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[Hereafter] Chapter XXI: Divide and Conquer (Patreon)

Published:
2021-08-16 13:07:10
Imported:
2023-10

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Content

I'm not sure the ending feels urgent enough to convey how much Taylor feels trapped into this decision. How much she hates having to split the party. I might need to revisit it later and smooth out the jagged edges to make it work better.

For now, though, I'll give you guys this chapter. I think the next one is going to be an interlude. I need to discuss that with the editing team first, though.

EDIT: All the way down.

Comments

Caliburn0

Why can't they contract Bradamante and have her heal Siegfried with a command spell? That was what I thought you were going for. Not... splitting up, for whatever reason. And with that, even if Bramante refuses to come with them due to defending her city, they'd still be able to keep in contact via telepathy. Yes, it would use up a Servant slot, but I think that's a fair price to pay to fix up Siegfried. That's if they can't just break off the contract right after having made it if they judge that to be too high a price to pay. Also, if they're splitting up Da Vinci should be able to mock up some long range walkie talkies right? I mean, radio isn't that difficult. Also, also, they should be able to buy some horses for the mortals in this city, right? I mean, they don't have any local money, but they have a goddamn Holy Grail, and the ability to portal things between Chaldea and the Singularity. Also, if you can't use the Holy Grail to just make a bunch of gold or something, then Emiya and Da Vinci should easily be able to extract valuable materials out of basically anything. I'm sorry, I'm just tearing my hair off reading this, screaming at the inside of my skull how inneficent all of this is. Walking from place to place just CAN'T be the best solution. I still have no idea why the Servants aren't carrying the masters, but even if we discard that for whatever reason there just HAS to be a better way of doing things than what they're doing now.

James_D_Fawkes
>>65883100

Whoo, okay. Lemme try and get these each one at a time. The issue with Bradamante is kind of a matter of trust. She's not going to be willing to agree to a contract without some guarantees, and a Command Spell isn't... Command Spells are kinda wonky. If they use a Command Spell to have Bradamante break the curse all at once, that doesn't mean, "Bradamante gets a bunch of free magical energy to break the curse," that means either a, "the Command Spell's power goes to forcing her to do it," or b, "Bradamante's efforts are reinforced to make it easier." Generally, you have to get *really* creative or really lucky in your wording to just donate a bunch of magical energy to a Servant. Which is not to say that Taylor *can't*, but Bradamante still has to trust that she's not going to be fucked over. Siegfried, maybe Jeanne, she might trust, just out of respect for fellow heroes. Taylor, Romani, and the twins? Less so. Even if she doesn't show distrust overtly, there's still a part of her that hesitates, because she associates "Master" with "Magus." They won't be without communication, even if they split up. They already have comms devices to keep in contact. In canon, Mash hands one to Marie Antoinette so they can keep in contact. Breaking the contract isn't easy, either. It's not so easily dissolved as just saying, "Okay, we're no longer contracted." Shirou had to give up two of his Command Spells to Kirei and use up the third to break his contract to Saber in one of the early bad ends. Taylor would not be willing to sacrifice *two* Command Spells that easily, let alone *three*, when that would also mean she was no longer Siegfried's Master. Rule Breaker is a big deal for a reason, after all. The Grail Chaldea picked up in Fuyuki is currently in use as a magical energy reactor. It's powering Chaldea. They can't just disconnect it willy nilly and start making wishes. Hell, they might screw themselves over, because the Grail might be a powerful artifact, but its source of magical energy is *limitless*, not *inexhaustible*. As far as horses go, it's entirely possible that Bradamante might be able to swing things to get them a few horses. All horses are going to do is cut the journey *maybe* in half. It's faster, but not instantaneous. You can bet that Taylor will have loads to say about the speed at which they're forced to travel, though, and have quite a few words for Romani and Da Vinci about fixing that problem, either before the end of Orleans or when they get back to Chaldea. Also, I've been trying to introduce harder limits on what support Romani and Chaldea can give in the field. That's why I've been slipping in bits about how the accuracy of their sensors goes down the further away from Taylor and the team it gets and how the accuracy of their supply drops dips the further from a ley line terminal the team is on account of the time differential messing with the connection. As far as Servants carrying the Masters goes... Yeah, that might need to be addressed more directly in-story. But at least as far as Mash goes, there *are* some problems, namely that Mash *is* still human, and she has the same human frailties. She can't just run on magical energy the entire time, she needs food, rest, and air the same as the twins and Taylor do. For now, Taylor mentioned last chapter that their pace had to slow to match Siegfried's while they were traveling to Thiers. Some of these things you're bringing up, they're problems inherited from FGO canon, and I'm trying to deconstruct and reconstruct the reasons behind them as I go, because FGO never addresses them.

