Magic and Technology of MGLN

[al103]

Originally Posted by MeisterBabylon

About why no one shown carries shields: The amount of protection afforded could be anything from abyssmal to godly for all I care, but I believe an immaterial defence is deemed to be more convenient than having to lug a plate around.

Only they do. Standard airmage equipment have armor protection. They look bulky not just for show - see A's ep1 where we clearly see what Vita did to they barrier jackets - it's clearly armored version.

[Avatar_notADV]

Possible reasons why Mid (and Belka) would have crappy tanks...

Normal tank design theory has very thick armor towards the front, with moderate armor towards the sides, and very little armor in the rear, top, and bottom. There's only so much armor weight your power plant is capable of moving, after all, and it makes sense to enhance tank survivability by concentrating that armor at the end that's labeled "point towards enemy". A number of advanced modern anti-tank weapons take advantage of this by automatically guiding themselves to the top of a tank and making a top-down attack angle; this is also why mines can destroy a tank from the bottom.

Any Mid fighting vehicle will be created in an environment where self-guided projectiles are not merely available, but relatively common. Thus, it's a designer's nightmare... if you attempt to armor everything, you weaken the protection all over, but if you go with what we'd consider to be a "conventional" armor balance, some mage snickers and guides a sneeze into your tank's tailpipe before detonating it. (And if you go "turtle" with a soft underbelly, Zafira will ram a giant spike through it!)

Additionally, the natural enemy of the tank is the helicopter - maneuverable, airborne enemies capable of popping around terrain features quickly, performing fast strikes, and leaving. Much faster, and almost unarmored except you can't hit the sucker in the first place; you're probably dead before you bring the gun to bear even. What else is airborne, highly maneuverable, and can kill tanks quickly? Mages, right?

Thus, heavy tanks are going to be much less useful to Mid than they are to us. Heck, the utility of the heavy tank is becoming smaller and smaller even to US forces - we don't need them to kill enemy tanks, because those are efficiently disposed of through airpower and helicopters already. It's just that Mid didn't go through a phase where the heavy tank was the queen of the battlefield (WW2); they were developing these things well after the magical technology to kill tanks easily was out there.

So maybe Mid tanks are less like an Abrams and more like a Stryker? Infantry fighting vehicles, not actually that armored, but a bit more than a Hummer. Weak mages fighting in a vehicle would have a marked advantage in that they would be difficult to target individually (with, say, binds, sleep spells, or what have you), and it's possible that they could all contribute magical power towards the operation of the vehicle and its weapons.

But Strykers aren't front-line combat vehicles? Well, that's okay, because Mid -ain't the front line-. (Well, until it becomes that, heh.)

Again, just me speculating. Not necessarily correct in any way.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Trouble is, the tank design, while generic, and poor is still very much TANK. It HAS a slope to its forward armor. It is designed with the attack role in mind. It's got a very large gun of unknown classification on it, but its obviously made for shooting at things that are in front of the tank. It's not an anti-air weapon, and it's not an IFV with a small all coverage F-U-Up autogun.

Now, as for your choppers, you're actually only half right. In combat exercises where information dominance is roughly even. Tanks and choppers 'kill' each other at about an even rate. Usually the first team to find the other wins. Tanks have anti-air shotgun blast rounds designed to smack a chopper so it's not like the tanks don't have options for shooting back.

Choppers have a manueverability advantage, but as one says; "A helicopter is a collection of parts flying in close formation. It is up to the mechanic to ensure that formation is as tight as possible."
Even a minor problem can bring a chopper down permanantly. So the tanks have an order of magnitude on the toughness scale asside from just armor.

[Avatar_notADV]

Well, it's not like history hasn't provided us with many examples of "crappy tank". (Britain? Early WW2? We're looking at you!) They ought to know better, and they had resources that could have told them better, but that doesn't mean they ever did.

Also, keep in mind that in the real world, choppers are pretty fragile and easy to bring down. But in Mid, it's arguable that the mage will be tougher than the tank! It's still not a good environment for the development of heavy armor. I would definitely expect light armor with an emphasis on maneuverability... and honestly, I don't expect -good- armor at all. Navy and air forces are the senior Mid services, and the Army gets what's left over...

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Keroko

I don't. As we've seen in our many debates, visuals can vary due to many varying factors, including but not limited to: Budget, dramatic effect and simple errors.

Unfortunately, you are, more often than not, unable to find specific errors. Me, on the other hand, present specific visual evidence, complete with analysis if I want to override a piece of text.

To use your general position, it'll be akin of me using the Executor 5-mile fiasco to justify throwing out all text.

Take the Divine Buster Extension for example, a classic example of dramatization.

Calculations show that the beam moved at... 10m/s I think it was? Quite slow. I believe that makes the DBE one of the slowest attack we've seen on screen. According to your logic, seeing it is the best canon support, so DBE is the slowest attack in Nanohaverse.

~16m/s.

In come the booklets, which label DBE as a 'High-speed attack'

A clear contradiction with what we've 'seen' and yet, we have a clear statement that specifically labels DBE as a high-speed attack, despite the act that we've seen attacks that weren't labeled as such move faster. Of course, I simply say that the visuals were slowed for dramatic effect, and that the attack was much faster then what the visuals displayed, which also conveniently explains why Vita didn't just step out of the way of the crawling attack.

Now, a few points:
1) "High-speed" is not specific. High speed? Relative to what? Relative to magic bombs fired by the average Middie 9-year old mage? If anything, the speed range shown in the show is much more specific than vague statements of "high-speed", and thus it defines what the author meant when she scribbed "High-speed".
2) She also mumbled something about "an instant", but if that was literally true under normal definitions of "instant", Vita won't have time to change expression like she did, so that was a self-bust there. If instant is only figurative, then it can mean almost anything.
3) Again, the source is in-universe, not God's eye, as can be seen in the many times when the author clearly shows doubt in the conclusion ("it is thought" and all that). It is entirely possible the writer did not even see a video of the attack before writing that.

So no, I don't call 'actually seeing it' the best canon support. Visuals are influenced by many factors, and thus aren't a 100% accurate representation of speed and the like. Booklets and dialog state facts and actually informative information, rather then visuals affected by 'what looks cool in this scene?'

I'll say that books and dialogue are at least equally influenced by what sounds good. If you say they slowed down the beam because it looked better that way, I can say, with at least equal validity, they embellished the speed of the round on the page because that's how it'll read best.

I also notice "the budget" is not listed as a factor here. Is it because you know actually portraying it as "an instant" would probably be cheaper from all the saved frames?

