Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

Onmur said:

Putting meguca on ice is inhumane. We can't do that when we have the safety measures we got.

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Giving evilguca chances to walk around murdering people is also inhumane. And that is what you are advocating for right now, because I believe that we do not have the time, attention, resources, patience, or care that would be necessary to humanely imprison a conscious Rionna, and that keeping her conscious does nothing except give her a chance to murder people we care about. You say that we have antimagic and Yuki and all these other resources, and I say that we still don't know if Rionna's shades were dispersed or just left leaderless, that we don't know what kinds of persistent effects she may have set up in the time she's had access to every power she wanted and enough Grief Seeds to keep an expensive power up 24/7, and that she's evil enough that every conversation she could possibly have with anyone other than a trained psychology would result in nothing but violence. Look back at the conversation we had with her. How long do you think it'd take her to convince someone to take a swing at her? Do you think she'd just die, or would she sacrifice the appropriate arm or leg and immediately steal her assailant's soul and go on a rampage? Do you think that those kinds of conversations would be healthy for her or for anyone subjected to them? Do you intend to sentence her to indefinite solitary confinement? Even if she can't convince someone to attack her, she's a magical girl; it can't be that hard for her to tear her own arm or leg off and then sneak-attack one of her jailers.

I agree that it'd be nice if we had a better solution than gemming her. I don't think that we do. I think that keeping her gem is more likely to keep her and everyone around her safe both immediately and in the future. I think that giving her more chances, no matter how well-intentioned, is dangerously misguided and cannot have a good outcome.

You want a slippery slope? Look at the arguments that were being advanced in the thread to excuse and justify Rionna's actions. Look at what would happen if we gave everyone infinite chances. Look at what would happen if we insisted that there was no such thing as a person that had to be stopped. Sometimes, unless you're a Culture Mind, the only available fix is to remove someone from the world.

Remember, when Mami went tetris, Madoka killed her.

Finally, remember that WE DO NOT OPERATE IN A VACUUM. WE HAVE OTHER PEOPLE WATCHING OUR ACTIONS.

Firnagzen said:

"Stop being evil?" Sayaka suggests.

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Firnagzen said:

"You have enough," Mami says, voice like ice. "She's a monster. And she- she did something back there, near the end. I'm not sure what."

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Firnagzen said:

"She's dangerous," Homura says. Her frown deepens into a scowl. "She tried to attack you."

"She attacked you," Mami says simply. "In our city."

"Yeah!" Sayaka says. "I mean... is it even a question? Like... whatshername. Anri, or Yuuri, or whatever her name is. Take her down, and then we talk to her."

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Firnagzen said:

"That doesn't make any difference," Mami says instantly. "She used her powers on you."

"Yeah," Sayaka says. "That's like saying... she didn't shoot you, just jabbed you with a gun to make you give way. That's dumb, Sabrina."

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Firnagzen said:

"Oh, for-" Sayaka rolls her eyes. "Mami, hug her."

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If you want to spout off about WHAT WOULD PEOPLE THINK, maybe you should actually think about what people WOULD ACTUALLY THINK? We don't have people worry about us being too harsh. We don't have people telling us to give her another chance. We have people that we care about, that we interact with every day, telling us that she's a monster, she needs to be in jail, and that she's evil. Waking Rionna up won't make people think that we're extra-benevolent or any such shit. It'll make Sayaka conclude that we are an idiot, it'll make Homura think that we're dangerously stupid, it'll stress Mami out constantly.

Sabrina isn't making this decision. Sayaka and Mami and Homura, and I'm damned sure Oriko and Kirika and Nadia and Madoka and Hitomi once we ask them, are all telling us that Rionna belongs gemmed. There is no slippery slope. There is no unilateral "empress Sabrina"-ing. We have taken a vote. The vote was unanimous and obvious.

Is this really the hill you want to die on?

