My story is kinda like a protest against High Fantasy books set in Medieval-esque settings. Magic exists in this world. It pervades all living things, and is especially drawn to sentient minds, in this world, humans and elves. Mages are humans or elves who draw in so much of this power, they can sense it and manipulate it. Nine out of every 10 mages is a woman, as women are more sensative to magic than men. However, only elves can use magic. Humans once could too, but unknown to anyone in the story, the entire human race was infected by a symbiote sometime in the prehistoric era that now exists as another organelle in thier cells that breaks down magic and stores it as energy for later use. Women and the few men who would have been sorceresses and sorcerers store so much power, it manifests itself as healing powers and psionic abilities, like telekinesis and telepathy.
As far as technology, most of it is similar to teh early modern era of 1910. The Industrial Revolution is over. Electricity and internal combustion is replacing steam. There are airplanes, automobiles, electric lights, ocean liners, electric trams, generators, and other modern inventions. Psionic powers are studied alongside other scientific disciplines, which paint a very modern picture of the world (atomic chemistry and relativity are in thier infancy, evolution and natural selection are the latest buzz words, superposition and primitive planetary geology such as recognitions of volcanoes and lava flows on the moon and a nearby rocky planet are rewriting cosmology). Although humans have used telepathy for generations as long range communications (and continue to use it in the military for transmitting orders in battle and conveying secret messages), telegraphs, telephones, and a relatively new invention, called the wireless, are bringing remote communication to the masses. However, medical technology has only stopped at epidemiology for humans (the study of diseases, including cancer and organ failure), since human magic users - called psi-chologists - can heal wounds with a touch. First aid is quite primitive, relying on the techniques of the elves, who shun human technology and science, and whose magic cannot heal wounds (though elves cannot get sick, and therefore have no practical use for human medical science).
as far as weapons, since elves can use magic and shun technology, elves are happy to continue using swords, spears, bows, and other weapons of the sort, since thier sorceresses can over power most human fighting forces (though humans and elves have mutual respect for each other and often peacefully coexist). Humans are equiped with all the modern weapons - pistols, rifles, machine guns, mortars, howitzers, high explosives, and smokeless powder. New weapons, such as poison gas, flame throwers, tanks, fighter planes, bombers, and submarines exist, but have not yet been used in combat. Humans still use bayonet charges, and commissioned officers still use sabers for close quarters combat, as human armies have not yet experienced large scale trench warfare, like Verdun or the Somme. Human armorers are experimenting with newer weapons, including automatic rifles to supplant and/or replace bolt-action rifles, though one superpower has already equiped its entire army, navy, and fledgling air force with primitive automatic rifles. Cavalry is not used in large scale warfare between the two major superpowers in this world: one combatant has a tradition that infantry combat as more honorable than riders on horseback, so they have never maintained a cavalry force (they use horses for transport, though dismount from them before going into battle), and, ever since the time of bows-and-arrows, shoot horses out from under thier riders. They're the ones who use automatic rifles as thier primary infantry weapon, since they have always favored rapid-fire weapons. To avoid heavy casualties, thier chief rival also does not use horses too much in battle.
Psi-chologists serve in human armies as medics, couriers, adn scouts. They accompany infantry charges into battle, primarily to tend to and, if necessary evacuate the wounded, as well as relay orders directly to the soldiers, via telepathy. They are trained to use telekinetic maneuvers in close combat to disarm or trip opponents, telekineticly stop bullets, and fire pulses of energy to kill or injure massed attackers at range - usually as last ditch attempts to cover a retreat or defend themselves and thier patients. Human armies design thier weapons with extra grips to hang on to them in the event of a telekinetic maneuver, and have refined swarm tactics to target individual psi-chologists with overwhelming firepower that thier powers cannot stop. Also, psi-chologists fight psi-chologists with telekinetic maneuvers; and massed psi-chologists, coordinating telepathically, can, on occasion, disrupt mass infantry charges; though using psi-chologists in direct attack roles severely saps thier strength as they burn up thier stored energy faster than thier cells can produce more.
To further add some fantasy to this, I have a subplot that involves a rivalry between the Goddess of Wisdom (who inspires human scientists to make thier discoveries and inventors to invent stuff; and counts atheists among her most zealous disciples) and a goddess of magic whom humans shun from thier official pantheon - thanks, in part, to the Goddess of Wisdom interfering when human theologians were first documenting thier faith, thousands of years ago. The Goddess of Wisdom is also responsible for humans' inability to use magic and instead use psychic powers. She is also responsible for humans' technological and scientific progress, which is advancing at the same pace and in the same direction as real world science did around the same time period
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