Hypothetical Scenario??

[Gray_Mann]

Imagine the modern day world, suddenly going dark. Dark as in modern technology fails. No electricity. No internet. No wifi. No vehicles. No missile systems for blowing up a city or whatever. These things just....die. No explanation.

A few days later, a energy source called Mana suddenly appears in the very air we breathe, and about 10-15% of the Human population develops the ability to wield Magic. Not everyone develops the same kind of Magic always, with some forms being common and other being rare. For example, Fire Magic might be common, but Flight Magic would be something only 3 or 4 people alive at the time could do.

Hypothetically, how do you see such a scenario playing out? Myself, I imagine current governments would either collapse, or be very radically altered in their functions, certainly with new faces in charge. Hell, I could see governmental forces attempting to squash the brand new Mages either with old-world tech, or with their own Mages. Either way, I suspect absolute chaos would take hold with dozens of new factions erupting into conflict with dozens of others, and it taking several decades at least before some semblance of order returns, how unstable it may be.

Imagine this is your country this is happening in. What do YOU think would happen and how would it play out?


(Also, if you feel the need to comment that such modern technology wouldn't just die like this, don't bother responding. I'm asking for brainstorming hypotheticals. I don't care if X is not realistic because of Y reasons. That isn't what I asked.)

 

[RepresentingWrath]

No fancy technologies, what about not fancy ones? Guns, gas stoves, etc?

 

[Gray_Mann]

No fancy technologies, what about not fancy ones? Guns, gas stoves, etc?

I would limit guns to anything that is purely kinetic in energy. So anything running on electrical systems, no. So, basically Korea/Vietnam War era weapons and back. Even in this timeframe, that removes some of the weapons used during Korea/Vietnam but I hope I'm clarifying well enough. So, a simple M-16 is acceptable in this scenario, perhaps even a simple RPG since I don't think those have any guidance systems, but a bazooka with a laser-guided aiming system? No.

As for artillery....I'm not knowledgeable enough to say.
But no planes, no ships, no vehicles.
Gas stoves? No. Pretty sure they run on electricity. Wood stoves? Yes.
The only electricity usable is what is generated if people develop "Lightning/Electric/Shock" elemental magic or whatever.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I would limit guns to anything that is purely kinetic in energy. So anything running on electrical systems, no. So, basically Korea/Vietnam War era weapons and back. Even in this timeframe, that removes some of the weapons used during Korea/Vietnam but I hope I'm clarifying well enough. So, a simple M-16 is acceptable in this scenario, perhaps even a simple RPG since I don't think those have any guidance systems, but a bazooka with a laser-guided aiming system? No.

As for artillery....I'm not knowledgeable enough to say.
But no planes, no ships, no vehicles.

No simple cars either? I don't know much about cars, but I do know that basically every modern car uses eletricity. However not every 'modern' car is fancy. What about them? Also, what about radio? I'm not trying to do gotcha here. Everything I mention is important to think of answer as close to the truth as possible.

 

[Gray_Mann]

No simple cars either? I don't know much about cars, but I do know that basically every modern car uses eletricity. However not every 'modern' car is fancy. What about them? Also, what about radio? I'm not trying to do gotcha here. Everything I mention is important to think of answer as close to the truth as possible.

No electricity. None.

 

[l8rose]

Not counting the people who would die the moment modern tech gets fried, there would be a lot of deaths from starvation as there would be problems in the global shipping lanes without electricity. Many countries import food or transport it from one end of their country to the other. That would put most governments into chaos. The governments most likely to still function would be from smaller countries. Geographically large countries like Canada, USA, China, etc, would potentially fracture into smaller countries as it would be incredibly difficult to maintain communication without electricity.

Following that, there would most likely be an outbreak of regional Warlords. People have the potential to be rat bastards and there will always be at least one person who decides he's better to lead than the others. Add having an offensive magic and it would be like Mad Max but with powers.

Some governments would try to squish down mages but unless they have powered individuals of their own, they wouldn't be capable of doing much other than pissing off the magic users.



