And nuking Hogwarts wouldn't really do much anyway. It's a school, not a military compound.

Also, Mordac:

The supposed electrical activity in the CNS is actually chemical activity. There's no electrical current like in an electrical circuit, but the rapid movement of ions such as Chlorine, Sodium and Potassium. A nerve impulse is a wave of depolarization of the nerve axon, rather than an electrical current.

 

I just want to adress this:

Time-travel has been touted in many fandoms as the ultimate doomsday device, and in many it is. In Harry Potter, though, we have seen it work exactly once.

To go back longer (and if there are no limits) you would have to tediously turn it over and over and over. In addition, we have never seen time travel change something significant that has already happened (Sirius had not been Kissed, Buckbeak had not really died). It is quite possible that HP time travel cannot change events that have already happened, like actual, observed death.

This has support in Canon. Dumbledore says that no magic can bring back the dead. Time travel is a form of magic, thus no saving people who actually died.

About the original challenge. The story seems like it is all about the 'coolness' of bringing a gun to the wizarding world. Like all stories that are written for the 'coolness' factor, this probably wouldn't get finished after the author finds out he/she needs an actual plot.

 

I have been away and as such did not find time to answer to this thread when it was going full bloom. As such, please excuse me if I bring my contribution to it rather late.

Why do people oppose the idea that wizards are superior to Muggles on a Harry Potter dedicated forum? Is it out of some strange neo-communist desire to make everybody equal and the fact that Wizards can use magic affects you?

Honestly, Muggles are insignificant insects. First, we seem to forget that Wizards=Muggles+Magic. Anything that Muggles have, Wizards could take, improve and use them against Muggles. The all ending massive Nuclear bomb that Muggle lovers claim is the end to Wizard life on Earth, I say is a Wizard advantage.

Let us take this scenario in mind:

Archmage Harry Potter, self pronounced supreme ruler of Wizards, granted the Wizarding Staff of Merlin as emblem of office, with an innate hatred of Muggles decides to purge them from the face of the Earth. He convinces people that Muggles are a long term threat towards the Magical way of life, since they breed like rabbits, they are encroaching on Magical territories, causing the extinction of several magical breeds, which leads to a reduction in magical potency etc. This Harry is a charismatic leader, and manages to push the idea that Wizards need lebensraum, uniting the Wizarding World against the Muggles.

His war council is formed, and an initial strike is decided. Infiltrating spies in the Muggle governments (it has been done before with Kingsley), they have a secure way of knowing everything that goes on in the Muggle world. Through a combination of Invisibility cloaks, Killing curses and other delightful things, they acquire several nuclear warheads, which are then used to bomb the major cities of the world. By destroying London, New York, Tokyo and Paris, the financial world is ruined. Next comes the infrastructure upon which the Muggles are dependent, after that the Wizarding Army itself makes an appearance, striking through the means described above.

The second used argument that I hear is the subject of Muggleborns. Let us take the most prominent one we know. Hermione has had little contact with the Muggle world, and by her fifth year in the magical world is almost completely absorbed in the world. Why would she stand with the Muggles?

The coolness factor of the Muggle contraptions I find weird. Honestly, what is cooler, Magic or a Computer? If you find that a guitar, such as in the Harry/Fleur story where Remus is a father figure and Harry is a guitar wielding, football player that is going to have jam sessions with Lily later on, why read and write Harry Potter fanfiction? Have a HP/James Bond crossover where Harry is James Bond and satisfy your desire for silly Muggle instruments.

EDIT: And Muggles are insects.

 

Oh, don't get me started on time paradoxes. Yes, changing events entirely is impossible (lest there be no reason for the future wizard to go back in time in the first place) but rearranging events so that there is at least the appearance of what came to pass is definitely an option.

For instance, preventing a nuclear attack. What's preventing a cunning wizard from going back a day, providing every wizard at ground zero with a timed portkey, then allowing the attack to proceed as planned? As far as the world is concerned, the nuked wizards 'died', yet time has undeniably been altered. To users with limited imaginations time travel is indeed limited, but add in a little ingenuity and many, many things become possible. It becomes a weapon with no peer, unless muggles pull a time machine out of their arse somewhere.

 

An almost textbook example of the no-limits fallacy. I'm starting to get flashbacks of the "Death Star can't harm the Enterprise" debate, because "lasers can't penetrate our navigational shields". (Because both involve effects quite impossible according to physics, right?)

A sufficient quantity of magic can no doubt stop an object at 1000 mph. A sufficient quantity of almost anything can do so. But that doesn't mean that for any given wizard, there is quantity of impulse or energy which will overwhelm his shield.

