276 replies to this topic

[TheUnknowable]

I really am enjoying what you've written so far. The religion being in control of technology and healing reminds me a bit of the Foundation Trilogy by Asimov.

It's kind of the same. In this story the Kumlati view is pretty much magic-rules-everything. In Asimov science mascuraded as magic, here the magic is real.
The Kumlati have relatively little scientific technology. Now that the humans brought them some tech, the rich and/or powerful have electric lighting and electric powered water pumps (some even have computers on par with late 90s computers performance-wise with a crude version of the internet). The poor might have electric lighting if they live in a big city. All city temples have a radio transciever which only they can use. Human slaves maintain the machines based on their technology, since no Kumlati would lower themselves to learning about "mundane" things like science.
Although the rebellion is a bit behind in magic, it tends to accept scientific technology more than the government, which gives them a bit of an advantage. (they have automated factories, automated mines, and micro-fusion/nuclearelectric power, not to mention computers and occasionally (if they can salvage enough from the destroyed colony fleet) holographic training, projectile/energy weapons, shield/cloaking generators (for the camps only) and FTL communications. The FTL communications, since they are based on quantum entanglement, allow the rebels to communicate without their communications being intercepted. I will probably have them build a single FTL ship about halfway through the book (The humans on Earth tell them how. Message pod leads to Quantum-Entanglement (QE) tranceivers, which lead to Eath giving them Hyperdrive designs. The Rebel's design will be crude, slow (maybe 600c-700c while Earths slowest are 900c-1200c), and built mostly from salvage, but it will work).
In case you're wondering how they could destroy something in orbit without science, some of them can astral-project into space and take them out with their powers.
The leaders of Earth don't help out of the goodness of their hearts, though. They want to learn magic so that they can use it to gain more power (and prevent colonies from seceding from the United Earth Alliance). Earth is practically out of useable natural resources and has to use resources from the colonies to survive. The total population/military strength of the colonies is low enough that Earth can maintain some control with the few ships the Solar colonies can build from their resources, plus a few percent of the taxes paid by the colonies.

[TheUnknowable]

Since I haven't been able to work on my story much since I've been doing so much school work (and have a case of writers block) I'll tell you about some of the Earth's technology.
Hyperdrive doesn't exactly push a ship passed the speed of light. It just moves you deeper into Hyperspace by holding low-energy tachyons in a balanced field around your ship. As you move deeper into hyperspace the normal 3 demensions are compressed. (ex. Traveling 1 lightyear in hyperspace will move you 12 lightyears in realspace at a 12/1 compression rate, really shallow in hyperspace terms) Your sublight engines then push you through space.
Of course their is resistance for any non-tachyonic matter in hyperspace so you are pushed into shallower and shallower hyperspace until you reenter realspace. This means you must constantly collect higher energy tachyons from hyperspace, cool them, and rerelease them in order to stay at your current level or accelerate (or change direction. realspace engines don't work very well in hyper so you have to burn them pretty hard just to maintain speed). It also means that your ship will essentially have a "top speed" where it can no longer go deeper into hyperspace. I can't really think of a good earth analogy. Maybe a car facing more and more wind resistance as it accelerates, all though in that case friction inside the mechanics slow it down much more than the air resistance.
The jumprails would push a ship into hyperspace but the ship would rapidly leave hyperspace, usually no further than the outer planets. For that reason hyperanchors were designed to basically act as station keeping engines while in hyperspace. This is what the colony ships were equiped with. It allowed them to remain in hyperspace as well as make minor course corections so that they could arrive in the correct location.
Eventually they discovered that tachyons over a certain density could push you into hyperspace without the need for hyperrails so they invented the hyperdrives to do this. Tachyons do occasionally enter normal space so they would harvest these tachyons for hyperdrives (after you entered hyperspace you could have all the tachyons you wanted, so only an initial charge is needed to push you into the outer fringes of hyperspace so you can start cyphoning tachyons.) Eventually it was discovered that certain rare radioactive elements released small amounts of tachyons as they decayed, so a type of runaway reaction is triggered in these elemaents to allow a ship to have the tachyons neccessary for jumping and accelerating. Only military ships have these though, due to the high cost and the fact that they allow you to accelerate faster than a ship could without the device. There is also an ultra-rare form of hydrogen (essentially tritium bonded to a tachyon) that releases tachyons when it undergoes fusion, but this is almost never used for a tachyon source due to the extreame cost.
Oh, and the speed of light also increases ahead of the curve normally set by the spacial compression rate. All they have to do is send a radio signal while in hyperspace to send a hyper-radio signal (although there is a less energy-entensive, much more expensive, way of doing it). This is theorized to be due to the slightly different physical laws of hyper-space.
The Quantum-entanglement communicator that I mentioned in the previous post has very little bandwidth in it's transmittion, although it is uninterceptable and untracable so it has it's uses. The rebellion uses it so that the Kumlati can't intercept or trace their signal, although once they are in hyperspace they can use their hyper-radio all they want since the Kumlati don't have hyperspace technology.
Oh, and hyperrails are still used since they can at least temporarily push you about 10 times deeper into hyperspace than hyperdrives can.

