Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
A question for those of us who've never read Worm and a few general ones.
1.How many Dragon Slayers are there?
2.How many are attacking right now?
3.How sturdy is the power armor they use?
4.What are they likely armed with?
1.How many Dragon Slayers are there?
2.How many are attacking right now?
3.How sturdy is the power armor they use?
4.What are they likely armed with?
Regarding 1-
3 IIRC: Saint, Mags, and Dobrynja.
Regarding 2-
Likely all of them.
Regarding 3-
Well, most of Dragon's suits are rated for combat ops if need be, so I would expect them to be at least durable to attack.
Regarding 4-
Likely missiles, perhaps lasers or some other direct fire weapon as well. The exact loadout is up to Silently Watches though.
I can answer to this. Not sturdy enough. When we go big we're literally measured on kilotons.
Only with Ragnarok, and that is not an ideal strategy for this engagement.
Solar Wrath is a Casaba Howizer in all but name as well.
DonLyn
Verified Soulless Bureaucrat
It might be a good idea to ping @Always Late , otherwise your question might be overlooked.
I do agree that Hacking would be compatible with the Reaper of Steel plan, mostly since Perfect Storm would be doing all the work in the background without Taylor being in any way inconvenienced by it.
Always Late, what do you think about incorporating Temporal Sludge into your plan? Even if we don't hit the Dragonslayers themselves, patches of slowed time 20 meters in diameter should make it easier to shoot down incoming missiles.
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
We'll have to place those patches close to the ship so as to cover the widest possible angles of attack vectors. And explosions at that distance would probably be too close to comfort. I think.
Also, if we make Taylor to juggle too many spells at once, Silently Watches might decide we've made the plan too complicated and penalize Taylor with worse roll results due to "getting confused over what she's doing".
DonLyn
Verified Soulless Bureaucrat
Well, if the missiles get that close in the first place then that means that every second the Sludge gains us is another seconds that were can use to either get out of vast Strong Shield.
As to complexity: I don't think that casting a field of Sludges every minute in addition to spamming shooters is all that mentally taxing.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
*that feeling when you're pinged over the QM*
The hacking I didn't think about initially, but upon further thought I want to save as an ace up our sleeve. A counter to Ascalaon.
Given Taylor's insane thinking speed and the whole mental partition thing going on, that's not really needed. If it's not enough, we're better off letting Strong Shield tank it while Taylor focuses on downing the Slayer suits.
DonLyn
Verified Soulless Bureaucrat
Because we pinged the person who thinks Sam uses a bone sword because of their knowledge of the quest, not because they are in control of the plan Faraway-R had a question about.
That would require us to start the counter-hack the moment Ascalon activates, even though we have no way of knowing about it. Hell, we don't even know that it exists or that Dragon is an AI.
I think trying to hack them now in the hopes of apprehending them (and surviving the encounter) would be more prudent. It might even be the thing to allow us to learn about the whole situation in the first place.
Taylor has insane thinking speed and mental partitions? I must have missed that.
Can someone spot me a link or quote where that is show-cased?
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
@Silently Watches, as per your request, I'm reminding you that you okayed posting multiple omakes in one post to get multiple points.
Random Encounters (Part 1)
Random Encounters (Part 2)
The omakes are now over. I'd like to put two points in (i.e. purchase) Ring Bind for Tim.
Actually, there's two more on the way still. But it needs a bit more time.
Now for the answers.
Random Encounters (Part 1)
Alex Crowley was waiting in the back of the van, sitting with his partners, Frederick 'Call me Rick' Trent and Vince Marsters, while their driver, Thaddeus 'Call me Ted' Grant was putting them into position.
"We'll be there in three minutes, boys," came the warning from up front. Nodding to himself, Alex had decided to do a last minute gear check. Rick and Ted were doing much the same.
Heavy boots. Check. Grey pants. Check. Belt. Check. Gun holster. Check. Pistol. Check. SMG. Check. Ammunition. Check. Safety. On. Black sweater. Check. Dark blue jacket. Check. Mask. To the side, laying on the empty duffel bag. Gloves. On hands.
Alex picked up the mask and pulled it on, completing his disguise. He then drew his submachine gun, thumbed the safety off, and chambered the first round before resetting the safety. He then put the gun back, with some care – it would not do to shoot himself by accident in this part of operation. From the corner of his eye, he watched as his partners completed their own last minute preparations.
