2008-12-11, 01:37 | Link #1661 |
Blazing General
Join Date: May 2006
Location: CA
Age: 37
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...since when? I can't believe nobody called me on that way back when we were arguing about the effectiveness of cyborgs as a replacement for mages and I was going on about how they can't really be mass-produced because they require relics.
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2008-12-11, 05:02 | Link #1663 |
Once and Current Subber
Join Date: Dec 2005
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Regius as a man of "immense moral courage"? I don't know if I can swallow that.
Villain? Eh. We can grant him pure motives, or at least semi-pure, in his decision that combat cyborg troops were necessary and that the only way to get them accepted would be to institute a deniable, "black" program to develop and deploy them. However, he falls down in a lot of other areas. He totally fails to keep Jail's ambitions in check. He's got no regular control or observation of Jail's operations. By the time Strikers has started, Jail is totally off the reservation, pursuing his own goals with forces of which Regius knows -nothing-. There's a good reason to keep a big cut-out between Jail's ops and what Regius knows about them, but it's not an admirable one - it's so that Regius can survive politically if Jail gets uncovered. In essence, Regius covered his own ass so far that he didn't see what was coming. At the same time, Regius is essentially cast as "Hayate's bureaucratic opposition". Regius is why Hayate doesn't have a big force instead of two squads. Regius is why Hayate has to make do with her old friends and a few rookies, instead of battle-hardened veterans of superior magical ability. Regius actively stomped on anti-AMF work, which is essentially what Hayate's unit is ostensibly for. (The fact that it is, in effect, the TSAB's derringer we can leave aside for the moment.) The latter decision makes no sense. If you've got a potential loose cannon, you don't take steps to make sure he's invulnerable, you actively work to limit the damage he can do if he goes rogue. You definitely don't make enemies of the small unit that can go in and clean up your mess (except to the extent that you're worried that they'll track down the connection to you; thus Regius' antipathy has a huge element of stupid cowardice in it, not moral courage.) There's also some straight-up prejudice. Hayate, Nanoha, and Fate represent what Regius doesn't want the TSAB to be - which is to say, an organization that relies on a small number of talented people. Of course he doesn't want to work with them or lean on them too much. Unfortunately for him, they're also conflated with the stuff he needed to prevent Jail from getting out of hand... His failure to see that, however, is difficult to excuse. The man's a staff officer, not a grunt. He damn well ought to be able to see past his own nose on such issues. A competent version of what Regius tried to do might have included attempting to sneak the Numbers into a military unit; they could then whip some drone butt, and then Regius could unveil their origin and trumpet their unusual effectiveness (not to mention his own far-sightedness in anticipating the threat that, er, he caused...) Instead he got himself and the portions of the TSAB leadership which supported him killed. Whoopsie. |
2008-12-11, 08:16 | Link #1664 | ||||||||||||||
Adeptus Animus
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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I've re-viewed the scene Subaru-scene, and it really is nothing more then a backflip kicking down the drone, followed by Subaru pinning down the drown and drilling into it before it got any chance to recover. We've seen plenty of examples of powerful mid-air attacks by non-flight capable mages and cyborgs, this one was even smoother then most of them.
An hydraulic pincer goes at slow speed, yet it can tear through even extremely tough metal like a knife through butter. Speed =/= power. Not does Subaru, a cyborg, going into a drone at slow speed prove anything about the drones armor. In fact, I can just as easily reverse the observation and say that since Subaru, with all the power she demonstrated in the manga, needed to drill into the drone slowly, the armor is actually very strong. Quote:
Random example: Neither can Nove, and yet she drop-kicked Subaru into a wall. And it's funny to see you stating Occam's razor, considering you often complicate things a lot more then is really necessary. Quote:
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Need I go on? All an auto-caster does is give a non-magic user a gun that uses magic instead of bullets. It doesn't make the user a mage, nor does it put them on the same level as a mage. Quote:
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I am blatantly blaming myself here. Quote:
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I have repeatedly shown that framerate doesn't say anything in regards to speed when it comes to animation, and yet you still take them as accurate and alter the composition of concrete to match your views! How the hell do those buildings stay upright with concrete like that? Which of us is doing the most physics-defying views here? You say I'm in denial and that the framerate calculations are accurate, I say you're in denial and that framerate calculations aren't accurate when it comes to animation. Pot. Kettle. Black. You want proof that the buildings are made out of normal concrete? Well, the mere fact that they are still in one piece rather then dust is enough proof for me. When Subaru got kicked into a wall by Nove, they were below the main HQ. That thing should have collapsed long ago were it made of material as weak as you are suggesting. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be over there claiming that drones have a leight-weight but bullet resistant armor that can only be penetrated by magic. Since you have no way to disprove it, you'll just have to accept it. Last edited by Keroko; 2008-12-11 at 08:28. |
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2008-12-11, 09:55 | Link #1665 |
Truth Martyr
Author
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Doing Anzu's paperwork.
