- Location
- Tarn-Vedra
[x] Wait and watch what happens
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
They got Prime Directive going on, so they can't initiate an assault on a hibernating Endbringer unless and until they have evidence that its effective or unless innocents are under clear and present danger.
Noting that they have not observed a Simurgh attack, so starting the music now would be effectively, attacking unprovoked.
As it is, they're going to eat a court martial when they go back already.
- Location
- USA
Finally getting around to watching more of the Nanoha anime (I'd only seen the original jewel Seed stuff), and on only the first episode of Strikers I have to ask @Silently Watches ....
How could you split up Teana and Subaru like this by sending just one?!?!? Subaru's even cooler too!!
How could you split up Teana and Subaru like this by sending just one?!?!? Subaru's even cooler too!!
Subaru is in Rescue ala Firefighters. Teana is Enforcer, which is Commando/Marine. Subaru's always going to be staying around her homeworld, Teana is canonically Navy, so she goes on long journeys.
FYI Nanoha and Fate had a similar setup.
- Location
- Ural, Russia, Earth
I... I really doubt Prime Directive applies to Lost Logias already deemed dangerous and kill-worthy.
Also, Ziz is not hibernating, she took on action, stole a piece of magitech from the TSAB's ally. Considering she has a history of building city-killer devices using stolen tech, the Enforcers have a good reason to atleast come here and ask sternly WTF is going on.
- Location
- Georgia
Devices only become blind spots when active. This device has not yet been activated. The bigger blind spots seem to require a mage casting spells to increase the number of ways they can act and thus the more possibilities she can't see.
We didn't ask for the device to have a self destruct. Further, given how much Dragon struggled under all of the constraints placed on her by her father, I doubt she would agree with creating such a thing, and Tim has no reason to go against his friend's wishes on the matter.
- Location
- Germany
Huh, you are right. All those pages of people assuming that destroying the device will be significantly easier then attacking Ziz somehow convinced me that there was one.
- Location
- Georgia
No self destruct doesn't mean we can't Solar Wrath the box to death(I doubt Flare Shooter would be enough, and Ragnarok would be massive overkill for just the box). It just means we don't have an immediate and surefire way to destroy it.
Since Perfect Storm has some records on older magic styles, does it have whatever it would take to teach Epoch how to make a staff or other pre-device era supplement to his powers? I don't know if we'll be pursuing him any longer, particularly considering that he is officially a villain, but it would be nice to know what our options are for later. Also, could Standstill get a template now, despite already having a GB? Your stated objection to giving a template to somebody already using a booster device is the extra work it would make for you. Again, this is just looking for options. We have been dreadfully remiss in recruiting allies, and I suspect the longer we keep putting that off, the worse off we're going to wind up being.
Once we've talked with Maclibuin about how he feels about losing his powers and getting his new powers from his device, we should totally bring this up with Alexandria. I'm sure there are dozens of Protectorate capes who would love the added flexibility in exchange for losing powers that are only of middling strength or that are actively disliked as Maclibuin's are. The first canon cape to come to mind for that is Scapegoat, who I think would be willing to do practically anything to get powers that let him heal without having to suffer holding onto the injuries his power heals, at least, if his canon recitation of "I hate my powers! Hate! Hate! Hate!"* is anything to go by(when he took on Skitter's injuries). Requiring that we get to know the capes we've scanned before giving them a device/template would most likely meet Alexandria's approval, as it would mean that we have a sense of restraint accountability that many capes lack, even if we ARE still impulsive at times. We're 16, after all, so impulsivity is going to be a problem for anybody, no matter how hard we try to think things through.
*My wording may be off, but the sentiment is not. In my head, at least, his feelings were very explicit.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Hmm. I don't know that there's any reason from a metagaming level not to try it, but it is a little out of character for Taylor to ask the insanity-inducing death machine to explain herself. If you can come up with an IC justification, I'd allow that as an option.
Just a point of order, the radius on the Arc en Ciel isn't 5 miles. It's 50 kilometers (31 miles and change). As a point of comparison, the Earth's crust? 35 km on average on land (less over water).
They had already split up to go into different fields, as @veekie mentioned.
The earliest "magic tools" had no special power. They were mnemonic devices more than anything else. The first truly magic weapons were actual weapons that were enchanted with a particular effect, like wrapping it in fire or something. Then higher mathematics and computers were created to make casting easier and faster, and that was how the "artifact that supplements" power thing came to be.
So, he could make a staff for himself, but it would just be a mental aid, and not one that he really needs with how he was taught.
- Location
- Russia
This is disturbing on so many levels...
[X] Wait and watch what happens
I can't look away!
- Location
- Wonderland
…it's better than actually doing nothing? Because the Simurgh appears to be a weird extraterrestrial telekinetic telepath who doesn't follow the normal power rules, traits shared with CW? Because talking (allegedly) might buy time to escape?
- Location
- Georgia
Fair enough. And about a template for Standstill? While you have declared unequivocally that Maclibuin(and anybody else who gets a regular device in the course of the game) can not upgrade, she currently has neither device nor template, nor even the magical training Epoch has. If you have answered this before, and worse, answered it to me, my apologies. Between health issues and the meds for them, my mind isn't all that reliable any more.
My personal favorite idea for how wands work comes from the Wizard in Rhyme series by Christopher Stasheff (A Wizard in Rhyme - Wikipedia). In that, a wizard works out that wands act much like an antenna, focusing the released energy so less is wasted, with the added benefit of acting as a lever and fulcrum to increase the power in flung spells the same way a bat lets you hit harder. Epoch is unlikely to get really far as a mage without the benefits of modern spellcasting aids, which is what led me to wonder about less modern aids that wouldn't burn out his powers, since his parahuman ability is actually useful. It's amazing how rare truly useful powers are in canon, and as you point out, despite the utter uselessness of people like Standstill(knock yourself and an enemy out, or knock yourself out and daze up to three enemies) when compared to a well trained SWAT officer. Yes, Standstill has training, too, but nothing that should put her ahead of SWAT.
