Now this is a question not of who can quote Earthdawn, though it can be used as a DISTANT datum, but of how metahumanity evolves the magic and its applications in the Sixth world.
The majority of the magical population is not guided by the Draconic race or the Immortal Elves, so the question here is the theoretical boundaries of magic and how magic actually works for metahumanity, also the base magical physics if you will.

So we have to include metahuman nature, the currently known and probably known magical knowledge, guidance (benevolent or malign) of GD, IE, TxSh, mega's, spirits of shades, shifters etc and lastly of course, necessity and curiosity.

Wide open, free rolling discussion possibility roughly defined by cannon. Remember though the Sixth world is based on the real world, the pure sciences apply here, remember causality.

To get the ball rolling per say:-

I believe the Create food spell should be removed permanently as it violates the core precept in the SR3 main rules, 'that magic can not create something from nothing.'
nutrition covers this effect and does not break this rule by pouring magic into a living vessel. So charging mana into the body/chemical energy, effecting a change to length of time between meals but not a creation of energy to matter. This is not indefinite and prolonged use without real food i propose would be potentially lethal in the long term

This neatly removes any argument of mana creating physical items for the players.
"But!"
I hear everyone save the Americans cry, what about the Free spirits wealth ability or even the ability to manifest?
My take is that these are transitory creations with a shelf life in the physical world, the reverse of an astral construct. This time period might be seconds or a nuclear half life.

Ok take it away Dumpshockers:-

The whole idea of "something out of nothing" is rather flawed, as otherwise most spells with any physical appearances just couldn't be according to the "rules".

Suddenly creating a fire out of nothing? Against the first statement of magic rules. Creating an acid stream that burns and melts stuff? Against the first statement.

Doesn't hold water, so I tend to ignore the "it can't create something out of nothing". Maybe it takes some particles of matter and makes them into food? Maybe it pops the astral energy over to physical matter. Who knows? It's never explained, and probably never will be.

technically, acid stream could just be transmuting the air molecules into acid in real time...likewise, flamethrower transmutes the air between you and the target and ignites, creating a contained flame burst (as opposed to simply igniting the air itself, which would not be as controllable). They're called "elemental manipulations", after all...it makes sense that they would work by manipulating the elements and transmuting one into another.

If you really wanted to enforce "no making something out of nothing" as a rule, you could simply disallow those spells in a vacuum.

Or you can treat mana as a third type of physical force along with energy and matter (An idea proposed by someone much smarter than myself).

Or you can treat it like "reverse entropy" which is, IIRC, the basic explanation in the one of the Grimoire books and/or BBBs.

In the future the Detect Chronothaumaturgy spell will actually be useful.

Yeah as others have pointed out, there is no rule that would prohibit create food except, perhaps, the spacetime rule since creating matter would warp spacetime indirectly. Of course, this can be relievied by interperating the rule to mean that sorcery can't directly alter spacetime.

But this rule is not itself absolute. We know that teleportation is possible at high mana levels and some events can be interpertated as limited magical teleportation in the Sixth World but they are left deliberatly vauge.

As for the future of magic research it'll be divided into two camps. The first would be interested in refining current magical theory to more fully explain observed phenomona and to integrate it with the physical sciences. The second would be more concerned with pushing the boundries of known magical theory, devolping radically new spells and methods, and ect. The two camps would play off of each other, of course, as the former tries to explain the more radical discoveries of the latter and the latter expands upon the discoveries of the former.

Backwards timetravel is unlikely but nt impossible. Selective time dilation is almost a given along with physical teleportation.

One of the big things will be integrating magic and technology to the point that the two are indistuingishable from each other to the layman. The first steps toward this have already been taken in the form of cyberzombies. As understanding of magic advances the it will only become more commonplace starting with magical cyberware similar to blood charms and expanding from there to eventually include Armored Astral Vehicles and the like when the mana level nears peak.

The most fun and exciting fields wil be parazoology, parabotony, parabiology, and para-anthropology, especially para-anthropology with the study of metaplanar civilizations. Parapsycology (the study of the psyche of spirits and paracreatures), paraeconomics, and parasociology and parapolisci should also be popular.

You can't pour magic into a person to make them physically better? well dang, there goes every single health spell.

Having read some real life obtuse magical tracts the writers are past maters of folding logic into knots to meet their ends. intentionally or by sernedipity the SR magic laws clearly fall into the same block.

