Klok Blog - POWER SYSTEMS: A foundational introduction to Klok's writing!

Today's post is a special one, one that I've been thinking about for a couple of years now. For people who have read my work, they may even have a decent idea of what I'm going to write. This post is basically a big expansion of some of the points I put in my previous post,  How Cryopod Uses Video Game Logic to Drive its Narrative. Feel free to read that post if you like, but I consider it optional for the purposes of today's post.

Today, I want to talk about 'Power Systems.' Some readers and readers are almost assuredly familiar with 'Magic Systems,' but a Power System, in my book, is not quite the same thing. Magic Systems exist within specific stories, but Power Systems are transplantable within different stories, even within different universes, which is what allows me to use them across the expansive Cryoverse. 

To understand the differences, we should first define what a Magic System even is.

In most fantasy literature, there are usually magic users, wizards, witches, and so on. These people can also be called 'Benders' (from Avatar) or Drafters (the Lightbringer books) or any number of other things. Magic users perform magic, usually by speaking mystical words, waving their hands, chanting to the heavens, or by using some other method. Most notably, magic tends to come in two styles:

Soft Magic is magic which either has no rules, or if it does, those rules are not made clear in the text, leading to readers not necessarily being clear about what the limitations of the magic are in the context of the story's wider universe. For example, Lord of the Rings is one of the original Soft Magic stories, with Gandalf being able to use or not use powerful magic spells at various points in the story, but with the reasons feeling seemingly arbitrary at some points.

Hard Magic, on the other hand, will in part be the focus of today's post. Unlike Soft Magic, Hard Magic has rules which govern it, sometimes with strict or not-so-strict limitations, costs, and different 'tiers' of power. A good example of Hard Magic is Bending, from Avatar the Last Airbender. That story features four types of elemental magic which require specific body movements, years of training, and a body attuned with the elements to manipulate one of those elements. There are clear strengths and weaknesses to all of the schools of Bending, as well as advanced techniques, and all sorts of other cool features.

When people speak of a 'Magic System,' 99/100 times they are referring to a story with Hard Magic. This is because Hard Magic usually has interesting limitations and methods of activation that make it a bit more compelling and easier to understand for both the reader, and the characters within the world.

For more information, you need only look at Brandon Sanderson's rules of magic.

Rule 1: An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

Rule 2: The limitations of a magic system are more interesting than its capabilities. What the magic can't do is more interesting than what it can.

Rule 3: A brilliant magic system for a book is less often one with a thousand different powers and abilities -- and is more often a magic system with relatively few powers that the author has considered in depth.

For this post's purposes, Sanderson's second rule of hard magic is also the most important. Hard magic systems tend to have important, well-defined limitations that soft magic rarely does. 

A common belief many readers hold (including myself in the past, several years ago) is that sci-fi and fantasy are different from one another, if not polar opposites. This is something I've come to realize is absolutely untrue! Sci-fi and fantasy are very similar, as they both tend to offer interesting, escapist fantasies. They both can grant their protagonists supernatural or technological powers, and the limitations of those abilities really rest within the eye of the beholder.

Let's take a look at one such hard magic system to see how it functions: Bending, from Avatar the Last Airbender.

- In ATLA, people can be born with the ability to bend one of the four primary elements; water, earth, fire, and air. Many people, however, cannot manipulate these elements at all. Every generation, one person is born who can manipulate all four of the elements; they are known as the Avatar.

- Bending the elements takes years of practice. For a waterbender, just reshaping water into hovering blobs of liquid is the most basic of skills, while using it like a weapon, freezing it into ice, or performing other advanced bending can take a decade of training to achieve.

- Bending the elements requires specific body movements. For example, stomping the ground is a strong, forceful motion. Earthbenders use this motion a lot because it requires a lot of body strength and willpower to move heavy rocks. Airbenders tend to move with grace and agility, almost like ballerinas, because air is the 'lightest' element.

- Concentration is key. When bending the elements, not only must one possess enough stamina to lift, twist, shift, and shape their elemental affinity, they must also have the willpower and concentration to create the shapes they need. They have to 'sense' the world around them.

- A strict limitation in Avatar is that if you are able to bend an element at all, it can only ever be that one element. Firebenders cannot bend the earth, nor can Airbenders bend water. While the Avatar is the lone exception to this rule, the more important point is simply that this hard restriction of one element per person is never broken by the creators.

- However, while one cannot directly bend two or more elements, it is possible to take inspiration from one school of bending to enhance another. As an example, the Firebender, Iroh, learned to redirect lightning, a fire-type ability, because he observed the redirection methods of the Waterbenders and applied their philosophies to his Firebending.

