I think the MCU has done a good job with it, but I’d like to see a non-superhero version of it.
Do you think a story that mixes magic with super advanced technology can work?
Submitted 6 days ago by Hickak@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
Notamoosen@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Star Wars
In the ‘advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’ there is John Carter, Dune and a ton of other movies where the tech seems like magic.
runner_g@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
There’s a Netflix movie called Bright, which is futuristic fantasy.
Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
I apologize if this sounds flippant, but it’s FICTION.
Literally ANYTHING works if its written well enough…
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Super advanced technology is magic. Hell, regular advanced technology is magic. Just run with it.
6nk06@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 6 days ago
Came here to mention this. Good reference, and chummer.
scarabic@lemmy.world 6 days ago
I think you inevitably face the whole “magic IS advanced technology” thing. If you actually want them to be different things, you have to have some answer to this.
okamiueru@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Isn’t it always different things? “Magic” being a different set of rules for how the world works. Technology being the things that can be achieved given the rules. And, whether advanced technology is influenced and how, depend on those rules.
If for example magic is only available to some people with the ability or what not. Technology will always be available regardless.
scarabic@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Stargate SG-1 is a great example where no matter what the magic is, it’s eventually revealed to be technology underneath - just really advanced technology. If you take all limits off science, it’s easy for the two to begin blending. They even do the “only available to some people” thing as technology: certain people share a gene with the ancient ancestors who made the high-technology, and so it recognizes and activates for them and not others.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Techomages from Babylon 5 come to mind.
slingstone@lemmy.world 6 days ago
“I do think there are some things we don’t understand. If we’d be back in time a thousand years, trying to explain this place to people, they could only accept it in terms of magic.”
“Then perhaps it is magic. The magic of the human heart, focused and made manifest by technology. Every day you here create greater miracles than a burning bush.”
And then…
“We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools we employ and we know many things.”
I love B5 so much.
theTarrasque@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Shadowrun… yeah it works
djgenesis@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Arcane
Bhaelfur@lemmy.world 6 days ago
The second Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson gets close. It’s a setting where magic meets wild west tech, including guns, cars, and electricity.
I’ve heard that his next trilogy in the setting will have more of an 1980s tech level.
A couple of Sanderson’s short stories touch on space ships, computers, and magic.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
The Sunlit Man is even more tech combined with magic. Read that one yet?
What other books do you like in that genre? I loved Mistborn/Cosmere realm and Powder Mage series.
Albbi@lemmy.ca 6 days ago
The Sunlit Man was so good. I love books that have fast pacing right from the start, and trying to figure out how the world worked was so much fun.
markovs_gun@lemmy.world 5 days ago
This was super common in the 1960s and 70s when hippies where the ones writing sci fi and the thought was that technological advancement would also come along with spiritual advancement to the point of supernatural powers. Star Wars, Dune, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and many others freely blend the supernatural with the technological. Sure it’s not D&D magic with fireballs and shit but it’s still magic. Further, if you want to look at a modern IP with this vibe look at World of Warcraft, where there are aliens from space with spaceships and shit with one of the most stereotypical fantasy settings you can imagine.
Mikina@programming.dev 6 days ago
Shadowrun kind of does the same. It’s not really super-advanced, since it’s cyberpunk, but it’s cyberpunk with magic. And it’s my favorite setting, it’s such a cool idea.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 6 days ago
A lot of cyberpunk tech is vastly beyond our current abilities, though. They treat getting a new fully functional cybernetic arm like we treat getting silicone tits.
Jarix@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yes. Many wireless already exist.
Comic books do this all the time.
And Wandavision is about as nail on head as you are going to get
Magic is Supermans only real weakness aside from kryptonite
Warhamer 40k
Starcraft
League of Legends
Final fantasy
The Palladium Rifts RPG
Dune
Starwars
leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 6 days ago
In Terry Pratchett’s Discworld the wizards of the Unseen University built a possibly sentient supercomputer out of an ant farm (much faster and more powerful than previous druid-built computers based on standing stones, which were mostly limited to calendar calculations and required regular human sacrifices).
The Agathean Empire at the edge of the disc has little boxes with little imps inside which can paint a picture of what you point the box at in mere seconds.
Later, some Ankh-Morpork entrepreneurs trained imps to paint even faster on highly flammable nitrocellulose reels and, moving them very fast and lighting them from behind with excited salamanders, invented moving pictures (and promptly accidentally almost let the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions enter the disc).
Even later, some other Ankh-Morpork entrepreneurs created a continent-spanning network of semaphore telegraphs, even managing to send pictures through it.
All while some Dwarves in Ankh-Morpork invented movable type, while getting in trouble with the wizards, who’re well aware that you can’t use that to print magic books, for the type will remember…
And, all along, deep under their mountains, the Überwaldian dwarves have been digging up and using ancient Devices to power whole cities…
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Absolutely, there are lots of examples, but the first that comes to mind is Warhammer 40k, they have super advanced technology and magic coexisting and sometimes intermingling.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 5 days ago
It’s not magic, it’s extra-dimensional energy!
