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Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

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No One said:
That...doesn't inspire me with confidence :eyeroll:.
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Thank you very much for providing me with this opening. /earnest

Since the subject of "how do we resurrect" has come up in the previous three pages, I will have to say that the image I personally had was that of:

IAE overwrites someone with our thought patterns.
We now have a body not our own, all our friends if any remain will have to see this face and know we've erased someone to take their body.
Parallels with Butcher are drawn.

On a more personal side, we now have:
A weak-ass linker core.
A heroic organization out for our capture (at best) or blood (at likely).
TSAB out for our complete and total destruction.
All resources lost.
Or worse, mastering the Privateers to make a quick army.
With all the nominal "good guys" still out for our blood.

Anyway, you can probably see why I viewed Sudden Death as an objectively suboptimal result - especially since QM encouraged thinking it would be bad.

LancerisDead said:
Kinda?

Let's get this out of the way first: Erza and Teana done fucked up, there's no other way to read that clusterfuck. They opened with way too much force and barely considered that Taylor may not be a puppet; they totally misread the situation and didn't even thought of broadcasting on the native language.

So I'm going to say the weight of the blame falls on them.

But at the same time they were running on misinformation, or at least a near complete lack of it. Were they to know of Taylor, they would've just contacted her and probably worked through the shock she has CW's spells without violence. To them, a Template is a sign of a danger similar to what on Bet would be an Endbringer, so I can see why'd they could jump the gun.

Do remember that in the scrapped interlude they would've contacted HQ after Taylor's "death", so when Taylor inevitably wakes up in the Sojourner's infirmary (because of course she will with that injury) the first thing that she'll see is whatever highest ranking officer is on charge begging her apologies.

But most importantly, we the players know that ignoring the rest of the TSAB for the fuck up of a few of their operatives is throwing the best chance Earth Bet has of overcoming the Endbringers to the trash.
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I agree, more or less.
1) I totally agree they are to blame.
2) I don't quite agree with why they were so late (see one of my previous posts - they took their time looking for IAE in 11 worlds when they had been informed prior to departure there's some kind of telepathic monster driving entire cities insane whenever it attacks. Finding the right world should have been easy).
3) I have to say that they knew of Taylor - just not her appearance or current state.
4) Which, combined with (2), may have led them to assume their point of contact was dead so they didn't bother looking. Bad form.
5) Taylor would not ignore TSAB - if anything, she will milk their appearance and blatantly clear guilt in this entire thing to deal with Endbringers. They owe her. Four times over - she contacted them to tell them of Agharti, she collected the personal effects of the crew, she warned them of appearance of mind-bending monster to improve their readiness, and she was attacked out of the blue with lethal intent for her trouble.
 
I'm going to point pit a few things no one has actually mentioned.
Silently Watches said:
[] Aerial barrage
-[] Drop a Wide Area Search and a Bursting Flare Shooter aimed at the ground in front of them to gather data and provide cover while getting some height on them... a hundred or two hundred meters should do.
-[] Call Sam, ask her to teleport here and bring up the Recursion Field.
-[] Once she's here and you get information about these guys abilities and numbers, attack. Sam will cover you.
--[] Light them up with as many Flare Shooters as you can.
--[] If there is more of them or they seems actually dangerous, don't hesitate to use Temporal Sludge and Solar Wrath.
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This is the vote given. Read that last line, ' don't hesitate to use Temporal Sludge and Solar Wrath.' Solar Wrath kicked in but Temporal Sludge was completely ignored. Even though it was mentioned first. This was a GM narrative decision. See Temporal sludge makes a field on wonky time. Specifically, "Temporal Sludge (4/4 Master) – Slow the flow of time within an circle of a 20 meter diameter to a third of its normal rate. Spell lasts 60 seconds per casting." Besides pointing out the typo of 'an circle' it was the best counter at least twice in that fight.

