Hard science fiction, but with real, quantifiable magic. Can it be done?

Yeah with psychic powers

youtube.com/watch?v=LfQ9rGwYriQ

Revelation space did this by making the relativistic light speed travel a product of a long lost technology to the point that it was essentially just magic powering the drive

>If magic is observable
then it isn't magic.

There are plenty of ways to explain magic and keep it as magic. Say magic is derived from the divine spark and breath imparted on humanity by some creator god who predates familiar existence. In this way, they're able to access some portion of this divine power which is not subject to any of the laws and limitations of the universe.

What's the source that magic can't be oberservable and studied?

>Hard sci-fi
>Handwave shit
Pick one.

Mass Effect.

>Mass Effect
>Hard Scifi

Once mentioning how projectiles stay in motion in space does not make it hard sci-fi

It's definition

>the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.

If magic can be understood, it is no longer mysterious nor supernatural. Therefore what forces or methods you have come to understand is actually not magic.

Sure, you can observe the effects of magic in a world that has it, if you can ever understand the forces and mechanisms behind it, it's not magic.

Okay. If you deranged motherfuckers are using Mass Effect as your benchmark for hard sci-fi then you're so far off course that we've got nothing to talk about.

>I didn't read the Codex

Mass Effect has well thought-out, internally consistent science. That does not make it hard sci-fi.

The only thing hard about Mass Effect is my dick. It's Baldur's Gate in space. Or, for a more appropriate comparison, KOTOR but with the serial numbers filed off.

I don't think you know what hard sci-fi means

So basically, magic isn't magic if it actually does anything? I'm not saying it should be something like electricity. I'm saying that if it has observable effects then magic can be studied. Therefore it can be science'd. Even if it doesn't work the same as mundane physics.

No, man. The very basis of most tech in the setting, while consistent and making nods to real physics, is still very blatantly soft and not real physics. Element Zero, Biotics, the title of the setting, all of it is counter to physics. Ships don't even worry about Delta-V at all and effectively have not only infinite fuel but mainly fly like aircraft.

I think something operating above common physics would qualify as "supernatural".

i would argue yes, since a lot of fantasy treats magic in a very scientific manner, with wizards and mages being scholars and academics who research the mechanisms of it.
in a scifi setting, you'd simply be adding another law of nature.
i'd still call it scifi, but with a huge "what if" tacked on.

This, except I'll add that the choice to call it 'magic' is ultimately semantics at that point.

Christ, I hope nobody shows you Quantum Mechanics. You'll be screaming 'burn the witch' for weeks.

>common physics
You're retarded.

the wizard shoots a fireball out of his hands, but it isn't actually magic, since the fireball gives of heat and light and is therefore observable.

They have figured out a quantum version of the Maxwell Demon. They use it for their 100% efficient Dyson Spheres.

It's semantics. At its core magic is actually you this shit and then that shit happens (hey, Frazer said it).

So... I dunno, I guess you could have an order of priests/mage that meditate hard to do whatever, instead of engeneering weapons, robots, ships.

BUT.

In our culture (possibly more than in ancient times, amusingly enough) magic is tied with mistery., mysticism, instinctual revelations about the universe and whatnot.

Consider this in a scifi setting. Lots of terraforming, alien biomes, hell, even orbital/ship habitats: ecology is a critical field of lore. And there are "space druids" who by magic tend to these fields.

Druids are basically scientists that by training can "shortcut" observations and whatnot: they can, I dunno, "feel the forest" and measure pretty clearly the soil state, predict weather meditating, enter a trance to possess animals (I'm not intentionally limiting myself to "lower level" powers, but it's probably easier this way). And they can use this connectiom: maybe by meditating hard for decades, in rotation. they can change weather patterns on a continental scale. At the same time, they do use RL meteorologists skills and probably weather satellites as well - basically they're just expanding their brains to other "bodies".

There is no related feeling of wholeness, or at least no more than what a climatologist or a biologist would feel today (still, it might be kinda trippy to be a shrimp for an hour).

There are no SWs-like religious mumbo-jumbo, and probably those skills are even explained by whatever physics you might think of.

Is this still "magic"? The powers per se would be pretty much Force-like, if you think about it. But woul that feel magical in the setting?

