Magic and Technology of MGLN

[dkellis]

Originally Posted by Keroko

No, we've never seen any physical books being taken out of the Library as far as I recall. However, its not a far stretch to asume that if any information is needed outside the Infinite Library, they simply digitalize it, which is also a lot safer then giving the more fragile, and perhaps even unique physical books.

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

One wonders about the Infinity Library. Presumably it's not a conventional archive - the story is that EVERYTHING is in there, but the TSAB hasn't existed for all that long, really (and has fairly poor local history, to boot - no good records from 300 years ago on your own planet?) So obviously it's not just the result of a thorough archiving effort... it must contain information that the TSAB did not put in there! Either that, or the description of the archive is marketing BS served up by the Lieze twins. ;p

But, assuming that it is what it's said to be, you could see it as a kind of magical artifact on its own. Then, the challenge of finding something isn't just the result of an unforgivably lackluster attempt at archiving by the TSAB's woefully-underfunded library squad, but more like the challenge of drinking from a chink in the Hoover Dam.

We can't comfortably conclude that either is true, though. We know that Yuuno pulled a lot of information about of the Infinity Library, but there's nothing in that info that we can point to and say "nobody in the TSAB ever knew that". So it could just be a big-ass disorganized book dump, and Yuuno is busy putting it back into shape...

Don't mind me. I just finished the final subtitle formatting for A's vol. 3. ^^

Originally Posted by Keroko

The way the Liezes describe it, the Infinite Library really is nothing more then a collection of all data the TSAB has gathered stuffed together in one place. Basically a really really large collection of books. They never say 'all knowledge' is there, just all the knowledge that they have gathered from all the worlds they have discovered, which if you look at earth's history alone, and imagine hundreds of other worlds like it, would amount to quite a lot of information that would very much seem infinite to the observer.

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

Huh. Went back and checked the lines, and they come out more or less in the middle - they say "every book and data imaginable", but nothing to indicate whether it really contains EVERYTHING or whether it's just extensive.

But if it's a conventional archive, why isn't it indexed? "Most of the contents are completely unorganized." That makes no sense if people are the ones filing the data - you'd expect that it'd at least be broken down simply, even if it's "popular novels from administrated world 97 from the year 0083" or something. Especially for a society with advanced data manipulation capability (and pet AIs), wouldn't they have taken a bit more care cross-indexing things?

So either the joke I told earlier really wasn't funny (i.e. that it's in the state of disrepair that it's in because the TSAB doesn't put any resources towards it... "oh, more books, chuck 'em in the Library and we'll get to them one day" type of thing), or it really does receive data in ways that preclude easy filing.

Originally Posted by Keroko

Well, imagine it like this: If it really is an archive that can magically gather every single piece of data that exists in the many universes, how come such a wonder device doesn't automatically categorize it? If it can do something as complicated as gather all knowledge, then categorizing it shouldn't be that much of a hassle.

Concidering how Yuuno empasized that the area of categorizing and catalouging the information was 'neglected for far too long' I really do think that they just grabbed the data and stuffed it into the library. After all, if you discover a new world and gather all the data you can about it, do you have any idea how much information you would end up with? It's hard to find people up to the task of organizing it, so they just say 'stuff it in the library, we'll sort it out later'

Concidering the TSAB isn't an old organization, the amount of data they would have found in a short time would have been immense, and few -if anybody- would have felt like going through that while there were more important tasks at hand, hence why it was neglected for so long.

OC thread people will understand why I am crying right now.

The Infinite Library is probably a magical place of some sort, even if it's just a Big Collection Of Books. In fact, if it's a Big Collection Of Books, that would be evidence towards the magic, because Who Wrote Those Books?

Unless we know more about how the TSAB finds new worlds to administrate, I'd find it difficult to believe that every one of its member worlds had its evolution of technology run so much in parallel (especially since I believe we threw out the "parallel Earth" theory earlier in the thread) that they all developed the concept of "book" the way we know it. But we know that the civilizations of Belka and Midchilda (which may or may not be from the same planet) have books, so maybe that's it, despite being so badly-organized that they apparently went into the Infinite Library without any prior classification system they may have had before. Parallel evolution of technology does not include the Dewey Decimal, it seems.

And if information is digitized before being taken out of the Library, then why not keep it digital in the first place? How is this digitization happening in the first place?

Yuuno, for some reason, can pull the information he wants from the Library, just in time for the plot. Having the media be physical books would require the additional step of traversing the distance towards the book (or the book moving to Yuuno's hand), as opposed to being able to call the information up on the screen. I'm already assuming that Yuuno might have some sort of magical grep function, which, again, would be easier to handle (and require less magical ability) on a computer.

If the Infinite Library is a collection of books and only books (or even mostly books), however, then that would seem to be an odd demarcation for "things we want to collect from this world". For one thing, it would require physically collecting all those books, and possibly using some sort of process to duplicate them. Also, it would imply that the Infinite Library only has texts from its administered worlds (and even then only some of them; try collecting All The Books On Earth and see how long it takes you), since such an undertaking would be noticeable and thus suspicious on any non-administered world. (I mean, you can skulk around libraries and do it one by one, but The TSAB Is Not Very Old.)

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by dkellis

OC thread people will understand why I am crying right now.

The Infinite Library is probably a magical place of some sort, even if it's just a Big Collection Of Books. In fact, if it's a Big Collection Of Books, that would be evidence towards the magic, because Who Wrote Those Books?

... The people from the planets where they got them from? Seriously, if it was a 'magical place' why bother with books at all? Just a giant glowy core that contains all information to be convienently accessed whenever you want to would be leagues better.

Originally Posted by dkellis

Unless we know more about how the TSAB finds new worlds to administrate, I'd find it difficult to believe that every one of its member worlds had its evolution of technology run so much in parallel (especially since I believe we threw out the "parallel Earth" theory earlier in the thread) that they all developed the concept of "book" the way we know it. But we know that the civilizations of Belka and Midchilda (which may or may not be from the same planet) have books, so maybe that's it, despite being so badly-organized that they apparently went into the Infinite Library without any prior classification system they may have had before. Parallel evolution of technology does not include the Dewey Decimal, it seems.

All the worlds we've seen have developped similar buildings, similar transportation, similar language, similar food, similar... need I go on? I see absolutely no reason why books should be exempt from this.

Originally Posted by dkellis

And if information is digitized before being taken out of the Library, then why not keep it digital in the first place? How is this digitization happening in the first place?

Because it is not digital in the first place, that's one of the things Yuuno is doing. As for how it is happening, not a clue. One-on-one typing, some sort of magical 'copy what you read' maybe one of Yuuno's looking into several books at once techniques.

