Sion mentions this in Melty Blood when epxlaining Atlas Alchemy
Anyone know what the last two are? Like I can guess that conversion alchemy is mystic code creation, but what is meant with acceleration?"The Etherlite is a technique handed down in the Eltnam family. The foundation techniques of Atlas are Thought Acceleration and Thought Partition. After that, acceleration and conversion alchemy is acquired."
Why would it be mystic code creation, it sounds like transmutation of metals to me.Originally Posted by aAlouda
Because conversion is the magic used by the Tohsaka to essentially convert magical energy by turning jewels into mystic codes.
Also Sion specifies that Atlas doesen't concern itself with elemental transmutation.
"I am different from the majority of magi. There are factions of Magi Associations that guide the practice of rituals and the revelation of knowledge. Please think of alchemists as not practicing rituals, but discovering them."
"Discover? You mean, like making new magic?"
"Most types of magic are already identified, but we discover new methods. As the name alchemist implies, we try to create precious metals from base metals, for example."
"Ah, that makes sense now. Like... making gold out of lead?"
"...... Yes, but that refers to the Central Association of Alchemists. I am part of a different organization of alchemists, the Atlas Academy. We have no interest in the transmutation of elements."
"I see. So there's even different kinds of alchemists."
I believe this is just one of those artifacts of translation. Japanese is more contextual than English.
The idea is that to go beyond Thought Acceleration and Thought Partition, you then need to fundamentally alter your body through magical acceleration or magical conversion.
Just wondering, is the Void that is associated with CHAOS different than the other types of 'void' that is used in the series, like the Buddhist void and void the FG comes from?
It's still not entirely clear what kind of void that FG talked about, but in the case for CHAOS it merely refers to the rift that connects the space where CHAOS resides to Olympus, so nothing to do with Buddhist void. Personally, it's all a setup for Musashi to take advantage of her fate to "cut through the void and reach beyond zero" to save Chaldea, specifically employing exact words as a leeway since it doesn't say what kind of "void" she is meant to cut.
This is the natural consequence of NAs terminology choices, I supposed.
(I might miss something while I look for references here, so point it out if you see something wrong)
Chaos' void is 虚空.
It's a word that mostly just means (empty) space/air. When we look at the context of Nemo mentioning it in relation to Chaos,
I'd say it's pretty clear the intent of correcting himself is to say that even going up there you won't reach Chaos himself, just the space he occupies. The meaning of "void" has certain meaning here though, contextually, if we look at the other times the JP comes up in this scene later via Musashi.
All subsequent mentions of Musashi cutting the void in this immediate scene has it be rendered as.カオス虚空
Musashi's own void, outside of this scene, would be 空.
This is the word that appears in her profile, when listing the other elements the book related to, and the name of the book itself, as well as mentioning Musashi herself has an understanding of it. She does bring this up in the Chaos scene too:
And now we may neatly segue into the next void, namely that of the Root (Akasha), and by extension, Ryougi Shiki's 3rd Personality. This "void", the same one as the 「 」Musashi mentions above, is also 空, and is often aptly rendered as "emptiness" (though "void" of course gets the same idea across, so it varies), self-explanatorily from looking at the empty quotations.
Might be worth pointing out that Nasu specifies the reading "kara" for the kanji here, so that we know it for sure is "emptiness" and not "space/air" as well.
Anyway, effectively what this all gives us is that the Root, and by extension Ryougi's 3rd peronality, are a sort of "true void" (空), that cannot be rendered.
Musashi's void—the one she actually seeks, and wishes to surpass—is the same as the above (空). I guess this is the one you think of as the "buddhist void"?
Chaos' void (虚空) straddles the line between being equivalent to the above, and simply meaning an "empty space", depending on how you read Musashi's lines, but when you truly consider what it is Musashi does (and what happens in the story chapter), the latter is the one that makes more sense; Musashi simply specializes in cutting it because "empty space" is similar enough to "nothingness". You can see this concept explained in KnK as well (I won't get the quote right now), where the idea is that "nothingness" is not the same as 「 」(the root), because "nothing" is still "something" (a concept of being without), and in the same way, empty space is still "something", so it is not the same void as 「 」.
To further clear up "void" related things from NA while we're at it:
"Void Space", rendered as "Imaginary Number Space" in fan translations in JP, is written as 虚数空間, and is a god-awful translation. 虚数 means "imaginary number", as in literally the mathematical concept. It's the exact word used in mathematical texts. 空間 means "space" (as in "a space" or the "general space", not necessarily outer space). Even the explanations and applications of it in story tie into this mathematical naming scheme, not to mention Mahoyo leans heavily on the idea that all of magic is in a sense "mathematical" (partly the reason for the common use of "formula" to translate 術式, which you could be super boring and just put "spell"). So not only is the NA version super bad because it muddies the meaning of "void", but also because it just skipped something so on the nose.
(In this same vein you have "Tree of Emptiness" which could be confused with all the above concepts, though I guess until we truly see the final exposition scene for CitL, we can't be truly sure if they got some directional hints from higher ups during localization or if they actually did just read the kanji compound one by one...)
