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Rambling on how to integrate magic into the modern era of police investigations without crippling either mundane/technological investigators, or their magical equivalents.
For the purposes of this exploration, we will assume several things:
1. Magic is generally known by the population.
2. There are two forms of magic: Low, and High. Low Magic involves premade charms, talismans, and rituals that do specific, pre-determined effects. High Magic is tapping into the fundamental currents of reality, and altering it on the fly. Most of the population is capable of doing at least a little Low Magic, by purchasing charms or copying rituals. Only a comparatively few people are capable of doing High Magic, since it requires above average imagination, discipline, reflexes, and knowledge. (Note that the total number of powerful High Magicians is probably equivalent to the total number of other /really good/ members of another profession that requires that kind of dedication and skill. The number of Oscar-winning actors, or Nobel Prize winning scientists. Also, assume that High Magic self-selects for competency...the ones who aren't capable of using it blow themselves up, or burn themselves out.)
3. Our setting is America, and the Constitution is in full effect.
4. There are no non-humans.
5. There is, for the moment, no 'psychic' powers. Assume that only magic, Low or High, exists.
6. The fundamental laws of magic:
* Nothing comes from nothing. You cannot spontaneously create matter or energy, and everything goes somewhere.
* What is done cannot be undone. No time travel, nor can time be stopped.
* Reality has inertia. The greater the changes you make from the default, the more difficult it is, and the more energy it takes. Conversely, if a place has had a great working, or a lot of little workings, it gradually becomes more pliable, and magic becomes easier to work in that space, as the changes build up momentum. This can result in spontaneous magical events in areas that are /too/ pliable, and reality no longer has a good grip.
A woman is found dead, trapped in the center of a block of ice that used to be her bathtub. Our investigators are Detectives Russo and Majors. Russo is a mundane who knows a few Low Magic techniques, and has a charm that helps him detect the lingering traces of High Magical energy, but for the most part, she prefers good, old-fashioned police work. Majors is a High Magician of fairly low ability, since he's largely interested in applying magic to policework, and not in pursuing it for its own sake. He also knows several Low Magic rituals, and carries four charms for protection and use: a copy of Russo's charm, an anger-aversion charm that makes people calmer within its range, a bulletproof charm which slows the velocity of approaching bullets in its range, and a sure-shot charm which focuses his own aim. The first two are kept active all the time, and are a drain on his resources. The last two are usually only activated in case of probable need.
Upon viewing the crime scene, Russo and Majors both get pings from their detect magic charms...but really, there's not a lot of revelation there, since the woman is frozen in her bathtub. Russo, using largely mundane techniques along with the rest of crime scene team, can determine that the woman was held under the water by some force before the freezing: there are bruises on her shoulders and chest where she attempted to struggle upwards for air. It's also obvious that the water froze before she died, and quickly: there are airbubbles frozen in their escape from her mouth, her eyes are open, and her body is in a position that indicates arrested motion, with stress fractures running through the ice at the places she exerted the most force. The flash-freezing is the kind of effect that's easiest to achieve with Low Magic: in fact, it's a fairly common charm, although usually only for making ice cubes and so forth. Something of this volume would require a more powerful charm. Russo orders her cut out of the ice, and all of it sent to the coroner's to see if there's any useful particles or debris in the ice or under her fingernails.
Majors finds a quiet place to attempt a subtle working of High Magic: he wants to check the local energy flows, and try and find any traces of other High workings in the area. The woman was held under the water, but not by hands, because they would have frozen in the rest of it. This suggests a working of High Magic for a improvised effect. He has to be careful, though...a mustering of simple kinetic force isn't going to take much power, or leave much trace. His own working could muddle the flows beyond identification. His working succeeds, and he does find the expected traces. He quickly makes a 'mage print' of the energy disruptions he feels, based on legal standards put forth by the National High Magic Association. It looks a bit like a vocal print (although in something that's almost 3-D. Mundanes find it slightly uncomfortable to look at), and with a high-quality print, is as distinctive. However, this was a subtle use of High Magic, so it's more like a partial print. Evidence, but a good lawyer could shoot it down, using the same techniques that can challenge a partial print.
