I can accept this definition. Nothing further :p
So they're Nanoha and Fate.
They're more Nanoha and Fate than Nanoha and Fate are:
  • They live together
  • They have a child together
  • They've been each others' primary source of emotional support for 40+ years now
  • They spend a significant amount of their time in close physical contact, literally in each other's arms
  • Each one has changed their career to better suit the other (Mary becoming Science Minister; Amanda going for the Science fiefdom over the more powerful Minister-without-Portfolio title)
Frankly, the two of them could kiss one day, tumble into bed, and then excitedly tell all their friends/family only to have literally everyone they know roll their eyes and reply they assumed the two were lovers for the last several decades. :D
 
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Lina has not, in any way, been doing cartwheels this year. Any such recordings of such a hypothetical are clearly computer generated fakes. She's very happy though, as the second stage of the Orrery shell begins construction this year, Arcadia's considerable progress in supplying an underlay for the FSN coming together with the first Ward Graduates, the unofficial title given to the specialised Protection Focus that some of the Fourth found themselves Awakening to. Lina take a personal interest in the young man's training, but doesn't do more than ensure he's pushed, hard, in his first year with the Navy. She doesn't want to make her favouritism, though it has a firm basis in merit, too obvious.
You jumped from talking about a whole group of people to a single individual with no transition.

I like what you did with the name.
 
On the actual project, a central premise of need for the system to function has been identified. It's not enough to have all the computing power in the world, you're starting to reach a ceiling of practical speed between the various parts of a system. There is a solution, however. Moving every single switching circuit in a computing system over from electrical to lagless baselines isn't cheap, but now that it's been proven possible it's going to happen. There's going to be a budgeting fracas about it next year, you can tell.
Meep. Kinda makes sense that a inner-system-wide networked targeting system would require lagless communications between nodes, but... meep. That's going to be a nasty budgeting fight. Reminds me of a description of the Star Trek Federation as not so much post-scarcity, as post-poverty. They have the resources to make sure everyone lives comfortably, without much effort, but the resources for this? That's a non-trivial engineering and logistics problem.

Confidence in Lina's work remains high, she was the one who broke the Tribute Fleet in the Second Battle of Sol, but there's a little confusion as to why she's focusing so much on static defences whilst the mobile arm remains mostly in design and prototyping phases.
I imagine this has caused a lot of Wild Mass Guessing about "What Lina knows that we don't".
Because Mary's not a Magical Girl? :grin::ninja: (Amanda, of course, is Not A Magical Girl, which is completely different.)

(I initially typed that as a Magical Gir, which... is an entirely different kettle of brain-bleach.)
 
So, in other words the news are:

State Department - reports that everything is going swimmingly, with the caveat that Lady in Fire Enfolded movement is growing in leaps in bounds, beyond the projections.
Diplomacy Corps - extremely happy with you, but can offer no more aid. I think no more aid they are already funneling, since this quest makes me feel optimistic.
Ministry of Science - has completed 3rd Revolution, somewhat focused on education, and overall don't seem to be undertaking any megaprojects at the time.
Ministry of Practice - still being all sneaky-like with hush-hush projects, thankful for our research, though. Either do more Practice research, or visit in person to info on hush-hush. Heh.
War Office - There's gonna be lots of budgeting problems getting Orrery up to speed, literally. Otherwise, no very specific requests. Also. No cartwheels. None at all.
Home Office - Nothing overly important
Ministry of Security - Still all sneaky-like, too. Exploration fleets, anti-SL infowar updates for Contact Fleet. Mentions of a Hermes Array. What is Hermes Array anyway, a comms system?
General News - Lina is focusing on static defenses somewhat, and LOTSA MORE Potentials Awaken. Teachers Needed Very Much.

Well, there's one, two, possibly three projects we might want to attend. And two more points of interest.
1) An Uncertain Grasp (Minor Action) - seems prudent due to LiFE expansions
2) Sketching a Path (Minor Action) - if this or its more advanced version shows up, it goes well in hand with Practice Research
3) The Spoken Word (Minor Action) - Teaching, seems badly needed
4) Science and Potential (Personal Action) - more Teaching

Options could be made for a Personal Action visit to Ministry of Security to satisfy our curiosity, and I'd love to learn about Hermes Array whatever that is.
Also, and more importantly, our Research Actions are all locked: Blades of Infinity (R&D for fleets), Tasting Lightning (3rd Secret), Bound Souls (Unison Platform deciphering).

