World Seeds: Running out of magic · 9:27pm Aug 24th, 2020
NOTE: this is a "World Seed" posting - you're welcome to take these ideas and run with them in your own story (getting a credit would be nice, but isn't strictly necessary - though I'd want at least to know there is a story that got inspired by this). See where it might take you. Good luck.
So, I've been thinking a lot, recently (seems to be my default state, for good or ill), and one of those thoughts spiralled out into a make-believe conversation with Twilight about magic, and the magic of the law of conservation of energy.
The Law of Conservation of Energy, at its simplest, states that within any isolated system the total sum of energy swirling inside it remains constant. The implications are simple: energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be transformed from one form into another - for example, you can transform electrical energy into mechanical energy, magnetic energy... You can also perform the reverse, obviously.
But there's a catch.
You see, as much as you'd like perfection - you can strive for it, but never actually attain it. Similarly, whenever a conversion is performed (which is all the damn time - if you're seeing this at all, for instance, your eyes are converting light into chemical signals, and eventually electrical signals...), it's never 100% efficient - some of the energy is lost in the conversion process, and as much as you'd like that loss to approach 0 (as efficiency raises towards 1), you can't actually reach it no matter the physical circumstances. Some of your energy gets lost, to forever become part of entropy.
Am I going anywhere with this? I mean, I'm pretty sure I am...
Ah, yes, right.
Magical energy is a form of energy, right? RIGHT? So, it follows from our musings just above that every time magic is used, a tiny bit of it is lost to entropy.
No big deal, right? I mean, magic is being constantly replenished on Equus, after all...
... or is it?
Now you're getting it... What if magic, much like the amount of energy in the Universe, is fixed at some point? What if there is no conversion process that allows you to convert other forms of energy into magical energy?
What if what Equus got to start with is all Equus actually has... and it's being used up, constantly, all around the planet...
The well might just start to run dry, any minute now...
But wait! It could actually get worse. How? Consider: what if most of that "starting amount" was actually consumed in the creation of the various sapient races on Equus? What if that "tank" was nearly emptied by the very process of creation itself - and ever since, the local fauna has been essentially sucking the fumes out of it?
... and what if their very sapience is directly related to having ambient magic to draw upon? Things might really start to get dicey, as various magical creates just die out as magic starts to run low...
And - imagine that! - this got me thinking... Earth doesn't seem to have any magic... but we do have stories about dragons, manticores, werewolves... What if - Earth used to have magic, but it was either consumed, dissipated... or it was stolen? Humans evolved on a world of poor magic reserves - we can still sense the occasional ghost, but that's about it - so magic doesn't affect our sapience as much.
But what if that thief is still out there...?
Story Idea #1: Why can't Alicorns have foals any more? But wait, what about Flurry Heart? What about Flurry Heart? Is there a connection there? ("Twilight! I know that manic expression, okay?! Why don't you come riiiight over here...")
Story Idea #2: Twilight creates the most efficient versions of mundane spells... thereby kickstarting the magitek revolution ("This is NOT what I meant AT ALL!!!") - since instead of doing the same with less, ponies can now do more with as much as they always had...
Story Idea #3: Twilight becomes a magicless recluse, after everypony basically rejects her idea of "stopping the use of magic" across the board (naive much, Twilight?).
For the record, our current situation with fossil fuels and global warming is... not unrelated to idea #3. ;-) Just a fair warning that yes, it had some bearing on my idea of how Twilight might end up being shunned by the common pony, for speaking the truth no less...