Magitech

[D. Gray Warrior]

I love the concept of magitech, but I think that oftentimes, it's poorly executed. Usually, it looks either like IRL tech but handwaved with "it runs on magic," or it's some sci fi concept with magical jargon imposed over it. It's not an android, it's a "metal golem."


I want actual magitech: Magic has revolutionized society, but the technology of the world still looks and works differently from our own world.

One of my ideas to accomplish this is that magitech devices cannot work on their own. They must have a wielder who is able to channel their mana into the device and activate the spell embedded in it. Thus, devices cannot cast spells on their own.

Some of the tech seem obvious. Instead of FaceTime, they can just a magic mirror to communicate. Or instead of cellphones, they speak into magic crystals.


There's also the option of having technology powered by an elemental or familiar, but if they are sentient, then that would carry some unfortunate implications.

What are your thoughts on magitech?

 

[ThinkerX]

I have something fairly close to this in my 'Empire' books - but it is not of human origin.

Tens of thousands of years ago, the ancient aliens ventured out into the galaxy. These aliens were not humanoid, having followed a different evolutionary path. Part of that path granted them what we would term innate psionic abilities. To them, this was normal, not extraordinary. As such, much of their technology required psionic power to use. Much of this was what we would term computer tech - the current equivalent being where one operates a computer by 'thinking at it.' This was also employed in medical equipment that tapped the body's energies for healing and scanning over long distances.


Encounters with Lovecraftian entities forced the aliens to assume a lower profile. This involved terraforming previously 'dead' worlds and relocating their civilization to these planets. Later, they imported populations of primitive races they'd encountered, including humans, as servitors, experimental subjects, and 'pets.' Some thousands of years later, their numbers declined. Many of their subject races abandoned the cities or were formed into vassal states dedicated to agriculture or light industry. Needing to fill vital technical positions, the aliens genetically modified select humans and others, granting them vastly increased psionic abilities. A few thousand years later, another Lovecraftian incursion collapsed the alien civilization - but their subject races remained. Those with enhanced psi became wizards.

 

[JBCrowson]

One of the branches of magic in my world is geomancy. One geomancer invents a magical stone tablet that needs a geomancer to operate. The device uses geomancy to rearrange the crystals with the stone to store information and display the stored data as embossed writing later. Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?

 

[Queshire]

Sure, there's lots of magitech in my setting, but it tends to be the sci fi tech style mentioned.

 

[skip.knox]

>Instead of FaceTime, they can just a magic mirror to communicate. Or instead of cellphones, they speak into magic crystals.
>like IRL tech but handwaved with "it runs on magic,"

The examples you give in the one sentence sound very much like what you're objecting to in the second. That's the easiest course, for sure.

Another approach is possible. Start with the magic. Forget the tech. What magic can happen in your world? Is there, I dunno, plant magic? OK, of what sort? Can a wizard make things grow faster or bigger than any possibility of doing so with fertilizers or even with gene manipulation?

OK, so what then? Can a wizard make a wheat crop spring up overnight? OK, can that happen without seeds? No? So someone still has to sow the seeds, then have a wizard at hand. And someone still needs to harvest the crop. Does sowing and harvesting remain at the general tech level, whatever that is? No need to add magic there, though you could. Instant crop is going to have implications for costs, labor force, and even taxes.

There could be crystal balls, but maybe they only see into the future, not across distances. Or, like the Palantir, they are tightly restricted to those who have them and have the ability to use them. They aren't like phones.

IOW, start from the magic end and see where it goes, and don't try to make it achieve any specific tech. Along the way, it would be interesting to see what tech innovations the magic might necessitate. The wizard can grow an immense tree, but how do you cut it down? How does that change sawmills? Transport?

 

[Finchbearer]

As you say it’s usually a crossover between sci-fi and fantasy, but you could apply the definition to anything that is considered technology. Flint napping is one of the oldest technologies, or maybe the oldest. Make an arrowhead magical and you have ‘magitech’. How far are you willing to take the term technology? Something like a magic mirror feels archaic, much like how people thought of reflective surfaces and when mirrors actually were invented, it was like magic to those who witnessed those things for the first time. Something like scrying could be viewed as magictech in the sense that you describe, but it would have only been described as witchcraft or sorcery, or indeed magic on its own.

I quite like writing dystopia’s set in the future where there is low-tech, or lower-tech than we have today. Say it’s like the 1980’s but set 100 years in the future from now. There is a magic to the idea that technology has devolved.

 

[Prince of Spires]

There's always "any sufficiently advanced technology will look like magic". Often the only difference is the techno-babble attached to it. Call it a warp drive powered by antimatter (or whatever) and it's science. Call it a warp drive powered by the force, and it's magic.

I agree with skip.knox that you probably want to start with the magic (if you want to build a system out of it). What are the capabilities and limitations of your magic? Once you have that, see what you can and can't do with your magic in terms of magi-tech.

