As magic in the Administered Multiverse is just another form of science, it is not surprising that it would have widespread technological applications. Mana-based Magitek is ubiquitous on Administered Worlds, and here are some of those technologies used in combat.
A magical staff that will pierce the heavens. An advanced supercomputer built as a magical terminal, intended to augment a techmage’s magical potential. Whether by accelerating its master’s spellcasting calculations, smart casting preloaded spells, or raising situational awareness, a Device is an integral part of Administered techmage society.
Lower-tier Devices are mass-produced by the Bureau or independent manufacturers, while all high-end Devices are handcrafted, either by their owner, or a professional Device Meister. Because of the very close interoperation between the techmage's brain and their Device, both have to be attuned to each other upon the Device's first activation, and regularly recalibrated to ensure optimal performance. For this reason, most techmages keep using and upgrading their initial Devices rather than adopt new, more powerful ones.
There are various types of Device focusing on different types of performance:
- Storage Device: These devices focus on high efficiency and processing speed. As a result, they have the weakest AI among all types and cannot advise their master on which spells would be the most effective for a given situation. Nor can they autocast defensive spells, leaving their master open to ambush.
The upside to this, however, is the lack of lag in spellcasting, and a highly skilled techmage can use them to cast at alarmingly high speeds. Many a tale has been told of Volunteers with a “humble” Storage Device ambushing their enemies with binds, followed by a low-grade short-ranged Bombardment spell to the face.
Storage Devices are usually mass produced and combat variants (Combat Devices) are commonly issued to lower ranked combat mages such as Enforcement Troops and Tactical Mages.
- Boost Device: A subtype of Storage Device specialising in supporting other Devices with performance boosts. Also capable of being used in Summoning magic.
- Combat Device: commonly refers to the standardised Devices rationed by specific organisations to their mages or knights who do not possess personal Devices. Although not specifically classified, they tend to be Storage Devices due to limited and simple functions.
- Armed Device: Developed in the Ancient Belkan era, these devices were designed with multiversal conquest in mind. They possess a special feature that allows them to use another Ancient Belkan technology, cartridges, which serve to give their wielder a quick combat boost. Their AI capability is somewhere between Storage Devices and Intelligent Devices due to their focus on combat power. As such, they are unable to smart-cast automated defensive spells.
- Intelligent Device: A Device with a highly developed AI. Intelligent Devices might not process things as quickly as Storage Devices, but they have extensive utility thanks to their AI advancement. An Intelligent Device is capable of advising its master on which spells to use in a given situation, acting on its own initiative should its master be incapacitated, determining its own evolution by requesting specific upgrades, and even having full conversations with its master. It is not uncommon for the masters of Intelligent Devices to treat them as close friends.
- Unison Device: A Device built with the most advanced of Ancient Belka’s technology, many of them qualifying as Lost Logia. Rather than mechanical frames, they have synthetic humanoid bodies, including their own Linker Cores, allowing them to use their own Devices and cast spells. Their AI is so advanced they are considered self-aware by Dimensional Law and thus eligible for Sapient Rights.
As its name implies, a Unison Device is capable of physically fusing with a compatible individual, a “Lord”, and fully maximising their mana management while providing real-time smart support. Lord candidates are extremely rare, and require intensive maintenance and adjustment to uphold their compatibility. Furthermore, the chance for a successful Unison is not 100 percent. As such, while extremely powerful, Unison Devices were never built in large numbers, even by the Belkan Empire.
The Bureau employs the majority of reactivated Unison Devices. Due to their sapience, they are treated as personnel rather than equipment.
"Halt! In the name of the Moon!" An extremely versatile and ubiquitous field-type defensive spell, Barrier Jackets use mana to generate a suit of armour to protect a techmage from external harm. Unlike other protective spells, it is usually auto-cast by the mage's Device upon its activation and only dispelled when it is critically damaged, destroyed, or deactivated by its master.
The defensive capacities of Barrier Jackets are very high and allow techmages to survive for long periods of time in extremely hazardous environments such as the vacuum of space, areas filled with toxic fumes, underwater, and even pools of lava. However, they cannot be completely relied upon for protection.
