(L) Sword Art Online - Light Novel Discussion

[Tusjecht]

Slooooww down.

Spoiler for Resolution:

When Kirito first Dived in, all his RL memories were blocked and he grew up proper as an Underworld Citizen. For unexplained reasons, he still retained his mischieviousness and Kirito-ness.

After the three RL days, his UW memories were blocked and RL memories restored for ~2 days. During this time it's possible the FLA rate stayed the same, because Eugeo is 17 IIRC by the time when...

Kirito is attacked by Johnny Black 2 RL days later. He's whisked to RATH and plugged into the STL, but his RL memories are still 90% intact.

Kirito spends a total of about 2 years in UW after that; he noted this at the Master Swordsmanship Academy in V10.

[Awrya]

Originally Posted by csuree

Spoiler for time issue:

But one thing is that he dived in short periods of time...
he dived in for 3 days which equals 10 years...okay they were chldhood friends....but after that 3 days of diving he spent at least 2 days outside before being stabbed....
what happened then? in RATH they slowed down the acceleration? because if not then he went back 6 years later and he spent at least 3years in Rulid and Zakkaria.
it just doesn't add up....
In UW they are definitely not 22+ (his initial age when logged in to UW+10+6+3 years)
I say initial age because when logged in he probably was not starting from his baby years..he had to be at least 5-6-7 years old to have logical thinking and memories.

Spoiler for reply:

In Vol.9 - Prologue I (7th Month of Human World Calendar 372) Eugeo was 11 year old, and since it was mentioned he and Kirito got the sacred task wood cutter a year ago, so Kirito was 11 as well.
6 years have passed until Chapter 1 - Underworld (3rd Month of Human World Calendar 378), so both are 17.
5 months later they entered the tournament and joined the Zakkaria guards in Chapter 3 - Zakkaria Sword Arts Tournament (8th Month of Human World Calendar 378).
They joined the Swords Mastery Academy 6-7 months later and by the time we reach Chapter 4 - Sword Mastery Academy (3rd Month of Human World Calendar 380), 2 years have passed since Chapter 1 and both are 19.
Chapter 6, 7 & 8 all take place in the 5th Month of Human World Calendar 380, so they're still 19.

Not sure exactly at what age Kirito logged into UW at first, but in Chapter 1 there was Eugeo's monologue:

Inside Eugeo’s heart, he shouted to himself,
——We three had decided that we would be together from birth till death. Working together, so that one could live for the sake of the other two, we did vow that.

While I don't think Kirito was "born" like the villagers, he must have been by Alice's and Eugeo's side when they began to develop self awareness as babies, maybe ~2 years old.

[belatkuro]

Spoiler for UW time issues:

In Volume 10, Kikuoka said that they froze the UW servers once they found out that Alice broke the Taboo Index. But as the FLA rate was set at 1000x, they were too late to get Alice.

“...As I just said, the time inside Underworld is passing at a shocking speed of 1,000 times the real world. It's not possible to monitor it from the outside in realtime, so we sliced what we recorded into many segments and slowly replayed them using many of our staff to watch them. During that though, there would definitely be a large lag as compared to the time inside. We stopped the server once we found out that the girl broke the Taboo Index and wanted to physically eject the Light Cube to preserve her Fluctlight... at that time, around two days had passed inside. Then, what was shocking was that the Integrity Church had brought the girl to Central within 2 days and applied some form of correction to the Fluctlight

They probably continued to run it for preparation in order to hook Kirito in it. Probably around the time he was reported missing from the ambulance. And at least several days passed before Asuna arrived at the Ocean Turtle. More than enough time for Eugeo to grow up in UW to be around the same age as Kirito when he woke up there.
So in those 2 days RL that he went to Agil's cafe and met Sinon and Asuna, UW's time wasn't moving.

[csuree]

T-this explains everything. Thanks.

Also if they saw Alice break the taboo index, how did they overlook Quinella's rising in status? Wonder if they let that slide on purpose.
This advance in AI but in the wrong direction, as Quinella became bad, could have effects like in terminator.

If the AI based on humans has flaws like this then the problem is serious.
Kirito is in big trouble. Quinella has 200+ years of wisdom and experience, not mentioning she is literally a goddess in Uw.
Kirito has Cardinal but even that looks weak. Not to mention the impending goblin invasion.

