>>17472313
YES.

Hey not a bad idea, provides the reasoning behind humanity having better weapons than space-faring civilizations.

So basically humanity have EMP proof weaponry in a highly EMP battlefield?

The only problem is our tech is not actually hard to physically replicate, so the aliens would have to be physically incredibly different and not have the mental faculties for adapting our tech for themselves and cutting out the middle man

>>17472351

Yep; basically, the idea is that the PCs need to get while the getting's good, before the aliens can catch up in a couple of decades

>>17472313

So humanity basically becomes medieval Switzerland?

>>17472380

more like space Landsknechts!

>>17472351

actually it is hard to replicate if you don't have proper factories for that.

>>17472434
They have magic.

>>17472351
> our tech is not actually hard to physically replicate

I'm not so sure about that. It depends on just how reliant on magic the aliens are. We've got all that nice materials science, very precise measurement tolerances on things, and a bunch of non-trivial math. Not to mention the digital electronics and software to go with it.

Aliens could *use* what we make, but they'd have trouble with the logistics of applying it en masse, and would have trouble even copying anything really complicated that we designed from the 1980s onward. They'd have to figure out pretty much our entire civilization to catch up, and if their entire evolution has had "it's magic I ain't gotta explain shit" as a valid way of life, they're totally not used to thinking our way. Plus we'd continue advancing the entire time they were trying to catch up, and we'd be going at probably a faster rate than before (flush with cash and resources from them buying our stuff and services, plus with the whole galaxy opened up to us).

>>17472471
This.

>>17472434
SPACE FAREING civilization, hard to replicate the factories?? are you kidding me?

All of human en-devours involve repeating very simple tasks that build on one another to create complicated things. People then claim "Look at how clever and intelligent we are!" not realizing that it's all just simple tricks that allow us to make the things we do.

>>17472456
and we have SCIENCE!

>>17472313
Don't tell the Russians they could sell the AK off world....

>>17472504

well if they have giant whales to travel space with magic than yes, they will have more than a few problem to build the factories

>>17472504

The problem is that their space faring involves incantations and finger wagglin instead of science and industry.

"So it's metal."

"Well, it's a lightweight alloy and ceramic plating that we use in our star ships, so our fuel costs stay low enough to be economical while still protecting us from the vacuum of space in no-magic zones. Something you can't do if your ship is held together with magic."

"... Why didn't you use magic to make it?"

"Because we don't have to. We've got machines to make it."

"Hmph. I'll take fifty."

>>17472559
So less Starship and more "Mass Teleport?"

>>17472471
Exactly how difficult it would be for them to replicate our technological items depends on what exactly their magic can do. Materials science, precise tolerances, and non-trivial math means little if a wizard can just take a look at your gun, summon a spirit of metallurgy, and work up a ritual that alchemically processes available materials into an exact copy of your weapon and an appropriate quantity of ammunition.

Electronics might be trickier, and since the aliens will probably take some time to figure out how components interact, especially when they're complicated or involve complex circuits, maintenance and troubleshooting will be difficult.

If all they have is muskets and tech on a roughly equivalent level, I'm betting they could easily use magic to jump to repeating rifles and such.

At this point, though, I'm questioning why they have chosen not to conquer us, since they are spacefaring and we have no defense against magic.

>>17472559
"Any sufficiently advanced science.."

Be real careful about what you call Science and Magic when we're dealing with themes like these.

If anti-magic fields are that easy, then they would be a given in any conflict, since you'd toss one up the moment you were behind on the magical side, or ahead on the non-magical side. It's only if both sides are either evenly matched in both fields, or if one side is superior in both fields, that you may have a conflict with magic involved (nd even then someone may toss up an anti-magic field out of habit, to avoid nasty surprises, or some such).

From this also follows that any research should be directed towards non-magical assets, because if you get ahead in the magical field then your enemy will just toss up an anti-magic field to nullify that advantage, but if you get behind then you can just do so yourself.

So warfare will develop almost purely along non-magical lines, and there will be no reason for humanity to be any special there. If anything we'd suffer from the lack of magic to support the "back end" stuff, research, production, keeping the population happy and productive, etc.

>>17472582
Because they CAN'T. Like OP said, Earth and all our territories are in a giant natural Anti-Magic field type thing.

>>17472504

not the same guy as >>17472434, but it depends on how their ships are created... if they're using full magic shit then how exactly are they creating their ships?
Are they actually engineering them or are they magicking them into existence? Are their ships even ships as we would recognize them?

We're limited to the laws of physics, our ships engineered to take on the rigors of space... the cold, the radiation, the vacuum, incoming missiles/rail-guns/lasers.
If an incantation can block all of that then why build lumps of metal? Why not floating castles, giant space-going trees, crystal arrangements?

Sure, you got your Wizard's Tower off-world and into the void, you wove your spells of "Protection from Cold" and "Pocket of Atmosphere"... but you never thought to consider a chunk of steel accelerated to half the speed of light...

>>17472582
Except we do have a defense against magic, it's called our entire sector of space being an antimagic field.

Make anti-magic fields rare as fuck and forbidden.

Mostly because every one in this extremely-magical universe has used magic and it would be retarded that they haven't used magic in SOME part of their space-faring vessel, and any failure could be fucking critical.

"Oh what's that? You only used magic to make your shields? Well fuck you, have meteor shower"

>>17472595
Unless anti-magic fields are imperfect and can be subverted, or overwhelmed by raw power. In that case, there would still be a magical arms race to develop more durable anti-magic fields and more powerful magic to defeat them, as well as strange magic that worms its way around or saps anti-magic fields.

If you've focused most of your research on mundane weaponry, assuming that your existing anti-magic fields will prevent any enemy wizarding, you'll be in for a big surprise when a fleet of space whales shows up, takes down your fields from orbit, and transforms all your guns into fish.

>>17472613
>>17472627
How are they making contact if magic doesn't work in our sector?

>>17472566

OP again.

I kind of figured that the aliens would rely mostly on teleportation, with spaceships being kind of secondary.

>>17472639

We left.

Duh.

>>17472644
How far does the field extend?

>>17472595
this is basically what i was thinking too. it would make more sense if antimagic fields were difficult to create, or at least difficult to maintain for more than a short period of time. this would mean little incentive to develop non-magical weapons/technologies/whatever.

i like the setting idea though, just need to work out kinks so it makes clearer sense.

>the milky way cascade - some sort of old ancient magical event that blew up the subspace or whatever that most aliens draw their magic from. hence our anti-magic situation.
>anti-magic fields exist but are of varying degrees of strength. magical arms race like mentioned above
>alien space ships are rare. think more along lines of stargates or teleports of some kind.
>oh wait. this was called SG-1

Is it cyberpunkish?

Because it would totally be awesome to show a wizard how equal we stand when our body is mostly cybernetics and can move as fast as then and are just as strong despite not having magic of any kind.

What if the anti-magic field is the result of some portion of human physiology rather than the planet Earth?

In such a case, humans would take a small envelope of nope-your-magic-ain't-nothin everywhere. Walking silence.

>>17472673
Speed and strength is neat and all, but wizards can do more than cast Haste. Is there a technological equivalent to Dimension Door? Time Stop?

>>17472646
maybe the nearest 10 systems or something.

>>17472639
My idea was for the field to lose its effect some distance beyond the moon's orbit, so when the first mission to mars goes ahead the aliens sentient life in our system for the first time.

As for the antimagic fields, I think the best choice for the setting would be if they were common, but can be circumvented with force or ingenuity.
And I'm going to say that magicking up something detailed and precise is possible, but very time- and labor-intensive

>>17472708
How far are the aliens established in the solar system?

So, basically a group of Spelljammers show up and say 'behold our mighty space-ironclad.....holy crap, how did you make boats out of metal without magic?' And then it becomes a race. Will humanity develop/acquire the magic to make its battleships fly before the alien races figure out 150 years of human technology?

A sci-fi writer did something similar where every alien race discovered a common-on-every-planet-except-earth mineral or gas or something that provides power and anti-gravity easily, so their tech is still napolean-era, and they show up on modern earth expecting us to be scared of muskets and brass-barrel cannons firing lead balls. Though I like the magic explanation. It's slightly less of an author-wants-the-aliens-to-suck-for-the-sake-of-plot fiat.

>>17472702

My idea was for military-grade wizards to be equivalent to 3.5e ~6th level wizards, minus any spells that would invalidate the setting, whereas knowing basic spells is something anyone can do.

Greg Stolze's excellent sci-fi game Out of the Violent Planet did almost exactly this, except it was psionics instead of magic. It's one of my favorate settings, and you might consider glancing at it for ideas.

I would think that their ships are maintained and powered by magic. To maintain the internal habitable environment, provide thrust, and all that good stuff. The outside doesn't need to be any fancier than a wooden sailing ship.

That makes AMFs useless in ship to ship combat, because you'd be hurting yourself too. Probably useless in planetary defense also, since invaders would 'beam down' with teleport spells. They'd make interesting space minefields, though, if you could figure out how to get them in place right.

I don't know if these aliens would even have a concept of space ship to ship combat until after they met us. And if we could mount small AMFs on our ships, we'd be immune to their magic-based energy attacks and long range boarding actions.

>>17472730

I hadn't really thought about that. Maybe there's an ancient dungeon on mars that sends out a signal?

>>17472685
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own!"
And that anti-magic field generator is called SCIENCE!!

So, it's like Veil of Madness but with SCIENCE!! and Are You a Wizard?

>>17472761
>That makes AMFs useless in ship to ship combat

Missiles with anti-magic warheads, if that's possible, or kamikaze wizards, if anti-magic fields have to be generated by a mage in person.

>Probably useless in planetary defense also, since invaders would 'beam down' with teleport spells

Strategic anti-magic fields would prevent the use of teleportation in certain areas, so nobody could just beam themselves into your throne room. If there is a counter to teleportation that does not affect other forms of magic, even better.

All of this talk about the anti-magic fields being a technological advancement may simply add needless complications. Why not make it so these anti-magic fields are actually region-locked or wandering spaces in the universe? That way Humans truly have a use. If a planet is highly contested because of its rich mineral deposists, yet is difficult to mine or claim due to the surrounding anti-magic nebula, then humans can be called in.

Hell, it even loosens the universe you're crafting right now. Makes it so there may be one or two other races that happen to be entirely nonmagical (Thus making Humans less "special snowflakes" and more ingenious).

Just an idea

>>17472755
I'll look into that. Unless you're Greg Stolze.

>>17472761
Ehh, I kind of wanted to avoid blatant HFY by making it difficult for humanity to build spaceships and so on, so the human mercs would be working for aliens from start to finish. At least in the era the PCs play in.

>>17472806

This.

Have Anti-Magic zones be region-locked in the universe, and assumed Forbidden.

>>17472819

Humanity needs a navy. We are a war-like species at heart, we will always strive to have the biggest and the best when it comes to military hardware. It's just how we are.

>>17472806
I can dig it.

Having mages be able to generate AMFs add way more complexity than necessary, as pointed out here >>17472595

Stop stealing my ideas OP.

Though, in my setting the humans had a passive magic immunity, which, admittedly, is nothing like your idea.

>>17472849

No disputing that. It could be an ongoing campaign hook, with Earth governments trying to get their hands on delicious magic secrets so they can develop their own fleets. Kind of like how, 200 years before the Ottoman Empire conquered Byzantium, the Ottomans worked for them as mercenaries.

Try this:

There are some naturally occurring magical "dead zones", such as the one around Earth. They're very rare, so for most species reliance on magic has had no real drawback.

Now up until very recently, that was the only anti-magic fields you'd see. Then all of sudden some bastard discovers how to make artificial anti-magic fields. It's cheap, it's easy, and all of bloody sudden they're everywhere.

Naturally, this makes a bloody mess of the power balance, so mercenaries and such are suddenly in high demand. And as everyone's struggling to readjust to non-magical conflicts, mercenaries from a species used to that kind of fighting are pure gold. Both as actual fighters, but also as consultants, instructors, etc.

You might wish to keep the conflicts somewhat cold and dirty btw if you want to have humanity hitch-hiking around. No general blanketing of magic-assisted travel, but still plenty of violence (probably often involving more localised anti-magic fields).

>>17472819 Ehh, I kind of wanted to avoid blatant HFY
A good start. If you can expand to avoid it altogether, all the better. This shouldn't necessitate dropping the "human mercenaries" bit.

Reminds me a lot of the Veil of Madness setting, which I love so much.

The magic needs to be defined before we can make any real headway into the setting. Like one anon said, can they just conjure up an earth elemental and have it tell them exactly how our metallurgy works? Or will it be confused as fuck and say "this shouldn't exist, why is it in one piece?" Is it High Magic, Low Magic, Macross Magic Massacre, etc.

Hmm. So wizards maxing out around 6th level D&D, vs humans not much more advanced than present? I can see bricks being shat on first contact, yeah.

God this setting sounds cool.
Considering at least the earth, if not all of the Sol system is in a permanent anti-magic field. The alien species attempting to look into our system probably can't even really see us, Nor us them since any visual queues from their magic would be negated. We may have even been skipped over entirely due to the sheer difficulty of investigating our system.

