I'm sure it will make sense... eventually.
Meanwhile, Cold Steel turns out to have been a very good choice for the localized title.
Something that strikes me as odd about pre-Collapse Zemuria
Thinking about it, the Liber Ark is probably one of the best final dungeons they've done, given how much lore there was there. Getting to explore a well preserved ancient Zemurian city was awesome, so it's a pity they never attempted anything interesting with the Tuatha de Danan. Considering it was a fortress used by the gnomes and all.
Also, apropos of nothing, seeing all this talk of hexadecimal and weird shenanigans on the Hajimari site, I reeeeeally hope we're not about to get a Star Ocean 3 twist. Those of you who know, KNOW. 😆
I regularly rag on SC over FC. But liber ark is practically single handedly why SC is still relatively high on my kiseki game best-o-meter. Man what an effing great final chapter.
@jumpyjunpei Oh yes, I know that twist. I too thought that way back when Nayuta was announced because... I can't entirely remember why. I think it had to do with some of the concept art of Lost Heaven resembling the Liber Ark. I'm no longer worried about them going that particular route, especially after something from the end of CS4.
I'm guessing the reason the society that became Liberl looks so much more advanced than the others we've seen is due to their Sept-Terrion giving them the means to construct a structure like the Ark and to not have to worry about much of anything in the way of material needs. There also might be a measure of aesthetics involved, as we've seen the Black Workshop is considerably more technological in appearance than the Tuatha de Danann but both are ancient. It's also possible the former has been upgraded with newer technology with help from the rest of the Thirteen Factories network.
While we don't know much about Calvard's pre-Collapse civilization, Kevin mentioned back in SC that the remains of Reverie remind him of something that was excavated in the Republic, which suggests they were more overtly technological than the proto-Erebonian civilizations.
While we are talking about Pre-collapse tech...
The Earth Tribe's halberds and armor are harder to justify. But I want to point out that even in present day Zemuria, melee fighters haven't been made obsolete despite the existence of advanced firearms, tanks, artillery and mechas. And considering that Lost Zem's ultimate power was dominion over the flesh, who is to say that the depicted warriors didn't all posses the kind of physical conditioning displayed by fighters like Cassius Bright, Victor Arseid or Lianne Sandlot? Cassius demolished Reverie in FC by himself (if your BP is too low), Victor's fighting prowess is more destructive than even the most powerful weapon fielded by Reinford, or so Alisa would make us believe and Lianne speaks for herself.
And this is just wishful thinking and me being inspired by Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, but I totally think that Falcom's Septium System would make Power Armor possible.
And about the space elevator comment... this is just a random thought, but the Higher Elements of the Kiseki Magic System are uniquely suited to elevate Zemurian humans into a space-faring civilization. The control over Space and Time would allow them to mitigate much of the problems raised by Einstein's Special Relativity. The Mass Effect Universe (for those who know the franchise) justifies faster than light travel through the existence of Element Zero, which is used to freely increase or decrease the mass of any kind of object inside a so-called Mass-Effect bubble. But thinking about it, how is this Mass-Effect bubble different than the flight fields used by Zemurian Aircrafts which most likely uses Goldia based orbments? As for Mirage, even that would be highly useful for Outer Space navigation to prevent the spaceship from colliding with debris (or venturing into a gravity well caused by a black hole) during FTL travel, much like one of the functions of Spice in the Frank Herbert Dune Universe.
@wuolong77 Nicely put. I mentioned aesthetics as an idea but you went into way more detail about it. Also, Stormlight Archive reference, oh boy would I love to see something like that. I also would love to see Sanderson and Kondo meet sometime, I have a feeling that any results from getting the two of them to do a brainstorming session together would be spectacular. xD
I could probably go on for ages about space-age Cosmere applications of magics and Orbments, or how a certain Dominion and a certain Knight Radiant have interesting parallels, but then I'd probably be here all day....
<self-reminder that I still need to do a Kisekicrack post on Kiseki/Cosmere parallels>
@yotaka Should ask Brandon on Twitter or Reddit if he's ever played Trails in the Sky. He did put Ys I and II as runners up on his top 10 games list.
I almost asked him if he knew of the series at the last signing I attended, but I had a small stack of more immediately relevant questions I wanted to ask and had to cut that one for time. xD
I'm not quite sure about the Knight Radiant reference, but then again, I'm still in the middle of the first book of Stormlight Archive. I watched Sanderson's writing seminar videos (Sanderson's Laws and all) and he did warn that the series has a steep learning curve and takes longer to get the ball rolling compared to his earlier series. Need to get back to the story again.
The first Mistborn trilogy are the only books I've finished until now and Heroes of the Ages showed very distinct... CS4 parallels.
Oh, oops, if you're still in Way of Kings you won't know who that Radiant is yet, but you'll know who I'm talking about when it happens. If you think you saw CS4 parallels in Hero of Ages, wait until you see some of his other stuff. xD
And yeah, those writing lectures of his are great as is the Writing Excuses podcast that he's a regular member of. I've been thinking of doing some creative writing projects for fun and they've been really useful resources as well as just neat to listen to.
Haha, I guess there's a good reason for you to say that Kondo and Sanderson have an ARCUS-Link going on, if the parallels in Mistborn are just a foretaste. I'll take my time enjoying the other works and peel back the layers of the Cosmere one by one.
I've been doing creative writing for many years, if only as an amateur. Also received my fair share of writing advice, but even then, Sanderson's lectures are strikingly unique and what I like most, open ended. He gives the listeners a nice set of 'writing tools', but doesn't claim at all that they are the ultimate solution. What touched me most was him saying that a writer should tell a story simply because 'it's good for you'. To write a story and keep at it is a pretty selfish thing, but that's where the internal motivation comes from. It's the kind of advice I should have realized much, much sooner.
But to stay on topic, I've been working on a Cold Steel fanfiction for about a year and half now. And it certainly is a story I write solely because it's good for me.
Some things that confuse me about the Zero endgame:
Why did Joachim
1) Tell the SSS about the cult and Gnosis at all?
2) Take over St Ursula?
3) Leave behind the documents about his connections with Revache and the cult research (with KeA's photo)?
All three of those seem like he was shooting himself in the foot.
Some things that confuse me about the Zero endgame:
SpoilerZeroWhy did Joachim
1) Tell the SSS about the cult and Gnosis at all?
2) Take over St Ursula?
3) Leave behind the documents about his connections with Revache and the cult research (with KeA's photo)?
All three of those seem like he was shooting himself in the foot.
There's two possible answers for this one, the serious and the not-as-serious.
SpoilerZero endgameMore seriously, as Joachim says himself everything he's done with the SSS has been with the goal of getting KeA back because she's essential for D∴G's plans. Separating KeA from her guardians makes it more likely that he'll be able to force them into a situation where they could be coerced into returning her (which he'd prefer), convince her to return on her own (which almost succeeded) or if all else fails to take her back by force when the SSS isn't around. Giving them just enough information to (sort of) grasp why the Cult wants her helps with that. Not that it works, but that was presumably the idea.Less seriously, Joachim has been taking so much Gnosis that he literally hasn't slept in years. He's also a religious zealot, seems to think he's a classic supervillain with all the gloating that implies and is convinced that he's holding all the cards by the time he starts feeding information to the SSS. He's probably a few cards short of a full deck at this point.
Posted : 11/08/2020 9:52 pm
