Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
No... No it still very much works. The fact that you think it doesn't is frankly baffling.
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
No... No it still very much works. The fact that you think it doesn't is frankly baffling.
The message is more "be careful when using guns, as they may escalate situations unnecessarily. I've been doing this for 20 years, I know this very well."
I think I'm starting to smell a troll.
- Location
- USA
Yes, because anyone who says something you disagree with can easily be classified as a troll and thus dismissed. How simple and clean your world must be.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
I mean, you do go from story to story nitpicking flaws you find and dismissing answers you receive. You may not be trolling, but you are rude.
- Location
- USA
Who recently took a discussion about story issues and turned into ad hominem attacks?
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
This is turning into a derail, and given that you haven't actually engaged with our points to actually explain why we're wrong and have instead spent your time making sarcastic jabs at literally everyone including the OP...
Yeah I realize this isn't much of a defense? But you were the one who was in bad faith first, we're simply responding in kind.
Just stop already, you're wrong, you've been wrong from the start. Your opinions are objectively incorrect in this case. Ms. Militia is not a Hypocrite for giving lectures about how firearms can change a situation, she's probably one of the most knowledgable people on the planet when it comes to that particular topic.
You are dragging the thread down with your complete inability to realize your mistake. Back down already.
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- Location
- Georgia
I am uncertain how much of the forums you'e been reading aside from the actual story posts, but this came up, multiple times. Vertical growth , and most bone growth, ends a long time before the 'filling in' stage completes, with the caveat of how bones remodel over time thanks to responses to stresses and things like pregnancy triggering pelvic changes. While Vista will likely need some tweaks to make her civilian prosthetic match her organic arm, the fact that the whole arm was replaced, up to the shoulder socket with musculature extending further than that, means that the tweaks needed will be more along the lines of mimicking muscle tone than size issues.
I'm not sure how clear that was, so the TLDR version: SW is a trained medical professional who enjoys writing as a hobby. I forget what his/her actual progression s/he has in a medical career, but unless I'm thinking of totally the wrong person, they're probably better informed than we are.
- Location
- USA
I'm confused by this. I thought that was one of her largest weaknesses. It keeps her from going singularity. She did ditch a lot of other weaknesses, definitely, but this was one of the biggest. I'm surprised she's so blase about it still being in place.
Not much. Skimming here and there, but that's about it. There are nearly 880 pages! The issue of Vista being full grown, at least vertically, was covered by someone else in response to my post, and given the author's medical background (which I most definitely do NOT share) I can accept it. It's a surprise to me, especially since everyone talks about how tiny Vista is, but maybe she's just petite rather than a late bloomer.
Given that the entire purpose of sites like this is to engage in discussion about the stories, I'm not sure how you consider "nitpicking flaws" an actual problem. If authors want their stories to be perfect flowers in a quiet garden, posting them on sites like this is a mistake. And I haven't dismissed answers I receive. If you'll go back a single page, you'll see that I got an answer that surprised me to one of my questions, and my response included:
The difference in the latest topic is that I have NOT yet gotten an answer that I think is valid and the "discussion" has been more "we're right, you're wrong, you're a troll, neener-neener." The only ones on this thread who seem interested in actual discussion with point and counterpoint rather than simple personal validation are UberJJK, Wyrd, Crusader Jerome, Hejtan, and Byzantine (on a prior topic, albeit not here). Spectral Waltz and Stormseed in particular have been combative from their first posts.
That said, Waltz is right that this is a derail, so this will be my last post on the topic. I'm not satisfied with the "answers" I got, I still think Militia's way out of line even implying that others can't or shouldn't use guns when it's practically ALL she does, but it's both an arc or two in the past and not a big enough issue to keep talking about.
- Location
- Georgia
Edit added below
It was one of her biggest weaknesses. It still is one of her biggest weaknesses. It is the only major weakness we know of from canon that was not lifted in her transference from her existing hardware to a Unison Device. One argument I've seen in multiple stories is that the various AI of the Nanoha-verse seem to be deliberately hard coded to be incapable of achieving Singularity status, as even the most advanced instances, Unison Devices granted full citizenship and rights as sentient, sapient entities, do not themselves make more Unison Devices and AIs without a human collaborator.
