Sword Art Online: Alicization – 13

1. Estron

   January 6, 2019, 11:03 pm

   Don’t be too worried about the fact we haven’t seen anything about Asuna outside too much. The main reason for that is because of the fact that Kirito’s is living in a world where time is accelerated. This means that not much HAS happened yet outside unless you want them to show what happens outside out of chronological order.As for this episode, and the half of last episode with Cardinal, I was disappointed as a light novel reader with how much stuff they cut out. The scenes with Cardinal take up the last 10% or so of novel 11 and the first 40% of novel 12 and they covered it all in an episode and a half. Since I don’t want to give too many spoilers for those who haven’t read the novels I’lll list a few in a spoiler tag. All of this stuff is revealed in the novels during the scenes with Cardinal in the library before they leave. There is a chance a few of them may be told via flashbacks but I think personally that would break the flow later.Stuff Left Out1) Kirito asks about how children are made, referring to how fluxlights are created for new kids. Along a similar line they discuss the max size of the human population.2) Cardinal explains a lot more about how Quinella learned to use her abilities including how she hunted the entire forest each night as it kept respawning like a game would to level up.3) The battle that took place after Cardinal was split was much more complicated in the novel and explanations were given about the reasons for Cardinal running away.4) They didn’t explain very well about the library itself and it’s reason for existing outside of fixed space as it does.5) There was an explanation about how Quinella created physical obstacles to prevent the people from expanding/changing too much, including the tree that they chopped down at the start.6) There was also an explanation about how after she heard he impossible tale of the tree being cut down she tracked the two of them down and then how she figured out that Kitiro was not an artificial fluxlight.7) Cardinal explained a little more about how the synthesis ritual works including that it can normally take 3 days.8) It also was not mentioned how Cardinal had no way to defend against attacks on a fluxlight without a real human being involved. This is because there was no command to modify fluxlights of humans using a STL.9) Cardinal explains to Kirito how fluxlights aren’t able to go against the rules ingrained into them and this also explains how when they try to do so their eye has that error displayed. This is a rather important scene in my opinion that should NOT have been left out.10) Eugeio didn’t get to say how he felt like most of the history was basically, something happened, integrity knights fixed it, a new entry was added to the taboo index.11) The whole scene where they are required to meditate before getting their sword activation chants was removed, including the 30 minutes they were given to memorize it.12) It was not mentioned how if they don’t get their swords back within 24 hours of them being taken the item ownership will reset making it not possible for them to use the sword’s abilities.13) The explanation of how she was creating food and the daggers she gave them was left out. Namely that the food was created from books and that the daggers are created from her own hair thus linked to her body.14) It was NOT mentioned how shortly after the initial battle with Quinella Cardinal editied her own memories to remove out almost all of her memory to ensure she could survive long enough to take out Quinella.

   • A Takaii

     January 6, 2019, 11:10 pm

     Wow that’s a lot of stuff not covered.With that knowledge, I’m excited to see what actually happens from here on out 😮

