• Nobles of Null is a forum based roleplay site where sci-fi and magic collide. Here, Earth remains fractured and divided despite humanity reaching out to the stars. Worse still, the trans-human slaves of one major power have escaped, only to establish their own Empire, seething with resentment at abuses of the past. Even the discovery of aliens, though medieval in development, has failed to rally these squabbling children of Earth together with its far darker implications. Worse still, is the discovery of the impossible - magic. Practiced by the alien locals, nearly depleted and therefore rare, its reality warping abilities remains abstract and distant to the general populace. All the while, unseen in the darkness of space, forces from without threaten to press in. For those with eyes opened by insight, it is clear that an era is about to end, and that a new age will dawn.

Node System and Magic Q&A

Ray of Meep

Administrator
Wiki Moderator
Put all your questions and concerns about how magic and the node system works here. Here are some wiki articles to review first:


 

Piston1937

Member
Wiki Moderator
So what is negranite? All it says on the wiki (https://noblesofnull.com/wiki/negranite) is
"

Negranite (Neg - ran - Ite)

The Superluminal material used in the construction of faster than light engines. Discovered by American Union scientist Jacob Negran while developing negative gravity particles. Highly unstable in the absence of highly negative charges. When subjected to enormous electrical current, Negranite “squeezes” space time itself in a straight line ahead of the path of travel. allows for a “brute force” application of power to thrust, enabling FTL speeds to an object.

"

This doesn't explain how it was made or left there or naturaly formed or anything beyond that it allows FTL to be a thing. I think it should be expanded upon in at least some more detail pertaining to it's creation, it's general properties(Density, Color, Strength, Fracturability and others.) and how that pertains to the nodes, psionics, and other systems.
 

Piston1937

Member
Wiki Moderator
Nodal placement. I have noticed that it is not actualy written on the wiki where the nodes are placed. According to Edto "There are nodes on every planet except Gas giants." While I have heard from other people that nodes are only on planets that are habitable and or mildly habitable. A decision on this should be made as to how prevelant the nodes actualy are and if they are on all worlds (Allowing people to instantly travel to everywhere on every planet in every solar system in the galaxy as long as it is not a gas giant) or if it should be restricted to habitable worlds.
 

Piston1937

Member
Wiki Moderator
How does magic affect none living things at high pressures/Amperage? Can magical metals be created naturaly through long enough contact with magic alone? Can materials be altered through use of magic(Can we reinforce steel hulls through spells? Can we make ships out of magic wood that somehow survive the vcacume of space? Can we make substances that allow the creation of floating islands?).
 

TheFirstOne

Administrator
Wiki Moderator
Nodal placement. I have noticed that it is not actualy written on the wiki where the nodes are placed. According to Edto "There are nodes on every planet except Gas giants." While I have heard from other people that nodes are only on planets that are habitable and or mildly habitable. A decision on this should be made as to how prevelant the nodes actualy are and if they are on all worlds (Allowing people to instantly travel to everywhere on every planet in every solar system in the galaxy as long as it is not a gas giant) or if it should be restricted to habitable worlds.

My exact statement was "There are nodes on most planets, except for ones that would kill you instantly once you step foot on them, like Jupiter. The node isn't going to send a person onto a planet that will just immediately kill them even with an environmental suit."

This can also include terrestrial planets, like Venus, or Mercury, even Pluto. Please quote me correctly.
 

CadetNewb

Administrator
Staff member
Wiki Moderator
The thing about Negranite is that it's @Bullroarer 's creation, however, we did need an FTL material and decided it would be okay to grandfather in. The current direction we're planning on taking it is to say it's something that the Nodal system deposits into new areas that it's grown into, which for the vast majority of places, was eons ago. Negranite is essentially meant to be civilization fertilizer that encourages colonization of nearby systems not accessible by the Nodes themselves. Theoretically, if a new Node is established entirely, things on the planet will change and potentially have new deposits of Negranite created. However, that is so far off into the metaplot, that it is not worth exploring as a concept yet until a plot nears this point.

Regarding Nodes, we're actively working on that and I'll be off Sunday to hammer out more details.

