Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]

[PistachioCookies]

There's no sensible explanation to be had. They're still going to need one.

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That "distant cousin from a distance branch of the family, parents recently passed away" handwave really isn't that bad.

It's believable, if only because nobody can really prove it's not true, aside from actual members of the Hinamori family or those involved in making the fake records. JP's can probably provide records for fake branch members and fake death certificates for fake dead parents too. That was honestly my first assumption on what they would go with.

They'd probably have to pretend she came from overseas to justify why nobody in Japan has ever seen her, but explaining away how Miki is perfectly fluent in Japanese is a lot easier than explaining why nobody at the school on Miki's fake records ever remembers her. Any social gaffs can also be explained by coming from a foreign culture, especially if they choose some tiny place like Moldova that few people in Japan are likely to know anything about the culture of. Could even work more decently than that, if there's any particularly country Miki's fine arts specialization does actually gives her some amount of cultural knowledge of (like Italy thanks to the rennaisance).

People who personally know Amu or the culture of whatever her pretend country of origin is really like might be highly skeptical anyway, but again nobody can really prove it isn't true.

You know this is exactly the kind of personality trait that would make it a terrible idea for Naoto to let Kana anywhere near the Manticore investigation, right?

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On the other hand, since it wasn't something she was born with but apparently developed after getting into the family business, it's also likely the kind of thing that can be trained away, people can be conditioned to look before they leap instead of jumping on impulse. Naoto, in particular, can do this just by grabbing Kana to turn off her powers, until Kana can come up with a good explanation for why Naoto should let go of her arm and take the leash off. It's basically what happened in this fight.

Amu's way, if Kana started lashing out, would require repelling force with force and then arguing with Kana the old-fashioned way (whether telepathically or with words) to get her to pause long enough to think properly. Probably what it would have gotten to if we didn't have Naoto here. She could probably do it, because Amu herself isn't a pushover, but would be a bit messier.

The choice of conditioning technique would basically between Naoto calmly telling a steaming Kana to rationalize her next course of action while the girl physically tries to wrench her arm away and Amu desperately sending soothing waves of empathy telepathically to the same steaming Kana while chattering at her, to distract her from reaching for the psionic hammer.

I figure that both will probably eventually work - Kana will learn to associate an oncoming rage fit with either calming down enough that she can think or else taking the time to rationalize (and subsequently cooling off in that time she's thinking). One method is just potentially messier and more stressful for the conditioner to attempt than the other.

 

[Quine]

On the other hand, since it wasn't something she was born with but apparently developed after getting into the family business, it's also likely the kind of thing that can be trained away, people can be conditioned to look before they leap instead of jumping on impulse. Naoto, in particular, can do this just by grabbing Kana to turn off her powers, until Kana can come up with a good explanation for why Naoto should let go of her arm and take the leash off. It's basically what happened in this fight.

Amu's way, if Kana started lashing out, would require repelling force with force and then arguing with Kana the old-fashioned way (whether telepathically or with words) to get her to pause long enough to think properly. Probably what it would have gotten to if we didn't have Naoto here. She could probably do it, because Amu herself isn't a pushover, but would be a bit messier.

The choice of conditioning technique would basically between Naoto calmly telling a steaming Kana to rationalize her next course of action while the girl physically tries to wrench her arm away and Amu desperately sending soothing waves of empathy telepathically to the same steaming Kana while chattering at her, to distract her from reaching for the psionic hammer.

I figure that both will probably eventually work - Kana will learn to associate an oncoming rage fit with either calming down enough that she can think or else taking the time to rationalize (and subsequently cooling off in that time she's thinking). One method is just potentially messier and more stressful for the conditioner to attempt than the other.

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That kind of conditioning would involve repeatedly placing a constantly-armed known serial killer in conditions where she wants to kill someone. That kind of thing would require informed consent from everyone in the vicinity and far more safety guarantees than just Naoto's hand on her arm before it could ethically proceed. (Maybe whatever JP's is using for mental protection might help?)

 

[PistachioCookies]

That kind of conditioning would involve repeatedly placing a constantly-armed known serial killer in conditions where she wants to kill someone.