   • l.kostas

     January 7, 2019, 1:48 am

     9) Cardinal explains to Kirito how fluxlights arent able to go against the rules ingrained into them and this also explains how when they try to do so their eye has that error displayed. This is a rather important scene in my opinion that should NOT have been left out.Huh? Hang on. You just said that Administrator couldnt commit murder. Shouldnt that limitation also apply to you, too, since youre her copy? How were you able to attack each other?Ahthat is a good question. As you said, Administrator was not bound by the Taboo Index of her own creation, but she could not break the rule against killing from Quinellas childhood. Even after years and years of study, I have not discovered the reason that we artificial fluctlights are totally unable to disobey our higher ordersbut this phenomenon is not as absolute as you might believe.Meaning?For exampleCardinal moved her right hand, holding the teacup, over the table. But rather than set it on the saucer, she made to set it down on an empty bit of tableclothexcept that her arm paused right before it made contact.I cannot lower the cup any farther than this.Huh? I gaped.She scowled and explained, When I was young, my motherQuinellas mother, I meantaught me that a teacup must be placed on the saucer. It was a very minor rule, but one that still holds power. The only truly great crime was murder, but there are seventeen other taboos still active, including such silly rules as this one. I cannot lower my arm any farther than this, and if I try, I will feel a terrible pain within my right eye.RighteyeBut even this is significantly different from what ordinary civilians feel. They cannot fathom the idea of placing the cup anywhere but the saucer in the first place. In other words, they are ignorant of the fact that these absolute boundaries are shaping their minds. Of course, such ignorance can be blissNow, Kiritodoes this look like a teacup to you?Eh? I squawked, staring at the empty cup in Cardinals hand. It was white porcelain, with simple curves and a plain handle. Aside from a single navy blue line around the rim, there was no decoration.Uhsure, it looks like a teacup. I mean, it had tea in itAha. And how about now?She tapped the rim of the cup with her free hand. Once again, liquid filled the cup from the base, sending up a column of white steam. But the smell was different this timemy nose twitched. It was too rich and tangy to be tea. No, this was cream of corn soup.C-corn soup! Thanks, I was just feeling hungryIm not asking you whats in it, fool! What is the container?ErrwellI meanThe cup hadnt changed in the least since the previous moment. But now that she mentioned it, it did seem a little too simple, a little too big, a little too thick to be a typical teacup.Uha soup cup? I guessed. Cardinal grinned and nodded.Yes. Now it is a soup cup. There is soup in it.And to my shock, she set down the cup right on the tablecloth with a little thump.Wha?!See? In a sense, the taboos inflicted upon artificial fluctlights are very soft and vague. Simply changing ones subjective viewpoint makes them easy to overturn.Stunned, I revisited the scene in the dorm from two days before. The very moment I had burst into the bedroom, Raios was about to bring his sword down on the prostrate Eugeo. If I hadnt blocked it with my weapon, he would certainly have cut Eugeos head from his shoulders.Obviously, killing was the greatest of taboos. But to Raios in that moment, Eugeo was not a fellow human being but a criminal guilty of violating the Taboo Index. By viewing the situation in that light, he easily circumvented that soul-etched command.

     • Seph

       January 7, 2019, 5:33 am

       Wow, just reading that scene makes me really sad they cut it out. That would’ve been nice to see.And I was so hyped that they were actually going all out with the adaption of Alicization.Ignorance is bliss, huh?

   • Mistic

     January 7, 2019, 12:00 pm

     Now I’m oddly interested in point 1). I hadn’t thought about those questions, but they’re important indeed.

     • sealouse

       January 7, 2019, 3:30 pm

       I would also like an explanation on point 1.

