Science Fantasy: Difference between revisions

Robots and wizards, spaceships and dragons, lasers and fireballs. [[Mix and Match|Mix these ingredients]] in your cyborg witch's boiling pot of Dark Matter, and you get [[Title Drop|Science Fantasy]].

 

 

[[Science Fantasy]] works, on the other hand, take traditional Fantasy and Science Fiction tropes and throw them in a blender, purposely creating a setting that has the [[Mix and Match|feel of both]]. Expect to see a lot of classic Fantasy tropes (e.g. [[Sword Fight|warriors with swords]], [[Our Dragons Are Different|dragons]], [[Hermetic Magic|wizards]], [[Bright Castle|castles]], and [[Our Elves Are Different|elves]]) ''and'' a lot of standard Science Fiction tropes (e.g. [[Cool Starship|spaceships]], [[Alien Tropes|aliens]], [[Energy Weapon|lasers]], [[Tropes On Science and Unscience|scientists]], [[Robot|robots]], and [[Time Travel]]).

Subtrope of [[Speculative Fiction]], under which all [[Fantasy]] and [[Science Fiction]] falls. Compare [[Urban Fantasy]], [[Gaslamp Fantasy]], [[Space Opera]], and [[Planetary Romance]]. Contrast [[How Unscientific]], where the mix of genres seems out of place.

 

{{examples}}

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[El Hazard]]'' is another series that blends science fiction with fantasy, featuring a story centered around [[Stable Time Loop|a time paradox]] set in a land rife with magic and supernatural wonder. Yet, there are remnants of ancient technology as well, such as the Stairway to the Sky, the Eye of God, and the demon dolls.

* In ''[[Lyrical Nanoha|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', the Space-Time Administration Bureau that the main characters work for is like ''[[Star Trek]]'''s Federation, except where ''Star Trek'' would have a piece of [[Techno Babble]] to power its futuristic devices, ''Nanoha'' just uses magic. Magical [[Energy Weapon|Energy Weapons]], magical [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]], magical [[Hollywood Cyborg|cyborgs]], magical artificial intelligence with Windows-esque error codes...

* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' starts out as a new rendition of a fantastic Chinese folk tale, and the titular [[MacGuffin|MacGuffins]] are blatantly magical -- but then we get alien invaders, space travel, and androids and it all gets weirder from there.

 

 

 

== Fanfiction ==

 

 

== Film ==

* The genre of ''[[Star Wars]]'' was explicitly stated by [[Word of God|Lucas]] to be space fantasy.

* ''[[The Matrix]]'': Neo is "[[The Chosen One]]", prophecied by an ''oracle'', and he has special powers that allow him to fly, bend spoons, and dodge bullets. Oh, but it's only cause he's in a computer simulation run by intelligent machines.

* The [[Godzilla]] and [[Gamera]] franchises have monsters of both magical and scientific origin fighting or teaming up with each other, sometimes within the same movie.

 

== Literature ==

* [[Piers Anthony]]'s ''[[Apprentice Adept]]'' series fits perfectly. The setting is one world split across two realities. One of them is called Proton, which is high tech, while the other is known as Phaze, where magic prevails.

* [[Anne McCaffrey]]

** The ''[[Dragonriders of Pern]]'' books feature intelligent, telepathic, teleporting, and occasionally time-traveling dragons. These are just genetically engineered upgrades of preexisting diminutive "dragons", which have similar powers, though this [[Lost Technology]] aspect isn't explored until the prequels. Later books also feature a supercomputer.<br /><br />McCaffrey has always maintained that the books are Science Fiction rather than fantasy, as everything is based on hard science, and she has spoken to many authorities in various sciences to work out the specifics of the world and the things that happen on it.

* Terry Brooks's ''[[Shannara]]'' series takes place in our future, [[After the End]], and includes robots and mad computers, but also elves and magic. Generally sold as fantasy.

* The ''[[Dragaera]]'' books look at first to be typical [[Dungeon Punk]], with magic, elves (OK, "Dragaerans"), swordfights, et cetera. However, careful inspection indicates science-fictional underpinnings: humans ("Easterners") are from "small invisible lights" (meaning the stars, invisible in the Empire because of the enclouding), genetics and gene manipulation are well-understood, and some characters view abstract concepts like "the soul" as matters of engineering, not religion. Let's not even get ''started'' on the gods and the nature of magic...

** Randall Garrett once stated that Lord Darcy’s world and ours shared the same laws of physics. He defined the “magic” of Darcy’s world as a form of psionics, which he thought of as a real-world phenomenon.

