That wasn't greed! That was expressing her selfless love for Jade via transforming a whole planet into a place where everyone lives without worries.
Ignition (MTG/Multicross, Planeswalker PC)
- Thread starter Alivaril
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- fairy tail magi: the labyrinth of magic magic the gathering magical girl lyrical nanoha (magical girl) puella magi madoka magica rwby alternate universe spoilers unreliable narrator earned your happy middle feedback appreciated life slowly gets better metaknowledge is overrated never too much fire setting knowledge not required this can only end well what could possibly go wrong?
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Most battles are decided by morale. A symbol to tell your soldiers that one of their gods is fighting with them and your enemy that they're fucked is a powerful effect.
- Location
- Finland
It's easy to avoid greed when you don't actually need anything.
And in some ways Agneyastra going so over the top also helps, because it's easier to notice things when they are the size of a literal planet.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Or maybe the fact that the fire wings was part of the Agni iconography meant that with their Divine spark manifesting the wings was incredibly cheap. Also making them a better conduit for God powers.
Jade might find her wings much cheaper on a plane with a church of Agni. Maybe that will make her get more on board with spreading the religion?
Jade might find her wings much cheaper on a plane with a church of Agni. Maybe that will make her get more on board with spreading the religion?
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- Location
- Germany
As fictionfan wrote, the overchanneling discussion is purely for later, when we actually have mana to burn.
Well, that should change once she actually calculates how much mana summoning the entire party to MGLN while it hasn't yet fully unfrozen (which was explicitly noted to require both more skill and more power) will cost.
Without Dust conversion, we'll have to leave the Ferrets and Sigurd behind and might have to delay summoning Sidhe by a day.
We made a promise to both Nanoha and Side to take them with us whenever possible, and that should have emotional weight.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
We should be able to collect up a bit of land Mana.
Also if we do some exciting things we might be able to bond some more lands.
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- Location
- A Table Near You
Echoing Nactigall—I believe the Overchanneling discussion was for filling the period after completing the sidequest, not before.
Huh. I'm a little surprised by that restraint. Sidereal's supply is probably tiny by the standards of kingdoms, but that can still be a huge amount for any single individual to use.
Speculating a bit on what Unison could look like, assuming it doesn't electrocute Jade or something else equally unpleasant:
- Hair color: Either Agneyastra's light brown, or an intermediate grey. Latter might fit better with other color changes.
- Forehead: A jeweled circlet, imitating a third eye? (A universal feature in djinn-equips, but Agneyastra doesn't have a third eye.)
- Eye color: No change. Vivid 'demigod' red.
- Barrier jacket: Palette swapped to silver-white armor with red highlights, to resemble Agneyastra's robe?
- Back: A floating ribbon/halo of blue-white lightning? (Another feature of djinn-equips; sometimes the ribbon is made out of the appropriate element.)
Overall effect is a divine silver-white aesthetic, incorporating the duel themes of healing (benevolence) and lightning (wrath). No idea how/if the healing affinity would be visually represented, though.
- Location
- Germany
Considering that Uminari is a single-mote land despite being a large city and home to the most powerful mages on Earth-97, and that "Speaking of usable mana, every area outside of Uminari seems to have low concentrations of it", I don't have high hopes for that idea.
The worst-case scenario I once calculated would take 89 motes to summon our friends and ferrets; I don't think tapping sub-mote lands will be enough.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I don't think that we plan on summoning the ferrets or quick summoning our friends. Also I would like to point out that I don't think that we can get enough dust for 89 motes.
38.1.0: Down with Recap Episodes (1 of 3, No Vote)
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Special thanks to @saganatsu, @DB_Explorer, @LonelyWolf999, and my eight other patrons not mentioned here. An enthusiastic pair of "Thank you"s to @Torgamous and @fictionfan for their patronage as well. Numbers going up make my brain produce happy chemicals~
[X] Relay what you learned to your friends (and Sigurd).
"Okay, so, um, briefing? First of all, Kal'enel wasn't too happy about Sigurd sending me over there, but she did bring up the point that he doesn't actually have a wholly human mindset. He's going to make some mistakes while he actually gets the context for everything he thought he knew."
