scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/3blzun.md

Challenge: Break this fictional magic system. Exploit it. Weaponize it.

• Author: u/Pendred Chaos Legion*

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3blzun/challenge_break_this_fictional_magic_system/

• Score: 20

• Created: 2015-06-30T08:25:01

Post:

Super^Super Edit: All of you have really helped me develop a working, sane logic for this system, and I do plan to use it in a story. I really appreciate it, you're a force of nature, r/rational.

Super edit: I'm thrilled by the response to this. Thank you all so much for asking probing questions and helping me flesh this out. All illusions are projected onto a mental speed-of-thought network with its own physics engine. As such, they do not occupy actual radiated energy. It will not display reflections of visual hallucinations, nor will it allow selective presentation of visual hallucinations. Selective presentation of audio and tactile hallucinations are possible, but difficult.

All magic is illusory. There are three kinds of magic:

Magic that impacts sound

Magic that impacts sight

Magic that impacts physical sensations

Casters can only use one kind, but can work in tandem.

All illusory sights need to be elaborately constructed in the caster's mind. The figments reacting to changes, such as passing wind or a change in elevation, requires insane concentration. They universally perceived (Psychic signals perceived on a passive speed-of-thought psychic network), but they are not comprised of photons, therefore no laserhacks. [This was edited from an earlier mode, wherein the visual illusions were refracted light]

All illusory sounds do not carry the kinetic energy of sound, but propagate as sound does through a given medium. Therefore a sound can be loud, but not physically harmful.

All illusory sensations are felt by the caster as well, so no debilitating pain, or the concentration falters. If a faux injury is "conjured", it will not have any lasting damage besides potential trauma for the caster and target. "Fake" heat will not burn, but it does enhance the visual illusion of a fire.

Most casters can call upon an ability to deprive themselves of all senses to detect only illusions for a few minutes at a time.

If an illusion is successfully disbelieved (an effort at least as great as the concentration required to maintain the illusion and the effort that went into it) it effectively disappears for the person who disbelieved it.

Go nuts.

I'll edit as loopholes are found, so the edits will contain amendments to the system, or additional information.

Edit 1: The magic in this world is well known. Most important figures and mage groups have a "debunker" on hire to use their illusion detection "sight". Likewise, merchants and treasurers will touch, hear, taste, and see currency to make sure it's bona fide, since it's known that a caster can only control one aspect of an illusion, and it would take three skilled illusionists to create convincing fake money.

Edit 2: All conjured sensations must have been previously experienced by the caster. An illusory sensation can be "countered" (relief of illusory pain via the illusory sensation of pain being relieved), but it requires a knowledge of the "countered" sensation as felt by the caster, and so this is extremely unlikely. It is not possible to negate true pain or true pleasure. It is possible to become psychosomatically addicted to faux pleasure, or likewise traumatized by faux pain, but this will also reflect on the caster.

Edit 3: Visual hallucinations are perceived locally by all within line of sight on the "Psychic Network", audio and tactile hallucinations are potentially selective.

Comments:

u/Geminii27 [+17] (2 hours later)

Lasers don't transmit heat. The energy is in the photons of light themselves. Either there is no physical light being transmitted (and therefore no sensor or detector outside the target themselves can pick it up), or lasers and flash-frying are an inevitable result.

I suspect from your framework that the illusions are purely mental/psychic, in that they affect how the target's brain perceives sensory information rather than supplying actual sound/light/smell/taste/touch/kinesthesia/etc. In which case all infowar tropes apply.

Have two people in a conversation. Each hears something completely different because they're both being targeted. If it's done skillfully enough, observers will just see them misunderstanding each other (unless they too are being targeted). Or the two people verbally talk about one thing while affecting each other to hold an undetectable conversation.

If you're able to mess with anything the target perceives, no-one could ever be 100% sure that they haven't been dropped into a dreamworld in the last half-second, even if it looks identical. Nothing that you see, hear, touch, smell, taste, or otherwise sense (direction of gravity, sense of balance, whether your own body is functioning normally) could ever be trusted.

