The Imperial Air Force

Summary:

Top Gun for Wizards

The Imperial Air Force

RavenB 16 Dec 2006 18:58

Now that Mystic has written a great little story about the Aeromancers of the Imperial Air Force, I'd like to hear more about how this organization is put together and how its spelltech works. Mystic, it would be great if you could put together wiki entries on the major elements you introduced in this story — the Wyvern 4, the mana engines, and anything you already know about the IAF. And if you haven't worked out the details of how something works, let us know — this is a perfect place for us to do some brainstorming on it. :)

Re: The Imperial Air Force

Mystic 16 Dec 2006 22:05

I will certainly attend to these matters. Give me a day to put my thoughts down in some coherent organized form and then I'll post stuff to the wiki and we can all discuss/alter it as necessary. :)

Re: The Imperial Air Force

Mystic 17 Dec 2006 17:26

Bleh. I'm no good at coherent organized forms, so here's an idea hash.

The Imperial Air Force, Aerofighters, Wyvern 4's, and Mana Engines

I'm thinking of synching up the history of air weapons with the two most recent world wars as in our own world's history. It would have started with contraptions that were little more than bundles of sticks designed to serve as a floating platform from which wizard's could hover above a battle and report enemy troop movements and lob the occasional fireball. Over time the wizards would discover that even as there exist specific gesticulations and constructs that can be used to evoke spells much as a wand or staff might. This leads to the birth of Aeromancy, defined as magic that is brought forth with the use of an aerocraft. The devices become more elaborate as the discipline matures and the role changes from aerial platform, to giant sky wand, to a vessel that must do combat with other such vessels.

The Imperial Air Force, and in fact any magical air force, doesn't truly incarnate as a modern military institution until after the most recent world war in the MK2K universe. Wizards are a hidebound lot when in comes to their independent streaks, or guild clannishness depending on the tradition they came up in. It was the ever escalating cost of aerocraft (rare-metals, mana engines, and imbued thaumaturgic fields do not come cheap) that finally managed to break these traditions, as only powerful governments could afford the cost of building these devices. Luring a few Aeromancers away with the shiney toys was all it took for the governments to begin training their own cadres of wizards, leaving less affluent guilds and lone-wolves behind with yesterdays technology.

In light of this history the IAF both resembles and directly seeks to be cosmetically different from the Guilds that trained its original instructors. They utilize a 9 rank system similar to that of the southern mage clans of old, but have deliberately tossed aside the color designations in favor of numbered tiers. The least skilled of Aeromancers is there referred to as being 1st Tier, whereas the masters of the art are 9th Tier. The ranking system also incorporates, in addition to inherant power and skill in the manipulation there of, an element of tactical acumen.

In practice most combat aeromancers are around 3rd Tier, as by the time many mages have risen higher they are less physically able to cope with the g-forces and reflexes needed for aerial combat. They instead take on command and coordination roles from the ground.

Mana Engines represent the state of the art in aerocraft propulsion. They work like aether filters, pulling mana to the material plane and converting it into energy. I suppose it might be possible for a large number of aerocraft to create a temporary mana thinness in localized area if they were involved in prolonged flight in sufficient numbers.

Few modern aerofighters make more than passing concessions to aerodynamics. Thaumaturgic fields are used to easy the vessels passage through the air and reinforce the structure against g-stresses, while the mana engines provide the propulsion needed to make them go. While paying more attention to traditional flight would allow the devices to be constructed more cheaply, it would frequently come at the cost of aeromantic utility or maneuverability.

The Wyvern 4 is the mainstay of the IAF's aerofighter force. It has often been jokingly referred to as looking like "the love-child of a seagull and bat" by Metamor's pilots. It features a pair of arching wings extending from a boxy, vaguely rounded fueslage. A birdlike legs allow for landing in a variety of a terrain, and they tuck up close to the body during flight. The wings are almost full rotatable allowing the ship impressive maneuverability. The cockpit is stocked with automatic scroll dispensers that can provide an Aeromancer with a variety of precast spells, and sealed bins of reagents for use in combat. These are dispersed with squeeze bulbs that allow a mage access to small quantities without spilling the entire container in the event he or she is currently inverted. A pair of cannons are mounted on the front of the fighter. They carry enough conventional ammunition for thirty seconds of continuous fire before being exhausted. They also feature rune lined channels that can funnel power from the mana engines at a variety of intensities into a kind of arcane energy dart. There is a tertiary gun mounted higher on the left side of the cockpit loaded with twenty bullets of varying rare metals for spells that require the projectile as a focal point at a distance or serve some other arcane purpose.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions welcome.

