Fiction: Technomancy: 101
Want to understand how a world with magic could become technologically advanced? Try this answer...
"Technomancy: 101"
"Ok, people? Settle down and get seated." Jerico stopped to survey the room and his students. The usual group toward the back were roughhousing and being too loud. He sighed and scanned the more promising students to the front. Dusty caught his eye, causing him to smile inwardly. Dusty was one of his prize pupils, a student that not only took interest in his studies, but also questioned and tested every idea placed in front of him. At the moment he was testing his ability to get Diana in the seat next to him to giggle. He seemed to be doing a pretty good job of it so far.
"Ahem?" Dusty suddenly looked up. His face colored lightly as he realized he'd been caught.
"Sorry? Is he here yet?" Dusty asked the question with a hint on concern. Jerico knew that he wanted to catch Professor Neriul in order to ask him about some of his theories in person. Jerico did not know who to feel sorry for first, but settled on Neriul; Dusty was a good talker, and persistent too.
"Nope. If he follows his normal form, he'll be about an hour la? Whoops, speak of the devil!" The Professor had arrived around the corner at nearly a jog. He did not look out of breath, only slightly frazzled. Behind him jogged a small kobold in a styled wrap, her scales gleaming as if oiled. She carried a briefcase and purse, and was speaking to someone over a crysphone. Even from behind her dog-like features, the intelligence shone through like a beacon. Putting away the phone, she whispered something to the Professor. Neriul nodded and flashed Jerico a smile as he stepped forward, holding out his hand.
Jerico took it. "Welcome to HighRage Academy, Professor Neriul. I'm glad you could make time for my students."
"Yes, of course! Not a problem at all. Sadly, I only have about an hour, so we had best get down to business." His eyes scanned the room, narrowing at the ones still chatting quietly in the back. He coughed once, attempting to get their attention. Failing at that, he raised his hand and spoke rapidly, rotating his hand in a quick gesture.
The room was suddenly a lot more quiet. The students in the back looked up in surprise as they realized their voices did not carry any longer. Neriul raised his chin and looked up for a moment, seeming to savor the silence of the spell he has cast. "Ah, that's better." His eyes focused on the class, and he took a deep breath. "First, I would like to thank all of you that I did NOT have to cast a spell on." Laughter evoked from the front of the class. "And Master Jerico, for a chance to corrupt his students." Jerico smiled slightly as his students snickered. "I believe I was called here to chatter endlessly about my specialty: Technomancy."
"Before we can discuss this, though, we must understand magic itself. What is it? Where does it come from? What can we do with it?" Neriul's eyes gleamed as he warmed to the topic. "Magic is defined as 'The manipulation of the universe through power channeled from the Weave.' It comes in many forms. The minister, mending the flesh and bone of his patient; the sorcerer, touching the Weave through instinct and force of will; and even the wizard, casting spells of silence across the back of a room so that he might be heard." Laughter followed the grin of the Professor, as he paused for effect.
"Magic is power, pure and simple. If a person knows how, he or she may wield the near limitless power of the Weave. 'What is the Weave,' you ask? It is a name we give to the part of the universe we draw magical power from. Tests have been done; several by myself at the Institute of Magic, Nature, and Technomancy. They have so far been inconclusive. The nature of the Weave is for it to be changed by its use. Anyone capable enough to draw magic from the Weave, upon scrying it finds he has changed it's fundamental nature. The Weave, is then, literally what we make of it. It is how we make pocket dimensions for storage, teleport ourselves, create seemingly unlimited amounts stone and iron out of air, anything?"
"But we can't make gold." The voice was that of Min, a halfling student from the suburbs south of the city.
" 'But we can't make gold?' " Neriul said it slowly, like a man savoring a fine wine. "True, we cannot make gold." He began to count off his fingers. "We also cannot make lead, adamantium, mithreal, living tissue, and a host of other things."
"If we can't make living tissue, how do we summon creatures and heal? I thought that summoned creatures were created in the flesh as?" she looked through her knowledge crystal, " 'Iconic creations of our own subconscious'? " She looked up intently.
