ann_leckie | (no subject)

rachel_swirsky has placed me under an obligation to post this.

Long ago, on a message board far away, someone posted something that nearly sent me to the emergency room with the burning of the epic stupid. It went like this: the poster was working on a novel set in a world where magic worked, instead of science.

Okay. So. When queried, the poster further explained that you know, magic worked! And not, like, machines and stuff.

In vain did one explain that machines work because the universe is fundamentally the way it is, and a universe where machines did not work would be so alien as to be, perhaps, not inhabitable by humans. Machines do not function because of some mystical "scientific" or "machine" property they possess.

And, furthermore--the thing Rachel says I ought to post--Clarke's law works in both directions.

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Yes?

Sufficiently comprehensible magic is indistinguishable from technology. If you know magic works, and can wield it reliably, then it's susceptible to scientific investigation, and susceptible to use as technology.

Which makes a problem for fantasy, actually--if the universe is made so that magic works, then it's not magic, is it?

I would elaborate, as it is an issue I have pondered more than once, but I'm brain-ached at the moment, and must return to my perusal of The Unholy Grail: A Social Reading of Chrétien de Troyes's Conte du Graal

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Well, magic not working in the presence of 'cold iron' is traditional.

In places, yes. And one of the ways it's been interpreted is specifically as a technological issue--that indigenous peoples (of the British Isles specifically, since that's the area I know best, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was more widespread) were invaded by metal-working tribes and overwhelmed by their technological superiority, and the memory of them being defeated by iron is coded in the fairies not liking cold iron. It's an interestingish idea, one you could get stories out of. But it still doesn't work well in the reverse, and besides, as I said in another thread, do the Sidhe not have hemoglobin?

How does one make machines not do what they do, when what they do is because of the properties of the physical world? How can steam not do what it does? Why does the chemistry of gunpowder not work but the chemistry and electrical impulses of the human body still do? Tech works because it's a manipulation of the natural world. If tech stops working (because the universe is different) two things will be true--it's not tech by definition, and the properties of the universe that, say, allow us to be alive will also no longer be true. This will also be true--"magic" that's reliable and effective will, in fact, be that universe's technology.

To be lazy ... iron (or all metals) could become subject to the standard fumble table. Too much effect, too little, wrong target, backfire. Or could melt or get hot....

That's a least a thinking through of it--the person I was engaging in conversation so long ago did not respond with "but Iron...well, someone centuries ago laid a spell that..." or whatever. The response was a very indignant insistence that obviously magic and science were opposed and anyone who said otherwise was just thinking too hard. Which, insert me headdesking.

Anyway. I could buy that some time in the distant past a god or wizard laid some world-covering spell that broke steam engines. I just can't buy that "steam engines or gunpowder don't work in worlds where magic works" especially not if the reason is "magic and science/technology are opposed!"

This reminds me of the first time I spent some time with an Italian co-worker, and she touched metal instead of knocking on wood to avert something. And I had an immediate knee-jerk Celtic reaction that I would not have even suspected was buried in my psyche. It was basically like, "You Roman, coming to cut down my oak grove!"