There's a lot of fantasy settings that are secretly a sci-fi

Star Wars

>>52549776
Yes. In fact, there are lots of sci-fi settings which have well-hidden fantasy elements as a plot twist.

I'm not going to tell you what they are.

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Yeah, it's called Warhammer 40k.

Gurren Lagann. You go into it thinking there are mechs and super science, but everything is just powered by a reality warping, emotion fueled energy source that is effectively magic.

>>52549776
Then they stop being sci-fi and start being science-fantasy, i.e. Stor Wor and Forty-Thousand Warhams.

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>>52549776
Destiny.

>>52549791
>>52549798
>secretly
Both are blatant fantasy.

Like I mentioned, there are settings where all the magic is actually just nanomachines and super science. Is there a scifi setting where all the technology is just well disguised magic? Like in the discworld books where a modern looking camera just had a small little goblin in the inside who painted pictures.

>>52549776
oWod mages?

>>52549826
See, but after the empire takeover, Jedi were just myths. Force was just a hoky religion, at least to your average Joe.

From Luke's perspective, things went from sci-fi to space fantasy, Basically overnight.

>>52549826
>Is there a scifi setting where all the technology is just well disguised magic? Like in the discworld books where a modern looking camera just had a small little goblin in the inside who painted pictures.
I mean, following that idea, flintstones?

>>52549809
Actually yeah, really good example

>>52549873
Maybe? but one that definitely fits is the one about mad scientists.

>>52550293
You mean Genius: the Transgression?

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>>52549776
You're asking the wrong question OP.

What separates a sci-fi setting from a fantasy setting?
Sci-fi has planets and fantasy has planes, sci-fi has spaceships and fantasy has airships, fantasy has magic and sci-fi has cosmic mumbo jumbo.

This is a serious question, what even sets the two apart?
Is it just the aesthetic?

>>52550403
Sci-fi pretends to be realistic, in some cases, it is.

>>52549826
All technology? That's pretty rare. There are several settings where it seems like things are driven by advanced scientific principles at first glance but it turns out there's a real supernatural force hidden somewhere influencing events, but the reveal usually applies to some specific things with the majority of science still being science. Having it apply to all the advanced tech in the setting would be quite a drastic effect, far moreso than the more common inverse. Most of the settings just have magi-technology that's obviously magical.

Off the top of my head, I can think of Mage: the Ascension, where reality itself is shaped by human belief, and all the technology of the modern age is effectively a form of magic, with a secret war between practicioners of other magical disciplines (who must operate in secret, because the world resists overt changes to the laws of physics) and a conspiracy that wants to keep science as an unopposed force (and use devices which they present as "enlightened science", but are actually just as supernatural as those of the mages).

>>52550293
>>52550311
Genius: the Transgression is a fan-made system that's basically oWoD mage for nWoD, because Mage: the Awakening dropped the part where the laws of physics are just magic that people subconsciously agree with and any magic system works if you believe in it, and had magic just be actual magic instead. In that system, "mad scientists" still do the magic-powers-shaped-by-your-own-belief thing, but "real" science still works normally, and their Mania-powered superscience devices break down if a normal scientist looks at them too closely.

>>52550444
Black mirror?
So what about science fiction that isn't realistic, like Dune? Or guardians of the galaxy. Or rick and morty?
Just to name a few distinct examples.

>>52550403
Soft sci-fi and fantasy are separated simply by aesthetic, but hard sci-fi is its own genre which tries to base itself off of real-world science. Most acclaimed hard scifi writers are at least knowledgeable about the science at hand for that reason

>>52550469
It still pretends to be realistic, even though even the author doesn't believe this premise. This is called soft sci-fi.

>>52549776
SLA Industries

Quite literally.

>>52549776
Doctor who.

Shadowrun

>>52549776
Nier: Automata, if you didn't play Nier.

>>52550278

If we're talking Luke's point of view, there was never any fi to his sci. It was just everyday life.

I think OP's talking about the observer's pov.

>>52550469

I'd classify GotG as fantasy based on the larger setting (comic book universe, heavily fantastical), as well as the magical mcguffin in the movie.