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Not necessarily.

Would just require the person or people who wants to correct her behavior to be joined at the hip, so that they can apply their techniques whenever an opportunity happens to crop up.

You'd only have to deliberately induce the behavior if you were trying to rush the conditioning, as opposed to more naturally acclimatizing her.

If they really were trying to get it done quickly, getting her to spar with JP's agents is an option.

Narukami is also an option. He would have Personas that can block Light/Dark like Naoto's and thus likewise be immune to her mind crush. Worth noting that "Rage" is a status effect in the Persona games and that it could be artificially induced, if necessary. Narukami could definitely do that too.

 

[Quine]

Not necessarily.

Would just require the person or people who wants to correct her behavior to be joined at the hip, so that they can apply their techniques whenever an opportunity happens to crop up.

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Still impractical and unethical. Every "opportunity" that crops up is a situation where an armed habitual serial killer wants to kill people.

Naoto was only able to block Kana's attack in time because she was already focused on Kana and already standing between Kana and her target. She's not going to be able to react in time all the time, so it'd have to be a setup where she doesn't need to react. That'd be relying on Naoto... constantly maintaining a death grip on Kana everywhere they go, without her arm getting tired and without ever needing both hands for anything? That kind of safety measure doesn't reach the standards of reliability needed to justify risking uninformed strangers' lives.

 

[PistachioCookies]

Every "opportunity" that crops up is a situation where an armed habitual serial killer wants to kill people.

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No, the "opportunity" would be situations where Kana gets mad. Since, at least from my understanding, she starts feeling like killing when she gets angry enough.

"Not being able to react in time" would only be a concern if you believe Kana goes from 0 to 100 in a blink of an eye and that there really wouldn't be obvious signs that she is getting angry, before she reaches her snapping point.

....Pretty sure that wasn't even the case with this fight, we just missed all the buildup because the shouting match between regular Kana and her Shadow happened offscreen well before we arrived.

 

[Baughn]

Since, at least from my understanding, she starts feeling like killing when she gets angry enough.

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I feel a need to push back slightly against this. It's based on the scene where she kills a guard in one of their raids, correct?

I didn't want to spell it out in the chapter, because yuck, and so it probably flew past most of you. But the reason Kana got homicidally angry there, was because the guard in question had been sexually assaulting some of the children being held captive in other locations. Naomi and Aoi didn't know this (at the time), and so spoke up when she did it. Once Kana got a chance to explain herself they'd be fully on board.

That's the level of evil that gets an instant kill reaction from her. It doesn't change the fact that she needs therapy, both because--yeah, she's a mind-reader, she knows precisely what he did--because that wasn't the first time, and because 'kill the obstacle' has become a commonly chosen option for her--but it should provide some context on when she'd lash out in a rage.

Kana was not in a blind rage when she attempted to paralyse Amu and burn Naoto. Just very loopy. She doesn't need to be angry to attempt to kill someone, if she feels she has a reason.

I should also note, while Amu noted the attack as being attempted murder, Kana is the expert on mind-combat here. She may have been too loopy to properly gauge the attack, in which case it may have been genuinely dangerous; but that goes hand-in-hand with being too loopy to realise she shouldn't use one.

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Just for fun, though, let's roll the dice and see what would have actually happened.

Contested roll: Kana(dexterity + martial arts + mind control + mind crush) vs. Amu(wits + integrity + mind control + overgrowth)

...

Rather looks like Amu would've ended up temporarily paralysed.

...

Okay, I hadn't written those rules yet, and thinking about it again, I don't think Amu should be getting any dice for overgrowth; it's already factored in as health levels. In which case she gets zero less successes, but the outcome remains as "Kana scars the surface of Amu's mind, which is enough of a shock to make her skip a turn but doesn't do any genuine damage; she remains at +0."

And I'll write up a more suitable ruleset tonight, so we have something to think about.

Baughn threw 9 10-faced dice. Reason: Amu Total: 39

Baughn threw 8 10-faced dice. Reason: Kana Total: 49

 

[PistachioCookies]

Rather looks like Amu would've ended up temporarily paralysed.

