Nanoha StrikerS - Generic Discussion

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by al103

It's Lutecia's specialization. That talented/skilled/knowledgeable mage can get through defense is really not surprising.

Since Nanohaverse spells are basically predefined magical programs computed inside the caster's brain, assisted by a device, that specialized teleportation can be replicated by a TSAB ship which has greater power source and more sophisticated processors.

PS. Also we DID hear about it. Barriers that 'ritters did in Aces were explicitly anti-teleportation too, even if it was easier to get in than get out.

That people can get-in or out by forceful measures means that it doesn't disallow teleportation, only making it require more time to do so. And since the only example of such barrier is still easier to get in an attack force would still find the extra time (compared to flying all the way from the base into an enemy compund) valuable.

And again, even if such shielding exists, we have no grasp on the scale; just how far an area could it cover and for how long, and if it must be continuously active instead of just generated for one engagement then how reduced would the radius became?

Like I say before, even if they can't teleport directly into the enemy compound they can just go somewhere near, maybe at the edge of the barrier. Even if there's still hundreds of kilometers to cover by flight it's still much better than flying all the way from Long Arch every single time.

PS: Heck, now that I think about it the only building ever showed to be shielded was the ground force HQ which got attacked mid-story, and in that instance the shields only extended to a few meters away from its outer walls. If there's an anti-teleportation barrier its coverage area would most likely not much bigger that the HQ barrier.

Originally Posted by Kaijo

If there was something that could prevent teleportation, Precia would have used it to prevent anyone from beaming onto her Garden.

There's also this point of issue.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Going back to the flawed paradigm, an argument can be made that Jail expects to maintain his AMF and that the Bureau will not be able to send sufficiently powerful mages against the Numbers, which leads him to a sense of stagnant overconfidence. Yes, his Numbers can be countered due to being Cripplingly Overspecialised, but he believes that so long they're all around they can protect each other. *shrugs* Not the first bad judgment call that's happened in-universe.

One has to remember though that mages of A-rank are already rare, and their rarity only goes up as the rank goes. The cyborgs were all at least AA-rank. Yes, they were overly specialized, but they have one detail we keep overlooking:

They were created.

With A-rank and above being incredibly rare, being able to create forces of AA-rank and higher, even if overly specialized, is an incredibly huge advantage.

[al103]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

If there was something that could prevent teleportation, Precia would have used it to prevent anyone from beaming onto her Garden.

If there wasn't anything preventing teleportation Nanoha, Yuuno and Chrono would've teleported to reactor room instead of going through countless mecha mooks. Yet they didn't teleported there, they didn't even teleported to Garden itself - they teleported to entrance.

[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by Tiresias

There are uses for non-teleportation mode of transport. Not all mages can teleport or fly, so there has to be something to ferry them in and out of the battlefield. The existence of AMF is also a reason; in case of emergencies like when teleportation spells are disrupted by AMF an alternative must be available.

Another thing to consider, and I raise this because I deal with expenditures in my call center, is cost.

So far, we have not seen teleporters being used to teleport anything other than people (bureau) and Gadgets (Lutecia's hax/skill/what have you). This suggests to me that teleporters can only teleport people and are less efficient at transporting other things. Ergo, air transport is still crucial.

Not to mention the only time we saw people being teleported without personal spells are by ship-based teleporters so there's a possibility that such equipments are Navy-exclusive; a very stupid exclusivity, but I got the impression of interservice rivalry during StrikerS so maybe that's the reason. Or maybe teleportation pads are expensive, like many sophisticated military equipments.

I'd actually buy this - it wouldn't be the first time a military has done stupid things. Hell, the Malaysian army bought several hundred APCs without bothering to work out arrangements for spares and servicing, relying solely on the one-year warranty.

So the existence of helicopters are justified. To a degree. There are however somethings that's still unjustified, such as:
1. That Riot Force 6 continued to only use even late in the story, even when they got the Asura. You know, the same ship that has already proven capable of teleporting them into distant battlefields several times?
2. That it's a helicopter instead of a jet or antigrav VTOL. Those rotor-blades makes for a huge "HIT ME!!!" sign.

