1.7: Ki Particles and Energies - Part 1
A unanimous decision was made to dedicate this section to our infinitely patient and long suffering mother, Chichi. One of the many reasons for her suffering and our endless gratitude towards her will have become abundantly clear by the end of this section.
For this and the next two sections we're in a chicken-and-egg situation. I'm going to describe the model of ki I've developed, through ki particles and energies, then how natural levels of ki flux and pressure are changed (though not how to do that, that will be in the next chapter) and finally discuss the crucial background ki field and how that is utilised. However, understanding the origin of ki fully requires knowing about the background ki field, so there is no linear way to discuss this. Still, I shall try my best.
In this section I also want to take some time, since this is as good a place as any, to talk about an alien species I previously mentioned called "the Saiyans". There were at times heated discussions over whether I should add this or not. Eventually we decided although information on them may be more of side-curiosity in this book, in a few generations the fun facts will become directly useful (I'd hope) to more and more people. That, and by exploring this tangent, whilst very exposing to some and possibly alarming to others, life will become easier for everyone in the long run.
As with any scientific theory or model, my work is a best guess. Many years ago, philosophers believed the world was at the centre of the Universe, surrounded by planets sat on singing spheres. This was as good an understanding of the Universe as any and was accepted as fact. As civilisation grew and time progressed questions were raised of this idea - if the Earth is at the centre of the Universe and the planets travel in perfect circles around them, why do the planets appear to move backwards at times in so-called retrograde motion? Surely the heavenly bodies are perfect and so must only move in circles? The philosophers adjusted their model to have planets move in circles within circles, so sometimes the planets would appear to travel back on themselves. More and more observations of the planets were taken and as measurements improved more circles had to be added until the model broke down in absurdity. A better model was invented, the idea that the Sun was at the centre of all the planets and the planets - including the Earth - moved in circles around the Sun. That was far, far simpler an explanation and had far better predictive power and so a paradigm shift, a movement from the paradigms of geocentricity to heliocentricity, took place. Small adjustments have been made to this model itself, planets orbiting in ellipses rather than circles and more, but the idea of the Sun at the centre still remains. This theory, encompassing the understanding of orbital motion, is our current best theory in this domain.
A strong theory can explain the current, known observations of a particular experiment or system. Further, the theory or model has some way of constructing a prediction in an experiment to test itself. If the theory fails modifications can be added (with circles) and further twisted (circles upon circles) until the theory breaks completely and a simpler, more predictive explanation appears. I admit now that my explanation and construction of ki particles and energies and fields is only that, a theory; a framing of the abstract in a way that makes some semblance of sense in a repeatable and predictable fashion. The Universe is a strange and wonderful place and whilst I feel I have been able to explain most parts of ki, I am positive there will be some technique invented in the future that scuppers my understanding completely. Of course I will feel some disappointment and frustration at the news of my model's failure, though the excitement of someone using that new observation to develop a more encompassing model is far greater to me. Until that day, this is what I have, and the buoying news that the greatest natural ki-users in the Universe barely understood a word of what I was going on about anyway.
I've been speaking of ki as a form of energy for some time now, as a way to transfer intent and energy to use in other forms from one place to another as a kind of nebulous cloud. But in truth, for individual and varying messages to be carried, there needs to be some form of parcellation, a separation of intent into individual units - in the same way light can be divided into photons or matter into atoms. Crucially however, unlike the photons from the previous section that are in themselves packets of energy only, ki consists of both particles (essentially empty vessels) and ki energy, a substance that can encode raw energy and intent. The combination of the two in the body makes genki. This is akin to an atom acting as a vessel and carrying a varied charge, for example.
Briefly, as I will cover this in 1.9, both ki particles and ki energy are derived from the ki field, an all-permeating undercurrent in the Universe that binds the Universe together. Ki particles cannot be created or destroyed, only taken up and dissipated. Ki energy can be created from other forms of energy (derived from food for example), and also spontaneously exists as part of the ki field like a form of noise. The natural state of ki particles and energy is to exist separated in a kind of neutrality. Life however needs the two combined and ordered, the particle acting as a vessel or carrier for the ki energy that expresses intent, the intent being used to monitor bodily functions or subconsciously communicate in a social setting. When genki leaves the centre, the unnatural state of the combination makes genki inherently unstable and, without an explicit encoded intent telling the genki to persist as long as possible, the intent within the genki will degrade over time and the two eventually separate, both returning to the background field and noise.
[ Figure 1 ]
[ groundbreakingsci-stuff dot com/post/169633764812/1point7p1#one ]
Figure demonstrating the ki particle/ki energy model, showing how different particle flow rates can still have the same total overall energy, and how ki signatures and intents can be coded within ki energy.
The centre itself is a store of ki particles. These are taken from the field and kept at a higher density from that of the background. The particles then flow from the centre at an approximately consistent rate until depleted, although under normal circumstances the natural replenishment rate of particles in the centre prevents that depletion from occurring. As highlighted in section 1-5, the size of the centre, whilst in real space can be thought of as a point in the lower abdomen that ki radiates from, can also be modelled to have a size, a spherical shape and therefore surface that is proportional to its capacity.
