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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 1:48 am 
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Eccles wrote:
4)as above, except Sara's dolon deactivates because she takes her hand off for a second to steady herself/push off the ground
Pros: Fits visually, Sara is right handed, the dolon might have a killswitch/pressure switch.
Cons: No reason to think she can't channel magic with her left, or that there is a switch.


Huge con: In panel 4, Sara switches her hands around, thus temporarily releasing the Dolon with each hand in turn, and the Dolon does not appear to deactivate.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 2:00 am 
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Well, I guess the joke is on whoever gave Anita the Dolon in the first place...

hmm... "Gave her the Dolon"... That might be my new favorite euphemism, right next to "Killing the Hermit" and "Jiggling the Jigglypuff".

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If this keeps up, Sarine will wind up beneath Ellis


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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 2:03 am 
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I'm not sure that Sara is actually ducking in the last panel of the previous comic. It looks more like her leg slipped and she used her arm to brace herself.

In panel 5 you can see that Sara has her right leg up in the air while she is maintaining contact to the ground with the ball of her left foot. In the 6th panel her left leg is no longer visible however her right leg is now touching the ground in an unstable manner with it resting on the top of her foot/toes as opposed to the ball of her foot. It is also possible to see that her legs appear to be in the same relative position to Sarine as her left leg was in the 5th panel.


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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 2:05 am 
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Zherical wrote:
Killjoy wrote:
I find it interesting that once magic comes in to the equation, it's assumed that anyone using it could do anything they wanted to. The magic ability to lift the sword without touching it, or call it to your hand, isn't the same as the magic ability to activate a touch-and-concentration-activated weapon before you're touching it.


My point is: that being able to build an entire underground cavern with a giant tree literally radiating magical energy, using magic to fly, using magic to heal metabolic and genetic inferiorities, using magic for creating an invisibility shell, to float an island, to create 3 entire species, to craft a puppet-god,

to lift a weapon into ones hand after having dropped it..

Whatever kind of medium magic uses to transfer itself, it's fair to say that magic, such as it is, is some pretty special shit, and I wouldn't put it beyond the abilities of the time monks to be able to activate their weaponry mid-flight. It seems kinda easy in comparison to my other examples, don't it?

@Rakshasa; please don't condescend, I'm trying to make a valid point here.


It occurs to me, outside of trying to teach a young pup a lesson, why fight hand-to-hand if one can use magic? Are there limits with the magic? And if so, what? Magic, as it stands, could be a massive deus ex machina for an author. What stops it being so here?

As Sarine says, the Dolon is a crap weapon. Mayne the chrono monks magic makes up for it's inherent crapness?

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:32 am 
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Deadly Sin No.8 wrote:
Eccles wrote:
4)as above, except Sara's dolon deactivates because she takes her hand off for a second to steady herself/push off the ground
Pros: Fits visually, Sara is right handed, the dolon might have a killswitch/pressure switch.
Cons: No reason to think she can't channel magic with her left, or that there is a switch.


Huge con: In panel 4, Sara switches her hands around, thus temporarily releasing the Dolon with each hand in turn, and the Dolon does not appear to deactivate.


Well actually, maybe it does and we just weren't looking at the right time :wink: and missed it :-P

There also may be a slight delay, who knows? I certainly don't. All I know is that when Warrel dropped his Lancea, it turned off and didn't turn on again until it was back in his hands. The exact same phenomenon was observed with the Hape in the Sarin v Melrin fight. In fact, in that case, it is absolutely clear that Sarine couldn't activate the Hape until she got her hands firmly on the weapon.

There are somethings that we absolutely do know about Durus Flamma weapons, there are other things that are infered, and yet more that is guessed at. Some of the things that we do know is that the weapon only stays active with the constant willful channeling of magical energy by the user, that the weapons has to be in possession of the user, and that, as a derivative conclusion, breaking either the chain of possession or the user's focus will deactivate the weapon.

