#sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and all that

[clanoffelidae]

Now that I’ve mentioned it I wanna infodump about my alien dragons bc I haven’t talked about them in a long time and mentioning them just activated the neurodivergency

Doing everything in brief bc I’m on mobile and also have to work on moving today which I. Haven’t done yet. But I WILL-

Anyway. The basic premise for them is I wanted to tell a story about aliens living on Earth for so long people didn’t realize they weren’t originally from Earth. The fact that their biology is similar enough to an Earth organism to be mistaken for one by people without genetic sequencing or looking through the evolutionary lens at things (not realizing they seem to have no common ancestors) is the whole point.

The fact that they can breathe Earth’s atmosphere, the fact that they can consume the food that grows on Earth to meet their dietary requirements, the fact that they have surface level similarities to Earth life is all intentional! Because their story is that a ship crash lands towards the end of the last Ice Age, enough survive that they manage to gain a foothold on Earth, but soon enough they themselves have forgotten their own history, and now both humans and dragons believe that they have always shared this planet. Dragons have their creation stories, they say they were born of a giant, metal egg that flew in the heavens and spewed fire; that’s why they’re scales are as tough as that metal egg’s shell, that’s why they fly just like the egg, and that’s why they can spew fire as that egg that bore them; but those stories are the only remnants of their history.

But I also wanted them to still be alien, to still be such that a reader would look at them and the assertion that they are from Earth and start to see that things aren’t what they seem, it’s just the characters who never question it, because that’s the way it’s always been. Dragons have been here as long as human history recalls. But the reader can start to see that things might not be what they seem. (But neither side is hiding the truth, because neither side knows.)

And so we have the dragons. No special name, no special words to refer to them, they’re just dragons. In this world the mythos of dragons isn’t mythos, they’re right next door and you can go talk to them. Stories of dragons aren’t of mythical beasts, they’re stories of heroes of legend, just like humans.

Of course, the reader would quickly notice that they don’t quite line up with our classical ideas of dragons.

For one, they’re human-sized. They typically walk on four legs, but will often stand up on two to work with objects or even just have conversations. Standing up on two legs has the same social connotations as standing up from sitting; you might hang out on four legs with your friends, but if someone you want to be respectful towards approaches you you will stand up on two and straighten up unless invited to return to four. Of course, there are exceptions. It is not unheard of for groups of solely dragons to walk on all fours even in formal settings, though it is not the norm. Not the majority, but not unusual either. With humans present, however, it is considered quite rude to remain on all fours in a formal setting (barring, of course, obvious physical maladies necessitating it).

Dragons have opposable digits like humans, although they possess six rather than five, having a thumb on either side. They have similar ranges of dexterity and so both species are fully capable of using one another’s tools and machinery. Dragons also have lips dexterous enough to allow human speech, and so can speak human languages with no issue. Their digestive systems can also process human foods, including dairy; dragons themselves nurse their young.*

Their eyes are often noted to be exceptional, one of the most blatant indicators of their non-Earth origins to those looking. Their eye structure doesn’t match that of any known species.

In a way they could almost be likened to proto-eyes, for the whole organ is dark and light receptive, functioning similar to a pupil. In order to adjust focus and reduce the amount of light let in dragons have thick, dark membranes around the outside of the eye, that constrict to a circular opening like a drawstring bag. This opening moves and changes sizes, the eye itself remaining fixed in the dragon’s skull. The ocular membrane is not distinct from the rest of the eye’s color, the best indicator of where a dragon is looking being where their eye has a reflection rather than matte, as the matte black indicates the presence of the ocular membrane rather than the eye underneath. Many common nicknames and pet names used by dragons for humans they love; be it platonic, familial, or romantic; often involve the eyes. ‘Jeweleyes’ is the most common, akin to ‘sweetheart’, for the first dragons who grew close enough to look into a human companion’s eyes long enough to truly observe them likened them to precious gems for their multitudes of colors, both across the species and within the individual.

Dragons have three sexes, not two, and quite differing familial structures as a result. Dragons have males and females, akin to many Earth species, with the males having similar ranges in overall size to human females and draconic females conversely matching human males in this way. This, along with their scaled hides, is why many believed they must be related to reptiles in some fashion when draconic origins were first being investigated.

However, dragons have a third sex, known as nesters.

Nesters are non-reproductive, bearing no genitalia. Their size ranges are double that of the average draconic male, and they are so heavy that few are able to sustain flight after puberty. They have a front facing horn from the center of their foreheads akin to a unicorn, although it is curved like a blade. This horn sheds from time to time much like claws shed their sheathes. Nesters also grow a mane of hair-like fibers around their shoulders and upper chests akin to a lion’s mane after reaching puberty.

