How would you explain magic in a sci-fi setting in a way that sounds at least somewhat "scientific"...

Roadside picnic (aka Stalker) has a pretty good stuff in it. You don't really need to explain it per se, just have scientists baffled by it and trying to offer varied hypothesis and observations (like effect that raises temperature always raises it precisely the same amount, 129.34 K).

I don't remember there being any psionic mumbo jumbo in the book.

Nanomachines, son.

Nanomachines, son.

Nanomachined and quantum effects if you want to get fancy about it.

femtotech

I dunno OP, how did they eplain all the goofy wizardy in the Dune series?

guilty-gear.wikia.com/wiki/Backyard

You could take a page from Aberrant:

>Super powers in Aberrant come from an individual's ability to manipulate energy at the "quantum" sub-atomic level. Since individuals who can do this have an imperfect understanding of quantum mechanics, their powers are limited by their subconscious and usually follow a specific "path" or are linked to a specific focus. For instance, all the powers of the nova called Anteus revolve around nature; he can teleport by stepping into a tree and out of another tree of the same type somewhere else, create new species of animals, or alter the normal course of life and death for plants and animals. All his powers follow his focus of nature. Other novas have other foci such as plasma, fire, water, shapechanging, or invulnerability.

Basically, a special node in the brain allows them to warp reality but there's only so much they can do due to lacunas in understanding their potential

Drugs and brain juice

Why not just rationalise it with basic scientific principles so that people just assume that it makes sense. For example take pyromancy you could rationalise that to just oxygen molecules in the air with sufficient kinetic energy to cause combustion and since kinetic energy is just molecules vibrating you just need to find a way to explain how your causing those molecules to vibrate, to that extent it could be said that say your pyromancer has say a gauntlet that can emit extremely high energy photons (packets of light) which can be controlled to a extreme degree. High energy photons when they come into contact with molecules pass on their energy to the molecules outer most electron orbital which due to Gibb's free energy law will attempt to return to their original energy level causing them to release energy in the form of more photons of a lower frequency (or wavelength) aswell as some kinetic energy. This mean that theoretically if you could release of a precise wavelength as to be absorbed by oxygen and with sufficient frequency to provide enough kinetic energy to ignite the oxygen then you can generate fire. Now if you want to get fancy you could use a series of electro-magnets to displace the oxygen molecules you just ignited and hey presto you've got a fireball!

TL:DR Magic = Science

What is a technomage?

Energy Manipulation

Bullshit some gene-modded organ or gland or something into existence that allows them to pull this crap off and just convert mana into calories since all that energy has to come from somewhere or depending on what your playing maybe just have have a massive deduction to stamina or fatigue or whatever to use said powers.

>tfw have to eat lots of high energy foods to cast lots of spells
YOU HAVE TO EAT BIG TO CAST BIG C'MON

IT'S TIME TO LEAVE HUMANITY BEHIND

Quantum states

Dark matter

Shit like that.

This is actually the case in mass effect. Wizards - sorry, Biotics, get rations with like double or triple the calories.

So All wizards are now either fat bastards with UNLIMITED POWER! or walking skeleton that can't do shit till they find a mana potion (energy drinks)

This is why women make the best mages (their bodies are designed to hold fat) and why female mages are titty monsters

Literally Mana tanks

This is Veeky Forums 101

See: Soldier's Son trilogy by Robin Hobb

...

Nanobots

Make magic obey physical laws with regards to energy use

Want to propel a pebble through someone's skull? Nothing simpler.
Want to boil a glass of water? Better have a ton of energy ready.
Want to conjure an object from pure energy? Oh we can do it. Hope you're packing the power of a sun with you.

Wheres the magic tho.

Space crystals

Morphological sympathies for stuff affecting bio-shit.

Does it have titty witches?

Well there you have it.

Veeky Forums Asking the important questions!

Midichlorians.

Problem solved.

>"Paracausal" is a descriptor the Vex assigned to the stuff because they can't comprehend or simulate it like they can the rest of the Universe.

... they found it vexing?

Are there any settings that use soley physical strength and endurance as magic-casting ability?
I always liked the concept that breaking the laws of physics as a literal feat of strength, requiring both study into the 'how to', but also an incredibly strong body that can pull it off.

It sure as fuck beats 'nyehhh i read books for 50 years so i got a big pool of non-specific, undefinable blue stuff that i can cast with freely until it runs out'.

