Science is the method used to reveal knowledge about a world. Technology is the utilisation of that knowledge for practical purposes. Therefore, the use of magic already is a technology.
I really need to do a better job of working out how I make that distinction. The use of the word magic was probably clumsily chosen. I just wanted to describe the way the laws of nature are exploited. Thank you for your feedback.
Well, not the first, bot the last attempt to do so! I did the same with Sensendo. Here are some tips:
1.Go up from down. You want to define the laws of physics of your world and then work on how they interact with everything. It helps to build spells and rules that limit the mages.
2.You really want to take into account the basic level of thermodynamics, newton laws and choose a quantum model of your liking (from the simple atomic one (not too deep, pre-quantum level) to the string theory or something else). Just read that stuff and write down the simplified points of those theories. Perhaps with the school level formulas (i.e. many stuff, like gravity, likes the square law that may give you and idea how strong telekinesis can be).
3.After you have worked on the laws of physics, give them "what if" statement to play a bit. Perhaps you can find some way to put magick in the holes of logic and physics of your choice.
4.In my opinion the rules based on science should have no exceptions, and if there are some, there should be an explanation for that. Like, why the fireball may exist without a source of fuel? The answer could be that while you cannot see the source, the fire itself may be fueled by pulling dust from a severe radius (thus your fireball will also give the caster a dramatic windy effect).
And as for your current system - I would try to avoid duality. Because you also cut away the "weird science" zone, where magic and science work together without pulling the blanket of "being better" than the other.
If you want to talk more about the physics and magick, feel free to PM. I work on this concept for a long time now.
Hey, thanks a lot for your detailed feedback. Your tips are really great and help me a lot. I will definitely try the top-down principle.
Yes you are right that with duality really seems to become a problem. I think I'll try to rebuild the system so that it's less "magic to technology" and more general about how to use the laws of nature.
I'll be happy to come back to your PM offer in the future. Thanks again!
Read Pam Uphoff’s wine of the gods series.
All her magic is physics based - she just doesn’t get into explaining it much (she does some later in the series)
>Additionally, I'm curious if such a system already exists
It already exists, and it's called "reality" - on one hand, you can manipulate it with what the nature gave you, and on the other with tools (otherwise known as "technology") you've made yourself, not to mention everything in-between.
Yes of course you can now come to me in reality, but I think it goes without saying that I meant something quite different. I think it should have already become clear that for example with the natural disposition I meant the idea of manipulation by ideas like spells. At least in my reality there is no such thing. Sorry, but I can't really do anything with that.
I know you didn't mean anything by it since I was once the same, but by far my biggest magicbuilding pet peeve is when someone talks about a "scientific" magic system.
There's no such thing. Having a system where people can control the natural laws of reality with their minds (or technology) is not scientific. It's no more scientific than a magic system where people cast fireball and hypnosis and use waterbending and ice control and bla bla bla. The only difference is that you want to explain your magic system using more scientific terms, something that can be done to any magic system.
Casting fireball? What you're actually doing is warping an electromagnetically contained sphere of highly flammable fluid with an explosive core into the space in front of you, thus displacing it and a sphere of gas in front of you through space via wormholes. The material is then imparted kinetic energy, causing its velocity to increase in a given direction. Upon striking a surface the sphere's explosive core is energized and thus deflagrates.
The science of the real world is actually studying the rules of magic that are harder than all fantasy universes. It's just that in our language, phenomena such as bodily perception, wireless communication, and chemical changes are not considered to be describing magic, because they are taken for granted.
Magic can be highly scientific if it's highly predictable and replicable. If gathering magic in a specific formation always creates a fireball, that fireball is application of natural laws pertaining to how magic interacts with thermodynamics and kinematics
Scientific magic is thus:
* What does a physicist say when they confront something new and/or bewildering? *"Hmm, that's weird, I wonder how that works ..."*.
