Modern & Technological vs Medieval & >>Magical<<

[AryaX]

There are plenty of these kinds of stories where America goes to medieval world and kicks over the all the puny ant hills... or where medieval people with "magic" come to our world and quickly get stomped...

But how about a story where those who are supposed to have magic but only medieval tech, actually have some real and useful MAGIC !

Not just some "magical" tech equivalent to some WW2 or earlier real world tech or such...

But magic that can do some real game changer difference...

Like... Invisibility, Shapeshifting, Illusions, Teleportation, Mind Reading/Control, Perfect Healing, Resurrection, etc, etc, etc...

 

[LostLibrarian]

But if magic is useful and the "good guys" struggle... then all the pandering will be a lot less impressive

The biggest problem is the balancing: it's really hard to make strong magic but one that isn't too strong. Like one person with shapeshifting would be enough to cause massive damages. Same for Mind Reading/Control.

And if you fail the balancing, you'll just get "fantasy stomps modern tech". A rather boring storing without any pandering...

 

[Zirrboy]

According to this forum thread, most of the vocal people here are of the tech < magic opinion either way, and imo justifiably so, given the right powers.

But beyond that I can't make too many statements without assuming additional info.

Telekinesis can outmatch ballistics, but if each individual object needs to be focused on, users can be sniped.

Effectiveness of bio/chem weapons depends on healer capacity. If they can cancel out mass injury and sickness, not much point in using them.

 

[SailusGebel]

What's the point?

 

[Zirrboy]

What's the point?

The origin of an acute angle.

 

[SailusGebel]

The origin of an acute angle.

I'm too lazy to try and understand this. Can you do something so that I won't need to think, pretty please?

 

[Leyligne]

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Raymond's Second Law: Any sufficiently advanced system of magic would be indistinguishable from a technology.

You could go either way. My opinion? It stops being magic at some point and starts being thaumology.

 

[SailusGebel]

Spoiler: This

View attachment 10161

Thanks.

 

[K5Rakitan]

Sounds good! Do you!

 

[Cipiteca396]

But how about a story where those who are supposed to have magic but only medieval tech, actually have some real and useful MAGIC !

If they had useful magic, they wouldn't be stuck in a medieval setting. It would be identical to expecting a bunch of hide wearing sword slingers to suddenly pull out iPhones and call in a drone strike.

 

[AryaX]

If they had useful magic, they wouldn't be stuck in a medieval setting...

Somehow that isn't the case with most medieval fantasy settings... Whether it be isekai or normal, games or novels, etc... Plenty of them have things like, Invisibility, Shapeshifting, Illusions, Teleportation, Mind Reading/Control, Perfect Healing, Resurrection, etc, etc, etc... All kinds of things that we can't do with our current or any near future technology...

Its only when the magical fantasy world meets our world that the fantasy world lose all that magic, and have it replaced with what seems suspiciously similar to WW2 era or earlier real world technology... only that tech is somehow supposedly powered by "magic".

 

[BearlyAlive]

It's the writers being lazy and/or boring. Why think of the changes magic would have on culture and economy instead of just replacing electricity with magic.

Just a few examples: fire and earth magic would lead to a completely different crafting culture, water and earth would change agriculture, wind magic would change transportation, weather and communication, and so on.

But no, let's just do industrial revolution but with magic as fuel...

Boring, I tell you!

 

[YuriDoggo]

If they had useful magic, they wouldn't be stuck in a medieval setting. It would be identical to expecting a bunch of hide wearing sword slingers to suddenly pull out iPhones and call in a drone strike.

Mass destruction =/= Assured Technological Advancement

Assume a bunch of shamans can call upon something a dozen times more powerful than a Tzar Bomba. Magical? Yes. Useful? Yes.

Still stuck in a medieval setting (assuming no other changes)? Still yes.

 

[D.S.Nate]

Or why not have both mixed in the same world? It's how I go about it in my story at least.

 

[trinitys_gadget]

I think what you're talking about is called Sci-fi. Materials that don't exist, like high-temperature superconductors, FTL travel and/or communication, artificial intelegences of all stripes, regenerative healing, gene tayloring, and nano-bots, any mention of zero-point energy, transmutation of elements (oops, we can do that one...), etc. Superhero stories also fall largely into this catagory. "From the New World" is written expressly around that premise. So, you've got a lot of examples to choose from. Maybe you can clarify your thought a bit.

