Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

Well... If you have two matching SSDs, one connected externally on a cable and one connected to a PCI slot directly plugged into the motherboard's bus... which is faster?

Its the same logic, integration improves throughput and it would be silly to assume otherwise in this case. Further, in the specific case of magictech devices... they have to be using some resources to communicate telepathically, its magic after all. If it had a cable shoved into our spinal cord, at the very least it would free up whatever resources are being used to run telepathy.

*Edit: Also! Completely forgot, in setting example: Unison and Hybrid Devices. If merging with the mage didnt have some advantage, why do these super high end devices do it? Im just saying we do it permanently instead of having it turn into a plushy.
In this case, both are passive, taking about the same amount of effort as, say, breathing, and both move at the speed of thought, which is just shy of the speed of light, if only due to the speed at which nerve impulses move throughout the brain. The difference is like connecting an SSD though USB and connecting an SSD through a USB port that, until recently, was used primarily for your keyboard - not really noticable or practical to measure, but it's there.

Also, why does everyone here hate transhumanism? I don't want Vista to go full Jensen and end up looking us dead in the eye whilst muttering the phrase "I never asked for this" under her breath after she gets in over her head, damn it!
 
[X] Medium combat arm – Armor plating is limited to the hand and forearm as well as over the shoulder. Enhanced strength and mechashift weapons are available in the hand only. Energy weapons can be wherever. Build time will include ONE TIME SLOT for surgery.

The human form is acceptable, but the human flesh is weak.

Also four weapon slots vs. three seems like a much bigger deal, even if she does lose super strength.

I will be strategically switching this vote to heavy though if it means avoiding the Light option.
 
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Also, don't forget that regular Devices pour out super-heated steam on a regular basis. Imagine having that inside your body. You'd not just overheat, you'd boil alive. Unison Devices and Hybrid Devices are specifically built to be compatible with people, while shoving a normal device, and especially a Lost Logia has the potential of being disastrous.
 
[X] Heavy combat arm – Armor plating over the entire arm and shoulder. Enhanced strength, mechashift weapons, and energy weapons can be placed anywhere on the arm. Build timewill include ONE TIME SLOT for surgery.
 
Also, don't forget that regular Devices pour out super-heated steam on a regular basis. Imagine having that inside your body. You'd not just overheat, you'd boil alive. Unison Devices and Hybrid Devices are specifically built to be compatible with people, while shoving a normal device, and especially a Lost Logia has the potential of being disastrous.
Well, i mean, im sure we could have vents in that case. Stick them out her back. Or on her shoulders. Its not exactly hard to put a exhaust port somewhere.

Or just exhale it like a Guyver. :p
 
Also, don't forget that regular Devices pour out super-heated steam on a regular basis. Imagine having that inside your body. You'd not just overheat, you'd boil alive. Unison Devices and Hybrid Devices are specifically built to be compatible with people, while shoving a normal device, and especially a Lost Logia has the potential of being disastrous.
Also, when in merged mode the mage/unison device combo has 'wings'. Which may act as both to radiate heat/heat regulation while also assisting in flight.

[X] Medium combat arm – Armor plating is limited to the hand and forearm as well as over the shoulder. Enhanced strength and mechashift weapons are available in the hand only. Energy weapons can be wherever. Build time will include ONE TIME SLOT for surgery.
 
Also, why does everyone here hate transhumanism? I don't want Vista to go full Jensen and end up looking us dead in the eye whilst muttering the phrase "I never asked for this" under her breath after she gets in over her head, damn it!
Because cyborgs are stupid and come with all sorts of problems until you get to the point of Nano-bot enhancements. You can do a heck of a lot more with an integrate nanofiber muscle mesh than any non-HEA mechanical assist which require some sort of anti-rejection treatment, and Nano enhancments are much easier to modify or even discard entirely if you feel like it, whereas major surgeries are... not.
 
Because cyborgs are stupid and come with all sorts of problems until you get to the point of Nano-bot enhancements. You can do a heck of a lot more with an integrate nanofiber muscle mesh than any non-HEA mechanical assist which require some sort of anti-rejection treatment, and Nano enhancments are much easier to modify or even discard entirely if you feel like it, whereas major surgeries are... not.
Fight me.

On a more practical note, I see your point - nanotech enhancements are, and always will be, far and away the best option. However, for now, modular cyberware will do where nanoware would be best.
 