At its core, a Barrier Jacket is made of multiple layers of defensive fields and barriers, resulting in a constant drain of mana. The higher the protective output, the more mana is consumed. For high-ranking techmages like Volunteers, their Linker Cores are strong enough to maintain a reasonable defence with negligible mana drain.
This is more of a problem for lower-ranked mages like Enforcement Troops, who can only reasonably use their Barrier Jackets for environmental protection. Defending against strong magical attacks consumes more mana than their weak Linker Cores can handle, and so they might as well be wearing low-tech Kevlar vests. Techmages in the area of C+ usually withstand anything short of an anti-tank missile. Tactical Mages utilise Tactical Jackets, which through self-powered ablative barriers, provide a higher degree of protection for much less mana, putting them on near-equal footing with higher-ranked mages. The number of attacks they can absorb before dispelling is limited, however, unlike standard Barrier Jackets, which can regenerate over time.
When their defensive capacity is overwhelmed, Barrier Jackets default to a function called Reactor Purge. This detonates the jacket in a last resort to neutralise a single incoming attack, similar to the Reactive Armour of an earthling Main Battle Tank. A techmage may also use a function called Jacket Purge, which detonates the jacket to serve a specific purpose, usually to disrupt a bind spell holding them down. Both of these leave them briefly vulnerable to attack, however, as it takes some time to regenerate the jacket.
Multiple variants exist, from standard Midchildan Barrier Jackets, to the Belkan Knight Armour/Clothing if one wants to look more chivalrous. Depending on their design, they possess different features, adding to their user’s protection in some way.
No, these aren't magic bullets. They do something else entirely. The Cartridge system is a novel technology developed during the Belkan Warring Age. Originating as full-sized "Mana Shells" used in anti-fortress artillery, the technology advanced with miniaturisation techniques and eventually became usable with a Knight's Armed Device. These became a means to rapidly enhance a Knight’s performance in the heat of battle. The Cartridge system is simple in its design and application. During periods of rest, a Knight pools their mana into Cartridges, high-performance capacitors capable of storing significant amounts of mana in a semi-dormant state. These are then loaded into a magazine, a compartment originally unique to Belkan Armed Devices, where they await their use.
Once in battle, a Knight seeing the need for a quick boost of mana to create an opening or overwhelm an enemy’s defence needs to simply command their Device to expend one or more cartridges to achieve their desired effect. The reaction is immediate, as the cartridge is expended to release the mana, which is used to feed whatever high-powered spell needs them. This increased supply turbocharges the spell’s effectiveness, making it more powerful than it would usually be. As one might expect, more powerful spells consume more cartridges, and it isn’t unusual for Volunteers to carry several magazines’ worth of cartridges into battle.
Today, Cartridges are a widely used, if optional, Device upgrade.
They are most commonly seen on Knights' Armed Devices, which use the refined pinnacle of Belkan Cartridge technology. Safe and efficient, a Knight is able to load cartridges without worrying about losing Device integrity over time, and can be expected to use them routinely in battle.
Midchildan adaptations of Cartridge technology, although having become more stable over the decades, are not as elegant as the original. Though they are capable of achieving higher mana output per cartridge than the original, this carries with it a certain risk. Midchildan cartridges wear out their Devices if used too often.
TSA statistics show that Midchildan cartridge-related wear results in a 1200% increase in Device maintenance expenses compared to the Ancient Belkan system used by the Church. As such, Bureau agents with Cartridge-loading Devices typically carry less cartridges into the field, lest they break their Device from overuse.
Either way, the Cartridge System is an invaluable asset in the Techmage arsenal.
Caledfwlch's Pile Smasher: the great equalizer. Now even a normal can take down an Ace... if they can hit them, that is. In the wake of the Belkan Empire’s use of mass-based weapons to devastating effect on countless planets across the Pre-Administered Multiverse, one of the Bureau’s first edicts was a blanket ban on such technology. This was intended to ensure that widespread loss of life and environmental destruction could not arise again. After all, even a Breaker spell rivalling a nuclear warhead can be set to stun by a highly skilled techmage, and leaves no fallout.