Or at least, that's how I wrote Earth ending up in Crystalborn... xD

 

[John_Owl]

I would limit guns to anything that is purely kinetic in energy. So anything running on electrical systems, no. So, basically Korea/Vietnam War era weapons and back. Even in this timeframe, that removes some of the weapons used during Korea/Vietnam but I hope I'm clarifying well enough. So, a simple M-16 is acceptable in this scenario, perhaps even a simple RPG since I don't think those have any guidance systems, but a bazooka with a laser-guided aiming system? No.

As for artillery....I'm not knowledgeable enough to say.
But no planes, no ships, no vehicles.
Gas stoves? No. Pretty sure they run on electricity. Wood stoves? Yes.
The only electricity usable is what is generated if people develop "Lightning/Electric/Shock" elemental magic or whatever.

older guns aren't kinetic. They're chemical that produce kinetic. So chemical energy reactions work, but electrical reactions don't? Also, gas stoves usually have electrical failsafes that wouldn't work, but the actual "burn gas -> produce heat" should still work since gunpowder still burns.

So, I'm guessing the sudden appearance of mana disrupts the flow of electrons. The only way to bypass this is to have a form of magic that enables the flow (electric magic type, regardless of the specific magic effects). I think first things first, scientists would try to define the new laws regarding mana and second, politicians would restrict any and all use of magic until they can be properly classified, though this would be severely underfunded, meaning magic is in a semi-permanent state of outlaw, as it's constantly developing and changing as it equalizes.

As for standard life... Most things wouldn't change much. anything electrical wouldn't work, so daily entertainment and medicine would be the biggest changes - anyone that relies on electricity for heat would likely freeze, anyone that needs it for medical equipment would likely die.

After these, the next biggest change would be large companies - companies like amazon, facebook, and google that run the modern world would likely hire magic users en masse in order to maintain their power. If the mages weren't sellouts, these large companies would collapse, as most of their income is based in electronic form. Banks would fail as they'd have no way to monitor their wealth, people would attempt to pull their money en masse, causing another great depression. We'd rapidly fall into post-apocalypse and slowly climb back, but in a form of dictatorship.

We can also look at potential magics - if electricity generated by magic works, old world tech would be worthless, UNLESS there was an electric-type mage nearby that could produce electricity and keep it going. In which case, it'd be priceless.

 

[Nolff]

I would limit guns to anything that is purely kinetic in energy. So anything running on electrical systems, no. So, basically Korea/Vietnam War era weapons and back. Even in this timeframe, that removes some of the weapons used during Korea/Vietnam but I hope I'm clarifying well enough. So, a simple M-16 is acceptable in this scenario, perhaps even a simple RPG since I don't think those have any guidance systems, but a bazooka with a laser-guided aiming system? No.

As for artillery....I'm not knowledgeable enough to say.
But no planes, no ships, no vehicles.
Gas stoves? No. Pretty sure they run on electricity. Wood stoves? Yes.
The only electricity usable is what is generated if people develop "Lightning/Electric/Shock" elemental magic or whatever.

No fancy technologies, what about not fancy ones? Guns, gas stoves, etc?

Basically, anything but electricity.

For example:

An RPG? Usable.
A SAW Bazooka? No, unless you turn off the lock-on feature.

Well, I do have a question tho.

EMP can and will damage anything with electricity. Be it planes, turrets, or weapon sights. Now, that mana stuff reason makes the electricity-gone makes sense. Suppose I were a citizen and I witnessed the uprising of mana. In that case, I'd understand that the mana suddenly coming out of nowhere is like a huge EMP blast that caused all forms of electricity to be permanently damaged.

Also, no. The gas stoves, the ones commonly used in ASEAN countries, are not powered by electricity. I mean, I once cooked an egg in the middle of the night while my town was having a blackout. So, that's that.

If that happens in my country, I can hardly guess what will happen next. But, I have some rough predictions.

