Magic and Technology of MGLN

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Something I was wondering about.

The bugs wings are flapping. The windblast wouldthen be going down and behind them as they propel themselves forward.

So how does the windblast then go forward and to the side as the bug goes forward, and graze Rein? It doesn't make any sense at all.

That's where most of the wind is going, but the scene clearly indicates there are stray vortices to the side. Now, don't say anything that further damages the already tattered reputation of a BJ

Spoiler for Fluff:

EDIT: Regarding stadia ranging: when ya wanna debate a man on his methodology, ya gotta test it for yourself to see if it works...

Hmm? Mathematically it works, and a lot of weapons have stadia on the scope to help people range their targets.

Regards taking things seriously, I take nothing mentioned in this thread seriously, with regards to my writing. I do try to put an effort into arguing.

Fine by me.

Also, regarding the whole "durr you all can research i post from memory" you were whining about a while ago, suck it up. Most of us post from memory as well.

OK, but...
1) Considering that most of the time, you guys are proposing the ideas for me to shoot down, one would think you are better prepared, if only so they don't keep winding up being bullet-holed.

2) Accusation is more powerful than denial. Once your side throws out something "from memory", I (or anyone else feeling like rebutting it) is unable to defeat that without having actual access to the scene. Otherwise, it'll be impression on impression. Thus, it arguably hurts me a lot more to not have access when I answer.

And what about the fact I'm often hideously outnumbered (at least when I wrote that)?

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

That's where most of the wind is going, but the scene clearly indicates there are stray vortices to the side. Now, don't say anything that further damages the already tattered reputation of a BJ

Rein's BJ, maybe; the Assault Comapny BJs in Alpha can take a crapload punshiment that what was dished out to poor Rein Then again it's because this is Franz's BJ:

Hmm? Mathematically it works, and a lot of weapons have stadia on the scope to help people range their targets.

I know that; what I was referring to was your methodology in using stadia ranging on anime, which is an inherently innacurate visual medium. Since I wanted to challenge your stadia ranging methodology, I had no choice but to use it.

[Keroko]

Discussion caried over from another thread:

Originally Posted by Comartemis

And about the magic damage... can you cite sources or incidents within the series for that? The opposition is taking the lack of collateral damage as proof that Nanoha and co. are all show and no substance where the attacks are concerned. I've even heard one person proclaim that Nanoha is no different from any other magical girl, just with better tactics and mobility.

You mean for physical damage? Well, there is Hayate who blew up entire squadrons of drones, and concidering each drone is about a meter in length, that's quite a hefty blastradius:



Or how about Signum? Who blew up a Squadron of about fifty drones? (and concidering you can't even see the drones, wouldn't that make it over 100 meter Ark?)



And then of course there is Nanoha, who blew through several bulkheads of a Lost Logia warship.



And then there are the numrous 'cast getting smashed through concrete' scenes, the fact that the Wolkenritter use swords and hammers, and so on and so on.

[Comartemis]

You mean for physical damage? Well, there is Hayate who blew up entire squadrons of drones, and concidering each drone is about a meter in length, that's quite a hefty blastradius:

Hraesvelgr is actually my latest point in favor of the massive firepower arguement, and hasn't gotten a reply as of yet.

And then of course there is Nanoha, who blew through several bulkheads of a Lost Logia warship.

And yet that same attack failed to instantly vaporize Quattro.

This is the biggest sticking point in the argument; magic behaves inconsistently throughout the series, sometimes doing physical damage and sometimes not. Several of the big points include:

Manga Nanoha performing Starlight Breaker Plus for the first time and not vaporizing herself.

Several instances throughout the series where massive property damage should have been dealt by an attack, yet none is shown; Reinforce's Starlight Breaker Plus in the A's climax comes to mind.

Hayate's Diabolic Emission over Kranagan in StrikerS didn't destroy any buildings and barely damaged the cyborgs. Ginga takes a Divine Buster at point blank range and comes out in one piece. Vice's accidental headshot didn't instantly kill his sister.

It's things of this nature that have led some of my fellow debaters to think that Nanoha is all about dazzling lights with no substance behind them.