[x] Kaizuki

Vebyast said:

Giving evilguca chances to walk around murdering people is also inhumane. And that is what you are advocating for right now, because I believe that we do not have the time, attention, resources, patience, or care that would be necessary to humanely imprison a conscious Rionna, and that keeping her conscious does nothing except give her a chance to murder people we care about. You say that we have antimagic and Yuki and all these other resources, and I say that we still don't know if Rionna's shades were dispersed or just left leaderless, that we don't know what kinds of persistent effects she may have set up in the time she's had access to every power she wanted and enough Grief Seeds to keep an expensive power up 24/7, and that she's evil enough that every conversation she could possibly have with anyone other than a trained psychology would result in nothing but violence. Look back at the conversation we had with her. How long do you think it'd take her to convince someone to take a swing at her? Do you think she'd just die, or would she sacrifice the appropriate arm or leg and immediately steal her assailant's soul and go on a rampage? Do you think that those kinds of conversations would be healthy for her or for anyone subjected to them? Do you intend to sentence her to indefinite solitary confinement? Even if she can't convince someone to attack her, she's a magical girl; it can't be that hard for her to tear her own arm or leg off and then sneak-attack one of her jailers.

I agree that it'd be nice if we had a better solution than gemming her. I don't think that we do. I think that keeping her gem is more likely to keep her and everyone around her safe both immediately and in the future. I think that giving her more chances, no matter how well-intentioned, is dangerously misguided and cannot have a good outcome.

You want a slippery slope? Look at the arguments that were being advanced in the thread to excuse and justify Rionna's actions. Look at what would happen if we gave everyone infinite chances. Look at what would happen if we insisted that there was no such thing as a person that had to be stopped. Sometimes, unless you're a Culture Mind, the only available fix is to remove someone from the world.

Remember, when Mami went tetris, Madoka killed her.

Finally, remember that WE DO NOT OPERATE IN A VACUUM. WE HAVE OTHER PEOPLE WATCHING OUR ACTIONS.




If you want to spout off about WHAT WOULD PEOPLE THINK, maybe you should actually think about what people WOULD ACTUALLY THINK? We don't have people worry about us being too harsh. We don't have people telling us to give her another chance. We have people that we care about, that we interact with every day, telling us that she's a monster, she needs to be in jail, and that she's evil. Waking Rionna up won't make people think that we're extra-benevolent or any such shit. It'll make Sayaka conclude that we are an idiot, it'll make Homura think that we're dangerously stupid, it'll stress Mami out constantly.

Sabrina isn't making this decision. Sayaka and Mami and Homura, and I'm damned sure Oriko and Kirika and Nadia and Madoka and Hitomi once we ask them, are all telling us that Rionna belongs gemmed. There is no slippery slope. There is no unilateral "empress Sabrina"-ing. We have taken a vote. The vote was unanimous and obvious.

Is this really the hill you want to die on?

[x] Kaizuki

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We can imprison Riona safely enough, in my opinion, and I'd rather let Yuki be the judge of this.

Riona being anti-magicked, and Yuki's approval is what I feel should be good enough.

Dangers will always exist, we minimize them, but to this extreme? How long could it take to actually prepare professionals to deal with meguca? Months? Would we put a person in basically a magical coma for that long, when we have a choice?

The meguca, teenagers in general would not go the lenghts we've gone. We're trying to do better, to make a more humane world. Putting someone on ice like that for so long, I don't think that's what we've been going for, what we've been asking of others.

I don't think Sabrina's friends will react as you say. We've been the one to push them to try something better. They know what we're trying to do, and we're taking plenty of precautions.

Rionna will be cut off from her magic, and while some still active effect outside could try to come to her rescue, she'll still be antimagicked and guarded by Yuki, an extremely strong defensive meguca within her domain.

I'd much rather ask her if she thinks these measures are good enough. Again, if she says no, I won't oppose Gemming.

Be kind to each other

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Guys, the toxicity. Chill please.

So since any and all PMAS related discussion needs to go here, I'm just going to ramble about how I'm still plucking away at that PMASxTanya short story I started a few months back. Mostly just finishing the outline so I can solidify the flying threads in my head. Plus I really want to get to writing Rochelle, cuz people aren't.

Notes, and spoilers, because that's what I do

[X] Kaizuki

Appletank said:

So since any and all PMAS related discussion needs to go here, I'm just going to ramble about how I'm still plucking away at that PMASxTanya short story I started a few months back. Mostly just finishing the outline so I can solidify the flying threads in my head. Plus I really want to get to writing Rochelle, cuz people aren't.

