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|Samuel al-Faddil, ''In The Service''}}
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|Sette, ''A Numbered Existence''}}
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|Jail Scaligetti, ''Monsters''}}
A ''[[Lyrical Nanoha]]'' story and its spinoffs ''Monsters'' and ''A Numbered Existence'' by [[User:Night]].
In the post ''[[
''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6115250/1/In_The_Service In The Service]'', the main story, covers these events while using lesser mages (and original characters), mainly a Navy mage named Samuel al-Faddil, as a means of interacting with and exploring the main characters with a strong emphasis on the Wolkenritter. [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6102101/1/A_Numbered_Existence A Numbered Existence] tells the stories of Jail's Numbers, exploring their characters and their efforts to adapt (or not) to society...[[Out-of-Genre Experience|except when it starts talking about what it's like to be a Huckebein for a bit]]. Many ''A Numbered Existence'' chapters are standalone, but an equal number related directly or indirectly to ''In The Service''. [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5394631/1/Monsters Monsters], actually written first of them all, is an introduction to why making Wolkenritter ''angry'' is a Very Bad Idea but actually ties in with events partway through ''In The Service''.
Please bear with the author while he sorts this page out for further examples and occasionally drops spoilers for future chapters by mistake.
{{tropelist}}
* [[Action Girl]]: The usual suspects from canon, and [[The Cracker|Uno]]. Yes, Uno, who uses the logical extension of her IS to hack people’s Devices and make them explode. She is also still a Combat Cyborg and personally killed two people during the boarding of the New Belkan ship ''Invincible''.
* [[A Father to His Men|A Mother To Her Wolkenritter]]: Hayate explicitly views the Wolkenritter as her children. She also operates on the explicit belief that she must protect her people, as they are the Bureau's only real hope to fight off the Other-Wolkenritter. Hayate grounds a combat-fatigued Fate and keeps Caro from full contact with the horror of what their opponents do.
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** Unlike the Orbital Penal Complexes, prisoners know which wall of their cell is the one facing the main complex because they can have a holographic projection of the outside of their cell at any time. This is done to demonstrate that Last Post, situated far out between a pair of galactic arms, is several thousand light-years from anything; it is ''literally'' as far from any bright and kind place as the Bureau can remove someone.
* [[Ancestral Weapon]]: Samuel’s device, Steelheart, comes down to him from his grandfather and is around 70 years old.
** Wahrheit, Vivio's Intelligent Device, belonged to the Sankt Kaiser. It is the oldest physical Device currently in active use at over 100 years of age.
* [[And I Must Scream]]: Veyron's sentiments are like this. He hates the Eclipse for having taken his sight and now for the fact it wants him to do things he knows will get him killed. But he can only not do what it wants, not get rid of it or even talk about it to someone; Arnage wouldn't understand.
* [[And Zoidberg]]: “Four adults plus Vita” is used to describe the occupancy of the Yagami residence. She's just as old as the other Wolkenritter, though.
* [[Artificial Human]]: Played relatively up from canon in that the trope is explored rather than merely referenced. Numerous differences and improvements from regular humans are noted, used, and remarked upon for Wolkenritter and Combat Cyborgs. The canon's assertion that [[Artificial Human|Artificial Humans]] are still definitely people is agreed with, however.
* [[Badass]]: Any canon character will at some point do something badass. So far the all-time champion, however, is Chrono Harlaown, who channeled his first-season skill at smackdowns into taking down a [[Person of Mass Destruction|Reinforce]].
* [[Badass Boast]]: Chrono Harlaown. “I am an admiral, and this is a ship of war. On this ship, ''I am god''.”
** An Immortal Order Signum. “We are the Immortal Order. Defeat is temporary. Death is meaningless.”
** Signum, in ''Monsters''. “I am a Wolkenritter. Hell followed in my footsteps once. I am nightmare, I am hatred, I am rage and the death of worlds.”
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* [[Car Fu]]: Mages may be resistant or even immune to the sort of guns found on a Bradley, but they go squish like anybody else when run over by an armored vehicle.
* [[The Chains of Commanding]]: Used in two different ways during the fourteenth chapter, with Chrono realizing he doesn't have a choice except to send his small force of flight mages on what could easily be a suicide mission, and Samuel holding his emotions in after his team is cut to pieces boarding the ''Invincible''.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Reaching all the way back to the last few canon episodes, the Einherial installations that Jail's Numbers knocked out to clear the way for the Cradle are finally used.
* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: A number of them remain unfired.
** Quoth Tre: "Jail knows something."
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* [[Combat Pragmatist]]: Pretty much everyone, though to varying degrees. Samuel is notorious for this and makes Hayate livid at one point by doing so against Vita, practicing a full-contact style of fencing that turns his singlehanded and relatively short blade into an advantage. Vita at the opposite end of the spectrum would like to do that sort of thing, but lacks the reach and the weight.
** Combat Cyborgs take [[Combat Pragmatist]] to a whole other level if lethal force has been authorized, as they take few chances. If you are still breathing and unsurrendered, you are a valid target for anything that can be done to you.
* [[Contemplate Our Navels]]: Used in a minor way; Samuel can be somewhat philosophical about the nature of soldiering, usually to Tre.
** The Wolkenritter are meant to demonstrate the residue of considerable contemplation of their navels, a result of being ten thousand years old, but they don't do it on-screen.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: “Just as well, Signum killed the last guy who saw her with her hair down.” Poor Zest…
** [[Discontinuity Nod]]: {{spoiler|Sankt Kaiser Olivie never fought Klaus Ingvault.}}
* [[Criminal Mind Games]]: Backfires spectacularly in ''Monsters''.
* [[Critical Existence Failure]]: Most combatants in the setting treat Wolkenritter as if they're playing this straight, a lesson learned by bitter experience. Wolkenritter can and frequently do [[
** It's noted a couple times that Combat Cyborgs have an inborn tendency to act like this trope applies to everyone [[Properly Paranoid|just to make sure]]; give a Combat Cyborg a blade and they will keep stabbing someone as long as that person is roughly vertical, often resulting in five or six wounds where only one was actually needed. At least a couple of Cyborgs mention how much they've struggled to "unlearn" this behavior.
* [[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul]]: Subverted. Cyborg conversion doesn't change someone; it makes them more of what they were. For most people who are converted while mentally healthy, it makes them extremely psychologically resilient, and they quickly bounce back from stress. For someone converted with a neurosis or simply a strong pessimistic streak, however, cumulative exposure to stress will render them catatonic eventually (or quite soon if the stress is extreme; most don't make it through a combat situation). It is currently unknown if they can recover or be treated.
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** Sein snaps necks through walls.
* [[Insistent Terminology]]: Samuel refers to the Wolkenritter as “Dame” (or “Sir” in Zafira’s case) and name, rather than by their rank and name, a reference to their knighthood.
* [[Divide
* [[Death Is Cheap]]: The Other-Wolkenritter cannot be killed permanently, but fortunately their location for “respawn” is fixed and apparently very far from the actual battlefields.
* [[Dream Team]]: Invoked by the in-story nickname for Hayate's anti-Wolkenritter task force.
** Chrono rebuilds Samuel's Team 70 into the Navy's Dream Team, particularly by adding Tre and Sette to it. The team slowly turns into the prototype for Navy's use of Combat Cyborgs as a unit after Samuel volunteers for conversion following injuries sustained in action.
** Ground Forces groups its Combat Cyborgs together as [[Fun
* [[Elsewhere Fic]] / [[Alternate Universe Fic]]: The basic premise to start is very much that of an [[Elsewhere Fic]], with the main characters being thin on the ground for the first few chapters. The events of Soundstage X played out offscreen for ''In The Service'' but onscreen (with additions) for ''A Numbered Existence''. However ''[[
* [[Evil Twin]]: The Other-Wolkenritter and the Immortal Order-Wolkenritter, for the real ones. Not quite as powerful as the real deal, they are respectively psychotic and sociopathic.
* [[Facing the Bullets One-Liner]]: We never hear the line itself, since we hear about the situation after it happened; but when Samuel is about to be killed by a Signum clone, she demands to know how he killed one of her "lesser sisters." Samuel recounts to Signum that he told the clone that he cheated, in an attempt to make her angry.
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* [[Mindlink Mates]]: Discussed and strongly averted. Signum claims this is why inter-Wolkenritter relationships don’t work: the feedback from their link to each other causes it to be unpleasant, and something about direct physical contact prevents them from clamping down on the link such as they can in any other situation. Two Wolkenritter in skin-to-skin contact are no longer individuals in any meaningful sense and that frightens them.