First, it could have been tossed in front of the inexplicable GM defined 'Starlight Breaker'. Note that part about an S class mage needs a mana saturate the battlefield with mana and then hover it up to fire that off. A small group of random twits just did that in a low mana zone after one big attack was used. That is one hell of a trick... it didn't even manage collapse the barrier! That was elite enough one of these idiots has to be trained by the white devil in her signature attack! Unwinnable boss fight indeed! That is SI level shenanigans right there. This fight lasted like 2 minutes.

Back to Temporal Sludge, Talyor could have tossed it in front of the mega beam. Slowing it to 1/3 its speed would have caused it to trip over itself and explode early. Its a long beam after all. If not it would have at least lowered the attack power burning through. Either way Taylor soaked a lethal Starlight Breaker... any HP she didn't lose because of Temporal Sludge would have only helped.

The second time was to stall the melee mage after the death beam. Beam spam or fire sword on the speed nerf melee mage would have helped. Using cartridges if she ran out of mana would have helped.
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Silently Watches said:
A brief whir is all the warning you get before another blast swings around from behind and slams into your left shoulder. A grunt from your right heralds the descent of your Guardian Beast just in time to tank the hit. "Who are these guys?" Samantha asks.
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Silently Watches said:
"You okay?"
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Silently Watches said:
"Okay so far. You?"
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Three times when verbal words were exchanged by Taylor and Sam... in English... out loud during the fight. So even if they where expecting slave babble this was missed or ignored. Add it the random familiar from nowhere and these guys weren't going to listen to reason in the first place. I rather can't believe that just using random non-Calamity Witch attack would have done anything with this panicking self-assigned death squad. Seriously, I have no reason to doubt Ps reasoning here:
Silently Watches said:
«Belkans. Savages, murderers, monsters. Kill them, Mistress! Kill them before they kill you!»
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Add in that they ignored the lack of apparently in character viral slave apocalypse after probably weeks of being up and about unfettered. Seriously, it should have snowballed out of control by now and all it did was fly around a bit. Reading this, I really get the impression that Belkans are that bad (historically at least) and the previous incident was because the lost logia had PTSD from encounters with them.
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Advise so I'm not just whining:
Now having the strike team act like this doesn't bug me... I expect the After Action Report to lead to dented/broke desks and walls from people heads impacting them. Its pretty clear that these guys are burnt out and not thinking straight. My problem is their skill set is inconsistent... smart and skilled enough to put out and S rank lethal attack... but weirdly bad on the sensing of magic. I guess that could be an issue some kind of jury-rigged magic detection suppression thing. They were expecting some kind of artillery expert so that kind of thing would theoretically only help their forces.

I can even think of an easy way to keep Taylor alive here, just have the sword guy note the rather human reaction to sudden impalement and the dread coming up to that point on her face. Not mind slavey at all. Its easy to dehumanize people in theory and much harder in do so in person... particularly if Perfect Storm starts ranting at him in the immediate aftermath. kind of hard to shrug off getting called a murderous psycho while a teenager you just impaled bleeds on you.
 
Faraway-R said:
Thank you very much for providing me with this opening. /earnest

Since the subject of "how do we resurrect" has come up in the previous three pages, I will have to say that the image I personally had was that of:

IAE overwrites someone with our thought patterns.
We now have a body not our own, all our friends if any remain will have to see this face and know we've erased someone to take their body.
Parallels with Butcher are drawn.

On a more personal side, we now have:
A weak-ass linker core.
A heroic organization out for our capture (at best) or blood (at likely).
TSAB out for our complete and total destruction.
All resources lost.
Or worse, mastering the Privateers to make a quick army.
With all the nominal "good guys" still out for our blood.

Anyway, you can probably see why I viewed Sudden Death as an objectively suboptimal result - especially since QM encouraged thinking it would be bad.


