2013-02-21, 14:16 | Link #341 |
Manus ad Ferrum
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Costa Rica
Age: 33
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But this magic society already falls apart when we are never told the details. Like why some people are mage and why others aren’t, how magic help you to make this entire tech and does every single mage end up in the TSAB? The last one is a joke but just to show that this world doesn’t really seems that different aside from the fact it has superpower police-army people around.
Besides I was under the impression this was about what each one of us think about it. You seem to like things as how they are Keroko and that is just fine, but I want maybe more details and more integration. Instead of using things as a colorful yet dead background better if we make it part of the adventures. The multi-worlds is use with so little impact on the story that to me it could not be there at all. So that is why I say: use one world.
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2013-02-21, 14:27 | Link #342 |
Adeptus Animus
Author
Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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And I agree on the more details and integration part. In fact the DVD booklets give us a ton of that, but they were never fully translated.
I just don't see the lack of details as grounds to just erase one of the defining points of the setting. Speaking of which, any people knowledgeable in moonrunes willing to translate them? I still have them on my hard drive, and I'm fully capable of editing them, but I'll need some help in he translating part. |
2013-02-21, 14:52 | Link #343 |
Manus ad Ferrum
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Costa Rica
Age: 33
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Maybe that is the problem. The multi-worlds are not one of the defining points of the series. The adventures, the magic and the Lost Logia are but the multi dimensional stuff, the military setting, the police job, all of that are just not well integrated or develop to make this place feels unique and stand out. Makes it confusing, head scratching and even plain old silly at times. And I get this from a few friends that watch the series as well so is not just me. Bigger and larger is not always better and this I really saying less could help to get more sense of focus which is still a problem since StrikerS.
Look that even you can agree this needs more integration and details. So on that, just picture this: if this lacks that why is even here? Try to see it not from you like it or not but more if you simple want to tell a story. Adding details here and there that doesn’t add up to what you are saying and leaving spaces without mention that could help to make the world feel more alive and unique is not the way to go. And I like the multi-world idea, and the spaceships and even the weird way they travel between dimensions but I see them lacking those elements to make this universe unique and just raise question nobody wants to answer. Ok, maybe not erase the multi dimensional setting but add more flavor to it: have different looking worlds with unique civilizations and reflect that in the character we encounter from such worlds. Like having unique magic spells or techniques and maybe using other kind of circles and systems. Present other planets with power and armadas that always keep the TSAB with the need of having large fleets and armies, focus on the ground planet what the forces do and instead of just adding internal conflicts base on nothing make them all united against external threads but just disagree on how to deal with them. For example in StrikerS we see Mid-Childa has giant anti space cannons, but why? We never say there are other fleets going around and we sure as hell never see one. So there you have something that exist when all wars ended hundreds of years ago when Olive die if we believe what they say. Now and before we start to just arguing about the right way to see the facts keep in mind I am saying this is how I perceive them. I don’t want to read an antology of the details to fill the holes in the anime I want to see those things happening in the story and just being use to make the setting more detail. Like what type of money they use, how a mage is born and what are your options if you discover you have magic, etc. And integrate those elements in the story you are telling. That will be better than “Here, read this to explain all of that”. The extra should give you well, extra, like more details on the education system, when you are legally authorized to take decisions without a tutor, etc.
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2013-02-21, 15:03 | Link #344 |
Adeptus Animus
Author
Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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Hold on, hold on, roll back here. What exactly about the multi-world military setting is confusing, head scratching and silly?
Well, not the silly part. That I can see, what with the whole "we recruit nine year olds" and such. Also, I don't really think it needs more info, but that it could use more info. Selective info. Where it might actually add something. Like I said, we don't really need to know more about the world Nanoha and Vita fought other than "it's another world." |
2013-02-21, 15:31 | Link #345 |
Manus ad Ferrum
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Costa Rica
Age: 33
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Well you answer yourself. Armies using children as soldiers. But the rest comes out as this: why the army if you don’t have other armies to fight with? I can see a large organization being needed and even having ranks and all of that but not really military functions when there is nothing for them to do as soldiers. The TSAB is more a police force. Since this place doesn’t see the raise of armadas to battle and armies to attack the need of a large military force starts to fall apart while the need of police forces will always remain. I mean the TSAB also rules and makes laws but they are not a military dictatorship, they could be just the special force of the multidimensional government by elected officials or something like that. Again more in explaining what we could use and know.
