Nasuverse FSN + SAO: j-jam it in!

TSB

Well-Known Member
Earlier in this thread it was mentioned there was a possible real world interlude where Kayaba and Sakura would meet, and possibly team up to deal with Zouken. This meeting came after Kayaba and Zouken having a spat, which could involve Kayaba saying "keep your mitts off my test subjects; you can have them when I'm done".

The overall picture I'm getting is that Kayaba really does not like Zouken and may have set that quest line up in hopes of getting Shirou and Ilya on his side after they come out of the game. Had Ilya power-gamed by leading Shirou to the Anneal Blade quest he would have been in position to receive the quest, but he focused on saving people instead. Kirito managed to trip some of the flags intended for Shirou (maybe being a loner, since most magi would avoid associating with non-magi in-game) and got the quest instead.
 
Yeah I didn't see that "outside" interlude at first so that's my bad. And while I'm not sure if Kayaba feels he's in a position to make any demands of Zouken due to Zouken potentially being able to blackmail Kayaba and also I'm not sure how low Zouken's tolerance for perceived disrespect is, he'll probably do something in the spirit of what you're saying.
And yeah I guess it's possible that Kayaba just really assumed that Shirou would have done the Anneal Blade quest at some point and eventually just gave up/left the process automated and Kirito somehow ticked the right boxes, but I feel like if he had like a month of data on Shirou's activities, he could have done some cursory tweaking on the 5F content being generated to make sure it would reach Shirou. And while there definitely are ways Kayaba can leverage his enmity for Zouken, and fake some concern for Sakura to get Shirou and Ilya on his side, I guess I'm not sure if the Agatha plotline is it, given that curing her doesn't really seem to be what the author or Kayaba have in mind for the endgame, and the whole real world passage of time thing is an issue. On the other hand, Kayaba does have some problems with empathy so it's possible that he didn't correctly calculate how it would affect Shirou.

This is tangential, but has there been any talk of what experience Heroic Spirit/Counter Guardian EMIYA has of the SAO incident, like did he live through it, experience it as a bystander, or did Kayaba never bring it to fruition in EMIYA's timeline and his success in this one is due to the ripples caused by the relatively miminal effect Archer had in Fate Route? Also if there would be any way for either Shirou or Ilya to obtain that information because otherwise I guess it could just be safely ignored. I tried searching through the thread but I might not have used the right keywords.
 
TheFinalWraith said:
Yeah I didn't see that "outside" interlude at first so that's my bad. And while I'm not sure if Kayaba feels he's in a position to make any demands of Zouken due to Zouken potentially being able to blackmail Kayaba and also I'm not sure how low Zouken's tolerance for perceived disrespect is, he'll probably do something in the spirit of what you're saying.
And yeah I guess it's possible that Kayaba just really assumed that Shirou would have done the Anneal Blade quest at some point and eventually just gave up/left the process automated and Kirito somehow ticked the right boxes, but I feel like if he had like a month of data on Shirou's activities, he could have done some cursory tweaking on the 5F content being generated to make sure it would reach Shirou. And while there definitely are ways Kayaba can leverage his enmity for Zouken, and fake some concern for Sakura to get Shirou and Ilya on his side, I guess I'm not sure if the Agatha plotline is it, given that curing her doesn't really seem to be what the author or Kayaba have in mind for the endgame, and the whole real world passage of time thing is an issue. On the other hand, Kayaba does have some problems with empathy so it's possible that he didn't correctly calculate how it would affect Shirou.

This is tangential, but has there been any talk of what experience Heroic Spirit/Counter Guardian EMIYA has of the SAO incident, like did he live through it, experience it as a bystander, or did Kayaba never bring it to fruition in EMIYA's timeline and his success in this one is due to the ripples caused by the relatively miminal effect Archer had in Fate Route? Also if there would be any way for either Shirou or Ilya to obtain that information because otherwise I guess it could just be safely ignored. I tried searching through the thread but I might not have used the right keywords.
i think the only way that shirou or ilya would be able to get access to an answer on the question of "What happened with Archer's Timeline" would be either: Rin;s dream cycle, or whatever minor soul-resonance archer had with shirou. as shirou's interactions with archer in Fate-route were relatively minor i'd have to say that Rin's our only hope. so either rin breaks into SAO again, OR wait until the "escape" arc.