[Keroko]

That's the big pain-in-the-rear with Nanoha, the inconsistency. However, remember the scene in episode 7 in which Teana got an extreme scolding because she -and I quote- risked the life of a comrade? Magic very much has the potential to kill (Vice's sister is still blind in her hit eye for example) however, whether it does or does not is scene dependant.

Bottomline: Can magic in Nanoha kill? Yes, very much so.

[Comartemis]

Noted. I'll get back to this when I get a reply from the others. Knowing these guys like I do, they'll probably try to pick holes in this argument somehow.

In the meantime, one of the other posters came up with a theory regarding how magic works that I thought I'd post here for discussion:

Shadell- I think what you don't understand is that you don't have to lower a spells ability to deal damage to non living targets to make it entirely non-leathal. In fact, a spell is implied to still hit a mage at full power, it's not that it's controlled, it is that living beings naturally generate some sort of feild that absorbs most of that type of damage, resulting more in exaustion than physical damage.

Nanoha is noted in StrikerS to be an expert in creating powerful 'non-leathal training' attacks. This implies that energy spells have 2 forms, leathal, and non-leathal, both deal the same sort of damage to physical objects, however, living beings counter that energy seemingly with their life forces or natural spiritual power (not to be confused with their linker cores, which spiritual energy is used to draw energy from). Basically, when not running into spiritual power, the damage is physical, destroying physical objects, when running into spiritual energy, the power is expended destroying/disrupting that spiritual energy before dealing physical damage.

This is only for non-leathal attacks, which are implied to be more difficult to create. Nanoha is an expert at them, thus she can make non-leathal attacks with power levels equivalent to the SB or boosted DB in spiritual damage, destroying all physical barriers in the way and dealing massive damage to the target's spiritual aura, exausting them and potentially knocking them out. Another, less talented mage, even one with a strong intelligent device, would probably not have the magical control to make a SB level attack a non-leathal type, so they would have to kill an enemy mage that needs that level of power to overcome their defenses and defeat, if they wanted to win.

Spells that operate within AMF require a whole new level of control and power, either pumping extra power and focusing a lot of extra control into the spell to counter the magic disruption/dissipation effect of AMF or they need a barrier surrounding the spell which negates AMF.

Nanoha's sheer power and controll allows her to launch a DB level 3 and a SB and fly at high speeds in a AMF area. This is the magical equivalent of a person performing an olympic level gymnastics set perfectly, getting all 10's from the judges, during an earthquake, with shiftin hurricane force winds, under 4 times earth's normal gravity. At least that is how it is portrayed in the series by comparing Nanoha's ability to other mages, expecially the more general standard ones.

Vice's sniping attack never did physical damage directly to the girl's eye. Or at least the damage it delt was very little. The problem was more likely an intense energy drain and stunning effect to the tissues around the eye and a limited blinding effect due the light generation of magical energy bolts one of which probably penetrated into the eye, it probably took a while for her spiritual aura to correct it's flows and restore proper energy to the cells in and around the eye and to recover from the blinding light effect of light being generated from within the light recepting cells.

These are my deductions based on comments in the series', manga, and the effects of the magic seen. Physical damage in training type attacks against living beings is probably only dealt if their spiritual auras are completely devastated in areas, because of a lack of skill with that type of spell, or from srapnel and damage to surronding non-living objects.

The thing about Nanoha's attacks is that she has attacks which have penetrating power for physical damage exceeding the strongest artillery shells or armor piersing rockets or missiles, and they look about as impressive as a Kamehameha or Spirit Bomb in animation, if not more so, even if their actual destructive power is lower.

Nanoha's fights with Fate in the first series she was dealing much more leathal damage, but it was mostly blocked, as seen by the injuries Fate sustains. She isn't implied to have learned non-leathal spells until at least StrikerS, besides sealing attacks which don't actually deal real damage to physical objects either.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Keroko

You mean for physical damage? Well, there is Hayate who blew up entire squadrons of drones, and concidering each drone is about a meter in length, that's quite a hefty blastradius:

See previous posts. We've actually calced this with TC. The problem is that we only saw the darn things engulfed. We can't really say in that scene, how much damage was done. They were taken out of action, but whether they were vaporized, shattered or just hurt enough to drop out of the sky is completely unknown (for all we know their gas intakes flamed out)...