"Basically an extra AI on the team, huh? Context-free definitions are kinda our thing."
"I guess? She said extraplanars have all the wisdom of the world without any of the context. I think they might also pay more attention to successes than failures; nobody notices when a complex plan fails early on, but they are impressed when it succeeds. Anyway, well…"
You trail off and shake your head.
"Actually, why don't I just do the same sort of illusory briefing I do for my dreams? She was a little worried about eavesdroppers, but Linker Core telepathy should be pretty secure, right? Noooot entirely sure how I incorporate telepathy into an illusion, but maybe I can narrate it?"
Sidhe shrugs. "I think you've been doing fairly well so far, but we might pick up something you miss if we see and hear the original version. If that's what you want to do, I have no objections."
"Right. Okay, um, don't freak out. There's some weird soul-stuff somewhere in the middle, but I'm apparently fine. So..."
You aren't able to figure out how one adds a telepathic broadcast to an illusion - at least, not in the five minutes you allot to doing so. Well aware that everyone is waiting on you, the task is discarded and you decide to simply narrate it. You'll need to pay more attention to the illusion, yet it seems as though it'll be good practice.
You then need to spend another ten minutes playing around with your telepathic signature until you can reliably change what others 'hear' from your telepathic messages. The result is an odd hybrid that is still pretty far from the original, but is distinctly different from your own voice.
(Ability Renamed and Improved: Telepathy -> Linker Telepathy [2 -> 5])
You preemptively hug Agneyastra before you get to the part with Prince Surya. She returns it without question. It's only when Kal'enel details his fate that comprehension seems to dawn. Rather than being horrified or unhappy, she looks bemused. The illusion momentarily stutters as Agneyastra follows her reaction with a private transmission. You manage to split your attention and maintain the
"I will be perfectly fine, Daughter. I am not saddened by Prince Surya's fate beyond the impact it had on you. You deserved a better childhood, a larger family, and servants to care for you. I cannot change the past to give you any of those, Jade; I may only do my utmost to ensure you remain happy in the present and future."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
Agneyastra gives you a quick squeeze. You're tempted to produce an undignified squeaking noise for the sake of a lame joke, but your self-control wins out.
"I am," she answers firmly. "You are my primary motivator and only concern, Jade. Prince Surya isn't even on the list. He is a historical figure and your ancestor, nothing more."
You think you can be forgiven if your smile is a little dazed. Agneyastra's devotion to you would be self-destructive in a normal human, but she was designed to serve you. She can be suppressed with Blue, yet she will never be turned against you. Yes, her beliefs are a tiny bit twisted. But unlike almost anyone else, arguing with her about them won't engender any sort of dislike or resentment. Her love is utterly unconditional.
You're a little proud of your ability to maintain the illusion despite the warm fuzzies consuming the majority of your focus. You're that much happier when you're able to notice an apparent flaw in the timeline given to you by Kal'enel. You switch back to the party-wide telepathy channel.
"Hey, wait a second. If Prince Surya got his Spark before Suryastra's death, how was Mom commissioned in the first place? The timeline seems a little weird. I know I got catapulted straight out of my home plane when I first ignited."
Provided, you were held back at the time, but the monster who did that to you is basically dead. You still can't avoid a small shudder, but you think you do a pretty good job of moving past the memory.
"It is possible the fragments took some time to properly merge with Surya's soul," Agneyastra answers. "Agni soul science may-"
"Could you two please wait until the illusion is done?" Sidhe asks distractedly. "It's easier to review memories later when I just have one train of thought to worry about."
You puff your cheeks and focus on the illusion. You have perfect recall; you can always ask her afterward.
As soon as the illusion ends, you pointedly repeat your earlier question in the same mental tone as before.
"If Prince Surya got his Spark before Suryastra's death, how was Mom commissioned in the first place? The timeline seems a little weird."
Agneyastra raises one eyebrow and skips ahead to where you left off. You suppose it would've been a little petty to do the full recap.
"Agni soul science may have been quite advanced, but something as ruthless as excising Divine Sparks and transferring them to another? Our enemies tried, and failed, to make such a thing possible. I would be surprised if the assimilation process was instantaneous or painless."
