mylittlejamjar | One: In Which Klaus Makes an Inquiry [TEXT]

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One: In Which Klaus Makes an Inquiry [TEXT]

An open inquiry, to whomever may be able to help:

I want someone to explain, clearly and concisely, what magic is and how it works. I've asked local ponies and none of them can give me a satisfactory answer.

What is it about unicorns and our horns in particular that allows us to perform magic with greater scope and efficiency? Does the horn act as a conducting rod for a specific type of energy or element not present in other places across the multiverse? If so, has this energy been studied or isolated in any way? You would think a world built on the use of it would have a greater understanding of the underlying scientific principles.

As we all know, magic is merely science that has not been studied closely enough yet to be comprehensible to all people regardless of intelligence. Thus, I propose the formation of a group dedicated to better understanding 'magic' not as a force which needs no explanation and is simply used with no thought for how it works but as a phenomena with a perfectly reasonable and presumably discoverable explanation grounded on facts. Any and all interested, please respond promptly.

[The scroll is written in clear, concise penmanship, black ink. The signature at the bottom reads 'Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, Tyrant of Europa'.]

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To Baron Klaus Wulfenbach:

I would have to agree. I have been able to figure out very little of the nature of magic, but I've found it very useful in operating on a day-to-day basis. With the loss of my hands, I find the basic telekinetic powers it grants to be extremely useful for continuing to use the tools of my career.

I would like to be a part of your exploratory group. My background as a woman of science, both medical and engineering, will likely be very helpful in understanding the situation in which we find ourselves. Let us traverse the wall of fire together, rather than wait for some Siegfried!

I await your response.

Sincerely,
Doktor Lara Keller

PS: Have you seen a trio of fan-tailed pigeons flying around? I know it's rather off-topic, but I'm asking everyone at this point.

[The signature is almost illegible. The whole thing seems to have been written with a shaky hoof; Lara's not yet used to writing with her horn.]

[If it's any consolation to Lara, Klaus had to scrap this missive several times before the writing was anywhere near something he'd deign to send.]

Doktor,

I would be very pleased to have a woman of science of whatever kind aiding me in this endeavor. I find that sitting idly when there is work to be done has never gotten anyone any useful results.

Have you noted anything interesting about your telekinetics? Is there a cutoff to what you can lift and how far away from yourself an object must be before it is outside your sphere of influence? Any and all parameters would be useful.

Keep in correspondence,

Baron Klaus Wulfenbach

PS. I have not. I assume they're yours?

Rationality has its time and place. Subjects such as the sciences themselves are well served by human rationality as they are objective disciplines. However rationality, especially human, has its limits. Taken to its extreme, rationality would dictate that nature is not objective, but subjective to the cause of rationality.

Magic is not rational.

There can be a science to magic, but magic is not a science.

Attempting to understand magic is possible, but understanding it entirely and creating a working thesis as to why it works is not.

Edited 2013-04-09 19:15 (UTC)

I don't see why I can't get as close as possible. Magic obeys rules, which implies that it to some extent is rational. Even if I cannot understand it as a cohesive whole, understanding the parts to it would be preferable to simply accepting it implicitly.

[There's a splotch at the top and the handwriting is hurried and shaky.]

Klaus?

You're the wrong one, too, are you not?

[The signature is complicated and swirly, but you can kind of make out that it says "Jay Zimin". Beside it, in smaller script, is written "please say you know who this is". There's a hurried, single line through that.]

Edited 2013-04-09 19:56 (UTC)

I wasn't aware there was more than one of me, so how I could be the 'wrong' Klaus Wulfenbach is something you may have to explain.

[Who even are you, Jay Zimin.]

Did you ever ... ah. Sell your soul to a little creature that looks like a cat with floppy arms instead of ears?

[Hope springs eternal. This one's grumpy enough.]

"Magic is just science we don't understand yet." Arthur C. Clarke.

Maybe its science that can't be understood yet.

That is the hypothesis I'm operating on, yes. The 'yet' implies that it can and will be understood later, which is what I intend to work towards.

I suppose, but sometimes magic is simply magic, from my own experience.

[Okay, Robo still hasn't figured out how to write yet so here you go. He sounds a little on edge. Anyone who addresses themselves as a tyrant can't have good intentions in mind.]

We can't hope to understand everything, Klaus. It's like this whole place is trying to avoid giving us a straight answer, locals included. It's Science Hell.

[No no no, this is way worse.]

Still, it's better than just standing around. I'll see if I can't lend a hand in your efforts.

[He's cutting the speech thing off at the root now.]

You didn't ask the blue one with the wizard hat, did you?

Edited 2013-04-09 23:52 (UTC)

[Hilariously enough, Klaus's title of Tyrant is entirely divorced from the negative connotations it's taken on in more modern societies. Not that people don't dislike him for other reasons...]

I have been in a place like this before. There is always something that can be studied, that can be focused on and picked apart and understood, and once you have that, you have the key. A universe is a fractal of itself, and understanding it at one level opens the door to understanding it at all levels if you know how to make the right connections.

For instance, to understand the drones of Mayfield and how far their brainwashing and memory altering abilities could go, I performed a two-year longitudinal study on the drone children they placed under my care. Unfortunately the notebooks did did not come here with me.

And no, I did not ask 'the blue one with the wizard hat'. Should I have?

I dunno how unicorn magic works, but you can try to study my Pinkie Sense if you want! I use it to tell when things're gonna happen. Twilight tried to study it once, but it totally didn't work! That taught her that you can't always understand eeeeeeverything! I don't mind if you wanna try again though, it was kinda fun being followed by spies!

[The scroll is written in pink ink. The signature at the bottom reads 'Pinkie Pie, Super-Awesome Party Pony of Sugarcube Corner'.]

[Oh jeez. This person looks... wow.

Still, that sounds really interesting. Curse you, scientist curiosity!]

Tell when things are going to happen? Do you mean precognition, as in you see visions of future events?

Naaaah, I just know what's gonna happen! Like, if my tail starts twitching, that means something's gonna fall! And if my knee gets pinchy, that means something scary's about to happen!

I have the same sort of questions but seeing what the nature of people are around here when it comes to "magic" I have my doubts that any of the natives have tried to do scientific research on the subject. At this rate it will be all up to us scientific thinkers to figure it out. I don't have a horn myself so I can't test it out but I've been trying to understand the weather and physics in this place for a while now.

I guess since the unicorn horns are a natural trait, you'll want to make some observations of the biological factors involved first. Maybe they have an anatomy book in the local library.

-Wally West

You know, that's an excellent suggestion. I was uncertain of the library, given that it's in a tree, but it may provide useful information on anatomy and magic both.

If you make any interesting headway in regards to how the weather here works, I would be interested in knowing. I confess I'm tackling the issue of magic first because the idea of weather systems that are dependent entirely on sentient creatures is something that already exists to some extent in my world, albeit alongside normal weather patterns. In general, though, it takes a great amount of energy being constantly applied to control weather even in the smallest areas.

I've witnessed some inventions made to affect the weather in my own world, but like you said it takes a lot of concentrated energy and it only works in a small area. The pegasi of Cloudsdale though have an entire factory and system though that can control the weather all over the kingdom. I still have to find out more but that's where it all starts.

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One: In Which Klaus Makes an Inquiry [TEXT]

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