other then that the only other way to get this information would be: CG-Emiya comes down summoned by Alaya because the magi decide to genocide anyone involved with SAO, including its survivors, their families, everyone they might have been able to talk to (People in the hospital) anyone they might have send a message to (assuming even 1 of them gets access to twitter or FB before the magi respond). which would be nigh-on extinction level event CAUSING such a summon with EMIYA's mission presumably being to destroy the assosiation. (can't wipe out everyone involved himself,Alaya deploys him to prevent extinction, and going the usual "everyone related" IS the extinction, so instead just whipes out the agressors, AKA the assosiation)

that makes for 3 possible avenues of obtaining that information.

though we previously discussed possible remnants of resonance of the spirits that used to be in ilya, so asuming Archer was in her for a time that opens up "resonance-by-Ilya" as a 4th option.

i dont think i can pull a fifth though
 
That is a very comprehensive answer, so thank you. I hadn't really considered that Alaya would "choose" to side against the Magi Association, but then again I don't really have a solid grip on how it operates. Like, for instance, if Kayaba's dream does come true and magecraft becomes public knowledge, would Alaya have its Counter Guardians stop killing people so indiscriminately, or was its motives in doing so more complex than eliminating any witnesses to something the Common Sense of Man deems "impossible"?

But yeah, the reason I was curious as to how this happened with EMIYA is because it kind of seems like Shirou has broadened his magecraft at least a little more than EMIYA has, and it seems like he's broadened his perspective how to save people by a lot, which indicates that EMIYA never played SAO. On the other hand, I thought it was hinted that Ilya survived the Grail War in EMIYA's timeline and thus there would be little reason she wouldn't wrangle EMIYA into playing SAO in the time she had left. On the third hand, even while he was working with Zouken, Kayaba was planning SAO for years and wouldn't stop unless his plans were discovered/he was killed, and I'm not sure how that could happen over the course of the Grail War (since I don't think we have reason to assume Kayaba was in Fuyuki at the time), or what Fate-route EMIYA could have done to do that, seeing as he didn't do much beyond give Shirou some advice and then soften up Heracles at the cost of his life.
 
TheFinalWraith said:
That is a very comprehensive answer, so thank you. I hadn't really considered that Alaya would "choose" to side against the Magi Association, but then again I don't really have a solid grip on how it operates. Like, for instance, if Kayaba's dream does come true and magecraft becomes public knowledge, would Alaya have its Counter Guardians stop killing people so indiscriminately, or was its motives in doing so more complex than eliminating any witnesses to something the Common Sense of Man deems "impossible"?
if I understand correctly Alaya only aks one question: Will "Humanity" survive?" and either empowers a few select people (Joan of arc for example) or, if that fails goes full out destroying anything even tangentially related to the threat (Pompei).
of course im getting my information from INDIRECT sources, could be that im wrong.
 

Nephirin

Well-Known Member
TheFinalWraith said:
That is a very comprehensive answer, so thank you. I hadn't really considered that Alaya would "choose" to side against the Magi Association, but then again I don't really have a solid grip on how it operates. Like, for instance, if Kayaba's dream does come true and magecraft becomes public knowledge, would Alaya have its Counter Guardians stop killing people so indiscriminately, or was its motives in doing so more complex than eliminating any witnesses to something the Common Sense of Man deems "impossible"?

But yeah, the reason I was curious as to how this happened with EMIYA is because it kind of seems like Shirou has broadened his magecraft at least a little more than EMIYA has, and it seems like he's broadened his perspective how to save people by a lot, which indicates that EMIYA never played SAO. On the other hand, I thought it was hinted that Ilya survived the Grail War in EMIYA's timeline and thus there would be little reason she wouldn't wrangle EMIYA into playing SAO in the time she had left. On the third hand, even while he was working with Zouken, Kayaba was planning SAO for years and wouldn't stop unless his plans were discovered/he was killed, and I'm not sure how that could happen over the course of the Grail War (since I don't think we have reason to assume Kayaba was in Fuyuki at the time), or what Fate-route EMIYA could have done to do that, seeing as he didn't do much beyond give Shirou some advice and then soften up Heracles at the cost of his life.
The Collective Unconsciousness, or Alaya, does not exist to police magecraft sightings. Otherwise, the various Magecraft Associations wouldn't have to try so hard to keep it secret, as Alaya would simply do it for them.

What it does do, is anytime there is something happening that threatens to cause the extinction of the human race, it acts to prevent it. Usually this is through the Counter Force, which is empowering random people and turning them towards the threat. When that fails, its through Counter Guardians, which is a tactical nuke that destroys the threat and everything else in the area. Generally speaking, this is almost exclusively extinction of the human race caused by humans themselves.

But such hope was betrayed.
Heroic spirits are summoned only into hell.
They appear only when the world is about to be destroyed by people.
Humans are beings that will perish from their own doings.
So the process of destruction must always be the same.