"Thirty seconds, on my mark. Heads in the game," came Ted's voice. As Alex prepared his hands – one removing the safety belt and grasping the duffel bag, the other holding onto a safety rail, he heard Ted's signal: "Mark."
Thirty seconds later, a nondescript dirty blue van stopped just to the side of the entrance to one of the branch banks in Philly. A modest haul, as far as armed robberies go, but a given that most successful banks jobs only got seven and a half thousand dollars on average, the projected sixty-five to seventy grand for a team of four for this location made it a very good target from the cost-benefit assessment. Less than thirty seconds after that, both cashiers and the lone guard had M16-lookalike Colt 9mm SMGs aimed in their direction, courtesy of Rick and Vince correspondingly. Three duffel bags were dumped unceremoniously in front of the cashiers.
Now to ensure there will be no surprises, thought Alex. Ted was the getaway driver, so he stayed behind the wheel, ready to move. Rick's part was ensuring the cashiers did what they were told and loaded the bags up with money. Vince was there to ensure nobody was trying anything foolhardy, keeping the eye on guards and customers present. Alex himself had picked the task of checking the smaller rooms and the toilets and herding the strays to under Vince's sights. He looked ahead to see the restroom door lit around the borders like in a bad mystery flick for a second, and wasted no time in pointing the gun towards the source of trouble. Ten seconds later, the room opened and a man in thick brown coveralls and tinted welder's goggles walked out, a green pyramid on his left shoulder. This guy doesn't look like one of the local heroes or vigilantes, nor one of the state ones. A surprisingly decent costume for an unknown though, Alex made a mental note.
"Cape!" Alex called out, making Rick and Vince angle to keep both their respective tasks, and this new problem, in sight. The problem made three steps forward.
"How about the three of you turn and walk out, and nobody gets hurt." was the slightly nervous tone of the new arrival on the scene, confronted with three guns.
"How about no." Was Alex's immediate reply, followed up by a single shot, then two more in the cape's general direction. "DOWN ON THE GROUND, HANDS IN THE AIR! DO IT OR I WILL KILL YOU!" This was the plan for dealing with complications of parahuman variety, the same way cops handle suspects during a break-in: Keep them confused, don't let them get a plan, be absolutely willing to pull the trigger. Contrary to Alex's expectations, however, the cape barely staggered, then hmm'd, and waved in Alex' general direction, his hand glowing and one of his goggle lens seemingly flickering. Not wanting to be caught in whatever the cape was trying, he tried to move only to be jarred by something holding his ankles and wrists in position, the bands of light coalescing as he looked. Alex suppressed a curse, but he heard some muttered from both Rick and Vince's directions, and felt a chill. Luckily, his and his partners guns were still pointed in the cape's general direction, and they proceeded to open fire at the cape that caught them.
The cape staggered back under the onslaught, taking two and a half steps back, putting himself near the door from which he entered. As the gunshots were replaced by the clicks indicative of empty magazines, Alex heard the cape swore: "Fuck, getting shot hurts!" Oh hell, this guy's a brute! Alex thought as he saw the cape regain his balance, and started advancing to the now-helpless would-be-robbers.
Alex noted the sound of a car driving away in a hurry. That, too, was planned, and discussed beforehand. The agreement was that if something happens to a team member or the team as a whole in the bank, everyone else'd would leave as soon as possible with what money they could get and arrange for their later extraction from custody. And next time, I'm packing for brutes – let's see how you like being hit with explosives from an AA-12, Alex thought with a bit of viciousness, noting the discomfort in the cape's posture, likely pain from being pelted with small arms fire.
AN: Thanks to @Always Late for taking time to look this over. The description of Tim's costume (such as it is) was lifted from Maskless 6.4, and spruced up a bit (the green tetrahedron is the Sextant's base form like Raising Heart's red sphere, and in this omake it unfolds into goggles). Guns used or mentioned in this omake include Colt 9mm SMG and AA-12 automatic shotgun.
"We'll be there in three minutes, boys," came the warning from up front. Nodding to himself, Alex had decided to do a last minute gear check. Rick and Ted were doing much the same.