I agree, more or less.
1) I totally agree they are to blame.
2) I don't quite agree with why they were so late (see one of my previous posts - they took their time looking for IAE in 11 worlds when they had been informed prior to departure there's some kind of telepathic monster driving entire cities insane whenever it attacks. Finding the right world should have been easy).
3) I have to say that they knew of Taylor - just not her appearance or current state.
4) Which, combined with (2), may have led them to assume their point of contact was dead so they didn't bother looking. Bad form.
5) Taylor would not ignore TSAB - if anything, she will milk their appearance and blatantly clear guilt in this entire thing to deal with Endbringers. They owe her. Four times over - she contacted them to tell them of Agharti, she collected the personal effects of the crew, she warned them of appearance of mind-bending monster to improve their readiness, and she was attacked out of the blue with lethal intent for her trouble.
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I agree with most of everything more or less.

Besides, is standard Nanoha practice to fuck up colossally only for understanding and compassion to fix things, it's just that the TSAB are on the other end of that this time.

It even had a Starlight Breaker!
 
After some thinking, I'm actually a little sad that Taylor survived.
I'm afraid by doing this we inadvertently closed several quite interesting plotlines, like "Taylor doesn't know she was attacked by TSAB" or "TSAB doesn't know IAE is no longer dangerous. Kinda."
What I expect now is several chapters of intense interrogations/negotiations and clearing misunderstandings. After that TSAB will apologise profusedly and offer reparations, and we spat in their ugly faces grudgingly accept. After that it will be a quest for helping interdimensional police to restore order on Earth-Bet.

That's not bad things, of course, but imagine alternative!
For example, after ressurection Taylor immediately called the Admiral to warn him about very aggressive Belkan mages. The Admiral suggested it was the pirates who attacked the Agharti and warned the Sojourner about them. The Sojourner's crew dutifully starts a search for 'the pirates', who dare to attack their contact.
Or, Alexandria found out about Taylor's death in the middle of Triumvirate talks with the Sojourner's crew. Will the grief defeat her pragmatism? Will she punch Teana in the face? And if she will, how much of her super-strength she use?
Or, Taylor found out that it was TSAB who killed her and Sam and had a breakdown, because she remembered that her last meaningful talk with Dad was a fight when Dad claimed the aliens could not be benevolent. And he was right after all, didn't he?

Ah, well, one can't have everything.
Plans for the future: destroy Erga and Teana careers as thoroughly as possible. If court-martial and dishonorable discharge are unavailable seek their posting in the worst shithole TSAB has for the end of their natural lives.
...Wait. It would be Earth-Bet, wouldn't it. Sigh. Back to the drawing board.
 
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OK, I only made it to page 453 for the comments, but I'm gonna put my $0.02 in.

edale said:
And here's a wild theory. What if the attackers, are the TSAB team?
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crhoades said:
makes no sense whatsoever.
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landcollector said:
I highly doubt the TSAB team would just randomly ambush and open fire on someone.
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I'll point out that the only one who thought this was TSAB (me) has regularly stated that they (I) have no working knowledge of Nanoha. And I was all but attacked (exageration) for suggesting such.

Coupled with your veil of silence before the chapter came out, as well as the "death" from out of nowhere, I can see why people are upset.