Near future. One day, a blip in the laws of physics appears. Though thought entirely random and unpredictable at first, decades of painstaking research shows that certain patterns can create effects not normally covered by the laws of physics. These resemble an alphabet, which is decoded and reverse-engineered into a fully-understood mechanism.

Whether etched onto metal, drawn on paper, or randomly arranged by branches on a stream or debris surrounding a black hole, each specific (and very hard to generate randomly) sequence has an associated effect. Some call them runes or glyphs, but there's nothing so base as charms to deflect an enemy's weapons or gain the love of a desired one. Instead, the symbols beget minute, observable and reproducible effects on the laws of physics. Shift the density of a contained fluid without changing its state. Strengthen, disperse or redirect the gravitational acceleration of an inscribed object. Allow heavy synthetic elements to remain stable for extended periods of time.

The cause is not fully understood -- what could possibly tie the laws of physics to arbitrary inscriptions? -- but the effects are. Within the decade, mankind has progressed by a century. Shifting mass of a vessel to zero has allowed FTL travel. Cold fusion, stable antimatter, and all manner of once-fantastical processes are now commonplace. All fields, from medicine to transportation to entertainment, are advancing at an astronomical pace.

Mankind, by some universal fluke, obtained magic. And mankind mastered it, and with it, the universe.

They have figured out that all the electrons in the universe are just a single and only one traveling bacwards and forwards in time.

you're confusing the effects of magic with magic itself. don't do that.

Magic is a method of using a force or force beyond understanding to do something.

Science is a method of gathering and understanding information.

Engineering is a method of using information you understand to do something you want.

If something is truly magic, it will always be beyond true understanding. Always.

I like it

Watching public television, aye?

Why would I? That's just part of the everyday operation of physics. that people generally don't understand fully.
Nope. "Common physics" would be how things normally operate without external interference, and that includes quantum mechanics. Magic would be something clearly distinct from that. Not some interpretation of quantum mechanics where people make it out to be some kind of voodoo, but something that simply does not follow the internal logic of the universe at all and is capable of interfering with its workings from the outside.

This isn't hard sci-fi, this is science fantasy.

If they've 'figured it out', then that's science! I swear people here used to understand this shit.

If you send a satelitte outside the galaxy attached to aimpossible strong and long cable connected to a generator, would you get power out of dark energy spanding space?

>only one traveling bacwards and forwards in time
Nice misunderstanding of a buzzword you heard once. Matter and its antimatter form are mathematically identical to matter and a time-reversed unit of matter, but 5 seconds of thought shows there must be more than one electron. Take that time before your next post.

>"common physics"

But congrats, you just agreed with us by defining magic as something beyond the universe, and therefore observation and understanding.

I blame vancian casting systems. Or any system that tries to quantify magic for ease of use and consumption rather than just leaving it as what it was: a literary plot device.

That's a very modern definition. In many ancient cultures, "magic" was just the work of a higher race of beings controlled or influenced, or the result of a natural law. The entire philosophy of Hermeticism, from which we get the notion of the scholar-wizard [at least in part, older notions of magi exist] is basically a science that happens to not be true.

Astrology and Alchemy are both sciences.
Invocations and magic words are usually commands to the cosmos itself or certain spirits to manipulate the machinery of Nature to perform a given result.

The idea of magic as incomprehensible force is pretty modern, as is the notion of magic as willworking. Consider the classic wizards

Merlin did his feats through 'subtlety' basically conning the cosmos through his wisdom.

King Solomon commanded demons.

The Arabian magicians used rings and bottles for djinn, and shamans speak to the spirits of phenomena to control those phenomena. Learn to Magic pleb.

Mobile Suit Gundam had the Newtype thing which for all intents and purposes was magic. It became quantifiable and had special weaponry developed around it? It has its flaws, and isn't the hardest, but has elements of what you are looking for.

Gracias

Pardon, but I was under the impression that that covered stuff like 40k or Star Wars, which is basically fantasy with spaceships and guns.

did you just come up with that?
cause that's pretty good.

Yes, but it has to be a very limited kind of magic, not the Dnd style 'this force does eeeeeverythiiiiiing' bullshit.

