2007-06-05, 16:12 | Link #21 |
Once and Current Subber
Join Date: Dec 2005
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Hey, I'm just quoting Elio and his little-boy understanding of the military that we see a few years ago, from the manga. (Basically "the Ground Forces are where you start, and they're part of the team too even if you're better than they are" mantra.) And since Subaru definitely started off with the ground-pounders, and Tea and Subaru were partnered all through training, right up until Nanoha shanghaied them... Of course, once they finished their grunt training, had they not signed up with Div 6, they may have indeed gone their separate ways immediately.
Officer training is academy-type work in the real world. We don't know how much theoretical work trainees get as a matter of course - I mean, obviously they need a lot more math than the average grunt, given the relationship between math and Mid magic - but there's no telling whether that extends to battle formations or logistics and supply or leadership. Actually, if I might digress for a moment, it's entirely possible that a lot of 20th century military concepts might not function properly in the context of the Mid armed forces. I mean, what's a battle line to forces that can insert from space and freakin' -teleport-? Certainly the ground forces composition makes more sense if you think of them as ground-holders rather than a mobile unit... "Hold this facility no matter what" types. Rather more horrifyingly, if you can sneak a 10-year-old girl into the enemy's rear area and then she whips out a device and does her best Nanoha impression, that's gonna be -hell- on the idea of limiting civilian casualties in a conflict... Of course, we don't know that there IS a conflict per se. Does Mid have any unfriendly neighbors? What are the "borders" of an inter-dimensional empire, anyway? It's entirely possible that they've just never run into the kind of organized resistance that has made them use military magic on a total-war scale. We can assume that they don't do so regularly, or lately, given a few clues (you don't act like the JSDF if you get shot at a lot), but the history's a blank so far. |
2007-06-06, 03:39 | Link #23 |
Once and Current Subber
Join Date: Dec 2005
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I disagree. The Imperials have a completely opposite personnel issue - they have a bunch of cloned stormtroopers who are essentially disposable, and the valuable stuff is the equipment. TSAB can't treat its troops like that, because they're NOT something they can just pull out of a vat - Nanoha and friends represent priceless, irreplaceable assets (and, potentially, hideously dangerous opposition forces!)
Of course, in StrikerS, we have a plot where they seem to be pulling mages out of vats. I've already expressed an opinion that this might be reflective of TSAB involvement, which would lead to truly delicious drama. But this isn't the thread to speculate on that... |
2007-06-06, 07:51 | Link #24 | |
Adeptus Animus
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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Of course, this doesn't dispute your disposabillity argument as they drafted human males from every planet under their juristiction without much limits. |
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2007-06-06, 08:14 | Link #25 | |
sleepyhead
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: event horizon
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No they are mostly a clone army.
That's why they all sound the same. //end-off-topicless Quote:
Judging from those mages in episode one, the training seems to be ~ umm.. the make-you-rough, but can't afford you to quit. If it was more japanese-military (or any other normal one) I would expect them to salute and code-speak at every *bip* out of Hayate's mouth ~ And yet they are so casual. It's more like the Nano-Military is trained more as an police force then anything. The general discipline and combat tactics support this ~ - - - - Signum, Vita & Co should be the only ones with the l33tish training.
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2007-06-06, 08:29 | Link #26 | |
Adeptus Animus
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Age: 36
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Anyway, take it from a heavy Star Wars fan like me that stormtroopers are not clones. I can dig up mountains of proof if you like. Anyway, the comparison with the SW Imperial Millitary is not a bad thing, as they seem to mix up naval and ground force ranks as well. |
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2007-06-06, 08:42 | Link #27 | |
Anime Snark
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 41
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Saluting him with "God-stricken" fear while reporting to him in the office on the first day, he basically went, "Ah, forget all that crap." and more or less told me to be more relaxed. Not all army camps here are like that, of course. I was rather fortunate in that it was not a combat/training camp, but an administrative camp, and a HQ at that, so the concentration of LTCs was "unusually" high. The rationale of my "Boss" was that it was just a waste of time for men to salute their superiors in the office everyday, and a waste of his time to salute back as well. I still address him as "Sir" of course, since there is still a need to establish and reinforce military discipline. When I transferred to other vocations, it was more or less the same. The relationship between the men and their immediate superiors is always more "relaxed" than between men and "external" superiors. Makes sense really. Add to the fact that Hayate is 19 years old, and her "laid-back" behaviour is not really that far-fetched. Realistic even. What will really determine Hayate's competence though, are her reactions to "bad events". The only thing that bugs me about Hayate is her rank. In the real world, most people would be lucky to be a Captain at 19, let alone a LTC. Ah well, this is the TSAB, and Hayate did say that her Ancient Belken skills were factors in her insanely fast promotions. Hayate was a Captain at age 15... so she basically went on to Major, then LTC in four years. Man, I hope she saved a lot of orphans during those years. At this rate, she will achieve General at a younger age than Chrono achieved Admiral. Cheers.
