Examples of magic in the Star Trek universe?..

The Guardian of Forever comes pretty close to magic. Not a whole lot was explained about how it did what it did.

 

TNG never explained how Padds worked either. Doesn't make them "magic".

 

I dont think you have to explain everything, as by definition, a lot of the things we see will be basically impossible to replicate at this point. However, there is a big difference between something like the tricorders and the kind of magic we see on game of thrones.

One is an extension of science as we know it, to encompass a logical need in the future and the other is a need humanity has always had, covered by an inexplicable plot device.

I dont like magic because it not only doesnt follow our rules, but its doesnt really relate to them at all. Furthermore, it seems to show scant reason in the world we are being introduced to. In game of thrones there are magical assassins who can kill anyone. Well thats great, but surely that would destroy the concept of security and completely dominate wars. Also we have smoke monsters killing kings. Well it happens once, - why not more?

In the ST universe there are elements that appear to be magic, but they are usually encased in episodic drama, that compartmentalises them into neat meetings with new cultures. What we dont usually see is stock characters and races such as the klingons and ferengi using magic, because it would mess up the substantive texture of the show. In things like GOT, there is far more "magic" mixed into the texture of the show.

 

Q is the ultimate example of magic in the STAR TREK universe.

As is Kes and her Q-like powers

Many aliens have abilities that would be deemed "magical," as there would be no biological basis for any, which all seem ... unnatural.

 

But in any fantasy setting, the magic elements are part of that world. Is it any less unrealistic to have explicit magic than the completely fantastical 'science' that ST uses in its everyday storytelling?

If you are using Star Wars and the 'force' as an example of magic in a sci fi setting, how is this different from Kes and her powers? Now you can argue that most of the telepaths are aliens: Vulcans, Betazoids, etc but practically the first ever magical powers we see are Charlie Evans who was 'bestowed' human.

 

Maybe it's a question of only having watched the show rather than seen the books, but I don't recall GOT having very much magic at all. As fantasy settings go, it's one of the most 'realistic' I've seen in a while and the magical elements seem very tightly contained to a very small number of people (Jaqen, Bran Stark (and his two buddies), Daenerys (and the witch and wizard she killed) and Melisandre, plus the existence of dragons and zombies, both of which are extremely rare and as of yet have had almost no real impact on the show).

By contrast, Star Trek seems to throw magic around like it's going out of style. Sure, 'most' of the magical beings we meet are never seen again after a single episode, but to my mind, that only makes things worse. If the handful of starships we've seen have had SO many encounters with SO many DIFFERENT aliens that are basically magical gods, then that actually makes it seem like those kinds of magical beings are everywhere in the ST universe. By that standard, I'd have to call ST less realistic than GOT, not more.

 

The Force is less magic than Q in our current understanding of Q because we were given a non-magic explanation for the Force in the very first movie:

"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."

Q has given us nothing, all we know is he snaps his fingers, BRIGHT LIGHT and seemingly anything can be made manifest or disappear or change.

 

Gary Mitchell, Where No Man has Gone Before.

 

You could have put an 'or' in there to make it look less like you were undermining my argument by being a geek.

 

Geek or not, he's right. It isn't undermining your argument by correcting your example.

 

The transporter was magic--how could they be sure they were reassembling everyone's molecules correctly?--and I think the replicator was magic, too. I can understand how the food or beverage was materialized (and even tasted halfway correct), but I never understood how they kept the container separate from the food or drink. Obviously, magic.

 

I don't think we ever actually see magic in Trek--we see entities with great powers because the in-universe laws of physics allows them--but magic would have to come from some portal.

Q might be more powerful than a given magic user, but could predict him, or interfere with a true magick power directly. Chronicles of Riddick (Conan in Space I've heard it called)is the first space movie I have seen that looks to have real magic--like you see from C.S. Lewis' space books.

I always thought Force users were just using psionics--low level tricks Spock might master had he gone a different way--a level past Kolinahr

 

If all superpowers are magic, then it starts with the Talosians.

 

They're just wizards with butt heads.

 

TUtutut, testiclheads!

 

Well I think it does and you have just reinforced it. I didn't say 'the first', I said 'practically the first' because I'm not a geek and I was assuming I would be cut some slack to, y'know, put forward a salient argument.

 

How is this possible.

 

The Treknobabble answer regarding the Transporter answer would be the Heisenberg Compensator.

 

QFT
You beat me to it.

 

By this logic, Picard was magic in "Devil's Due."