And if people only discover its existence, I actually don't think it'd be as drastic as @Menwearpink says. The world has been "aware" of magecraft before, after all. The problem comes when people start bringing actual magecraft into the limelight, on television and into newspapers. Once it becomes banal, a part of life, once people start to think they have a grasp on it... it'll start vanishing, but science itself will take longer to catch up.
If it's just a function of people considering it banal, couldn't magic users openly practice their craft like they did in the past so long as they maintain a sort of mystique about it? Everyone knows that so-and-so is a wizard but nobody knows what he can actually do and it's all whispered speculation and furtively glancing over your shoulder to make sure he isn't standing right there because he's a scary guy who can probably make your head explode from the other side of the city. As long as what exactly he can do and how exactly he does it remain unknown, is his power effected by people knowing that he has it?
Also, about the "the mundane is that which humanity believes it understands," out-of-universe isn't this pretty ahistoric? People in the past thought they knew how the world worked, they were just wrong. In a setting where human belief defines reality, wouldn't reality just work the way they thought it did and therefore be devoid of mystery? Why was the human body a repository of mystery in the era of humorism but rendered mundane in the era of pathological physiology? That seems to imply that there's a version of human biology that holds truth independent of human belief about it, which contradicts the way I understand Nasuphysics.
If it's just a function of people considering it banal, couldn't magic users openly practice their craft like they did in the past so long as they maintain a sort of mystique about it? Everyone knows that so-and-so is a wizard but nobody knows what he can actually do and it's all whispered speculation and furtively glancing over your shoulder to make sure he isn't standing right there because he's a scary guy who can probably make your head explode from the other side of the city. As long as what exactly he can do and how exactly he does it remain unknown, is his power effected by people knowing that he has it?
Also, about the "the mundane is that which humanity believes it understands," out-of-universe isn't this pretty ahistoric? People in the past thought they knew how the world worked, they were just wrong. In a setting where human belief defines reality, wouldn't reality just work the way they thought it did and therefore be devoid of mystery? Why was the human body a repository of mystery in the era of humorism but rendered mundane in the era of pathological physiology? That seems to imply that there's a version of human biology that holds truth independent of human belief about it, which contradicts the way I understand Nasuphysics.
The easy way to explain it is that the all this shit runs on oMage metaphysics. Reality is shaped by the minds of humanity, and there is no such thing as a Law of physics. incoming fallapost in 3...2...1...
For whatever reason, Kojirou possesses the last of the five treasures of the Taketori no Okina -- "a cowrie bell born of a swallow." How he came to hold it is unexplained, but he gives that his possession of the cowrie bell would perhaps be the reason that karma brought him to the Inn of the Sparrows.
On giving the cowrie bell to Guda, however, he reminds her that in the legend of Princess Kaguya, the five suitors of the princess who went abroad in search of the impossible treasures she asked of them never in fact brought them back. Not a single one. In other words, presuming that the Taketori no Okina is in fact who he claims to be, there's no reason that he would possess the treasures to begin with.
Ergo, the incident five hundred years ago was the inception of a long con -- possible only because Beni-Enma is a gullible little kid, and happens not to possess the faculty of discerning truth from falsehood, despite being vested by her stepfather with the duty of punishing liars.
Gathering the five treasures, Fionn uses his capabilities to precisely reconstruct the room that the Taketori no Okina stayed within five hundred years ago -- inclusive of the luggage boxes that contain the five treasures. Bluffing that it's among his powers to turn back time, he implores the Taketori no Okina to open the luggage and take back the treasures -- cornering the Taketori no Okina to admit that there were no treasures there to begin with. Realizing what he just said, he immediately recants his words, and asks the Elder of the Monkeys -- one of the three youkai who have inhabited the Inn in the long term -- to bear witness, confirming that the treasure was once there.
The Elder of the Monkeys states that the Taketori no Okina did indeed show him the treasures -- but Kiyohime possesses the ability to see through the lies of men. She confirms that the both of them are lying -- forcing the Taketori no Okina to reveal his true form, once deprived of his mask by the blade of Beni-Enma: A bunrei of the Elder of the Monkeys.
Once, long ago, the Elder of the Monkeys absorbed the Saint Graphs of the other two long-term inhabitants of the Inn -- a snake spirit and a tiger spirit. The tiger was without a head, and thus became his torso. The snake became his tail. Combined, the three of them became as the monster known as the Nue. Out of a sadistic desire to make Beni-Enma suffer, he plotted to steal the "thanks" received by the Inn -- and as a result, has bolstered his Saint Graph with five hundred years worth of gratitude.
