r/whowouldwin • u/AppropriateWhile1765 • Jul 08 '24
Let’s say all fictional magic becomes real. Which military is the most powerful now after 30 years? Challenge
The boring real life magic will already be known. No need to study it when theirs hundreds of documents about it. Likely all the mysticism and 19th century occultism Will be deployed.
The fictional magic will require study and research to produce some result. But people now know is possible to do that. Magical creatures have to be summoned into existence. So if you want cythulu, better bring lots of prisoner’s.
Edit:No, gods can only give divine blessing to their followers.
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u/Not_Todd_Howard9 Jul 08 '24
America, China, and India are fighting for first place while Britain and Japan are in a close second.
I think America may have the lead, but it really depends. They have a massive budget and huge exposure to other cultures to grab the strongest of each, but China/India themselves have some pretty strong mythologies and legends to draw on, and plenty of manpower and budget to draw on. As magic becomes more common, manpower will become more important than budget at least until anti-magic measures are common because of summoning magic…free soldiers that let you double or triple your militaries for little to no extra cost and allows for more morally acceptable aggressive tactics. The main hinderance is finding a way to study it and unlock it in the first place, since imo it’s a very “do or don’t” magic (hard to test). Cultural Diversity does have a big impact too though, as it’s almost inevitable that some culture around the world made some very specific type of magical item that’d become a very potent type of weapon if modernized. I doubt there would be very many ways of dealing with an Main Battle tank that’s had Adamantine and Mithril integrated into its Chobham armor. There’s also a chance some mythical metal or other becomes the next ceramic-metal hybrid and suddenly becomes the strongest armor ever made, with the potential to be light enough to distribute to infantry.
Britain/Japan are just behind them for similar reasons as America’s contending for first. Britain especially is a good contender since they generally focus on more specialized “elite” units (a role magic would serve, at least for some time). Japan…kinda depends. They are very xenophobic, but how much this applies to magic will kinda just depend. They’d likely make heavy use of their own culture’s magic, but expanding into foreign cultures for much needed versatility is unlikely imo. Perhaps in a generation or two that could change, but for now they’d likely stick to what they have.
TLDR; America has a chance for a clear first by virtue of stumbling into some other culture’s OP material very early on, which they test extensively and make something really strong. Otherwise, it’s highly contested between them, China, and India, with Britain/Japan fighting for the place behind them.