portal transport for fairies and elves...

[Mr Orange]

morning all

i have a dilemna. i need a way to transport elf-like people across big distances, quickly, and was wondering whether some kind of portal transport would work and be believable in my world which is, very briefly:

basically our world, but a slightly different dimension inhabited by elf-like creatures. there is magic, but only one class can actually create magic. the other classes can use it, however (in this case i would liken it to a lift engineer making the lift but normal people being able to use it by pressing the right buttons...). due to the time constraints i've given myself, i kind of need to move people a decent distance (say about 1000km) pretty much instantly. I also want the magic/technology to be stolen by some more evil types and used for nefarious means...

i was thinking some kind of funky portals set up in various locations, suitably guarded and manned....

is this going to work or si it going to seem like a bit of a lazy solution to the problem?

cheers in advance..

 

[alchemist]

You're already dealing with elves and magic; portals isn't going to strain credibility any further. Maybe the poorer elves need to buy tokens, or artefacts, to use the portals -- that way you can regulate who uses it and who controls the magic.

 

[Colbey Frost]

Maybe it was pre-planned, or they sensed the danger, and your elves can leave their "soul" in a safe place and port back to it whenever they want, but only to where they hid it. If all the elves agreed a safe place before hand, they could all do that. Also, if one of the souls was moved without them knowing, it could add an extra layer to the story if you wanted to.

 

[Brian G Turner]

You're already dealing with elves and magic; portals isn't going to strain credibility any further.

Absolutely.

 

[Mr Orange]

Cheers guys.

It wasn't so much the credibility I was worried more about whether it would be seen as an easy and therefore lazy solution to get out of a corner I had painted myself into by not allowing enough time to travel where my characters need to....

also, there's not really any money. The lower class use magical tools the same way a labourer would use a pneumatic hammer to break up the street. They can operate it but have no idea what goes on inside it or how it was made. And they would have no normal need to travel using the portals. If they had the need, they would be allowed to.

 

[jastius]

there are several ways that elves travel quickly in fiction and legend.
one is a nexus point from where different paths to different places open up like doors. these are doors between places, times and dimensions.
the second is by the leylines, the electro magnetic skeleton of the world that the standing stone circles and the fairy rings, the blessed wells and sacred springs, and the high roads and low roads that we are familiar with in song, are all a part of.
the third is dreaming travel to find a better word. a form of astral projection, which for the elvin brings their body along or allows them to borrow a body from the persons already there. this would be the ideas of changelings and fae touched. the fae touched never having their spirit completely returned.
these are all different from gate walking or world walking which is again a different form of travel and more science fictiony in nature being reliant upon the idea of bubbles of universes allowing us to walk between enough of them that we end up back in our own in a different place, ( i.e. stargate, star trek, any time travel shows, etc.)...
but its your show and basically your choice

 

[Mr Orange]

jastius thanks a lot you've done it!

leylines is perfect for the way my WIP is going and i can even introduce a new layer to it with stone circles etc.

and yes something didn't feel right about portals and i think the science fiction edge to them might have been it.

thanks again!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

In the Artemis Fowl books, the fairies use magma chutes, but that's not instant travel. They have, basically, a subway system using shuttles and pods that get a push from the movement of magma in the channels. It's fast, but dangerous, and like a subway, they have to start at the right "station" and go to where that tunnel leads.

I think you'll do just fine with the ley lines, and it's perfectly believable -- I've believed it a dozen times before, after all!

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Or if you really want to, Orange, you could employ the use of fairy rings to a separate dimension that cuts travel distance in ours by however much you want.

 

[Mr Orange]

thanks karn and tdz, but the leylines have it. i have already thought of a way to write them in and include stone circles in the mix

 

[Mirannan]

A possible solution might include the one used by Alan Garner in Weirdstone of Brisingamen; the "old, straight track" (which may have been a leyline I suppose) activated by something such as burning rowan wood - called wendfire in that book, IIRC.

Essentially, two conditions; having elvish blood and using some fairly rare, and poorly known generally, material to activate the gate.