Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)

[Elder Haman]

While we're on the subject of anchored spells, I'm presuming @inverted_helix that we need to keep a reserve of them around to get that -1/-2% hunting benefit? Say... a minimum of 20 of each spell (pocket barrier, pocket teleport, pocket heal) per hunter? And I'm guessing that a random number will be used over the course of a month (maybe 22-2d6 per meguca per anchor type to start, then going down to 2d10 after two months as we start getting used to using them) if we're going with a hunting plan that requires them (say something using IRT)? That would make the needed anchor reserve under @Kinematics's current plan to be something like:

16 meguca * 60 anchors/meguca * 0.1 GCU/50 anchors (or 0.2 GCU if tandem spells) = 1.8 GCU worth (3.6 for tandem casting)

Sound fair? If it is, then we should probably note that we'll need one of the big dewars to store that many anchors (960!), which also gives us a initial capital outlay of $350 for a large 10L cryogenic dewar to hold all those anchors.

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Hmm... at that cost it becomes iffy using them to get IRT. I guess the normal barrier charms are enough to get pack hunting, but to try and get to pair hunting IRT is likely impossible... maybe IRT will be a sometime thing we can do if we get too many megucas.

Also, we don't need to equip all the hunters, only the ones that needs a reduction in the casualty risk...

You're also forgetting the obvious in terms of hunting, being eaten. I mean in canon that's the first way we see one die.

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Type 1: Anti-PvP device.

A simple metal (steel or similar) case that you keep a Soul Gem inside. Unremarkable in itself; the key here is to have a dozen or more hidden around your person to act as decoys. Expected cost: $50 per meguca, to account for multiple cases.

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It seems to me more beneficial to get fake gems instead, rather than fake steal disks.

On the other side, they do use such things in "To The Stars".

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But they explicitly said they had to use a bunch of high powered research and magical compatible nanomachines to do so, and so it didn't become common usage until after magical girls went public and the massive interstellar war began. It says explicitly that the gems did not like being covered.

I assumed it was because she can just protect it by projecting a barrier from her shield.

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You know... that's an interesting fact. Homura is clearly a barrier girl (even uses barrier magic in her first scene of the series). However, she has also clearly never really developed it, because her time stop was always a more powerful tool.

Their knowledge is extremely localized to where they were and passed through, mostly just a bit of the southwest parts of the Tokyo area.

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Excellent! That is exactly the area of the city I am most interested in. (since it's the part closest to us). General strengths/powers of the demons, hunting patterns, any information on girls int he area, how to contact them, etc.

perhaps because she trusted in her time-stop a bit too much.

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This is the best IC explanation for a lot of what Homura did.

Well my bigger concern is how I'd have to not only track the unique magic type and its interactions, but having to track what you're doing with a cripple to make sure they aren't allowed anything they shouldn't be able to do.

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Yeah, @FixerUpper All of those seem like very interesting girls for omakes, but as a huge pain to incorporate into the game. Non-canon omakes are probably the only solution.

Serena generates an aura of pure Hope in a radius of approximately one kilometer. Inside this area humans feel as if they can achieve anything, as if anything is possible, and everything will turn out for the best. It is by all appearances impossible to generate negative emotions inside her radius. Her very presence strongly degrades the strength of demons in her area, and magic use is significantly cheaper.

Unfortunately her aura is incredibly addictive. In a matter of days of exposure the effects are pronounced enough that Contracted leaving her radius will cease to exist in a matter of minutes. Humans are somewhat less affected but many will commit suicide or indulge in narcotics in an effort to reclaim some fraction of their previous experience.

She currently roams Baja California with a group of Contracted irreversibly affected by her aura, attempting to keep moving in an effort to prevent negative effects on anyone else.

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That's... horrific.

This African girl holds extensive power over light. She uses this power to create devastating directed energy attacks. While she prefers to fight in the day when she is stronger, modern humanity's proliferation of artificial lighting ensures she is far from helpless even on a moonless night.

She was born into a land baked dry by the sun and seems to genuinely want to help people. She is considered the most stable and tractable Grade 4 contracted Largely follows Incubator directives on where to go to help people most effectively, she holds no standing territory and her needs are directly supplied by Incubators.

She is completely overwhelmed with putting out high class demon fires cropping up around the world. She is presently stationed in Beijing as it is deemed of critical importance to global stability to maintain that area's stability. This is not helped by the groups in that area continuing to fight each other and produce more high class demons.

It is unfortunate that she is unwilling to harm other Contracted unless they directly threaten her.

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Interesting, and Beijing is close by enough that we could probably get her for a quick action - if we have a plan in place for overhunting control afterwards.

