Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[cganya]

I was not sure if I should put this in general discussion or here. I decided here because I hope to spark discussion as well as get my creative thoughts down in text.

in this thread we discuss fantasy and/or sci-fi materials. I'll lead by example;

Adamantine: The great Toady one has made use of this common concept in the incredible Dwarf Fortress but it's qualities change from verse to verse, usually being a sort of "unbeatable metal"

My idea of Adamantine which I hope to use in future works is a alloy that once created, cannot be altered in any way, by anything short of divine intervention. The alloy is far from perfect however because it can only be made in a mold and thus without incredibly advanced technology it would fail to be very sharp. The alloy is extremely heavy but due to it's impervious quality, is infinitely strong than steel on a strength to weight scale. Due to it's qualities adamantine makes for great war-hammers and other bludgoning weapons, It also is a good alloy to use for a light (though still quite heavy) armor. For the same qualities the material makes for poor heavy armor and bladed or peircing weapons (and in most cases bullets). The only time adamantine would make for good peircing or slashing weapons/ heavy armor would be in the case that the wielder posses amazing strength for their size.

Adamantine is a brownish-grey color and cannot be alloyed further with other metals after it's creation. Adamantine never rusts and never erodes. Adamantine is noticeably heavier than lead but can be said to have a similar weight. Despite it's weight, adamantine is not considered a heavy metal for purposes of radiation and poisoning, it can however be used as an effective barrier for radiation.

Runite: Runite is a "magical" metal that is created by mixing conventional metals with magical materials and energies. Once created, runite mimics the properites of adamantine with two major differences: Runite is feather light and runite becomes brittle when exposed to a magical syphone like say some sort of anti-magic field.

Like adamantine, runite is hard to create and near-infinitely strong. Runite can be broken only in four ways: it is used against higher quality runite and breaks when a normal item of the same base components would, it is caught in an anti-magic field and is damaged as it's base components would be, a wielder of magic with incredible power focuses on overpowering the enchantments the creator created on the item, divine intervention.

Runite is a dark tealish/greenish color and weighs less than aluminum. It is an exceptional material for anything that is not required to be heavy. It makes excellent heavy (thought still quite light) armor, light armor, bladed and piercing weapons and to a limited extent, light weight maces (though they would all but lose their effectiveness against armored foes.

Runite never rusts while the enchantment lasts but once the enchantment fails it reverts to it's base components and is subject to their durability.

Mithril: An alloy of steel and silver, enchanted to be strong, light and shiny. Mithril is a bright reflective gray with a blue sheen. Mithril is an excellent material to do anything with. It is, like runite and adamantine, difficult and expensive to create, thought somewhat less so as to make it more economical to outfit a group of people with.

Mithril is stronger than steel but slightly lighter than titanium. It does rust but the rust only causes the metal to look tarnished while having little or no increase to the metal's durability and takes an impressive amount of time to rust. Mithril does erode and can become damaged but it usually takes an impressive amount of neglect to do so. Mithril is not poisonous or radioactive.

Dark Iron: Dark iron is an alloy of iron and lead, often enchanted with vile magics. The metal is weaker than steel but heavy and easy to produce. Dark iron's main weakness is that it is brittle compared to regular iron or steel. Dark iron is black or very dark gray and makes good cutting and peircing weapons but bad blunt weapons and horrific armor. Dark iron is poisonous (more so depending on the level of magical influence) and leaves festering wounds after battle. continued exposure to this alloy causes lead poisoning.

------------------------------------------

so feel free to discuss these materials or come up with your own. I would be interested in seeing what people come up with. If this should be moved to general discussion, please let me know.

[ein]

Bioalloys: Metals laced with living materials.
Incredibly strong and durable, but requires food.
Capable of repairing itself in a process similar to living bone.

Advanced Myomers: A myomer is a material that contracts when exposed to an electric current. Currently possible, but impractical because, unlike human muscles, a myomer will bulk up quite a bit when contracted, moreso than muscle.
Advanced myomers don't have this problem with contractions.

Negative Matter: Not to be confused with antimatter.
Negative matter has either a negative or zero mass, meaning it will either be repelled by gravity or not affected by it at all.