Our first contact could have been thanks to them finally discovering one of our longshot satellites by sheer accident and using their ugliest most mundane means to investigate our planet. Maybe they tried to invade our planet, assuming that since our species was incapable of magic due that we'd have no means to defend ourselves. But we end up utterly destroying our invaders.

Maybe the different alien races are actually competing against each other for the rights to our system, and by extension US. But since they have such trouble fighting in our system they need to fight on the edges of our space. The rare few "stealth" ships they have that can enter our anti-space is the first aliens we encounter. We end up joining sides with the first aliens who discovered us nearly by accident and thanks to our tech absolutely WRECK their enemies.

God I could think about this all night... so much for sleep.

I've had a thought, definitely not what OP is going for but possibly intriguing.

What if humanity was the one to find the spacefaring wizards first? For whatever reason humanity decides to learn something of this magic and culture and whatnot before revealing their presence and learn enough to come up with some AMF technology. Humanity then bursts onto the scene with the intention of being like "Ha HA, look at how superior we are! Let us teach you the wisdom of our ways!" and humanity starts prancing around showing off their super cool gadgets yo but then space Gandalf slaps humanity across the face with his magic anyway and begins subjecting humans to slavery and selling them across the universe.

Just as a curiosity, The earth being an anti-magic field itself maybe humanity is attuned to existing in an AMF to such a point that after we finally step outside of one and learn some dang magic we are capable of actually casting magic within the field. A region locked field we'll have difficulty in still, sure. But those artificial fields are all but useless against us.

Like, if all the aliens were allergic to oxygen. But we show up and we're like. Yeah, we function normally in oxygen, nothing special.

Actually, although this idea comes form the Warp, since humanity isn't used to channeling magic, that doing so wrecks havoc on our body. Making magic a dangerous and scary thing for a person to learn. Though, that's what magic is supposed to be in fantasy isn't it? instead of just the wizards equivalent to the fighters weapon of choice.

>>17473006

Space-wizards, meet the GAU-8. IT WRECKS SHIT.

*deep BWAAAAAAAAAH noise*

The space-wizards are now small piles of red, squishy material. Such is the fate of asshole slavers.

I had an idea for a magic and tech, where the two were only compatible at low-end of both. Like, a computer and a complex spell would corrupt and unravel each other, respectively, but a sword with a simple force-to-heat spell on it would keep its edge and still burn shit. i.e. magic is like water and non-magic (tech) is like oil; the two only mix in very small amounts, or for a short time.

>>17473095
Cartridge 30 × 173 mm
Caliber 30 mm caliber
Barrels 7
Action Electric-Motor, Hydraulic-Driven
Rate of fire up to 4,200 rpm (rounds per minute)
Muzzle velocity 3,500 ft/s (1,070 m/s)
Effective range 4,000 feet (1,220 m)
Maximum range Over 8,000 feet (2,440 m)

I think i'm in love.

Hmm. If travel is limited to stuff we can get into orbit and they can teleport from there, the insanity is (usefully!) self-limiting. Because then individual hops are limited to a few people with only a few hundred pounds of gear, right? So initially, you could easily do something like sword and sorcery. But gun and sorcery instead.

I mean, even being limited to one person at a time, with only what they can carry... you can do a lot with that. A gun and ammo, and you're already rivaling a top wizard for firepower and range.

Later, when we get on hands on local things like, say, paired sets of communication crystals, we would totally slip some laptops and solar panels through and extend our internet throughout alien territory.

>>17473104
Certainly a possible way of accounting for "infinite power due to fire spell"

The idea of "humans able to use magic, even in AMFs, but at mortal cost" is also clever.

>>17473116
3rdrockChan

Just here to say that I really like the OP's idea at its core. Sure, there's a lot of details to hammer out, but I do like the basic idea that the wizard-aliens and the humans have two entirely different mental processes, which make each of their crafts immensely difficult for the other to learn (aliens being bound by the ideals of magic and the humans bound by the laws of physics).

I don't really have anything useful to add, so I'll keep watching the thread. Carry on gents.

Should we call this something to get a 1d4chan entry about it?

I'd like to let OP do the honors, unless he forfeits it.

>>17473186

If you think it's a good enough idea to warrant it, go ahead. Not sure about what to call it; maybe something generic like "alien wizard wars."

>>17473225

>Extraterrestrial Arcana
>Sorcerous Space
>Wizards Continue To Be Dicks Among The Stars

>>17473297
I like Sorcerous Space the most.

>Wizards Continue To Be Dicks Among The Stars

>>17473169
You just came up with the most perfect name ever for the magical equivalent to the Laws of Physics. The Ideals of Magic is so perfect, as it describes magic as, while somewhat a science, more of a philosophy or artistic view. I'm borrowing that, just an fyi.

On topic. The same anon who posted that perfect name also has an excellent point. To somewhat keep the status quo once humans arrive on the scene, make it so that for the aliens to try and explain the Ideals of Magic to us is like us trying to explain the Laws of Physics to a borderline sentient animal and vice versa. That way it might take 300-400 years of constant research and advancement just to reach the basic level of their most magically retarded children.

>Space-Wizards Meet Dr. Gatling

>>17473225
This is the best idea I've heard all year. Seriously dude, dooo eeet.

Archive?
Archive.

Just conjured up a question. What exactly will our space wizards be like? Are they all a race of quintessential space-elves, or are they a myriad of different groups. Are we going to treat them in a Tolkeinian sense, or throw in some of the sci-fi tropes to make its audiences more comfortable with the setting?

>>17473339
You're welcome. No need for one force to absolutely overwhelm the other from the get-go, to offer players different times in the setting to play in.

>>17473371
Elves are an absolute must. However a more federation-y type deal will add a lot of depth to the setting. Perhaps use something like the Mithra/Ctarl-Ctarl to the mix. Reptillians, possibly either dragon-born esque or something similar. Something totally off the wall is completely necessary too, like a completely non-humanoid race the communicates completely by telepathy. Perhaps some insectoid race, maybe something along the lines of the Mi-Go? Ooooh, idea for dragons (if they are to be included) use the japanese serpetine dragons and have them be like space-faring apex predators (similar in concept to the Star Whales from Doctor Who). A thought on elven architecture and magical design, look at the Elyos from Aion as a starting point. That's all I've got for now.

>>17473371
How about an alliance of some sentient races that comes from the same planet? So it's like if a Tolkien-esque fantasy setting gets fast-forwarded and gets its magic amped way up.
This would be quite different from us, in which we're the sole 'dominant' sentient species around.

And if possible make almost all of them non-humanoid, I am getting tired of that cliche trope.

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sorcerous_Space.

bam

>>17473371

I like the starfish aliens trope over rubber foreheads, personally. Not to the point where they become gaseous collections of ideas or sentient shades of the color blue, but where they're definitely not humanoid. Then again, it's kind of hard to put a robe and wizard hat on something that doesn't have a head.

>>17473339
>>17473169
>ideals of magic
That is a good concept. I have been trying to look for a way to implement magic in a way that's fundamentally distinct from science for years. The closest I ever got was for magic to be like making pretentious modern art, which was more of a joke than anything else.

>>17473407
Now there's a thought.
I'm pretty adamant on the elves and cat-people though. (Properly fluffed and RP-ed cat-people are the most hilarious thing ever.)

>>17473435
Well you can play with the humanoid form without going into rubber forehead aliens. I would see that humanoid or some minor variants being "ideal" for sentient species to evolve.

>>17473405
>>17473407
Perhaps a collective of magical races, it seems. As for me, I'm gonna take the anti-humanoid bent with the aliens personally. Also, those which do not speak perfect human languages (though you can get through that with telepathy). Maybe some sort of crystalline silicon-life sort of life form for the token telepathic race. Just imagine it, a scouting vessel encounters what seems to be these giant galleon-looking ships made of shimmering crystal. Investigating it, the scouts find no life forms on the vessel, but eventually come to learn that the vessels ARE the life forms themselves.

>>17473435
Instead of robes and hats, stick with some other esoteric things, like elder signs scrawled onto their flesh, or magical devices floating around them, or some other crazy drug-induced shit.

Hmm, what level of technology is humanity at when we make first contact? Do we dominate our own solar system or did we happen to meet the aliens tomorrow at 3pm? Have we at least managed to marginally colonize the moon, giving us at least a place where we can reach AND the aliens can reach so we can hold meetings in person?

Unless every player is a highly trained soldier from the government and our usefulness to alien races costs more than the millions of dollars it costs us to get a few people into space we'd likely need to be past that initial "reach for the stars" phase and shortly into the act of colonizing our system and having at least multiple governments and companies having access to in system space travel.

The PCs won't feel much as much like mercs if they're still working under a flag from a nation back home. But having say, multiple groups, like Terrans, Martians, etc. Makes a difference. The aliens aren't just hiring humans to fight their wars, they're hiring Red Martians. The human mercenaries who are focused on following the Ideals of magic. While the Terrans take preference to ranged weapon warfare from their history.

>>17473435
There are a couple spreads in Alan Moore's 'The Courtyard' that are pretty much that so you can use those for information. I'm STILL completely adamant about the cat-people and elves. The elves are pretty obvious and the cat-people for reasons I already stated. As for the Ideals of Magic and how to work it, a thought is to take the basic scientific method and take a look at some of the philosophy that comes out of the metaphysical school and apply artistic principles to it. Also in addition to that, look at how The Dresden Files books explain magic working. And add that to the pot.

It seems that most want non-humanoid aliens, but some want elves. I have a solution.

How about this: elves exist, but are distantly related to humans that were discovered and taken off-world before the earth became enveloped in the current anti-magic field. Or perhaps they were picked up by precursors whose magic was powerful enough to ignore the field altogether. And so on and so forth.

>>17473495
Interesting, and it can even play into a sect of humanity yearning to gain such power. However, it does open up a very Scientology-like possibility of humans coming from outer space. Let us not invoke Hubbard, please.

>>17473495
It's good. I kinda like the idea of elves being an example of parallel evolution rather than a sub-species off shoot but I can deal. Main reason to have them like that is to have the one point of comparison to the other thoroughly alien races.

>>17473484

My idea was to have it 100-200 years in the future. Close enough to have space russians, but distant enough to have cool technology.

>>17473518
So along the lines of the Halo universe level UNSC in the first game?

>>17473529

Maybe a little less than that, but yeah.

>>17473505
I was thinking along the lines of Farscape where (spoilers) the peacekeepers, one of the major alien factions are descended from uplifted humans taken from Earth tens of thousands of years ago.

>>17473552
Yes, I do remember Farscape fondly. Makes more sense. Don't know why I got the Hubbard vibe from there. Again, carry on.

I know someone wrote a setting that was like this without the magic, just humans being superadvanced because they never developed Antigrav or FTL.

>>17473495

.....Mars.

The Ruins of Mars were the last examples of Elven Civilization in our system. The Precursors found them before the Anti-Magic field consumed a fuckhuge chunk of this arm of the galaxy, it had already enveloped earth. Mars has No Atmosphere because it was either extremely magical in nature, or the Precursors removed all life from the world in order to plant the life on a safe world for the young race to live on.

How would the Elves react to their very distant family? How would they have reacted when they were told there was no way our race could ever communicate with them? A brother thought dead and lost forever suddenly returning is my vote.

>>17473552
If you're using Farscape for inspiration, why not just use that for how humanity found the wizards, as well?

>Super-magic test wormhole, based off of [precursor] spell designs is tested, happens to land near Earth, humans go poke it with their spaceships.

>>17473576

Yes.

>>17473576

Doubt anyone would like it, but in the idea for elves, instead of making us related to elves in any way what if they just happen to be nearly identical examples of convergent evolution. They developed in near the same fashion as we did, most of the same technologies, nearly the same physically. It's almost impossible to think that we aren't related, but somehow, we're not. Other than pointy ears we're nearly identical despite spawning galaxies away. This leads some humans and a large number of elves to believe there MUST have been some meddling in each of our races distant past, but neither race can find proof.

The elves, of course, still have to be better at magic that we are. Though they "discovered" magic late in their species history, they didn't grow up in a anti-magic field. Thus when they were discovered by the aliens they were rather quickly integrated. When the aliens found us, the elves were their easiest interpreters.

To make it as weird as possible, perhaps we even share similar DNA to elves, organs, or blood. That the act of taking a transfusion from an elf makes a human able to channel magic, while an elf taking a human transfusion gives him some of our natural field penetrating ability.

>>17473589

While I like your idea, I have to go with

>>17473576

It just....feels so right to me.

>>17473576
That makes the idea a bit better in my mind but I really like that contrast of elves having something of a parallel evolution, like how dolphins and sharks have very similar body structure despite coming from two completely different organisms or even sub-phylums.

>>17473435
robes and wizard hats essentially boils down to the concept that they are bodywear that allows/enhances magic. Just modify that idea on non-humanoid bodies, and what do you get?
-magic jewelry slung or pierced on their body mass
-tattoos or skin paint, glows when using magic
-rune-engraved scales/chitin/shells
-magic textile/weave that wraps on their body

>>17473589
Or have them have discovered it very early on in their cultural development (e.g. Early nomadic era) and having have it fundamentally altered the logical pathways of their brain (or brain equivilent), and having it be, while somewhat easier to understand the concepts behind technology than the other races, still incredibly difficult. (E.g. like explaining quantum mechanics to an idiot child rather then a borderline sentient animal).

