The Magic Trio: Alchemy , Psionics, and Magic

[Corvus 501]

This is a semi modern setting, where the standard epic quests to save the world are long past, where civilizations barily holding the line agents barbarian hordes is the stuff of history, and the monsters are either extinct, endangered, civilized, or kept as zoo exhibits. The time of evil mages throwing lighting bolts at each others towers, of mad alchemists transmuting humans for baise materials, and rouge psions ripping people apart are all relics of a colorful, barbaric past.

No, nowadays you live in a civilised time, in a civilised place "Take cover, bombers incoming!"
Oh, did I mention industrialized warfare? Sorry, slipped my mind. What, "Magic dosn't solve everything?" Sorry, thei isn't Harry Potter, where you can wave a stick and transmute every weapon on a battlefield into flowers, people have been dealing with people trying to use magic to screw up weapons ever since magic was discovered, and countermeasures have been long deployed.

In fact, "supernatural" abilities have probably caused as many problems as they have solved. Alchemicaly produced carbon nanotubing? Alchemicaly produced fission bombs. Psionic enganeers? Psionic assassins.

How does the existence of magic in a semi modern world effect it's development? How would they deal with the problems that such an existence brings about? Most importantly, how would YOU deal with it? To get a good idea of what you will be facing, let's take a look at the magic system.
In this setting, the three abilities mentioned in the title are all biased on the ability to bend reality in certain very specific ways.

Psionics is telekinesis and telepathy, precise gravity manipulation and quantum entanglement respectively. It is rather large scale in application, lifting a multitude of objects, lifting heavy objects, ore for the extremely powerful, effecting gravity over small areas. (rooms or small buildings) Psionics is like the abilities of a Mover or a Spiker from Larry Corriea's Hard Magic series, with a dash of a reader's abilities.

Alchemy is bending reality to force chemical changes, where the more complex and/or unlikely the change, the more energy and focus it takes. It is similar to Fullmetal Alchemist, except that elemental transmutation requires a huge amountof equipment, and a whole team to make sure that the element is transmuted and that the whole setup dosn't blow up. With pure alchemy you can get many of the results used in combat, and production of complicated objects is only a matter of will, imagination, and available materials. The First Rule of Alchemy from the show isn't applied like it was, but runaway or unbalanced alchemical reactions will try to compleat or balance themselves, and will only stop for a lack of energy. It is the "hardest" ability of the "magic trio", as it has immediate, self imposed consaquences for all actions.

Last, there is traditiona magic. It lacks the raw power of psionics, and it lacks alchemy's scale, but it is impressive in it's own right. It is the most subtle in the a of reality bending, having the ability to leave semi permanent "knots" in the world known as runes, (they frequently are stylized from their original geometric form, but loose little of their power, and tend to gain a bit more subtlety) or tempory runes known as "spells". The main diffrence between them is their duration and mobility. A rune will stay affixed to the surface they are attached to, while spells move in straight lines, unless designed otherwise. Spells,too, are short term, lasting minutes at most, (unless they mark runes on the target, and he castor powers them, an very high level magic application) while runes can last as long as the marking they are baised on, provided they are constantly powered.

All the abilities have their strengths and weaknesses, and all are baised on the same principles at their most basic. In fact, it is not unknown to have individuals with two, or all three basic abilities at the same time, though a specialist is likely to be more skilled that a generalist. However, skill in one area tends to carry over to skill in another. A mage, for instance, would find an easier time learning alchemy than most would, as a psion would find magic easier to learn than a layman.

[mr friendly guy]

1. Logistics and food.

Does alchemy change common things into food? Like Brandon Sanderson's stormlight archive? Because if it does it will make wars somewhat easier because of improvement in logistics without the need for bases. Just bring your alchemists there.

2. Rare elements

Might not apply in a "near modern" setting, but worth talking about. Things like rare earths, lithium etc are useful in our electronics. These may lead to electronics being more plentiful.

BTW if your alchemy allows fission and changing one element into another, its not just forcing "chemical" changes. Its beyond chemical reactions into nuclear ones.

3. Gold and money

I actually brought this up in a previous thread and in one of my universes they had wars which was ended because people did debase currency by changing common things into gold and silver. Presumably we both move into a fiat currency earlier (or after the first time someone realises this trick). The country which did this first, might benefit. It could purchase land from other countries before everyone realises that gold is just becoming worthless.

[Corvus 501]

Alchemicaly takes energy. It takes more energy to turn non foot items into food than the energy you get from food. You can get around this by using energy from an engine, or just adding fuel, but since more complex chemical reactions take more energy, food is moved around as heavily compacted bricks that hold all the ingredients.
Alchemicaly changing elements is about as expensive as gold mining, as there's many steps to the process, and failure is explosive. An alchemist can change many things about a substance with only a standard array, but they need lots of additionall equipment and training for elemental transmutation.
Alchemicaly produced fission bombs are enriched by alchamichimical means, not transmuted. Chemical explosives, and for that matter, most industrial chemicals are produced by automated arrays, large computer controlled, runic enhanced arrays that run autonomously as long as they have power, kind of like modern day robots.

[Corvus 501]

It takes more energy to turn non foot items into food than the energy you get from food.

edit; I meant food, not foot. Stupid spellchecker. Though turning a foot, or any other body part into food would be easier than turning the chemicals that make up the food into food, would take less energy. Making chemical bonds takes energy, after all.

