[Keroko]

I'm having trouble believing that people are still blaming the destruction of RF6 as a failure on Hayate's part. The TSAB had no way of knowing RF6 was going to be a target of attack, as all the prophecy showed was that there 'might' be an attack on the Ground Forces HQ. Heck, even the military buffs here didn't expect the attack on RF6.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Yes, and the fact she can pin down the drone, without flying ability to "anchor" herself, says a LOT about the whole affair.

Did she keep it down? Hardly. She merely 'pinned it down' by sitting on top of it and immediately -note the immediately- drilled into it.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Subaru ran pretty fast and threw Teana quite high in that episode, but how does that prove an incredibly high strength for the armor (sure, I'll grant it is tougher than what an ordinary human fist can move through) is not yet clear. Calculations?

I'm sorry, but the fact that someone who can accidentally throw a human a few dozen meters in the air having without apparent effort trouble drilling through armor would make the assumption of armor being tough common sense, methinks.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Speed = observable power. A high speed shot, given a mass known to reasonable accuracy, provides an estimate of energy, force ... etc, independent of other scenes. When something is stopped or grinding slowly, there are two solutions to the problem, one is that the force being applied is as low as zero, and the second is that the resisting material is very strong (the force can be almost infinitely high). Where the material is known, or the force has been bounded by other information, you can estimate it, but from the scene alone you can't deduce this.

Oh I see... so that's why you're so adamant on visible speed. Because otherwise you can't calculate it, and without calculations, you're like a fish out of the water.

Problem is, we know Subaru is very powerful, and we know she didn't snap the drone in two like a twig. While no precise calculations can be made, the fact that she drills into the drone slowly actually works against you here, as this does prove that the armor is not merely light and easy to break.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Randomly deleting information from the scene is not how to satisfy Occam's Razor, if that's what you are asking.

That's why it's funny, as it's all you have been doing all along. In an effort to rationalize your calculations, you create more problems then you solve. Let's take the middy concrete for example.

Your assumption is that since you measured the speed, it must be accurate. Ergo, middy concrete has the strength of polystyrene.

The problem is, however, that this does not explain why Mid build their homes, and even their own bases out of this materials. Going as far as to make it their primary support material. Then of course you need to explain why these buildings don't just collapse under their own weight, not to mention the weight the people inhabiting and their equipment must place on them. But we're not done yet, what about the weather? How do these buildings stand up to heavy wind? Or a hailstorm? If the measured speed is accurate, even a hailstorm would do more damage then the people thrown against it.

And of course, despite claiming it to be a different kind of material, you have no name to place on it. What is this wonder material called, that shows so many contradictions in your own observations?

That's what you're doing. Creating more problems, and then just ignoring them and assume 'well, my speed calculations are absolute, so the rest must be wrong.'

I on the other hand, merely assume an inaccurate medium of measuring to be inaccurate.

I throw out one observation. You throw out several observations, among which also realism and common sense (something which you always chid me for), and rely on the 'durrr, Mid is dumb' to explain.

Perhaps another way of calculating would satisfy you. After all, there's no way you will ever believe something unless you can calculate it. Is it possible to calculate their speed not by observing the frames, but observing the damage caused? Let's take the Erio-into-a-pillar scene of episode 11. Assume the concrete to be normal. How much speed would a solid object of about Erio's size need to create such a crater in the concrete?

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

You are putting out effort (force, a bit different from "energy") to stop it, but any energy you expended is due to the mechanisms of your muscles, not because stopping it inherently takes energy in a thermodynamic sense.

So what you're saying is that Nanoha can stop huge statues from falling without expending any energy?

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Did any such requests even reach his table? He's a Lieutenant General. Requests from mere battalion commanders don't necessarily even reach his desk.

If Regius was against it, then it must have reached his desk at some time for him to reject it.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

And the idea of Regius training them himself sounds a bit ... tough seeing he isn't a mage.

Which is why I found the argument of him not having the time for such things to be silly.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Oh, going by Coldlight, or maybe Yesy, because there's no way you could have used a dictionary. Actually, Genya just said うちの連中, with うち being a term meaning roughly like "insider" or "our". It can mean anything Nakajima chooses to treat as "insider" or "our" at that moment - it almost certainly includes his batalion, but can also include up to the entire Ground Force (or even all of the TSAB) as うち.