Another possiblity is instead of elves as a human offshoot, humans as an elf offshoot. Bodies adapting to not having a magical presence all the time ect. Of course it's the same process for the humans evolving into elves.

>>17473589

I'm

>>17473576

I like your idea, but I also like my idea, however I thought of something that perhaps could enjoy as well?

Now, we keep my back-story idea for Mars and the Elves being related to us and Precursors saving them from Death-Due-To-AMF and planting them a new world.

But this would have been fucking forever ago in this setting, like before the Pyramids, in fact we could say that the Pyramids were made in homage of "our" long lost sibling, to remind us of them but we forgot anyway.

Now however, Due to this being fuckofalong time ago and the Precursors / What ever the fuck did it planted them a new world, it would give them time to biologically divulge from us, this IS in the future after-all, and there is almost no chance of finding a world exactly like something's homeworld without extensive alteration.....You see where I am going with this.

Where we were shaped by our Technology and planet, they would be shaped by their magic and their new home.

>>17473648

Evolutionarily speaking, those are basically the same thing.
Or rather, both species are an offshoot of a single progenitor species, and one may be more physically conservative than the other.

>>17473631
I think another thread is discussing this actually, but what if space elves are actually the "middle of the line" species, instead of humanity. Kinda good at magic, Kinda good at tech. While humans are nearly all tech, and aliens are all magic. Elves used to be the go to guys for anti-fights, but then humans are discovered.

Elves are almost like a manager who's forced to train his replacement before he's terminated. hehe. Humanity stepped on the elves toes in the warfront, but we need them to teach us magic or we'll never fit in with the aliens.

>>17473657
Realized that after I posted it. It's 4am and I'm tired.

>>17473654
Way longer then that. We're talking Venus of Willendorf long time ago here, and that's saying that magic accelerated the divergence. I still like my idea but I suppose I can try and put that in as something else. Maybe something inspired by the ctarl-ctarl, who knows.

>>17473682
OH I like that. That gives a whole bunch of possibilities for delicious, delicious diplomatic and inter-planetary tension. Especially if we do the off-shoot of humanity route (or the original species, two divergent evolutions route). So called younger sibling being better at what you do then you are.

>>17473654
I actually really like your idea, I just started typing mine before yours was posted, and it took me longer to finish typing. (darn you King of the Hill) It seems often that elves end up being either "distant relatives" so we can look alike, or we're inately different because we came from different places.

Of course, there is the idea you gave of us "forgetting" how we used to be together. Despite science being unable to prove our species were ever together at the same time, people believe we must have been at one time. Like.... a Religion. Some humans and elves believe we were once one, yet we have no proof. It IS true, but of course in setting we don't know that. The elves might have a more open mind, and call us Old-brothers when we meet, but humanity is a bit more skeptic in believing we're related. Especially since the elves didn't have any folklore of people with rounded ears, but we've got humans with pointy ears stories all over the place.

Instead of stating one or the other, we leave it open. It could be, or it might not be true. Granted we should probably put down what DID happen before we pretend we aren't "sure" yet. hehe.

If possible I'd like to call for an archive on this thread.

>>17473779
Done: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/17472313/

We should nail down some specifics for the setting.

For example, what species are there?
A. There are one or more dominant species and perhaps other less common ones (think mass effect)
B. There are so many kinds that it's not unusual for a crowded bar to have no two of the same species (think Star Wars)
C. It depends on where you go; human space is dominated by one species but they're just a small part of the galaxy at large (can't think of any specific)
D. Most alien species are a variant on a certain non-humanoid body plan (like star trek, only instead of humans with rubber foreheads it's weird aliens with rubber thoraxes or something)
E. It's just humans and elves
F. Other.

>>17473654
I wrote a crappy short story a while back that was the opposite: Space-Elves and Space-Orcs have been fighting a war since time immemorial. Long before humans walked the earth. Most of them don't even remember what started it. It just 'always was'. Well, each side is always looking to secure resources, listening posts, etc. So the Orcs sent out a research team to a crappy little planet of no strategic value far from the main combat areas. Figured they could set up a colony on a backwater that might eventually yield a high population for the front lines. Well, the Elves got wind of the mission and sent a destroyer to attack the colony. Bombed it into oblivion. The few survivors couldn't get off a distress signal, so they took to the wilderness. A dozen or so managed to ingratiate themselves to the distant relatives of the simple hairless apes they had been keeping as pets and draft-animals. As the Orcs died out, a few managed to interbreed with those early neanderthals, giving one or two tribes a genetic advantage to dominate their neighbors. That's right. Centuries later, all 'humans' are actually half-orcs. We get into space, meet some elves who act like assholes, then meet some Orcs who recognize our blended ancestry and immediately treat us like long-lost brothers, freely sharing all their tech and embracing Earth's exported culture. In return, they get 9 billion new members for their culture, including 3 billion soldiers honed to martial perfection and inured to even the gravest atrocities by centuries of inflicting said atrocities on each other.

TL;DR: All humans are really half orcs and orcs are bros.

As for the other alien races, I wonder if instead of what typically happens in sci-fi, Thanks to magic they developed the means to teleport across planets far before our species ever conceived that the stars were anything more that lights in the sky. The concept of territorial borders, or racial ones, is nearly lost to them. Since despite one being a floating squid and the other a chittering bug, the Ideals of Magic are universal. Species that can tap into it can almost naturally learn how to control it in the same way as any other species.
This is why humans have such a hard time discovering magic and they have such a hard time learning tech, They aren't used to learning, and we are unable to discover in the same way.

But because magic is universal, the species easily are able to communicate with each other, and relate to each other through it. It'll confuse the bajesus out of humans, but groups of aliens are only rarely by species. Often times they're completely mixed groups from very distant planets, who simply share ideals.

In the same way we would see there being different races of aliens, they instead see others by their beliefs or their connection to the Ideals.

Also, their teleporting abilities make the rare few anti-magic fields in existance an hoarded commodity, because it's the only place you can store prisioners, or valuable data, or VIPs without worrying about a strike team or a bomb being teleported in. Though I suppose you could just use magic to shield or protect against teleportation, instead of needing anti-magic.

>>17473899
I... like that idea. Then again, I always liked orcs over elves myself...

>>17473908
Perhaps magic can specifically work against porting, but there would be other means of magical transport into such areas. AMFs simply mean that there ain't any magical ANYTHING going in, so that should be still a commodity and ridiculously difficult to do without an entire group of mages nullifying their magical-fuel-energy-ether-stuff into areas of AMF.

"Wait.. humans. Some bastard actually made them? Seriously? Someone decided splicing together AN genes and Hum genes? That's as bad as fucking Greystriders!"

this thread reminds me of the book Out of the Dark for some reason

>>17473899
That, is awesome.
Imagine how pissed humanity would be if not only are we not related to the species that looks and acts like our favorite fantasy race, but we're actually blood relatives to our most common fantasy enemies.

Actually, you could push racial tension on earth to a crazy degree, and have the strain of human DNA with Caucasian features be descended from space orcs, while the DNA strain with African features be descended from space elves. One of the only races in the galaxy who can trace their current genetics to TWO different species. Hope that doesn't sound racist, the point of course being to cause a racial divide in the setting, not to offend anyone here.

Though that's a bit too special snowflake for humanity already, isn't it?

>Anti-Transport Fields are easy enough to make. Can be channeled and moved.
>Can 'attune' yourself to static ATFs to make for VIP only zones. Forts, etc.
>Anti-Magic Fields are harder to make. Fixed to locations/objects. Good for prisons.
>Humans are highly resistant to any non-physical forms of magic. Illusions, charms,etc. Summoning a rock and hitting you with it will still need proper protection...

I really like the idea above about most alien races evolving/learning/living side by side, since long range teleport is easy peasy with magic. They group by social constructs and not by physical differences. They are bound in the conceptual while we are bound by the physical.

Long lost brothers is...

Very good. It's not something I've seen before. But I don't think you should fundamentally change elves. They should still be arrogant and borderline (or not so borderline) racist. We just have a special place in their heart because of romanticism.

>>17474016
Kinda hate to say this. But set it up almost how first contact with the vulcans was according to Enterprise. At first they was all. YO BROSKIES. Then they was all. Fuck off kiddo. you guys are messed.

I wonder, if humanity is one of the only species ever encountered "before" they discovered magic.
By the understanding of the Ideals, when a species is discovered by the federation or whatever we call the species that are already in space they just kind of accept it. Because it makes sense in the Ideals, they just hadn't gotten that far in their understanding. Some rare races hadn't yet discovered magic, but when the federation found them and introduced it they were capable of using it within a single generation with ease.

Humanity is one of the only examples of a race of being that still haven't been able to discover the Ideals of magic. Our crazy tech alone has let us harness it (mass effect biotics much?), but we still don't really connect with the Ideals. It's almost as if the aliens are just waiting for us to "figure it out" on our own after being removed from the AMF, yet it's not happening.

We might even be viewed by some extremists as a "broken" species. Useful in the short-term for wars, sure, but since we can't comprehent the Ideals, we're no more than a pack of wolves. We know how to fight REALLY good, even against things that "logically" we shouldn't be able to kill. But not magically sentient.

Actually, that sounds like they should be the bad-guys...

>>17473968
>>17473931
well, it helped explain why humans are so warlike and violent, and it made for a good laugh when the elves realized that the tall, pale skinned, fair-haired humanoids they had just met were actually genetically descended from their ancient enemies, and willing to call them out on being douchebags.

>>17474076
>We might even be viewed by some extremists as a "broken" species. Useful in the short-term for wars, sure, but since we can't comprehent the Ideals, we're no more than a pack of wolves. We know how to fight REALLY good, even against things that "logically" we shouldn't be able to kill. But not magically sentient.

That line is gold. GOLD.

>>17474029
That's just being smart. You meet a new species? You be polite, and don't piss them off. Only later if they're not total maniacs are you allowed to be arrogant and condescending.

>>17474087
Why thank you~ ^_^

my own thoughts on the Ideals versus science

My interpretation of the Ideals of magic is that they're a collection of mostly abstract concepts that can be put together in a way that's intuitive for most sentient species to achieve some end. The end result is for sentients to be able to bend the universe according to their will, just a bit.
The laws of physics, on the other hand, are entirely based on observation, and thus inherently passive. It was largely considered impossible for sentience to exist without magic until humans came along.
Beyond that, I think we need a philosophy major to figure this shit out.

>>17474076

We are a hateful species, we forged out tools out of the very earth around us in order to gain an advantage over a hostile enviroment.

All of our progression, all of our technology and advancement has been towards the goal of keeping us alive, keeping us on top, and beating the ever loving shit out of anything that wishes to depose us of our position.

Poison? Antidote. Disease? Medicine. Actively hostile apex predator? Spears. Other of our kind who want to get violent? Guns.

It's not unlikely that we wouldn't be seen in a positive light. We are forged from a planet that tries to drag us down at every opportunity.

We just beat the fucking thing down every time.

>>17474153
Good points. Take a page from Whitewolf Fey, perhaps.
Magic/The ideals could be somewhat based on agreements and contracts with the environment. That fire spawned from the aether because you asked it nicely and it was in the mood. The water parted because it's common courtesy. The plane of space twists to move us across the country.

Humans on the other hand. We're constantly at war with our environment. Everything really.

Hehe, this is making us sound like the orcs of the universe even more. Or whatever big nasty you can think of. We are incapable of understanding things the way everything else in the universe does. When we try, bad things happen, and our natural response to meeting them, is with a weapon to kill it before it kills us.

Spin the story the right way, and humanity is the "godless hethens" bent on corrupting the universe with their base and immoral views that all attempts to reason with are doomed to fail.

>>17474153
>Poison? Antidote. Disease? Medicine. Actively hostile apex predator? Spears
Don't forget the forms our medicines take. Cancer? Specialized super-poison to destroy just it. Disease? Either a specialized biological weapon to destroy it, or in-house combat training (vaccinations) to strengthen our immune system's organic hunter-killer drones. Humans accept nothing passively and brook no resistance to their desires. We fight the land, the sea, the storms of the skies, gravity, the void, the laws of physics themselves just to see our will done.

>>17474153
>All of our progression, all of our technology and advancement has been towards the goal of keeping us alive, keeping us on top, and beating the ever loving shit out of anything that wishes to depose us of our position.
Explain 4chan as a tool of keeping us alive, then.

>>17474212
>We fight the land, the sea, the storms of the skies, gravity, the void, the laws of physics themselves just to see our will done.

And that's how humans finally grasp magic. Not through the Ideals, and not even through Science, but through sheer Will alone. Magic through something other than the Ideals? Preposterous!

Guys!

Eh Guys!

Why don't make this setting, but with in a Lovecraft Mythos Style.

Humanity was protected in our anti-magic shell, developing and all that shit, believing than we are the kings, a god-like specie because we can think.

But the true is than we are shit,the low of the low,because we can't do magic things in a universe of powerful entities fighting each other in ways than humanity barely can understand,beings who can destroy our world be only sending a pair of asteroids with a lazy mental move. They are capable of eat planets, maddening entires species or create portals in reality with ease, moving in a whole non-Euclidean universe non made for the human mind.

They aren't good, bad, grimdark, they are beyond that, god-like entities served be all classes of lessers entities and species, with relative limited"magic" powers. Some of these species are trying to struggle and only survive, like the elfs.