[Itnetlolor]

Ooh, I had this brilliant idea that brewed for a good amount of time.

Let's just say, this is a material based on a recurring adventure of a dream I had. One time, I was granted access to use what is so badass it has to be named in Latin, "Quis ut Deus" (What is God). The only other things I recall being mentioned with such a title is the armor and sword of St. Michael. I was granted permission to examine/try them out. Godly powerful, and as light as it is bright.

Ever curious what makes these things so powerful and glorious they still look pristine even after hundreds of thousands of ages and countless battles of use? The almighty material Deusite (God Mineral) or it's refined form Omnitanium.

This material is pure concentrated spirit energy compressed to such a density that it takes on a solid form regardless if it encounters body, mind, or spirit. The mineral/metal is so potent, only God Himself can refine it and craft anything from the material. "Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty." takes on a whole new meaning for anyone bestowed with anything crafted out of this material.

Of course, light cannot exist without a dark; and so to put it, a neutral as well. The dark form is sort of an uncreative Dark Deusite, but to give it a better, more proper title, I would give it the name Atrumirritum (Dark Nothingness). If God is everything and nothing, then this is nothing within everything or the Anti-God. Adamantium/ine is rumored to be the neutral element between the two (which these pure elements alone can easily destroy).

It is rumored that the final Anti-Christ will be clad in Adamantine; the true Christ, Son of God, in Deusite of his own crafting, and the spirit of Eternus Obscurum (Eternal Darkness), itself, is purely made of Atrumirritum. Oh yes, the True Apocalypse will be a FUN one.

Oh, and a simple description of each:
-We know Adamantine/ium. But it is an equivalent made for man. It shines/transitions into either mineral/element depending on the content and context of the soul who possesses it. It's base color is 50% grey, but tends to have an innate color based on the spiritual frequency of the user (ROYGBIV= Personality (really subtle shade; 5% saturation if measuring at most), Blacker/whiter= Faith/good will (up to 75% saturation))
-Deusite/Omnitanium, regardless of any element surrounding it, even when tarnished, shines pure white, but despite how white it shines, and how much darkness is penetrated by it, it is blinding, but will never blind, unless one is of darkness.
-Atrumirritum is the complete opposite, in light, it shines total darkness (pure blackness) no matter what; and makes one sensitive to context; in other words, gives more insight when one is of light. A proper counter.

So to put it:
Deusite/Omnitanium = Faith or Spirit
Atrumirritum = Knowledge or Mind
Adamantine = Strength or Body

Symbolism like mad can be interpreted by analyzing these materials together. But there are rare opportunities where complete research can be made. You need the rest of your answers, ask the Creator Himself. It is Him, after all. Of course, with Deusite and Atrumirritum, only beings of spiritual matter are tangible enough to be able to even handle these as raw material. Even the dullest of blades, or even a spoon made of either material can cut any mortal creature entwine. Now imagine, Heaven is purely made of Deusite, and hell is a goldmine of Atrumirritum; and you have to dig really deep to get Adamantine/ium. ...Yeah.

Oddly, despite popular belief, light, dark, and grey do not mean they are necessarily good or evil, but tools of purpose. Dimension, so to put it. Nothing can be pure pure one or another; but they can get staggeringly close. It just depends on the use of said materials that determines the true spirit of the one who wields. Ever wonder why the faithful are rather blindly optimistic? Why those with great knowledge are trapped within themselves, and in turn become pessimistic, and those between are unaware of either and are indecisive? You can determine the motives behind them by their actions and if they know what they do (and whether they do it anyway or not). At least, adamantine/ium knows the difference.

So rare, a time, will there be a being of opportunity that can exist that is able to wield all 3 materials simultaneously without any adverse side-effects. One would have to be just as complex as the combination itself in order to survive such combinations. He, alone, will be the True Hero.

[tylor]

Runite sounds lame, sorry.

If you want something really profound-sounding, use either somthing that is not similar to anything else. Rutenium, zortirium, mithril are good examples. Or mundane material with some noun - raw iron, red mercury, black steel, quick silver

Another option is to use something really goofy - inobtanium, badassium, dwarfite, impervium, glod, poccer.