     • l.kostas

       January 8, 2019, 12:45 am

       Point 1:I will tell you in orderAbout three hundred and fifty years ago, the Axiom Church was founded to serve as the supreme controlling structure of society. In other words, about a hundred years after the simulation actually began. At the time, all humans married around age twenty and had an average of five children, so the population was over six hundred in the fifth generation alone, and near a thousand if you counted their parents and grandparentsH-hang on. How do marriage and childbirth even work in this world? I asked, unable to resist getting answers to questions Id had for two whole years, and then panicked when the question seemed a bit inappropriate for a girl of around tenregardless of who she was on the inside.But Cardinal didnt bat an eye. She said, I do not know the breeding habits of real-world human beings, so I cannot say for certain, but I believe that the act itself is largely based on the real thing, given the fundamental structure of the fluctlight. When a man and woman registered as spouses by the systemand they alonecommit the act, there is a certain probability that the woman will become with child. In more direct terms, a new fluctlight prototype is loaded into an empty cube in the Lightcube Cluster, synthesized between his parents physical attributes and mental/personality patterns, and then activated as a newborn baby.Ah, I seeAnd whats this marriage registration?Just a simple system command, delivered as an oath of marriage dedicated to Stacia. The village elder did it in the early days, but once churches started popping up around the place, the monks and nuns would officiate.AhhhOops, sorry to interrupt again. Please continue, I prompted. She nodded and went on.Several decades after the Four Progenitors logged out, there were a thousand residents, already ruled by a number of lords. Those few who had received the weapon of self-interest grew their territory as far as they could, and when the young people nearby could not manage their own fields anymore, they were put to use as serfs. Some resisted the yoke and chose to leave the center of the map for new frontiers.Okay, so those were the people who ended up starting rural towns like Zakkaria and Rulid.Precisely. The lords in control of the center were antagonistic to one another, of course, so they did not join their houses in marriage for quite a while. Eventually, two lords conspired to wed their families togetherand produced a child. She was as cute as an angel and possessed the greatest self-interest of any fluctlight created in the UnderworldThey called her Quinella.Over time, Quinella revised the Taboo Index, adding new clauses that helped people with everyday life by restricting access to swamps that were the source of endemic diseases, listing plants that negatively affect livestock etc., in other words, anyone who followed the Taboo Index would not experience any problems and thus removing the need for people to think for themselves and to question the rule of the Axiom Church.Known Clauses1st chapter, 1st passage, 1st paragraph: Loyalty to the Axiom Church.2nd clause: Unless another clause applies, one shall not intentionally reduce the Life of another person.3: One may not claim items that belong to others without permission. This clause only applies to stealing from humans.4: All children must be taught the clauses of the Taboo Index.5: 1st chapter, 3rd passage, 11th paragraph: Not anyone is to go beyond the Mountain range enclosing the edge of Human Empire.6: One cannot kiss another person’s lips (likely unless they are married).7: One may not enter swamps that are deemed to be the source of diseases.8: One may not hunt more animals than permitted.9: One must not abandon their Sacred Task during work days.10: One may not take up too many tasks.11: One can only hunt animals if they have the Sacred Task of “Hunter”.12 Deliberately destroying items that are sold in the shop is against the Taboo Index.13: It’s against the Taboo Index to not pay for an item if it was broken accidentally.14: If the owner excuses a person for accidentally breaking an item, it would not be breaking the Taboo Index.15: One may not run away after committing a crime.16: Deliberately destroying goods that belong to others is against the Taboo Index.17: Obstructing the nobles’ right to judge is not allowed.

     • Mistic

       January 8, 2019, 4:12 pm

       @l.kostasThanks for the info! And now I have even more questions XDLike, what’s the point of the 6th Known Clause? I mean, it falls into the “Japanese think kissing is either lewd or super special” trope, but what’s supposed to be its usefulness? Especially when we’ve seen that it does nothing to prevent the far more serious problems of rape and sexual abuse.

     • l.kostas

       January 8, 2019, 11:07 pm

       There is this scene from episode 3 where Kirito kissed Selka on the forehead. The reason isn’t explained exactly. Who knows what Administrator was thinking, maybe she thinks outside marriage it could lead to trouble somehow?It was time for me to find the answer to the question Id been putting off.Who or what was this sentient consciousness calling itself Kirito, or Kazuto Kirigaya? The fluctlight residing in a biological brainthe real me? Or a replica saved on storage media, read from my brain by the STL?There was only one way to find out.The Underworldians like Eugeo and Selka, with their artificial fluctlights, could not break the Taboo Index or Basic Imperial Law. But just because I could run afoul of this worlds taboos was not proof that I wasnt an artificial fluctlight. I hardly knew any of the individual taboos in the index. The rules hadnt been written into my soul.Instead, I had to find out if I could break my own rules that I lived bymy own set of personal morals. Id been considering this topic for several days, but it was actually quite difficult. Attacking the villagers or stealing their possessions was out of the question, and I didnt feel right insulting someone just to confirm a personal suspicion. There was only one thing I could think of.I turned and stared right into Selkas face.What? she asked, blinking. I put a hand on her cheek and silently apologized to Asuna and Yui. Then I audibly apologized to Selka, leaned closer, and placed a light kiss on her white forehead, just before the headband.She twitched, then sat still. I pulled away after three seconds and saw that she was glaring at me, cheeks red all the way to the ears.Whatdid you just do?Lets call ita swordsmans oath, I suggested weakly. On the inside, I savored a new factual certainty.I had just carried out something that the real me would never do, thus proving that I was the real me. If I were a replica fluctlight, my body would have stopped automatically a few inches from Selkas forehead.She continued staring at me, rubbed her forehead, and sighed.An oath? I dont know if thats how you do things in your country, but if you had kissed myinstead of my forehead, an Integrity Knight would be coming for you right now. Thats against the Taboo Index.Her voice had gone quiet at one point, and I couldnt make out what shed said, but I wasnt going to ask. Selka shook her head again, grinned in annoyance, and asked, Sowhat did you swear?Isnt it obvious? That Ill go with Eugeo, save Alice, and bring your sister back to this village. You have my wordI paused, then slowly said the words.as Kirito the Swordsman.