With Chaldea's assistance, the Nue is vanquished, and divided again to his components. At this point, the Elder of the Monkeys discovers that his two compatriots had actually betrayed him, even as he'd subsumed their Saint Graphs, and largely prevented them from going against his will. Being that they felt gratitude to Beni-Enma for giving them a place to stay in a World that was largely absent of the Mystery required to sustained them, they had in the course of the two weeks of Chaldea's stay dropped hints to them as to the nature of the Nue's plot.
Pronouncing judgment of the Nue, Beni-Enma vanquishes him in her capacity as an emissary of the Underworld. The stolen gratitude, alongside the gratitude gathered by Chaldea's actions, restore the Saint Graph of the Mayoiga to its former glory.
It's revealed in the end that as Gordorf had been given the communicator to the Wandering Sea by Sion, it was actually his fault that it ended up being dropped in the mountains. Shortly thereafter, it was picked up by one of Beni-Enma's sparrows, who didn't know what it was -- and Sion's been trying to get ahold of them the entire time. Fionn observes that if Holmes and da Vinci were available for contact, the con of the Nue would've probably been resolved in the first day or so -- but what's done is done.
Saying goodbye to Beni-Enma, and thanking her for a happy month of January, Chaldea takes their leave. Beni-Enma remarks as of their departure that she'd better get a move on restoring the operations of the Inn, which have suffered these past five centuries because of her mismanagement.
However, before she leaves the front landing of the Inn to return to her work, one new guest appears ...
Some images:
The Nue.
During her drinking party, Jing Ke decides to sing a couple of Elizabeth's singles.
Commentary from the peanut gallery:
"It's as if Elizabeth worked hard for decades as an actual idol and eventually got good."
"She's even reproducing all of Eli-chan's mannerisms and quirks."
Historically, Jing Ke was a gentleman of leisure who was skilled at poetry and song.
If it's just a function of people considering it banal, couldn't magic users openly practice their craft like they did in the past so long as they maintain a sort of mystique about it?
Also, about the "the mundane is that which humanity believes it understands," out-of-universe isn't this pretty ahistoric? People in the past thought they knew how the world worked, they were just wrong. In a setting where human belief defines reality, wouldn't reality just work the way they thought it did and therefore be devoid of mystery?
Because it's not just human beliefs even though it plays a big part of it. It's not even active human beliefs, more like subconsciously, like how the Counter Force is the subconscious will to survive rather than people summoning it by thinking really hard "I will survive" (or singing it, depending).
It's because when humans reached the top of the food chain ("the throne/seat of primacy/primates" in Nasuspeak) in the place of the gods after they were weakened for various reasons, the world itself changed to provide the environment that can best benefit them. It's explained by Gilgamesh in Fate/Extra CCC and by Merlin in Garden of Avalon:
Gilgamesh in CCC said:
The age of gods has been long over, and this planet has already been stabilized under those laws of physics humanity has observed. For humans, gods are nothing but a system to prop up their religion. (…) Living beings have an instinct to adjust the environment they dwell in into something more suited for their way of life. What we call the survival instinct. The ancient gods lacked that trait. No matter how much energy they possessed, they were nothing but beings that were "just there."
Whereas the human will to survive was extraordinary. Individuals might be lacking, but there were many of them, and the average was high. There was no particular species endowed with supreme authority, but human beings had a higher standard of intelligence than other lifeforms. On the other hand, no matter how powerful the forces of nature the heavenly gods embodied, in character…in ingenuity, and in cognition they were not so different from human beings.
Do you see? An omniscient being can only reach a single possible conclusion, can only have one personality. On that point, human beings were a threat to them. It was a difference in the number of minds…no, a difference in adaptability. Human desire is unlimited, endless and unsparing. The world is transformed according to their desires.
"If human beings continue to multiply like this, the rules of this planet will change. The time is coming when we gods, the wills of nature, will become unnecessary."
Artoria, there's more to the world than just what you can see. When you humans reached the Throne of Primacy, the fairies saw that the state of the planet was changing, and accepted this fate.
The planet changes its physical laws based on the activity of life on its surface. The era of abundant mystery and mana gradually began to decline when you humans became the greatest power. The gods with personalities became natural phenomena, and atmospheric ether dispersed.
The decline of mystery had been accelerating since the death of Solomon, the King of Magic. Then, five hundred years ago, the Age of Gods finally, completely, came to an end.
This planet became independent of nature. It was now owned by animals which could manage to survive on their own even if they were separate from the natural cycle.
Yeah. It would be simplest to say that it happened because of humans. The inclination of the intelligence that humans acquired -- their mentality -- was a desire to illuminate the darkness of uncertain laws. Consequently, the planet's rules were altered to become laws best suited to human life. Both dragons and fairies broke humanity's laws, so they moved to the reverse side of the world. They yielded the surface to you."
