Military, Authority & Decisions In MSLN series

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by prescience

Like Kaijo said, if her magical defenses had been insufficient, as you seem determined to believe, she would have had major visible damage - like with Cinque's Rumble Detonator in StrikerS ep17, only much more extensive. From the SSX booklet's illustrations we can see that this is not the case. Thus the only reasonable interpretation is that the majority of the blast was absorbed by her magical defenses.

The SSX's booklet's image correspondence to any section of the real event (as recorded in SSX) can be challenged. Refer to previous page - do you think that this image literally corresponds to a particular moment in Track 9? Not me to be honest. Certainly enough that if there is no way to rationalize the picture and the soundtrack, the former will be dismissed.

But let's try including it anyway: Except for the Gauntlet, which may be made of better material (at least it is hard and is a primarily fend-off attack means), the left arm's BJ cloth had been blown clean off, as had apparently some of the cloth from the back. It'll seem that the hit occured on the arm, and because the yield was small, the arm successfully shielded the rest of the body. Just like the Miriage said - mage alone (at least of Subaru's approximate level or lower ) would be screwed.

Except that your "whips, blades and windblast" cases are all invalid, as I explained in my last post on the previous page. Which you seem to have missed.

There wasn't enough time to really go through everything in detail over lunch. Let's see what you got...

Originally Posted by prescience

Dented with fists and pebbles? Where are you getting this from? Dropping large rocks on them (StrikerS manga, ch01) is a far cry from "pebbles".

Fine, Subaru's fists then. And before you say cyborg, I'll point it out it'll be utterly sad if a human fist did the trick, and worse, Subaru grinded through, which is sad for the drone because it actually collapsed without the peak pressure impulse from sudden impact, which in turn implies it is unlikely to be unpenetrated by the sudden impulse on a small area of a bullet.

Your beloved concept of "windblast" makes no sense. Face it. Even if a BJ was ordinary fabric, there is no conceivable way that it would rip simply from an insect flying past it (unless the insect was flying at close to the speed of sound...). It simply doesn't make any sense to assert that. Whereas the idea that the bugs were magic (you know, on account of being summoned by a mage, and a powerful one at that) makes perfect sense.

Unfortunately, the bugs (which are a big bigger than the stereotypical insect) utterly lack magiglow. I suppose it is a matter of adequately thin, fragile fabric-equivalent combined with the vortices those hummingbird like wings are producing.

Given that the vast majority of combat in the series was magical until Force, claiming that "there was no sign of a magical attack" isn't much of an argument.

In which we see that magical attacks glow as if it is radioactive. No glow ... broad daylight, good visibility ...

Besides, if a S-rank mage seriously wants to attack a A-rank unison device, its attackers won't have to make the damage at like 10cm distance...

And the case Vita getting impaled completely ignores the surrounding circumstances - since a BJ is magical armor, an anti-magic field (like the one on the Cradle) would obviously reduce it's efficacy considerably, don't you think?

It won't be positive, and you might as well add Vita was getting tired. Even counting both considerations, however, since Vita was still using magic, and continuing to use it later, it seems more like she's just tiring faster than usual. The defenses were active.

Nanoha, same thing. She was just "slightly less capable". In Japanese, actually slightly "dulled", which is not even a power issue but a response issue. Implication: Field was there, shanker just went clean through.

Actually, we see the implement in question transforming between whip and staff mode, so it clearly is magical in nature.

Yes, it transformed into a mimicry of a whip, without any magic charge. As far as can be told, the attack was purely physical.

The "punch" in question was Subaru's attack against the Mariage leader. Most of Subaru's attack spells are magically enhanced punches or kicks. Assuming that she use an unenchanted physical punch (rather than one of her more powerful spells) in such a situation would require us to conclude that she is utterly stupid to the point of comedy. Since this scene takes place approximately three years after the beginning of StrikerS, it is safe to conclude that Subaru has gotten significantly more powerful since then. To spell it out as unambiguously as possible:

If Subaru's punch, magicaly assisted or not had more power than her Divine Buster, she won't have used her Divine Buster to punch through that wall. Even if she did get more powerful, both will climb in proportion.

And what happened to such factors as for example, preparation time in deciding which attack to employ? IN short, it is extremely hasty to just make the conclusion you did.

In the first instance, you deny what the Mariage leader states outright. In the second instance, you take its (tenuously implied) judgment as gospel. Inconsistent much? Particularly glaring considering that the two cases are consecutive sentences of the source material.

Amazing, because in fact I took all 3 of the Miriage's statement into account. Don't blame me for the fact her second statement lacked specificity, and thus got itself defined by all the other information.

I was never arguing that mages are invulnerable to mass-based weapons. My point is that small arms (handguns, rifles, SMGs, LMGs) would not be effective against mages. High explosives are a whole different ballpark.

Their shown limitations does not lead me to be as sanguine.

Logical fallacy. Just because there are cues that sometimes indicate these effects does not mean that such effects are never present without those cues. And in line with Kaijo's earlier observation, I'd view Vita's supposed failure to move for 6 seconds a cue of this sort in itself. Not a good cue; I'd rather that scene were done at regular speed for the sake of greater realism even if it did diminish the drama quotient somewhat. But a cue nevertheless.

The countercue, if not logic locker, would be the fact Nanoha's scream went right on clear through the attack. Even a scientifically ignorant animator generally understands what continuing sound (especially voice) implies, so they cut off the usual sounds or even play some nice eery sounds to tell the audience "Slo-mo in effect! Slo-mo in effect!" - and they do this because the generally accurate sense of distance and time is fundamental to comprehensible anime. Time Compression or Expansion is ultimately the exception.
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I've realized something - you seem to be focusing on Barrier Jackets in particular, while I've been talking about personal magical defenses in general. My point is that it appears that conventional small arms would be of no use against properly-trained and -equipped mages, on account of their magical defenses. If you took me to be arguing about BJs in particular to the exclusion of all other forms of defense, we seem to have been missing each other.

That's because as far as I can see, the BJ is the main center of discussion. But to discuss it, deliberate shields (part of the "personal magical defenses") would work better - they have canonically worked well against fragmentation (albeit in groups in that sample) and against mini-missiles (not so well from the way our Aces were wincing). Overall I'll give a high probability that a mage in the A (the Forwards in the sample used)-AA (the limited power of the Aces in the sample used) range can withstand bullets or even grenade-launcher sized grenades (30-40mm) with shields, which are hard and far from the body and thus offer much better potential against kinetic impactors. The only bad news is that a mage generally cannot attack while the shields are up, or even move very much. Even Nanoha and Fate clearly can't keep attacking drones safe and sound in their pink ball so what chance does the average mage have. So if they want to finish their work, sooner or later they'll have to disengage the shield (and presumably get shot), and if they don't it gives the initiative to the mass shooter to employ heavier weapons (RPGs?).

[Arkeus]

Originally Posted by prescience

I would be quite reluctant to accept this line of reasoning. I agree that we don't really know much about the missiles (AFAIK, we don't actually know that they are mass-based; it just seems like a reasonable assumption). But I imagine that a nontrivial power source would be necessary to power an AMF generator; not the sort of thing you would be willing to throw away on disposable a single-use weapon.

I'd think a ten-second AMF isn't on the same scale as what Drones do.

A,d well, Drones seem to be kinda like single use weapons

EDIT: Ninja'd in a most peculiar fashion. The fact that they are heat-seeking missiles makes it unlikely that they are primarily intended for use against buildings. Which leaves us with three possibilities:
1) They are intended for use against mages, but are ineffective (seems unlikely)
2) They are intended for use against mages, and are effective
3) They are intended for use against unshielded vehicles and/or non-mage personnel

Do we have any concrete evidence on this? I skimmed through StrikerS briefly, and couldn't find anything. IIRC we never actually see the missiles damage anything, but my memory is a bit hazy on this.

Well, it's also possible that there effectiveness isn't in the real damage they make, but in making just enough damage to force the mage to notice, and then attack them in the back

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by prescience

Except that we know canonically that Subaru's skin isn't unnaturally tough. In a flashback, we see her getting cuts and scratches from falling over. So clearly she can't be made of some super-resilient material that can withstand high explosives.

Good find, but there was no cut worthy of the name, at least not in the DVD version of Ep23. There as no bleeding, the knees were red with a few marks, but its not clear that the red is not just mild irritation from being rubbed hard against the ground.

Besides, Subaru won't be the first kid to realize that skin grows tougher and less sensitive as you get bigger, perhaps the change is more dramatic for cyborgs (part of the genetic engineering they mentioned)?

Which leaves us with the conclusion that the Mariage leader was mistaken in its judgment. And, as I've pointed out, it's quite typical for an antagonist to underestimate the protagonist before getting his/her/its comeuppance.

It is a possibility, but I see no reason to basically kick off the testimony yet.

[Kaijo]

There is a fine difference between pointing out flaws of the series, and ignoring the likely, logical explanations in favor of bitching. I've pointed out a few flaws myself, but I'm not going so far as to proclaim:

The TSAB are idiots (they're not)
Barrier Jackets are useless (lots of proof they're not)
Mass-based weapons are somehow better than magic (all evidence points to no)
Everything that isn't directly explained, must have a non-magical explanation (um, why?)

Pointing out of flaws is okay. Grilling the entire series because nothing makes sense and all the characters have a box of rocks for brains... is pushing it. Especially since, with a little thought, you can put together magical reasons for why the vast majority makes sense. Maybe some people get off on calling the entire series flawed and can still somehow enjoy it. I don't personally enjoy something when I have problems with 90% of it, and don't tend to watch such things, but everyone is different I suppose. There are masochists in the world, after all, heh.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

I don't know the wonderful working environment you have, but I'm out in the open, and I have TWO superiors regularly sitting at my back with good lines of sight to my screen...

Maybe you should just wait until you get home to make the post, then? You don't have to post as soon as possible. It's a great way to lose your job. I'm a bit lucky in that my bosses don't mind if I browse and and stuff, as long as I get my work done, but I've been in jobs where that was discouraged and I had to refrain from too much browsing until I got home.

It is obviously, IMO, that Quattro is suffering from serious set at suddenly being targeted and is having trouble. She didn't even TRY to run or anything like that. She just froze. If you ask me, it is a much better explanation than the Belkans or Al Hazredians making a stupid ship design with no means for manual activation of the system.

So, you're ignoring all the times she was targeted before, and didn't panic? I mean, at this time she was just targeted by Nanoha; once before she was targeted by Hayate, Nanoha, and Fate, the latter two at the same time, and showed a distinct lack of panic.

The very fact that there are a mix of Type 1 and Type 3s says that he has a sense of economy, don't you think? They are so cheap they weren't even named until the TSAB named them. I must wonder why you think they must be the state of the art in top of the line non-mage combat weaponry, rather than a cheap, mass produced castout. For the tiers above that, he got a bunch of Cyborgs. Looks like he had himself pretty set, and it is almost a shame the plot crushes the undeserving and allows the deserving to win.

Sense of economy? No proof of that. Different tools for different jobs, more likely. From what I can see, the type-1s were his first(and also the only ones to actively interact and take control of systems). Then he developed ones with more aeriel capabilities (type-2's). Then he decided to see how strong he could make them and created type-3's. Or he just turned on the ancient drone assembly line and they began to churning them out. But given one of his speeches, he at least made improvements.

Whatever the magical armors' strength is, it isn't in stopping kinetic impacts. It doesn't mean it is useless, or its wearers are idiots.

Except... I already pointed out that it stops kinetic impacts. See Fate's fall from Signum in A's, ep 2.

Precisely. And since the shell obviously isn't mega-powerful, the conclusion left is to shrink our estimate of the Kampfwagen's defense.

And all we can take from the seen, is that it's strong enough to take out a tank... but not enough to take out a mage with magical defenses. Thanks you. =)

Except the possibility is practically excluded canonically. Which leaves us to work from the remaining conclusion that the skin was mostly intact because it was tougher than it looked. As I said, if you can believe those fluffy BJs are tougher than they look, what's so hard?

No, it's not excluded. You're making things up again, in order to avoid considering the more logical explanation. Given the physics of things involved, the only way the explain it is that magic defenses kept her alive. We've been shown time and time again that barrier jackets in normal circumstances are actually fairly good protection, especially against kinetic impacts.

[quote]What happened to your respect for experts here? [quote]

What experts have said anything about this? The only expertise was talking about what kind of round it was, which is essentially pointless in the scheme of things. The only info we have to go on is "HE" and "can take out a tank." Given that we lack anymore specifics, and that Mid-Childa isn't Earth and therefore we can't reference Earth tanks, the logical conclusion is that it was a type of mass-based ammo that could take out *any* tank.

There's absolutely no effect on Pain if he has a lousy grasp of time in standard units in this instance. Suppose the real preparation time is 15 seconds (pulling number out of butt here simply because I don't watch Naruto, but the analogy should work for the time it actually took). Does it really matter one bit whether he thinks that time is "5 seconds" or "15 seconds"? In any case he will have to prepare ways so he can stay alive for the 15 standard seconds it takes to charge, and if he can do that it hardly matters whether he calls that block of time "5 seconds", "15 seconds", or 50 for that matter.

Look, you havent' watched Naruto, so maybe you should just stop. You're arguing from ignorance again. It was specifically stated, SEVERAL TIMES, even by Pain himself, that there was a 5-second cooldown time before he could use his ability again. If you have to invent a contradictory number just to justify your position, then you're outright lying, and being dishonest in this conversation. Which makes all your other arguments circumspect. For your own health and piece of mind, I'm gonna drop this part of the argument. You're obviously convinced that everything that happens in anime, happens in real time, and you won't be swayed, so I'm not going to bother to convince you.

No one said the whip was not a magical device. What is said is that in the absence of obvious magic, I took the simple explanation and excluded it. Especially for those shankers and windblast. Face it, Nanoha was only "slightly less capable". Don't try and treat the whole situation as if her defenses had shut down or something.

Right. A magic weapon is using no magic while in use. Okay. To everyone else, is this the kind of valid criticism one can levy against the show? Or is this someone just desperately trying to find any excuse, no matter how small or how ridiculous, to justify the fact barrier jackets don't work?

ark, I'm really trying to find out if you're trolling or not. Lots of evidence for the strength of Barrier Jackets, and the only reason you're desperately arguing *anything* you can, is that you want to believe mages can be taken out by a simple handgun. That somehow mass-based weapons are better than magic. You've provided no proof of any of this, just conjecture and half-assed theories that have been shown to be incredibly unlikely. Let me take an example:

Good find, but there was no cut worthy of the name, at least not in the DVD version of Ep23. There as no bleeding, the knees were red with a few marks, but its not clear that the red is not just mild irritation from being rubbed hard against the ground.

Besides, Subaru won't be the first kid to realize that skin grows tougher and less sensitive as you get bigger, perhaps the change is more dramatic for cyborgs (part of the genetic engineering they mentioned)?

Actually, it was ALIENS! Aliens that like to spray paint cuts, bruises and stuff on cyborgs! Microscopic aliens! I have no proof, and am just guessing here, BUT IT MAKES SENSE!

This is exactly what"m talking about. Instead of accepting the obvious that anyone here can see (Subaru actually has gotten cuts, bruises, etc.), you feel the need to invent something totally new and unnecessary. You know, you're the type of person that everything needs to be explained to, every single detail, otherwise there's room for error. In this case, they needed to specifically say, "Oh yes, Subaru cut cut, actually cut, and she was bleeding real blood from her real blood and skin" instead of, you know, assuming the audience isn't a bunch of idiots and can make that deduction on their own. You're the type of person who needs it explained, that every time there is red on the screen, we need to be told whether it's paint or blood.