About the total blackout, there would be issues in transportation and everyone would be forced to revert to use bicycles or sailboats. Good thing is, most of my country's population (At least for the beach and river people) have at least one.

Now, how will my president and his team handle this?

Well, that's based on who has magic and who doesn't. Because bizarre things tends to happen often in this country with how many stupid criminal cases have existed here.

 

[Gray_Mann]

So chemical energy reactions work, but electrical reactions don't?

I'm not in any way, shape, or form, knowledgeable in Chemistry, so this is an interesting question for me.

Removing electricity....WOULD chemical reactions still work? If so, than does that mean older-styles of guns would function....at least until the ammunition runs out since no more can be crafted to replace usage.

Now, how will my president and his team handle this?

Honestly, I would predict three different scenarios on the political level.

One, current government manages to gather enough Mages who possess a reasonable amount of strength, in which they would strong-arm the rest of the Mages into compliance or death and therefore maintain the unity of the country as it was, though I imagine it would be a very unstable, very resentful form of unity prone to rebellion at the slightest thing.

Two, country erupts into various warlords with the Government just being one of numerous, and though they might retake parts of the country, they would fail to unite all of it.

Three, the government is crushed and various warlords rip the country into numerous smaller successor states.

Well, two and three is more or less the same, just one has the current government surviving in a weaker form while in the other, they are a casualty of the warring factions.

 

[John_Owl]

I'm not in any way, shape, or form, knowledgeable in Chemistry, so this is an interesting question for me.

Removing electricity....WOULD chemical reactions still work? If so, than does that mean older-styles of guns would function....at least until the ammunition runs out since no more can be crafted to replace usage.

Chemistry would more than likely still work.

We must assume a handful of facts.
1, mana is solely in the air. It does not exist within other matter. This would mean it's part of the atmosphere - that is, it's effectively in a gaseous state or is replacing wild/roaming/free electrons in the atmo.
2. Mana appearing and stopping electricity and electrical functions would mean that its very existence in a given place interrupts the flow of electrons through electrical circuits—electricity works by "flowing." You can picture it like a river.
and 3, if Mana replaces electrons then it would likely work in a similar fashion, though it's behavior would be different. It would theorhetically be possible for new tech to be created that runs on mana as old tech did on electricity. But in the mean time, Human mages could likely be considered conduits for mana, operating it similar to how machines did electricity.

With these in place, chemistry would still work, though the tools for it would likely change. Further, gunpowder and blackpowder can both be made by hand. While technically unlimited, the slow pace of manufacture would effectively bottleneck the usage of guns. fireworks would likely be dismantled for additional gunpowder or simply used as old fashioned artillery- similar in use and effect to the original chinese war canons.

I estimate by the end of the first year, guns will be worth a fortune and ammo will cost a premium. the ability and knowledge to craft ammo will be among the most sought after positions and paying someone in the ammo they made will be considered reasonable. After all, only a man with a gun or a mage can stand against a mage with bad intentions.

Further, we can consider that a lot of countries will likely treat it similarly to either Witch hunts or guns. Mages will be hunted and either killed for being dangerous (witch hunts) or will be imprisoned for the threat they pose to non-mages. If this happens, guns and mages will be recruited, and we will end up with a war - magic vs non-magic.

wow... I'm getting way too into this world building... lol sorry.

 

[Gray_Mann]

wow... I'm getting way too into this world building... lol sorry.

Don't be. This is what I wanted after all.

Should I also mention that the power level of Mages would vary widely, for example, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 would be that random guy who can throw fireballs, but with no training in control, he's just as likely to burn himself even though he will inevitably kill the other guy. A 10 would be someone like Minato from Naruto. No he can't turn a big city into nothing more than a crater, but he can still pretty much single-handedly decimate an army of thousands of people with guns, if you take into account that he can maintain barrier magic while slinging lightning, boulders, or whatever he's throwing at you.

Now, get together 9 or 10 guys who are a 10 on the power scale, and perhaps you can say goodbye to most of LA or Chicago or Houston or Dallas or...whatever city you imagine.