Notes, and spoilers, because that's what I do

Spoiler: witch design

Abyssal color themes.
Barrier: Storms, heavy cloud cover, panning search lights. Circling dive bombing ravens and black shelled sharks.
Stringy pale hair, burning red irises. Black armored torso and gauntlets. Legs look vaguely attached to the brow of a carrier in a centaur formation, almost like a bow ornament that got 500 times bigger. Skeletal fighter craft manifest on her deck and is thrown at her target. Mouth constantly emits coal-fired smoke. Abnormal limb rotation range. In a constant state of sinking and boiling that water off.
Name: Forge, the Witch of Rage

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I'm not sure what any of this post is about. You might want to include a full explanation and context in any given post on the topic, since most people won't know about it.

Onmur said:

Dangers will always exist, we minimize them, but to this extreme? How long could it take to actually prepare professionals to deal with meguca? Months? Would we put a person in basically a magical coma for that long, when we have a choice?

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We have the power to teleport Rionna forward to the moment when we have those appropriately trained psychologists.

Imprisonment, no matter how friendly, is inherently damaging. The best you can do is minimize it and provide enough psychological support that it nets positive.

We have no psychological support that can help Rionna right now.

Waking Rionna up will not help her. It will not help the people around her. It will not help her past or future victims. It won't even help Sabrina, because our friends are telling us that giving Rionna too many chances was and will continue to be stupid.

We are obligated to teleport Rionna forward to a moment when we can actually help her. It is the best outcome for everyone. Most ethical, most moral, most practical, most pragmatic, most rational.

I think that you would be well served by taking a step back and asking yourself what would actually do good. Deontological ethics fail miserably and catastrophically under even the slightest stresses. I urge you to abandon them immediately. "Just free everyone!" is not a useful rule.

edit: Hell, your complaint is that we won't be waking Rionna up until we have psychologists that can help Rionna and that this is a huge problem that will delay it far too much, then say we need to wake her up right now anyway? Are you trying to drive her even more insane and guarantee she causes another Incident?

Onmur said:

I don't think Sabrina's friends will react as you say. We've been the one to push them to try something better. They know what we're trying to do, and we're taking plenty of precautions.

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We let Rionna attack us and then tried to say she did nothing wrong. The girl that murdered, tortured, and enslaved who knows how many girls without even the slightest regrets. There is such a thing as being too idealistic. It's somewhere between the point where we shoot ourselves in the foot and the point where we waste Madokami's mission on a girl that only deserves good treatment on a technicality. Homura might react with exasperation, but she will nevertheless decide that we let dangerous magical girls go too far. Sayaka might react with admiration, but she will nevertheless decide that we do too much BOTH SIDES to be just.

You keep saying that they won't react like that. How will they react, then? Do you make any predictions? Can you? Support your arguments.

Onmur said:

Riona being anti-magicked, and Yuki's approval is what I feel should be good enough.

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How is Yuki's opinion useful here? She has no more information about Rionna than we do and there's no way in hell she's going to be able to put more thought into this than I can, much less the entire thread. How do you possibly conclude that her opinion is better than that of the entire thread plus Sabrina plus Sayaka and Homura and fucking Kirika, whose power it is you're depending on so heavily, and Oriko? How can you possibly rationalize giving this entire thing over to her?! Fuck, our entire party is going to tell us to keep Rionna gemmed, and you want to overrule them and hand the decision over to a fucking mercenary that allied with us out of convenience and whose first interaction with us involved her being hired to help subjugate an entire region of magical girls? How the fuck do you think this is a good idea? I don't want to be yelling at you here, but I honestly cannot find a way to ask for clarification on this because the fundamental idea sounds so idiotic.

Anyway, I feel like keeping Rionna on ice for a few days or so might be a good idea? Gives enough time for her shades to fade away before she can even attempt to do anything with them, since she seems to need to regularly maintain them to keep them around.

On the other hand, maybe it'd be good for her to experience the loss of her shades/shade network in real time, as a way of learning that there are actual consequences for herself with her actions.

