Magic and Technology of MGLN

[Darco_emp]

Originally Posted by Erio

That does make sense. Surely she had to come up with the idea behind SB before she used it against Fate in the anime, I have no doubt. I still believe, however, that Starlight Breaker does not require an incantation. It is just a powered up version of Divine Buster, using particles of leftover magic from the battlefield to increase the power.

Oh well, I dont think we will go anywhere discussing this, as there is no solid proof to back either of our claims. One thing is for certain, though: she does have a lot more experience using it, and surely the casting speed is increased, as well as the destructive power.

For the case of SLB, Nanoha uses the storage functions of RH to by pass the spell incantation. We still have no clue as to how different SLB is to DB, other then its a "collection spell", but the usage of it is possbile due to the unique dissipation of leftover magic particles that Nanoha uses.

The novel is the one released after season 1, retelling the Battle above the sea, and other bits and pieces

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Erio

Yeah, that's what I thought too. While she had an idea of what to do (probably because she is an avid gamer), it was the first time she tried it.

Nope. She never said it was her first time (unless you mean it would be the first time that Fate is witnessing it ). Rewatch the episode.

Cheers.

[Erio]

Originally Posted by Skane

Nope. She never said it was her first time (unless you mean it would be the first time that Fate is witnessing it ). Rewatch the episode.

Cheers.

She didnt say anything, actually. (I just rewatched)

Well, as I said in my previous post, I'm sure she thought of it beforehand. The fact that she practiced it or not is something else. But if we take into account how the first season progresses, from the time Nanoha started using magic until she used Starlight Breaker, there wasnt much free time for Nanoha to train and practice new spells. The manga takes place after the events of the first season, too.

Oops, even though I was the one who said that there is not much point discussing this, I still go at it. Sorry.

[BatAttack]

Yeah, I don't think she got much practice during season 1 - it looked like 'on the job training' to me.

It's after s1 and before A's that she got the opportunity to get into a regular training schedule.

Anyway - Starlight Breaker is a collection and bombardment type spell, but it is NOT a ceremonial spell, so no lengthy incantation is needed.

I don't think the incantation on ceremonial spells can be skipped, no matter how experienced you are. Just as simple words (the name of the spell) are pass-phrases for normal spells, the lengthy arias are the pass-phrases for ceremonial spells (otherwise, I doubt they would have their own category).

[Burner of Anime]

Originally Posted by BatAttack

Yeah, I don't think she got much practice during season 1 - it looked like 'on the job training' to me.

It's after s1 and before A's that she got the opportunity to get into a regular training schedule.

Anyway - Starlight Breaker is a collection and bombardment type spell, but it is NOT a ceremonial spell, so no lengthy incantation is needed.

I don't think the incantation on ceremonial spells can be skipped, no matter how experienced you are. Just as simple words (the name of the spell) are pass-phrases for normal spells, the lengthy arias are the pass-phrases for ceremonial spells (otherwise, I doubt they would have their own category).

Nanoha is a wild mage at her core. This means she doesn't have the sort of directed training a regular mage would have since young. This would include the summoning of the Incantation Circle as well as the Language to program the effect. Much of her use of magic at the beginning is just the barest understanding of principle, natural instinct and the help of a sentient weapon able to develop shortcuts to the program language in the field very quickly.

In other words, the girl has been extremely lucky that many of the elements required for spellcasting are compatible to her. It may very well be that the language of Magic is language of Imagination, something Nanoha has an abundance of .

Her contemporary Fate was trained so that her single focus in spellcasting is to execute the spell as quickly as possible. The basic training is already in place unlike Nanoha, but much of her flexibility, strength and natural instinct sacrificed for the speed. Considering her mom [who was in R&D], it's possible that Fate's training regime would have include previously developed shortcuts in spellcasting with this in mind. The rate of error would have to be pretty high for the girl, but as we all know the discipline of getting perfection right was literally beaten into her >_< Fate's advantage in spellcasting comes from a highly disciplined mind and the incredible focus that come from it.

