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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37830
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37830
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

My first instinct was to say "you can't" - the very essence of the science fiction genre is that things are _not_ supernatural - they make sense within the in-universe rules, if not right from the start, then in the end, when we get to the bottom of the mystery.

But then I thought of some examples to the contrary. Look at _Star Wars_ - what is the Force, if not magic? In fact, when the prequels attempted to make the Force less supernatural by talking about "medichloreans", the response was negative, because they took the magic away and replaced it with something mundane.

Similarly in _Dune_, you've got precognisance, lie-detection, rendering consumed poisons non-lethal, and a bunch of other supernatural abilities. The Bene Gesserit are even called 'witches' in-universe.

At the same time, there is one important caveat: while the Force, the Bene Gesserit abilities etc. appear supernatural to us, they are not framed as such within their respective worlds. They are framed as part of the natural order, and referring to them as "magic" is, in-universe, considered superstition. The setting in those cases is completely fantastical, if you think about it, but instead of calling it "magic", the author calls it "science". Then, the author doesn't even resort to technobabble to handwave away your claim that it's supernatural, but goes straight to "there are more things in heaven and Earth..."

Original score: 8