>>52550849
Really? As far as I know, Shadowrun is just cyberpunk fantasy. Tech is tech and magic is magic, and both are well understood.

>>52550403
"Fantasy is fiction that makes the impossible seem probable and science-fiction is fiction that makes the improbable seem possible."
You don't seem to have much of a grasp on either genre if you think including planets is automatic sci-fi.

>>52550469
>He thinks Guardians of the Galaxy is sci-fi
Why? Because it's in space? Do you think Star Wars is sci-fi too?

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>>52550284

>>52552092
>>52552144
>You don't seem to have much of a grasp on either genre if you think including planets is automatic sci-fi.
>Do you think Star Wars is sci-fi too?

No I probably don't have a good grasp of the genre, but let's be honest, don't you think the majority thinks Star Wars is sci-fi because it has planets and spaceships?
Some inner-nerd-circles like /tg/ might have given it some more thought, but I think the broader consensus might be the simpler one: planets and spaceships= scifi.

Not to justify it being wrong, I just think it's not an uncommon mistake. I was asking the question to get more of a grasp on the matter.

>>52550921
Isn't super-hero a genre?

>>52552144
It's science fiction, yes. That something is fantasy in some ways doesn't prevent it from being sci-fi. You're just holding onto narrative themes and plot elements of fantasy stories and epics being in it and ignoring what's actually shown if you think otherwise.

>>52549776
Star Trek.

>>52554415

It is. The movie doesn't follow your typical superhero formula tho, and I'm basing it on that. It's closer to starwars than x-men for me.

>>52549820
It's not "secretly" fantasy by the time you encounter the Hive.

Lots of hp lovecraft stuff might fit. Its basically real world with some scifi human technology that isn't implausible just advanced air planes, big drills, stuff like that. Then space alien magic.

>>52549776

Xenogears had science that was actualy magic. The "magic" turned out to be incomprehensible super-science. That one had more TWEESTs than M. Night Shammalammadingdong braiding Twizzlers.

>>52549776
Neon Genesis Evangelion

>>52549776
Nier automata comes to mind if you haven't played the other games within its history.

>>52549776
Fallout. Especially fallout 4.

>>52550403

Fantasy tends to be romantic and nostalgic. Scifi tends to be pro-enlightment and for progress.

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>>52555186
>Scifi tends to be pro-enlightment and for progress

You haven't read much science fiction, have you?

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>>52552144
>>52549791
Star Wars is a Western/Samurai story, duh

>>52555225

I have done so. That's why I said it is the tendency. People get bored with old formulas and spice it up.

Anything with FTL is fantasy. FTL is indistinguishable from time travel.

>>52555342
I can't really think of any particularly "Pro-Enlightment" sci fi works which get a lot of acclaim except probably Star Trek. Most of them paint very grim, anti-humanist portraits of the future where things kind of suck. Not always on Neuromancer or 1984 levels but still not a lot of fun. Man in the High Castle, Forever War, Jurassic Park, even most Bradbury stories have a cynical or even outright sour take on what we would call progress.

Even more optimistic works like Starship Troopers are far from describing an Enlightment society.

>>52555186
>American scifi from the 30s to the 60s tends to be pro-enlightment and for progress

>>52549776
Pokemon

>>52555450

That's because most writers are romantics and hate maths.

>>52555465
Eh, quite a bit of prolific American writers at that time painted some pretty grim depictions of the future. Remember that's when Bradbury wrote most of his stuff.

>>52555545
Yeah, I thought better of it after I typed it. Lots of stuff wasn't super upbeat. Sturgeon was my immediate thought.

I find it funny how is much easier to get FTL (this things breaks science) than other more plausible things like robots, AI, nanobots, full automation, genetic enhancements, megastructures etc, etc.

>>52555545

That said, stories are difficult to make them interesting without conflict and struggle.

>>52555676
Well yeah, that's why I always disagreed with this notion there was ever a period where Science Fiction was the official Optimism Genre.

People have this weird believe pre-70s Sci Fi was some kind of Noblebright campfest. Even though by that point we had stuff like the Twilight Zone, grim apocalyptic films like Godzilla and Planet of the Apes, and of course countless novels where the future was anything but perfect.

