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Shining Flash Breeze
c56047
>>69652
And this is why Cocona is amnesiac, yep. Honestly, you could get away without reading any of this.
The fate/stay night side is more of a problem; I have no good excuse to make *Ilya* amnesiac, but she's not the protagonist either. Oh well. Cliff notes, you say.. most of this will end up baked into the story, but it's stuff Cocona knows, so:
Cocona side:
- Cocona's birth date is 3764. Not AD; there are hints that, if put on our calendar, it'd be somewhere around 45,764 AD, with Earth having died in some ancient disaster. (Angel Notes, anyone?) That's plus or minus a few thousand years, of course. I'm mentioning this mainly to set a baseline: The civilization she's from may or may not have actual magic, but you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference from their technology.
That's in the "third age", with the ages being measured in terms of near-complete societal disruptions, not counting the events that originally placed humanity on Ar Ciel. (Literally, "The Planet".) Naturally, most of their technology is well and truly ragnarok-proofed, so seven hundred year old devices from the first age are still working.
As far as Cocona is concerned, it might as well be magic.
- Cocona's home (Metafalls) is an enormous artificial construct floating in the air, roughly the size of France. It wasn't really meant to be inhabited, so the actual population is only about five million, and it's not a terribly nice place to live. However, both the sky and the ground are gone; one replaced with a lethal energy barrier, the other with clouds of poison, so they're stuck.
Despite Metafalls not actually being tower-shaped, like the two other such constructs it's generally called a Tower. Capitalization and all.
- Cocona's a Reyvateil, an artificial human designed for vastly higher mana throughput, spellcasting speed and accuracy than any of the natural casters are capable of - by a factor of about a hundred. However, she only learned about this a few weeks ago, and despite a few quick lessons from someone who's very good at it (Jacqli), she doesn't understand magic well yet.
The rest of this section, she doesn't really know... feel free to read it anyway.
There are three types of Reyvateils: Origin (Alpha), Beta and third-generation.
The Alpha types are fully artificial, with bodies *and* minds constructed almost entirely from robotic components, AI modules, etc. There are only three in existence, and they're generally considered goddesses; Metafalls is, in fact, an enormous spell that one of them is continuously maintaining, so there's something to that statement. It should be noted, however, that the actual power source for these spells is.. a white hole for continuous supply, and matter-antimatter annihilation for bursts.
Alpha-type Reyvateils can survive at least as long as their tower is functional, if not longer. The youngest is seven hundred. (So is the oldest, though.)
The Beta types are somewhere in the middle; their minds are created wholesale, and their bodies are made from a form of generic "bio-fluid", which is maintained in human form by a continuously cast spell. All Reyvateil spells are proxied via the computers in their Tower, so beta-types can't leave the area of influence of that Tower; they'd turn into a puddle. Literally.
Beta-type Reyvateils have a variable lifespan, typically about 150 years. It depends on how much magic they use, as their internal power supply is the only part that doesn't regenerate. It can go as low as ~sixty, if one should have to use magic continuously their entire life. Neo-Beta seems to lack that design flaw, but there's only one in existence.
Third-generation Reyvateils (decidedly not Gamma) are.. a mistake. It turned out that humans could breed with Betas, which has lead to a near-100% prevalence of Reyvateil gene markers in the population of Metafalls.
In times of stress, this can cause girls to accidentally activate a Tower connection, and be mis-identified as Reyvateils. As all the repair logic exists in the Tower, it will promptly (well, over a period of a few years) rewrite their bodies and mind to match its image of what a Beta Reyvateil should be, with two differences: First, as they're not made of bio-fluid, they can survive outside the range of the tower; second, they'll lack the auxilliary power supply, as there's no repair program for that.
The tower is perfectly capable of supplying all the required power, but the resulting power surges and general unpleasantness means that the average lifespan of a 3rd generation Reyvateil is 18 years, or about 40 with a regular supply of medicine. On Metafalls, that medicine is provided free of charge to anyone who needs it.
In common for all Reyvateils is a significantly enhanced mind; they're still fundamentally human, but they're humans with a very large number of AI components grafted on, which is what allows them to use magic (or, if you like, program the tower) with literally inhuman speed and precision. It also benefits their mental health, as the AI components can compensate for even a horribly skewed, near-insane human part, and will attempt course corrections over time. As a result, a Reyvateil's *mind* essentially never ages; they'll still be as mentally stable and nimble when they're seven hundred as when they're twelve.
Cocona is a third-generation Reyvateil; she originally became one about two years ago, due to the stress of her parents being killed, but it only became an issue a few weeks ago when she contracted a Reyvateil-specific mental problem (..don't worry, that bit fixed itself quickly). A large number of people probably realized earlier, but her brother tried very hard not to see. Considering her expected lifespan, I can sort of understand that.
- Lastly, Cocona has been involved in a saving-the-world quest for the last.. two months or so, but she can't remember much of that right now. That's the main plot of AT2, and I'm very deliberately hiding its status from you.
- In a fight, Cocona is an agility-type fighter, aiming for weak spots and redirection. She's very good at that, able to cancel out any blow entirely with a bit of luck.
Her personal ability to take damage is small, but her clothes are very effective armor, capable of stiffening up when hit to distribute blows evenly.
Lastly, she's capable of crafting a small fireball to throw at people. "Small" is a bit of a relative statement, here; when used against mundane, not tower-generated matter, it can probably burn through 10-20cm of iron.
F/SN side:
- The Grand Grail is a magical construct designed to, bluntly put, break through existing rules and give the user temporary root access to the universe, at least locally. The purpose of this is, most likely, to create a new form of magic. It was designed by the Einzbern family, several centuries ago, but so far they've failed.
- The Throne of Heroes was made in a previous such attempt (maybe), though not with the Grail (definitely). It collects heroes and antiheroes of all kinds from.. everywhere and everywhen, really, for an unspecified purpose.
- The Grail War involves using the Holy Grail to hack the Throne of Heroes and acquire seven Heroic Spirits, which will then compete in a free-for-all until there's only one left. The defeated spirits are absorbed by the Grail, and the victor may use the collected energy for a relatively free-form wish, which will be interpreted by the Grail. If the victor is an Einzbern, and everything works, then that will involve finally achieving their goal of hacking the universe. So far, they've never won.
Unfortunately, the Grail was corrupted by an evil spirit ("All the world's evil") in a previous war, and now grants only monkey's paw wishes. This is not widely known.
- The grail war starts in eight weeks. Ilya just summoned a mentally damaged girl who appears even younger than she does, instead of Hercules. This is not in the plan.
There's more, of course, but that should cover the basics.
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