All Purpose Nanoha Fanfiction Thread!

It's not an unheard thing either. The anime adaptation teams for Bleach and Ranma, for starters, clearly would have liked to go their own ways, shipping-wise, than the course the manga series were taking.

There's nothing to indicate that the no-kill feature of magic is a function of a mage's device rather than something the mage themselves can do, as far as I'm aware. We see mages fighting without devices and there's no suggestion that they have to pull punches to avoid actually hurting anyone.

edited 5th Jul '16 7:02:42 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

The only mage I recall fighting without a device was Yuuno, and he stuck strictly to binds, barriers, and teleports.

Yuuno, Einhart (for a while, anyway), basically every sapient non-human (including Arf, Zaf, the catgirl familiar twins from Strikers, both Caro's and Lutecia's summoned creatures, Agito — though notably, Rein Zwei does have a device of her own), some-but-not-all of the combat cyborgs, and probably some other people I'm forgetting because Nanoha has Loads And Loads Of Characters.

The most important one there is Einhart, who doesn't get a device until just before the tournament arc starts (she gets it in order to fight in the tournament, in fact, since one is required for entry). That means she's fighting in a handful of sparring matches with Vivio and the big training battle royale without a device, and no safety concerns are ever mentioned about it.

edited 5th Jul '16 7:37:31 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Of course it's something the mages can do. Their devices don't so much do the spells for them as they are basically a very helpful calculator so they don't have to do the math. I'm just saying, it's likely that the devices have an automatic safety switch so that, in the middle of heated combat, they don't accidentally pop a kill shot.

And just because it's a luxury that non-device users don't have doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.

'sides, for the most part, I don't think they really need to worry all that much. The fights we see are generally between very durable people, Fate's stripperific transformations notwithstanding.

edited 5th Jul '16 8:03:47 PM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

Well, I certainly never intended to have Amuro actually hurt anyone, I was just pointing out that a guy who's used to kill-or-be-killed fighting and unskilled at magic in general is going to have trouble with the concept of firing befriendship beams instead of death lasers.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Which you can work around with a device. After all, it's not a human mind, it won't forget to add the False Swipe property to it.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

...yes, I'm aware of this, and I never suggested otherwise, so I'm not sure why you're repeating it again. A device can also help him make his spells more powerful and more accurate, but that doesn't mean he doesn't need to work on improving his power and accuracy anyway.

I feel like I'm saying that a competitive runner needs to work on his form, and you're pointing out that if they ride in a car, then their form doesn't matter. Which isn't wrong, but is also completely missing the point of the comment.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I think this is more a psychological thing than an application thing.

I am reiterating for the purpose of stressing the point that he doesn't exactly need to learn how to fire nonlethal when there's weaponry that will do it for him.

This is not the same situation as not increasing his power and skill because his device 'makes up' for it. Because, well, he wouldn't be growing stronger or more skilled at all if he did that.

In this case, however, this is purely binary. Either it's lethal or it's not. There's no varying levels of lethality. It either shoots to kill, or it doesn't. Sure, he could learn to do it on his own, probably - after all, I'm not sure the intelligent devices do anything that a mage couldn't reproduce on their own -, but it's an unnecessary thing to learn.

It's like a racecar driver learning how to golf. Sure, it won't hurt him, but it's not exactly necessary.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

My point is that he would be expected to learn to do it on his own despite a device being able to do it for him for the same reason we expect people to learn arithmetic and spelling despite calculators and spellcheck being a thing. A device is an assistant, not a crutch — it improves your performance, but you shouldn't be reliant on it, especially for something as basic as "not killing people by accident".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Seems more like learning to drive stick when you only own an automatic.

