Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)

[Aranfan]

I'm going to make a prediction: DS has a bottom which it does not go lower than without something somehow forcing it to do so.

We know that below DS 0 the drop in demon strength slows down as demons start infighting to a degree it becomes an important pressure in it's own right. But as DS drops further that's only going to become more true, and eventually there will be an equilibrium reached where the infighting pressure and need to feed pressure balance in the absence of Meguca.

I'm not sure exactly what that point DS would bottom out at. I figure for ease of Helix's math the decrements would be at every inverval of 10 DS. So at DS -10 the modifer for negative DS change would go from .25 to something like .20, and so on. If that is how he's doing it DS would bottom out at around -50, although it would depend on how he's actually doing it.

 

[inverted_helix]

Mostly to churn the pot a little and prove I am working on this (though diplomacy stuff takes me ages to work through because I have to plot out their individual motives and goals and how those interact with yours). (And be aware that I still want to throw you guys out a window for picking so many diplomacy actions at once, and I may in fact increase their cost in the future and damn realism just because of how much longer they take me to write than anything else.)

Have a bit of core details about what some of your diplomacy actions are going to return (I may or may not flesh them out, likely will with the Hiko section but leave the Sachiko section as it is) :


Diplomacy (Magick Corp): (1 Vet)
Masaki Sachiko is a bit of an odd character from what you've seen of her. She runs her group as a business, and is undoubtedly very intelligent, but her ruthless businesswoman façade could really use some work. She even tells you straight up what her unique ability is.

Contracts made by her are magically binding. You must agree to the contract of your own will without being forced, but once it is agreed to both sides are bound to the spirit of the contract as they understood it regardless of whether they originally intended to follow through or not.

This is how she can have non-magical staff without causing masquerade issues. Her staff members signed non-disclosure agreements and now are physically incapable of revealing what they agreed not to. They of course have normal employment contracts and receive business standard pay and benefits and normal ability to quit, but their NDAs are decidedly non-standard and continue to apply indefinitely.

She'd be willing to take a two or three more girls if they were willing to agree to her employment terms. The sample copies she sends to you are actually quite lacking in legalese, very straightforward, and succinct only a single page long. From what you've seen they aren't that bad, mostly it sounds similar to a normal employment agreement: pay in money and cubes in exchange for their work and agreement not to sabotage the company through theft, poaching, or espionage; it even includes employment termination options for both sides, though it would include a continuing but fairly specific NDA about research, dispositions, and the like for a number of years.

She could indeed give you a loan on positively favorable terms.


Heaven's Chosen: (1 Mami)

Spoiler: your side

Further discussions with Hiko about what we can offer that we think could be of use to them, and our own needs with respect to our goals of stabilizing the Tokyo region. Attempt to negotiate a trade for the teleportation interdiction tech.

Make our Hunting Manual the initial gift. Explain how crop rotation has allowed our area to support many more girls than is normal. Mention how the demon strength tracking once allowed us to swiftly identify poaching in our area.

Mention how on one occasion we accepted visitors from another organization to receive training for a month in our hunting techniques. Since our organization is focused heavily on Tokyo right now, our area is currently being under hunted. We could possibly host as many as six to twenty-four veterans right now (up to six if they agree to pair hunting with a Serene hunter, up to twenty-four if they want to do pack hunting), if they were sufficiently experienced with safety measures. If Hiko seems interested, make a note of this to be discussed later when we begin discussing trade deals.

Explain that being right next door to Tokyo the problems there effect us rather severely even now, what with both youma wandering into our area and with refugees coming and asking for help. (Share some specific examples). Mention that we have had 44 girls, mostly greens, come to us for refuge, and while we can manage to support them right now, you worry about more. If Hiko knows any groups that would accept refugees, including greens, if only temporarily, that would be useful. We have been training them in our hunting techniques, and would provide a copy of our Hunting Manual to anyone willing to take some in.