Regards 1), my interpretation was that Asura was about to be decommissioned. As such, it may be that the teleporters were down/removed - afterall, the Arc~en~ciel wasn't there either. As for 2), I'm of the opinion that the staff were lazy and stole the base design from the Pave Low. Still, helicopters have their uses... I would have liked a tiltrotor better though, like the V-22 or the one Section Nine uses.

This I whole-heartedly agree. (which is why I like In the Service)

I don't read much nanoha fanfics but I quite like that fic as well. Though the author was not apparently aware that Subaru was an A-rank during SSX.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Then the ground-pounders don't get to join the aerial mage squads. That still doesn't mean that the flying mages need to answer to an entirely different chain of command than the ground mages.

Especially when the flying mages STARTED as ground mages. Should you really have to switch which military branch you belong to? Should one branch of the military REALLY lose mages to another branch because those mages became too awesome for the ground forces?

No wonder Gaiz was so irritable and desperate.

In a way, it's a reflection of the budget and mission wars of the 50s and the 60s between the US Air Force and the US Army; the Air Force wanted to take ownership of all aircraft, including helicopters, while the Army resisted due to wanting control of their own air assets. (Some time earlier the Air Force had also wanted to absorb Naval Aviation assets but was foiled).

In this verse, we see that the Air Force owns all flight capable mages, which means that the Ground Force is reliant on AF cooperation - which, unlike current joint thinking in the US - does not seem to be forthcoming. As was described about Readiness Command, the Commanding General can ask Air Force for planes, but Air Force would not be cooperative as it can find better uses for its assets.

It is definitely a far cry from the Marines, who, recognizing that the USAF would not be keen to support them, went and got their own "rifles with wings", as one Marine 2-star mentioned to his British counterpart once.

You don't even need to be mage to teleport; you just need teleporter technology.

Though we've never seen anyone but mages make use of teleporter machines, so maybe those things are only capable of boosting teleportation magic rather than doing it on their own?

If that was indeed the case, I would gladly concede to the usefulness of helicopters for dispatching troops who cannot fly.

This would appear to be the case - though it then contradicts Suzuka and Arisa being teleported out of the danger zone in A's.

On the other hand Suzuka and Arisa shouldn't have been in the barrier in the first place, so one wonders if both of them have latent linker cores...

Apart from non-flight capable troops, however, there are arguments for using helicopters and other air assets to transport flight-capable mages: endurance and range. Using helicopters and other air transports allows flight mages to conserve their energy for combat, extending their range. It's the same principle as an aircraft carrier or a Battlestar.

There's a lot to like about "In The Service".

Spoiler for stuff:

Not the least of which is how the Numbers were interpretted as an extremely effective counter to the Huckebein. And killed the most objectionable and annoying of the bastards.

Hmmm? When did this happen? I don't recall reading this...

Originally Posted by Keroko

One has to remember though that mages of A-rank are already rare, and their rarity only goes up as the rank goes. The cyborgs were all at least AA-rank. Yes, they were overly specialized, but they have one detail we keep overlooking:

They were created.

With A-rank and above being incredibly rare, being able to create forces of AA-rank and higher, even if overly specialized, is an incredibly huge advantage.

I'd forgotten about that. Afterall, even if you're a one trick pony, if you can always play to your strengths, and overpower your enemy, at the end of the day a win's a win.

[Sunder the Gold]

Originally Posted by al103

If there wasn't anything preventing teleportation Nanoha, Yuuno and Chrono would've teleported to reactor room instead of going through countless mecha mooks. Yet they didn't teleported there, they didn't even teleported to Garden itself - they teleported to entrance.

The red shirts who preceeded the heroes into the Garden of Time also started at the entrance and moved their way inside.

I seem to recall that the Arthra teleported the red shirts back out again for medical treatment...?

Anyway, it was only after the red shirts that Precia bothered to activate her defense robots, so the red shirts didn't have to fight past those. Which is why they were able to find her so quickly.

