Potential uses for time manipulation abilities

I've come up with a magic system that to my knowledge is unprecedented. Unfortunately, this means I haven't figured out how all aspects of it could be exploited. I'll describe the three types of magic below, and give the uses I've already thought of. I'm relying on you guys to think of obvious uses I've somehow missed.

To begin with

Magic style "Mend"

Magic style "Break"

Magic style "Still"

Laconic version: What cool stuff can you do with the ability to manipulate an object's personal history?

I've gotta say, I wish I'd thought of this kind of magic system, props to you. I've got no idea if your even working on this any longer but I still think it's interesting, having stumbled upon it while doing some TV Tropes research. and would share some of my own thoughts and ideas.

One question is whether spells from these different styles can be used simulatenously, as well as what sets these individual spells apart from each other. I'd also suggest that you perhaps, if you haven't already, do some world building and design factions based around these styles (e.g. an order of assasins based around the use of stasis or a religion based upon entropy and/or time).

Another worldbuilding idea would be to perhaps design some special schools, like with Blood and Metalbending from Avatar, such as the rare ability to discern an object's past or people who can use stasis to temporarily freeze things around them and go all Matrix on their enemies.

Huh, interesting. This seems like a system you'll get a whole lot of mileage out of exploring. Here are a couple thoughts. I might edit the post later to add more.

- The crystals don't sound particularly mass-intensive, so I don't imagine they would be all that expensive to cast spells on. Have you thought of anything to prevent people from Mending used crystals for infinite magic?

- The magic affects structure and doesn't affect position, but does it affect shape? If it does, people can construct some pretty advanced machinery by sculpting some malleable material into a number of shapes and then Mending/Breaking it through these shapes in sequence; for example, a clay pillar in which a cavity has gradually been filled in and dug out to move upward could be used as an elevator. If it doesn't affect shape, people can use it to force materials into shapes they would otherwise never attain; for example, gemstones could be ground up, poured into moulds and then Mended to form otherwise impossible sculptures.

- If, as you say, the magic can be cast over a distance, it could be used to create a variety of remote-controlled devices. Someone could for example take two chemical substances that react violently if mixed and seal them in a container separated by a wooden barrier, then plant this container in a strategic place and, at the right moment, Break the wood and cause the thing to explode.

Hmmmm.

Suppose you put an unfired clay pot in a kiln, then Break the pot. What happens? Is it fired more quickly (even though the total energy released by the kiln is less)? Does it age as though it were in stasis and unaffected by the flames? Does it age as though the kiln were at a lower temperature than it actually is, with less heat transferred per unit time from the pot's perspective, ending up as a misshapen mess?

Conversely, what if you Break a sword which has just been removed from the forge and is cooling in the air? Does it cool and harden immediately, or not at all, or somewhere in between?

Also, there are secondary effects that may be considered and/or exploited. If an object is moving faster than the surrounding timebase (stilled air surrounding a moving object, or instance), it is functionally moving at a much higher speed. Compression/friction heating against the air can be a real issue if the timebase is enough, or even bombardment by gamma rays via Doppler effect.

(Explanation: blueshift shortens the wavelength of radiation as you move toward it. Say everything around you is stilled, including the light flowing towards you. When you move forward, you are moving at an extremely high speed relative to the local timebase and the light, meaning that everything ahead of you will be blueshifted and everything behind you will be redshifted. If the effect is extreme enough, the blueshift shortens the light waves from visilight to ultraviolet to—potentially—penetrating x-rays and gammas, which would mean for interesting effects.)

I'm reasonably sure that you shouldn't be able to still the light unless you also still the air through which it is passing, which would prevent you from moving. It would apply in a vacuum, though.

EDIT: A stilled object's apparent mass is greatly reduced, and you noted that it's much less resource-intensive than the other two. What would happen if you stilled, say, the moon? Would it start to fly away?

EDIT 2: Still a cannonball before firing it. It's incredibly light, and also indestructible. What happens to whatever it impacts? What if the Stilling wears off in mid-air?

edited 2nd Oct '14 5:12:02 PM by Noaqiyeum

, Come to that, given that a stilled object can be safely moved, it seems reasonable to assume that at least some effects that one might normally expect (such as, presuming astrophysics similar to ours, the object seeming to "fly off" as a result of no longer moving with the rest of the world) don't apply under this magic. Thus increased friction and light-dopplering might not occur.

Can mending be used to return the dead to life, or heal the injured or sick? In either case, what mental state does this leave the subject in? For example, do memories survive mending past their point of creation?

Can breaking be used to wither foes to death?

To go darker still, can repeated mending and breaking be used as a form of torture?

Leaving such unpleasant fare behind, could one discover a cure to a given disease by breaking a vial into a future in which the breaking has already taken place successfully, and the vial is full of cure as a result?

Could one use mending to discover the perpetrator of a crime—perhaps by mending a mirror such that it reflected the inhabitants of a room at a given point?

I'd think any surgery would be a breeze with the ability to manipulate time. The need for anesthetic, and the subsequent risks of needing to keep people safely unconscious for hours at a time, would be down at least 80%.

, Feo mentioned that using it on living things tends to go straight from "no effect" to "fatal" with increasing fuel.

Aah, fair enough—I missed that.

I do stand by my "mend a mirror to see the past" idea, however. (The viability of this would, admittedly, likely depend on just how physically rigorous this magic system was, and perhaps how the "time travel" works; given the leniency that seems to be in place for stilling, however, I'm not inclined to rule it out.)

edited 2nd Oct '14 7:26:22 PM by ArsThaumaturgis