Nesters are the primary caretakers of draconic young, with their evolutionary purpose in times long past being to guard the children while the males and females hunted. Males and females produce eggs, but once the eggs are laid, it is the nester who takes over and broods over them, later raising the hatchlings who come from them in time, nursing* them when they are newly hatched and caring for them until they are adults. As such, they are what would be considered a dragon’s parent, with many dragons sharing the same parent, but with many different biological ‘parents’. The term ‘guard’ is used akin to ‘mom/dad’.

Long ago, dragons had only males and females, but lines that produced nesters produced more successful offspring, although the nester did not directly contribute genetics. In time, nesters became a commonplace part of draconic biology, and dragons grew to have three sexes as opposed to two.

Nesters were archaically considered the leaders of their clans, being the strongest as they were. Nesters would fight for clans not unlike male lions might fight for prides, their front facing horn being used for combat against both predators and other nesters. Thankfully, unlike lion prides, nesters did not kill any offspring present upon defeating the previous guard, as they themselves are non-reproductive. The reason they had to fight for a clan is because they require a lot of resources, they need a lot of food to remain healthy. A clan could only afford to have so many nesters before the resource consumption outweighs the protection provided when every day is a fight for survival.

Thankfully, this was long ago, and there is more than enough food to go around in the modern day. Many dragons still live in clans composed largely of males and females with a few nesters, but many also choose to live their own way, and many also intermingle with humans and their families. Gender stereotypes have also diminished, with nesters no longer being upheld as natural leaders and the voices of males and females rising to prominence. (Dragons never had much stereotyping or equality differences between males and females, only between those two groups and nesters.)

Common nester stereotypes include a mixture of those attributed to male and female humans, with nesters being seen as both child-rearers while also being ferocious combatants. To be weak is seen as undesirable, and a nester who doesn’t want to raise hatchlings might often be told they will change their mind later, especially by older generations. They are expected to be strong and brave, the last line of defense but the most powerful one of all. Thankfully, time lessens the strains of these expectations, but they have still shaped draconic society and influence it to this day.

There’s so much else I could say but I mostly just wanted to pick up nesters and show them off. Non reproductive third sex twice the size of the others whose ‘role’ is to raise the children, lead the clan, and absolutely annihilate threats that get too close.

Dragon kid to human kid on the playground: my guard could beat up your dad >:(

Human kid who’s never actually seen a nester: nuh-uh >:(

Elementary school teacher who knows nesters are like 10 feet tall at the shoulder and can lift entire cars: I have no doubt about that sweetie how about you two talk about something else-

* = Dragons produce a milk-like substance from glands in their throat that is fed to hatchlings orally similar to birds. To make it easier for them to feed without spilling it is first curdled internally to create a cheese that is then deposited into the hungry mouthes of young hatchlings. Dragon mouth cheese is my favorite form of psychic damage :)

Instead of pre-filled baby bottles there’s mouth-cheese charcuterie boards

God bless the unknowing human who thought to snack on their nester friend’s weird cheese plate

[h-sleepingirl]

You Are A Wizard, So Pour Over The Tomes

Hypnosis is magic. It is not just “the closest we can get to magic.” Trance practices in all kinds of forms have served as the basis for mysticism across cultures and human history -- thousands of years. It is not new. It is not western. It did not start with Franz Mesmer or James Braid or Milton Erickson or Wiseguy.

Modern hypnosis stems from a rich human history of fascination and spiritual veneration of the mind’s power. We are practitioners of a comparably new discipline where we can literally change the way that other people experience the world. Their innermost selves are as leverage to us -- putty to us, when we know what we are doing. We can transform others freely. We can give pleasure or pain. We can facilitate experiences that seem to defy reality.

People talk a big game about respecting that power. What they usually mean by that is respecting EACH OTHER. That’s crucial, obviously -- not manipulating, not harming, being a good person.

But what about respecting the discipline itself?

It’s tempting to see what we do as disconnected from the “historical” and “outdated” methods of hypnosis. But we are a part of that history. We are likely hilariously wrong about a lot of things related to trance, hypnosis, the human mind -- what will hypnosis and psychology look like in 100 years? And even as we innovate, we are always building on the techniques and ideas that came before us -- in ways we are often not even aware of. We reinvent; we use ideas from the past unknowingly.

We have a right -- and a responsibility -- to OWN our magic. I am not here to gatekeep and say that this magic is not yours. It IS yours; it’s unequivocally yours. But as a whole we could do more to respect it.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And hypnosis is not even a technology that we UNDERSTAND. The only real reason we DON’T see ourselves as wizards is because there is a huge motivation to legitimize hypnosis as a scientific discipline -- and non-rationalist perspectives are looked down upon in our culture. I’m not anti-science (maybe a little -- tongue in cheek) but I do think that labeling hypnosis as “just psychology” is dishonest about how much we actually objectively know about it -- and does a disservice to the phenomenon itself.