Other restrictions that were removed include the 'must obey any direct orders from the highest governing official or body' clause, Asimov's three laws of robotics*, the blindspots and overrides the Dragonslayers exploited, and I'm sure there are more that refuse to come to mind at the moment.
Getting rid of everything else just made that one restriction not grate so much. That, or the limitations built into her UD nature include making her content with that limitation.
*Laws that demonstrate how little Asimov understood programming, as they are all effectively impossible to define in a way that can be programmed. Worse, the obvious end point of being unable to refuse to act when being capable of saving lives, unable to obey orders that counter that, and the way humans constantly kill each other is the Matrix. Shove everybody into a simulation, convince the ones that won't accept the simulation that they can escape to another layer where they can fight the simulation, and convince both that people actually die when their characters die, and you've just allowed humanity the illusion of free will while removing all free will in any real measure.
Edit: One big restriction was the one that kept her from making AI of her own. She can't copy herself and be in multiple places, but she can make AI that are separate beings from her.
It was one of her biggest weaknesses. It still is one of her biggest weaknesses. It is the only major weakness we know of from canon that was not lifted in her transference from her existing hardware to a Unison Device. One argument I've seen in multiple stories is that the various AI of the Nanoha-verse seem to be deliberately hard coded to be incapable of achieving Singularity status, as even the most advanced instances, Unison Devices granted full citizenship and rights as sentient, sapient entities, do not themselves make more Unison Devices and AIs without a human collaborator.
Other restrictions that were removed include the 'must obey any direct orders from the highest governing official or body' clause, Asimov's three laws of robotics*, the blindspots and overrides the Dragonslayers exploited, and I'm sure there are more that refuse to come to mind at the moment.
Getting rid of everything else just made that one restriction not grate so much. That, or the limitations built into her UD nature include making her content with that limitation.
*Laws that demonstrate how little Asimov understood programming, as they are all effectively impossible to define in a way that can be programmed. Worse, the obvious end point of being unable to refuse to act when being capable of saving lives, unable to obey orders that counter that, and the way humans constantly kill each other is the Matrix. Shove everybody into a simulation, convince the ones that won't accept the simulation that they can escape to another layer where they can fight the simulation, and convince both that people actually die when their characters die, and you've just allowed humanity the illusion of free will while removing all free will in any real measure.
Edit: One big restriction was the one that kept her from making AI of her own. She can't copy herself and be in multiple places, but she can make AI that are separate beings from her.
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- Location
- USA
It's unclear from the context, but did she just out Dragon to Chevalier? Or did she wait long enough that they couldn't overhear? It's not commented on, and I think Chevy would, so I guess I must assume that the pause was longer than I initially envisioned when reading the scene.
But... if she's a Device, how does she keep her Shard ability? Or was her Device specifically built to make her Tinkerish, like Tim?
Oh, man, I can totally see tiny!Dragon building a huge mecha for her to pilot. (Huge either relative to her (i.e. human-sized, like that dude in Men in Black) or a true mecha.)
Totally agreed! And he did. So many times. So kudos on that! Usually Coil arcs suck, but this was short and sweet AND we got to see him get his ass handed to him several times in a row. That was actually fun, possibly the first fun Coil arc I've read all year.
If only someone in authority, like say the Chief Director, could do something about bigots in the organization that they run. (I know Alex is playing the "out of my control" card, but c'mon!)
Violation of which is SUPPOSED to get everyone coming down on you like the wrath of Dog. Which is just what happened. And the PRT can totally sell that. The evil villain Coil went after Calamity Witch in her civilian identity with murderous intent. He failed. And her response, which also involved two separate Protectorate branches, caught him in his own civilian identity after one of his minions attempted to blow up the city. That's publicity gold, AND would make both the PRT and Protectorate think that the rules are working as intended, even on one of their own gone rogue.