Or how about Signum? Who blew up a Squadron of about fifty drones? (and concidering you can't even see the drones, wouldn't that make it over 100 meter Ark?)

Actually, you can just see them but you are right it is over 100m. Unfortunately, given the scene, it is entirely possible to construct a scenario where the energy expenditure is almost zero (hint: the drones are flying, so you can thermodynamically speaking, actually set up wall(s) using only force and let the drones smash into it).

And then of course there is Nanoha, who blew through several bulkheads of a Lost Logia warship.

Remember the latest degraded strength estimate of that wall, thanks to you.

And then there are the numrous 'cast getting smashed through concrete' scenes, the fact that the Wolkenritter use swords and hammers, and so on and so on.

This is supposed to support them being able to clean out entire blocks how.

[Kha]

@Ark: The spell Signum shot clearly wasn't a wall. Knowing Tsuzuki, Signum's attack was intended to mimic a giant pheonix charging towards the drones, rather than a wall.

Originally Posted by Comartemis

Noted. I'll get back to this when I get a reply from the others. Knowing these guys like I do, they'll probably try to pick holes in this argument somehow.

In the meantime, one of the other posters came up with a theory regarding how magic works that I thought I'd post here for discussion:

I'm feeling vindicated now that someone has started talking about spirit power, when, despite me being a longtime proponent of the magical divine and souls in Nanoha, I have been curtailing it in the face of the healthy (yet somewhat intoxicating) scientific scepticism of the Tech thread.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Kha

@Ark: The spell Signum shot clearly wasn't a wall. Knowing Tsuzuki, Signum's attack was intended to mimic a giant pheonix charging towards the drones, rather than a wall.

1) I'm using the wall as a simple example.
2) The "giant phoenix" can also be re-expressed as a wall.
3) The point is to demonstrate the fallacies of just assuming in the world of SoD analysis, which because of our lack of knowledge on sci-fi/magic mechanisms, tends to be thermodynamic. When you go to thermodynamics, things generally assumed to require energy, sometimes don't.

I'm feeling vindicated now that someone has started talking about spirit power, when, despite me being a longtime proponent of the magical divine and souls in Nanoha, I have been curtailing it in the face of the healthy (yet somewhat intoxicating) scientific scepticism of the Tech thread.

The idea hasn't even been peer-reviewed with a knive yet, and you feel "vindicated?"

[Comartemis]

I'm feeling vindicated now that someone has started talking about spirit power, when, despite me being a longtime proponent of the magical divine and souls in Nanoha, I have been curtailing it in the face of the healthy (yet somewhat intoxicating) scientific scepticism of the Tech thread.

I don't know about "divine", but magic is explicitly stated by Yuuno to be spiritual energy.

I've always held to the theory that the Linker Core is an aspect of the spirit that anchors the spirit to the body, hence the name. Those with cores that are especially "fine tuned" to their bodies can harness their spiritual energy with their minds and craft it into spells. The tech aspect of Nanoha is entirely optional, as Yuuno and other device-less mages have displayed, and simply augments the mage's ability to harness and control his/her spiritual energy by attuning themselves to their master's linker core. This also provides a telepathic link between the device and the mage and allows the mage to issue commands without speaking them, as well as benefit from a universal translation program all devices have (Hence the reason why Nanoha is able to speak with the Mid-Childans in season 1, who obviously aren't speaking Japanese as their native language).

The idea hasn't even been peer-reviewed with a knive yet, and you feel "vindicated?"

Mayhap because others on completely separate forums have come to the same conclusion that Kha has. For what it's worth, this passes my examination.

SoD analysis

Pardon my n00bism, ark, but what does SoD stand for?

[Wild Goose]

Suspension of Disbelief. I have come to the conclusion that unlike most Hong Kongers, ark's deity is not the greenback, but SoD. :P

[arkhangelsk]

Shadell- I think what you don't understand is that you don't have to lower a spells ability to deal damage to non living targets to make it entirely non-leathal. In fact, a spell is implied to still hit a mage at full power, it's not that it's controlled, it is that living beings naturally generate some sort of feild that absorbs most of that type of damage, resulting more in exaustion than physical damage.

