Technomancy

[Lanodantheon]

I was rereading some old threads and one of them mentioned that something people wanted to see more in Urban Fantasy is "Technomancy done right" or "done well".


Question I have is...what does that mean? I'm not as well read as I want to be at the moment. The only real Technomancy I've seen is Willow in Buffy the few times she used it and Technomancers in Shadowrun(a Game I've never really played)


What kind of Technomancy would be cool to see?


What would be good limits for said Technomancy?


What are poor examples of Technomancy?

[The Corvidian]

One version of Technomancy that has appeared in media is from BABYLON 5, and it deals with a group of cyborgs who use Sufficently Advanced Technology. They used alot of occult symbology in the use of there tech.

Most of rest that I have seen tends to be in roleplaying games.

[Haru]

There might be a problem with terminology, so I'll try to start there. For me, Technomancy is what shadowrun made of it. Mostly, because that's where I got introduced to the idea, but even after thinking about it for a while, it is what I would do with the term. Basically, it means a new form of humans, evolved to a level, where they can communicate with electronics, as though they were living entities. They can enter the internet in their mind, if there is a wifi connection around. They don't need a computer, they are the computer. That is in a nutshell, what the term means to me. This is, what I see Willow do, although through magic rather than innate talent.

And then there's Magitech. The idea behind Magitech is the combination of magic and technology, rather than the often used trope of them not going together, to create fantastic machines. Steam/Arcane-punk often falls into this. Basically it is technical applications of magical principles described in the world. Sundered skies does this pretty good, if I remember correctly.
A more modern idea would be the use of smartphones to cast spells. You want to throw a fireball at a toad demon? There's an app for that. Need a portal to the outer plains? Yes, there is an app for that as well. At the last con I was, a guy talked to me about a Cthullhu Now adaptation (at least I think it was) that did this. Yes, there really is an App for everthing. Laundry, I believe it was called.

Limits should be, where the story needs them to be, otherwise you could discuss the "reality" of fictitious laws of nature all day long, which I don't think should be the point.

[LizW65]

The only instance of this I can think of off the top of my head is in Anton Strout's Dead series, in which the character Jane is a technomancer who can tap into computers, electrical systems, and so on and make them do things.  Whether this is a good example or not I've no idea, since I have nothing to compare it with.

[The Corvidian]

There is Kelly McCullough's Ravirn series.

[Lord Rae]

Instantly made me think of the movie Sky High from a few years ago. Fun little movie even if it was aimed at kids. Its about a superhero high school and one character is a Technopath... which isn't exactly the same but your post made me think of it. About the only example I can think of from a movie or tv show unless you want to count Myka (sp?) from the TV Show Heroes.

[OZ]

Kate Griffin's Resurrection of Matthew Swift, Matthew would seem to use technomancy in some instances although it is not his only magic. It would be difficult for me to describe the magic in these books except to say that it is urban magic rather than rural.

[DragonEyes]

In one story that I had done in the past, there was a class of magic user related to divination, who acted as a sort of information mage. In ancient days, they had the ability to instantly recall information presented to them, to feel for what kind of knowledge was in different books by touch, and for the most powerful, could erase or eliminate written knowledge in a book. Small abilities like that. All around one of the weakest magic users.

Come the 20th century and the information revolution meant that these information mages has become the most powerful, not because they could dive into the Internet like Tron or a character out of William Gibson, but because they could quickly decipher encryption without password hacks, knew where to find hidden information on the internet, and could cause widespread disruptions of information networks at will. They were the bad guys. Real technomancy probably woulnd't be flashy.

[Lanodantheon]

Been going over the responses (which I really appreciate, thanks  ) and doing some more brainstorming and I almost have nailed down what I think I'm going to try out.


[size=78%]BTW: [/size]The other phrase used in that old thread I found was, "Full-bore Technomancy"[size=78%] [/size]...whatever that means. I had read about that Ravirn series on Amazon that involves an Internet made by the Gods...but that's not quite what I was thinking of.


I've thought about some cool things I'd like to see, too.


The only things I have left to consider are 1) how Old School Magic and New School Technomancy interact and 2) what flavor(s) of Technomancy I'd like to play with besides the ones I've already decided on.


I don't think I'm going to consider going Full-Blown Tron, though I love the idea of using Magic to justify the classic incorrect perspective of what Hacking will look like in the future and bad movies written by screenwriters who don't know anything about how a computer actually works.

[Haru]

I don't think I'm going to consider going Full-Blown Tron, though I love the idea of using Magic to justify the classic incorrect perspective of what Hacking will look like in the future and bad movies written by screenwriters who don't know anything about how a computer actually works.

Actually, that's what Shadowrun 4th has done a pretty good job at (despite the fact, that most of the rest is awful). Everything is connected wireless and most people use glasses or contact lenses to view interactive objects that are placed in an augmented reality. I've read a book a while ago, that called something like this a "shamanistic interface", because it is more like using magic, than actually using a computer.

