New answers tagged magic
2
votes
How can agriculture/industry be economically viable in setting where magic exists?
Economics Occurs At The Margin
Depending on the particulars, which you don't provide so I'm speaking in general terms here, all such a magic system does is change the relative scarcity/abundance of ...
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3
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Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
Important question: is the Super Aristocracy up for doing "public works"? Or are they fine just sitting on their super-asses all day doing nothing of importance?
The reason Im asking is that ...
- 6,920
3
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Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
If your ruling class is too small for their territory, say a king, his family and a few ducal families, it would probably not change much, because even with Superman or Super Saiyan level of powers, ...
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1
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Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
The aristocratic guys would fight each other. And that would be a way, where even a commoner could get a revenge on an aristocratic.
We are actually quite liberal rulers of the pigs. Or of the horses. ...
- 4,742
5
votes
Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
You are not asking the right question
This is a form of Frame Challenge - with a monopoly on power- your system could easily turn into China or North Korea.
However, let's assume that the desire is to ...
- 32.4k
5
votes
Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
You can't just answer this as yes or no.
Historically, any time we're put in a position where one side has unquestioned superiority, the superior ones decide that the inferior ones are less than human....
- 17.3k
6
votes
Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
No.
Your rulers would not just need to be safe from attack from commoners, they need to be able to coerce them to pay taxes, etc. Otherwise they are not rulers, they are a separate and unconnected ...
- 119k
5
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Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
Depends
Whether they can keep the peace is more about the interpersonal relationships between the elites.
Throughout history we can see many elites that were pretty certain about their position. ...
- 39k
3
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Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
"Will this policy manage to maintain the peace?"
No. A real society is more complex than just a united ruling class and a united commoner class. There will still be intra-class conflict. ...
- 14.3k
2
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How can agriculture/industry be economically viable in setting where magic exists?
Take a look at today. How many people, on average, are farmers? It takes very few people to produce the food everyone eats because our technology expedites everything. I imagine that a fantasy society ...
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-1
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Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
Classical Athens was a splendid democracy, provided one was an Athenian citizen. To be an Athenian citizen, one had to be a man born of an Athenian father and an Athenian mother.
Rome was never a ...
- 94.2k
15
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Would superhuman elites allow for more liberal governance?
I don't remember of any concept of "liberal" government in pre-Christian Europe: everywhere there was always a clear and sharp distinction between "us" and "them". "...
- 296k
1
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How can agriculture/industry be economically viable in setting where magic exists?
There are several ways around this
Spells require material components, which require agriculture/industry. If you want to cast a spell you need to buy, make, or farm crops, textiles, etc.
Magic has a ...
- 14.6k
4
votes
How can agriculture/industry be economically viable in setting where magic exists?
Good worldbuilding means balancing your magic system
The son of some friends of mine once asked me to evaluate a Star Trek-based Federation space ship they'd created. As is common with 9-11 year olds, ...
- 128k
5
votes
Accepted
Is my magic enough to keep a person without skin alive for a month?
Possibly Survivable
I'd disagree with the selected answer. The closest analogy we have for this are massive burns. Burns involve massive, massive trauma alongside them. Swelling, intense pain, damage ...
- 5,622
1
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What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
I'm not sure if this works better as a full answer or in some other discussion format, but I've realized something with potentially big implications about this power, and it's too long for a comment.
...
1
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What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
Forget all weapons!
Armor
Your spell is completely and utterly overpowered.
Shrink your enemies armor (first target: helmet), clothing, weapons. Even if they survive the shrinking (questionable), they ...
- 3,289
2
votes
Is my magic enough to keep a person without skin alive for a month?
Very Dead.
Skin is not purely external: your mouth lining, throat, stomach, intestines, and bladder are all made of skin cells.
If you remove someone's entire skin, the first problem is that they can'...
- 49.4k
11
votes
Is my magic enough to keep a person without skin alive for a month?
Dead
The skin has many uses. It is called 'the largest organ of the body' for a reason. You've covered a few and a half. They'll not be cold. They'll not be sick from bacteria and viruses (debatable, ...
- 39k
7
votes
Is my magic enough to keep a person without skin alive for a month?
Evaporative water loss
Aside from losing fluids through bleeding, EWL is a significant issue without your skin and its lipid membranes helping to keep all your body moisture from evaporating. Notably ...
- 20.2k
9
votes
Is my magic enough to keep a person without skin alive for a month?
UV
UV is invisible and quite harmful to deeper tissues. Skin stops it so they are not used to being exposed to it. None of your mages seem to be capable of stopping or controlling it. But well, just ...
- 765
2
votes
What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
Castles & Siege Works
The single most influential battlefield advantages in Ancient and Medieval style warfare is not one weapon or another. They were fortifications and siegeworks. A few dozen ...
- 101k
4
votes
What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
On the topic of projectiles, expanding an object mid-flight is not actually the best use of this magic if it respects conservation of momentum.
The equation for momentum is simply mass times velocity. ...
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4
votes
What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
The humble quarterstaff
When you can rapidly increase size by 5 (and thus weight by 125), you don't need a specialized striking end; mass alone will get the job done for you. Therefore, minimize the ...
1
vote
What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
Melee weapons
Others have already mentioned that this is more or less useless on traditional melee weapons for offensive usage.
However, you can create an assassin group on this spell. Just have a ...
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6
votes
Accepted
What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
I would definitely go with projectiles.
Regardless how mass vs speed vs energy works in your scenario, there is almost always a benefit of suddenly enlarging your projectile before it hits the enemy. ...
