Unified Source Theory: Ch'i, Magic, Psionics, and Cosmic Energy

[AlgaeNymph]

Or rather, a gathering of information in order to form one.

 

In my readings I've found four ultimate sources for superpowers (besides training), being the four aforementioned in the title.

• Ch'i is always, based on my findings, associated with martial arts.  I think it's some sort of personal energy, and particularly shows up in "internal" or highly mythologized styles.
• Magic is the most important one as it's more than just wizard stuff; it's also canonically the means by which most other powers are possible.  I'm aware of how controversial this decision was.
• Psionics is pretty much magic but purely mental and scientistic.  It's big in science fiction because Joseph Campbell liked it.  It doesn't entirely go away when the magic did in 2020, but I don't know how it works beyond that.
• Cosmic Energy is "a mysterious type of energy that permeates the Galaxy (and perhaps all Reality). Scientists as yet do not fully understand cosmic energy," and neither do I.  But it's the force behind Cosmic Gems, which let anybody do just about anything, so it's particularly interesting to me.

All three are so far pretty separate, but do they have to be?  That's not a rhetorical question, and I'm not a metaphysician, so I'm asking the collective consciousness here for any ideas you all have.

[Lord Liaden]

I have to add another: psionic energy, the power generated by the mind. That's a rather significant distinction within the official Hero Universe, in that psionics continue to function in the future after magic goes away, albeit at a generally reduced level. Psionics have a strong basis in science fiction, so I can see why Steve and Darren made that choice.

 

My own working premise for my games has evolved over time, and crystallized during recent discussions about the CU here on the forums. How I would approach it now is that these four forces are aligned with the Four Zoas, the fundamental concepts of Reality, which as is official, include sapient cosmic Archetypes embodying these forces. I've mentioned here before that I decided "cosmic power" is the force underlying physical laws, the manifestation of the elusive Grand Unified Field Theory. As such it would fundamentally align with the Zoa of Order. Magic warps those laws, and can be made to do so according to the subjective will and imagination of living beings. That would fit with the Zoa of Chaos. Psionics as a power of the mind naturally accords with Artifice. I would call ch'i a spiritual force, the energy of Life and the Soul, hence an expression of Nature.

 

Specifically regarding the Cosmic Gems, the origin I gave them is that they were created by the Trickster, the CU cosmic entity of Chaos who causes random events to disrupt the predictability of existence. I thought it would amuse him to put powerful tools channeling Order into the hands of individuals who would thereby promote Chaos. 😈

 

I have more about this in mind, but I don't want to monopolize the discussion. At least not this soon.

[Lord Liaden]

Following the rationales I list above, I would say that the reason psionics plays a role in the future, is because of its link to Artifice. As societies grow more and more technological, the environment people are surrounded by is increasingly Artificial, which naturally encourages the development of psionic talent. The utilization of ch'i and other spiritual forces (I would include in that the "miracles" attributed to many "holy men/women" in the Western spiritual tradition) would have been easier and more common when most of humanity lived closer to the Natural world.

 

Note that both of those forces are internal to living beings, whereas cosmic power and magic are explicitly external forces not dependent on living things. For that reason I believe it would be appropriate for each of the latter two to have a cosmic Archetype in charge of it. On this forum thread it was suggested that the mysterious entity called Luathon, of the "Eleven Lights" spell suite, could be that Archetype for Magic, part of the Zoa of Chaos, responsible for the ebb and flow of magic across the Multiverse. But it was also suggested that Luathon should have an opposite number in Order, one responsible for the maintenance of physical laws allowing matter and energy to take coherent form in any universe, an Archetype of Science. I've taken to calling this Archetype, "the God Particle."

[Chris Goodwin]

Are you talking about the Champions Universe specifically, or any supers universes?

[Lord Liaden]

AlgaeNymph's OP was clearly referencing conventions of the current official Champions Universe, so I was operating on the assumption that was the basis for discussion. All my own references are to CU elements.

[DShomshak]

10 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

My own working premise for my games has evolved over time, and crystallized during recent discussions about the CU here on the forums. How I would approach it now is that these four forces are aligned with the Four Zoas, the fundamental concepts of Reality, which as is official, include sapient cosmic Archetypes embodying these forces. I've mentioned here before that I decided "cosmic power" is the force underlying physical laws, the manifestation of the elusive Grand Unified Field Theory. As such it would fundamentally align with the Zoa of Order. Magic warps those laws, and can be made to do so according to the subjective will and imagination of living beings. That would fit with the Zoa of Chaos. Psionics as a power of the mind naturally accords with Artifice. I would call ch'i a spiritual force, the energy of Life and the Soul, hence an expression of Nature.