Yes, I'm sure it was just a coincidence.

hyzmarca: teleportation wasn't possible in the 4th world either. The sells they used for that effect gave the caster physical access to the astral plane, basically creating a teleportation - substitute.

mfb is right, there's nothing in the rules anywhere that says that magic can't creat. It cays that it cannot conjure or banish spirits, or make teleporatation or time travel magic. That;s it, everything else is allowed. In the 3rd edition rules, it even gives drain codes of effecting gravity, so you could theoretically reverse gravity in a large are. I always thought of creation spells as taking raw elements and combining them together, like with create water. Just mixes hydrogen and oxygen in the air. Which is why create food spells make just bland food. Throw in an illusory 'create taste' though, and you're good to go.

i'd like to note that even creation spells don't necessarily break the laws of thermodynamics. the theory of general relativity states that energy can be transformed into matter and vice-versa, as i said in my last post. mana is energy. therefore...

now, the problem with this is that, at least in the physical world, it takes a hell of a lot of energy to create small amounts of matter. mathematically, this means that the constant that you use to determine the amount of matter you'll get, based on the amount of energy you have, is very large--the speed of light, matter of fact. this means that if you've got 1 mfb's worth of energy, you'll end up with (mfb/speed of light)'s worth of matter, assuming there's no waste.

this isn't necessarily true on the astral plane. the constant used to translate between mana and matter is, as best i can determine from the rules, some factor possibly involving how 'natural' the matter's final form is. for instance, it's pretty easy to create food, as shown by the spell. it's pretty hard, however, to create electronic parts; look at how small an item the Fix spell is able to affect. clothing is somewhere in between, as shown by the Fashion spell.

Wouldn't it be mfb energy/(c^2)?

how much energy does feces yeild? j/k

that the conversion rate from mana to matter (or other types of energy) is different from the conversion rate of normal energy to matter (or other types of energy) is, indeed, my point.

Maybe the spell should be renamed "Manipulate matter into food." It produces food without violating the Shadowrun rules. I think of it more as pulling water vapor and organic molecules from the air and reforming them into food. Food is mostly water and these molecules which are roughly the same molecules found in dust. 6th World Cities are pretty dusty places with the air filled with all sorts of gunk. I remember the scary amount of dust the last day of freshman year in my college's dorms where the dust bunnies were plate-sized at least on move-out day. Telekinesis to pull the dust together, clump it, add some water, and manipulate it into something edible.

I figure the fireballs and acid streams are the same. Pull the protons (H+) off a whole lot of water vapor and direct this at a target for acid stream. Since I know some organic chemists who used to, as a lark, spray strong organic acids out of metal syringes to create streams of fire when the acid's protons violently pulled electrons from the metal, I figure fire manipulation would just be like that. Heck since air is mostly Nitrogen, telekinetic compression of it into liquid and spray it at someone to make a really fun cold blast.

All of these effects are possible in the Shadowrun system without having to resort to E=mC^2.

Hey guys, remember, it's JFM.

i dunno, Landicine. there's nothing that says you can't cast Create Food in a hard vacuum.

There is nothing that says you can't cast a fireball in a vacuum either, and since fire needs air at least, the spell shouldn't work. How many times are characters going to face a true vacuum? Space? I thought magic didn't work in space.

I'm just saying that in a normal 6th world environment without too much stretch it is possible for a create food spell to work by some means other than making matter out of nothing.

I think this is always a GMs call on how exactly a spell works in the game world and when spells don't work. If someone tried to cast a fireball underwater, I'm not going to let them even though the spell doesn't specifically forbid against that, but maybe some GMs will allow it, saying that the manipulation part of the spell creates a pocket of air in the water for the fire stream to travel in. Water has oxygen in it, and if you could move all the air into one area and keep it there, you could use it to burn stuff. Again, I don't think the extra steps are part of what the originally spell intended, so I wouldn't allow it.

I don't know why the energy to mana even becomes a factor. What about opening windows to other metaplanes and drawing some of their energy/material... or why magic has to obey natural laws at all?

All these laws are, is just common beliefs. For a long time it was scientific law that earth air fire and water were the only elements, and would transfer from state to state.

So please remind me why this e=mc^2 discussion is happening? And everyone talking about drawing energy from the air or casting in a Vacuum?

Platinum is talking about opening a portal to the Metaplane of Beefsteaks, and drawing a beefsteak from there to here. SLJames is talking about opening a portal to the astral, and pulling mana here in the form of a beefsteak.

Actually... I was actually just saying who cares where it comes from it is magic. Some magic draw energy/mater from planes, some just uses mysterious magic to manipulate matter.

it matters where it comes from if there's going to be any consistency with how magic works.

Would you not then be calling a beefsteak elemental, or a beefsteak spirit, or even a spirit of beefsteak?

And could it not then be at least potentially be capable of engulf, and thus eating you, as you try to eat it?

Eye witnesses recounted the horror. One man said "I could swear that I heard the thing say 'not bad, needs A1' while it was chewing on the guy's arm."

Whoa I admire your focus, widening of topic left to one post. To address your conserns on creation over the matter/energy bridge: Very difficult. To stop the AD&D create everything spells, game mechanics aside, the causality of manipulating mana to the required length of time and amount of mana based on the complexity of what is created (Elemental manipulation anyone?).
""But" aside from American's..." word play, take a second, think about it....