The usual crime scene routine is undertaken, and a fragment of broken claw of some sort is found behind the toilet. The claw does not register as magical, but it may be part of the Low Magic charm that was used to freeze the woman. It, too, is sent to the labs. Russo and Majors then go and question various neighbors about anything that they might have seen. One neighbor reports thinking that she saw a figure in the victim's back yard, near the kitchen door, around the time of the murder. Upon examination, Russo can find a partial set of footprints in the soft soil of the area. Pictures are taken, sent to the lab. As she gets that arranged, Majors inspects the back door, and using another High Magic working, can 'replay' a partial view of the time period in question. From this, they can get their first description: a tall, Caucasian man, blue eyes, 6'1", and built heavy...probably about 210 lbs. No hair or facial figures can be determined, because he's wearing a mask. They can also get a partial picture of the Low Magic freezing charm hanging from his pocket, although it's impossible to take a picture of it (magical illusions do not photograph). A quick sketch is made by Majors. Note that this is all circumstantial evidence, still. It can't be presented in court.
After securing the scene, they return to the station. Russo starts compiling a list of the victim's friends, family, and acquaintances, as well as checking the past case files for methods similar to the one used in this case, just in case there's a serial killer on their hands. Majors also checks a database, but in this case, it's the registered lists of Low Magic practicioners and merchants. Fetish shops and professional associations, looking for someone who can make a freezing talisman of that power. As the lab reports the claw fragment is rooster, he changes his questions to try and isolate who prefers using that material in those types of talismans. Since the perpetrator is also a High Magic practicioner, he also contacts the local branch of the NHMA, and asks for membership rolls for those practicioners in the area. Finally, he also runs the partial mage-print through the national database, looking for a match.
Russo gains an extensive list of the victim's contacts, and starts interviews over the next day and a half. She discovers that the victim was having trouble with her boyfriend, a man who roughly matches the partial description that they were able to gain. She had apparently cheated on him at a party, and the two were in the process of breaking up, and it was a bitter parting. The boyfriend does not have a criminal record, and little evidence of a violent or criminal past. Most of the friends and family considered him rather the victim in this particular case. They don't know who she cheated on him with...neither of them seemed eager to talk about it. From this, she brings the boyfriend in for preliminary questioning, which does not yield a great deal of useful information. He has an alibi, for one. He attended an office party at work, and several people saw him there over the course of the evening. It's not an airtight alibi...no one can say that they saw him there the /entire/ evening, and he doesn't have a sighting at or around the exact time of the murder, but it would have been awkward to have gotten to the victim's house and back. Use of charms that read emotions or truth on someone who has not been formally arrested for a crime has been outlawed, as a violation of Fifth Amendment rights, and the right to privacy. Plus, about this time, his lawyer shows up, and he ceases to talk. Unable to charge him with anything, the police release him.
Majors is able to track down three possible suppliers for a charm of that strength. Upon questioning them, he discovers that the sketch made of the charm resembles the stock of one, and offers the partial claw for examination. The vendor is able to confirm it as his stock, and can even give a charm that will help them trace one part of the claw to the rest of the claw. His records show that he sold it to a butcher's shop, and the butcher's shop no longer has it. Cross-referencing of employees doesn't bring up anyone that immediately pings a match with the victim's acquaintances, so Majors meets back up with Russo, and then use the charm to trace the claw. They find it abandoned in a garbage can in a residential neighborhood. Russo brings up records, and they find a match: one of the employees lives a couple of streets down. They go to watch the house, and at five, the employee comes home: they match the description, and have a resemblance to the boyfriend.
The boyfriend is brought back in. Asked about the employee, he confirms: the employee is his half-brother, by his father. Upon being pressed, he'll also admit that it was him the girlfriend cheated on him with. The employee is not a member of NHMA, which means that if he's using High Magic, it's unlicensed, and he's in violation of that law, as well. This also gives them a method of confirmation. They return to the house, and Majors repeats his working, examining the area for traces of High Magic working, and trying to get a print. There is, in fact, considerable High Magic worked in the area, and it's centered on the house. The print he gets is /much/ better...and matches the partial. It's enough to get a warrant, and bring the guy in.