"First: WE, as in you and I, cannot heal. Clerics, druids, and some sorcerers can heal. They do this by stimulating the natural healing abilities of the body while feeding carefully guided amounts of magic into the patient. They CREATE nothing. They assist. I believe this is something you could look up on your own?" The Professor's voice trailed off, one of his eyebrows raised as he looked at her. She sunk down in her chair as several other students chuckled. He continued, cutting them off. "As to the second question: You are correct, and wrong." Several people perked up and waited.
Neriul took another deep breath. "Summoned creatures ARE 'iconic creations of the subconscious'. But they are not flesh and blood. While they can be hurt, and bleed, and 'die'; they have no true physiology. It is all a part of how we see them. We 'know' that a celestial has silver blood, and that his wounds glow from within. We 'know' some demons and fiends have blood of acid that can eat through steel and stone." He looks around again, building his presence and raising his voice slightly. "But the point is, the flesh is a sham. It is magic given form, and fades as soon as the summoner stops providing it power."
"So, demons and celestials are just figments? Creatures with no more reality than our own minds give them?" Dusty spoke for the first time. His eyes showed what he was doing. He was attempting to debate with the Professor.
"Don't let a cleric hear you say that." The class, or at least some of them, snickered. "Yes and no. We know that some creatures seem to have an existence beyond what we give them. We call these entities 'named' creatures. They can be summoned by two differing wizards, and relay messages between them with unerring accuracy. They seem to think, and even plan. Named celestials speak of the City of Light, but seem unwilling to discuss it further. Named creatures can take a dislike to a job given to them, and even complain about it, even as they perform the task. Summoning a creature is a complex business, as both an intellectual and moral pursuit. I myself try to avoid it."
"But?" Neriul waved his finger at Dusty, shaking his head.
"Back on subject!" He paused, straightening his tunic and taking a drink of water from the glass the kobold had offered him.
"In ancient times we wielded magic either by casting spells, or by the use of magically imbued items. Wands, staves, potions, rings, weapons; all were made using the same process we use even today for such devices. The individual binds an amount of their own spirit into a device, awakening it to the presence of the Weave. This binding allows the magic user almost unlimited ability to customize and create items of power that do not deplete his own strength when used. It is SO effective a way to wield magic, that we do it even today." He had once again warmed to the speech he was giving.
"But these items of power could not be mass produced. Since each item must have a portion of the caster's spirit bound into it, any attempt to make hundreds of items would lead to the creator in question fainting quite quickly, and loosing a major chunk of his spirit to boot!" The classroom was silent now.
"Technomancy answered all of these problems, and created a few new ones. The primary change in technomancy consists of the fact that it takes no spirit in order to make the device. While it still takes the skill of a trained magic using individual, he no longer must tie himself to the item, allowing him to produce several at a time. Even better, without the need of a spell caster to fuel the creation, other magical devices could assist in the creation of new devices. The effect of this was the industrialization of magic."
"But as I said, there were new problems. To make these new items, without the use of a caster's spirit, there were tradeoffs. The first, and most important, is that the device was enchanted without a connection to the Weave. It was effectively useless. This was a strange situation: An item of great importance to our way of life, designed nearly 3000 years before its time. What happened next was pure luck."
"Gate magic was already in use across the world. While only the most powerful wizards might wield the power of a Gate, several built permanent ones. These Gates were used to allow instant travel from one site to another. Regardless of the original intent, they were found to have another ability as well."
"Gates, when placed in the proper configuration, can make a WeaveGate." He once again paused, touching the controls on the podium and causing it to show an image of a pulsing, glowing fog with a dense core. "The first known WeaveGate was a rift that lasted for about half a minute, and collapsed before the wizards who made it realized what they had done. It was nearly ten years later until they were able to repeat the effect. On the 5th day of Frost's call, 5294, they created the worlds first known 'controlled' WeaveGate. It was a crude attempt by today's standards, and only lasted 97 seconds with their best effort. But they could repeat it, and learned more with each attempt."
"The first thing they learned, was that the use of magic items and spells near the WeaveGate caused it to close quickly. The second was that anyone using such an item or casting such a spell tended to be killed by the amount of power that coursed through him. The survivors learned quickly that they were not going to harness this power for personal use."
