I’m sorry Frodo. The government has put too many regulations on eagle riding for it to be cost effective. Also, protestors in Gondor have concerns about flying eagles ruining the views from their huts’ backyards. You can’t simply fly the ring to Mordor.
Meanwhile
TaylorGandalf:
The classic No Giant Eagles In My Backyard
Does anyone know of any good magitech series that go into detail about how magic works and how it’s used? I’ve always found the engineering aspect of magitech really interesting, and having a flexible magic system is cool. An example of the kinda thing I’m looking for is Eragon. Eragon never got into magitech, but the magic system was fairly well explained, enough so that I was disappointed when magitech was never established as a thing.
The Founders Trilogy (book 1: Foundryside) by Robert Jackson Bennett uses a system of magic called Scriving wherein objects have written upon them instructions that sort of convince the objects that the laws of physics work in different ways. Over long ages engineers found ways to build engines for scriving that had commonly used instructions and essentially allowed more advanced technologies by creating “programming languages” of a sort, if you will, that work in proximity to the engines. So you get this very advanced society with technology built over this magic system, and a main character whose MacGuffin allows for messing with others’ scriving as your setting.
I quite enjoyed the trilogy, and they seem to fit the kind of vibe you’re looking for. Over the course of the books they dive a lot into both the way the magic functions and the history behind how it came to be as it is.
Someone else already suggested it, but thanks for the suggestion!
Brandon Sanderson tickles that itch for me. His Mistborn series is really fun and has some rudimentary magitech without really spoiling anything - all of the magic works in specific ways but how people interact with it changes over time as people learn new (mostly martial) techniques. His Stormlight series has a system of magical doodads that ultimately evolves into full-on magitech, in addition to the kind of magic ninja stuff of Mistborn. Oh also magic mechsuits.
magic mechsuits
you mean shardplate?
Yeah doesn’t it augment your strength a little or something?
yes, sure. But I would have counted those as “regular magic”.
Oh yeah sure those are magical artifacts like the little doodads but later in the series they start using the doodads in innovative ways
I agree 99%. I just wouldn’t describe the Mistborn series as fun. (I’d say the first first 3 Mistborn books are among his more depressing books. I still recommend them because they are great in other ways.)
Thanks, I’ll try to remember to check it out!
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld approaches magic as a fundamental force akin to gravity or nuclear force. It even has a unit of measurement (the Thaum, further broken down into millithaums, etc)
There are a whole host of reasons you should read Discworld but this just adds another.
I’ve been meaning to get into the Discworld series, just haven’t gotten around to it. Thanks for the suggestion!
Robert Jackson Bennett’s Founder Series is a meditation on Big tech and the magic system is primarily based on enchanting objects to the point where the most powerful people in the world are master engineers and the people who control them
Highly recommended
Thanks for the recommendation!
Ascendance of a Bookworm has really good world building and magic has implicit rules that are upheld throughout the series. The royal academy arc where protagonist goes to school to learn specifically how the magitech works is named Part 4. It begins in 17th book in the series so it’s quite the journey to get to it.
That sounds like a lot, but I’ll look into it. Thanks for the suggestion!
Unpopular opinion: any magitech that works according to consistent rules is just “tech.”
Well yeah, but by the same logic i 100% consider our real actual physics to just be magic, at the smallest scale there is absolutely absurd stuff like wave-particle duality and LITERAL ACTUAL GENUINE TELEPORTATION.
And of course there’s the old quote “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
I don’t think the distinguishment between “magic” and “technology” is particularly useful, what’s important is whether the reader goes “ooooh that’s so fucking cool”, and you can totally get that from youtube videos by people working with particle physics.
You can’t convince me that using ruby rods surrounded in flash tube and reflective materials to create lasers isn’t magical.
I think you’re technically correct (for the most part); the only reason why we use “electricity” instead of “arcane energy” is because the person who came up with the name had no imagination.
That said, while technically correct, you’re wrong.
No, I will not elaborate.
I think you’re technically correct
The best kind of correct!
I though some time ago about a world full of magic and then, in the middle of the story, an spaceship comes and the ones that come in it say something like “wow! All this ancient tech still works?” meaning the dragons, spells, …
Here, try the Inheritors of Eschaton. Yes, it’s on reddit, yes it’s hfy, but it’s a similar concept to what you’re describing.
Thank you
Curiously, the societies that used horses as a primary transit mode beat out the ones for whom oxen were the primary transit mode. Horses in Europe in the early middle ages were so specific to the noble class that it was assumed a guy with a horse was noble, and a noble without a horse was just a commoner. (This was before the merchant class messed the hierarchy up.)
So yeah, when the Mongols came with their society in which everyone was on horseback, it was a game changer.
Curiously, with the rise of firearms (involving centuries of tech races between crossbows and firearms vs. heavier armor) there was an overabundance for a while of heavy warhorses. Then someone invented the shoulder harness which allowed horses to pull a load without getting strangled.
That said, it’s always neat to see when fiction writers actually do their worldbuilding homework and work out details like personal transit, freight, mail and so on and how they are affected by the diegetic mythical aspects.
We have lions, still used horses. Try to tame a dragon.
They’ve made three movies about it, can’t be that hard
The good and neutral dragons are fairly easy to talk into joining a high enough level adventuring party, unless they are the guardian of a city or some shit.
I know a boy who trained the dragons.
MFer you also have flying creatures, where is your pelican carriage
Pelicans don’t produce that much lift, you’d need like 1000 of them for just one carriage.
Also nuclear power can’t easily ramp up and down to energy demands like coal
Coal and nuclear both suck at changing output quickly. For a quick ramp up/down, you need hydro or gas generators. Hydro takes only a few minutes to ramp up while most (US) coal plants take more than 12 hours.
There is no excuse for still using coal power.
c/4chan
Probably cheaper to train and ride horses for the average person than a gryphon. I would imagine those cost more and require special training.
Setting has diverse companions that actually help you
Still playing solo
“Don’t worry we’re cleaning up the earth by cutting all funding for nuclear waste disposal research” ~“green” parties
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Setting has inter-galactic space travel.
Still use chemical rockets.