Heavy boots. Check. Grey pants. Check. Belt. Check. Gun holster. Check. Pistol. Check. SMG. Check. Ammunition. Check. Safety. On. Black sweater. Check. Dark blue jacket. Check. Mask. To the side, laying on the empty duffel bag. Gloves. On hands.
Alex picked up the mask and pulled it on, completing his disguise. He then drew his submachine gun, thumbed the safety off, and chambered the first round before resetting the safety. He then put the gun back, with some care – it would not do to shoot himself by accident in this part of operation. From the corner of his eye, he watched as his partners completed their own last minute preparations.
"Thirty seconds, on my mark. Heads in the game," came Ted's voice. As Alex prepared his hands – one removing the safety belt and grasping the duffel bag, the other holding onto a safety rail, he heard Ted's signal: "Mark."
Thirty seconds later, a nondescript dirty blue van stopped just to the side of the entrance to one of the branch banks in Philly. A modest haul, as far as armed robberies go, but a given that most successful banks jobs only got seven and a half thousand dollars on average, the projected sixty-five to seventy grand for a team of four for this location made it a very good target from the cost-benefit assessment. Less than thirty seconds after that, both cashiers and the lone guard had M16-lookalike Colt 9mm SMGs aimed in their direction, courtesy of Rick and Vince correspondingly. Three duffel bags were dumped unceremoniously in front of the cashiers.
Now to ensure there will be no surprises, thought Alex. Ted was the getaway driver, so he stayed behind the wheel, ready to move. Rick's part was ensuring the cashiers did what they were told and loaded the bags up with money. Vince was there to ensure nobody was trying anything foolhardy, keeping the eye on guards and customers present. Alex himself had picked the task of checking the smaller rooms and the toilets and herding the strays to under Vince's sights. He looked ahead to see the restroom door lit around the borders like in a bad mystery flick for a second, and wasted no time in pointing the gun towards the source of trouble. Ten seconds later, the room opened and a man in thick brown coveralls and tinted welder's goggles walked out, a green pyramid on his left shoulder. This guy doesn't look like one of the local heroes or vigilantes, nor one of the state ones. A surprisingly decent costume for an unknown though, Alex made a mental note.
"Cape!" Alex called out, making Rick and Vince angle to keep both their respective tasks, and this new problem, in sight. The problem made three steps forward.
"How about the three of you turn and walk out, and nobody gets hurt." was the slightly nervous tone of the new arrival on the scene, confronted with three guns.
"How about no." Was Alex's immediate reply, followed up by a single shot, then two more in the cape's general direction. "DOWN ON THE GROUND, HANDS IN THE AIR! DO IT OR I WILL KILL YOU!" This was the plan for dealing with complications of parahuman variety, the same way cops handle suspects during a break-in: Keep them confused, don't let them get a plan, be absolutely willing to pull the trigger. Contrary to Alex's expectations, however, the cape barely staggered, then hmm'd, and waved in Alex' general direction, his hand glowing and one of his goggle lens seemingly flickering. Not wanting to be caught in whatever the cape was trying, he tried to move only to be jarred by something holding his ankles and wrists in position, the bands of light coalescing as he looked. Alex suppressed a curse, but he heard some muttered from both Rick and Vince's directions, and felt a chill. Luckily, his and his partners guns were still pointed in the cape's general direction, and they proceeded to open fire at the cape that caught them.
The cape staggered back under the onslaught, taking two and a half steps back, putting himself near the door from which he entered. As the gunshots were replaced by the clicks indicative of empty magazines, Alex heard the cape swore: "Fuck, getting shot hurts!" Oh hell, this guy's a brute! Alex thought as he saw the cape regain his balance, and started advancing to the now-helpless would-be-robbers.
Alex noted the sound of a car driving away in a hurry. That, too, was planned, and discussed beforehand. The agreement was that if something happens to a team member or the team as a whole in the bank, everyone else'd would leave as soon as possible with what money they could get and arrange for their later extraction from custody. And next time, I'm packing for brutes – let's see how you like being hit with explosives from an AA-12, Alex thought with a bit of viciousness, noting the discomfort in the cape's posture, likely pain from being pelted with small arms fire.
