MCU does a good job. Iron Man is supposed to be science based, and Thor is a Norse god.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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I think a better example than Thor would be Dr. Strange. Thor is just an alien, and his people have advanced technology, not actually magic.
Dr. Strange literally uses magic magic.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/68872/dungeon-planet-the-healer-always-leaves-alive
Found that little gem a few weeks ago and I believe it fits your ask pretty well 1:1
Honestly almost as good as my other favorite the past few years, https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/63759/super-supportive, but the latter seems to be more active than the former.
You know what, basically any SCP will have varying levels of scifi and fantasy tropes, or sometimes none at all. Bottom line with SCPs is that anything is possible.
I apologize if this sounds flippant, but it's FICTION.
Literally ANYTHING works if its written well enough...
Techomages from Babylon 5 come to mind.
"I do think there are some things we don't understand. If we'd be back in time a thousand years, trying to explain this place to people, they could only accept it in terms of magic."
"Then perhaps it is magic. The magic of the human heart, focused and made manifest by technology. Every day you here create greater miracles than a burning bush."
And then...
"We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools we employ and we know many things."
I love B5 so much.
I think you inevitably face the whole “magic IS advanced technology” thing. If you actually want them to be different things, you have to have some answer to this.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
-Arthur C Clarke
Like Star Wars?
Dune as well.
Warhammer 40k
Yeah, there are a lot of examples out there.
Star ocean, some final Fantasy, psychics in starship troopers
Sort of dr who? At least the time lords regenerating
Tbf, in Dune all the "magic-y" bits get "scientific" explanations. I suppose you could argue the same with Star Wars and midichlorians.
Most magic books have a magic system that seems to be backed up by sciencey like explanations for their universe.
I can only think of a few that don't, like Harry Potter.
DS9?
Wizards and spaceships? It'll never work.
Star Wars doesn't really do 'super advanced technology'. Like they've got space ships and hyperdrive and laser swords and shit, but they don't treat it like high-tech stuff, they treat it like we treat cars and swords.
It's still high tech if it's vastly beyond our current technological ability.
The whole design aesthetic of the Star Wars universe is a state of technological stagnation. They all have advanced technology, but it could be more advanced, however, for whatever reason, they haven’t bothered to make any but minor advancements in a very long time.
The whole "used future" aesthetic is a big part of what gives Star Wars its vibe.
How do you treat cars and swords.
Artemis Fowl is a classic example of this. The fantasy world of fairies relies on super advanced technology in their world.
I think the MCU has done a good job with it, but I'd like to see a non-superhero version of it.
There's a Netflix movie called Bright, which is futuristic fantasy.
Star Wars
In the 'advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' there is John Carter, Dune and a ton of other movies where the tech seems like magic.
It did in Final Fantasy VI with its Magitek
Most Final Fantasy games mix sci-fi and magic. Only the specifics of the lore around how it works changes with each FF universe.
Super advanced technology is magic. Hell, regular advanced technology is magic. Just run with it.
The second Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson gets close. It's a setting where magic meets wild west tech, including guns, cars, and electricity.
I've heard that his next trilogy in the setting will have more of an 1980s tech level.
A couple of Sanderson's short stories touch on space ships, computers, and magic.
EDIT: I didn't answer the question. Yes, I think it can work. I'm also a huge fan of Brian McClellan's Powder Mage books. This mixes musket level tech and industrialization with magic.
The Sunlit Man is even more tech combined with magic. Read that one yet?
What other books do you like in that genre? I loved Mistborn/Cosmere realm and Powder Mage series.
The Sunlit Man was so good. I love books that have fast pacing right from the start, and trying to figure out how the world worked was so much fun.
Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The black ocean series does a good job if blending the two together. But it sort of sets them in opposition to each other. Interstellar travel is made possible on futuristic spaceships by using magic to plunge the ship partially into another dimension, shortening the relative distance between stars. But unless the it is specially shielded against it, magic ruins and destroys technology.
It's a great series too. I'm overdue a catchup 🙂
Definitely, although I think it's most interesting if the advanced technology is based on the magic.
Like, let's say there is a world where there are magic plants that can heal you, people who can magically scry nearby locations if they meditate deeply, and stones that levitate in the moonlight.
And there's an evil empire that exploits the fuck out of this by industrially farming the plants to create a highly concentrated serum, removing people's brains and hooking them up to computers for magical sensing abilities, and attaching fragments of moon rocks to the levitating stones to create antigravity. Creating invulnerable flying supersoldiers with impossibly good radar powered by brain backpacks.
There's a ton of examples, so yeah.
My home brew ttrpg setting is exactly that
Why wouldn't it work? Stories usually fail because the plot is bad or because they're badly told, and it's not that hard to maintain verisimilitude just because seemingly opposite ideas like magic and advanced technology are combined - just communicate what your magic and technology can and cannot do in broad strokes and stick to it, and avoid asspulls that make no sense and/or undermine the character beats you're showing. But you get exactly the same issues in a story with only magic or only advanced technology.
Yes and it sounds cool as hell
Sure, there are books like that and Shadowrun.
Shadowrun kind of does the same. It's not really super-advanced, since it's cyberpunk, but it's cyberpunk with magic. And it's my favorite setting, it's such a cool idea.
A lot of cyberpunk tech is vastly beyond our current abilities, though. They treat getting a new fully functional cybernetic arm like we treat getting silicone tits.
A sequel to Arcanum that moves the timeline forward into the information age?
God I wish we had gotten more than one Arcanum game...
With out Tim it would never be the same even if the rights were not in limbo
Iron man and other Marvel movies started being very science. Oriented, but quickly combined magic or turned to magic
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