Nasuverse FSN + SAO: j-jam it in!
- Thread starter daniel_gudman
- Start date
Okay I have been a way for a while so I am going to cover a couple things I saw in catching up to the present.
First about the darkness element Idea- on the Trapped int FRO thread I posted my Idea for a person with the Shadow element if you are interested- as a butler for Illya
AS for the phsycial elements, Daniel already said it but that is more due to the players than inherent, there are plenty of more mystical and imiterial uses for the various elements, the players just havent thought of that/ figured it out yet. For example someone pointed out sulfur, in alchemy salt, mercury and sulfur could represent things like the body spirit and life (it has been awhile since I looked it up) I acutally also postend on them on the Trapped thread- sulfur was more related to voltility, like how chemically reactive something was, the idea I had for the user was basically a bombadier/trap maker, creating potions that they could destabilize to use as grenades, and eventually being able to do things like Kimblee from full metal alchemist and make anything he touches an explosive.
As for researching magecraft, I had an idea for an average one character (i don't remember if I posted this idea) who would start a guild patterned as a school, and the guild would be devoted to researching magecraft and crafting mystic codes, the character himself would specialize in combo spells, either ones using mulitple elements or ones that could be easily combined with other elements like the game magicka- like a weak fire bolt spell that was made to combine with similar spells, so he could jsut stack the firebolt with the same spell to great a bigger and stronger one, or he could us a wind bolt to create a faster hotter burning spell (or a ball of electricity?), or an earth bolt for something like weak lava. He would build up a library of his own potential combinations and also teach many to others, with the goal of them being spells that people could combo between each other, like one knowing the fire spell and his partner knowing the wind version. The whole thing would creep Ilya and potentially Kayaba out, as it would esentially be a nice version of the clocktower, full of helpful people jsut wanting to try out their latest ideas "oh your the sixth ranger, awesome i am trying to make a sword that enhances its weilder's speed any advice?" "oh your the white witch here are the ether spells in our library, do any of them interest you, could any of them be improved?"
The whole thing jsut seemed to me what a bunch of nerds would do if they got a chance to practice real magic, or a game system of magic as versitle as the thaumaturgy patch.
First about the darkness element Idea- on the Trapped int FRO thread I posted my Idea for a person with the Shadow element if you are interested- as a butler for Illya
AS for the phsycial elements, Daniel already said it but that is more due to the players than inherent, there are plenty of more mystical and imiterial uses for the various elements, the players just havent thought of that/ figured it out yet. For example someone pointed out sulfur, in alchemy salt, mercury and sulfur could represent things like the body spirit and life (it has been awhile since I looked it up) I acutally also postend on them on the Trapped thread- sulfur was more related to voltility, like how chemically reactive something was, the idea I had for the user was basically a bombadier/trap maker, creating potions that they could destabilize to use as grenades, and eventually being able to do things like Kimblee from full metal alchemist and make anything he touches an explosive.
As for researching magecraft, I had an idea for an average one character (i don't remember if I posted this idea) who would start a guild patterned as a school, and the guild would be devoted to researching magecraft and crafting mystic codes, the character himself would specialize in combo spells, either ones using mulitple elements or ones that could be easily combined with other elements like the game magicka- like a weak fire bolt spell that was made to combine with similar spells, so he could jsut stack the firebolt with the same spell to great a bigger and stronger one, or he could us a wind bolt to create a faster hotter burning spell (or a ball of electricity?), or an earth bolt for something like weak lava. He would build up a library of his own potential combinations and also teach many to others, with the goal of them being spells that people could combo between each other, like one knowing the fire spell and his partner knowing the wind version. The whole thing would creep Ilya and potentially Kayaba out, as it would esentially be a nice version of the clocktower, full of helpful people jsut wanting to try out their latest ideas "oh your the sixth ranger, awesome i am trying to make a sword that enhances its weilder's speed any advice?" "oh your the white witch here are the ether spells in our library, do any of them interest you, could any of them be improved?"
The whole thing jsut seemed to me what a bunch of nerds would do if they got a chance to practice real magic, or a game system of magic as versitle as the thaumaturgy patch.
Hmm...
Well, it sort of depends on what you mean by [experience]. True manipulation of experience is the Fifth Magic, after all - it's what Aoko does in Mahoyo, the manipulation of experience to grant herself skill she shouldn't have for another decade. So that's sort of the endpoint, and while you can make it easier by stepping back you're still [stepping back from Sorcery], so it's still going to be stupidly difficult.
But that's [formless experience], or really [the essence of time]. If you just did, mm, a completely physical muscle memory type sharing... but so much of casting is in Circuit manipulation, and that sort of thing is hard to tap into. There's a reason that transferring Magic Crests or making familiars requires cutting off a branch of your own Magic Circuits, after all.
Something like the Servant bond, tapping into someone's qualia post-processing, then? Not quite physical, definitely not spiritual or conceptual, just a purely psychological/mental bond... Maybe. With someone with a Rare Element and a specialty, or if Kayaba just gives them the spell as a Quest reward, maybe.
Well, it sort of depends on what you mean by [experience]. True manipulation of experience is the Fifth Magic, after all - it's what Aoko does in Mahoyo, the manipulation of experience to grant herself skill she shouldn't have for another decade. So that's sort of the endpoint, and while you can make it easier by stepping back you're still [stepping back from Sorcery], so it's still going to be stupidly difficult.
But that's [formless experience], or really [the essence of time]. If you just did, mm, a completely physical muscle memory type sharing... but so much of casting is in Circuit manipulation, and that sort of thing is hard to tap into. There's a reason that transferring Magic Crests or making familiars requires cutting off a branch of your own Magic Circuits, after all.
