Nanoha Force Manga Theories & Speculation Thread

[Sunder the Gold]

Originally Posted by Justin_Brett

Huh? When was that stated, exactly? Nanoha's far from slow.

For some reason, Subaru is faster inside corridors than Nanoha.

I don't know about straight distances.

[Akiyoshi]

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

One moment, Deville saw a clear opportunity to cut Nanoha down, and then half a moment later he's surprised by this blonde mage appearing out of nowhere so fast HE thought SHE teleported.

This seems to lend credence to the idea that Deville's teleportation simply isn't a match for Fate's reaction and movement speed.

Still his Short Jump is his best card against Fate, otherwise he will just be on the receiving end of an endless barrage of hits unable to respond, his body is too slow to keep up with Fate yet he's depicted as her equal in a fight, i attribute that to his Lightning Bruiser status achieved thanks primarly to his Short Jump ability. Maybe Fate's speed is superior but that didn't change the fact that Deville's intant teleport powers are his only chance for an even fight against her.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

For some reason, Subaru is faster inside corridors than Nanoha.

I don't know about straight distances.

I think Nanoha is refering to the space, as an aerial mage she must be more cautious in closed spaces which hinder some of her flightspeed, Subaru being a ground fighter with rocket-rollerblades have an edge on corridors and closed spaces because she can move freely and even take advantage of her enviroment. Nanoha have the edge in the open sky because she can reach high-speed without worriying about what's around her as also exploit her aerial maneuverability skills to it's full potential while Subaru lacks ground or enviroment to interact with and thus become limited and predictable.

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Scientist: "We've invented this new combat robot!"

CG #1: "So we engineer a conflict and end up selling weapons to both sides. Nice."

You got it backwards. Weapons manufacturer rarely make a revolutionary weapon first and then find a way to market them; there's too many risk of conservative military thinkers waving them away.

It's possible that a general would have revolutionary ideas and have R&D find a way to support them. But for a scientist to just happen to build a robot on a whim (which must cost a lot on R&D) and then look for customers? Unlikely.

First comes demand, and then come supply.

[Kaijo]

I believe Subaru is faster... on the ground. Nanoha is probably more agile, though, and she was also carrying Teana at the time.

Originally Posted by Tiresias

You got it backwards. Weapons manufacturer rarely make a revolutionary weapon first and then find a way to market them; there's too many risk of conservative military thinkers waving them away.

It's possible that a general would have revolutionary ideas and have R&D find a way to support them. But for a scientist to just happen to build a robot on a whim (which must cost a lot on R&D) and then look for customers? Unlikely.

First comes demand, and then come supply.

Not always. Sometimes someone does stumble upon an idea, and the corporation likes it so they fund development, thinking they can sell it.

Not to mention, it's a common plot point in various shows. I can remember Lex Luthor developing weapons to sell to governments and criminal elements. So it's something I can buy. Corporations are essentially sociopathic entities who care for nothing but profit, and the CEOs are generally sociopathic people who are willing to step on anyone and not care what happens to anyone else, all in the name of profit.

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Not always. Sometimes someone does stumble upon an idea, and the corporation likes it so they fund development, thinking they can sell it.

Problem is, your example (sentence 1) implied that some engineers actually finished R&D and made a robot before they even consider who or how they are going to market them (last sentence). The sequence is wrong.

R&D doesn't wok that way. Higher-ups would never finance a project unless there's a prospect in it, so there's no way the robot would have gone past "doodles someone made at lunch" phase, let alone prototype and testing.

And then there's the fact that StrikerS showed that Gadget Drones are illegal and the Raptors are essentially a step-up. Putting that much trust in a project so risky is suicide, and like you said the corporations love profit, something a risk-taking project does not guarantee.