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2007-06-06, 09:06 | Link #28 |
Storm of Her Wrath
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Singapore
Age: 40
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In Singapore Armed Forces speak, Subaru and Tia were performing unsafe and unauthorised manuvers during a routine training session and Nanoha called a safety time for a cease of training. Subaru was made to sit by the side and reflect on her action while Nanoha proceeded to tekan (slang for punish with intense physical training) Tia with her own medicine.
I would like to see a report on that... AND SALUTING A NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICER WOULD GET YOU EXTRA DUTIES. Get that right, n00bs. |
2007-06-06, 10:18 | Link #29 |
Once and Current Subber
Join Date: Dec 2005
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Well, that's the sort of thing I'm talking about. There's certain ways that Div 6 is like it is because of the characters involved - simply put, you can't make Nanoha or Fate or Hayate into a martinet without destroying their characters. Vita is a bit more picky on things like that, so they have her ask Nanoha "wait, what about all that crap?" and Nanoha comes back with the "if they have time to salute, I'm not working them hard enough" answer. VERY like Nanoha. ;p
But in other ways, it's set up like the Japanese military because, well, that's what the writers know. Disaster relief and law enforcement, not "eternally vigilant against an enemy", all that jazz. It -should- be like a special forces unit (and the relaxed discipline is a lot like that too), and it is in ways that the writers need it to be in order for their plot to work, but it's not consistently like it in ways that it would be if the writers were familiar with special forces training (and worried about keeping that consistent, which they probably aren't. ;p) The -good- thing about Hayate's rank, weird as it is, is that if we assume that it's largely related to her mage rank, we can assume that it's hit a plateau; it's not unreasonable that Hayate would get better from when SHE was a captain, but it's unlikely that her power's going to continue going up and up and up, especially now that she's more or less a staff puke these days. ;p With her spending her days doing the paperwork, the political maneuvering, and not making things go boom interestingly, we can assume that SS is as high as she's going to go for quite a while (!) and that they're going to leave her at that rank for ages'n'ages. Or, assuming that she isn't in Div 6 forever, she might get transferred to another arm where rank isn't a big deal - the enforcers seem to be a little less military in that respect. On the other hand, there's still going to be the question of how much they can trust Hayate, with her squad of Velkan buddies; they can't just slap a limiter on her if she'd be operating independently... Hayate having that limiter on her is interesting. It's not just "okay, we don't like people being over AAA" - they rank her all the way down to A, which puts her in the "able to fly" range but not any better than, say, the crowds of enforcers who get wiped in seasons 1 and 2. Subtle message by the high command that she shouldn't be leading from the front? Plot device to keep Nanoha up on the screen more? Your call. ;p |
2007-06-07, 12:20 | Link #30 |
Is it can be Azu tiem now
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I'm not sure how to phrase this question, but...
I'm just wondering why all the privates have what appear to be pretty much the same kind of device. Is it that most of them prefer the standard? Or do you not get a custom device until a certain rank? And if so, that rank must be pretty low, seeing as how Tea and Subaru had custom ones. |
2007-06-07, 12:26 | Link #31 | |
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2007-06-07, 12:30 | Link #32 | |
Secret Society BLANKET
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Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: 3 times the passion of normal flamenco
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2007-06-07, 12:34 | Link #33 |
sleepyhead
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: event horizon
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It was also in the anime.
In short Tea and Suba-chan are very weird ~ as far as standards go. Tea's monologue in 6 I think, where she analyses the team and portrays them as l33ts is very deceiving. I think she's being very ~ umm professional ~ in it, to put it bluntly. If she was as she described herself ~ normal ~ she would probably go: "Oh SHI-" at every movement Nano & Fate made. Edit ~ Lowe I think the reasoning is that they are not weapons ~ well sorta ~ and more amplifiers for the cadets ability. In other words the cadets are the weapons themselves whatever else they want to use is legit. There's probably some family influence in this respect ~
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2007-06-07, 12:50 | Link #34 |
Once and Current Subber
Join Date: Dec 2005
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Good question. Evidence suggests that it's not a fixed rank or anything - Chrono, who ranked higher than Nanoha or Fate in S1 and S2, was still using the standard-issue S2U storage device. Tea and Subaru and Elio had custom devices going into training. Probably, it's a personal-choice thing - you get a standard-issue device unless you have one already, in which case it's okay to keep using it. (Dunno about Caro, but she wasn't in training before Div 6, so maybe she didn't have a device at all?)
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2007-06-07, 12:55 | Link #35 |
sleepyhead
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: event horizon
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Caro's device looks standard ~ well I can't imagine much variation on it. Most likely they thought making her device look different would look umm ~ forced, like Nano-Squad was some kind of super here league ~ bah xP ( her device is enhanced however )
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