- Location
- Tromso, Norway.
For whatever reason, in video games that give you a lettered high score, S is considered better than A. That's probably where Nanoha and potentially where Wildbow got it from.
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
- Location
- Erebus
true... but if we were to forge some ice aspect mana catridges... just pumping ourselves on catridges normally won't help much with the conversation issue and would give us the additional problem of mana poisoning, but with a specific battery for the ice spell?
Archeo Lumiere
The Prince's Archivist
- Location
- Lumiose City, Kalos
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Presuming it would only be us using them, I'm not sure why it would be an issue.
- Location
- Erebus
It started because of Japan's grading system back in the 60's. Normally you have a 4.0 grading scale, but for AP classes you have a 5.0. S for "specialized" was the designation for that, and it carried on to their comics and anime in the 70's and 80's and then video games in the early 80's and 90's.
- Location
- Erebus
Sry bout the double post.
Us or someone else wouldn't matter much, the issue is getting around the conversion drain. Acording to SW we lose something like 50% with each conversion and have to convert twice, first for fire to neutral then from neutral to ice, so we're spending 4 times more mana to cast ice spells as intended using our fire aspect mana. Having a catridge, or secondary battery system for ice spells would...should...allow us to bypass that by doing it beforehand when overusing mana isn't a bother.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
That's… not how cartridges work. Like, not even close.
- Location
- Russia
That's not even how Nanoha works. They don't have "elemental" spells or elements altogether as far as I'm aware.
Conclave
A still more glorious dawn
- Location
- Ravnica
There is, but Elemental Conversion requires an affinity for it. Mana Conversion Affinity
- Location
- Erebus
Well, it doesn't go into detail in the Wiki, and your explanation of the issues with Ice beam offered a simple logic. Mind explaining?
As I understand it, Cartridges are condesnsed mana. To make the cartridges, you use your own mana, which would hold your affinity. Burn the cartridge, it releases the stored mana through your core in a burst, and you cast he spell without the needed windup. The problem with Ice beam is that it still suffers the conversaion issue same as normal. So the mana you're injecting still has to be converted, twice, before being used. But if you converted the mana before condensing it into the cartridge, then the conversion process could be bypassed under battlefield conditions.
Last edited:
- Location
- Russia
I'm not Silently, but from my understanding, Cartridges house pure mana, with no essence, no alignment, nothing else beyond pure mana power. That way they're universally useful for absolutely any spell you might want to cast.
The parahuman experiment is to leave things alone and see what happens. If the experiment is over, they'll just go back to their normal level of interference instead of leaving things alone. And it's not clear that Coil is a big enough threat for them to bother with at their normal level of interference.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
They do technically, but the only elements we see in canon are alternate forms of energy (fire and lightning), and interestingly both on the EM spectrum. I've added ice (and yes, I know that cold is the absence of energy, not energy in itself) and Flare mostly because I like variety and things that come in threes or fours. And Flare… kind of doesn't count.
The way I understand the process, what is stored in cartridges is pure, unconverted, just like it's found in nature mana. That's how people can use each other's cartridges, which is seen in canon. When consumed, that stored mana enters the Linker Core, becomes aligned with the user's MCA should they have one, and is then pushed into a spell.
Unconverted mana is used for cartridges because it is nonreactive and non-volatile. You can store it fairly long term. If converted mana were to be stored, it would manifest as that element and wind up burning, irradiating, freezing, or electrifying the physical cartridge itself, leaving you with at best an empty cartridge case and at worst an injured teammate.
The other problem with your idea is that Taylor can't align the mana in her Linker Core with ice. Her Linker Core is aligned with flare (technically fire; it's complicated), and so her choices of mana flavor are limited to flare/fire and regular. That's it. The only reason Frost Beam works for her in the first place is that the spell program contains a subroutine of sorts that realigns the energy into its opposite affinity automatically. She feels so tired after casting Frost Beam because that process is inherently inefficient, so the spell winds up sucking a lot of mana out of her to fuel itself.
Last edited:
- Location
- Boston(ish)
So... could an ice mage make a doohickey that contains ice-aligned mana and then give it to Taylor in trade for a fire-aligned doodad, or would the mana being out of alignment make things go sideways?
Edit: Also, I know Cailleach's parahuman power and potential magic (if any) have nothing to do with each other, but I'd like to propose a new General Policy whereby Taylor scans anyone and everyone she works with for linker-cores just so she/we know and can plan our future magical girl squad accordingly. Unless said scan is invasive or obvious or something?
Edit2: we can even cite the unfortunate dashing of Vista's hopes as the cause of the behavior since knowing in advance means we know if we should offer to teach them magic or keep quiet on the topic.
Last edited:
Crusader Jerome
Subsisting on Supplication
- Location
- My home away from Rome
According to the wiki, the A's guidebook mentions a 'freezing' affinity, but no character in canon has possessed it.
It's not invasive, but it is very obvious. As in, airport scanner obvious.
You can create Storage Devices keyed to specific spells which can contain their own elemental affinities, and Unison Devices come with affinities/rare skills like any other mage.
E.g. Durandal in As is a device built for the purpose of casting one specific Freeze affinity spell, Eternal Coffin, and in Strikers theres Agito the Fire Affinity unison device(noting that Rein Zwei's own element is ice, which is why she has crappy compatibility with Signum despite being from the same 'set').
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
As veekie mentioned, you can create a Device optimized for a particular spell, but I literally just said that you can't store ice- or fire-aligned mana.
No.
#1 it's obvious when you scan for a linker core, and #2 I've already said scanning is going to be a plot-important event. You can't do it in the background or by default.
So the reason we didn't get along with Tattletale way back when was because our disagreement did NOT come to blows, as that was necessary in order to Befriend her?
Does that mean we have a second chance to recruit Tattletale to our cause after all and we just need to Befriend her Nanoha style by defeating her during this raid first?
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Just a little progress report. If I were to close the vote right now, only Dragon and Vista would be coming along. For a potential extra member, so far we have the following:
Chevalier has 19 votes (41.3% of current voters)
Cailleach has 18 votes (39.1%)
Miss Militia has 15 votes (32.6%)
It's pretty close right now, but unless one of them surpasses 50% when I do close the vote, that third slot will remain empty.
Chevalier has 19 votes (41.3% of current voters)
Cailleach has 18 votes (39.1%)
Miss Militia has 15 votes (32.6%)
It's pretty close right now, but unless one of them surpasses 50% when I do close the vote, that third slot will remain empty.
- Location
- Erebus
faaa....its a pity Epoch only has 11.
Crusader Jerome
Subsisting on Supplication
- Location
- My home away from Rome
So we need to bring one of these over 23. I've added Chevalier to mine, which means he needs 4 more, Cailleach needs 6, and Miss Militia needs 7.
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
While I don't quite like adding Chevalier, almost any third would be better than just going with two. So I've added Chevalier to my vote as well.
Archeo Lumiere
The Prince's Archivist
- Location
- Lumiose City, Kalos
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
[x] Cailleach
[x] Vista
[x] Dragon
[x] Vista
[x] Dragon