Saying that a strong wizard can withstand a hail of bullets is one thing. Saying that any wizard can withstand such an attack is another thing, but maybe it's reasonable (although we have no evidence for it). But claiming that a wizard can withstand amount of non-magical assault whatsoever is not only without basis, but just plain illogical. Feel free to believe it regardless, but don't pretend you can establish it logically.

Ah, alright. So we can stop objects of kinetic energy of order of magnitude 1e0J or so.

The ones known to us, yes. Electromagnetism defies the laws of mechanics. So what?

I'm so impressed with your logic that I can't help but reformulate it as a hypothetical argument by a physicist living before the laws of electromagnetism are formulated:

1. Lodestones repel each other. I observed a lodestone traveling on the order of 5mph initially at a collision course with another repelled without touching.
2. This effect is completely unaccounted for the laws of dynamics (all of physics at the time).
3. Preliminary conclusion: Lodestones can defy the laws of physics.
4-6. (...)
7. Lodestones can repel other lodestones of any velocity.

And all of that involves fundamentally the same logic: we take an effect unaccounted for in the laws of physics as currently formulated and go "breaking known laws means anything is possible." I'm having trouble believing that anyone could call this sort of argument valid with a straight face.

---

And just for kicks, a reverse argument: we observe some magical effects being overwhelmed by other magical effects, so magical effects have a quantifiable strength. Spells and potions also function much the same way no matter when they are cast or where they are cast, and require only a little to no knowledge of their effects by the caster. They're very formulaic: do this like that, and get such-and-such effect.

Preliminary conclusion: Magic behaves in a law-like manner, even if those laws are separate from known physics.

Now, whenever we have a law in physics that has a certain symmetry (e.g., independence of time, location, and orientation), there's a conserved quantity that corresponds to that symmetry (resp., energy, momentum, and angular momentum). For example, gravity does not conserve kinetic energy, so we invent gravitational potential; electromagnetic effects do not conserve mechanical momentum, so we invent the Poynting vector; etc.

Conclusion: Since the effects of spells and potions are independent of time and place, magic has its own conserved quantities that behave like energy momentum, although how they couple to normal objects may vary.

 

Ignoring the fact that aiming and launching nuclear warheads probably isn't as easy as a simple point and click (hey, let's just have them cast the imperius on the guy who aims and launches them)...congratulations, Methene. You have just nuked the Ministry of Magic.

 

1. Harry pulls out gun.
2. Voldemort flicks wand casually
3. Gun melts/explodes/gets torn out of his hand/fires killing Harry/vanishes/turns into a dildo
4. ???
5. Profit

 

Ah but do check ahead. Since in the scenario Harry was the leader of the Wizarding World, and the event had been planned out ahead of time, I am quite sure the MoM, toghether with Diagon Alley could have been evacuated ahead of time. It is debatable if they can be destroyed in any case however.

 

In regards to the topic, it's been done before. Horribly.
I don't think anyone could pull of a "GANGSTA"/soldier!Harry fic, as it's inherently fail.
Also, to all of those who are wanking to magic; you guys take a fictional plot device way too seriously. Relax.
>_>

 

Diagon Alley is on Charring Cross which, I believe, is just down the road from whatever Parliamentary Building the Brits have.

 

But what events? I never said certain events couldn't be changed, only reversal of definite death.

Totally wrong. Regardless of the method of delivery, the energy delivered by an individual weapon blast can and has been measured. In the ST-vs-SW debate, the presumption was that all effects, if not causes, could be explained in terms of modern-day physics. It is, after all, science fiction.

Can you presume this about magic?

Magical effects can be overcome by other magical effects, yes. Does this prove in any way Physical < Magical, or Magical > Physical? No.

This is so general it makes me cringe. No one here would ever claim such a thing such as 'a wizard can withstand any amount of non-magical assault whatsoever,' because it could be hacked to pieces in so many ways. Pick a more specific example to ridicule.

 

What a great way to miss the entire point of that post.

Can't you read? That is exactly what Taure has claimed, just using different phrasing. He has explicitly stated that such-and-such can stop a physical object of any velocity, i.e., of any kinetic energy.

Yes, so?

Of course I can. Particularly in that example--such-and-such object changed its motion, therefore the effect was such-and-such change in kinetic energy and momentum. The effects of those scenarios are perfectly quantifiable, even if, as you say, the causes aren't. Even all the more exotic effects are something found or outdone in ST (e.g., by Q).

 

I don't exactly agree with Taure there either, but his idea is somewhat plausible.

