Pale Wolf wrote:Aka, star seeds?
Not quite. XD The star seed concept is introduced late in Sailor Moon and more or less contradicts the need for tools (as at the start of the series), which are more in line with the standard sentai context and has a more natural rapport with technology (like it does in MSLN). And I'm not sure if star seeds, and how they're created, is really all that compatible with the MSLN universe. And the whole chaos aspect (where there's "light," there's "darkness") of it seems too black and white for it, too.
Ie, the power's bound up in supporting life force most of the time, so dead husks have more 'free' power?
What I was thinking was that, since the ki and mana would be pushed beyond the surface at some point anyway, that only a few life forms might adapt to use it, or even rely on it, depending on what other resources (and amount of them) there are in their environment. (They could use either as a supplement, and in extreme cases live and die by it.) Otherwise, ki and mana are attracted to the energy fields of living things, which can draw them out of the ground before they can build up there to a significant degree. (This is assuming that the Saint's Cradle's long-distance procurement method doesn't penetrate too far into the surface.) Mana is the lighter of the two, so it's easier to dislodge from around a living thing's body with enough motion than having too much built up within the body. And from there it rises through the atmosphere and gets blown away by the solar wind once in space. Ki is heavier and is more likely to build up in the body and be released because there's no more room for it, then takes a longer time reaching space.
... Do we really have to go into that whole 'magic versus technology' garbage? Nanoha is pretty explicitly 'magic equals technology'.
I mean, the Midchildans who are 'magic dependent' make use of perfectly reasonable technologies, including basic electronics, to perform their magic. Nanoha, whose linker core is extreme high-power, had a lifestyle that was 0% magic-based. The TSAB doesn't make use of nonmagical weapons technology for policy reasons, going by how insane the Belkan Wars apparently got, the use of it didn't degrade anyone's magical abilities noticeably.
This isn't magic versus technology, but the degree of application. Technology is just a prime example for why flight (not levitation) in mages might be so rare: because of ongoing convenience and supplementation. For instance, who do you expect to win a marathon: the person who jogs and exercises regularly, or the person who doesn't exercise and sits around all day watching TV? And even then, the obvious answer is most likely for maintaining their current condition, not exceeding it and then exceeding that.
Take a calculator (or even an abacus), for instance. The human brain is more than capable of learning how to perform just like a calculator, but most of the world relies on various tools instead of utilizing the potential of their brain. People can do and achieve amazing things when they push themselves to rely on the things that they were born with, improving themselves instead of handing off the work to someone/something else.
I'm not saying that any amount of convenience and supplementation will automatically have a negative effect. So long as it's balanced with something to maintain the person's current condition (be it physical, mental or magical), there shouldn't be any problem by virtue. And I'm also not saying that people can't acquire what others normally have to work for without effort, or that they can't lose it even if they keep up a routine to maintain it. Stuff happens, after all. And not every individual is created equal; they're different.
Also, I'm not of the mind that just using magic is beneficial by itself. As far as I know, the linker core is more or less considered an organ of the body; in that way, I don't see how a pacemaker would be good for a healthy heart. Rather, I think the relationship between the linker core and the body (particularly the brain) is more important, in part because it's a natural arrangement. You shouldn't need to get an artificial limb unless you lose one of the ones you were born with, is what I'm saying. That's not to say that there's no place or use for technology, but it shouldn't be relied on unless it's needed. At the very least if the goal is to promote better linker cores in succeeding generations. An extreme case would probably be a lifestyle like Ranma's, prior to living with the Tendo family.
As for the "magic is technology" thing... Isn't that backward from the usual saying? XD I mean, I figure magical constructs are possible, but I'm pretty sure that the technology used in the series doesn't wink out of existence because of a dispelling, because it was magicked up with mana. Mana controlled and used by technology, and mana working with and powering technology, I can see -- but not technology being magic itself. I'd come to that conclusion simply because magic and technology have very different origins. Unless you're saying that the possible
effects achieved by magic and technology are virtually the same, in which case it's another thing entirely.
Hm, it's possible, but it makes things very location-based, and they don't honestly appear to be. I mean, if it's regional like that, everyone in Uminari should have Extreme Powers with a more or less equal spread - while Nanoha is up there, and Hayate is way up there, nobody else is. And Graham was at least noticeable in power and from way away from that region.
It's a cool idea, but doesn't quite fit the data points. Unless you have something like the mana bleeding out in pulses, so only if you're at a particular state of development right when a pulse happens do you develop to fit it, and/or it all latches onto one person, or there's some other factor...
Well, I figure that there could be the kind of irregularities that one might expect is possible, either when random conditions are met or during certain cycles (should they exist). So, even though you can find a lot of ki and mana in certain places through accumulation, that doesn't mean that the release of ki and mana will always be uniform in size, amount and duration. Which would mean that it's possible for there to be too much for a given area of the surface and the lifeforms thereabouts to hold in all of the ki and mana, so it bubbles or geysers directly into the atmospheric stage of their journey. I'd say that it would ultimately depend on the timing of a child's development while in the womb, and possibly genetics, as to their chances; but there would always be a decent chance that a linker core might be formed to start with if the body is filled to capacity with ki and/or mana while in an environment filled with ki and mana, which keeps it from escaping or actually applies pressure and makes it more dense. And the reason why fetuses are the most likely to acquire a linker core under such conditions is because their body isn't big enough to contain a lot of ki and mana to begin with, so it wouldn't take long for them to be filled to capacity, which leaves them exposed longer overall and any possible increase in density would occur sooner.
Other than the bit above, no direct contradictions or problems, not much to say but 'cool'.
Beyond perhaps needing a better understanding of MSLN's magic and technology, and how they're used together, nothing direct is probably the best I can hope for. ^^;