"And it's all interlocking, it's all, all interconnected, it's the butterfly-hurricane theory which one would think doesn't actually have scientific basis but it does, that's the brilliant thing, it's that it does." There it is, the familiar rush of language and hand-waving and the associated joy with being able to describe it, make it verbal, vocal, communicative. "Nature and it's, it's equilibrium being that it needs to enact conflict right down the cellular level, constant growth and change and code alterations and adaptations to those external changes, it's the building blocks, it's, it's how there are so many deviations of the same universe, it's how there is no central, prime universe, just derivations and copies upon copies upon copies of mirrors and parallels and layered existences. And it's because of the constant shifts in reality, it's because Newton's First Law, it's because stillness is not, not in nature's foundation."

Topher's excitement, his equal-or-greater magnitude of energy for this conversation, is exactly the kind of intellectual energy Daniel has missed so desperately since falling through the Rift. There's something vaguely Sam-like about him - no, not exactly, more accurately it's a McKay-esque vibe, the full awareness of his own depth of intelligence and a complete, utter willingness to prove it. He presents it much better, however, distinctly unMcKay-esque in the ease with which he can slip in and out of polysyllabic jargon with someone else, anticipate them keeping up, and leapfrog off their last points accordingly.

Despite the strangeness of it all, Daniel can't help but grin a little, perplexed but delighted to come against a similar-caliber mind.