Nasuverse FSN + SAO: j-jam it in!
- Thread starter daniel_gudman
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While there was already discussion about hypothetical rare elements you can still talk about you ideas about the non-newtonian fluids. I'm kind curious about that the application of them. For example Paint element could be used for camouflage or painting things to effect emotion. Coloring an area blue to calm, red to bring out aggression, and yellow to cause starvation. Maybe even cause leadpoisoning or make people pass out from the fumes. Oh and it would be well suited to runecraft. A pseudo canon character from Sao called Ceba is perfect for this.
Well, non newtonian fluids have a some interesting combat applications. Like liquid armor, which is body armor based on shear-thickening fluid that some military sectors over the world have been looking into. Testing says it's better than Kevlar. Also, quicksand, for bogging down monsters. There's also fluids with rheopectic properties, which are foam-like substances that thicken and solidify when shaken. This element would make for a good tank character, actually. Tanking and "hard" CC (physical, as opposed to mental effects). Also, if he managed to add his element to bounded fields making, he'd have hard to detect fields that are actually deceptively strong when under attack (the prana flows easily in normal conditions, but "hardens" under pressure). I was thinking whoever had it didn't know a lot about what non-newtonian fluids even were, so they'd be kinda stumped with what to do with that.
And oil has more well-known applications. Grease spell, anyone? Plus, highly flammable. On the more metaphysical properties, I feel it'd make a great element for working with mystic codes. As both a fuel and a lubricant (and sometimes a coolant), it should make prana flow easier and generally make mystic codes more cost-efficient. As for the user, maybe someone with experience in cooking (they'd be health-conscious, though, so stir-frying is a big no-no).
And, I like your idea, literally "painting the scenery", as it were. Bonus points if they fight with a giant calligraphy brush (Can't Shirou just add a brush-tip to a spear?) Suddenly, I can see someone writing Kanji on the boss with Sword Arts, then igniting them Lancer-style. A more dynamic application of Runes then the paladins, at least.
Hey, I hate to be the guy with the clichés, but has anybody suggested Light and Darkness? They're actually a single thing (one is the absence of the other), and it should be great for illusions, and even invisibility. Also, lasers!
And oil has more well-known applications. Grease spell, anyone? Plus, highly flammable. On the more metaphysical properties, I feel it'd make a great element for working with mystic codes. As both a fuel and a lubricant (and sometimes a coolant), it should make prana flow easier and generally make mystic codes more cost-efficient. As for the user, maybe someone with experience in cooking (they'd be health-conscious, though, so stir-frying is a big no-no).
And, I like your idea, literally "painting the scenery", as it were. Bonus points if they fight with a giant calligraphy brush (Can't Shirou just add a brush-tip to a spear?) Suddenly, I can see someone writing Kanji on the boss with Sword Arts, then igniting them Lancer-style. A more dynamic application of Runes then the paladins, at least.
Hey, I hate to be the guy with the clichés, but has anybody suggested Light and Darkness? They're actually a single thing (one is the absence of the other), and it should be great for illusions, and even invisibility. Also, lasers!
So they'd make strong bounded feels, stopping/slowing down enemies and are better for tanking then the water dress spell that Clayface guy used. Non-newtonian fluids are strong if you know what to do but it's not exactly common knowledge.
I guess that's where Illya comes in the rare element user was probably a struggling middle-liner trying to master more traditional water spells until Illya shows them what their really capable of.
Dark is free but Rosalia is getting light but it will primarily be used for scouting purposes.
I guess that's where Illya comes in the rare element user was probably a struggling middle-liner trying to master more traditional water spells until Illya shows them what their really capable of.
Dark is free but Rosalia is getting light but it will primarily be used for scouting purposes.
Yup, that's what I thought. Illya's an alchemist, so she's got a lot of physics and chemistry knowledge, but if you ask someone off the street what is a non-newtonean fluid, you'd usually get a "what?" as a reply.
Huh, so Rosalia IS gonna turn invisible, after all? I like the irony of having the shadiest character on the BSM have "Light" for an element. Well, shadiest aside from Illya, who's colluding with the terrorist, anyway. (And she's the White
Witch, who's as literally lily-white as you can get. Anybody else sensing a theme?)
