NGE: And If That Don't Work?

[Sunshine Temple]

BorgRabbit

She would have to make sure, Rei's room got a bit more... personality.

Comma is unnecessary in this instance.

Still a good read at the second round.
Wes

[Great.
[I made the correction on my master copy, but since I'm traveling I'm not sure when I can upload an update to the website.

Khim

As I remember, in the anime one of the angels was killed by a giant particle cannon that used all of Japan's powerplants and it made me wonder what energy weapons that are powered up by energy of explosions could do.

More or less the same as that cannon. May be more. The problem is: at least 30% of power is dissipated in the canon itself (probably 50% of power) and it does not matter if this power comes from the power grid or nuclesar explosion: the cannon will be melted anyway.

It's 100% useless to try to apply real physics to anime, especially Evangelion. Unless it's "how many violatios on physical law per episode" contest. Kind of poinless. The same goes for every other anime fiction. For example succubae in "The Return" obviously can not fly - but it's solved by applying "it magic" label where appropriate. When anime tries to give you some "scientific" explanation it's gibberish 10 times out of 10. When it's explained like "it's magic - physical law does not apply" and I can buy this explanation, but when you are "trying to keep the physics as sane as possible" the question arises: WTF? It's impossible and pointless - why spend time on that?

[It's more to keep things scaled right.
[Basically, I looked at very gross terms of damage and figured on how nukes could fare against Angels.

[In this case the "physics" are just a way of me keeping plot elements straight.

[Similarly I've figured out how much the succubae in return can carry when flying.
[Obviously, the physical details are all wrong, but from a writing standpoint it helps to have something to work with.

[It's more for internal consistency.
[Similar to the weapons in Return. They're ludicrously powerful things, but when writing them, I should at least have some standards on what they do.

[Simiarly, I should have some standards on how the "Anti-Angel" nukes work.

P.S. Do you know that patawatt lasers (that's 1000 million megawatt) are real-world instruments, not finction, right? Of course they don't operate for a second per impulse and they don't require the power of Japan to power them either Just FYI.

[Indeed. It's all about time
[Power is energy per time.

[borgrabbit]

I used to work as a chemistry technician at a pressurized water reactor steam electric station that had a nominal output of 1.15 gigawatts per unit at a two unit plant. I used to think that it'd be neat to put a BAL (big assed laser) on a containment, tied to the full output of both plants. That could be 2.3 gigawatts of continuous output concentrated in a teeny volume. Maybe punch holes into the moon. How about laser etching Bill Gates' mug onto the moon? Eeeuwww!
wes

[Sunshine Temple]

borgrabbitI used to work as a chemistry technician at a pressurized water reactor steam electric station that had a nominal output of 1.15 gigawatts per unit at a two unit plant. I used to think that it'd be neat to put a BAL (big assed laser) on a containment, tied to the full output of both plants. That could be 2.3 gigawatts of continuous output concentrated in a teeny volume. Maybe punch holes into the moon. How about laser etching Bill Gates' mug onto the moon? Eeeuwww!
wes

[It probably wouldn't have enough power to get to the moon, heh.

[But yeah, the fun thing with atomics is the sheer scale of the power that it opens up to you.

[NGE of course had a bias. Look at how they didn't use nukes (standard fare for Japanese Anime) and look at what happened to the giant robot that had a nuke reactor in it.
[Jet Alone was a great big joke,

[borgrabbit]

[It probably wouldn't have enough power to get to the moon, heh.

Still, it was fun to walk with an umbrella under the wires from the 6.5 kv transformer on a misty day. There was a continuous arc jumping from my hand to the metal shaft. Also didn't need batteries for fluorescent lights.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

Still, it was fun to walk with an umbrella under the wires from the 6.5 kv transformer on a misty day. There was a continuous arc jumping from my hand to the metal shaft. Also didn't need batteries for fluorescent lights.

I get along very well with electricity. But I'd prefer to keep the relationship more -- platonic.

[Ordieth117]

I get along very well with electricity. But I'd prefer to keep the relationship more -- platonic.

That's so very grounded of you.

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

That's so very grounded of you.

I'm glad you think so. I'd hate to shock you.

[Sunshine Temple]

*coughs*

Before this little brainstorm drifts too far.

Please try to keep it a bit more on topic

[ChasTaro]

Well when dealing with alternate universes, who's to say that the laws of physics are the same from universe to universe. What does not work here may very well work there. For me, stories that spend a great deal of time explaining technical mumbo jumbo start to get boring. The heart of most good stories that I've read is the inter-action between the characters. For me that's the meat of the story.
Oh and Sunny, I think you did a pretty good job of keeping the tech explanations short enough that the plot could move on. Looking forward to your next chapter of which ever story you update next.

