for the sake of a few sheep - 15.19

Magic is layers upon layers of stuff that doesn't make sense unless you're a mage. And even then it's not easy. I'm not sure if Evelyn fully understands all of the things she's using to make the gateway, it's a bit like following a set of partially damaged manuals for a machine that you don't truly understand.

Hazel Young

I think its more like actual portal spell makes connections between two worlds and anything can pass throught without any restrictions. Restrictions are another spells like some sort of security system that decide what can and what cannot pass. It is not ideal and various "bugs" can occur.

Oh my goodness, wow. Some readers in the Katalepsis discord were saying a few similar things yesterday, about how the portals are clearly inconsistent, etc, but that they're willing to accept it for the sake of the story, and so on. And I'm like, Evee warned you! All the way back in Arc 2, Evelyn warned Heather that trying to apply the scientific method to magic is likely to give you a headache and upset everyone involved, so I didn't say anything to confirm or deny speculation about the mechanics behind the portal. But! My goodness! I love that you've actually gone to the trouble of figuring it out! You're pretty much correct. The only wrinkle in your analysis is about Sevens. When she passes through the portal, she is, at current, originating on the Earth side of the portal. Perhaps "nothing from Outside can cross to this side" is referring to things that are currently over there, not just any Outsider. Very well done in recalling Evelyn's scrying spell, too, that's a little hint early on about how magic functions (or goes wrong!)

Hazel Young

I've been having fun poking holes into the consistency and internal logic of the portal system. Here is what we know 1. Sound doesn't transmit. Sound is mechanical vibration, so we can assume vibration in general does not transmit through the portal, this implies no heat transfer. 2. Unliving gas, such as air does not transmit. 3. Unliving solid matter does transmit. Well that could also mean that matter can only pass if intended to do so, i.e. a person throws a rock. 4. Light does transmit perfectly, this implies that electromagnetic radiation does transmit with little interference. 5. There is no GPS or GMS (phone) communication through a portal. 5. Outsiders, things and people which do not originate at earth, do not transmit. (Evee could also be lying about that one) Now we have compiled all I could find about the interaction of matter and portals. Lets over analyze it. So our goal is to find a set of consistent fundamental rules to describe the above mentioned behaviour of portals. First of all we can discard observation #5 because Sevens can clearly pass the portal, no issue, and she is quite literally an Outsider. Rule #1 any matter with intend passes the portal. Rule #2 matter without intend cannot pass. Rule #3 electromagnetic Radiation can pass the portal. Why not light? Well light is a concept entirely too subjective for the setting. Rule #4 communication is not possible through the portal. Rule #5 No thermodynamic exchange trough the portal. Rule 2 and 5 ensure that we have no pressure equalization and no heat convection, so that the portal is safe to exist. But, clearly Rule 3 contradicts Rule 2, because light has no intend and Rule 4 contradicts Rule 1, because communication is intend. And Rule 3 contradicts the no phone observation, additionally it contradicts Rule 4 because the most basic form of communication is miming and gesturing. I tried the same with a few more sets of rules and always ended up with contradictions no matter how esoteric the rules I made up. (skips boring 3000 word essay) Therefore we can clearly see that a single portal spell made by humans cannot exist in the setting of Katalepsis. But what if a portal is multiple spells working together. Would that work? Do we have any precedent for that? Well we do have precedent for portals with clearly defined rules. These are the invisible portals. Walls you can reach trough to another place. Why do they make sense? Because all contradiction in Evers portals stems from the fact that they allow some communication, but not all. If you take away the see trough effect, suddenly portals work in Katalepsis. And Alex and his friends had a whole lot of those portals. Now we have transportation functionality and we need observation methods to complete the portal. Evee got us covered in that section, the spell she used when scrying the Eye is supposed to be a one way camera - capturing some information and transmitting it, but sufficiently wired stuff can apparently reach through the camera. Now we layer these two spells above eachother, and voila we have a portal ala Evee, that works in the Katalepsis setting. This in turn implies that the viewing part is entirely optional, so that people do not freak out, anymore then they already do when faced with a portal.

InkyBusiness