Science Fiction? Pfft!

[Rick Canaan]

Has anyone ever wondered what would happen if somebody wrote a story where elements of science fiction and fantasy were battling? Who would win? Those with awesome science fiction guns, space ships, armor suits and force fields - would they win? Or would it be wizards with their impressive magics, or those colossal dragons with all of their armor and fire-breathing abilities?

Well, maybe here is part of an answer:

1325491149.phillipc_barefootstallioncommission3.png

Maybe this dragon isn't thinking about some tanks that might be coming over the horizon, or about this soldier's space ship in orbit - which at this minute, might be sending down fighters or more troops to save this poor soldier, but in the mean time, I dare say this dragon has this soldier in quite the pickle!

The tag line?

"Pfft. Silly armored and force-fielded soldiers... All I gotta do is wait till his battery runs out, and he's mush!"



This idea came upon me a couple of months ago, and so I commissioned an artist (PhillipC from FurAffinity) do put some visual fun to it. There may be more, as I think the idea may merit a small series, to say the least.

Any ideas from our members about this theme, shoot them my way. If they're fun, you may see it pop up as a comic picture like the one above.

So who would win? Science fiction or fantasy?

Who's to say? Which ever it may be, I think we - as sci-fi furs - are singularly qualified to imagine on it!

Thanks, everyone!

[Daryn]

Heh, this is quite the fun little image, if I do say so. If you ask me, it's always going to be a pretty even fight, since both SciFi and Fantasy will always have cool techniques to put against each other. I wonder how a Quantum Buster might be handled by said Dragon though. Either way, I love this pic. :>

[Rys]

Hm... I think it probably depends on the exact things being compared. Though I am now wondering what would happen if you fired the Death Star at the One Ring.

[xxnicorxx]

the difference between the two is how they could adapt to each others fighting styles or weapons. i wonder how quickly each side could adapt and change.

[Brome Teks]

The solution is simple. Fall back, and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[SliceOfDog]

The solution is simple. Fall back, and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Haha, beautiful! You have persuaded me, Sci-fi will be victorious! Also they could use that bio-bomb from 40k that releases a virus that consumes every living cell until there are no more to consume in the entire planet, then consumes itself.

[Shade Leshyr]

Oh crap... Buzzwolf and I have had this argument before and even though I LOVE sci-fi... I love fantasy more and would have to throw my lot in with fantasy.

Points- Return to Sender sure you can drop a nuke, but what if they suspend it with magic and send it back?

I just charged these! - Most if not all sci-fi things are based on science, which magic manipulates. Your battery becomes your worst enemy when they redirect the charge through your body '~'

Time-stop... every mages favorite spell- self-explanatory, no?

I SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER!! - Thor+Mjolnir (sp?)+ your face = ddddddaaaaaaaammmmmn, that had to hurt

Rick beat me to the punch on "Just wait it out, it can't stop several hundred tons forever"

3 tons? Try 80 tons earth mages have a nasty habit of making things way more...

KILL IT WIFF FIRE!! - berserker pyro mages.... nough said...

I'm hardcore fantasy in reality... Halo was the first thing that got me into sci-fi... so if there's anything bigger you'd like to know how magic would beat, just let me know and I'll tell you XD

[Buzzwolf]

Ooo...this is one of my personal favorite subjects when it comes to sci fi, how every magic trick can be twisted or countered with some form of tech just as tech can be twisted by the magic, Gravity manipulation in place of earth mages, Plasma lances in place of fire mages, 'batteries' stemming from near infinite power sources, and in some instances (Namly timeshift and the like) devices used to manipulate time even as well as kinetic maniupulatiors like the gravity gun from Half life to reverse a return to sender.


every bit of it is just a manipulation of the physics and reality to suit the users whims, the only difference is in how it's done, science sees it all as hard fact, pieces put together to create something greater and more powerful, all understood (for the most part at least) how and why it works to create superior weaponry, armor and machines.


