What is the population of Furrae like in terms of numbers for each race ?
Also given that inter-dimensional portals are so common that the average teenage girl can generate one along with knowledge that other habitable realms exist have there been attempts to expand to other realms or invasions by creatures from other realms ?
Granted places like Saia exist on there own private planes of existence , and that the ability to create such planes is also
common enough that they are used for carrying trivial things like snacks in the form of a bag of holding ; I would assume that very few races would see reason for territorial expansion besides acquiring raw materials .
This is a stupid question that I should already know the answer to , isn't it ?
Well putting aside that Amber has professed to not being the greatest at scaling numbers, interdimensional as far as I know, have not shown themselves to be common at all in the story. Do you have an example?
Aside from Saia , and toasters being used as anchors for pocket realms the only evidence that beings may possess methods of travelling between realms are the inter-dimensional portals in the human arc which might not even be cannon anymore .
Also summoning a WarpAci requires the ability to form a portal to the realm of non-sensation .
I am not capable of mathing such statistics and numbers accurately. It is not something in which I am good at, and I imagine my attempts at trying it would result in some really off numbers that wouldn't work.
I think I remember that you once stated that approximately 1% of furrae`s overall population was composed of demons . I would imagine that the population present would exceed that of earth`s by several orders of magnitude , due to the presence of widely available healing potions , and weather control that would completely change agriculture .
Quote from: meltingface101 on December 06, 2013, 01:50:03 PM
I would imagine that the population present would exceed that of earth`s by several orders of magnitude , due to the presence of widely available healing potions , and weather control that would completely change agriculture .
Except that the feudal-monarchical system that the world is largely under combined with a strong criminal element would knock things down several orders of magnitude. Add to that the fact that tech is not as homogenously spread in Furrae as on Earth and I would guess that the population of Furrae is lower than that of Earth.
I would have presumed that even with the limiting factors you presented , the population would still exceed that of Earth due to the number of niches magic opens up . There are civilizations present in the ocean , and under ground . Earth's surface is 71% water .
Also I remember it was stated that Dragons where of extradimensional origin along with the Fae , are there any other non-native races ?
Should this go under Tinfoil hats , due to the fact that it's purely speculation .
It's kinda dancing the line for the tearoom, but I'm not going to be the one to make that call since folks like to complain when I do. ;-)
Quote from: Mao on December 11, 2013, 04:51:01 PM
It's kinda dancing the line for the tearoom, but I'm not going to be the one to make that call since folks like to complain when I do. ;-)
I thought that was what you wanted... ;-]
Quote from: Eboreg on December 06, 2013, 06:03:30 PM
Quote from: meltingface101 on December 06, 2013, 01:50:03 PM
I would imagine that the population present would exceed that of earth`s by several orders of magnitude , due to the presence of widely available healing potions , and weather control that would completely change agriculture .
Except that the feudal-monarchical system that the world is largely under combined with a strong criminal element would knock things down several orders of magnitude. Add to that the fact that tech is not as homogenously spread in Furrae as on Earth and I would guess that the population of Furrae is lower than that of Earth.
I have not seen any evidence to support a feudal system , can you point me to were this is indicated ?
Also from what we have been shown magic can occupy many of the roles that tech does while requiring nothing more than magically capable people and education facilities . Tech despite being usable by anyone with training requires vast amounts of infrastructure to create , which in turn requires large amounts of land and resources .
Quote from: meltingface101 on December 12, 2013, 10:25:03 AM
I have not seen any evidence to support a feudal system , can you point me to were this is indicated ?
The fact that the highest-level autonomous political unit is the city is a pretty clear indication of this.
Quote
Also from what we have been shown magic can occupy many of the roles that tech does while requiring nothing more than magically capable people and education facilities . Tech despite being usable by anyone with training requires vast amounts of infrastructure to create , which in turn requires large amounts of land and resources .
The problem with that is that magically capable people can be pretty rare when talking about being capable enough to do some of the more advanced stuff. While infrastructure is necessary for technological objects, mass production is a much smaller problem once it is set up. For example, blowing up a city in Furrae vs. blowing up a city on Earth. In Furrae, there is only one shown instance in which a city was blown up (Cyra vs. M'Chek) and replicating it would take a great amount of difficulty. On Earth, this occasion happened twice within the space of four days and afterwards, people just went nuts trying to build more devices capable of doing this, getting into the thousands and tens of thousands, and even going so far as to build specialized delivery platforms and setting up a whole new paradigm of war around them.
It's one of the major differences between the classic interpretation of magic and the realities of technology, exclusivity vs. commonality, one-time accomplishment vs. universal advancement, individual prowess vs. mass production, power of the few vs. power of the many.
Magic as it has been presented in story allows them to create new living spaces out of nothing with no space constraint and generate matter from nothing . Even if magic is available in limited quantities the amount of people who possess it will grow rapidly in comparison to any society that relies on technology given the fact they are not bound by conservation of mass or energy .
Quote from: meltingface101 on December 14, 2013, 08:58:54 AM
Magic as it has been presented in story allows them to create new living spaces out of nothing with no space constraint and generate matter from nothing . Even if magic is available in limited quantities the amount of people who possess it will grow rapidly in comparison to any society that relies on technology given the fact they are not bound by conservation of mass or energy .
And yet, Beings are still the most common race by far in the world of Furrae. The idea that Furraeans are not constrained by conservation of mass or energy is somewhat dodgy due to the fact that it took a nearly deified 'Cubi tri-wing to set up an entire extra-dimensional university and even then, she may have had help from a Fae. This strongly points to the idea that creating an extra-dimensional dwelling takes an enormous amount of energy.