I'm kinda hesitant to evem think up Darkness as an element because the way I see it Darkness is just lack of light. I'd actually feel more comfortable with "Black" or "Moonlight" as elements than "Darkness". But we have "Ether" and "Boogeyman", so maybe I shouldn't be clinging too much to objectively real concepts, huh? Well, all I know is they'd be an incredibly nice guy, to keep with the theme from above.
Huh, so Rosalia IS gonna turn invisible, after all? I like the irony of having the shadiest character on the BSM have "Light" for an element. Well, shadiest aside from Illya, who's colluding with the terrorist, anyway. (And she's the White
Witch, who's as literally lily-white as you can get. Anybody else sensing a theme?)
I'm kinda hesitant to evem think up Darkness as an element because the way I see it Darkness is just lack of light. I'd actually feel more comfortable with "Black" or "Moonlight" as elements than "Darkness". But we have "Ether" and "Boogeyman", so maybe I shouldn't be clinging too much to objectively real concepts, huh? Well, all I know is they'd be an incredibly nice guy, to keep with the theme from above.
We've also seen Void and Imaginary Numbers as elements so it's possible, if rare, to be more conceptual than real. And that's before you get into the funkiness of Origins like Worthlessness.
It could be interesting if Kayaba's exploration of adding and removing elements strayed into creating them eventually. Say, for instance, using his study of Rosalia's Light to develop Dark as its inverse.
It could be interesting if Kayaba's exploration of adding and removing elements strayed into creating them eventually. Say, for instance, using his study of Rosalia's Light to develop Dark as its inverse.
I would have thought adding elements meant creating them. Or is he just swapping them around? Or do you mean that he could design custom-made Rare Elements to add?
On that last note, that would be reeeally scary. Imagine Kayaba offering a fiendishly dangerous "Element Alteration" Quest, or even offering it post-game? The whole DDA could have Gravity as an Element. Hell, forget that, if he diagnoses people's Origin, then tunes their Element to match, he can make an army of Incarnations, which are supposed to be the Nasuverse version of Legendary Pokémon: Rare, Unique, and Utterly Broken. Shirou-level OP-ness for everyone!
On that last note, that would be reeeally scary. Imagine Kayaba offering a fiendishly dangerous "Element Alteration" Quest, or even offering it post-game? The whole DDA could have Gravity as an Element. Hell, forget that, if he diagnoses people's Origin, then tunes their Element to match, he can make an army of Incarnations, which are supposed to be the Nasuverse version of Legendary Pokémon: Rare, Unique, and Utterly Broken. Shirou-level OP-ness for everyone!
It seems like a natural progression of his research to go one step beyond changing Elements to creating them. If Kayaba really can break an Element down to basic numerology, then creating a new Element is a matter of developing the correct mathematical model. That's another reason for studying the Protagonists beyond helping Ilya - their Rare Elements offer him unique mathematical models for Elements. The more models Kayaba has, the more likely it is he can develop a functional Element.
The initial Element models are likely to be installed into the "Dead" Players who refused to participate in beta-testing - how an artificial Element interacts with a living soul is going to be a lot harder to predict than similar procedures with known Elements. Once he has a stable Element, Cardinal would probably select the best candidate and develop a "hidden" quest for them that leads into changing the Element. If there are multiple candidates, only one gets the reward.
Argo would probably be pulling her hair out trying to find the trigger.
The initial Element models are likely to be installed into the "Dead" Players who refused to participate in beta-testing - how an artificial Element interacts with a living soul is going to be a lot harder to predict than similar procedures with known Elements. Once he has a stable Element, Cardinal would probably select the best candidate and develop a "hidden" quest for them that leads into changing the Element. If there are multiple candidates, only one gets the reward.
Argo would probably be pulling her hair out trying to find the trigger.
