The Reaction to The Magic Comes Back

I was hoping to get some perspectives from people involved with the military on this one.

In my novels, eventually, the Masquerade fails entirely and magic returns to the public view.

In terms of magic, a lot of the Spell Cores and especially the ancient Vesper Cores could count as Weapons of Mass Destruction far out-stripping the nuclear warhead.

How fast would shit hit the fan in terms of global politics? What would a public reaction be to magic returning?

Given most Spell Cores / Vesper Cores tend to be where there is a lot of history, one of the best "mines" would be areas in Israel, Iraq and Iran, but also some areas in Africa. How fast would it take for Iran to exploit their new toys?

And of course at home in the United States, I have to wonder how the military would take it.

Especially given there is essentially a Super-UN in existence that regulates magic and its use.

Hmm. The specifics of the reaction depend on how your magic system actually works in-universe. Can anyone use it, or is it something that only a percentage of the population can use?

Also, another thing you need to consider is the ratio of 'combat' magic to magic with peacetime uses in your magic system. What you find in a lot of fiction, video games and so on, is that the magic system (re: all the JRP Gs. All of them.) is inherently specialised towards killing the shit out of things. This is largely gameplay-driven (because killing the shit out of things is kind of the done thing in JRP Gs) but the point is that magic that can actually be used to help people, outside of combat, is in the minority here. Likewise, if your Masquerade is concealing a magic-driven war between two or more opposing groups, then there's going to be a lot more magic focused on killing the shit out of things than helping the world.

If there's alchemy, then you'd have especially severe problems when it comes to the economy. If a bunch of dudes can make as much gold, silver, palladium, et.c. as they want, then the entire raison d'etre behind global commodities markets goes out the window. From there, there are two ways you can go - very strict government controls over alchemy (ala FMA) or a hard-takeoff introduction to a post-scarcity economy.

My first guess would be a reaction, in the general public at least, of "You had all this awesome stuff which you could have used to improve the world and you kept it to yourselves? What a bunch of selfish dicks! Fuck you!"

Followed shortly by:

"Okay, so how can we stop this from falling into the hands of people who just want to blow shit up?"

Worst-case scenario is something like a Magic Cold War.

Can we have more information on the specifics of your magic system and Masquerade? That'll help a lot.

edited 14th Nov '11 5:50:07 PM by RiotousRascal

I know I, personally, would not take it well.

There are a lot of factions currently fighting for control of Holy Artifacts, as those are some of the strongest magic things out there. One faction is self proclaimed angels, another faction would be young magic users, another being the mentioned Super-UN, the Esper Organization, and then there's the Magician's Society. And there are a lot of one person groups involved in it.

There was at least one magic using Serial Killer, Nebiros, who used his magic to wreak vengeance on everyone more successful than himself.

As far as who can use magic, if you have a Spell Core, you can use it.

See my New Dawn world building topic in the World Building forum.

What do you mean? How poorly would you take it?

The way I've been writing it is that the average person doesn't really comprehend it until (and sometimes even after) they see it directly. This is not the same as an Extra-Strength Masquerade, mind you—on an intellectual level, they understand everything that's going on, they just treat it exactly the way they'd treat the closest mundane equivalent. (For instance, Demonic Invaders are processed similarly to terrorists.)

In that case, here's your response.

Three words: Free-for-all.*

With as many competing factions as you have, it's a wonder humanity's managed to survive this long. The various national governments of the world are not going to stand around and let people screw the rules just because they've got h4x-level supernatural powers. They'll come up with countermeasures, and in some cases might even take pre-emptive action against powerful magic-users. Despite what a lot of cynics believe, many governments really do have the interests of their people at heart, and it's in their interest to not be at the mercy of superhuman magic-users.

In addition you have to consider the religious angle. The existence of Judas Iscariot as the leader of the Second Estate vampires would incite an unknown reaction from global religions. The RCC would probably declare a holy war against him personally, and damn the consequences. As for the Muslim and Jewish reaction...the idea of Judas being a vampire is tied up with Christian theology, specifically pertaining to the divine nature of Jesus and by extension what this means for Judas' actions - he didn't betray a man, he betrayed a God. In Islam and Judaism, Jesus is just a man - one of the more important prophets, no doubt, but thoroughly human. For Muslims and Jews, the existence of Judas as a vampire is equivalent to the repudiation of one of the core aspects of their beliefs. There's no telling what their reaction would be.

In addition to that, you also need to consider the effects on third-world nations. In countries heavily affected by diseases like AIDS, large-scale healing magic would be in high demand. You'd have to consider the possibility that these nations might try to 'bootstrap' their economies through supernatural methods as a way of gaining international respect.

edited 14th Nov '11 7:06:01 PM by RiotousRascal

So, we might see some governments form Magician Hunter units in the army to deal with people trying to start high level fights in pursuit of the Holy Artifacts...scary. The main ones I could see doing that are the United States, Britain, and China. Well, for China, if you agree to be a Government Mage, you can probably escape punishment.

It would be another Crusade...and considering that Matthew has the Lance of Longinus in him, he'd get even more people trying to rip it out of him. It is a very important artifact in Christanity. We'd see an upsurge in Church Militant's and an attempt by the RCC to gather allies for getting rid of the vampires.

Yeah, most likely, the Third World countries would be in dire need of Healing Cores, especially places in Africa. A "bootstrap" like you said would definitely be inevitable. Most likely, Libya and Egypt would try to get themselves started first. A Spell Core market would be established, though its legality would definitely be contested.

Okay... Put bluntly, I don't like the idea of magic existing in reality. As a person who highly values rationalism and empirical study - I'm very Enlightenment on the Romanticism Versus Enlightenment scale - I find the idea of magic, while interesting to read about, something that I would have a great deal of trouble with existing in real life, as not only would it mean that Science Is Wrong, but in many cases (those where Sufficiently Analyzed Magic isn't a possibility), it would seem to counteract the purpose and existence of science to begin with.