Or another example, Signum's Sturmfalken, which was labeled as a sonic attack in the booklets I believe. I actually amused you here by doing *drum roll* calculations. *gasp*

"Supersonic"

There is a nice scene starting at frame 24173, which shows the arrow very close to the screen. The scene ends at 24193, a mere 20 frames later. The AVI version I have has 24 frames a second, and the timer gives me a time of approximately 0,835 seconds for the scene.

I remember doing similar calcs in the past. Doesn't sound too far off but that's my ancient memory. Few frames is good here

Here's where things became harder, the arrow itself, judging by its size compared to Signum's arm, is a good 1 meter 20. Now, I may need your help in this, as I suck at estimating distances, but in the final frame of the scene, the arrow hardly looks more then 10 meters away.

Away from what? Signum? Or from the screen. I know you suck at estimating distances by eye, so why don't you show how you calculated the distance? You've seen countless of my samples, you should know how to do this by now.

Assuming my estimates and calculations are correct, then that means the arrow crossed a distance of 10 meters in 0,835 seconds. Or rather, it had a speed of not even 10 m/s.

10/0.835=~11.97m/s. Please tell me that was a chance error.

Last I checked, sonic speed wasn't achieved until around 343 m/s.

Close to the ground, at 20 degrees Celcius. The day that they were fighting, less ... its a cold day

Calculated, the speed isn't sonic. And yet, the people and Seven Arcs labeled it an attack surpassing sonic speeds.

Try this. Start by calculating Signum's approximate distance from the BoD. There are some nice frames before the shot is fired that you can use. Then time.

Here's what you should find. First range Signum. Try frame 23192. If your frame counter is different, then just aim for the last frame before the far shot blends into a middle shot. If you range using the far normal 85mm lens, you'll find Signum is ~9px (+/-1) high out of a 640x480 picture, ranging about 289m (low 260, high 325), and if you assume the close normal, 35mm, about 127m.

Now, let's head to frame 24150. Now, I agree the arrow is more or less 1.2m. Measure the arrow now because the perspective doesn't change at all through the next few frames. You should get roughly 73.5 px/640.

Note how the arrow leapt as it went from 24152 to 24153, moving at least some 477px (more because the arrowhead is already well past the screen, but let's start with that for lower limits). If 73.5 is 1.2m, then 477px is about 7.78m, all right? So just there, 7.78/(1/24)=~187m/s.

Nominally, there were 48 (24153-200) frames between shot and impact, which makes it a high subsonic shot (~145m/s, high ~162.5, low 130). However, given that there were two cutscenes, the first of which is a deliberate repeat (24172-24193), and the second is also a partial repeat, plus a shockwave, I see no reason there to deny the shot a marginally supersonic status. And even in the worst case, it was probably the fastest shot they ever depicted.

So no. With all this, I am having severe trouble accepting calculations as the end-all canon. Booklets and vocals > calculations.

Try what I recommended above first.

In the meantime, let's assume you are right so we can examine methodology.

Now, if you are right, then at best you have equality in specificity. Unfortunately, that still leaves reliability. Remember, out of universe vs in-universe.

A destroyed tank, as in a tank that can't do anything anymore, is little more then a pile of rubble, no? If it can still work, then it's merely damaged, no?

Yes, but that's far from being "rubble". Even a "catastrophic" kill of a tank which blasts the turret 50 feet high doesn't turn it into rubble, but the tank's undoubtedly destroyed.

Oh, I have an idea:

A candidate, but prove that this was it.

They were people fighting one another with mass-based weaponry,

A bow and arrow is mass weaponry.

had access to ships that could travel between dimensions.

Better.

By all means their technology was more advanced then ours, what reason do I have to assume they didn't have decent tanks?

I'll agree it is a reasonable interpolation IF you have no other data. But to insist on such in the face of counterevidence is pure dogma.

Whatever their technology was more advanced in, it was not in the field of making high or even medium velocity ammo.

The Death Star would have taken '60 seconds' to fire, but ended up taking 3 minutes. Why? Dramatization. Saying 60 seconds creates a whole different tension level then saying 3 minutes.

Does the scheme of "scene-cuts" go beyond your head?

Hah? You don't mind dramatization? Then what's with all the speed calculations you do? If dramatization doesn't bother you, then you wouldn't be calculating and claiming those calculations absolute in the first place.

Here, IMO, is the difference between me and you. I look at the scenes and the booklets. If the conclusion is that they are slow, well then, that's it.

By intent, I'm aware they probably chose a slow speed because it'll look better. In SoD, within the reality of the universe, however, the end result is that they are slow, period. That's the price you pay for looking good, kind of like doing flashy moves in a real fight - it might look flashy but it'll probably disadvantage you against a competent opponent.

I might formulate some explanation for it, but it'll always 'circle' the fact they are slow, and if I can't formulate an explanation I won't feel bothered. If that means they'll never beat a competent Terran army or a mage army that's actually designed on competent principles, that's fine by me too.

Going by intent, they were never meant to, and IMO the authors even go out of their way to make sure they'll never fight a competent mass-weapon wielding army, first with that mass-weapon thing, then by shafting the mass weapons' greatest advantage: speed. In SoD they just never had to do so - they just explained, IMO, why the mages were competitive. It wasn't because they were faster than they looked, but because the weapons were suckier than we thought. That, IMO, is the more consistent answer (after all, we had seen the mages but we hadn't seen the mass weapons yet), and I have no problem with it.

Another example, Barrier Jackets. You know what I concluded. You'll notice I have little problem accepting that conclusion either. I don't need the barrier jackets to be better than what I see just to accept them. I accept them as depicted, regardless of whether it is dramatization or not.

It is all good entertainment, even if it means they'll never beat true competence.

You, on the other hand, claim to accept it but actually mind dramatization intensely. 100m/s is better entertainment than 600m/s. You claim anime is supposed to be entertaining and not real, yet you insist on the "realistic" (Terran standard) velocity in defiance of what you see. Sometimes, you at least have a vague counter-source and you use that to try to deny what you see. More often you have zip, like our Miriage arty shell. If you are right, the actual scene would have been far less entertainining, but you don't seem to care about that.

Of course, any thoughts about realism or Terran standard goes when there's a chance of leetness. If Fate faints after being knocked two meters in the wall, it must be dramatization and the crash must have been faster. If Fate survives being knocked at 10000km/s and goes through half the planet, like hell that was dramatization to you.

Anyway, I am dramatizing here. The dramatization here is "Holy- Did Subaru just survive an artillery shell?!"

Downgrading the power of that shell would go against dramatization.

Personally, I find the concept of her surviving even a grenade pretty nice. I see no need to make her what she is not, unlike you.

