What can't magic do besides interact with the matrix, and run drones?

Got into a big arguement with my chummers over what it can or can not do. Create life? Like spirit getting pregnant, or getting someone pregnant. Dragons and humans? Man Shapechanges into a woman, can s/he get pregnant? Make gold from lead? Bring back the truly dead? Time travel? All by magic? Combine life forms making catdogs and other freaks?

I told my friend it's not possible.
Yet they keep saying 'It's magic it can do anything' Maybe I'm too much of a realist.
So I look for your opinons on the matter.


P.S. If this post is a repeat of a previous thread can someone turn me into that direction. Thanks.

get you r friend to read MITS about the spell creation it will answere all questions.

Being as there is no teleportaion allowed, I think it would be fair to say time travel is out...If you can't move in 3 dimensions with magic, no way in hell should a GM allow movement in 4.

As for frankensteining...I am assuming golems and such creatures could be made with magiic...ala Slayers...but really you would have to make your own custom rules for this, and when gene therapy and slicing are so common, I would think it would be quicker and cheaper to use tech to do such things.

As for life creation and pregnancy...Why the hell should these be issues in your games...wait I don't wanna know. Suffice to say you don't really turn into a true woman when magically altered, so I doubt pregnancy should apply.

PS when I say golems, I mean chimeras, Slayers style...lie cross breed creatures, etc. Golems are just the Chimeras with humans thrown in.

It's not an issue, we were just sitting around talking about what's possible or not. All philosophical like.

Oh and what about perpetual energy machines? The 'mage' thinks that it's possible to do a 'create fire' or 'create lightning' and hook it up to a turbine or powerplant and just quicken it, and Blam infininte energy for the world.

As stated, Magic in the Shadow discusses what's possible and not, listing an assortment of topics that are strictly off-limits even to magic.

Nevermind. I'm a friggen idiot. Yea magic is a source of eternal energy. Or close to it.

Take a handfull of photoelectric cells and quicken the 'light' spell and There infinite energy. Or take a few fire elementals and quicken them so they last a year and a day, and have them use thier flamethrower ability on a bunch of boilers and turbines and crank out the energy. Various other things like that. Everyone can forget these posts thanks. They're right I was wrong on that.

I was reading something about that, but I don't remember where. Obviously, if such a thing were feasable, it would have been done already and all power plants in the world would be magic. The explanation given in this thing I was reading (don't remember if canon or not, somebody please help me out if this rings a bell) is that someone tried exactly this. They used some sort of sustained/quickened spell to power a turbine. Over time it built up a bit of a background count, and by the time anyone realized that this background count was turning into a warp and the radius was spreading, it took some major mojo to get someone in there with enough power to shut it off before the warp got hopelessly out of control and, I don't know, ate the world or something.
Did I dream this?

Some of those limits on magic from MitS are described as limits on sorcery, not magic itself. For instance it species that spells cannot summon on banish creatures, that's the job of conjuring. Similarly sorcery can't predict the future. That doesn't mean magic can't predict the future (Divining).

to make a golem, take a look at ally spirits in mits, they have a inhabit power that you can buy for them at creation that enable them to among other things inhabit a clay statue...

the easyer way would be to summon a eath elemental, instant golem in materialised form

Our campaign has progressed to the point that I had to start making up magic. Temporal magic is possible as metamagic (metaspells). I really like the HHH website's rules for magic. In fact, just about anything is possible with metamagic. One character in my campaign has the spell 'retroactive annihilation'... you can guess where he got the idea from and what it does

Great name, Cheshire.

I tend to agree with Kagetenshi. Magic is definatly a very big source of power, but it has limits. All magical energy comes from the astral or the metaplanes - beyond that, we don't know how or why. It's limited by how you can harvest it and the conduit it uses. Think of it like the sun - yeah, to us, for all practical purposes, the sun is infinite energy. But how can you harness that energy? With an energy source like the sun right in our back yard (so to speak) we shouldn't have any problems with energy at all, right? But the means of harnessing it can be limiting, even though the source isn't limited (for practical purposes).