Which with our RT and crop rotation plans we could easily do. Basically we'd have to contact Nagoya and any other major magical girl organizations in Japan and then divide up Tokyo into territories that we would be responsible for "controlling". Sort of similar to the allies dividing up Berlin after WWII. We'd then have to impose a hunting regime on our resulting slice of Tokyo to ensure no more over hunting.

If we can get the Coalition and Areas 15 and 16 to throw in with us, we might be able to handle a large number of locations. We'd probably have to rotate a large number of girls in the Tokyo area out to Mitakihara for training and to keep opposition divided. It's be a pain, but workable.

 

[Aranfan]

@Kinematics

You could add in a "Contact Legendaries" action.

 

[boonerunner]

2) Make a simple Open Relations action with Kofu, rather than trying to scout it. (Haman suggested this change in one of his posts.) Put 2 vets on it, though, because of the distance traveled and risks involved. There's a major highway corridor between us and them, and we have no idea who or what might cross that area. One of the vets is a teleporter.

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Keep in mind the following:

Area 15 and 16 seem to have less been worried about you specifically and more have dealt with constant battles on their Tokyo facing side, both against demons and magical girls.

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There's a high likelihood that girls Kofu will be more hostile than any of the groups we've met so far.

 

[racnor]

Added some things to my plan.

1) Apologize to the coalition for the poor offering in the Business is Business. As noted, the $1200 pay offer is really kinda chintzy, particularly for a group that can likely find reasonable jobs on their own.

2) Make a simple Open Relations action with Kofu, rather than trying to scout it. (Haman suggested this change in one of his posts.) Put 2 vets on it, though, because of the distance traveled and risks involved. There's a major highway corridor between us and them, and we have no idea who or what might cross that area. One of the vets is a teleporter.

3) Added a note to Kyuubey about the max sustainable contract rate. Given the 98% Tokyo contract rate, and the fact that Kesi keeps having to go back to Beijing, they don't seem to understand that they don't need that many contracted in order to use up the cube potential of an area.

4) Ask to be allowed to send an observer on Nagoya's next Tokyo expedition. Since we don't know when that will be, not assigning anyone to this yet.

5) Added Speed research project (4 vets) to use up the remaining meguca. If you want to propose another use for them, start making suggestions.


6) Idea for the charms:

Design a standard charm structure for fixed orientation. I'm imagining a round disc with notches for the fingers to rest in, such that it must always fit in your hand a single way. Hollow it out with a square insert, where the charm anchor goes; being square, that can't move or re-orient. Provide a rip-tie that can crack the sealant to unlock the anchored spell.

Thus, always hold it gripped in the right hand, palm facing the ground, and a rip-tie out the left edge that can be pulled to activate it. All the charms are designed to slot into this standard grip mechanism, so it works the same for everyone, and all charms.

Would we need to assign someone to that to do the design and contruction? Would need to make a few hundred, to have multiples available for everyone.


7) We've hit the limit on thermal insulation, I think. Need to start thinking of other ways to contain magic. A most common method in mythology is crystals. We can look into a variety of gemstones to act as containment matrices for spells. In fact, a spell anchored in a gem may possibly be more stable.

We don't have any revealed research projects for that. All we have is one for secondary properties of what gets boosted when combining materials and magic. Might work with the above?

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4) why not just offer to send Kyouclone in a combat capacity? That would probably garner us at least a bit of goodwill and might even make some kind of difference on the expedition(though we should probably confirm with kyouko about that idea first)

 

[Elder Haman]

I really like this one. I'm not sure it fits too well, but it's really good.

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How do you feel she doesn't fit?

I find this assessment interesting, because Mary Hopkins as I conceived her really does feel out of place in the world. She's one of those old fashioned New England girls, like really old fashioned. She was one of those rock ribbed religiously liberal Republicans from Massachusetts, that culturally ran the United States from the end of the Civil War till the end of WWII, and then completely cracked up in the 60s and 70s. Heck, she is literally a Civil War maiden aunt (so many men died in the Civil War that the maiden aunt became a common cultural occurrence), and has all the cultural tropes associated with Civil War old maiden aunts. (Read any of the literature of the time to see how they are depicted).

Bah, it's only 20 times our current population.

So it looks like our three viable plans are:

1. Help Nagoya slowly chip away at the problem by supplying tandem-cast spell anchors
   
2. Try and convince Homura to mope around in Tokyo instead of South Africa
3. Stabalise Tokyo politically, followed by getting Kesi's assistance

Hortence isn't recruitable and Serena would be as dangerous to Tokyo as the current demon problem.