Silently Watches said:
If the soldiers created by a Lost Logia speak the TSAB's language the first time they are encountered, it is reasonable to assume that they will know the same language the second time.
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Said soldiers were still speaking in their pre-brainwashed native language.
Silently Watches said:
They were giving her a chance to surrender. If she had done so, the fight would have stopped there. Did they expect an IAE puppet to take it? No, but they still wanted to offer the opportunity. As mentioned, the previous IAE puppets could speak in Midchildan/Modern Belkan/whatever language the TSAB uses, so they had no reason to believe this IAE puppet they just ran into couldn't.
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On the flip side, they had no reason to expect she could speak said language, as a puppet created on this planet wouldn't know the language already.
Silently Watches said:
I graded your vote line by line.
+0.5 right off the bat because the TSAB doesn't like to kill if they can avoid it, so this would break a tie in favor of surviving but not completely counter your vote.
0 because you fought from range just like many mages do, so not definitively IAE-related. However, it's not not IAE because it was how the other Calamity Witches fought.
0 for using Wide Area Search. Again, not definitive one way or another.
+1 because you didn't fight lethally. Had you gone lethal, it would have been -1.
-1 for calling in Samantha because she would have and did try to kill everyone indiscriminately. Had this not been seen in-story previously, I probably wouldn't have thought about it and not assigned it any points, but it was and so it's not like her course of action would be a total shock to you.
-1 for using Solar Wrath, which again looks no different when it's lethal versus nonlethal and when coded to kill things does so very very well. After they escaped being roasted/irradiated, they weren't going to give you the chance to try again.
+0.5 + 0 + 0 + 1 - 1 - 1 = -0.5. Positive result was survive, negative result was die.
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I can see what you're doing here, and it makes sense on a certain level, but I'd argue against summoning Sam affecting the total like it does.

Once Sam was called it, We have backup, which should give us +1 survivability, counteracting the -1 (for a net change of 0) BUT Sam's life/death should be factored into to the equation, a reasonable place to put her survivability at would be 1 point below Taylor.

So the end result with these changes would be 0.5. Taylor lives, but 0.5 shy of having Sam survive, so she dies.
 
edale said:
I'll point out that the only one who thought this was TSAB (me) has regularly stated that they (I) have no working knowledge of Nanoha. And I was all but attacked (exageration) for suggesting such.

Coupled with your veil of silence before the chapter came out, as well as the "death" from out of nowhere, I can see why people are upset.
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You were one of the few people who considered that it might be the TSAB, true. I think Racoras did too. And, while I intentionally did not SAY anything, you can look back at the comments following that suggestion and see that several people noted that I had rated their counter posts Funny. Some, such as Faraway-R, mentioned it being ominous that I did so.

I'm not saying that was enough information to make a decision off of, but a few people did suspect that something was up, either on their own or after a gentle nudge.

Maybe I should start posting pictures of a grinning Cheshire Cat or something when I'm throwing you a curveball.
 
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Silently Watches said:
You were one of the few people who considered that it might be the TSAB, true. I think Racoras did too. And, while I intentionally did not SAY anything, you can look back at the comments following that suggestion and see that several people noted that I had rated their counter posts Funny. Some, such as Faraway-R, mentioned it being ominous that I did so.

I'm not saying that was enough information to make a decision off of, but a few people did suspect that something was up, either on their own or after a gentle nudge.

Maybe I should start posting pictures of a grinning Cheshire Cat or something when I'm throwing you a curveball.
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A funny rating is kinda an odd one though... If it had been an insightful or even a like on the accurate one it'd be a little more obvious, but with a funny there's multiple options as to what it could mean.

Was the comment inherently funny? Highly ironic? Did it come across as sarcasm somehow? Were they so far off the mark the QM is laughing at them? Did they stumble over a potential plot point? Did they give the QM ideas for later? Is this an in joke I'd missed? Etc.
 
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Silently Watches said:
And, while I intentionally did not SAY anything, you can look back at the comments following that suggestion and see that several people noted that I had rated their counter posts Funny. Some, such as Faraway-R, mentioned it being ominous that I did so.
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Pyrotech51 said:
Was the comment inherently funny? Highly ironic? Did it come across as sarcasm somehow? Were they so far off the mark the QM is laughing at them? Did they stumble over a potential plot point? Did they give the QM ideas for later? Is this an in joke I'd missed? Etc.
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(As someone who got a 'funny'): A: I wasn't sure if it was semi-standard practice to not give things away (I know a couple of authors/QMs who do something similar, and will like/rate posts whether right or completely wrong).
B: I wasn't sure if that was a 'subtle hint' or GM sadism laughing at my misfortune/to mess with me :p .

