What IS Mana?

[Bellhead]

Mana as I understand it, would be similar to static electricity, only in another form of energy. AS such, it would be able to rest within objects.
The difference being that Mana can crystalize.

[Warrl]

True. Let's discuss. I don't think mana is gas or sound, because that's not cool enough. It's probably sort of mysterious 'energy'. But what kind of energy can crystallize into matter?

ANY energy, if you have enough of it and the right special conditions.

It takes something on the order of kilotons-equivalent per microgram, though. Bottling up that much energy in a small enough space is left as an exercise for the reader, to be attempted only while I'm somewhere far away.

(In the real world, that is.)

[Kaz]

Disclaimer: I probably have NO idea what I'm talking about...

In reference to someone else's point that mana is similar to carbon. There is a specific type of carbon that decays. It's named Carbon-14, and it's radioactive. It is also the same carbon that can be used in carbon dating (half-life 3 confirmed[citation-needed]). And while Carbon-14 does NOT glow that signature blue, some elements do. Specifically Radium-226 [1].

In theory, it might be possible that through some freaky fusion power, carbon-14 SOMEHOW turns into Radium-226. This Radium-226 is then used to destroy the world and our heroes with radiation.

In effect, the Templar are just nuclear bombs.

[Him]

In reference to someone else's point that mana is similar to carbon.

As I said, that was just a random guess I pulled out of my [censored]. I highly doubt that is what mana is.

[Myperson54]

If I might provide some enlightenment to this thread, I have here some old discussions on the subject of magic and mana in Twokinds, from yonder past.

http://twokinds.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16285
http://twokinds.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14854
http://twokinds.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11486
http://twokinds.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8764

[Stormlight]

I'm going to base my theories solely off of the kind of mana we see in the TwoKinds universe and disregard the way mana behaves in other stories.

I think that mana is just another form or class of energy, like light or heat. (Mana energy. I kind of like the sound of that. ) It can be converted into matter and different kinds of energy, stored, and used for magic, adding a whole new dynamic to the interplay of forces interacting on Mekkan. (gravity, magnetism, etc.) If mana is continuously emitted and absorbed and remitted by every living thing on Mekkan, the surface of the planet would be bathed in this particular kind of energy flying around everywhere. Templar mages somehow have the ability to draw in that surrounding energy and use it for magic.

(I would make an analogy to solar panels but the Templar don't just passively absorb the mana around them, they can also pull it directly from living things. (black mana) If anyone has an example of something that can pull any kind of energy like that in real life, please tell me.)

Mana naturally accumulates in caves and forms into crystals. I think it happens because the mana is stagnant and at high concentrations. However, I don't like to think of it as the mana itself turning into a crystal, but as the mana being converted into a stable form and stored inside the crystal. In my mind, the mana crystal and the mana energy are two different things. Perhaps these kinds of crystals grow in caves regardless of the amount of mana around and then are "charged" by the large amounts of static mana that aggregate in or around the crystals. After all, when the mana inside a crystal is used, it (usually) remains and can the be (kind of) recharged, acting more like a battery than a uranium rod in a fission reactor. Some mana stones like the one in The Dragon Masquerade can be recharged and used indefinitely, like an Ni-MH battery, but most can't be used much past the first (or second) charge, like most alkaline batteries. Like all batteries, mana crystals have the ability to keep energy stable and stored inside until the user/mage feels like releasing it. In this case, the battery holds mana energy, and isn't made of anything found on Earth.



However, that's not to say that the 'nuclear approach' ( ) has equal merit. [Warning, this is where I really fall off my rocker]

We can assume that some of the physics that applies to us in real life also applies on Mekkan. (After all, they do have identical looking gravity.)
So let's say that conservation of energy and E=mc2 applies on Mekkan. We can also say that mana energy does form directly into mana crystals, and that they are the same thing but in two different forms. (energy into mass and all that) Now we have somewhere to start re-constructing the imaginary physics of mana crystals.

Like Warrl said, any kind of energy can be converted into matter and vice-versa under the right conditions. The caves in which mana stones naturally form are evidently the right conditions. (large amounts of stagnant mana again mabye) Mekkanese mages have the ability to take that particular type of matter (mana crystal) and convert it into energy for magic, similar to what we do with uranium in fission reactors. However, they're probably not using fission, or even fusion, to extract the energy from the matter in the crystals. Somehow, they discovered a way to change things from energy to matter and back safely and easily enough that people do it all the time, wear the crystals around their necks, and can do it almost subconsciously while at the same time using the energy gained to cast spells in the middle of a battle.