As you said, every spell has an effect and therefore spells work based on laws. If you cast a certain spell, a magical effect takes place that does a certain task.

Your argument is that there IS energy behind the spells, so the idea that what could stop a flick could also stop a bullet is false.

But, is there any basis in canon that shows that any energy is taken when casting spells? Do you remember a single instance where Harry talks about the drain he felt as the spells peppered his shield and he had to add in extra energy to hold it up? I don't, and that supports Taure's idea.

Now, there is only one known shield charm, protego, and it protects against everything but the killing curse, right? We have never heard of a stronger shield. We have never heard of Harry casting a stronger protego against one opponent and then a weaker one against another. We have only heard about a spell being cast well (Harry) and it not being cast well (Neville). If it is cast well, then it protects the user from anything but the Avada Kedavra. If it is not, then it won't work. It is as simple as that.

This shows that the spell does not work on some sort of mathematical formula. X amount of energy in this man's stupefy won't overcome the X amount of energy in this man's protego, because there is no X amount of energy. There is only an effect. You do the spell right, and the effect comes about.

You do a shield charm and everything but the Avada Kedavra is stopped. You do a scourgify charm and a mess disappears. You do a flame tickling charm and it makes it so heat tickles. None of these seem to have any indication of 'how much'. The shield charm blocks all but the Avada Kedavra, not 'All but the Avada Kedavra and really strong reductos!'. The Scourgify spell cleans up all messes, not all messes 'but that pesky grass stain'. The Flame Tickling charm makes all heat tickle, not 'all heat under 2000 degrees'.

The same would apply to a physical shield. It is made to stop the forward momentum of an object. That is its effect. It does not stop the forward movement of an object 'besides when it is going this velocity' or 'beside when it has this much force behind it.' It stops it. That is the effect.

What I'm trying to say, though I might have lost it as it is two in the morning, is that magic seems to work on the law of cause/effect, but not in a way that would follow the laws of physics. Yes, you do something and an effect occurs, but it an equal and opposite kind of deal. The magic does what the spell says it will, no matter what.

 

No, that's not my argument. My argument is that Taure's no-limits stance is unsupported by logic. I've said nothing at all about bullets except that there's little to indicate the effectiveness of magical shields against them and that it may be reasonable to expect that any competent wizard would have no problem against them.

My secondary argument is that since magic is observed to be behave in a law-like manner with certain symmetries, so it will have its own conserved currents. That's true for every other physical law discovered thus far, and while it may be possible (since the setting is fictional) that magic just goes "laws, what laws?" whenever it likes, that sort of stance is not forced by logic.

Not anymore than a tank commander not talking about how drained he's getting from his armor taking low-calibre fire supports the idea that the armor can take any calibre whatsoever, as per Taure's conclusion. You're completely overlooking alternative reasonable explanations given what we've already observed: enchanting objects generally doesn't require upkeep in terms of re-enchantment--indeed, generally speaking a counter-spell is needed to dispel them. So why not shield spells? At best, what it means is that once created, they hold their coherence by themselves unless the someone interferes. A stronger wizard might make a stronger shield, but that's analogous to a hypothetical ability of creating armor on-the-fly: being better at it might get one stronger armor, but it doesn't mean that it can withstand arbitrarily large amounts of punishments.

And just to block certain other avenues, it may very well be possible that such magical energies are not taken from the wizard himself, and that it is only the wizard's skill at accessing magic limits how strong of an effect he can cast. But note that this still doesn't mean that any particular wizard can only make effects of arbitrarily high strength.

Uh, right. Just like ST navigational shields protect against arbitrarily high lasers because some offhand comment described that effect and Q is omnipotent because he says he is. Gotcha.

I'm not even going to bother with the rest, since it all boils down to "we don't know how it works, so no limits." Like I said previously, if you and Taure want to believe that, go right ahead. There's no reason to write or enjoy stories in which that conclusion is true, if it floats your boat. My main point of dispute is presenting it as if it was somehow a conclusion based on logic and forced by the source material.

 

Well, I'm a late-comer to this debate, although I've been in other ones before. First off, the idea sucks. Give Voldemort a little credit, will you? Canon made him out to fail. It doesn't mean that we have to. For the record, I'm on the wizards boat. They'd win.

First off, lets clarify the bullet/shield thingy. I'm going to be gracious and in fact give it to the pro-muggle side. Sure, shields can't stop bullets. Impervius charms can't stop them either.

Now, I'm going to show why it doesn't matter.

