As an aside, I'm very glad I didn't dismiss the idea out of hand to go play AC: Revelations.
Because that's very nearly what happened.

First Contact is a bunch of slavers magic UFO's attacking a military base.

Suddenly, A-10 Warthog.

We already nailed down space elves. Sorta. So he have the question of if any other species in the game is humanoid. Or if we can even play them. We definitely gotta have those face-bugs from the last thread. Maybe a race of tiny little gelly people, but they use magic to hold a body made of water or something around them so they don't die/can do stuff. Maybe a weird race of brain buckets who replace their bodies with magic kind of like how the Adeptus mechanicus does? Especially if it turns out their normal bodies are Freaking adorable to us and we can't fathom why they do it. Like cute little Kirbys, or cat-people or something.

Humans are all soulless, making them somewhat disturbing to be around for aliens.

Human mercenaries usually stay separated from the aliens that hire them. Don't want to make your employer go insane from listening to you speak, after all.

Major Alien Races:
Elves? (Possibly, or an offshoot of humanity)
The Qxazig: Fish creatures(non-humanoid) from an ocean world that think in five dimensions, utterly alien thought process that is almost impossibru to comprehend for humanity. Above average
Possible hive-creatures(Name?): E.g. Living hives of tiny insectoid creatures that share one consciousness. They speak with a billion voices.
Humanoid cat-like creatures with a thought process similar to that of a hybrid between an extremely artistic person and what most people think the stereotypical cat personality is.
Perhaps a fungi like creature (Look up the pattern jugglers from the Revelation Space novels).
Possible xenomorphic type creatures? Perhaps a highly warlike race.
The Federation of Allied Cultures: The general benevolent over-seer, several cultures have chaffed at the thought of giving humanity membership as we cannot comprehend the Ideals of Magic.
Possible Superiorist Faction: A faction that believes humanity is utterly worthless due to our inability to understand the Ideals of Magic.
The UES: The United Earth Sphere is the logical conclusion of the initiative taken with the European Union, United Nations and United States of America. A completely united humanity as a showing of face to the alien cultures through the stars. (Either meritocratic or oligarchic)
The Ideals of Magic: Expand on descriptions of possibly what it's like to cast magic but leave the theories and Ideals of Magic themselves as a mystery.
Average Caster: The average wizard-y alien should probably be around a DnD 3.5 edition 5-6th level sorceror/wizard with extremely gifted wizards/sorcerors being around level 10ish power level. Level 20ish power level is the Einstein or Stephen Hawkings of their culture.
I'd look to the Elyos faction in Aion for Architecture and the Vashj'ir zone in World of Warcraft for the Qxazig. For the possible hive-creatures, take a look at the Genosians in Star Wars.

No one else?
Fine then. A race of land based cephalopods coming from a low-gravity world with no atmosphere. Use resin secretions to build their buildings.
Pic related except much larger. Perhaps the size of elephants or at least twice as tall as a human.

Just couldn't help myself. I hope that's not too complicated or anything. Only an idea of course, nothing in stone.

>>17483828
I don't feel like explaining them is necessary as it adds to the mystery. Killing that mystery=anti-bueno.

>>17483943
I certainly agree, and if this setting is just for story time or magic is NPCs only then I'd rip up this digital paper. But if the PCs are going to cast magic somehow, the players need a means to understand it.

>>17483828
Also this is far too science-y.
The Ideals of Magic are artistic, and philosophical. If you REALLY want to explain them. Take all the books required for a Master's in Art and take all the books required for a Master's in philosophy, soak them in marijuana, mix them together and bake them at 350 degrees in a high fantasy mind set. Cut into various shapes for different schools and serve.
TL;DR: The Ideals of Magic are the exact opposite of science and reliable cause and effect.

>>17484025
so, they are The Warp (tm)?

>>17484095
No, because The Warp is a place as much as a concept. These are merely thoughts and ideals, that while so comprehensible to the human mind, remain thus, but allow the mind to bend in ways to tap the energy of the universe, or at least that's how I see it.

>>17484025
> too science-y.
It's an example of humans trying to explain magic.
Of course it's going to be too science-y, it's just like every thread we have trying to explain away the Warp.

>>17484025
>>17484731

We should find a philosophy major and have them put something together that even *they* consider too philosophical to be anything but bullshit. Then have them make it more needlessly complicated.

so you could easily say that this setting is as if the parallel universes of the Warp and the Materium were at peace and still fused together as one.

