Magic in Space Opera

[Irish Wolf]

I see no reason, personally, why the two can't live side-by-side. In a D&D-style setting, for instance, mages can become extremely powerful, and rule vast areas with their arcane powers; why wouldn't mundane inventors try to come up with technologies that can compensate for such advantages?

(I've been toying off and on with a setting that's pretty much D&D 3.5, the last version I played, but with competent engineers so there's a 20th-century-Earth-equivalent level of technology. Imagine a 9mm enchanted with the sorts of spells the sorceror's ancestors might have placed on a bow, for instance. And of course space travel becomes at once easier and more fraught with danger - your craft is struck by a largish micrometeroid and loses pressure, you frantically conjure up more air and a hull patch, and you make a mistake in the runes and find your computer's anti-demon software under attack by the Thing From Beyond Space that rode your wizardry...)

[Astromancer]

The Silence Leigh trilogy by Melissa Scott had an occult system that was more internally consistent than most of the science in many sci fi novels.

The Guild in Dune used psi powers fueled by drugs to fly through interstellar space. And Star Trek: Discovery flies through space on magic mushrooms (no really).

So you can blend in magic if you wish. Kirk met Apollo and later either met or was, it's a point of view thing, the Faerie Queen. Deela, creepy as her, "I am Queen, you are my expendable sex slave/breed stock" is, is actually charming and charismatic. She and Kirk have chemistry and come off as equals. Which makes the warped dynamic of their relationship stranger and more compelling.

[William]

Patricia Kennealy-Morrison's Keltiad had magic in space opera, heavy on (obviously) Celtic myth elements. I thought it was a generally fun series.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The Force is more than 40 years old now. That's not "newer" stuff.

It's right at a change point in how a lot of Sci-Fi was written. Some claim it is the causal point; I don't, but I do acknowledge that a lot of that paradigm shift comes through that.

50's to 70's Sci Fi tends to, in my experience, be far less fantasy than the post-80, Star Wars, Star Trek, and BSG influenced softer Space opera and softer sci-fi...

Also, Star Wars produced a huge raft of nominally space opera novels, new ones coming every couple months. It's still a current element in newer Space Opera.

There are still new Star Trek novels, too. The "new period" really dates, as far as I can see, to about 1980...

The 50's to 70's sci-fi has a different feel, and the pre-50's is a third paradigm... Transhumanism and Cyberpunk are new genres...

[Astromancer]

How do you guys feel about unapologetic Magic in an otherwise Hard Sci Fi setting? The Wizards simply say"What we do works but it isn't science. So don't bother trying to say it is."

As per my first suggestion, M:tA Mages and Scions ala Scion, in a more or less hard sci fi setting.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

How do you guys feel about unapologetic Magic in an otherwise Hard Sci Fi setting? The Wizards simply say"What we do works but it isn't science. So don't bother trying to say it is."

As per my first suggestion, M:tA Mages and Scions ala Scion, in a more or less hard sci fi setting.

I hate Subjective Reality with a deep and abiding passion.

It also wouldn't work IMHO conceptually in a setting where Magic isn't Secret.

I'd want a different paradigm.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

How do you guys feel about unapologetic Magic in an otherwise Hard Sci Fi setting? The Wizards simply say"What we do works but it isn't science. So don't bother trying to say it is."

That would annoy me to no end. I find the idea of magic that specifically avoids being proven somewhat ridiculous. Otherwise, magic is just science with lazy analysis.

[Bengt]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

How do you guys feel about unapologetic Magic in an otherwise Hard Sci Fi setting? The Wizards simply say"What we do works but it isn't science. So don't bother trying to say it is."

As per my first suggestion, M:tA Mages and Scions ala Scion, in a more or less hard sci fi setting.

It would be a hard sell. The Magic of the setting being impossible to analyse would seriously undermine the Hard feeling of the setting in general. I guess it boils down to that any consistent magic is a science. I mean sure, every detail may not be fully understood yet in the setting, but there would have to be a framework on how to replicate the effects, and the search for the last details would be akin to the search for dark matter.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I hate Subjective Reality with a deep and abiding passion.

It also wouldn't work IMHO conceptually in a setting where Magic isn't Secret.

I'd want a different paradigm.

I dislike it as well, but Mage was a compelling presentation of it. Now, I don't know any groups who played it as written...

OTOH, "Subjective View" and "unfaithful narrator" are standard tropes used by WWG to excuse lack of continuity checking and poor editing.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by RyanW

That would annoy me to no end. I find the idea of magic that specifically avoids being proven somewhat ridiculous. Otherwise, magic is just science with lazy analysis.

Who says magic has to be inexplicable?

You have to define what magic is. In GURPS, for instance, magic is the ability to effect change using an energy called mana. It's very quantifiable, and in high- or ultra-tech settings there are even spells that deal with contemporary technologies, like mana coprocessors and so on. The only reason magic usually seems mysterious or inexplicable is that it's usually practiced by low-tech cultures that haven't developed the scientific method yet.