You're too wrapped in "But they didn't SAY it was blood! It could have been ANYTHING!" and your own world, that I fear any discussion with your is pointless. I can take criticisms of a show, and I've made a few myself of Nanoha, as long as they are logical. But you take it to 11 and beyond, making up theories on the spot rather than accept the obvious, even if it's not 100% clear and stated.

At this point you might want to stop and let PhoenixFlare continue, as his arguments are at least better than yours.

Originally Posted by PhoenixFlare

Weapons definitely improved. And so has defenses. Pointing out one without the other is oversimplification.

Of course defenses have. But we were talking about weapons, not defenses. Oy vey, when you can win the argument, you try to shift it.

Which is exactly the point. The study of reproduction has led to family planning. The study of defenses and tactics, as a response to study of weapons, have also preserved more lives during wars. There is no contention that war is destructive, but that's not the point being debated here.

The study of weapons has preserved lives? Seriously? Which kills more people? A wooden spear, or bullets fired from guns? If the study of weapons has preserved lives, then the bomb should kill less people because we know more about weapons now....

Reproduction study does not lead to rape, yes, but it does lead to a greater understanding of how sex can be done, or "where to put their bits in", as you put it

Oh, oh, you're right! By studying reproduction, we've learned that there are many more holes we can insert bits! As our study advances, there are more and more holes!

Oh wait, humans have had the same set of holes since time began, and thus no new holes have been discovered. And yes, people were using all the usual holes as far back as we have recorded history.

I'm sorry, this line just cracks me up, heh. "We learned you can put things in more holes!" You ought to study up the history of sex; there's really nothing new under the sun, and mankind quickly reached the limit of hole-inserting shortly after discovering sex. About the only argument you *could* make, is that we can make more and more artificial stuff to insert into holes, but our ancestors weren't above finding anything and everything to insert.

Dear god how this conversation has drifted....

Somehow, omitting the paragraph which I specifically mentioned how birth control has an indirect cause in increasing premarital sex and direct cause in abortions helps a lot in forming this context.

Because it's false? The only thing birth control does is prevent births. This is real stuff here. Teens have been having sex early since time began. Do you really thing kids with bursting hormones were somehow more chaste than they are today? That's fairly naive thinking. For instance, in the real discussion today about sex education in schools, the religious right only wants abstinence taught, but there are studies that show that if that's all that's taught, then pregnancies go up. If other birth control is taught, teen pregnancies go down.

Kids are gonna have sex regardless of what you tell them, and birth control just helps limit the pregnancies.

Premise 1: Humans like to kill.
Premise 2: So they invent better weapons to kill.

These two premises seem to me like they have some moral connotations.

Only because you want to ascribe it as such. Moral refers to good or bad based on personal viewpoint. What I stated was from a scientific angle. We've been killing for a long time, sometimes for food, other times for resources, and still others for land. And sometimes just because we hate someone. We're just as violent as the rest of the animal kingdom. Whether that's good or bad, is up to each person to decide, and ascribe their own morality to.

Well, we can certainly just hope for that. It'll be a shame if you did die.

And whether I am bad at making analogies or someone else is just obfuscating the entire thing is up for anyone to decide.

And yet, you haven't explained how you can kill with a pebble yet, so your pebble argument is out until you can. And remember, you just said pebble; not anything else.

This "small incidents that only kill some people" seems very unsmall to me. The Huckebeins have a massive, regenerating warship with unknown offensive capabilities, two Eclipse-infected people were sufficient to destroy an entire village in Raizen, and we don't even know what's the status of Thoma's Divide Zero's offensive capabilities (assuming he becomes an antagonist at all) and what else the Eclipse victims can unleash.

And yet... they haven't rendered multiple worlds uninhabitable, nor killed billions of people like the Belkan Wars have. We don't know how many they've killed, nor how long they've been active (odds are it's not too long, or else recently moved into TSAB space). We just have knowledge of a single village that Cypha claimed to have wiped out. A single village versus multiple planets... which one involves more people?

You cannot worry too much about what might happen in the future when there's an apparent threat right in front of you. And even if the future threat is going to be more disastrous, they can seek the counsel of Carim Gracia who has the power of foresight and they can start planning for mitigation after this threat is dealt with. There's no point worrying about future threat when you die in the current one.

You're ascribing too much to her ability. She doesn't get to decide what she'll see, and the poems themselves can be hard to decipher the meaning of, sometimes. But the argument you make at the start has some merit (one of the first arguments you've made that does). Unfortunately, it's not that clear cut. If terrorists seize a plane full of people and demand the release of all murderers, serial killers, and serial rapists in all jails, do you do it? After all, that's a "can't worry about what might happen in the future when there is an apparent threat right in front of you" situation.

I have a feeling most people might say "no" to that; I admit it's just a guess, though. And you also aren't taking into consideration the founding principles of the TSAB. If any organization betrays it's founding principles, then they lose the reason for their being, and that's when they begin to fail. If a principle can be broken, then it isn't a principle, and thus every other principle can be broken, too. They lose the moral high ground.

To put it in perspective, Regius and the brain council felt there was an apparent threat, and thus betrayed the rules and principles of the TSAB to create and deal with Jail. Look how well that turned out? They traded a small situation (a single incident that killed or injured a few people), for a large one (Jail invading the city not once, but twice, and threatening the whole planet with annihilation). And it ended with their deaths.

You have to think real long and hard about your principles, because there's more behind them than you think.

There's still no denying that the TSAB's reluctance to compromise a little of their own founding principles will lead to the death of an untold number of innocent people.

But you still have to show how mass-based weapons would change that. We've already seen that Nanoha and Vita's mass-based attacks aren't doing a whole lot either, as the ship is just self-healing. And if Cyhpa is any indication, kinetic impacts aren't that effective (a sword shattered on her), and she can regenerate. Clearly, more than mass-based attacks are needed, and you would have us focus solely on that when there's no guarantee it'll work any better.

False argument. So will the authorities take time to respond to magic-based weapons made to gun everyone down in the park. Hey, it's obvious I'm a villain and there's no qualm for me using magic-based weapons to kill. It DOES have that setting too, no?

And before you go responding with magic weapons are not "dumb" and not everyone is a mage, I don't need to be a Divine Buster-level criminal to use low level attacks that can injure and kill. And not all mages will register with the TSAB and want to be regulated. Fate was an example.

Now we're getting somewhere. True, not all mages will register, but there will be considerably less people with the potential for harm on the streets. As it stands now, only a mage is a threat. You start making guns, and now EVERYONE can be a threat. You're easily increasing risk something like 1000%. And not everyone is a mage, and even if they are a mage, not all have the power to kill a lot of people at once. I'd assume the vast majority are D or E ranked, and probably no more threatening than someone with a knife, or a bow and arrow.

There's something with "temporary" and "with regulated use" that just seem to fly out the window in the argument, but I'll just be content to note that you're framing the context to your advantage.

Because every weapon the government has ordered built, has only been canceled when something better came along. That's why it's never temporary. You might want to look up the history of the tommy gun, and all the fun that caused.

Genocide can happen with either mass- or magic-based weapons. We've just not been shown records of anything happening for the latter, yet. Or maybe never will as it'll contradict with TSAB's policy that magic is clean.

No one is denying that. It's just that there is much less of a chance for that with magic, then with mass-based weapons that can be mass-produced (and they will be).

Since we're going to go to this level, what can the mages do when having magic-based weapons of mass destruction? Mass-based nuclear weapons can clear a continent (probably), but magic-based weapons of mass destruction ... I don't know, wipe out Mid-childa from existence?

You're severely underestimating just how hard it is to destroy a planet. If you're really curious, I'll direct you to a favorite site of mine here, that scientifically asks the question: "How could you destroy the Earth?" It's actually fairly difficult, despite what mad scientist villains over the years would lead you to believe.

And even if we accept that magic is more destructive than a nuclear weapon, for the sake of argument... the pool of people who would have the capability for mass-destruction is greater once you introduce mass-based weapons. With mages, it's fairly limited. There's always a chance of someone going rogue, but the pool is smaller with just mages. You can eliminate risk, but you can minimize it.

If TSAB was really adamant about mass-based weapon ban, then Runessa should not be allowed one. Like dahak said, if she's going to be in any danger during an investigation because she isn't a mage, then she should just be kept to office/lab-work. Giving her a special permit to use mass-based weapon is just double standard.

I won't comment much on this, because most has already been said. But we don't know the full story of her, either. Given the way she got into the mariage investigation, I feel it's likely she was investigating it before and the TSAB partnered with her on it because of her experience. As a compromise for her knowledge and expertise, they probably allowed her a gun, albeit one that they'd specially build and provide.

Otherwise, it's just a bit too convenient that the mastermind behind the mariage attacks somehow got into the investigation. The gun may have been useless against a mage like Teana, but that wasn't the point. It was to handle other criminals, who may or may not be mages, or at least maybe weak enough mages without devices that she would stand a chance against. Given that she had prior experience and knowledge with guns due to growing up on Orussia, it made sense to allow her some personal self-protection, especially since it wasn't much of a threat against the Bureau's mages.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

So, you're ignoring all the times she was targeted before, and didn't panic? I mean, at this time she was just targeted by Nanoha; once before she was targeted by Hayate, Nanoha, and Fate, the latter two at the same time, and showed a distinct lack of panic.

I think she was targetted, personally, about twice in the show - one was after she and Dieci made their shots and were corralled in.

Anyway, the main point is that given that she was already in panic, you can't take her decision to show that, basically, the Belkan / Al Hazredian designers were morons.

For all that, let me throw you a compromise. Since it is implausible to me that the ship designer will build an automated defense that cannot be activated manually, and you can't imagine Quattro panicking like that if the option was there, perhaps we can settle on the idea that she figured the ship won't be able to activate the system in time. For basis I'll note that when the system activated automatically, it had a ~15 second delay while it blared a long warning before started up, which is reasonable so any mages fighting inside don't suddenly lose their magic. If we assume there is an enforced warning time for a manual start up as well, and count in the time it'll take Quattro to start the right program manually, it might explain why Quattro was panicking - the system probably won't start before Nanoha blasts her.

Sense of economy? No proof of that. Different tools for different jobs, more likely. From what I can see, the type-1s were his first(and also the only ones to actively interact and take control of systems). Then he developed ones with more aeriel capabilities (type-2's). Then he decided to see how strong he could make them and created type-3's. Or he just turned on the ancient drone assembly line and they began to churning them out. But given one of his speeches, he at least made improvements.

Different tools for different jobs means specialization, which is caused by an economic awareness that it won't be cost efficient to try and make all the drones have all the capabilities. Frankly, you seem willing to take any explanation here that does not involve Scarlietti having a sense of economy, even explanations that wind up forcing him to have a sense of economy.

Except... I already pointed out that it stops kinetic impacts. See Fate's fall from Signum in A's, ep 2.

Do you think that your seniors have never come up with this one? To summarize an argument that was hashed out over many pages.

1) From a physics perspective, I can assume that the barrier jacket has an infinite (thanks to magic) strength vs kinetic, and Fate will still be crunched, simply because the fields could hold but the extremely limited thicknesses of the barrier jacket cannot provide nearly enough decelerative "cushion" space to avoid a pulverizing blow. That's why I say they are somewhat different fields.
2) If you rewind a bit earlier, to about Ep1 A's, you will be able to see some scenes of Nanoha crashing into things. I suppose you won't contest an assertion that Nanoha is a better defensive mage than Fate. Even so, by the 1st blow Nanoha lost all offensive ability and by the 2nd blow, Nanoha was extremely groggy and can barely point at Vita, even though the velocity was in no way comparable (and you don't want to time it and see) to what Fate had suffered. From this, we can get a general idea of the limitations of the defensive ability of the BJ vs shock, and it isn't enough by orders of magnitude to save Fate.
3) Of course, Fate is clearly alive and so obviously something magical saved her, but the BJ has disqualified itself, and we are discussing BJs.

And all we can take from the seen, is that it's strong enough to take out a tank... but not enough to take out a mage with magical defenses. Thanks you. =)

No, it's not excluded. You're making things up again, in order to avoid considering the more logical explanation. Given the physics of things involved, the only way the explain it is that magic defenses kept her alive. We've been shown time and time again that barrier jackets in normal circumstances are actually fairly good protection, especially against kinetic impacts.

That's not using all the information provided. I know that people who shut their eyes when it comes to unfavorable ranges and timings are common (though wrong), but ignoring what the dialogue in preference of his personal theory is a rarity of people of your general thought pattern (most people I've seen of your type take dialogue extremely seriously and would even throw out what they see to accomodate it).

Using all the information provided: The round is HE. It is strong enough to take out a tank of unspecified defensive strength, enough to take out a human (given the context, obviously a mage, presumably of Subaru's approximate caliber, but technically may also be any human). As demonstrated, it wasn't strong enough to take out a Cyborg.

What experts have said anything about this? The only expertise was talking about what kind of round it was, which is essentially pointless in the scheme of things. The only info we have to go on is "HE" and "can take out a tank." Given that we lack anymore specifics, and that Mid-Childa isn't Earth and therefore we can't reference Earth tanks, the logical conclusion is that it was a type of mass-based ammo that could take out *any* tank.

By that ridiculous logic, we might as well assume that the person the Miriage refers to is "any" person.

It is much more logical to leave the tank part as undescribed, and use the other information to deduce what kind of tank it is.

Look, you havent' watched Naruto, so maybe you should just stop.

Maybe if you aren't ready for people to contest your provided interpretation, you shouldn't have brought up your attempted analogy in the first place (not that what you are telling me is greatly different from my prediction, but that's another issue).

Right. A magic weapon is using no magic while in use.

Your sarcasm aside, I'm just going WYSIWYG here. Is it glowing? In transition, but not in its whip or stave form. Magic defenses do work without glow, sometimes, but attacks? They glow.

Is there any reason for concluding even so some kind of attack magic was running other than because the readout would be too depressing otherwise? No.

I also notice that any mention about those Type 4 shankings have quietly gone down the drain. Is it because you realize while admittedly our test targets were not 100.00% (the idea being that if they were 100.00% they would not have been hit and we won't get any data), the amount of handicap you can validly claim is relatively small and will do nothing to override the conclusion?

And just to reinforce the attack, to some extent canon text itself explains why the average BJ is relatively weak to kinetic penetration. Review P.40 of the manga. It describes the Barriers, Fields and Shields, right, and goes onto how the Barrier "catches things gently" while the Shield is hard and forces things to bounce off (I'm using the original Japanese text here and insta-translating the gist). Fields are used to supplement shields and barriers - they are used to control things like temperature. It then goes on to explain that BJs are made of Barriers and Fields.

In physics terms, this means the Barrier applies a relatively low amount of deceleration and gives way easily, while the Shield applies a higher one and doesn't give way as easily. If you have time and space, using a lower amount of deceleration makes sense. Further, it is reasonable to infer that if you wrap your body in hard shields, you might find it hard to move, so wrapping yourself in barriers is logical.

Except that the amount of depth available in a barrier jacket is observationally and logically limited, if for no other reason than to avoid limiting movement, normal interactions ... etc. A low deceleration defense plus no depth means ... easy penetration by Kinetic Penetrators.