Originally Posted by dkellis

Yuuno, for some reason, can pull the information he wants from the Library, just in time for the plot. Having the media be physical books would require the additional step of traversing the distance towards the book (or the book moving to Yuuno's hand), as opposed to being able to call the information up on the screen. I'm already assuming that Yuuno might have some sort of magical grep function, which, again, would be easier to handle (and require less magical ability) on a computer.

If the Infinite Library is a collection of books and only books (or even mostly books), however, then that would seem to be an odd demarcation for "things we want to collect from this world". For one thing, it would require physically collecting all those books, and possibly using some sort of process to duplicate them. Also, it would imply that the Infinite Library only has texts from its administered worlds (and even then only some of them; try collecting All The Books On Earth and see how long it takes you), since such an undertaking would be noticeable and thus suspicious on any non-administered world. (I mean, you can skulk around libraries and do it one by one, but The TSAB Is Not Very Old.)

Yes, we know its easier to find information on a computer. We also know that it takes a crapload of time to digitize books, even more so without the propper resources. The main reason I picture the TSAB just grabbed the books is simple: It's easier then try to copy them one by one.

You say the planets will be noticable. Why? Books are being sold every day, and the TSAB is not going to be looking for 'Sonja Bakers diet guide' to place into their library. They'll narrow down the search to more important things like history, technollogy and folklore. And then they go out and get those books, most likely a different sources too. You say people will notice? I say people won't even bat an eyelash. They only need one copy of any given book anyway. I fail to see how that would cause a ruckus. And they don't need 'all the books' of a world. If you've got two or three detailed books about the roman empire, you already have more then you need on that subject, which means its onto the next.

[dkellis]

Originally Posted by Keroko

... The people from the planets where they got them from? Seriously, if it was a 'magical place' why bother with books at all? Just a giant glowy core that contains all information to be convienently accessed whenever you want to would be leagues better.

Because "magical place" is not a binary thing. Why don't Carim's prophecies appear on stone tablets rather than tattered parchment? Or even in a bound book form rather than individual pieces?

I'm just throwing out various ideas of Why This Is The Way It Is, which includes the possibility that they bother with books at all because that is how the Infinite Library works, due to the nature of its as-yet hypothetical magic.

All the worlds we've seen have developped similar buildings, similar transportation, similar language, similar food, similar... need I go on? I see absolutely no reason why books should be exempt from this.

So basically here we throw our hands up over suspension of disbelief and go "lol 7arcs". Fair enough.

Because it is not digital in the first place, that's one of the things Yuuno is doing. As for how it is happening, not a clue. One-on-one typing, some sort of magical 'copy what you read' maybe one of Yuuno's looking into several books at once techniques.

He's had ten years to do it. Halve that time for a rough estimate of the time he could actually perform substantial work: five years. I'm therefore going to assume that there will be a substantial amount of digitized information out there, if only made up of what people have asked to "borrow out" of the Library.

Yes, we know its easier to find information on a computer. We also know that it takes a crapload of time to digitize books, even more so without the propper resources. The main reason I picture the TSAB just grabbed the books is simple: It's easier then try to copy them one by one.

The wisdom of keeping all these (possibly unique, as mentioned earlier in the thread) books in what is essentially a dimenional instability (because the Infinite Library is in the Main TSAB HQ, and Main TSAB HQ is in the dimensional sea, as was painfully established to me) without leaving a copy elsewhere escapes me at the moment. For most of them, yes, fine, they're printed en masse, but for the uniques?

And the Liezes mentioned that the Infinite Library contains "every book and data imaginable". We see the books, but what of the data in non-book media?

And if it takes a "crapload of time" to digitize books (even with proper resources), then one might as well not bother asking to "borrow out" books from the Infinite Library for urgent business.

You say the planets will be noticable. Why? Books are being sold every day, and the TSAB is not going to be looking for 'Sonja Bakers diet guide' to place into their library. They'll narrow down the search to more important things like history, technollogy and folklore. And then they go out and get those books, most likely a different sources too. You say people will notice? I say people won't even bat an eyelash. They only need one copy of any given book anyway. I fail to see how that would cause a ruckus. And they don't need 'all the books' of a world. If you've got two or three detailed books about the roman empire, you already have more then you need on that subject, which means its onto the next.

So with all the manpower and resources available to gather all these books on non-administered worlds (which is what I was talking about with that paragraph) and transport them to the Infinite Library within about seventy-five years, the TSAB can't be bothered to divert some of those resources to organize the thing?

Let's take the Roman Empire. Which books should they get? Any book about "the Roman Empire" in general is likely to be, well, general, over about five hundred years of history. What if they need something more specific? How do they know which books are accurate, and which have, shall we say, original research? How do they know the books are up to date?

And 7arcs help them if they even attempt to find "two or three detailed books" about the major religions of Earth, much less the other 96 or more non-administered worlds, which are accurate, factual, and unbiased.

It's a bit like taking a copy of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and then calling it done. Yes, they could do it, but then it wouldn't be "more than you need on that subject", considering that obscure threats from Days Past have caught the TSAB flat-footed twice now.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

Pieces that are right next to each other. Reforming the ferret in that case is like molding clay. OTOH, if they're scattered around, you need to gather the bits of clay together first.

Actually, they will be close, but not quite adjacent. You'll still have to join several clumps of clay together first.

It you want it to be automated, I'll grant you that. However, why can't I say that shrinking a human to a ferret is automated and requires nothing from him after triggering the spell, too? It could be all set up, with the instructions for where everything needs to go. He gives the GO command and just supplies one burst of energy to get the ball rolling.

It is harder to fully automate such a procedure because it is a energy draining process. The matter's natural tendency is to stay in the world, so you have to keep pushing it into the bag. The mana can just disband and collapse.

You think violating Conservation is bad? Try dealling with prescience(SP?) instead!

EDIT: Additional argument.
As I think about it, if Yuuno was just dissipating a mana-form and reverting to his true ferret form, there's even less reason for him to show injuries than the "remapping" approach I advocated. If the atoms, even molecules, of his true form were distributed throughout the mana body, they can't suffer any damage that would show as an injury in his ferret form.

Why? It is really the same mapping process you proposed, only that instead of unwanted fermions you have mana.

One other thing:

I find it amusing that you're not critising them for not taking the most practical approach to dealing with a problem. Back when we were talking about device design, you took us to the task for defending current designs as unsuitable for accuracy and stability and presented examples that were better. Very well done. Yet here, I'm showing you one way they could have done things better going the way you want, and you just wave it off?