This golden age of environmentally-friendly non-lethal warfare was not to last, however, as terrorists, dissidents, and mad scientists eventually rediscovered or reinvented Ancient Belkan Anti-Magic Countermeasure technologies capable of disrupting the Linking process. The Board of Directors was forced to reconsider the total abandonment of physics-based weaponry in combat. How does one circumvent the threat of anti-magic without resorting to such heinous armaments as nuclear weapons and railguns?
The answer came from the Caledfwlch Company, an arms manufacturer based on Vaizen, the Third Administered World. Caledfwlch’s revolutionary idea was simple: instead of using electromagnetic force to propel a mass-based projectile, why not use the direct application of electromagnetic force itself? Their new line of Electromagnetic Armaments emit EM fields modulated to replicate the kinetic force of a mass-based weapon impact, without the mass.
The downside is that these physics-based weapons produce recoil. The more powerful ones must be fired from a reinforced stationary position, with mana cables anchoring them and transmitting recoil away from the user. Sir Isaac Newton is not just the deadliest SoB in space, he’s also an extremely annoying one.
The benefits are deemed worth it, however. From the mana-converting
Strike Cannons reserved for Volunteers, to the battery-powered
Pile Smashers that even a normal person can use with proper training, Caledfwlch has made a fortune in helping the Bureau curb the threat of anti-magic proliferation. All while maintaining the mass-weapon ban. Mana-conversion powered EMA’s can use cartridges.
The DQ-class Investigation Frigate: High speed, low drag. Because of how technology developed in the Administered Multiverse, the final frontier is not merely outer space. Rather, it is a step beyond that. Advancements in Magitek eventually led to the discovery of an otherworldly realm. Dubbed the Dimensional Sea, it is the very fabric that binds together an infinite number of parallel universes.
For the most part, the Dimensional Sea operates the same as most FTL methods conceived of in speculation. It allows the rapid traversal of vast astronomical distances in a feasible, perhaps even convenient, amount of time. The key difference is that navigating the Dimensional Sea can also lead to other universes, either intentionally or otherwise. As such, this is taken into account for space travel and most spaceships are outfitted Trans-Dimensional Jump Drives, rather than strictly Interstellar ones. They can certainly jump interstellar distances if their destination is in the same universe, but they are characterised by being capable of jumping between dimensions.
Despite the term, Trans-Dimensional Jumps are not instantaneous per se, and are more akin to airline flights measurable in hours, anywhere from one to twenty-six. Due to the nature of the Dimensional Sea, the length of this jump period is relatively consistent regardless of distance. However, it still takes its toll, so to speak. The further the destination, and the larger the ship, the greater the Mana consumed in the Jump.
This is no problem in the Administered Multiverse, where Mana can be found in plentiful amounts in the environment, even in the blackness of interstellar space. A ship need only wait for a few hours as its Jump Drive spools up and its Mana Siphons gather the necessary load to jump to its next destination.
However, Mana is alien to the Lyrical Magiverse discovered after the Collision, and so Mana Siphons are useless. Its hyperdimensional coordinates also place it at the very end of the known Dimensional Sea. These two major factors mean that travel to and from its space is extremely costly. Bureau exploration units are required to maintain enough Mana in their ship reserves to make the jump home. Going past this "red line" would mean having to rely on transmuting mass into Mana, a process that while extremely rapid in living beings with Linker Cores, takes significantly longer for machines such as a ship's reactor.
This red line and its related complications mean that a journey to Earth with large vessels is guaranteed to be an extended one.
That's no moon! It's a giant spiky space ball. Trans-Dimensional ships are operated by anyone with the funding, from planetary governments, to jumpline corporations and public transportation systems, to private citizens with sufficient affluence. The largest operator of these vessels, however, is none other than the Bureau’s Dimensional Navy, colloquially known as the “Sailing Force”. The Dimensional Navy sports thousands of warships of varying sizes, from the ubiquitous DQ-class Investigation Frigate to the kilometric Intervention Dreadnoughts. These are supported by tens of thousands of Jump-capable support craft, like cargo shuttles and tenders. Understandably, it receives the lion’s share of Bureau funding and Elite techmage personnel, as it allows them to police the Administered Multiverse more effectively.
The majority of these vessels operate from
Bureau Headquarters, a caltrop-shaped megastructure the size of a small moon, anchored within a calm region amid the otherwise turbulent currents of the Dimensional Sea. Other ports exist, however, typically orbiting the many Administered Worlds under the Bureau’s wing.