Edited by TheUnknowable, 02 August 2011 - 01:07 PM.

[TheUnknowable]

well, I tried to put in about their shield technology but I guess it didn't work.
Maybe you will find their system of magic more interesting. I tried to base it on real magic so tell me how close I got.
Magic is divided into five classes: Energy, Psychokinesis (PK), Telepathy, ESP, and Spirit.

Energy is manipulating energy, either Ki (from the Earth and "lower" deminisions), Spiritual (From lifeforms on Earth and higher dementions), or, at higher skill levels, Electromagnetic energy (light, heat, electricity, magnetic fields, etc)

PK is the manipulation of physical matter, moving, changing or (with enough skill) teleporting it.

Telepathy is sending information with the mind. words (accually meanings/concepts since anyone from any language/culture can understand it), ideas, and (at the highest levels of skill) putting magical (and other) techniques/powers directly into a person's mind. mind minipulation/control is also a form of telepathy.

ESP is knowing information through a means not explainable by science, spirit contact, or telepathy. Many believe it comes from a person conecting to the Akashic field. At first a person will be able to know the result of a flip of a coin before it is flipped, but eventually they can gain any knowledge that a human can comprehend. soldiers train to know the location of enemies and thier attacks. preists/councelors train to gain knowledge of a persons problems besides what the person knows.about themselves. there are a lot of uses for it.

Spirit powers deal with (guess what) the manipulation of spirits. The most basic form is seeing spirits, although it covers summoning, channeling, exorcisms, binding of spirits, and even astral travel/projection since those are a manipulation of a persons own spirit.

There are also "God" powers that only bona fide deities can use like the creation/destruction of a spirit. They aren't normally considered a type of "magic" since nothing which is corporeal (humans, aliens, vampires, corporeal demons, etc.) can't hope to use it until they die or "ascend to a higher plain" and gain a HUGE amount of skill in virtually every other class of magic.

Can't figure out where to place the creation of thought forms (either spirit or telepathy (since you are projecting your thoughts on the fabric of reality) or maybe PK. Any ideas?

[TheUnknowable]