The way I see it:
1) Priorities: Having a theory that fits the facts is the overriding imperative. Once the theory works, then you start assessing its merits. For example, if we SEE devices jerking their owners arms by crude 5 degree increments before freezing to shoot, we'll have to accept they use arm jerk aiming. But we'll still blast the concept and execution for its crudeness and groan about why they don't use stocks and save themselves some pain.
2) Benefit of Doubt: Device design is governed by ergonomics, a field that humans have plenty of experience in (we've only been designing guns for hundreds of years and melee weapons for even longer). In comparison, we don't know anything about shapeshifting beyond hypothesizing broad theories, some of which will definitely require energy inputs and some have the potential (for you can never know about mechanistic inefficiencies) to require no energy input.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by dkellis

Because "magical place" is not a binary thing. Why don't Carim's prophecies appear on stone tablets rather than tattered parchment? Or even in a bound book form rather than individual pieces?

Who said binary? I said glowy core, something you'd connect to 'mentally' and get the information. If you make a magical source of all knowledge, might as well do it right.

Originally Posted by dkellis

I'm just throwing out various ideas of Why This Is The Way It Is, which includes the possibility that they bother with books at all because that is how the Infinite Library works, due to the nature of its as-yet hypothetical magic.

And I'm sharing my view on these ideas why I think they don't work.

Originally Posted by dkellis

So basically here we throw our hands up over suspension of disbelief and go "lol 7arcs". Fair enough.

Usually the case with any universe dealing with multiple worlds.

Originally Posted by dkellis

He's had ten years to do it. Halve that time for a rough estimate of the time he could actually perform substantial work: five years. I'm therefore going to assume that there will be a substantial amount of digitized information out there, if only made up of what people have asked to "borrow out" of the Library.

He didn't have ten years, because a lot of that time was spent categorizing, archiving and retrieving information as well. The A's manga shows Yuuno being pressed into his work a lot, he hardly has any time to digitize books at all.

Originally Posted by dkellis

The wisdom of keeping all these (possibly unique, as mentioned earlier in the thread) books in what is essentially a dimenional instability (because the Infinite Library is in the Main TSAB HQ, and Main TSAB HQ is in the dimensional sea, as was painfully established to me) without leaving a copy elsewhere escapes me at the moment. For most of them, yes, fine, they're printed en masse, but for the uniques?

Calling upon the TSAB's wisdom is not exactly the smartest of moves... regardless, there should be some unique books in there, but you'd have to find them first, and dicover whether they are unique at all, or whether they are as common as you think (imagine tossing a book over your shoulder thinking it to be a mass print, only to discover its the only one in existence).

Originally Posted by dkellis

And the Liezes mentioned that the Infinite Library contains "every book and data imaginable". We see the books, but what of the data in non-book media?

Digital, most likely. Which is something that has to be categorized and archived as well.

Originally Posted by dkellis

And if it takes a "crapload of time" to digitize books (even with proper resources), then one might as well not bother asking to "borrow out" books from the Infinite Library for urgent business.

Summaries, Dk, summaries. But this is why I think they don't just 'lend out' things from the library. Do note that every time they need something, they contact the staff from the site rather then grab a book for reference.

Originally Posted by dkellis

So with all the manpower and resources available to gather all these books on non-administered worlds (which is what I was talking about with that paragraph) and transport them to the Infinite Library within about seventy-five years, the TSAB can't be bothered to divert some of those resources to organize the thing?

That is exactly what happened. The manga even has Yuuno say the very same thing.

Originally Posted by dkellis

Let's take the Roman Empire. Which books should they get? Any book about "the Roman Empire" in general is likely to be, well, general, over about five hundred years of history. What if they need something more specific? How do they know which books are accurate, and which have, shall we say, original research? How do they know the books are up to date?

And 7arcs help them if they even attempt to find "two or three detailed books" about the major religions of Earth, much less the other 96 or more non-administered worlds, which are accurate, factual, and unbiased.

It's a bit like taking a copy of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and then calling it done. Yes, they could do it, but then it wouldn't be "more than you need on that subject", considering that obscure threats from Days Past have caught the TSAB flat-footed twice now.

If you are knowledgable in books, it becomes more easy to seperate the junk from the pearls, the informative from the iformative, the detailed from the generalized. I can recognize a good sci-fi book by flipping through a page or three and reading the summary, haven't been wrong so far.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Keroko

No, but then Vita has to go through a lot more complicated motions to fire her Schwalbe Fliegen, Nanoha only has to create and fire.

Now tell me how that relates to the mental load of flying those bombs with your mind.

As for complicated manouvers, we see them flying at high speeds, pursuing targets while firing without any noticable downsides, which is still far more then your initial claim of being immobile even if we do dismiss that they can use such attacks while pursuing targets.

IIRC, she was flying more or less straight. So, by being the l33test ace, you can improve to the point of being able to fire Sparrow missiles.

Almost all combat takes place inside those ranges, anything outside control-range can be easilly dodged by simply moving aside.

Vita sure wasn't dodging that 100m shot. Now that we agree homing won't save you for long range shots, why don't you get a stock and aim.

'smoothing over' about a meter of missing solid material? That's not just a tiny percentage, Bardiche lost close to 50% of his mass in that blow. It's far more logical that Fate channeled mana into Bardiche, which replaced the lost ellements before solidifying, which is exactly what we see. Sometimes, things simply are what you see is what you get. Fate channeled mana (energy) into Bardiche which became solid (matter).

I did not say every time. I said half the time. And you must choose. Do you want to say "mana" or do you want to say "energy". I have no objection to mana, I'm fighting for that myself. Show me how they can handle 9E16J class energies with every transaction if you want to say energy. It is a thermodynamic limit, not a mechanistic one.

I'm wondering how you can so accurately calculate a distance like that to be 100 meter? To me, it looks far more then that.

In some boards discussing SW, if someone painstakingly does a calc (in this case stadia ranging) on a scene and you come back with "to me it looks far more than that", you'll get flamed to a crisp. It is almost insulting.

As an objective matter, humans have a tendency to overestimate distances. It looks pretty far, so it must be over 100m. Actually stadia-ranging the image says different.

Plus, we already know thanks to Hayate and Sein, that 100 metres is not nearly the max range for a magic blast.

Agreed. If that is not the case, it is less important that their ergonomics only supports a 100m shoot.

The reason Hayate needs ground support for accuracy is that, in her own words, she is a klutz with long range sighting and accurate fire. Normally she uses Rein to compensate.

Even with a huge ground staff, the best Hayate is doing is bombarding. She's not really shooting the individual drones - she's just blasting hexes.

As for Dieci, she's a dedicated gunner's model sentoukijin. The precision of her aiming is controlled by servos rather than human muscles. Further, while the map implies the range was substantially over 100m (say 500, maybe even 1000), one has to remember how big the helo is in comparison to a human.

Now this is important. Hayate uses a device to compensate her lack of accuracy on long ranged shots. This shows that devices are very much capable of aiding their wielders in Long Ranged shots.

