Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

[Faraway-R]

@Silently Watches you said it only takes 3-4 Breaker-tier spells to drive an Endbringer away, right? What about Busters?

A Breaker is available to B-rank or A-rank, as their sole spell. Otherwise, they are limited to Buster spells.
A Breaker is available to AA-rank and above, as normal spell.
A Breaker, specifically Ragnarok, is available to Calamity Witch template, with a number of limitations.

I'm assuming a Breaker requires an Intelligent Device to cast, making Tim and other Transcendent Gadgeteers the sole suppliers of necessary equipment. I think he can manage 3 Intelligent Devices per week now.

Going off of UberJJK, we'll have maybe one AA+ in Philly, and maybe 100 across the PRT.

Questions (to all people):
1) Is Ragnarok the only Breaker we can supply? Or is there any other spell? One that doesn't result in irradiation of the combat zone?
2) Can we gather an Endbringer Elimination Brigade by next Endbringer? Or at least, a team that can in near-to-no delay, deploy to combat zone and drive the Endbringer away with the Breakers?
3) Same question, but for Endbringer Relocation Brigade to forcibly teleport it into orbit.
4) Do we hafta wait for an Endbringer attack before we could teleport them into orbit?

 

[LancerisDead]

The main reason I put the PRT first is that they are essentially SWAT teams, a group trained to a higher level and put under stricter guidelines because they'll adjust best to the tech infusion. All police, firefighters, emergency response people of all stripes, including doctors, should definitely be high on the priority list. It's in this stage that I expect the Yangban et. al to get enough information to start their own programs. Without template gadgeteers, they'll be lagging behind hard enough that hopefully they won't make a stupid move too soon.

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Yes, but if the public 1 in 20 has them, then it doesn't matter what the Yangban and Gesselscaht do. Proliferation is typically the key to getting the better stuff (you find more talented creators that way) and letting the pleebs have magic is something china and germany will NEVER allow if they have the chance.

Click to shrink...

Hoooo boy. Can we not power creep this quest into Crusader Kings territory?

Frankly, and I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I'm here for the characters and the moment-to-moment action. Don't really care for the munchkin-y type of thing.

 

[aceraptor]

@Silently Watches you said it only takes 3-4 Breaker-tier spells to drive an Endbringer away, right? What about Busters?

A Breaker is available to B-rank or A-rank, as their sole spell. Otherwise, they are limited to Buster spells.
A Breaker is available to AA-rank and above, as normal spell.
A Breaker, specifically Ragnarok, is available to Calamity Witch template, with a number of limitations.

I'm assuming a Breaker requires an Intelligent Device to cast, making Tim and other Transcendent Gadgeteers the sole suppliers of necessary equipment. I think he can manage 3 Intelligent Devices per week now.

Going off of UberJJK, we'll have maybe one AA+ in Philly, and maybe 100 across the PRT.

Questions (to all people):
1) Is Ragnarok the only Breaker we can supply? Or is there any other spell? One that doesn't result in irradiation of the combat zone?
2) Can we gather an Endbringer Elimination Brigade by next Endbringer? Or at least, a team that can in near-to-no delay, deploy to combat zone and drive the Endbringer away with the Breakers?
3) Same question, but for Endbringer Relocation Brigade to forcibly teleport it into orbit.
4) Do we hafta wait for an Endbringer attack before we could teleport them into orbit?

Click to shrink...

If we want to learn Breakers that don't have the adverse effects of Ragnarok I'd guess we'd have to talk to the TSAB. i.e. Starlight Breaker. Oh, Teana knows Starlight Breaker so we might be able to crib it off of her.

Though... if we can talk to TSAB about this, we might be able to get pointers or the program for Hayate's BoD version of Ragnarok Breaker that is smaller, cheaper, and also has a nonlethal setting. If we have that info we might be able to modify Ragnarok Breaker to get rid of the radiation and secondary effects and focus purely on penetration and target annihilation.

 

[veekie]

Hoooo boy. Can we not power creep this quest into Crusader Kings territory?