Argo. Argo who's Origin is [Knowing] or [Learning]. Argo who lacks a native element to complicate procedures. Argo that has been noted by the author as a valuable assistant for reaching the Root BEFORE she had magic. Okay, the question becomes, is Kayaba interested in reaching the Root? Because having the [Incarnation of Knowing] around is probably the closest you can get to having [The Root] on speed-dial. "Hello? I'd like to order an extra-large portion of High Sorcery to deliver, please? Oh, and a side of fries." something like that. Only reasons I can see for why he would NOT do this immediately is because if she DID reach the Root while in-game (it SHOULD take her at least a couple of years of serious work, even as an Incarnation, but Kayaba likes to play it safe), the game would crash something amazing, and probably destroy the minds of everyone in it trying to quantify a literal miracle. That, and giving reality-breaking powers to someone with a legitimate reason to hold a grudge against you is just asking for it.
That's an interesting possibility but also fairly far down the line - Learning is likely to be different enough from his current crop of Elements that Kayaba would need more time to develop it. Given his goal is to produce a crop of powerful and sophisticated magi, creating somebody who can come close to the Root seems exactly something he would do.
As for creating a powerful enemy, Kayaba's already doing that by creating thousands of angry magi, at least some of whom have already decided killing people is jolly good fun. The more powerful they are, the more likely they can upset the current status quo and potentially bring back the Age of Gods - especially somebody as powerful as an Incarnation of Knowledge could be.
As for creating a powerful enemy, Kayaba's already doing that by creating thousands of angry magi, at least some of whom have already decided killing people is jolly good fun. The more powerful they are, the more likely they can upset the current status quo and potentially bring back the Age of Gods - especially somebody as powerful as an Incarnation of Knowledge could be.
...Also, uh, while Origins can get super bullshit, they also tend to be a <<Bad End>> for the people involved. The Incarnation of Knowledge, if such a thing is possible, is definitely not Argo anymore.
On a side note, am I the only one a little bugged by the super-physical Elements? For the most part prana flavors seem like they should refer to more abstract, conceptual things. Certainly, the examples given are physical - fire/water/etc - but in practice when used they really mean other things: water being fluidity, air being rapid motion, and so on. Shirou's Element of Sword doesn't just cover literal swords but "weapons" in general -- and then there's the weird things like Imaginary Numbers that are "things that are possible but have not yet been instantiated".
So something like "Non-Newtonian Fluids" feels a little too ... iunno, reified, to be an Element. Blood works, because you can talk about money as the lifeblood of a country and water as the lifeblood of a city, or about bonds of blood; Knowledge definitely works; but something like "Sulfur," not so much. -- Well actually that's a bad example, because sulfur is one of the alchemical elements and you could expand its range that way. But something with a formal, rigorous scientific definition shouldn't be a valid Element, is my vague thematic feeling.
On a side note, am I the only one a little bugged by the super-physical Elements? For the most part prana flavors seem like they should refer to more abstract, conceptual things. Certainly, the examples given are physical - fire/water/etc - but in practice when used they really mean other things: water being fluidity, air being rapid motion, and so on. Shirou's Element of Sword doesn't just cover literal swords but "weapons" in general -- and then there's the weird things like Imaginary Numbers that are "things that are possible but have not yet been instantiated".
So something like "Non-Newtonian Fluids" feels a little too ... iunno, reified, to be an Element. Blood works, because you can talk about money as the lifeblood of a country and water as the lifeblood of a city, or about bonds of blood; Knowledge definitely works; but something like "Sulfur," not so much. -- Well actually that's a bad example, because sulfur is one of the alchemical elements and you could expand its range that way. But something with a formal, rigorous scientific definition shouldn't be a valid Element, is my vague thematic feeling.
Argo isn't an Incarnation of Knowing, not yet. A Incarnation is defined by Type-moon as a Person having their Element and Origin matching (i.e. Shirou). So they are pretty much a physical representation of the concept, kinda like Shirou is literally made of Sword. Incarnations are very rare, and are said to be able to reach higher grounds than Magi.
Well, just because non-newtonian fluid doesn't have a ready-made symbolism, doesn't mean we cannot ascribe it one, no? Something like "resistance to change, viscosity (the opposite of fluidity), defensiveness, stubborness, locks up under pressure". And if you want conceptual weight "strange, unusual, compromise, in-between two things". Besides, whenever we see Magi using their elements, it's usually the literal, physical interpretation that they manifest, no?