Age: 38
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Lightweight bullet-resistant armor (which suggests kevlar or aramid fiber) merely means that you up the ante and get .50cal Tungsten AP rounds, Raufoss Mk 211 Mod 0 HE/API rounds, or just a bigger gun. Hispano-Suiza 20mm is a good option; lots of HS 20mm cannons made on Earth, which can be liberated and armed. Let's not forget also the RPG-7, which is also readily available.
Shaped charges area also a good way of penetrating armor. And they can even be handmade too.
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2008-12-11, 10:09 | Link #1666 |
Adeptus Animus
Author
Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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Actually, that was just me being snarky. If Ark can claim concrete that holds up entire buildings, items, and the people in it is made of some sort of nonexistant material that can't even stand up to a person getting tossed against it, rather then simply assume it's concrete and that his framerates are inaccurate, then I'm going to go ahead and say the Drones are made out of a material that is extremely light-weight and is impervious to bullets.
I hardly believe that, of course. I haven't even argued .50 calls being able to tear Type-I's to shreds. Nor do I believe Mid-Childan concrete to be any different from our concrete. Last edited by Keroko; 2008-12-11 at 10:23. |
2008-12-11, 10:32 | Link #1667 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Speed = observable power. A high speed shot, given a mass known to reasonable accuracy, provides an estimate of energy, force ... etc, independent of other scenes. When something is stopped or grinding slowly, there are two solutions to the problem, one is that the force being applied is as low as zero, and the second is that the resisting material is very strong (the force can be almost infinitely high). Where the material is known, or the force has been bounded by other information, you can estimate it, but from the scene alone you can't deduce this. Quote:
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And the idea of Regius training them himself sounds a bit ... tough seeing he isn't a mage. Quote:
As for the Air Force ... Nanoha probably trained a lot of them, so it is just as surmised, the few scraps of people that can do it are thrown into the fray. Quote:
And I wouldn't call them "very effective". They were barely holding on, and they have a lot to thank because the drones plain weren't very aggressive - such as Ep24, where we see they weren't even advancing. Quote:
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Further, while we can all agree Regius could have handled his security a lot better that day, the same is arguably true of our heroines, and we don't think too ill of them for failing to do so. What is undeniably true is that as far as the TSAB's thinkers go, an attack on GF HQ is real, real, real low prob. Even if Regius did have Hayate and Co as his advisors, we already saw they would likely tell him the same thing (and being trained in the same schools and having very similar zeitgeists they won't be doing good security either). The best that might have happened is that they would allow Devices inside the building, but seeing that Nanoha and Fate weren't exactly depressed about that decision, it is quite probable that the security arrangements won't change one iota. As for the linking between Regius and Jail, for one thing, covering your own butt, if not quite heroic, is quite understandable, so there's no need to turn him into a villian for this. Further, it is just good strategy. Presumably, if Jail hadn't moved, one day sooner or later Regius would have desposed of him, and then presumably he's going to try and make the use of Combat Cyborgs official. Suppose he pushes it through. Now, what if, at this critical moment, someone IDs his link with Jail? Not only would he be arrested, which is no small matter for most, but people (especially critics) tend to associate ideas with people (the basis of the ad hominem and various defamation attacks), so even after its implementation his arrest would endanger the idea for which he had fought for (and already lost a friend for) so long. Now, a visionary might be able to contemplate his own sacrifice, but endangering his own great idea as well? Hell NO! Quote:
Sure, there was that small hijink about the prophecy, but the prophecy magic is apparently not very well understood (it is not scientifically substantiated) and even its user claims it isn't that accurate. Apparently, based on this one point of disagreement HQ and Church felt the need to abandon all further hope of cooperation and resort to subterfuge. Add to that the perceived insult of being forever posted dead last on mage allocation. Hmm... if I'm Regius, I don't want to work with them. Quote:
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If anything, I can argue that it is Hayate and Co that started this hostile stance, by first sneaking in and setting up shop, then briefing what seems to be some of his guys without inviting him. If they had wanted to be cooperative, Hayate and Co should have requested an audience with Regius, brought flowers and cookies (and probably booze) ... etc. Quote:
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Finally, again, he's the junior partner, so it is more like the TSAB leadership got themselves and their most loyal public underling killed. |
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2008-12-11, 12:40 | Link #1668 | ||||||||
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2007
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And you have to remember, the larger the force, the more likely GF would have made noise, and the less likely that force would have been in position when the shoe dropped. Quote:
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Last edited by Jimmy C; 2008-12-11 at 22:37. Reason: Oops, MC68, not 78 |
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2008-12-11, 21:52 | Link #1669 |
Sword Wielding Penguin
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Regius had no ability to control Jail. By MC0078 he was completely out of control but playing 'docile' to prevent Regius and the Brains from going Apeshit until it was too late.