Here's how I would pitch hard scifi with magic: our quantum mechanics tests came to a puzzling result: none of the math for shit like observance affecting outcome made sense the more we learned about it. There was no reason why adding a human observer should change things.

The realization was a simple as it was profound: the problem wasn't the physics model, it was the human.

From very early in our evolutionary history, mankind stumbled unto an evolutionary advantage that people have since called magic. Simply put, our minds exert a push and a pull on the events around us even if we physically do not. We cannot make a glass fly across a room, but we CAN increase the chance of that glass being knocked off the table by random accident. Not by a lot, just by a very very small amount. But in the grand scheme of species survival, even a 0.01% weight in your favor benefits the species even if the individual level never notices.

Some people breed the trait stronger than others, but there isn't actually any reason to believe that people who can manipulate probability consciously have ever been born even as freak accidents. Most people have just enough of this power for their observational impact to be detected on the quantum level.

But, like the electron, what is tiny and weak on its own gets stronger and more powerful if you know what you are doing and you have a lot to work with. A stadium of cheering fans is two competitions: the players on the field, and the fans in the seats clashing for control of the probabilities. Pushing the ball towards and away from the goal in a magical tug of war.

Through genetic engineering and computer support, this power can be levied into an observable phenomenon that has a number of minor applications that would otherwise be impossible. No one knows the real limits of this new field of science.

I'm sure this will come as a shock to you, but you're living in the contemporary period, where we use contemporary definitions when discussing things unless specified otherwise.

Oh no. That was a serious hipothesis made by a real scientist before we understood quantum theory better. The idea came because all electrons look like the smae one.

Hard SF is literally the exact opposite of that.

>40k and star wars are hard sci fi

dear god. no no no no no no on no no. Just.

NO.

It was basically a joke, and also the way you phrased it makes it seem as if it's the way it actually works. Learn English, read a book about the topic, and try again.

you're confusing the word "observable" with "explainable". don't do that.
semantics semantics semantics

you're going to want to write PBS then mate.

youtube.com/watch?v=9dqtW9MslFk

Hermeticism is actually really fucking cool, and any fa/tg/uy not already read up on it should do so for worldbuilding purposes.

In many ways, Hemeticism was the science before science. The idea that 'as above, so below', that the heavens and the earth must follow the same set of laws and neither side gets to run on arbitrary bullshit, is huge. Sure, they still thought stuff like gods and magic were a thing to be accounted for in their model of the cosmos, but you have to start somewhere. Without Hermetic modes of thought to pave the way, we wouldn't have gotten the scientific method.

So Blame?

now you're intentionally being retarded.

stop that.

How is everyone being wizards not fantasy?

Did I say "beyond understanding". Even in a story where everything works perfectly according to the laws of physics, as observable by everyone in it, everything is still being decided by the author. The author can break every established idea or rule he has ever introduced, as he is above and external to the laws of the setting he created. If he wants to get drunk and turn the whole think into some bizarre meta-narrative where the inhabitants realize they're being written by some hack, then he can.

However, that doesn't make him any less above and external to the setting.

My definition is the modern definition, you're just stupid. The idea of magic as pure willworking and nonsense is not remotely the most common version of magic.

The fact that most magic is formed into the magic systems you claim to hate with precise powers and triggers isn't by accident, thats how the concept of magic has long been understood.

You draw the circle, say the magic words, and the god shows up.

You hold the keys and the staff and speak in latin three times and lightning shoots from the staff.

You understand the universe, and you can move it through force of will by particular consistent methods.

Western magic is just mystical science mixed with theology.
This user gets it.

>magic is a science that happens to not be true
this, obviously. it's how magic is handled even in basic shit like d&d.

This guy gets it.

This guy is a retard.

You seem to have poor reading comprehension.

Except it wasnt.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

>itt magic is wrong, but still happens to work

then it's not magic numb nuts.

I watched that video too, m80. The description of the theory is
>this doesn't actually make sense given our observations, but it works mathematically
which is used as a framing device for talking about transformations and the weird way that matter-antimatter looks a lot like forward-backward in time, as well as the way particles are vibrations in a field rather than discrete individual things.

I'm just saying you should write them to suggest they make a second video clarifying that. Because a lot of people are talking about the one electron idea solely because of that video.