He was summoned only into these "hells".
In the land of death where the ones he wanted to save were already dead, he killed even more humans.
The boy who stated he just doesn't want to see anyone cry…
…Could only see crying humans forever.
"Guardians are a colorless force that places humanity's survival before anything. The powers are in the heavens, and the guardians appear in this world only when there's a chance of human extinction.
…I knew they were just slaves. I knew that people who become guardians are removed from the circle of reincarnation and become like nothingness."
"But it's actually quite different. Guardians do not save people. All they do is clean up after humans. They take what has been done and nullify it with their powers."

"They do not save people. All they do is eliminate harmful people, without distinction of good or evil.
They do not save people in despair. Instead, they eliminate people in despair in order to save others who are enjoying life."
One interesting thing to note however: While it's not exactly confirmed, it is possible that Alaya does interfere with attempts to reach the Root. Mahoyo mentions a "red shadow" when Aoko reaches the Root and turns back, achieving the 5th Sorcery.
 
Ok,
a while ago there was a minor discussion on the matter of Sixth Ranger-shirou's legend and how it would affect him if ever summoned.
i said i was considering writing a little one-off based off the idea.
i think i've got the foundations for such a summoning figured out. and what abilities Servant Sixth Ranger could reasonably be given. Im still in the writing process. but i want to know wether you disagree on the abilities. so hereby:

I want to stress that the summoning leaves this servant with "just" the 108 skills noble phantasm. basically being an inverted gilgamesh (Artifacts but no abilities VS abilities but no artifacts)
----------
Alternate summon: Sixth Ranger.

Caster

Skills:
Agility: A++/ex. A
Strength: C. While not possessing a high “strength” parameter in life, his legend features sufficiently impressive feats of strength (deflecting the First Boss’s Tolwar, which in the anime was thicker then some a human, and both taller and wider then a person.)
Mana: B+
Independent action: B+
Luck: E
His summoning has reduced him to a single noble phantasm. Known as “The 108 skills of the sixth ranger”
Noble Phantasm: 108 skills of the sixth ranger. This is noble phantasm ensures that the servant is given all “skills” his legend asociates with him, even diminished as a mere servant, independant of which class he’s summoned in. These skills include:
Personal Skills: Knight Of Owner, a skill that cannonically goes tot the greatest swordsman in any given Era, in the modern day Shirou has the undisputed right to use it, unlike Lancelot’s black veined reinforcement though, his artificially imposes the concept of “sword” upon it as a result of his training with Kirito. turning even non-weapons into genuine tools of war.
Double Summon: Like how Semiramis has the ability to be summoned as a combination Caster/Assassin Shirou’s been summoned as a combination Caster/Archer.

Familiar creation: EX. As someone who in life participated and won in the Grail war, this heroic spirit has the ability to summon a servant as a familiar.
Arrow avoidance: A++ in life the Ranger was famous having caught an incoming projectile and used it as a weapon against his opponents. As part of the 108 skills it is now passive, It does not target the one who fired the projectile though, as in his legend he used the projectile against another opponent, rather then the originator of the attack. The target would be an ally TO the originator of the attack. For example, if Gilgamesh shot a projectile, its only ally under usual circumstance would be the master Tokiomi, while if Kiritsugu shot at him Saber, Irisviel and Maya would be valid targets.
Item creation:EX-conditional.
Sturctural analasis: EX. Can see the past and makeup of any object, and remembers it flawlessly. Can be combined with Item Creation for purpose of reverse engineering.
Projection:A++
Alchemy: A+ while not an expert, he’s still an aprentice to “The White Witch” and is famous as having taught “Argo The Rat”
Tutoring: B-rank support: As an academic known to have educated others in the nature of Thaumaturgy in life. He has an inate boost to Charisma when attempting to convey education.
Clairvoyence B: In life he famously used his previously mentioned structural analasis to look into the future of the Crown of the Slime King. Predicting it’s future as spoils of war. Though a one-off event in life it’s part of his legend nonetheless.
Eternal Arms Mastery: Same as Lancelot.

Mental Pollution: A-rank this skill isdefined by a mind alien to humanity, as shirou emiya possesses a reality marble defined by a mind alien to both mankind and nature it sensible to assume shirou possesses imunity or resistance to mind altering affects. Though it doesnt leave him a gibbering madman like Bluebeard or the Phantom of the Opera, the defining insanity is still present as its always been, his insanity just happens to be unusually benevolent to those around him.

