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Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (97/?) WiP 1
🕑 Added 2024-09-01 00:52:43 +0000 UTCHey everyone! Here is the Work in Progress for Chapter 97 I hope you guys enjoy! :D
The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Emma and Thacea’s Dorm. Local Time: 1940 Hours.
Thacea
When the Vunerian first revealed to me that Emma was in possession of platinum, a reflexive part of my psyche was put into shock.
However, it would only take a scant few moments before that shock soon transitioned into tentative understanding, before evolving further into an outright realization of the truth.
The truth that there was without a shadow of a doubt, parity, as it pertained to the material abundance of both realms.
Memories from that first day of our private interactions were brought forth, and it was in those memories that I recalled the first glimpses into the earthrealmer’s manaless world.
I recalled the images of Earthrealm’s forges, advancing through the ages, developing without the aid of mana, yet increasing in size, scale, and intricacy with each passing image. Culminating in what could only be described as foundries of titanic proportions, the likes of which had only been seen in the most advanced of adjacent realms, and only with the aid and oversight of Nexian intervention.
I recalled the images of seas of iron and steel, flowing from crucibles spanning the height and width of entire smithies… I recalled how scale and intricacy culminated in the armor that defied all reason, cladding a woman whose personality and spirit further defied that reason with each and every passing breath.
And it was with these recollections that I realized… that the forging and procurement of platinum wasn’t ever a question of possibility for earthrealm, nor was it indicative of their capabilities… but rather, the question was just how much they could procure.
So while Ilunor and Thalmin continued to be enraptured by the physical proof of earthrealm’s advanced metallurgical prowess, my suspicions continued to diverge into other aspects of Emma’s claims.
Ilunor was right in ascertaining that material abundance and the state of earthen post-shackling from the value of precious metals could only be derived by one of two means — pinnacle transmutation, and brute force procurement.
So given the self-admitted impossibility of the former by Emma, this left only the latter as the sole viable option.
This, however, was where my point of contention began.
As despite the physical proof of the wall of platinum clearly hinting at abundance, this form of abundance… was fleeting.
A realm was, after all, finite in nature. Which meant that after all the mines had been dug up, and after the world itself had become hollowed out, what remains is a barrier of scarcity which no civilization can ever truly cross.
There was only one exception to this functional limit on growth, and that was with the development of pinnacle transmutation, and the Nexus’ infinitely expanding farlands.
This meant that Emma’s claims of parity became difficult to believe.
At least, it would be, for both Thalmin and Ilunor if I were to have brought it up outright.
Because unlike the pair, I was privy to the sky-shattering realizations that had first been presented within the library, and a second time in Emma’s private sight-seer viewing.
My mind thus wandered towards the tail-end of Emma and Ilunor’s back and forths, as my imagination took a firm hold, and my thoughts were left to wander the ramifications of all of this information.
Perhaps the truth of abundance lies somewhere amidst the oceans of stars.
Perhaps the key to material abundance without the aid of pinnacle transmutation, was in breaching the skies to reach the void.
Perhaps our ancestors’ dreams should have been vested more towards that which was just in reach, and not in the path that led us towards the regrettable state of affairs we now found ourselves in.
Perhaps… a private conversation was needed, to put to rest this question of material parity once and for all.
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The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Emma and Thacea’s Dorm. Local Time: 1920 Hours.
Emma
Ilunor’s passed-out body was quickly lifted into the arms of the princely wolf, whose reactions to the whole affair was self explanatory.
“Huh.” The wolf prince emoted with a cock of his head. “For how much he eats, he weighs less than a heavy claymore.” Thalmin jabbed with a gleeful smile. “In any case, Emma, I believe it would be prudent if you caught up on some rest. I’ll see to the Vunerian myself, you’ve been through enough today as is. A day of victory is to be enjoyed, not to be bothered by the burden of others, not especially a troublesome associate.”
“Thanks Thalmin.” I nodded gratefully.
“The pleasure is all mine, Emma.” He nodded back, as he effortlessly began walking to the exit of my room, leaving with a final few words. “See you tomorrow then. Hopefully the trip to Elaseer should prove to be uneventful.”
A swift wave marked the end of that little episode with the Vunerian, and following a light slam of the door, I allowed myself a loud, tired, sigh.
I instinctively followed the commands of my exhausted body, moving over towards the reinforced couch like a zombie, before plopping down with the force of a train wreck. I promptly just laid there, sprawling out in the process.
Throughout all of this however, Thacea had remained… surprisingly silent.
Though that silence wouldn’t remain for long, as Thacea approached the couch, and sat opposite of me with courtly tact.
“Emma.” She began, her tone of voice once more locking in to that ‘serious talk’ vibe. “I have some further questions I’d like to ask, if I may?”
“Is this about the resource parity situation?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Unless, of course, you wish to rest first and—”
“Nono! I’m fine. So please, fire away!” I quickly interjected, encouraging the avinor to continue.