Also, just as an opinion. What do you people think about taking it easy this year and picking Bonds of Blood and Laughter?
 
So, in other words the news are:

State Department - reports that everything is going swimmingly, with the caveat that Lady in Fire Enfolded movement is growing in leaps in bounds, beyond the projections.
Diplomacy Corps - extremely happy with you, but can offer no more aid. I think no more aid they are already funneling, since this quest makes me feel optimistic.
Ministry of Science - has completed 3rd Revolution, somewhat focused on education, and overall don't seem to be undertaking any megaprojects at the time.
Ministry of Practice - still being all sneaky-like with hush-hush projects, thankful for our research, though. Either do more Practice research, or visit in person to info on hush-hush. Heh.
War Office - There's gonna be lots of budgeting problems getting Orrery up to speed, literally. Otherwise, no very specific requests. Also. No cartwheels. None at all.
Home Office - Nothing overly important
Ministry of Security - Still all sneaky-like, too. Exploration fleets, anti-SL infowar updates for Contact Fleet. Mentions of a Hermes Array. What is Hermes Array anyway, a comms system?
General News - Lina is focusing on static defenses somewhat, and LOTSA MORE Potentials Awaken. Teachers Needed Very Much.

Well, there's one, two, possibly three projects we might want to attend. And two more points of interest.
1) An Uncertain Grasp (Minor Action) - seems prudent due to LiFE expansions
2) Sketching a Path (Minor Action) - if this or its more advanced version shows up, it goes well in hand with Practice Research
3) The Spoken Word (Minor Action) - Teaching, seems badly needed
4) Science and Potential (Personal Action) - more Teaching

Options could be made for a Personal Action visit to Ministry of Security to satisfy our curiosity, and I'd love to learn about Hermes Array whatever that is.
Also, and more importantly, our Research Actions are all locked: Blades of Infinity (R&D for fleets), Tasting Lightning (3rd Secret), Bound Souls (Unison Platform deciphering).

Also, just as an opinion. What do you people think about taking it easy this year and picking Bonds of Blood and Laughter?
The Hermes Array is a Pre-Week of Sorrows Human designed comm array/station which was meant to facilitate communication between the human colony's. It got blasted to powder during the Shiplord's movement in system.
 
Edit: Wait, that would make 5th secret drives not functional in interstellar space. And how would they choose which start to anchor to? Sooo many questions...

There is that warning about exploring the space in between the stars that the Shiplords laid down. Maybe the reason for that mandate is to prevent 5th secret drives in interstellar space doing wack things that ruin everybody's day.

Then again, that would actually be a relatively benign regulation, so it definitely doesn't sound like Shiplord MO.
 
The Hermes Array is a Pre-Week of Sorrows Human designed comm array/station which was meant to facilitate communication between the human colony's. It got blasted to powder during the Shiplord's movement in system.
More than that. It was their FTL communications station to keep in contact with everything outside of Sol-based normal lagless comms range. In the future it would have been used for keep SoL in touch with the extra-solar colonies but at the time of destruction, it was just keeping in touch with the exploration vessels/fleets.

I believe it's last transmission before the Shiploads wiped it out was to tell those explorers to run, and don't look back...
 
The most interesting thing to me is this:
the majority of the Ministry's resources outside helping Arcadia are funnelled into the same highly classified project as last year.
It's odd because basically every action available to the Ministry of Practice in our time is stuff that Vega would have brought to either Amanda or Mary--or both--rather than keeping it secret. About the only things I can think of they could be doing are an expansion of Project Insight or a big push into Inviolate Matter research.
 
-LiFE needs to be looked into, it seems.

-Lagless computing sounds like it will be a big deal for both Iris and Vision, as well as any new AI.
Interesting that we managed to do it without breaking the interdict on First Secret tech. Possibly by cribbing notes from the Tribute Fleet. I assume it comes under the same loopholes that allow for lagless comms and interstellar comm relays.