Magic on the other hand, uses (often times) the power of words, script or simply the power of thought, to conjure the forces desired, to bring to life a skeleton army, launch fireballs from the palm of their hand with nothing to fuel it but the air itself, but none of it is understood in the same way, but it is often easier to control because it practically comes with a manual on how to do it, "here's your spell book! don't mispronounce or shit hits the fan!"


in a way, it's almost like looking at a different user interface to get to the same system...


personally, I like the fusion ideas that some people bring into play(My favorite being some of Strypes designs XP), like the mana cores to power systems, mystical weapons, swords, armor, hell, even ships on ocassion...as much as I like my own designs that use the quantuum singularity powersource, there's something so much more elegant about the mana cores XP

my favorite controversy on it all? Green lantern Rings. Magic or tech? they were crafted to harness the power of will, but require a recharge in order to operate, so they fall to being a type of battery, right? buuuut...how powerful they are, stems from the users will power, power of the mind and spirit to control it. SciFi tech, or magic? XP

I would love to see something done in regards to some type of story or comic regarding magic vs tech, I can see infinite possiblities of ways it could be horribly amusing, and just as interesting XP

My opinion says it will always be Tech that wins out in the end, because it's an understanding rather than simply calling forces into being, and when you understand how and why something happens, it's only a matter of time till you find a way to null or counteract the effects to push for victory, and while yes, magics also are about learning, all it is is finding new spells, not the root of their being, what causes the power to really happen, the advantage science has is it can find that source, then ya got a war between war machines and men carrying wooden sticks with a crystal on the end, and bows.

Science = Magic, and Magic = Science...now divide by zero and everything balances out!

...I'm done with my tangent now ^^;

[Shade Leshyr]

[deleted cause bad post is bad]

[Brome Teks]

Science = Magic, and Magic = Science...now divide by zero and everything balances out!

I'll just leave This and This here for you.

[BIos_Reaper]

Ironically, I think regardless, science always wins due to the scientific mindset. Magic, fantasy, etc. All have their own inherent rules, and magic users have to abide by them. In terms of fantasy vs science fiction, it's a tough choice since well, as Arthur C. Clarke put it it was it? "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." So? I don't know! Ideally it's not a battle I want to see, because it depends entirely on the writer, and people are biased, so neither can win without support from their respective writers, though both have strong forces. Hmm... Blargh! Internal debate error!

[Rick Canaan]

Haha! This has turned into a right proper discussion, hasn't it?

And now that I have time on my PC (I don't get a lot of that lately due to power logistics with this new truck I got), I'll try to add a bit to it.

So who would win between science fiction and fantasy?

Well, I'll use two systems from two different prominent story lines - The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordon and The Commonwealth Universe by Peter F. Hamilton (both of these authors very much worth anyone's time reading; they are the best I've ever discovered in their respective genres).

In the Commonwealth world, we see science fiction raised to its almost absolute pinnacle, where the human species is concerned. They have FTL space travel, worm hole technology on a scale which grants travel between worlds on dedicated trains, and we see weapons technology capable of destroying entire worlds in an eye blink. And not just the people and/or civilizations on it, but the entire world, itself.

In the Wheel of Time books, we see a very powerful type of magic - the One Source (also called the One Power or just simply the Source or the Power). This power, when using the correct tools, can eradicate entire cities. However, this power could probably be used to combat even the startling technologies employed by the people of the Commonwealth.

So how would a planet-based system of magical power stand up against an interstellar force of technology?

Okay, let's say one of Hamilton's ships arrives at the planet on which this Power is. They launch a quantum Buster (one of those weapons capable of destroying whole worlds). How would the people respond, if they had any capability for response at all?

Well, the pinnacle of power exercised by these people, is what is called a Circle. 13 men or women join together to combine their power. Moreover, they have in their possession one of their greatest Sah'angreal - a tool which can be used to magnify the power channeled through it literally by the millionth power.

First, they could blast the Quantum Buster (that planet-destroying weapon) and in fact, eradicate it so that it never existed in the first place. Secondly, they could do this to the ship which launched it. Could do the same with a whole fleet of ships with a thought.

With a tool called "Bale Fire". There is nothing which can withstand it, for it not only burns things out of existence itself, it does so in a way so that whatever it did just prior to being burned out of existence, never took place.

