Copyright © 1999 by Lenna A. Mahoney

# APPENDIX A

The following is a summary of an unofficial IVE translation of the preface of an Ailurosi encyclopedia entry ("amerang haniteroligach") composed by Cluph Ti-Anver, whose unintentional assistance in this matter my dopples and I are very pleased to acknowledge. This appendix also includes a few notes on topics that might clarify the topic for Earthumans, or that Sabre/"Elaine" or Theofe just felt like throwing in. Naturally any omissions and errors are ours, unless (inconceivably) they are Ti-Anver's.

WHAT MAGIC IS

Nullscience, or quantscience, comprises a set of entirely quantitative rules which partly govern all phenomena: the bases of physics, chemistry, etc. Other sets of rules coexist with those of quantsci. One of these sets is the basis for magic, or qualscience, whose rules are entirely qualitative. Further sets, such as those describing "psychic" powers, are suspected (for good reason) but so far unproven. It also has not been proven that any of the known sets of rules -- whether for quantscience, qualscience, or psience -- are applicable throughout spacetime, or that any set is absolutely internally consistent.

The simultaneous existence of separate "ordered descriptions" of the universe is seen in the nature of sapients. We are inseparably both "spiritual" (non-local) and "material" (localized in matter), though neither quality can be described or handled entirely in terms of the other.

The following are some of the principles of qualscience.

1. Law of Identity. Objects and phenomena have magical qualities that may be shared (partly or wholly) with other objects, phenomena or abstracts. Magical identities (the mutual possession of qualities) provide the "driving force" for spells involving changes.

---- | The most basic qualities of magic are known as intransformables. There are 3 sets of essential intransformables. The first set is that of the "elements": Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Metal, and Wood or Claw (actually the Ailurosi word is the same as for an Adt talon, and implies dead biogenerated material in close association with living flesh). The second set is that of Flux: Influx, Efflux, Pulse, and Stasion. The last set is that of Relation: Harmony, Dissonance, and Chaos. These intransformables can be changed into each other only within a set: Fire may be made into Air, but not into Dissonance. Intransformables cannot be annihilated, but can be created. The six elemental intransformables have a generation cycle, which can most usefully be pictured as lying at the corners of a hexagon (and is generally called the outer cycle). The common mnemonic is as follows: Air sustains Fire; Fire creates Earth (ash); Earth gives birth to Metal; Metal provides tools for Claw's use; Claw (near-life) lets forth Water (tears, urine, blood, or sap); and Water evaporates to add richness to Air. The two cycles Claw - Earth - Air and Fire - Metal - Water are the triangles that constitute the hexagram within the hexagon; these are the two separate triangular cycles of destruction, called the inner cycles, and they turn in opposite directions. Claw (or Wood) draws the goodness from Earth and treads upon it; Earth blocks the movement of Air and pollutes it with dust; Air (which is identified with cold) freezes Claw, batters it with wind, and gives it no support on which to rest. Fire weakens and melts Metal; Metal discolors and poisons Water and dams its flow; Water quenches Fire. Air and Metal, Fire and Claw, Earth and Water, stand across the hexagon from each other. The relationship within each of these pairs is balanced tension, both complementary and supplementary, neither creative nor destructive. The four-sided set of Flux (Influx, Efflux, Pulse, and Stasion) of intransformables should be envisioned not as a square but as a tetrahedron. As such, it has no opposite pairs but is chiral in its arrangement. Which of the two chiral configurations is applicable varies from planet to planet. The three-part Relation set of intransformables, Harmony, Dissonance, and Chaos, is best seen as a kind of tripartite disc, in which the three parts fit together as two parts fit into a yin-yang. Each part is defined completely and precisely by the other two.
---- | There are also 2 more sets of intransformables, called percept intransformables: Life and UnLife, and Sapience and Insapience. All things are either aLive or unaLive; all lifeforms are either Sapient or not, in terms of their magical qualities. These intransformables are only possessed by objects and perceptible processes; unlike the first 3 sets, they are not found as qualities possessed by pure abstractions.
---- | Lifeless objects and phenomena can share Identity directly; a lump of gold has the same magical Identity as any other lump of gold. Lifeless objects cannot share Identity with living creatures, no matter how close all other qualitative resemblances. Insapient creatures can share Identity with each other, especially within a zauberstamm or species, but not with sapients. Sapients cannot share Identity with each other, since sapience requires individual magical Identity. Where shared Identity cannot exist, spells must use commonly held intransformables.
---- | The Element and Relation intransformables do not vary from one planet to another, but there are major differences in the gestures, sounds, scents, colors, objects, forms of life, times of year, types of locations, and abstractions with which the intransformables are associated. This is the case because a great many somewhat different qualities can be found under the heading of each intransformable -- exactly as many different alleles may be found for each gene -- and these qualities depend on the planetary macopaves. Spells require certain combinations of qualities within intransformables to succeed. The combinations are often too complex to be ascertained purely heuristically. In addition they vary in time along with the aiming-point of the (typically precessing) axis of the planet and the region of space into which the stellar system has moved. Thus magic must continually be re-learned, unlike nullscience; but, once learned, it can produce much more reward for a given effort.
---- | Some qualities can be derived from easy observations. Whistling has some of the qualities of wind, for example, since the two are similar phenomena on different scales (and scale is non-essential in qualsci). Other qualities are far more obscure, as is generally the case in the elements of healing spells. Obscure qualities often are discovered only by magical intuition, which fortunately is a common talent linked to the planetary macopave.
---- | To effect a substantial change in something, a very basic similarity must be used, and the change is always towards greater similarity. Copying a rock or changing its shape would be easy. (Conservation of Mass does not apply. However, greater visualization is required of the magician to change the rock's size from that of the original -- precisely because magic is not quantitative and quant changes are hard to specify accurately.) Changing lead into gold is more difficult, since lead and gold share few qualities.

