Okay, so if I have this right, all the stars are holes to Aetherius, and through those holes, magicka is being leaked into Mundus.

How do mages access this? Do they absorb it into their body? Or is it some innate trait? Now, in game, I realize the necessity to have a limit on magicka, but, in lore, how is that explained? I mean, if magicka permeates Mundus, then how can a mage run out?

Everything absorbs magicka, and it saturates Nirn. The reason why mages can use it really well and a peasant can't is like the difference between me playing a musical instrument (I really svck) and Mozart (a [censored] genius!). As for rate and capacity...eh, game mechanics are really the only way to explain it.

With intelligence, I guess it allows one to contain more magicka than someone who is not so smart. Sensitivity also affects how much one can retain magicka, which is why the altmer can potentially have the largest amount of magicka resurves, and bretons (due to their merrish heritage). With willpower...I guess it's how well one can absorb the magicka saturating the world and repel forced magicka (enemy spells)....yeah not much there.

As for birth signs, I would say it also has to do with sensitivity. With the Wizard (or w/e) it increases sensitivity, without making one too sensitive. With the apprentice, the person is much more sensitive to magicka, but at the cost of being too sensitive. With the atronach, I would say it's as if the person has an huge reserve, but the "pipes" are too clogged and small to absorb magicka without it being forceful (enemy magic fire).

This question reminds me of my quantum mechanics class when a student asks a question that is so complicated we would never understand the professors response. The running joke in the class was to then respond with "Magic" then move on with lecture.

However, that response seems overtly cyclical in this case.

Heh, I took an advanced inorganic chemistry class, and boy, I hated quantum mechanics.

I enjoyed the quantum aspects of my inorganic class. I really didn't like the different types of packing and crystal structures though, bored me to tears.

I enjoyed it more. Mainly because I was able to grasp the concepts much easier and my professor was [censored] awesome.

Hellmouth, would you say that magicka is like radiation traveling through space? Like cosmic rays and how they penetrate right through the earth and keep on going? Or perhaps magicka is like neutrinos or even the subatomic threads that the String Theory discusses?

And yeah, some people are more sensitive to magicka than others. With being sensitive to it comes pros/cons. Like, you can have a super high magicka pool but also have a low tolerance to magic-based attacks.

A valid question which must have surfaced periodically. As I understand it magic is almost a deus-ex machina in this world, since no book has been written citing the clear origins of magic on Nirn, nor are moon-phases or Gods particularly important. Where does magic come from? Apart from just seeping through Aetherius your guess is as good as mine. The Psijic Order and Artaeum are the only threads we desperately hold to, as past sorcerers are not documented and not one creature or entity (such as a Dragon or a God) is shown to have learnt how to channel this magical-debris scattered throughout the mortal plane. I believe it is a world where magic is a lesser aspect, and incongrously, an incredibly powerful lesser aspect of the world.

It seeps through, the Psijics learnt how to channel energy in their mysticism. Why? Because it is.

I wonder if you could equate Magicka to something vaguely like Kant's necessary conditions for experience and cognition: Magic becomes recognizable as essential to shaping how the world is interpreted, but it cannot itself be accounted for through experience.

Assuming of course I've got Kant's necessary conditions for experience down correctly.

I'm thinking that magicka-use has more in common with meditation than nuclear chemistry or anything of that ilk. That is, it involves disciplining the mind to function at a certain level, rather than brute memorization of facts or procedures. Certainly, those Arcane University hoods were unabashedly academic, but they were more concerned with magicka theory than magicka praxis.

I was thinking more along the lines of ritual, but basically the same as what you suggest.

This also begs the question, how can one use magika in a plane of oblivion ?

Magicka acts seemingly much like light does in the real world (but without taking the anaology to far) but it does travel through Oblivion, as light travels through space until it simply reaches Mundus. Magicka then is the same in Mundus as it is in Oblivion like how light is the same in space as it is on earth.
A question i am interested in answering is, as Oblivion is the god plane(t)s of the principalities, it travels then through their "bodies" before reaching Mundus, so does that have any effect on magicka? or am i looking to far into that

The Aetherius surrounds Oblivion surrounds Mundus. Ever play SI? Notice all the stars?