What about the interconnectivity of magic and metamagic disciplines, think game reality not game mechanics. The why and then the how.
EMP spell
Why? Most computers are optical so are immune.
How? Compressed lightning bolt to a micro positve spark? Simple direct manipulation of electro magnetic force?

The developement of personal astral bridges/gateways as used by Ehran/Harliquin/Ghostwalker. More importantly to what end.

'Mapping' of the meta planes. Explainations of paradigm and why they work.

The ever orginal 'new' metamagic's. There are many different spirits that came through with Ghostwalker and we know of only two, what are the others?

Free your mind.

Pendaric, What the hell are you talking about?

Really, a little clean up on the language will help me tons in understanding what your point is and why it is at all relevant.

Sounds like the intro to a paper on why drugs are good.

Free. Your. Mind. *puff puff*

In brief, magic big picture.
All the possiblities and seperating them into probabilities with regard to their evolution within the sixth world and their value as interesting avenues in both intellectual and emotive roleplaying.
Hence bullet point cover of a massive selection of relevant potential avenues of discourse delivered in rapid succession.
I am asking two fundemental questions in concerns of matters magical within the game reality, not game mechanics, how and more importantly why?
As these two questions arrive at the beginning of every topic of magic possability there is alot to investigate to even outline the horizons of the topic of magic's future in the game world. So am not asking two questions per say and asking hundreds of questions simplified to two general questions.
I am inviting Dumpshocker's to participate in a sprawling discussion involving what is and how is magic going to be investigated/ employed/ developed.
The game play mechanics must be remembered but only allowed to curtail where the 'if' of magic interefers with the roleplay experience of the 'what/why' of magic.

Is that better?

Sigh, o0k here's another question to get the creative juices flowing....
Can a free spirit with human form power, when manifest in a metahuman form, use simsense techonology and if so to what exstent? Trodes? Can it manifacture a datajack when it manifests? or can it have one fitted? and does it work? Explain the theories behind the answers...
Decking? Watching a Sim? Sim recording of spirit perceptions? Not the magical senses just the normal five etc

Usually, no. A spirit does not have a brain the way a metahuman does. there is nothing there for the simsense to interact with. Hoever, a spirit with the possession power can use someone else's meat to use simsense just like any metahuman would. A spirit with possession can even deck.

besides ,it would be really hard to install the datajack in most spirits. That whole "Immunity to Normal Laser Scalpels" and all that .

I wonder how well a hell hound to track an astral signature?

I think laser scalpels count as elemental damage.

And several cybersurgeons stand around a water cooler discussing their day......

"Something really strange hapened too me today. I installed this datajack in this guy today. He said his name was Art something. But that isn't the strange part. The strange part was that Art was some sort of metal elemental. Yeah. I didn't think that spirits could use datajacks either. And the whole time I was installing it Art just laughed maniachly. It was wierd. And when I was finished he tortured me for several hours. I'm really glad we overstocked feet. "

Nebis meets cyberlimbs

So to medical scans does a materialised free free spirit in metahuman or animal form read as normal? If not this is information that can be used as the inception of a run, hence why it needs runners.
Also what skills does a spirit posses in the physical world? Ally spirits have a selection from their creation but what about the others? As life experience is the sole province of the living metahuman how do spirits learn to say drive?

They pay karma like anyone else. Free Spirits can't accumilate karma on their own but once they get it from a metahuman they can apply it to learning skills just like anyone else.

As for medical scans, I am unsure.

My point here is not to list a series of questions I want answering but rather to have everyone engage in a debate about cool magical possablities.
I reiterate for the complusive thread end jumpers.
So what about the creation of sorcery or conjuring elemnt specific foci, by which I mean a focus that helps banishing alone or dispelling alone or spell defence alone etc?
Why bother cheaper to make and buy, (by default for game balance and interest) cheaper to bond?

Because they're cheaper to buy and bond... And because not everyone can conjure and cast spells, or wants to.

I think the portion of discussion regarding the creation of matter, transferrence of energy, etc is a little misguided. When you say, "This plane can fly" and someone asks "Why?" you can discuss aeronautics, etc. When someone asks, "How did you just shoot that fireball from your hands?" The answer itself is simply "magic". Shamans and Mages know how to invoke these effects. Mages try to quantify them into formulas etc, but in general it is simply a matter of "If you do this and twist your thumbs like this, this can happen." So I think trying to explain How magic works is a circular argument. The How of magic is simply put, magic.

True in that is magic but magic has rules and not the game mechanics, the paradigm of the magician in question derives the style and type of powers they have. So 'why' defines the 'what' they can. Hence phys ads, aspected, full hermetics/shamans/hougans/pyschics/wu jen ect all have different powers. Magic yes but different, its the same as calling all colours the same as they are colours, neh?
Hence am try (so far unsuccessfully) to provoke discussion on interesting thing to do with magic for roleplaying purposes.

And SL James am hoping your refering to the internal drive of market consumption and game balence not just being a tosser.

What I want to know is if Free Spirits can bond Foci.