Not to mention that illusions of normality could be just as deadly. I'm a magical assassin, I cast an illusion on you so that instead of perceiving me, you perceive a normal-looking empty area. I have a colleague cast "normal physical sensation" on you (not numbness, but just feeling completely normal). Then I walk up to you and stab you thirty-seven times while you just stand there going about your normal business. Or I inject you with poison, or cut your throat, or smack you in the head with a brick, or shoot you from point-blank range, or literally anything at all that kills you, either fast or slow. If I'm mean, I bolt a very obvious bomb to your skull and let you walk out of the room into a crowd or to meet your family. They can see the bomb, and two seconds later when I drop the magic, you get just long enough to realize your horrifying situation before you go boom.

u/Pendred [+5] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)

Visual hallucinations are a blanket effect. They are projected into the communal psychic network. Audio and tactile sensation have the potential to be selective.

u/Pendred [+4] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)

The communal psychic network that all illusions exist on has its own limited physics engine. It can handle shadows and sound propagation, but not reflections or fluid physics. These things need to be constructed by the caster.

u/Pendred [+2] Chaos Legion (3 hours later)

Read the edits in regards to sensation

u/raymestalez [+10] (15 minutes later)

So you pretty much create hallucinations.

That would probably be the most powerful/useful when the victim doesn't know he is being attacked. You could drive someone crazy, or scare a person. You could make a person think he is attacked by an animal so that he would run off a cliff(that he thinks is harmless terrain).

You could definitely scare enemy's horses. Spook a giant herd of animals from a distance, make them trample the enemy's soliders. Or confuse fish, cast illusionary net over the ocean - you'll have as much food as you want.

You could use this magic to share information with each other. Like transmitting thoughts/visual images, maybe, if you live in ancient times, could be useful to replace photos. Could do some cool forms of art. Cast a Virtual Reality on a person. Or produce music without an instrument or a good voice. Put pressure on multiple small patches of skin, do it for a long time with another person - telepathy.

Probably some psychological torture, like showing horrible images to defeat the enemy's spirit. Or as a distraction in a battle. Make him think floor is falling from under him. Or create several "copies" of yourself, so he wouldn't know which one is real!

Disinformation. Make it seem like you have a giant army attacking a castle, when you are just one mage. Or - camouflage. Make enemy see some terrain/empty space instead of you(and your army).

Can you cast the opposite of a sentation? Like one guy casts "horrible pain" on his enemy, and the other guy casts "anti-pain" on his buddy. Would also be useful for anesthesia. Or come together in a large group and everybody casts "small" pain on some poor guy.

Can you cast "an orgasm" to please ladies? And have fun yourself too =)

Or cast "infinite pleasure" to get someone addicted.

Cast "vertigo" to disorient people. Super deadly in the air-battle.

Cast "darkness" to temporarily blind a person.

Cast "push" on a person, so his brain overcompensates in the opposite direction and he falls.

Confuse internal organs? Make heartbeat seem irregular to the brain, or lungs feel constricted. Maybe you could learn to compensate for it in your own body. Or make your own stomach feel full - easy to be on a diet and lose weight! Cast it on enemy's bladder - he will desperately have to pee while fighting you =)

Cause an epileptic seizure by flashing lights really quickly?

Cast "perfect room temperature" on yourself - never feel uncomfortable in hot/cold weather.

Is there a restriction on how far it can be cast? Or on how many people? Cast simple flashes of light in every direction, across the universe - communicate with aliens!

Do you actually bend light? - telescope/microscope/mirror to look around corners. Perfect optical fiber! Spy on anything anywhere. Explore space if you can take it far enough.

Or is it affecting just brain? If you could use at a huge distance, and it is instantaneous(faster than the speed of light) - send messages backwards in time. Somehow.

All kinds of fraud - exchange a fake bag of gold for real one.

Oh, another one - you could impersonate other people!! Make yourself look like a king or a president and give orders.

u/raymestalez [+7] (an hour later)

....Enormous grid of people. Sensory deprived from birth. Communicating with each other through small "pin"-like sensations on their skin, or tiny flashes of light on retinas. Brains get wired in a way that it replaces all the senses and communication, feels extremely natural. Giant network of brains efficiently communicating with each other. Superintelligence?

u/Chronophilia [+8] sci-fi ≠ futurology (2 hours later)

That doesn't seem inherently more powerful than talking in the normal manner.

u/Pendred [+4] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)

Speed of thought, more processing power.

u/Chronophilia [+9] sci-fi ≠ futurology (5 hours later)

More bandwidth, same number of operations-per-second. But your point is taken.

u/chaosmosis [+4] and with strange aeons, even death may die (10 hours later)

Actually, I'm currently reading Working Memory and Academic Learning: Assessment and Intervention, and it has some evidence suggesting that increasing processing speed in humans also increases bandwidth, and/or vice versa.