Some device that's integrated at a cellular level that turbocharges the mitochondria to amplify the production of ATP and draws it into the device to be manipulated in some way that seems magical. The downside is it causes user fatigue quickly.

That's just how the universe works. The laws of physics. Ask some university professor if you want to know the tiniest details, and maybe there is even a theory or two about why it's that way and not the other, but for most people it's a fact, like the fact that things fall on the ground if released from some height (some smartypants would start talking about gravity here and how it explains scientifically the phenomenon of falling, unless you ask them about underlying mechanisms of gravity (that are to gravity what gravity is to "things fall down") and why that gravity work this way and not the other).

Read the book "Rivers of London". It's not sci-fi, but it's a police procedural novel about a constable in London's metropolitan police being transferred to the secret division of the Met that deals with magic and supernatural crimes.

In the book's lore, magic was codified as a science by Isaac Newton and has clear rules based on the laws of physics and scientific principles. Should be a good basis for covering up your magic with science.

Maybe something like xcom2 psykers, but without the lame handheld thing they use.

Underated

Shadowrun magic is physically exhausting. Instead of a pool of magic points or a limited number of spells, each time you cast a spell you have to roll to resists exhaustion or even just plain passing out where you are.

It makes for some fun game mechanics too. There isn't anything limiting you from casting spells at a higher level, but you're less likely to pull them off and you roll for exhaustion if you succeed or not.

>I really need that guy down!
>I cast a really strong powerball!
>Oops, nothing happened and now I'm faceplanted in the street. Can someone drag my unconscious body back to the car?

It's a step in the right direction, but spellcasting and exhaustion are still tied to spellcasting 'ability', rather than the refinement of body

Clarke's Third Law

That depends precisely on what kind of magic it is. What do you want it to do?

mitochondria

Rasputin uses the term Paracausal to describe the Darkness' initial attack doesn't he?

Try the Bartimaeus Trilogy

Magicians use demons for ALL their magic, but the summoning rituals are so tiring that they need good endurance and body health.

The universe is a simulation. Spells are just programs designed to alter the source code of reality to produce specific effects. Why can't people just rewrite the entire Earth however they want? The simulation resists large scale rewrites. You're interfering with the program, after all, so it's only possible to inject small, localized changes.

The downside is that wizards in this setting may turn out to be an actual goddamn neckbeard hacker collective who discover the true nature of reality. They are the targets of The Illuminati who are the ancient cabal of men who discovered the truth of the universe in ages past and who have been manipulating reality for their own self-aggrandizement, but the wizard's katana is long and strong. He shall tip his fedora in the direction of his foe and they shall know their reckoning is upon them.

Honestly at this point whoever is running the simulation, God or aliens or alien gods or aliens that collided with God and also a space probe, might as well just pull the plug on the whole damn thing because it's just sad.

I personally don't explain it. Just let them know that it works, usually, but the how and the why aren't well understood. Ideally mix and match a lot of pseudo scientific ideas and explanations and make it seem like many different fields of unknown bullshit as opposed to being a monolithic not-magic. Precognition is the result of a genetic mutation that allows 4/5d perception, the guy shooting lightning just had an ancient malfunctioning clarketech femtoswarm battery, and the guy talking to you inside your head is just flat out psychic,etc

You can always have some fun with that. Different magic using groups who all have different theories on how magic works which aren't compatible with each other, from science to pseudoscience to straight up fantasy, and they have their own methods/devices/rituals to perform magic - and yet each of their shit just works so you can't tell which, if any, is correct or if there are just different types of magic.

Not as far as I can recall. It uses the terms extra solar, transient, and titanomach to describe the threat.

Evolution that allows the user to control molecules and atoms to force change.

sorcerers-apprentice.wikia.com/wiki/Magic

Check out Mage, unknown armies, and Genius the transgression, OP. They all have really cool, interesting takes on the supernatural/magic in a modern setting, and if you kind of blend them together and fill in some gaps you get a pretty neat spectrum of approaches that basically range from gnostic enlightenment about the true order of the universe to being so crazy you make the universe crazy too

Clarke had it backwards; any sufficiently unassuming magic is indistinguishable from technology.
If your setting is realistic and believable and there's a device that lets you control gravitons with your mind, people won't call it "magic".
They call it "physics", and they don't treat its associated technology as some mystical, separate thing from all the other tools they use.