Battle continuation: EX. a Skill that allows for the continuation of combat after sustaining mortal wounds. It will also reduce mortality rate from injury. Representing both ability to survive would-be-mortal wounds or a strong willpower.in his case its based on the anecdote that during the Grail war he:came back from impalement through the heart with an anti-regenerative curse. He came back from the dead and fought his opponent defensively until summoning Saber, Continuing the war over the course of which he got slashed in two by Hercules and came back AGAIN and used the scabbard to survive a would be world-ending blow. While he did many of these feats in life through the assistance of Saber, as a heroic spirit this ability maintains even without her.

Battle retreat A+: managed to defend himself from a Servant fast enough that even servants couldn’t track his movements at his peak. Using only a poster as a shield.

Beast Killer B. having personally caused the killing blow against 2 bestial bosses (the Moby Roc and the first floor boss) this skill increases his power against any bestial foe.
Bow and Arrow Creation: A. as long as he has materials he can instantly create bows and arrows.
Cloud Shine C: is a Skill where after switching one's attitude to that of a swordsman, the user performs ultra-high speed movements and slashes. In his case it boosts his agility when giving up the bow for an encounter.
Combination: EX skill that shows how much one’s combat power increases when on a united front with a given person. In life his co-operation with his summoned servant allowed him to survive an Anti-World attack.
Conceptual improvement: B-rank.
Crossing arcadia: B-rank skill that allows for quick moving over a battlefield. In life he spend days moving over a large batlefield intervening and ending one clash before sprinting to another. Continuously for hours on end.

-----------

If i've estimated a skill-level wrong, or missed a canonical skill he should have please tell me, as it would be important for writing that fic.
 

orumon

Well-Known Member
richardsphere said:
----------
Alternate summon: Sixth Ranger.

Caster

Skills:
Agility: A++/ex. A
Shirou's feat's don't qualify him for this rank. Even with exaggeration I don't think this would qualify. Tone it down to B rank.
His summoning has reduced him to a single noble phantasm. Known as “The 108 skills of the sixth ranger”
Noble Phantasm: 108 skills of the sixth ranger. This is noble phantasm ensures that the servant is given all “skills” his legend asociates with him, even diminished as a mere servant, independant of which class he’s summoned in.
This is actually an interesting trait for a servant. It turns him from powerhouse servant to a sneaky tricks kind of servant. A very potent gimmick, provided it's handled correctly.
Personal Skills: Knight Of Owner, a skill that cannonically goes tot the greatest swordsman in any given Era, in the modern day Shirou has the undisputed right to use it, unlike Lancelot’s black veined reinforcement though, his artificially imposes the concept of “sword” upon it as a result of his training with Kirito. turning even non-weapons into genuine tools of war.
I don't know about that. It's entirely possible for others who have not appeared to be superior. Even if it is viable for Shirou to have it, I think this particular skill would be dependent on his projection skill
Double Summon: Like how Semiramis has the ability to be summoned as a combination Caster/Assassin Shirou’s been summoned as a combination Caster/Archer.
I'd recommend against this. As we saw with Semiramis, this was a borderline story breaker power. It's redundant too, since the NP obviates the need for it anyway.
Familiar creation: EX. As someone who in life participated and won in the Grail war, this heroic spirit has the ability to summon a servant as a familiar.
No, especially as it's not something he'd be famous for. Besides, the caster class can summon servants under the right conditions anyway.
Arrow avoidance: A++ in life the Ranger was famous having caught an incoming projectile and used it as a weapon against his opponents. As part of the 108 skills it is now passive, It does not target the one who fired the projectile though, as in his legend he used the projectile against another opponent, rather then the originator of the attack. The target would be an ally TO the originator of the attack. For example, if Gilgamesh shot a projectile, its only ally under usual circumstance would be the master Tokiomi, while if Kiritsugu shot at him Saber, Irisviel and Maya would be valid targets.
I'd be more inclined to believe that this would be of lower rank.
Alchemy: A+ while not an expert, he’s still an aprentice to “The White Witch” and is famous as having taught “Argo The Rat”
I'd tone this down to B rank (if that). Shirou is focussed on the practical uses as opposed to the deepest mysteries. Likewise, Illya is not a dedicated researcher of magecraft and therefore would not even be A rank in this skill.
Clairvoyence B: In life he famously used his previously mentioned structural analasis to look into the future of the Crown of the Slime King. Predicting it’s future as spoils of war. Though a one-off event in life it’s part of his legend nonetheless.
I'd lower the rank to C+, same as nameless.
Eternal Arms Mastery: Same as Lancelot.
Add in details that this derives from his structural analysis.
Battle continuation: EX. a Skill that allows for the continuation of combat after sustaining mortal wounds. It will also reduce mortality rate from injury. Representing both ability to survive would-be-mortal wounds or a strong willpower.in his case its based on the anecdote that during the Grail war he:came back from impalement through the heart with an anti-regenerative curse. He came back from the dead and fought his opponent defensively until summoning Saber, Continuing the war over the course of which he got slashed in two by Hercules and came back AGAIN and used the scabbard to survive a would be world-ending blow. While he did many of these feats in life through the assistance of Saber, as a heroic spirit this ability maintains even without her.
No! Bad richardsphere! I know it's tempting, but this is the result of equipment he does not have during the establishment of his legend. Secondly, headshots would kill Shirou instantly even with avalon. I'd downgrade it to B at best.
Beast Killer B. having personally caused the killing blow against 2 bestial bosses (the Moby Roc and the first floor boss) this skill increases his power against any bestial foe.
I'd say this needs to be handled carefully.
Bow and Arrow Creation: A. as long as he has materials he can instantly create bows and arrows.
Redundant, as both item creation and projection render it redundant.
Combination: EX skill that shows how much one’s combat power increases when on a united front with a given person. In life his co-operation with his summoned servant allowed him to survive an Anti-World attack.
This falls under low ranked charisma
Crossing arcadia: B-rank skill that allows for quick moving over a battlefield. In life he spend days moving over a large batlefield intervening and ending one clash before sprinting to another. Continuously for hours on end.
While a potent skill, I do believe that this is one that is more suitable for one of his other classes.

