Who should Tatsuya end up with?

[alpons]

incest is the nicest BAM!!
*slow clap*

[nr42]

Agreed, therefore he might be viable for someone of the Hundred Families, but not for someone of the Ten Masters Clan.

I think Yotsuba are a bit special in their perception of this. Well anyway, as for the clones, it was mentioned somewhere in the book, that clones do not possess the same level of skills as their reference material, and I don´t think the same principle as for Sakurasou (I propably wrote the name wrongly, but I stil don´t remember it, sorry) would work there for many reasons, the main being, that he is a guy. As for him having children, first - he used to be too yung for that, second Maya is fearing him as is, it would be even worse if she had number of them, third, where the hell is she supposed to find the other to the pair? It would have to be someone with exceptional skills for it to work, but there aren´t many girls in the yotsuba clan, and the ones there are are a bit too close relatives. If Tatsuya was a girl it might work to just get some good guy, but to get a woman wishing to bear the child is harder.

1: Why would being a guy matter ?
2: Age? as Psion said, he should have already been viable for a long time. And it's completely irrelevant for cloning.
3: seriously? You're saying the Yotsuba can't find a viable mate? And why would it be impossible to try something like they did with the Sakurai-series? Are use a Sakurai as the mate?
4: Why would they have to be directly from the Yotsuba family or have to have exceptional skills? It's better if they have exceptional skills, but not necessary. And they can just "hire" someone to be a guardian (like Sakurai Honami)
5:and being scared of Tatsuya is irrelevant, they should be able to brainwash the kid(s) (either with magic or the old fashioned way) and they don't have to take away all the emotions.

I'm not saying it's easy, but it would be waste for the Yotsuba not to try.
Since they already have a Sakurai-series

[Zuruumi]

1: Why would being a guy matter ?
2: Age? as Psion said, he should have already been viable for a long time. And it's completely irrelevant for cloning.
3: seriously? You're saying the Yotsuba can't find a viable mate? And why would it be impossible to try something like they did with the Sakurai-series? Are use a Sakurai as the mate?
4: Why would they have to be directly from the Yotsuba family or have to have exceptional skills? It's better if they have exceptional skills, but not necessary. And they can just "hire" someone to be a guardian (like Sakurai Honami)
5:and being scared of Tatsuya is irrelevant, they should be able to brainwash the kid(s) (either with magic or the old fashioned way) and they don't have to take away all the emotions.

I'm not saying it's easy, but it would be waste for the Yotsuba not to try.
Since they already have a Sakurai-series

To 1: They used an ovum of hers. I am not saying it would be impossible, but it is hard to say whether there wouldn´t be another complications.
To 2: I was speaking about natural breeding (so to say), period.., ok to expalin further, it is not viable till about 13 years (yeah, lets be a bit generous and make this age hight) and after that he was also partially protected by Miyuki (and there might be also a bit of humanity even in Yotsuba not to let them do this as a children if there is the possibility of simply waiting few years).
To 3: I am not sure about the ability of having children of a clon, however it was impossible till now (age and couple of other reasons) And as long as you stick to exceptional practitioners it might prove to be hard even for Yotsuba (Sakurai isn´t really so exceptional owerally). Also it should be about impossible to do the same as with Sakurai, bacusae even her mother was tampered with. In other words her abilities were largely tampered by Yotsuba and then by doing the same to her daughter (which is also her clone) they managed to gain similar result (though it is not sure whather she has even the same volume of ability). In Tatsuya´ s case his most important abilities are inborn, therefore hard to reproduce in this way, not even speaking, that the tampering they made with him was the only one succesfull in it´s kind, therefore if they tried the same it might easilly fail.
To 4: Have you ever read something of breeding horses? If you want a good horse you breed two good ones. If only one is good the outcome will most likely be only so-so, and you will hardly get exactly what you want. (OK, it is inhumane, but for the explanation purpose this is simple) And as long as they are not from Yotsuba house it is hard to get the children under theyir control, not even speaking about the increase of difficulty to pair them.
To 5: Most people will be scared if they have a hydrogen (or just nuclear) bomb in their cellar, no matter how good the safety is, no matter how it only responds to commands from your computer ..., there is always the "what if something unpredictable happened...". Is there really any need to have for example five such bombs in your cellar, if you already know the one you have might be a bit hard to control? And also, perfect brainwashing is a bit hard to do, it is one thing to change their perception of something, their opinions or even memories, but getting them completely under your control and assuring nothing goes wrong about 15 years from now or so is a completely different matter. They would most likely have to go as far (or even further) than with the generators, and well, there are also some problems with that (especially, as Tatsuya is half-way so and yet they fear him even more because of that).