Agneyastra 'hesitates' for exactly one second before continuing.
"I suspect someone or something played with his priorities. Suryastra was supposed to have Prince Surya as his primary motivator, the royal Agni as his secondary, and the branch families as his tertiary. I believe the branch families were removed entirely while Prince Surya and the royal family either had their positions switched or were placed on the same level. If done wrong, Prince Surya's desires may have been rendered irrelevant. It is possible Suryastra knowingly sacrificed Prince Surya's health so that he might produce stronger descendants."
You huff unhappily and try to cross your arms while still maintaining your hug. It doesn't work very well. Since you have to sacrifice one of the two, you decide to continue the hug and ditch the annoyed gesture.
"Whoever implemented the anti-immortality thingie on your plane really needs to be taken out and shot. You have souls; you shouldn't be one flipped switch away from being omnicidal. Really, your whole plane shouldn't be one good push away from another species-wide rollback."
"Your homeworld has already developed and distributed mass-based fission weaponry," Agneyastra notes drily. "Humans do an excellent job of threatening themselves without any outside help. Any blocks on immortality may have been intended to protect inhabitants from undying threats; we might be threatened by the machines of past civilizations, but their citizens are long gone."
"That excuse falls flat when it might be blocking AI immortality by making them actively homicidal. Just look at the Book of Darkness: she's supposed to act as a time capsule for magic and technology, but all someone needed to do was remove her prohibition against harming humans and suddenly she's one of the deadliest Lost Logia around."
"Was she sabotaged or weaponized?" Sidhe asks carefully.
"Weaponized, remember? You…"
You trail off and scowl as the memories vanish. No wonder Neph has a hard time keeping timelines straight.
"Lost it," you finish. "I mean, I lost it. The memories. Not sanity. Thanks for trying, though."
"Succeeding, actually," Sidhe muses. "There's a pretty big difference between the two. A saboteur might've done everything they could to turn her into an unstoppable force of destruction. Weaponizing her would mean someone would want to be able to stop her. Did any of those Belkan rulers ever fight it?"
"The Book of Darkness has been previously opposed by Saints," Agneyastra answers. "Unfortunately, both sabotage and conventional repurposing would still involve turning the Book of Darkness into a weapon. The only difference is who it's pointed at. It is possible any offending technicians underestimated just how devastating the Book would become; they may have assumed they could simply set it loose in enemy territory and let it do as much damage as possible before someone managed to stop it. It isn't an outstandingly uncommon tale; there are so many devastating Lost Logia that nobody expects their own creations to actually enter the list. The bar for 'unstoppable' has simply been raised too high.
"In parts of the Slao Cluster, there have been a series of protests regarding various self-repair systems recently deployed by multiple member worlds. There are many who believe that including self-repair systems in any sort of weapon is unacceptably amoral. Time will claim any artifact that can't repair itself. Durable world-killers are born from those that can."
"Mmmm. Any idea why the BoD went all Skynet? She's supposed to be a literal worldkiller, right? I'd expect even a knowledge-hungry AI to leave survivors, if only so they gather more knowledge she can grab later."
"For obvious reasons, there are no confirmed theories regarding the Book's omnicidal tendencies. Some cling to the belief that it is trying to 'save' humans in addition to its original tasks. A more popular hypothesis espouses the idea that Bode views humans one big collection of genetic information, with an emphasis on 'collection.' Comparisons have been made to collections containing every figurine from a given franchise even if preexisting figures are almost completely identical."
"Or, if they are identical, that they were owned by someone famous or something before they made it into your hands," Mitra adds. "Anyway, you shouldn't get your hopes up as far as reprogramming the Book is concerned. It's believed to rival Midchilda's Infinite Library in terms of stored knowledge and definitely has enough biological information to make artificial vessels and Linker Cores. People have been trying to hack it for centuries and each attempt just hardens its defenses against that type of attack."
You slowly exhale through your nose. If the Book of Darkness was created after the Agni Empire, there's a pretty good chance it's never encountered a Red mage before. White mages in the form of Belkan Saints, sure, but not a Red mage. Burning the yoke of oppression is kinda your thing.
