If I recall correctly, there was a Resident Evil/BtVS/HP crossover that had Umbrella corporation kidnapping a few magical families for study. They way the author explained it was that wards had different shapes. Muggle repelling being more like a fence while anti-apparation was dome shaped. It was an odd idea but it worked for the story.

Other then that, there wasn't any interaction between muggles and wizards but it was worth a mention.

 

There was one particular story that I can't remember the title of, but in the story Harry Potter's parents survive the initial Voldemort attack - they send him away to some military institution in Canada to become an officer of the British Empire. We're introduced to Harry Potter the mad-skilled officer, who commands Muggle armies with guns and magically-enhanced technology - he Portkeys a small regiment of Redcoat soldiers into the middle of Diagon Alley, and firing squads a group of Death Eaters.

In this story, the British Empire never fell, or at least the magical version of it never did. They've been operating relatively in secret, creating their own version of magical technology and making sure the Empire is safe.

It was an interesting read for a while, because the author provides semi-plausible explanations for why certain elements of technology were used, like why they still used musket-loading technology and round bullets (something to do with how magic distributed itself in metal) instead of the modern pointed bullets we're all familiar with.

Eventually, though, every side and faction had freaking airships, giant cannons, repeater rifles, and then it sort of devolved into a strange, magical mashup of the Revolutionary War, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Battle Star Galactica.

I got too confused to read anymore after that...

 

There was also Old Soldiers Never Die by Rorschach's Blot, which I consider pretty entertaining, if not the most realistic fic ever written.

 

If anyone is interested, I started something with this theme over in WBA. Not sure if I'm good enough, though. I read through this and was kind of inspired.

Here it is.

 

IMO it's certainly possible to write an interesting wizards vs. muggles fic - all you have to do is not write it in the style of the basic scenario (as is most commonly discussed here).

What I mean by the 'basic scenario' is where you basically line all wizards (plus magical allies) up on one side, and all Muggles on the other, and set them after each other almost as if they were mindless automatons on a game board. Under that scenario, it's hard to see Muggles winning - wizards can come at them from too many angles. They can collapse the Muggle governments with ease, animate the Muggles' own corpses and turn them against them, etc.

Things get more interesting when you realize that, even in an apparent total war scenario, not all wizards (or all Muggles for that matter) will be on the same page. A chaotic war is a good opportunity for certain nasty opportunist wizards to take out other wizards by enlisting the help of Muggles, perhaps by pretending to be on the Muggles' side. You might also get a few hippie wizards who think that Muggles are all puppies and sunshine, and try to assist them. You might get a few isolated joint Muggle/wizard communities that reject whatever policies and dogmas have led to the war.

All wizards vs. all Muggles is one thing, but the more realistic scenario makes the war a real toss up. Also, the wizard population is so small that a single wizard death is equivalent to a thousand or ten thousand Muggle deaths, and over time this would become a real problem for organized wizard society. And with the help of a few competent wizards, Muggles should be capable of racking up some kills.

 

I still consider it a matter of being who struck first.

If muggles snuck working atomic weapons into key targets, or airborne pathogens, or sarin gas or what have you, they could deal a ridiculous amount of damage to a community as small as the wizarding one.

If wizards struck first with the correct foreknowledge, they could easily end muggles.

 

I think if you're going to write a story on this, you have to put aside all personal opinions on who you think should win. A story designed to show that one side will completely dominate the other will be dull. The best way to approach it, I think, is to have both sides utterly kick the crap out of each other.

(That said, the idea that a wizard in the know could casually create nuclear explosions with 2 simple spells - plus apparation to get the hell out of dodge - is hilariously awesome).

 

Everyone who write a Muggle against wizard war (if he do not use the antimagic device) seem to forget the third or forth side in the war: the magical creature.

I don't waht you think about it, but if I'm a gobelin and see the human fighting against each others, it can be the right time to wage a war against them or wait after the actual war and kill/enslave the survivor.

Just because they are aware of such threat, I don't think the wizard will be really eager to start a war with the muggle and the muggle do not know enough about magic to really hurt the wizard on short term.

Now, if some mad wizard help the muggle or start a war on the behalf of the wizatds without anyone trying or able to stop him, it's another matter.

But a well written fic on the subject would be awesome.

However, I have a question : to be able to nuke a place, the missile or the bomber need the coordinate of the location you want to nuke. How do you target unplottable location ? Since you cannot put them on a map ? (Please, do say something like : it doesn't affect technology or computer or satellite, etc.)

 

Actually, that is a great idea. Temper the advantage of Magic by having goblins side with Muggles. This would allow for biblical persecution of Wizards and Witches, thus uniting the communities, but still create an advisory of sufficient strength that there is no clear winner.

