Addendum

The secret is that I just wanted to roll out "thaumatocracy."

Against Thaumatocracy

Given that being capable of magic is better than being incapable, what are some reasons mages might not be in charge?

- There aren't enough of them
-- It requires innate talent which few have
-- It takes too long to learn
-- They keep dying
-- Numbers are limited by the need for some external resource. For example a mage has to bathe in dragon's blood or make a contract with a manticore
- There are too many of them. Being a mage isn't a big deal, and hiring some is less of one.
- Magic isn't that good
- The kinds of people who learn magic are bad at maintaining political power
-- They're too busy with magical studies
-- Magic is linked to certain characteristics such as lack of ambition or gullibility
-- Magic alters mages, for example removing the need for food and replacing it with an insatiable urge to visit places of power
-- Magical expenditure requires long periods of isolation or hibernation
- The kinds of people who learn magic don't want to maintain political power
-- Magical talent isn't hereditary. Ensuring your family will be passed over for some genius discovered in a village is distasteful.
- The kinds of people who learn magic can't maintain political power
-- The gods who give them power forbid it
-- The terms of their contracts forbid it
-- The dragons who rule the world forbid it, and they do check regularly
-- Magic circulates through the bonds between people, so that the more subordinates one has, the more his magic is divided among them - The rulers are capable of preventing it
-- They aren't mages, but they have magic
--- Divine sanction
--- The approval of the land itself
--- Contracts with manticores
--- A store of artifacts
--- Hereditary talents
--- They're the source of magic
-- They're above magic
--- Gods rule directly
--- Dragons/manticores/basilisks etc. rule directly
--- Aliens rule directly (they came to research magic)

There are a few reasons. As for how mages might become an oppressed minority, they can't, cut that out, your allegory stinks.

Necessity Is the Pretense for Invention

Professor D'Aramitz struggled to suppress his regret as he examined the diagnostics, an impossible task. Conceding for once to his feelings, he tilted back in his chair and looked at nothing in particular.
"I have finally constructed a robot capable of conquering our planet which is in such need of a masterful hand." Finally he looked at something: A titan of steel in its dock, a hundred cables affixed to it, bearing an attitude, it seemed to him, of the champion athlete eager to put the physical examination behind him and return to competition. "But it is not quite ethical, is it, to bring civilians into it, and that, my poor creation soon to be neglected, would be an inevitability. Without an excuse to deploy you, the world will never know your matchless power."
The professor wandered about his hidden facilities for a time, picking up this readout before throwing it down and settling down at that terminal, staring at the screen, and rising again. There was nothing to do, he convinced himself, but surrender the rest of the day to idleness, unless he was willing to begin the decommission process. He returned aboveground and abandoned his attention to the TV.
". . . Confirmation is coming in now that the destruction is in fact caused by alien invaders . . ."
The TV turned off again. Professor D'Aramitz stood. He stretched both arms, leaned back a little, and yelled, "Hurrah for unending strife!"
Finis

Science Fiction Warning and Informational Labels

Please post any of the following relevant items on the cover of your science fiction novel.

"Nothing actually happens"
"Something actually happens"
"A planet explodes"
"Humans only"
"Thinly veiled analogy for current societal problems which loses all applicability because of the aliens to which it's attached"
"Two planets explode"

Profound Science Fiction Discussion Topic

If there are aliens who get it together enough to come to our planet, maybe we should just let them run things. What do you mean they want to eat us? Oh noooooooooo!
The topic is: What makes humans so delicious? Does it have something to do with marbling?

Aliens Who Are Great at TV

The reason we haven't seen evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life is that their TV shows are way to good for them to start thinking maybe watching somebody land on the moon would be a better broadcast. When you think about it, it makes us seem kind of uncreative, really. It would be more impressive if somebody had faked it.

Tiny Aliens

The reason we haven't seen any evidence of extraterrestrial intelligent life is that they're too tiny. A hula hoop is a Dyson sphere to these people. They think a thimble is an impregnable fortress.

Big Aliens

The reason we haven't seen any evidence of intelligent alien life in the universe is that they're too big to fit in a spaceship. It's a real problem.

Addendum

Actually those all lead to mechs. Pranked!

Turning Points in History to Consider for Alt History

Stamford Bridge
Jugurthine War
Ferdinand and Isabella (make both women)
Alexander the Great (dies earlier)
Alexander the Great (dies later)
Alexander the Great (still alive)
Isaac Newton (discovers anti-gravity; leads to mechs)
Christopher Marlowe (wins bar fight, becomes emperor)
Pyramids (much bigger; aliens show up)

Science Fiction Worldbuilding 2

Second question! Aliens? Third question! How good computer? Fourth question! What must a heart that loves justice do in this universe? There is no fifth question. Everything follows inexorably from the previous answers.

