Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-24038343-20140822045754

OK, instead of an episode we got a bit if background on the show's main deus ex machina, "dust". Much we already knew: Dust is an explosive or propellant that interacts with Human (and Faunus) "auras".According to the large hadron collider, therefore, it can't exist.Ahem...Anyway... So there is this stuff that can be induced to interact with  an individual's 'aura'. We can assume from Pyrrha's exposition in the first season that Aura is best described by imagining a point on a Venn diagram  where chi, elan vitale, pneuma, "precious bodily fluids" and The Force overlap. A person with sufficient self awareness and discipline to exert control over their life energies can use this 'aura' to interact with dust in various ways. There are 4 types of dust making for an easily memorizable periodic table. However, Madame Narrator did not provide us with the names. Going from the picture provided, one can assume that they have the ptoperties of fire (or perhaps speed), ice (possibly water), burnination and spinach. These 4 substances can be combined in numerous ways to make compounds that have a wide variety of characteristics, and this stuff can be used in weapons, both as propellant and explosive depending on the compound. We knew that there were items that were infused with dust. Weiss uses a dust infused rapier and also wields additional quantities of dust for further effect. The mention of dust infused clothing would therefore follow. However, we also learn that some people have had dust implanted into their bodies. This is new info and makes for some interesting speculation. A few characters possess a "semblance" a fancy dancy RWBY word for superpower. Ruby and Blake have super-speed (Blake may have something else going on there) and Pyrrha has magnetism. Yang has the power of a flywheel charged by punching and none of these are things that anyone can physiologically achieve so barring some other, as yet unmentioned deus ex machina, one wonders if they had dust implanted in themselves at a young age. How? Was there a tragic dust accident? Were they given dust implants shortly after birth. Was this voluntary and when (RWBY is 15 and has been practicing for a while)? Did they get to choose what their semblance would be beforehand? Dust is frequently used as a consumable (explosives, freezy-pop mass production techniques). However, the existence of weapons, clothing, and implants suggests that some dust compounds are not actually consumed as fuel but are, instead acting as broadcast and modulation antennae for the aura. Weiss's rapier seems to work this way (in part) and Cinder's dress is probably a weapon in itself. Blake wielded dust provided to her by Weiss in the last episode, and did so with considerable skill using her chain-scythe-gun-sword-ribbon thingie as a focus. It glowed blue when she did so. Given that dust is quite expensive and given that Blake comes from  exceedingly  modest means, if this line of reasoning is correct it is probable that Blake was implanted with the stuff by the White Fang because she was considered quite reliable. There's nowhere else she could have afforded it, been trained in it's use, or even permitted to do so. This makes her betrayal all the more galling to them, which, in turn, brings us to the fate of poor Tuckson in episode 1. Even if the "Blake is carrying dust implants provided by White Fang" is bollocks,  Blake is a marked woman, and if her identity is revealed. Hence the real reason for the bow. (She should probably dye her hair and wear a different outfit too)  One other thing. The Planet is called Remnant. It is quite possible that this is set in the far future on another world that contains the last remnant of humanity  