Many working memory models represent working memory as a unitary, limited capacity system where processing and storage demands compete for a limited, common pool of resources. Essentially, the shared-resources position, known as the general capacity hypothesis (Engle, Cantor, & Carullo, 1992), promotes the view that working memory (and short-term memory) performance is supported by shared resources that are flexibly divided between processing and storage. The gist of the hypothesis is that there is moment-to-moment trade-off between resources allocated for storage and resources allocated for processing, with processing demands receiving priority. When the processing demands of the task are high, less capacity will be available to meet storage requirements (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980), resulting in a decrement in short-term memory span (the main measure of capacity). The resource pool has a total capacity limit, which the combination of all engaged processes and activated buffers may not exceed. Executive control, which consumes some capacity itself, is thought to flexibly and automatically allocate resources from the common pool. As one process or buffer ‘‘demands’’ more resources, fewer are available for other components and processes. When the demands of the task are high, such as trying to solve a complex mental arithmetic problem, capacity cannot meet demand and working memory becomes overloaded. The result is information loss, an inability to complete the task, or, at the very least, slower processing. Studies supportive of the general capacity hypothesis (Engle et al., 1992) have usually found that increased demands on working memory slow down processing and decrease short-term memory spans. In typical cognitive activities, the difficulty of the processing task is inversely related to memory span. Performance may be further impaired when the processing task has its own competing storage demands (Towse, Hitch, & Hutton, 2002).

page 40

The specific processing hypothesis posits that working memory capacity is task specific— that is, processing efficiency, not storage capacity, is the real determinant of individual differences in working memory (Daneman & Tardiff, 1987). For example, phonological loop span is dependent on the efficiency of phonological processing.More broadly, the efficiency with which people process language determines verbal working memory capacity. According to this hypothesis, originally proposed by Daneman and Carpenter (1980), working memory capacity will vary, depending on the task and the individual’s processing proficiency at that task. For instance, individuals who display working 42 THEORIES AND MODELS OF WORKING MEMORY memory deficiencies during reading may demonstrate perfectly normal working memory capacity for arithmetic. As task expertise, efficiency, and automaticity increase, the greater the apparent working memory capacity (Daneman & Carpenter). Despite the intuitive appeal of this hypothesis, direct empirical support for it is equivocal. Perhaps the best support for the hypothesis is the fact that experts appear to have much greater working memory capacity than novices (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995). A related alternative is the general processing hypothesis, which postulates that general processing efficiency determines working memory performance. Recent research (reviewed by Bayliss, Jarrold, Baddeley, Gunn, & Leigh, 2005) has reported convincing evidence that the capacity of working memory depends heavily on general processing efficiency. This hypothesis is consistent with the general capacity hypothesis in that the more efficiently the processing systems work, the more resources remain for temporary storage. The effective use of strategies may promote general processing efficiency. For instance, there is ample evidence (McNamara & Scott, 2001; Turley- Ames & Whitfield, 2003) that individuals with high working memory spans are more strategic than those with low spans.

page 42

The authors don't seem to like the views articulated on page 40 (they spend most of page 41 and 42 criticizing it), but I feel like there's potentially room to combine the evidence presented at the bottom of 42 with the ideas of 40 in a sort of two way relationship that preserves the notion increased working memory will increase processing speed despite the lack of a literal shared resource between the two. Perhaps executive functioning could fill a role similar to the resource's?

u/Pendred [+5] Chaos Legion (49 minutes later)

The "Vertigo"/"Push" option seems awesome. Let's say that this magic is well known, and that most kings/rulers have other casters on hire to "debunk" illusions with their "sight".

u/Pendred [+3] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)

Speed of thought, visual hallucinations are universally perceived, audio and physical are potentially selective.

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (an hour later)

Take a look at the edits!

u/ben_sphynx [+10] (24 minutes later)

Traps.

It feels like you are walking along a normal corridor. You can see the floor, and hear your footsteps.

Unknown to you, you fell in the spike trap.

You are in a normal room. The air is clear, and you are breathing just fine.

Unknown to you, is the choking gas you are actually breathing.

u/Pendred [+8] Chaos Legion (50 minutes later)

That is very interesting. Bear in mind it would take two casters working in tandem to create the sound of footsteps and the figment of the floor. Veiling the appearance and sensation of a poison gas would be awesome.

u/ZeroNihilist [+4] (8 hours later)

You wouldn't need to fake the sound of footsteps unless you were faking the whole floor.

However, if you really wanted to be certain that somebody would fall into a pit trap, you'd need 3 casters to maintain the one camouflage:

1. The visuals of the fake floor.
2. The sound of a fake footstep.
3. The sensation of stepping on the fake floor.

If any one of these is missing, there'd be a potentially brief window where they could rectify ther misstep.