Gotta' remember that Regius had one idea, the Brains had another, and Jail had his own plans. The Brains trumped Regius', and Jail was planning to double cross everyone from the get go. There's no way Regius could have gotten some cyborgs into the Bureau... At least, not without making things WORSE. Anyway... Regius knew something was up and was forwarding his own countermeasure... the Einjarijar... Which someone mentioned was a bunch of giant cannons. Sounds to me like a Surface to Orbit (STO) defensive countermeasure... The kind that would have made a very bad day for the cradle. Unfortunately, Jail was too far ahead with his time table and Regius' hands had been tied by the Brains doing their Armchair Commanding. (I think they watched Evangelion one time too many... they even tried to pull of the VOICE ONLY monolith bit...) Jail's use of drones for just about everything up until his three major assaults would more or less quallify as effective misdirection. By the time Regius even realized Jail was well out of his control, it was way too late. As a side note... Some cyborgs DID get into the Bureau... Two of them. Pity old Reg didn't have anything flagged so he could recieve info on it. I'm sure he'd have been tickled pink to know about Ginga and Subaru early enough to take advantage of it. |
2008-12-12, 03:26 | Link #1670 | |||||||
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Join Date: Jul 2007
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In another direction, he may have been affected by what happened to Zest. If he places teams to observe Jail too closely, they might decide to attack prematurely (control and discipline are not high on the virtues of the TSAB). Or Jail might counterdetect the observing team and decide to get rid of them (as is his "right" as a criminal). Either way the battle goes, it is very bad news for him. Quote:
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Just making that ONE change could easily have turned a lot of the battle for the better. For example, Nanoha, Fate and/or Signum, they might have engaged Tre and Sette. Meanwhile, the Forwards might have been able to engage the Ground component of the team instead of disengaging. Seeing they managed to win one week later scattered, there's a reasonable chance they could have won the fight. Improvement #2: Improve the defenses of home base. Hayate stays at home like usual. For a meeting between the worlds, a "2nd Ground Commander" is extremely low ranked, and Regius doesn't love her anyway. She isn't much in close combat but there's some uninhabited area around the base, so what she could have done when Otto and Deed comes in is shower them with bombardment. For sure that would at least slow them up. Also (and this should have been done eons ago), call up Arf. Oh sure, Fate is all grown up now, but surely, she can still use some protection when her combat ability is shafted to AA - energy should have been reallocated - if anything, get around the stupid limiter limitation by puting almost everything into the familiar (of course, Arf is not part of RF6, but a civvie). If 9-year-old AAA Fate needs protection, so does 19-year-old AA Fate Needless to say, she "visits" and stays at HB on that day, and turns the defense from a Swiss cheese to a medium cheddar (to borrow Jon Parshall's description of Genda's Midway search plan). A third improvement. Consider exploiting the possibilities of hololand (think of Picard using the holodeck on the Borg in ST:FC). When Otto and Deed attack, hide into the vast expanses of hololand and set up a sim that involves a lot of holowalls and holoweapons. They'll come through eventually, but it'll buy you time. |
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2008-12-12, 06:26 | Link #1671 | |
Grumpy Russian bear
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PS. About framerates... I already noted that framerates that should be counted are in ep2 of A's, where combat is given from Nanoha's POW... but i'll give counterexample. A's ep1 - about 21:20, where Nanoha is thrown to the wall - she shouldn't be at the wall at such speed, but dropped on earth surface - much less broke that wall by impact. So normal framerates show us much much slower action that it really is, with rare cases as A's ep2 and Strikers ep24 when we can see somewhat closer to real speed. |
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2008-12-12, 06:40 | Link #1672 |
Once and Current Subber
Join Date: Dec 2005
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You know, I typed up a big response, sat on it for a bit, and then thought... Ark's got a good point here.
