Sufficiently Advanced Technology

[David Johnston2]

In my Luminary Sector, I have Stonehenge, a world which was so named because it has what look like circles of standing stones made up of a mysterious black crystalline substance. Investigation of the circles has proved frustrating because any powered tool, weapon, or sensor shuts down when aimed at one. The material is durable enough that no muscle powered took can make a mark on them. There was one attempt to use chemical explosives on one but there were no survivors when the explosives went off prematurely. However seismic sounding has determined that the "standing stones" are actually outgrowths of much larger masses that lace the planetary crust. Pilgrims travel to Stonehenge to spend the night sleeping inside the circles, something that seems to give them enigmatic dreams that they imagine to be prophetic.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

I'm just telling you what the rulebook says.

It just says "violates physical laws" not that it has to do so by any extreme amount, nor that it has to do so obviously, and certainly not that it has to be completely removed from logic.

For example, some of the torch drives in Spaceships are superscience, though they still follow the basic rule of "if you want to go that way, you have to throw something the other way." Instead, they violate the "every known solid material has a melting point" rule.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Bengt

Never liked that saying, more like Sufficiently soft science is indistinguishable from magic. And nano technology doing whatever the creators fancies in a lot of comics/books/games are just another example of that. Not that I mind settings with soft science per se, it's people pretending that it's realistic that annoy me.

That's not what it means, though. Here's a clarification I'm fond of: Any science that is far enough beyond the observer's education might as well be sorcery.

If a medieval monk saw and heard you using a tablet computer (no clue if you own one or not), would he think it was a machine, or a magic mirror? That's what Clarke was talking about.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

That's not what it means, though. Here's a clarification I'm fond of: Any science that is far enough beyond the observer's education might as well be sorcery.

If a medieval monk saw and heard you using a tablet computer (no clue if you own one or not), would he think it was a machine, or a magic mirror? That's what Clarke was talking about.

Ehn. Me, I suspect he was trying to defend 2001's science fiction credentials. But that is the idea behind Stonehenge, where the characters are TL 10 people confronted with a TL 13 artifact so it might as well be magic.

[khorboth]

I've used this in two different directions. Once in a sci-fi game and once in a supers game.

In my sci-fi game, I called it "hard-science compatible" in that it had a minimum amount of super-science. Most notably, my FTL drive. FTL travel was discovered by accident and after about 100 years of study it was fairly understood HOW to work it, but nobody really understood WHY it worked. So, I created a bunch of rules about how it worked and didn't have to justify them too much.

In my supers game, the PCs got their powers when a heated polymer was mixed with nanites and then splashed on them. This was later analyzed by a scientist. In the 4-color world, scientists are pretty interchangeable. After peering under a microscope, she declared that their DNA had been changed "on the most basic level." This is all total balderdash, but it made sense given the assumptions of the genre. One of my players has a degree in biochemistry and thought it was really funny.

[Bengt]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

That's not what it means, though. Here's a clarification I'm fond of: Any science that is far enough beyond the observer's education might as well be sorcery.

If a medieval monk saw and heard you using a tablet computer (no clue if you own one or not), would he think it was a machine, or a magic mirror? That's what Clarke was talking about.

Well I think that only works if the reference person is someone who already believes anything strange is magic. Most people now don't know how a smartphone actually works, yet they don't think it's magic. So someone over a certain tech level would think stuff from higher tech levels were just gadgets. So the original quote is, IMO, only applicable to a very contrived scenario.

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, imagine a scenario where you met an individual who communicated with you through telepathy. Would you think that it was technological telepathy, facilitated by the nanomachines transferred from the individual to you when they shook your hand, or would you think that it was being caused through magic/psionics/super powers? From an objective point of view may be more believable, but I could understand why some people might believe the latter.

In truth, most people believe in magic, they just dress it up in pretty names like ancient aliens, information technology, psychic powers, or religious beliefs because anything that they do not understand is magical to them. Cell phones might as well be magic to the majority of people because they understand them about as much as they understand nuclear fusion. Whether or not what they do not understand is natural or supernatural does not matter, it only matters that they fear what they do not understand when they do not control it or take for granted what they do not understand when they do control it.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

For example, a realistic setting could have a TL12 society where the infusion of nanotechnology and the availability of microscopic fusion reactors that use helium-3 throughout every cubic meter of the Earth would give a magical element to existence. By undergoing the correct training, humans could learn to direct the nanotechnology and could develop 'spells' that would produce 'magical' effects. In GURPS terms, a low energy version could resemble energy accumulating Path/Book Magic, as the 'rituals' learnt could accelerate healing, control the weather, or summon 'spirits', which would be the distributed computer intelligences that guide the microscopic machines. If the technology is self-sufficient enough, humans would eventually forget that it was technology and would only recognize it as magic.

In Ultra-Tech, the smallest possible fusion reactor is 50 lbs., or 5 lbs. with superscience. However, you can have things like nanobot swarms powered by radiothermal generators, and handwavy superscience could make them non-radioactive if you cared about that. Tl12 Ultra-Tech is pretty magical, even without superscience, and realistically would have implications for society that would be difficult to wrap one's head around, but working out those implications is largely left as an exercise to the GM.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In truth, most people believe in magic, they just dress it up in pretty names like ancient aliens, information technology, psychic powers, or religious beliefs because anything that they do not understand is magical to them. Cell phones might as well be magic to the majority of people because they understand them about as much as they understand nuclear fusion. Whether or not what they do not understand is natural or supernatural does not matter, it only matters that they fear what they do not understand when they do not control it or take for granted what they do not understand when they do control it.

That seems like a side issue. Clarke's third law doesn't say "is magic" or "can be called magic" but "is indistinguishable from magic"; that is, there is no test you know how to perform that can tell if it's magic or not.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

In Ultra-Tech, the smallest possible fusion reactor is 50 lbs., or 5 lbs. with superscience. However, you can have things like nanobot swarms powered by radiothermal generators, and handwavy superscience could make them non-radioactive if you cared about that. Tl12 Ultra-Tech is pretty magical, even without superscience, and realistically would have implications for society that would be difficult to wrap one's head around, but working out those implications is largely left as an exercise to the GM.

That is for a fusion reactor capable of being a semi-portable power source (TL12 power cells are probably smaller fusion reactors). At TL12, you could probably make fusion power sources the size of mitochondria if you wanted, as long as you used helium-3 as a fusion fuel. Of course, it would only have enough fuel to generate 3-4 mJ of electricity, but it would probably be enough for a few years.