Okay, so that takes care of the Wheel of Time's people defending their world against planetary bombardment. So how about on a more personal level? The Wheel of Time people aren't going to have one of these ultra powerful Sah'angreal at the ready in personal skirmishes, and wouldn't be likely to use it in such a circumstance anyway, as doing so could risk damaging their own world.

So then, let's take a look at one the Commonwealth's ultra armor suits.

These suits can be outfitted with just about any type of battle field weapon system. They have their own (quite powerful) force fields, they can be outfitted with missiles, anti-armor cannons, extremely powerful lasers, and so on. In short, any one member of such an infantry could destroy entire mechanized units of present day armor. They could swat entire present day armies with barely a thought; any single one of them could pulverize a present day major city to dust within the span of an afternoon.

The people from the Wheel of Time aren't invulnerable. In fact, they're just as vulnerable as anybody else. So then, one of these guys in the armor suit, could sit up on a distant vantage point, and if he had a clear shot, he could cock-roach-splatter even the most powerful of the One Power users without breaking a sweat. Moreover, this would be a one-sided advantage the guy in the armor suit would always have. The people in the Wheel of Time have only the most primitive of telescopes, so would be at great disadvantage in long range combat - where the guy in the armor suit would reign supreme.

So if taking that as a given, no matter how powerful the people would be with their use of the One Power (which is extremely powerful), they would be at tremendous disadvantage to someone who had long ranged weapons technology. One single guy in one armor suit, infiltrated onto their world, could take his sweet time picking off the users of the One Power. Once all of them are dead, you move in more troops, and set about defeating the rest of their world.

So from these two genres, I've argued that ultra technology would win. How about anyone else? Have you any two favorite stories or series you've read, where it might be interesting to compare the two, and who might win in a power struggle? If so, let's hear them. Who would win between your two favorite stories?

[Daryn]

I love both The Wheel of Time and The Commonwealth Universe, so this subject is kind of fun to think of. The Commonwealth is great for a number of reasons, but one of the most interesting aspects is the OC Tattoos and Virtual Vision systems. We are sort of making steps towards that, with developments in subdermal wiring, but we're not there yet, that's for sure.

Moving to The Wheel of Time, The One Power is a great concept to me. With a nice balance between risk and reward. While you can take in and weave huge amounts of this power, you run the risk of burning yourself out in doing so. I should also probably mention that 13 is not the limit for a circle. With both men and women linking that number can go way higher than that.

Spoiler

The male half of The One Power was tainted, but they did eventually sort that out.

There's just a lot to consider, but I think on the whole they're pretty well balanced.

[Brome Teks]

The TARDIS is capable of destroying time, space, and reality itself. Can't get much more destructive than that. Just thought I'd point that out.

[Daryn]

I'll just point out that the TARDIS is capable of destroying time, space, and reality itself. Can't get much more destructive than that.

It certainly can, but it can't be anything other than a phone box. That would probably stand out in certain settings. In fact, in the show it kind of stands out everywhere.

[Brome Teks]

The chameleon circuit broke, they make it a point in the show that the Doctor just likes it as a police box. Also, perception filter.

[SliceOfDog]

I'm afraid I have to concede that they would be evenly matched. Anything magic could do, imagined tech could do and vice versa. For example, a wizard realises that Fantasy are going to lose, so he alters reality itself so that they will win. In response, SciFi send some agents back in time to assassinate this wizard while he is still a child. A Seer predicts that this will happen, and tells another wizard, who opens a temporal time-hole and a team of adventurers travel through it to make sure that the time-machine tech is destroyed. However, the SciFi people know about this plan due to invisible agents who have been relaying this information through, and they use wormhole technology to alter the time-hole to *brain asplode*
It would sort of go on and on like that.