Well, just because non-newtonian fluid doesn't have a ready-made symbolism, doesn't mean we cannot ascribe it one, no? Something like "resistance to change, viscosity (the opposite of fluidity), defensiveness, stubborness, locks up under pressure". And if you want conceptual weight "strange, unusual, compromise, in-between two things". Besides, whenever we see Magi using their elements, it's usually the literal, physical interpretation that they manifest, no?
I'm doing this intentionally -- the Players are being more literal-minded and genuinely less magical than members of the Mage Association. (Shirou to some extent has been infected with that).
I'm saving the really bonkers Conceptual stuff for when members of the MA show up.
Point of order, "Incarnation" is a fandom term, it doesn't actually show up anywhere in the official Lore -- not even in an interview, as far as I know.
More generally, I don't like the term, and later down the road Kayaba's going to be introducing his own terminology to Kirito. (I am cognizant of the irony in introducing new fanon in the same place as fanon I don't like).
Actually I don't know if I brought this up yet?
Anyway, the idea is that Kayaba can literally measure the divergence or angle between someone's Origin and their element(s) and express that in, like, degrees of arc.
Taking someone with one element as the simplest case: an Origin and one element.
If they don't have anything to do with each other than they're perpendicular, their "Spiritual Angle" is ninety degrees.
The more they point in the same direction, the smaller they get -- someone with the Fire element and the Origin, of, like, "purification" would have a "Spiritual Angle" of thirty degrees of whatever.
Origin and Element that contradict each other are greater than ninety -- so if Araya Souyen, whose Origin is "Stillness", had the "Fire" element, then his Spiritual Angle would be like, a hundred-and-twenty degrees, because fires change things.
So Shirou has a Spiritual Angle of zero degrees, that's how Kayaba would express his specialness.
For someone with multiple elements:
The angles are independent, so you could draw, like, a 3-D cone by plotting their Angles on different planes, and describing them with a conic section like that.
Also there's a certain amount of personal subjectivity to it, two different people with the same traits (matching Origins, the same elements) could have different angles depending on their abilities.
I'm saving the really bonkers Conceptual stuff for when members of the MA show up.
Point of order, "Incarnation" is a fandom term, it doesn't actually show up anywhere in the official Lore -- not even in an interview, as far as I know.
More generally, I don't like the term, and later down the road Kayaba's going to be introducing his own terminology to Kirito. (I am cognizant of the irony in introducing new fanon in the same place as fanon I don't like).
Actually I don't know if I brought this up yet?
Anyway, the idea is that Kayaba can literally measure the divergence or angle between someone's Origin and their element(s) and express that in, like, degrees of arc.
Taking someone with one element as the simplest case: an Origin and one element.
If they don't have anything to do with each other than they're perpendicular, their "Spiritual Angle" is ninety degrees.
The more they point in the same direction, the smaller they get -- someone with the Fire element and the Origin, of, like, "purification" would have a "Spiritual Angle" of thirty degrees of whatever.
Origin and Element that contradict each other are greater than ninety -- so if Araya Souyen, whose Origin is "Stillness", had the "Fire" element, then his Spiritual Angle would be like, a hundred-and-twenty degrees, because fires change things.
So Shirou has a Spiritual Angle of zero degrees, that's how Kayaba would express his specialness.
For someone with multiple elements:
The angles are independent, so you could draw, like, a 3-D cone by plotting their Angles on different planes, and describing them with a conic section like that.
Also there's a certain amount of personal subjectivity to it, two different people with the same traits (matching Origins, the same elements) could have different angles depending on their abilities.
Huh, that is cool, from a mechanical standpoint. Also, a lot more precise then canon. Plus, the mental picture of Kayaba fucking with people's souls by manipulating an holographic 3D graph Tony Stark style while the subject in question is rolling on the floor in agonizing pain is something that will just not leave me now. I probably lack the math knowledge to understand the full significance of that, though. Well, no worries, I'm sure Kayaba will elucidate to Kirito (and in the process, to us readers) in time. However, that has still left the biggest question unanswered: Will Kayaba let people change their elements, once he figures out how? And how would that work in the paradigm of the graph mechanics, can he just arbitrarily set everyone's spiritual angle to 0, or does that have some subjective pre-requisite from the person in question, since the angle is mostly a matter of personal subjectivity?