 

Well, it's an excellent example of mystical reasoning. Here are two metaphysically significant sets of four entities; therefore, there must be a correlation between them. Now work out how they correlate to the four classical elements, the cardinal directions, the seasons of the year, the letters of the Tetragrammaton, the four forces of physics, and a few more sets of four, and you've got a mystical theory that -- if only you lived in the CU -- you could use to become a Wild Talent supermage. Or even miscalculate your ritual to perceive the Heart Of All Things and be destroyed and reborn as a destructive Mad God! :-)

 

(I could question the assignment of some power sources to some Zoas. But I won't. For mystical purposes, it is the elaboration of the system's inner logic that matters, not the validity of the correlations within it.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Thanks, Dean. FWIW I'm just trying to respond to AlgaeNymph's topic with something that I consider to logically accord with precedents established for the CU. Like I always say, this is a comic-book universe. Everything doesn't have to make sense, it only has to make sense in context.

 

My theory came about only as a thought exercise, unlikely to have an impact on any game of mine.

[AlgaeNymph]

7 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I could question the assignment of some power sources to some Zoas.

By all means, do so.  A diversity of of perspectives and questioning of hypotheses is foundational to scientific thought.  : )

[HeroGM]

Personally I divorce the cause of Super-Heroes as magic. They may wax and wane through the years though.

[Lord Liaden]

As I've said elsewhere, "magic" as the cause for super powers seems to be a particular sticking point for gamers to swallow. I believe a big part of that is that many gamers consciously or unconsciously associate magic only with how it manifests in many other games, like in spells. You could mentally scratch out the word "magic" from Champions books whenever it appears in that context, and substitute some other name more to your liking. The world would run pretty much the same either way.

[archer]

Personally, I attribute it to a substance called Hellifino which inhabits subspace and on occasion manifests itself in real space.

[HeroGM]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

As I've said elsewhere, "magic" as the cause for super powers seems to be a particular sticking point for gamers to swallow. I believe a big part of that is that many gamers consciously or unconsciously associate magic only with how it manifests in many other games, like in spells. You could mentally scratch out the word "magic" from Champions books whenever it appears in that context, and substitute some other name more to your liking. The world would run pretty much the same either way.

 

Think it's the fact that it's.one or two core people's concept and I'd rather do what I want in my game. 

[DShomshak]

I don't much care for "magic causes super-powers," either, because it seems to privilege one mode of power over others. If it were up to me, but I was bound to preserve past published statements, I'd present something like this:

------------

The Mandaarian shook her head and smiled. "No, I express myself badly. Your languages do not have the words. So often you use 'magic' to mean anything you do not understand. But Witchfire, you understand the spells you cast, yes? Or think you do, just as Defender thinks he understands how and why his armor works. You are not wrong, but your understanding is insufficient." She paused. "I came to study your history, how you made the transition from complete ignorance to partial understanding. Defender, let me use an example from the history of your science. The first scientists to study heat thought it was a fluid, which they called 'caloric.' This fluid could flow, diffuse, condense. This theory was wrong. There is no caloric: heat is motion of molecules. But the large-scale result acts like a fluid. The caloric theory was enough to create practical technology. For a steam engine or internal combustion engine, the theory is right enough. But eventually it will give wrong answers.

 

"That is why your armor, and your spells, became less reliable in that other time. They both rely upon another factor that you do not know about. Your present science cannot encompass it, because it involves consciousness. But it is not magic, either. Neither of you" -- the Mandaarian nodded to the two heroes -- "could create an instrumentality to detect it.  So call it... splunge."

 

"Splunge?" Kinetik interjected from the side. "You know about Monty Python on Mandaar?"

 

"We recorded it on our second visit," the Mandaarian said. "Monty Python's Flying Circus is, you would put it, huge on Mandaar. A product of one of your most advanced plexic entities. I have developed a silly walk -- but you do not want the distraction." She shook her head.

 

"Yes, call the underlying factor 'splunge.' It is why your armor works, why you can cast spells by thought instead of long rituals, why accidents that should kill instead give powers, and much else besides. But before you ask: I cannot tell you how to detect it, let alone manipulate it. It requires concepts as fundamental as mathematics, which you do not yet possess. It would be like explaining calculus to those tribes who count one-two-three-many."

 

"But you understand it?" Defender asked, a slight edge in his voice.