2. JR

   January 7, 2019, 12:30 am

   In the novel actually Cardinal tried to eliminate/kill Administrator while she was in Administrator’s body. Before Administrator copied herself to that girl’s fluctlight, which means she would commit suicide.Administrator brought that girl to her chamber on the top floor of the cathedral and gave her the beatific smile of a holy mother. Then she said, Youre going to be my child now. A child of God who will lead the world. In a sense, she was rightin the sense that I would inherit the information of her soul. But it had nothing to do with the love of mother and childAdministrator attempted to overwrite that girls fluctlight with her own fluctlights thoughts and crucial memories.”The main process told her to maintain the world. And the subprocess ordered herto correct the mistakes of the main process.Correctthe mistakes?When I was an unconscious program, all I did was endlessly examine the data the main process spit out. But once I gained a personality as Quinellas shadow mind, so to speak, I didnt just check for redundant code anymore; I had to judge my own actions. You might call itmultiple personalities.”Only when Quinellas consciousness faltered the slightest bit could my cogitation process surface. And so I thoughtthis woman named Administrator has committed massive mistakes.Amistake? I repeated. If maintaining the world was the basis of Cardinals main process, it seemed that no matter how extreme Quinellas choices were, she was perfectly aligned with that directive.But Cardinal stared right back into my eyes and intoned, Then I ask you. Did the Cardinal System in the world you knew ever once do direct harm to a player?Erno, it didnt. It was the players ultimate enemy, yesbut it didnt unfairly attack any players directly. Sorry, point taken, I said. She snorted.”But that is what she did. She meted out a punishment crueler than death to those who doubted her Taboo Index or expressed rebellion toward her orderbut I will tell you about that in detail later. On those few occasions I awoke from my sleep as the Cardinal Systems subprocess, I determined that Administrators existence was one enormous error and attempted to destroy it. Three times I attempted to jump from the top floor of the tower, twice I tried to stab myself in the heart with a knife, and twice I used sacred arts to burn myself. If a single action could reduce her life to zero, even the pontifex would not escape oblivion.”The last one was the closest. I unleashed the strongest of all sacred arts attacks, and the torrent of lightning blasted Administrators vast life amount down to just a single digit. Then the main process regained control of the bodyand at that point, anything less than death was effectively nothing. Within moments, she had restored all health with the right commands. And that incident was enough for Administrator to feel threatened by her unconscious subprocess at last. When she realized that my moments of control came during instances of fluctlight conflictmeaning, mental instabilityshe used a preposterous means to lock me up for good.”She used the admin commands for directly manipulating lightcube fluctlights to eliminate her own emotional circuits.”It didnt eliminate all her emotions, but the experiment did manage to remove fear, shock, and angerfeelings that might cause momentary impulses. Since then, Administrator has never been shaken by any situation, no matter what. She is like a godno, like a machine. A being that maintains the world, keeps it stable, keeps it stagnantI was banished to a distant corner of her soul, never to reappear on the surface. Until the moment she turned one hundred and fifty, when her fluctlight hit its maximum storage and she took over the soul of that poor girl.I determined that immediate escape was necessary and darted for the door like a rabbit. With each scrape from Administrators sword to my back, I felt my life depletingWowthats scaryYou may find yourself in the same situation, after two years and two months of drooling over every woman youve met.II wasnt drooling! I protested, rubbing my mouth at this unexpected assault on my character. “Even though the AIs were growing with the same level of intellect as humans, a problem was discovered. Namely, in the 300+ years of simulation there had not been a single war, not even a single killing, due to the Artificial Fluctlights being overly obedient and not being capable of breaking any laws or rules set upon them. The first attempted experiment to test the obedience of the residents of Underworld was called the Overload Experiment. This involved causing the crops and livestock in the farms of an isolated village to die off to such an extent that the villagers would not have enough food to last through the winter, unless they abandoned a certain group of villagers so that at least the others could survive, therefore disobeying the Taboo Index by killing someone. However, the experiment turned out be a complete failure, as the villagers distributed their meager harvest among all villagers and none of them survived the winter due to starvation. This experiment proved that the residents of Underworld are not capable of breaking the law even for their own survival. Due to the results of the previous experiment, it was necessary to find out why the residents of Underworld were not capable of disobeying the law. The Final Tolerance Experiment “Final Load Test” is the final phase of the project, during which, the residents of the Human Empire were intended to face off against the creatures of the Dark Territory. A gradually increasing load parameter gradually increases the amount of endemic diseases, rampancy of dangerous beasts, poor harvest of crops, eventually causing