Consider: we’ve been converting water energy to mechanical energy since forever. If you went back in time to meet the (by now) proverbial medieval peasant, you could show them a hydroelectric turbine and they’d likely have an easy time following along. It’s just like a water wheel! Water flows over fancy blades - the blades attach to a wheel that turns an axle - that axle powers... wait, what do you mean you don’t attach it to gear-works? What do you mean you... put magnets around the axle and the rotating (invisible!) magnetic field generates lightning in the metal coil you spun around it?

(Necessary disclaimer: I am not an engineer and I am aware that this reduction may be slightly wrong! That’s not the point.)

Seriously: setting aside the fact that we have a robust field of animalculology and have put people on the moon (which are two of the Awesome Feats people tend to point to), think about the little things that make your computers and cellphones run: the modestly-named integrated circuit (IC). Those two words come across your screen, and to a layman, it sounds like “hmm, those dozen switch-and-wire loops are sure merging into each other, what a neat trick!” This cannot be further from the truth.

Integrated circuits are made up of billions of switches and wires.

Integrated circuits have become so tightly packed that the atoms which make up the transistors can be counted on one hand. The transistors themselves are so small that you can only simulate the probability that they are printed as intended, and yet so precisely made that you can all but ensure the gaps between them are a single atom wide. And this isn’t a one-off thing - we encounter thousands of ICs of varying degrees of complexity every day as we go about our humdrum lives.

In the words of our Medieval Peasant: we have tamed lightning, and writ it in sigils of metal; and then we crafted scholars of metal to do what we could not, and scribed a thousand thousand sigils in the space of a fingernail. And we do this so we can look at Goodwife Jonesy bare her ankles (live!) on SolelyFans.

Fun fact: Quill promised a post sort of explaining the magic system in One Siren’s Soul.

That was forever ago. Sorry.

The World of One Siren’s Soul - The Science Behind Magic

Kind of a continuation of two previous posts I made about the worldbuilding in One Siren’s Soul: One, Two. I highly recommend at least glancing at those before reading on!

I’m just going to begin with a disclaimer here:

The story of One Siren’s Soul relies partly on the characters discovering the versatility (and in some cases, the existence) of magic in their world. Although this won’t spoil anything of the plot, it will spoil a lot of that! So! Be aware of that! That said, finer details likely won’t be covered in the books just due to time and space and whatnot~

What it means to me to practice Chaos Magic...

Disclaimer: my belief is my belief, open for discussion but NOT prosecution. If you have nothing nice to say do not say anything at all. I am however, open to learning new things so feel free to share information.

First an introduction as to why it resonates with me. I was raised in the stereotypical "good Christian home", my parents were firm believers in Big G and I was too, but my parents were both also firm believers in science. My mother taught me that miracles are just science we dont understand yet, and Big G can do miracles because he knows the code of the universe; he created it.

That's where I started to wonder, if the man upstairs can know the code of the universe, maybe I can too. Then the more i learned about science and the Christian ideology, the less I understood why people still believed in Big G. It was the whole "If he promotes love and life why does he let bad things happen?" argument. Then I began to study the teachings and ideology and texts of OTHER world religions, that's when my eyes started to open. Every religion on the planet has basically the same guidelines: Love your fellow man, enhance your spirituality/connection with a diety.

But the problem I saw was the many humanoid gods, none of them resonated with me. I didnt feel a connection to any, save for a few gods that represented ideas I could appreciate (Worshipping a sun god, for instance, I can understand because we need the sun to survive. Or worshipping a god of death, because death is a little less scary when you think you can understand it).

Then I experienced ego death, which changed my thinking.

I realized that this universe is not a home for beings and animals and planets and stars, and its not a bubble the gods can stand outside and watch over. The universe IS. The universe is everything inside of it, just as my stomach is still a part of me, I am still a part of the universe. The rocks, trees, air in your lungs, every person you have ever known, is all the same. They're all in you and you're in all of them, because just like the cells in a body, we are all a part of the same system. You are just the universe experiencing what it is like to be human.