I can actually buy the part about living beings being somewhat more resistant to magical attacks. It introduces some un-mentioned elements, but it is convenient for explaining such things as Ep10 of the original series or Ep25 of StrikerS.

Nanoha is noted in StrikerS to be an expert in creating powerful 'non-leathal training' attacks. This implies that energy spells have 2 forms, leathal, and non-leathal, both deal the same sort of damage to physical objects, however, living beings counter that energy seemingly with their life forces or natural spiritual power (not to be confused with their linker cores, which spiritual energy is used to draw energy from). Basically, when not running into spiritual power, the damage is physical, destroying physical objects, when running into spiritual energy, the power is expended destroying/disrupting that spiritual energy before dealing physical damage.

This theory seems to say that physical damage is inevitable even with a theoretically perfect "non-lethal" round unless the target has enough spirit to block off the attack. However, Reinforce's SB seemed to have washed past entire blocks of perfectly unalive buildings without harming them. As did Hayate's Diabolic Emission.

Further, the inevitability of physical destruction also makes a hash of the supposed advantage of magic, which is that it can attack targets without damaging them or the surroundings. If this theory is correct, one can kiss the italicized part goodbye.

Spells that operate within AMF require a whole new level of control and power, either pumping extra power and focusing a lot of extra control into the spell to counter the magic disruption/dissipation effect of AMF or they need a barrier surrounding the spell which negates AMF.

Agreed.

Nanoha's sheer power and controll allows her to launch a DB level 3 and a SB and fly at high speeds in a AMF area. This is the magical equivalent of a person performing an olympic level gymnastics set perfectly, getting all 10's from the judges, during an earthquake, with shiftin hurricane force winds, under 4 times earth's normal gravity. At least that is how it is portrayed in the series by comparing Nanoha's ability to other mages, expecially the more general standard ones.

Umm ... let's not exaggerate the AMF too much. Initially, the AMF was portrayed as effective, but near the end, even the Forwards seem to move through it just fine.

Vice's sniping attack never did physical damage directly to the girl's eye. Or at least the damage it delt was very little. The problem was more likely an intense energy drain and stunning effect to the tissues around the eye and a limited blinding effect due the light generation of magical energy bolts one of which probably penetrated into the eye, it probably took a while for her spiritual aura to correct it's flows and restore proper energy to the cells in and around the eye and to recover from the blinding light effect of light being generated from within the light recepting cells.

Her eye is recovering extremely slowly (apparently not at all) for such a theory, even granting that spiritual energy has anything to do with the electrochemical nervous system. So if "spiritual energy" has anything to do with this, it sounds like it was totally blocked, and/or the flash from the magiexplosion permanently overloaded the nervous system, rendering it useless. Further, it does not jive with the explanation given in the DVD booklet which made it clear some real damage occurred.

The thing about Nanoha's attacks is that she has attacks which have penetrating power for physical damage exceeding the strongest artillery shells or armor piersing rockets or missiles, and they look about as impressive as a Kamehameha or Spirit Bomb in animation, if not more so, even if their actual destructive power is lower.

Thus their actual power is lower. This sounds repetitive but it has to be said that you must evaluate from actual damage, not how impressive the flashies look.

Nanoha's fights with Fate in the first series she was dealing much more leathal damage, but it was mostly blocked, as seen by the injuries Fate sustains. She isn't implied to have learned non-leathal spells until at least StrikerS, besides sealing attacks which don't actually deal real damage to physical objects either.

Actually, the first clear mention of "non-lethal" rounds is in the novel, in the timeline of the original series.

[Kagerou]

Okay, I think I figured it out, Goose, Ark. You're both correct considering the composition and thickness of Barrier Jackets.

My reasoning is as follows, using two examples: Your average OFM mage (B-rank, Assault Company), and Nanoha.