"The irony is that the WeaveGates were developed due to the stubbornness of a group of intelligent wizards who foolishly insisted on drinking from a raging water elemental." The class fell apart with laughter at this. And the kobold rolled her eyes. Jerico grinned and guessed that she had heard that quote far too many times to enjoy it anymore.
Giving a few moments for everything to calm back down, he continued. "Again, by pure luck, one of the wizards was carrying an ancient technomagical device without even knowing what he had. Good fortune for us all, since if he had thought it was at all magical, he would have never let it near the WeaveGate. As it was, we will never know what the device was supposed to do. It exploded. The wizard, named Argon, survived the blast. He and the other wizards began examining the remains of the device, and figured out the basic concept of its design."
"It took decades of research to figure out what was really going on. It was very simple: Spirit-linked items were made to draw on the magic of the Weave. When placed near the unshielded power of a WeaveGate, they drew power directly from it. There was nothing to impede the flow of power, and the item was burned by it from the inside-out. Wizards attempting to cast spells near one did the same thing, usually before completing the spell."
"Technomagical devices, though, have no tie to the weave. They were missing the spirit needed to do it. While still a focus for magic, they had no power, and were incapable of being used. At least, this was the case before the discovery of the WeaveGates. These special Gates changed that forever. Suddenly, wizards found an unlimited well of power, and a way to use it."
"And so began the War of the Weave. To make a long story short: Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely? It was the bloodiest war in all of history. Common soldiers, for the first time, had access to weapons only a few before could use. Nearly half of the population of almost every race was slaughtered in the carnage. During this time weapons tech increased by leaps and bounds. Factories, powered by wizards and slaves, produced innovation after innovation. First came WeaveNodes, which allowed the safe distribution of power across miles. Next came power crystals that allowed the weapons to leave the proximity of a WeaveGate or Node and still function. Finally, tools and other devices began to show up to use the available power of the WeaveGates. It was a most wonderful, and horrible, time."
"Enough of history? Let us discuss how a modern WeaveGate works. Due to the nature of a WeaveGate, it needs a fairly large building with an interior chamber for the Gate of about 30-foot squared. The actual chamber for it must be shielded heavily, not only to protect others from the effects of magic burnout, but also to prevent stray magical emanations from destabilizing the WeaveGate. A control chamber controls the stability of the WeaveGate by introducing small, controlled bursts of magical energy in patterns meant to keep the Gate from closing. Unlike the WeaveGates made during the war, we now have the ability to make ones that could easily last for decades. While it still takes wizards or sorcerers of great power to create the initial WeaveGate, it can be used for around 30 years. Wizards who cast the spells usually own half value in the company itself, allowing them a source of income for research and experimentation. This further helps to push the envelope of technomancy to new levels."
"Power is distributed across the city and local countryside by use of WeaveNodes. These devices are placed high above the city on towers, so as not to be blocked by large buildings that might impede the flow of power. These R-Nodes relay power not only to smaller Nodes on buildings nearby, but also to other Nodes that send the power farther abroad to outlying communities near the city. Finally, the S-Nodes on each building send power to the personal nodes that each home has. These P-Nodes provide power for every device in a modern home: Vision Crystals, Crysphones, Ovens, Cleaners, even the running water you enjoy."
"WeaveGates produce power that is used in every home, business, and factory in the world. It is safe, cheap, and clean. It uses no resources, except in its inception, and costs only coppers for anyone who wants to rent a P-Node to use it."
The kobold's timer suddenly chimed pleasantly. She looks at the Professor and pointed at it with a frown. The professor sighed and turned back to the class. "Well, that was timed better than I could have hoped. Normally, I would allow questions, but at this moment Kirla is reminding me that I have three VERY impatient people wishing to speak with me about?"
"Three minutes ago." Finished the Kirla. Jerico was glad to finally have a name to go with the face.
Neriul smiled, and looked back at the class. "Well now, you see? Even the greatest wizards have someone they have to answer to. In my case, it's Kirla." Several students chuckled again. "As it is, being an archmage does have some benefits though?" He clapped his hands three times.
Both Neriul and Kirla were gone.
From the class recordings of:
Jerico Highfallen
Teacher of basic Thamaturgy
14-3-9897
Foolish Frost
"The irony is that the WeaveGates were developed due to the stubbornness of a group of intelligent wizards who foolishly insisted on drinking from a raging water elemental."