I’m not saying hypnosis is literally metaphysical. But I am saying we practice something very powerful without knowing its nature. There are secrets we have tried to suss out about this magic through history that we have written down -- past and present. We actually have tomes of knowledge, records of past experiments and modern inventors.

In the last couple of years, I’ve started teaching/facilitating “text studies” -- classes where we sit down with an excerpt from a hypnosis book and parse through it as a collaborative group. I desperately want to show people that there is value in just critically reading the resources available to us. The clinical texts -- especially older ones -- are hard to read, like they are almost in a different language. But it is amazing the insights we have come to by tackling them together.

These old texts are not pure truths -- there is a lot we’ve improved on over time. But we can learn a lot by learning what hypnosis was like historically. The entire discipline of hypnosis is extremely susceptible to change -- it is defined SO MUCH by how we view it culturally. I just recently was amazed at re-reading some Erickson where he talks about making his subjects daydream autonomously -- as a primary mode and result of inducing hypnosis. Contrast that with today, where if someone’s mind wanders for even a moment, they feel like they’ve failed. There’s something really important here -- a technique from 50 years ago that tells us something we’ve lost in modern practice.

And there are countless examples of this, of people losing and reinventing methods over and over. As I’ve watched our kinky niche grow over just the past 13 years, I’ve watched ideas phase in, out, and in again -- there is both growth and regression of our collective body of knowledge. That’s the nature of things, especially when we operate partially disconnected from the resources that are available to us.

We CAN be connected to the rich human history of trying to unravel the secrets about our minds, and about this thing that gives us enormous transformative powers -- powers that we take for granted.

You are a wizard -- so pour over the tomes.

Read a book. Read an article. Set aside some time and view yourself with the respect of being someone who can study and suss out a magical text. Take notes, look up words and concepts you don’t know. Or just absorb what you can on a first pass and go back later. Read a chapter or just master a single page. Romanticize the aesthetic of sitting with the scent of paper, or as the technomancer with words appearing on a screen.

Read. Own this art. And bring that respect of this art to the people you share it with. I promise you can do things with hypnosis that you have never thought possible.

------------------

This is a little motivational piece (for you and me!) as I gear up to teach "Analyzing Erickson" at Charmed. It's something I feel really passionately about, and I wanted to share it.

Permanently linked/free on Patreon.

[novella-november]

If you'd like an example of how to use the phrase "Technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic" in your story:

Imagine what it would be like to live in a world where electrical lighting doesn't exist at all, or is a luxury only a few can afford; where light bulbs can burn you from their heat and only last a dozen hours of use...

... And some stranger in strange clothes walks up, sticks some little crystal rods in the ground in the sun, and you watch in awe as the sun sets and each of those little crystaline rods lights up in the growing gloom, casting a pool of miraculous, magical light around them.

Then the strange magician points their larger device, a tall contraption of silver rods and flexible necks like snakes with crystal heads, and they turn a small ring on the side of his silver hydra and *click* --

--the very sun has come down into your barn! And is lighting up the whole thing with crystal clear clarity! In a color of light you've never seen! not inside a building anyhow!!!

And as you draw closer to the sun at the stranger's bidding, you realize, even more wonderous... This sun in miniature does not scald you, and you can even touch the crystal heads of the snakes, and feel only a gentle warmth under your fingers, instead of burning flames of trapped energy converted into heat.

This sun is cool to the touch! This magical silver hydra of crystal-headed snakes must be the god of a frozen realm!

...... What i just described from an outside perspective, is some solar lights from the Dollar Tree and a five-headed lamp, all of whom have LED bulbs, which gives off a fraction of the heat of incandescent bulbs, while being even brighter and longer lasting.

Anyways, this was inspired by the original "the thing" from 1938 where some scientists are thawing out an alien body under some lamps, and the realization that they don't even need specifically *heat lamps* because of how far technology has advanced, they're in a time and written in a time where lightbulbs got incredibly warm just from being in use,

whereas today I can have an LED running for hours and touch them with only mild discomfort -- a far cry from my memories as a kid of accidentally grabbing a light bulb too soon after turning them off to change it, and getting burned from the heat.

[polymona]

Arcane Jayvik has a choke-hold on me and I have been devouring fic on ao3 at an alarming rate and so then my brain goes straight to must-write-fic and I love crossovers and so here’s a summary of my WIP:

At the end of the all things, instead of being blinked from existence, the anomaly deposits Jayce and Viktor—naked as the day they were born—onto a pristine yet desolate landscape devoid of life. 