As a B-rank mage, the Assault Company member doesn't have the speed or reaction time with his magic (unless he's freakishly fast for his rank) to put up active defense barriers, nor does he have an Intelligent Device, so he has no Auto-Guard. Logically, he would want to go ahead and wear a thicker Barrier Jacket with stronger protection emitters. He doesn't have the spells or the skill to react quickly to a magical attack, so he needs to have as much protection from the onset.

On the other hand, Nanoha is an S-ranked mage. Her Barrier Jacket doesn't need to be "standard", per se, because she has the skill and reaction time to quickly put up an active defense, and, barring that, she wields an Intelligent Device that has an Auto-Guard. This effectively minimizes the amount of default protection she needs (read: the jacket itself) to just above the amount necessary to survive a few direct hits if the attack breaks through the active defense. This frees up her mana to cast more attack spells.

tl;dr: The lower-ranked you are, the thicker your jacket is because your reaction skills aren't as good and your spells are weaker. The higher-ranked you are, you have more active defenses and you have the skills necessary to implement them.

Both Ark and Goose are right .

Finally, Ark, the reason that Rein's BJ is weak is because she really shouldn't be on the battlefield outside of Unison.

[Comartemis]

Actually, the first clear mention of "non-lethal" rounds is in the novel, in the timeline of the original series.

...novel? There's a novel and nobody told me about it?!

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by Comartemis

...novel? There's a novel and nobody told me about it?!

The novel's considered discontinuity here for contradicting a LOT of what is shown in the series; about the only contributions from it and the manga have been the recognition that the TSAB is apparently involved in some sort of Lost Logia cold war arms race...

[Kha]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

The novel's considered discontinuity here for contradicting a LOT of what is shown in the series; about the only contributions from it and the manga have been the recognition that the TSAB is apparently involved in some sort of Lost Logia cold war arms race...

Indeed.

Btw, I find it hard to accept one fact and disregard the rest when the work has retconned almost all the major points of the anime itself, but the point Goose raised is about the only shred of evidence of the world outside TSAB's myopic cacoon which seems too perfect to be true.

[arkhangelsk]

Almost all the major points? Well, there was some retconning of Ep10-12 of thereabouts, but "almost all"?

Worse, the book actually came later. Its "anti-magic" round precedent was actually taken and turned into "magical damage" starting with A's and heading on to StrikerS. In the absence of a clearly established canon hierarchy, it is possible to argue (as your use of "retconn" tactitly concedes) the book actually has precedence. It came later, contained more details (indicating in SoD terms a greater emphasis on research in making it) and covered a darker side of the TSAB.

[Kha]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Almost all the major points? Well, there was some retconning of Ep10-12 of thereabouts, but "almost all"?

Worse, the book actually came later. Its "anti-magic" round precedent was actually taken and turned into "magical damage" starting with A's and heading on to StrikerS. In the absence of a clearly established canon hierarchy, it is possible to argue (as your use of "retconn" tactitly concedes) the book actually has precedence. It came later, contained more details (indicating in SoD terms a greater emphasis on research in making it) and covered a darker side of the TSAB.

Should we take the novel as canon? There are many many many more people like Comet who've never even heard of the novel, and that's gonna make us at OC thread have more trouble pointing out mistakes...

[Keroko]

Not to mention there is information in the novel that wouldn't fit in canon, such as the 'forced reqruitement' thing. Disregarding Nanoha, who, I believe it was stated, was only allowed to stay on earth because Lindy pulled some strings, Fate, Hayate and the Wolkenritter were also allowed to stay on earth. Nanoha, I can buy, even with the total lack of evidence but to say Lindy has enough influence to allow several criminals to stay on a planet they should have been drafted of the moment they were discovered? I mean, even during StrikerS there are people who don't trust Hayate and see her as a criminal, and that's excluding Regius.

[Comartemis]

As much as I like the idea of an evil TSAB--and, naturally, an AU fanfic where the girls are pitted against it instead of siding with the bad guys--I agree with Keroko in regards to the forced recruitment thing.

What kind of idiot forcibly recruits what are essentially human superweapons anyways? That's just begging for a mutiny of epic proportions with a White Devil at the head of the movement. Viva la resistance!