So, yeah, you could get mages to quicken a bajillion custom-designed light spells and use them to power solar energy cells, but after a while you have to wonder what such a powerful, constantly open conduit of astral energy is going to do to the world around it. Probably nothing good. The same with keeping hundreds of fire-elementals around - even if they weren't using their powers. Despite the astronomical cost in time, karma, and nuyen, they'd start to get tired after a couple of years and look for ways out of the arrangement or pro-Awakened rights groups (or free spirits of the same type or dragons or Conjurors for the Ethical Treatment of Spirits or somebody) would try and destory your (to them) elemental sweat shop.

And some things just aren't possible. There are no known spirits or magicians (or adepts), even the really bad-ass ones like Harlequin and the Big D, who have ever shown anything remotely like a capacity for time travel (even when it would be really usefull to them). If they don't have that power, some upstart shadowrunner mage is sure not gonna get it.

That being said - whatever fits into your game is what you should do. None of this is cannon. But in terms of "realism" - looking at things with some amount of logic - the answer should be no.

While I'm pretty savvy with the magic system (i.e., MITS was the first supplement I picked up, and has been read and reread repeatedly), could someone better enlightened explain precisely why a quicked spell put on an item like a photo-active device creates background count? I just don't remember anything in MITS that even remotely justifies this sort of ruling; if the spell was being used on a device that polluted the environment or caused harm to someone, maybe, but it's being used to create a clean form of energy that in and of itself has zero impact on anything around it.

Which isn't to say I wouldn't create my own rationale for it, should the given one be weak (ala the "astral template" rationale for lowering Essence when getting 'ware).

The explanation sounds like it would be that the abnormal draining of magic in the area is harmful to astral space immediately surrounding the spells. This is supported by the fact that the violent events in east Asia are thought to have perhaps been exacerbated by heavy use of the dragon lines there.
Basically, there isn't an infinite supply of magic, and if you drain it too fast it doesn't replenish at the site quickly enough.

~J

All magical activites can cause changes in the area of the mana sphere in which they take place. This is why, in areas where heavy spellcasting occurs, temporary and permanent background coutns can form. Places that are the site of powrful magical effects can develop into quite powerful power sites, given a sufficient length of time (example: pre Mana Ebb Crater Lake).

And on a side note, the relationship between magic and nuclear energy (as collected and organized on AH's site) suggests, or at least so it seems to me, that in some way Magic=[constants]Energy.

~J

Okay, I understand a bit now. And it does mesh with what we know; there are constant references that magic isn't "full strength" in the Sixth Word yet, and that it can (and will) get stronger as time goes on.

I still don't think a background count is the answer, though. A mana void, much like those that happened in Chicago due to the use of FAT bacteria, seems more appropriate. Not only will the machine not last forever, but you'll (more or less) permanently drain magic from the area. Certainly something that would be considered a very bad thing to nearly anyone.

Background count is currently a catch-all for magic not working right, but I agree that it wouldn't actually be a background count, just have similar game effects.

~J

Remember, background count is both the lack of mana (a la mana warp), the tainting of mana though some agency, or the "charging" of it. Things that can "charge" the mana, and thus cause background count, are strong or prolonged magical activity (MitS p. 84). And I doubt you would permanently drain mana from an area with only a very-long duration spell, but the background count might last for at least as long as the draining activity did - or maybe twice as long if you feel it warrants it.

Something else just occurred to me actually which I suspect has been in everyone's mind but just not said directly. As Eindrachen said, there is nothing to suggest any detrimental side effects - otherwise surely it would be listed under Quickening? 'if the spell remain active for [insert formula here], then this happens for every [period] that goes by' sort of thing. There's nothing.

So I might be inclined to go with the 'suppressed' line than the 'impossible'. That unfortunately means cunning players could do it if they put their minds to it and had the resources and time. But they'd have to stop anyone finding out, and if the corps have done weird metaplane quests or other magic, or deals with spirits, or whatever, which would alert them to the tech being used stopping people finding out might be a bit difficult! If you allow metaplane quests or other things to be so powerful in your games, anyway. Even without that, someone would find out sooner or later and talk about it, and then they'd be got anyway.

H'mm... PLEASE can someone find canon on this? A novel quote, an SR1 shadowtalk, or printed adventure, anything!

Suppressed really isn't feasible. Remember, this isn't a technology one would have to market to anyone else, it's a technique that any given business could use to eliminate their electricity bills and maybe make some money on the side if they need to. There's no way it could be reasonably suppressed, and it's such a comparatively simple idea that it wouldn't be feasible to kill off the people who thought of it either.
Suppression is, I submit, impossible, therefore it must be physically impossible somehow.