Finally, the "void" of the Alien God. I'm running a bit low on time here so not gonna recheck the actual scene in Olympus, but I'll assume it is the same "void" as in the chant:
.StarsThe shape of stars.CosmosThe shape of cosmos.GodsThe shape of gods.AnimusThe shape of myself
.AntrumThe celestial bodies are hollow
.UnbirthThe hollow is void
Anima AnimsphereIn the void lies God
Which in JP is:
。スターズ星の形。コスモス宙の形。ゴッズ神の形。アニムス我の形
。アントルム天体は空洞なり
。アンバース空洞は虚空なり
アニマ、アニムスフィア虚空には神ありき
As you can see, this "void" is 虚空, the same as Chaos' "empty space", not the Musashi/Root void. If you get some context from the CitL trailer (which I cba to find right now) you'll hear some female voice at the end say something like "This universe has a bad habit of trying to fill any void", which I guess should give an idea to what sort of "void" is being talked about here (and I'm sure Petri is gonna get to this in his theory, what with "the celestial bodies are hollow, and the hollow is void, and the universe tries to fill any void" really leading you places).
Likewise, the word for "hollow" in this chant is 空洞, which means just that (as in, "hollow earth theory"), and I'm pretty sure at some point the story references the Alien Priestess as being 空洞 in the sense that she doesn't show up on any equipment. Other things called 空洞 are Vortigern in GoA (as in, "a hole in the world"), and a certain monster in LB6 (I also thought Da Vinci called Daybit the same "hole in the world" kind of deal but I can't find it with a quick search right now, but it would be a pretty fitting addition here considering his name).
Hope this helps.
One thing about Imaginary Number Space that is immediately apparent if you know it refers to the mathematical concept, is that Complex Numbers cannot be graphed onto a cartesian plane, and despite being used in physics for electromagnetic waves and oscillators, they don't mean anything until converted to sines and cosines, so the idea of a space that needs to be properly converted to our understanding is very easy to catch on to
Seemed relevant.Famitsu: I remember in FSN there was a statement along the lines of "Whether it's in the future or the past, the destination is zero". Is the concept of "void" = "zero" that musashi talks about the same as the "root"?
Nasu: No, it's not really like that. When I researched Miyamoto Musashi in history, I found that the concept of "nothingness" entered Japan from buddhism around the same time [as Musashi existed, I assume]. Because of that I thought it was interesting how Musashi's father called himself "Munisai" in that same era [I assume, again, because the "mu" in his name is written with the kanji for "nothing"]. When I saw those things, I thought that the end goal for the female Musashi in FGO would be to "cut a formless thing". When I was writing the "Musashi Miyamoto Trial Quest" scenario, I had to think about the entire concept of part 2 at the same time, and as I was researching Greek material, I came across Chaos. So then I had no choice but to have Musashi cut that. As Muramasa said: "at the very moment you cut something without form, you can see its essence." Miyamoto Musashi appears in a lot of fictional works, but we wanted to create a version that had significant meaning to the story we made. I thought it would be meaningful to show Musashi cutting the void at the end, and having given her all, disappeared beyond zero. For that reason, I scattered pieces of foreshadowing and prepared for this character. Therefore, it's not a story about the magical root or anything like that.
Wow thanks, yeah it does help.
I suppose the only other "void" that is left is the one the devils and Angra come from. I recall a quote from FHA where Angra mentions it's similar to a Buddhist concept (or realm?) but not quite the same. From what I gather, it likely has to do with the void that is mentioned on this page
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-sg/%E5%8C%96%E7%94%9F which refers to one of the four ways to be born in Buddhism, roughly translating as "birth from the void" as opposed to a womb or egg. Although it is a confusing concept and can also mean "transformation" as in one figure transforming/reincarnating without actually dying. I kinda see it as just the 'other' category, and it's not really a realm or anything.
I'm curious to know what Petrikow's theory. Presumably it was the one he alluded to a few pages back? I do understand if everyone wants to keep it under wraps, though you shouldn't tease us like that. Still it would be nice to have all this info in convenient place. I assume he'll have it done before LB7?
End goal? Does this mean that there really is nothing left with Musashi after this? I do feel it would ruin Musashi's ending a bit if she came back. Not that I want her back.When I saw those things, I thought that the end goal for the female Musashi in FGO would be to "cut a formless thing".
Ah that's very handy. I do feel it would be better if he kept the assumptions to their own category, but I suppose that could make it more confusing having to re-explain the relevant context. It also answers another use of the void which was what void the Crypters were claimed to have sunk into, though that raises it's own set of questions as to why. I gather it's supposed to be implying it is like with Tiamat and how she was rejected by humanity and so cast into the void, but is that saying that the Crypters themselves were rejected by the will of humanity?
Interesting that others are noting a difference between Specimen E and Subject E as well. I got called nitpicky for doing that, but then people are forgetting just how difficult the Goetia and Koyan mysteries were.
Edit: Also glad to see that I'm not the only one who calls their theory 'Grand unified theory'.
It's really just saying that if you're in a state of "existing but not really existing" and then you're "cut off" from "the real world" then you're gonna be stuck in that state of ambiguity, which, again, if you think about what the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers really is, means you're now stuck in imaginary number space.
Right, so it might be more accurate to say that they've become too much of a hypothetical existence? The way it's worded sounds weird though, like there's certainty that they will die, something that's reinforced several times. Or I suppose it's just one of those ways that universe works?
It's not that they're rejected. Remember the situation of the A-Team (now Crypters) when they "sunk into the void" as detailed in Petri's Grand Unified Theory; They're all inside active Coffins, devices for Rayshifting. The bombing happened while their bodies were in that process, so they're stuck in spiritron form. In such uncertain states, their existences were stranded in Imaginary Number Space, where they would be stuck forever if it weren't because of Alien God.
Last edited by OnesFleetingGlory; December 2nd, 2022 at 09:28 AM.
Ah so it's more of something specific to that particular situation?
Speaking of Petri I wonder why that thread got nixed. No mod posted a reason and I'm kind of curious what he was building up to.
>implying
rumao
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I thought he just didn't want plebs clogging up his manifesto so he locked it down.
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