"Technomancy: 101"
"Ok, people? Settle down and get seated." Jerico stopped to survey the room and his students. The usual group toward the back were roughhousing and being too loud. He sighed and scanned the more promising students to the front. Dusty caught his eye, causing him to smile inwardly. Dusty was one of his prize pupils, a student that not only took interest in his studies, but also questioned and tested every idea placed in front of him. At the moment he was testing his ability to get Diana in the seat next to him to giggle. He seemed to be doing a pretty good job of it so far.
"Ahem?" Dusty suddenly looked up. His face colored lightly as he realized he'd been caught.
"Sorry? Is he here yet?" Dusty asked the question with a hint on concern. Jerico knew that he wanted to catch Professor Neriul in order to ask him about some of his theories in person. Jerico did not know who to feel sorry for first, but settled on Neriul; Dusty was a good talker, and persistent too.
"Nope. If he follows his normal form, he'll be about an hour la? Whoops, speak of the devil!" The Professor had arrived around the corner at nearly a jog. He did not look out of breath, only slightly frazzled. Behind him jogged a small kobold in a styled wrap, her scales gleaming as if oiled. She carried a briefcase and purse, and was speaking to someone over a crysphone. Even from behind her dog-like features, the intelligence shone through like a beacon. Putting away the phone, she whispered something to the Professor. Neriul nodded and flashed Jerico a smile as he stepped forward, holding out his hand.
Jerico took it. "Welcome to HighRage Academy, Professor Neriul. I'm glad you could make time for my students."
"Yes, of course! Not a problem at all. Sadly, I only have about an hour, so we had best get down to business." His eyes scanned the room, narrowing at the ones still chatting quietly in the back. He coughed once, attempting to get their attention. Failing at that, he raised his hand and spoke rapidly, rotating his hand in a quick gesture.
The room was suddenly a lot more quiet. The students in the back looked up in surprise as they realized their voices did not carry any longer. Neriul raised his chin and looked up for a moment, seeming to savor the silence of the spell he has cast. "Ah, that's better." His eyes focused on the class, and he took a deep breath. "First, I would like to thank all of you that I did NOT have to cast a spell on." Laughter evoked from the front of the class. "And Master Jerico, for a chance to corrupt his students." Jerico smiled slightly as his students snickered. "I believe I was called here to chatter endlessly about my specialty: Technomancy."
"Before we can discuss this, though, we must understand magic itself. What is it? Where does it come from? What can we do with it?" Neriul's eyes gleamed as he warmed to the topic. "Magic is defined as 'The manipulation of the universe through power channeled from the Weave.' It comes in many forms. The minister, mending the flesh and bone of his patient; the sorcerer, touching the Weave through instinct and force of will; and even the wizard, casting spells of silence across the back of a room so that he might be heard." Laughter followed the grin of the Professor, as he paused for effect.
"Magic is power, pure and simple. If a person knows how, he or she may wield the near limitless power of the Weave. 'What is the Weave,' you ask? It is a name we give to the part of the universe we draw magical power from. Tests have been done; several by myself at the Institute of Magic, Nature, and Technomancy. They have so far been inconclusive. The nature of the Weave is for it to be changed by its use. Anyone capable enough to draw magic from the Weave, upon scrying it finds he has changed it's fundamental nature. The Weave, is then, literally what we make of it. It is how we make pocket dimensions for storage, teleport ourselves, create seemingly unlimited amounts stone and iron out of air, anything?"
"But we can't make gold." The voice was that of Min, a halfling student from the suburbs south of the city.
" 'But we can't make gold?' " Neriul said it slowly, like a man savoring a fine wine. "True, we cannot make gold." He began to count off his fingers. "We also cannot make lead, adamantium, mithreal, living tissue, and a host of other things."
"If we can't make living tissue, how do we summon creatures and heal? I thought that summoned creatures were created in the flesh as?" she looked through her knowledge crystal, " 'Iconic creations of our own subconscious'? " She looked up intently.