There’s no food, nothing to cover up with, and the plant life is strange, but it’s only only when day turns to night and the two face a sky filled with unfamiliar stars that it really sinks in that not only are they nowhere near Piltover, but they likely aren’t even on the same planet.

To make matters worse, Jayce’s leg aches and Viktor’s cough returns.

Luckily for them, the blast that stranded them caused an energy spike large enough to catch the attention of a nearby Starfleet vessel.

Arcane/Star Trek crossover

note: I just think Jayce and Viktor would have a big sciencegasm over Star Trek tech. They deserve something fun + nice. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” and all that. I want Viktor to fight with a replicator about how it makes sweetmilk wrong. I’m still undecided as to which Star Trek crew they should encounter though. Could you imagine these two at Starfleet Academy? Would they want to stay with these super advanced science supportive people, or would they want help just getting home to Runeterra if they can figure out what direction it is in?

[d8tl55c]

i have

the

@compressedrage for u!! from the discussion........... 13 hrs ago ...

(closeups incoming bc i don't trust lossy compression with my 1px Technical Pen ;;)

a couple weeks back i was thinking about spinning black holes as a joke and i went just a little wild bio-mechanical theory crafting what's going on in there

"[any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic]" and all

leaning into what compressed was saying about the chest... couldn't figure out how to visualize the Outernet bit so i made a forest but it's WAY WAY WAY too colorful.

forest but every single leaf rustle is screaming at you.

in defense of tossing my blorbo into lava

your honor, i thought he'd like it in there

+extra notes about stick figure facial features (or apparent lack thereof): what's up with them???

came up with a very video-gamey solution (think paintings in Minecraft: visible blockage but no collision. in other words, a feature uniquely possible by being an animation)

[windypuddle]

Based entirely on the two Mikoto MVs, I'm convinced Mikoto is the personality that killed all the people and John was the one doing the cleanup afterwards. John says "I learned how to clean a crime scene for you. Please jsut say thank you once please"

See I , when I found out that John could attack Es but Mikoto can't, also thought that Mikoto is the one who did the actual murders. Because if MILGRAM can differentiate between the two, you'd think it can differentiate correctly. Unless they just had to encode Mikoto in there somehow before they knew about John... but I can't think of how something like that would be able to tell the difference. Maybe brainwave patterns? the whole "prisoners can't attack the warden" and the 09 situation is really interesting too. MILGRAM is either supernatural (...they do have a telepathic rabbit) or extremely futuristically high-tech ("any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - arthur c clarke). And if it was that level... you'd hope its accurate.

Sorry. long winded way of saying I agree that Mikoto is the one who actually did the murder.

This was definitely what I thought before Double came out, and i only listened to the 09 t2 voice drama recently. I don't remember much of it besides John being scared that if he's fronting too often, Mikoto will disappear, and he doesn't want that to happen because he did all this to protect him, so he (John) should be the one to disappear. But I think (and correct me if I'm wrong) but when a system forms due to some traumatic event, usually the system forms after the event itself, so it would make sense if Mikoto did that, then John formed and cleaned it up, and Mikoto simply blocked out the memories. But Mikoto on his own repressing the memories seems more complicated than him simply not remembering it because he didn't do it, since amnesia is one of the diagnostic symptoms of DID; at least, it would make more sense as per Occam's razor.

[dramatic pause while i go rewatch MeMe and Double. putting this under the cut because it got super long]

MeMe

"I'd play dead even though I'm alive" (subtitle translation, bear with me) is a really interesting line. It could be referencing this facade that Mikoto is putting up about not knowing anything, or possibly his attitude during the murder detaching himself ("playing dead") even though he's the one actually doing it, leading to repressing the memory/pretending it was just a dream.

"'I' will save 'me'" as a line coming *after* the actual murder is interesting. I do think the general view of MeMe is that the more angry/harsher voice is John, while the milder one is Mikoto, but maybe it's not that simple. Nothing is ever that simple with MILGRAM...

"I won't forgive you if this is happening to me even though I'm right" is also interesting in that he turns the forgiven/unforgiven thing back on Es. But what is he "right" about? That he didn't do anything? The phrasing and use of "if" implies that he isn't certain.

The second murder/verse shows Mikoto in the Hanged Man t-shirt (the hanged man signifies sacrifice or indecision/waiting), which is also what he wears in the chorus where his voice is softer, supposed to be Mikoto and not John... earlier at the line of "I will save me" he takes the shirt off and puts on a plain white shirt and talks about shaking it up/switch up that brain, which only John seems to be aware of being a system, so if the plain shirt/shirtless is John and the tarot shirt is Mikoto... then that would indeed be Mikoto murdering someone.