The first plan still seems like the most practical, Nagoya is having some effect, which should be enough to convince the Incubators not to wipe out the city, and letting them throw themselves at the meat-grinder will prevent them from trying to attack us. Of course, we can combine these, have the main group support Nagoya's efforts with equipment, send someone (Kyouclone?) to South Africa to look for Homura and try to get into contact with the various groups inside of Tokyo. I think someone suggested using Ayase as a messenger that wouldn't run into territory issues, we should look into that.

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Plan 3 seems much more viable. Plan 1 is unlikely to actually effect anything.

If we do manage to clean up Tokyo, remember to inform Kyuubey that the total contracted in the Tokyo area should not be allowed to go above 1500. In general, nominal max sustainable population is 7/8 of the territory's urban capacity. Rural is probably about 3/4. Contracting above that level is greed that will only lead to a significant net loss of energy, both locally, and in hindering efforts to fix the fires in other cities.

And it's not like they won't get those extra cubes anyway, as the local girls will still be trying to harvest the baseline cube amount for other purposes.

... Actually, we should tell him this right now. Even if they get help from the legendaries to clear out high population areas, if the Incubators keep contracting in the same way, the same problem keeps cropping up (as seen by the fact that Kesi keeps having to go back to Beijing).

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The incubators are an alien race who have detection and logistical capabilities far superior to our own, so do you think they don't already know this? You are (perhaps) not taking into account the energy that incubators get from wishes. When they recruit a higher population of girls than the territory can support, then the girls will die at a higher rate, either from hunting or from spiraling or from killing one another, thus leading to a higher rate of new contractees (and note that each new contractee starts with a shiny new gem which reduces the cube cost slightly). Presumably, there's a balance somewhere between the rate of new contracts and the generation of Class 3 demons (who kill off excess girls when present at low numbers, but impact hunting at high numbers); the incubators simply haven't quite figured out quite what that balance is yet.

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Also remember that their history of magical girls was very different as of 3 years ago compared to today. Things changed for no explainable reason. It could very well be that 100% contracting rates worked "fine" pre-Madoka, and thus they follow a few thousand years of data instead of a few years of anomalies.

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These three points are all right on. However, @Kinematics you seem to have avoided the practical conclusion that the Incubators will refuse to change their practice based on a three year anomaly. We will have to offer our RT with crop rotation as the preferred solution to allow the traditional population levels.

As of turn 25, there were 45 elites and 1200 total contracted.

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Assuming we manage to get 4 additional major organizations involved in controlling Tokyo, that means roughly 240 girls per an organization, We'll have a hard time controlling that many girls, but if we could get the Coalition, Area 15/16, and maybe Kofu to throw in with us, we'd probably have enough girl power to control that many Tokyo girls.

Probably do a massive IRT overhunt in our base territory to give our Tokyo territory a month to go back to normal while keeping the 400+ girls sufficient cubes. Then switch to RT hunting rotating territories...

 

[Aranfan]

Alternatively, if we do manage to contact and recruit Homura (Although Helix has implied this is much harder than we will expect), we can have her on Tokyo sitting duty.

 

[Elder Haman]

1) Apologize to the coalition for the poor offering in the Business is Business. As noted, the $1200 pay offer is really kinda chintzy, particularly for a group that can likely find reasonable jobs on their own.

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I disagree with this. First of all, $1200 is not chintzy. Not for legal jobs. Standard pay is $1000 a month, and really good is $1500, we are completely in the pay scale range. I think a better approach would be to start offering grief cube incentives instead of money.

Maybe just figure out a trade ratio for cubes and money.

2) Make a simple Open Relations action with Kofu, rather than trying to scout it. (Haman suggested this change in one of his posts.) Put 2 vets on it, though, because of the distance traveled and risks involved. There's a major highway corridor between us and them, and we have no idea who or what might cross that area. One of the vets is a teleporter.

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We can just take the train you know.

Design a standard charm structure for fixed orientation. I'm imagining a round disc with notches for the fingers to rest in, such that it must always fit in your hand a single way. Hollow it out with a square insert, where the charm anchor goes; being square, that can't move or re-orient. Provide a rip-tie that can crack the sealant to unlock the anchored spell.

Thus, always hold it gripped in the right hand, palm facing the ground, and a rip-tie out the left edge that can be pulled to activate it. All the charms are designed to slot into this standard grip mechanism, so it works the same for everyone, and all charms.

Would we need to assign someone to that to do the design and contruction? Would need to make a few hundred, to have multiples available for everyone.

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Um... why would they need to crack the sealant? Only mundanes would need that. Magical Girls just crack the magic containment field.

7) We've hit the limit on thermal insulation, I think. Need to start thinking of other ways to contain magic. A most common method in mythology is crystals. We can look into a variety of gemstones to act as containment matrices for spells. In fact, a spell anchored in a gem may possibly be more stable.

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I don't think so... unless you are counting the lab dewer as the limit? Because i think we can certainly get up to 24 hours, and should totally push for that.