(Of course, if she hadn't bothered to activate the robots, maybe she really had an anti-teleport function she hadn't bothered to activate?)


And whether or not the Garden of Time had anti-teleportation shielding (which it likely did), you probably just can't teleport into any place your scanners cannot SEE.

Can the sensors tell an open room apart from a solid wall? Can they see if a room is clear of dangers or filled with traps?



Also, no one has yet to explain how the Air Force and the Ground Force got STARTED as two seperate chains of command, or why that made any sense to anyone.

[al103]

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Also, no one has yet to explain how the Air Force and the Ground Force got STARTED as two seperate chains of command, or why that made any sense to anyone.

Ground Force - Air Force - Navy are pretty much look like Police - SWAT - FBI+Special Forces. It seems that Airforce are troubleshooters, just not in the same degree as Navy.

[Wild Goose]

Other possibility is that Air Force was originally part of Ground Force command structure, but then split off, like the USAF and RAF were split off from the US Army and British Army.

[mielipuoli]

Well, if she did have an antiteleport system, Asura might have had to shoot its way in and board like the Wolfram did against the Hucks - potentially damaging Presea's equipment and her chances of reaching El Hazard. Alternatively, maybe she wanted Fate to come along and to tell her off finally, for whatever reason. It's not as if she wasn't a free surprise short of a cracker jack box after all.

[Rising Dragon]

Given how they were able to teleport the troops into the throneroom in the Garden of Time, but only sent Chrono, Nanoha, and Yuuno to the front door, the reason for such was likely tactical--it'd be a bad, bad idea to teleport them inside without no escape route as they'd be surrounded by the robot mooks.

[Kikaifan]

It's kind of a rule of Nanoha that teleport extraction for mooks/civilians works even when the heroes are blocked. See Alicia & Suzuka getting safely ported while under the YnS's big scary barrier.

[Arkeus]

Originally Posted by Rising Dragon

Given how they were able to teleport the troops into the throneroom in the Garden of Time, but only sent Chrono, Nanoha, and Yuuno to the front door, the reason for such was likely tactical--it'd be a bad, bad idea to teleport them inside without no escape route as they'd be surrounded by the robot mooks.

They were teleported to the Entrance after Precia activated her defense system. Nothing weird that it includes Anti-teleport.

Originally Posted by Kikaifan

It's kind of a rule of Nanoha that teleport extraction for mooks/civilians works even when the heroes are blocked. See Alicia & Suzuka getting safely ported while under the YnS's big scary barrier.

They were teleported after being put within Fate's shield. Nothing weird about Fate giving the required information for a port (remember, Fate was able to communicate with them, which means the big-ass barrier was already breached).

[Tiresias]

Originally Posted by al103

If there wasn't anything preventing teleportation Nanoha, Yuuno and Chrono would've teleported to reactor room instead of going through countless mecha mooks. Yet they didn't teleported there, they didn't even teleported to Garden itself - they teleported to entrance.

Which doesn't mean that teleportation can't be used at all; even being able to be sent directly to the outskirts of the enemy base is still time-saving compared to going all the way from your base of operation.

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Another thing to consider, and I raise this because I deal with expenditures in my call center, is cost.

So far, we have not seen teleporters being used to teleport anything other than people (bureau) and Gadgets (Lutecia's hax/skill/what have you). This suggests to me that teleporters can only teleport people and are less efficient at transporting other things. Ergo, air transport is still crucial.

I'd actually buy this - it wouldn't be the first time a military has done stupid things.

Yes, in the end cost, red tape and rivalry are the only ones I can pin the blame (and I'm going to use these handwave for a fic). Problem is, aside from the interservice rivalry (and even that only acknowledged the hate, not the actual impact on equipments or logistics beyond Einherjar) it was never acknowledged in-story.

What was used to transfer Chrono into Earth, and later by the protagonists and marine teams to attack the Garden of time? Teleport.

