Ignition (MTG/Multicross, Planeswalker PC)

Vebyast · Apr 3, 2019

Proposals for conference name: Conflagration, Pyromania.

Finding a venue for this conference is going to be interesting. The vast majority of traditional locations are out because there's no way we're doing this indoors. Given that we'll probably have pyros showing off, including things like channeling, Detonate, and free-running Red constructs... we probably can't even settle for big fields or parking lots - we'd set grassfires and melt asphalt. So we need somewhere that's already a blasted fireproof wasteland and won't care that a bit of it gets more burninated than it already is. All of the good lava fields and geothermal sites are going to be national parks and monuments that we don't want to set fire to, particularly given what happened to Yellowstone. A quarry somewhere, I guess? Or could follow Burning Man's example and find a chunk of desert somewhere; apparently Burning Man got up to ~10k attendees before the BLM got involved. ...Actually, Burning Man seems kind of perfect for a Pyro conference. Looots of radical self-expression and fire going on there. >_>

@Alivaril: IIRC we spent some time sitting on the roof of the cult's compound. Did Agneyastra find anything that we need to deal with Right Now, or can it wait until we come back here for Adventure and Arcade Gaming?

[x] Decline. You have a bunch to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

Honestly, I'm half-expecting Nanoha to have randomly gained Haste by level-up and be completely recovered by now. That said, I expect we'll probably get only one or two more major actions, so let's use them well.

I think the most important things are:

Kick the conference into motion - money, website, talks and workshops, etc.
Make sure the cult doesn't need urgent handling.
Set up any appropriate meetings for later.

-[x] That said, ask if she can send you contact info for a few people in case you have half an hour free to try to nail down cleansing.

[x] Spend a bit of time working with Mom to get the conference in motion.
-[x] Try to find a venue and a date, since those will be the bottleneck for attendees committing to the event. Random bit of desert? An inactive corner of an open-pit mine?
-[x] Set up a website and a process for submitting proposals for talks/workshops and posters/demo booths.
--[x] Submit a workshop on Red Cleansing, leaving your name redacted for now.
-[x] Propose sending out a bunch of emails asking for sponsorship. Corporations, governments, wealthy individuals with appropriately charitable histories, etc.
-[x] Send website link and such to Kanon.

[x] Try listening for prayers. Even if you can't get worship-power across planes, it'd be useful for communicating.

[x] Talk about the cult with Mom. Is there anything you need to act on urgently? More urgently than when you'll be able to bring Nanoha and Sidhe? Does she have any advice for dealing with it?

Might be a short update if those things collapse, but there's nothing wrong with a short update, since short updates are also quick to write and we'll be able to get right back to voting.

Things I didn't include and related rationales:

-[] Does she have someone who can teach you about normal MG tricks? You've sorta been neglecting most of those in favor of your colored magic.

Might be useful if we're going to be acting more on XCOM, it'd be useful to have more soul-powered magic in the tank so we can reserve our outside-context solutions for more serious situations. We can also ask for tips on this around the pyro conference.

-[] Can she find you someone good at teaching Indestructibility?

I'm not sure how valuable this will be until we have more ranks in White Mana Manipulation.

-[] Step in and out of Eternity, aiming for the Forest of Summers.

This is out; talking to Aria is very definitely an Adventure and Adventures mean Nanoha.

-[] So, any chance she can help you sell a small fortune in gemstones?

I... seriously doubt she'll have anything to offer here. And there are more efficient ways to get our conference funded - Given the context I would be astounded if we couldn't get a decent pile of cash from some major corporation that wanted their name slathered all over the world's first conference for overly magical girls.

[] Planeswalk away

If we really want to spend time looking at other planes, let's dedicate a vote to choosing what to look at. It's a pretty nuanced topic.

Torgamous · Apr 3, 2019

Vebyast said:
[x] Spend a bit of time working with Mom to get the conference in motion.
-[x] Try to find a venue and a date, since those will be the bottleneck for attendees committing to the event. Random bit of desert? An inactive corner of an open-pit mine?
-[x] Set up a website and a process for submitting proposals for talks/workshops and posters/demo booths.
--[x] Submit a workshop on Red Cleansing, leaving your name redacted for now.
-[x] Propose sending out a bunch of emails asking for sponsorship. Corporations, governments, wealthy individuals with appropriately charitable histories, etc.
-[x] Send website link and such to Kanon.

This is a quick thing in a couple weeks, not magic E3. We can work on a proper magic convention later when giving people time to plan events and schedule time off and all that good stuff won't interfere with teaching pyros how to cleanse their gems.

Alivaril · Apr 3, 2019

Torgamous said:
Staying on this plane until we're done with it, which means finishing spying on our cult and deciding what to do with them.

Vebyast said:
@Alivaril: IIRC we spent some time sitting on the roof of the cult's compound. Did Agneyastra find anything that we need to deal with Right Now, or can it wait until we come back here for Adventure and Arcade Gaming?

