A/N Credit to Sphygmus for his suggestions on ways to make Magic sound scientific.
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"Last time you were here you mentioned you used a program -." Major Carter paused. "That was Magic?"
"The spell or program, whichever word you want to use, was powered by the energy that leaked from the tear under our hometown, the one we later discovered the Mayor wanted to use. Well, he wanted to use the energy to make himself powerful enough to rule the world. It wouldn't really have worked though. I mean sure, he would have become very powerful, but he wouldn't have survived the government dropping a bomb on his head the moment they knew what he'd done. He didn't really think it through." Xander smirked. "There's energy and then there's energy and one can cancel the other out."
"So true." O'Neill smirked back. "I happen to be very good with that kind of energy, the blowing up kind."
"I suspect the soldier versions of me that we've met might be too."
"And you can control it with your mind?" Carter asked.
"Mind, not intelligence, it's not a matter of who's smarter." Xander told her. "Although people with megabrains, like you, once they understand it, seem to be able to explain it better then I do. Willow, she's someone I've known since I was two and might as well be my sister, she's a megabrain. She explains it as psychokinetic meta-physic dark energy."
"Psychokinetic," Dr. Fraser frowned thoughtfully. "Using the mind to cause movement?"
"The energy responds to thoughts, emotions, will, visualization, beliefs and the subconscious, so psychokinetic." Xander answered. "You start training young so you have some semblance of control over it, using the parts of the human brain that we know are there but can't point to a map of the brain and say, this is where it is."
"True." Dr Fraser nodded. "And the field of psychology is still fairly new, at least in this reality, but deals with those particular aspects of the human mind. We acknowledge they exist and the effect they have on us, personally and to an extent, those around us. You're positing that these are the areas of the mind that can access and control this energy."
"Yes." Xander confirmed. "And kids have a greater capacity for things like visualization, imagination and such than adults."
"And more flexible, elastic minds." Dr. Fraser nodded. "So if you start training as a child, you can carry that into adulthood where control becomes easier."
"That makes sense." Carter nodded. "And imagination can be something I lack, but not inspiration and intuitive leaps."
"The subconscious recognizing something the conscious mind doesn't." Dr. Fraser agreed.
"Hunches, gut instinct." O'Neill offered. "I get those a lot, guess my subconscious pays more attention than my conscience mind."
A snort from General Hammond, who carefully looked innocent when the rest glanced at him, was the all response they got on that statement, but clearly he agreed.
"Metaphysics?" Carter got the conversation back on topic.
"When used it can briefly overwrite the laws of physics and science, so Meta-physic." Xander answered.
"Overwrite the laws of physics and science?" Carter looked confused. "But laws are absolute, the speed of light doesn't change, for instance. FTL happens because the ship drops into a different dimension where the laws of physics are different."
"One of the members of our team can run fast enough to break the sound barrier, the Air Force has planes that break the sound barrier. Isn't that overcoming physics?" Xander asked innocently.
"I was a test pilot, yes they do." O'Neill grinned. "And yes, it probably is."
Carter just nodded slowly as her agile mind began to really think about what Xander was saying and find an understanding, as she slowly started to accept as well. "And the dark energy part I understand. Dark energy is energy we cannot yet detect but know has to exist because of the effect it has on observable energy and matter. And there may be multiple forms of dark energy."
"The way science means dark energy and the way Magic means dark energy are different though." Xander explained. "For you, dark means currently unknown, which is the way Willow means it when she explains it. For me and other Magic users, it means something that can warp and twist and ultimately destroy. Through trial and error over the centuries we've identified a number of regions and high powered individuals within those regions where the energy the region has and that they utilize is either dark or light. We can access both, but the dark energy is corrosive to us."
"Like radiation." Dr. Fraser suggested.
"Exactly and the spell, the program you use, identifies which source you're attempting to draw from. I do my very best to avoid the dark, it has the added complication of being addictive." He shuddered, remembering the other Willow who'd unknowingly drawn from that dark energy. He hoped they were able to help her. "But you can't think of it as simply a program either, because that's not exactly what it is. Because no matter how you use that dark energy, it will still hurt you. If you simply think of it as a + b equals c and the b, the energy you draw is dark, it will accomplish what you're trying to do, but it will hurt you in the process. So you have to make sure you draw from a clean source, because even if you used it constantly for centuries, those light energies don't cause harm."
"And you want to see if our equipment can register the energy Dawn puts out when she generates a portal and find a way to counter the energy so she isn't accidentally using it." Carter summed up. "We're more scientifically minded than you are and in our Program we find and analyze a wide variety of things that you haven't encountered and consequently have no way of analyzing yourself."