Finally got around to posting a new chapter of my Nanoha/Halo fanfiction crossover story, Lost Logia Incident Report: Halo Array. That link will take you to the beginning of the story; the newest chapter is here:
Chapter 6: Assault on the Control Room
Ugh, I feel like crap for dragging this out as long as I have, only to tell people that I'm going to drag it out more... And I let this sit for way too long just essentially shuffling words around in the author's note, too.
I might or might not have more to say about this particular chapter. In all honesty, I actually wrote it so long ago that I've mostly forgotten what was going through my head when I committed it to... well, "paper". If I do end up writing notes for this chapter, it'll probably happen either within the next few days or not at all.
Anyway, if you're interested, check it out, and let me know what you think!
Showing posts with label Lost Logia Halo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lost Logia Halo. Show all posts
2013-03-11
2011-08-24
Chapter 2 notes for Lost Logia Halo
If Chapter 1 of the Lost Logia Incident Report was the first exploration of ship-to-ship combat between the Halo universe and the Nanoha one, Chapter 2 (appropriately named "Boarding Action") deals with personal combat.
The Bureau Marines are the first to respond to the attempted boarding action, and they're hopelessly outclassed. In shipboard corridors with minimal cover against foes with sufficiently powerful weapons, equipped with armor that was most likely designed to defend against magical attacks? And now that the Bureau is reduced to more "conventional" attacks, rather than the ridiculously overpowered Arc-en-Ciel, the Elites' defensive shielding comes into play. All of this combined to create an off-screen battle in which the Bureau Marines got massacred. (Of course, even without the tech balance, it would hardly do to have the problem dealt with before the main characters arrived...)
Chrono, Nanoha, and Fate, however, are an entirely different story. They're significantly more powerful magic-users with both defensive and offensive magic. Truly, this is where the Bureau's advantages matter most: in individual combat where each of the Bureau mages can fight in their own preferred styles. As I see it, Nanoha, Chrono, or Fate are all individually at least the equal of an Elite, with defenses that are at least as powerful and weapons that are usually more effective.
They do have their disadvantages, but in this situation against a limited number of Covenant foes, those disadvantages don't really come into play. Most noticeably, Nanoha herself ends up using her stun setting to attack. In the first two seasons of the anime, her only battles were against clearly inhuman monsters or against single foes in situations where a KO would be just as effective as a kill. For now it doesn't seem to matter; the Elite that she targets is just as out of the fight... but not all of their fights will be as accommodating.
Once the boarding action is cleansed, I took a step back to summarize. The Arthra has severe damage (precisely because the Arc-en-Ciel was so incredibly powerful, it was first on the list of things to disable), but the presence of dimensional rifts and the clearly unnatural ring world override those concerns, and Chrono, Nanoha, and Fate are thrown back into battle. This is another point on which I worry that the decisions made were unrealistic - perhaps Lindy really would have retreated. Of course, if I want the story to continue, I'm not left with much choice. And so the Bureau doubles down, sending its enforcer and two assistants down to the surface of Halo.
The Bureau Marines are the first to respond to the attempted boarding action, and they're hopelessly outclassed. In shipboard corridors with minimal cover against foes with sufficiently powerful weapons, equipped with armor that was most likely designed to defend against magical attacks? And now that the Bureau is reduced to more "conventional" attacks, rather than the ridiculously overpowered Arc-en-Ciel, the Elites' defensive shielding comes into play. All of this combined to create an off-screen battle in which the Bureau Marines got massacred. (Of course, even without the tech balance, it would hardly do to have the problem dealt with before the main characters arrived...)
Chrono, Nanoha, and Fate, however, are an entirely different story. They're significantly more powerful magic-users with both defensive and offensive magic. Truly, this is where the Bureau's advantages matter most: in individual combat where each of the Bureau mages can fight in their own preferred styles. As I see it, Nanoha, Chrono, or Fate are all individually at least the equal of an Elite, with defenses that are at least as powerful and weapons that are usually more effective.
They do have their disadvantages, but in this situation against a limited number of Covenant foes, those disadvantages don't really come into play. Most noticeably, Nanoha herself ends up using her stun setting to attack. In the first two seasons of the anime, her only battles were against clearly inhuman monsters or against single foes in situations where a KO would be just as effective as a kill. For now it doesn't seem to matter; the Elite that she targets is just as out of the fight... but not all of their fights will be as accommodating.