Spying isn't exactly a quick endeavor; Agneyastra says there's nothing there you need to involve yourself with at this time.

Nachtigall · Apr 3, 2019

Sapient_Ham said:
Neph's cooldown is far shorter than whatever happened with the Ethereal plane

That's pure speculation
Neph questions are far more valuable since they aren't limited to a single plane and allow precognition. To use a metaphor, you wouldn't use a full heal item when a potion is enough.

Sapient_Ham said:
It's an extremely powerful ability that should be carefully used to its maximum effect.

I asked twice whether anyone had better ideas. Nobody except you proposed their own questions, so I seriously doubt that waiting for a few updates will lead to the careful consideration you're hoping for.

I've asked "Any suggestions/objections" about over a dozen topics by now and the unfortunate truth is that most of the thread rarely bothers to discuss ideas unless it concerns the current vote.

Additionally,

we will want to use the first round of questions ASAP so that the ability will recover sooner.
We're only asking one question each, so we should still have another question in reserve.

Sapient_Ham said:
Consider how you'd react if someone suggested channeling Neph 6 times at the end of a write-in

That comparison is absurd since we can't channel Neph 6 times in a row. This situation is the equivalent to one channeling session at most, as I already explained that Neph's questions are more valuable than scrying uses.
And if someone added "channel Neph to ask these 6 questions" to the end of a write-in, I'd check against our prioritized list of questions (95% of which I wrote myself) whether said questions are reasonable and then probably vote for it.

Vebyast said:
Proposals for conference name: Conflagration, Pyromania.

Seconded. IMHO those are the best names so far.

Vebyast said:
there's no way we're doing this indoors. Given that we'll probably have pyros showing off, [...] we need somewhere that's already a blasted fireproof wasteland

I don't think it'll be that destructive, and cities should have witch barriers we can use as playgrounds for more destructive experiments. As an alternative, isolation barriers grab mana-based Lost Logia like jewel seeds, so would they work on pyros, @Alivaril ?

A wasteland lacks both accomodations and transport, and constructing temporary housing just for a conference seems excessive.

Vebyast said:
Honestly, I'm half-expecting Nanoha to have randomly gained Haste by level-up and be completely recovered by now.

It's called "Quicken" in Ignition since Haste was already taken by a Dragon Age spell, and even if Nanoha's soul had recovered she'd still be drugged unconscious.

Vebyast said:
[x] Spend a bit of time working with Mom to get the conference in motion.
-[x] Try to find a venue and a date, since those will be the bottleneck for attendees committing to the event. Random bit of desert? An inactive corner of an open-pit mine?

Kanon knows a lot more than us about which places and dates would work, so why are you leaving her out of that discussion?

Vebyast said:
-[x] Propose sending out a bunch of emails asking for sponsorship. Corporations, governments, wealthy individuals with appropriately charitable histories, etc.

Agneyastra can handle funding without our input. We're also rich enough that she might want us to stay sole sponsor – if we want to fix our cult, reputation is far more important than cash.

Vebyast said:
[x] Try listening for prayers. Even if you can't get worship-power across planes, it'd be useful for communicating.

Why did you rephrase that particular part? Especially since it'd only be one-way and not proper communication.

Vebyast said:
[x] Talk about the cult with Mom. Is there anything you need to act on urgently?

We already know that there isn't:

Alivaril said:
However, it is not something overly urgent; the 'Three Muses' appear to be on a vacation to Europe at the present moment.

Vebyast said:
If we really want to spend time looking at other planes, let's dedicate a vote to choosing what to look at. It's a pretty nuanced topic.

On one hand that's reasonable, on the other we thought the same about e.g. shopping in Magnostadt until it eventually was too late.

Maybe a compromise? I don't mind if we agree to scry next vote, I just don't want it to slip through and be forgotten.

Is that alright with everyone?

joe6168 · Apr 3, 2019

You know there's another thing we could teach that I don't think I've seen mentioned so far, grounding and centering. That seems like something that would be highly beneficial to all mages on our home plane, and not to difficult to pick up.

Nachtigall · Apr 3, 2019

BTW, I updated our question list so that it mentions which answers we might find by planar scrying.

joe6168 said:
You know there's another thing we could teach that I don't think I've seen mentioned so far, grounding and centering. That seems like something that would be highly beneficial to all mages on our home plane, and not to difficult to pick up.

Not too difficult to pick up? Not really.

It took two prodigies with mental enhancements and only 2h sleep per day two full days to ground and center, and we're still practicing on reflexively raising our shields against mental attacks.

For regular mages, it takes a lot longer:

Alivaril said:
Marina had, apparently, expected it to take you the better part of two weeks for you to properly Ground, Center, and assemble a shield.

Pyros have some of our advantages relative to uncolored mages, but it would still take them far longer than us.

I even mentioned that in my vote:

Nachtigall said:
-[x] You're best with Detonate, Fire Constructs, and Cleansing. Mental defenses would be a week-long seminar all by themselves, so that's out.