However, I do have one particular example I think other people might not think of: In some fantasy, there are various types of magic, and typical 'Western' fantasy magicians/wizards are known for learning how to use magic, but not working with it. They are the masters, the magic is the tool or, if sentient, the slave. This is usually contrasted with things like demonic magic, whose mages use their own bodies as channels for the magic, which rules them in exchange for power, and 'Eastern' magicians who are 'at one' with the magic in a sort of Buddhist fashion.
So anyway, the idea seems to be that the more powerful the magic, the more dangerous it becomes. The Eastern magicians are at low risk, because they consider themselves equal with the magic and therefore do not call upon more than they need or abuse it, and as such don't suffer the consequences. The most common Western mage/wizard, with the book of spells and so forth, think they are superior to the magic, and therefore risk any conscious magic trying to destroy them (Magically bound elemental slaves, for example, who would kill them if given the chance) yet they will not put themselves in immediate danger. The general demonic mage will know they are only a temporary servant of higher powers, and so will not care about the risk of dying. They will call upon ultimate power even if they know they will likely not live through it, or perhaps because they will not.
In any case, I point this out because SciFi often doesn't have this problem. The more you understand the science you are using, the more you can use it and the more powerful it becomes. Someone in a giant killing machine will need to know all of the controls, otherwise it's pointless. But if they know exactly how to use it, the great power comes under their control while at the same time lowering the risk of death.
Also, wizards summoning demons to do their bidding: Very dangerous for the SciFi side, but if the demons ever get set free they will try to kill the wizards (Think Bartimaeus if anyone here has read it. If not do so ASAP) and probably not hold as much of a grudge against the SciFi side, who after all are also trying to kill wizards.

[Rick Canaan]

Hmmm! I guess, ultimately, that is what science fiction and magic boils down to, isn't it, Slice? The harnessing of power greater than one's self! So yes, no matter how one looked at it, both are evenly matched. It isn't the method which is employed, but the fact that the method renders control over the greater power. Differing thematic. Same results.

I am quite taken with the 'brain asplodes' concept. One could get caught up in a real conundrum trying to work it out, couldn't they? This one counters that one with this, the other counters back with that - it going back and forth, it soon evolving into a vicious circle, finally into a full blown maelstrom of immensely unsolvable and impossible-to-keep-up-with logic. But heh, there again, it all boils down to the same concept - the saddling of power to achieve and end. One uses time machines and worm holes to thwart their enemy's plans, the other uses scrying, premonition and clairvoyance.

It has me wondering, though... I wonder if it could be possible that mages of old might have just been calling upon powers, unaware that they were generated not by demons and universal forces, but perhaps instead, some huge and ancient "Krell" machine (see Forbidden Planet) that has been under their feet all along! If such were the case, wouldn't then magic be science fiction?

Hmmmm!



Yeah, think about THAT for too long, and you get another brain asplode!

Either way, great points, Slice! One can always depend on you to keep a discussion going!

[Shade Leshyr]

Ok, I apologize for how long it's taken me to respond, but now allow me to give a mage's rebuttal.

*Ahem*

First, let me contend with your sniper theory Rick. If I may draw your attention to the Inheiritance Cycle, specifically the end of Eldest and the tailing section of Brisingr. In Eldest, most if not all magic users have the ability to feel the presence of living beings with their mind, and once found, can invade the individuals mind. A sentry dragonrider would easily sense the hostile intent of enemy snipers, invade their mind, scan their memories of their orders and a good deal of information the enemy wouldn't want them to have, then simply mutter a word of death and kill the sniper with his own lifeforce.

On top of that, the magic users in Eldest and Brisingr could, once the threat was identified as ballistic, energy, etc, could cast wards on themselves to counter and stop the bullets altogether, and with the aid of even a single Eldunari or dragon, the effort wouldn't hurt them.

Next, if I may Slice, the continuous ring of act and react would probably lead to a number of paradoxes where both sides win and both sides lose, eventually probably collapsing on itself, ending in absolute loss for both sides.

Buuuuuut, I would like to draw attention to one fact I have chosen to accept, Mana, the essence of magic itself and all effects and causes of it, is sentient in and of itself and in the end would either be the wizard's greatest ally or greatest foe. If mana decided to help, techies would have a hard time getting ANYTHING to work, but if it chooses to remain neutral, it's going to be fairly even.

In the end, how about the two just join together and everyone goes home happy? relatively.