Cont? And sorry english.

>>17474259
Nah

>>17474259
Oh, and humanity it's magic-less, so magic can't affect him or detect them.

>>17474235
exchange of information: A social bonding tool to unite in commonality distant people who would have no reason to meet otherwise. Now, thanks to the internet, we can draw support and information from people who think like us, or think like we need to think, regardless of distance.

>>17474273
If you stay away from /b/, 4chan is actually quite glorious.

>>17474270
Well, then I dump the project and start another...

>>17474239
Maybe that's how we use magic. The aliens who can cast spells normally never bothered to wonder what happened in physics when it occurs. While humanity is only capable of perceiving what happens in the physical sense. So we look, we look hard. Eventually find a way to harness the magic of the ideals, without actually believing in them. Some humans might even begin to claim that, as we stated before, any sufficiently complex science is indistinguishable from magic. Well, we scienced out magic. Which understandably pissed off certain groups. Some might see us as doing something like running before we can walk. Others as corrupting an ancient time honored ritual with our soulless hands.

>>17474300
Ah. Good ideas. Could almost be like the Tau.
In the main age of the setting or whatever, we mostly use it for teleporting short-medium distances. And even that's kinda rough sometimes.

>>17474300
I'm absolutely loving this. Sometimes humanity has to take the role of the ruthless, villainous bastard, and this setting seems to suit that rather well.

>>17474321

But does that make us really evil? Sure we violate an honored custom throughout the universe, but at the same time its our very nature to break something down, To break it down so small until we know every bit and piece of how it works, and then make it ours in a way that suits us best?

>>17474337
I didn't say evil, just villain. From the perspective of the Ideal-users, we would be evil, but to us, it's just aspiration. Isn't that how most villains end up being, POV-wise.

Granted it's an extreme example, but imagine what happens to us when we find people who do things a different way.

What if we happened to find a group of aliens who are nearly like us, but they have some strange methods of getting their tech to work. They sacrifice people in order to power their barely light bulb technology. Then after that, they emulate our computers, something we didn't think they'd even be able to do, by sacrificing babies. They don't see it as wrong at all, in fact it's "only natural" But to us it's horrible.

That's what it looks like when a human waves his freaking looking magic wand, ruptures the universe, and produces a fireball instead of connecting with the Ideals and allowing it to exist.

So we're the master and rest of people the doctors? Imoksywiththis.jpg

I would love to stay around for this, but the meds are saying bedtime.
when you guys get this finished, can you email me at least the rough draft, I have a group that i think would be interested. thanks in advance

jnemila@yahoo.com

>>17474212

Why did I get the mental picture of millions of years from now if humanity has continued to advance, when our sun dies out we'll just end up saying "Fuck that, we'll make our OWN sun"

Bumping with content.

>>17474487
And another sketch.

Well I already love this setting.

I imagine by then we would have mastered bionics? How would the other species react to the fact that to fix problems our medicine can't we just replace the area with cold, unnatural metal and cybernetics that in their mind, would be impossible to create with such simple materials?

I don't see why "humans have developed better weapons" translates into "only humans have access to this tech or the produced weapons". Has this been addressed already? Because fuck reading 145 replies just to find out if it has.

I'm definitely thinking we are in near future. Maybe 30 years from now. We'll almost definitely have workable prosthetics. Maybe not quite Deus Ex, but yeah.


Also >>17474598
Ideals of magic << CTRL+F. I think around that part of the convo it explains our fundamentally different views of the universe. Even just the two phrases sort of explains it. Ideals of magic vs laws of physics.

>>17474598
It's been discussed, but then there's always the argument of trying to introduce a magic-centric worldview that doesn't rely on technological advance, but rather further understanding of the Ideals. Sure, they still have guns and tech, but given the nebulous power source of magic, there is a bit of a disconnect in terms of understanding - humans have difficulty understanding magic, and the magic-attuned aliens have trouble understanding magic-less tech.

>>17474598
Also "why would mercenaries that are unlikely to actually produce their own arms" have some kinda special access to stuff that comes out of factories? If they do produce their own arms or if this is some kinda "it's a huge and official industry forhumans to do mercenary work", then ignore this post.

>>17474598

It's the fact that we never had any magic, at all, so we built around it.

Everyone else had magic by the fucktons.

They didn't need technology as we know it.

They have no factories capable of producing the smallest hand gun, nor the understanding of how to build a non-magic weapon that isn't just a slab of metal.

Their entire existance is based around the idea "If I want to burn that person, I just think it and a fucking fireball burns him" while we are built around "If I want to burn that person, but don't want to risk getting burnt myself, i'll produce a bomb capable of withstanding dangerous transportation, but at the same time capable of leveling a small village so as to make damn sure I don't miss" and all the technical and sciency mumbo-jumbo that goes with it.

They could perhaps reproduce them with magic, but it will take fucking centuries to understand how to produce them at the same level we do.

And in those centuries we would have advanced even more.

>>17474606
But then why hire those that go against this ideal, if, you know, during negotiations (or when the IoM-guys has to explain it to their citizens) nobody will say "since it was only the mercenaries you hired to kill for your cause that went all blasphemous, we'll forgive you"?

>>17474561
And a bug race, with a faux face in the thorax which can conform to the species in which they communicate for familiarity. Masters of illusion magic, perhaps?

>>17474300
>>17474212
>>17474153
>>17472990

You've got to love how a segment of /tg/ manages to always make anything involving aliens devolve into a "Humanity is uniquely hardcore and fights against all the aliens. No exceptions ever."-deal.

>>17474745

You got a problem with that Species-traitor?

But no really, we are talking way way way into the future of the setting for that to happen, the "game" is supposed to take place shortly after humanity was "accepted" into the universal community.

>>17474771
I think we're having disagreements about when the game is taking place. But I have a possibly two-fold question: What sort of game/system would we USE this setting in? It's starting to sound vaguely 40K-ish now that I'm looking at how we've brought it so far.

>>17474771
The very fact that some take it as the natural end-course of any supposed setting is what strikes me as odd/annoying. The trope of "humanity is hard fight. humanity beat alien!" has set it roots as deeply in /tg/ as "aliens will fix everything!" has in certain UFO-fan circles.

The imagery the OP-line and most of the quality stuff offered throughout the thread is that humanity is an unusual thing, a commodity with markedly different mental faculties that make them useful on the scene, together with the other species. Not that they dominate, not that they are dominated, rather that they have their place in the workings of things that gives them a reason to appear here and there.

>>17474785
The Ideals of Magic and the following supposition that the aliens get along very well thanks to it seems to void that similarity. Unless, of course, we go the grimdark route and have humans/aliens be butthurt about the homo sapien inability to fully grasp their shared concepts.

>>17474842
Okay, that makes more sense. It would allow for more distinctive figures among both the aliens species and the humans to be more, well, distinctive. Allows villains and heroes of many degrees to emerge from a more-or-less balanced group of peoples.

So glad this thread survived me sleeping. ^_^
It does seem like we've ended up making humanity the special snowflake again. We can do something that the rest of the universe just can't for some reason. Casting in anti-magic fields, understanding magic via science, crazy laser guns instead of magic spells, etc.

In an effort to add a little more variety to the game, what if there were different ways of interpreting the Ideals of magic?
Although it may sound similar to different schools, some aliens (not divided by species, but by beliefs) can understand different parts of the Ideals, and thus can use and cast different spells. The greater a beings understanding of the Ideals, the most spells he can cast, but it still takes time and effort for them to gain a greater understanding.

Thus some aliens would gravitate towards the Ideals that deal with teleportation, others healing, yet more explosive effects. to divide the Ideals up into different sects.

Then again, that makes it sound even more like humanity is the lowly fighter who just walked into the wizards school.

Also, since we have space elves, will we have space dwarves too? Consider perhaps, thanks to having access to magic now, working with humanity the exploring ships can discover races they couldn't before. Our first discovery as a team is the space dwarves. Another race who had not discovered magic yet, due to being for some reason resistant to it. Not their planet like with us humans, but THEY are resistant. They began down the path of technology like we did, but didn't get any further than medieval era weaponry. They could learn magic, and although they didn't develop it, are FAR better at understanding the Laws of Physics than most of the other races we have encountered.

Dunno if we really need space dwarves, but almost every setting that has elves has dwarves so. ::shrug::

>>17474842
I go away for a couple of hours and awesome happens.

I feel like we could use either DH, GURPS or one of the older DnD systems with some modification.

On to how we cast magic. I'm under the understanding that we had not decided whether or not magic and technology are mutually exclusive yet, so we need to decide whether or not it is. But in the mean time: Arcano-tech. While the Ideals of Magic elude all but our most brilliant philosophers and artists our scientists have come to understand enough of how the innate nature of magic works to harness it's potential with properly shielded technology, and while this technology is still in it's infancy it is a rapidly advancing field.

In addition I think it's perhaps best for it to have been a non-human race that discovers humanity. Perhaps cosmic fish of somekind. But something that would be seen as utterly alien.

Finally I don't think we should really define the Ideals of Magic. What makes that concept so amazing is that it's thoroughly undefinable to our human brains. Any attempt to actually define them as more then a vague nebulous term is not destined but already on a track for failure. Like the Star Wars prequels or any Doctor Who series involving the Time War in depth.

Just my two cents.

Hmm... maybe, the reason humanity is so clamoured over instead of being allowed to adjust to the idea of magic like most other species, is because the Ideals of magic aliens are at war? Beyond their internal squabbles there is also another species of aliens out there who use both magic AND technology. They're trying their darnedest to kill all the Ideals guys, who can't easily fight the tech side of their assaults. But humans can. Although some races keep trying to do things diplomaticly, other sects see us a useful defensive resource in their war and little else.

Dunno if we want there to be a "enemy of continued existence" type bad guy in this setting though. It might just work better if we ended up a valuable resource for a galaxy wide war. Though that's more special snowflake, isn't it?

The fact that humans can not only survive in anti-magic fields, but defeat enemies in it I imagine is a core feature of this setting, since it was the original idea. But I'm curious. Were the aliens at war with each other before they found us? thus we simply became a late game resource to exploit? Or has the discovery of humanity and the tech we use cause wars to start because we're so good at fighting them?

Before humanity's discovery war itself might have been useless, since everyone has magic and they're too difficult to win. But with our tech you can win despite magic, so some groups started wars with others thanks to having our tech as a tool to use to win it?

I fall asleep and even more stuff is made. Awesome!

>>17476604
Well, the different Ideals would definitely seem exactly like schools of magic given your explanation, but since we're traipsing the tropes of magic-users at large here, I don't think it would necessarily be a bad thing.

As for space dwarves or some other technologically-advanced equivalent, I'm all for it, as I agree with the general sentiment that things are turning the humans into special snowflakes a bit too much.

>>17476713
I definitely agree that casting through the Ideals would be stupendously difficult for humans to manage, given their almost-Lovecraftian capacity to be WAY beyond the realm of human understanding. But any successful race has found ways around the Ideals, even those who profess their connections to the Ideals. Augmented technology (space-dwarves, later humans), pure will/belief (the few humans who can manage magic), psychic energy (crystalline telepath race), so forth and so on. To the alliance of races under the Ideals, such behavior is extremely dangerous and goes against the harmony that the Ideals brings to the universe (in their thought).

And yes, I agree that we should not fully define the Ideals, as that would kill their mysterious nature (and gives us more room to ad-lib when need be).

>>17476821
Hmmm, I don't know. I'm seeing the different IoM aliens as perhaps in a cold war sort of state, at worst. They all have magic but the big mamma-jammas of the races have the ability to create AMFs given their difficulty. They've become akin to the nukes in the human sphere - the one thing that can end a war easily, but no one really wants to use. Think of it, creatures who rely on magic for just about everything will meet a terrible fate if an AMF is made around them. I'd limit it to skirmishes, diplomacy, and isolated aggression really.

>>17476912
Of course, things can escalate with the discovery of humans as a tool, into a full-fledged war.

The Aliens of the Ideals of Magic are split into three groups. Not divided by races, how humanity expected, but by ideal. These groups have been in a cold war with each other so long it its almost as if there is peace. They may have their "guns" at the ready, but no one is expecting to have to return fire any time soon. Then humanity is discovered.

We expected, once we met an alien species, we'd make "friends" with each different race. But that's not how the Ideals work. There's bugs, slimes, plants, elves, and ship people on each side of the conflict. In fact humanity is strange in that we're so focused on our species existence, instead of our beliefs. But we're just young to the universe, we'll understand eventually, or so the aliens believe.

Thus different groups of humans end up working for different Ideals. We start out by seeing it as little more than working for different companies in a competing market. But it starts to get weird considering every other race in the galaxy is so willing to murder one of it's own kind over their differences of ideas.

We consider ourselves so war like, so willing to kill ourselves over nothing, but somehow we've got more of an overriding desire to still see our race as a whole survive than ANY of these other aliens. The Ideals have all but abandoned racial ties with each other, if they even had them to begin with. Making it even more difficult to see where our loyalties lie because we can't do what we're so used to doing. Killing people over what they are or we can see them doing. Instead of what they believe or think.

I.e. Humans: look the same, think differently = ok.
Aliens: look different, think the same = ok.