So overall, while it's a nice idea, it's unfortunately unfeasible.

curiosity · Apr 3, 2019

Nachtigall said:
mana-based Lost Logia like jewel seeds

Nachtigall · Apr 3, 2019

curiosity said:

Since I don't know which part of the statement you're questioning...

Isolation barriers bring along magical power sources other than LC magic:

Alivaril said:
Isolation Barrier [Rank 4]:
Unstable items with sufficient effects on space, time, and/or significant amounts of magical power are also brought along, a category which includes many Lost Logia.

Alivaril said:
The TSAB-designed Isolation Barriers should be able to deal with Jewel Seeds; they are made to deal with rogue Lost Logia."

Jewel seeds are hedrons and thus mana-based:

Alivaril said:
Graham is not currently on Earth.

If you guys just keep sitting around and training until the incident starts, you're screwed.

Alivaril said:
sainen said:

nope, it's worse than that Hedrons - MTG Salvation Wiki

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Since it's not included in that wiki entry: In canon MTG, hedrons were simultaneously used as bait for the Eldrazi and to trap the wandering abominations. However, when the hedron network was disrupted, the Eldrazi were released and began to cheerfully extract power from the hedrons. The Eldrazi also used them for all sorts of other tasks.
EDIT: Unless you guys seriously screw up, the difference between hedrons and normal MGLN Jewel Seeds will not matter to you.
Related hint: Whatever you do, don't tap Eternity while near one.

curiosity · Apr 3, 2019

Nachtigall said:
Since I don't know which part of the statement you're questioning...

Exactly the part that I quoted: that Jewel seeds are mana-based. I don't see how it wasn't clear.

Nachtigall said:
Jewel seeds are hedrons and thus mana-based:

Unbased conclusion. Alivaril only said that they are functionally hedrons. Non-mana means can produce mana-related effects. See Kyubey's averted experiment, Agneyastra's mana disruption.

Filraen · Apr 3, 2019

But the question if the Jewel Seed are Hedrons of if there's some small diference it's most achademic at this point, so let's focus back to the topic: In particular, the point was worry about the collateral damage of teenager Red mages magical girls wanting to show off.

Nachtigall said:
I don't think it'll be that destructive, and cities should have witch barriers we can use as playgrounds for more destructive experiments. As an alternative, isolation barriers grab mana-based Lost Logia like jewel seeds, so would they work on pyros, Alivaril ?

Actually, it'd be simpler if mana mages without Linker Cores are dragged into an Isolation Field.

Alivaril said:
Isolation Barrier [Rank 4]: If you have fifteen (15) seconds free, you can create a lifeless, grey snapshot of the real world and drag everyone with an active Linker Core into it. Objects and people they are touching at the time are also brought along. Unstable items with sufficient effects on space, time, and/or significant amounts of magical power are also brought along, a category which includes many Lost Logia.

According to this, if the OMG aren't magical enough to be dragged into the Isolation field they could be dragged by touching Jade or Nanoha. However, it's a good thing we have spend some time with a mana mage without a linker core and an someone who knows her Linker Core magic very well.

@Alivaril , has Sidhe been dragged into Jade's Isolation Barriers by her nature of being a mage? If Jade hasn't tried it, then it'd be a question for Agneyastra if OMG would get into Isolation Barriers

Sapient_Ham · Apr 3, 2019

Nachtigall said:
That's pure speculation

Neph questions are far more valuable since they aren't limited to a single plane and allow precognition. To use a metaphor, you wouldn't use a full heal item when a potion is enough.

The time it takes to form a land bond varies, but we know it can theoretically last anywhere from a few days to a couple of months. At the very least, whatever Jade did for the Ethereal plane refreshes toward the upper end of land bonding times, possibly much longer. Otherwise, Jade wouldn't have thought she wouldn't be able to do it again for a "while."

Nachtigall said:
Maybe a compromise? I don't mind if we agree to scry next vote, I just don't want it to slip through and be forgotten.

Is that alright with everyone?

Yes, that's what I've been saying. Look at another plane, see if it gets an updated description, and check whether Jade thinks she can conduct a more detailed scrying. Break for a vote, if so.

(Also, it's difficult to come up with good topics to focus on without a vote and planar description acting as a prompt. We likely wouldn't have picked the subjects we chose for XCOM in advance.)

[X] Accept Kanon's offer of aid.
-[X] Does she have someone who can teach you about normal MG tricks? You've sorta been neglecting most of those in favor of your colored magic.
-[X] Ask if she can send you contact info for a few people in case you some time free to try to nail down cleansing in the next few days.

[X] OOC: Don't micromanage the Red conference, let Kanon handle the initial set up.

Adding the second part to express a preference toward the defaults over the current write-ins. I believe Kanon has a better idea on how to handle the initial preparations than we do. We can always hop back to PMMM to confirm details, and let Agneyastra do her thing as needed.

