Ether

I think talking more about Ikons may be impossible before I divulge a little information about Ether.

In classic theory, Ether is the pure, clean air that the gods breath, as opposed to aer (or air) which normal beings breath. I don't remember this for sure, but I think if a normal person were to breath Ether, he would die. Of course, Ether was also popularized as a theoretical medium upon which particle-waves passed through, because scientists believed that electromagnetic radiation was a waveform, which meant it had to pass through a medium of some sort, as all waves do.

I think I explained before that I have a fondness for having mystical, primordial forces in my stories. I guess it's just how I grew up: with fantasy stories. Somehow crafting a world doesn't feel complete unless it has something that's totally unreal in reality existing, and "magical" forces are, to me, the center of that unreality. The idea for using Ether came up from the Xeno- series of games. The magic system was called ether, but they never really explained how it worked very well. I recall them saying that it involved nanobots, but I think that's as far as it went. But I thought it was pretty cool when Shion would yell out "Open Ether Circuits!" or "Ether Gate!" It gave me an idea for a magic system that had a lot of potential.

I used to be a fan of fantasy. And I still am, I guess, but one thing that's kind of irked me about the whole genre is magic. The typical way to represent magic is through an unexplainable mystical force, or somehow tying it to a supernatural force or entity. Well, I don't really have that much of a problem with it, but it just seems to be... a copout of sorts. With that, you can get away with anything. You don't really need to explain anything and the audience will just have to take your word that magic can do such and such. It makes magical battles pretty LPD (lame plot device) driven. Well, I suppose having any kind of magic system, be they supernatural or otherwise, can devolve into that, but I just like the idea of having some sort of concrete explanation for how things work. Maybe it's just the completionist in me, or all the time I spent in my youth playing RPGs, but I have a dying need to have all the pieces fit.

There is an anime called Scrapped Princess. I believe I mentioned it before. It's the story of a girl who's prophecized to destroy the world and so everyone's out to kill her... but as it turns out, she's the sweetest person in the world. The world is first introduced as a fantasy world, full of self proclaimed knights and mages weilding powerful magic, but we later learn that it's actually the future, and the magic being used is based in technology. I thought that was a great concept. The incantations the mages use are more like input commands rather than incantions, such as "Divine Punishment Execution Form... Manifest!" They really didn't explain how it works though, beyond saying that magic is based off of some form of mathematical formulae or something like that, which was a little disappointing to me, but at least the concept was there and my imagination could fill in the gaps.

To fill in the gaps, I turned back to Xenogears. I have the Xenogears Perfect Works book, which is a detailed guide on how the world works. I remember reading about how the Gears (mecha in Xenogears) works, and how they're powered by a mystical source of energy called the Zohar, which is manifested as a large, golden monolithic structure. The gears are fitted with slave drives, which are somehow linked to the Zohar. When the slave drives require energy, they send out a request to the Zohar, and the request is processed, releasing the required energy to the slave drive. That feels a bit more complete to me. A much more realized system of energy transfer, just like EPS systems.

I think a similar system of magic is used in an anime series I picked up recently. It's called Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, and it's, as the name suggest, of the "Magical Girl" genre that seems to be popular in Japan. But unlike the typical magical girl anime out there, they explain a lot of magic as technology based. At the heart of this is an item called, simply, a "device." It's the key to using magic, as it acts as an interface between the mage and the magic that a character an use. The character can will magic to happen, but more oftentimes, he must incant the particular magic he wants to use. The incantations are very much like input commands, and the device replies in kind. The character can yell "A. C. S. Standby!" and the device will respond "A. C. S. Open. Standing by for input." That is so cool!! XD

So this is where Ether, as it's realized in White Currents comes in. Ether is a medium that exists slightly out of phase with realspace. A small fraction of it manifests in the atmosphere of Sharidia, but the majority is hidden beyond normal reach, in what is termed Etherspace. This tiny fraction doesn't do much, but it is enough to act as a hook to get to the richer source inside Etherspace. The primary means of acquiring Ether is using humans as a conduit to draw it out. Many lifeforms have an innate connection to Ether (theories abound on how life came to be through Ether), but humans have the greatest affinity, possibly derived from their increased brainmass and thus increased neural energy. Humans can't extract Ether by themselves, though. They need a driver to extract it. Humans are merely conduits.

Many forms of drivers exist. The most important of these are the Ethergates. Seven of them exist, corresponding to the seven Empyrean Kingdoms that existed in ages long ago. These are the primary sources of Ether in the world. Though the Gates themselves were lost a long time ago, they still generate energy, and are the primary source of power through the use of a sister technology called Etherdrives. Etherdrives are the slave drives I spoke about earlier in Xenogears, whereas Ethergates are the Zohars. Etherdrives are fitted into plants and ships. By themselves they do nothing, but when paired up with an Ethergate (through a form of programming), the Etherdrive can begin requesting energy output from the Gate. The principle of how the drives fundamentally work was lost a long time ago, but through reverse engineering, the engineers were able to figure out how to at least build the components necessary for it to work.

Another form of drivers is manifested in the Ikon. They're sort of a mini Ethergate, and are able to draw Ether directly from Etherspace, instead of relying on the Ethergate. Ikons also function as a filter of sorts, since direct exposure to Ether isn't a good thing to a normal human. Should direct exposure to Ether occur, you'll end up with the final type of driver: an Ashir. I'll get into this with a later post.

Suffice it to say, Ether is a fundamental core of the functioning of the White Currents world. Ether is responsible for allowing the skyforms to float in the air. Ether also allows for the flying of skyships, and it powers many of the technology that humanity has produced in Sharidia. And of course, Ether is the driving force for the stories in White Currents. What would I do without it?