We're concerned that the Tokyo problem will only grow worse. Almost 1/4 of Japan's population lives in Tokyo, and if they die the way Hong Kong did, it will have a devastating effect on the rest of Japan. In many ways the problem isn't directly the high level demons, it's that they prevent magical girls from hunting normal demons effectively. Making it impossible to fulfill the magical girl duty of protecting humans. Those normal demons are what then kill the city. Our thought is that first we need to kill the youma in the city, and then rally the local meguca to hunting the normal demons back up to safe levels. After that, there is a need to put some system in place to prevent the conflicts that created the super demons in the first place.

We've managed to kill ten of the demons plaguing Tokyo last month. However, we have struggled with the teleporting demons. Many managed to escape because of this. Worse, we lost one girl last month, because a large number of youma teleported in on top of us in mass. We were there, but unable to save her. If we were only able to interdict teleportation clearing Tokyo would both become faster, and more importantly, much safer. We know it ought to be possible, since the floating eyeball demon is able to do it. We've made some initial progress on researching this ability, but it is still weak and not as effective as we need.

See what Hiko is willing to offer. Both in response to our gift, and to put on the table for trade. We have in addition our Tandem Research, Spell Anchoring, Duration, etc available for trade, as well as cubes and money.

Also on the table is to accept hunters in our territory for training on hunting techniques in exchange for training in their teleport interdiction techniques. We could accept up to 6 vets if they agree to pair hunt with a Serene hunter, or up to 4 sets of 6 vets if they want to hunt as a pack. We could also accept 2 clairvoyants to train with our dispatch team. Recommend girls skilled in math. Discuss the safe level for them to hunt (ask for at least -9% risk when pair hunting before agreeing to pairs, explain that less than that means we cannot guarantee safety, packs we can guarantee safety no matter what, but still try to learn their risk reduction level).

If this offer to trade training is rejected, consider offering to pay the vets training in hunting in our territory as a sweetener (stay below 3 cubes per a vet if they agree to pair hunting each with a Serene girl, below 1.5 if they agree only to pack hunting, 3 cubes per a clairvoyant).

At the close, give our History of the Serenes as a gift. While only a short history, it may still hold some interest to her. Mention that we would be interested in learning the history of magical Japan as Hiko remembers it, if she someday has the time to record it.

Your meeting with her goes largely the same as the previous one, and she hears out your pitch with an attentive patience.

However she must decline your initial offer. It would benefit her little and you much. Though it's also less feasible than you believe. She doesn't train girls to project such fields, she crafts artifacts to do so.

She can offer you an alternative proposal though. She can loan you one of her teleport prevention devices along with a squad of her girls (thinking of changing to an equivalent term like Samurai) to maintain it for as long as you need it. In exchange she isn't asking much of you she explains with an especially cute face, she simply wants a portion of the spoils of the victory. Specifically territory.

 

[Kinematics]

And be aware that I still want to throw you guys out a window for picking so many diplomacy actions at once

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Not my fault!

She can offer you an alternative proposal though. She can loan you one of her teleport prevention devices along with a squad of her girls (thinking of changing to an equivalent term like Samurai) to maintain it for as long as you need it.

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Hmm. Do they need to be in close proximity to the artifact to maintain it? There is of course the Serena issue, but even beyond that, being in close proximity to a major battle with a class 3 is not healthy for a typical veteran. I suppose we can keep them shielded if we send our support group in, but then it goes back to the Serena issue. At least shielded it should protect from ambushes, which means Serena et al should be able to handle the main targets.

In exchange she isn't asking much of you she explains with an especially cute face, she simply wants a portion of the spoils of the victory. Specifically territory.

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Will also have to know, "How much territory?"

She'd be willing to take a two or three more girls if they were willing to agree to her employment terms.

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So I take it there weren't any refugees that escaped north towards her? Or is this what she can still accept beyond whoever headed that way?

 

[inverted_helix]

Hmm. Do they need to be in close proximity to the artifact to maintain it? There is of course the Serena issue, but even beyond that, being in close proximity to a major battle with a class 3 is not healthy for a typical veteran. I suppose we can keep them shielded if we send our support group in, but then it goes back to the Serena issue. At least shielded it should protect from ambushes, which means Serena et al should be able to handle the main targets.

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To expand on this. You'd basically be looking at 5 skilled combatants with one of them also being what amounts to a power and maintenance technician (which is about as far as Hiko has trained people along the route of making these).