Vebyast · Apr 3, 2019

Nachtigall said:
Why did you rephrase that particular part? Especially since it'd only be one-way and not proper communication.

Specifying goals and use cases always helps. I think that arguing technicalities to the QM is only useful when we have a chance of changing the setting, and I suspect that this part of it is both already specified and unlikely to be changed on a technicality from an IC claim.

edit: Our primary problem is not sending messages to other planes. Our primary problem is that we have to swing through a bunch of planes on a regular basis in case anything comes up that we have to handle personally. Being able to receive prayers from other planes would give us an event-driven workflow where we can focus on one thing unless interrupted by a prayer from another plane, which will be much safer - for example, it'd let us respond to an attack on our city on Magi.

Nachtigall said:
Agneyastra can handle funding without our input. We're also rich enough that she might want us to stay sole sponsor – if we want to fix our cult, reputation is far more important than cash.

Having sponsors is useful in a few ways that we might want. Primarily, it gives us friendly contacts in organizations that are interested in coordinating with OMGs.

As for actually acquiring money, IIRC the leading proposal for obtaining money in time for the conference was "go around selling jewelry", which would require our personal involvement if only to drop the appropriate artifacts in the mail.

Nachtigall said:
Kanon knows a lot more than us about which places and dates would work,

Sapient_Ham said:
I believe Kanon has a better idea on how to handle the initial preparations than we do.

... How in the world would that be the case?

The major obstacles to any given individual's attendance are:

Ability to get a visa to enter the host country. Especially given that we need to compare the visa situations for dozens of countries given the populations of pyros and important pyros, this is not something that Kanon has any noticeable expertise with. Agneyastra knows more about the bureaucracy of international travel on this planet than any ten or hundred humans put together. She also knows where all the OMGs are, who our keynote speakers are likely to be and where they'd be traveling from, and probably any individual bureaucratic troubles they might have, which is data that Kanon certainly doesn't have.
Monetary situation. Again, Kanon will have no idea about this. Agneyastra already knows exactly how much money everyone has in their bank account, or if they have a bank account at all. Ticket pricing is a major topic when you're planning an academic conference and several hundred dollars is stressful for the average grad student. Magical girls are teenagers. Teenagers are even poorer than grad students.
Personal calendar. Kanon has no idea about this. Agneyastra can read their calendars.

The major obstacles for actually running the conference are:

Getting a venue. This is not something Kanon can do better than Agneyastra, flat-out.
Soliciting and selecting proposals. This is not something that will self-organize if you throw it up on Reddit. It is not something that Kanon can organize in two weeks. This is something Agneyastra can set up infrastructure and automation for in literally seconds.
Providing consumables - food, water, medical supplies. This might be something Kanon could do, given the necessary money, but I guarantee that Agneyastra will be better at it.

My lab hosted a nontrivial academic conference. IEEE International Conference on Humanoid Robotics 2013. There are organizational tasks here that Kanon cannot handle, even if we had given her three months of setup. We've given her two weeks. If we want anything more than "Okay, everyone show up in the middle of the desert on Tuesday and we'll figure it out then" then we will have to handle this. And I think that there is almost no downside to handling it, given that Agneyastra can do so in a matter of seconds.

Nachtigall said:
It's called "Quicken" in Ignition since Haste was already taken by a Dragon Age spell, and even if Nanoha's soul had recovered she'd still be drugged unconscious.

Yeah, okay, we all knew what I was talking about. Thank you for the reminder, though.

Nachtigall said:
and cities should have witch barriers we can use as playgrounds for more destructive experiments.

Witch barriers are awful and not at all a productive setting for a research conference. Do you really want to be trying to teach people to cleanse their soul gems while the entire conference is under continuous assault by familiars, if not by the Witch herself?

edit: Also, recall that very few magical girls witch out any more. Kyubey is no longer contracting fodder and existing MGs now have monitoring, logistics and emergency grief seed support, and psychological help.

Nachtigall said:
A wasteland lacks both accomodations and transport, and constructing temporary housing just for a conference seems excessive.

I think we may have different ideas for how big this will be. I'm expecting a few hundred people for a day. Maybe for two days if we get a particularly strong response. No housing will be required. At most, pavilions. And we can use Agneyastra's storage for food and such.

Nachtigall said:
We already know that there isn't

Ah, fair enough. Removed.

[x] Decline. You have a bunch to do and not a lot of time to do it in.
-[x] That said, ask if she can send you contact info for a few people in case you have half an hour free to try to nail down cleansing.

[x] Spend a bit of time working with Mom to get the conference in motion.
-[x] Try to find a venue and a date, since those will be the bottleneck for attendees committing to the event. Random bit of desert? An inactive corner of an open-pit mine?
-[x] Set up a website and a process for submitting proposals for talks/workshops and posters/demo booths.
--[x] Submit a workshop on Red Cleansing, leaving your name redacted for now.
-[x] Propose sending out a bunch of emails asking for sponsorship. Corporations, governments, wealthy individuals with appropriately charitable histories, etc.
-[x] Send website link and such to Kanon.

