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On Fluttering Wings [Taylor Hebert in MGLN]

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EldritchPangolin said:
That leaves me with three ideas. One is that the information is not out there at all. The Space Guvmint wields totalitarian powers of censorship and doesn't want anybody to know history. But that doesn't fit with the depiction of space civilization as a generally happy and prosperous place, and with what everybody's saying about Space Government being good guys most of the time. So that's probably not it.

The second idea is that the information is out there but hard to reach. But that means there's no Space Google or Space Wikipedia and that when it comes to networking and search technology, the advanced civilization of space wizards is stuck somewhere at a level of Earth in the mid-nineties or worse. That sounds a little too convenient.

And even if they had to rely on Space Altavista, Taylor and Mariposa should still be able to find information about Belkan history if they directly searched for it. First they checked if the country they found themselves in has any knowledge or relations with Mariposa's homeworld. The obvious next step would be checking if it has any knowledge or relations with Mariposa's enemies.
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Eh. Keep in mind (from what I know anyway) a few things here. First, it's Ancient Belka for a reason, wouldn't suprise me if a record building or two got hit ages ago and lost a bunch of that times knowledge. Second, they still have WMDs running around from that time with unknown activation protocols, so keeping archaeologists from running into a murder bot via censorship might be in effect to avoid collateral damage. The military branch has a lot more info than the civilian networks in most situations. Third, related to First, aside from Belka who says Mariposa's states are remembered by their name on Space Wiki? One mistranslation and its name might be logged as S-Scotland rather than S-Spain, and how would Mari know what to search for then?

Edit: @Stardust Falcon just brought up the tech issues before me so keep those in mind as well.
 
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serra2 said:
I'm actually more invested in the "Taylor travels the multiverse, searching for new and cool foods" thing. I loved No Reservations and Parts Unknown, and the idea of traveling to new worlds just to try the cuisine and accommodations tickles my fancy.


I would honestly love it if the orbital friendship beam meme fails miserably. One of the more memorable MGLN crossovers I read was a Ranma 1/2 crossover where the story starts with that happening, which has Ranma be an endlessly belligerent ass on the Strikers team for the rest of the fic because screw being friends, you guys arrested me for nothing.
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Link please I want to read that
 
FailLord said:
Why does it always have to end in friendship beam.

This situation is unlike previous situations in the MGLN timeline where outside factors pushed characters into violent conflict with eachother.

I believe that Fate and Nanoha, especially Fate, would be able to defuse the situation without resorting to a starlight breaker.
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Because I've been reading (fan)faction for far too long and this seems to be the perfect setup for the typical misunderstanding leading into a fight, a chase and (since it's Nanoha) ending with a Divine Buster or Starlight Breaker to the face.
 
EldritchPangolin said:
Now, there's this thing called Google. It renders the idea of information that's out there but not on prominent display somewhat meaningless for a networked society. All sort of fringe subjects that are not discussed in mainstream media or polite society are easily accessible. And if you're interested in widely accepted knowledge, you can always start with Wikipedia for a broad overview.
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Having access to Space Google isn't helpful if you don't think to ask the right questions.
 
Jong said:
I'm not really disagreeing with you here, but I feel your risk assessment might be a bit off.

I mean, think about how you would treat a sealed box that has a 1% chance of containing a planet exploding bomb or a zombie plague or something like that. I sure wouldn't want to be on the same planet as that box.

I think a less cautious attitude could be justified if a positive identification of Mariposa was made prior to contact.
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My risk assessment is irrelevant, it's Nanoha we're talking about here and that girl tends to go pretty far in her attempts to talk her opponent down before she breaks out the Breaker. Even Chrono who is quite a bit more of a hard liner attempted dialogue.

You seem to forget that Nanoha is a fairly bright setting, where talking works even if you do have to fight for a bit it's the talk that saved the day. Sure, they could conclude that Mariposa is a walking, talking Armageddon but to them the actually important part is the walking and talking. Because that means you can talk with them. Even the Book of Darkness was in part brought down through the magical power of talking it out.
 
Baughn said:
Building a new Unison device would be a far more difficult proposal. Technically speaking, they could do it, but you'd be creating a person specifically to make them fight. How is that ethical?