The artifact will function on its own for a while. But that duration is variable. It can last several hours if no one is actually trying to teleport through it, but if it's blocking many attempts it can be worn down fairly quickly without someone to charge it. If it goes dead it can still be restored by the technician later. Damage will also shut it down and the technician can only repair very minor damage.

The artifact she'd give you is a fairly simple looking wooden calligraphy panel 50cm x 15cm x 2cm, but it's brimming with magical energy. The symbols on it are ornately done, but rather clear and descriptive for a calligraphy plate: passage prevention 100m. (It prevents teleporting into or out of the area, but doesn't actually kill those that attempt. It just flat fails to engage.)

Will also have to know, "How much territory?"

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Negotiable, she's not looking for as much as you, you've obviously invested far more effort into this than her, but she needs additional territory. How much she needs depends on how many girls already living on the land she'd need to take in.

So I take it there weren't any refugees that escaped north towards her? Or is this what she can still accept beyond whoever headed that way?

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None have reached her yet.

Also curious if you can guess at the general archetype that Sachiko is built around.

 

[UberJJK]

(It prevents teleporting into or out of the area, but doesn't actually kill those that attempt. It just flat fails to engage.)

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Well. That is a significant advantage over our technique which, IIRC, would simply drop the Oni just outside the field. Of course if they are smart enough the Oni could probably teleport to just outside the field anyway but hopefully they aren't that smart yet.

 

[TheEyes]

(And be aware that I still want to throw you guys out a window for picking so many diplomacy actions at once, and I may in fact increase their cost in the future and damn realism just because of how much longer they take me to write than anything else.)

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Like @Kinematics said! Please don't hurt us!

However she must decline your initial offer. It would benefit her little and you much. Though it's also less feasible than you believe. She doesn't train girls to project such fields, she crafts artifacts to do so.

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Yeah, that is actually pretty much exactly what I was figuring she did. I'm not entirely sure why that particular quality makes it less feasible for us to learn, though I guess I do understand why it would benefit us more that way.

I suppose it takes a considerable amount of time to Craft these Wondrous Items?

She can offer you an alternative proposal though. She can loan you one of her teleport prevention devices along with a squad of her girls (thinking of changing to an equivalent term like Samurai) to maintain it for as long as you need it. In exchange she isn't asking much of you she explains with an especially cute face, she simply wants a portion of the spoils of the victory. Specifically territory.

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Territory? In Tokyo? That's actually the last thing I expected her to request, for several reasons. In fact that's so off-model for her that I'm having to reconsider what we know of her motives entirely:

• So much for "Tokyo is unimportant; I'd rather the capital be back in Kyoto."
• We weren't planning on forcibly expanding anywhere, so much as organizing Tokyo into political groups with defined borders and maybe absorbing a few of them with diplomatic boost we'd get from saving the city. Hiko's desire for a direct territory grab is going to require something more militant: the direct partitioning of Tokyo into zones of influence or whatever we're going to call them. That vastly increases the instability of post-youma Tokyo.
• There's a reason that feudal societies keep their territory small; reaching too far inevitably creates "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away." syndrome. We can and are limiting that both by our semi-religious ideas about how meguca should live, and because our paperwork load is meticulous and constant, thus making corruption difficult to hide, but Hiko has neither of those.
• Hiko is even further away from Tokyo than we are. Having such a remote territory is going to create a natural split among her subjects, which is going to create factionalism and corruption, possibly fomenting rebellion.
• And, most critically: I had assumed that Hiko was never particularly ambitious about expanding territory before, and that the reason the Junta and the Republic had formed was because she was absent from large swaths of the Kyoto/Osaka area. If, on the other hand, she has been ambitious about territory, then after a century of life as an Elite with powers and knowledge that dwarf those of mere mortals she must have been in control of the entire Kyoto/Osaka area back during quest start, and thus both the Junta and the Republic must have formed in opposition to her, which severely changes the character of what's going on down there..

So, suffice to say, alarm bells are ringing in my head right now. There could be a less sinister interpretation for Hiko's request, but honestly at this time I'm looking warily at this whole thing.

passage prevention 100m. (It prevents teleporting into or out of the area, but doesn't actually kill those that attempt. It just flat fails to engage.)