Something like the Servant bond, tapping into someone's qualia post-processing, then? Not quite physical, definitely not spiritual or conceptual, just a purely psychological/mental bond... Maybe. With someone with a Rare Element and a specialty, or if Kayaba just gives them the spell as a Quest reward, maybe.
Yeah, it would be something insanely difficult. I hadn't imagined the players coming up with it, but Kayaba giving it to them in some form or another, because it would require some form of highly-especialized knowledge (that for the most part, he already has) to pull off. It would be somewhere between the Servant Bond (which he has at least passing knowledge of as he studied contracts under Zouken) and the Magecraft Inheritance System which Kayaba has already developed (dunno if that's magecraft or technology, though), only tuned down to a very-low setting to allow people to function, since the Magecraft Inheritance System is described as very odd-feeling, to the point of distraction. I can't imagine being constantly connected to upwards of a dozen people would mean good things for focus, or battle. So, maybe something which only kicked in when you were actively using prana, to transmit a vague glimpse to everyone else? It would be utterly meaningless, once, or twice, but constantly over a long time I imagine it would pile up.
And I found your idea most intriguing. Canon certainly appears to support that [Memories] are easier to manipulate than [Experiences], since even very mediocre Magus are supposed to be able to do it, to keep up the masquerade. I totally agree with you there. But how do you believe receiving [raw experience] would compare to receiving [qualia] (had to look up the term) as a learning aid? Do you think that receiving various instances of a similar experience, filtered though various differing points of view and mindsets, be advantageous for actually becoming intimately familiar with said experience, or would it just count as mental pollution and hinder the receiver?
And I found your idea most intriguing. Canon certainly appears to support that [Memories] are easier to manipulate than [Experiences], since even very mediocre Magus are supposed to be able to do it, to keep up the masquerade. I totally agree with you there. But how do you believe receiving [raw experience] would compare to receiving [qualia] (had to look up the term) as a learning aid? Do you think that receiving various instances of a similar experience, filtered though various differing points of view and mindsets, be advantageous for actually becoming intimately familiar with said experience, or would it just count as mental pollution and hinder the receiver?
While [raw experience] would almost certainly be better, that's Magic and out of bounds even for Kayaba. Muscle memory is hard to transmit because there aren't any muscles involved, the sensation is entirely spiritual, and while Kayaba has demonstrated the ability to imitate the way a Circuit feels from the inside it's not clear that Circuits are similar enough from person to person that sharing those low-level qualia would be useful.
Higher-level qualia, though, the experience of [casting a spell]... yes, it would be contaminated by other viewpoints and other ideas, but that's not entirely a bad thing. More to the point, though, it's still going to be much more similar between people than the extremely individualized feeling of using a Circuit.
Higher-level qualia, though, the experience of [casting a spell]... yes, it would be contaminated by other viewpoints and other ideas, but that's not entirely a bad thing. More to the point, though, it's still going to be much more similar between people than the extremely individualized feeling of using a Circuit.
I'm sorry if I somehow expressed it wrong. When I said the [Experience] (or memories, as the case may be), I meant the experience (memory) of [casting a spell]. The memory of activating/using their circuits in and of themselves would be relatively useless. It's the memory of casting the spell that makes you more familiar with the spell, to the point it's (eventually) near instinct. Magic isn't like a muscle, because you are born with a certain amount of it and no amount of practice will make you have more magic, or stronger magic. But practice will improve things like cost/effectiveness, maximum output, and even shape and function of [spells] to a limited amount. Like Rin's Gandr, which the Tohsaka practiced so much it became bullet-like. As I said before, the memory transfer will never be an instinctual way for people who have never practiced with a spell to suddenly be able to cast it, but it could make a group of people who practices the same spell a lot become better at it faster. For example: Suppose due to the faintness, low quality, and dispersal of the qualia in question, everyone but the user gets only 1/100 of a [memory] of casting the spell. If that person casts that spell 10 times a day, you get a tenth of the [memory]. If 10 people cast it 10 times a day, congrats, you've effectively doubled your training rate. Not really, the different qualia could make the learning curve faster, could make it slower, but this is just to make a point, practice enough at anything and eventually you will be able to master it. Heck, Assassin learned to violate reality and causality, with an effect mimicking the Second Magic itself, out of sheer repetition. So, if you have the [memory] of casting a spell, even if you haven't physically cast it, the practice stays with you. To use an anology from another fandom, it's like kage bunshin practice: won't do any good for physical training, but it can help the theorical and mental components of it.
So Daniel commented on SV on what the spoiled people think Kayaba's endgame with the demon event is.
My guess at the moment is that he's trying to put a scare in the comfortable Retired Players while simultaneously forcing the active Players to confront a situation where they'll need to think around the problem rather than brute-forcing it.
Bel never left the Safe Zone but was still captured by the demon, which will likely hit even more Players. The fact that this is hitting Elvengrad means a lot of other Players were likely tagged as well. Retired Players, especially those who never activated their Circuits, will be the most vulnerable. If they survive the event, they'll be more likely to study magecraft due to fear of similar events. If they don't survive the event, more beta/test subjects. Win-win.
At the same time, the demon is going to build up a large entourage of mind-controlled Players whose presence will make fighting difficult. Retired Players and anyone who was out of their gear will have low HP that means even one blow from a Front Liner could kill them. The Players will need to adapt their approach to avoid hurting Players.
My guess at the moment is that he's trying to put a scare in the comfortable Retired Players while simultaneously forcing the active Players to confront a situation where they'll need to think around the problem rather than brute-forcing it.