Also, make sure to think though how it would affect society. Long distance communication completley changed the world in more ways that "it's plot convenient that character A and B can talk to each other." I find that most writers stop too soon with this. Technology (even if it's magic) has an immense impact on people's lives. Trains (and later cars) completely changed the way we view the world. Living even 20km from where you work was a completely ridiculous idea, and travelling abroad to go on a week long holiday was unheard of. And that's not to mention things like warfare.

As a sidenote, I like how Terry Pratchett did magitech. He had plenty of technology, and always found an in-world way to make it work. Then again, I liked most things Terry Pratchett did, so there's that.

 

[Queshire]

I dunno. In my experience when you start with magic then what you end up with just looks like more magic.

The Cradle series by Will Wight has stuff like this. A messenger construct looks like a glowing butterfly that carries your message to the recipient. Dream Tablets hold memories that people can experience and range in use from passing down techniques to watching a tournament. Thousand Mile Clouds carry things through the sky and range from carrying a single person to letting ships sail through the sky or even having flying houses on an island of cloud.

There isn't a lot we can achieve in real life that they can't achieve in the setting between techniques and constructs, but the lot of it just feels like more magic.

 

[_Michael_]

I say there's something to be said for certain combinations of magical clockwork and crystal devices, especially in low-magic worlds. My world I'm currently at work on was based on the ideas in the Dragon magazines for "Sheen Mages." Loved the idea of finding bits of Old World tech and incorporating them (at risk to life and limb) into magical artifacts as in Pillars of Eternity or along those lines.

 

[pmmg]

Or instead of cellphones, they speak into magic crystals.

Oddly enough, its vibrating crystals in those devices that makes them work.... so, we do kind of speak into crystals.

I dont know, others have probably already said, magic is very similar to tech. Its just one gets a explanation and the other doesn't. If I say the fuel for things is mana, and not electrons, how much is really all that different?

I would also suppose that any world that had sufficient access to magic, might never get around to discovering electricity and vibrating atoms. Why would they? there is no need. I suppose, in an odd way, if there is both magic and technology, its the technology I will most question, and want to be explained. Why did so and so invent a gun, when he could have just used magic missiles?

If you make it such that a user is needed to make things work, you are precluding things like magic swords and magic rings.

My thoughts on magictech are that its a fine place to start in making a world to put stories in.

 

[skip.knox]

Yes, this is why I suggested the bit about harvests. There are so many aspects of life that doesn't need to relate to tech. If there is the ability to make portals, for example, then where's the need for cars, steam-powered or otherwise? There are ways to answer that, but *starting* with the portals and then wondering how an economy would function opens more interesting avenues. Then ask how it might affect politics, war, social customs, and so on.

 

[_Michael_]

Oddly enough, its vibrating crystals in those devices that makes them work.... so, we do kind of speak into crystals.

I dont know, others have probably already said, magic is very similar to tech. Its just one gets a explanation and the other doesn't. If I say the fuel for things is mana, and not electrons, how much is really all that different?

I would also suppose that any world that had sufficient access to magic, might never get around to discovering electricity and vibrating atoms. Why would they? there is no need. I suppose, in an odd way, if there is both magic and technology, its the technology I will most question, and want to be explained. Why did so and so invent a gun, when he could have just used magic missiles?

If you make it such that a user is needed to make things work, you are precluding things like magic swords and magic rings.

My thoughts on magictech are that its a fine place to start in making a world to put stories in.

Not everything needs to be clockwork. In mine, only certain things work that way as the energy comes from crystals called Lithosynes that are sentient, or from crystals pulled from Atlán (the void of space) related to them, although they can be recharged by magical energies. However, this science is poorly understood from the effects of so many centuries passing by, and so only traditional, well-established magical principles are employed. Additionally, there are malevolent clockwork machines (called Protea) on the sister planet who attempt to cross the void with seed ships to establish cysts on the main planet, but most commoners think they're demons, and they're usually too damaged from the journey to do much damage.

I fully agree with you, though. The mechanisms really take a back seat to story telling if its good enough because people aren't thinking of the why in the middle of an action scene.

Yes, this is why I suggested the bit about harvests. There are so many aspects of life that doesn't need to relate to tech. If there is the ability to make portals, for example, then where's the need for cars, steam-powered or otherwise? There are ways to answer that, but *starting* with the portals and then wondering how an economy would function opens more interesting avenues. Then ask how it might affect politics, war, social customs, and so on.

With mine, it was a gradual build-up of experimentation until human hubris took over and they almost entirely annihilated all life. So now, more level heads have prevailed in the intervening 3,000 years and the High Council ensures that no magical warlords rise up and try wiping out entire cities with lost Old World tech that no one really knows how to use or even what it really is anymore. When the Protea show up, agents of the High Council inevitably show up, escorted by the Red Legion to take possession of the situation and the resulting Protea wreckage.