Does magic exist to crew members?

[Helios]

Lots of modes are going from science fiction to fantasy, be it wizards, cults, old and new, hand of God, or maybe eveb blob depending on who you ask. There was even reports of vampires at one point.
To the average crew member, does magic actually exist? Or is it some vague idea about high tech people in the wizard federation.
If gods and magic do exist, is a lack of department dealing with/harnessing it a deliberate choice by Centcomm or an oversight?

[Zilenan91]

We don't really have lores about this but yeah, magic does exist since we're allowed to know everything about every antagonsit.

[Takeguru]

We aren't expected to roleplay any "first contact" scenarios or anything, every crewman is at least aware that wizards and cults and shit can go down in any given shift, at least when the blue alert is declared.

Basically, nothing knowledge wise is off limits to anyone.
Which is why it's not punishable OOC to dunk a "friendly" wizard before he's done anything overtly wrong, or to kill and gib cult members so they can't be summoned back to their base.

It's powergamey, but that's not something that's outright banned, just looked down on.

[1g88a]

Sometimes I think its fun to express a personal skepticism towards a certain antag type.

"Revenants? I ain't afraid of no ghost" "Abductors are a myth" etc.

[Ricotez]

don't forget that SS13 is just basically Sci-Fi Tropes: The Game, and magic in scifi has been a thing since star wars

[peoplearestrange]

Yeah I always thought as the wizard federations as actually being a group of incredibly technically minded geeks who loved there DnD a bit too much. They created a lot of nanotech that could be woven in to robes and would grant the illusion of wizardry power. When in actual fact its bluespace and weapons tech disguised in staffs and robes.
There main goal is for people to pay attention or for once appear on the top rung, then after years and years stories became legends and it was hard to separate fact from fable and people started to assume it was genuine magic, though the more technically minded mostly see through the stories.

[Cheimon]

I think it does, sure. Wizards are in the law books (with pictures!), they frequently pop in to say hello, and there's no reason based on the behaviour of the Space Wizards Federation to assume that the existence of magic is kept in any way secret. If anything, it's really big news that everyone is entirely aware of, but is unable to replicate (wizards are infamously hard to capture alive, after all, and it's even harder to get them to talk and not just mindswap you).

I *love* the idea that magic is totally real (and not just some sufficiently advanced technology) because it completely subverts the expectations of a sci-fi audience in the same way that having a professional clown and mime on staff does. It takes the plausible and makes it funnier and sillier, but in a good way. Besides, if it was actual tech it should be easy enough to replicate once captured (at least by a corp called *nano*trasen), and past experience shows it's nothing of the sort. We are certain, for example, that the robes are 'just robes': after all, a wizard that buys a costume crate will find those robes work as well as his. How else can we explain that but as magic (or really hardcore, to the death, acting)?

World ender cults are also something people are aware exist, given they like to leave really fucking obvious bloody runes everywhere. But they're not so surprising: cults have been a feature of sci-fi probably even before Games Workshop decided to implement lovecraftian horror into their 'Warhammer' universe. The runes are powered by the god, the god is powered by magic, this is easy to understand and clear to see. That *might* be a sufficiently advanced technology, but clearly tomes don't do anything useful with nanotrasen's current analysis technology (which is basically just 'shove it in the deconstructive analyser').

Nanotrasen doesn't have a department on it because they can't control it yet. Maybe there's a new station under construction just for that. They do, however, keep a staff member hired that can dish out holy water, and that's a sort of magic because, like with the mime's walls, only he can create it.

[InsaneHyena]

There's no RP on this server, and anybody who says he's roleplaying is a yiffing lizard. Thus, there's absolutely no reason not to rush the wizard and bash his head in with a toolbox, because that's what everybody does.

[Jazaen]

It depends on your headcannon. Following Clarke's third law, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Or it can be actual magic. Or beding energies of the universe in a weird way, whatever that means. We already have what either is a naked singularity or a few-meter wide black hole that doesn't pull entire station into itself, we have FTL, we have our abomination of a chemistry system, we have actual souls and gods from other dimensions paying visit each sunday to either clash which colour, red or blue, is better or convert/eat/replace us all, we have ultra-fast growing plants, our humans are stupidly robust, we have ancient beings of shade that can transcend and convert with just a gaze, we have a goddarn flying balls of energy in forms of anomalies and tesla, genetic superpowers, each spessman can operate every piece of equipment onboard, NT makes new research stations that research equipment ages below what centcom already has, we have talking animals and spessmagic slimes, vending machines that can rise and kill us all, we LAUGH at conservation of energy on a daily basis, we have lizards that mechanically are indistinguishable from humans and are biologically compatible (as in, medicine works the same way on them, they can eat the same food, you can transplant body parts from one into another). Speaking of transplantation, there are no such things as organ incompatibility, you can take a brain from one human, stick it into other one, apply electrical pulse that can RESSURECT THE DEAD WHO HAD THEIR ENTAILS RIPPED OUT and have the neurons magically reconnect. We have self-replicating blob (speaking of conservation of energy...), gods from beyond other gods that can do ANYTHING to us, beings who force spessmens to suffer and sometimes act retarded for fun, AND WATER IN WATER FOUNTAINS WITHOUT CANALIZATION.

Maybe all spesmens really are hooked into Matrix NT set up to test their robustness. Or something. Or SS13 universe is just THAT fucked. <Insert 40K reference>

[Cheimon]

Following Clarke's third law, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Worth noting that this doesn't mean, as is commonly assumed (not necessarily by you), that magic is probably sufficiently advanced technology. It's a statement by Clarke about how at a certain point if you're writing science fiction and say "oh, and cloning is achieved by nanobots" (for example) you might as well have written "oh, and cloning is achieved through the Rite of Ashk'Ente". In other words, a vague explanation of "technology" doesn't make it hard science fiction.