an invasion of the Human Empire by the Dark Territory. This parameter cannot be changed even by a being with maximum System Control Authority, thus the Dark Territory’s invasion on the Human Empire is inevitable. This phase is meant to test what kind of resistance the residents of the Human Empire would exhibit as their world slowly crumbles.However, Quinella actually inherited two instructions from the Cardinal System. While the main process was in charge of regulating the world, a separate sub-process was in charge of performing error corrections on the main process. The main process was in control of Quinella’s body for most of the time, however, whenever Quinella’s consciousness slackened, the sub-process was able to float up to the surface of the thought process. The sub-process deemed the main process, Quinella, to be conducting a great error, as the Cardinal System was not supposed to directly affect humans. Therefore, she tried to cause Quinella’s death multiple times, but failed due to Quinella reassuming control of her body.Having realized that the sub-process has become a threat to her, Quinella sought for a way to keep it locked in within herself. Noticing that the sub-process could only tak toe control of her body during times of emotional distress, Quinella decided to freeze her emotions to stay in control of her body at all times. By now, she had been abducting Underworld residents who questioned the Taboo Index and the Axiom Church and using these captives as test subjects for experimenting with Fluctlight altering commands called the Synthesis Ritual. Through these inhumane experiments, she was able to test which part of the Fluctlight should be altered to change a person’s memory, thought patterns, emotions etc. Having tested this ritual long enough, Quinella applied the ritual on herself and was successful in freezing most of the emotions that were the cause of her unrest: fear, anger, etc.Approaching 150 years of age, Quinella noticed an anomaly within herself. Various incidents, from briefly losing her consciousness even outside of sleep to not being able to recall recent memories and even having trouble recalling the Sacred Art commands that she should have memorized perfectly, had been happening recurrently to her. Upon examining her own Fluctlight, Quinella was shocked to find out that the memory capacity of her Fluctlight had reached its limit without her knowledge. So, she devised a devious scheme for overcoming the memory limit on her Fluctlight by hijacking the Fluctlight of another person who had plenty of memory capacity to spare and using the said victim’s Fluctlight to store a backup of her compressed memories, before manipulating her own memories to free up more space on her own Fluctlight.At the time, a 10-year old nun had been studying Sacred Arts on the lower levels of the Central Cathedral due to her above average System Control Authority. Quinella selected this nun to be the vessel for her backup memories, so she invited the nun to the top floor of the Cathedral. There, Quinella successfully overwrote the nun’s Fluctlight with Quinella’s own thought processes and memories. However, an unforeseen issue arose. After the Synthesis Ritual, which was used to copy Quinella’s soul onto the nun’s Fluctlight, was completed and the two females awoke at the same time, they came to the realization that they were identical beings, which caused both of their Fluctlights to start breaking down due to the shock caused by the realization.However, the nun’s Fluctlight was the first to break down, allowing Cardinal, the sub-process which was transferred to the nun’s body in the process of the ritual, to take control of the nun’s body. At that point, they recognized each other as the Administrator within Quinella’s original body and the Cardinal’s sub-process within the girl’s body and this allowed their Fluctlights to stop breaking down.At that moment, Cardinal seized the initiative and used high-level Sacred Arts against Quinella. The first attack landed magnificently at its target and a magnificent death match of immense lightning and whirlwinds, infernos and ice daggers unfolded. As both Quinella’s and Cardinal’s paces were exactly the same, Cardinal was winning the battle due to being the one who attacked first. As the battle was coming to its end, Quinella realized a decisive difference between her and Cardinal. She immediately chanted a command to turn one of the high-priority objects within the room into a weapon and then a command that prevented use of system commands within the room. Although Cardinal managed to generate a staff with the same priority as Quinella’s sword, Cardinal was put at a disadvantage due to controlling a body that differed in size from the body she used to be contained in before. After two or three blows, Cardinal had to fall back. Quinella gave chase, however, Cardinal chanted the art that allowed her to retreat into the Great Library Room and lock the doors afterwards. As unlocking the door from the outside required a tedious ritual, Quinella was distracted long enough for Cardinal to finish chanting a command that destroyed the door just as it was unlocked.Afterwards, Quinella had to resort to deleting her most recent peripheral memories to ensure she had at least a minimum of free memory capacity and began spending most of the day lying in bed with her eyes shut to minimize the amount of new memories recorded. From then on, having delegated most of her duties to her subordinates, Quinella would only rise from her bed at scheduled times to check on the management of the world.^That is the reason when the anime started and in the opening we see her in her bed. Because she is a computer program she doesn’t get bored.