@Kinematics

You could add in a "Contact Legendaries" action.

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Not ready for it. We need a plan to control the city afterwards.

There's a high likelihood that girls Kofu will be more hostile than any of the groups we've met so far.

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??? Kofu is to the north, not the east. I think you are confused about directions and relative locations here.

 

[Aranfan]

Not ready for it. We need a plan to control the city afterwards.

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I thought we only needed that for Kesi?

 

[Skelm]

I thought we only needed that for Kesi?

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Kesi won't show up without a plan, but even if she (or someone else) did, we still need a plan to stop this situation from reoccurring, preferably one that leaves us in a good position.

 

[TheEyes]

@Elder Haman: One problem with your analysis of the Incubators is that they are supposed to be non-emotional, and so the institutional inertia that you are ascribing to them shouldn't happen. If the data changes, then the logical thing to do is to change your conclusions; only an irrational actor would be stubborn and persist in what have become incorrect beliefs.

 

[Kinematics]

We can just take the train you know.

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The teleporter is for emergency escape in the case of a fubar situation. We're going outside our normal range on this one, so I'm being a little more cautious.

Um... why would they need to crack the sealant? Only mundanes would need that. Magical Girls just crack the magic containment field.

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Because.. the insulated versions of the anchored spells are specifically designed to only be released after the insulation is removed? There is no containment field.

I don't think so... unless you are counting the lab dewer as the limit? Because i think we can certainly get up to 24 hours, and should totally push for that.

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My main problem is that thermal insulation shouldn't be the limit on magic insulation. Magic seems to behave like heat, but it isn't heat. There ought to be other avenues to explore.

However, @Kinematics you seem to have avoided the practical conclusion that the Incubators will refuse to change their practice based on a three year anomaly.

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If they refuse, oh well. We haven't lost anything, but we've at least put the notion in their head that they should consider revising their data. If we had full control of Tokyo, we could make it sustainable even at 100% contracting rates with rotating tactics. It would just be a waste of resources compared to what could be accomplished.

I disagree with this. First of all, $1200 is not chintzy.

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They explicitly noted the pay being offered as problematic. And even if all they can get right now is $1000 jobs, $1200 isn't enough of an upgrade to be worth working with someone you don't entirely trust.

 

[racnor]

Because.. the insulated versions of the anchored spells are specifically designed to only be released after the insulation is removed? There is no containment field.

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Anchoring works by containing spells inside an outer layer of enchantment, and it is this outer layer that is in turn sealed in by the insulation. Magical girls can trigger enchantments, insulated or not, by removing this outer magical layer.

 

[Kinematics]

General Tokyo area — Average population size of wards in Tokyo and Yokohama is around 200k-250k (up towards 400k when just counting the special 23 wards in the core area).

I'm thinking that, for organization purposes after Tokyo is cleared, it be sectioned into blocks of 1-4 wards each, with a total population per block of around 400k. That gives a GCU territory size of 20, which is enough for rotating tactics without being problematic with the rounding. Supportable meguca population would be in the 16-18 range per block, which is large enough to defend themselves, but not so large as to be overwhelming in a high-tension environment.

Blocking by ward also makes a natural delineation, so we don't have to define the boundaries for them. It's all nice public information.

With 79 wards just between Tokyo and Yokohama, together covering about half of the greater Tokyo area population, that would be about 160 total wards, and 80 meguca-wards after consolidating to blocks of 400k. There are currently about 40 elites left in Tokyo, which means 1 elite for every two m-wards. Might double up again for 800k population/40 territory per m-block (for 40 m-blocks), and 1 elite per group of about 35 magical girls.

That would be my plan for dividing things up in the aftermath, if we manage to save Tokyo.


Immediate aftermath.

Pretty good bet that all of Tokyo has too high of a DS right now. It will need one or two months of half-strength hunting (-10 DS per month) to bring it back down to a manageable level.

Best guess for the current population is 1200 magical girls. A half strength hunt of the entire Tokyo area would yield 1725/2 = 863 cubes. Approximately 1320 cubes are needed (assuming 2 cube limit on spirals), leaving them short by 457 cubes. That's the buffer any outside groups would need to provide in order to keep things stable.

Best case for us would be getting Kyouko to agree to contribute her stash. With that, and after the next couple months' harvest, we could pledge 150 cubes. Another 300 cubes would be needed from the other groups. While Nagoya might have access to a buffer in that neighborhood (the entire Nagoya area is capacity 400), it's not likely something we could count on.

If Tokyo's DS is lower due to just having fewer magical girls hunting there anymore (with only 1200 meguca, DS should have been dropping substantially for a while now), the above won't be necessary. If it's currently at around +10 DS, a 75% hunt for -5 DS is workable, and provides almost 1300 cubes.

