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[Madman198237]

Would a teenager actually every write like that?

Also, you misspelled "carpet" near the bottom. Heil Grammar!

[Atomic Chicken]

So, I've written my own thesis submission. It's basically on Hayat's pioneering research on primitive light bulbs.

Spoiler: Thesis: Kahrab Light Orbs (click to show/hide)

Kahrab as a source of Divine Light

Kahrab, formally referred to as ‘child of Barq’, is a form of expression of Allah’s divine will as it descends from the heavens towards the depths of the Earth, most frequently in the visage of a lightning bolt. This is a well-known concept that forms the foundation of all that Moskurg’s Tower of Storms has accomplished throughout the last 25 years.

Throughout this thesis, I make reference to The Wand of Lightning Bolts, invented by al-Damar and his team of Researcher-Priests in 936. The Lightning Wand allows us to bind a sliver of storm-derived Kahrab within its intricate adamantium core, wherein it waits until the core is encouraged to ‘discharge’, at which point it leaps out in the form of lightning once more.

The research presented in this thesis was inspired by Arif al-Barq’s paper on “Kahrab and its Incandescent effects on Graphite”, wherein he described how Kahrab travelling through graphite filaments when slowly discharged from a Lightning Wand causes the filament to radiate heat and light, much like Barq itself, before immediately burning out. The filament was reportedly linked to the Wand and the Earth by thin strips of copper to guide its course, as countless observations of lightning in nature and on the battlefield have proven without a doubt that Kahrab prefers to travel through metal when given free reign. Despite the exciting implications of this observation, further research was cut short by the sudden ubiquity of adamantium, which has become our nation’s defacto source of light (albeit low-intensity) and, more recently, heat.

Potential futility notwithstanding, I have taken it upon myself to see this research to its completion. During my experiments, I discharged Kahrab through numerous filaments of various materials, seeing for myself the wondrous glow and its untimely demise. Please refer to the table of results in the Appendix section of this thesis for a comparative review of the glow times of each filament type. Note that certain metals did in fact produce a glow that lasted even longer than the original graphite strips.

My major breakthrough came about mostly by accident at a point where I was fooling around with what I dub ‘air voids’. Air voids are created when wind manipulation techniques are used to pull air out from a central point, producing a space theoretically devoid of the substance as long as the spell is held. I discovered that filaments, when placed in an air void, glowed with a brightness far exceeding the passive luminescence of adamantium. Moreover, the filaments tested retained this blinding radiance until the Lightning Wand was completely discharged, without being obliterated in the process!

Based on these results, I propose that incandescent filaments can be entrapped in sealed air voids to allow Kahrab-induced production of high-intensity light at our desire. I propose that this may be accomplished via the work of wind-manipulators working alongside glass-makers to create transparent air-voided orbs containing filaments linked to Kahrab channels. This device, which I henceforth name the 'Kahrab light orb’, is one I hope to one day see illuminating the streets and homes of our wondrous nation.

[Madman198237]

Given her "chaotic and destructive behavior" learned from al-Mutriqa, wouldn't she be a little bit less than interested in how the Wand of Lightning Bolts makes things glow?

[somemildmanneredidiot]

Would a teenager actually every write like that?

Also, you misspelled "carpet" near the bottom. Heil Grammar!

Listen, we're ghost writing the damn thing anyway, might as well try to address the concerns that was had on the political side and make our charge look level headed and thoughtful or whatever. Besides, this is a 10th century teenager, she's basically already middleaged.

[Atomic Chicken]

Given her "chaotic and destructive behavior" learned from al-Mutriqa, wouldn't she be a little bit less than interested in how the Wand of Lightning Bolts makes things glow?

Well, it's not like she's doing any of this thesis-writing out of her own free will, right? May as well contribute to the development of Moskurger technology in the process. Besides, learning how to rearrange carpets to facilitate acrobatics/load-bearing doesn't quite strike me as destructive either, for that matter.

[Madman198237]

No, but her other love is of flying. It would be entirely natural for her to tinker with carpets. A lot.

Whereas she doesn't really care, evidently, for calm scholarliness and studying, instead skipping boring things like evening prayers and whatnot.