Hardly. I am doing this in the right order. Referring to my quote above, the whole point of that scene was to make the audience to 'wow' at the fact that Subaru survived being blasted by that shell. Otherwise there wouldn't have been a point in specifically mentioning its power.

So no, we don't downgrade from Cinque at all.

Yeah, and I wowed. I didn't need it to be particularly powerful to wow. If it was the power of a hand grenade, it exploded anywhere close, and all that, I'm pretty impressed (especially considering my opinions on the general uselessness of Barrier Jackets against kinetic attacks).

If I kept moving & fighting after a near miss by a frag-grenade, while dressed in a T-shirt, would you be impressed? Probably. So why do you feel the need to upgrade the power of the "artillery shell" for Subaru?

Another question. From the flow of the story, it would seem reasonable to deduce that Subaru was pretty close to IX when the Miriage fired. We'll assume Subaru's barrier jacket is really l33t for this paragraph only, and she had no time to cast any protection. If that darn fragmentation shell was that powerful, how did the Ix, who's not in the protective field of the BJ, avoid being impaled by countless fragments?

And Mariage certainly did not say anything about a miss and certainly did not continue shooting. Neither did Ix, who concidered Subaru dead at that point. I still see no reason to assume anything but a direct hit. And since you lack any proof it was a miss, whereas I at least have some proof it was a hit...

What kind of proof is that? If they didn't say it was a miss it must have been a direct hit? What kind of logic is this.

In any case, since you've basically just said that Subaru DID NOT DODGE despite being given one second of flight time and several more of charge-up, suddenly Vita freezing like that during the 6-second flight time is given a lot of perspective.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

A: Magic trumps mass weaponry all the time. Mass weapons have been banned not because they're especially hazardous in fighting the TSAB but because any idiot can pick one up and start slaughtering civilians, and because of the secondary effects of their use (radioactive fallout, for example). If attacked by Earth troops with assault rifles, grenades, and rocket launchers, Nanoha is only in danger if Raising Heart accidentally falls asleep because it's so incredibly boring having her shields attacked by irrelevant forms of energy. The non-lethality of "magic damage" is a choice made by the mage creating the spell in line with the police/investigative function of the TSAB Enforcers rather than any limitation of the art. (re: magitanks, modern antitank tactics will simply bounce off their active barrier defenses)

B: To quote Gargoyles, energy is energy, whether created by magic or technology. Magic and mass weaponry interact on a level roughly equivalent to their observable effects. Barrier Jackets may stop bullets, but not repeated hits. Mass weapons have been banned largely because of the same reasons as in A, above, but do constitute an additional threat when taking them on (one reason why, for example, the TSAB hasn't just shut down the Orusian civil war by force). (re: magitanks, they lack heavy physical armor because they're designed to fight against enemies attacking with magic, not mass weapons)

C: As B above, but carried to its extreme: magic is inferior to mass weaponry. Non-lethality of magic isn't merely a matter of choice but a limiting effect. Mages are few and far between and one trooper with body armor and an M16 is quite capable of matching a Midchildan D-rank. Mass weapons have the added advantage of being able to be constructed on a variety of scales and equipping large segments of the population with destructive capacity. The mass weapons ban is essential for preserving TSAB superiority. (re: magitanks, they generally suck).

(Personally, I'm an A-shading-slightly-into-B territory kind of guy, but like I said, that's completely an artificial selection for personal narrative purposes. There's just no viable evidence.)

Personally, I used to be pretty much pure C. However, recent evidence had moved me to embrace all three positions simultaneously.

First, as far as the competition between mages as we know them and the mass weapons they actually have to fight (read: in-unvierse), it is almost certainly mostly A. They've just canonically shafted two of the biggest advantages of mass weapons - speed and firing reaction. The two are big advantages. Basically, that's the end of surprise, outranging, and the end of trying to use KE penetration. This allows magic's advantages to shine.

Against an enemy with competently designed mass weapons, say their tech level combined with our concepts, or even our tech level, but perhaps with the combined-arms mix altered to optimize for anti-mage work, it'll be close to C. Not many years ago, this would not have been so true. For example, not many years ago, low-flying mages would have a much easier time staying undetected through our air-defense net, and would undoubtedly find penetrating many older nets relatively easy even now, but as they modernize this hole closes.

B is for the fringe scenarios, such as surprise, or maybe say a S-mage attacking. BUt such circumstances are rare and will be washed away by the majority.

As for the potential for magical weapon development, well, ATC seems optimistic, but I'm not. They already had many years of war, and even if magical weapons had the advantage, it would seem reasonable they will do their best to maximize their advantage with continued R&D. The fact that the weapons are in the current state argues they were clearly close to engineering limits. Without some major, unknown breakthrough or some completely new approach, it is very likely what we see is the tech limit.

[Avatar_notADV]

I don't buy the "many years of war" argument.

Their forces are active, but in the British Imperial sense - there's a lot of "colonial" happenings where small-scale action is necessary. Nanoha and Fate (and to a lesser extent, Hayate) have combat experience, but we have no reason to believe that either Nanoha or Hayate have ever had a large body of troops under their command, and Fate even less so (given that she's been in the Enforcers). Certainly they've never commanded in what a modern military would recognize to be a field action.

Mid is more or less peaceful. They don't keep a large army. RF6 is a LtCol slot, but it's got the effective combat strength of two squads. (Two hellacious squads! But seriously, a dozen combat effectives and a long tail.) It's not intended to be a combat posting; it's an investigation unit and a training command.

Subaru joined the military because she wanted to get into disaster relief. That's a -VERY- Japanese way of thinking about the military - i.e. it ain't really a military. It's certainly not something you'd think about from the perspective of one with significant "war" experience.

Mid did a lot of fighting, back in the day, but not a whole lot recently, and nothing significant since the start of the show.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

It could also be a combination of politics and applications.

The last major mass weapons war I can think they would have had would probably have been a sixties style nuke exchange. And all conflict since that nightmare was more or less magical based. So the magical combat abilities are maximized with typical magical composition in mind. What's the term... a Paradigm Shift. Most of the combat we've seen seems to be barrier and counter-barrier fighting. Since Magical defense and offense are generally even without any kind of trade off, concepts we developed in Vietnam and during the height of the cold war aren't really imagined because the nearest lessons of that got NUKED a hundred years back. So things like Precision long range weapons, point defenses, and BVR engagements just aren't thought about, and when they are, it's usually something of olde school artillery barrage bar Hayate.

I can actually name precisely one specific attack NANOHA uses quite often that could benifit to just the application of simple physics principles.

Divine Buster.

Did you know you can make that attack 960 times stronger than it currently is without adding any energy to it?

Here's how it works. Nanoha fires a roughly 2 meter wide beam of energy for a period of up to six seconds.

