technology in fantasy

[WeThePeople...]

does anyone here ever try to do anything besides medieval or ancient era technology when writing a (fantasy) story? I'm always trying to move away from the old tolkein stereotype fantasy story, so I like to mix in technologies which could have existed at the time, or have things advance differently in my storys. Electricity or deisal power before steam engines for example. Barbed wire in a medeival setting (made by hand) or even some types of genetic alteration. what are some of your more farout ideas of technology in your storys? am I the only one who does this?

 

[The Ace]

Piers Anthomy's Proton/Phase novels spring to mind, hardly great literature, but a good way to spend a rainy day.

 

[Talysia]

I've brainstormed a lot regarding the use of different aspects of technology in a fantasy setting, although none of my current writing uses any. I guess the best idea I've seen on a concept like that is having an advanced civilization that was ruined for some reason, and having the everyday items that they used be regarded as marvels by the descendants of those who survived. (I know there are a few flaws in a storyline like that) The AIVAS storyline in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern springs to mind in that regard.

 

[j d worthington]

While it's certainly possible to have technology in fantasy tales (viz. Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories, some of Clark Ashton Smith's tales, Andre Norton's earlier Witch World stories -- or China Mieville's work, for that matter) it's a very difficult road to walk and be convincing; the technology must be consistent, for one thing, and it must make sense for any magic or fantasy element to work in a world where such technology exists; so it takes a great deal of thought.

As for some of your specific examples: It's unlikely they'd develop electricity or diesel power before steam engines, in part because production of electricity largely depends on having built on things learned from steam power... and in many cases, it is made possible by steam-driven turbines. Barbed wire made by hand isn't impossible, by any means... but it'd be a darned slow and inefficient process; pickets/pikes would work better, and could be crossed by an easily-assembled stile, for instance. Genetic alteration? Well, we've been doing that as long as we've been stock-breeding, really. So you could have a world where certain facets of society breed others for desired effects. But genetic manipulation in the modern sense would only be made possible through a very high level of technology -- enough to make magic rather clumsy in comparison.

Mind you, I'm not saying that it can't be done -- just that it's going to be terrifically difficult to pull it off well.

As for getting away from the mediaeval (or feudal) sort of setting... yes, that's been done by any number of writers over the years: Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson, Harlan Ellison, Joanna Russ, Kate Wilhelm, L. Sprague de Camp, Mieville (as mentioned above), Michael Moorcock... even Robert E. Howard set several fantasy stories in the contemporary world, as did Clark Ashton Smith. It's generally a different sort of fantasy, with a different feel (away from the "epic" or "high" fantasy), but nonetheless fantasy.

The main thing to be careful of is to make your world consistent as possible; other than that... the field's open.

 

[HoopyFrood]

I'm not really one for writing fantasy stories in fuedal or medieval settings, with royalty and the Great Chain of Being etc. I have written a story where technology certainly is more simple, but the world isn't particularly medieval-like.

My current story...well, I sometimes reckon it's difficult to tell, but I suppose it's mainly fantasy! But it's not set in one particularly world, and only really revolves around a small group of people, and the technology certainly is advanced. I have a super-computer that's practically human and some very flashy cars. I prefer writing things like this rather than creating a world or a land that has its own royalty and nobilty and etc. But that's just my preference!

 

[Duchessprozac]

My current story is set in a fantasy world where technology is begining to make a comeback into the land after a hiatus 10,000 years, whilst magic is practiced only by those licensed or those willing to flout the law for profit.

I intend for the old technology, which is highly evolved and mixes both science and magic, to make a comeback over the course of the story.

 

[Dragonlady]

On the Discworld the wizards' magic seems to have similarities to physics- I've alway wondered how much technology I could get away with in a world where magic was widely used, depending on the type of magic. If there are many magical healers, why invent complex medicine, and so on. I guess technology certainly could have gone differently- apparently the ancient egyptians had the knowledge to make steam power work, but at the time slaves were cheaper!

