Here's a little something I just dropped into the scratchpad file. It may be of interest to folks who want to play in this story but don't want to take part in the war...
The Other Story Arc
Current plans for "finding the lost FTL's USA" is for Noah to crack open the grimoires in the original Whole Fenspace Catalog, build a mage who knows something about both spellcasting and teaching so the operation isn't going from a standing start, get the artificial mage to use the grimoires to train up as many people with magical potential as he can find, and concentrate on the magical methods of locating and reaching the Lost Continent. Let's let Infinity and Centrum do the tech-based searching - that's what they do best, after all.
Noah does not have magical potential - he has a long-standing magical spell effect upon him, which will be addressed in the R. Honami Project (see below). Safety has magical potential, being an angel as well as an "angel". Kohran has a very low magical potential - Magery 0 in GURPS terms - which won't let her cast any of the really useful spells. The rest of the Stellvians don't even have enough magical ability to light a candle.
There are a few tests in the grimoires to determine whether somebody has Magery - Noah will be spreading this test around to locate potential spellcasters. Bob indicated in version 0.1a that some of the Grovers' Corners folks have magical potential. I strongly suggest that any character that already has a lot of Cool (e.g. Noah, Ben, Mal, A.C., Vulpine Fury, Haruhi, Sabre) not have Magery - we've already established their characters can function just fine without it. Besides, most of those characters are busy with Operation FIREFALL. If you've got somebody who's been in the background all this time, though, now's the perfect chance to let them take a level in badass-mage...
~***~
The R. Honami Project
Noah's already noticed that his "angels" wake up with some skills pre-loaded. He's hoping that 'waving an "angel" based on a mage character will give her magical abilities. His contact with an actual mage (and a goddess) back in LoGG gives him just enough of a residual magical charge for this to work - the magic will flow from Noah to Honami. (This has the happy side-effect of turning his hair and eyes back to their original colour, and the disasterous side-effect of giving him a thionite craving for a while. But he'll get over that, probably with A.C.'s help, and Yayoi can run StellviaCorp while Noah's going through rehab. Noah'd better get well before the balloon goes up and Yayoi is seconded to FIREFALL...)
Calling in Kana Ueda-san to assist in an attempt to get some of the abilities of her other powerful mage character works... sort of. Yes, R. Honami will be one of the stronger mages in the multiverse once she learns to work with her newfound power. (Not Lina-Inverse level - "just" Hayate-Yagami-without-the-Unison-Device level.) But trying on purpose to give R. Honami some of the abilities of another of her seiyuu's roles introduces a case of multiple-personality disorder into the poor girl. She's usually Honami, but...
These personalities are inside her head, and won't be going away. Ever. Even if they're downloaded into their own bodies (which won't work). Basically, she swaps personas according to the situation; they usually let Honami run the body because it looks like Honami, but they do each need to be let out for at least a few hours every week.
--
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
The Other Story Arc
Current plans for "finding the lost FTL's USA" is for Noah to crack open the grimoires in the original Whole Fenspace Catalog, build a mage who knows something about both spellcasting and teaching so the operation isn't going from a standing start, get the artificial mage to use the grimoires to train up as many people with magical potential as he can find, and concentrate on the magical methods of locating and reaching the Lost Continent. Let's let Infinity and Centrum do the tech-based searching - that's what they do best, after all.
Noah does not have magical potential - he has a long-standing magical spell effect upon him, which will be addressed in the R. Honami Project (see below). Safety has magical potential, being an angel as well as an "angel". Kohran has a very low magical potential - Magery 0 in GURPS terms - which won't let her cast any of the really useful spells. The rest of the Stellvians don't even have enough magical ability to light a candle.
There are a few tests in the grimoires to determine whether somebody has Magery - Noah will be spreading this test around to locate potential spellcasters. Bob indicated in version 0.1a that some of the Grovers' Corners folks have magical potential. I strongly suggest that any character that already has a lot of Cool (e.g. Noah, Ben, Mal, A.C., Vulpine Fury, Haruhi, Sabre) not have Magery - we've already established their characters can function just fine without it. Besides, most of those characters are busy with Operation FIREFALL. If you've got somebody who's been in the background all this time, though, now's the perfect chance to let them take a level in badass-mage...
~***~
The R. Honami Project
Noah's already noticed that his "angels" wake up with some skills pre-loaded. He's hoping that 'waving an "angel" based on a mage character will give her magical abilities. His contact with an actual mage (and a goddess) back in LoGG gives him just enough of a residual magical charge for this to work - the magic will flow from Noah to Honami. (This has the happy side-effect of turning his hair and eyes back to their original colour, and the disasterous side-effect of giving him a thionite craving for a while. But he'll get over that, probably with A.C.'s help, and Yayoi can run StellviaCorp while Noah's going through rehab. Noah'd better get well before the balloon goes up and Yayoi is seconded to FIREFALL...)
Calling in Kana Ueda-san to assist in an attempt to get some of the abilities of her other powerful mage character works... sort of. Yes, R. Honami will be one of the stronger mages in the multiverse once she learns to work with her newfound power. (Not Lina-Inverse level - "just" Hayate-Yagami-without-the-Unison-Device level.) But trying on purpose to give R. Honami some of the abilities of another of her seiyuu's roles introduces a case of multiple-personality disorder into the poor girl. She's usually Honami, but...
- When there's a need for military tactics or incredible magical power, she's Hayate Yagami, the tactically-sound, powerful, not-particularly-precise combat mage from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS.
- When there's a need for detective work or mechanical repair, she's Shizuka Hayama, the meganekko engineer from Daphne in the Brilliant Blue. (This is particularly annoying because there's already a R. Shizuka Hayama in StellviaCorp. Luckily, Shizuka is a very understanding person, and each instance will be willing to treat her other-self as a sister.)
- When there's a need for casual mayhem or domestic work (as much as tidying her own room), she's Nanami Nanashiro, the sort-of-meganekko maid from Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu.
These personalities are inside her head, and won't be going away. Ever. Even if they're downloaded into their own bodies (which won't work). Basically, she swaps personas according to the situation; they usually let Honami run the body because it looks like Honami, but they do each need to be let out for at least a few hours every week.
--
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