However, as said, 10-15% of the Human population will possess the capacity for converting the Mana they breathe from the oxygen in the atmosphere into Magic power. I also imagine there would be something like a "core" or whatever inside of the people who can wield Magic, even if it's just a specific already-existing organ that stores and holds the Mana. So...a country of 330 million people, would have at least 33 Million potential Mages at minimum.

Of these 33 Million, perhaps only a 1,000 will ever reach the stage of a 10 on the power scaling. Now, since it would be absurd to think all 33 Million people would even want to train for being a Mage, I'd think it'd be safe to say that only 50 or so people in any given generation would reach Level 10, if they survive long enough and are not killed beforehand before growing into their strength.

Also, would the altering of electrons change anything with Human behavior/bodily functions? I nmy hypothetical, Mana would just be the conduit for Magical power, I would WANT it to change anything about normal human behavior/bodily functions....but I know nothing about how/if electrons interact with humans.

if Mana replaces electrons

Also, would the altering of electrons change anything with Human behavior/bodily functions? I nmy hypothetical, Mana would just be the conduit for Magical power, I would WANT it to change anything about normal human behavior/bodily functions....but I know nothing about how/if electrons interact with humans.

 

[John_Owl]

Don't be. This is what I wanted after all.

Should I also mention that the power level of Mages would vary widely, for example, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 would be that random guy who can throw fireballs, but with no training in control, he's just as likely to burn himself even though he will inevitably kill the other guy. A 10 would be someone like Minato from Naruto. No he can't turn a big city into nothing more than a crater, but he can still pretty much single-handedly decimate an army of thousands of people with guns, if you take into account that he can maintain barrier magic while slinging lightning, boulders, or whatever he's throwing at you.

Now, get together 9 or 10 guys who are a 10 on the power scale, and perhaps you can say goodbye to most of LA or Chicago or Houston or Dallas or...whatever city you imagine.

However, as said, 10-15% of the Human population will possess the capacity for converting the Mana they breathe from the oxygen in the atmosphere into Magic power. I also imagine there would be something like a "core" or whatever inside of the people who can wield Magic, even if it's just a specific already-existing organ that stores and holds the Mana. So...a country of 330 million people, would have at least 33 Million potential Mages at minimum.

Of these 33 Million, perhaps only a 1,000 will ever reach the stage of a 10 on the power scaling. Now, since it would be absurd to think all 33 Million people would even want to train for being a Mage, I'd think it'd be safe to say that only 50 or so people in any given generation would reach Level 10, if they survive long enough and are not killed beforehand before growing into their strength.

Also, would the altering of electrons change anything with Human behavior/bodily functions? I nmy hypothetical, Mana would just be the conduit for Magical power, I would WANT it to change anything about normal human behavior/bodily functions....but I know nothing about how/if electrons interact with humans.

Also, would the altering of electrons change anything with Human behavior/bodily functions? I nmy hypothetical, Mana would just be the conduit for Magical power, I would WANT it to change anything about normal human behavior/bodily functions....but I know nothing about how/if electrons interact with humans.

Just to clarify, I'm high school educated with ADHD hyperfocus. As such, my knowledge is far from PhD levels but it's varied.

That said, electrons exist everywhere. They exist around you, within you, and yes, they interact with you daily. That said, it shouldn't affect you too much. human nerves use chemo-electric signals. Given that chemistry still works, I'd say our internal signals are still functional, being a product of chemistry rather than mechanical electricity. Or it could be that nerves are better insulated against mana due to our ability to intake and process mana into raw magic.

However, I'd say that the organ should be preexisting - perhaps one that's fallen out of dissuse on most people. The appendix, for instance. Maybe mages don't appear right away, but over time some bodies learn to adapt to the new environment. That could be why the conversion from muggle into mage is so rare. perhaps it requires constant bloodflow, preventing transplants.