* [[Gene Wolfe]]'s ''[[Book of the New Sun]]'' series is set [[After the End]] in a [[Schizo-Tech]] world mixing feudalism (and a [[Low Fantasy]] style of narration) with space travel, androids, laser weapons, etc. However, there is a device the protagonist gets a hold of called the Claw of the Conciliator which appears to be magical with no scientific explanation. Generally sold as science fiction.

** One reviewer comparing the tetraology with the fifth book, ''The Urth of the New Sun'' described the first four books as "science fiction pretending to be fantasy", and the fifth as "fantasy pretending to be science fiction".

* [[Neil Gaiman]] and Micheal Reaves' book ''[[Interworld]]'' features a multiverse organized as an arc, with the worlds on one side being ones where magic is in control, and worlds on the other where science is the dominant paradigm. Each end is ruled by a multiplanar empire, one representing Magic and one representing Science, which are both trying to take over the entire multiverse. There is a third organization, made up of different versions of the main character, who fight both sides and have the ability to travel freely between worlds, who move about the center of the arc.

* In a similar vein, [[Roger Zelazny]]'s novel ''Jack of Shadows'' takes place on a planet which is half-magic (dark side), and half technological (sunlit side). The titular antihero moves effortlessly between both.

* A lot of Jack Chalker's novels and series mixed up the two, often with [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] (or sometimes human) tech providing a backdrop in which magical-like effects (sometimes called magic by the user who didn't understand it) were possible. The [[Well World]] series is an example of the alien version, while the ''Flux and Anchor'' series had the [[Applied Phlebotinum]] created by humans.

** His ''Four Lords of the Diamond'' series features four planets seeded with a sort of alien parasite that provides people with strange powers, each unique to one of the four planets. The third book in particular involves a planet where people can effectively perform magic, and it's even called magic in the book.

* ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' should fit in this. There's plenty of things that should go well with science fiction (the fact that Dust is a particle, the numerous technologies that look as if they came from various degrees of civilization, from [[Steampunk]] worlds to things akin to those you'd see on hard science fiction (specially in the last book), the alternate evolutionary paths of life on Earth seen in some worlds like that of the mulefa, etc.), but there's plenty of themes that should connect it to at least [[Low Fantasy]] (the witches, the fact Dust is conscious, the armoured polar bears, etc.)

* In the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series the magic used by the wizards is definitely supernatural, but magic can be used to travel to alien worlds which have very advanced technology, the space aliens can ''also'' be wizards, and Kit's non-wizard older sister bought a [[Frickin' Laser Beams|laser gun]] which she saw on an alien cable-channel's infomercial. To say nothing of Dairine, whose [[Great Big Book of Everything]] is a computer, creating a race of sentient robots ''who can'' also ''be wizards.'' The spells are described as being a combination of science and [[I Know Your True Name|truename magic]]. Hence, the characters can do things like making a laser or particle accelerator out of magic.

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': Oh, where to begin. The original series was supposed to be firmly grounded in observable reality -- the Doctor himself identified as a scientist on a number of different occasions, because the series was originally intended to be an [[Edutainment Show]] -- but then the more zany science fiction elements took over. By now, it uses elements from all over [[Speculative Fiction]], from [[Eldritch Horror|eldritch horrors]] to Venitian [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampires]] to [[Cyborg|Cybermen]]. And it's all brought together by a [[Time Travel|Time Traveling]] TARDIS that apparently goes where and when it is needed.

* ''[[Power Rangers]]''

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Module S3 ''Expedition to the Barrier Peaks'', set in a spaceship that crashed in the [[Greyhawk]] setting.

** The ''Odyssey - Tale of the Comet'' boxed set, which also involved a crashed spaceship.

** Modules DA2 ''Temple of the Frog'' and DA3 ''City of the Gods'', both of which occurred in the [[Blackmoor]] setting.

** Technically, the game is "whatever the GM wants". The only explicitly Science Fantasy campaign setting is "From the Dark Heart Of Space" from d20 Future. Though Dark Matter comes close.