That, and considering that her network of shades is basically everything she's built up and accumulated over the years, including much of her power and versatility, it's so very satisfying that she's going to lose all of it because the consequences of her actions have finally caught up to her. I don't think she's seriously entertained or thought about the possibility that she could lose (not in the sense that it is physically possible for her to lose if she deliberately does stupid things, but that doing things her normal way could actually end up with her losing) in a long, long time. Even when inside of Sabrina's territory, within her privacy sphere and cut off from her shades, outnumbered and with no allies, against a meguca that is utterly terrifying when you actually consider the implications of the abilities she casually displays, she still repeatedly talked and acted like she would undoubtedly win any fight that might happen. Instead, she was conscious for long enough to see herself get utterly destroyed, outplayed, and downright trivialized to such a degree that she not only never saw it coming, but she probably will be wondering how the hell Sabrina took her down so easily and quickly for a long time. All of this is going to be a major, sudden shock to her system.

What was Kaizuki's vote, again?

EDIT: [X] Kaizuki

SaltyWaffles said:

I'm not sure what any of this post is about. You might want to include a full explanation and context in any given post on the topic, since most people won't know about it.

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Appletank said:

'm still plucking away at that PMASxTanya short story I started a few months back

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of course
link here

[x] Kaizuki

[X] kaizuki

It kind of feels like people are beginning to yell at each other again. Can we please not do that again? It shouldn't have to be too much to ask for posters to not be jerks to each other, and yet there's that little message there near the bottom of the page.

Agent Whiskers said:

It kind of feels like people are beginning to yell at each other again. Can we please not do that again? It shouldn't have to be too much to ask for posters to not be jerks to each other, and yet there's that little message there near the bottom of the page.

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The message at the bottom of the page is unfortunately lacking. "Be kind to each other" is nice and all, but posters also need to debate in good faith, pay attention to what the QM writes, and respect the characters and themes of the work. Given the choice between vacuous, airheaded pleasantries and - shock! horror! - demanding that other posters actually make arguments instead of spewing unsupported and unsupportable assertions and undermining the characterization and message of the quest, I'm going to choose every time to ask people to debate in good faith and point out things they might want to fix.

Vebyast said:

We have the power to teleport Rionna forward to the moment when we have those appropriately trained psychologists.

Imprisonment, no matter how friendly, is inherently damaging. The best you can do is minimize it and provide enough psychological support that it nets positive.

We have no psychological support that can help Rionna right now.

Waking Rionna up will not help her. It will not help the people around her. It will not help her past or future victims. It won't even help Sabrina, because our friends are telling us that giving Rionna too many chances was and will continue to be stupid.

We are obligated to teleport Rionna forward to a moment when we can actually help her. It is the best outcome for everyone. Most ethical, most moral, most practical, most pragmatic, most rational.

I think that you would be well served by taking a step back and asking yourself what would actually do good. Deontological ethics fail miserably and catastrophically under even the slightest stresses. I urge you to abandon them immediately. "Just free everyone!" is not a useful rule.

edit: Hell, your complaint is that we won't be waking Rionna up until we have psychologists that can help Rionna and that this is a huge problem that will delay it far too much, then say we need to wake her up right now anyway? Are you trying to drive her even more insane and guarantee she causes another Incident?

We let Rionna attack us and then tried to say she did nothing wrong. The girl that murdered, tortured, and enslaved who knows how many girls without even the slightest regrets. There is such a thing as being too idealistic. It's somewhere between the point where we shoot ourselves in the foot and the point where we waste Madokami's mission on a girl that only deserves good treatment on a technicality. Homura might react with exasperation, but she will nevertheless decide that we let dangerous magical girls go too far. Sayaka might react with admiration, but she will nevertheless decide that we do too much BOTH SIDES to be just.

You keep saying that they won't react like that. How will they react, then? Do you make any predictions? Can you? Support your arguments.