Now, perhaps if it has rules rigorous enough that it may as well be science, that wouldn't be as much of an issue. But you still have all the basic problems with the mindset behind a Masquerade that Riotous Rascal has pointed out. It would depend a lot on why it was created in the first place, but if there is even a trace of a The World Is Not Ready attitude, then this

is basically my reaction exactly - well, I wouldn't use quite that language, but otherwise it's my reaction exactly. Part of that "enlightenment" viewpoint is a very strong belief in democracy, and if it turns out that some relatively small group is deciding for itself that some potentially helpful "thing" - magic, technology, whatever - is better kept secret "for the greater good", then they and I will have... issues. So I guess both the nature of magic and the nature of The Masquerade would have a lot to do with how I'd take it, but if those two things are like what you see in much modern fantasy, then I would not take it well.

This was rather poorly articulated as I'm pretty tired, so feel free to ask for clarification.

If magic turned out to exist (meaning effects that break physical law as we currently understand it, wieldable by individuals) and it's not through something like simulation hypothesis and a root console, that would pretty much invalidate the non-supernaturalist interpretation of physical law; that is, it would prove that human intelligence is fundamental to whatever natural laws actually are, given that it can manipulate this 'magic' at will, instead of just being an incidental epiphenomenon as it seems in reality to be. This has several implications; for one, greater point is lent to the whole abortion foolishness about when life begins, as you could make a credible case for 'life begins as soon as the fetus develops that thing that lets them use magic'; for another, AI is probably not feasible, if intelligence is the result of some magical thing. Other implications as you will.

I can definitely foresee some people reacting in that way, like, not liking the idea because it would fundamentally change the way the physics and rules of science work.

And the above What the Hell, Hero? thing about keeping the magic to themselves.

Yeah, there are a lot of cans of worms which the magic returning would open. I will definitely look into as many as I can.

And very likely, given the murders by Nebiros, cops and investigators would probably need new equipment to help look for residual Mana or something in the wake of magical crime.

If you want to play it that way, then the various governments, with purposes both more and less benevolent, might seek out the I-am-my-own-major-military-class magic users to either enlist, study or neutralize them. Interesting interactions with the magic users who don't want to comply with any such aims. The interactions if individuals can wield as much power as major countries become extremely interesting; expect international politics to become wildly chaotic, various countries to attempt to use magic-users as weapons of mass and not-so-mass destruction, et cetera. If some country in a troubled area gets its hands on more magic than its neighbors, it might well start throwing wars of conquest. Brainstorm as you will.

Yeah, troubled areas including the likes of Venezuela and Myanmar. Those two mean nothing but trouble with magic.

As far as governments trying to recruit, study or neutralize magic users with immense power...poor Matthew. As said in the random excerpt thread, he just defeated a whole bunch of enemies, and when he wakes up, everything just got worse.

There are a lot of magic users with power equal to countries. Zera can essentially kill everything around him at any time he wants. Saya can spontaneously create an army of undead mooks, and Matthew takes Hyperspace Arsenal Beyond the Impossible.

It almost sounds like it would end up being similar to Code Geass, but replace the sakurite with spell cores. The USA or some other power would undoubtedly try and secure a supply for themselves the second everyone realized what the cores could do and where most were located. So ultimately, it goes down in two different ways: either the small countries manage to fight back using their newfound magic, or they get overrun by the larger powers because they didn't have enough time to properly exploit the cores to defend themselves before the bigger countries ganged up on them.

I think that's misunderstanding the nature of modern international relations a bit - certainly there will be scrambles to control it, but I very much doubt we're going to see wars of conquest making a big comeback just because magic is now out in the open. Seriously, I think a "Magic Cold War" might be the most likely result. But all of the things that have been gradually shrinking the number of large-scale conventional wars aren't going to up and vanish because of magic.

If magic is nuke-powerful but not nuke-indiscriminately-destructive, than it really would. If you can perfectly shield yourself from the first world's attempts at keeping order, then why wouldn't you start going conqueror*

There are a lot of powerful magics which can be used like a nuke, but without indiscrimination.

For example, Abyss Break. Which essentially sucks in everything that the user thinks is an enemy before converting them from mass to energy and releasing the stored energy in a massive explosion.

That's not quite what Its Full Of Stars was describing, though. Could we see "rogue states" running amok with magic? Certainly. But I think a scenario of the world as a whole returning to imperialism wouldn't be very likely.

This isn't the same thing as colonialism, though - this represents a complete alteration of global power structure, especially if the only way to counter magic is with magic (which is what seems to be the case). Really, it is more of a case of survival - either sit on your hands until it is too late and the world is ruled by Iranian wizards, or strike now with all your forces before they become obsolete.

Also, I suggest that you replace the cores with jinn (since you are already focused on the middle east). There's even a half-crazy "scientist" in the region (can't remember his name) who claims that if we were a more spiritual people, we could solve our energy problems by harnessing the powers of the jinn. so why not make Mr. Crazy pants RIGHT? Have it turn out that jinn are real entities that can be bonded with a person to give them magical powers, or perhaps imprisoned in artifacts to use as energy sources. So we end up with an Iranian airforce composed of teams of anti aircraft missile launchers on flying carpets, and the average Iranian soldier being given a magic lamp to wish themselves back from the dead.

There is one Jinn.

He is The Seer.

And he is a fucking asshole.

Given his tendencies towards For the Evulz, he'd probably grant Ahmadinejad's wishes one after the other.

edited 17th Nov '11 6:04:46 PM by NickTheSwing