Cool. Rein provides a sight.

[quote]You're missing the point. You are accusing me of something I didn't. Quote me a part in the post down bellow where I 'papered over weaknesses with unproven magitech':

Spoiler:

Third, thanks to Nanoha's long-range shot in A's, we already know that having a physical stock or sight present is not a requirement for deadly accuracy even on long ranges. Weapon stabillity does not seem to be an issue (through what methods are theorycrafting, I'll admit) and sights are done mentally.

Offending portion isolated. You said that having a stock is "not a requirement" and that weapon stability (not just recoil) is not an issue, and you propose there is theorycrafting.

And since they don't do something as simple as that, obviously it is not an issue for accuracy.

Are you willing to trust the TSAB on such an issue? You know the answer: when you created your latest immensely practical and cold OC, you did not equip her with a battleaxe (your favorite compromise weapon, and the one Keroko got, so you are consistent there), much less a staff. You gave her a SMG (I must wonder what is the distinction b/w a SMG and a carbine when you are using magic, but I guess the magic bullet MV is closer to a SMG...)

Do you really think nudges are capable of driving away an aproaching enemy? And once more, Mach Calibur was completely controlling an unconsious wielder the difference between that and aiding someone in accuracy is quite honestly laughable. Yes of course the motions with Subaru are going to apear more jerky! Mach Calibur has to control an entire body do block, dodge and attack the enemy. Machines these day can also apear as having 'course and rough' motions, but what do we use when we make something as complicated as computer chips? Machines. Why do we do that? Because of their accuracy. The same machine that may apear unyieldingly rough one moment, can be accurate enough to put together a swat of chips the next moment.

Generally, different machines are used for different parts, for one thing. How do you know the accuracy limit. Especially since they are clearly attack spells being fired off - attack spells are hardly precision machinery. Try convincing a tank cannon to do precision work...

[quote]Those are current day machines, the devices in Nanoha are Intelligent Devices. Artificial Intelligence. Sentient Machines, hell Subaru and Nanoha have conversations with their devices, to even claim that they are not capable of making improvised actions is apaling, really.

See what I've said about sentience previously.

Once again, you are thinking this goes by 'scientific method A' You have to realize that the Nanohaverse is technolocially more advanced then ours. If you would jump back in time and tell someone about nuclear energy, they'd laugh you in the face. Science is an ever growing area, and there could very well come a time where we figure out a way to convert matter to energy without going as far as gigaton class energy.

Once again I point to teleporting, teleporting works by turning mass into energy and sending it of to its destination before reforming it into matter again. Do they lose life signs? No. Does it require or yield gigaton range energies? No.

Why can't teleporting cleverly use the material at the landing site? There is no "A" or "B" here. Mass-energy equivalence is a thermodynamic and fundamental thing, irrevelant to mechanism.

And yet in StikerS over 100 meter shots are treated as common as dirt. Sounds to me like either,

A: Vita was not acustomed to long ranged shots, which surprised her, or
B: The range was more then 100m.

C: You did not perform stadia ranging, or did it incorrectly.
D: See above.

Either that, or a control thing. Like you said, Nanoha has always excelled at control. Also note that her first primary flight experience was due to Raising Heart helping her fly.

Nanoha had control TALENT, which means she can progress in that directly quickly. However, that's different from "she has always excelled at control".

StrikerS 2 and StrikerS 11, where Hayate even says she normally has Rein help her with control and accuracy.

Oh, Rein provides a sight!

StikerS 25, unless you say that Nanoha somehow gained X-ray vision to allow her to aim manually through multiple bulkheads, this was done automatically.

Most likely, based on previous precedent, RH provided a sight and Nanoha aimed.

Flying straight at high speeds pursuing targets. One does not use attacks that force one to fly straight if one is pursuing targets. Obviously these attacks can be used while manouvering, otherwise they wouldn't use them.

That's assuming they have other good weapons.

Axel Shooter hs also never been labeled as a homing attack, as far as I recal. In fact, seeing how Raising Heart specifically asks Nanoha for control of the attack suggests that all shots are manually controled every time we see the attack.

There we go, and so the mental load is there.

Further, since Divine Shooter had a homing mode, it is strange to hear from a person who will try and extend improvised coarse jerking using attacks to precision aiming to refuse the idea that Axel Shooter the successor will not have a backup homing mode.

What would make more of a ruckus, a ferret escaping form a cage, or an unknown wounded boy with no ID escaping from a hospital?

Obviously the ferret form was the better choice. Had he remainded human and escaped, he could have faced the consequences of being wanted by the police, not to mention that if he had stayed in the hospital, he would have been subjected to questioning about what had happened. As a ferret he escaped a lot of complications.

He gives up a lot of advantages. He has no idea where a potential mage is. In that case, his second best shot is to be recovered to a hospital. This is far more likely if he's a human. He's larger, and more people are willing to help a human than a ferret - if someone else bumped into Yunno before Nanoha, I won't be shocked if Yunno gets thrown into the nearby trash bin instead of the vet. Humans are self-serving, cruel creatures. For every Nanoha there are probably 10 of your latest OC

[dkellis]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Who said binary? I said glowy core, something you'd connect to 'mentally' and get the information. If you make a magical source of all knowledge, might as well do it right.

And if you want to create a weapon that primarily shoots ranged beams, you might as well make it rifle-shaped?

I said "binary", because that's what you were implying: that the hypothesis that the Infinite Library was magical would mean that it would be capable of anything conceivable, or that the hypothesis was completely false. All or nothing.

I'm just not sure what you're saying here. I suggested that the Infinite Library might be a magical place because it seems to deal almost entirely with books (which appear to have a uniform size, but I'm willing to put that down to lazy animation), when books are not the sole media for information which we are aware of.

You said that if it was really a "magical place", there would be no need for books in the first place.

I said that maybe the magic of the place required books.

You said that "you" might as well "do it right", making it a glowy core.

So, who is this "you" that you are talking about? Me, TSAB, or 7arcs?

He didn't have ten years, because a lot of that time was spent categorizing, archiving and retrieving information as well. The A's manga shows Yuuno being pressed into his work a lot, he hardly has any time to digitize books at all.

I'm only going by the "digitize books" thing because that's what you mentioned "lent out" books will be like. And if you've done it once, it's already done; an mp3 only needs to be ripped from the CD by the original filesharer.

But then you mentioned later in the post that the books won't get lent out anyway (or at least not often), so it's a moot point.

Calling upon the TSAB's wisdom is not exactly the smartest of moves... regardless, there should be some unique books in there, but you'd have to find them first, and dicover whether they are unique at all, or whether they are as common as you think (imagine tossing a book over your shoulder thinking it to be a mass print, only to discover its the only one in existence).