Once the boarding action is cleansed, I took a step back to summarize. The Arthra has severe damage (precisely because the Arc-en-Ciel was so incredibly powerful, it was first on the list of things to disable), but the presence of dimensional rifts and the clearly unnatural ring world override those concerns, and Chrono, Nanoha, and Fate are thrown back into battle. This is another point on which I worry that the decisions made were unrealistic - perhaps Lindy really would have retreated. Of course, if I want the story to continue, I'm not left with much choice. And so the Bureau doubles down, sending its enforcer and two assistants down to the surface of Halo.
2011-07-26
Chapter 1 notes for Lost Logia Halo
Really, only one thing happens in this chapter: first contact between the Time-Space Administration Bureau of the Nanoha universe, and the UNSC and Covenant of the Halo universe.
Halo being Halo, there was never any possibility of a peaceful meeting between the Bureau and the people of the Halo universe. The Covenant would probably have started shooting on principle and worried about the ashes later; the UNSC might be willing to talk, but not when the first words out of the Bureau are "we're in charge here". And the Bureau is too used to being in control of the situation, and has reached the point where they take their authority over all worlds, even those they don't directly administer, as a given. (As they demonstrate in the original season of Nanoha and/or the first movie, with Nanoha's world.) Perhaps under less strained conditions, a peaceful meeting between the UNSC and the Bureau might have been possible... but this isn't the story in which we'll find out. And so, the first and most immediate question: who wins in a fight, the Bureau cruiser Arthra or a fleet of Covenant battlecruisers?
The Arthra's only demonstrated attack capability is the nuclear option: the Arc-en-Ciel from the end of Nanoha A's. It is a massively long-ranged, wide-area attack that completely eradicates everything within its blast radius; chatter in the anime suggests that this is done through some kind of dimensional distortion. Covenant shields can't block something like that, and so the Arthra does get in a serious first strike: four enemy ships wiped away in a heartbeat.
There's only two problems. First, the Arc-en-Ciel has also been shown to require charging and/or recharging, so the Arthra can't fire again immediately.
Second, the Covenant are not simply going to surrender. Instead, they take their numerical superiority and demonstrate Halo's own advantages. On the technological side, that would be weight of fire and strength of defenses... but far more important is the superiority in command ability. The Covenant ships scatter, insuring that the Arc-en-Ciel won't kill them all at once if it does fire again. One of them does a microjump through Slipspace, hoping that the weapon is limited in its arc of fire.
Either preparation would have been enough to insure the Arthra's defeat even if the Arc-en-Ciel could have been fired in repeated succession. Taken by surprise, close in, the Arthra's shields (it does have them) are simply insufficient to handle a Covenant battlecruiser's full broadside, and it's forced to run where the Covenant can't follow simply to stay alive.
Thus the technological balance seems to be "whoever fires first wins". Bureau weapons are powerful and diverse enough to either ignore Covenant armor and shields or just break through them, but Bureau defenses and tactics can't match the battle-hardened Covenant designs.
It's a balance that rears up again in chapter 2, once the boarding action begins... but that's for next chapter's notes.
Halo being Halo, there was never any possibility of a peaceful meeting between the Bureau and the people of the Halo universe. The Covenant would probably have started shooting on principle and worried about the ashes later; the UNSC might be willing to talk, but not when the first words out of the Bureau are "we're in charge here". And the Bureau is too used to being in control of the situation, and has reached the point where they take their authority over all worlds, even those they don't directly administer, as a given. (As they demonstrate in the original season of Nanoha and/or the first movie, with Nanoha's world.) Perhaps under less strained conditions, a peaceful meeting between the UNSC and the Bureau might have been possible... but this isn't the story in which we'll find out. And so, the first and most immediate question: who wins in a fight, the Bureau cruiser Arthra or a fleet of Covenant battlecruisers?
The Arthra's only demonstrated attack capability is the nuclear option: the Arc-en-Ciel from the end of Nanoha A's. It is a massively long-ranged, wide-area attack that completely eradicates everything within its blast radius; chatter in the anime suggests that this is done through some kind of dimensional distortion. Covenant shields can't block something like that, and so the Arthra does get in a serious first strike: four enemy ships wiped away in a heartbeat.