2. Law of Association. Objects and phenomena are associated to the extent to which they are immediately related by cause and effect. Association provides the aiming link of change-spells, and most of the information drawn on by scrying and mancies.

---- | A bullet is very strongly associated with the device that creates it; it is almost as strongly associated with its target that effectively destroys it (and vice-versa); it is barely associated with the gun that fires it (shooting a bullet does not cause it); it is not associated with the person who pulls the trigger.
---- | A person's hair and nail clippings (or fur, dead leaves, et cetera) help to aim a spell through Association. Blood and other materials containing still-vital cells help to power a spell through the Identity intransformable, as well as aiming it.
---- | The absence of causal Association is the reason why magic cannot be delivered in virtual reality.

3. Law of Intention. The use of magic requires the intention to use magic, and the imagination and concentration to scale its effect. Intention provides part of the aim of a spell; it determines whether it moves forward to its associated target, or backward to its caster. Concentrated imagination sets the measure of the spell, that is to say its quantification.

---- | Magic aimed at lifelessness or at insapient life requires intention and thorough visualization of the precise desired effect of the spell. Magic aimed at sapience requires, in addition to visualization and simple intention, emotional and intellectual force and will.
---- | The conventional example of remagic is the spell which turns upon its caster when intention is not sufficient. Certainly this can be called remagic, but more basic forms of remagic occur even when a spell is entirely successful. Some rearrangement of the qualities of things used in a spell, including the caster's qualities, always takes place in the magically defined region around the caster. In addition, the caster's will and imagination become confused; the duration of this effect can be decreased with practice, and is less for persons with strong innate magical intuition.
---- | Strong associations and identities may be used to displace the final location of remagic, but such magic is quite taxing to the intention and requires timing (which itself is quantitative and almost outside the scope of magic).

