is it possible to combine fantasy with sci-fi?

[JtPB]

& i dont mean really close-to-impossible-as-hell-fantastic-scifi like star trek or star wars or something like that, but the type with Tom Clancy's style, which is in the very near future. Atomic bombs, apocaliptic scenes, earthy wars, diplomatic realy possibe dramatic global accidents...

what i imgine: transatlantic flights are suborbital, rocket fuel from weed, planets & germs after the oil has been ran out(cuze try as much as you want, you cant make rocket fuel from just electricity ), weed & homosexualy marriage finally legal at everywhere on earth...

So, do wizards really need advanced technolgy? Think about that, for every technologic solution we the muggles have, they have the counterpart magical solution:

want to talk with someone far?

muggles - phone, wizards - floo powder

want to secure something?

Muggles - electronic lock with high-techy security & jamming systems

Wizards - various security spells

And so on...

But i wanna talk about space & wizards. Yea, they do have astronomic interest domain, but how about wizard-astronaut? Is that resting well in your mind? my mind, at least, it is really blowing...

So what do you say? Is a space program really can have a real meaning for a wizard?

[NASAFanboy]

& i dont mean really close-to-impossible-as-hell-fantastic-scifi like star trek or star wars or something like that, but the type with Tom Clancy's style, which is in the very near future. Atomic bombs, apocaliptic scenes, earthy wars, diplomatic realy possibe dramatic global accidents...

what i imgine: transatlantic flights are suborbital, rocket fuel from weed, planets & germs after the oil has been ran out(cuze try as much as you want, you cant make rocket fuel from just electricity ), weed & homosexualy marriage finally legal at everywhere on earth...

So, do wizards really need advanced technolgy? Think about that, for every technologic solution we the muggles have, they have the counterpart magical solution:

want to talk with someone far?

muggles - phone, wizards - floo powder

want to secure something?

Muggles - electronic lock with high-techy security & jamming systems

Wizards - various security spells

And so on...

But i wanna talk about space & wizards. Yea, they do have astronomic interest domain, but how about wizard-astronaut? Is that resting well in your mind? my mind, at least, it is really blowing...

So what do you say? Is a space program really can have a real meaning for a wizard?

This should be in the space lounge.

Also, hate to say it, but Magic and Technology will never, ever fit togehter without someone raising an eyebrow. This is because that Magic is often associated with Religon and Spiritualism, and these are seen as the rivals of technology.

However, I do highly suggest the "Sword and Planet" genre for you to read. It's basically fantasy (With dragons, princesses, and all that) set on other planets, such as Mars.

Edited March 4, 2014 by NASAFanboy

[JtPB]

This should be in the space lounge.

Also, hate to say it, but Magic and Technology will never, ever fit togehter without someone raising an eyebrow.

Oh. Well sorry for the mistake. How can i transfer it?

[Ralathon]

Wizards usually violate quite a few laws of physics. If they existed we'd abuse the hell out of it for our space program.

Think about the Harry Potter wizards alone (seeing you used those as an example)

Wingardium Leviosa would enable reactionless drives, so would Accio and Expelliarmus.

There are plenty of spells that generate matter, so you could use those for infinite fuel engines (And the production of infinite energy).

Quite a few teleportation spells in the potterverse as well. Those seem to violate conservation of momentum, so you can abuse the hell out of those as well. Wizards from Africa aren't squished to pulp after teleporting to England, even though the relative velocity caused by the earth's rotation is rather big. To dock with the ISS you could just teleport a module up and adjust its momentum so the relative velocities match.

Etc etc. Almost any fictional setting with supernatural powers will crumble rather quickly when you look at it from a physics PoV. You usually end up with easy infinite energy and therefore homebuild planet busters.

[Orionkermin]

Correct me if I'm wrong because I've never played it but isn't shadow run sort of like this? Fallout is quite fantasized as well if you look the way an actual atomic holocaust would be like.

[Accelerando]

Yes, a space program can have real meaning to a wizard. Why wouldn't it? The ability to cast spells with your fingers or by writing in ink on parchment paper or whatever doesn't have any impact on how useful it is to be able to tool around the stars, doesn't take away the experience of exploring a new world, or the benefit of being able to harvest from other worlds. Ultimately, it's another way to get there, do that... and might even be more interesting to explore the consequences.

[shynung]

I think you've been reading a little too much Harry Potter today...