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Sure, and by that definition it’s also not magic in LoTR
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 6 days ago
Why wouldn’t it work?
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 6 days ago
MCU does a good job. Iron Man is supposed to be science based, and Thor is a Norse god.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 days ago
I think a better example than Thor would be Dr. Strange. Thor is just an alien, and his people have advanced technology, not actually magic.
drmoose@lemmy.world 4 days ago
As in entertainment - yes. But when it comes to realistic representation and imagination as sci-fi then no.
it’s really difficult as all magic that we understand is just science. To create this artificial gap the world has to answer - why can’t science understand, reverse engineer and bend magic?
Most scientific progression is very rapid. If fireballs exist then there will be a giant 1,000 rpm fireball machine by the end of the week and that’s no longer magic ad we see it.
So there has to be a strong artificial limitation why magic exists and cannot be understood and harvested which is really hard to write in scifi. You have to introduce religion, spiritual mysticism or some sort of societal control mechanism that prevents reverse engineering magic which is really hard to do in a way that satisfies the readers cognitive dissonance.
Personally I have found stories like that like Warhammer 40k, Star Wars etc. But without a big, establishrd name it’s so hard to convince the reader. I recently finished the wheel of time and really couldn’t get over this which ruined the entire presume of the show for me.
otacon239@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Artemis Fowl is a classic example of this. The fantasy world of fairies relies on super advanced technology in their world.
Talonflame@lemmy.cafe 6 days ago
Yes. It’s worked very well in the recent Zelda games
lordnikon@lemmy.world 6 days ago
A sequel to Arcanum that moves the timeline forward into the information age?
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 days ago
God I wish we had gotten more than one Arcanum game…
lordnikon@lemmy.world 6 days ago
With out Tim it would never be the same even if the rights were not in limbo
shaggyb@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Star Wars did for a while.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
There’s a ton of examples, so yeah.
My home brew ttrpg setting is exactly that
LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee 6 days ago
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
-Arthur C. Clarke
leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 6 days ago
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. — Pratchett, maybe…?
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
Sure. Maybe the advanced tech is powered by magic, maybe the “magic” is just lost advanced technology.
psion1369@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Isn’t that what SheRa used? Magic was an energy to be harnessed by the technology.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 5 days ago
I always liked the Dresden Files take on technology and magic. It’s not that they can’t exist in the same universe, it’s that magic causes absolute haywire with circuitry. So you can use technology, or you can use magic, but not both.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 5 days ago
It becomes less of a thing as the series progresses.
half@lemy.lol 6 days ago
Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 5 days ago
In Attack on Titan, magic (titan powers) had historically an edge over humanity, but the story is in part about how Humanity’s technology has advanced to almost surpass those magical powers and shift the power balance.
isekaihero@ani.social 2 days ago
Absolutely yes. One of my favorite anime is GATE. It has a portal open from a alternate world at Roman level technology with legions and classical architecture, but it has dragons, elves, and magic and they send an army through to invade modern day Japan. The counter-attack is insane. Do a google search for “massacre of alnus hill”
hotdogthud@lemmy.world 6 days ago
it exists, and is phenomenal:
ccunning@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Like Star Wars?
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Dune as well.
Warhammer 40k
Yeah, there are a lot of examples out there.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
Tbf, in Dune all the “magic-y” bits get “scientific” explanations. I suppose you could argue the same with Star Wars and midichlorians.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
DS9?
zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com 6 days ago
Star ocean, some final Fantasy, psychics in starship troopers
Sort of dr who? At least the time lords regenerating
cattywampas@lemm.ee 6 days ago
Wizards and spaceships? It’ll never work.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Spelljammer was a late 80s cocaine-fueled fever dream.
Libra@lemmy.ml 6 days ago
Star Wars doesn’t really do ‘super advanced technology’. Like they’ve got space ships and hyperdrive and laser swords and shit, but they don’t treat it like high-tech stuff, they treat it like we treat cars and swords.
floo@retrolemmy.com 6 days ago
The whole design aesthetic of the Star Wars universe is a state of technological stagnation. They all have advanced technology, but it could be more advanced, however, for whatever reason, they haven’t bothered to make any but minor advancements in a very long time.
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Any universe where they have super advanced tech they’ll treat it like we treat cars, because cars are also super advanced tech, it’s just a tech you see daily and are familiar. How do you expect characters in a super technologically advanced world to react? They see that every day, it’s not news to them.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
How do you treat cars and swords.
markovs_gun@lemmy.world 5 days ago
People in 2025 don’t really do ‘super advanced technology’. Like they’ve got super powerful handheld computers on them at all times and all of human knowledge accessible at all times and planes and shit, but they don’t treat it like high-tech stuff, they treat it like we treat carriages and books.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 6 days ago
It’s still high tech if it’s vastly beyond our current technological ability.