Science and reason solves all problems vs love and divine provinence solves all problems.

>>52555745
Frankenstein wasn't exactly a hopeful start.

>>52555825

He was obviously a wizard creating an homunculus.

That's because elves have been replaced by anal probing aliens.

>>52555770
>Science and reason solves all problems

If that's the case how come so many Sci Fi stories are about science causing problems, then making those problems worse?

Checkmate atheists

>>52555872
Dead Space is about religion discovering science, then using science to make problems worse.

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The videogame Endless Legend

>>52555848
no

>>52555872

It's funny how to contrast movies made in Japan like Godzilla vs Americans ones made at the time. Japan is like the "government is the problem, science is the answer". American films are often "science is the problem, the government is the answer".

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>>52554720
It was less magic and more 'literal pseudo-divine interference from a higher plane of existence' but yeah christ Xenogears was a hell of a drug

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>>52555970
Americans were dealing with the immediate consequences of rushing Atomic Bombs on their tech tree. With that genie out of the bottle, many saw responsible government as the only way to prevent annihilation. Starship Troopers was basically Heinlein drawing up his ideal political system for preventing nuclear war.

The Japanese had already born the brunt of that new technology. Things couldn't get much worse for them, so they looked to science as a way to pull themselves back up.

>>52555908
That's a scifi setting pretending to be fantasy. Wrong way round.

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Um...Dancers at the End of Time/Second Ether trilogy i guess

>>52549776
>There's a lot of fantasy settings that are secretly a sci-fi setting, but is there a sci-fi setting that is secretly a fantasy setting?
I think that this sort of thing is rare because fantasy and sci-fi don't naturally go that way. Fantasy is generally about mythical and mystical things that aren't explained beyond "this is how magic works", while science fiction is generally about things that are based on principles that are either understood or at least understandable. I'm not denying the whole "magic can be studied scientifically" thing, but in general it just tends to be less explained than science.

It's easy for a hidden secret to turn fantasy into science fiction, by having something that people see as magical because they don't know about its underlying principles, but then have it turn out that the cause of its effects is actually based on scientific principles. It's not so easy to have devices which are developed and create based on what appear to be well-known scientific principles turn out to be based on something mystical that science hasn't recognized as such.

>>52555497
Actually yes. Because as it turns out all their advanced technology is actually magi tech, running on alchemy.

>>52556759
Its pretty much both at the same time. Or at least thats how my campaign in the setting feels.

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Ooo.

>>52550827
this is the only right answer so far

>>52556796
I mean, yeah that's the idea of magi tech really. Merger of science and magic, eaches' philosophies applied to the other to further their union as a whole.

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>>52555242
You mispelled viking

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>>52558391
Basically, you are fucking stupid.

Science basically being magic - sci-fantasy - is 40k in a nutshell

>>52558879
Anon, we went over this. 40k is tongue-in-cheek blatant with it. It is hardly a secret.
OP wants a setting where its a sci fi setting thats secretly a fantasy world.like those settings in fantasy where the gods are SHOCKING THRUTH! aliens from another world or magic is really NANOMACHINES.

>>52559386
>like those settings in fantasy where the gods are SHOCKING THRUTH! aliens from another world

The inverse of this would be extremely weird. Like what would this setting's version of fedora lords be like? Low-information idiots who smugly reaffirm the existance of gods and magic while thumbing their noses at mongoloids who put their faith in superstitious nonsense like "science" and "logic"?

>>52559440
We already have those IRL, they're called bible-thumpers and baptists.

>>52555450
You need to go to pre-1950s sci-fi for most of the really utopian, technology-burning-a-way-for-civilisation-and-the-future. It's a product of peoples who were secure in their identity and the fate of their civilisation. Nowadays everything is crumbling, or at least appears to be. People used to trust governments and institutions, now people view them with suspicion, whether it be beliving they're trying to tear down and sell society to the highest bidder, or oppress and replace them, breaking down culture and identity.