"Neph told m—Neph said I'd be able to peek at Bode's link to Hayate before it was anywhere close to activating. I might be able to see more of the Book after that. I'm not going to plan to reprogram it, but I'm also not going to dismiss the possibility before I know it's impossible."
"Any attempts to do so would need something it hasn't encountered yet," Mitra warns. "It'd need to be quick, too. If it comes to a battle of endurance or vitality, everyone dies. Remember what your mom just said about self-repair systems? The Book of Darkness popularized that mindset. The only vulnerabilities it's known to have are freezing and temporal magic, and frost doesn't even work if it's in empty space at the time. The first is believed to briefly distract it while it analyzes the frozen versions of everything near it. The second is obvious."
Sidhe's visibly budding interest quickly attracts Mom's attention.
"Its active mass is larger than the combined masses of every object orbiting Earthland, Sidhe."
"Especially after what we did to one of them," you can't resist adding. "Om nom nom."
"Even if you 'Overchanneled,' I would be surprised if you bought more than a moment or two."
"But it's probably not familiar with ice made by Blue magic, right?" Sidhe argues. "An effect without cause would probably distract it for a fair amount of time."
"Multiple seconds is a fair amount of time. This is an artifact that literally has over a cubic kilometer of processing and data storage shuffled away in something similar to Agneyastra's subspace storage. Its scans are the slow part."
"We're really just leaving the problem for someone else if we just 'kill' it, though," Nanoha notes unhappily. "We can't just not do anything about it."
You break off your hug and make a beeline for Nanoha. There's something disproportionately satisfying about seeing her eyes widen in the moments before you hug her. She really brought it upon herself with how often she's hugged you.
"And we don't need to. As long as we keep Hayate safe and calm while the Jewel Seeds are falling, we should be able to postpone the Book of Darkness problem for at least a little while. We can ask Kyubey's controller for advice on overwhelming Blue attacks after we get a breather."
There's a long, but comfortable, silence before Sigurd feels the need to break it.
:Is your life really weird enough that nobody is going to comment on the composite soul thing?:
"I guess?" you mumble.
The rest of your friends aren't half as hesitant.
"Definitely."
"I see no reason to dwell on it when I know it to be harmless."
"It's not weird when revelations are part of your daily routine."
"We already thought there might be extra people in her soul. This is actually a step down."
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- Location
- A Table Near You
...and now I have a mental image of the BoD as otaku Skynet. No wonder it's such a terrible threat to all of humanity.
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Comfortable silences! Hugs initiated by Jade!
...and Sigurd, that's the kind of reaction I've been waiting for so long!
I can't help but agree here, It's basically the thread unspoken consensus on sparkly eyes.
It's funny, but also puts in perspective how much it must have helped Jade the fact Nanoha and Sidhe simply believed her when she made her absolutely baseless (yet truthful) claims about new abilities and such.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Seems to me that we would want at least unison to have both Mana magic and fast thinking speed.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*looks for a photoshop-mustached or baseball cap version of Reinforce Zwei*
...Okay, well, I didn't find that, but apparently there are a ton of figurine, cosplay, and promotional-image versions of Reinforce. I knew there were a bunch for the Nanoha franchise in general, but damn
EDIT: I hereby retract the above claim. Reinforce is surprisingly popular, but she's still not on the level of Nanoha or Fate.
You'll bring up attempting Unison in the next story post; a glance at the tally might show it as 4/9, but that's because someone did a variant on it. Intent brings it higher.
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Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
Thing is, we're kinda the person in the best position to pull something it has never seen before. I mean, hell, if we really wanna pull something bizarre and previously unknown, the best place to look is probably Earthland. On the extreme end, there's always Iced Shell. Sure, it's lethal to the caster, but, according to the wiki, you could have a clone use it. So there's that idea. Less extreme options would be various types of Ice Slayer, or various sorts of temporal magic. And there's probably even more obscure spells I'm not thinking of.
Might also be something worthwhile on XCom, either in the form of useful Psionics, advanced tech that does things unseen on MGLN, or ways to blend Psionics and other sorts of tech, like the Codex. A Psionic virus, perhaps?