This may be stepping it to a different territory, considering if EVERYTHING (except humans) has the Ideals, then are your blood relatives all that important, or are the people who share your ideals worth more to you?

>>17477312
Goes well with the idea of the concrete versus the abstract, though I'm at odds with humans being the snowflakes. But then again, there's also the issue of making a setting at least relatable to human players. Perhaps by the time of whatever game it is, have some of the Idealists splintering off once they get a taste of (relatively) cohesive human society on a racial basis.

Of course, there would be the space-elves, trying to reconnect with their supposedly long-lost Earthling kin. Perhaps an emphatic race once they gain an understanding of the human psyche as well. Start unraveling the supposed harmony and solidarity of the Idealists and work from there? And there would also be the rare instance of certain humans becoming capable of understanding the Ideals, albeit on a very rudimentary level (the three basic groups you've mentioned, I'll suggest Magic-for-Industry, Magic-for-Conservation, and Magic-for Enlightenment to get the ball rolling), who see the Idealists are far more noble than their warlike kin. Wait til they find out about the cold war within the Idealist peoples.

>>17477445
Correction: 'empathic', not 'emphatic'. Carry on.

>>17476604
^_^
::shrug::

Emoticons and :action: are generally frowned upon here, sir.

to take a step back and look at this as a game, are the Players allowed to play as aliens? Or is this designed to be humans and elves trying to figure our their place in a universe that makes so little sense to them?

Also, how well does Magic and Tech work together? Can the Ideals casting lightning spells over and over power our crazy machines with almost no effort? They cast lightning through their hands, we build a gun that accepts it's power through the handle and shoots lasers.

I would assume magic must take a toll to cast nearly equal to it's output, otherwise gaining magic would mean our tech grows wildly more advanced thanks to not needing material power alone. but of course, it's magic. Maybe that IS happening, just it isn't there yet.

>>17477607
You know, that sounds like a good idea for the space-elves, given their relative balance between magic and tech. They make up for not being awesome in either by synthesizing the two, especially with your laser gun fueled by magic going through the hand holding the damn thing.

But yeah, as a game, I really don't know how it would work in terms of mechanics and balancing them out. I would personally like to see the aliens as playable, but then you run into the issue of having to define the Ideals in order to make mechanics based on them, which would in turn kill their mysterious nature and invite metagaming for those who don't play as the Idealists.

Fuck. May just be non-Idealists who can be playable then.

>>17477582
Really? huh. Didn't know that. Sorry. They're a bit ingrained into my typical type patterns at this point. Actually, i"m surprised that's only the second post I've made here that had them.

>>17477656
How else are we gonna play them, either as player or Dm, if we can't describe how it works? heh.
Imagine someone playing say 4e DnD, and another player is playing make believe. True, when they're just talking to each other the setting works fine. When the fighter says he rolled a 23 on his attack and the wizard says he magicked the sword into butterflies and gave the fighter a wedgie, we have a problem. How can we possibly compare the two without defining exactly what the wizard can and can't do?

Doing so of course destroys the mystery of the arcane. But that's what some people complain 3e, 4e, and video games did already. hehe.

>>17477732
Well, as the DM I can understand. Let the DM play the Idealists and change up the rules with each chronicle/story/saga/etc. Of course, such territory should be tread upon lightly, but done right, it can really mess with the players and effectively communicate the feeling of being outside of this status quo they know very little of, outside of its culture.

Or OP can just do a damn quest thread with the setting and get it over with already.

>>See thread
>>169 posts or there abouts.
>>Appears to still be on topic

No OP. That is not a good idea. That is a fucking GREAT idea.

>>17472313
I-It's beautiful.

It does seem that to do this amazing setting any justice the only way we can "play" it is storytelling an nothing more. Trying to quantify it is to drastic and complicated an endeavor and by doing so we ruin the mystery we're all trying to create. It'd work in a movie, or a book. In a video game provided we only play as a human or an elf and the was magic works is "random" and never fully explained. But as a /tg/? Either someone needs to know what's going on, or we handle is as nothing more than group storytelling.

If we even try to quantify magic in a way we can see, let's say, they use magic crystals as "fuel" and the long cold war is exhausting supplies, so they go searching for new ones. humanity just happens to be discovered while they're out looking. This still ruins some of the mystery, because now magic is just "crystals + thinking really hard" instead of something we innately cant understand.

This must be why Cthulhu is so scary. It's designed that even what we DO understand of it is so tiny, so minute and utterly useless compared to their understanding that it's still terrifyingly beautiful.

>>17477892
I have a feeling it's gonna be that way. And you know that there are those just itching to put numbers and mechanics on it, so I guess this is as far as we'll get while keeping in the spirit of the setting.

Though I have been thinking... maybe magic is simply a very VERY broad term for the transmundane, things that cannot be explained through merely observable means. Some explain it as divine intervention. Others define it as the greatest process of the mind. Even others explain it as an energy in which the origin is unknown.

>>17474785

maybe an inverted 40k senario where the humans on terra went tech and the martians went psych/magic.

And have the martian Emperor uniting the Galaxy and Earth as a lesser power supporting it through the machine cult...

Well folks, stepping away from the comp for a while. Be back later.

Is this archived yet?

>>17477979

No.

>>17477979
But theres already 40k so why the fuck would you make this into it?

heh, just noticed the irony.
We're creating a system where humanity manages to science out magic somehow, despite not understanding it. Yet we won't allow ourselves to do the same to figure out how the game works.

>>17477892
It's more along the lines of creating a piece of art in your head and holding it there while simultaneously believing that it can and should exist in the universe. This also gives the concept of why it's extremely difficult for humans to do. Of course this can vary from race to race.

So... You want a race with magic/technology balance?

This is my thought:
Take apart your computer. Try to figure out how it works.
Now imagine never having went to school. And it's the year 2200. Will you be able to even begin to understand your computer in any kind of way? If you are lucky, you might figure out that it's running on electricity - But even that is unlikely.

Magical races don't need physics. Humans can't live without physicsy - We delevoped tools that are already beyond the comprehension of most members of our species and it would only be harder for a species of aliens with purely magical conveniences.
So we can export our technology. Keep a tight leash on information so that aliens don't have a chance of figuring it all out, but give them technology in exchange for stuff - Stuff like teleporting a colonizing troop onto a planet or shipping some useful materials to earth.
We'd be mercenaries and producers of tools that work where magic doesn't. If you are fighting in AMF or if you need to arm an army that didn't have time to properly train magic, you turn toward the humans. We will arm you.

(I guess even modern gunpowder would be hard to figure out... Not to mention lasguns or something similar)

>>17478172
If we're just putting this in a pre-existing system we don't need to ruin the mystery by defining it. This is from a story-telling perspective not a mechanical perspective. And you don't need to understand how it works to make mechanics for it.

Hmm... Perhaps, the aliens species of the world are really the ones who define magic as being separate from tech. It's humanity who is able to even comprehend that magic is just science without understanding.

I personally don't know exactly why flint + steel = fire. But I know it works. If it's for a reason I can't explain, it's magic. If I can explain it, it's science.

Each type of magic we've ever had in any game can theoretically be scienced out provided we're given the means to see it and the time to work at it. It it's shifting elementals in from another dimension where elementals exist, or demons created out of thoughts spawned in the warp. The idea of magic isn't just something we don't yet comprehend, it's something we CAN'T comprehend. Which considering human nature we'll eventually comprehend everything, or die trying.

>>17478329
Or make it like this:
Magic is a lot easier to comprehend than science.
It's something completely natural and can be understood intuitively. And even the most complicated spell won't compare to the dedication needed to create a 1ghz CPU.

On the other hand, humans can't comprehend magic because they *aren't* magical. They can't cast magic and thus they have no way of gaining a foothold in that aspect of space society.

>>17478310
You got a point there... I may be mistaking figuring out HOW magic works, with WHY magic works.
Though, that's why casting spells in Cthulhu drives people insane. They know how it works, but they can't comprehend why.

If the aliens use magic for space travel and Earth and surrounding space happens to be in an anti-magic field (curse you Doctor Insano!), then how did the aliens get to Earth in the first place?
And if we are limited to IRL physics and technology (are we?), how do we FTL?

>>17472313
Sounds cool, write is as a book, OP.

>>17478394
we're some distance in the future where we make it to the moon or mars or something, somewhere far enough away that we aren't in the anti-magic field. Then we are discovered.

>>17478090
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/17472313/
Si.

I would prefer it if humanity simply had no ability to access or use magic whatsoever, and had to have even the simplest concepts explained each time they met it.

And the same for the aliens in regards to physical science.

And for science and magic to be irreconcilable.

Magitek, sorcerer-scientists and all that just makes Humanity the mary-sue who can do everything. We need to have plausible weaknesses or it gets boring.

a thought on magic: I'm thinking magic inspired by German Idealism. Just the phrase, Ideals of Magic, as opposed to "laws" of Nature, it makes sense to me.

As I remember it, the core of german idealism is a way of thinking of the world, as not a "thing", simply a perceived reality, which is changeable to the mind through abstract thought and Ideals. Ideals, in the sense that the mind works on one assumption (an Ideal), from which the entire perceived reality is deducted/constructed. A search for a ultimate truth, with ultimate being interchangeable with "divine" or "magical", depending on the author.

That way of thought seems to me to somewhat fit these space wizards. When humans see a rock falling, they see a law, a system, and use that system for engineering and SCIENCE! Where the space wizards see it as a thought, an idea to be changed at will/cost of magical energy.
It would also stop the whole "any sufficiently advanced technology..." thing. Man and Alien would just have too different mental states for that to be an issue.

And you can't tell me this guy doesnt look like a master wizard.

>>17478562
That works I suppose. Or make magitech super exceedingly rare and requires vast amounts of resources and joint co-operation just to make a magi-tech light bulb.

>>17478607
Easy:
Humans can't do magic. Aliens do magic.
Aliens don't do science (and they won't be able too for quite a long time).
Magitek is created by aliens enchanting the devices granted to them by humans. Humans build them in a way that suits the styles of the aliens (they prefer not to use triggers, for example) and then they are enchanted to provide usability.
The advantage: No fear of humanity ever being bothered by aliens - We are in an AMF and the only technology capable of harming us has been combined with magic, making it equally useless in this situation.
The only standard human designs utilized are small-scale weapons, which are underpowered compared to most human designs and only bought for redundancy against situations like sudden AMF occurences.

Now that I've read most of the thread I have some thoughts I'd like to share. (missed some of the later bits but I started to depart with where people where going)

The cohesiveness of the concept started to wane as the discussion started to move on. I think the major reason is HFY/Humans as special snowflakes. That is, actively trying to remove every trace of it.

The basic concept as a game needs humans to be special snowflakes. It's what really makes it work and interesting. The contrast between Tech and Magic cannot exist if humans are not special.

This also makes it the primary selling point for players. Explore a very alien world as something very familiar using stuff that is very familiar. Alien races should be very dissimilar and thus a huge challenge to RP.

So I lean toward a good ratio of non-humanoid races, Ideals/Laws, and other stuff that both separates and defines.

I think doing a bit more defining is in order actually.

>>17478678
So humanity becomes the armory of the galaxy?

I can accept that.

>>17478681
I think Ideals vs Laws and why modern tech doesn't mesh well with Magic has a really simple answer. It's a third branch of development that requires intimate knowledge of both magic AND tech to pull off. Try with only one piece of the puzzle and enjoy your failed experiments.

Therefore until the race to catch up either magic or technology gets close to ending. We won't see any combinations more potent then a flaming sword. (as I rather like that idea)

I also totally disagree with humans being unable to use magic. That is bar none one of the most interesting parts of such a game for the Humanity faction. We want to learn more about Magic but it's being really really hard. Maybe a very small number of humans "gets" the ideals enough to do basic magic, but they have no one to teach them more and constantly stunt their growth by visiting family in system.

Anyway for this to really go far. It has to be fun for players. Which means a degree of HFY and Special Snowflake. Which we can balance against Alien's also being special, and dangerous.

>>17478750
We also supply them with "unjammable" communication devices... Which we have full control over. Well, at least we can listen to their conversations.
Though the aliens might adapt with some kind of force field or something...
I don't know if it's a good idea to give them wireless communication.

>>17478305
this guy has it right

when talking about the aliens replicating our technology and factories, i think people underestimate how much work goes in the design and creation of even the most mundane masss produced item.
Mass production factories, especially high tech and electronics all rely on a complex chains of production and infastructure. All built on top of the accumlated knowledge of several thousands of years.
you need factories to make the parts of other machines that make parts for other machines and so on. Starting this from scratch, even with magic would be monumental.
Also bear in mind that these factories, tools and technology are designed to be used by humans, not aliens. what if they cant see the visible light that our screens give off.
what if concepts such as mathematical system seem as alien to them as magic is to us.

>>17478774
Seems like we'll have a split in this concept.

There's the "humans as armory of space" and then there's "humanity and aliens doing an arms race" as concept.

Awake now!

What I was thinking with magic vs technology was that both aliens and humans are theoretically capable of using the others' stuff; one of the main ideas I had was that the merc PCs only had so many years before the aliens were able to replicate their tech to a reasonable level. By the same token, within a few decades humans would be able to learn and use magic. However, since the mindset required to use and advance these fields aren't ingrained into their respective cultures, they would lag behind for quite a while.