[x] Try listening for prayers. Even if you can't get worship-power across planes, it'd be useful for communicating - just being able to respond to an attack on your city on the king-selection plane would be huge.

Sapient_Ham · Apr 3, 2019

Vebyast said:
... How in the world would that be the case? The major obstacles to any given individual's attendance are:

Ability to get a visa to enter the host country. Especially given that we need to compare the visa situations for dozens of countries given the populations of pyros and important pyros, this is not something that Kanon has any noticeable expertise with. Agneyastra knows more about the bureaucracy of international travel on this planet than any ten or hundred humans put together. She also knows where all the OMGs are, who our keynote speakers are likely to be and where they'd be traveling from, and probably any individual bureaucratic troubles they have, which is data that Kanon certainly doesn't have.

Monetary situation. Again, Kanon will have no idea about this. Agneyastra already knows exactly how much money everyone has in their bank account, or if they have a bank account at all. Ticket pricing is a major topic when you're planning an academic conference and several hundred dollars is stressful for the average grad student. Magical girls are teenagers. Teenagers are even poorer than grad students.

Personal calendar. Kanon has no idea about this. Agneyastra can read their calendars.

The major obstacles for actually running the conference are:

Getting a venue. This is not something Kanon can do better than Agneyastra, flat-out.

Soliciting and selecting proposals. This is not something that will self-organize if you throw it up on Reddit. It is not something that Kanon can organize in two weeks. This is something Agneyastra can set up infrastructure and automation for in literally seconds.

Providing consumables - food, water, medical supplies. This might be something Kanon could do, given the necessary money, but I guarantee that Agneyastra will be better at it.

My lab hosted a nontrivial academic conference. IEEE International Conference on Humanoid Robotics 2013. There are organizational tasks here that Kanon cannot handle, even if we had given her three months of setup. We've given her two weeks. If we want anything more than "Okay, everyone show up in the middle of the desert on Tuesday and we'll figure it out then" then we will have to handle this. And I think that there is almost no downside to handling it, given that Agneyastra can do so in a matter of seconds.

Agneyastra is abstaining from Network Supremacy until she receives word from Kyubey's controller. Unless OMGs post their bank account balances and personal calendars online, she wouldn't know about it:

Alivaril said:
"So, um, were you able to get Internet supremacy this time around?"

"I have not made a serious attempt, Jade. Mass digital control seems like the sort of thing a responsible enchanter would object to. I do have read access for much of the Internet, but I would prefer not to acquire write access without first warning Kyubey's controller."

I don't mind Agneyastra helping, but it should probably wait until we get permission from Kyubey's controller and confirmation from Kanon that this is a thing people are interested in.

Likewise, Kanon is an OMG moderator and has a better idea what kind of gathering her members would prefer to attend, and has the influence to contact other people who can help set it up. (I mean, think about it. Would a bunch of teenage Pyros want to run a formal academic conference, and prepare talks in advance? They aren't stinkin' Blue mages.

)

Vebyast · Apr 3, 2019

Sapient_Ham said:
Agneyastra is abstaining from Network Supremacy until she receives word from Kyubey's controller. Unless OMGs post their bank account balances and personal calendars online, she wouldn't know about it:

Supremacy is write access. She has read access. That's what the worm she released is doing, with the extradimensional data storage and the hash of the contents.

Edit: OOC we know that she's infiltrating government computers, so I suspect that her version of "much of the internet" is "most things that have internet access or are on networks that are connected to the internet".

Sapient_Ham said:
Likewise, Kanon is an OMG moderator and has a better idea what kind of gathering her members would prefer to attend, and has the influence to contact other people who can help set it up. (I mean, think about it. Would a bunch of teenage Pyros want to create a formal academic conference, and prepare talks in advance? They aren't stinkin' Blue mages. )

I mean, if you think that our best bet actually is "everyone show up in the middle of the desert on Tuesday and we'll figure it out", I can see that as a valid position to argue for? I'm not sure that I agree, if only because we want to provide some features to publicise other than our cleansing demonstration. And part of the reason I want an actual review process is to get any magical girls with less-well-known tricks a chance to have their stuff looked at and called out before we have a crowd of a hundred Red teenage girls on our hands. I don't know if a talent-show format would work particularly well. Maybe small groups, everyone shows off something cool, we go around with each group showing off the coolest things they have, then we pick the coolest stuff from that?

Filraen · Apr 3, 2019

Vebyast said:
Witch barriers are awful and not at all a productive setting for a research conference. Do you really want to be trying to teach people to cleanse their soul gems while the entire conference is under continuous assault by familiars, if not by the Witch herself?

edit: Also, recall that very few magical girls witch out any more. Kyubey is no longer contracting fodder and existing MGs now have monitoring, logistics and emergency grief seed support, and psychological help.

How about Isolation Barriers (LC magic)? If it works then it can almost be anywhere, only limited by Jade's LC production.

