Teaching?

"Xeno, if this is another of your hairbrained snipe hunts I am going to be very angry with you."

"I promise Dora, this is going to be a story to be remembered."

"I've got a promising contract for a new spell that is bringing in enough money to keep the family afloat for the next year."

"I promise it will be worth it, we're meeting Harry at Hogwarts tomorrow."

"I will meet him, but if I think you're having a Xeno moment, I'm vetoing the trip."

"Yes dear."

"Also, you get to tell Luna that her play date with Ginny is cancelled."

Xenophilus gulps, "Yes, dear."

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"So your name is Ironclaw it is not a description?"

"That is correct Mr Potter."

"That makes more sense. How was the process with the nanites?"

"Uncomfortable, I was under the healers tender care."

"I see. I can't say I can understand that, but it is what it is. Anyway, this is a Corpus Data-slate. They don't require any special implants to use, and they also require a minimal level of education to activate too. If you can read and touch things, you're pretty much fine. A side effect of this is that they use special awareness puzzles to unlock their devices. To turn it on press this button here, and if it runs out of power just leave it in sunlight, or a strong light for a few hours and it will recharge. As you can see, it generates a hexagonal grid and you need to make all the lines match up into one continuous shape. You generally only have around 10 seconds to complete this. Which is more than enough time when you're not under fire and trying to turn the alarms off."

Harry watches as his Account Manger unlocks the device for the first time.

"Now you're in, if you see this symbol here you can change the security settings, including the complexity, the amount of time available, and even if there is an alarm and what volume it should go off at. There is also an automatic wipe facility, but I suggest you don't activate that as this is your only Data-slate and you won't be able to restore it afterwards."

"What about my claws?"

"It's designed for people with metal bodies to work with, I think your claws will be fine. Anyway, I've already linked this scanner to the device, so if you pick up the scanner, you'll see that there's a glowing spot on the handle and a viewscreen. The scanner will highlight things that it can scan in either red or green. Red means that it doesn't have a match on the data-slate, and green means that it's similar to something it's already scanned. If there is a close enough match to something else, it will also display the name attached to it. Mine is linked to a database of known armaments, so I can quickly identify what sort of troop I'm facing, then have a rough idea of the type of training they'll have. I haven't set up any categories like that so until you do you won't see those labels. If you hold down that glowing spot it will initiate a scan, or it will tell you if that particular item has already been scanned."

"What's this number that keeps changing?"

"It's the exact distance to whatever is under that dot in the centre. Let's go out onto the floor and scan a few people, I can then show you the next aspect of scanning."

"So, as you can see we have the complete scan of 20 people that were in the bank. At the moment there's not enough data in your system to enable automatic tagging, so we're going to have to do that manually. If we apply the human tag to all of these, and the goblin tag to all of these, it will start to build up a profile. We can then apply a male tag to these ones and a female tag to these. A witch tag to these ones and a wizard tag to these ones."

"I see?"

"With this basic tagging done we can now select people to compare, such as these two people that look like mother and child. See how it tells you how close their DNA matches?"

"I see, though it looks like any junior goblin could do this, why did I need to use the nanites?"

"So that I can talk to you properly obviously. As you can see without any more matching it tells you that they have 99% of the same DNA. If we compare a goblin with a human, it shows a 97% match. That's interesting. With Grineer I usually see a 99.99% match even amongst disparate units. Side note aside, as you scan and tag more people it will start to automatically assign tags and relationships. It will even be able to tell you how many generations back they share a common ancestor. It also works on weaponry and clothing too, so you could categorise wands based on their woods and cores."

"I see, could it also identify writing?"

"I don't see why not. Though it wouldn't be able to translate it for you. Also, while it can't scan through object, it can tell if there are scannable targets through objects. Though for that to happen you need to exclude certain things from being scanned. Which, again is just a case of scan it, tag it, exclude it."

"I'm not sure how this would be useful for inheritance though."