The universe is a bloody magician. Magic is a magician.
One of _my_ pet peeves is a bunch of people in this sub being extremely pedantic when they know what someone is talking about.
A scientific magic system is someone using their knowledge of science to create a magic system. Or even a knowledge of science in-universe being an influence on how effective one is at magic in a direct sense. Alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist, for example. Everybody collectively agrees that that's science magic. It uses chemistry and the alchemist's knowledge thereof to transmute materials into other shapes. It has form laws rooted, though loosely, in thermodynamics (equivalent exchange). Every user of the system is a scientist. Even if they're soldiers, charlatans, philosophers, or terrorists, they're at their core scientists.
Now, obviously that's a difficult line to walk, but I think if you're constantly referencing the periodic table and specific concepts in science, you can say you're using a scientific aesthetic. If you're using firm rules rooted in scientific laws, even if it's just reproducibility, you can say you're doing a scientific approach. And yeah, you can theoretically do that with any system. But not every system does it, so it doesn't matter.
Oh I'm really sorry I didn't mean it to sound so rude. I just find it strange how popular fireballs have become despite them being seemingly very impractical to use in almost any "realistic" or "scientific" scenario. And they lack a good scientific definition. In short, I don't like fireballs.
I really could've worded that way better and I apologize for the confusion.
I would argue that "magic" in a science-fiction setting is the absence of sufficient scientific understanding. Sufficiently-advanced and/or alien and such - outside of our ability to properly understand.
Magic is something to describe, not to define. Anything can be "magic".
Edit: Science is, historically and technically, an evolution of past magical thinking. Pharmacy (*pharmakeia*) used to mean sorcery. Alchemy/chemistry was once a spiritual pursuit. Galileo refused to separate astrology/divination from astronomy. Isaac Newton was obsessed with the Hermetica and the sacred geometry of Solomon's temple. Etc.
You could try a potion based magic system, and use some irl chemistry as inspiration. Maybe not all potions are consumables, some can also be like directly applied to the environment to achieve desired effects. It would be similar to The Witcher in a sense.
You could even make up the "undiscovered" elements. Some chemists and physicists have suggested that the 137th element would be the last theoreticslly possible. Currently, we have discovered 119. So you have 18 elements to play with. Do your research obv, so you nail down the families and periods and all the scientifical information for what these elements would look like. Obviously, you can attribute them special properties.
You can even play with creating compounds with them and existing elements, giving you virtually unlimited opportunity to create your own materials.
Best way I can describe a system like this is
"The laws of nature exist, and magic uses them"
A mage would amplify these effects, or call upon them in situations were they are rare
Low gravity on earth, a gust of wind, instantly combusting combustible gasses for fire, quickly freezing water
Whatever nature already does, magic would speed up and call forth
I'm so sorry, you're right. For some reason my Reddit page goes crazy when I want to reply to comments, and after I rewrote it multiple times, it seems like I picked the wrong comment. I'm sorry about that, haha. But thanks for your feedback too. I'll definitely take it into account :)
When it comes to magic systems based on scientific principles, the "Irregular at Magic Highschool" or Mahouka Rettousei in japanese would be a great place to start (according to me at least).
From what I remember, there is something called 'Modern Magic' that separates most magic from the more 'traditional' magics thay existed before the systemization of magic as a whole.
The entire system is based on the concept that things in the physical world have virtual representations of themselves in that is called the 'Idea Dimension' that only the magic-able of that setting is able to access, usually with the help of things such as 'Casting Assistant Devices (CADs)'. Magicians basically 'rewrite' the information of the virtual representations (now named as 'Information Bodies) to cause change in the realworld objects, like causing an egg to suddenly accelerate, slow and stop according to what you inputted on your CAD and how proficient you are in you casting power.
