Magic and Technology of MGLN

[Avatar_notADV]

More likely, it's just that it takes more-or-less a direct hit from something really powerful to faze her, which Dieci firing at Storm Raider wouldn't qualify as; the chopper would soak up some of the blast, and it probably wouldn't be aimed riiiiight at Vivio anyway.

Is she invulnerable? Nah. She gets tired, sleepy, hungry. It just means that she's much more damage-resistant than a bog-standard six-year-old. After all, remember that she managed to take out the gadgets that first found her, even though she didn't have any kind of support or indeed pants. ;p

It does stand to reason that Vivio will get much, much scarier as she gets older, and can add experience to her raw power.

[Comartemis]

But to blast the relic inside Vivio wouldn't it be necessary to penetrate that armor?

Not necessarily. Nanoha's tactic seems to have been a slight variation on her usual "hit them with everything you've got", designed to overload the relic with more raw power than it could take and force it out of Vivio. You'll notice that even after taking five Starlight Breakers at once, once she returned to her child form, Vivio wasn't much worse for wear than she'd been prior to the attack--just a lot smaller. Most of Nanoha's foes would have been comatose from such an attack, if not outright vaporized. The fact that Vivio was up and walking around (however unsteadily) seconds after that attack says volumes to me about her ability to withstand physical and magical punishment.

This says to me that Nanoha must have overloaded the relic by flooding Vivio's body with a torrential flood of mana that did some serious damage to the relic; you'll notice, as I pointed out, that Vivio wasn't physically hurt at all by five SLBs, yet the relic blew up anyways. So it's not a matter of the Armor failing so much as the relic being unable to withstand huge amounts of mana being applied to it. Or at least, that's what I think happened.

After all, it's only logical to think that the barrier protects Vivio and everything inside her. Also, if the "Armor of the Sankt Kaiser" provides somekind of godlike state together with the power of the relic, then why was Vivio tired during the battle with Nanoha? (She was tired, wasn't she? I don't really remember now )

Nope, I don't recall Vivio ever being tired during her battle with Nanoha. Now after the battle, she was somewhat unsteady on her feet, but considering what kind of attack she'd just gone through....

[Deadwings]

Well I do remember Nanoha using a magical attack and that her intention was to overload Vivio/the relic, without physical damage. But still, Vivio's armor works against physical and magical attacks, so in order to overload Vivio, Nanoha first has to go through her barrier. So I think her armor has no divine powers after all (really powerful yes, nobody denies it).

[Kikaifan]

Originally Posted by Estavali

The Armor of the Sankt Kaiser (聖王の鎧) is actually an Inherent Skill, even though Vivio isn't a Combat Cyborg. From what we can gather from SSX, it would seems that Ancient Belka had the same ideas that our Good Doktor has, creating human weapons with built-in skills, though for them this was applied to their rulers.

Not all inherent abilities are the engineered ISes used by the combat cyborgs. There's stuff that people are just randomly born with like elemental mana conversion and stuff that gets passed down in a family like Carim's Oracle. I've always thought of the Armor as one of the latter- a powerful ability that was passed down through the Belkan royal family naturally. Heck, since it's so powerful maybe it was the reason they became rulers in the first place.

Plus that option explains why Vivio had the ability before she got her relic implanted.

Originally Posted by Comartemis

This says to me that Nanoha must have overloaded the relic by flooding Vivio's body with a torrential flood of mana that did some serious damage to the relic; you'll notice, as I pointed out, that Vivio wasn't physically hurt at all by five SLBs, yet the relic blew up anyways. So it's not a matter of the Armor failing so much as the relic being unable to withstand huge amounts of mana being applied to it. Or at least, that's what I think happened.

I'd say that by definition if there's a huge amount of foreign mana in her body, the armor failed.

[Nya~n]

For one, with Raising Heart set at Blaster 4, that meant a total of 5 Starlight Breakers being fired. 1 from from the main device, and 4 from the DRAGOOBlasters. Considering that Nanoha is an Over-S(I've forgotten her magical ranking), and Starlight Breaker is her most powerful attack(which also gets a boost from collecting residual magic from the surroundings) and that gets multiplied by 5... That's nothing short of the Arc-en-Ciel itself...