>>52559787
>Pre-1950s sci fi is bright and utopian
>What is Metropolis
>What is 1984

>>52559894
Utopian writers, or at least those putting trust in institutions and technology outweigh those. You just couldn't get a Galactic Patrol written today or after the 1960s, at least not without being played tongue in cheek.

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>>52554804
Nope, still science.

Secondary materials reveal that the god-monsters (and thus humanity) were created by a hyper-advanced progenitor race. The White and Black Moons were seed-ships, and the whole conflict is because only one ship is supposed to go to any given planet, and Earth got two by mistake.

>>52560061
Anon, stuff like Galaxy Patrol never went away. What do you think stuff like Star Wars or the MCU is?

There's never been a point where sci fi writers had to go "well better write a story where everything's bright and hunk-dory" to get published. Saying grim science fiction is the product of people losing trust in their governments is patently false. Mostly because there's /never/ been a time where everyone trusted their government.

>>52549776
Tenchi Muyo! comes to mind. At first it's all sci-fi with its backstory, involving an alien princess of a race with plant-based organic technology, a "demon" sealed in a cave who turns out to be a genetically engineered superpowered space pirate, a hyper-advanced genius scientist, space police, and other things like that. The technology is so advanced that a lot of it is visually indistinguishable from magic, but it's all presented as advanced alien science.

It turns out that a lot of this advanced technology is actually based on the divine power of various gods and goddesses. Jurai's trees are all descendants of a goddess who took the form of a tree, and their Light Hawk Wings (seemingly some sort of advanced force field) can withstand any force in the universe because they draw on the power of its creators. Several major characters turn out to (secretly or unwittingly) be gods in disguise, including the main character (which is why he can generate his own Light Hawk Wings without any apparent external power source) and Washu, the aforementioned super-scientist (which would mean that some of her miraculous inventions might have been literal miracles).

>>52560883
>What do you think stuff like Star Wars or the MCU is?
Both are reflections or adaptations of previous more optimistic material, and even they're mostly gone now. Modern day capeshit is fucking grimdark memery, [UNSOLICITED OPINIONS ON ISRAEL], or both; while even the earliest phases of the SW EU were starting to pick holes in the perfect, utopian New Republic.

I'd probably argue that the longest surviving optimistic utopian Sci-fi was probably Star Trek up until the end of TNG - after that, it split into cheap drivel (VOY) or the more fashionable cynical direction the genre had been going in for ages (DS9). Even that was because Roddenbery kept forcing his hippy views on the whole thing; the TNG films (apart from Generations) quickly went down the same route, too.

>>52549776
Voltron: Legendary Defender

>>52549776

Mass Effect.

>>52561820
Did Andromeda do even more stupid bullshit I'm unaware of or is this about Biotics?

>>52555654

That's because the actual science behind the speed of light is complicated and unintuitive, whereas the concept "this spaceship can go from Earth to Alpha Centauri in twenty minutes" is simple to grasp, even if it's not even remotely realistic.

>>52562086
>even if it's not even remotely realistic.

Well, it kind of is. If that ship could accelerate and stop fast enough it could potentially take it twenty minutes to reach Alpha Centauri.

It's just four years would pass back on Earth.

>>52562154

>It's just four years would pass back on Earth.

That's the unintuitive part. People hear "twenty minutes to Alpha Centauri" and expect to be able to say, "We're popping out to Alpha Centauri to get some burgers, we'll be back to pick you up when you've finished watching your movie."

>>52559440
Basically Elder Scrolls, no? Isn't that how everyone felt about the dwemer getting fucking vanished?

>>52555242

Fucking Jians

>>52561936

Biotics.

>>52556759
Is there a source on this?

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>>52549826
It still does go in reverse in the case of WH40K Orks.

>>52549809
What about Neon Genesis Evangelion? At the start it just seems like they're giant mechs who are partly biological but it turns out they're products of all sorts of crazy magic hocus pocus, or at least I think they were it was a pretty confusing show, why did they all turn into soup?

>>52550403
Fantasy mostly rips off lord of the rings.

Sci-fi mostly rips off Star Wars.