Should I talk about magic or tech in the story? I've hit a big case of writers block and need feedback so I can work my way through it. Surely there's something people want to ask about.
I guess I'll talk about the Thaleen culture.
The Thaleen are a group of transplanted humans. Another alien race called the Chigani came to Earth 24-25 thousand years ago and abducted primative humans. They took them to another AAA class inhabitable world (some of the best of the inhabitable planets. on par with Earth until humans started to destroy the environment.) about 300 lightyears from Earth and left them there, with only their own knowledge.
On this world there were corporeal Demons. These humans eventually learn to use magic to defend themselves against these hostile new beings. Eventually they would form a truce with many types of demons, although they rarely interbred with them as the Kumlati did with the few corporeal demons on Kumlatu. Over the millenia the Thaleen developed Magic as well as science. The competition between the two areas (magic and science) led to rapid development of both. The Thaleen accually entered space more than a thousand years before humans did, although because they did not have alien technology to reverse engineer it took them longer to develop hyperdrive technology then it took Earth.
Because of the Prevelance of magic in Thaleen culture their most popular form of music for the last 100 years is spellsongs (I may post a translation of one later). Whenever they came into contact with humans and learned of human music froms, they resurrected two dead human music forms, Rap and Rock. This has led to a revitalization of the Thaleen entertainment industry.
On Thalla marriage is different than on Earth. Generally at the age of 9 (what in a human would be 16 or 17) Thallen sub-adult would traditionally be taught (in depth) about sex from a respaected freind of the family of the oposite sex, called a Marat. (the 9 year old is called a Ceya in this context). For aproxamatly one half of a local year a Marat may continue to instruct their Ceya. After that time the Ceya may choose a spouse whom they believe to be the best available person to raise their childeren. A Thaleen woman's child may be parented by any man she believes will give her superior offspring, however, the child will be raised and taught morals (and other parental things) by there mother's spouse. Occasionally (although it has become more common since they have begun dealing with humans) a marriage will also have an exclusivity clause attached to it, although such clauses are almost always for a set period of time. Generally a father has little say in his biological child's life unless he is also there mother's "husband" or a close friend of one parent (mother or father), or (occasionally) a former Marat for the mother.

Edited by TheUnknowable, 03 September 2011 - 10:31 PM.

[TheUnknowable]

First: a Thaleen spellsong.

HEALTH
By:Setay Omal

Verse 1
May life be restored
May flesh be repaired
May bones rejoin
May muscles regenerate
And May the Godess of health fill you with her light

Second: a cultural lesson
Most fans believe the "Godess of Health" in this song to be Maranya, Godess of Peaceful Health, and not her sister Marata, Godess of Vibrant Health. Maranya presides over standard health. Lands touched by her have diverse and healthy lifeforms on them. Marata presides over robust health. She usually presides over areas where life is recovering and must spread rapidly. While Maranya is normally evoked at hospitals and places of healing, or those which are devoted to mental or magical exercises, Marata is evoked at Gyms, physical training camps (including military facilities), those areas devoted to physical arts (Martial arts, weapons training), or battlefields.

These Godesses belong to one of the major religions on Thalla. Thalla has many religions with different dieties/ belief systems/ magical systems for each. Setay Omal has a good friend who is a priestess of Maranya which is why many believe she is the "Goddess of health" refered to in Setay's hit spell-song.

[TheUnknowable]

I also have an idea for a video game where the skills in science and magic are based on real life systems in both. no more bogus magic systems in video games.
This is how I plan to handle spirits in it:
Spirits will be divided into Light, Neutral, and Dark. Light spirits will have a Karma between 1000 and 300. Neutral will have a Karma between 300 and -300. Dark will have a Karma between -300 and -1000. So 1000 is the best anyone can be, and -1000 is the worst anyone can be. Gods will have a thing call "the mantle of godhood" which lets them use god powers, and makes them invincible. It can only be lost if a god gives it up.
Spirits will be able to reincarnate by posessing a baby before it's born (although it wipes out all their knowledge, making it subconciece knowledge instead of consciece knowledge.) NPC spirits will be able to be summoned (maybe PC spirits if they accept the summon). How much they like you will be based on how far their Karma is from yours. However, if you summon them multiple times (by using a specific name you or someone else gave them, or their True Name if you learn it (or are powerful enough to force it from them)), you can keep altering how much they like you. If they help you with something how much they like you will go down (unless you barter fairly for it). How much they like you and what type of summon you used to get them there will determine how hard it is to summon them (or if they attack you or not).
If you die, you become a spirit. If you get strong enough you can get the "mantle of godhood" too. Once you are a spirit you can join any spirit faction that will accept you. You can even join a pantheon (or start your own religion) if you get the mantle. I would like to put in pantheons/hierarchies from dozens of religions,

[Resonance]

Hm...interesting and diverse.

Edited by Resonance, 20 September 2011 - 08:50 PM.

