Post by Hematite on Dec 11, 2014 11:52:45 GMT
CRASH!
The stone form shook his head briefly and crawled out of the new crater in the empty construction site. Craning his head up he looked at the building he had thrown himself off of and grumbled about how foolish this must appear. Checking the sensors attached to his body, he grumbled as he saw the numbers on the displays. Taking out his journal, he continued his notes on the experiment.
Attempt number 27. Starting height = 33.14 meters. Flight duration = 2.6 seconds. Force of impact = 294.56 kJs. Data consistent with freefall equations. Attempt number 27 classified as failure. No flight achieved.
Observations: Prometheus, Sealeifr, Orbis, most likely others as well. How is this possible? How can they fly? Prometheus swears it is not a permutation of Movement of the Mind, but truly is Flight as I practice it. But that simply cannot be. How would that be possible without the wings?
Flexing his large stony wings Hematite examined them closely. He ran his fingers over every curve and line in the fluid stone. Ever since his transformation he had flown. It seemed as natural to him as walking, and clearly required the wings. Even if one could gain altitude and hover without them, how would one possibly bank and wheel, control one’s orientation, or even adjust one’s trajectory without the subtle adjustments in the wings? This simply did not make any sense.
Prometheus claims that all Gargoyles have been lied to. That would not surprise me in the slightest, but this is so strange. He claims to have learned Flight as a Discipline. Yet how can Flight be a Discipline? There are no powers involved, no blood, no will, no conscious activation. Yet clearly he has learned it. Perhaps he only believes he learned our Flight, instead rationalizing the Inception of his own new art to allow him to fly. That could be possible, and would certainly make more sense than the idea that we have had an unknown Discipline for hundreds of years. Yet if his form truly is an Inception, then it is superiour to mine. Admittedly I have never been the greatest of fliers, but it seems incongruous that a newly developed technique designed to mimic a natural feat could so quickly surpass the capabilities of those who practice the feat naturally. In most cases, mimicry is somewhat inferior to the original in at least some aspect until the technique has been better refined.
Ever since Prometheus had shown him that he could fly, what is more, that he could outfly Hematite, the Gargoyle had begun these experiments, attempting to fly without the use of his wings. 27 attempts to far and 27 failures. Perhaps there was just some special trick he was missing, some way to focus his mind to the problem. If Flight was a Discipline as Prometheus claimed, then there had to be a mental component, a focusing of the will to the activation of the art. Yet for him, and for all Gargoyles as far as he knew, Flight had always been a purely physical pursuit, given no more thought than walking. With a sudden insight, Hematite began writing again.
Flight being a primarily physical pursuit, and one that each Gargoyle begins with inherent aptitude for, perhaps this has led all of us to ignore the true mechanics of it. How much thought does the average man pay to the mechanics of walking or running? Yet to a child learning his first steps, the act of walking is something requiring intense concentration. This stage of learning is something that Gargoyles never went through, which could go a long way toward explaining why I and others like me cannot comprehend the idea of Flight as a Discipline. Simply put, we never learned it. Further experimentation along this avenue is warranted.
Putting away the journal, Hematite took to the sky. He had grown more proficient in flying through these experiments. Only weeks ago it would have taken him a long running start to achieve liftoff. Now with only a few flaps of his wings he was airborne, soaring high above the construction site. Quieting his mind he felt out along his body the way he did when he altered his form with Vicissitude. He felt every muscle, every bone, every tendon, noting how each moved against the others as he flapped his wings. It was obvious to anyone remotely observant that a Gargoyle’s flight had to have some mystical component. After all, in his current form he weighed over 2000 pounds. Yet there was also a definite physical piece as well, or so he had always believed. Perhaps something in the precise interaction of the muscles would tell him more. As he dove and swooped, performing all the familiar manoeuvres he had done a thousand times before, he thought he noticed something strange, something he had never noticed before. Alighting on a rooftop, he retrieved the journal and took down some observations.
With each of the aerial manoeuvres, the physical reactions differ greatly, but the physical actions taken to initiate the manoeuvre are oddly similar. Having observed the flight of birds and bats, when a natural flyer attempts a bank or a dive, the movements just prior to the manoeuvre are strikingly different. Yet when I attempted the same, it was as if I went straight from flying straight ahead to diving without any preparatory change, as if once I thought about banking, I banked and when I thought about diving, I dove. This evidence strongly supports the existence of a mental component in my Flight ability, yet clearly more proof will be needed before any true conclusion can be drawn. Perhaps the physiological requirements of Gargoyle flight are nothing more than a crutch, a tool used to focus the mind rather than actually being necessary to the process. More evidence required.
This concludes the experimental data and observations for Attempt number 27.
Looking down off the roof of the building he was perching on, Hematite saw the concrete some 20 stories below. Looking back up at the sky, the moon shone bright. He had hours left still, and his mind was already in the right place to continue this work. With a grin, Hematite threw himself off the building, careful to tuck his wings in to avoid contamination of the experiment. He attempted to focus his mind, to will himself to fly, to climb back into the sky and…
CRASH!
Clearing the ringing from his head and shaking the cement dust from his face, Hematite climbed out of the considerably larger crater he had made this time. Checking his instruments and sensors he retrieved the journal and began a new page.
Attempt number 28. Starting height = 74.58 meters. Flight duration = 3.9 seconds. Force of impact = 662.91 kJs. Data consistent with freefall equations. Attempt number 28 classified as failure. No flight achieved.