- 6,920
3
votes
What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
Flamethrower
To use a flamethrower on the battlefield, a large amount of flammable material and a powerful pump are necessary. It is well known that in Eastern Roman Empire, this was achieved using ...
- 507
3
votes
What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
A makeshift 'gun' and anything spear like
There's two clear winners. First let's look at a projectile weapon.
'Gun'
Without knowing how enlarging projectiles work in the air I'll avoid that pitfall. (...
- 39k
1
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What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
I'm not sure I completely understand the limitations. So. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'll still try to do my best.
Brutally realistic solution is carpet bombing using...rocks.
Just think about it. If ...
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4
votes
What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
Flechettes with poison.
Firearms, throwing out heavy darts at velocity with tips coated (or a nicely engineered piston in each projectile for delivery) the most potent poison are sure to pierce flesh. ...
- 26.9k
5
votes
What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
Frame challenge - do not use on friendly forces, except for storage
All weapons are designed to work at the size they are. If a sword would be "better" by being 5 cm longer then the ...
- 29.1k
2
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What would be a good weapon to use with size changing spell
A suggestion as a frame challenge: Gold
Or whatever your society deems as valuable
Money buys power. The power to raise armies, to build siege weapons, to bribe competitors. If your mage can make ...
- 804
2
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How to reconcile the effect of my time magic spell with my timeline
In software development, source control has similar problems, that is called merge conflicts. In essence:
...
- 4,742
2
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How to reconcile the effect of my time magic spell with my timeline
Premonition
Consider what is being really moved across time: Information
It is unclear from your question whether the mage is allowed to move his body through time or if he is just able to move into ...
- 804
1
vote
How to reconcile the effect of my time magic spell with my timeline
If there is only a single timeline, then any interactions between Past-Present-Future are deterministic. That means if a Ouroboros gulps water from the Future, the water from the Future was already &...
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7
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How to reconcile the effect of my time magic spell with my timeline
To shamelessly steal a line from Tenet "What's happened, happened." i.e. you can't change events that led you to the present, you can only act to make those events happen exactly as they ...
- 49.4k
14
votes
Accepted
How to reconcile the effect of my time magic spell with my timeline
I think this depends on how literally you take the metaphor of River of Time. If Time really, genuinely works like a river, the changes do not propagate instantly.
Consider this, you have 3 piers, ...
- 6,920
0
votes
What are the fundamental operations of physics?
Go with quantum numbers.
An example of this was seen in Larry Niven's Ringworld: the "Wunderland Treatymaker" made the charge of an electron go away in one place and the charge on the proton ...
- 22.4k
2
votes
What are the fundamental operations of physics?
The universe is complicated enough that "the fundamental operations" is a tricky concept. The laws of thermodynamics are fundamental, and a lot of "magic" would involve breaking ...
- 25.6k
6
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How would increasing atomic bond strength affect nuclear physics?
It depends on how the magic works. AFAICT there are two ways of changing the strength of the bounds:
increase the electron mass by increasing the vev of the Higgs field
increase the electron mass by ...
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12
votes
Accepted
How would increasing atomic bond strength affect nuclear physics?
It wouldn't change much
In chemistry molecular bonds are defined as covalent bonds. However, Uranium is a metal and generally only forms ionic bonds, the most common being Uranium Oxide (several ...
- 14.6k
4
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How would increasing atomic bond strength affect nuclear physics?
It won't change anything.
Molecular bonds have energies in the order of eV or lower, while nuclear bonds have energies in the order of MeV, 1 million times higher.
- 296k
2
votes
Why would luck magic become obsolete in the modern era?
Evolution!
Luck magic works better for those with some intrinsic ability. Since it makes the individuals with this ability more likely to successfully procreate, the intrinsic ability strengthened and ...
- 11.9k
1
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Why would luck magic become obsolete in the modern era?
Individual's luck creates inequality and destroys countries. Only global countermeasures enabled the development of a modern society.
Luck magic would be extremely beneficial in modern society.
Even ...
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4
votes
Why would luck magic become obsolete in the modern era?
Actuarial Magics
Just as there is Luck Magic that thrives on Chaos, there is Actuarial Magic that thrives on Order.
And the modern day is full of Actuarial Magic.
Luck Magic is a form of theft. It ...
- 16k
1
vote
Why would luck magic become obsolete in the modern era?
It doesn't play well with Modern Sciences.
All the other magic paths are predictable and so have been studied and improved via the scientific method meaning people are able to use them in very ...
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5
votes
Why would luck magic become obsolete in the modern era?
You can't steal fortune from a machine
... It deprives the Fortune of others to add it to its own mage's Fortune... Only the living have Fortune...
Luck magic only affects living things meaning that ...
- 101k
2
votes
Why would luck magic become obsolete in the modern era?
It requires passivity.
Every time you take steps to improve your own life, it jars the Fortune. Perhaps this helps, but overwhelmingly it harms. Either it reverses what the magic was doing, or it ...
- 29.6k
3
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Why would luck magic become obsolete in the modern era?
The fact that luck magic drags down others' Fortune might make the luck path less attractive for a couple of reasons:
First: If someone on the Luck path impairs the Fortune of everyone nearby, it's ...
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0
votes
Consequences of a Character Being Unaffected by Gravitational Force?
I agree with the above answers, but I would like to add another perspective: Gravitational forces as you discuss them are an effect of the theory of General Relativity (GR). Basically, Newton's ...
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