At any rate, it's still bad Latin. Even if the words' meanings sort of fall in line (which is to be expected anyway: English "arcana" does indeed come from Latin arcanus, so their meanings aren't so far apart that the phrase becomes gibberish or anything), that doesn't make up for the fact that the inflections are wrong.
- The quest involves you looking for a book of rites from a cult that managed to cheat death. Arcana here necessarily refers either to the book itself (which is a magical artifact) or the magic rites contained within.
- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I.e. you, as an uninformed observer, won't be able to tell the difference; but technology and magic are fundamentally different: magic is specifically a supernatural force (or a way of manipulating such forces), whereas technology is limited to and works off of the natural forces exclusively (which is why technology exists in the real world, and magic does not). Also, what does this have to do with anything?
- "Niger Arcana" is the TITLEof the book, authors get to call their book anything they like (and "Black Secret" is an incredible apt title for this book considering it's topic).
- As I alluded by my earlier post, an apt translation of "magic" might be "Mysterious knowledge", or "Secret Knowledge".
- Again: Who said "Magic", I'm not certain of this, it's been a while since I read the setup for that quest but don't think Erevi called it "magic" either even though she might have reason to considering her affiliation to magic.
IIRC It is a book of Forbidden Lore. Lost Knowledge, Dark Secrets - The ability to cheat death could come from advanced medicine, nanobots, spiritual enlightenment, Magic in most cases is only useful to describe "unknown" or "misunderstood" knowledge.
- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
You must be registered to see the linkswas a good novelist but he did talk out his arse, that statement might be considered true with the addendum "from the perspective of the ignorant" (it doesn't need to be advanced, Striking flint and steel together to create fire is magic if it is outside your ken).
Who knows someday Erevi will explain to the MC why she jammed a dynamo up his ass or how it might relate to his lightning bolt spell!