 

Disaffected Muggleborn witch who was (figuratively or literally) screwed over by the Purebloods escorts a loyal Delta munitions specialist in plain clothes carrying a backpack to the location. They set the charge, Apparate out and the recon squad in the distance watches nothing turn into a fiery mess of something that used to be magical. Rinse and repeat.

 

Let me say right off that proof-reading is your friend, especially before you click "Submit Reply".

In terms of nuking something Unplottable... well, I'm not sure how to break this to you, but nuclear weapons do a giant fuckload of damage, which considering how small a single device can be, really is the reason they scare the shit out of every rational person on Earth. That, and that pesky little added problem of radiation and contamination.

If someone wanted to obliterate a place like Diagon Alley or Grimmauld Place, especially if that person or group didn't care how much collateral damage would also result, there's no better way to accomplish that than to set off a nuclear weapon close by. It's not as if you have to be precise. We're not talking about Tomahawk missiles here; there's a reason for the (admittedly irritating) saying, "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Oh, and thermonuclear weapons."

For a canon reference, there were Death Eaters right outside 12 Grimmauld Place in DH. They knew the general location of the house, but couldn't quite find it because of the Fidelius Charm (it was also Unplottable, but that was never discussed in DH). Suppose a government or another wizard decided to say "Fuck It" and detonated a suitcase nuke right out in the street in front of Number 12. Fidelius or not, my guess is that the best the inhabitants could hope for would be that no one could reveal the location of their crater. [Then again, if Number 12 no longer existed, wouldn't that make the Fidelius on it null and void?]

Unplottable? Again, "close enough" is probably overcome by, "Prime Minister, this Hogwarts is located in the Scottish Highlands, and apparently Muggles can only see a dilapidated ruin. Shall I radio the pilots and have them drop a tactical nuclear weapon on every dilapidated ruin in Scotland?"

/thread derailment vis a vis nukes (hopefully)

 

I've got an idea that I think could work. Voldemort inadvertently outs the wizarding world. I'm thinking a night of fun and then a fight with Auror's gets live broadcast-ed and then the ministry obliviates the observers, still broadcast, finally breaks the camera. While its not hard to believe witch hunts starting up in say Sudan, its kinda hard to believe that the U.K. would would start exterminating wizards and witches.

I could see something like Dumbledore and some others from the ICW speaking at the UN. Then someone could strike at the UN, killing Dumbledore, possible a muggle terrorist. Voldemort could now point out the danger muggles pose and strike first with much of the wizarding world rallying to him. After that all hell can break lose.

The real problem is that for a true war to be interesting muggles have to strike first. I mean 20 or so wizards could cripple all of England if they put their minds to it. One wizard on a broom per power plant could knock out power of the country. That and the only real target for the muggles is the ministry. Everyone talks about Hogwarts but realistically could you see any civilized government attacking a school?
(fictional government as we've already proven that the rules of war are more "guidelines")

I think the above idea works best with Harry in the middle of it, meaning sometime between summer after 4th and summer after 5th year. Afterward Harry can apparate away and the story loses alot of urgency.

As to Goblins, a goblin war would be interesting but should be a separate story. Pretty sure that magical and no-magical humans would come together to fight something distinctly non-human. I'm rambling now so I'll cut this one off here.

 

This is an idea that I've been toying with: at the end of sixth year, with Dumbledore dead, the Order ignores the original plan and trains the trio for real survival. Their first mission occurs 30th August, 1997, ending up in a running firefight with Death Eaters in Paris. What brings this to international attention is the collateral death of a Muggle celebrity who was being pursued by the press in the same battleground, one Diana Spencer.

The whole world wants to know every detail of how this woman dies, and there's thirty or so paparazzi on site to document the weirdness.

(For those that are curious, yes- I intended something like this for later in my story, but without the press coverage.)

 

And fuck me if that isn't a great idea. Shit, if there's a better way to out the magical world in Britain I have no idea what it could be. Diana's death has to be the most publicised event of the 90's, only being superseded by the September 11th Attacks. If a story was written where wizards were inadvertently responsible for her death, someone would notice it, if only because there were around a dozen paparazzi chasing her at the time.

 

I think it would be interesting to see how muggles would deal with operational security. I mean, considering that wizards have the Imperius and Memory Charms, I can't really see muggles being able to prevent infiltration.

Edit: Can muggles see ghosts? If not...then wizards have super-ghost-spies.

 

What about Colonel Potter?

*Whistles M.A.S.H. theme song*

EXACTLY.

Plus, quite frankly, canon makes the average wizard/witch out to be inept, incapable of even mustering a proper shield charm. That being the case, the whole "shield charm = no mo' buwwets fo' muggles" argument goes out the window in a heartbeat.