Science Fiction Society Discussion

Will poetry come back in the future? Almost certainly not. Unless the authoritarian government bans most kinds of music including the ones with lyrics! Bam! Science fiction is saved. There's some good stagnationcore right there. That future society can't even pilot mechs with music. They'll be sitting ducks for any aliens.

A Perilous Exchange

Fear of invasion was the result when communication ended with the first alien civilization encountered by humanity. Labeled Intelligent Extraterrestrial Lifeform 00001 by the authorities in an excess of optimism and wunners by regular people in need of a shorter name and aware of the impossibility of pronouncing alien words, that species seemed open to peaceful relations. A few exchanges of foods and goods took place.
But then, silence. Military preparations were made even as expeditions went out and found cities empty but not silent, for power hummed and automated factories operated. For all the world it looked as if an entire interstellar civilization had stepped out for a bite to eat.
And such was indeed the case. An expedition at last found a wunner, perhaps the last of his species. This was what he told them. "These peppers you guys grow are too spicy. We can't handle it."
The expeditionary captain scratched his head. "Then . . . don't eat them? I prefer milder flavors myself."
"Nope. Too delicious." The wunner bit into a New Iberia Space Reaper, the third-hottest pepper in the galaxy, and died instantly with a look the xenobiologists confirmed to be pure culinary pleasure on its face.

"That story's stupid. You're just trying to cover up humanity's conquering impulses." The middle schooler crossed his arms, his umbrage caused more by having to go to a dumb museum than by the fate of the wunners.
"What's going on across the street, if that's true?" A passing historian pointed. A wunner shot out a diner with the spiciest meal on the menu in its hands and a bunch of customers on its tail who scrambled to save it from itself. That snotty kid never lived that one down.
Finis

Kind of Tone Deaf

How can Owlcat make Rogue Trader with all these rogue traders causing problems right now? More importantly, I don't think that's a good way to say "xenos."

Startling!

Readers won't even believe this nonsense! Let's start!

Desert in the north!
Humans are the warrior species!
Elves . . . are bad?!?!
Dragons! Not such a problem!
The galactic empire is the good guys!
Aliens are technologically inferior to humans!
Trolls are smart!

Everything's been done before but tell your shills to claim whatever you do is totally original! Readers can't know they're supposed to be shocked if you don't tell them!

The Rules of Science Fiction

1. Spaceships are awesome
2. Guns are lame, but future guns are sick
3. Psychic powers rule
4. Aliens are endlessly compelling
5. Suns are the most beautiful right before they destroy the planets orbiting them

Proper Theme Park Management Requires Experience

"Where do you come up with this stuff, Ollie?" Marshall Duclercq, the galaxy's only thousandaire, a man so rich the government executed a currency squash to cut down on all the zeroes, could not help but marvel at the detail of his new park, months away from opening though it was. Under the dome, every synthetic plant and animal resembled nothing Earth had exported to the stars, the air smelled like copper, and the water tasted fruity. "The basic idea is simple enough. Everyone's disappointed by by finding no alien life out there so far, and some'll be willing to pay up for a day or two immersed in a fake version. The only thing different about this project is that I can make it happen. But it's the specifics I wonder about. It all seems so real."
"It is real," Oliver Scordato, the project manager, told his boss. "It's all from my planet. I'm an alien. Everybody refuses to believe aliens are all humans, that's all."
Duclercq looked the man up and down. "You never could tell a joke, Ollie."
Oliver shrugged. He had learned to do that soon after reaching Earth-colonized space, long enough ago that he no longer had to remind himself not to clap instead.
Finis

Adaptation Stagnation

If you don't want to adapt the actual thing, fine. Well, it isn't fine, but let's take that it for granted that you don't wanna. In that case, if you don't feel bound by anything, go nuts. Change everything. Put in a dragon that's, like, three dragons, man. Have Numenor and Lemuria launching ICBMs at each other. Elf pirate with a sophisticated parrot. Daleks show up. Anything. Who are these people who just want the source material except much worse? Make your creative liberties creative.

Science Q&A

Q. If there is intelligent extraterrestrial life in the universe, where is it?
A. ur moms house roflmao

Addendum

I don't mean only the magic ones, but those two. Especially those. But not just those.