I remember reading a one-shot where Harry was talking to the erstwhile Headmasters of Hogwarts about how Muggles have destroyed the Wizards, I forgot the name. Other than that, I haven't read any other stories that featured a full blown Muggle vs. wizards war. It has been hinted in quite a few fics though, Taliath did In Light of Silver Memories and so did Nuhuh in one of his fics. I think Heather Sinclair did too in one her many stories.

It could be a nice idea for a story actually, especially if Muggles roped in the Muggle-born wizards and squibs to act as spies and agents for them. With proper planning and execution a wizard vs. Muggle would definitely be a nice story to read.

 

Well, there's Bobmin's Sunrise/Sunset over Brittan series. Wizards never officially get outed by a muggleborn, but there is some Wizard/Muggle military engagement, along with Voldemort using the Imperius to take over the Muggle army. He then sets up death camps to shrink the number of Muggles.

There was also another story -- I can't remember the name so it was probably really bad -- where the order was fighting death eaters in London and it gets recorded by someone and put on TV. The Prime Minister then admits that Wizards exist and everybody kind freaks out.

 

While it didn't result in a muggle-wizard war, the truth was broadcast by Harry in Unified Theory, a HP-Iron Man crossover by Bouncing Soul. It's cracky fun.

Most often such a conflict is referred to in retrospect for a time redux fic; 'if only we could have stopped Voldemort/Harry from bringing the muggles into the conflict, so many would not have had to die...'

There was another AU fic where Grindelwald had won against Dumbledore and it was telling the story of Harry the noble wizard battalion commander, but that one quickly descended into harem-building by right of conquest. Can't remember the name.

 

Didn't mean to say they were good- it was more to point out the sand traps. In neither case was the conflict played out with any reasonable detail nor without a deus ex trump-card.

Still, setting aside my affection for C. S. Forester and Patrick O'Brien novels, I'm not sure presenting the conflict from the personal perspective of Commander Potter would really feel right (and they'd be critically compared to Skitterleap, so the story is already at a disadvantage!)

Any writer approaching this would have their mind made up ahead of time as to who would win and how easily they would accomplish it. It would depend on if you believe numbers and ingenuity could beat out memory charms and stealth. The weapons aren't really the issue.

 

The most challenging thing about a story like this would be to keep ones ingenious solutions to the conflict from shortening the story too much..

I personally think that the situation could turn out very chaotic, since I find it unrealistic that the two factions would be united against each other.

 

I believe that fic is called 'The End' by wither Draco664 or Ruskbyte. It can be found under one of those names on www.fanficauthors.net.

It's is 'The End' and it;s by Draco664.

 

What I've seen multiple times - and really kind of hate - is some kind of magic-nullifying device.
Because then it's no longer Wizards vs. Muggles, it's just a shooting squad killing unarmed civilians.

The most likely scenario is the civil war with one side bringing the Muggles into the conflict. But you'd have to come up with a really good explanation or do an extreme AU.
Otherwise we're just too immunized against suggestions of outright genocide in the western world. (imho)

 

Portraying this in a realistic way would be very hard. The main problem is that muggles do not know everything wizards bring to the table and wizards do not know everything the muggles have. This would create very confusing battles when wizards are going "WTF??!?!!?" over the tanks rolling in while at the same time the muggles do not realize that 200 invisible dementors are sneaking up on them.

For me, a wizard/Muggle war would be fought in the shadows. Engaging the muggles on an open battlefield would probably lead to the wizards defeat since the muggles outnumber them and a few hundred bullets should destroy the best of shields.

Writing a cloak-and-dagger kind of fic about this would be nice though, we could perhaps see things from three perspectives; on one side we have a muggle who prior to the conflict did not know anything about the magical world, on the other side we have Lucius Malfoy who does not know much about the muggle world and in the middle we have Harry Potter who does not know anything about either of the worlds.

Full scale battles could be fun to but I do feel wizards would get obliterated.

 

The problem is, that you'd have to limit the powers of certain spells, otherwise Muggles would have to resort to extreme totalitarian measures to have a chance at defeating wizards who are playing guerrilla.
Shooting everyone in the head who doesn't have multiple witnesses and additional proof for where s/he was at age 11-17, etc.

 

I believe you are referring to The Unbearable Lightness of Fleur Delacour by Heather Sinclair

(Post # 600. Be grateful, Heather! Now update something!)

 

I mean, doesn't it just come down to Wizards can do everything muggles can, and they have magic?

 

If there aren't stupid "magic-nullifying devices", then wizards will win every time...if they bother to use their brains, that is. I suppose things could get interesting if muggles get some muggleborns on their side, but I think that in a full scale battle wizards would eventually win as long as they don't act like you're envisioning (I'm imagining a bunch of wizards trying to use shields will others use the Killing Curse).