Add on that what I posted was literally just a quote of the QM, and wasn't willing to suggest changes to tactics (that were perfectly valid as far as I was concerned) based on essentially no evidence?
edale said:
I can see what you're doing here, and it makes sense on a certain level, but I'd argue against summoning Sam affecting the total like it does.

Once Sam was called it, We have backup, which should give us +1 survivability, counteracting the -1 (for a net change of 0) BUT Sam's life/death should be factored into to the equation, a reasonable place to put her survivability at would be 1 point below Taylor.
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As an adendum to this point: a Guardian Beast is an ability that is not in any way associated with IAE, as noted in chapter. While the way she acted may be, I'd presume that form of berserk rage is, if not standard behaviour, at least not unheard of/uncommon, and thus it's not really suggestive of an IAE puppet or normal mage. (i.e. Net 0, the same as artillery style).
 
Rules 3 & 4: Your conduct throughout this thread has been a mixture of passive-aggression and outright aggression.
LancerisDead said:
they would've contacted HQ after Taylor's "death"
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And we've still never gotten an answer as to why they waited until that very moment to do so. Their radio being busted on crash-landing and repaired just as they got back would be... incredibly convenient.
 
No One said:
As an adendum to this point: a Guardian Beast is an ability that is not in any way associated with IAE, as noted in chapter. While the way she acted may be, I'd presume that form of berserk rage is, if not standard behaviour, at least not unheard of/uncommon, and thus it's not really suggestive of an IAE puppet or normal mage. (i.e. Net 0, the same as artillery style).
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Relatively common. Guardian beasts and familiars owe their continued sapience to their master's survival in sufficient health to maintain the bond. It's basically self defense.
 
Don't really have anything to add to the discussion at hand, but I will say this I appreciate the time and effort @Silently Watches puts into this quest. The writing quality is top notch and every update has me waiting on the edge of my seat for more. I didn't get the chance to read the pre-retconned update so my salt levels are low, and as I didn't participate in the previous vote I don't believe I have right to complain about how it turned out anyway. Still like I said, I enjoy this quest and want to see it continued. Eagerly awaiting the next update.
 
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Necratoid said:
Read that last line, ' don't hesitate to use Temporal Sludge and Solar Wrath.' Solar Wrath kicked in but Temporal Sludge was completely ignored
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Go back and check the update again (note, i read it after the ending change about 4 hours from original posting, but you're commenting a day later so doubt it changed). Unless I am very much mistaken, we used Temporal Sludge immediately before firing Solar Wrath, its what held them in place long enough to get hit. Whether we should've used it again in defense may be a question.... except that we were hit with Ring Bind before they started charging up Starlight Breaker. I don't think its possible to do any casting once thats gotten locked on? (Accurate to show, but its a scary power...is there any way to escape it besides Brute-level strength?)

Necratoid said:
That was elite enough one of these idiots has to be trained by the white devil in her signature attack!
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Did you see the "If Taylor had died" interlude, posted a page or three after the update? It confirmed who exactly was there and led the attack, though I think it was mentioned a ways back when the team being sent was first mentioned. Teana Lanster, a high ranked Ground Forces operative... and oh, practically Nanoha's daughter (is that fanon confusion?) and certainly protege :p Besides, she is certainly late enough in series to potentially be using cartridges (she seems to be depicted with a gun, but I don't see any mention on her page) since she's with Belkan Knights anyways. And there were I think two Busters fired during the battle (ours and the Knight, his scorched our arm a bit) besides quite a lot of burst-shooter spam and varied other spells. At least enough to make an argument of, and Taylors difficulty using a different version on a largely mana-absent world isn't a good comparison.
 