First, compress the beam down to a size of ten centimeters, increasing the energy density of the beam itself by 20 X.
Next, compress the discharge time. Instead of releasing the energy as a stream for 6 seconds, compress it into a bolt discharged in 1/8 of a second, further increasing the energy density by 48 X.

20 x 48 = 960

Now, the following math may be flawed, but I think you'll get the idea even if I bungled it. I went over and corrected the fact that I was jumping between time periods a few times.

We'll face Nanoha against an opponent who has a recharging barrier. This barrier recharges at a rate just slightly higher than what Divine Buster Dishes out in energy per second.

Nanoha's 'typical' buster does. 1 damage a second per meter width of beam. The opponent can 'recharge' one meater of barrier defense at a rate of 1.1 a second. After discharging for six seconds. Nanoha delivers 12 damage total from her divine buster to the opponents barrier.

The person recharges 13.2 units and effectively stays just above the beam penetration point.

If nanoha takes that energy and compresses it to ten centimeters. She delivers 0.2 damage to a ten cm spot. This spot can only restore 0.11 damage per second because the user is trying to cover 1.1 per meter.
Nanoha attains an effective overkill of 0.09 damage to that location in the single second, overpowering the defense with ease.

If nanoha then compresses the discharge time to a bolt 1/8 of a second.

She delivers 12 damage in 125 miliseconds.

The enemy barrier recharge for the ten cm size at only 1/8 a second is 0.014

So with the energy compressed to a high density bolt, nanoha delivers 12 units of damage to a segment and has 11.986 damage left over that isn't simply working to overpower the recharge. That level over overkill, where almost all the defensive energy is dealt with in less than half the first second's worth of buster energy.

Having effectively 11.5 + units of buster energy left over that's 'excess', nanoha could THEN trim down the excess and rapidly fire off 24 bolts, each individually capable of penetration. All from the energy it takes to fire one divine buster that fails.

The principle is very basic. More energy to a smaller target area for a shorter period of time means less dispersion and waste and higher probability of defeating the defense.

It's just like the bullet vs baseball bat. They have about the same force. But the bat only gives you a concussion. The bullet rips your gray matter out the back of your skull.

[al103]

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

Did you know you can make that attack 960 times stronger than it currently is without adding any energy to it?

I think compressing have limitations. So it's more likely choice between something like 4 times damage on small beam or smaller damage on larger... Scrap that. It easily could be leakage from small "core beam" which may be bullet size...

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

Subaru joined the military because she wanted to get into disaster relief. That's a -VERY- Japanese way of thinking about the military - i.e. it ain't really a military. It's certainly not something you'd think about from the perspective of one with significant "war" experience.

You know what? TSAB is NOT military. Military is only part of TSAB. And Belkan Saint Church is also part of TSAB or at least they knighthood is. And Disaster Relief. And police. And forestry service. And hell-if-i-know but many other things are. And it's highly understandable that "core" world in "safe" territory like Mid have proportion of military units to nonmilitary units like 1:100, especially give number of that nonmilitary units it could be easily be supposed that if something happened military will show in time. Cradle was not only not a normal threat level it's borderline to "alien space bats just blown Australia" one on Earth now. So i say that - we didn't see how TSAB military units act, because the were elsewhere. What we did see is how pen-pushers, smuggling investigators, disaster relief clerks and academy trainees of TSAB act in combat situation. And what can i say - for REMF and "civilians" - not bad at all.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Unfortunately, you are, more often than not, unable to find specific errors. Me, on the other hand, present specific visual evidence, complete with analysis if I want to override a piece of text.

To use your general position, it'll be akin of me using the Executor 5-mile fiasco to justify throwing out all text.

I suppose I could take you up on your challenge and list a few counterpoints, but I really don't feel like making this debate personal. If we could both just refrain from making personal comments like this, I'm sure it'll make this sound less like a flame war.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Now, a few points:
1) "High-speed" is not specific. High speed? Relative to what? Relative to magic bombs fired by the average Middie 9-year old mage? If anything, the speed range shown in the show is much more specific than vague statements of "high-speed", and thus it defines what the author meant when she scribbed "High-speed".
2) She also mumbled something about "an instant", but if that was literally true under normal definitions of "instant", Vita won't have time to change expression like she did, so that was a self-bust there. If instant is only figurative, then it can mean almost anything.
3) Again, the source is in-universe, not God's eye, as can be seen in the many times when the author clearly shows doubt in the conclusion ("it is thought" and all that). It is entirely possible the writer did not even see a video of the attack before writing that.

1) Irrelevant. It was specifically labeled a High Speed attack while it wasn't measured and compared as such.
2) Which only proves that visuals are less reliable then booklets.
3) Very possible. Script generally predates visuals.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

I'll say that books and dialogue are at least equally influenced by what sounds good. If you say they slowed down the beam because it looked better that way, I can say, with at least equal validity, they embellished the speed of the round on the page because that's how it'll read best.

On the contrary, the booklets were meant to be informative. While you have a point that they may write things in a way that will read best, that does not change that the goal of the booklets is to inform, rather then the anime's goal to entertain.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

I also notice "the budget" is not listed as a factor here. Is it because you know actually portraying it as "an instant" would probably be cheaper from all the saved frames?

It would, but budget is a tricky thing. If you cut everywhere, you're left with little that looks cool. It's a choice between extending a scene for dramatization and cutting it for budget.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Away from what? Signum? Or from the screen. I know you suck at estimating distances by eye, so why don't you show how you calculated the distance? You've seen countless of my samples, you should know how to do this by now.

I expected you to lunge for your own files and do calculations yourself. My apologies.

Examples away!

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

10/0.835=~11.97m/s. Please tell me that was a chance error.

It was. Or rather, it was a typo on my part, I meant to say 'not even 12'

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Close to the ground.

Yes, but I doubt simply being in the sky would change that to 12 m/s.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Try this. Start by calculating Signum's approximate distance from the BoD. There are some nice frames before the shot is fired that you can use. Then time. You should find that the round can just reach supersonic if you assume images taken with lenses in the normal-perspective range (you'll have to use the far end, though - the near end IIRC is about high subsonic, but is still faster than just about any shot shown on screen).

If you says so...

Using this frame, Signum is about 16 pixels tall. Nanoha at 8 pixels was about 100 meters away if I remember, Signum is twice as tall as Nanoha, 16 pixels would put her at a similar distance, correct? Then assuming 100 meters distance, and the total elapsed time from the shot being fired till hitting is 2,044 seconds (shot fired at 0:16:47.298, shot hit at 0:16:49.342). Calculating, 100/2,044 leaves us with a total speed of 48,9 m/s, which still doesn't even get close to supersonic speeds.