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Comartemis

You'll notice that even after taking five Starlight Breakers at once, once she returned to her child form, Vivio wasn't much worse for wear than she'd been prior to the attack--just a lot smaller. Most of Nanoha's foes would have been comatose from such an attack, if not outright vaporized. The fact that Vivio was up and walking around (however unsteadily) seconds after that attack says volumes to me about her ability to withstand physical and magical punishment.

Actually, it was taking Vivio everything she had just to stand, and she was just about to topple back over if Nanoha hadn't rushed in and hugged her. Also, concidering getting hit hurt Vivio pretty bad, I'd say the armor was penetrated.

Finally, Nanoha actually says she'll 'break her defences' in episode 25, before shooting her. Think about it, if Nanoha overloaded the Relic by pumping magic inside Vivio's body, doesn't that mean the armor got penetrated?

Don't get me wrong, the fact that it took five simultanious Starlight Breakers to break that armor speaks volumes of its abillity (albeit that was when powered by the reactor of the Cradle) but Vivio is not invulnerable with it. She's just powerfull to the point where very few mages are able to fight her in any form.

Originally Posted by Comartemis

you'll notice, as I pointed out, that Vivio wasn't physically hurt at all by five SLBs, yet the relic blew up anyways.

Vivio was in a lot of pain during and after the blasting. I'd say she got hurt pretty bad. I mean, look at this, she's having a lot of trouble fighting the pain just standing up

Originally Posted by Comartemis

Nope, I don't recall Vivio ever being tired during her battle with Nanoha. Now after the battle, she was somewhat unsteady on her feet, but considering what kind of attack she'd just gone through....

Not the most charming of screens of Vivio, but they clearly show her being tired.

Originally Posted by Estavali

The Armor of the Sankt Kaiser (聖王の鎧) is actually an Inherent Skill, even though Vivio isn't a Combat Cyborg. From what we can gather from SSX, it would seems that Ancient Belka had the same ideas that our Good Doktor has, creating human weapons with built-in skills, though for them this was applied to their rulers.

That's... well, its not entirely wrong, the armor is a genetically engineered skill, but its not an IS. An IS uses Sentoukijin technollogy to work, a different form of energy then magic. Vivio's armor is still magic based, and Vivio herself is 100% organic.

Originally Posted by Nya~n

For one, with Raising Heart set at Blaster 4, that meant a total of 5 Starlight Breakers being fired. 1 from from the main device, and 4 from the DRAGOOBlasters. Considering that Nanoha is an Over-S(I've forgotten her magical ranking), and Starlight Breaker is her most powerful attack(which also gets a boost from collecting residual magic from the surroundings) and that gets multiplied by 5... That's nothing short of the Arc-en-Ciel itself...

Comparing Blaster 3 Starlight Breaker with the Arc en Ciel may be a bit much.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by Nya~n

For one, with Raising Heart set at Blaster 4, that meant a total of 5 Starlight Breakers being fired. 1 from from the main device, and 4 from the DRAGOOBlasters. Considering that Nanoha is an Over-S(I've forgotten her magical ranking), and Starlight Breaker is her most powerful attack(which also gets a boost from collecting residual magic from the surroundings) and that gets multiplied by 5... That's nothing short of the Arc-en-Ciel itself...

The Arc's a magic powered dimensional rupture cannon.

SLB X 5 is nothing compared to totally annihilating everything in a 200 km radius. (Or was it diameter... whatever. That's at least sixty miles. Which is more than what most nukes do in one shot.)

[Vivio Testarossa]

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

The Arc's a magic powered dimensional rupture cannon.

SLB X 5 is nothing compared to totally annihilating everything in a 200 km radius. (Or was it diameter... whatever. That's at least sixty miles. Which is more than what most nukes do in one shot.)

Just checked on Wikipedia, and it says 100 km radius. Question how much time does "Arc-en-ciel" (A Deus ex machina device) take to charge it's "juice"? Can it fire consecutive "shots"?

[Keroko]

We've had a long debate on the Arc en Ciel's radius before, and the conclusion was that Yuuno said "100 and some dozen" kilometers. It's somewhat over 100 km, but not 200. As for firing rate, if we purely count the seconds in A's, then it takes about 45 seconds for the Arc en Ciel to fire.