Frankly, and I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I'm here for the characters and the moment-to-moment action. Don't really care for the munchkin-y type of thing.

Click to shrink...

Not quite munchkinery.
This is straight social implications which we already know will come into play. We're doing an irreversible form of proliferation, once the genie is out of the bottle its not coming back.

So we do the PRT first, to ensure that law enforcement gets first dibs.
Then we need to make sure legal propagation is outpacing illegal, and to deal with the inevitable point of magic leaking to the criminal and international realms. Allies are going to want in, rivals are going to want to take it to be competitive.

It'd be messy. Best discuss it before it catches fire.

 

[Faraway-R]

...You know this is now time for someone to write a negaverse CKII quest intro, character selection. Sequel quest, post-Endbringers.

 

[Silently Watches]

@Silently Watches you said it only takes 3-4 Breaker-tier spells to drive an Endbringer away, right? What about Busters?

Click to shrink...

Busters don't do enough damage.

A Breaker, specifically Ragnarok, is available to Calamity Witch template, with a number of limitations.

Click to shrink...

That number being two.

1) Don't fire if you don't have enough mana.
2) Don't fire at anything you care about.

1) Is Ragnarok the only Breaker we can supply? Or is there any other spell? One that doesn't result in irradiation of the combat zone?

Click to shrink...

Ragnarök is not the only Breaker. In fact, Ragnarök is only available to the Calamity Witch template. Other Breakers can be created.

2) Can we gather an Endbringer Elimination Brigade by next Endbringer? Or at least, a team that can in near-to-no delay, deploy to combat zone and drive the Endbringer away with the Breakers?

Click to shrink...

Mechanically? If you social and scan enough people and get very lucky with your dice rolls, possibly.

Narratively? Not a chance. Taylor has never cast Ragnarök. All she knows about it is that it's a bigger boom than Solar Wrath. She has no clue what it does, and less than no clue what it would do to an Endbringer.

3) Same question, but for Endbringer Relocation Brigade to forcibly teleport it into orbit.

Click to shrink...

It would require both talking to Teana about how they dealt with the BoD and getting lucky with rolls as above.

4) Do we hafta wait for an Endbringer attack before we could teleport them into orbit?

Click to shrink...

Yes.

Though... if we can talk to TSAB about this, we might be able to get pointers or the program for Hayate's BoD version of Ragnarok Breaker that is smaller, cheaper, and also has a nonlethal setting. If we have that info we might be able to modify Ragnarok Breaker to get rid of the radiation and secondary effects and focus purely on penetration and target annihilation.

Click to shrink...

No.

 

[Parzival95]

So we should take an action to talk to the TSAB for help testing Ragnorak then. On an uninhabited world preferably.

 

[Faraway-R]

So we should take an action to talk to the TSAB for help testing Ragnorak then. On an uninhabited world preferably.

Click to shrink...

In fact we should make a Dragon-Cassie-Teana social.

We ask Teana for her ideas or methods for killing Endbringers.

We ask Cassie to confirm/deny efficacy of those methods.

We take Dragon as expert on the Endbringer response from Earthling POV.

We test out Breakers and maybe, MAYBE Arc-en-Ciel in a desolate area, for Cassie to evaluate them. In particular, Arc-en-Ciel is tested either on the Moon, or on some space debris in Earth orbit - that is if the live fire test is allowed in first place.

This may or may not be a multiple time slot action.

 

[Wyrd]

Yes, but if the public 1 in 20 has them, then it doesn't matter what the Yangban and Gesselscaht do. Proliferation is typically the key to getting the better stuff (you find more talented creators that way) and letting the pleebs have magic is something china and germany will NEVER allow if they have the chance.

Click to shrink...

We seem to be in agreement on certain aspects. The problem with this is that you keep pointing at the part we agree on rather than the details I'm focusing on. I want mass proliferation as the third or fourth wave. I just expect those groups to get their own programs started during the second wave or possibly even the first. I'm sure they have spies in the PRT, after all.

