Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Character Creation and Discussion (second reincarnation)

[Keroko]

*separates Goose and Kha*

Okay, enough. When I challenged Ark on his complications, it was hardly my intent to start something like this. Now don't you two start clawing each others eyes out again. No buts, because I will hit that report button.

Jimmy put it much better words then I have, all this is simply over thinking things. The technique isn't overpowered, so let's just label it as secure and move on.

[Wild Goose]

*ahem*

In order to give Kha satisfaction:

I DO NOT HAVE A CANON.

I have a fanon.

[MeisterBabylon]

Aye, we thrashed some of it out in IRC. Still not completely settled, but enough for now... I do wish I don't have to keep doing this replying to misplaced attitudes and bias. Certainly doesn't help me headache, especially when I make even more mistakes than usual!

On another note, I wish SaintX was around to answer some of the new queries. Him doing graveyard shift meant that even I can't find him to ask about the skills like I would've done before.


EDIT: Ninja'd rather strangely by Goose.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Two pages in five hours, we're alive again.

Okay, I'm going to spill some of my 'expertise' in the area of signal here to assist people.


First off, magical guidance and spelljacking.

If I look at how Nanoha controlls her Shooter spheres, I would have to say that her mechanism is a boosted telepathic style signal and direct remote control. If we can assume that Nanoha or Raising Heart is relaying a guidance telepathic component to her spheres.

If we treat telepathy as a non-electromagnic but still something like a wave signal, there are technical methods of preventing spelljacking.

First of all, transmission of the 'signal'. We're using a non-physical connection, but there are a variety of ways to go about it.
A wide, unfocused 'broadcast' would be detectable, interperateable, and jammable/hackable, where as a tight beam or even 'laser' transmission would be hard to intercept.

If we were to say that telepathic control is 'laser' transmission where as communication telepathy is broadcast... We could say that alone makes it hard to crack because you don't have time to brute hack your way into the sphere's guidance... and you don't have a signal to give you an idea of what to detect.

We could say that When Nanoha fires a shooter, she is Laser Telepathicly linked to the spheres, and she recieves a return laser transmission back from them. The biggest problem for others is knowing where to point that laser at any given moment to transmit the guidance data. But as it has been fired by RH, the device knows the exact position of the spheres at all times, and does all the deep computational work to maintain control lock. Nanoha's part of the control is to provide the actual guidance, which across a sixteen sphere feed, is quite a task, but one she's adept in.

After that, the next issue is signal format. Are we dealing with the magical equal to Analogue, or Digital? I would guess the latter, given that devices are extremely intelligent computer cores. If you're persuing the wrong format, you'll never get the signal right.

Then there's actual data security, cryptography. You don't even need quantum cryptography, just some decently high bit random number. The only two way communication is going to be directly between Raising Heart, and one of the spheres. Raising Heart could logically, generate a unique encryption for each and every single shooter sphere fired, and generate a new one every time Nanoha fires a shot. Given the short lifetime of such an attack, a disposable encryption is actually highly effective. Any hacker trying to hijack Nanoha's attack has to seperately decrypt sixteen different codes, codes that will not be the same the next time the attack is fired.

The number of possible equations from say, a 256 bit encryption would be expressed as
[2^256 x 16] S where S is the number of times Nanoha fires the attack....

So for each sphere, the key has 1.157920892373162e+77 possible solutions. Times Sixteen for all the spheres, and they change with every shot. Add in that from the moment nanoha fires it, you have maybe thirty seconds to access and intercept it tops before it strikes something... Which means you have to be able to go through 3.85973630791054e+75 values a second to brute force hack just one.

Decrypt THAT! BITCH!



Now, as for Guidance beyond line of sight... The 'magical' properties of a 'magic' wave probably just pass through inert objects, so technically, for the magic item and the user, they aren't out of the Line of Sight with each other.

[Arkeus]

there is also the possibility that a shot fired by nanoha's linker core may still "recognize" her, hence only taking into account *her* commands.