With Altmer, could it be from supposed relation to the Magna-Ge as well?

No, they're not relevant in much of anything right now. I'd gander it's more of their desire to be more god-like.

Black-Horse Courier "Emperor Promises: Free Magica for all"

The world does seem to imply that Magica is empirical in nature, like Kant's transcendental aesthetic only in the sense of Magica being an inherent form of intuition, an abstract concept like spatiality/temporality. Its vague nature does however result in contradictions; the art is extremely popular, accesible, everyone uses it and does so without any particular difficulty (a kind of logical fallacy, a tear in the logical fabric of the fantasy-world). Oblivion gave us the Ayleids, another potential thread in tracing the history of magic (I suppose it is a world ever-expanding inwards, with every series).

If the occult fascination behind the Psijiici mystery-cult is to be believed, surely it would have occurred in a low-magic world, or one where powerful arcanists were rare? I use Tolkien's example, where the synthesis of some proto-Germanic/Norse polytheism did go just as far as to justify some use of magic - God-given and well-defined through the use of song - but one which wasn't as popular as Lord Jornibret's ditties, or a two-coin play by that hack named Curio. Ultimately, the voyage of a mage in such a world should be something akin to a peripety and anagnorisis, a tormented experience ending in some ultimate self-discovery, whether for good or bad; this is indicated in the Old Method (or Old Way), the True Teachings (if you like) or the semiology behind the Tower (somewhat of a Jungian anology). Perhaps it would have been easier to create a system of Magic as a form of technology (like in Dying Earth), more immediate and simpler than anything else.

In any fantasy-world the use of magic should ideally come from both scientific and non-scientific processes. Such was the use of magic in the Middle Ages, or in the ornately-scripted Middle-Eastern Grimoires: I don't see how it is achieved solely by supplication. The latter a facet of the divine (an aspect which undoubtedly plays a more important part here); however no distinction is made, magic encompasses the many aspects of the same art. Feel free to send me a private message if you've found how to turn metal into gold.

Lastly (no doubt I've committed murder by boredom here, killing off gentle-readers with senseless drivel) there are discrepancies regarding the Great House Telvanni, playing a pivotal role in the arcane arts. Were the Great Houses established before the fall and disappearence of the Psijiic Order? If so then the monastic order's place in history loses context or exclusivity. Did the Telvannis tap into some other unknown source for Magica, or perhaps the methods were different? I don't know whether Galerion was of Elven descent, but it is certain that the imperious and arrogant nature of Dunmer would never have been a part of something readily accessible to all n'wahs , to use "nature" synecdochially. Chew on these things and feel free to spout them out again, due to their foul taste.

Why must the arcane arts necessarily be abstruse and esoteric? I don't follow your reference to the Old Ways.

Yeah....going with the2crow here.

All we really need to know is, magic falls from the Aetherius, and it is absorbed by the princes and Nirn. View it as light, and everyone has a build-in solar panel. Some just happen to have better ones, and know how to put the stored energy into use.

Yeah, it's clear that magic is universally accessible, and I don't see why that should constitute a contradictory state of affairs.

I was probably unclear with my alcohol-frenzied post. Contradictory because magic is accessible but processes and methods are not documented: very little is known about how exactly magic is used, apart from a few largely useless books such as "The Vagaries of Magicka" or "The art of war magic."

Hence the "Low Magic-High Power" design. It isn't though. Magic is indeed powerful but not rare, and by some epiphany everyone but the Guar can easily use it and do so well. If you have the time have a look at http://www.briceg.com/gaming/Uncle%20Figgy%27s%20Guide%20to%20Good%20Fantasy.pdf, it is very good introductory material!

EDIT: Missed the link

Heh, I suspected that was a drunk post. The best kind.
I'll be sure to read that link.