[Simon_Jester]

Corvus, words like "alchamichimical" are definitely NOT getting past your spell-checker, so if you claim you used a spell-checker on that post, then I think you're bullshitting us about the spelling issue. Why, I cannot imagine...

2. Rare Elements

Might not apply in a "near modern" setting, but worth talking about. Things like rare earths, lithium etc are useful in our electronics. These may lead to electronics being more plentiful.

BTW if your alchemy allows fission and changing one element into another, its not just forcing "chemical" changes. Its beyond chemical reactions into nuclear ones.

Alloying materials for various steels and bronzes were the 'rare earths' of the late 19th and early 20th century. Other valuable strategic materials included things like rubber and nitrates and for that matter oil; if any of these things can be processed out of raw chemical substances by magic it has major consequences.

3. Gold and money

I actually brought this up in a previous thread and in one of my universes they had wars which was ended because people did debase currency by changing common things into gold and silver. Presumably we both move into a fiat currency earlier (or after the first time someone realises this trick). The country which did this first, might benefit. It could purchase land from other countries before everyone realises that gold is just becoming worthless.

The economic dislocation caused by this sort of thing is almost incalculable, by the way...

[Crazedwraith]

It takes more energy to turn non foot items into food than the energy you get from food.

edit; I meant food, not foot. Stupid spellchecker. Though turning a foot, or any other body part into food would be easier than turning the chemicals that make up the food into food, would take less energy. Making chemical bonds takes energy, after all.

Er... no. Creating chemical bonds releases energy. That's why it happens: for substances to get to a lower energy state and thus be more stable.

Burning is a prime example. Fuel and oxygen goes in. C02 (bonded together by bonds) and fire (ie energy) comes out.

[Corvus 501]

Corvus, words like "alchamichimical" are definitely NOT getting past your spell-checker, so if you claim you used a spell-checker on that post, then I think you're bullshitting us about the spelling issue. Why, I cannot imagine...

2. Rare Elements

Might not apply in a "near modern" setting, but worth talking about. Things like rare earths, lithium etc are useful in our electronics. These may lead to electronics being more plentiful.

BTW if your alchemy allows fission and changing one element into another, its not just forcing "chemical" changes. Its beyond chemical reactions into nuclear ones.

Alloying materials for various steels and bronzes were the 'rare earths' of the late 19th and early 20th century. Other valuable strategic materials included things like rubber and nitrates and for that matter oil; if any of these things can be processed out of raw chemical substances by magic it has major consequences.

3. Gold and money

I actually brought this up in a previous thread and in one of my universes they had wars which was ended because people did debase currency by changing common things into gold and silver. Presumably we both move into a fiat currency earlier (or after the first time someone realises this trick). The country which did this first, might benefit. It could purchase land from other countries before everyone realises that gold is just becoming worthless.

The economic dislocation caused by this sort of thing is almost incalculable, by the way...

Add to dictionary. That order can really mess up a spellchecke.

[Corvus 501]

It takes more energy to turn non foot items into food than the energy you get from food.

edit; I meant food, not foot. Stupid spellchecker. Though turning a foot, or any other body part into food would be easier than turning the chemicals that make up the food into food, would take less energy. Making chemical bonds takes energy, after all.

Er... no. Creating chemical bonds releases energy. That's why it happens: for substances to get to a lower energy state and thus be more stable.

Burning is a prime example. Fuel and oxygen goes in. C02 (bonded together by bonds) and fire (ie energy) comes out.

Oops. Guess that's what happens when you forget the chemistry class you're currently taking. I suppose that dealing with the energy that gets released, and starting the process to make the food or other product would take concentration.

[Simon_Jester]

Add to dictionary. That order can really mess up a spellchecke.

So get a real spellchecker. The current situation is so annoying and ridiculous that it makes you look like a troll.

[Corvus 501]

I'm posting from a iPod touch. The spellchecker the default.

[Corvus 501]

Back to the original point, every ability has it's strengths and weaknesses, and while you can combine abilities, some mix better than others. Magic and alchemy mix well, specifically runic enhanced arrays. Psionics and magic also mix well, the sheer power of psionics enhancing the power of spells, and allowing alternates to comparatively slow spellcasting. Alchemy and psionics don't mix that well, however, not that having one will mess with the other ability, but that mix simply doesn't reinforce the respective abilities.
In combat, psions are generally the most effective in direct combat, not that the other types are ineffective. Mages generally have a more versatile arsenal, but they have a lower "rate of fire". The abilities of an alchemists rarly lend themselves to direct combat, (usually, they would just shoot/stab you) but are considered absolute HELL to chase. Given even a little time to prepare, they can turn the environment into any trap they can think of. Multiclass Talents (the general term for anyone with "suppernatural" abilities) are much more complicated, especially because they usually focus on one talent, and use the others in a supplementary manner, generally screwing up the equation.

[Corvus 501]

To use a metaphor, if psionics is karate, and magic is tai chi or kempo, than alchemy is combat feng shui. Psionics is a "hard" form, as it is about direct application of force. Magic is tai chi or kempo as it focusses on indirect application and redirection of force and influence, and magic is combat feng shui because in combat, it focuses on aranging the environment into a weapon, supporting peace through supperor firepower!