Intercepting meteors with magic

[Henchman99942]

How could mages in a medieval fantasy setting protect a city from incoming meteors? If magic doesn't work on meteors, what spells could they use to intercept them?

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Henchman99942

How could mages in a medieval fantasy setting protect a city from incoming meteors? If magic doesn't work on meteors, what spells could they use to intercept them?

Unless it's made almost entirely of Meteoric Iron, and thus utterly immune to magic, a literal reading of Return Missile would launch it back into space. I suppose if you got enough mages together, you could also create a portal large enough to drop a meteor on a rival kingdom instead.

[sir_pudding]

Use divination spells to find out why the gods are so angry and how to appease them.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Henchman99942

How could mages in a medieval fantasy setting protect a city from incoming meteors? If magic doesn't work on meteors, what spells could they use to intercept them?

Putting an adequately sized Force Wall in a meteor's path would stop it.

If it a magic resistant meteor you're in trouble. You could blow it up with some sort of magically created violence but you're mostly going to be too short on range or scale.

I think the best I can come up with (assuming adequate forewarning) is to use Telecast to put A large Wind spell at the highest altitude a medieval mage could think of in the meteor's path. That's probably 20 or 30 thousand feet ("higher than the highest mountain") and he could crank it up to "hurricane force "(126 mph +) and this might deflect the anti-magic rock sideways by just enough.

With more warning and some concept of what space is like he could try conjuring or teleporting solid objects into the meteor's path. this would require a lot of range and accuracy.

Note that I am assuming significant early warning by divination or similar effect. If he sees the thing when he looks up in the sky he probably doesn't have enough time for anything. If he does he probably won't have time for a Plan B if Plan A tells him it's magic resistant.

[gilbertocarlos]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Find out why the gods are so angry and appease them.

Or, on dungeon fantasy style, finde where the gods are and kill them.

[Dwarf99]

I don't use Standard Magic, but I could have swore there was one called Utter Dome

[Gedrin]

I believe most gate college spells conserve momentum. Combined with appropriate divination, maybe spell stones, or some other targeting mechanism, you could just throw other rocks at the dangerous one. This is aside from using ring gates as meteor cannons of your own.

Divination probably provides the means to intercept early.

There are also a lot of infinite reaction drive possibilities in standard GURPS Magic.

The method probably depends more on game flavor than anything else.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Dwarf99

I don't use Standard Magic, but I could have swore there was one called Utter Dome

It won't stop meteors that negate magic, which seems to be the OP's assumption.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It won't stop meteors that negate magic, which seems to be the OP's assumption.

If it didn't negate magic Force Dome would be enough but force Dome needs to be as large as the target city and can't usually be cast in the middle of the air.

The Force wall only needs to be as big as the meteor and can be cast more freely as regards to location/.

If the meteor is magic resistant you need to effect to somehow attack it indirectly.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If it didn't negate magic Force Dome would be enough but force Dome needs to be as large as the target city and can't usually be cast in the middle of the air.

The Force wall only needs to be as big as the meteor and can be cast more freely as regards to location/.

If the meteor is magic resistant you need to effect to somehow attack it indirectly.

Like I said, divine why the gods are so angry. Even if you stop the disaster, they will probably just send the bull of heaven or locusts, or Myceneans or something.