Also, while they'll be able to make lots of stuff, Gears can only make one storage device a week. Time is the issue here.

As for why would we make the better devices for some of the PRT? Because there's a lot of spells that are only available with them. Healing, for instance, isn't on the TG spell tree so far as we've seen, so doctors will need boost devices to get much in the way of benefits from them. On the plus side, having control over higher tier devices means we can vet people who are being given the better stuff, since we'll need to interview them to determine which other spells should go in their devices.

@Silently Watches you said it only takes 3-4 Breaker-tier spells to drive an Endbringer away, right? What about Busters?

A Breaker is available to B-rank or A-rank, as their sole spell. Otherwise, they are limited to Buster spells.
A Breaker is available to AA-rank and above, as normal spell.
A Breaker, specifically Ragnarok, is available to Calamity Witch template, with a number of limitations.

I'm assuming a Breaker requires an Intelligent Device to cast, making Tim and other Transcendent Gadgeteers the sole suppliers of necessary equipment. I think he can manage 3 Intelligent Devices per week now.

Going off of UberJJK, we'll have maybe one AA+ in Philly, and maybe 100 across the PRT.

Questions (to all people):
1) Is Ragnarok the only Breaker we can supply? Or is there any other spell? One that doesn't result in irradiation of the combat zone?
2) Can we gather an Endbringer Elimination Brigade by next Endbringer? Or at least, a team that can in near-to-no delay, deploy to combat zone and drive the Endbringer away with the Breakers?
3) Same question, but for Endbringer Relocation Brigade to forcibly teleport it into orbit.
4) Do we hafta wait for an Endbringer attack before we could teleport them into orbit?

Click to shrink...

CW and EK both have breakers. TG and IE do not. Shipwright's weapons might be big enough to drive them off at some point in the next few months, but I think at that point we'll be wanting to build a set of boost devices with force teleport on them rather than some guns, provided we can get the TSAB ship spaceworthy in time.

As for number 4, the only Endbringer who we would be able to get to during their recovery period was the Simurgh, since she slept in orbit. Leviathan sleeps at the bottom of the ocean, and Behemoth sleeps in the mantle. Even if we knew where they were, we wouldn't be able to get mages close enough to do something about it.

Hoooo boy. Can we not power creep this quest into Crusader Kings territory?

Frankly, and I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I'm here for the characters and the moment-to-moment action. Don't really care for the munchkin-y type of thing.

Click to shrink...

Look at the time frame we're discussing. Most of what we are predicting will happen after the game is officially over. It will only matter if SW decides to do a sequel quest after we kill the Endbringers, so the power creep really doesn't matter.

Narratively? Not a chance. Taylor has never cast Ragnarök. All she knows about it is that it's a bigger boom than Solar Wrath. She has no clue what it does, and less than no clue what it would do to an Endbringer.

Click to shrink...

So we should take an action to talk to the TSAB for help testing Ragnorak then. On an uninhabited world preferably.

Click to shrink...

I could easily be misremembering, but wasn't there a throwaway line about us testing Ragnarok in simulation? We have no idea how effective it will be on an Endbringer, but that doesn't mean we have no idea at all about how it would work. Of course, bringing an Endbringer into RF and people like MM who has canonically created nuclear weapons could get us to enough firepower to wound an Endbringer enough to trigger withdrawal, giving us a few months to get ready for the next one.

We test out Breakers and maybe, MAYBE Arc-en-Ciel in a desolate area, for Cassie to evaluate them. In particular, Arc-en-Ciel is tested either on the Moon, or on some space debris in Earth orbit - that is if the live fire test is allowed in first place.

Click to shrink...

Which is why we wouldn't test it on any of the Earths. Moons, on the other hand, or Mars/further out...

 

[Shaseyu]

"Does your organisation have an experience of fighting Endbringer-like creatures?" and "How you plan to kill Endbringers?" seem to be logical questions to ask when Legend meet up with Enforcers.

