My favorite ff genre, by far, is Independent Harry, but the majority of those drive me crazy. The first fanfic I read was HP and the Power of Time and it is still my favorite because it is the only story I've found where Harry stays independent. It seems like in every other story Harry goes it alone for 7 chapters, long enough to go to Gringott's and buy rare dark arts books, and then goes right back to his friends to free them from Dumbledoor's manipulations. Or kill them all for betraying him. Or he teams up with vampires or a harem of veelas.

My challenge to fix that has been stuck in my brain and mutating for months. I was so happy to come up with an original idea that I thought I may actually write it myself, but that will never happen. So here it is:

Harry is betrayed; or escapes from Azkaban; or just leaves Privet and says "Fuck it all"; when he remembers the Quibbler article from OotP about a wizard flying to the moon on a broom stick.

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I came up with this idea because I wanted to read a realistic HP/Stargate crossover. Every HP/SG story starts with some miraculous event and then continues in one of two ways. Harry appears at the SGC and is led around by the hand and shown all the pretty aliens until the author runs out of ideas; or he ends up with an advanced, or magical, race and quickly becomes the ultimate authority on everything in the galaxy and fixes every little mistake the SGC made in canon.

I think that a lone wizard with a few books on magical transportation and architecture could reshape the galaxy more dramatically than any system lord; or starship captain; or last descendant of the ancients.

The general challenge is open to anyone who wants it, I hope it sparks your imagination as much as it did mine.

If anyone is interested in my idea of using this for a HP/SG cross I would love to discuss it. This idea has occupied every idle moment I've had for the past 6 months and I have lots ideas of what I would like to see. I've flushed it out enough that I could probably write a basic outline but there is no way I could write a full story without copy/pasting all of my favorite cliches.

 

I can't write Stargate but the idea of combining magic with muggle technology came to me as particularly useful in space exploration.

Take for example the ability to make something weigh less. While it is mundanely used to carry shit around, making a spacecraft weigh less has great potential for fuel reduction while taking off. Spaceships use most of their fuel just escaping Earth's gravity and atmosphere.

The ability to expand the inside volume, with the outside remaining the same again would be dead useful, allowing more inside space for supplies, fuel and weapons to take over the whole of the solar system.

The only problem I can see would be the supposed incompatibility of magic and electronics but I am sure the wisewizards at DoM could figure something out.

 

Technically speaking the caster isn't reducing the weight of the object (for example - spac shuttle), he only reduces the gravity pull on the object so it becomes "lighter" for him.

We can assume that the effect that magic is having on electronics is similar to electromagnetic wave generated by nuclear reaction. So, adding advanced shielding to the computers should protect them from magical interference.

 

But if he reduces the gravity pull on the object, it would make it easier to leave Earth. Atmosphere probably cannot be helped, but having little to no gravity pull on the craft would make for an easier take off.

 

I was just pointing a technical issue. It doesn't change anything. It just makes it more scientific, which is "a must" in that kind of crossover.

 

They say any sufficiently advanced technology is Indistinguishable from magic, it should work the other way around. In a lot of stories Harry gets inspiration from fantasy books, I'ld like to see him start reading sci-fi like Arthur C. Clark, Larry Niven, and Fredrich Pohl and try to recreate their ideas.

Without any wizards around, what wizard would think to look up, he could conjure up some diamonds legos; duplicate and engorge them; throw up a coloportus to squelch them together and build a space elevator on mars. He would just have to careful about throwing finites around. Carve an unbreakable rune on it and it will survive astroid impacts for centuries.

He could send his own probes and things out, without tipping off the muggles by sending radio waves everywhere, by hooking up fiber optic cables to two way mirrors. Only realizing later that it is FTL communication.

I like to think that electricity is only effected in areas saturated with magic over hundreds of years. There's no mention of violent reactions to everyday magic like in the Dresden universe, and there is no affect from Dumbledoor's apparently uber-powerful blood wards on Privet Dr. In space, hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth's innate magic it would take a lot of magic to interfere.

 

Weight is defined as gravity's pull on an object. It is the mass that you can't change. That means magic can help immensely in getting out of Earth's gravity well, but in space you still need sufficient inertia to overcome the mass.

But with a small ship you could putter around the solar system by sticking your wand out the airlock and casting an aquamenti.

 

Ah, but you don't even need that. You can use a standard muggle engine, but with the fuel chamber enlarged by magic. That way there is plenty of fuel and you have the means to create inertia.

 

Hm...Isn't the technology thing only a problem if the area is sufficiently magical (Hogwarts, for example)? I figure, casting a few (or even a few dozen) spells on a spaceship won't fuck with the technology, because there isn't actually enough magic in the area to do so.

Take Diagon Alley for instance; right in the middle of London; it doesn't fuck with technology, and people cast spells there all the time.

That said...The idea is probably pretty decent, but I know nothing of Stargate, and I'm not the biggest fan of crossovers, so I wouldn't read it.

 

While I, personally, wouldn't be able to write this story, I think it's a good idea, and would love to see a good author write it. Also, your thread title is a bit misleading, this is more of a crossover challenge, though it would fit both criteria, I suppose.

 

Here is something i dont understand. Why would a wizard need make electronics and magic compatible. Why not take an idea of something the muggles have and create a magical equivilant.

AKA spaceship: the muggle flaws:easily destroyable, communication systems loose effectiveness past a certain range, doesnt have good enough power systems to do much else unless a new power generation system is created.

Now wizarding spaceships: unbreakable charms, use the enchantments that are used on brooms and flying carpets or something like that, magic communications dont have to follow the laws of physics since most of magic doesnt, and you have power from wizards or just store power every couple days then recover and boom insta magical battery for powering anything else you need

 

Because you can, you know, breathe in space.

 

I always felt the best application of magic in the muggle world would be in space flight, at the very least making FTL travel possible. Maybe someone could write a fic about the Magical Space Agency...?

As for the Stargate crossover - I'm a fan of the series, but honestly wouldn't write about it. It's just not my taste. Doctor Who/Harry Potter on the other hand...

 

The application of magic to space travel also allows for deep space travel. Harry the wizard-naut swallows a bottle of Draught of Living Death. His bodily functions are reduced to the bare minimum, effectivly putting him in stasis. He wakes up a couple years later when the potion wears off to find himself in another galaxy.

 

You genius you.

He's tired of it all, puts himself to sleep, launches himself into space with the hopes to get incinerated by a star, and fails miserably.

 

Heh. He probably just did it to get away from the Weasley clan.

Imagine his horror when he returns a thousand years' later:

PLANET OF THE WEASLEYS

Where the ginger Weasley race rule the Earth, and all intelligent and attractive people are forced to be their slaves...

 

And at the end Harry stumbles upon Hogwarts towers sticking out of sand dune and he screams: You maniacs! You blew it!
That would be epic.
Harry Potter/Planet of the Apes(Weasleys) FTW!
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And seriously. Harry could be still in stasis and his ship/coffin/escape pod/broomstick could be found by Battlestar Galactica and Colonial ragtag fleet. Just for fun.

 

Nah, that's stupid. Rather, a certain Time Lord receives a distress call...

 

Holy shit... About the time Harry mistakes him for Barty Crouch Jr. and prepares to incinerate him...

I had some ideas for Harry creating his own space-worthy vehicle and doing some exploring but most of it would take place in the sequel to another idea I had.
Neither of which will ever see the light of day.

 

Can I steal the "Planet of the Weasleys" idea if you don't mind? I'll try to make a one shot out of it.