Thaumatics

Thaumatics is a field of engineering which concerns complex pieces of magical technology powered by the controlled manipulation of auriaster.

Since the discovery of the Keystones, and in rare instances beforehand, humans have made use of low-level magic to power otherwise mechanical devices. These might correctly be referred to as ‘thaumic’ or ‘magical’ or ‘enchanted’ devices. What distinguishes a true thaumatic device (note the distinction from ‘thaumic’ which is simply a synonym for 'magical’) is the presence of highly ordered auriaster.

A technician or engineer who creates, repairs, or maintains a thaumatic device is called a thaumaturge.

Thaumic vs Thaumatic
Simpler enchanted (‘thaumic’) devices function by drawing their energy from the part of light that travelled through the aether. Yet aether is only semi-material and does not interact strongly with the material world, so this method never allowed for complex or potent devices to function for long, if at all.

A wheel which operates independently of being turned by an external force would be an example of a simple thaumic device; there is nothing magical about wheels or their rotation, or what that rotation might achieve. In order to make a more powerful version, such as a mill which operated without wind or current, one might infuse the mechanism with spun light, but the result would still be mundane: the spun light would contribute larger amounts of magical energy, but no arcane effects per se.

Auriaster is light which travels through a crystalline medium rather than through the aether, allowing for a very concentrated source of magical energy. When spun in such a way as to become highly ordered, auriaster can be used to perform logical functions, comparable to (though vastly less complex than) those detectable in the song of the Keystones, allowing for highly advanced magical effects independent of the mechanical nature of the device which produces the effect.

History
When Ylias, the Keystone of Bond, was returned from the surface of the Moon in AH 222, philosophers began to experiment with both matter and energy. This led to the development of various forms of lodestone, and eventually to the revelation that light, though energy, could be made to behave as though it were a substance under certain conditions. The result, auriaster, immediately allowed the creation of enchanted items with greater capabilities.

Early experiments with thaumatics are somewhat difficult to date precisely, but the first widely publicised thaumatic device was the Chadha Speaking Stone, a forerunner to the modern-day ‘stones of farspeech’. It was not the first serious thaumatic project to have begun, however, for the Faoxing Autonomous Chariot, though completed months after the Speaking Stone, had been in the works for more than a decade prior to the Speaking Stone’s publication.

Thaumic and thaumatic devices are more common than ever before, and are present in most homes. They are operated using a stylus, a lodestone configured to a given person and designed to allow them to manipulate thaumic energies on a broad scale – dimming lightstones, opening doors and so forth.

When Arcadia was discovered in AH 468, the beings once known as deities were discovered to be entities who had evolved with a natural affinity for the Paradigm of Wyrd. Once Jádu was brought to Veltheria, the inevitable question arose: could humans replicate arcane effects? Could the human brain, moved by the vital spirit, work analogously to a thaumatic device? The question did not take long to answer, for one of the ultranauts aboard Discovery was the now famous John Dee, known now to be the world’s first sorcerer. The mechanism behind human sorcery remains a mystery, for it is not believed that human bodies (and brains in particular) channel energy through themselves in a way analogous to auriaster.

Examples
It is possible to understand the Keystones, at least to a limited degree, as thaumatic objects (even comparable to eidolons, according to certain schools of thought). It is not generally considered that the Keystones were constructed, but likely emerged naturally, just as the human brain, though complex, evolved over billions of years.

Autonomous Chariots, though named somewhat misleadingly (only a minority possess an eidolon capable of guiding them), are very common. They require a considerable amount of auriaster in order to reach appreciable speeds, particularly if they are expected to be capable of hovering or flight.

Shard weapons are capable of transmuting auriaster into discrete packets of pseudo-material force, and projecting those packets at high velocity. These are not strictly thaumatic, though they can be augmented with thaumatics.

Eidolons are highly complex clusters of extremely ordered auriaster, running so many logical functions in parallel that, in combination with thaumic principles from Ríyu, allow many of the functions of a living mind.

Perhaps the pinnacle of thaumatics, the Infinium is the engine of all voidships.

Minions are truly autonomous constructs, often produced to perform a small set of repetitive or dangerous tasks.