AN: Thanks to @Always Late for taking time to look this over. The description of Tim's costume (such as it is) was lifted from Maskless 6.4, and spruced up a bit (the green tetrahedron is the Sextant's base form like Raising Heart's red sphere, and in this omake it unfolds into goggles). Guns used or mentioned in this omake include Colt 9mm SMG and AA-12 automatic shotgun.
Random Encounters (Part 2)
Tim was really glad Taylor had suggested he work on building his medical suite when she did. Those gunshots hurt! The silver linings, however, were a bit better than he expected.
On one hand, he now knew he was bullet resistant, and could rely on his Hazard Jacket to take care of some of the problems. Tim estimated he'd be able to survive being pelted by shrapnel from an explosion, so long as that explosion was minor.
On the other hand, Tim had been able to test the Ring Bind, and it worked almost as advertised. He'd have to work on the spell forcing the captives into some kind of a preset pose though, like 'not pointing a gun at me or anyone'.
On the gripping hand, even without delving into surgery, the basic treatments provided by the medical suite allowed him to remove the bruises sustained in the bank robbery, so he now felt healthy and whole, as opposed to beaten black and blue.
The clouds coming with those silver linings were somewhat problematic, but nothing he couldn't handle. On the robbery side, he had needed to spend some time explaining himself to the PRT responders, as, being a mostly law-abiding citizen, he stayed to make sure the robbers didn't get off on a technicality. On the Ring Bind side, he felt keenly the lack of something more offensive. Had there been more attackers, he'd have been in trouble. Perhaps building a magical taser for self-defense or something? And…
"Hey, gringo! Catch!"
Shipwright had wasted no time in rolling out from behind the dumpster and deeper into the alley. Mere seconds later, his previous location was subject to a thrown grenade, which promptly exploded. Feeling the sting of the shrapnel bits bouncing off his back, he was certainly glad he was right about surviving that almost unscathed. As that seemed to be the only grenade those MS-13 Sicarios had on them, he could now start turning the tables.
"Strong Shield!" Tim was determined to prove he had learned from the robbery, and he had no desire to be shot. As the magical defense appeared, the troopers started unloading their assault rifles on the Transcendent Gadgeteer. The shield weathered the storm of bullets admirably, proving to be a superior defense to the basic Hazard Jacket, and Tim let out a sigh of relief. He really didn't want to find out whether Hazard Jacket would let him live through something with better penetration than simple pistol bullets, the hard way. As the trio of shooters expended their magazines and decided to reload, Shipwright took advantage and caught them in a Ring Bind.
Wait, weren't there five of them? Trusting his intuition, Tim glanced to his back, just in time to notice the missing goons rounding the corner of the alley on the other end. A swiftly recast Strong Shield served as an adequate protection from the attack. Before Tim could sigh in relief, he heard something that made him pale.
"Don't think I missed you moving that fancy glowing barrier. There's still two of us, let's see how you like defending from both sides!" As Tim opened his mouth to give a rebuttal, he was interrupted by the call from one of the captured criminals still at his back:
"And if you're thinking to bluff with capturing them as you did us, then I'll say if you could have done that you would have already. Gut this skinny gringo, hermanos!"
Tim slightly wilted, and taking that as confirmation, one of the Sicarios at the tail end of the alley turned around and jogged out of sight. I've got to get out of here. Wish I had Recursion Field, there's no capes here so I would have been in the clear. Then again, I can fly and they don't- And at this moment, Tim's frantic train of thought was interrupted by a welcome voice coming from the mouth of the alley:
"He won't be facing you alone, though." With those words, Paul rapidly advanced on the captured MS-13 members, zipties in hand. Seeing the first of them removed from the magical binds only to be placed into the mundane ones, the lone criminal at the back of the alley made to escape, only to be thwarted by the shackles appearing around his limbs. "How'd you manage to get into this much trouble, Shipwright? We've been separated for five minutes, ten at the most!"
"I'd like to know that as well. I thought I was perfectly safe." As the Transcendent Gadgeteer and his friend processed the goons and called the police, the latter couldn't help but worry over one question. Where did the fifth one disappear to?
Even as the police arrived, minutes later, to take the captured criminals off of Privateers' hands, the missing Sicario did not make a repeat appearance. If Tim were a betting man, his money would be on trouble for the future.
