# Is this idea too "Deus Ex Machina"?



## Mindfire (Jun 6, 2013)

I thought about including as a worldbuilding element something called a Tempest, which is basically a spontaneous supernatural storm that can transport travelers great distances across the world at random. The idea's most immediate use is to explain the presence of human civilizations beyond the known world, but it also offers other narrative possibilities, like transporting characters to entirely new continents, or bringing members of alien civilizations into contact with humans. A very useful tool. But is the idea a bit too obviously DEM or might it be regarded as... this? What do you guys think?


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## Scribble (Jun 6, 2013)

It strikes me that the odds of a "supernatural" phenomena randomly dropping you somewhere safe, gently, or at a safe altitude might be hard for the reader to accept. If there is an intelligence behind it, it doesn't need to be understood, but it would be assumed to be there. If the destinations are very "plot-appropriate" then you'd have many questions about this. If it's never explained, the reader may feel let down.

There might be ways around this, it just struck me is all. I like the idea. Maybe some advanced civilizations learn to harness it, control it, or summon it? Otherwise, it's random, but that brings with it risk.


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## Mindfire (Jun 6, 2013)

Scribble said:


> It strikes me that the odds of a "natural" phenomena dropping you somewhere safe, gently, or at a safe altitude might be hard for the reader to accept. If there is an intelligence behind it, it doesn't need to be understood, but it must be assumed to be there. If the destinations are very "plot-appropriate" then you'd have many questions about this. If it's never explained, the reader will always wonder about it.



Well, if you really want to get into it, tempests aren't _entirely_ random. Since nature is controlled and regulated by divine forces, you could say they're "providential." It's that sort of thing where, when it's happening, it seems completely random or even unfortunate, but in hindsight is clearly a good thing.


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## Zero Angel (Jun 6, 2013)

Nothing wrong with supernatural tempests. They're not exactly original, but I can't criticize since I have one 

Just come up with a mechanic for the machina. As long as it's figured out, then whatever you do is just part of your physics.


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## Addison (Jun 6, 2013)

If you do it right, it won't be DEM. In ancient greece they lowered a guy in a toga on a painted sun to stop the conflict because the writers either took advantage of their gods' presence or couldn't think of any other ending. But through out the work said god never made an entrance, made itself known, not even a mention. As long as you let this storm make a cameo sometime at the beginning or bring some sort of conflict so the reader knows it exists, then it's alright.


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## Penpilot (Jun 7, 2013)

Unless you used this Tempest to solve major story problems, it's not DEM. Eg. The bad guy is about to triumph and suddenly and randomly the tempest zaps them away without anything done, like being summoned, by the good guy. If it gets people into trouble, it's not solving a problem so it's not DEM. Example Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz.


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## ThinkerX (Jun 7, 2013)

Make it part of the landscape:

Every twenty years comes a twenty day period when the Tempests can come.  Be wary, less you be snatched to some far off land.  Something every farmboy, sailor, and merchant knows. 

Have a character or three who actively worries about being snatched during 'Tempest Time'.  Maybe that charcter or another has a father or grandfather who was snatched from some distant kingdom.  

Perhaps there are magicians or scientists seeking to take advantage of these Tempests.

-0-0-0-0-0-

I do have something vaguely similiar on my primary world: the Time of Passage, when the Demon Star looms in the sky.  A period when mutants and magicians are born, entire cities descend into maddness or enchanted slumber, or any of a hundred other wonders...as long as the Demon Star is present.

At the time of my tales, the Demon Star has been gone for a century and a half (it used to show up every half century, give or take).  But that is slated to change...


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## Steerpike (Jun 7, 2013)

I agree with Addison. Whether it is DEM or not will all come down to how you use it. There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea.


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## Asura Levi (Jun 7, 2013)

It would be interessant for someone to be transported in the middle of roch and being merged with, dying in the process. Later generations discover his body in perfect state while mining or after some earthquake torn the land open.
As it was said, done right, can be a very good plot device and not DEM at all.


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## Mindfire (Jun 7, 2013)

Oh, I forgot to mention. These tempests only occur at sea, specifically the outer sea called the Tethys, which is roughly equivalent to the Atlantic Ocean, but theoretically infinite.


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## Asura Levi (Jun 7, 2013)

that changes a lot. in this case, I wouldn't think it is that much DEM. But I suppose one cannot goes into the Tempest to try to get to some specific place on purpose and that the Tempest is always avoided/feared save by the most adventurous and mad.


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## Mindfire (Jun 7, 2013)

Asura Levi said:


> that changes a lot. in this case, I wouldn't think it is that much DEM. But I suppose one cannot goes into the Tempest to try to get to some specific place on purpose.



Well, you could _try._ But you'd need some powerful magic to attempt it.


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## Devor (Jun 7, 2013)

As a worldbuilding technique I think it's okay.  As a plot device I would be very hesitant.


