Re: On the nature of "reality" and Crystal Spheres (An Interpretation)

>From: Chris Morgan <kester_pelagius@???????.com>
>The long and the short of it:
>
>What gaps?
>
>A Crystal Sphere is, literally, a self-contained quantum reality bubble
>afloat in the miasma that is the Phlogiston Sea.
>
>Ah, but what is the Phlogiston Sea?  For that matter what is the
>Phlogiston?
>
>Remember Babylon 5?  Remember what you saw when a ship jumped into
>Hyperspace?  What was it... a prismatic miasma of. . . something.  There
>need be no "gap" between what is percieved as Hyperspace and the Phlogiston
>Sea as, in essence, they are a way of explaining the very same
>extra-spacial, possiblyl extra-temporal, region of...  Well whatever
>Hyperspace/Subspace/Planespace/the region of the Phlogiston Sea may be.
>
>The only real difference that you may want to note is the metamechanics
>used
>by the rules for defining what that region is, how it functions in game
>terms, and etcetera in relation to how we percieve and define our "mundane"
>reality.
...

This is all good, and is similar to what I do, but there is one hitch.  In
spelljammer space when you reach the crystal sphere space stops up against a
solid wall.  In real space you can keep going on forever, there is no solid
crystal wall to stop you.  I solved this by cheating a little, and saying
that the crystal sphere only becomes 'solid' in star systems where the
magical content is very high.  In low magic systems, there is no solid
crystal sphere.  The crystal sphere is the point where the elemental and
spiritual energies that are collected into star system become so weak and
spread out that the nothingness of empty space takes over and dominates.  In
nonmagical galaxies this is just this - empty space.  In high-magic star
systems this manifests itself as a solid wall where the magic used must
change in its nature.

This bugs me though.  What I really want is a way to make magic and the laws
of physics smoothly transition from one to another.  This way it is a "this
or that" situation.  I'm trying to figure out a system that is more of a
spectrum, so you can have a star system that is halfway between a highly
magical star system of the spelljammer universe and a nonmagical system of
science fiction.  How would this appear?  Weak magic, but stronger than in
earth's star system?  Would the crystal sphere be only half-there, full of
cracks of maybe semi-solid?  What would be beyond it if you didn't
transition into the pholgiston/subspace?  Whatever is between the
spelljammer cyrstal spheres when one doesn't use magic to enter the
pholgiston?  What would that be?  Something or nothing?

- Coyote, the Desert Dog





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