In the eight decades since the battle against the Saint’s Cradle, the Dimensional Navy’s doctrines have evolved as the Bureau’s influence has continued to expand across the Administered Multiverse. Originally, their backbone was a small pool of large cruiser-type warships able to wield weapons of mass destruction like the Arc-en-Ciel.
The expansion of territory over the years, however, has steered the Admiralty to focus instead on a vast fleet of smaller, faster ships that nonetheless field a significant number of techmages for planetside operations. Larger vessels still exist, albeit instead of investigating incidents on far-off worlds, they are reserved for instances requiring major interventions. For example, stopping unadministered worlds from destroying themselves in a nuclear war.
Dimensional Navy ships, exemplified by the ubiquitous
DQ-class Investigation Frigate, are capable of supporting planetside techmages through a number of ways. From using
Tactical Support, to beaming down Tactical Mage
Strike Teams, up to unleashing the occasional
Orbital Strike if need be. But their most unique ability is the
Tightbeam, the transmission of mana from their reactors to a specific onsite mage, allowing them access to a much larger energy pool than normally possible. Depending on their potential and circumstances, a techmage boosted by the Tightbeam can very possibly unleash a Breaker spell in short order. This form of support is understandably reserved for those with the authority and aptitude to wield it, such as high ranking Bureau officers or well-respected Volunteers.
Much better at conferencing than Zoom. Ensuring communication within a government and civilisation that consists of multiple planets in over a hundred different parallel universes can be a daunting task. Fortunately, a natural outcropping of the information-based nature of magitek was the development of magical telecom technologies. The primary mode of communication used by Administered Worlds, the
Trans-Dimensional Network uses
Comm Buoys anchored in the Dimensional Sea to transceive information packets at instantaneous speeds using mana threads. This makes interstellar and trans-dimensional conference calls practically real time, with lag periods of only 162 milliseconds between Midchilda and the most distant Administered Worlds. Improvements in the technology mean this lag time will continuously shrink.
Due to its use of mana threads and the Dimensional Sea, transmission fidelity remains high regardless of weather or even cosmic radiation, which could disrupt radio waves used by less advanced civilisations. In the Lyrical Magiverse, however, Mana is extremely sparse, and so fidelity suffers. Hex Hammer uses
Comm Terminals at its Field Bases and aboard its ships in orbit to simulate Comm Bouys and allow an indirect, and thus less efficient connection to the TDN.
One of the most basic spells taught to techmages is
Commlink, which taps into the nearest Comm Buoy or Terminal to establish a video call with any user whose Personal Network Number has previously connected to the TDN. Said call is displayed over a holographic interface that typically appears in front of the user's face, and can be swiped to anywhere within the 3D space near the user. Over the centuries, this spell has evolved from a simple "video phone" spell to what is essentially a smart phone operating system, allowing techmages to do far more than just talk to each other. Needless to say, one can also hold conferences in this fashion. Normals can make use of a the spell through a handheld
Phone, which works just about as well.
The Bureau makes use of TDN technology in at least two major ways. For most base operations on Administered Worlds and for public purposes, it makes use of the
Public Network (PUBNET), which, as its name states, is available for public use. For Administered Citizens who are willing to pay a premium for much faster performance, however, various telecom corporations offer the services of their
Subscriber Networks (SUBNET). Bureau Personnel deployed in the field, as well as their bases, make use of self-contained and encrypted
Tactical Networks (TACNET), which employ similar principles, but use the Comm Terminals aboard Trans-Dimensional Ships as their network hubs instead of tapping into the TDN.
Compared to telepathy, which requires a degree of concentration, which could cause fatal distractions in combat, and is limited to casters within the same universe, Commlink's advantages are clear. Telepathy does allow the casters to have a degree of privacy, however, as they do not need to use the TDN. For this same reason, telepathy is much harder to intercept, and so doesn't require encryption in most cases.
Jamming spells do exist, however, so Bureau operatives are required to carry old fashioned tachyon based
Comm Units in such events. In worst case scenarios, Comm Units can also switch to radio waves, although those risk detection by local governments.