What was used by the protagonists to intercept the Wolkenritter all the way from Asura to whatever planet the were spotted on? Teleport.

What was used to transport troops to handle a great crisis in the TSAB capital world? ...Helicopter.

...

Even a normal Nanoha fan with no interest in military stuff could spot this.

It's as if Yuuno was the verse' Patron Saint of Teleportation, and as he got shafted teleport followed suit.

Still, helicopters have their uses... I would have liked a tiltrotor better though, like the V-22 or the one Section Nine uses.

It has it's uses, but it would have been much better to use the two of them, teleportation and VTOL, to complement each other instead of using exclusively one.

Riot Force 6 was created to Jail Scaglietti, who in the beginning of Strikers were hiding...somewhere. They have no idea where he, his research labs or factories were. They could be anywhere on the planet. Even if the helicopter can reach Mach 2 it's going to take some time to reach the other side of the hemisphere.

Hmmm? When did this happen? I don't recall reading this...

It's in its sister fic, A Numbered Existence (it's quite brutal BTW; the Bureau in the story was fighting a lengthy war so they don't care much about Thou Shalt Not Kill. What happened to Cypha still gives me warm feelings~)

[Sunder the Gold]

Originally Posted by Tiresias

Which doesn't mean that teleportation can't be used at all; even being able to be sent directly to the outskirts of the enemy base is still time-saving compared to going all the way from your base of operation.

This.

It has it's uses, but it would have been much better to use the two of them, teleportation and VTOL, to complement each other instead of using exclusively one.

Riot Force 6 was created to Jail Scaglietti, who in the beginning of Strikers were hiding...somewhere. They have no idea where he, his research labs or factories were. They could be anywhere on the planet. Even if the helicopter can reach Mach 2 it's going to take some time to reach the other side of the hemisphere.

This.

Even a normal Nanoha fan with no interest in military stuff could spot this.

*raises hand*

It's as if Yuuno was the verse' Patron Saint of Teleportation, and as he got shafted teleport followed suit.

Until it was decided that the Huckebein needed one more game-breaker power, because somehow they didn't have enough of those already. So Deville beat Yuuno up and took his stuff.

Spoiler for bias:

Also, the correlation between "Yuuno is shoved aside" and "teleportation is largely forgotten" SHOULDN'T make logical sense, but my bias tells me that it totally does. Oh, bias, you so silly.

Yes, in the end cost, red tape and rivalry are the only ones I can pin the blame (and I'm going to use these handwave for a fic). Problem is, aside from the interservice rivalry (and even that only acknowledged the hate, not the actual impact on equipments or logistics beyond Einherjar) it was never acknowledged in-story.

"Show, Don't Tell."

"Telling rather than showing" is bad enough. But "alluding without even telling" simply beggers the mind.

Was there even an allusion?

It's in its sister fic, A Numbered Existence (it's quite brutal BTW; the Bureau in the story was fighting a lengthy war so they don't care much about Thou Shalt Not Kill. What happened to Cypha still gives me warm feelings~)

Spoiler for A Number Existence:

It's been a while, and I didn't know their names that well. Deville and Arnage are the only ones to survive, right?

[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by al103

If there wasn't anything preventing teleportation Nanoha, Yuuno and Chrono would've teleported to reactor room instead of going through countless mecha mooks. Yet they didn't teleported there, they didn't even teleported to Garden itself - they teleported to entrance.

My theory: they teleported to the entrance, because they could see it and thus know they could teleport there safely. Perhaps they couldn't scan farther in to see if there was another location (and who said it was the entrance?).

I'll say it again: it isn't odd for teleporters in *any* series to have to have a visual of where they are going; otherwise, they could end teleporting into a solid wall. For that reason alone, I can understand why Nanoha, Yuuno, and Chrono went on foot after the initial beam-in.

[Sunder the Gold]

Okay, this keeps bugging me.


Ginga and Subaru are Combat Cyborgs. CCs are designed from the start to have Inherent Skills.