This would hold true for any "trap" that has visual, auditory, and tactile feedback that's noticeable before the point of no return.

With that in mind, I think there're some effective traps that can be done with less than 3 casters:

• Disguise the visual appearance of a tripwire or other trigger. You could also disguise the mechanism if needed.
• Disguise the sound of a rushing obstacle (like a torrent of water, a boulder, or a collapsing roof - something that can't really be avoided once it can be seen).
• Fake wall concealing a projectile launcher.
• Counter the sensation of increasing heat in a room that is being cooked. Once it stops working (since most casters won't be willing to experience the sensation of true burning being relieved) it could easily be too late, depending on the design.

u/sephlington [+3] (14 hours later)

From the rules, I can't see that the casters would feel any of the real flames, they just have to cast the normalcy that they're already feeling. This could theoretically go on as flesh is seared from bones, although then you'd probably also need visible and audible illusions if you really didn't want them to know, even when it's far too late.

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (16 hours later)

The rules also state that illusions can't counter "true" pain, only illusory pain

u/mhd-hbd [+9] Writes 'The World is Your Oyster, The Universe is Your Namesake' (2 hours later)

Peaceful economic usages:

Every composer with magic talent would be a sound mage. It is simply too useful, and it takes fairly little to vividly imagine instrumental music.

Similarly, visual artists would be light mages and use it for concepting paintings, or creating reference still-lifes to paint wholesale.

Perfumerists could create pleasant bouquets for concepting new perfumes without the need for expensive ingredients.

Tattoo artists could either be visual artists as above, or sensory-mages and numb the pain of the needle.

Surgery staff would use sensory mages as anaesthesia, to keep the patient lucid and aware for questioning during surgery.

Hunters and farmers alike could be -- or have on hand -- visual mages to plunge animals into darkness for ease of capturing.

Basically, your artistry will be crazy elaborate.

u/Pendred [+2] Chaos Legion (3 hours later)

This is awesome.

u/mack2028 [+6] (an hour later)

Practice fighting while completely numb. Get a sharp knife. You make both you and your opponent completely numb then use the experience advantage to kill them.

u/Pendred [+2] Chaos Legion (an hour later)

You're referring to "inflicting" an aspect of the mage's special state of awareness used to detect illusions? That's very interesting.

u/mack2028 [+2] (2 hours later)

Maybe a little, or more maybe that is the way the technique was discovered. I was talking about the fact that there are humans that have no sense of touch and with practice they can function but if they haven't taken a lot of time and effort to focus on their physicality the're very clumsy and don't know when they are hurt.

This way you can stay about the same as you normally are, a trained assassin, and they become a clumsy joke unable to tell that they are already dead.

u/IHaveNoTact [+6] (3 hours later)

I'd use your "physical sensations" magic to take over the world.

Step one: Learn to create the sensation of heightened happiness. Create this on people you are around.

When people leave your presence, they will become less happy. Even if it's subconscious at first, they will start to want to be around you because they will want to be happy. When they leave your presence, everything will get a bit subjectively worse. Their own brain will become addicted to being around you.

Step two: Use people's desire to be around you to upgrade your associates to higher status, higher wealth folks. When people get in deep with you, get them to find better people to be around you even if occasionally. As we've seen, just being around you regularly enough is dangerous.

Step three: This step depends on the social order. The fewer at the top, the easier -- you just need to create addicts of the people who run things. Once they are addicted to you, you can jerk them around and get them to do whatever you need for their next fix of happiness. And you are effectively controlling the world.

It's a slow process - it would surely take years - but it would certainly be extremely effective, and it'd be much easier if you can create an area of effect. It wasn't clear from your text if you can create a room, say, where anybody walking in it suddenly gets extremely happy, or if you need to target individuals. Either way though it's fairly straightforward, as you're basically using your magic to make yourself the best cult leader ever.

u/Pendred [+3] Chaos Legion (3 hours later)

Remember that in order to conjure that sensation, you would have to experience it, initially and with every casting. You would be just as susceptible to addiction and dependence, with an addict's mind.

u/IHaveNoTact [+3] (4 hours later)

Sure but I'm not talking about generating ecstasy, I'm talking about generating happiness, contentment, good feelings that are not just tolerable but actively desired continuously.

The addiction isn't caused by the feeling itself, but by its absence when people left your presence. People wouldn't want to go away because they wouldn't want to lose that sense of peace. You aren't really at risk because you are always experiencing it. Either you adjust to generally being a happier person or you're just a little more positive than average.