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So definitely inside Serena's radius, which means the guards and the "maintenance tech" will be exposed to her aura while she's fighting the youma. That's extremely dangerous for them, since we already know their morale is not particularly high. And worse, the artifact requires active maintenance to not fail if under assault by teleporters, which is just plain not going to happen inside Serena's drunk-aura.

Also curious if you can guess at the general archetype that Sachiko is built around.

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Heheh, right now the first person that comes to mind if Kyubey. I doubt she'd like that comparison though.


Oh, and one more thing: we've been sort of putting it on the back burner lately, but given how quickly and decisively our group fell apart when confronted by multiple youma, I'm starting to have severe doubts as to whether we can handle the beholder at all, which is a big problem considering that we're going to be attacking it in 2-4 months.

 

[inverted_helix]

Yeah, that is actually pretty much exactly what I was figuring she did. I'm not entirely sure why that particular quality makes it less feasible for us to learn, though I guess I do understand why it would benefit us more that way.

I suppose it takes a considerable amount of time to Craft these Wondrous Items?

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It's less feasible for you to learn because the Craft Wondrous Item feat is very high tier here. Essentially it's an Epic Feat.

The spell system here is not meant to match up with DnD though so don't take that metaphor too far.

Territory? In Tokyo? That's actually the last thing I expected her to request, for several reasons. In fact that's so off-model for her that I'm having to reconsider what we know of her motives entirely:

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Here I thought this request would make her motives entirely clear, but you've gone wildly off the right track. Your previous versions were far closer to reality.

Also the distance isn't as significant as you'd think because there's a bullet train between Kyoto and Tokyo. So it's really only a couple hours distance.

 

[UberJJK]

Hiko is even further away from Tokyo than we are. Having such a remote territory is going to create a natural split among her subjects, which is going to create factionalism and corruption, possibly fomenting rebellion.

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Yeah that really jumped out at me as well. Even with modern day technology helping to reduce the issue Kyoto is a full 350km as the crow flies and going by google maps it's either a 1 hour flight, 3.5 hour train ride, or 5.5 to 7.5 hour car trip each way.

That's a massive distance with easily 30+ territories in between. I'm completely baffled as to what she's planning. The only thing I can think of is she is that desperate for extra territory.

 

[Powerofmind]

She had explicitly high DS in her home zones. Seems she's overburdened and needs some expanded space. She may be willing to trade for the IRT method if she's got so many girls in so little space.

 

[TheEyes]

Here I thought this request would make her motives entirely clear, but you've gone wildly off the right track. Your previous versions were far closer to reality.

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The problem is that remote territory is pretty much the exact opposite of what Hiko needs if she's having problems at home with poaching, cube strain, etc. Pretty much anything else: our hunting and DS-meansuring techniques, even direct monetary and cube payment, would be more useful if the problem was poaching or simply having too many girls for her territory.

The desire for remote territory implies that Hiko is feeling secure enough at home that she's not worried about the significant distraction that a remote territory would bring, and instead has far-ranging political aspirations. Remember how many problems we had with the Iwata territory? That was a cheap, fast subway ride away. Tokyo is a multi-hour, $125 one-way ticket away from Kyoto.

 

[Powerofmind]

The problem is that remote territory is pretty much the exact opposite of what Hiko needs if she's having problems at home with poaching, cube strain, etc. Pretty much anything else: our hunting and DS-meansuring techniques, even direct monetary and cube payment, would be more useful if the problem was poaching or simply having too many girls for her territory.

The desire for remote territory implies that Hiko is feeling secure enough at home that she's not worried about the significant distraction that a remote territory would bring, and instead has far-ranging political aspirations. Remember how many problems we had with the Iwata territory? That was a cheap, fast subway ride away. Tokyo is a multi-hour, $125 one-way ticket away from Kyoto.

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She's trapped in a box with strong neighbors with a DS Mami tentatively rated as high as 15 to 20. If it's remote territory or cube handouts, even we'd take the remote territory.