[Avatar_notADV]

We don't have any idea on what the recharge rate for the Arc is. Or for that matter, the question itself is a little grotesque - what the heck would be going on, that they would need to rip multiple huge holes in reality in short order? (It doesn't seem to be particularly well-suited for naval combat in the first place... more like an emergency "drop one of these on anything too big to handle" weapon.)

But yeah, totally different order of magnitude than what Nanoha dishes out, even going full-blast.

[Kikaifan]

Yeah, the Defense Program manifestation got hit by 5 collection spells (assuming Ragnarok counts as 3) and was only incapacitated for a few seconds or minutes, but the Arc put it away for good. Even if you ignore area and just focus on the power of the effect, Arc wins easily.

[krisslanza]

Originally Posted by Keroko

We've had a long debate on the Arc en Ciel's radius before, and the conclusion was that Yuuno said "100 and some dozen" kilometers. It's somewhat over 100 km, but not 200. As for firing rate, if we purely count the seconds in A's, then it takes about 45 seconds for the Arc en Ciel to fire.

Would t hat be the scene from when the BoD took over the Hestia? I remember it takes about a minute to charge. Albiet it also takes about a minute for the ship firing it to have the Transfer coords input so it doesn't blow ITSELF up with the Arc...

[Keroko]

Nope, from the moment Amy started the barrel expansion to the moment the shot launches is 45 seconds exactly. If anything, we can take a few seconds away from that because of the scene switches.

So its not a slow weapon at all, 45 seconds is pretty fast.

[Wild Goose]

Not really..... time from target aquisition to firing is well below 30 seconds for Aegis cruisers, and typically is around 5-10 seconds in full auto mode, going "Detect-lock-shoot" within that time.

Of course, US warships fire missiles and don't need charge time

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Nope, from the moment Amy started the barrel expansion to the moment the shot launches is 45 seconds exactly. If anything, we can take a few seconds away from that because of the scene switches.

So its not a slow weapon at all, 45 seconds is pretty fast.

Barrel Expansion does not equate to charge time.

According to the Late Admiral Clyde (Nanoha A's: Episode 10 at 3:25) "In a little over a minute" the Hestia's Arc-En-Ciel charge will be complete. This was followed up by one of the Leize marking time at 62 seconds. The charge time is probably around a minute and a half. Which is slow in combat...

[krisslanza]

But the Arc-en-Ciel can be charged prior and saved up. As also shown in that same episode Graham's ship already had the Arc charged before then.

[Keroko]

*checks up* He's right. However, another interesting little tidbit was also mentioned in that episode: A ship can charge an Arc en Ciel shot without barrel expansion and whatnot, this means that its possible to charge a shot under the cover of dimensional space, pop in, fire and retreat, since locking on, expanding the barrel and firing seems to take only 13 seconds.

Not bad for a ship that's not even classified as a warship, I'd say.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Not bad for something 'barely designated' as a warship... but long enough for one of my ships to pump a few gigatons into it and vacate the premesis at FTL. Or jump out of the target position, flank, and engage.

"Mark Three Seven, 'Golden Gun' taking aim."

"JUMP AND DUMP!"

*Ship FTL jumps to different position.... then unloads broadside fire.*

But I digress... my stuff is mine. Not Nanoha's.

Dimensional warship combat would probably be real interesting to watch in full scale. Popping back and forth on transfers, trying to manuever to arc the other without getting tagged itself.

[krisslanza]

I'd be more interested in seeing it mainly to finally find out how big the Arc-en-Ciel's firing range really is. Since both times we've seen it used the target was rather close and the ship (or ships in Graham's case) had to all transfer as soon as the shot was fired to not get blown up in the process.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

Not bad for something 'barely designated' as a warship... but long enough for one of my ships to pump a few gigatons into it and vacate the premesis at FTL. Or jump out of the target position, flank, and engage.

They aren't, ships of Arthra's class are patrol ships, usually weaponless. The Claudia type Chrono flies around in are the warships, and they carry more then just an Arc en Ciel. Even their regular magical cannons could charge and fire a barage that took out the Cradle in 3 seconds.