Lets all agree that nukes are the ultimate pwn. You fire one of those and "BOOM!", a lot of things blow up and a lot of people die. Lets say that spells can't pierce tank armour and dragons will get shredded by aircraft. I know pro-wizard people, we're conceding a lot here but it's all in the name of 'rubbing-it-in'.

It. Doesn't. Matter.

People have said it before. These people have been ignored. I'm going to say it again and the next person who posts to debate in this argument without acknowledging it, either by agreeing or disagreeing, will be raped by a horny sheep from New Zealand. I mean it too. I've seen a lot of valid points being ignored by the pro-muggles so they can focus on topics they think they have an edge in.

Here it is.

Brace yourself.

Muggles. Can't. Find. Wizards.

It's a canon-established fact that there are unplottable charms, so the place can't be marked on the map, muggle-repelling charms, so they suddenly have the urge to go to the dentist or whatever, or simply charms that make the eyes slide over the magical location, like the Leaky Cauldron and Saint Mungos.

So sure, you can have your tanks and your soldiers and your aircraft. It doesn't mean that you're going to be able to shoot at anything. If the wizards decided to hide, then they'd be nothing that the muggles could do to find them.

Last time, I had people jump in and protest about 'heat-seeking stuff' or 'GPS' or 'Conditioning to recognize wards' and whatever. The satellite one really bugged me. First off, no canon proof. Secondly, if muggles had the tech to see through magical wards, then I think they might have noticed it already.

You can have a billion-strong army with the latest MA-1/A Ambram tanks and F-22 raptors with raider-guided missiles and all that. It still means that the troops searching for the leaky cauldron will walk right past it and probably loot the music shop next door.

I'll clarify again.

Muggles. Can't. Find. Wizards.

It's canon. Remember it.


Okay, next topic. Terrorism. In my opinion and if utilized properly, muggles make Osama Bin Laden look like a really fat kid hiding behind a very small bush. With the skills shown in canon, they are the ultimate terrorists and the masters of guerrilla warfare.

Lets take a single wizard. We'll give him some basic skills, say, Apparition, an invisibility cloak if we have one- if not, a disillusionment charm, and a very useful spell I call Fiendfyre.

It's the one that Goyle...or Crabbe...cast in the Room of Requirements in Deathly Hallows. Cursed Fire. If one of those morons could cast it, then I'm sure it's not that hard to produce. Controlling it seems to be the real problem. Well, it normally would be.

So we have this wizard who apparates into...say...London. Under a disillusionment charm and less likely to be noticed, he raises his wand and throws out Fiendfyre. Fire comes out, people get burnt, he disapparates before anybody can see him. Fire rages uncontrollably, muggles have a hard time putting it out.

(I'm Australian and I can tell you that we have problems with normal fires. Frankly, how would you put out a cursed fire? I'm sure if it was with water then it wouldn't really be cursed.)

It causes anger, revenge, panic, terror and generally the emotions that come with any terrorist attack. Meanwhile, the wizard has done it another ten times in different cities or different parts of the city, goes home, has a Firewhiskey and lets his girlfriend blow him.

Terrorism. It doesn't need a specific target. For a wizard, it's quick and easy. For muggles, it's suddenly a little terrifying to know that there's no city or town in the world that is safe, and that wizards can attack anywhere and anytime they want.

Getting out alive might be a problem if you chose the White House, though. Remember, shields no block bullets!

Short term repercussions, anger, hostility, some rousing speeches and a promise to kill these evil magical bastards. Long term repercussions, well, who knows. Paranoia, fear, terror make people do stupid things. Looting, riots, whatever. Governments may find themselves more occupied with the hordes of pissed-off mobs than they are with the wizards.

If we want targets, there's one weakness common to all muggle technology.

Electricity.

You can have your nuclear arming systems. It won't help if you can't turn them on. Send a wizard and blow up the transformers, or conjure Fiendfyre in a powerplant. No need to go deep into the mechanics, it's safe to say that the workers are going to evacuate rather than work.

Apparition, Dissillusionment, Fiendfyre, Apparition, Firewhiskey, Blowjob.

Backup generators aren't going to last forever. Even if they are, the oil prices are going to go up in hospitals and supermarkets and military locations all start running generators simultaneously. Frequent blackouts are also going to add to the terror/panic/fear of the populace, especially if wizards hit them harder than they can rebuild. (Which is more than likely)

There's a wide array of mind magics out there in canon. Obliviate, Imperius, Legillimency and so forth. Sure, you could try to find a way to get somebody in a powerful position...but why bother? Think of morale when a police officer starts shooting at the people they've sworn to protect, or a driver of a semi-trailer who decides to crash his truck into a building, or a pilot who decides to do a kamikaze with his 747.