Both girls are geniuses in their respective fields and in S3 we have Caro who is likely another sort of genuis. There is something in her proficency that allows her to influence the spells of other people, compress and tame a naturally fierce creature and create/command gigantic magical structures. I suspect it is the element of raw courage in a very young person, no one in their right mind will jump off a speeding bullet train voluntarily unless she is very confident in pulling off a miracle. In that instant, her error rate in assembling the summoning spell went from near total failure to certain success. It's probably what allowed the girl to catch that dragon in the first place. All subsequent failure to control I blame on the idiots who put the fear of abuse into her

So no, incantation for summonings cannot be skipped. I mentioned before it's required to install control mechanism in the summoned creature. Like Caro's tanking spells, it needs to be specifically directed at a taget for it to work.

I'm beginning to see what is so different between the MC and Velka systems now, in the shortcuts taken to execute the spell. A Velka knight specialises is close combat, long phrases are near impossible to execute in the mess of battle [they do have them as seen at then end of S2]. They are therefore more reliant on their use of artifacts to form the spell and cartridges to power them, their linker cores I suspect are used to augment their physical abilities or increase their defensive capacity. The MC system appear to be towards general use, thus the users are more numerous. In a fight, it's usually the numbers game that wins

[Nightengale]

I believe it was mentioned that Yuuno trained Nanoha at flying, and also some basic execution of the exterior elements of magic since he's not an offense mage.

[Erio]

Originally Posted by BatAttack

Anyway - Starlight Breaker is a collection and bombardment type spell, but it is NOT a ceremonial spell, so no lengthy incantation is needed.

Yeah. I was just thinking the other way around: Ceremonial spells are Collection type spells, just much more complex (thus requiring the incantation). That's why I was wondering why doesnt Nanoha need an incantation for SB. Then came the "Lyrical Nanoha" part... its weird that Nanoha doesnt have any spells that require incantations, when it would have been obvious to give her one as the title suggests. (I know, I know, it comes from Lyrical Box or something... but... maybe you get the point )

@Burner of Anime
Nanoha is definitely a genius, but it was thanks to Raising Heart and Yuuno that she was able to make a quick start.

[Burner of Anime]

Originally Posted by Darco_emp

For the case of SLB, Nanoha uses the storage functions of RH to by pass the spell incantation. We still have no clue as to how different SLB is to DB, other then its a "collection spell", but the usage of it is possbile due to the unique dissipation of leftover magic particles that Nanoha uses.

Hazard a guess, if it's the same spell in structure, then wouldn't the difference be in the size/complexity of the structure in addition to the basic spell? If that's the case RH would simply reuse the command path for DB with the following changes:

1 Both RH and Nanoha's Circle turn into receivers to absorb the ambient energy. Nanoha will personally expand hers while RH produces it's own.
2 A command line is added to the circle to store the energy and the structure grows in size. Either Nanoha has this preprogrammed or RH adds this as the spell is put into "setup" mode
3 Expanding the transmitter to be able to fire her giant bolt of pink death Done during the setup stage.

If that's the case, then all the spell would require is the trigger command to fire.

[BatAttack]

Hmmmm... I just remembered.

Yuuno originally taught Nanoha to deploy Raging Heart with an incantation..
and he expected her to have to do it every time (back when he did not know she was leet).

In one of the subsequenty battles (was it ep2?) with a jewel seed, Nanoha managed to deploy Raging Heart right away, with only a word or two.. much to Yuuno's surprise.

[Burner of Anime]

Originally Posted by BatAttack

In one of the subsequenty battles (was it ep2?) with a jewel seed, Nanoha managed to deploy Raging Heart right away, with only a word or two.. much to Yuuno's surprise.

Probably because he thought that she was not able to form the Circle untrained. The Circle may have actually imprinted on to the girl from her initial link with Yuuno from the dreamscape. There probably was a lot of natural empathy towards it, that RH would have also attracted the one person most compatible to it's power. The more compatible to the artifact, the easier it is to use IMO.

[Meophist]

Say, I've been thinking. Perhaps maybe the magic circle is a computer?

[Burner of Anime]

Originally Posted by Meophist

Say, I've been thinking. Perhaps maybe the magic circle is a computer?

Not likely, a mage learns how to use the circle first by visualising it then summoning it before using the system to effect reality. If the circle was a computer, why does the mage/artifact have to do all the hard work thinking up what to say and putting it together intead of leaving that to the circle?

