Guardian Forces & Junctioning
Guardian Forces: Guardian Forces differ substantialy from monsters in a variety of ways. The most important differance is that Guardian Forces are more spirit than physical, though they are capable of taking physical form, they can't do so constantly, and they tend to be more comfortable in an insubstantial form.
Also, unlike most monsters, all Guardian Forces are sentient. Some are so strange that they can't communicate with humans, and others are too arrogant, but they are all intellegent and capable of all the sorts of thoughts that humans are capable of. As spirits, they seem to be bound by some sort of code of honor that requires them to submit to a stronger force. Anyone capable of subduing a Guardian Force can then count on it to serve them.
Each Guardian force has some kind of special attack, which they can manifest through Humans that they're junctioned too. They can also grant other abilities once junctioned, but the primary reason to link yourself to a Guardian Force is still their power to link magic to a person's attributes, thus greatly increasing their raw power.
No one is entirely sure where Guardian Forces come from, but they seem to be generated by magical energies in the world, as Ice GFs can be found in the frozen arctic, Fire GFs near volcanos, etc. Strong emotions and magic, or near-pure elements and magic appear to be the most common way in which GFs form, but this is still poorly understood.
Junctioning: Junctioning is a mystic process that happens most often with Guardian forces but is in fact something that is possible to do to any living thing with a spark of magic in it. In the case of a Guardian Force, a human mysticaly joins with the GF, gaining some powers and the ability to summon it in battle. The GF itself performs the junctioning process, so no mystic knowlege is required on the part of the human. It should be noted however that someone with no mystic training whatsoever will find it difficult or impossible to get the full benifit out of junctioning a GF.
The GR inhabits the human's body and mind, in the process of which it interposes itself between the person's mind and some of his or her memories. These memories are sealed away when the GF makes a home in the person's mind, and will not return even after the GF leaves, unless some outside event reminds the person of those memories. The more GFs junctioned, and the stronger the spirits in question, the more memories will be lost, until a person could theoreticaly be left with nothing but short term memory. This hasn't happened to any SeeDs yet, not even Squall who is notorious for junctioning huge numbers of GFs when he goes into battle.
Because of this memory problem, all SeeD members are required to keep a detailed diary of their life and important events. This is not optional, and the diaries are checked for content constantly until SeeDs graduate, by which time the habit of keeping a diary has been ingrained enough that they are unlikely to forget to do it. Diaries can be kept electronicaly or on paper, and many students keep a custom diary that reflects their personality, either from it's online design or the decorations applied to a physical diary.
Junctioning something or someone other than a Guardian Force is not something to be attemped by your average SeeD member. There are only a few recorded instances of this happening, most notably when the Sorceress Adel junctioned the Sorceress Rinoa to her, and when Sorceress Ultimecia junctioned herself to the Guardian Force Griever. In both of these cases, the person initiating the non-standard junction was an extremely powerful and experianced Sorceress. Also, in both cases, junctioning a physical being instead of a spirit resulted in a chimerical creature that was a combination of the physical forms of both entities. There is some conjecture that this is how some chimerical monsters are produced, by magicaly adept monsters junctioning themselves to each other, but so far there is no way to prove or disprove this idea.
Game Effects of GF Junctioning: Junctioning a GF to oneself provides quite a few benifits for the human accepting the junction. The game rule effects of that joining are defined below. The chance that anyone will ever be involved in a non-standared junction is very low, and thus no rules for it are given here.
Personal Abilities that GF users can acess: Magic, Drawing, Awareness, Limit Breaks, any technique or power that has a Mana cost. Though these powers are innate to the user in many cases, the GF allows a SeeD access to her Mana so that she can use these abilities, which would otherwise be beyond the reach of non-sorceresses.
GF Abilities that become avaliable: Attrubute Junctions, Summoning the GF, Attribute bonuses, Special GF abilities. Not ever GF has abilities that it can manifest through a junctioned human beyond the standard summoning, attribute junctions, and attribute bonuses, but most of them do. Each GF will have different abilities, and those will be listed on the page with the GF character sheets.
Summoning a GF: Summoning a GF is a two part process. Performing the summoning has it's own shot cost, and is an action that the character does. The actual summoning power is a GF action, with a separate shot cost. The character cannot act again in combat until both shot costs have ended. During the summoning, i.e. from the time the summoning action is started, until the GF actualy casts it's summon power, any and all damage the character recives is instead applied to the GF. The Character is essentialy manifesting the GF during this time, and until the power has been used and the GF retreats, it is the spirit that is damaged, not the character.
SeeDs are warned that their Guardian Forces are not stupid, and they will know if they were truely called upon to aid in battle, or if they were just being used as a quick damage absorber. The latter does not make them happy, and usualy results in a loss of respect for the user, or even rebellion. A GF that rebells must be subdued again, assuming it doesn't just run off and escape it's once-master.
All images, thoughts, stories, backgrounds, etc copyright Tim Diaz 2001 unless otherwise noted.