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....So in other words, the dice gods say she would, in fact, have properly gauged the level of mental force needed to disable Amu.

 

[Baughn]

....So in other words, the dice gods say she would, in fact, have properly gauged the level of mental force needed to disable Amu.

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Not quite. The dice roll above, besides being significantly off in terms of dice-roll layout, also assumes Kana is using a full-force assault. In which case she gets one more dice than Amu gets on defence -- three of Amu's shouldn't be there -- but if she did that, and got very "lucky", she'd have killed Amu. Which she knows, which means she pulled her blow-

With these dice? If Kana's attack had actually hit Amu, it would have glanced off without damage. Amu would still have perceived it as terrifying, because she'd be the one desperately defending and only barely succeeding, but she'd come out of it with literally zero impact.

...and if Kana had gotten super "lucky", rolled all 9s and a couple of 10s, then Amu would be right back in that hospital bed at JPs.

 

[Quine]

That sure is a lot of dots for what sounds like Overgrowth 2, tops. I wonder how much strain Kana's abilities place on her at that level. (She had the shadow-grafts on, but it doesn't sound like those are going into this dice pool.)

With these dice? If Kana's attack had actually hit Amu, it would have glanced off without damage. Amu would still have perceived it as terrifying, because she'd be the one desperately defending and only barely succeeding, but she'd come out of it with literally zero impact.

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That's remarkably little impact for a threshold 2 success.

And I'll write up a more suitable ruleset tonight, so we have something to think about.

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Speaking of rules, do you have anything in mind for the specialty changes you mentioned earlier?

 

[Baughn]

Speaking of rules, do you have anything in mind for the specialty changes you mentioned earlier?

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How about simply scaling down the cost, to the same proportion as ability specialty costs?

That's remarkably little impact for a threshold 2 success.

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That's if Kana pulls her blow, i.e. chooses to roll fewer dice such that there's no risk of doing permanent damage. Since she in fact did not roll better than average, and Amu did not roll worse, it comes out as an equal number of successes.

The psychological impact is something else again, and it's really for the best that nothing like this happened.

 

[PistachioCookies]

That sure is a lot of dots for what sounds like Overgrowth 2, tops. I wonder how much strain Kana's abilities place on her at that level. (She had the shadow-grafts on, but it doesn't sound like those are going into this dice pool.)

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Since I'm vaguely recalling Psionic skills needing to be within a dot of Overgrowth to be controllable, I'm assuming that Kana has 3 Mind Control and 2 Mind Crush specialization. I doubt her Mind Crush is at 3, though it is possible her Mind Crush could be at 1 and she somehow has 2 dots in both Dexterity and Martial Arts.

Would guess that she either picked up the Martial Arts dot(s) from being trained by her mother/Manticore, or from actual practice, against Manticore.

The psychological impact is something else again, and it's really for the best that nothing like this happened.

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....That, and she would have been focused on Amu during the assault, especially if she realized her attempts weren't having the effect she wanted, leaving Utau free to act.

And Utau would probably not have been especially merciful in responding. That girl gets a bladed weapon whenever she Chara Transforms with Iru. One that is a lot longer than Kana's knife.

 

[Baughn]

Would guess that she either picked up the Martial Arts dot(s) from being trained by her mother/Manticore, or from actual practice, against Manticore.

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It's the latter, and I'm happy to report that she has one dot there. You'll get a character sheet soon enough.

P. skills don't need to be within a dot of overgrowth to be controllable, per se; it's about whether or not you have enough 'heft' to power them without badly straining yourself. At one dot above your OG rating it's still doable, but exhausting.

Kana: 3 dexterity, 1 martial arts, 3 mind control, 1 mind crush.

It feels a bit weird to be using 'physical' stats like dexterity for purely psionic actions, but unless I want to make up an entirely new set of equivalents, that's what we're left with. Plus, in real life dexterity is mostly a mental stat anyway. It's about fine control of your body, which... is largely down to mental architecture, assuming your musculature is up to scratch.

Being a slight twelve-year-old who's been handling combat by knife-fighting, and considering who she could have learned from, it only makes sense for dex to be her high combat stat.

