Thoughts for DSKS: Hit-Girl

[robkelk]

I sometimes wonder about possible connections between Seto and Setsuna. (Both 10,000 years old, green hair, red eyes, tendency to meddle...)

And you never see both of them in the same place at the same time.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Jorlem]

blackaeronaut wrote:

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Jorlem:
Raven is not That Guy by any stretch.  If anything, Raven doesn't care much for him - feels he should quit being so f****** inscrutable.  His daughters, the Nourns, are all adorable and Raven would adopt them at the first opportunity.
Also, there is one way Raven can directly oppose Hild without turning it into a slugfest.  He can keep reincarnating souls destined to Hell through his Purgatory Buffer.  Hild won't like it, but there wouldn't be much she can do except to abide by the simple request to leave his Avatar alone.  Those around him, though, are free game.

Ok, that makes sense.  When you said

...but the problem is what do you do with the Almighty sitting on the other
end who is doubtlessly furious about your screwing around with his
personal toy/vessel? 

I assumed you meant Raven as the Almighty, and went from there.  Thanks for clearing that up. (by the way, minor typo, Norns isn't spelled with a 'u', as far as I've seen anyway.

The Jyuraians do not outright fear Raven.  Rather, even though they
don't worship him, they have a very healthy sense of respect for the
Trickster God that can topple interstellar governments with Butterfly
Effects alone.  It also helps that the Jyuraians are essentially highly
advanced techno-druids.
Therefore, their general consensus when
they see his Avatar is now part of the picture is, "Well f***!  This
just got a little more complicated."

Again, it looks like I overreacted a bit to the 'OH SHIT!' moment you described.  Sorry about that.
So, the Juraians see him as more of a wild card than something to be explicitly feared.  That seems more reasonable than the way I had been reading it. 
As a side note, I vaguely recall there being something about the Jurians being pirates before the found Tsunami, but I'm not sure where that's from.  Not sure if that might be useful or not.

As for the rating scale... What about this instead:
Preist/Servitor
High
Priest/Champion
Avatar/Demi-God
Incarnation
God/Powers That Be
I
threw in Servitors because it felt right that there would be 'gophors'
that are essentially non-denominational.  They just get things
accomplished.  I also felt that High Priest and Champion are in the same
power bracket, just slightly different roles.  Champions are pretty
much your hack-and-slash types while High Preists are still REMFs, but
have learned how to hit back hard enough to have earned their keep on
the front lines.  Kinda like a Red Mage from Final Fantasy.  Avatar and
Demi-Gods for the same reason, only Demi-Gods gain access to their
latent abilities pretty quickly and usually without any help.
Finally,
I replaced Demons with Powers That Be.  Marler counts as a Demon, but
she is nothing to Hild.  Hild is what we fans of Diane Duane's work call
a 'Power'.
What'cha think?

Hmm... I like the Servitors, it make sense to have a group for doing drudge work minor, but still important jobs outside of the temples.
Regarding the High Priests/Champions, while I agree with you that in theory they would have roughly equivalent power levels, I think that in practice the Champions would pull a bit ahead, simply because they are out doing things more than the High Priest.  Even if High Priests have more actual power at their disposal, I think Champions would usually be more comfortable with using the power they have.  I'm not making much sense, am I?  Sorry.
A similar thing with Avatars and Demigods.  I don't think a human being would be able to safely large amounts of divine energy as well as a partially divine being.  Also, even if the Avatar has more power available to him, he would not be able to use it as well as the Demigod.  For example, in Slayers,

Spoiler

Lina was possessed/used as an Avatar by the Lord of Nightmares, the overbeing that created the entire Slayers multiverse, during her battle with Hellmaster Phibrizzo.  (Hellmaster is a demon, but the LoN would fall into a tier above Kami-Sama and Hild, so it evens out.)  In the anime, this turned it into a curbstomp battle, with LoN!Lina easily vaporizing Phibrizzo.  In the novel series, however, it became an extremely close battle, in which LoN was just barely able to defeat and destroy Hellmaster Phibrizzo.  It was explicitly stated that this was because the Lord of Nightmares was unable to channel most of its power while using Lina's human body.

  So, even though this would roughly equalize the available power levels, I think the Demigod would be more comfortable with using his powers then an Avatar might be. 
I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding Hild and Kami-Sama.  They are on a completely different level than 'ordinary' gods and demons.
Sorry if some of what I said didn't make much sense.  I think I was able to get the gist of it across though.
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

[Black Aeronaut]

robkelk wrote:

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Deadpan29 wrote:

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I sometimes wonder about possible connections between Seto and Setsuna. (Both 10,000 years old, green hair, red eyes, tendency to meddle...)

And you never see both of them in the same place at the same time.

Wow.  I think you guys just broke the Universe. 

Jorlem wrote:

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Again, it looks like I overreacted a bit to the 'OH SHIT!' moment you described.  Sorry about that.

That's okay.  I was really thinking more about Kagato at that point.  He's doubtlessly done a few things to irk Raven and he knows it.  So seeing someone he recognizes as Raven's Avatar... 

Jorlem wrote:

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As a side note, I vaguely recall there being something about the Jurians being pirates before the found Tsunami, but I'm not sure where that's from.  Not sure if that might be useful or not.

I've seen it come up in fanfics myself.  Too many to be a coincidence and too few to be fanon.  There's gotta be a source for this somewhere.

Jorlem wrote:

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Regarding the High Priests/Champions, while I agree with you that in theory they would have roughly equivalent power levels, I think that in practice the Champions would pull a bit ahead, simply because they are out doing things more than the High Priest.  Even if High Priests have more actual power at their disposal, I think Champions would usually be more comfortable with using the power they have.  I'm not making much sense, am I?  Sorry.

No no, I can see your point there... I just feel that they occupy the same power bracket (that is, amount of power they are capable of using - not power sets).  Believe me, Champions and High Priests are definitely Apples and Oranges to each other.

Jorlem wrote:

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A similar thing with Avatars and Demigods.  I don't think a human being would be able to safely large amounts of divine energy as well as a partially divine being.

You have a point there.  A Demigod would be able to call up and effectively use moar powah!  However, the saving grace of an Avatar if caught in a knock-down drag-out fight with a Demigod?  A skilled Avatar will wear a Demigod down before inviting their patron God in to finish the mess.  Demigods, OTOH, usually only have themselves to rely on.  (^_^)

[deadpan29]

Tenchi Muyo is one of those series where they put out a lot of supplementary material providing background information you don't see in the anime itself.  This material is, of course, in Japanese and non-Japanese-speaking fans have to rely on translations provided by other fans.  This information then spreads by word of mouth, web-link, and occasional inclusion into fanfic.  This stuff is subject to translation errors, misunderstandings, confusion with fanon, arguments about whether it's proper canon if it's not on screen, etc.  For a source I find to be mostly reliable, check out AstroNerdBoy's timeline and linked pages.  The afore mentioned timeline has an entry about the Juraian pirates contacting Tsunami long ago.
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No, I don't believe the world has gone mad.  In order for it to go mad it would need to have been sane at some point.

[Black Aeronaut]

Thanks, Deadpan! Sounds like a great source of info.