Upon searching the house, they find various High Magic instruction manuals, dating back several years, and a trove of information connecting the victim and the employee: erotic e-mails, exchanged tokens, all indicating that the affair was more than just the party. They also find letters saying the woman was calling it off, and evidence that the man attempted to beg, and finally threaten, her to come back to him. He's got pictures of her going in and out of her house, dated a few days before the murder. And, under questioning, he breaks down, and admits that he killed her.
This is, of course, hampered by my blissful ignorance of police procedure, but is just a small exploration of how magic could be integrated into a criminal investigation without overpowering technology.
For the purposes of this exploration, we will assume several things:
1. Magic is generally known by the population.
2. There are two forms of magic: Low, and High. Low Magic involves premade charms, talismans, and rituals that do specific, pre-determined effects. High Magic is tapping into the fundamental currents of reality, and altering it on the fly. Most of the population is capable of doing at least a little Low Magic, by purchasing charms or copying rituals. Only a comparatively few people are capable of doing High Magic, since it requires above average imagination, discipline, reflexes, and knowledge. (Note that the total number of powerful High Magicians is probably equivalent to the total number of other /really good/ members of another profession that requires that kind of dedication and skill. The number of Oscar-winning actors, or Nobel Prize winning scientists. Also, assume that High Magic self-selects for competency...the ones who aren't capable of using it blow themselves up, or burn themselves out.)
3. Our setting is America, and the Constitution is in full effect.
4. There are no non-humans.
5. There is, for the moment, no 'psychic' powers. Assume that only magic, Low or High, exists.
6. The fundamental laws of magic:
* Nothing comes from nothing. You cannot spontaneously create matter or energy, and everything goes somewhere.
* What is done cannot be undone. No time travel, nor can time be stopped.
* Reality has inertia. The greater the changes you make from the default, the more difficult it is, and the more energy it takes. Conversely, if a place has had a great working, or a lot of little workings, it gradually becomes more pliable, and magic becomes easier to work in that space, as the changes build up momentum. This can result in spontaneous magical events in areas that are /too/ pliable, and reality no longer has a good grip.
A woman is found dead, trapped in the center of a block of ice that used to be her bathtub. Our investigators are Detectives Russo and Majors. Russo is a mundane who knows a few Low Magic techniques, and has a charm that helps him detect the lingering traces of High Magical energy, but for the most part, she prefers good, old-fashioned police work. Majors is a High Magician of fairly low ability, since he's largely interested in applying magic to policework, and not in pursuing it for its own sake. He also knows several Low Magic rituals, and carries four charms for protection and use: a copy of Russo's charm, an anger-aversion charm that makes people calmer within its range, a bulletproof charm which slows the velocity of approaching bullets in its range, and a sure-shot charm which focuses his own aim. The first two are kept active all the time, and are a drain on his resources. The last two are usually only activated in case of probable need.
Upon viewing the crime scene, Russo and Majors both get pings from their detect magic charms...but really, there's not a lot of revelation there, since the woman is frozen in her bathtub. Russo, using largely mundane techniques along with the rest of crime scene team, can determine that the woman was held under the water by some force before the freezing: there are bruises on her shoulders and chest where she attempted to struggle upwards for air. It's also obvious that the water froze before she died, and quickly: there are airbubbles frozen in their escape from her mouth, her eyes are open, and her body is in a position that indicates arrested motion, with stress fractures running through the ice at the places she exerted the most force. The flash-freezing is the kind of effect that's easiest to achieve with Low Magic: in fact, it's a fairly common charm, although usually only for making ice cubes and so forth. Something of this volume would require a more powerful charm. Russo orders her cut out of the ice, and all of it sent to the coroner's to see if there's any useful particles or debris in the ice or under her fingernails.