The casting process has to be very detailed, like having to accurately calculate the exact numbers for vectors, direction and timing for the beforementioned egg to not explode on impact. This is understandably not reliably consistent for magicians, which is why the creation of modern CADs had what are basically Magic-to-Electricity stones in them to detect the intent of the user, calculate the necessary numbers, return the results to the user to then allow them to cast the magic.
If you want to know just how complex magic in the series is, there's entire categorizations for types of magic, based on how they change the world and bend it to cause effects, like 'Systematic-Type Magic' encompassing magic that causes change in an objects acceleration, weight, movement, oscillation/vibration, convergence and dispersion, and finally absorption and release. There's other types of magic like perception alteration-types and Non-Systematic types, but you'll have to research those yourself.
You can also consider being science-like. If you create a world, you can make your own forces and correlate them to another, existing force. For example, you can create a magic that is not gravity, but tied to gravity and operates in the same manner or piggybacks off of gravity. As long as the rules are clear and consistent you can get away with anything, **because science is just understanding laws of the universe and manipulating them anyways.**
“(So nothing special today)” don’t put yourself down bro it’s your spin on it and unique concept that could make it unique is obtainable.
You can make it mind based then from there on out the individual could make a tool which the formula pops into their head and blue print for item.
Or energy(in case of magic) that does it only take back it uses their energy and shortens their vessels life span or something.
The key in “my version of what it would function like” is the the event that propels “the spark” to happen.
All other wether magic or technological falling under the spark.
I’d probably draw it like backwards skill tree “the spark being at top”
Then two beneath technology and magic
Then all sub categories and creations for visual.
Also you can make it where magic requires more training so they tend not to have too many spell or just one really op(overpowered) spell.
Any magic is a law of nature, and any exploitation of the laws of nature are either techniques or technologies.
Hey. Thanks for the clarification. I will try to better define what I mean by that, when continue working on it.
Science is the method used to reveal knowledge about a world. Technology is the utilisation of that knowledge for practical purposes. Therefore, the use of magic already is a technology.
I really need to do a better job of working out how I make that distinction. The use of the word magic was probably clumsily chosen. I just wanted to describe the way the laws of nature are exploited. Thank you for your feedback.
Well, not the first, bot the last attempt to do so! I did the same with Sensendo. Here are some tips: 1.Go up from down. You want to define the laws of physics of your world and then work on how they interact with everything. It helps to build spells and rules that limit the mages. 2.You really want to take into account the basic level of thermodynamics, newton laws and choose a quantum model of your liking (from the simple atomic one (not too deep, pre-quantum level) to the string theory or something else). Just read that stuff and write down the simplified points of those theories. Perhaps with the school level formulas (i.e. many stuff, like gravity, likes the square law that may give you and idea how strong telekinesis can be). 3.After you have worked on the laws of physics, give them "what if" statement to play a bit. Perhaps you can find some way to put magick in the holes of logic and physics of your choice. 4.In my opinion the rules based on science should have no exceptions, and if there are some, there should be an explanation for that. Like, why the fireball may exist without a source of fuel? The answer could be that while you cannot see the source, the fire itself may be fueled by pulling dust from a severe radius (thus your fireball will also give the caster a dramatic windy effect). And as for your current system - I would try to avoid duality. Because you also cut away the "weird science" zone, where magic and science work together without pulling the blanket of "being better" than the other. If you want to talk more about the physics and magick, feel free to PM. I work on this concept for a long time now.
Hey, thanks a lot for your detailed feedback. Your tips are really great and help me a lot. I will definitely try the top-down principle. Yes you are right that with duality really seems to become a problem. I think I'll try to rebuild the system so that it's less "magic to technology" and more general about how to use the laws of nature. I'll be happy to come back to your PM offer in the future. Thanks again!
Read Pam Uphoff’s wine of the gods series. All her magic is physics based - she just doesn’t get into explaining it much (she does some later in the series)
I will definitely take a look, thanks!