The different sides of the war between the Ideals of magic, as far as humanity can explain it, is apparently thanks to the kind of source they generate having an apparent relation to their personality and mental aptitude.

One side of the conflict, the side we met first, has what we now call Alpha source. Not that's it's any more effective than others, it was just the first source we discovered. We then learned that the other two major forces in this conflict have what we call Beta and Gamma sources.

The Flavor of an individuals source, if we can call it that, has little to do with race, and is more upbringing and mentality about how the world works. This is their energy, almost like saying one is gas, one is electric, and one is nuclear. But without the difference in strength between those that we usually label them with.

These sources are what "power" their magic. What cause the universe to change, to shift around them and suit their desires. However, just having this power doesn't mean you can do anything. Each of these sources lends itself to changing reality in a way that makes more sense to the individual. Alphas seem to grasp the idea that something can be here AND there. thus their source lends itself to the Effects that we have defined as teleportation magic. Betas see what is not there and decide there could be something, and their Effects are more about creating things that don't already exist. Gamma prefer to instead of modifying reality, but creating small new ones. Illusion is our crass term for defining these Effects.

>>17485152 cont.
When a source is preparing an effect they understand, it is often greater, or easier to perform. But when they attempt to do something that is against their source, against their version of the Ideals, It's harder. This is why they have focuses. A focus is like a planned chemical reaction. you take the source you have, put it through a certain kind of filter, and get a different kind of source out. Thus they are able to turn Alpha into Beta, or Beta into Gamma or whatever. Doing this, however, is quite taxing on the body and the mind. thus it can take additional source to create an effect that needed a focus. Imagine you're painting a picture. You only have primary colors of paint at the moment, so painting yellow, red, or blue is easy. But if you need green, you need to use up two of your colors in order to get green. And you probably won't get as much green out as you put in blue and yellow.
How good a person is at focusing, however, is individual. Some are better at Alpha to Beta, some are better at Gamma to Beta. This is apperently where species plays a part. Our "friends" the elves are good at Beta to Alpha, so only their Gamma sourced brethren are bad at Alpha Effects.

Oh yeah, Effects. The effect is simply what happens. The shooting lightning from your fingers, the disappearing from sight, the throwing that rock without actually touching it. This one you might get, because it takes in that new focused source. That Alpha you created for it, either by your own source or through your focus, and uses it to do... well something. What that something is however, is just based on how well you understand what Alpha can do. Simple example? Force push. Alpha does that. You can argue that it's creating wind to push people away so it's Beta, or it's creating a reality where suddenly that person is falling away from you with Gamma. They're all true. It's all dang perspective.

>>17485167 cont.
If you think that's confusing, try explaining to them how you know a mouse click is going to open a file, a trigger is going to shoot a gun, or electricity is what powers the lights in this room. Because they understand it about as much as you do magic. That is why, my friends, we stick to the guns, the squids stick to the magic, and the elves explain what needs to be done to the both of us.

Some alien races:

The Prosho: a race resembling Earth beetles in form. Unlike terran beetles, they are the size of elephants and lack eyes. Most Prosho live underground. The Prosho are masters at using magic for aiding in movement and changing the body. They have often used this to invade regions in their history and other worlds in great swarms. Prosho don't have a concept of nations, rather they give their loyalty to a Guide which are strange statues littered throughout the Prosho system that have a strange sentience.

Omada: A species of 2 metre...creatures that are best described as tentacled scaleless lizards with stone-like skin. Each individual omada is not truly just one individual, but a collection of at least three organisms. The tentacles are called yem, the small magic rich organism maintaining the stone skin are fezd, and the lizard-like creature is the oms. The omada have been called heretics and defilers by the more extremist factions, being known for their endeavors in trying to understand magic and mass producing many precious "artifacts".

archived at
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/17483106/

I still think we should split this off.
We have two, maybe even three or four concepts atm.

I think the biggest difference is humans and aliens being equal vs humans supplying weapons/mercenaries with a monopoly on technology and no way to cast magic.

Imo all humans should have a slight AMF, which makes magically sensitive beings uncomfortable in their presence and prevents mindfuckery to a certain extent.
Aliens, on the other hand, are about as capable of reverse-engineering human tech as a person from the middle ages would be.
Go ahead. Open your computer. Tell me it's easy to reverse-engineer.