[FlameSparkZ]

Originally Posted by Liingo

I feel sorry for Koji TT Although it's good to hear that Koji and Maren will hook up

Can't see any problems with her profile though.

Good to have you back

Thanks, it's good to be back

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

Two pages in five hours, we're alive again.

Okay, I'm going to spill some of my 'expertise' in the area of signal here to assist people.

Spoiler for Encrypt and Decrypt:

First off, magical guidance and spelljacking.

If I look at how Nanoha controlls her Shooter spheres, I would have to say that her mechanism is a boosted telepathic style signal and direct remote control. If we can assume that Nanoha or Raising Heart is relaying a guidance telepathic component to her spheres.

If we treat telepathy as a non-electromagnic but still something like a wave signal, there are technical methods of preventing spelljacking.

First of all, transmission of the 'signal'. We're using a non-physical connection, but there are a variety of ways to go about it.
A wide, unfocused 'broadcast' would be detectable, interperateable, and jammable/hackable, where as a tight beam or even 'laser' transmission would be hard to intercept.

If we were to say that telepathic control is 'laser' transmission where as communication telepathy is broadcast... We could say that alone makes it hard to crack because you don't have time to brute hack your way into the sphere's guidance... and you don't have a signal to give you an idea of what to detect.

We could say that When Nanoha fires a shooter, she is Laser Telepathicly linked to the spheres, and she recieves a return laser transmission back from them. The biggest problem for others is knowing where to point that laser at any given moment to transmit the guidance data. But as it has been fired by RH, the device knows the exact position of the spheres at all times, and does all the deep computational work to maintain control lock. Nanoha's part of the control is to provide the actual guidance, which across a sixteen sphere feed, is quite a task, but one she's adept in.

After that, the next issue is signal format. Are we dealing with the magical equal to Analogue, or Digital? I would guess the latter, given that devices are extremely intelligent computer cores. If you're persuing the wrong format, you'll never get the signal right.

Then there's actual data security, cryptography. You don't even need quantum cryptography, just some decently high bit random number. The only two way communication is going to be directly between Raising Heart, and one of the spheres. Raising Heart could logically, generate a unique encryption for each and every single shooter sphere fired, and generate a new one every time Nanoha fires a shot. Given the short lifetime of such an attack, a disposable encryption is actually highly effective. Any hacker trying to hijack Nanoha's attack has to seperately decrypt sixteen different codes, codes that will not be the same the next time the attack is fired.

The number of possible equations from say, a 256 bit encryption would be expressed as
[2^256 x 16] S where S is the number of times Nanoha fires the attack....

So for each sphere, the key has 1.157920892373162e+77 possible solutions. Times Sixteen for all the spheres, and they change with every shot. Add in that from the moment nanoha fires it, you have maybe thirty seconds to access and intercept it tops before it strikes something... Which means you have to be able to go through 3.85973630791054e+75 values a second to brute force hack just one.

Decrypt THAT! BITCH!

Now, as for Guidance beyond line of sight... The 'magical' properties of a 'magic' wave probably just pass through inert objects, so technically, for the magic item and the user, they aren't out of the Line of Sight with each other.

Nice, very nice indeed
This proves that for a human being, hacking someone else's controlled shots is impossible.
...Now let's close this arguement before it gets out of hand, shall we?

Though, using the above explanation, it's easy to understand how the Numbers tapped into the Forwards' communications during the last battle. It was a broadcast...

[stormturmoil]

I agree, with only one reservation, That Keroko's comments made me realise.

There is a difference between hacking into and assuming control of a remote guided projectile, and using decoys/illusions to spoof said guided projectiles.

thus, even without taking control of the projectile itself, it would be possible for certain characters to re-purpose such guided projectiles by effectively deceiving the user.

I quote as example Both Teana with Fake Silhouette, and of course Quattro with Silver curtain.