Bel never left the Safe Zone but was still captured by the demon, which will likely hit even more Players. The fact that this is hitting Elvengrad means a lot of other Players were likely tagged as well. Retired Players, especially those who never activated their Circuits, will be the most vulnerable. If they survive the event, they'll be more likely to study magecraft due to fear of similar events. If they don't survive the event, more beta/test subjects. Win-win.
At the same time, the demon is going to build up a large entourage of mind-controlled Players whose presence will make fighting difficult. Retired Players and anyone who was out of their gear will have low HP that means even one blow from a Front Liner could kill them. The Players will need to adapt their approach to avoid hurting Players.
OK so there seems to be a misunderstanding here so let me just go through this whole thing. In another spoiler-free thread some speculated what would happen after the game is cleared and what Kayaba's motives are. daniel_gudman replayed with
"Personally I really like to see what in-spoiled people think Kayaba's plan is, it reminds me I need to build up to a big reveal. Also it's stuff I can have Grimlock get an ulcer worrying about, trying to figure out what the hell Kayaba is trying to pull."
He wasn't talking about the demon/disaster.
"Personally I really like to see what in-spoiled people think Kayaba's plan is, it reminds me I need to build up to a big reveal. Also it's stuff I can have Grimlock get an ulcer worrying about, trying to figure out what the hell Kayaba is trying to pull."
He wasn't talking about the demon/disaster.
So, I've been thinking about everything Daniel has said about his plans for the equivalent of the ALO Arc, so I'm goig to give my thoughts about it.
Daniel has been keeping some parallels between Kirito and Ilya and Shirou and Asuna: Kirito's handle is taken from a mix of his real name (Kirigaya Kazuto) just like Von Ilya's, both Asuna and Shirou have their real names in capital letters as their handles and Kirito and Ilya are both Beta-testers while Asuna and Shirou are both outsiders to the gaming scene, for example.
Well, given that Daniel is already having Shirou take on Asuna's narrative role during this Arc, why not have Ilya take on Kirito's?
Ilya enters not-ALO to get try and rescue Shirou, probably allied with Sakura the GM that would take on the role of Yui and provide Ilya with a plausible way to mess with Sugou's plans thanks to her position.
From this premise the story can go in multiple directions, but I would personally do this: Just like Kirito sort of kept doing what he was doing in SAO during the ALO Arc, Ilya could do the same and do her [Guild Leader] thing.
She could rope Leafa and her nerdy friend into becoming the first members of her new [Brotherhood of Saint Mark], just to have Ilya and Leafa form a Brocon Alliance or something, and keep with her habit of using her guildmates as tools to achieve her goals by using them as agents during her search for Shirou.
Now, as for the game itself.
On one hand Daniel could go with his idea about a futuristic game with robotic players, Android Legends Online has a nice ring to it and we get to keep the acronym.
But personally, I would go with something like...
Ok, so Argus, now owned by RECT Progress, is desperate to recoup it's loses from the SAO Incident. To do this they rush the development of what used to be SAO's first Expansion Pack that would have put a world below the flying castle of Airncrad.
Now, they have since "found" the [Thaumaturgy System] and they add it to the game as a core feature (maybe compelled by Kayaba) specifically to distance it from SAO, which was famous for not including magic.
Of course they never tell anyone where it came from, or that they are minning the SAO servers for extra content.
As for a name... Airncrad Lands Online? No, they are supposedly trying to get outside of SAO's Shadow... how about Arcane Lands Online? Market it as a game specifically about the Thaumaturgy System.
Hell, I can see Kayaba actively pushing for this.
Daniel has been keeping some parallels between Kirito and Ilya and Shirou and Asuna: Kirito's handle is taken from a mix of his real name (Kirigaya Kazuto) just like Von Ilya's, both Asuna and Shirou have their real names in capital letters as their handles and Kirito and Ilya are both Beta-testers while Asuna and Shirou are both outsiders to the gaming scene, for example.
Well, given that Daniel is already having Shirou take on Asuna's narrative role during this Arc, why not have Ilya take on Kirito's?
Ilya enters not-ALO to get try and rescue Shirou, probably allied with Sakura the GM that would take on the role of Yui and provide Ilya with a plausible way to mess with Sugou's plans thanks to her position.
From this premise the story can go in multiple directions, but I would personally do this: Just like Kirito sort of kept doing what he was doing in SAO during the ALO Arc, Ilya could do the same and do her [Guild Leader] thing.
She could rope Leafa and her nerdy friend into becoming the first members of her new [Brotherhood of Saint Mark], just to have Ilya and Leafa form a Brocon Alliance or something, and keep with her habit of using her guildmates as tools to achieve her goals by using them as agents during her search for Shirou.
Now, as for the game itself.
On one hand Daniel could go with his idea about a futuristic game with robotic players, Android Legends Online has a nice ring to it and we get to keep the acronym.
But personally, I would go with something like...
Ok, so Argus, now owned by RECT Progress, is desperate to recoup it's loses from the SAO Incident. To do this they rush the development of what used to be SAO's first Expansion Pack that would have put a world below the flying castle of Airncrad.
Now, they have since "found" the [Thaumaturgy System] and they add it to the game as a core feature (maybe compelled by Kayaba) specifically to distance it from SAO, which was famous for not including magic.
Of course they never tell anyone where it came from, or that they are minning the SAO servers for extra content.
As for a name... Airncrad Lands Online? No, they are supposedly trying to get outside of SAO's Shadow... how about Arcane Lands Online? Market it as a game specifically about the Thaumaturgy System.
Hell, I can see Kayaba actively pushing for this.
Why wouldn't he leave it to be found by people who would use it for as long as it furthered his objectives?
Remember, in this scenario the Thaumaturgy System and SAO are publicly unrelated and the guy leading RECTO Progress is the guy over whose head Kayaba plans to drop the whole fucking thing.