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## Scribble (Jun 7, 2013)

Some interesting scenarios occurred to me:

- Scientific/mystical order finds ways of trying to summon and direct the tempests, using some ancient large Stargate-esque portal. They decipher the writings of the "ancients" to do this.
- Natural or "wilder" mystics learn how to use their will to do the same, but without all the elaborate framework.
- Protagonist at odds with the order must turn to a wilder... 
- An inexperienced "tempester" ends up sending himself to WhoKnowsWhere, thus delaying a critical action to stop X from happening. In this way it isn't a Deus Ex Machina, particularly if learning discipline and patience is part of the character arc. It could only work for a young character, an older character would not be easily forgiven for brash foolishness.

I could see a rather interesting usage, where timing and the position of the stars and discipline all contribute to the successful use of the tempest.


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## Mindfire (Jun 7, 2013)

Devor said:


> As a worldbuilding technique I think it's okay.  As a plot device I would be very hesitant.



Elaborate?


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## ThinkerX (Jun 7, 2013)

Tempests limited to the ocean?  And one ocean in particular?

Then, in that case, you don't have a Deus Ex Machina, you have a regional legend.  EVERY mariner, fisherman, lighthouse keeper, and pilot that livesnext to or sails across this ocean is going to know about the Tempest, and likely provide contradictory lists as to which vessels were taken by it, as well as strange craft brought to their parts from afar.  Bards, storytellers, and rumor mongers will all be able to recite incidents and contradictory tales of the Tempests origin.


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## Devor (Jun 7, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> Elaborate?



I just mean, for your main characters to pass through it, and wind up anywhere, you're going to create a bit of a .... let's call it an unfulfilling conflict, man v. tempest.  It's spontaneous, so you can't forshadow when it happens.  It's kind of neat to wind up anywhere, but if it's anywhere in particular, that's a bit convenient.  If it's just a spot on the coast, any storm could've done that.  If it's the bad guy who falls through it, you've got the cliche comic book villain ending, where you know he gets away and expect him to come back.  It goes on.

Off the top of my head, without giving it too much thought, about the only plot point I can really see working with it is:

Main Character stands in the middle of open land.  He watches as a whirlwind appears in the air and a ship falls out of the sky.... turns out the ship sailed into dangerous waters in order to escape something, or someone, with the precious cargo it has aboard, and those people are now in pursuit.

But that's using it as a starting point.  Using it midway in a novel just seems like it would be too jarring.


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## Mindfire (Jun 7, 2013)

Devor said:


> I just mean, for your main characters to pass through it, and wind up anywhere, you're going to create a bit of a .... let's call it an unfulfilling conflict, man v. tempest.  It's spontaneous, so you can't forshadow when it happens.  It's kind of neat to wind up anywhere, but if it's anywhere in particular, that's a bit convenient.  If it's just a spot on the coast, any storm could've done that.  If it's the bad guy who falls through it, you've got the cliche comic book villain ending, where you know he gets away and expect him to come back.  It goes on.
> 
> Off the top of my head, without giving it too much thought, about the only plot point I can really see working with it is:
> 
> ...



At present I really only have one narrative use for it. Three if you count legends and history. The "present" use is that it transports some of my characters over a large distance so they can meet up with another cast of characters. They're not setting out to reach the other group (they don't even know of their existence), they just kinda end up there. I may use a summoned tempest to take them back. Or I might have them trek overland instead. Depends on what seems the better story option at the time.

The two significant historical instances of tempests occurring would be a tempest used by the god Hakadosh to rescue the ancient Viranese from the Mist (Formerly human wraith-giants. I kid you not, my inspiration for them was Nazgul + Samurai Slenderman.) and send them to the southern continent of Vira, which they settled. The second instance was a storm that brought exiles from Beorgia to the same continent, where they also settled and their descendants became the Baynish people. (Their name comes from the word "banished". Yeah, yeah, terrible I know.)


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## Devor (Jun 7, 2013)

So much of it is in execution, of course, but on the face of it, I would say that so long as it's completely, totally random - even if it's regional - I would say it's too convenient to use for something like getting your characters together, which is kind of a big important thing to be using it for.


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## Mindfire (Jun 7, 2013)

Devor said:


> So much of it is in execution, of course, but on the face of it, I would say that so long as it's completely, totally random - even if it's regional - I would say it's too convenient to use for something like getting your characters together, which is kind of a big important thing to be using it for.



Oh, I missed one. There's no way any of my characters can know this, but in the far past a tempest was what brought the Thervan (humanoid reptile race) invaders to the known world, where they proceeded to muck up and conquer the incredibly corrupt human society. So I guess you could say that the tempests aren't entirely random. They all seem to be orchestrated by divine purpose of some kind.


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## Devor (Jun 8, 2013)

Mindfire said:


> They all seem to be orchestrated by divine purpose of some kind.



Not to be too flippant, but then . . . isn't that literally deus ex?


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## Asura Levi (Jun 8, 2013)

Maybe, one could say that the Tempest is the work of some kind of chaos god who linked all realms together, in a way that the area of the tempest exist in all of them, overlapping each other.
That would make it for the random and also for the possibility to go to someplace specifically by using powerful magic. But I can't see how you could summon then, not without catastrophic consequences.

I think in this way, without the direct interference of gods but as a sort of malevolent plaything from one of then it becomes less of a deus ex thing.


