[MeisterBabylon]

Originally Posted by Arkeus

cough cough

http://asnano.wordpress.com/2007/10/...dvd-3-booklet/ or :


出力リミッター／能力限定 – Output Limiter / Ability restriction
The set total number of mage ranks within each unit is basically an ambiguous standard, depending on connections or left to the whims of a Human Resources officer, which is used to prevent any particular unit from amassing powerful mages. Unlike equipment, this measurement can fluctuate (mage ranks can go up or down depending on examinations and updates). Since “Rank = the level of ability” is not true, these Limiter settings can be used to accommodate the rank restrictions to some extent, and there is an tacit understanding of this loophole. Limiters for high ranking mages normally restrict only output, and can only be released in extreme situations after receiving approval. This is similar to how a normal organization is restricted from carrying excessive weaponry during normal missions, only using such equipment in times of emergency.

I'll have to quote Tk1337 here:

"Canon or not, this is nothing but bullshit!"

Which force, real or fiction, carries excessive weaponry into a situation knowing full well they are never going to use it?! After all, why would you waste your men's strength carrying all that extra gear?!

You bring specialist gear because you know you are going to need it somewhere, be it a TOW missile for a tank, C4s for doors, frag grenades for clearing rooms, etc, stuff that your M203 rifle isn't meant for. You don't need executive orders to ready them either. Sure they have safeties, but that is so that you don't accidentally fire them off. If limiters were there so that high-power Aces could limited their power output so that they don't go and kill themselves from magical strain, maybe there might be some validity in the reason (it's still pretty bad, your body seldom has the capacity to outdo itself!).

But no, 7Arcs go and say things that don't make sense! Furthermore, places questions on the Bureau's capacity to administrate.

Originally Posted by al103

What with this utopia/dystopia thing? TSAB is not one or other. It's "realistic" bureaucratic organization that tries to be on the side of good and usually succeed, but not ideal, have it's flaws and sometimes fail miserably. And i don't see any problem with that. Kha, you sound like person that found that his parents have *oh, noes* SEX with each other. Or that his father/mother is not ideal saint.

unrelated: in post like this i just love my avatar...

You don't know me 'nuff, bro. I wanna be a parent, and I wanna have sex so much--

*is whacked by Anita's flying dictionary*



Bottomline, parents were never depicted to be saints. If we see them as perfect, it's our fault.

But this is not the case for the Bureau. It rules all the worlds, that is an idealistic perfection in itself! The Bureau has to be absolutely perfect at everything in order to do that and still have everything running smoothly as seen in canon. If it could make a mistake, it would've never come to existence in the first place!

But it can. And so, with the stupidity it demonstrates, it's very easy to guess that somewhere, outside the cozy glasshouse of Midchilda, the fire is burning, and the Jail incident has set a precedent, if not already by Orussia and how many countless warring barons leftover from when the Belka empire collapsed. But we don't see this, simply because we are being controlled to see things as such.

Things are too perfect. Heroines always win in the end, no matter the flaws in tactics. This is not reality, this is propaganda.

Originally Posted by Arkeus

you are taking it the wrong way.

The limit of rank in unit is to prevent jealousy *and* hogging power.

Limiters are a acknowledged loophole in cases where there is high chances of the unit actually needing that power in case of emergencies.

Also, the limiters still can't be taken off an unlimited numbers of time (it was said in StrikerS that the limier could only be taken off once every few months or something like that).

And that just made the whole concept of limiters even more doubtful. You're willing to risk losing an Ace to a situation that she could've handled a couple of days earlier when her limiter is off, and now she's dead because her permit was on cooldown. Real smart, right there.

And don't tell me to hope for the best due to probablilities. A good unit going to battle is prepared for 99% of the scenarios it could possibly encounter, requiring executive orders for use of frontline firepower is inexplicable.

