Could we learn blue magic second hand?

To learn the spell missile we fight enkidu, who obviously is not natively using missile, he must be casting it as blue magic.

But we can still learn it from him. So are we learning second hand blue magic? Could we learn blue magic from each other? It is interesting to note that we are not allowed to pvp or even duel with blu, is it because we could learn spells like that?

It’s not unheard of, in ff tactics advance if an enemy blue mage used a spell on your blue mage, they could actually learn the spell.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

who obviously is not natively using missile, he must be casting it as blue magic.

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Wanna explain how you figure that?

Because he’s not a robot, nor does he have a missile launcher?

You're overthinking it. Either the missile is just a normal physical weapon, in which case we shouldn't be able to learn it in the first place, or it's actually magic in the shape of a missile, in which case theoretically anything could use such an attack spell.

I'm more confused about how learning skills from machines is supposed to work when they neither have souls to glean knowledge from nor do they have aetherial patterns involved in their attacks that could be imitated due to utilizing technology over aether manipulation.

In the OP's favor... Enkidu and Gilgamesh both use a LOT of Blue Magic spells from FFV in that fight, not limited to but including:

White Wind
Missile (in 5, learned from rocket launchers on the Ronken sky fortress)
Eerie Sound Wave (Though this may not have actually been a BLU spell....)
Aero II

While Gilgamesh uses
Lilliputian Lyric
Rocket Punch
Pond Chorus (In Big Bridge anyway...)

Gilgamesh and Enkidu always had a healthy supply of Blue Magic. Gilgamesh is essentially a DRG/BLU. Though one might argue Jump is more of what of his BLU skills than a native one...

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

So are we learning second hand blue magic? Could we learn blue magic from each other? It is interesting to note that we are not allowed to pvp or even duel with blu, is it because we could learn spells like that?

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Spoilers for Masked Carnivale and the BLU storyline inside this box.

So: the final boss of the Masked Carnivale, Azulmagia, is actually the roegadyn Whastrach wearing a costume and using a magitek hovering device. He uses Ram's Voice and Dragon's Voice, and if you don't have them before you do the fight, you can learn those abilities from him. I did! So the answer is, yes, you can learn secondhand blue magic. I wouldn't expect them to ever make it function in PVP, to prevent you from farming abilities without actually running the required content, but storywise, yes, absolutely.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I'm more confused about how learning skills from machines is supposed to work when they neither have souls to glean knowledge from nor do they have aetherial patterns involved in their attacks that could be imitated due to utilizing technology over aether manipulation.

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According to the Blue Spellbook, High Voltage is aetherial in nature in the first place, because I guess the Allagans thought a wizard ball was more impressive than just a ball with some tasers glued on, but both Drill Cannons and Missile say outright they're magical imitations of technology. I guess you're just inspired by the weapons? Who knows.

Here's the relevant spell descriptions:

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Originally Posted by High Voltage

An industrial form of machina-based aetherial manipulation developed and adapted by the Allagan Empire. Through the compression of ambient lightning-aspected aether, the caster (or casting machina) floods the vicinity with highly charged arcs of electricity.

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Originally Posted by Drill Cannons

This technique mimics the Drill Cannons of machina by winding aetherial currents until they resemble rapidly spinning projectiles. Like the physical drills upon which they are patterned, these projectiles excel at penetrating stone.

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Originally Posted by Missile

A magical imitation of warmachina technology, this technique allows the user to fire a barrage of aetherial missiles. When efficacious─which, bear in mind, is not guaranteed─it sends a shock through the foe that appears to resonate more the greater their vitality.

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I think I'm content to embrace the "It just works" mentality for certain BLU skills.

I mean, theoretically, it should work to learn Blue Magic second hand right?

Given that you look to replicate the aether patterns of the monsters using the abilities in order to perform Blue Magic, it would only make sense that if you fight against someone who successfully uses the ability then you're still should be able to analyse its aetherial pattern.

Concerning the Allagans did make a ball that could make clones of a summoner that then could do summoner things I think what any and all ADS types is just child's play.

The description for Bomb Toss ALSO explains that the Blue Mage is copying a mechanical invention using Aether, so imitating technology via magic is apparently something BLUs can do with enough practice. As for the second-hand Blue Magic learning...I don't see why not, I mean, mechanically from PvP: no, to prevent abuse; but lore-wise? Sure, there's precedent.

I think you could lore wise learn these things from other places. Even the primal abilities, as I understand it correct me if I'm wrong, basically has you learning regular abilities they have and not their big super signature abilities like diamond dust. So in terms of RP I think could claim to have learned such spells from other sources without having to say you fought the primals.

If there's one thing the Archanist and Summoner quests make very clear, the mentality behind math and technology works very well with aether. All Archanist, Summoner (and probably most Scholar) spells are people manipulating aether via mathematical and geometric formulas. Sometimes really, really, really complicated math and geometry to the point the Allagans used a supercomputer to do it. Throw that idea in with the fact that all matter is made of aether and that BLU copies enemies abilities and well... it's probably more accurate to say the BLU is copying and recreating the way aether is manipulated that is behind an attack. That would have very little to do with how the ather is being manipulated and everything to do with what the manipulated looks like.

You see similar overlaps with Garlean Radios and general lighting-aspected aether. Cid at one points jams the Garlean's short-range communications by magnifying the effect of the aether crystals in Mor Dhona which are lighting-aspected. It has the same effect of someone flooding radio signals with static.

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Originally Posted by sciencebot

Spoilers for Masked Carnivale and the BLU storyline inside this box.

