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Jul. 18th, 2015 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_sinistraThe Wards and Odd Magic committee has made progress on several fronts.
Wards: We believe that removing the Irish wards soon is both possible and desireable. Ideally, we'd like to remove the Irish wards no later than August 3rd, and make some adjustments to the 83 wards and Octoboros wards on astrological Lughnassadh, August 7th.
(I am sparing you all a lot of detail about why this timing, the relative power of the folkloric date for Lughnassadh versus the astrological one, the calculations for ritual magics, and so on. If you're curious, come find me in the workroom and I can show you charts and models.)
Alice, obviously, opening up Ireland has all sorts of other implications for everyone, but the timing is much better soon than it will be again for about a year, and I am very unhappy with the most recent readings from the 83 wards. Charlie, there will be some stress on the dragons, but less than most of Rookwood's plans. Possible we might lose one or two, but equally possible we won't lose any.
Notes below about what we'd need from other people to make this work, but it's basically security to do the ritual, some potions and other supplies, and the presence of at least one Healer, preferably two.
Odd magic: We've made some progress on something we think should work as an anti-polyjuice measure, at least eventually. It still needs a lot of testing to be effective, and it throws a lot of false positives right now. We're fairly sure we can refine it once someone has time to do extensive testing, and someone outside our committee can do that, so please let me know if you're interested.
Our progress so far is thanks to some excellent research from Irma, my reading something in a particular frame of sleep deprivation that turned out to be actually useful, a few people asking questions they thought were stupid but were exceedingly helpful, some extended modelling from Evelyn, Katrina Fitzgibbon, and Linus, and some of the notes from Albus on the altered Fidelius. Also sheer dumb luck.
Floo and other transport: Undoing the effect of the Ireland Dark Rite will almost certainly affect the floo and other coordinate based magics. The shift to the Octoboros will affect things as well, so more reason to do them close together.
A few conversations with people in my Guild who've done consulting work on Floo network issues make me think that if we can secure the Floo Monitoring station in the Forest of Bowland, we can make the necessary adjustments, arrange portkeys again, and so on. I have people willing to help with that part, we just need to get them in there. (Rather large 'just', I know.)
Notes on specifics below, making them so you can all see, in case there's other useful comment, and so we can keep discussion of different pieces together.
Wards: We believe that removing the Irish wards soon is both possible and desireable. Ideally, we'd like to remove the Irish wards no later than August 3rd, and make some adjustments to the 83 wards and Octoboros wards on astrological Lughnassadh, August 7th.
(I am sparing you all a lot of detail about why this timing, the relative power of the folkloric date for Lughnassadh versus the astrological one, the calculations for ritual magics, and so on. If you're curious, come find me in the workroom and I can show you charts and models.)
Alice, obviously, opening up Ireland has all sorts of other implications for everyone, but the timing is much better soon than it will be again for about a year, and I am very unhappy with the most recent readings from the 83 wards. Charlie, there will be some stress on the dragons, but less than most of Rookwood's plans. Possible we might lose one or two, but equally possible we won't lose any.
Notes below about what we'd need from other people to make this work, but it's basically security to do the ritual, some potions and other supplies, and the presence of at least one Healer, preferably two.
Odd magic: We've made some progress on something we think should work as an anti-polyjuice measure, at least eventually. It still needs a lot of testing to be effective, and it throws a lot of false positives right now. We're fairly sure we can refine it once someone has time to do extensive testing, and someone outside our committee can do that, so please let me know if you're interested.
Our progress so far is thanks to some excellent research from Irma, my reading something in a particular frame of sleep deprivation that turned out to be actually useful, a few people asking questions they thought were stupid but were exceedingly helpful, some extended modelling from Evelyn, Katrina Fitzgibbon, and Linus, and some of the notes from Albus on the altered Fidelius. Also sheer dumb luck.
Floo and other transport: Undoing the effect of the Ireland Dark Rite will almost certainly affect the floo and other coordinate based magics. The shift to the Octoboros will affect things as well, so more reason to do them close together.
A few conversations with people in my Guild who've done consulting work on Floo network issues make me think that if we can secure the Floo Monitoring station in the Forest of Bowland, we can make the necessary adjustments, arrange portkeys again, and so on. I have people willing to help with that part, we just need to get them in there. (Rather large 'just', I know.)
Notes on specifics below, making them so you can all see, in case there's other useful comment, and so we can keep discussion of different pieces together.
Security
Date: 2015-07-18 07:48 pm (UTC)For the rite itself, we need to get about a dozen people access to the ritual site on the Isle of Barra plus have people who can provide security for the duration without interfering with the ritual itself. (about twelve hours total, afternoon to the following dawn).