However, Vita didn't train the entire TSAB. Only the 108th and Saint Church forces. Since Genya mentions a little redhead in combination with 'our' and we combine that with her going to train the 108th in episode 10, then it's obvious Genya was referring to the 108th as 'our'

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

As for the Air Force ... Nanoha probably trained a lot of them, so it is just as surmised, the few scraps of people that can do it are thrown into the fray.

And those few scraps that don't join the battle with Hayate and the rest and remain to support the Ground Forces hold of an army far outnumbering them.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Actually, the Japanese says the same thing. Maybe something was lost in translation b/w Midchildran and Japanese, but we would never know it.

And I wouldn't call them "very effective". They were barely holding on, and they have a lot to thank because the drones plain weren't very aggressive - such as Ep24, where we see they weren't even advancing.

Barely holding on against an army far outnumbering them. I'd like to call a small force pinning down a larger force and preventing them from advancing very effective.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

If the autocaster was worth a darn, it might be. Then it'll become the Equalizer.

I never argued the autocaster was worth a darn, I merely argued that it was possible. For me, the fact that they gave Runessa a gun is proof that it's obviously not considered worth the effort to re-invent the wheel.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

And they are unwilling to throw out such licenses even in times of need. As for the "level cities" part, yes, a very few mages can do that. But very, very few as far as we can see.

Every AAA-rank and higher can do so. Hayate was only S-rank when she could do a repeated bombardement with a rather sizable blast radius. Vita's Gigant Hammer can reach sizes that can crush houses, imagine what would happen should she do a sweeping strike with that.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Aah, the virtues (not) of blind faith.

Was that an insult aimed at me? Because I can just as easily turn it around and hurl it right back at you.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

The big one according to me is IIRC modulation. On a ship, it can generate those little cubes like the training plate can generate simulated Gadgets. However, if such projections can be useful over more than an extremely limited area (such as the reactor room or within building height), one would think they can summon a few to help defend their own precious butts.

Hmm, chances are they could. But the TSAB isn't used to automated defences. They never had a need for them before.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

We see extremely limited proliferation (and in fact, we see very little of their capabilities - for all we know, they've been making it so far because the guns fire bullets that crawl at the speed of most magic rounds), and you conclude this? I note that they are unable to rid all weapons, and I see it as because they know they can't do it without suffering prohibitive casualties, so they are forced to compromise with their attitudes.

Concidering the Black Market where these guys get their weapons could just as easily go to earth and buy 'proper' weapons, the 'middie guns must be slow' argument, even if it was true, is useless. Black Market doesn't care where they get their weapons, only that they sell. If they can get weapons from earth that are better then the stuff they have, they will do so. Ergo, it is useless to assume that the criminals will have weapons that are bellow our weapons capabilities.

And of course they won't be able to get rid of all weapons. That's like assuming we can get rid of all terrorists. There will always be criminals, and as long as there are criminals, there will always be people with weapons the law won't allow.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

America has such things as PR to think about, and as I said, the closest thing we have to the TSAB's paranoia would be nukes.

Or they could carpet bomb the country. Or massacre the population. The point I'm trying to make is that when you have set a series of standards for your country, you try to uphold them as best as you can. Every country does this, it is unreasonable to expect the TSAB to do otherwise. Especially when there are ways around it.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Actually, we just counted them differently. I counted more frames than you, but your frames were a little longer (30 vs 24 FPS), so really in the end it evened out. Besides, even if they were equally long, the estimate will still be off only by 20% or less, which is not a huge error in visual estimation.

Hmm, so it was the old NTSC versus PAL (which would technically make it 25 FPS). Well, that solves one crisis, but that still changes nothing.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Actually, an animator that cannot show how fast something is using his animation is a failure, because he can't tell the story using the media he works with.

No, what happened here is that the animator failed to appease to your taste as a viewer. Animation is only perfectly accurate if such is the goal of the animation. Nanoha is an anime made for entertainment. Realism of animated speed is a non-issue here.