McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
mechanics of faith in urban fantasy: a notion for a project
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Quantus347 on April 27, 2009, 05:34:04 PM ---Just that any old pigheaded joe shmoe is all but immune to magic simply by not believing in it, and that would be the majority of the populace.
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I'm not sure that not believing in magic is enough. I'm thinking that maybe any degree of faith in anything supernatural - be it organised religion, organised magic, astrology, whatever - is a handle.
--- Quote ---You tell a christian that you felt the presence of an angel protecting you during a car wreck and they nod sagely and mutter blessings. You say you actually saw and spoke to it, and they get the padded room ready. Its just one of those human contradictions.
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There will certainly be problems with convincing anyone that what you saw that was weird was actually real.
--- Quote ---That being said all this only applies to magic that actually targets a human (or sentient being, at least). What about the more physical magics? Are they fine, or do the beliefs of say witnesses matter. Like if I wanted to conjure a chair, would I be able to do it in front of a non-believer without difficulty, or would their disbelief still hamper me?
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That's what I am still mulling on. I am inclined to think that it will depend on how much rationalism had to go into making the object in the first place. Chairs are easy, disk brakes are hard, computers are nigh-impossible.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: neurovore on April 27, 2009, 07:19:11 PM ---That's what I am still mulling on. I am inclined to think that it will depend on how much rationalism had to go into making the object in the first place. Chairs are easy, disk brakes are hard, computers are nigh-impossible.
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So if I cant just slap somebody with magic force because they are a hardcore rationalist, is there anything stopping me from knocking the tree next to them over and splat them that way? And if not why/what circumstances would anybody bother targeting a person directly when its much more effective to target the physical world around them?
It may be cool to have a villain set up as a shrink in an asylum. He'd have this nice big pool of chronically irrational people to do with whatever he wants. Hmmm, how do drugs and other altered states of mind affect a persons Rationality defense? Can it go temporarily down, or does it have to be a deeper belief than that?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Quantus347 on April 27, 2009, 10:28:13 PM ---So if I cant just slap somebody with magic force because they are a hardcore rationalist, is there anything stopping me from knocking the tree next to them over and splat them that way?
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Not a tree, no. Which means that people wanting to stay safe from magic want to stay in heavily urban areas where everything around them is tech heavy and hard to affect.
--- Quote ---And if not why/what circumstances would anybody bother targeting a person directly when its much more effective to target the physical world around them?
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Only in the countryside, I reckon.
--- Quote ---It may be cool to have a villain set up as a shrink in an asylum. He'd have this nice big pool of chronically irrational people to do with whatever he wants. Hmmm, how do drugs and other altered states of mind affect a persons Rationality defense? Can it go temporarily down, or does it have to be a deeper belief than that?
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Haven't thought that one through in depth, but what feels right is that it's your core beliefs, really. So drunk or high would not make a major difference.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: neurovore on April 28, 2009, 01:28:06 AM ---Haven't thought that one through in depth, but what feels right is that it's your core beliefs, really. So drunk or high would not make a major difference.
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Not thinking so much drunk/high as serious anti psychotics or maybe hallucinogens. LSD was originally a truth serum because it severed your grip on reality so much that you would talk, not even realizing you shouldn't, and was then abandoned because what you said might not actually have anything to do with reality.
meg_evonne:
--- Quote from: neurovore on April 27, 2009, 02:40:33 PM ---It means that rationalists will be immune to magic unless they see something happen that for which they can't find a rational explanation, in which case having to acknowledge that makes them more vulnerable.
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It seems this would create a base of ever increasing rationalist society, immune. The base premise that I'm having difficulty is the assumption that a rationalist not able to recognize science in a situation would somehow be vulnerable? Wouldn't a rationalist just stay firmly in rationality and acknowledge that all science is not known and be invulnerable to the effect? Sort of a Sherlock Holmes type resistance to magic?
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