Originally Posted by Iromaru

Well I always thought that limiters in StrikerS were a really stupid plot device, but there is one plausible explenation for their existence. TSAB leaders may fear that really strong mages within their ranks could team up and destroy or take over their organisation. Considering that a single AAA rank and above mage has more firepower that a medium sized Earth country this fear is uderstandable. Don't forget that 90% of Mid citizens aren't mages and 99% of mages wouldn't be able to even scratch an AAA ranked mage. Considering that the vast majority of TSAB soldiers are nothing more than some levitating guys with plasma lances and weak personal shields and their army still use things like helicopters or tanks Nanoha and other elite mages are just as powerfull monsters on Mid as they would be on modern day Earth. If we imagine top class mages as TSAB equivalent of nuclear arsenals it's understandable they want to have some kind of supervision and control over them. I bet normal citizens wouldn't feel safe knowing there are 10y old little girls with enought firepower to vaporise a city running around.

On top of that RF6 gathered many (if not most) of the very best and strongest TSAB mages under the command of a former criminal. If Hayate suddenly decided to turn against TSAB and all her friends followed her she could very well take over the whole organization and become the new Empress or something like that.

That's why I think limiters themselves aren't such a bad idea, but the way they were used and explained in StrikerS is plain terrible. They are there to prevent jealousy between units... Really now are TSAB officers little kids or something... ah wait some of them are :P

TSAB have demonstrated themselves to be such children, in every useless sense of the word, especially since they fear another child pressing a button and making them go boom!

Jokes aside, I'd like to point out that the Aces themselves are still only mortal. They can destroy a lot of real estate and could probably tear GFHQ a new one, but after that, the combined might of the entire multiverse bearing down on them will overwhelm them. No way they are going to survive multiple Arcs going off at once from several battlegroups of ships suddenly jumping out from warpspeed from every possible angle. Even if they can, the TSAB combined arms can keep firing and firing and firing by cycling their weapons, and the Aces will eventually tire from all that bombardment to eventually make a mistake, or fail an invulnerable save.

TSAB aren't shy of glassing a city to bits if the threat is big enough. Uminari almost got silicated in A's after all.

If the top of the top mages are nukes, then there'd better be quicker means for them to be unlimited. Having to stop and call for permission to use their power could mean that a sniper could take them out in a single shot before they can be unlimited. Top mages should've never been deployed in the frontlines as such, and should only be deployed after being unlimited, going by the logic of things. But no, we see the Captains in operation with limits, and then have them pause to have the limits removed, during which a properly-placed railgun slug would've cleaved them.

Limiters are just plot-devices protected by other plot devices. But since they exist, we have to accept that they are there, and work things out from there.

Originally Posted by Iromaru

...If they were instead showed as tools in corrupted political games between TSAB admirals and factions...

...exactly. All we have been given as "canon information" are simply poor excuses. This is what is actually happening, we just don't see it happening in the manga or anime.

I'll explain. First, let's turn the chessboard over and look at the silly reasons given for limiters from another perspective. What is the purpose for all this? Self-protection? We've pretty much demonstrated otherwise. For the safety of the mage involved? No mention was ever made. So, in the end, what's in it for me as a TSAB official to gimp my troops as such? Nothing, simply because it was all a ruse.

I have several SS-down-AA Aces in my arsenal, and they are loyal to me. I'm in a high-ish place, and have many friends in here who are also using this to bring high-level Aces together, despite the rule. Between us, we already have garnered military and civil powers over a huge chunk of dimensions. And we hold the High Council hostage as we already know their dark plans thanks to our vast dealings, but let them be as long as they let us be. After all, we are all making sure that peace remains in the dimensions, just that we're making ourselves fat with power in the process. It's a win-win-win situation.

If anyone asks, we laugh it off as silly. But if someone got close to the truth with evidence, we simply break out the spin doctors, charge them with threatening the safety of the dimension, pop limiters and obliterate them before anything can be verified. Limiters come back on, spin docters spin on praising the Aces having protected all Humanity, peace resumes.

The cycle repeats itself over and over the years until no one could've stood against us. Hayate is rocking the boat, but we can't move just yet. We wait... Oh look! The High Council is now dead! We're in charge boys! And no one knows what's happened! Peace is eternal now...

...but is that really true peace?

~~~~~~

I know it's extreme, and probably never intended as such by 7Arcs, but after putting all the disparate clues together and throwing out the red herrings, this looks most probable. This is one of the many reasons why in order to operate the way they do, TSAB has a lot more going on in the background than we actually know.