Hmm... it is observed ... it is even explained ...

is that you want to believe mages can be taken out by a simple handgun. That somehow mass-based weapons are better than magic.

Generally, this is called projection or mirror-imaging - you are merely assuming I am like you, or the exact opposite of you.

This is exactly what"m talking about. Instead of accepting the obvious that anyone here can see (Subaru actually has gotten cuts, bruises, etc.), you feel the need to invent something totally new and unnecessary.

Oh, I'll love to be able to "accept the obvious" here. Problem is, you know what? There's more than one datapoint and the line I draw has to find some way to accomodate all the points. Occam's Razor and "obviousness" are only useful indicators for comparing one theory versus the next if they both explain the same data (which is different from rejecting the data, BTW).

At this point you might want to stop and let PhoenixFlare continue, as his arguments are at least better than yours.

I don't mind so much you like PhoenixFlare's arguments more than mine, though really we are batting completely different sides of the field - I do some social but when possible I give priority on technotactical parameters and let others major on the sociological and historical stuff.

But it doesn't stop you from flaming him, I see

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

I think she was targetted, personally, about twice in the show - one was after she and Dieci made their shots and were corralled in.

Anyway, the main point is that given that she was already in panic, you can't take her decision to show that, basically, the Belkan / Al Hazredian designers were morons.

Alternate explanation: Cutting manual links was made deliberately difficult so that one person couldn't access the system and weaken the entire ship. You'll note that the cutting only occurred after Vivio was "seperated" from the ship; it probably needs Vivio and magic to control the ship, and once Vivio was forcibly disconnected, there was no reason to hold back the magical link cutting. To sum up: the magic link cutting could only occur if there was no Saint in control of the ship, as a safety precaution, because the Saint needs magic to control the ship.

Different tools for different jobs means specialization, which is caused by an economic awareness that it won't be cost efficient to try and make all the drones have all the capabilities. Frankly, you seem willing to take any explanation here that does not involve Scarlietti having a sense of economy, even explanations that wind up forcing him to have a sense of economy.

Still doesn't prove your sense of economy. Go to any toolbox, and you'll find different size wrenches, screwdrivers, etc. Each one is different because it has different roles to fulfill, and you can't use a small screwdriver on a large screw. It has nothing to do with economy; indeed, good engineers will find the best tools for the job, regardless of price (doesn't imply that expensive is always better). Jail had three tools: his main interfacer, his aerial fighter, and his most powerful unit. That covers a wide variety of needs, and has nothing to do with economy. Indeed, specialization is quite useful for getting the most out of something, and the type-3 seemingly being engineered for power, would indicate about the strongest he could make his toys.

Do you think that your seniors have never come up with this one? To summarize an argument that was hashed out over many pages.

To apply it solely to BJ's is, of course, somewhat impossible. Considering that mages also have an auto-barrier, it can be difficult to separate exactly how much of the protection distributes to each. If it makes you happy, we can just talk about it in terms of magical defenses. BJ+auto-barrier is able to absorb kinetic impacts.

You talk abotu Nanoha in ep 1 is interesting, because after her first crash, she was just coughing probably due to dust, perhaps a bit out of it like Fate was during her crash and subsequent recovery. Given a little bit more time, Nanoha would have been back at it. However, Vita's next attack destroyed part of Nanoha's barrier jacket, and thus her next impact affected her more. So, interesting, it does seem as if Barrier Jackets themselves are protecting against kinetic impacts, because the more you remove them, the more the mage is affected by it.

That's not using all the information provided. I know that people who shut their eyes when it comes to unfavorable ranges and timings are common (though wrong), but ignoring what the dialogue in preference of his personal theory is a rarity of people of your general thought pattern (most people I've seen of your type take dialogue extremely seriously and would even throw out what they see to accomodate it).

No, that's just people understanding that things in shows most often can't be taken seriously to that degree of detail. Consider the Spiderman movies; according to science, Peter would suck himself dry trying to biological produce the amount of webbing he does. Is that something you'll rage over? Or will you just accept the show is bending things for ease of storytelling and dramatic effect?

Using all the information provided: The round is HE. It is strong enough to take out a tank of unspecified defensive strength, enough to take out a human (given the context, obviously a mage, presumably of Subaru's approximate caliber, but technically may also be any human). As demonstrated, it wasn't strong enough to take out a Cyborg.

Take out an unshielded human. Look, if we accept that Subaru being a cyborg helped for the sake of argument, it still doesn't explain why her clothing was intact, why her skin was intact, why her hair was intact. A high explosive range should have fried and sizzled the outside parts, including the tissue-paper 'barrier jacket." If the barrier jacket is as weak as you say, and it was only Subaru's cybernetic's that allowed her to survive, then Subar should have come out nearly naked! But the pictures of Subaru just show her with cuts and scapes at worst.

So, what's your explanation for the tissue paper barrier jacket coming through intact? Obviously, it did nothing to save Subaru, since it's incredibly weak, so it should have at least been mostly torn to shreds

Maybe if you aren't ready for people to contest your provided interpretation, you shouldn't have brought up your attempted analogy in the first place (not that what you are telling me is greatly different from my prediction, but that's another issue).

"I know a series better than you, even though I haven't watched it!" Can you please tell me what is wrong with this statement? Although I am amused that you are so desperate to prove your point, you're trying to claim greater knowledge of things that you haven't even seen. Everyone else here understood the connection I was making, ie, that you can't judge timings slowly by the tick of the clock on the video screen. All except you.

Your sarcasm aside, I'm just going WYSIWYG here. Is it glowing? In transition, but not in its whip or stave form. Magic defenses do work without glow, sometimes, but attacks? They glow.

So, let me get this right: Your only criteria for when magic is in play, is that the device is glowing? That's the only explanation that you can accept, and you are 100% sure of this?

I also notice that any mention about those Type 4 shankings have quietly gone down the drain. Is it because you realize while admittedly our test targets were not 100.00% (the idea being that if they were 100.00% they would not have been hit and we won't get any data), the amount of handicap you can validly claim is relatively small and will do nothing to override the conclusion?

That's because those points were defeated long ago. Nanoha's shanking was due to her weakness; the shock on her body was apparently so great that she required a couple of years in the hospital; not something a normal stabbing would have required. Vita's shanking was due to her tiredness and the AMF, so her armor was working at reduced capacity. But you have to decide how much of a human you want to treat Vita as first, and how much of a program.

Except that the amount of depth available in a barrier jacket is observationally and logically limited, if for no other reason than to avoid limiting movement, normal interactions ... etc. A low deceleration defense plus no depth means ... easy penetration by Kinetic Penetrators.

Magic is funny that way; it does things that make physics go "WTF?" Subspace exists in the Nanohaverse, and physics is bent all the time. I see no reason why this would be much different. Regardless of what you think of the barrier jacket in particular, a BJ+auto-barrier has been sufficient to provide great protection. Mages have survived multiple kinetic impacts. And you want to keep ignoring or inventing far-out explanations just to avoid accepting the fact that mass-based weapons are useless on a mage.

Generally, this is called projection or mirror-imaging - you are merely assuming I am like you, or the exact opposite of you.

Did I state your views incorrectly? That is what you were arguing, after all. That mass-based weapons are good and can take out mages. You could have just corrected me if I was incorrect in stating your beliefs.

Oh, I'll love to be able to "accept the obvious" here. Problem is, you know what? There's more than one datapoint and the line I draw has to find some way to accomodate all the points. Occam's Razor and "obviousness" are only useful indicators for comparing one theory versus the next if they both explain the same data (which is different from rejecting the data, BTW).

You know what? Your argument and what everyone else believes both explain the data. One is much simpler than the other; can you guess which?

[prescience]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

The SSX's booklet's image correspondence to any section of the real event (as recorded in SSX) can be challenged. Refer to previous page - do you think that this image literally corresponds to a particular moment in Track 9? Not me to be honest.

You're being selective there. The images for tracks 1-05 and 2-02 clearly do correspond to particular moments of the relevant tracks. And with the image for 2-09 it is clearly a composite of several different events, which is definitely not the case with the other images.

In any case, the point is that the Mariage leader's attack did not cause Subaru serious injuries; this can also be inferred from the fact that (unlike in StrikerS ep17) she doesn't have to spend time in hospital recovering.

Certainly enough that if there is no way to rationalize the picture and the soundtrack, the former will be dismissed.

There is a way to reconcile the picture and the soundtrack. The Mariage leader was mistaken in its evaluation of Subaru. Either because it underestimated her abilities as a mage, because it didn't know that she is a cyborg, or both.

Fine, Subaru's fists then. And before you say cyborg, I'll point it out it'll be utterly sad if a human fist did the trick, and worse, Subaru grinded through, which is sad for the drone because it actually collapsed without the peak pressure impulse from sudden impact, which in turn implies it is unlikely to be unpenetrated by the sudden impulse on a small area of a bullet.

I wasn't going to say cyborg, and I agree that it would be implausible for a human fist, however mechanically augmented, to damage the drone. But you were the one who claimed that Subaru's body (exterior as well as interior) is extraordinarily strong/durable. In any case, the crux of the matter is that you're ignoring the fact that her punches are magically augmented, which is the whole point of having the Revolver Knuckle. Either that, or you're making the subjective judgment that the pressure applied by the attack is less than that resulting from a bullet impact. With magic involved, we don't know enough about the mechanics to be able to judge this.

Unfortunately, the bugs (which are a big bigger than the stereotypical insect) utterly lack magiglow. I suppose it is a matter of adequately thin, fragile fabric-equivalent combined with the vortices those hummingbird like wings are producing.

Yes, because hummingbird wings can generate vicious shear forces at a distance...

If the force generated by the insects' wings at that distance was enough to rip an A-rank mage's BJ, then so would be the forces involved from the mage shrugging, or stretching her arms. It makes much more sense to accept that not all magical effects glow visibly than it does to claim that BJs are made of crepe paper. Even if I accepted all your other arguments about the weaknesses of BJs, this simply does not compute.

That's because as far as I can see, the BJ is the main center of discussion. But to discuss it, deliberate shields (part of the "personal magical defenses") would work better - they have canonically worked well against fragmentation (albeit in groups in that sample) and against mini-missiles (not so well from the way our Aces were wincing). Overall I'll give a high probability that a mage in the A (the Forwards in the sample used)-AA (the limited power of the Aces in the sample used) range can withstand bullets or even grenade-launcher sized grenades (30-40mm) with shields, which are hard and far from the body and thus offer much better potential against kinetic impactors.

I'm glad we can at least agree on this point - BJs+active shields/barriers/whatever are enough to neutralize gunfire and (at least to a limited extent) high explosives. This is really what I've been trying to argue (though perhaps I need more practice in getting to the point of things ).

The only bad news is that a mage generally cannot attack while the shields are up, or even move very much. Even Nanoha and Fate clearly can't keep attacking drones safe and sound in their pink ball so what chance does the average mage have. So if they want to finish their work, sooner or later they'll have to disengage the shield (and presumably get shot), and if they don't it gives the initiative to the mass shooter to employ heavier weapons (RPGs?).

Except that if you have multiple mages (and aren't surrounded), one can put up a shield to absorb gunfire while another attacks their enemies from behind the safety of the shield. The fact that magical projectiles aren't constrained to travel in straight lines is quite useful here. When it comes to heavier weapons, it's not clear how much heavier they would need to be to cause a mage trouble. There's no hard evidence either way, but it isn't grossly implausible that an Ace-level mage could tank an RPG or two.

In essence, even if we accept your view that BJs are useless against kinetic attacks, mages can still hold their own against enemies with guns, by using some rather basic tactics. Which is not to say that mass-based weapons are useless; on the contrary, they certainly have their uses, particularly when it comes to heavier weapons (like the Strike Cannon). But arming redshirts with M4s isn't likely to accomplish much, certainly not in the situation we've seen in Force.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Good find, but there was no cut worthy of the name, at least not in the DVD version of Ep23. There as no bleeding, the knees were red with a few marks, but its not clear that the red is not just mild irritation from being rubbed hard against the ground.

If the red was just mild irritation, rather than grazes or cuts, there wouldn't be any reason for Quint put (rather large) bandaids on Subaru's knees. And the fact that they use discrete lines rather than a fuzzy red patch on each knee clearly says "cuts or grazes" to me. The absence of bleeding doesn't mean much - not all cuts are deep enough to cause bleeding, but any cut at all is sufficient to show that Subaru's skin is not as durable as you claim.

Besides, Subaru won't be the first kid to realize that skin grows tougher and less sensitive as you get bigger, perhaps the change is more dramatic for cyborgs (part of the genetic engineering they mentioned)?

Except that Subaru and Ginga weren't subject to aging in the same way as ordinary kids. They had to have regular treatments to age at all, so it would require additional conscious intervention to cause their skin to toughen so dramatically, which would run directly counter to Quint and Genya's desire to raise them as normal human children.

[dahak]

Originally Posted by prescience

Ninja'd in a most peculiar fashion. The fact that they are heat-seeking missiles makes it unlikely that they are primarily intended for use against buildings. Which leaves us with three possibilities:
1) They are intended for use against mages, but are ineffective (seems unlikely)
2) They are intended for use against mages, and are effective
3) They are intended for use against unshielded vehicles and/or non-mage personnel

You missed 4]Jail and some of his mad scientist acquaintances had an argument down the pub about the utility of mass based weapons against muilspec magic defenses so Jail scored some Orussian AAMs on the black market to try next time he sent the drones out. Because, you know mad scientists love the experimental method and things that go boom.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Fine, Subaru's fists then. And before you say cyborg, I'll point it out it'll be utterly sad if a human fist did the trick, and worse, Subaru grinded through, which is sad for the drone because it actually collapsed without the peak pressure impulse from sudden impact, which in turn implies it is unlikely to be unpenetrated by the sudden impulse on a small area of a bullet.

Subaru has IS: Vibration Shatter. If it has a visible signature it is a small blue loop around her Revolver Knuckle [see episode 26 when shes smashing things inside the Cradles' total AMF, though that implies the circles appear when shes using a ranged version.]

If you were for example thinking of the drone in episode 3 we wouldn't have been able from to see the rather low visibility signature that we see in episode 26 due to the angle we are watching from. Her first punch doesn't penetrate the drones shield due to her magical boosts being drained off by the AMF.

Suberu regularly hits a defensive shield, wedges her hand into it and breaks the shield before unleashing some other attack, which seems to be what happens on her second attack.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

In which we see that magical attacks glow as if it is radioactive.

Strada shows no such glow when Erio uses it with Explosion on the bridge in Episode 3.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by dahak

Subaru has IS: Vibration Shatter. If it has a visible signature it is a small blue loop around her Revolver Knuckle [see episode 26 when shes smashing things inside the Cradles' total AMF, though that implies the circles appear when shes using a ranged version.]

She wasn't using VS when she was hitting the drone I was thinking about, that's for sure.

If you were for example thinking of the drone in episode 3 we wouldn't have been able from to see the rather low visibility signature that we see in episode 26 due to the angle we are watching from. Her first punch doesn't penetrate the drones shield due to her magical boosts being drained off by the AMF.

Suberu regularly hits a defensive shield, wedges her hand into it and breaks the shield before unleashing some other attack, which seems to be what happens on her second attack.

As far as its visible, she's jush forcing the fist in until the Gadget exploded.

Strada shows no such glow when Erio uses it with Explosion on the bridge in Episode 3.