The sensation I'm imagining wouldn't debilitate you or anybody else. Perhaps you'd be addicted too but you'd cast it on yourself first thing in the morning and keep it up as long as you can anyway. You don't leave your own presence after all.

u/Pendred [+3] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)

That's pretty subtle. I like it.

u/notmy2ndopinion [+2] Concent of Saunt Edhar (11 hours later)

It sounds like Sanderson's Mistborn with their ability to push or suppress emotions with Zinc or Brass.

u/Anakiri [+6] (4 hours later)

[Illusory sights] are refracted, "bent" light, but they do not carry heat, therefore no death lasers.

I don't understand this. I think you mean that they are pure hallucinations that don't actually exist. Refracted real light must carry and transfer energy, since that's what photons are. But these make different predictions. Will illusions have reflections without the caster consciously making it so? Do illusions show up on camera?

If no, then distorted funhouse mirrors will very quickly make believable visible illusions infeasible. A person could also wear bifocal glasses to check everything.

If yes, then forget illusions. You have detectable zero-energy stuff! You can make a photodetector report increased energy state without increasing its energy state somehow. Non-interacting atomic microscopes, radiationless x-rays and CT scans, telescopes that can see into black holes, optical computers with no power limits whatsoever!

And the same thing with sound, which you say does propagate through a real medium despite zero energy, while still being detectable... somehow, even though energy waves is what sound is. Ships can use illusory nuclear explosions as sonar pulses, to give themselves functionally limitless range, without even badly disrupting the wildlife. Survey crews can do the same to examine the internal structure of the planet, and easily map out cave systems. If you're lucky, you can quickly and cheaply experiment to find a resonant frequency of a structure, before setting up a real pendulum to destroy it.

Or, in the other case, can audio illusions be easily defeated anywhere with familiar acoustics? If you transmit illusory audio through a cans-on-a-string phone, and an enemy ties a string onto yours, the line will remain secure - its not real sound and the energy doesn't pluck the enemy's string. Really, secure communication is a much better use for disbelievable hallucinations than most straightforward offensive uses.

Why can't tactile illusionists be semi-suicide bombers? Real world monks can and have sat calmly after setting themselves on fire, so the discipline is doable. Especially since the illusion itself is simple and shouldn't take much concentration. Just: Hurt. This is especially useful if it can be broadcast over a huge number of people, and it's functionally impossible to believe you're not in pain when you're in pain. One monk could disable an army.

u/Pendred [+2] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)

See edits. Passive psychic network, all pure mental. The caster would have to make a conscious effort for mirrors, cameras, water, etc. Thank you for asking these questions. The network is based on collective perception, and so sound propagates essentially through the subconscious without the conscious mind having to calculate trajectory, scattering, adsorption, etc.

u/kaukamieli [+2] (11 hours later)

Are all illusions as hard to dispel, as in, it depends only on how hard caster concentrates? Might be cool if it depended on if you actually don't believe it. Would also make those who know physics more powerful against those who don't. "That's not how light behaves." "That godzilla should leave bigger footprints."

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (16 hours later)

They're all hard to dispel, because concentration generally coincides with accuracy in a given illusion. If something is uncanny valley esque to the viewer, it is easier to dispel, marginally.

u/gryfft [+4] (7 hours later)

Sleight-of-hand or non-illusion-based trickery could be used to greatly strengthen illusions. Do some initial (presumably expensive) tricks to build and reinforce a belief, then use illusion to maintain that belief indefinitely (and cheaply.)

In this manner, it should be relatively straightforward to socially engineer yourself into a powerful cult leader (a pretty decent step on the road to world domination.)

In terms of carrots and sticks:

Stick:

1. Say "I have a new form of the power that allows me to strip you of all your senses indefinitely." This sets up an expectation.
2. Use poison or flashbangs to induce temporary blindness/deafness. The most heartfelt attempts to disbelieve will not restore the senses of the victim.
3. Sustain the blindness/deafness/numbness using illusion. The victim, having despaired, will be unable to challenge the illusion.

Carrot:

1. Say "My new form of the power allows me to grant infinite pleasure, peace, calm, and clarity of mind."

2. Drug the victim with something particularly potent.

3. Sustain the sensation once the drugs wear off.

Higher-tier zealots could work together as invisible, silent assassination squads. Combine with some legends about being able to kill with your mind alone, and again, it becomes much more difficult to challenge the illusion.