Note that this is a different argument from "what caused deactivation of Sara's Dolon". For that one, given the above, we have to answer whether or not there was sufficient impact to break Sara's focus.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:56 am 
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Well, the only times so far we have seen a durus flamma deactivate involuntarily have been when the weapon was dropped, that is to say when contact was lost completely. Furthermore, it would not make sense for such a weapon to deactivate involuntarily when the user releases one hand to cast a spell or perform other actions.

As for whether or not there was any impact at all, much less sufficient impact to break Sara's focus, let me ask here in this thread as well:

Deadly Sin No.8 wrote:
Where is Sarine's smack talk?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Sarine did bop Sara on the head with the flat of her blade, hard enough to stun her.

In dueling/sparring terms, that is a clear "kill".

If keeping score, it would be Elf: 1, Human/Ensigerum: 0

Sarine is talking smack in the next comic, but not about the head-thwack. Why not? If she did indeed thump Sara, I do not think there is any way she would miss saying something about it. It is the perfect opportunity for a condescending or other superior remark (i.e. "You're not bad, but you still have so much left to learn."), or even a slight break in the action followed by squaring off again. Maybe even a lead-in to a "Why are you smiling?" type exchange.

But there is nothing. Just the continued flow of the duel punctuated by Sarine's smack talk about the Dolon.

This, IMO, is the one of the biggest reasons why I do not think that Sarine bopped Sara in the head.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 6:30 am 
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On a note of physics, a bop on the head would not have cut hair. For that to have happened, the blade would have been needing to travel in a circular, upwards motion. I think I may yet draw a picture to demonstrate my thesis.


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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 6:37 am 
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Deadly Sin No.8 wrote:
Well, the only times so far we have seen a durus flamma deactivate involuntarily have been when the weapon was dropped, that is to say when contact was lost completely. Furthermore, it would not make sense for such a weapon to deactivate involuntarily when the user releases one hand to cast a spell or perform other actions.


Yes of course it would have to be a complete release. I never claimed otherwise. Letting go with one hand, while holding with the other, is not a release.

Deadly Sin No.8 wrote:
As for whether or not there was any impact at all, much less sufficient impact to break Sara's focus, let me ask here in this thread as well:

Deadly Sin No.8 wrote:
Where is Sarine's smack talk?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Sarine did bop Sara on the head with the flat of her blade, hard enough to stun her.

In dueling/sparring terms, that is a clear "kill".

If keeping score, it would be Elf: 1, Human/Ensigerum: 0

Sarine is talking smack in the next comic, but not about the head-thwack. Why not? If she did indeed thump Sara, I do not think there is any way she would miss saying something about it. It is the perfect opportunity for a condescending or other superior remark (i.e. "You're not bad, but you still have so much left to learn."), or even a slight break in the action followed by squaring off again. Maybe even a lead-in to a "Why are you smiling?" type exchange.

But there is nothing. Just the continued flow of the duel punctuated by Sarine's smack talk about the Dolon.

This, IMO, is the one of the biggest reasons why I do not think that Sarine bopped Sara in the head.


I don't know about smack-talk since I've never done it and I don't understand why anyone would do it. Every Martial Arts school that I've ever been in just focused on breathing techniques and getting on with business. Taunting an opponent is usually a waste of breath and may even backfire. I also hesitate to draw any conclusions from it. But I don't believe in fair warnings either in court or on the mat.

Sarine, OTOH, seems to be truely curious. This may be an attempt at honest conversation that we're seeing here.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:11 am 
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Slamlander wrote:
Sarine, OTOH, seems to be truely curious. This may be an attempt at honest conversation that we're seeing here.


This gets to the heart of it. To all appearances, Sarine's objective with this duel is not to kill Sara, or necessarily even to dominate her, but to open lines of communication that Sara had been resolutely keeping shut. The duel may have started (at least from Sara's point of view) as a real death struggle, but as it progresses, the hidden agenda is emerging. Two mortal enemies are starting to turn into professional combatants who can talk shop, with transition to the same kind of uneasy but basically workable relationship as Jon and Sarine have enjoyed to follow, at least if Sarine's plan works.