Quattro could not take control of Nanoha's Divine shooters directly, however, by using a illusion facade over a target, she could convince Nanoha to send them to a target Quattro chooses.

EG, she could potentially get Nanoha to blast her allies with Divine shooters by plastering Illusions of the Numbers over them.

By the same token, Teana could use Fake Silhouettes to get enemies to shoot at each other by covering their allies with fake Teanas

Just an important distinction I thought ought to be mentioned.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Ecept if you're a smart opponent, you're emitting your IFF, either laser IFF, or broadcast.

Looks pretty strange for the illusion enemy to be emitting the correctly encrypted IFF stream.

Even if the enemy copies the IFF and transmits themselves, they force the person to confirm the target. If quattro plasters Tre's illusion onto say, Fate, in order to knock her out with Nanoha's buster. 'Tre' looks odd emitting the correct friendly IFF. Even more so when 'Tre' fires a Plasma Smasher thunder based magic attack.
If Quattro were to Hijack the IFF signal and emit it herself, the fact that she's openly running away from the fight or attacking other friendlies, would blow her cover quickly.

So generally, pretending to make a friend the enemy and vica versa tends to have gaping flaws. And if you rely upon those methods in an overwhelmingly opponent favoring environement, such as Quattro nailed between Nanoha and Fate, she has no attack option, only a flee option and HOPE the enemy is trigger happy against the spoofs.

Information Dominance is a powerful aspect of combat. It can win the battle before it starts. But if you do it wrong, you walk yourself into a killzone.

[Ottocycle]

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

Then there's actual data security, cryptography. You don't even need quantum cryptography, just some decently high bit random number. The only two way communication is going to be directly between Raising Heart, and one of the spheres. Raising Heart could logically, generate a unique encryption for each and every single shooter sphere fired, and generate a new one every time Nanoha fires a shot. Given the short lifetime of such an attack, a disposable encryption is actually highly effective. Any hacker trying to hijack Nanoha's attack has to seperately decrypt sixteen different codes, codes that will not be the same the next time the attack is fired.

Ahh, magitech. Fully illustrates the diseconomy of scale for any potential hacker.

Guess the same can occur for...Blaster Bits, but if each is fully independently able to initiate SLB, it should be more worth it... *Hides NT-D system crack*

[Tormenk]

NT-D system..? Coating BJs with the reasonable nanoha version of the psycoframe sounds good indeed.

..did I mention I have a Newtype individual that employs up to 16 bits in combat?

[ghazghkull]

Well then...let's get back on track shall we? :3

I has a new shot, and a new character to boot : D

BTW Keroko, there's some Syn in here. For those who thought that I shafted Farukon and his team, you thought wrong >:3

Spoiler for Length:

Syn was not happy. She was displeased. She did not like where she was. And most of all, she did not want to be where here was.

“I don’t see why we have to be here,” Syn grumbled under her breath.

“It’s a part of recon,” Farukon sighed, readjusting his cloak a bit. “Sometimes you have to go to places you’d never want to be in to get information.”

“I still don’t like it,” Syn grumbled. Vivio could only sigh and shake her head at Syn. But considering the situation, she had to somewhat agree. They were presently in a red-light district in one of the backwater cities on an Administered Planet. Their mission was to obtain information of a potential smuggler of illegal weapons and drugs, and possibly dangerous research, and to bust it as soon as possible. At the very least though, apprehending one of the operatives of the smuggling ring would be useful as well.

“Hope I can beat someone for this,” Syn griped as Blitz team entered one of the shadier bars in town. Despite her gut feeling screaming at her that this was a major hangout for various drug users and hookers, more specifically of the bisexual variety, she entered anyways because not only her unit leader told her to, she wasn’t dumb enough to be outside alone where she could be potentially swamped by would-be rapists.

“Who knows,” said Hayato, shrugging nonchalantly as he and the girls sat down at a table while Faruko sat down at the bar.