There appears to be a fixed relationship governing the size/capacity of an individual's centre, the standard flow rate of particles leaving the centre and the uptake rate of particles. That is, if no ki particles are taken up to replace those used, the centre will natural deplete itself within half an hour, no matter the lifeform. Further, the flow from the centre is not governed by a passive diffusion gradient as one would expect from a simple spherical centre with a physical surface area - the diffusion rate instead limited by the permeability of the centre's "surface". This keeps the average flow rate from the centre consistent until depletion and means, given a sufficiently large permeability of the surface, the entire centre could hypothetically be evacuated of particles within an instant. In other words. the centre loses particles at a fixed rate until the very last drop, and that rate can be manipulated to the point the centre could effectively explode itself.
The ability to collect particles is a natural and automatic behaviour of your centre. I've only been able to calculate this flow and depletion rate due to the existence of one technique known as fusion, which hinders this uptake ability. From the natural time-limit of the technique and the mandatory hour gap between fusions, I was able to calculate that the uptake-rate of ki particles is one-and-a-half times that of natural depletion. The full restoration of ki particles to the centre therefore takes an hour.
As the ki particles leave the centre they are assigned a ki energy. The body converts a proportion of food energy to ki energy to then create genki. The energy sits on the centre "surface", in trulth at that central point, and each particle is assigned a fixed (with some small variance) amount of ki energy on passing through. Ss ki energy nears depletion, this amount of ki per particle may drop as the body struggles to scrape together enough ki energy or food energy to convert to keep up. This sputtering of genki therefore is a huge warning flag that someone is about to run out of steam completely.
Each parcel of genki contains the individual's ki signature and could be imbued with intent or not, active or passive. Regardless of the intent, each parcel contains (roughly) the same amount of overall energy. How is that possible?
Think of ki energy as string of letters (like a DNA code). Each letter is a piece of energy by itself, but the exact order of the letters has the capacity to carry a message or not. As the energy is parcelled up and assigned to the particle, at a minimum some particular letters will be ordered and strung all the way through as a repeating pattern. This is the ki signature. The ki signature acts like a password for the rest of the body to understand that this ki energy is safe, and the rest of the message the genki is carrying, the intent, should be acted upon.
One may conclude then that the greater the amount of ki energy assigned to a particle, the more complicated an intent can be. This is true, the most complicated techniques do require a higher ki energy per particle and not just a huge total energy to construct. We also know that the more complicated the intent i.e. the longer the instruction, the faster the message degrades. This says to me that these complicated messages take many more bits or "letters" of ki energy to encode, and those are more susceptible to random swapping of letters than shorter messages. Intents are, like the ki signature, repeated throughout the ki energy where possible to maintain integrity and thus survive for longer.
When the ki reaches its destination the energy encoded within the message and ki signature itself can be converted into other forms of energy again - light, kinetic, you name it. The manner of conversion is also governed by the intent.
Why does ki need two components in this fashion, with the concept of an empty vessel to fill? Why not have the ki parcellating itself, much like photons from the previous section do?
The centre itself cannot be detected by anyone other than its owner. Combined ki particles and energy drag on the ki field and those particular vibrations are picked up through ki-sense. If ki existed as one entity this drag would always be present and thus always detectable. I could then directly detect how much energy an opponent had left, rather than be limited to their moment-by-moment output of ki energy as I am now. In reality, when I sense my centre I am combining both what I can only describe as a sensation of "weight", a measure of the potential ki energy sitting on the centre surface, and a sensation of "wrongness" indicating how empty my typically full centre is. Both of these sensations do not impact on the ki field and thus cannot be sensed by others.
Further, I can suppress my energy level to zero by preventing any particles leaving my centre to pick up ki energy. Both those sensations of weight and wrongness do not change for me in this case (the wrongness marginally easing as the ki particles replenish), however anyone else attempting to sense me would not detect any ki. If ki existed as one entity, there would be no difference within and without the centre, this ki would be detectable to everyone and I would not be able to hide it. There needs to be some difference within and without the centre for this to happen, therefore this separation.
This two-part nature is also reinforced by the two ways one can get tired as a heavy ki-user. The first we're all familiar with - when the amount of ki energy to be assigned to ki particles has been depleted, there is complete exhaustion. Without nutrition to begin the process of putting ki back onto the centre surface or using donated passive genki, the user risks death. As returning from this state requires refuelling, this is a difficult position to bounce back from in battle, and is the most familiar way to get exhausted. The less common way is a complete exhaustion of ki particles - as the centre surface's permeability can be changed and despite the replenishment rate the centre can reach zero. This is far easier to recover from with just rest in battle, and then more careful management of the use of ki thereafter to build up the centre again.
If there were only ki packets with a fixed energy, users would only experience the first type of exhaustion and would not be able to recover from just a short rest.