I don't think I can imagine that, since I don't think it's very likely that a unique book will be so cavalierly left aside for me to pick up assuming that it's a mass print. (Even for vanity publishing.) The books still have to go from their world of origin to the Infinite Library: if they are donated by the people of that world, then it's unlikely that they'll donate a unique book without mentioning as much to the Librarians (unless they're intentionally trying to hide the fact that it's a unique book). If they are collected by TSAB personnel, well, you implied later in the post that these are Very Skilled personnel who will probably be able to recognize a good book when they see one, so I think a rare book should not pose much difficulty.

However, I just realized that I am assuming that the TSAB is keeping a record of what they receive into the Infinite Library, which strikes me as expecting too much of their due process and common sense. For all I know it could be a case of "how did this book end up in here? Who paid for it? When was it obtained?" "lol, idunno".

Other than that, about the only way I can think of for a unique book to be in the Infinite Library without anyone knowing is if it was originally a mass print, but then some sort of Farenheit 451 happened without the TSAB knowing about it.

Digital, most likely. Which is something that has to be categorized and archived as well.

Fair enough.

Summaries, Dk, summaries. But this is why I think they don't just 'lend out' things from the library. Do note that every time they need something, they contact the staff from the site rather then grab a book for reference.

What staff? As far as I can remember, we have Yuuno (who wasn't actually part of the staff in A's, but was certainly one in StrikerS), the Lieze twins (who may or may not be actual Librarians), and Arf (who, again, may or may not be an actual Librarian). Based on that, I'm assuming that entry into the Library is not limited to only Librarians, if such a post even exists; it'll be a bit sad if Yuuno is the Chief Librarian of a staff of one.

But then considering how Chrono went "Hallo Yuuno, grep 'Cradle'", I'm assuming that Yuuno has his own underlings now, since it'll be a bit much to expect Yuuno to handle all these requests by himself (or with a small staff).

So what I'm getting from all of this is that it is TSAB policy to have a significant number of personnel obtain all sorts of books from all over its jurisdiction at the least and from every inhabited world at the most, toss them into the Infinite Library, and then neglect that Infinite Library, even after going through all these lengths to put that content in there.

lol TSAB?

That is exactly what happened. The manga even has Yuuno say the very same thing.

Being that I don't have the manga, what did he say in exact words?

And if that is really the case, then I see what you mean about not trusting the wisdom of the TSAB. Because that is just... well, stupid.

If you are knowledgable in books, it becomes more easy to seperate the junk from the pearls, the informative from the iformative, the detailed from the generalized. I can recognize a good sci-fi book by flipping through a page or three and reading the summary, haven't been wrong so far.

I generally try that with a book I'm interested in (flip through a chapter or two, read the summary), and my results have been a lot more varied. Does that mean that I am less knowledgeable? Who knows.

And I really doubt that this method will work on books which, as you say, focus on history, technology, and folklore. How do you know that this account of the Sidhe is an actual legend, while this one is completely made up by the author? What about the accounts of the life of Jesus?

Still, we do have Durandal the non-sword, and Einherjar the non-dead people, so at least some of Earth culture must have leaked to the TSAB worlds.

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by arkangelsk

It is harder to fully automate such a procedure because it is a energy draining process.

It's only harder to create the automation program. After it's created, using it will be as easy as flipping a switch. Let the automation take care of the complexities of the process while you fall unconcious. Does it matter how complex or time-consuming the creation task is as long as it is done before the encounter we saw?

Why? It is really the same mapping process you proposed, only that instead of unwanted fermions you have mana.

You were quick to point out that my idea suffered from this problem. Now that I've shown that yours suffers from it too, why aren't you coming up with explainations to defend it? You're supposed to be good at that.
For my idea, we seem to have a miscommunication here. I believe you think my idea is, "take the following bunch of atoms, remove all except these to storage, clump the remainder and reform as a ferret."
It isn't. It's "rescale the body down to this size, keep all physical features to scale, adjust to the appearance of a ferret."
I never said anything about atoms. In fantasy, a body is one BODY. As far as the genre is concerned, everything's still there, limbs, body parts, orgrans, scars and wounds... just smaller! I don't like it any more than you do, but I don't complain about the things magic is not allowed to do.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

It's only harder to create the automation program. After it's created, using it will be as easy as flipping a switch. Let the automation take care of the complexities of the process while you fall unconcious. Does it matter how complex or time-consuming the creation task is as long as it is done before the encounter we saw?

The extra difficulty is that your requested program is an uphill process. You can punch auto, but it still requires you to insert mana to power the process (concentration) and if you stop shoving in the middle, you are stuck in a rather untenable shape. A downhill process does not require this shoving.

You were quick to point out that my idea suffered from this problem. Now that I've shown that yours suffers from it too, why aren't you coming up with explainations to defend it? You're supposed to be good at that.

Wow, so you are allowed to say "I don't know" and I'm expected to come up with instant explanations?

To answer your question in greater detail, I actually gave 4 objections, with why he would bother healing as a ferret as Point B, since your theory sounded like he could just shuffle a few fermions around to patch the holes while he shrunk. You answered that by saying that I have the same problem, which we finally decided to resolve as both theories having the desired particles for the transformation being dispersed (more or less evenly) among the whole human form.

However, at least I can say mine is a fully automated process due to it being downhill, so he was completely unconscious by the time it was done. Yours requires concentration to power the process. Thus, at the end, he's still conscious or the process will have stuck in the middle. Why doesn't he paper it over then?

And as for C, I asked you why Yunno didn't just pull a few molecules around to heal himself in human form if he still has what it takes to maneuver almost 30kg of mass at that desperate moment. It doesn't have to be a scarless job considering the emergency. Just yank the epidermis and dermis less than a millimeter to close up. That question wasn't even answered. If he's not conscious enough to do a little thing (relatively) like this, what is he thinking risking a power-using (doesn't matter how small) shapeshifting at this critical moment ... unless he's flat out of energy, and his transformation unraveled fully automatically.

For my idea, we seem to have a miscommunication here. I believe you think my idea is, "take the following bunch of atoms, remove all except these to storage, clump the remainder and reform as a ferret."
It isn't. It's "rescale the body down to this size, keep all physical features to scale, adjust to the appearance of a ferret."

Scientifically, the former is a logical consequence of the latter, except the movement is more simultaneous.

I never said anything about atoms. In fantasy, a body is one BODY. As far as the genre is concerned, everything's still here, limbs, body parts, orgrans, scars and wounds... just smaller! I don't like it any more than you do, but I don't complain about the things magic is not allowed to do.

If only I'm allowed such easy outs...