 

"Mandaarians understand it," she said calmly. "I do not. I am a historian, not a... splunge-worker. But our instrumentality makes full use of splunge, yes. It is not subject to changes in the level of ambient splunge. This is why we take such care not to leave any of our instrumentality behind. Not because yu would learn things for which you are not ready. Only because you could hurt yourself, as a child who does not understand electricity should be prevented from sticking things in wall outlets."

 

There was a long silence. Witchcraft finally asked, "So why does splunge change? Why is the... splung level now high, and low at other times?"

 

The Mandaarian shrugged. "It is complicated and -- as I said -- I am not a specialist. In this case, humans caused it. The group of humans who called themselves 'RSvKg' performed actions in your year 1938 that caused intensification of splunge. They thought they were doing magic; they did not, in any way, understand what they truly did, or what effect it would have. This I may say with certainty. Time travel was authorized to investigate the event, and I was part of that inquiry."

 

The Mandaarian tapped her fingers together. "That is the limit of what I may tell you. I would not have told you this much, except you saved me life and I do not believe you will misuse this information by -- say -- letting your attempts to detect splunge go beyond the bounds of prudence. Thank you again. I hope I have shown reciprocity." She clicked her tongue, and vanished.

 

No one spoke for several seconds. Then Witchcraft said to the group at large, "Do you believe her?"

 

There was another pause before Sapphire spoke. "I... don't know science or magic or anything like that. But I know performance. And I think she was pretending to be more human that she is." Her voice firmed. "That was staged."

-----------------

 

Dean Shomshak

[Christopher R Taylor]

I like completely disunified powers, magic is not science is not mysticism is not chi is not etc.  Science cannot figure out or do magic or vice versa

[Lord Liaden]

Well, there you go. Cross out "magic," write in "splunge." Along those lines, I once made a gadgeteer PC whose equipment ran on phlogiston.

 

I think Christopher and HeroGM above cut to the chase, though. Ultimately it's about what we like. These games are supposed to be fun, and anything in them that's detrimental to our personal fun should be changed for our own games, whether or not anyone else finds it problematic. FWIW I don't like magic as the cause for super powers myself. I wish Steve had chosen something else. But I can work with it in the context of the Hero Universe, because it's internally logical, contributes to the overall timeline of the meta-setting, and doesn't keep me from having any kind of superhuman I want.

[Chris Goodwin]

4 hours ago, DShomshak said:

"That is why your armor, and your spells, became less reliable in that other time. They both rely upon another factor that you do not know about. Your present science cannot encompass it, because it involves consciousness. But it is not magic, either. Neither of you" -- the Mandaarian nodded to the two heroes -- "could create an instrumentality to detect it.  So call it... splunge."

 

"Splunge?" Kinetik interjected from the side. "You know about Monty Python on Mandaar?"

 

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

Well, there you go. Cross out "magic," write in "splunge." Along those lines, I once made a gadgeteer PC whose equipment ran on phlogiston.

 

I think Christopher and HeroGM above cut to the chase, though. Ultimately it's about what we like. These games are supposed to be fun, and anything in them that's detrimental to our personal fun should be changed for our own games, whether or not anyone else finds it problematic. FWIW I don't like magic as the cause for super powers myself. I wish Steve had chosen something else. But I can work with it in the context of the Hero Universe, because it's internally logical, contributes to the overall timeline of the meta-setting, and doesn't keep me from having any kind of superhuman I want.

 

It also allows for interesting things to play with.  I also wasn't particularly fond of it until Dean said "splunge" above...

 

Maybe there are different forms of splunge, with different ... meta-values?  At any rate:  what RSvKg did in 1938 raised the level of splunge(magic) and splunge(super) by a pretty significant level, but not enough to have catastrophic consequences for the universe.  Splunge(psionics), splunge(FTL), splunge(time travel), and splunge(high tech) apparently also function at different levels.  

 

Could there be others?  Could various of them have other implications (like, psionics of a value greater than X results in minds having a quasi-physical existence).  

[Lord Liaden]

Hmm... this is really interesting to contemplate. Perhaps "splunge" (to use the term we're currently operating with) is the power wielded by the conceptual entities, transcending other distinctions: and those entities, or other agencies, "refine" it into magic, cosmic power, ch'i or psionics. But the quantity and balance of splunge is what affects the properties of each universe.

