#i hope i made it clear i'm not talking about canon essek here xD

[spottedenchants]

@lopfloo

Why would the tiny readings about the ley lines an incredible distance from any of his plans matter to Ludinus? And the Assembly has their new haxon outpost right in that area, if he even cared about it they could do it for him. the instrument would just tell essek when the ley energy is strong and it'll be easier to progress his research, not give secrets to the universe

Good question! I think I answered it under the readmore in my reply above, but I'll summarize that point and then elaborate a bit more on the background of it :D (and then the other points, because words go brrr 👀)

Summary:

In Touching Sentiments (my post-C2 Essek fic series), it's less about geometer/leyline location and more about the changing strength of the leyline readings indicating the approach of the Apogee Solstice!

(In a real-world example, the tiny shift in leyline strength readings tangentially reminds me of the transit method of exoplanet discovery! Way way simplified: if a star's light dims a teeny teeny tiny amount on a periodic basis, this indicates that there might be something smaller and less bright (ex. a planet) blocking its light at those regular intervals. But that is neither here nor there- back to Exandria we go xD)

Background:

Over the past 2-ish years, I've had several independent lines of thought that I needed to resolve for my fics:

a. Why did TS!Essek have the weather-vane device, how exactly did it connect with his research, and what is (some of) his research? (for chronology, I was considering this well before ExU: Calamity told us what a geometer does with more depth, and ley stuff was hardly a glancing topic for the duration of C2) b. What might be a reasonable avenue and non-dunamantic topic of study for TS!Essek to pursue once he leaves his Dynasty resources behind? c. Why might Yussa have reason to interact with TS!Essek outside of the context of the Mighty Nein? d. What might TS!Essek and Ryn talk about if they were to meet? e. Did TS!Essek give the Assembly anything aside from the beacons/dunamantic knowledge, and if so, what was it? f. probably other things that I can't remember off the top of my head, since this has all been cooking for a While xD

and the conclusion I came to, that TS!Essek had been studying leyline-related topics in Rosohna AND that he also sent data about leyline strength to Ludinus over a lengthy period of time (say, three years as part of a secretive deal, perchance >:3c), ties up all of those questions nicely! :D

New Haxon:

As the C2 transcripts are largely the touchstone (ha) for Touching Sentiments lore, New Haxon wasn't on my radar since as far as I can tell, it's only mentioned in EGtW and I haven't looked much at the Blightshore section yet, but that's definitely an interesting sounding place! Its existence doesn't really answer any of my questions above though, so I don't see any reason to include it in my series (for now~ who knows what might come up xD)

Secrets of the universe:

As for daily leyline readings not giving secrets of the universe, this is probably true! When it comes to astronomical events that occur over human-lifespan periods of time (such as Apogee Solstices, in Exandria's case), raw data generally is not very illuminating if looked at on a strictly daily scale.

Phrased from a different angle, one can't really get a sense of climate at large if all they're looking at is the weather a single minute at a time! :0

This is where archival data and data analysis comes in! By comparing different readings over different days, weeks, months, and years, perhaps patterns in the cyclically shifting strength of the leylines would become apparent.

And!!! :D And we know picking out leyline patterns like this is a distinct possibility in modern Exandria because hey, Ryn noticed the leylines' months-long cycle! :D

So in short, TS!Essek can have some leyline research, as a treat :3

Here is another cat: ♡ॢ₍⸍⸌̣ ʷ̣̫⸍̣⸌₎

is now a good time to state my headcanon that essek's theft of the beacons was a minimal contribution to ludinus's overall plans (in that, aside from the distraction of the war, he only gave lewds like a few months head start and maybe some dunamantic basics, since the assembly would get ahold of the pride's call beacon anyway) and that the part essek actually heavily affected was analysis of exandria's ley lines with that geometer on the top of his towers