“And why do we have to be here while he’s at the bar?” Syn muttered under her breath irrately. She was not one to hide her displeasure of the fact that she was not at the very least part of the information gathering that Farukon seemed to be doing.

“Probably because you’ll just make fools of yourselves,” a new voice commented.

Looking behind, Syn raised an eyebrow at a cloaked and hooded individual and said, “Who asked you?”

“My apologies,” the person stated, loud enough to reveal that it was a female underneath the cloak, turning her head a bit, “but I couldn’t help but overhear your comment. Your friend is simply taking a precaution and probably does not want you, or your party to accidentally embarrass yourselves, possibly ruining his image. Like trust, it is hard to build, but very easy to shatter.”

“Are you doing to be smart with me?!” Syn growled moving to get up, only to have two hands roughly grab her shoulders and pin her back down to her seat. “Hey!”

“Syn,” Vivio sighed, feeling one of her eyebrows twitch a bit, “could you PLEASE just quiet down…and not do anything…you’re embarrassing us as is…”

The stranger chuckled somewhat as she took a sip of her drink. “Do you see my point, miss?” Syn simply growled at her statement.

From the bar, Farukon couldn’t help but sigh from what he saw from his peripherals. “Oh boy…”

“Those kids with you?” the bartender asked, dropping a mug before Farukon.

“Yeah,” he sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “Unfortunately she has a…explosive nature.”

“I can see,” the bartender chortled. “So…what’ll it be this evening?”

“The usual,” Farukon sighed, sliding a small amount of currency towards the tender.

“Right then,” he answered, accepting the payment while jotting the order down on a piece of paper before putting it up for the cook to see.

“Syn…what am I going to do with you,” Farukon grumbled, seeing that the stranger had actually gotten up and joined his team.

“Why are you here?” Syn sneered, clearly not happy that the person who had just angered her was now sitting across from her.

“You interest me,” the woman answered. “And I’m a bit restless waiting for someone. Of course, I do not wish to intrude if you’re on…other personal business.”

While Syn by now was visibly twitching from the implication, Vivio couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the way the stranger was talking. On their way here, she noticed that a lot of the locals were speaking with either a heavy accent, or were using a lot of colloquial terms and phrases. However, listening to this person speak, she noticed that she was clearly not a local of either the city, or the planet. Despite the accent, the stranger’s mannerisms were far too refined for this sort of setting. She spoke to them in what she could guess was a very polite form of Japanese, the language of her mother’s and Hayate. That got her wondering what sort of person was underneath that hood. Even on Mid-Childa she rarely heard people speaking that particular form of the language, especially since it wasn’t even taught on Mid-Childa. She learned that from her grand-parents and mothers. However, there was not much else that she could figure out due to the fact that the cloak hid everything from her view.

“And it seems…I interest you,” the stranger suddenly stated, looking towards Vivio’s direction.

“Somewhat,” Vivio coolly replied while mentally berating herself for getting caught. “You…don’t seem to be who you are.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” she answered back, relaxing against her seat. “It takes all kinds of scrutiny and appraisals to truly decipher a person’s intentions and personalities…it’s what makes or breaks a negotiation. Does it go your way? Will it go their way? Can we compromise? Is that person lying? How can I figure it out? Many questions run through the mind when we speak to someone we don’t know. We never know ahead of the person is lying or not. We always learn then and there. And sometimes…we find out when it’s far too late to do anything about it. Such is the way of life.”

“That is true…” Vivio sighed, curious as to why the person was talking like that. It almost as if she was a former negotiator for something big. And for some reason, she felt some sort of connection with the woman, almost if they were both part of something great in their pasts before it was destroyed.

“Blitz, on me now!” Farukon suddenly shouted. “Come back here!” Leaping over several tables, Farukon dashed out the door as he ran after someone who had just bolted out the door just moments prior.

“Let’s go,” Syn declared, dashing after Farukon with Vivio and Hayato in tow, leaving the stranger behind staring after them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Get back here!” Farukon yelled after the man ahead, drawing out Gerhard. “Set up!”