There's only two problems. First, the Arc-en-Ciel has also been shown to require charging and/or recharging, so the Arthra can't fire again immediately.
Second, the Covenant are not simply going to surrender. Instead, they take their numerical superiority and demonstrate Halo's own advantages. On the technological side, that would be weight of fire and strength of defenses... but far more important is the superiority in command ability. The Covenant ships scatter, insuring that the Arc-en-Ciel won't kill them all at once if it does fire again. One of them does a microjump through Slipspace, hoping that the weapon is limited in its arc of fire.
Either preparation would have been enough to insure the Arthra's defeat even if the Arc-en-Ciel could have been fired in repeated succession. Taken by surprise, close in, the Arthra's shields (it does have them) are simply insufficient to handle a Covenant battlecruiser's full broadside, and it's forced to run where the Covenant can't follow simply to stay alive.
Thus the technological balance seems to be "whoever fires first wins". Bureau weapons are powerful and diverse enough to either ignore Covenant armor and shields or just break through them, but Bureau defenses and tactics can't match the battle-hardened Covenant designs.
It's a balance that rears up again in chapter 2, once the boarding action begins... but that's for next chapter's notes.
2011-06-05
General notes for Lost Logia Halo
Lost Logia Incident Report: Halo Array.
This story is the first fanfiction that I have ever taken seriously, although not the first that I have ever written. It is the first (full-length) story of mine to be openly posted, and currently the longest of my stories that can be found online. Although it doesn't have a whole lot of competition in that field.
My favorite anime series is Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, a series that's interesting in a number of ways. Among other things, it tends to be more action-oriented than most magical girl shows, especially in the later incarnations, but not nearly as action-oriented as a first-person shooter like Halo. I admit the first thought of combining the two came in reading the (at the time) only other crossover fanfic that combined the two. (There have been two more since then, I have discovered just now.)
That crossover essentially took the position that the Time-Space Administration Bureau of the Nanoha universe was far inferior to the United Nations Space Command of the Halo universe, or at least it did in the short time I managed to read it. I ended up disliking it for a number of reasons (that one among them), although that is probably somewhat unfair of me to say considering I never did read it all the way through.
However, it did inspire me to write my own story. Foremost among my goals in creating Lost Logia Incident Report: Halo Array (as you may have noticed, Lost Logia Halo for short) was to truly set the Bureau and the UNSC next to one another and see each come out the better for it in the end. I felt that the Bureau's magical technology put it at least on par with the UNSC on a one-for-one basis, and it's not like the Nanoha canon offers any idea of just how extensive the Bureau is. And as I did not and still do not have any intentions of sparking a war between the Bureau and the UNSC, I suspect the question of "which one is truly better" will remain unanswered (by me at least) throughout the story. While I am more of a Nanoha fan, I am trying to ensure that that's a question which could be argued either way from the story that I'm writing.
The first question that needed an answer, though, was the simple one: how to bring the two worlds together? Nanoha canon is very kind to crossovers, really, because its universe specifies multiple worlds to begin with, and there's nothing stopping one of those worlds being the world from another game or anime series. Add in the idea that the UNSC's slipspace drives could be seen and misinterpreted by the Bureau (the big threat at the end of the first season is the possibility of a dimensional rift, and I decided that I would make the Slipspace drives create what appeared to be one), and I had the makings of a first encounter.
I also had to decide when in each continuity to set this story. For Nanoha, I chose the period immediately after the second season because I felt it was the easiest chance to put "young" Nanoha into the story; she has only minimal contact with the Bureau throughout the six-month gap between the first two seasons, and then becomes an instructor a short time after the second. Having the Arthra fall into another situation, with Nanoha and Fate aboard, before any of the major changes at the end of the second season could take effect felt most reasonable to me.
For Halo, I was certain from the beginning that I would have the Bureau walk in on the battle over the first Halo. Out of all of the moments in the Halo canon that I'm familiar with, it felt like the easiest pivot point which could bring the Bureau and the UNSC together for an extended period of time. Also, there were a few ideas I had for scenes that I wanted to put in which worked best with the original Halo storyline.
