On a Godless Planet:Volume1 Short 2
Short: On a Godless Planet - Ether and Ley Lines[edit]
“Now we’re going to look at some of the materials for On a Godless Planet and discuss the setting.”
“Wait, why are we doing this when we barely showed up this chapter?”
“You say that, but I’m so bad at explaining things that Balancer took over for the entire second half.”
“Could Balancer be the story’s real heroine?”
“…”
“……”
“D-don’t worry, Big Boobs-senpai! And Shifu-senpai, stop getting her all worked up with your jokes!”
“Kuwajiri-chan, ‘Big Boobs-senpai’ would apply to me too.”
“Huh? Why am I here again?”
“It looked a lot like you were summoned by that title.”
“Shifu-senpai, you do technically qualify, but your boobs feel more like an extension of your overall build. The rules seem a little more out of whack with our Senpai and that other Senpai.”
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“Well said!! That’s what really matters! And I want more! Bring it on!”
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“I just heard some background noise, but let’s ignore that and get started, okay? To start with, let’s discuss ley lines and ether.”
“Okay. Ley lines and ether are the same thing, but they are given the following distinction for convenience.”
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- Ether:
- The basic building block of space. What an area of space becomes is defined by the ether filling that space. The world is filled with it and true “nothingness” does not actually exist.
- Ley Lines:
- A way of referring to all the ether filling the world. Also refers to the currents created within that ether.
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“The part causing Sumeragi-kun trouble was how the laws of physics can be altered by controlling ether.”
“Well, we do call them laws because they normally don’t change.”
“Yes, but it might help to think of ether as existing at a higher level than the laws of physics. Ether is like a phone or computer and the laws of physics are like the OS running on it, so if you understand the ether, you can swap out or rewrite the OS installed on it.”
“Can you install any laws of physics you want on the ether?”
“The more advanced the law, the harder it is to establish. Because logic must still apply. But that means simple replacements and alterations can be established right away.”
“Then this world – the 90s one – simply has ‘reality’s laws of physics’ installed on it, right?”
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“Why does reality have what we’re calling ‘reality’s laws of physics’?”
“Well, more advanced laws are unstable and limited, so they require a lot of power. It is thought the burden would be too great and it would drive the world itself to self-destruction. It is believed there were several worlds which were in fact destroyed by that.”
“So reality can only exist because it uses a cheap but stable OS with lower functionality which is less of a burden?”
“Yes. This Divine World was created for us while we perform the terraforming. During the 90s it is based on, none of this was understood by the population at large. But this knowledge and the state of reality was later researched and discovered, leading to an understanding that reality can only exist because of its lower functionality.”
“Um, can you be more specific?”
“During the 90s, the laws of physics governing light, heat, weight, distance, time, etc. were thought to be the most fundamental rules. But by our era, we have learned they are not so absolute after all.”
“When was that discovered?”
“The records we have show it was possible to alter the laws of physics within set blocks of space at the beginning of the 2000s, but the entire world was later changed so the laws could be freely altered anywhere.”
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“The world’s format was changed! It began with the lower-functionality physical laws, but it was remade into a world that could be updated within managed regions.”
“Omokane-san, who are you talking to?”
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“Um, and how did that happen?”
“It has been brought up a few times before, but some other worlds with different laws joined with this world. This world only had its tiny and simple laws of physics, but it was changed into something of a joker that allowed for different laws. That is known as the law of contradiction allowance.”
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“Then let me change the question a little. The world is made of ether and the ley lines are that ether as a whole, right? Then how is ether controlled?”
“There are two methods: indirect control, which instead controls the molds, and direct control, which directly interferes with the ether.”
“Oh, the molds were another thing Sumeragi-kun didn’t really understand…”
“Then let’s discuss the molds first.”
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“When a certain existence continues to exist, it creates a mold for itself in the ley lines.”
“Is it something like a cookie cutter?”
“Sort of. With a simple mold, you can recreate the existence by injecting it with pressurized ether.”
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“So if you inject pressurized ether into a fire mold, you make fire appear! Wow, it’s just like a video game!”
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“This is my field of expertise, so I will provide some additional information. Molds can be a tricky thing. For example, when people live in a location, they create a mold of ‘people living here’. That remains even after the people are gone, so when someone else goes there, they will sense ‘an odd presence’.”
“So it’s like how powerful feelings can remain in a location…”
“Yes. And a mold that has become a standard pattern in the natural world is known as a phase. So geographical features like forests and lakes will create their own mold or phase.”
“What’s so tricky about that?”
“Well, when a mold grows large enough or dense enough, or when a stagnation or disturbance occurs there, it can create an active current of ether.”
“And then the mold behaves as if it is alive?”
“Yes. It will artificially react to things. When it does not have a mind of its own, it becomes a natural disaster or curse. When it does have a mind of its own, it becomes a spirit.”
“Most gods are created when people’s worship filling a mold made from the natural world or from the people’s imagination, right?”
“I get the feeling the classifications and research for this stuff is a lot more advanced in your later age…”
“Simply put, the laws of physics you were referring to end up being viewed as ‘we can do whatever we want, but this is generally how it works’. The Far East can use divine protections from the Shinto shrines and from the other religions and the Shinto infrastructure can apply divine protections over entire regions, so we can rewrite those laws over wide areas.”
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“Now, one way to control ether is to use a mold. There are several ways of doing that, but generally, you inject a prepared mold with pressurized ether to reproduce the mold. That is how you use it as a magic spell like that idiot was talking about.”
“Emblems, incantations, diagrams, and astrological arrangements all use molds too, don’t they?”
“Text and diagrams can be created and stored, so they are quite useful. But the mold appears when they are written or drawn, so they rapidly deteriorate and pass their expiration date quite quickly. And the incantations you mentioned are a bit of a gray zone. I will explain that next.”
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“The other method of controlling ether is direct control. That means to directly rewrite the ether without using a mold, so in our era, it is generally considered ‘an act of the gods’.”
<Gods are high-density ether beings, so they can directly access the ether. And the gods themselves are the molds for their own authority and divine protections, so they can “write” their abilities into the ether.>
“Praying to your god seems like it would be indirect, but does it actually use direct control? And what did you mean about incantations being a gray zone?”
“With incantations, the text creates a mold, but it is done in real time and the outcome depends on the skill of the one reading it. Is that what you meant?”
“Yes, that is. Incantations and ritual prayers cannot be created and stored. They are done in real time, so they are more direct. However…”
“Those techniques are a lot more advanced in your later age, aren’t they?”
“In our era, the gods exist and their divine protections use direct control, but the charms bought from shrines and churches use indirect control. Ritual prayers and the real-time incantation-style Technomagie used by Technohexen are in between the two extremes.”
“Ohh, so you’re getting closer to being gods yourselves.”
“No, we don’t really use those spells for anything worthwhile…”
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“Indeed, the people working their butts off to establish those techniques during the Age of the Gods would probably be shocked and appalled to learn that a certain someone’s spell design mistake led to emissions of 196mL.”
“Yes, I imagine so. I just about tried to claim it was only a ‘lotion spell’, but that would be a bad idea, wouldn’t it?”
“L-let’s just stop this discussion right here! Not a word more!”
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