On a related note; Is there any particular reason Taylor doesn't just get Perfect Storm implanted into her sternum? Cant be stolen if you cant get it off her. They can be together forever. :3

Okay. Assume we had done this before the TSAB fight. Now imagine how badly that would have gone. Just because it's ethically squicky to them to permanently separate mages and devices, that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to temporarily do so. When I read your suggestion, my immediate thought was a criminal bolting a gun to their hand and daring the feds to remove it. Which they would. Because that level of crazy puts your hand-having privileges in a very nebulous place.

and both move at the speed of thought, which is just shy of the speed of light,

Nerve signals move at around 240 mph, which seems instantaneous when you're talking about inches outside a combat zone, but it's not even the speed of sound, let alone light.

Also, I apologize for being a filthy imperial heathen, I still can't easily convert miles to meters in my head.
 
[X] Heavy combat arm – Armor plating over the entire arm and shoulder. Enhanced strength, mechashift weapons, and energy weapons can be placed anywhere on the arm. Build time will include ONE TIME SLOT for surgery, and this arm will have one fewer weapon than the others would.

I'm currently inclined to vote for this, but also intend for her to pick somethign closer to the medium option as described. If thats an acceptable way to do it @Silently Watches ? Since this is more about her /interest/ than the actual build plan.

The way I see it, between Vista's close association with Armsmaster and Dragon's being both even more familiar AND focused on enhancing/assisting Tinker's and their Tech herself.... one of the two should bring up that idea of trying to get his help making a less invasive version of it?

Ideally, Vista might be thinking something like "A super tricked out combat arm would be crazy useful, buuut the best weapon is one that you never worry about NOT having at hand. *pause for effect* So hard light generators for weaponry and armor that unfolds like that tool table of his would be the best way?" . Alternately, she opts to get the muscle/bone enhancements and that upgraded eye to assist her parahuman power and whatnot, but not an overtly armored arm?

Because I do really like the twist of utilizing her previously battlefield-control power as a way to enhance unorthodox melee fighting (supreme mobility and attacking from random multiple angles, much? Can her power shear a solid object, such that she strikes with one spear but its cut into three which come from different angles? Or reverse/loop space in front of her, such that when she thrusts a spear from herself towards her target, the spearpoint starts out at the other side (behind target, if Manton doesn't allow inside) and comes back towards her?).

Also..... is it Fun-Interesting or AngstyPain-Interesting if she goes whole hog into cyberware /because/ she just got dissapointed on the potential of being a Magical Girl?
 
Nerve signals move at around 240 mph, which seems instantaneous when you're talking about inches outside a combat zone, but it's not even the speed of sound, let alone light.

Also, I apologize for being a filthy imperial heathen, I still can't easily convert miles to meters in my head.
Huh, I thought they were just standard electrical impulses. Guess that's what I get for not doing my research.

Also, simple way to do it: 5 miles = 8 kilometers, and 2mph = 1m/s. Not quite accurate, but better than you're gonna get without a calculator. 240mph, for example, is 120m/s or 350kph
 
Because cyborgs are stupid and come with all sorts of problems until you get to the point of Nano-bot enhancements. You can do a heck of a lot more with an integrate nanofiber muscle mesh than any non-HEA mechanical assist which require some sort of anti-rejection treatment, and Nano enhancments are much easier to modify or even discard entirely if you feel like it, whereas major surgeries are... not.
Unfortunately, this is largely popculture and inaccurate. There is no need for a magical anti-rejection treatment as seen in the Deus Ex series, they simply needed a excuse for augmentation to suck and invented one. People have augmentations today (joint replacements, pacemakers, surgically attached anchor points for prosthetic limbs, and so on) and while it is possible for the human body to reject anything (including its self) medical grade metals and plastics make this a vanishingly unlikely situation. Nanomachines are, likewise, not magic (as seen in Metal Gear) and have a host of disadvantages to go with their imagined benefits. They are also ALOT more limited in what they can do, and in alot of ways far more of a health hazard than any prosthetic limb, even one that requires extensive surgery to anchor.

The simple fact of the matter is that full replacement of wetware with as-good-or-better hardware is much more direct and will give you much better results than augmenting your wetware with nanoware. You can replace muscle fibers with artificial nanoweave, but to anchor that you need to replace the bone.... so all you really accomplish is turning their organic arm into a metal arm cell-by-cell using far more expensive and finnicky technology instead of simply lopping the old arm off and bolting on a attachment that was built from scratch, with basically the same results. Further more, if your going to assume something like carbon nanoweave muscle strands, then your assuming we have some really high end tech, in which case a single superconductive linear motor in the joint would give stupidly better returns in energy to strength ratios than any sane amount of artificial muscle.

