, switching topics. "I don't know what all I can do there, but she seems really keen on having me around. Maybe it's just so Kara has someone to keep her company?" she guesses. "If nothing else I'll get a little time to study their technology and medicine. The crystals are really fascinating technology. Z-point modules that they grow like plants. Meanwhile, the smallest arc reactors here are with tens of millions of dollars." She shakes her head in bemusement. "Can you imagine what else they'd have done with that technology, except that they don't really *need* it?" she marvels.

Donna Troy has posed:
    The subject of New Krypton raises a slight hint of a frown from Donna. As much as she herself had done what she could to help Alura out with the plan to rescue the Kryptonians, she was not entirely convinced of the wisdom of doing that the way Alura had chosen. It seems fine now, but in the future? There's a lot riding on the New Kryptonians having learned from the errors of the past, and the response of the Oans remains a matter of real concern.

    Donna gives a quick shake of her head, as if to rid if of those thoughts. She recovers her lasso from the table, and loops it around her waist. "Next time you're at home you should talk to Pallas. But you should talk to Io too."

    Donna makes a show of looking around as if to check nobody is listening in, then leans forwards and speaks in a near whisper. "Io has been making rockets," she reveals. "They've been doing a whole lot of work at the Temple of Wisdom this last year to prepare the way. Redoing some of the old work that was done on submersibles centuries ago to work on air cycling and pressure vessels. We've got some big advantages in heat management already. They've even been working on a thrust vectoring mechanism built around a sph... an analog computer that might actually be pretty useful if we can persuade them that interfacing it to a digital computer really is going to be advantageous. Pallas and Io say they'll be ready to test a sub-orbital launch very soon."

    Donna smirks slightly. "Left to their own devices, they'll probably have a practical space craft for orbital activity within the decade. With Diana's disc to reverse-engineer they'll probably have caught up with Man's World a decade after that. I'm sort of hoping that you can be persuaded to work with them a bit and push the timescale forwards a bit by avoiding having to reinvent a whole lot of wheels. And before long I'd like to see if we can get Hippolyta's blessings to make this more than a bit of scientific experimentation and contract GIRL to provide all the parts our sisters are not really ready to construct themselves. If we're going to have Space Amazons I'd prefer them to be equipped with the best right from the start."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin gasps softly in surprise at the revelations. Then her eyes go flat with irritation. "That rotten little... I /asked/ Io if she was working on anything interesting!" she huffs. "No wonder she asked me to leave some of my old engineering textbooks behind last trip. I thought she was just taking an interest in the sciences."

Caitlin puts her hands on her hips and blows an angry raspberry. It seems to jettison any lingering ire and she nods at Donna once, firmly. "But I'll talk to them. Definitely. And I'm sure I can get Nadia to help us out with some of the heavy metals and exotic components," she assures Donna. "But really we either need to convince Tony to give us a spare arc reactor, or we'll need to ship some jet fuel to the island. An arc reactor's the only clean energy option that has enough power output to achieve escape velocity."

Caitlin's face flickers and she looks back at DOnna. "Wait, we have *submarines*?" she asks, incredulously, and spreads her hands at Donna in amazement. "Why-- how come this is the first I'm hearing of *them*, too?" she demands.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna bursts out laughing and gives Caitlin a shoulder-shove. "Cait, of course there are submarines, it's just nobody bothers using them. We had submarines when Rome was still a thing! Themyscira is populated by highly intelligent people who have had thousands of years to develop their knowledge and skills in an environment where all life's necessities are easily to hand, has never had a dark age, and has been gifted a significant portion of the wisdom of Hephaestus. We also have little need to develop technology beyond curiosity, so it's all... blue skies research. Someone gets an urge to make submarines, so they get made and experimented with for a while, and then scrapped when people move on to other interests because we don't have much need for them. If we actually /needed/ the technology, either because we fought wars against other nations or because they aided our comfort and survival, like other nations, we'd be centuries ahead of the rest of the world. Themyscira's first electrical generation plant was built when the rest of Europe was being impressed by the invention of the horse collar, but we still don't have a domestic electricity supply because nobody ever felt we needed one. "