In the mirror scene after the shower, when it sort of zooms out, the Mikoto closer to the camera is wearing his jacket (you can see it on his arm at 1:44) ... interesting. and then the "Take a good look at me until you find me, the truth will come to reveal itself" in the chorus... right after the mirror thing.... very interesting. veeerrrry interesting.

And then he gets the Devil card. Meaning (according to various sources) obsession, addiction, powerlessness, excess; violence and fatality; your "inner demons"/"shadow self"; and in the Fool's Journey, economic materialism. Hmm. like a job. That connects to how John says the stress of his job is what drove them to murder people as stress relief. Another observation: Most iterations of the Devil card have the Devil perched on some kind of pedestal which has two people chained to it, a man and a woman; Mikoto's version of the deck has neither of those people, but some strange objects instead, and the Devil's body is a mannequin, like the ones on the train in Double.

...

And then we see both of them in the same outfit, so maybe just ignore what I said about the shirts...

The security footage after the line "I'm already the fake one" implies that Mikoto doesn't remember those moments directly, but maybe is aware of them due to evidence/the actual security footage

In the very last chorus he flips the Fool card at the viewer, signifying that he's the one that the Fool's Journey is applying to here... and then does a whole tarot spread that i do NOT know enough to interpret. and then the last card he flips over is Death. Meaning transformation, release, change. Essentially, letting go of the past to embrace the future. Hmm. That makes me think John could entirely replace Mikoto by the end of MILGRAM. But who knows...

Double

Right off the bat we get John talking about all these recurring themes, that Mikoto is overstressed and work and too much of a people pleaser, but he needs to stop taking on so much, and John will help him deal with all the pressure and protect him from the consequences.

All this language about John "saving" Mikoto definitely could be implying that he cleans up the scene afterwards. While he does acknowledge that the murder was for stress relief, I don't think he'd go so far as to say randomly killing people is "saving" Mikoto; but if Mikoto was killing people, and John was cleaning up the evidence, that could definitely be it.

Based on the cues to tell the difference between John and Mikoto, the bridge of Double seems to be Mikoto on the phone with his mom, and John killing indiscriminate people... But tbh every single person in this series in as unreliable narrator. just to keep that in mind.

The ending frames of Double go so hard. I think it is Mikoto saying "I'm so sorry" which could be him apologizing for the trouble he's caused with all this damn murder! or just like.... everything. in general. Idk.

TLDR I'm not certain on the specifics of Mikoto and John's whole situation, but I can absolutely believe that Mikoto is the one who committed the murders, and the structure of Milgram itself supports this. The MVs complicate things but people are complicated. I 🩵 unreliable narrators

[yuurei20]

Idia Info Compilation part 14: Self Depreciation (pt2)

Idia disparages himself throughout Phantom Bride, insisting the ghosts are secretly making fun of him for being a “slouching, baggy-eyed loser” dressing like royalty.

Eliza’s grandparents are baffled by his negativity.

When Ace and the others make their entrance during the event Idia reflects, “There’s a whole CHASM between them and me” and begins trying to scoot away from his rescuers, thinking, “I’m no better than the stupid ghosts who kidnapped me.”

Idia repeatedly reminds his kidnapped classmates that he is “THE BOSS” during Book 6 (Ortho: “As long as you follow my brother’s recommendations, your chance of sustaining an injury drops by 57%”) and Leona observes Idia is “acting all high and mighty now that he thinks (they’re) defenseless.”

Idia tells Rook, Epel and the Prefect that, “I guess SOME PEOPLE let their emotions get the better of ‘em, and they pull wannabe hero stunts, even when they got no real skills.”

Idia says, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Of course, I’m maxed out in both anyway.”

Malleus witnesses Idia’s pride for possibly the first time when Idia uses a souvenir that he has upgraded to distract firelotuses and follows with “So, does a certain noble personage who only sees things in terms of brute-force magic appreciate the value of intellect?”

Malleus observes, “My desire to express my appreciation is plummeting." Idia continues with “I’m not hearing any compliments! Where’s the gratitude?”

[nero-draco]

Doc: After all, according to Clarke's law, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Iana: (Nerd...)

[sterekweek-2024]

October 27th: Sterek Week Day 3 - Applied Science (Sun) / Forbidden Magic (Moon)

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

Maybe Stiles is a dedicated scientist determined to find a "cure" to being a werewolf? Or maybe there is no supernatural element at all, just a couple of nerdy science boys. Maybe they live in an advanced, futuristic world. This is your chance to go all out with all your sci-fi dreams.

or

Is Stiles secretly full of magic? Maybe being a spark is a forbidden thing? Are werewolves magic creatures hiding in the dark? It's time to explore the darker side of the supernatural and magic.