"Magic" is just what we call technology that doesn't make sense to the reader. In a fantasy setting, Magic Missiles are a technology, but the audience feels like it's "magical" because we don't know how it works.
Am I correct in assuming that you just want to use something that fills the same narrative role as magic, and lets you use a lot of the same tropes/cliches?
If there's some device in your setting that lets people shoot lightning from their hands, all you need to do to make it feel and function like "magic" is NOT explain it. Technobabble it, at the very most.

So, your wizard-equivalent is a spacer who received expert-level training with a "pulsed graviton generator gauntlet", instead of a rifle or martial art.
The narrative equivalent to "studying metaphysics at the mage's academy" might be "taking a 'Responsible Operation of Gravitics Equipment' course at your local community college and applying for a PG3 permit".
"Keeper of eldritch knowledge beyond mortal understanding" becomes "the nerd who actually understands all the physics mumbo-jumbo behind that thing".
But as long as you keep the actual mechanisms of the device mysterious, people will understand that this is your "magic".

Higher-Dimension. The Cthulhu Mythos works on it.

>explain magic

...why?

>How would you explain magic in a sci-fi setting in a way that sounds at least somewhat "scientific"? It doesn't have to be hard science, just sound convincing enough to maintain my players' suspension of disbelief.
The players won't really care, for most part, unless you keeping drawing attention to it and keep it consistent.

Portals. There's infinite dimensions where every possibility happens. You don't conjure fire. You're just making your own world intersect with the dimension of fire. You don't shapeshift into a loli. You just swap bodies with a dimension where you're a loli. Most dimensions do not have this technology, so there's remarkably little chaos as a result.

>You don't shapeshift into a loli. You just swap bodies with a dimension where you're a loli.
That sounds extremely potentially awkward on several fronts, up to and including trying to switch back and finding out that your swapped body is now dead.

But then the obvious enough answer is, "WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO SWITCH BACK, BRAH!?!" Which would be the perfect time for loli Geoffrey Rush to appear and tell you, "You best start believing in Magical Realms, user. You're in one."

Don't offer any explanation just use psuedoscientific terminology to describe it. People don't need to know why it works, you just need it to appear like study of magic is being conducted in an organized and scientific manner.

Alternatively nano-machines always make for a good excuse even if it makes no actual sense.

Well, think of it like Rick & Morty. There's plenty of dimensions. Just find another with a body similar to yours. It doesn't have to be the original. But that is an interesting idea to make spells dangerous to try to reverse.

>How would you explain magic in a sci-fi setting in a way that sounds at least somewhat "scientific"?

1-They can use magic while we can't because their universe, multiverse or omniverse allow it.
1.1-Magic is like an second science that allow stuff normal science doens't allow.

2-NO gods

3-In the case there is a way to go to another universe/multiverse exist,
3.1 And if mages from this universe or multiverse we talk about here go to another universe or multiverse
3.1.1-That doesn't have magic, they will be useless.
3.1.2-With a "universe allow it" kind of magic system they will probably be useless too, unless the system is similar to them (imagine a universe created by time travel, that has just some changes).
3.1.3-If there is a crossover between this universe/multiverse and another multiverse that has average magicians (like if this was converted to gurps and used in with the multiverse system), mages from this system i am talking here will be useless as a average mages while they are in the other universe/multiverse.

4-Multiverse/universe teletransport magic to a different universe without the same magic system is only possible (to exist in setting/game) if its also possible with normal science.
4.1-This doesn't means that spells or whatever used to do it will be the same as the one used to travel to a universe that has the same magical system.
4.2-If a guy travel to another multiverse/universe that don't have the same magical system, he will need to go back with science or he will not be able to do it.

5-Magical items here are like mechanical magical casters they make the "second science" changes needed to make their magical stuff happen.
5.1-Those magical parts will not work in other universes/multiverses without the same system.

6-Magical Monsters, races, animals.. probably don't exist.
6.1-If they exist, they will be:
6.1.1-magical mutants
6.1.2-Group of guys mutated by magic that them, by reproduction and stuff became a normal specie. And also the evolution that came from those guys
(MAYBE)6.1.3-Scifi monsters formed by atom morphing magic (convert matter to other form of matter).
6.2-They lose their magic powers in the other universe without the same magical system (arrive there without it).
6.2.1-Scifi monsters can exist (realistic or not [if you are using a soft scifi setting]) in the other universe.