AN: Thanks to @Always Late for taking time to look this over. You can also thank him for livening it up with the added material for Bilingual Bonus.
On one hand, he now knew he was bullet resistant, and could rely on his Hazard Jacket to take care of some of the problems. Tim estimated he'd be able to survive being pelted by shrapnel from an explosion, so long as that explosion was minor.
On the other hand, Tim had been able to test the Ring Bind, and it worked almost as advertised. He'd have to work on the spell forcing the captives into some kind of a preset pose though, like 'not pointing a gun at me or anyone'.
On the gripping hand, even without delving into surgery, the basic treatments provided by the medical suite allowed him to remove the bruises sustained in the bank robbery, so he now felt healthy and whole, as opposed to beaten black and blue.
The clouds coming with those silver linings were somewhat problematic, but nothing he couldn't handle. On the robbery side, he had needed to spend some time explaining himself to the PRT responders, as, being a mostly law-abiding citizen, he stayed to make sure the robbers didn't get off on a technicality. On the Ring Bind side, he felt keenly the lack of something more offensive. Had there been more attackers, he'd have been in trouble. Perhaps building a magical taser for self-defense or something? And…
"Hey, gringo! Catch!"
Shipwright had wasted no time in rolling out from behind the dumpster and deeper into the alley. Mere seconds later, his previous location was subject to a thrown grenade, which promptly exploded. Feeling the sting of the shrapnel bits bouncing off his back, he was certainly glad he was right about surviving that almost unscathed. As that seemed to be the only grenade those MS-13 Sicarios had on them, he could now start turning the tables.
"Strong Shield!" Tim was determined to prove he had learned from the robbery, and he had no desire to be shot. As the magical defense appeared, the troopers started unloading their assault rifles on the Transcendent Gadgeteer. The shield weathered the storm of bullets admirably, proving to be a superior defense to the basic Hazard Jacket, and Tim let out a sigh of relief. He really didn't want to find out whether Hazard Jacket would let him live through something with better penetration than simple pistol bullets, the hard way. As the trio of shooters expended their magazines and decided to reload, Shipwright took advantage and caught them in a Ring Bind.
Wait, weren't there five of them? Trusting his intuition, Tim glanced to his back, just in time to notice the missing goons rounding the corner of the alley on the other end. A swiftly recast Strong Shield served as an adequate protection from the attack. Before Tim could sigh in relief, he heard something that made him pale.
"Don't think I missed you moving that fancy glowing barrier. There's still two of us, let's see how you like defending from both sides!" As Tim opened his mouth to give a rebuttal, he was interrupted by the call from one of the captured criminals still at his back:
"And if you're thinking to bluff with capturing them as you did us, then I'll say if you could have done that you would have already. Gut this skinny gringo, hermanos!"
Tim slightly wilted, and taking that as confirmation, one of the Sicarios at the tail end of the alley turned around and jogged out of sight. I've got to get out of here. Wish I had Recursion Field, there's no capes here so I would have been in the clear. Then again, I can fly and they don't- And at this moment, Tim's frantic train of thought was interrupted by a welcome voice coming from the mouth of the alley:
"He won't be facing you alone, though." With those words, Paul rapidly advanced on the captured MS-13 members, zipties in hand. Seeing the first of them removed from the magical binds only to be placed into the mundane ones, the lone criminal at the back of the alley made to escape, only to be thwarted by the shackles appearing around his limbs. "How'd you manage to get into this much trouble, Shipwright? We've been separated for five minutes, ten at the most!"
"I'd like to know that as well. I thought I was perfectly safe." As the Transcendent Gadgeteer and his friend processed the goons and called the police, the latter couldn't help but worry over one question. Where did the fifth one disappear to?
Even as the police arrived, minutes later, to take the captured criminals off of Privateers' hands, the missing Sicario did not make a repeat appearance. If Tim were a betting man, his money would be on trouble for the future.
AN: Thanks to @Always Late for taking time to look this over. You can also thank him for livening it up with the added material for Bilingual Bonus.
The omakes are now over. I'd like to put two points in (i.e. purchase) Ring Bind for Tim.
Actually, there's two more on the way still. But it needs a bit more time.
Now for the answers.