In a debate way back, discussing how Recursion Field works(and I'm not trying to start an argument, this is just something I've put thought into before), the answer I like is that the dimensional axis you move along to create the field moves you to a higher energy state. You aren't creating Jack shit, you're just reorganizing matter that is already there, matter that is charged with too much energy to exist stably at the same level as the normal planetary levels. Making that matter permanently stable requires so much energy it's simpler to move things from planet to planet, but making it temporarily behave as lower energy matter would without shifting the energy state(and thus not changing the ambient matter/energy pressure) isn't all that hard. Then, when the technique is dropped, the astral winds of imaginary space break that matter back up and you drop down to your natural energy state. As to why Belkan Bounded Fields don't seem to follow the same rules? Simple: they don't shift as far up, allowing some overlap between the two energy states. When the astral winds rip apart the bounded matter, places where the matter of created field no longer exist are exposed to the astral winds, damaging the base level before the bubble pops enough that the regular matter is no longer exposed. This allows the fields to be created with less energy, possibly faster, and possibly harder to break out of, at a cost of collateral damage. Belkans didn't seem all that concerned with collateral damage to me.
- Location
- Georgia
New, though related, thought about Maclibuin's charms: Do the people using them have to practice with their powers to get full effect out of the boost? If not, a few charms we can toss to somebody like Miss Militia(because I'd LOVE to see what she could do with a power boot 
) in an emergency would be nice. So long as we don't overdo asking for these charms, and with our promise to use them carefully, I don't foresee an issue with convincing him to provide a few.
Of course, given the amount of thought and supporting comments I've made regarding them, I wouldn't be surprised if he turned down our request(provided I can convince the people here to ask for it) just to tweak my nose a bit.
) in an emergency would be nice. So long as we don't overdo asking for these charms, and with our promise to use them carefully, I don't foresee an issue with convincing him to provide a few.Of course, given the amount of thought and supporting comments I've made regarding them, I wouldn't be surprised if he turned down our request(provided I can convince the people here to ask for it) just to tweak my nose a bit.
She can already use man portable nuke launchers via her power, so there's no real point to boosting it imo.to somebody like Miss Militia(because I'd LOVE to see what she could do with a power boot
That doesn't mean much for the reason SW is looking for. Why would Taylor talk to the Simurgh and expect it to respond IC? All that would be doing is yelling at a brick wall for all the good it'll do.
- Location
- Erebus
Even if boosted, she can lay some actual hurt on and EB, without the 50KM devastation of Arc in Ciel?
Remember that superficial damage means nothing, and that an EB's "flesh" gets impossibly dense the deeper you go. Nothing short of exotic bullshit (such as Flechette's Sting -based power, for one, or maybe Misteltein) will do the job, and I do not think MM's power even boosted is simply capable of that.
LancerisDead
Definitely not a cat
- Location
- Buenos Aires
Don't remember the exact quote, but the GM said that Arc-en-Ciel would one-shot the Endbringers.
The problem with it is that it'd also destroy the planet, which is why Nanoha and co. had to teleport the Book of Darkness into space before they could use the Arc-en-Ciel.
- Location
- Georgia
Maybe she can make laser cannons with the boost. Higher tech stuff than her usual options, giving her more precision than nukes, though I don't recall her using nukes in canon without loading warheads, the same as she had to do with Bakuda's repurposed bombs. Perhaps she wouldn't get a boost out of it at all, but I love the mental image enough that if I can pull it together enough, I may turn it into an omake.
- Location
- USA
Really that whole sequence is... probably... an informative watch for this quest. Its hard to really form any opinions on the power of various shots from scenes (as apparently firing Starlight Breaker AND Ragnarok AND an equivalent third at the same target didn't, ya know... necessitate dodging blast radius or anything) but that sort of chain-combo of big moves followed by using Mistelteinn or somesuch to paralyze the target (teleporting it into space for an Arc-en-Ciel possibly optional, maybe instead we'd barrier or dimension-transit it for the triple-Breaker) feels like exactly what we'll need to end up doing to take out an Endbringer.
(I still want to see how Phantasm's power could change things, if at all. Lemme fire that cool gun on the mantle Writer-san!)
I wasn't talking about Arc-en-Ciel though.
Still wouldn't accomplish anything lasting or significant.
- Location
- Erebus
Nuclear pumped Saser. It's a totally human capable piece of tech. Though i suppose it's not exactly handheld, but we ARE talking about boosting her.
- Location
- Georgia
Against an Endbringer. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be helpful, and just because my first idea didn't produce something that could at worst hinder an Endbringer while other powers were brought to bear, that doesn't mean her pumped up wouldn't be cool.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Whoops, meant to answer that question and got distracted. Yes, since I didn't have to put the effort in to organize the vote for Standstill's powers, she could get a template later on if you wished.
Most of the time, the only practice a cape with a boost needs is to figure out exactly how and what that boost is going to do to their powers. For MM… Hmm. I'd have to do some thinking about exactly what said boost would do for her. She doesn't have anything that's easily quantifiable.New, though related, thought about Maclibuin's charms: Do the people using them have to practice with their powers to get full effect out of the boost? If not, a few charms we can toss to somebody like Miss Militia(because I'd LOVE to see what she could do with a power boot