3. Kabble

   January 7, 2019, 1:51 am

   As someone best put it:’The librarian is a mental copy of the queen with equal powers. The dark realm is going to attack the human queendom and the librarian doesnt think the queen is prepared enough. she asks Kirito to help her take down the queen, giving her full control. after taking control she plans to destroy the entire world to prevent suffering. Kirito agrees with the caveat that hes gonna save the world some how.’But make it a 20 minute episode.

4. Enan84

   January 7, 2019, 11:36 am

   https://images.randomc.net/Sword%20Art%20Online/Sword%20Art%20Online%20Alicization%20-%2013%20-%20Large%2015.jpgSoo cute!Ok, Cardinal is cute, too:https://images.randomc.net/Sword%20Art%20Online/Sword%20Art%20Online%20Alicization%20-%2013%20-%20Large%2022.jpg

5. RenaSayers

   January 7, 2019, 5:43 pm

   I’m sorry, I felt as though this scene came out of left field. This scene just didn’t flow right with me.https://images.randomc.net/Sword%20Art%20Online/Sword%20Art%20Online%20Alicization%20-%2013%20-%20Large%2022.jpg

6. Aex

   January 8, 2019, 7:00 am

   This is probably pretty obvious, but two daggers feels like foreshadowing that they’re going to run into at least one other person they know that’s been turned into an Integrity Knight. Easy money it’ll be the Upperclassmen from Knight School.

7. Greed

   January 8, 2019, 9:35 pm

   https://images.randomc.net/Sword%20Art%20Online/Sword%20Art%20Online%20Alicization%20-%2013%20-%20Large%2030.jpgStrange, I can’t read some of this chicken scratch despite my fluent English. I must be blind. https://images.randomc.net/Sword%20Art%20Online/Sword%20Art%20Online%20Alicization%20-%2013%20-%20Large%2022.jpgI wonder if at least one girl will be pregnant with Kirito’s child, he is doing a good job attracting a lot of waifus. If that will happen then Asuna will go Yandere mode.

8. Daniel

   April 23, 2019, 3:18 am

   I would like Quinella to live, because she is an important character and although she is a bit crazy, she also has her kawaii side and she is also the smartest girl that has appeared in SAO, not to mention Cardinal, since Cardinal is an AI System of generation of content of the VRMMO. I do not like that he has “died” in that traumatic (burned) way. Although I think it may have merged with Chudelkin and Kirito, I have to save her to resurrect Eugeo and Cardinal.

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