05-10-2019, 09:08 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Florida
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Magically protected interpaths
So, I've been thinking of path- or roadways that have been enchanted to allow safe travel between one location and another. The idea is an interpath with the following attributes:
What are your thoughts? |
05-11-2019, 09:21 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: Magically protected interpaths
The potential for espionage seems tremendous.
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05-11-2019, 02:01 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Florida
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Re: Magically protected interpaths
That's anywhere with roads.
Oh, are you talking about the path between A and C passing undetectably through the private chambers of the king of B? If interpaths are known, there would be defenses for that sort of thing. |
05-11-2019, 02:12 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Florida
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Re: Magically protected interpaths
Interpath, sci-fi version
A group of star systems, each of which are deep in intergalactic space and unreachable by conventional FTL tech (taking centuries to reach at maximum speed), isolated even from each other except by the expressway. Travel along it multiplies FTL speeds by thousands to millions, making trips between them quite quick. It would be possible to leave mid-path into a galaxy the path cuts through, but getting back on the path or back to the remote systems would be almost impossible. |
05-11-2019, 02:31 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Florida
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Re: Magically protected interpaths
Possible drawbacks
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05-11-2019, 04:10 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Earth, mostly
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Re: Magically protected interpaths
Quote:
The difference is that since ME relay is near-instant, there's no way to leave the relay path once you've launched. If you hit the Pluto relay headed for Systems Alliance HQ at Arcturus, you're going to Arcturus, not another star along the path. A fantasy version would, I suppose, involve a magical gateway at each end of the path, which causes the trip from one end to the other to be no longer than, say, a day or so. To get from King's Rest to Far Harbor takes three weeks by conventional caravan, but the King's Men can travel between the points in three hours and arrive as fresh as when they left.
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If you break the laws of Man, you go to prison. If you break the laws of God, you go to Hell. If you break the laws of Physics, you go to Sweden and receive a Nobel Prize. |
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05-11-2019, 04:48 PM | #7 |
Untagged
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Magically protected interpaths
So like video games where you won't face any, or at least far fewer, random monsters when on the road? Or like fairy trods with magical unseen travel?
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05-11-2019, 05:09 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Magically protected interpaths
Can creators of interpaths control where that path goes in between the endpoints? Or is that dictated by the metaphysics that powers them? (That is, can you deliberately choose to build an interpath through the king's chambers, or do you just get to specify "connect here to there", and the path goes where it will or must?)
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05-11-2019, 09:12 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Florida
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Re: Magically protected interpaths
Quote:
For some interpaths, someone off the path who crosses it would seem to disappear from one side (to travelers on the path) and reappear on the other side, as if the path had no width to those not on it. Similarly, a privacy enchantment erected by those who suspect an interpath issue would find when they walk through one wall into a protected room would cross out the opposite wall as if the room did not exist. |
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05-16-2019, 10:13 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Udine, Italy
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Re: Magically protected interpaths
Never mind that, the potential for invasion is tremendous.
You might have a path to a place that you thought was friendly, and you might find that useful for, say, trade across a fiercely inhospitable region, say tall trackless mountains with wolves and constant bad weather. Now the enemies of your trade partners over there have conquered and taken over that place. Normally the inhospitable region would help protect you from invasion, but... have a look down that corridor for me, please, will you? Nobody's coming along, right? |
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