[animefan36]

Thanks for the explanation

[coordinoona]

Hey! New SAO fan here.
I have a question to ask.
I read the WEB novel summary here a few days ago -before making this account- and I'm wondering, do you think Kawahara is going to make Alice as aggressive in the LN? And when I say aggressive, I mean aggressive as in fighting for a relationship with Kirito. I'm a huge Kirito x Asuna fan and it annoys me whenever another girl joins the "already big and packed" harem.
Even though Alice is most definitely going to join the harem in the LN, I just hope Kawahara will make her more understanding of Kirito and Asuna's relationship + not try to fight her way through. Kinda like how he made the other girls in Kirito's harem, but then again, she's a robot so I highly doubt she'll be "understanding" in the LN.

[Tusjecht]

Originally Posted by csuree

T-this explains everything. Thanks.

Also if they saw Alice break the taboo index, how did they overlook Quinella's rising in status? Wonder if they let that slide on purpose.
This advance in AI but in the wrong direction, as Quinella became bad, could have effects like in terminator.

If the AI based on humans has flaws like this then the problem is serious.
Kirito is in big trouble. Quinella has 200+ years of wisdom and experience, not mentioning she is literally a goddess in Uw.
Kirito has Cardinal but even that looks weak. Not to mention the impending goblin invasion.

I suppose RATH was only able to monitor the rise in System Control Authority and Object Control Authority levels, and Quinella's rising levels were misunderstood as beneficial to them.

And not to start any debates on this, but I personally feel that this actually positively demonstrates AIs are still human. Man in history has been quite a basterd to his fellows in the past on numerous occasions when he succumbed to some of the more basic desires, such as greed for power and control over others. There's an an explanation for why Alicization turned out like this anyway, and it's as follows:

Spoiler for Why:

For the first generation of Fluctlights, RATH had four researchers Dive for a week; 18 UW years to raise them. One of the researchers, however, wasn't as morally upright as they thought he was, and his 'negative traits' were permanently bred into the Fluctlights.

Originally Posted by coordinoona

Hey! New SAO fan here.
I have a question to ask.
I read the WEB novel summary here a few days ago -before making this account- and I'm wondering, do you think Kawahara is going to make Alice as aggressive in the LN? And when I say aggressive, I mean aggressive as in fighting for a relationship with Kirito. I'm a huge Kirito x Asuna fan and it annoys me whenever another girl joins the "already big and packed" harem.
Even though Alice is most definitely going to join the harem in the LN, I just hope Kawahara will make her more understanding of Kirito and Asuna's relationship + not try to fight her way through. Kinda like how he made the other girls in Kirito's harem, but then again, she's a robot so I highly doubt she'll be "understanding" in the LN.

Unfortunately - or fortunately - I do think so. I'm not sure if you've read the comments along the way, but at some point during the writing of SAO Kawahara shifted from 'MC x younger woman' into 'MC x older woman' pairings. If you think about it, at the end of V1, the part about Asuna being older than Kirito seems 'tacked on' in the sense that her age and mannerisms as expected of her age were mostly left ambiguous and unexplained. And (if my head-canon is right) Alice shot up to be #2 in line after Alicization, and she's older than Kirito too.

Edit: Correcting the bolded line; Fluctlights are the digitization of a human soul, so it's more accurate to say that Alice in her robot is a human soul in a robot body. They're exactly like humans in this fundamental way.

[coordinoona]

Originally Posted by Tusjecht

I suppose RATH was only able to monitor the rise in System Control Authority and Object Control Authority levels, and Quinella's rising levels were misunderstood as beneficial to them.

And not to start any debates on this, but I personally feel that this actually positively demonstrates AIs are still human. Man in history has been quite a basterd to his fellows in the past on numerous occasions when he succumbed to some of the more basic desires, such as greed for power and control over others. There's an an explanation for why Alicization turned out like this anyway, and it's as follows:

Spoiler for Why:

For the first generation of Fluctlights, RATH had four researchers Dive for a week; 18 UW years to raise them. One of the researchers, however, wasn't as morally upright as they thought he was, and his 'negative traits' were permanently bred into the Fluctlights.

Unfortunately - or fortunately - I do think so. I'm not sure if you've read the comments along the way, but at some point during the writing of SAO Kawahara shifted from 'MC x younger woman' into 'MC x older woman' pairings. If you think about it, at the end of V1, the part about Asuna being older than Kirito seems 'tacked on' in the sense that her age and mannerisms as expected of her age were mostly left ambiguous and unexplained. And (if my head-canon is right) Alice shot up to be #2 in line after Alicization, and she's older than Kirito too.

Edit: Correcting the bolded line; Fluctlights are the digitization of a human soul, so it's more accurate to say that Alice in her robot is a human soul in a robot body. They're exactly like humans in this fundamental way.

