Niall Teasdale's Blog, page 44

Magic and Technology

Technological development is another thing which has progressed differently in the Thaumatology universe. Some of the changes are really quite dramatic, but if you were dropped into that world, you probably would not notice initially. Other things are hidden by the magic which is used in place of the technological advances we use.

After a while, for example, you might notice the lack of contrails in the sky. Go to London in our world and you'll see the trails of high-flying jets in the sky above you. When Ceri looks up into the sky, she might see an airship heading for the London City Airport. The Earth's magic field makes it dangerous to fly above about 10000 feet without a specially protected aircraft. The interaction between that field and the Earth's magnetic field produces bright lights in the sky higher up, but the effects go lower. Flying that low for long distances is less economic, so airships have remained in service to some extent. Transatlantic travel, and going further afield, is most often done by ship; airship travel is not cheap, but it is around twice as fast.

Of course, if the interacting fields cause that much trouble, it's unlikely that there are satellites in orbit. There aren't, aside from a few scientific ones sent up in a joint UK/Australian project, and a couple more sent up by the US. So how does the GPS in Carter's Range Rover work? Simple enough, a normal computer system generates the map and calculates routes, and a chip with carefully formed runes laid out on its surface tells the computer where the car currently is. There are no atomic clocks beaming out time synchronisation signals, but there are clocks and watches enchanted to always tell the right time. Weather forecasts are not done by complex data collection and huge computers, but by diviners. Policemen where enchanted vests; they're bulletproof, yes, but they also provide limited resistance to magic. The batons they carry have sleep enchantments on them to put down the criminals with less harm. Go to the Vauxhall or Jaguar car factories and you'll find assembly lines, but they have golems in place of robots.

Then again, the cars still run on petrol, the majority of people don't go to work on a magic carpet (though a few wizards have been known to use them for the prestige points). Electricity comes from coal and gas burning power stations; after the Shattering, the very idea of using nuclear power for anything would have caused a riot if anyone had suggested it. (As an aside, no one has noticed Global Warming yet, but that's partially because it's not as bad. A lot of the world is not as developed there as it is here so there is less carbon being pumped into the atmosphere. Still, the ecological lobby is fairly big and the impetus to create less damaging power sources is fairly strong.) You won't find people teleporting about the place; that magic hasn't been invented yet.

As is often the case, it's the common person who sees the benefits of technological advance last and if you were dropped into the Thaumatology world tomorrow it might take you a while to realise, so long as you just went by the technology. Your can opener wouldn't be magic, your mobile phone works by radio. Most people's computers don't use the latest Etherstream sub-membrane broadcast wireless networking, they use cables (tight control of radio bandwidth stopped WiFi ever happening). Only serious users have the kind of enchanted coprocessor system that Ceri has in her tablet PC. (Well, serious users and people with a heavy gaming fetish.)

Women may notice one technological variation more than men. Back in the Sixties, someone did invent the Contraceptive Pill, but it's not quite as popular as it is in our world. This is mostly because some enterprising witch created a spell around the same time which did the same job, better, without the side effects. Magic is generally not a cheap alternative to drugs and you don't see many witches and wizards on the payroll of the National Health Service, but a lot of women visit the State Registered Witch at their local GP's surgery once a month or pop down the street to someone who knows the spell.

Better living through magic. It's the way forward.

Happy Thanksgiving

We don't have Thanksgiving over here in the UK, but all you guys across the pond who do, have a good day and don't work too hard.

And if you're going out shopping tomorrow, remember to wear a hard hat.

A Tale of Two World Histories

Demon's Moon makes reference to two organisations from the history of our world, the Thule Society and the Ahnenerbe. If you ever read any kind of "Hitler's Mystic War" style books you'll have heard of the Thule Society. I think they get a mention in the first Hellboy film. The Ahnenerbe is less well-known, but both did really exist. Occultists and novelists, including me, have long exaggerated the historical role of the Thule Society in World War II, but you seem to get less use of the Ahnenerbe, poor chaps. Supposedly the archaeological group in the third Indiana Jones movie is based around them. You'd think archaeology, horror and Nazis would make a great combination. Anyway, who were these guys and who have they become in the Thaumatology universe?

The Thule Society started out as an occultist study group for "pure-blooded" Aryans. The believed that the Aryans came from Hyperborea, a list landmass in the North Atlantic and were superior to other races. Their views were racist, but if we're being honest they were not exactly alone in such beliefs at the time. They may have influenced Hitler's attitudes to Jews, Romanies, and coloured people, or it may have simply been a reflection of the times that there were shared attitudes. There is evidence to suggest that Hitler himself never attended a Thule Society meeting, though some prominent Nazis did. It is also known that the party from which the NSDAP (the Nazi Party) developed was founded by Thulers. In out world, the relationship between Hitler and the Thulers is likely played up more than the evidence warrants.

The real world Ahnenerbe has a far more direct relationship with the Nazis and seems to have had similar goals. Founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1935, it had the goal of proving through historic and archaeological study that the Aryan race were fundamentally superior and had once ruled the world. Ahnenerbe researchers travelled the world looking for evidence to confirm their beliefs, but also conducted other scientific work, including various unethical medical experiments. They would not be the first scientists to think that the end justifies the means, or to let their belief in a theory overcome scientific method, nor were they the last.

So, two groups of people who were promoting the idea that the Aryans were a superior people and had links, tenuous or direct, to the Nazis. Both really existed, and both have been used before, generally with a more mystical twist, in works of fiction.

For the Thaumatology series I've kept the Ahnenerbe more or less as it appears to have been. The Thule Society took a slightly different path in that world, however, and had more influence. Their discovery in 1935 of certain occult texts made them more valuable as an ally and it is their work on enchantment which brings about the Shattering. It is also one of their members who uncovers a powerful group of werewolf-like creatures in the mountains of northern Italy. The Ahnenerbe consider the Thulers amateurs, but sometimes useful. Their ideas are fanciful, even insane. Afterall, werewolves and demons aren't real, are they?

Bedtime Story

When Lily was young, her father would tell her fairy stories to send her to sleep at night. Of course, being an incubus, the stories he told were a little different from the ones you might have heard.

http://www.wattpad.com/2619667-bedtime-story

A Lily Pic Especially for Tera

Now, Tera over at Succubus.net likes her succubi with horns and tails. Lily decided to get dressed up, just for her. The full-sized image is available over at my DeviantArt page: http://tharcion.deviantart.com/art/Succubus-268301258

Redemption

Another short prequel tale from the Thaumatology universe. This time, "when Carter met Lily."

Redemption can be found on Wattpad, here: http://www.wattpad.com/2571630-redemption?d=ud

Black Lily

I'm being experimental. I'm putting up some short stories about the various characters from the Thaumatology Series over on Wattpad. The first of these is now up and it's about Lily before she ever met Ceri or Carter. I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.wattpad.com/2552793-black-lily?d=ud