There's LOTS of areas where Nanoha and Hayate screw up by the numbers, and we write it off as "well, the writers don't know jack about military affairs, so they can't have been expected to get it right." Regius, though, he's essentially in the same situation, but people don't take it easy on him (because he's mean to Hayate, and that means he is evil! Or maybe not, huh?) The biggest problem with Regius is that he betrayed men under his command. Not just Zest and Quint, but Hayate and all of RF6 too, even if he's not their direct superior. That's not something you can wave off as a "whoops" mistake, that's a -sin-. In a way, it's similar to what Graham did in A's, but Graham at least owned up to it, knew he was doing wrong in a way that he couldn't expect to be forgiven for, even if it was the only way that he could see to prevent a great evil. There was a humility there. Regius doesn't have that humility. He doesn't expect to crucify himself to get his plan across; he expects to be vindicated. But he doesn't deserve vindication; even if he was right about combat cyborgs (and, frankly, they're effective; possibly not enough to justify the ethical concerns, but they're effective enough), who the hell could follow a man like that afterwards? But that's not necessarily something for which the writers have a proper appreciation. If you don't understand military honor (and dishonor), then maybe Regius COULD have expected to pull it off, and he just fell short in the planning stages. We came to the conclusion long ago that the writers specifically contrived the base-attack scenario to take Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate out of the combat picture but still leave everyone else in. Of course it's kind of fake and artificial. (I could buy it if it was a ceremonial thing - "okay, everybody leave your devices with your second and let's come in here and talk", as a holdover from days where that might have been necessary to keep the meeting from dissolving into a bloodbath. But they never indicated anything like that, or indeed any knowledge that it was unreasonable... sigh.) |
2008-12-12, 07:08 | Link #1673 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
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2008-12-12, 07:15 | Link #1674 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
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uh?
Not sure i get it. Isn't it *normal* that mid-ranked officer take of their weapons when meeting with political figures? I may be wrong, but to me, it felt normal, especially as it's possible for RF6 to make a coup if they wished to, or some such. just basic security. Quote:
Or maybe remember that even in MGLN and A's, heavy damage was done to earth without problem. Or maybe remember that those scenes aren't voiced to show the speed. oh well... a more reasonable argument though |
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2008-12-12, 07:40 | Link #1675 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2007
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As for countdowns, you can certainly count down without matching a one count to one second rate. Regardless of the intentions of the author, in the scientific sense (and remember that we are doing scientific analysis of the show here), voice has consequences in terms of time expenditure. It is one of the reasons why the last 5 minutes of Namek was such a joke. |
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2008-12-12, 12:08 | Link #1676 |
Sleep beneath the flowers
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Lording above all of humanity >;3
Age: 34
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I wonder if he did actually. I'm pretty sure any of the doctors who looked at them knew along with people in RF6 perhaps... And there was technically a third too
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2008-12-12, 14:43 | Link #1677 | |||||||||||
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Join Date: Jun 2007
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End result, no improvement and Hayate could probably be so badly injured, she's out of the final battle. Else Zafira and Shamal will be critically injured protecting her and be out of the final battle too. At best, they'll all recover in time to do the things they did in that battle. It doesn't change the fact that this battle still goes down the tubes for RF6. Quote:
Unless her presence can turn the tide and drive off all the attackers, that's no improvement. The base still gets trashed. Vivio still gets captured. And Arf is likely to be as badly injured as Zafira by the end of it, so there's an extra casualty now for no extra gain. Once again, no improvement, extra casualty. Had Hayate or Arf actually been at RF6's base during the attack in the series, I think you'd complain about them being as useless as Shamal and Zafira at defense. Quote:
No improvement, leads to even faster defeat once they loose power. Quote:
End result: no improvement in outcome. To be considered better than RF6's performance, you need to deny at least one of Jail's objectives in the attacks: Wreck GFHQ Wreck RF6's base Capture at least one Type-0 Capture Vivio Bonus objective 1, no extra casualties Bonus objective 2, the new deployment makes you, ark, go "yeah! they kicked Jail's ass!" Instead of "They couldn't save their base or their friends, what losers" The only thing I can think of is Nanoha or Fate being paranoid enough to set up an emergency teleport to send Vivio to Earth in the event of an attack on the base. That's extremely low-probability, they have more important things to spend their scarce resources on. Even if they did that, it might not be usable once the base is AMF'd. Quote:
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2008-12-12, 23:07 | Link #1680 | ||
He Who Smites Shippers
Join Date: Mar 2008
Age: 36
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But then again... Quote:
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