I'll check, but even if you are right, we are still right on the rule that this show SHOWS us when offensive magic is being employed.

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

I'll check, but even if you are right, we are still right on the rule that this show SHOWS us when offensive magic is being employed.

Really? You would classify Erio's action as defensive, then? You would say the magic he employed in that maneuver couldn't be used as an offensive action?

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by prescience

You're being selective there. The images for tracks 1-05 and 2-02 clearly do correspond to particular moments of the relevant tracks. And with the image for 2-09 it is clearly a composite of several different events, which is definitely not the case with the other images.

Definitely? All you can say for sure is that they clearly aren't out of whack. In a world where my opponents take examples from other anime in an attempt to discount favorable evidence, I can't use the picture right next to it? What kind of ruling is this!

In any case, the point is that the Mariage leader's attack did not cause Subaru serious injuries; this can also be inferred from the fact that (unlike in StrikerS ep17) she doesn't have to spend time in hospital recovering.

Yes, I can agree Subaru did not seem badly damaged.

If we use the observation as leader, we get a solution that isn't greatly different. The amount of damage is as observed in picture. Velocity of round is as heard. Now we supplement with dialogue. A human can't have survived it - would be rather meaningless if it didn't mean mage in this context. Subaru survived it, so it must logically be the cyborg hulk that makes the difference.

There is a way to reconcile the picture and the soundtrack. The Mariage leader was mistaken in its evaluation of Subaru. Either because it underestimated her abilities as a mage, because it didn't know that she is a cyborg, or both.

And I argue that based on what was given, it was the latter possibility that dominated.

I wasn't going to say cyborg, and I agree that it would be implausible for a human fist, however mechanically augmented, to damage the drone. But you were the one who claimed that Subaru's body (exterior as well as interior) is extraordinarily strong/durable. In any case, the crux of the matter is that you're ignoring the fact that her punches are magically augmented, which is the whole point of having the Revolver Knuckle. Either that, or you're making the subjective judgment that the pressure applied by the attack is less than that resulting from a bullet impact. With magic involved, we don't know enough about the mechanics to be able to judge this.

Since it is your side's assertion that the bullets will bounce off those Gadgets, all I have to do is show reasons why it is unproven rather than have to eliminate every last possibility for you.

Yes, because hummingbird wings can generate vicious shear forces at a distance...

The distance is point blank, just to point out.

I'm glad we can at least agree on this point - BJs+active shields/barriers/whatever are enough to neutralize gunfire and (at least to a limited extent) high explosives. This is really what I've been trying to argue (though perhaps I need more practice in getting to the point of things ).

I think you just stuck your head in the argument at the wrong moment, actually.

Except that if you have multiple mages (and aren't surrounded), one can put up a shield to absorb gunfire while another attacks their enemies from behind the safety of the shield. The fact that magical projectiles aren't constrained to travel in straight lines is quite useful here. When it comes to heavier weapons, it's not clear how much heavier they would need to be to cause a mage trouble. There's no hard evidence either way, but it isn't grossly implausible that an Ace-level mage could tank an RPG or two.

In essence, even if we accept your view that BJs are useless against kinetic attacks, mages can still hold their own against enemies with guns, by using some rather basic tactics. Which is not to say that mass-based weapons are useless; on the contrary, they certainly have their uses, particularly when it comes to heavier weapons (like the Strike Cannon). But arming redshirts with M4s isn't likely to accomplish much, certainly not in the situation we've seen in Force.

Oh, I'll actually agree here. Magic does have its own set of advantages against guns (at least ours), and its weaknesses can be partially counteracted with tactics. What I object to is the common practice of erasing magic's weak spots, turning slow to fast and short to long, to substantiate an opinion that magic has nothing to fear from small arms. It isn't the conclusion that's obnoxious - its the way of reaching it.

Except that Subaru and Ginga weren't subject to aging in the same way as ordinary kids. They had to have regular treatments to age at all, so it would require additional conscious intervention to cause their skin to toughen so dramatically, which would run directly counter to Quint and Genya's desire to raise them as normal human children.

If they were that desirous, they would have disabled the parts concerned with, for example, super strength. They may be unable to take the parts out, but surely they can reconfigure them to a normal power setting, which would have the pleasant side effect of reducing wear and tear and thus maintenance.

As a system, a certain degree of strengthening of the biological components is necessary in any case to secure favorable conditions for using super strength without hurting yourself. If you have ever hurt your fists punching walls then you might imagine the consequences of Subaru punching walls without toughening the skin on the fists, to take a simple example.

Third, it would be likely part of the modification will be genetically encoded, and thus there may be no choice.

Besides, even given there's a choice, can you imagine this conversation?

"Look here, Major Nakajima, its time for Subaru's grown up skin. There are two options. She can have normal skin or enhanced skin."
"How good is this enhanced skin?"
"Good enough it can take explosions that will disable mages of AA rank while suffering minimal damage, sir."
"Right. And if I choose the normal skin?"
"Well, it'll be the equivalent to normal human skin. And Subaru still has too many mechanical parts, so she'll still have to come here for maintenance. Plus, there's a chance it might tear from Subaru's normal, cybernetic-enhanced movements... one rub on the wall at speed and..."
"I want my kid to be normal. Give her normal skin."

Does this compute?
---------
Of course, the real problem is clearly an author who hadn't thought that a minor, heartwarming scene years (I was rewatching it, and I was "Aaah" too) back would jeopardize his attempt to show off some Cyborg toughness in his next story. But it is the author that writes and we who pick up his sh*t and make it work.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Alternate explanation: Cutting manual links was made deliberately difficult so that one person couldn't access the system and weaken the entire ship. You'll note that the cutting only occurred after Vivio was "seperated" from the ship; it probably needs Vivio and magic to control the ship, and once Vivio was forcibly disconnected, there was no reason to hold back the magical link cutting. To sum up: the magic link cutting could only occur if there was no Saint in control of the ship, as a safety precaution, because the Saint needs magic to control the ship.

The ship stayed in control after the AMF field came on. Besides, it'll take a very stupid design to be rendered inoperational by its own jamming fields. From observation and logic that there are at least backup control means.

Still doesn't prove your sense of economy. Go to any toolbox, and you'll find different size wrenches, screwdrivers, etc. Each one is different because it has different roles to fulfill, and you can't use a small screwdriver on a large screw. It has nothing to do with economy; indeed, good engineers will find the best tools for the job, regardless of price (doesn't imply that expensive is always better). Jail had three tools: his main interfacer, his aerial fighter, and his most powerful unit. That covers a wide variety of needs, and has nothing to do with economy. Indeed, specialization is quite useful for getting the most out of something, and the type-3 seemingly being engineered for power, would indicate about the strongest he could make his toys.

If economics is no object, he could have put his most powerful unit and his main interfacer together into one package without mutual interference.

To apply it solely to BJ's is, of course, somewhat impossible. Considering that mages also have an auto-barrier, it can be difficult to separate exactly how much of the protection distributes to each. If it makes you happy, we can just talk about it in terms of magical defenses. BJ+auto-barrier is able to absorb kinetic impacts.

Well, I can see that the BJ is no longer going to do it by itself. On the auto-barrier, it'll work better than the BJ for simple reasons of distance and toughness - proceed to review what I said about shields.

You talk abotu Nanoha in ep 1 is interesting, because after her first crash, she was just coughing probably due to dust, perhaps a bit out of it like Fate was during her crash and subsequent recovery. Given a little bit more time, Nanoha would have been back at it. However, Vita's next attack destroyed part of Nanoha's barrier jacket, and thus her next impact affected her more. So, interesting, it does seem as if Barrier Jackets themselves are protecting against kinetic impacts, because the more you remove them, the more the mage is affected by it.

Actually, the barrier jacket self detonated to blast itself away from Vita. That the BJ's are trying to protect against kinetic impact is obvious (even a piece of ordinary clothing provides some protection). The limits of their effectiveness are as shown.

Take out an unshielded human.

Meaningless in the context.

Look, if we accept that Subaru being a cyborg helped for the sake of argument, it still doesn't explain why her clothing was intact, why her skin was intact, why her hair was intact. A high explosive range should have fried and sizzled the outside parts, including the tissue-paper 'barrier jacket." If the barrier jacket is as weak as you say, and it was only Subaru's cybernetic's that allowed her to survive, then Subar should have come out nearly naked! But the pictures of Subaru just show her with cuts and scapes at worst.

Now you are attacking a strawman of my argument. While I did point out one incident where the barrier jacket is, as computed the strength of tissue paper, it does not mean necessarily that I advocate all barrier jackets are evenly and universally weak to the point of tissue paper. Just that they logically and observationally don't show the kind of toughness needed to be anti-bullet.

If you want to lead with observation, you are still screwed on this one. See my answer to Prescience.

"I know a series better than you, even though I haven't watched it!" Can you please tell me what is wrong with this statement?

The biggest problem is that I have not said that.

Although I am amused that you are so desperate to prove your point, you're trying to claim greater knowledge of things that you haven't even seen. Everyone else here understood the connection I was making, ie, that you can't judge timings slowly by the tick of the clock on the video screen. All except you.

Quite frankly, I'm amused that you chose to use another anime to try to prove your point. The practice is common (in fact, I think most of my opponents have tried Naruto examples at some point or another) but is a poor substitute for actually putting in the work to prove that the scene in question had the effect. It is like pointing to some far away anime's blooper and saying a particular scene you don't want to happen must be a blooper.

You may be more familiar with Naruto, but I'm very familiar with this problem set (at least as you've presented it, the scenario falls into the problem set). The most common error when solving this problem set is to just go with your wish (perhaps reinforced by lines of time dialogue) without actually comparing the pros and cons of the two options (going with the scene timing or the desired/stated timing) in terms of data retention. And that's why you get a lot of sympathy. Most people don't realize that while not caring about the problem is OK for casual viewing, if it comes to analysis you'll have to make the call solidly.

By the way, while I value your candor, tactically speaking you should NOT have told me that there are multiple-instances of Pain saying he needs 5 seconds to prepare (and presumably onscreen he takes more than 5). It just means your solution will have to fit more instances, which makes it HARDER.

That's why I tell you to try the exercises I did (and tell me how you did). There are really 2 outcomes:
1) You can succeed in cramming the sequence in 5 seconds for every Pain Instance, or at least something not absurdly far off (say 6 or 7). In that case there is no real contradiction, the only problem was your inability to consider alternatives.
2) You can't (I said I guess this is more likely, but if I knew more than you I'll not be guessing). In which case you are left with the choice of extending the estimated timeframe Pain really uses to prepare. Or you are left with the option of choosing which scenes to delete to force the sequence to fit the desired timeframe.

Only at the completion of this stage do you have a real competitor. Before that, you don't even have a real position (let alone a winning one), only an anti-position.

So, let me get this right: Your only criteria for when magic is in play, is that the device is glowing? That's the only explanation that you can accept, and you are 100% sure of this?

Glowing is stereotypical but the larger point is that you can't show the device was energized at all. There was nothing in the whipping that required magic once the whip was ready. So why should I inflate the estimate by introducing magic? That's an un-necessary unfalsifiable factor.

That's because those points were defeated long ago. Nanoha's shanking was due to her weakness; the shock on her body was apparently so great that she required a couple of years in the hospital; not something a normal stabbing would have required.

Wow, again you try to change the problem as stated. The given data was, she was only slightly less capable. Don't try to change the scenario just because you don't like it.

Vita's shanking was due to her tiredness and the AMF, so her armor was working at reduced capacity. But you have to decide how much of a human you want to treat Vita as first, and how much of a program.

More human than she used to be, but the shanking shows that her program roots still run deep.

And again you ignore the fundamental point that even 50% of Nanoha, Vita or Fate would still be worth more than 100% of everyone else.

Magic is funny that way; it does things that make physics go "WTF?" Subspace exists in the Nanohaverse, and physics is bent all the time. I see no reason why this would be much different. Regardless of what you think of the barrier jacket in particular, a BJ+auto-barrier has been sufficient to provide great protection. Mages have survived multiple kinetic impacts. And you want to keep ignoring or inventing far-out explanations just to avoid accepting the fact that mass-based weapons are useless on a mage.

I find this utter phobia of physics astounding. While magic does do amazing things, in between a theory that actually makes use of physics and naturally predicts the shankings and whippings and cuts we see and one that doesn't (at least not w/o the unfalsifiable black box band aid of "magic"), you automatically pick the one that doesn't.

Did I state your views incorrectly? That is what you were arguing, after all. That mass-based weapons are good and can take out mages. You could have just corrected me if I was incorrect in stating your beliefs.

Actually, I've concluded it was such and am now defending it. Unlike you, who on the sight of unpleasant evidence tries to get it excised.

I think the biggest mistake here is that you seem to figure I made up these positions for the singular strategic purpose of promoting mass weapons. However, that simply isn't the case and the positions you are seeing here were developed in the course of discussions that did not have mass weapons as their emphasis, and in their main form they have been completed before your joining date. Even the "range bash" was made in debates on the ergonomics of devices as a shooting weapon.

It is just that the sum result of all these individually created positions is a picture that is highly adverse to magic versus mass. And you, apparently trying to defend the idea that magic would wipe the floor with mass, are bumping into these individual positions.

You know what? Your argument and what everyone else believes both explain the data. One is much simpler than the other; can you guess which?

Thanks for at least agreeing my explanation explain the data. The problem is that your explanation does not explain the canon data - it requires one part to be effectively excised. Simplicity doesn't get into it.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Really? You would classify Erio's action as defensive, then? You would say the magic he employed in that maneuver couldn't be used as an offensive action?

Here's the post-observation judgment on this issue. There was a BIG, BEAUTIFUL Neo-Belkan Triangle when preparing, plus Strada was sparking blue as Erio did the swipes. Again, magical attack is obvious.

Let me take this extra post opportunity to summarize things from my viewpoint:

1) On the issue of speed and range of magiweapons: They are slow, and you have no real counterevidence. Citing Rule of Cool means that you are nolo contendere on the point that as shown, they are slow and the distances are limited.

Spoiler for On the Rule of Cool and Other Things:

By the way, Rule of Cool is an explanation for why certain (generally less than efficient) decisions are taken in anime. It does not dispute that those decisions happened, or that they are not made the way they are. It just means to accept it. Which means any attempt to rewrite the sequence (like denying it is 6 seconds long) is actually a violation of the Rule of Cool.

As for author's intent, I think it was Tk3997 who first pointed out that very concept of the "Center Guard" is a confirmation that bolts are slow, since otherwise the rounds will all finish their short flights before any interceptions can be made, to say nothing of multiple intercepts of the same flight of incoming bolts. I'll personally add the point that the concept of shot evasion is also similar, as is raising shields in reaction to the shots being fired. It can be fairly said that not only the visuals, but what passes for the tactical concept of the TSAB will collapse if the bolts and beams are much faster than shown - not that their appearance shouldn't be the best guide anyway. Tactics are created in response to reality - and both the universe's visuals and TSAB's tactics correspond well to slow bolts going over short distances and poorly to fast bolts going massive distances.

On the subject of time compression, while time-shift is usual between screen cuts, and time compression is hardly unknown in drama, to insist on it when a countercue like voice is roaring on the screen, for no reason than to avoid a personally unpleasant outcome, is illogical and hypocritical. In fact, to insist on it as the default, even in the absence of countercue, is unsubstantiated.