 

[UberJJK]

Hm. Another potential interpretation of this occurs to me; rather then Hiko wanting to expand her territory she's planning on setting up a colony with a trusted subordinate in charge. Basically she'd be following her government system (feudal) and locking down available land by dropping a noble in charge and letting them do as they please so long as they obey her laws and pay their taxes.

It side steps most the issues with distant territories because the people there are basically independent. The only potential issue would be ensuring they pay their taxes and that's pretty easily ensured by a combination of:
1) Having sufficient military power that Hiko can show up and crush all dissent if possible.
2) The strong religious undertones making rebelling Hersey.
3) Providing a valuable service they can't get anywhere else (epic level magical items).
4) Maintaining her relationship with the noble in charge remains via semi-regular personal meetings plus a ton of phone calls, emails, texts, skypes, ect.

 

[Powerofmind]

1) Having sufficient military power that Hiko can show up and crush all dissent if possible.
2) The strong religious undertones making rebelling Hersey.

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She doesn't have the first due to tensions at home with the junta and republic.
We're the ones with the second, not them. Hiko is an old world progressive materialist.

 

[UberJJK]

She doesn't have the first due to tensions at home with the junta and republic.

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I suppose it really depends upon how close the junta and republic are watching them. They only need to be able to spare the forces for a day or so. The real issue would probably be the cost of shipping all those girls to Tokyo.

We're the ones with the second, not them. Hiko is an old world progressive materialist.

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The intended here is basically feudal for HC though as with most feudal governments there's strong religious overtones

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[TheEyes]

Hm. Another potential interpretation of this occurs to me; rather then Hiko wanting to expand her territory she's planning on setting up a colony with a trusted subordinate in charge. Basically she'd be following her government system (feudal) and locking down available land by dropping a noble in charge and letting them do as they please so long as they obey her laws and pay their taxes.

It side steps most the issues with distant territories because the people there are basically independent.

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So replacing meguca feudalism with meguca colonialism? Well, it's more workable than feudalism for highly-remote territories, but there's still some pretty big problems with the system. There's a reason that nobody is founding new colonies these days, and existing ones have a lot of fundamental problems. See the US's problems with the territory of Puerto Rico, for example.

 

[Aranfan]

To expand on this. You'd basically be looking at 5 skilled combatants with one of them also being what amounts to a power and maintenance technician (which is about as far as Hiko has trained people along the route of making these).

The artifact will function on its own for a while. But that duration is variable. It can last several hours if no one is actually trying to teleport through it, but if it's blocking many attempts it can be worn down fairly quickly without someone to charge it. If it goes dead it can still be restored by the technician later. Damage will also shut it down and the technician can only repair very minor damage.

The artifact she'd give you is a fairly simple looking wooden calligraphy panel 50cm x 15cm x 2cm, but it's brimming with magical energy. The symbols on it are ornately done, but rather clear and descriptive for a calligraphy plate: passage prevention 100m. (It prevents teleporting into or out of the area, but doesn't actually kill those that attempt. It just flat fails to engage.)

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Problem 1: The technician is going to be drunk off their ass.

Problem 2: We don't know if the device can handle as many attempts as the demons will try without the technician.

It sounds like Mami, as the one who doesn't get drunk in Serena's aura, needs to know how to be the power and maintenance technician if the device is going to be useful.

 

[UberJJK]

So replacing meguca feudalism with meguca colonialism?

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Basically what I was thinking. Colonies are always a great way to expand the empire and get rid of excess population.

Well, it's more workable than feudalism for highly-remote territories, but there's still some pretty big problems with the system.

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Thing is would Hiko know/understand that? There was a lot of colonialism going on when she was growing up, even though it had dramatically dropped from the previous two centuries, and in most strategy games, new and old, one of the best strategies, especially early on like we kinda are thanks to the Madoka Effect, is to grab every valuable bit of land, or even sometimes just every bit regardless of value, you possibly can.

It's quite an easy trap to fall into. Especially if you're worried about other groups, like say the junta and republic, gobbling up more land then you and leveraging that into an empire powerful enough to just crush you. After all isn't that exactly what we were worried about after finding out just how large the Nagoya Magocracy is?