The spiritual angle probably can't be changed without more significant modifications. Moving to a zero spiritual angle is probably going to be easier depending on how far the native spiritual angle is from it.
So Kayaba's first experiments with swapping elements would probably start with Elements which will have a similar angle with the Origin. For example, Fire and Water may be opposing Elements but could have similar spiritual angles to Purification. This would be less stressful on the soul than something with a vastly different angle. Moving to more extreme shifts in the angle would require more effort to avoid permanent damage to the soul/mind.
So Kayaba's first experiments with swapping elements would probably start with Elements which will have a similar angle with the Origin. For example, Fire and Water may be opposing Elements but could have similar spiritual angles to Purification. This would be less stressful on the soul than something with a vastly different angle. Moving to more extreme shifts in the angle would require more effort to avoid permanent damage to the soul/mind.
You know... all this talk about measuring the deviation a person has from their origin has given me an idea...
So, let's say you are a scientifically minded player trapped in SAO, and let's also say that you intend to experiment with magecraft for fun or profit.
What would be the first thing you would need to do to be able to do precise experimentation?
Well, to measure it of course.
Either by finding a minimum unit of Prana used by the System though experimentation or by arbitrarily deciding on an unit Shirou style.
So, once we have an unit to measure Prana with we can use this a frame of reference to measure all kind of things that interact with Prana.
For example, we know that Rituals can substitute for skill or even power while casting spells. Now you can measure exactly how much.
Hell, you can even measure how much Prana it takes to substitute for a weak spell image. Does that mean that thoughts have a sort of energy value?
For someone like Kirito that's better at interacting with things he can measure this is the kind of thing they should be thinking about once that fact has had time to sink in.
What would the unit for Prana be called? Would we end up with different ways of measuring different things? Like having Psi as the unit to measure the intensity of thought as related to spell-casting or Crownwells as the unit to measure the efficiency of a Ritual?
Nevertheless this sounds like the kind of thing that should exist, specially now that Diabel has begun trying to get more people into Magecraft experiments.
Hell, I'm sure the Association must have something like this, even if it's terribly antiquated and unpractical.
So, let's say you are a scientifically minded player trapped in SAO, and let's also say that you intend to experiment with magecraft for fun or profit.
What would be the first thing you would need to do to be able to do precise experimentation?
Well, to measure it of course.
Either by finding a minimum unit of Prana used by the System though experimentation or by arbitrarily deciding on an unit Shirou style.
So, once we have an unit to measure Prana with we can use this a frame of reference to measure all kind of things that interact with Prana.
For example, we know that Rituals can substitute for skill or even power while casting spells. Now you can measure exactly how much.
Hell, you can even measure how much Prana it takes to substitute for a weak spell image. Does that mean that thoughts have a sort of energy value?
For someone like Kirito that's better at interacting with things he can measure this is the kind of thing they should be thinking about once that fact has had time to sink in.
What would the unit for Prana be called? Would we end up with different ways of measuring different things? Like having Psi as the unit to measure the intensity of thought as related to spell-casting or Crownwells as the unit to measure the efficiency of a Ritual?
Nevertheless this sounds like the kind of thing that should exist, specially now that Diabel has begun trying to get more people into Magecraft experiments.
Hell, I'm sure the Association must have something like this, even if it's terribly antiquated and unpractical.
It wouldn't just be Diabel interested in their results, but Argo as well. She would be collating data from all the researchers she could finagle into an agreement to try and develop a grand unified theory of magecraft. And the best part from Kayaba's perspective is that these are general theory researchers so they're sharing knowledge with everyone, rather than hoarding it like typical magi. That means Players will be even more capable overall.
Really, it gets better.
Think about it, if you can measure the deviation from the Origin or the Element for a person, why couldn't you do the same for a singular spell?
Once you have an angle and the power of the spell you essentially have a Vector. And there is plenty of maths that can be applied to vectors.
Could you somehow find the most "deviated" spell from the Origin and Element that you can barely cast and, using them as vectors, find a Vector Space representing all the spell you can safely cast?
That would be very useful to calculate (or divine if you want to be mystical) beforehand if a spell is safe for you.