And as I said earlier, I want to avoid blatant HFY. If humans can understand magic through SCIENCE but aliens can't understand technology, it just makes humans retardedly overpowered. I'm thinking of the Ideals of Magic as kind of a philosophy, something that can't be empirically determined by definition. Science doesn't really work for it, and trying to use the scientific method on it would be next to useless.

>>17478807
I also think that it makes sense for the former version to have a simple and intuitive system of magic, which makes it easier for humans to hide technology from aliens.
The latter one would have very complicated magic, on par with the complexity of science.

GOD
DAMN
AWESOME
How fare in the future though? Have humans advanced any considerably more so? Obviously enough to discover the field would be a decent bit id think

>>17478774
I also think Magic needs a bit better defining. Specifically in regards to what "how it works" LOOKS like.
Tech example. Look at your computer. It's in a box, if you open the box you can clearly see a board of one color with a bunch of copper lines all over it and bits sticking out. There are other boards put into colored slots on the board. There are long black cables attaching to the boards. (Though the concept of a cable is pretty difficult. Many wires all together coated in rubber? Would they think it was a tube or a bit of rope?)

So personally I don't think most individual mages should be capable of crazy shit. Which means I don't think Aliens should be so stunted from basic tech they live in castles of their own magick-ing and fed fruit they conjure.

Rather I'd rather see the larger projects require rituals. Like let's say teleportation.

I see a room of aliens. Most seem focused on the same task and do something similar to a prayer. Focusing on a crystal in the center of the room. One Alien patrols around the circle until they seem satisfied it's ready and proceeds to the crystal. They mess with it and suddenly the ship teleports. All Aliens involve look like they just finished an endurance run and go "hit the showers" / get something to eat.

I also see a regular alien living his life. He works at a shop selling fabricated goods. One good is a stone with a stored light spell. It's in a bit of metal with a hook for a clasp from any of 13 different harnesses for all the different body types that may want a stone. It's a cheap product that sees mass production. This Alien is "out of shape" and not able to conduct magic for long or do anything really intense. But he gets by in the society he lives just fine. Using fiscal trade to get products that allow him to do things normally outside of his capacity. Like perhaps flying. (Thus partially explaining why he's stunted. Our Alien's a couch potato)

Hey, I know!
Whenever humans want to colonize a new place, they first set up a magical "gate" system from point A to point B, and then send in the colonists to set up the massive anti-magic field generator systems, as well as a replacement gate on the edge of the system.
In this way, Human expansion is nearly unstoppable: as soon as our armies get the field up, it's curbstomping time when their hovercraft all fall apart.

Humans might have tech and stuff, but aliens are the ones with FTL and theres nothing we can do about that for now.

>>17478977
Actually, that would explain why human technologies all look so industrial or utilitarian: our military has to be able to maintain the upper hand after the anti-magic field goes up, an while it might be easier to make a hover-platform, it's a lot more effective to have VTOL engines for when the magic cuts out.

>>17478922
Which I think brings me to the following. What kind of stuff would magic pull to solve a problem.

Let's say you have a guy. You want to kill said guy. How would a skilled mage do this? How COULD a skilled magic do this. What could he do if he had 6 people to draw support for his spells from?

I could see an Alien soldier. He's never been really good at understanding the Ideals. Quite dumb actually. Constant training though has made him a good Source. He could power his weapon for 4 hours of frantic combat if he had to. He could never build the weapon but he can upkeep it and use it. Some mage somewhere created it.

What is that weapon?

Also to help keep down the HFY potential. Have the first major wave of "Humans are scary" be our gun technology. The rate of fire and amount of bullets has made it very difficult on the aliens usual method of stopping flying death. So Humans have a rash of very successful and somewhat over-embleshed and romanticized accomplishments causing them to have a Reputation. Then the Aliens figure out how to adapt, more or less, to our gun tech and have an upper hand there. Espcially given that those spells get spread really fast as everyone whom is afraid of us want to protect themselves. (From us)

Then set any games after that tipping point so while most Aliens still have an inflated sense of our worth. The reality is the strong militaries have all more or less shut our capacity to hit them with bullets down outside of AMF.

Hmm... maybe humans aren't the only Tech race in the galaxy? We might just be the most advanced they've found so far.
We've already got the elves, who some how manage to do both to a degree. But what if by what seems like cosmic planning species that have a humanoid form are naturally declined to magic, while all other species seem to be adverse to tech?

Humans, space elves, Space orks, Space dwarves, are all the Tech races.
Squids, Blobs, Floaty ugly ball things, Bugs, plants are the magic races.

Or wait... that happens all the time anyway doesn't it?

>>17479083
Last post for a bit after this concept made my brain-gasm.

Having most alien militaries know how to stop our firepower with magic tech outside of AMF (more or less) also helps make humans more of a merc in the room. Those militaries could all be SUPER leery of humans getting a major foothold outside of our system or bringing our armies around. Most of it may be due incidents before they had an ace, but it remains in memory.

Thus the last time we sent out a colony battlegroup. (Complete with navy) to colonize a world without OKing it with the Alien's "UN". We lost the entire kit and kaboodle. Royal asskicking to us.

That means while we engage in all sorts of bitter politicing to let us put up roots. A lot of human merc groups spring up with human political/military backing to get information and technology back in system. Perhaps to the point where if a Human walks into an Alien bar it's almost guaranteed to be a merc.

(Which may prove to distort the perception of HFY. But this may be me enjoying the idea of a setting which SEEMS HFY but the reality is if we tried shit out teeth would be kicked in)

OH and my final thought is that I imagine many alien ships looking like the ones from Tenchi.

>>17478846
I don't know man...I mean like a couple of others have said humans need to be special in some way. I don't agree with humans being their own AMFs but at the same time you want to make it extremely difficult for the aliens to copy our tech and for us to copy their magic. Like make it so that humans literally do not have the almost biologically ingrained logical pathways required for magic.

Bump

>>17479150
> Like make it so that humans literally do not have the almost biologically ingrained logical pathways required for magic.
This makes sense, because since we existed in an AMF, our bodies would be most suited to a non-magical reality, and our brains don't process magic very well at all.
Would that mean any human "Gods" we developed would have had to be uber-powerful just to have an influence on the mortal realm?
Does that also mean that human "Souls" are either highly diminished but amazingly 'dense', or do we just have a weak soul in general, making humans an undesirable target for the usual "Chaotic-Evil/Infernal" aliens to bother us for sacrifices? or do human souls "leak" a shitton with the AMF no longer applying outside pressure?

>>17479150
or you could just make magic as alien a concept as showing something out of modern sci fi to someone from the dark ages.
and aliens fucking SUCK at technology and engineering, and science, due to not having much focus on it at all. Their brains are built for the mystic

>>17479150
>>17479258
I guess you could see Aliens as being almost 'simple-minded'.
>"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
To almost all aliens, they are like bushman primitives: our radios are magic, our guns are magic, so on and so forth. But the difference is, because they HAVE magic, they have no reason to believe they are wrong. TO an Alien, things are exactly as they appear to be.
Humans are the most cynical bastards in the galaxy, because we assume the opposite. Hell, we're probably one of the very few species who have more than a small splinter group who legitimately believe in a form of solipsism or nihilism; that reality is effectively a sham

So HFY applies only within the confines of a regional anti-magic field. And to a degree within an artificial one. But the aliens used us as soldiers already to fight over almost every regional anti-magic in existence. They learned how to fight us, and set up enough of a defense that we aren't a game winner anymore.
As if we were mustard gas, and they just recently figured out gas masks. If you're unprepared, you're screwed just the same. But if you're ready, we're not greater a threat than usual. Meaning instead of humanity being able to turn the tide in wars, we're instead relegated to being the go to guys for dealing with small threats. Problems that don't have an entire government backing, or small missions where they won't have had the money, means, or time to set up an anti-tech defense.

We were elite solders, now we're not as useful anymore, so we were retired. Most of humanity tried to keep our important place as the techies in a magic society, others tried to learn magic despite our being terrible at it. The PC's happen to have decided to go mercenary.

>>17479315
>that reality is effectively a sham
Sorry, that PERCIEVED reality is effectively a sham, and that the Ultimate Truth is either so large, so small, so strange or so hidden, that it's nearly impossible to see it.
Aliens would assume that perceived reality is the Truth, with the exception of polticians.

Do Aliens get Detect Evil?
Are there any human Paladins?

I think I just found a good example of a human merc.

But how does humanity travel the universe if only FTL is magic?

>>17479445
Because once you get outside of the regional AMF, you can FTL.
Earth was only discovered because some alien explorers with redundant engine systems that had AMF shielding managed to get close enough to find us while we were sending out exploratory vessels.

>>17472313

We avoid them, they are the only race the council will not allow space travel to, Humans are with out a doubt the most dangerous intelligents in the black heavens today. The Council had taken pains to keep them contained to one planet and they failed, the council started by introducing religion to hinder their scientific expansion, and sabotage to their fledling space program. Then when Humans discovered the 1st principle of theology this method failed to quell the humans space progress, and the council had to resort to actively vapor bombing all of ground launch sites they used in their attempts for space flight. But Humans have seen other planets and solar systems. They are now a wholly mercenary species, once the humans are paid, usually in simple shiny metals such as gold or hardened crystals or weapons technology, and then provided space transport under heavy guard to the war zone you have one of the most fearsome terror weapons in the system, Even the whisper of Human mercenaries on the battle front can lead to near total demoralization of troops. Humans are merciless on other species, all know this, and they kill with glee, torture without compassion, and are imaginative when it comes to causing pain. They hate all other intelligents for denying them space travel and when hired on the battlefield they unleash that hate with a ferocity that defies easy explanation. They only have loyalty to those who pay, and then only for the duration of the contract.

How do humans know about magic?

In our scientific world we don't have any records of any human magicians but we always had an idea of what magic is. We always had a word for it, we have legends of great wizards, we worte books about it and developed complicated systems to simulate magic in the games we play. But it's not real, or is it?

Did magic actually exist on earth and then disappeared when the anti magic field went up? Or do we have distant memories of prior contact with magic aliens? Or is it all just a coincidence and the magic of our fairy tales is completely different in nature from the alien space magic?

>>17479315
Actually... I wonder. We keep calling them the ideals of magic because that's our perception of them. Wouldn't their magic be Science to them? and as you said, our science is magic. We create things that can do science ON THEIR OWN. we don't have to concentrate to keep the phone connected, or to make our guns shoot. They do it regardless of who's holding the thing.

Perhaps their science, draws on say 3 steps. Source, Focus, and Effect. The source is the person intending to use the thing. the focus is how efficiently the decide turns source into effect, and the Effect is what happens.
Magic soldier has a fire gun, it has a large effect, but a low focus. So his source is drained at nearly 1 for 1 to produce the fire effect. While if it had a stronger focus, it would take less of his source to create the same effect.

While Tech, or our magic, doesn't use a persons source, has no focus, and somehow still has the same effect of lighting that guy on fire over there.

Actually, if casting magic inately comes from the casters own source (and creating consumable sources is an EXTREMELY difficult procedure) Humans attempting to cast spells would almost immediately fail because we have no connection to our source. It's been suppressed for far too long.

Thanks to the guy who posted the Source thing, btw. I really like that term.

>>17479252
how about this:

Humans dont have the pathways for magic but they do have a soul. Since they never, in their entire lives, use magic at all, it builds up in the core which makes them awesome magical power source for alien mages.

Powerfull battle mages want humans mercs to just stand around so they can leech magic from them and become uber powerfull.

This would mean a revolution in magic as new, wilder shit becomes possible.

>>17479491
Welll, the AMF doesn't entirely DESTROY magic, it just makes it not really function well, at all.
Doing magic in the AMF of Human Space is like trying to walk through cornstarch: you can either do a little at a time, or you can punch through it and end up nearly killing yourself. Only Cosmic Beings have the power to supercavitate miraculous effects through the AMF, and they aren't common or very communicable.
>>17479517
Well, it wouldn't be a "Science" in our sense. It would be the Natural Philosophy route, in a way.
In other words, outside of the AMF, psychology and philosophy is, in fact, a "hard science", and the liberal arts majors get more jobs and higher salaries than any engineering major, and god help you if you decided to master in Physics.

Just a thought, are there also anti-tech fields?
Seems only fair, huh? Perhaps in there fields the laws of physics seem to unravel themselves. Chaos goes back to order instead of towards chaos like it's supposed to. Heck, maybe our guns slowly unforge themselves and turn into hunks of rock and gasses.

Of course, the Ideals wouldn't care, they use rocks. They just put magic on them.

>>17479665
>Just a thought, are there also anti-tech fields?
Well, of course!
It's just that they aren't intended to be anti-tech field, but some things the aliens use create a large field that just happen to screw with the basic laws of physics so that our finely tuned shit doesn't work.
Portable AMF's are a must for every railgun emplacement.

>>17479491
>How do humans know about magic?
>In our scientific world we don't have any records of any human magicians but we always had an idea of what magic is. We always had a word for it, we have legends of great wizards, we worte books about it and developed complicated systems to simulate magic in the games we play. But it's not real, or is it?
>Did magic actually exist on earth and then disappeared when the anti magic field went up? Or do we have distant memories of prior contact with magic aliens? Or is it all just a coincidence and the magic of our fairy tales is completely different in nature from the alien space magic?
Quite simple - it's magic, I ain't gonna explain shit.