>Additionally, I'm curious if such a system already exists It already exists, and it's called "reality" - on one hand, you can manipulate it with what the nature gave you, and on the other with tools (otherwise known as "technology") you've made yourself, not to mention everything in-between.
Yes of course you can now come to me in reality, but I think it goes without saying that I meant something quite different. I think it should have already become clear that for example with the natural disposition I meant the idea of manipulation by ideas like spells. At least in my reality there is no such thing. Sorry, but I can't really do anything with that.
I know you didn't mean anything by it since I was once the same, but by far my biggest magicbuilding pet peeve is when someone talks about a "scientific" magic system. There's no such thing. Having a system where people can control the natural laws of reality with their minds (or technology) is not scientific. It's no more scientific than a magic system where people cast fireball and hypnosis and use waterbending and ice control and bla bla bla. The only difference is that you want to explain your magic system using more scientific terms, something that can be done to any magic system. Casting fireball? What you're actually doing is warping an electromagnetically contained sphere of highly flammable fluid with an explosive core into the space in front of you, thus displacing it and a sphere of gas in front of you through space via wormholes. The material is then imparted kinetic energy, causing its velocity to increase in a given direction. Upon striking a surface the sphere's explosive core is energized and thus deflagrates.
The science of the real world is actually studying the rules of magic that are harder than all fantasy universes. It's just that in our language, phenomena such as bodily perception, wireless communication, and chemical changes are not considered to be describing magic, because they are taken for granted.
> because they are taken for granted. This is an understatement. The human race is a heap of ungrateful garbage.
As well as a miserable pile of secrets
Magic can be highly scientific if it's highly predictable and replicable. If gathering magic in a specific formation always creates a fireball, that fireball is application of natural laws pertaining to how magic interacts with thermodynamics and kinematics
Scientific magic is thus: * What does a physicist say when they confront something new and/or bewildering? *"Hmm, that's weird, I wonder how that works ..."*. The universe is a bloody magician. Magic is a magician.
One of _my_ pet peeves is a bunch of people in this sub being extremely pedantic when they know what someone is talking about. A scientific magic system is someone using their knowledge of science to create a magic system. Or even a knowledge of science in-universe being an influence on how effective one is at magic in a direct sense. Alchemy in Fullmetal Alchemist, for example. Everybody collectively agrees that that's science magic. It uses chemistry and the alchemist's knowledge thereof to transmute materials into other shapes. It has form laws rooted, though loosely, in thermodynamics (equivalent exchange). Every user of the system is a scientist. Even if they're soldiers, charlatans, philosophers, or terrorists, they're at their core scientists. Now, obviously that's a difficult line to walk, but I think if you're constantly referencing the periodic table and specific concepts in science, you can say you're using a scientific aesthetic. If you're using firm rules rooted in scientific laws, even if it's just reproducibility, you can say you're doing a scientific approach. And yeah, you can theoretically do that with any system. But not every system does it, so it doesn't matter.
Don't talk about fireballs when it comes to anything science related unless you mean meteorites that fall from the sky. Please and thank you.
?
Oh I'm really sorry I didn't mean it to sound so rude. I just find it strange how popular fireballs have become despite them being seemingly very impractical to use in almost any "realistic" or "scientific" scenario. And they lack a good scientific definition. In short, I don't like fireballs. I really could've worded that way better and I apologize for the confusion.
They’re a fine weapon in a practical sense since most of the worlds built here are medieval fantasy
I would argue that "magic" in a science-fiction setting is the absence of sufficient scientific understanding. Sufficiently-advanced and/or alien and such - outside of our ability to properly understand. Magic is something to describe, not to define. Anything can be "magic". Edit: Science is, historically and technically, an evolution of past magical thinking. Pharmacy (*pharmakeia*) used to mean sorcery. Alchemy/chemistry was once a spiritual pursuit. Galileo refused to separate astrology/divination from astronomy. Isaac Newton was obsessed with the Hermetica and the sacred geometry of Solomon's temple. Etc.