So humans supply aliens in two ways - Technology and mercenaries.
With technology, I mean actual pieces of technology as opposed to the ideas behind it.
Only low-level technology would be sold as-is, meaning that it can be used fully without magic. It's also built in a way that makes reverse engineering extremely hard (maybe self-destruction if you try to open it or something).
The really awesome tech, though, is sold as half a product. Instead of giving the aliens a full-blown laser rifle, you give them a basic element that shoots the actual laser and tell them where to put the power source. These weapons are powered by magic, controlled by magic but utilize technology to become very versatile. Due to the combination of magic and technology, the technological aspects become essentially a black box, just a building block that aliens use and can't reproduce.
As for mercenaries, these are useful because they are harder to detect via magic (humans don't give anyone intelligence systems) and fool with illusions.

Why should humans have AMF in this concept?
Because otherwise an alien would come along, mindfuck a scientist and reverse-engineer the technology. Magic in this concept is far less complex than science, but that doesn't mean that the aliens won't be able to understand the stuff if they extract enough information.

bump

I wonder if bump girl would be removed by Nazi mod... Is he still a nazi, anyway? Haven't browsed /tg/ much the last few days.

If humans are the only allowable playable race, maybe only in rare occasions do you have an elf, Then humans can have the AMF field naturally. It doesn't unbalance the game because every group would have it, and instead the game is designed around the face that human mercenaries are assaulting strongpoints where all but the strongest magic is shut down by their presense.

If humans aren't the only choice, but a PC mercenary company might include a human commander, a human sharpshooter, an elf negotiator, a bug magic warrior, and a squid wizard. Then I don't think humans having AMF's really works. Natural resistance? maybe, but unless you need 100 of us in any one place or more to cause the field you'd be screwing over your team-mates. This part however gives the merc company magic to defend against magic with, and tech to fight magic with. Plus guns are all well and good but sometimes a fireball is what's necessary.

Maybe part of being human is every member of your party has a +1 resistance to magic, simply because you're around. If you got an all human party, it's +5! But you can still choose to take a bug alien, get the benefit of being around humans who somewhat negate magic, and still cast your spells.

In fact, it could be that humans started having to only go around in smaller groups. 5 humans have got some resistance, but if you try to assault an enemy stronghold with 100 humans, none of us and no one around us can be affected by healing, magical shielding, haste, and the like. so when the enemies teleport lava above our heads, we're screwed since lava isn't magic, moving it above our heads is.

Until we can properly combine tech and magic in a single soldier, we need tech and magic in a single unit. To much tech and it's weak to magic, too much magic and it's weak to tech. So it means merc groups of about 4-5 people, some humans and some aliens, would be perfect.

So how does humanity FTL since ftl is magic? Very few and slow ships?

>>17491136
Assisted slowboating within human space, FTL outside of it.
The regional AMF is not so intensely concentrated that magic is entirely impossible, but it takes a lot more energyto do small changes.
Primarily slowboats get minor enchantments of lightness to make them more fuel efficient, and it's also common to see 'quantum entangled' communicators providing FTL communication.
Yes, normally you can't force entanglement, but this is fucking magic. At least humans have science and reality to back them up; most aliens just have communicators that work just because they work.

>>17483337
What?

>>17491173
Yeah but human ftl would be slow and kind of rareish since humanity doesn't really magic and not as well as other races?

>>17491180
ignore him.
Humans HAVE souls, but they are naturally very 'dense' and introverted due to the AMF's influence on human evolution.
Aliens find humans as rather autistic, because of how unempathetic we are due to the introversion of our souls. Alien souls are much more expressive, and so they can read each other and communicate fairly easily, so it weirds them out to be unable to 'communicate' with humans the same way.
>>17491200
It is slow and rareish, for the reasons you described. There are tons of fast trading vessels that go back and forth from human space to alien space, but those function off of alien drives they purchased off the market, and are unable to function within human space.
Human FTL is much less effective, and is more focused on energy efficiency and capability within human space.

>>17491253
Oh I thought FTL was Magic

>>17491270
It is magic. You need magic in order to break the rules of reality without going boom.
The distinction that needs to be made is that AMFs are not magic-destroying deathzones, just magic buzzkills of varying strength. The stronger the AMF, the less magic can be used.

Human-space FTL drives use as little energy as possible to tweak the laws of thermodynamics, which means that you CAN produce more energy than you put in, if only barely and within the core only, while a few other small effects are also implemented to make the ship more fuel efficient by altering the energy mass and such.
One of the more interesting inventions would be the 'space-brake', which uses the resistive interaction between magic and human-space's AMF to create a slowing effect much like a drag-chute. It's large and expensive, but a hell of a lot safer and cheaper than wasting fuel slowing down and risking the destruction of anything that gets in the way of the reaction stream.