[alway]

There was a material, essentially programmable nanites, in one of the Magic the Gathering novels I read. The material was called "flowstone."

And another, similar material (straddling the border between sci-fi and sci-non-yet-invented), nanite fogs! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_fog

IMO, if you want to invent materials, do it for sci-fi. If you want to come up with good fantasy materials, use existing materials and figure out complex ways they could have been synthesized/created/refined way back when they didn't have arc smelters. For example, if one is able to magically heal themselves, using uranium as a fuel source would work relatively consequence free. And if only a few people are able to use said healing magic, a sword or arrow tips forged from highly radioactive materials would probably be quite effective in battle. Even merely calling it something other than its common, modern name would give it the appearance of a magical material. Reality added to magic will result in quite interesting situations; much more interesting than making up new magical materials through handwavery.

Likewise, in a non-magical setting, composite materials such as kevlar would have the potential to both be difficult to acquire and turn the tide of a battle (nyah nyah, your arrows don't hurt my kevlar vest).

[LegoLord]

Runite?  I've got my own version of that.  It's not a metal though, it's a crystal.  A specific kind of real world crystal (not sure what yet) laced with magic in material form.  It has varying effects based on how it is carved (hence the name), and maybe what variety of crystal it is.

[Heron TSG]

I always imagine fake metals as some wacky color.

Adamantine is Turquoise, Mithril is whitish (not too wacky, here!), Dark Iron is maroon, etc.

[cganya]

chose runite as the name because I actually came up with these ideas a long time ago when playing that horrible runescape game. still haven't found an mmo with as good a crafting system even if all the good stuff was for those rich paying subscribers

runite was the top quality metal so I decided to make a counter part to adamantine in it's image. runite is "perfect magic" while adamantine is "perfect science" in a fantasy setting.

making up common names for materials that are not like the common material it's based off of doesn't really do the new material justice. red mercury does sound interesting though...

[Red Fortune]

For a sci-fi universe I thought of Quasi-metal-trans-conductors or QMTC's. These are superconductive to infinite temperatures and in most ways have properties of metals, but they have NO internal attraction OR surface tension, they do not form lattices (although the extremely advanced ones can be bonded to other materials to an extent) and not affected my gravitational forces for the most part if a significant charge is not flowing through them, and so they completely disintegrate and disappear if not contained, basically.

What makes these "Metals" so valuable is that not only are they superconducting and thus have 0 resistance... They, when a charge is flowed through them, amplify that charge by converting the gravitational forces upon them into energy that increases the flow of power through it.

These materials are very costly to make, but the power plants in this sci-fi universe are filled with them in the place of regular conductors to increase the power output by many times. They are also used a lot in devices requiring short bursts of energy, as the amount of amplification increases with charge. They can also be used as a kind of transistor. Pretty much anything thing that's very high grade and requires electronics/circuitry that  will use these QMTCs.

Their additional use is in their ability to resist gravity, making them very important in some processes, although they have no structural strength, which is their downside, meaning that they have to be specially contained and are extremely prone to damage.

They were the main discovery that allowed humanity to become space-faring, due to the fact that the most cost-effective way to create these materials is to mine their rare, heavy components from asteroids; they also led to a revolution of electromagnets and advanced computing, which in turn improved spaceship technology, causing the mining to be even MORE efficient and cost-effective..

Edit: Oh, forgot, the main QMTCs used are:
Bodivitate: Stock standard, easier to produce but rather shoddy
Amplicitate: First one discovered, bonds to gasses and loses it's properties when it does so, crappy.
Trinitate: Is violently amplifying as it is an extremely heavy molecule, but "wears out" rather quickly. Used for highly powerful railguns.
Anilitate: Extremely hard to make, can be bonded to radioactive materials to create an unstable solid with the same "transconducting" properties.
Durinitate: Also extremely hard to make, can be bonded to liquid mercury while still retaining it's conductivity.

[ein]

That's a neat concept.
Trinitate seems like it could be used for any electricity based weapon, not just railguns.

Anyway, I like to use a very stable and superheavy, but easily fissile material for energy weapons in fluff.
I call it Omnifissium, because it fissions easily.
Omnifissium reaches critical mass at a minimum of 1 gram, which has the explosive power of a .44 magnum.
However, Omnifissium will only fission if exposed to alpha particles, beta particles, or any isotope of hydrogen.
Most Omnifissium space cartridges are packaged with tritium because of its luminescent properties when exposed to phosphorous.

