The Science of Atys

[petej]

Ummm not realy youre missing the other side Clarke only says highly advanced (from your perspective) Technology "looks" like Magic , Magic isnt Technology

[sidusar]

Though, why havent they figured out yet that "the Dragon" might just not be a mystical beast, but a spaceship? As we ahs "Humans" have, or better would like to belive. I may be wrong here, just a theory.
Is there no doubt in Homins?
I think not.

Oooh, good point too.

Do we really know what he term 'Dragon' means to homins? No living homin has ever seen the Dragon of myth, and I don't believe I've seen any descriptions in the lore of what it looks like.

Maybe homins don't think of it as a mystical beast at all. That could be just what we make of it because we think of a 'dragon' as a flying reptillian beast that breathes fire. There seems to be no clues as to what the 'Great Dragon' actually is, except that it's sentient.

And if there's no official story, I'm sure homins all have their own ideas about what the Dragon really is. Could be a mythical beast, could be a spaceship, could even be a collective of beings.

Ummm not realy youre missing the other side Clarke only says highly advanced (from your perspective) Technology "looks" like Magic , Magic isnt Technology

Magic in our world is anything that science can't explain, it only matters what is magic to you. If someone could conjure up a ball of fire in the palm of their hand, or teleport themself from one place to another, and science couldn't explain how they did it, that would be considered magic. If science could explain how they did it, then it would be considered technology.

[iwojimmy]

Any attempt to unravel the science behind Atys is hampered by the disinformation and outright lies which permeates the Lore. The way it has altered over time to contradict earlier incarnations shows that it is the grip of propagandists, and therefore the entire content of it is better off discarded, and Homins freed to rely upon their own observations - although the demonstrated abilities of the higher powers who seem to be behind the revisionism - make even direct observations vulnerable to tampering.

As an alternate hypothesis to the one released for public consumption, has anyone considered the Kamis may have exaggerated their importance in the life-cycle of Atys, and actually be a parasitic lifeform. This would make the goo -which the Kami call on Homins to destroy- the planets defensive mechanism against them. Like a fever or an allergic reaction, the goo is not a pleasant experience, yet it is how the body attempts to fight off an external threat.

Think about it, please...

[acridiel]

Ummm not realy youre missing the other side Clarke only says highly advanced (from your perspective) Technology "looks" like Magic , Magic isnt Technology

Sorry, but I quoted correctly. And he´s right.
Sure it isn´t technology.
But:
If you don´t have the first hand knowledge to destinguish Technology and Magic, then a simple lighter, even a match, will be a miracle to you.
And you´ll sell whole islands for a crate of Glass-Pearls.
Think about that.

It´s the point, that it "just looks like". Its deceving and you may not be able to tell one thing from the other.

But we may consider the Karavan as akin to the "Technomages" from Babylon 5, for that matter if you´d like

EDIT: @iwojimmy
Whoa, that´s a good one New perspective´s always welcome!
Have to think about that, yup.

Acridiel

[petej]

Magic in our world is anything that science can't explain, it only matters what is magic to you. If someone could conjure up a ball of fire in the palm of their hand, or teleport themself from one place to another, and science couldn't explain how they did it, that would be considered magic. If science could explain how they did it, then it would be considered technology.

If Vodoo was found to work , it wouldnt be termed as Science or Technology

or going the other way , it was said that the flight of the Bumble Bee was an aero-dynamic impossibility but thats never been thought of as Magic , just something thats not fully understood

[acridiel]

If Vodoo was found to work , it wouldnt be termed as Science or Technology

Oh, but it would.
If they scientifically found out how it works, it wouldn´t be magic anymore.
In german "the sience" means "die Wissenschaft", wich is a direct derivat of "Wissen schaffen" wich translates into "to create knowledge". So, any sientist who would find out how Voodoo works would do so by sience and thus "creating" the knowledge of how it works. And so it could not be magic anymore.

Ahwell, we wander too far Off Topic!!!

Acridiel

[sidusar]

If Vodoo was found to work , it wouldnt be termed as Science or Technology

or going the other way , it was said that the flight of the Bumble Bee was an aero-dynamic impossibility but thats never been thought of as Magic , just something thats not fully understood

Hmm, that's true. Obviously it's more complicated than I just stated.

If Vodoo was found to work, it wouldn't be termed as science or technology, no. But if it was understood exactly how it worked, then it would be.

The flight of the Bumble Bee... that's a good example. Why don't we consider it as magic? Is it because bees do it and we believe only humans can do magic? Or is it because we know that it works, that bees actually do fly, and that we don't believe magic can actually be real? Can something only be magic if it can't be proven that it works?

So then if Vodoo would work, but we wouldn't understand how, then it'd be just like the bumble bee's flight. We wouldn't see it as magic, just as something that's not fully understood.

[kibsword]

Its said that magic and extreamly high levels of technology can be indistinguishable from one another.

[acridiel]

As Arthur C. Clark stated once:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Yes, Kibsy, that´s just what we´re talking about right now *LOL*

Acridiel

[kibsword]

Yes, Kibsy, that´s just what we´re talking about right now *LOL*

Acridiel

See I really should read everything