I first watched Avatar when I was about fourteen years old. Since I'm twenty-eight now, that was roughly half my life ago. Avatar itself heavily inspired my writing in many ways, but its extremely well-defined magic system was the biggest influencer. I spent years before ever becoming an author thinking about how Avatar's magic system worked, comparing it with other works, and thinking about how, if at all, I might ever improve on it.

Years later, I've come up with a few ideas that apply not only to magic systems, but to 'power systems' as a whole, applicable to fantasy and sci-fi alike.

Let me explain by showing off a different Power System, one that has -nothing- to do with magic, but which I came up with some time ago. This one is a system I developed for The Last Precursor, as well as Cryopod. It's what I call the 'Just Shove In All The Warp Mechanics From Every Sci-Fi Franchise' Power System.

It's really difficult to explain exactly how a Power System differs from a Magic System. Instead, I will point at my Warp System and explain how I designed it.

First, I started with a goal: I wanted to create a system of traveling between the stars that was realistic (allowing for realistically long time frames of travel, not like modern Disney Star Wars where people skip across the galaxy in seconds) but also flexible (I'm not great at math, so if I could fudge the numbers on occasion just a bit, that would be ideal) and still allow for extremely short and long stellar distances to be traversable under various circumstances. Additionally, I did not want to lock the Cryoverse itself down to just one system. I didn't want my characters to only have 'Warp Drives' or 'Solar Sails,' but neither did I want them to have everything available without limitations.

Thus, I had to create a Power System. This is where things get interesting. In order to create a Power System, after outlining my goals, I need to then outline the limitations my system will almost certainly require.

1. Time to arrive. My characters will not be able to flit about just anywhere at a moment's notice, because interstellar distances are long. Additionally, if it takes too long to get somewhere, that could create serious tension for a scene.

2. Time to launch. Sometimes, it doesn't take long to 'get' somewhere, but it does take a long time to prepare the launch activation sequences. Think of a modern long range rocket. A rocket can travel around the entire Earth in only an hour, while a plane could take a few days. However, the rockets are also more volatile and dangerous, therefore, they will require more preparation time to ensure all of the safety checks were accounted for.

3. Personal character time. If you look at the Folded Space (Inverted), you can see that while the ship will launch and arrive at the destination instantly, it can take thousands, or even tens of thousands of years inside the ship for the characters themselves. This requires them to mitigate the travel time by placing their bodies in stasis.

4. Resources. Hyperdrives in the Cryoverse require either Dilithium or Trifrancium to perform hyperspace jumps. These resources are finite and often require refueling. In a Power System, adding physical items as a cost to a power system can balance it out a bit.

5. Construction costs. Since a big goal of my warp drive power system involed realism, I wanted to make it possible for gigantic megalithic structures to exist which could somewhat break the limits normal starships might have. Jump Gates allow ships to travel anywhere in the galaxy, instantly, provided there is a second Warp Gate connected to the first one. However, the Warp Gates are extremely expensive, and they take hundreds of years to build.

6. General utility. Some forms of warp travel are more general purpose than others. If you're in Quadrant A and you need to get to B, a Jump Gate leading to C or D won't be of much use, even if it gets you to those quadrants instantly, while a slower but more general purpose Hyperdrive might just do the trick.

7. Availability. Some of these warp systems are more readily available for the masses than others. As an example, Solar Sails are cheap and efficient, making them ideal for the poor and huddled masses. Meanwhile, Warp Gates are extremely costly, high-maintenance, and only usable by galactic superpowers.

8. Life costs, external. Dark Matter Propulsion is a drive that has almost no downsides! It can get someone anywhere instantaneously, it can traverse galactic distances in the blink of an eye, and it is both low-cost and extremely affordable! Unfortunately, Dark Matter Propulsion results in incalculable losses of life due to the 'path of destruction' it leaves while beelining its crew to their destination.

9. Life costs, internal. Warp Bubbles are essentially a much cheaper version of the Hyperdrives, allowing even Dilithium to send a ship through space at speeds exceeding Warp 6. However, Warp Bubbles are highly volatile and have a chance of killing the ship's crew! Warp breaches and meltdowns are not uncommon. Similarly, Wormhole Leaping is another dangerous form of Warp travel that has a high chance of killing the ship's crew.

10. Travel Distance. The Subspace Cannons, Wormhole Leaping, and Solar Sails have limited effective distances they can traverse. Other methods have extremely high costs associated with how far they can transmit ships and people.