And even then, people are trying to get the Players out of SAO, it's only natural they get to see the code currently running in the SAO Servers, which RECTO Progress owns as far as I'm aware, so it isn't like he can keep it secret from them.
And desperate as they are to recoup some of the losses from buying Argus and the SAO Incident they need to rush a game out for their new platform. So they take the absurdly complex magic system, deactivate that sadistic pain feature, and just release it after making sure there are no back doors hiding inside.
Hell, as someone that earns his livelihood though software development, I find that much more easy to believe than everyone just turning off their brains and using the Seed when it mysteriously inserts the Thaumaturgy System in everything it touches.
Nobody in their good senses is going to put something that does things on its own nowhere near payment gateways, let alone VR systems that have killed people in the past.
I mean, the Amusphere may be incapable of it but that would be the kind of thing that would kill you business regardless as people stop using it out of fear.
Remember, in this scenario the Thaumaturgy System and SAO are publicly unrelated and the guy leading RECTO Progress is the guy over whose head Kayaba plans to drop the whole fucking thing.
And even then, people are trying to get the Players out of SAO, it's only natural they get to see the code currently running in the SAO Servers, which RECTO Progress owns as far as I'm aware, so it isn't like he can keep it secret from them.
And desperate as they are to recoup some of the losses from buying Argus and the SAO Incident they need to rush a game out for their new platform. So they take the absurdly complex magic system, deactivate that sadistic pain feature, and just release it after making sure there are no back doors hiding inside.
Hell, as someone that earns his livelihood though software development, I find that much more easy to believe than everyone just turning off their brains and using the Seed when it mysteriously inserts the Thaumaturgy System in everything it touches.
Nobody in their good senses is going to put something that does things on its own nowhere near payment gateways, let alone VR systems that have killed people in the past.
I mean, the Amusphere may be incapable of it but that would be the kind of thing that would kill you business regardless as people stop using it out of fear.
Kayaba has to balance how quickly he lets the Thaumatugy System become known to the public. If the System becomes public knowledge before the Players are released, the chance of the Association realizing he's conducting heretical research increases. He probably developed the System entirely on his own and whatever is keeping programmers from accessing the servers and shutting the game down likely prevents them from locating the System as well.
Besides, Kayaba's company doesn't need to rush into making a new game to recoup its losses. Based on Argo's comments in 13.4, Kayaba's Virtual Interface System has the potential to make them the next Microsoft. They might want to focus on that for the larger profits and to give the public some time to forget their mistake.
Besides, Kayaba's company doesn't need to rush into making a new game to recoup its losses. Based on Argo's comments in 13.4, Kayaba's Virtual Interface System has the potential to make them the next Microsoft. They might want to focus on that for the larger profits and to give the public some time to forget their mistake.
Two things:
Whatever is keeping the programmers from accessing the servers is nothing. They have access to the physical machines, they maintain them, they have the passwords for all security protocols. They set up those security protocols.
Those are their machines. The situation were the SAO playes didn't get rescued at most a few months after the Release is already absurd.
Hell, the problem could have been solved with a EMP, the NerveGear can't fry your brain if it's fried itself. And they had the capabilities to produce NerveGears to experiment with before any attempts they made.
The only possible explanation would be if they were scared shitless of making any attempts at freeing the players for some reason. Public pressure? Some VIP trapped inside making it politically untenable? Who knows.
Now, I know this absurdity is necessary for the story to exist. I just want to make clear that at this point nothing that comes from that corner of the plot is going to make much sense. It literally exists on author fiat, so you can make ti to be whatever you want.
In other words, what you are saying is as good as what I'm saying both end up being the author going "and this happened because I say so" anyway.
As for the Mage Association discovering this new game before the Players get out of SAO... Why in hell should Kayaba care? What he needs is getting a developed Thaumaturgy System out in the open where no one can silence it.
The Association was going to get involved eventually anyway and it isn't like he doesn't have a convenient scapegoat prepared already.
Also, that would depend on the time-frame in which the game is released, the idea is that it became the ALO of this timeline so it wouldn't get released almost until SAO is over already.
Kayaba, if he is even involved with it, could take a calculated risk to push for the Thaumaturgy System to become THE magic system of Full Dive games.
The first to get to these kind of thing has an enormous advantage in setting how the rest of games will design their magic systems.
Trying to get the Thaumaturgy System in the WoW of Full Dive games may be worth the risk for Kayaba.
First, Kayaba's company, Argus, was bankrupted by the SAO Incident. RECTO Progress is the company that bought Argus and now owns and maintains the SAO Servers as of Canon.
And second, making a change so big to the way user interfaces work and get a profit from it isn't that easy.
They would have to develop a new operative system, or a new "desktop" that worked with an existing one. And then they would have to get other companies to develop software for that interface... of which the original proof of concept ended in unmitigated disaster due to the SAO Incident.
And let's not talk about the general public and how they would receive such a thing after the SAO disaster.
No, they have to prove to the world that their technology is safe to use, especially because no one has an actual need for it as there are perfectly safe a sound interfaces out there.
They already have most of the work done, they only have to put it together and release it. It's a minimal amount of effort and money put forward for the chance to try and regain some prestige for VR technology and try an make up the expenses of buying Argus.
Whatever is keeping the programmers from accessing the servers is nothing. They have access to the physical machines, they maintain them, they have the passwords for all security protocols. They set up those security protocols.
Those are their machines. The situation were the SAO playes didn't get rescued at most a few months after the Release is already absurd.
Hell, the problem could have been solved with a EMP, the NerveGear can't fry your brain if it's fried itself. And they had the capabilities to produce NerveGears to experiment with before any attempts they made.