 

[inverted_helix]

I also find it odd and not really appropriate to compare things happening in Japan in this quest to imperialism or colonialism. You aren't talking about someplace across an ocean with a wildly different culture.

I mean fundamentally this is all going on in Japan. Tokyo isn't a different country, it's a different prefecture. Japan has had a general sort of unity as a culture and civilization for many hundreds of years, depending on your definitions thousands of years even.

I mean it's like worrying about Philadelphia colonizing New York.

 

[Aranfan]

I think the simple answer is the the best one here. Hiko is feeling the pressure and needs more cubes and thus territory really badly.

 

[boonerunner]

So much for "Tokyo is unimportant; I'd rather the capital be back in Kyoto."

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I don't see this as being out-of-character. As long as the youkai can be destroyed, Tokyo is still valuable hunting territory. She doesn't actively want it to be destroyed, she just doesn't want to risk her own girls to protect it. But a land grab like this can be done at low risk and basically makes the parts of Tokyo that she grabs vassal territories for Kyoto.

We weren't planning on forcibly expanding anywhere, so much as organizing Tokyo into political groups with defined borders and maybe absorbing a few of them with diplomatic boost we'd get from saving the city. Hiko's desire for a direct territory grab is going to require something more militant: the direct partitioning of Tokyo into zones of influence or whatever we're going to call them. That vastly increases the instability of post-youma Tokyo.

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At this point, Tokyo is already hugely unstable without any formal political groups. There are a few Elites that haven't been killed who will want to claim some territory after all is said and done, but the majority of Tokyo will not have anybody already present who is capable of controlling it. We (and Nagoya and the Heavens Chosen) will have to directly intervene. This will be a direct territory grab, but it won't (necessarily) be militant.

Hiko is even further away from Tokyo than we are. Having such a remote territory is going to create a natural split among her subjects, which is going to create factionalism and corruption, possibly fomenting rebellion.

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These are problems that Hiko will have to deal with, sure, but she seems confident. And the modern world (with high speed trains and cellphones) is a lot smaller than it was during the warring states period.

And, most critically: I had assumed that Hiko was never particularly ambitious about expanding territory before, and that the reason the Junta and the Republic had formed was because she was absent from large swaths of the Kyoto/Osaka area. If, on the other hand, she has been ambitious about territory, then after a century of life as an Elite with powers and knowledge that dwarf those of mere mortals she must have been in control of the entire Kyoto/Osaka area back during quest start, and thus both the Junta and the Republic must have formed in opposition to her, which severely changes the character of what's going on down there.

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Large groups were untenable until recently (when Madokami ascended). But Hiko moves with the times. She's not militantly expansionistic, but it's not surprising that she would be opportunistic enough to take advantage of the free territory that Tokyo potentially offers.

Yeah that really jumped out at me as well. Even with modern day technology helping to reduce the issue Kyoto is a full 350km as the crow flies and going by google maps it's either a 1 hour flight, 3.5 hour train ride, or 5.5 to 7.5 hour car trip each way.

That's a massive distance with easily 30+ territories in between. I'm completely baffled as to what she's planning. The only thing I can think of is she is that desperate for extra territory.

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3.5 hours is nothing compared to the distances from which traditional feudal leaders ruled their lands.

Problem 1: The technician is going to be drunk off their ass.

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There's no chance the technician will willingly enter Serena's aura. If the device is with Serena's group, the technician will be waiting behind the lines to maintain it when necessary.

It sounds like Mami, as the one who doesn't get drunk in Serena's aura, needs to know how to be the power and maintenance technician if the device is going to be useful.

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We can ask, but they probably won't agree to train Mami and even if they would, it would probably require months of training.

 

[Aranfan]

So I'm getting the feeling, although this could just be me, that Hiko's desires here are not the final offer and that she expects to be negotiated down.

I say we counter offer letting them sharecrop in our territory and IRT.

 

[Kinematics]

She's trapped in a box with strong neighbors with a DS Mami tentatively rated as high as 15 to 20.

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This isn't what Mami estimated. Mami said it was definitely not negative (so above 0), and probably well above baseline. However we also know that the Kyoto/Osaka region have avoided any youma outbreaks, which means it should not be in the 10+ range. Most likely it's in the 4-8 range — enough to add a fair bit of danger to hunting, but not enough to be critically risky, in either hunting terms or youma generation terms.