 

[Kinematics]

Anchoring works by containing spells inside an outer layer of enchantment, and it is this outer layer that is in turn sealed in by the insulation. Magical girls can trigger enchantments, insulated or not, by removing this outer magical layer.

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@inverted_helix - Can you confirm? This is different than how I originally understood it, though it also seems reasonable.

 

[Elder Haman]

@Elder Haman: One problem with your analysis of the Incubators is that they are supposed to be non-emotional, and so the institutional inertia that you are ascribing to them shouldn't happen. If the data changes, then the logical thing to do is to change your conclusions; only an irrational actor would be stubborn and persist in what have become incorrect beliefs.

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It is not illogical to wait and see how things develop before changing your methods. Especially when you are working on a eon level timescale.

Sure, in 50 years when the current full recruitment method is continuing to produce bad results due to massive class 3 demon generation, I'm sure that the Incubators will change methods. My point is that it's unreasonable to expect them to abandon a working method because of a blip in the stats.

The teleporter is for emergency escape in the case of a fubar situation. We're going outside our normal range on this one, so I'm being a little more cautious.

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Not sure that requires a whole teleporter, as the usual understanding is that this will be whole team of girls going up there for a day or two. One of those girls would logically be a teleporter.

Because.. the insulated versions of the anchored spells are specifically designed to only be released after the insulation is removed? There is no containment field.

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What? No they aren't. They are explicitly described as having a containment field that destabilizes over time, before releasing the inner spell. That's the whole point. These aren't enchantments, where the desired effect is a long running one, it's an instant. They have to be contained by magic. The containment spells are the long running enchantment that are then prevented from running out quickly as long as we insulate them.

My main problem is that thermal insulation shouldn't be the limit on magic insulation. Magic seems to behave like heat, but it [/i]isn't[/i] heat. There ought to be other avenues to explore.

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Oh I agree. Permanent enchantments ought to clearly possible. I'm just saying that we ought to make sure we extend insulation up to 24 hours so we can easily maintain long term storage of charms.

They explicitly noted the pay being offered as problematic. And even if all they can get right now is $1000 jobs, $1200 isn't enough of an upgrade to be worth working with someone you don't entirely trust.

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No, they hinted. And we don't know enough information to know if an apology is warranted.

 

[Elder Haman]

Best guess for the current population is 1200 magical girls. A half strength hunt of the entire Tokyo area would yield 1725/2 = 863 cubes. Approximately 1320 cubes are needed (assuming 2 cube limit on spirals), leaving them short by 457 cubes. That's the buffer any outside groups would need to provide in order to keep things stable.

Best case for us would be getting Kyouko to agree to contribute her stash. With that, and after the next couple months' harvest, we could pledge 150 cubes. Another 300 cubes would be needed from the other groups. While Nagoya might have access to a buffer in that neighborhood (the entire Nagoya area is capacity 400), it's not likely something we could count on.

If Tokyo's DS is lower due to just having fewer magical girls hunting there anymore (with only 1200 meguca, DS should have been dropping substantially for a while now), the above won't be necessary. If it's currently at around +10 DS, a 75% hunt for -5 DS is workable, and provides almost 1300 cubes

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New tentative idea:

Propose idea to Kyubey of Kesi coming to clean out Tokyo if the other magical girl organizations in Japan agree to impose hunting controls on Tokyo to prevent future over hunting.

Bribe Kyubey to give us the contact information to all large magical girl organizations in Japan.

Contact all said large organizations. Propose plan to control Tokyo after class 3 demons are cleared. Give RT tactics to all large organizations so they can begin building the large grief cube reserve needed to pull off this plan.

Continue diplomacing our immediate neighbors to gain more meguca power and more territory to support what ever portion of Tokyo that we pull.

Continue research so we can handle higher demon strength levels.

Once we get buy off by the large organizations, schedule Kesi to come in and clear Tokyo, then we move in to seize territory and control the Tokyo girls.

 

[Powerofmind]

So, she made a wish involving people forgetting her or something ? Interesting.

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It's meta, but her actual wish was more that she wanted to forget, and never be reminded again, of the family she lost during the Hong Kong crisis. So the wish first wiped her entire life from her mind, and now just prevents anything from assigning value to her, lest they instantly forget her because the power reads that as 'bonding'. Effectively, she's stuck in a perceptive filter that makes her seem unimportant. Even if she initiates contact with you, it's a massive effort of will just to hold a conversation with her.

As mean as it is, she's probably a fast-burning star. Without incredible telepathic defenses, or a means of contacting her that's so long-range that her power can't reach to wipe you, she'll just be alone until she's so starved for contact she spirals and dies.

