Is Ft. Salby Arcanan high water mark? (potentially spoiler)

We know there is a large population of Arcanians who have no talent. Similarly there is a large population of Sharonians without a gift. Could it be possible that the Arcanians without talent would have gifts on Sharona and the Sharonians without a gift on Sharona would have a talent on Arcana? Each population that lacks a gift or a talent would be because there genetic gift/talent does not fit the universe they are in.

Maybe.
That could eventually lead to lots of cross-migration,
as the Talentless in one Universe try out the other.
But that would defy Xenophobia.

Of course, another possibility is that Talent in one
place means Talent everywhere (or everywhere that a
Universe's Laws permit it).

HTM

Knightfire wrote:We know there is a large population of Arcanians who have no talent. Similarly there is a large population of Sharonians without a gift. Could it be possible that the Arcanians without talent would have gifts on Sharona and the Sharonians without a gift on Sharona would have a talent on Arcana? Each population that lacks a gift or a talent would be because there genetic gift/talent does not fit the universe they are in.

n7axw wrote:The implications would favor Sharona pretty heavily. They would lose their Talents on Arcana. But that would primarily effect communications. Sharona's rifles, artillery and transportation should be just fine, whereas the same cannot be said of Arcana on Sharona.

If sharonian weapons and trains work in arcanan physics, then the arcanans can figure out how to duplicate them, while Sharona will not likely be able to produce dragons (or any other magical creature or weapon).

Astelon wrote:

n7axw wrote:The implications would favor Sharona pretty heavily. They would lose their Talents on Arcana. But that would primarily effect communications. Sharona's rifles, artillery and transportation should be just fine, whereas the same cannot be said of Arcana on Sharona.

If sharonian weapons and trains work in arcanan physics, then the arcanans can figure out how to duplicate them, while Sharona will not likely be able to produce dragons (or any other magical creature or weapon).

Yeah, that would be true with the qualification that in a war it might require time they don't have. Their entire infrastructure seems to be geared around magic. In addition to that, they would have to figure out conventional physics and chemistry. The problem is that they have been using magic spells for almost everything. To dup Sharona's weapons, they can't do that. All of this is solvable, but can't be done over night.

Don

n7axw wrote:The problem is that they have been using magic spells for almost everything. To dup Sharona's weapons, they can't do that. All of this is solvable, but can't be done over night.

I mostly agree with you, but they don't need to duplicate the manufacturing process to build the weapons. They can use whatever magic they want, or already use for manufacturing, to build them. The greatest problem they will have is figuring out the chemistry for gunpowder. Their is also a question of how much steel they can make, we have not seen any large scale use of steel by Arcana yet.

Astelon wrote:

n7axw wrote:The problem is that they have been using magic spells for almost everything. To dup Sharona's weapons, they can't do that. All of this is solvable, but can't be done over night.

I mostly agree with you, but they don't need to duplicate the manufacturing process to build the weapons. They can use whatever magic they want, or already use for manufacturing, to build them. The greatest problem they will have is figuring out the chemistry for gunpowder. Their is also a question of how much steel they can make, we have not seen any large scale use of steel by Arcana yet.

Your modification of my thought is right, I think. Also, their magic weapons should work just fine...on Arcana. If they ate on Sharona that they would have the problem with magic.

Don

There was a discussion that in doing Magic to make Dragons and other improvements, they were able to actually see the dna codes. If Magic is able to do that you would think it could be used to determine the chemical elements of gunpowder and duplicate it. Moreover, it might even be able to tell by looking at Sharonian steel why its better then Arcanan steel.

I checked the passage in question, and what they have is "...a way to represent a living organism's characteristics in a fashion which could be visualized and manipulated..." Not sure how much difference it will make when examining the atomic structure of steel or gunpowder; it might require a completely separate (and undeveloped) set of spells, or it might not.

However just seeing the atomic structure of an object doesn't tell someone how to duplicate it, or to duplicate it efficiently.

The other advantage I think people are discounting for Arcana is they effectively have magic computers. The language program, the portal finding program, the way they can record and pass on information is vastly superior to Sharona. Sharona might be able to pass information faster because of the voice network but I think the data manipulation abilities of Arcana is far superior and should provide advantages.

Knightfire wrote:The other advantage I think people are discounting for Arcana is they effectively have magic computers. The language program, the portal finding program, the way they can record and pass on information is vastly superior to Sharona. Sharona might be able to pass information faster because of the voice network but I think the data manipulation abilities of Arcana is far superior and should provide advantages.

I thought of that too. The word play kinda gives it away... For PC we get personal crystal rather than personal computer. I don't recall any instances of connectivity between crystals. I could have overlooked it though.

Don