 

I'm reminded of Dean's discussion of Atziluth, the highest of the planes in the Hero Multiverse, on p. 9 of The Mystic World. Let me quote what I think is the passage most relevant to this discussion:

Atziluth contains three sephiroth, each considered a single plane by mystics. They call BINAH (or Understanding) the Dark Sea of Being. It is an infinite reservoir of power for creation or destruction. CHOKMAH (or Wisdom) is called the Bright Sea of Forms. It contains every possible archetype of objects, actions, ideas, structures, or any other category you could name. Mystic tomes say the light of Chokmah shines on the dark waves of Binah — form combines with substance — and the sparkling reflections off the waves forms the Multiverse.

 

Perhaps this is the power -- which I will now call Reflections of Atziluth -- which conceptual entities convert into magic, cosmic energy, matter, life, everything. But major actions by mortals like the Walpurgisnacht Working or the Kolvel Event can accidentally break through to Atziluth and tap the Reflections, changing the balance of properties in a world, galaxy, even universe.

[DShomshak]

The Mandaarian also could have cited the case of the luminiferous ether. When it was shown that light acted like a wive, it was logical to assume there must be a medium for the wave to wave in -- the ether. James Clerk Maxwell even used ether theory to work out his laws of electromagnetism and show that light consisted of cycling electrical and magnetic fields. The theory seemed sound until Michelson and Morley tried to detect evidence of the Earth's motion through the ether, and couldn't. The puzzle remained until Einstein had to pretty much reinvent physicists' ideas about space and time.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

 

[DShomshak]

Then there are mutant powers. What powers them? Is it even the same for all mutants?

 

For my own campaign, I decided that -- apart from explicitly anatomical mutations such as eyes capable of nightvision, or bestial claws -- mutant powers are psionic. Mental powers are straight-up psionic; energy projection (such as Cyclops' eye beams or, for the CU, Gravitar's gravity control) are applications of atomic-scale psychokinesis; ditto bodily transformations such as Colossus transforming into "organic steel" or Mystique's shapeshifting. But in my campaign, "mutant" is often shorthand for, "We don't actually know why this person has super-powers." There is no "mutant detection" short of having a lab sequence a person's genes, and even that isn't a sure thing. (Yeah, I use Marvel characters as examples, but I am not fond of how Marvel uses mutants.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, DShomshak said:

Then there are mutant powers. What powers them? Is it even the same for all mutants?

 

 

I always figured that mutant powers are the same as other super-powers, only they were inborn rather than the result of mutagenic accidents/experiments. Someone gets hit by lightning and develops electrical powers, someone else develops them at puberty, they're still electricity.

 

Something like Psyclops' optic beams could be psychokinesis, or some other type of energy; but I don't see why someone else who isn't a mutant couldn't gain that power. Colossus could be exchanging his body's matter for something comparable from a neighboring dimension, and the same could apply to the Grey Gargoyle. IMO "mutant" is just an origin category, not a SFX descriptor.

 

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

The Mandaarian also could have cited the case of the luminiferous ether. When it was shown that light acted like a wive, it was logical to assume there must be a medium for the wave to wave in -- the ether. James Clerk Maxwell even used ether theory to work out his laws of electromagnetism and show that light consisted of cycling electrical and magnetic fields. The theory seemed sound until Michelson and Morley tried to detect evidence of the Earth's motion through the ether, and couldn't. The puzzle remained until Einstein had to pretty much reinvent physicists' ideas about space and time.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

 

 

See, now there's a good example. Maybe during times of high magic, or whatever other name you want to use, there actually IS ether, or at least something that behaves enough like ether that a super-scientist could manipulate its properties.

[segerge]

7 hours ago, DShomshak said:

The Mandaarian also could have cited the case of the luminiferous ether. When it was shown that light acted like a wive, it was logical to assume there must be a medium for the wave to wave in -- the ether. James Clerk Maxwell even used ether theory to work out his laws of electromagnetism and show that light consisted of cycling electrical and magnetic fields. The theory seemed sound until Michelson and Morley tried to detect evidence of the Earth's motion through the ether, and couldn't. The puzzle remained until Einstein had to pretty much reinvent physicists' ideas about space and time.

This is a better example of your point than you realize.  The central tenet of Special Relativity (the speed of light is constant in all reference frames) falls out quite naturally from certain solutions to Maxwell's Equations.  Physicists for half a century didn't figure this out until Einstein came along.

 

BTW, the snippet between the Mandaarian researcher and the Champions was brilliant on so many levels!  I'd buy that story in a heartbeat if you ever finish it (hint, hint...)