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## wordwalker (Jun 8, 2013)

The usual problem with Deux Ex Machina seems to be something happening for dramatic reasons (and "randomness" usually seems like them) rather than logical ones, and so jumping outside the story's rules of what characters and readers think could lead to what next. At least, when it's also an important event rather than tiny quirks.

(On the other hand, real randomness or divine intervention could work, if you could convince your reader that it actually was random or that the gods were characters with their own reasons for what they did-- but that's a hard sell.)

A rule I've heard is that a story is allowed one great coincidence but never two, and I also think it works better if it's near the start of the story and gets it out of the way. Anything might fall out of the tempest once, but mostly the story should be how people use non-random choices to cope with whatever that one event was; otherwise if anything else goes into (or falls out of) the tempest, you have to work hard to show that the result really is random, or divine, or anything other than dramatic license shoving aside regular cause and effect.


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## Mindfire (Jun 8, 2013)

Devor said:


> Not to be too flippant, but then . . . isn't that literally deus ex?



Not necessarily. Divine providence is kinda of a running theme and shows up in other places as well, sometimes in more obvious ways than the tempests. One character even talks with God face to face. If it's established and foreshadowed that these kinds of things can happen, is it really DEM?


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## ThinkerX (Jun 8, 2013)

> Oh, I missed one. There's no way any of my characters can know this, but in the far past a tempest was what brought the Thervan (humanoid reptile race) invaders to the known world, where they proceeded to muck up and conquer the incredibly corrupt human society. So I guess you could say that the tempests aren't entirely random. They all seem to be orchestrated by divine purpose of some kind.



Actually, this is exactly the sort of thing that would be the subject of ancient myth and current sailors stories. "Yeah, it had ta have been a Tempest what brought dem dang lizards here in the first place."


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## A. E. Lowan (Jun 9, 2013)

This may sound a little harsh, and please forgive me as I have has no sleep, but I find that whenever I even have to ask this question, the answer is "Yes."


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## Mindfire (Jun 9, 2013)

A. E. Lowan said:


> This may sound a little harsh, and please forgive me as I have has no sleep, but I find that whenever I even have to ask this question, the answer is "Yes."



Different people have different standards, and my standard of what qualifies as DEM is more permissive than most. As I've mentioned, divine intervention is something of a theme. I was just wondering if I might have gone a little too far this time. In any case, I'm going to need a way to transport my characters across a large distance relatively quickly anyway. Tempests give me a lore-friendly way to do so. Cheating is okay as long as the reader doesn't notice, right?


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## Zero Angel (Jun 9, 2013)

How about teleportation? I have a couple of races capable of it in my books. Or if teleportation is too modern, _Gates_, faerie paths, etc


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## Mindfire (Jun 9, 2013)

Zero Angel said:


> How about teleportation? I have a couple of races capable of it in my books. Or if teleportation is too modern, _Gates_, faerie paths, etc



I don't really have any way to explain these things in-universe. I have one group with powers that appear to _simulate_ teleportation, but really it's just sleight of hand and ninja tricks, like the smoke bomb vanish except with lightning bolts. And one advantage of tempests is that they only happen at sea, which is conveniently the only time I need them. If teleportation were an option just whenever, it would wreak havoc with the plot.


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## Creed (Jun 11, 2013)

It sounds damn awesome to me. 
I imagine a funnel cloud reaching down from the sky to envelope the characters. 
So to prevent this "God of the Machine" from occurring, usually sufficient foreshadowing is enough. As long as you convince the reader, and not just yourself. 8-D For example, when the Tempest is going to arrive and perform its trick, maybe beforehand make the sky suitably dark and express the mood and lightning and such so you KNOW something's coming. 
And if you work with it as a part of the culture, then there's definitely enough influence in there that the reader shouldn't be caught off guard. For example, mentioning research into this phenomenon. Like mages, as mentioned. Or have a (side?) character who is obsessed with these Tempests. 
I think it sounds really cool! And the fact that you're asking the question means that you're actively taking measures to prevent any silly turns in events, so I think it will be fine.


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## Amanita (Jun 17, 2013)

I don't think this should be a problem. Supernatural storms taking sailors to unknown places are rather common in older fantasy and fairytales/myths. The travels of Odysseus are one example were gods are getting involved directly. 
It would be good to introduce this possibility before it actually happens and if possible not one chapter earlier but a bit further away from it actually becoming plot-relevant. Other people have made good suggestions for this already. 
If it doesn't interfer with the story it might be good to have more than one instance of this happening or make sure that the consequences aren't purely positive right away. 

Some people who care about realism very much and tend to dislike larger numbers of fantastical events in fantasy stories might be put off by something like this but many fantasy readers don't mind or even like to see some powerful supernatural events if they don't make victory too easy. And in stories where they like the rest, many of them aren't even bothered by that too much as examples like Harry Potter show.


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## Mindfire (Jun 17, 2013)

Amanita said:


> Some people who care about realism very much and tend to dislike larger numbers of fantastical events in fantasy stories



Realism? In fantasy? That's a good one.


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