Hermann Gottlieb (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mathemagier) wrote2025-08-03 01:28 pm
mathemagier) wrote2025-08-03 01:28 pm
IC Contact Post
[Screened calls go straight to voicemail, where an impatient recording answers]
You've reached Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. Leave your name, number, and business if you expect a return call. Thank you.
no subject
It begins simply enough, and Newt reads it as if he was reading his lecture, with interest and variety, but still somewhat lacking the passion of a delivered speech, because he has no idea where this letter was going, or why, really, other than what could be surmised from reading Hermann's replies.]
"I promise future correspondence will be conducted in a more professional, type-written manner." Well, that was a lie, huh?
[Clearly this has been in response to a conversation that is now lost--unless it is on the network somewhere--to forgotten memories. But luckily, he has done a decent enough job of memorializing what it was about. They had obviously argued over calling their Drift a superpower. What a lame argument. How incredibly domestic, while trying too hard to be academic. It is cute, he finds himself thinking. Very cute. Almost like they want to argue. ...If it wasn't himself and Hermann, it would be extremely disgustingly adorable. (I'm seriously disgusting, he told Joaquin earlier. How true that is now).]
We've got to be careful with this thing. I've basically laid out the parameters and possibilities of our Drift, here, dude. [Hermann had, in his half, expressed concern about others knowing about their powers, and Newt can now see why.]
Hermann-goggles. Cute. [He keeps reading.]
...Together nearly 24/7. God. And we lived to tell the tale. [...And, after the room analogy:] ...Shit, do I ever shut up? And after all that, all I say is "Semantics"? Really, jesus. Take the pen away from me. [...He conceded a point to Hermann. Wow.]
...So these are the bulleted alphabetical points your letter discusses.
[Newt looks up, finishes the line, and stares at Hermann, concern and uncertainty tugging his mouth down into a frown.] "...there is no going back. The tape has been ripped up. Otachi Jr aside, our lab was our Jaeger." ...Otachi Jr.?
no subject
[He wonders why it was written to start with, rather than verbally discussed. Perhaps Newton had only wanted to get it all down on paper. Hermann follows along, nodding as points he remembers reading crop up, and eyes the next letter in the stack. Still, that is a curious stopping point and his brows furrow]
Yes.. I wasn't certain what to make of that. Either the kaiju are breeding or you have awful taste in names.
no subject
[His voice rises in argument.] I do NOT have awful taste in names. I have GREAT taste in names. And I'm not saying they CAN'T breed, because they have to, how else are they made, but...we have yet to see any with reproductive organs. But that's not the point, Hermann. The point is...
The point is I don't know what I mean, exactly, but listen: "Otachi Jr. aside, our lab was our Jaeger." What do you do with a Jaeger? What do you know we did and what do you do with a Jaeger and we can't do it with our lab so what I'm saying is--what I'm saying is you'd never have consented to it, so clearly this is a mistake and--damn, if that's not a brilliant idea, though. I mean, if we could harvest a viable brain and--damn. We have the technology.
[He shakes his head. It's ridiculous. Hermann never would have, no one would have. But imagine what they might LEARN about them.
He picks back up the letter and tries to get the idea out of his head.]
Nine to ten years, Hermann. We went nearly a decade without writing another letter.
no subject
But the thought of the kaiju breeding is enough to raise shivers along his back and arms. Does it get that bad?]
Don't be absurd, Newton. One pilot can't move a Jaeger without suffering neural overload. A Kaiju brain would surely be too much--
[And it clicks, or he thinks it does. Something settles into place at least]
You must have.. no, I'm certain? You drifted with one, and it almost killed you.
[Is that how he saves Newton's life? Like Dr. Lightcap had done for D'onofrio? Hermann quiets, unsettled]
no subject
No. No, that is impossible. That is... Not Hermann. But if anyone could have, with Newt--but no, why would...he didn't... He looks over at Hermann's quiet profile, and feels a swell of emotion starting in his gut and chest. Hermann cared about him that much as to risk his own life to--
He can't shake the idea of Lightcap, of D'onofrio, of what the press said about their relationship...and Newt thinks of the NYE video Joaquin showed him, and the conversation and Newt's yearning just to see Hermann. Even if it wasn't a romantic gesture, the Drift, it was terribly romantic, terribly loving in a way that went beyond both friendship and romance--
Why? he wants to ask, knowing Hermann himself doesn't know. Or does he, even now, years before the event? Why me? and Thank you.
He's been too quiet, gawking at Hermann, and Newt tries to say something, spew out some science, just to get himself off the thought that was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me, and I don't even remember it.]
Do you think we... Do you think a Jaeger slapped a pons on one of them and we--? No, that's ridiculous. That's really absurd, although, maybe if we could attach something we could control one and--
There's no way, though, I mean, a Jaeger is just a vessel for the two brains, but the Kaiju--that's like trying to mindcontrol. We have no idea what their brains are like, what they think; that's territory I can't even begin to guess at, their compulsions, their instincts--we couldn't be Drift compatible with a Kaiju...!
no subject
He sets his rice down]
I very much doubt the PPDC would have built a Pons specifically for a kaiju. Reread your bullet points regarding our drift capabilities again.
[It's a terrible idea, the nervous twisting in his gut informs him. But if they could find out for a certainty..]
no subject
[Newt grumbles and reads them, and again. And a third time aloud just because he's clearly not seeing what Hermann wants him to see. Obviously there had to be a pons involved the FIRST time, right? So what was he ...]
... Are you...Are you saying you think they're being mind-controlled? Or that they're mentally linked or something, like all attached wirelessly to a super-mainframe or some shit? [He shook his head] We're ghost-drifting, Hermann. That's all this is. WE are linked, not the Kaiju. An exaggerated ghost-drift enhanced by the Porter. You and me--
Besides! An intact brain is extremely difficult to harvest from the corpse; the skull plate is so dense that by the time you drill into it the brain's rotted away. You'd have to go for the secondary brain and those are almost always damaged by the battle. Jaeger pilots aren't nearly careful enough and their weaponry is too crude and the Kaiju too resilient to be killed u without causing a lot of blunt-force trauma or lacerations, rendering samples damaged beyond use!
...Although. [He considers for a second] If they WERE breeding, which I'm not going to say they are--well, clearly they are, if there's a junior, unless it's just a smaller Kaiju--but if they were? Theoretically, a fetal or newly hatched or newly born Kaiju might have a soft enough skull section for us to physically embed a line directly to the cortex and jack into it, as it were!
[But what could you even learn from a baby Kaiju? It's brain isn't even fully developed, it's instincts not yet honed. It's just an animal. Unless.
...Unless.
Unless Hermann is right.
If that were the case, the Kaiju would be so much more dangerous than they ever imagined.]
Holy shit--