* [[The Mole]]: Jail apparently had a quite a few of them. Including two heads of Ground Forces. Hayate expresses her frustration thusly:
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* [[Must Make Amends]]: The Wolkenritter. Signum in particular expresses happiness about her renewed immortality because that makes it much more possible for her to make amends.
* [[Mythology Gag]]: Vita kills what the author outright admits is a Material-S reference early in the story.
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** Levantine can also be used to cauterize wounds. ''Monsters'' demonstrates this in action in the most horrible way possible.
** Telepathic contact, which is usually prized for its ability to speak over long distances in the canon, is mainly used for privacy in the story.
* [[
** Tre and Uno, and probably anyone whose cybernetics design is based off of Tre's, can turn off their pain receptors. Uno demonstrates by continuing to function perfectly normally despite the fact her forearm is visibly broken.
** After the seal is broken, Drei is functionally immune to everything. She got run through with Arnage's Divider to break it, then blocked a second swing with her Barrier Jacket, even though that should be completely impossible. In Chapter 32, {{spoiler|her response to a squad of Church Knights from one faction who want to take Vivio is basically amusement.}}
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** Samuel al-Faddil apparently is a divisive subject among them, as he has ''two'' nicknames. One is "Quiet of the Grave" for his habit of facing opponents in silence to the point that only his Device says the attack names, which is quite the opposite from most people in the original Nanoha shows. The other is apparently quite insulting and the IO-Signum he encounters refuses to use it.
* [[Reporting Names]]: For the Wolkenritter clones; Shamals are "Rippers", Reinforce are "Godling", while the other three use obvious nicknames. "Swords" for Signums, "Hammerer" for Vitas, and "Wolf" for Zafiras.
** Combat Cyborgs are "Gizmo" as a play on the already existent "Gadget" to describe Jail's other tools. The Bureau eventually classes units as "gizmo", "norm", and "cloud" for Combat Cyborgs, humans with no or only biological augmentation, and Wolkenritter. Flight-capable is indicated by an "-f".
* [[Scars Are Forever]]: Explicitly averted. Bureau medical technology giggles at the concept of permanent scarring, and the Wolkenritter simply don't.
* [[Shout-Out]]: Signum’s epithets mentioned by Uno. ''Se Ytruck Gjinchar'' and ''Va Frenchek'' are references to Auroran ship types from [[Escape Velocity|Escape Velocity Nova]].
* [[Strange Salute]]: The salute of a Belkan Knight to another Knight; right hand fist, palm inward above the heart. If the salute-r has a weapon on their person, they should be holding it in their right fist.
** The Bureau, by contrast, uses the standard American salute.
* [[Talking Is a Free Action]]: Heavily played with. In classic Nanoha fashion, the Other-Wolkenritter like to talk a bit. In decidedly unclassic fashion, nobody is actually listening and they’re either letting the [[Talkative Loon]] talk for the hell of it or they’re buying time for more serious firepower to arrive.
* [[Technically a Smile]]: Signum has apparently mastered this, to the point she can make small children cry and hardened soldiers uncomfortable.
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* [[We Have Reserves]]: Rather brutally averted by the Bureau. They ''don't'' have reserves, both on a tactical and strategic scale. Tactically, losing any member of their anti-Wolkenritter team is crippling, as they cannot be replaced. Strategically, the Bureau has only three thousand flight mages and no way to replace serious casualties.
** Played straight in New Belka's use of their Wolkenritter clones, primarily because they don't die with permanency.
* [[Wham! Episode]]:
** ''In The Service''
*** "Home Front": The Other-Wolkenritter attack Midchilda, triggering a lot of things.
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*** "What We Were Born To Do": Force goes irredeemably [[Off the Rails]].
*** "Otto: Of Children And Monsters": Hey guys? {{spoiler|Sankt Kaiser Olivie's not dead.}}
* [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]]: Both Shamal and Vita are very upset to discover they'll live on if Hayate dies.
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: Discussed by Signum; her evil twins appear to actively try and develop them, most notably through Samuel. He does not share the sentiment.
* [[Wouldn't Hurt a Child]]: Strongly averted throughout the story. The Navy enlists combat mages at 12 and sends to active duty at 13. Several of Jail's second-generation Combat Cyborgs are children and two of them are killed by Tre.
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{{reflist}}
{{Lyrical Nanoha Franchise}}
[[Category:Troper Works]]
▲[[Category:In the Service]]
[[Category:Fanfic]]
[[Category:Lyrical Nanoha/Fan Works]]
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