On the whole it's fine, though I'd recommend further distinguishing the differences between the caster class version of Shirou and the other classes.
For instance, Saber! Sixth Ranger can only use weapons that he created as his noble phantasms, while the Archer version has the 108 skills sealed in favour of his reality marble being easier to use.
 
Honestly the shirou we see here barely stacks up to a D- in any area maybe a C in structural grasp, clairvoyance, and projection (magecraft). People forget that E rank is 10 times peak human. This means at E rank you should be able to for instance move at minimum 300 miles an hour and given servants Don't wheigh more and aren't any more massive than a normal human they should with an e rank be much faster. It is likely impossible for a human body to eat a 10 times reinforcement multiplier across the board (because its made of bio bits) using modern mage craft (kirei used command seals designed by a 500+year old wizard and kuzuki was buffed by caster). As such even with reinforcement shirou would have to be at base peak human. Unfortunately in the visual novel he isn't; except for in heavens feel with archers arm. As for why shirou does pass this, it is because unlimited blade works is broken and even the unrealized version allows shirou to embody the wielder of his projections thus becoming a ranked down version of them. Hence saber is A strength in life so shirou is B strength projecting caliburn.

A realistic teenage shirou is likely
Strength E- (D with kanshou and bakuya)
Endurance E
Agility E-
Magical energy B (resisted petrification meaning B rank magical energy)
Luck D-
Noble phantasm E- to B
Magic resistance D (kanshou and bakuya)
Independent Action B
Protection from Arrows E
Clairvoyance D
Pollution of the Mind A (endured all the evils)
Aincrad virtual world leveling system E- in agility and strength are changed to D-
Magecraft E-
Noble Phantasm
Projection E- to B (A+ with Caliburn EX with Avalon if a link with saber is included)
108 skills of the 6th ranger E effect unknown (despite being the selling point of this idea all I can think of is a Charisma boost offset by his pollution of the mind as shirou hasn't shown skills outside his standard repetiore to be misinterpreted as legendary.)
Note: this is all assuming passive reinforcement.
 

happerry

Well-Known Member
Personally, I'm not of the opinion that most people will be worried about the magecraft patch being in other games later on. Why? Because it's just the physics library for magic of course. Sure, sure, you can potentially develop your own and use that instead, but the Magecraft patch is very flexible, very highly developed, self consistent, and most of all it comes free with the Seed. Why wouldn't people use it? I mean, the giant robot game doesn't call it magecraft and uses 'Overtechnology Modules' (IE, mystic codes) and 'Psi Talents' (IE, giving players canned spellcasting routines to call upon), but it still uses the free physics library for how shiny magic stuff works because it is free and making one of their own of vaguely comparable quality would be Really Expensive.

And then for already sold/made games Cardinal just goes 'oh hey a systems patch for all those special effects, now I actually have a self contained and consistent system to figure out how they work instead of just some random decrease that guys hp commands! Time for some updating!'
The problem is that thaumaturgy is violently at odds with good game design. As many players noticed early in the story, it's arbitrary and unfair and unbalanced as all hell, and it hurts when you use it for no apparent reason. No muggle developer wants a terrible magic system that makes their video game physically painful to play.