-Going go note that interstellar explorers need a relay to receive messages from home.
So the Shiplords are just as likely to assume we have ships out snooping the local neighborhood

-Another consideration:
If you build and link a Hermes into a communications network you know is Shiplord-infested at a very low level, you provide an infection vector. Especially as members of the construction crew were Shiplord agents.

I would not be surprised to find out that the construction nano they used to build the network was backdoored to collate transmitted messages and shoot them off, either into space towards Shiplord receivers, or just to wait until a SL ship enters range.

- Both the MoS and MoP are running massive secret projects? I hold my breath in anticipation.

Can't be ships.
You can hide where you are diverting resources to, but you can't hide the construction of a several hundred meter long interstellar explorer. In one of Sol's orbital shipyards.

I suspect it has something to do with the Orrery.

-The Fourth Awakened.
We know that every Wave before this has averaged around ten thousand Potentials, putting us around 30,000 Awakened, not counting losses and deaths.

If the Fourth are five times that, we are looking at anything from 50,000-150,000 new Practice users. That's.....significant.

ON AI
We KNOW that G6 computertech and software is not secure, and that they've never been able to eliminate all the lowlevel hooks into hardware design and software that the Shiplords slipped in from the very beginning.

We suspect that Shiplord infowarfare packages have a particular mad-on for targeting enemy AI and near-AI, as witnessed by what they did to Vigil. They are force multipliers I presume they'd prefer to deny to others.

The G6 have no AI.
The Nileans have outright told us they've been trying to design and growprogram AI for several thousand years.
Using, as we now know, compromised hardware and software.

Could it be their failures thus far are not due to incapability, or a requirement for Practice-type bullshit, but the result of active sabotage?

EDIT
I suspect any Shiplord security bugs in the Contact Fleet were handled when Amanda Spoke across the rnyire fleet.
 
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I suspect any Shiplord security bugs in the Contact Fleet were handled when Amanda Spoke across the rnyire fleet.
I would assume no such thing. We needed a crit success from a true AI to purge them from our own systems. While it's possible Amanda's Practice skill is so high as to make that not completely out of the question, it is not a given thing and we shouldn't ASSUME it.
 
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The Word was a critted Purify, but it was aimed at Shiplord tech/construction medium, specificaly their subversion nanites.

I highly doubt that it touched software.
 
So a quick update: I forgot the Answer post that I owed you, so that's still to be done before we get to Turn 20. Sorry about this. On a more direct note, @Enerael, I can confirm that the speed limit on 5S drives is relative to the local star.
 
So a quick update: I forgot the Answer post that I owed you, so that's still to be done before we get to Turn 20. Sorry about this. On a more direct note, @Enerael, I can confirm that the speed limit on 5S drives is relative to the local star.
This solves a LOT of unintuitive stuff in space combat that trips people up.

It is seriously weird though. Little to do with gravity manipulation, more with soul magic.

We need to ask our friendly visitors how this works in interstellar space. Does it anchor to nearest star? What happens when you are moving 0.6c relative to it after jumping? Or do you always exit jump at rest relative to 5th secret drive anchor star?

What happens if you accelerate to 0.6c conventialy and then activate the drive?
 
This solves a LOT of unintuitive stuff in space combat that trips people up.

It is seriously weird though. Little to do with gravity manipulation, more with soul magic.

We need to ask our friendly visitors how this works in interstellar space. Does it anchor to nearest star? What happens when you are moving 0.6c relative to it after jumping? Or do you always exit jump at rest relative to 5th secret drive anchor star?

What happens if you accelerate to 0.6c conventialy and then activate the drive?
It might be one of the reasons why the Shiplords warn you to beware the spaces between stars.

Without a star around, your 5S drives don't work at all while you wait for your 1S drives to recharge.
 
So what you're saying is that we need to create Practiced drives that can tow a star around at significant velocities :V

Try it. It'll be funny.

We need to ask our friendly visitors how this works in interstellar space. Does it anchor to nearest star? What happens when you are moving 0.6c relative to it after jumping? Or do you always exit jump at rest relative to 5th secret drive anchor star?

What happens if you accelerate to 0.6c conventialy and then activate the drive?

These are all excellent questions. For most, I'm afraid you have no idea of the answers. Part of the energy cost of a 1S jump, though, is spent on adjusting a vessel to the local frame of reference. If you always exit at rest relative to the local star, you don't know.
 
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