Space Magic

So in scifi we often have the idea of "Space Magic". Basically magic but divorced from traditional mysticism. The magic comes from something inherent in the user, or something inherent in the universe, rather than some outside force or complex rituals. However, these powers always seem to boil down to about a half dozen different psychic powers.

Telepathy, Precognition, Telekinesis, Remote viewing, pyrokinesis, and occasionally Psychometry.

What are some other powers that you'd want to see in a sci-fi setting?

Other urls found in this thread:

docs.google.com/document/d/1jSJT0Jf5Yh3nw5lVXdOzVhAgwICELX9l4LRSIX9XDKo/edit?usp=sharing
twitter.com/AnonBabble

Personally I'd like to see some manner of necromancy. Give a guy the ability to psychically reinvigorate dead cells and say there's a certain time limit on how old the body can be for it to work. If you get them early, they're basically just resurrected, but if you get them later, the degeneration is such that their minds are incomplete or almost wholly absent due to memory loss.

Other powers aren't realistic.

Powers aren't realistic full stop. What about a lump of water and cholesterol residing in the head of a human makes it capable of mysteriously moving objects at a distance.

Thats why its science FICTION.

Shapeshifting
Time powers
Gravity manipulation
Teleportation

My other topic isn't doing so well.

Good Sci-Fi game recommendations?

Coming from D&D background, but kind of want to branch out and try other systems / doesn't have to be d20 roll-over.

Cosmic resonance that allows you to tessract
Space walking (without suit)
Clairvoyance/audience
Solar wings of fire
Sunfire sword
Physical enhancement
Worm riding

I saw that and wish I had something to say, but I don't. All I'm aware of is Stars Without Number (grognards), Eclipse Phase (too political), Star Wars and WH40k (shit settings) and Traveller (randomness in chargen, no thanks).

At what point does it become D&D or Pathfinder in space?

>Spelljammer
>Starfinder

Oh, right, those.

Cronenbergamancy although usually its based in some kind of virus or something.

Oh and Starfinder, I forgot about that because it's a dumpster fire that died on arrival.

I've been putting together something where telekinesis coexists with a so cold thermomancy. While the former allows casters to move objects through space, the latter allows them to change the kinetic energy of an object. Mostly its about changing states of matter, so they could cool down the air to make it really chunky and hard to breathe/walk through, cut through walls by liquefying the metal, evaporate water into scalding steam, etc.

*so called thermomancy* Only clarifying because it could actually change the meaning of the sentence.

Don't forget Starjammer 3rd Party stuff.

What is it about a lump of water and cholesterol residing in the head of a human makes it capable of mysteriously thinking?

Cell interactions and synapses forming a semi-coherent whole out of many parts.

Yes but how does that explain qualia

What IS 'Thinking', anyways?

I want to see the opposite of the usual: I want artificial gravity and FTL to be explicitly magic, done by space wizards, rather than pretending it's somehow scientific.

At the point when you decide to use a shitty ancient system composed entirely of sacred cows and self-reference.

>Basically magic but divorced from traditional mysticism.
That's lame. I want space men with jump drives powered by spiritual energy siphoned off the boundless reserves of the slumbering deity that dreams the world where you need a wrench and a talisman in equal measure to keep it running.

>Muh qualia
Everybody is p-zombies.

>How does that explain qualia
Well you see, some people made up a word for a subjective thing.

Nobody knows

What does "subjective" even mean? How is any of this possible??

I want the opposite. Modern scifi, but characters learn that magic is a thing and have to do the traditional stuff like summoning circles, all while in a space station.

>Brings up Qualia
>Immediately devolves into endless "What is X" arguments.

Listen man, I know your parents spent a lot on that philosophy degree, but please go jerk yourself off elsewhere.

t. people who just took philosophy 101

>Teleportation
Seriously why does no one do this?

you mean watched Vsauce while tried and drunk.

Surely such a wise sage like you can explain to me, just what is 'thinking'?

>magic but divorced from traditional mysticism

I'd rather have the opposite: technology filled with magic and mysticism.

Look at alchemical, medical, or nature text from before the 15th century. Look at classical works on natural philosophy. There's no hard lines between physics, chemistry, magic, spirits, and gods. One page will tell you how to burn charcoal to refine iron, and the next page will tell you how to sacrifice a dove to Artemis and bury it under the full moon to stop witches from drinking the blood of your livestock.

anons of good taste.