"If you have enough scans to start doing generational comparisons, then you can compare a scan of someone to the person they claim to be related to. It will then tell you if they are, and whether it's an ancestor, sibling, or descendant relationship. If you have three people, say mother, father, child you can tell that the child is directly descended from both mother and father."

"I see, I'm not sure of the utility of this, but I will set a junior to scan everyone that enters the bank."

"Other functions that this slate has include a spreadsheet, so you can do calculations and write formula like the account books that you've shown me. There is also an inventory function, that can also be linked to the scanner, to tell you how much of something is in a pile, box, or other container. There's a messaging system, but that requires at least one more Data-slate. Finally, there's a programming interface and the instructions on how to use it. Though they are all part of the advanced functions and need quite a lot of reading to understand them. The full instruction manual for the slate is also in that section, here."

"Wait, how does the inventory function work?"

"As you can see from scanning people, the scanner can pick up the exact chemical makeup of things. After all that's all DNA is. So it's far simpler and quicker to scan a box of ore and determine exactly how much is in that box and what different elements are in its makeup. So if I scan a Galleon, I can see that it contains 13% Auron, 25% plumbum, 27% cuprum, 10% alu, 5% manganese, and 20% nickel. That's not a lot of Auron there."

Ironclaw shifts uncomfortably, "Yes, well the Ministry of magic insists on keeping the value of the Galleon at 5 British Pounds. Which is a fiat currency, so we changed the amount of gold to provide a similar value."

Harry cocks his head, "So like credits then? They're a digital currency that is only worth what it is because everyone agrees it is."

"Yes."

"I see, why do they insist on using gold for currency then?"

"I'm not sure, we value it because it is ideal for Goblin enchanting and is a cornerstone of our craftsmanship. However, it is very scarce on Earth."

"Oh, that's because most of it's in the centre of the planet. If it wasn't for the difficulty of mining out the core of a planet with a molten core without killing yourself, I'm sure the Orokin would have done that on our Earth. As it stands, we get plenty of gold from Mercury, Venus, and the asteroid belt."

"I see, so what do you consider scarce metals?"

"Platinum? But that's more because it's used in so much that there are always shortages despite how easy it is to find it. That's about the only pure element. It's more crystals and molecular metals that are rare due to the processes needed to produce them being limited to one planet, or even part of one planet. Even then, it's unlikely that you'll find a buyer for a cut crystal like the ones I've seen in jewellery here as they can't then be cut into the right shape for whatever application they're needed in."

"What would be needed to get more of these scanners and slates?"

"Meh, probably scans of animals and plants really. Actual animals and plants may even buy you a generator and computer with an artificial intelligence. Not a cephalon though. Once you have that, you could link something like a Helios to it and let that do all the scanning."

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Ironjaw burst into the directors office, not waiting for pleasantries to be exchanged as this information is too valuable.

"Director, I have just been given something that will revolutionise our society."

"What is it?"

"Please put your money pouch on the desk."

Curious, the director does so and watches as Ironjaw points a device at it and then looks at a metallic slab.

"There are 13 Galleons, 3 Sickles, 14 knuts, and one unknown coin in that bag."

The director frowns, there should be 14 Galleons in the bag, but still that's just a parlour trick any account manager can do with a basic spell, "Why are you showing me this?"

"Because this device shows the exact composition of what I point it at." – Ironjaw dumps the contents of the pouch on the desk and points it at the scattered coins – "That one, it's got 8% gold and 30% lead."

The director picks up the coin and hefts it in his hand thoughtfully, "This works on anything?"

"It does, even people."

"I see, how accurate is it?"

"It can give the values in weights too, though they're not the ones that we typically use."

The director waves his hand, "Pfft, if this can help our smiths make our metals purer then they'll change measurement systems. What's the catch?"

"Mr Potter doesn't see resources as worth anything intrinsically, only in what they can be used for. The half-ton of gold that he brough by is worth so little he went out and mined some because he was bored and wanted to replace the resources he'd already spent. I scanned it out of curiosity and it's 99.995% pure. Additionally, these devices are written in a language that isn't spoken on Earth anywhere, it also doesn't appear to have any common roots with any of the known languages on Earth."