Some stuff I am not sure about my idea:
If it would be possible to have some magical inate person. Of course it would be possible to have to guys that have an easier time to learn the magical stuff in the same way some have an easier time as learning programming as some example.
How mana would work (IF the magical system would have mana).

Matter is energy and energy is matter. With enough effort, one can be transformed into the other.

But magic makes matter and energy appear out of what seems to be nothing, or at least nothing that we can detect.

What has been indirectly observed in the universe but can't be detected directly? Dark matter and dark energy.

Magical talent is the ability, learned or inherited, to transmute dark matter/energy into baryons. There are many ways to do it and study it.

If you want to go down the rabbit-hole of gods, extra dimensions, magical words/symbols, and so on you just need to find a way to relate it to that.

Personally, I like the idea that magical energy is impressed by living minds and those words/ideas/symbols are memetic. They work because enough people believe that they work, and people believe in them because they get results. One could invent one's own magical language, or symbols, or try to "invent" a god, but with a single lifetime and one person worth of belief, that's hard.

One day I was thinking about some similar idea (creating new magical society/system from scratch).

My idea was based on the question: "how would magic be if realistic?"

I came up with those "rules". Of course this is just some layout, this doesn't tell the very specific details of how magic would works, unless needed (so, the magic would be realistic without it).

Anyway MY wip rules:

Consciousness is another state of matter.
Mages manipulate this process, transferring consciousness into more material forms.

In the beginning there were two "proto-universes". Two points of energy and matter weaved around itself into impossible density. In theory they should have sparked and created two different universes with different rules. Two Big Bangs that each should have given a start to billions of billions of stars. But something didn't go as it should have and these two points hit each other.

The resulting conflagration was so spectacular its light, or whatever you may call it, for this energy didn't follow any of known to us rules, reached even some other universes. Two different powers raged against each other trying to overpower the "opponent". And in the end our universe was born.

Some places were, well you can say imbued, with the set of different laws. It was patchy and uneven. And lead to some pretty strange phenomena. Even today billions of years after the beginning and the powers leaking into each other we still can see this.

The most obvious example of course is the Spark. A little channel to the Second Power that living creatures acquired in the process of evolution. For some it allowed to be much faster or stronger, others could breath fire or fly without wings, and intelligent creatures could train to do more with it. It is hard. Extremely hard for people without genetic aptitude. But in theory everyone can reach for it and become achieve much more than their physical body offers to them.

Reality alteration via tampering with the unified field theory (of physics).

Like the Philadelphia Experiment.

>what is psionics

Clark Principle. It works on fundamental forces so complex that it's effectively magic. Actually works on quantum circuitry, precision magnetics, and chaos theory and occasionally "hacks" reality.

...

That's how you get a new body you think is perfect but then find something weird stuck up your anus. That may or may not be a bonus depending on what it is and, of course, your own preferences.

Fair to say that this user probably specifically wanted magic, as even in fantasy settings psionics and magic can be and often are separate.

Of course with the state of D&D these days...

>Biotics from Mass Effect are a little weak
Only in the games. Biotics can wreck storms and you can summon black holes.

Just make it a "new" evolution thing or "an nascent ancient power that slumbers within us"

Same as PSO2, Make a nigh omniscient sentient ocean that teaches humanity solid light that is used for:
remote energy manipulation to use fire ice, lightning
spacetime manipulation for compressed space wind and weapon blades, teleports, energy into light crystal conjuring and matter to energy dissolution.

Oh, and why it is scientific.

Researchers at Princeton University have begun crystallizing light as part of an effort to answer fundamental questions about the physics of matter.

The researchers are not shining light through crystal – they are transforming light into crystal. As part of an effort to develop exotic materials such as room-temperature superconductors, the researchers have locked together photons, the basic element of light, so that they become fixed in place.

youtube.com/watch?v=u1_pD4pJOGg
youtube.com/watch?v=jasxikI9G-I
Endless series has "dust", which are is more or less nanobots that said Endless created very long ago and used it to power their...everything. The stuff is all over the galaxy when the games start, and the Endless are long gone. Chronologically, the games go as follows:
>Endless Dungeon
>Endless Legend
>Endless Space
>Endless Space 2 (probably)
Endless Legend is the "fantasy" game that follows a bunch of factions born from crashlanded prison/transport/whathaveyou ships that Endless Dungeon is about. People forgot how to science and it's back to bow'n'arrow with "magic" that is actually nanobots. One of the victory conditions for Legend is to build a spaceship and fuck off the planet before it dies, which it does actually do since it's an unlivable frozen wasteland in Endless Space, surrounded by a minefield

You're right, it's flagged as acausal rather than paracausal.