There are other costs associated with my warp drives systems, but if we just look at the nine we've outlined, we can turn them into an easy-to-follow chart!

Essentially, to create the warp drive power system, I made a list of costs and benefits, then ensured that if anything had too many benefits in certain categories, it had a higher cost in others. 

Everything I've listed above can be applied to not only a sci-fi-type power system, but a magical system as well. Take another example, from Cryopod.

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In Cryopod, there is a character named Orias. 

Orias is a Demon Baron, a mid-level character who has a fairly unique set of abilities. He can turn gems into elemental powers, and the powers he obtains depend on the gem's "color." For example, a Sapphire is blue, so by activating its power, Orias can temporarily control the power of water! Let's look at how I balanced his powers.

- To activate an ability, Orias needs to merely take the gem in his palm and snap his fingers together. When he does, the gem crumbles to dust and disappears, never to be used again.

- Bigger, shinier, and more refined gems have better effects than crappier, cruder, and less-refined ones. A 100ct diamond will be far superior to a 10ct diamond, for example, allowing Orias to gain a bigger boost to his power.

- Since all of Orias's powers come from gems, he embeds many gems into his skin to ensure he always has a ready supply on hand. If someone ambushes him, he can always yank one out and have a boost of power at his disposal.

- Since Orias's gems are single-use, this means even if he makes a giant horde of gems, he can still burn through them quite fast if given enough time.

- Orias's gems can have many different functions. For example, diamonds can give him hardened diamond-like skin for a powerful defense, but they can also turn him invisible too! His gems are very versatile.

Orias's powers came to me because I asked the question, "What if demon magic needed an external cost to activate, rather than something vague and nebulous, like 'mana'?"

This resulted in me coming up with ideas like 'artifacts' or other such external objects. Prior to this, I had called Orias the 'Baron of the Stars' in the story without having a strong idea of what his powers would be. I had originally envisioned something vaguely based on stellar constellations, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't think of a magic system that was truly interesting enough to work within that framework. However, the idea of 'stars' being 'shiny' and gems also being shiny kind of worked together in my head, resulting in the system I eventually used.

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Let's try another example. This time, I will turn to TLP again and use Jose Rodriguez's 'biomods' as my example.

When I wrote TLP, I wanted to have a hard sci-fi slant to the story. Magic was not something I wanted to be in the universe, not as a primary attribute, in any case. With that in mind, I based the story somewhat on Warhammer 40k-type power systems, but with a strong mix of Deus Ex's augmentations. This resulted in Jose Rodriguez's eventual power system.

In Part 12 of TLP, we learn how Jose's internal biomods work.

- Jose has 'bioelectricity conduits' he can use to provide power for his internal augments. These, presumably, rely on the bioelectric energy within his body. He has 150 conduits available.

- Jose also has 23 biomod slots within his brain, as well as two slots per limb and 'essential body part'. 

- It's not stated how many slots Jose has in total across all of his body, but based upon the bioelectric energy requirements listed for various biomods, it's unlikely he can fill up all of his biomod slots and use up all of his bioelectric energy conduits equally.

- Modules must be installed inside the relevant limbs, the brain, or the body parts they affect. For example, a vision-augmenting module would need to be installed in the brain, while a muscle enhancer would go inside the relevant limbs, or the internal organs, like the abdominal muscles.

- More powerful modules have a higher cost. In order to maximize the user's abilities, they should balance high-cost modules with low-cost ones for maximum versatility and combat capabilities.

This system is comparatively simple and easy to understand, yet it still retains the concept of costs vs benefits. Ultimately, in my eyes, that ultimately sets aside a Magic System from a Power System is that the former is a series of rules which outline how characters can wield magical abilities, while the latter adds an extra layer on top, turning into specific costs and benefits. 

Therefore, my rules for a Power System are as follows:

1. The stronger something's effect is, the greater its cost or backlash should be.

2. The system must be versatile not only for the characters, but for the author as well.

3. The system can add tension, because the reader will know that no matter how much power a character puts into something, they will pay a costly price later on.

These rules add on to Brandon Sanderson's rules for a Hard Magic System. A Power System is effectively a self-balancing Magic System. Furthermore, it works for fantasy and sci-fi alike. It even functions properly for things like warp drive balancing, as well as magic and biomods.

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To conclude this post, I want to discuss a type of Magic System that utterly fails as a Power System. In many ways, this Magic System is fantastic at being a Magic System, but in terms of costs and balancing, it utterly fails.