Caliburn0
>>65883100

Thanks for answering most of my questions, I see there were quite a few things I didn't quite consider properly. Sorry about that. But I think you should keep in mind that this is your story, and that if FGO had logisitcal problems and if it is possible for you to just... you know, solve them. Then let them be solved, and have that impact the story like they should. This isn't a phone game. This is written work, so you can do stuff like that. And also, it's really rewarding. For instance, I read one FGO fic where they always rayshifted the Masters and Servants high above in the air, so they could have a decent overview of the situation and find a good place to land on the way down. Servants are RIDICULOUS in their capabilties, and with enough of them around there is little mundane utility one lacks. Also, I don't really get why they haven't summoned Emiya yet. Even that conflict where they found Siegfried was bad enough that I'd definetly have called in Emiya for that. And Emiya can just... project things they need, like a bisycle or a bedsheets. I know that won't be Tracing, but he should be good enough to do that, shouldn't he...? I know I'm nittpicking, and most of this are issues I've had from FGO itself, but there they at least have the excuse of not actually knowing which Servants are available to you. In a written work made by one author you can utilize all the abilities of every actor present, and Da Vinci alone kind of burns every mundane problem to ashes by her very existence. Not to mention every other semi-divine beings of humanity's most exalted individuals just hanging around.

James_D_Fawkes
>>65883100

Been a busy few days... I'm trying to keep in mind that I don't have the same limitations that FGO had, since the medium is different. There are certain logistical problems that I can solve easily enough, but there are some that I want or *need* to keep in place so that I don't trivialize everything. This is part of why I'm not bringing Emiya in and have been laying down reasons it's not super easy to just drop him in whenever they want. Rayshifting the Masters up high doesn't work nearly as well as that fic might try to say it would. For a couple of different reasons, but owing especially to the fact that none of the Masters have a Clairvoyance skill, so being high up enough to see *everything* in the Singularity (which is usually quite large) is meaningless when too many of the details are lost with distance. Back to Emiya here, I think people tend to think too much on what he *can* do in terms of just individual actions and not on why he *doesn't* do that, ever. It's entirely possible that the reason he doesn't just spam Broken Phantasms over and over again is because he *can't*. He can do a handful, maybe, with the amount of magical energy he can handle, but they cost too much to fling around constantly. Or maybe he's still fighting like he's a regular human, and the reason he fights so conservatively is because he's not used to having enough energy to do whatever he wants. Maybe it's a mix of both. EMIYA never clearly gives us a reason why he doesn't just nuke everything with Caladbolg II all the time, as far as I recall. I'm trying to balance concerns like that against the narrative. There's definitely going to be some teething problems as they're slowly addressed in the story.

Caliburn0
>>65883100

I don't think you can trivilize everything no matter what logistical challanges you solve. All of that are extra benefits, the only thing that can TRULY solve a singularity is the slugfest with the final boss, and that won't be trivialized with any amount of logistical support. The fic I read tended to Rayshift as many Servants as they could manage with the Master (since their safety was so increadibly imporant) and so they used Arash's Clairvoyance to scout the Singularity while they were still falling, then used Nursery Rhyme to hide from detection and land softly (though mostly because that was just more convenient than having Da Vinci whip up stealth tech and parachutes.) Also if reconnaissance is a no go with a drop-in, there are always drones. Da Vinci is still a super-genius with access to a sci-fi magitech super facility and (eventually) the support of several semi-divine beings of ridiculous ability. Having tiny drones with amazing sensors flying around should solve most of the information and communication problem. Chaldea are able to transport matter from one point to another, the rations prove that, and there are a lot of useful drone designs smaller than an iron pot. And yeah, I get why Emiya can't do heavy duty stuff all the time, I'm just wondering why they're sparing him for an 'emergency' when that entire Singularity is an emergency, and he would be really convineint for all the little things, and more than good in most conflicts. I can mostly forgive the logistical problems in this first singularity, even if Da Vinci (the supergenius) or anyone else should have forseen at least some of them, they might just not have had the capacity to prepare for them (which really should just have caused them to postpone the Rayshift until they did as much as is reasonable.) But I really hope that going forward you sit down and discuss with someone (or several someones) the possible solutions Chaldea have to any number of problems they might encounter. To write a story with an entire sci-fi magictech organization acting in the favor of the protagonist really should eliminate vast swaths of something as trivial as travel distance, reconnaissance, or even communications with possible allies (as long as they're not within enemy territory). Even with Chaldea as crippled as it is it's still an increadibly advanced and capable entity, and that really should affect more in this story.