Don't new post doc's write papers read and peer-reviewed by other post doc's who might be vastly superior or advanced in their field?
Regardless, it's incredibly unlikely that an apprentice will have the time to devote to writing a tractatus...
But think about what you have just written. A post doc has done the basics and has a Bachelors and has likely done a Masters which is more focused and then proceed to a doctorate which is even more focuses on a single aspect of their art/science. It is like saying a Sophomore/ junior in college is writing a post doc thesis that is accepted by their peers with PH.D's as an advancement in the field.
Someone with an art score of 5 might be like a person with a BA/BS. Having a broad understanding of the art. It is just enough to allow you to teach an apprentice so you do not mess them up.
I don't like using crunch to enforce purely thematic elements. Why can't a novice write a book? Have you looked on Amazon eBooks? Tons of bad self-published dreck. Just because someone writes a book doesn't mean anybody wants to read it. This is even addressed in Covenants where 'vain' books are given away as gifts because who wants to read what some hedge wizard thinks about magic theory? Given the average magus' Com +0, a Quality 6 tractatus wouldn't be that compelling. That is why nobody reads their stuff.
Now, the stuff most of our characters write? That might be more compelling. It's more lucid, uses great prose, and we're older. The latter means more in Hermetic society than modern day, I think.
First, a post doc is someone who has earned a doctorate and is continuing to research in their field. Equating a doctorate to a Hermetic Apprenticeship is not at all unreasonable. Someone who has a doctorate has at least 4 years invested in the bachelors degree, probably another 2 years in the master's program, and another 6-8 in the doctoral program, call it 6. That's 12 years of learning, maybe 11 if they shaved a year off the master's program, but that's hard to do. So, 12 years is not all that far away from 15. But wait, an apprentice is a lab slave for 3/4 of their 15 years, you might say. Maybe, but not necessarily true. And even still, I'd still equate the newly gauntleted magus being roughly equal to a post doc researcher.
But the matter should be dropped, because multiple people are voicing opposition to the proposal; it's unlikely to find consensus...
comparing books of fiction written by amateurs and an academic thesis written for a PhD. is absurd. Of course people could write a book but because they are fluent and string words together well , does it mean that they have the insight and knowledge to write something unique for their peers?
Only because you are skipping the 12 years of elementary education to learn basics into your equation. Those are either taught by the master or some servant to get their Latin up to 4 and their Arts Lib up to 3 I would equate a newly gauntleted Magus as a College graduate with a Bachelor Degree. They have a broad understanding of concepts. They might have a micro focus on on ability or several arts that would make them stand out in their field but lack any depth in others.
12 years of elementary education can be represented by the Educated virtue. Let's be honest, among those of us here, how many spend 6+ hours a day learning in school when we were in elementary and secondary levels? I remember a lot of time being bored out of my skull...
The issue is largely moot. I don't see apprentices (students in this saga) spending a lot of time to write tractatus.
It is more of the point of where you see level 5 with an art vs 10 vs 15 ect. I see 5 in an art as competent but not deep enough to write a book that someone with 30 in the art can learn a great deal from.
If you are asking for our opinions, i'd say that subtle opening, elemental philosophy, comprehend magic and/or the so called "talents and knacks" (Hermetic minor virtues), would work best for Ancel. They also have the bonus of adding to the appeal of him becoming a teacher.
Let me break that down general statement piece by piece.
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Subtle Opening is exactly the kind of breakthrough that I can see most researchers ignoring. In fact, unless you plan on taking an apprentice with non-hermetic magical abilities it might not even occur to you.
But if you were planning say, a Hermetic university then the concept becomes so much more appealing, if not required. If selected it might mean Ancel was approched to join this project rather than volteered. After all he already would have demonstrated being of like mind, (thinking of the next generation of magi), and proved himself uniquely qualified, (who else bothered to learn how to perform the subtle opening?)
Plus it opens a lot more options when it comes to extracurriculars. -
Elemental Philosophy won out of the
Trio of e-abilities for one reason - Ceremonial Casting. That alone makes it more broadly applicable throughout the Order. If for no other reason than it's certain to make the curriculum.
Not the most compelling reasoning but it is honest. -
Comprehend Magic is one of those things that feels almost nessicary for a seeker to have. In my minds eye i can see bonisagus using it to investigate the cult if mercury...
But that is just me. I still that the ability should be more widespread. -
As for fully integrating hermetic virtues, it feels like exactly the sort of thing Ancel would do and is just far too amazing to not make the list. My only source of reluctance is that it is the one that you could do while teaching.
I disagree. Anyone should be able to write a tractatus on something they know something about.
Now, whether said tractatus will gain traction and become wide-spread, or even make it off the author's coffee table (where he can crow to his friends that he wrote a book) is a horse of another colour.
So, his OR is for finding ways to integrate these (or one or more of them, anyway) into Hermetic Theory? At first blush, none of those seem undoable, but then, I'm not as familiar as I should be with OR.
Actually, all of the examples pulled from Hedge Magic are from sections specially addressing how difficult it would be to integrate those powers into Hermetic magic, since the authours assumed that at some point, some magus would try to do just that. 
In fact, both Rival Magic and Ancient Magic assume this as well, which has established the line-wide notion that there are few non-Hermetic practices that can't eventually be absorbed into Hermetic magic; just that nobody has done so and disseminated it yet.
Looks like you could take your pick, Renimar.
Agreed. I'm fine with Renimar's OR list.
Working on The Subtle Opening seems interesting, but it does require Ancel to spend research season with raw apprentices, then trying to Open their Arts -- with the potential of damaging their Gift as a result. While the ultimate result may bring about a stronger Order, this could really suck for the guinea pigs needed to try and make this work. A good chunk of it is up to luck, after all, mitigated somewhat by Ancel's command of Magic Theory to move the experimental result to one not so damaging. So from an in-game perspective, would Elizabeth be open to something like this? Or would that be too risky for the first batch of students?
Definitely too risky.
Also, the method of opening the Arts changes here at the school under Hermetic Instructional techniques... At the school each Art is opened individually whenever experience is applied to it. In a typical master/apprentice relationship all the Arts are opened at once.
I could see some definite story potential though. A whole bunch of apprentices who get their Gift irrevocably warped. Whole new avenues of magic that might be now open, but only to these resentful apprentices. It has that 'Creating one's own demons' type of story.
I could potentially see it when the school's been established and there are more students to choose from; however, I can understand that the first class of students would be far too risky to conduct such unproven experimentation. They're going to want the school to get underway successfully to prove to the Order that this new university-style education works.
Oh, yeah, definitely story possibilities abound. But think of the political will and logistics involved to get this endeavor off the ground. Certainly some are going to be cheering for failure of the enterprise, because the school is "stealing the future" of the Order.
But anyway, research into Subtle Opening doesn't require experimenting on an apprentice to gain insights. You can invent spells (Intellego, Vim, or both, maybe mentem and corpus) that would be thematic to this research. I'm not going to use the published guideline for breakthrough points, it will be higher and I won't tell you what the number is. If you choose this OR topic, I'll get more detailed, but you won't need to Open the Arts of an apprentice experimentally until the very last breakthrough points are needed.
Maybe it could be discovered that the research was in the past, maybe pre-schism, that cuased those things. And while our school is doing it right this time around, those past failures and their legacy come full circle?
It could be someone's Flaw for example, Dark Secret. Or some kind of Hook for the covenant. We don't need to use it for our characters, but it's something that could definitely bear some wicked fruit in the saga.