* The universe of the tabletop roleplaying game ''[[The Chronicles of Fate (Darth Wiki)|Chaos]]''. You know you're in for a case of [[Science Fantasy]] when your [[The Verse|verse]] is a [[Crossover Cosmology]] [[Multiverse]] containing [[All the Myriad Ways|every possible type of universe]], but that's just the beginning. Described as “cosmic fantasy”, ''[[The Chronicles of Fate (Darth Wiki)|Chaos]]'' is intended to have all the feeling of a fantasy setting, the only thing that makes it ''not'' explicitly fantasy is that it just so happens to have sci-fi “props” and window dressing. To quote directly from the book, “''Chaos'' is an over-the-top, epic cosmic fantasy. It's got dragons and spaceships, cyborgs and wizards, knights, aliens, superheroes, gods, demons, time travel, energy weapons, parallel universes, romance, quests, wars, duels, ancient conspiracies, buried treasures and lost artifacts, distant planets, weird creatures, corrupt politicians…and a guy named [[Archangel Michael|Mike]].”

 

 

== Video Games ==

* Nearly every recent ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' has had this. Besides the series standard magic and [[Summon Magic]]:

* ''[[Star Ocean Till the End of Time|Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'' does this as well, by having Fayt and Cliff, who're members of the Pangalactic Federation, crash land on Elicoor II, a planet who's inhabitants are a [[Medieval Stasis|type-3 civilization.]] Fayt and Cliff go to great lengths to conceal the true nature of their identities to avoid unnecessary trouble, leading to predictable results. {{spoiler|Except for the part where they learn that their universe, and everything in it, is one big virtual game!}}

* ''[[Albion]]'', a game where a spaceship in the future lands on a world with magic instead of technology. A lot of the time is spent in primarily fantastic or scifistic settings, but they eventually mix, and both elements are present at least a little most of the time.

* ''[[Touhou]]'': Stupid fairy vs. [[Humongous Mecha]]. [[Shrine Maiden]] vs. tanks. {{spoiler|[[Shrine Maiden]] wins.}} Magical aliens vs. Apollo 13. Nuclear reactor powered by a magical crow that ate a dead deity. Laser-blasting witch whose ally is a kappa with stealth suit. The list goes on...

* The ''[[Might and Magic]]'' series (which includes the first four ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]]'' games) takes place in fantasy worlds but with SF-elements (mostly involving [[Lost Technology]].) Not many people who haven't played ''M&M6'' knows that the Kreegan/Inferno town of ''Heroes 3'' is in fact populated not by demons but by hive-minded aliens (except for when the Inferno town is used to represent the ''non''-Kreegan demons that are also around in the setting). For those that only know the ''HoM&M'' series: one of the third game's expansion packs was supposed to add a cybernetic army but they changed their mind after receiving [[Fan Dumb|threats of boycotting the series and death threats from 'fans' angry at the intrusion of science fiction into their fantasy setting]].

* Similarly, the primarily high fantasy ''[[Ultima]]'' and ''[[Heretic]]''/''[[Hexen]]'' series briefly skirted with SF on a number of occasions, resulting in the occasional raygun, spaceship, time machine, or {{spoiler|demonic}} supercomputer.

* The ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' series of games, set in a future where a new, unlimited source of power has been discovered... called "Magic." Humanoid robots and artificially created killing machines coexist with people who can summon the power of the elements and fight with melee weapons (admittedly, melee weapons which can spit fire and lightning).

* The Amiga classic [[Shadow of the Beast]] is set in a Roger Dean-inspired fantasy world called Karamoon, which features sword-wielding orcs, medieval architecture, goblins, morningstars, mechanical claws, jetpacks, and (in the third game) robots.

* Alongside it's many [[Standard Fantasy Setting|standard fantasy elements]] ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' also feature spaceships used by gods; time traveling, terminatorish robots with laser weapons; and astronauts (the mananauts and Sunbirds of Alinor), and in extension: more spaceships. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

** Also, the realms of Aeterius and Oblivion were originally presented as simply this world's equivalent of Heaven and Hell. Then ''The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard'' featured an observatory where the realms of Oblivion appeared as planets orbiting Nirn (the mortal world) and the gods as even more distant planets at the edge of a solar system. So, the Oblivion Gates? Those may or may not be [[Stargate|stargates]] in disguise.

* In the ''[[The Longest Journey]]'' series, magic and technology once coexisted. Past misues of the two brought the [[Powers That Be]] to separate the two into Stark (technology, "our" world) and Arcadia (magic/medieval world). Attempts to alter this balance are what drives the plot.

* The ''[[Star Ocean]]'' series typically takes characters from a science fiction setting, and then plunges them deep into fantasy, while ever hinting at science fiction overtones throughout the stories.

** ''Wizardry VII'' was the first of the series to embrace this trope-while the party is firmly grounded in fantasy, and the world seems to be with the full range of usual fantasy creatures and items, there's also the fact that the party arrived on the world by a starship, the [[Big Bad]] has a robotic army, two more alien races are engaged in a power struggle over the planet from their landing zones, and one of the native races travels around in rocket-powered aircraft.