[Jawohl!] Gerhard yelled out, forming Farukon’s battle glaive and barrier jacket.

Dashing forward, Farukon sped up to intercept his target. Behind, he sensed that everyone else had stood up their jackets and were hot on his tail, but they were still far behind. Realizing that he was going to be on his own for a few seconds, he decided to make his move. “Gerhard!”

[Explosion] the armed device called back, discharging a cartridge before activating a spell. [Rückstoß durchbohren (Blowback Pierce)] Following the initiation of the spell, Farukon threw up a Belkan triangle before himself before lunging Gerhard straight through the middle, launching a straight line beam of red into the back of his quarry, knocking him clean off his feet and into the dirt. Farukon then lunged forward to pin the man only to back off, narrowly doding an attack that had been aimed for him.

“Great,” he growled, glancing over to where the attack had came from, realizing that the guy apparently had friends.

“Farukon,” Syn called out, skidding to a halt next to her commander only to gasp at what awaited them. “What the hell?!”

“Oh crap…” Hayato muttered. Surrounding them were at least 10 armed men and women, all of them wielding what looked to be automatic weapons, supported with magical spheres ready to be launched.

“I see you need help,” a new voice commented, followed by three beeps.

[Standing By]

Everyone suddenly turned to the new comer’s voice who turned out to be the woman who was speaking with Blitz team just prior, holding some sort of long rectangular device in her hand that was creating some sort of whining tone. Flipping the object closed, a red light emitted from the antenna towards her waist, forming a belt with a cradle where a buckle normally would be, flanked by a tubular device on the right side of her waist, and a thin box object on her left.

“Henshin!” she called out locking the device into the cradle before flipping it down into a horizontal position.

[Complete] the device called out, as red energy ribbons formed around her as it created the frame of armour before solidifying into a black bodysuit with grey bindings on her forearms and lower legs, a grey breastplate, and rounded shoulder pauldrons. Her face was a yellow circle with a red trim, and a grey bar cutting down the middle.

“A Rider,” Farukon muttered, while Vivio immediately threw up a shield around everyone.

Immediately the attackers turned their weapons upon the new Rider, only to watch both their attacks and the bullets bounce harmlessly off the armour. The girl simply sighed. Flicking her right hand slightly, she suddenly dashed forward and entered hand-to-hand combat with the nearest enemy, almost immediately breaking both his elbows before turning his weapon on him and shot him in both knee caps.

Ducking underneath return fire, the Rider took aim and shot another person in the shoulder, knocking him over before rolling back tossing away the firearm as she does, and picked up the combat knife that was lying next to the one whom she just crippled moments ago. Expertly weaving in between weapons fire while taking a few hits that bounced harmlessly off her armour, she grabbed the weapon of her next target and immediately slashed his wrist, effectively destroying the ability to use that hand. She then pulled the weapon away from him before spinning around and slashed the back of his upper leg and kicking down onto his front.

Tossing the weapon aside, she opened up the device on her buckle, revealing a keypad and punched something in before a motorcycle suddenly leapt from out of nowhere, slamming into one, probably hurting or killing him in the process. [Battle Mode] the vehicle called out before transforming into a biped robot. Blocking a series of weapons from with the shield on its left arm, which was one of the tires, it slowly walked forward before grabbing the weapon and ripped it out of the attacker’s hand, with the hand still attached. Despite her screams of pain, the machine grabbed its target by the shoulder, and threw her aside.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Syn growled and dashed out of the protective shield and ran straight for the nearest target. “BIG BANG IMPACT!” Kyouka glowed as it appropriated the mana required for the attack, before explosively releasing the attack upon Syn’s hapless target, sending him flying straight into a rundown building. Syn couldn’t help but smirk, knowing that she probably broke a few bones.

[Drive Move] Kyouka called out, forcing Syn to one side as she narrowly dodged a hail of fire.

“You,” she growled, glaring angrily at the person who attempted to shoot her. “Again!”