[Super Aggro Crag]

plasma-huffing space freaks

[peoplearestrange]

Following Clarke's third law, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Worth noting that this doesn't mean, as is commonly assumed (not necessarily by you), that magic is probably sufficiently advanced technology. It's a statement by Clarke about how at a certain point if you're writing science fiction and say "oh, and cloning is achieved by nanobots" (for example) you might as well have written "oh, and cloning is achieved through the Rite of Ashk'Ente". In other words, a vague explanation of "technology" doesn't make it hard science fiction.

I do like that orginal quote.
I feel like it was the base of the Ian M Banks Culture series. Magic to most, tech to them.

[Helios]

The lack of acknowledgement of magic on department does mean that Traitor/Changeling/Nuke Ops/Double Agents/Traitor Changeling rounds are "hard science fiction", kind of.

[Ricotez]

you can use the whole advanced technology thing to explain away wizards, but what about cults and their blood magic?

[onleavedontatme]

The chaplain can heal gunshot wounds by hitting you in the head with a book, and on metastation he starts with the ability to steal souls, so not only is NT aware of magic, they seem to have some tolerance for using it. Mimes have powers as well.

Slime cores are also explained by "magic."

Also the wizard is quite capable of talking to ghosts, making those ghosts visible, etc. Hard to explain that away with nanomachines.

Trying to make a setting in which purple space fish regularly show up to plague stations, and clowns are established to have their own civilization, into hard sci fi seems odd to me.

[IcePacks]

ask yourself this question next time the wizard throws a fireball at you

[imblyings]

you can use the whole advanced technology thing to explain away wizards, but what about cults and their blood magic?

Cult blood magic is actually a long lost remnant of technology of a civilization so advanced they altered the laws of reality concerning how it is interacted with. Tomes, runes and talismans are incredibly poorly understood tools used to interact with the altered controls of reality. Constructs were the equivalent of borgs for the now dead race and Nar-sie is a sentient but entirely malfunctioning mass AI, once used to monitor and maintain the usage of altered reality controls.

Now Nar-sie seeks to resurrect the dead civilization that created it, and has done so for millions of years. Humankind is one of thousands of sentient races corrupted by Nar-sie to bring back her creators and if all goes to plan (if validhunters dont validhunt and sec dont p2win) humankind will be used up and discarded, and Nar-sie will be closer to succeeding. /headcanon

[Reece]

You can use magic as a scientist via slimes cores, chemists can also create ressurection serum and life.

[PKPenguin321]

Does magic exist to crew members?

yes

now you can close this thread

[Helios]

Does magic exist to crew members?

yes

now you can close this thread

Why is there no department related to magic on the station?

[PKPenguin321]

Does magic exist to crew members?

yes

now you can close this thread

Why is there no department related to magic on the station?

plasma research station, not magic research station

also,
>implying cloners arent magical

[Helios]

Does magic exist to crew members?

yes

now you can close this thread

Why is there no department related to magic on the station?

plasma research station, not magic research station

also,
>implying cloners arent magical

If they are magical, why can you emag the pod?
Emags can't deal with magic.

[Anonmare]

Emags can't deal with magic.

Emags are anti-magic

[Maccus]

Think about it like this: Every Sci-Fi story ever has a "Straight Man" character who doesn't know dick about anything. Like how Han Solo doesn't believe in Jedi, or Kirk needs Spock to tell him about aliens, or Shepard just straight-up doesn't know anything at all. That way other people in the story can explain things to him and get away with exposition, since they're more in-the-know in the setting so they're who you go to for questions.

It's all a matter of if your character's the Straight Man or the Exposition Guy whether or not you know anything about the antags.

[Cheimon]

Or, indeed, you can choose to be the equivalent of Chewbacca and just scream at everything in increasingly incoherent ways, then get violent if you sense something physical.

That's the default state for an assistant.

[IcePacks]

Does magic exist to crew members?

yes

now you can close this thread

Why is there no department related to magic on the station?

because that's retarded

stop posting like you're kaze

[PKPenguin321]

Does magic exist to crew members?

yes

now you can close this thread

Why is there no department related to magic on the station?

plasma research station, not magic research station

also,
>implying cloners arent magical

If they are magical, why can you emag the pod?
Emags can't deal with magic.

i'm not sure if you're taking my joke literally and are really stupid or just made a deadpan shitpost

[Jacquerel]

Emags can't deal with magic.

Emags are anti-magic

Electromagical Card.

[Zilenan91]

A department dealing with magic would be a neat idea actually.

[Steelpoint]

Just think of all magic to be akin to its portrayal in the horror video game Outlast.

In that (spoilers) the magical entity killing everyone is actually a swarm of nano-bots that can only be controlled by someone who has essentially gone insane to a very insane degree.

[Incomptinence]

Look you are at a remote outpost in deep space, scared defended by a small party of goofballs if you are lucky.

Being a wizard aside non crew should be extremely terrifying and met with a hostile response. Anyone not on the register didn't get there by chance space is hostile and vast they came here after YOU and YOUR PEOPLE on purpose knowing you were there. Centcom officials excepted.

Maybe someone could design an away mission with PC survivors you can help against a threat they can't deal with on their own and integrate them into the crew but until then it is basically like a total stranger breaking into a house in the middle of death valley.