** ''Wizardry 8'' takes this to an even more extreme bent, where powerful magic and advanced technology happily coexist-you'll see sophisticated artificial intelligences talking happily with wizards, flamethrowers and rocket launchers wielded by elves, and an alien airbase guarded by potent technological and magical defenses.

* ''[[Pokémon]]'' takes place in a [[Constructed World]] full of magical creatures, [[Patchwork Map|impossible geography]], and polytheistic gods…and computers and electric power plants and psychic powers and spaceships.

* ''[[Septerra Core]]'' wandered back and forth between the two, blending such elements as [[Steampunk]] technology, magic fueled by the planet itself, genetic engineering and a pantheon of gods.

* The ''[[Ar Tonelico]]'' series features girls who [[Magic Music|control magical powers with their songs]] and goddesses who control the giant towers that humanity has been forced to live in after a disaster destroyed the world's land. The [[All There in the Manual|backstory of the series]] reveals that this disaster was caused by the technology of a highly advanced civilization. The towers themselves were built by these civilizations. The villain in the first game invades the tower's systems with viruses that can take physical form and possess many of the tower's robot guardians. The magic wielding girls themselves are actually an [[Artificial Human|artificial race]] designed to use magical powers based on the intricate principles of "wave science."

** Demons with cybernetic implants. One of them is called Cyberdemon.

* The ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' universe also combines elements of both science-fiction (cyborgs, advanced weaponry, parallel dimensions, spaceships) and fantasy (magic, dragons, gods, demons).

* ''[[Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura]]'' is a mixture of more specific genres: [[High Fantasy]] and [[Steampunk]]. The overarching story is fantasy epic, set in a more dystopian land that includes race and class conflict and the growing pains of an industrializing society as themes. Magic vs. technology is less a war than an ideological clash that can at least find common ground in its goals if not its practical methods.

* ''[[Metro 2033]]'' takes place in a fairly standard [[Grimdark]] version of [[After the End]], with hostile mutants, scattered human survivors, and a climax that involves using pre-cataclysmic weapons. There are also enough murderous ghosts for one of the characters to have a theory on them (Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory were ''also'' atomized), including a bona fide [[Afterlife Express]].

* ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'' IS this trope with a [[Hindu Mythology|Hindu]] and [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] twist.

* ''[[Phantasy Star]]'', though as the series progressed, it more thoroughly embraced the sci-fi side of things.

 

 

== Webcomics ==

* ''[[Quentyn Quinn Space Ranger]]'' is a sequel to ''[[Tales of the Questor]]'' that takes place 700 years later in the interstellar age. At that point most Racconnans rely on [[Magitek|technology]] for most of their Lux use.

* ''[[The Dragon Doctors]]'' make heavy use of magic, but always use it rationally and scientifically (their leader even calls herself a "Magical Scientist"). [[Lego Genetics]] are referenced at one point as being only possible with the use of magic to treat traits as conceptual objects.

* ''[[Webcomic/Broken Space|Broken Space]]'' ([http://brokenspacecomic.com site]) features aliens, demons, clockwork, [[Steampunk|steam-power]], magicians, guns, swords, strange Magitek weapons, and divinely powered starships.

 

 

== Web Original ==

* Animated [[Urban Fantasy]] web series ''[[Broken Saints]]'' uses a lot of the technology from (probably) [[Twenty Minutes in The Future]], and just labeled "state-of-the-art" in-story. However, it also includes [[The Empath|Shandala]]'s powers of healing and... [[Beware the Nice Ones|not-so-healing...]], and Kamimura's ability to [[Soul Jar]] his pupil, holding a [[Soul Fragment|fragment]] of said pupil's consciousness within his own mind. While the first ability {{spoiler|is revealed to be part of her genetic design}} (very sci-fi), they are both firmly in the fantasy realm.

* While most of ''[[Chaos Fighters]]'' novels are fantasy with minor science fiction elements inserted in the magic system, ''Chaos Fighters II'' and ''Chaos Fighters: Chemical Warriors'' are science fiction with significant fantasy style battles.

 

== Western Animation ==

* [[The Venture Bros]] had a [[Magic Versus Science]] contest between Dr. Venture and Dr. Orpheus (a parody of Dr. Strange), reaching its climax as Orpheus produces fire from his hands. Dr. Venture's scientific one-up? A lighter.