[Drive Move]
[Force Burst]

Before her attacker had a chance to ready for Syn’s counterattack, his world suddenly turned white as Syn’s attack came into contact, sending him flying back before skidding to a halt on the ground. “You like that?!”

The Rider calmly stared down the last of them as he started to cower away from her in fear. Calmly grabbing a cylindrical device on her waist, she pulled it off its mount while grabbing a chip from her buckle and locked it into the device, extending the front of it before mounting it on her right foreleg.

[Ready] the device called out. Of course the result was scaring off the man as he realized she was about to her use her most powerful attack.

Flipping open the buckle again, she tapped a single button on the keypad as the device replied [Exceed Charge, Crimson Smash] before releasing a burst of energy along the red tracks on her armour down to her leg where it charged the device on her leg. Closing it shut, she spun around and kicked in the direction of her quarry, releasing a bolt of energy exploding into a funnel as it came into contact while at the same time binding her target. Satisfied her target wasn’t going anywhere, she bolted straight forward and prepared to attack.

“Wait…she’s going to kill him!” Farukon suddenly exclaimed, running after the Rider.

The Rider jumped and spun into the funnel before suddenly phasing out to the other side of her target, momentarily before the funnel violently exploded and sent her target flying well over her head. Flicking her right hand again, she roughly grabbed her quarry and stared him down. “You have information I want. You will tell me what I want to know, and I will let you live. Is that understood?”

From behind, Farukon could only watch as the Rider extracted information, occasionally using rough and aggressive means to extract information. Soon enough, however, she tossed him aside and turned back towards Farukon and slowly approached him, and tossed him a small chip. “That has all the information you’ll need.”

“Just…who the hell are you?!” Syn screamed at the Rider.

The Rider regarded Syn for a moment before answering. “My name is Suvia, user of the Faiz Gear.”

“Why did you help us?” Farukon asked.

Suvia removed the device from the buckle, opened it and tapped a button and released the jacket. “Do not be mistaken. I only assisted because they have information we both wanted. If you were in my way, I would’ve had to deal with you as well.” Despite the fact that the hood obscure her face, Farukon could at the very least make out a pair of piercing emerald eyes that dared him to challenge her words.

“Who the hell do you think-” Syn began before being cut off by Farukon.

“Don’t push our luck,” Farukon muttered. “We don’t know what she’s capable of, and from we’ve seen, she’d destroy the three of you, and give me a run for my money…”

“What the hell are you talking about?! We can take her on,” Syn growled and leapt forward to attack only to be pinned down by Hayato and bound by Vivio.

“It would be best to listen to your commander,” Suvia calmly stated. “It would be unwise to fight an unknown enemy. Until we meet again, farewell.” Bowing lightly before team Blitz, Suvia then turned around and calmly walked towards the biped machine, tapped the button on its chestplate reverting it back to its motorcycle form, and then mounted and rode back into town.

“What the hell?” Syn growled as she struggled against the binds and Hayato. “Why did you let her get away?!”

“Because it’s not a fight I want to pick,” Farukon sighed. “Vivio, bind the others and prep them for medical evac.” Not evening seeing her compliance to the command, Faruko immediately established a link to the ship above while browsing through the data that Suvia gave her via Gerhard. “This is Blitz One reporting in. We’ve aprehended 10 suspects, all in need of medical attention. We have also obtained the necessary data.” His frown deepened as he continued reading the data. “And it seems our tipper was correct. There is a massive Orphnoch research and smuggling occuring.”