How is Yuki's opinion useful here? She has no more information about Rionna than we do and there's no way in hell she's going to be able to put more thought into this than I can, much less the entire thread. How do you possibly conclude that her opinion is better than that of the entire thread plus Sabrina plus Sayaka and Homura and fucking Kirika, whose power it is you're depending on so heavily, and Oriko? How can you possibly rationalize giving this entire thing over to her?! Fuck, our entire party is going to tell us to keep Rionna gemmed, and you want to overrule them and hand the decision over to a fucking mercenary that allied with us out of convenience and whose first interaction with us involved her being hired to help subjugate an entire region of magical girls? How the fuck do you think this is a good idea? I don't want to be yelling at you here, but I honestly cannot find a way to ask for clarification on this because the fundamental idea sounds so idiotic.

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Agent Whiskers said:

It kind of feels like people are beginning to yell at each other again. Can we please not do that again? It shouldn't have to be too much to ask for posters to not be jerks to each other, and yet there's that little message there near the bottom of the page.

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I'm sorry, I know at this point I'm arguing against multiple people, but I'm trying to remain civil and not let my emotions dictate my arguments. Just expressing what I feel is the best path we should aim to take.

Hey again all; this'll only be my second (substantial) post here as I don't have the time to be as thorough in reading through all the arguments as I'd like, but I'm in agreement with Vebyast that keeping Rionna gemmed is the more ethical option. I think those advocating for a more conventional type of imprisonment are underestimating the harm that could do; anyone ever read Reforming Punishment by Craig Haney? Even if whatever system we devise would be thousand times better than a typical detention facility, the experience of being imprisoned is just inherently psychologically damaging. Since we're seemingly 100% sure that she's not conscious, keeping her gemmed seems like one of those rare occasions where practicality and morality align. To be clear, I'm advocating for gemming because I consider it more humane. If I were in Rionna's shoes, I wouldn't exactly be keen on waking up weeks to months into the future suddenly and without warning OR on spending weeks to months confined to a cell, but if those were the only two options, I'd take the former, no question.

EDIT: To play Homu's advocate, I think there's a strong argument to avoid gemming her on the basis that it'll set a really dangerous precedent. It's going to be SO much simpler and SO much more humane that we'll be all the more tempted to do it to other evilguca in the future. As long as we're incredibly careful not to let it cross the line from necessary evil to convenient problem-dodger, I still think it's by far the better option here.

Anann said:

Hey again all; this'll only be my second (substantial) post here as I don't have the time to be as thorough in reading through all the arguments as I'd like, but I'm in agreement with Vebyast that keeping Rionna gemmed is the more ethical option. I think those advocating for a more conventional type of imprisonment are underestimating the harm that could do; anyone ever read Reforming Punishment by Craig Haney? Even if whatever system we devise would be thousand times better than a typical detention facility, the experience of being imprisoned is just inherently psychologically damaging. Since we're seemingly 100% sure that she's not conscious, keeping her gemmed seems like one of those rare occasions where practicality and morality align. To be clear, I'm advocating for gemming because I consider it more humane. If I were in Rionna's shoes, I wouldn't exactly be keen on waking up weeks to months into the future suddenly and without warning OR on spending weeks to months confined to a cell, but if those were the only two options, I'd take the former, no question.

EDIT: To play Homu's advocate, I think there's a strong argument to avoid gemming her on the basis that it'll set a really dangerous precedent. It's going to be SO much simpler and SO much more humane that we'll be all the more tempted to do it to other evilguca in the future. As long as we're incredibly careful not to let it cross the line from necessary evil to convenient problem-dodger, I still think it's by far the better option here.

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Agreed. That's been my thought- waking up two-three weeks later in a well staffed prison actually able to handle me would be preferable to being locked up in a sub- standard prison for that time. And don't worry about not having the time, this thread moves too fast for basically everyone, always has.

Now here's the kicker, and probably where I'll lose some people: if that's the ethical position we arrive at, then we're obliged to also gem our other prisoner. She's much less dangerous, so the practical argument for doing so isn't there, but if our moral stance is that non-consciousness is more humane than the experience of being imprisoned, we have to apply that evenly. We could at least ask her, but I'm like 90% confident she'll say no, and I'm not so disenchanted with the 'muh free willz' meme that I'd be comfortable ignoring her and gemming her anyway.