If there was no separation, then one would believe ki packets to be same size for everyone (or even just within a person) or fixed to the length of the intent, and an increase in power level would be an increase the number of energy packets. This is not true. Even within a person one can vary the number of ki particles leaving the centre and the amount of energy per ki particle being assigned (the latter being subconsciously possible even for non-ki-users through emotional changes). These two different types of changes mean a two-fold increase in power level through one method can be far more draining and dangerous than a fifty-fold increase using a different method. Without this separation, this difference in side effect becomes difficult to explain. Augmenting particle and energy outputs and how that reflects the power level, ki pressure and flux is discussed in the next section, as well as the different "notches" these increases have - not just a linear increase in effort is needed to achieve increases in power levels.
I hesitate to give the fundamental nature of ki a full mathematical treatment beyond mere analogy. Whilst I do believe ki requires a fifth fundamental force to explain, for me to attempt to construct one would be doing a great disservice to The Standard Model of physics as it stands - even if received wisdom is routinely ignored by Auntie Bulma's engineering projects. That, and, as multi-disciplinary as my research is, I am not a theoretical physicist so wouldn't dare embarrass myself in this fashion. Still, I believe my model is a fair analogy, and as ki seems to embody energy and interact with other forms, it stands to reason ki must fit snuggly into a future version of The Standard Model.
In keeping with this, we know matter can be transformed into photons - the very famous E=mc2 mass-energy equivalence (total energy is the rest mass times the speed of light squared) governing how this conversion occurs. Ki can do the same, converting into both photons and matter. Intent can therefore be effectively solidified into matter that appears lifelike. Ki can even rearrange and reconstruct matter in some cases, using particular transformations and techniques that would otherwise appear to break our current understanding of energy conservation. Even the concept of teleportation, which without ki is limited to making copies of small objects rather than transferring the matter itself, is made much more palatable with ki. Ki-based teleportation instead deconstructs matter into intent and the intent moves instantaneously through the ki field, providing an exact reconstruction of a person at the destination without halting their consciousness. This solves the ethical issue of whether a teleported "reconstruction" of a person truly is the same person; it is if using ki, as the full intent, the entire being of the person, has been transferred and the body's state reconstructed completely.
A note - ki does not explain every physics-breaking happenstance in the Universe. There is of course still magic, yet another mysterious force of nature that I dare not touch given the sheer lack of apparent underlying ruleset. This is not something I say lightly. I have thought extensively about the magic I have been exposed to and even had performed on me, but I am not a magic user and I've had to come to terms with my ineptitude in this field. I hope one day magic users will be as forthcoming in explaining their craft as we are attempting to be with ki - when that day comes I'll be first to buy the book. There are magic techniques that manipulate ki as a consequence without the user being an explicit ki-user, the art of transformation taught at the Shapeshifting Academies for example. But there aren't many techniques that can use ki to consequently cause magic to occur (the fusion dance being one). This may indicate some form of hierarchy between the two, but I cannot be certain.
The total genki requirement of a body is dependent on a number of factors - size, level of forward planning required and physical exertion to name a few. Using genki for more than just carrying intent is a natural ability for other species in the Universe; some xeno-animals fly purely through ki-use for example. Earthlings, whilst highly emotional and sensitive to ki due to high socialisation and therefore possess great potential, naturally have a very low power level due to lack of use otherwise. At the other extreme, some lifeforms in the Universe have been using ki-skills for so long the ability to use ki becomes an evolutionary pressure in itself.
Evolutionary pressures can yield some wonderful results. In the animal kingdom on Earth the ability to eat the highest and therefore less sought after leaves on trees meant the giraffe never went hungry. The giraffes with the longest necks were more likely to survive and reproduce, driving the length of the next generation of necks upwards at the cost of other luxuries (the ability to maintain dignity when drinking from a watering hole, for example). I am thinking of one particular case of evolutionary competition driving ki-energy levels upwards in a species.
In a previous section I explained how ki is taught within different cultures and mentioned the warrior race of Saiyans. They'd teach that ki was to be used to dominate other species and as a show of strength. As ki can be used to great effect in battle and the use of ki amongst those tempestuous Saiyans was widespread enough, those without the ability to manipulate ki were wiped out. Further, those individuals with a natural higher energy per particle, and thus more energy immediately available to use in battle, were favoured for survival. I've briefly mentioned that amplification of genki requires a calm mind and introspection. Saiyans are not predisposed to self-reflection by any means. Between most Saiyans then, the highest unmodified genki would win a fight. And thus the Saiyans inadvertently created an evolutionary pressure on themselves, making future generations into the giraffe equivalent of ki-users, the absurdly high natural ki both a blessing in battle and a curse to maintain.
However, think on this. A Saiyan's genki may dwarf many other species' in the Universe, though thankfully they cannot harness it as an Earthling would. But imagine their potential should they learn to amplify their strength like an Earthling? Wouldn't that be something terrifyingly entertaining to witness? Hm.