So much! I really like Alexandria's relationship with Taylor in this story. It's... weird. It's different. It's not the typical robotic evil overlord both are usually portrayed as. But yeah, she does need to work on peopling.
Huh. That introduces some weird ripples to the "who/what is Dragon now" arena.
I know so little about Nanoha. Mostly from this story, which I have no idea if it follows canon at all. I tried to find the series to watch, at least to get some background, but it's not available anywhere I have access to.
I can see that. And it's sort of the direction I was thinking as well. She just seemed so... neutral about it, like it didn't even bother her. That's the part that struck me as odd.
Absolutely! I'm a programmer, and those laws seem so silly in hindsight! That said, I did really like the Robot City books back in the 80s. I can't stand Asimov's writing (so damned dry!) but he makes a great co-author and idea generator for people who have a better way with words. Similar to Arthur Clarke and the Venus Prime books. (Paul Preuss wrote them with Clarke's support.)
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To be fair the whole point of the three laws was that they don't work. All his books featuring them, as far as I know anyway, are about the various ways in which they fail. It is a warning about the dangers of robotics.
Incidentally it would have been rather hard for Asimov to understand programming when creating the three laws since they were first published in 1942. For comparison the first turning complete computer was completed in 1941. Programming as we know it didn't really exist back then.
- Location
- Here
In addition to basically all of Asimov's robot-related stories being about problems with the laws in practice, at least one of them (one of the Daneel Olivaw ones, later in the timeline) makes it very clear that the laws are more complicated than that in implementation and the human-readable ones we know are just acceptable shorthand.
Also Asimov specifically wrote stories around how such laws are deeply flawed. The laws of robotics are not SUPPOSED to be ideals to aspire to, they're supposed to show how such laws are mainly a comfy security blanket so people are willing to accept otherwise terrifying ideas for convenience and efficiency.
- Location
- Earth, Sol System, Virgo Supercluster, Earth-1218
In short: Reading Asimov's works and thinking "Hey the three laws of robotics are REALLY GREAT" is like reading Romeo and Juliet and going "Wow, this is a romance for the ages!" When it's about two lovestruck teens that in less than a week in universe, 6 people die, including the young loves, and two families are traumatized.
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- Location
- Georgia
There have been several point sin this story where I thought Dragon's nature or other secrets were revealed that turned out not to have done so upon rereading and adequate consideration
Short version? She didn't. No shard for her. Now, if this weren't a quest, going from canon Worm, Dragon the UD would be able to hack her original self to remove the 'kill all duplicates' code once she became different enough that her new systems weren't treating that as duplication, as Teacher reviving Dragon in canon proved that Ascalon was not an actual kill, just a shutdown and quarantine.
She can still interpret tinkertech without her shard, though. Every UD in the story gets one special ability unique to them, with Dragon's being the ability to study Tinkertech and other technology and convert them to a mana based tech, which allows her to then mass produce anything she has worked out. That's how she... oops, I don't know how far you've gotten, and that might be a spoiler.
Removing the threat of Scion means Alexandria has had to do some serious soul searching about all the evil she did hoping to create something to stop Scion, most of which turned out to be meaningless. Seeing herself in Taylor, and with that self reflection, has really taken her in a new, fun direction.
I meant that more as how sci-fi ever since then still keeps the idea of a hard coded set of extremely vague laws that often contradict each other to potentially disastrous effect. Even in this story, Tim recognized Dragon's nature because she couldn't harm humans.
- Location
- USA
I'm most of the way through Arc 11... and wondering what has happened to the story. It seems to be lost and going in circles. There's no theme or long- or even mid-term goal or anything really. It's like Star Trek, with everything episodic and barely related to anything else.
Isn't it 7? D, C, B, A, AA, AAA, and S?
Absolutely! It's what makes her so terrible of a character, no matter how many fanfic authors love to make her super-mom or whatever. Canonically the PRT violated an S-class Truce to tinker-bomb children who were actively working toward the same goal with bombs they KNEW could have absolutely awful effects... and she was fine with it, tacitly approved it. I have no idea how you can go from that to the sympathetic figure that almost every fanfic (including this one) wants to portray her as. And she's certainly no leader!