[Avatar_notADV]

Possible cultural explanation for the disarray of the Infinity Library (assuming material is coming in through conventional means, not magical ones.)

Disclaimer - we don't know that the books we see in there are really actual honest-to-goodness paper books. Could just be some sort of digital storage medium that happens to be shaped like a book. We see Yuuno reading forty of them simultaneously, so either his search magic is -really- hoss, or they're not paper-format books. (Crucially, we never see any of them turn a page!)

Okay, accumulation of the vast archive. TSAB has who knows how many administered and unadministered worlds to deal with. The administered stuff can be handled by the staff they have there, but the unadministered worlds don't really have a regular staff. On the other hand, we know that the TSAB isn't totally ignorant about said unadministered worlds (or at least Earth) - they know enough to take a stab at things but not so much that they don't get some things hilariously wrong, so when Nanoha is taken to meet Lindy for the first time, we get a Japanese-style room, bonsai, and green tea... which Lindy promptly loads with sugar and cream. ;p

So, posit this - you either have occasional visits from TSAB people who end up on Earth (or wherever) for a time, or you have a few staffers actually go live there, and they accumulate everything that looks interesting. Of course, the problem here is that we're talking about people who're choosing to go spend time on a foreign planet - they're likely to find all sorts of things interesting. So yeah, you'd have not just works on history and politics and religion, but Harry Potter and cookbooks and bad romance novels and what have you, all packaged up and pouring in.

The guys at the TSAB receiving this stuff, though, they're not Earth (or wherever)-fanatics. They get a big load full of information, a lot of it trivial, a lot of it gossipy, practically none of it of actual immediate use. They sift it for things that they really need to know, find zip, and pack it all in a box and throw it into the archive (compress it and copy it into the archive, whatever.) Repeat over, and over, and over, and over.

As with a lot of TSAB activity, a good analogue might be imperial Britain. The British Museum was FULL of this sort of thing - someone would go somewhere and find an interesting skull or a plant or whatever, and they'd send it home, and it'd go in a numbered crate in a big ol' warehouse or something similar. It might be years before someone who can realize the significance of the item pokes through the contents and says "oh, this is just a common antelope", or "goodness, this really is unusual, let me take a closer look at it..."

Now, a modern system wouldn't work like that. Ideally you'd have a few people going through the incoming information, putting a short precis on it, cataloging it, adding the appropriate cross-references, and all that. By not having actually done that, the TSAB is revealing one of two things - either total indifference (possible - it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to claim that they might pay attention to other cultures, but believe that theirs is superior), or a great lack of resources (like, mobilized for a conflict, and nobody ever thought to re-staff the office?)

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by arkangelsk

You can punch auto, but it still requires you to insert mana to power the process (concentration) and if you stop shoving in the middle, you are stuck in a rather untenable shape.

I'd like to say you're assuming it requires a level of concentration to insert mana, I do not. And I will keep insisting that my approach is as attention-free as yours until you can deliver concrete proof that either A)He really was concentrating during the transformation or B)Yuuno admits he really is ferret in disguise.

Wow, so you are allowed to say "I don't know" and I'm expected to come up with instant explanations?

The thing is, I never cared about actual atoms in my idea. There's quite a difference between a body and the bits that compose it in fantasy. Why do you think I called it "remapping"?
Tell me something, how many atoms do you have to lose before you have visible wound on a ferret? Except when you start losing chunks of flesh or get burnt, most injuries cause you to only lose tiny amounts of cells, not atoms. The severity of the injury is mainly due cells being pulled apart from their normal positions.
Say human-form Yuuno suffers a laceration on his forearm, a scrap of epidermis gets torn off and along goes some original ferret atoms. But look at the wound, most of the cells are still there, they're just no longer in the same relative position they used to be! The ferret atoms are out of position also but still there too. Then Yuuno disipates his mana-formed humaniod body, why shouldn't those shifted original atoms go to their default positions in his ferret form? Although he lost some atoms, the size of the injury relative to his ferret form should still be significantly less than the original injury relative to the humanoid form.
As to why I expect you to come up with an explaintion, I've always admired your ability to counter objections with elegant or elaborate arguements, even if they sometimes make my BP rise. So come on, give me an explaination so solid, I'll have no choice but to conceed. Otherwise, I think I've uncovered a fatal weak point in your defense, and I'm going in for the kill.
My explaination is A)Fantasy grants a certain uniqueness to living things, especially people, that sci-fi and regular fiction cannot. B)Magic allows its user to break the Laws of Reality at will. Limited only by the user's abilities. It's the very definition of magic.

If only I'm allowed such easy outs...

I'm allowing you to, practically everyone on this board is allowing you to, I think. You just have to let one thing go before you can fly...

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

And I will keep insisting that my approach is as attention-free as yours until you can deliver concrete proof that either A)He really was concentrating during the transformation

A is doable. Ref: Ep 8 when Yunno transforms to human. He clearly relaxes with a sigh at the end of it. Your proposed process is "symmetrical" (both human->ferret and ferret->human require power), so by extension it'll take roughly equal effort to transform into ferret. My proposed process is "assymetrical", with human->ferret having a chance of being effortlessly automated because no new mana is needed (barring significant mechanistic inefficiencies).

The thing is, I never cared about actual atoms in my idea. There's quite a difference between a body and the bits that compose it in fantasy. Why do you think I called it "remapping"?

You don't care about atoms, but you care about cells. Both are rather scientific concepts, no? Is that what they call a selective application of science?

Tell me something, how many atoms do you have to lose before you have visible wound on a ferret? Except when you start losing chunks of flesh or get burnt, most injuries cause you to only lose tiny amounts of cells, not atoms. The severity of the injury is mainly due cells being pulled apart from their normal positions.

You can replace all the "cells" with "atoms", you know, since cells are made of atoms.

Say human-form Yuuno suffers a laceration on his forearm, a scrap of epidermis gets torn off and along goes some original ferret atoms. But look at the wound, most of the cells are still there, they're just no longer in the same relative position they used to be! The ferret atoms are out of position also but still there too. Then Yuuno disipates his mana-formed humaniod body, why shouldn't those shifted original atoms go to their default positions in his ferret form? Although he lost some atoms, the size of the injury relative to his ferret form should still be significantly less than the original injury relative to the humanoid form.

Why is it that after being displaced, you expect both sides to just line up in their default unwounded positions during reversion in a passive process.

In fact, it is in your theory that the molecules are more likely to follow programming (since it must be an active process) and revert to default (unwounded) positions. Even the missing fermions won't be a problem because there are lots of perfectly good fermions around.

And again, in your theory, you must explain why Yunno chose to fire his shapeshifting programming when he's out of energy when it'll be cheaper to paper over the wound with less movement of mass.