(Except those poor unfortunates like Dieci and Wendi who get nothing but "Inherent Equipment" -- an oxymoron, that -- which any of the other, better cyborgs could use.)

However, rather than a superior option like personal flight, Ginga and Subaru are designed with Wing Road... a mode of transportation that is strictly inferior to flight in all ways.

Okay, whoever was in charge of that seemed to be operating independently of Scaglietti, basically pirating and copying off of earlier models of his work. Maybe they just didn't have the brains to figure out personal non-magical flight.

(Though really, he figured that trick out at least as early as Tre, the second or third cyborg he produced and activated. And if he did that, it doesn't make sense that he didn't equip the other Numbers with the same capability.)

But back to Wing Road. While a bit handy on its own, it's ultimately of extremely limited combat value without something like rollerblades, and Ginga and Subaru had a distinct lack of those, having only regular feet, no Inherent Skill for magical hoverskating over their magical roads.

Perhaps the engineers always intended to give them rollerblades later in the production process, after the girl-weapons grew up a... Wait a minute.

Why WERE the sisters made so young? Especially since it would apparently take particular effort to get them to physically grow or otherwise allow them to grow without suffering some horrible biomechanical failure along the way.

Well, maybe the rogue engineering group didn't have the virtual-education/childhood downloading techniques that were part of Project F. I guess even with all of Scaglietti's best ideas floating about in the criminal underworld, you can't always be lucky enough to have more than one at once.

Except... they DID have Project F. They really HAD to, otherwise they couldn't have cloned Quint Nakajima and created Artificial Mages for their cyborg sisters.

That technology WAS around, because it's how the Mondial parents had their Erio clone created, with all of the memories of the original.

Well, they probably saw good reason in not creating two little girls who thought they were the same person, and downloading memories rather than creating three-year personalities from scratch is probably requires different skills.

But why QUINT? What particular talent or skill did she have, that they wanted her DNA to create two cyborgs with Wing Road?

Quint did not have anything like Wing Road or Roller Blades. We know she didn't, because a flashback of her standing back to back with Zest and Megane shows her without rollerblades. Also because Wing Road is not only useless without rollerblades, it is an IS and thus only a combat cyborg would have it.

Plus, just as Zest was fully capable of flight, it is likely that Quint -- a mage (knight?) or the same caliber -- was also capable of flight, and proficient at aerial combat.

Because Belkan Style suffers no particular difficult in using melee combat weapons and techniques in mid-air, without using the ground for leverage. Arf, Zafira and Reinforce Ein all show us that it is very possible to engage in fisticuffs while flying, probably using the power of flight to completely make up for the lack of contact with the ground, and then some.

So the engineers' choice to combine of hand-to-hand combat with rollerblading is unintuitive and inefficient. It would certainly work better with a weapon of greater leverage and the ability to reach further to the side of the road or ahead of one's self. Like a spear or poleaxe.

Therefore, ZEST would have made a better candidate than Quint, if skill with a particular weapon were genetic. Which it's not, really. Neither are unarmed attack skills genetic.

And they obviously DID intend for Ginga and Subaru to be "bare handed" combatants, given their secondary Inherent Skills -- Ginga's rather silly "Ginga Drill Breaker" and Subaru's oddly-fractricidal, robot-killing "Oscillating Breaker".

Only, how were these two going to learn Quint's fighting style? An incomplete form of memory downloading? Presenting her with two clone and asking nicely?


But if things weren't weird enough, along comes Nove.

There are two possibilities with Nove: either Scaglietti got the idea that he also wanted to clone Quint, or else he decided to clone Subaru for the hell of it.


(A) If he cloned Quint, then he gave her Gun Knuckle first, based on Ginga's Revolver Knuckle. But he didn't design her with flight, and only gave her ONE gauntlet, which would seem to sabotage the whole point of copying Quint.

Then when he saw Ginga join the TSAB and display her home-made rollerblades and Wing Road, he decided to alter Nove (who had not been activated yet) to include Air Liner, Gun Edge, and the ill-defined Break Liner.