There's an obvious comparison to be drawn between Unison devices and artificial mages, here
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But what about Familiars?
They have human-like intelligence, but they are a living weapon, fanatically loyal to their creators, and we saw at least one TSAB officer (Graham) having them, so we can't say their creation is forbidden.
How is that ethical?
 
Shaseyu said:
But what about Familiars?
They have human-like intelligence, but they are a living weapon, fanatically loyal to their creators, and we saw at least one TSAB officer (Graham) having them, so we can't say their creation forbidden.
How is that ethical?
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familiars can defy their creator, but it does take a lot of abuse.
 
I'm a little irritated by everyone assuming Taylor will jump to her Late Skitter phase where everyone in power was an enemy, she had to be in control of every situation, and would BEES first ask questions never.

This Taylor is pre-Undersiders. Pre-Armsmaster backstabbing her. Pre-Alexandria. On some level, she still has trust in people with authority.

Her reason for fleeing the police station is because she thought she'd be classed as an illegal alien. She fled the TSAB because that's a reasonable reaction if you accidentally teleported into a military base. I'd probably teleport back out, too. She wasn't exactly going to great lengths to live off the radar, either. She visited hotels, restaurants, TSAB buildings.

I could see Nanoha showing up plainclothes, hold up her hands and say "I just want to talk". Remember, Nanoha has years of law enforcement experience, plus her experiences with other Woobies of Mass Destruction. She probably knows how to approach situations like this. More importantly, she's genuinely a good person.
I could see this working out without fighting. It might be tense, but I dont see the need for instant Orbital Friendship Beams.
 
QuietlyObserving said:
I'm a little irritated by everyone assuming Taylor will jump to her Late Skitter phase where everyone in power was an enemy, she had to be in control of every situation, and would BEES first ask questions never.

This Taylor is pre-Undersiders. Pre-Armsmaster backstabbing her. Pre-Alexandria. On some level, she still has trust in people with authority.

Her reason for fleeing the police station is because she thought she'd be classed as an illegal alien. She fled the TSAB because that's a reasonable reaction if you accidentally teleported into a military base. I'd probably teleport back out, too. She wasn't exactly going to great lengths to live off the radar, either. She visited hotels, restaurants, TSAB buildings.

I could see Nanoha showing up plainclothes, hold up her hands and say "I just want to talk". Remember, Nanoha has years of law enforcement experience, plus her experiences with other Woobies of Mass Destruction. She probably knows how to approach situations like this. More importantly, she's genuinely a good person.
I could see this working out without fighting. It might be tense, but I dont see the need for instant Orbital Friendship Beams.
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this can work out without fighting... as long as Hayate does not bring her Knights. Then Mariposa will flip out.
 
Zweibach said:
My risk assessment is irrelevant, it's Nanoha we're talking about here and that girl tends to go pretty far in her attempts to talk her opponent down before she breaks out the Breaker. Even Chrono who is quite a bit more of a hard liner attempted dialogue.

You seem to forget that Nanoha is a fairly bright setting, where talking works even if you do have to fight for a bit it's the talk that saved the day. Sure, they could conclude that Mariposa is a walking, talking Armageddon but to them the actually important part is the walking and talking. Because that means you can talk with them. Even the Book of Darkness was in part brought down through the magical power of talking it out.
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Uhh I must be coming across wrong because I actually agree with you.

I just wanted to say that from certain perspectives, Taylor and Mariposa in particular could be seen as potentially dangerous and it would be foolish to not have any back up plans prepared.

I mean, the TSAB could hardly be okay with Taylor just escaping into the wild blue yonder, and they'd surely make some preparations in case she decides to she wants to teleport at the drop of a hat as she has already shown herself capable of doing. It would just be dumb if they didn't do anything like that and Taylor just slips away. Will they just shrug their shoulders and say 'no big deal'? That's just ridiculous.

I'd like to point out that during the Book of Darkness incident they had a warship with a country obliterating cannon that they had full intention of using in case the plan fell through.

In other words, even when you speak softly, make sure you have a big stick hidden behind your back.
 
"seen as" potentially dangerous? Mariposa is a Siege-type (which is presumably a couple of steps in area damage above the average) Unison Device, so she can only link with a Lord to begin with. And Taylor is a powerful magic user on the scale Mariposa is using, so... They ARE potentially dangerous. Very much so.
 