Quote from: Eboreg on December 14, 2013, 09:06:38 PM
And yet, Beings are still the most common race by far in the world of Furrae. The idea that Furraeans are not constrained by conservation of mass or energy is somewhat dodgy due to the fact that it took a nearly deified 'Cubi tri-wing to set up an entire extra-dimensional university and even then, she may have had help from a Fae. This strongly points to the idea that creating an extra-dimensional dwelling takes an enormous amount of energy.
They do seem to have
less constraints on mass and energy than we do, though as you say, it's not plain sailing. That said, Matilda, for example, is able to produce magical homes apparently by herself. SAIA may not necessarily be a comparable case given that Fa'Lina can foresee things - there may be more going on there than we know about.
As for the population, longer-lived creatures tend to breed less regularly and if that holds over to Furrae, it gives the Beings an immediate advantage.
Quote from: Tapewolf on December 14, 2013, 09:27:57 PM
Quote from: Eboreg on December 14, 2013, 09:06:38 PM
And yet, Beings are still the most common race by far in the world of Furrae. The idea that Furraeans are not constrained by conservation of mass or energy is somewhat dodgy due to the fact that it took a nearly deified 'Cubi tri-wing to set up an entire extra-dimensional university and even then, she may have had help from a Fae. This strongly points to the idea that creating an extra-dimensional dwelling takes an enormous amount of energy.
They do seem to have less constraints on mass and energy than we do, though as you say, it's not plain sailing. That said, Matilda, for example, is able to produce magical homes apparently by herself. SAIA may not necessarily be a comparable case given that Fa'Lina can foresee things - there may be more going on there than we know about.
The way I think of it is like: What Matilda does is like grabbing the middle of a bedsheet and bunching it up to make a pouch. Still part of the world, just connected differently.
But SAIA is much closer to being its own reality.
The more I think about it the more I realize how uninterested in inter-dimensional travel magic users might be . They have no reason to care about alternate planes of existence outside of curiosity .
Also I don't think Mab's plan for Jyrass stands the remotest chance of succeeding unless it involves him deploying a weapon that can disable all magic on the planet at least . I cannot imagine everyone sitting idly by while guns spread .
Quote from: meltingface101 on December 15, 2013, 09:35:26 AM
Also I don't think Mab's plan for Jyrass stands the remotest chance of succeeding unless it involves him deploying a weapon that can disable all magic on the planet at least . I cannot imagine everyone sitting idly by while guns spread .
We don't know what Mab's plan is. We don't even know who Jyrras is intending the guns should be used against.
The Creature Council is assuming that he is their enemy, but what we know that they might not is that Jyrras is very pro-Creature and gets along with them easier than he does with other Beings (mentioned by his mother and borne out by the strip so far). Indeed, the first person to get the weapon tested on them was a Being, for the purposes of protecting a Creature.
If I had to stake a guess at Mab's plan, I would imagine that she's trying to get
all the races to get along, not just favouring one of them. After all, most of her friends seem to be Creatures - engineering a situation where virtually all of them get wiped out by Beings armed with mass-produced guns would be odd, to say the least.
'Course, if she did manage to stop the races backstabbing each other, that in itself may introduce population problems.
Quote from: meltingface101 on December 15, 2013, 09:35:26 AM
Also I don't think Mab's plan for Jyrass stands the remotest chance of succeeding unless it involves him deploying a weapon that can disable all magic on the planet at least .
There are those who believe that a 100% natural object would be completely immune to magic. It's the most logical reason for Mab to want Jyrras to develop magic-less items. Jyrras himself noted how hard it is to apply magic to an object that gets more and more natural and such an item would provide the power balance you suggested.
As for Mab's plans, I would like to show a bit of a thought experiment. Take a big burly man and put him in an arena with a wheelchair bound person to sort out their differences. No question of where it's going right? Now, give both of them handguns. It's easy to see that it's an equal match in that case. The great thing about modern industrial firearms is that they provide a significant amount of killing firepower while having a very shallow learning curve in using them effectively compared to medieval-era weapons of the kind seen in Furrae. The inequality becomes even worse when the magical races of Furrae enter the picture.
Now think about all of those times that a Demon has gone on a rampage in Furrae just to showcase his strength. Would he do the same thing if he could very easily get his heart shredded by a guy hiding in a window several hundred meters away with multiple follow-up shots if the first one missed? One then gets on the question of what would happen if the Demon decided to use a gun in the massacre but he is at no more of an advantage than any of the high-profile spree killers we hear about from time to time. Even if he manages to get away, snipers are going to soon try to claim a bounty on his head as an extension of the adventurer concept. Natural selection in action.
The problem isn't in the guns themselves so much as there ability to gain momentum , it doesn't take a very creative creature to teleport a few boulders above a factory . The creature have magic powers that are so far beyond anything resembling our weaponry would still lose .
I agree with Tapewolf , the point of introducing such weapons isn't so much to combat creatures as it is a means by which beings could achieve a standing equal to that of creatures . However the only situation I could imagine beings getting to prove themselves equal in the eyes of creatures would be if an external threat manifested that only beings have the numbers to drive off .
inane musings ahead
I am imagining either a swarm type foe that relies so heavily on magic that most conventional magic based attacks are rendered worthless , or an enemy that relies purely on non- magical means of assault . In the latter case Jyrras' project may grow into something resembling Xcom .