It's also noted by Da Vinci in Babylon that mana in the atmosphere has been diminishing since the Age of the Gods.
And so it turns out an environment of magical beasts and threats that are hard to predict or defend against might not be what's best for humans!
Personally, I theorize that you could also say that's why heroes appeared in the first place, taming the wild and mystical nature to make way for human civilization. Many Phantasmal Beasts couldn't or wouldn't go to the other side and had to be killed by heroes, the main example being the giants and other beasts of Britain that Arthur and her knights took care of (which also ironically led to the downfall because the loss of magic also means the loss of the magical blessings to the land by the magic king and fairies, but that's another story). Another example would be the Nemean Lion, who was so immune to the Human Order its skin was invulnerable to manmade weapons, resulting in the hero Heracles taking care of it.
In short, human beliefs are just one part of the equation.
What I'm getting from this is that during the Age of Gods the mythical beings were enjoying a freeform roleplaying jam until humans came along and demanded that there be a consistent set of rules until the GM gave in and started homebrewing a system for them. Everybody whose character couldn't be modeled in the system and didn't want to change their character concept to fit were kicked off the table and told to go amuse themselves in the other room. The homebrew is a work in progress and if you look you can find cases where the rules aren't clear about what should happen, which means you get to freeform it to keep things moving along. If this happens too often, the GM will prioritize developing rules for that circumstance and get it covered. If this continues for an arbitrarily long time eventually the rules will be fully comprehensive and there will no longer be any room to freeform it because everything will either be explicitly modeled or prohibited.
Questions that arise from this:
The GM responded to the humans' request for consistent rules by producing a game that they could enjoy playing. Part of making the game enjoyable was making the humans the best splat. Why did the GM do this by banning everything more awesome than a human rather than by making humans more awesome?
Why does the GM retcon their setting to fit each new edition of the rules instead of acknowledging in-universe that the laws of nature change sometimes?
Why is the GM listening to humans when they weren't its original group of players anyway?
What I'm getting from this is that during the Age of Gods the mythical beings were enjoying a freeform roleplaying jam until humans came along and demanded that there be a consistent set of rules until the GM gave in and started homebrewing a system for them. Everybody whose character couldn't be modeled in the system and didn't want to change their character concept to fit were kicked off the table and told to go amuse themselves in the other room. The homebrew is a work in progress and if you look you can find cases where the rules aren't clear about what should happen, which means you get to freeform it to keep things moving along. If this happens too often, the GM will prioritize developing rules for that circumstance and get it covered. If this continues for an arbitrarily long time eventually the rules will be fully comprehensive and there will no longer be any room to freeform it because everything will either be explicitly modeled or prohibited.
Questions that arise from this:
The GM responded to the humans' request for consistent rules by producing a game that they could enjoy playing. Part of making the game enjoyable was making the humans the best splat. Why did the GM do this by banning everything more awesome than a human rather than by making humans more awesome?
Why does the GM retcon their setting to fit each new edition of the rules instead of acknowledging in-universe that the laws of nature change sometimes?
Why is the GM listening to humans when they weren't its original group of players anyway?
Think of it less as a GM working with a small group of players, and more like a video game company pandering to its playerbase. When humans became the dominant species beyond even the gods, much like EA and every other dumbass a decade ago chasing the mythical Call of Duty audience, the 'publisher' 'casualized their game' in an attempt to target the mass market. Which, in this case, involved nerfing everything but humans into the ground to pander to their desires.
Yup there was a massive war and everyone but th mc has a 'grail' and given the possible little prince calls himself voyager and Meteo is writing well Aliens overwriting the domain of man already happened once elsewhere so something similar wouldnt be weird
This is why I dont understand the problem with revealing Magecraft. It needs Mystery because the common sense of humanity is that magic doesnt exist. Reveal magecraft... and you change that common sense. How could magic not be real, that guy just cast a spell? Shouldn't revealing magecraft inherently change the common sense to include the supernatural?
This is why I dont understand the problem with revealing Magecraft. It needs Mystery because the common sense of humanity is that magic doesnt exist. Reveal magecraft... and you change that common sense. How could magic not be real, that guy just cast a spell? Shouldn't revealing magecraft inherently change the common sense to include the supernatural?
That's because it's only a problem for the Mage's Associstion, who want to keep being hidden to research magecraft as a way to the Root like the basement-dweling nerds they are.
It also would make the Servant Summoning System Chaldea employ go puff, and we kinda need Servants to fight the threats we're fighting. Otherwise it would be a medium inconvenience to most of humanity.