QuietlyObserving said:
I could see Nanoha showing up plainclothes, hold up her hands and say "I just want to talk". Remember, Nanoha has years of law enforcement experience, plus her experiences with other Woobies of Mass Destruction. She probably knows how to approach situations like this. More importantly, she's genuinely a good person.
I could see this working out without fighting. It might be tense, but I dont see the need for instant Orbital Friendship Beams.
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Wouldn't Fate be better for this task as she is the TSAB equivalent of a FBI agent compared to Nanoha who is a combat instructor?
 
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Shaseyu said:
But what about Familiars?
They have human-like intelligence, but they are a living weapon, fanatically loyal to their creators, and we saw at least one TSAB officer (Graham) having them, so we can't say their creation is forbidden.
How is that ethical?
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That's a fair point, and I don't think it really is.

The most likely answer is that it's cultural. The creation of familiars is grandfathered in, because the TSAB is a melting pot made up of a lot of magical cultures that are, still, only partially integrated -- it's honestly more akin to the current-day Europe than the current-day USA. It was set up as a military junta, which is probably the only reason there's a shared military.*

So it's not consistent, and it doesn't need to be. Viewed from the perspective of someone who has neither, familiars and Unison Devices are the same sort of thing, and should be subject to the same rules. Viewed from the perspective of a citizen, one is a cultural legacy and the other is effectively new. One produces at best low-level combatants, and the other is the legacy of military research labs from a deeply traumatic section of history. Of course they'd be treated differently.

Don't underestimate that trauma, either. The TSAB is only around seventy years old, and was set up by the surviving militaries of the Belkan wars -- a war so apocalyptic, their capital planet had a massive drop in population. Midchilda was probably chosen for being the least damaged, and yet there are massive sections of their capital city -- the capital of an interstellar empire -- which, seventy years on, are still essentially just rubble. Other major planets range from worse off, to... not there anymore.

We don't know the exact lifespan of the average Mid-Childan, but the politicians who currently hold power will be the ones who grew up with stories from parents who lived that apocalypse. It's no surprise that they went "never again". The trick will be to keep that attitude.

*: But of course the EU is rapidly stepping in that direction as well. Just like the TSAB, the EU is likely to become a proper nation if given time; time which neither polity has had. And just like the TSAB, it was formed from the collective trauma of an utterly ruinous series of wars, a fact which many nations are now slowly forgetting...
 
Jong said:
Uhh I must be coming across wrong because I actually agree with you.

I just wanted to say that from certain perspectives, Taylor and Mariposa in particular could be seen as potentially dangerous and it would be foolish to not have any back up plans prepared.

I mean, the TSAB could hardly be okay with Taylor just escaping into the wild blue yonder (snip)
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Important bit, there: just escaping.

So far, the TSAB's interactions with Taylor paint the picture of someone who is wandering possibly-aimlessly and prefers leaving to interacting.

"Hey - there's this powerful person out there that when we run into her, she squeaks in panic and runs away; we should corner her and commit violence upon her without knowing just how powerful she is, or how much of the nearby world she might fry, if she can't run!"

If there's a powerful unknown that is wandering around being generally peaceful (again - no mention of mugger-baiting being known), I submit it's very poorly though out to deliberately trigger violence that actually might result in large scale collateral damage and/or casualties. I agree that politicians are generally stupid enough to pull that, and not think of the consequences of turning a powerful unknown into a powerful enemy, but the TSAB (and Nanoha) seem a bit more sane than that. Poke gently? Try to determine goals and whether the unknown will try to remain peaceful? Adopt the woobie and give her a loving family (hi, Nanoha!)? Sure - these seem options.

Inciting probably-unnecessary violence with a powerful unknown that has so far not been violent? Um.

Backup plans in case she gets violent? Sure! Backup plans in case she escapes? Probably, but probably not "incite violence to keep her from leaving peacefully!"
 
Kellcat said:
Important bit, there: just escaping.

So far, the TSAB's interactions with Taylor paint the picture of someone who is wandering possibly-aimlessly and prefers leaving to interacting.

"Hey - there's this powerful person out there that when we run into her, she squeaks in panic and runs away; we should corner her and commit violence upon her without knowing just how powerful she is, or how much of the nearby world she might fry, if she can't run!"