“As you wish.” She dipped her head before continuing. “Whilst the other two are very much still in shock as a result of the reveal of your… treasury… a thought has occurred to me which I believe is best addressed in private.”
Comments
Michael Halpern
well right now there's only one place with the right environmental conditions for GUN to open a portal, but with resources that would be unlocked when there's a credible threat of war, that could be solved, most likely scenario is that fighting would happen in the adjacent realms that both forces would be forced to use as they try to meet to opposition.
Bbobsillypants
Inversely if thiers no special limit to inter realm portal travel, at least with the portal tech the G.U.N currently has, they can open a portal to the nexus sandwiched between two or more portals leading to deep space or on the far side of a blackhole, and just leave thier portal on draining the nexus of its mana reserves and oxygen. Whilst limiting blead through to earth.
Michael Halpern
it would kill some life, but its likely due to the mana level difference, they wouldn't be able to hold it open for long and for larger transfers they may have to go through other realms first
XavHD
But if they open a portal from the Nexus to earth, the man's will flow towards earth killing all life in a quite useful radius around the portal. That's generally a nice perk for invasion, and you can also weaponize it.
Michael Halpern
Thacea does, her realm was fully explored and unified before contact with the Nexus. Civilizations with portals don't get robust infrastructure, and they don't develop the regions in between key locations, Transportariums are single points of failure.
Michael Halpern
i wonder how they are going to cover this point for the others. probably with the next sight seeing session
Michael Halpern
assuming they use antimatter
SoylentPudding
Dragoncon's Trek track had a panel on the energy economy of star trek yesterday where they crunched the numbers. Making antimatter any of the ways we currently know or theorize how is crazy energy intensive. A warp 8 trip from Earth to Vulcan burns dozens of kgs of antimatter in Trek. The short version is depending on how efficient GUN warp drives are compared to Trek, FTL may make solar power even more important for producing antimatter as FTL fuel.
Michael Halpern
point is, the Nexus would have to bring everything with them, likely have to open the portal in the IAS facility, which is under the Atlantic Ocean, and that's one hell of a choke point once passed that, it'd be a transparent battlespace not enough mana to teleport far beyond wherever they manage to put additional portals, their air fleet would likely have to rely almost entirely on mana being pumped through greater shards of impart. (mostly headcannon on what greater shards do)
Michael Halpern
I said with a sword, a whip has the advantage of not only being a flexible link, but the diameter tapers down along the length of the whip so you are using conservation of momentum to break the sound barrier, rather than a leaver. You could do it with a leaver, but that leaver would have to be so long it'd be unusable as a personal weapon, unless you were a giant.
Michael Halpern
bigger realization would be that it could be done in any realm other than the Nexus. once the IAS and LREF figure out how to get a ship to an adjacent realm, they are going to bring some of those ships with them, to form the backbone of exoreality logistics
Rob
Conspiracy: The Nexus was a game created by some AI that happened to understand physics on a deeper level. It got bored and turned off the game without realizing that it became its own seperate reality.
Max Kreuzer
Yeah ðat could be ðe case. But one þing i can't quite agree on is ðat you couldn't break ðe soundbarrier by usiŋ your body. One word whip.
Michael Halpern
That's the great thing about Dyson swarms, you don't have to complete them, you can expand them as needed, hell even FTL doesn't invalidate them, you can use the swarm, and the energy they collect for a warp catapult or gate system to make travel between developed systems easier,
Michael Halpern
Or they are a bunch of mega portal linked Earthlikes.
Michael Halpern
one option is that the Nexus a d adjacent realms have weapons designed to only be used by people using magic to enhance their strength, thus allowing them to be comically heavy. you know like Cloud's sword. The reason for this is simple, inertia, even with magic enhancement, there are mechanical limits to how fast an organic body can move, you're not going to break the sound barrier with the tip of your sword for instance, once you reach those limits the only way to increase the force you impart is to increase the weight
Bbobsillypants
Well it is possible to bring mana with you via mana vials but those drain super fast in earth or earth like conditions. Its hard to say how much of a problem it will be for native earth life because it sounds like they were screwing around with some magical artifcats before actually entering the nexus with pilot one and realizing oh no mana bad. So presumably the mana disapates so fast to near zero levels its mostly harmless. That being said dony be standing near any nexian-earthrealm portals
Michael Halpern
no orbit but the Nexus cant attack Earth with impunity either, as there's not enough mana for major portals, and probably no teleporting once there.