If I had to say, it's the use of coal that really powered humanity into the modern age. Before coal, the best man could do was charcoal, which is time consuming to make, only renewable on the timescale of centuries, and not energetic enough to make high purity steel (or make, at least, make it cheap). So, to explore your question, by what mechanism does your magic provide the power necessary for a modern society equivalent?

 

[Viator]

My theory is, I believe the root reason why the medieval setting is so popular is because for the modern human, it is the romanticized ideal of getting back to our "roots." Once the industrial age hit and beyond, certain problems in human society became more complicated as the value of "human power" was slowly offset with "machine power." A lot of people enjoy the "medieval fantasy" concept because deep down they feel less valuable as a human on an existential level in the modern world dominated by technology. Indulging in the fantasy where the power of the human themselves still is supreme satisfies a deep internal hunger for a greater sense of worth.

With this in mind, if magic dominates to the point of replacing that concept, it becomes a separate kind of fulfillment as a story. This is something many readers of medieval fantasy aren't looking for. Beyond the balance problems that have been mentioned, if you replace the concept of technological power with magic to the point that it devalues the human ideal, it changes the point of the story for many readers.

 

[Cipiteca396]

Mass destruction =/= Assured Technological Advancement

Assume a bunch of shamans can call upon something a dozen times more powerful than a Tzar Bomba. Magical? Yes. Useful? Yes.

Still stuck in a medieval setting (assuming no other changes)? Still yes.

Why would you assume there's no other changes though? Even if the entity they call on is inherently destructive, there's potential in that. Maybe it can clear large swathes of impassable jungle, or shatter mountains and make it easy to get valuable stone and ore. If it's a force of nature, unwilling to destroy it's own environment, then maybe it can be used to protect a large scale civilization from foreign invaders, thus giving them room to grow into a more condensed and curious culture without fear or war to bother them.

Is it possible for a tiny, useless mega-magic to appear in a prehistoric culture... Sure. Anything is possible. Is it plausible or fun? No.

And even if it did appear, it wouldn't help for this particular topic. That one little shamanistic entity might be a setback for a modern military, but the result wouldn't change. The shamans would be targeted, the entity would no longer be summonable, and it would turn into a roflstomp. It would be more of a gimmick to add a false sense of danger and tension, rather than a credible threat.

 

[greyblob]

My theory is, I believe the root reason why the medieval setting is so popular is because for the modern human, it is the romanticized ideal of getting back to our "roots." Once the industrial age hit and beyond, certain problems in human society became more complicated as the value of "human power" was slowly offset with "machine power." A lot of people enjoy the "medieval fantasy" concept because deep down they feel less valuable as a human on an existential level in the modern world dominated by technology. Indulging in the fantasy where the power of the human themselves still is supreme satisfies a deep internal hunger for a greater sense of worth.

With this in mind, if magic dominates to the point of replacing that concept, it becomes a separate kind of fulfillment as a story. This is something many readers of medieval fantasy aren't looking for. Beyond the balance problems that have been mentioned, if you replace the concept of technological power with magic to the point that it devalues the human ideal, it changes the point of the story for many readers.

I'd also say it's much easier to go backwards than forward. Building a futuristic world would be magnitudes harder than a medieval one. And it would be just as difficult for readers to enjoy. A poorly crafted medieval world is meh, while a similarly technologically advanced one - whether it's science or magic - is utter shit. Medieval settings are definitely romantic, but they're more of a safety net.

 

[YuriDoggo]

Why would you assume there's no other changes though? Even if the entity they call on is inherently destructive, there's potential in that. Maybe it can clear large swathes of impassable jungle, or shatter mountains and make it easy to get valuable stone and ore. If it's a force of nature, unwilling to destroy it's own environment, then maybe it can be used to protect a large scale civilization from foreign invaders, thus giving them room to grow into a more condensed and curious culture without fear or war to bother them.

Is it possible for a tiny, useless mega-magic to appear in a prehistoric culture... Sure. Anything is possible. Is it plausible or fun? No.

And even if it did appear, it wouldn't help for this particular topic. That one little shamanistic entity might be a setback for a modern military, but the result wouldn't change. The shamans would be targeted, the entity would no longer be summonable, and it would turn into a roflstomp. It would be more of a gimmick to add a false sense of danger and tension, rather than a credible threat.

Its not a setback to anything else, but something that destructive wouldn't help anything either. At least not much. It will expose resources, but it does nothing to solve the fundamental problem of energy generation that our entire modern civilization is built upon.