WHAT MAGIC IS NOT

Magic does not depend on quantity, but on quality. The size of a crystal ball does not matter, only its magical identity and association. It is as easy to bespell a mountain as a pebble, qualities being identical (which they seldom are). A fleck of gold dust can be as effective as a nugget; however, a few atoms may not be enough. The issue is not so much the quantity of gold, as the magical qualities of the integer number of atoms present in association with each other. Large numbers only rarely have any inherent quality and so are less likely to divert the spell.

Magic is not affected by spatial distance. It is also not affected by duration, leaving out the question of timed (axially precessed) changes in local (planetary) qualities. Magic may be affected by direction in time, but since it is not (yet) possible to Associate with anything not in the present, the effect of the Time vector on magic is not known.

Magic, in fact, does not depend on anything that can be quantified or that can be measured and set to number. Identity, Association, Will, and Intention cannot be measured; they are absolutes; either they exceed the threshold of effectiveness or they don't. This is why distances in time and space do not affect magic: time and space are measurable. This is why number cannot be controlled in spells, except to the extent that imagination bounds it, or that some numbers have innate magical numerological qualities. By the same token, amount cannot be controlled, except through Imagination or close Association. (A bit of Philosopher's Stone can aurify any amount of lead in contact with it, but can't convert all the lead in the Universe.)

Magic has nothing to do with psi powers, to the best of our current knowledge. (Psi may be governed by a third set of rules.)

The target of a spell need not believe in it to be affected.

Magic is not inherently Good or Evil, any more than are nullscience and music.

Magic is not inherently irrational or unknowable, though its best practitioners depend more on intuition than logic. It is merely extremely difficult because of the number of variables. However, some mages speculate that some of magic's behavior may be inherently nonrepeatable.

ASSOCIATED TOPICS

---- | Macopave: a power that is; a powerful pseudo-awareness without volition of Sapience or self-awareness. It is a local anti-function of its meta-universe. Impotent to create, but can accelerate, decelerate, or modulate; may take on a material form, but is then bound by its most ideal limitations. A macopave may be vulnerable to sapients when sufficiently localized in a material avatar. The "attitude" of a macopave is a reaction to the local field, a balancing force for equilibrium. The macopave of a region or planet limits the available qualities for each intransformable, sometimes so greatly that a particular intransformable may barely be available. An expanding meta-universe creates a field which hinders retrogression; a contracting meta-universe, a field which hinders progression; a steady-state meta-universe has no field and the macopaves are random in attitude. Except in the arrhythmically pulsating meta-universes, natural laws are thought to be primarily objective and consistent and macopaves predictable.
---- | Dimensionals: the Cats' use of magic to move between meta-universes, or to traverse unlimited distances in one meta-universe by temporarily existing in another for a finite interval of time. Dimensionals uses the magical qualities inherent in gems, and focused by Will, to bring about locally instantaneous transportation. Every celestial body in one meta-universe has counterparts (often seemingly unlikely ones) in each of the others. The manifestations of Sapience and Life may be similar on counterparts but cannot be identical. Dimensionals cannot be used to travel directly within one meta-universe, but only by making two or more exchanges. Rhythmic or fluxive dynamic meta-universes such as ours can interchange qualities and sapience without great difficulty in Dimensionals. However, stasional meta-universes can interchange sapience only with as yet insurmountable difficulty, and only with the far past of an expanding meta-universe or the far future of a contracting one. Other qualities cannot interchange with a static meta-universe without creating an aeae'lemsong, which eventually turns in on itself in the manner of a Klein bottle.
---- | Aeae'lemsong: an irregularity in meta-universes that is usually dopplEnglished (from the Ailurean) as a "Fortean transition", in honor of Charles Hoy Fort's compilation of histories of a number of related events. The newest theory postulates that aeae'lemsoch are spindle-shaped, each conical end rotating in an opposite direction. Where they meet, at the major diameter of the spindle, the spin is counteracted. An object picked up at a tip can be suspended in this spin-free region for any or no amount of time, while no time passes on the aeae'lemsong. When the object re-enters spin it is once again subject to time and can leave through either tip of the aeae'lemsong. Unless there is some great, even catastrophic change, the center of the aeae'lemsong remains unmoved, though each tip typically describes a slow twisted figure-eight of interstellar extent but only of generations in duration.

