Idea #2 ... compare this to Helios and I'll choose which one to do :D

[Ihime]

"Sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology."

The thing is that I run by the broader definition of technology as any knowledge that expands the capabilities of the society. Therefore, magic is also a technology. It doesn't matter if you lift the water from the well using buckets & pulleys or you lift it using the East Spirit of Water Lifting. Just because it's not in the recognizable Earth form doesn't mean that it won't have the same effects on society.

You want to remove guns and keep people to bows and arrows? That won't work if someone invents the Wand-That-Goes-Bang-And-Kills-People (presumably invented by someone who is bad at naming things).

You want to keep people from having interior plumbing and central heating? That won't work if someone invents the Fireplace-That-Traps-Fire-Elementals or the Bucket-That-Empties-Itself or the Everfull-Tub-Of-Clean-Water.

Basically, if you answer "magic" to things, then you're going to end up with a technological society that happens to use different physics to pursue the same comforts, conveniences, weapons, and similar goals as Earth humans do.

Answering "magic" doesn't really work if it does not hold up to the scrutiny of all the characters asking "why?" and "how?" They have had tens of thousands of years to take the system apart, study it, and create useful applications for it. Consider, for example, if you say that "You can get to the other planet using magic."

Is it teleportation? If it's teleportation, then you should be able to apply the same techniques on a smaller scale to travel across the same planet. If not, why not? If so, why isn't this the dominant form of transportation? And do the reasons prevent it from being the dominant form apply to interplanetary travel? If it's a simple enough and above all reliable enough magic to do interplanetary travel on the sort of scales that we're considering here, then at the intraplanetary scale we're talking about an entire planet full of teleporters who use it for casual travel. The distances and uncertainties are so very much smaller.

Is it flying? If it's flying, then you should be able to apply the same techniques on a smaller scale and produce a society where flying is the norm, since it's reliable and accessible enough to do much larger travel. You would have all sorts of things defying gravity. Additionally, there are necessary secondary magics (a term that's really interchangeable with technologies) such as radiation shielding, life support, pressure containment, zero-gravity medicine, and everything needed to support spaceflight.

If, however, you take the "easy" way out and say that it works only for interplanetary travel, then it creates a hole that is difficult for the suspension of disbelief to bridge, at least for anyone with even a slightly analytical mind. This is the equivalent of suggesting that a society knows how to build moon rockets but not passenger aircraft. Or that someone knows how to do calculus but not addition.

Addendum: Steam and guns coexisted for several hundred years. I don't see the issue with "still use steam but have guns".

Addendum: The whole idea that primitive people "live in harmony" with their environment is bollocks made up during a period of revisionism. Not even animals "live in balance with nature." They are forced into certain behaviors and population numbers by resource starvation.

[Silence Sei]

See what you did, Ghost? This is why we can't have nice things.

Because Zook argues them to death. : P

[Zook Murnig]

I said one, maybe two, things. It was all Absentwizard. I am not Absentwizard. I am a wizard who is, clearly, present. As evidenced by my imminent presence.

[Slayer of the Rot]

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Holy shit. What? What happened to just saying "a wizard did it"? I can understand the whole argument of it looks like magic only because we can't understand it, but I don't always like how that takes all the fun out of it for me. Kinda like looking at a vagina and then explaining every minute detail of what it all is and how it works and then staring at it baffled and horrified. It's great to know how something works but it takes all the mystery out of it, especially with what we do. Every time I fire Dan's gun I could describe how the primer is ignited and the bullet is propelled and so on, or I could describe the patterns the teeth and blood make. There's only so much a person will drag reading through and remain entertained. Some times too much is bad, loike someone way back that explained a citadel arena down to the clods of dirt.

All I'm saying is we can have fun with it and write or we can put on our graduation caps and bifocals and write a 35 paragraph monstrosity.

[Devonus]

I say all those arguing in describing this all realisticly and indepthly step away from the computer and go outside! out there everything is nice and scientific and supported by each other and grounded in fact, cause and effect, etc etc, so if thats what you want, step outside!

[Ihime]

"A wizard did it" only works if nobody has any ability or reason to actually look at the wizard who is doing it and try to repeat the same thing. When that happens, it must either be detailed out or it will fall apart. Per the vagina example, one needs to know how the thing functions or a lot of physiological considerations go out the window, like what happens in badly-written lemons. It doesn't need to be written out in the story itself, but the understanding must be there. Similarly with Dan's gun, one doesn't need to describe it each time or even at all, but how it works must be in the notes somewhere for it to work consistently and reasonably. You are making the mistake of confusing "having notes on how something works" with "putting the notes into the story as an info dump".

The reason that these notes are necessary is because this thread is proposing a setting. If anyone is to write it, there must be a certain amount of information published for it. Consider what happens if you say that it is easy to make a magic portal between the world and ONLY between those two places because of some reason. That's fine, but you also have to take consideration the potential uses for it OTHER than what you had intended for the story. Waste disposal. Gas balancing. Illumination (if it's night at one end and day at the other). The list goes on.

It is a bad idea to think of these things while writing the story because quite often your judgement is clouded and all the pieces that you come up with spur-of-moment for some specific purpose turn out to not fit together if you think about it. It'll all be shambles. The key is consistency.

[Mordelain]

Oops, sorry Ghost, missed this.

I meant keep this idea, but use the name from the first - i.e, call it Helios.