[OOC][PLOT] The Seventh Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals

[robkelk]

On another note entirely...

So, I've been reading the manga version of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.

And I gotta say, the anime ended right before shit started to get REAL interesting.

For one thing, recall that Shouta's father is the president of the software company that Kobayashi works at, and that the man is supposed to be a mage.

Funny thing: the programming language that his company uses exclusively?  It's actually a language for creating magical spells!  (This also explains why Elma was able to pick it up so quickly that she went from being utterly useless to leading project groups in about a month.)

My reasons for wanting to bring in Kobayashi and Company is twofold:

1) FREAKIN' DRAGONS.
2) Software Engineers.

I've had the idea for a while now that a number of residents can take up programming as a trade to earn money.  It's an honest gig, they can work from home, and it pays well.  The only thing that had me stymied was how would everyone learn computer programing.  And then I learned that interesting tidbit from the Dragon Maid manga.

They can start out in San Antonio, as it'd probably be the best place for them...  But from the Doylist perspective, I can't have them there - it'd throw a monkeywrench into a good number of plots I have going because Toohru and her friends are OP as fuck, after all.  So the Watsonian explanation for them not being around would be this: right after teaching people at Westwoods how to use their programming language, Kobayashi, et al, began a tour going from one apartment complex to another to do the same for others.

Whatcha guys think?

I like it.  And my counterpart at Douglass Gardens is going to both be all over that programming language, and suspect very strongly that it's somehow tied to the Unified Theory of Magic, if that turns out to be more than the product of his own imagination.

Also, we should probably note in the various character pages' "metacontinuity powerups" sections if/when those characters learn this language.

And I can see them making an extended stopover in Ottawa, for two reasons.

First, to undo the damage that Academy City's esper training program did to Ruiko and Kazari. Once you've been trained to be an esper, attempting any magic will kill you (unless, like Tsuchimikado, your esper power is regeneration). I can't help but think that the Level 0s in Academy City would have been able to become mages powerful enough to cause problems for Aleister if they had been allowed to develop their abilities normally. (Yeah, headcanon, but it explains so much about why Academy City would invest all that effort training people that they know aren't going to be able to actually use esper powers, or as in Kazari's case only be able to use the most trivial aspect of their powers.) And, once it's safe for her to use it, Kazari would be all over software technomagic.

Second, to teach Piffle how to make Persocom mages.

Training software engineers will be an afterthought here...

Putting all of this together with something else we've already decided we want to do (wiki link)...

When do these folks show up in Ottawa? The sooner they work with Piffle, Washuu, Gil, and Lindy, the sooner we get this:

Oh, and this will probably be how Ben gets presented with Reinforce 2.1...

"It's dangerous to go alone," said Hayate as she offered Ben a small box.  "Take this!"

EDIT: You know, we can slot in Kobayashi &co.'s visit to Ottawa almost anywhere after the skating party. Want to have them show up in the Metacontinuity just in time for the 2016 Xmas party, then visit Blossom in February? Then Ben gets Reinforce 2.1 for White Day.