 

[Lord Liaden]

28 minutes ago, segerge said:

This is a better example of your point than you realize.  The central tenet of Special Relativity (the speed of light is constant in all reference frames) falls out quite naturally from certain solutions to Maxwell's Equations.  Physicists for half a century didn't figure this out until Einstein came along.

 

The world most of us perceive and interact with apparently runs according to Newtonian mechanics, and they describe and quantify such things just fine.

 

However, your example would explain why the technology of the more advanced alien races in the CU was mostly not impacted by the loss of magic. Over their much longer period of civilization they discovered more of the principles governing the physical universe, on which they could build a path to even more discoveries. But without understanding the foundation of that path, there would be no way forward. OTOH the change in physics due to magic/splunge/reflections/whatever created alternative paths that sufficiently gifted scientists could perceive and exploit based on their existing understanding of science.

 

In the Champions Universe the technology of the Gadroon and the Malvans is illustrative of that gap in understanding. Captured Gadroon gravity-based tech has defied human analysis, because it appears to operate on principles even super-scientists have never imagined. While human scientists trying to understand the non-functioning Malvan devices in their hands has been likened to Neanderthals trying to reverse-engineer a supercollider.

 

Another example from fiction would be Hugo Danner, the prototypical superman of Phillip Wylie's novel, Gladiator. Danner's superhuman strength and durability was the product of a treatment invented by his biologist father. That invention didn't fit conceptually with mainstream biology, which the elder Danner said was based on a mistaken assumption; but that assumption was so logical, so reasonable, that it could be generations before the mistake was discovered, if ever.

 

For my part, I keep thinking of the theory of dark matter. To explain the difference between the measurable mass of the Universe, and what we can actually see in the universe, we invented something with the properties necessary to fit. But no one has found dark matter yet, and we have no idea if it exists or if something completely different is happening.

 

Holy Crap! What if dark matter is actually ether?!

 

 

[segerge]

4 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

For my part, I keep thinking of the theory of dark matter. To explain the difference between the measurable mass of the Universe, and what we can actually see in the universe, we invented something with the properties necessary to fit. But no one has found dark matter yet, and we have no idea if it exists or if something completely different is happening.

 

Holy Crap! What if dark matter is actually ether?!

 

 

SUCK IT, Michelson and Morley!!!

[AlgaeNymph]

On 2/10/2021 at 12:16 PM, DShomshak said:

If it were up to me, but I was bound to preserve past published statements, I'd present something like this:

And you present it well.  Story-wise, I particularly like Kinetik's and Sapphire's lines as they'd show the attention to detail I'd put in my works.  : )

 

And if I understand the Mandaarian's claim correctly, we know how to make use of the fundamental source but don't even know what we're working with.  That about right?

 

On 2/10/2021 at 5:40 PM, Lord Liaden said:

Perhaps this is the power -- which I will now call Reflections of Atziluth -- which conceptual entities convert into magic, cosmic energy, matter, life, everything. But major actions by mortals like the Walpurgisnacht Working or the Kolvel Event can accidentally break through to Atziluth and tap the Reflections, changing the balance of properties in a world, galaxy, even universe.

Adding on to that is a latter paragraph on the same page: 

 

The Atziluthic World also includes a fourth element, the “lost sephira” called DA’ATH: the link between Wisdom and Understanding, balanced in the Abyss between timeless Atziluth and the realms below. Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the Earth.” Da’ath is that place. From Da’ath, a mystic can call on the limitless power of Binah, shape it with the archetypes of Chokmah, and cast his creation into the realms of Time. Only the mystic’s intelligence, patience, and skill limits what he can create, from a flower to a galaxy. What’s more, since Da’ath exists outside time, the mystic can insert his new creation at any point in history — past, present, or future. Da’ath’s nature renders it, rather understandably, one of the greatest secrets in sorcerous lore.

 

Looks like the kind of thing Cosmic Energy does.  Don't know for sure, but it's a starting point for research.  : )

[steriaca]

 

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

For my part, I keep thinking of the theory of dark matter. To explain the difference between the measurable mass of the Universe, and what we can actually see in the universe, we invented something with the properties necessary to fit. But no one has found dark matter yet, and we have no idea if it exists or if something completely different is happening.

 

Holy Crap! What if dark matter is actually ether?!

 

 

Humm...according to the live action + computer graphics background movie Harlock Space Pirate, the Arcadia operates with Dark Matter as an energy source. It also royalty feffed up the Earth when Harlock unleashed just a small portion of it during the Homecoming War.

 

But that is not here or there.