GENERAL COMMENTS

On many worlds the effects of magic have been cloaked. By the trade secrecy of its practice that led to ignorance among its practitioners. By religion that ascribed moral value to it, burying it in deities and demons. By wishful thinking and superstition that alternately overestimated and underestimated its powers, depending on whether the caster or the potential target was talking. By nullscience, a simpler but much less powerful set of rules and techniques, whose supporters hid, ridiculed, or ignored what they could not explain. Most of all by the complexity of the subject.

---- | Since seasons, years, and some dates have magical qualities, and perhaps causal Associations, and the same is true of people, places and things, states of mind... Since "passive" symbolism intended to subjectively focus Will or Intention or Visualization, for one individual caster, may be mistaken for "active" symbolism with inherent magical quality... Since a spell using Identity may be confounded by Association, and vice-versa... Since Intention or Will may be weak or inaccurate... Since nullsci effects may be mistaken for qualsci effects, and vice-versa... Since Identity, Association and Intention are unquantifiable... Sabre: It is no wonder that the principles of magic are unknown in so many places. The wonder is that they are so recognized and well-used as they are. Theofe: The Baron says that on one pre-GW world some remote coastal folk make a plastic, carefully guarding its secret. The process works by quantsci, not magic. So the designers understand it only grossly, not knowing of null organic chem. The process requires several workers. By hypnosis, they only remember the process when they all meet together in one place, after a religious ritual. The process itself they carry out in secrecy, with all equipment built for it especially, destroyed afterwards. This procedure has fooled all including the workers into thinking the whole thing works by magic. Which the mages somehow can't intuit. A complete, total redhot herring.
---- | This omnipresent confusion leads to the realization that some sapients (and some insapients) must possess a kind of Intuition that allows them to recognize the magical order, as well as reason that allows them to recognize the scientific order and systematize the magical order. Possibly some people have this Intuition (which should not be, but usually is, confused with emotional intuition and feelings) as a congenital (if not genetically determined) talent. But it seems even those without Intuition can learn an adequate amount of magic by application and long study.
---- | In a magic-using society, children play a valuable role -- "a good servant, but a bad master." They, with fewer preconceptions, have less confused Intuition than adults. In addition, a child's Imagination and Will are much less damaged by social rebuffs than an adult's.
---- | Magic is strongly related not to distance but to place; therefore remagic manifestations may persist long after the active sorcery has ended. When a magical nature alien to its own is planted in a thing or person, it must enter through some particular non-measurable point, not through the whole surface indistinguishably. Metaphorically, this compares to the topological necessity for one whorl to occur on any vectored curved surface (as the whorl in the hair on a head). Sabre: Hence the so-called "witches' marks" for which the witch hunters tested their suspects' bodies. Certainly the testing method they used was inappropriate except for indulging their own sadism.
---- | In some few locations, too many different magical qualities may be found. This causes difficulties rather like the excess null reactivity of lithium aluminum hydride. Theofe: I remember a demonstration. A gold piece had rested in a many-qualities region. Our guide flung it across a boundary into a fewer-qual region. The gold enflamed. The extra quality expressed itself in Fire, the intransformable most "native" for gold on that planet.
--- | Magic may be used along with null science; different systems of rules need not be treated as if one could not exist in the presence of another. One may sometimes use magic to produce perpetual energy, or an ideal solution or gas, or a frictionless surface, or a perfectly reflective or absorptive or transparent substance, or a perfect solvent or solute. Such technologies are highly specialized, certainly, but not trivial; they are especially nontrivial when they cause industrial accidents.

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