Chapter 29:

At the time of the announcement of magic, we had a pretty solid team in charge of India. Narasimha Rao as Prime Minister and Manmohan Singh as Minister of Finance and informally the representative of United Earth. They both were enthusiastic about the potential for United Earth and magic improving their society and economy.

While the magical community wasn't easy to find, the Sikh community was. Riots broke out and there were massacres against Sikhs, which was the background of both United Earth President Khan Singh and the Minister of Finance.

In any other place and time, United Earth would flood the zone with reinforcements. In 1998, India was 1/6 of the entire population of Earth, and there was all sorts of uprisings that needed to be suppressed elsewhere in the world at the same time so reinforcements were not readily available.

Fortunately the magical communities of India did not find common cause with this conflict. Therefore we could effectively use magic to resolve the situation. Sometimes when there are non-magical conflicts some magicals want to help their non-magical counterparts.

Khan was angry and wanted to teach a lesson. I told him, "Remember how we talked about that I would stay your hand if you were going to make a mistake? Remember also, how you yourself, after watching the movie the Wrath of Khan saw that focusing on revenge prevented you from reaching a better outcome than revenge brought you?

I know this literally hits home for you, but we must look at what can result in the best future not what feels justified in the moment."

Khan said, "I am not irrational. Sometimes fear and dread improves behavior of the survivors and observers. Do you know the idiom, Kill a chicken to scare a monkey?"

I replied, "I do. In fact I have applied that approach in Albania when I first took it over. This situation is different. If the non-magicals are mortally afraid of magicals, the revolt might spread world-wide. The Romans might have succeeded with a policy of Carthago delanda est, the complete destruction of Carthage, but that was after defeating a long-standing peer-level enemy.

We need to restore peace, then we can apply conventional judicial processes against identified offenders."

Khan changed his demeanor and said, "Of course, That is the pledge I made to accept your rulings. Would some quiet justice after the fact be permissible?"

I answered, "Of course."

Groups of magicals on magically shielded flying carpets, froze in place any attackers they could find. Other groups setup warded shelters for targeted communities.

We lost a flying carpet due to rocket fire, but quickly upgraded their wards to defeat the same type of attack. They were already well shielded against expected projectiles.

The warded shelters had intent based entrances, and were widely advertised. Before the riots spread to Delhi, most Sikhs were in shelters, which also provided all necessities of living. In the 1984 riots 2800 Sikhs were estimated to have been killed in Delhi, while in 1998 there were very few causalities there. There were entire villages wiped out before the response, but in context, fewer than in 1984.

The intent based wards got a little complicated, since some of the non-magical victims blamed the magicals in general. The shelters sorted out different types of hostilities and kept anyone from doing harm within the shelters.

Afterwards Khan acknowledged that the effective protection of targeted people and the freezing instead of killing of the attackers probably reduced the momentum of it becoming a world-wide uprising against magic.

Not every place had a negative response to the announcement that magic was real. In Romania, the country made itself a center of non-magical tourism related to magic. Their dragon reserve was adapted for tourism, after carefully making sure that the tourists would be safe.

The Romanian region of Transylvania tied into an existing fascination among some non-magicals with Vampires. All sorts of tourism experiences were setup, where tourists could stay among vampires.

Romania also hired some werewolves to be in a sort of zoo at the time of their transformations. They were paid well to be on display during the full moon, and it was popular with tourists, including some who were magical.

There were sales throughout the world of enchanted devices that could perform magic. Not just practical items such as magical tea kettles, but ones that gave the appearance of doing magic. Devices that could levitate items were very popular. Sometimes the devices were shaped to look like a wand. In a way this helped reduce attacks against witches and wizards, since some of the early attacks were against non-magicals using these devices. Then it just became confusing to differentiate between those who had inborn magic and those just using magical devices.

United Earth Satellite Television Service had the following documentary, "We are here at a Malfoy Industries factory in Albania, producing 500 thousand Automatic Water Boilers per year.

In this area, top quality stainless steel is formed into a sheet. Next it is stamped 7 times, creating the shape of the top of the kettle. The bottom part is cut out and attached here.

So far it looks like a non-magical factory producing tea kettles. Here is where the magic comes in. a Rune-master is at this high-tech workstation. He draws runes that will later be used in for the buttons that operate the device, then the next blank is automatically put in front of him. The runes he drew get automatically assembled into the buttons.

He draws a lot of runes during his shift. This device counterweights his rune-pen and guides it to where it needs to be. His effort is minimal but sufficient. To maintain his concentration, this run master favors classical music in the background.

The work area has enchanters. Each is next to an assembly line, automatically bringing a component to be charmed. Each enchanter casts the same charm on the same piece over and over. They maintain their concentration on that one spell, and just have to notice each new piece that they are casting to.

Now we see quality control. Press a picture of hot water and the kettle fills with water, and in an instant that water is boiling or at the specified temperature. These controls set how much water, and set the temperature. A deluxe model also can produce ice water from the same kettle.

Next up we will see a factory producing stovetop espresso makers, that need no stove and no water. They do need coffee. Another device from Malfoy Industries will preserve coffee beans in stasis, remove one bean, grind it, multiply it and then add it to the coffee maker. Some prefer the taste of unduplicated beans, and the same device can be set to use the correct number of beans to make a proper serving of coffee."

Another documentary was on the repair spell, "There are two ways, in general, that the repair spell is used commercially, each leaving the spell caster to concentrate on casting the spell, and all other details handled by non-magicals.

One method is to have objects to be repaired brought to the spell-casters workshop. A group of assistants bring the object in front of the spell caster. An assistant calls out what is wrong with the object and then another group of assistants return the object to the client.

The other method is a group of assistants visit a location, such as a village, and collect fees for objects and buildings to be repaired. The spell-caster is directed through to each place to repair something. Upon leaving, the assistants refund the fees of any object that has not been successfully repaired.

There are some specialties in repair. Some focus on building repair. As an example, a typical building with shingle roofs can expect to require replacement an average of every 25 years and cost a thousand or more United Earth Credits. For reference a credit is worth about the price of 1 gram of gold at the start of 1998, or about 18 US Dollars or 11 UK Pounds. A spell caster can repair it for far less, especially if working on several buildings in the same area on the same day.

Another specialty is to help second-hand goods shops. Spell casters will visit them periodically to repair and clean items received. This allows those selling used goods to these shops to receive a higher price, and the store to sell higher quality merchandise."

In this era, there was an enormous level of investment and creativity in creating entirely new industries in the areas of the Internet and magic, and sometimes combined.

Neville Longbottom just after graduating Hogwarts in June 1998 already had a corporation, Longbottom Enterprises. It raised a huge amount of money in an IPO in the non-magical economy and built a world-wide network of growing centers for herbology. He specialized in those plants that would be medicinal or helpful for non-magicals, and linked up with existing non-magical companies that produced supplements and health food items. He also had on-line ordering and global shipping.

My joint enterprise with Snape, Spotion, had already identified which potions could be used beneficially by non-magicals, and had an on-line store to ship them with stasis charms world-wide. Snape came up with a non-magical contract that was enacted by opening the container, which required the customer to read the instructions and agree to follow them.

Snape said, "I will not have dunderheads misuse our products and then engage us in lawsuits."