>>52549820
>one of the classes is named warlock
It was never a secret.

>>52554399
Yeah the meaning of the term science fiction has seriously degenerated over time, when you look at 20,000 leagues under the sea everything they describe basically exists now, same with that H. G. Wells story about the land ironclads. Meanwhile there'll never be a time when star wars is just regular reality.

I think it all started when people realized you could never go faster then the speed of light so you'd have to abandon reality in order to tell compelling stories set on an interstellar scale, and once you've abandoned relativity why bother with the rest? And then that attitude filtered down to sci-fi that wasn't set on an interstellar scale.

>>52562154
People don't get relativity.

People REALLY don't get causality (or rather, how FTL violates it).

>>52554580
What elements of star wars are in any way scientifically accurate or even try to appear so.

Hyperdrive?
Lightsabres?
Blasters?
The Force?

What exactly?

Star wars is literally fantasy IN SPACE and I wouldn't have it any other way.

>>52564238
Lightsabers and blasters are possible as applications of plasma and magnetic fields but when you can do that with them there's far more efficient ways to kill people.

>>52564389
Lightsabers are literally just swords in SPACE. No one ever intended people to look at them scientifically or logically and the fact there's so many people who do proves why the Star Wars fandom is so darn terrible.

>>52564389
>Lightsabers and blasters are possible as applications of plasma and magnetic fields
We can speculate that but they never really give any indication how they work in the movies.

>>52549776
Xenosaga.

>>52550610
Not even, if you go a step further down into THE TRUTH it is sci-fi again with the whole right here and now with sci-fi drugs deal

fantasy pretending to be science fiction is called science fantasy

Star Wars is science fantasy

>>52555149
Elaborate

>>52567324
I think he's just referencing an NPC in one of 4's DLC who seems to have straight-up magic power.
Like, psychics have always been a part of Fallout, but psychics aren't unheard of in otherwise hardish sci-fi such as Larry Niven's Known Space stories, but in Nuka World there's a character who straight-up pulls magic tricks, but real.

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>>52549776

>>52567345
It also has ghosts and aliens.

Fallout is one of those games that occasionally puts weird things in it just for the sake of being weird even if they don't fit the setting.

>>52557665
Nice one.

>>52549776
Toriko kind of does this. In the early parts it tries to explain things with scientific principles, with giant gourmet monsters simply being dangerous wild animals, and super-strong fighters being genetically enhanced with "gourmet cells", and rare delicious foods evolving that way for some reason or being in a highly favorable environment, and other things like that. The science is definitely soft, outlandish, and often silly, but it's still generally about a technologically advanced human race in a world filled with deadly wildlife. But as the story goes on, it slowly introduces more and more concepts which are outright magical, like DBZ-style ki attacks, weird space-warping dimensions generated with spirit power, and characters with abstract powers like freezing time or controlling probability.

For example, characters would sometimes manifest an intangible monstrous image of a demonic creature. At first, this was called "Intimidation" and said to be a purely symbolic representation of their nature as strong, ravenous predators and the fear it instills in other animals. It turns out that these "Appetite Devils" are actual demonic spirits that can inhabit people with Gourmet Cells, bonding with them to grant special powers and allowing their hosts to take their forms, while potentially taking over a host's body entirely and using it to manifest in the living world. They are physical embodiments of appetite, and when they're killed, they spend some time drifting around the afterlife until they find a new host to inhabit.

>>52569863
In addition radiation is like weird death magic than pure radiation. It turns people into ghouls and those ghouls can live forever allegedly. FEV is also weird in the sence that it mutates people into a completely different being within days (and back again with a cure/their minds can be stabilized with a soda pop made out of crabs and shit). Fallout is pretty fantasy just hiding behind science words.

>>52549776
Transformers might count. At first glace it's about war between different groups of a highly advanced tranforming alien robot race, but they're not just robots, they have magical souls called "sparks" and were created by a giant mechanical planet god who is in conflict with another giant mechanical planet god. It's unclear exactly how much of their systems and abilities run on magic rather than "conventional" tech (whatever the difference may be) but wherever you draw the line, they're likely to cross it at some point.