#Lore24 – Entry #348 – Sci-Fi Month IV #13 – Waning Magic, Growing Technology
Transcribed From the Personal Recording Implant of Andra Ganim, Chronicler of the Codex Infinitum
AG: “Can you comment on the state of magic during the period leading up to and following the development of the TK-Drive?”
RV: “Obviously the use of magic overall had greatly diminished during this time. As technology advances, magic wanes; it’s been a consistent trend across the galaxy. Knowledge not utilized is quite often knowledge forgotten. The gods, much to their chagrin, I’m sure, were losing followers in droves by this time as technology supplanted everything. Nothing remarkable or unexpected, just a natural course as what was once magical became mundane and easily distributed via a technological or scientific replacement.”
AG: “Were you negatively affected by this change?”
RV: “I’m quite stuck in the old ways. I had to adapt to certain things, but overall, no, my abilities remained undiminished compared to much of Andyllion’s younger arcanists and other mystics. There were plenty of worlds that remained, and yet remain, in a state like that of Andyllion before its advancement within this galaxy, which the gods and magically inclined may seek to continue their traditional paths. All things change in time; it’s inevitable. One must simply learn to adapt and change if one wishes to survive.”
AG: “Did the development of the TK-Drive and related technologies of exploration advance your research into the ancient dragons more rapidly than before?”
RV: “Unfortunately no, at least for some time yet. I found plenty more ruins as the decades and centuries passed, but they were usually in a state comparable to most of those upon Andyllion, offering me little more than crumbs of knowledge. I did learn that the earliest such discovered sites were of a comparable age to those of Andyllion, though, meaning that it was very likely that this region of space was visited by the dragons at roughly the same time. I even learned that, at one time, they possessed the power to link worlds through the use of portals and gateways, though this network was long since defunct. Discoveries made much later would reveal newer sites, and eventually, much older ones than those upon Andyllion, but it would be some time before I would find those.”
AG: “Your name, as it is now, or even your full original elvish name, doesn’t show up during this period of expansion, and wouldn’t appear in the history books until approximately fifteen hundred years after the first TK-Drive was developed, when you first founded DSM following the collapse of the Great Elvish Imperium. Were you involved in the formation of the Great Elvish Imperium that would attempt to seize control of the many new worlds that Andyllion had discovered?”
RV: “I wasn’t directly involved with the formation of the Elvish Imperium, no. I had my eyes well beyond Andyllion by this point, and was absorbed in my research, translating the High Draconic records and trying to find some clue as to where they could have gone after Andyllion and surrounding star systems. I cared little for politics at the time, and had paid little attention to anything going on that didn’t directly affect my continuing research. I wouldn’t become aware of its formation for nearly a century after it had claimed control of Andyllion and its surrounding systems and had begun to spread further and claim more worlds under its banner. I honestly didn’t think that ambition like that of Orzius Halaxaes existed in the galaxy anymore, aside from myself, of course.”
AG: “Had you known Orzius Halaxaes before he declared himself emperor and created the Great Elvish Imperium?”
RV: “Briefly. He was young, only a handful of centuries in age, during the Age of Legends, and had spent time studying the arcane beneath me, and knew something of the draconic history I had uncovered to that point. He was nothing remarkable when I knew him, but in the intervening centuries, it seems, he had grown quite ambitious and resourceful indeed. Once I had become aware of the development of the Imperium, I remained in the shadows, watching how he manipulated the elves of other worlds to join this new Imperium and bend other races to his will. I must also credit him for using my concept of a sky fortress, never actually implemented upon Andyllion, as the basis for his space citadels. The influences were obvious once I had seen them in person, the blend of technology and arcane power was quite inspired, honestly. Were it not for the many worlds already under his control, and the high amount of resources they contained, such vessels would have remained quite impractical. A pity that his insistence upon reestablishing elvish control of other races, only on a much grander scale, would come to cause me great frustration in the coming year. I daresay had he not riled my anger, the Great Elvish Imperium may still exist to this day.”