Isaac and I have discussed the idea that the luminiferous aether is actually a magic or mana field, not the medium that light waves travel through. It is what allows for steampunk speculative fiction instead of hard science fiction.

That means that aetheric drives, leukos crystals, liftwood, etc. are all enchanted items. They draw part of their power and/or effect from the magic of the luminiferous aether. Isaac and I have been considering how to introduce into the story evocation magic – casting spells. I must admit the mental image of Tesla atop his tower outside of Texas City calling lightning bolts out of the hurricane to blast Martian war machines would be pretty cool.

I’m thinking that having spells would transform the world more than I want. I’m shooting for steampunk/dieselpunk, not urban fantasy. But what if evocation could only be done in special circumstances? Circumstances that used to occur in a very few “magic forests” of Vulcan, but don’t occur anywhere else (at least nowhere anyone is familiar with).

What if a more accurate term for liftwood was aetherwood, with ‘liftwood’ being one of the enchanted products you could make from aetherwood . What if leukos crystals were naturally occurring on Vulcan. What if a major part of getting enchantable aetherwood to grow was embedding specially prepared leukos crystals and setting up a mystical connection between the crystals and the seedlings. Maybe the Martian aetherwood groves are like oak groves – all clones from a single root system. In the ancient past, the roots were connected to leukos crystals and the crystals tied to power inputs. Ever since, with some rare exceptions, the grove crystals have remained connected to the planetary power net and fed the aetherwood groves.

Magic forests were places where large veins of naturally occurring leukos crystals fed groves of aetherwood trees setting up an aetheric field dense enough and close enough to standard reality to be tapped using only the spoken word and hand gestures. I could have fantasy stories, even techno magical stories, set on Vulcan without having spell-slinging invade the main story setting.

Something to consider…