People will be afraid. Afraid that they'll be killed or afraid that they might be forced to do something like that. Again, terrorism- causing terror. These are just a few examples. I could find hundreds more...if I wasn't a little disturbed at these notions already.


We don't fight wars on big open plains with two armies on one side anymore. If we did, the muggles would kill the wizards so fast that it's not funny. Well, it probably would be funny for them. In locations that can't be discovered, wizards could wait it out, occasionally sending in a wizard to basically poke thier tongues out at the government and say "You can't find us! You can't find us!"

War is fort through battles and propaganda. Against these types of attacks, attacks that could continue indefinitely, the morale would not last and people would be clammering to the governments to stop this war (if they started it, I suppose- I don't see the Wizarding World launching a war on muggles unless somebody like Voldemort was in charge).

If the people have lost the will to fight, then you'll lose.


Oh, and if all else fails, send in the Dementors. Let them loose on a city, say "Here, have a buffet" and let the wizards disapparate very quickly. Muggles can't seem them, muggles can't repel them and muggles have souls. You don't really need to control them either, just let them feed as they will. If Dementor's can actually get full, well, aura of fear + a freeway at peak hour traffic = distraction and car accidents.

We should start a new debate.

Muggles vs Dementors

Guess which side I'd pick

 

Wow, I didn't check this thread for two days and guess what? 5 pages!!! I'm impressed. Taure must be taking pills because I couldn't do it. Not humanly possible.

Anyway I have only one thing to say about that. The most important thing is that CANON is FAILED when it comes to plausibility. Rowling spent maybe two minutes of her time, while drinking tea with one hand and masturbating with the other, thinking about the Magical Theory and made is as simple as possible, and if something isn't logical, there goes the magical answer: "But it's magic!". She invented spells when she needed them, didn't think about the repercussions on the previous books, etc. Canon is just fail. There's no doubt about it, countless threads here proved it.

Now, before you begin flaming me "But we are not talking about canon" or whatever. Remember that what you write there is based on facts by canon... it's like writing 10 pages long equations about a physics theory that is based on another wrong theory or wrong observations. No matter how right the reasoning is, the theory is still invalid.

These debats could never end because Rowling's theory of Magic is so vague that every individual has a different conception of its working, thus for one Magic > Muggle because [X fact mentionned in canon] and other people will say the opposite because [Y fact mentionned in canon, or X fact interpreted differently].

If you want to debate about Magic versus Muggle weaponry, then you have to write first what Magic you use. If you use canon Magic (with Rowling's mindset), there's no doubt, Magic > Bullets. If you use the super scientific Magic which is as close to our current physics theories, then Bullets > Magic because the velocity and the pressure when the bullet enter in contact with the skin is so great, etc... If you take a Dresden-ic approch, then guns wouldn't even work because Magic is the antithesis of technology.

And most importantly, when you compare something you have to compare it with something else that is comparable. You can't compare an Avada Kedavra spell to a Muggle atomic bomb!!

I'll mention it again: No matter how right the reasoning is, if the facts behind are failed then the theory is failed as well..

 

We are talking Harry Potter here, and we can win with Harry Potter canon spells. Look at my posts. Look at Shezza's post. Look at Taure and whoever else. One wizard could take down a country all alone because the muggles would never be able to find him.

 

Watch out for any horny sheep you may come across in your travels Inky.

 

I am going to reply to Vorpal's argument eventually (it's an objection that I saw myself when constructing the argument) but at the moment I don't have the energy.

To give you an idea of where I'm going to be coming from though, is related to what lnky said:

Vorpal's arguments are based on the assumption that magic is like physics (and here I am not referring to physics as a discipline, but as in the laws of nature), and therefore comparable. Like magic is some kind of quantifiable energy or force. Needless to say, I disagree with this (as you'll see if you look at my magical theory thread).

The Star Wars laser comparison is not analogous. In Star Wars, lasers and shields are both running according the same set of rules: the rules of nature in the Star Wars universe. This is not the case with magic. Magic has its own set of laws, completely separate to the normal natural laws of the universe.

 

I don't mind sheeps. Have to keep my body in shape, you know.

No, what I'm pissed off is the "It's proven in canon, therefore it's true!".

Muggles can't find wizards? Wrong! I could find you 50 ways of discovering Wizards while staying 100 percent true to canon.

Canon is failed. You can't say something is true because canon says so. It's exactly the same reasonings the religion-fanatics use "But God exists because the Bible said so!".