And claiming it makes a slow start leaves you to explain the shockwave after firing. After all, you do keep saying not to discard any observations...

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Now, if you are right, then at best you have equality in specificity. Unfortunately, that still leaves reliability. Remember, out of universe vs in-universe.

Yes, and intent. The booklets are intended to be informative, whereas the anime is intended to be entertaining. As a source of information, which one is more reliable? One created for the purpose of informing, or one created for the purpose of entertainment?

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Yes, but that's far from being "rubble". Even a "catastrophic" kill of a tank which blasts the turret 50 feet high doesn't turn it into rubble, but the tank's undoubtedly destroyed.

I suppose or definitions of rubble differ there. A pile of metal that doesn't move is rubble to me.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

A candidate, but prove that this was it.

I did. That nice and shiny screenshot I posted there. Where's your proof it wasn't?

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

A bow and arrow is mass weaponry.

... They had nukes, robots and spaceships capable of dimensional travel Ark, not to mention Mariage, a weapon from that era, is equipped with firearms. On the flipside, there is zero evidence they didn't fight with these weaponry.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

I'll agree it is a reasonable interpolation IF you have no other data. But to insist on such in the face of counterevidence is pure dogma.

Then what about being kicked through concrete? Fate got kicked smashed several layers of earth-style concrete, and yet in StrikerS concrete suddenly became 'Midcrete?' Or what about the aforementioned booklets providing crystal clear counterevidence to your calculations?

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Whatever their technology was more advanced in, it was not in the field of making high or even medium velocity ammo.

That is based on the assumption that your calculations are accurate.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Does the scheme of "scene-cuts" go beyond your head?

Concidering I've worked in the editor business, no, no it doesn't.

But I'm amazed that suddenly, with a clear example of calculations not working, editorial techniques have become a valid explanation. We're making progress here.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

personal rant.

This is... interesting. Yet your view considering me is somewhat off. For example, I don't mind dramatization, for I realize that slowing down a projectile to make it look cool is.. well.. to make it look cool.

I also realize that when a comparison is made to a real-life weapon, then that weapon is assumed to be 'working as usual' even if the effect may not be displayed as such. Call it an aftereffect of having finished an education with animation. You'll find that many people in the animation industry share my thoughts. I recall a scene in an anime I saw recently, where a girl had the power to create things with words. She created a Flak 88 at one time, and fired it. The shot missed her enemy, but a buddy kicked the bullet back to her enemy.

It was a real weapon, it fired a real bullet at real speeds. After all, why that was the intent of the scene, to make everything look awesome. I know that realistically speaking this is impossible, and that when calculated the speeds don't add up, but I don't mind. Because it looked awesome.

Oh, and your last line is a bit off. In both cases I would claim dramatization. There are many ways to dramatize after all.

As I said above, I will refrain from commenting my views on you. I have no desire to let this debate become personal and steeped in biased observations of one another.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Another question. From the flow of the story, it would seem reasonable to deduce that Subaru was pretty close to IX when the Miriage fired. We'll assume Subaru's barrier jacket is really l33t for this paragraph only, and she had no time to cast any protection. If that darn fragmentation shell was that powerful, how did the Ix, who's not in the protective field of the BJ, avoid being impaled by countless fragments?

She's Ix. The girl who wandered in a burning, collapsing building. An ancient immortal control device for Mariage. Aside from the fact that she most likely wasn't next to Subaru (the battle sounds like Mariage was pushing her back) she most likely has some system installed to keep her safe. Kinda like Vivio's Barrier of the Saint King.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

What kind of proof is that? If they didn't say it was a miss it must have been a direct hit? What kind of logic is this.

*shrug* Well you get to claim it was a miss without any backup, whereas I at least have some backup.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

In any case, since you've basically just said that Subaru DID NOT DODGE despite being given one second of flight time and several more of charge-up, suddenly Vita freezing like that during the 6-second flight time is given a lot of perspective.

Dramatization rears its head again. It's much more dramatic to hear Ix scream before the shot is fired.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by al103

I think compressing have limitations. So it's more likely choice between something like 4 times damage on small beam or smaller damage on larger... Scrap that. It easily could be leakage from small "core beam" which may be bullet size...

Nonsense. You can pack an INSANE amount of energy into a very small space. Humans are NOT the most spectacular things in the universe, and our living environment is certainly not a very large extremety range. (In fact, our 'survivable environment' is such a narrow area of conditions that it's totally pitiful. We can only survive in a temperature range roughly forty degrees (F) in each direction, and our pressure tolerance ranges are no better.)


Why do you think nuclear weapons are so effective? You pack a WHOLE lot of energy into some atomic nuclei and then come along and split them...

"BOOM!!!"

There's more energy in a gram of anti-duterium than nanoha could fire in her most powerful multi-starlight breaker attack several times over. We're talking about roughly the material composition that can fit in pellet balanced on the tip of your finger.

And we're nowhere NEAR the maximum possible energy density a space can handle. To even come close to that energy density, you have to pack the mass of three suns into a space less than the size of the Earth and scale apropriately.
Commonly they're reffered to on astronomical terms, and are called black holes.


As for 'energy bleed'. I don't buy that. If the buster bleeds, so would everything else. Busters aren't the only attacks she knows, and her crazy shooter spheres are pretty powerful too. They have entry/exit holes when they hit things like drones, and they match up perfectly in shape and size.

Nanoha's wall busting divine buster most certainly didn't blow a massive MASSIVE hole in the airport roof from energy bleed from a bullet width beam. The hole is disproportionately huge even for a hole that would be blown by a high speed projectile of comprable size to a 'core' beam. So it's definately no fist or bullet sized beam with crazy bleed. (If that were the case, the bleed would also bloom out behind the firing point, and the energy bloom would be significant enough to cook anyone near Nanoha.)

[Keroko]

Wasn't 'packing a lot of energy in a small projectile' somewhat the basics of Teana and Vice's shooting? I recall Vice pumping 3 cartridges worth of bullets in his rifle, yet the shot didn't increase much in size.

[Arkeus]

Actually, in a fic i am writing the compression rate of magic depends heavily on the control of the mage. So nanoha does compress her DB as much as she can...but the stress it takes on both her mind and linker core makes it limited.

As for "snipers", vice taking on the dual wielding Numbers next to Tea was an exemple. It's hard to say the distance though.

Any, ATC, Nanoha magic is baded on Tech and Programs. It's easy to theorize that the compression rate of a program is limited if you want it to be "safe".

Same with the Arc-en-Ciel. I don't believe it's the strongest weapon they can make. Just that it's the strongest weapon that they can sort of control.