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Given that the takeaway from the spoilered text in this post is, YES, a BLU can learn spells from other BLUs, the question might arise as to why Martyn doesn't just set the WoL down and cast Blue Magic until he's passed on everything he knows?

Well, Martyn seems to feel that the "journey" is a vital and important part of becoming a Blue Mage. Whether it actually IS so important is unclear. That might just be Martyn's opinion. Certainly players who've tracked down Primal spells might argue that it'd be great if they could just watch other players cast instead. XD

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Given that the takeaway from the spoilered text in this post is, YES, a BLU can learn spells from other BLUs, the question might arise as to why Martyn doesn't just set the WoL down and cast Blue Magic until he's passed on everything he knows?

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What, and you mean actually doing something!? (Other than getting paid for what the WoL does for "Training")

Where's the Gil in that?

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Well, Martyn seems to feel that the "journey" is a vital and important part of becoming a Blue Mage. Whether it actually IS so important is unclear. That might just be Martyn's opinion. Certainly players who've tracked down Primal spells might argue that it'd be great if they could just watch other players cast instead. XD

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Well... I dare say it was the Whalaqee that tought Martyn that the journey was important, probably part of their culture surrounding Blue Magic (That, or the fact that Martyn wasn't very good at learning Blue Magic in the first place, according to Whastrach, so I don't think he's too keen on trying to actually teach anyone). I'm sure that Whastrach would probably disagree on that notion too and if it was profitable likely would teach you a bunch of Blue Magic.

Isn't the whole killling part an important start of the process? Except when learning via totems I guess which begs the question why not focus on making more of those I guess instead of sending people off to fight monsters.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

Isn't the whole killling part an important start of the process? Except when learning via totems I guess which begs the question why not focus on making more of those I guess instead of sending people off to fight monsters.

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Give sciencebot's spoilered text, apparently the enemy does NOT need to be killed, as certain spells can be learned just by defeating a certain spoilery opponent, no killing involved.

That said, we might be making way too big a deal over that special csae, and can chalk it up to gameplay-and-story segregation.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Given that the takeaway from the spoilered text in this post is, YES, a BLU can learn spells from other BLUs, the question might arise as to why Martyn doesn't just set the WoL down and cast Blue Magic until he's passed on everything he knows?

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Clearly he just doesn't want to be beaten up repeatedly as a necessary part of the learning process....

"'But how!?' I hear you cry. It's simple! You have to attune your mind to the instincts of the beast! When a creature is driven to attack, you can see into its soul. When you overcome it in battle, you absorb some of its aether and make its power your own!" - Martyn going over the mechanics of how Blue Mages learn their abilities.

Appears that you do need to kill the enemy in question to absorb its aether, similar to SMNs and primals, I suppose. I'd chalk up learning stuff from Azulmagia a result of gameplay personally.

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

"'But how!?' I hear you cry. It's simple! You have to attune your mind to the instincts of the beast! When a creature is driven to attack, you can see into its soul. When you overcome it in battle, you absorb some of its aether and make its power your own!" - Martyn going over the mechanics of how Blue Mages learn their abilities.

Appears that you do need to kill the enemy in question to absorb its aether, similar to SMNs and primals, I suppose. I'd chalk up learning stuff from Azulmagia a result of gameplay personally.

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Hildibrand stuff isn't always the most easy to place in terms of canonicity, but Ultros and Typhon also have BLU spells you can learn, and they definitely don't die in that fight. You also can't really "kill" the robots for Drill Cannons and the like-- they're not alive in the first place, you're just breaking them (and presumably there's nothing stopping a talented mechanic from fixing them). I'd say that using the word "overcome" instead of outright saying "kill" makes it kind of ambiguous as to whether or not killing is strictly necessary; it might still qualify as overcoming your opponent if you hit them with a stick until they were unable to fight any further, for example. Could be way off, though!

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Originally Posted by sciencebot

Hildibrand stuff isn't always the most easy to place in terms of canonicity, but Ultros and Typhon also have BLU spells you can learn, and they definitely don't die in that fight. You also can't really "kill" the robots for Drill Cannons and the like-- they're not alive in the first place, you're just breaking them (and presumably there's nothing stopping a talented mechanic from fixing them). I'd say that using the word "overcome" instead of outright saying "kill" makes it kind of ambiguous as to whether or not killing is strictly necessary; it might still qualify as overcoming your opponent if you hit them with a stick until they were unable to fight any further, for example. Could be way off, though!

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Technically, you could say that "Overcome" just means "Survive".

Like, you "Overcome" hardships, it doesn't mean you killed/destroyed those hardships, it merely means you weren't defeated by them.

Such as the fact that you personally don't even have to beat the enemy, if you're in a party and your party kills it and you get credit, so long as you saw the attack (Though, I still need to clarify exactly how that works... Like, could you for example, show up to one of the Hunt marks that you can learn a skill from after they used said skill, tag it to get kill participation credit and still learn the skill even if you personally never saw them use the attack?) and were technically in combat with it (Such as healing a party member) you can learn it.

Which would suggest, that really, mechanically speaking, you should only need to watch the enemy use the attack to learn it, rather than have to beat them. Especially given the number of targets you don't kill but still learn skills from.

I don't tihnk you need to kill the beast either... in the starting quest you don't kill that kraken to learn water cannon, do you? I might be remembering that wrong.

It came off to me like you just whacked on it til it had enough of you hitting it with a stick.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

It came off to me like you just whacked on it til it had enough of you hitting it with a stick.

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Either that, or it suddenly remembered it left the stove on!

Lol it's underwater easy bake oven was on fire? Or as the funniest oops I know is some one one time said they forgot their sister was in the dryer.