>>17479665
>Just a thought, are there also anti-tech fields?
>Seems only fair, huh? Perhaps in there fields the laws of physics seem to unravel themselves. Chaos goes back to order instead of towards chaos like it's supposed to. Heck, maybe our guns slowly unforge themselves and turn into hunks of rock and gasses.
It's called 'magic'.

Maybe this is kind of late in the game to bring this up, but what if instead of there just being an Anti-Magic Field where we live there Solar System is the source of the Anti-Magic Field. I don't mean some device on one of the the planets I mean the orbits of the various planets/etc serve to create the field itself.

And presumably someone made it that way.

Awesome idea, OP!
Didn't read the thread, but I have a bit of an idea, if you don't mind. Perhaps the antimagic field was put up by one race in secrecy, for the purpose of using the technology we would develop, while their enemies are woefully poorly armed in comparison.

>>17479396
That's from Katawa Shoujo, not strike witches. Also, I recall that short story with naepoleonic aliens, but I can't remember the name. Anyone else remember it?

so... let's see. For most of the history of the universe, Magic is all there really was. It reigned supreme. but it didn't really have competition. Aliens teleporing all over the dang place.
Then humanity is discovered and suddenly tech comes into play.
Magic has been able to fight Magic fairly well up until now, but It has almost no defense against tech. Somehow deflecting fireballs is different than deflecting bullets. So for a while Tech seems like it's winning. But of course, Tech is just as weak to magic as magic is to tech. Gigantic railgun platforms get teleport strike teamed if the don't have a sufficient abjuration spell in place to stop teleports.

It becomes quite a strange predicament. Magic can kill Tech with ease, but Tech can do the same to Magic. You need magic to defend against magic and tech to defend against tech. Combining the two is as always the goal, but as expected it's difficult and expensive as heck. Until it's perfected there's still some good money to be made. Every alien has magic, but not everyone has tech yet, nor have they combined them effectively yet. So grab your flaming sword and caster gun and go make yourself some cold hard crystals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_%28short_story%29

There is one thing that Humans have that aliens don't: Stage Magic and Sleight of Hand.
Culturally speaking, magic shows are to aliens what gun shows are to humans. On one hand, we'll impress/surprise the fuck out of them by being able to do "magic" without any detectable magical energy at all, and on the other hand it'll make the aliens create resorts for touring humans, who fucking love magic no matter how mundane it is.

Also, there would most likely be a race of Evangelion type Angel-beings who consider Humanity a non-magical abomination; this is due to the fact that excessive AMF exposure is fatal to these beings, and they fear that as humanity spreads they will continue their practice of artificially generating AMFs around their communes and vessels, becoming everpresent and mobile death-zones.
Of course, the only reason huamnity needs to worry is because these Angels are prmoinent, if fringe, poltical figures among the various Alien governments, and right now the human governments are trying to keep what they've termed the UMN (United Magical Nations) from giving in to the outcries of these figures by playing it as a safe as poltically possible in their expansions.

>>17479252
I would think amazingly dense. But that's just me. Maybe have some sect of aliens harvest our souls for us in the production of magic crystals for powering their space ships or something.

rolled 62, 26, 66 = 154

>>17480797
That would probably explain all the "ufo sightings". A race of magical scavengers who are galactic outcasts, their ships would visit our world for suitable souls to act as replacement batteries.

Also, the city of R'lyeh probably exists on this planet on purpose, to keep what was left of an ancient race trapped within the natural AMF of this area of space. The Great Old Ones were probably our technological predecessors, in times too long ago for any but Cosmic Beings to remember.

I like the idea of humans being unable to do magic themselves. The aliens 'could' develop similar technology if given enough time, but its going to be far more than a couple of decades if humanity is actively trying to hinder their development. They have no means of mass production, and don't even have the ability to create the machines that create the machines that create the machines that build any of our modern conveniences, so why bother? The humans will sell it to them, and its not as if magic is really any worse in the long run.

>>17480902
Sounds about right.
Humans don't 'get' magic, except the potheads and the like.
Aliens don't 'get' technology except for whatever passes for autism in their race.
Each is entirely nonintutive to the other.
If we go with the "dense souls" idea, then that would make it even more clear. It's harder fore humans to do magic because their souls are naturally introverted from an eternity under an AMF, while alien souls are much more extroverted from their freedom, and so can influence reality more.

This may mean that it's twice harder to telepathically read human minds, as you have a dense and intoverted soul on one hand, and a mechanical and at least half antimagical mind on the other hand, so that makes humans even MORE desirable as freelance mercenaries.

I think this thread has taken the brainstorming as far as it can go so let's actually get to writing shit up.

>>17481014
>in the eyes of the aliens, the entire human race is extremely autistic

yes. YES.

Wow, that's a lot of stuff that happened since I headed out for a while. I really don't think I have much else to contribute here, but I'm glad that I got the ball rolling in some respects.

>>17481014

I dunno.... I've met a good number of pretty autistic potheads. It's important to remember than smoking marijuana makes it easier to pay attention to (and get lost in) details.

>>17481873
And now we have yet another reason why humanity remains unaccepted into the galactic community!
You can reason with cannibals, you can educate primitives, you can even negotiate with zealots, but NO ONE wants to hang out with a 'retard'.
Video is related, albeit in this case the tables are turned.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaFZTAOb7IE

Aliens want to use humans "compressed/dense" energy for more powerful magic, humans want to use aliens seemingly limitless potential to use magic to create conventional "energy" for more powerful technology.
Conflict, all day everyday.
So many ideas in this thread, braingasms everywhere.

What if most people needed magic to survive? Not because they're magic creatures, but because of the magic used on them over time? If the magic most people use to maintain their life suddenly got yanked away from them, their life would suck, fast and hard. "Modern" militarys are mostly immune to this problem, spending the time and effort to use magic to fix rather then to patch the problems it solves.

>>17481939
Sounds like the only ones who will manage to create functionable Magitech will be Mad Scientists or Techno-Hippies
Anyone else read "Miracle of Science"? MSRD might be induced in certain kinds of humans exposed to magic or descendant from one, and now that they can escape the Sol Sector's AMF it activates in full.

>>17481873
More along the lines of a militant atheist and a militant christian who get along because they both have something the other wants. Neither side is capable of understanding the other and the only reason they deal with each other is because necessities.

Started a thread for specific setting elements rather than general ideas.

>>17483106

What if humans just DON'T HAVE SOULS.

Every human is a Pariah. Human soldiers are Culexus Assassins.

>>17483212
explains why we hate each other so much.

>>17483231
Also makes Human-Alien diplomacy harder, further entrenching the idea that Humans are entirely separate from the magical community.

Question.

If humans generate an AMF around them.
How the hell can alien-wizards cast cool shit around them?

I mean, how am I supposed to have a highly trained teched-out human spec op squad teleport around the place if their pocket wizard can't cast around them?

>>17483369
They don't teleport around the place. They walk.

>>17483387
B-..B-but I want teleporting spec ops!

Not a single fucking mention of Star Ocean?
That's basically what the first game was about.

Human's don't generate an AMF.
Rather they have been living in a sector of space that has a natural (and fuckhuge) AMF, which gave rise to our technology, similar to the Veil of Madness canon.

Teleporting spec-ops are fine and dandy, but they'd be rare as fuck because humans have almost no magical potential. They evolved in an AMF, and magical ability was never developed except as a rare genetic hiccup.
That being said, there probably are Pariahs, albeit rather uncommon.

THere is also most likely an outcast race that essentially are living AMFs, probably not because they genmerate negative magic, but because they are realist/egoists incarnate. No magic happens around them because no magic happens around them.

Humans themselves (and Earth life in general) generate the anti-magic field. A few humans (like the party) make a tiny field that basically just gives them really good saves vs magic (or whatever the system's equivalent to saves is), but a planet full of us is a full no-go anti-magic field.

Thus they are special, at least until that is bio-engineered and copied from us.

problems solved?

Magic and technology are like oil and water. On the most rudimentary level, the two can mix together. You can put oil in water or the like, stir it up, and sort of combine the two. It's not perfect, but it makes salad dressing, at least. Problems occur when you want to apply this in a more advanced fashion.

Science relies on set and absolute rules; physics. These rules are absolute and immutable. We may not have a perfect understanding of them, hell, we're still refining our understanding of them, but all the same, the most basic thesis of physics is that the same action always yields the same reaction; 1 = 1, 2 = 2, and 3 = 3.

With 1 = 2. Magic is the art of actively defying reality, breaking known and absolute laws of physics. Sure, we can define a few simple things, like how a person's individual reserves of magical force can be recharged or how to store it in an inorganic vessel - the 'mana batteries' that we've been making for the last few months - but advanced research? Forget about it. Even the most esoteric branches of high-level physics research, things like quantum physics and superstring physics, still follow laws. As magic becomes more and more advanced, it actually follows fewer laws. What is true for simple magic isn't true for more advanced magic.

Magic can't replicate high-level technology because it simply isn't able to reach the proper kind of precision without careful manipulation. The best we've been able to do is channel it as an electricity analogue, and even then, it's simpler and more efficient to use it to run turbines that generate actual electricity. The only way that they're going to be able to replicate our technology is to reverse-engineer what we give them. Some of these cultures don't even recognize calculus yet. They're a long way from supercomputers.

>>17484087
The problem was already solved.
Humans are basically the only guys who can do technology beyond a certain point, making them masters in the antimagic field of warfare and making them a political power and primary supplier of goods to the galaxy.
They are known for being "bad luck" or are considered universally antimagic because every human enclave has anti magic generators to keep their tech safe, and because very few humans can actually do magic. The fact that there are humans who have innate antimagic fields is a coincidence of evolution that helps reinforce the stereotype.

Our role in the galaxy is as mercenaries for hire to whoever wants protection, primarily from us. Nothing can beat a human protection squad short of a small army or someone else hiring a human aggressor squad. No one trusts humans because of how weird and/or unsympathetic and non-magical they are (compared to aliens), and no human trust aliens because of how vulnerable they are to magical illusions and hypnotic compulsion.

>>17484598
Politically, the human republic is under constant scrutiny by their neighbors due to political pressure from several hyper-magical species wanting them wiped out for being anti-magical abominations and a potential threat to magical civilization everywhere, while those on trading terms with the humans recognize that the technology is far beyond anything they have ever needed to understand, and their government rightfully fear their unmagical neighbors for this while the common populace regards it as a form of impossible magics. In the mass media humanity is regarded as an insane and warlike race who care only for profit, and due to government interdiction against permitting human colonists and their antimagic generators onto their own worlds, the only humans that are seen on alien worlds are independents, traders, and/or mercenary groups.

>>17484619
Humanity is safe within their small sector of enforced reality, but outside of it are readily outmatched in terms of numbers and capabilities by the magical navies of the many alien civilizations who fear them. Should humanity push too far, it would bring a massive war of attrition as alien forces would attempt to wade their way through real-space through overcharged engines, and before long this massive combat would bring the attention of Cosmic Beings who can and will literally punch their way through the anti-magical space and destroy humanity and everyone else who was involved.

It is the not so distant future, and Clarke is wrong.

On the idea of humans generating a natural sort of anti-magic field...

The presence of all combined human life on Earth gives us an AMF that extends out to the moon. It's safe to assume, then, that this sort of effect combines when humans gather in close proximity; a single person might just have a bit of resistance to magic, a family of four gathered together might have a very localized AMF in their immediate vicinity, but by the time you get to twenty - well, you have a full-on antimagic field.

Humans aren't just valuable for their technological expertise; hell, a magically-thrown boulder doesn't suddenly lose it's momentum when it enters an AMF. The real value of humans is that they're more difficult to attack. In the setting the OP describes, no king, queen, emperor, baron, cardinal, bishop. jarl, or sultan worth their title would go anywhere without their own personal bodyguard of twelve heavily-armed marines to help avoid teleport-assisted assassination attempts. They might be able to learn enough from humans to copy our techniques for keeping dignitaries safe, wide-level scrying to keep snipers off of rooftops and magical IEDs off the transit route, but an elite bodyguard unit with an AMF that can be kept up indefinitely and without any concentration is an incredible defensive tool.

>>17484630
What, exactly, happens when a being composed of pure magic comes into contact with an AMF? With normal wizards and such, with AMFs that cover a 4' radius and last Xd6 rounds, yeah, they just snap it like a twig and smack the wizard. How about a permanent AMF with a duration of 220k - 250k+ miles (OP said he wanted it to extend about to the moon)?

I'd like to think that the reason humans haven't been exterminated at all is because, the first time a literal god did try to wipe out Earth to protect their chosen species, they didn't expect such a powerful AMF, teleported directly to out planet, and then got torn apart by the sheer force of our AMF. It sets up a few neat ideas:

1) Race Z hates us, utterly, and absolutely, hates us, for having killed their god (accidentally though it may have been). Even so, if they want to stay competitive in the magical arms race, they have to rely on humans. This kind of tension can create some great story hooks.
2) Collectively humanity killed a god. On accident.

The next idea requires a concept: patron-gods, elemental-gods, and conceptual-gods. Patron gods (Orcus, Llolth, etc) are tied to a specific race or species. Elemental gods are tied to an element, or material like fire, wood, light, or stone. Conceptual gods are tied to ideas; things like compassion, love, or war.

