Class Skills
Magic Resistance – EX
Grants protection against magical effects. Differing from the developed Resistance that merely rejects magical energy, this Skill cancels the spells altogether.
Ruler displays incomparable Magic Resistance mismatched to her place in history. It may be considered an aftereffect of her Noble Phantasm; as soon as she witnesses any magecraft in effect, she will grasp it in her mind, as well as the means to neutralize it. Of course, this seemingly almighty resistance only applies to spells she can rationalize as physical phenomena.
True Name Discernment – B+
A Class Skill of the Ruler class where status information such as one's identity, Skills and Parameters are automatically revealed to the owner of this Skill when directly encountering a Servant.
It is perhaps this particular figure’s reputation as a collector and collator of knowledge that is here exalted with a high rank in this Skill. While a LUK check normally allows a chance of overcoming this Skill, if the Servant in question is in some way related to the natural sciences, Ruler will inevitably identify it.
Personal Skills
Gifted Words of Prismatic Clarity – A+
“…what we require at any given epoch for the advancement of science is not merely to set men thinking, but to produce a concentration of thought in that part of the field of science which at that particular season ought to be cultivated. In the history of science we find that effects of this kind have often been produced by suggestive books, which put into a definite, intelligible, and communicable form, the guiding ideas that are already working in the minds of men of science, so as to lead them to discoveries, but which they cannot yet shape into a definite statement.”
—James Clerk Maxwell (Nature 10, p303, 1874)
The intellect and virtuosity of expression that allowed the Servant to elucidate the most ineffable concepts and help others understand the universe. A Skill that allows the exhibition and transmission of Skills that grant technical knowledge and information, and Skills that produce or influence physical phenomena, up to A rank.
On one hand, it cannot deliver Skills that are burdens of the body, nor unique Skills characteristic of nonhuman Servants. On the other hand, based on how Ruler’s works provided suggestions and hints that led other scientists to make new discoveries (such as the discovery of the planet Neptune predicted by Ruler), this Skill allows her not only to transmit new Skills to others, but also to improve those already possessed.
If geniuses like da Vinci and Tesla expanded the boundaries of mankind, it was people like Ruler who revealed those distant boundaries and brought them closer to the common masses.
The Mechanism of the Heavens – A
“The contemplation of the works of creation elevates the mind to the admiration of whatever is great and noble, accomplishing the object of all study, which in the elegant language of Sir James Mackintosh is to inspire the love of truth, of wisdom, of beauty, especially of goodness, the highest beauty, and of that supreme and eternal mind, which contains all truth and wisdom, all beauty and goodness. By the love or delightful contemplation and pursuit of these transcendent aims for their own sake only, the mind of man is raised from low and perishable objects, and prepared for those high destinies which are appointed for all those who are capable of them.”
—Mary Somerville, “The Mechanism of the Heavens”
Ruler’s unique Skill, named after her first major work. Originally intended to be a translation of Laplace’s five-volume
magnum opus,
Traité de mécanique celeste, Ruler provided a complete mechanical interpretation of the solar system, using words rather than algebra and calculus. It is in fact merely an extension, a simplified manifestation of her magnificent Noble Phantasm: a composite Skill combining
Natural Insight and
Mana Burst (Gravity), both at rank A.
Natural Insight reflects her uncanny grasp of all physical phenomena, within the framework of the understanding of her era. Ruler, who was almost entirely self-taught, began her long and arduous path towards scientific greatness in her childhood years, wandering the countryside and losing herself in the observation of nature and its mysteries.
Reckless Phantasm – B
“I was conscious that I had never made a discovery myself, that I had no originality. I have perseverance and intelligence but no genius. That spark from heaven is not granted to the sex, we are of the earth, earthy, whether higher powers may be allotted to us in another state of existence God knows, original genius in science at least is hopeless in this.”
—Mary Somerville (Quote from D. McMiIllan, ed., Queen of Science: Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville, Canongate Classics, 2001)
A dangerous expression of Ruler’s lifelong frustration and shame. She had aspired to be a great scientific discoverer, like Oersted and Laplace, but she failed—her original results on the relation between light and magnetism were proven to be mistaken, a product of insufficiently cautious technique—, and with that failure she felt she had pulled all women down with her.