{THINKING}

that is indeed the word in a bracket, but you haven't explained what it actually is.

I like how Destiny did it. It used practically all of those. Everything from Nanomachines, Space magic, Advanced robotic intelligences, Elderitch horrors, and even Psionics.

Thats a shitty way of defining "space magic", what you are talking about is science magic

The ability to mess with peoples perception slightly, like causing them to smell, seem or hear something, but only one affect at a time unless you are somebody who went hole hog into the NOTmagic ability.

Oh yeah, illusions should be a thing. I'd make them a lot more useful than that though.

My system/setting has a large emphasis on "space magic", it's set in the 71st century Milky Way, there is a eon long war between higher dimensional angels and lower dimensional demons going on throughout the galaxy and the resident spacers are caught in the middle.

Currently the magic system is based on chakras (you can see it here: docs.google.com/document/d/1jSJT0Jf5Yh3nw5lVXdOzVhAgwICELX9l4LRSIX9XDKo/edit?usp=sharing between pages 12-26. There are two types of magic currently, Light Magic (LiMa) and Shadow Magic (ShaMa). I say currently because I'm in the middle of redesigning the entire game, mechanics, etc and the magic systems will probably be gutted for something that resembled a "spellbuilder" system, idk, it looks tempting. Point is, I would mostly have the same type of things, teleportation, TK, healing heart chakra bubble shields, and the higher level moves would involve still involve seriously fucking with your environment (the price to pay for using such a powerful move).

What can I say? I was aiming for the lower bounds of magical power. You know the stuff that would assist a decent grifter but be significantly less useful to an average bloke.

Hows this for a campaign idea. Players are a science team sent to a space station that has gone dark. But weird shit starts happening. Soon they discover corridors and modules of the station that repeat or shouldn't exist. Crew has vanished but leave cryptic messages about rituals.... And the rituals amd talismans mentioned actually work. But now there are monsters hunting them. And a mysterious spacesuit painted in runes, that may or may not be helping them.

FTL/teleportation via repeatable divine intervention.

A new religion is founded. Minor at first, until it demonstrates a miracle which it can repeat on demand. Whenever people genuinely believing in the religion perform a specific ritual, they can ask their deity to relocate something in the universe and it actually works.

>Prayer-powered FTL works for pastafarians. Only for pastafarians. Heathens can be aboard the starship, but at least one cleric is needed for hyperjump.

>"By the good graces of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, I beg of thee to guide our vessel with thine holiest of noodly appendages to our location so that we may partake of the righteous noodles of Dephanine V."

...

t.reddit

Thinking is the cognitive dissonance of your spiritual essence opperating within the biomechanical apparatus of your body, through the lynchpin device of your brain.

An example is a computer. Your spirit is the software, your body is the CPU, moniter, etc., your brain is the motherboard. Thinking is your OS/what pops up on your screen that you interact with. Like clicking open tabs are things you are currently concentrating on & if you open to many the system crashes & you get a head ache. If there is a flaw in your motherboard then you have autism etc.

Fucking halfwits. Here is layman's terms. You are a meat sack piloted by a ghost & your brain is the cockpit. Thoughts are the commands of the ghost/hitting levers & knobs.

>What are some other powers that you'd want to see in a sci-fi setting?
I would just like to see magic, played straight with a sci-fi aesthetic. Spells, mages, rituals with drawn circles, spirits, mana, enchanted itmes, etc. That's what I'm trying to work into my space opera setting.

I know Destiny isn't exactly that but this is a good picture.

While the Guardian's stuff is played more like Superpowers, the Hive go full into the whole dark magic and rituals gimmick, fantasy themed naming and all

I suppose it would undercut space travel.

>one of the arguments against extended space flight is the debilitating effects of zero-g on the human body
>muscle atrophy and skeletal deterioration are two of the most cited concerns
>they are all lies
>yes there are certain side effects from extended zero-g, but they are far more serious
>the first astronauts came back changed
>their cellular structure and physiology had radically mutated
>DNA testing revealed they were in fact the same men and women
>they had developed an extra sensory awareness, knowing things they shouldn't
>at the same time they exuded an aura of unease. Friends and loved ones refused to accept these were the same people
>even worse the astronauts strange aura began to effect the world around them
>after one stayed for a week at a local motel, odd things started happening
>guests refused to stay there overnight, and the building was quietly bought by persons unknown
>several months after their return the astronauts all died in a freak car accident
>control of NASA was quickly passed to another government agency
>they continue to send men and women into orbit, trying to pin down the cause of these changes

Mage/Psychics Teleport the ship from system to system, then pilots use a maneuver drive to go places. It works in Traveller. Just make this gift rare & expensive.