 

[chrispenycate]

"Technology" and "industry" are not interchangeable terms. Blacksmithing, or bronze working are sophisticated technologies, and your average medieval fantasy assumes these, though a particularly important artifact may be created by magic alone.
Obviously, magic itself can be considered as a technology (assuming it is sufficiently reliable, repeatable and is more economically interesting than its mundane alternatives; but if it isn't, it won't develope very far anyway) and the advantages of it over the technologies developed in our world line will skew the developement of the ones we know. Think of something and it immediately comes into being? There goes agriculture, for a start, and all the peasant societies so beloved of most fantay societies. Reliable, cheap teleportation? No need even to develope the wheel.
Can scrying communications be detected, evesdropped on? It might be worth developing the network of semaphore towers that crossed Napoleon's Europe, for military and commercial uses. Or not; maybe transporting encoded documents iste way to go.
But don't consider that a pre-industrial, pre-scientific technology (say weaving or candlemaking) is primitive or obvious just because it's been around for a long time; try and look at it with the eyes of someone coming to it for the fist time.
It's magic.

 

[Winter Lord]

I've worked with the idea of elementals that are used to power turbines, and cars that have spirits tied to them as a means of security.

 

[j d worthington]

Chris is right, of course: technology doesn't have to be of the modern, industrial stripe to be highly developed or complex. The main point though, as noted, is how much the introduction of a magical or fantasy element would conflict with the development of any particular technology -- and how that, in turn, would affect the growth and development of your created world's societies....

For a good, quick look at how much difference it might make, read L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall (yes, it is much like 20th-century A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but it gets across a practical example of this issue all the same).

 

[WeThePeople...]

let me clarify- most of my 'technologies' have had some sort of reliance on magic. In one story, lodestone and amber was mined, and mages were able to extract the electro-magnetism from it and into a wire. In the genetics scene of things, most of it is done by mages again. Giants for example, were breeded from regular humans into brutes as tall as trees but as dumb (and obediant) as dogs. And responding to jdw's comment of the technologies of deisal and electricity being based of the things we discovered with steam, who says it wouldn't be the other way around? of course, steam wouldn't catch on if we already had diesal, seeing how gas is a whole lot damned better...
keep in mind these are only ideas i'm playing around with, not serious story contributers. yet

 

[chrispenycate]

Diesel; requires preheating (almost needs electricity as a prequisite, though I have worked with a tractor where a "shotgun cartridge" was hit by a hammer to start it) and precision machining; even if it works better with decent machining, steam can make do with looser tolerances.
Derve requires fractional distillation of petroleum, which you might get for improved lamp oil, while a steam engine can burn almost anything (I read a report of a steam engine burning egyptian mummies. but it could have been an exaggeration)
No technology (perhaps flint knapping) grows up in isolation; there's an interdependence, and one little discovery in one field made a couple of years earlier of later fans out across all human experience.

Selective breeding is a "mature technology", at least as old as civilisation, and yet we have never bred giants. Essentially, above a certain size the human frame is just not an efficient design, so to build a "tall as trees" you have to thicken up the legs and pelvis, improve the heat extraction system, rigidise the spine - or use magic continuously to balance the cube/square law. And if you have that kind of magic, wouldn't it be more effecient to apply it directly, rather than having your upgraded sumo wrestlers to feed between jobs? (yes, humanity doesn't have a good record for the most rational solution, and the giants would be impressive, even if using up more resources than they were worth) And why make them stupid (so clichéed)? If you make them happy with their lot, you don't need overseers, and they can be geniuses if so required, working out the problems of the work in hand, not waiting for further orders to conti… sorry, I do that.
Ah, yes, lodestone and amber, nicely symbolic (If you know what it's symbolic of) Wouldn't work with our laws of physics, of course – no return path for the electrons – but that's true of a lot of magic. I suspect I'd have used mereoric iron and thunderstorms, for the bling, but, yes, over flashy.
Then you're stuck with the problem of what they would do with the electricity, when they'd got it. Lighting? Radio? What is essential when you already have working magic?

 

[j d worthington]

Then you're stuck with the problem of what they would do with the electricity, when they'd got it. Lighting? Radio? What is essential when you already have working magic?

That's where the fly in the ointment comes in, I think. Making the world consistent on this point. It's like ERB having a society where they use swords -- and radium pistols. I strongly suspect that, for all his storytelling abilities, were he to try that today (rather than in 1912), it wouldn't get off the ground.

Mixing magic and technology -- especially advanced technology -- is a very difficult thing to pull off because of that: if you have magic, what's the point of technology. The electricity idea you describe above being a very good example. Why not simply have a spell which substitutes, rather than taking the charge out of, etc.? A spell to power (whether to provide light, energy, what-have-you) a locality, rather than half-measures, where neither is really satisfactory. Keep in mind that, when writing such fiction, the magic must also obey laws -- it must become a kind of science in itself, as it were; otherwise it simply becomes a constant deus ex machina, and that can simply sap any tension from the story.