Where nanotech excels is in applications where being solid is not workable. Blood replacement, fighting disease and maybe stimulating healing (or at the very least preventing bloodloss to wounds), alterations to the lymphatic system, chemical control, etc. Beyond that you use nanotech to make augmentions, not as an augmentation.

Okay. Assume we had done this before the TSAB fight. Now imagine how badly that would have gone. Just because it's ethically squicky to them to permanently separate mages and devices, that doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to temporarily do so. When I read your suggestion, my immediate thought was a criminal bolting a gun to their hand and daring the feds to remove it. Which they would. Because that level of crazy puts your hand-having privileges in a very nebulous place.
To be fair, your assuming the fight would have played out the same way. If her device was embedded in her body she may have avoided getting shanked. If nothing else devices seem to take damage (even direct hits) alot better than a human body. So it may well have turned the blow if they tried to stab her directly in the shiny chestplate.

Alternatively, they may have seen her without a staff and stopped to question why this person doesnt have the template's standard issue weapon and not Surprise!shanked her at all.

Or having them together could have allowed her to detect the attack and dodge or protect herself more quickly due to better unity and processing throughput.

But all that is ultimately 'what if' and well never know what may have happened in that situation.

And while you make good points for the TSAB none of which i disagree with... Taylor isnt TSAB, she isnt likely to care that they may have good reasons to take Perfect Storm away under some circumstances. Shes distrustful, paranoid and has noted several times over the fic her fear that something may happen to, or separate her from PS. A possibility she dreads like nothing else. Integration provides a novel solution to the quandary... and if nothing else, what Vista is doing should maybe get her thinking along the lines of augmentation, beyond what is strictly necessary, rather for advantage. From all she knows about Devices, i dont think she would have any reason to think it might be a bad idea.

For its own part Perfect Storm seems like it would love the idea (as long as it was technically feasible and wouldnt hurt Taylor).

Also, the TSAB has limiters and such too, dont forget. Taking a Device away is a quick and dirty way to depower a mage, but if they really needed to lock Taylor down then they have other options even if they cant take her device away. I mean, Hayate is sorta in the same spot... Rein wouldnt let anyone take her away, and Perfect Storm, as Immortal Assimilation Engine, is even scarier juju than The Book of Darkness.
 
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[X] Medium combat arm – Armor plating is limited to the hand and forearm as well as over the shoulder. Enhanced strength and mechashift weapons are available in the hand only. Energy weapons can be wherever. Build time will include ONE TIME SLOT for surgery.
 
[X] Medium combat arm – Armor plating is limited to the hand and forearm as well as over the shoulder. Enhanced strength and mechashift weapons are available in the hand only. Energy weapons can be wherever. Build time will include ONE TIME SLOT for surgery.
 
I'm currently inclined to vote for this, but also intend for her to pick somethign closer to the medium option as described. If thats an acceptable way to do it @Silently Watches ? Since this is more about her /interest/ than the actual build plan.
That's fine.
Also..... is it Fun-Interesting or AngstyPain-Interesting if she goes whole hog into cyberware /because/ she just got dissapointed on the potential of being a Magical Girl?
whynotboth.gif
 
Ready when you are! :p
Unfortunately, this is largely popculture and inaccurate. There is no need for a magical anti-rejection treatment as seen in the Deus Ex series, they simply needed a excuse for augmentation to suck and invented one. People have augmentations today (joint replacements, pacemakers, surgically attached anchor points for prosthetic limbs, and so on) and while it is possible for the human body to reject anything (including its self) medical grade metals and plastics make this a vanishingly unlikely situation. Nanomachines are, likewise, not magic (as seen in Metal Gear) and have a host of disadvantages to go with their imagined benefits.
Never played Dues Ex, though shame on you for even remembering Metal Gear.
As for what little I know about dues Ex, There is precedent and Medical grade plastics and metals tend to be weak and still have a chance of rejection. We can probably wave all of that because Nanoha, Magic/anime don't need to explain shit, but that's still not a reason to like cyborgs.
They are also ALOT more limited in what they can do, and in alot of ways far more of a health hazard than any prosthetic limb, even one that requires extensive surgery to anchor.