And yes, I agree with you, we did not need to know anything about which world Vita and Nanoha fight in A’s BUT because back there the main focus was the Book of Darkness. When we actually jump and mention them as a part of a multidimensional army that travels to several worlds and we do mention and talk about other planets and even move to an entire new world then you need to address details. And yet I barely know something about Mid-Childa. Doesn’t have a particular distinctive look and is even weird when they say the place has two moons and we see like 4 or more planets in the sky. Just saying there we need the details.
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2013-02-21, 15:48 | Link #346 |
Adeptus Animus
Author
Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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The use of child soldiers is silly, and clearly a handwave "because magical girl", but I still don't see how the TSAB itself is confusing or headscratching. They're a military structured organization that functions as a cross between police and special forces.
Why? That's just part of Mid's culture. And the moons are... yeah, one of the more visually glaring inconsistencies in the series. Artists and scriptwriters did not communicate clearly on that one. Though I don't see how a world we know is partially covered with city ruins "doesn't have a distinctive look." Could've used a bit more uniqueness in architecture, maybe. Local ecology too. Caro's world had floating islands. Stuff like that. Though, once more, the answer to solve this problem should be "give more diversity between worlds." Not "Take the entire dimension spanning setting away." |
2013-02-21, 17:06 | Link #347 |
Manus ad Ferrum
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Costa Rica
Age: 33
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Well you mention Mid’s culture and to be fair we don’t know anything about it. We could get more of how this world is different from Earth like having kids taking decisions and joining military forces because of their magical power and etc. But Mid-Childa looks a lot like Earth, minus the giant moons, and they even dress and act so much like our world to the point you ask: how is this any different? They didn’t even bother with giving unique looks to this place and went for the generic looking approach which I consider just lazy.
What I mean by confusing is again how, to me, is really hard to tell where the TSAB ends and when it starts. I don’t know how their command structure works, who is on top and how they control the worlds they administrate. So far they just seem a bunch of generals and other military people calling all shots and we don’t even know how Mid-Childa is rule: a monarchy? A democracy? A military government by the TSAB? Those details that might seem trivial, and ok they maybe are, but that will help me to know limitation and follow the political plot StrikerS wanted to bring. You see is hard to follow political power games when you don’t know the way this place is rule. And I say use one world for this: keep it simple. If you just want to tell a story instead of adding things to the only purpose of sound cool, just keep this nice and simple and tell the story. When I am all in to complex plots and rich worlds and setting I will prefer a more focus and simplistic idea when is obvious you are just throwing things in and not really doing anything with them. And even you can see inconsistencies and problems with the ideas Keroko but you are willing to forgive them when I am not. So really, if you want me to chose between a rich large multi universe with elements on it and an adventure setting that feels unique and has a lot to offer, or just on simple world in the other side, I will go with the first. But what we get here is an example of the first idea not working. You see half of the time I can’t see the difference between the training grounds of the Forwards, the empty sections of Cranagan and the actual populated parts of the city. Several times we see the characters move around urban setting that are empty. I just think this overall world is really open but fill with so little that we can’t really talk about how open and large the setting is when half of it is just address in single sentences and when we get glances of it look generic.
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2013-02-21, 17:38 | Link #348 |
Banned
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When you have children capable of taking out small chunks of cities, then the best move is employing them to teach them (see: Caro). But even having said that, I don't get an impression there are tons of child soldiers, and theones they do have are there because they want to be. Vivid shows us tons of non-burea kids with strong powers.