>>17491337
Ah.
About amfs, can they be made magically? With tech? If yes to either are they permanebt? Are there other natural amfs other than around Sol? If yes are they totalamfs like Sols or leaking ones (so that magic can be used inside)?

I keep thinking humans should be able to use magic. It's just crazy difficult for us. But if this was a real game SOMEONE is gonna want to play a human that throws fireballs.

Which we can allow, but it has... complications.
First, humans have that slight magic resistance, so casting spells on himself is more difficult than for an alien to do on itself.
Second, He can't possibly learn magic from other humans, or even in the same room at them. A think tank of scientists can't figure this out because they're suppressing it naturally. But a lone scholar who's learning from alien tutors (if anyone is willing to teach us) can figure it out.
Third, If he does learn magic, he can't really show off to any humans. We negate the effects just by trying to watch. Thus a human mage has to cut most if not all ties with humanity in order to learn magic. Most humans (and governments) see this as treason against our own race.
Fourth, we still aren't great at magic. Even after we tap into our Source and start throwing fireballs around, it can screw with our head and may potentially drive us nuts. But the benefit of having a human who can fire a Lasgun, deflect magic missles, and teleport past physical barriers is almost too good to pass up.

There are then, only three ways humans learn magic. 1. A government body has made an alliance with a mage school to teach some of our top agents in the ways of magic in return for our tech. 2. A seperate sect of aliens wishes to speed up humanities "eventual" integration with the Ideals of magic so they teach curious humans about magic, but force them to cut all ties with humanity to do so. Some people will choose magic over family. 3. A lucky soul happens to make friends with an alien who is willing to personally teach them magic. Of course doing so may ruin the aliens reputation (or even get him killed) and the human won't be good at all types of magic, just those the alien he learned from knew.

This concept is a clusterfuck...
I think we reached creative overflow with two factions trying to enforce opposing viewpoints.

>>17491506
Agreed. We've gone as far as this brainstorming can take us, somebody actually needs to start analyzing the information and ideas and start actually writing out the bare-bones of the setting.

>>17491469
AMF's are funny. Easy to make, hard to beat. The field itself only exists for as long as the generating device functions, which is what makes human space so weird: it's a natural AMF generator on a cosmological scale.

Up until Humanity showed up, most alien civilizations could only skirmish at best, as everyone used AMF's to shield themselves from assaults, making outright warfare something that just didn't happen. There were pirates and raiders who got clever, but most of the galaxy was at peace for lack of ability to effectively war, reducing conflict to political muckery and economic subterfuge.

Suddenly, here come the humans with their impossibly advanced, AMF immune technology, and now the galaxy is on edge because humanity could tip the scales any way they wanted, if they were given the freedom to.
Thus, all the groups with any real political power are trying to keep the humans suppressed, while all the smaller groups are trying to get the humans to support them in their bids for power.

>>17491506
>>17491536
Agreed. I've been trying to keep things on 'track' through molding the setting into a 'everything is true in moderation' setup, similar to how 40k manages to handle it's own clusterfuck by virtue of everything have a one-in-a-million chance, while having a billion world to have that chance on.

>>17491573
You've actually kinda been pulling it off track, not gonna lie. Let's not try and make this 40k-Lite mmk?

>>17491609
What was the track again?
I honestly don't remember if it even had one.

>>17491646
The original track was that humanity had no need of magic at all, period, we achieved FTL without it and we are thoroughly independent of it. Most of the aliens are starfish-aliens in the style of Lovecraft (completely non-humanoid and thoroughly alien to our thought processes) and the Ideals of Magic are a vague nebulous concept that are the complete and exact opposite of the Laws of Physics and are utterly inexplicable to our human brains.

>>17491703
Yeah, it was about humanity being awesome by virtue of being handicapped. Useful as mercenaries and the like, because no-one can counter technology properly.

>>17491703
Humanity originally didnt have frl because we had no need for it since we hadnt even left Sol

>>17491703
>>17491742
Ahhhh.
Shit.
That's what I get for not digging through the whole first thread.

Humanity could wreck house all over the universe, if the aliens would just give us enough FTL and defensive magic to do it.
Any one group of aliens could own the universe, if humanity joined them entirely.
None of the alien groups want to let another alien group have that chance, so they all agree to limit humanity to it's own system until they can figure out what to do with us. Which primarily means how they can use us to their own ends.