Majors finds a quiet place to attempt a subtle working of High Magic: he wants to check the local energy flows, and try and find any traces of other High workings in the area. The woman was held under the water, but not by hands, because they would have frozen in the rest of it. This suggests a working of High Magic for a improvised effect. He has to be careful, though...a mustering of simple kinetic force isn't going to take much power, or leave much trace. His own working could muddle the flows beyond identification. His working succeeds, and he does find the expected traces. He quickly makes a 'mage print' of the energy disruptions he feels, based on legal standards put forth by the National High Magic Association. It looks a bit like a vocal print (although in something that's almost 3-D. Mundanes find it slightly uncomfortable to look at), and with a high-quality print, is as distinctive. However, this was a subtle use of High Magic, so it's more like a partial print. Evidence, but a good lawyer could shoot it down, using the same techniques that can challenge a partial print.
The usual crime scene routine is undertaken, and a fragment of broken claw of some sort is found behind the toilet. The claw does not register as magical, but it may be part of the Low Magic charm that was used to freeze the woman. It, too, is sent to the labs. Russo and Majors then go and question various neighbors about anything that they might have seen. One neighbor reports thinking that she saw a figure in the victim's back yard, near the kitchen door, around the time of the murder. Upon examination, Russo can find a partial set of footprints in the soft soil of the area. Pictures are taken, sent to the lab. As she gets that arranged, Majors inspects the back door, and using another High Magic working, can 'replay' a partial view of the time period in question. From this, they can get their first description: a tall, Caucasian man, blue eyes, 6'1", and built heavy...probably about 210 lbs. No hair or facial figures can be determined, because he's wearing a mask. They can also get a partial picture of the Low Magic freezing charm hanging from his pocket, although it's impossible to take a picture of it (magical illusions do not photograph). A quick sketch is made by Majors. Note that this is all circumstantial evidence, still. It can't be presented in court.
After securing the scene, they return to the station. Russo starts compiling a list of the victim's friends, family, and acquaintances, as well as checking the past case files for methods similar to the one used in this case, just in case there's a serial killer on their hands. Majors also checks a database, but in this case, it's the registered lists of Low Magic practicioners and merchants. Fetish shops and professional associations, looking for someone who can make a freezing talisman of that power. As the lab reports the claw fragment is rooster, he changes his questions to try and isolate who prefers using that material in those types of talismans. Since the perpetrator is also a High Magic practicioner, he also contacts the local branch of the NHMA, and asks for membership rolls for those practicioners in the area. Finally, he also runs the partial mage-print through the national database, looking for a match.
Russo gains an extensive list of the victim's contacts, and starts interviews over the next day and a half. She discovers that the victim was having trouble with her boyfriend, a man who roughly matches the partial description that they were able to gain. She had apparently cheated on him at a party, and the two were in the process of breaking up, and it was a bitter parting. The boyfriend does not have a criminal record, and little evidence of a violent or criminal past. Most of the friends and family considered him rather the victim in this particular case. They don't know who she cheated on him with...neither of them seemed eager to talk about it. From this, she brings the boyfriend in for preliminary questioning, which does not yield a great deal of useful information. He has an alibi, for one. He attended an office party at work, and several people saw him there over the course of the evening. It's not an airtight alibi...no one can say that they saw him there the /entire/ evening, and he doesn't have a sighting at or around the exact time of the murder, but it would have been awkward to have gotten to the victim's house and back. Use of charms that read emotions or truth on someone who has not been formally arrested for a crime has been outlawed, as a violation of Fifth Amendment rights, and the right to privacy. Plus, about this time, his lawyer shows up, and he ceases to talk. Unable to charge him with anything, the police release him.
Majors is able to track down three possible suppliers for a charm of that strength. Upon questioning them, he discovers that the sketch made of the charm resembles the stock of one, and offers the partial claw for examination. The vendor is able to confirm it as his stock, and can even give a charm that will help them trace one part of the claw to the rest of the claw. His records show that he sold it to a butcher's shop, and the butcher's shop no longer has it. Cross-referencing of employees doesn't bring up anyone that immediately pings a match with the victim's acquaintances, so Majors meets back up with Russo, and then use the charm to trace the claw. They find it abandoned in a garbage can in a residential neighborhood. Russo brings up records, and they find a match: one of the employees lives a couple of streets down. They go to watch the house, and at five, the employee comes home: they match the description, and have a resemblance to the boyfriend.