 

[boonerunner]

??? Kofu is to the north, not the east. I think you are confused about directions and relative locations here.

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Maybe. I was thinking that Tokyo is North-East and Kofu is North, so it's closer to Tokyo than we are. However, as you say, Kofu is not between Tokyo and 15/16, so the girls from 15/16 probably weren't complaining about Kofu.

@Elder Haman: One problem with your analysis of the Incubators is that they are supposed to be non-emotional, and so the institutional inertia that you are ascribing to them shouldn't happen. If the data changes, then the logical thing to do is to change your conclusions; only an irrational actor would be stubborn and persist in what have become incorrect beliefs.

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I'm not actually sure that anything changed 3 years ago. Madoka retroactively changed all of history so that no witches have ever existed, so according to canon, nothing apart from Homura and Tatsuya's memories were changed 3 years ago. I don't how it's possible that history would be so similar when Madoka changed something so fundamental, but hey: magic!

I suspect instead that the hunting situation is an unstable equilibrium. The incubators generally try to over-contract an area until a few Class 3 demons show up to cull the population, then let things drop down a little bit and start over. And for the occasional cases where the Class 3s grow beyond the ability of the locals to put down, the demons can often be dealt with by Legendaries. But the equilibrium is essentially unstable and unpredictable and right now there are more Class 3 outbreaks than they're able to handle.

My main problem is that thermal insulation shouldn't be the limit on magic insulation. Magic seems to behave like heat, but it [/i]isn't[/i] heat. There ought to be other avenues to explore.

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You mean like Spell Binding, for instance?

So it looks like our three viable plans are:

1. Help Nagoya slowly chip away at the problem by supplying tandem-cast spell anchors
   
2. Try and convince Homura to mope around in Tokyo instead of South Africa
3. Stabalise Tokyo politically, followed by getting Kesi's assistance

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Plan 3 seems much more viable. Plan 1 is unlikely to actually effect anything.

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I think the opposite, actually. How easy do you think that it will be for a small (hopelessly optimistic) organization from Mitakihara to politically unite the warring tribes of Tokyo in particular and Japan in general?

Propose idea to Kyubey of Kesi coming to clean out Tokyo if the other magical girl organizations in Japan agree to impose hunting controls on Tokyo to prevent future over hunting.

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We are nowhere near to being able to enforce this.

Contact all said large organizations. Propose plan to control Tokyo after class 3 demons are cleared. Give RT tactics to all large organizations so they can begin building the large grief cube reserve needed to pull off this plan.

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There's no way that they'll go for this without a critical success in diplomacy. For each organization. And maybe not even then.

Continue diplomacing our immediate neighbors to gain more meguca power and more territory to support what ever portion of Tokyo that we pull.

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Last turn's critical success at diplomacy may have given you an unrealistically high expectation of what we can accomplish with it...

 

[Kinematics]

So, people were speculating about the virus in Hong Kong. While working the Tokyo numbers, another explanation occurred to me.

The death rate in Hong Kong is catastrophic at this point. World Health Organization doctors in the area have apparently isolated the cause as an incredibly dangerous virus, more virulent then anything seen before, and airborne to a degree. Though it is not understood why it hasn't spread further already given how much travel Hong Kong saw before the quarantine. It's speculated that there may be some environmental factor which enables the disease. Fatality rate is as far as anyone can tell total. Many believe that it must be engineered, though WHO is unwilling to comment on that. The purpose is unclear if that is the case though. Chinese authorities have instituted a substantial burn zone around the infected region in an effort to further ensure containment.

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The environmental factor being extremely low-DS demons in the city that are hyper-evolving to prey on humans.

We know that as DS goes more and more negative, demons become more adapted to hunting humans rather than magical girls. With a large number of class 3's killing off the magical girl population, the number of magical girls available simply won't be able to fully hunt the area. In Tokyo, there's 1200 magical girls in a 1725 area. Even with a bit of overhunting for grief spirals, that's still -5 DS per month while it's in the positive, and -1 or -2 per month while negative.

The Hong Kong population is 7.2 million, which is a territory size of 360. If the MG population fell to 150 and did only minimal hunting (to avoid the class 3's), that'd be about -3 DS per month. In six months, it can be getting pretty close to -20. If we're at the end of a 12 month slide, it might be approaching -30. At that point, something akin to a 100% fatal virus effect would be completely believable.

If there are no elites in Hong Kong anymore, they have almost no chance to kill off the class 3's, which means the class 3's are free to kill off the MGs of the area and make things even worse.

Given the death spiral events that are likely to occur after a class 3 situation becomes endemic, I find this to be the most likely scenario. The Incubators don't need to explicitly interfere, but it's also not the class 3 demons that are causing the damage. The class 3 demons are just keeping the MG population from fixing the damage.