While there is no element on earth that could plausibly make a mana crystal, It's very possible that mana crystals are made of an element that doesn't exist in real life. It would have to be stable enough to crystallize and not spew radiation everywhere but unstable enough to be converted into mana energy easily under the right conditions applied by the mage.

However, If you're operating under E=mc2 and conservation of energy rules, how come mages can't access unimaginably enormous amounts of energy from each crystal? After all, the energy coming out of any piece of matter is multiplied by the speed of light squared. As it turns out, there are several ways to take care of the problem, but only one that I really liked.

The first is to say that there are unimaginably enormous amounts of energy in the crystal, as in all matter, but it takes enormous amounts of energy to do magic. I don't like this one because suddenly the Templar way of drawing mana from your surroundings is very impractical for drawing in enough energy to be able to cast the spells that they do, and it implies that it takes large amounts of concentrated mana to do anything really significant. Even though the Templar do use those towers, this explanation stretches things too far in my mind.

The second way is to say that on Mekkan, physics is different and the equation has somehow changed. Perhaps the speed of light is different, or the relationship between mass and energy is more equal, or you no longer square the speed of light. I didn't like this explanation because it would take a massive change to cover the disparity between matter and energy that would certainly cause widespread and (to me) totally unpredictable side effects and general wonkiness in all of the physics of Mekkan. Perhaps it would even create a paradox that renders the world's existence physically impossible. (If there's someone out there familiar with physics who knows what might happen or knows of a website that explains what might happen if you started messing with the universe's "source code", if you will, please pm me, I would be very interesting to hear some of it.)

The third way is my favorite explanation. You can say that what mage's do with mana crystals is an imperfect or inefficient conversion, and therefore doesn't convert all the energy present in the crystal, but instead only what is easily available. That way, the laws of physics we ported over to Mekkan still stand (kind of), and the explanation becomes much more realistically plausible. (inefficiencies always exist when converting energy in our world, and it's much more believable that the people of Mekkan use an imperfect system) Also, it answers the question of why some of the crystal remains after use, even when it explodes. In an inefficient system, not all of the mana crytal is used or turned into mana energy, so some of it is left behind even after a mage can no longer get any mana energy from it.

I know that was an enormous post, but thanks for reading my crazy theories anyway.

[Warrl]

(I would make an analogy to solar panels but the Templar don't just passively absorb the mana around them, they can also pull it directly from living things. (black mana) If anyone has an example of something that can pull any kind of energy like that in real life, please tell me.)

House cats.

[InceptionBwaaa]

(I would make an analogy to solar panels but the Templar don't just passively absorb the mana around them, they can also pull it directly from living things. (black mana) If anyone has an example of something that can pull any kind of energy like that in real life, please tell me.)

House cats.

That's beautiful. Also, Stormlight, very interesting theories. The last one does make the most snse if mana crystals were batteries, but what do you think it would need to be for the mana itself to take physical shape.

[Kaz]

-snip-
However, that's not to say that the 'nuclear approach' ( ) has equal merit.
-snip-

hehe. I had WAY TOO MUCH coffee that day.

[Stormlight]

(I would make an analogy to solar panels but the Templar don't just passively absorb the mana around them, they can also pull it directly from living things. (black mana) If anyone has an example of something that can pull any kind of energy like that in real life, please tell me.)

House cats.

That's beautiful. Also, Stormlight, very interesting theories. The last one does make the most snse if mana crystals were batteries, but what do you think it would need to be for the mana itself to take physical shape.

I imagine that it would probably take a whole lot of high energy mana in a small area and something to act as a sort of catalyst to cause the mana to convert into matter and crystallize. Perhaps the reason mana crystals form so well in dragon caves is because dragons provide the necessary amount and concentration of mana energy or are the catalyst that prompts mana energy to form crystals. Also, it would probably be a very slow process, adding only a few atoms of crystal at a time.

After some research I found out that physicists recently figured out a way to actually convert energy into matter, so we have something real from our world to base our theories on. They did it by firing a high energy beam of photons (maybe a laser?) at a gold atom nucleus until one of them hit it in the right way to convert it's energy into an electron and a positron (it's dark matter equivalent). They call it pair production. One of the set-ups mentioned included magnetic plates to collect the manufactured electrons and make sure that they didn't crash back into the positrons, annihilate each other, and turn back into a photon. (please forgive me if there are inaccuracies in my explanation, each article described it a little differently. here are some links to what I saw: Link, Link, Link.)