[nr42]

I still don't see the difference between using her ova or his sperm? Also humanity isn't really something they're known for, indicated by their lab still being operational and don't forget Tatsuya's scars.
The too young and then partly protected by Miyuki argument is contradictory, because if they were too consider that he's too young, they would surely ensure that before he's "protected" they'd get a sample. Also calling a 12 year old guardian and telling him, "Come over and don't tell your sister." isn't very difficult.
I'll grant you that it might be impossible to replicate his flash casting ability on the grounds that it would be logical for them to implant it in Minami too. So it's possible they don't possess anyone with ability to preform the operation anymore or that there is a physical reason why no one else can do it (we still aren't sure if Restoration was also implanted). But despite this, there is still Material Burst and Gram Dispersion.
The horse analogy is correct, partly. But Also even if they would use a bad one, there would still be a 50 % chance per child that they would inherit the right genes. For example if the magician they choose has a low psion count that should be countered by his high count. Take Miyuki as an example, whose dad is a bad magician (to today's standards). Also more importantly you're immediately jumping to the other end of the spectrum and assuming that they'd use a totally worthless magician. I think there is some middle ground to be found.
The hydrogen bomb analogy is a pretty good one. I would note that if they raise the child(ren) like they did Minami, it should be fine, by brainwashing I didn't mean Clockwork Orange-style. Raising them it should be easy enough to get the necessary control. Also the children's ability might not be the same as Tatsuya's, and therefor not be as dangerous.

Also I'm not implying they should make like an army. Just some experiments.

[ergoGnomik]

First of all, sorry but this will be very long.

Sometimes I wonder if I read the same MKnR as you.

Zuruumi wrote: Tatsuya isn't untalented as magician, but his magic calculation area is completelly dominated by his two main magics (whether this is true is a question, but Miyuki says so in Yokohama disturbance chapter). Therefore his children might also inherit his abilities (decomposition and regrowth) or they might not inherit them, but in that case they would be capable of using conventional magic, as nothing would block that. Therefore both scenarios seem good and should not prove to be a waste of resources.

That “completely dominated” is a convoluted and euphemistic way to say Born Specialist magician. BS magicians are considered inferior because they don't have the flexibility expected from modern magicians. It is confirmed in Volume 8 when their mother informs Miyuki about the circumstances of her brother. Also you are too permissive in regard of genetic inheritance. Tatsuya already demonstrated having genes denying him proper use of magic. You simply don't breed those specimen of a species that has undesirable properties because those can resurface in later generations or immediately worsen the next one. There is absolutely no guarantee that the same level of capability much less the exact same skill will ever appear in the bloodline.

Zuruumi wrote: Tatsuya was a monster from the beginning, this just added a small part to that. His basic Monstrous abilities were there even before the experiment.

Tatsuya was a little monstrosity but the experiment made him a true monster in the eyes of the Yotsuba. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen said (at least according to the translation I read) in Dune something like one has to fear those only who have no emotions, because emotions of people can be twisted and turned into the desired direction and form therefore they can be controlled, but the ones without emotions cannot. Tatsuya was highly intelligent and they unintentionally managed to tone down his emotions to a level that cold rationality can take over any time and they have no way to exert control over him but only through Miyuki. Maya said I think in Volume 8 that Tatsuya would betray the Yotsuba if his interest would lie that way.

Zuruumi wrote: If Tatsuya was a girl it might work to just get some good guy, but to get a woman wishing to bear the child is harder.

Bearing children for magicians is not the question of who do you like, especially not in the Ten Masters Clans. I can't imagine that Yotsuba Miya would have picked the guy as the father of her children by her own will. And the Shiba guy too had a different idea about his descendants. The clan head said to do so and the clan member did so. Or remember that the Saegusa leader also is running a little selection “game” between Mayumi's prospective mates, although he does it for political purposes.

maqhusson wrote: I don't think Tatsuya can be considered as sub-par. It's been mentioned many times throughout the novel, but Tatsuya is only sub-par according the modern magic standards because of his inability to use conventional spells, but that doesn't mean his magical ability itself is sub-par.