2) On the issue of barrier jackets: From a physics perspective, the biggest problems with them in terms of stopping kinetics is that they are as a rule 1) relatively thin, and 2) relatively soft (this is stated again in the form of saying that fields and barriers are used in the BJ instead of shields). This is probably for good reason of allowing mobility, and will actually have little effect on their anti-radiation, NBC and as far as we know, anti-magic efficiency. However, the relative thinness means that its ability to provide decelerative space is limited, and its softness means that the rate of deceleration it can apply to an object is limited, and also means it'll take the brunt of deformation. BTW, the very description of the barriers' and fields' properties from canon would be meaningless without a strong equivalence or analogue in physics, so if anything, canon further affirms the strong correspondence of the barriers and shields to physics.

Given this, the theoretically predictable outcome is that barrier jackets will not be greatly effective in protecting against physical impacts. While there are obviously differences in the performance of BJs (just as their are differences in various parameters of the mages themselves), if viewed with a critical and not apologist eye will quickly reveal that when tested, they show their performance limitations that cast severe doubt on the possibility of them stopping even small arms.

Spoiler for On particular tactics:

On the tactic of using magic to excuse the BJ's apparent failings in scenarios where there is no evidence of magical attack. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack, but is a strong indicator. Thus, there needs to be a much stronger reason than your displeasure at the result. Further, in such a scenario, the theory is basically unfalsifiable and thus fails a major test of being a scientific theory. Further, the very introduction of magic introduces a black box of unknown complexity, and thus despite appearances will actually be a virtual guarantor of failure of the rule of Occam's Razor.

On the tactic of claiming extenuating circumstances other than magic, a careful assessment should be made of whether the magnitude of the proposed handicap makes it a valid candidate, rather than treating its adequacy as a conclusion.

On the tactic of claiming a magnitude for an extenuating circumstance that far exceeds the permissible band of the scenario canonically stated, one can only call it falsifying and rewriting the scenario. After that, review previous paragraph.

On the tactic of trying to use an incident ten years ago to try and contradict a present information on certain performance parameter, through growth and rework, the problem of relevancy and timeliness must be considered.

3) On the subject of other personal active defenses, due to simple concerns of thickness and distance, as well as the effort poured into them, one can expect them to have much higher potential against kinetics (though also with apparent limits as previously alluded). Their bigger limitation is that they are active defenses that are turned on in time of need (by computer or by hand), which would require identification of a threat, and seriously restrict or prohibit movement and fire, even in the most elite mages. Thus, when facing gun armed opponents, mages are likely to be forced to give up this advantage on a regular basis.

4) On the subject of mage flexibility advantage, that is true. However, one must caution that of the whole range of the possibilities provided by magic, mages have often proven themselves capable of only a subset. Thus, the full advantage of mage flexibility will probably not be enjoyed by most mages. In any case, their problem is that encountered by any melee fighter trying to engage a shooter - making it past the fire of the ranged shooter.

The conclusion that may be arrived from the above are that there is a high probability mages are vulnerable to typical small arms, and also that even Terran small arms will be useful to allow the average Mid mage to engage targets at longer ranges and with more surprise.

Let's stop this post here.

[Kaijo]

Double posting is a no-no, so you might want to try to avoid doing that; if a mod catches it or someone reports you, you'll probably get a warning on your account. Just offering some more information on things you aren't aware of.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

The ship stayed in control after the AMF field came on. Besides, it'll take a very stupid design to be rendered inoperational by its own jamming fields. From observation and logic that there are at least backup control means.

It continued on it's straight ascending course, and if not shot down, would most likely have kept going in one direction. It's logical to conclude that Vivio would need to be plugged back in, in order to change course.

If economics is no object, he could have put his most powerful unit and his main interfacer together into one package without mutual interference.

Since you prefer real-world explanations so much, you should understand the difference in "power" between a jack-of-all-trades and something that specializes. You are basically saying "If economics is no object, then someone could make their screwdriver and wrench together without too much interference!" Why don't engineers use such a device?

Besides, there's a fairly easy guess for why he doesn't put them together. The type-1's have special appendages for interfacing, while the type-3's appendages are made for combat. Placing circuitry in them to add the interfacing effect would increase weight and complexity, if it could be done at all. Or putting extra appendages in would weigh it down. Type-3 is a pure combat unit, and you don't burden your combat soldiers down with hacking equipment; you leave that to the guy that specializes in hacking (who also carries a handgun or two, instead of the better guns the combat guys have).

Actually, the barrier jacket self detonated to blast itself away from Vita. That the BJ's are trying to protect against kinetic impact is obvious (even a piece of ordinary clothing provides some protection). The limits of their effectiveness are as shown.

Source for this explanation?

Now you are attacking a strawman of my argument. While I did point out one incident where the barrier jacket is, as computed the strength of tissue paper, it does not mean necessarily that I advocate all barrier jackets are evenly and universally weak to the point of tissue paper. Just that they logically and observationally don't show the kind of toughness needed to be anti-bullet.

Oh. So in other words, if we have an incident which shows your explanation is false, then we must simply discard that. Any evidence which goes against your explanation, is obviously false. Is that pretty much correct? Because you've been pretty much saying that BJ's are fairly weak, almost like regular clothing (and we've been using terms like tissue paper, toilet paper, crepe paper for a long time with no objection from you), so an explosion should have massively damaged it.

[qupte]Quite frankly, I'm amused that you chose to use another anime to try to prove your point. The practice is common (in fact, I think most of my opponents have tried Naruto examples at some point or another) but is a poor substitute for actually putting in the work to prove that the scene in question had the effect. It is like pointing to some far away anime's blooper and saying a particular scene you don't want to happen must be a blooper.[/quote]

The whole point being the proving of Dramatic Effect/Rule of Cool. You can't deny it exists, that stories are bent all the time for the sake of storytelling. We aren't saying that anything is a blooper; we're just saying our perception of time is being manipulated in order to make a scene more dramatic or cooler. This happens all the time, and why you can't accept it is beyond me. I suppose you should pretty disregard all of tvtropes, too.

Glowing is stereotypical but the larger point is that you can't show the device was energized at all. There was nothing in the whipping that required magic once the whip was ready. So why should I inflate the estimate by introducing magic? That's an un-necessary unfalsifiable factor.

Except, there is no way for us to know whether a device has magic; we can't see mana flow. But in Vivid, the girls are in the water and do that huge wave... and there is no glow and no magic symbols. Later, Einhart uses the same principle in an offensive attack. In fact, all of Vivio and Einharts punches and kicks and other moves are typically done without any glow or symbol. Magic is enhancing their speed, punches and kicks, which are offensives moves.

Wow, again you try to change the problem as stated. The given data was, she was only slightly less capable. Don't try to change the scenario just because you don't like it.

Slightly less capable? Since you keep on saying that 50% of Nanoha is 100% of every other mage, and they said it was a really weak enemy that wouldn't have been a concern, Nanoha should have still been able to handle it easily. The fact that she didn't, means she was worn out far worse that you imagine.

I find this utter phobia of physics astounding. While magic does do amazing things, in between a theory that actually makes use of physics and naturally predicts the shankings and whippings and cuts we see and one that doesn't (at least not w/o the unfalsifiable black box band aid of "magic"), you automatically pick the one that doesn't.

Divine Buster Extension is said to be able to go over any range without any loss in power. Physically, that is impossible; any transmission of energy has losses according to physics. Thus, we have to conclude that magic itself is not bound by physics, and your over-reliance on it will thus will always be flawed.

It is just that the sum result of all these individually created positions is a picture that is highly adverse to magic versus mass. And you, apparently trying to defend the idea that magic would wipe the floor with mass, are bumping into these individual positions.

Look, I understand you probably participated some in a discussion a long time ago, and it's very painful for someone to have all that work somehow either negated or lessened by new information, but it happens.

But at best, you can only claim "we don't know." Any theory you offer is just that; a theory. You prefer thinking that magic isn't involved unless you have a glow or symbol, while most people seem to prefer to thinking that a magical show using mages and copious amounts of magic, has a lot of magical explanations that use magic.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

1) On the issue of speed and range of magiweapons: They are slow, and you have no real counterevidence. Citing Rule of Cool means that you are nolo contendere on the point that as shown, they are slow and the distances are limited.[spoiler=On the Rule of Cool and Other Things]By the way, Rule of Cool is an explanation for why certain (generally less than efficient) decisions are taken in anime. It does not dispute that those decisions happened, or that they are not made the way they are. It just means to accept it. Which means any attempt to rewrite the sequence (like denying it is 6 seconds long) is actually a violation of the Rule of Cool.

As for author's intent, I think it was Tk3997 who first pointed out that very concept of the "Center Guard" is a confirmation that bolts are slow, since otherwise the rounds will all finish their short flights before any interceptions can be made, to say nothing of multiple intercepts of the same flight of incoming bolts[/quote]

Ah, I see. So when a character in a show catches an arrow, the arrow must have been moving really slow. Or when a character blocks or dodges a bullet, it must mean the bullet was moving really slow. You know, I think I actually saw your principle in action in the Matrix! I saw several times when bullets were moving really slow, so the characters could dodge them. I even timed it, and yep, those bullets were moving slow! Wow, I didn't think mass-based weapons could be slow that you could dodge or block them like that.

Or dramatic effect/rule of cool was in play, but you don't believe in that. But there's another trope which you'll somehow become a believer in, just waiting for you to say it....

For what it's worth, magic can enhance a mages strength, speed, and perception. A center guard mage could thus shoot down almost any projective that came at their team.

2) On the issue of barrier jackets: From a physics perspective, the biggest problems with them in terms of stopping kinetics is that they are as a rule 1) relatively thin, and 2) relatively soft (this is stated again in the form of saying that fields and barriers are used in the BJ instead of shields). This is probably for good reason of allowing mobility, and will actually have little effect on their anti-radiation, NBC and as far as we know, anti-magic efficiency. However, the relative thinness means that its ability to provide decelerative space is limited, and its softness means that the rate of deceleration it can apply to an object is limited, and also means it'll take the brunt of deformation. BTW, the very description of the barriers' and fields' properties from canon would be meaningless without a strong equivalence or analogue in physics, so if anything, canon further affirms the strong correspondence of the barriers and shields to physics.

Or, they're, ya know, magic, and any such explanations are not quite exact, but trying to dumb things down enough for laymen to understand. You really think Tsuzuki worked out all the physics of magic while writing all this? Or do you think he just assumed that he could do all these fantastic effects and use magic as an explanation to pretty much cover everything? If the latter, you're looking for details where there are none.

4) On the subject of mage flexibility advantage, that is true. However, one must caution that of the whole range of the possibilities provided by magic, mages have often proven themselves capable of only a subset. Thus, the full advantage of mage flexibility will probably not be enjoyed by most mages. In any case, their problem is that encountered by any melee fighter trying to engage a shooter - making it past the fire of the ranged shooter.

Maybe not the full range, but enough that any real weaknesses aren't that much of an issue. Signum, a melee fighter, can move at fast enough speeds to blur her outline; that's sufficient for getting in close, or behind, any ranged fighter. Nanoha has Flash Move for getting out of melee attacks. All mages pretty much have defenses in the forms of four different defense moves (BJ, autobarrier, barrier, and shields) and can use magic to enhance their speed and strength to varying degrees. They all have a variety of attacks that they specialize in, and ways of making them work against almost any opponent.

Personally, I like Teana's fight against Nove, Wendi, and Deed. If she were using simple mass-base weapons, she would have lost, due to the cyborgs dodging them. But because she could control her shots, and the types she used, she could blow up Wendi's charging shot, and guide her two projectiles back to take out two of the cyborgs in one shot each. One mage vs. three cyborgs, and the mage won. Huh. As a Bureau official, do I want to focus my time and energies on making cyborgs? Or continue focusing on mages?

The conclusion that may be arrived from the above are that there is a high probability mages are vulnerable to typical small arms, and also that even Terran small arms will be useful to allow the average Mid mage to engage targets at longer ranges and with more surprise.

A conclusion you can only reach by assuming the absolute worst out of any unknown where the show doesn't take the time to explain what's going. As you are a person who needs every small detail explained to them, I can understand that you'll probably be frustrated a lot, because a lot of shows don't treat their audiences as idiots, and thus not explain everything to them. They assume that audiences can pick up the cues and logical, simple explanations for what's going on.

Your type of movie would be The Last Airbender, where they explain things multiple times, so you know exactly what's going on. Let me check the reviews on that... oh, it doesn't seem like it was a very good movie. Huh.

[dahak]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Here's the post-observation judgment on this issue. There was a BIG, BEAUTIFUL Neo-Belkan Triangle when preparing, plus Strada was sparking blue as Erio did the swipes. Again, magical attack is obvious.

Blue sparklies can't be Erio's magic. Erio's magic is Yellow. There is no glow on Strada and the triangle could equally well be Erio preparing for the jump he made, since it deploys after Strada powers up.

Spoiler for Strada has no magic glow after Explosion:

Spoiler for But Erio can convert magic to electricity.:

That's generic electricity/Lightning. Non magical at that since, the drones Teana shoot down emit it before exploding.

And your ignoring Suberu's own statement that her unboosted fist can't get through the gadget's shield.

Spoiler for Suberu's first melee attack on a drone:

Note despite being a magic attack there is no glow present. Nor a magic circle.



Note her kinetic attack which she said had had the magic boost drained fails to penetrate the drone's shield.

Spoiler for She then says without a damage boost she can't penetrate so she will have to do something else.:

Spoiler for Suberu's second attack verses a drone:

Note the greater extent of blue lightning than Strada was giving off.

That is almost certainly Vibration Shatter, since she just said her magic boost didn't work so she had to try something else.

If you have another sequence in mind by all means tell us which one it is. But that sequences shows Suberu + Revolver Knuckles being unable to damage a drone without resorting to Vibration Shatter or some other AMF resistant technique. Since this is the beginning of her training with RF6 do you want to tell us which other technique she could be using.

That's not Suberu can punch out Drones with her bare fist. That's Suberu can't punch out drones even with Revolver Knuckles turbines running without something more than conventional magic damage boosts.

Spoiler for "Oh and if your counting any magic glow at any point for an attack to be magical Insect Platoon Glowed.":

Spoiler for Revolver Knuckles' Turbine boost runs without linked magic.:

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Double posting is a no-no, so you might want to try to avoid doing that; if a mod catches it or someone reports you, you'll probably get a warning on your account. Just offering some more information on things you aren't aware of.

Well, I know. On the other hand, I think I've edited my first post too many times too.

It continued on it's straight ascending course, and if not shot down, would most likely have kept going in one direction. It's logical to conclude that Vivio would need to be plugged back in, in order to change course.

In other words, as far as can be told, it was still in control.

Since you prefer real-world explanations so much, you should understand the difference in "power" between a jack-of-all-trades and something that specializes. You are basically saying "If economics is no object, then someone could make their screwdriver and wrench together without too much interference!" Why don't engineers use such a device?

Obviously, Gadget drones are not screwdrivers and wrenches.

Besides, there's a fairly easy guess for why he doesn't put them together. The type-1's have special appendages for interfacing, while the type-3's appendages are made for combat. Placing circuitry in them to add the interfacing effect would increase weight and complexity, if it could be done at all. Or putting extra appendages in would weigh it down. Type-3 is a pure combat unit, and you don't burden your combat soldiers down with hacking equipment; you leave that to the guy that specializes in hacking (who also carries a handgun or two, instead of the better guns the combat guys have).

