Alchemy Basics

-- PERSONAL LOG (PUBLIC) | FE 5288-13-1-7 --

-- AUTHOR: Hegemony Overseer (ALL-CROWN) | Camdyn Astair --

-- SUBJECT: Alchemy Basics --

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Alchemy! Now there’s a good subject for this log! It might be difficult to go into some of the more complex topics without mentioning what Alchemy is in the context of the Technocults.

Alchemy is fundamental to so much of what has made the Technocults what they are that it’s a bit difficult to pick a "jumping-on point", as it were. I’ll start by saying this: "Alchemy" bears some resemblance to the ancient Terran practice, but in the context of it here, it’s far less mystical and much more technical. At its core, Alchemy is breaking down matter into its constituent particles (protons, neutrons, and electrons), storing them for later, and then reassembling them into something else. Simply put, it’s turning one thing into another. Matter transmutation. Alchemy. Get it? Good. Because we don’t really get how it works either.

We understand the fundamental principle of it, but when it comes to actually understanding how you can break matter apart, store it, then just put it back together later when you need it is way beyond where we’re at scientifically. If you were to ask Kai, he’d say something about preventing beta decay using a "Recursive Fault Quantum Probability Something-or-Other". All that is to say, it might as well still be magic to us.

However, if you do understand what I’m getting at with this, you can see why the Prospector was able to outdo us so handily in the field of resource acquisition; being able to turn literally anything into literally anything else is kinda a huge advantage.

Alongside that brief explanation, I should mention the sigils and glyphs they use in conjunction with various processes. Some of them actually match the ones we used, but there’s an infinitely expanded library to represent all sorts of concepts, elements, objects, or phenomena—it's almost another language. Among some groups, learning these new symbols has become a sort of novel hobby. I can’t say I don’t find it interesting myself!

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