Vebyast said:
I mean, if you think that our best bet actually is "everyone show up in the middle of the desert on Tuesday and we'll figure it out", I can see that as a valid position to argue for? I'm not sure that I agree, if only because we want to provide some features to publicise other than our cleansing demonstration.

The reason we're doing this in the first place is to teach proper Red Cleansing: our main goal should be having every single attendee leaving how to properly and safely cleanse Soul Gems*. You expect having over a hundred OMG attending, meaning we need to have over a hundred people who we'll have to teach this and Kanon explained that mana magic is hard to OMG when compared to MG magic.

Jade is expected to take a few hours to learn proper Red cleansing, and that's with all her cognitive advantages, huge magical reserves on call compared to OMG and a fire-immune soul. Teaching everybody shouldn't take less time, even after teaching gets delegated when other OMGs learn that skill, as we need even the least capable pyro attending to be able to properly Red cleanse.

* we can have other objectives to fulfill but they aren't really important now (one would be sure, boosting our reputation)

If a Red OMG isn't interested in proper Red cleanse... then it doesn't matter us for now, not need to go after her for now. We can get her and the rest of the world later by reputation alone

fictionfan · Apr 3, 2019

[x]Vebyast

You seem to know what you are talking about.

Vebyast · Apr 3, 2019

Filraen said:
Jade is expected to take a few hours to learn proper Red cleansing, and that's with all her cognitive advantages, huge magical reserves on call compared to OMG and a fire-immune soul. Teaching everybody shouldn't take less time, even after teaching gets delegated when other OMGs learn that skill, as we need even the least capable pyro attending to be able to properly Red cleanse.

Jade is expected to take a few hours to research and develop Red Cleansing. I expect there will be at least one important conceptual step to get past first, likely the "bind fire to concept for targeting" thing, but I still don't think I'd expect it to take all day, especially with a hundred people taking slightly different approaches and probably discovering useful refinements.

Another thing that we'll certainly want to teach, if only to improve the rate at which we can teach cleansing: Red Fire Conversion for bonus mana. I doubt it'd cost much for Agneyastra to bring a colossal propane or natural gas tank.

Filraen · Apr 3, 2019

Vebyast said:
Jade is expected to take a few hours to research and develop Red Cleansing. I expect there will be at least one important conceptual step to get past first, likely the "bind fire to concept for targeting" thing, but I still don't think I'd expect it to take all day, especially with a hundred people taking slightly different approaches and probably discovering useful refinements.

And there's one conceptual step we have to teach everyone, up to the last of the 100+ OMG attending. Jade will be doing the initial heavy lifting with the research, true, but the last part of learning has to be each OMG on their own, up to the worst mana user of the lot.

Adhoc vote count started by Filraen on Apr 3, 2019 at 4:10 PM, finished with 68957 posts and 6 votes.

2 people have voted
[x] Decline. You're low on mana and only have about 2h right now. Hash out the basics for the pyro conference instead.
-[x] You're best with Detonate, Fire Constructs, and Cleansing. Mental defenses would be a week-long seminar all by themselves, so that's out. You never worked with empathy, lightning, or geomancy, so maybe other speakers could demonstrate those?
-[x] Set the date late enough that Nanoha will have enough Red mana control to benefit from the conference as well.
-[x] Does Kanon have a location in mind? If not, New York probably has decent ambient Red mana levels.
-[x] Once time and place are set, ask mom whether she would handle funding, accommodation, airport shuttles, catering, and relaxation for the conference. Let her decide whether to offer free flights and housing.
-[x] Ask mom how hard it would be to establish biannual conferences, research grants, and a scientific journal on mana and soul magic.
[X] Ask Mom why she's so adamant on banning Red/Green Channeling; you already don't like the idea of Channeling into a berserker but you wonder if it's something about your vessel enhancements, the War Hero mod or another thing.
[X] Try to listen for prayers, both from here and Magnostadt. "Worship doesn't stretch across planes", but Neph didn't mention prayers.
[X] Planar scrying: You're now able to direct your plane glimpses, but your view gets blurry "for a while" after a few questions. The sooner you start, the sooner it will recover for a second round.
-[X] Earthland: Postcog Siofra to learn about her Origin's affinities and the breakthroughs in her precog training.
-[X] Science plane: What is a SCIENCE spark? Take a regular look at the political situation as well.
-[X] Magi plane: Devoid mana to eradicate.
-[X] Thedas: Shinies in the Fade.
- Nachtigall
- Filraen
2 people have voted
[x] Decline. You have a bunch to do and not a lot of time to do it in.
-[x] That said, ask if she can send you contact info for a few people in case you have half an hour free to try to nail down cleansing.
[x] Spend a bit of time working with Mom to get the conference in motion.
-[x] Try to find a venue and a date, since those will be the bottleneck for attendees committing to the event. Random bit of desert? An inactive corner of an open-pit mine?
-[x] Set up a website and a process for submitting proposals for talks/workshops and posters/demo booths.
--[x] Submit a workshop on Red Cleansing, leaving your name redacted for now.
-[x] Propose sending out a bunch of emails asking for sponsorship. Corporations, governments, wealthy individuals with appropriately charitable histories, etc.
-[x] Send website link and such to Kanon.
[x] Try listening for prayers. Even if you can't get worship-power across planes, it'd be useful for communicating - just being able to respond to an attack on your city on the king-selection plane would be huge.
- Vebyast
- fictionfan
1 people have voted
[X] Decline. You have a bunch to do and not a lot of time to do it in. Not to mention you've promised your friends no trouble.
-[X] Say goodbye to Kanon and planeswalk back to your friends.
[X] Ask Mom why she's so adamant on banning Red/Green Channeling; you already don't like the idea of Channeling into a berserker but you wonder if it's something about your vessel enhanchements, the War Hero mod or another thing.
[X] Try to listen for prayers, both from here and Magnostadt. "Worship doesn't stretch across planes", but Neph didn't mention prayers.
- PinkShadowReader
1 people have voted
[X] Accept Kanon's offer of aid.
-[X] Does she have someone who can teach you about normal MG tricks? You've sorta been neglecting most of those in favor of your colored magic.
-[X] Ask if she can send you contact info for a few people in case you some time free to try to nail down cleansing in the next few days.
[X] OOC: Don't micromanage the Red conference, let Kanon handle the initial set up.
- Sapient_Ham