Not all wizards have the same set of skills, just like muggles. I can fire a gun, but the last time I tried to use a bow (a zillion years ago), I was pretty hopeless, and while I could probably help you build a computer, you probably wouldn't want me designing the chips... or building your house, or operating on your heart.

Also, not every wizard is a Dumbledore, Voldemort, or Harry Potter.

Not every muggle is a Rambo, Dutch, or the A-Team (and Dutch's teammates don't have time to bleed).

For every Dumbledore capable of knocking a platoon on its ass without spilling his tea (hooray for hyperbole), you have a few hundred normal, run of the mill, Joe-Average wizards and witches who might be really good at gardening spells, cosmetic charms, or raising crups. They panic at the thought of combat, they're squeamish at the thought of killing, they believe the war is some other wizard's problem, and they naively believe that if a politician like Fudge writes a law stating that muggles are poopy-heads, the problem will go away on its own.

Those people will go down under a hail of gunfire just like anyone else, shield charm or no.

And, bear in mind, Dumbledore would probably be too busy trying to make everyone kiss and make up to actually play the role of 'End-Bringing Kill Machine.'

There are also a ton of useless muggles out there, though learning to fire a gun is a lot easier than teaching combat magic... Plus, even if the percentage of useless muggles is higher than that of useless wizards, there are so many more muggles that it is ridiculous.

Wizards have their wards, alarm spells, disillusionment, et cetera. Muggles have infrared, pressure sensors, camouflage, and automated devices, both defensive and offensive .

Not every wizard owns an invisibility cloak, not every witch can raise a ward, or cast Imperius, or Obliviate, or make Polyjuice...

Not every muggle has access to Flir equipment, or other technology.

By the same token, even Arthur Weasley, a man whose job frequently puts him in contact with muggles, doesn't seem to know shit about muggle technology. If you don't know or understand something, preparing for it or neutralizing it becomes a problem.

So your wizard arrogantly casts a silencing spell on the back door and opens it... not realizing the alarm system will still get set off, or that even a basic alarm system will have vibration detectors to alert you if a window is being opened.

Or maybe the wizard will simply seal the doors and windows, set fire to the house and walk away... but that's no guarantee either.

A wizard/muggle war won't be fought on a giant open field with people lined up like Napoleonic war soldiers, or on a checkerboard where everyone on a side has the same skill level, it will be fought everywhere by everyone, the geniuses and the dunces, even if they don't know it until the moment they eat a bullet they didn't know they were supposed to shield against from a sniper hidden three-quarters of a mile away, or take a cutting spell to the neck from a disillusioned wizard.

Total victory, as in real life, is never assured.

Note: I've pointed out before in similar threads that magical creatures are a total crap shoot. Wizards CAN'T train Dragons. They were barely able to chain them down in an arena, they aren't going to ride them into battle like fucking Eragon or Panzer Dragoon Orta.

Nundu are so dangerous a hundred wizards have a hard time killing one, so they'd be hard pressed to even transport one into NYC or Piccadilly Circus and then disapparate for their lives.

Dementors have been shown in canon to turn on their so-called masters at a moment's notice. They would be as big a hazard to wizards as to muggles. They don't care who they eat, as long as they get fed.

Nukes aren't the muggle win strategy, no one wins that game.
Thermobarics and such are as powerful as a Davy Crockett warhead and should be good enough to do the job (and if one isn't, drop two), no wizarding community is large enough to merit using a nuke... and thus poisoning muggle land/air/water.

HP ghosts, as in most folklore, seem to be tied to the place they died. I doubt you'd be able to send the Fat Friar to the Pentagon, MI5 or some such. Not to mention that they're already dead, most probably at the hands of other wizards; where's their motivation for helping wizards destroy the bulk of human life on the planet?

 

Terror tactics in general with guerilla warfare using Disillusionment, Apparition, and Imperio are already Voldemort's favorite strategy. I imagine that if any of the magical plans to create and deliver a nuke were even remotely feasible (heck, he could even Imperio some hapless wizard to Apparate in with it and trigger it manually), they could become Voldemort's terror weapon of choice against muggle governments, and he would likely attempt to use them to extort massive concessions.

After all, magical communities are small and isolated, and there are probably plenty of muggle high value targets that could be Fission nuked with little if any damage to wizarding Britain. Even if Voldemort was forced to nuke near a magical community, even if he cared about the results, one thing most wizards CAN do is Apparate, making evacuations simple.

Being as outnumbered as they are, even if magic did in general trump technology, the wizards couldn't really hope to defeat the muggles in any form of conventional war or static battlefield, but likewise the muggles would have a lot of trouble dealing with terrorism, even if they had some magicals on their side.

 

Oh god, this is turning into another Muggle V Wizards debate...