"First: WE, as in you and I, cannot heal. Clerics, druids, and some sorcerers can heal. They do this by stimulating the natural healing abilities of the body while feeding carefully guided amounts of magic into the patient. They CREATE nothing. They assist. I believe this is something you could look up on your own?" The Professor's voice trailed off, one of his eyebrows raised as he looked at her. She sunk down in her chair as several other students chuckled. He continued, cutting them off. "As to the second question: You are correct, and wrong." Several people perked up and waited.
Neriul took another deep breath. "Summoned creatures ARE 'iconic creations of the subconscious'. But they are not flesh and blood. While they can be hurt, and bleed, and 'die'; they have no true physiology. It is all a part of how we see them. We 'know' that a celestial has silver blood, and that his wounds glow from within. We 'know' some demons and fiends have blood of acid that can eat through steel and stone." He looks around again, building his presence and raising his voice slightly. "But the point is, the flesh is a sham. It is magic given form, and fades as soon as the summoner stops providing it power."
"So, demons and celestials are just figments? Creatures with no more reality than our own minds give them?" Dusty spoke for the first time. His eyes showed what he was doing. He was attempting to debate with the Professor.
"Don't let a cleric hear you say that." The class, or at least some of them, snickered. "Yes and no. We know that some creatures seem to have an existence beyond what we give them. We call these entities 'named' creatures. They can be summoned by two differing wizards, and relay messages between them with unerring accuracy. They seem to think, and even plan. Named celestials speak of the City of Light, but seem unwilling to discuss it further. Named creatures can take a dislike to a job given to them, and even complain about it, even as they perform the task. Summoning a creature is a complex business, as both an intellectual and moral pursuit. I myself try to avoid it."
"But?" Neriul waved his finger at Dusty, shaking his head.
"Back on subject!" He paused, straightening his tunic and taking a drink of water from the glass the kobold had offered him.
"In ancient times we wielded magic either by casting spells, or by the use of magically imbued items. Wands, staves, potions, rings, weapons; all were made using the same process we use even today for such devices. The individual binds an amount of their own spirit into a device, awakening it to the presence of the Weave. This binding allows the magic user almost unlimited ability to customize and create items of power that do not deplete his own strength when used. It is SO effective a way to wield magic, that we do it even today." He had once again warmed to the speech he was giving.
"But these items of power could not be mass produced. Since each item must have a portion of the caster's spirit bound into it, any attempt to make hundreds of items would lead to the creator in question fainting quite quickly, and loosing a major chunk of his spirit to boot!" The classroom was silent now.
"Technomancy answered all of these problems, and created a few new ones. The primary change in technomancy consists of the fact that it takes no spirit in order to make the device. While it still takes the skill of a trained magic using individual, he no longer must tie himself to the item, allowing him to produce several at a time. Even better, without the need of a spell caster to fuel the creation, other magical devices could assist in the creation of new devices. The effect of this was the industrialization of magic."
"But as I said, there were new problems. To make these new items, without the use of a caster's spirit, there were tradeoffs. The first, and most important, is that the device was enchanted without a connection to the Weave. It was effectively useless. This was a strange situation: An item of great importance to our way of life, designed nearly 3000 years before its time. What happened next was pure luck."
"Gate magic was already in use across the world. While only the most powerful wizards might wield the power of a Gate, several built permanent ones. These Gates were used to allow instant travel from one site to another. Regardless of the original intent, they were found to have another ability as well."
"Gates, when placed in the proper configuration, can make a WeaveGate." He once again paused, touching the controls on the podium and causing it to show an image of a pulsing, glowing fog with a dense core. "The first known WeaveGate was a rift that lasted for about half a minute, and collapsed before the wizards who made it realized what they had done. It was nearly ten years later until they were able to repeat the effect. On the 5th day of Frost's call, 5294, they created the worlds first known 'controlled' WeaveGate. It was a crude attempt by today's standards, and only lasted 97 seconds with their best effort. But they could repeat it, and learned more with each attempt."
"The first thing they learned, was that the use of magic items and spells near the WeaveGate caused it to close quickly. The second was that anyone using such an item or casting such a spell tended to be killed by the amount of power that coursed through him. The survivors learned quickly that they were not going to harness this power for personal use."
"The irony is that the WeaveGates were developed due to the stubbornness of a group of intelligent wizards who foolishly insisted on drinking from a raging water elemental." The class fell apart with laughter at this. And the kobold rolled her eyes. Jerico grinned and guessed that she had heard that quote far too many times to enjoy it anymore.