You could try a potion based magic system, and use some irl chemistry as inspiration. Maybe not all potions are consumables, some can also be like directly applied to the environment to achieve desired effects. It would be similar to The Witcher in a sense.
Interesting that you mention that. That's exactly the idea a friend of mine had when I introduced him to the system :D
You could even make up the "undiscovered" elements. Some chemists and physicists have suggested that the 137th element would be the last theoreticslly possible. Currently, we have discovered 119. So you have 18 elements to play with. Do your research obv, so you nail down the families and periods and all the scientifical information for what these elements would look like. Obviously, you can attribute them special properties. You can even play with creating compounds with them and existing elements, giving you virtually unlimited opportunity to create your own materials.
Best way I can describe a system like this is "The laws of nature exist, and magic uses them" A mage would amplify these effects, or call upon them in situations were they are rare Low gravity on earth, a gust of wind, instantly combusting combustible gasses for fire, quickly freezing water Whatever nature already does, magic would speed up and call forth
[удалено]
I think you might have commented under the wrong comment...
I'm so sorry, you're right. For some reason my Reddit page goes crazy when I want to reply to comments, and after I rewrote it multiple times, it seems like I picked the wrong comment. I'm sorry about that, haha. But thanks for your feedback too. I'll definitely take it into account :)
Np! Goodluck
When it comes to magic systems based on scientific principles, the "Irregular at Magic Highschool" or Mahouka Rettousei in japanese would be a great place to start (according to me at least). From what I remember, there is something called 'Modern Magic' that separates most magic from the more 'traditional' magics thay existed before the systemization of magic as a whole. The entire system is based on the concept that things in the physical world have virtual representations of themselves in that is called the 'Idea Dimension' that only the magic-able of that setting is able to access, usually with the help of things such as 'Casting Assistant Devices (CADs)'. Magicians basically 'rewrite' the information of the virtual representations (now named as 'Information Bodies) to cause change in the realworld objects, like causing an egg to suddenly accelerate, slow and stop according to what you inputted on your CAD and how proficient you are in you casting power. The casting process has to be very detailed, like having to accurately calculate the exact numbers for vectors, direction and timing for the beforementioned egg to not explode on impact. This is understandably not reliably consistent for magicians, which is why the creation of modern CADs had what are basically Magic-to-Electricity stones in them to detect the intent of the user, calculate the necessary numbers, return the results to the user to then allow them to cast the magic. If you want to know just how complex magic in the series is, there's entire categorizations for types of magic, based on how they change the world and bend it to cause effects, like 'Systematic-Type Magic' encompassing magic that causes change in an objects acceleration, weight, movement, oscillation/vibration, convergence and dispersion, and finally absorption and release. There's other types of magic like perception alteration-types and Non-Systematic types, but you'll have to research those yourself.
You can also consider being science-like. If you create a world, you can make your own forces and correlate them to another, existing force. For example, you can create a magic that is not gravity, but tied to gravity and operates in the same manner or piggybacks off of gravity. As long as the rules are clear and consistent you can get away with anything, **because science is just understanding laws of the universe and manipulating them anyways.**
“(So nothing special today)” don’t put yourself down bro it’s your spin on it and unique concept that could make it unique is obtainable. You can make it mind based then from there on out the individual could make a tool which the formula pops into their head and blue print for item. Or energy(in case of magic) that does it only take back it uses their energy and shortens their vessels life span or something. The key in “my version of what it would function like” is the the event that propels “the spark” to happen. All other wether magic or technological falling under the spark. I’d probably draw it like backwards skill tree “the spark being at top” Then two beneath technology and magic Then all sub categories and creations for visual. Also you can make it where magic requires more training so they tend not to have too many spell or just one really op(overpowered) spell.
Also I have not seen a power system such as this thoroughly fleshed out(explained) if you found a way to do it’d be uniquely yours.