I need to sleep, but before I go I want to try and make my ideal path as clear as possible, since I won't be able to answer for a while:


If I can say I took anything away from this discussion, is that I'm considering the harm of imprisonment a little more seriously. I still hold freedom of choice up as too important to ignore as long as we can ensure a certain margin of safety, but I would now prefer Riona to be even more carefully observed if she's imprisoned 'normally', than I had felt she needed to, before.

Onmur said:

I understand imprisonment is harmful. I do not know how badly confinement would affect Riona in particular, but I would not rob her of the freedom to at the very least exist during this time if that can be avoided safely enough, and doesn't react too negatively to confinement.

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Onmur said:

Again, if she's observed to not deal well with confinement, we can then Gem her. This should be something to do if proven necessary, not before

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Why wait? Why say "too" negatively? Teleporting her into the future has zero negative ethical weight. She loses nothing and suffers nothing. Forcing her to experience any imprisonment has negative weight. There is nothing for her to be away from, nothing she's "missing out on" except imprisonment. It is our responsibility to protect her from the experience of being imprisoned, if possible, in the same way that it's our responsibility to protect every other magical girl from that experience, and I think that in this case it's more than possible to do it.

Beyond that, why make her choose how she suffers? Just choose the one where she doesn't suffer.

Onmur said:

Whether it is best to allow her to be, or to Gem her for days, or weeks on end, is not a decision to be made lightly, not without observation, not without having everyone's opinions.

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How many opinions are you going to demand? What is "everyone"? We have Homura, Sayaka, and Mami. We're shortly going to have Kirika and Oriko. I can't see Madoka or Hitomi making a different decision. I think that we have more than enough diversity of perspective already.

If by "observation" you mean "reckless experimentation after rejecting the idea of reasoning through possible results in favor of blindly trying everything", I suppose we could guarantee that Rionna suffers the worst of both options.

Onmur said:

We need Sabrina to talk this with her friends;

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Already done. Homura and Sayaka both said "not indefinitely". We made plans for making sure her body was still online when she came back to it.

Onmur said:

I disagree with your expectations of how Sabrina's friends will react simply because I feel they are overblown. I do expect they will not like giving Riona a choice, just like they have not liked many of our decisions, like allowing Oriko to live and stay at Mitakihara. Ultimately, we have shown we can do better than they are used to; I expect Sabrina's friends to treat her opinions with respect, even if we disagree and even overrule her.

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"Do better."

It is entirely possible for Sabrina to fuck up. You don't get to assume that everything Sabrina does is necessarily the best possible course of action. You don't get to assume that we'll be proven right in hindsight. You don't get to assume that our friends will magically come around to our point of view.

And beyond that? Even if you're proven right - IF - it's going to take until after walpurgisnacht. And until then? "Do better."

Onmur said:

- To not make final decisions before they need to be employed.

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It needed to be employed six posts ago. Quit endangering the quest with this stalling.

Onmur said:

-- Follow the group's consensus. No if nor buts. If the group says Gem, Gem.

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WE ALREADY ASKED. THEY ALREADY ANSWERED. GEM THE BITCH.

Onmur said:

-- Observe Riona for a while (Yuki's awareness of her building should help). If she doesn't deal well with imprisonment, Gem her.

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NO. FUCKING NO. GET HER OUT OF THE FUCKING THREAD. GONE. NO MORE RIONA. NEVER AGAIN.

Edit: Even if you think that it'll happen "on autopilot" with "no arguments in the thread", do you understand what will happen if Sabrina follows through on something like this "on autopilot"? No. Get her out of the fucking thread.

Anann said:

Now here's the kicker, and probably where I'll lose some people: if that's the ethical position we arrive at, then we're obliged to also gem our other prisoner. She's much less dangerous, so the practical argument for doing so isn't there, but if our moral stance is that non-consciousness is more humane than the experience of being imprisoned, we have to apply that evenly. We could at least ask her, but I'm like 90% confident she'll say no, and I'm not so disenchanted with the 'muh free willz' meme that I'd be comfortable ignoring her and gemming her anyway.

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I think that Yuuri is in a less extreme position, but yes, I'd be in favor of gemming her until we had therapists on staff. I'd have to go back and look at what my position was when the topic originally came up. I think that she's been woken up and gemming her would piss her off, unfortunately, so it might be too late to be a good person.