Except if you re-watch Ep15 15:45, you'll actually see the Type III drone ... having those red interfacing tentacles! So from all appearances they are multi-purpose they CAN replace the Type Is ... unless there's economics to consider and Scarlietti goes for low-hi mixing.

Source for this explanation?

Oh, actually that one was from the DVD Booklet for the first DVD, P.7, bottom explanation.

Oh. So in other words, if we have an incident which shows your explanation is false, then we must simply discard that. Any evidence which goes against your explanation, is obviously false. Is that pretty much correct? Because you've been pretty much saying that BJ's are fairly weak, almost like regular clothing (and we've been using terms like tissue paper, toilet paper, crepe paper for a long time with no objection from you), so an explosion should have massively damaged it.

I was figuring that you guys were using "tissue paper" figuratively to describe the weakness. Since of course I figure they are weak, I can only agree. But when you start using it in your strawman, you turn it literal and I have to react.

As I said, the issue is most likely a mix of the yield of the round and Subaru's arm taking the brunt of the blow, so only a relatively small portion of the blast went elsewhere.

The whole point being the proving of Dramatic Effect/Rule of Cool. You can't deny it exists, that stories are bent all the time for the sake of storytelling. We aren't saying that anything is a blooper; we're just saying our perception of time is being manipulated in order to make a scene more dramatic or cooler. This happens all the time, and why you can't accept it is beyond me. I suppose you should pretty disregard all of tvtropes, too.

If I go by TVTropes one line summary of the Rule of Cool: The limit of the willing suspension of disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to its degree of coolness.

In short, it is about acceptance of some event as due to coolness. Thus, invoking it means you give up the right to complain about the scene, or to try and say it did not depict what it clearly did.

Except, there is no way for us to know whether a device has magic; we can't see mana flow. But in Vivid, the girls are in the water and do that huge wave... and there is no glow and no magic symbols. Later, Einhart uses the same principle in an offensive attack. In fact, all of Vivio and Einharts punches and kicks and other moves are typically done without any glow or symbol. Magic is enhancing their speed, punches and kicks, which are offensives moves.

As I understand it, the idea here was that they are not really using magic here, but just using bodies real well.

Slightly less capable? Since you keep on saying that 50% of Nanoha is 100% of every other mage, and they said it was a really weak enemy that wouldn't have been a concern, Nanoha should have still been able to handle it easily. The fact that she didn't, means she was worn out far worse that you imagine.

First, I did not say that she was "slightly less capable", the same person who said that she won't have any problems (which is strictly speaking, not the same as "easily"*) protecting her partners and shooting down the drone. "Weak" was never on the table.

*To explain the distinction here: Suppose you in good shape can consistently run 100m in 10 seconds, and I take say 11 seconds. If we get into a sprinting contest, you wouldn't have any problems outrunning me - all you have to do is run hard. However, that's not quite the same as it being easy for you to win - you'll still have to run pretty hard. And if one day you aren't feeling your best you might just lose that one second and I have a chance.

Also, the idea that a certain enemy can be defeated without any trouble does not mean you can shield against the enemy attack. A F-16 armed with HARM missiles, for example, shouldn't have any trouble dealing with a SA-6 battery - it should be able to dodge the shot and the HARM should be able to kill the single Straight Flush in the battery. That does not equate that if the SA-6 hit, the F-16 won't be badly damaged at least.

Try and use those two analogies above to figure out what I think happened that day, without dreaming that the defensive field strength fell to nothing - that simply was not said.

Divine Buster Extension is said to be able to go over any range without any loss in power. Physically, that is impossible; any transmission of energy has losses according to physics. Thus, we have to conclude that magic itself is not bound by physics, and your over-reliance on it will thus will always be flawed.

First, the statement actually said "super long distance", not "any range" - and since we have already been treated, thanks to the show on the same sequence, to the way they use "instant", "outrange" and a few other similar terms, I suggest to adjust your expectations accordingly. Second, it is not hard to imagine that since it is a jet blast and Nanoha can keep feeding it, if the distance is limited she can keep feeding it so the beam does not lose power. That's makes much more sense than it suffering zero propagation loss, which would be visually contradicted anyway since we can see it glowing, which means at least the quantity of light energy must be being lost.

But at best, you can only claim "we don't know." Any theory you offer is just that; a theory.

A dilemma we have in real life. Then at least I'll take pride in the fact my theories are fact and reason based, and don't require me to cut out scnees.

You prefer thinking that magic isn't involved unless you have a glow or symbol, while most people seem to prefer to thinking that a magical show using mages and copious amounts of magic, has a lot of magical explanations that use magic.

And yet are doing things that don't need magic to explain.

Ah, I see. So when a character in a show catches an arrow, the arrow must have been moving really slow. Or when a character blocks or dodges a bullet, it must mean the bullet was moving really slow. You know, I think I actually saw your principle in action in the Matrix! I saw several times when bullets were moving really slow, so the characters could dodge them. I even timed it, and yep, those bullets were moving slow! Wow, I didn't think mass-based weapons could be slow that you could dodge or block them like that.

Read my comments on "Time Compression" for this topic.

For what it's worth, magic can enhance a mages strength, speed, and perception. A center guard mage could thus shoot down almost any projective that came at their team.

We are seeing her shooting it down at a fast, but still human pace.

Or, they're, ya know, magic, and any such explanations are not quite exact, but trying to dumb things down enough for laymen to understand. You really think Tsuzuki worked out all the physics of magic while writing all this? Or do you think he just assumed that he could do all these fantastic effects and use magic as an explanation to pretty much cover everything? If the latter, you're looking for details where there are none.

Of course the explanation is, in SoD terms, a dumbed down introduction for Rein. Nevertheless, the terms used are utterly meaningless without being linked to physics. Words like "soft" only have meaining due to a strong connection with physical properties.

Maybe not the full range, but enough that any real weaknesses aren't that much of an issue. Signum, a melee fighter, can move at fast enough speeds to blur her outline; that's sufficient for getting in close, or behind, any ranged fighter. Nanoha has Flash Move for getting out of melee attacks. All mages pretty much have defenses in the forms of four different defense moves (BJ, autobarrier, barrier, and shields) and can use magic to enhance their speed and strength to varying degrees. They all have a variety of attacks that they specialize in, and ways of making them work against almost any opponent.

Again, you are focusing on the cream here.

Personally, I like Teana's fight against Nove, Wendi, and Deed. If she were using simple mass-base weapons, she would have lost, due to the cyborgs dodging them. But because she could control her shots, and the types she used, she could blow up Wendi's charging shot, and guide her two projectiles back to take out two of the cyborgs in one shot each.

If she was using mass weapons (say RPGs - I won't say bullets or even underarm grenade launchers because canon has apparently already decided that Cyborgs can "tank" a HE "shell" of 30-45mm caliber while remaining operational); she won't be able to control it, but it would have flown faster and thus may well have hit.

The caliber is determined thus: The Miriage says that her weapon is a howitzer. Back when the word had a differentiated meaning, a howitzer is a gun with a length of 15-25 calibers - our modern howitzers should actually be classed as gun-howitzers. Arms are in the region of 70cm long - at least mine is, so let's assume the Miriage, which looks to be man sized and transformed its arm into a howitzer, is similar, 700/15=~46 and 700/25=28.3, so very broadly 30-45mm. Of course, I bet Tsuzuki never found out exactly what's a howitzer, but it does have the nice effect of making the gun be broadly the correct size and width (for a weapon transformed from an arm anyway (so maybe he did?)

One mage vs. three cyborgs, and the mage won. Huh. As a Bureau official, do I want to focus my time and energies on making cyborgs? Or continue focusing on mages?

Shallow analysis. Teana was good, but there she was also lucky (as it was, if it wasn't for Vice, she might have gotten sliced by Deed, and then after awhile the Cyborgs will pick themselves up off the battlefield). Also remember that there are countless mages that are not as good as Teana.

A conclusion you can only reach by assuming the absolute worst out of any unknown where the show doesn't take the time to explain what's going.

You mean, I just and watch it as is, without allowing my own dreams to get in the way?

Originally Posted by dahak

Blue sparklies can't be Erio's magic. Erio's magic is Yellow. There is no glow on Strada and the triangle could equally well be Erio preparing for the jump he made, since it deploys after Strada powers up.

Spoiler for Strada has no magic glow after Explosion:

It is quite typical to weapons to not glow immediately after explosion.

Spoiler for But Erio can convert magic to electricity.:

That's generic electricity/Lightning. Non magical at that since, the drones Teana shoot down emit it before exploding.

And we see how weapons charged with an attack have flashies going all over it. Next?

Note despite being a magic attack there is no glow present. Nor a magic circle.

Spoiler:

Well, there it is - see the glow?

Note her kinetic attack which she said had had the magic boost drained fails to penetrate the drone's shield.

OK.

Note the greater extent of blue lightning than Strada was giving off.

That's not so surprising, is it? That's Subaru's base magic color.

That is almost certainly Vibration Shatter, since she just said her magic boost didn't work so she had to try something else.

It looked like to me what she did was give up trying to use magic as the main attack means and to get better leverage and punch through almost entirely physically.

Spoiler:

Yeah, and they weren't glowing at all by the time they reached Rein, unlike the still sparking Strada.

Spoiler for Revolver Knuckles' Turbine boost runs without linked magic.:

That's clearly the IS energy and pattern, not magic...

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

In other words, as far as can be told, it was still in control.

Like a seafaring ship without a rudder.

Obviously, Gadget drones are not screwdrivers and wrenches.

The same principle applies. Since you like physics so much, there is only so much you can fit into a physical space. There are weight and aerodynamic concerns, as well as power requirements with a physical device. That means trade-offs, which you tried to argue for so valiantly earlier. In this case, Scag seemingly made the Type-3's more primed for combat.

Except if you re-watch Ep15 15:45, you'll actually see the Type III drone ... having those red interfacing tentacles! So from all appearances they are multi-purpose they CAN replace the Type Is ... unless there's economics to consider and Scarlietti goes for low-hi mixing.

Are you sure you got the right episode and time? I just watched the back half of that episode, and I don't see any Type-3's with red tentacles. Tre and Sein pass by a bunch of type-1's, and at the end of the episode, Jail stands over his box of relics, and there's a ton of type-2's around, and even a couple of type-3's, but they weren't showing any appendages. Can you describe the scene, and what other scenes it comes between?

Oh, actually that one was from the DVD Booklet for the first DVD, P.7, bottom explanation.

As I haven't seen it that, I can't comment, unless you have a link. But even still, the loss of the outer BJ and landing against a wall seems to leave Nanoha more helpless than being smacked through a wall in the first place. We have two instances here that are perfect for comparison: Vita's initial attack sends Nanoha through the wall(1st kinetic impact), and she just coughs, and is perhaps a bit unsteady on her feet (quite similar to Fate in ep 2). Then she loses some of her BJ and gets knocked a vastly shorter distance into a wall without breaking it... and she's nearly completely KO'ed! The only difference between the two, was the amount of armor she was wearing; it seems that outer layer does a pretty damn good job of ensuring survival against kinetic impact.

I was figuring that you guys were using "tissue paper" figuratively to describe the weakness. Since of course I figure they are weak, I can only agree. But when you start using it in your strawman, you turn it literal and I have to react.

Well, then perhaps you misunderstood we were using it literally, because the impression and the words you used indicated that you seem to see it as not much better than clothing.

As I said, the issue is most likely a mix of the yield of the round and Subaru's arm taking the brunt of the blow, so only a relatively small portion of the blast went elsewhere.

It's an audio track; how can you tell that Subaru took it solely on the arm? She just gets blasted. We do have pictures of her afterward, though. And the main point is still the fact that, cyborg or no, she should have showed a lot of damage. If the BJ and auto-barrier provided no real protection, than a normal mage should have been blown in two. Even if Subaru could withstand thanks to her interior cyborg parts, her clothing and exterior should have been badly messed up.

It wasn't.

If I go by TVTropes one line summary of the Rule of Cool: The limit of the willing suspension of disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to its degree of coolness.

In short, it is about acceptance of some event as due to coolness. Thus, invoking it means you give up the right to complain about the scene, or to try and say it did not depict what it clearly did.

Coolness is also a subjective term. Someone who finds something cool is more likely to suspend disbelief. You obviously don't find the series that cool, and so your suspension of belief is less. Which is why a lot of people get the impression you don't like this series. If it has so many problems, and doesn't seem that cool to you... why are you watching it? I mean, I hate sparkly vampires, and the little bits of the movies I saw were just painful, so I didn't watch them. I'm not into masochism, though.

As I understand it, the idea here was that they are not really using magic here, but just using bodies real well.

Prove it. You just need to be able to show a normal human being capable of generating the gigantic waves they were. If you can't, then you have to retract the point that magic can be used without glows or symbols (and dahak's post of facts clearly shows this glow theory is incorrect).

First, I did not say that she was "slightly less capable", the same person who said that she won't have any problems (which is strictly speaking, not the same as "easily"*) protecting her partners and shooting down the drone. "Weak" was never on the table.

Yes, under normal circumstances she wouldn't have had any problems. The fact that it hurt her so badly, shows just how far she deteriorated because of over-extending herself in the years prior. I don't know about you, but when I describe something as "easy to deal with" it means something I can kill easily, like stepping on an ant; in other words, something that seems pretty weak to me. To a trained kung fu master, I am pretty weak, because he can deal with me easily, despite my limited martial arts training.

Your definition of weak seems to indicate an even fight, though?

First, the statement actually said "super long distance", not "any range" - and since we have already been treated, thanks to the show on the same sequence, to the way they use "instant", "outrange" and a few other similar terms, I suggest to adjust your expectations accordingly. Second, it is not hard to imagine that since it is a jet blast and Nanoha can keep feeding it, if the distance is limited she can keep feeding it so the beam does not lose power. That's makes much more sense than it suffering zero propagation loss, which would be visually contradicted anyway since we can see it glowing, which means at least the quantity of light energy must be being lost.

You really don't understand physics. If I fire a laser, it doesn't matter if I continue feeding it energy or not; it will still lose power as it travels the distance. It takes power to send power, so some of the power in the beam is used to propagate the beam. Each molecule that it strikes, also strips off power, and in this case, the laser is striking air particles, and other minute things.

In physics, there is no 100% transmission of energy. There are *always* losses.

A dilemma we have in real life. Then at least I'll take pride in the fact my theories are fact and reason based, and don't require me to cut out scnees.

Actually, in order for you to make the series work, you have to cut out Nanoha, Erio, Lutecia, Rein, Vivio, Rio, Corona, Einhart, etc. That's not a good way to build a theory.

And yet are doing things that don't need magic to explain.

Why look so hard for non-magical solutions, though, when occam's razor applies? The simplest solution is the correct one, which is that magic is involved. It works with Divine Buster Extension, the same way it works with every other case of magic combat, between mages.

Read my comments on "Time Compression" for this topic.

Link? But ultimately, it doesn't matter. Your argument has always been that we can always time things based off the video clock. In that case, Matrix bullets are moving pretty damn slow; they must have got a bad batch of guns. Also, you wanted us to believe magic moves slow because it can be dodged or blocked; but arrows and bullets have been dodged and blocked in many other shows, so that must mean arrows and bullets are incredibly slow. I'm just following your logical reasoning to it's natural conclusion.

We are seeing her shooting it down at a fast, but still human pace.

