This morning's victim: The magic/psi hyperpower split. Current Spiral doctrine says that while essentially the same tihng, which direction a person developes them into depends on how analytical they are, with someone woh takes things at face value and just uses what they'e stumbbled across developing it as magic, while someone who gets scientific about it and tries to expllain how it all works, in their own thoughts at least, ends up a psi. The problem heere is that this leaves two of the strongest images for psi and magic users entirely out of the equation - if mages just work by guess and by god, then where doeds that leave the ancient wizard in his tower, carefully determining how much extract of dragonroot gives the optimum balanceof effect versus material cost in a potion of fire breath, and wjere the wild psychic whose power is untrained and unreliable, but monstrously effective when it does work? Instead, I submit that the difference is more in the culture of the user's society - or subculture, for that matter. In technological settings where 'magic' is a dirty word, even a stage magician would be likely to consider a deeloping hypertalent in the terms of psi powers - telekinesis, telepathy, pyrokinesis, etc. Conersely, if Gormdor the Cogsmith starts to be able to tell a faulty casting just by looking at it and can fix the error before it even fails by running his hands over it a few times, he's going to think in terms of magic, even as a mind nimble enough to build a dual clutch and five-speed gearbox with synchromesh shifting in with a transitional iron age to steam age tech base.

Comments?

-CD

Magic is heavily influenced by beleif. If someone believes that their hyperpower is going to exhibit in one way or another, then that has a lot of effect on how it exibits. There are also hyperpowers that exhibit a lot like mutant superhero powers, flying wires kung fu, or whatever. My point was that there's no real clear line. Magic and Psi show up all over the place because people who play it like an art/a science tend to end up with powers that look pretty similar in certain ways. From there, the general populace sees them, classes them into "mage" and "psionic" and general belief tends to segregate and clarify the strains further. After a while, you end up with seperate traditions that serve to both reinforce belief and provide a culture in which a nascent Gifted can grow.

Also, finally, and most importantly, hyperpowers are just about the most organic, bizarre, compex, human things out there. Except for the stuff based on True Reality, there are always exceptions, and sometimes even then. (see Lina Inverse, Dragon Slaver in Space)

Fair enough?

More tires! More tires!

Sirrocco