I don't see why someone who can teleport himself anywhere he wanted with a little effort would be interested in space travel. Should there be a need to do so, however (such as needing materials only found on the Moon), they'd probably have their own solutions based on their magical capabilities. It may not be a rocket; a portal, for instance, could do the same job, if done correctly.

If by fantasy, you included things other than wizards (as in man-and-monster stories), the possibilities are literally endless. There could be stories where people ran from monsters using rockets (similar to Dead Space games), or ones where space technologies flourish in a multiple-dominant-race world (similar to Star Trek/Star Wars, but from a single planet). Going even wilder would probably result in scenes such as warriors and soldiers pummeling dragons by deorbiting dead satellites and spent upper stages, or whole space programs similar in tech levels to current ones, but is done underwater entirely by some intelligent waterborne creatures we have never found.

It definitely is possible to combine fantasy and sci-fi. In fact, science fiction itself is a type of fantasy. It just needs to be done correctly, and this requires generous applications of imagination.

[Arran]

I allways think of the RPG Arcanium whenever someome mentions Magic combined in a world with technoligy, and how both cannot co-exist in the same world.

[briansun1]

you mean like 40k?

[Awaras]

Well, as Arthur C. Clarke said, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The closest thing I can think of to what you are describing would be the 'Age of Legends' in the Wheel of time series. From rare glimpses into this age before a wizard war obliterated the planet changing the layout of the continents and plunging the survivors into a classic medieval fantasy setting, the civilization flourished, with huge metropolises containing skyscrapers and with cars and passenger planes all created and powered by magic-users. They explored other planets and other dimensions and made things like computers, music players, cars, passenger aeroplanes, tanks and rifles powered by magic that could be used by anyone. Basically, imagine what would happen if we suddenly discovered a source of (nearly infinite) energy that can be manipulated by individual people's minds. We would certainly find a whole lot of 'scientific' ways to use them.

There is a series of novels by John Ringo called "The Council Wars", which is set in a far distant future. People have colonized the solar system, have advanced nanotechnology and teleportation and everything on earth is controlled by an all-powerful AI called mother. People can modify their own bodies at will, and some have adapted themselves to live underwater. Others turned themselves into mythical-looking creatures like centaurs, flying snakes and even dragons, purely on a whim. The chimpanzees have been genetically modified for purposes of war a long time ago and have since limited contact with Humans, keeping to themselves and calling them self "Elves".

And then everything collapses in civil war, power becomes scarce, many die and others are stuck in forms they were in at the time of the collapse. Only a select few still have access to the all-powerful AI through spoken-word passcodes (spells for all intents and purposes) and practically become "wizards".

Basically, you see where this is going. Basically, by the time you reach the middle of the first book, you are in a classic fantasy setting.

When you think about it, most SF stories could work almost equally well in a fantasy setting and vice versa, all it takes is a little handwaving with fictional future technology/magic system/whatever.

Also, the Might&Magic CRPG series is famous for this kind of stuff...

You start in a classic fantasy setting, but then near the end of the game you find crashed space ships, ray guns and other stuff and discover that your entire world is an artificial construct or something like that.

There's also the D'n'D Spelljammer settings where wizards fly around the universe in wooden spaceships powered by magic...

If you don't mind going to TVTropes (warning, a huge time waster if you get the 'just one more link' syndrome) check these out for more examples:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WizardsFromOuterSpace

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceFantasy

Edited March 4, 2014 by Awaras

[TheSaint]

cuze try as much as you want, you cant make rocket fuel from just electricity

Actually, you can. You can use electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, which make excellent rocket fuel. But that's another show.

Personally, if I were to create a fantasy/sci-fi setting, I would look more to Tim Powers than Harry Potter. He writes historical fiction with fantasy elements added, excellent books. In my settting, magic would be poorly understood, anomalous, and certainly unreproducible in a scientific setting.

I actually have a science fiction story in my head (which I hope to someday find the time and patience to turn into a novel or a screenplay) in which there are two different scenes where two different characters are convinced they see ghosts, although it is left to the reader to decide whether they are real or imagined.

[Awaras]

Actually, you can. You can use electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, which make excellent rocket fuel. But that's another show.

He said just electricity, not electricity + water...

[J.Random]

Shadowrun. Nuff said.

[TheSaint]

He said just electricity, not electricity + water...

Well, if you have no water, then everyone will die very shortly, which renders the question of having a space program or not moot.