"I see. What do we need to do to get more of these?"

Ironjaw laughs, "Scan plants and animals. If we arrange for actual plants and animals, he said he'd be able to give us a generator and computer."

"The implication was that a generator would be used to provide the energy these use to run, and the computer would be a more powerful version of this slate. There is more information on this slate, but it will take weeks to see what's there, and months, possibly years, to understand it."

"Very well, for now I want you to hand off all of your other accounts. Once you've done that, head to the forges and show the crafters this device. Then teach one of the apprentices how to use the scanner, and get them to scan as many plants and animals as they can. You'll also need to work with our human employees, specifically the few muggleborn we've been allowed to employ. Find out if there is anything similar in the muggle world, and just how similar it is. We need to make sure the Ministry can't take these away under any of their muggle related laws."

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Harry sighs as Hed swoops in with another letter from his Mother, which will make the 10th since this morning when he woke up with both Hed and Tau waiting in his room. He's fairly certain that she's done something that he'd have worried about as normally she'd only check in every few weeks-months, which would translate to a few times a day. If nothing else, Cy's reactions to the owls turning up in the Railjack are endlessly amusing. He's also found out that House elves work compulsively, and are chronically under-educated. This is to the point he needed to let them help out around Hogsmeade while he was waiting for Cy to finish his analysis of the communication and detection capabilities of the planet and plan an exit route. He'd also got hundreds of unique scans of plants and animals from the goblins, with a request for as many solar-powered scanners and data-slates as that could get. He might see if Simaris can get a small generator and charging unit instead, along with a bucket load of scanners. It's not like they're expensive or anything at 100 credits a pop, let's add an enquiry to Simaris with Hed's next mail. Finished with his responses he hands the small tube that Natah put the chip in back to Hed.

"There's a message for Simaris in there too."

With that done he continued scanning the animals he'd bought, who knew that serpents could talk. Or that he'd be able to understand them.

"Hello Mr Potter!" a voice calls down from the entrance to the trunk he's in. Turning around he jumps and slides his way to the entrance before leaping out.

"Hello, English bad. Call Professor."

That said, he recognises the man from the Quibbler office, there is a woman who's just whipped out a wand and is in the process of casting a lot of spells along with a girl, who walks up to him and pokes him in the leg. Deciding to transfer out to make it less likely that an ingrained reflex will kill her, he kneels on the ground and leaves his Titania. There's a flash of light as the owner of the newspaper does something with a box. The woman also starts waving her wand around even more. Fortunately, it doesn't take long for Minerva to arrive to translate.

With the ability to communicate restored, he gives the family a brief explanation of where they'll be going along with an introduction to his Kavat. Minerva also give a brief explanation of what they'll be going through when they get there so that they can survive and communicate with people. While they're talking Hed flies back in with another message from his Mother. Hanging his head, he calls Cy, "How long till we can leave the system?"

"I have an exit flight path programmed into your lander now."

"Oh, thank the void. I'll get everyone loaded and then we'll be off. Minerva, I've just got confirmation from Cy that we have an exit path, are you coming with us or staying here?"

"I've got too much work to do that I can't do elsewhere."

"Ok, well send me an owl if you change your mind."

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"Die you void sucking maggots!" Natah decided to act as bait after a particularly punishing contract negotiation with Corpus Execs who wanted Tenno help in one of their invasions, Mars this time. She had never been sure why her Tenno would take these missions against infested ships that had been abandoned by the Corpus or Grineer. As she rained fully automatic Sentient gunfire down on their heads she was starting to realise just how therapeutic it could be.

Varzia tries to catch her attention, "Lotus, Lotus! Natah! It's time to evac, the search team has scavenged everything of value."

Reluctantly she makes her way to the exfil point where Ordis is waiting with Harry's lander.