Giving a few moments for everything to calm back down, he continued. "Again, by pure luck, one of the wizards was carrying an ancient technomagical device without even knowing what he had. Good fortune for us all, since if he had thought it was at all magical, he would have never let it near the WeaveGate. As it was, we will never know what the device was supposed to do. It exploded. The wizard, named Argon, survived the blast. He and the other wizards began examining the remains of the device, and figured out the basic concept of its design."
"It took decades of research to figure out what was really going on. It was very simple: Spirit-linked items were made to draw on the magic of the Weave. When placed near the unshielded power of a WeaveGate, they drew power directly from it. There was nothing to impede the flow of power, and the item was burned by it from the inside-out. Wizards attempting to cast spells near one did the same thing, usually before completing the spell."
"Technomagical devices, though, have no tie to the weave. They were missing the spirit needed to do it. While still a focus for magic, they had no power, and were incapable of being used. At least, this was the case before the discovery of the WeaveGates. These special Gates changed that forever. Suddenly, wizards found an unlimited well of power, and a way to use it."
"And so began the War of the Weave. To make a long story short: Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely? It was the bloodiest war in all of history. Common soldiers, for the first time, had access to weapons only a few before could use. Nearly half of the population of almost every race was slaughtered in the carnage. During this time weapons tech increased by leaps and bounds. Factories, powered by wizards and slaves, produced innovation after innovation. First came WeaveNodes, which allowed the safe distribution of power across miles. Next came power crystals that allowed the weapons to leave the proximity of a WeaveGate or Node and still function. Finally, tools and other devices began to show up to use the available power of the WeaveGates. It was a most wonderful, and horrible, time."
"Enough of history? Let us discuss how a modern WeaveGate works. Due to the nature of a WeaveGate, it needs a fairly large building with an interior chamber for the Gate of about 30-foot squared. The actual chamber for it must be shielded heavily, not only to protect others from the effects of magic burnout, but also to prevent stray magical emanations from destabilizing the WeaveGate. A control chamber controls the stability of the WeaveGate by introducing small, controlled bursts of magical energy in patterns meant to keep the Gate from closing. Unlike the WeaveGates made during the war, we now have the ability to make ones that could easily last for decades. While it still takes wizards or sorcerers of great power to create the initial WeaveGate, it can be used for around 30 years. Wizards who cast the spells usually own half value in the company itself, allowing them a source of income for research and experimentation. This further helps to push the envelope of technomancy to new levels."
"Power is distributed across the city and local countryside by use of WeaveNodes. These devices are placed high above the city on towers, so as not to be blocked by large buildings that might impede the flow of power. These R-Nodes relay power not only to smaller Nodes on buildings nearby, but also to other Nodes that send the power farther abroad to outlying communities near the city. Finally, the S-Nodes on each building send power to the personal nodes that each home has. These P-Nodes provide power for every device in a modern home: Vision Crystals, Crysphones, Ovens, Cleaners, even the running water you enjoy."
"WeaveGates produce power that is used in every home, business, and factory in the world. It is safe, cheap, and clean. It uses no resources, except in its inception, and costs only coppers for anyone who wants to rent a P-Node to use it."
The kobold's timer suddenly chimed pleasantly. She looks at the Professor and pointed at it with a frown. The professor sighed and turned back to the class. "Well, that was timed better than I could have hoped. Normally, I would allow questions, but at this moment Kirla is reminding me that I have three VERY impatient people wishing to speak with me about?"
"Three minutes ago." Finished the Kirla. Jerico was glad to finally have a name to go with the face.
Neriul smiled, and looked back at the class. "Well now, you see? Even the greatest wizards have someone they have to answer to. In my case, it's Kirla." Several students chuckled again. "As it is, being an archmage does have some benefits though?" He clapped his hands three times.
Both Neriul and Kirla were gone.
From the class recordings of:
Jerico Highfallen
Teacher of basic Thamaturgy
14-3-9897
Foolish Frost
"The irony is that the WeaveGates were developed due to the stubbornness of a group of intelligent wizards who foolishly insisted on drinking from a raging water elemental."
posted by Unknown at 4:56 PM
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