Edit: Keroko: yeah, but it took them a while to learn to do it quickly. And it increased the rank of the magic to AA rank. Also, it wasn't just compressing, but forming a secondary bubble around the primary "bullet".

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Keroko

1) Irrelevant. It was specifically labeled a High Speed attack while it wasn't measured and compared as such.
2) Which only proves that visuals are less reliable then booklets.
3) Very possible. Script generally predates visuals.

1) That's the problem with dialogue. It lacks specificity. I'm sure you agree with the general principle to retain all evidence as best as possible. Thus, when all is equal, the less specific source is always defined in terms of the more specific one. The other choice is to cut out the more specific source, forcing a contradiction. As a rule, that is less preferable to say the least.
2) I find it amusing that you didn't even consider the opposite alternative.
3) If that's true, from an out-of-universe perspective then wouldn't the visual override it if it is made later? So in-universe or out of universe, it is at a disadvantage.

On the contrary, the booklets were meant to be informative. While you have a point that they may write things in a way that will read best, that does not change that the goal of the booklets is to inform, rather then the anime's goal to entertain.

If they really meant to inform us, they'll have written numbers. I'll say they were mostly trying to entertain us. And at least you admitted the possibility of embellishment.

I expected you to lunge for your own files and do calculations yourself. My apologies.

Actually, I ran out of patience and did, but you managed to post first. Still, I'm happy you at least made the attempt - you know I've been spending all of last year trying to get you to do this. Makes me enthusiastic.

If you says so...

Using this frame, Signum is about 16 pixels tall. Nanoha at 8 pixels was about 100 meters away if I remember, Signum is twice as tall as Nanoha, 16 pixels would put her at a similar distance, correct? Then assuming 100 meters distance, and the total elapsed time from the shot being fired till hitting is 2,044 seconds (shot fired at 0:16:47.298, shot hit at 0:16:49.342). Calculating, 100/2,044 leaves us with a total speed of 48,9 m/s, which still doesn't even get close to supersonic speeds.

All right, I'll go over what you did

First, you should, for the benefit of your own side, pick a later shot than 23187. 23192 is theoretically better (both in the accuracy and benefit for your own side argument), but we'll do 23187 first. First of all, I know it is a bit blurry but there is no way that was 16px tall. Zoom in: 16 px tall means you are sampling a lot of black cloud. Try 9px tall +/-1 is more like it.

As an aside, 23192 is theoretically better, but in the case it makes no difference - still around 9px +/-1.

Now, to get range. A review (I'm sure I talked about this a long time ago, but there was little point in repeating it when you weren't even trying): The actual focal length (FOV) of the scene is unknown, but the normal range of focal lengths is around 35-85mm (horizontal FOVs 23.9-54.4 degrees) - this range is the approximate range from which the perspective (sense of distance) is not seriously altered when viewed normally. In other words, we basically either assume the scene is taken somewhere in this range, or the author was indeed trying to screw our scenetaking and the visual is stadiametrically unrangeable. Which might sound like an attractive idea to you, but I don't think badly out of perspective anime fit anyone's appetite, nor the idea the maker is deliberately trying to screw you, and not even for the budget!

At 35mm, 16 pixels out of 640 pixels (remember, it is not just the total number of pixels, it is actually the ratio of the subtended pixels to the total number of pixels because that's how you derive the approximate subtended angle) for a 200cm target (since you said that Signum was twice Nanoha's height, and it is hard to believe Nanoha is less than 1m tall - I doubt Signum is really quite that tall but oh well...) is 84m. At 85mm it is 191.68m. For 9 pixels (+/-1), the ranges go from ~306-383m, 9 pixels exactly is ~340m.

And claiming it makes a slow start leaves you to explain the shockwave after firing. After all, you do keep saying not to discard any observations...

The shockwave strongly implies, but does not absolutely prove that the target has gone supersonic at least at one point. Within the range of valid interpretations of the scene, I am obliged to take one that makes all the data fit, if there is one. Agreed?

Which means taking the 85mm focal length. Yes, and before you ask, generally I choose the 35mm focal length. Within the range of interpretations, within the ones that fit data you take the most plausible (I'm sure I mentioned this too), and given their poor ergonomic layout of their weapons (we've discussed this, search thread), the longer the shot the less believable it is, so the closest range is chosen. And no, increasing the speed of Nanoha's shot to ~20.5m/s does not solve the "high speed", much less the "instant" problem anyway, so that's not a factor in consideration.

Further evidence to lock out the close-in interpretations. Take frame 24150. Now, I agree the arrow is more or less 1.2m. Measure the arrow now because the perspective doesn't change at all through the next few frames - note that because the arrow is always on the same distance plane, there's no need to guess at the focal range. You should get roughly 73.5 px/640.

Note how the arrow leapt as it went from 24152 to 24153, moving at least some 477px (more because the arrowhead is already well past the screen, but let's start with that for lower limits). If 73.5 is 1.2m, then 477px is about 7.78m, all right? So just there, 7.78/(1/24sec)=~187m/s. So much for your speed and range estimate.

So, target range can't be more than 383m, probably less, and 48 frames or so. Fortunately, there were not one, but two cutscenes. Cutscenes are time honored ways of repeating action, and in fact, if you look at the 24173-24193 cutscene, you'll note that in the first frame, the arrow wasn't glowing but glowed later. If you review how the arrow increased in glow in the 24152-24172 sequence, you can see that really, they were doing the first scene all over again, tracking the viewpoint of the arrowhead. Given this, it seems reasonable that the second cutscene also loopbacked about halfway so we can see the arrow hit the target.

In short, the sequence was like this:
24152--------------------24172
24173--------------------24193
----------------24194------24200 (impact)

In all, the fire to impact sequence was definitely over 20 frames (because at 24193 it hadn't yet hit the target), but as long as the real sequence isn't over 24, technically it did exceed the speed of sound ... barely, but it did. There's also technically the path of altering the speed of the sequences since it is not VTLed but I don't love destroying even non VTLed time sequence.

Yes, and intent. The booklets are intended to be informative, whereas the anime is intended to be entertaining. As a source of information, which one is more reliable? One created for the purpose of informing, or one created for the purpose of entertainment?

One is the information all will watch and gets the effort of the whole team. The other only a small percentage and probably scribbled by some junior staffer. Which one is created more carefully is obvious.

I did. That nice and shiny screenshot I posted there. Where's your proof it wasn't?

You want to claim that was the particular explosion, the burden's on you!

... They had nukes, robots and spaceships capable of dimensional travel Ark, not to mention Mariage, a weapon from that era, is equipped with firearms. On the flipside, there is zero evidence they didn't fight with these weaponry.