If for example you wanted the feed from a camera you are passing, you could wave your hand at it (which is in an augmented reality glove or otherwise wired) to get it, if you have access. If not, you can hack your way into it to get it. Everything that is connected to this matrix has an icon, a representation in the augmented reality. A camera could simply be an image of a camera, or it can be a floating eye or something like that, depending on the programmer. Firewalls are giant locked doors or actual walls of fire, stuff like that. On the whole, using the matrix does by no means require you to know anything about how it works, you use it as a second reality rather than the internet today. A Technomancer simply doesn't need the interface that regular humans do, they can innately interact with the matrix.

So yes, it is pretty much like it is in any of the movies you describe, but here it actually works. 'Reality' mimicking fiction, so to speak.

Of course all of that highly depends on the techlevel you are playing at. If you have magic in your world, would computers actually have been invented? Maybe they are a mixture of magic and technology (magitech), so technomancers would only be a different type of the regular magic.

[size=78%]BTW: [/size]The other phrase used in that old thread I found was, "Full-bore Technomancy"[size=78%] [/size]...whatever that means.

If I had to guess, I'd say it is technomancy that gets too much into details and not enough into action. Imagine looking over a hackers shoulder while he is working his way through a firewall. You see some lines of code every now and then, if he is not simply running a program that does nothing visual, until it is finished. It is going to become boring really fast. Again, that's one of the great strength of the system above, you can actively hack into things while on the run. Put a "blackout spell" on a camera and cool stuff like that.

There's a shadowrun source book that deals exclusively with the matrix, if you are interested.

[Lord Rae]

A good list (for most things although not complete) is tv tropes.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TechnoPath

[The Corvidian]

In Tom Holt's Who's Afraid of Beowolf stated that magic and science are the same thing. One of the viking characters also said that modern cities were a bit primative because they didn't have domes.

[Madd]

There's a lot of Technomancy, Magi-tech and Binary Magics in The Nightside series, though its not really explained very well.

[Quantus]

There are a few different paths you can take on it, and more out there Im sure. 

One way to go is "Scientific Magic"  -  This is where you have some kind of Magic Energies, but it otherwise behaves (somewhat) scientifically.   Dresden files leans this way, but the best Ive seen is actually the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane, where magic is formula-based using the Speech, and is essentially giving you access to the Source Code of the Universe.  You want to go to the moon and you have to write a spell, a set of instructions to the universe, to relocate you and a bubble of air somewhere else, and another to hold that bubble of air when you get there, and a third to keep you from freezing or being blasted by solar radiation.  Energy is conserved, but its subsidized by the Powers-That-Be that gave you the magic in the first place, and it still takes more to go to the moon than come back because you have to fight more gravity.  More powerful wizard could create objects of pure magic by spelling out (hehe, get it?) that the spell energies need to hang out in a certain shape and pretend to have mass, color, etc. 

Another way is to SteamPunk it.  The CA idea of Furycraft would fall into this category.  Its where you have somewhat recognizable technology, but its explained using a different set of rules, or a slightly warped version, and let things fly from there.  This works best when you are trying to highlight the strangely familiar, and usually requires an industrial society.  Most often there is a single explainable difference, a deus ex machina material, or some other divergence point for the technology.  Ive seen it done where humans are born with a natural telekinesis that only affects quartz crystals.  There are basic motors and things, Press Guns that mechanically shove a bolt like a spring-loaded crossbow, and refined "flexible quartz" that made Mech Suits possible.  But their development had always focused on crystals, and had the hard limits on how fast and hard a single person could push the crystals.  Thus when a Metal mech suit with electronic systems was dug up, it blew everything else away. 

The third way is cloak science in Mysticism.  This is where you have Mages in robes and towers, waving their hands and chanting, but its all just show to conceal the real secrets, which are all chemistry and physics.  It doesnt have to be pure science either, to have teh same appeal.  Years ago I read a series that was the Aurtherian tale from merlin's point of view.  But Merlin was an demon trapped in a human body by angel, which are all beings that existed in a state of ignorant unity before the big bang, and one day got expelled into cold reality for some reason; angels kept a burning pice of pre-existance, and demons threw their's away when it got too painful.  Norse Gods where living beings of electricity that lived in the branches of the "world tree" (ie the layers of the earths electromagnetic field.) It was all about explaining the legend in terms of science and quantum mechanics (which lets face it is a form of mysticism as much as any hoodoo).  Even the Sword and the Stone was a magnetic effect...


Those are the main ways Ive seen it done, and there are many others out there Im sure.  One big consideration is whether there will be any actual science, or more traditional Magic, to contrast your Technomancy.  That tends to make it easier, if more contained.

0.02

[mithrandirthewhite]

Isnt the entire Matrix Technomagic?