The only possible explanation would be if they were scared shitless of making any attempts at freeing the players for some reason. Public pressure? Some VIP trapped inside making it politically untenable? Who knows.
Now, I know this absurdity is necessary for the story to exist. I just want to make clear that at this point nothing that comes from that corner of the plot is going to make much sense. It literally exists on author fiat, so you can make ti to be whatever you want.
In other words, what you are saying is as good as what I'm saying both end up being the author going "and this happened because I say so" anyway.
As for the Mage Association discovering this new game before the Players get out of SAO... Why in hell should Kayaba care? What he needs is getting a developed Thaumaturgy System out in the open where no one can silence it.
The Association was going to get involved eventually anyway and it isn't like he doesn't have a convenient scapegoat prepared already.
Also, that would depend on the time-frame in which the game is released, the idea is that it became the ALO of this timeline so it wouldn't get released almost until SAO is over already.
Kayaba, if he is even involved with it, could take a calculated risk to push for the Thaumaturgy System to become THE magic system of Full Dive games.
The first to get to these kind of thing has an enormous advantage in setting how the rest of games will design their magic systems.
Trying to get the Thaumaturgy System in the WoW of Full Dive games may be worth the risk for Kayaba.
First, Kayaba's company, Argus, was bankrupted by the SAO Incident. RECTO Progress is the company that bought Argus and now owns and maintains the SAO Servers as of Canon.
And second, making a change so big to the way user interfaces work and get a profit from it isn't that easy.
They would have to develop a new operative system, or a new "desktop" that worked with an existing one. And then they would have to get other companies to develop software for that interface... of which the original proof of concept ended in unmitigated disaster due to the SAO Incident.
And let's not talk about the general public and how they would receive such a thing after the SAO disaster.
No, they have to prove to the world that their technology is safe to use, especially because no one has an actual need for it as there are perfectly safe a sound interfaces out there.
They already have most of the work done, they only have to put it together and release it. It's a minimal amount of effort and money put forward for the chance to try and regain some prestige for VR technology and try an make up the expenses of buying Argus.
Ah, but if the muggles can't get inside because magic then how comes the Association isn't already on the case? how is it that the players aren't dead already?
Because the Enforcers don't give a fuck who is inside, they only care about the Secrecy. And we know, because Daniel has told us, that Kayaba isn't the only Magus out there doing Technomancy.
Hell, I would put the Association past having spies in tech circles looking out for unexplainable shit to cover up.
And let's not forget that following Daniels plan for the story Sugou intercepts and kidnaps 300 players after the end of SAO just like in Canon SAO. How the hell will he manage to do that if he isn't already inside and understands how to use it?
See, you just made another kind of nosense. Personally I prefer the nosense that allows for the writer's plans to happen and has the villain acting with subtlety as a plus.
Sugou, who Daniel has been planing to have as a scapegoat for some time and who is currently planning how to use FullDive and the SAO victims for his own experiments.
There was also talk at te beginning of the thread about Kayaba having prepared brainwashed terrorists to use. But I don't know if Daniel still plans to use them or even if they were meant for anything more than something to fool the Muggles.
Nevertheless, having a scapegoat prepared just in case he was discovered was always part of the plan as far as I know.
Leaving aside that I don't see what the Circuit pain has to do with anything...
How is it plausible that anyone would play a game that hurts? It just doesn't make sense. If they knew it can give you superpowers it would make sense for a determinate group of people, but they quite explicitly won't know until the Reveal, and that won't happen until much later.
It's just like the Savage Thaumaturgy System Attack thing. It doesn't make sense anyone would market a game with pain or that anyone would play it, specially after the whole killing 200 and something people thing.
As for the other things you listed... what made you believe I was against stealthily restarting people's Souls? I would like to remind you that that happened in the first chapter and there was no pain involved.
As for the Reveal, having companies market videogames with the Thaumaturgy System long before it has always been step two in Kayaba's plan. That's kind of the point of all the videogame parts post SAO planned for the story.
I don't see how this goes counter to that given that it's a perfect excuse to get it into the market without having RECTO Process wipe out the pre-launch copies they must have of the SEED to make games without Pain Virus Magic Systems.
Because the Enforcers don't give a fuck who is inside, they only care about the Secrecy. And we know, because Daniel has told us, that Kayaba isn't the only Magus out there doing Technomancy.
Hell, I would put the Association past having spies in tech circles looking out for unexplainable shit to cover up.
And let's not forget that following Daniels plan for the story Sugou intercepts and kidnaps 300 players after the end of SAO just like in Canon SAO. How the hell will he manage to do that if he isn't already inside and understands how to use it?
See, you just made another kind of nosense. Personally I prefer the nosense that allows for the writer's plans to happen and has the villain acting with subtlety as a plus.
Sugou, who Daniel has been planing to have as a scapegoat for some time and who is currently planning how to use FullDive and the SAO victims for his own experiments.
There was also talk at te beginning of the thread about Kayaba having prepared brainwashed terrorists to use. But I don't know if Daniel still plans to use them or even if they were meant for anything more than something to fool the Muggles.
Nevertheless, having a scapegoat prepared just in case he was discovered was always part of the plan as far as I know.
Leaving aside that I don't see what the Circuit pain has to do with anything...
How is it plausible that anyone would play a game that hurts? It just doesn't make sense. If they knew it can give you superpowers it would make sense for a determinate group of people, but they quite explicitly won't know until the Reveal, and that won't happen until much later.
It's just like the Savage Thaumaturgy System Attack thing. It doesn't make sense anyone would market a game with pain or that anyone would play it, specially after the whole killing 200 and something people thing.
As for the other things you listed... what made you believe I was against stealthily restarting people's Souls? I would like to remind you that that happened in the first chapter and there was no pain involved.