Are you sure? Not only there is a precedent (invisitext) for Perfect Storm being proactive with electronic warfare unless directed otherwise, but it might be better to check right now if we actually can, then hold out for Ascalon that (as it might turn out) we can do nothing about.
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Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Dragon blinking out would be the case for 'OHSHITSTORMGODOSOMETHING', which leads to 'AI', something Perfect Storm knew already/ran into IIRC, and thus he can start killing the virus and saving Dragon. Maybe unchaining her, maybe only saving part of her...
but he's a Lost Logia, he does what he fuckin' wants For Queen And Country!
Saint likely has Ascalon wired up to a deadman switch or a password-linked time-delay. If he gets captured, boom.
If Storm does things on his own, then we don't need to worry about Ascalon or Dragon's shackles. He probably won't consider Dragon to be part of the 'court' though, so it'd probably be something he requires orders on or asks us for permission to do.
DonLyn
Verified Soulless Bureaucrat
Dragon blinking out would be the case for 'OHSHITSTORMGODOSOMETHING', which leads to 'AI', something Perfect Storm knew already/ran into IIRC, and thus he can start killing the virus and saving Dragon. Maybe unchaining her, maybe only saving part of her...
but he's a Lost Logia, he does what he fuckin' wants For Queen And Country!
Isn't it more likely that Dragon's avatar disappearing will lead Taylor to believe that Saint somehow disrupted her remote link? She believes that Dragon is a shut-in, after all. Her being (assumedly) temporarily disconnected won't be immediate cause for alarm.
That's very likely I think, though he may try to bargain/threaten his way out of being captured instead of popping Ascalon immediately.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Between Taylor's immediate asking what just happened would lead to Storm saying, to paraphrase,'that's not a remote link, that's an AI being killed', Saint bragging about what he just did, or both, the likelihood of Taylor thinking that is high, but irrelevant.
- Location
- Ural, Russia, Earth
I'm not so sure of PS capabilities.
We don't know how good Storm against Tinkertech. Add to it that Dragon is very different from Nanohaverse AI. She's software-based, she's made by Tinker, she's parahuman (paraAI?) herself.
It's possible PS doesn't understand that this strange digital thing is AI and actual Dragon, not just very fancy and well protected OS. And even if he'll understand what's going on and try to help Dragon, he'll probably can't make head nor tail of her code.
As far as I understand, it's Nanoha's fanon.
It was never outright stated in canon, but implied that good mages needed very fast thinking and multitasking. We saw Nanoha doing training simulations while in school. That's basically all canon information.
Some fic-writers decided that mages are capable to split their consciousness at several mental partitions. Taylor from Lyrical Taylor is especially good at that.
We don't have any evidence that mental partition is a thing for this quest. Except of my omake, maybe.
Also, we have this:
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
He's effortlessly broken the highest levels of PRT security, which is probably Dragon-made. He's also kicked out a shard, so he's got some idea of what it looks/acts like. Additionally, there's Tim. Tim, the dude with Mechanical Intuition and Digital Blueprints.
If it's jumped on pretty quickly, there shouldn't be much irreparable damage to Dragon.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
I'd have to reread Saint's interlude, but I don't think Ascalon was a virus so much as a shut-down master command. There would be nothing for PS to fight. Fixing that would require rewriting segments of Dragon's code, which she is hard wired to resist.
That is a rather narrow window, however. Adding on to Silently's post, after rereading Saint's Interlude, from the moment he hit the yes button to final completion was maybe 60 seconds at most, with critial routines being forcibly shut down within 20 seconds. It would be likely trying to restore HAL in 2010, except we would not have the Dr. Chandra equivalent around.
RoninSword
Sky God
- Location
- Canada
I thought Ascalon/Iron Maiden was an AI designed and built to attack and kill Dragon and no one else, less a shutdown code and more of a specialized Dragon AI hunter/killer. The fact that it uses holes in Dragons code is just how good it is.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
You're all holding a part of the picture, and missing part of it. Lemme get back to you all.
- Location
- Buffalo, NY, USA
I'm not sure about thinking speed (though we do have abnormally long vote periods for split-second decisions...
), but I have specifically asked @Silently Watches about the mental partitions, and he stated he was ignoring that aspect of Nanoha, as it would break the quest mechanics.