Chas Taro

[Ellen Kuhfeld]

When I'm writing, I do the best I can to explain things to myself. I don't do nearly as much explaining to the reader; but if it all makes sense in my head, it's less likely to offend their sense-detectors.

[khim]

Well when dealing with alternate universes, who's to say that the laws of physics are the same from universe to universe.

That's valid question. The answer is: picture on the screen. The fact that humans exist in the universe (and most animes do include humans) places serious limitations on what's possible and what's not.

What does not work here may very well work there.

There are problems with consistency. You can not just randomly change some fact in universe and still hope to have habitable universe.

For me, stories that spend a great deal of time explaining technical mumbo jumbo start to get boring.

I hate technical mumbo jumbo with passion but for different reason: explanations offered are invariably so ridiculous and internally incosistent that they just waste my time. I'm fine with with carte blanche plan: THIS is possible in that universe... somehow. Period. Deal with it. If people are saying something like this I can usually create some believable (for me) construct, but if they try to write some "scientific explanation" it becomes stupid and unbelievable (for me) pretty fast.

Take a look on Ranma and/or Sailor Moon (we are discussing all this on fukufics.com, after all). Curses in Ranma and Sailors in Sailor Moon clearly don't belong to this word - but there are no explanation in the series. And that's good: you can construct some explanation you can believe. But Evangelion... the worst places in it is where they try to explain something "from scientific POV". Explanations never make sense and just waste valuable screen time.

Oh and Sunny, I think you did a pretty good job of keeping the tech explanations short enough that the plot could move on.

The things which are explained in Sunny's stories are believable because they come from real life (more or less). Impossible things (teleportation, succubae's flight, scanners, etc) are never explained. They exist there - and that's it. Things which can be reproduced in our universe are explained. This is good balance IMO.

When I'm writing, I do the best I can to explain things to myself. I don't do nearly as much explaining to the reader; but if it all makes sense in my head, it's less likely to offend their sense-detectors.

Good idea, but please don't include such explanations in the text of the story itself - unless it has some relation to the real world.

[Sunshine Temple]

ChasTaro
Well when dealing with alternate universes, who's to say that the laws of physics are the same from universe to universe. What does not work here may very well work there. For me, stories that spend a great deal of time explaining technical mumbo jumbo start to get boring. The heart of most good stories that I've read is the inter-action between the characters. For me that's the meat of the story.

[Indeed. Characterization and character interaction is everything.
[The technical information should be enough to make sure the plot holds together and has consistency. This means that most of it is "background" IE stuff the writer does to keep the world working. Ideally, it should be seamless and work without the reader being made too obvious of it's presence.

[The story isn't about the gadgets, it's about the characters.

Oh and Sunny, I think you did a pretty good job of keeping the tech explanations short enough that the plot could move on. Looking forward to your next chapter of which ever story you update next.
[excellent. I do worry about balancing detail versus brevity.

Ellen Kuhfeld
When I'm writing, I do the best I can to explain things to myself. I don't do nearly as much explaining to the reader; but if it all makes sense in my head, it's less likely to offend their sense-detectors.

[Exactly. It's all about internal consistency

khim
Take a look on Ranma and/or Sailor Moon (we are discussing all this on fukufics.com, after all). Curses in Ranma and Sailors in Sailor Moon clearly don't belong to this word - but there are no explanation in the series. And that's good: you can construct some explanation you can believe. But Evangelion... the worst places in it is where they try to explain something "from scientific POV". Explanations never make sense and just waste valuable screen time.

[I hate it when they rattle of insane odds.
[How do they know that something has a 0.000001% chance of working or a 34.567%
[They're often events that they can't get anywhere near that level of precision.
[Ah well.

The things which are explained in Sunny's stories are believable because they come from real life (more or less). Impossible things (teleportation, succubae's flight, scanners, etc) are never explained. They exist there - and that's it. Things which can be reproduced in our universe are explained. This is good balance IMO.

[Indeed
[I call it a "black box" effect.
[For example how the "pattern scanners" work is never really explained. IE that's what's inside the box, but things like their limitations (like range, how to defeat them, ect) is.
[That's because those factors are relevant to the character's concerns.

Good idea, but please don't include such explanations in the text of the story itself - unless it has some relation to the real world.

[More importantly, a relation to the story.
[You can have a device that measures seismic activity, and that's a real world device, but don't explain it unless it is relevant to the story.

[Likewise if your story has a system of spellcasting, which is not real, but the system's nature is relevant to the character's needs. Then it should be explained to the level that is needed.