And now here's the character to boot :3

Spoiler for length:

Name: Suvia (Surname Unknown)
Birthday: Unknown
Age: Unknown
Rank: Non-TSAB Mage
Mage Rank: Unknown (Assumed A or A+)
Magic System: Unknown
Gender: Female

Spoiler for Personality:

(Complied by Captain Farukon Reddo)

It’s hard to describe her personality just based on one encounter. However, I can at least say that she had a vendetta against someone. Someone out there has sparked some sort of anger, which is reflected in how she fought. The best word to possibly personify how she fought was akin to a possessed demon. She was brutally efficient. She attacked all major and critical muscle groups or pressure points, either disabling, or literally crippling them. In terms of her mannerism in the brief few moments she spoke with us, she was speaking to us with a very cold indifference. She cared little of our safety, only claiming that our objectives were similar which was the reason she had offered us her assistance. I have no reason to doubt that she would kill us, or at the very least take care of us if our interests were to conflict.

In our brief encounter, the only real piece of evidence that allowed me to identify her as someone from Administered Planet 23 was a brief glimpse of a sword that was hidden underneath her cloak, that bore the symbol of the Valkyrie family, which strongly indicates that she is either a former servant, a member of that family, or at the very least she stole it from someone from the former two, and left the planet before its destruction. I also rank her to be an A or A+ mage based on what little ability and magic she displayed.

Spoiler for History:

Suvia’s history is unknown. All that is known so far is that she is a mage from former Administered Planet 23, that she lived on that planet prior to it’s destruction, and that she is found to be the possesser of Intelligent Device Faiz, which was originally thought to have been destroyed. This is information is based on what little intel that was gathered by Captain Farukon on a previous encounter with this mage.

There have been attempts to match her facial features to records, however, with only partial images of her face recorded, matches have yet to be found of this particular mage; if she is even on record.

Spoiler for Device:

Device Name: Faiz
Device Type: Intelligent

Spoiler for Faiz:

Faiz in its Cradle

Spoiler for Support Gear:

*CLASSIFIED*

Faiz was part of Rider Project Smart Brain that was taking place on Administered Planet 23. Faiz was the second of 5 gears that were being created and tested. Much of the original data and research material was lost when contact with the planet was lost. However, from the original preliminary data, the 5 devices were a central part of a system, which in this case the Faiz Gear, that were a series of weapons and devices disguised as everyday use objects that were belt mounted until needed.

Additional support devices were created, however, all of them were in their experimental stages, and could not be tested due to the lack of a system to combine them with. At present, they are stored at TSAB HQ until such time the Faiz Gear was up and running that these units were to be subsequently tested. But with the loss of the lab that the unit was being tested at, and all evidence indicating that the unit was destroyed, it was mothballed and put aside due to the lack of any attempts to restart Project Smart Brain.

Spoiler for Barrier Jacket:

Spoiler for Spells:

Unknown

[arkhangelsk]

All right, the chapter was OK. The character profile is reasonably realistic if it was compiled by Farukon after a first encounter, though at least the spells she DID use should have been catalogued.

Originally Posted by AdmiralTigerclaw

Ecept if you're a smart opponent, you're emitting your IFF, either laser IFF, or broadcast.

They ... are ... TSABbies...

More seriously, the below discussion seems to ignore the reality of combat, which is a stress-filled environment requiring the fastest of reactions. If Quattro plasters Tre's illusion onto Fate, Nanoha's first reaction will be "Tre!" and she'll prepare to attack, the more so if Tre's illusions looks to be charging her own attack. Somewhere during fire preparation she might have the presence of mind to check IFF, but maybe not, especially if she already believes her target to be Tre. Once you get into Set, even some contradictory evidence, like a yellow glowing shot might not snap you out of it and you'll attack (just see how an entire team of Americans destroyed an airliner). Even if Nanoha snaps out of it, she'll already have lost in time, and now that she's conscious of the trick but unable to completely defeat it, she'll wind up losing time with each and every attack because she has to double check every time.

Even more effective would be to superimpose FATE onto the Numbers. Sure, maybe the IFF won't ring, but let's face it, even if Fate was supposed to be on a mission 10 dimensions away, psychologically speaking how many seconds would it take Nanoha to come to the correct conclusion in the face of visual evidence (the primary data input for humans), force past her emotions and doubts (what if, what if), and attack? Though the effect would be less in subsequent attempts (if Nanoha wasn't already taken out due to hesitation already), it is hard to imagine that she'll completely get over her hesitation.