I'm just pointing out saying they had "mass weaponry" wasn't the wittiest move. "(Picks up rock) Look out, Keroko, I've got mass weaponry!"

Then what about being kicked through concrete? Fate got kicked smashed several layers of earth-style concrete, and yet in StrikerS concrete suddenly became 'Midcrete?' Or what about the aforementioned booklets providing crystal clear counterevidence to your calculations?

You'll notice I accepted that Fate was chucked through real concrete. Basically, we know Earth doesn't use Midcrete, but we don't know about Mid. As far as scientific implausibility goes, it is the difference between a curious and troublesome, but probably solvable engineering choice and a physical and biological impossibility for a human.

What crystal clear counterevidence? Do you mean the stuff that could almost describe my T-shirt?

That is based on the assumption that your calculations are accurate.

True. Now, did you at least understand how I got to my conclusion? If you do, can you show propose how I'm wrong and propose your own superior solution (by the way, saying that the main soundtrack is wrong is not a superior solution, but I'm sure you know that).

But I'm amazed that suddenly, with a clear example of calculations not working, editorial techniques have become a valid explanation. We're making progress here.

Not as much as you think, probably. Remember the kernel of SoD is always to try and treat it as if it were sources of real events. Given the need to rationalize and all, cutscenes are the best solution.

Search deep back, I even allowed speed ups and slow downs of the time intrascene. Just not VTL, and you keep trying to get me to change the timings of VTL scenes, and that's probably where you got the idea that I'm completely inflexible on this time changes. It is just that you constantly ask for the least logical timechange, even when there is a perfectly plausible alternative of changing the time of a non-VTL scene.

This is... interesting. Yet your view considering me is somewhat off. For example, I don't mind dramatization, for I realize that slowing down a projectile to make it look cool is.. well.. to make it look cool.

I also realize that when a comparison is made to a real-life weapon, then that weapon is assumed to be 'working as usual' even if the effect may not be displayed as such. Call it an aftereffect of having finished an education with animation. You'll find that many people in the animation industry share my thoughts. I recall a scene in an anime I saw recently, where a girl had the power to create things with words. She created a Flak 88 at one time, and fired it. The shot missed her enemy, but a buddy kicked the bullet back to her enemy.

I assume the shot was going at a speed comparable to a soccer ball when it missed. I assume the "buddy" is "intended" to be more or less normal, or at least his super-power was not "super-speed" or anything like that.

It was a real weapon, it fired a real bullet at real speeds. After all, why that was the intent of the scene, to make everything look awesome. I know that realistically speaking this is impossible, and that when calculated the speeds don't add up, but I don't mind. Because it looked awesome.

OK, the author was trying for that, but now, what I want to ask is, what is your mental construction of the scene. It wasn't what was shown, but what you think the author intended. Which I suppose means the simulacra Flak 88 fired a shot at about 820 m/s. I can guess the enemy was a lot less than 100m away in the show. Was he still at less at 100m or did you move him in your mind? If you didn't, the shot's due to miss the enemy in less than 1/8th of a second. So, where is the buddy now. What are the new timeframes for him to see the bullet, react, kick it ... etc. Details!

Or did you just replay the scene as shown, with the round going at the speed of a soccer ball and all that.

Here's mine: A girl had the power to create things with words. However, words really are nothing without concepts, so one can surmise her real ability is to materialize objects with her imagination and words are only a convenient trigger. Obviously, her conception of the speed of the shell out of a Flak 88 is very weak and inaccurate, so even though she called a Flak88, what came out was her conception of it. I suppose you can almost guess the rest of my sequence now.

She's Ix. The girl who wandered in a burning, collapsing building. An ancient immortal control device for Mariage. Aside from the fact that she most likely wasn't next to Subaru (the battle sounds like Mariage was pushing her back) she most likely has some system installed to keep her safe. Kinda like Vivio's Barrier of the Saint King.

Then where was she?

*shrug* Well you get to claim it was a miss without any backup, whereas I at least have some backup.

It doesn't qualified.

Dramatization rears its head again. It's much more dramatic to hear Ix scream before the shot is fired.

I'm talking about the charge up whine of the MIriage's "arty",

[Avatar_notADV]

As far as the energy compression question is, it's not a question about whether the energy would exceed -the physical limits of the universe to hold energy-, but about whether it would exceed Nanoha and RH's abilities to get it there and make it do what they wanted.

We can safely assume that Ace-of-Aces Nanoha, Captain and White Devil, packs something of a harder punch than lil' Nanoha Takamachi, newbie mage, did. But how much? Nanoha was already using the big Busters enough to burn out in a couple of years as it was (which is one reason she's got the forwards on a training program with training wheels). Certainly doing what you suggest would have been even more of a strain on her.

(After all, doing the same thing in the physical universe certainly causes more stress!)

So one of the limiting factors is, well, how much energy throughput can Nanoha generate? And how much can she generate safely? Take the Starlight Breaker, a "more powerful" Nanoha-beam. It's a collection-type spell, meaning that Nanoha has to absorb magical energy from the environment to charge it; her energy reserves are not sufficient by themselves (or would produce, at best, a relatively-anemic SLB, not that I'm volunteering to stand in front of it or anything.) If Nanoha could achieve the same kind of increase in power just by changing a focusing parameter or two, with no risk or harm, what would be the point of the SLB?

There's also the question of RH. Devices can take quite a bit of energy, but we -know- there's a limit; "flaring Jewel Seed at point blank range" took RH and Bardiche both down, and that wasn't even energy they were attempting to use - they were just exposed to it and trying to save Nanoha's and Fate's lives.

That's not to say that no compression is possible. Nanoha's got a completely different move to form a shield penetrator, after all. But that one requires an elaborate charging sequence and lots of cartridges; Nanoha doesn't toss it off instantly, or even in the time it takes her to fire the Buster.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

As far as the energy compression question is, it's not a question about whether the energy would exceed -the physical limits of the universe to hold energy-, but about whether it would exceed Nanoha and RH's abilities to get it there and make it do what they wanted.

We can safely assume that Ace-of-Aces Nanoha, Captain and White Devil, packs something of a harder punch than lil' Nanoha Takamachi, newbie mage, did. But how much? Nanoha was already using the big Busters enough to burn out in a couple of years as it was (which is one reason she's got the forwards on a training program with training wheels). Certainly doing what you suggest would have been even more of a strain on her.

(After all, doing the same thing in the physical universe certainly causes more stress!)

There is no comprable action in real life to measure. We don't/can't exactly go around determining how much mentle stamina it takes to focus a flashlight beam into a laser.