As a permanent brand of that failure, as if cursing herself with a constant reminder of how lacking she believes she is, Ruler can at will choose to distort her own Noble Phantasm. In a state of excitement, like the expectation of approaching success or the heat of battle, it is easy to delude oneself and others, and substitute reality with the one of one’s desire. On that basis, she can distort her Noble Phantasm to also distort—or rather, detach—the law of cause and effect to mix and match natural, physical “causes” and “effects” at her whim. She can tear your body apart with a kiss and arouse you with a machine gun. She can strangle you with an open flame, incinerate you with a poisoned needle, and poison you with a rope.
However, because this is done precisely by distorting the pinnacle expression of her nature as a “scientist” and a “hero”, and further tainting it with the weight of her self-deprecation, she is effectively diminishing herself as a Heroic Spirit when doing so, and Ruler takes actual damage any time she uses this Skill.
On a side note, although her results were indeed incorrect, this does not diminish the fact that hers was the first experimental paper by a woman to be published in the Royal Society’s journal under her own name, and it established her reputation as a serious scientist, in no way inferior to the great men of science of her time.
Virago’s Charisma – C-
“Mrs. Mary Somerville was guilty of the most unladylike conduct in daring to write works on the Connection of the Physical Sciences…Why should any ambitious woman be allowed to invade man’s sacred domains?”
—Alexander Graham Bell, well-known advocate of women’s rights, speaking with utmost irony.
The Skill representing a heroine as an example to all other women, for her perseverance and glory in a field dominated by men, and an inspiration to all those women who would follow her footsteps. Perhaps the most famous and celebrated example of a true, magnificent virago would be the Maid of Orléans.
This Skills grants morale bonuses both in and outside of battle to all female allies, boosting both physical and mental capabilities. However, the effect of this Skill is drastically diminished if their recipients witness Ruler using her
Reckless Phantasm.
Noble Phantasm
On the Connexion of the Natural Sciences
All Things Rendered Clear by Omnipotent Natural Law
Rank: EX
Type: Anti-World/Anti-Noble Phantasm
Range: 1-99
Maximum Targets: --
“To read mathematical works is an easy task; the formulae can be learned and their meaning apprehended: to read the most profound of them, with such appreciation that one stands side by side with the great minds who originated them, requires a higher order of intellect; and far-reaching indeed is that which, pondering in the study on a few phenomena known by observation, develops the theory of worlds, traces back for ages their history, and sketches the outline of their future destiny.”
—Maria Mitchell, in praise of Mary Somerville
Ruler’s pinnacle ability, named after her most important work.
On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences is a compendium and summary of humanity’s prowess in the “hard” sciences, delivered in avoidance of challenging mathematical formulas, using words that would be understood by those outside the scientific fields. It was also a reunification of the scientific disciplines at a time when the modern paradigm of overspecialization was beginning to take root, thus reminding the world that, even if we give increasingly complicated names to each new branch of natural science, in the end they are all bound by the same all-encompassing physical principles. There lies the core of Ruler’s powers as a Servant.
Even if she was not one of the great minds that redefined the world, none of those great feats escaped her understanding. Because she walked stepping on the footsteps of the great, constantly looking over their shoulders, there are no mysteries in this world her gifted mind cannot comprehend. Long story short, all feats and techniques born of human creativity with the purpose of understanding and controlling the physical world are in her grasp. If a human mind could come up with it, then she can reproduce it. Effectively, all physical objects, energy and phenomena within her awareness are hers to command: if she wills it, water will freeze. If she wills it, the air will ignite. If she wills it, metal will rust, stone will shatter, and flesh will rot, because all those are things humans can do. It looks like magecraft, and it feels like
Imperial Privilege, but it might be something that borders on the Authority of the gods.
She who brought down the achievements of the truly great to the minds of the common mortals is further gifted with immediate and complete understanding of Noble Phantasms she sees in use by human Servants, which allows her to neutralize them and even reproduce them to a limited degree, seemingly defined by her ability to rationalize their effect in terms of physical phenomena. In other words, techniques that, for example, produce lightning or flames will be trivially neutralized or reproduced; those that manipulate more complex, abstract concepts like probability or spacetime, and those that aim to manipulate the mind, will have their effects diminished or suffer rank-down when reproduced; and those that dabble in concepts outside the physical sciences, like “Holy” or “Demonic” weapons, are outside Ruler’s ability, as well as the mightiest Noble Phantasms that effect the very fabric of the world.
However, despite the vast capabilities of this Noble Phantasm, no matter how thorough and deep her understanding of all things truly is, she will never create anything new and unique with it. The whole of creation is putty in her hands, yet she can only thread paths already walked by others. Her story is already written. Innovation has forever denied her.
Originally Posted by gyrowins
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