That system is known as Cultivation.

What is Cultivation? It's a Magic System which originates from Chinese and Korean longform novels. The core of this system revolves around 'gathering the energy of the heavens and Earth' to reinforce one's body, spirituality, and soul. Let's look at how this system functions by examining one of the popular novels that uses it. (Keep in mind that Cultivation novels are somewhat varied and often have different ways of advancing the core ideas; I'm just using the more generic concepts for this post's purposes.)

This story is called Martial World.

- Cultivation Novels typically feature protagonists who, through meditation, eating special 'medicinal pills', or by consuming/absorbing other rare materials, can obtain energy into their 'dantian.' This is often called the Vessel of the Soul, and is typically located in the heart, brain, or stomach. Sometimes, two or more areas.

- By absorbing the energy of heaven and Earth, these Cultivators can advance through 'ranks' or 'levels' of power. The small sheet below will make it more visual. There are Large Realms, and Small realms. By advancing through small realms, one can breakthrough into large realms. As an example, by absorbing energy, a character can 'level up' from the early stage of Body Training to the Middle Stage of Body Training, and then the Late Stage, before eventually breaking through to the Second Great Realm, Pulse Condensation.

- Typically, there are nine or so 'Great Realms' in a cultivation novel. The names of each realm vary. Reverend Insanity, one of my favorite novels, merely calls them by their numbers, without adding a pretentious title. The reason there are nine is because in Chinese mythology, 9 is a holy number. Likewise, if Korean literature, they use different numbers for different reasons.

- Advancing to a higher Small Realm grants a bit of extra strength to the protagonist and other characters. Advancing to a higher Great Realm, however, grants a massive boost in power. The Late Stage of a Great Realm is typically far weaker than the Early Stage of the next Great Realm. As an example, a character at the Mid Stage of Body Training would have a better chance of defeating a Late Stage Body Training martial artist, than that same artist would have fighting an Early Stage Pulse Condensation realm artist.

- Typically, characters try to fight each other with equal cultivations, because fighting someone weaker than you is sometimes seen as 'shameful.' Even when this is not the case, Cultivation novels often feature characters who are strictly 'better' than other characters by virtue of their cultivation levels. The lone exception, if any, is almost always the Main Character, who is just soooo badass that he can fight people way above his power level, typically because he has obtained so many good-luck chances. Sadly, this is rarely if ever the case for characters who are not the Main Character.

- In addition to cultivation levels themselves, most characters will often use auxiliary abilities, which tend to function as literal magic powers. Shooting flames, manipulating water, controlling lightning, etc. 

- Breakthroughs to higher levels are NOT just because of gaining energy from heaven and Earth. A big recurring theme of cultivation novels is that the characters have to make mental breakthroughs, learning more about the secrets of their world, becoming wiser, and other such things. In Martial World, this manifests as the characters needing to become "more in tune" with the laws of the world, like the laws of fire, thunder, water, etc.

- Interestingly, there are several cultivation novels that focus on technological advancements. Characters improve their bodies and minds, allowing them to use more powerful technology because their bodies are 'strong enough' to 'endure the pain' of using these objects. A good example is Super Gene and how the characters can ride progressively stronger mecha, because the advanced mecha require faster brain commands to control.

So, when you read the above descriptions of how cultivation novels function, you may notice that, as a Magic System, cultivation is splendid. Not only does cultivation as a system make sense for the most part (some novels pull it off worse than others) but it typically ties in to interesting themes revolving around character advancement. The stronger a character becomes, the more their outlook advances.

However, as a Power System, cultivation novels completely fail. Stronger characters have no checks or balances. Stronger abilities may cost a bit more 'mana' or whatever equivalent that author chooses to use, but the cost is typically quite minor. Characters rarely suffer permanent consequences as a matter of using their abilities, and that's something I've always found rather annoying.

A big reason I bring up cultivation novels at the end of this post is that, in the future, I would like to write another Klok Blog about them specifically. I have a lot of thoughts on how to fix cultivation novels, and perhaps next month, I might even tackle fixing them!

But for now, I leave you with this: My writing is all about checks and balances. Characters who suffer a lot, grow a lot. Characters who start out invincible quickly develop an achilles heel. Powers that seem undefeatable always have built-in weaknesses, while powers that seem pathetic often have moments of sheer brilliance.

I believe my strongest attribute as an author is the development of Power Systems. In the future, I may go into even more detail about how someone could develop their own Power Systems.

Thank you for reading! I'll be returning to Cryopod for a few days, then switching over to TLP around the 16th!