    Donna tilts her head to the side. "There /is/ an alternative to the kinds of fuels you're used to," she says. "Though don't ask me to explain the science. It comes from our metallurgy -- highly porous metal structures with organic bonds, catalyzing a hydrogen reaction. That's what Io is working on. Far cleaner than jet fuels, the main waste product is steam. Charikleia has calculated the energy output is sufficient to send something into orbit. But you're absolutely right, rocketry is a dead end. Maybe that's enough for a rocket booster to get something in orbit that's meant to stay in orbit, but ultimately we need fusion plants at least, and arc reactors would be idea. Who knows what our sisters will learn from examining Diana's disc, but for now I am hoping that if GIRL can supply the power generation, navigation, control systems and interfaces, we should be able to put the rest together ourselves."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin barely rocks when pushed, rolling her eyes tolerantly at Donna's abuse. Abuse! She endures with the patience of a saint. "I'll talk to Chari, too, then," Caitlin assures Donna. She looks around and then sits on one of the concrete ledges near the pool, hands propping up her weight behind her. "I don't know how much help the Lansinaar Ship will be, though," Caitlin warns Donna. "I know that ship better'n anyone and it's more like Kryptonian crystals than mechanical aircraft. It's organic, too, there are too many systems in there that have spontaneous network assemblage rather than what we'd consider classical design. Like it's constantly growing and rerraranging inside."

She looks around, then leans an inch towards Donna, looking up at her. "I'm pretty sure it's not just a dumb ship, either. It's definitely got more personality than anything /I've/ ever flown. It's like when MARVIN is feeling put-out and starts messing with the climate control if it's feeling neglected."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna gives a little shrug. "Io and Charikleia are smart. I wouldn't count out the possibility that they'll figure out something useful from the disc. But if it's more like Kryptonian crystals... well, there's Alura too. I'm pretty sure she'd be willing to lend a hand."

    Donna gives Caitlin a side-eyed look, and a smirk. "Of course then there's that Amazon who's a really great engineer, an expert in the technology of Man's World, and experienced in space travel. You know, Aikaterine. I think we're counting on her to have a major impact on this whole initiative, you know."

    Smirk becomes a wide, happy grin. This is par for the course for Donna, who's never been good at hiding when she's in a good mood. She pulls a couple of bottled snacky-shakes out of a cooler and offers one to Caitlin.

    "It's not remotely a dumb ship. It's clearly a very advanced AI, but it's kinda... weird. Alien. That's why it's not entirely obvious. That's also why Diana lets other people fly it -- they're not actually in any danger of crashing it, because when you fly that thing you're not so much piloting it as giving it suggestions.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"I thought it was just a VI for the longest time," Caitlin tells Donna. She picks the strawberry shake and cracks the seal, then starts drinking greedily. A quarter of it's gone in a few gulps; as per usual, Caitlin's forgotten how hungry she actually is. Training will do that to her.

"I don't mind helping with the space initiative," Caitlin assures Donna after a beat. "I just wish I had been looped in sooner." There's always that little part of Caitlin-- the adolescent in her that she'll never *quite* get rid of-- that is clearly a little hurt by the implied exclusion. "But, it's not even like it's the first spaceship I've worked on. Or built," she says with a wry humor. "Who knows? Hyperdrives are becoming more and more common on Earth. If we can salvage a working one, maybe from some old derelict, we might even be able to make a truly interstellar ship. Though Queen Hippolyta might frown on us taking a bunch of our sisters out into the depths of space. That's a little far from Doom's Gate." Caitlin well understands the core duties of the nation of Themyscira-- to protect Earth, and to secure the world from the evil bubbling up out of Hades.

"Still-- you never know, right?" she says, and smiles winningly up at Donna again.