As for the Reveal, having companies market videogames with the Thaumaturgy System long before it has always been step two in Kayaba's plan. That's kind of the point of all the videogame parts post SAO planned for the story.
I don't see how this goes counter to that given that it's a perfect excuse to get it into the market without having RECTO Process wipe out the pre-launch copies they must have of the SEED to make games without Pain Virus Magic Systems.
After SAO, and with the players still being trapped, the details of the new game are going to be under close scrutiny due to public wariness. A big game system like Thaumaturgy will be one of those things that gets publicized while in development and testing, not to mention any public beta testers will be doing in-depth documentation. If Enforcers catch wind of how closely it aligns with actual magecraft, they'll likely investigate and dig up it came from SAO's active servers. There's a decent chance they'll go scorched earth at that point and there will be a "tragic accident" that kills all of the Players.
Kayaba needs time for Players to be trained in magecraft, learn it's real, and recover from their comas once SAO ends. As such he needs to delay how fast the Association learns about his creation.
All of that excluded, allowing programmers access to the Thaumaturgy System risks polluting its content. He made it as close to actual magecraft as possible, but when viewed as a game system it's clunky, difficult, and unfair. They would want to smooth out those kinks and make it more fair, taking it further away from reality.
Kayaba needs time for Players to be trained in magecraft, learn it's real, and recover from their comas once SAO ends. As such he needs to delay how fast the Association learns about his creation.
All of that excluded, allowing programmers access to the Thaumaturgy System risks polluting its content. He made it as close to actual magecraft as possible, but when viewed as a game system it's clunky, difficult, and unfair. They would want to smooth out those kinks and make it more fair, taking it further away from reality.
Ravraxas, you're raising some good points, but there is a detail I want to correct: Kayaba is also surprised when Sugou manages to intercept some Players on log-out, and pinning the SAO Incident on him is a crime of opportunity, it's not even plan B for Kayaba.
And yeah, he's gotta use magecraft to make the SAO Incident work, but doing so is actually advertising to the MA that he's using magecraft; that problem is acute.
His plan is actually to play on their assumptions: like, most guys who earn a Sealing Designation do so because they got sloppy and careless about maintaining the Masquerade, but on the other hand, they're still at least trying to maintain it.
So basically Kayaba's plan A was to pretend he was that kind of guy to play for time; that way the Enforcers would play quiet and aim for an outcome that doesn't result in an outrageous number of very public terrorism-related deaths that have to be covered up against the next thirty years of inquiries and panels.
When the chance shows up he turns Sugou into his patsy using that as a template.
So his first line of defense is keeping himself as obfuscated as possible, and his second line of defense is making it seem to the MA that whoever is behind the SAO Incident was just over-confident in their ability to keep the secret. Not that he's actively plotting the destruction of the Secret.
And keep in mind that he had to keep the publicly-available version of Aincrad scrubbed of magecraft. Not just as a precaution against getting intercepted before he even starts his Incident; but also so when the MA cyber-literate Enforcers get involved, they don't see anything there that disturbs the narrative he's trying to sell them.
So his plan post-Game Clear is two-fold:
1) Release 10k amateur-to-journeyman class spellcasters into the wild, none of whom even know the Statute of Secrecy is a thing
2) Release a modified SAO source code, the one that has magecraft baked into the physics engine
Additionally;
3) Somehow hack all the games derived from "vanilla" SAO and, like, forcibly patch them
In the past I said I don't like Alfheim and I don't want to use it, but I want to reiterate that's for thematic reasons; "fairies chanting magic" is a different flavor of fantasy, whereas I want it to be clearly different in genre and flavor (which as a practical matter means a scifi video game instead).
But I'm still not 100% settled on how I want to handle the friction between expectations of games, held by Players and Developers, their friction with the reality of the magecraft system.
Personally I'm thinking something like,
SAO Front Liner Survivors can stomp on anybody using magecraft?
I'm really up in the air on this still, so I want to hear other ideas.
And yeah, he's gotta use magecraft to make the SAO Incident work, but doing so is actually advertising to the MA that he's using magecraft; that problem is acute.
His plan is actually to play on their assumptions: like, most guys who earn a Sealing Designation do so because they got sloppy and careless about maintaining the Masquerade, but on the other hand, they're still at least trying to maintain it.
So basically Kayaba's plan A was to pretend he was that kind of guy to play for time; that way the Enforcers would play quiet and aim for an outcome that doesn't result in an outrageous number of very public terrorism-related deaths that have to be covered up against the next thirty years of inquiries and panels.
When the chance shows up he turns Sugou into his patsy using that as a template.
So his first line of defense is keeping himself as obfuscated as possible, and his second line of defense is making it seem to the MA that whoever is behind the SAO Incident was just over-confident in their ability to keep the secret. Not that he's actively plotting the destruction of the Secret.
And keep in mind that he had to keep the publicly-available version of Aincrad scrubbed of magecraft. Not just as a precaution against getting intercepted before he even starts his Incident; but also so when the MA cyber-literate Enforcers get involved, they don't see anything there that disturbs the narrative he's trying to sell them.
So his plan post-Game Clear is two-fold:
1) Release 10k amateur-to-journeyman class spellcasters into the wild, none of whom even know the Statute of Secrecy is a thing
2) Release a modified SAO source code, the one that has magecraft baked into the physics engine
Additionally;
3) Somehow hack all the games derived from "vanilla" SAO and, like, forcibly patch them
In the past I said I don't like Alfheim and I don't want to use it, but I want to reiterate that's for thematic reasons; "fairies chanting magic" is a different flavor of fantasy, whereas I want it to be clearly different in genre and flavor (which as a practical matter means a scifi video game instead).
