15 KiB
[BST] What kinds of High Fantasy-type effects can be made with advanced technology?
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Author: u/None *
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URL:
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Score: 6
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Created: 2015-03-12T10:09:44
Post:
[deleted]
Comments:
u/Nepene [+7] (12 hours later)
Teleportation. Nanoswarms that reform in various locations.
Fantasy races. Uplifted animals that speak.
Necromancy. Implants in the brain and body to make corpses move.
Resurrection. Reformation of damaged brains.
Prophesies. Predictions by AI oracles.
Good vs Evil. A internet rating system where people can rate people good/ evil lawful/chaotic and bar certain items, artifacts, and locations to them.
Paladin equipment. Items such as weapons of light (lasers) that are set to only hurt or heal people of a particular alignment.
Ents. Sentient, engineered plants.
u/derefr [+1] (a day later)
Teleportation. Nanoswarms that reform in various locations.
That reminds me: is there a setting that seems to be fantasy, with "spirits" that appear from nowhere, cause great effects, and then disappear as if they were never there... but where that all just turns out to be a precursor race who uploaded themselves millions of years ago to some computronium mesh riddled through the planet, and are now temporarily re-instantiating themselves within the "material plane" using nanodrones and projections and so forth in order to help out their successors? Like a more elegant version of the robotic excursion bodies in Diaspora.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Good vs Evil. A internet rating system where people can rate people good/ evil lawful/chaotic and bar certain items, artifacts, and locations to them.
I'm using that. I'm soooo using that.
Paladin equipment. Items such as weapons of light (lasers) that are set to only hurt or heal people of a particular alignment.
Bah, everyone knows the Sword of Light is actually a spaceship!
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
Good to know.
It's a rather shocking thing for a scientist to see. Sure, some people can make energy with their mind, sure they can move them but... good and evil are tangible concepts that impact how the world works? How could that work?
u/None [+1] (a day later)
good and evil are tangible concepts that impact how the world works? How could that work?
Spoilers.
u/DCarrier [+3] (7 hours later)
The Mahou Shoujo could have their brains uploaded into computers so that damage to their body isn't debilitating. Utility fog Rapid prototyping Super strong and light materials, although if the main character isn't a material scientist, he might not notice.
Can you give us an idea of exactly how advanced the technology is?
u/None [+1] (11 hours later)
Can you give us an idea of exactly how advanced the technology is?
Read the spoiled sections. The world, or more accurately the Solar System, outside the backwards, backwater bits of Earth, went through a positive intelligence explosion 80 years ago, more or less, relative to the time the story takes place in.
If it's actually, physically possible and feasible, chances are someone in the Solar System knows how to do it.
u/derefr [+1] (a day later)
The Mahou Shoujo could have their brains uploaded into computers so that damage to their body isn't debilitating.
Isn't that what happens in Madoka? Just with an non-obvious future-crystal technological substrate.
u/DCarrier [+1] (a day later)
I was pretty much just referencing Madoka.
u/puesyomero [+3] The Culture (21 hours later)
well this really really reminds me of the tabletop rpg Numenera only it's not 80yrs after singularity but a couple decades after the 8th!! singularity. its great to play and though it feels like a typical medieval setting the wizards are called nanos and get their power by interfacing (either by genetic luck or careful study) to the pervasive machinery that lies dormant in the planet, many enemies are clearly the result of biotech or something more esoteric, and fighters can get armor and weapons from iron, steel or impossible to duplicate ceramic and plastics (not that they know those terms) if you want to read some of it (i'd recomend the magic item list) here's the corebook https://www.dropbox.com/s/4hvcbl27eyfisw3/Numenera%20Corebook.pdf?dl=0
u/Chronophilia [+3] sci-fi ≠ futurology (a day later)
There are no stars in the night sky. [They're actually still there, just hidden behind a nearly-opaque wall of solar collectors. Optional ring of satellites around the Earth's equator - rings might be a bit of a sci-fi hint.]
There's a known afterlife, you can talk to the people there, and sometimes bring them back. [Automatic uploading of the dead, any who don't choose true death and can't cope with leaving Earth get a virtual afterlife to enjoy.]
Medicinal plants that are far more potent than anything existing today. A properly mixed magic potion can regrow lost limbs. [Genetic engineering and/or nanomagic.]
Sentient animals and humanoids.
Telepathic communication and thought-controlled magic items. Remote viewing.
The aftermath of various poorly-phrased "wishes" or favours granted by powerful entities - unageing children who wished for eternal youth, monsters that will first interrogate you to determine if you could be an enemy of their master, whatever the hell the result is of someone saying "I wish the events of the last three days had never happened!", things like that.
u/None [+2] (2 days later)
The aftermath of various poorly-phrased "wishes" or favours granted by powerful entities - unageing children who wished for eternal youth, monsters that will first interrogate you to determine if you could be an enemy of their master, whatever the hell the result is of someone saying "I wish the events of the last three days had never happened!", things like that.