Countermeasures:

Any secured area would need to have airlocks, preferably with turnstiles. If illusions do not affect computer hardware, it would be advantageous to do things like set up cameras connected to computer vision algorithms. (In fact, if computers are entirely unaffected, all guards could just wear some kind of mediated reality goggles (like an Oculus Rift with cameras on the outside, or Google Glass with a live feed.)) If humans are affected even through mediated reality, the guards could enter their count of the people in the airlock and the computer could automatically check that count and sound the alarm if there is a discrepancy.

By the same token, ubiquitous motion detectors are a must in any secured location.

Any important persons should have multi-factor authentication schemes for identity verification. These persons should carry around PGP keys on their persons, memorize passwords and countersigns, and have extensive logs kept of their movements and communications.

The most important persons (heads of state, etc) should never leave secured locations (although it might be advantageous to have an illusory body double make public appearances and give speeches.)

TL;DR: Belief is currency in this society. Foster and reinforce it and you can be god-king. Any mind that wishes to be free must be stingy with its belief and must be prepared to deal with anything, even if it rocks the foundations of the reality it previously knew.

u/Pendred [+2] Chaos Legion (16 hours later)

I really, really like this.

u/gryfft [+2] (16 hours later)

Thanks!

Have you given any thought to how illusions stack? If five illusionists are maintaining the same image, is it five times as difficult to dispel?

u/Pendred [+2] Chaos Legion (16 hours later)

They would not stack. The presented illusion has a very special relationship with the caster, in that it was constructed mostly by their subconscious (remember said image/sound/sensation) and fine tuned with concentrated effort, so each one would be unique. Maybe if two casters trained specifically to that end, they could get it to harmonize, but it's almost always more beneficial to just have a caster for each aspect of the illusion.

u/gryfft [+2] (17 hours later)

harmonize

And on that note, think of the symphonies.

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (16 hours later)

Sensations might be able to stack, since number of stimuli in that instance would be harder to disbelieve

edit: I'm going to say that yes, sensations and sounds can stack, but visual illusions cannot occupy the same space in the psychic net without being subject to frequent disbelief.

u/notmy2ndopinion [+5] Concent of Saunt Edhar (an hour later)

Use illusions to enhance reality

Stack a series of imager lenses on top of each other to create a weightless telescope or microscope.

Convert micromovements in objects from a distance into correspondent amplified waveforms to create a teleaudience surveillance device

Use haptic feedback to allow you to drive a marionette gear mecha

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_rubinstein_see_invisible_motion_hear_silent_sounds_cool_creepy_we_can_t_decide/transcript?language=en

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/357b4o/im_an_mit_computer_scientist_and_recent_ted/

u/clawclawbite [+4] (9 hours later)

For tactile effects, train masochists and people with synistesia to inflict pain and sensations most people can't handle.

u/None [+3] (2 hours later)

[deleted]

u/kilkil [+2] (8 hours later)

Yeah, but how do you know you've mastered all magic?

And once you have, why would you need a gun?

u/sparr [+3] (6 hours later)

If illusory sound doesn't convey kinetic energy, how does it influence mechanical or electromechanical sound recording devices?

That is, if I build a purely mechanical device that turns air vibrations into grooves on a wax cylinder or a plastic disc, and you make illusory sound in its vicinity, does it record them?

If it doesn't work, then it would be trivial to build portable devices that allow the user to tell the difference between what they are hearing and what real physical sounds are extant.

If it does work, where is the energy to move the mechanical parts coming from? I can harness that for power production...

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (16 hours later)

Would not emit energy, therefore cannot be recorded.

u/sparr [+2] (17 hours later)

OK, so you can detect the difference pretty trivially. That makes that kind of magic a lot less useful for trickery.

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (17 hours later)

It could still distract. It doesn't just unexist once you know it isn't real, you still have to devote enough focus to "dispelling" them

u/sparr [+2] (17 hours later)

Sure, but being distracted is a lot less powerful than being convinced of anything.

u/kilkil [+3] (8 hours later)

If you want to disable all enemies in an area, have one caster project an illusion of darkness (should be relatively simple), and another caster project an illusion of sound at a sufficient frequency to cause the people hearing it pain (not through kinetic energy of sound, just through the design of the human ear).

If you want to disable one person, have the same two casters; one caster projects the illusion that the target looks like they're acting normally (to everyone else), while the other sets up the same high-frequency noise, but only for that one person.

u/CFCrispyBacon [+3] (8 hours later)

Sensation seems to be the way to go here:

1. Train in combat techniques while drunk/stoned/hallucinating/profoundly off balance/etc. In combat, you force the sensation on your opponents, and kill them while they are distracted and you are functional.