If there's a powerful unknown that is wandering around being generally peaceful (again - no mention of mugger-baiting being known), I submit it's very poorly though out to deliberately trigger violence that actually might result in large scale collateral damage and/or casualties. I agree that politicians are generally stupid enough to pull that, and not think of the consequences of turning a powerful unknown into a powerful enemy, but the TSAB (and Nanoha) seem a bit more sane than that. Poke gently? Try to determine goals and whether the unknown will try to remain peaceful? Adopt the woobie and give her a loving family (hi, Nanoha!)? Sure - these seem options.

Inciting probably-unnecessary violence with a powerful unknown that has so far not been violent? Um.

Backup plans in case she gets violent? Sure! Backup plans in case she escapes? Probably, but probably not "incite violence to keep her from leaving peacefully!"
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Hell, perfect interaction would likely be just "Observe and Track", with a side order of "Point her where she wants to go if requested". Unlike all the other things they have delt with, she has so far been pretty chill, with a distinct lack of "Oops no more city" on her track record.
 
Wait.

I just noticed from rereading the chapter that Nanoha and Fate are married.

When did this happen?
 
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She isn't just a powerful person minding her own business. She's holding an autonomous weapon from the Final War and you don't know what it does.
 
Baughn said:
That's a fair point, and I don't think it really is.

The most likely answer is that it's cultural. The creation of familiars is grandfathered in, because the TSAB is a melting pot made up of a lot of magical cultures that are, still, only partially integrated -- it's honestly more akin to the current-day Europe than the current-day USA. It was set up as a military junta, which is probably the only reason there's a shared military.*

So it's not consistent, and it doesn't need to be. Viewed from the perspective of someone who has neither, familiars and Unison Devices are the same sort of thing, and should be subject to the same rules. Viewed from the perspective of a citizen, one is a cultural legacy and the other is effectively new. One produces at best low-level combatants, and the other is the legacy of military research labs from a deeply traumatic section of history. Of course they'd be treated differently.

Don't underestimate that trauma, either. The TSAB is only around seventy years old, and was set up by the surviving militaries of the Belkan wars -- a war so apocalyptic, their capital planet had a massive drop in population. Midchilda was probably chosen for being the least damaged, and yet there are massive sections of their capital city -- the capital of an interstellar empire -- which, seventy years on, are still essentially just rubble. Other major planets range from worse off, to... not there anymore.

We don't know the exact lifespan of the average Mid-Childan, but the politicians who currently hold power will be the ones who grew up with stories from parents who lived that apocalypse. It's no surprise that they went "never again". The trick will be to keep that attitude.

*: But of course the EU is rapidly stepping in that direction as well. Just like the TSAB, the EU is likely to become a proper nation if given time; time which neither polity has had. And just like the TSAB, it was formed from the collective trauma of an utterly ruinous series of wars, a fact which many nations are now slowly forgetting...
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There are also different tiers of familiars that exist Linith and Arf for example are high tier familiars with high intelligence lower grade familiars which is probably what most people make might not have a human level of intellect.

A Magical Living Form created by a Mage that are based upon Animals*. They are connected with their Master by a Mana Link, and they live from the Mana that are fed to them from their Master. Most Familiars have a "Human Form" and an "Animal Form" that resembles their original body. They can switch freely between forms, and based upon the amount of Mana given to them at their birth, they are also capable of using Magic as well. *: Those based upon Non-Organic Objects are called "Golems".


Linith had been created as a High-Tier Familiar with extreme intelligence and great capacity to use Magic, to fulfill the role of being the Tutor for Fate. As keeping a Familiar requires the Master's Mana, keeping such a capable Familiar should have caused taxed the Master a great deal, but for Precia who wanted to focus upon the research to revive Alicia, it seems to have not been a major problem. That Precia did not use Linith as a direct pawn for her plans stems from the fact that a Familiar that is given such a high capacity also tends to also have a smart mind and a strong moral compass. Thus, it is possible that Precia foresaw that keeping her objectives hidden and still asking for [Linith's] cooperation would be difficult, leading to her decision. That Precia even erased the memories from Linith that she was once the Testarotta Family's Pet Cat, was to probably keep her from finding out about Alicia, and what had happened to her.
 
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