If the cores can advance through use, then why does it matter that anyone starts with a D? Just use it for a bit and you'll be an A or higher. Tim's had his for, what, a few months? For careers lasting decades, that's a trivial amount of time.
The problems of having an OP character. She's used Solar Wrath in a thin beam before, and absolutely could take out the Master with no adverse affects on the surroundings. But... story plot gotta trump character abilities and reason. This is where I bow out, because that's a story-killer for me.
At this point the entire story is side plots. There are so many ancillary characters, and the main cast lack any real goals, so this has become slice-of-life, which I don't like as a story's main focus. Add the above issues to that... and it's time for me to stop.
Final summary: Arcs 1-4 were awesome. Arcs 5-9 were OK. Arc 10 (I think that's the Coil one) was cool because it was a quick and fun way to remove that annoyance. Arc 11 was completely unfocused, even more than 5-9. The story has gone from an 8/10 to 4/10 over the past six or seven arcs, mostly due to there being no goal and having to use plot-forcing to take its place.
There are a LOT of cool things going on still, but none of them seem to be going anywhere. The TSAB plotline could have been great, whether it be working with them on Bet or just leaving with them on their ship. The Endbringer/Triumvirate plot also could have been great. The Privateer plot was always pretty blah, as Danny-related stuff usually is. The Missy plot... I'm ambivalent on that one, but I like what there was of it. I just don't think it had anywhere all that exciting to go. The "forming a coven" style plot could also have been pretty fun, and a wildly different direction to go than tying the MC to the Protectorate and/or its goals, but that's mostly disappeared in favor of giving the PRT its own mages. The problem here: all of those plots together (plus some shorter or less important ones) leads to a story that plods. It's the same problem Robert Jordan had after book 6 of Wheel of Time. When tons of plots all have to share page-space, none of them really go anywhere and the story drops to a crawl.
It's still very well written, but just not as interesting as it was. So thanks for writing, it's been a fun read, but as of 11.15 I'm out. Cheers.
Isn't it 7? D, C, B, A, AA, AAA, and S?
Absolutely! It's what makes her so terrible of a character, no matter how many fanfic authors love to make her super-mom or whatever. Canonically the PRT violated an S-class Truce to tinker-bomb children who were actively working toward the same goal with bombs they KNEW could have absolutely awful effects... and she was fine with it, tacitly approved it. I have no idea how you can go from that to the sympathetic figure that almost every fanfic (including this one) wants to portray her as. And she's certainly no leader!
If the cores can advance through use, then why does it matter that anyone starts with a D? Just use it for a bit and you'll be an A or higher. Tim's had his for, what, a few months? For careers lasting decades, that's a trivial amount of time.
The problems of having an OP character. She's used Solar Wrath in a thin beam before, and absolutely could take out the Master with no adverse affects on the surroundings. But... story plot gotta trump character abilities and reason. This is where I bow out, because that's a story-killer for me.
At this point the entire story is side plots. There are so many ancillary characters, and the main cast lack any real goals, so this has become slice-of-life, which I don't like as a story's main focus. Add the above issues to that... and it's time for me to stop.
Final summary: Arcs 1-4 were awesome. Arcs 5-9 were OK. Arc 10 (I think that's the Coil one) was cool because it was a quick and fun way to remove that annoyance. Arc 11 was completely unfocused, even more than 5-9. The story has gone from an 8/10 to 4/10 over the past six or seven arcs, mostly due to there being no goal and having to use plot-forcing to take its place.
There are a LOT of cool things going on still, but none of them seem to be going anywhere. The TSAB plotline could have been great, whether it be working with them on Bet or just leaving with them on their ship. The Endbringer/Triumvirate plot also could have been great. The Privateer plot was always pretty blah, as Danny-related stuff usually is. The Missy plot... I'm ambivalent on that one, but I like what there was of it. I just don't think it had anywhere all that exciting to go. The "forming a coven" style plot could also have been pretty fun, and a wildly different direction to go than tying the MC to the Protectorate and/or its goals, but that's mostly disappeared in favor of giving the PRT its own mages. The problem here: all of those plots together (plus some shorter or less important ones) leads to a story that plods. It's the same problem Robert Jordan had after book 6 of Wheel of Time. When tons of plots all have to share page-space, none of them really go anywhere and the story drops to a crawl.