The boyfriend is brought back in. Asked about the employee, he confirms: the employee is his half-brother, by his father. Upon being pressed, he'll also admit that it was him the girlfriend cheated on him with. The employee is not a member of NHMA, which means that if he's using High Magic, it's unlicensed, and he's in violation of that law, as well. This also gives them a method of confirmation. They return to the house, and Majors repeats his working, examining the area for traces of High Magic working, and trying to get a print. There is, in fact, considerable High Magic worked in the area, and it's centered on the house. The print he gets is /much/ better...and matches the partial. It's enough to get a warrant, and bring the guy in.
Upon searching the house, they find various High Magic instruction manuals, dating back several years, and a trove of information connecting the victim and the employee: erotic e-mails, exchanged tokens, all indicating that the affair was more than just the party. They also find letters saying the woman was calling it off, and evidence that the man attempted to beg, and finally threaten, her to come back to him. He's got pictures of her going in and out of her house, dated a few days before the murder. And, under questioning, he breaks down, and admits that he killed her.
This is, of course, hampered by my blissful ignorance of police procedure, but is just a small exploration of how magic could be integrated into a criminal investigation without overpowering technology.
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Your example gives a good base idea of how this system would work. However, I'm a bit concerned about the use of the somewhat cliched "mundane partner/weirdo partner" pairing. Even so, sometimes archetypes are archetypes for a reason. The thing is, it sets up the characters to be pretty much constant within the framework of their work -- nearly all character growth needs to happen "off the job." I do recall one variance from this, a "Law and Order" ep where the entire cast viewed a capital execution and the ep followed how the experience affected their daily life afterwards. I like to see characters grow and change rather than being the rocks about which the rest of the world revolves.
How will you work with magic vs. forensics? In your scenario above, the clues that the mundane cop uses follow standard forensics with a bit of magic added in, but the scientific developments that we've come to rely on are somewhat moot in the face of your "high magic." Will people be able to alter/wipe DNA or otherwise confuse the scientific evidence by way of magic? I do understand that you're trying to pull focus to the defining characteristic of the existence of magic as a differentiation from the real world, and as such the investigative techniques used are predominantly magical in nature. To me, I like seeing exactly what would *have* to change with the introduction of new elements -- not what I'd want to change or what is changed for good narrative, but what would really sociologically have to change.
But I ramble. To bed with me.
From:
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It was the easiest way I could think of to compare and contrast the different methods, I'll admit, rather than as playable characters. They're mostly just props with names. :)
How will you work with magic vs. forensics? In your scenario above, the clues that the mundane cop uses follow standard forensics with a bit of magic added in, but the scientific developments that we've come to rely on are somewhat moot in the face of your "high magic." Will people be able to alter/wipe DNA or otherwise confuse the scientific evidence by way of magic?
Wiping it would be possible...you could use magic to sterilize an area. Altering it in a way that wouldn't reveal the tampering would require that the magician have as much of a knowledge of genetics and gene structure as they do of magic, and the kind of power and skill to manipulate things on that small of a level, without being able to actually see it. So...it's theoretically possible, but vanishingly unlikely.
For the way that the real world would have to change: for one, there would be significant differences in the evidence collection rules. The presence of magical energy at the scene of a crime would /have/ to be noted, and as much information collected on how it impacts the evidence as possible. There are likely to be whole reams of precedent on magical tampering of evidence, evidence chains in a magical world, and the tracing of registered magicians, as well as privacy concerns with mage-printing magic users who have not been accused of a crime. Keep in mind that the number of High Magicians are relatively low. The number of criminal High Magicians is even lower, and the community has a marked interest in keeping their currency good with the mundane and Low Magic forces. (Low Magicians also have a stake in ensuring that High Magic isn't abused. When magic is outlawed, it likely will not just be High that gets the boot.)