Vegapunk Had the Last Reasonable Explanations
I have had the feeling for a long time that Vegapunk would be the benchmark for what is reasonable. The void century will be full of things that are far less easy to explain. There will be things that defy our understanding of science, things that use occult themes, and things that break the power system. The story has shifted in a way that now favors irrational beliefs over rational ones.
Sanji blocked Kizaru's light with the power of "love". That sort of thing is not possible under normal circumstances. We should expect to see more of that. Franky had once questioned if humans could create something like Pluton. At this time, Franky was demonstrating the difference between himself and the builders of it. Franky had rational beliefs and Pluton challenged those beliefs when he viewed its schematic.
Occult themes include supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena. Enel mentioned that in ancient times people viewed natural disasters as acts of gods. With that in mind, we know that the understanding in the Void Century is that acts of gods were commonplace and people considered magic normal everyday occurences because they could not explain what they saw. For example, the use of dial technology was likely seen as magical by many of the kingdoms aside from the ancient kingdom.
It is possible that someone like Crocodile may get easily defeated by someone much weaker wielding ancient technology, and what they do to him may not be easy to explain. It may never get explained because of the nature of the act as it may be based on irrational beliefs. Someone may very well just wave a wand at him and he will turn into glass and explode or something and that stupid wand he used to do it will be explained to be a highly advanced form of technology as opposed to a magic wand. They will give us some weird explanation like it was a "transmutation' device instead of it being a magical wand.
This is like an airliner, but instead of engines it uses fire elementals. - tvtropes.org
"Your ancestors called it magic... and you call it science. Well, I come from a place where they're one and the same thing." - Thor Odinson, Thor (2011)
Magitek (or "magitech") often appears to combine magic with modern technology or at least something distinctively mechanical: traditional heat engine or an electrical generator powered by or powering a magic spell, or a giant mecha that can inexplicably shoot ice from an empty hand. - tvtropes.org
The Maxim is capable of flight, even in space. Enel's electrical energy is its main power supply, while two hundred Jet Dials from Birka are used as a backup power supply to keep the ark in the air for an hour if something were to happen to the Ark's mechanism. Enel used the gold from the Shandora ruins as a conductor for his electricity. - One Piece Wiki
Enel can use Maxim to create massive lightning storms via a combination of chemical vats that produce storm clouds and his own lightning abilities. One of these thunderbolts is enough to burn down an entire village, and Enel can create a giant thundercloud that can destroy an entire island. - One Piece Wiki
It is evident that these forms of magitek were at their height during the Void Century. This is true to the extent that they even made entire cities based on what people would have considered magic back then. These were magical cities. The point here is that the scope is so large that it causes a shift between the possible and the impossible and as a result the explanations will also go from rational to irrational.
We were introduced to magitek concepts with Enel's Ark Maxim and Birka, but these were constituted by electricity generated from Enel. He is practically a lightning elemental himself. He is also convenient because as readers him using electricity to power stuff seems normal. However, we have seen some rather weird ones like Smoker and his Billow Bike or Buggy and his Chop Chop Car.
Think about how unpredictable things like Ancient Zoans have been like Queen's Brontosaurus 🦕 launching its real body out of the rest of itself and how it was explained to work. Everyone in the scene was shocked. That is the same kind of reaction we are likely to have about a lot of the Void Century if this pattern keeps up.
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