Is adding magic a little too much?

H.G. Wells had a saying about writing fantasy:
"As soon as the magic trick has been done the whole business of the fantasy writer is to keep everything else human and real. Touches of prosaic detail are imperative and a rigorous adherence to the hypothesis. Any extra fantasy outside the cardinal assumption immediately gives a touch of irresponsible silliness to the invention."
I've really taken this to heart as a guideline for writing.
Godspeed!

 

I think, one could go two ways here.

Either the aliens are presented as god-like, mythical creatures who are so advanced that even to the reader their tech looks like magic or is "real" magic. Then one could combine that with the "ancient, mystical world" setting of Atlantis and make it more of a fantasy story with a strong techy flavour.
(I have a project that is similar - I see it as fantasy, but it's not the usual Elves-Orks-Dragons fantasy. There are different species with their own biology, some have subtle magic and their own technological achievements that sometimes even touch the steampunk genre. I think such worlds work quite nicely. Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels were another example of that, I think.)

OR

The aliens are recognizable to the reader as "just another, more developed culture" and their tech is explainable by what we know about the universe and the structure of matter. Maybe they have taken a certain principle, that is only theory for us, and developed it into real machinery, but the reader can at least see what the underlying principle could be. (I.e. "that somehow works with quantum mechanics" or "this is very good hologram".)

IMHO the latter variant would be the real coup, because the appeal comes from the fact that the protagonists DO NOT have modern knowledge and as such feel a sense of wonder when they explore this new stuff and try to appropriate it with their own knowledge. And that I find a really cool concept that I haven't encountered yet.

 

Spoiler: Sorry to spam your thread

... but every time it pops up I have to think of something, so I thought I should share.

We have this one guy, Harald Lesch, who is a professor for physics and philophy in Munich and he also appears on TV a lot and has at least one YouTube channel. He explains astrophysics and other science stuff to laymen and does that very entertainingly.
So, in this one video he was talking about technological development and he said something along the lines of:

"Whenever something is newly invented, it is High-Tech. The discovery of fire? High-Tech! The first wheel? High-Tech!"

Just imagine how something as simple as a good steel blade gives somebody a great advantage - a mythical weapon - in a bronze age culture.
Knowledge of making colored gunpowder-fireworks? Instant magic!
Building a trebuchet? Yo, that other kingdom is doomed, man. Like SO doomed! Fill it with burning pitch balls and it has the same devastating psychological effect as the atomic bomb.

A story built on such things, that would be some Sci-Fi!

 

Yeah, that's exactly what I was aiming for! With that sort of vibe and everyone's recommendation to give it a sci-fi origin, I think something special could come out

 

Oh you nailed it here! I was seriously considering the introduction to gunpowder to be a relevant turning point for the narrative.

Since you guys are being so helpful, I'll try to give everything a bit more context :

My original idea was aliens establishing contact (remotely, not by actually coming to earth) and somehow giving a random nation a lot of info in scientific/technological/medical development. The nation with this info-which would turn out to be Atlantis-would grow after a few centuries to be quite advanced for its time, although the development would be uneven as most of the science directly linked to weapon development wouldn't be given, since the aliens didn't want humans to fuck up and cause a nuclear winter lol. However, I think it's inevitable that if you're giving a nation an influx of info on science, they will eventually rediscover weapons (some guys is going to be all E=mc^2 over again and we'll be fucked), which I think would be an interesting topic to deal with.
For the information to be transmitted (some sort of antenna or sth should be needed) and to help quicken some of the technological development (even with all the necessary science you would need a ton of time to properly develop an electric grid in the bronze age), I thought some alien structures should actually be settled on Earth. I don't want them to be too meddlesome/deus ex machina though, I just want simple stuff: 'alien antenna' etc.
Also, I would like to take the route you guys suggested that people find these structures to be mystical but readers can infer some weird science shit is going on, even if they can't pinpoint what. Furthermore, I was toying with the idea of having an alien structure that involves some minor genetic modification, making crops and stuff grow super quick , and also being the reason behind some 'magic abilities' (healthier/stronger humans, longer lifespans and stuff of the sort).
That's the basic idea without getting too spoilery

 

Stuff growing super quick and with high yield is reality for us today.
A modern hybrid wheat compared to an ancient emmer wheat - boom, gift of the gods!

The question is only, why do the aliens do that?
As for antenna: Send them a probe that contains building information.

 

There is a lot of developement to make, but the basic idea is that advanced alien civilizations are part of a sort of pesudotrade union, helping and trading with each other, so on the long run helping potential civilizations develop until they can form part of this union is beneficial, since they would gain additional trade partner and resources.

Also, love the probe idea, reminds me of the movie Contact.

 

Ah, yes, I thought the "We'd like them to keep us company so we'll give them a hand up" approach would be fitting.

Hehe. Indeed. But I actually thought about the Voyager probes. Although those don't contain any building instruction for an antenna; only Earth's adress in pulsars.
I briefly thought about whether the humans could have accidentaly built a structure to work as antenna, but I don't see a way of pulling that off plausibly.

 

I have to agree with other comments that if it's a necessary part of the story, then continue. I guess you'll need to make decisions and judge just what is "necessary" , and that might well be very difficult, resulting in you backtracking every now and again. You might also need to establish how the traits support what it is you're trying to say with the story. There's been some great science-fiction stuff over the years - The Forbidden Planet with Leslie Nielsen springs to mind as one where "brain-power" was prominent - but it appears that a light hand is necessary for today's writers. Stories with superheroes like Superman and The Flash were fine in their day but my feeling is that the world has moved on from then.

It is unlikely that I would ever read your story, because I have issues with paranomal-ity. I just can't see how it works. Moving things by brain-power, one mind communicating with another, controlling people with one's thoughts all leave me wondering about the mechanism of it. Where does the power come from? How is it transmitted and where is it received? Surely technology has progressed sufficiently that it could be detected and measured by now? (I've wanted to speak to a clairvoyant for many years, but none has ever got in touch with me. ) Your target audience may well be important - I felt the Harry Potter books were directed at a very young audience, which is why there was a lot of simplicity in the magic and the characters. HP appealed to adults as well, though.

That said, there are many, many people in the world who believe in such things and I'm certain there's a plethora of successful (either commercially or critically) stories out there, not the least of which is Dune. I've also ventured into the mystical realm when I started a story for my eldest daughter, which then became a story for my youngest, and is still languishing on just a half-dozen pages. Some day...

And I think that no story can be truly "factual" - it is a work of fiction after all. War of the Worlds is famous for its theme, but there are credibility issues with it. So too, The Time Machine - did the device really only work because of that jewelled knob? What on earth was it made of? The stories work because of the telling, not because of the "technology" - that's just the window-dressing.

 

I have to have a certain understanding on how something works in order to write. Yea, and I write fantasy,so ,try and figure that one out. In a short story I've just finished, I had a boy hearing his dead girl friend talking to him. I could not 'write' this because I didn't understand it. I eventually worked it out that even though he would think he heard her voice, his body would be telling him different. So, with a little more research, I stumbled upon Non-Psychotic Voice Syndrome or Auditory Verbal Hallucinations, conditions where the mind fools the body into believing it is hearing and feeling sound. Reading about how people experience hearing phantom sounds gave my mind the fuel to write that part of my story. It all added up to about three lines of actual text, but, I was happy with those lines.
Godspeed!

 

I agree with Wells assessment. I think that excessive phenomenon and wonder devalue it's importance. If it's everywhere, then it's just a magitech kind of thing. That's fine if that's what it is, but then it's the equivalent of the mundane in that world. It's no longer wonderful.