[TheUnknowable]

Hm...interesting and diverse.

thanks

Today I'll talk about another alien race

Name: Chigani
Type: Humanoid, Super-sentient
Tech: very-high
Specialty: efficiency
Powers: mostly telepathy, but some have TK, some ESP or spirit. not enough energy for much, but a lot of skill in the areas they have power in
Description: They are the traditional grey aliens people always think of when you say "alien". By "Super-sentient" I mean that their brains are more evolved than you would generally expect for a "sentient" race. That is the result of selective breeding to increase brain function, but the small size of their gene pool resulted in their bodies becoming weak. Many of them lack the ability to speak or reproduce due to the high number of errors in their genetic code. The fact that most of them are unable to reproduce has caused the Chigani to develop a "random genetic shuffling" method which combines the DNA of dozens or hundreds of donors, weighing "Breeders" heavily into the mix.
Their technology is designed to be as cost/fuel efficient as possible. Their hyperdrives are among the fastest in this part of the galaxy, yet uses barely more energy than Earth hyperdrives. Their fusion reactors are generally 230%-240% efficient (they produce 130%-140% extra energy when compared to input power).
They consider themselves to be "masters of genetics" and they are some of the most advanced geneticists in the galaxy. 22000-24000 years ago they began experimenting on other sentient races to look for useful genes. They still do that on some worlds, the ones that show promise (occasionally they come by Earth to look for genes which could help prevent genetic decay) although they are reluctant to use DNA from "Lesser species", and only do so in dire situations, since it will effect their "genetic purity". They allow other races to travel the galaxy, as long as the Chigani Command don't consider that type of "lesser being" a threat.
There is an offshoot race called the Chuni who split of between 1500 and 1000 years ago. They believe that all sentient races have value, and because they are less concerned about "genetic purity" have much more of their DNA made up of segments from other races. Chuni often trade with other races, although their technology is somewhat different from the Chigani norm. Chuni tend to have stronger bodies, though slightly to severely weakened powers.

[TheHeartlessOne]

I read the Pro and chap 1 and I enjoyed it. When I start a book it usually takes me like 3 chapters to get into it but I was getting into your quite fast. Hope to see more and read more of the information about it when I'm not uber tired .

[TheUnknowable]

got a really bad case of writer's block. I wrote a few paragraphs into the next chapter but hit a wall as to how the action should go. any specific feedback you can give me, or questions you can ask me will help get me thinking again.

[TheHeartlessOne]

I read the next chapter and found myself more into it. I thought I'd say a few things that I thought was going to happen in the next chap but first a question. What is the rarest of the groups, is it spirit?

Maybe you could do a chap on getting each team member which could add more character development. Friend's/members could be located in some interesting locations, so there not all found in the camp. The certain abilities that they have, power or personalities wise and how those powers will create problems or solve them. Ohhh maybe you befriend a pure demon.. I just think demons a coolcats

[TheUnknowable]

I read the next chapter and found myself more into it. I thought I'd say a few things that I thought was going to happen in the next chap but first a question. What is the rarest of the groups, is it spirit?

Maybe you could do a chap on getting each team member which could add more character development. Friend's/members could be located in some interesting locations, so there not all found in the camp. The certain abilities that they have, power or personalities wise and how those powers will create problems or solve them. Ohhh maybe you befriend a pure demon.. I just think demons a coolcats

Do you mean the "power groups"? If so then yeah, spirit powers tend to be rarer. Mostly those who work with spirits use spells, which let them mae up for the lack of strength in that area. Although pretty much eneryone has rudamentry powers in each area, they unlock them at different rates, and everyone has different talents. When I say someone has TK powers, I mean that's where they have the most talent, and therefore developed that power more.

I think I'll have them pick up an alien at one point (while they are trying to go to Earth in a makeshift ship). They could always have a malfunction and have to land on a primative world where the learn/get something new. In the next chapter one of the people in the squad will be dark spirit-born (half some dark spirit). I'm planning on adding tribes of corporeal demons so maybe a pure demon can join. Kal will have a weird bloodline, so why not add a few other people with unique gene combinations?