[Brome Teks]

I will counter the Inheritance Cycle books (Haven't read the 4th one yet, btw) with both psionics, a staple of scifi, and Science Fiction combat simply using more energy, in the quantifiable sense of the word. Sure, a mage could make protection from arrows, but arrows only use energy supplied by a normal human. I'd love to see how many "protection against mortar" spells they could make before they expend all their energy and keel over. Even with a bunch of energy stored in crystals or other living beings around them.

Take an arrow for instance. Even using modern equipment and high end strength, you probably cap out at around 300 joules or so of kinetic energy from the arrow. An English Longbow man could fire 12-15 arrows per minute. A .50 cal machine gun, a modern weapon mind you, shoots with 18,000 joules of energy 450 times per minute.

Countering a constant arrow barrage would require the mage to put out 75 watts of power constantly. Countering a full on machine gun barrage would take 135,000 watts of power. Sprinting takes approximately 1700 watts of power, by comparison. A mage trying to hold against machine gun fire would keel over in an instant. His only chance would be to save energy by merely deflecting the bullets, but if this is army vs army combat, like at the end of Eldest, that's not a particularly desirable effect when you have soldiers packed as close together as sardines in a can.

Now if we bump it up to Sci-fi levels, we've got say, a vehicle mounted 10 megawatt laser. That's 10,000,000 watts needed to negate it, and it couldn't be merely deflected like a bullet or arrow. You could wipe out a small army of mages in one go. Even if they had a dragon or two backing them, they still probably wouldn't last long.

[Shade Leshyr]

I will see your physics and counter with ethereal displacement. Sure, displacing an entire army would take a large amount of stored energy, but after the first wave of laser strikes, as far as I know, most if not all sci-fi weaponry of that scale has a time it needs to recharge for the second salvo in which ((again, pointing to Eldest)) the mages would lock onto the weapons weak points, tweak them a bit, and make them explode in their operators' faces.

This is of course, assuming all the stations fire at once, but in counter of section fire, I will submit teleportation. If each mage is able to teleport themselves far enough out of the blast radius of the attack, they could eventually close the distance to the enemy and start wreaking havok.

In counter to assault weaponry, A diamond giant tends to be hard to use lasers on cause it refracts the concentrated energy on top of being insanely solid to counter ballistics and explosives.

[Brome Teks]

Not necessarily, current laser systems are being designed to take down missile after missile, implying a very short recharge time. Then you could also work in Sci-fi energy shield, which in some settings I've played in is measured in terms of megajoules for how much energy it can take before falling. There is no possible way mages in the Inheritance cycle could create that much energy on their own in a short period of time, short of maybe becoming a shade (the books aren't too specific on the limits of their powers).

Then there's also the issue of how mages "kill words" are based on an understanding of human and animal anatomy, which laser weapons notably do not have. They would have to discern the schematics from an engineer's mind (Again, possibly countered by psionics) and then figure out where to break to disable the laser, which either requires a specific inquiry into the engineer's mind or a sophisticated technological understanding. Lasers are also considerably easier to return to working order than a soldier.

There's also the matter of range. In Eragon, it's mentioned that magic requires more energy the further away the effect is from the caster. One thing technology excels in is range. Be it tomahawk strike, railguns mounted on naval vessels, Air strikes, ICBMs, or even orbit to surface strikes, technology is able to strike from considerably greater range than this particular magic system.

Finally technology has unconventional weapons going for them. Napalm, Chlorine, land mines, these can all tie up an opposing army's magic forces and reduce their capacity to resist the big guns, like say, a tactical nuclear strike. The U.S. Infantry launched Davy Crocket had a yield of 42 gigajoules. Or if we bump it up to a strategic strike, the most powerful U.S. weapon in service today has a yield of 5 petaJoules, or 5 million gigajoules.

That, and teleportation isn't limited to Fantasy. In the immortal words of Kirk, "Scotty, beam me up!"

EDIT: Forgot about the diamond giants. Note that hardness is not the same as toughness. Diamond is hard, but brittle and can crack and shatter fairly easily when talking about the forces involved here. If it was indestructible, we wouldn't be able to get the fine jewelry we have today.