Hell, if you are willing to take the Five Great Elements as universal "Origins" you could make a 5 dimensional space to make calculations for all magic users.
Being able to compare spells cast by anyone and find universal values would help tremendously in sharing investigation. Magecraft investigation could be peer reviewed.
I can see Argo trying to get a leg up into her recently chosen profession and begin publishing a scientific magazine for Magecraft with Diabel's support.
Do you think she would try and convince Shirou to publish a paper about the Process of Creation or Enchanting or something like that?
It would be a great publicity stunt both for the publication and for making Magecraft investigation something cool.
After all if the Sixth Ranger is doing it it must be important!
Think about it, if you can measure the deviation from the Origin or the Element for a person, why couldn't you do the same for a singular spell?
Once you have an angle and the power of the spell you essentially have a Vector. And there is plenty of maths that can be applied to vectors.
Could you somehow find the most "deviated" spell from the Origin and Element that you can barely cast and, using them as vectors, find a Vector Space representing all the spell you can safely cast?
That would be very useful to calculate (or divine if you want to be mystical) beforehand if a spell is safe for you.
Hell, if you are willing to take the Five Great Elements as universal "Origins" you could make a 5 dimensional space to make calculations for all magic users.
Being able to compare spells cast by anyone and find universal values would help tremendously in sharing investigation. Magecraft investigation could be peer reviewed.
I can see Argo trying to get a leg up into her recently chosen profession and begin publishing a scientific magazine for Magecraft with Diabel's support.
Do you think she would try and convince Shirou to publish a paper about the Process of Creation or Enchanting or something like that?
It would be a great publicity stunt both for the publication and for making Magecraft investigation something cool.
After all if the Sixth Ranger is doing it it must be important!
I think the closest they have right now is Griselda's guild, The Sorcery something or other. But Diabel is trying to stimulate precisely that, what with putting the school kids (and hopefully the retired players) up to spell development. I might be wrong, but I don't think I am, because as shown by Kirito teaching the Black Cats, the Mid-liners hold their magecraft to even more secrecy than the Front-liners, and even they keep some stuff secret. The way I see it, the main difference between SAO magus practices and MA magus practices is that instead of the vertical structure of family lines, magecraft gets passed horizontally amongst guild-members.
On that topic, the subject of Crests has come up a couple of times. Could guilds adopt a pseudo-Crest system? It would be engineered to be somewhere between a Geas and a Servant Contract, wherein all members of a guild agree to share a small portion of their prana, and through a clever application of Flowing and Transfer of Power, similar to how [Memories] trickle down the Sevant-bond, [Experience] would be passed around through all members of a Guild together with the prana, so every time one of them casts a spell, all of them get a little of the experience of it (kinda like an Exp. Share in Pokémon).
The long-term effect of that would be that since specialized Guilds use a specific type of spell a LOT, everyone in the guild would eventually become insanely good at it. It is not as OP as true Crests, where you don't even have to KNOW the spells to use them, but I figure Kayaba would deem it even more useful to the SAOers, since experience actually stays with them once they leave the game, and it can also be implemented IRL without risking killing anyone.
Mechanics-wise, I see it as something Kayaba can probably achieve, seeing as he studied under Zouken, the inventor of the command seals, and he IS using some contract-like effect to keep everyone in Aincrad. Besides, the way I described it working is pretty much a low-end, long-term application of the Magecraft Inheritance System that already exists.
And the SAO Guilds get Fairy Tail-like tattoos to distinguish their members (like command seals, but everyone shares the same mark).
On that topic, the subject of Crests has come up a couple of times. Could guilds adopt a pseudo-Crest system? It would be engineered to be somewhere between a Geas and a Servant Contract, wherein all members of a guild agree to share a small portion of their prana, and through a clever application of Flowing and Transfer of Power, similar to how [Memories] trickle down the Sevant-bond, [Experience] would be passed around through all members of a Guild together with the prana, so every time one of them casts a spell, all of them get a little of the experience of it (kinda like an Exp. Share in Pokémon).