Incidentally, there are also other problems with giants, aside from the food situation. It seems inherent that giantism puts a severe strain on the organic system, and giants tend to not only have horrendous health problems, but very short lifespans. This wouldn't be all that efficient economicall for your society, unless there's a way around that. Magic might accomplish it; but breeding programs (even with magic involved) would likely not do so.

You can overcome these problems, but you've got to take them into account and compensate for them -- and that can eat up a lot of space in the text, unless you're very careful. In the end, if you choose to mix these, it is going to require considerable planning ahead; it can't be slapdash, or it will come down like a house of cards (there I go with the trite similes again... gak!). Unfortunately, that's something where people aren't going to be likely to help a great deal without knowing an awful lot of detail (including, probably, a sample of the writing showing how you handle this sort of thing)... so the best rule is simply to remember that, if magic can make it work without the technology, or vice versa, it isn't (generally speaking) a good idea to mix the two....

 

[Saltheart]

[FONT=&quot]Um, it’s fantasy. Do whatever you want. Readers are more than willing to suspend their disbelief.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Fantasy is not about the socio-political consequences of slaying an autocratic ruler. Nor is it about the economic considerations for breeding giant pink elephants. It’s definitely not about the explanation for the evolutionary processes leading to the existence of dragon. Fantasy is simply a base for telling a story. A damn good story.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]You can explain the existence of giants away by simply saying in giant country everything is giant – and readers will believe you as long as you are consistent in your details. That’s what fantasy is about: imagination. If you, either as a reader or a writer lack that, fantasy is not for you. Simple, really.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I don’t think there’s anything wrong with combining technology with magic. Take a look at several JRPGs and how they still suspend your disbelief. It’s by consistency. From start to finish the audience is told the take takes place in a world where magic and technology complement. The readers don’t care for how it came forth, as long as they can see it is working. Fantasy, not reality.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Guns and swords can work, as long as the storyteller tells us why someone is using a sword instead of a gun. Maybe guns are expensive, and the hero is poor. Maybe the military is Orwellian, and locks away all weaponry except for its own use. Maybe weapons are bound to a user’s spirit by an arcane ritual spell, and therefore who doesn’t own one can never use it. Maybe all three. There is nothing wrong with that. Fantasy is not the same thing as science fiction, where the author is required to thoroughly explain how a reality came to be from the known principles of nature.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Fantasy is about the story, pure and simple. Readers just want a good story, and are willing to believe anything that follows internal logic. Fantasy worlds are not our world. Plus as the storyteller, you have the ability to force things to have logic, even rocket launchers and horse-driven carriages in the same world. All it requires is imagination.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]For a good example of what Fantasy is about, check out Pirates of the Caribbean. All that silly willy about explaining how is not as important as showing it does work, all the while focusing on storytelling. Everything about the setting's logic is in medias res.[/FONT]

 

[Peter Graham]

Well said, Saltheart.

It isn't necessary to have a degree in engineering, biology or whatever in order to be able to justify the existence of certain technologies in a fantasy world. I know there has to be internal cohesion, but there doesn't necesarily has to be one one might call external cohesion - the internal combustion engine doesn't have to work the same way as it does in our world, as long as it works in its own context and doesn't interfere with the suspension of disbelief.

Do a Pullman. If you are using diesel, just give it a different name and don't bother explaining how it works unless its central to the story. It's only a propulsion system, after all.

Tolkien had this with Mordor. Learned types laid down their fossil hammers, stroked their long beards and gently told him that there was no way that the mountains of Mordor could have been formed as they were on his map. It defied all geological logic. To which the Prof. replied "so what - I need them that way". I for one was not put off reading the story just because of that (or any other) 'mistake' (the obvious gene pool problems in the Bree-Land being my personal favourite).

Regards,

Peter

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Mixing magic and technology -- especially advanced technology -- is a very difficult thing to pull off because of that: if you have magic, what's the point of technology.

Just because magic was present wouldn't necessarily mean that everyone in the world could -- or would -- use it. It might, for instance, be more expensive to use. I'm not talking dollars and cents. If you base your magic on the kinds of magic that people have actually believed in over the ages, your magic would, at the bare minimum, require considerable time and effort; it would also not be one hundred percent reliable. It might go against religious dogma. It might be illegal, as a reaction to former abuses. In either case, some would use it, but others would have to rely on more ordinary methods to get/accomplish whatever they are after. It might require talents given only to a few, in which case, a handful of people couldn't possibly fulfill all the demands for weaponsmithing, communication, fuel, etc. for an entire nation (or world).