The irony to all this is the peril that it's placing Sara in. If she had simply taken off when Sarine took the manacles off her, and rejoined the Ensigerum, her life would have gone back to normal, as she "passed" her second "trial" of escaping. (Of course, Sara doesn't know that.) Instead, she's in danger of getting co-opted -- which Anita and Paul will view as defecting, just as when Chris' father left. And then she's really in trouble.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:12 am 
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Zherical wrote:
On a note of physics, a bop on the head would not have cut hair. For that to have happened, the blade would have been needing to travel in a circular, upwards motion. I think I may yet draw a picture to demonstrate my thesis.


I understand your thesis. But that doesn't discount a flat-of-the-blade impact on the back of her skull. In fact, it is indeed highly likely to impact at other than a direct angle, comprising both upwards and inwards vectors. That would have definitely clipped some hairs. It doesn't take much force to rattle brains. A light tap would do it and not even leave a bruise.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:31 am 
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Why do I get the feeling that Sara is eventually going to learn Hape or Spatha before this is all over, with Sarine as the instructor, and then go back and take on Anita.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:33 am 
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Zherical wrote:
On a note of physics, a bop on the head would not have cut hair. For that to have happened, the blade would have been needing to travel in a circular, upwards motion. I think I may yet draw a picture to demonstrate my thesis.

In physics most calculations on these things start with: Assume the object is a perfect sphere, ...

Some hair would be cut from a flat-side hit to the head, since the sharp edge would come in contact with some strands, almost no matter how perfectly tangential the hit was. And it's not like her hair is lying flat.

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@Rakshasa; please don't condescend, I'm trying to make a valid point here.

I am merely showing the ultimate consequence of your point. If you don't think it applies, limit it or debunk my interpretation.


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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:04 am 
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Graybeard wrote:
Slamlander wrote:
Sarine, OTOH, seems to be truely curious. This may be an attempt at honest conversation that we're seeing here.


This gets to the heart of it. To all appearances, Sarine's objective with this duel is not to kill Sara, or necessarily even to dominate her, but to open lines of communication that Sara had been resolutely keeping shut. The duel may have started (at least from Sara's point of view) as a real death struggle, but as it progresses, the hidden agenda is emerging. Two mortal enemies are starting to turn into professional combatants who can talk shop, with transition to the same kind of uneasy but basically workable relationship as Jon and Sarine have enjoyed to follow, at least if Sarine's plan works.


Well, maybe a little domination. But then, Sara is much more used to taking orders than Jon is. In the end, Sarine is going to have to call the main tactical shots. This means that she has to get both the Amraphaels to listen to her as a paying client. To that end, a little domination is good, nicht wahr?

Graybeard wrote:
The irony to all this is the peril that it's placing Sara in. If she had simply taken off when Sarine took the manacles off her, and rejoined the Ensigerum, her life would have gone back to normal, as she "passed" her second "trial" of escaping. (Of course, Sara doesn't know that.) Instead, she's in danger of getting co-opted -- which Anita and Paul will view as defecting, just as when Chris' father left. And then she's really in trouble.


I agree but Sarine doesn't care. She needs Jon and Jon pretty much indicated that Sara was a part of the package. At least, that Sara issues had to be settled. They are now in the process of settling things. :wink:

That this will pretty much alienate Sara from the Ensigerum rapidly becomes a non-issue in Sarine and Jon's matrix and might even become a positive, giving their team capabilites that they didn't have before.

Jon is not about to let his sister go back to the clowns that tried to have her kill him. Sarine can probably guess this and is intervening, her own way. Sarine's way could actually become quite effective.