I look at the circle IMO, and it brings to mind an access gate to a place I'd call reality layer zero. A mage affects the reality they are in by manipulating aspects from a hyperspace layer, accessed by a dimensional gate. An incantation sends the intention to affect reality through changes of the mage's gate. An artifact can do the same using the mage's gate as well as a mathematical modal.

The various magic systems and circle types probably arose from different civiliations using similar approaches but accessing and changing reality with different languages.

[Meophist]

I wasn't refering to a literal computer. When I was watching some stuff, I noticed in the bye-bye Reinforce scene, the magic circles resembled a computer network or chip. So I came to the idea that perhaps those magic circles have similar properties as a computer.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Skane

Well, this brings us back to the manga, where we know Nanoha does intensive self-training on her own. When she used Starlight Breaker(SB) on Fate, it was NOT the first time that Nanoha had used it before (and her words to Fate said it as much as well).

*blink* I was under the impression that the practice scene was after the battle with Fate, seeing how Chrono is observing her practicing and are familiar with her.

Or is there another manga that I need to hunt down?

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Keroko

*blink* I was under the impression that the practice scene was after the battle with Fate, seeing how Chrono is observing her practicing and are familiar with her.

Or is there another manga that I need to hunt down?

Nono, your timeline is correct. I was just pointing out that Nanoha most probably practised to use SB before her final confrontation with Fate (and not like, just pull it out of her a** for that fight).

Cheers.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Skane

Nono, your timeline is correct. I was just pointing out that Nanoha most probably practised to use SB before her final confrontation with Fate (and not like, just pull it out of her a** for that fight).

Cheers.

Ah, well, makes sense. Though I have to point out that most of Nanoha's spells are, in fact, 'pulled out of her a**' (from the top of my head, jewel seed sealing, search, Divine Buster, Protection, Protection Powered, Axel Shooter)

Granted, Raising Heart provided some of those, but I think the 'listen to your heart' talk Yuuno gave Nanoha may have more credit in the seemingly spontanious creation of Starlight Breaker then you are giving it. Especially considering Nanoha's schedule at that time was school-search for jewel seeds-sleep, there wasn't much time for actual training.

[LoweGear]

Well, her "school" actually consisted more of "virtual combat training while looking attentive in class", and considering how many hours of the day she spends in school, she does have enough time for training, and that's not including the fact that she doesn't go to sleep right away, but uses her nights for more physical training.

[Skane]

We can't make any concrete judgements on what Nanoha did during those days, but one MUST bear in mind that we DID NOT get to see how Nanoha spend her days, nor how long it took for her to gather all those other Jewel Seeds (they more or less fast-forwarded it).

After all, if her outings with her friends are any indication, she DOES NOT spend 24/7 searching for the Jewel Seeds. On that line of thought, it is credible to believe that she and Yuuno allocated time to practise her spellcasting.

We just don't get to see it.

Cheers.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

Well, her "school" actually consisted more of "virtual combat training while looking attentive in class", and considering how many hours of the day she spends in school, she does have enough time for training, and that's not including the fact that she doesn't go to sleep right away, but uses her nights for more physical training.

Well yes, that's in the manga, which is after Nanoha. During Nanoha she was too exhausted to do anything else but sleep.

Originally Posted by Skane

We can't make any concrete judgements on what Nanoha did during those days, but one MUST bear in mind that we DID NOT get to see how Nanoha spend her days, nor how long it took for her to gather all those other Jewel Seeds (they more or less fast-forwarded it).

After all, if her outings with her friends are any indication, she DOES NOT spend 24/7 searching for the Jewel Seeds. On that line of thought, it is credible to believe that she and Yuuno allocated time to practise her spellcasting.

We just don't get to see it.

Cheers.

Hmm, true, the absence of a timeline is annoying...

I withdraw my objections that its impossible, but I still change them to improbable.

[Skane]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Well yes, that's in the manga, which is after Nanoha. During Nanoha she was too exhausted to do anything else but sleep.

This is incorrect. She was only exhausted AFTER sealing a Jewel Seed. During the days when she does not find any Jewel Seeds (or is not actively finding one), we see that she goes on with her daily life (such as visiting friends, or watching a soccer match).

She is hardly not doing anything else. There is no solid evidence to oppose that she and Yuuno spent time to practise her magic.

Cheers.