By the way, the wounds might indeed have been smaller (relative to ferret). We don't really get a close look at the wound, except that the fur is covering it up quite well, nor is there any visible blood. I'm not saying it must have been, just that we can't see enough to deny that possibility.

While we are on the concept of fantasy, at least in Eastern fantasy, it is very common for a magical being that is damaged or out of energy to 打回原型 (literally being "beaten back to their original form"). So what I'm describing is hardly unknown in fantasy and mythology if we must get down to it. (Remember that MGLN is a Japanese, i.e. Eastern, creation).

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by arkangelsk

Ep 8 when Yunno transforms to human. He clearly relaxes with a sigh at the end of it.
so by extension it'll take roughly equal effort to transform into ferret.

Circumstantial. For all I know, he could be stretching out like a man standing up from a cramped posture.

You don't care about atoms, but you care about cells.

I don't care about either. I was just pointing out you lose cells when you suffer injuries, not atoms. Each cell is like thousands to millions of atoms, and you shed them by the hundreds every day and don't even feel it.

Why is it that after being displaced, you expect both sides to just line up in their default unwounded positions during reversion in a passive process.

If we're talking about a real physical object, then yes, I can accept any injuries to be like disrupting the rails moving things into their positions. But the mechanism is magic, why would it be disrupted?

And again, in your theory, you must explain why Yunno chose to fire his shapeshifting programming when he's out of energy when it'll be cheaper to paper over the wound with less movement of mass.

Like I said, the shapeshifting program is automatic, but the price the injuries are reflected on the ferret form. It's possible he couldn't give proper attention to a healing spell, so choose this one instead.

We don't really get a close look at the wound, except that the fur is covering it up quite well, nor is there any visible blood.

Yes there was blood, just look at episode 1 again.

While we are on the concept of fantasy, at least in Eastern fantasy, it is very common for a magical being that is damaged or out of energy to 打回原型

I know that, and it's just as common to find humans transforming into other creatures. And we're still split on which it is in this case.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Jimmy C

Circumstantial. For all I know, he could be stretching out like a man standing up from a cramped posture.

Ahh, I see, if I don't find something, you claim victory. If I find something, you dismiss it? However, since you are forced to dismiss something, and I'm not, this is a point on my side already.

I don't care about either. I was just pointing out you lose cells when you suffer injuries, not atoms. Each cell is like thousands to millions of atoms, and you shed them by the hundreds every day and don't even feel it.

Ergo, when you shed cells, you shed atoms.

If we're talking about a real physical object, then yes, I can accept any injuries to be like disrupting the rails moving things into their positions. But the mechanism is magic, why would it be disrupted?

Because some real atoms (or cells - take your pick) were actually knocked out of true within the matrix, so when the emergency came on and he passively shifted back to ferret, they remained out of true.

Like I said, the shapeshifting program is automatic, but the price the injuries are reflected on the ferret form. It's possible he couldn't give proper attention to a healing spell, so choose this one instead.

We are not talking a beauty job. All he has to do is designate one side of his lacerated skin and order "move" so the wound closes. He can always fine tune it when he feels better. That doesn't seem any harder than pressurizing and ordering "Transform to Ferret" when you don't have pressure left.

Yes there was blood, just look at episode 1 again.

Yes, Yunno human was bleeding, but you don't see blood around Yunno ferret (unless they added it for the DVD). In fact, you are basically left puzzling how Nanoha saw Yunno was hurt, because you don't even see a visible gash in that fur. The idea that it was censored is a bit thin seeing we already saw bleeding Yunno human.

[Jimmy C]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Ahh, I see, if I don't find something, you claim victory. If I find something, you dismiss it? However, since you are forced to dismiss something, and I'm not, this is a point on my side already.

I ought to thank you for pointing out I was veering towards beheaviour I had accused you of earlier. The evidence is not unambiguios, like someone saying, "that takes a lot of concentration." would be, so I'll give you half a point.

Yes, Yunno human was bleeding, but you don't see blood around Yunno ferret (unless they added it for the DVD).

I only ever got the DVD rips by DGz, there's blood on the ferret's left arm.


If you still have the TV version, do show me what this scene looks like. Oddly I don't see any blood on human Yuuno.

[Avatar_notADV]

It would be bizarre for human-Yuuno to be uninjured, and then transform into an injured ferret-Yuuno, however. It's safe to assume that Yuuno was hurting before he transformed.

As far as "why can't he just heal himself as a process of rearranging everything"... we have to examine exactly how he's transforming. Obviously the process is not a purely physical transformation, as that would require truly mind-boggling processing capability, the aforementioned problem with conservation of mass, and the ability to rip yourself apart and put yourself back together, essentially. Yuuno hasn't displayed the ability to disassemble matter in general, produce nuclear-sized explosions, or calculate twenty billion digits of pi instantly...

So he's doing it "magically". Why do it magically? Because it's a lot easier than doing it physically! (The TSAB in general doesn't seem to do a lot magically if it's easy to do it physically. They cook, instead of summoning food; they walk, instead of flying everywhere.)

But just because it's magic doesn't mean that it lets you perform an act however you wish; there's rules to it, even if we're not privy to exactly what those rules are. It's not too much to assume that the reason that human-Yuuno's wounds appear on ferret-Yuuno is related to the process by which he turned into a ferret in the first place... a side-effect of taking the shortcut to turning into a ferret, instead of tackling it through the immensely difficult (impossible, really) task of doing the same thing through physics alone.

This is doubly the case because there are several such occurrences in myth and legend, both Japanese and Western, where magical transformation does not heal wounds. We're definitely prepared, culturally speaking, to encounter another case of the same.

We know, as a matter of canon, that magical combat works differently than normal physical combat, and that this is used to explain things like how Nanoha can slam big-ass beams into Fate and Fate lives to be befriended afterwards. We know that Yuuno got hurt fighting, in essence, a weird magical thingy (specifically, a "thought entity, created under an ominous power.") It's entirely possible that not all Yuuno's injuries are physical, and that he suffered a lot of "magical" damage as well - but we don't really know that.

All that aside, though, do we really need to argue the point? Presumably, if by shifting into a ferret, Yuuno could have insta-healed all his injuries, he would have. He's a bright boy. He knows healing magic, so it's not like he didn't know he was injured or couldn't do anything about it. This did not occur; therefore it's safe to say that he's not actually capable of that. The show further goes on to have him explain that he could have healed up, but didn't, because his magical reserve was needed to fight the beastie (which he didn't have to do, in the end). We can definitely conclude that he was pretty near the end of his rope, magically speaking, if he can't afford to stop bleeding (especially as he's both pretty good at healing in other circumstances, AND not all that strong of a mage). If he's that exhausted, then turning into a ferret must not have been all that hard; at the same time, it's probably not the magical equivalent of an "exothermic" reaction, because at the end of the transformation he's still an exhausted, injured ferret.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

It would be bizarre for human-Yuuno to be uninjured, and then transform into an injured ferret-Yuuno, however. It's safe to assume that Yuuno was hurting before he transformed.