Elf search party meeting Sarine's team wrote:
Elf Officer: Peregrine Sarine, who are those disgusting humans.
Sarine:This is boyfriend "shoot the eyes out of 100 snakes before you can blink" and his "little sister of slicey death".


I'd love to se something like that happen. [sigh]

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:37 am 
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Eccles wrote:
Slamlander wrote:
Yes, that is an assumption, sort of. Coupled with the deactivation of her Dolon, I assumed that she was momentarily stunned and I wasn't willing to attribute too much generosity from her part, which is still the only alternative that I see.


There are a couple others as I posted above; she deactivates it to avoid cutting herself or because she has to take a hand off to push herself off the ground.


Right.

As I pointed out, we have a number of possible explanations that only require support from what we've seen in the comic, and don't require us to speculate as to Sara's as-of-yet unknown mental state or attitude towards Sarine.

The only explanation that requires unsupported speculation as to things unseen in the comic: that Sara purposefully deactivated her weapon specifically to avoid injuring/killing Sarine.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:19 am 
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Another point to keep in mind about the "she deactivated the weapon to avoid killing Sarine" position: If her blade was going to cut through Sarine's torso, she could have simply turned her wrist and smacked her with the flat of the blade, achieving a much more positive outcome for her. Sarine would be in a difficult position to question her choice of a Dolon after "losing" a fight to one. Why miss completly when you can score a point, without hurting your oponent?

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 2:25 pm 
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Slamlander wrote:
Well, maybe a little domination.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 3:16 pm 
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The dolon might be Anita's weapon of choice because they don't have that many weapons to choose from in the first place? It's not like the elves are going to make a custom durus flamma weapon for every new member of the Ensigerum. They probably scavenged them from somewhere and have been using them ever since, or have been passing down the weapons left from the ORIGINAL members of the order for multiple generations.

^-^'

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 8:39 pm 
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While I'm a bit hesitent to correct you, didn't the Time-Ninjas only invenent the "Spatha" subtype after getting booted by the elves? Judging from the Wiki-drawing, and Chris' Training weapon, it seems the 'blade' is much larger then the spear counter part, meaning that they just didn't hack off a few feet off of a spear-version.

...And if she's the best fighter, and the leader, it means she's been working up the ranks. If she became a full monk, I doubt she couldn't swap weapons if she wanted to.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 8:43 pm 
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Imp-Chan wrote:
The dolon might be Anita's weapon of choice because they don't have that many weapons to choose from in the first place? It's not like the elves are going to make a custom durus flamma weapon for every new member of the Ensigerum. They probably scavenged them from somewhere and have been using them ever since, or have been passing down the weapons left from the ORIGINAL members of the order for multiple generations.

^-^'


That could be part of why the Ensgerum's weapons often look like the hilts/shafts are wrapped in something: they've been repaired a few times in the last couple of millenia.

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PostPosted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:09 pm 
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Rubber Band Man wrote:
...And if she's the best fighter, and the leader, it means she's been working up the ranks. If she became a full monk, I doubt she couldn't swap weapons if she wanted to.


When her opinion is that the other monks all suck, and the dolon is known to be at best a difficult weapon to master, why would she want to swap out the weapon? It'd be better for everyone if she kept it, since there's no way the other monks are competent to use it.

Also, as a parallel, we in the real world don't still know how to make quality bronze swords of the type used in the ancient world, or any of a zillion other quality crafts of that time. Why would the Ensigerum still know how to make (or more to the point still have the raw materials to make) the durus flamma weapons thousands of years after being ejected from the society which provided them in the first place? Even if they made a concerted effort to keep the knowledge intact, the fact is they've been living almost entirely in secret for about two millenia. No trade, no exploration, almost no interaction at all. You think they're going to ask the Veracian church for the materials? Without the materials (which for all we know were specialized and unable to be obtained by anyone even if they hadn't been in hiding), how long do you think they could keep teaching the methods?

The odds are just too good that no one has made a NEW durus flamma weapon in a very, very long time.

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