A more plausible idea would be that someone:
1. Made the revolutionary concept design
2. Find a potential buyer, probably disillusioned high-ranking officers like Graham or Gaiz who're less concerned with legality and controversy as long as the end justifies them
3. Ask the corporation to give a green light, knowing that at least there's someone in the military who will buy them, securing an early market
4. Research and Development

But even then the theory feels rather weak when you realized that many black markets sells surplus military supplies, bought when a great threat like the Cold War materialized only to become a burden when it ended, instead of rare ultra high-tech weapons.

Making completely new weapons is waaaaaaaaaay more expensive than modifying existing ones, with most of its money burned out on R&D. That's why with the threat of a great World War disappearing many high-tech arms research got the ax and the ones already existing got their purchase amount drastically reduced (see F-22 Raptor) while old but battle-proven beasts gets rejuvenation and upgrade programs.

It's mildly more sensible to sell them to war-torn Orussia because there's more market there than the relatively peaceful Midchilda, and selling them strictly to special forces isn't too profitable. Mildly.

Just because it's a common plot point doesn't make it *ahem* "realistic", a term I remember you like.

[Kuze]

The research for creating people and cyborgs from a genetic template does exist, perhaps confiscated, perhaps not. Between that and all of the gadget drones models and magic and research stolen from MIT, making a humanoid model shouldn't be ground breaking, although I would grant it would be a bit close to the idea of the Mariage for any kind of public comfort.

Although the time factor has potential to be mildly interesting. Is this a new project, or one that's been worked on for a long time, at least as long as the manpower shortage has lasted in the TSAB?

Originally Posted by Justin_Brett

Does that article say what the helmets DO besides looking ridiculous?

Transmits real time image to the control center and receives orders, is all I could see.

[al103]

Originally Posted by Tiresias

And then there's the fact that StrikerS showed that Gadget Drones are illegal and the Raptors are essentially a step-up. Putting that much trust in a project so risky is suicide, and like you said the corporations love profit, something a risk-taking project does not guarantee.

Strikers did NOT show that Drones are illegal by themselves. It was that little fact that Jail used them to rob people... Also what is illegal for citizen can be legal for government (organizations) - like possessing heavy weaponry... or semi-independent military robots.

[Sunder the Gold]

Originally Posted by Kuze

The research for creating people and cyborgs from a genetic template does exist, perhaps confiscated, perhaps not. Between that and all of the gadget drones models and magic and research stolen from MIT, making a humanoid model shouldn't be ground breaking, although I would grant it would be a bit close to the idea of the Mariage for any kind of public comfort.

For some reason, no one on present-day Midchilda seemed to remember the Mariage, and we don't know if the TSAB released the truth about the attackers who destroyed the Marine Garden or committed those murders.

Indeed, when you're leaving Ixpellia alive, it would be a better idea NOT to tell people that another Lost Logia was at work, but just some random terrorists that all died in the fire.

...I'd launch into criticisizing SSX here, but this isn't the thread for it.

But even if the public honestly don't know about or remember the Mariage, they're going to remember Gadget Drones and Combat Cyborgs.

Combat Android Drones is just too close for comfort. Especially when you give machines life-like human faces. That's just creepy on top of frightening.


This whole business is nonsensical.

[Sunder the Gold]

Before I continue, I want to note that Raising Heart detects Deville disappearing, but he doesn't immediately reappear. He only pops back in AFTER Nanoha's fortress shields have finished spreading out in all directions.

This suggests at least three possibilities.

1) Deville teleports outside of Raising Heart's range, scries Nanoha's location (or recieves such information from the other Huckebein) to wait for an opening, and then teleports in to attack. But this could not be called a Short Jump.

2) Deville enters the dimensional sea and then waits there until he spots an opening, before re-entering realspace and striking. I'd think that should be impossible to survive without spaceship or spacestation, but the Huckebein are tough and he's the Big Guy. But in any case, it's not the speed or range of the teleport that should be amazing.

