Although I'm not actually sure if the nature of the you thing is that you can use knowing people that well in that way or if it's that you know people that well in the first place.

Maybe a bit of both? Findekánë'd say that the positioning-people-to-use-their-selves-as-well-as-possible is a Fëanorian thing and the understanding-people-at-all is a Maitimë thing.

Seems plausible.

Anyway, eventually we'll surpass the Valar - well, you will, at least - and then they'll probably seem much less annoying.

I'm really excited about eclipsed/artifact and eclipsed/magic music interactions in the longer run.

Yeah. Faster artifact writing would be the big one, now that computers have cut design time down by so much.

And - there're two worlds with different magic systems, seems likely as not that there're more -

Combinatorial explosion!

We can cheat at everything!! I know my mother has at least spent some time thinking about whether there could be an artifact design that'd let some things which require consistent psionic attention work without.

That'd be so great, virtualities would get so much cheaper to maintain -

And there goes scarcity, maybe, if people are mostly willing to do that -

Cheaper virtualities doesn't guarantee pleasanter stays, but that can be attacked separately.

So much to do.

They get even richer, which is good because Mongolia's infrastructure expansion is going to be pricy. The port city north of Alqualondë - it's calling itself Vinyalondë until the linguists can convene to debate a proper name - introduces motorboating to the coast of Valinor. The Teleri like it, but refuse to import any, they want to learn how to make them. Tirion sends some of its electrical engineers. 

There are bids for exploratory peeks at Endorë, but they come in slowly and the eclipse comes up before they've signed with anyone. 

And Isabella goes and with the other precogs averts a tsunami, six city blocks of mind melding, a sinkhole, the mass blinding of half of Providence, two fires, an illusion sound loud enough to drown out everything else going on in Baltimore, a plague, a hailstorm, a swath of clean quiet death barely caught in time -

- why do the stupid fucking kids eat -

- she goes home, after Alex takes her out for chicken wings and a sundae, and she has a nap.

And when she wakes up she has a Maitimë.

That is nice. Snuggle. Hi.

Hi. I brought snacks.

She did bring snacks.

You're amazing. Nom nom nom.

You okay?

Yeah, I'm okay. Stupid kids. Tsunami kid didn't fast at all, wasn't even one of the medical-reason types, just - and his parents didn't pay enough attention -

What was it like when it happened for you?

I didn't eat. Me and Alex both sat through forty-eight hours sucking down plain water. So I didn't manifest an effect, I just knew -

It was like this: suddenly it matters whether things make sense. Magic is unteachable and individual and idiosyncratic but it makes sense, and a non-eclipsed can understand things as well as they like but it doesn't matter, it doesn't let them do anything, but the moon went red and it mattered whether Isabella understood - and if she just thought about it hard enough she could see and discover anything and all the minds of the world would be open to her -

You must have been so thrilled -

Mm-hm - She'd started laughing and Alex had sighed with relief that it was her and not him and he'd asked mage or psion and she'd laughed harder and he'd said 'psion then' -

This is the one you'd have picked?

Being a mage would've been great too, but - more of the things I would have liked about being a mage are amenable to outsourcing.