And that's often the point of deception. Most deceptions can be broken, given time. So a realistic deception planner uses them to buy a bit of time for himself for advantage, rather than expecting it to be 100% unbreakable. Even a cheap deception is already enough to impose cognitive loads on an opponent to break it.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

snip.

It's not something you plan your strategy around however, as you're depending on your opponent screwing up.

What have I told you about depending on your opponent?

If you depend on the incompetence, predictability, reaction (or lack there of) of a specific opponent, and you AREN'T holding several degrees and PhDs in human Psychology and studied a person's history extensively, you're gambling. Xanatos Gambits aren't good ideas in realistic situations of combat.

In the suggestion, you say stick a 'Fate' illusion on a Number and hope it will shock and stall Nanoha from affecting 'Friendly Fire'. But who's to say if Nanoha's subject to enough combat stress to cloud her judgement? Who says she won't see right through the facade and simply slip out the phrase 'nice try' and blast them to cinders?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to try as an EXTRA measure, but it's just that, EXTRA. Don't make that to primary method of saving your hide from an opponent. Because in the 50/50 chance that it fails on the spot, you're out of options and staring down a pink laser beam the size of a school bus.

[Wild Goose]

It's Professor arkhangelsk of Mathnoverse Studies, ATC. Don't you know that whatever he writes is The Right Thing In the Mathnoverse No Ifs And Buts About it? Though it does seem as though he's watching Physics Girl Lyrical Nanoha at times

Something to consider though: Nanoha and Fate happily go all out against each other. If Nate were overlaid over a Number, what's to say that Nanoha wouldn't fire anyway? If it's really Fate, then no harm, cuz Fate's strong enough to tank it. If it's not Fate, well they get hammered. Both ways work out.

For some reason, I'm reminded of Eagle Flight. Two Blackhawks flying through the No-Fly zone, delivering Special Forces soldiers into the area; outgoing detachment CO is briefing the incoming CO and showing him the lay of the land. Two USAF F-15s, callsign Tiger Flight, spot the Blackhawks and do a visual ID, and report back to the AWACS that the helos are Iraqi Hinds inside the No-Fly zone. AWACS clears them to be splashed. Visual ID training was, until that point, a low priority for USAF trainers and pilots.

Incompetance and bad calls aren't just the purview of the TSAB. Take Black Hawk Down, which is full of not just badass but bad calls made by everyone (one of the biggest was the Ranger Captain refusing to confer and discuss with his Delta counterpart).

[arkhangelsk]

Suppose you are part of a tactical team and you are all wearing Level IV protection and armed with pistols. You see a possible target but are not sure whether it is friend or foe. Are you REALLY going to shoot on the basis that the Level IV protection should theoretically allow your teammate to survive your pistol bullets even if they hit?

[Arkeus]

if you are confident in your ability to use non-wounding damage, and that your partner should be able to shrug off the attack, but the enemy will be one-shot..yeah, sure.

[arkhangelsk]

A rational answer - the problem is that it ignores the psychological factors of real combat and killing (the efforts just to get the average soldier to shoot at clear enemies is legend), as well as assuming perfect knowledge of all factors, which will not be true of either the scenario or my analogy (it is not like Quattro is likely to give Nanoha reasons to believe "Fate" is preparing to tank the attack - the effectiveness of an attack against an unprepared target is canon).

[Arkeus]

Except that, for all intent and purpose, quattro is order of magnitude less resistant than fate. Also, those factors are mstly useless in a situation where accident *can't* happen, and where indecivness can carry an extra tag price.

Nanoha is anything but indecisive.

[Keroko]

Shouldn't this be going to the tech or military thread? This really has nothing to do with OC's anymore...

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Shouldn't this be going to the tech or military thread? This really has nothing to do with OC's anymore...

I second that.