Well OP, how plastic is your definition of magic? Do you mean being able to 'conform reality to will' and then doing some Matrix level shit? Because you could say in a hard sci fi setting that say goes with the idea of a simulated universe, within some 'programmable' and calculable way, you can alter the equation (programming) to achieve 'reality' breaking effects, i.e., magic. But it certainly does not seem like you could, at least in a western mindset of a setting bring together the wholly spiritual and quantifiable things without diminishing one as the other under some guise.

>All magic is hermetic
Well, time to abandon the thread. Let the retards fill it with shit and drool until it sinks.

They can't be held accountable for every retard who misinterprets a concept they present. Absurd hyperbole and misrepresentation is practically the only way people hear about any scientific concept over here in burgerstan.

You idiot, he's saying that 40K and Star Wars are science fantasy.

>>hey, what would a sci-fi setting with magic look like
>well, it wouldn't because all magic acts this way
>>but there's been historical beliefs in magic that doesn't act this way
>well shit I guess you're retarded
Nice.

No, you guys misunderstand me. I'm saying that 40k and SW are science fantasy, not what I wrote up there. Which probably doesn't come close to hard sci fi either, but fuck, I tried.

Thanks!

wrong.
if it works in a fictional universe, then it is not wrong in that fictional universe.
it can't exist in a hard scifi scenario, since that would make it not hard scifi.

you're one of those people who gets really angry when people call a "wyvern" a "dragon", i bet.

Hard science fiction would be fiction about someone in LEO doing maintenance on the a !Hubble or !IIS or something.

At the most they visit Mars or a passing asteroid in person.

If all of the future technology is based on magic where people are drawing glyphs and runes then it's science fantasy. Cool concept though.

The whole concept of hard sci fi is that everything is inline with our modern understanding of physics, or at least as close as it can get. If you introduce things that toss physics out the window then it's not hard.

Unless things generally work by hard sci-fi rules, with distinct exceptions that are clearly something fundamentally "other".

Here we go again.

Mongs saying that science and magic are mutually exclusive, when it entirely depends on the author writing it out.
Having magic as a science doesn't strip it of being, well, magic.

Goddamn you people.

The magic in D&D -is- fundamentally a science/art as practiced by wizards, yet you don't see them screaming "by the powers of science if turn you into a newt!"

...

The only idiot here is you mate.

Quantum mechanics using quantum computer to effect the probabilities of an outcome. I'm thinking of using advanced computational crystal as a small scale quantum computer that can interact with quantum particles on a sub-monocular level. Therefore allowing for a science fiction magic loosely based on quantum mechanics theory. String theory might also be able to play a role as it suggest ,in my understanding, that matter is based on sound and frequencies, explaining "incantation" based magic. I'm not a scientist though.

hard science fiction concerns itself only with things that are theoretically possible in the world as we know it.
magic is almost always an additional force of nature, one which, as far as we know, does not exist in the world as we know it.
magic doesn't have to be unscientific in the universe it exists in, but it doesn't seem to exist in our reality.
therefore hard science fiction cannot contain magic.

We're sitting here arguing about science, magic, dragons, and literary genres and you're going to say he's the only idiot in this thread?

Thats a lot of fiction that isn't magical then, like Full Metal Alchemist, Warcraft ect.

I think what you mean is more mysticism.

mysticism is a type of magic, specifically a belief that you can gain knowledge beyond knowing.

You can take hard science fiction and apply magic to it.

But you'd need to find another name for the style.

>gain knowledge beyond knowing
that's literally called science

lel

Since when does having understandable magic make it not magic?

Fair enough. Under that definition, then (which I'm not sure I accept as absolute, mind you), hard sci-fi and magic are wholly, intrinsically incompatible.

that's kind of my point, it's not like you can't do it.
it's just not HARD scifi anymore at that point.

Correct.

Pretty much, yeah. It would be cool if done properly.

Magic has to be observable though. Every magic portrayal in any piece of fiction has been obsefvable in some way.

Science is just the understanding of the natural forces of our world. Often, in fiction, "magic" is added, being some sort of additional force in a world otherwise similar to our own, which in not understood, as opposed to "science, typically being forces we have in our world, which is understood in the fictional world.
Can some natural forces be very present in a hard sci-fi world, and yet, not understood?
Yes. But it would be rather silly.