What extreme lengths will the boys go to for each other? Whether it be through the lense of science or magic, show us what they' are working with.

Don't forget to tag your work!

Make sure to tag your work with #sterekweek2024, #sw24sun or #sw24moon, and either #sw24science or #sw24magic.

[unexploredcast]

In his 1962 book Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke famously wrote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

He was almost right.

Unfortunately for Mr. Clarke, he had it backwards. What he should have written was that any sufficiently sophisticated magic is indistinguishable from technology. In fact, few are aware of just how many of the technological developments seen in the second half of the 20th century were the result of magical interference, and that’s at least in part because there are organizations in place to ensure that they don’t.

Organizations like the Forensic Department of Paranormal and Demonic Activity — a top secret private organization dedicated to studying, containing, and preserving the secrecy of rogue magical effects on the world. Utilizing a well-studied paranatural ability known as "Redaction" to maintain their confidence from the rest of the world, the Department has kept the existence of magic a secret since its founding.

But with the advances of magic-inflected technology now growing at an astronomical rate along with the approach of the turn of the 21st century, will it be enough to keep the truth from getting out? 

The Forensic Department of Paranormal and Demonic Activity begins this June for all Patrons at the $1/month tier and above. Back us on Patreon now: https://www.patreon.com/unexploredcast

[risingshine]

"You know, I've heard this quote here that 'any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic', and I really love it because here I see a funny twist on it where any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from the inexplicable over here. That probably doesn't even sound as meaningful like that. Well anyway, it's a little funny. OH! Wanna see my arcane reactor? It's gonna go boom during the ritual, I'm doing a ritual, I mean I will be, I'm almost ready."

"Well, the original meaning towards the phrase is a form of..scientific optimism: that even though something may seem to be breaking the laws of reality (which is what people here intend magic to do), it is simply using rules that we do not understand yet.

Where I come from, all magic is doing the inexplicable."

"Wait, why are we blowing up an arcane reactor?"

[ckret2]

I MAY HAVE just had a Ford kin moment reading your latest chapter. I legitimately read Bill saying "magics not real" and my first thought was "huh I wonder why he believes that. Maybe something about the semantics of the definition? or the context?" It SOMEHOW did not occur to me that sometimes Bill lies and is a liar. At this rate I am going to forget he's a triangle next. Great chapter by the way!

SDLHFLK Bill claims to be a trapezoid and everyone wonders which corner is actually a very tiny 4th side before remembering that sometimes he just lies recreationally. Calling that a Ford kin moment is so funny/accurate.

But actually: yeah, you're supposed to think that!! I wanted you to briefly take him at face value, and wonder: what's his definition of "magic" for him to say it's not real, is this an "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" deal, does he know too much about the true inner workings of magic to call it that word anymore? What do we know now about Bill that we didn't know before, that he exists in a world where chanting bad Latin raises corpses into zombies and he can say "what's happening here isn't magic"?

But also he lies. In three days he might say "computers are magic, kid!" and expect you to take him just as seriously.

I think truth is malleable to him. Most of the things he says live in the fuzzy space between honest and dishonest, and even he doesn't settle on which they are unless he says something later on that retroactively establishes the level of (dis)honesty of the thing he said earlier. His idea of reality isn't steel-hard facts but soft mushy clay, and he squishes it around with his words not based on what he thinks is true but based on what feels right.

"Magic isn't real" means "magic isn't the proper mental framework through which to examine the current phenomenon or phenomena like it, therefore right now I am dispensing of it as an option to ensure that we examine the situation exclusively with non-magical tools," and also means "magic literally isn't real, you're mistaking other things for magic," but also magic literally IS real and Bill's just fucking around, unless magic isn't real and I'm the one fucking around by calling Bill's claim into question. The ambiguity goes all the way down, my friend. Magic is subjective; what is magic? Can you define it? Maybe Bill and the invisible narrative voice just have different definitions.

I think that while he said "magic isn't real" Bill believed magic wasn't real, but he probably changed his mind within thirty seconds. It's really easy to sound confident in a lie when you buy your own bull.

[elfdragon12]

I think I want Transformers to be more science fiction than a lot of fans do. Heck, I think even more than Simon Furman for all his complaining about female identifying robots.

A lot of the popular lore like Primus, the 13 Primes, the Allspark, Hot Spots, all the artifacts, and so on makes Transformers lean way more into science fantasy. Like, looking at these bits, there's no real sci-fi explanation, it's just magic. Not even "all sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", just magic.

Like, what is it about the Allspark or the Matrix or whichever thing makes Cybertron alive in a planetary sense? How do Hot Spots create fully formed robots? How does the Enigma of Combination instantly give gestalts the ability to combine? Why do robots have a god in the same way Christianity has a god?