3) It just naturally takes people some time to re-appear after teleporting; perhaps even an amount of time proportional to the distance they covered? But if so, Deville could NOT reliably use this trick against a moving opponent, and so MUST use this against an opponent he hopes will stay in one place long enough.

The only other way would require the power to observe realspace from dimensional space AND the power to alter his destination in mid-teleport.

Originally Posted by Akiyoshi

Still his Short Jump is his best card against Fate

You haven't even seen him use it while actively engaged with an opponent, so that isn't a claim you can make with good authority.

otherwise he will just be on the receiving end of an endless barrage of hits unable to respond, his body is too slow to keep up with Fate

Movement/flight speed and striking/arm speed are potentially different, you know.

Have we ever seen Fate overwhelming anyone with a flurry of close-range attacks too fast to defend against?

No, Fate's great speed is only in movement. In rushing up into (or out of) melee range and circling around to where her opponent's defense is weakest.

But simply turning around to block a strike coming from behind takes much less speed than flanking someone. You're simply turning on an axis, rather than going around someone.

Case in point; Fate DIDN'T block Deville's strike. Check the panel again: Deville is still positioned between Fate and Nanoha, rather than Fate interposing herself between them. That means Deville had to abort his attack against Nanoha to turn and block Fate's sword. (Which further demonstrates that he has adequate reaction/defense speed; possibly better than Nanoha's, because he practices for close-range engagement rather than long-range.)

Deville also immediately demonstrates another thing affecting their battle: power. Everytime their blades connect, Deville can disrupt Fate's combination by THROWING her away with a swing of his blade.

Fate responds with a hit-and-run that avoids his blade, scoring damage without taking a hit herself. He was unprepared for the speed of her attack, because he thought she was a teleporter like him until that strike.

Deville then lets Nanoha leave, while he watches Fate, not engaging.

He then tries to talk his way out of the fight. When that fails, he immediately resorts to Reacting. He doesn't even try to match her speed, he just straight-away switches to a form where she can't hurt him, but ONE good strike from him will end her.

The fight cuts away, and it cuts back in to show Fate blocking a hit from Deville and getting hurtled away by the force. Deville shows absolutely no damage. Fate arrests her momentum, but doesn't move to re-engage. Her expression is grim. Deville makes no move to attack.

The fight cuts away, and when we come back, they're still in that stalemate (or in another one).

At no point do we see Deville attempting to match speed with Fate. He just turned into someone too tough to hurt and too strong to mess with. That last engagement we saw may have simply been Deville defending himself / counterattacking, because he wasn't bothering to try and attack someone he couldn't chase.

And as I said, reaction speed and striking speed are different from movement speed. Fate is the fastest flier by far, but that doesn't mean she has the same dramatic advantage in the other sorts of speed.

Otherwise, Nanoha would not have been able to defend against her flash-moving flanking attacks in the first season. Which Nanoha was very definitely capable of doing.


And why are we even assuming that Deville is slower than Nanoha at flight? It could just be that he's as fast as she is, but he doesn't have any projectile attacks. He's got an axe, and he specializes in melee attacks. Even with Nanoha-level speed, there's no way to get into range to hit Fate without matching her speed.

Or teleporting. Which we don't see him do against her.

I think Nanoha is refering to the space, as an aerial mage she must be more cautious in closed spaces which hinder some of her flightspeed, Subaru being a ground fighter with rocket-rollerblades have an edge on corridors and closed spaces because she can move freely and even take advantage of her enviroment.

My problems with that:

1a) Subaru can try breaking her speed with Mach Calibur, but her only point of friction is with the ground. Too much speed and too much breaking, her upper mass will swing forward over her center of gravity, her contact with the ground will break, and suddenly she's hurtling forward.

1b) Nanoha, using the power of magical flight, creates and controls her own momentum without needing friction with any surface. Further, all of her momentum is generated from her center of gravity, keeping her from being flipped over from acceleration or breaking.