This.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

Yeah, but..... dudes, military. If they want to make their regs such that every licensed vehicle operator can drive both an automatic and a stick just in case, then they're perfectly within their rights to.

edited 5th Jul '16 9:23:02 PM by EvaUnit01

Quattro looked pretty traumatized... before Nanoha even fired the damn thing. That's right, just knowing that she was in the crosshairs for Nanoha Takamachi's so-far strongest Wave-Motion Gun-level attack was enough to inflict psychological trauma on her.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Marq, you're not seriously saying that "knowing that an attack can take her out in one hit" is the same thing as being actually traumatized, are you?

That's not her waking up from nightmares years after the fact.

That's her screaming "OH SHIT" as an attack is about to hit her.

edited 6th Jul '16 3:13:38 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

I see it as less of a "just in case" thing and more as a "properly learning your fundamentals" thing. It's less learning to drive stick even though you expect to use an automatic and more learning to manually maintain speed instead of consistently using cruise control. The difference between doing it manually and using automated assistance might be negligible in terms of results, but learning manual control will ultimately makes you better than not learning it would.

Hell, the only reason Amuro will be using a device from the start is because he needs a limiter to control his Power Incontinence at first. Otherwise they'd be having him learn the basics of magic without the benefit of a device at all, then assign him one later once he had the fundamentals down. That's pretty much what they do with Vivio — she only gets Sacred Heart at the beginning of Vivid because Nanoha decides that she's got a firm enough grasp on the basics that using a device isn't going to cause her to develop any bad habits.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

@Quatro OHSHIT Moment: Well, having all your defense crumble like paper-mache against bulldozer (thrown by DIO) will put fear of God(dess) on any mastermind-type character. Not to mention, even if it's non-lethal, getting hit by "befriending beam" is still not exactly the most pleasant experience (and for the record, Vivio was getting hit while powered by Relic and in Sanckt-Kaiser mode. That should massively lessen the blow).

Psychologically, though, she was still just a little kid.

Consider this:

"I expect you to learn how to use your magic skillfully without a device to the point that you can modify your spells to be non-lethal without assistance even though in any situation in which you were disarmed from your device, you'd be essentially fucked anyway, because I'm not actually a Reasonable Authority Figure, I'm just a dumbass who's in charge and in love with being in charge".

Then again, that does sound like the behavior of your average manager... And military forces tend to be anal about incredibly pointless things (while being incredibly lax with the important things, such as the USA's notorious incompetence regarding their nuclear arsenal, which you would expect you'd never hear about...)

You know, when I look at it like that, yeah, it totally does sound like something completely useless that he's forced to learn anyway because his trainer demands it even though there's no real reason why he should.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

If looking at it that way makes you happy, then sure, go for it. That's not at all what I'm getting at, but I've explained myself repeatedly and you keep coming back the same place you started from, so I don't really think we're going anywhere on the subject anyway.

In other news, most recent scene I've written: Amuro confuses and annoys his minders by trying to tinker with his medical device using a fork (that being the most convenient thing he had on hand), not quite grokking that devices aren't actually mechanical or electrical machines in the way he's used to. Or thinking things through enough to realize that messing with something that has a direct interface to your brain is unwise.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

That would depend on what the device in his hand is like.

Hard to use a fork to tinker with it if it's card shaped when it's in standby.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

Sharpen the handle a little, and you got makeshift screwdriver/ knife wannabe. Voila.

On the other hand, utensils provided on most dorms and gov. public establishment usually are made of plastic, mostly because it's cheap, but also because plastuc utensils isn't exactly the best tool for tinkering. Because they mostly don't want tenant to start doing things.

No, I don't include prison establishmnet, which contain Mad Scientist apprentices so resourceful they could make functional knives out of tissues.

Might be on the verge of making a Chrono-centric crossover story.

I'm not really familiar with any of those settings (besides Marvel in the general sense), so I can't really made much of an informed choice, there. I tend to support anything with Spiderman in it, though. Especially against a straight man like Chrono.

In other news, I haven't abandoned my Gundam fic, but I've been crazy busy for the last month or so and haven't had much time to work on it. I'll post another update when I've got the next chapter finished.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.