There's also the issue that they don't know thaumaturgy and can't design spells and mystic codes and whatnot, but that's handwavable - Cardinal must have some ability to automatically devise magical effects.
So now that this story is being updated again, I want to go back over what I said here because Vanigo's reply shows how easily what I said was misunderstandable and I want to clarify exactly what I meant.

When I said 'it is just the physics library for magic' I didn't mean that 'from now on, whenever someone signs into Knights of the Round and wants to play as Merlin, they feel like they get set on fire from inside out whenever they use magic'. I mean 'Cardinal uses the system of magecraft as the background system for how the stuff actually works'. Like, let's go with a wand of explosions. From the users point of view, they point at the target, say the trigger word, and there's an explosion. From Cardinal's point of view it's a mystic code that uses 'insert spell x' to make explosions. Or for the giant robot game, whenever someone want to make a structural integrity field Cardinal goes 'oh right, reinforcement time' and just uses the effect it already has cued up in its library of how to handle supernatural things to make your giant robot's armor stronger. Anti/Artificial-Gravity Field? Time to go loot the notes on the Divine Dragon's Alliance's gravity magic and then whoosh, the Giant Robot Online's mothership have their own gravity plating.

Because Cardinal has to use some major heavy duty physics library as is, just to get things accurate enough to serve as an accurate simulated setting for all of Kayaba's lab rats to do their lab rat wizard thing. So all the Magecraft Module is, to other developers, is Cardinal's onboard library for simulating out 'stuff that normal mundane science does not cover' without running into in game physics glitches because someone didn't think through what happens when they just tell an item that it's density correlates to how close it is to the Evil God Altar or tries to make a Dragon Ball Z style gravity chamber without wanting all the trees to get smushed into the ground or something, or just tells it to 'go make an evil god final boss for me with nasty magic, kk, bye' late in the development stream because they're being a lazy developer.

Because I agree that if you just try to flat ram 'doing magic is super painful' down everyone's throats it won't work very well, even if I disagree with the people saying no one would ever touch it if it caused real pain in the game, no matter how shiny it is.

But for the point of 'getting it packaged with Cardinal without getting any attention' just having it be the supernatural physics simulation ruleset that Cardinal can run in the background to actually make stuff work in a corherent system when all the devs are doing is adding flaming swords and scrolls of D&D to the game seems like a pretty good way to me.

And once it is packaged and built in with Cardinal, well, I'm sure Kayaba can think of ways to use that to get people actually doing real Magecraft, even if it has to be marketed as 'the exact same magic system that was in sword art online' in some rip-off game.
 
You may know that the third SAO anime covering the Alicization arc is running and I wish to briefly discuss it:

I never understood the plot of Project Alicization

1.Even if the project had succeeded there would been a massive international diplomatic uproar at Japan creating autonomous killer robots. Transhumanists also wouldn't be very happy because Rath essentially created human minduploads and enslaved them through insidious means. Depending on how well the Japanese government handled the incident Japan would be embargoed and Japanese economy would crash. Also Japanese reliability and usefulness as and US ally would be in doubt. In short unless the project was covered up Bad End would result.

2. Why would the CIA need to steal the project in the first place?
Reaction of intelligence services: "Japanese are building killer robots?!"
"You can continue working on the project as long as you keep it secret and share the result with us!" No need for the turtle raid.

3. You neither need nor want a fully autonomous AI to run your warmachine. Remote piloting via Virtual interface technology would work just as well and be far less controversial.
4. How would a hack and slash medieval setting prepare someone for modern combat?
5. How did Rath manage to lose control of the world so completely? If the Administrator managed to lock them out of the system so completely that would be a sign to pull the plug on the whole project.
6. I'm not even going to go in detail about the disaster that the last third of the arc represents.

Of course Reiki Kawahara is an idiot who didn't research anything about the topics he was writing about in this arc and simply wanted a "cool" conclusion to the whole franchise so he created a world tailored to show how awesome the protagonist is. Basically instead of making Kirito a Gary Stue he created a world which allowed Kirito to be as OP as possible. One final thing remained to tie the Laughing Coffin into the plot somehow. That's why he decided to have PoH be a special forces leader because that clearly solves everything! In reality PoH should have been able to wipe the floor with Kirito with marginal effort.

Daniel are there any plans for an arc that would replace Alicization in FRO?

I know that the problem of Alicization was covered in the beginning but years have passed since then.
 
