Made of Phlebotinum: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:Mass-Effect-as-
Some [[The Verse|settings]] ''have'' [[Phlebotinum]]. It helps [[Screw the Rules I Have Plot|move along the plot]], [[Hand Wave]] various characters' [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief|improbable]] powers, and conveniently get the [[Heroes]] [[Teleporters and Transporters|from point A to point B quickly]]. It can let you just say [[A Wizard Did It]].
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But then some settings...are different. They have nothing ''but'' Phlebotinum. That [[City of Adventure]] the heroes are exploring around? It's completely [[Floating Continent|floating]] in the air; not one building is touching the ground. Why? Phlebotinum! In fact, the whole planet is probably bound together with some sort of magical or super-science energy, without which it would simply [[Earthshattering Kaboom|explode]]. Every single thing around requires whatever the local flavor of Phlebotinum is to run in worlds such as these, whether it's [[Functional Magic|magic]], [[Nanomachines]], [[The Force]], or something else similar.
The main dividing line between a world that simply has a lot of Phlebotinum and one that's
There is actually a great deal of evidence that ''[[Real Life]]'' is thus: when you develop a potent capability to the point that there are few side effects, you start using it for everything imaginable. When we learned to harness electricity easily, the only things weren't 100% electrical were the things that we used to generate electricity. When computers became advanced enough, we started carrying them around with us. Litmus Test? If you took away computers, it'd '''re-create [[The Great Depression]]'''. If you took away electricity, '''''ninety percent of the world would die within a decade'''''.
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Eberron]]'''s [[Dungeon Punk]] world comes to mind as an especially obvious example of this trope. Without that magical-flavored [[Phlebotinum]], everything in that world would fall apart ''hard''. It's pretty much
** To a lesser extent, all ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' settings fit this trope. ''[[Planescape]]'' and ''[[Spelljammer]]'' especially, but even a place like ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' is mildly
** [[Ravenloft]] literally so - it's a series of artifically-created "demiplanes" floating in the misty emptiness of the Ethereal Plane. When a domain's [[Cosmic Keystone]] is destroyed, it may be absorbed by neighboring domains, or it may simply collapse into the Mists.
* ''[[Exalted]]'', full stop. Creation itself is the greatest artifact ever built, while [[Odd Job Gods]] exist for individual rice grains and their interactions provide the physics of the universe.
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' seems more
** According to [http://www.viddler.com/rooreynolds/videos/26/ this] video, Azeroth is a sphere about 12 kilometers across, with a density around a hundred times that of Earth. This explains why when you drop an item it disappears; due to the gravity it is crushed into an extremely fine powder spread over a wide area.
* In ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'', the magical floating continent of Zeal is this. It completely depends on magical energy to stay aloft and its residents do pretty much everything by magic.
* ''[[Touhou]]'' is pretty much supposed to be where, when [[The Magic Goes Away]] on the rest of the Earth because [[Magic Versus Science|the progress of technology leads to a lack of faith in magic]], all the magic is swept up and kept inside Gensokyo so that all the monsters, demons, and Gods can still live their magically supercharged lives. The technology is generally [[Bamboo Technology]] hybrids with [[Magitek]], or simply stolen from "[[This Is Reality|the Real World]]". It is also worth noting that even the [[Muggles]] have ''some'' kind of superpower in Gensokyo, it's just that you only hear about the [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|world-bendingly powerful little girls.]]
* ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' and ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'' are like this. The main focus for most of both games is preserving the mana flow and thus preventing the collapse of the world. Without it, magic won't work, crops won't grow, etc.
* [[Mass Effect]] uses this as its ''[[Character Title]] [[Title Drop|Drop]]'', despite being one of the [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness|hardest]] [[Space Opera
** [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_energy It's till pretty hard], [[wikipedia:Dark energy|all things considering]].
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