But I'm still not 100% settled on how I want to handle the friction between expectations of games, held by Players and Developers, their friction with the reality of the magecraft system.
Personally I'm thinking something like,
SAO Front Liner Survivors can stomp on anybody using magecraft?
I'm really up in the air on this still, so I want to hear other ideas.
Allowing the Survivors to stomp any other Player with the magecraft system baked in sounds like the kind of thing Kayaba would want. It creates an incentive to delve into the magecraft system to try and counter the Survivors, where they might have avoided it due to thinking the benefits don't outweigh the difficulties involved. And the fact that the Survivors will be starting with only their knowledge of magecraft but not the actual equipment means they'll need to adapt and refine their skills to balance it out.
And I do like the idea of trying to work magecraft into a sci-fi setting. Maybe something along the lines of Endless Space, where mana is replaced with the local Dust analog? A "looks like magic but is really advanced technology" handwave.
And I do like the idea of trying to work magecraft into a sci-fi setting. Maybe something along the lines of Endless Space, where mana is replaced with the local Dust analog? A "looks like magic but is really advanced technology" handwave.
Regarding the actual mechanics of the hacking post-SAO, I just want to point out that as [the first VRMMORPG], SAO holds the same conceptual priority over all following games that Gilgamesh enjoys over "heroes" and, say, Gram enjoys over Caliburn. As the [creator of the first VRMMORPG] and a talented hacker and technomage in his own right, something like "an autonomous spell circle that sits on a leyline somewhere and enforces [the existence of magecraft] on every VRMMO even vaguely conceptually descended from SAO" is entirely within his grasp. So the problem is basically reduced to "Tower Defense on a Great Grail equivalent", because he doesn't actually need to hack those successor games so long as the public considers them "successors to SAO."
He probably also ends up with mystic irrevocable admin access to those games, too, if he ever decides to log on to one. Though I suspect he wouldn't want to risk it.
-- For bonus points, he might not even need to make the circle in reality. If he can sneak it into ALO, I don't know that anyone would even think to look there until it's too late. And it would add a whole new dimension to the whole "reality is reality, whether it's atoms or bits" theme.
He probably also ends up with mystic irrevocable admin access to those games, too, if he ever decides to log on to one. Though I suspect he wouldn't want to risk it.
-- For bonus points, he might not even need to make the circle in reality. If he can sneak it into ALO, I don't know that anyone would even think to look there until it's too late. And it would add a whole new dimension to the whole "reality is reality, whether it's atoms or bits" theme.
Wait, I'm confused. If he could do this, couldn't he just pull a Zelretch and use worlds created by the Seed as a source of mana? I mean, I've been working under the assumption that the magecraft in SAO is merely a simulation based on the Cardinal system, not the real deal. Is that not correct? Because otherwise, that would be very veery stupid on Kayaba's part. Rin managed to reach Illya inside the game by scrying. If the Players can work actual magecraft then couldn't they reach people outside the game in the same manner?
Anyways, about the ritual you proposed, that is probabaly actually ridiculously difficult to set up. I mean, it's not like setting up the Heaven's Feel was easy in the first place. Then again, formalcraft formulaes are basically making calculations on how to use mana most efficiently, and he's got whole servers to run calculations on. He could probably manage it.
As for Daniel and Ravraxas' sci-fi setting idea, I think Kayaba would like the idea of a sci-fi technomagic setting, I mean, he IS a technomage for heck's sake. Dunno how much influence he can still exert from the shadows over the game company (assuming he hasn't just hypnotized the CEO), but he'd approve all the same. I think it should be IN SPACE! Because all premises recycled in space are inherently more awesome. Plus, what's more different from medieval fantasy than space opera? It could still keep ALO's original vaguely-norse theme, but each "Realm" (jotunheim, alfheim, hellheim) would be a planet to be travelled to, with the small moon Valhalla as a respawn point. (Plus, Kirito will finally get his lightsaber. Or, for comedy, they're in a space opera, with starships and robots and the like, and there still aren't any lightsabers)
I can totally see the Survivors as they are right now going en masse into a game to rescue 300 of their numbers, they seem much more unified as a group here than in canon (plus, damned if Diabel is not gonna use it as a rallying point to estabilish his authority IRL).
As for ways to stop the survivors from absolutely curb-stomping everybody, make Starship-to-Starship Combat an important element of gameplay. Will the Survivors still manage to cheese the heck out of it? Yes. But it's fairer than battlefield combat.
Plus, it would give Daniel-sensei an excuse to have the Survivors pull completely ridiculous, off-the-wall, suicidal-for-anyone-else, tactics. Like a crew detachment donning the boarding spacesuits and going outside to attack directly while the ship provides support, with Ender's Game space combat rules in full vigor, or diverting meteors as an attack tactic . Basically, all the survivors pulling a Shirou left, right, and center on regular players.
Anyways, about the ritual you proposed, that is probabaly actually ridiculously difficult to set up. I mean, it's not like setting up the Heaven's Feel was easy in the first place. Then again, formalcraft formulaes are basically making calculations on how to use mana most efficiently, and he's got whole servers to run calculations on. He could probably manage it.
As for Daniel and Ravraxas' sci-fi setting idea, I think Kayaba would like the idea of a sci-fi technomagic setting, I mean, he IS a technomage for heck's sake. Dunno how much influence he can still exert from the shadows over the game company (assuming he hasn't just hypnotized the CEO), but he'd approve all the same. I think it should be IN SPACE! Because all premises recycled in space are inherently more awesome. Plus, what's more different from medieval fantasy than space opera? It could still keep ALO's original vaguely-norse theme, but each "Realm" (jotunheim, alfheim, hellheim) would be a planet to be travelled to, with the small moon Valhalla as a respawn point. (Plus, Kirito will finally get his lightsaber. Or, for comedy, they're in a space opera, with starships and robots and the like, and there still aren't any lightsabers)
I can totally see the Survivors as they are right now going en masse into a game to rescue 300 of their numbers, they seem much more unified as a group here than in canon (plus, damned if Diabel is not gonna use it as a rallying point to estabilish his authority IRL).