 

[Silently Watches]

Also, while they'll be able to make lots of stuff, Gears can only make one storage device a week. Time is the issue here.

Click to shrink...

Storage Devices are one time slot as seen in Tim's sheet, thus a Gear can make 2 per week.

Healing, for instance, isn't on the TG spell tree so far as we've seen, so doctors will need boost devices to get much in the way of benefits from them.

Click to shrink...

Physical Heal can be cast with a Storage Device or even Deviceless. There are stronger healing spells that need a Boost Device, but this isn't one of them.

CW and EK both have breakers. TG and IE do not. Shipwright's weapons might be big enough to drive them off at some point in the next few months, but I think at that point we'll be wanting to build a set of boost devices with force teleport on them rather than some guns, provided we can get the TSAB ship spaceworthy in time.

Click to shrink...

Gadgeteers can build weapons on Breaker scales, but you need the Large Weapons skill.

 

[dhasenan]

The main reason I put the PRT first is that they are essentially SWAT teams, a group trained to a higher level and put under stricter guidelines because they'll adjust best to the tech infusion. All police, firefighters, emergency response people of all stripes, including doctors, should definitely be high on the priority list. It's in this stage that I expect the Yangban et. al to get enough information to start their own programs. Without template gadgeteers, they'll be lagging behind hard enough that hopefully they won't make a stupid move too soon.

Stupidity is pretty much guaranteed with them, since they're the ones who refused to help with Zion at all, and who invaded a world opened up to a different country after refusing a portal of their own to a world of their own.

Click to shrink...

The PRT includes troops, a wide range of support personnel, and PR. If we're scanning all of them, the troops are going to be a minority. A sizable plurality, but still not a majority.

I would again like to reiterate that cops are poorly vetted and self-select as people authorized to use violence against people who are neither authorized to use it nor are particularly well trained or equipped. Domestic violence is quite popular among cops, for instance. Prioritizing cops is a weakly Lawful move, not a Good one.

 

[Wyrd]

Storage Devices are one time slot as seen in Tim's sheet, thus a Gear can make 2 per week.

Click to shrink...

Ah, yes, forgot about that. Sorry.

Physical Heal can be cast with a Storage Device or even Deviceless. There are stronger healing spells that need a Boost Device, but this isn't one of them.

Click to shrink...

Interesting. I was thinking the device had to corellate to the template. Then again, we have a single example to go on from the story.

Gadgeteers can build weapons on Breaker scales, but you need the Large Weapons skill.

Click to shrink...

The problem wasn't that Tim can't build breaker tier weaponry, but that I doubt he can build Arc-en-ciel tier weaponry. If we have the TSAB ship to coordinate with, I really think the focus should be on getting enough people with force teleport. We don't have to worry about collateral damage that way.

That brings up something, though. If Tim builds a ship of some kind to move that level of weapon with it, would that ship be able to enter recursion field? Without RF, anything strong enough to break through an Endbringer will be doing catastrophic damage to the part of the world that Endbringer happens to be on.

The PRT includes troops, a wide range of support personnel, and PR. If we're scanning all of them, the troops are going to be a minority. A sizable plurality, but still not a majority.

I would again like to reiterate that cops are poorly vetted and self-select as people authorized to use violence against people who are neither authorized to use it nor are particularly well trained or equipped. Domestic violence is quite popular among cops, for instance. Prioritizing cops is a weakly Lawful move, not a Good one.

Click to shrink...

Being careful with the initial spread of magic is the best we can do, though. The details on how to make your very own pet parahuman will get out. Millions of people will try that, and 5% of those people will succeed, so it will spread to everybody in any country that isn't as locked down as much as China and Germany are in Earth Bet.

My goal is to try to get ahead of the change, not stop the change from happening.

 

[Silently Watches]

Interesting. I was thinking the device had to corellate to the template. Then again, we have a single example to go on from the story.

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There's a link in the Making New Mages FAQ about Devices and their specialties.

