Advanced Mysticism: Book IV - Detection

[6plus]

Advanced Mysticism: Book IV - Detection
written by Gerard Cienne
edited by Illia Plebo

Editor's Note: Since the school of mysticism defies any analytic classification, it has become common practice to fall back on a phenomenological approach. Therefore each book of this series deals with a certain 'group' of effects of this school. At this point it shall be brought up that this series is not written for scholars or beginners, but rather for educated mages seeking to delve deeper into scientific research of the school of mysticism. The former would rather be advised to resort to standard references such as 'The Basics of Mysticism' by Vorian of Sunhold.


Part I - Essentials

In order to understand detection magic, we must first understand the condition of the casting actor, or henceforth referred to as caster. If said caster is regarded as a standing wave in three dimensions, then it can be easily described by eight parameters. The spatial parameters are position and momentum (three parameters each, since we are working in a three-dimensional inertial frame of reference), and the temporal parameters are frequency and time.

The actor to be detected, or henceforth referred to as objective, can similarly described as a standing wave with its own parameters. Assuming that the parameters of the caster are identical to the parameters of the objective, we will observe an interlocking of both actors. An accidental interlocking of two actors is not possible since it is not possible that two actors occupy the same position in space at the same time. Therefore it is necessary that at least one actor (in most cases the caster) manipulates its parameters by magical means to artificially match the other actor's parameters.

Critical readers may now point out that this simple case only mentions two actors: the caster and the objective. The detection of said objective necessitates that the caster matches its wave parameters to the objective's parameters. However, detection magic doesn't comprise the detection of a certain single actor, but rather the detection of all actors of a certain quality in close vicinity to the caster. Wouldn't it mean that the caster had to match its parameters to all of those actors? The short answer is: yes.

In fact the caster not only interlocks with all actors of the required quality, but actually it interlocks with every single actor inside the 'range' of its spell by adjusting its parameters to match every other actor's parameters. How is this achieved with only eight parameters available? Up to this point we only dealt with a single spherical wave which is easily described by eight parameters. In reality such an ideal wave will not be observed, but instead wave packets consisting of multiple ideal waves each with discreet parameters.

It should now become clear that the caster can interlock with each actor in 'range' by manipulating its wave packet to consist of waves covering every possible set of parameters. However, since the range of possible parameters is indefinite, it's necessary to limit the set of parameters. The limited parameter is the parameter of time. Conveniently this parameter will only limit the 'range' of a spell by excluding an interlock with actors of mismatching time parameter (since every wave travels at a finite velocity).

The interlocking of the caster with every objective within 'range' is the necessary condition for detection magic. For a successful detection of an objective of a certain quality one or more sufficient conditions must be met. These conditions are detailed in the second part of this book.


Part II - Details

In the first part it was detailed how a caster has to establish an interlock to every possible objective in close vicinity to make the detection possible, this part now will discuss the actual detection of the relevant actors. First a relevant actor needs to feature a certain quality, which can be described as a state. The most common states are a) consciousness, b) having a soul implanted, c) being the analogue to a lock or d) death.

Every actor shows a multitude of states, if any given actor is projected into reciprocal space, then every state corresponds to a point in reciprocal space (again with three parameters). Points, however, don't transfer any information unless the origin of the system to which the point belongs is known. Therefore it's necessary to establish an interlock to the objective, since only then the inertial frame of reference for caster and objective can be identical.

Only in case of caster and objective sharing one inertial frame of reference, then the caster is able to know the parameters of the reciprocal point corresponding to a single state of the objective. The next step is then to sense this projection of the objective in reciprocal state. In order to understand this process we need to consider how the sense of sight manifests when projected into reciprocal space.

In real space the sense of sight can be described as plane wave with indefinite or near indefinite velocity and a specific phase which has no actual effect. In reciprocal space this plane wave corresponds to the surface of a sphere with a radius that corresponds to the phase of the plane wave in real space. A point in reciprocal space (corresponding to a state of the objective) which falls onto the surface of the sphere can be sensed by the caster (in real space, since there's no way to sense reciprocal space).

Therefore, if the caster adjusts its sense of sight to feature a certain phase which corresponds to a certain radius of the spherical surface in reciprocal space, then the caster is able to sense objectives which feature a certain state corresponding to a point in reciprocal space falling onto said spherical surface. Hence the 'trick' to sense for example consciousnesses is to choose the correct phase of the plane wave which makes up the normal sense of sight.


Author: Gerard Cienne was born 3E 279 in Glenumbra. He joined the Mage's Guild at the age of 17, and later specialized in the school of mysticism. In 3E 316 he was promoted the Arch-Mage of the guild hall in Daggerfall. He finished writing this book in 3E 329; two years later he vanished during a failed teleportation experiment.

Editor: Illia Plebo was born 3E 301 in Kvatch. She joined the Mage's Guild at the age of 19, and later moved to Daggerfall where she became scholar of Gerard Cienne. She edited and published this book in 3E 330. After Cienne's disappearance she took over his position as Arch-Mage of Daggerfall.

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Notes:
This book is meant to be highly scientific, very theoretical and quite obscure.
Many real world science concepts (wave-particle duality, quantum entanglement, diffraction...) were mashed together (unscientifically) to build this theory.
A few complex formulae could make this book even more obscure, but I'm not sure if the game would benefit from those (they'd be rather bland to look at).
As of now there's no spell book for detect creature/magic effects, maybe this one fits in.

[arvisrend]

Sorry, I don't think this belongs into TR :(

Like you, I've been figuring magic as a Morrowind equivalent to science; but I don't think it should repeat the specifics, let alone the terminology, of real life science (you've got a typo in the latter by the way: "discreet" should be "discrete"; while we're at that, "scholar" can also mean an expert). I've always been thinking it would be cool to have an introduction into mathematics written in the style and language of the Victorian-age British, but a textbook written in modern language and notions somehow doesn't feel home in Morrowind. I am not volunteering, though, as this is a task beyond my abilities.

[Why]

I actually liked it. Maybe by saying that I risk people yelling at me but I think the concept has potential. I'm not sure if Mysticism is the school to do this with though. Let's discuss it tomorrow on IRC if you've got time.