~J

Maybe it is all feasability...
Putting aside all lines of effects, either negative or positive...
Which astral critters flocking to your house maybe be one.
Or negation of magic within 10 city blocks over time...etc etc...

If you think about it, a fireball is just heat, heating a turbine with fire is not a great nor efficent way to make power...hence why very few people use fires to make power anymore even modern... Even sustaining it...sure you could probably heat your house, if you did it right and it was a level 8 or 9 fireball...But a whole corp? you would be dead from drain just casting a fireball big enough to support an office building JUST for heat... That isn't assuming all other elcetronics to power, which even now is a lot. in 2060 the power requirements would be through the roof.

So sure, you could have a magic-car, or a nice space heater for your house...but beyond that, I just don't think it feasble.

Also don't forget gravity manipulation. If that's allowed, effectively time travel and teleportation can become possible. Levitation is telekinesis, not "making gravity go away".

Remember the scale of fire damage, to get the amount of heat needed to sustain a steam engine would require a high force spell (10? maybe more) and those are difficult to mass produce as quickened.

A quickened ignite spell could replace the starter of a system, but would (usually) not itself provide enough mechanical energy to power a vehicle.

Also, quickened spells have a bit of the caster in them, and some mages will want to cause trouble...

If you have a high force spell sustained for over long periods of time you could also use some of the effects from Target: Awakened Lands. Some effects you could possible have happen is have a Mana Ebb happen some where close to the facility as mana rush into this drain zone to equalize the mana sphere. And if this facility is next to say the head quarters of a powerful magical group, of how pissed they are going to be when the mana in there are starts plummeting. Or another effect you can have occur is a Mana Shallow, where the barrier between then astral and physical plane becomes thin and none awakened can see on the astral plane. Or the area starts to aspect toward manipulation spells, IRC aspectation happens when a specific type of magic is used over a long period of time and the mana in the area is imprinted with type of magic.

In Dunzelkahn's will he states,"To the first party to create a perpetual motion machine without the aid of magic, I leave the heretofore undiscovered notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci." which leads me to believe magic can create a perpetual motion machine. If there were inherent problems with keeping a spell going for a prolonged period I would suspect that it would also stop magic from creating a perpetual motion machine.

Just my 2 cents

Namer18

Maybe the reason Dunkie included the "without magic" clause was because he was aware of the horrendous background count/mana shallow/whatever effects that would go along with using permanently sustained spells for that sort of thing. So if you can do so without magic, then you're cool and worthy of da Vinci's notebooks. Just a thought.

That's possible. It's also possible that he knew what would happen if someone tried with magic, and knew that if he allowed the use of magic that a lot of people would try that route.

[edit: too slow, Prospero beat me to it]

It's also possible that he has no idea whether or not it's possible, but thinks it's cool enough to be worth some cash set aside.

~J

Read up on Hawking for that.

~J

Sahandrian, I agree with Kagetenshi there...

The short version is that time and space are made of the same fabric...if you were able to reduce gravity, that means you could alter properties of matter in a way which would allow for movement through it, thus teleportation...Time is the same thing, since moving through one set of dimensions is no harder than the next, and since according to Hawking moving through one IS moving through another....

Anywho...If you care enough to learn it, I reccommend a heavy knowledge of calculus and a small doting of particle and quantum physics before you get into any hardcore hawking, like a Brief History in Time...

mmm Light Cones.

some points to ponder...

1) how long does a quickened spell last?
the experience of mages in SR is really quite short, so how do they know if it is REALLY permanent or just lasts a long time. quickening costs karma so there is an input of energy from the mage, it probably runs out eventually, it's anyones guess how long that is.
2) even at it's best, it would be unlikely that a magical/mechanical machine that made usable electricity would be very efficine at it. yeah your mage could run a house, or maybe even three, but what does this gain him? without the oversite of the US power grid there is no requirement for anyone to buy the extra power he makes, so that energy just goes to heating the transmission lines...
3) mages are rare, and the energy used to quicken spells is also used for improvement. what corp would forgo having better wagemages to save on electricity costs? especially when two or three of these spells quickened can cost in karma the same as an initiate grade. or a whole new spell - additionally, what mage would choose to sell his experience and life force like that...
4) size. at least, for a pc this is a good reason ont to do it, converting heat to energy takes space. sure they could quicken a lighter spell and run there nightlight for all eternity, but then the spell itself had that effect the more electricity they want the bigger the machine and harder to move, not a good thing if you are a runner who can't stay tied down.