2. Reinforce "nothing has changed" as an illusion affecting a sense. Learn how to fight without it.

3. Subtle assassination. Give someone the illusion that they are starving, and put them in front of a massive meal. Project that they aren't seeing the person who is attacking them/poisoning them/what have you.

4. Psychological torture: Forcing pain and ecstasy to reinforce a target behavior.

In this society, you could never trust your senses. The people that succeed would be able to disbelieve and work around their inputs at every moment. It would be utterly terrifying.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate (9 hours later)

Any difference between an action and an observation of that action can be exploited, assuming sufficient technology. To break an illusion, you simply need information that the illusionist does not have and cannot replicate. If you have a tech level comparable to today then a pair of google glass with a infra-red, UV and a microphone would be sufficient for all but the most well-heeled illusionist.

Basically, have a UV and IR view of the world in front in the heads up display, as well as a soundwave. Now, it is impossible to imagine information that you do not have so any illusion made without information of the UV and IR would necessarily not have that information for the camera to see. You get a man walking down the street and the IR sees straight through him because he's not emitting heat - illusion detected. That should deal with touch-based as well, if you're being touched and the thing touching you doesn't show on the cams then you're fine. The soundwave just forces your opponent to be more skilled in most cases, unless there is a situation when a sound beyond human hearing should show up on the chart, but doesn't. Which would probably be rare to be honest.

From there you get a standard technological arms race, with aggressors implementing fake UV and IR into their illusions while defenders buy miniaturised microwave scanning software and try to figure out shoulder-mounted sonar. The person with the most senses wins. At some point either the aggressors's minds collapse under the weight of fooling so many sensors at once, or the defenders run into the limits of how many things can be carried and worn (and afforded) by your average person.

u/kaukamieli [+3] (11 hours later)

Is taste one of those "physical sensations"? Wouldn't fake money need also a mage who makes it taste like something? Or can the one that does the physical do it all?

u/Pendred [+2] Chaos Legion (16 hours later)

Taste and smell would both fall under physical sensations

u/kaukamieli [+2] (a day later)

What I'm thinking of is if one mage can change both taste and smell at the same time. Feels like cheating if one can only do vision, but another can do taste, smell, heat, etc... at the same time.

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (a day later)

But the more complex it is, the harder it is to accomplish, and no one reaches bullshit savant levels, because it's sufficiently complicated. So having someone experience a smell, temperature, taste, and physical pain at the same time is like juggling knives with your feet in the dark, and your feet keep changing size.

u/DCarrier [+3] (11 hours later)

Create invisibility by making an illusion that you're not there. Create illusions of people not being where they aren't to fool mages using their illusion sight. Or create an illusion that you are there, to fool mages using their illusion sight into thinking you're an illusion. Train pain mages to be able to withstand high amounts of pain. Use it on people who haven't been trained. Generally try to surprise and confuse people in battle. Blind people by sticking opaque illusions over their heads. Counter that by making a huge opaque illusion so they can't track you, moving, and making it go away.

You said that visual hallucinations have no reflections? That can be abused. Make a pair of glasses that's basically a pair of periscopes so that you only see reflections.

u/Reasonableviking [+3] (14 hours later)

Can you just turn off your own (and thus other people's) Proprioception as a "physical sensation"? You probably want a buddy to stop you from collapsing like a wet noodle or a suit that holds you upright but otherwise you can paralyse anybody within your area of effect.

u/SublimeMachine [+2] (2 hours later)

Could you explain how the illusions work with 'bent light' a little more clearly? It seems like if an illusion is able to block out the background light (or you bend it away), then you should be able to blind someone by creating an illusion around their head.

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)

That would be possible. But the less accessible something is, the easier it is to disbelieve. So an abstract darkness or unlight might be suspect.

u/Kuratius [+2] (11 hours later)

Active camouflage should be a thing. Complete invisibility from in an angle behind your head while moving (opposite of the direction you are looking in, you have two eyes, so it should cover everything behind you, holding an image in your head that you are seeing right now should not be a problem) and complete invisibility from any angle for mages that are standing still in an environment that does not change rapidly or without great irregularity.

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (4 hours later)

Essentially, images are projected onto a communal psychic network. Audio and tactile illusions are potentially selective.

u/kaukamieli [+2] (11 hours later)

Do you have to focus your concentration to disbelieve things? Can you just concentrate and everything around you disappears, or do you have to concentrate on a single pink elephant to make it disappear?