I'd be curious to explore Mana's effect on living beings - maybe some animals mutate, creating new "magical" species. Maybe mana existed in the past but was somehow sealed or siphoned or something, leading to the extinction of creatures like unicorns, sphinxes, chimeras, etc. Even local legends like the jackalope, the chupacabra, bigfoot, and so on. but while the creatures died out, their stories lived on as myths. Over multiple generations, maybe non-mages mutate into "ancestral" forms, like elves, dwarves, etc. They can't process and use mana, so rather than changing it, they're changed by it.

 

[Golden_Hyde]

Good luck stitching it together, because when technologies suddenly vanished like that means something unexplainable must have happened. Either a). a radical anti-tech religious extremist silently erases all the blueprints and dismantling the existing tech before proceeding to summon the very source of mana itself, or b). the good ol' apocalypse happened, wiping 85% of human population along with the erasure of the technological innovations and progress humanity has made, whether they suddenly forget or all things turned into dust along with the rest of the population. Before mana source appeared

 

[Deleted member 172779]

Ah yes, all technology vanished. More pre-ampt EMP Strike on power grid, and all Aircraft, Satellites, etc. On complete Mulfunction, the entire world goes down. A scenario you should've known about electromagnetic warfare.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Ariel: A Book of the Change (by Steven R. Boyett) covered this pretty well. Even single gear bicycles stopped working, but magic appeared. And members of the Society for Creative Anachronism were the heroes of this new age. (According to the author's website, this was the first book in The Change sequence, with Elegy Beach the second and another, Avalon Burning, in production)

 

[Daitengu]

Well that just means diesel and steam engines become the mainstream invention for traveling and manufacturing. As neither 'have' to use electricity. It'd be used with air compressors for mechanical work.

It'd take some time to convert, but factories will be back up.

 

[cabbag3]

Also, would the altering of electrons change anything with Human behavior/bodily functions? I nmy hypothetical, Mana would just be the conduit for Magical power, I would WANT it to change anything about normal human behavior/bodily functions....but I know nothing about how/if electrons interact with humans.

Human behavior/bodily functions would be the least of your worries if you want "mana" to affect electrons. Electrons aren't just interacting with us, they're one of the literal things that's building us.
I think rather than electron themselves, "mana" more or less disrupts the electromagnetic fields that power electronics.

 

[ElijahRyne]

Imagine the modern day world, suddenly going dark. Dark as in modern technology fails. No electricity. No internet. No wifi. No vehicles. No missile systems for blowing up a city or whatever. These things just....die. No explanation.

A few days later, a energy source called Mana suddenly appears in the very air we breathe, and about 10-15% of the Human population develops the ability to wield Magic. Not everyone develops the same kind of Magic always, with some forms being common and other being rare. For example, Fire Magic might be common, but Flight Magic would be something only 3 or 4 people alive at the time could do.

Hypothetically, how do you see such a scenario playing out? Myself, I imagine current governments would either collapse, or be very radically altered in their functions, certainly with new faces in charge. Hell, I could see governmental forces attempting to squash the brand new Mages either with old-world tech, or with their own Mages. Either way, I suspect absolute chaos would take hold with dozens of new factions erupting into conflict with dozens of others, and it taking several decades at least before some semblance of order returns, how unstable it may be.

Imagine this is your country this is happening in. What do YOU think would happen and how would it play out?


(Also, if you feel the need to comment that such modern technology wouldn't just die like this, don't bother responding. I'm asking for brainstorming hypotheticals. I don't care if X is not realistic because of Y reasons. That isn't what I asked.)

Best Korea will take over, but ponchonbo electronic ensemble will be dust in the wind.

 

[Seaspecter]

Read the 'Dies the Fire' series written by S. M. Stirling.

 

[RepresentingSilence]

Any pre 80s/70s vehicle would still work (not to mention how easy it is to make a car without any computers in it) as well as 99.9% of all small arm firearms would still work honestly not much would change a little bit of chaos for a few months maybe years before everything settled back down to normalcy