Not only can she simply break in mid-air (by stopping her efforts to fly forward and starting an effort to fly backwards, against her forward momentum), but she can also generate momentum to fly in any other direction to begin turning. Especially by simply turning her entire body around on its axis, pointing herself in the new direction she wants, and applying a Flash Move to head off in that new direction.

The only possible issue might be G-Forces and how much a Barrier Jacket can do to counteract those. Obviously, a combat cyborg will handle this problem better, but it's not going to be because of rollerblading.

2a) Subaru can presumably leap off the ground to plant her rollerblades on a wall, then either race along the wall before turning to the ground, or leap off again. If she's not going too fast, she can also hand-stand off a wall, especially if she uses Revolver Knuckle. Her cyborg limbs and joints would be better able to absorb the shocks and generate kick-offs than a normal human.

2b) Nothing prevents an aerial mage from doing the same damn thing. With air breaking to reduce the shock of landing on a surface, and a Flash Move to enhance the kick-off force, Nanoha should have been able to pull the same tricks. And a barrier jacket does a lot to prevent scraping your hands when hand-standing off a wall at high-speed.

Again, the only possible issue is G-Forces, and the solution would sooner be "combat cyborg" than "rollerblades".

Which, yes, COULD mean that Subaru can afford to go faster in tight, sharply twisting corridors than Nanoha. But the flying Numbers should be able to do it EVEN FASTER.

[Rising Dragon]

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

3) It just naturally takes people some time to re-appear after teleporting; perhaps even an amount of time proportional to the distance they covered?

We already know this is the case with magical Dimensional Transfers; in the A's desert fight between Fate and Signum, when Fate was backstabbed by Lotte, the Bureau remarked that the "Masked Man" crossed the distance from the world Nanoha was on to the world Fate was on in only nine minutes (with blocking and incapacitating Nanoha, and sneaking up on Fate) when the fastest warp between the two dimensions would've still taken 20 minutes.

The same would only be natural of regular teleports.

[Sunder the Gold]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

We already know this is the case with magical Dimensional Transfers; in the A's desert fight between Fate and Signum, when Fate was backstabbed by Lotte, the Bureau remarked that the "Masked Man" crossed the distance from the world Nanoha was on to the world Fate was on in only nine minutes (with blocking and incapacitating Nanoha, and sneaking up on Fate) when the fastest warp between the two dimensions would've still taken 20 minutes.

The same would only be natural of regular teleports.

Fascinating. I need to think about what this means, but I need to go do IRL stuff for a bit.

Oh, and I editted my post a few times, so please check it again for new bits.


EDIT: Wait, if that's the case, then a Short Jump might refer to shortness of TIME rather than distance!

Maybe it was option 1 -- teleport far out of range, scry, then teleport back in at a crucial moment!

[Sunder the Gold]

Waaaaaait.

The masked man DIDN't make that teleport faster. There were TWO of the Masked Man, remember?

But the point about how long it should have taken is still a point worth considering.

[Rising Dragon]

Yeah, exactly. And this is going by Bureau magitech standards--earlier they had concluded that the "Masked Men" were using Bureau equipment to hack them, so I'd assume they'd figure the same about their Dimensional Transfers.

[Keroko]

Given how they displayed the transfer of the defense program in A's, teleportation in Nanoha is likely some form of wormhole traveling. A shortcut, but not instantaneous travel. Short distances only make it seem instantaneous due to its speed.

[Sunder the Gold]

That is, they were assuming that the Masked Man was using Bureau-owned, military-grade technology to assist his teleports TO and FROM uninhabited worlds.

I'm assuming that teleporter technology requires you to start from a teleporter-machine or end up at a machine, rather than a machine being able to help you start from one wilderness and end up at a different wilderness.

If that assumption is correct, then the TSAB assumed the Masked Man used a teleport-machine to help bring him back from the planet Nanoha was on, and then to send him TO the planet that Fate was on.