During her first training at it. Given how other characters can work at superhuman speeds and strengths, and that Nanoha said that Teana was like her, it's very likely Teana will reach a point where she can shoot things down.

Hell, a fun example for ya; Right after Nanoha and Fate get their cartridge upgrades, Vita fires 4 mass-based steel orbs at Nanoha, who uses four of her Axel shooter orbs to take them down before they could hit her. Of course, you'll probably argue; "Um, that Vita actually stopped the orbs right in front of Nanoha, specifically to give her time to shoot them down." And I don't know about you, but the initial firing of Axel Shooter, and the incredible speed they took out those orbs, makes it seem like magic can travel pretty damn fast, when she wants it to.

Again, you are focusing on the cream here.

A nice dodge to avoid responding, but I can let it go if you wish. =)

If she was using mass weapons (say RPGs - I won't say bullets or even underarm grenade launchers because canon has apparently already decided that Cyborgs can "tank" a HE "shell" of 30-45mm caliber while remaining operational); she won't be able to control it, but it would have flown faster and thus may well have hit.

Huh. So you expect Teana to fight effectively while carrying around an RPG launcher? And be able to fire off two at once in two different directions to hit two separate moving targets?

Shallow analysis. Teana was good, but there she was also lucky (as it was, if it wasn't for Vice, she might have gotten sliced by Deed, and then after awhile the Cyborgs will pick themselves up off the battlefield). Also remember that there are countless mages that are not as good as Teana.

Yes, she might have gotten taken out by Deed if it wasn't for Vice, but she did take them all down initially. Note that a cyborg getting shut by a normal handgun, could probably still get up to make the attack attempt that Deed did, so at best, a mass-based weapon was no worse than what Teana did. And Wendi stayed down.

You mean, I just and watch it as is, without allowing my own dreams to get in the way?

That's a cute way of phrasing it. But let me explain it this way: The premier episode of Stargate Universe flipped back and forth through time. It opened in the present, and occasionally scene changed to things that happened in the past. They didn't say anything like "3 days ago" or "back to the present" figuring the audience was smart enough to figure out what was going on. In your case, however, since it wasn't explained, and the clock was still ticking in one direction... we've have to assume it was a mess with a lot of plot holes since things were happening out of order.

All because they didn't explain in fine detail exactly what was going on. Maybe you enjoy being treated like an idiot; but most people don't need everything explained to them, and can figure out the details on their own, understanding what is going on based on the universe it takes place in. Works for the Matrix. And works for Nanoha.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Like a seafaring ship without a rudder.

I wonder why you just assume it is a seafaring ship without a rudder. Besides, you yourself asserted it was going pretty straight, and a real seafaring ship cruising without a rudder will suffer course deviation in a very short time.

Are you sure you got the right episode and time? I just watched the back half of that episode, and I don't see any Type-3's with red tentacles. Tre and Sein pass by a bunch of type-1's, and at the end of the episode, Jail stands over his box of relics, and there's a ton of type-2's around, and even a couple of type-3's, but they weren't showing any appendages. Can you describe the scene, and what other scenes it comes between?

Time, yes, but I made an error on the typo on the episode number, for which I make no excuses - it is episode 5.

As I haven't seen it that, I can't comment, unless you have a link. But even still, the loss of the outer BJ and landing against a wall seems to leave Nanoha more helpless than being smacked through a wall in the first place. We have two instances here that are perfect for comparison: Vita's initial attack sends Nanoha through the wall(1st kinetic impact), and she just coughs, and is perhaps a bit unsteady on her feet (quite similar to Fate in ep 2). Then she loses some of her BJ and gets knocked a vastly shorter distance into a wall without breaking it... and she's nearly completely KO'ed! The only difference between the two, was the amount of armor she was wearing; it seems that outer layer does a pretty damn good job of ensuring survival against kinetic impact.

And neither are of the same order of magnitude as Fate's little crash. If the BJ is showing its limitations in the first set, it can't be the factor that saved Fate, a conclusion which is entirely compatible with the one that can be made just by looking at it in physical terms.

Your mistake here is a common one where you are looking for the presence / absence of something while what I'm looking at are magnitudes.

Well, then perhaps you misunderstood we were using it literally, because the impression and the words you used indicated that you seem to see it as not much better than clothing.

Clothing is far from tissue paper, you know. And just to ensure you have the right fix, it does seem to have good anti-heat characteristics, and I'll take them at their word that it is good against magic. It also has some NBC ability. Its just the kinetics.

It's an audio track; how can you tell that Subaru took it solely on the arm? She just gets blasted. We do have pictures of her afterward, though.

If in an "After" shot, you see a certain spot that clearly suffered more damage, I think it is quite reasonable to conclude that spot was the most heavily attacked.

And the main point is still the fact that, cyborg or no, she should have showed a lot of damage. If the BJ and auto-barrier provided no real protection, than a normal mage should have been blown in two. Even if Subaru could withstand thanks to her interior cyborg parts, her clothing and exterior should have been badly messed up.

It wasn't, so the explanation we choose will have to take that into account. However, since it is already basically stated a normal mage will be dead, we'll have to take it into account. The only explanation I see that accomodates both is that Subaru took the blast somewhere on the arm, and the arm blocked off the closest vectors of the blast, thus leaving the rest of the body, including the BJ, relatively unaffected.

Coolness is also a subjective term. Someone who finds something cool is more likely to suspend disbelief. You obviously don't find the series that cool, and so your suspension of belief is less. Which is why a lot of people get the impression you don't like this series. If it has so many problems, and doesn't seem that cool to you... why are you watching it? I mean, I hate sparkly vampires, and the little bits of the movies I saw were just painful, so I didn't watch them. I'm not into masochism, though.

It is you who invoked Rule of Cool, not me. Except RoC doesn't mean quite what you want it to be. Further, a person who wants to change what the screen showed is not suspending his disbelief.

Prove it. You just need to be able to show a normal human being capable of generating the gigantic waves they were. If you can't, then you have to retract the point that magic can be used without glows or symbols (and dahak's post of facts clearly shows this glow theory is incorrect).

I answered Dahak's post, but I don't really see how he contradicts my assertion that magic produces a lot of glow in the attack (every one of his frames wound up showing some kind of glow in the attack).

Being a complete couch potato, I can't say whether they can, or how much they exaggerated the whole wave business, so I'll just go with what is shown - no evidence of magic usage. However, even if we need magic to "bridge the gap", it is more likely it is just concealed by all the water than being some kind of miracle exception to the rule - a factor that won't be in Precia's case (she being on dry land).

And the point remains, we see no evidence of a magical attack. If there is also no feat that requires magic, then the insistence on it is unsubstantiable.

Yes, under normal circumstances she wouldn't have had any problems. The fact that it hurt her so badly, shows just how far she deteriorated because of over-extending herself in the years prior.

The fact it managed to hurt her so badly is due to it getting a clean hit with a weapon that a Barrier Jacket by its construction is ill equipped to handle. That it got the hit in the first place is abscribed to Nanoha being "slightly less capable".

An insisistence that Nanoha must have been near-dead when the droid stabbed her is rewriting the scenario.

I don't know about you, but when I describe something as "easy to deal with" it means something I can kill easily, like stepping on an ant; in other words, something that seems pretty weak to me. To a trained kung fu master, I am pretty weak, because he can deal with me easily, despite my limited martial arts training.

Your definition of weak seems to indicate an even fight, though?

I suppose by "limited", you hadn't reached the 'dan' levels or whatever the equivalent in your martial arts system is.

So, suppose this kung fu master is a 9-dan or equivalent in your system. He fights you, and he can deal with you easily. If he fights a 1-dan, he'll probably win "with no problem" because he's still much more skilled and experienced, but probably not "easily" - if he makes more than a very small error the 1-dan is likely good enough to exploit it and turn the tables on him. If he fights a 7 or 8-dan he has a better than even chance of winning, but not "with no problem", and who wins may well depend more on both side's "state of the day" than the overall skill level.

And under none of these is any guarantee that if you are granted a clean hit, the battle won't suddenly start looking very grey for your master. Get the distinction?

You really don't understand physics. If I fire a laser, it doesn't matter if I continue feeding it energy or not; it will still lose power as it travels the distance. It takes power to send power, so some of the power in the beam is used to propagate the beam. Each molecule that it strikes, also strips off power, and in this case, the laser is striking air particles, and other minute things.

The problem is, what you are playing with is not the analogue of a laser, but a water jet. And it doesn't say it is 100% efficient (the fact there IS a maximum range kicks that out of the window if physical considerations don't do the trick), all it says is within a certain distance that's relatively large in the opinion of the author, the beam doesn't decay. As long as beam power can be sustained, say by continuing to pour energy in, it can work.

Don't just try and pick the least scientific explanation of works.

Actually, in order for you to make the series work, you have to cut out Nanoha, Erio, Lutecia, Rein, Vivio, Rio, Corona, Einhart, etc. That's not a good way to build a theory.

Or all I have to cut are your dreams of them.

Why look so hard for non-magical solutions, though, when occam's razor applies? The simplest solution is the correct one, which is that magic is involved. It works with Divine Buster Extension, the same way it works with every other case of magic combat, between mages.

Because magic is not a simple solution to the problem. It is a huge black box complicating factor.

Besides, Fate's jacket was cut because of physical blow will be simpler than Fate's jacket was cut because of a combination of physical blow and magic.
=====
Most of what remains is a very long winded way of saying that you agree with me that as presented (thus, as in canon), the ranges are low and speeds are limited. Your inability to accept it is all very well, but it doesn't change the canon. Let's concentrate on what's left.

A nice dodge to avoid responding, but I can let it go if you wish. =)

Just because it is operationally un-necessary to reply. Though if you can predict my thoughts on that scene in Ep5 A's (though I'm also very happy to class it as a blooper and count it neither for nor against), you should be able to work out what I did not say.

Huh. So you expect Teana to fight effectively while carrying around an RPG launcher? And be able to fire off two at once in two different directions to hit two separate moving targets?

RPG launchers are light enough to carry around. She can't hit 2 different targets at once. But neither would Nove be tanking her shots before.

Yes, she might have gotten taken out by Deed if it wasn't for Vice, but she did take them all down initially. Note that a cyborg getting shut by a normal handgun, could probably still get up to make the attack attempt that Deed did, so at best, a mass-based weapon was no worse than what Teana did. And Wendi stayed down.

If the cyborg is hit by a RPG, the plasma jet would have completely disabled her. If anything, the disadvantage is that they can't reform her.

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

I wonder why you just assume it is a seafaring ship without a rudder. Besides, you yourself asserted it was going pretty straight, and a real seafaring ship cruising without a rudder will suffer course deviation in a very short time.

Because it's not a seafaring ship, so the analogy isn't perfect. Perhaps a better analogy would be a seafaring ship with it's rudder locked in position, thus only capable of going in one direction. It needs Vivio attached to work the rudder again.

Time, yes, but I made an error on the typo on the episode number, for which I make no excuses - it is episode 5.

Ah, I see what you're getting at, but we have no idea if those red ones are usable for interfacing, since we don't see the type-3 use them as such (this would be like your argument of Precia's device not using magic because you don't see it). It seems to use them to anchor it's position, as you can see it do that a few times, and even takes swipes at Erio with them.

If we assume that they are the exact same thing as the type-1 drone red apppendages, then it doesn't make sense to keep using type-1's because the type-3's are stronger. So, because of the different drone types and the fact we never see a type-3 interface, we have to assume the appendages have a different purpose (combat/anchorage).

And neither are of the same order of magnitude as Fate's little crash. If the BJ is showing its limitations in the first set, it can't be the factor that saved Fate, a conclusion which is entirely compatible with the one that can be made just by looking at it in physical terms.

Your mistake here is a common one where you are looking for the presence / absence of something while what I'm looking at are magnitudes.

The mistake you are making is not taking the auto-barrier into account, and the variance between individual mages. One possible explanation is that it doesn't matter what kind of crash; the BJ+auto-barrier will keep the mage going. Or that the magnitude of crash has a very large variance.

Remember, Nanoha wasn't really injured in the first crash; she was coughing, probably because of the dust, but she was able to put up a barrier when Vita came zooming in. And by the time we see Fate, it's been sometime since her crash, so that explains why she appears fully recovered; we don't see her immediately after like we did with Nanoha. Again, the only difference between Nanoha's two crashes is the removal of the BJ layer. This is our control; we have one crash with and one without, so a comparison can be made and conclusions drawn.

Clothing is far from tissue paper, you know. And just to ensure you have the right fix, it does seem to have good anti-heat characteristics, and I'll take them at their word that it is good against magic. It also has some NBC ability. Its just the kinetics.

You're seriously going to argue that a T-shirt provides any worthwhile extra protection against a howitzer to the face? Even if we take the assumption that BJs are just clothes, Subaru still should have emerged nearly naked after the blast. Because they didn't, the only conclusion left to draw is that they are not mere clothes, but actual armor that helped protect Subaru.

If in an "After" shot, you see a certain spot that clearly suffered more damage, I think it is quite reasonable to conclude that spot was the most heavily attacked.

Not the only explanation; if she was blasted through walls, she could have torn her arm on something while being tossed back.

It wasn't, so the explanation we choose will have to take that into account. However, since it is already basically stated a normal mage will be dead, we'll have to take it into account. The only explanation I see that accomodates both is that Subaru took the blast somewhere on the arm, and the arm blocked off the closest vectors of the blast, thus leaving the rest of the body, including the BJ, relatively unaffected.

I only said that a normal mage would be blasted in two, for the sake of argument, to show the problems with your theory. Remember, it's still the viewpoint of most everyone else that BJ+auto-barrier are what protected Subaru. And seriously, what part of "High-Explosive" don't you understand? Evenif she took it on the arm, there was big EXPLOSION. The blast should have torn her "clothing" to shreds. It didn't. A single arm can't shield an entire explosion. Go ahead, stand next to a TNT blast and put your arm up, and see if that somehow protects the rest of your body.

It is you who invoked Rule of Cool, not me. Except RoC doesn't mean quite what you want it to be. Further, a person who wants to change what the screen showed is not suspending his disbelief.

While what one personally finds cool is subjective, we can objectively determine what an artist wants to look cool. That's where the Rule of Cool ultimately comes into play. We can say, "Yes, the author is attempting to use the rule, and it works for me so I'm willing to suspend my disbelief" or "Yes, the author is attempting to use the rule, and it doesn't work for me, so I won't suspend my disbelief." In both case, we recognize what is being done; it's just a matter of whether it personally works for us.

Your attitude seems to imply it doesn't work for you, which is fine. There seems to be a lot about the show you don't like. But the rule is in play. Like we've said, if you want to believe the 6 seconds were really 6 seconds, then you'd have to conclude that Vita is an idiot. If you want to conclude all your timings are exact, then we have to conclude that everyone in the show is an idiot. That is what you are saying.

Being a complete couch potato, I can't say whether they can, or how much they exaggerated the whole wave business, so I'll just go with what is shown - no evidence of magic usage. However, even if we need magic to "bridge the gap", it is more likely it is just concealed by all the water than being some kind of miracle exception to the rule - a factor that won't be in Precia's case (she being on dry land).

Yes, because we can't see through water, right? Your whole point is that there should be glow, and all of the magic glow we've seen so far should easily be shown through the water. Face it; this part contradicts your point, and now you're scrambling to somehow explain it away... and since you probably haven't been near water in a long time, you're attempting to argue from ignorance again.

