All these youngsters forgetting about He-man
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”
Like Star Wars?
Dune as well.
Warhammer 40k
Yeah, there are a lot of examples out there.
Tbf, in Dune all the “magic-y” bits get “scientific” explanations. I suppose you could argue the same with Star Wars and midichlorians.
Most magic books have a magic system that seems to be backed up by sciencey like explanations for their universe.
I can only think of a few that don’t, like Harry Potter.
MTG books too, the magic sustains some kind of machinery or spell, so basically magic-based technology.
Star ocean, some final Fantasy, psychics in starship troopers
Sort of dr who? At least the time lords regenerating
i was thinking more some of episodes where they used magic, like the “old gods that predate the universe”
DS9?
dont think star trek fits. you probably mean the pah-wraiths trapped in the fire caves by the prophets. probably used some kind of advanced tech that is never explained in the series, that is beyond human understanding. more similar to ORI and milkyway/pegasus ascended beings, how they arnt aware of each other, is barred from entering the galaxy.
Wizards and spaceships? It’ll never work.
Spelljammer was a late 80s cocaine-fueled fever dream.
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.
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.
The whole “used future” aesthetic is a big part of what gives Star Wars its vibe.
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.
I think the point is that the tech doesn’t materially change most starwars characters interactions from present day. It’s not really scifi because the science / tech doesn’t shape how the characters interact dramatically.
If you give the characters some real scifi-tech like put them inside computers, or have backup throwaway clone bodies, or jack them in to a hive mind, or give them time travel or alternate universes then the whole dramatic context of the character interactions has to change and the story has to be shaped by the technology to some degree. It’d likely be a bit more alien as our innate sense of constraints and jeopardy doesn’t apply.
Only really the deathstar is anything different tech wise - it is only used once, and becomes more like a part of the maguffin.
The other fantastic dramatic features that starwars does use that are alien to us - precognition, mind control, reincarnation(sortof) - are magic rather than tech.
I never said Star Wars was sci-fi, it’s not. But it does have super advanced tech which is the issue being discussed.
We don’t treat iphones and AI like we treat cars. Star Wars has literal instantaneous communication anywhere in the galaxy and literal thinking, feeling machines, and they’re like ‘lawl my 9 year old built a stupid robot that speaks 4,000 languages with some plans he downloaded from them thar interwebs!’ Technology, like everything else, is a spectrum - except in Star Wars. There’s no sense that anyone in the SW universe is going ‘Meh we’ve had starships for 10,000 years, but these new laser swords, man those are some hot shit!’ or whatever. There aren’t tech enthusiasts in Star Wars; you get a little bit of the gear-head enthusiasm for ships, but no one is raving about the new must-have gadget or that cool new meta-material they read about. They treat technology in Star Wars like we treat trees: just a brute fact of life with the occasional redeeming quality. Technology is change, and even if it wouldn’t change significantly over the course of the various shows and movies, there’s no evidence that it has ever changed.
So? It’s still super advanced technology from our point of view. Next you’ll tell me that Dune, Warhammer 40k or the Empire trilogy by Isaac Asimov are not advanced technology either because they’re stagnant too.
Technology is not the main focus of Star Wars, but they do have super advanced technology.
How do you treat cars and swords.
Like hunks of metal, but that’s not how I treat smartphones or fusion reactors or whatever. Technology is change, and there is no evidence in Star Wars that technology ever changes. They treat supercomputers with world-altering computational power compared to what we have like old console TVs from the 70s that you have to slap occasionally to make work again. Doesn’t seem like high-tech to me.
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.
I think the MCU has done a good job with it, but I’d like to see a non-superhero version of it.
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.
There’s a Netflix movie called Bright, which is futuristic fantasy.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
-Arthur C Clarke
Not the point of his quote
It did in Final Fantasy VI with its Magitek
Most Final Fantasy games mix sci-fi and magic. Only the specifics of the lore around how it works changes with each FF universe.
I apologize if this sounds flippant, but it’s FICTION.
Literally ANYTHING works if its written well enough…
Super advanced technology is magic. Hell, regular advanced technology is magic. Just run with it.
Came here to mention this. Good reference there, chummer.
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.
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, lore and culture.
If for example magic is only available to some people with the ability or what not. Technology will always be available regardless.
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.
Hm. I was thinking of the problem in terms of “what is”, and not so much “what it looks like”. SG-1 is a good example, where the argument is that there is no actual magic. Its “sufficiently advanced = looks like magic” not “… = magic”.
I interpreted the question to consider actual existence of magic. So, I suppose it hinges on how “magic” is actually defined. Where I thought it would be some kind of forces / energy that is manipulated by will or tools. Hm… I suppose this is a lot more nuanced.
Techomages from Babylon 5 come to mind.
“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.
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.
Shadowrun… yeah it works
Edit: I just noticed somebody else mentioned shadowrun aswell, well: I second that.
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.
It’s not magic, it’s extra-dimensional energy!
Sure, and by that definition it’s also not magic in LoTR
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.
EDIT: I didn’t answer the question. Yes, I think it can work. I’m also a huge fan of Brian McClellan’s Powder Mage books. This mixes musket level tech and industrialization with magic.
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.
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.