The big complication is that I have reason to believe that's where Augustus Rookwood is. (We have a source who's provided some information, we're not entirely sure about the reliability, but it's possible there are other people with him.) I'd prefer Rookwood not die in the process if we can avoid it: there are lots of odd things in his head we might want later. We shouldn't try to take the location until close to time for the rite, and we need a bit of adaptation depending on when that is.
For the Floo Monitoring station, the security is standard Ministry precautions, plus a series of arithmantical passcodes and cross-checks, with an individual component. We have the calculations now, and someone willng to help, a contact of my friend Gilly's.
I'd recommend ideally securing it and putting it under Fidelius before we attempt the Ireland rite, so that we can redirect floos - for example, those the other side are using. Between the reversal rite and the 7th, floos will likely not work (though we may be able to redirect some individual ones - Hogwarts to a secure floo at St M's, for example). Once we've shifted the wards we can make the long-term adjustments, and also manage portkeys again. As I just said to Alice, we could maybe try for that today, I just need twenty minutes to coordinate and confirm the equations.
Re: Security
Date: 2015-07-19 06:52 pm (UTC)Let me know if you think you'll need any of them at the Isle proper or no. I've got two I think I can transport. (One definitely, the other if he's not in a strop.) Or if it's going to be you doing the work down there and us taking care of the dragons up here, we can do that, too -- just give me and Dree as much warning as you can and we'll make sure we have all hands on duty, with the steadiest and most experienced ready to wade in if we need.
Healing and potions
Date: 2015-07-18 07:53 pm (UTC)Poppy, I'd really like your eyes on our plans, to double check. Both my cousin Mel and Jack Chadwick think we're in the limits of safety with precautions, but it's not really either of their areas of expertise.
Hermione, we've a list of potions that might be very helpful, but a couple where there's some choices and I'm not sure which would be best. I've got a handle on what I think we have supplies for, but the nuances are decidedly beyond me.
For example, we need a fixative, and one source suggests Allingham's Active Agglutinant. Another likes Forsby's Fixative, but I found a note saying it's not reliable near saltwater, which Barra obviously is, and we need it to hold until the following dawn. Beyond that, the best blood replenishment we have ingredients for, possibly something to increase blood volume in advance, and perhaps something for increased focus for the people creating the design, since we really only get one chance at this.
I can come find both of you with my notes at your convenience, please, if you can spare a few minutes.
Re: Healing and potions
Date: 2015-07-18 11:15 pm (UTC)I'm extremely impressed with the work your committee is managing to produce, Aurora. This is clearly work for many more minds than we've been able to provide you, and yet, you are more than making do.
Anti-Polyjuice field
Date: 2015-07-18 08:04 pm (UTC)On the other hand, it is giving us reliable negatives, so if you get someone go through without any warnings, you can be certain they're not polyjuiced. (We haven't tested for animagi yet.)
It needs lots more testing to be more useful, but with the committee needing to focus on the wards for a bit, it's now at a stage where someone else can test it - it'd be a great task for two people good with details, but maybe who aren't very mobile.
We have lists of combinations that should be tested, plus whatever else they can think of. For example, it reacts to ongoing potions effects, but we're not sure what it does with charm-mended clothing, or items with charms that aren't currently active, or slow-acting potions, or all sorts of things.
Creating the stones for the field is time-consuming and fiddly and requires some highly specialised materials - large chunks of high-quality jet and some specific kinds of mirrors - so it's not something we could do easily in lots of places quickly. But we could arrange maybe three or four sets within a month or so of finishing the testing. There are likely some further refinements possible, too - we were focusing on getting something effective and stable first.
Re: Anti-Polyjuice field
Date: 2015-07-19 02:13 am (UTC)Larger politics
Date: 2015-07-18 08:05 pm (UTC)Once the 83 wards fail or are removed, Ireland won't be covered by the wards - Moddey Dhoo is, because of the angles of the Octoboros, but not Ireland and not some of the Scottish islands (Stornoway yes, Barra and the Orkneys, no). We could add additional warding (I have several possible proposals) or - well. If anywhere needs humanitarian aid in vast amounts, Ireland would be it right now. It occurred to me it might make a good staging ground for initial greater interactions with the outer world. Maybe.
I do think it'd be preferable, even with all that, to do this sooner than later. It would allow us to make the shift to the Octoboros wards on the 7th, and that should give us much greater ability to balance energetic shifts, while still having some measure of controlled access from the outer world. I'm afraid if we wait too long, the 83 wards are going to fail entirely, and leave us wide open to everything (with a fair chance of energetic backlash, earthquake, or other damage when they actually fail) and that seems like a bad idea.
Also, we have not managed much on the Azkaban adaptation problem, but expect to make more headway in something useful once we get the country wards better sorted, if you can wait a couple of weeks.