Firnagzen said:

gone, from an OoC perspective.

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@Firnagzen , please render a ruling on the 'setting of Edinburgh?' and activities including it? Is that city set to NPC / background-only in the same motion?
Or is that playable material?

My current assumption is that it is separate, please update me as you require?





[X] Thank everyone for coming together so perfectly. Remind them that saving everyone isn't something we could do alone, and it feels good to be saved by them.
-[X] Ask Sayaka what she does when she feels overflowingly alive
--[X] We suggest everyone try that as a group? Let a little stress out. Be silly.

[X] Thoroughly probe Rionna's items, first with everyone's senses, then full forensic style. Understand the enchantments, read any data.

[X] Nadia
-[X] Do not complain.
--[X] Explain in some detail everything Rionna said about what she does. Only say "we had a discussion." Telepathy infosec, we don't want Kyuubey to start planning before we move.
-[X] Ask about history. Prior Organizations of Magical Girls? Anything not the usual warring patchwork, with enough weight behind it to be memorable.

[X] Call Niko. Tell her to discuss club activities with us soon. No details yet.

[X] Have a round table with everyone about the topic of Edinburgh as empty territory.
-[X] Get opinions on Rionna and on the repercussions of taking her prisoner.

[X] Prepare Yuki for new occupants. Establish secure comms, or go face-to-face. Explain Rionna situation in full detail.
-[X] Our next step is to have a therapy / encounter room.
--[X] We need to plan this with her, including integration of a few mundane adults. Safety, logistics and information security will be addressed now in the beginning, proactively.
-[X] Set a deadline for completion. Deliver Rionna separated.
-[X] Discuss the political fallout of our victory, ask Yuki's advice.


A few remixes to think about for a vote. Not a complete stack yet.

We should be careful not to tell Kyuubey that Edinburgh is up for grabs yet. It would use the information irresponsibly, and we can easily moderate the risk by delaying disclosure. Our plans should go into motion first. Make plans right now? If we don't even make plans, we don't get to try to improve the things we can.

Release a bit of tension, but real rest comes after duty. We have jail, we got perp, book 'em, Yuki.


My personal take is that we should keep Rionna gemmed for three days, due to her statements. Not as a utility for ourselves, but as the best means to purge her Shades, or at least some of them. I'm seeing the group decision to let them die properly, so this is the best way to do that. Gemming for lesser utility is something that makes my morality cramp. Anything longer isn't strictly proven necessary.

Prevention of moral faults is sometimes achieved by limiting oneself, and accepting difficulty.

I support keeping our use of de-gemming within the limits of combat prevention. If we have to work extra-hard to make it safe to awaken the subject, that was a part of this morality we have to pay. I think we should, and I think it makes a better lesson to those around us.

As a combatant, we heard about her basic moves. She isn't a melee type, or someone with arcane levels in spycraft. Willpower and speed could be top-ranked. After her magic is stripped away, she's just a veteran with a nasty mouth. Rionna's hatred didn't make her a renaissance girl, and her isolation didn't make her a polymath. I see no reason to consider Rionna an extraordinary escape risk if Yuki understands her and prepares.

Jail is Jail, we use the intervening time to let Yuki get her game on. Within two days we will have to just knuckle down, and get a counselor or therapist in the chair. Fortunately Rionna speaks native English. Sabrina is persuasive as an idealist. That means finding candidates isn't nearly as hard in her case. There are places where they are easy to find, and abundant! Our IRC pals in America get to earn their alliance position by doing us a solid and making the legwork happen?

We still need to inaugurate our institution using Japanese nationals. Waiting long enough for Rionna to learn to speak Japanese will see her witched or us vexed, so for the special 'black op' side of treatment we can jumpstart with an import if that is required. Not implying, fully stating that Rionna should be put to learning Japanese till she makes some progress, for her own quality of life.

Vebyast said:

Teleporting her into the future has zero negative ethical weight.