As for very high magic concentration, these "Primordial" areas do not entirely obey the rules of reality. Miracles such as Beskar Mithril occur here, but you can just as easily get liquid mimic-metal trying to skewer people while asking if it has a soul. Magic alone in its raw form like this is change, entropy and disorder. If you want to actually create a magic based hyperalloy, you need spells, incantations and rituals to control the change that magic naturally brings with its presence. Also, I suggest clicking on the magic link and reading the information I have there. It mentions some details regarding both the scenario of pure concentration as well as magical item creation.
 

Piston1937

Member
Wiki Moderator
Right mini rant here but they overall question is "Why do we have Terrestrial Nodes and can we replace them with Portal magic instead?" Everything following this is an explanation of why I am asking this question.

As far as I can see there is very little reason for having Terrestrial Nodes and they might even be considered a bad idea. I have minimal issues with the rest of the node system but the fact that we are expected to believe that magical races are expected to have space based assests used for travel (A VERY expensive thing in both time resources and willpower) when they can just travel between habitable (and even most non habitable) worlds with these gates is streching my willing disbelief. Yes there is the problem of mass but if that just means going through it with a bunch of people holding grocery bags and full packs instead of BUILDING A SPACE SHIP it is more likely nations would pick the less expensive option (Mana is theoreticaly infinite so opening a portal costs only time as long as you have enough mages or heartstones to open it) and simply take more trips using the terrestrial nodes.

From a militaristic perspective these nodes also are a severe weakness as almost anyone with the magical talent can just open it and send through an army. This can be minimized by defenses and such but considering the enemy in terms of logistics, set up and preperation is under only as much strain as the opposing force can send back through the node (Which if they are attacking through it seems unlikely) then they can simply sit back and send nearly wave after wave or even suicide bomb the area.

From a logistical perspective it's a godsend but not in a good way for so early on in the setting. It's cheap to use, can carry just about anything a person can carry, allows for FTL travel making communications inter and intra planetary, stellar and possibly galactic as easy as walking through the node and saying "Blah Blah Blah." Even if there was some major drawback like some percent of the people who use this would die it would still probably be used (We still use cars even though a lot of people die a year to them). It also makes intra system logistics super simplified because you can just take a jaunt through the node and bam halfway across the planet or the solar system. This would make technology such as cars, planes and other major transportations (Or their magical equivilants) mostly obselete.

With the rant about how terrestrial nodes make technology almost pointless to develop over I'd like to suggest an alternative.

Instead of having terestrial nodes that are always on and just given to every speices why not just have highly developed magical races build magical star gates? This would require them to actualy go to other places to build the star gates, facilitating proper logistical setups and exploration. This would allow for more plots to be created based on exploration, as well as make said plots a lot more interesting because they don't have the "Oh well thats enough for the day I'm gonna warp home an sleep in my warm bed." Excuse until they build and power a stargate.

This also removes most of the military problems created by the node system where the nodes allow for infinite travel for armies and such a stargate could simply be destroyed forcing the enemy to create a beachhead before having access to this logistical godsend again.

This also allows for things like power requirements to be given to portals, Maybe they devour heartstones at an obsene rate? Maybe they require certain reagents to activate, Maybe they require certain constelations be in the sky? (Side Tangent : Personaly I'd prefer a type of astral sorcery where mages call upon the power of the constelations to allow travel to certain areas requiring study of an area and mapping of it's stars and constelations before accurate travel is possible. (Accounting for stellar drift could be interesting as well)) This could make things like magical space ships actualy viable as stargates could be specific time use or very expensive to use. As well as allowing for enforcement of some variation of time dialation or something similar to put it on level with something like an SLE or Fold drive Whether that's in charge time or it just takes a long time to cross the portal works either way.

Now if we replaced stargate with terrestrial node that would be fine allowing portal creation to connect eachother through some planet bound node where magical pours out of is a fine idea as long as it isn't just handed to them on a silver platter that they can travel inter stellar distances without much more difficulty than asking a mage to rip the universe a new one. Hell my suggestion is probably not even the best way to go about it given a well funded civilzation could take partial advatage of it, but that's not the point. The point is to point out that as it is terrestrial nodes are too powerful for their own good and put that into contrast with a similar system that is slightly less broken.
 
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