[Heron TSG]

Red Fortune, as awesome as that sounds, it makes the electrician part of my brain weep in despair.

Gravity isn't in the same class of energy as electricity. 

[Red Fortune]

Red Fortune, as awesome as that sounds, it makes the electrician part of my brain weep in despair.

Gravity isn't in the same class of energy as electricity. 

I know, I know, but it was an idea I had and I don't know how else it could work... Mind suggesting something? 

[Soadreqm]

Red Fortune, as awesome as that sounds, it makes the electrician part of my brain weep in despair.

Gravity isn't in the same class of energy as electricity. 

I know, I know, but it was an idea I had and I don't know how else it could work... Mind suggesting something? 

Well, what you are trying to do here, get energy from nothing, is fundamentally impossible. So it doesn't really matter what approach you take, it'll always be essentially magic. I wouldn't even try to explain it too deeply; just say you have this glowing blue goop with negative resistance and leave it at that.

Myself, I was thinking of the problems with Adamantine with the new material system. It's so light it's hard to hit things with it. Well, hit things and damage them. So, give it some weird physics-defying inertial properties. The Star Wars fanbase has managed to explain how people are able to wield lightsabers, the blade of which weights nothing, as if they were regular swords. Adamantine shouldn't be too hard.

Some kind of vague property of having a lot more momentum than it rightly should have based on its weight. Maybe make it have a lot more mass than weight. Maybe the material is actually quite heavy but just doesn't interact with gravity much, although this would make downward strikes less effective, and probably make wearing adamantine armor feel weird.

Another approach would be locally lowering the cosmic lightspeed limit for this one material, which is even more ridiculous. Blackbody radiation from adamantine travels at a fairly slow speed, and it is physically impossible to accelerate adamantium beyond this speed. When you try, it just becomes more massive, and can reach arbitrarily high momentum at fairly low speeds. Also, if you make a whip out of adamantine, and crack it, the tip travels backwards in time.

[cganya]

Red Fortune, as awesome as that sounds, it makes the electrician part of my brain weep in despair.

Gravity isn't in the same class of energy as electricity. 

I know, I know, but it was an idea I had and I don't know how else it could work... Mind suggesting something? 

Well, what you are trying to do here, get energy from nothing, is fundamentally impossible. So it doesn't really matter what approach you take, it'll always be essentially magic. I wouldn't even try to explain it too deeply; just say you have this glowing blue goop with negative resistance and leave it at that.

Myself, I was thinking of the problems with Adamantine with the new material system. It's so light it's hard to hit things with it. Well, hit things and damage them. So, give it some weird physics-defying inertial properties. The Star Wars fanbase has managed to explain how people are able to wield lightsabers, the blade of which weights nothing, as if they were regular swords. Adamantine shouldn't be too hard.

Some kind of vague property of having a lot more momentum than it rightly should have based on its weight. Maybe make it have a lot more mass than weight. Maybe the material is actually quite heavy but just doesn't interact with gravity much, although this would make downward strikes less effective, and probably make wearing adamantine armor feel weird.

Another approach would be locally lowering the cosmic lightspeed limit for this one material, which is even more ridiculous. Blackbody radiation from adamantine travels at a fairly slow speed, and it is physically impossible to accelerate adamantium beyond this speed. When you try, it just becomes more massive, and can reach arbitrarily high momentum at fairly low speeds. Also, if you make a whip out of adamantine, and crack it, the tip travels backwards in time.

or you could just make admantine more heavy :3 I don't see why it's so light in DF, its only found deep in the earth which in my limited knowledge would mean its really freaking heavy and would form deeper in the ground naturally.

course we are speaking about a game in which clowns and unicorns exist.

[Red Fortune]

Well, what you are trying to do here, get energy from nothing, is fundamentally impossible. So it doesn't really matter what approach you take, it'll always be essentially magic. I wouldn't even try to explain it too deeply; just say you have this glowing blue goop with negative resistance and leave it at that.

Yeah, I guess