Yes, he is. He was born as a BS magician and, as I said already, they are considered inferior because they don't have the flexibility of modern mages. The fact that Tatsuya has some degree of generic magic capability born from the experiment the Yotsuba subjected him in his early childhood. The artificial Magic Calculation Area in his mind is so inferior compared to a natural one that he can cast only some simple magic very slowly and requires the very best Specialised CAD to cast half decent spells. But of course he has immensely strong innate magic.

Psion wrote: While we cannot be entirely certain that an inability to use magic is the result of his genetic composition as opposed to his psychological composition...

If you are referring to his almost complete lack of strong emotions as psychological composition then it has nothing to do with his lack of magical talent. When their mother talks about Tatsuya to Miyuki at the military base in Okinawa she said something that he was a complete failure as magician before the experiment. This way we can safely conclude that his inability of using magic has genetic origin.

nr42 wrote: 5:and being scared of Tatsuya is irrelevant, they should be able to brainwash the kid(s) (either with magic or the old fashioned way) and they don't have to take away all the emotions.
I'm not saying it's easy, but it would be waste for the Yotsuba not to try. Since they already have a Sakurai-series

Being scared of Tatsuya is not something you can take no account of. Try to imagine what carnage he could cause if he finds out that the Yotsuba is mass producing cursed children like him (yes, he thinks himself being cursed). And you are wrong if you think that taking away the emotions of Tatsuya was a goal of the experiment. They were tinkering with his mind and that's what happened. Remember that Yotsuba Maya said in one of the Visitor chapters that they need the parasite in the robot doll to conduct experiments for understanding what the mind is and how it works. The Sakura series is probably more about enhancing the capabilities of people with magical talent for guardian work than implanting magic capabilities into “mundane” humans. Oh, and not even the Yotsuba can predict how will the capabilities of the children develop, what skill and might they will reach. Therefore starting copying Tatsuya before they could confirm his usefulness would have been a waste of resources for the Yotsuba and after they could find him useful he would be strongly against this (you know, he is a genius no matter how he does not like people calling him that).

nr42 wrote: I'll grant you that it might be impossible to replicate his flash casting ability on the grounds that it would be logical for them to implant it in Minami too. So it's possible they don't possess anyone with ability to preform the operation any more or that there is a physical reason why no one else can do it (we still aren't sure if Restoration was also implanted). But despite this, there is still Material Burst and Gram Dispersion.

You seem to be completely lost on magician capabilities. It is not a thing you could Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V copy-paste from one practitioner to another even if you have someone available with Mental Design Interference magic. Flash Cast is not the direct result of the “operation” they did on Tatsuya but the result of the work of his innate capabilities and the artificial magic calculation area. He “sees”, analyses and designs. Flash Cast probably born from his taking conscious control of the calculation area implanted into his mind. We are sure that Restoration was not implanted. His mother said Miyuki that the two skills he was born with were decomposing and copying of Eidos (and Restoration is the second at its extreme). Although he developed a number of techniques on the basis of these two he couldn't be considered to be a magician because he lacked general Eidos manipulation skill. In the Nine School Competition when they were attacking the HQ of No Head Dragon Tatsuya said to Fujibayashi that no matter how he tries her innate capabilities as Electron Sourceress resist his copying efforts (even though he is a super genius and can brainwash himself to remember the actual magic sequences, so he can bypass that low performing magic calculation area of his). Therefore we can conclude that unique skills are not mistakenly called unique.

nr42 wrote: The horse analogy is correct, partly. But Also even if they would use a bad one, there would still be a 50 % chance per child that they would inherit the right genes. For example if the magician they choose has a low psion count that should be countered by his high count. Take Miyuki as an example, whose dad is a bad magician (to today's standards).

I think it was never stated that Shiba Tatsurou was a bad magician. The one single thing mentioned about him regarding his magic was that he did not manage to realise the potential in him and seeing the results of his “broken” son made him jealous.

[Psion]

Psion wrote: While we cannot be entirely certain that an inability to use magic is the result of his genetic composition as opposed to his psychological composition...

If you are referring to his almost complete lack of strong emotions as psychological composition then it has nothing to do with his lack of magical talent. When their mother talks about Tatsuya to Miyuki at the military base in Okinawa she said something that he was a complete failure as magician before the experiment. This way we can safely conclude that his inability of using magic has genetic origin.

Actually no I was referring to his state before Miya performed the operation, in which we are told he was unable to use magic. When she used her mental design interference magic to reformat his mind - we are told directly that it was this part of his mind that was reformatted, the portion of his mind which is responsible for strong emotion was altered to provide an artifical magic calculation area.