That brings up something, though. If Tim builds a ship of some kind to move that level of weapon with it, would that ship be able to enter recursion field? Without RF, anything strong enough to break through an Endbringer will be doing catastrophic damage to the part of the world that Endbringer happens to be on.

Click to shrink...

Prooooooobably? I haven't thought much about that to date.

 

[Wyrd]

There's a link in the Making New Mages FAQ about Devices and their specialties.

Click to shrink...

Guess I should go reread that again now that we're actually making new mages. I joined the forum just before the update when the Adepts got their device and spells, so it hasn't been entirely relevant. I did read it before, but my apologies for not reviewing it.

 

[Solusandra]

Prooooooobably? I haven't thought much about that to date.

Click to shrink...

I suppose it'd take us a few hundred of tims slots to make a ship?

 

[Wyrd]

I suppose it'd take us a few hundred of tims slots to make a ship?

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I think that depends on how many Gears and engineers we can get supporting him. SW has said that a spaceship is within his capabilities but that an interdimensional ship is not. How long it would be before he's capable of designing and building such a ship was not mentioned. There's a good chance the answer to that one is "after the game is over".

 

[Silently Watches]

I suppose it'd take us a few hundred of tims slots to make a ship?

Click to shrink...

Depends on how secure the ship is. If it's basically just a floating gun platform, not terribly long. I know I had ideas that with the Privateers and an early Gadgeteer, you could have a flying pirate ship with laser cannons in fairly short order. But a full spaceworthy ship would take a while, yes.

I think that depends on how many Gears and engineers we can get supporting him. SW has said that a spaceship is within his capabilities but that an interdimensional ship is not. How long it would be before he's capable of designing and building such a ship was not mentioned. There's a good chance the answer to that one is "after the game is over".

Click to shrink...

Pretty much.

 

[Solusandra]

but that an interdimensional ship is not. How long it would be before he's capable of designing and building such a ship was not mentioned.

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wasn't It was mentioned that it wasnt in his capabilities because he doesnt have the dimensional teleport spell in his personal arsenal. So...buy it.

 

[Wyrd]

wasn't It was mentioned that it wasnt in his capabilities because he doesnt have the dimensional teleport spell in his personal arsenal. So...buy it.

Click to shrink...

I believe the comment you're referring to has to do with making interdimensional teleporters. We're not at a point to make those yet more because we haven't been traveling to other dimensions. It's also a really cheap spell, and I plan on pushing Tim's next build vote to include some slots spent helping the TSAB ship, so getting him the ability to travel on his own would be helpful.

@Silently Watches Would Tim at any point be able to build a gate between two specific places either on the same or alternate worlds? Stargates are so much more useful for trade.

 

[Silently Watches]

@Silently Watches Would Tim at any point be able to build a gate between two specific places either on the same or alternate worlds? Stargates are so much more useful for trade.

Click to shrink...

I've been thinking about that since it makes so much sense but is never seen in canon (I believe the Force manga mentions that civilians use ships to travel between worlds, and we know the TSAB military does), so short answer is yes but only among planets within a cluster world like Earth Aleph/Bet/etc. If you ever take down the boundary between Earth Bet and Midchilda, which I very honestly do not expect to happen within the scope of the quest, you would not be able to build a portal to let the Enforcers walk home.

 

[RoninSword]

I apologize if this question has been asked before, but is Midchilda and the TSAB not multiple planets within the same dimension, but rather one planet colonized over itself in different dimensions?

 

[Silently Watches]

I apologize if this question has been asked before, but is Midchilda and the TSAB not multiple planets within the same dimension, but rather one planet colonized over itself in different dimensions?

Click to shrink...

All the worlds in Nanoha canon are, as far as I understand, supposed to be alternate Earths in different dimensions.

 

[Wyrd]

Something I want but know I won't get:

[] Social
-[] with Taylor Hebert
--[]stay in and read a bleeping book
--[] remember who Taylor Hebert is. Enjoy some down time.

 

[landcollector]

Enjoy some down time.

Click to shrink...

Taylor: "Down time? What is that, again?"