You may know that the third SAO anime covering the Alicization arc is running and I wish to briefly discuss it:
The Alicization arc is complete dogshit stupid on every conceivable level, from the wacko bullshit of "CIA making soul-powered killbots" or whatever the fuck, to "Kirito was put inside a computer program running a fantasy simulation and also given amnesia so what was the point really," to "the guy who convinced people that murder was a fun time in SAO is also a hyper racist Special Forces Agent™"
 

aryana98

Well-Known Member
Alicization can be used in the FRO, because of the Nasuverse tie-in.

Make it an attempt to reach Akasha via studying thousands of virtual/artifical human(ish?) souls and how they either return to the Root (and thus can be theoretically followed) or keep being reused (for in-depth Origin research). Even the difference in time flow can be explained as a World Egg Theory/Reality Marble research (that Kayaba might have interest in after Shirou)

Be it Kayaba escalating (a logical-ish thing tbh, he needs to process the data of SAO) or, I dunno, Araya Souren taking interest in simulated worlds, this does sound like a magus thing to do, no?

(but we still have, like, >75 floors of SAO, not!ALO, GGO and whatever Nasuverse shenanigans to go before Alicization arc.)

(maybe make [The Turtle] an [Illya and Kayaba's new Third Magic research facility/workshop] and the Project Alicization the attempt to create a fully human soul by refining copies/ghosts/{whatever the nasu termin for stuff of after the human dies that is memories and soul}. This stuff can be feasibly started when Sugou is still being a decoy)
 
So now that this story is being updated again, I want to go back over what I said here because Vanigo's reply shows how easily what I said was misunderstandable and I want to clarify exactly what I meant.

When I said 'it is just the physics library for magic' I didn't mean that 'from now on, whenever someone signs into Knights of the Round and wants to play as Merlin, they feel like they get set on fire from inside out whenever they use magic'. I mean 'Cardinal uses the system of magecraft as the background system for how the stuff actually works'. Like, let's go with a wand of explosions. From the users point of view, they point at the target, say the trigger word, and there's an explosion. From Cardinal's point of view it's a mystic code that uses 'insert spell x' to make explosions. Or for the giant robot game, whenever someone want to make a structural integrity field Cardinal goes 'oh right, reinforcement time' and just uses the effect it already has cued up in its library of how to handle supernatural things to make your giant robot's armor stronger. Anti/Artificial-Gravity Field? Time to go loot the notes on the Divine Dragon's Alliance's gravity magic and then whoosh, the Giant Robot Online's mothership have their own gravity plating.

Because Cardinal has to use some major heavy duty physics library as is, just to get things accurate enough to serve as an accurate simulated setting for all of Kayaba's lab rats to do their lab rat wizard thing. So all the Magecraft Module is, to other developers, is Cardinal's onboard library for simulating out 'stuff that normal mundane science does not cover' without running into in game physics glitches because someone didn't think through what happens when they just tell an item that it's density correlates to how close it is to the Evil God Altar or tries to make a Dragon Ball Z style gravity chamber without wanting all the trees to get smushed into the ground or something, or just tells it to 'go make an evil god final boss for me with nasty magic, kk, bye' late in the development stream because they're being a lazy developer.
That does make a good amount of sense, but one thing I've been mulling over is how well other Seed based games would be at reaching SAO's level of complexity, since Kayaba has been using magecraft on the game since at least the fourth floor to make it dramatically better at simulating reality than should be possible, and I'm not sure if whatever methods he's using (maybe some "inactive" players are being used as servers or something?) can be simulated without attracting suspicion. So that means that everything will be about as complex as they were on the first floor of SAO, modified only by "normal" software development.

Also yeah, Alicization seems like it enters the range of possible if you involve magecraft, though that kind of subjective time-crunch thing might be within the realm of a True Magic, unless it ages your soul faster than it does your body, which would result in Problems.
 

aryana98

Well-Known Member
Actually...

In /extra_CCC SakurAI/BB-chan really fucked with time. First one made a 60-day loop to keep Hakuno, and the other 'gave herself unlimited time' to hack Moon Cell itself. In one of the endings Tamamo-no-Mae/Casko accelerated time to meditate a 1000 years to restore her 9 tails, saved Hakuno and cut 8 tails off, in span of moments before Hakuno's deletion. So, Alicization stuff is possible in Nasuverse frame?...

Fluctlights/Lightcubes are actually really, really, reminiscent of the Fate/Ext(ra/ra_CCC/ella) stuff (as to make me wonder if Reki Kawahara played and stole some stuff /extra) namely Photonic Crystals (that host the simulation) and have AIs (that canonically can develop free will).

You know, /extra branch if Nasuverse is the one where Third True Magic was downgraded to a near-universally available 'magecraft' (spiriton hacking - Gaia of that branch ceased to produce mana for some reason). Which is really freaking relevant to Illyasviel, as an Einzbern.

