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Q&A The role of the supernatural in hard science fiction

Regardless of the technology they possess, people will still be people. There have always been people who have believed in magic and the supernatural, and there likely always will be, even once we'...

posted 6y ago by nick012000‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T09:28:54Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37858
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar nick012000‭ · 2019-12-08T09:28:54Z (almost 5 years ago)
Regardless of the technology they possess, people will still be people. There have always been people who have believed in magic and the supernatural, and there likely always will be, even once we've gone and colonized Mars using nuclear-powered rockets or whatever hard scifi technology your story's centered around.

Whether things like Christian faith-healers, "spirit cooking" Luciferians, or various varieties of New Age psychics count as genuinely supernatural is left for you (and/or your readers) to decide, but the people in question would certainly believe that they would have real, repeatable supernatural powers (or, at least, that God does, and He's acting through them).

How do you incorporate them into a scifi story? Charismatic revival conferences on Mars. Children disappearing on an asteroid habitat, ritually murdered by villainous Satanistic politicians who think it gives them supernatural prowess. A freighter captain who ships the volcanic crystals of Io to buyers who think they have healing properties.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-07-25T11:49:40Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 3