Cover art from 2016 video game The Technomancer developed by French video game company Spiders for Playstation

(18) TECHNOMANCY

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”

Technomancy is an odd chimera of a beast, given that technology sort of goes against the whole point of magic – technology is functional magic that actually works.

As such, technomancy tends not to be used as divination but a form of magic or other ability that pops up in certain works of fantasy, usually contemporary or urban fantasy in settings with technology, or occasional SF.

Sometimes it is styled as technopathy (or to a lesser extent machine empathy) – “someone who can control machines and bend them to the user’s will, either through a physical or mental interface link. In some cases, this power also allows them to ‘hear’ what a machine is ‘thinking’ and establish a direct line of communication with the machine”.

It could also be used for magic from technology in SF– where technology is used to replicate magic, occasionally in ways unknown to or forgotten by the people using it – or potentially for where magic is used to power what otherwise appears as technology in certain fantasy settings.

Still, there is fun fantasy potential in combining technology with magic. I’d like to imagine it as a form of magic in a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting using relics from a technological past – or flipping it on its head with an anti-technopath, for someone (or something) that is magically destructive to technology.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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