The simple fact of the matter is that full replacement of wetware with as-good-or-better hardware is much more direct and will give you much better results than augmenting your wetware with nanoware. You can replace muscle fibers with artificial nanoweave, but to anchor that you need to replace the bone.... so all you really accomplish is turning their organic arm into a metal arm cell-by-cell using far more expensive and finnicky technology instead of simply lopping the old arm off and bolting on a attachment that was built from scratch, with basically the same results. Further more, if your going to assume something like carbon nanoweave muscle strands, then your assuming we have some really high end tech, in which case a single superconductive linear motor in the joint would give stupidly better returns in energy to strength ratios than any sane amount of artificial muscle.

Where nanotech excels is in applications where being solid is not workable. Blood replacement, fighting disease and maybe stimulating healing (or at the very least preventing bloodloss to wounds), alterations to the lymphatic system, chemical control, etc. Beyond that you use nanotech to make augmentions, not as an augmentation.
Current Nanotech, sure.

Stuff that is currently theoretical simply because we haven't developed it rather than because it's scifi/entertainment can go alot further. Not to mention We are talking Nanoha magic tech and Worm Tinkers .

So yes, Nanofiber mesh.

Making cells practically indestructible to anything short of acid/liquid nitrogen/star plasma can be done with Nano-ware simply by weaving carbon nanotubes throughout the cell walls. Same with bones. Add nanotubes that extrude from the cells to twist together you get super strength, immunity to crushing/slicing/puncture/tearing wounds and the cells would still be able to heal and replicate because acid is a fair part of the process.

This isn't even getting into complicated shit like healing swarms which is where the REAL complications begin. That being said, they aren't really needed in most cases.

Having nano-ware slot itself inbetween nerve connections to speed up the transfer speed would increase reflexes, coordination and thought. Get into proper medical grade bullshit and you can jump straight to super-intelligence on the low end and rewriting your brain for fun and profit on the high end, something that no other technology can do realistically without being an advanced brainwashing scheme or needing to wave WSOD in front of your nose.

Biological immortality isn't out of the picture either with nanoware as aging is a function of genetic drift within the cells of the same body; as they start to become strangers you just sort of melt and then die of "natural causes". Nanoware homoginizing your genes across the body would prevent that,.....at the cost of natural evolution.

A much better popular scifi to look at for nano-bullshit would be the Crysis series, though once it starts getting into Ceph magic and AI things get silly. Not impossible, but very very improbable. Just like Metal Gears most reliable stuff.

Still, the crysis nanosuit and alot of it's abilities aren't beyond the reach of nano-ware and honestly could be available in a couple of decades, less given funding, more given political BS. and without the power requirement limiters either save for maybe the cloaking bit.
 
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[ X] Light combat arm – No armor plating, though soft armor is an option. Weapons are limited to hardlight projections and lasers.
 
[x] Heavy combat arm – Armor plating over the entire arm and shoulder. Enhanced strength, mechashift weapons, and energy weapons can be placed anywhere on the arm. Build time will include ONE TIME SLOT for surgery, and this arm will have one fewer weapon than the others would.
 
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As previously stated, I want her to go heavy surgery now for future proofing, then on the actual BUILD, I was going to vote light arm. To ease PR into being okay with her having combat prosthetics before we ramp up to full heavy. I would also accept medium.

EDIT: Restating this because I've seen others bring up similar or the same viewpoint. Wanted to say I totally agree.
 
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I have no idea if this is pushing the line for 'spaghetti posting', but i felt the claims here were so outlandish that i needed to address them individually to make any sort of sense. Please have mercy.
Current Nanotech, sure.

Stuff that is currently theoretical simply because we haven't developed it rather than because it's scifi/entertainment can go alot further. Not to mention We are talking Nanoha magic tech and Worm Tinkers .

So yes, Nanofiber mesh.

Making cells practically indestructible to anything short of acid/liquid nitrogen/star plasma can be done with Nano-ware simply by weaving carbon nanotubes throughout the cell walls. Same with bones. Add nanotubes that extrude from the cells to twist together you get super strength, immunity to crushing/slicing/puncture/tearing wounds and the cells would still be able to heal and replicate because acid is a fair part of the process.