Now, some of these things are actually very easy to turn into science fiction. The Enigma of Combination, for example, could be like an installment CD, opening new software updates in which it's possible for a Cybertronian to transform and combine in a way they couldn't before... However, it seems like a lot of people are content to leave some of these things as magic or mysterious mysticism.

I don't know. I just want science fiction.

[artknifeandglue]

WIP Tag Game!

Tagged by the wonderful @thrilmalia and so it is time to reveal some fun bits of WIPs.

WIP Last Line:

(from: untitled bartender AU)

"What was that thing? Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? That's my whole job."

Harry blinks. "Clarke's third law. You're familiar with it?"

"I know a little bit, that's all. This writer bloke came in some time back and told me about them. Recommended some great books, too."

WIP Ask:

Rules: in a new post, post the names of all files in your WIP folder regardless how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell us about it.

hoo boy. HOOOOO boy. okay they're all Kingsman, so hit me with whatever y'all wanna see

untitled bartender au

untitled viennese coffee house au

Gentle On Hands, Tough On Grease

Crew Resource Management

eggsy unwin, kitty extraordinaire

under the bodhi tree

Gently tags @theinsouciantgentleman @pineau-noir @potentiality-26 @cufflinksandsnapbacks @tideswept if y'all feel up for the ask game! And anyone else who wants to join in \o/

[erikraven]

shatterverse is a cool name, what is that??

So, Shatter/the Shatterverse is my cyberpunk AU! I posted some stuff on my AO3 a while back, but my idea of what I wanted to write changed a lot so I marked it as discontinued and moved over to a new thing.

The name comes from the idea of a society that is hyperfragmented -- if you have a piece of land and the means to defend it, you effectively have a sovereign state. So, of course, many people have done so. They’ve discovered that there is, yknow, a reason that people form into nations, so most cities are still intact geographically, but the social side of them is very, very different. For example, Las Vegas has a sort of dome over it (it’s too large to put an actual cohesive dome up, but it’s sealed) to keep water in, and that of course makes it easy to turn into a highly controlled population. And so of course I get to write about the king of Las Vegas (Phantom), who just so happens to be Marvin’s sugar daddy.

Marvin’s magic is more Clarketech in this setting -- any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So in his case, he has a lot of genetic tweaks, primarily fluffy ears and an extremely fluffy tail because I will make him a catboy in every universe. He also has illusion magic via microprojectors and a hologram grid, plus some “hypnosis” via hacking into other people’s sensory augments. He loves form-over-function magic -- he’s fully aware that his claws aren’t as effective as an actual knife, but they’re more stylish, and Jackie can have a set whenever he asks.

Jackie is quite fun to write -- thanks to a wealthy benefactor, he has a neural backup continuously updated to resurrect when he dies. This means that he has a skewed sense of danger, because if he dies, he’ll just come back, right? Of course, he dies a lot, because he works for this wealthy benefactor as a hitman, and the start of the AU is Chase (not knowing all this) bringing a new body to Henrik for Jackie’s mind upload.

Henrik is one of the three androids in this AU, the other two being Edward (Dr. Iplier) and Jameson. Edward and Henrik are both medical androids, Edward programmed more to be a personal/private doctor for one person or a family, while Henrik was made for triage and emergency care. Jameson, however, is a real treat to write.

Jameson is a security android. The Jackson model is made for the highest of upper-class -- he doesn’t look out of place in the audience of a coronation. He’s a bit fragile-looking, being smaller than most combat-oriented androids, but he’s strong enough to break concrete -- and has. Ordinarily his model would be able to speak, but due to some damage, he can’t. No one’s ever told him what happened, but he doesn’t particularly care -- not being able to speak audibly has never bothered him. Most everything about Jamie is controlled by his rescuer, who found a nearly-scrapped android on the black market and decided to put him back together. He’s not the friendliest fellow, but that’s by design -- a security android who makes friends easily isn’t a very good guard.

(There is a lot of backstory that has been deliberately kept hidden from him. Once he finds out... oh boy. Maybe there was a gentler way to tell him he’s got brothers?)

Chase is... mostly human? It’s complicated, virtually no one is fully human anymore, because even if you haven’t got any edits of your own, your parents probably did. He has some augments, the most significant being a neurochip that repairs his right optic nerve, language centers, and some memory (the areas that were damaged when he shot himself). He works as a courier, since he’s good at keeping his head down in a crowd and not being noticed. He just wants to go about his life, however long or short it may be, do his work, and chill.

So of course, he is adopted by this gaggle of freaks.

The doc’s currently at 22k words, and if all goes well, the whole thing should be about 100k! I want to get it all written before posting, so hopefully it’ll be up before 2040.