Also, I would love to see a giant goetic summoning circle drawn with light within a giant iron ring lined with runes as a form of jump travel. Like a Stargate mixed with the Key of Solomon. Where different sigil take you to different places

Eh, I don't think I would have magic be so prominent in space travel, even as something that's optional as just a better alternative to FTL travel or warp drives. In a game I feel like it would put too much focus on magic.

>teleports behind you

>testing of Zero-G subjects revealed other disturbing phenomenon
>living or dead the subjects continued to warp the environment
>greater amounts of subjects in an area correlated to fast and more powerful cysts in the fabric of reality
>even more disturbing, personnel at these research locations began to change as well. Resulting in the abandonment and sterilization of several test facilities
>there have been reports of terminated subjects appearing throughout the United States
>all of these incidents have occurred in locations thought to be haunted or cursed
>following these sightings these locations become charged, and begin warping the local populace
>there is considerable panic and outrage at the highest level of government
>eliminating a few test subjects is one thing, but sterilizing large sections of the populace is unfeasible
>Russia appears to be having trouble on par with the United States
>a secret agreement is reached. After a declaration of war, each nation will use targeted nuclear strikes to sterilize infected areas.

Why not?
If magic is fused with technology, you're doing it because A) it's cheap, B) it's high- or infinite-concentration (portable), or C) it's incredibly efficient.

It would seem foolish to fuse magic and technology elsewhere, but not for something large-scale that requires two or more of the above options to be feasible without handwavium.

Well I'm not fusing magic and technology at all. They would be two distinct things, with minimal overlap.

You could also have magic that's not cheap or common and have Marvel cosmic or Star Wars.

Then why even bother having magic at all

Dying Earth is basically that magic and technology has advanced so far that the distinction between the two is essentially meaningless.

I have a cape that lets me fly. I have no idea how it works, but it does.

>My system/setting
Stopped reading immediate
When will you kids learn

This is probably going to sound moronic from me, but I think psykers look better in fantasy than sci-fi, because even though they are supposed to be science-y, they really aren't.
I think nanobots is the way. Just make it some long lost bullshit technology that is difficult to operate/navigate to create a power barrier.

Good! Then next question: how do we hack it? What if hacking minds is magic? What if it's only possible in space?

Hacking would have to either effect the Information Input, & make the person have altered perception like drugs, or the subconscious like viral marketing.

Or magic

...To have magic? Why would I need to mix it with technology?

>Solar wings of fire
>Sunfire sword

Bump
Thus thread is giving me some ideas, please keep it up

My idea for space magic is to keep it magical, but couch it in space symbolism. The sun(s), the void of space, the intertwining nature of space and time, etc.

I want to make a setting that's hard sci-fi, except magic is real. There's no FTL or artificial gravity, no humanlike aliens or single-biome planets, transhumanism is a thing and people don't get old unless they really want to...but there are space wizards. Could this work?

Check Psychonenitcs

...

Here is an idea that I have - the particles that make up "dark matter" are also the base particles that are used for magic. As for why there isn't any magic on Earth, or why earthbound dark matter detectors haven't found anything, well in the distant past a magical space faring species created great anti-magic seal on the moon, to block out magic from the Earth-Moon system; this was done to drain power from some horrible monstrosity that is currently sleeping deep within the Earth.

Thus, humans discover magic on the first trip to Mars, when various little superstitious rituals actually work on the spaceship heading there. Magic develops as humanity colonizes the solar system, eventually leading to magic FTL, which lets humanity encounter other species; said species have far more refined magic, but no other have pushed non-magic using technology anywhere near as far.

Meanwhile, on the Earth & Moon, cults arise wanting to break the magic seal to release the sleeping monster (which still has just enough power to get into some people's dreams) while other people argue that the creature couldn't be that dangerous anymore, and push for the seal on the moon to be disabled.

...

I mean science is 'the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.' according to google.

So most magic is science

I tinkered with this idea a long time ago, one creation was Nano-tech undead. The idea that humans to preserve their lives, have nano-bots injected into their blood streams. But after a person dies, the nano bots assume control of the corpse, by infesting the brain, spinal column and muscular tissue.