I see. Thanks for the explanation!
I'm still trying to understand the Alicization arc as a whole. It's rather confusing compared to the other arcs; mostly because of how long it is.
Do you think there's a possibility of Alice jumping into the #1 spot? There's always this talk about how Asuna will never be replaceable in Kirito's heart, but I beg to differ. As a fan, I always feel nervous for Asuna even more so than she is for herself. Call me ridiculous, but this is what shipping does to you.

[Tusjecht]

There's a small but significant probability. All the younger women: Suguha, Silica, Lisbeth, and many, many many more got flags but didn't get much further, while Alice has gone all the way to even assuming herself to be Kirito's wife. If there's ever a sequel to Alicization, Alice could overtake Asuna...

...assuming Kirito and Asuna are actually retconned from the official OTP, which itself is unlikely.

[shanksen]

Originally Posted by coordinoona

Do you think there's a possibility of Alice jumping into the #1 spot?

I think it's a NO, because kirito said he will never cheat on asuna, those harem girls are just persistent for him

[Krono]

Originally Posted by coordinoona

Do you think there's a possibility of Alice jumping into the #1 spot?

Not unless Asuna was dead, which is unlikely to say the least.

[coordinoona]

Originally Posted by shanksen

I think it's a NO, because kirito said he will never cheat on asuna, those harem girls are just persistent for him

Did he? I don't remember him saying that for some reason.
Maybe it's because I didn't take my time reading the LN; finished in it a matter of a few days. This would probably explain why I'm kind of lost when it comes to the Alicization arc.

[Flere821]

Originally Posted by shanksen

I think it's a NO, because kirito said he will never cheat on asuna, those harem girls are just persistent for him

Originally Posted by coordinoona

Did he? I don't remember him saying that for some reason.

It's from the Character Interviews translated by Tap on his blog, not from in the WEB/LNs.

[coordinoona]

Originally Posted by Flere821

It's from the Character Interviews translated by Tap on his blog, not from in the WEB/LNs.

Oh I see.
I'm still new to SAO, so I'm not completely aware of interviews and whatnot. ^^
Do you have the link to the character interviews? I would love to read it!

[Tusjecht]

All of Tap's SAO entries are grouped here. Scroll down to 'Popularity Contest Q&A.'

As for the Kirito section, I quote thus:

Originally Posted by Kirito

Q. If you were to be unfaithful, who would you go with?
A. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t even imagine it.

So shanksen, as I've noted a few times now...whether intentionally or not, you come off as overexcited in your posts.

[Tusjecht]

reekilynn updated on 26 July with a cover for V13 with font.

Spoiler for Originally posted by reekilynn, 2013/07/26:

There's now an updated small-sized cover for V13 with logos.

Of worth noting is that this is the cover from Dengeki Bunko, and it's the first time that the subtitle is being printed in black with white borders. Is this a hint? I'm inclined to think it is...

'Subtitle' refers to the words 'Alicization Dividing' written in katakana below Sword Art Online. (アリシゼーション・デイバイデイグ)

The image is really small, and I can't do anything about it. Link is here.

[blackwhite67]

Originally Posted by Tusjecht

reekilynn updated on 26 July with a cover for V13 with font.

Spoiler for Originally posted by reekilynn, 2013/07/26:

There's now an updated small-sized cover for V13 with logos.

Of worth noting is that this is the cover from Dengeki Bunko, and it's the first time that the subtitle is being printed in black with white borders. Is this a hint? I'm inclined to think it is...

'Subtitle' refers to the words 'Alicization Dividing' written in katakana below Sword Art Online. (アリシゼーション・デイバイデイグ)

The image is really small, and I can't do anything about it. Link is here.

I don't get it. What does this "hint" imply?

[Tusjecht]

I have no idea either, and maybe even RKL himself doesn't know. He's just noting the incongruity after 12 volumes of white text with black borders and suddenly V13 is black text with white borders.

[l.kostas]

Tap has finished the translation of "The Day After" at his blog.
http://www.taptaptaptaptap.net/

[Flere821]

@ 'Hint': I dunno, maybe a sign Kawahara's throwing WEB version to the curb and from here on the 'railroading' of the old version is going to be gone? /WMG

@ 'The Day After': *sniff* Beautiful.

Spoiler for WEB Alicization connection:

So even back in the SAO days well before Alicization it was possible to create 'partial fluctlights' using full-dive tech, going by what the raw data of those emotions were described as...