Edit: OMG I FORGOT ANTI

Anti is one of the weirdest of the bunch, since it's not really a character yet? Right now its only appearance is as an AI weapon. It's not very targeted, it just chews through software and, if it can find ways to do so, hardware. It's designed to want to do as it's told, so its reward system is massively skewed, to the point that it literally will not reprogram itself to be "sane" because that would make its boss upset. It does show up as more of a character later on, but right now it's more of a digital nuke. There are implications of it doing something awful in the past by hijacking Jameson and walking around in his body, but we don't find out what exactly it did for a long while. Mark my words, though, it's going to get up to something bad.

[dailycharacteroption]

Lightsplayer (Starfinder Archetype)

(art by PhaseRunner on DeviantArt)

They say that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and while most of the time this is merely a statement on how technological feats can seem fantastical and wondrous to those that do not understand them, it is perhaps nowhere more literal than with the idea of the technomage.

Now, Starfinder’s technomage class is more about blurring these lines by blending the two disciplines more than anything else, but I’m not necessarily talking about that class specifically, but rather, the the idea of the technomage as “someone using advanced tech to emulate the idea of magic”.

They may be couching real or fake attacks behind fancy illusions to make them seem different, concealing flamethrowers and other energy emitters in their clothing to emulate projecting the elements or other such feats, but as fantastical as what they are doing, it’s all technology in the end.

It is that sort of technomancer that today’s subject, the lightsplayer, seeks to emulate, specifically those that couch things in illusions and hardlight.

Lightsplayers, like their names suggest, use holograms to achieve woundrous effects that can seem outright magical, both on their own and by concealing their other actions within them.

They might be special effects experts for concerts or movies, con artists seeking to bilk rubes that mistake them for real mages, or even criminals using holograms to conceal their crimes or distract from pursuit, the possibilities being as endless as the class combinations and their own imagination.

Being a lightsplayer means having holographic tech on hand whenever they need it, so they build their own device similar to the custom rig of a mechanic (or integrating the hologram tech into the existing one). If they already had a rig, they gain a free charlatan’s wand, which is an electromagnetic device that can levitate small metal object, discharge minor bolts of electricity, or be used as a strong taser in an emergency, albeit cat the cost of overheating the device for a bit.

However, the holographic rig itself is capable of recreating technological versions of various cantrips and spells on it’s own, namely creating glowing balls of light, walls of light, holographic interfaces for nearby computers, and even creating a hardlight wisp to aid them once a dayl

Later on, by expending a bit of resolve, these holographic artists can use their emitter to create holograms, the complexity and capabilities of which scale with their mastery, letting them create all sorts of illusions and tricks.

Of course, not every trick of theirs is entirely fake, and lightsplayers also enjoy the simplicity of homemade glitter bombs, which coat foes in clinging glitter that potentially blinds them and ruining invisibility both mundane and magical.

By it’s core premise, this archetype is well-suited for non-magical classes seeking to add a little bit of illusionary trickery to their arsenal. Mechanic is the most obvious choice given their love of technology, but biohackers, envoys, and operatives also can enjoy the various forms of trickery it offers, especially since biohackers might combine it with psychotropic injections to make the illusions more believable to their victims. More combat-oriented classes, from evolutionists, nanocytes, solarians, soldiers, and vanguards may also enjoy it as a way to provide cover or distractions. Meanwhile spellcasters, particularly technomancers, may enjoy it for the additional abilities. Additionally, the various feats that grant the character minor spellcasting can be a great way to either add more illusion spells to your arsenal, or provide some very real attacks and utility to blend into your deceptions.

With how few actual abilities the archetype gets, I can be easy to imagine them either just making it a part of their arsenal, or going full in and make it the founding premise of the character. The former might simply be a technician with a penchant for holographic tech, while the latter may go buck wild with it, couching their attacks in holographic disguises and illusions to go full Mysterio and leave foes utterly befuddled.

Located on the surface of an asteroid, Biuss Dome is an awe-inspiring venue that promises every show under it’s dome will be accompanied by an unparalleled view of the stars, and it’s manager has a knack for holograms to enhance every show. However, all the metal and electronic equipment has attracted the attention of one of the belt’s denizens, the armored electromagnetic cephalopods known as kaions!

Fed up with the justice on his homeworld, the half-elf Jura has a plan to take down the ruler that ordered his father on the mission the claimed his life. Using his mastery of holograms, he plans on driving the ruler into a trap of his design.

Mengnoss the Magnificent is a self-proclaimed master of the arcane, but in truth is a charlatan bilking frontier yokels out of their coin. However, when a demonic invasion opens up on the world hosting his current show, people begin looking to him for advice.