Nove ends up bitter that the doctor felt she wasn't good enough to begin with, and impotently vows revenge against the Type 0 cyborgs.


(B) If he cloned Subaru, then shouldn't he have already known about Wing Road? Therefore, Nove was designed from the start to have Air Liner and Gun Edge.

And the later modifications and additions were to add Gun Knuckle (just one gauntlet, like the sisters) and the ill-defined Break Liner. Nove ends up bitter, yadda yadda.

But wait... he already would have known about Quint, and about what the engineers were going for with the sisters, so why did he get half-way through with Nove before seeing something new to add?


Is there part of this time-line I've messed up, or any assumptions I've made without enough official information with which to support them?

Or did someone just NOT think this through?

Just like how they didn't think through the whole, "Let's foreshadow Nove as a powerful and dangerous arch-nemesis to the Nakajima Sisters!" only to NEVER DELIVER on that.

[Akiyoshi]

I'll go with the assumption the people who created the Nakajima sisters didn't have the complete data or technology to make grown up cyborgs ready for combat, thus needing to make them younger to allow them to train and fill the gaps in the data they gathered from Quint.

Other theory could be that the two where part of a first stage project to test the cyborg technology(Type-"Zero" prototypes remember?) and was made as children to make a progressive test of the technology and the adaptations/applications it could have by preparing and observing the two subjects.

Writing-wise Subaru's powers are relatively inefficient in comparission with the powerset of the A's cast but is also easily adaptable to the Rule of Cool(i admit i'm a big fan of Subaru in part because of how cool she can be). Story-wise the Nakajima sisters are renowed for being effective at their work, despite their limited abilities. Subaru choose her profession wisely, she's a rescuer first rather than a fighter, her durability, resilence and structural-destroying powers work miracles for her at her job on the disaster relief unit. I haven't seen Ginga taking onscreen advantage of her powers yet, tough.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Plus, just as Zest was fully capable of flight, it is likely that Quint -- a mage (knight?) or the same caliber -- was also capable of flight, and proficient at aerial combat.

Schach is also a high-level Belkan Knight and is uncapable of flight.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Therefore, ZEST would have made a better candidate than Quint, if skill with a particular weapon were genetic. Which it's not, really. Neither are unarmed attack skills genetic.

Maybe Zest was more carefull than Quint and didn't leave his DNA spreaded in his work? Or maybe Zest already has a genetic problem than make his DNA unsuited for a Cyborg project(you pointed how expert Jail is on the matter yet his genius didn't solve the problem of clone degeneration with Zest's cells). Maybe Quints basic structure somehow was more suitable for cloning/cyborg process? While doing such a delicate process there's a lot of factors to consider aside of skill and physical/magical prowess.

[Sunder the Gold]

And the points concerning Nove?


Oh, and it's not like I don't think Subaru's cool. She is. But Wing Road seems more like a booster seat that turns into crutch -- flight is better, but she'll probably never get around to learning it because she has Wing Road and she isn't going to want to give up Mach Calibur.

Mach Calibur could theoretically be turned into a set of Hermes-style boots, with the wings working like Axel Fin to improve her flight speed and manueverability, but that's still leaving her Wing Road IS completely unused.

Of course, at least it woud still be on hand if she ever has to deal with any more AMF conditions, but she could also look into getting Tre and Sette's flight system installed. Or installed into Mach Calibur, if at all possible.

Heck, non-magical flight technology worked for the Drones, why not for a pair of boots?

[Akiyoshi]

Apparently the Type Zero cyborgs are fairly older than Nove(and apparently also older than all the other Numbers except probably Uno), also Jail didn't appear to have too specifical knowledge about Quint aside of acknowledge her as Zest and Megane's comrade as Nove seems to be more akin to the Zero Types than to Quint.

Other assumption is that Jail maybe aqcuired Quint's dna material but opted to follow the desing of the Zero Types after seeing how sucessfull the results are with the Nakajima sisters.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

(Except those poor unfortunates like Dieci and Wendi who get nothing but "Inherent Equipment" -- an oxymoron, that -- which any of the other, better cyborgs could use.)