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (16 hours later)

Well there's a mode of sight where you ONLY perceive things on the psychic network, and that would allow you to "dispel" all present illusions with minor concentration. But without it, if you want to keep all of your senses active, it would be much easier to focus on one illusion disappearing than several. So both.

u/kaukamieli [+2] (a day later)

So, if there is no OP area dispel, isn't invisibility OP? I'm in a room with you, invisible and you don't know I'm there. You don't just randomly go "I'm gonna try to concentrate very hard in case there are any illusions around." You can't concentrate on just the invisible guy, because you don't know he is there. Also, you don't see him in the psychic network, because he is invisible. If he was illusioned as a pink elephant, you'd see pink elephant there, right?

u/BestCaseSurvival [+2] (13 hours later)

How convincing can the following sensations be made:

• Sudden acceleration
• Instant deceleration
• Rotation about a given axis

If I, as a kinetomancer, were to project on you the feeling of falling to your death (because I have previously gone cliff diving or bungee jumping) will I trick your brain into believing it is about to die? Can I make you dizzy enough to vomit if I have practiced and schooled my own reactions to extreme disorientation?

If I have been horrifically maimed (3rd degree burns, limbs violently removed) and survived it, will I be able to transmit that pain while I myself take morphene to insulate myself from the casting? Sufficient pain stimulus could induce tachycardia and a host of other real stress responses.

If I am an amputee experiencing phantom limb syndrome, can I convince someone with all of their limbs that a fictitious and non-localized chronic pain exists for them?

From the countermagic side, what prevents a person from disbelieving everything in order to discover what is real? Would a member of a sufficiently-dedicated monastic order be walking antimagic due to strenuous and habitual applied disbelief? With the ultimate goal of unmaking the universe by disbelieving it harder than God believes it, but with the side-benefit of being impossible to fool through magic.

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (16 hours later)

Those physics would be perceived, and convincing, but have only psychosomatic effects. "Unbelievers" disbelieving everything would be viable, but it would take a lifetime of effort.

u/MugaSofer [+2] (a day later)

Create an illusion of a hole in something, the magical "physics engine" will fill in the details. Bam, x-ray vision. (Although everyone else can see it too - windows made of steel?)

It's odd that anti-feelings can cancel out illusions, but not real pain/pleasure. Could be a way to check if it's real, if you're a caster who doesn't have that Mage Sight thing.

... could I create a tactile illusion of "your leg is missing"? Not pain, just a total lack of feedback from your leg and a vague feeling that it isn't there?

Do illusionary flashbangs blind and deafen? Do you recover instantly if the casting is interrupted?

Most industrial applications are messed up by the fact that this requires an active spellcaster to be present, but there are some interesting edge cases. Can you force yourself to push through a "solid" tactile illusion without rolling to disbelieve? Can you create an illusory telescope that lets you see troop movements from miles away? Can you create illusions with optical properties that don't exist, like a wall that's opaque from only one side, or a super-duper microscope more powerful than any real one?

What are the size limits, as well? Making an illusion that the Earth is transparent so you can map everyone seems like an obvious trick - I infer this is a low-tech setting? - but some git would have made the whole world dark if that were possible.

Can you give someone a sensation that they, or you, can't normally experience? If you're congenitally incapable of feeling pain, can you feel illusion!pain? Can you show people impossible colours, or what infrared and ultraviolet look like? You have to have felt something in order to project a tactile illusion of it; can the time you felt it have also been an illusion?

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (a day later)

If you encounter a "solid" construct, if a tactile caster is present, your brain does tell you its a solid, but you can push your way through it with minor effort. Lack of sensation isn't really a sensation for casting purposes, but you could create "phantom limb" sensation if you have experience with it. Size limits are line of sight, basically, distance increases difficulty. If it leaves your sight it's not dispelled, but it is weakened and harder to sustain. The physics engine is the collective subconscious that fills in how those things should work, so it would fill in what's probably there if you make a hole in a solid object, but not x-ray vision.

u/booljayj [+2] (2 days later)

Could a sight caster create a replica of themselves, occupying the same space, with the same movements? You mentioned that casters have the ability to detect whether something is an illusion by blocking out everything else. Any caster using this ability will see the sight caster as an illusion, and will treat them as such. Casters require great concentration, but if the thing they are concentrating on is themselves and what they are currently doing, they would be able to move about without too much trouble.

Nobody would flinch at seeing someone walk into a bank and take all the money if they were absolutely certain that what they were seeing was an illusion. However, unbeknownst to them, what they are seeing is an illusion of what's actually happening. If this becomes known, the ability to detect illusions becomes effectively useless when used on mundane things. You can never be sure if you're seeing an illusion, or something masked by an illusion.

u/Pendred [+1] Chaos Legion (2 days later)

That is absolutely possible.

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