Magitek: Difference between revisions

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[[File:airship 1896.jpg|link=Eberron|frame|Like an airliner, but with [[Elemental Embodiment|fire elementals]] instead of thrusters.]]
 
{{quote|''"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from SCIENCE!"''|'''Agatha Heterodyne''', ''[[Girl Genius]]''}}
|'''Agatha Heterodyne''', ''[[Girl Genius]]''}}
 
Advanced ubiquitous magic always seems to end up working just like technology. The car engine might be powered by a fire elemental, and the telephone may work through [[Functional Magic|the principle of contagion]], but this doesn't affect the man in the street. They just get in the car and drive away, or pick up the phone and talk—no special talent required, just as if the devices were technological.
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Contrast with [[Magic From Technology]] and [[Post-Modern Magik]]. See also [[Harmony Versus Discipline]], [[Ritual Magic]] and [[Fantastic Science]].
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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[One Piece]]'', powers granted by the devil fruits are often used in very creative ways. Ace's sailboard is propelled thanks to his ability to generate flames, Captain Smoker's Blower Bike is powered by wind-catching wheels being blown by the smoke he generates, Mister 3's ship is also powered (somehow) thanks to its owner's candle wax generating superpowers. Eneru also supplies himelf electicity used to fly his Ark Maxim. The dials (seashells that can store kinetic energy, sound, light, fire or pretty much anything depending on the version) and transponder snails might be seen as this, but is most likely ''[[Organic Technology]]''. One Piece is a quite versatile manga indeed.
** The candle wax generation powering a ship isn't that bizarre - in one episode of Mythbusters, they showed how a working rocket could be made with candle wax as the solid fuel.
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== Fan Works ==
* In ''[[Dungeon Keeper Ami]]'' Mercury's highly scientific approach to magic results in this. To date- giant scythscythe-weildingwielding battle robots, airships, jemgem sythisizerssynthesizers, and [[No Kill Like Overkill|Chlorine Trifloride]].
* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', the Fans operate via magitek, largely through computers.
* Doug Sangnoir, protagonist of ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'', is both a mage and an engineer, as well as possessed of an ill-controlled magical talent that can spontaneously enchant things he works on. At least one piece of his personal equipment -- his body armor -- is explicitly magitek, being essentially enchanted Kevlar, and he's offhandedly mentioned creating a limited teleportation device for his wife. And he's all but declared that anything else technological on which he works ends up magitek intentionally or not.
 
 
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* In the later books in [[Old Kingdom|the Old Kingdom]] series, Prince Sameth is finding workarounds for the 'technology fails in presence of magic' problem by creating magical versions of nifty Ancelstierran technology.
* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' doesn't play too much with it, as magic and technology don't interact well. However there are plenty of loopholes and Wizards use what they can. [[Badass Normal]]s using the right ammo can be deadly to most magical foes. One of the best examples might be using magic to grab an old Soviet Satellite and doing a [[Colony Drop]].
* ''[[Dragaera]]'' uses this like ''crazy''. One of the main side-effects of the Interregnum was that the Imperial Orb was changed to make magic a lot more powerful. This jarred Dragaeran society out of its artificially-imposed [[Medieval Stasis]] as sorcerers had a field day figuring out all the new things they could do. In particular, teleportation completely changed the dynamics of trade and travel, psychic communication is used in a way reminiscent of cell phones, magical ''genetic tests'' are possible to do quickly and covertly, and magical lighting is the norm. Additionally, it became possible to revive someone recently killed from the dead if his central nervous system is still intact, meaning that often, [[Death Is Cheap]].
** The Imperial Orb acts as a video camera, a literal magical database, and a public utility.
* Melissa Scott's ''Silence Leigh'' trilogy has ''starships'' powered by alchemy and guided by astrology.
* Most of [[Codex Alera|Aleran]] society runs off of this. Since absolutely everyone ([[The Call Put Me on Hold|except Tavi]]) has [[Elemental Powers]], technology has stagnated at a medieval level while everything else is taken care of by [[Mundane Utility]] applications of furycrafting. They have [[Flying Car|flying cars]]s, a lightbulb-light bulb equivalent, refrigeration, and the like through applied magic, to the point where in-universe, scholars have started to deny that their precursors (the Romans) could possibly have built everything they did without furies. It also leads them into technological blind spots, however, such as when the Alerans fight the [[Wolf Man|Canim]], who mostly get by on their superhuman strength and toughness coupled with skilled engineering. One of the nastiest Canim weapons turns out to be a simple, if gigantic, crossbow that can easily kill an Aleran soldier through furycraft-enhanced armor and then continue on to kill the man behind him. Tavi and Bernard eventually apply technology and furycrafting to create {{spoiler|catapults that launch spheres loaded with tiny fire furies that essentially serve as incendiary cluster bombs, which prove to be the single most devastating weapon in the history of Alera.}}
* David Anthony Durham's ''Acacia'' trilogy there is a race whose technology is powered by human souls.
* Both averted and played straight in [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' series: [[The Kingdom|Valdemar]] does almost everything manually; [[The Empire|the Eastern Empire]], on the other hand, does almost everything by magic. When magic becomes unreliable, Valdemar carries on mostly unaffected, while the Empire must declare martial law and impose strict rationing.
* Some [[Tom Holt]] books have Magitek, such as the magic mirror that runs ''Mirrors '95'' in ''Snow White Andand The Seven SamauriSamurai'' or the various devices in the ''Portable Door'' series.
* In [[Harry Turtledove]]'s ''Every Inch A King'' windworkers produce winds that allow, ships to sail against the natural wind, items are cheaply mass produced using the law of sympathy, crytal balls replace telegraphy etc.
* In '[[The Edge Chronicles]]'', while the ships do not work exactly like aircraft, they are close enough to be comparable, and powered by a flying rock. Stormphrax is also important for several uses.
* ''Magicnet'' proposes that many magical incantations work, but they don't work well enough or reliably enough for this to be statistically verifiable. Then along came computers, which could cast those incantations millions of times in quick succession until the desired result occurred. All the major spellcasters in the book are also hackers.
* In ''Naím y el mago fugitivo'' (''Naím and the runaway magician''), by argentine author Sebastián Lalaurette, magic is a Magitek: magicians (called Rumotim) have to extract it first from nature, and then they can use it. Every spell requires a certain quantity of magic. Then {{spoiler|Rumotim Ramiro Grimor discovers a way to make magic grow, allowing every magician to dispose of virtually unlimited quantities of it}}, and it looks like everything's going to hell. Fortunately {{spoiler|there are [[Anti-Magic|antimagicians]] as well.}}