So one of the limiting factors is, well, how much energy throughput can Nanoha generate? And how much can she generate safely? Take the Starlight Breaker, a "more powerful" Nanoha-beam. It's a collection-type spell, meaning that Nanoha has to absorb magical energy from the environment to charge it; her energy reserves are not sufficient by themselves (or would produce, at best, a relatively-anemic SLB, not that I'm volunteering to stand in front of it or anything.) If Nanoha could achieve the same kind of increase in power just by changing a focusing parameter or two, with no risk or harm, what would be the point of the SLB?

There's also the question of RH. Devices can take quite a bit of energy, but we -know- there's a limit; "flaring Jewel Seed at point blank range" took RH and Bardiche both down, and that wasn't even energy they were attempting to use - they were just exposed to it and trying to save Nanoha's and Fate's lives.

That's not to say that no compression is possible. Nanoha's got a completely different move to form a shield penetrator, after all. But that one requires an elaborate charging sequence and lots of cartridges; Nanoha doesn't toss it off instantly, or even in the time it takes her to fire the Buster.

I think of it as a factor akin to a water pump.

In thise case, Nanoha's linker core is a water pump connected to a hose. How much she can pump herself, plus external 'pressure' provided by a cartridge. I believe the only time the capability of the pump is a factor is during the pressurizing/charging phase of a spell.

In this case, the actual firing of the buster is not the straining point for Nanoha, it's the moments leading right up to it when she's building the charge. Once the energy is released, it's got nothing to do with her linker core, so the method of its release isn't a factor to strain.

As for holding and containing that energy. Up until the actual point of firing, it has to be held SOMEWHERE. Either that fist sized sphere, or some kind of internal capacitor in RH. Either way, their peak energy per unit time in a specified space is not a problem.

On top of this, using a high density bolt with a quick burst discharge should actually be easier on Nanoha's body in terms of strain because she only has to build a peak charge 1/24th that of a full divine buster to achieve equal to superior results.

If divine buster is 100% throughput,
the divine bolt is 4.2%

Even if you get a percentage strain increase from using a higher focus, you SAVE a much larger percent by reducing your peak energy cost by over 95%

Right now she's "Beamspam-chan." But she could be 'Bolt-Megami'.
(Or, White Devil Bolt Goddess)

[Avatar_notADV]

Are you familiar with stress mechanics?

Think about conventional firearms. You can fire "normal" bullets out of them without any problems. But you can't just get more bullet velocity by taking your bullet and putting twice as much powder in it. It's not as easy as saying "stress gets doubled", and at any rate, the point at which stress will affect the metallurgical qualities of the barrel is fixed for a given construct. Trying to pack more powder and a bigger projectile in will cause the barrel to burst. This is especially true if you've been stressing the weapon (say, by firing it) beforehand; the composition of the barrel changes somewhat when heated.

In order to accommodate a larger payload, you need a thicker, more robust barrel (and all the other parts involved in the action of the weapon). This is why you don't have machine-cannon, for example; while it would be technically possible to build a 16-inch naval cannon and fit a machine-loading device to it to allow for fully automatic fire, the stresses would quickly wreck the weapon in spectacular fashion.

Nanoha's not a gun barrel. We don't know how much short-term stress she's subject to when firing off a Buster. At the same time, we DO know that the long-term stress adds up, even at Buster/Breaker levels, much less in your proposed "do it all instantly kthx" mode. We also know that RH is at least theoretically subject to induced-stress problems, even if it never quite busts due to overload - they at least bring up the possibility of Nanoha severely damaging RH just by using Excelion Mode.

Nanoha brings the pain in the last couple of episodes of Strikers, but does some lasting damage to herself in the process. She CAN burn out by overdoing it, even at her normal "max exertion" level.

That said, trading time effectiveness for additional Nanoha-stress (and RH-stress) does not seem like a winning move to me. It's not like the Starlight Breaker's proved inadequate, right? ;p

[Wild Goose]

To use real-world, take the difference between 9mm Parabellum, 9mm+P, and .357 SIG. All rounds are of similar sizes, but 9mm+P rounds are loaded to higher pressures, which means that if you use them in a standard 9mm firearm, one not rated for +P rounds, you'll break the barrel. Likewise .357 SIG, which is a .357 Magnum round in a 9mm-size package: try and use it with a pistol that isn't meant to take the loads and you get nasty side effects.

[Jimmy C]

In addition to stress, we also don't know how shields interact with attacks to stop them. Nanohaverse shields do not fail locally when penetrated like real world physical armor. When a shield is penetrated, the whole shield goes down.
So do shields absorb the incoming energy until they overload and fail? Or do they cause the incoming energy to "splatter" on them like water sprayed onto concrete?
If shields can cause "bolt" type attacks to splatter, the effectiveness of such an attack would be sharply reduced.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by Avatar_notADV

Are you familiar with stress mechanics?
-Snip-

I know about fluid dynamics and metal fatigue, as well are barrel warping and such with firearms, thank you. I'm a qualified US Army Marksman. (Or at least WAS)

Nanoha's not a gun barrel. -snip-

Right, and she's not detonating gunpowder and trying to contain an explosion in her ass either. She's forming and firing a directed energy beam from a point ahead of her on the tip of RH. It doesn't really matter how much energy is coming 'out of the barrel', because she's already converted the magical energy to a usable form and packed it into a small space and is holding it there at a compressed level. That's her peak energy just prior to "SHOOOT!" or 'BUSTAAAAA!!!!"

Logically, the high stress point as I've stated before will be during this peak energy moment. When she's got a Divine Buster or Starlight breaker's worth of energy packed into a small glowing charge orb ranging between the size of a fist, and a watermelon. (Sometimes bigger for the overkill monster attacks.)

To put it in your example, the point when the powder's being detonated is not when nanoha is firing the buster, but before then when she's gathered it up and is holding it in the brief few seconds before discharge. The actual point of the buster firing would be when the round leaves the barrel because it is at that moment that the pressure of the expanding gasses is free to be releaved.

Once she fires the buster, she's simply discharging the energy. She can't be actively channeling and converting all that energy as she fires it or the entire charging part of the attack would be nothing but wasted energy.


The long term stress on her physical body is most likely akin to getting stress fractures from over frequent high intensity jogging. Charge to stress limit, release, charge to stress limit, release. Repeat for a few years. Since the stress to her body comes from the high POWER spells, not the high concentration spells, then obviously the best course of action really would be for her to imrpove the density of her attacks. Because AGAIN, if you can get the job done with 1/24th the peak energy output it that would be used in a less efficient attack that failed, and get that 95% difference, you're talking about the difference between stabbing someone with a knife, or beating them to death with a baseball bat.