Yog · Apr 3, 2019

Vebyast said:
Ability to get a visa to enter the host country. Especially given that we need to compare the visa situations for dozens of countries given the populations of pyros and important pyros, this is not something that Kanon has any noticeable expertise with. Agneyastra knows more about the bureaucracy of international travel on this planet than any ten or hundred humans put together. She also knows where all the OMGs are, who our keynote speakers are likely to be and where they'd be traveling from, and probably any individual bureaucratic troubles they might have, which is data that Kanon certainly doesn't have.

Monetary situation. Again, Kanon will have no idea about this. Agneyastra already knows exactly how much money everyone has in their bank account, or if they have a bank account at all. Ticket pricing is a major topic when you're planning an academic conference and several hundred dollars is stressful for the average grad student. Magical girls are teenagers. Teenagers are even poorer than grad students.

Personal calendar. Kanon has no idea about this. Agneyastra can read their calendars.

The major obstacles for actually running the conference are:

Getting a venue. This is not something Kanon can do better than Agneyastra, flat-out.

Soliciting and selecting proposals. This is not something that will self-organize if you throw it up on Reddit. It is not something that Kanon can organize in two weeks. This is something Agneyastra can set up infrastructure and automation for in literally seconds.

Providing consumables - food, water, medical supplies. This might be something Kanon could do, given the necessary money, but I guarantee that Agneyastra will be better at it.

Oh, yes, somehow I forgot about visas - despite them being the worst part of preparation (we regularly host international conferences, I know the pain.

I think the simplest way to do this would be to rent some hotel in some paradise island country that doesn't require visas at all. Like MIcronesia. The tourist country, basically, somewhere with no press. Rent a place there, hire professional caterers. Hell, I think they might have a volcano.

fictionfan · Apr 3, 2019

Yog said:
Oh, yes, somehow I forgot about visas - despite them being the worst part of preparation (we regularly host international conferences, I know the pain.

I think the simplest way to do this would be to rent some hotel in some paradise island country that doesn't require visas at all. Like MIcronesia. The tourist country, basically, somewhere with no press. Rent a place there, hire professional caterers. Hell, I think they might have a volcano.

Are you also planning on handling transportation somehow?

Nachtigall · Apr 3, 2019

Sapient_Ham said:
At the very least, whatever Jade did for the Ethereal plane refreshes toward the upper end of land bonding times, possibly much longer. Otherwise, Jade wouldn't have thought she wouldn't be able to do it again for a "while."

We seem to have very different interpretations of what Jade considers "a while". For me, a while is shorter than the three weeks until the JS incident, and since that's a pretty average time-frame for land-bonds, shorter than land-bonding.

Kibonoshi and Uminari were special cases, land-bonds usually take weeks to months:

Alivaril said:
Using large quantities of a given color of mana while on a same-colored land will greatly speed up the process. Actions fitting the traits of a color will also speed it up. Getting Nanoha as a friend fit both White and Red.

You also piggy-backed off Nanoha's potential connection.

Sapient_Ham said:
Yes, that's what I've been saying. Look at another plane, see if it gets an updated description, and check whether Jade thinks she can conduct a more detailed scrying. Break for a vote, if so.

And we're misunderstanding each other again. I don't want four separate votes, breaking for each individual plane. The suggested compromise was Vebyast's "let's dedicate a vote [to] looking at other planes", planes plural.

Sapient_Ham said:
it's difficult to come up with good topics to focus on without a vote and planar description acting as a prompt.