And you are also ignoring all the times Vivio, Einhart, Rio, and Corona punch and kick, their bodies enhanced by magic, and there is *no* glow. Even on dry land.

The fact it managed to hurt her so badly is due to it getting a clean hit with a weapon that a Barrier Jacket by its construction is ill equipped to handle. That it got the hit in the first place is abscribed to Nanoha being "slightly less capable".

An insisistence that Nanoha must have been near-dead when the droid stabbed her is rewriting the scenario.

Since a BJ is formed by a mage's magic power, and we know Nanoha was fairly weak, then it stands to reason her BJ wasn't up to full strength.

I suppose by "limited", you hadn't reached the 'dan' levels or whatever the equivalent in your martial arts system is.

Mostly the basics, how to punch and kick correctly, some blocks. Only a few moves in aikido, as I prefer not to fight if I can help it. Fighting is nasty business.

So, suppose this kung fu master is a 9-dan or equivalent in your system. He fights you, and he can deal with you easily. If he fights a 1-dan, he'll probably win "with no problem" because he's still much more skilled and experienced, but probably not "easily" - if he makes more than a very small error the 1-dan is likely good enough to exploit it and turn the tables on him. If he fights a 7 or 8-dan he has a better than even chance of winning, but not "with no problem", and who wins may well depend more on both side's "state of the day" than the overall skill level.

And under none of these is any guarantee that if you are granted a clean hit, the battle won't suddenly start looking very grey for your master. Get the distinction?

Fighting is not a matter of exploiting one weakness to completely win the fight. Even if the master makes a mistake (unlikely), and even if his opponent can follow up on it, it doesn't meant anything. But you're also trying to argue away from the point: a 7 or 8 dan is not weak, and we're discussing weak. What we are discussing is the master verses the white belt like me. To the master, I was "a weak opponent, not even a threat." Exactly like Nanoha and the drone.

In fact, just like Nanoha and the drone, if I come across the master and he's severely weakened, I could very well get some nasty hits on him, especially with surprise. You don't really understand how real fighting goes, so you'd be advised not to use it for analogies; It's nothing like what you see on TV. It's why I went with aikido, so I could try my best not to fight. If you fight someone even close to your level, even if you win, you're still coming out of it with injuries.

The problem is, what you are playing with is not the analogue of a laser, but a water jet. And it doesn't say it is 100% efficient (the fact there IS a maximum range kicks that out of the window if physical considerations don't do the trick), all it says is within a certain distance that's relatively large in the opinion of the author, the beam doesn't decay. As long as beam power can be sustained, say by continuing to pour energy in, it can work.

Except... your water jet doesn't work, either, because it's even WORSE than a laser at traveling distance. It loses even more power over distance, thus can't travel as far. It doesn't matter how much water you pump into it or how fast, the jet loses pressure as it travels. Why?

The same reason as a laser: in both cases, the beam/jet disperses due to colliding with gas molecules, dust particles, and water droplets suspended in the air. Gravity also plays a role, but much more on the water jet than the laser. One other thing: molecules in water, and photons in a laser, will push against each other as they travel, widening the beam. If you have a laser with less than half an inch wide, and you shoot it at the moon from Earth, it will end up being nearly a mile wide by the time it reaches the moon, 238, 000 miles away. It doesn't matter how much power you pump into it; by the time the laser reaches the moon, it won't have near the power of when it was fired.

The other thing to range calculations, are the ability of the targeter to see the target, and fire in such a way as to not miss. Nanoha's Extension probably has a theoretical max range as far as she can see and appropriately aim; we don't know what it is, and for all we know, it could be several kilometers easily. Maybe she could hit the moon, we don't know. The point is that the spell is said to lose no power, which according to physics, is impossible. Everything loses power as it travels through an atmosphere. Except for probably neutrinos, but they supposedly have no mass and pass through everything, heh.

Or all I have to cut are your dreams of them.

Not quite. Like I said, if take your view, then everyone is an idiot, because they are blocking such slow moving spells instead of dodging them. Since practically everyone has shielded against spells and attacks at one time or another, that makes them stupid. Even speedster Fate has blocked a ton of stuff instead of dodging it, which means Fate is an idiot.

I suppose, if you really want to accept everyone as being stupid, including the TSAB, you can. But it raises the question why do you like such a dumb show?

RPG launchers are light enough to carry around. She can't hit 2 different targets at once. But neither would Nove be tanking her shots before.

When did Nove tank her shots? At the final scene there, nobody "tanked" shots. Teana fired off her two crossfire missiles. Deed and Nove dodge, but you can tell time is slowing down there so the spells were traveling quite fast. Then she turns and fires on Wendi's board, blocks Deed, and the two shots return and hit Deed and Wendi, knocking them out in one hit.

Even if we accept that an RPG can take out a cyborg (and you're arguing earlier than an HE howitzer round can't take out a cyborg mage, heh), you admit she can't take out two targets at once. Magic wins, mass fails. She wouldn't be able to carry near the amount of RPG ammo for a prolonged engagement, and it would just weigh her down, reducing her mobility.

So, which is it? Can a mass-based weapon take out a cyborg or not? Your answers thus far seem contradictory. The RPG was original designed (and still used as) an anti-tank weapon. The HE howitzer round was said to be able to take out a tank.

You have two anti-tank weapons, and you're claiming they can take out a cyborg.... but not a cyborg mage. Hmmm... it would seem you are arguing that because Subaru was a mage with magical protections, she could survive while a normal cyborg would not... and Subaru had a BJ and barrier jacket, while the cyborgs just had a jumpsuit....

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Because it's not a seafaring ship, so the analogy isn't perfect. Perhaps a better analogy would be a seafaring ship with it's rudder locked in position, thus only capable of going in one direction. It needs Vivio attached to work the rudder again.

I see the analogue of a seafaring ship with the autopilot running, working quite well. I don't know why you must insist it is not under control, or even that there is a high probability.

Ah, I see what you're getting at, but we have no idea if those red ones are usable for interfacing, since we don't see the type-3 use them as such (this would be like your argument of Precia's device not using magic because you don't see it). It seems to use them to anchor it's position, as you can see it do that a few times, and even takes swipes at Erio with them.

Considering that you aren't contesting as far as we can tell, they look EXACTLY the same, this will actualy be roughly the analogue of saying Precia's device is incapable of passing a magical charge despite looking exactly like a magical device.

If we assume that they are the exact same thing as the type-1 drone red apppendages, then it doesn't make sense to keep using type-1's because the type-3's are stronger. So, because of the different drone types and the fact we never see a type-3 interface, we have to assume the appendages have a different purpose (combat/anchorage).[/quote]

Or I'm right, and the Type-1s are simply part of an operational hi-lo model. In fact, that's much more likely considering they look exactly the same.

The mistake you are making is not taking the auto-barrier into account, and the variance between individual mages.

Considering we are mostly taking blood from some of the best mages, we can pretty much infer it goes downhill from here on.

If by auto-barrier, you mean the role of active defenses, I pretty much said they had to be the ones that saved Fate, since it is rather physically implausible for the BJ to do so.

One possible explanation is that it doesn't matter what kind of crash; the BJ+auto-barrier will keep the mage going.

No limit fallacy here.

Or that the magnitude of crash has a very large variance.

Remember, Nanoha wasn't really injured in the first crash; she was coughing, probably because of the dust, but she was able to put up a barrier when Vita came zooming in. And by the time we see Fate, it's been sometime since her crash, so that explains why she appears fully recovered; we don't see her immediately after like we did with Nanoha. Again, the only difference between Nanoha's two crashes is the removal of the BJ layer. This is our control; we have one crash with and one without, so a comparison can be made and conclusions drawn.

That's not a control, since the BJ was still on. So, even though the BJ was on (if perhaps damaged), it is at its very limits from a relatively low velocity impact against a metal cabinet.

Quite frankly, given the observed velocity (here we go again, actually taking what we see), one cannot help but wonder if in this case at least the BJ was backfiring.

You're seriously going to argue that a T-shirt provides any worthwhile extra protection against a howitzer to the face? Even if we take the assumption that BJs are just clothes, Subaru still should have emerged nearly naked after the blast. Because they didn't, the only conclusion left to draw is that they are not mere clothes, but actual armor that helped protect Subaru.

Or you just overestimated the power of the blast. Have you considered that?

Or the image is inaccurate, and Subaru WAS stark naked (see my comments to prescience). Just to forestall the comments, at equal canonicity (say within the anime) visual always beats dialogue. On the other hand, in this case the soundtrack is the main thing and the pictures are in the supporting material and further they have shown signs of positioning themselves as figurative rather than literal images. Indeed, if Subaru was nearly naked after the blast, for reasons of "ethics" it'll be difficult to draw her literally, thus forcing them to either forego the picture entirely or go for figurativeness.

I only said that a normal mage would be blasted in two, for the sake of argument, to show the problems with your theory. Remember, it's still the viewpoint of most everyone else that BJ+auto-barrier are what protected Subaru.

That will be changing the information used for calculation.

And seriously, what part of "High-Explosive" don't you understand? Even if she took it on the arm, there was big EXPLOSION. The blast should have torn her "clothing" to shreds. It didn't. A single arm can't shield an entire explosion. Go ahead, stand next to a TNT blast and put your arm up, and see if that somehow protects the rest of your body.

Instead of just concluding there was a big explosion, what you should have done is look at the damage that was done, and guess the explosive force based on that.

Your attitude seems to imply it doesn't work for you, which is fine. There seems to be a lot about the show you don't like. But the rule is in play. Like we've said, if you want to believe the 6 seconds were really 6 seconds, then you'd have to conclude that Vita is an idiot. If you want to conclude all your timings are exact, then we have to conclude that everyone in the show is an idiot. That is what you are saying.

I'm not a big advocate of Rule of Cool when dealing with anime I'm actually analyzing. But for what its worth, I'll say your attitude actually says it doesn't work for YOU. If you are a subscriber to Rule of Cool, you will suspend disbelief at that whole six second thing and not be thinking too much about whether it makes Vita a dolt - after all, the decision of timing is all just for coolness, suspend your disbelief.

The fact you actually mind it for such reasons says that you are throwing RoC out the window.

And you are also ignoring all the times Vivio, Einhart, Rio, and Corona punch and kick, their bodies enhanced by magic, and there is *no* glow. Even on dry land.

First, given the way they depict the water, it is actually possible - after all you don't see say the rocks or the bottom on the riverbed either, do you. So the water does provide some camouflage.

Further, I see no reason to just assume that every time they punch and kick, their magic must be on. At best, without other evidence, if we really can't see magic-enhanced punches, well, then we'll evaluate whether they were using magic based on whether what they did was within human range. If there is no evidence they are doing superhuman things, well, then, no. Simple, isn't it?

Now, ain't it a shame that there's no evidence of it on Precia's infamous whipping? While I'll try to provide extra reasons no, ultimately it is not my job to show there is no magic (impossibility of proving negatives), it is your job to show there is. Since you don't have a sign, you'll basically have to prove that mere physical impact cannot possibly penetrate the barrier jacket even though it is a soft, clothlike existence.

Since a BJ is formed by a mage's magic power, and we know Nanoha was fairly weak, then it stands to reason her BJ wasn't up to full strength.

We don't know that she's fairly weak - We were told nearly the exact opposite. If you don't use the given data it is no surprise you aren't getting the right conclusions.

Anyway, if you don't think the fighting analogies suitable (having just admitted I was a couch potato, I only tried to do one because you are talking martial arts), then use the running and fighter plane analogies from last time.

Except... your water jet doesn't work, either, because it's even WORSE than a laser at traveling distance. It loses even more power over distance, thus can't travel as far. It doesn't matter how much water you pump into it or how fast, the jet loses pressure as it travels. Why?

The point is that the spell is said to lose no power, which according to physics, is impossible. Everything loses power as it travels through an atmosphere. Except for probably neutrinos, but they supposedly have no mass and pass through everything, heh.[/quote]

First the phenomena of a laser spreading out over distance reduces its intensity, not power. Second, the very fact that the statement only guarantees a "super long distance" rather than an "infinite/any distance" is already a clear sign the thing is not a scientifically impossible 100% efficient. Third, the statement never said flat out it does not lose power at all. All it promises is that it does not "deteoriate", which can be achieved much more simply by replacing the power lost than trying to prevent it from losing any. Fifth, if it statement really must be that it does not lose any power at all (which will actually force it to self-contradict due to Point 2), it will go up against the visual, which in a scientific analysis would shatter it as soon as the thing glows.

I suppose, if you really want to accept everyone as being stupid, including the TSAB, you can. But it raises the question why do you like such a dumb show?

Regardless of whether I like this show (and I'm obvious spending a fair bit of time on it so), I think you can only say whether you like a show or not if you are evaluating it as it is. If you have to deliberately keep imagining that what really happened is different from what is being shown in the show, then what you are liking is not the show itself.

When did Nove tank her shots? At the final scene there, nobody "tanked" shots. Teana fired off her two crossfire missiles. Deed and Nove dodge, but you can tell time is slowing down there so the spells were traveling quite fast. Then she turns and fires on Wendi's board, blocks Deed, and the two shots return and hit Deed and Wendi, knocking them out in one hit.

OK, I rechecked and sorry about that. It was in Ep21, and Wendi and Nove were talking about how the rounds are getting sharper, but they agree that are still weak - they call it a "mame teppou", which the translation "spud cannon" works well. The very fact Teana had to make the rounds hit them at the back rather than just going for frontal hits at center of mass, and the fact that one of them came back on line very quickly is good proof how marginal her attack capability is.

BTW, I do agree they were going for slo-mo there in Ep23, though the limited distances means that the bolts still aren't traveling THAT fast. You'll notice how they are doing it right - freeze frame, lines on top and bottom - they are putting up the right signal flags.

Even if we accept that an RPG can take out a cyborg (and you're arguing earlier than an HE howitzer round can't take out a cyborg mage, heh), you admit she can't take out two targets at once. Magic wins, mass fails. She wouldn't be able to carry near the amount of RPG ammo for a prolonged engagement, and it would just weigh her down, reducing her mobility.

Read what I wrote about that howitzer round. It is HE, and thus is an inefficient penetrator compared to HEAT, its yield is almost certainly limited if you take that picture in SSX as a guide (yeah there's the tank but you deal with that by shrinking the expectations for the tank), If you ignore the picture, as a arm based weapon, its caliber is limited to far less than the 85mm of a good old RPG warhead (newer ones are 105mm), probably only around 30-45mm (otherwise, it won't meet the 15-caliber minima to qualify as a howitzer on an arm-sized weapon, and there's the whole thing about it being an arm-weapon as well which limits its likely size).

She won't be able to take out two targets at once. On the other hand, the RPG should to allow her to solidly kill the opponent, rather than resorting to the complicated tactic of a back sneak attack, and still having one of those hit getting up and almost becoming her undoing. The flow of the battle would have gone entirely differently so the comparison is both unfair and not really relevant.

You've got a point on the round count, but consider this. You are about to engage 3 enemies (and remember, the original plan was for team combat so it wasn't supposed to deteoriate to a 1:3). You can have a choice of ammo: You can have say 6 rounds that will kill the enemy for certain as long as you can hit him. Or you can have more rounds, but you'll have to be good and lucky for them to maybe work. Your choice.

Having said all this, again, one must point out the simple fact that ultimately, no one is arguing that they drop all magic weapons and pick up guns.