Now, we know the Enlightenment messed with physics, but in a relatively small way. Still, many sci-fi settings feature artifacts that do seemingly impossible things. They are usually impossible to replicate and extremely usefull, and they're fun to write. On the other hand, they tend to err towards the 'fiction' part of sf.
My question here is, what do we want our setting's take on them to be?
Clarketech artifacts
Summary:
Unexplained and apparently physics-defying objects