Two trips, not necessarily in a straight line, with a total ETA of 20 minutes.

But how much of that time is spent in transit, and how much of that time is necessary to simply calculate and execute the spell?

It didn't take Vita long to escape once given the chance, but all she needed to do was hop over to another, closer world before making her way back to Earth, to quickly evade pursuit and NOT lead the TSAB right back to her home.


But the question of natural time-delays in teleportation does explain why it should be a little more note-worthy that Deville executed a Short Jump rather than a Flash Move.

Normally, a person could not teleport into a battle to execute an attack in someone's blind spot, since the teleport should take long enough that there's no garauntee the target is still there when you arrive.

But Deville apparently has a special faculty with finishing teleports quickly, if not instantaneously. There's no evidence yet that he can START them quickly, especially if he needs to disappear out of range first, but he definitely has the finishing speed necessary to use teleportation for a reliable ambush attack.

Maybe there's a trade-off between the time it takes to finish a normal jump and the time it takes to start a Short Jump?

If there was no delay in start-up, how would his tactics change? Against Nanoha, it made sense to let her react to his disappearance long enough to spread her shields out, no there's no change.

Against Fate, we don't even see him try. As I said, we never see him try to engage her offensively; he tries to talk his way out, and then he Reacts. Then, for all that we can see, he remains still and waits for her to close in, at which point he counter-attacks.

[Akiyoshi]

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Before I continue, I want to note that Raising Heart detects Deville disappearing, but he doesn't immediately reappear. He only pops back in AFTER Nanoha's fortress shields have finished spreading out in all directions.

She detected "something" approaching, not Deville dissapearing.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

3) It just naturally takes people some time to re-appear after teleporting; perhaps even an amount of time proportional to the distance they covered? But if so, Deville could NOT reliably use this trick against a moving opponent, and so MUST use this against an opponent he hopes will stay in one place long enough.

Nightcrawler laughs at this argument.

Intant teleportation do exist, and we didn't even know how Deville's works, we don't see him make any preparation, plus, his teleport abilities aren't a "magical" powers so it's unlikely we will see Deville chanting arias and make handsigns. The guy just go BAMF! an reappears, we didn't see Deville make any long distance teleport and he apparently can make eye-contact with Nanoha from his point when he K.O.ed Isis(instant teleporters usually can't teleport long distances or without making having knowledge of the place they're attempting to re-appear).

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

The only other way would require the power to observe realspace from dimensional space AND the power to alter his destination in mid-teleport.

Not necessarily, an instant teleporter can arrange his own pattern in order to confuse the opponent, all Deville needs is an opening.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

You haven't even seen him use it while actively engaged with an opponent, so that isn't a claim you can make with good authority.

That's because we hardly seen him doing anything while engaging with an opponent xDU

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

At no point do we see Deville attempting to match speed with Fate. He just turned into someone too tough to hurt and too strong to mess with. That last engagement we saw may have simply been Deville defending himself / counterattacking, because he wasn't bothering to try and attack someone he couldn't chase.

Exactly, we hardly seen what happened, and you pointed out the thrut, without his short jump the best Deville can do against Fate is turtling and trying to counter her attacks. Also Fate come out unscathed, we yet need to confirm what kind of use his short jump can have. Teleport can be used offensively.

Exactly, we hardly seen what happened, and you pointed out the thrut, without his short jump the best Deville can do against Fate is turtling and trying to counter one of her attacks.And as I said, reaction speed and striking speed are different from movement speed. Fate is the fastest flier by far, but that doesn't mean she has the same dramatic advantage in the other sorts of speed.