This isn't even getting into complicated shit like healing swarms which is where the REAL complications begin. That being said, they aren't really needed in most cases.
Okay, first of all... This is... wow. I mean, even if you could make cells indestructible (and you cant) it would be a hilariously bad idea. Which actually covers pretty much everything listed here. None of this is workable in real life, and no amount of technology will change that. Say it with me; Nanotechnology is not magic. And there is a wide gulf between 'what is actually possible one day' and 'shit scifi writers think up with no basis in reality'. Handheld communicators? Sure. Just a matter of size and refining the technology. Warp Drive? Not possible. End of story. Your only hope is to find a way to blatantly ignore everything we think we know about physics. Which incidentally is what it would take for most of the stuff you have listed here to actually work.

Nanotubes have a very high tensile strength for their size and you can make other materials stronger by weaving nanotubes into them, but they are not indestructible, not even close, and you cannot use them to make things indestructible. And I'm not talking about stuff like star plasma either. The idea of coating a cell in them would just cage the cell and prevent replication, there are applications for that sorta thing (its being pursued as a cure for diabetes to protect insulin producing cells from your immune system), but doing it to any significant percentage of normal cells is nothing more than a form of suicide. Furthermore, you need to keep in mind that nanotubes are rigid, you cant twist them together or bend them after they are made, they can make flexible materials extremely strong at the macro-scale, but at the level of cells your talking about steel girders in a pool of jello, and they will be about that useful.

Look up Mesothelioma for how that works out.

Having nano-ware slot itself inbetween nerve connections to speed up the transfer speed would increase reflexes, coordination and thought. Get into proper medical grade bullshit and you can jump straight to super-intelligence on the low end and rewriting your brain for fun and profit on the high end, something that no other technology can do realistically without being an advanced brainwashing scheme or needing to wave WSOD in front of your nose.
Oh good god no. What people often forget is that there is a reason nerve induction speeds are not naturally faster than they are, and that the 'gaps' between nerves are just as important as the nerve its self. You cant speed up nerve transmission by sticking nanotechnology in the middle, youd just burn the nerve out. You would need to replace the whole nerve pathway entirely and at that point... you might as well not use nerves at all.

But super intelligence is something other technology can do... and actually really easily. Which is kinda ironic given its the example you used. Straight up virtualization of the mind can accomplish all these things without being physically impossible. Stuff it in a actual super computer and put that in your skull. Waaaay better than anything you could actually do with nanotech in your brain.

Biological immortality isn't out of the picture either with nanoware as aging is a function of genetic drift within the cells of the same body; as they start to become strangers you just sort of melt and then die of "natural causes". Nanoware homoginizing your genes across the body would prevent that,.....at the cost of natural evolution.
Biological immortality isnt impossible with simple biology. You dont need nanotech for that, just genetics. Genetic drift is just one of many (and not even the primary) cause of aging. Telomere length, primordial stem cell count, and like a dozen other things all contribute, and all of those are probably fixable with sufficient genetic wizardry.

That said, natural evolution isnt much of a cost since its kinda rubbish anyway. At this level wed be deciding our own development with no need to turn to nature for recourse.

=

And, beyond all that, even if for a moment we assume you could do all that? That every single thing you have listed here is quite possible? It still pales in comparison to what you could do with hardware instead. If you have the technology to do all that then you have the technology to build something better from the ground up and download a mind into it. All that effort, all that impossibility and the end result would still be inferior. Anything and everything one applies to nanotech also applies to the macro scale, and that is the true beauty of nanotech. Its not what you can do with it... its what you can build with it.

If you can sheath a person's skin in 'nanowave' so durable you need plasma to burn them, then I can build a armoured limb made of inch thick plates of that same material, which you layered so thinly, that would be completely immune to even that. If you can create caron nanotube muscles, I can build super conductive motors. If you can engineer those systems to self repair, then so can I. If you can make someone smarter, then i can download their mind into a quantum computer.

The nature of nanotech is that the benefits scale up and compound, what nanotubes can do to flesh is nothing compared to what they can do to a tungsten plate. While your trying to justify a nanoware transhuman... Ive built their replacements. This applies even to Tinkers and magictech. If they can do something amazing at the nano scale... they can use that same technique to do something even better at the macro scale. Nothing that can ever be injected into a person, to change them from within, will ever be as good as something crafted to purpose without wasting time and effort trying to emulate (or even interact with) silly biological processes. As if those were something sacred and not part of the problem.
 
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[X] Medium combat arm – Armor plating is limited to the hand and forearm as well as over the shoulder. Enhanced strength and mechashift weapons are available in the hand only. Energy weapons can be wherever. Build time will include ONE TIME SLOT for surgery.

Noting I'd strategically switch to Light to avoid Heavy personally.
 
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