Block_EssentiaIO
The conversion of essentia into digi-sentia, and vice-versa, is a three step process. Here we will focus on the Import Bus, but the processes for the Export and Storage buses are nearly identical.
In order for the beam to penetrate the warded jar, the Import Bus must first align its warded spell with that of the jar, and extend the field into the jar. This is accomplished by use of a short-range Focal Beam (Figure 1). Once the warding spell is aligned, the bus then uses its Annihilation Core(a component of the Diffusion Core) to convert a portion of the essentia into a matter-energy stream and draws in the essentia.
As the matter-stream of essentia is drawn into the bus, a modulating warding field is created by the Diffusion Core which serves to decouple the essentia. This process results in the essentia rapidly expanding and becoming gaseous. This process is carried out inside of the Conversion Chamber (Figure 1).
Export conversion note: During export this process is reversed via a compression of the essentia gas. Once the Conversion Chamber is filled with the gas, the Coalescence Core compresses and re-couples the essentia by shrinking the chambers warding spell.
In the final step of the process, the essentia gas is de-materialized via the Annihilation Core and the matter-energy stream is sent into the optical network for storage.
Without the aid of proper containment, even small quantities of essentia will violently destabilize. Thus the Conversion Chamber must be created from a warded jar to ensure proper containment procedures are met.
During extraction the warded spell, or field, is phase-aligned to match the target and extended into the target. This process is relatively safe as a failure to align the field results in the buses field being unable to merge with the target, and the matter-energy stream being unable to penetrate the target container.
Due to all containment fields being magical in nature, a sudden and unexpected loss of power will not compromise the safety of the device. Loss of power will however result in the core no longer being operable. A fail-safe has been put into place by ensuring the Focal Beam targeting distance is small enough that in a power loss event, the full contents of the matter-energy stream can safely, and quickly, be placed back into the target container.
The violent nature of essentia also translates into a rapid decay of the matter-energy stream's cohesion. As such a stream containing raw essentia can only exist over short distances. This factor also plays a role in the fore-mentioned short Focal Beam distance. However once the essentia has been diffused into a gas it becomes much more suitable for stream transport over the optical network. Thus all essentia in the network must exist in gas form in order to be stored safely. Continuing research is examining the possibility of a stream which can contain raw essentia, results however have been explosive and not promising.