[SliceOfDog]

Hah, I'm actually rather enjoying sitting back and watching this. Things I hadn't thought of, quite often due to not having read much (good) fantasy, are being discussed, and it's nice to see the arguments and counterarguments for things like shields and reflection magic etc.
Though while if I absolutely had to take a side I would probably go for SciFi, as my previous posts have probably indicated, I do feel the need to make another mention of an area of magic that would buff the Fantasy side something awful: Future telling. Yes, such a thing may exist in some SciFi, but in my experience Fantasy tends to be more about Fate and Grand Inescapable Destiny, and so their futures are set as one straight line (or often two: "Which path will our hero take? The path of light... or darkness" etc etc) whereas SciFi future telling seems to rely on probability and chance, and so can never be as specific or definite. Therefore I would argue that individual Seers would be able to know a lot about future enemy plans without needing to be anywhere near the battlefield.

My future telling mechanic

Decided to make this hidden since it's completely derailing the thread, but some people might be interested? I originally wrote Fantasy long before I got my real interest in SciFi. When I was doing that, I had two different mechanics for future telling in my two different worlds. The first was a more classic version, where a Seer could set up a sort of ceremony with someone and see their future as it would happen, no matter what. It could not be changed, so if she saw them dying, they would die no matter what the Seer did. However, after a certain time the vision would 'go dark'. This would be the point in which that individual Seer died, so in this mechanic the Seer cannot see the future past their own death. This was going to be a big thing in the book I was writing, since she reads the main character's future and 'goes dark' when he is in mortal danger, obviously leading to the tension of not knowing if he will survive it (Yes, it was cliche as hell, but I was 12, whaddaya gonna do?)

The second I was much prouder of. It was described as a stream, where each individual ripple is a possible future. The higher the probability the larger the ripple or undercurrent it caused, meaning it becomes easier to follow for the Seer. If it is very unlikely, it is so small that it can be drowned out by the other probabilities, and only very skilled Seers can follow it. What they would be seeing would not be the future, but the future that could be. Due to this, nothing would be absolutely certain, except perhaps something that would happen in a few milliseconds time if the force has already been applied. But in any case, usually the stream of possibility has at least several currents, and usually hundreds.
In this universe there were a lot more people who were potential Seers than in the first, but many are not skilled enough to see more than a few seconds into the future (some get a form of motion sickness if they spend too long 'following the stream') whereas others just go completely insane, either through seeing so many possibilities at once and losing all faith in certainty or, more often, following the currents of their own future and seeing their own death thousands of times (every time they eat something, there are currents of possibility that they will choke to death on the food, and each time they are stood at any height, there is the possibility they will fall to their death etc). The main Seer of the story and one of the most powerful in the story's world was Genwyth, an old blind woman who was famous within the faction known as The Tribe. In one section of the story she is among a group who are moving through a booby-trapped forest, and uses her ability to predict what would happen when each next step is taken. By the time they exit the forest, she has seen all of them die hundreds of times, each time using that prediction to say something like "Don't step that way. Take three steps left then walk forward"
Finally, and she only manages this due to her talent with Seeing as it would usually be unimaginably beyond the ability of a Seer, she manages to learn the secrets of a dying man who can no longer talk. She does this by following the probabilities of her making random sounds and it being the exact words he wants to use, so she follows thousands of minute ripples of chance to string together the entire speech that is in the dying man's head. When she is finished she collapses due to exhaustion and falls unconscious.

Hope that that was somewhat interesting to some of you.

Oh, and on the note of:

Next, if I may Slice, the continuous ring of act and react would probably lead to a number of paradoxes where both sides win and both sides lose, eventually probably collapsing on itself, ending in absolute loss for both sides.

I would agree there, but then again I am of the belief that "

ending in absolute loss for both sides" is pretty much the result of any modern war. I'm certainly struggling to think of any war since (and including) WW1 in which there is a side who have actually, really won. Not really.

[WolfyWetFurr]

Fun picture! Being that i like to combine both elements, I'd say its a fair chance for both. But I think fantasy would be much cheaper. Not having to invest in all the materials that sci fi does.