As for ways to stop the survivors from absolutely curb-stomping everybody, make Starship-to-Starship Combat an important element of gameplay. Will the Survivors still manage to cheese the heck out of it? Yes. But it's fairer than battlefield combat.
Plus, it would give Daniel-sensei an excuse to have the Survivors pull completely ridiculous, off-the-wall, suicidal-for-anyone-else, tactics. Like a crew detachment donning the boarding spacesuits and going outside to attack directly while the ship provides support, with Ender's Game space combat rules in full vigor, or diverting meteors as an attack tactic . Basically, all the survivors pulling a Shirou left, right, and center on regular players.
Yeah, probably. But I mean, at the end of the day most magi aren't really hurting for prana when it comes to major workings - leylines exist, sacrifices exist. Plus, the number of virtual worlds is much, much more limited than the number of real parallel worlds - Zelretch would have a thousand thousand times more prana available to him than Kayaba would.
Though as noted earlier in this thread, the creation and establishment of Aincrad is very nearly a realization of the Second on its own.
Also, the nature of magecraft is that any use of it is "real". Because the real world isn't real, see - it's just an illusion projected over Gaia by the Common Sense of Humanity. The laws of physics are fundamentally human inventions, and what's happening as we understand new physics is Alaya is getting powerful and insightful/enlightened enough to comprehend new concepts and bring them under its banner as science.
That being said, Kayaba's bound them all with a contract and there's a pretty hefty conceptual barrier around the game world. Ilya bruteforced her way through it like she does everything else, Rin maybe could've gotten past it with skill, but everyone else doesn't have either the skill or the power. Plus, they'd have to know and believe that magecraft was a real thing in most cases - maybe if they were convinced they were hacking the game? But again, that sort of confusion means that they wouldn't be likely to have the skill to bypass the barrier. It might come up post Floor 75, but by that point they'd know that there are murderhoboes waiting to kill them if the break the Masquerade, so they wouldn't even try.
Regarding his skill at Formalcraft - something like that would be much easier than creating Aincrad in the first place. As noted, he's about one step away from the literal Second Magic right now. Merely exploiting that fact doesn't even register.
(Also I really like your space opera idea, if only for the image of magic swordsmen getting into dogfights with space fighters is amazing.)
Though as noted earlier in this thread, the creation and establishment of Aincrad is very nearly a realization of the Second on its own.
Also, the nature of magecraft is that any use of it is "real". Because the real world isn't real, see - it's just an illusion projected over Gaia by the Common Sense of Humanity. The laws of physics are fundamentally human inventions, and what's happening as we understand new physics is Alaya is getting powerful and insightful/enlightened enough to comprehend new concepts and bring them under its banner as science.
That being said, Kayaba's bound them all with a contract and there's a pretty hefty conceptual barrier around the game world. Ilya bruteforced her way through it like she does everything else, Rin maybe could've gotten past it with skill, but everyone else doesn't have either the skill or the power. Plus, they'd have to know and believe that magecraft was a real thing in most cases - maybe if they were convinced they were hacking the game? But again, that sort of confusion means that they wouldn't be likely to have the skill to bypass the barrier. It might come up post Floor 75, but by that point they'd know that there are murderhoboes waiting to kill them if the break the Masquerade, so they wouldn't even try.
Regarding his skill at Formalcraft - something like that would be much easier than creating Aincrad in the first place. As noted, he's about one step away from the literal Second Magic right now. Merely exploiting that fact doesn't even register.
(Also I really like your space opera idea, if only for the image of magic swordsmen getting into dogfights with space fighters is amazing.)
Plus, think of the Jokes, man, the jokes! Kirito at least is one of us, and Shirou gets in on it sometimes, so we can expect plenty of Treks and War references, and Illya quoting Vader at some point would be pretty much mandatory. Not to mention the shenanigans with Illya as Captain and Hexi, Kuradeel and not-Leviathan as her bridge bunnies, Illya forcing the BSM into (her idea of) Starfleet uniforms, Illya wanting to build a Death Star, despite it being completely impossible in-setting, Illya actually BUILDING a Death Star (the World's Most Powerful Loli will not be denied), Diabel having to pacify Inter-fanbase flame wars, Diabel having to pacify intra-fanbase flame wars (Kirk? Picard? Freaking Janeway?), Tiger/Lion/Whatever dojo jokes involving literal ship-to-ship combat, complete with Illya and Sacchi forming alliances vs Asuna and Sakura (and then, Sugou. And everything degenerates into chaos), Gil chilling on his ancient babylonian spaceship and mocking the plot because he'd been rocking that waaay before it was cool (then again, what didn't Gil do waay before it was cool?). The potential for both fun times and epic times is endless. The sky is (no longer) the limit!
Speaking of uniforms, I'm surprised the BSM doesn't have at least mandatory colours. I mean, both Shirou and Illya are rocking the White and Red, and it's even in the guild symbol. Since the KoB doesn't exist, seems appropriate. Maybe Illya simply hasn't thought of that yet? That could be a (minor) plot point to fuel Kuradeel's imagined rivalry with Hexi, actually. He suggests uniforms in Illya's colours, as the resident arse-kisser, and gets a bit of praise for it, which makes him all happy-like, only to discover Hexi is actually their tailor. Hilarity ensues.