(This came out of a discussion at the Ruins of Bibracte PbP game)
Let's take the following sequence of spells:
Music To My Eyes (MuIm 5, R: Voice, D: Conc, T: Ind)
The spell targets the sound emanating from one object, and changes the echoic species to iconic species instead.
(Base 2, +2 Voice, +1 Conc)
As far as I can tell, the iconic species would in this case look like random squiggles in the air, the shape being dictated by the magus' sigil.
Capturing the Music (ReAq 15, R: Touch, D: Conc, T: Ind)
Requisite: Imaginem. Possibly an Intellego requisite as well.
The spell targets the iconic species generated by the previous spell, and (when supplied with a pot of ink and a drawing surface) draws exact copies of the aforementioned squiggles.
(Base 3, +1 conc, +2 for highly unnatural control, +1 requisite)
So far so good. Now... what happens if we cast a MuIm spell on the drawing surface used, to translate the iconic species of the "squiggles" back into echoic species? Will we hear a replica of the original sounds? Did we just invent a Hermetic phonograph?
The second problem is that all Imaginem spells affect the emitter. I'd be happy to find a counter-example. IFAIK, you'd need a MuMe spell to hear what you're watching.
The third problem is that you're inventing television before the phonograph.
What you might look for is a device ( haha) that listens ( i.e. takes echoic ) and then translates it into iconic species on something like a rotating wax or stone cylinder.
Listening spell InIm5 ( base 1 +2 diameter +2 Room) Make it a charged device that can activate six times a day
This triggers the Music to my eyes and the InIM spell so the device can now see the music.
I think the device might be the best way to go, or making the InIm spell part of "Music to my Eyes" with requisites. And the wax cylinder is a good idea too...
I think you want Music to my Touch but even then...
The tricky part is the memory. Devices do not have that part of the brain that then stores what is heard/seen. You want this to write out what it sees ( the iconic species) in a line. So the rotating cylinder works for that because the "playback" will also be in a line. I'm not sure there is a spell that will take raw iconic species and put it on something because Hermatic magic can't make species into something solid.
No, there isn't. That's why "Music to my Touch" wouldn't work, because that would still be species -- the sensation of touch, rather than touch itself -- and so wouldn't be able to make impressions on wax. You'd need another effect to do that: Rego to drag a stylus across the wax, for example. That's what the ReAq was intended to do: record the species in a permanent physical form.