What I was stating was that we do not know the full extent to which this original condition was the result of genetics or circumstances such as developments in his psychology and neurophysiology due to his environment and experiences etc... if there is a strong genetic component to his lack of any significant natural magic calculation area, then there is a strong likelihood that breeding programs would have unsatisfactory results.

[Zuruumi]

Bearing children for magicians is not the question of who do you like, especially not in the Ten Masters Clans. I can't imagine that Yotsuba Miya would have picked the guy as the father of her children by her own will. And the Shiba guy too had a different idea about his descendants. The clan head said to do so and the clan member did so. Or remember that the Saegusa leader also is running a little selection “game” between Mayumi's prospective mates, although he does it for political purposes.

Sorry, I might have phrased it wrongly. I wasn´t speaking about love or so. I was speaking about the simple difficulty of giving birth. If you are looking for a guy partner all you have to get is a bit of sperm, not much problems on either side. If you are looking for the other one it is much harder. The most natural way would be to have the woman bear the child, but that are 9 months, giving birth and also the fact that she would be no longer viable as a marriage partner between the clans. And I think there might have been mentioned something about problems with children born completely from a "flask", but not sure about this, anyway getting the ovum would be harder. Therefore I said it is much harder.

As for the BS, I am not sure (not really interested in searching for it) but BS shouldn´t be hereditary, if it was, OK (regrowth, decomposition), if it isn´t OK (good magicina with great skills). I see no problem there. Especially since we are talking about Yotsuba, of which each one has a bit Special magic of his own, yet mostly not hindering other abilities. I don´t think this should be so much of bad influence as long as the genes are mentioned (of course this doesen´t apply to his own evaluation though). In other words, he is inferior, but his genes mostly aren´t (I would say the chance of inheriting cancer or samothing along this lines should be higher than his child being a BS).

[nr42]

Agreed on the second paragraph, but for the bearing of the child they could use a surrogate. Or whatever they used for the Sakurai series.

v12: Like Honami, Minami was born from an unfertilized egg that came from the same “mother” and had also undergone genetic modification before applying sperm from the same “father” to “manufacture” a genetically modified human being whose magical genes had been strengthened – a modified body. Though they weren’t “twins”, they were close enough to be “sisters”. The family tree would list her as a cousin, so it was only natural for Minami’s facial structure to be similar to Honami.

All we need is someone's ovum and this we implant in some women's womb, whom we pay. Easy peasy.

[maqhusson]

Yes, he is. He was born as a BS magician and, as I said already, they are considered inferior because they don't have the flexibility of modern mages. The fact that Tatsuya has some degree of generic magic capability born from the experiment the Yotsuba subjected him in his early childhood. The artificial Magic Calculation Area in his mind is so inferior compared to a natural one that he can cast only some simple magic very slowly and requires the very best Specialised CAD to cast half decent spells. But of course he has immensely strong innate magic.

I would agree with you argument if you were talking about the average BS magician. You seem to have misunderstood me, mainly because of me not properly explaining myself. I wasn't referring to his status as a BS magician, but rather his status as an exception and a strategic class magician. Most BS magicians can't compete with the versatility of modern magicians, which I feel makes people think of them as sub-par. However, Tatsuya isn't part of the norm, and as such he himself can't be called sub-par simply because modern measuring systems don't gauge his power properly. His Decomposition, Regrowth and other high level magics are extremely powerful, so much so that almost no modern or BS magician can compete with him. Since his BS magic is so strong, the superiority of modern magics doesn't matter for him, and as such I don't think anyone would consider Tatsuya to be sub-par. If you recall, the new Engineering department was created because of Tatsuya being an exception, thus I don't think you can use the same system to measure his ability as you can most other magicians.

[nr42]

In response to ErgoGnomik (leaving out the quotes to avoid it being too long):

I checked v8 and what they said was that all he was able to do was : "Decomposition of Eidos, and reconstruction of Information Bodies."

The ability to copy or remember activation sequences was due to his arificial magic calc area, being able to store those magics.

v3: Ironically, this was one advantage gleaned from the artificial virtual Magic Calculation Area currently residing in his consciousness, which was the ability to recall any Magic Sequence stored in his memory.

Also the ability to restore was innate, we never denied that, but the question is whether the auto-repair-sequence was implanted. Which seems quite likely to me, because of the computerlike sequence it follows.