Re: The Imperial Air Force

Mystic 04 Jan 2007 12:54

Posted an article on mana engines, but I've never been all that good at pseudo-science so if anyone has a better idea, speak up :)

Re: The Imperial Air Force

RavenB 05 Jan 2007 01:48

I like it, overall. I may make a few tweaks for spelling or clarity, but in essence it's about what I would have expected when you first used the term "mana engine".

One item of note is that mana engines probably wouldn't work very well in outer space. This is something Ryx touched on in our early conversations about MK2K, but it makes sense that mana is generally associated with places that have a lot of life, energy or activity, while the low-energy void of interplanetary space is probably very mana-poor. (Whether this is because life begets mana or mana begets life is another question…) Mana engines might work well enough for low-orbit and suborbital vehicles, but I expect that the Imperial Space Command has to depend on more conventional rocket engines for propulsion.

Other thoughts?

Re: The Imperial Air Force

Mystic 05 Jan 2007 02:16

I really do appreciate the editing work on the things I post, and apologize for making it necessary. :)

Space thing noted, and does indeed raise interesting theoretical questions. The idea of the ISC existing at all took me by a bit of surprise when I read about it elsewhere on the site. Most of the advanced tech in MK2K has been explained through the use of magic/tech blending. Do you have any ideas yet what kind of tech standalone would allow for what sounded like significantly more advanced space program than our own?

Re: The Imperial Air Force

RavenB 06 Jan 2007 16:03

<nods> I do have a few notions about that…

1.) While ambient mana is scarce in space, it is possible to carry some mana with you. The development of various types of "mana batteries" — the Wyvern's bank of familiars comes to mind — would allow for various low-intensity applications of magic aboard ISC spacecraft. Mana engines depend on ambient mana and are thus unfeasible, but most common charms and enchantments could still work long enough for a typical space mission's purposes. (For space stations, mana batteries could be replaced as part of their regular supply runs.)

2.) Many applications of magic that would be useful to the ISC could be done on Earth prior to launch. Manufacturers might use magic in the process of crafting transparent metal alloys, nanotube meshes and cables, etc., but these substances are stable once created and would not require magic to maintain their existence. Hardening and shatterproofing enchantments could also be cast on materials intended for spaceflight, and these would require a relatively small drain on mana batteries in comparison to doing new magic in space.

3.) A large part of the reason why spaceflight has advanced so little in our own world is that there has been little interest in funding it; much of the money that might have gone to space exploration has instead gone to expenditures on military hardware, or to expensive research into fighting diseases. The world of MK2K has had the ability to heal or prevent most diseases through magic for centuries, and many of the root causes that lead to disease epidemics (such as poor sanitation) can also be addressed with modest expenditures of magical effort. Spell-resistant diseases are a concern, but overall the need for expensive medical research has been far less in MK2K than in our RL Earth. As for military weaponry, I suspect that the lack of a world superpower to rival Metamor has made the Empire much less likely to spend billions of marks on arms races like the United States and Russia engaged in. (In addition, much of the magic that was useful in war a hundred years ago is likely to remain so now, which would further reduce research expenses.) Without so much money flowing to the military-industrial complex, more funds are available for constructive efforts, such as making space exploration profitable.

4.) The MK world's mundane technology has advanced faster than our own. This is partly because of advanced knowledge that the pantheon conveyed to mortals: even in Thomas V's day, for instance, the sages were aware that the Earth was one of many planets orbiting around the sun. The gods had come from the stars, after all, so the idea that space was explorable (and that there were things out there that worth exploring) has been present in the collective consciousness a lot longer than on RL Earth.

For the most part, though, this rapid advancement has occurred because knowledge was much more durable: since the dawn of human history, MK's sages have been preserving their great books of wisdom with magic that made them extraordinarily resistant to normal wear and tear. In Thomas V's time, for instance, Rickkter came into possession of the original manuscript of the Journal of Anef the First, a wizard-king who had lived more than 10,000 years prior. The book was laden with many protective enchantments that had preserved it, unharmed, for longer than any piece of writing in our world.

Because of these protections, many key technological advancements have been preserved that might otherwise have been lost with (for example) the fall of the Suielman Empire. Civilization never fell as far, or as fast, in MK as it did in RL Europe, and it recovered faster. That's also why I placed the two world wars earlier in MK2K's timeline than in our own: the technologies and general cultural interconnectedness that make "world wars" possible came into being much earlier.

All things considered, I wouldn't find it unreasonable if some aspects of MK2K technology are 50-100 years ahead of our own. This isn't a universal thing, but I can believe that the visionary people of MK2K could have found a way to capture asteroids and drag them into Earth orbit for mining — which is the critical development that needs to be possible for the climax of the story arc to take place.

If anyone else has any thoughts on this, I'd welcome them…