There's no chance the technician will willingly enter Serena's aura. If the device is with Serena's group, the technician will be waiting behind the lines to maintain it when necessary.

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Not necessarily true, but we'll need to consider it as an option.

Another issue with the artifact is that, since it's always on, we can't do ambush-style attacks, or teleport in reinforcements or evac troops. It also means we can't stage at the mountain and teleport to the border for an attack, then return. Need to rethink the logistics of all our movements.

 

[UberJJK]

Masaki Sachiko is a bit of an odd character from what you've seen of her. She runs her group as a business, and is undoubtedly very intelligent, but her ruthless businesswoman façade could really use some work. She even tells you straight up what her unique ability is.

Contracts made by her are magically binding. You must agree to the contract of your own will without being forced, but once it is agreed to both sides are bound to the spirit of the contract as they understood it regardless of whether they originally intended to follow through or not.

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I was standing in the shower when the realization hit me: Mami desperately needs some actual businesspeople in her employ because she read this all wrong. Sachiko revealing her unique ability straight up is her being a ruthless businesswoman.

In one feel swoop she makes us aware of a very valuable and quite possibly unique service she can provide us without actually offering said service to us. If she plays her cards right she could very well become untouchable.

Contracts are fundamental to the way humans interact. The majority of all contracts are verbal rather then written but more and more the latter is becoming prevalent thanks to the ease of production and evidentiary nature of a written contract. Being able to guaranty they'll be obeyed in both letter and spirit is indescribably valuable.

Just imagine how useful her contracts would be to other factions, hell even our own to a lesser extant, in guarantying every new member is loyal. It opens up all sorts of new opportunities. That's not even getting into things like trade contracts, sharecropping contracts, mutual defense pacts, and all the millions of other things you can make a contract over.

Even putting all that aside simply being able to hire mundane office workers would be a godsend for the Serene. We have massive amounts of paperwork being generated that requires serious girlpower to process. Imagine how much more efficient and effective everything would be if we could hire actual statisticians to crunch data, accountants to do our books/taxes, secretaries to ensure important information gets to everyone who needs to know, ect.


Now that I think I've sufficiently proven just how valuable Sachiko's power is let's get into how her not offering it to us is a great move for her. Put simply it means that we have to go to her and request the service rather then accept her offer. That puts her in a position of power in negotiating, although she's already in a strong one from the sheer value, and makes justifying rip-off rates a lot easier because she can sell it as a "special" service we've "specifically requested" rather then a standard one she offers.

As for how exactly it's a rip off? Well I suppose it really depends on just how much it costs her magically (if at all) and time wise to create these contracts. We have no idea the cube cost but a contract can easily be written up in minutes since she doesn't have to include all the legalese loophole closing normal contracts require since it works on the spirit the contract was written on not just the words themselves. That incidentally is what she was showing off, yes that was showing off, by having those sample one page documents in (fairly) plain English Japanese. The time is likely even faster since there is a good chance she can probably type them, hand written contracts would look very odd to potential employees, and even if she can't template contracts are a thing so she could easily whip up dozens of those and only fill in the details as needed.

The magical cost could be answered if we knew if those sample contracts were samples in the sense they were a non-binding copy of the contract (IE: documents with the words "Sample Not Valid" watermarked throughout) or if they were samples in the free sample sense. If it's the latter then her contracts are cheap enough to mass produce.

For straightforward contracts, and especially template ones like Sachiko's employee contract, I'm guessing she'd be charging a grand or two plus expenses, IE: grief cubes depending upon how much of a drain this is, per contract. It's notably higher then what you'd get for standardized contracts, that's more in the $500 or less range from my googling, which emphasizes her value but not too high as to limit her target market.

When you consider she can potentially service basically every notable faction in Japan and consider just how many contracts they are likely to go through, for example the USA over an 8 year period had an average turnover rate of 3.3% per month, on a regular basis that is easily enough to become incredibly rich. Even more when you realize she'll likely try and set herself, and by extension her corporation, as neutral mediators through which conflicts can be resolved and (most importantly) those resolutions be enforced.