>manipulate energy at the "quantum" sub-atomic level
still doesn't make any sense. throwing in "quantum" usually makes things worse, and this would be better it said they could simply manipulate particles via strong force or something similar.

This has probably already been said but I'll say it anyway.

You ever hear about how we only use a fraction of our brains? Say some people are evolving to use more, and it let's them undestand and interact with the laws of psychics in ways normal people can't. A normal guy looks at a pyromancer and thinks it is magic. They pyromancer understands that he's manipulating energies in substances on a molecular level. Something something limited perception something something more than the there dimensions we percieve. Different people get different portions of their brains turned on and cue in to percieve different dimensions.

The Laundry series used fancy maths and Lovecraft. It's pretty neat but you really don't want to forget to carry the two.

"You see, everything you know about the way this universe works is correct—except for the little problem that this isn’t the only universe we have to worry about. Information can leak between one universe and another. And in a vanishingly small number of the other universes there are things that listen, and talk back—see Al-Hazred, Nietzsche, Lovecraft, Poe, et cetera. The many-angled ones, as they say, live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set, except when a suitable incantation in the platonic realm of mathematics—computerised or otherwise—draws them forth."

Also there's fun stuff like basilisk guns. They refer to them as look-to-kill weapons because it's not about whether you see it, it's about whether it can see you.

Do magic based on anthropic principle and psionics.

Basically with an balance of induced stimulus, psychoactive substances, implants and an amplifier, it's possible to temporarily bend the universal constants in a short range for a short period of time. The "science" behind it involving punching holes in the fabric of the universe using densely focused observation. It's not subtle or highly controlled, You're metaphorically sucker-punching reality to magnify weak psionic quirks into a useful skill.

This also fixes the "How do you disarm the mage" problem; An amped and juiced psion can bring down buildings or vaporize tanks, but you take away his equipment and he's back to floating coins and keeping his coffee warm.

Mana particles and mana control organs.

Biotics is more a more scientifically plausible psychic powers.
The asari even the stereotype of "all of this one species is psychic" thing and can kinda sorta read minds, even though the description of what they do makes no sense when they do it that way.

Destiny is straight-up space magic, it's mentioned that both the Light and Dark (or Sky and Deep) are superordinate to the natural laws of the universe.

Same as always; replace 'mana/ether/etc' with 'ionic/quantum/etc'

extrapolate on certain interpretations of quantum physics - if observation itself can alter reality, what happens if someone convinces themselves of something untrue so hard that they actually percieve it? For these effects to be physical and lasting, perhaps some sort of apparatus or cybernetic enhancement or genetic engineering or drug to enhance human 'willpower' is necessary, or perhaps things like meditation could strengthen it.

Go the route SWN does it. People exposed to FTL travel can, with enough exposure to their parents/prenatally can channel the energies from the not!hyperspace into the material universe.

magic and science are two completely different things. if you can explain it, its science, if not, its magic.

IF YOU WANT TO HAVE HIGH MAGIC YOU GOTTA HAVE HIGH GAINS BROTHER.

TWELVE BOTTLES OF PROTEIN
EVERY
FUCKING
DAY

>mfw we could have hard light constructs in real life

TEN CUPS OF CREATINE
EVERY
FUCKING
SPELL

The universe runs on a set of laws.
The civilization in the setting has yet to discover all the laws.
Therefore proper utilization of those laws would seem indistinguishable from magic to them.

Personally, I'd go with several different systems that are all mutually incompatible:

>biotics-style ability to create dark matter/dark energy, and so indirectly control spacetime and gravity

>series of bioelectric organs throughout the user's body, allowing for the generation and control of strong electromagnetic fields, and general magnetism/electric fuckery

>internal nanomachine swarm that can live outside the host's body for short periods, and can temporarily alter the biochemistry of creatures the swarm has been programmed to understand

>various implanted miniaturised devices that each perform a single task, like shield generators, plasma casters, cloaking devices, etc.