Teana is a mid-style mage, though IIRC she does make some uses of cartridges.
That said I have to wonder why PS didn't notice the difference between Modern Belkan(which is a derivative of Midchilda-style, and you can tell the difference by the circles used) and Old Belkan(which is only wielded by a very small pool of almost entirely Church associated people or Belkan Inheritors, which has a cross in a triangle)
 
Racoras said:
Did you see the "If Taylor had died" interlude, posted a page or three after the update? It confirmed who exactly was there and led the attack, though I think it was mentioned a ways back when the team being sent was first mentioned. Teana Lanster, a high ranked Ground Forces operative... and oh, practically Nanoha's daughter (is that fanon confusion?) and certainly protege :p
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... you know, I never picked up on that until now. Shame on me for not googling her name before. Lesse here...
Been taught Starlight Breaker, blunt and insecure, family-style chip on her shoulder, good with illusions, got herself injured overusing magic, fought the Mariage, met Ixpellia, an-wait, what? Leader of Riot Force 6? Beat Nanoha in a sparring match? That's not just 'we have trained to beat you' or 'we outnumber you significantly', we were straight-up outclassed by Miss Second Coming Of The White Devil.


So now we have to deal with Taylor's interdimensional twin. Bullshit power, determined to the point of self-injury, and mentally off her rocker.

@Silently Watches, you sure you made the Endbringers the main quest enemy and not her? Because it's kind of a toss-up.:V
 
veekie said:
Not even that. Nanoha has higher defenses than Teana.
But Nanoha got stuck in during the earlier part of the fight, so she was short some hp, while Teana stayed completely out of contact and tanked SLB's backblast from full.
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Wasn't Nanoha noted as being better at battlefield control, long range combat and situational awareness?

I think it was Teana who had the range limitation on her breaker as well. She was much more persistently in your face than Nanoha who is pretty much able to fight effectively at any distance barring extremely short and long range.
 
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Pyrotech51 said:
Wasn't Nanoha noted as being better at battlefield control, long range combat and situational awareness?

I think it was Teana who had the range limitation on her breaker as well. She was much more persistently in your face than Nanoha who is pretty much able to fight effectively at any distance barring extremely short and long range.
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Yes, but Nanoha was also flat out the best combatant on her side, so she has to go melee to cover for the kids who can't.

Its like, Nanoha is:
-Bombardmant AAA++
-Defense AAA
-Close Combat A

Yeah she's better at bombardment, but shes ALSO better enough to serve as artillery WHILE punching your flankers in the face.
 
veekie said:
Yes, but Nanoha was also flat out the best combatant on her side, so she has to go melee to cover for the kids who can't.

Its like, Nanoha is:
-Bombardmant AAA++
-Defense AAA
-Close Combat A

Yeah she's better at bombardment, but shes ALSO better enough to serve as artillery WHILE punching your flankers in the face.
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Nanoha is bullshit... As are Fate and Hayate in their own specialisations. Nanoha is just that much more cause she has no outright weaknesses, and cause she can multitask at a stupid level.
 
Phantsai said:
Yeah fully agree that it felt like it was a slap to our agencies face. Probably the best way to do something like this was split the encounter over a bunch of chapters even if they were small and just showed Taylor getting her ass kicked despite what she did. While not in the same league as an endbringer along the same feelings of a no win fight and what objectives to be voted on started to shift away from outright victory. My main issue was with how upset people were getting with it. Felt like it was blown heavily out of proportion.
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Only reason I kept talking was because it seemed like SW didn't consider the post a railroad at all. I was only trying to explain that even though we were provided with a choice, there was no reasonable way we would choose anything other than what we did, thus, the choice was effectively nonexistent.

I just wanted to be understood in that regard.

I think we're upset because we all have multiple reasons to be various degrees of upset about this, and we all want to explain our own personal reasons, just so that we feel our voices are being heard and understood.

This inevitably leads to some repetition, but on the whole I actually think this discussion has been fruitful in terms of showing how future executions of this sort of event might work better in this quest.
 
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