Although humanity as a whole is denied a chance outside of Sol, individual, or small groups, of humans are allowed to roam the galaxy and learn about magic. (weither or not we can cast it) Although this sounds like they're being nice to us and not simply blockading us in our own system, it's really that each side of the conflict wants human tech. So although they agree to lock the majority of us away, they still hire us as mercenaries to fight in their little battles.
Although the governments of Sol are trying to regulate which humans end up in foreign wars, they can't stop all of us from getting out and mucking us alien relations.

Zklegnap the Wise teleported in with a pop. "Archmage, I have returned from my expedition to the null zone around Zur-3. I have wonderful news!"
Archmage Naeril was intrigued. "What sort of news?"
"We have discovered a sentient species within the zone."
Naeril furrowed his brow. "If this is a Truth, I think it must be limited. The Ideals define sentience and magic to be inseparable."
"Archmage, this is no limited Truth. The Truth of their existence has passed all the tests of eternity. The beings we found are called 'humans,' but that's not all. Archmage… they appeared to be of elvenkind."
The archmage's eyes grew wide. "The Old-brother race? In a null zone? But, how can they remain sentient?"
Zklegnap made a simple gesture with his lower arms. "I believe that the Sect of the Objective has the answer."
"Absurd! The Sect of the Objective are a cult of myopics! They believe they can suppress the sentient to become one with some 'absolute Truth of the universe.' They reject the Absence of the Absolute, a fundamental Ideal of Magic! If a tree falls in a forest, the sound it makes is dependent on the Mind of the listener! Every learner knows that!"

Zklegnap paused for a moment; what were trees, again? He never bothered much with Elven culture. He continued, "even so, archmage, it was the Sect's discourse that led to the creation of the Anti-Magic spell, which was not long ago believed to be impossible. These humans have developed their own Ideal, which they call 'science.' By adhering to strict guidelines, they can suppress the subjective enough that their truth is, within their null zone, nearly absolute. They have even managed to replicate fairly advanced spells using their 'science.' They can even war with one another just as well as we were able to war before the advent of anti-magic."
There was an awkward pause. "You mean," the archmage began, "they have offensive magic that is unaffected by anti-magic?"
"Erm, I don't think it's fair to call it magic-"
"Mere semantics. If word of this gets out, every military in the galaxy will be clamoring for the humans and their…. 'science.' We need to take control of the situation quickly."
"What do you suggest?"
"'Elvenkind and the Old-brothers must one day reunite…' so the proverb goes. I must send word to the king. The Ujmrog expedition will find the humans as well. When they learn of this, every military in the galaxy will want the humans' 'science-mages.' The Elf kingdom and, by extension, the entire Kerath League must ally with the humans as quickly as possible."

The story is ok...
Kind of high on exposition. It also implies that the magic side is able to find out shitloads about humans, maybe even learn their tech from the sidelines.

>>17492839
>every military in the galaxy
>every military in the galaxy
Crap. That's what I get for not proofreading.

>>17492869

Yes, it's meant to be exposition. I had a bunch of thoughts while walking the dog and wanted to get them all out. Also, I had the idea that trans-linguistic communication was possible outside of AMF, hence all they've learned in that time.

I was the guy who came up with the Mars = Ancient Elven homeworld before being saved by some ancient alien race idea in the first thread. Haven't been keeping up with this much, busy lately, but has anyone thought of anything better / has it been replaced?

>>17493082
So far as I know that might as well be canon. I don't think anyone has rejected it anyway.

Short, crappy writefaggotry.

There I was out in Secta City, just browsing through the new shipments from the rest of the system, thinking about buying some of that comet dust, needing it to complete one of my research papers when out of nowhere I see a ship enter the atmosphere. Different from any other ship I've seen. It didn't have any crystals or runes at all, at least none I've ever seen and I've seen a lot, you hear. Anyway, the thing seemed to be breaking apart, I saw pieces of it break away. As it got nearer, I saw that there was FIRE coming out of it! Well I've heard about some ships using the flame element to propel themselves, but I never thought I would see one. Then it got nearer, and nearer and when it was REALLY close to the city there was this weird thing about it. I sensed absolutely NO MAGIC in it at all! Whatever the thing was, it wasn't in the best condition and it got into even worse when it hit the Tower Golm. Well of course the tower didn't blow to bits, "built to withstand and all". Well after that, I cast a spell and flew up there myself to see what the hell was wrong with the ship...


...And I won't be telling you the rest until you get me another barrel.