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I disagree with this assertion, though I'm having difficulty articulating why I think extended gemming is bad. It's probably some combination of "Normalizing treating people as objects is a morally hazardous slippery slope," "Being Rip Van Winkle would really suck," "It feels uncomfortably similar to the violation of having your soul ripped out of your body without informed consent that Kyuubey does," "A prison where everyone is kept in medically-induced comas sounds really dystopian," and "Prisoners should have the ability to ensure their affairs are in order so that they still have a house after they've served their sentence."

That's not to say that may not be the lesser of all evils, but I don't think that it's morally neutral.

Returning Rionna to consciousness shouldn't be done at any point before we find a trained and professional psychologist experienced in working with convicts to rehabilitate her. Anything else will just end up in tears and blood, from either side. She's a teenage unrepentant serial killer, she needs help, the kind of help we (as in, Sabrina and co) are unqualified to provide. What she needs is professional therapy and lots of it, not to be left to her own devices stewing in isolation on plans of revenge and festering dark thoughts.

I've argued it before but haven't really pushed for it for now since I'm fine with giving Sabrina some time to cool off and cuddle, but given that we now have two prisoners on our hands and one of them provides a serious dilemma on whether or not to keep her as jewelry, finding that pyschologist to provide therapy should be moved to the top of our priority list as quickly as possible. A lot of the problems these teenage and even pre-teen girls caused could've been prevented if there'd been an adult with a rolled up newspaper standing next to them to give them a whack on the head every time they were about to do something stupid.*

*Note that I in no way approve of violence against children and that my wording of giving them a whack should be seen purely in a comical sense.

TJSomething said:

"Normalizing treating people as objects is a morally hazardous slippery slope,"

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On the contrary, I believe that attempting to give people special handling causes all sorts of cognitive distortions. A functional philosophical framework necessarily has sentience as a core concept and needs no tuning, adjustments, or other heavy-handed kludges to give people the "proper respect". At most there is an argument from cognitive shortcuts and habit-formation, but even then a more accurate framework yields correspondingly better approximations and habits.

TJSomething said:

"Being Rip Van Winkle would really suck,"

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Rionna has nothing to come back to, and Sayaka and Homura already vetoed gemming her for more than a few weeks. No problems here.

TJSomething said:

"It feels uncomfortably similar to the violation of having your soul ripped out of your body without informed consent that Kyuubey does,"

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If you subscribe to the theory of punitive justice... unfortunately for Rionna, she wished for and then gleefully used the power to rip souls out of people's bodies "kicking and screaming".

If you subscribe bayesian epistemic theories and utilitarian philosophies, vague similarities in form aren't an argument. The largest negative component of the expected value are the social consequences of bad-faith arguments following exactly the lines you just quoted, and I believe that the differences are visible enough and the circumstances sufficiently extenuating that I do not expect worse side effects than are associated with our other options. People that are determined to find a reason to hate what we do will find a reason to hate what we do no matter how careful we are.

TJSomething said:

"A prison where everyone is kept in medically-induced comas sounds really dystopian,"

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You know what also sounds really dystopian? A prison where everyone is kept in their own room all the time on an externally-imposed schedule with limited time out in the yard, monitored communications, and no chance to interact with normal society. Cushy bed, sure, nice food, great, but self-actualization, emotional support, anything like that? Noooope.

You know what sounds even more dystopian? A new government that's not sufficiently settled to have any rehabilitative infrastructure and stuffs people in the above prison to rot for lack of a better option.

TJSomething said:

"Prisoners should have the ability to ensure their affairs are in order so that they still have a house after they've served their sentence."

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It'd be great if we could do that. Unfortunately, Rionna hasn't given us much of a choice, given how she flew to Mitakihara intending to kill and torture us and found out too late that she'd bitten off more than she could chew, then presented enough of a threat and a sufficiently nasty mental health problem that we couldn't in good conscience let her return to consciousness until we had better rehabilitative infrastructure. So she kind of didn't give us a chance to let her do that. Also, her "affairs" seem to amount to torturing people's ripped-out shades. Given how hard she's hitting the alcohol I bet that's about all of her affairs. She certainly doesn't have any friends or allies.

[x] Onmur

Please be civil and level headed everyone. I'm pretty much staying out of discussion here because I don't believe I can be civil with the arguments/attitudes that are being thrown around.

Have this instead.