[Atomic Chicken]

The requirement was to write a thesis on whatever subject we deemed relevant, not to restrict ourselves by our perception of the heiress based on a couple of sentences. For all we know, she could have stolen the research and bribed/murdered the original author. Fluff like this doesn't really matter, in my opinion.

[Madman198237]

But we never know whether or not it matters in eS's opinion. Actually, I suspect that realistic theses will be more highly considered, but who knows. If we knew that they weren't, I'd write up a thesis about our princess being a crazed lightning-wielding maniac who devised a method to precisely control lightning to hit what she wanted, when she wanted.

[NUKE9.13]

I kind of love the Kahrab Light Orb. Partly because the smatterings of Arabic, partly because I don't like Arstotzka being the only one with magitech and would really like to develop more electrical technology.
Also, I can actually see Hayat messing around with lightning wands to do stupid stuff like make wires glow. She is described as being chaotic, and not as interested in prayer as most mages, but that doesn't mean she is not curious about the world. She could be an eccentric inventor type, constantly breaking rules and conventions in the name of !!SCIENCE!!

0 Weather Magic in the Light of Allah's Will (More control over weather magic):
0 Stellar Divination (Seeing the future):
2 Magical Propulsion (Improved carpets [Carpet-shaped again!]): Madman198237, Kashyyk
1 Kahrab Light Orb (Lightbulbs): NUKE9.13

[somemildmanneredidiot]

0 Weather Magic in the Light of Allah's Will (More control over weather magic):
0 Stellar Divination (Seeing the future):
2 Magical Propulsion (Improved carpets [Carpet-shaped again!]): Madman198237, Kashyyk
2 Kahrab Light Orb (Lightbulbs): NUKE9.13, SMMI

It's not a powerful advancement, but I like the writing

[Atomic Chicken]

Thank you!

Partly because the smatterings of Arabic

To be fair, most of it is actually anglicised pseudo-Arabic rather than the real thing.

Self-voting to prevent turn delays over the tie. Hope no one minds.

(0) Weather Magic in the Light of Allah's Will (More control over weather magic):
(0) Stellar Divination (Seeing the future):
(2) Magical Propulsion (Improved carpets [Carpet-shaped again!]): Madman198237, Kashyyk
(0) An Observation of Ambient Mana and Applied Applications
(3) Kahrab Light Orb (Lightbulbs): NUKE9.13, SMMI, AC

[Madman198237]

Why though?

Working with carpets is so much more suited to her personality. She's the princess. She's not likely going to work on glowly fibers and strips of metals when she could be doing something fun instead. And she considers carpet stunts fun.

Not to mention, what does light bulbs get us, again? And why is magitech even a reason to vote for them? Who cares if Arstotzka has magitech? ES is balancing the game so that no field of magic is better than another.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

As far as I know, the actual Thesis doesn't do anything mechanically besides give us an opportunity at a research credit. If eS could elaborate on that I would appreciate it.

[Atomic Chicken]

Working with carpets is so much more suited to her personality. She's the princess. She's not likely going to work on glowly fibers and strips of metals when she could be doing something fun instead. And she considers carpet stunts fun.

This:

Also, I can actually see Hayat messing around with lightning wands to do stupid stuff like make wires glow. She is described as being chaotic, and not as interested in prayer as most mages, but that doesn't mean she is not curious about the world. She could be an eccentric inventor type, constantly breaking rules and conventions in the name of !!SCIENCE!!

I know several kids with attention-deficit disorders who hate studying from conventional textbooks but love messing around with circuitry and other hands-on stuff when given the opportunity. I imagine our own Lord of Chaos is capable of taking joy in a similar fashion, especially if some artistic license is applied.

(To be frank, I chose this topic simply because it seemed like a fun application of Moskurg's existing magic/technology. Not to say that I don't see your point, but I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you.)

[Madman198237]

I still want fixed carpets, since it's so natural and the phrase "Now carries more Firestorm grenades on the more spacious carpet. Not to mention it's faster and gets shot down less." suits me much more than "We have glowy thingies. They glow. We have no practical applications at this time, since we don't have continuous sources of lightning. But they glow. A little."