Magic is, simply put, the art of telling the Universe that “Cute laws, now do what I say.” A mage can, in a limited area and time, repeal most natural laws, with a few notable exceptions. But magic is hard, and as such the number of truly skilled mages is limited by the number of people capable of putting in a great deal of effort into the job of learning magic. Even in those societies (such as post-contact earth) where efforts were made to expand the availability of magical training, becoming a skilled mage requires a similar amount of effort to becoming a skilled doctor or engineer. Becoming a powerful mage… well, that requires something else.





Knowledge, Will, and Persistence.





The three keys to power, as many Saurian Empire era texts refer to them, are Knowledge, Will and Persistence.



Knowledge comprises the complex understanding how magic relates to the universe and is in many cases one of the most important blocks to progress. The vast majority of mages have only what materials they can find or research themselves, further reducing an already small minority. As most mystic texts in this region of the universe are written in high saurian, this puts a further barrier in front of would be mages, especially on those worlds that prohibit learning the language on pain of a rather gruesome death.



But learning the language is only the first step for a truly accomplished mage— it is, regardless of the fact that it includes no less than 8,000 core symbols (many more when one considers the various modifications that can be made), only a short hand for what a mage does. Truly powerful mages have internalized that shorthand, often creating spells and effects on the fly.



This is another barrier to the spread of magic— there are lesser practitioners who have, with difficulty gained some proficiency in the art, but without a knowledge of saurian or another language like it, they have almost no ability to transmit that learning, save by directly instructing an apprentice, and doing so in a far less effective way than they might otherwise occur. The loss of the great saurian institutes of learning were almost as severe a blow to the art in local space as were the rise of the mageocracies.





Will is the second component— to be blunt it takes a great deal of mental or psychic force to command the universe to abrogate its laws, and no being save for entities that might very well by mythical (such as the Road Builders), can do it for every long or over a large area, at least in comparison to the size of a world. That is why many sorceries use a medium of a natural phenomena to influence the world around them. It is also the reason why physically impossible structures or transformations are both rare and limited. There are a number of learned mages around who nonetheless find themselves playing second fiddle to more powerful mages, because they lack the will to cast the truly powerful spells and why some spells have gone largely unused— none can be found to successfully cast them, or who wish to take the time and effort to cast them.





Persistence is the final and mostly unsung tool in a mages kit. The sagas are full of stories of young apprentices who cast mighty sorceries— but they are, nearly without exception, false. To be a mage is to accept long hours of work, honing the mind and the will for the challenge of commanding the universe, while at the same time gaining the knowledge needed to do so. Indeed, one issue facing many mageocracies is the fact that rulership often takes time away from maintaining ones place as a powerful mage— which is the basis of actual power in those societies. This was another factor that prevented any mageocracy from expanding far beyond a single world and kept any multi-world confederations unstable, to say the least.





It should be noted that contrary to the claims of some, the earth had not invented mass education— the Saurian empire had done that thousands of years before. But even the Empire had not delved quite so enthusiastically into the idea that anyone with skill should be allowed to try. Earth’s nations, well aware of the dangers of depending on hired mages, moved as fast as they could, establishing schools and attempting to attract anyone who showed the slightest talent, while also working with other (hired) mages to develop a standardized curriculum. This resulted in a vast expansion of the availability of magic, to the point that by the mid-21st century, skilled mages, while not precisely common, were no less common than skilled doctors or scientists. Less flexible mages (sometimes derided as ‘cookbook casters’) focused on a certain area of skill, and were extremely useful in a wide range of areas.





Although the expansion of technology was the most immediately noticeable impact of Earth’s re-emergence on the galactic scene, the expansion of the number of mages and the dissemination of Earth teaching styles across the worlds of enemies, allies and neutrals alike was just as important in the long term.