Like Star Wars?
Do you think a story that mixes magic with super advanced technology can work?
Submitted 19 hours ago by Hickak@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
ccunning@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Dune as well.
Warhammer 40k
Yeah, there are a lot of examples out there.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Tbf, in Dune all the “magic-y” bits get “scientific” explanations. I suppose you could argue the same with Star Wars and midichlorians.
zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com 9 hours ago
Star ocean, some final Fantasy, psychics in starship troopers
Sort of dr who? At least the time lords regenerating
jaybone@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
DS9?
cattywampas@lemm.ee 18 hours ago
Wizards and spaceships? It’ll never work.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Spelljammer was a late 80s cocaine-fueled fever dream.
Libra@lemmy.ml 18 hours 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.
markovs_gun@lemmy.world 1 hour 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.
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 4 hours 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.
floo@retrolemmy.com 18 hours 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.
jaybone@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
How do you treat cars and swords.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 13 hours ago
It’s still high tech if it’s vastly beyond our current technological ability.
leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 3 hours 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…
Talonflame@lemmy.cafe 5 hours ago
Yes. It’s worked very well in the recent Zelda games
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 2 hours 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.
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 4 hours 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.
Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
I apologize if this sounds flippant, but it’s FICTION.
Literally ANYTHING works if its written well enough…
Notamoosen@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
I think the MCU has done a good job with it, but I’d like to see a non-superhero version of it.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 18 hours 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 14 hours ago
There’s a Netflix movie called Bright, which is futuristic fantasy.
lepinkainen@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
slazer2au@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Techomages from Babylon 5 come to mind.
slingstone@lemmy.world 11 hours 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.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 9 hours ago
MCU does a good job. Iron Man is supposed to be science based, and Thor is a Norse god.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 9 hours 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.
LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee 8 hours ago
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
-Arthur C. Clarke
leftzero@lemmynsfw.com 4 hours ago
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. — Pratchett, maybe…?
scarabic@lemmy.world 14 hours 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.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Super advanced technology is magic. Hell, regular advanced technology is magic. Just run with it.
pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 hours ago
Absolutely. Read the nightlord series, just skip through the first half of book one, it’s the first thing the author ever wrote and could have used better editing for sure. High tech kicks in at book 3
6nk06@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 15 hours ago
Came here to mention this. Good reference, and chummer.
hotdogthud@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
it exists, and is phenomenal:
Bhaelfur@lemmy.world 17 hours 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 13 hours 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 11 hours 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.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
Yes. Do a time travel story and new tech will be seen as miraculous magic by those pesky Elizabethans.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 18 hours ago
Why wouldn’t it work?
otacon239@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Artemis Fowl is a classic example of this. The fantasy world of fairies relies on super advanced technology in their world.
rekabis@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
We have high technology because we don’t have anything else to leverage.
I suspect a world with strong magic is liable to leverage that to the exclusion of technology.
A now-ended iseki story on Reddit’s HFY subreddit called “Wait, is this just GATE?” Asks the question of what would happen if a universe of only technology and no magic (ours) made contact with a universe of pretty much only magic and almost no technology beyond that found in the Middle Ages. It contains some tropes (used mainly as comedic relief or irony) and plenty of references to current magical-universe plot elements from games and novels, but is a surprisingly fresh and compelling examination of the cross-universe idea.
Mikina@programming.dev 18 hours 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 13 hours 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.
LordGimp@lemm.ee 9 hours ago
You know what, basically any SCP will have varying levels of scifi and fantasy tropes, or sometimes none at all. Bottom line with SCPs is that anything is possible.
LordGimp@lemm.ee 9 hours ago
royalroad.com/…/dungeon-planet-the-healer-always-…
Found that little gem a few weeks ago and I believe it fits your ask pretty well 1:1
Honestly almost as good as my other favorite the past few years, www.royalroad.com/fiction/63759/super-supportive, but the latter seems to be more active than the former.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
There’s a ton of examples, so yeah.
My home brew ttrpg setting is exactly that
lordnikon@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
A sequel to Arcanum that moves the timeline forward into the information age?
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
God I wish we had gotten more than one Arcanum game…
lordnikon@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
With out Tim it would never be the same even if the rights were not in limbo
half@lemy.lol 17 hours ago
Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
jasoman@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Starship mage also did it well.
AA5B@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
Iron man and other Marvel movies started being very science. Oriented, but quickly combined magic or turned to magic
markovs_gun@lemmy.world 1 hour 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.