The long-term effect of that would be that since specialized Guilds use a specific type of spell a LOT, everyone in the guild would eventually become insanely good at it. It is not as OP as true Crests, where you don't even have to KNOW the spells to use them, but I figure Kayaba would deem it even more useful to the SAOers, since experience actually stays with them once they leave the game, and it can also be implemented IRL without risking killing anyone.
Mechanics-wise, I see it as something Kayaba can probably achieve, seeing as he studied under Zouken, the inventor of the command seals, and he IS using some contract-like effect to keep everyone in Aincrad. Besides, the way I described it working is pretty much a low-end, long-term application of the Magecraft Inheritance System that already exists.
And the SAO Guilds get Fairy Tail-like tattoos to distinguish their members (like command seals, but everyone shares the same mark).
Well Griselda's Sorcery Hunters are close but they find content skipped by front-liners rather than create their own. Yeah, Diabel is probably be the only one with the foresight, motivation and means to put together a research institute. Maybe have Kayaba throw him a bone and drop a quest into his lap where the reward is a proper magus workshop complete with an NPCs that could teach the do's and don't's of creating spells.
I THINK Daniel said that Fuumanin would act similarly as an after effect of their shared magecraft so maybe they could candidates for pseudo crest system plus they could easily buy the information on how to make one from Argo. But to tell you the truth I forgot where I read that so I could be remembering it wrong.
To use as an example of how this might work in a fate spin of there is a group that shares a single crest with half held by the leader and the other half split up between the followers. The leader has a spell that temporally raises the smaller crest up to his level with the downside of shortening their lifespan.
That would be kinda tricky since in FSN it doesn't seem like you can pick and choose what memories or in this case experience you get. And even if you could it doesn't mean you can get stronger or even retain any of it (Shirou being a special exception).
It's plausible that Kayaba could introduce cheap knock-off command seals or teach how to create them even if it would be incredibly difficult and time consuming. They could be used to contract spirits/familiars or simply power up spells or others. It could even be used by the characters to study how Kayaba is keeping everyone trapped if they realize magic is real.
I THINK Daniel said that Fuumanin would act similarly as an after effect of their shared magecraft so maybe they could candidates for pseudo crest system plus they could easily buy the information on how to make one from Argo. But to tell you the truth I forgot where I read that so I could be remembering it wrong.
To use as an example of how this might work in a fate spin of there is a group that shares a single crest with half held by the leader and the other half split up between the followers. The leader has a spell that temporally raises the smaller crest up to his level with the downside of shortening their lifespan.
That would be kinda tricky since in FSN it doesn't seem like you can pick and choose what memories or in this case experience you get. And even if you could it doesn't mean you can get stronger or even retain any of it (Shirou being a special exception).
It's plausible that Kayaba could introduce cheap knock-off command seals or teach how to create them even if it would be incredibly difficult and time consuming. They could be used to contract spirits/familiars or simply power up spells or others. It could even be used by the characters to study how Kayaba is keeping everyone trapped if they realize magic is real.
On the one hand, I totally agree with having spell-crafting tutors, but on the other, I think it would be better story-wise if the SAOers had to build their own Workshop. Plus, I think Kayaba would enforce that, since he wants them to become IRL magic-users.
The memory-viewing is only a side-effect, not a design feature, though (citation needed). If the pseudo-Crests were engineered with that specific purpose in mind, maybe they could be better at it? Think of it more as a very dialed-down version of the Magecraft Inheritance System, where two people share the experience of using magecraft then the FSN memory thing, that was just for a mechanic explanation of it's theoretical workings.
I was thinking the tattoo would be the pseudo-Crest though, not a Command Seal? They would only look like command seals for visual purposes, not in their functionality. It's just so guild-people would have an excuse to get awesome matching tattoos.
The memory-viewing is only a side-effect, not a design feature, though (citation needed). If the pseudo-Crests were engineered with that specific purpose in mind, maybe they could be better at it? Think of it more as a very dialed-down version of the Magecraft Inheritance System, where two people share the experience of using magecraft then the FSN memory thing, that was just for a mechanic explanation of it's theoretical workings.
I was thinking the tattoo would be the pseudo-Crest though, not a Command Seal? They would only look like command seals for visual purposes, not in their functionality. It's just so guild-people would have an excuse to get awesome matching tattoos.