 

[Quine]

How about simply scaling down the cost, to the same proportion as ability specialty costs?

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Do you mean putting psi specialties at 1 XP, 3 weeks? Hmm... it makes the proportions make more sense, but I don't think it actually changes our decision-making.

 

[Baughn]

Do you mean putting psi specialties at 1 XP, 3 weeks? Hmm... it makes the proportions make more sense, but I don't think it actually changes our decision-making.

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Which is fine; focusing on general-purpose tools is sensible for now. Specialties always made more sense as cap-breakers, at least to me.

(There's only so many times I can tell you the timeline will slow down; in the end, you'll get to see. And it's not like there won't be fast parts.)

 

[Quine]

It feels a bit weird to be using 'physical' stats like dexterity for purely psionic actions, but unless I want to make up an entirely new set of equivalents, that's what we're left with. Plus, in real life dexterity is mostly a mental stat anyway. It's about fine control of your body, which... is largely down to mental architecture, assuming your musculature is up to scratch.

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Personally, I would have expected this to be Wits.

I didn't want to spell it out in the chapter, because yuck, and so it probably flew past most of you. But the reason Kana got homicidally angry there, was because the guard in question had been sexually assaulting some of the children being held captive in other locations. Naomi and Aoi didn't know this (at the time), and so spoke up when she did it. Once Kana got a chance to explain herself they'd be fully on board.

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From the description in the chapter, it sounded to me like an officially sanctioned activity, like if Kana killed the guy, Manticore would simply put somebody else on whatever he was doing. At the time, Manticore sounded like a much more... focused organization, like most of their horrors would have more directly contributed to their actual goal.

but if she did that, and got very "lucky", she'd have killed Amu. Which she knows, which means she pulled her blow-

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So she genuinely had the desire and presence of mind at the time to do that, rather than just telling herself that after the fact.

 

[Baughn]

From the description in the chapter, it sounded to me like an officially sanctioned activity, like if Kana killed the guy, Manticore would simply put somebody else on whatever he was doing. At the time, Manticore sounded like a much more... focused organization, like most of their horrors would have more directly contributed to their actual goal.

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Yes / no / "don't ask, don't tell".

The officially sanctioned activity is "disciplining the materials". And I'd rather not go into more detail, both because I don't want to spoil things, and because I don't want to put myself in that mindset unnecessarily. There's enough of this sort of thing in history—even fairly recent history—if you go looking. But it's not the sort of thing I would recommend you do go looking for.

So she genuinely had the desire and presence of mind at the time to do that, rather than just telling herself that after the fact.

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Hmm~

I'm going to say yes. Still loopy, but not loopy enough to deliberately kill a potential ally. We're deep into discussing a timeline that didn't happen, though; it's not nearly as solid a line of thinking as what we've already gone over. Did Kana really intend to kill Amu? No. Did she pull her blow correctly? ...I didn't fully model that at the time, because I didn't need to; it could have gone either way.

Personally, I would have expected this to be Wits.

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Wits is the other attribute I was considering, and I'm not yet decided on which fits best. It has elements of both. But wits is 'thinking on your feet', whereas this is 'moving your "thoughts" correctly, on your feet'. Kana really does experience it as more like moving a limb than thinking.

 

[quantum lurker]

The officially sanctioned activity is "disciplining the materials"

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Man it would seem the metaphorical hole keeps getting bigger and deeper the more we look at Manticore's everything here?

 

[Baughn]

Man it would seem the metaphorical hole keeps getting bigger and deeper the more we look at Manticore's everything here?

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I based Manticore on the actual actions of a real-world, 1st world governmental organisation, no further than thirty or forty years back. And they didn't have victims that were potentially genuinely dangerous.

Not going to name them, because that isn't a conversation I feel would be useful. Sadly there were multiple options.

One thing I suppose I can mention, is the previously missing 'Scavenger', Yuna—also Yui's friend—was (prior to 'suicide') supposedly being held in a closed psychiatric institution. Kana would tell you that this is complete nonsense, but it's the official excuse.