 

[Kinematics]

Also curious if you can guess at the general archetype that Sachiko is built around.

Click to shrink...

Hmm. Class rep type, lovestruck with a playboy type. Wishes that he would always keep his promises. He promises that he'll quit bothering her during one of her fits over his behavior. She falls back on the strict class rep/ice queen/Nabiki-type facade to protect herself after her wish twists around on her like that.

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Anyway, territory for Hiko sounds entirely reasonable, based on what we know of her. It should be as workable for her as Iwata is for us. Just a little bit further away.

If I were to ballpark an estimate of how much territory she's hoping for (minimum), it would be in the 50-100 range, on the assumption that any territory she gets is 50% occupied by Tokyo natives, and thus she'd only get maybe 40% of that as new cubes for herself. Thus, 20-40 net cubes harvested for her, or a bit more with advanced harvesting methods. (Alternatively, just send 20 girls to the new territory and let them sustain themselves.)

That's based on assuming that she's maybe 5%-10% overharvesting her own territory (or forced into that by poaching), causing DS to grow by 1 to 2 points per month. Since her territory is guesstimated to be in the 250-350 range, that means overharvesting by 12 to 35 cubes per month.

Of course, if that is the case (as seems likely), she's actually in a very desperate situation right now, since it will only take a few more months before youma spawning becomes a real risk, while harvesting becomes very inefficient (pack tactics) if she doesn't want to start losing too many of her own hunters (which leads to a negative power spiral against her rivals). She can probably last a year or two just on sheer numbers, but the writing is on the wall if this keeps up and she doesn't find a safety outlet like Tokyo territory.

If things do progress that way, it's very much in our interest to prop her up, as a safeguard against the Junta.

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Combat logistics:

We know that basic Serena + Support group can take down a youma or two. That means we don't need her to be powered up to fight a pair of demons, though it would certainly make things easier. That makes the presence of Hiko's team somewhat viable, though it's really complicated when trying to minimize their total exposure. However, if we can't teleport in on the target, the targets can run away when we approach on foot, making it a frustrating chase on our side.

How long does it take to charge the artifact from its uncharged state? Since it runs out of juice in a few hours, I'm guessing that overnight it will discharge, and needs to be recharged in the morning, at least. However teleporting with it in the uncharged state, and then charging it up would be ideal. I just figure it's not going to be feasible with the time frames we're looking at (a few seconds to a few minutes).

Can you deliberately discharge its remaining power to permit escape/evac? Or, more simply, does it have an On/Off switch?

I'm currently a bit stumped on how we can actually use this, if there's no on/off switch on the device. Always On is a serious flaw when trying to catch teleporting enemies who can detect you coming. It hinders your group while letting the enemy flee. At the same time, if it takes a long time to power up, we can't teleport in and then power on the shield, because by the time that's going, there's going to be an ambush group of another half-dozen youma.

 

[Kinematics]

When you consider she can potentially service basically every notable faction in Japan and consider just how many contracts they are likely to go through, for example the USA over an 8 year period had an average turnover rate of 3.3% per month, on a regular basis that is easily enough to become incredibly rich. Even more when you realize she'll likely try and set herself, and by extension her corporation, as neutral mediators through which conflicts can be resolved and (most importantly) those resolutions be enforced.

Click to shrink...

This is indeed a very critical element in building stability. There was the little omake I wrote a while back (when Seto was joining up), of Mami wondering how to enforce laws or agreements when there were no higher powers to appeal to and act as law enforcement. Well, Sachiko fills that need perfectly.

If we'd gone the route of trying to stabilize Japan (to hire Kira), Sachiko's cooperation would have been an absolute necessity. Even now, we have the issue that Haman brought up, of how to stop poaching or similar issues that could otherwise critically destabilize several of our plans for Tokyo. A magically binding contract system would be a godsend. Though even then, we'd need to be extremely careful in its use, because it's far too easy for it to get out of control. Would have to start by drafting a bill of rights, or something like the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (which is probably the best document to base things on, though it will need some adjustments for meguca society). (Link to PDF)