Well, how fortunate that I'm voting on it to encourage discussion.
As for planar descriptions, those for Thedas and XCOM are recent and we know that there were no major changes since we looked at Magi and Remnant (see: "No change" and Sidereal's status report).

Vebyast said:
Specifying goals and use cases always helps. I think that arguing technicalities to the QM is only useful when we have a chance of changing the setting, and I suspect that this part of it is both already specified and unlikely to be changed on a technicality from an IC claim.

I didn't phrase it like that in an attempt to change the result via technicality, I mentioned said technicality to explain why we're even trying. I don't particularly expect it to work, but as Filraen recently quoted our dear QM: "You'll have to find out for yourselves."

Vebyast said:
Being able to receive prayers from other planes would give us an event-driven workflow where we can focus on one thing unless interrupted by a prayer from another plane, which will be much safer - for example, it'd let us respond to an attack on our city on Magi.

That however sounds like a Doylist argument why Alivaril should make prayers work cross-planar.

Vebyast said:
As for actually acquiring money, IIRC the leading proposal for obtaining money in time for the conference was "go around selling jewelry", which would require our personal involvement if only to drop the appropriate artifacts in the mail.

No, the leading proposal is "let Agneyastra handle it", with a comment outside the vote that one of her options is e.g. to leverage her information advantage via insider trading.

Vebyast said:
Nachtigall said:

Kanon knows a lot more than us about which places and dates would work, so why are you leaving her out of that discussion?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Sapient_Ham said:

I believe Kanon has a better idea on how to handle the initial preparations than we do.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

... How in the world would that be the case?

If you look at the context, you'll see that the two posts you're quoting here have very different ideas what Kanon should do.

My complaint was that your vote isn't even asking Kanon about time and date, despite the fact that she actually knows or knows about most of the pyros who'll want to participate.
Additionally, per WoG Kanon already has a viable conference location in mind:

Alivaril said:
That decision isn't up to you at this point, so don't worry about it.

Alivaril said:
Just be aware that you don't need to help set it up.

My vote also explicitly includes leaving funding, travel arrangements, accomodation, catering, ect. to Agneyastra, but I don't see why you think that means we should exclude Kanon from the location and date discussion. The part about reading their personal calendars to find out when they're available is a major breach of trust and unreliable (just because your calendar is free doesn't mean you have time), whereas Kanon has the contacts to ask around and quickly get their feedback.
So again @Vebyast, why do you want to set place and date without asking anyone among the OMG community?

Vebyast said:
Witch barriers are awful and not at all a productive setting for a research conference. Do you really want to be trying to teach people to cleanse their soul gems while the entire conference is under continuous assault by familiars, if not by the Witch herself?
Also, recall that very few magical girls witch out any more.

Read again. Red cleansing would be taught indoors, only destructive experiments would take place in Witch barriers. And if we really can't find a single witch barrier in a major city, and isolation barriers don't work? Rehatching witches is apparently frowned upon, but accepted.

Vebyast said:
a hundred people taking slightly different approaches and probably discovering useful refinements.

Someone (Nixeu?) already estimated the number of pyros on PMMM-Earth and came to the conclusion that less than 100 will participate.
We worked months on our Red Cleansing and incorporated elements from our pendant, Siofra's purification process, and Firewall. We're at rank 26. I seriously doubt that a beginner will just find refinements we haven't thought about.

Vebyast said:
Another thing that we'll certainly want to teach, if only to improve the rate at which we can teach cleansing: Red Fire Conversion for bonus mana. I doubt it'd cost much for Agneyastra to bring a colossal propane or natural gas tank.

Nope, non-magical fire provides so little mana that it isn't worth using fire conversion.

Edit: Found the relevant quote:

Alivaril said:
flames generated by an Agneyastra-made incinerator barely provide any mana at all and you're not sure why. An entire room filled with fuel-produced fire didn't even give you an eighth of a mote despite being oddly tiring for you to convert.

Yog · Apr 3, 2019

fictionfan said:
Are you also planning on handling transportation somehow?

Most likely. Buy them airplane tickets at least.

fictionfan · Apr 3, 2019

Yog said:
Most likely. Buy them airplane tickets at least.

That is going to be tricky for an unknown island. Regular flights don't go to random islands.

Filraen · Apr 3, 2019

fictionfan said:
That is going to be tricky for an unknown island. Regular flights don't go to random islands.

They are superhuman, right? Have them get to the island by swimming

confusopoly · Apr 3, 2019

Are they actually going to show up if someone unknown says "come to this incredibly isolated location in the middle of nowhere"? That's some prime paranoia fuel there.

Ignition (MTG/Multicross, Planeswalker PC)

Nascent Transhuman

Aspiring Gynoid

On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery

Just a humble lurker

Nascent Transhuman

Nascent Transhuman

Please sir, may I have some Meows?

Nascent Transhuman

Please sir, may I have some Meows?

Please sir, may I have some Meows?

Metaphor Overextended. Ow.