So, now I'm going to try to relate mana energy forming mana crystals as closely to pair production as I can.

If we continue to operate on the premise that mana energy is simply another form of energy just like light, we could swap out the pieces of the experiment.
Photons are individual units, or 'quanta', of light. So instead of a photon, we would insert whatever a quantum (individual unit) of mana is (I'm going to call it a magika) and get out the magical equivalent of an electron and a positron. We can ignore the magical positron because it's dark matter and won't be used to make a normal matter mana crystal. That leaves us with the magical equivalent of an electron. I'll just call it a magitron.

So, for every magika of mana converted, we get one magitron.
(And one dark matter anti-magitron)

The thing about electrons is that they all have negative charges. They don't clump up, bond, form atoms, or pretty much do anything other than move away from each other if you put a whole bunch of them together without anything else to interact with. They're basic building blocks of the universe, but only when combined with other subatomic particles. Therefore, you might not be able to make a mana crystal purely out of magitrons, if they share many similar characteristics with electrons.

There are several ways to work around this problem.

The first is to combine the magitrons with an existing structure the way electrons orbit protons and neutrons to form atoms, but with some other magical class of matter that doesn't exist in our universe.

The second is to say that magitrons do not make up mana crystals, they simply are or provide the power stored inside them. Having a whole bunch of free electrons moving around is exactly how electricity works. Magitrons could act as the 'electrons', or magitrons in a mana crystal could be the equivalent of the reaction matter inside a battery. In this solution, mana energy and mana crystals remain separate objects.

The third is to point out that different forces have different force carriers (light, or the electromagnetic force, has photons while the strong force has gluons and so on), and say that mana would have it's own unique force carrier (i.e. the magika) with it's own unique properties. As such, when converted it could turn into a kind of magical matter that doesn't need other types of matter for stability and can bond with itself to create large, stable structures like crystals. (The magitrons won't have to act like electrons) There is no subatomic particle that we know of that can do that kind of thing in this universe, but this is magic we're talking about. If we're willing to create a whole new magical subatomic particle (the magitron), then we can probably give it a few special properties too.

The fourth is to say that magic/mana energy is a combination of all of the types of energy/forces, or has some of each within it, or has several different force carriers to it's name. Assuming that different force carriers turn into different types of matter (not just electrons and positrons) when mana converts into matter it not only has one type of building block, but all of them. That way, entire 'atoms' of mana crystal could be assembled from just mana energy alone because it creates all the pieces needed.

Only the last two explanations allow mana crystal to be formed out of mana energy and mana energy alone, without anything else present beforehand. Whichever one you prefer, it seems that dragon caves provide the conditions necessary for the assembly of the crystals that takes place in all three solutions. Personally, I like the third one the best, but at the end of the day it's conjecture done for fun that can't really be proven either way. I enjoyed fixing this up, I just hope the men in white coats don't show up again because of this...

[Kaz]

-snip- magika -snip

So now we're referencing Skyrim here? This'll get off topic fast. (its magicka btw)

[Stormlight]

-snip- magika -snip

So now we're referencing Skyrim here? This'll get off topic fast. (its magicka btw)

Oh. No, sorry. I didn't do that intentionally.

[Alitis Lupus]

There is also the possibility that mana is just an energy and another energy equally abundant reacts with mana to form the crystal. This would explain why when crystals shatter shards are left behind and how you can recharge them. This is going off the assumption different forming conditions effect the ability to recharge the crystal and its durability.

[JC the Supreme Tiger]

I think it's highly possible that in the Twokinds universe, magic sorts of acts like a fundamental property of matter such as mass and charge, and as such, would be governed by separate laws. Additionally it could be that magic hastens the ability to convert matter to energy and so forth, and would have a tendency to convert to those respective things. Additionally, there would also be conservation of magic, such that magic can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted between forms/matter/energy and moved.

Dark magic would be no different, but it seems like with the above explanation, dark magic would only be consumed/converted once the latent magic is drained, and would actually be converted matter/energy, but my explanation breaks down here as to the differing properties of it.

Another interesting idea is that Mekkan mages control negative matter/energy, and all of the odd properties and interactions involved.

[Envy661]

I first saw the title as "What is manga?"
.... I was disappointed.

But anyway, mana, put simply, is essentially the embodiment of life's natural energy. Mana flows through all living things. If you want a more tangible definition, think of mana as the plasma within your blood, or something along those lines.