The elder scrolls: Magikca in lore

[DanielaA]

So if I have this right, all the stars are holes to Aetherius, and through those holes, magicka is being leaked into Mundus. How do mages access this? Do they absorb it into their body? Or is it some innate trait? Now, in game, I realize the necessity to have a limit on magicka, but, in lore, how is that explained? I mean, if magicka permeates Mundus, then how can a mage run out? What’s your opinion on it? Please share your most valuable views with me thank you.

[Tionontati]

Everything absorbs magicka, and it saturates Nirn. The reason why mages can use it really well and a peasant can't is like the difference between me playing a musical instrument and Mozart. As for rate and capacity game mechanics are really the only way to explain it. With intelligence, I guess it allows one to contain more magicka than someone who is not so smart. Sensitivity also affects how much one can retain magicka, which is why the altmer can potentially have the largest amount of magicka resurves, and bretons (due to their merrish heritage). With willpower.

[MacIntel]

I guess it's how well one can absorb the magicka saturating the world and repel forced magicka (enemy spells) not much there. As for birth signs, I would say it also has to do with sensitivity. With the Wizard (or w/e) it increases sensitivity, without making one too sensitive. With the apprentice, the person is much more sensitive to magicka, but at the cost of being too sensitive. With the atronach, I would say it's as if the person has a huge reserve, but the "pipes" are too clogged and small to absorb magicka without it being forceful (enemy magic fire).

[Wappinger]

This question reminds me of my quantum mechanics class when a student asks a question that is so complicated we would never understand the professors response. The running joke in the class was to then respond with "Magic" then move on with lecture. However, that response seems overtly cyclical in this case. I enjoyed the quantum aspects of my inorganic class. I really didn't like the different types of packing and crystal structures though, bored me to tears.

[Adonis]

Would you say that magicka is like radiation traveling through space? Like cosmic rays and how they penetrate right through the earth and keep on going? Or perhaps magicka is like neutrinos or even the subatomic threads that the String Theory discusses? And yeah, some people are more sensitive to magicka than others. With being sensitive to it come pros/cons. Like, you can have a super high magicka pool but also have a low tolerance to magic-based attacks.

[Winnebago]

A valid question which must have surfaced periodically. As I understand it magic is not almost a deus-ex machina in this world, since no book has been written citing the clear origins of magic on Nirn, nor are moon-phases or Gods particularly important. Where does magic come from? Apart from just seeping through Aetherius your guess is as good as mine. The Psijic Order and Artaeum are the only threads we desperately hold to, as past sorcerers are not documented and not one creature or entity (such as a Dragon or a God) is shown to have learnt how to channel this magical.

[Susquehannock]

I'm thinking that magicka-use has more in common with meditation than nuclear chemistry or anything of that ilk. That is, it involves disciplining the mind to function at a certain level, rather than brute memorization of facts or procedures. Certainly, those Arcane University hoods were unabashedly academic, but they were more concerned with magicka theory than magicka praxis. I was thinking more along the lines of ritual, but basically the same as what you suggest.