Principles of Science-Fantasy I

Enter the Realm of the Science-Wizards

My Dear Readers, by now you may have noticed that I placed the descriptive term 'Science-Fantasy' front and center of my description of my future history.  There is indeed a conscious reason for this, and a good one.  Science-Fantasy is the beating heart of that image which I wish to portray in my writing and storytelling.

Laser-swords and space-wizards, this is science-fantasy.

While this may be old-hat to many, now that the retro-classical, neo-pulp moment seems to arrived in the kultural zeitgeist; with the Sad and Rabid Puppies, the supervisive movement, a veritable Pulp Revolution, the meteoric impact of Jeffro’s Appendix N, and the general OSR movement re-popularizing the stories, tales, and images that I grew up with for a new generation, still, I should explain what I mean by this term.

Le-Wick defines 'Science-Fantasy' as:

 A science fantasy is a cross-genre within the umbrella of speculative fiction which simultaneously draws upon and/or combines tropes and elements from both science fiction and fantasy.[1] It also sometimes incorporates elements of horror fiction.[citation needed]

 ^ Malmgren, Carl D. (1988). "Towards a Definition of Science Fantasy (Vers une définition de la fantaisie scientifique)". Science Fiction Studies. 15 (3): 259–281. JSTOR 4239897.\

Which is about as tautological as we could get.  I answer the mouth-breathing academic sophists thusly; 'Science-Fantasy' is a negation of the false dialectic between 'Scientific Fiction' and 'Fantastic Fiction'.  The Science-Fantasist refuses to consider any false distinctions between the internal logic of 'scientifically plausible' and 'fantastically plausible', he recognizes that the speculative nature of such story-telling benefits in no way from the building of iron-curtains between what are really the same phenomenon, both from effect in the reader and metaphysical cause. 

All attempts to cordon off 'hard science fiction' from 'soft science fantasy,' as if to keep safe a realm sacred to the ‘big men with screwdrivers,’ are actually just evidence of a dead and rotting rationalist-skeptic, materialist-determinist mentality, and deserve to pass away, un-mourned and unremembered, upon the midden-heap of history. For as we now know thanks to literary history of Science Fiction and Fandom undertaken by the visionary JD Cowan, this ‘wall off separation’ was builded deliberately and with malice aforethought, to disarm and disenchant us, to wreck out heritage and received traditions, just like that other ‘wall of separation’ has disarmed us from conceiving of established cults.

Because Dear Readers, allow me initiate you into this secret, 'Science' and 'Magic' are actually subsets of the same category of kind.  You see, what we now refer to as 'Science' was once known as 'Natural Philosophy'.  And 'Natural Philosophy' was itself once known as 'Natural Magic'.  Chemistry really does emerge from Alchemy, and Astronomy from Astrology, and the first use of the Mechanical Arts was in the Deus Ex Machinae of the Temple Cults.  This is not to say either that ‘magic’ is ‘merely’ illusion and artifice or that ‘technology’ is ‘merely’ well worn and accepted spells disenchanted by a familiar contempt. No, I am saying that both are true at the same time. For every thing, every phenomenon under the sun, everything that is visible and invisible, exists as a union of matter, form, and spirit.

How then, is anyone to separate a physical cause from an immaterial one? I submit that this is in fact impossible so to do. When you start your car in the morning, the energy stored in your car’s battery is used to ignite a fuel-air mixture inside a combustion chamber. That the electric system constitutes a closed circuit, a symbolic magic circle, flowing with power, we never once stop to consider. But it is true nonetheless.

We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocation of equations. These are the tools we employ, and we know many things…

For you see, Dear Readers, that we may reduce reality to two solution sets; either there is One Truth, one singular reality, one whole cosmos, one Logic, one Logos by which we may apprehend the whole, or there is no such thing as Truth, and all is as sound and fury, a tempest in a teapot, signifying nothing.  And if we are not all madmen talking to ourselves in a sea of Crawling Chaos, then there cannot be such a thing as a Double (or more) Truth.

Let me give you an example; consider the well-known third axiom of Sir Clarke:

 3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

This seems like fine wisdom indeed, we may easily dismiss any rumors or legends of the preternatural world (never-mind the supernatural), of magic and mystery, by invoking this law and assuming that the root cause of this story is some advanced scientific act or device and gullible rubes. 

But let us simply reverse the statement and we find:

 -3. Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

So you see Dear Readers, that these things we call 'magic' and 'technology' are one and the same, the only difference being how we approach them, our own mentality, our weltanschauung.  Your pocket computer and horseless-carriage are magical items, and the hermetic magician summoning forth That Which Must Not Be is a technological act of applied science. 

What is the difference between a Witch using her Glamour to illicitly bed the hero and bring about tragedy, and a painted trollop wrecking a home for her own gain? 

Vocabulary.

Now, be all that as may be, what does this mean for my future history and the stories therein!? 

First of all, we will have none of the silly and overdone 'Magic and Technology are Mutually Exclusive and Incompatible' tropes that are the usual temptation for those mixing the peanut-butter of Scientific Fiction with the chocolate of Fantastical Romance (I'm looking at you Shadowrun and Rifts). Second of all, both Magic and Technology are but tools, with no inherent morality to them, both may be used for good or ill, and either, if used irresponsibly or ignorantly, can lead to corruption and a fall to darkness, despair, and Chaos.  Neither can be called 'unnatural' in and of themselves, rather, it is the ends to which these means are directed that such means are called one or the other.

Technomagic and MagiTek are definitely things in the setting, and Computational Demonology too.  AI is basically outlawed by all sane peoples, because the process of creating such an Abominable Intelligence is indistinguishable from summoning a demon (Butlerian style Jihad very much in the background).  These limitations are worked around by the creation, sealing, and blessing of Machine Spirits by way of ritual, and the liberal use of criminal minds sentenced to Penitence Engines.

Why do warriors in the far-future use swords?  Because somethings need to be killed with swords.  Also because armor has caught up with firearms and Dune-style personal-shield fighting.  And because in a feudal society swords are also bigtime markers of status and rank.  But mainly because the Jabberwock will laugh at your BFG 9000, but the ole' trusty Vorpal Blade goes snicker-snack, and off with it's head you go galumphing back.