No they wouldn't, that's why it's called "inherent." It's equipment specially attuned to them and them alone.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

However, rather than a superior option like personal flight, Ginga and Subaru are designed with Wing Road... a mode of transportation that is strictly inferior to flight in all ways.

Again, no. Wing road is magic, not IS. Subaru's IS is vibration shatter. A move which put Cinque (the same Cinque who was shown capable of beating the crap out of Ginga and a fully healthy Zest mind you) out of order for the rest of the season.

We don't know what Ginga's IS is.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Except... they DID have Project F. They really HAD to, otherwise they couldn't have cloned Quint Nakajima and created Artificial Mages for their cyborg sisters.

Cloning cyborgs and Project F are two different things. There is no proof that Erio was done by the same scientists (indeed, since said scientists were arrested by Quint it is rather unlikely.).

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Quint did not have anything like Wing Road or Roller Blades.

Yes she did.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Plus, just as Zest was fully capable of flight, it is likely that Quint -- a mage (knight?) or the same caliber -- was also capable of flight, and proficient at aerial combat.

A rather big leap to conclusion. Quint was a Ground Force mage, her having flight purely on the basis that Zest had it doesn't quite work. None of the RF6 mages can fly, despite all their leaders being capable of flight.

"Ground Force" is called as it is for a reason.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

So the engineers' choice to combine of hand-to-hand combat with rollerblading is unintuitive and inefficient. It would certainly work better with a weapon of greater leverage and the ability to reach further to the side of the road or ahead of one's self. Like a spear or poleaxe.

The scientists had nothing to do with the rollerblades or wing road. Again, the IS they designed for her is vibration shatter.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Only, how were these two going to learn Quint's fighting style? An incomplete form of memory downloading? Presenting her with two clone and asking nicely?

Hire an instructor? The shooting arts are a well-known martial arts, finding an instructor should be easy.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

(A) If he cloned Quint, then he gave her Gun Knuckle first, based on Ginga's Revolver Knuckle. But he didn't design her with flight, and only gave her ONE gauntlet, which would seem to sabotage the whole point of copying Quint.

Then when he saw Ginga join the TSAB and display her home-made rollerblades and Wing Road, he decided to alter Nove (who had not been activated yet) to include Air Liner, Gun Edge, and the ill-defined Break Liner.

Nove ends up bitter that the doctor felt she wasn't good enough to begin with, and impotently vows revenge against the Type 0 cyborgs.


(B) If he cloned Subaru, then shouldn't he have already known about Wing Road? Therefore, Nove was designed from the start to have Air Liner and Gun Edge.

And the later modifications and additions were to add Gun Knuckle (just one gauntlet, like the sisters) and the ill-defined Break Liner. Nove ends up bitter, yadda yadda.

But wait... he already would have known about Quint, and about what the engineers were going for with the sisters, so why did he get half-way through with Nove before seeing something new to add?

The leaps to conclusion here are amazing. Nove was cloned from Quint, who had wing road as one of her skills, which is where Air Liner comes from.

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Just like how they didn't think through the whole, "Let's foreshadow Nove as a powerful and dangerous arch-nemesis to the Nakajima Sisters!" only to NEVER DELIVER on that.

I don't recall such foreshadowing ever being present in the first place. But then, a lot of things regarding the numbers what rather underdeveloped in StrikerS.

[Akiyoshi]

Originally Posted by Sunder the Gold

Just like how they didn't think through the whole, "Let's foreshadow Nove as a powerful and dangerous arch-nemesis to the Nakajima Sisters!" only to NEVER DELIVER on that.

I felt some of that the first time we see Nove on action, her Jet Edge at first seemed to be a superior improvement over the Revolver Knuckle(two sets of Revolver Gears, kicks are usually stronger than punches, they're rocket-powered instead of just motorized, etc...) but as you said, they never developed on that as on Nove's first onscreen fight Subaru goes Berserk and utterly kicked Nove's ass.