So long as you don't make the magic too cheap, easy, or commonplace, you're unlikely to run into any consistency problems combining it with technology. If it's difficult, expensive, and rare, people would only use magic in those circumstances where they could not accomplish the same thing by ordinary technology -- or it would be used only by those who could afford to pay for it.

On the other hand, if magic has become easy and cheap, it might be an affectation of the rich to buy objects made by the more time-consuming (and therefore more expensive) older technologies.

What it all come down to is thinking your world and your story through very carefully, and considering the consequences and implications of every decision you make during the worldbuilding process. (I agree with JD and Chris that there are connections between certain things in the real world, and it would take some fancy explaining to logically un-connect them in a fantasy world.) It's also a good idea not to over-complicate things. Use the simplest and most logical solution to reconcile any seeming contradictions -- and then think out the consequences of that.

Remember that even today, with all the advanced technologies at our disposal, there are still people who believe in magic and try to use it. And this has been true in other eras of rapid scientific and technological progress. Some people are just naturally drawn to magic, some people naturally fear it. In any story where the characters approach anything resembling human nature, there would be people of both sorts, no matter how easy or how difficult the magic might be.

 

[timelord4]

Hello all,

Couldn't find the introductions forum so if I'm not being rude, perhaps I can say hello here

I wished the giant thing could have kept going, I was really enjoying that. If I may, I would like to add my thoughts on the topic. As someone mentioned Pullman, Golden Compass is an example of integrating science and magic. Seems to work. Star Wars was probably the best example. But I did read many years ago, and the title has slipped by me, about two islands in the pacific. One was called Mu, obviously Lemuria, and I can't recall the other. The author based his book on fact. And the strangest part was. One island was populated by a race of magicians (magic users) and the other, a race of scientists. Apparently, and according to evidence provided by the author, these two races eventually killed each other off, just before both islands sank beneath the ocean.

My point being, as someone else pointed out, it is mere fantasy. But, it needs to be believable. Darth Vader presides at Arthur's round table? Electricty is invented to make messenger pigeons fly faster? Referring to the book above, I did a bit of travel in the late '60's and had the opportunity to visit a small village in northern Burma. Can't remember the name 'place of twenty thousand buddhas' it translated as. But I was stunned to find in one of the small temples, a coloured drawing high up on one of the walls. It depicted several aircraft, balloon shaped just as the book described them. And beneath, a number of figures with what was obviously magic shooting from their fingers. They were portrayed as zzzzzz interlinked and firing at the craft. Just like the book said. I asked the locals about them and they seemed to collaborate the authors sentiments. Excuse me if I sound a bit OT: but reading your link and ensuing threads has reminded of this incident and brought to mind. We strive so hard to create our worlds. We rake our minds to develop the new. To offer our fantasies to the readers, sometimes with more twists than a piece of rope. Yet here was an example of fact (presumably) that to me was stranger than any fiction I could have thought up. Scientists and magicians thousands of years ago on islands in the pacific? Seemed to fit in nicely with what was being said here and would probably make for a great story.

Thanks for your time. And good writing.

 

[chrispenycate]

Introductions is down in "general", in the relaxation region. I should know, I spend enough time there. But welcome anyway; I'll do uit properly if you introduce yourself properly.

"Scientists" rather than "technologists"? Mind you, the magic workers might not make the difference. Still, if magic gave repeatable, reliable results, I as ab analytic (with the accent for once on the "anal" might have difficulties separating it from another technologa (any sufficiently advanced etc.)
While the "scientific method" (try as hard as you can to prove that you're wrong, rather than searching for ways to justify the insufficiencies in your theory) is relatively recent (yes, and I've noticed that not everybody calling hinself a "scientist" maintains that objectivity at all times, ready to jettison his pet theory the moment it no longer accurately predicts the results.)
Without this willingness to change, can those inhabitants be truly considered "scientists"?

 

[hippokrene]

I rather like magical technology.

 

[Winter Lord]

At one time, weren't the magician and scientist the same thing? Magicians had to know a discipline called "Natural Philosophy", guess what Natural Philosophy is called today.... "Physics". I