3) As it just so happens, once we begin to integrate ourselves into the magic-active universe, we discover the existence of The Forgotten One, the patron-god whose chosen have long since passed into antiquity... and he happens to be named Yahweh.

>>17484873

They looked fresh, alright. The UMN had sent their youngest and brightest Sources here to be trained by "The Untuned" in the ways of simple bodily combat. McAllister eyed them all, each of them on their own could've probably wiped out an entire unit with a thought and a glance. But not here, on Earth-turf. He stepped up to the group and made his introduction. "Alright, recruits, form up! You, Pointy Ears, tell me what you're here for."

"I am Regolis, from Abdolis, here to seek your training in the Artes of Bodygua-oof!" The young, slight kid with the pointed ears went ass over teakettle as McAllister ducked and threw him lightly over his shoulder.

"You just learned your first lesson, Private Regolis. Lesson one: When speaking to a superior officer, that is to say when speaking to a Human on this base, you will begin or end your sentences with the honorific 'Sir.'"

"Ye...Sir, yes sir." The young sorcerer said, getting back up. McAllister grabbed a baseball from a nearby bin. He turned around to face the young Elf (Yes, that was technically a slur even if the kid didn't know it but damned if he didn't look the ideal.) and held it up. "Catch these, Private." McAllister threw the ball, the first a lazy fly ball which he easily caught, the second a low fastball which sent him scurrying after it for a few minutes. When Regolis had returned with the ball, he threw it back. "Private, tell me why you couldn't catch that second ball."

"Sir, I couldn't catch the ball because it moved faster than I expected. Sir."

"And why was that?" "Uh...I don't know?" "I don't know, Sir. I will tell you why. Because I threw it the second time with force F, derived from the mass of the ball multiplied by its acceleration, as quantified in this system called Physics."

The elf stared. Balked, really. Like McAllister had just started speaking in tongues; maybe he had to the kid.

"Sir...what are "physics?"

>>17485671
>"Sir...what are "physics?"
>MFW

>"Sir, I couldn't catch the ball because it moved faster than I expected. Sir."
There's a thought. The low magical empathy of humans means they telegraph very little of their perspective and thoughts compared to aliens, so our short term actions are effectively inscrutable to those used to handling Attuned beings.

>>17484598
But that leaves the problem of our tech being bought or copied, and making us obsolete.

It also makes us extremely weak when not inside an AMF. Why hire human body-guards outside their field, where magic will kick their asses?

The current set-up lends itself well to humans vs magic aliens, with humans on the DEFENSIVE, but not to humans as mercs outside their own territory

>>17486430
It keeps humans from becoming an empire... not from working on small-scale combat.

Need an infiltration team to get object X from a safehouse? A squad of human mercenaries, immune to magical traps, impossible to scry once they leave. Can't web them, slow them, stasis them, or otherwise slow them down while they escape with your goodies.

Need an assassin? A human operative that's immune to mental screening, magical threat detection, and experienced enough in AM warfare to penetrate the shields around the VIP (in place to prevent things like spawning a rift to the elemental plane of fire right on top of them).

Need a dignitary protected? Hire enough human mercs to hang out around them so their own AMF protects them.

>>17486519
How are they immune to magic traps without themselves generating anti-magic? Is their AMF generator small enough to carry around? If so, why not use the generator and your own people?

You are citing reasons for my argument, not against it.

>>17486690
/facepalm

Humans ARE the AMF generator. That's what makes them so tactically valuable. A spellcaster has to actively raise an AMF, and has to (presumably) maintain it. Humans, or at least some humans, have a natural AMF.

>>17486690
The idea is that humans generate an AMF, and when humans AMFs start to overlap, they get bigger.

>>17486729
>>17486704
Which is what I originally said that got people so up in arms against me.

Another place this happened is the Salvation War, wherein Hell and Heaven are real, Satan declares the earth his with God's permission, and the humans say "Fuck that." The demons use only strength and numbers and their magic, they meet sarin gas and nukes and whatnot, everybody's happy.

http://www.tboverse.us/HPCAFORUM/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=8334&sid=4d0d1b2ed2913b5dfc7016
829f801db5

>>17486729
so humans function like the Ysalimiri from Star Wars EU? That's kinda cool.

>>17484873
Don't forget offensively. A human commando is resistant to spells. But a half dozen of them together would be invisible on even the most advanced scrying spells. Human vessels are all 100% stealthed to detection spells when crewed by humans. Human marine squads are invisible to magical equivalents of 'satellite surveillance', 'security cameras', 'motion detectors', etc. We're invisible to everything except manual surveillance. And even then, if they're using magical spells or items to enhance their vision like magical nightvision or binoculars, we're invisible to that too.

>>17485671
I wish to read more of this. please continue.

>>17486965
I don't imagine we'd be completely invisible so much as a complete void of information.You'd still technically be able to track that sort of thing just by looking where the gaping hole is.

>>17486813
Salvation war doesn't count.
I read the whole saga and it's continuation and epilogues.
The "magic" was was just biotech, which humanity manage to science to their advantage.

>>17487045
so there are 15 blank spots on your tactical map. is each a high-powered wizard maintaining and AMF over a strike team, a trio of weak wizards running around pranking you as a distraction from something bigger, a 5-man team of human commandos sighting you with their fancy nonmagical sniper rifles as we speak, or some combination of the three?

All you have to do to make sure that the aliens can't copy human tech is add the caveat that its too complicated for someone completely untrained in all of the different sciences involved in its creation couldn't possibly visualize copying the object with magic.

>>17487045
>>17486965
>>17486904
>>17486759
>>17486729
>>17486704
>>17486690
>>17486519
>>17486430
Could we change it so that humans with natural AMFs are the minority, not the majority?
I was of the understanding that it wasn't the humans who were natural AMF.
Rater, the humans adapted to the natural AMF of their sector of space, which was acting like a giant anti-magic field generator somehow, and was also the reason why aliens and alien communications never got to us until we started reaching the edge of the area through probes and were officially discovered and contacted.

>>17487122
So, these unique humans would be the PCs and the other mercs like them?

Perhaps humans who are particularly distant from magic are the ones who generate the natural fields. Stone cold atheists, people who choose to perceive the world as something that can be quantified and measured, people who NEED to see proof to believe in something.

A lot of people certainly, but not everyone.

>>17487157
Probably, or it would part of the class/race setup.

>>17487106
Then you magically clone some of the non AMF tech. Or freeze time and study. Or study and learn like everyone else. Stealing blueprints, then decoding them and learning the theory that makes it work would not be impossible.

>>17487186
If its faith-based and not biological, then why are there no other AMF generating species or nonhuman AMF generating individuals? Humans are no longer special in this set-up. Athiests are.

>>17487122
Whatever works for you. Even if we were writing a sourcebook, any time you build something into your campaign you always have the luxury of Rule 0. If you want to make it balanced, but not OP for a player group, just say that most people only have (maybe) a +1 or +2 save versus magic,and only a handful have stronger fields than that.

>>17486759
Well... as I see it, there's basically one of two options. Either there's some sort of anti-magic unobtanium on Earth, it's generated by humans, or it's generated by some other animal living on earth. The last two can be sort of interchangeable (maybe one of the many strains of bacteria native to the human colon emits an antimagic field), but making humans the active AMF agent allows them to maintain some kind of edge, tech aside, and also allows for more types of stories, imo.

>>17487186
stop bringing your theology fetishes into games

>>17487196
>>17487106
We already solved this issue.
Alien brains developed to understand a world of magic.
Human brains developed to understand a world without magic.
Aliens don't have the technological base or the scientific understanding to reverse engineer the tech, and more importantly, they don't find it natural to think scientifically.
For the aliens, correlation DOES equal causation.

>>17487223
seconded.

>>17487189
As discussed before, there is little or no reason to hire humans who do not have the field.

>>17487226
That would last for the one generation of first contact, maybe.

And then, there is no group in all of the alien worlds (besides us stuck in out field) who saw merit in technology? No one was ever curious about other ways of doing things? about making things work without having to rewrite reality itself? ever?

>>17487228
>there is little or no reason to hire humans who do not have the field.
On the contrary, there are plenty of reasons:
>reputation is a big one
>physical ability
>critical thinking and planning capabilities
>good at improvisation
and the most important one:
>Human tech is boss, and only legal when used by humans.
Also, there's no reason humans couldn't have personal AMFs on their back or something. It would be weak, but it would protect against dickery.
Like I said, human tech is boss.
Their primary method of colonization is using what magic they have to portal over everything, before setting up massive AMF generators.

>>17487196
You can't copy it, because you have to know, intimately, how the thing you are copying works. Every curve, gear, pully, the chemical composition of the material itself. You could every micrometer of silicon has to be perfect, and you have to visualize all this at once, its just not possible, even when looking at it. When you species doesn't even understand the basics of calculus, and humans aren't exactly in the mood for sharing. You're up shit creek without a paddle.

For example, let's say an alien wants to conjure up some gun powder, he'll summon up some black powdery substance, but it won't act like gun powder unless he knows what its actually made from on a intellectual level.

Perhaps a human advantage could be mass production? When you can magic anything up, efficiency probably isn't a part of your vocabulary.

>>17487253
Oh certainly, the aliens WILL catch up, and there are less magically inclined species who can do tech pretty well.
But the high-magic species will essentially never 'get' technology that well, and the low-magic species simply traded services for magical assistance up until Humanity popped into the scene and made technology and science something to be feared and respected.

It's a cold war arms race now.

>>17487254
So, in addition to the AMF thing, humans are unequalled in physical ability, improv, and critical thinking throughout the universe?

That means no alien monsters, brutes, tacticians, etc. It also means that humans are best at everything except magic, which limits options and makes no sense.

And how do you learn to rewrite reality itself without creativity (improv) or critical thinking?

>>17487352
>>17487254
And why wouldn't aliens steal it and use it illegally? Or buy it from humans on a black market? Using tech is infinitely easier to learn than than making tech. They could easily learn to use it, even if they can't make it themselves.

Humans would make much more money selling weapons than soldiers, unless the soldiers themselves were the advantage (i.e. walking AMF generators)

OP again
I have to say, I don't like the idea of humans generating their own AMF by themselves. It just seems a bit broken to me. My original idea was for humans to be primarily offensive as mercenaries. Easy anti-magic has advanced recently in alien space to the point where it's become extremely difficult to wage any sort of war, but the discovery of humanity offers a significant edge for anyone who can take advantage of it. However, the aliens' body plans don't really work for our weapons, so mercenary companies have cropped up instead. At some point, the PMCs got it into their heads that aliens shouldn't be given human weapons, so human mercs have more or less a monopoly on human techology, at least for now. That is the current situation in the galaxy, and it's one that won't stay stable for more than a few decades.
Regarding magic vs. technology, I still would like for aliens to be able to develop technology and humans to be able to learn magic, but it's just extremely difficult to do so with their current mindsets, and both sides would still lag behind in the others' fields so that both require one another.

>>17487626
Well, when you put it like that, all you're really left with is warring factions that discover an alien race whose technology and capacity for warfare far outstrips their own. Granted, it's an inversion of the usual in that it's generally warring human factions that discover an alien race whose weapons are impossibly advanced, but it's still basically just another HUMANITY FUCK YEAH setting.

What sort of technological setting are the aliens in question involved in? Are they still using crossbows and early muskets, or are they up to rifling? Are they using cartridge ammunition yet? Do they have gas, or electric powered automatic weapons?

>>17487626
The only real problem I see with this is that it would be much more feasible for humans to make weapons suited for alien use than to use up the relatively few of us that exist (we've only had interplanetary travel for a few generations, presumably, since first contact or right before). It would be more profitable, have less risk for both humans and their alien clients than the merc version.

Using xenophobia to explan it could, maybe, work, if the mercs were fringe humans and not part of the main human society, but then there would theoretically be too few of them to be widely used, especially in galactic-scale conflicts.

>>17487768
Also, If the field worked like >>17484087, that would allow humans to learn magic, with great difficulty and at weaker max power.

Maybe they have to sacrifice their own save boosts to do so, by opening themselves up to magic with some AMF supressing tech or gene therapy or something. (A gene therapy would theoretically allow aliens to develop their own AMF, too, and so may be a bad idea for balance, or a plot hook)

but, its your deal OP

Do whatever works for you.

Maybe, in the future of this setting, the species approach either magic or tech the way they approach the other. Aliens try to see if physics is an ancient magical construct, and humans start to put magic and magical beings under a microscope.

I think it could be a cool culture clash, but it has potential to shit up the setting if humans learn magic OR physics becomes magical. So it would be best approached as an endeavor without an answer.

>>17479480
yeah but if humanity cant magic the big stuff as well as others wouldn't that mean very little ftl and slower than other races?

>>17490940
Easy. Humans bought alien FTL systems, and have been working on reverse engineering them. They've managed to do it, but they still don't have a good way to 'charge' them effectively. Primarily, human ships have had to 'cheat' by just using magical systems to alter things about their vessels. Most alien ships use drives that simply tell reality that 'ship goes THERE'.
Thus, humanity's space navy is still not on par with everyone else's, unless they are willing to shut down nearly all magical systems for the benefit of their onboard AMF generators.