Magic

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N O T I C E : : m e m o r y _ s t r e a m _ l o c a t e d
I D : : M a g i c
T Y P E: : R E C O L L E C T I V E
A L E R T : : m e m o r y _ s t r e a m _ c o n t a i n s _ m u l t i p l e _ p a r t s

Gliese has always had something of a reputation as being a rather old-fashioned island ship. It's partly to do with it being a pre-Data Loss]/section] ship, and partly to do with the fact that we were one of the only ships to still be practising certain pre-spaceflight customs and traditions. Or, well- practising is probably the wrong word, since it's not like anybody actually believes in All'gwerin any more, but we kept the memory of them alive is more what I mean. And the main way that we did so was in our fiction.
Gliese has a very long tradition of fantasy stories set in our homeworld. They usually focus on the exploits of cullers during the age of the Ormurr, though sometimes they're about knights or nobles in the later period as well. The former is definitely the most common, though, and stories are usually about a band of four to six of them. From what little historical records we have, that seems to be around the size of the actual groups that they operated in. Anyway, the plot is almost invariably about them going on some kind of an adventure; usually in order to slay a roaming war beast or Loren that's causing trouble for a nearby town or city. My mother used to read me them all the time as a kid, and I honestly couldn't get enough of them. The main themes present in the books were that the world outside of settlements was scary as void: The moment you ventured into a forest, or started going down a mountain pass- or Inos forbid got too close to a lake- you were in for some shit if you weren't careful.
Usually, the thing with Loren is that they're commonly super strong. Most groups of cullers were pretty much just ordinary people; they only very rarely had priests or sorcerers that could call upon minor magic, and it usually wasn't enough to let them just, y'know, fireball their way through their problems or anything like that. More or less, the average cullers were pretty much just very fit and competent landamaeris. So like, they could only do stuff that normal people could do, and that meant that when dealing with creatures that could actually just straight up do magic, or breathe poison, or petrify you with a single look, they had to get clever in terms of how to deal with them. Each Loren always had a weakness that could be exploited to beat it; like being unable to cross running water, or being allergic to raw iron, or hating fire. Usually it was pretty simple stuff like that, and in hindsight, it wasn't really that complex- but it was still really cool because everything was just so mysterious and unknown. Half the time, cullers didn't even know what the weakness of a given Loren was, or what Loren it was in the first place, because they were unique to a given region and they'd probably never been there before. So there was always this kind of sense of "wtf is going on here" in the first parts, and I always liked to imagine what it'd be like to have to go into one of the forests near where I live and treat them with the same level of caution that they did in the stories.
What I always liked the most was the magic, though. Everything about the Loren and the world they inhabited is so poorly understood, both inside and outside of the stories. They were often capable of doing things seemingly without rhyme nor reason, and the way that their spells and magic worked wasn't something that mortals could ever hope to comprehend. In spite of that, though, there was always the hope that you might be able to take on a part of it yourself. Some characters ended up with enchanted trinkets that let them see in the dark, or brought them good luck, or protected them from hexes or other kinds of magic. The coolest by far were sorcerers, who were the only ones who could actually use magic themselves; though it was specified to be sorcery, and it wasn't 'actual magic'; more just playing at it- but it was still sooooooooo cool. Even limited to little parlor tricks like making lights appear or disappear, just being able to do something that everyone else can't... uuuuggghhh, I wanted to be able to do that so badly. It just... the thought of it just always made me feel so special, I guess. It's really childish, but, the thought of being privy to the kind of otherworldly secrets and experiences associated with magic is something that I never really stopped dreaming of.
The reason why is I think that, well, actual life has just always felt so... dull and boring. Like, you wander out into a forest on the Gliese, and there's nothing there at all that you'd have to worry about. There's no wildlife bigger than rabbits; even the dangerous creatures that do actually exist, like wolves, are extinct now outside of captivity. There's nothing that could possibly threaten you other than falling into a puddle. More than that, there's no hope that you might stick your head under a tree root and find yourself in a completely different part of the forest which you've never seen before, or that a wisp might appear and guide you to a hidden grove. It's all just mundane; the entire thing has been mapped out by aerial view, there's nothing you can't just look up on the Fleetnet.
It's just so lame; knowing that you already know everything, and there's nothing left to find out. It makes everything feel so boring and pointless... and confined, as well. In the days when people still believed in the All'Gwerin, it was at least possible to hope for a miracle to make life more interesting. But now, the rules of existence are completely cut and dry. We know what the limitations of mortal existence are, and they're Fleetist consumerism and the 9-5 work day.
What I really wanted was just, the promise that there's more to life than accruing capital and having to work endlessly until you die... but I guess that's too much to ask for.

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N O T I C E : : m e m o r y _ s t r e a m _ t e r m i n a t e d
[section:fas fa-solid fa-triangle-exclamation] A L E R T : : c o n t i n u a t i o n _ a v a i l a b l e