[TheHeartlessOne]

Haha yeah I did mean "power groups". So your saying that it possible other members could learn off each other? I'll be interested in what this "alien" will turn out to be, pet-wise or intelligent being sounds intriguing either way. So the spirit users have a class of dark and life? Physical demons are allways cool in my books but just saying what would tickle ma fancy is a secrete organisation(cult xD) of demons.
Cant wait to read the next chap (thumbs up)

[TheUnknowable]

Haha yeah I did mean "power groups". So your saying that it possible other members could learn off each other? I'll be interested in what this "alien" will turn out to be, pet-wise or intelligent being sounds intriguing either way. So the spirit users have a class of dark and life? Physical demons are allways cool in my books but just saying what would tickle ma fancy is a secrete organisation(cult xD) of demons.
Cant wait to read the next chap (thumbs up)

I've mentioned two alien races I made up already in this thread, but I've got ideas for several more sentient ones. Spirits in this series will generally be divided into three categories.

Dark- Demons, dark gods, evil ghosts, etc.
Neutral- Any spirit that falls somewhere in between good and evil, (many gods, generic ghosts, elementals...)
Light- Angels, Light gods, good ghosts, saints, etc.

Darks tend to have more destructive power, Lights more defensive, healing, and enhancing, Neutrals will have a good balance of all types.

A cult of corporeal demons? I wonder who they would side with, the Spiritborn High Preist Marilini, or the rebels who wish to overthrow him. Or maybe they would fight both sides and trust their gods to keep them from being destroyed. Who knows? Maybe they don't even worship a dark god ;-)

Oh, and if one member of a team has a useful power, why shouldn't they be able to teach it to others? Of course that person would have to have the skill of the right class to use the power but why not? Others can pick up magical knowledge from whereever and use it as long as they already had the knowledge to understand it. Of course some spirits (mostly gods) could give them the ability to use powers they don't have the skill to use. Maybe the aliens can teach them something the preists don't know. (the Thalleen have more advanced healing magic, for example)

[TheHeartlessOne]

The three categories with different tittles is a nice touch, a step away from the simplicity of the modern blockbuster movies. Are you going to add something like how a team member has power group that's rare and unheard of? Not exactly uber powerful but adds another power to follow later.

A cult of corporeal demons, hell yeah. If there's one thing I love more than demons its a cult
The possibilities that could come are growing into a epic and amazing story, love it. Also this makes me think it could also be a great video game, like another dragon age (but nothing like).

[TheUnknowable]

In the next chapter they are going to rescue Morin's son. Let's just say that after they overcome the brainwashing they are going to find out why he's so valuable to the priests.

[TheHeartlessOne]

In the next chapter they are going to rescue Morin's son. Let's just say that after they overcome the brainwashing they are going to find out why he's so valuable to the priests.

Cant wait, wana read now! haha

[TheUnknowable]

Recently I've been thinking of this as an RPG. (I want to make it an RPG eventually so I guess that's good.) So now I've figured out how I want to do the magic in the game. Keep in mind I want it to be fairly realistic, so feel free to tell me where I got it wrong.

Powers can be given to you (by a spirit or in some cases another person) or you can learn them. If they are given to you you can use them before you have the skill to learn them on your own, however you will only become more proficient in it's use slowly until your skill reaches the minimum amount needed to learn the power. (this will keep people from using over-the-top powers there buddy or clan/guild member gave them before they learn to do some decent stuff. otherwise we'll have a bunch of noobs running around spamming demi-god quality powers.)
Learned powers are made by either meditating on it or combining powers with specific class tags (elemental types, etc.). The later means that by combining elemental fire and a Ki ball you can make and throw fireballs.
there are many other examples I'll post later. (If you want to know about a specific power then ask me. I hope to include practically everything from scifi/fantasy/anime eventually, but I might forget something.

[TheUnknowable]

forgot two things.
#1 You learn new "power tags" by either getting advanced enough in the science area that governs it or meditating on the "tag" once you reach the minimum skill level neccesary to learn it's base power (for most elements this is increase or decrease element).
#2 I think I'll have each person have two elements accosiated with their character. They can choose them, as well as how much they are aligned to each element, but the alignments will total 100%. Being natually aligned to an element increases the efficiency of powers of that element and weakens that elements effects on you. The element(s) opposite it will have more of an effect.

[TheHeartlessOne]

Will these powers effect your appearance and if so will the more you put into a certain power the effects get more noticeable. Like different colored veins and eyes attuned to that power color.

Would you be able to list the power groups and tags. Also I'd love to hear more of novel