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2013-02-21, 21:41 | Link #351 | |
Banned
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I've had no problems feeling the hugeness of the Nanoha-verse. Lindy's first talk with Nanoha in season 1, was enough to convey that to me. |
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2013-02-21, 21:52 | Link #352 |
Manus ad Ferrum
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Costa Rica
Age: 33
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That also point the difference between the two. I mean in Star Trek the universe is there to explore and travel. Everything is new and while old friends and enemies do appears there is a feeling of exploration and discovery which Nanoha never had and it should not really try to convey. What bugs me is that this is thread as common knowledge by the characters. They all know the name of the world and what is going on in there so they don’t talk about it. And since we lack a protagonist that is new to this like us since StrikerS we might find ourselves a little lost in the overall emptiness of the series as I call it when it come down to details or learning about it. Again, the characters already know this so they don’t mention it but the audience doesn’t and we never get to hear that much.
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2013-02-21, 22:06 | Link #353 |
Banned
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As a writer, I understand. If I wanted to stage a new adventure or part of a story on an ice planet, and I already detailed every single world to the audience, and none of them was an ice planet of the type I needed, then I'd have an issue. A writer keeps things back, so that they have breathing room for future stories.
I get the sense that the Bureau knows about, and has some degree of management, over at least 200 planets (not all inhabited). That's just in Bureau space. That's much less than Star Trek. The Bureau fleet is nowhere near the size of Star Fleet, either. |
2013-02-21, 22:10 | Link #354 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2011
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I like that the setting has more worlds than just Earth and Midchilda, but I honestly don't need many worlds named or explored. Far more important to me is to understand how the worlds we DO know are related in a general, historical sense. The greater failure is not that we've never seen the ground level of Orussia, but that we still don't understand Midchilda's own history, despite the fact that an entire season is based there. What we DO know is confusing and nonsensical. Was Midchilda a rival power? Is it a relatively newly-settled world? Was it a subjugated Belkan planet that fought for independence during the Unification War? Did the Belkan people survive, and establish new colonies? Is the Saint Church their government, with elected priest-president-popes? How does this modern Belkan nation feel about their imperial warmongering past, and how would they react to the recruitment of the Wolkenritter? Would the ancient knights be a welcome token of their history or a disgusting shame? Why the fuck didn't anyone conquer Earth? For that matter, why are there humans on other planets; is Earth a forgotten colony? |
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2013-02-21, 22:16 | Link #355 |
Manus ad Ferrum
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Costa Rica
Age: 33
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Well as Sunder the Gold says is really empty. And we don’t know how many ships the TSAB has or if there are other multidimensional forces like them to fight with. Like the Federation had the Klingon and Romulian Empires, the Dominion, etc.
Besides why is so impossible to create planets like Earth in fiction. I mean here we have desserts, ice lands, forest, jungles and all in the same planet. If need an ice setting just go to the poles in a cold planet doesn’t need to be Hoth and be all ice.
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2013-02-21, 22:33 | Link #356 | |||
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As for Earth... dunno. But it is a question I am going to answer in my own way, with my Mirror and G-Squad fics. Earth-like planets are actually kinda rare in the universe. Vast majority of planets are not so kind to humanity. Given that, unless there is terraforming technology going on, you can presume that the Bureau would have to be able to cross several galaxies, in order to have enough worlds under their belt where humans can exist without any protection. |
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2013-02-21, 22:52 | Link #357 | |
Manus ad Ferrum
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Costa Rica
Age: 33
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2013-02-21, 23:05 | Link #358 | |
Banned
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Actually, when put in that perspective, Bureau space is larger than Star Trek space. The Alpha through gamma quadrants are just in the Milky Way galaxy, if I recall correctly. |
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2013-02-21, 23:18 | Link #359 |
Manus ad Ferrum
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Costa Rica
Age: 33
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Star Trek never leaves out galaxy. At least the Federation doesn’t. Most alien forms live in the Milky Way galaxy and those quadrants you mention there Kaijo are in this galaxy. But Nanoha is about other dimensions and they have several Earth like planets. I was saying in those planets you can have deserts, jungles, ice lands and etc. so a writer doesn’t affect you already establish how your worlds work if you give enough thought to it.
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