[Shade Leshyr]

Well Brome, on magic's sides we have the raw elementals. Nothing can really physically touch an elemental as they tend to convert/absorb energy into themselves to make themselves stronger, but it's a double edged sword cause elementals tend to hate being called into the physical realm, so that would be a desperate measure anything.

Anyway, in counter to most sci-fi, I'd actually have to submit black mages and necromancers (yes, there is a BIG difference). The black mages could drain the lifeforce out of the soldiers only to have the necromancers reanimate them with full function but on the side of the mages, including turning their weapons against their allies. As for range, you have to be able to see to shoot right, at least shoot accurately, and black mages have a nasty habit of making entire regions of land be shrouded in darkness and magic, though I can not for the life of me remember what movie I saw it in, has a habit of messing up sensor equipment, not to mention the creatures that black mages summon.

Again with range though, the elder dragons (again, can't remember what series I saw it in) have learned how to launch fireballs for miles, increasing the impact by diving.

And Slice? A lot of series that I've read have a Seer that predicts something and are ALMOST right, but major details are hidden, so they don't truly know the outcome.

And while we're on this subject, I have a question: Bionicles, sci-fi or fantasy?

[Brome Teks]

Anyway, in counter to most sci-fi, I'd actually have to submit black mages and necromancers (yes, there is a BIG difference). The black mages could drain the lifeforce out of the soldiers only to have the necromancers reanimate them with full function but on the side of the mages, including turning their weapons against their allies.

Hey man. Robots.

As for range, you have to be able to see to shoot right, at least shoot accurately, and black mages have a nasty habit of making entire regions of land be shrouded in darkness and magic, though I can not for the life of me remember what movie I saw it in, has a habit of messing up sensor equipment, not to mention the creatures that black mages summon.

Well the beauty of automatic weapons is that you don't need to be accurate, you just have to fire more bullets. And with large scale weapons, like nukes, napalm, or say, the "Jericho" missile from Ironman, that'd be good enough to not bother needing to aim accurately, you just have to have a general idea of where the army is, and then blow up it and anything in its general vicinity.

Again with range though, the elder dragons (again, can't remember what series I saw it in) have learned how to launch fireballs for miles, increasing the impact by diving.

That doesn't really measure up to what modern weapons are capable of though. With cruise missiles, you can deliver a warhead from over a thousand miles away, ICBMs actually can reach from the other side of a planet.

Furthermore, a dragon's wings present a nice large target. If they're using a classic membrane style wing, flak guns would rip them to shreds. Then you've also got jet and possibly SSTO fighters capable of moving far faster than a dragon. Using any number of weapons, from missiles, to rockets, bullets, or even lasers, they would be more than a match for a dragon.

Edit: yes, even a Night Fury

[Shade Leshyr]

In response to robots, I would have to refer back to the idea that magic messes with electronics, so robots would find themselves blind or shooting everything, including allies.

As far as weapon spam, that works if your targets are real. If mages sent in illusions first (the electronics necessary for seeing the difference being disabled by the above argument) sci-fi would probably mass spam images rather than the real mages/creatures, creating an opening to close the distance and possibly flank the soldiers.

As far as matching/beating a dragon, one, the black mages would cloud the soldiers line of sight to allow the dragons to get in close and when a dragon dives, they turn straight at the enemy, pull in their wings, and pull their legs up tight to their body, allowing them to dive faster and present a much smaller target before snapping open their wings and vanishing into the black mage's shroud.

Moving forward, mages could also bend light around themselves to look like a soldier in full gear (again, magic interference making sensors obsolete) and wreak havok within the ranks.

And finally, all soldiers have to sleep at some time (machines exempt) and once they fall asleep, Nightmare Creatures (reference: Nocturne from League of Legends) would prey on them.

[Brome Teks]

For illusions, they could be matched by holograms from scifi sources. And depending on how in depth the illusions are, you don't necessarily need advanced electronics. Shine a laser pointer towards an illusion, see if a dot shows up on it.