[Self Restoration, Auto Start.]
[Core Eidos Data, Read from Backup.]
[Load Magic Sequence — Complete. Self Restoration — Complete.]

backup would suggest stored eidos data.

About him being angry about experiments. What's he going to do about it? He's completely dependent on the Yotsuba, who could make his live hell. All he could try is take over the Yotsuba.

Also about the loss of emotions being unintentional. No it wasn't they had to put it somewhere and specifically put it somewhere unnecessary. And of course left the attachment to Miyuki, because of the obvious advantages. Making this his only strong emotion tied him permanently to the Yotsuba.

[Zuruumi]

To maqhusson: I consider him strong too, of course, he is OP type MC. But as far as official approach goes he is a subpar magician who will get bad pay and never make it into any important position. Also the 10 families have the saem approach (well, because it is advantegous to them).

To nr42: His ability to store the sequences is deffinitelly because of the artificial magic ... area, but his ability to analyse them isn´t. In other words, No matter how supperior harddisk your computer has, if it has no scanner or similar device, you will not manage to store any your books there. His flash cast should be usable only because he is able to completely analyze any magic he see (which should be a side effect of his restoration, or maybe even partly decomposition).

[ergoGnomik]

Also the ability to restore was innate, we never denied that, but the question is whether the auto-repair-sequence was implanted. Which seems quite likely to me, because of the computerlike sequence it follows.

[Self Restoration, Auto Start.]
[Core Eidos Data, Read from Backup.]
[Load Magic Sequence — Complete. Self Restoration — Complete.]

backup would suggest stored eidos data.

About him being angry about experiments. What's he going to do about it? He's completely dependent on the Yotsuba, who could make his live hell. All he could try is take over the Yotsuba.

Also about the loss of emotions being unintentional. No it wasn't they had to put it somewhere and specifically put it somewhere unnecessary. And of course left the attachment to Miyuki, because of the obvious advantages. Making this his only strong emotion tied him permanently to the Yotsuba.

Well, this computer like sequence is quite disturbing because no human mind works like this. They should also have installed an artificial virtual computer into his mind too which runs the self restoration sequence. Or this wanted to be only an artistic representation of Tatsuya's hyper-logical mental processes, which is actually quite botched. Everyone could pick their favourite. Or someone read the author's comments, please. Maybe there is some explanation there. I never read them.

During the Yokohama incident it is explained a number of times, and also mentioned in Nine Schools Competition, that he can scan the Eidos backwards up to 24 hours. Reality is quite a readily available and spacious storage, don't you think?

What he could do? How about going public? Imagine the witchhunt "mundane" people would start after hearing the juice details about human experiments. And after thoroughly investigating the Yotsuba would come all the other magician families with their gathering political, monetary or other influnce on the country. Would Tatsuya also be on the wrong end of the stick? Yes, of course. But the others would have it worse than him, I think.

English is not my native tongue, but "ended up losing his emotions" doesn't sound to me that it was intentional. Also the sentence about having the brotherly love towards his sister remaining is the best outcome indicates that they were doing something beyond their full control. At least that's my impression.

[Zuruumi]

Well while they couldn´t control what exactly comes out of it, they definitelly knew he will most likely lose most of his emotions (which however I cannot proove, as I am too lazy to reread this par of the book for upteenth time). Also, the point of her considering, that it would be best if "this emotion stayed" or something along this lines means, that she predicted him losing most of the emotions, though it wasn´t the goal of the surgery, it was expected outcome.

[Imladir]

What he could do? How about going public? Imagine the witchhunt "mundane" people would start after hearing the juice details about human experiments. And after thoroughly investigating the Yotsuba would come all the other magician families with their gathering political, monetary or other influnce on the country. Would Tatsuya also be on the wrong end of the stick? Yes, of course. But the others would have it worse than him, I think.

Yeah, but you forgot about Miyuki.
No way Tatsuya would do anything like this.

[Psion]

Rather than being unintentional, it was understood to be necessary - it was the mechanism that was used to establish an artificial magic calculation area, entirely intentional.

What we are told was not intentional was his retaining the ability to feel affection for Miyuki, nor his mother's inability to feel affection for him. Personally I think that this is likely a subconscious result of Miya's having torn apart Maya's mind and the pain she felt over that.



Lina is near to impossible, I dont really see that either the USNA or Japan would be willing to allow one of their Strategic Class magicians free reign to leave the country and potentially have children overseas with another Strategic Class magician... (tbh I am almost inclined to think the USNA was attempting to get Lina knocked up when they sent her to Japan).