in conclusion I don't see any reason why you shouldn't have magic to energy conversions exist, and if a player really wants to waste 6-8 karma for free electricity until his machine breaks, by all means, let him, that is 6-8 karma he used on something with little game effect, instead of something that might have been useful for his running carear.

just my 2 cents

-Mike R. (fahr)

This is giving me a terrible idea about a quickend force 1 flamethrower spell stuck to a lighter...
Yeha... Hawkings...w00t

I like pie baked in a magical E-Z bake oven

P.S.

Fire is fire. fire always burns at the very least of 500 ish degrees farenhite. Sure it can burn hotter, but it's still fire. A force 1 fireball is hot enough to burn things, but strangely most things can ignore it's effects. So I would assume that magical fire is really fragged up. And that some fires are more 'powerfull' than others. Really weird. Fire is a state of energy a plasma. It is self perpetuating as long as it has fuel. Maybe none of this has any bearing on this conversation anymore but it's not the force of the spell but the area of effect for creating usable energy from magic.

P.P.S.

A quickened extended range 'Wind' spell would do wonders in a dense field of windmill power generators! Woo.

EDITs: adding in the PSes

It's still a good book to read, as long as you remember that it's a primer rather than an actual unveiling of the mysteries of quantum physics. If quantum physics were that easy, there would be a lot more quantum physicists.

And there's no evidence that divination involves seeing into the future. You can predict a coin toss with 100% accuracy if you know all the variables; divination just unveils some of the probabilities.

~J

Except that within quantum theory, you never can know all the variables - only related sets to within a specific degree of uncertainty. One could argue that divination works within a parallel uncertainty - bring in whatever Heisenburgian variant you wish to allow for mana flow as it relates to ... what?

Although all you have to do to follow quantum physics is let go of conventional assumptions such as solidity of matter and absoluteness of existence at any given time, work with spacetime event relationships rather than (special case and limited) inertial frameworks, and attempt to describe the whole thing using forms of mathematics which relate entire number systems to each other.

No, you can't know all the variables; however, it is questionable whether or not quantum uncertainty will usually affect a coin toss.
I assert that divination can predict a coin toss, but that it cannot predict all the atoms in a coin suddenly "shifting" (I misuse the term for ease of reference: the atoms don't move, they just are somewhere else) through a wall.

~J

Only quantum variables aren't the only thing that affect a coin toss... The assumptions divination might make are what angle you throw it at, and with what force, thus predicting with relative certainty a heads or tails coin fall.
But it could never account for a plane falling out of the sky into your house...or a butterfly beating its wings in Africa, just to throw in some Chaos Theory...No you can't k now all the variables because somehow things that shoud never affect the toss, might. But given a set of normal circumstances one should be able to divine an answer knowing only the force, and where the force is applied, and when it will be caught(height) just by # of 180 degree rotations(ignoring the other possible dimension of movement.)

I remember roughly what the odds were of such spontaneous "shift". (Loosely relevant, I suppose: after all we bet our lives on them everyday.) Astronomical did not begin to describe it.

Yet there is a distinction between a coin toss in our (mundane) world, and a divination-oriented coin toss in an SR world. There is also intuitive interpretation of that coin toss above the mana threshold. It was there I am suggesting the uncertainty might seep in, not in the action of the various atoms of the coin in and of themselves.

I heard somewhere that IBM has a machine that can toss a coin, take a picture of it as it leaves the flipping bar, and accurately predict the result before it lands.

It'd have to take a few pictures, but as long as there weren't any strong breezes in the area that'd make perfect sense.

~J

Magic can do anything. Time travel, teleportation, gravity manipulation, casting spells out of LOS, and any other crazy effect you can possibly think of (although for most of the crazy stuff you need to use metamagic that doesn't have canon rules, yet). IMHO, the question isn't really what -can- magic do, the question is, "what are you willing to make up rules for?"