And that's assuming we don't want to do something really
It should also be noted that having at least part of the Book of Darkness on our side might be a game-changer. Turns it from external interference to internal conflict. That seems relevant, when it comes to hacking the thing. Since we're probably only going to be willing to even try hacking it if the Book's AI seems friendly/reasonable, that does seem to help our case.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I know this was brainstorming, but for this record, this is utterly vetoed. Do you want an
Oh, good, you're aware.
Grief might actually have been a viable idea if not for the fact that it's a relative to Black mana in behavior and usage. Analyzing a Grief Seed might distract the BoD for a bit, but it may then be significantly closer to actually being able to detect and manipulate mana in general.
EDIT:
If nothing else, outside-context phenomena may distract and delay an active Book of Darkness as it tries to understand what it's looking at.
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Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
Oh, indeed. I'm just slightly drunk on oxy-dep right now, and the mental image of people's reactions produced by suggesting "let's take the Big Bad Dangerous things from other planes to set against the BoD" made posting that irresistible.I know this was brainstorming, but for this record, this is utterly vetoed. Do you want an Eldrazi titan? Because this is how you get an Eldrazi titan.
Oh, good, you're aware.
Huh. So...same would apply to giving some jackass a Dark Djinn Vessel, or something equivalent? I mean, I'm sure we could find someone who's horrible enough that Jade would be willing to sacrifice them to make a Dark Djinn...
...So, collect a menagerie of weird sh*t from other planes, and unleash it all at once on the BoD. The sheer number of weird things would potentially be enough to keep it busy for longer, as it has to pick which thing to focus on next. That's...an idea, I guess. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.
Edit: Oh yeah, speaking of weird Earthland spells to unleash on the BoD...how about Historia of the Dead? Unleashing every, or even just a collection of the most powerful, mage(s) it's fought over the course of history, would probably be a touch distracting for it.
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I think, you meant "Surya's".
BoD
Hello, autocorrupt...
IIRC, Agneyastra said that her subspace doesn't protect souls from BE, if not unsuitable for them in general. Especially considering that the Chosen aren't that well soul-wise to begin with, they won't survive the trip.
A copy summon, on the other hand, may take significant time to scan. Agneyastra would know.
Copy-summons are a thing here: we han have Copy-Sidhe use a self-sacrifice technique if needed. Although I expect Jade finding difficulty basically what's almost ordering Sidhe to kill herself.
Still, if we distract the BoD it doesn't solve the main issue here, "and then what?"
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
It is people talking so that might be how they are pronouncing it.
- Location
- A Table Near You
*glances at the
So that's why Reinforce had such a high Unison compatibility with Hayate. "Ideal master" indeed.
Yeah... going to side with the AIs on this one. Attempting to hack or repair the BoD is insanely risky. We're talking about a nigh-unstoppable rogue superintelligence that eats Linker Cores and planets for breakfast, and has rejected all attempts at diplomacy in the past. Merely awakening the BoD is incredibly dangerous. We probably wouldn't even consider the possibility of fixing it if it wasn't for canon.
Which isn't to say we should completely rule it out—mana is an outside-context solution, after all—just that it's a really, really bad idea to make that our Plan A or B.
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
I don't think that Jade will have any problem ordering a copy to kill itself. She is well aware that they are not people.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Those were actually deliberate as an alternative way to pronounce BoD besides "Bee-oh-Dee." (Bode would be "Buh-ode")
...NINJAS. (I'm always happy to be ninja'd; it means some people understood.
)Copy-summons just look like weird (larger) Unison Avatars until they start throwing magic around. They become a curiosity afterward.
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- Location
- California
If we aren't going to hack the BoD, and trying to destroy it is just poking the sleeping dragon, is there any reason we can't get rid of it by taking it with us when we leave the plane and just dropping it mid transit? I'm given to understand that the Blind Eternities are rather endemic to anything without a spark and causes terminal existence failure rather quickly. Book gone problem solved?
Script Mak3r
(Verified Sun God) (Verified Feathers)
- Location
- Hell of Blazing Fires
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And then, at the worst possible moment, the flip side of the luck that made us an actual Princess hits, and the BoD becomes a Planeswalker.