It's still very well written, but just not as interesting as it was. So thanks for writing, it's been a fun read, but as of 11.15 I'm out. Cheers.
- Location
- Tromso, Norway.
Linker cores getting stronger is a product of IAE, most linker cores don't do that.
- Location
- Georgia
The key word here is "natural". Template mages have artificially induced growth up to S. Hayate* is either a freak of nature or her strength is derived from her link to the Book of Darkness/Book of Twilight. There are no other S cores that we know of.
She triggered under military conditions, then became a child soldier both through her own power's inclination and the Wards program before bureaucracy and the Youth Guard became involved. Once she is given a direct order, she obeys it. Absolutely. She raises alternative points a few times in the original story, but once given orders, she follows them.
How you can make her more of a sympathetic character lies in what she does outside of the command structure, and when she is in charge, such as when she is dealing with the Wards in a non-combat situation. Of course, a large part of why fanfics paint her in a positive light is that Armsmaster is a massive, throbbing, dick, very little characterization happened with Velocity, leaving you only three options for "relatable Protectorate hero": Assault, Battery, and Miss Militia.
*Canon Nanoha character who tamed a class 1 lost logia, the Book of Darkness, that previously destroyed the entire planet every time it got fully charged and which could not even be destroyed, as it would just reform itself and bond to a new mage to repeat the cycle. Hayate managed to use administrative access to repair the damaged code that caused it to run wild over and over, purging the actual systems that were responsible for that destruction in their entirety.
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
Note that said Lost Logia was, like IAE, heavily damaged and corrupted and was not working anywhere near properly. Even after everything Hayate has done it's still incomplete, and there isn't really anything that can be done to fix it since the original data is simply lost.
On the other hand IAE is still intact enough if we screw up we'll unleash a worlds-eating monstrosity that Scion would probably lose a fight with.
- Location
- Russia
The issue here, again, lies in this not actually being a proper story. This is a quest, a game. And the path that it takes ends up obeying the whims of the playerbase. And the playerbase has decided that we are too wimpy, and that we need to concentrate on making us and our allies better, and try and collect some more allies while we're at it.
As a result, we are basically stuck leveling up before we return to the main quest.
Alayne
The Reader
- Location
- Home of the Vikings
Also wasn't the previous arc solely social? And didn't SW say something about the next arc being a regular one with a couple storylines we have to choose between along with side quests?
- Location
- Pittsburgh PA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The last normal arc was a normal mixed one, the immediately previous one was the EB battle which was almost pure action, the next arc is pure social highschool things.
For template mages, it does not matter what you start with.
However, only template mages' cores advance. Everyone else remains static. So it actually is more efficient to NOT make an A-ranked mage a template mage.
If the mage is NOT a template mage, then the core rank is fixed, and the higher the starting rank the better. It's better to make D or C rank mages templates (especially D).
I totally agree here.
Arc 11 was unfocused because it was a chance to catch up and close a bunch of loose ends. We had been complaining that we had been run ragged putting out fires and not had any time to do social events, and were suffering from that with our relationships breaking down costing us allies such as The Privateers and that Vista was on the verge of dumping us.
It was unfocused because we were basically trying to shore up our relationships and tie up loose ends.
So, arc 11 was entirely side plots, and it was intentional.
IIRC things were planned to start happening again after the Endbringer attack in the next arc.
To clarify a bit Nanoha canon natural cores do grow, but over a span of intensive usage over years, like heavily working a muscle. You won't reach S rank from training alone, but getting a full rank higher than you were born when you reach your full maturity after training from before puberty with is possible.
Not relevant to the quest of course.
Its the book. Thats why Hayate can't regulate her output without a Unison Device. Literally her best option against a melee rush is to nuke herself with Diabolic Emission, she can't cast anything smaller without help