Hyperjump Phasing

[HSuperLee]

I was rereading Defending Elysium earlier today, and I noticed something during the climax. Shortly after Jason teleports his hand into Edmund's heart, we get this sentence,

Quote

Edmund slid to his knees, and Jason pushed his hand slightly outside space and withdrew it.

I'm interested in the phrase "pushed his hand slightly outside space." That seems to suggest that Jason was able to only partially enter the Nowhere so that his hand became insubstantial and he was able to phase it out of Edmund's chest. Somehow I haven't noticed this on previous readings, and I'm wondering if anyone else caught this. I know Jason was (maybe still is) a genius with cytonics, so I'm not necessarily expecting any character by the time of Skyward to know about or be able to replicate this technique, but do we think that its possible for a master of the FTL transmission power to phase through matter? Or am I just misinterpreting this line?

[Treamayne]

On 2/15/2023 at 12:20 AM, HSuperLee said:

I'm interested in the phrase "pushed his hand slightly outside space." That seems to suggest that Jason was able to only partially enter the Nowhere so that his hand became insubstantial and he was able to phase it out of Edmund's chest. Somehow I haven't noticed this on previous readings, and I'm wondering if anyone else caught this. I know Jason was (maybe still is) a genius with cytonics, so I'm not necessarily expecting any character by the time of Skyward to know about or be able to replicate this technique, but do we think that its possible for a master of the FTL transmission power to phase through matter? Or am I just misinterpreting this line?

I thought this was what normally happened (if unconciously). If yo ulook at the lines right before that (DE Ch 19):

Spoiler

Except this time he had come to it by choice. He suffocated for an eternal moment in its embrace.

Then he reappeared. As he reentered normal space, he pushed the air away, lest its molecules get trapped within his appearing body. In a similar manner, he pushed Edmund’s flesh away from his hand.

The world shook, and Jason was back. He stood with his arm extended directly in front of Edmund. Jason’s wrist ended abruptly where it met Edmund’s flesh—his hand had materialized inside of the man’s chest.

Jason "phased" into him as well with the hyperjump.

It's mentioned a few times in later novels that hyperjumping blindly risks occupying the same space as another object, but when you think about it, any normal hyperjump would require an unconcious movement of air in the destination to make space for the cytonic's arrival - and if ai can be pushed out of the way, why not other matter?

Defiant Spoilers:

Spoiler

With (at least) seven more un-defined Taynax - it could be that one "specializes" in partial-body transitions to the Nowhere.