The Incubators' strategy of mass contracting to help stem the effect of too little demon hunting seems to have become unsustainable for that area.

Also note: 120 vets hunting a 360 territory is barely enough to keep things stable, much less raise DS back up to a neutral level. They need to harvest 3 cubes each just to keep DS neutral, and without a support structure, vets are only looking at a 3 to 3.5 cube harvest each. Greens are barely pushing past 2 cubes each.

We have no way of really affecting the Hong Kong situation, but we definitely need to be examining the DS of the Tokyo area when we go through it.

 

[Kinematics]

You mean like Spell Binding, for instance?

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Spell Binding is similar, yes, but not quite what I'm going for.

 

[Aranfan]

New tentative idea:

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My problem with this is that we ourselves could never possibly enforce it. Maybe if we had Homura, but otherwise it'd need the Incubators to keep things in line, and I doubt they want to become that involved.

 

[racnor]

So, people were speculating about the virus in Hong Kong. While working the Tokyo numbers, another explanation occurred to me.


The environmental factor being extremely low-DS demons in the city that are hyper-evolving to prey on humans.

We know that as DS goes more and more negative, demons become more adapted to hunting humans rather than magical girls. With a large number of class 3's killing off the magical girl population, the number of magical girls available simply won't be able to fully hunt the area. In Tokyo, there's 1200 magical girls in a 1725 area. Even with a bit of overhunting for grief spirals, that's still -5 DS per month while it's in the positive, and -1 or -2 per month while negative.

The Hong Kong population is 7.2 million, which is a territory size of 360. If the MG population fell to 150 and did only minimal hunting (to avoid the class 3's), that'd be about -3 DS per month. In six months, it can be getting pretty close to -20. If we're at the end of a 12 month slide, it might be approaching -30. At that point, something akin to a 100% fatal virus effect would be completely believable.

If there are no elites in Hong Kong anymore, they have almost no chance to kill off the class 3's, which means the class 3's are free to kill off the MGs of the area and make things even worse.

Given the death spiral events that are likely to occur after a class 3 situation becomes endemic, I find this to be the most likely scenario. The Incubators don't need to explicitly interfere, but it's also not the class 3 demons that are causing the damage. The class 3 demons are just keeping the MG population from fixing the damage.

The Incubators' strategy of mass contracting to help stem the effect of too little demon hunting seems to have become unsustainable for that area.

Also note: 120 vets hunting a 360 territory is barely enough to keep things stable, much less raise DS back up to a neutral level. They need to harvest 3 cubes each just to keep DS neutral, and without a support structure, vets are only looking at a 3 to 3.5 cube harvest each. Greens are barely pushing past 2 cubes each.

We have no way of really affecting the Hong Kong situation, but we definitely need to be examining the DS of the Tokyo area when we go through it.

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Demons at low DS adapt to fighting other demons, not to attacking humans.

 

[Kinematics]

We have no way of really affecting the Hong Kong situation

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Actually, I lie. There is one thing we can do, even if it's very unlikely to succeed: Tell them to evacuate Hong Kong.

The problem is the combination of probably an ordinary virus with the effects of the low-DS demons. If we get people out of the demon-controlled area, the virus should no longer be a threat. (As seen by the fact that the infection hadn't spread from people traveling out of Hong Kong before the quarantine.)

The problem is that this goes against the standard response of quarantining an area with a dangerous virus, so 'professionals' would ignore the advice. Plus the panic of trying to escape the city (and where everyone would live) would be a problem in and of itself.

However we can possibly give them a hint, if we can get them to evacuate just a handful of people who are known to have contracted the disease. If the disease clears up after leaving Hong Kong, that's pretty solid proof of how to deal with the problem.

Now, who do we contact, and how? We have Hainako, who can speak to anyone in Chinese fluently, so communicating isn't the problem. The problem is finding the right person with the right authority, and willingness to try.

Demons at low DS adapt to fighting other demons, not to attacking humans.

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Not going to try to find the original posts by helix, but here's from the cheat sheet:

Lower Demon Strength indicates higher predation on the mundane human population, causing human misery and suicide.
Below 0 Demon Strength there is a .25 multplier to negative dX, due to demon infighting becoming a significant factor in the evolutionary optimization game.

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[Skelm]

Not going to try to find the original posts by helix, but here's from the cheat sheet:

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This post?

Yes to a large degree. The lowering demon combat strength essentially makes their effect on emotions increasingly pronounced. It's a literal build up of negative emotion that affects the human population as well as meguca. Kyouko has realized this, but decided that it was an acceptable tradeoff for the safety.