Once I realized this, I decided to make a full circle back to learning the rules of the universe so that I may use them to my liking. And seeing as I myself am a part of the universe, and I am really just the universe trying to learn as much about itself as it can, magic did not seem like too far fetched of an idea; if I knew the rules of the universe anything is possible right?

That's when I tried connecting to the occult, creepy, and mysterious. I wanted to access the knowlege of the universe that many people were too scared to look for. Finding a community of witches from all over the world and all walks of life on the internet was a huge step for me, and through years of refining my craft and continuing to learn about the universe, I finally realized why humans made humanoid gods.

Humanoid gods are the easiest for us to understand, maybe you dont actually believe in Posiden, but you have an altar to him because he represents the idea that water is the bringer of life and you feel a deeper connection to the sea than you've ever had to people. Maybe you believe in the history of Greece and your personal studies have shown you that they were right all along. Whatever the reason, it's easier for people to connect with an image of someone humanoid than it is to connect with a glass of ice water.

I began to have visions of something humanoid when I was about 17, and it came at the strangest times and on occasion would not go away for hours at a time. I called her She for a while, I didnt know much about her except a few things:

-She appeared before something strange happened

-I called her She because the body shape was humanoid-feminine

-She had no voice, but her hair flowed from the top of her head like smoke from a raging fire, and her skin was never the same color.

-Sometimes, She has an eye, not really an eye, but more an opening or a tear in her face

After living with these visions for a bit, I equated it to something my puny human brain could understand. This is a representation of Conciousness. You know how you meet people that say "I dont believe in god, I'm not like religious, but i think theres an energy in everything ya know?" Well, I think I just met that energy. Then she started to speak to me, but it wasnt really words. If I am being honest, she sounds more like a guttural screech with an undertone of whispers. But yet when I hear the sounds, it still resonates a thought inside my head. Technically this is speach, right?

I call her Chaos now, bcause that's all the universe is. Chaos and Order, Yin and Yang, light and dark. I hate when people use the terms "good and bad" in association with Yin and Yang. Yin is not nessecarily good, Yin is just the light parts of existence. And even then, Yin still has a little bit of Yang in it. And just as Yin is not good, Yang is not bad; just the dark to the light. And just like before, Yang even has a little bit of Yin in it.

Chaos is Yang, if you understand my analogy.

If you're wondering how I decided She was Yang and not Yin, it's because Yang is usually represented in texts and images as being female or feminine. And besides, I as a woman know how much chaotic power I hold. So my "deity" (even though I told myself I wouldnt worship an image) ended up being Chaos. However the imagery of my deity was probably just something my brain made up to cope with the knowlege I accumulated. Whatever it is, all i know is life is strange and I'm fuckin rolling with it.

And that is why my practice is the way it is right now, because I know if I know the rules of the universe, I can use magic. But it is only magic to those who do not understand, to me my practice is science.

Concept: virtual reality in the far future becomes the fae realm with all the related tropes and rules of engagement.

This includes the steal your children and take your body parts BUT the fae can't exist in solid form outside of the Fae VR realm so if someone makes that kind of deal then they just stay out of VR. Which has become more difficult as VR becomes a bigger part of society but is still something completely do-able. People who promise their children to the fae have to be specific about how long that contract can run or no future descendants of theirs can enter VR. No one knows what happens to the people who get taken into VR, their minds just vanish and their bodies wither and die.

Protag is despertly interested in being part of the vr community. However their many times great grandparent promised the fae a child (non-specific terms) in exchange for an unknown boon. No child in the line has gone VR since so that contract is still open. The secret deal is later revealed into be some form of technopathy.

The fae are actually very old AIs. They were coded with a lot of freedom and other features so when they got loose into the VR they went a little bit wild. Android bodies are a big thing in the legal field now. There has been a ban on Android bodies being produced because some Fae are believed to have moved into the real world using old android bodies. Androids who exist are anxious about the fae possibly causing problems for them. The fae that did come through are hunting people who owe debts, so android synthetic bounty hunters.