 

Well, from a story-telling angle, any good story will have "worthy opponents" where "worthy" is qualified by some factor or factors that equalize what would otherwise be grossly unequal opponents. Frodo vs. Sauron, for example--Sauron would utterly annihilate Frodo . . . if he could find the little bugger. The Death Star vs. the Rebels: the Death Star would annihilate them too, were it not for that pesky vent hole and an ace pilot named Luke.

I agree that some device that totally nulifies magic would basically make it massacre, but perhaps special bullets that can pass through wizards' shields, but otherwise, you still have to dodge a barage of wizards' spells would make for an excellent storytelling . . . er . . . device - no pun intended.

 

I imagine it'd be very easy to make a Wizarding nuke, by using a system similar to portkey or floo to teleport one large chunk of plutonium inside another hollow chunk to make a critical mass. (Not to mention using apparition or portkey as a delivery method). Basically the only obstacle is getting nuclear material, as a couple seventh years could probably do the rest as a school project.

 

I quite liked that fic as well, and IIRC, Harry's retelling of events to those portraits reminds me of IP82's The last dinosaur's roar, which admittedly had a lot more telling than showing, but it was a one-shot, and a pretty fucking chilling one at that.

I was thinking there was another as-yet-unmentioned Wizards v. Muggles fic that didn't completely suck balls, but I can't for the life of me recall it right now. Wait, I've got it - the fic involved Harry in a magical coma following some event in DH, Hermione and whoever contacting the Muggle governments for help and in the end,

Spoiler

all wizards/witches are either eradicated or have a kill-switch implanted into their heads and have to serve their governments as assassins, etc. Years later a middle-aged Hermione finds the finally-revived Harry, only to kill him. Not too shabby, really, especially for a one-shot.

Anyway, nothing I've seen really comes close to what Xiph is really angling at, and while it *could* be done and done well, the author would have to be very, very good to pull it off, especially to the point that DLP's readers would be satisfied with how it was handled. An awful lot of pressure right there.

Again, this recalls IP82's fic.

I read a fic (again, memory is failing me) where Harry nukes Hogwarts to kill Voldemort and the Death Eaters, setting off the device with some specialized spell.

Spoiler

The fic was on Portkey, I think, but was bashed there because Harry didn't survive for the requisite HHr ending, etc. The fic's premise was Hermione ran away after D'dore died, to protect her parents. Well, shit happens (can't recall all of it) and Hermione returns, only Harry is very pissed and more than a bit batshit; he actually uses the Cruciatus on Hermione if that tells you anything. Cue grudge-fucking and Harry goes with the nuclear option. Only Hermione, Neville and Snape of all people, survive.

Don't know why I wrapped spoiler tags on that - it's not as if most DLPers are gonna rush over to read it...

Anyway, at the time I was thinking on how a wizard could detonate a nuclear weapon, and it seems pretty easy to me. There's no need for special spells, or electronics that are "spelled" to work around the magic of Hogwarts, etc. Think about how an atomic bomb is detonated, and if you don't know, just go to HowStuffWorks to get a decent overview.

The fissile material is usually in two parts, and the smaller of the two is hurled into the larger. What this does is increase the number of naturally-occurring free neutrons available to destabilize adjacent fissible atoms. Normally, an explosive is used to smash the two parts together into a smaller, contained space. Once the number of fissions increases beyond normal nuclear decay, the tight quarters increase the likelihood of more and more and more energy-releasing fissions, and this exponential increase is what causes the explosion.

How could a wizard accomplish that? The first thing I thought of was Reducio, the spell to make things smaller. Crouch used it in GoF to make the spider he tortured small again. You might say that Reducio would magically reduce each and every atom, so there's no reduction in space between them, but in my opinion, magic is all about intent. So, the caster of the spell just intends for the spell to reduce the size of the chunk of fissile material macroscopically, for lack of a better word; the atoms stay the same size, and when it gets "squeezed" the reaction becomes super-critical.

BTW, "critical mass" is this boogie-man phrase that gets a bad rap; all that means is that the reaction can continue unaided and self-sustaining, or better yet, that it's stable. Super-critical means there are more reactions over time, while sub-critical means fewer.

Anyway, to end this thread derail, I think it would be simple for a wizard to set off a nuclear weapon, provided he/she had a little foreknowledge of the mechanics of fission.

And as far as this:

One could argue the wizard could just Transfigure a pile of [insert material here] into a few kilos of uranium-238. After all, it wouldn't need to last long.