He was definitely wounded and bleeding on the TV version. Maybe they censored it for the DVD (why), but it still reasonable that he's hurting.

As far as "why can't he just heal himself as a process of rearranging everything"... we have to examine exactly how he's transforming. Obviously the process is not a purely physical transformation, as that would require truly mind-boggling processing capability, the aforementioned problem with conservation of mass, and the ability to rip yourself apart and put yourself back together, essentially. Yuuno hasn't displayed the ability to disassemble matter in general, produce nuclear-sized explosions, or calculate twenty billion digits of pi instantly...

Actually, while we won't grant them nuclear firepower, a good mage can probably muster enough physical power to rip a human apart.

As for the processing, magic is probably handled by analogue rather than digital processing. To take your pi example, you can spend eternity calculating 20 billion digits of pi, but if you have a circle, you can get pi instantly by measuring it.

From a scientific point of view, magic is ultimately part of physics. It is definitely not physics we know (the 5th major force, maybe?), but it is still physics.

We know, as a matter of canon, that magical combat works differently than normal physical combat, and that this is used to explain things like how Nanoha can slam big-ass beams into Fate and Fate lives to be befriended afterwards. We know that Yuuno got hurt fighting, in essence, a weird magical thingy (specifically, a "thought entity, created under an ominous power.") It's entirely possible that not all Yuuno's injuries are physical, and that he suffered a lot of "magical" damage as well - but we don't really know that.

He is obviously heavily depleted magically. Whether one can call that damage is debatable, but it is clear that his great problem is that he's exhausted.

All that aside, though, do we really need to argue the point? Presumably, if by shifting into a ferret, Yuuno could have insta-healed all his injuries, he would have. He's a bright boy. He knows healing magic, so it's not like he didn't know he was injured or couldn't do anything about it. This did not occur; therefore it's safe to say that he's not actually capable of that. The show further goes on to have him explain that he could have healed up, but didn't, because his magical reserve was needed to fight the beastie (which he didn't have to do, in the end). We can definitely conclude that he was pretty near the end of his rope, magically speaking, if he can't afford to stop bleeding (especially as he's both pretty good at healing in other circumstances, AND not all that strong of a mage). If he's that exhausted, then turning into a ferret must not have been all that hard; at the same time, it's probably not the magical equivalent of an "exothermic" reaction, because at the end of the transformation he's still an exhausted, injured ferret.

Wow, so if he doesn't spring back from 0-100%, the process of reverting to ferret cannot be "exothermic?" It is clear that shapeshifting is not a horribly mana-demanding magic. It can be from 0-2% and it'll still be exothermic, and at least he won't have to suffer the "endothermic" of maintaining that hulk.

[Wild Goose]

... oh for fuck's sake.

As a Ferret, Yuuno needs less food and resources to survive - I dare you to tell me that a ferret uses as much food as a human. As a ferret, he has a better chance of slipping under the radar. And since he transformed into a ferret, and has remained there for some time, it suggests that transforming doesn't really take up that much juice and that -again, as has been mentioned in the anime- as a ferret he uses less mana, he can thus stockpile more mana.

(The word is maryoku. No, I'm not interested in the english Fate wiki's pretentious useage of prana. RPGs use mana. F/SN and MSLN follow a number of RPG traditions. Mana it fucking is. Sorry, pissed off and ranting at the world.)

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

... oh for fuck's sake.

As a Ferret, Yuuno needs less food and resources to survive - I dare you to tell me that a ferret uses as much food as a human.

He uses less food total. However, small animals tend to have higher metabolisms so weight for weight, he's may well be more vulnerable to running out as a small animal. Further, a human tends to have more ways to get food.

As a ferret, he has a better chance of slipping under the radar.

Considering he's screaming for help, that may not have been the best time to "slip under the radar."

And since he transformed into a ferret, and has remained there for some time, it suggests that transforming doesn't really take up that much juice and that -again, as has been mentioned in the anime- as a ferret he uses less mana, he can thus stockpile more mana.

I thought that there was a passage along those lines. That just is more support for my theory, which explains how he would use less mana in the ferret form.

(The word is maryoku. No, I'm not interested in the english Fate wiki's pretentious useage of prana. RPGs use mana. F/SN and MSLN follow a number of RPG traditions. Mana it fucking is. Sorry, pissed off and ranting at the world.)

Prana? They use that term? WTF?

By the way, Wild Goose. Did you realize that I'm not a regular of the OC thread. I might occasionally do periscope sweeps and look for interesting things regarding realism (mostly by starting with Tk3997's beacon), but I am not a professional OC thread haxxbuster nor do I begin to look over every post. For that you should complain to Tk3997 who at least serves there regularly.

On the essence of the matter, it is frankly more plausible that given the right setup (of which they seem to be discussing), Hayate can go berserk. More than Nanoha anyway - it is just the way the characters are set up, at least IMHO, and depending on your point of view, it might have been canonically proven in Ep9 or thereabouts of A's. Carim and Verossa so far are so superficial as characters that as long as they keep their smiles on their faces there are few limits to what they are. The Wolkenritter are a bit trickier, but if we assume some kind of deep, deep innate overriding Master Program, maybe.

[Avatar_notADV]

Yeah, bluntly, I stay the heck away from the OC thread too. Maybe now that the subs are done... (except what happens if they pick up Strikers? ;p)

Ark, point taken about "exothermic" not necessarily equating to "full recharge". But it's still safe to say that Yuuno's not significantly recharged when he ends up in ferret mode.

It occurs to me that Yuuno's not really a good example. For one thing, he's almost a unique character in MGLN. He uses Mid magic, but he has no device at all! Or at least once he's given up RH, he doesn't pick up another one, but it doesn't seem to give him trouble with his spellcasting. So is Yuuno just that much of a hard-ass, or is he sticking to stuff that doesn't need powerful devices as an amplifier?

However, for that first exchange, he does have a device - RH, which drains the user of a tremendous amount of magic, enough that it's a hell of a burden even on Nanoha (assuming we can trust the manga on this point.) Executing the offensive spells he does through RH, when he doesn't have nearly the power to operate it properly... maybe Yuuno's exhaustion isn't entirely due to injury? ;p

I don't think the anime actually mentions that ferret mode takes up less mana, actually. The only thing we get like that is Aruf's claim in A's 13 that puppy mode is more "fuel-efficient". But does Yuuno play by the same rules as the familiars? Unlikely...