And, if you want to insist that you use only electricity, there have been proposals for laser launch systems that would use ground-based lasers to ablate material on the payload to produce thrust for launch, and you can use ion drives in orbit, so technically you could still have a space program without using any fuel except electricity.

But now we're thread-jacking.

[Awaras]

Well, if you have no water, then everyone will die very shortly, which renders the question of having a space program or not moot.

And, if you want to insist that you use only electricity, there have been proposals for laser launch systems that would use ground-based lasers to ablate material on the payload to produce thrust for launch, and you can use ion drives in orbit, so technically you could still have a space program without using any fuel except electricity.

But now we're thread-jacking.

Last post on this, I swear but that's electricity + ablating material and electricity + ionised gas. The point is, no matter how you look at it (and discounting magic 'space drives'), you need some kind of reaction mass and just electricity is not going to work.

[nhnifong]

is it possible to combine fantasy with sci-fi?

Of course it is, anything is possible in fiction.

Most bookstores put the sci-fi and fiction in the same section. The usual boundaries are not set in stone and there are innumerable edge cases for every categorical boundary. Think about what it means for something to be science or not. It's not even that clear of a category, because even if you insist that science encompasses only verifiable refutable hypotheses, the refutation actually hinges on individual people and their communication skills and the differences in how they integrate their sensory experience with language.

[briansun1]

what about solar sails?

[Nuke]

its called star wars

[SargeRho]

As Awaras mentioned, any sufficiently andvanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. However, I do think magic and technology can be combined, but it takes a very, very skilled writer to do that properly. Mass Effect's Biotics and Star Wars' Force are the only good examples I know of.

[MBobrik]

Sure. you can combine them, but the result will still count as fantasy...

[Rakaydos]

People seem to be approaching this from a "Real world physics + magic" approach, hich of course doesnt work in a consistant fashion. After all, as Clark said, any sufficently advanced technoligy is indistinguishable from magic.

But there is a correlary to that. Any sufficently UNDERSTOOD magic is effectively a technology.

A setting where physics dont match our own, but the Laws of magic are understood and exploited to the point where they might as well be a technoligy. If anyone plays D&D, there is a fan-setting called the Tippyverse where they look at the rules of the game as written, and take that as the laws of physics for the setting. A permanant teleportation circle is a far cheeper way to ship goods to another city than a caravan- Resetting traps of create food and Water and Fabricte create a post-scarcity society.

I've tried writing up my own version of an Explored magic setting, where every creature runs on magic energy, and getting access to more than a normal amount of magic lets you do things you just didnt have enough power for, before.

[Tex_NL]

Star Wars is an excellent example how fantasy and sci-fi can be merged, as is pretty much every superhero movie or series. Take movies like Thor, Ironman or The Avengers for example (yes, they are all MARVEL but that's besides the point). They are all clearly sci-fi but are also fantasy.

The Time Machine, Planet of the Apes, The Matrix. All without a doubt classify as both fantasy and sci-fi.

[Demon_82]

Star Wars does it in a very elegant way, not magic, but the force. Not the typical magician with a pointed hat, but still wearing a robe.

(And Star Trek is far from "close-to-impossible-as-hell-fantastic-scifi", many of the things that appear there have already reasonable scientific theories as the warp drive, or even transporter)

[JtPB]

Actually, you can. You can use electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, which make excellent rocket fuel. But that's another show.

ok, i didnt though about that. you won this time, but neverthelles, bio-fuel will also takes place in future rocketry.

He said just electricity, not electricity + water...

nope, hes right

And, if you want to insist that you use only electricity, there have been proposals for laser launch systems that would use ground-based lasers to ablate material on the payload to produce thrust for launch, and you can use ion drives in orbit, so technically you could still have a space program without using any fuel except electricity.

the laser really has that power? Isnt that will gonna burn up the vessel?

Last post on this, I swear but that's electricity + ablating material and electricity + ionised gas. The point is, no matter how you look at it (and discounting magic 'space drives'), you need some kind of reaction mass and just electricity is not going to work.

taken the ion thruster in count, but this isnt enough power to lift you to orbit.

what about solar sails?

As i said, this will not get you to orbit...

Ok enough with littering the thread, end of discussion! (Except you, TheSaint, if you want to answer about the lasers...)

i also saw that the legend of korra has combined fantasy & tech rather very well...

[Rakaydos]

To get into orbit without reaction mass, you need a space elevator.

To accelerate in space without bringing your own reaction mass, you need a Bussard Ram fusion torch drive, or a quantum thruster.