 

[Skelm]

Once you've gone as far as imprisoning children and forcing them into potentially fatal medical experiments, your organisation is filled with people who are fundamentally okay with doing that, and they're just not going to be highly focused on only committing the abuses strictly implied by the organisational mandate. So I'm not at all surprised to hear they do a bunch of ancillary bad things, or even things actively detrimental to their cause.

 

[Baughn]

Once you've gone as far as imprisoning children and forcing them into potentially fatal medical experiments, your organisation is filled with people who are fundamentally okay with doing that, and they're just not going to be highly focused on only committing the abuses strictly implied by the organisational mandate. So I'm not at all surprised to hear they do a bunch of ancillary bad things, or even things actively detrimental to their cause.

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It will also have a lot of people who are 'simply' providing for their family / having a career, who get all sorts of psychological issues from what they're 'forced' to do at work, and so on. It will even have a few true believers, who absolutely would protest upon learning of this sort of thing, but might well justify it as 'necessary'.

But in general, you are correct.

 

[PistachioCookies]

Has to happen from the top-down, though.

If the executives and higher-ups were the true believers, they would be cracking down on that kind of thing the moment they learned one of their units was deliberately disappearing and cutting open kids. For the organization to be OK-ing those activities on a widespread basis means that those in charge are handing down orders for it to happen - or at very least, are ends-justifies-means types to the point the don't care about what is done as long as it gets results.

Sadly, we don't actually know who's at the top. One of the advantages of getting Kana's mother to surrender is that she could potentially provide the names as well, I have a feeling she wouldn't mind selling them out as long as Yui was guaranteed healing.

 

[quantum lurker]

Given Kana "only" has 1 dot in Mind Crush (and three more general Mind Control dots, to be fair), I wonder what the heck did Hikaru do to have 2 dots in it?

 

[Quine]

Given Kana "only" has 1 dot in Mind Crush (and three more general Mind Control dots, to be fair), I wonder what the heck did Hikaru do to have 2 dots in it?

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My guess is that some of that is simply lack of understanding and control - "throwing his weight around" is easy, and he's got a lot of power to throw around, but more subtle uses take skill he hasn't developed. Meanwhile, Kana has much less Overgrowth. She can't just squish people under her vast bulk. She has this specialty because she's an actual specialist, trained for years at killing people with her mind.


On a different note, I hope whatever's happening in two months is something we get to see coming. It would be nice to not get blindsided for once. Maybe we could even manage to complete at least one preparation for it!

In the meantime, I guess we keep building up a generalist toolkit and hope it's applicable to whatever comes up. We're currently making inefficient use of the school training timeslot due to lack of overlap bonuses. If we can adjust our training vote to overlap Lore with something during that slot, we should be able to make better use of our time.

We could try to adjust the stunt to overlap Lore with one of the existing options, or we could try to add something new. Awareness might be nice. Amu has had trouble maintaining tactical awareness with Awareness 1, as shown by her poor Join Battle against Kana and her losing track of important information during the school fight. It'd also be useful for spotting anything Manticore tries to do.

@Baughn, would we be able to overlap Lore and Awareness training during school time, perhaps by having Amu try to pay attention to what's going on around her while studying?

 

[quantum lurker]

Awareness training

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Given earlier posts I think we can ask for Naoto to help us with that (being aware of things so you have more options in a fight and be less blindsided shouldn't be a very difficult sell) and probably fold that into narratively being there with Kana?

Edit:
And on the earlier topic, (some) Psionics being able to train at Solar speeds must be really scary if you arr an organisation who wants to reign them in or jump on the problems they can theoretically make?

 

[Quine]

And on the earlier topic, (some) Psionics being able to train at Solar speeds must be really scary if you arr an organisation who wants to reign them in or jump on the problems they can theoretically make?

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I am skeptical of the idea that "rein them in" is a useful description of what Manticore leadership wants to do with psionics. "Exploit them", "take their power", or a variety of other goals that might be euphemistically described as "reining them in" seem more likely, but nothing that an unbiased, unprompted observer would describe that way.

I think their reaction is less likely to be fear, and more likely to be "can we use this?"