Michael Halpern
you can have macroscopic grey goo, you mostly just need nanotechnology for the resource processing because you may have to use trace minerals, anyways a gray goo bomb has a key advantage, in that you can actually control it, better option that would be more in line with GUN's ethos from what we know about it, would be Von Neuman scouts and bases, build a series of drones that scout out a region (only need 5m resolution for most areas) and deliver a base seed somewhere within RF range of at least one previous base that makes drones to repeat the process, all the while gathering resources and constructing more drones, S-AMCPs and munitions for an operator to call upon as needed. eventually some of these bases would have to set up a QE network given the nature of the Nexus
Max Kreuzer
By ðe neck
Michael Halpern
could be the way he's being held
Max Kreuzer
https://youtube.com/shorts/eiBYTAAXMbY?si=Ea-MNEPL-xIL-udi
Steve
Too much Berzerk in my opinion
Ferr
And now Emma tells Thacea, what infinite really means. Civs with portals never realy gets the nothing in between. Like a Realm is just a vally, Really??
Anton
Gotta pull a Horizon: Zero Dawn on them.
Fogel
The more important part about an infinite plane is that there is no orbit. Which means no spaceships hovering above shooting down with impunity.
Wumpy
*USG Ishimura flashbacks.* Uhm....
Max Kreuzer
No joke, people act like long swords, let alone Great swords, were like big, clumsy and crude slabs of metal.
Oniklo
"and the Nexus’ infinitely expanding farlands. " so the Nexus is actually a Minecraft server.
Anton
I get the feeling the "farlands" aren't infinite planes so much as portals to other (dead?) planets in the same universe as Nexus.
Anton
Yea, most people don't seem to realize how light true swords are (vs. sword-shaped objects). I'd expect Ilunor to actually weight somewhere in the 25-30 kg range.
Anton
"Remotely, and mostly automated too."
Bbobsillypants
Or a series of antimatter bombs encircling a piece of highly dense material. one big super massive explosion which compreses the dense material into a blackhole, which now has infinite mass to subsume. They definetly wouldnt miss that. A less high tech option if their nanotech isnt thier yet.
UC-79
An infinite plane of resources versus a fist size (at first) pile of manaless grey goo, forced through a portal that wasn't authorized. The saddest part is they won't realize the potential threat till it's too late.
Max Kreuzer
How f*kiŋ small is Ilunor? A heavy great sword weighs about 3 to 3.5 kg. Ðe average Greatsword weighs around 2.5 kg and has a pretty big handle giviŋ ðe wielder a lot of leverage when handeliŋ ðe sword and it is f*ckiŋ intimidatiŋ seeiŋ some dude wieldiŋ a sword nearly as big as himself (average lengþ of a Greatsword is about 1.6m)
Phenoil
I think that local time is entered incorrectly - Emma part (19:20) narratively occurs Thacea's (19:40)
Phenoil
I am pretty sure that you can get a Noble in physics for dropping a RKV on an infinite plain and studying the results. Hail science!
Phenoil
Exactly, GUN has been building Dyson Swarm for centuries, but the project is kind of on a back burner since discovery of FTL
SoylentPudding
I think the GUN has built at least a partial Dyson swarm in Sol?
Bbobsillypants
Intresting comment on the infinite nexian farlands, it seems to further double down on the fact that the nexus isnt a planet that you cant dust with a single planet cracker. That being said. Self replicating nanobot swarm goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Toua77
I wonder if humanity is close to figuring out Dyson spheres. It could theoretically give them an even bigger resource advantage than large scale mining.
SoylentPudding
Just casually dropping "yeah, when we discover a lifeless adjacent realm we shatter it into tiny pieces and pick up the shiny bits."
UC-79
"Ahh... well... you see, thacea... when you can crack planets into chunks...inorganic resources get pretty cheap" *birb princess experiences existential dread for the n'th time in less than 2 weeks*
Remi
Cant wait for the realization that space mining is the equivalent of a small team on a large ship optimizing the horde of semi autonomous drones ripping apart multiple minor celestial bodies. And that mining organizations have hundreds, if not thousands, of these teams. And there are a few dozen large corps with hundreds of smaller ones as well. The scale of interstellar civalizations should be just as absolutely mindboggling to the reader here as well
I Dare Korval
Love how things are proceeding! I suspect that Thacea will be suggesting that Emma bring the other 2 roommates up to speed about things as they are bound to realizes the same as she. It may even hold off any further dramatics from a certain discount koblod (value degraded due to post-scarcity).
MaybeASquid
I hope this transitions to revealing the realm of space capabilities
Leon
I'm excited for future interactions with non-Nobles, since I think that's where the divergence really lies. Magic vs tech, alchemy vs space, lasers vs fireballs are all cool but I'm waiting for the realization from a non-magical Nexian or adjacent realmer when they see something as simple as a solar powered LED flashlight or if we want go full scifi fancy nanobot regeneration paste. I'm excited for that moment of realization when the most amazing thing of the manaless artifact is it's (relative) ubiquity.
Michael Halpern
"the sky's the starting line"
SoylentPudding
The best hfy moments are always the smart non-humans experiencing the slow horror of thinking their way through such a paradigm shift
ethan
This has probably already been said, but I love every time we get a point of view of Emma's roommates. It provides much needed depth into the supporting cast that I'll never get tired of.
Steve
“Unshackled from the Earth” was very literal ;)