Nah. The Powers That Be don't allow that kind of thing. They actually quite fully understand what you're asking for when you pray to them, but they really don't like being called-on as gods, so they'll tend to answer prayers in a way that does fulfill anything genuinely good in the prayer/request/wish, while also seriously trolling the person who thought to just ask for stuff instead of accomplishing things for themselves.
u/eaglejarl [+2] (an hour later)
u/autowikibot [+2] (an hour later)
#####
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#### Clarke's three laws:
Clarke's Three Laws are three "laws" of prediction formulated by the British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. They are:
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
^Interesting: ^Deep ^magic ^| ^Hanlon's ^razor ^| ^The ^View ^from ^Serendip
^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+cpcfynt) ^or [^delete](/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&message=%2Bdelete+cpcfynt)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| ^(FAQs) ^| ^Mods ^| ^Magic ^Words
u/None [+1] (an hour later)
Sorry, I had been looking from suggestions that rely on real-world scientific knowledge, or at least, scifi hard enough to be completely plausible to present-day readers. If the kinds of things I put in the story can't actually be done in real life, this should be because science marched on after I wrote the story.
The kind of stuff used in this film, for instance, but with a much higher level of scientific knowledge.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (5 hours later)
Have you looked into nanotechnology? Eric drexlers "machines of creation" or if you want a really good fictional account thats still absolutely physically possible in a high tech scenario look at neal stephensons "diamond age".
Basically, if you have mature nanotech, ... a lot goes. A book of nanostuff, contains an entire interactive wikipedia/learning programms, freefloating nanites in the air can have an area-denying effect (think fog of death), enormous energy density and low weight/high strenght materials allow for all manners of small, intelligent drones. That same level on nanotech if used on the body allows telepathy, vampire-like immunity to damage etc etc. Normal looking swords that are nano-chainsaws and go trough everything- the limit imposed by physics is sky-high. To give an analogy: right now in computer/chip-manufacturing we are in the range of double-digit (10-99) nanometre tech; and you could blow ANYONES mind with what you can do with that level computer technology. The processor in any PC or smartphone is the smallest tiny thing! Take your average smartphone. Most of the space in it is battery+frame+display. Now take it ten, twenty steps further; you have single digit nanometre tech, and not just for CPUs, but also for all the accompanying electronics, capacitors, resistors, the battery itself, the display, the frame- you have a tiny razor, light as a feather, running time in terms of weeks, hundreds of times more power than the laptop you or I am writing on right now, dozens, hundreds of sensors...
u/derefr [+4] (a day later)
That same level on nanotech if used on the body allows ... vampire-like immunity to damage etc etc.
It's fun to read through the D&D spell list for everything that mentions "undead", and think "how are nanites being used to accomplish this." It actually makes some thematic bits make more sense, too; the ability of undead to be universally "turned" only really makes sense if the nanites used are all a sort of lost tech that can't be upgraded, and has known backdoors for other magic-users to crack.
It also makes "lich" just another word for "transhuman." :)
u/Geminii27 [+1] (an hour later)
Suitable effects might include explosions. Medical cures for thought-fatal/incurable conditions/diseases. Voice projection. Summoning the sun during the night. Appearing to survive or shrug off mortal blows/wounds. Mass teleportation. Extreme strength. Armor or weapons of glowing light. Hovering in the air. Fogs, mists, miasmas, and the clouding of minds. The appearance of weather control.
Basically, anything that traditional pantheons and heroes have been credited with. "And he stood him in the bow of the ship, and spake with a great voice, and the very walls of the city trembled and fell at his word." That sort of thing.
u/None [+2] (2 hours later)
Suitable effects might include explosions. Medical cures for thought-fatal/incurable conditions/diseases.
I think weaponry and medicine are too firmly classified as "technology" in the public mind for these to work. Anthropologically, I can't think how even a really backwards society will have regressed so far into ignorance by the 22nd century that they won't remember there was ever any such thing as a bomb or a surgical implant.
Ok, the really rural, backwards, religious-fundamentalist nutjobs, the people who are considered insane even by a backwards society, might not remember those things. But the early-industrial sections of society will plainly remember that, once upon a time, there were such things as technological means of fighting and healing.
Voice projection.
But remembering how theatrical special-effects work is done is harder!
Summoning the sun during the night.
A sufficiently large ball of plasma in LOE would accomplish this. Very nice. It'll be a nice way to signal that Shit Just Got Real, as the powerful people have just arrived and decided to announce themselves.
Appearing to survive or shrug off mortal blows/wounds. Mass teleportation. Extreme strength. Armor or weapons of glowing light.
Other than teleportation, which is known-impossible, these are all good suggestions. Advanced materials science could give armor or weapons that look cool and/or provide protection/striking power well into the fantastical. Sufficiently small computers and nervous-system interfaces could make talking armor and weapons, that can possibly even "guide the hand" the way a magic sword might be supposed to do.
I think I might even have once seen a science publicity article about a material that looked like a lightsaber.
Hovering in the air.
That's a bit harder to actually accomplish, rather than to fake with various arrangements of steel cables.
Fogs, mists, miasmas, and the clouding of minds. The appearance of weather control.
Very good suggestions, especially for the sorts of things that make a Forbidden Zone or an Ancient Artifact. Dealing with climate/weather problems caused by malfunctioning "magic" that turns out to be geoengineering would work very well as a subplot.
Basically, anything that traditional pantheons and heroes have been credited with. "And he stood him in the bow of the ship, and spake with a great voice, and the very walls of the city trembled and fell at his word." That sort of thing.
Voice-activated ultra-high-tech works well here.
Thanks!
u/tongjun [+1] (14 hours later)
- A partner with full body composite armor and a face concealing helmet (maybe even space armor, depending on your tech level) and you have a faceless servant/golem.
- Green laser pen to start fires invisibly
- Shotgun shells on the ends of a staff for a literal boomstick
- Ether as a magic sleep potion
- Virtually any advanced drug as a poison
- Radioactive amulets/coins/common items (like a spoon) for curses