Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 7979300" data-attributes="member: 53980">Yeah, you can certainly make magic a branch of science. Although my question to that would be: at that point, what makes it magic? That's my biggest issue with magic as science. IMO, magic should always be at least a little beyond mortal comprehension to distinguish it as such. I think that even if magic can be formalized and categorized, the deeper whys for how it works should be elusive. Even going so far as to causing those who do delve too deeply and learn the why to lose their humanity in the process.Mind you, I like formalized, coherent magic systems. Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors, and he writes magic systems that are well explained because he believes that your ability to satisfyingly solve problems in a story using magic is directly proportional to how well that magic is understood by the reader. However, while there are a lot of little hints and clues throughout his novels as to why magic works, he never explains it. It remains somewhat shrouded and mysterious, which I think is important. It's one thing for magic as a force to not function in an area (because the magic field is weak there or whatever). Quite another for it to take the day off. Consider this - there are four fundamental forces in our universe: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. If any of those forces took the day off it would be the end of all life. Without gravity our solar system would fly apart. Matter can't really exist without electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force. Without the weak nuclear force the stars (including our sun) shut down.So, at least to me, if magic is the 5th force then it taking the day off ought to have greater consequences than a mere power outage. Don't get me wrong, they're not fundamental forces because their stopping would end all life. Rather, all life is dependent on them because they are fundamental forces of the universe. Life evolved with them in place. In areas where that force is subdued life might evolve without a need for it, but I would expect elsewhere for it to be rather intrinsic. Otherwise it's a bit of a vestigial force, if it is only of real consequence to mages and supernatural creatures. For example, maybe without magic the world is purely physical. Souls are dependent on the 5th force and cease to be/function without it. Life wouldn't cease without magic, in that scenario, but it would change quite drastically. Maybe this is reflected by the good/evil alignment axis being suppressed and going with just the old school law/chaos axis. That's just spitballing though.My point being that I think that if you make magic a fundamental force, you need to find a way to make it intrinsic to that world. It can't just be important for mages and the like - it should be fundamental to everyone (everyone whose ancestors didn't evolve in a null-magic zone at any rate). If the nature of magic is vague (whether or not its application is formulaic and predictable) then it doesn't need to be fundamental.</blockquote>

Verification