But that's getting ahead of myself, and I'm probably putting way too much thought into this already. That's how this all got started. I'll discuss my thoughts on chapter 1 in the next note.
This story is the first fanfiction that I have ever taken seriously, although not the first that I have ever written. It is the first (full-length) story of mine to be openly posted, and currently the longest of my stories that can be found online. Although it doesn't have a whole lot of competition in that field.
My favorite anime series is Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, a series that's interesting in a number of ways. Among other things, it tends to be more action-oriented than most magical girl shows, especially in the later incarnations, but not nearly as action-oriented as a first-person shooter like Halo. I admit the first thought of combining the two came in reading the (at the time) only other crossover fanfic that combined the two. (There have been two more since then, I have discovered just now.)
That crossover essentially took the position that the Time-Space Administration Bureau of the Nanoha universe was far inferior to the United Nations Space Command of the Halo universe, or at least it did in the short time I managed to read it. I ended up disliking it for a number of reasons (that one among them), although that is probably somewhat unfair of me to say considering I never did read it all the way through.
However, it did inspire me to write my own story. Foremost among my goals in creating Lost Logia Incident Report: Halo Array (as you may have noticed, Lost Logia Halo for short) was to truly set the Bureau and the UNSC next to one another and see each come out the better for it in the end. I felt that the Bureau's magical technology put it at least on par with the UNSC on a one-for-one basis, and it's not like the Nanoha canon offers any idea of just how extensive the Bureau is. And as I did not and still do not have any intentions of sparking a war between the Bureau and the UNSC, I suspect the question of "which one is truly better" will remain unanswered (by me at least) throughout the story. While I am more of a Nanoha fan, I am trying to ensure that that's a question which could be argued either way from the story that I'm writing.
The first question that needed an answer, though, was the simple one: how to bring the two worlds together? Nanoha canon is very kind to crossovers, really, because its universe specifies multiple worlds to begin with, and there's nothing stopping one of those worlds being the world from another game or anime series. Add in the idea that the UNSC's slipspace drives could be seen and misinterpreted by the Bureau (the big threat at the end of the first season is the possibility of a dimensional rift, and I decided that I would make the Slipspace drives create what appeared to be one), and I had the makings of a first encounter.
I also had to decide when in each continuity to set this story. For Nanoha, I chose the period immediately after the second season because I felt it was the easiest chance to put "young" Nanoha into the story; she has only minimal contact with the Bureau throughout the six-month gap between the first two seasons, and then becomes an instructor a short time after the second. Having the Arthra fall into another situation, with Nanoha and Fate aboard, before any of the major changes at the end of the second season could take effect felt most reasonable to me.
For Halo, I was certain from the beginning that I would have the Bureau walk in on the battle over the first Halo. Out of all of the moments in the Halo canon that I'm familiar with, it felt like the easiest pivot point which could bring the Bureau and the UNSC together for an extended period of time. Also, there were a few ideas I had for scenes that I wanted to put in which worked best with the original Halo storyline.
But that's getting ahead of myself, and I'm probably putting way too much thought into this already. That's how this all got started. I'll discuss my thoughts on chapter 1 in the next note.
2011-06-04
Lost Logia Halo chapter 5
Because if I can't use my own blog to self-promote, where can I?
I've posted the fifth chapter of one of the two fanfic stories I'm currently writing, Lost Logia Incident Report: Halo Array. The chapter itself is titled Reasons to Fight and can be found here, or the beginning of the story is here. The story itself is a crossover between an anime series called Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and the Halo series of video games.
I've been thinking that one of the things I'll use this blog for is to provide a kind of more detailed author's notes, on my thoughts when writing fanfic and a more detailed explanation of why I did what I did, so to speak. So keep an eye out for that.
I've posted the fifth chapter of one of the two fanfic stories I'm currently writing, Lost Logia Incident Report: Halo Array. The chapter itself is titled Reasons to Fight and can be found here, or the beginning of the story is here. The story itself is a crossover between an anime series called Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and the Halo series of video games.
I've been thinking that one of the things I'll use this blog for is to provide a kind of more detailed author's notes, on my thoughts when writing fanfic and a more detailed explanation of why I did what I did, so to speak. So keep an eye out for that.
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