Otherwise, Nanoha would not have been able to defend against her flash-moving flanking attacks in the first season. Which Nanoha was very definitely capable of doing.[/QUOTE]

I remind you that Nanoha was utterly secrewed by Fate's speed the first two times, it was only when she cashed on her defensive power and tricky shoot tricks(she isn't as fast as Fate but she can make her bullets as fast as her) that she managed to even thing. And Signum herself admited is pretty difficult to react to Fate's attack-speed and is taking some effort to find an opening. It's kind of a similar situation(direct hits from were able to send Fate backwards and concentrates on her reflexes and defenses to trying to catch Fate when she tries to ambush her). And we're taling about someone that is probably orders of maginute faster than Deville strike-speed wise(we already know that Signum is at least faster than Cypha).

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

And why are we even assuming that Deville is slower than Nanoha at flight? It could just be that he's as fast as she is, but he doesn't have any projectile attacks. He's got an axe, and he specializes in melee attacks. Even with Nanoha-level speed, there's no way to get into range to hit Fate without matching her speed.

Since when someone assumed that?

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Or teleporting. Which we don't see him do against her.

Again, we didn't see most of their fight, this claiming is turning a bit repetitive.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

My problems with that:

1a) Subaru can try breaking her speed with Mach Calibur, but her only point of friction is with the ground. Too much speed and too much breaking, her upper mass will swing forward over her center of gravity, her contact with the ground will break, and suddenly she's hurtling forward.

1b) Nanoha, using the power of magical flight, creates and controls her own momentum without needing friction with any surface. Further, all of her momentum is generated from her center of gravity, keeping her from being flipped over from acceleration or breaking.

Not only can she simply break in mid-air (by stopping her efforts to fly forward and starting an effort to fly backwards, against her forward momentum), but she can also generate momentum to fly in any other direction to begin turning. Especially by simply turning her entire body around on its axis, pointing herself in the new direction she wants, and applying a Flash Move to head off in that new direction.

The only possible issue might be G-Forces and how much a Barrier Jacket can do to counteract those. Obviously, a combat cyborg will handle this problem better, but it's not going to be because of rollerblading.

2a) Subaru can presumably leap off the ground to plant her rollerblades on a wall, then either race along the wall before turning to the ground, or leap off again. If she's not going too fast, she can also hand-stand off a wall, especially if she uses Revolver Knuckle. Her cyborg limbs and joints would be better able to absorb the shocks and generate kick-offs than a normal human.

2b) Nothing prevents an aerial mage from doing the same damn thing. With air breaking to reduce the shock of landing on a surface, and a Flash Move to enhance the kick-off force, Nanoha should have been able to pull the same tricks. And a barrier jacket does a lot to prevent scraping your hands when hand-standing off a wall at high-speed.

Again, the only possible issue is G-Forces, and the solution would sooner be "combat cyborg" than "rollerblades".

Which, yes, COULD mean that Subaru can afford to go faster in tight, sharply twisting corridors than Nanoha. But the flying Numbers should be able to do it EVEN FASTER.

....Absorb Grip xD!

[Arkeus]

There is also the fact that Mach Caliber was designed for those sorts of environments, while RH was not.

It could simply be a matter of 'Nanoha and RH are used to much higher speeds where she needs a few hundreds meters to break turns, not a handful, and trying to improvise right now isn't the best of ideas'.

[Justin_Brett]

Transmits real time image to the control center and receives orders, is all I could see.

Man, I could think of a bunch of different ways to do that that don't make your dangerous new robots look like Alpha 5.

[Rising Dragon]

Raptors on their own look kinda ridiculous with that helmet, yes. But let's remember that Raptors are designed to use AEC equipment as well... so they might look a lot better with, say, the Fortress armor equipped; it might help even out the helmet design.

[Akiyoshi]

Originally Posted by Justin_Brett

Man, I could think of a bunch of different ways to do that that don't make your dangerous new robots look like Alpha 5.

Ay, ay, ay!

Well, maybe the out-story intention is to further de-humanize the Raptors in order to not question the heroes for blasting them(that is, if the theory about them becoming an opposing army became true of course xDU).

EDIT: Page claimed for idol singer Signum xD