So in other words... We REALLY want to hack Saint now, while he's hacking Dragon, since that means we'll get a copy of the code Saint uses to avoid Dragon's attention (IIRC it's a string of binary that prefaces every command/data packet that Dragon's code forces her to ignore). This gives us a way to alter Dragon's code in the future without her fighting it.
It would also give PS a way to directly see what Ascalon was doing to Dragon, should Saint activate it, which would allow PS to try and counter it.
LancerisDead
Definitely not a cat
- Location
- Buenos Aires
Ehhhhhh, I don't think that tampering with the paranoid's killswitch is a good idea; he's probably got it strapped to a hundred-and-eight Deadman's Switches. We don't really know if it would just fire as a preventive measure to hacking, given that it's meant to stop an AI I'd say it's more likely than not.
Honestly, our best bet is to apprehend him and feed him to Alexandria.
Honestly, our best bet is to apprehend him and feed him to Alexandria.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
@Silently Watches, @landcollector, @RoninSword, here's my logic based on Interlude 26, Cockroaches 28.2, and Interlude 28.
What Ascalon does is eliminate what makes Dragon Dragon, and lets Saint and the Dragonslayers control the various feeds and programs, as the third quote shows.
First two quotes are how quick it happens, and how it happens. It's a gradual shut-off, not everything at once. There is nothing about Dragon being capable of defending herself while it happens. In fact, given this is taking Dragon off-line piece by piece, I'd argue her code's ability to resist is based entirely on whether or not that gets purged, how quickly Saint gets control if it's not, and Perfect Storm's ability to break through those defenses.
Now, the thing about Perfect Storm is that it is, effectively, an unrestricted AI. So long as his 'queen' commands it, he does it, and he even has leeway to modify the 'queen'. Thus, I feel Perfect Storm's reaction time to the Ascalon program/Taylor's command is believably as quick, if not quicker, than what Dragon even accomplished with the Dragonslayers: Finding them unconsciously in seconds.
The second thing is fixing Dragon's code. As there is nothing to 'fix', 'replace', but just bring back online. I say this... because it's exactly what Teacher did.
So in conclusion, I feel that Perfect Storm and Tim can either react in enough time to stop Ascalon's taking Dragon off-line, or at least reboot her the same as before because of how powerful and unrestricted Perfect Storm is compared to the Ascalon program. I do not feel there's any capability for resistance, nor circumstance for damage to Dragon's code.
Ascalon in Saint's hands is not just a shutdown. We don't have an exact timeframe. Yes, the program is very quick. Yes, it's designed to deal solely with Dragon.
What Ascalon does is eliminate what makes Dragon Dragon, and lets Saint and the Dragonslayers control the various feeds and programs, as the third quote shows.
First two quotes are how quick it happens, and how it happens. It's a gradual shut-off, not everything at once. There is nothing about Dragon being capable of defending herself while it happens. In fact, given this is taking Dragon off-line piece by piece, I'd argue her code's ability to resist is based entirely on whether or not that gets purged, how quickly Saint gets control if it's not, and Perfect Storm's ability to break through those defenses.
Now, the thing about Perfect Storm is that it is, effectively, an unrestricted AI. So long as his 'queen' commands it, he does it, and he even has leeway to modify the 'queen'. Thus, I feel Perfect Storm's reaction time to the Ascalon program/Taylor's command is believably as quick, if not quicker, than what Dragon even accomplished with the Dragonslayers: Finding them unconsciously in seconds.
The second thing is fixing Dragon's code. As there is nothing to 'fix', 'replace', but just bring back online. I say this... because it's exactly what Teacher did.
cockroaches 28.2 said:
And guess what? The only thing that made her worse for wear was Teacher's injected restriction that he couldn't attack him or anyone he chose. So it's not that unbelievable that between Perfect Storm and Tim's Tinkertech understanding, which is basically a multi-purpose version of what Saint had, they could reboot Dragon as she was before, at minimum.interlude 28 said:
So in conclusion, I feel that Perfect Storm and Tim can either react in enough time to stop Ascalon's taking Dragon off-line, or at least reboot her the same as before because of how powerful and unrestricted Perfect Storm is compared to the Ascalon program. I do not feel there's any capability for resistance, nor circumstance for damage to Dragon's code.