Remember, the end goal is subsuming all magic phenomena into modern science's understanding, leading us to a magitech/sci-fi society and going to space. Forcing magecraft to end before were ready to understand it will just cause unnecessary problems, like the lack of Servant-based defense system against atemporal and extraterrestrial threats.
This is why I dont understand the problem with revealing Magecraft. It needs Mystery because the common sense of humanity is that magic doesnt exist. Reveal magecraft... and you change that common sense. How could magic not be real, that guy just cast a spell? Shouldn't revealing magecraft inherently change the common sense to include the supernatural?
The thing is, you wouldn't be changing the common sense of man. You would simply be putting magecraft under the domain of science, which would murder it in it's attempt to understand it. Magecraft is close enough to a science to easily get slotted into the same category by the Common Sense of Man, but for all their resemblance to scientists mages don't actually do science. They keep their results to themselves in order to protect magic itself rather than sharing them. I don't think magic would survive the scientific community looking at the Clock Tower, thinking "wow they're just like us but man they're backwards and inefficient" before accidentally tearing magic to shreds with the scientific method and publishing all they learn in scientific journals.
This is why I dont understand the problem with revealing Magecraft. It needs Mystery because the common sense of humanity is that magic doesnt exist. Reveal magecraft... and you change that common sense. How could magic not be real, that guy just cast a spell? Shouldn't revealing magecraft inherently change the common sense to include the supernatural?
The Counter Force acts against anything that would drastically bias the future developments of a timeline in a positive or negative way; and a culling of timelines is one of the mechanisms through which the Human Order defends itself.
For something as massive as "the lifting of the Masquerade" to actually impact the Common Sense of the Human Order in an appreciable way, the Counter Force would essentially need to be circumvented in a way that doesn't bias the future toward hell or utopia; in a way that ends up affecting every timeline canonical to the Greater History.
Also, have you considered the difficulty involved?
If you go out into the middle of Times Square in NYC and give everyone a show of magecraft, the likely response by people bound within the Common Sense would be to deny it, reject it, rationalize it -- explain it away as an expensive example of street magic, with perfectly explainable mechanisms underlying.
That is, assuming that the Human Order doesn't retcon the individual out of the canonicity of the Greater History.
Even if some onlooker were willing not to deny the performance, and possessed the intelligence and resources to study what they witnessed, it would simply expand the scope of science. The Mystery within the magecraft would be assimilated to the Common Sense as a principle of nature that was heretofore unknown.
Ergo, "yes, floating continents do in fact exist" being confirmed by observation on a sufficient scale to impact the Human Order might simply lead to a new theory of environmental science that accounts for the existence of floating continents; and other floating continents might be retconned into existence.
I mean Paracelsus' death involved him trying to reveal magecraft to the populace and I am pretty sure he would know if that would end up in destroying it or not
I mean Paracelsus' death involved him trying to reveal magecraft to the populace and I am pretty sure he would know if that would end up in destroying it or not
In Paracelsus' case, I'm not sure that he would really care?
I mean, to him, the abolition of Mystery and the assimilation of the concepts inherent unto the Common Sense of the Human Order might even be a good thing. Ultimately, it would expand upon the capabilities available to humanity at large.
Still kinda sucks for mankind to depend on a failing method to defend them from aliens and old shit from back when Earth was a scary place and its experts would crash the Age of Man with no survivors if some Alien God gives them the chance to do it
But oh wel Nasu isn't Nasu if the universe isn't horrible in some way or another
I'm not. They've consistently demonstrated themselves to be raging assholes and I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them. They're lying liars who lie as a matter of course, why do you think they'd be telling the truth about this thing that conveniently justifies their ridiculous lifestyle and absolves them of any responsibilities or obligations to society at large?
When a mystery is assimilated into the common sense of man as a new, valid "natural" phenomenon, does its practical effect then become available through scientific means? If something happens that causes Chaldea's servant summoning system to go poof like someone said upthread, would humans some three hundred years later then be able to build a servant summoning machine working on purely technological principles?
Still kinda sucks for mankind to depend on a failing method to defend them from aliens and old shit from back when Earth was a scary place and its experts would crash the Age of Man with no survivors if some Alien God gives them the chance to do it
But oh wel Nasu isn't Nasu if the universe isn't horrible in some way or another
As was stated before, the failing system is only a stopgap measure until science catches up and surpasses it. For example the Ether Liners and A Rays from Notes, both products of science, are pretty fucking hardcore, with Ado Edem's Slash Emperor being capable of outperforming most Noble Phantasms in terms of sheer destructive power. So we have proof that when science does catch up with magic it's more than capable of blowing it out of the water. The system starting to fail isn't a bad thing that dooms humanity, it's because it's not going to be needed in the future. It's like mourning the loss of training wheels as a great tragedy.