The dragons still would have trouble. Flak guns create a lot of shrapnel, and short of actually pulling their wings inside their bodies, the dragons wings are fragile and would still get perforated. In fact, the problems might be even worse in the situation you described, the High-G turns would create a lot more stress on their wings, possibly causing tearing (ouch) where shrapnel damaged it.

And impersonating soldiers is nothing new, systems like codewords and IFFs already exist to make sure soldiers are really who they say they are.

Now, you've talked a lot about magic interrupting electronics, but what about the opposite? Could science come up with a way to interfere with magic? The answer is probably yes, Science always finds a way. Understanding the forces in the universe is what the scientific method lives for. And frankly, I've never heard of a mage being close to understanding how gravity works.

Which brings up another point, I'm mostly talking about real light, almost modern scifi. What about the high end stuff, that messes with the fundamental forces of matter, space and time? Fold an army into a pocket dimension out of existence. This is what the others were talking about, there's a complete escalation as two sides can come up with grander and grander ideas. This is fiction, after all. By definition we're making all of it up.

Edit: One more thing!

What are the armies we're facing equipped with? From the sound of it you have an army augmented by mages. What's the army using, swords etc? The thing about technology is that anyone can use it. Magic tends to be portrayed as something exclusive to few. If the armies ever did get in close quarters, or the one you describe did flank mine... then what? The cavalry charges, only to get mowed down by machine gun fire?

[Shade Leshyr]

Well, most if not ALL good mages are well aware of physical properties, so I highly doubt that they would let something like a laser pointer break the illusion...

Actually, if you look at the wing structure of dragons, the scaled pieces that hold the bones actually fold and pull the leathery portion in under it. Evolution works with magical creatures too and that problem came with arrows too ^^; and on top of that, dragon wings are made to withstand heavy G-force, being the ultimate air predator. I think we should get away from dragons hitting ground forces, as they'd probably be tearing air ships apart since they have more manuverablity. The thing ground units would have to deal with would be Voidspawn, Giants, and Elementals.

For "being who they are," impersonating a soldier would probably mean they caught the soldier, drugged him, wormed their way into his barely conscious brain, and essentially became him.

Unfortunately for your sci-fi army, that's the line there: what can you do with the equations. Your army is limited only to things that you can prove and test then build. Not only will you eventually run out of resources to build your equipment, but you have to prove the equation. A lot of magic is feeling it, willing your thoughts into being, theoretically, if a mage was powerful enough and had enough focus, he could will your entire army out of existence completely.

As for the pocket dimension thing, a lot of mages would probably be well versed in multi-dimensional spells and could penetrate through to return to safety.

And messing with magic is harder than messing with electronics because Mana itself is a sentient entity. You can block off the mages from the source, but Mana may rise up and smother your army in things they can't kill, things only Mana itself can conjure, like true Ascendents, mages who have transcended the physical form and become pure, indestructible energy.

and as for my army, by this time, all the infantry would be long dead... mages can hold their own, but knights, spearmen, etc will have been obliterated at the beginning.

[Brome Teks]

I still doubt the dragons would stand much chance. Sure they're more maneuverable than aircraft, but they're nowhere near as fast as any (even modern) fixed wing jet aircraft. Entirely different leagues there. They are faster and more maneuverable than helicopters though, I'll give you that. But I'd go so far as to say that helicopters are better armed. Flaming chemicals are one thing to spray on a helicopter, but the helicopter can retaliate with rockets, missiles, or armor penetrating bullets (Which are designed to perforate tanks, so a dragon wouldn't stand a chance). However, if it's exploding chemicals, like a night fury has, then the advantage lies with the dragon, if it can get close enough.

Then there's the next thing. Of course magic is going to win here. It's a far less defined sort of fiction, you can change the rules of the game however you see fit (Case in point you started with Inheritance cycle Mages and progressed to a large mix). Not enough mages? In this setting here, everyone can learn magic. Human unable to produce enough power? In that setting there, they derive magic from an external source and just manipulate it.

SciFi is (generally) based in some sort of reality and has many more rules governing it than fantasy. There is inherently more compatability between 2 scifi settings than between 2 magic settings, but that's just the price you pay, it seems. A bullet is a bullet, a laser is a laser, etc.