• Member Since 17th Apr, 2012
  • offline last seen 6 hours ago

AppleTank


Male. Los Angeles, California. Hmm. I have a WPM of 65. Meh. Occasionally arts. Lord of Dorkness's #1 fan. User #26976. inb4 Crossover

More Blog Posts173

  • 30 weeks
    Random Idea #84: Aeroformula

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  • 55 weeks
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  • 62 weeks
    Idea #82: A random review of Cyberformula: Road to the Infinity 1 to 4

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  • 74 weeks
    Idea #75: Worldbuiling Bonus 1

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  • 106 weeks
    Random Idea #81: Complaining about Scale in third person POV games

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    0 comments · 182 views
Dec
8th
2014

Random Idea #12 · 4:12am Dec 8th, 2014

A bit of thinking about spell mechanics in the Dresden world.
Those "Force Rings" Dresden uses store a bit of kinetic energy from swinging his arm, for later use. Who said that it has to be generated by human forces?
Why not stick it to the end of a gun, to both reduce recoil and sound, to charge up a damage boost for pistol whipping?
Sledgehammer?
Drop it next to a live grenade, and hold it down with a heavy spike?

Can you store different forces?
Heat Energy?
Lack of Heat Energy? (aka draining as much energy as you can out of it, basically creating a portable nitrogen freezer)
Electricity?
Light?

Store these energies in bullets to fire out of a gun?
In a sword with a replaceable "part" to switch out drained rings with fresh rings?

Can you replace the delicate parts of electronics to with magical versions to avoid magic damage? A force battery to spin the barrels of a minigun?
Electricity gems and crystal wires in a computer?

Did nobody even try?

Comments ( 10 )

:pinkiegasp:your blowing my mind bro!!

2639794
Along with that, it appears that no one in the wizarding world of Harry Potter took firearms seriously. Nobody tried to turn firearms into magitech and be a bastard.
Lucky them.

2640075 god guns would have maid thing so much easier especially magic ones

Hap

You know what a capacitor does, right? It stores energy in an electric field - sort of like adding a big chamber to your plumbing, and stretching a rubber drum across it. Water can fill up the chamber by stretching the drum, and it stores energy in the elastic providing pressure. Likewise, an inductor stores energy in the "momentum" of an electric current, like the momentum of water flowing through a pipe - turn off a faucet quickly, and this momentum slams against the valve, causing your plumbing to make banging noises.

Right there, there's a fluid-flow analogue to two devices that are fundamental in the operation of electronics. You can toss in the comparison to head loss vs resistance as well.

Guess what? The fluid flow equations are EXACTLY THE SAME as the electronics equations, just with different units.

Guess what what? There are more analogues for these systems. Spring/mass/damper systems work the same way, with the same equations. There's also a thermal analogue - a completely different set of physics ends up making the same set of equations for certain arrangements of material with certain thermal properties as well.

It only makes sense that, if magic exists, it follows the same symmetry.

2640309
So, Waldo Butters might find some interesting equations if he decides to do experiments on them (magic)
Cool. Glad to know this thought experiment had merit.

2640125
Moldy-mort's planet sized ego would never be able to comprehend someone shooting him with an enchanted projectile @ twice the speed of sound a mile away.

2640506
2640125

Harry Potter.

I can't remember where to find the the word of God on it, but apparently there is some type of 'anti-tech vibe' around high-magic areas like Hogwarts and similar that makes most modern tech simply not work in the Potter-verse.

Of course, if something like an old-fashioned chemical camera stops working without being enchanted, they really shouldn't have to trick muggles to stay away;

The instant death field as their bodies can't work would do all the work for the wizards! :twilightoops:

Still, I guess a muggle-born summoning a shotgun and blowing away death-eaters left and right wouldn't quite fit the tone of the rest of the books. :twilightsheepish:

Still, onto the blog itself...

Can you store different forces?

Actually, Harry has done that plenty of times. As early as Storm Front he kept some sunshine folded into a hanky, after all, and he has frequently used things like collected sounds and similar in his version of alchemy.

The way I understand it Dresden prefers force because it's both easy and straightforward (if slightly dangerous) to bind and work with, but you don't need anything special to gather it.

Sunshine 'folding' for example, apparently requires one to be 'truly happy,' although that might be just that one spell and Dresden simply haven't had time to research a new and improved version. And although I might only remember the specific example of sunshine, I don't think it's that large a leap to imagine that there might be other similar prerequisites for other forces.

In comparison, all you need for storing force is a rune, and to move whatever holds that rune about.

2641059 why dose every one keep blowing my mind :applejackconfused:

2641059
By magitek gun, I meant creating some sort of metal tube (heh) that when you say a phrase or push a button, magically accelerate a projectile inside to the speed of sound. To circumvent the whole "muggle tech stops working" thing.
Work it with part of a bolt action rifle, remove the firing hammer, and you basically end up with a metal tube with levers. I'm pretty sure levers aren't "Tech" enough to glitch out.

Also, Harry (dresden) really should've tried smacking his force rings with a sledgehammer, to literally give his punches the force of a sledgehammer. And make more of them. He only has five fingers, which allows him (apparently) all or nothing. So might as well make clips of rings.
PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH
>Remove empty rings.
>Put on new rings
PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH

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