Alicization actually can start as early as Kayaba pinning the blame on Sugou; or by his notes being stolen and him cooperating with Illya to get back at whatever japanese special forces agency did it. It kinda can replace GGO arc, just place Sinon into not!ALO, or be hinted at in the [Save Asuna] arc as what Kayaba is busy with as to not help with Sugou's idiocy (at latter stages of the not!ALO arc, after dealing with Mages Association - literally doing what maguses do and setting up a Workshop)
 
I'm not sure if whatever methods he's using (maybe some "inactive" players are being used as servers or something?) can be simulated without attracting suspicion.
I don't think that's the case, as he's already pulling from them to make test subjects, and that would mean he's limited in making adjustments based on the amount of people who've "died", and they're not doing that very fast. It might be something as basic as "using [Reinforcement] on the server's CPU."

Actually, now I have to wonder. <<Cardinal>> isn't a physical thing, it's the operating system. We already know that magecraft can affect spiritual phenomenon, could it also be used to modify software as well?
 
It might be something as basic as "using [Reinforcement] on the server's CPU."
I mean, it feels possible, but it's ultimately running into the problems Kirito and Argo have already noticed about SAO's increase in complexity. Like for the most part in Nasu, magical effects aren't self-sustaining. If you want to fire a beam from your sword, you usually still need to use your own prana to fuel the reaction, and I think that's true even for something as basic as Reinforcement. So if Kayaba is using magic on the hardware itself, he needs a constant stream of prana to fuel it, right? So at first I thought he was squeezing the real Od out of the real bodies out of the players, as much as he could without arousing suspicion, but I guess he also could just be using Formalcraft and found some other ley-line intersections to place the server banks, since he probably had the resources to do such a thing.

And yeah that's a tricky question about modifying software directly with magic, because I don't really see how it would be impossible, but it's also something I'm having a hard time visualizing.

Alicization actually can start as early as Kayaba pinning the blame on Sugou; or by his notes being stolen and him cooperating with Illya to get back at whatever japanese special forces agency did it. It kinda can replace GGO arc, just place Sinon into not!ALO, or be hinted at in the [Save Asuna] arc as what Kayaba is busy with as to not help with Sugou's idiocy (at latter stages of the not!ALO arc, after dealing with Mages Association - literally doing what maguses do and setting up a Workshop)
That's definitely interesting, and seems like the two settings could mesh pretty well with each other, though it would need to be a fan-sequel or spinoff because I think Daniel has stated that he's not including any Extra/CCC elements or characters due to not playing any of the games and not really being interested in doing so.
 
Last edited:

aryana98

Well-Known Member
I suspect that the origins of Cardinal's ability to suddenly upgrade graphics is a plot point; or Kayaba is dabbling in Dream Magecraft, like Len from Tsukihime, and made that SAO is a Cardinal-controlled player-shared dream. If it is so, then every player inside the game contributes to it.

Kinda like in Alicization, again. There was stuff like that.

Aww, no /Extra lore? Pity. Understandable, though.
 

violinmana

(Hardcore) Gamer
It's not really using prana to fuel the reaction, it's using prana to convince the world that the reaction should even exist in the first place. So in a virtual world where Kayaba decides what the natural state of the world is, there's no "upkeep" prana required to maintain the world, since it's his world and his rules in the first place.
 
It's not really using prana to fuel the reaction, it's using prana to convince the world that the reaction should even exist in the first place. So in a virtual world where Kayaba decides what the natural state of the world is, there's no "upkeep" prana required to maintain the world, since it's his world and his rules in the first place.
Of course, as the game goes on, he does try to make it more and more realistic, as he does need the players to be able to survive.
 
It's not really using prana to fuel the reaction, it's using prana to convince the world that the reaction should even exist in the first place. So in a virtual world where Kayaba decides what the natural state of the world is, there's no "upkeep" prana required to maintain the world, since it's his world and his rules in the first place.
Wait, i thought Aincrad at this point is still mostly "just" an incredibly sophisticated computer program, but still very much something that exists as a part of the World, and thus subject to the Common Sense of Man or whatever? I don't know, to be honest I don't have a great handle on Nasu metaphysics.
 
Passing by to mention that the new Fate anime (Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note) just introduced a Magus family named Animusphere. That's literally their name. Just thought you might find it interesting.
 
Passing by to mention that the new Fate anime (Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note) just introduced a Magus family named Animusphere. That's literally their name. Just thought you might find it interesting.
IIRC, they existed already in other material (F/GO), but I think this is the first time they've been animated in the main timeline.
 
Top