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[Elder Haman]

@inverted_helix A couple questions that never got answered and got lost in the legendary discussion:

I'm not really sure you'd have much opportunity to use a teleport to reduce your risk of injury to be honest. I mean a barrier is one thing, since you can preemptively use it. But if you use a teleport to avoid an attack that may or may not hit you, you have to go all the way back to the place you were fighting to re-engage.

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It seems obvious to me that it would reduce the chance of injury, since you could teleport out if you got cornered or something. Then when you return to combat you are no longer in a bad position. A tactical retreat ability is always a major risk reduction factor. You're pack hunting but get cut off from your pack by the demons - just teleport out.

Although I suppose It would be far, far more useful in a solo situation. Pair... well you'd probably have to have rules that if one girl bugs out then both bug out.

So I'd guess something like -3% risk factor for solo hunting, -1 for pack hunting. Not sure about effect for pairs... maybe also call that -1%, (yes if gets you out of trouble more often then pack hunting, but it leaves your partner in the lurch, so that cancels out some of the effect).

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Never got a response on my argument as to why teleport charms would reduce casualty risk. Truthfully, I have a hard time believing they wouldn't considering the massive game changer that a tactical retreat ability is. I'd expect it to have much more of an effect than barriers, because I'd think a magical girl being cut off and overrun because of a bad tactical position is one of the primary causes of injury and death.

What are your thoughts?

Improve duration/spell anchoring project: Constructing a holder to keep charms in the correct orientation when stored inside a thermos, dipping the charms in polyurethane before placing them in the thermos. Layering thermoses. Placing the thermos inside a large cooler. Purchase a lab dewer and determine how much longer storing them inside adds to the long term storage life (goal is at least 24 hours) - note to test using non-destructive spells (like healing).

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What is the pricing for this? Like you said it's primarily an engineering task, as a refinement of what we already know. So I'm thinking 1 Vet and $6,000. (Prices I found for a 50 L lab dewar was $1,500, but considering we need to be able to handle solids, not liquids I figure we need something custom built. - so maybe also 1 GCU from Kyubey to handle masquerade problems with this purchase). I figure $5,000 ought to be able to cover buying two such custom 50 L lab dewars, (one for each house), which should allow us to stockpile at least 2000 charms (guesstimating 20 charms per a liter in size). The other $1,000 can cover the cost of the polyurethane, additional thermos/coolers, and the holder materials.

Thoughts?

Storage of long term enchantments. A containment field, that could be opened, and have an enchanted item placed inside, that would then preserve the enchantment until it's opened up and a girl takes out the enchanted item and begins actively maintaining it again.

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What is the cost of researching this?

The second you're kind of coming at from an odd angle. While a possible research project. Why wouldn't you just use a mundane timer to remove the insulation at a specific time? So long as you don't need it that specific second, it should work fine. It would just be more a simple engineering solution at that point instead of a lot of research and spellwork.

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Hadn't thought of that. That's a good idea.

I don't know that there's even much agreement on what you want done.

As I've said before the Church is stone construction, so the primary structure is undamaged. But any furnishings, windows, or the like are broken. You can assume that there is some small basement, but not large enough for any sort of training. (I mean it's not like they have an underground parking structure or something.)

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My point was that any large real estate purchase involves having an inspection done by a contractor to provide an estimate of the problems and cost of fixing those problems (electricity, plumbing, foundations, roofs, etc). Some general wants can also be listed: dormitory, large gym/recreational area, gates around the grounds, commercial kitchen, large meeting hall, smaller meeting rooms, etc, and given as additional estimates.

Also, I'm thinking that we bill our dormitory as a finishing school / camp for young girls with on site residence / dorms. With month long periods spent at the location. Very exclusive, invitational only.

This could also be a huge bonus to diplomacy, being able to offer training camps.

I think the opposite, actually. How easy do you think that it will be for a small (hopelessly optimistic) organization from Mitakihara to politically unite the warring tribes of Tokyo in particular and Japan in general?

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Incredibly difficult. Which is significantly easier than us trying to implement a solution by forcibly hunting the demons ourselves.

How you can consider direct combat to be more likely to succeed than diplomacy is beyond me. Plus, I'll point out that the risk to diplomacy is far far less than risk of direct combat.

My problem with this is that we ourselves could never possibly enforce it. Maybe if we had Homura, but otherwise it'd need the Incubators to keep things in line, and I doubt they want to become that involved.

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Did you miss the fact that we would not be the only organization involved in enforcing the hunting restrictions? At most we would be in charge of 1/5th of Tokyo (or 250 girls).

And of course we could keep things in line. We have 60+ vets who will fight as a pack. 200 greens and 50 vets ought to be easily controlled, considering that they have no central leadership and are divided. Not to mention we are freeing them from a life of terror and death, and providing them with a nice cushy new life.